Distant Worlds Volume 1 Page 18

  Jed leaned over the bar.

  “What’s your business here, Mr. Korvin?” he asked.

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Yeah?” Dale said. “Who’s that?”

  “Last I heard, he went around dressed like a preacher. I’ve tracked him all the way from the east coast; trail ends here, in this town.”

  Dale looked at Jed, his eyes wide.

  “The Reverend,” he said.

  Korvin scowled.

  “‘Reverend’, eh? How long has he been here?”

  “About two months,” Dale said.

  “Has anyone felt tired, like you’re coming down with a flu that never shows up?”

  “Everyone’s been worn out lately,” Jed said, “like they ain’t slept for a few days.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Probably at that damn church of his,” Dale said.

  “Dale!” Jed slapped Dale’s head. “That’s blasphemy!”

  “I’m sorry, Jed, but that place is just downright unnatural anymore!”

  “Can one of you take me there?”

  The two men stared at Korvin, mouths agape.

  “What, you mean now?” Dale asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I ain’t sure that’s such a good idea, fella,” Jed said.

  “Yeah, ain’t nobody allowed near the church after dark,” Dale said. “Old Molly Cartwright tried to go see him one night last week about something or other and ain’t nobody seen her since. I hear she went inside and never came back out. And folks near the church said they thought they heard somebody screaming during the storm that night.”

  “Oh, Dale, now that ain’t what happened to Molly and you know it!” Jed said.

  “Then where the hell has she been since—?”

  The door swung open again before Jed could finish. Sheriff Burkes entered, this time with four deputies in tow. Once little more than the sheriff’s drinking buddies, now they looked like soulless killers.

  Korvin pushed his drink aside.

  “Wondered when you’d be back,” he said. “He promise you a bone if you came to fetch me?”

  “Alright, mister, that’s enough outta you,” the sheriff said.

  Korvin turned and looked the five men over. Then he rose and took a step toward the sheriff. Burkes and his deputies drew their guns.

  “That’s far enough,” the sheriff said.

  “Very well,” Korvin said. “I wish I could help you and your men, but it looks like you’re already too far gone.”

  The stranger pulled his coat open, revealing the two revolvers hanging from his belt.

  Jed backed away from the counter slowly.

  “I said that’s enough outta you!” the sheriff said. “Cut him down, boys!”

  Before they could fire, Korvin’s hands flew to his guns and the sheriff’s deputies dropped amidst a deafening roar of gunfire. The sheriff got off a shot, but the stranger leapt aside with alarming speed. Korvin’s revolvers flashed and Burkes’ body jerked left, then right, then left, and then right again as the bullets tore through his body.

  But he didn’t fall.

  Jed stared aghast as the sheriff’s eyes took on a bright red glow. Burkes unleashed a demonic scream as he lunged towards Korvin, but the stranger calmly raised his weapons and fired with deadly precision. The bullets punched through the sheriff’s hateful eyes and exploded out the back of his head, splattering blood all over the front door.

  Empty bullet casings clanged on the saloon’s floor as Korvin swiftly reloaded his guns over Burke’s twitching corpse. He turned back to the bar and leveled one of the revolvers at Jed.

  “You. You can take me to the Reverend?”

  Jed nodded meekly.

  “Let’s go, then. He’ll be expecting me now.”

  Jed and Korvin stepped into the rain and tromped through the muddy streets toward the church.

  “Why was Burkes’s eyes glowing like that?”

  The question had gnawed at him since they left the saloon.

  “The sheriff died at least a month ago,” Korvin said. “Your preacher killed him, then brought him back from the dead to serve him.”

  “And the deputies?”

  “The same.”

  “But it was still Burkes,” Jed said, “it looked like him, talked like him.”

  “Didn’t act like him, though, did it?”

  “No,” Jed said. “I reckon it didn’t.”

  Jed’s mind struggled to keep pace with the strange turn of events. It was hard to accept; he didn’t even believe in ghosts, much less men that could be raised from the grave.

  “Who is the Reverend, really?” he asked.

  “He was a sorcerer, once, powerful and wicked. When he died, his soul was too evil to pass on and it fled back to his corpse. But even though the soul lives, his body is still dead. He needs to consume innocent souls to sustain it. That’s why he’s here. It’s why you’re all getting tired and sick; he’s draining your life away a bit at a time.”

  Jed couldn’t muster a response before the church came into view. After hearing Korvin’s story, the foul building before them looked nothing like the humble place of worship that he once held dear.

  “There,” Jed said. “That’s the church.”

  Korvin nodded.

  “You should go back now.”

  “No!” Jed said. His outburst surprised him more than Korvin.

  “I…I wanna see.”

  “I can’t promise to protect you.”

  “I ain’t asking you to,” Jed said. “I gotta see this with my own eyes so I know I ain’t going crazy.”

  Korvin sighed and shook his head.

  “Just stay out of my way.”

  Korvin drew his revolvers and kicked the door open.

  The inside of the church looked much as Jed remembered it. Two rows of benches lined up before the altar and the place lacked any decorations beyond the cross hanging from the far wall. But something seemed amiss, something that caused Jed’s hair to stand on end. As they moved inside, he realized that the room was completely silent; even the rain pouring down upon the roof made no sound.

  Korvin walked a few feet ahead of him, examining the benches closely. After a moment, he holstered one of his guns and waved an open palm over the bench while whispering something in a language Jed did not recognize. When the last of the strange words left his lips, a series of faint, glowing symbols appeared on the bench seats.

  “Your preacher’s been busy,” Korvin said.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “An example of his sorcery. This mark acts like a leech, draining away the soul of anyone who touches it. He’s sucking this town dry each time he delivers a sermon.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Jed said.

  Korvin looked under one of the benches.

  “There’s too much for him to absorb at once, though. He must be storing the rest somewhere.”

  The gunman kicked the bench over, the crash echoing around the walls of the small building. As it came to rest on its backside, Jed saw the intricate network of black vines woven across the bench’s underside that ran down its legs and into the floor.

  “This is worse than I thought,” Korvin said. “Does this church have a cellar?”

  “Yeah. We used to keep the town’s money down there before the bank had a vault.”

  “How do I get down there?”

  “There’s a trapdoor.”

  Jed walked to the altar and kicked the heavy rug aside to reveal a large trapdoor built into the floor. He pulled it open to reveal a small set of wooden stairs that led down to the cellar. Light flickered somewhere below.

  “It’s not too late for you to turn back,” Korvin said.

  “No,” Jed said. “I have to see.”

  Korvin shrugged and led the way down the stairs.

  Jed had been in the church’s cellar a few times, but it looked completely unfamiliar now. The heavy wooden beams that supported the weight of the ch
urch were still in place and the mudbricks that formed the cellar walls and floor remained, but they were covered with the same black, vinelike strands as the benches above. A small candleholder protruded from one of the walls and the burning candle cast strange shadows about the room.

  The mudbricks that once made up one of the room’s walls had been pulled away and a large tunnel led deeper into the earth. Jed could hardly see in the candlelight, but the twisting, winding vines appeared to line the walls of the passage. A faint moan issued from somewhere far below.

  “Take that candle,” Korvin said, drawing his revolvers.

  “You mean we’re going down there?”

  “Dammit, take that candle or get back up those steps!”

  “Alright, alright!” Jed said, fetching the candle from the wall. He hadn’t come so far only to turn yellow now.

  “Stay close,” Korvin said, “and be quiet.”

  Jed followed Korvin into the tunnel. The earth beneath them grew softer as they descended and the tunnel narrowed. Soon both men had to bend over to fit through the slimming passageway. Jed couldn’t tell how far down they travelled, it could have been a dozen yards or mile.

  Just when it seemed the confines of the tunnel would prohibit their advance, a dim light came into view a few yards ahead of them. The tunnel became so narrow that they had to crawl the remaining distance. Korvin squeezed through the small opening and Jed clamored after him. They stood in what appeared to be a natural cavern lit by several torches riveted to the walls. The ground felt like solid rock, same as the walls and ceiling of the large chamber, which as large as the church above. Jed might have been awed by the sight were it not for the thick, black vines covering the walls around them.

  Another tunnel stood on the far side of the chamber. Korvin moved towards it and Jed followed, but a piercing scream suddenly echoed through the room and brought both men to a halt.

  “What the hell was that?” Jed asked.

  Krovin didn’t answer, instead scanning the room with his revolvers at the ready.

  Jed covered his ears as the cry sounded once again.

  Then he saw it.

  What it was that he saw, Jed could not say for sure. It was not a woman, though it resembled one in shape; nor was it a snake, but it certainly moved like one. The creature sprang out of a shadow like a striking rattler, her golden eyes glazed over and her fangs dripping venom. Korvin narrowly evaded her large, three fingered talons by dropping to the stone floor and rolling aside. The serpent woman wheeled about and lunged for him again. Her movements were obscene; limbs and joints twisted, bent, and writhed at impossible angles as she slithered after the gunslinger.

  Korvin leveled his guns at her and fired. The discharges echoed around the cavern and Jed, still motionless with fear, thought he might go deaf from the roar. Korvin emptied both revolvers, but the fiend contorted her body so adroitly that the bullets hit nothing but empty air. Again her talons and fangs narrowly missed Korvin as he dropped his guns and scrambled away.

  He rolled across the ground as the scaly devil snapped and clawed at him, each strike narrowly missing its mark. When she finally overextended her reach, Korvin struck, planting a swift kick to her mouth and rolling away to put some distance between them. The she-snake reeled back, hissing and spitting venom. A vulgar, unintelligible sound that once might have passed for speech escaped her scaled lips as she recovered and coiled to attack again.

  Korvin got to his feet and he reached into his coat to draw an ornate dagger from a hidden sheath. Nearly a foot long and covered with bright markings, the blade shimmered in the dim torchlight.

  As the slithering thing pounced, Korvin feigned to his right as if to roll aside. When she twisted to follow, he sprang to his left and drove the point of the dagger into her writhing neck. The force of his blow drove the fanged horror back and he threw her to the ground. Korvin ripped the blade out through the side of her neck and jumped away as she flailed savagely, her head half severed from the body. The ear-splitting shrieks ceased, replaced with choking as the wretched creature undulated pitifully on the ground. She writhed for several minutes before finally, mercifully, succumbing to death.

  Korvin wiped the blood from his dagger before he sheathed it and then picked up his guns. Jed, still shaking, staggered over to the body as Korvin reloaded the heavy weapons.

  “What the hell was that thing?”

  “More of his sorcery. Probably the missing woman Dale mentioned. Your Reverend is stronger than I thought if he could twist her body and mind like this.”

  “Molly?” Jed said, staring at the scaly, lifeless abomination on the ground. “Just like the sheriff. Would he have done this to everybody in town?”

  “Given enough time, yes,” Korvin said. “I’ve seen whole villages turned into monsters like this thing.”

  Jed could not pull his eyes away from the thing that had once been Molly Cartwright.

  Sweet, pretty Molly.

  “We’re nearly there,” Korvin said, taking Jed by the arm. “Let’s go.”

  Korvin led him through the tunnel in the far wall. Once again, Jed heard the moaning sound as the passage led them deeper into the earth. They followed the tunnel until they came upon a small, man-sized opening in the side of the passageway. The vines very nearly covered it and if Korvin hadn’t spotted it, Jed would have walked past it.

  They pulled the vines aside and slipped into a small room behind them. A large slab of stone stood in the center of the room, though the vines covered both it and a large object resting atop it. A horrid smell, a mixture of rotting flesh and decaying vegetables, filled Jed’s nose and nearly caused him to wretch. A strange, rhythmic moaning sound echoed around the walls.

  Korvin took the candle from Jed’s hand and held it over the stone slab. Jed recoiled when he saw that the vines were wrapped around the bloody, half rotten corpse of what had once been a man. Nailed firmly to the rock by railroad spikes, the body still bled where the black vines punctured in and out of the flesh as they wrapped around the bone. Looking more closely, Jed saw that the strands appeared to be growing out of the body.

  Jed’s stomach could take no more, and he spun away to throw up all over the floor.

  Korvin remained next to the body. When Jed recovered, he crept over to the gunman’s side to see what had captured his interest.

  “Here’s what we’re after,” Korvin said.

  The man’s chest had caved-in as if his ribs had rotted away; in the center of his chest sat a small, smooth sphere about the size of a man’s fist. Numerous dark colors swirled within it like rolling storm clouds, and it pulsed malevolently.

  Korvin moved the light up to the man’s face. Although the black vines had slithered out through his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, Jed saw that the man was still breathing. He jumped back with a yelp, his heart pounding.

  “He’s alive?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Korvin said. “He’s being used as in incubator. The sphere in his chest is the source of these vines; they transfer the soul energy stolen by the symbols above into this container. It needs blood to sustain itself for now, but once it’s filled with souls, your Reverend will cut it out and use it to amplify his own power. That’s why he’s draining everyone in this town. He isn’t feeding; he’s preparing himself for something else, something bigger.”

  Korvin handed the candle to Jed.

  “Hold this steady over his chest.”

  Jed took the candle as Korvin pulled his dagger from its sheath. With his free hand, he grasped the sphere and yanked it out of the chest cavity with a fierce jerk. The tentacles came together to form a thick cord at the base of the sphere. When Korvin slashed through the cord, a syrupy liquid oozed forth from the severed end. Jed noticed that the tentacles on the walls and the floor began to squirm as well.

  Korvin drove his blade into the poor soul’s skull before returning it to its sheath.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  A crowd of people
had gathered in the muddy street by the time Jed and Korvin emerged from the church. They stood completely still and slack jawed. A few of them carried weapons; old Willie Tailor had an axe in his hands and Bonnie Jones held her husband’s big hunting knife.

  “Don’t move,” Korvin said.

  Slowly, the crowd parted to allow a single, thin figure to pass. The Reverend towered over most of the townsfolk. He wore long, black robes and his pale face was thin, almost skeletal. For a moment, Jed thought that Death himself had come to drag them down to Hell.

  “Good to see you again, boy,” the Reverend said. The voice raked harshly across Jed’s ears. He put his hand to one ear and felt blood oozing out.

  “You’ve been busy,” Korvin said, nodding at the crowd. “Still, a few head short of what you’re used to, I gather.”

  “All things must begin somewhere, old friend.”

  “All things end somewhere.”

  The Reverend chuckled, a sickening sound that made Jed shiver. The Reverend’s demonic gaze swung to him.

  “Ah, poor Jed. I see you have strayed from the path the Lord set before you. Despite my best efforts, you seem to have fallen into sin. Are you ready to be saved, my son?”

  The words slithered out of the Reverend’s twisted mouth and wrapped around Jed’s body like tentacles. His mind grew cloudy and he lurched towards the beckoning figure before him.

  Suddenly a thunderclap shattered his delirium and Jed felt one of his legs give out. Then he felt the pain.

  Not a thunderclap, he realized. A gunshot.

  He turned back to Korvin and saw the revolver’s smoking barrel. Considering that another few steps would have drawn him into the ranks of the Reverend’s mindless horde, the bullet might well have saved his soul.

  “This has gone far enough,” Korvin said.

  “Indeed,” the Reverend said. “But what will you do then, boy? My power here is strong and you are far outnumbered. Will you kill everyone in this town just to get to me?”

  “I won’t have to.”

  Korvin reached into his coat and pulled out the sphere.

  “Impossible,” the Reverend said, his eyes burning like embers. He glared down at Jed.