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Diamond Code: JAN10 1074

In Comic Shops 3/10/2010

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GHOST PROJEKT #1

Writer: Joe Harris (Batman, Creepy)

Artist: Steve Rolston (Queen & Country)

Russia is often remembered from the shadow cast during the Cold War-era when every stranger was a spy, but now that the Cold War is long over, some things left behind from that era may not stay lost. An abandoned Soviet research facility somewhere in Siberia has been home to a strange and dangerous weapon that is now in the hands of thieves claiming it for their own. U.S. weapons inspector Will Haley has been assigned to find out what dangers the weapon poses and with the help of Russian agent Anya Romanova they will find the answers, but it will be far from easy.

Check out the two part interview with writer Joe Harris at Bloody-Disgusting.com!
 
 
Discuss this book with the creators at the Oni Press Forums
 
 

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An epic dark fantasy set in the Old West, THE SIXTH GUN is a new ongoing, full color series from Oni Press. During the darkest days of the Civil War, wicked cutthroats came into possession of six pistols of otherworldly power. In time, the Sixth Gun-the most dangerous of the weapons-vanished. When the gun surfaces in the hands of an innocent girl, dark forces reawaken. Vile men thought long dead set their sights on retrieving the gun and killing the girl. Only Drake Sinclair, a gunfighter with a shadowy past, stands in their way.

As icing on the FCBD cake we’re starting a new tradition; The ONI PRESS FREE FOR ALL!  A comic full of shorts stories from Oni’s award winning library of all ages titles.  The 2010 issue features: a sampling of Chris Schweizer’s award winning CROGAN ADVENTURE SERIES, a sneak preview at Ray Fawkes’ upcoming graphic novel POSSESIONS, and a short from Matt Loux’s award winning SALT WATER TAFFY SERIES!

So make your way to a participating comic shop or library on May 1st 2010 and pickup your FREE COPIES of Oni Press’ THE SIXTH GUN #1 and the ONI PRESS FREE FOR ALL 2010!  For more info check out the Free Comic Book Day Website!

Part 4

Here’s what I didn’t tell the stranger about Newcomb and the cannibals:

Not long after the second person was taken from camp, Newcomb, who saw himself as a shepherd, came up with a plan he thought would help his flock survive until the thaw. Dressed in one of his finest black suits, he called the camp to meeting, where he stood on one of the barking stages and addressed the crowd.

“We’ve already lost a dear, dear friend in Ezra,” he started.

My blood boiled at that, seeing how Newcomb had never kept his hatred of Old Ezra a secret.

“And now,” he continued, “our sweet–” He paused, searching his memory for the girl’s name. “–Emily has been taken from us as well.”

Cries for action rose from the crowd, but the big boss raised a pudgy hand and waved for silence. He’d been barking since long before I was born, and those old skills came easy to him as he spoke to the carnies gathered before him.

“If we fight back, those men will murder every last one of us. If we try to run, they’ll catch us and gun us down right there in the snow.”

The crowd moaned with despair.

“But all is not lost! We might not be able to slay the dragon, and we might not be able to escape its fiery breath, but we can make offerings to appease the beast lest we all suffer a gruesome fate!”

I didn’t have a clue what he was going on about, and neither did anyone else. That’s the way Newcomb liked it, I figured. He took our confusion and our anger and our fear and worked us up into a frenzy until he had near about everyone agreeing with every word he said… whether they understood it or not.

“I’m not saying this won’t be painful,” he said. “We must all make sacrifices. But at least the camp might thrive, albeit with grief and sorrow in our hearts!”

And so we started the lottery.

Within a few days, a tree trunk post had been raised at the outskirts of camp, and everyone had scrawled their name on a slip of paper gathered in Newcomb’s old top hat. Only Newcomb himself was allowed to draw a name, and he did so every few days.

The lottery was wrong, but no one spoke up against it.

They knew better.

We marched our friends and family out to that post and left them tied out there, waiting to be snatched up and eaten. Sometimes, we left gifts, too–blankets, canned fruit, heirlooms and other valuables–all in hopes the cannibals wouldn’t attack us outright.

Awful as it was, it might’ve worked… up until the point my brother got the idea Newcomb wasn’t drawing names at random at all but was giving up people who crossed him.

Then, of course, Jessie’s name was drawn.

Like I said, Jessie screamed when they dragged him out to the post, and no one lifted a finger to help him, myself included. We wept and we looked away and we prayed we weren’t next. But we didn’t help. Everyone knew Newcomb was up to no good, but nobody did a damn thing.

In that way, we were all in it with him.

* * *

“It’s after midnight,” I realized. “Christmas Eve.”

“Ain’t that something,” the stranger said. “Hush up now.”

We crept along a zig-zagging path leading into the hills. The stranger took the lead, and I followed close behind. The stranger didn’t make a sound as he slipped along the path. He darted from one patch of shadow to the next. If I took my eyes off him for long, I might’ve lost him completely. Me, I shuffled along, trying to be as quiet as could despite my chattering teeth and shivering muscles.

Wind swept down the pass, casting sheets of snow in our faces, trying to buffet us back. I grabbed my coat collar in one hand, pulling it tightly closed. My eyes were dry. My nose ran, and the snot froze to my upper lip.

Up ahead, the cannibals waited.

As we walked along, I kicked something in the snow. There was a strange clattering sound, and for a split second I feared Friedrick had set a booby trap and I had stumbled right into it. But no pit opened up beneath me. No deadfall crashed on top of me. Something gleamed in the shadows.

There along the rock wall lay a small green bottle. I recognized it right away, and I hurried to where I’d kicked it. Scooping it up, I saw the bottle was empty, but the rotten stink of Ezra’s tonic was still on it.

“What is it?” the stranger asked.

“Medicine,” I said. “Or at least it was. My friend, he made the stuff. ‘It’ll cure them what ails ya,’ he used to say. The cannibals must’ve stolen some of it during one of their raids.”

The truth was, we’d more than likely given them the tonic, left it like a Christmas gift at the sacrificial post.

I tucked the bottle into my jacket, and we walked on.

We walked no more than a dozen more yards when an awful smell assaulted my nostrils.

Rotten meat.

The stranger’s hands dropped to the handles of his six-shooters.

“This is it, boy. One more step and there’s no turning back. Remember what I told you. I don’t know how these men got started down their path. A lot of folks did bad things during the war. They’re changing, though, and Boone, he’ll be the worst. He might not die so easily.”

I thought of Jessie and Ezra and all them others who didn’t get to live to see Christmas this year.

“Let’s go,” I said.

And we did.

* * *

There’s a reason the cannibals didn’t come a-looking at the sound of gunfire in the valley.

An awful reason.

Directly, we spotted the cave Boone Friedricks and his men had been using as a hideout. It was a gaping maw in the rock wall, and bits of bone and clothing–cast offs from their victims–littered the ground leading up to the cave. The horrid odor of decay came from within, but I didn’t see sign of a sentry or lookout.

The stranger motioned for me to drop back a step or two. He pulled one of his revolvers and inched closer to the warren. The idea of walking into that pitch-black hole in the ground didn’t appeal to me one bit. The stranger must’ve had the same notion. After peering into the cave for a few seconds, he turned to me.

“Fetch one of those bones and some scraps of cloth,” he whispered. “Make a torch.”

As I set about the grim task, I wondered just whose clothes… whose bones… would be lighting our way.

“Stay a couple of steps behind me with that fire.” The gunslinger drew his second pistol. “Don’t get close enough to blind me. Hold it off to the side a bit, too. I don’t want to be back-lit. The light’ll make us both easier targets as it is.”

The cave was a lot deeper than I expected. The tunnel wound down and off to the side, like a giant serpent had burrowed its way through the stone. The torch guttered in the wind.

We hadn’t taken more than a dozen steps when a gunshot rang out from somewhere up ahead.

I flinched. The stranger didn’t.

Another gunshot thundered in the dark, and I thought I saw a muzzle flash chase shadows across the tunnel walls.

Time passed slowly as we waited… watching… listening…

A figure staggered into view–tall and bulky with shaggy hair. He held a gun, and he was aiming at something low to the ground behind him. He pulled the trigger, and in the flash I saw his face was a mask of fright. He clutched his stomach with his free hand. Blood covered his lips and chin.
He spotted us, too, and his bloody mouth gaped open in surprise. His teeth were razor sharp.

His gun hand hung limply at this side now, the smoking pistol pointed at the floor. He stumbled towards us, a couple of steps, no more.

“Sinclair,” he muttered. “You–”

The stranger–I reckon his name was Sinclair–snapped his own gun up in the blink of an eye and blew the cannibal to Kingdom Come before he could finish his sentence.

He moved quick now, dropping down next to the dead man and searching the body. Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t find, and he spat out a curse. “Come on,” he said, and he sprang to his feet and plunged into the darkness.

“What do you think he was shooting at?” I asked, but I had my answer soon enough.

I heard something.

Something wet.

Something meaty.

That’s the only way to describe it.

As the torchlight flooded through the tunnel, I gasped.

“God Almighty!”

I won’t one to blaspheme, but no other exclamation seemed quite right.

This … thing squirmed on the ground. It was about the size of a large dog, hairless, skinless, without any distinguishable face. It was a mass of twitching muscle and bone, flopping about of its own accord. It had been shot a couple of times, and from the bullet holes pumped blood. But it kept on moving, wriggling, like it was trying to unfold itself like the petals of a flower.

It smelled like rotten eggs and bacon grease.

“What is it? I asked.

Sinclair didn’t answer. He just looked at it for a moment, then moved along.

It was worse up ahead. Much worse.

We entered a sprawling chamber. The torchlight licked at the rough-hewn walls, the columns of stone. Scattered around the room were some of the “gifts” the folks from Newcomb’s Wild West Extravaganza had given Friedricks and his men.

Among the debris were dozens of empty green bottles.

“This’ll cure them what ails ya,” Ezra had said.

Three cannibals were sprawled on the floor. I knew they were dead right away. They were too pale, too still. Blood covered their mouths. Their bellies were swollen and distended.

“It’ll drive the foul spirits from your body like your granny chasing cats from the kitchen!”

In the deep crevices and pockets of dark the torch couldn’t touch, something flapped and flopped, a gristled, meaty kind of noise. I thought of stepping closer, taking a look, but I was too scared to force my legs to work. The hair stood on end on the backs of my arms. My nostrils burned at the overwhelming smell of Old Ezra’s medicine.

My first thought was that the cannibals had drunk down Ezra’s tonic, and it had driven the hungry spirits from their bodies. Only the spirits, they hadn’t died. I found no comfort in the notion, though, as it meant the vile things lurking outside my field of vision were demons made flesh.

One of the dead men had something sticking out of his mouth.

I stepped closer, shoving the torch towards the cannibal’s face.

Fingers–human fingers–jutted out from between his lips, and the way his throat was swollen up and bruised, I knew those fingers were attached to an arm pushing its way up from the man’s gullet.

The fingers twitched.

The flopping, flapping creatures in the darkness moved closer. I heard them slithering on the stone, heard their nails scraping the rock. Their shapes became more distinct. Some were formless masses like the thing we’d seen in the tunnel. Others were vaguely human in size and shape. Their blood-soaked flesh glistened.

I knew they weren’t demons at all.

“You’ve done come too late.”

The voice came from the other side of the chamber, and even though it was no more than a whisper, it shocked me like cannon fire. Boone Friedricks stepped into our light. If his men had been large, Boone himself was massive–big the way things from Biblical times were big. He was hunched over, though, and every couple of seconds he hacked up a mouthful of blood. Despite the cold, he wore no shirt. His stomach was swollen and something boney moved inside his gut.

Sinclair’s twin pistols snapped towards him like a compass needle pointing north.

“If you’ve come to kill me,” Friedricks said, “you’re too late.”

“Killing you is fairly high on my list.” Sinclair stepped towards the man. “But I didn’t track you down for just that purpose.”

“You still after this?” Friedricks dug in his pants pocket, pulled an ugly necklace out. It was no more than a hideous clay totem on a strip of old leather. “You’ve come a long way for this old thing.”

“I know someone who’ll pay good money for that,” Sinclair said. “And I knew one of you no-counts must’ve taken it after what you did to that shaman.”

The shapes in the darkness inched closer. They were closing in around us, slowly. I could hear them breathing, a rattling noise from their throats … or what passed for throats.

“I don’t have no use for this.” Friedricks looked at the necklace. “Supposed to be good luck, but looks like that’s a bunch of bunk.”

He eyed his dead companions. His tongue snaked out, slithered across his razor-like teeth. He turned his gaze towards the numerous bottles, glinting in the torchlight.

“Those people from the camp… they poisoned us… passed that bilge on to us…”

Sinclair kept one gun trained on Friedricks. He dropped the other into the holster. He reached out towards the cannibal.

“Just give me the necklace,” he said, “and we’ll leave you be.”

“What?” I asked.

“Look at him, boy. Look around you. He’s as good as dead.”

The misshapen figures moved closer. Some of them had faces-slavering, hideous faces, but faces just the same. I recognized some of them. People from camp. People who’d been tied to the sacrificial pole. Emily… Samuel… Darcy…

Jessie.

I shuddered, and a sob escaped my throat.

“They came back up,” Friedrick said. “We ate them, by God, and we drank that tonic-water down, and it brought them back to life… It brought what was left of them back to life inside us…”

He groaned and clutched his stomach. The thing inside him pushed against the walls of his belly, stretching the skin tight, trying to force its way out.

And I knew what… who… was growing in his stomach.

Old Ezra.

“The necklace,” Sinclair urged.

“Take it.” Friedricks tossed the totem at Sinclair, and the gunslinger snatched it out of the air. “Take it and go.”

Tucking the necklace in his vest pocket, Sinclair turned away from the cannibal. He eyes the squirming, shambling figures cautiously, then looked towards me.

“He’s finished,” he said. “Let’s go while we still can.”

I watched the hideous, twisted faces of my friends… my family… all around me. I hadn’t done a thing to save them. I hadn’t done a thing to avenge them.

I may not have been quick on the draw like Sinclair. There might not have been any magic in Colt McGregor’s pistol.

But I put a hole right between Boone Friedricks’ eyes.

And he died without any trouble at all.

* * *

I waited.

Sinclair didn’t.

He left without much of a goodbye, not that I expected one.

The fleshy, bloody things gathered around me. At first, I thought they might kill me. There was a kind of malice in their eyes. They might have ripped me to shreds, too, if not for me killing Friedricks the way I did. Maybe they saw that as an act of atonement.

The thing in Friedricks’ belly continued to squirm and kick. Eventually I used a knife to slice the cannibal open. A fleshy mass spilled out, and over the next few hours, it uncurled and grew into something resembling my friend Ezra. At first it wobbled on its legs like a newborn colt, and it mewled with a voice that was as much beast as it was infant. Soon enough, it found its footing and it settled into a solemn, grim silence.

And then they started to shamble out into the night.
Maybe they were the hunger spirits made flesh… Maybe they were the people from camp brought back from the dead. More than likely, they were a little of both, conjured up by the potion and all mixed up to the point I couldn’t tell where the evil spirit ended and the living dead began.

I knew where they were heading, of course, with their hearts full of anger and malice. They were slow, especially in the cold, and I could’ve outdistanced them without problem. I could have slipped past them and raced back to camp and warned those folks sitting around the Christmas tree hoping for a miracle to save them.

But I didn’t.

Ezra and Jessie and all the rest, they walked again, and that was miracle enough on a cold night like tonight.

I felt a stab of guilt for the camp. Not everyone deserved what was coming for them. They were just cowards, like me. But I’d made my peace, paid my penance. I’d been judged under the eyes of those twisted creatures, and I’d been left to live another day for the trouble. The others–down in the valley praying for a Christmas miracle–they’d have to do the same.

I followed the creatures to the foot of the hills, watched them march in the direction of camp. Their bloody footprints trailed off into what may as well have been forever.

I walked the other way.

* * *

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE SIXTH GUN SERIES
An epic dark fantasy set in the Old West, THE SIXTH GUN is a new ongoing, full color series from Oni Press launching in early May 2010. During the darkest days of the Civil War, wicked cutthroats came into possession of six pistols of otherworldly power. In time, the Sixth Gun–the most dangerous of the weapons–vanished. When the gun surfaces in the hands of an innocent girl, dark forces reawaken. Vile men thought long dead set their sights on retrieving the gun and killing the girl. Only Drake Sinclair, a gunfighter with a shadowy past, stands in their way.

Discuss this book with the creators at the Oni Press Blog!

Check out this interview with Antony on CBR: talking about his new stink on WASTELAND, his upcoming DAREDEVIL arc, and his upcoming original graphic novel COLD CITY.

“In short, if you haven’t read the Wasteland series yet, you’re in for a huge treat-the combination of science fiction, intrigue, adventure, myth-making, and mystery add up to the kind of thrill I remember getting at the beginning of the first Planet of the Apes movie, or, heck, even the desert scenes in Star Wars (still the best part as far as I’m concerned). And, like such iconic series as Lord of the Rings, Wasteland has a knack for being both epic and personal.” -Amazon Blog’s Jeff VanderMeer
 
 
Pick up a copy of  WASTELAND: THE APOCALYPTIC HARCOVER EDITION and discuss the book with the creators at the Oni Press Blog!
 
 
 
 

It’s with a heavy-heart that Oni Press announces the resignation of their long time Managing Editor, Randal C. Jarrell, who is leaving the company to enlist in the United States Army Reserves where he will serve as a medic while attending nursing school.

“This was easily the hardest decision of my professional life,” stated Jarrell. “I love this company and the people I work with, and I am so incredibly proud of the work we’ve done over the last 6 years. I just feel I have a calling to serve not just this country, but the men and women in uniform who have already sacrificed so much.”

Jarrell joined the Oni family in 2003 and has been instrumental in helping Oni Press publish one of the most eclectic, varied, and acclaimed lines of comic books in the industry. Further proving that sequential art could be used to tell virtually any story, Randy has edited many noted Oni titles including: award winning historical fictions FIRST IN SPACE and NORTHWEST PASSAGE, fantasy-noir fan favorite THE DAMNED, and the all-age smile-inducing SALT WATER TAFFY series.

“I’m extremely grateful to Randy for his incredible dedication to this company,” added Oni Press publisher Joe Nozemack. “His hard work, intelligence, and taste have been absolutely essential in helping us grow into the company we are today. James, the rest of the Oni staff, and I would like to thank him for his years of service and wish him great luck in this exciting new endeavor. While there is sadness about his departure, there’s also much excitement about the future as we add two amazing new people to the Oni Press family.”

Randy will be succeeded by new hire George Rohac, who will be taking over his managerial duties as Oni’s Operations Director. Randy’s editorial workload will be divided amongst Oni’s editorial department run by editor in chief James Lucas Jones. That same department will be adding new associate editor Charlie Chu, formerly of 20th Century Fox, and promoting assistant editor Jill Beaton to associate editor.

“With the addition of George and Charlie and promotion of Jill, Oni Press embarks on a bold new era,” concluded Oni Press editor in chief James Lucas Jones. “These are three immensely talented, smart, and hard-working individuals who have already contributed to Oni’s success behind the scenes. In these new positions they will be given the opportunity to help push Oni Press in exciting new directions, an opportunity I’m confident they will all take full advantage of.”

Wish Randy farewell at the Oni Press Forums!

Part Three

Ezra cried out in the dark.

“I don’t speak lightly of miracles, friends! Miracles are too few and far between, and to treat them with an air of triviality … why, that’s a fool’s business!”

I’d heard those words-well-rehearsed to part rubes from their money-a thousand times in a thousand mud-hole towns. But hearing them at that moment, after all that had happened, reminded me of happier times, back when a bunch of rickety wagons felt like home, and I had friends and family and hot meals and a warm bed-

But Ezra was dead. So was my brother.

And I didn’t have a home, not any more.

I was dreaming-I knew it-but I couldn’t wake up. I didn’t want to wake up. A good dream can damn near fool you into thinking you’ve died and gone to Heaven.

“… I’ve traveled far and wide, through lands civilized and savage, to find the perfect fixings for this here tonic …”

I’ll admit, I’d never so much as tasted the potion. The stink of it-like rotten eggs and bacon grease-put me off. Nor had I been allowed to watch Ezra brew the stuff in his wagon stocked with strange-smelling roots and jars of colorful powders. But Jessie told me the primary ingredient of the tonic was whiskey, and a lot of it. The way Ezra near pickled himself with the stuff, I believed it.

“… And if this elixir ain’t a genuine miracle, then I don’t know if such a thing truly exists! One sip, friends, and you’ll feel strong as an ox, healthy as a horse, and -dare I say-positively virile!”

Ezra’s voice grew distant, like he was calling from the bottom of a deep well.

“This’ll cure them what ails ya, folks! It’ll drive the foul spirits from your body like your granny chasing cats from the kitchen!”

The shadows swallowed up the old man’s voice, and he was gone.

The dream ended.

* * *

Sensation oozed back into my body as I awoke. A deep chill had settled in the meat of my bones. Every breath felt like I was inhaling snow. Maybe I should’ve been thankful for that. I’d been cut open like a Christmas goose, and I imagine the pain might’ve been unbearable if not for the numbing cold.

I opened my eyes …

And a dead man stared back at me.

Frank Cartwright-the cannibal who’d tried to kill me-lay not two feet away. His devil’s eyes were clouded over. His skin was as pallid as a sheet phantom. His bluish lips looked like a pair of frozen slugs, and behind them I spied the sharp tips of his teeth.

I jumped up, and a lance of pain shot through my stomach, almost knocking me right back down. Somehow, I kept from screaming-just barely.

“Easy now.” A firm, steadying hand grasped my shoulder. The stranger’s voice was deep, and his accent betrayed a Southern upbringing. “Most of your cuts weren’t that deep, and I patched you up best I could. I’m no sawbones, though. Wouldn’t take much to tear open that dressing and start you bleeding again.”

I ran my hands under my ripped and bloodied shirt. My belly was wrapped in bandages.

I glanced at Frank Cartwright, who lay still as a coffin nail. It looked like the stranger had searched the dead man’s body-emptied his pockets, removed his gun belt, undone his shirt, even pulled off his boots.

I wondered if his ghoulish pursuits had yielded results.

I didn’t ask what he was searching for, though, and I didn’t ask the stranger’s name. I had a sneaking suspicion I wouldn’t have gotten an answer to either question.

Cartwright’s too-pale eyes followed me. I shivered, partly because of the cold, partly because of the dead man’s fixed stare.

“I wouldn’t worry about him.” The stranger’s words were dry. “He doesn’t have much fight left in him.”

The gunslinger looked the way you might have suspected, the way men of his ilk were portrayed in dime novels-dangerous, menacing. Shadows crawled across his face. His eyes seemed to catch the feeble moonlight and hold onto it like a fly in a spider’s web.

I can’t say how long I was out. An hour, maybe less. I’d been dragged-along with the dead man-up into the hills. Large boulders and outcroppings of jagged stone offered a little protection from the frigid, gusting winds and the sweeping snow. Covered in ice crystals, the rocks glistened. Beneath me, the hard stone ground tried to leech what little body heat I had left. Above me, the sky was a churning stew of thick clouds waiting to dump a pure blizzard.

I struggled to my feet. My legs were unsteady, and my head pounded.

A saddle and bags lay on the ground nearby. From the looks of it, the stranger had been riding for days, and he had supplies aplenty to stay in the wilds for some time. A large stallion stood at the edge of the campsite. Its coat was as pitch as the night itself, and the animal was so still and quiet that it was almost invisible. It was the kind of horse I pictured a ghost riding in a campfire story.

Speaking of campfires, the stranger hadn’t started one. The camp was cold, dark. There wasn’t even a single stick of kindling to be seen.

I started to complain, but all that I could stammer was, “C-c-cold.”

“So you can talk after all.” He smirked. “I was beginning to wonder if Frank hadn’t cut your tongue from your mouth before I killed him. Move around a bit if you’re cold. That’ll get your blood pumping. Afraid I can’t risk a fire. I’d guess Friedricks and his men are keeping a lookout. I’m surprised the gunshots didn’t bring them scurrying out of hiding like rats in high water. They’d spot us for sure if I started a blaze, and they might even have a rifle or two up there. ”

He gazed into the hills, and I looked, too. I didn’t see a thing, but imagining those cannibals staring down on me with their gleaming eyes and chattering fish-teeth didn’t do a thing to make me feel any warmer.

“Why are you tracking them?” I asked at last. “You chasing a bounty?”

“Not exactly.”

One of his pistols near jumped into his hand, and I couldn’t help but stagger back a step. With a flick of his wrist, he snapped the gun open, checked the chamber, and returned the weapon to its holster in the blink of an eye. He repeated the act with his other pistol. Then he looked at me, sizing me up.

“I noticed a bunch of circled wagons a ways back. That where you’re from?”

“Yes, sir.”

What he’d seen was the final resting place of Newcomb and Judd’s Wild West Extravaganza. Once upon a time, it was the finest congress of cowboys, painted ladies, rough riders, and magicians to ever draw a crowd. That was before Mr. Judd died with consumption, of course, leaving that heartless cur Newcomb as sole owner.

“I reckon you got stuck in the snowstorm.” He nudged Cartwright’s body with the toe of his boot. “Bad luck making camp just in time for this lot to find you. Men like Friedricks, they don’t pass up easy meat. Now that they’ve found you, they’ll hide out in the hills, watching like coyotes or buzzards. They’ll pick every one of you clean to the bone before they’re done.”

I didn’t mention Newcomb’s arrangement with the cannibals.

The stranger had his secret, and I had mine … for the time being.

“You’re going to kill them,” I said, “ain’t you?”

The stranger’s stark eyes peered at me. After a time, he spoke, his words as cold as the deepest winter frost.

“I suppose I am.”

“Let me help you then.” I couldn’t help but feel a rush of sudden excitement. “I don’t even want no part of any reward money. Those bastards killed my friend … killed my brother … and I aim to see them dead. I have a gun-”

My fingers strayed to my belt where Colt McGregor’s pistol should’ve been. The weapon was missing, and I suddenly remembered dropping the revolver in the snow. Had it been left behind? I glanced frantically around the camp.

“Looking for this?”

The stranger drew McGregor’s pistol from his own bullet-studded belt. He turned the gun over in his hand deftly, then tossed it to me. The weapon spun in the air, glinting, and I caught it in both hands. The gun felt heavier than I remembered, and I almost dropped it once again.

“You don’t strike me as someone who goes heeled often,” the stranger said. “Where’d you get the six-shooter, kid?”

I looked down, embarrassed. “I stole it, I reckon.”

“So, you’re a killer and a thief, is that it?”

There was no judgment in his words.

“I may not be a gunfighter.” I gripped McGregor’s pistol tightly. “But this gun once belonged to the deadliest shootist to ever pull a trigger. I figured-”

He sensed where I was head and interrupted me.

“Son, I know a thing or two about magic guns … and that ain’t one of them.”

My gut told me the stranger knew what he was talking about. The gun seemed to gain twenty pounds in my hands. My shoulders sagged.

“Just the same,” I said, “I’m gonna make those men pay.”

“Men …” He nearly spat the word from his mouth. “Let me ask you something, boy. Did you get a good look at Cartwright’s teeth?”

“I saw them up close and personal.”

“And did they look like teeth that belonged in the mouth of a normal man?”

I looked at Cartwright, then back at the stranger. “What is he then, if not a man?”

“There are a lot of stories.” The stranger shrugged. “Most of them don’t hold water. But the bad stories, the really frightening ones … More often than not there’s at least a little truth to them. There’s a legend that says when one man eats the flesh of another, then that man invites an evil spirit to take up in his soul. It’s like a hungry worm, this spirit, wriggling around inside its host, and it wants nothing more than to taste human flesh again. And what the spirit wants, the host wants.”

“And Friedricks and his men, they’ve got these things inside them?”

“Maybe so. During the war, they did some awful things, and now it might be catching up with them. They’re changing, becoming less like men and more like the spirits growing inside them.”

“You’re saying they’re …” I didn’t want to speak the word. “… monsters.”

“I’m saying you’ll be walking into a world of trouble if you come with me.”

“I ain’t scared,” I lied.

Maybe the gunfighter knew there was no sense in arguing with me. If he left me behind, I’d just follow him. Or maybe he was just coppering his chances by bringing an extra gun … and an extra body along.

Just then, a strong gust cut between the rocks, and Cartwright’s shirt blew open.

There was something wrong with the dead man’s stomach. Several large, dark bruises covered his pale flesh. From each of the bruises radiated numerous winding veins, like black rivers across his skin. His belly was distended, like that of a snake that had just raided an overfull chicken nest. Something knobby and boney pressed against the skin from within.

“What is that?” I asked. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know,” the stranger answered. “Maybe he was sick.”

But that didn’t look like no disease I’d ever heard about.

“Forget about that,” the stranger said. “You’d best get real comfortable with that revolver of yours … and fast. We’re heading up into the hills shortly, and I expect there’ll be … bloodshed.”

I barely heard him. I couldn’t take my eyes off the horrible bruises and protrusions on Cartwright’s flesh.

It looked like something had been trying to force its way out of the dead man’s guts.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT TUESDAY…

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