Bad Men

He heard snow crunching beneath approaching footsteps and looked up to see the three figures closing in on him, their heads low and hooded, their weapons held at port arms. Two of them paused while the third moved forward, so close now to Shepherd that the wounded man could smell the stink of dead animals that rose from the hunter. He tried to crawl away and felt a hand grip his leg, pulling him back. Shepherd searched inside his jacket and found the butt of his Colt. He twisted and raised the weapon, aiming it at the man who was dragging him backward, then emptied five shots into him.

The hunter released him and lowered the hood of furs from his head.

“Aw fuck,” said Shepherd, as he saw at last what had come for him. His disintegrating mind registered pale, withered skin, and blue lips, and eyes that burned cold red with a fearsome, implacable fury. Here were the true hunters, unbound by time and space, traversing the centuries in their quest for vengeance, seeking final reparation for old sins.

Shepherd started to cry. They should never have come here. It was a mistake, a terrible mistake.

“Aw fuck aw fuck aw fuck aw fuck…”

He placed the barrel of the gun against his skull.

“Aw fuck aw fuck aw-”

And fired.

Moloch and his men heard the sound of the shotgun blasts and the final shot as Shepherd turned his gun upon himself. Dexter and Moloch exchanged a glance, but said nothing.

Willard, moving along the road, skirting the outer reaches of the forest, paused as he too heard the shots, then began to run faster. He wanted answers, and dead men could tell him nothing. He also wanted to believe in Moloch, to be reassured that Tell had acted on the wishes of Dexter and Shepherd and not those of Moloch himself. If Moloch was in trouble, then he would need Willard’s help. Willard would show his loyalty, and Moloch would reward it with his love.

And Sharon Macy, trying to warm herself before the flames rising from Lubey’s house, heard them as well. They sounded some way off. She stared into the forest, its outer reaches now lit by the fire, and tried to discern movement within, but there was nothing. Keeping away from the flames, she circled the house and retreated into the shadows.

Moloch had grown quieter. Dexter watched him as they progressed toward the fire, but didn’t say what was on his mind. They had lost two men already. Maybe Moloch was right. Perhaps Powell had just given up and headed back to the boat, and Shepherd had done the same, but Dexter didn’t think so. That wasn’t like either man. They had been approached because Dexter knew that they would stand firm. For Shepherd it was primarily about the money, for Powell the promise of a little action. But they had also come because there were few opportunities for men like them to strike back at all that they hated, to break a prisoner loose, to hunt down a betrayer, to kill a cop. Their discipline was almost military. They were not the kind of men to turn back at the first sign of trouble.

Moloch swiped at something unseen in the air, as though swatting away a fly. No, thought Dexter, not a fly.

More like unwanted company.

There were voices in Moloch’s head. They were whispering to him, saying things in a mocking, familiar tone, but he couldn’t understand the words. And each time he felt his footing slip, and reached out to grasp a tree or a rock for support, he seemed to endure a kind of mental flash.

Blood.

Men among the trees.

A woman beneath him, dying as blade and man moved in unison.

And darkness; the sensation of being trapped in a mine, or a tunnel network, or a honeycomb.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and thought:

Gray. They’re gray.

“You okay?”

It was Dexter.

“I’m good,” he said. “I’m-”

They’re gray, and they carry lights.

“-real good.”

Braun was leaving a trail of blood on the snow. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He’d tried to stem the flow, but the cop’s shot had torn up his arm badly. Despite the cold, he was sweating and feverish. He wanted to rest, to lie back against a rock and let sleep come, but Dupree was following him. He had caught a glimpse of him through the trees, and had considered waiting for him in the darkness in the hope of ambushing him, but he was afraid that if he stopped to rest he might lose consciousness and become an easy target.

And he wasn’t running only from Dupree. When he paused briefly to catch his breath and examine his copy of the crude map while leaning against a big fir, the snow thick on his shoulders and bright red hair, he heard a whispering and saw the gray shapes moving along the ground, trying to get ahead of him and cut off his escape. He was delirious with pain, he told himself. His mind was playing tricks on him, forcing him to believe that figures were crawling along the ground, clutching at roots and stones with emaciated hands as they pulled themselves across the earth.