Kiss Me, Curse Me

“They’ve all gone mad. He was killing people in the streets, plowing them down like scarecrows. Please, someone take Sammy and Singapore. Get them both cleaned up and dressed. Put them up in that extra room back there when you’re done. The rest of you come with me. Push those tables up against that door, as many as you can muster.” Betty was thanking her lucky stars that her place didn’t have downstairs windows. “The rest of you—I need a few girls to push those extra mattresses in the back up against the backdoor, and I need the rest of you upstairs to do the same to all the windows. If there’s one thing in this place we have a surplus of, it’s beds. Rose, come with me. I need you in my office.”

Grabbing the new girl’s hand and dragging her down the stairs, she flung the door open and went directly to her safe, where she dialed in some numbers. She handed Rose several revolvers, then pulled out three shotguns and two rifles. “Dish these out, hun. They’re all fully loaded.” Betty handed her a few boxes of ammunition.

“But I’ve never used a gun before.” Rose looked as if she were holding roadkill. “Oh, Rose. Just aim and pull the trigger, okay? I killed the damn preacher. I’m already the devil in this town. They just needed a reason.”

Rose gulped, and the color drained from her pink cheeks.

Betty sighed. “Look. I know this life isn’t the best. I know we’re not walking that stairway to heaven, but this is all we have. This is all I know. I don’t know exactly where you came from before all this, but you are a part of this now, just like the rest of us. We are sisters here, and we stick together.”

“I came from Dawn Creek.” Rose lowered her head.

“Dawn Creek?”

“I snuck off. I wasn’t expecting all this.”

“You’re not from California then?” Betty shook her head at the realization that the girl had charmed the pants off her. “That just sounded more exciting to get the job. I mean I did dance in the school plays. I know a thing or two.”

The banging on the house grew louder, and the crashing of a window breaking upstairs stopped the confession.

“We don’t have much time I’m afraid. They’ll get in somehow. Go on. Pick the lighter of the three guns and go from there. Take the rest upstairs.”

Rose hurried off, and Betty took her spot behind the bar, as she always did, and watched as Doc and three of her girls leaned up against the table barricading the front entrance. They strained at the force of the mob clamoring to get in.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” said the old man. “All of my sick patients died today—all of them. I either witnessed it, or I arrived too late.”

Lucy, the smallest of the brunette girls and wearing only a black slip cried out as her strength gave way; she fell over the bottom leg of the heavy, oak table. Betty ran over to take her place and ordered her to go help at the back instead. “Maybe if I just go out there alone, they’ll leave the rest of you be?”

The Doc shook his head. “No, they want all of you. It was declared by one of the church elders. They think that your place is somehow the cause of the evil that is flooding this town.”

“Those same elders have paid many an anonymous visit here, I’ll beg your pardon,” Betty’s anger was beginning to leak just as her nerves were beginning to fry.

“I know,” said Doc. “They’ve all seen horror today. It’s a kind of horror that normal folk don’t see. I see it all the time, but it’s the first time that affects you the most and they are hurting and they need someone to blame.”

“Well it’s easy to blame a rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ whore,” said Betty, holding her rifle up high.



***



Scrambling through the dark, Roy managed to escape the thing that had dragged him into the cave in the first place. It was hungry. He knew that. It had watched him with dead eyes and whispered things to him that few people had ever heard. Roy had killed once before, and it spoke of this killing. He’d been just a boy, seeing things a boy never should, like the random attack on his mother. He’d defended her, their home. Nothing more sinister than that really. His mother had been screaming, and she took the beatings, all for a little money and a sick appetite. Roy had burst into her bedroom and his mother was somewhere on the other side of the bed, unseen. He knew the awful thing that was occurring and he knew he had to stop it. He hefted the axe, and one hard swift whack found the man’s rail-thin, bare back. That one strike, though slight because of his young age, was enough to get the invader to roll over so that Roy could take a better shot at his neck. The rest was just a bloody mess and a bloody awful memory.

His mother burned the mattress and the body inside of it that same day.

They had their warm meal that night, and no one spoke a word of it ever again. Now that thing in the cave . . . it seemed to enjoy digging up the tragedy, reminding him that he was a murderer—a true sinner.

“I’ve saved many a life since. I’ve paid that debt,” Roy had stirred firm in the face of the accusation.

And the menacing presence let him go, ran off as if being called by some faint whisper. It had rushed past him, and now Roy was alone, scrambling for any sign of a way out of the cave, ultimately deciding to just follow the fresh air. He finally hit the night, starved for the open space, and darted off into the woods toward the one place he knew he should go.



***



“I can’t keep up.” Coreen was lagging far behind as Ahanu kept his steady pace slashing his way through the brush—the shortest path he could fathom.

He waited for her to catch up.

“Are you sure . . . we should . . . have left Roy back there?” Coreen choked the words out as she gasped for air.

“He left us and went in.” Ahanu knew otherwise, but didn’t want to get into it any more than he had to.

She calmed her breathing. “How do you know that? I mean he just vanished.”

“We don’t have time to talk this over. I know you feel bad. He was helping us. I—” He rubbed a hand over his face.

“What?” Coreen had already seen the expression he’d tried to hide and felt a chill creep over her. Is it just the cool air creeping in from the dark or is it more?

“We’re not alone in these woods,” Ahanu said as he saw a ghostly, dark streak of something move behind his fiancée. He took her hand, and they ran, Ahanu hacking at the brush like cutting through a storm, but Coreen eventually stopped again, panting hard.

“I can’t.” she coughed her words. “Too weak.” Her days on bed rest and lack of serious nutrition had finally caught up.

Ahanu picked her up then. Not wanting to look back, curiosity got the better of him, and he turned for a quick glance. Now he saw a collection of these dark shadows moving toward them. He ran like he’d never before.

Feeling his heart practically pounding out of his chest, Coreen locked her arms around his neck. She was surprised at the relative ease in which he carried her and found the sound of the fast heartbeat comforting, though she discerned something bad was behind them. “What is it?” She wanted to know, couldn’t help but ask.

“The cave. They’re from the cave. They’re awake.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know what to call them.”

“You mean the dead?”Coreen asked completely freaked.

“The lost, not the dead. The dead have a place. The lost belong to him now.”

“What do they want?” She closed her eyes anticipating his next words.

“Us.”

She snuggled her head in tighter.

“What do we do?”

“I’m doing it.” Ahanu hopped over a large log like it was nothing to him.

“Run? You are Shaman now. Can’t you do more than that? Don’t you have some power in this?”

“I have no control over my new powers. I’m not going to take a risk that something could happen to you again. I love you too much.”

The forest darkened even more, but he kept going. The trees faded to black, to nothing. Ahanu stopped; his night vision waned as the lost shadows circled around them. Holding that which was dearest to him, Ahanu faced the shadows. They had no eyes. He could see right through the dreadful openings to the woods behind them.

“Hide your face, don’t look,” he said to Coreen.

But she couldn’t resist. She took a little peek, and gasped into Ahanu’s neck. “I’ve seen them before.”

“When?” He began to rotate as doing so would keep them back, but they advanced slowly, the circling shrinking.

“In that other place. They were there.”

Whispers shot around them as if they recognized her voice.

“I think they’d like you to come back.” Ahanu regarded all around him and above. The forms in front were black, and no light got through their dark bodies, but up there toward the twinkling sky was still the golden glow of his night vision through the tree canopy. Above there were millions of stars scattering through the golden branches and tightly knit pine needles.

“Coreen . . . Coreen . . . Coreen,” said the lost in multitudes of tones and shrieks.

She covered her ears terrified, Ahanu’s heartbeat no longer soothing her. “Get me out of here.” She squirmed under his grip.

“Back up, back up,” Ahanu yelled. “We are not going with you.”

The encroaching figures stopped, turning to one another, whispers dancing between them.

“Coreen . . .” The voice was loud, deep and unworldly, with no sense of origin, as if the group was communally speaking.

“You can’t have her. I am Shaman now. You must go back to your cave.”

The whispers grew even louder as if they were arguing amongst themselves, the deeper tone edging through. “You are not.”

“I will be. I will kill my father. I will deliver to you what it is that you want, but not Coreen. She is mine. You cannot have her. There are many more that you can have. I will bring you what you want. The wolf runs with me. I work for him now. I work for you.”

The whispers continued at a calmer pace. They were evil—the collective lost—the energy behind the curse, as if the curse grew with each death bound to the wolf.

“We want them all,” said the voice. .

Ahanu hung his head as he knew what he had to say, what he had to agree to. “Yes. I will do that. I will do just that.”

“Promissssssse?”

“Yes.” Ahanu looked them all in their hollowed-out eyes.

The shadows slowly retreated, some lingering to watch and intimidate, but the circle finally faded away to one long line, trickling back from where they had commenced, just a quiet trail of whispers disappearing into the night.

“They’re gone?” Coreen lifted her head.

“Yes.” Ahanu turned and picked up his pace again toward his mother’s house.

“You’d trade the whole town for me?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t do that, Ahanu.” She watched the black trees flash by her as she looked over his shoulder. She wondered the evil shadows still followed them, or where they’d gone.





Dyani’s house shook as if hit by an earthquake. All braced in the basement, as dust filled the air, things fell unseen, and the floorboards above them shook like it was the end of the world and God himself had unleashed doomsday. The bulb that had offered a meager bit of light crashed to the floor, splintering into many shards.

Grandma and Dyani huddled together in the corner as the men held their positions against the door, pushing against the force that was desperate to get in.

“What is this thing?” bellowed Hank, leaking his fear into the room. He had excused himself from door duty and found himself standing alone in the opposite corner with closed eyes, coughing with the rest of them.

The shaking continued for minutes until it just stopped. The group listened and waited for the entire house to collapse upon them, but it didn’t. The air cleared, the room remained as it had before the attack started, like they had imagined the whole thing. The table was intact with all the figurines upon it, the light bulb was hanging perfectly still, and only Hank continued his coughing, even though there was no visible dust.

Doby, Patty, and Ed looked like they’d been doing hard labor, the sweat seeping from their shirts and running from their brows. They all just watched each other, confused at the situation, eyes darting around in terror.

Muttering incessantly in her native language, Grandma’s nerves broke. Exasperated, Dyani tried to soothe her small mother, who owned the home, though Dyani ran it. She could feel the old woman slipping away into her fright, her old heart beating in uncontrollable frenzy.

“Mamma, calm down. Shhhhhh,” Dyani pleaded.

Grandma leaned forward and grabbed her chest, as if she was in terrible pain, her skin paled in a second, and she began to breathe like she couldn’t get air. Dyani laid her mother to the ground, and Doby and Patty came to the old woman’s side, kneeling. Ed kept propped against the door, still feeling a pressure pushing against it.

“What is it? What is happening?” asked Dyani.

“I think it’s a heart attack,” said Doby. “I’ve never seen one . . . always arrived on the scene after the event.”

“Breathe Mamma, breathe.” Dyani wiped the sweat from her mother’s clammy skin.

The woman curled up, as if the pain was very severe and intense. Grandma finally went limp.

“No, my mamma, no!” Dyani grabbed her mother’s shoulders and tried to shake her. “No, mamma, no.” She continued as if the shaking would somehow bring the life back into her mother.

“It’s too late,” said Doby, placing his hand on Dyani’s shoulder. “She’s gone.”

“That’s my mamma. She can’t be gone.” She dropped her head onto her mother’s chest and wept. Her pain filled the room, and then men somberly watched the grieving daughter.

It was a day Dyani knew would come and always dreaded: the day her mother would die. But she never thought it would be under such atrocious circumstances. “No, my mamma, my mamma. You can’t go like this. This is too cruel. You don’t deserve this. No one does.” She looked up at the rest of them, her voice dead just like her dead mother. “He’ll have us all.” She wept.

The door to the basement began to shake more as if the force behind it reacted to Dyani’s ominous words. Ed called out for help, and Doby and Patty took their previous spots.

“Hank, get over here,” yelled Patty.

Hank just stood, unmoving, staring at the two women on the floor, dumbstruck by the sudden death.

“He’s useless,” complained Ed.

“Hank, get up, now,” said Doby. “Get it together son. Come on now.” The sheriff used an easier tone than Patty had, which seemed to break through to the boy. Reluctantly looking up at the men, Hank relaxed his grimace and moved forward, prepared to take action.

“Take my place,” said Doby.

Doing as he was told, Hank leaned up against the door, feeling the boom behind it.

“On the count of three, I want the three of you to back away from the door.” Doby got his shotgun ready.

“What are you doing?” said Patty. “You think this is a good idea?”

“What choice do we have? Let’s open that door and see what we’re dealing with here,” Doby took his stance.

“You’re going to get us all killed,” said Ed.

“If whatever it is out there can shake this house and make it look like we’re all at the end here, send this poor woman into a heart attack without laying a single finger on her, then obviously it can get in here no problem. It’s toying with us, don’t you all see that?”

The sheriff’s words struck a chord in Dyani. She sat up and focused on all of them while wiping the hot tears from her red face. “He’s right.”

“What you mean?” said Ed.

“This thing that we are dealing with—I only know the stories. There’s nothing we can do. It’s not finished here. We should just open the door.” Her words were cold and empty. She stared at them.

“I’m not giving up,” said Ed, “and I’m sure as hell not getting off this damn door.”

“Me too,” said Hank.

Patty just eyed the sheriff, as he wasn’t sure.

“Let’s take it out. It’s not expecting this. It thinks we’ll just stay in here. Just open up that door and let me at it.” Doby stood strong and determined.

“Okay. I agree,” said Patty, taking his deputy spot next to Doby.

The two remaining on the door continued to strain under the pressure of the attack.

“I can’t keep this up much longer, Hank; put your back into it.” Ed was strong, but the strength required to win this battle was more than sheer muscle could provide. “Just back away, guys, back away. In fact, Hank . . . just come stand back here beside us.”

“No, Hank. I need you. Stay here,” said Ed.

Hank looked back and forth, finally walking away from the door to join the men of law. Ed cried out in pain under the strain, placed both hands against the door, and shoved back full force.



***



More glass shattered above them. Betty, Doc and the other girls on the main floor looked up at the planked ceiling as they heard screams, chaos, and heavy steps above them.

“What’s that smell?” asked one of the girls.

“Smoke,” said Doc. “They’re setting this place on fire.”

Screaming with outrage, Betty made for the stairs, only to find herself fighting the crowd that was on its way down.

“Get back up there. We don’t run from fire. This is hell. You all stop and get back up there. We can put this thing out.” The group stopped and watched the woman who had always provided them with everything they needed. “What you doing standing there? Move. You want a place to sleep at night, don’t you? If you go out there, they’ll just shoot you dead anyway. The death order has been set girls! And anyway, we just had our plumbing done. Where else are you going to get hot running water? This is practically Buckingham Palace.”

Scampering back up the stairs, the group began to fight the flames using everything and anything they had. Some gathered water in cups and bowls, and others used the blankets from their beds. The mob outside had tossed flaming bottles through the windows with alcohol serving as the accelerant. Betty cursed up a storm as she worked to kill the flames that licked the curtains and ceilings. The smoke had become near unbearable, and some of the girls succumbed to fits and backed away. . The few who could fought hard.

“No!” Betty shouted as she attempted to calm the flames on her burning, fluffy, white bed. Her pink bedroom was taking on smokier tones with streaks of black cascading across the walls and branches of flames encroaching into her once soft, comfortable haven. She stumbled back against her dresser to see herself in the mirror, face covered in soot, her pink dress matching the destruction of the room.

“Oh my . . .” Betty kneeled down in reverence. “My place. This is my place.” Her words were lost in the sounds of terror—the coughs, the screams, the banging, the shouting, and the condemnatory chanting outside. “That’s it! That’s it! It’s over.” She took one last look at her worst nightmare and made for the door, tripping over a body on the floor. It was Rose, unconscious. With the tears flooding, Betty knew they’d lost the fight against the red beast. “That town. That town. Look how they repay me. That town. That goddamn town. I’ve done nothing but take care of those people. I fed them, I entertained them, I did their biddings, I did their men. I did that. God . . . why now?”

Betty ordered all who could hear her to retreat downstairs and into the basement, instructing those barring the doors to keep hold until the very last minute.

She faced her troops spread out amongst the poker tables in their smoky robes and entertainment attire—a dozen ladies from the ages of seventeen to early thirties. Many of the girls had huddled together, some still hacking heavily. Betty spoke to them in a clear, steady voice, “We have five minutes, maybe seven, until this entire place goes to nothing but ashes. I need you to—”

Interrupting her address, Rose wheezed awake, and Betty eased her down to the floor.

“Are you with us, Rose? I need you to listen.”

Unable to speak due to the pain in her airways, Rose just nodded.

“Those of you with gats, I need you up front when we make for it.”

Three girls with the revolvers looked at one another then back at Betty.

“Don’t give me that. We don’t need hesitation here. Just point and shoot. They’ll be shooting too, I’m sure. It’s either that, or we burn alive in this forsaken tomb. We’re going to shoot our way out the back. I need two of you to follow me to my office. The rest of you—we’ll meet you up in the back hall. Make your way up there now, okay? On you go. Go!”

Stopping in the kitchen to grab a book of matches form the pantry, she then led the two girls into her office. She unlocked a large strong box from her safe and started unloading stacks and stacks of cash, slamming them into two black satchels that she pulled out of her desk drawer. The two girls looked at each other, smiling.

“Josie and May. I know you two haven’t had a lot of responsibility yet, but you’re all I have right now, and you’re going to earn a hell of a lot of respect if you do this right. We make it to where we’re going, and you’re getting a big promotion. I have to shoot, okay? So I want the two of you to stay by me at all times; I don’t care what is going on around you. I don’t care who’s shot, who’s injured, who’s lost their rumpelstiltskins or whatever. You stay right behind me. I’m clearing the path.”

They nodded and took the heavy bags.

“Let’s blow this town,” said Betty, cocking her rifle.

They squeezed their way to the front of the hall crowd after letting Doc and his group know it was time to abandon the front door, which had been blocked with heaps of furniture and other objects. “Listen for the signal,” Betty yelled.

“What signal?” yelled Doc.

“Gunshots!”



***



“Give up, Ed. You can’t hold it on your own,” said Doby.

The beads of sweat ran down Ed’s stubbled, angry face. “I’m not budging. I didn’t come out here to die today. Maybe you all did. Not me. I was just looking for that dumb kid. That dumb kid. I’m telling you now. If I ever see that kid, he’s in trouble and his girl too.”

Patty’s eye just about bugged out of his head,” What do you mean by that, Ed—his girl too? What are you saying?”

“You might as well know that your girl isn’t dead. She’s holed up at that whorehouse in town. That’s right. They’ve got her shacked up in one of those beds.”

“You son of a bitch.” Patty went shot forward, straight for Ed’s throat. “I’ll kill you . . . you . . . mother. . .”

Ed let go of the door unable to hold it any longer since the crazy-mad father was now strangling him. The two men went crashing to the floor, punching at each other, rolling around.

Dyani stood up in horror as the door burst into shreds, and in the opening stood Kanti, his yellow eyes piercing their very beings, his face red and marred in its dried blood and open wounds.

Too furious and out of control to even notice anything else in the room, Patty continued his assault on Ed, who fought back just as hard as Patty tried to kill him. Doby held his shotgun dead center at the Shaman’s chest as the Shaman fixed his eyes on only one person in the room—

Dyani.

She put her palms up to him; she knew him. Somehow he was recognizable. She didn’t know. She wasn’t sure. He was familiar to her. She squinted under his gaze. He smiled at her, and she almost smiled back, but she hesitated. What was it?

An image of skin on skin flashed in her mind, a hidden pleasure, a fulfilled desire—but whose? Was it his? Was it hers? She saw him above her, in her bed, watching her as he entered her. She was gasping under his heat, leaning her head back, feeling all he had to give to her. Their bodies moved in rhythm. First he was on top of her, then she was on top of him. They fought the sheets. They rolled in lust and in . . . love.

The expression on her face changed rapidly from one of horror, to surprise, to confusion, then to endearment.

She knew him—it was Kanti. She loved him. Deep down she knew him, though she’d only met him once on a hot night, in her bed, while her husband hunted the animals of the forest. She had lain with this man, who had only visited her in her dreams and her thoughts, and she had. . . She shoved those thoughts away to the dark recesses of her wanton mind. Ahanu’s father . . .

“You,” she whispered.

Kanti just nodded and put his hand out to her.

Unable to even conceive what was happening, Doby kept his weapon directed at the evil man before them. Hank darted his eyes back and forth from the death match on the floor, to the barrel of the gun, and to the strange red man that had entered the basement.

“Come with me,” Kanti reached his hand out to the only woman he had ever loved.

Taking a step forward in his direction, Dyani was stopped by Doby, who put his arm out directly in front of her.

Doby kept his eye on the red man, “She’s not going with you, I’m afraid.”

The Shaman didn’t take notice of the comment, beckoning to his prey, projecting feelings of bliss and contentment onto her.

Under the Shaman’s spell, Dyani pushed Doby’s arm out of the way and walked to the only man she believed she truly ever wanted.

Taking a quick glance at Patty, who was now back to strangling Ed again, Doby made a few quick moves and kicked the two of them in the ribs. “Get up, you idiots. Get up. We’re all dead if you don’t get up now. I swear on your mother’s graves, I’ll shoot you both right where you lay.”

The threat wasn’t taken lightly as the two men gathered themselves and took to Doby’s side. Unfortunately, Dyani was already in the red man’s arms.

“Hank, you get over here too. Be a man. Grow up already. You left the crib years ago, stop sucking from your mother’s teats.” Doby wasn’t happy about it, but as Hank moved toward the men, he knew his threats and bullying had somehow managed to rally his forces. The four men stood facing the Shaman and his captor.

The red man smiled at the four of them, planted a kiss on Dyani’s soft cheek, and raised one finger, “Hear me loud and clear. You won’t win this battle today. Just go from where you came. He’s happy now with this house. He needs no more from you.”

“No more of what?” asked Ed.

“Death . . .” The Shaman paused, fixating on the tall Ed with his wicked black beard and his massive build. “Well, maybe room for one more. He likes your kind.” With this, Kanti shot out a bolt of darkness from his finger, which struck Ed directly in the chest. The wormy black power spread over the big man’s body, which fell to the ground without life. The three men looked at their fallen partner, then looked up to see nothing but the worn steps leading up and out of the basement. Ed was dead.



***



“Raska, there you are. You’ve been holding that door the whole time, as lovely as ever.”

Raska always did stand out amongst the crowd with her bright, white-blonde hair and her Russian chapan robe. Betty had been fortunate to find her stranded on the Seattle waterfront—a lucky import.

With guns cocked in the absence of men, except one very old man, the women apprehensively braced themselves for the onslaught.

“I don’t care who it is or what they are, you shoot. They want us dead and burned. Take no mercy on them, as there’ll be none given to us.” Betty roared the words—the mamma bear.

The girls nodded their understanding, feeling the heat of the flames behind them and above them. The thumping continued on the heavy door, the furniture holding it closed slowly dispersing. “That door is going to blow wide open soon enough, girls. Once we have a clear path, you run on ahead to the forest for cover, and you run fast. Don’t look back. I know where we’re going; just don’t you worry about the end of this. We’re headed toward a new beginning.” Motioning the few who had weapons to line up behind her, Betty took her spot in the front and waited as the door began to give way.

When it finally collapsed, so did the mob of angry men and women who’d been pushing at it. They came crashing through the doorway from their own forces. Betty took aim and shot two; an old man as he tried to get up and a middle-aged woman. She was fast and accurate, aiming for heads. With determination and precision, she set about forging the new path upon which they would escape. She shot four more outside in the dark, the fire illuminating the bodies in the night before she asked for the next revolver, which was swiftly placed in her hand from behind, rifle shifted back for a reload.

“You’d think they’d have more guns,” Betty yelled, shooting a young man coming at her. And they kept coming. Betty kept shooting, as did Raska now on her left. The armed spread out from the back with the unarmed after them, smoke billowing from behind them.

Tables turned, many of the aggressors had taken refuge behind the outhouse or to the sides of the burning building, yelling for backup and calling for fire power.

Betty approached the outhouse as she reloaded and cocked her weapon. “If I was you, I’d leave. We have more guns than we know what to do with, and seeing as you fine folk have decided to burn down my place, I’m not in the mood for forgiveness.”

She heard gravel scraping as the group scattered. “Okay, we’re clear ahead. Run girls, run, to the woods. You go on ahead now. I’ll cover behind us till we’re done.”

Raska and the others stopped and took aim back toward the burning building as the unarmed made a run for it; Betty motioned for the two girls who carried the satchels of money to go ahead with the rest. “I got you covered. Just go. Hurry.”

Doc and the women kept close together, sprinting across the grassy field toward the woods. Betty hid behind the outhouse, motioning to the rest of her armed forces to join her. A few shots rang out toward the group making for the trees, and Betty saw one girl go down, who carried one of the bags. The other one stopped to help her, and in doing so, took a hit to the chest, falling down herself.

“No. . .” Betty called out, searching for signs of the man with the rifle—a sharpshooter, whoever he was. She took aim for his spot and waited for him to take another shot. When he did, she pulled the trigger and took off his hand.

The man wailed and fell to the ground. Betty took another shot at him, but missed, as he was already being pulled back by one of his cohorts.

“Run.” Betty said to group as she saw the rifle being picked up by another fellow. “Zig, zag, keep moving. Raska, I need you to grab a bag with me. That’s all I got in those two bags. Quick now.”

Shots rang out behind them, and another girl went down. Betty and Raska patterned their way toward the woods, stopping only to each grab a bag from the hands of the two slain moneymakers. The rifle fire continued behind them, and two more of her girls went down. There was no time to gather their weapons and no time to say goodbye. Tears ran from Betty’s cheeks as she continued to move. “My girls . . . my beautiful girls.”

The shots momentarily stopped as the new rifle man reloaded, but Betty and Raska had already hit the tree line. Behind her, five of her own were down. Betty just hoped they were dead and not injured. Who knew what the town was going to do with them. She took one quick glance back to see her old home fully ablaze under the glittery sky, collapsing in on itself in an unforgettable, fiery crash. Realizing the carelessness of their actions when the building next door caught fire, the townsfolk focused on putting out the flames. Betty smirked, shaking her head side to side, “That’s what you get. Keep going girls. They’ll be right after us as soon as they put out that monster of theirs.”

Pushing her way up front with Raska beside her, Betty led the way through the shadowy forest.

“Where are we going?” asked Doc, holding up his brass lighter. “A dark place,” said Betty, “but we’ll be welcome there.”