Grimwood

 

 

Chapter 1: Teeth and Flesh

 

 

 

 

 

By Teck Langley

 

July 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Gabriel Swain and Randall Cobb returned to Grimwood after fighting in the civil war, they found that the place they knew as a quaint, quiet town had drastically changed. Grimwood was overflowing with abundance and prosperity, and growing by the day, but it was also a haunted place. Things that went bump in the night seemed to be just around every dark corner, and some said the devil himself had come to Grimwood to collect the souls of the fool-hearty and those looking to get rich quick. Despite being a brilliant scientist, Swain chose a different path; he partnered with Cobb and became a gun for hire. Money was good, and the outlaw even found true love with the blindingly beautiful Elizabeth Jackson. Things were good, for a while, until Cobb disappeared mysteriously one day, tragedy befell all of his closest friends, and one fateful day, his dead Elizabeth lay dying in bed as she was to give birth to their first child. It was then the devil showed himself to Swain, and in his weakest moment, he sold his soul to spare her life. The devil, however, never plays fair, and as he spared poor Elizabeth, he took the life of her newborn child. Broken with heartache, she left Swain, for she blamed him for choosing her life over that of her child’s, and his face reminded her, and brought her too much pain to bear. Swain took to the drink and struck out on his own, nihilistic and downtrodden, but also becoming a skilled and ruthless outlaw. Elizabeth turned distant and cold, and into the arms of the returning Randall Cobb, who had been down his own dark and mysterious path. The betrayal of his old friend taking his former love as his own drove a final wedge between the two. Swain’s path became more and more self-destructive until the day a quirky young girl named Penny attached herself to the outlaw after he saved her from an indentured life of forced prostitution and pick-pocketing. Feeling a better sense of purpose with her around, despite tolerating her sometimes overwhelming and bratty nature, gave him a new purpose and brought him from the brink of destruction.

 

Maybe there was still time left to redeem his soul before the devil claimed it for his own. Maybe it was time to face his demons and fight. Maybe it was time to come back to Grimwood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sun beat down relentlessly upon the already parched road as the silhouette of the outlaw Gabriel Swain approached from the distance on horseback. Dust kicked up like a sandstorm in his wake, and the pale rider dismounted, shaking off his duster and tipping his wide brimmed black Stetson to block the sun. As he tied his horse to the nearby post, a diminutive silhouette of her own arose and hopped down from the saddle. She couldn’t have been an inch over five feet tall even if she were wearing heels.  She brandished her hands through straight jet black hair, impatiently dusting off the remnants of the long dusty trail.

 

“Why do we always have to travel at noon… the sun is hottest. Me and Sally are NOT happy… poor girl almost had a heat stroke carrying the both of us this far. Don’t most outlaws go out at dusk or dawn or something?” she said with an edge of contempt in her voice, which was no less sweetened by the honey of her young voice, in spite of her huffing and puffing.

 

Gabriel pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose and stroked his gruff stubble of a beard a few times, looking around the town, soaking in the weight of the wandering eyes aimed his way. It was the standard; pale rider comes back to town, the rocking chairs stop rocking, the barbers stop trimming, the wagons in the streets slow down, all to catch a glimpse of the hell bent outlaw.

 

“Good to see they still remember me, eh Penny?” he said to the girl as she secured their luggage on the horse’s saddlebag. “Anyway… I hear a piano.”

 

“What does that have to do with anything?” Penny questioned, brushing a few stray black curls of hair from her bright green eyes and looking up at Gabriel curiously.

 

“Means there is a saloon… might as well take the edge off with a drink or two,” Gabriel assured himself. “I hate meeting with authority types sober.”

 

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Penny said with a little stomp of her boot. “Reason we’re sweating in this blistering heat is because you were too hung over to get up earlier. Tell me why a sixteen year old girl is supposed to be the responsible one in this team?”

 

Gabriel grunted and turned, walking towards the saloon. He spoke back at Penny as if he hadn’t even heard a word of her complaining, and likely, he hadn’t.

 

“Get the contract out of our stuff and go head to town hall. Tell the Mayor I’ll be meeting with him directly to iron out the details,” Gabriel said as he barged the swinging double doors open and stepped inside the tavern.

 

“That’s all the way across town!” she said with a scowl which went unseen. With another huff and puff, she snatched the contract off of the saddlebag and went stomping down the streets.

 

*              *              *              *              *              *              *

 

Grimwood hadn’t changed much. It had been almost a year since the last time he came through this way, and it seemed like things had changed for him so much in that time, but this town never seemed to. He had seen the sign outside; tilted as it was over a year ago, and still missing the letter “O” in the title “Sylvester’s Saloon”. It was hard enough to say, and he was willing to bet that people still mistakenly came up looking for a cut and a shave on occasion.

 

He noticed the weight of eyes on him in the bar once again, but he was used to it. Aside from the black duster and Stetson that was the standard fair, nothing on him looked quite normal; the bullet lined rim on his hat, the oversized spurs clinking behind his boots, torn black hand wraps, and leather belt straps everywhere there shouldn’t be any. Even the gait of the man himself could be called anything but except graceful as he lurched about slowly, finally finding his old table and ordering a shot of whiskey.

 

“Thanks darlin’,” Gabriel crooned to the scantily clad bar wench, who gave him back the seediest of grins, a grin unbefitting a lady of any kind, but he had that affect. If a girl wanted to be known, she went to bed with Gabriel Swain. Often looking like death warmed over, it certainly wasn’t for his dashing good looks, because he wasn’t particularly good-looking or dashing. Few of the women he took to bed were proud of the fact afterwards, but if that fact ever bothered the man, it never showed.

 

Most of the people were back to their own business; a few silent drinkers, a few happy go lucky boys dancing to the piano music, people playing poker in a cloud of cigar smoke in the dark corner. Most of the people seemed fine… most, except one, a rather portly man waddling his way over to Gabriel’s table.

 

Gabriel let out a sigh as he spied the man approaching him from beneath the wide brim of his hat.

 

“I know you,” the stout man snorted. “And you got a lot of balls coming back to this town again.”

 

Gabriel’s fingers tickled the strap of the gun nestled in his holster. “You have me mistaken for someone else,” came forth a robotic response, almost as if he’d said that too many times to bother sounding sincere anymore.

 

“Oh no… I know you. Bullets in the hat… nobody else does that. Those same old man glasses, the same weird boots... I could even look past that, but nobody has a piece on them like that one.  That gun is a dead giveaway, son,” growled the heavy set man. “Swain. Gabriel Swain.”

 

“I like to tinker… modify things, you know. My gun is no exception. Why not?” Gabriel said as he took another shot from the empty shot glass, swilling the last few drops like a nervous tick. “What did I do to you?” he said after taking a deep breath, still never looking up at the heavy man as his eyes were focused solely on the six gun at the man’s side.

 

The man laughed, a hearty laugh that turned right into a crazy-eyed scowl, just before the man slammed both his fists down on the table, knocking the glass from the table and sending the entire saloon into silence as everyone distanced themselves from the two men.

 

“And the man insults me AGAIN… you can’t even remember when I kicked your ass and sent you away with your tail between your legs. You took my wife to bed you scum bag… she was a fine lady ‘til you came along! Ms. Donna Parker…”

 

“Mr. Parker, you already kicked my ass… according to you, anyway. I don’t really remember it. In any sense,  our issue is settled, Sir…” Gabriel interrupted, proceeding to order another whiskey, which was promptly slapped from the waitress’s hand to shatter upon the floor. In a moment the heavy man showed his considerable agility as he had Gabriel by the throat and up against the wall, cold gray eyes peering down as Parker vented his rage.

 

“I done killed my wife because of you!” he cried. “Ain’t no whore befittin’ to be a Parker and that is on YOU, son!”

 

Gabriel laughed even as he struggled for breath. “Ain’t shit on me heavier than the burden I bare every day,” and in that same breath, shot a knee straight out into the barrel chest of Mr. Parker, sending him stumbling back and scrambling for his pistol.

 

It seemed like it was in slow motion as the two men squared off, pistols drawn in an instant.

 

The first shot rang out, then the next, as both men traded off shots from less than a dozen yards away. Mr. Parker ducked down behind an overturned bar table, and returned fire, one shot to each of Swain’s, and watched almost surprised as each shot from the outlaw’s gun tore an explosive chunk of wood off  violently with each shot.  Rising up from behind the table that now looked more like a wheel of swiss cheese, he grinned, wiping off a bloodstained grin from the splintered wood that had torn into his body like shrapnel. Gabriel hadn’t a scratch on him as Mr. Parker stumbled up to him.

 

“Six shots each, son,” Mr. Parker growled, towering over Gabriel. “We’re both out of bullets…  and you’re out of luck. I’m going to break that scrawny neck like a chicken b-“

 

One last shot rang out interrupting that final sentiment at point blank range, and Mr. Parker’s heart erupted from his spine and hurtled out against the other side of the bar. The blank look on his face as he tumbled back to the ground warranted one final explanation from Gabriel, who knelt by his side.

 

“I modify everything,” he said, shrugging. “Seven shooter, I’m working on eight. Go to your wife.”

 

Gabriel’s face was sour and distant as he closed Mr. Parker’s eyes with his fingertips, the somber moment lasting barely enough time for anyone in the bar to get their hearts out of their throats before three of the sheriff’s men came rushing the door.

 

“You’re under arrest!” yelled one of the men as all three drew their pistols on the outlaw.

 

“No shit,” Gabriel sighed and raised both his wrists to be cuffed and taken away to jail.

 

*              *              *              *              *              *

 

“He hasn’t moved,” said the sheriff to one of his guards, eyeballing the dark clad man they dragged in from the local saloon. “Man, dressed all in black, puts six pancake sized holes in a bar table, then one through a man’s chest, then just struts in here and sits down in his cell like it was his home or something. Hasn’t made a peep,” he continued on, a little confused at the mannerisms of his new prisoner.

 

“Let him out, John,” came a voice from down the hallway, past the holding cells. “He’s being relieved of his charges.”

 

The sheriff quirked his eyebrow and placed his hands on his hips. “Bruce…”

 

“That’s Mayor Bruce Wild to you, John. And I know what you’re about to say,” the mayor said as he strolled up along to Gabriel’s cell, stroking the upward curling corners of his considerably large mustache. Penny strolled up behind him meekly, smoothing her hands down over pleated tufts of her dress and grinning and giving Gabriel a little wave as he finally looked up from beneath his black Stetson.

 

“Man ain’t right, Mr. Wild. He killed a man… now he’s just been sitting there for an hour, he won’t respond to anything. We took his gun… oddest looking thing, had a scope on it. And the man was carrying around a wooden stake... like he was expecting a vampire or something,” he continued with almost a chuckle. “He ain’t explaining nothin’ to any of us, he won’t talk.”

 

“That’s because he’s not here on business with you, John,” the mayor continued. “That man he killed, Mr. Parker, killed his wife not even a year ago. We could never prove it, but a patron at the bar heard him say it, right before Mr. Swain here took care of our job for us. You know it’s not unusual to have vigilante work around here, your men are stretched as it is.”

 

“I guess,” John said as his voice trailed off. “But something ain’t right.”

 

The sheriff nodded to his guard who promptly jostled with his key ring before opening the door to Gabriel’s holding cell. Penny and the mayor walked in, and Gabriel sat back, crossing one leg over his knee and his arms at his chest.

 

“How about fetchin’ this man’s belongings, John?” Bruce said to him more like a statement than a question.

 

John and the guard moved from the cell with a slight roll to their eyes. The mayor waited a moment to make sure their ears were far enough away to be out of their business before he continued.

 

“I ain’t even got to tell you, I don’t appreciate this, Swain,” said the mayor in a stern voice. Gabriel was briefly fixated upon the man’s mustache, but he quickly shook that aberration of thought away.

 

Gabriel nodded. “Sorry you had to stick out your neck for me… and sorry I had you traipsing all over town looking for me, I know I had Penny take you all the way out to the saloon then all the way back over here in the dead heat.”

 

“Actually, Swain,” the mayor continued, “Penny told me we should probably just come right to the jail.”

 

Gabriel cut a look to Penny who just smiled her best shit-eatin’ grin.

 

After a short moment of pause, Bruce asked the question he should have asked before he hired Gabriel in the first place. “Is it true? What they say… that you speak with the devil? And that’s why you can’t die?” he said, still curiously twisting at the corners of his black mustache.

 

Gabriel chuckled, leaning forward with his hands on his knees, tilting his head as if to whisper before growling back with contempt. “I can’t die… because I’m that damn good. The devil and I ain’t none of your concern.”

 

Bruce looked back, almost shocked, but quickly nodded and handed Gabriel a small brown satchel. “I pay you the rest after you take care of whatever it is that’s killing people out here.”

 

“Yeah, so you’re aware I’m not really a hunting man, right?” Gabriel continued. “You got a wild animal mauling and thinning out your voting public…”

 

“It’s not just a wild animal… it’s an epidemic,” the mayor continued. “We got an election right on the horizon and we can’t get any goods in or out of this place unless we do it in broad daylight, and there’s enough bandits and brigands roaming about that we haven’t exactly had the best of luck doing things that way, either. Sheriff’s men are stretched trying to protect the trade routes by day and by night… people are dying, Mr. Swain.”

 

“People die all the time…” Gabriel said and then paused for a moment, looking into his bag to count the coin to make sure the math was right on the amount.

 

“This thing is different… we’ve tried hunting it. It’s like a grizzly bear… but it ain’t no bear like I’ve ever seen. It moves like… like a ghost… we were the first to see it… killed my best friend when me and him went out hunting, Mr. Swain, so when you say ‘people die all the time’ give a little respect to those who have given their lives trying to protect this town.”

 

“How did you survive?” Gabriel asked, re-counting his coin purse.

 

“What?”

 

“How did you survive? Since so few seem to survive who meet it face to face.”

 

Bruce sat back slightly and corrected his posture, political instincts having made him always on the defensive when questioned anyway. “If you must know, they found me unconscious, down at the river basin, my clothes torn. Lucky I didn’t drown; I had a gash across my chest from my navel to collarbone. I BARELY survived… Mr. Swain, and it has made Grimwood outskirts its home ever since.”

 

Gabriel nodded. “I get the idea. Rest of the purse after we kill it. Me and Penny head out tonight, give us two days and we’ll bring its head through town on a pig pole so your people can rest easy… and vote for the mayor who saved Grimwood.

 

Bruce smiled, for the first time in the tense little meeting, and they both moved to stand, his hand outstretched to shake Gabriel’s. Swain’s pale fingers outstretched and shaking the mayor’s hand, he asked one final question before heading out to get his personal effects.

 

“So who are you running against, anyway?” Gabriel asked.

 

“Cobb. Randall Cobb.”

 

Gabriel shot Bruce a cold, shocked look, and he continued to shake Bruce’s hand for an awkward amount of time as he suddenly went comatose right there in the holding cell. Penny’s jaw dropped, but she quickly shooed the mayor away before he got wind of anything weird or compromising.

 

“Thanks Mr. Mayor Sir! We’ll take care of everything. Don’t worry, I’m a good shot, Gabriel designed this AWESOME scope just for me, it’s impossible to miss!” she continued on with him down the hallway, giving him a wink as she kept the conversation going and kept the mayor chuckling, leaving Gabriel a moment in his cell to get his head back on straight. He simply grunted to himself and adjusted his eyeglasses as he finally stepped out.

 

“Cobb.”

 

*              *              *              *              *              *              *

 

“So… you wanna’ talk about it or are we going to play silent partners all night?” Penny asked from behind her rifle with a small yawn as the two knelt behind a few berry bushes at the top of one of several innocuous rolling hills down the Grimwood riverside. 

 

“Silent partners,” Gabriel spoke back monotonously. “And keep your sight pointed down at that dim light down by that big oak tree. Kind of looks like the dying embers of a torch.”

 

“Ahh, okay… I see it,” Penny responded with a bit of pride in her voice. “There’s two guys moving down there… with guns… what are we doing here anyway, spying on those guys down there making camp? Aren’t we supposed to be looking for a bear or something?” Penny responded, obviously bored.

 

“We’re fishing,” said Gabriel. “I tipped off a couple of brigands back in town that there would be an unguarded, late night caravan coming through this way bringing medical supplies to Grimwood. Of course… there isn’t a caravan,” Gabriel said with a smile. “Just something hungry with teeth and claws.”

 

Penny glanced over at Gabriel from her rifle with a look of both mixed shock and contempt, and then she shrugged and went back to her task of looking through her scope. “Oh well… better them than us,” she whispered under her breath.

 

A few more silent moments passed during their stake-out before finally Penny broke the silence yet again.

 

“You SURE you don’t want to talk about it? I know you and Cobb have a history… and Elizabeth…”

 

“Shut up or you’re going to give away our position!” Gabriel said in a raspy whisper that got the tone through in his voice well enough without having to be loud. “I do NOT want to talk about it, especially not Elizabeth.”

 

There was another brief moment of silence as Penny tired and moved to her belly on the ground, settling herself in and raising her rifle again. She shifted as if she couldn’t get comfortable.

 

“I think my boobs grew in wrong,” she quipped. “I’m leaning. I think one is bigger than the other.”

 

Gabriel put his face in his palm.

 

“I’m a freak! I knew it… that’s why boys won’t talk to me.”

 

“They won’t talk to you because you won’t give them a space to put a word in edgewise,” Gabriel said, almost resigned that she was going to get them killed and this was just their day to go. “Also, hanging out with me has never gotten anyone any extra credit,” he continued, his voice almost trailing off as the thought lingered with him. “Guess Elizabeth is better off with Cobb after all, really…”

 

“Shhhhh! I see something!” Penny whispered over to Gabriel. He couldn’t help but notice the cruel irony as he shook his head and shook off that remorseful feeling to get back to business, pushing his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose and squinting to see the commotion in the distance. Unable to quite make it out, Gabriel then pulled up his binoculars and spied the same thing that Penny caught in her scope, as this large black silhouette rustled and galloped down the river’s edge silently.

 

“What the hell is that thing? It’s fast as hell,” Gabriel said, taking a quick swig of courage from his whiskey finned flask.

 

“And it’s HUGE! That thing is bigger than Sally,” Penny responded as the beast approached, flanking the two hapless brigands as they lay in their camp, oblivious to what was about to happen. “Is it a bear?” Penny asked nervously, her rifle shaking in her hand.

 

Just then, a blood-curdling roar ripped through the still air and up to the two outlaws. Barely a moment passed before the roar turned into the sounds of screams cut short as teeth met flesh. In the black mass silhouette of the beast and the two men, barely much could be seen except the errant spray of blood, the gurgle as one throat was slit open, the soft splash as a human limb hurtled into the river, and the sick thud of human bodies slammed into the ground with great force, thn thrown against the old oak tree with a wet sick crackle of broken bone.

 

The creature lurched over just before rising up on its hind legs and letting out the most fearsome guttural howl that echoed along the creek, arms outstretched, chest puffed out, showing the true size of the beast for the first time against the violet dim backlight of early morn.

 

“Much bigger than Sally, Penny,” Gabriel said, looking to her and pulling out his gun. “And I think if we’re smart, we’ll head back towards her in case we have to make a quick-“

 

Penny’s gun fired, a loud crackle echoing off the foothills as Gabriel turned just in time to see her scream as the beast leaped her way and barreled into the gunslinger, sending him flying back several dozen yards and tumbling. He landed with a hard thud, clutching at his side and trying to gather his senses, and fighting off the dull pain seeping in from a broken rib.

 

“How the FUCK did it close in so fast?” he yelled at no one in particular as he lifted his trusty seven –shooter just in time to fire a shot warding the beast off of Penny. She yelped and went tumbling over the hillside as a small explosion of debris shot out from the piece of ground Gabriel hit in the hurry. It wasn’t the best of shots obviously, but it startled the creature and took its attention away from Penny, who was beyond his range to help now.

 

The beasts maw opened as he crouched, saliva dripping in a near constant stream from its jowls, and Gabriel’s second shot again hit nothing as the creature dodged at supernatural speed and was suddenly upon the outlaw once again, this time swiping at him, ripping his arm wide open and sending the slender man stumbling to the ground.

 

Gabriel winced through the pain and reached for his gun, which had toppled to the ground in the commotion, but was once again moving at a slug’s pace compared to this monster that promptly scooped Gabriel up and pinned his ragdoll body to a nearby tree, throttling him and lifting his body from the ground, again making him wince as his neck still hadn’t properly healed from the brute force of the late Mr. Parker’s same bullying technique used on Swain just the day prior. The creature reared its great claw up into the air, in the only moment Gabriel remembered as it seemed to slow down for a brief moment in the dim morning light peeking over the horizon, he squinted and awaited his death and was ready to pay his toll to the devil… but that didn’t happen this day.

 

And that’s exactly what it was now… day. The sun peeked, and in that brief moment where the beast relented, the sound of Penny’s rifle rang out and several thick beastly digits flew off of the monster’s hand and maimed it with one well-placed shot.

 

The giant beast dropped Gabriel who clutched tucked his maimed arm close to his body and hunched over from the broken rib. As Penny approached quickly, screaming to Gabriel to duck, it pounced towards Penny who fired a second shot, clipping the leg of the creature as it howled and went hurtling over the hillside, tumbling all the way down to the makeshift camp that the hapless thieves had set up just hours before.

 

Penny looked to Gabriel who was limping her way. “Not me, go finish it!” he growled at her, more from the pain than contempt. She peeked over the hillside from their stake-out nest and looked back over her shoulder as Gabriel trudged over. “He’s not there anymore!” she said in disbelief.

 

“No fucking way,” Gabriel responded. “He’s fast but nothing is THAT fast.”

 

“What is that things, Gabe?” Penny said, her voice trembling.

 

“A were-wolf… and a nasty one at that, stronger than one I’ve ever seen,” he said looking towards the camp with his binoculars. Suddenly, he spied a third body laying amongst the two corpses in camp, only a few tattered pieces of clothing attached to him. The man stirred, and moved to stand. His hand was a bloody nub, his leg dripping blood profusely. He turned and looked around, confused, in an almost animalistic way. Then, in the brief passing of a few moments, his hand was intact, and his leg was no longer bleeding so bad… and he reached up to twist the corner of a huge and unmistakable mustache.

 

“Are you kidding me?” Gabriel said through clenched teeth.

 

“C’mon, Gabe… we gotta' get you patched up!” Penny said with teary green eyes, reminding the outlaw of his maimed left arm.

 

“Yeah… go get Sally and double back this way. We’ll track him, but I have a feeling I know where he’s headed. Unfortunately, this complicates things a bit.”

 

As Penny nodded and scurried off to go get the horse, he couldn’t help but think that things in Grimwood always seemed to get complicated for him. Nothing ever came easy, and what was worse in this case, is that the man who had hired him to kill a savage beast WAS the savage beast. What was worse still was that if he killed this man, he wouldn’t get the rest of his pay… and he would effectively hand the town election for mayor right over to Randall Cobb.

 

“Looks like I will have to pay him a visit after all,” Gabriel said with a sigh, waiting for Penny to return and watching a seemingly sleep-walking Mayor Bruce Wild stagger quickly into the distance along the riverside and back towards Grimwood.

 

*              *              *              *              *              *              *

 

“You’re positive about all this?” Penny asked Gabriel as she finished wrapping his torn arm. He sat hunched over and clutching at his arm upon the steps of Cobb Mansion, an estate just on the outskirts of Grimwood where the forest meets the river mouth. There was blood crusted upon what used to be his sleeve until that monstrosity neatly sliced and diced the better portion of his upper arm, leaving the cloth in tatters as well. Penny worked diligently to make a makeshift arm sling out of the remaining fabric and medical gauze she had available.

 

“Positive about what exactly,” he responded, wincing and taking a hefty chug of liquor out of his canteen as she worked on his wounds.

 

“You know… are you positive that monster was the mayor, or positive that this is a good idea talking to your old enemy, or seeing Elizabeth again. You don’t always handle this stuff well with him, if you remember. And then there’s also the whole ‘vampire’ thing.”

 

“This is the last place I want to be, Penny,” Gabriel assured her, letting his black duster hang over his injured arm to cover up any signs of his injury. “If I wasn’t positive I needed to know more about what I was dealing with I wouldn’t be here. Now I need you to go do something for me. “

 

“I’m staying here with you!” Penny snorted, stomping her foot again as if it would matter. Though a teenager now, her lack of a true childhood tended to show out at moments like this with her bratty insubordination.

 

“Penny… please just listen?” he continued with a rare tone of humility in his voice. “I need you because you’re the sneakiest little warrior I’ve ever known. Can you go to the mayor’s place and grab a few items while he sleeps off his carnivorous hangover?”

 

“Sure,” she said with a reluctant nod, crossing her arms across her chest and huffing. “And I’m assuming by ‘grab’ you mean I’m stealing something.”

 

“I need you to grab the mayor’s hunting clothes, and if you can get your hands on it, any money you can snag, up to two-hundred dollar’s worth.”

 

“Petty thievery isn’t your style, Gabe, what gives?” Penny asked, curiously.

 

“That’s the rest of what old Brucey owes us,” said Gabriel, “And I have a feeling he might not make it through the night. Anyway, grab those things and hop on Sally and meet me back up on the hills where we staked out the were-wolf last night,” Gabriel instructed as he turned to walk up the stairway to the mansion’s front door.

 

“Won’t he know to look for us there?” Penny asked once more. The questions kept coming, but she never understood very much about Gabriel and her curiosity to learn how his brain worked always kept her picking it for answers.

 

“I’m counting on it,” Gabriel answered. “Now see to it, Penny, I’m counting on you,” he said between heavy swigs of his canteen, looking up at the huge double doors to the Cobb Estate. “Who the fuck needs doors this big, anyway?”

 

Penny scurried off down the road, her tiny body looking smaller and smaller as she traveled to her destination. Gabriel, in stark contrast, stood helpless upon the steps of a place he thought he’d never be. He wondered to himself if he could handle seeing Elizabeth again after a year away and he also wondered if wanting to see her again was truly his motive here, subconsciously. He also wondered if today would be the day that he finally awakened that hand crafted wooden stake that always slept in the sheath at the back of his belt and drive it right through the heart of one Randall Cobb. He took a drink of whiskey, and then another, and felt it burn as it traveled down his throat. He waited until his both his aching body and face felt sufficiently numb before finally lifting a pale gloved hand to ring the bell upon the front door.

 

The front peep hole slid open on and Gabriel was greeted with an eyeball peering back out at him, along with a gruff, raspy voice from behind the thick wooden portal.

 

“Who is it!?” a voice boomed back at Gabriel.

 

“I’m here to see Randall Cobb,” Gabriel spoke with a slight slur to his speech. “Tell him it’s Swain.”

 

“Nobody sees Mr. Cobb today,” croaked the voice from behind the door. “Not nobody, not no how!” And with that, the peephole slammed shut once again.

 

Gabriel shook his head and considered just walking away, convincing himself that this actually was a bad idea until he heard the faintest of voices from inside the mansion, a woman’s voice that he could never forget, no matter how much he wished he could. The door opened slowly, revealing a hunched over scab of a man cowering away before a beautiful goddess dressed all in black.

 

“That’s enough harassment, Figit,” she said to the dirty looking little doorman. “Swain is an old friend.”

 

Her voice made his entire body shake to its core, and seeing her again nearly brought him to his knees. He took another instinctive chug of his canteen as she looked upon him, and he found it nearly impossible to keep eye contact with her. Still, out of his nervous peripheral he didn’t miss a single luscious curve, those incredible piercing bright blue eyes, and gorgeous blindingly blond tendrils of hair that seemed to frame her entire upper body as they cascaded along her every curve all the way to the small of her back. Her black dress was morbidly beautiful, as if she were getting married at a funeral. Her eyes were dark, though, and quite sunken in, Gabriel noticed. The overly thick appliance of dark make-up around her eyes was probably her attempt to cover up her lack of sleep, but to him, his dark, raccoon-eyed little lover never looked more enticing.

 

“Randall wants me to send you up,” she said softly, turning away from Gabriel as she took note of his awkward posture and wayward stare.

 

That’s right. She used to be his lover, but now that bastard had her. He kicked himself for daring to daydream for a moment.

 

“He said he could smell the blood on you from down the street,” she reminded him as she turned and walked up the front staircase leading out from the foyer, beckoning Gabriel to follow.

 

“Not even a hello?” Gabriel said to her as they waltzed up the winding stairs.

 

“Gabriel, don’t make this difficult… please,” she said with such a resigned voice that Gabriel knew it was best to just remain silent. He’d done enough to hurt her in the past, there was no need to open up old wounds if she was doing better, and he hoped she was. He convinced himself she was, anyway, as he followed her into a luxurious room past the doorway at the end of the staircase.

 

They had entered the dining hall of the mansion. He closed the door behind him and looked to the left to see Elizabeth standing away from him, eyes lowered and her hands clasped in front of her submissively. At the end of the table, another man dressed all in black arose from his seat and walked with casual gait over towards the window, speaking back to but not looking at Gabriel.

 

“I thought I told you never to return to Grimwood, old friend,” boomed his deep voice. His face was shrouded, a blood red scarf wrapped loosely around his shoulders and lower jaw, the top of his head adorned in a very fine looking derby hat, sitting very low on his brow. His flesh was ghost white and the room had a chill to it, in stark contrast to the dry heat everywhere else in the mansion that Gabriel had been so far. “And trying to cover up your injury? Pathetic.”

 

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Gabriel responded, taking the time to give his own air of indifference as he walked slowly around the dining hall in faux admiration for the décor. “Mmmmm, very nice,” he said as he stopped to peer up at a vintage Colt revolver on the wall, one of many guns that were mounted as decoration. “Most aristocrats hang lavish paintings and tapestries in their dining hall. You spice the place up with a tiny arsenal. Someone must be feeling defensive.”

 

“What are you here for, Swain,” Cobb responded, obviously not amused by Gabriel’s remark.

 

“I have a quandary, Cobb,” Gabriel said as his finger traced along the engraved design upon the revolver. “I’m here for a job, is why I’m here, no other reason. I don’t mean to be intruding on your affairs, but something I have decided to do is going to mean that something very good happens for you, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

 

Cobb smiled a crooked smile, crossing his arms and looking back at Swain, and stating the obvious. “The wolf.”

 

Gabriel stopped and turned to cut a glance to Cobb. “You KNEW about this?”

 

“The coven is more entrenched in political affairs than you realize, Swain. You should know this, I’ve mentioned it to you before,” said Cobb with smarmy attitude. “And I must say, if you’re trying to handle this one on your own, you may save me the trouble of ending your pathetic excuse for a life on my own terms. It’s a primal turn, not one of the pack… a rogue wolf. While none of the hairbacks are particularly sophisticated, the rogue turns are twice as strong and twice as fast, and unpredictable. They bounce from one kill to the next without any sense of direction, simply the hunt. Even I would struggle to put this one down, Swain… that’s not to say I couldn’t kill it. But you… you are severely outmatched.”

 

“And yet you, in all your glorious power, did nothing to take care of this, just so you wouldn’t possibly be implicated in the election? Sophisticated my ass… still just an underhanded lousy neck-biter…” Gabriel insulted back to Cobb, and was interrupted abruptly as the dark clad man darted across the room in the blink of an eye, throttling the outlaw and lifting him against the wall by his neck. The sick thud of his body against the wall forced a few of the decorations to fall to the floor in a clatter, and send a dull pain through Swain’s entire body as his broken rib vibrated with the impact. As he grinned down at Cobb through the pain, his glasses crooked upon his face, and he couldn’t help but notice this was the third time in less than two days he’d been in this very situation.

 

“I’ll ask again, and then you can see how lousy I really am!” Cobb snarled at Gabriel, only for the tense moment to be broken up by the weeping Elizabeth turning and running from the room with her face in her hands. Cobb slowly lowered Gabriel to the floor, enticing a deep ragged breath from the outlaw as he regained his composure. “Why are you HERE?”

 

“I need you to give me a head start,” Gabriel finally said through clenched teeth, humbled by Elizabeth’s reaction. “I have to kill the mayor… but you already know that. I just need you to kick the law off of my scent for a day or two. Then you get what you want. It’s only fair.

 

Cobb gave Gabriel the once over, looking back for a moment as Elizabeth closed to door leading out of the dining hall. He turned to the outlaw with a snarl, leaning in and speaking low but firm as if to have the final word.

 

“Don’t talk to me about fair. I could snap you in half, right here, right now, Swain… it would be easy, and fair. You are weak, slow, and beaten down… all humans are weak, slow, and stupid. We, are not, and make no mistake about who is in control around here,” Cobb said, snatching the wooden stake from the sheath at Gabriel’s backside. “I see you still carry this for me,” Cobb spoke as he perused his name carved into the nearly two-foot long crafted shaft. “You still fantasize about the day you will take me down, but your woman is gone, Swain, and she belongs to me now. Your life is over, Swain, you fucked the whole thing up on your own, and handed your soul over, neatly wrapped in a hand basket, to the devil himself. I grow richer and more prosperous every day. I have made something of my life. And you… you will never win.”

 

Gabriel stood there, biting his tongue, peering at his weapon in Cobb’s hand as if to snatch it away and drive it right through his heart, just as he daydreamed earlier. But once again he reminded himself what an audacious daydream that was.

 

Cobb handed Gabriel his wooden stake, tilting his head and leaning in nose to nose with the gunslinger. “You will have four hours head start before I send the law after you. It’s generous of me,” he said, turning away from Gabriel and walking towards the doorway that Elizabeth ducked into, her weeping still barely audible from the other room. “If you dare ever return, I promise you… I will hasten your slow train to hell.”

 

Gabriel twirled the engraved wooden dagger and plunged it into the sheath at the back of his belt, tossing his duster back around his body as he dragged heavy boots and walked to remove himself from the estate, the sound of his spurs chinking with each step the only sound to muffle out the poor maiden’s sobbing. Cobb opened the door to follow her just as Gabriel began to trudge back downstairs. Looking back over his shoulder he left Cobb with one final thing to think on.

 

“So she’s not one of you, yet… maybe we’re not all so stupid after all.”

 

Cobb stood motionless as Gabriel pushed his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose and continued on past the lingering gaze of the leprous looking Figit who stood like a pudgy fat sentinel at the front doorway downstairs.

 

“I’ll show myself out, thanks.”

 

*              *              *              *              *              *              *

 

Gabriel made his way along the dusty trail towards the rendezvous point. He had truly hoped Penny hadn’t gotten herself into any trouble, but he was sure of her skills as a stealthy bandit, having spent her entire childhood as a pickpocket amongst other unsavory job titles with the thieves’ guild she was forced into servitude for as a kid, the same one he saved her from. He still wondered why he decided to take her under his wing… it wasn’t really in his nature. Maybe it was his first step toward trying to redeem himself before God. After all, God only knew how much time he had left before he had to pay his due.

 

A crow startled him, breaking him out of his deep thought, and landed on a worn and weathered sign, tilted and barely hanging on to the post by one rusty nail. It pecked away at the words, then turned to look at Gabriel as if it knew him. A lingering gaze, the crow’s eyes cold like a doll’s eyes, and if a crow could grin, it seemed to be doing that in Gabriel’s direction.

 

‘Longham Waylon Estates, Downtown.’ At least that’s what the side used to say, as he was familiar with the place, he remembered. But that’s not what the sign said. Apparently a few of the letters had been pecked at until the wood only had a few ascertainable words left, and as Gabriel made meaning from the madness, he looked to the crow with a hell bent scowl and the bird flew from the perch, cawing as it flew.

 

‘Long…. Way… Down….’

 

As if he needed to be reminded.

 

He brushed it aside. The sun was beginning to go down, so he had a precious few hours left. It was time to earn his pay and he had work to do.

 

*              *              *              *              *              *              *

 

“Okay, so tell me again why I’m in this cage, hanging from a tree?” Penny huffed, arms crossed as she leered out at Gabriel from inside a makeshift cage dangling from a long snaking tree branch from a tall, sturdy oak.

 

“I’m fishing again. No worries, Penny, I’ve got you covered,” Gabriel responded as he finished laying leaves and brush across the top of a trapdoor beneath the cage.

 

“And what is this dead rabbit doing hanging from my belt?” she huffed again, almost not needing to ask that question, but at this point she was a little pissed and she wanted to annoy him.

 

“You know… bait. The smell will hopefully make his acute senses dull enough he won’t smell me hiding in the brush behind the tree. Cobb did tell me that he was a rogue turn… he won’t be thinking clearly, he just wants to kill, eat, kill, repeat. The rabbit carcass will draw him here first.”

 

“And why am I wearing a pair of fake bunny ears,” she said with a scowl, just as one of the props drooped down over half of her face, tousling her black curls of hair.

 

Gabriel paused and looked up at her as he finished his trap, tilting his head. “I don’t remember telling you to wear those,” he said with a grin.

 

Her jaw dropped, and she was not amused.

 

“Not funny, Gabe. This is serious business. You saw what he did to you, to your arm and all,” Penny said, her voice trailing off with worry.

 

“Saw it… darlin’, I FELT it. I know exactly what I’m dealing with now, and even if I had full use of my faculties, I wouldn’t be able to hunt this thing down. We have to lure it to its own demise. Now listen… here’s the details. Sally is back in town, resting off the hangover of dragging this cage all the way up here. Can’t have her scent screwing this all up, plus I would seriously cry in front of you if she became horse-de jour. You are up there. I have this tapestry covered in leaves and brush over a hole I dug.”

 

“So what, there are spikes and stuff down there,” she said rolling her eyes a bit at the absurdity of it all.

 

“No… explosives,” Gabriel said, a little too serious.

 

“WHAT!?” Penny exclaimed, instantly gripping the cage with her tiny fists and shaking it as it to be let out.

 

“It’s okay, I did the calculations on the blast radius and the worst case scenario is you’ll obtain a minor concussion. I think. Well I mean I’m pretty sure, unless something goes wrong.”

 

Penny simply cut him a wide-eyed look and retorted back sarcastically. “Oh. What could possibly go wrong. Nothing, that’s what.”

 

Gabriel slipped on a shawl, intertwined with branches, smattered in mud, and draped it across his body with his good arm. He moved over to the tall brush beside the tree several yards away and took his position, kneeling amongst the shrubbery in his camouflage.

 

“Penny… I will not let anything ever hurt you,” he said to her in a tone she rarely heard, the boom of his voice, somehow, amongst the talk of explosives  just several yards beneath her feet, she knew he meant it and that she would be okay.

 

“There’s a pressure sensitive switch in the pit, Penny… when he stumbles in, his weight will set off the switch and he’ll take the blast full on. Now we wait. No talking this time… I need you to concentrate. We got this. Me and you, together.”

 

She nodded to him.

 

The distant thunder that played soundtrack to their conversation finally gave way as the soft plip plap sounds of rain came down over the metal in her cage. Gabriel blew out the torch light barely illuminating their stalking point, and settled back. Penny noted that she couldn’t even make him out amongst the shrubs anymore, knowing full well he was there, and that rabbit was pretty foul smelling. ‘Maybe this will work’ she thought to herself.

 

She didn’t think she had been lost in thought that long, or perhaps it was the internal desire for her to be anywhere but here, but no sooner than that thought crossed her mind did she hear that deep guttural growl in the distance, and her blood ran ice cold. She stumbled a little in the cage, making it rattle as she turned and tried to see what direction it was coming from. She heard noises in the distance, coming closer, and closer. There was a rustle in the brush here, a broken stick on the ground there, a padded foot splashing an errant mud puddle there.

 

From Gabriel’s place of lurking there was not the faintest of a movement or sound. It was almost as if he wasn’t even there.

 

Suddenly, Penny screamed as the beast showed itself again, leaping in the backdrop of the moonlight and taking a swipe at her cage. The bars held firm, but she flew back against the other side with a little thud, and she cried out as a second swipe sent her cage spinning uncontrollably. The wolf still hadn’t even put a foot to the trapdoor, as he leaped from one side to the other again and again, attacking her cage and trying to get inside for its meal.

 

“Fuck!” Gabriel snarled as he dashed out from his perch, pistol blazing. Each bullet sizzled through the air visibly in a bright orange blur as the incendiaries from his rounds exploded from his seven shooter. His first shot hit the beast squarely in the chest, meeting with a sick wet thud just an instant before the round detonated and tiny bits of wolf meat spattered in all directions.

 

The second shot rang out, but much as he thought, he didn’t really have time for the second shot. The round whizzed harmlessly out into the pouring rain, and he ducked just in time for the beast, like a living missile of teeth and claws, rocketed over his head to land behind him, sliding enough on the wet ground to give Gabriel just one more second to raise his pistol, aimed squarely at the beast’s face, but it was not to be. The wolf swiped again squarely across Gabriel’s body, sending his pistol flying dozens of yards away, and crumpling him into a ragdoll heap of meat and bones, flying back beneath the cage. His motionless body rolled slightly and then sunk through the carefully laid false top to his trapdoor.

 

“Gabriel, NO!” Penny screamed as she frantically tried to steady her wildly bobbing cage.

 

The beast jumped and sprawled itself across the pit, swiping in at Gabriel. He came to, unable to see much past the dim moonlight being blocked out by the beast’s massive frame taking swipes coming within inches of his body. From his prone position, he could tell he was laying squarely on his detonator, which must have shorted out when the rain started. Still, the realization that he was resting on a bomb woke him to full alert suddenly, and he realized that this was what Penny meant when she gave him that sarcastic remark about things never going wrong. They ALWAYS went wrong.

 

He squinted and reached for his glasses to realize they were no longer on his face. Hot, sick drool from the beast’s maw dripped down onto him, and the beast began to dig at the sides of the hole, making more room for his body to lower into the pit, the swipes coming closer.

 

The air filled with the sounds of thunder, the rain came down harder, and Gabriel couldn’t quite make out what was going on behind the beast as lightning strikes gave him brief moments of visual clarity from his tunnel vision view. He did notice the momentary glint of what seemed to be a knife, and the faint sound of rope being cut amidst the snarls and growls of this predator, looking to finish the job it started on the outlaw the night before. And in that moment, he knew what Penny was doing; saving his life yet again.

 

He slipped his arm behind his belt, fingering the handle to his engraved wooden stake, the mere arch of his back bringing him close enough to the wolf’s swipes that his duster frayed from the rake of razor sharp claws a whisper away. He held the thick wooden shiv tightly and said to himself just before he heard the snap of the rope that held the cage aloft. As the cage came plummeting down, crushing the were-wolf down into the hole with Gabriel just as he leaned up from his spot.

 

“Ok, just this once…” he said to himself, driving the wooden shiv straight up into the creature’s throat with gritted teeth and a growl of his own. His breathing was ragged as his eyes found focus and locked to those of the wolf, dying, inches before his face.

 

It’s back broken in half from the metal cage, and raining a torrent of blood from its jugular onto Gabriel Swain, its eyes looked almost human for the first time as Bruce Wild took his last breath.

 

*              *              *              *              *              *              *

 

Gabriel groaned as he finally found his glasses and leaned over to lift them, trying to wipe the mud from then but sighing as he only smeared it. Penny stood looking at the mayor’s prone body, back in human form. They had dressed him in the hunting clothes that Gabriel had asked Penny to swipe at his house the day before.  Gabriel lingered for a moment on that undeniably eccentric mustache, and just shook his head with a chuckle. Despite the deep gash to his throat and the considerable hole plugged into his left shoulder, his wounds were already healing.

 

“Is he… dead?” Penny asked, noticing that his he was looking better for wear in his human form.

 

Gabriel planted the barrel of his gun into the mouth of the prone body, raising a hand to shield Penny’s eyes as a loud blast rang out, echoing across the countryside, and the mayor’s head split into an explosion of blood and bits of bone.

 

“Yes.”

 

Gabriel wiped off the wooden stake and lingered his gaze on it, before tucking it back into its sheath. “You know I promised myself no blood would touch that thing unless it was going through Randall Cobb’s heart. It really crawls up my craw that I had to break that promise. Never again.”

 

Penny shrugged and shuffled back over next to Gabriel. “Well, we made it through another tough one, eh, Gabe?”

 

Gabriel nodded. “And as far as promises go, here’s another. It was fucking stupid of me to put you in danger like that, and I never will again. Far too many times you’ve saved my life and this time, I could have ended yours.”

 

Penny peeked up at Gabriel, tugging on his arm to snap him out of his wayward gaze, and to get him to make eye contact. “Even if I die tomorrow, it’s you that gave me a life at all,” she said sweetly, her bright blue eyes cutting right through him. “We stick together.”

 

Gabriel swallowed back the lump in his throat, nodding.

 

“Well in any case, I guess it’s time to hit the old dusty trail, the law will surely be after us once our four hours are up,” Gabriel said, slipping his hand into the fold of his duster with a grin and pulling out a beautiful hand engraved revolver that glistened in the dim peeking light of the morning sun, and firing six more shots into the maimed corpse of former mayor Bruce Wild.

 

“Four hours?” Penny asked, noting as he tossed one of the personal revolver pistols of one mayoral candidate Randall Cobb into the brush… but a place not too difficult to find for any Grimwood deputies to find.

 

“Well… perhaps a few more,” Gabriel said with a smile. “Sometimes I win, Penny. Sometimes I win.”

 

*              *              *              *              *              *              *