A Fistful of Horror - Tales Of Terror From The Old West (26 page)

The man decided it was time to aid the process, and withdrew a small ladies pistol. His shot caught a buzzard squarely in its ribs and the animal fell…only to once more rise and fight.

Brow furrowed, Burgevin unpacked his roll from his ass and withdrew his Purdey rifle from within. It was a fabulous weapon, won from an Englishman months before in a small town just outside of Dallas. And by won, read stolen.

Burgevin aimed and fired, striking another bird squarely in the neck, almost removing its head.

And again the creature rose; its skull lolling against it chest as it stumbled aimlessly among its brethren, its beak opening and closing silently, its vocal chords severed.

Burgevin’s mouth dropped open, and he gazed between the rifle and the vulture a multitude of times. He realized that more direct action would be required.

Grasping a large rock firmly in his pudgy hands, the salesman struggled to where the almost headless bird was running around in a circle. Using his inconsiderable might, he hefted the stone as high as he could – to just below his belly – and dropped it. The vulture was crushed and moved no more, not even when the weight of the rock was lifted.

One-by-one Burgevin destroyed the creatures, sometimes relying on the Purdey to disable the more vociferous vultures before he stoned them to true death.

Eventually all that was left was the cactus, the salesman and a patch of dust that was painted a macabre red colour, and decorated with long black feathers.

He studied the plant. It looked dead, and yet it continued to pump bright green sap from its holes that lit up the small area even as night fell. Burgevin slowly reached out a finger towards it, almost frightened that the lurid liquid would burn him. It was cool to the touch, and tingled upon his finger.

Gingerly, he placed the tip of his tongue into it.

Once, Burgevin had smoked opiates with a working girl in a rat-infested Chinatown. He had chased the dragon all afternoon, and fell into a world of softness and pleasure that had carried him away on silver clouds and into heaven.

The effects of the cactus’ sap were a complete contrast; his body tingled, his mind raced, his eyes widened and he could feel his muscles bunch under his skin in a not-unpleasant manner. Blood pulsed through his body, and the rush he received revealed why the vultures had been so intent upon drinking as much of the sap as they could; it was instantly addictive.

The new and improved Burgevin ran his hands through his hair, the sensation making his nerve-endings dance. He suddenly had the urge to do something, anything, and so he did.

He decided to build a town.

It took him just over a week to ride back to Dallas. Of the population of 700, almost one tenth were immigrant workers and Burgevin managed to convince a tenth of that tenth to leave with him under the cover of night…along with a few carts loaded with timber and building supplies.

As the African, Belgian and Swiss workers toiled to build living quarters near to the cactus, Burgevin created what appeared to be an outhouse around the plant. Within this mock-up shit-house, the salesman squeezed sap from it into small medicinal vials. Storing them on his person he then went from worker to worker, instructing them to drink the potion to combat a cholera epidemic that might be about to spread throughout their ranks.

Burgevin finally had the miracle potion for real, instead of a mixture of cough-syrup, coke and horse saliva.

They drunk. They felt the effects of the sap. They finished building the living quarters before nightfall. Deciding to celebrate, they then built a saloon that night. Once they had toasted their success they realized they needed to build outhouses for the workers themselves.

It took them ten minutes.

Burgevin and the men never slept and their productivity was relentless. The living quarters, saloon and outhouse were then joined by a barbers, general store, stables and a blacksmith. Now he needed more men to staff these buildings and more materials, so Burgevin established a trade route with Dallas.

Each time he sent his workers to the nearby town he instructed them to bring back any tramps or beggars with them. These homeless vagabonds were then introduced to the wonders of the green sap and put to work in the empty buildings while the workers worked.

Burgevin needed more men to build the town he craved.

However, one day a Swiss worker accidentally killed a German immigrant by dropping a bucket of nails on his head from up high as he nailed the face of a clock onto the new town hall.

No one had seen the incident and a vote among the men decided it was murder. Had they looked at it rationally, or had gotten any sleep in the past two weeks then they might have decided differently. As it was, the men’s eyes and bodies twitched as they talked and they hopped from foot-to-foot as they spoke; eager to get back to work.

They hung the man, his neck snapping loudly. The killer and victim were then both buried in a newly marked out gravesite and the men went back to work. An hour later, and both men crawled from their graves; the man hanged for murder climbing back up the clock tower, the murdered man returning to his job nailing wooden posts into the ground below.

Burgevin and the men watched silently, before shrugging and then returning to their own jobs.

Burgevin became the self-appointed sheriff, and his justice was hard and raw. He had not rested for almost a month, and he found himself taking more sips of sap from the medicinal bottles. He was constantly on edge, but the men said nothing for fear of not getting their own daily requirement of cactus-liquid.

Hanging was initially reserved for serious crimes, but soon a man was hanged for fitting a window upside down and the barber was strung up for giving his client the wrong change. They were both buried and then back at work later that day.

The town was becoming more of a settlement and well-worn trails were formed between it and other towns and any travellers that wandered in were ushered to the saloon where they were urged to try the local specialty; piss-warm beer mixed with cactus-sap. One bottle and the new townsfolk were put to work. None complained such was their eagerness to do something around town.

One dark night, the town was besieged by Indians, sensing the town was ripe for pillaging. The men were surprised and many fell under the first onslaught. The Indians did not even bother to round the townsfolk up, simply massacring their way through before raiding the stores and burning some buildings.

Whilst they danced and celebrated, the townsfolk began to pick themselves up. Arming themselves with tools, the freshly dead now took their conquerors by surprise; the site of the bloodied and freshly-dead army stunned the Indians into terror, and they fell under the ferocity of hammers and bare hands. The braver of the Indians fought back and one skewered the local blacksmith on his spear; and yet the townsman kept coming, unheeding of his wound.

Burgevin saw this and watched as many of his men were injured – some suffering what should have been life-ending wounds – and yet they fought on. The Indians fell, some fighting wildly, but the sight of the unwavering enemy filled many of them with terror. Those that did not die, ran. Those who did not run, were made to drink the sap…and then put to work rebuilding the buildings they had damaged.

Burgevin tried to resurrect the dead Indians, but the sap would not pass through their dead lips. They had also lost several townsfolk; each of them having been decapitated. This seemed to put them to permanent death. One of the more resourceful workers even stitched the heads back on and then tried to make them drink, but this, too, failed.

The town rebuilt itself and Burgevin replenished their numbers with waifs, strays and the odd Indian when he sent his own Indian-townsmen out to find them. Their redskin quota grew quickly and it wasn’t long until word spread and a garrison of the American Army arrived to investigate Burgevin, his town and his multi-national workforce.

Burgevin had been prepared for such an event and was awaiting them with a white flag held above his head and several crates of local beer for the parched soldiers.

The town now had a lot more workers.

The town grew and grew and its occupants were so numerous, that when a large caravan or party passed through, Burgevin no longer let them go unheeded. Now he set his town upon them and made them drink the sap. If they did not, they were hanged without having tasted the cactus juice.

Inevitably, someone from an attacked group escaped and spread the word to Dallas and the surrounding counties and soon all trade routes were blockaded. The town was left to fend for itself and, without any of its own natural resources, the men and women began to flounder. Burgevin had no choice but to fuel his town on cactus-sap; a much watered down version due to demand being so high. The poor plant was not producing anywhere near enough resin to feed the townsfolk and, soon enough, it ran dry completely. The cactus seemed to wither and die before his very eyes as the last of its own life-force was rung from it by Burgevin.

Productivity ground to a halt. Without the miracle sap people suddenly began to slow their movements and their frantic work-rate all but stopped. The townsfolk stood aimlessly on wooden sidewalks and in front of unfinished buildings, eyes staring into the distance.

Burgevin watched them, his own mind the last alert one in town as he kept himself topped up with his last medicinal vial hidden on his person. His edginess was at its peak, and he twitched and jerked like a puppet as he frantically wondered what to do.

As he walked past one of his people, he sipped from the vial, and the pungent odour from the sap assailed the townsman’s nostrils. Suddenly he sprang to life, jumping upon Burgevin, knocking him and the vial to the ground; its contents spilling into the dust.

As if heeding some unknown signal the town swarmed towards the juice that dribbled onto the ground. The nearest ones dived upon the ground, stuffing dusty green liquid into their mouths. Almost all of the two thousand townsfolk converged upon the spot, climbing over each other; fighting, clawing and tearing one-another limb-from-limb to get to the life-giving sap.

Burgevin found himself just outside of the mass-huddle, his arm badly broken and swinging as if jointed halfway down his forearm. He did not scream, but instead sat there and watched as a young lady approached him, sniffing at the arm, and in particularly at the blood that dripped from the bone protruding through his skin.

It was a dark-green-and-red colour.

Dabbing her tongue at the blood, her body visibly invigorated and now Burgevin knew fear once more. The woman and townsfolk tore him to pieces to drink at his blood and soon similar massacres were happening throughout the colony, as the unspoken information seemed to pass through person-to-green-and-red-blooded-person.

After a day of infighting, the main street of the town was a sea of limbs, blood and various torsos and heads. Those with limbs still attached crawled through the dust, licking at the blood from one-another, drinking as much of the blood-sap as they could. Those that drank were then killed by those still capable, so that they could feed. The horrendous cycle went on for days, until there were only one or two cadavers capable of movement and blood-drinking.

It was then that the US Army turned up in force, led by General Ben Parker.

“Make a fire and burn these damn body parts!” he bellowed at his men, who rushed to carry out his orders. “Any of these here townsfolk that still have a head attached to their torsos, hang ‘em from the gallows there!”

“Hang them, General?” a particularly brazen officer questioned.

“That’s what I said, boy,” Parker yelled in a voice incapable of operating at a quieter level. “Hang ‘em and then burn them, but make sure you hang ‘em till their heads pop off! Then we’re gonna rename this hellhole as Hangshaw!”

“Hangshaw, sir?” asked the same trooper, unaware that he was about to peel spuds for the rest of his military life.

“Hangshaw!” Parker barked. “’Cos you have to hang these critters fer sure!”

WHERE ARE THEY?

John Pirog

Willoguesby had been such a quiet town until that hot day in July when the vanishings began.

John Baringer, Henry Knox and Clarita Parker all had gone missing over the past four days without a trace. No notes were left behind, family and friends were never notified and no one could recall exactly when they were last seen. When one person in a small town disappears, he ran off with another woman. When two turn up missing, they were probably swindlers or horse thieves. When three people turn up missing and one of them is a woman, folks start to panic.

Sheriff Joshua Davis held one of the posters he had printed only an hour earlier. The still wet ink smudged slightly against his thumb as he gazed at the names of the missing town folk. The sheriff made a speech in the centre of town earlier that afternoon asking for help to search areas around town as well as the nearby hills and desert. Most folks feared the worst but had no idea why such a situation came about. The town blacksmith, Jeremiah Craven, general store owner, Samuel Stevens and horse rancher, George Blackhawk, had volunteered to go with the sheriff and look through some of the gold mines on the town’s outskirts that evening. Sheriff Davis told the town folk that he believed the missing residents were still alive and only being held captive by bandits. In his gut, he had a dread that their remains had been disposed of out in the desert.