No, Gordon’s gone for good. This is a fresh nightmare. And if you don’t keep it together, you’re going to lose your daughter.
The rapidly vanishing daylight was framed behind Jett, who stood by the open barn door in silhouette, the sickle—the same one Gordon had wielded against them—dangling from one hand. She didn’t look frail and vulnerable, though. She looked strong, like part of the earth, a force of nature unto herself.
They grow up when you’re not looking, and then all you can do is release them to fight their own battles.
The headlights bobbed over the ridge in the distant, dipping twin yellow cones of light. Katy thought it might be the deputy again, and she was momentarily relieved—until she remembered that this wasn’t the deputy’s fight. If Odus was right about the signs, then Harmon was coming to claim his territory. And Katy wasn’t going to give it up without a fight.
“Somebody’s coming, Mom,” Jett said.
Before Katy could answer, she saw the figure outlined briefly by the backlight.
No, not a figure.
Two figures merged into one.
A horse and rider.
“It’s him,” she said, calm now, descending the loft steps. As she walked past the scarecrow costume, she plucked the straw hat from the wall and clamped it on her head.
Harmon Smith was well ahead of the approaching vehicle, and the headlights darted wildly as the tires dipped into ruts and bounced over rocks. Katy joined Jett at the barn door. “Open the pen,” she said.
“Huh?” Jett said.
“Let the goats out, honey.”
Calm descended upon her, a sense of rightness. With the mist making a prison of the valley, it was as if no one would play witness to what happened here. Not even God. Solom was a place free from time, space, and history now. It might as well be a hundred and forty years ago, with a young and living Harmon Smith first riding into Solom to set up his missionary service.
Or even older than that, a snake slithering into the garden to find a forbidden fruit tree.
Katy headed for the barnyard gate, heedless of the dark mud and manure beneath her feet, clutching the baling hook like a sacred relic. She heard hoof beats behind her, and Jett called, “Wait up, Mom!”
As Jett and the goats caught up with her, Katy swung open the gate and they spilled out into the yard. Katy glanced at the house and all its ghosts and memories. Then she faced the approaching silhouette, mentally measuring the depth of her weapon against the bottomless hole where Harmon’s heart once pulsed, long before it was torn from his ribs by bitter, jealous rivals.
Old Saint’s hooves were much louder than those of the goats, and the silhouette of horse and rider seemed to grow into the black clouds above.
“Holy crap, Mom,” Jett said. “He’s got a knife.”
“Just stay behind me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Odus kicked and twisted, but he couldn’t escape the baling twine that was tangled around him.
He lay sprawled in loose hay that made him itch and tickled his nose to the point of sneezing. He barely remembered getting knocked down. His head didn’t exactly hurt, but it felt strange, like a weak hangover left behind by an unsatisfying binge. He tried wriggling across the wooden floor, knowing there were feeding chutes nearby, but he couldn’t see well enough to judge direction.
He heard a muffled thumping near him and figured it was the kid, Kelvin. Judging from the scuffing and grunts, he was in the same condition as Odus. Odus’s jaws ached and his tongue was dry, and he realized a rag had been shoved in his mouth, keeping him from calling out. He tried to spit it out, but that only threatened to close off his throat and put him in danger of suffocation.
The Horseback Preacher had taken him out of the game.
He should’ve figured as much. Sure, Odus was from Solom, and he had a hand in the wicked past as much as anybody. But he wasn’t a preacher and had no stake in any of the churches. Kelvin was likewise more or less an innocent.
But Odus just plain didn’t like being under the control of another, whether that person was a boss, a court of law, or a sinister spirit back from the grave.
His hands were tied behind him, the baling twine so tight around his wrists that his fingers were going numb. He wriggled them to restore circulation. Something clinked against the toe of one boot, and he remembered the hoof knife. If only he could reach if before he lost the feeling in his hands.
He writhed like a snake, squirming an inch at a time as he worked his way across the coarse grain of the floorboards. His shirt caught on a protruding nail head, and he yanked until the fabric tore and he could continue.
“Mmm-mmmmhhh,” he heard Kelvin grunting, and figured Kelvin was gagged, too. He wished he could explain his plan, but the boy probably couldn’t help him anyway. He was dimly aware of lights piercing the window, but they swept by so quickly that they only caused to further disorient him.
He felt the wooden handle of the hoof knife beneath his knee, and with a few more painful kicks, the back of his hand was abraded by the hooked edge of the knife. He clutched the tool between his thumb and forefinger, a grip so weak that he could barely work the blade at all, much less apply enough pressure to cut the twine. Then he realized he could force the knife handle down between the gaps in the flooring, then work his arms back and forth while putting weight on the blade, he could create some friction.
Never mind that the steel also cut into the meat of his hands and wrists, although the slick blood made it difficult to keep a sense of the blade’s location.
He had to hurry, because an engine roared outside the barn, and he could’ve sworn he heard the insistent beat of horse’s hooves and, in the distance, the gunning of a car engine.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
David saw the lights of the Smith house where he’d eaten dinner the day before, and to the left was the dark structure of the barn.
Ahead of him, seemingly always just at the edge of his headlight beams, was that hellish horse and rider. He hit the gas as much as he could, given the treacherous state of the road and the decrepit condition of Ray’s truck, but he couldn’t seem to close the distance on Harmon Smith. He had an urge to drive the vehicle over both of them, churning Old Saint into psychic glue and grinding the revenant preacher into powder.
He doubted they’d succumb that easily, given their ethereal state, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t feel damned good to try.
Then his headlights caught the woman, Katy Logan, who’d been at her daughter’s baptism that morning and now stood in the path of the Horseback Preacher, who was pounding hell bent for leather straight at her. There was no way David could catch him before the horse reached Katy, so David honked the horn and veered off into the garden, busting through three strands of barbed wire and upending a locust post that speared through the truck’s grill and punctured the radiator. Steam rose in the night as David pitched forward against the wheel, causing the horn to beep yet again.
The headlights lit the barnyard like a spotlight on a surreal stage where a great gray curtain hovered quivering over the finale.
Behind Katy were Jett and three goats, and David could see Katy held a flimsy weapon that seemed impossibly small against the massive horse and rider. But she held her ground.
By the time David staggered out of the truck, Harmon Smith was almost upon her. The rider tugged back on the reins and the horse reared on its hind legs, squatting until its tail touched the ground as its front legs batted at the air. The horse issued a brittle, warbling neigh, and David realized the horse didn’t really look like the Old Saint he’d seen at the Primitive church. This animal’s ears were blunt triangles and there was a white streak along its nose, and its mane was trimmed shorter than the ragged, wild hair along Old Saint’s neck.
And Harmon had also changed—something he’d recognized during the attack on Ray, but had failed to register in the ensuing tumult. The Horseback Preacher was now rounder and shorter, his clothes bulging instea
d of hanging from him like scarecrow rags on a pole, and there were features under his hat—nose, mouth, eyes.
That’s not Harmon.
But before the horse could bring its hooves slashing down on Katy, there was an explosion of movement behind her.
And the screams: Baahhhaaaahhhhaaa.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Katy certainly didn’t open her mouth.
But somehow the goats had heard.
And as they leaped and butted at the frantically whinnying horse, the rider tumbled to the ground, hat sailing off to land at Katy’s feet. She kicked it and realized it was just ordinary felt—nothing ghostly about it.
And the Horseback Preacher cried out in pain as he skidded across gravel. Whatever the unwritten terms of engagement, Harmon was apparently solid, a thing of flesh and blood.
“Mom, what’s happening?” Jett said behind her.
“Harmon’s come down to earth,” she said, striding toward the fallen preacher with the baling hook tight in her palm.
The goats rammed their hard heads and blunt horns into the horse, which backpedaled in dismay, tossing its mane back and forth as it tried to evade the attack. One of the goats clamped its teeth against one of the larger animal’s thighs, sending a red stream running down its leg. With a mighty kick, the horse scattered the goats long enough to sprint toward the pasture, where it leapt the fence and disappeared into the dark.
By the time Katy reached the Horseback Preacher, he was rolling to his knees, whimpering like a child.
He lifted his balding head up to Katy. “I think my leg’s broke,” he whined.
Katy saw the eight-inch blade lying a few feet to his left. And blood clotted along its sharpened edge. “You’re not Harmon.”
“But I want to be.”
A man jogged toward them from the wrecked truck, shouting, “That’s William Edmisten. Don’t hurt him—”
Katy took her eyes from the injured preacher long enough to recognize David Tester running through the swirling haze of the headlights.
“Mom!” Jett cried, and Katy didn’t have time to react before she felt the sharp, breath-stealing slice of electricity penetrate her soul and pin her to the sky.
Edmisten looked up at her with beady, cunning eyes. He tilted back his head and said, “I killed her for you, Harmon. Now bless me!”
Katy felt the baling hook drop from her hand. The ground seemed a hundred miles below her, as if an electric gossamer string was reeling her up into the clouds. Jett wrapped her in a hug, which kept her from fully floating away. But if she was so light, why was she collapsing to the ground?
“Mom!” Jett wailed. “He stabbed you.”
That would explain the river that had erupted.
As she lay on the ground, she had a sideways view of the goats closing around her killer. Jett held her head in her lap, a trembling hand pressing against the Solom-sized wound in her abdomen.
And her last thought was that the horse must have come back, because the hooves sounded very heavy as they approached.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Mom’s hurt bad.
Jett looked wildly from Elder David to the crazy, pudgy man who’d killed her. Kelvin called to her from the barn, but she couldn’t turn around, not while she was trying to stop the bleeding and keep Mom’s head off the dirt.
“You’ll know them by their fruits,” someone said, and Jett looked up. Way up.
The Horseback Preacher—the real one—looked down at her from high in his saddle. He tilted his hat back, and even though the headlights were pointed at his back, she could clearly see his face. It was waxy and cracked and withered, but the eyes were gentle, the mouth tired, the brow furrowed with a deep sadness that spoke of far too many miles.
“I killed her,” William Edmisten repeated, sweat beading his pudgy cheeks. “I did good, didn’t I?”
“Envy grows from a sick tree,” the dead preacher said, his voice hollow.
Elder David, Kelvin, and Odus gathered around but kept their distance, unsure how to proceed. “Damn,” Odus said. “He’s even crazier than I thought.”
Jett couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t think Mom was breathing. “I’m so sorry I ever called you lame,” she whispered. “And I love your spaghetti.”
William Edmisten struggled to his feet, limping as he bowed and clasped his hands in reverence before Harmon Smith. “I’m worthy. I’m a killer like you.”
“You don’t see the difference, because you serve only one master—yourself,” the preacher said. “I kill because there is a time for reaping. You kill because of vanity and ambition and jealousy.”
Despite Jett’s concern for her Mom, she couldn’t look away from the bizarre confrontation.
Edmisten reached for Old Saint’s reins with a blood-stained, pudgy hand. “Give him to me. You’ve ridden long enough. It’s my turn.”
Harmon Smith gave Old Saint an almost imperceptible nudge with his knees, causing the horse to take two steps back.
“You’re right,” Harmon said. “It is your turn.”
As the goats closed in, Edmisten screamed, but he couldn’t escape.
The horns dipped into gore and teeth clacked on bone and hooves ground into flesh.
Harmon Smith dismounted, ignoring the mutilated reverend’s squeals for mercy. Instead, he loomed over Jett and knelt beside her. He smelled of moldy dirt, smoke, and things long, long rotten, but also of a cold winter wind that carried old promises into new seasons.
“I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit,” he said softly.
“My mom—,” Jett said, forcing herself not to sob. This man had baptized her, after all. What more did she have to fear from him now?
But she couldn’t fight back the tears that pooled in her eyes and dimmed her vision. Elder David dared to ease closer, giving wide berth to the gurgling Rev. Edmisten and the determined goats.
Harmon Smith peered at Elder David from beneath the brim of his hat, and then shifted his attention back to Jett. “For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”
“She only wanted to save me,” Jett said.
“We all want to be saved.” The preacher put a hand on her arm, and although the touch was cold, it wasn’t repulsive. He took her hand and guided it to her mother’s fatal wound.
“God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil,” Harmon continued. He kept his palm on the back of Jett’s hand, pressing it against the sticky, cooling blood. “So remove sorrow from your heart. Life is vanity. Love is vanity. Even death can be vanity if it causes a desire for eternity.”
Jett felt a strange, tingling warmth in her hand. It expanded into her arm, and she could’ve sworn her skin glowed. Or that might just have been the halo of the headlights.
Whatever it was, she felt a stirring beneath her, and Mom sighed with a little moan of pain.
You’re alive!
Katy’s heart gave a strong throb beneath Jett’s hand, and then began pulsing, shallow but steady. It seemed to grow stronger with each beat.
Jett gave Harmon Smith a wild, grateful smile, and the Horseback Preacher’s mouth twisted in a grim smile. “Love is vanity,” he said. “But it is the only eternity worth dying for.”
He stood and walked to his faithful horse. The goats, finished with their grisly task, looked on with red, wet mouths.
Harmon whispered something in Old Saint’s ear, and then gave the horse a gentle tap on the rear flank. The horse twitched its tail, lifted its head so that its nostrils sniffed the sweet grass of a far golden summer, and turned and trotted into the mist, the hoof beats fading into soft echoes and then silence.
“I’m ready for that rest I’ve long been promised,” Harmon Smith said, and he walked toward the barnyard gate. Kelvin and Odus stepped aside to allow him a wide berth, and the preacher glanced at neither of them, although he r
emoved his hat and held it to his chest as he passed.
By the time he reached the barn. Katy was sitting up. She blinked and murmured “What happened?”
Jett gave her a tender but firm hug. “Everything.”
THE END
If you enjoyed this book, please write a brief review
on Amazon to help other readers! Thank you.
Look for the other Solom books on Kindle:
Solom #1: The Scarecrow at Amazon US or Amazon UK
Solom #2: The Narrow Gate at Amazon US or Amazon UK
Looking for more ghost fiction?
SPEED DATING WITH THE DEAD
By Scott Nicholson
A paranormal conference at the most haunted hotel in the Southern Appalachian mountains…a man’s promise to his late wife that he’d summon her spirit…a daughter whose imagination goes to dark places…and demonic evil lurking in the remote hotel’s basement, just waiting to be awoken.
Learn more about Speed Dating with the Dead and the 2008 paranormal conference and inn that inspired the novel or view it at Amazon or Amazon UK
Scott Nicholson is the international bestselling author of more than 20 thrillers, including The Home, McFall, Disintegration, Liquid Fear, Speed Dating with the Dead, and the After post-apocalyptic series. His books have appeared in the Kindle Top 100 more than a dozen times in five different countries. Visit his website at www.AuthorScottNicholson.com or his Amazon Author Central page
Sign up for his Tao of Boo newsletter for giveaways and release news.
VIEW OTHER KINDLE BOOKS BY SCOTT NICHOLSON:
Novels
After #0: First Light
After #1: The Shock
The Preacher: A Supernatural Thriller (Solom Book 3) Page 17
