Page 48 of The Sinner and the Gunslinger
When I don’t stop, I hear his pistol cock and his footsteps shuffle behind me. Hasn’t anyone taught that man to creep quietly?
A trail of bloody footsteps leads behind the bar. I try not to contaminate them as I follow and discover a woman’s corpse on the floor. Going by her apron, she’s the barmaid. Blood covers her from head to toe. It’s hard to see what her hair color is. I harden my heart, gesture for Zeke to back me up, then open the office door.
Shuffling.
I take stock of the long, narrow room. Desk. Security screen. Papers strewn about. Further down, it seems to be a storeroom with kegs stacked against a wall. Perhaps more space behind there. Another shuffle whips my head to my right. Below the desk, a boot retracts behind the chair. I crouch and find a terrified middle-aged man. He hugs his knees and squeezes his eyes shut. The floor is sticky and smells like urine and excrement.
“It’s okay.” I hide my sword behind my back. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
He opens his red-rimmed eyes.
“But I might.” Zeke keeps his gun pointed at the man.
“Put it away,” I growl. “He’s not infected like the others.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I just am.” I search the man’s face. There’s no sign of chaos or war in his eyes. Nothing like what I see in the nuns when they lost control.
Zeke keeps his gun out, and I flatten my lips. He doesn’t trust me either.
I turn back to the man and ask, “You weren’t infected, were you?”
When he looks at me oddly, I clarify, “Did you feel the uncontrollable urge to fight and argue with anyone? Like the people out there?”
“I was out on a late delivery.”
“And when you returned, what did you see?” I don’t think he’d be hiding in here unless he saw something. “Or did you hear something?”
“I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know what it was.”
“I think you saw a demon,” I tell him.
“It was a monster. A beast. It had three heads and a dragon’s body. Wings and red eyes.”
He saw Asmodeus’s true form.Jesus. This will haunt him forever. “You saw a powerful demon. There was nothing you could do to stop this. Hiding was the only way you’d survive.”
He covers his face and sobs. I should probably comfort him or something. Zeke puts his pistol away. I reach out to, I don’t know what, but settle for patting the man awkwardly. Zeke grunts impatiently and nudges me away.
“Come on, buddy,” he says gently to the man. “Let’s get you out of there. At least sit on the chair here, and I’ll get you a drink. Is there someone we can call for you?”
I stand back and watch Zeke coax this man out of shock and wonder how he retained all that affection and compassion after the life we’ve had. I don’t want to touch, speak to, or deal with strangers. At first, I thought this reaction of mine was simply because I thought other people were dumb. After learning all I had about the world, how to manipulate the human psyche and to kill, there wasn’t much a stranger could offer me. Even sex became dull. It was nothing new. Only an equation that needed solving. A plus B equals O.
I watch Zeke as he gets on one knee, looks into the man’s eyes, and speaks softly with compassion. I care for the nuns at the abbey and my girls, but it’s so foreign to me with strangers. He’s a natural, and I’m a little jealous. I used to be like this.
While he works his empath magic, I try and wrap my brain around what we should be doing next. If the cops get a whiff of us here, we’ll be people of interest in their investigation. Ideally, we should eradicate all traces of our visit.
I should probably kill this man. We’d probably be doing him a favor, to be honest.
But as soon as my mind goes there, my eyes tell me I’m wrong. Zeke brings a glass of water to him—Pete, his name is—and then collects a jacket hanging on a hook behind the door. He tugs it over Pete’s shoulders to keep him warm.
The jukebox skips and starts playingThe Gambleragain.
“That’s weird.” I step back into the bar and scan for anything unusual. It looks the same. A bloody, pulpy mess. I turn back to Pete. “How long ago did this happen?”
Pete looks at me, confused. “I... I don’t know.”
“Has that song been on repeat the entire time?”
