Walk the Sky (5 page)

That slow and steady shuffling.
 

“And every night we give them their sacrifice, and they leave the rest of the town alone. It is what the Lord demands we do for the time being, before he delivers us from this evil.”
 

That distant whimpering, sad and pathetic.
 

“After we sacrificed the children, we had no choice but to start with the women.”
 

The whimpering growing more frantic before becoming an unintelligible shouting.
 

“It was difficult for the men to accept at first—even more difficult than it was to accept about the children—but they eventually saw it was the Lord’s will.”
 

That unintelligible shouting becoming a tortuous screaming.
 

“Some of the women tried to flee. They had allowed us to sacrifice their children, but when the Lord deemed them worthy of sacrifice, they became scared.”
 

That tortuous screaming going on ... and on ... and on ... until it became gargled.
 

“We had to track those women down. Some of them put up quite a fight. A few we had no choice but to kill. It was a waste, but they needed to be taught a lesson.”
 

That gargled screaming dimming out like a dying candle.
 

“The others,” the Reverend whispered, “we brought back and had to lock up. And every night, we took one of them out just like your boy. We tied her to the post and waited for the demons to come.”
 

The gargled screaming dimming and dimming, that candle almost burnt out.
 

“Earlier this week we sacrificed the last woman. Except, of course, my precious wife. The Lord has given me permission to allow her to live.”
 

The gargled screaming had stopped but the shuffling continued, Clay now staring past the bars at the window, at the dark night.
 

“After a while, they will leave us. And then the sun will rise on a new day, and we will all thank the Lord that we survived the night.”
 

Reverend Titus Willard shifted on the bench.
 

“Just remember, I gave both of you gentlemen the chance to be a part of this town. I tried to show you mercy, but you wanted none of it. And now here we are.”
 

Clay closed his eyes and saw his daughter tied to that post, screaming.
 

“Tomorrow night one of you will be chosen for sacrifice. If I were you, I would make my peace with the Lord to ensure my soul does not burn in those eternal flames like the rest of those demons.”
 

Clay opened his eyes and stared past the bars into the dark. He heard the Reverend’s words, but he didn’t. All he could hear was the shuffling, that slow and steady and continuous shuffling, all those dozens—no,
hundreds
—of demons outside, searching for a new sacrifice.

part two

POSSE

8.

Sheriff Jeremiah Logan picked up the gold coin off the glass counter of Goodman’s Mercantile and turned it over in his fingers.
 

“They were here.”
 

Fred Bolton stepped up next to him. “How do you know?”
 

Logan held up the gold piece and said, “George Hitchens is the only man I know foolish enough to leave payment for stuff he could just as easily walk off with.” Then he grinned and slipped the gold piece into his vest pocket.
 

Bolton looked uneasily around the store. This was the first town they had come across after a full day of riding, and it was completely deserted, as if the townspeople had just disappeared. The mayor couldn’t recall a time in his life when he’d felt as isolated and alone as he did right now. After the death of his son at the hands of Clay Miller, he’d been so filled with rage there wasn’t any room for the emptiness. But now, here ...
 

“What do you suppose happened to everyone?”
 

Logan shrugged. He absently wiped at the scar across his right check, where a drunk had once slashed him with a broken whiskey bottle just before Logan decked the man with the butt of his pistol.
 

“Don’t know.”
 

“It’s not natural.”
 

“Maybe so, but—”
 

Outside, an explosion of gunfire erupted.
 

Both men quickly turned to the front window of the mercantile, looking out on the street. They had put together a posse of five men to track Miller and Hitchens. Two of the men had dropped out the day before yesterday after one had encountered a rattler that left him with a superficial snakebite. The other three men were supposed to be out front, checking the nearby buildings.
 

“What the hell’s going on?” Bolton asked as the gunfire continued.
 

“Four men, on horses.” Logan drew his pistol, spun the cylinder to make sure there were no empty chambers. “Looks like they ambushed Samuel and Pete. Johnny’s got ’em pinned down from across the street, up high.”
 

“What do you plan on doing?”
 

“Making it a fair fight.”
 

Bolton grabbed the sheriff by the forearm. It was an instinctive grab and as he held it, his fingers began to tremble. Words caught in his throat, and he couldn’t bring himself to look his friend of many years in the eye, especially as the words finally forced their way free.
 

“It’s too late for that. You’ll let them know we’re here.”
 

Logan pulled his arm free from the mayor’s grip and raised the gun in the air. There was an expression of disgust etched in his face that Bolton would never forget.
 

“Please,” Bolton said. “You can’t leave me here.”
 

“No one’s holding you back.”
 

Logan’s body was pressed against the wall, his silver belt buckle buried under the bulk of his gut. He took a slow, deep breath. Then, in a move that defied his overlarge build, he rushed out the mercantile doors, gun blazing.
 

The sound was deafening.
 

Bolton fell back against the wall and did his best to watch the scene unfold through the front window without giving away his presence. His legs barely held him up as he witnessed Logan take out the first man with a shot that hit the man in the back of the head.
 

A spray of blood seemed to umbrella the entire area.
 

Bolton closed his eyes, saw a splash of red against the inside of his eyelids, and heard another shot go off. By the time his eyes opened again, he saw a second explosion of red as Johnny, from up high across the street, took out a second man.
 

In that moment, Bolton felt a spark of hope. Maybe things would go their way after all. Maybe it would all turn out okay and he’d live to see the sun rise in the morning.
 

But those hopes were shattered when the next shot slammed into the chest of his long-time friend. Logan teetered on the heels of his boots before falling backwards into a cloudy plume of dust.
 

Bolton sank to his knees, his legs no longer able to hold him.
 

He heard the scramble of men cross the plank walkway across the street, no doubt heading upstairs to do to Johnny what he had done to one of theirs. And then they would start going through the other buildings, one by one, looking for others. Sooner or later they were going to find him.
 

Oh sweet Jesus, they were going to find him.
 

There was another commotion outside.
 

Even though Bolton imagined they were coming for him, his curiosity took hold and he forced himself high enough on his knees to peer out through the window again.
 

Across the way, two men came out of the building, dragging Johnny by the arms. They dumped him in the middle of the street, where Bolton could see a red, oddly shaped stain on the front of the man’s shirt. It glistened in the sun.
 

Johnny, Bolton quickly understood, had been shot in the gut.
 

“How many others are there?”
 

Johnny lay on his back, in the middle of the street, his eyes tiny slits against the sun. His face wore the pinched and weathered expression of a man not only in agony but fear.

“One last time,” said the man standing over him. He was tall and lanky and redheaded, and he appeared to be the man in charge. “How many others?”
 

Johnny coughed up blood, but remained silent.

“Have it your way.”
 

Redhead cocked his pistol and fired a single shot into Johnny’s right leg.

A jolt shot through Johnny’s body, followed by an agonizing scream.
 

“One more,” he said. “Just one more. Bolton.”
 

“Where is he?”
 

Bolton had witnessed this all from the mercantile window, but the moment he heard his name, panic overtook him. He climbed to his feet and backed away from the window. The shakes took hold of his entire body. He could barely feel his feet under him.
 

What now?
 

What was he going to do now?
 

Hide.
 

He had to hide.
 

Bolton backed away from the window, his mind racing, his heart pounding. The mercantile was a good-sized store. He might be able to find a small space somewhere in the back where he could go undetected, a cubbyhole behind some merchandise or inside an old shipping crate. Or, with a little luck, there might even be an exit in the back.
 

There was room for hope.
 

Not much, but at least a little.
 

Bolton turned to move deeper into the store. As he did, his right knee slammed into the corner of a display table. He muttered, more in frustration than in pain, and tried to save a jar of penny candy from falling off the tabletop.
 

It was a failed effort.
 

The glass jar hit the floor, shattered, and sent a wave of round hard candies scattering in all directions.
 

The sound was loud enough to wake the dead.
 

Every muscle in Bolton’s body tensed and he stood there for a moment, frozen, as if he were eight years old again and hoping no one would notice the roar of the candies if he didn’t move.
 

“The mercantile!” someone shouted from outside.
 

That was more than enough to get Bolton moving again.
 

He hurried across the wooden floor, almost slipping on the candies but managing to keep his balance. He took cover behind a counter near the back just as two men came through the front doors. Bolton couldn’t see them, but he heard their footsteps stop just inside the entrance.
 

Silence.
 

Then, quietly, the footsteps began to move, one pair headed toward the far side of the mercantile, the other pair headed toward his side.
 

Bolton closed his eyes.
 

Seconds passed.
 

The footsteps continued.
 

A boot heel crushed one of the candies.

Bolton kept his eyes closed, praying—
 

please, God, don’t let them find me

—and only opened them again when the hammer of a pistol locked into place.
 

The barrel of a gun stared back at him.

9.

Like every other man, woman, and child who had been placed on the earth, Reverend Titus Willard was a sinner.
 

He had no misconceptions about this. Despite his station in life, despite the extremely heavy burden the Lord had recently placed on his shoulders, Willard knew he was just as sinful as the day he was born. That was why he had to say his prayers multiple times a day, to communicate as closely as he could with God and ask Him to wash his soul clean of the sin that would then begin to build as a new day began.
 

He was not delusional, either. He had seen the look in those men’s eyes last night at dinner. They hadn’t believed a thing he said. They thought he was mad. A lunatic. But they had come to believe him, hadn’t they? Of course they had. Seeing was believing (or, in their case, hearing was believing), but that wasn’t how faith worked.
 

Willard considered himself a humble man. He had always been humble, even as a boy. His father had not been a reverend but a simple farmer, and in the early mornings a young Titus would rise and help his father with the fields. It wasn’t until Titus’s mother died when Titus was eleven that Titus entered a church for the very first time. He knew who the Lord was and had always said his prayers like a good boy, but being in church that day, sitting in the rickety wooden pews among the rest of the parishioners, the young Titus had felt something stir in the depths of his soul.
 

From that day forward he made it a point to attend every Sunday service he could, despite the five-mile walk it took him. He never actually heard God speak to him, nor had he been given any other sign—not like Moses with the burning bush—but the young Titus knew God was there anyway. And so it was no surprise that, when his father died suddenly two years later, Titus abandoned the family farm and devoted himself completely to the teachings of God.