Kyle emerged from the hotel with a pitchfork. He bellowed with rage and ran the mercenary through. Then, before Matt could close the distance, Kyle pulled his own pistol and shot the man in the neck, just to make sure. Blood sprayed his face. The exhausted citizens ran back to their assigned posts, exhausted but still determined to fight back.
Not bad, Kyle, Matt thought. “Kyle,” he said, “remind me not to piss you off.”
Kyle didn’t see it, but as the mercenary died, his horribly contorted features, dripping pus and writhing with worms, relaxed into a human face. Evil had departed, but so had the soul of the human the force had inhabited. Not for the first time, Matt wondered what awaited these men and women who had been possessed by the Dark Man, once they got to the other side. It surely wouldn’t be pleasant.
“Give me a hand, kid,” Matt said.
They dragged Bert back to the saloon, where Sally worked with the women who were acting as medics. Bert was going to make it. Outside, the fire was lower, becoming sporadic, but the screaming was nonstop. Where Sally tended to them, those who were cut or shot cried out and kept bellowing. They didn’t just lie down, like in the movies.
Two down, two to go.
Matt forced himself to stalk the sidewalk amongst the writhing shadows and the puffs of smoke, the reloaded.38 gripped in his right hand, the ax handy. Right now it felt like his best friend.
“Hog? Zeke? You guys okay?”
“We’re good,” Zeke called back.
Matt looked east. Sheriff Pickens and Wally were still by the parked cars, their rifles at port arms. Pickens shook his head, as if to say he’d been unable to locate his man. Zeke and Hog exchanged glances, then stood up, Hog facing into the center of town and Zeke still looking out at the city limits. A few seconds passed. Flames crackled through dry wood and a horse nickered in the barn.
A mercenary in black rolled across a parked car and took aim at the sheriff just as Pickens ducked. Pop-pop. The body was squat and compact, so it wasn’t Scotty. It had to be the one who never looked up. Matt started toward the sheriff, but instinct told him he wouldn’t make it in time. Hopefully, Pickens could handle himself. Hog fired cougar quick and nicked the mercenary’s leg. Wally fired, too, but the mercenary drove him back under cover. The street puffed dust-Jeb and Suzie were also firing down from the whorehouse, but their angle was bad, and the mercenary rolled away.
Bravely, Wally stepped out of cover and took a shot, hitting the mercenary in the other leg. The man bellowed in rage and fired back. Wally tried to duck but was shot in the face. He fell backwards into the street, twitched a few times, and lay still.
Matt charged, waving his arms, and the mercenary turned to face him. Before Matt could reach them, though, Pickens ducked and produced a wickedly short shotgun he’d had stashed beneath Sally’s car. He did not hesitate, but placed the weapon in the crotch of his enemy and discharged both barrels. The mercenary split nearly in two and splattered in the dirt like chunks of steaming meat.
Three down.
Scotty to go.
Matt swallowed more bile. All around him, the firing gradually died out again as the townsfolk realized it was nearly over. Matt whistled sharply. One enemy remained, so they were all still in danger.
“Hey, Scotty? It’s just you and me now.”
Matt walked out into the center of the street, dust spraying up around his boots. He kept walking, and then he stopped, licked his lips. He called out, “Scotty? Let these people be. Let’s finish this.”
Shit, my voice is shaking. I sound like a poodle standing up to a Great Dane…
A kind of eerie silence fell, except for the low snapping of the steady fire in the barn. Matt could smell the wood smoke blended with the stench of death. Could faintly hear people murmuring, some crying out in pain. Dark reflections flickered up and down the empty street. Everyone held their breath. Matt Cahill waited, knowing there was only one way it could end.
“Matt?”
Scotty came out of the alley, holding a 9 mm down by his right leg, pointed at the earth. He had placed his body perfectly, between the empty movie house and the tourist shop, so none of the people defending Dry Wells had an easy shot. He was lost, looked like something dragged up from a grave a week after he’d been buried. His skin was filthy, with wounds oozing fluid and broken bones poking from torn clothing. His face was a frozen mask of shrieking horror, the countenance of a man buried alive. Matt Cahill stood out in the open, the.38 down at his own side, the ax in his other hand. The two men faced each other on the dusty, dark street. Shadows danced all around them.
“So here we are.”
“Yeah.”
“The 1972 Dolphins, dude. A perfect season. Look it up.”
“I will.”
Scotty grinned horribly, chuckling wetly from deep in his broken chest. To Matt, the laugh sounded disturbingly familiar, so much like his long-dead friend. The two enemies waited there in the street, all eyes on them. The fire made the town flicker like an old black-and-white photograph under a strobe lamp.
“I’m kind of screwed, aren’t I?” Scotty asked. He coughed. “I don’t know what’s happening to me, but it ain’t anything good, is it?”
Matt shook his head. “No. It’s not.”
Scotty looked down. “You remember that old movie comic, W.C. Fields? Talked through his nose?”
“Kind of.”
Hog and Zeke approached from Matt’s right, their weapons trained on Scotty, who pretended not to see them. Matt heard footsteps on the roof as the snipers moved forward, too. Sheriff Pickens stepped out of the shadows. Every gun in town was trained on Scotty now. Matt was the only one who saw the grotesque writhing of the wickedness under his putrid skin.
“W.C. Fields-he had liver disease from all the boozing,” Scotty said finally. “The man was dying in some rest home when a drinking buddy came to see him. This guy caught Fields reading the Bible.”
Matt kept his eyes on Scotty’s hands, just to be on the safe side. He wondered where the mercenary was going with all this.
“The friend says, ‘What the hell are you doing reading that, Bill?’” Scotty said.
“And W.C. Fields just smiles and says, ‘Hey, I’m looking for loopholes, friend. Just looking for loopholes.’”
Scotty raised his eyes. His shoulders sagged a bit. “Man, I really need to get this over with.”
Matt swallowed. “I know.”
Scotty jerked his weapon up, though perhaps a bit more slowly than he could have. Matt wasn’t sure. In any event, Matt was a split second faster as he threw the ax with all his might. It spun end over end, slammed into Scotty’s Kevlar vest, and stuck there, throwing his aim off, turning him to the side. His one round whizzed by Matt’s left ear. And then everyone in town opened fire at once. Scotty danced an obscene jig in the dust for a long moment, his body shredded and torn. Then he dropped to his knees and fell sideways into the dust. Matt watched his face become handsome again as the tortured soul departed.
It was finished.
EPILOGUE
Monday, 9:46 p.m.
The fires were almost out. The air had turned harsh, as sharp as a blade and filled with dark smoke and ash. Matt Cahill had already made the rounds congratulating and thanking the townspeople. He knew the military and police would be here soon. He had to leave-time was running out. A horse was saddled and ready a few yards away.
“You’d best get going,” Kyle said. “I promise we’ll all keep your presence here a secret.”
“Good,” Matt said quietly. “It’s really better that way.”