Dark: A Horror Anthology Page 9

  His face was whiter than his collar and by the time I reached him, most of the town had cleared Barrett’s and was standing in the street behind me. Rawls was shoutin’ at them to git but it took a gunshot to get ‘em movin’. Sometimes people need a little motivation when they’re on a bender. But neither the preacher nor his horse registered even a flinch at a gunshot that would have set most horses wild. That’s certainly outta sorts.

  The horse took a few more steps and then collapsed on its own legs. There was a dull thud I could fell in the backs of my legs when it hit the ground. The preacher still sat straight up as a prairie dog until he tipped over and hit the ground beside his horse. Then, what happened next I’d never be able to express in words but the horse went from on its haunches with its head in the dry dirt to a fuckin’ skeleton. The hide seemed ta recede into nothin’ as the muscle and sinew pulled back quickly rending itself from the bone. The blood ran straight down off the beast and pooled into the dusty ground below creating a black pool of sludge before him. Just bone. In moments. The flesh just melted off ‘im like day inta night. Most peculiar and terrifyin’ thing I ever seen. And thankfully, Rawls had managed to steer everyone away by that time. I wouldn’t know how to explain that.

  For a while, that black pool in front ‘a the skeleton was like a reflection of that thing in the sky. That is, until it seeped into the ground, leavin’ only a wet crimson stain where it once was. The wind stopped dead. The dust settled back onto the ground before my eyes and the air was still. I blinked a few times at the horse skeleton before me to make sure I wasn’t seein’ a trick ‘a the eyes. It happens out on the plains a lot but this was somethin’ else. Somethin’ terrible.

  I dove to the ground where the preacher lay and lifted his sweat-beaded face out of the dirt. “Devil!” I stared into his blank eyes and thought it better than to provoke conversation. He didn’t seem like he was able to carry a conversation in the state he was in. Nor was I interested in hearin’ what he had to say after seeing what happened to the horse. His chin was still waggin’ but no words came out. I looked for someone to help pick the preacher up but not even the negro boy was around anymore.

  I picked the poor bastard up out of the dirt and threw him over my shoulder. It was like he weighed nothin’. Much lighter than he looked. Light as a feather, but cold. He was real cold. I took another look at the storm clouds above before headin’ back to the office. It was much closer and much less like clouds than it looked before.

  It inched forward with jutting black arms, pullin’ itself across the sky. A shifting, shapeless thing with a torrent of activity across its huge facade, it looked more like a liquid mass than anything else. Like a black sea in the sky. A black sea over Black Water.

  *

  I should’a been locking the shutters but the black mass over the town was mesmerizin’. It chilled me to the bone in the middle of summer. It was beautiful in a way I’d never experienced before. But I couldn’t stand around doin’ nothin’ all night.

  “What’d you bring to my town, old man?” I shot a glance over my right shoulder to the slight figure on the bed in the cell. He mumbled something incoherently in the dark.

  “Speak up, preacher! This ain’t natural.”

  He sat up on the bed with a new clarity in his eyes. The last of the sunlight through the windows put the shadows of prison bars across his face. I couldn’t see much of him but he appeared to be more coherent.

  “How can I explain what I don’t understand, Sheriff?” He spoke in a cold near whisper. An accent Mason had never heard before was well-hidden but still evident.

  “That’s part of your vocation ain’t it, Preacher Man?” I stepped closer to the cell and spoke through a clenched jaw. “Now loosen your tongue or I’ll show you how I ain’t averse to cuttin’ it off.”

  There was quiet. Dead quiet. There wasn’t nothin’ but my own breathin’ in my ears for what seemed like ages. The preacher sat in complete stillness for a long while before I reached for my knife. That stirred him.

  “My name is Silas Hasse. I was the preacher in Dry Gulch for almost two decades before the events of last month.” His cadence was slow and deliberate. “It was Sunday afternoon and the church was empty after the morning service when a strange man came in. He was in quite a state.”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  “Believe me, Sheriff. I wish it wasn’t.” He continued. “He was asking for confession and when I told him I wasn’t a Catholic priest he confessed anyway.” The preacher stopped to wring his hands, his bony fingers cracking as he twisted them in his palm. It was an eerie noise set against the silence of the evening.

  “He’d come from Massachusetts, he said. It was there that he ran afoul of a most mysterious cult of satan-worshippers. Their idol was fat with the head of a frog and went by the name Tsathoggua. He told me of the strange sacrifice he happened upon but I fear I haven’t the stomach to retell such horrors. His interference, he said, was what set loose this frog-demon.

  “No. Not a demon,” he continued. “a god. An old god.”

  “That thing out there don’t look like a frog to me.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearin’. But he looked so terrified I couldn’t help but go along with it.

  “That is but a servant of the creature. When it is hungry, it demands sacrifice. If no sacrifice is made, it will seek it out by sending one of…those.” His first gesture was a nod towards the window, no doubt referrin’ to the black thing in the sky.

  “What happened to this fella?”

  He winced for only a second before continuing on. His breath was shallow and his speech quickened.

  “He wouldn’t calm down. He just kept on screaming that it was after him. I didn’t know what he was talking about until I saw that thing out there. And by then it was too late.” His accent had begun to betray him. “I thought the answer was in that book he had, but it only confused things.”

  “What book? What happened, preacher?” I was gettin’ angry by that point and he was doin’ his damnedest not to answer my questions.

  “He gave me the book and then he ran. I heard him scream as soon as he left my church but the book compelled me to read. It tells of all kinds of heretical worship of Gods long forgotten by the rest of this blissfully ignorant world. It told me my fate.”

  He stood in the cell for the first time and walked slowly to the bars facing me. The corners of his mouth drew up damn near to his small ears in a terrible grin and he pressed his forehead against one of the bars. His words echo in my head still to this day.

  “Your town is doomed, Sheriff.”

  I unholstered my Colt service revolver and put it to his head. “Where is the damned book?!”

  “In my saddlebag.”

  *

  The thing over Black Water made no sound as it moved through the sky. It deadened the air. My body numbed as I stepped out of my office into the dusty street. The sun had almost fully set and it was getting harder to see it against the darkening sky above.

  It appeared to stop moving as it loomed overhead. Terrifyin’. It just hung over this town like some terrible black hole. That’s almost what it was. In fact, if I couldn’t see it moving and stretching, I’d ‘a thought it was a hole in the universe.

  I slowly moved to the skeleton of the horse in the middle of the road in front of Barrett’s and my entire body numbed but for my teeth. My, did they ache?! I kept my eye on that black mass in the sky as I ran to the fallen horse.

  Even though I’d seen it die under the strangest of circumstances, the events of the evening made the horse’s quick decomposition seem almost mundane. Strange how one day can change your entire outlook. Guess that’s how the preacher felt.

  I stood there watchin’ it. It was right over me, just hangin’ there. It was the most horrible thing I ever seen and yet it was quite beautiful. Like a wild horse bearin’ down on ya. If it wanted to, or if it could, it would have killed me right then. I shook the compulsion to look at it outta my head an
d reached down under the flap of the leather saddlebag. I grabbed the only thing inside: a black, leather-bound book with no markings on its cover. I tucked it under my arm and hustled back to the office.

  The door creaked open and Rawls was standin’ in front of the cell lookin’ at Hasse. The lantern on my desk had been lit and Rawls was illuminated as he spun ‘round on me with his revolver drawn.

  “Kee-rist, Mason! Where in the hell have you been?” He lowered his pistol and holstered it on his hip.

  “Jus’ walked over to the preacher’s horse, or what’s left of it. I was only gone a short spell, quit hollerin’!” I shook off the numbness of the night outside and shuffled towards my desk.

  “Horse shit! I been here an hour at least and you were nowhere to be seen, boss.”

  “Fuck.” How long had I been starin’ at that damned thing? I looked into the cell for Hasse and he was lyin’ on the cot. “Get up!”

  “Good luck, Mason. Preacher man been half dead since I walked in here.” He walked over to the wall cabinet and opened it. “Whiskey?”

  “Yeah. Can’t hurt.” I stared over at Hasse who looked nothing like he did when I left. There was a cold madness in his face when I left and all I saw when I returned was a man getting a much needed rest. I wouldn’t be surprised had he ridden from Dry Gulch to Black Water without stoppin’.

  Rawls took a swig from the bottle and passed it my way. I filled my mouth with the terrible mare’s milk and spat it through the bars at him. He slowly sat up and looked at me as I filled my mouth with more whiskey. That time it was for me.

  “I’m surprised you made it back, Sheriff.” There was a nasty tone to his voice that made me want to thrash the butt of a rifle across his face with every word. I opened the book and stepped forward, closer to the cell. It was written in a language I didn’t know. Like jumbled up words to me.

  I reached through the bars and tossed the book onto the floor beside the cot. “Tell me about the book and maybe I won’t decorate the walls with your insides.”

  He picked it up and flipped through it, not lookin’ at the pages. Just staring off into the wall. “Unaussprechlichen Kulten.” He said. “The Nameless Cults.”

  Hasse flipped to somewhere near the middle of the book and began to recount a chapter about a Hungarian sect who worshipped a black toad god. He described it as a god who waited for sacrifice and fattened himself on offerings he made no effort to receive. After he recounted, he stepped to the bars and whispered its name: Tsathoggua. That may have well been the language the book was written in but it didn’t mean nothin’ to me.

  “How does a preacher like you come to read a language like that?” I asked through a burnin’ throatful of whiskey.

  “It’s German, Sheriff. I came here out of the seminary as a young man from my home country and set up my church in Dry Gulch. It was a town that needed saving and, in the end, I brought it nothing but death.” He seemed quite upset and withdrawn but I needed answers.

  “Why did you bring it here?”

  “Sheriff, I rode hoping it wouldn’t follow and your little godforsaken town just happened to be in front of me. It wasn’t anything personal.”

  “Neither is this.” I grabbed him by the collar and yanked his face in between the bars. He registered terror in his eyes real quick when I put my revolver between his eyes. “The book, Hasse. A madman gave it to you and it’s in your native language. You seem to have the damned thing memorized. I might be quick to use my gun but I didn’t become Sheriff because I was stupid. What aren’t you tellin’ me?!”

  “The cult. The books says that it is long extinct and from a prehistoric age. But the detail in the chapter is more than any archaeologist could gather. And the illustrations –”

  Rawls reached through the bars and snatched the book out of his hands. He opened to the first page and the name Gunther Hasse was second billed.

  “–were drawn by my uncle. A renowned still life artist.”

  “What does it mean, Hasse?”

  “It means the cult was anything but extinct. My uncle could recreate what he saw better than anyone but he was terribly uncreative. He saw these sacrifices taking place. I can only assume this cult and their Old God want nothing more than to be perceived as long dead.”

  I let go of him and holstered my Colt. Rawls offered the book to me and I waved him away. The bottle of whiskey on my desk was lookin’ mighty invitin’. Hasse straightened his shirt up and stood where I left him. Rawls lit a see-gar and smoked in the corner. I took a swig of the whiskey and knocked my knuckles on my desk while I thought about what I’d do next. I swore to protect this town and the people in it and for the first time in thirty odd years of service, I had no idea how to do that.

  “One thing, Hasse.” I broke the silence.

  “Yes, Sheriff.”

  “You said somethin’ about your fate earlier. And that this cult just wants to be left alone. That’s why you got the book and why it’s been chasin’ you ‘cross creation. That right?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Then what’s stoppin’ me from throwing you out to face that thing out there on your own?”

  His face fell. “Your good Christian nature?”

  “Preacher man, I done worse in my life and felt good ‘bout it.”

  *

  The dust kicked up behind him as he stumbled out the door of my office. He hit his knees in the middle of the street and collapsed below the black thing in the sky. I could hear him weepin’ from the porch.

  Just when I thought the night couldn’t get any stranger, the sound of knives cutting through the air filled my ears and something burst out of the belly of that formless beast. In was as black as the thing in the sky but looked like an unnaturally slim fella with wings and a tail. Looked like the silhouette of the devil on a can of chaw. Its tail coiled around Hasse’s waist and he screamed bloody murder as it pulled him into the sky.

  I could hear him screamin’ but couldn’t make out what he was sayin’. Sounded like “No! Not you!”

  Rawls was as shocked as I was. So shocked, his cheroot fell to the ground without him even noticin’. I wouldn’t ‘a even noticed if he wasn’t standin’ right beside me. My eyes were glued to the devil and the preacher in the sky.

  The cuttin’ sound multiplied as tons, hundreds even, of the black devils shot out of that thing and began swarmin’ the town. The screams of the townfolk began and Rawls and I both made for the arms cabinet in the office. I was stopped dead in my tracks, and Rawls soon after, when one of them devil creatures was standin’ at my desk holding the book Rawls’d left there.

  My heart beat quicker’n a jackrabbit and when it pointed at us. It made a deep hissing noise like something in the ground was about to give way. These things were after us too. Just then it occurred to me what Hasse had actually said: “They know! They know too!”

  I drew my Colt from my hip holster and fired two shots into the devil thing as Rawls went for his Winchester rifle. He unloaded a shot of .44 into what passed for the chest of the monster. It shrieked like nothin’ I ever heard before disappearing. The book fell back on the desk and the noise outside got louder.

  Rawls ran to the window and looked down the street. “Church is on fire. People are in the street. Those things are everywhere!”

  I pulled another Winchester out of the cabinet, loaded it and grabbed extra cartridges. I loaded another revolver and tucked it into my belt. “I never met a problem I couldn’t solve with these until tonight. Now that we discovered those things can be killed, it’s time to kill ‘em. Black thing in the sky be damned!”

  Rawls pushed the door to the office open and stepped out with his rifle drawn. I followed suit. The cuttin’ sound grew louder by the second as I assessed my surroundin’s. Where the street had been quiet and damn near a ghost town only moments ago, these black things sure stirred the folks of Black Water. They must’a gone into their homes and chased ‘em out. That I didn’t like.

  I also had
problems with openin’ fire on things with so many of the people I’m ‘sposed to protect runnin’ around. But it ain’t as dangerous as standin’ around doin’ nothin’. Quicker’n I could pull my trigger, gunshots started ringin’ from across the street.

  Eddie Barrett was holdin’ a standoff out the front door of his saloon! I never knew the old buzzard had it in him. I nodded at Rawls who made his way towards Barrett’s to offer support. I just stayed to survey the situation.

  Maggie’s place down the street had them things crawlin’ around the windows. Maggie’s used to be the whorehouse in these parts ‘til one of the whores got gutted. It never opened up again after that. The whores moved on outta fear o’ the men in town I guess. I been to meaner places. Nothin’ much goes on around here, especially after the lynchin’ bee we had with the whore-killer. No one but Maggie and her daughter livin’ there now and they don’t come outta the house much.

  Rawls and Barrett seemed to be holdin’ them things off so I figured I’d round up who I could and bring ‘em to Barrett’s. Should’a stayed there in the first damned place.

  I started runnin’ toward Maggie’s. Those things didn’t really pay me no mind as long as I was movin’. I passed Wells, drunk as a skunk and mumblin’ somethin’ to himself as he walked right down the middle of the street towards the black thing in the sky. Figured he’d either make his way to Barrett’s or right square into his death in the middle of the road. Anyone walkin’ towards that didn’t deserve to be saved. Old drunk probably set the church on fire by accident.

  Passing the church, I could feel its heat comin’ on real strong. I did notice that none of them things were flyin’ round the fire. I could barely stand it runnin’ by.

  As I neared Maggie’s I passed a whole lot of folks runnin’ out of their hotels and businesses. I hollered at them to get to Barrett’s or wait for me to come back. I’m sure they could see by the way I was haulin’ ass that I wasn’t stickin’ around to go into details.

  I was within spittin’ distance of Maggie’s by the time one of those things turned around and looked at me. The light from the burnin’ church illuminated the whole façade of Maggie’s rundown place and gave me the best look at these suckers yet. This one had no face. Or at least no features that I could see. There were tiny little devil horns stickin’ outta the top of its head which just happened to complete its devilish look. It turned around and crawled down the outside wall of the place towards me. Its moves were quick but measured. I’d never seen nothin’ like it before ‘cept maybe when a cat is crawlin’ up on its prey. I saw the other two crowd the window as the other stalked me down the wall. I wanted to blast him with the rifle but I didn’t know if Maggie and her daughter were right behind the wall.