"Dear God!" Wade said.
"That's where we've got them!" Sam said, as triumph filled him. "That's what I didn't know. Now I do. If we find them by day, they'll be sleeping, resting in the gloom; we drive a stake through their hearts. At night, if they're in any other form, they can be killed. I don't know why, but they can."
"Do we kill every animal on this range?" Tony asked.
"If we have to," Sam said, looking to the east. Just the faintest tint of pink was forming. Sam smiled, but it was not the smile of a gentle man of God. It was the smile of a warrior. "We take the fight to them," he said, then turned and walked back to the camp area for a cup of coffee.
Miles observed, "I think he's actually looking forward to this fight."
"Yes," Jane Ann said. "He is." There was a touch of fear in her voice.
She backed up and bumped into a stinking object. Screaming, she spun away before the thing could put its arms around her. As her shrieking cut the predawn, Jane Ann looked around and into the lifeless eyes of Sheriff Marsh. She had attended his funeral months back.
Sam ran back to the group, a stake in his hand. The creature lurched and drooled at Sam. The minister spun, faked a move, then brought the stake up and drove it into the thing's chest.
It died on the ground.
"Leave it," Sam ordered. "Let's go—we've work to do."
In the darkness of a bedroom, heavy drapes protecting her eyes from the outside world, Nydia lay naked on the bed, holding her arms out for Wilder, her voluptuousness aching for him. She opened her legs, ready to receive him.
"You gorged yourself last evening," he scolded her. "I should have known you would overreact if I turned you loose as what you once were."
She smiled, her grin a grotesque spreading of her lips, for her teeth were fanged.
"Contain yourself," Wilder ordered. "And transform. Do it!"
Her tongue began to shrink in size, losing its blood-red color. She ran her tongue over her lips, her eyes losing their wild tint. Her teeth were normal. Her chest rose and fell in anticipation of Wilder's assault upon her, her heavy breasts with jutted nipples quivered.
She fondled him, and obscenities rolled from her tongue.
"You really are a crude bitch, Nydia," he taunted her.
"Damn you, Black! Don't make me beg for it."
She screamed as he penetrated her.
The town of Whitfield lay dead-like under the early morning sun; cut off from the outside, receiving no visitors until all was ready.
George Best sat in the sheriff's office, naked from the waist down, his legs spread wide. A young girl, scarcely in her teens, crouched between his legs, giving him oral sex. Best picked up the phone at the first ring.
"No problems at all," he said, after listening for a few seconds. "Everything is fine as wine here, Governor."
He listened for a few more seconds. "No, sir," Best said, smiling. "No, sir, we don't anticipate any problems at all, Governor. I can assure you, by this time next week, we'll have everything back to normal." He smiled. "Just as it was before the roads were closed. Yes, sir, I'll sure be in touch with your office if we need any help. Oh, he's asleep, sir. Not much going on around Whitfield. Thank you, sir. I'll sure give Sheriff Addison your best."
He hung up the phone, laughing. Placing his hands on the young girl's head, he pushed his erection deeper into her mouth. He began laughing louder. The devil's laughter.
The young girl moaned her pleasure.
Across the street, in what was once Long's Coffee Shop, several teenagers were engaged in a gang bang with an older woman. Several young girls watched them, waiting their turn.
The moans of the tortured could be heard in the heating summer air.
Whitfield stank of evil, of deprivation, of passions gone berserk, of blood, and of the un-Godly.
And out in the Bad Lands, Walter Addison slept on the floor of a closet, in an abandoned shack. Hiding from God's light, he waited for darkness, to resume the hunt.
Thursday - the First Day
Sam watched the five cowboys ride toward the ridge where they were hiding. He had put aside his Thompson, replacing it with one of Chester's M-ls. Chester held an identical .30-06 military rifle cradled in his arms.
"You take the two on the right," Sam whispered. "I'll take the other three."
"How do we know they're possessed?"
"We don't. Want to invite them up the hill and ask them?"
Chester shook his head. "I'll pass on that. They're wearing medallions around their necks. Guess that settles it."
Five seconds later, there were five empty saddles.
The men walked down the hill to the still-writhing men. Sam pointed the muzzle of the M-1 at a cowboy's head.
"Give me a break!" the man begged.
"Sure," Sam said. "Just like you would have given me a break."
"Fuck you!" the cowboy snarled, spitting at Sam. The foamy red spittle hit Sam on the leg of his jeans.
Sam squeezed the trigger, then went to the next man, with Chester following suit. Watching from the ridge, Wade shuddered, "I wouldn't want either of them for an enemy.''
Back in camp, Sam said, "Let's pack it up and move it. Ches, you said you knew where there was some dynamite."
"Right, and some gasoline while we're there . Over on the Cherry Creek range. They've been doing some blasting. Ever handled dynamite, Sam?"
'"No. In Korea we used plastic. Easy to handle."
"So's dynamite. Before I bought the shop, I worked with explosives."
"Where is the blockhouse?"
"Right on the edge of the range. But for sure it'll be well guarded."
Sam nodded absently, spreading a map on the hood of a truck. "Wade, you take the people here," he pointed to a mark on the map, then glanced at his watch. "Ches and I will get the dynamite and fill up the extra gas cans and meet you there at noon." He looked hard at the editor, "Don't take any chances, Wade. Shoot first and ask questions later."
Wade swallowed, then nodded his agreement, "All right, Sam."
The minister glared at his friend. "I mean it. I'm not going to dick around with you or anybody else. Jane Ann's safety is in your hands. Can you do it?"
"Yes!" Wade replied hotly.
"You'd better," the warrior-turned-minister turned warrior said.
"Let's ask God's help," Faye said, breaking the silent tension between the two friends. "Let's all join hands."
It was a strange sight on the prairie, in the rolling hills of Fork County. These people praying within sight of five men they had just killed. Chester prayed, asking God to help them, to give them strength to combat the evil that surrounded them, that faced them all.
The circle broke up, the Christians walking back to their trucks. Sam stopped Wade. "Any route you take is going to be dangerous, Wade, it's up to you. But I believe moving is the only way we're going to stay alive."
"I know, Sam," he clasped the minister on the shoulder. "And don't worry, I'll do my part. I don't believe we have a choice any longer. I'll shoot first, apologize later. I'm going to cut across Sugar Ridge and down into Winding Creek, follow the creek bed. It's dry this time of year."
The men shook hands, wishing each other luck. Chester spent a few moments with Faye; Sam with Jane Ann.
"I'm not usually the weeping type, Sam," she said, her lips just brushing his. "So I'll see you in camp in a few hours."
Sam smiled. "Behave yourself around Tony—he's a good-looking young stud. Makes a lot more money than a preacher."
"You have hidden talents, Sam," she winked at him.
He touched her face with his strong, blunt fingers, then left her, walking to Chester's pickup, stopping along the way to get his Thompson and a length of wire with small pieces of wood attached to either end.
"What is that thing, Sam?" Miles asked.
"It's a garrote, Miles. We used them in Korea."
"Silent killing."
"Very. But you have to know how to use them. If
you come around too hard, the victim is decapitated, then you've got a headless body flopping around on the ground, making noises with his feet. Destroys the silent operation."
Miles' face was a little pale. "That ever happen to you, Sam?"
"Only once. It was quite a sight to see."
The prairie was silent after Wade led the little caravan off, with only the wind to keep the two men company.
"Sam? When we've got the dynamite, what are we going to do with it?"
The minister's eyes grew cold as a snake's gaze. "We"re going to destroy Whitfield and the outlying ranches. Hopefully, we're going to kill every Godless bastard in this part of Fork."
Chester chuckled. "Preacher, your language is shocking.
It was the longest half hour Chester had spent since combat in the Pacific. He thought Sam would never return from the blockhouse. His nerves began working on him, causing him to jump with every sound of nature. A songbird twittered happily above him and Chester almost blew it into the next county, holding back firing the .45 caliber Greasegun just at the last second.
The next county, he thought, is where I wish we all were right now.
He thought of Sam. The man has more cold nerve than any man I've ever seen. Miles was right: he is looking forward to this fight.
He almost soiled his shorts when Sam touched him on the shoulder. He leaped to his feet, heart pounding. "JESUS CHRIST!"
"Every direction is your perimeter when you're alone, Ches," Sam gently scolded him. "You're forgetting your good Marine Corps training. I came up behind you."
"No shit! Now you tell me! My heart is hammering." He looked in the direction of the blockhouse. "How many men are there?"
"None, now."
"How many were there?"
"Two. They were easy. Come on."
The sight of the dead men did not bother Chester; he had seen much, much worse in the brutal fighting in the Pacific. But if ten days ago, if someone had told him his minister would slip past armed guards and slit their throats, Chester would have called him a liar. The guards lay sprawled in death. One had been strangled with the garrote, the other had his throat cut.
Chester broke the lock on the blockhouse with a tire iron from his pickup's toolbox. It was dark and cool in the shed. "Get those boxes of caps over there," he told Sam. "Be careful with them." He looked around. "There's enough dynamite in here to blow up half of Fork County. This is good grade stuff, too."
"Did you see those medallions on the guards?"
Chester nodded, carrying a box of dynamite to his truck.
'We have to assume everyone at Cherry Creek ranch is one of them. We'll take them out first. Then work around the county, ranch by ranch."
"Saving Whitfield for last?"
"Exactly," Sam put another box of caps in the back of the truck. He sat them down roughly.
Chester winced. "Sam! Please be careful. The caps are more dangerous than the dynamite. I've seen them blow when you least expect it."
"Sorry," Sam grinned. "I wasn't thinking."
"How do we take the ranch, Sam?"
"By surprise. Just like Cowboys and Indians. Let's fill the gas cans and we'll drop them off, pick them up on the way back. I'll tell you along the way."
"You mean, just the two of us?"
"That's all we need, old friend. Providing everything goes as planned, that is."
The men were a mile from the ranch, hidden in the trees by one of the hundreds of small lakes in the county. Chester was busy arming sticks of dynamite.
"You're certain you can tell within seconds when each stick will blow?" Sam asked.
"Positive." Chester did not look up from his work. "You want six explosions, eight to ten seconds apart, but you want us to be on the other side of the ranch before the first charge blows? And all the charges concentrated on this side of the ranch?"
"Right. The first charge will draw them out of the ranch house. The other charges will, hopefully, hold their attention and cover the sound of our coming in until we're on top of them. Can you do that?"
"No sweat," Chester said, measuring and cutting lengths of fuse. He armed the sticks, inserted the fuses—each a different length—and stood up. "I'll plant them about two hundred feet apart."
The men sat in the pickup, on the other side the ranch, waiting for the first charge to blow hoping, the long fuses had not gone out. Chester had armed a dozen more sticks of dynamite, inserting five to ten second fuses in each stick or bundle of three sticks taped together. Sam held a half dozen sticks in his right hand, a Zippo lighter in his left hand. He was softly whistling a light tune: "The Happy Wanderer."
Chester glanced at him and shook his head in disbelief at the whistling. He looked at his watch. "Thirty seconds to Fire in the Hole." He slipped the pickup into gear.
"We clean out the first nest of filth," Sam said quietly, just as the first charge blew. "Be ready to change directions when I yell," he cautioned his friend.
"I will admit this," Chester said. "I'm scared." He let out the clutch.
The minister changed his whistling tune: "Pistol Packing Mamma." "You're incredible!" Chester said.
The ranch yard filled with men and women, most of them naked or half naked. The second charge blew, locking their attentions in the direction of the blasts.
"Roll it," Sam said.
Chester floorboarded the truck, roaring toward the ranch yard filled with Satan-worshippers. As the last explosions faded, the pickup shot into the yard. Three sticks of dynamite sputtered in Sam's hand. Chester was sweating as he stole a glance at the lighted charges. Sam appeared calm. He casually tossed the dynamite in the middle of a startled group of men and women.
"Hard left!" he yelled, and Chester spun the wheel.
The explosions rocked the truck, sending bits of dirt and rock flying around them, along with various parts of human bodies. Sam tossed more dynamite as Chester completed the circle, returning to the scene of confusion, dust, and death.
The yard was in chaos, the moaning and yelling and deafening eruptions confusing the men and women. Sam let fly four more sticks of dynamite, blowing a half dozen members of Wilder's Coven to Hell—to the arms of their newly-adopted Master.
"May you live in eternal agony," Sam mutered, then yelled, "Hard right! When you get to the far out-building, stop—we'll go it on foot."
"Yes, Sergeant York," Chester mumbled, spinning the wheel.
The yard was a smoking, dusty deathtrap. At the out-building, the men jumped out, automatic weapons yammering, singing a metallic death song set in .45 caliber tempo.
They left no survivors. Sam went to each downed, moaning, cursing person, ending their life here on earth, sending them to their dubious pleasures.
Then the yard was silent, the stink of death heavy/sweet in the dust.
The house was noiseless as Sam looked at it.
"There will probably be at least one of the Undead in there," he said, touching a stake shoved behind his belt, "hiding in a dark place. Get a vial of Holy Water from the truck, Ches. I'll check the other buildings before we go into the house."
With a fresh clip in the belly of the Thompson, Sam carefully checked the large garage, the barn, and the bunkhouse. All empty of any kind of life. Back in the yard, a half-naked woman, stunning and cursing, crawled toward a pistol on the ground, beside a dead man. She looked up at Sam with eyes that burned black hate. She cursed him loudly.
Knowing he was allowing a small meanness to grow in him, Sam let the woman crawl until her hand touched the butt of the gun. A half-second burst from the SMG lifted her off the ground, turning her, twisting her sideways, slamming her back, dead in the dirt, her bare legs spread obscenely.
The yard was silent, the air filled with the odor of blood and the sharp stink of relaxing bladders. "I'll go in," Sam said, refilling the clip with cartridges from his pockets. "Get this over with. We've got to get out of here. Those explosions will surely draw some unwelcome company this way.
"You
want me to go with you?"
"No. You watch for company. I'll do this."
Sam slipped into the house, walking carefully from room to room, inspecting all the closets, all the bedrooms—nothing. In the kitchen, he found the door to the basement locked.
He knew, then, where he would find the Undead, and Sam was not at all happy at the prospect of venturing down into that darkness.
Taking a deep breath, he kicked in the door with his heavy Jump Boots, then fumbled on the side wall for the light switch. The basement burst into light, flooding the darkness with brilliance. Sam moved slowly down the steps, his eyes shifting from side to side, taking in all he could see of the cluttered basement. Behind a packing crate, in the far corner of the dirty basement, he saw legs protruding from behind the crate. Sam touched the stake in his belt and moved toward the legs.
The lights went out, plunging the basement into darkness.
A hiss and a moan from behind the crate, and Sam knew he was almost out of time. The Undead had sensed danger, coming to life in the dark as his Master turned out the lights. Sam heard the sound of feet shuffling on the floor. He fumbled for his Zippo, sparking the lighter into flame. The Undead hissed at the flickering glow, moving toward Sam, its mouth open, exposing fanged teeth and a blood-red tongue, grotesque in its thickness.
Sam sat the lighter on a box, lifted the Thompson, and pulled the trigger, holding it back. He started the burst at ankle level, the rise of the weapon lifting to the creature's face. Sam fought the Thompson, attempting to keep the line of fire from going too far to the right, the natural rise of the weapon in the hands of a right-handed shooter.
Sam literally blew the Undead to bits. Its left leg was shredded, dangling. One shoulder was gapped, pieces of meat and bone scattered about the basement. Half its face, its jaw, was missing from the impact of the heavy slugs.
And still, Bill Mathis, the high school principal, dragged its macabre being toward Sam, hissing and snarling and yowling, the hands outstretched, fingers working.
Sam fumbled for the canteen hooked onto his web belt, practically tearing the cap off in his haste. He doused the thing with Holy Water, and it screamed in pain as the water, blessed by Father Dubois, boiled on impact with Godless flesh, searing the dead meat, exposing the whiteness of bone.
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