Authors: Michael P. Spradlin
S
haniah had slowly worked her way into the town and spent time on the rooftops of the main street across from the Archaics who stood outside the jail and hid in the shadows of the buildings below her. They did not catch her scent, whether it was because of the stillness of the air, or her position downwind of them. More likely it was because they were still initiates, recently turned and not fully familiar with their newfound senses and powers. Her scent blended with the cacophony of smells they were processing at the moment. Experienced Archaics would have known she was there.
Malachi or his minions had been busy. There were dozens of Archaics in the town. The humans sequestered in the jail were going to die. It was only a matter of time, unless someone came for them in daylight. Then they might have a chance. She had eyed Hollister’s train on her way into town. It might be their only hope.
It had been smart of the humans to hole up in the jail. She had learned humans were excellent at building jails and prisons, and it was probably the most secure building in the entire town. They could make it through another night. The humans inside did not yet understand the Archaics besieging them. The Archaics were consumed by hunger and were using their strength and viciousness to feed. Being recently turned, planning and plotting eluded them in most cases. Now, watching the jail, she knew there were likely no living humans left in the town. The Archaics were gathering where the food was.
She needed Hollister and the man-witch to find Malachi, but for now, it was time to even the odds. The three Archaics in the street died quickly.
W
hen he turned around, it was Top Hat Man who held his neck. The man’s face changed, his eyes went red, and his jaw grew. Hollister watched as the fangs descended from his mouth. Without warning, Jonas was dropped to the ground as there was a loud explosion and the vampire went flying sideways. Chee had shot the man in the head with the Henry and he catapulted off the porch, landing in the street. Of course the bullet didn’t kill him, but he screamed in agony, clutching at his head as he rose to his feet, charging at Hollister.
Hollister drew his Colt and started shooting. Hitting a moving target in the heart is not easy. It requires some luck, but the fourth bullet took the creature in the right spot and he moaned in pain again as he staggered backward and collapsed in a heap of dust, the top hat rolling in the dirt.
Jonas staggered back into the office and slammed the door shut. “Jesus Christ!” he said, trying to calm his breath and keep his heart from slamming out of his chest. He reloaded the Colt, nearly dropping the bullets as his hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
“Please, mister,” he heard a voice behind him, and turned to find Billy’s mother standing there, tears streaming down her face. “You got to help him.”
Hollister didn’t know what to do. His training and instinct told him he needed to go find the boy, but his encounter with Top Hat had left him shaken.
“What’s your name?” he asked her.
“Dowding. Joann Dowding. Please. You got to fetch my Billy,” she said.
“Why did he run away?”
“I don’t know . . . he . . .” she stammered, unable or unwilling to get the words out.
“Because he’s a damn retard,” Rebecca interrupted the woman.
“He is not . . . you leave my Billy be!” The woman started crying again and Hollister didn’t know what to do to make her stop.
“Your stupid retard is going to get us all killed,” Rebecca went on. She was still in her corner, leaning against it. Her eyes were wild and unfocused and Hollister was pretty sure she had lost whatever command of her faculties she might have once possessed. He had seen it happen to soldiers in combat many times. The tense, uncertain atmosphere drove them over the edge.
“If you go after that retard . . . we all . . .” She was cut off by the appearance of Sally, who stepped in front of her, pointing the big Colt at her head.
“Rebecca, you need to shut your hole. You call that boy a name again . . . you open your mouth at all and I’ll shoot you myself,” Sally said.
“You whore! Don’t you point a gun . . .” Rebecca stood up, and while Chee kept his post at the port in the window, Hollister moved to step in. Just as he was about to put himself between them the Colt went off with a loud bang, and the wall next to Rebecca’s head exploded, with wood chips flying everywhere. Rebecca and several of the others screamed. Then it was silent a moment as the smoke cleared. Rebecca stared at Sally and the barrel of the gun, which hadn’t moved, a stunned expression on her face. But the sheriff’s wife was finally quiet.
“I have had enough of you and your mouth,” Sally said. “You’re a bitch and a bully. We are through listening to you. This woman is worried for her child and you’ll not say another word about it. Is that clear?”
“You filthy whore . . .” Rebecca spat, the shock from the gunshot fading.
“That’s right, I’m a whore. I ain’t filthy, but I’m a whore. And I think you know your husband was my best customer. I expect every one of us that has been shut up in this jail with you for the last four days can see why. But I ain’t like you, so I been too polite to mention it. But you say another word about anything, and I’ll go upside your head with this Colt. Do you understand?”
Rebecca had nowhere to go. She was pinned into the corner by Sally. Looking in vain around the room, she tried to find an escape and saw none. Finally she turned and faced the wall, her shoulders slumped, sobbing. Sally lowered the weapon and returned to her spot on the floor, a couple of the younger children scrambling to sit next to her. Hollister decided he liked the fact they had Sally on their side.
He returned to Chee, still at the window, apparently not having noticed the entire episode. Or not caring. Hollister couldn’t decide.
“What are we going to do?” Chee asked.
“I’m going after the kid,” Hollister said.
“I’ll come with you.”
Hollister shook his head. “No. You’ve got to stay here and protect these people. If Billy hadn’t run off, I think we probably could have lasted here until sunrise. Either way, you should be able to hole up here. Once the sun comes up, you double-time it to the train.”
Hollister checked the loads in his pistol. Chee handed him one of his ammo belts.
“All forty-five caliber, so they’ll fit your gun. Those are the bullets loaded with silver and holy water. It will slow them down until you can finish them with wood,” Chee said.
“I can see you’ve given this a lot of thought,” Hollister said, wrapping the belt around his shoulder.
“Yes, sir,” Chee said.
“All right, you have your orders. Try to keep everyone alive. If I don’t come back, send a wire to Pinkerton and have him order the army back here.”
“Sir. You really should let me go with you, I . . .”
Hollister held up his hand.
“Don’t worry Sergeant,” he said. “I think I’ve got some help out there already.”
“You think she can be trusted?” Chee asked. He could not believe the major would be so willing to put his life in the hands of someone he didn’t know. Especially one who was . . . supernatural at the very least.
“She helped us with the Utes, she killed at least three of those critters, and maybe more by now. Something tells me she needs or wants something from us. I don’t know what it is, but if she wanted us dead she would have killed us in Torson City.”
Chee could not argue the point.
Hollister was ready to go, he pulled both of the Colts. He looked at the door a moment, then at Chee.
“One thing, Sergeant. When I come back, if I do come back, you use your coin. First thing. And if I don’t have my coin or if I don’t want to switch ’em with you . . . and I’m not . . . if I’m no longer me, you shoot me down. No hesitation. Do you understand?”
Chee was staring out the port, keeping his eyes on the street. Finally he glanced at the major.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I understand.”
And with that, Hollister disappeared into the night.
B
illy was nowhere to be seen. Hollister had debated bringing one of the lanterns with him, but there was no sense in giving himself away with a light—although he suspected the vampires already knew he was there. He remembered Top Hat and his leap to the roof, so once he heard Chee lock the door behind him, he turned around and backed into the street with both Colts pointed at the top of the building. When he cleared the roof over the walkway, he tensed, but no one appeared there.
He had no idea what to do. These things were so fast he didn’t know where to look first. The moon lighted the street, but there were shadows everywhere and it took every ounce of self-control not to start firing at every flickering image he saw in the corner of his eye.
Where would the kid go? What had possessed him to run in the first place? Maybe he had a father he thought was still out here. Once he was out of the jail, he might have wanted to try and find him. Maybe he wanted to get away from that bitch Rebecca. Kids do all kinds of reckless things.
He slowly moved south along the street, heading toward the saloon. A door slammed and he nearly jumped out of his boots. It had come from up ahead. Could have been the wind, but he doubted it.
He was certain they were watching him now. No way to tell how many, but certainly more than one. There was an alley between the bank and the saloon and he thought he saw movement at the end of it, but he held his fire, reminding himself not to shoot until he had something to aim at. No sense wasting bullets on shadows. Especially when he didn’t know how many of these creatures were out there.
Van Helsing had written that these things turned regular humans into vampires by drinking their victims’ blood, then making the victims drink the blood of the vampires. According to his journal, no one had been able to quite figure out how it worked, but something in the human soul was lost in the transformation. Van Helsing didn’t necessarily believe they were evil by nature, although they had been cursed, it seemed, but rather they were simply made into predators. They hunted and killed, just like a lion or a wild dog.
Reading through Van Helsing’s journal the last few days and having been one of the few humans who had survived an encounter with these creatures, Hollister didn’t believe any of it. They were evil. End of story.
Hollister was not a religious man, though he had grown up in a house run by very devout parents. There was nothing beyond chores and church in the Hollister household when he was a boy. They worked the farm six days a week and Sunday was spent at chapel. His mother and father tolerated nothing else. He remembered the countless hours sitting in the pews of the Presbyterian church in Tecumseh, Michigan, pulling at the starched collar of his shirt. Usually wearing one of his brother’s hand-me-downs, always so tight around his neck he thought he would suffocate.
He’d spent nearly every hour of his days in the house of God daydreaming. Hoping to leave the farm. He wanted to join the army and fight. So he’d never paid much attention to the sermons or the teachings of the good reverend Forsythe who was so old when Hollister was a boy, he and his brothers had wondered if the man might die on the pulpit right in front of them.
He’d been required to attend services at the Point and he’d done his duty. He’d chuckled to himself a few times then, when he’d caught himself pulling at the collar of the dress grays they were required to wear, mimicking the same thing he’d done as a kid.
The truth of it was, none of the religious teachings had stuck with Hollister much, except for one: the existence of evil in the world.
He had seen enough of it firsthand. Men who were born without souls the way some poor child might be born without a hand. They were nothing more than animals, and during the war, Hollister had put down a few. In Leavenworth he’d found even more: men with a gaping emptiness inside where their soul, the human part of them, should be.
That is what these vampires were. Cursed or not, they were evil. Whatever they represented, they would kill as many human beings as they could. And it was his job to stop them.
He stood in the street, the saloon on his left directly in front of him. Going back in was suicide, he told himself. He didn’t know why, but they were in there. At least some of them. And they either had Billy with them or knew where he was. He would keep killing them until Jonas himself was dead, or he found the kid.
Where was the woman?
he thought. Wouldn’t they be trying to draw her out as well? The guns felt suddenly heavy in his hands and he realized he was very tired. Nothing he could do about it though.
He moved slowly forward, the saloon door coming closer. He held the Colt in his left hand straight out in front of him and his right hand was cocked at an angle at his waist. Holy water and silver to slow them down, Chee had said. Wood to kill them. Hollister almost laughed. Chee reduced everything to its simplest terms.
The swinging doors were right in front of him. He couldn’t see inside the saloon—it was too dark and not much of the moonlight penetrated the interior. He could sense the vampires inside now, waiting for him. Slowly he reached out with the Colt, pushing on the saloon door. It creaked on its hinges, sounding as loud as a cannon shot in the quiet night.
He was about to step through when, without warning, he was jerked off his feet and pulled backward into the street.
What the hell?
A
s he flew through the air he had enough presence of mind to hit the dusty street in a roll and come up with his pistols raised. Shaniah stood in front of the door to the saloon, a long knife in her hand. It was dripping with blood that was now pooling at her feet.
Hollister kept the Colts leveled at her.
“If you go in there now, you’ll die,” she said.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance. Again. I’m going to have to ask you to step aside, though. There’s a young boy who has gotten separated from our party and I need to collect him,” Hollister said.
Shaniah snorted. “You mean the little idiot that ran out of your jail in the middle of the night, with the town full of Archaics?”
“Archaics?”
“I’m not sure what you might call them. Vampires, perhaps, which would be a close description but not entirely accurate. The boy is already dead.”
“Oh. Well. That changes everything. Thanks so much for letting me know. I’ll just mosey on elsewhere then.”
Though she had been chasing Malachi for several years now, she always made an effort to keep her distance from humans. The human language was rich in nuance and subtlety, and she could not be sure if the man named Hollister was serious.
“Good. Now since I have saved your life, it would be easier if you returned to your jail. Wait until morning, when it will be safer for you to venture to your train.”
“Sorry, I can’t do that. I need to find the kid.”
“I told you, he’s already dead,” she said, puzzled at why he would doubt her.
“So you said,” he stood slowly, the pistols maintaining their aim at the center of her chest.
“I don’t understand. . . . If he’s dead . . .”
“I’m afraid I can’t just take your word for it. I’m going to have to find it out for myself. Now, I appreciate what you’ve done here and in Torson City. You probably saved our hides with those Utes. But I need to find Billy,” he said.
“If you go into the saloon you will die,” she said.
“Then I guess today is my day for it,” he said. “Now, kindly step aside.” He took a step toward her, holding the guns steady. In reality he was squeezing the handles so hard he wasn’t sure he’d be able to fire them even if he wanted to. She didn’t move, and he was sorry for that as he didn’t know what his next tactic would be. His only hope was that she wouldn’t try to use the big knife on him.
“There are four Archaics inside this saloon. They are waiting for you to come in. You’ve killed two Archaics tonight. That is far more than any single human has done in centuries. You’re too late to save the boy. He has already been fed upon. Walk in this door and you will die. I cannot make it more simple than that.” She watched his face expectantly, waiting and wondering what he would do next.
“I’m still going after the kid,” he said. “Maybe I can save him.”
“He cannot be saved. You can only die,” she said.
He was only a few feet away from her now, and even in the soft moonlight he could see the lines of her face. She was stunning. He knew he needed to focus, but his mind was all jangled up, trying to figure out why she was here. Why she had saved him twice and what her endgame was.
There was nothing else to discuss. He moved to his left to go around her and enter the saloon.
If he had to, he would shoot her.