Authors: Michael P. Spradlin
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.
H
ollister 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 to 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.
“They do that every night. Get up on the roof and stomp around,” she said.
“Why?” Hollister asked.
“Don’t know. They ain’t tried to break through the roof. Lucinda said it was like they enjoyed hearing us get scared.”
The stomping on the roof continued, then stopped suddenly. Chee was motionless at the window, his rifle up and ready. Hollister went to the iron door and peered through the window. The cell-block was empty.
“Sally? A word please,” he said.
She lowered the child to the floor, patting her on the head and telling her she would be right back.
The young woman approached him at the doorway. The flickering lantern light inside the office made the sudden quiet more menacing somehow. In the dimness he could see the hard years in the lines of Sally’s young face. Hollister was willing to bet life had not gone the way Sally had planned.
“Got a question for you,” he said to her. “This jail, not that I’m not happy about it right this instant, but for such a small town I got to wonder . . . four cells with iron bars and a reinforced door to the cell block . . . a shooters’ port on the front door and window. I mean, it seems like a little bit of overkill. This isn’t a cow town, so you don’t have cowboys to worry about. I suppose the miners might get a little rowdy on payday, but why all the fuss for a small-town jail?”
Sally glanced over her shoulder at Rebecca.
“The sheriff . . . Rebecca’s husband . . . he is . . . well . . . was . . . a hard man. And ambitious. He liked to keep the order. What he said all the time anyway.”
“I see,” Hollister said. “I guess we owe him some thanks. Why does Mrs. Sheriff have such an intense dislike for you?”
“I’m a whore.”
Hollister shrugged. “Seems personal though.”
“The sheriff was also my pimp and my best customer, Marshal.”
“Ah.” He had no further reply.
“How we going to get out of this?” she asked.
“Don’t know yet. But I’m working on it.”
“We been in here four days, Marshal. I hope you come up with something quick,” she said, stepping back to the group and picking up the young girl again. “Your deputy there. He keeps calling you Major. Were you in the army together?”
“Something like that,” he answered.
“Major!” Chee said from the window, as if on cue. Hollister rejoined Chee at the window.
“What is it?”
“Our friend is back.”
W
here there had previously stood three vampires in the street, now there were only piles of ash, slowly blowing away in the gathering breeze.
“Where is she now?” Hollister asked.
“I don’t know,” Chee said. “It happened so fast, I almost missed it. She had a big knife of some kind. She didn’t . . . they weren’t . . .” Chee looked over his shoulder. He wanted to keep his voice down, fearing news of the woman’s appearance would needlessly alarm the women and children. He leaned in close to Hollister.
“What I’m saying is, she didn’t cut off their heads or anything. She just stabbed them and they turned to dust. It happened so fast they didn’t have time to react. She ran up on the roof. It’s quiet up there now. I bet she got the two up there as well.”
Hollister thought for a moment, trying to recall anything about stabbing vampires like regular folks that he might have read in Van Helsing’s journals. Nothing came to him.
“We’ll have to figure it out later. Maybe we can exchange notes if we ever get a chance to ask her—”
He was interrupted by a shout.
“Billy, no!” One of the women screamed. Spinning around, Hollister saw that one of the boys, maybe eight or ten years old, had worked his way close to the door while no one was paying attention. Now he was throwing up the wooden latch and tearing it open.
Hollister was about six feet away and leapt after him, but the kid was small and quick and had the door open. He dashed through it into the darkened street.
“Get back here, kid!” Hollister yelled after him. The boy was fast and he ran across the walkway in front of the jail and down the street. He was about to run after him when from directly above him the man who had jumped on the roof, still wearing his ridiculous top hat, landed on the ground in front of him. Apparently, the mystery woman had missed one of the creatures on the roof. Or she had been killed herself. The thought gave him momentary pause as he tried to scramble backward into the jail, but the creature’s hands shot out and grabbed him around the neck.
He couldn’t breathe. It felt like his neck had been clapped in irons. His feet started to leave the ground as the creature lifted him up in the air. Hollister was only vaguely aware of the shouts and screams of the women and children in the open doorway behind him. He tried to choke out words, but he could not get any air in his lungs.