Something moved just to his right. Whatever it was had stepped on a twig, snapping the dryness. Sam remained still, only his eyes moving. Whatever it was came closer. Sam slowly lifted the muzzle of the Thompson, easing the SMG off safety. If it was one of the Undead, perhaps he could not kill it with the machine gun, but he could stop it long enough to grab a stake. Sam had fitted a drum onto the belly of the Thompson. Sixty rounds of .45 caliber ammunition.
The thing drew nearer, moving stealthily through the moonless night. It moved with a shuffling motion, almost clumsy as it came.
Sweat beaded Sam's forehead as the thing made a noise unlike anything Sam had ever heard before. A non-human sound, as if heavy jaws were chewing on something.
And then it mooed. A cow.
Sam slowly expelled his breath, relaxing tense muscles, easing his grip on the Thompson. And then the thought came to him: the devil can take the shape of any thing, any animal. If the devil can do that, could not his true disciples do the same? Could not the devil will his work to any animal—any human?
Sam looked closer, his smile grim as his suspicions became facts. The animal's eyes were blood red and unblinking. The drool from its lips stank. And Sam knew where he'd smelled that before.
He eased down on one knee, bracing against the kick and the climb of the weapon on full automatic. The animal was less than five yards from him when he leveled the Thompson and pulled the trigger, starting the fire at the animal's legs and allowing for the rise of the powerful weapon. He emptied half the sixty round drum into the cow. The animal screamed in an unHoly wail, the heavy slugs actually lifting the cow off its front hooves.
Undead it may be, but in human or animal form, it was subject—unless it had time to prepare itself—to damage, just as any mortal, breathing, living thing. And Sam shot it to bloody rags.
The thing thrashed and howled on the ground, its legs smashed and broken, unable to hold its assumed weight. Sam shot it between the eyes, putting ten rounds in its head, in its brain. As his friends gathered around, rubbing sleep from their eyes, flashlights in their hands, the thing began its metamorphosis, changing from animal to human and back to animal, until nothing was left except a dirty, stinking pile of rags and bones.
"Dear God!" Wade said.
"That's where we've got them!" Sam said, as triumph filled him. "That's what I didn't know. Now I do. If we find them by day, they'll be sleeping, resting in the gloom; we drive a stake through their hearts. At night, if they're in any other form, they can be killed. I don't know why, but they can."
"Do we kill every animal on this range?" Tony asked.
"If we have to," Sam said, looking to the east. Just the faintest tint of pink was forming. Sam smiled, but it was not the smile of a gentle man of God. It was the smile of a warrior. "We take the fight to them," he said, then turned and walked back to the camp area for a cup of coffee.
Miles observed, "I think he's actually looking forward to this fight."
"Yes," Jane Ann said. "He is." There was a touch of fear in her voice.
She backed up and bumped into a stinking object. Screaming, she spun away before the thing could put its arms around her. As her shrieking cut the predawn, Jane Ann looked around and into the lifeless eyes of Sheriff Marsh. She had attended his funeral months back.
Sam ran back to the group, a stake in his hand. The creature lurched and drooled at Sam. The minister spun, faked a move, then brought the stake up and drove it into the thing's chest.
It died on the ground.
"Leave it," Sam ordered. "Let's go—we've work to do."
In the darkness of a bedroom, heavy drapes protecting her eyes from the outside world, Nydia lay naked on the bed, holding her arms out for Wilder, her voluptuousness aching for him. She opened her legs, ready to receive him.
"You gorged yourself last evening," he scolded her. "I should have known you would overreact if I turned you loose as what you once were."
She smiled, her grin a grotesque spreading of her lips, for her teeth were fanged.
"Contain yourself," Wilder ordered. "And transform. Do it!"
Her tongue began to shrink in size, losing its blood-red color. She ran her tongue over her lips, her eyes losing their wild tint. Her teeth were normal. Her chest rose and fell in anticipation of Wilder's assault upon her, her heavy breasts with jutted nipples quivered.
She fondled him, and obscenities rolled from her tongue.
"You really are a crude bitch, Nydia," he taunted her.
"Damn you, Black! Don't make me beg for it."
She screamed as he penetrated her.
The town of Whitfield lay dead-like under the early morning sun; cut off from the outside, receiving no visitors until all was ready.
George Best sat in the sheriff's office, naked from the waist down, his legs spread wide. A young girl, scarcely in her teens, crouched between his legs, giving him oral sex. Best picked up the phone at the first ring.
"No problems at all," he said, after listening for a few seconds. "Everything is fine as wine here, Governor."
He listened for a few more seconds. "No, sir," Best said, smiling. "No, sir, we don't anticipate any problems at all, Governor. I can assure you, by this time next week, we'll have everything back to normal." He smiled. "Just as it was before the roads were closed. Yes, sir, I'll sure be in touch with your office if we need any help. Oh, he's asleep, sir. Not much going on around Whitfield. Thank you, sir. I'll sure give Sheriff Addison your best."
He hung up the phone, laughing. Placing his hands on the young girl's head, he pushed his erection deeper into her mouth. He began laughing louder. The devil's laughter.
The young girl moaned her pleasure.
Across the street, in what was once Long's Coffee Shop, several teenagers were engaged in a gang bang with an older woman. Several young girls watched them, waiting their turn.
The moans of the tortured could be heard in the heating summer air.
Whitfield stank of evil, of deprivation, of passions gone berserk, of blood, and of the un-Godly.
And out in the Bad Lands, Walter Addison slept on the floor of a closet, in an abandoned shack. Hiding from God's light, he waited for darkness, to resume the hunt.
Thursday - the First Day
Sam watched the five cowboys ride toward the ridge where they were hiding. He had put aside his Thompson, replacing it with one of Chester's M-ls. Chester held an identical .30-06 military rifle cradled in his arms.
"You take the two on the right," Sam whispered. "I'll take the other three."
"How do we know they're possessed?"
"We don't. Want to invite them up the hill and ask them?"
Chester shook his head. "I'll pass on that. They're wearing medallions around their necks. Guess that settles it."
Five seconds later, there were five empty saddles.
The men walked down the hill to the still-writhing men. Sam pointed the muzzle of the M-1 at a cowboy's head.
"Give me a break!" the man begged.
"Sure," Sam said. "Just like you would have given me a break."
"Fuck you!" the cowboy snarled, spitting at Sam. The foamy red spittle hit Sam on the leg of his jeans.
Sam squeezed the trigger, then went to the next man, with Chester following suit. Watching from the ridge, Wade shuddered, "I wouldn't want either of them for an enemy.''
Back in camp, Sam said, "Let's pack it up and move it. Ches, you said you knew where there was some dynamite."
"Right, and some gasoline while we're there . Over on the Cherry Creek range. They've been doing some blasting. Ever handled dynamite, Sam?"