This time around, I’m reading “Come Again, Halloween.” This is a tribute to all the things that make Halloween special to me. This story appears, along with twelve others, in the pages of CREEPING STONES & OTHER STORIES, released just this week from Evileye Books!

It’s been a long time since I did a reading, so I feel a little rusty, but I hope you enjoy it!

If you dig the story, I hope you’ll check out the collection. You can order your copy on Amazon!

Come Again, Halloween from Cullen Bunn on Vimeo.

The Best Costumes Are Homemade
By Cullen Bunn

Mrs. Friedly had been feeling quite festive, but the children were raising such a fuss that she was growing cross. She took a deep breath, though, and reminded herself that it was, after all, her favorite holiday. She refused to let it be spoiled. She picked a piece of candy from the bowl on the kitchen table and plopped it into her mouth. She instantly felt better.

But the children still whined and mewled.

“Now, now, my sweet ones,” Mrs. Friedly said, “I’m afraid this really is a necessity. I know you love the costumes we’ve made, but it is simply too cold out, and you must wear your jackets.”

The children moaned and sighed, whimpered and cried. Mrs. Friedly clucked her tongue as she gathered their jackets.

“Now, now. I know what you think. We worked very diligently on those costumes, and they are very scary. I realize you think that wearing a coat will ruin the illusion, but I can’t imagine your parents will approve if you come home with colds. I mean, look at you. You’re already shivering, each and every one of you.”

She offered the first of the children—Sara—her coat. Sniffling, the little girl slipped into the garment and shuffled off.

“There you are,” said Mrs. Friedly, “and you still look quite frightening!”

She handed jackets to little Billy and Gretchen and Scotty. The children screeched with disappointment as they pulled their jackets on.

“Now, that’s just about enough of that,” Mrs. Friedly said. “It’s Halloween, and you should be happy to go trick-or-treating. I still have to finish costumes for the other children.”

Mrs. Friedly looked over her shoulder. In the living room, the other children in her care—the children from the “wrong side of the tracks”—waited patiently while watching Charlie Brown. Misshapen shadows from the flickering TV screen danced across the walls.

“You know they are less fortunate than you,” Mrs. Friedly said, lowering her voice, “but you don’t see them complaining. Now, off you go!”

She ushered the whimpering children towards the door.

“Have fun!” she called, but she could hear them crying as they shuffled down the walkway.

Shaking her head, Mrs. Friedly shut the door and returned to the kitchen to finish the costumes for the other kids. The floor, she noticed, was a mess, covered in puddles of spattered gore and tracked around in four sets of bloodied footprints.

Those really were frightening costumes, she thought to herself. Perhaps I should have put plastic down. Oh, well. No use worrying over spilled milk now.

She sat at the table and set about stitching and patching together the four new Halloween disguises. Normally, she would have taken the time to clean the table up a bit before she got started. She, like her mother before her, had always been a clean-as-you-go kind of woman. But she could hear Charlie Brown coming to an end in the next room, and she knew the children would soon grow restless. She worked around the oozing, dripping blood and promised herself she’d make the entire house spotless once the holiday was over and done.

After a few minutes, she sat back and surveyed her handiwork. The new costumes were ready and—if she did say so herself—they looked terrific. She called to the children in the other room.

The kids shuffled and loped and slithered into the kitchen. Their teeth and fangs and mandibles clicked together with anticipation. They could already taste the treats they’d receive tonight, and saliva oozed down their chins, dripping to the bloody floor with all their other ichors and bodily secretions.

“Here you are.” Mrs. Friedly held up the first of the costumes for one of the children. “Tonight, you’ll be going as Sara.”

The child took the fleshy, sticky costume and pulled it on over its chitenous, roach-like shell.

“And you,” Mrs. Friedly said to the next child, “will be Billy.”

The second child took the costume, sniffing it hungrily.

“It’s not for eating,” Mrs. Friedly said, “at least not until after you’re done trick-or-treating.”

The third child wore the Gretchen costume, although Mrs. Friedly had to cut additional holes into the face for the extra set of eyes.

The final child had never dressed up for Halloween, but the Scotty costume Mrs. Friedly had made fit perfectly over his twisted, scaly body.

Mrs. Friedly clapped her hands together excitedly.

“Oh, don’t you look wonderful!”

Before her stood Sara, Gretchen, Billy, and Scotty, albeit stitched and bloodied versions of said children. They looked grotesque, that was for certain, but far less so than usual.

“And isn’t that what Halloween is all about?” asked Mrs. Friedly. “Pretending to be someone you’re not.”

She handed each of the children a plastic jack o’lantern and each, in turn, a slip of paper. On each scrap of paper was written an address.

“Sara’s home, and Scotty’s, and Gretchen’s, and Billy’s. I think their parents will be most thrilled with your costumes. Oh, how I wish I could be there to see the looks on their faces.”

The four costumed creatures shuffled out the front door—none of them wearing a jacket. They croaked, “Trick or treat! Trick or treat!” as they moved along the walkway.

“Would you look at that,” Mrs. Friedly called from the doorway. “Someone left you some treats right in the front yard.”

Four crumpled, bloody, skinless figures were sprawled in the yard. Blood had soaked through their jackets, ruining them.

End

The Silent Auction
By Cullen Bunn

“My word, Mrs. Friedly!”  Claire tapped the tiny, elderly woman on the shoulder.  “I’ve never heard such questions in all my life!”

Mrs. Friedly turned and regarded her new neighbor over the rim of her round-framed eyeglasses.  “What’s that, dear?”

“These questions–”  Claire waved towards the gorilla-suited MC, who was busy reading trivia questions from a crumpled sheet of paper.  Behind him, a banner was tacked to the wall.  HALLOWEEN TRIVIA NIGHT, it read.  “–They’re dreadful!”

Mrs. Friedly smiled sweetly and nodded.

“OUR NEXT QUESTION …”  The MC’s voice, muffled beneath his ape mask, boomed over the microphone.  “…NAME, IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, THE VICTIMS OF JACK THE RIPPER.”

Claire gasped in disgust, but a nervous titter passed through the crowd.  At each table, a group of costumed ghouls gathered around scorecards.  They whispered to each other and jotted their answers down.  The question seemed to spark a heated debate at one of the nearby tables.  A thin man in a skeleton get-up asked his companions, “Do you think he means just the known victims?  Or should we list all the others, too?”

“AND THE FINAL QUESTION IN THIS CATEGORY,” The MC announced.  It must have been very hard to breathe under the mask.  Drool dribbled from the gorilla’s lips.  “ACCORDING TO POPULAR BELIEF, HOW MANY CHILDREN WERE DEVOURED AT THE SIXTH FEAST OF EIBON?”

Mrs. Friedly clucked her tongue and muttered, “Trick question.”

“I’m afraid this is not what I had in mind,” Claire told the elderly woman.  “I don’t care if it is Halloween.  These questions are simply revolting.  What charity is this event benefiting anyway?  I appreciate you trying to introduce me to some of the other people from the neighborhood–I really do–but I think it would be best if I left.”

“Oh, don’t run off,” Mrs. Friedly said.  “I’m sorry about the trivia questions.  But I didn’t write them.  I just run the silent auction, and that’s about to begin.

A cheer rose from the crowd as Mrs. Friedly walked to the center of the stage and took the microphone from the gorilla.

Just then, a pair of hands grabbed Claire by the shoulders and roughly pushed her on-stage.  She struggled to free herself, but the beast that held her refused to let go.

“Here we have a lovely young woman,” Mrs. Friedly said.  The crowd of monsters clapped and hooted.  “She’s new to the neighborhood, and very sweet, I’m sure.  Do I have an opening bid?”

Several members of the crowd raised clawed hands to place bids.

“Let me go!” Claire yelled.  “This isn’t funny!  Let me go right NOW!”

Mrs. Friedly looked at the young woman and made a tsk tsk tsk sound.  She handed the microphone back to the gorilla, and approached.  She dug in the pockets of her dress and withdrew a pair of bright, shiny scissors.

“Didn’t I tell you, dear?”  Mrs. Friedly asked.

The hands at Claire’s shoulders  strayed to her face and forced her mouth open.  Mrs. Friedly raised the scissors.

“This is a silent auction,” she said.

The scissors snipped closed.

End

Friedly’s Treats
By Cullen Bunn

Joshua hated Halloween. He once loved costumes and jack o’lanterns and candy. But now he dreaded the holiday.

Outside, trick-or-treaters giggled and climbed Mrs. Friedly’s porch steps. The shuddering knock sent shivers down Joshua’s spine. He squeezed his eyes shut.

The door creaked open. Cool air swept the foyer.

Guttural voices cried, “Trick or treat!”

“Aren’t you fearsome!” Mrs. Friedly beamed at the anxious little monsters. “I’ve something extra special for you.”

Joshua squirmed as she lifted him, but the ropes around his hands and feet held tight. The gag muffled his screams. Grinning sweetly, Mrs. Friedly plopped him into one of the yawning treat bags.

“Oh, dear!” She pursed her lips. “I’m afraid I’m all out of treats. I don’t have enough for each of you.”

A disappointed groan rose from the beasties.

“Oh, I know!” The kindly-looking woman snapped her fingers and ducked into the house. She reappeared minutes later.

She dropped shiny treats into the other bags.

Wide-eyed, Joshua watched over the edge of the bag.

“Here you go!” Mrs. Friedly said. “Remember to share.”

Thanking the old woman, the hideously-masked trick-or-treaters skipped down the sidewalk, Joshua in one bag, butcher knives and meat cleavers in the others.

End

Gone Fishin’
By Cullen Bunn

“Another year,” Mrs. Friedly piped, “another Halloween Festival!”

The Elk Ridge Community Center was decorated with paper jack o’lanterns, dancing skeletons, and dozens of orange and black streamers. Children in costume—goblins and witches, vampires and ghouls, princesses and ninjas—scurried around the large chamber, and their laughter and squeals formed a constant din.

Mrs. Friedly clucked her tongue as she watched the children. Maybe she was old-fashioned, but some of the costumes just didn’t seem very… Halloweeny… to her. Ghouls and ghosts and monsters—those were fine. But the princesses and cowboys and monkeys just didn’t seem to fit the spirit of the occasion. Halloween, as the elderly woman saw it, was supposed to be a spooky night.

What on earth, she thought, is a ninja anyway?

The festivities were in full swing. Music swelled as a group of older children (and more than a few parents) took part in a cake walk. Screams and giggles rose from the make-shift haunted house the local Industrial Arts club was putting on behind the curtain on the auditorium stage. Groups of kids were playing Pass the Pumpkin and Candy Corn Catch. All around the perimeter of the massive chamber were small booths featuring all sorts of attractions and games. Fortune tellers, face painting, apple bobbing—there was something for everyone. There was even a kissing booth, sponsored by the Elk Ridge High School cheerleaders, and the line of teenage boys waiting for a smooch was impressive.

A pudgy little boy approached Mrs. Friedly’s booth.

“What’s this all about?” he asked.

Mrs. Friedly looked the boy over in disappointment. His only attempt to get into the spirit of Halloween was to wear a t-shirt that read, “This IS my costume!” Still, she forced a sweet smile.

“This is the fish pond.” She motioned to the curtain wall behind her. The curtain was decorated with dozens of swimming fish, many with sharp, fearsome-looking teeth. “You cast a line over the curtain and fish for a prize.”

“What kind of prize?”

Mrs. Friedly eyed the boys round belly and smiled. “Usually something good to eat!”

“I’ll give it a try,” the boy said.

Mrs. Friedly giggled happily. “Oh, goody!”

The boy looked around the booth. His brow furrowed. “Where are the fishing poles?”

Just then, he noticed something large moving behind the curtain. It was the shape and size of a gorilla, but the head was misshapen and covered in what might have been wriggling snakes. The grotesque figure made awful grunting sounds as it approached.

“W-what’s that?” the boy asked.

He had his answer soon enough. The shadowy figure moved behind the curtain. A fishing line dropped down next to Mrs. Friedly. At the end of the line was a large, rusty hook. Mrs. Friedly grabbed the hook. Without a second’s hesitation, she flicked her wrist and drove the hook through the flesh of the boy’s mouth.

The boy screeched and trembled, pulled at the hook and flailed.

Mrs. Friedly looked around. No one else seemed to notice.

The elderly woman gave the fishing line two quick tugs. The line was quickly retracted, and the little boy was hoisted up. He vanished over the top of the curtain. The last Mrs. Friedly saw of him was his kicking legs flopping over the edge.

Mrs. Friedly smiled and hummed to herself as she waited for her next customer. Within a few minutes, she saw a princess walking her way, and she felt a little rush of Halloween excitement.

End

Updated 10/27/2012

Creeping Stones and Other Stories, a collection of short horror tales by yours truly, is now available! I didn’t expect it to be released until mid-November, but you can get the book now… just in time for Halloween!

This is the first of two collections coming from Evileye Books. The stories in this volume include:

Why Sing the Sirens
Wide is the Way, Broad is the Gate
The Storm Children
Come Again, Halloween
Cold Snap
Still Waters
Creeping Stones
Tomorrow, When the Demons Come
Beneath Black Boughs My Darlings Slumber
The Caller From the Void
For Her Love
Cry of the Machine
The Feast of Crows
Remains

That’s 300+ pages of horror fiction… and you can get your copy right now on Amazon!

Blood Feud is a great read – funny, gory and, thanks to the spiders, pretty creepy.   This is definitely not your typical vampire story.  If you think the genre has gotten old and tired, give this a try.

Read the entire review here.

And if that’s not good enough for you, check out what Dreadful Tales said:

Blood Feud is the perfect novella. It heaps on the blood, the laughs and the action leaving the reader completely satisfied in the end. I think I’m still in awe that a vampire yarn told through the eyes of a country bumpkin would work so amazingly well.

Read the entire review here.

And once you’re done reading reviews, you can purchase Blood Feud for the Kindle here.

That wasn’t true, of course. Every now and then, Pa had taken her into the nearby town of Ahmen’s Landing. Usually, she just waited in the truck while he ducked into the feed store or the hardware supply. She would sit there, watching the townsfolk—the women chatting as they exited the beauty shop, the men gathering outside the diner, the kids her age laughing and goofing off as they strolled past. Once, one of the boys had looked her way and smiled even though he was walking with a girl who must have been his girlfriend. Madi felt her face flush and she gasped aloud. In the instant when their eyes met—in that second before Madi forced herself to look away—she felt like the prettiest girl in all the world… and she was certain that he was the most handsome boy that ever lived. And then he was gone, continuing on his way, throwing his arm around his girl, talking loudly and boisterously with his friends.

A couple of times, Madi had accompanied her father to the grocery. The small store with its crowded, dusty shelves and rumbling refrigeration units seemed like a magical place to the girl. She could have spent hours browsing those shelves, looking at canned food and boxes of cereal and packets of juice mix. The colors and the images amazed her. But Pa always hurried along, like he didn’t want to be seen with her. Madi had to admit, some of the other customers looked at her strangely, not with malice or distaste, but with a glimmer of familiarity. Madi always left the store with a couple of bags of groceries, a tattered paperback book or a few out-of-date magazines, and the distinct the impression that the townsfolk wanted to talk to her… but they were afraid.

Ahmen’s Landing.

How far away was town? At least a few miles, she guessed, maybe as many as a couple of dozen. On foot, with someone chasing her through the woods, it might as well have been on the other side of the—

“Madi!”

Pa’s voice cut through the night—loud and clear and close. The sound of it sent a shockwave through Madi’s bones, and she stumbled and almost lost her footing.

She whirled around, scanning the darkness. For a few dreadfully slow seconds, she saw nothing, heard nothing, and she wondered if her mind might have been playing tricks on her, if the sounds of the forest weren’t coming together in such a way as to make her think she’d heard her father.

“Madi! Stop right there!”

As he called out again, Madi spotted him in the shadows. He threaded his way through the trees, a shadow among shadows, moving toward her quickly.

“Don’t move!” he cried.

Madi had never known her father to have a quick temper. He had never been a cruel or mean-spirited man. But she had seen him angry from time to time, not necessarily with her, but maybe with life in general. She recognized the knife-like edge of anger in the man’s voice when she heard it.

And she heard it now.

Pa was angry.

“Run.”

From the satchel at her side, the boy’s skin hissed.

“Run!”

And she ran, turning away from her father and scrambling into the darkness, slipping in the leaves and pine straw and almost falling face first to the ground, but pushing herself forward, through the trees, down a hillside, over a cluster of large rocks that pushed their way out of the forest floor. She heard her father behind her—his bellowing cry, his breath coming in rugged gasps, his heavy footsteps coming closer, but she didn’t dare look back. She willed her legs to pump faster, and the world around her seemed to blur into nothing but mist and gloom and the painful sting of branches slapping at her, scratching her face, trying to drag her down.

“Stop!” Pa called, and it sounded like he was just a couple of steps behind her. He no longer sounded like himself, though. Instead, his voice was deep and rough and bestial. “Madi! Listen to me!”

His fingertips grasped at her shoulders, and she almost fell again. His hand caught hold of her arm, jerking her to a stop. Madi cried out in pain. It felt like he had ripped her arm out of it socket. The satchel fell from her shoulder, thumping to the ground, as Madi was forcibly yanked around to face her father. She tried not to scream, tired not to sob, but she couldn’t help herself.

“Dammit, girl!”

His face was a mask of anger, and sweat dripped from his nose. His breath came in hot blasts that washed across Madi. He grabbed her—hard—by both shoulders and pulled her close. She knew he was going to kill her right then and there. He was going to put his big, sweaty hands around her throat and squeeze until he choked the life out of her.

“Dammit!” he spat again. “Why make this any harder than it has to be?”

“Please,” Madi whined, “I don’t want to–”

“Don’t you say it! Don’t you dare say another word! You think anyone wants to die? You think anyone—lease of all me—wants to do what has to be done?”

“Why?” Madi tried to pull away, but her father only seemed to draw her in closer. His hands moved up to her throat, his fingers crawling across her skin. His touch seemed to sear her flesh. “Why are you doing this?”

“It’s good that you don’t know, girl.” Pa’s chin trembled as if he was on the verge of weeping. “It’s good that you’re gone before you realize what you are.”

His fingers closed around her throat.

He squeezed.

• Scripted 12 or so issues of The Sixth Gun.
• Scripted 4 issues of Fear Itself: The Deep.
• Scripted 2 Fear Itself tie-in issues: Fear Itself: FF and Fear Itself: Black Widow.
• Scripted 12 issues of Fear Itself: The Fearless.
• Scripted the Spider-Man: Season One graphic novel.
• Scripted a few books for SmarterComics.
• Scripted 2 issues of a new limited series for Oni Press (to be announced soon).
• Scripted 4 issues of a new limited series for Marvel (to be announced soon).
• Scripted 4 issues for other Marvel projects (to be announced soon).
• Started work on Crooked Hills Book 2.

There’s a reason the cannibals didn’t come a-looking at the sound of gunfire in the valley.

An awful reason.

Directly, we spotted the cave Boone Friedricks and his men had been using as a hideout. It was a gaping maw in the rock wall, and bits of bone and clothing–cast offs from their victims–littered the ground leading up to the cave.

The horrid odor of decay came from within, but I didn’t see sign of a sentry or lookout.

The stranger motioned for me to drop back a step or two. He pulled one of his revolvers and inched closer to the warren. The idea of walking into that pitch-black hole in the ground didn’t appeal to me one bit. The stranger must’ve had the same notion. After peering into the cave for a few seconds, he turned to me.

“Fetch one of those bones and some scraps of cloth,” he whispered. “Make a torch.”

As I set about the grim task, I wondered just whose clothes… whose bones… would be lighting our way.

“Stay a couple of steps behind me with that fire.” The gunslinger drew his second pistol. “Don’t get close enough to blind me. Hold it off to the side a bit, too. I don’t want to be back-lit. The light’ll make us both easier targets as it is.”

The cave was a lot deeper than I expected. The tunnel wound down and off to the side, like a giant serpent had burrowed its way through the stone. The torch guttered in the wind.

We hadn’t taken more than a dozen steps when a gunshot rang out from somewhere up ahead.

I flinched. The stranger didn’t.

Another gunshot thundered in the dark, and I thought I saw a muzzle flash chase shadows across the tunnel walls.

Time passed slowly as we waited… watching… listening…

A figure staggered into view–tall and bulky with shaggy hair. He held a gun, and he was aiming at something low to the ground behind him. He pulled the trigger, and in the flash I saw his face was a mask of fright. He clutched his stomach with his free hand. Blood covered his lips and chin.

He spotted us, too, and his bloody mouth gaped open in surprise. His teeth were razor sharp.

His gun hand hung limply at this side now, the smoking pistol pointed at the floor. He stumbled towards us, a couple of steps, no more.

“Sinclair,” he muttered. “You–”

The stranger–I reckon his name was Sinclair–snapped his own gun up in the blink of an eye and blew the cannibal to Kingdom Come before he could finish his sentence.

He moved quick now, dropping down next to the dead man and searching the body. Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t find, and he spat out a curse. “Come on,” he said, and he sprang to his feet and plunged into the darkness.

“What do you think he was shooting at?” I asked, but I had my answer soon enough.

I heard something.

Something wet.

Something meaty.

That’s the only way to describe it.

As the torchlight flooded through the tunnel, I gasped.

“God Almighty!”

I won’t one to blaspheme, but no other exclamation seemed quite right.

This … thing squirmed on the ground. It was about the size of a large dog, hairless, skinless, without any distinguishable face. It was a mass of twitching muscle and bone, flopping about of its own accord. It had been shot a couple of times, and from the bullet holes pumped blood. But it kept on moving, wriggling, like it was trying to unfold itself like the petals of a flower.

It smelled like rotten eggs and bacon grease.

“What is it? I asked.

Sinclair didn’t answer. He just looked at it for a moment, then moved along.

It was worse up ahead. Much worse.

We entered a sprawling chamber. The torchlight licked at the rough-hewn walls, the columns of stone. Scattered around the room were some of the “gifts” the folks from Newcomb’s Wild West Extravaganza had given Friedricks and his men.

Among the debris were dozens of empty green bottles.

“This’ll cure them what ails ya,” Ezra had said.

Three cannibals were sprawled on the floor. I knew they were dead right away. They were too pale, too still. Blood covered their mouths. Their bellies were swollen and distended.

“It’ll drive the foul spirits from your body like your granny chasing cats from the kitchen!”

In the deep crevices and pockets of dark the torch couldn’t touch, something flapped and flopped, a gristled, meaty kind of noise. I thought of stepping closer, taking a look, but I was too scared to force my legs to work. The hair stood on end on the backs of my arms. My nostrils burned at the overwhelming smell of Old Ezra’s medicine.

My first thought was that the cannibals had drunk down Ezra’s tonic, and it had driven the hungry spirits from their bodies. Only the spirits, they hadn’t died. I found no comfort in the notion, though, as it meant the vile things lurking outside my field of vision were demons made flesh.

One of the dead men had something sticking out of his mouth.

I stepped closer, shoving the torch towards the cannibal’s face.

Fingers–human fingers–jutted out from between his lips, and the way his throat was swollen up and bruised, I knew those fingers were attached to an arm pushing its way up from the man’s gullet.

The fingers twitched.

The flopping, flapping creatures in the darkness moved closer. I heard them slithering on the stone, heard their nails scraping the rock. Their shapes became more distinct. Some were formless masses like the thing we’d seen in the tunnel. Others were vaguely human in size and shape. Their blood-soaked flesh glistened.

I knew they weren’t demons at all.

“You’ve done come too late.”

The voice came from the other side of the chamber, and even though it was no more than a whisper, it shocked me like cannon fire. Boone Friedricks stepped into our light. If his men had been large, Boone himself was massive–big the way things from Biblical times were big. He was hunched over, though, and every couple of seconds he hacked up a mouthful of blood. Despite the cold, he wore no shirt. His stomach was swollen and something boney moved inside his gut.

Sinclair’s twin pistols snapped towards him like a compass needle pointing north.

“If you’ve come to kill me,” Friedricks said, “you’re too late.”

“Killing you is fairly high on my list.” Sinclair stepped towards the man. “But I didn’t track you down for just that purpose.”

“You still after this?” Friedricks dug in his pants pocket, pulled an ugly necklace out. It was no more than a hideous clay totem on a strip of old leather. “You’ve come a long way for this old thing.”

“I know someone who’ll pay good money for that,” Sinclair said. “And I knew one of you no-counts must’ve taken it after what you did to that shaman.”

The shapes in the darkness inched closer. They were closing in around us, slowly. I could hear them breathing, a rattling noise from their throats … or what passed for throats.

“I don’t have no use for this.” Friedricks looked at the necklace. “Supposed to be good luck, but looks like that’s a bunch of bunk.”

He eyed his dead companions. His tongue snaked out, slithered across his razor-like teeth. He turned his gaze towards the numerous bottles, glinting in the torchlight.

“Those people from the camp… they poisoned us… passed that bilge on to us…”

Sinclair kept one gun trained on Friedricks. He dropped the other into the holster. He reached out towards the cannibal.

“Just give me the necklace,” he said, “and we’ll leave you be.”

“What?” I asked.

“Look at him, boy. Look around you. He’s as good as dead.”

The misshapen figures moved closer. Some of them had faces-slavering, hideous faces, but faces just the same. I recognized some of them. People from camp. People who’d been tied to the sacrificial pole. Emily… Samuel

Darcy…

Jessie.

I shuddered, and a sob escaped my throat.

“They came back up,” Friedrick said. “We ate them, by God, and we drank that tonic-water down, and it brought them back to life… It brought what was left of them back to life inside us…”

He groaned and clutched his stomach. The thing inside him pushed against the walls of his belly, stretching the skin tight, trying to force its way out.

And I knew what… who… was growing in his stomach.

Old Ezra.

“The necklace,” Sinclair urged.

“Take it.” Friedricks tossed the totem at Sinclair, and the gunslinger snatched it out of the air. “Take it and go.”

Tucking the necklace in his vest pocket, Sinclair turned away from the cannibal. He eyes the squirming, shambling figures cautiously, then looked towards me.

“He’s finished,” he said. “Let’s go while we still can.”

I watched the hideous, twisted faces of my friends… my family… all around me. I hadn’t done a thing to save them. I hadn’t done a thing to avenge them.

I may not have been quick on the draw like Sinclair. There might not have been any magic in Colt McGregor’s pistol.

But I put a hole right between Boone Friedricks’ eyes.

And he died without any trouble at all.

* * *

I waited.

Sinclair didn’t.

He left without much of a goodbye, not that I expected one.

The fleshy, bloody things gathered around me. At first, I thought they might kill me. There was a kind of malice in their eyes. They might have ripped me to shreds, too, if not for me killing Friedricks the way I did. Maybe they saw that as an act of atonement.

The thing in Friedricks’ belly continued to squirm and kick. Eventually I used a knife to slice the cannibal open. A fleshy mass spilled out, and over the next few hours, it uncurled and grew into something resembling my friend

Ezra. At first it wobbled on its legs like a newborn colt, and it mewled with a voice that was as much beast as it was infant. Soon enough, it found its footing and it settled into a solemn, grim silence.

And then they started to shamble out into the night.

Maybe they were the hunger spirits made flesh… Maybe they were the people from camp brought back from the dead. More than likely, they were a little of both, conjured up by the potion and all mixed up to the point I couldn’t tell where the evil spirit ended and the living dead began.

I knew where they were heading, of course, with their hearts full of anger and malice. They were slow, especially in the cold, and I could’ve outdistanced them without problem. I could have slipped past them and raced back to camp and warned those folks sitting around the Christmas tree hoping for a miracle to save them.

But I didn’t.

Ezra and Jessie and all the rest, they walked again, and that was miracle enough on a cold night like tonight.

I felt a stab of guilt for the camp. Not everyone deserved what was coming for them. They were just cowards, like me. But I’d made my peace, paid my penance. I’d been judged under the eyes of those twisted creatures, and I’d been left to live another day for the trouble. The others–down in the valley praying for a Christmas miracle–they’d have to do the same.

I followed the creatures to the foot of the hills, watched them march in the direction of camp. Their bloody footprints trailed off into what may as well have been forever.

I walked the other way.