Blood Riders (17 page)

Chapter Thirty-four

A
s he stepped toward the bar, the major with his rifle up and ready standing at the wall to his right, Chee felt each step was bringing them closer to their ends. The woman, Shaniah, was coming soon. He was sure of it. Since they had left Torson City, every time he looked over his shoulder, he expected her to be there. Chee knew that the Deathwalkers could be killed. But the woman would endanger them somehow. He could not explain the feeling and had quit trying. It was just something that was given.

He raised the Colt, his arm straight and the gun cocked and ready. There was a large mirror over the bar and he kept his eyes locked on it, watching behind them. Moving left toward the stairway, he approached the open end of the bar and swung around, bringing the gun down toward the floor, ready for anyone who might be hiding behind it.

The man had been dead awhile. He wore a white apron with black pants. The front of the apron and his white shirt, was covered in blood. His neck had been torn apart and his face was covered in flies. A small sawed-off shotgun lay on the floor beside the man; four empty shells showed he’d gone down fighting. But not well enough.

“I’ve got a body here, Major,” he said. “He’s been dead a couple of days at least. Shotgun, it’s been fired.” Chee set his Henry on the bar and picked up the sawed-off. He racked it open. It was loaded with two unfired rounds. He slid it into his belt with a feeling he’d be firing it before too long.

Hollister came around the bar at the other end and stooped to examine the body. “Jesus Christ,” he mumbled. “All right, let’s check the rest—”

Hollister was interrupted by a loud thump coming from the room above them.

“Did you hear that?” Chee asked.

“Yeah,” Hollister said, standing and looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t like this. We get halfway up the stairs and something comes out of one of those rooms, we’re fucked,” Hollister said. “I don’t want to go up there without more firepower. Let’s go back to the train and get the Ass-Kicker and Dog. He can give us a better idea what’s up there. We know what we’re dealing with now and we’re going to need the—”

From outside a loud scream sounded. It lasted several seconds before fading away. Hollister couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like a woman. It was a long, eerie wail, more like anguish than alarm, and Chee and Hollister moved quickly, rushing back out into the street, standing back to back, circling slowly with rifles at the ready. It was quiet again.

“You got any idea where that came from?” Hollister asked.

“No, sir, none,” Chee said.

“You don’t have some kind of fancy shaman way of figuring it out?”

“I’m not a shaman, sir,” Chee said, embarrassment creeping into his voice.

“Sergeant Chee, I meant no offense. But you
do
talk to your horse and your dog. I just figured you had a way of sensing this kind of stuff. All right. We’re going to have to do this the hard way. It sounded to me like the scream came from a ways off. We’ll start at the end of this side of Second Street. We’ll clear the buildings one by one and work our way back. We’ve got maybe an hour to sundown. Quick and careful. Let’s go.”

Chee had no other suggestion, so they began their search starting at the end of the street and entering the last building, where the board sidewalk ended. Hollister studied the building itself while Chee kept an eye on the street behind them. It was getting late and the sun was balanced at the top of the mountains to the west.

The first building appeared to be some kind of laundry. It was empty, as was the next and all the buildings on that side of the street. There were no people to be found, not even bodies, but all the signs said the residents of Absolution had left with little warning or preparation. In the back of the laundry a meal had been left to burn on the cookstove, though the fire had long since burned out. Everywhere they went, there was evidence of life interrupted. Dish tubs filled with dirty dishes, pots left on stoves, uneaten meals left on dinner tables.

It took another half hour for them to clear all the buildings on Second Street. Turning their attention to First Street, they headed toward the building with the “office” sign. Upon closer inspection, they discovered the sign had been broken in half, and upon entering, learned they had found the sheriff’s office. And it wasn’t empty.

Standing there, letting their eyes adjust to dim interior, they heard muffled voices and cries coming from the back. Carefully they made their way to the door and threw it open.

Neither man was prepared for what they saw. Four cells with iron bars lined the back wall of the jail. Inside the cells were several children and women. When they saw Hollister and Chee, they started to cry and scream. The women—there were seven of them divided among the four cells—moved to put the children behind them, out of reach of anyone who might try to grab them through the bars. Each cell door was wrapped with rope and chain as if someone had sought to make sure no one could get out.

Or in.

“Get away from us, you devils,” one of the women shouted, shaking her fist at the two men. All of them took up the chorus then, shouting and even cursing at Hollister and Chee.

“Quiet!” Hollister shouted. “We’re not devils, we’re here to help you!”

His words had no effect. They kept shouting and waving their arms. Some of the small children started crying. It was dank and cramped and smelled horrible, and Hollister, for the life of him, couldn’t figure out what they were doing here.

“Hold it . . . calm down . . . stop shouting!” he yelled. After a few moments the fire went out of them and the women stood looking exhausted and defeated while a few of the children continued to moan and cry. The smell hit him then, the harsh and gamey odor of human beings forced to live in conditions like this.

“My God,” he said. “What happened to you?”

The woman in the first cell who had led the yelling when they first appeared crossed her arms and stared defiantly at Hollister.

“We’ll tell you nothing, you demon,” she said.

“Ma’am, I don’t know yet what’s going on here, but I’m no demon. My name is Jonas Hollister, a U.S. marshal, and I’m here to help,” he said.

Everyone in the cells was quiet for a moment as if they couldn’t understand what he was telling them.

The woman brushed her long red hair out of her eyes and stared back at both men.

“Liar! You’re demons! And we’ll see you in hell before we open these doors . . .”

The red-haired woman occupied the first cell along with four children. In the next cell, a small older woman spoke to her.

“Rebecca. They don’t look like the others. Maybe we should talk to them and—”

“No!” Rebecca shouted back. “There’s nothing to say. We can last two more days until the train comes. Then we’ll be free of these demons. Help will come. You’ll see.”

Chee stepped forward, lowering his gun. When he spoke, Hollister almost had to strain to hear him.

“Ma’am . . . ladies . . . I’m Sergeant Chee. The marshal here is telling you the truth. We’re here to help you. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

“Demon!” Rebecca shouted and spat at him, but she could not garner much energy for it.

Hollister counted fourteen children in addition to the seven women: three boys and eleven girls. None of the youngsters appeared to be older than nine or ten years old. All of them looked dirty, hungry, and terrified.

“Rebecca, stop that! If they are demons, they can’t get to us. Let’s hear what the man has to say,” the old woman from the second cell said.

“What is your name, ma’am?” Chee asked the older woman.

“Lucinda Hayes. We’ve been in these cells four days now. We’re waiting for the train, like Rebecca said. These demons . . . they come at night. But they ain’t been able to get to us. The men . . . my husband . . . the sheriff and a few others . . . they locked us in here after the first night. Said we’d be safer and they’d try to hold them off. The demons cut the telegraph lines and there weren’t no way to get help—until the train shows up day after tomorrow.”

“Well we’re going to try to get you out of here,” Hollister said.

“That’s all right, mister,” Lucinda said. “We got enough water to wait. The children are hungry though . . .” Her words trailed off and she stared at Hollister and Chee with a glassy-eyed and vacant expression.

“I don’t understand . . . Chee, see if you can get these chains off the doors and . . .” He stopped when Lucinda raised a Colt from the folds of her skirt and pointed it at Hollister’s chest.

“Mister, I don’t wanna shoot you but I will if you come anywhere near them doors,” she said. The Colt was huge in her tiny hands but she held it straight and steady. Chee had his rifle up and pointed at her chest.

“Hold on, Chee!” Hollister said. “Ma’am, I think we all need to take a step back here. Don’t shoot. We won’t touch the doors or these chains until we figure things out.” He raised his hands to the sides and stepped back from the cells.

“I am sorry, sir, but if you come any closer, I will shoot you. We know now it doesn’t seem to kill you, but apparently it hurts your kind. Quite a bit. And we have plenty of ammunition, in case you were wonderin’ . . .” She pulled a box of bullets from the pocket of her dress.

Chee lowered his weapon and stepped back next to the wall opposite the cells.

Hollister paced in the tight hallway. Some of the children took up whimpering again, his presence clearly terrifying them. He was stuck and didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t leave them here, and his instincts told him they were all in grave danger.

Each of the cells had a barred window on the back wall. The daylight was receding by the minute and the interior of the jail had grown noticeably dimmer, even in the few minutes since he and Chee had entered.

The sunlight.

“Ma’am,” he said. “These demons as you call them? Have they been coming after you at all during the day?”

Lucinda lowered the Colt slightly but nowhere near all the way.

“Why . . . no . . . only at night,” she said.

“Well we walked in here during the daylight. You must have at least heard our train arriver earlier this afternoon. No one came to greet it. I’m sorry to tell you, but that means either your men are . . . dead . . . or holed up somewhere else in town like you are. But Chee and I, we’ve been here in the daylight for a while now. Doesn’t that show you we’re not one of these demons?”

Hollister waited. Lucinda kept the gun on him while Chee kept his rifle pointed at her. A shadow passed over the window, darkening the spot of sunlight on the cell floor. The children screamed.

“They’re back!” Rebecca wailed.

“Who’s back?” Hollister asked.

“The demons, Marshal,” Lucinda said quietly.

A face appeared in the cell window, not human at all, with red eyes and long white teeth. The creature it belonged to made a wild moaning sound, as if it was in pain. Hollister knew the sound: hunger.

Lucinda aimed at the thing, firing the big Colt. She missed but the face disappeared.

“God help us,” Rebecca cried again.

Nothing happened for a second, until a chain came through the window. Hands wrapped the chain around the bars and it went taut. At first there was no effect, then the bars made popping sounds and the mortar around them started to crack. One of the bars came free, and the children and women went nearly wild with fright. Rebecca and a few of the other women had fallen to their knees, clasping their hands in prayer.

“Get up, you fools,” Lucinda yelled at them. “Children, get behind me. You other women stand up! Protect your children! If you are going to die, you will die fighting!”

In the chaos of the moment, Hollister decided that he liked this Lucinda an awful lot. Even if she had threatened to kill him. The children in her cell did as they were told, as she moved to put herself between them and the window.

“Ma’am,” he said. “You’ve got to trust me and Marshal Chee. We need to get you out of here.”

Another bar in the window cracked loose.

“Give me the keys to these padlocks and the cell doors! Please!”

From the folds of her apron, Lucinda handed the keys to one of the boys next to her and he rushed them to Hollister. He started to work at unlocking the fortified cell doors.

“Chee, cut these ropes,” he said. Chee pulled the big bowie knife from his belt and slashed through several lengths of rope that had been wrapped around and through the bars.

The entire window in the middle cell exploded out of the frame. Seconds later a man leapt through the window. Chee fired the Henry before Hollister could speak. The retort was deafening. The silver bullet pierced the creature’s forehead and tunneled through his brain. The scream was unlike anything he had ever heard before, like the thing’s body had been dipped in fire. He was catapulted off his feet, his body slamming into the back wall. He twitched and moaned on the ground, but he wasn’t dead. He would heal and come at them again. Hollister had no idea how long it would take, but ended the guess by shooting him in the chest with a wooden bullet from his other Colt. The creature turned to dust after another agonizing scream.

Hollister threw open the cell doors.

“This way. Hurry!” he ordered.

Another creature appeared in the window opening and Chee shot but missed, and it darted away. All the cell doors opened and Hollister drew his pistol.

“Chee, clear the office. Get everyone in there. We’ll barricade the cell-block door and figure out our next move.”

Chee stepped forward like a cat, slinging the rifle on his back, pulling a Colt and the discarded sawed-off shotgun from his belt. He threw open the solid iron door to the office and vaulted through it.

“Clear!” he shouted.

“Everyone move!” Hollister commanded. The adults and the children scrambled out of the cells and hurried into the office. Hollister kept his gun up, covering the open window in the middle cell.

Lucinda was the last one remaining.

“Come on, ma’am,” Hollister said. “Let’s get a length of this chain. We can use it on the door from the other side.”