trying to make it look like a Lakota raiding party. Ever since gold had been found in the Black Hills, hordes of men had rushed in and there weren’t enough legitimate claims to go around. Some just packed up and went home. Some turned to thieving. A few did worse.
Hollister looked to the east. The sky was getting lighter by the minute. He counted six on the ground, plus the girl who had staggered into the fort. And who knew how many captives had been hauled off if it was Lakota? Why not burn the other wagon? Who ever did this took the horses or cut them loose, but why leave a perfectly good wagon for someone to scavenge?
Hollister couldn’t really blame the Lakota for being angry. They’d been promised this land forever and had been lied to every day for the past forty years. You push a man far enough, he either breaks or he starts pushing back. The Lakota were far from broken. So why leave a perfectly good wagon for some other white person to come along and use, to tear up more of their land with cattle and plows? Why, indeed?
“Sergeant? Anything?” Hollister asked.
“No, sir. All dead, sir,” Lemaire replied. Hollister waited, hoping and praying for Lemaire to speak, to confirm his suspicions and recommend leaving immediately. But if the sergeant noticed anything, he didn’t say it.
Hollister was about to order the sergeant to begin a burial detail when he noticed movement out of the corner of his right eye. His four troopers were spread out, dismounted and grasping the reins of their horses. Each man held his carbine at port arms and stood with their backs to him, following his orders to keep an eye on the horizon.
But the ambush didn’t come from the horizon. It came from inside the camp.
Almost faster than Hollister could see, two of the bodies he hadn’t inspected yet rose from the ground and launched themselves at his troops. The bodies moved impossibly fast for a human being-not the least dead guys- and each one snapped the neck of the trooper closest to him with a wicked cracking sound.
Hollister couldn’t speak. Couldn’t shout out a warning in time. For some reason his brain kept telling him that these people were dead bodies. They grabbed the next troopers and snapped their necks as well, but this time, instead of letting them slump to the ground, each one took a dead trooper by the shoulders and bit into his neck. Hollister watched in horror as these dead things ripped the flesh from the throats of his men with their teeth.
“Sergeant, open fi…” Hollister raised his Colt, pointing at the corpse attacking one of his men. But there came a sharp blow to his arm as someone grabbed him and attempted to twist his gun from his grasp. It was the woman who had lain dead on the ground only moments before.
“Sergeant! Retreat! Get out of here!” he cried, struggling to free his arm from the grip of this shockingly strong woman. Off to his left he could see Sergeant Lemaire, locked in a struggle with the young man in suspenders who, also, had definitely been dead.
A shot went off somewhere, and Hollister heard a scream. He struggled with the woman, not understanding her incredible power. How was it possible? She held his arm with one hand and he thought she might break it if he wasn’t careful. He then looked-really looked at her-and knew why he had been right to feel afraid.
Her throat was a mass of twisted, bleeding flesh that appeared to be healing itself. Something was wrong with her face and eyes, which had turned bright red, and her mouth grew to an alarming size as she opened it and fangs descended from her gums.
He couldn’t move his gun arm. He heard more shouts and the sounds of muffled struggles. For some reason it struck him as odd. Hollister had seen his share of hand-to-hand combat in the war years earlier. He’d killed men up close and he knew he should be hearing the screams and wails of fighting and dying men. Grunts and groans at least. But it was eerily silent.
A quick glance to his left showed Sergeant Lemaire had been pummeled to the ground. Hollister tried to shake the woman loose but couldn’t, he was going to lose his grip on the Colt and die if he didn’t do something fast. With desperation he reached down, feeling for the arrow stuck in the flesh of her thigh. With all of his strength he pulled hard on the shaft and jerked it free.
Momentarily confused, his attacker loosened her grip on his gun arm and tried to stop his other arm; but before she could prevent it, Hollister had hit her straight in the chest. He pushed with every ounce of his strength and finally felt it pass her ribs and enter her heart. The woman-body, creature or whatever she was-shrieked in agony and let go of him immediately. She staggered backward, her hands suddenly like talons, clawing at the wooden shaft piercing her flesh. Hollister watched in disbelief as she threw back her head, howling a death scream like none he’d ever heard. Then she disappeared.
It took him a moment to realize the woman’s body was gone. On the ground where she had stood an instant before was a pile of ashes, the clothes she had been wearing, and two Lakota arrows.
Hollister looked at the four troopers to his right. They were dead; he knew it already. The creatures continued feeding, ripping flesh and lapping up the blood as it still flowed from the veins of his men.
He raised the Colt and took aim. His bullet took one of the creatures square in the back, knocking it and the trooper in its grasp to the ground. He fired again, missing the second creature as it dropped the body it held and dived behind the closest wagon for protection.
“Cap’n.” He heard a mournful groan from behind. He turned to see Lemaire, on his knees in the clutches of the boy wearing suspenders, the boy’s arm around the sergeant’s neck and throat.
“You killed Caroline,” it said to him. But it wasn’t a human voice; it was a strange whispering sound, from deep in its throat. Hollister didn’t answer, he raised his Colt and fired a bullet into the center of the boy’s forehead, and he flew backward, his grip on Lemaire relinquished.
As Hollister staggered toward Lemaire, he saw the same thing had happened to his troopers stationed on the other side of the camp. Two of them were dead on the ground and the others were being attacked by whatever these things were. Hollister nearly tripped as he bent to pull Lemaire to his feet.
“Cap’n!” Lemaire shouted, pointing behind Hollister.
Hollister whirled about to see another one of the creatures nearly upon him. He lifted his gun and pulled the trigger. The bullet took the thing square in the chest, knocking it off its feet.
“Open fire! Open fire!” Hollister commanded. But only he and Lemaire remained alive. “Sergeant, shoot!” There was no response and Hollister turned in horror to see another creature, taller and bigger than the rest, suddenly tearing at the flesh of Lemaire’s neck. He had no idea where this one had come from. The sergeant’s eyes were open and empty. His arms and legs still moved and flailed against the being holding him, but he was already dead.
Hollister shot the attacker, his first bullet taking him high in the shoulder. The creature stood up straight and faced Hollister, blood and flesh covering its mouth and chin. Hollister shot again and again. Both bullets entered the creature’s chest, but it didn’t even flinch. He was a giant. Hollister was six feet four inches tall and the thing towered over him, at seven feet tall, at least. It had shoulder-length white hair and the wind seemed to pull it behind him like a cape. His eyes blazed red and his mouth was elongated; fangs descended where teeth should be, just like the woman Hollister killed moments before. It was all wrong.
Don’t let it touch you, Hollister thought. He was out of bullets. It kept coming forward and Hollister threw his pistol at the beast, but the heavy Colt bounced off its head with no effect.
Keeping the thing in sight, he backed slowly away in the direction of the horses. A quick glance over his shoulder showed his own mount still standing there, pacing nervously at the edge of the camp-disturbed by what was happening, but too well trained to leave its master. Lemaire had just broken a mare two weeks ago and the not-quite-tame horse had skittered away. Jonas thought of turning and running, but instinctively knew the creature would be upon him the moment his back was turned.
Reaching into his boot, Hollister pulled out his Bowie knife with one hand and drew his saber with the other. Most times he didn’t carry the sword as it only got in the way. But the colonel was a stickler for it, always insisting officers carry one on patrol. And for some reason, the saber seemingly gave the creature pursuing him more pause than the other weapons, for it slowed its advance. Its gaze locked on his and it made him feel like a frightened buffalo calf staring into the eyes of a wolf.
“You have taken one of ours,” the creature said to him in a voice tinged with anger and hatred. It made Hollister cringe to hear it. He found himself losing his breath and he tried to calm himself, but he was too afraid.
“You killed my men!” Hollister shouted at him.
“Yes. We feed,” it replied. “My followers feed. And you have taken one of mine. Caroline. You will die for this.”
