“That was awful!” Erleen cried.
“No, it wasn’t, dear,” Peter said. “The poor animal was suffering. Mr. King put it out of its misery, is all.”
Philberta tittered merrily. “Bat, bat, come under my hat and I’ll give you a slice of bacon.”
The smack of Agatha’s palm on Philberta’s cheek was like the crack of a whip. Anora gasped. Tyne put a hand to her throat. But all Philberta did was take a step back, and smile.
“You really oughtn’t. That wasn’t very nice.”
“I warned you,” Aunt Aggie said.
“No more of that.” Erleen took Philberta’s hand. “Are you all right? It must have stung something awful.”
“Three little kittens lost their mittens and they began to cry.”
Nate saw the truth begin to dawn on them, saw their shock, their uncertainty. Not a word was spoken as Philberta calmly walked to the rocking chair, picked up her long needles, and resumed her knitting.
“What has gotten into that woman?” Erleen asked of no one in particular.
“Her head was clear for a while, but now it’s clouded again,” Nate said. “She isn’t aware of what she is saying or doing.”
“What makes you say that?” Aunt Aggie asked. “What do you know that the rest of us don’t?”
“All I have is a hunch,” Nate admitted. “But maybe it’s time we found out if I’m right.” He went to the rocking chair. Philberta continued to knit, and hum. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“Catch me if you can, but you can’t get me. I’m the Gingerbread Man, is what I am.”
“Oh God.” Erleen placed her right hand on Anora’s shoulder and her left hand on Tyne’s. “Maybe my girls shouldn’t hear this.”
“Let them stay,” Peter said.
Nate squatted, his rifle across his knees. “You’ve been keeping things from us, haven’t you, Philberta?”
The click-click-click of her needles quickened.
“Don’t be afraid to tell us. We only want to help.”
“Afraid?” Philberta giggled. “What do I have to be afraid of? I am the little old lady who lived in the shoe.”
“What is she talking about?” Erleen asked.
“Those infernal rhymes,” Aunt Aggie said.
“Rock-a-bye baby thy cradle is green.” Philberta stopped and looked at Nate. “My baby died, you know.”
“Yes. I saw you at her grave, remember?”
“A girl. At long last a girl. And she came out so cold and still. I wanted to cry but I laughed. Can you imagine? I laughed and laughed.”
“I am sorry,” Nate said.
“I think that’s when I knew it had me too.”
Erleen interrupted. “What had you? Make sense, will you?”
“Hush, dear,” Peter said. “Let Mr. King handle this.”
“But—”
“Hush.”
Nate was staring at Philberta’s eyes, at her dilated pupils. “You told us that when you first settled here, everything was fine for a while. There were a lot of elk and deer for the supper pot. But the game grew scarce and there wasn’t as much to eat. Isn’t that what you said?” For a few moments he thought she wouldn’t answer.
“Yes.”
“But that’s not the truth, is it?”
Erleen interrupted again. “Are you saying she lied to us? Why on earth would she do that?”
“Consarn it all, Erleen.”
“Be quiet, Peter. I am so confused I could scream. What is Mr. King implying?”
Nate didn’t take his eyes from Philberta, and her needles. The tips were spattered with dots no one else had noticed. Red dots. “I’m saying the game in this valley wasn’t wiped out by hunting.”
“Then how?”
“They killed everything they could catch, didn’t they?” Nate said to Philberta. “And they are still at it.”
“Everything, yes. Rabbits and squirrels and snakes and birds. Deer and elk. Small or big, it makes no difference. They can’t help themselves.”
“Do you know why?’
“He thought he knew but he was wrong.”
“When your family settled here, you ate whatever you thought was safe. Just like you did back in Pennsylvania.”
“Sully watched the animals. He always watched the animals. He saw the squirrels eat pine cones so we ate some. I never liked them. They were too hard. We had to break them open, and there wasn’t much to them when we did.”
“What else?”
“Birds’ eggs.”
“What else? There has to have been more.”
“There were mushrooms.”
“I thought so.”
“Sully picked several kinds. One was white and tasted like chicken. I liked that one a lot. Another looked like a prune or a fig. Eating it made me hot and prickly.”
“Surely my brother knew that some mushrooms are poisonous?” Peter said, aghast.
“Give him more credit,” Philberta said. “None of us died. Not from the mushrooms, or from the thorn apples. Everyone says they are bad, but Sully saw birds picking at them and brought some for me to cook. I chopped them up and mixed them with the mushrooms.”
“Both at the same time?” Nate was appalled. It was worse than he thought. Far worse. And it explained everything.
“What’s wrong?” Erleen asked. “Why do you look as if she just kicked you?”
“Some mushrooms make us sick but don’t kill us. Some do strange things to our minds. They put our heads in a whirl, as the Shoshones like to say.” Nate paused. “In other words, they drive us mad.”
“Oh, no!”
“Then there are the thorn apples. Maybe you’ve heard of them under another name. Jimsonweed. It can be used as a poultice for sore joints. But only in moderation. If taken internally, it twists our minds and our bodies. Our temperature climbs to over a hundred. We become irrational.” Nate looked up. “There is an old saying about jimsonweed.”
“Hot as a fire and mad as a wet hen,” Aunt Aggie said.
“That’s the one.”
Erleen shook her head in bewilderment. “So what you are saying is that the whole family ate the mushrooms and the thorn apples and went stark, raving mad? That it drove them to kill every living thing in the valley?”
“Ask your sister-in-law.”
Philberta was knitting once again, the click-click-click of her needles a counterpoint to the silence that had fallen. All of them were staring at her in mixed horror and sympathy.
“Does this mean Sully is still alive?” Peter asked. “That he is out there somewhere prowling around like some wild beast?”
“Sully is dead,” Nate said. “I saw his body with my own eyes.”
“Then who has been doing all the killing?Sully’s boys? Norton, Liford and Blayne?”
“They have done a lot.” Nate watched the knitting needles. “But I doubt they have done all of it.”
“Who else?” Aunt Aggie said.
“Whoever killed Sully poked out his eyes. That Blackfoot had an eye missing too, remember? Not clawed out or dug out. There weren’t any scratch marks. The eyes were poked out,” Nate stressed. He was tempting death, but it had to be done. He had to know—they all had to know—beyond any shred of doubt. “It would take something long and thin to do that.” He pointed at the knitting needles. “It would take them.”
Philberta shrieked and came out of the rocking chair in a lightning-quick lunge. Even though Nate was expecting it, even though he was balanced on the balls of his feet, he nearly lost one of his own eyes. A needle lanced out, but she wasn’t quite fast enough. He felt stinging pain as the tip dug into his temple. She speared at his other eye and he threw himself backward.
Snarling and snapping her teeth, Philberta swung at the others. Aunt Aggie grabbed Tyne and skipped out of reach. Anora, seeking to do the same, tripped and fell. Peter sprang to help her. Erleen was rooted in shock, her mouth agape. Philberta stabbed her in the neck.
“Erleen!�
�� Peter cried.
Wheeling, Philberta bounded for the front door. Nate grabbed at her but missed. Unlimbering a flint-lock, he thumbed back the hammer.
“Aunt Philberta!” Tyne wailed.
Nate didn’t shoot. He had her dead to rights. All he had to do was stroke the trigger, and he didn’t.
The next instant Philberta threw the bar down and flung the door wide. She glanced back, her face a contorted mask of insanity, an unholy glow in her demented eyes. “Hickory, dickory, dock, the mouse ran up the clock!” she screeched, and was gone.
Nate mentally cursed himself for a fool.
Erleen had a hand to her neck. She tottered as blood seeped between her fingers. “Peter?” she bleated in fright as her knees started to buckle.
Nate went to catch her, but Peter got there in time. He gently carried her to the blankets and carefully laid her down. Aggie and the girls clustered around them.
Not Nate. He ran to the front door in time to catch sight of Philberta as she vanished into the undergrowth. A high, keening laugh wafted on the wind, the sound of lunacy run rampant.
Nate almost went after her. But the family needed him. And he wasn’t sure but that Philberta would lead him into a trap. Her insane sons were out there, and if they could catch him as they had caught Ryker—Nate closed and barred the door.
Tyne and Anora were crying. Aunt Aggie was trying to comfort them. Peter was bent over Erleen, his handkerchief to her neck.
“How bad is she?” Nate asked.
“The needle missed her jugular. She’ll live, but she needs bandaging.” Peter looked over his shoulder. “Do you think my sons are—” He stopped, unable to say it.
Nate could give them false hope, but what purpose would it serve? “They would have shown up by now if they were alive.”
“We must hunt Philberta and her boys down and put an end to this,” Peter declared.
Gesturing at Erleen and the girls, Nate said, “Now would be a bad time to leave them alone.”
“What do we do, then? Stay in here and wait for my sister-in-law and my nephews to come to us?”
“Stop thinking of Philberta and her boys as people. They aren’t quite human anymore.”
“God help us,” Aunt Aggie breathed. “Isn’t there something we can do to bring them to their senses?”
“Not that I know of,” Nate said.
“I refuse to give up hope.” Agatha said. “Some shred of humanity must remain.”
As if to prove her wrong, from the woods outside rose savage howls and snarls.
Ghouls in the Night
Nate ran to the window and looked out, but the things in the trees were too crafty to show themselves. He stayed there while Peter and Aunt Aggie cut a towel into strips and tended to Erleen. She had not let out a peep. She just lay there staring blankly at the ceiling.
Aggie made the girls sit at the table and sip tea. “It will help calm your nerves,” she told them when Anora said she didn’t want any. “Drink it whether you want to or not.” She walked to the window. “Anything?”
Nate shook his head.
“There are some things I’m not clear on. How long have you known about Philberta and the others?”
“It took me a while to put the pieces together,” Nate said. “I suspected the boys when I found their lair. I wasn’t sure about Philberta until she tried to stab me.”
Aggie peered skyward. “It will be dark in a couple hours. Will they come after us?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
Sagging against the wall, Agatha tiredly rubbed her brow. “About Sully. Why did they kill him when he was one of them? Or was he sane?”
“He ate what they ate. Whatever the mushrooms and the thorn apples did to their minds, it did to him, too. But you saw Philberta. They have spells where they seem almost normal. Maybe his head cleared and he tried to stop them. Or maybe they just turned on him.”
“Poor Sully. He never should have left Pennsylvania. All he wanted was a better life for him and his loved ones.”
“The Oregon Trail is littered with the bones of those who wanted a better life,” Nate said. “Some died of hunger and thirst. Some were like Sully and ate things they shouldn’t, or drank tainted water.” He sighed. “It’s the difference between a backwoodsman and a frontiersman.”
“I am not sure I understand.”
“The East has plenty of backwoodsmen. They live off the land, and they live well. And they think that since they can do it there, they can do it out here. But the West isn’t the East. Different animals. Different plants. Different weather. A man has to learn to survive all over again. Once he does, he becomes a frontiersman.”
More howls rent the air. Aunt Aggie stiffened and gripped a red curtain until her knuckles were white. “Listen to them,” she whispered. “I can scarcely believe that came from human throats.”
“A clear shot is all I ask.”
Aggie closed her eyes and bowed her chin. “Poor Fitch. Poor Harper. I loved those boys as if they were my own.”
“You have the girls to think of now. Don’t leave their side. I’ll be too busy to watch over them.”
Straightening, Aggie nodded. “Don’t fear on that score. I won’t lose anyone else if I can help it.”
The next couple hours were nerve-racking. Nate stayed at the window. Peter never left Erleen’s side. He held her hand and stroked her cheeks and tried to get her to say something, but all she did was stare at the ceiling. Aunt Aggie brought out the dominoes, but she had to keep reminding the girls when it was their turn and often they placed a two on a six or a four on a one.
No more howls or others sounds broke the stillness of the forest, not until the sun set and a sliver of crescent moon rose above the high cliffs to cast its silvery glow over the dark valley floor.
Aunt Aggie was lighting a candle when the first cry greeted the moon, an inhuman screech torn from human vocal cords. Soon the night pealed with a hellish chorus that echoed and reechoed off the cliffs until it seemed the valley crawled with the things.
Tyne scampered to Aunt Aggie and burst into tears in her arms. Anora placed her hands over her ears.
Peter glared at the window, and scowled. “I’ll be damned if I will listen to that all night.”
“There isn’t much we can do until the sun comes up,” Nate said. So long as they stayed indoors, the lunatics couldn’t get at them.
“Look at my wife. I think her mind has snapped. She won’t answer me. She doesn’t move.”
“Shock, probably. It might wear off in a while.” Nate was no doctor, but it seemed logical.
Another screech set Tyne to bawling louder.
“Listen to that!” Peter spat. “My own nephews and my sister-in-law! But I swear by the Almighty that won’t stop me from squeezing the trigger. I will put an end to them if it’s the last thing I do.”
Nate didn’t like how Peter was working himself up. “Your wife comes first. She needs you by her side.”
“She doesn’t even know I am here.” Peter slumped in despair. “Sullivan, Sullivan, how could you bring us to this?”
The abominations in the woods soon fell quiet. Nate was glad, but wary. Philberta and her brood might try to get at them. With the door barred, the only way in was the window. But they could only come through that one at a time, and he would shoot the first head that poked inside.
“It’s time for you two young ladies to think about bed,” Aunt Aggie announced. Taking Tyne and Anora by the hand, she escorted them to a far corner. They didn’t protest.
Fatigue gnawed at Nate, but he shook it off. He must stay alert no matter what.
Peter dozed sitting up. Aggie turned in, but the way she tossed proved sleep was elusive. The girls managed to fall asleep, but they would whimper and groan.
Above them, the moon crept across the patch of sky.
Nate found it harder to keep his eyes open. He took to pacing, with frequent glances out the window. He had been at it for more than
an hour when he stepped to the window for yet another look.
Lit by moon glow, the clearing was empty. The woods were a black tangle that hid their secrets. Nate yawned. He glanced back at the others. They were all asleep, even Agatha. The fire had burned low. He turned back to the window, and his blood turned to ice in his veins.
A face was staring back at him. A pale, hideous, sinister face, framed by a filthy shock of black hair and gristle on the chin. The skin was drawn tight over the bones, the lips were thin and bloodless. But it was the eyes that were truly terrible, eyes lit by inner fires that bordered on the demonic. They glared at him with such raw ferocity, it was like gazing into the eyes of a rabid wolf. Only these eyes evinced far more cunning, and wicked intent.
Whether it was Norton, Liford or Blayne, Nate couldn’t say. He suspected it was the oldest. With a start, he galvanized to life and grabbed for one of the pistols at his waist. Suddenly a hand shot through the window and gripped him by the throat. The arm was scrawny, the fingers no thicker than pencils, yet they clamped like an iron vise. Nate could feel his neck constrict as the pressure threatened to pulp his flesh. He grabbed the wrist and pried at the fingers, but it was like prying at metal bands.
The face in the window laughed.
Nate punched the arm. He twisted. He tried to fling himself back. But the madman held on, his fingers closing tighter. Nate’s throat was pulsing pain and his chest hurt. He needed air. He must break free, or die. He struck the lunatic’s elbow, but the hideous face didn’t react. The face. Drawing back his arm, Nate rammed his fist into its mouth. The thin lips split and an upper tooth broke but the mad-man went on squeezing as if he hadn’t felt a thing.
Nate’s lungs were fit to burst. In desperation he tried to rake the lunatic’s right eye with his finger-nails, but Norton—if that is who it was—pulled back. Nate did scratch the eyebrow, though, deep enough that blood flowed.
Norton snarled, and blinked, and his hold on Nate’s throat slackened slightly.
It was the moment Nate needed. With a powerful surge, he broke the stranglehold. In doing so he lost some of his skin. But that was of no consequence. The important thing was to see to it that no one else suffered Sully’s and Ryker’s fates. Molding his palm to a flintlock, he brought up the pistol.
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