Hell Hole by Hunter Shea

Author:Hunter Shea
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, haunted, Western, supernatural, Hell, Richard Laymon, Jonathan Maberry, Ronald Malfi
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2014-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Four

There must have been a half dozen of them gathered outside the door. They were tall, broad, covered in matted hair and downright repulsive smelling. Man or beast, it no longer mattered. I’d had enough.

Teta and I didn’t wait a beat. We pulled back on our triggers, hitting everything in sight. The noise was deafening. It should have echoed off into the distance, but it was like the darkness had come with thick walls and a close ceiling. I was past trying to make sense of things.

“Hurts, don’t it?” I shouted as I took one of the beasts right in the gut. It jumped and folded in on itself, falling to the dust and dirt. Teta shouted something in Spanish, unloading his pistols into everything that moved.

The creatures, or men, took off in the direction of the hills. We shot as many as we could in the back. Fuck honor. Dying was dying and it made no difference whether you took it head on or looking away.

I threw one of the lamps and flames erupted in a long line as it shattered. It gave us a longer field of light so we could take care of business.

Teta took aim at a retreating beast. It was the tallest of the bunch, maybe a good eight feet tall. He squeezed the trigger and the top of its head exploded. It ran a few more steps before falling facedown.

The rest had dashed off into the dark. We could hear them but we could no longer see them. A half-dozen wooly bodies lay about the street. I saw the chest rise on one of them and shot it in the heart.

I should have been breathing heavily and my nerves should have been singing with adrenaline. Instead, I was filled with a warm sense of calm. It felt damn good to take matters into my own hands for once, no matter how brutal or messy.

“Mierda, jefe,” Teta said, covering his nose and mouth with his dirty bandana. “It hurts to breathe. How can you stand it?”

The bodies were smoking.

A part of me knew I was standing in the center of one of the most malodorous shitpiles a man would ever come across. Instead of gagging, I savored it. The closeness of the air made sure the stink draped over us like a blanket dipped in skunk entrails, horse shit and spoiled meat.

I was so busy admiring our handiwork that I had forgotten about Selma.

Relief swept over me when I darted back inside and saw her standing tall, covering Matthias and Angus with my pistol. The gun quivered a bit in her hand, so I took hold of the barrel and holstered it.

“Did you get all of them?” she asked.

“Most. The rest will think twice before coming back.”

Teta came back inside and slammed the door. He brought our two remaining lamps in with him. “We’re going to have to move upwind. This place is going to get bad real quick.”

Matthias stroked the ends of his dark mustache.

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