Westward Weird Read online

  Raul, as always, stood stiffly, unaffected, holding the leather case now, instead of leaving it to sit casually at his feet.

  Interestingly, the air grew still the higher we climbed, and the stink and sourness of the sulfur, so prevalent in the Yellowstone air, began to dissipate. It was not that I had become accustomed to the smell; it was actually vaporizing, disappearing. I could still feel the cold attacking every bit of exposed skin that it could find.

  I was quite perplexed at the thought of a town being built at such extremes, height and location, as it were, but people have lived in far more remote places in the world. I could see how a man with the imagination of Buffalo Bill Cody could dream up such a thing, though.

  Halfway up, Raul reached inside his buffalo fur long coat with his free hand, and pulled out a gold-plated revolver that he called “The Cannon.”

  Instead of one grip, there were two, one in the normal place at the rear of the weapon and the other being in front of the double-trigger. A small cylinder sat atop the two barrels, holding a chemical mixture that upped the propulsion of the bullets, if they could be called that, since the cannon balls were four times the size of a normal .45 caliber cartridge. Exactly what the chemicals were, I could not say. Nor could I say what the add-on chamber was on the side of the weapon. Raul was the scientist and munitions expert, not me. My talents lay elsewhere, or so I have been told, and I trust Raul’s skill with weapons implicitly.

  The Cannon was not Raul’s everyday weapon. But then again, this was no everyday job. I had no idea what he’d packed in the simple case he carried, but if I knew anything about Raul, it was that he was always prepared. If that were not true, I would have been a dead man ten times over.

  “Expecting more trouble than usual?” I asked.

  “There will be no welcoming committee.”

  “If the stories are true.”

  “You doubt that, signore?”

  I nodded. “I have seen some strange things in this life, Raul, but surely in broad daylight there will be no threat.”

  “Evil does not require darkness to breathe—or breed—you should know that by now. This is like no place we have ever been before. I will lead.”

  “Of course,” I said, just in case I was wrong. It had happened before.

  Some of the flooring of the elevator had rotted away, allowing for a stomach-tumbling look down ... if one dared. Thankfully, a thick cloud of geyser mist had obscured a clear view of the ground. There was no sign of Harry Norman. It was as if he had vanished into thin air.

  My knees continued to tremble as we lurched upward into the sky.

  From what I could tell, we were nearly two-thirds of the way to our destination, the only sounds now the strain of the ropes that pulled the elevator to the gate, the whoosh of air caused by our movement, and the weights on the opposite pulley traveling downward.

  There were no other live creatures to be seen in the landscape. Not a crow, vulture, or an eagle. Neither scavenger nor hunter had the lack of sense to be out in the weather we faced, or were stupid enough, like Raul and I were, to ride high into the sky on a rotting contraption, our next stop a man-made island in the sky.

  Raul reached down and opened the case again. He handed me a weapon, smaller than the Cannon, with one trigger, but the same propulsion chamber and a smaller barrel.

  “Silver bullets, just in case,” he said. “Do you have your other armaments?”

  “Of course,” I answered, taking a deep breath. The elevator carriage was slowing down, and the shadow cast down from the skystead was growing darker. Oddly, it looked like we were journeying down instead of up. The light was growing dimmer, grayer, and then nothing but the blackness reached out to us as we approached the raftered underside of the island itself.

  “Are you sure?” Raul insisted. His experience with me in critical situations was showing, as I had been less prepared in earlier adventures that had nearly caused our early demise.

  “Would you like an inventory?”

  “Sì, I would.”

  I nodded. There was no time to argue or to be glib. I knew the risks we were facing, as it were. “Three vials of holy water, blessed by the Pope himself. One wood stake for piercing hearts, if the need and night comes. The small knife that saved our lives previously in that hideous town in Pennsylvania. Two Colt Single Action Army pistols, and two belts full of cartridges. My inate talents—and this contraption you have just handed me. What do you call this one?” I tumbled the weapon over in my hand, having never seen it before. It fit my hand comfortably, like it belonged there.

  “La mia ultima occasione di vedere domani. My last chance to see tomorrow.”

  “Very funny.”

  The rope groaned, and from somewhere beneath us, Harry Norman applied a brake to the elevator, slowing it to a crawl and a shuddering stop. I could hear nothing but the quickening beats of my own heart. Perspiration began to show itself—and freeze almost as immediately—on my forehead and under my nose.

  ~ * ~

  If I hadn’t known I was standing on a steam-raised platform three hundred feet in the air, I would have sworn I was standing solidly on the earth.

  New Ithaca looked like any other small town in the Yellowstone Valley, or west of the Mississippi River, for that matter.

  There was a three-story hotel, a bank, two saloons, one at each end of town, a livery establishment, and of course, a single-level whorehouse. The front door to the whorehouse banged open and closed in the wind, and the sign, LADY ANNE’S HOUSE OF PLEASURES, was faded but still readable. It didn’t look like there had been one second of pleasure to be had in New Ithaca in a very long time.

  I found the idea of a livery company interesting, since it sat on the very south edge of the skystead, acting as a port for the flying ferries, steam-powered airships that of course never arrived. There would have been a need for horses and carriages, if the western expansion had been needed, had the population grown as hoped, instead of dwindling to nothing—all in the matter of an hour.

  There was no church in sight, which may have, at least, kept some of the evil at bay—or housed it. I have seen it both ways in my adventures.

  A solid layer of snow that felt more like hard-as-stone ice covered the entire town, and there was not a creature to be seen. No birds, no ghosts, nothing to suggest any evil there at all. The place was vacant, desolate, crumbling under the weight of winter, neglect, and the erosion of time.

  The door to the elevator car clanked behind us. Allowing Raul to lead, as he had demanded. I left the door unlocked, fearing it would freeze shut, barring a quick escape—if it came to that.

  I took a deep breath, and stood behind Raul, just off to his right. All the better as far as I was concerned.

  There were no noticeable smells, which was another good sign. There always seemed to be something rotting, traces of evil, announcements to the presence of any kind of vile creature from the dark, but there seemed to be none here. Maybe Buffalo Bill had been wrong. Maybe the stories of the horrors were untrue, concocted to steal him of his investment and good name. Or maybe, the evil had vacated, gone back to where it came from in the first place. I doubted that, though. We would have heard the tales by now.

  The sun glanced out from behind a cloud, then hurried in retreat to hide itself, casting deeper gray shadows over all of New Ithaca than existed before.

  Raul took a confident step forward, the Cannon securely in one hand, the munitions case in the other, and headed straight for the hotel.

  I hesitated. Surely the creatures knew we were here by now, had a sentry system of some kind to alert them of interlopers and trespassers. The prospect of lunch, human flesh that constituted a collection of the finest food available in the west, must have had a delectable smell all of its own. Thinking of one’s self as lunch is not a habit of mine, nor was it a lack of belief in my skills or Raul’s. It was fear, pure and simple. I was scared.

  But then again, I had been scared before, and here I stood,
facing another adventure.

  I gripped my weapon, sucked it up with a deep breath, and followed after Raul like a secondhand partner ready to shoot himself in the foot.

  The inside of the hotel was darker than it was outside, and for the first time, my nose detected something foreign, not of this world—the smell stung my eyes, too, like ammonia, and quickly coated my tongue. The whole inside of my mouth tasted like I’d taken a lick of chalk. I coughed, holding it in my chest as deeply as I could, so not to make any loud noise, so I wouldn’t set off an alarm. Honestly, I wanted to go back to Minneapolis where this whole thing had started and forget about the whole adventure. Raul and I could have made it through the winter, surely not in high comfort, but comfortable enough to feed ourselves—and not have to worry about being food ourselves. Courage grows in danger, my foot.

  Raul scowled over his shoulder. I pointed to my mouth, feigned a gag, to see if he’d experienced the same thing, but all he did was roll his eyes like I was being childish and moved slowly ahead.

  The hotel had been a grand vision. Opulence without consideration for expense was the obvious goal. What had been fine red velvet draperies hung at the windows, shredded now, presumably by the weather and time. The glass had long since been shattered from the panes. A patchwork of crusted snow and ice was scattered across the floor, as well as on just about everything within reach of the windows and front door.

  The finish work, moldings and trim, were all hand-carved mahogany, still straining to hold to a shine and a sense of glamour and arrogance at three hundred feet in the air. Most all of the furniture was toppled over, legs broken off chairs, upholstery ripped out, perhaps for nesting material for all I knew.

  The foyer looked like it had been the scene of a momentous fistfight, something memorable for certain. And the carpet was lush when it could be seen under the snow, Turkish in design but faded and covered with red splotches that I could only assume were dried blood.

  A portrait of Buffalo Bill hung over the fireplace, long hair flowing behind him, dressed in his buckskins, pale blue sky the only background, and a smile of success plastered on his legendary face. I looked away from the picture. For some reason, the man’s eyes gave me the shivers. It was like they were real, burrowing into my own eyes with anger and resentment or maybe doubt of my fortitude. Perhaps I was being a bit touchy, but it was Bill’s island, and I was nothing more than a hired hand with a killer for backup. I had a right to feel uneasy about those eyes, I tell you.

  Raul stopped at the foot of the stairs, and cocked his head sideways... listening for something above.

  For a moment, all I could hear was the beating of my own heart, reminding me of my current state of fear.

  But then I heard it.

  Faint scratches against the wood floor above us; tenuous and cautious steps, like a cat with overlong nails sneaking up on its prey, or a single fingernail dragging slowly across a hard, but penetrable surface. Scrape. Stop. Scrape. Stop. Scrape ...

  Raul took a step up, completely focused on the landing at the top of the stairs. I wanted to shout at him to stop. Are you crazy! But I couldn’t bring myself to. Besides, I knew the answer to my question was yes, he was crazy, to a certain degree. Our life together was a testament to that.

  We had come to New Ithaca for this moment, and I knew what we would face. I had just hoped that the creatures were gone, were truly a thing of myth and campfire tales, but that is not the world we live in.

  Scrape. Stop. Scrape. Stop. Nearer. Closer. Right over my head.

  The smell of death in a nonexistent hot sun surrounded me, encased me so immediately I could hardly breathe.

  I expected an acid goo to seep through the cracks in the floor at any second, scald my hands, and send me writhing back from where I came in pain that could not be diminished or ever healed. Once touched by the poisonous blood of this kind of evil, there is no serum to heal the wounds. At least that I knew of.

  I was two steps behind Raul. My fingers were sweaty, and the cold and stench could not stop me. My awareness of any physical reality was quickly vanishing. Running was not a choice. I could have been standing on the moon, for all I knew.

  Raul stopped. So, too, did the scraping.

  A hard, cold wind pushed in through the open doorway, hitting me square between the shoulder blades, like a boulder had been thrown at me from some unseen creature. I glanced backward, and nothing was there. Nothing but roiling clouds, twisting from sinister gray to outraged black. Ice began to fall; pellets bounced off the ground and roof of the hotel with the force of bullets shot from a million warring rifles.

  Somehow I could still hear breathing. My own, Raul’s, and the creature’s. It was just beyond the landing. I could see its shadow looming, waiting for us to move on it. My guess was that there were more of them on the upper floors. This one was a mere scout to judge our capabilities or the tenderness of our flesh.

  A slight red glow began to emanate from the shadow on the second floor, demon eyes burning downward. I was sure of it. I had not been warned of Medusa eyes, but I would take heed anyway. I would avoid looking into the creature’s eyes at all costs. Hell burned in those soulless eyes. A hell beyond this world that I had no knowledge of nor desire to learn.

  It’s not like we were the first ones to ever venture upward to the skystead with a mission to terminate the existence of the creatures. Each human attack had failed miserably, leaving the creatures to thrive and grow confident in their surroundings. At some point, arrogance and the need to colonize would force them to venture away from the island in the sky. Buffalo Bill had no plan for that occurrence—not that I knew of, anyway.

  Every human that had stepped on the skystead took it upon themselves as an act of war, and we all knew it. But Raul and I were not a brigade and destroying the nest was not our cause. Perhaps that would trip them up. They would automatically assume we would want them dead, that our goal was the same as theirs—survival at any cost. But that was hardly the truth. We were after money, not blood.

  Before Raul could ease his finger around the Cannon’s trigger, we felt an unexpected rumble under our feet.

  At first I thought it was snow thunder. A clash of energy above or below us, a natural reaction of the altitude in a winter storm. But the rumble was not thunder or a reaction of nature. The next quake of the ground proved that. We were nearly thrown off our feet, and there was a great creaking below us. The floor began to shudder and tilt downward, then back up.

  A geyser of unrestrained steam blew up in the middle of the street, just beyond the door of the hotel. One of the foundation stacks had blown open—or had been opened by some unseen force. Perhaps I had underestimated the creatures.

  Raul and I both managed to keep our balance, but the creature stumbled forward, completely exposing itself.

  It was like no other demon I had ever seen.

  At about four feet tall, its body was composed of nothing but muscles, rippled across the blackest skin one could imagine. Coal. A lake on a moonless night. The coat of a stallion not marked by any white. Nothing compared to the demon’s naked, shiny skin. At best, it probably weighed fifty pounds.

  Its five fingers on each hand were tipped with nails that looked like the blades of the sharpest knives known to mankind. Not silver, but black, of course. The only other color apparent on the creature were its burning red eyes, now frozen in fear, realizing it was at risk of being killed.

  The smell of death grew exponentially around us, tipping both Raul and me back on our heels. The demon had remained standing only by the balance of its tail, a hooked triangle on the end, stabbed in between the floor boards.

  There was no humility to the thing. Its male genitalia dangled casually, and I thought of it immediately as a secondary target—if I got the chance to take a shot at the demon.

  Raul drew in a deep breath, and countered what he thought, correctly, was the next rumble of the faux ground beneath us. The floor of the hotel groaned and tilted in the oppos
ite direction, the foundation of the building rising upward and breaking apart on impact.

  There was much more at risk here than a normal earthquake. If the island broke apart, as it seemed intent on doing, the fall would be fatal for any living creature who did not have the luxury of wings— which meant all of us, human and demon.

  I did not have the foresight that Raul had had and fell to the side, tumbling over the banister, and sprawling to the floor.

  I wasn’t hurt. I hadn’t fallen that far, but I was vulnerable—the gun had spun out of my hand and stopped ten feet from me.

  Outside the hotel, I heard a chorus of demon screams, high-pitched squeals that were the most unearthly thing I had ever heard. More scraping and screaming came from above us—panic reigned on the top floor as the hotel threatened to collapse. And just as suddenly as I had smelled the foulness of the demon, I now smelled smoke. Something was on fire.