Redemption Gorge by Kenneth M. Gray
from TIGHTROPE: a PUNK NOIR Magazine series
Lee Patton’s thoughts were interrupted by the dog growling and barking at the shuttered window. “Sam, get the dog away from that window,” he said. The little runt, Scraps, had belonged to Alejandro, but Lee always considered her a member of the Bullet Hole Gang. Sure, she was mangy and ill-tempered, but so was the rest of his gang.
Lee looked up from the map. “Keep her still, Sam. Between her yapping and the abominations outside, I can’t hear myself think. He stabbed a finger on the map. “Redemption Gorge. Come sunup, we run like hell and get there before nightfall. Then we cross that rope bridge, cut it down, and head west ‘til we see an ocean.”
“Yes, sir, Mister Patton, far away from these abominatin’ fucks.”
Lee leaned back in the pew. The screams of men and horses still echoed through his mind.
***
Lee left the new kid bleeding in the street outside the bank back in Last Chance. He had no choice; the Pinkertons had caught up with them. The lawmen pursued them into the hills, across the lowlands, only to stop at the edge of the desert known as The Witch’s Boil. The Bullet Hole Gang didn’t question their good fortune and rode on.
Dusty Bill was the first to go.
The sun was low on the horizon when they first heard the sounds. “Coyotes, Mister Patton, sir?” Skinny Sam asked.
“Maybe,” Patton said, but thought, no beast on God’s earth made that sound.
Soon, darkness came, and the things appeared. The men thought they were human savages until moonlight broke through the clouds and revealed their ungodliness. Small, twisted bodies with sparse patches of hair on maggoty flesh. Jagged teeth and claw-like hands.
The foul things brought Bill’s horse down on top of him, then swarmed like ants on a piece of sticky candy. Bullets barely slowed them, and the few that went down were themselves devoured in the frenzy.
Next was Earless Joe Jackson.
The poor bastard survived torture at the hands of John J. Healy’s whiskey traders and three wives only to be torn to pieces and eaten alive.
Then Alejandro.
Patton got his horse under control and spurred it forward. “Get to that church!”
Alejandro raced behind Patton, pistol in one hand, Scraps in the other.
Skinny Sam whipped his horse alongside the Mexican, half a heartbeat ahead of the creatures. Alejandro twisted in his saddle and threw the dog at the kid when his horse stepped into a hole and went down. The Mexican hit the ground and tried to run. The screams of man and horse were indistinguishable.
Lee and Sam got into the church seconds before the things crashed into the doors, then turned on the horses abandoned outside.
***
Sam stopped chasing the dog and asked, “Why would anybody build a church all the ways out here in the middle of the desert, Mister Patton, sir?”
“I don’t know, Sam, just glad somebody did,” he said, but wondered what came first, the church or these things?
“Damn it, Sam, get the dog away from that window. We need to last a little longer. It’s almost dawn.”
The shutters exploded inward, and Sam was dragged screaming out into the night. Lee started toward the window but stopped and lowered his gun. It was too late, and he needed to save the few bullets he had left.
He grabbed the dog and sat back down, his gun aimed at the remains of the window until the first ray of sunlight shone through. Then he ran.
He ran hard, and when he could no longer run, he walked. He walked until he reached Redemption Gorge.
“Damn me to hell.”
Lee Patton stared out at what remained of the rope bridge, stretched across the wide chasm. The guide rope on the right was frayed and looked ready to snap. Halfway out, the few planks left hung like an old prospector’s teeth. He thought of the circus in Kansas City, where a man with a long pole walked on a wire high above the crowd. The ringmaster called him a tightrope walker.
The sun had dipped below the mountain ridge. It would be dark soon.
Lee tucked the tiny dog into his shirt and stepped onto the bridge. His weight sent the first board spinning down into the abyss. He kept to the left, gripping the guide rope, inching forward, sure his next step would send him and the dog down onto the rocks below.
He had reached the point where most of the planks had fallen away, the support ropes were in tatters, and only the guide ropes remained. “Hell, I’m not one of them tightrope walkers, but I bet I can shimmy the rest of the way.” Then thunder shattered the night and unleashed a torrent of rain.
Lee Patton looked up at the night sky. “You’re not making this any easier.”
Through the storm, he heard them—their impatient, hungry moans. Lightning flashed, revealing the things already on the bridge, crawling over each other to get to him.
“Ready to join the circus, Scraps?” he asked, and swung his legs up and around the rope and pulled toward safety.
He got half the way there when the bridge gave out under the added weight of the creatures and slammed Lee into the side of the gorge. The rope whipped back and forth as the creatures scrambled up the rope toward him; some even clung to the rocks. Between the rain and blood pouring down from his broken face, Lee felt his grip slipping.
Lee yanked Scraps out of his shirt by the scruff of her neck. “You’re the last of the Bullet Hole Gang,” he said, and with all the strength he had left, threw her up and over the edge to safety. He let go of the rope and plummeted down, taking as many of the things with him as he could.
Kenneth M. Gray is retired and lives in New Jersey with his daughter and two furry overlords, Lola & Lolo. He has kept stories in his head for too long and is now setting them free. He is still working on and one day hopes to release his illustrated story of Gleepglorp: A Tale of Love and Abduction.
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