Six Guns Straight From Hell - Tales Of Horror And Dark Fantasy From The Weird Weird West (25 page)

“
Shit, Andy.”

“
I know, I know. I bought it this afternoon, before Father said all those things. How was I supposed to know he would be so dead set against it?”

“
You don’t need it,” Ben said. Already Andy could beat every boy in town at arm wrestling and plenty of the men, too. “Have you drunk any yet?”

“
No.”

“
Are you gonna?”

“
Of course I am. I just got to do it when Father can’t see. In fact -” He took on a look of intense concentration as he worked at the cork; it came out with a faint pop. “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Isn’t that what Father always says? Bottoms up.” He took a swig and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his nightshirt.

Ben watched for several beats of his pounding heart. “Do you feel stronger?”

“
Don’t know. Here, try it.”

Ben took the offered bottle, strangely warm in the cool night. And heavy. Heavier than any medicinal they stocked in the store, as though it were more
there
than those other, mundane things. That made Ben anxious. He had thought he wanted a taste, but now, with the bottle in hand, he hesitated.

He held the elixir down to dog level. “What do you think, boy?” Buddy sniffed and cowered, tail tucked. Ben smelled it himself: minty. “It’s all right. See?”

Buddy curled up in the corner.

Ben handed back the bottle.

“
You always say you want to be stronger,” Andy said. “Now you’re going to let your dumb dog stop you?”

“
He’s not dumb. He’ll eat anything, even stuff that’s not food, but he won’t come near
that
?”

Cowed into silence, Andy re-hid the bottle. He looked a little worried as they both returned to bed.

Ben struggled through the next day. He miscounted chicken-feed bags for Mr. Applewhite and would have been 5 cents short on the till if Mrs. Shane hadn’t noticed the extra change and corrected his mistake. He watched with envy as Andy whistled through the morning, hauling feed sacks and farm tools as though they were half their weight.

Even Andy had faded by dinnertime, and they both retired to bed early. Ben fell asleep as soon as he hit the pillow.

What felt like minutes later, he woke.

Through the window came moonlight and coyote calls. Andy sat on the edge of the bed with his back to Ben.

“
Hey, you all right?” Ben asked.

No answer. From the corner, Buddy whined.

“
Quiet,” Ben told the dog, then jabbed his brother. “You’re dreaming. Wake up.” Still no response, so he yanked on Andy’s shoulders to force him backward onto the sheets, but Andy might as well have been made of stone. “Wake up, you big dummy. Are you playing a joke? Are you trying to scare me? It’s not gonna work.”

Ben yanked again but recoiled when Andy rose to his feet. The movement was stiff, unnatural, like a puppeteer had drawn up Andy’s strings and was leading him toward the bedroom door.

Ben touched his shoulder.

Andy whirled and hissed. His eyes were milk white.

Ben tripped back over a loose floorboard and landed on his bottom. It hurt – both his bottom and his feelings – but he had no time for tears because Andy had headed out the door with strange, shuffling steps. Ben pulled on boots and followed. He stayed a cautious distance behind, past their parents’ room, down the stairs to the store and into the night.

Ever since Ben could remember, folks in these parts lived with the sun. They rose at first light, labored and sweated the day through, and retired soon after the last red-orange rays faded to twilight over the distant mountains in the west. Even the saloon closed at 10 o’clock sharp. No rowdy cowboy town here; order and routine were prized above all else.

Not tonight.

Because out of the pitch black came a horde.

They shambled up Main Street, a hundred or more. Men, women and children with vacant, milk-white stares and clothes soiled and torn. A few wore boots, but most limped on bare feet. One man’s jaw hung unhinged from his face. Another was missing fingers, but someone had done some rudimentary treatment and bandaged the hand.

From the doorways and side streets of Severance emerged more folks to join them. Ben ducked onto the porch and watched: Mr. and Mrs. Applewhite and their children; Sheriff McCoy and his deputies; the blacksmith Mr. Grant, who always had candy for the kids. Men and boys in nightshirts, women and girls in high-necked sleeping gowns with hair braided in plaits over their shoulders.

Ben knew them all, but not like this.

Old Mrs. Hopper took several teetering steps without her cane and fell. Her leg twisted with a snap, yet she made not a sound. She stood on her contorted leg, took a step and crumpled, then tried again.

Watching, Ben shoved a fist into his mouth to muffle a cry. He thought he might throw up.

A rider reined in beside her, one of several herding the legion through town. He wore a black hat and a wool coat with the collar turned up against the night chill.

“
What’s happening here?” he said. Ben knew that voice: Horace Blackburn, patriarch of the most powerful ranching family in these parts.

Horace’s oldest son, Karl, dismounted and knelt beside Mrs. Hopper. “Her leg’s broken, Pa.”

“
Get rid of her then.”

“
Yes, Sir.”

Ben had just enough time to speculate on what Horace meant by “get rid of her” before Karl drew his gun, cocked the hammer and fired. Mrs. Hopper jerked and lay still, while folks walked on without even a glance. One stepped on her neck. Karl grabbed the dead woman’s feet and dragged her clear, trailing blood behind them.

Now Ben did throw up. Afterward, he mustered the courage to peek out again.

Andy was easy enough to spot, mute and slack-jawed behind pretty Emma Pullman. Ben almost called out but snapped shut his mouth before any damning words could escape. Such an action would draw unwanted attention and Andy would not respond, anyway. For once,
he
was the one who needed rescue.

Ben would not let his brother down.

Only, he would have to be clever.

With his best imitation of the shuffling step and vacant stare, he descended from the porch and joined the march.

Beside him shambled a woman whose drool pooled in her mouth until it spilled down her chin. A boy tipped his head back and moaned; Ben saw the stump of a tongue.

Bile rose again, and he managed to swallow it down. Barely. He fixed his eyes straight ahead.

A rider reined in beside him.

“
Hey, runt,” said Tommy Blackburn.

Ben stiffened. Had his ruse been so easily pierced? Or was Tommy taking advantage of what he thought was Ben’s debilitated state? Ignore him, he thought. Keep walking.

“
Hey, pipsqueak, guess what?” Tommy said. “I can do anything to you now, and no one’s gonna save you. You won’t even save yourself, you little shit. I can do
this
.” He kicked, and Ben managed not cry out from the sudden, sharp pain in his shoulder. “And
this
.” Again, and a spur grazed Ben’s arm; blood spurted. “What you gonna do, runt? Not so tough without your big brother to come to save you. Know what, I can do the same thing to him -”

“
Tommy!” Horace Blackburn rode up. “Damage the merchandise and I’ll have you down there with them. They do enough hurt to themselves without your help.”

Tommy ducked his head. “Yes, Sir.”

“
Damn crazies,” Horace went on. “Chewing off their own body parts. How can they work the mines when there won’t be a thing left of them when they get there?”

Ben walked on, but his arm hurt like hell and his legs shook so they might give out at any second.

“
Jesus, look what you did,” Horace said. “Look at his arm. You better take him to the doctor.”

“
Witch doctor, more like,” Tommy muttered.

Horace cuffed Tommy across the jaw. “That man is making us rich. Show some respect, boy.”

“
Yes, Sir.” He dismounted and clamped his hand around Ben’s neck. “Come on, runt.”

Ben had no choice but to go.

The dirigible loomed ahead, light emanating from portholes. Tommy knocked on the hatch. It eased open, a crack of light that grew wider and wider until the door stood open with a shadow man outlined against the brightness.

“
Come in,” said the man.

Inside, Ben’s eyes took a moment to adjust. When they did, he bumbled back until he hit the wall.

Snakes. So many the deck itself seemed to slither. Some thin as pencils, others as thick as a man’s bicep. Most were in enclosures, stacked atop one another, but a few wound around the keel that ran the length of the ceiling. One stretched grandly across a panel of dials, buttons and levers, and another coiled around the spokes of a large steering wheel.

Like any boy his age, Ben had killed his share of snakes, especially ones that sought out the cool under the Feed-and-Farm porch, and he knew the local species well enough to avoid the poisonous ones. One snake did not frighten him. Here, he would have bolted in a second, if only he could.

At the center of this nightmare stood Clark Stanley, who had shed his suit and hat and had rolled up his shirt sleeves to his shoulders. Behind him stood an open cabinet, crammed with jars and bottles. Several bore the familiar brown paper label. Others had no label at all. Ben fixated on one, marked with a single word in big, unmistakable type.

Anti-elixir, it said.

Stanley smiled icily. “Well, what have we here?”

Ben wrenched his gaze from the cabinet, back to the man. A huge snake, bigger than any he had ever seen, was coiled up one of Stanley’s arms and down the other.

“
Oh, shit,” Ben said.

The choking grip returned to his neck. “Don’t be rude to the doctor,” Tommy said.

“
He’s just scared.” Stanley petted his pet’s head. “I have just the elixir to fix that.”

A forked tongue flicked out, tasting scents on the air.

Ben knew: The snake was tasting his blood.

“
No!” he yelled and aimed a kick at Tommy’s crotch.

Tommy hollered. He released Ben’s neck.

Ben ran.

He did not make himself easy prey. Like a mouse stealing across a floor for a pinch of food, he kept quiet and put his small size to use. He darted behind a horse cart here, a barrel there, low in the darkness and trusting it to hide him.

“
Get the kid back here now!” came Horace Blackburn’s yell from somewhere behind him.

Hooves thundered through town.

Ben laid low until the riders had passed before he crossed the last stretch to the Feed-and-Farm. Up the porch steps he went, inside, and eased the door shut. He turned the lock into place with a soft click.

He had done it, slipped through their fingers.

By the moon’s low position, he figured morning was not far off. Soon the sun would rise from the eastern fields, so big and brilliant it might set the wheat on fire. The horde would have to be long gone from Severance when that happened. They would need to avoid towns and farmsteads and the well-traveled roads because no one with a gun and half a brain would let them anywhere near civilization. One look, and any self-respecting town would send out a posse, for sure.

The folks of Severance would have done the same, if only they had known.

For Ben, that meant he must stay hidden for an hour at most before Stanley and the Blackburns would be forced to give up their hunt and move on.

He crouched under a window. While he waited, someone padded down from the family’s living quarters. A long, furry muzzle and lolling tongue came out of the darkness.