They chained the man to a post in a clearing just beyond a dwindling muddy brook. He strained against the cuffs around his wrists violently as spittle collected on the edges of his mouth. He grunted at us, baring his teeth, speaking in a language I didn’t understand. The look in his eye was erratic and I would be shocked if anyone told me there was still some sanity left. I wondered if that is what happened to people in Gustaf’s care.
I heard the sound of footsteps behind me and turned to see Annette and a gunman walking close behind her.
‘This is Carlos Guerra. You’re going to stick with him,’ she said, staring at the man fighting his restraints. ‘The sun is going down soon, so I expect you two to find a perch. Fill him in.’
‘A la orden,’ said the man. He had coffee colored skin and sported a patchy moustache and hard black eyes. Annette turned her back and disappeared into the undergrowth.
‘So you’re the gringo I hear so much about,’ said Carlos eyeing me up and down. ‘You’re lucky to be alive.’
Understatement of the century.
I realized Carlos had a sawed-off double barrel shotgun tucked under his arm by a sling around his shoulder. He patted the cruel steel weapon gently. ‘Follow me.’
We walked to a rather large tree and I saw small blocks of wood nailed into the bark like a ladder leading up to a platform thirty feet high. Carlos climbed up and I felt a sense of dread nipping at my ankles as I followed. The sun had gone beneath the horizon its blood orange rays casting a canopy overhead. Carlos slung the shotgun on his back and grabbed a rifle that was resting on the platform with a cracked scope on it.
He sat on the edge and aimed the scope at the madman chained to a post in the clearing. I realized the remaining of Annette’s gunmen were on similar perches on trees surrounding the clearing. I saw Annette huddled in a blanket on one tree a few yards away.
‘Who is that?’ I finally dared to ask, gesturing to the grunting madman in the center.
Carlos peered from his scope and leaned on his rifle. ‘It’s dangerous to go down now. If you need to relieve yourself, do it over the back side of the tree. I will shoot your knee caps out if I find or touch anything disgusting on my way back down. You wanna know who that is? That is one of Dusty Rose’s bounty hunters.’
‘Why did Gustaf mark his skin like that?’
‘Gustaf didn’t do that. From what I know, those marks appear when you touch a Dusty Rose coin,’ said Carlos digging into a tin can and stuffed a wad of chew under his lip. He spit over the side of the platform. ‘I’m sure you have many questions, but that’s why we’re here. They say if a hunter is caught outside Glen Rio when the Bullet Catcher Championship begins, bad things happen. This championship begins tonight.
‘What kind of things?’ I asked.
‘That’s why we’re here. Now, stay quiet and keep your eyes open, cabrón.’
I held my tongue as darkness enveloped us. A few of the gunmen struck cigars or cigarettes, their ends glowing like fireflies in the night.
Then I heard a sound that turned the blood running through my veins to ice. At first, it was like the sound of a thousand whispers all around me. The grasses seemed to grow and turn into a sea of green flowing this way and that. The very sky turned dark blue like a glass had been laid overhead magnifying the darkness around us. I felt like cotton in my mouth but I was too afraid to swallow.
The madman screamed and howled uttering noises from his throat my mind fears to recall or else relive the nightmare my eyes were witness too. Carlos must have felt the same sensation as his face went pale and he too, seemed too scared to even move.
Suddenly, the earth swelled up and burst outward as a dozen black limbs of a skeleton poked through. I could hardly believe my eyes. The man strained against the chains around his wrists and ankles kicking and throwing himself to be free. Blood dripped from his arms and legs but he paid no attention to his wounds. His eyes were wide and watching these hellions climb up from the ground.
Dozens of skeleton creatures ascended with growls and guttural yelps, all clambering for the man, surrounding him and closing in. The man screamed again and then the chains broke. With inhuman howls he broke his ankle chains as if they were made of paper and he charged into the forest, the demons chasing after.
Annette shouted something and Carlos grabbed his rifle and spat. He leaned over the edge and began fired his shotgun.
‘Shoot your weapon, pendejo!‘ he shouted. I leaned over the edge of the wooden platform and saw a dozen skeletons at the base of the tree and one of them had begun to climb up the makeshift ladder. A dozen more shadows gathered beneath to form a crowd of skeletons with red glowing eyes staring hungrily up at us.
I can’t say much more than in that moment, I could feel death grip me by the neck and choke the air from my lungs. We were fucked.
– Dr. Marcus Listrum
Author J.M. Topp 