The Hellfinder

         The gray sky gave out a low growl of thunder, as if it were trying to warn anyone within earshot of what they might be in for.  Lucas Morgan peered up from under his wide brimmed hat, glanced over to his companion, Red Harris, and then kicked his horse forward.  Red scratched his unshaven chin and then kicked his own horse on slowly after Morgan.  The darkening sky responded to the two men’s defiance with a loud roar of thunder, and on queue, the wind gusted in the riders’ direction.

         “Lucas, you know we're fixin’ to get soaked”, said Red.  Red was a big man, six feet tall and a good two hundred and twenty pounds.  Red could smell rain coming, and was hoping to be somewhere else when it planned to finally get there.  “We close?”

         Lucas looked down at the ground.  He then reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out what at first looked like a pocket watch.  It was old, made of ebony trimmed with gold.  When he opened the latch, the insides were more like a compass, with a polished black face, and a gold needle on a pivot in the center.  The tip of the needle held a tiny crystal.  He held it out flat in his hand for a moment, watching the needle spin, the slowly settle on a direction.  When it stopped, the crystal shined an eerie green glow.  Lucas then closed the latch and put it back in his coat.

         “Can’t be more than an hour behind,” Lucas said.

         “They headed to town?”  Red asked, but it was half question, half statement.  Red knew based on who they were tracking, that there was a good chance that the nearest town would be their destination.

         Lucas nodded and kept moving.  The rain had begun to fall in big drops now.  He could see them plop onto the sides of the neck of his gray mare, and hear them bounce off of his hat.



         The rain was coming down harder now as Lucas and Red rounded a hill to see the few buildings that made up a town in a small valley below them.  Lucas stopped, took off his hat, closed his eyes and raised his face to the rain. It washed over him for a moment, and then he pulled off one glove and ran his hand through his long hair. 

         Red pulled his horse along side of Lucas and stopped as well.  Red’s horse was a color that was only slightly darker than Red’s own hair.  Red breeched his double barrel twelve-gauge and made sure both barrels were loaded.  Underneath his duster, he had a bandolier  full of shotgun shells slung across his broad chest, and he reached under the duster and patted them just to make sure they were still there.  He then pulled and checked the .45 Colt from a holster on his hip.  Lucas had put his hat and glove back on and pulled first one .45 Colt out its holster in the front of his waist, checked it, then put it away and proceeded to check the other one in the holster next to it.  He also had two pistols in shoulder holsters, and he checked them both as well.

         After both men had finished making sure they were ready, they eased the horses down the hill towards town.  The rain was still coming down steady when they rode down the main drag of the four main buildings that made up the town.  A small livery stable and general store both sat on the right as they entered, and to the left was a small shanty that had a sign that read: “Sheriff”, and a larger, but equally broken down building that was the town saloon.

         Lucas and Red dropped their horses off at the livery to get them out of the rain and walked across the muddy street over to the Sheriff.  Although the door was open, no one was inside the one room building.  Lucas looked in to see a desk in the middle of the room with a lantern on the desk next to a half empty bottle of whiskey.  To the far end was a cot.  A steady stream of water leaked down from the ceiling onto the cot.  Lucas turned from the doorway and motioned with his head towards the saloon.  Red nodded, lifted the twelve-gauge onto his shoulder, and the two men tracked through the mud up to the door of the saloon.

         Lucas walked in first to a large room filled with the smell of tobacco, cheap liquor, and manure.  Four cowboys at the nearest table stopped their poker game and looked up at the two men as they entered single file into the saloon.  Lucas was tall at six foot four, and Red was nearly as broad as Lucas was tall.  They both watched as eyes around the room sized them up.

         Lucas and Red walked up to the bar on the far side of the room.  “What’ll it be, Mister?” the bartender asked. He was a burly man with a thick handlebar mustache.

         Red ordered two beers while Lucas turned around and scanned the smoky room.  Lucas spotted what he was after at the back of the room and made his way through the cowboys as Red slapped down the money for the beers.  Red took a deep swig from one glass and then reached down for the twelve-gauge and slowly turned around.

         Lucas stopped at a table with six bandidos, three of which had some of the local girls in their laps.  They all stopped and looked up at Lucas while he just looked at them, somehow staring at all of them at the same time.

         The lead man at the table, a dark man with thick, wavy black hair and bright, almost yellow eyes looked up and spoke.  “Hey Gringo, you need something?”  He smiled, but it was more of a snarl.

         “José Vasquez, I’m here to put you and your pack down,” Lucas said.  He was quiet and matter of fact about it.

         Vasquez stood up dumping the woman out of his lap.  The rest of his men stood up with him, and two of them stepped out away from the table in an effort to flank Lucas.  They were all smiling.

         “What’d I do, kill someone you know?  Vasquez looked around at his men and they all laughed.  They were all dark and muscular, like Vasquez, and had similar features, like they were all related somehow.

         Vasquez looked back at Lucas and continued, “Or are you a bounty hunter looking for my scalp?  It’ll take more than you and that pig at the bar to take us in.  I don’t think you brought what’ll take.”  Vasquez was still smiling, like he knew something that Lucas and Red did not.  The girls that had been with them quickly stepped away back towards the front of the bar.

         “Oh, you’d be surprised,” replied Lucas and quick as lightning drew both pistols from his waist and fired into the hearts of the two bandidos who stood on either side.

         Vasquez started laughing.  Other than his laugh, the room went silent.  Red watched from the bar as several of the cowboys quietly snuck out the door.  Lucas still stood staunch across the table from Vasquez, pistols now at his side.

         “Hermanos, get up and show the bounty hunter what he’s gotten hisself into.”  Vasquez was still smiling as he talked to his men on the floor, but his smile faded after a few seconds when they did not get up.

         “They ain’t gettin’ up.  Silver has a way a keepin’ your kind down.”  It was Lucas’s turn to smile now.

         With that Vasquez let out an inhuman howl and flipped the table up into the air.  Lucas fired, but after losing the element of surprise, he knew being quicker was no longer an option.  The bullets tore into the flying table top, but went no farther than that.  He saw a dark shape fly by his left, and heard the twelve-gauge boom behind him.  He rolled that way as the table came crashing down, splintering as it hit the floor.

         Vasquez reached up and grabbed his own shirt by the collar and with one quick tug, ripped it off his body.  His skin rippled like water as muscles bulged and reformed underneath his skin.  His hair was growing thicker and fuller and his skin turned black as coal just as the hair completely covered all but the tips of his fingers that had now grown to long, wicked talons.  His face stretched into a Wolf’s muzzle with long, dagger-like teeth.  Vasquez had grown at least half a foot taller and nearly twice as wide.  He looked to either side and snarled, and his two remaining partners, who had already changed into wolf-men themselves, snarled in response.

         People were screaming, and trying to make it to the door.  Although folks were used to gunfights, what was happening here was reserved for nightmares.  Lucas sat up on his haunches and looked back toward the bar as the twelve-gauge boomed again.  Red was calmly breaking the shotgun open and stuffing two fresh shells into the barrels.  About ten feet in front of him in a growing pool of blood was a large dark gray wolf, except this wolf had long muscular arms that ended in black talons.  It spit up black congealing blood from its muzzle, and then went still with a gaping, smoking hole in its chest from where the twelve-gauge had tore through it.

         Lucas turned back around just to get hit full force in the chest by one of Vasquez’s wolves.  This one was black, like Vasquez was now, but smaller.  It was still bigger and stronger than Lucas.  Its jaws snapped shut like a bear trap inches from Lucas’s throat as the two flew backward and crashed through a table.  Lucas lost his Colts as the two hit the floor and the monster dug ten claws into his shoulders that felt like hot knives sinking into his flesh.  Lucas managed to get to his knife at his hip and stabbed at the monster between the ribs toward its heart.  At fifteen inches long, the blade would have gone in one side and out the other of any normal man, but the beast was wider than any man.  It howled and let go of Lucas, and he reached out with his free hand to one of Colts and brought it up and fired into the beast’s muzzle.  Hair, blood and brains exploded from the back of its skull and the monster fell backwards off of Lucas.

         While Lucas struggled with one wolf, Red turned just as the last of Vasquez’s wolves bounded off a wall and flew at him.  Red spun the shotgun around and this time fired both barrels at once.  Silver buckshot erupted from the twelve-gauge and tore the monster completely in two.  Entrails and blood went everywhere, and two unfortunate folks cowering in the corner were wet with gore.

         Lucas was already scanning the room as he got up, slid the knife back into its scabbard and reached for the other Colt.  He looked up to see Vasquez run right through the back door of the saloon and into the storm.  Lucas looked back at Red.

         “Go, I got this here,” said Red as he laid his shotgun across the bar and wiped blood from his face.

         Lucas took off out the door into the storm as Red looked around to survey the damage.  The saloon was painted in blood, and now mixed in with the smells of tobacco, whiskey, and manure was the horrid smell of rotting death and gunpowder.  Monsters like these tended to rot faster than natural beasts, like the supernatural energy they used burned them up on the inside.  Red kicked the half of the wolf he blasted that was closest to him.  The two people that were cowering in the corner, an old cowboy and a saloon girl, cringed when he did.

         “Go on, get.  It’s over,” he said.

         The cowboy slipped in guts as he scrambled up and both of them ran out the front of the saloon.  As they did, the bartender slowly peaked out from behind the bar.“Where’s the sheriff?  We noticed he wasn’t in his office.”  The bartender jumped when Red spoke.

         “He…He was here when you two walked in.  He must’ve run out when…”  He trailed off as he looked at the blood and carnage.

         “Yah, well, go fetch someone to go get him.”  Red then bent down and grabbed the half-carcass and pulled it to the middle of the room.  He kept at it until he had piled all of the monsters’ remains in the middle of the saloon.  He then walked over to the bar, and finished his beer from earlier in one long draw.  He looked into the mirror behind the bar and could see a man in black standing in the doorway.  The man appeared smoky, like he was little more than a shadow.  Red turned to the door.

         “Well, it appears I was late for my meeting,” the man said.  He was tall, but not quite as tall as Lucas, and thin.  He was dressed head to toe in black, in a gentleman's suit, and wore a top hat.  In contrast to his attire, his hair was a shock of white sticking out from his hat, and his skin was as pale as death.  When Red looked into his eyes, they were black as night, with no whites at all.  Something moved on the man’s neck, just above his collar.  At first Red thought it was a snake moving underneath his shirt, and then realized it was a tattoo of a thorny vine that rippled along his skin underneath his collar and out of view.  The tattoo seemed to be both on and below his pale skin both at the same time.  The man smiled at Red, and Red reached for the pistol at his hip.  Somewhere, lightning cut through the sky and lit up the night outside.



         Lucas stood on the edge of a grove of trees in the dark about a hundred yards from the back of the saloon.  He could not see him, but he knew Vasquez was just inside the tree line, watching him.  Lucas began to walk slowly towards the grove.

         He was within ten feet of the trees when Vasquez the man-wolf lunged out from the darkness from Lucas’s peripheral vision.  The rain made him nearly blind, but Lucas managed to bring his gun up and fire off a round before long, razor sharp claws breezed by his head.  Vasquez rolled to the ground behind Lucas and crouched in the mud.  Even in the blinding rain, Lucas could see the silver bullet burning into Vasquez’s skin where it was lodged into his jaw.  Lucas brought up his pistol just as lightning flashed close, sending spots into his eyes.  Just a moment later Vasquez was on top of him, with a long, bony hand wrapped around Lucas’s wrist, immobilizing his gun. 

         Just then, someone screamed from the direction of the saloon.  Vasquez, on instinct, turned his muzzle in the direction of the sound.  Although Vasquez had him pinned down, Lucas jerked an arm free, and as Vasquez was turning back to face him, Lucas took his free arm and jabbed his thumb into the bullet hole in Vasquez’s jaw, driving the silver deeper. Vasquez slashed at Lucas’s arm and jumped off of him.  Howling in pain, Vasquez disappeared into the night. 

         Lucas was hurting, but scrambled to his feet.  The screaming continued.  He half ran, half staggered through the rain and mud back to the rear door of the saloon.  Twenty yards from the doorway, the screaming stopped.  Lucas willed himself on, and ran harder for the door.



         The saloon was quiet as Lucas stumbled through the back door.  He was breathing hard as he drew both Colts and walked slowly toward the bar.  Something was lying on the bar.  Although it looked like a mess of meat and gore, it was in the general shape of a man.  Blood ran down the bar onto the floor.  Lucas knew by the shape of the person, that it was Red.  Most of his clothes, and his skin, had been flayed from his body.  Lucas could see bones in some places.  Deep gashes of darker color covered most of his body.  Red was not breathing.

         A small crowd had gathered now in the doorway, and one cowboy held a handkerchief over his face because of the stench.

         “Who the Hell saw what happened?”  Lucas turned and in a rage asked the crowd.

         No one spoke for the longest time.  Then the old cowboy, still covered in gore, said, “No one saw it happen, but soon after the screaming stopped, I saw a rider in black head south.  Didn’t get a good look, but I suspect it was him. I don’t know no man that could do that to another that quick.”

         Lucas glared at the man for a second, and then said, “Get me some sheets, clean ones.”

         The crowd quickly scattered.  In a few minutes a man came back and offered Lucas some clean sheets.  Lucas carefully wrapped Red in the sheets.  Then the man that brought the sheets helped Lucas gather up Red’s things and take him just outside the door, under the awning of the saloon.  It had stopped raining.  Lucas went back in the doorway and grabbed a lantern off of the wall.  He threw it onto the corpse pile in the center of the room.  The pile lit up in flame, quickly filling the room with black smoke and the smell of brimstone.  Lucas walked over to another lantern and tore it down as well.  He walked over to the bar, still soaked in Red’s blood.  He smashed that lantern on the bar and walked outside.  Soon the inside was a raging inferno.

         Lucas and the man gathered up Red and took him to the livery, where Lucas secured the body of his old friend to his horse.  He then carefully slid Red’s twelve-gauge into its saddle scabbard.  After that, Lucas mounted his own horse and led them both back into the street in front of the saloon.  The bartender stood dumbfounded as he watched his saloon burn up in the night, and said nothing. 

         A drunken cowboy came teetering through the mud at Lucas.  “Hey, you can’t do that.  We have laws,” the cowboy said.  Lucas could see the tin star glint off of the fire.

         Before Lucas could say anything, the bartender spoke up. “Shut your mouth Ray.  I needed to get out of the saloon business anyway.  I think we need to build a church in this town.”

         Lucas looked down at the bartender and said, “Good idea.”  He then slowly rode off into the night with Red's body in tow.