by Dennis Yates
“Maybe so...”
Sorenson reached out and patted the horse gently on the nose. I still couldn’t believe I’d seen it eat Ramos's severed ear. What had made it turn into a flesh-eating monster? Until now I thought such creatures were only the stuff of folklore.
“I’ve put my trust in men with far less,” Sorenson resumed. “Think it over. Those left of my gang don’t have nearly the skills yours do. They’re only a bunch of stray dogs with no one else to follow. Sometimes I want to shoot them all and go it alone.”
“You’d get lonely,” I said. “And then you’d have to start all over. Looking for fresh recruits who weren’t going to sink a knife into you when you least expected it.
“You could be right,” Sorenson said.
Chapter 9
Early the next morning Sorenson ordered us to break camp and prepare to leave. A murderous sun bubbled on the horizon, promising another day of agonizing heat. The horsemen saddled up and Sorenson began to lead them in the direction of the fort when Frank attacked.
Before Sorenson even had a chance to defend himself, Frank ran up next to him and stabbed him in his upper leg with some kind of spike. Sorenson’s screams grabbed everyone’s attention. We stopped to watch as he tried to reach for his rifle, but Frank was faster. He pulled it free from its scabbard and bolted away before he could be stopped.
Confusion quickly followed as the other horsemen tried to make sense of what was happening. A large bearded man on a horse behind Sorenson shot at Frank with his pistol and missed. Frank returned fire and opened a mouth in the man’s neck and blood rained down on the man’s horse. Sent into a frenzy, the animal ran away with the dying rider splashing more blood down the front of its ash colored face like war paint.
Frank turned from watching the dead rider being carried off and took aim at the horseman. I was certain it would soon be over for the cruel bastard and we’d be able to overpower his followers without a lot of trouble.
“Drop it!” Sorenson shouted. He’d slid off his horse and was using its body as a barrier. He had to hold on to the reins to steady himself, for his leg was bleeding heavily. It took me a moment to realize the grieving father had stabbed Sorenson with the spine of a crucifixion cactus. The spines are close to a foot long and sharply notched. The only way to remove the spine is to push it clear through to the other side, an ordeal of pain, hallucinations and gangrene most victims didn’t long survive.
Frank fired another round and missed the top of Sorenson’s head. Then I saw something glimmer in Sorenson’s hand. The thing wasn’t a gun but a slim control device. The next time Frank took aim at Sorenson, his right hand suddenly exploded into a pink cloud of flesh and pulverized bone. The rifle struck the ground in a twisted mess. Frank didn’t scream but watched his smoking stump with quiet fascination until one of Sorenson’s men rode up behind him and clubbed him in the head.
Without thinking about what we were doing we ran toward Sorenson, swearing loudly that we were going to kill him. The horseman spread open his arms like a priest and laughed. Our bracelets became electrified and every bone and muscle went completely numb. For what felt like eternity, we could do nothing except gnash our teeth and piss ourselves until Sorenson switched off the current.
Lying helpless on the burning sand, we waited for the use of our bodies to return. In the meantime, buzzards gathered in the sky and their dark circle thickened as hungry new members arrived. The only thing delaying the mighty carrion feast was Patch, whose stove top hat I’d spotted as he tended to others. He cursed constantly as he did what he could to keep us alive.
Toward afternoon Patch made his rounds back to me again. He sat on his knees and gave me water from a large skin lashed to his back. I couldn’t seem to guzzle enough but Patch pulled the bag away and warned me I’d get sick if I drank too much at once. I reclaimed my ability to speak, although I must have coughed up a pound of dust first.
“How are the others?” I managed to choke.
“I think they’ll make it,” Patch whispered. “But you’ve got to promise me you don’t try something like that again. If Sorenson had done to you what he did to Frank, you’d be on your way to turning into buzzard chow.”
“We were caught up in the moment,” I said.
Patched laughed. “That’s not going to keep you breathing for very long in a place like this. Have you been gone so long you’ve lost your common sense?”
I felt my face go hot. “What Sorenson did to that father and son is beyond anything I’ve ever been witness to. I don’t know if I can forgive myself for not trying to intervene.”
Patch shook his head and I saw dust sprinkle from his hat brim. “It couldn’t be stopped. The boy was sick and needed to be gone before he fully turned and became a danger. Believe me, you would feel much worse if you saw what he would have become. You never forget seeing somebody change like that before your eyes.”
****
When I first saw it, I thought it was a mirage. As we got closer the waves of heat began to solidify into the shape of a red fort. I recalled once seeing the place while a boy. Father had told me some Pilgrims had originally settled in the area to make a go of it until hostilities had forced them to build a protective stone wall around their modest dwellings. The outpost now appeared devoid of life, the watchtowers vacant and the giant timber door that kept the place secure was nothing but charred piles of wood.
We soon determined the recent violence visited upon the place was only days old. Fires were still burning in the interior and the spoiled fruit smell of rotting meat was heavy in the air. I couldn’t stop the feeling of being trapped, of suspecting Sorenson may have decided he didn’t need us after all, that he’d made cruel plans to send us on a death mission. When I glanced over at the others I could see they were also worried about what was waiting for us within.
“Don’t waste my time,” Sorenson shouted. I turned to see him and the other horsemen had stopped to watch us, their rifles pointing menacingly towards our heads. “Go inside and make damn sure the place is clear. Anyone who tries to run is going to regret it.”
We had no choice but to follow his command. I hoped I could use the opportunity to talk to the others and rough out an escape plan. As we entered the fort we were greeted by a loud chorus of ravens feeding upon a bloated corpse. Ramos batted at them with a stick and they flapped away from their meal, cawing insults at us long after they’d passed over the fort’s stone walls.
We found ourselves staring fearfully at the claw marks in the corpse’s flesh. There was no doubt the victim had been killed by a desert wraith. You never forget what that kind of mutilation looks like.
Ramos spoke to the corpse so as not to raise the suspicions of the horsemen behind us. “There’s no way we’re going to last if he keeps pushing at this pace, especially with wraiths around...”
“We need weapons,” Jade said. “It could be our only chance to find any and kill Sorenson before he kills us.”
“You’re forgetting something,” I said, lifting my wrist with its bracelet packed with an explosive charge. “We’re not going to be able to do anything with these things on. We’ll need to cut them off if we want to escape alive.”
“How?” Ramos asked.
“I’ve been thinking there must be some place with tools I can use to get these damn things off. But I’ll need some time to look around without the bastard noticing.”
“Then we’ll need a distraction,” Travis said, scanning the inside of the destroyed fort for possibilities.
“Looks like one’s on the way,” Jade replied.
I glanced at where she was pointing with her uninjured hand. Several figures were lumbering in our direction through the smoky gloom. Rotters. God damn Sorenson to hell, I thought. He really has decided to play a game of watching us die.
I turned and saw that he and the other riders were blocking our only exit. The horsemen had tossed several axes onto the ground but kept their rifles trained on us. Sorenson was drinki
ng whiskey. He hadn’t stopped since Patch had pushed the cactus spine through his leg. I still felt no sympathy toward the man, although his shrill screams would probably haunt me for days to come.
“Let’s see how well you do with those crispy critters,” Sorenson said, his speech slurred. Despite Patch’s attempts to treat his infected leg, it had swollen to twice its normal size.
The mad horseman’s eyes simmered with a mix of fever and drunken meanness. It was clear he’d changed his mind about making us his partners. The other horsemen laughed and he passed the bottle to them. We weren’t merely their prisoners, but their entertainment as well.
The others gathered the axes from the ground and joined me as the things lurched closer.
“As soon as I can I’m going to have a look around,” I said.
“We’ll have your back,” Ramos replied.
Instead of waiting any longer for the rotters to reach us, we charged toward them through the burning haze. I swung my axe at the remains of a burned man and the blade hacked through his neck easily. When I looked down I was surprised to see the headless rotter was dressed in a tattered Federation uniform. Had he been part of the group traveling with the President’s son?
I glanced around at the rotters the others had made short work of and saw they too were Federation. I began to worry my worst fears might have come true. What if we find out the President’s son was dead or turned? There’d be no reason for the Federation to have anything more to do with us.
With a death sentence already hanging over the entire planet, the deal we’d made with them no longer meant anything. We’d have to find a way off Lazarus on our own, or wait for the day the bombs wiped us off.
While the others dealt with more rotters, I ducked my head to avoid a bitter cloud of yellowish smoke. I could hear human groans all around me, knowing not if they were coming from the living or reanimated. As soon as I spotted it, I ran until I reached a building not yet engulfed by flames.
I opened the door and peered inside. Heard the hum of congregated flies coming from the darkness deep within. I lit a match and walked down a narrow corridor to a room at the end. The stench of death slapped me hard in the face.
Eyes watering, I covered my nose and took a moment to adjust to the change in light. Candles flickered from the floor of the entire room, causing the ceiling and walls to stretch and contract.
And then I saw it.
An incubus-like figure squatting on top of the table with its back to me, its grotesque frame vibrating preternaturally in the glow.
The creature turned and stared at me, unafraid. The wraith was more humanlike than any I’d ever seen before. It slid toward me and stretched open its jawbone so wide I thought it would dislocate.
Clutched in the thing’s claws was the head of a man, his mouth a frozen rictus of pure horror. As usual the wraith had first devoured the victim’s eyes before considering the main course.
I watched in dread as the wraith ran its fingertips over the man’s head, searching for the perfect place. Satisfied, it set a tapered spike against the man’s skull and drove it in with a crude hammer.
A hot surge of bile rose in my throat, choking off my screams. As the wraith pried open the skull, the corpse’s face stretched until it split down the middle like a rubber mask.
I stared past the wraith and tried pushing back the fear. Suddenly the bracelet on my wrist started changing. Burning hotter and hotter, threatening to pass through muscle and bone like a knife heated by coals.
“Sorenson!”
He must think I’m trying to escape, I thought. That’s the reason he’s doing this. The wraith gave me a curious look while it licked creamed brain from its fingers.
I clenched my teeth as all feeling to my hand disappeared. Sorenson could take it now and I’d feel grateful. But just as quickly as it had started it was over. The pain in my wrist vanished as if it had never happened. The memor, however, didn’t go away. The fear of Sorenson doing it again only gnawed deeper.
The wraith slid around the table lighting candles. As more light filled the room, it took me a moment to fully comprehend the scene before me. I’d been too focused on the wraith to notice much else.
No, it can’t be, I thought.
I saw people who’d been tied to their chairs and set around the table like dinner guests. I gasped when I realized Laura was one of those seated. A hideous laugh filled the room. When I glanced back the ruby eyes of the wraith were focused on me, its mouth dripping.
Chapter 10
Something behind me stole the wraith’s attention and its hellish eyes widened. It cocked its misshapen head and began to hiss. Pink spit shot from its mouth and stank of death. I ducked down and covered my head but Sorenson didn’t move. When I finally glanced back up at him, his face was dripping with the stuff.
“Better wipe that shit off,” I warned. “Or you’re going to be sorry.”
“Move out of my way,” the horseman ordered.
He swung the shotgun barrel against my upper arm and shoved me aside. The wraith sprang from the table and the horseman fired, blowing the creature into a fine red mist. This time I covered my face too late and was blinded by the wraith’s blood.
You’ve done it now, I thought. You should have tried to run. For a few moments, I could hear nothing but the roar of gunfire in my ears. I wiped my eyes and turned to see Sorenson beside me. He was staring at the people tied to their chairs.
“Goddamn wraiths,” he said, reloading.
“Wait,” I said. “Some of those people could still be alive.”
“No, they aren’t,” Sorenson grunted. He raised the shotgun and blasted away the head of a Federation soldier.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Look at them. They’ve all turned into those things.”
I didn’t want to believe him. I took a step closer and stared at Laura. When her green-slimed eyes met mine I realized Sorenson was right.
Maggots had moved in to finish off the remains of her once striking face. Seeing her in this state was so heartbreaking that I forgave her for leaving us. It took stones to do what she did. Riskier too, without a posse. But the reward money for the safe return of Junior Garrett must have exerted a terrible pull on her. I knew the feeling well.
I noticed there were blackened slashes in her throat where the wraith had been drinking from her. I figured she must have bled to death before turning.
“I can’t save you this time,” I said. Laura glared angrily while she bit and tore at imaginary flesh.
I nodded at Sorenson and turned around before he finished the job.
Seeing Laura returned from the dead had robbed something from inside of me. I stood still in the pulsating candlelight with my eyes shut. Part of me yearned for my dark tomb of ice. Just put me back in, I wanted to beg them, and thaw me out some other time.
It took many hard shoves from the horseman to help bring me back.
“Are you going soft headed?” he asked. “Because I’d like to get the hell out of this place.”
“I was starting to like it here.”
The horseman gave me a disgusted look while he limped ahead of me. I noticed his shotgun barrel wavered above the ground instead of in my face. I felt some sense of progress in our relationship.
“We got him,” he announced when he was almost out of earshot.
“Who?” I shouted. Sorenson turned around, framed by the glare of the sun reaching inside.
“The President’s boy.”
****
While the gang and I had been fighting rotters inside the fort, one of Sorenson’s men had caught the President’s son crawling through a hidden passage to the outside.
Garrett Junior was in bad shape the first time I saw him. He was so sunburnt and gaunt from hunger, that if a strong breeze had kicked through he would have blown away.
Sorenson ordered me to talk to the new captive and learn what I could. If torture was needed to get information from Junior, the h
orseman insisted it stay within reason. When the time arrived, Junior would need to be presentable and no longer bleeding all over the place. I didn’t want it to come down to that, and I silently prayed Sorenson wouldn’t try to force me to harm young Garrett. It wasn’t my style. Well, maybe with most people that is.
Patch first did what he could for Junior’s most serious burns. Afterwards he fed his patient broth made by the horseman’s cook. The aroma of boiled bones and desert herbs rising from the steaming pot yanked at my stomach.
Garrett Junior told me little, and seemed to think the killers he’d been traveling with would soon come to his rescue. It took everything I had to keep my anger from boiling over. I felt the insistent ghosts of the old man and his granddaughters floating behind my back, whispering their demands for revenge.
Two days later Garrett was able to sit up on his own. Sorenson was anxious to get moving again, and his impatience put him in a foul mood. “He better be ready by morning,” he’d warned before riding away, leaving Patch in case his services were needed.
I got the impression Sorenson thought Junior was playing us, and he’d be returning soon to ratchet the interrogation up a notch. I knew what he was capable of and didn’t want any part of it.
Patch and I studied the President’s son while he drank his third cup of broth. There was life now in his eyes. He no longer stared at us like he was trying to decide if we were actually real or not. I wondered if he was faking it and for how long.
“Can you tell us what happened?” I asked.
“I already told you. I don’t talk to Dusters.”
I looked over at Patch and saw him frowning. He reached inside his medical bag and retrieved a short handled bone saw. The good doctor had read my mind. Firelight danced on the blade’s steel surface, grabbing young Garrett’s undivided attention.
“Listen friend,” I said. “We’re here because we need to help each other out. There may not be a lot of time before something unpleasant happens.”
The boy sneered. “Are you saying you might cut me with that if I don’t talk?”
