The Lingering Dead

by J N Duncan

  The mare came to an uneasy stop, her shoes clopping hollowly on the wooden planks of the bridge. The welcome sign read THATCHER’S MILL. Nick leaned over and patted the mare’s neck. “Easy, girl. I can feel him, too.”

  His stomach grumbled. It had been a long, hard two days’ ride up along the Mississippi, following Drake’s trail. Worse, it had been nearly two days since he had drank any blood. He needed to find someone suitable soon. With a little more coaxing, he nudged the horse back into motion and trotted back onto the muddy road leading into town.

  The taint of Drake was the strongest he had felt in months. Not since Kansas City, when he had actually spotted him at the train station but had been too late to board the train. The feeling did not have quite that potency, but he had been here, perhaps just hours before. Even the steady drizzle could not wash away the stench of that man.

  Not surprisingly, the town looked empty. Shutters were closed, lamps were extinguished, curtains were drawn, and doors were shut. People were hiding. Nick knew that feeling all too well. It also meant the law had fled from or been killed by Drake. He had stamped his indelible mark of blood upon this place. In the center of town, at the single crossroad, he had a drugstore, saloon, feed store, and the sheriff’s to choose from. Nick rode over to the sheriff’s and swung off the horse, tying her loosely to the hitching post out front.

  Once under the eave, Nick removed his hat and shook the water from it before stepping inside. The single jail cell was empty, as was the rest of the sparsely furnished room. A six-slot gun case on the wall behind the desk was missing two rifles. A town full of holed up folk and a missing sheriff. The situation did not bode well at all. In the stillness of the room, Nick pondered his next move when his overly sensitive hearing caught the faint sound of a wail. It was more a scream of anguish, immediately knotting up his stomach. He had heard that familiar cry far too many times in his thirty years of crisscrossing the country in his endless pursuit of Cornelius Drake. It was the keen of sorrow, the howl of loss for the dead.

  Back on his horse, Nick made his way east, past the glass storefront of the drugstore, splashing his way up the rutted road toward the edge of a tree-covered hill that overlooked the town. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, a face poking through a pulled-back, lace curtain in the window of a sod-covered house. The look was one of curiosity and fear.

  Through the trees, he could see the house, built in a clearing partway up the hill. There was a millhouse off to its right, fed by the stream he had crossed coming into town. Every step increased that sense of death he had felt upon entering the town.

  The scream echoed down through the trees to him once again, fading into sobs, the sound of a girl or young woman full of mourning and rage. Nick urged the mare up the hill.

  Two hundred yards up the road, the trees thinned to reveal a wide clearing. There, a sturdy farmhouse had been built, whitewashed with green shutters on the windows. Here was the money of the town, the Thatchers if Nick were to hazard a guess. On the far side of the clearing was the mill, where he could see the waterwheel churning slowly with the current of the stream. In front of the door, a body lay sprawled in the mud, unmoving. Halted in the center, surveying the scene, Nick caught the unmistakable, muffled sound of a rifle being cocked. From the broken front window, he watched the dark steel of the barrel slide across the sash, pointed in his direction.

  “Ma’am?” Nick called out. “I’m U.S. Marshal Nicholas Anderson. You needn’t fear me. I mean you no harm. I come to offer my—”

  A flash exploded from the barrel of the rifle and Nick flinched. The mare jumped, rearing back and nearly dumping him onto the ground. Before she could spook any further, he dismounted and grabbed the reins, keeping the horse between him and the window just in case.

  “Ma’am, are you hurt? Does anyone need medical attention?”

  “They’re all dead!” a young, female voice cried out. “He killed them all. What are you doing here?”

  Nick slowly walked his horse toward the front door. “Ma’am, what is your name?” He kept a careful eye on the rifle barrel that followed his every move. It shook with unsteady hands. The last thing he wanted was to get shot from an anxious squeeze of the trigger.

  “Charlotte,” she said. “Charlotte Thatcher.”

  “Are you hurt, Charlotte?

  The gun sagged, tipping the barrel toward the sky. “I don’t know. There’s ... there’s so much blood.”

  Nick stopped several feet from the door. He was close enough now to see that the girl was no longer peering out the window. “I’m coming in, Charlotte. I’m here to help.” He was met with the sound of choked sobbing. Nick tied off the mare and stepped up onto the porch. The front door was ajar. After easing the door open, he peered around the door jam and saw Charlotte sitting on the floor, face buried in her hands, her slight body shaking with the force of it.

  Add another name to the list of people torn apart and ruined by the man he could not stop.

  She was barefoot, her spun-wool dress ripped open halfway down the front. The white lace of the collar had been stained the rusty-red color of blood. Her hands were smeared with it. Strands of matted hair fell around her face.

  Nick knelt down next to her. “Charlotte,” he said quietly. “Let me see if he’s hurt you.”

  When his fingers brushed her arm, Charlotte’s hands dropped away, her eyes wide and blind with terror. She scrambled away from him, one hand instinctively clutching at her torn dress. “No, no! Stay away. You stay away from me.”

  Squatted down on his toes, Nick paused, saying nothing until those wild eyes refocused. “Charlotte. I need to see if you’re bleeding.” Finally she nodded, and Nick scooted closer, offering his hand to her until she took it. The slender fingers were buried in his and he held it firmly, trying to reassure her, while the other pushed up the sleeve of her dress, to check her arm, and then prodding and squeezing gently to check for broken bones and lacerations. Other than a small cut over her left eye, Charlotte appeared to be unharmed physically, unless Drake had forced himself upon her as well, but Nick was not about to pursue that avenue at this moment.

  “All right, Charlotte,” Nick said. “Let’s get you over to that sofa, and cleaned up a bit. Would you like some water?”

  When he released her hand, Charlotte latched onto his with both of hers. “Everyone is dead. Nobody stopped him.”

  Nick pulled her up and guided her over to the sofa. “I know. He’s an evil man, Charlotte.” After she sagged back against the cushion, Nick sat down in the chair next to her. “Where are your parents? Are they here in the house?”

  She nodded, sniffled, and pointed at the staircase. “They’re dead.”

  Nick already knew. This was not the first time Drake had left a lone survivor for him to find. “Is there anyone else? Brothers? Sisters? Hired help?”

  Charlotte blinked at him in silence, eyes pooling with tears, and then she looked down to her lap, where one hand picked absently at the fingernails of the other. The tears began to drop one by one onto her dress. “Becca.”

  “Is that your sister?”

  The hand continued to pick while the tears soaked into the wool. “Not no more.” She looked back up at him, despair and incomprehension molding her face. “Nobody tried.” Charlotte’s voice crumbled. “I didn’t ... know ...”—she shrugged, lip quivering, and wiped at her running nose—“what to do.”

  Nick picked up a blanket from off the shelf beneath the couch’s end table and unfolded it, draping it over Charlotte’s legs. “Stay right here, Charlotte. Can you do that? I want to have a look around and see if anyone is still alive.”

  Charlotte nodded and reached out toward his face until her fingers brushed across his cheek and then fell back to her lap. “Becca’s dead.”

  He patted her knee and stood up. “I’m sorry, Charlotte. Truly, I am.”

  The mother was in the pantry, her head barely attached to her body thanks to a severe slice to the throat. Bl
ood had sprayed across the wall and floor. Why he simply shot some victims and at other times rended the flesh from their bodies, Nick still did not fathom. He suspected that those who were reminders of something from his past inspired this insane kind of blood lust. Nick had stopped trying to decipher the meaning long ago. The man was smart enough to know what he was doing and never followed any kind of discernible pattern.

  The father had been bled out in the tub, with long, thin slices through the veins of his arms and legs. The hilt of a knife still protruded from his chest. And it was in one of the bedrooms that Nick found the remains of what once was Becca. He sagged against the doorway when he saw her, sprawled on the blood-soaked sheets of her bed, her insides spilled out. It was an all-too-familiar image from his past, and Nick was about to turn away, when it occurred to him that he was looking at Charlotte. Becca had not just been her sister. They were twins.

  Nick rubbed a hand over his face and shook his head. “God damn you, Cornelius.” He turned quickly away. There was no point in lingering there any longer. Back downstairs he stooped before Charlotte. “I need to check the mill and then I will return to help you and find someone in town who can take care of you.”

  Charlotte nodded, but said nothing.

  The body outside of the mill appeared to be a sheriff’s deputy. He had a single, dark hole in the middle of his forehead. His gun remained holstered. Nick reached down and closed the man’s eyelids, to shield his dead eyes from the rain. At the door to the mill, he kicked the mud off of his boots and stepped inside. The room was stocked with barrels of grain. Sacks of flour lined a shelf along one wall, and on the opposite, a water wheel lurched against the current of water running through the slough beneath the floor. In the center of the room, the milling machinery groaned with the effort of movement from the wheel.

  It took a moment for Nick to realize that the ragged movement of the gears was due to the fact that someone was stuck in them.

  The hard soles of his boots echoed across the floor planks as he made his way over to the figure that sagged against the wooden housing of the millstones. The man’s arm was threaded through the metal cogs, what remained of his hand dangling by ligaments and flesh coming out the other side. He sat on his knees, unable to fall any closer to the ground, soaking in his own blood. When Nick knelt beside him, he could see the sheriff’s star pinned to the shirt inside his coat. Somebody at least had tried to save the Thatchers.

  Short of cutting off the arm, there was little Nick could do here. “My apologies, Sheriff. Had I been able to warn you, I would have gladly told you to run for your life.”

  At the sound of his voice, the sheriff groaned, his eyes opening a crack.

  Ah, dear God, he’s still alive! “Sheriff. I wish I could have helped you. This man you fought ... I’m sorry. You had no chance. He is inhuman.”

  The sheriff only groaned again and closed his eyes once more. He was close to death, Nick could see that. There was too much blood on the floor. Cutting off the arm would only end things that much sooner, and time was short. He was in sore need of blood. The call of the dead was getting stronger by the minute now.

  Nick pulled the straight razor from the inside pocket of his duster. “Forgive me, Sheriff. I can only offer this small mercy.”

  With one deft slash, Nick opened the man’s neck. He would be dead in moments, but the blood Nick could take in that small time would get him through the next few days. The loss of pressure from so much blood loss already, gave him only a few seconds before the last sigh of breath from the sheriff’s lungs escaped him, but Nick drank what he could, feeling the energy of the man’s life flow into him, pushing back against that yawning door in his soul that continually threatened to pull him through.

  Finished, Nick withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from his mouth. When he stood, the unmistakable creak of the floorboards greeted him. There in the doorway stood Charlotte.

  “Ms. Thatcher,” he said quietly. “This is not a sight for such young eyes.”

  The rifle shook in her hands, braced against her shoulder and pointed at his chest. “Monster!” she hissed. “You’re one of them.”

  Yes. He was, doomed to a hellish existence spawned from the hands of something created by the devil himself. Nick folded the handkerchief and tucked it back in his pocket. At this point, he hoped her fear and rage would again send her aim awry.

  “There is no need for that, ma’am,” he said, attempting to sooth away her terror. “You can put the gun down. I will not harm you.”

  Charlotte stared at him in silence for several seconds, the gun wavering over his body. Nick held her gaze, hoping that his sway would be enough. For a moment, he thought the bright, teary eyes were losing their fire, but then the handle of the rifle popped.

  Her lips barely moved. “You will die.”

  The muzzle burst to life, and Nick smiled grimly at the whimsical hand of Fate, as he attempted to turn and felt the burn of metal rending his flesh.

  Chapter 9

  Nick practically stormed into the diner, his short hair dark and slick with water. He did not appear angry from what Jackie could tell, but then he was always difficult to read. Once again, Shelby had sat next to Cynthia, leaving him no choice other than to plop his wet body down next to hers. He leaned forward, arms resting on the table.

  “I finally remembered why this place felt so familiar,” he said in a hushed voice. “Drake murdered a family here, a husband, wife, and a daughter. The second daughter survived. They lived up the hill on the edge of town at the mill that the town is named for.”

  Jackie felt the hollow ball of nerves in her gut tighten. Christ. How many people had that thing killed? “And you think that had something to do with what is going on here?”

  He sat back up and heaved a sigh. “Perhaps.”

  Cynthia waved a suggestive finger at Nick. “That might explain the source of the curse.”

  Molly, the waitress, chose that moment to stop by with her pot of coffee. She reached out without asking and filled Nick’s cup. Jackie shoved hers over for a warm-up.

  “Wouldn’t even talk about that around here if I were you,” she said. “It’s not safe.”

  Jackie pulled her coffee cup back. “Safe for who?”

  “Anyone,” the waitress whispered and moved along before anyone could reply without raising their voices and being heard throughout the restaurant.

  “We need to talk to her,” Jackie said. “Alone.”

  “And we need to talk,” Nick said, and for a terrifying moment, Jackie thought he meant about them. “But not here. Everyone in this town seems to be wary of our presence.”

  “Got that right,” Shelby said. “Ghosts and otherwise. Every time I mentioned the word ‘ghost’ everyone just clammed up and did their best to shoo me away.”

  “And their chief of police is an asshole,” Jackie added. “I thought for a minute he might try to escort me to the edge of town.”

  Nick said, “So, do we want to stay close by or fly back home?”

  Laurel stepped out of Dead world, and pushed directly on Jackie. Let me in, please!

  Shelby smiled at Jackie. “Well, that took long enough. I thought there wasn’t much to see over there?”

  Let’s head back, hon. That thing is coming.

  What? The spindly fucker? It followed us?

  Yes! And I’m pretty sure it’s you, not us, that it’s following.

  “We’re going back home,” Jackie said, the decision made within one stuttering heartbeat. “That ... whatever the hell it is followed me.”

  Shelby slammed her hand down on the table. “Fuck.”

  Nick stared at Jackie for several seconds, mouth tightening into a frown, and then got to his feet. “She’s right, let’s head back. If it took several hours for it to catch up to us, we’ll have several to figure something out once we’re back.”

  Jackie slid out and followed close behind Nick. What they could possibly figure out in that ti
me remained to be seen. What did one do with strange alien beings following you around via a parallel, dead universe?

  Jackie let Nick drive. As much as she hated giving up vehicular control, her hands were damp and fidgety. Worse, though, was the fear that she might abruptly see those glowing green eyes appear in the middle of the road and swerve everyone to their doom. She stared off into the low-swept gloom, and listened to the others discuss probable causes to this town. The stupid thing was, they could just leave it. There was no apparent crime. They had no authority to investigate, make arrests, conduct searches, or anything. They were just a group of civilians digging into a potential problem. It could be anything or nothing at all, but Jackie had a firm feeling that it was far from nothing.

  Five minutes into their flight home, Jackie’s cell phone rang. It was McManus.

  “Hey, Jack,” he said. “You all have a problem back here.”

  Shit! What else could go wrong with this day? “Great. Just what I wanted to hear. What’s up?”

  “Looks like someone broke into your office.”

  “You’re shitting me.” Jackie wanted to hurl the phone across the cabin. “How bad is it?”

  “A broken window, but from what we can tell, nothing’s been taken. You’ll have to come by to make sure.”

  “Goddammit. You’re not making my day any better, McManus.”

  “Sorry,” he replied. “You guys find something out there?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know. A lot of ghost shit we don’t understand. We need to get some more intel on the place.”

  “Hauser should be working on it.”

  “He is. I’m sure he’ll dig up something. He always does.”

  “You going to be coming by, then?”

  “Yeah, guess we are. An hour or so, I’d guess.”

  “Cool. Sorry, Jack. I’ll see you then.”

  Jackie clicked off her phone. Everyone was now giving her an expectant look. “Someone may have broke into the office,” she said and shoved the phone into her pocket. “We need to go by and check it out.”