Get Back On The Horse

More a literary than a literal horse. I’ve never ridden a horse and that’s unlikely to ever change. This latest stream of consciousness concerns my fiction writing or lack thereof.

It’s been a hell of a long time since I’ve put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, to be more precise), for anything much and even longer since I’ve written any fiction. I seem to have been stuck in something of a rut and it usually takes me a while to realise I’m in a rut, then a little while longer to get myself out of it.

I’ve been spending the bulk of my spare time playing Xbox and PC games and watching TV. These are both fine ways to fill time, but as with all things, moderation is key, and I haven’t been moderating myself.

The Warhammer Old World has been conquered several times over and my little Minecraft person has built a lot of nice things in survival mode. Unfortunately as nice as the sense of achievement is from these things, it doesn’t actually get me anything concrete.

Very much the same can be said of telly viewing. I’ve cleared a lot of films, TV shows, and documentaries this year, but what do I have to show for it? Of course, the answer to this is, not a great deal.

Both gaming and watching TV are important to me and I would miss them if I just cut them out of my life. The thing is though, I don’t need to, because it’s perfectly fine for me to take these things in, just in much smaller chunks. This has always been a problem for me and I need to get to grips with it if I want to get out of my rut.

Prioritising writing over gaming, or TV is the way for me to do this. Block in writing time and make sure I get some words down before I jump on the Xbox. This is obvious and something I should have been doing all along. I’d like to give a long and winding reason as to why I haven’t been doing this blindingly obvious thing, but I could furnish you with nothing more than a vague shrug.

NaNoWrimo is looming large and I want to participate again this year. If I’m going to do that, it would be of great benefit if I had shaken the cobwebs off a bit beforehand though. Besides, I’ve got ideas rattling around in my head and they’re no good to anyone there. I really should jot them down before they disappear into the ether.

Have a great day folks, and as He Man once said. “I have the power!”

The Last Gunfighter

Ringo’s Schofield clicked on an empty chamber, and just like that, he was dead.  There was no time to reload, or even a last word; they gunned him down before he could even duck behind cover.

He been the best of them.  Everyone had thought Ringo was invincible, sometimes even Ringo himself; now he was dead, and Joe was the last man standing.  He wasn’t going to die here, not if he had anything to do with it, it would be pointless.  The last wagon full of townsfolk had rolled out nearly fifteen minutes ago.  Maybe if he could get to the horses and could catch up with them?  It wasn’t more than a sliver of hope, but it was all he had.

He loaded his shotgun with the spares he kept in his pants pocket, the bandolier long since exhausted.  If he could get to the horses there was plenty more in his saddlebag, but until then he’d have to make every squeeze of the trigger count.  Steeling himself, he leapt from behind the water butt he’d been sheltering behind and ran across the street as fast as his legs would carry him. He slowed only to shoot the nearest of the bandit things, as it came a little too close for comfort.

The abominations weren’t human.  Joe knew there were some strange things out there these days, but these were some of the most deadly and downright unsettling sons of bitches he’d ever seen.  Deadly enough to take down some of the fastest, most dangerous guns he’d ever rode with.

It wasn’t just the fact that they were faster, tougher and seemingly tireless; or that they didn’t always stay down when shot, but the way they looked, the way they moved, it just wasn’t right.  It was difficult for him to get straight in his head, but they sometimes seemed to move without covering the distance they’d just travelled, and their limbs jerked erratically, as if they struggled to control their own bodies.

The most unsettling thing of all though, were the eyes, or lack thereof.  The eye sockets of every single one of these bandits were empty; empty and emitting an unwholesome grey, green smoke.  How they could see was a mystery to Joe, but not only could they see, they could shoot and shoot well.

After dodging down an alleyway he was now sprinting parallel to main street, willing the stable to come into view, expecting to be shot in the back with every second that passed.  He was gripping his shotgun so tightly that his knuckles throbbed; his life depended on the powerful weapon and he was convinced he would drop it.

Running past Doc Coffey’s place, Joe was almost stopped in his tracks by a hail of gunfire from one of the bandit things that had managed to get ahead of the main group.  How it had missed him, he had no idea, but he wasn’t going to make the same mistake. He skidded to a halt, kicking up dust as he did so, pivoted on the spot and blew the things head off, even as it jerked and juddered towards him.

Joe planted the but of his shotgun on the ground and leaned hard on it for a moment and sucked down lungs-full of air and tried to catch his breath.  Hearing a crash from the street, he got moving again, not daring to linger any longer, despite his near total exhaustion.

‘Almost there.  Get moving you worn out old bastard.’ He growled to himself.

Working himself up to his new top speed, a slow, but steady trot, he reached the end of the row of buildings and the stables hove into view.  Unbelievably they looked clear.  Realistically he knew it didn’t matter how they looked, there could be a dozen of those things in there and he wouldn’t know until he came close enough for them to shoot him to death.

There was no choice, there was nowhere else to go, so keeping up his pace, Joe made for the stables, crossing into the open, exposed street.  His skin crawled with apprehension.  Every step he took towards the building and the hope of salvation, he expected to be his last, the shooting would start, and he’d go down in a hail of bullets.

Upon reaching the stables alive, he breathed a sigh of relief and muttered a quick prayer of thanks.  He wasn’t an especially religious man, but he was happy to throw out a quick prayer if it’d keep him alive a while longer.

Leaving the big double doors shut for the moment, Joe crept in through the small, man size side door that was off to the side and was pleased to find that all appeared to be well.  The horses were skittish, sure, but that was no great surprise really, given the things that were in town.

He went straight to his own mount, Welwyn, a massive, ill tempered brown stallion and was immediately glad to see that the horse was still saddled.

Opening the gate to the stall, Joe led Welwyn to the big doors and unbarred them as quietly as possible.  He took a deep breath, threw them open, hurled himself into the saddle and urged Welwyn onwards.  He took a last look at the stables behind him and felt a pang of guilt at leaving the rest of the horses penned in like that.  There was no choice though, if he lingered long enough to free them, then he’d become a permanent resident.

Shots rang out, all at too great a distance to be unduly worried about.  They’d almost caught up with him.  He spurred Welwyn to a gallop and found the brute only to happy to oblige; it seemed his horse wanted to get out of town as badly as he did.

He was almost clear of the town when one of things appeared almost from thin air, to stand right in his path, firing fast, and without hesitation, emptying its gun in his direction.  A bullet scored a red-hot line of pain across his ribs and another holed his hat, but the rest missed.  Before it could reload, or move out of the way, Welwyn barrelled into it and trampled it underfoot.

“Good boy,” he told the horse.

Stealing a quick look at the town receding into the darkness behind him, Joe let out a breath that he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.  He was away.  He had no clue how he’d survived and he didn’t care; he had survived, and that was all that mattered to him at this moment in time.

It was dark, but the road was easy to follow.  It was well travelled, so he reckoned he’d have to try damn hard to lose it.  The townsfolk didn’t have an insurmountable head-start and If he rode hard, he could probably catch up with them in an hour or two.  They’d no doubt be glad of an extra gun and he’d certainly be glad of the company.

The Saga of Berit Christendottir

The last creature went down with a vicious slash to the neck, and not a moment too soon.  Berit was exhausted and she wondered, not for the first time today if she was getting to old for the life of a sell-sword.  Sorely in need of a breather, she slumped against the rough wall of the cave and wiped the ichor off her broad bladed short sword, on a rag tucked into her belt.

She couldn’t keep this up.  The day had been one long running battle, and now she was the only one left.  Egil and Erik had gone to the Allfather, the brother’s selling their lives dearly in the cavern down below.  Berit had tried to fight her way to the pair, but there were too many of the goblin things and after the pair had been overwhelmed retreat had been her only recourse.

A hissing sound came from the direction of the cavern.  That was all the rest she was getting; it was time to move.

Berit moved through the cave at a steady jog.  In part to maintain what little stamina she had left, but also because visibility was poor, and she had no intention of being finished off by a broken ankle.  Egil had been carrying the lantern, and all she had to light her way was the glow-stone set into the bracer that protected her off-hand; that and the vague luminescence of the moss that seemed to grow all over these tunnels.

The tunnel sloped upwards, she hoped that was a good sign.  This was not the way they’d entered the cave system, and for all she knew, she could be heading into certain death.  Stopping for a moment, Berit held her breath and listened.  The things were still behind her, that disconcerting hiss dogging her every step, but that wasn’t what she was listening for.

She was about to give up, but then she heard, and felt the slight whisper of a breeze.  Her heart leapt, and she started to move again, hope refreshed.

It was mere seconds before she heard the hissing of the things in the tunnel ahead and Berit knew she’d tarried too long.  Somehow, they’d managed to find a way around her and they now they were in front of her, as well as behind.

“Berit Christendottir is not dying today, you Hel spawned sons of whores,” she cursed at them, before raising her blade and picking up speed as she moved towards the enemy ahead of her.

She threw herself around a corner, ready for the fight she knew was coming and crashed into the leading edge of the enemy advance party.  She’d badly misjudged their position, the unpredictable acoustics of the caves making the things sound further away than they were.

The glow-stone on her bracer flared up and knocked the creatures back with a mighty concussive blast; saving her life for the second time today.  Before the goblinoid abominations could recover, she was on them.  Momentum was her only ally.  The things were small, weak and poorly equipped, but they vastly outnumbered her and if she gave them even half a chance, they would overwhelm her, just as they had Egil and Erik, no matter how skilfully she fought.

Berit stabbed one through the neck, just as it was staggering to its feet, the broad blade almost decapitating it.  She backhanded another with her off-hand as it desperately threw itself at her, catching it in the chest with the full, devastating impact of her bracer; she finished off the twitching, gasping goblin thing with a kick, caving in its skull with the impact.

On Berit went, slashing, stabbing, kicking, punching.  She opened one of them up from groin to collarbone, spilling its reeking guts onto her feet before pivoting and taking off the arm of another with a vicious chop.

It was like scything wheat.  They were collapsing before her onslaught, with almost half of them dead or dying in less than a minute and she was beginning to feel invincible.  It was as if the power of the Allfather was flowing through her.  She should have been exhausted but she felt invigorated. She shouldered into a small knot of the goblin things as they were trying to form a flimsy shield wall.  Scattering them, she killed anything within arms-reach; this wasn’t a fight anymore, it was a slaughter, and her foes turned and fled the charnel-house that the tunnel had become, disappearing into the cracks and crevices that were all over these caves.

Berit moved forward, not even stopping to sheath her sword.  She had felt this unnatural vigour many times before and recognised the first signs of it fading from her limbs.  In mere minutes it would be a struggle to keep moving, so great would be the feeling of exhaustion.  She needed to get out fast.

She could feel the breeze in her skin now and could see the first hint of daylight.  Using the last of her ebbing strength, Berit staggered forward and into the light at the end of the tunnel.

The End

They sat on the field, watching the massive vessel strain skywards from the launch site, far away, across the river.  It looked kind of like an over-sized version of one of the old space shuttles, and in fact it was doing the same job, at least in part.  People were being blasted into space on the things, they just weren’t coming back.

Roger and his brother Dave had been watched a lot of the ship launches from this spot.  At first in the hope of being one of the lucky few to win a seat on one of the large space-craft; but as the chance of that dwindled away to nothing, they came just for something to do to pass any spare time they had.  They didn’t have as much of that anymore either, spare, or otherwise, with every moment measured against a ticking, literal doomsday clock.

“I was thinking.  There was a time we could’ve done this whenever we’d wanted and not just whenever we could find the time.  We used to have all the time we wanted.  We would’ve bought a cheap bottle of pop and sat here all day, setting the world to rights and talking a load of rubbish,” Roger mused.

“What? Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

“Never mind, it doesn’t matter.”  Roger took no offense at this, Dave meant nothing by it.  He was easily distracted and always had been.  So much so in fact that it was sometimes possible to ask him something and for him not even to be aware of anybody talking to him.

“That was the last one Roj, they said so on the news.”

“There’s still the ones in London and Manchester, Dave.”

“Won’t be finished in time.  They’re just saying they will be on the news to stop people from giving up.  So everything keeps ticking along until the last possible second.”

“You’re probably right,” Roger conceded.

“I’m not going back to work tomorrow.  I can’t think of anywhere I’d want to be for my last couple of weeks, less than that place.”  Dave stated this in a simple, matter of fact way, that brooked no argument.

“It’s okay Dave.  You’d be working for nothing anyway; we’re not going to be around long enough for you to get paid for the hours you’ve already put in.”

Dave gave an emotionless little chuckle at this statement of cold fact.  Then just sat staring across the river, to the now empty launch site.

The asteroid had been discovered almost five years earlier, and at the time hadn’t been taken too seriously.  It was one of those filler stories that would crop up from time to time.  The type that would say how big it was, how much of a chance it had of hitting us and how much damage it would do, backed up by a sentence or two from the first expert they could find.

It turned out to be bigger than the one that took out the dinosaurs, was almost certainly going to hit us and as far as damage went, it was a world ender.  When these facts emerged, things went off the rails for a few days.  Riots, violent crime, apathy; all the sorts of things you’d expect to see in the large and impressive end of the world films.

After a few days everything just kind of drifted back to the regular routine; not quite normal, but at least the appearance of it.  It was almost as people didn’t really know what to do about it, so they took solace in the comfort of familiarity.

There was talk of a global effort to divert the asteroid and there were indeed some promising ideas along that line, even a grand gesture or two, but the spirit of cooperation didn’t last long.  Even in the face of annihilation the governments of the world couldn’t help themselves and ended up reverting to type.

So it was that everyone went their own way, and commissioned whatever project they imagined would best serve their own corner of the planet.  Most of the plans focused on trying to blow the asteroid to smithereens, building large bunkers, or gigantic spaceships.  America decided to go with a combination of all three, and although they’d failed to blow it up, in quite spectacular fashion, they had sent a lot of people into space, and dug a lot of big holes in the sides of mountains.

Most of the plans to blow it up had already failed, with only the EU having a last-minute plan in their back pocket; nobody, Even the member states of the EU itself had much faith in it though.  This massive global failure was why the two brothers were sitting in a field, staring down the end of the world.

“Even those knobs on the spaceships are probably doomed.  They’ll probably outlive us for a while, and I know they’ve got all sorts of mega ideas about how they’re going to survive when they get to Mars, but realistically they’re as buggered as the rest of us,” Dave stated.

“Yeah.”

“It’s not fair.  Things were just starting to turn around.  Decent job, quids to spare, and all that jazz, then the world decides that it’s going to end.”  Dave said, as if the asteroid was coming to personally ruin his day.

“You’re not wrong.  It’s going to end for everyone though, not just us.”

“No need to be a dick about it,” Dave chided, “you know what I mean.”

Roger knew he’d struck a nerve.  Dave was right, he had known what his brother had meant, and had decided to be awkward and intentionally misunderstand his meaning.  This in mind, he decided it was probably for the best to change the subject, and looking skyward, there was only one subject that sprung to mind.

“I know it’s going to kill us all in a couple of weeks, but that doesn’t stop it from being impressive to look at,” he said of the world killer that was looming large in the sky, even during the hours of daylight.

“Yeah, it is impressive,” Dave agreed, before pausing for a moment, as if readying himself to say something important.  “What really pisses me off though, other than the whole dying thing, is the lack of pop.  Everything’s running out and I could kill someone for a bottle if Irn-Bru.”

“There’s still those couple of cans of Caffeine free Diet Coke in the fridge that I managed to grab from the shop,” Roger said, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

“I said I wanted pop, not a can of carbonated piss.  If you’re trying to cheer me up, you’re doing a rubbish job.”

As much as he was trying to maintain his grumpiness, he did feel a bit better.  In fact, their brief, and only semi-serious spat had taken his mind off the larger situation for a moment, and he was certainly grateful for that.

“Let’s go home Roj.  I’ll let you cook my tea; it’ll be just like old times,” he said, with a smile.

Roger simply nodded, standing, with a bit more difficulty than he had when they’d been younger, and took one last long look around the tree bracketed field.

“Right.  Let’s go,” he said.

Ghoul Town

Sadu hurled himself through the door to the laundry, nearly knocking Charlie to the ground in the process.  He quickly checked that there was nobody else behind him and slammed the door.  Just in the nick of time as it turned out.  It had barely closed before one of those creatures hurtled into it with the force of a locomotive.

“Shit Charlie, you sure can move for an old guy,” Sadu said with a breathless chuckle.

“I’m barely more than ten or fifteen years older than you, you cheeky sod,” Charlie retorted.

“Ghouls then Charlie, they’re ghouls, right?

“Looks like it.  I’d have taken almost anything over ghouls; dirty feckers they are.”

“Bunton wasn’t like this a week ago.  It seems like the sort of thing we’d have noticed.”

“You know what Sad’s, you’ve got a nasty habit of stating the bleedin’ obvious you have.”

“Just saying is all Charlie.  Who’s still alive? I know there were more folks than this when we started running away.”

“We didn’t run away, we withdrew,” the Irishman admonished.

Charlie scanned the room, taking the faces of all the survivors in, and not liking what he saw.  Between the surviving Bunton townsfolk and the railroad guys Sadu and himself had rode in with, there’d been a dozen of them not more than five minutes ago, and now, including the two of them, there were seven people left.

“We’ve lost a few.  A couple of the railroad fellers, and some townsfolk.  Don’t worry though Sads, your friend Foreman Doug, the massive racist survived.”

The man had been a thorn in Sadu’s side since they’d met up with the railroad men the previous day, and the problems had peaked this morning, with the two men briefly coming to blows.  The foreman was not a nice guy, Charlie and Sadu had seen his sort many times, and suspected him of some nasty stuff.

“Hey Doug.”  Sadu waited for a moment to make sure he had the foreman’s attention.  “Want to head back out and look for survivors?  I’ll keep you cover.”

“You’d like that wouldn’t you, you Chinese bast … “

Before Doug could finish, Sadu hurtled across the room, and backhand clubbed the man with the barrel of his massive hand-cannon.  The surviving railroad men moved to help their foreman.

“Don’t.” The menace in Charlie’s voice was enough to stop the men in their tracks, even without the gun he was pointing at them.

“Assholes like you are just about stupid enough to think that’s an insult, and not smart enough to know that your wrong!” Sadu shouted in the man’s face, before clubbing him again, as he began to struggle.

“I’m Japanese, shit-heel.”  He kicked the foreman in the ribs as he was trying to struggle to his feet, and the man found this to be something of a hindrance to his efforts.

This distraction took attention away from the window for just a moment too long, and the one of the ghoul’s took advantage of the lapse and hurled itself through the window, in a shower of flying glass and window frame splinters.

It landed, with a clumsy sprawl in the middle of the room and spun around, momentarily disorientated.  Then the moment passed, and it lunged at the prostrate Doug, and bit into the man’s left arm.  The foreman made a weak attempt to fend off the attack, but the creature just grabbed at his arm, bit off two of his fingers and gulped them down.

Two gunshot’s, deafeningly loud in the confined space of the laundry boomed from Charlie and Sadu’s revolvers, and the ghoul collapsed to the floor like a ragdoll, blood oozing from the creature’s wounds and mixing with that of the unfortunate Doug.

Doug’s subordinates rushed to help him, reassuring the man that he was going to be just fine, while trying to deal with the injuries to his arm.

“We need to go.  There’ll be more of those things any minute and I don’t want to be here when they come through that window.”

As if to illustrate Charlie’s point, Sadu’s gun gave off two loud reports.

“They’re coming right now Charlie.  I think the horses might still be alive.  These smelly bastards have been focused on us.”

“What about him Sads,” Charlie nodded at Doug.

“Leave him.  He’ll slow us down, and I’d sooner leave the worthless waste of skin to distract them, than risk getting torn apart in the street, trying to get him out with us.”

Charlie looked out of the window and snapped off a shot, blowing one of the things off it’s feet, before turning back to Sadu and nodding grimly.

“Let’s go folks.”  Charlie headed for the back door with the two surviving townsfolk, leaving Sadu and the railroad men.

“You can come along, or stay with him, they’re your only choices.  He stays here.”

The two men abandoned their foreman, their paid for loyalty having obviously reached its limit.  Sadu made to leave with them, then thought better of it and paused for a moment, looming over the dying foreman.

“You can run, but if you try to follow us, I’ll shoot you,” he said, then turned and left.

 

 

EPILOGUE

 

The horses had still been alive and all the remaining survivors, barring one of the railroad men had escaped with Charlie and Sadu.  None of them saw Doug again, but Sadu had been certain he’d heard one panicked shout before he’d left the laundry behind.

“What do you think happened to Doug?” Charlie asked, knowing full well what had happened.

“I think he stayed for dinner Charlie,” the big man said, totally deadpan.

“Sads mate, that’s bloody awful.  Probably too soon as well,” Charlie said, with a smile on his face.

Small Town Troubles – Part Two

The small group, consisting of himself, Deputy Figgis, Chuck, from the Zindall ranch and Lucy Randall had been away from town for a day and a half now, and Lukins was getting saddle-sore and ornery.  None of the others seemed to be in any hardship, but none of the others were his age.  Closest was Chuck Zindall but even he was only tickling fifty, almost ten years his junior.

Their time had been spent looking at dead cattle, talking to angry ranchers, Chuck Zindall’s older brother Harris among them and getting spooked in the night, which had resulted in them gunning down a cactus.  Amongst all this, Deputy Figgis had somehow taken a bullet to the hat.

Lukins had no intention of spending a second night with nothing but sky over his head and was more than a little eager for the comfort of his bed.  With this in mind, he told the group that they’d be heading back to town before nightfall and he wanted whatever this turned out to be dealt with before then.

“What if isn’t dealt with?”  Deputy Figgis was a simple man and often needed things spelling out for him.

“Figgis, it’s going to be dealt with.  I’m not inclined towards spending another night shitting in bushes and sleeping on the ground, that’s for young fellers like yourself.  If I need to blame these cattle killings on you, then I will,” Lukins told him.

All the cattle they’d looked at had been badly torn up, with some parts missing, mainly internal organs.  Lukins wasn’t sure who’d first started it, but late last night someone had started talking about the Chupacabra.  He didn’t believe in it, nor did he believe in werewolves, ghosts, or necromancers and all the other nonsense he’d heard about since the collapse.  Folks liked tall tales and he reckoned that’s all there was to it.

They were at the last site; the last he was planning on seeing at any rate.  It was the same as all the others.  Torn up cows and a big damn mess.

“I’m telling you all, it’s the Chupacabra,” Figgis raved.

“It’s not the Chupacabra.  The Chupacabra isn’t real, and even if it was, we’re too far from the border,” Lukins told his Deputy.

“Texas is right next to Mexico, and we’re in Texas,” Figgis told him, as if he was imparting a fact that Lukins, up to this moment had not been aware of.

“I know where I live Figgis.  Texas is a big place and yes, Texas is next to Mexico, but Texas is big and we ain’t that close to the border here.  If it’s the Chupacabra, then he’s lost,” Lukins said sharply.

“Could be coyotes?”  Chuck Zindall ventured.

“Probably is,” Lukins agreed.

“Maybe someone should dig that moat across the border that Caruthers from the General Store’s always saying we need.  That man sure don’t like Mexicans,” she said with a smile, “probably blame ‘em for Chupacabra’s too.”

“That’s enough joshing.  We’ll set some traps, lay some poison, Figgis here will come back tomorrow, and sure as sunrise we’ll find Coyotes,” Lukins said, his tone not brooking any discussion.

It didn’t take more than half an hour to lay the traps and poisoned meat.  Lukins was glad to have it done, so he could get back to Town and the bed he was yearning for.

 

 

EPILOGUE

 

The creature watched from the concealment of a nearby cluster of rocks.  It had been disturbed and was eager to get back to its kill.  It was constantly on the move, trying to find some territory where it would be safe.  There hadn’t been much of that so far, the people were everywhere and there was respite from their constant hounding of it.

Life had been good for the creature south of the border, unfortunately a little too good.  There were too many of its kind now and they had needed to spread out.  Some went south, and others had gone north and after a while the creature had found itself in North America.

Borders and countries meant nothing to them.  The Chupacabra had an intelligence above the common beast, but it was still just an animal and the United States was no different than Mexico, merely a fresh hunting ground.

The people rode away and the Chupacabra went to finish with its kill.

Small Town Troubles – Part One

Lukins sighed.  Ignoring the ruckus outside wasn’t going to be an option for much longer.  It had started out with one particularly salty guy remonstrating loudly, then a small crowd had gathered, arguments had started, and now someone was going to ruin his afternoon, sooner, rather than later.

Being the sheriff of a place like Barkers Town was usually a relatively easy job.  It was only a frontier town on paper, the silver rush, some ten Years ago had moved the frontier on a great deal.   As such, it was a nice civilised place, with little of the nonsense that affected those places further west.

As if on cue, the door was thrust open and one of the Caruthers boys from the General Store burst into the Sheriff’s Office like he’d been fired out of a cannon.

“Sheriff, those folks outside are blocking the front of the store and Pa said to fetch you.”

Lukins merely nodded and stood up, both of his knees giving a mighty crack, with his back joining it in protest.  He adjusted his gun belt until it sat comfortably, dropped his hat onto his head and strolled wearily out of the office.

“Bill Caruthers,” he said to the teenage boy who had ruined a perfectly good day, “what have I told you?”

The boy looked at him dumbly, no doubt attempting to remember which of the many things he’d been told was the thing that was applicable here.  He took a moment too long and Lukins sighed, shaking his head.

“This office is a place where myself and two well-armed deputies work, bursting as you did is liable to get you shot one of these days and your Pa would be none too pleased about that.”

“Yes sir, sorry sir,” the boy said, as he turned and dashed back to the store, job done.

The disturbance now seemed to consist of roughly a dozen people, some of whom were known to Lukins, some not.  They seemed to be getting angrier with every passing minute and if they weren’t dealt with, they would cause a great deal of trouble.  After three fruitless attempts to make himself heard, he lost patience, drew his revolver and fired two shots into the air.

This had the desired result but did cause old Sam Barnes to faint from fright; he hadn’t been the same since that thing a while back.  Two well intentioned ranch hands spirited the unconscious man away to the saloon for a small glass of liquid courage.  Lukins ran a hand through his well-kept grey beard and took a deep breath before addressing the group.

“Okay now.  You’re mostly sensible people, so I know, that you know, that I can’t be allowing a rumpus within Town limits.  So why doesn’t one of you tell me what this is all about.”

This didn’t work quite the way he intended.  Lukins had barely finished speaking, before everybody started trying to talk over everyone else, trying to tell him what had happened.  It was usually the way and he should have seen it coming.

“Shut your pie holes.  When you’re all yammering at the same time I can’t understand a word of it.  One at a time.  Lucy Randall,” he said, pointing to a burly woman in work pants and a plaid shirt, who looked as if she wrestled cows to the ground for fun.

“This fella says he knows stuff about the cattle killings,” she said, pointing at the source of the kerfuffle.

The feller in question was a stranger in town and was a wiry little man with a face like tanned leather.  He took this as his cue to speak and slowly nodded his head.

“Reckon I do,” he said, pausing for so long Lukins was beginning to wonder if he was going to say anything else.

“Rode out of a Town a hundred and some miles West of here about two Weeks ago.  Mayhaps you’ve heard of it and mayhaps you haven’t, Steers Gulch,” the man eventually said, before pausing again.

Lukins had heard of Steers Gulch.  He’d never been there, but a few people from town had and a few people from there had been to Barkers Town.  Folks didn’t travel as much as they did before the collapse, but some still got about.  He didn’t believe a lot of what he heard from these brave souls, but there was a lot more trouble out there, banditry, murder and such like, than there had been in kinder times.

“The cattle killin’ that you folks have got here.”  He paused again.  Lukins was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with the man.  “They had that there.  Then there was a fever that went through folks and whittled the place right down to a handful.”  Again, a pause.

Lukins decided that there probably nothing wrong with the stranger.  He was probably just one of those lonesome drifter types, who moved from place to place and spent so much time alone that they weren’t used to conversing often.

“I wasn’t sticking around to get whatever was doing for folks, so I lit out of there, and now I’m here.”  He said this in a tone that told everyone that he’d just told the tale all too frequently and had no desire to tell it again.

“What’s your name stranger?” Lukins asked.

“Marv, why?” the man asked defensively.

“Because I’m the Sheriff, that’s why.  I might have more questions, and I’ll need to know who to ask for,” he told Marv, a man whose name fit him like a glove.  “Head over to the saloon and get yourself a drink Marv; you look like you could do with one.  I’ll know where to find you if I need you.”  The man nodded and left for the saloon.

“Okay, let’s skip the arguing, complaining and such, and just get to the part where I say I’m going to take one of the deputies and a couple of folks, go out there and see what’s what.”  He said this, resigned to the fact that he was going to have to spend the rest of the day doing things that didn’t involve sitting on his ass.

 

The Homestead

Abigail woke with a start and was momentarily disorientated by the darkness.  She listened intently, a cold, greasy knot of dread in the pit of her stomach; she was sure she’d heard something.  She listened for a repeat of it.  There was nothing, nothing but the occasional creak and crack of a building settling, which could sometimes be a little unnerving but was just one of the myriad sounds of the night.

It was nothing, she told herself when another uneventful minute had passed; just the imaginings of a mind that had been on the verge of sleep.  All the same, she reached for the bedside table, just to reassure herself that the sawn-off was within easy reach.  After a moment of fruitless groping around, she found the well-worn grip of the heavy old shotgun and breathed a sigh of relief.  Her hand rested on it for just a moment, before she pulled the weapon a couple of inches closer.  Better to be safe than sorry.

Then, three knocks on the bedroom window.  Abigail sprung out of bed and snatched for the shotgun, but the darkness of the bedroom and a substantial dose of panic conspired together, and she caught the back of it with her knuckles sending it clattering to the floor.  In the night-time silence the sound was thunderous, and she cursed under her breath; whoever was out there had to know now that she was wise to them.

As she scrambled around the floor in a frantic search for the weapon, she became so convinced that there was somebody else in the room that she froze, terrified that she was going to grab hold of a leg in the darkness.

‘I need the gun,’ she told herself, and began sweeping her arms across the floor again, albeit more cautiously.  Her hand brushed cold metal and she momentarily recoiled in surprise, before realising that she’d found what she was looking for.  She grabbed the shotgun and scuffed over to the back wall of the bedroom, on her backside.

She sat, back pressed against the wall, shotgun pointed directly ahead and listened.  She was afraid to move, afraid even to breath, for the fear that any sound she made would mask the movement of her tormentor.

The darkness pressed in like a physical presence, exacerbating her terror.  It was impossible to judge the passage of time.  It felt like an hour, but logically she knew it had probably only been a few minutes.  Just as she was starting to feel as if the worst might be over there was another knock and a gentle intake of breath.

“Hast du angst?” Came a parchment dry voice from the other side of the shuttered window.

A low moan of terror escaped Abigail’s lips and she reached for the bedside table next to her, trying to find the candle and matches; she badly needed light.  The candle was easy enough, but the matches were nowhere to be found.  She realised, with a feeling of utter hopelessness that they must have been knocked to the floor when she grabbed for the shotgun.

There had been talk about people going missing.  Isolated homesteads being attacked, everyone being killed.  The type of idle chatter that floats around and takes hold in small communities.  It had just been one of those stories that crops up from time to time.  ‘A passing trader said.’  Or.  ‘They say.’  That sort of thing.  Much like the rest of the people in the valley, she hadn’t taken the story very seriously though, believing it to be just that, a story.

The slow, deliberate sound of footsteps came from outside, followed by the rattle of the front door handle being tested.

The front door had the heavy deadbolt engaged and it had always felt like enough; now though it felt hopelessly inadequate.

As if to confirm her fears, she heard a scratching sound that could only be something being inserted between the frame and the door, to pry it open.  Then, the creaking sound of a tool being worked back and forth, followed much too quickly by the sound of the deadbolt giving way and skittering across the floor.

The door creaked open, and she heard the same slow deliberate footsteps, this time accompanied by shallow, wheezing breath.  The intruder stopped outside the bedroom door.  Then, an incongruously polite sounding knock, followed by the voice.

“Hast du angst … Frau?”

She almost dropped the shotgun in fright and pointed it to where she knew the door to the room was.

The door slowly swung open and she heard a single, deliberate step, as the intruder stepped into the room, then stopped.

“Hast du angst Frau?”

Abigail fired one barrel of the sawn-off shotgun, she missed but the blast momentarily illuminated the figure in the doorway.

It was a man.  A tall man so emaciated he looked to have starved to death, then refused to lie down.  His arms and legs were improbably long, and his face looked too big for his head.  She’d missed by almost a foot and now she was swallowed by blackness again.

She heard him start to move, so she fired with her remaining barrel, but it was another miss.  The blast lit the room up again.  This time the ghoulish figure was striding forwards in long, exaggerated strides, a cadaverous smile on his face. Then the room was swallowed by darkness again.  The footsteps stopped, and she heard … and felt the breath.

“Du.  Hast.  Angst.  Frau.”  Each word came slowly, deliberately; this time no question in his voice.

A clammy, long fingered hand brushed against her cheek and Abigail lost her grip on the last shred of composure she had and screamed.

Six Bullets

I thought I should write a wee intro to this, as a story suddenly cropping up in a hobby blog might seem a bit weird. 

  I always enjoyed writing when I was much younger and I’ve tried it a few times over the years, without much success and got out of the habit, until my Bro, Tom inspired me by saying he was going to try to crank out a short story every Friday.  He’s trying to make it his bread and butter, so he needs to keep the writing muscles well lubricated, but I thought why not have another crack at it.

Here it is, the first story that I’ve finished in quite some time.  Be gentle, peeps!

---

Charlie crashed through the window, bullets zipping by, one of them so close it scored a red-hot line across his right shoulder.  He collided with a table, bounced off it, grabbed at a chair to steady himself and failed, momentum crunching him painfully into the opposite wall.  The impact jarred his finger against the trigger of his sleek revolver, causing him to fire off a round, narrowly escaping shooting the big toe off his left foot.

The day had started so well.  He’d rode into town, hitched his horse outside the Saloon and before he managed to get inside and order a drink, he’d been stopped by a desperate looking town mayor and offered a job.  It didn’t pay well but it did sound easy.  Kill some guy that went by the name of Quick Dick, along with any of the men with him.  They were a local gang called The Goatboys.

People often gave themselves stupid sounding names and Quick Dick was certainly a winner in that regard, but The Goatboys?  Who came up with a name like that and thought it sounded scary.  After telling the desperate man what he thought of Mr Dick and his gang, Charlie had taken the job and immediately got to work.

Quick Dick and The Goatboys had been laughably easy.  The Goatboys turned out to be a one-armed man called Ringo and a guy so tall and thin that he looked as if he’d been stretched.

The gang had been squatting in a tumbledown shack on the edge of town and when he’d called them out, the trio had obliged him with all the enthusiasm of the big, tough guys that they’d thought they were.  Tall guy and Ringo came out first, flanking the door so their leader could make his grand entrance.

As it turned out, Quick Dick’s entrance hadn’t been even slightly grand, but it did prove to be memorable.  He’d sauntered through the doorway, tossing a sawn-off shotgun from hand to hand menacingly, before catching his foot on the door frame, causing him to trip, fall, jam the shotgun under his chin and blow his own head off.

Charlie had just stared for a moment, dumbstruck by the stupidity of the spectacle.  Fortunately, he’d gathered his wits more quickly than the two men facing him and giving them an apologetic shrug, he’d pulled his pistol on them and shot them dead.

That was the point that his day had taken a sharp turn for the worse.

---

The Goatboys had been a pushover.  More than that in fact.  The idiots had come so close to dealing with themselves that if they returned from the dead they’d have a valid claim on the reward money themselves.  Unfortunately, the mayor had failed to mention the inept gang’s affiliation with a much bigger group.  They’d arrived just as Charlie was searching the bodies and one look at them told him that this lot knew what they were doing.

He hadn’t given them the chance to draw on him.  He’d pulled his pistol and loosed a few rounds in their direction.  His shots were poorly aimed and didn’t hit anyone, but he just wanted to keep their heads down long enough to have a chance at reaching cover.

That was how he’d found himself where he was now, hiding out in the Goatboys rancid little clubhouse, counting his bullets.  Six.

“Bugger, that’s not enough.” he mumbled, before doing some quick mental arithmetic.  There was at least ten of them out there.

“Bollocks.  Maybe I can get some of them to line up?” he said, his usually mild Irish accent becoming more pronounced, as it often did in times of stress.

“Hey guy.” A voice called from outside.  “I’m in charge of these boys and I’ve got more coming.  Head on out guy, and I’ll make it quick.  Make me dig you out and I’ll make it real slow.”

The man paused, presumably giving Charlie a moment to consider his extremely limited options and consider them he did; it didn’t take long.  He could go out in a blaze of glory or make them come and get him.

“All this over an idiot who blew his own head off?” he yelled at the gang outside. “Come in here and get me.  I’ll make you feckin’ famous”

“That idiot was my Brother.” Came the voice from outside. “That’s got to be settled!”

“Shite.”  Charlie said and started shooting.