Dark Tales Of Lost Civilizations (29 page)

Up ahead, ragtime music cascaded through an open window, music that was able to lift and float and fly, a moth on fragile, dusty wings. Its crisp treble sound reached infinitely further than the light which drew his attention, as if he were a winged insect. Dirty piano keys banged out a broken tune, and the sound was comfortable among the stars. They were all in there, this resurrected town, and he would deliver this message to his flock if it killed him.

He readjusted his hat, which no longer fit right. The constant rubbing was starting to chafe a break in the skin over his left brow, which he touched in dismay. He spit into the street, a hard pebble reflected in the moonlight, and he watched, offended, as it sat on the surface of the road, the land unwilling or unable to absorb the life he’d offered. As it was, he was tied to this earth, tethered to the land that held him tight in its fist, but as much as the West wanted to have its way with him, the sheriff knew it wasn’t too late; he still had a job to do.

From his holster, he withdrew his revolver, the standard Smith and Wesson with which he’d been buried, and from his back pocket, he took a dirty red bandanna. He shook out as much dust as it would release, and he gave the gun a thoughtfully-quick polish, carefully rubbing the honed-ivory handle. He finished by shining his badge before pushing open the swinging doors to enter the packed saloon.

The music played on, its upbeat melody overpowered only by the smell that hung in the air. The West with its desert heat was no place for the bodies in this room, and the collective grin plastered on their faces as they turned to him bore the truth—there was still some knowledge inside each of them. Recognition slowly worked its way to the forefront of every slack-jawed grin, each gaping mouth attempting a unified smile.

He stood in the open doorway and tipped the brim of his hat with one-fingered authority, remembering his duty as sheriff to protect his people from the evil in Eden. The music quieted, slowed, stopped. The breathing of the dead had a faint, audible hum which hung in the stale air just beneath the lifeless odor of decay.

His presence alone commanding their attention, the sheriff rocked back on his heels, scanning the room. He cleared his throat with effort, not having used his voice much in the last few days.

“Listen up, folks.”

It was the beginning to every speech he’d ever given this town, hundreds of times over. A long-ago cattle farmer by the name of McCurdy was the first to rise. The sheriff watched him lurch to his feet, watched the way what was left of Ted McCurdy’s face contorted into a misshapen grin as he mouthed what could’ve been “Evenin’, sheriff.” The only sound that passed from the dead man’s lips was a chilling, serpentine hiss.

The sheriff kept his hand on the barrel of his revolver and kept Ted McCurdy in his sight. He’d been the one to pronounce McCurdy and his family deceased just over half a year ago, found dead in their beds from dysentery.

He met their eyes, every one, as they sat at the wooden tables, packing the stools at the crowded bar.

“Townsfolk, listen up.”

Blank eyes stared from gaping sockets. Lipless mouths hung open. There was Max Tillman, who’d owned the local grocery, three years in the ground from a rattlesnake bite. The sheriff had been with Max long before, at the death of his wife from a cancer deep in her belly, and she sat now next to her husband wearing fragments of the decayed dress in which she’d been buried.

He spoke to the McCurdys, and he spoke to the Tillmans. He spoke to all of them.

“What we’ve got here, folks, is some kind of plague.” His voice grated, but he continued. “What we need is to fix it.”

At this, there was an overall hiss of displeasure.
Easy now
, the sheriff reminded himself.
Tell it to them slowly. Let them take it in
.

“My job, as sheriff, is to make that happen.”

The sound of breaking glass drew his attention to a far corner. It was common, the fighting, although what the dead had to argue about, the sheriff couldn’t speculate. He drew his revolver and fired a round into the ceiling, raining down splinters of wood, but the townsfolk hardly moved in their seats.

With the acrid smell of gunpowder in the air, ears ringing, he saw for the first time the way the flesh was peeling from his hand. Bone at the outside of his thumb was exposed, same with the knuckle of his trigger finger, tendons holding the framework together, but for how long? He was their sheriff, and he had a job to do, a responsibility to get these people out of this infected town. They were his to save, and he needed to make it quick.

“Friends, we can’t live like this anymore. This death, it’s not right.”

Behind the bar, one of the Lincoln brothers disagreed with a grunt, but the sheriff continued.

“This town, and we in it, is an abomination. I’m here to issue a warning. Tomorrow at dawn, I will burn this town.”

His voice sounded different, muddled. Cracked.

“Burn it to the very core. Those of you wanting to escape, leave now and walk to the town limit.”

He met their eyes once more, straightened his shoulders the best he could, chest out. “I can’t promise you salvation, I can’t promise what you’ll find, but it’s got to be better than this.”

He looked to McCurdy, hoping for some sign of comprehension, but could read nothing on his old friend’s face. Around the room, the empty stares showed nothing close to intellect. The sheriff stood his ground. He’d never been one for fancy speeches. He waited and watched as, one by one, the light of recognition he thought he’d seen in their eyes flickered out as they slowly resumed their activities: card games in the corner, whiskey at the bar. His speech forgotten, the piano started up again, keys reaching their familiar breakneck speed, and he watched his flock for another minute before he set home to prepare for morning.

The town had other plans.

As he walked down the center of the hardpan street, glass storefronts reflected moonlight from each direction and his left leg began to buckle; a hint of a limp at first, but the more he pushed on, the more focus it took to get his body to cooperate. His frustration grew. Alone, he heard laughter in the wind, coming in off the desert itself, and he was afraid. He paused in the street, looking behind him, still expecting retaliation against the words he’d just spoken to his town,
against
his town, but no one followed.

He looked down at his shirt, still buttoned, and he reached a gnarled finger inside, tracing the empty hole where the bullet had entered just below his ribcage, under a piece of protruding rib. He remembered the pain of his death, his last whispers to his already-dead wife: “Comfort me with thoughts of beyond. Quick—I’m losing grace.” Maybe it had never made sense.

He died in her broken arms, but the town brought him back alone.

Halfway back home, he fell. He hit the ground hard with his elbow, landing on his side, dislocating his shoulder as a result of the fall. He felt the split, although he didn’t want to believe it, but his arm hung loose in his shirt, still buttoned at the wrist. The West was winning.

The wings of a lone crow cut the air above his face, and the ebony bird landed just out of reach, onyx eyes focused on his own. He rolled onto his back and the wind howled, kicking dust and sand out of its way. He could still hear the piano in the distance, thin bones on ivory, and his thoughts started to stutter as his mind turned to ruin. The town lured him instead with its beauty, leaving him alone in the street on his back under the watchful gaze of a million stars, remembering the copper taste of fear in his original death.

The buildings moaned. The wind picked up, and the sheriff handled his revolver as if it was made of glass, but it was his failing body which gave him concern. One arm missing, he tried with everything in him to cock the revolver with his left hand, but his fingers snapped like twigs under the pressure, broken bones like bits of litter in the street.

From a nearby rooftop, a second crow answered the shrill call of the first. The sheriff lay in the dirt, waiting without giving up, but knowing in what was left of his mind that he’d failed and the town had won.

=[]=

The fire started later that night at the ammunition depot and continued into the day, the white-hot sun adding color to the blinding scorch of the town. McCurdy burned the hardware store next, and the bank after that, orange-red flames licking the sky. He remembered what the sheriff had said and, although he couldn’t remember the timeline, he knew he’d done the right thing.

McCurdy watched from a distance, a wide-open grin stretched like plastic over his decaying face, as those who managed to make it over the town line fell to their rightful death as soon as they stepped out of Eden. Others were eventually consumed by fire, and as the town burned, the wind died, too.

McCurdy saw this and was glad, still smiling just before he stepped over the town line, falling in a heap with the masses.

=[]=

Cherstin Holtzman
grew up hating English (to which many a high school English teacher can attest), yet she always loved reading fiction with the stipulation she read on her own terms (which included any dark, speculative fiction she could get her hands on at garage sales, unbeknownst to her mother). After spending three years in the Army, she returned to southwest Florida where she found her love for writing. At 37, she is continuing her education, pursuing a degree in, ironically, English literature. Cherstin has finally settled down enough to earn the title of “wife,” and is happily raising two sons and two dogs.

Matthew Borgard

=[]=

When I read this next story, I was struck first by its raw sincerity.
We Are Not the Favored Children
is provocative and prophetic and just well-written on so many levels. Civilizations may collapse, but so too do gods, replaced by evolving cultures and values. But what falls first, when faith and practicality conflict? Matthew Borgard examines this concept through Mansi’kala, a native maiden, as deities are irreverently replaced in the face of a changing world
. . .
and who are displeased at their loss of veneration.

=[]=

“One of those dwellings, high, high in the rocks, is bigger

than all the others. Utes never go there. It is a sacred place.”

—Acowitz, preceding the discovery of the Ancient Pueblo Cliff Palace, 1885

I found him under the ground, at the bottom of my
kiva
, curled up in a ball. He had carved the words into his own arm, the knife still clutched in his lifeless fingers. Now that Tawa had risen into the morning sky and spread his light across my home, I could make out the message clearly: “We are not their favored children.”

This man was Honovi. I did not know him well, only that he had married Sira not long ago, and they had recently produced a child. I had never once seen him here, in this kiva. He may have worshipped in his own—I could not say. But this kiva was mine, and I had never seen him here.

“He must be buried immediately,” said Honovi’s mother, blotting her tears with a frayed cloth. It was a reasonable thing to ask. He had not disturbed anything, but I could not help but feel uneasy about the message. And why had he bled himself here, of all places, when he could have just as easily returned his water to the earth in his own house?

“Not yet,” I replied.

Honovi’s mother and sister broke into loud weeping at this. My own family looked at me with questioning eyes, but I did not care. This man had defiled my home, and I wanted to know why.

I had requested that one of the cacique’s assistants come to investigate the scene. I did not expect for the cacique himself to appear in my doorway, alone, with none of his usual sycophants. I would have thought Cacique Koa’ki had more important matters to attend to, but I suppose Honovi’s message caught his attention as vividly as it did mine.

“I wish to speak to you alone, Kala,” he said, using my childhood name. Anyone else, even my family, would have gotten a tongue lashing for speaking to me in such a manner. But he was the Cacique, so I ignored the disrespect.

“Of course, Cacique. If you wish, we may speak in the kiva.”

He gave me a slight nod and we descended the ladder into the prayer chamber. The paintings of the
kachina
spirits eyed us as we entered. At the bottom, Koa’ki touched one knee to the ground and brushed his fingers against Honovi’s arm. I peered over his shoulder. Even though the dried blood blurred the edges of the symbols, Honovi had carved into his flesh deep enough to retain the meaning.

“It is as you said.” Koa’ki placed his hand over Honovi’s face and lowered his eyelids.

“Did you think I had lied?”

Koa’ki stood, brushing the dirt from his robes. “No. Of course not. I apologize. You should not have been involved in this. The gods have used Honovi to send me a message.”