Hell's Highwaymen

by Phillip Granath

  “Keep them back, we need to buy some time,” Cort shouted.

  “Right O!”

  With that Oliver leaned forward over the edge of the roof as far as his big frame would allow and fired his rifle into the advancing group. A biker went down screaming as the others threw themselves to the ground desperate to find any type of cover. The Dragoon leaned back in and shouted,

  “That won’t hold them for long!”

  “It won’t have to, look!” the priest said.

  At that moment four horses thundered around the edge of the burning building led by Shinji. The warrior knelt low in the saddle as bullets zipped past him. Seeing his fellow riders on the roof and the group of bikers gathered below them he guided the horses in a wild run right up along the building’s edge. The men there that had been a moment ago cowering for cover were forced to leap out of the way or be trampled under hoof. The riders on the roof peppered the fleeing men with gunfire as most of them ran back to the cover of the wall. Shinji reined the galloping horses in just below the trapped riders.

  “Shinji, you beautiful son of a bitch! Where have you been?” Cort shouted.

  “I kill men at gate…move bikes…they heavy,” Shinji responded.

  The warrior led the horses back from the wall allowing the riders enough space to drop in behind the ghostly animals and use them for cover. The men, in turn, leapt down from the roof to land next to their horses and quickly mounted up. A moment later Cort kicked his horse into a run and led them down the length of the estate a hail of gunfire following after them.

  The riders rounded the corner of the burning ruin and headed straight for the cart path. The gate where Jamie had ambushed them before now stood wide open. Just as Shinji had promised, a pair of bodies and their motorcycles lay just to the side of the track. The men galloped through the gate and down the smooth path. They ran their horses down the gentle slope for about a hundred yards until a fog bank came into view. Cort didn’t even slow as he led his men into the fog. Within a few moments, the sound of hooves striking wet ground was gone and as the fog cleared the desolate plain stretched out all around them.

  Glancing back over his shoulder Danny could just make out the bikers in the distance. The priest had left, and so his personal hell had vanished with him leaving the men now standing in the middle of the plain. Even from here Danny could see that something was happening back there; a lot of movement was going on amongst the scattered bikers.

  “They’re turning on each other,” Cort explained.

  “The men we killed, even those in the fire, like Cesar. They just appeared on the plain like everyone else. The rest of them are probably draining them right now, feeding on their own.”

  “Will they chase us? I mean after they have all…fed?” Danny asked.

  “I doubt it, not with Cesar dead and probably sucked dry,” Cort replied.

  Then a moment later the sound of motorcycle engines roaring to life reached their ears.

  “Of course I’ve been wrong before.”

  Split Rails

  The riders pushed their ghostly horses hard, their hooves biting into the hard surface of the plain with each stride. Even seated behind the priest Danny had to shield his eyes from the stinging dust the riders kicked up. The teen glanced back behind them again and just as he suspected the half dozen remaining bikers were still closing in on them.

  “Leftenant, I hate to admit it, but we’ve already seen how this thing ends. We just can’t outrun them in the open,” Oliver shouted.

  “I know it,” Cort replied.

  “Fight?” Shinji offered.

  “We can’t risk it, not with Danny. I got a feeling those chasing us are the men that Cesar left outside, the ones with guns,” Cort shouted.

  “What does that leave us?” the priest shouted.

  Cort looked back at the swiftly gaining bikers and then around at his own men.

  “We’re going to cross the field,” he said.

  The riders exchanged nervous glances, but not one of them said a word.

  “Get ready!” Cort shouted.

  Danny watched in confusion as Oliver unceremoniously unshouldered his rifle, removed the sling and then tossed the weapon away. He quickly sliced the sling into strips and secured tied the pieces tightly around both of his thighs and his arms. The teen glanced over and saw that Shinji was doing something similar, tying pieces of bowstring around each of his limbs.

  “What are they doing?” Danny asked.

  “No time, tell me Danny do you have a belt on or have any type of rope perhaps?” the priest asked.

  “No,” Danny replied.

  “Then I want you to take off your shirt and tear it into long strips,” he said.

  “What? Why?” Danny asked.

  “Just do it!”

  After a brief pause, Danny obeyed, first he had to pull the needle free of his arm and toss it away. As he awkwardly slipped off his t-shirt, a fairly difficult and dangerous process on the back of a speeding horse, he realized how long it had been since he had taken a hit.

  “Do you have it off?” the priest asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Now tear it into strips!”

  Still confused Danny did as he was told, his favorite shirt yielding 6 longs strips of cloth.

  “Danny, do you know what a tourniquet is?” the priest asked.

  The teen paused for a moment before replying, “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Good, I want you to tie one around both of your arms and legs. Then if there is enough, tie them around mine as well.”

  “Why?” Danny demanded.

  “Just trust me, you’re going to need them.”

  Danny nodded and began tying the strips of cloth in place, he still had no idea what was about to happen but if what they had experienced already was any indication then perhaps that was a good thing. He then split the remaining strips thinner and leaning forward began secure them around the priest’s limbs. Cort rode up next to them then and shouted.

  “I’m going to be next to you the whole time Danny, just try and stay between me and the padre, understand?”

  “No!” the teen shouted.

  “I’m sorry son, but you’ll figure it out soon enough.”

  Just then a bullet zipped past them, and Cort looked back over his shoulder. A few more shots followed a moment later, both coming uncomfortably close. The bikers were closing the gap quickly now, and a few it seemed were hoping to end the chase early with a lucky shot.

  “Alright boys, here we go!” Cort shouted.

  The cavalryman’s brow furrowed and a moment later a thick fog bank appeared just ahead of them. Immediately Danny recognized there was something odd about this fog. It wasn’t like the white mist that they had just ridden out of when they left the priest’s ancestral home. This was different, it was darker and as they approached he could see bits of ash and embers suspended in the clouds. As they charged into the thick bank Danny was overwhelmed by the smell of Sulphur and realized these weren’t clouds at all, but smoke.

  The riders charged out of the smoke, and Danny found them riding across a field of lush green grass. He blinked in surprise, he was not sure exactly what he had expected, but it definitely wasn’t this. Above them the sky was a perfect blue and in that moment Danny realized how much he had missed seeing it. To both the riders left, and right thick banks of smoke just like the one that they had ridden out of obscured his view. The field was eerily quiet with only the sound of their horse’s running hooves spoiling what to Danny looked like the perfect spring day.

  Then from behind them the sound of a dozen motors roared into existence. Danny didn’t have to look back to know that the bikers had followed them in. Immediately the remaining Horde members began firing, and rounds started to zip past Danny’s head with frightening regularity.

  “Steady boys, she’s starting to open up!” Cort shouted.

  Danny looked up and sure enough, just ahead of them the thick banks of smoke had starte
d to spread. On their right Danny could now just make out a fence running along the length of the smoke. It was a very old kind of fence he realized, made with sections of split logs stacked one on top of another. The fence was still partially concealed in the smoke, but all along it hundreds of sticks it seemed had been collected and now leaned haphazardly against it.

  Then up ahead of them Danny spotted movement and a bit of color in the smoke. To his surprise, a soldier wearing a blue uniform stepped out from the smoke. He stood tall and straight and on the end of a pole waved a battle-scarred American flag. A moment later a boy, even younger than Danny stepped out of the smoke next to the soldier and began to beat rapidly on a drum. The reaction was immediate, all along the fence hundreds, if not thousands, of blue-clad soldiers, stepped out of the smoke. The soldiers quickly grabbed up their rifles that were leaned against the fence, the objects that just a moment ago Danny had taken for sticks.

  Movement suddenly caught Danny’s eye to the left. There the smoke had faded back as well and now revealed another army. There thousands of men stood shoulder to shoulder, and while they wore a motley collection of uniforms, the primary color was undeniably gray. At their center, a soldier carried another flag that Danny recognized, the Confederate battle flag. The line of rebels faced the union forces and both opposing lines stretch out for what he guessed was nearly a mile.

  “Oh, holy shit!” Danny shouted. “We’re between them!”

  “I’m sorry son, just keep your head down, and you’ll get through this!” Cort shouted in reply.

  Jamie was the last of the pursuers to come through the smoky barrier, still clutching at his wounded side. When he realized where Cort had led them, he began to shout at the bikers ahead of him.

  “Stop you fucking morons, that’s a damn death trap!”

  The remaining members of the Horde continued their pursuit, either not hearing the gunfighter’s warning or perhaps too enraged to care. Either way, they blindly chased after Cort and his men unaware of the horrors that prepared to engulf them. Jamie glanced around in frustration and then kicked his horse into a run, but instead of following the others between the armies he instead guided his horse to the far right. His ghostly mount jumped the split rail fence just as soon as it came into view.

  “I’m not riding through that mess again, hell no!”

  Within minutes he was riding behind the line of Union soldiers as they prepared to open fire. Then suddenly a figure appeared from out of the bank of the smoky mist. The large man was swinging a sword about and apparently issuing unnecessary commands to the soldiers already formed up along the rail fence. Upon seeing Jamie approaching, he pointed his saber at the gunfighter and shouted.

  “You there, get back on the line! We’ll have no desertions today, not on my…”

  Jamie barely slowed his horse and shot the yelling officer through the throat. The man dropped to the ground, and Jamie rode on past him. None of the other ghostly soldiers even raised a complaint.

  As Cort’s and his fleeing riders reached the midpoint of the field, he shouted, “This is it boys!”

  Danny couldn’t resist and risked one more glance. Opening his eyes and turning his head, he could just see both flags ahead of them. The American and Confederate flags sat directly across the field from one another. As they neared the flags, a bugle call sounded and thousands of rifles along both lines were raised to shoulders.

  “This is insane!”

  Another call echoed down the length of both Armies and in reply thousands of hammers were locked back into position.

  “No one could survive this!”

  As the racing horses crossed the opposing flags a cacophony of hell, unlike anything Danny had ever heard was released. The sound drowned out the world around him, the smoke choked out the light and left them choking in a sulfur fog. Danny’s right leg exploded in a fountain of blood and pain, the joint destroyed by a lead ball. Before he could even scream another shot tore three of the fingers from his right hand. The pain was so sudden and intense that he would have toppled from the back of the horse then if Cort’s firm hand hadn’t reached over and steadied him. Another round sliced him across the back of the shoulder blades, peeling his back open like a razor blade just missing his spine by a hair’s breadth.

  Danny slumped forward leaning heavily against the back of the priest and praying for unconsciousness. As he held on to Father Callahan he felt an odd slapping against his side, he glanced up and realized it was the priest’s arm. The bone was shattered at the elbow but still connected by tissue, leaving the limb to whip about limply. He looked up at the priest in horror, and Father Callahan turned to look back at him. The man’s still functional hand was holding what was left of his lower jaw in place, he had been shot through the mouth and Danny could see dark blood and bits of teeth through the hole in his face. While Danny’s eyes were filled with terror, the look the priest returned was one of compassion and pity.

  The boy tore his eyes away and for a moment glimpsed another of the riders running next to them, though which it was, Oliver or Shinji he couldn’t tell. The man was slumped forward over his pommel, riddled with dozens of shots it seemed. Then the horse pulled away and disappeared again into another bank of smoke. Then just as suddenly as the assault of noise and lead had begun, it ended. For a moment, the riders were left to gallop through a smoky wasteland, populated only by the cries of the wounded.

  “Steady now son,” Cort said.

  Danny couldn’t believe that the Cavalryman’s voice could remain so calm in the face of such horror. Then from the rider’s left, a terrifying howl came out of the smoky darkness. It was something between the cry of a wounded animal and a challenge, it was comprised of a thousand desperate voices.

  “Here comes Johnny Reb! Shift right, go, go!” Cort screamed.

  The priest let out a low gurgling sound through his ruined jaw, and Danny realized the man couldn’t guide their horse with such terrible wounds. Danny reached forward trying desperately to fight through his own pain and reach the animal’s reins. A moment later seeing the problem Cort leaned forward and snatched up the loose reins, he then pulled ahead of them leading their mount behind his own. Incredibly the Cavalryman appeared completely uninjured in the bloody exchange, his uniform wasn’t even splattered with blood.

  “You’re doing great Danny!” Cort shouted.

  As they moved to their right still at a steady gallop, the air began to clear, and the split rail fence came into view again. All along the line thousands of Union soldiers were in motion, their rifles were pulled in and a moment later presented again, now with a foot-long sharpened bayonet attached. Then from the left, the terrible cry rose in pitch and fervor and from out of the smoke charged the rebel army.

  “No, no, no,” Danny repeated.

  The Confederate forces pushed forward in a spotty line, in some places 4 or 5 men charged together and in other places 10 or 20 strong, but if it was a lack of discipline or the result of the initial deadly exchange Danny couldn’t tell. Then just ahead of them a group of 6 rebels charged out of the fog with bayonets leveled and it was clear they were about to intersect the fleeing rider’s path.

  “The left, on the left!” Cort shouted.

  The Cavalryman raised his heavy revolver and fired into the group of charging rebels and a pair of men went down. A moment later Oliver smashed into their ranks, slashing away with his blade held awkwardly in his off hand. Several of the men went down beneath his horse’s hooves, and he managed to kill another before he took a bayonet just beneath the ribs. The Dragoon screamed in pain and kicked his horse into a run breaking off the attack, but that charge had faltered, and the remaining riders were able to slip past.

  “Nicely done!” Cort shouted.

  “There is another!” Danny cried,

  Directly ahead of them a much larger group, perhaps thirty strong surged forward, cutting off their escape.

  “We go on the left!” Cort shouted.

  “The lef
t? There’s a whole fucking army on the left!” Danny shouted.

  “Maybe we can slip in between these troops and the main force. All we know for sure is what’s in front of us!” Cort replied.

  With that, the Cavalryman jerked the reins of his horse and veered sharply to the left back into the smoke and leading the priest’s horse as he went. Danny glanced behind them then and found Shinji trailing after them by a few lengths. The warrior looked in bad shape and was slumped forward over the neck of his horse. Shinji looked up then, and though his face was covered in blood he gave Danny a wide grin, but the boy couldn’t find the heart to smile back.

  Jamie galloped along through the thick smoke behind the Union line. He had been forced to shoot two more of the ghostly soldiers, but once the shooting had started no one had even bothered him with a second glance. He had ridden through this particularly bloody piece of hell twice before following Cort’s lead and almost felt sorry for those bastards trapped out in the middle of the fighting now. Just then a fireball detonated somewhere to his left, off in the front of the army and immediately Jamie knew what must have caused it. He pulled his horse back in as close as he dared behind the lines of ghostly soldiers and sure enough he spotted the last of the Horde Bikers.

  Three leather-clad men cowered behind their downed motorcycles, trying to use the bikes for cover, each occasionally risking a shot at the mass of men surrounding them. Behind the trapped men Jamie could just make out a string of a half a dozen more bikes, all down and a few now burning. Their riders were either dead on the ground nearby or still clinging to their cycle in death. A few men were still on their feet and tried to run for the fence, only to be bayoneted and trampled by the charging rebel army.

  Jamie just shook his head, “Fools,” he said.