Blood Riders

by Michael P. Spradlin

“We’ll tell you nothing, you demon,” she said.

  “Ma’am, I don’t know yet what’s going on here, but I’m no demon. My name is Jonas Hollister, a U.S. marshal, and I’m here to help,” he said.

  Everyone in the cells was quiet for a moment as if they couldn’t understand what he was telling them.

  The woman brushed her long red hair out of her eyes and stared back at both men.

  “Liar! You’re demons! And we’ll see you in hell before we open these doors . . .”

  The red-haired woman occupied the first cell along with four children. In the next cell, a small older woman spoke to her.

  “Rebecca. They don’t look like the others. Maybe we should talk to them and—”

  “No!” Rebecca shouted back. “There’s nothing to say. We can last two more days until the train comes. Then we’ll be free of these demons. Help will come. You’ll see.”

  Chee stepped forward, lowering his gun. When he spoke, Hollister almost had to strain to hear him.

  “Ma’am . . . ladies . . . I’m Sergeant Chee. The marshal here is telling you the truth. We’re here to help you. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  “Demon!” Rebecca shouted and spat at him, but she could not garner much energy for it.

  Hollister counted fourteen children in addition to the seven women: three boys and eleven girls. None of the youngsters appeared to be older than nine or ten years old. All of them looked dirty, hungry, and terrified.

  “Rebecca, stop that! If they are demons, they can’t get to us. Let’s hear what the man has to say,” the old woman from the second cell said.

  “What is your name, ma’am?” Chee asked the older woman.

  “Lucinda Hayes. We’ve been in these cells four days now. We’re waiting for the train, like Rebecca said. These demons . . . they come at night. But they ain’t been able to get to us. The men . . . my husband . . . the sheriff and a few others . . . they locked us in here after the first night. Said we’d be safer and they’d try to hold them off. The demons cut the telegraph lines and there weren’t no way to get help—until the train shows up day after tomorrow.”

  “Well we’re going to try to get you out of here,” Hollister said.

  “That’s all right, mister,” Lucinda said. “We got enough water to wait. The children are hungry though . . .” Her words trailed off and she stared at Hollister and Chee with a glassy-eyed and vacant expression.

  “I don’t understand . . . Chee, see if you can get these chains off the doors and . . .” He stopped when Lucinda raised a Colt from the folds of her skirt and pointed it at Hollister’s chest.

  “Mister, I don’t wanna shoot you but I will if you come anywhere near them doors,” she said. The Colt was huge in her tiny hands but she held it straight and steady. Chee had his rifle up and pointed at her chest.

  “Hold on, Chee!” Hollister said. “Ma’am, I think we all need to take a step back here. Don’t shoot. We won’t touch the doors or these chains until we figure things out.” He raised his hands to the sides and stepped back from the cells.

  “I am sorry, sir, but if you come any closer, I will shoot you. We know now it doesn’t seem to kill you, but apparently it hurts your kind. Quite a bit. And we have plenty of ammunition, in case you were wonderin’ . . .” She pulled a box of bullets from the pocket of her dress.

  Chee lowered his weapon and stepped back next to the wall opposite the cells.

  Hollister paced in the tight hallway. Some of the children took up whimpering again, his presence clearly terrifying them. He was stuck and didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t leave them here, and his instincts told him they were all in grave danger.

  Each of the cells had a barred window on the back wall. The daylight was receding by the minute and the interior of the jail had grown noticeably dimmer, even in the few minutes since he and Chee had entered.

  The sunlight.

  “Ma’am,” he said. “These demons as you call them? Have they been coming after you at all during the day?”

  Lucinda lowered the Colt slightly but nowhere near all the way.

  “Why . . . no . . . only at night,” she said.

  “Well we walked in here during the daylight. You must have at least heard our train arriver earlier this afternoon. No one came to greet it. I’m sorry to tell you, but that means either your men are . . . dead . . . or holed up somewhere else in town like you are. But Chee and I, we’ve been here in the daylight for a while now. Doesn’t that show you we’re not one of these demons?”

  Hollister waited. Lucinda kept the gun on him while Chee kept his rifle pointed at her. A shadow passed over the window, darkening the spot of sunlight on the cell floor. The children screamed.

  “They’re back!” Rebecca wailed.

  “Who’s back?” Hollister asked.

  “The demons, Marshal,” Lucinda said quietly.

  A face appeared in the cell window, not human at all, with red eyes and long white teeth. The creature it belonged to made a wild moaning sound, as if it was in pain. Hollister knew the sound: hunger.

  Lucinda aimed at the thing, firing the big Colt. She missed but the face disappeared.

  “God help us,” Rebecca cried again.

  Nothing happened for a second, until a chain came through the window. Hands wrapped the chain around the bars and it went taut. At first there was no effect, then the bars made popping sounds and the mortar around them started to crack. One of the bars came free, and the children and women went nearly wild with fright. Rebecca and a few of the other women had fallen to their knees, clasping their hands in prayer.

  “Get up, you fools,” Lucinda yelled at them. “Children, get behind me. You other women stand up! Protect your children! If you are going to die, you will die fighting!”

  In the chaos of the moment, Hollister decided that he liked this Lucinda an awful lot. Even if she had threatened to kill him. The children in her cell did as they were told, as she moved to put herself between them and the window.

  “Ma’am,” he said. “You’ve got to trust me and Marshal Chee. We need to get you out of here.”

  Another bar in the window cracked loose.

  “Give me the keys to these padlocks and the cell doors! Please!”

  From the folds of her apron, Lucinda handed the keys to one of the boys next to her and he rushed them to Hollister. He started to work at unlocking the fortified cell doors.

  “Chee, cut these ropes,” he said. Chee pulled the big bowie knife from his belt and slashed through several lengths of rope that had been wrapped around and through the bars.

  The entire window in the middle cell exploded out of the frame. Seconds later a man leapt through the window. Chee fired the Henry before Hollister could speak. The retort was deafening. The silver bullet pierced the creature’s forehead and tunneled through his brain. The scream was unlike anything he had ever heard before, like the thing’s body had been dipped in fire. He was catapulted off his feet, his body slamming into the back wall. He twitched and moaned on the ground, but he wasn’t dead. He would heal and come at them again. Hollister had no idea how long it would take, but ended the guess by shooting him in the chest with a wooden bullet from his other Colt. The creature turned to dust after another agonizing scream.

  Hollister threw open the cell doors.

  “This way. Hurry!” he ordered.

  Another creature appeared in the window opening and Chee shot but missed, and it darted away. All the cell doors opened and Hollister drew his pistol.

  “Chee, clear the office. Get everyone in there. We’ll barricade the cell-block door and figure out our next move.”

  Chee stepped forward like a cat, slinging the rifle on his back, pulling a Colt and the discarded sawed-off shotgun from his belt. He threw open the solid iron door to the office and vaulted through it.

  “Clear!” he shouted.

  “Everyone move!” Hollister commanded. The adults and the children scrambled out of the cells and hurried
into the office. Hollister kept his gun up, covering the open window in the middle cell.

  Lucinda was the last one remaining.

  “Come on, ma’am,” Hollister said. “Let’s get a length of this chain. We can use it on the door from the other side.”

  Lucinda was just about clear of her cell when a creature leapt through the window, landing lightly on its feet behind her. It had once been a young girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. It grabbed Lucinda roughly by the shoulders and sank its fangs into her neck. Then it bit its own finger and jammed it into Lucinda’s mouth. All before Hollister could act. They were here trying to turn more humans.

  Lucinda screamed and Hollister remembered the sound his men made as they died on the plains of Wyoming. He shot the girl in the head and the wooden bullet knocked her backward but didn’t kill her. She staggered to her feet, ready to launch herself at him, and he shot her in the center of the chest. At first there was no reaction and the creature stared dumbly at her chest wound. An instant later, she looked up at him screaming in pain and disappeared in a cloud of ash and dust.

  Lucinda lay bleeding on the floor. He tried to lift her up but she put her hand on his arm to stop him.

  “Leave me,” she said.

  “Nonsense. You’re coming with me,” he said.

  “No. I’m gone now. Give me my gun. You go on and save those children. The bite . . . I’ve been bitten and I know what comes next. I saw it happen to my husband and a bunch of others. I’m already dead. Let me kill a few more of them first.”

  “There is no way I’m leaving you here,” he said.

  She fumbled on the floor, her hands searching, and came up with the gun. She cocked the big Colt and pointed it at him, her other hand trying to staunch the bleeding in her neck.

  “Hey . . . easy,” he said.

  “Let me go, Marshal. You can’t help me. Save the others. I’m an old woman. It’s all right to let me die. You need to shoot me. Before I come back and hurt one of those children.”

  “Major!” He heard Chee call from the other room.

  “Right there, Chee,” He answered.

  He was about to argue with Lucinda when, with surprising strength, she dropped her own Colt and grasped his gun hand and pulled it to her chest. Before he could react, she managed to raise her other arm and press his trigger finger.

  Her eyes widened as the bullet entered her chest.

  “What’s your name again?” she asked, gasping.

  “Hollister. Jonas Hollister,” he said.

  “That’s a fine name.” She died on the cell floor.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Hollister backed through the iron door and into the office, slamming it behind him. The door had a small square window in it with bars across its opening. Seconds later a creature appeared in the small window and he fired through it with his pistol but couldn’t tell if he’d struck it or not. The door locked with a metal latch that was screwed to the door wall. He wrapped the chain around the handle and the latch. There was nothing to lock it in place but it would slow them down at least.

  The office was about twenty feet square and Chee stood at the shuttered window, looking out onto the street through a small shooters’ port in the center of it. Hollister momentarily paused to thank whoever had designed and built such a well-secured and fortified jail.

  But it wouldn’t keep those things out for long. Lucinda had said they cut the telegraph lines the first thing. Then they must have concentrated on feeding, picking off the easy prey around the town. Now they were coming for the hard targets. Maybe the longer they were turned the more they were able to control their urge to feed and could plan and act.

  The women and children scattered to the corners as Hollister made his way through them, joining Chee at the window.

  The shadows were longer now and it would be completely dark soon. The moon was rising and a hangnail of it just appeared over the mountains to the southwest. In the street perhaps twenty-five or thirty yards from the office door, three creatures stood staring intently at the jail. One wore what used to be a white apron, now covered in blood, and another still had a sheriff’s badge pinned to his shirt. The third looked like a bum who may have been the town drunk.

  “They been there awhile,” Chee said. “Like they’re trying to figure out what to do next.”

  “You still set on ammo?” Hollister asked.

  Chee pulled back his duster to reveal three full ammo belts over his shoulders and around his waist.

  “Remind me never to make fun of your proclivity for violence ever again, Sergeant.”

  “My what?”

  “Never mind.”

  Hollister jumped, for Rebecca had approached from behind him and was peering out the port over his shoulder.

  “Oh my God! That’s Bob! It’s my husband!” She tried to shove past Hollister, reaching for the door handle, clawing at the wooden timber that held it shut.

  “Whoa!” Hollister said, grabbing and spinning her around in one motion. His back was to the door now. Someone had lit two of the lanterns in the office and he could see the scared faces of everyone in the room.

  “We’re not going anywhere, at least until daylight. We go outside, those things will be on us before we get ten feet. Good as Chee is, he can’t shoot ’em all.”

  “But my husband! He’s the sheriff! He’ll know what to do!” Rebecca moaned and twisted her left hand in the folds of her apron.

  “Ma’am,” Hollister said quietly. “I’m awful sorry for what you been through, but he’s not the sheriff or your husband anymore.”

  She tried once more to go around him to the door and he scooped her up in a bear hug and carried her backward to the center of the room. She kicked and screamed and then stumbled when he let her go, falling to the ground in a heap. She started crying in loud pitiful hiccupping breaths.

  “Stay there,” Hollister said. He rejoined Chee at the window. “Thanks for your help there.”

  “Major, it appeared to me you had the situation firmly in hand.”

  When Hollister looked out the port again, the creatures were gone.

  “Wonder where they went,” Hollister muttered.

  “I expect we’ll know soon enough,” Chee said.

  Hollister studied the group of women and children, many of them now seated on the floor. The children were well beyond terrified and Hollister thought briefly of the little girl who had wandered into Camp Sturgis. How long ago it had been. He wondered where the girl was now and what her life was like.

  The women were nearly beaten. They all had empty, vacant stares on their faces. With Lucinda gone, they were losing hope.

  “Chee, give me one of your Colts,” he said.

  Chee handed over the gun with a slight hesitation, like he’d rather pass a kidney stone than release one of his weapons.

  “Don’t worry, you still have plenty of ordnance.” He held up the gun, checking the load.

  “Can any of you women shoot?” Hollister asked.

  At first no one said anything. Then a hand went up.

  “I can, a little,” a woman said, her voice small and tiny sounding.

  “I’ll just bet you can, whore,” Rebecca muttered from the floor.

  “What’s your name, miss?” Hollister asked, ignoring the outburst.

  “Sally,” she said. She had reddened slightly at Rebecca’s comment, but she recovered quickly. Hollister liked her for it.

  He held out the Colt.

  “You know how to use one of these?”

  She nodded, taking the heavy gun from his hand. Pulling back on the hammer, she pointed it at the wall. “You cock it, then pull the trigger.”

  “Good,” he said. “This gun’s a little different. It’s heavier for one thing, and it’s loaded with a . . . unique . . . ammo—”

  “Don’t you give that whore a gun,” Rebecca said, standing up again.

  Hollister walked over to her, getting into her space and putting his face very close t
o hers.

  “Rebecca, is it?”

  “Yes, my husband is the sheriff here,” she said.

  “Ma’am . . . Rebecca . . . your husband is dead.”

  “No . . . no . . . he’s outside. He . . .”

  “No ma’am, he and all the other men who left you here are either dead . . . or they’re not men anymore. Now we need to stay together here, and keep fixed on getting out.”

  Rebecca threw up her hands and cut her way through the crowd of women and children who were huddled in the corner near the small wood stove. She leaned into the wall and sobbed. One of the other women moved to her shoulder and consoled her, but Hollister thought he saw thinly veiled disgust on the faces of the others, even some of the older children. The sheriff’s wife was evidently not a popular woman, which made Hollister wonder about the sheriff.

  He turned his attention back to Sally. “As I was saying . . . unique ammo. Aim for the chest and keep pulling the trigger until the gun stops firing . . . if you—”

  “Major!” Chee interrupted.

  Hollister went to the window again. The moon was over the mountains now and outside there were now five creatures in the street. The same three that had been there before, another man who wore a black top hat and a woman, dressed in a simple housedress. Across the street, hidden in the shadows of the buildings, were more creatures. Hollister stopped counting when he got to a lot.

  “Dear God,” he muttered.

  “I think God has very little to do with it,” Chee said quietly.

  “What are they doing?” Hollister asked.

  “Nothing. Just watching.”

  As if they had heard him, the man in the ridiculous-looking top hat and the woman took a running start toward the building.

  “Here they come,” Chee said, raising his rifle and taking aim. Before he could fire, the two things leapt in the air, vaulting off the hitching post in front of the jail, and jumped up onto the roof of the sheriff’s office. The noise they made scrambling over the roof caused the women and children to start whimpering and crying.

  “Hush now,” Sally said quietly, picking up a young girl and balancing the child on her hip while she held the big Colt in her other hand.