Bad Craziness. (standard:horror, 2399 words)
Author: Jack Henry	Added: Sep 24 2002	Views/Reads: 3143/2200	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The tale of a desperate man on the run who ends up in a small town in the middle of the desert. A western.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

In his bag were ten five hundred dollar bills, all his and not his.  He
didn't think that he would survive this ordeal.  He escaped into the 
desert and somehow survived an entire week, living off of three 
canteens of water and what seemed like a life time supply of jerky. 

But that all began a week ago, and this was now.  This was worse. 

He got up and the decision to flee came suddenly.  He grabbed his vomit
stained duster coat, his bag of money and attempted to leave the room.  
When he grabbed the doorknob, though, he realized that it was extremely 
hot. 

“Aw shit!” he spat through his teeth as he drew back his hand.  He
sucked on three fingers as he looked down at the doorknob, and then to 
the floor where he found smoke fluttering into his room.  It was then 
that he noticed that the saloon was on fire. 

The noise below had slowed and died.  Panic overtook him as he looked
around for a way to escape.  The smell of perspiration and perfume had 
been replaced by the stench of burning flesh and wood; his nose 
wrinkled as he whipped out a bandanna and wrapped it around his face.  
His eyes teared up and could barely see through the haze of sweat his 
forehead had dropped into his eyes.  He looked up, down and around, but 
found no way out.  Except. . . 

"The window!"  Tex gathered his gear and approached the window,
remembering the two story drop.  It wouldn't be that bad, he thought.  
Maybe a sprained ankle?  Or two? 

Then he decided to jump out of the window.  And after much hesitation,
he did. 

The window exploded as he flew out, slicing his face up and tearing his
duster coat to shreds.  He landed in a brush below and broke his foot.  
The bandanna blew off his face and was carried away by the desert wind. 
 A sandstorm was threatening on the horizon, and he knew that he was 
knee deep in the shit if he didn't find a way out in time.  He can 
handle himself alone in the desert, ironically. 

He was now on the Main Road again, and running. 

Regardless of his broken bones, he ran down the road.  Behind him the
saloon was blazing with fire, smoke billowing high into the cloudless 
sky.  The townspeople stood around it, holding torches that were then 
added to the fire.  He ran and ran until a stitch in his side 
developed, and won him over.  He fell to the ground and rolled around 
for a moment or two, before realizing that he was surrounded by ten 
primates. 

They were dirty and smelled of horse manure.  Their long hair came down
to their waists and the clothes they wore were ragged and torn.  Tex 
fought the stitch in his side and jumped up, only to find that a cramp 
in his leg was attacking him.  His own pain won again and pulled him 
back to the ground.  Then they closed in on him. 

The struggle lasted a minute before a gunshot rang through the air.  It
was deafening, but enough to drive the town's inhabitants back into 
whatever holes they had crawled from.  Tex put his hands to his face, 
then withdrew them, to find the stranger he saw before looming over 
him.  He was still smiling. 

His face was pale and bony, his eyes sunken and dead.  He was a large
man and his shotgun wasn't any different.  A badge glimmered in the 
sunlight, a sheriff's badge. 

“Oh no.” Tex said under his breath. 

“Well, well. . .what do we have here?” the sheriff said as he knelt down
beside Tex, waving his shotgun around.  “It seems that yer a stranger 
here.  I think I better take you down to the station.” 

With that, the sheriff seized Tex by his shoulders and dragged him down
the dusty road; past the General Store and Goods Market, through Town 
Square, beyond the old fountain, and to a large colorful building.  On 
any given night, a building like this would be bursting with life, it 
was just too colorful not to be!  But Tex thought that any kind of 
excitement, other than what the townsfolk did in their spare time, 
would be too big in this part of the desert. 

As soon as they were in the building, Tex discovered that it was a
whorehouse.  Or, to be more social like, a House of Ill Repute.  
Apparently, and understandably, the sheriff decided to set up shop in 
the bordello.  Tex couldn't find any deputies around, but saw plenty of 
prostitutes.  It has been Tex's experience to find whores beautiful, 
but in this case they were dead ugly.  They sat around the sheriff as 
he spoke: 

“Look son, we don't like you around here, and you just don't  belong in
Hope.  We have something special to prepare for tonight, an annual type 
of thing, and you can't be here!”  Hope seized Tex, filling his head 
with the false notion that maybe this man would let him leave.  But it 
wasn't that easy; the sheriff was still smiling at him. “We may have 
use for you yet, though.” He said, scratching his chin, the smile 
turning down into a frown. 

The ladies then grabbed Tex and forced him out into the road again.  Tex
tried to fight them, but he was quickly overpowered, finding them way 
too powerful.  It was then that he realized the grim truth: they were 
not alive.  No one in this town was, except maybe the sheriff, but that 
was unlikely. 

He stood in front of the bordello, also in front of a burnt out
residence.  Within he could see a family of the undead doing their 
business, whatever that may have been.  The sheriff then walked out and 
moved past the girls to stand in front of Tex. 

Night was now on the town, and a bon fire was being raised.  A strange
book was brought through the large crowd that was gathered around the 
fountain, opened to a page that everyone wanted to get a look at.  Tex 
then looked back to the sheriff, who was now reaching into his coat.  
Tex looked past him and to the horse stable, where he hoped to find a 
horse.  He did, but they were all dead.  The sandstorm that was 
supposed to blow through town had died down.  Maybe something to do 
with the ritual? Tex thought, staring wildly at everything before him. 

"NO!" Tex screamed and then ran for it again, feeling that the situation
was hopeless, so to speak.  Up ahead he saw the desert and decided that 
it would be a better idea to die in nature then to die in this town.  
But he was taken down. . .again.  The sheriff quickly caught up and 
pulled out his shotgun, and pointed it at Tex's face. 

“Where're you goin' Tex,” he said.  “You ain't leaving Hope just yet!” 

“Why won't you let me go, what'd I do to you?” he screamed into the
sheriff's face.  The sheriff cocked his shotgun and thrust it under 
Tex's chin. 

“We're raising more of the dead here in Hope, and we need you to bring
them to us.  We need more, can't you see?  We are all one happy family 
here, and we need more to make us whole!  You have to be sacrificed 
sonny.  Sorry. . .but that's the way it has to be!”  The sheriff then 
inched closer, ready for the kill. 

“Oh well.” Was all Tex could say before ducking down below the barrel of
the shotgun.  He pushed it up with his good hand and lunged forward 
into the sheriff's gut with his head.  The sheriff flew back and the 
gun fell from his hands.  Tex dropped to the ground with him and they 
rolled in the dirt before Tex got the upper hand. 

The sheriff was pinned down under Tex.  Then Tex reached for the
shotgun.  He aimed it point blank at his head and ended the sheriff's 
meaningless life. 

He lay lifeless on the ground, staring up at the sky.  Tex looked around
at the monsters and noticed a slight change, they had stopped.  Then, 
they were melting.  The wails of agony began to pierce Tex's ears to 
the point of bleeding them, but it was over within a minute.  Tex 
clamped his eyes shut, but when he opened them again, he saw that he 
was all alone in the town.  Everyone had disappeared, even the dead 
horses.  The fire still raged in the center of town, but now it was 
growing out of  control.  The General Store caught first, then the 
Goods Market.  Then it spread to the hotel, and licked around the 
remains of the saloon. 

Tex sat in disbelief for a moment, watching this happen.  But he soon
snapped out of his trance and decided to get up and finally escape.  He 
walked out into the desert holding his shotgun, not looking back on the 
flames that engulfed the rest of the town behind him. 

Two days later, as he was crawling through the sand dunes and praying
for death, he saw another mirage off into the distance.  High above him 
the vultures circled, but he didn't care.  His willpower returned to 
him and forced him to stand up on his wobbling legs. 

He then ran through the desert and towards the new town off into the
distance, not realizing the tee-pees and Indian sentry guards posted 
all around them.  What he saw was Hope, Texas, or maybe something 
better.  But that was the last thing he saw before the flurry of arrows 
came down on him from far away on the high sand dunes. 


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