#but in the same way as reading HoL fixed me (made me worse)

[clownereye]

this just in: guy looking for a new hobby discovered theophagy

#eating a divine being would fix me #but in the same way as reading HoL fixed me (made me worse) #theophagy

[whitexwingedxdoves]

Foxtails and Rabbit trails | Part 2

A/N: This is part 2 to my collab with @starlessea​ i’ve had such a fun time working on this with Yaz and I hope you all love it as much as we do   🐰 Read Part One Here  Summary:  Daryl Dixon was a good hunter, but there were still some things that he struggled to find. Such as the patience to deal with you. You wore a rabbit’s foot keyring, but Daryl thought you were the furthest thing from lucky. After all, you ended up stuck with him, too.

-  Lying back on the grass, staring up at the cloudless sky, you thought that the world had never looked so pretty. 

The foxtails tickled your cheeks, and you could feel the fresh dew on the leaves as they gathered up beneath your fingers. You tried to focus on their texture, and how you could hear them crunch brittley before they scattered to the ground like autumn confetti.  

You really did try to focus on the good.

But the pain was blinding. 

“Hol’ still, ‘m gonna get ya outta there,” Daryl whispered, but you picked up on the way his voice stuttered over the words.

He got to work on disabling the trap, every little movement translating into a jolt of searing pain which made you cry out for him to stop. Though, the look in his eyes was no better. Even through your tears, you could understand that this was hurting him just as much as it hurt you - maybe even more.

If only you hadn’t been so fucking careless.

You reached out your hand for your satchel, fumbling in the grass until your fingertips brushed up against the soft fur of your rabbit’s foot. It was supposed to be lucky.

What a joke, you laughed, and grit your teeth through the pain.

Daryl disarmed the trap, making you whimper hoarsely once more as the metal jaws dislodged from your ankle. Your knuckles had turned white over that rabbit’s foot - almost matching its snowy pelt.

The man retrieved the rag from his back pocket - that same one you’d joked about not so long ago - and used it to bind your leg to stop the bleeding. 

Maybe that ratty cloth was handy, after all.

You tried to look down to catch a glimpse of the injury, and assess the damage. Except, Daryl didn’t let you.

“Eyes on me,” he instructed, gesturing to himself with his free hand.

You nodded, before letting your head fall back onto the damp grass. You glanced off to the side, noticing the mounds of dirt that crumbled near you.

“Hey, Daryl,” you murmured, “look at all of the burrows.”

The man didn’t look up from what he was doing - tending to you - but he still nodded his head anyway.

“Yeah,” he replied, tightening the makeshift bandage, “see if ya can spot any rabbits.”

And with that, Daryl carried you back to Alexandria - quickly and carefully, looking down at his feet the entire time.

Once you reached the infirmary, the man placed you on one of the beds whilst Denise got to work. She tried her hardest to be gentle with you, but even the softest touch made your skin crawl. Painkillers were given - only dulling the sensation ever so slightly - but they seemed to be enough for the doctor to stitch up your wounds, and replace Daryl’s old red rag with a clean bandage.

“I thought you hunters were supposed to be mindful of your surroundings,” Denise quipped, sending one of her sneaky looks your way as she finished her work. 

You rolled her eyes and shuffled ever so slightly in the bed, trying to get a glimpse.

“Yeah well, it was pretty well hidden,” you hit back. 

Daryl cleared his throat from the corner of the room; he’d been so quiet that you almost forgot he was there.

“Nah, ya got too distracted by the damn rabbits,” he grumbled.

More like too distracted by damn Daryl Dixon.

A glare was exchanged between you and the archer, but your smile got wider the longer you stared.

“Either way, it got you pretty good. You need to stay off that leg.” 

With a stern tone, Denise broke your gaze.

You shook your head. “That doesn’t work for me,” you argued, “I’ve got people to feed!” 

In response, you tried to shuffle off the bed - but a searing pain clambered up your leg and stunted your movements.

“I’m sure Daryl wouldn’t mind taking over for a while. Just until you’re better,” Denise reassured you.

The young doctor peered over her glasses at the archer, only for him to reply with a grunt.

“Now rest,” she told you, pressing your shoulder back down into the mattress. “Doctor’s orders!” 

That first night at the clinic had been quiet - far too quiet. It made you mull over your mistake until it was old in your mind, and heavy on your conscience. 

That is, until Daryl returned to bring you dandelions.

Denise had insisted that you stay where she could keep an eye on you, until the morning at least. But, you missed the comforts of your own room - where it was familiar. The walls of the infirmary were too white and barren, as opposed to your house which was decorated with pressed flowers and furs and much too many books. 

Your foot twitched occasionally, and every time you closed your eyes you could hear the snapping of those metal jaws as they clamped shut.

Sleep would probably elude you tonight.

Your nerves were made even worse when you were startled by knuckles rapping on the window. Reaching for the lamp, you illuminated the figure behind the glass - who also seemed spooked at having been caught.

Daryl stood there, motioning for you to open the latch on the window. 

You did, and the man lifted the pane, letting in the cool night’s breeze. 

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” you whispered, peering around the infirmary.

Daryl scowled, and muttered something below his breath that you couldn’t quite make out. The lampshade cast long shadows on his face, and you could only see the whites of his eyes poking out from between the strands of hair hanging over them.

“I ain’t,” he rasped back, gesturing to where he stood. “Technically.”

You raised an eyebrow at the man, not expecting that dry humour to come from him. He shook you off, and continued.

“Not stoppin’ long,” he dismissed, lifting up his backpack and fumbling around in it. “Went back out there an’ couldn’t see no more traps.” 

He smirked - faint and dim in the artificial light. But you still caught it.

“Ya must’ve sprung the only fuckin’ one.”

You laughed a little too loudly.

“Just my luck,” you shot back.

Daryl pulled something out from his bag - something you immediately recognised. It was a pelt blanket of soft, tawny fur. You’d made it yourself.

“Olivia tol’ me to give ya this,” he explained, feeding the material through the open window until you could reach it. “She went to get it from yer room.”

The feeling between your fingers instantly brought you comfort, and you ran the blanket along your cheek absentmindedly. 

Before you could reply, Daryl fished something else out from the rucksack and placed it on the windowsill. 

It was a glass bottle of dandelions.

It was a soda bottle, to be exact - probably snuck out of the pantry when no one was looking. You also recognised the flowers; you’d seen them out hunting once and noted just how much you liked the colour.

They looked like sunshine.

“Those from Olivia, too?” you whispered, gently stroking over the petals with your fingertips.

Daryl zipped up his bag and shook his head.

“Nah,” he mumbled, gesturing for you to close the window behind him. “These are from me.”

That was when you realised that perhaps Daryl Dixon wasn’t such a hard ass after all.

Though, your favourite memory from back then had to be the time he brought you bluebells. You’d practically chewed his ear off on one of your earlier trips, telling him all about how pretty they were - but you never thought he was listening.

You’d been sitting in your front room, pressing the previous bunch of flowers between one of your bigger books, when Daryl entered your home that day. Denise still hadn’t given you the all clear to go back out and hunt, and your movements were still pretty limited.

Hence, the constant appearances by the other hunter.

At this point, it had just become a part of the routine. Daryl would visit the house, walk straight to the empty vase on your bedside, and fill it with a new set of flowers. 

Though, today was a little different. 

Usually, he’d drop off some of the meat he’d managed to catch, and then leave. But, today he took a seat on the sofa opposite yours and fumbled with a tangled up cord.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” you giggled, sitting further back into your cushion.

“Been trying to fix ya stupid traps out there. Can’t get the knot right,” he mumbled, his patience wearing as thin as that rope in his hands. 

You couldn’t help but let out a hearty laugh at his words. 

The irony tasted so sweet. 

Daryl shot you a look which instantly made you cover your mouth. “Come here, I’ll help you,” you managed to say, whilst beckoning him over.

He did as instructed, but not without grumbling.

You took the cord from his hands and effortlessly untangled it. Daryl muttered something under his breath - but instead of prying, you took the victory and proceeded with your demonstration.

“Loop the rope around your hand like this and tie it.” 

Before finishing the action, you handed it over to Daryl so that he could do it by himself. 

“Then you fold the loop over to make ears, just like a rabbit!” you announced proudly, leaning over the man to show him exactly how it should look.

He scoffed. “What is it with you and the damn rabbits?” 

You rolled your eyes at the archer, and nudged him in the side for not paying attention - to which he carried on following your directions. 

“Then you thread the rope through,” you instructed, your hand hovering over his as you watched for any mistakes.

You hadn’t realised how close you were to him until he had finished the knot. You pulled away, and cleared your throat before refocusing on the cord - not daring to dwell on the tension.

“Then you add this end to the spring and leave the other end hanging.”

Daryl nodded silently, inspecting your work like he was trying to recreate it in his mind.

“Thanks,” he eventually whispered, chewing at the corner of his lip.

It didn’t take the man long to spring to his feet and murmur a goodbye before leaving. 

Thinking back on it, you could only laugh at how naive you both had been. 

Those bluebells were the last flowers ever left in that glass vase, but they hadn’t been the last you’d seen during your time at Alexandria. To this day, you still had an old, leather-bound book tucked away somewhere on a shelf - containing all of those pressed flowers with their dried up petals and stems. But, they weren’t the most memorable.

No. The ones you could remember the best, despite not having them laid flat atop a page, were the foxtail lilies.

“You good?” the man asked, guiding you through the long grass.

You followed him slowly, weaving through the wildflowers - being careful not to trod on them. 

Your leg had mostly healed, but your confidence still hadn’t made a full recovery. It was your first time hunting since the accident, and you couldn’t help but keep your eyes locked on your feet the entire time - despite Daryl having reassured you that he’d checked the area three times over.

“Yeah, just feels weird,” you replied, rolling your ankle. “But it’s good to be out again, thanks for taking over for me.”

Despite being out of commission for a few weeks, the people of Alexandria definitely hadn’t starved - that’s for damn sure.

Daryl shook his head, and continued to step through the foxtail lilies. He was leading you back to that new area - to explore it properly this time.

“Nah, ain’t nothin’,” he shrugged, not even sparing you a backwards glance.

You followed his trail, where his boots had flattened the grass and made it easier for you to navigate.

You sighed. “Can’t just say ‘you’re welcome’, can you?”

Something sprung in the distance, and you immediately flinched. It took you a few seconds to figure it out - but you soon realised that you recognised that sound.

You turned to the other hunter, only to find that he was already looking at you.

“Daryl Dixon,” you breathed, a smile already wide on your face. “Did you set a twitch-up snare?”

The man shook his head, before pointing into the distance - at the dozens of burrows you hadn’t gotten the chance to show him that day.

“Not jus’ one,” he announced, as you glanced around the field, counting the traps.

No wonder Alexandria hadn’t gone hungry.

Another one sprung, and made you jump. You couldn’t help it, you slapped Daryl over the back and laughed too loudly - probably making the remaining rabbits scurry back into their burrows.

“Be still my beating heart!” you joked. “I knew you’d come around.”

The lilies tickled your legs as they blew in the breeze, and made you laugh even more. But for once, the man didn’t scold you for scaring away the game.

“Yer welcome,” he replied, and smirked straight back.

Daryl thought of that memory, as he and Judith made their way through the darkened forest, back to the house. 

You had definitely changed him since then - in more ways than how he set up his traps.

Daryl hung behind the young girl, watching her feet as she navigated the thick overgrowth, and stepped over tree roots - her fox tail charm swinging from her jeans. 

It had been his, once. He’d caught that red fox himself in the dead of winter, and kept the brush just like you’d told him to do. Though, Judith Grimes had taken a liking to it as a baby - always reaching for the soft fur with her small hands, and sneezing when Daryl used it to tickle her nose.

It was hers now; it had been since that day.

As if feeling his stare, Judith turned back and called out to Daryl for him to hurry up - unless he wanted dinner to be cold. He let out a grunt and picked up the pace.

He was too damn old for this.

The two of them returned to the cabin before the sun had set, but Daryl could already smell the scent of cooked meat from the pathway, a few minutes back. The lights were on inside, flickering warmly behind the glass windows - as though calling the both of them home.

Judith reached the door first, and rapped on the wood, tapping out their signature knock. As soon as it creaked open, the young girl burst through - nearly knocking you over as she trudged through the house with a wide smile and muddy boots.

 Then, you disappeared behind the frame after her - yelling something about how animals were meant to be on a plate, and not seated at the dinner table.

Daryl couldn’t help but laugh at that one; you always did have a good sense of humour.

But for that reason, the hunter made sure to wash his hands as soon as he stepped through the door - before even attempting to put them on you, and pull you in close.

But once he did, you beckoned him over.

Daryl felt the warmth of your skin as you pressed your forehead to his.

“‘M home,” he murmured, offering out the bunch of wildflowers he’d picked for you on the way back.

They were slightly crushed from his grip - the stalks bent and the petals flaking off - but you still smiled at him in such a way that it made his breath catch.

Yeah, he thought, you hadn’t changed one bit.

“My favourites,” you replied, and placed those foxtails in fresh water at the centre of the dinner table.

-

tags:  @browneyes528​ @phoenixblack89​ @srhxpci​ @jodiereedus22​ @witch-of-letters​ @deadthewalking​

#daryl dixon #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon x y/n #daryl dixon x you #daryl dixon fanfic #the walking dead #the walking dead fanfiction #twd #twd fanfic #twd fanfiction #norman reedus #norman reedus fanfiction #norman reedus fanfic

[omegaling]

Fix You, A Rey/Phillip Altman Story

Chapter Two: This Town

Read it on AO3 here

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Strong language, mentions of drug use, off-screen past abuse

"Yesterday I thought I saw your shadow running round, It's funny how things never change in this old town."

Naill Horan, “This Town”

The next morning, Phillip sat in the Porsche after unceremoniously dumping Judd off at the ice rink.  He took off his sunglasses despite the hangover headache throbbing behind his eyes, trying to convince himself to stay put.  He didn’t know what would happen if he didn’t take his own advice; all he knew was that most likely lead to more problems with Tracy.  He was already on dangerously thin ice with her; it would only take one more straw before it all broke beneath him.  Or was that a straw on a horse’s back?  He couldn’t remember.  The damn hangover was muddling his thoughts, which was made even worse by his frustration from not only that morning’s fight with her, but from the rest of his family ganging up on him afterwards.  He had thought that introducing Tracy to them would help save their relationship, which had been unraveling for some weeks now.  Apparently he had been wrong; things were only getting worse.

Wrong.  Wrong again.  Like everything else.

Well, it wasn’t his fault that Chelsea came by to pay her respects.  Sure, he knew she was still in the area - he spent enough time flirting with her over Facebook and Snapchat to not know what she was up to - so her showing up to shiva wasn’t that big of a surprise.  Besides, it’s not like he made specific plans to hook up with her while he was here, so that had to count for something, right?  The same went for Kelly.  And Janelle.  Plus whoever else might show up between now and this hell known as shiva would come to an end.

But Rey.

He hadn’t expected Rey, not in a million years.

Phillip let his head fall back against the leather seat.  Seeing her not once, but twice in the same day after not seeing hide nor hair of her after seven years had been jarring to say the least.  After everything that happened at the end of high school he had pretty much resigned himself to the fact that he’d never see her again.  He had tried to apologize to her, right until the very end, but she had always been so damn stubborn that she wouldn’t even listen to him.  For months afterwards he had successfully convinced himself that he had done all he could, and if she didn’t want to make amends, then fine, that was all on her.  Then college had started - or, more accurately, two years of frat parties, smoking weed, and sleeping with so many girls that their faces and features all became one indistinguishable blur, with a smattering of classes here and there - and Rey gradually faded from his memory.

Except for the times she didn’t.  There were nights when he’d find himself lying awake while the girl whose name he already forgotten snored next to him, suddenly remembering the late summer evenings reclining on the hood of his car, making up ridiculously raunchy stories about the star constellations while fireflies danced in the long grass around them.  Snowball wars that would last for weeks before one of them finally called for a truce.  Sneaking out of the house at eleven o’clock on a school night to meet her in that parking lot of Reggie’s Diner on the edge of town because she couldn’t stand to be in Unkar Plutt’s house another minute longer.

Then he would be up for the rest of the night, thinking about her, wondering if she was okay.  Every so often he contemplated getting in contact with her again, but she seemed to avoid all forms of social media entirely.  When he dared to ask people from high school if they heard anything about her or if they happened to know where she was, everyone acted like they didn’t know who he was talking about.  It got to the point where he started to wonder if Rey had even been real at all.

Then suddenly she was back, out of the blue, and it was like an explosion had taken place in the middle of his life, leaving him dazed and disoriented.  He even felt like his ears were ringing.

Of course, that could just be the hangover.

Phillip’s thoughts were interrupted by a deep growl, like the purring of a monstrous cat, that reverberated up from the street, making the whole Porsche vibrate.  He cracked an eye open just in time to see a classic muscle car amble by to park on the opposite side of the street.  Its sleek, shining body was painted autumn orange with black racing stripes starting at the hood and ran down the length of the car.  Phillip didn’t harbor much love for classic cars - he preferred the modern look of Audis, BMWs and, of course, Porches - but even he couldn’t deny that the car was gorgeous.  Even though he was certain he’d never seen it before, there was something about it that tickled the back of his memory.  The closest thing he could think of was an old car someone from high school used to drive, though that one was a beat-up ugly thing with only the last traces of the original paint job clinging to it.  What did they used to call that car?  Oh yeah, The Beast.  Driven by… Poe, wasn’t it?  That’s right: Poe Dameron.  Good guy, though not someone Phillip would have hung out with on a regular basis.  Didn’t he go into the Air Force after graduation?  He was about the wonder what Dameron was up to now when the driver’s side door opened and its owner swung out.  Phillip laughed in spite of himself.  Speak of the fucking devil.

Phillip couldn’t decide how close Poe looked to how he remembered him from high school - Poe had graduated a year ahead of him, and he hadn’t seen him since before he left for the military - but all of the important features were still there: the thick dark hair, copper skin, square jawline, and the smooth confidence of someone who already had worked out his place in the world.  By all accounts he was one of those guys whom Phillip should have hated on principle, but one indisputable fact about Poe Dameron was that it was simply impossible for anyone to hate him.  It went against the laws of nature or something.

Welcoming the distraction, Phillip killed the engine and jumped out of the Porsche, the keys still jammed in the ignition.  He crossed the street in a few jogging steps, coming up on Poe before the other man knew he was there.

“Poe-fucking-Dameron!” Phillip said by way of the greeting.  Poe swung around, an instant of confusion clouding his expression before recognition broke through.

“Hol-y shit.  Phillip Altman!” Poe said, flashing him the grin that earned him the “Best Smile” yearbook honorarium his senior year.  “Jesus, I haven’t seen you in an age.  How have you been?  Do you still live in the area?”

Phillip shrugged a shoulder, trying to play it cool, as though they were still in high school and Poe was still the coolest kid on campus.  “It’s going.  I’m only in town because my dad just died.”

Poe’s face fell.  “Oh man, I’m sorry to hear that.  How are you holding up?”

Another shrug from Phillip, although this one was stiffer due to the sudden tightness in his chest.  “As best as I can, I guess.  He was sick for a while, so it’s not like it came as a shock or anything.  We have to sit shiva, though.  We’re only on day three and I already feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“That’s rough,” Poe sympathized, and just like that the conversation went stagnant.

“So,” Phillip said after an awkward pause.  “I see the Beast is still in commission.  I was sure you’d have it put out of its misery by now.”

Poe stumbled backwards in faux shock, pressing a hand over his heart.  “Get rid of the Beast?  I would never!  Sure she was a little rough around the edges, but she has yet to let me down.”

“It looks good now,” Phillip said appraisingly.

“Doesn’t she?” Poe asked as he ran a hand over the car’s roof.  “This is how I always hoped she’d look someday, but I never had the time or money to put into it.  A couple of friends fixed her up for me as a welcome home present when I got out of the Air Force a few years ago.”

Phillip saw a window of opportunity open, and he immediately jumped to take it.  “Do you still see anyone from high school around?”

Poe tipped his head back, thinking.  “Occasionally.  It seems like more and more people have been trickling back to the area, like they’re realizing the real world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and are coming home to collect their bearings.  I’m sure a good number of them will end up staying for good, even though we all swore up and down that would never happen.  Didn’t think I’d ever end up back here myself, too much of a big world out there, you know?  But I ended coming back for someone, and I haven’t regretted it since.”

“I...uh... was out with my family last night, and I saw Rey Jakken.  Do you...know when she got back?”

There was an instant change in Poe’s whole demeanor.  His smile vanished into a hard line as his open expression took on newer, sharper angles.  It wasn’t a look of anger, so much, but it was a look Phillip was extremely familiar with; Wendy used to use it all the time, especially when she heard someone talking crap about her family.  It was a look that said “tread carefully, because the next words out of your mouth could lead to an ass-kicking.”

“Listen, Phil…” Poe said slowly, evenly.  “I don’t know what happened between you two in high school, and I’m sure you’re trying to mean well now, but I’m just going to say this once: leave her be.  She’s been through a lot and is only just getting back on her feet.  If she wants to reconnect with you, that’s her call.  Just leave it at that.  All right?”

Phillip scratched the back of his neck and averted his eye, his ears burning.  While Rey’s avoidance of him the other day made it clear that she didn’t want to have anything to do with him, it hurt just a little more hearing it come from someone else.

Poe’s expression softened again.  “I’m sorry, Phil.  I don’t mean to come off as an asshole, but she’s my boyfriend’s best friend, and so we’re just trying looking out for her.  And yes, you heard right, the rumors from high school about me being gay are actually true.”

“Oh… I didn’t mean…”

Poe shrugged again.  “I know you didn’t.  Hey, I need to get going.  It was good seeing you, though.  And sorry again about your dad.  I’m sure Finn will give his condolences as well.”

Poe disappeared into a store, and Phillip slunk back to his car.  Thoughts of Rey whirled in his mind as though they were caught in a tornado that was inside his head.  What did Poe mean by “she’d been through a lot?”  Had she been addicted to drugs?  Alcohol?  Had she been homeless after she ran away?  During high school she got busted a few times for shoplifting, but it was always for things she needed that Plutt wouldn’t provide for her, like tampons or new socks, but could she have spent time in jail for something more serious?  She looked good when he saw her yesterday, both in her sun dress and later in her street clothes, but he knew that didn’t mean jack.  Things like nice clothing, a fancy house or an expensive car were always the easiest ways to cover up just how fucked up someone really was.  Just look at his family.

Phillip scratched at his arm.  He felt like his skin was crawling from the inside.  He needed a release, and bad.  His first thought was to get a drink somewhere, but his tenderized stomach rolled at the thought.  He had a stash of weed he brought with him back at the house, but he didn’t want to risk smoking it with his mother, Paul and Tracy just waiting for another chance to eviscerate him for being an irresponsible degenerate during shiva.  His only other option was to get laid.  That was out of the question with Tracy - he knew that she would leave him blue balling for at least a week, and that was if she was especially forgiving - but Chelsea’s condo was only a few blocks from here… And she had outright said that he needed to do something fun to help him with all the grieving…

Then Rey’s face materialized at the forefront of his thoughts, her expression blank but her eyes a kaleidoscope of hurt and resentment, watching him from the end of a long, locker-lined hallway.

Phillip smacked his open palm of his hand against the steering wheel of his car, the sting helping clear his head a little bit.  Damn her.  Damn her for just waltzing back into his life like this.  Damn her for being so tragic and growing up to be so beautiful.  Damn her for being able to make him him acknowledge what an awful person he really was.

Knowing that there was no way he could get it up now even if he did make it to Chelsea’s, Phillip turned the key in the ignition, the Porsche’s engine a small, tinny sound compared to the deep-throated growl of The Beast.  He swung the car around in a sloppy u-turn, the front tire striking the opposite curb as he did so, and sped off back to the ice-rink, not giving a single flying fuck about the enraged brother he was sure to find there.

#omegaling writes #star wars crossover fanfiction #this is where i leave you #rey #phillip altman #rey x phillip

[ruinousrealms]

Black Valley

Nobody came through Black Valley anymore, not since the creek dried up and the railroad passed it by. The last settlers left years ago, leaving behind nothing but a few dilapidated shacks clustered around a shallow trench where water once ran down from the Sierra Nevadas, the blue-green peaks looming over the western horizon.

It was a ghost town in every sense of the word, and that was why Elmar Rudry liked it so much. The high desert was warm and peaceful, with little more than a stiff breeze to disturb the stillness of the afternoon, or the howling of distant coyotes at night. Nothing ever moved, nothing ever changed, and that was just the way he liked it.

The old man struck a singularly pathetic figure, dressed in rags that had once been a flannel shirt and gray pants, leaning on a stick as he hobbled between the crooked, half-collapsed buildings in what had been, once upon a time, the center of the town's commercial district. His hair was bleached white from age and the hot desert sun, falling across his shoulders and mingling with an equally long beard, which blew stiffly as the breeze passed by.

His hat was ragged, his boots so full of holes that it was a wonder the old leather soles clung together at all. It was a wonder he still bothered wearing them at all, with his hardened feet used to walking long distances across the hot earth, grinding his soles like fine-grain sandpaper. Some affectations died hard, he supposed – Like his ragged outfit, a holdover from the days when men still lived in this town, when cool, clear water flowed down from the mountains like the very blood of God-

He shook his head, catching himself. He couldn't afford to get nostalgic now – He'd long ago made his choice to stay, and there was no point dwelling in the distant past. How long had it been since the last time he saw a human face? A smooth one, a fresh one, free of the cracks and scars and strange, writhing, dripping things that flowed from the mouth and nostrils of a fresh corpse? Ten years, more?

He shrugged, and a wave of sand rolled down his shoulders like a caustic avalanche, clinging to the reddish, irritated flesh on his back. Too many years of sun had first turned his skin the color and consistency of rough Apache leather, then irritated it, wrinkles cracking and splitting apart, catching sand and sending thin streams of pus down his back.

It used to bother him. Not anymore. Nothing bothered him anymore, not the sun, not the sand, not the emptiness of his stomach nor the infernal dryness of his throat. He looked up, and realizing he was in the saloon, made his way over to the counter, where an empty whiskey bottle sat alongside a row of shot glasses, cracks running across the glass like spiderwebs. He remembered whiskey, the burn as it slid down the throat, the courage, the wild, carefree abandon it inspired after a long day's march...

It was gone. He brushed the skeleton of a scorpion off the bar and watched it shatter across the floor, then made his way up the creaking flight of stairs to the rooms of the upper floor. Each step creaked ominously beneath his feet, the nails rusty, the wood cracked and warped from years of varying temperatures.

Four of the five doors were shut, and the old man paid them no attention as he made his way to the far room, whose door he could just barely remember removing from the hinges in some long-distant vista of memory.

The object of his quest lay on the bed, two hundred and six bones, thirty-two teeth – He'd counted them meticulously, during the long days in which there was nothing left to do. They were all intact, pristine and bleached the same white as his beard, thanks to the sun and ants. He was just lucky he'd found it before the scavengers got to it – As it was, all that was missing were a few pieces of skull, which he'd been unable to find no matter where he looked. Possibly, whoever made the hole had taken them with him – Why, he couldn't say, but any man who would leave such a fine corpse laying in the desert was sure to have some strange ways.

Next to the body lay a moldy old belt and a chunk of rusted-together metal that may have once been a revolver, though the make was impossible to tell. The old man picked it up, resting his bony finger on the rusted trigger, and made a motion with his thumb as if cocking the missing hammer. He held it out, fixing the shattered forehead of the skull between rust-clogged sights, then set it down again.

He opened his mouth, a single, blackened incisor hanging from frayed tendons. His first attempt at speaking sent him into a fit of coughing, as countless weeks of accumulated dust flowed between his thin lips. When the dust settled and his throat was reasonably empty, he shook his head, and began a long-practiced speech.

“I'a Cthulhu fhtagn,” He rasped, his dry, cracked tongue straining to shape the unusual syllables, “Ph'nglui mglw'nfah Cthulhu-”

“Yakut shabbur Yog-Sothoth,” The corpse responded in a tone as hollow as the space within the ribcage, “Heigin tadnor Ug-Krunog.”

“I never heard of such a thing,” The old man sputtered, “The things what live beneath Snake-Hill, they'd have told me-"

“Your death approaches, Elmar,” The corpse's tone was almost apologetic, “You know they would never tell you. You might panic and flee, and then they'd have to venture out in the daytime and fight with the other scavengers to claim what belongs to them.”

“I don't, I tell you! Elmar Rudry belongs to Elmar Rudry, no matter what the buggies say.”

“You sold yourself cheap, you know. Your Christian god may not exist, but there are certain places what are warmer than others – And a damn sight colder than this desert, where even the children of Yig dare not dwell.”

“Them snakes ain't worth the lead it takes t' put 'em down,” The old man's voice grew steadier as he got used to speaking, “I always wanted t' burn their hives, or at least drop some dynamite down their holes an' seal the entrances. Keep em from gobblin' down any unwary travelers-”

“And hitch a ride out of here,” The corpse finished for him.

“It's been too long. Longer than the bargain.”

A rattling sound emerged from between the jaws of the skull, something akin to laughter.

“Bastard. I should'a left you where I found you.”

“You don't bargain with Hol-Krava, nor the Black Goat with a Thousand Young.”

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.” The old man intoned, and with a sound like rustling paper, the skeleton fell silent once more.

-=-

The year was 1862, and Private Rudry was riding hard through the desert, kicking up a plume of dust that rose like smoke from one of the big factories back in St. Louis. His once-gray uniform was coated in red dust, same with his hat and the scruffy three-day beard clinging to his narrow chin. He held the reigns in his teeth as he struggled to load his revolver, but the constant rocking of the saddle made it nearly impossible to pour the powder into each of the cylinders in the revolver – And he knew he'd need them all.

The western campaign was over. New Mexico was firmly in Union hands. Sibley and Thom Green were retreating, along with two thousand of Texas' best men, four hundred of whom now lay dead in western dust. Back home to Arizona, and from there to Texas, and then what? All the way back to Virginia, to hold off the Yankee savages by digging trenches in farmyards and town squares from Richmond to Atlanta?

Rudry couldn't read, but it didn't take some northern intellectual to understand the signs – It was doomed, the whole damned war, and he wasn't going to die in some Godforsaken foxhole or catch the flu and meet the Creator without ever meeting the enemy. No, he was headed west – West, beyond the Sierra Nevada, where the sun rose above an ocean as expansive as the desert which now surrounded him in all directions.

In the chaos of the retreat, who would've noticed a soldier slipping away, stealing a horse and riding off into the night? Somebody, apparently, or they wouldn't have sent these men after him. There were four, but he shot one on the second night, when he made the mistake of making camp in the open, and the other disappeared soon after. Maybe he was snakebit and died raving and alone as his comrades pressed on – It pained him to think of any man dying in such ignominy, let alone a fellow southerner, but it couldn't be helped. He was with the Lord now, and surely reaping his just reward for loyal service to the cause.

As for himself, he knew his soul was well beyond saving. His sin was worse than murder, worse than sodomy – If he thought service to the southern cause could save his soul, he was sorely mistaken, as loneliness and isolation only drove him onward, into the depths of depravity which even the wicked men of Nineveh would find abhorrent. Even the yankee foe, for all his cruelty, would have given him a quick death just to rid the world of his sin all the more quickly.

Sodom and Gomorrah, on the plain south of what men call the River Jordan – Albuquerque and Santa Fe, south of Rio Puerco. Truly, the Lord hath granted him a taste of the fires to come, in which his deviant soul would become another morsel on the devil's own barbacoa. He was a good little sinner, though, and he wouldn't be content with simply laying down and accepting the fires willingly.

The war lay behind him, but it was catching up fast. He could hear the hoofbeats of his pursuers just meters behind him, unable to shoot or even see in the cloud of dust from his horse's hooves. It was about all the old mare was good for, after a full week of running drove the energy from the poor beast. God really did abandon this land – It was like a blank spot upon the face of Creation, an unfinished corner bereft of life save for rattlesnakes and cacti, whose moist flesh was the only reason he hadn't died four nights ago when his last canteen ran out.

The Colt's Dragoon he carried was a gift from a Union lieutenant, back at Glorieta Pass. The boy's soul had been commended to the Lord, where he only hoped the boy received mercy for his sin of fighting against the glorious Confederacy. The bayonet of his rifle still dripped with the boy's blood when he pulled the pistol from his limp fingers and delivered a coup de grace – A kindness, better than bleeding to death or dying of infection in some butcher's field hospital.

It was a powerful little beauty, but Lord, the trigger pull was a long one and the kick worse than a mule. If you weren't careful firing, you could snap your wrist clean down the middle, and if you didn't load it correctly – Too much powder, or too little, the thing could just as easily blow up in your hand and do the enemy's job for him.

“Jesus, Mary, and all the saints,” He muttered, rotating the cylinder and clicking the lock into place, “Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.”

Glancing over his shoulder, he could see the silhouettes of the riders shifting as they fanned out, one on each side and riding hard to escape the smokescreen. The one on the left came out first, his gray uniform hidden beneath a brown longcoat, and a revolver-rifle in his hands. It was a powerful weapon in the right hands, a step between a musket and one of Henry's new repeaters, but there was enough room in the breach that dirt could easily get in – Which is why, when the gunman raised the rifle and took aim, Rudry didn't bother to duck.

There was a click, and another, and then an explosion and the sensation of air whipping past his face – He turned just in time to see the other rider coming up behind him, his unbuttoned coat flapping behind him like a cape. The weapon in his hands was a Henry, and Rudry cursed to high heaven as another bullet tore past him, barely scraping the back of his collar.

Another shot cracked out by the time Rudry got his bearings, this one grazing the horse's haunch and causing the poor beast to cry out, stumbling slightly as blood trickled down its leg. It was barely a scratch, and Rudry spared the beast no mercy, jamming his spurs into the horse's bloody thighs. He could see the rider coming alongside him, rifle at the ready for a single clear shot.

The fully-loaded Dragoon felt heavy in his hand, too heavy for a man to hold – It wasn't designed to kill men, really, but Nephilim and Indians, which Rudry quietly suspected were the same thing, having never met any of either party. He didn't bother looking, he just pulled the trigger. The bark of the gun was nothing compared to the screaming of the horse as the bullet tore through its thick hide, lodging itself deep in its chest. Its legs buckled, and now it was the rider's turn to scream as he was thrown from the saddle, landing head-first with an awful crunch.

One threat down, he turned to the second gunman, but as he turned around, all he could see was empty desert, red sand and wind-blown rocks in every direction. In one direction, however, a pair of buttes stuck out against the noonday sky, and between them, a faint cloud of dust receded into the distance. The coward bolted.

Rudry chuckled, and the fallen rider groaned, southern blood trickling from a gash in his scalp and spilling across the damned Yankee sand. Hopping down from his saddle, Rudry pulled a Bowie knife from the sheath on his belt, and put an end to the poor wretch. The horse's legs were twitching, but the bullet had clearly hit something vital. He hefted his revolver and considered putting a round into it, but his bullet pouch was dreadfully light.

The Henry, on the other hand, was caught beneath the beast's belly, with only part of the now-bent barrel sticking out. It didn't take a gunsmith to know it'd be useless, even if he could shove the thousand or so pounds of dead weight off of it.

With only slight regret, he climbed back on his horse, turned, and made to follow his other pursuer.

-=-

The hunter was now the hunted. Revolver in hand, Rudry crept through the ruined stockade and into the ghost town. Black Valley was the name, according to a bullet-scarred sign hanging from the sheriff's office – He guessed it was the sheriff's office, on account of the rusty iron cage sitting in the center of the otherwise empty building. It must've been a fine town in it's day, though how long ago that was, he dared not venture a guess. It could've been built any time between last week and Coronado's first visit to the region more than two centuries prior.

Maybe the local gold or silver mine ran dry, or maybe there never was one to begin with – Some Yankee shyster selling stakes in a phony mine, stealing people's life savings while they slowly died out in some godforsaken wilderness. It wouldn't be the first time, and with the defeat of the Glorious Cause all but inevitable, it sure as shootin' wouldn't be the last.

There were a good dozen structures still standing, mostly one- or two-room shacks, along with the aforementioned sheriff's office, a small church, a saloon – The only two-story building in town, if you didn't count the upper level of the church, which Rudry didn't, as the roof had mostly caved in on top of it. In the dying light, and in light of his sin, he passed it by, scarcely turning to glance inside.

He was glad he did, however, as a shift in the darkness caught his attention – Movement. He dropped to his knees just in time for a bullet to rip past him, ricocheting off a rock just behind him. He raised the revolver and let off a round of his own, the flash illuminating the entryway to the church, and for just a moment, he could make out the silhouette of a man behind a pew, his face pale behind the sights of his rifle.

He ducked, giving Rudry time to move for cover behind the empty doorway. A volley rang out, one, two, three shots, the first two hitting the ground, and the last one slamming into the doorframe and sending out a flurry of splinters. Four shots fired in total, two left – While he still had five heavy .44 bullets loaded in his Dragoon.

“Don't come any closer!” The man in the church shouted, “Damn you! Damn you!”

He was moving around, fumbling in the dark. Rudry could hear the pews screeching as he shoved them out of his way.

“Damn yourself!” He responded, “Put it down, and we'll get our backsides outta this here firehole!”

“You killed Jim!”

“He was shootin' at me. Whaddya expect me t' do, shake his hand?”

“Damn you!”

“You said that already, kid.”

The gunman responded with another shot, but this one didn't hit near the door – There was a loud splashing sound, like a rock thrown in water, followed by a strange, half-strangled yell from the gunman.

“What in the blazes..?” Rudry muttered, peeking around the door, but he could see nothing past the small entryway, the rest of the interior cloaked in shadow. Something was definitely moving in there, but whether it was the gunman, or something else entirely, he couldn't say. There shuffling sounds, as if something very large were moving across the floor toward the back of the church.

Turning the corner, Rudry fired a shot, and the flash brightened the entire church, right to the back. In that split second, he got a good look at the interior – A few rows of wooden pews leading to a pulpit, behind which sat the remains of a large cross, the horizontal beam having fallen off, and was now leaning against the vertical one.

Between them, though – Rudry blinked, and everything was dark once more. For just a second, he fancied that he saw something faint, indistinct, standing between the pulpit and the cross, a kind of splotch of shadow – In the darkened church, nothing unusual, save that it seemed to be relegated to a single spot in midair. He didn't spare a second to think about it. More importantly, the gunman was nowhere to be seen, probably hiding behind a pew – And Rudry had just exposed himself.

Rudry leapt back behind the doorway, waiting for the kid to make his move – But nothing came, and after a few long seconds, he ventured to shout, “Hello?”

After a few seconds with no response, he grasped his pistol tightly, and slowly peeked around the corner. When no shots came, he stepped into the open and stood for a second, then took a couple steps into the church, where the light from the setting sun gave way to near pitch-darkness. As he stood there in the still silence, he noticed a faint sound coming from behind one of the pews, barely audible above the faint ringing in his ears from his previous shot.

Behind the bench lay the gunman, as white as Georgia cotton and twisted into an expression that sent a shiver down the hardened soldier's spine. The man's body was twitching, his hands and feet shaking as if in the throes of an epileptic seizure, but that wasn't it. It was as if he was struggling against something, or at least, that was the impression Rudry got from the way he thrust his hands forward, only to slam back down as if being shoved by powerful hands.

“Damn you – D-damn you!” He muttered incessantly, his tongue straining to give shape to the words as blood trickled from cracks in his parched lips. His entire lower face was covered in the stuff, like a sanguine beard. The blood was so thick he could smell it.

A quick visual inspection showed no obvious signs of injury, no entry wounds where Rudry's shot might've ricocheted and hit him. The poor fool's brain was scrambled, probably half-baked from too many long hours under the unforgiving New Mexico sun. Rudry had seen it all before, men dropping mid-march and dying on the burning sand, having never met the enemy. They were useless – Orders were to leave them where they fell, as dragging them along would only slow the column down.

It was the same for him, now. What could he do for the madman? He could splint a broken bone or stitch shut a gaping wound, that was it. Should he tie him down to keep him from gouging his own eyes out, sharing his water with him even though he was bound to die anyway? Grunting, he pulled out his knife and dug it deep in the man's throat. He hardly responded to the cut – Barely bled, in fact, for which Rudry was eminently grateful.

He didn't even gurgle as he died. Rudry felt his way through the church, stepping carefully to avoid tripping on a loose board. The moon rose quickly, filling the room with a pale light that cast queer shadows over everything. Rudry stopped and glanced around, blinking in surprise – Had he lost track of time? He'd taken a pocket watch from the man whose horse he'd shot, but he didn't have a clue how to read it.

Something moved in the corner of his eye, near the pulpit. He spun around, gun at the ready, but nothing was there. “Bats,” He muttered, and slipped his gun back into the holster.

To his surprise, there was a book on the pulpit, but it wasn't a Christian bible – Instead of a cross, the cover bore the image of a stick with five branches, three on one side, two on the other. It was cast from silver, shimmering faintly in the moonlight. Maybe that was the movement. He let out a chuckle, then stopped, as the sound seemed to profane the silence which had settled around him.

The book was strange, no doubt about it. Elmar Rudry could read no better than he could speak Dutch, and the language of the book was definitely not Dutch. They weren't letters like any he'd ever seen before, a lot of squiggly shapes with hooks, curves, and little dots sprinkled here and there like drops from a leaking pen. Every few pages was an illustration, portraying monsters of all shapes and sizes, none of which looked even slightly familiar to him.

There were things without heads, with squiggly lines spewing from their mouths – How a headless creature could have a mouth was beyond him, but that was what was portrayed. One image, to which he felt particularly drawn, appeared to be a normal human man, hands and feet outstretched to show off his body. If he were a scholarly type, he'd have recognized the outline of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.

The outline was where the similarities ended, however, as closer inspection revealed certain anatomical irregularities, particularly centered around the subject's groin. Retching slightly in his mouth, Rudry flipped the page, not caring if he ripped the fragile vellum.

He found himself drawn to the strange scribbles. His eyes glazed over the longer he stared at them, the funny little hooks and curves writhing across the page like so many little ringworms in the skin of a dying sow. They were beautiful, in their own unusual way, and before he could tear himself away, he'd read the spread pages five times over.

“This ain't Christian,” He muttered to himself. But then, he was hardly a Christian anymore, and so he turned the page, the ancient vellum crinkling beneath his callused fingertips.

-=-

“Ia Cthulhu,” The old man repeated, staring down at the corpse on the bed, “Ia Cthulhu, there ain't no end for me, not on this mortal Earth.”

He repeated that same phrase as he hobbled out of the saloon, adjusting his hat to keep the sun out of his sensitive eyes. Too many years of reading alone in the dark had turned them milky and dim, even though they weren't really useful with the kinds of books he read. He could feel it in his forehead, pulsing, the little cone-shaped gland that Dee so loved to expound upon, and Alhazred harbored such a desire to caress that, in a fit of mad lust, the prophet cracked his own skull with a rock and dug through useless tissue to find the thing.

Rudry had never gone quite that far, though the dark, lonely nights did sometimes drive him to strange extremes regardless. He could taste colors now, and hear smells – The sunlight was too loud these days, pounding in his ancient ears even louder than his own heartbeat, which had recently taking up the tune of an old marching song from-

“Ia Cthulhu,” He banished the thought with another repetition of his mantra, the one he'd repeated so many times over the decades, “Death o' the firstborn, an' welcome th' rain o' frogs. Teacheth mine hands not for war, o Great Ones, but to sin and make merry until the Coming.”

He learned it from his book – The terrible book, the wonderful book, whose presence on the church pulpit was at once inexplicable and miraculous. It was as if God himself led him to it, though he knew instinctively that the mere existence of such a tome was absolute evidence against His existence. No good, orderly world could ever suffer the knowledge contained within that accursed thing.

The words never did make sense to him, but every time he looked, he felt like he was learning. New knowledge simply popped up in the back of his brain as if he knew it all along. Indeed, the only unease he felt anymore was the idea that, in some vague, ill-defined time, he [i]hadn't[/i] known these things. Shoggoth kulai, creatures of the blackest text – They lived, the words, letters, and language, they had lived and they forever would, ensnaring his soul in their web of horror and beauty from the day he first gazed upon the thing.

His body waned as his mind waxed strong, muscle fading, feebleness setting in, but it was a small price to pay for the things he learned. He learned of spheres beside our own, beings from beyond the realm of human understanding. He saw cities wreathed in flame, trains that flew through the air like great serpents – Or was it serpents like giant trains? He couldn't remember. It had been years since he'd seen that particular page. He could try and look it up again, but the pages had a tendency to change whenever he wasn't looking at them.

The vast octopoid things would rise from the deep and reclaim their land. Perhaps it had already happened – The scale of time in the book was rather strange, as was his own perception of it, born of countless decades of isolation. It could've been eons – For all he knew, men were gone and the world was ruled by rabbits who remembered the former dominant species only as a predatory bogeyman who came for disobedient little kits in the dead of night.

Well, those were all after his time. His life, unnaturally elongated though it was, was finally nearing an end. Or was it a beginning? For a man such as he, death was but a door, time but a window, and with his knowledge, there were certain ways of cheating it. Snake-Hill, for example, and them what lived beneath – His close friends and allies through all these long years, would surely be able to help, or at least give him an alternative to whatever foul oblivion into which his consciousness might be thrown upon the cessation of his heartbeat.

Snake-Hill lay just to the east of town, no more than an hour's walk, but by the time the old man arrived at the base of the low rise of earth, it was nearing nightfall. He didn't own a lantern, nor did he see fit to bring so much as a flintstone and a piece of steel; In the dark, his bleary eyes were even less useful than usual, but he knew the way to the entrance by heart, having made the trip almost weekly for countless years.

It didn't take a lot of poking around for him to find the hole, small enough to be mistaken for a rabbit's warren, and poking a toe inside, he jostled it a bit, trying to disturb the inhabitant enough to come out.

“C'mon, feller,” He rasped, “We got business, you an' I.”

Something warm and wet pressed against his toe, and he pulled it back just as a green, polypus thing oozed out. It shifted and swelled before him, swallowing up dirt and sandmites and scorpions, whatever didn't get out of the way in time. Rudry practically leapt back, landing hard on his ankle, but it didn't break, despite the cracking sound and the burst of pain. If his suspicions were correct, it didn't matter anyway. He wasn't going to be walking anywhere anytime soon.

It was as big as a fair-sized horse, covered in a kind of gelatinous outer layer thick enough to conceal whatever lay beneath. The surface was dotted with orifices with thick, almost human-like lips constantly opening and closing, gasping in air and exhaling puffs of blue smoke, whose smell wrinkled the old man's nose and stung his eyes.

The creature had no real limbs, but every once in a while, one of the orifices would open up, and a long, slender tendril would emerge to swat a fly, or capture it and drag it inside the thing's maw. It wasn't eating, of course, any fool could tell that such a beast took no sustenance upon this mortal plane.

As he stared at it, he noticed that the thing appeared to be seething, the surface rippling like an ocean in a storm, full of little air bubbles that burst as they rose to the top of the gelatinous layer. It was about as clear as mud, and the sun didn't shine on it so much as through it, getting lost somewhere in the depths of the semiliquid surface. It almost seemed to swallow the light, or perhaps, to radiate darkness; Either way, it stuck out like a sore tooth amid the ruined town.

A pair of tendrils emerged from the creature's belly, covered in thick, oily pus that hissed it dripped on the ground. They twisted into a shape like a sailor's knot, and Elmar repeated the motion, doing his best approximation with his hands. A low gurgle rose from one of the orifices in the creature's side, and a foul, greenish mist began to pump out.

The smell was acrid, even by Elmar's standards, a mixture of burnt cordite and the gas which builts up inside a corpse, only to rupture and spread its putrescence through the hot, dry desert air. Opening his arms and closing his eyes, he inhaled the foul stench and savored it like a sommelier nosing a fine wine.

“Ia Cthulhu,” He muttered to nobody in particular – Certainly not the beast, whose sensory organs couldn't possibly perceive such a mundane form of communication as speech. There was a strange sensation in his loins, and he looked down to see an erection, something he hadn't experienced in more decades than he cared to count. He smirked at the sight – Human procreation was so delicate, so fragile, so utterly limited that it was hard to describe it as procreation at all, more like cloning, or spreading the seed of some wild desert flower. Only fools cared for such things, fools and creatures so low in evolution that they were like comparing men with ants... Or perhaps, comparing an ant with the bacteria clinging to the dung it feasted on.

He was beginning to understand now what the skeleton had meant. Death – O Death, in this way, wasn't a death at all, but a transition, a Becoming. For in the arms of the Worm, ensconced within the cool, damp caverns underneath Snake-Hill, he would achieve something, attain something, and in doing so, pass beyond what fools called existence, and clung to so dearly, as if a single breath of waking life were worth the strain it put on the soul.

“Shub-Niggurath an' the Conqueror Worm,” He closed his eyes, spreading out his arms to accept his fate, “I'm home.”

Two tendrils lashed out of the thing, accompanied by a burst of gas from one of the jiggling mouths. They touched his arms, suction-feelers sinking into his skin, and he hissed as pain coursed through his arteries – The creature tasted his insides, and the tendrils retreated, leaving the ragged ends of arteries to spurt blood.

Whether the creature liked it, he couldn't say, but when Elmar Rudry felt the ends of the tendrils pressing against his closed eyelids, he understood. His eyeballs popped like ripe cherries, and the scream he let out could've woken the dead. Upstairs in the saloon, there was a rattle of bones, but that stopped along with the scream as the creature's slimy appendages dug into the old man's brain, and, finding nothing of any particular interest, withdrew its tentacles.

The old man's body collapsed, limp and lifeless, and the creature returned from whence it came. A few hours later, a coyote, flea-bitten and half-starved, came upon the corpse, but the meat was far from fresh, and the smell clinging to it stung the canine's nostrils. He took a cursory sniff and turned away in search of something more palatable.

#horror fiction #horror