CHAPTER SIX
A DAMNED SHAME
Capelli was inside his sleeping bag when the Grims came surging up out of their underground lair to attack the unsuspecting humans. The basement of the burned-out farmhouse was the perfect place for dozens of pods to mature. And because of the charred debris piled on top of the ground floor, the unsuspecting humans had no idea what was lurking below.
The lone sentry managed to get off a single shot before a charging Grim threw its skeletal arms around him and opened its mouth to expose two rows of needle-sharp teeth. The man tried to push the foul-smelling creature away, but it was too strong. So the wrangler started to scream. But the sound was cut off as the Chimera tore his throat out. The sentry’s eyes rolled back in his head, his body went limp, and he collapsed.
The gunshot, and the gibbering sounds that the Grims made, offered some warning but not enough. Most of the humans were still in the process of exiting their bags and scrabbling for weapons when the Chimera fell on them.
But unlike the rest, Capelli was not only awake but on guard against a possible attack. Not from the Grims, but from the wranglers, at least one of whom had been acting suspiciously earlier in the evening.
So he was fully dressed and his sleeping bag was unzipped as the stinks swept across the encampment and a scattering of shots were heard. He didn’t have enough time to do more than sit up, however. Capelli had battled Grims in the past and knew how important it was to keep them at a distance. They liked to attack en masse. And once the Chimera made physical contact with their victims the battle was over. So Capelli fired the Rossmore, heard the sharper blam, blam, blam sound produced by Locke’s Winchester, and knew the other man was fighting as well.
As Capelli’s buckshot tore into them, the Grims literally flew apart. But the runner knew there was reason to worry because he was going to need time to reload. Even if it was only two or three shells. Fortunately, that opportunity came as the last of what might have been a dozen Chimera disintegrated and Capelli was able to thumb two rounds into the Rossmore’s magazine as a grotesquerie collapsed at the foot of his sleeping bag.
But another group of stinks was already charging towards him, and it was only a matter of seconds before the shotgun was empty. Capelli was reaching for the Magnum when Rowdy flew past him and tore into the Chimera with such ferocity that the attack stalled.
As the growling dog tore gobbets of bloody flesh out of the Grims, Capelli was able to not only shove six shells into the Rossmore, but throw the sleeping bag off his legs and scramble to his feet. “Rowdy! Here, boy.”
The dog broke contact and whirled away. That allowed Capelli to fire freely. Now, with only half a dozen stinks left to deal with, he was able to blow them away two at a time. Finally, after what seemed like an hour but was actually a matter of minutes, the last Grim went down. A profound silence settled over the encampment, broken only by the click, click, click sound the shotgun shells made as Capelli thumbed them into the tubular magazine. He was still in the process of absorbing what had occurred when Locke groaned.
As Capelli swiveled towards his client, he saw that a dead Grim was sprawled across Locke’s body and immediately knew what had taken place. Once the big man had expended all of the rounds in the Winchester’s tubular magazine, the stink had been able to close in on him. Then, seeing the knife hilt that was protruding from the left side of the Chimera’s skull, Capelli knew that Locke had managed to kill the monstrosity.
But as Capelli rolled the corpse off the big man’s body, he saw Locke’s badly bloodied shoulder, and his heart sank. His client wouldn’t turn into a Chimera, not without being infected by a Spinner, but Grim bites were known to be extremely toxic.
Capelli put the shotgun down and knelt next to Locke’s pack. The first-aid kit was sitting on top of everything else.
“Find the bottle of gin,” Locke instructed through gritted teeth. “Give me a swallow and pour the rest into the wound.”
After removing the bottle, Capelli used the pack to prop the other man up, and set about giving him first aid. Locke swore a blue streak as the alcohol made contact with his raw flesh—and Capelli did the best he could to blot the puncture wounds dry.
As fresh blood continued to well up from below, Locke told Capelli how to create a pressure bandage and tape it in place. The truth was that Capelli had been forced to treat dozens of wounds over the last few years, many of which were worse than Locke’s. But there was no point in saying so and he didn’t.
Once Locke was stabilized, Capelli took the shotgun and set about the grisly process of inspecting the rest of the encampment with Rowdy at his side. The average Chimera smelled like rotting flesh even at the best of times. So their body odor, plus the smell of spilled intestinal matter, combined to form a stench so powerful it made Capelli gag. Bodies lay everywhere, Grims mostly, but with badly mauled human corpses mixed in.
But Capelli wasn’t interested in either one. Not at the moment, anyway. What he wanted was two or three horses. Capelli thought he had heard screaming noises during the worst of the fighting, so he figured that at least some of the mounts were dead. And as the light from the shotgun swept across the ground ahead, he saw that he was correct. Two of the horses were down and one was dead. The other whinnied pitifully and kicked its legs in a futile attempt to stand.
Capelli was disappointed to see that with the single exception of an animal tied to a tree, rather than the picket line, all the rest of the horses had broken free. He went over to make sure that the remaining mount was secure before putting the wounded animal out of its misery. The Magnum made a loud boom, the horse jerked reflexively, and Capelli was about to turn away when he heard a barely audible croak. “Capelli? Is that you?”
The pistol was back in its holster by then. The beam from the Rossmore swept across the huddled mess and returned to it. Gravel crunched under Capelli’s boots as he made his way over to the spot where the man lay. It didn’t take a degree in medicine to see that Murphy was dying.
Judging from the sprawl of bodies around him, the head packer had given a good account of himself before a couple of Chimera were able to break through and take him down. It wasn’t clear what had taken place after that, except to say that a hole had been torn in the middle of the sleeping bag, and the area around it was dark with blood. Murphy blinked as the light flooded his pain-contorted face. The words arrived one at a time. “Don’t-leave-me-like-this.”
“I won’t,” Capelli promised. “But, before I send you on your way, there’s something I want to know.”
Murphy winced and bit his lower lip. “Anything.”
“Were you and your men going to kill us?”
Murphy tried to smile. It came across as a grimace. “Yes, we were. Locke is carrying a large quantity of gold. Did you know that?”
Capelli nodded. “Yes, I did.”
With another loud boom the Magnum went off. An even louder explosion followed as Capelli triggered the pistol’s secondary fire function. Murphy ceased to exist.
The horse’s hooves made a soft clopping sound as Capelli led the animal over to where Locke sat with his back resting against the pack.
“Who were you shooting at?”
“Just tidying up, that’s all. This is going to be tough, Al, but we need to get out of here, and that means you’ve got to climb up onto this horse.”
“I can do it,” Locke said gamely. “But I’ll need some help.”