Fear Weaver

Ghouls in the Night

Nate ran to the window and looked out, but the things in the trees were too crafty to show themselves. He stayed there while Peter and Aunt Aggie cut a towel into strips and tended to Erleen. She had not let out a peep. She just lay there staring blankly at the ceiling.

Aggie made the girls sit at the table and sip tea. “It will help calm your nerves,” she told them when Anora said she didn’t want any. “Drink it whether you want to or not.” She walked to the window. “Anything?”

Nate shook his head.

“There are some things I’m not clear on. How long have you known about Philberta and the others?”

“It took me a while to put the pieces together,” Nate said. “I suspected the boys when I found their lair. I wasn’t sure about Philberta until she tried to stab me.”

Aggie peered skyward. “It will be dark in a couple hours. Will they come after us?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Sagging against the wall, Agatha tiredly rubbed her brow. “About Sully. Why did they kill him when he was one of them? Or was he sane?”

“He ate what they ate. Whatever the mushrooms and the thorn apples did to their minds, it did to him, too. But you saw Philberta. They have spells where they seem almost normal. Maybe his head cleared and he tried to stop them. Or maybe they just turned on him.”

“Poor Sully. He never should have left Pennsylvania. All he wanted was a better life for him and his loved ones.”

“The Oregon Trail is littered with the bones of those who wanted a better life,” Nate said. “Some died of hunger and thirst. Some were like Sully and ate things they shouldn’t, or drank tainted water.” He sighed. “It’s the difference between a backwoodsman and a frontiersman.”

“I am not sure I understand.”

“The East has plenty of backwoodsmen. They live off the land, and they live well. And they think that since they can do it there, they can do it out here. But the West isn’t the East. Different animals. Different plants. Different weather. A man has to learn to survive all over again. Once he does, he becomes a frontiersman.”

More howls rent the air. Aunt Aggie stiffened and gripped a red curtain until her knuckles were white. “Listen to them,” she whispered. “I can scarcely believe that came from human throats.”

“A clear shot is all I ask.”

Aggie closed her eyes and bowed her chin. “Poor Fitch. Poor Harper. I loved those boys as if they were my own.”

“You have the girls to think of now. Don’t leave their side. I’ll be too busy to watch over them.”

Straightening, Aggie nodded. “Don’t fear on that score. I won’t lose anyone else if I can help it.”

The next couple hours were nerve-racking. Nate stayed at the window. Peter never left Erleen’s side. He held her hand and stroked her cheeks and tried to get her to say something, but all she did was stare at the ceiling. Aunt Aggie brought out the dominoes, but she had to keep reminding the girls when it was their turn and often they placed a two on a six or a four on a one.

No more howls or others sounds broke the stillness of the forest, not until the sun set and a sliver of crescent moon rose above the high cliffs to cast its silvery glow over the dark valley floor.

Aunt Aggie was lighting a candle when the first cry greeted the moon, an inhuman screech torn from human vocal cords. Soon the night pealed with a hellish chorus that echoed and reechoed off the cliffs until it seemed the valley crawled with the things.

Tyne scampered to Aunt Aggie and burst into tears in her arms. Anora placed her hands over her ears.

Peter glared at the window, and scowled. “I’ll be damned if I will listen to that all night.”

“There isn’t much we can do until the sun comes up,” Nate said. So long as they stayed indoors, the lunatics couldn’t get at them.

“Look at my wife. I think her mind has snapped. She won’t answer me. She doesn’t move.”

“Shock, probably. It might wear off in a while.” Nate was no doctor, but it seemed logical.

Another screech set Tyne to bawling louder.

“Listen to that!” Peter spat. “My own nephews and my sister-in-law! But I swear by the Almighty that won’t stop me from squeezing the trigger. I will put an end to them if it’s the last thing I do.”

Nate didn’t like how Peter was working himself up. “Your wife comes first. She needs you by her side.”

“She doesn’t even know I am here.” Peter slumped in despair. “Sullivan, Sullivan, how could you bring us to this?”

The abominations in the woods soon fell quiet. Nate was glad, but wary. Philberta and her brood might try to get at them. With the door barred, the only way in was the window. But they could only come through that one at a time, and he would shoot the first head that poked inside.

“It’s time for you two young ladies to think about bed,” Aunt Aggie announced. Taking Tyne and Anora by the hand, she escorted them to a far corner. They didn’t protest.

Fatigue gnawed at Nate, but he shook it off. He must stay alert no matter what.

Peter dozed sitting up. Aggie turned in, but the way she tossed proved sleep was elusive. The girls managed to fall asleep, but they would whimper and groan.

Above them, the moon crept across the patch of sky.

Nate found it harder to keep his eyes open. He took to pacing, with frequent glances out the window. He had been at it for more than an hour when he stepped to the window for yet another look.

Lit by moon glow, the clearing was empty. The woods were a black tangle that hid their secrets. Nate yawned. He glanced back at the others. They were all asleep, even Agatha. The fire had burned low. He turned back to the window, and his blood turned to ice in his veins.

A face was staring back at him. A pale, hideous, sinister face, framed by a filthy shock of black hair and gristle on the chin. The skin was drawn tight over the bones, the lips were thin and bloodless. But it was the eyes that were truly terrible, eyes lit by inner fires that bordered on the demonic. They glared at him with such raw ferocity, it was like gazing into the eyes of a rabid wolf. Only these eyes evinced far more cunning, and wicked intent.

Whether it was Norton, Liford or Blayne, Nate couldn’t say. He suspected it was the oldest. With a start, he galvanized to life and grabbed for one of the pistols at his waist. Suddenly a hand shot through the window and gripped him by the throat. The arm was scrawny, the fingers no thicker than pencils, yet they clamped like an iron vise. Nate could feel his neck constrict as the pressure threatened to pulp his flesh. He grabbed the wrist and pried at the fingers, but it was like prying at metal bands.

The face in the window laughed.

Nate punched the arm. He twisted. He tried to fling himself back. But the madman held on, his fingers closing tighter. Nate’s throat was pulsing pain and his chest hurt. He needed air. He must break free, or die. He struck the lunatic’s elbow, but the hideous face didn’t react. The face. Drawing back his arm, Nate rammed his fist into its mouth. The thin lips split and an upper tooth broke but the mad-man went on squeezing as if he hadn’t felt a thing.

Nate’s lungs were fit to burst. In desperation he tried to rake the lunatic’s right eye with his finger-nails, but Norton—if that is who it was—pulled back. Nate did scratch the eyebrow, though, deep enough that blood flowed.

Norton snarled, and blinked, and his hold on Nate’s throat slackened slightly.

It was the moment Nate needed. With a powerful surge, he broke the stranglehold. In doing so he lost some of his skin. But that was of no consequence. The important thing was to see to it that no one else suffered Sully’s and Ryker’s fates. Molding his palm to a flintlock, he brought up the pistol.

The madman was gone. One instant he had been there, and the next he wasn’t.

Nate leaned out the window. The lunatic was bolting toward the corner of the cabin. Refusing to let him get away, Nate darted to the door and removed the bar. He was outside and to the corner in seconds, but no one was there.

In frustration, Nate pounded the wall. Whoever it had been could now kill again. Wheeling, he stalked toward the door. Belatedly, he realized his mistake in leaving the door open. Worse, he had left his rifle inside. Fatigue was making him careless and carelessness cost lives.

A slight sound overhead caused Nate to glance up. There, perched on the edge of the roof, were the other two, as pale and feral as their brother, their hair a filthy mess, their skin splotched with bloodstains. They were naked from the waist up and their pants were in tatters. Their eyes had the same demonic quality, as if their human intelligence had been replaced by something from the pit. But the explanation was simpler. They were mad, completely mad, their sole craving to kill and kill again. In their deranged states, they couldn’t kill enough. They could never spill enough blood. Animal blood or human blood, it was all the same to them.

Even as Nate glanced up, they sprang. They were smaller and lighter, but there were two of them and their combined weight slammed him onto his back on the hard ground even as their teeth sought his throat and their hands clawed at him like talons.

Nate tried to shout a warning to the Woodrows, only to have a hand shoved halfway down his throat. He gagged on the feel of the fingers and the stench.

The other brother, Blayne, abruptly stood, whirled, and bounded into the cabin.

Heaving up, Nate dislodged the one on his chest. He had barely gained his knees when the madman was on him again. Filthy nails dug at his throat while a mouth rimmed with teeth speckled by bits and pieces of rancid meat gaped to bite his face.

Nate lashed out, a punch to the gut that jolted him. He pushed to his feet, but he was only halfway up when the oldest brother, Norton, flew back around the corner and without slowing or breaking stride lowered his shoulder and rammed into him.

As Nate went down, a shriek filled the cabin. It was followed by a bellow from Peter. A pistol cracked.

Good for them! Nate thought. He hoped they killed Blayne. He wanted to help them, but he had problems of his own. The pair on top of him were attempting to pin his arms.

Then Tyne screamed.

Roaring with rage, Nate exploded upward. He hurled one of the maniacs from him and clubbed the other with his fist. Racing inside, he stopped short in stunned horror.

Erleen was on the floor, her jugular bit open, bucking and kicking and blubbering scarlet down her chin. Peter was unconscious a few feet away, one hand clutching the pistol he had fired, the other spouting blood from the stumps of severed fingers. His throat was intact but not his face; half of it had been ripped off. Anora lay curled in the corner, unmoving.

In the other corner cowered Tyne. Protecting her, armed only with a short-bladed knife, was Aunt Aggie. Speckled with gore, her dress torn, she slashed and stabbed at the nimble figure prancing in front of them.

Blayne cackled as he pranced, his blood-wet fingers hooked like claws. Aggie lanced the knife at him, and he snapped his teeth at her wrist.

Nate groped for his other flintlock, but he had lost it. He drew his bowie and his tomahawk instead. A snarl behind him gave him a twinkling’s warning, and he spun. The other two were coming through the door. He swung the tomahawk and connected, but with the flat side and not the edge. It knocked— Liford, was it?—into Norton, and both tumbled back out. Nate whirled again.

Norton had seized Aggie’s wrist. She was on her knees, her arm bent at a sharp angle. He was trying to make her drop the knife. Her teeth clenched, she refused to let go.

Nate raced to her aid. He made no noise, yet somehow Blayne sensed him. He released Aggie and turned.

Those demonic eyes locked on Nate’s. For an instant, Nate slowed. Only an instant, but enough for Blayne to coil and leap aside as Nate arced the tomahawk in a blow intended to split Blayne’s skull.

Most foes, human foes, would have closed with Nate while he was off-balance. But Blayne was as far from human as a human could be. Cackling with demented glee, he did the last thing Nate expected; he ran. Nate gave chase, but Blayne was ungodly quick.

At the door, Nate stopped. He refused to make the same mistake twice. He slid the bowie into its sheath and the tomahawk under his belt. Kicking the door shut, he barred it, then reclaimed his rifle.

Aunt Aggie was cradling Tyne, who sobbed in great, racking heaves.

Erleen had stopped thrashing. She was dead. So was Anora. Her neck was broken. Peter was alive, but his pulse was weak. He had lost so much blood it was doubtful he would last much longer.

Nate covered Erleen and Anora with blankets. He eased Woodrow onto his back and was surprised when Peter’s eyes blinked open.

“My family?” The question was a weak rasp.

“Agatha and Tyne are alive.”

“Oh God.” Peter coughed, and swallowed his own blood. “And Blayne? Tell me you killed him.”

“They all got away.”

Peter coughed some more. “It can’t end like this. You know what you have to do.”

“Yes,” Nate King said. “I know.”