by Brian Hodge
“One of them things picked up one of my buddies by the ankle, held him up high and bit into his head, started slurping at the brain. Well, I’ll tell you, I was up then and running. I heard one of my buddies scream up there on the hill, then after that I was running so fast through the trees, getting hit in the face by limbs and such, I didn’t hear nor notice nothing. It come to me that I might have been better to have grabbed up my horse, but I don’t remember if it was even around no more. Good as it was about being trained to stand, I had either forgotten it, or it had run off first sight of that thing comin’ out of the ground.
“I ran and I ran, thought I was making pretty good time and doing well, then I seen a shadow moving through the woods, and pretty soon it was everywhere. It made me feel sick and weak, like I’d walked into a cloud of poison. Then there was these other shadows that come out of the darker shadow, and they moved, and they changed, took shape. It was them hairy things, kind of wolf-like they were. I got my brains back for a moment, started firing my six gun, but it wasn’t doing no good. I’d have done about as much good to try and stop them by peeing on them. But I didn’t even have that kind of ammunition, having already peed all over myself from being so scared. And I guess, since I’ve gone this far, got to say I messed myself too. I was so scared my goose bumps had goose bumps.
“I ran and ran, then come to a break in the woods, climbed to the top of a hill, and then I heard them growl, and they was on me. It happened faster than you can skin your foreskin back for a soapin’.
“But they didn’t kill me. Not right off. They slapped me around, bit on me some. Finally one of them threw me over his shoulder like I was a sack of taters, carried me off. I tell you, I was one scared cowpoke. Didn’t know if they was gonna eat me or stick their peckers in my asshole. What they did was carry me to the woods and they brought me back to where we had been, up the top of the graveyard. As they carried me I tried to take note of things, see where I was goin’, thinking maybe I stayed alert I had a chance. But there wasn’t no chance. They got to the graveyard they threw me down and one of them stood there with his big paw on my chest, the claws cutting into me like knives, and the others took to digging. Down on their knees, digging like dogs, or wolves, or whatever they was, and soon they had a big hole dug out and they pulled this big run of bones out of the ground, and yanked a long, carved stick out of its forehead, which wasn’t nothin’ but a skull, and while I’m lookin’, I seen the moonlight come down on that head and I seen that hole in the head seal up, then I seen flesh start to run over them bones, and then I seen it get pink with blood and the chest start to breathe, and then hair started to grow, in patches at first, then finally all over, and when it was thick as wild prairie grass, the thing sat up, and finally stood up. It was a male, that was obvious. Male like all the others, cause the thing that let me know they was all male was hanging out for all to see, long as a razor strap, thick as my ankle. And then it looked right at me.
“Well now, this is the ugly part, and I start to almost feel humanly sick when I think about it, even though I’m deader than Custer and his whole outfit. Still feel the fear, dead or not, thinking back on it. This thing, it come at me slow and easy, pulled its lips back on that long, old snout and showed me all them teeth, and I went to screamin’, just like a little girl who’s seen a spider. And boy, that thing liked that. It pulled those lips back even more and spit started dripping off its teeth, and then it crouched like, and finally I realized I was screamin’, cause at first I was just doin’ it, not knowing I was, you know, and I heard the quality of it, and I thought, well, ‘You go to hell,’ I ain’t screamin’ another sound. And I shut my mouth and went quiet and made to go like a man… Only, I didn’t. He started to move fast then, a funny kind of move, like some of the moves was left out, and then just before he had me, his pecker got stiff, like he was gonna do some business, and maybe he was I thought, and I screamed again. Big and loud and I couldn’t stop till he stopped me, his teeth in my throat. I don’t remember much after that, but the next thing I knowed I was here in this hotel, and thinkin’ I’d dreamed. But I couldn’t get nobody to see me. And then gradually, there was more spirits like me, cause that cloud come through the street every night, and then them wolves would come. Kind of folded out of the shadows. Caught everyone here eventually. Before they did, they once got trapped in the old hotel across the street. The real hotel. And the folks in the town burned in down. And them things, they come out of there afire, their hair and flesh growing back fast as bullets fly. They went on a rampage, and then there wasn’t no one left in this town but ghosts, like me. They took to eating horses and cats and rats and dogs, whatever stray animal might wander in. After that, there wasn’t nothing. And then they kept coming around. Kept waiting for something. More meat I guess. I don’t know why they didn’t go off somewhere else, but they didn’t. Maybe far as the trees where me and my poor pals found them was as far as they could go, cause I know one night I seen the big one up there on the hill, howling at the moon. I figure it was cause he was so hungry his stomach thought its throat was cut.”
“They’re confined to this area,” Jebidiah said. “The cloud is part of the evil that came out of the graves. They were held there by the sharp ends of the oak. Some evil can’t stand oak. And this, obviously, is that evil. Unfortunately, you released them.”
“Unless it’s hickory,” Dol said. “Or some kind of other tree. Ain’t nothing says it’s oak. I didn’t tell you it was oak. I don’t remember.”
“You have a point,” Jebidiah said, “but from my experience, I’m betting on oak.”
“It’s your bet,” Dol said.
“I don’t understand,” Mary said. “He bit you, like he bit them Spaniards so long ago. They become wolves until the Indians killed them… Or held them down with the sticks. But you got bit, the others got bit, why ain’t you and them wolf-things?”
Dol shook his head. “Ain’t got a nugget on that. Nothin’.”
“Because,” said Jebidiah, “the leader, he is one, and they are six, and together they are seven.”
“Well now, that clears it right up,” Dol said.
“Satan’s minions, that’s what they are. And there is one directly from Satan, and there are six that he made. That allows seven. They can kill others, but they can only make so many, and seven is their number. If they were vampires, or ghouls, they could make more, but the hairy things, they can only make seven.”
“Who made that rule?” Mary said.
“My guess is the gentleman in charge,” Jebidiah said.
“God?” Dol said.
“He likes his little games,” The Reverend said. “They have no rhyme of reason to us, or perhaps to him, but, they are his games and they are real and they affect us all. Seven. That is the number for the hairy ones.”
“How do you know that?” Mary asked.
“I’ve seen more than I would like, read tomes that are not that delightful to read.”
“So you seen it, or you read about it?” Mary said.
“In this case, I read about it.”
“So you ain’t had no practical experience on the matter?” Mary said.
“On this, no. On things like it, yes.”
“Well, Mary said, “I hope this is some like them other things, or otherwise, we can bend over now and look up between our legs and piss on ourselves.”
The night grew heavy and the shadow fled through all parts of the town. In the hotel, and in the other buildings, it was nothing more than a dark, cool fog, a malaise that swept over Jebidiah and Mary. Jebidiah removed the barrier from the setting room door, and as he did, the clock ticked eight thirty. Dol and the other ghosts returned to what substituted for lives; the limbo of the hotel; the existence of the not quite gone and the not quite present.
Jebidiah led his horse out of the sitting room, into the saloon. In there they watched the ghosts for a moment, and then Jebidiah took a candle from one of the tables where it was melted to a saucer
, broke the saucer free, and put the candle in his pocket. He found two kerosene lamps with kerosene still in them, and gave those to Mary to carry. He and Mary went up the stairs to the hotel room where Jebidiah’s whisky resided. Jebidiah led his horse up there with him. The animal was reluctant at first, but then made the stairs easily and finally arrived at the landing, snorting in protest.
When Jebidiah looked down on the hotel, the dark fog had laid down on the floor like a black velvet carpet, slowly seeping out of sight into the wood.
“You don’t go far without that horse, do you?” Mary said, causing Jebidiah to turn his head and look.
“I’ll save him if I can. No use leaving him to be eaten. He’s the best horse I ever had. Smart. Brave. Worth more than most humans.”
“That may be true, but he just shit on the floor. And it smells like a horse stall now.”
“We’ll live with it.”
They went into the bedroom, Jebidiah leading his horse. He let go of the animal, took Mary’s umbrella off the bed, pulled out his pocket knife, and began to whittle pieces off of it.
“I’m glad you got a hobby,” Mary said. “Me, I’m scared shitless.”
“And so am I. Whittling relaxes me. Especially when it has a purpose.”
“What purpose?”
“These little shards of oak. For it to affect the wolves, it has to bear some of the wood’s insides. Oak itself, that doesn’t do it. Shaved oak. Sharpened oak. Anything that takes the husk off and shows the meat of the tree.”
“What you gonna do, chase them down and poke them with that little stuff? I don’t see you’re doing no good.”
“I’m going to take these little fragments, and I’m going to make them smaller. Then I’m going to take my bullets, use my pocket knife to noodle a small hole in the tips of the loads. I’m going to put wood fragments in those little holes, then, I’m going to take this—”
He produced the candle from his pocket. “I’m going to seal the little wood shaving stuffed holes with wax. When I shoot these guns, the oak goes into the wolves along with the bullets.”
“Ain’t you the smart one?” Mary said, and she took a swig from Jebidiah’s bottle.
He took it from her. “No more. We had best have our wits about us.”
Mary said, “You want, you could knock you off a piece. No charge.”
“I would hardly have my wits about me doing that? Now would I?”
“Reckon not. Just a friendly offer.”
“And a fine one. But I fear I’ll have to pass.”
Jebidiah went back to whittling, but not before he waved a match under the bottom of the candle and stuck it up on the nightstand and lit the wick. When he finished whittling, the wax was soft. He went to work inserting the miniature wood shavings, sealing them with wax. Mary helped.
Howls came down from the piney hills and filled the streets and filled the Gentleman’s hotel.
“They’re coming,” Jebidiah said.
Jebidiah went out on the landing, looked down. The ghosts had gone, except Dol, and he had wandered behind the bar and laid down flat on the floor. The wolves couldn’t hurt him, but Jebidiah assumed he didn’t want to see them. Dead or not, he still knew fear. Jebidiah watched his silent, still, white figure for a while, then returned to the room and closed the door. He hefted the revolvers in their holsters. They were packing his specially prepared bullets. He had done the same for his Winchester ammunition. And he had done it for his gun belt reloads until the wax ran out. The umbrella he had whittled on was little more now than a thin, sharp stick, as Jebidiah had torn off the umbrella itself, and worked on the shaft with his knife.
Mary sat in the center of the bed. He had given her the rifle.
She said, “You know, I can’t hit the back end of an elephant with a tossed shot glass.”
“Wait until they’re close.”
“Jesus,” Mary said.
“He’ll be of no help,” Jebidiah said. “Put your faith in that Winchester.”
“Maybe they won’t know we’re here,” Mary said.
“They’ll know. They’re hungry. They can smell us.”
The sound of Mary swallowing was as loud as a cough.
Jebidiah sat in a chair by the window and watched Mary who had fallen asleep. He was surprised she could sleep. Every nerve in his body was crawling. He lit one of the lanterns and put it on the floor by his chair, then sat back down, took out his pocket watch. He popped the metal cover and looked at it. Even as he watched the hands crawled from eight-thirty to nine. He took a breath, shut his eyes, looked again. It had already moved five minutes past. He went to the window and looked out. Something moved across the street, through the low-hanging shadow that had mostly seeped into the ground, like a dark oil of evil. Jebidiah had gotten only a glance, but it was something big and hairy, and it had moved from the far side of the street to the back of the hotel. His horse stirred in the corner of the room, where it had taken up residence by backing its ass against the wall.
Jebidiah took a breath and moved away from the window. He went over and stroked the horse’s nose, then went to the door, opened it, stepped out on the landing.
It was dead dark down there and he couldn’t see a thing. Not even Dol lying behind the bar; perhaps he had gone wherever the others had gone, some other part of the town, all scrunched up and wadded together in a mass of white mist in a closet somewhere. He could see that the door to the hotel was partially opened. When they had come into the hotel, he had closed it.
Jebidiah stood there for a long time, one hand on the rail, looking down. Gradually his eyes became somewhat more adjusted. He thought he saw something moving near the bar.
There was a shape.
It was still.
Perhaps it was nothing.
All right, Jebidiah thought, it’s not like they don’t know we’re here. He took a small Bible from the inside of his coat pocket and tore off the front page and took out a wooden match, struck it, lit the paper and dropped it.
In the falling light of the paper, which lasted briefly, he saw the shape was not just a shadow, but was in fact a thing. Dark fur was glimpsed, hot, yellow eyes, teeth, and then the beast was moving, darting around the bar, heading for the stairs, climbing two or three steps at a bound. In that brief moment, Jebidiah saw that there was another in the corner. A large beast with even larger, yellow eyes. That would be the King Wolf, the thought, the one who would command the others, the one who would send them on their missions.
Jebidiah stepped to the mouth of the stairway and pulled his revolver, pointed it casually and comfortably at the shape that was bounding up the stairs, its chest covered in a metal Spanish breastplate. In the darkness he could only tell it was there, couldn’t make out features, could catch glimpses of that breastplate by the thin moonlight they came through the hotel windows. He aimed a little low, toward the groin, so that when he pulled the trigger on the Colt .45 it bucked and rode up, throwing the bullet into the upper part of the thing’s body, clanging the armor, but traveling through it. The beast grunted, twisted slightly, kept coming. White smoke twisted up from its breastplate where the bullet had gone in, and from its back where it had come out.
Jebidiah cocked back the hammer again, thought, My God, I hit it straight on. A .45 slug should have knocked him down the stairs and on his ass, flat, breastplate or no breastplate.
The Colt jumped again, a burst of red flame coughed from the barrel. The bullet struck the beast in the face just as it reached the top of the stairs and was within six inches of Jebidiah’s gun barrel. There was a barking sound. The beast twisted and slammed against the wall and rolled down the stairs, smashed through the railing, bounced onto the bar and lay silent and dark in the shadows.
One, thought Jebidiah.
He looked down into the shadows, but couldn’t really make out much. He thought he still saw the shape lying there, but he wasn’t sure. He glanced toward the corner of the room. The King Wolf moved. And it was like D
ol said. It seemed to move with some of the moves torn out. One moment it was in the corner, the next it was consumed by shadows.
Okay. One down. Maybe.
He squinted and looked again. He couldn’t be sure what was down there. He had hit it solid, and with the oak in the bullet, so he thought perhaps he had done the old boy in.
The front door of the hotel burst open wider and in came four hairy, black shapes, moving so fast it was hard to realize at first what they were. They leaped about, two hitting the stairs and coming up fast, another striking the wall, moving along the side of it, scuttling there with its claws like a giant, hairy roach. The fourth was running on all fours up the railing.
Jebidiah shot at the one on the railing, hit it in the head and saw it fall, but now the others were coming at top speed. Jebidiah felt his nerves grow taut, about to snap.
Red flames and a loud bark came from his left and one of the wolves on the stairway fell and hit the other, then they both went tumbling through the already damaged railing. One hit the floor and didn’t move, the other scrambled, ran in a circle like a frightened dog.
Jebidiah glanced left. It was Mary with the rifle. He grabbed her elbow, twisted her and pushed her through the open doorway into the room, and slammed the door even as the beast running alongside the wall—causing plaster and wood to fly every which way from its claws—climbed to the ceiling, turned upside down and scuttled across that. They heard the creature drop to the floor outside the doorway, heard its breathing, loud as the pumping of blacksmith bellows.
