Lourdes: A Vampire In The Old West

10. Model Citizens

Sheriff Donovan creeps through a dim hall. His steps are slow, and he leads with his hands. He feels his way forward. Donovan makes a face. His nose twists and mouth contorts into the shape of primordial disgust. Maggots swarm somewhere in the shadows.

"Christ, Bernie, you don't have company much, do you?" Donovan spits. The man's come to the undertaker's to seek answers for the severed head still leaking down his desk. He looks into the low light ahead. "Bernie! Bernie! We need to talk!" No answer. "It's Sheriff Donovan! I know you like your jokes, but the pastor didn't appreciate you desecrating a corpse on his land!" No reply. "You're not in trouble! I just want to talk!"

The sheriff passes jars of murky liquid. Odd lumps are suspended inside dirty cages just beyond the reach of light. Donovan taps a glass and another. A foot. A hand. A heart. Pickled body parts emerge from the brine. The sheriff stares at an unblinking eye before swallowing hard.

"Try to be a little more inconspicuous with your pranks!" Donovan shouts. "When another nobody's sent your way, do what you want, just don't toss the body in the graveyard! Or, if you do, bury it!"

Turning his head to escape the undertaker's peculiar collection, Donovan's vision only comes to rest on a corpse, a second, and a third. All sawed apart, forgotten, and left to crumble into dust. Maggots. A chest's been ripped open, ribs shattered, and stomach, intestines, and lungs rearranged. Worms. The skin's stripped from another, the skeleton's blood vessels and musculature exposed. Moths. The sheriff comes to face a face sliced into meticulously fine rows. Rats. Donovan moves swiftly over loose floorboards. Creaks and carcasses surround him. And then there's only darkness.

One footstep plunges Donovan into dense black and demolishes whatever daring he had left. His lips tremble. His fingers quiver. The sheriff's legs losing their purpose, the man must rely on the wall behind him for strength. He clings to it and stares into black air. He can smell the decaying things. He can hear them rot. But his eyes are blind. And sightless, Donovan's wits unravel. Not seeing the undertaker's experiments makes the man imagine the worst of what could be behind the sooty veil. The sheriff tries on a brave face, but the profile of his jaw doesn't stop his mind from loosing monsters inside his head.

Goblins. Demons. Ogres. Dragons. The sheriff's subconscious summons the darkest of animals in man's most ancient memory. Ghosts with toothy grins.

His nerves turn threadbare. He draws his gun. His voice drops to a whimper.

"Where are you, Bernie?"

Hugging the wall, Donovan's eyes snap back and forth. He moves in inches and retreats a step for every two forward he takes. His foot bumps into something. Donovan doesn't look down. Instead, his eyes strain into a ceiling hidden in ink. Through his boot, he can feel a cold, wet mass, and only after collecting a flagon of courage does Donovan force his vision to the floor. There, twisted about, the sheriff discovers a withered body inside a fine tailored suit. A creature chews off what's left of its face. The undertaker's cat.

The hands on Donovan's watch spin for some time before he moves next, and when he does, it's because of a nerve pinching the back of his neck. Digesting the scene, the sheriff convulses. He gags on the air inside his mouth, and then he lets out a laugh.

"Max, you haven't seen your master, have you?" Donovan asks the cat. "He doesn't feed you well, does he? Just be careful, that thing looks like it's been dead for weeks." The cat continues to eat the dead man's head, and Donovan, pressed against the wall, moves again through the black. He doesn't look back. One hand stays on the dry wood, while the other, pistol in a vice grip, points straight into the unknown. Again, he laughs.

Whatever's inside the man's head breaks.

"This town's had five sheriffs in the past four years, and I've worn my badge longer than all the previous lot," Donovan tells the loneliness. His teeth chatter. His eyes yawn wide. His gun swings through thick nothing, trying to take aim at anywhere and everywhere at once. "What am I doing here?" The sheriff shakes. He skulks down halls and around corners, burying himself deeper and deeper into dead air and farther and farther from light or life. Donovan moves through empty space without end. "Keep a low profile. Keep your job. Keep your life. Wasn't that the plan?"