Riders Where There Are No Roads (Riders of the Weird West Book 1) by David Bain

Author:David Bain [Bain, David]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: a/a Productions
Published: 2014-05-29T16:00:00+00:00

14. Clyde’s Eyes

“He’s my brother!” Reed cried as the glowing-eyed corpse pleaded to be cut down. “Them demons, whatever they was, turned him into this.”

Darke looked into Reed’s eyes a moment, then lowered his weapon, though Brodie didn’t. Darke looked at Rosalita, then motioned toward Clyde with his head. Rosalita hesitated a moment, then went over and cut the rope where it was tied to the strangleberry bush.

Clyde fell roughly to the ground. Reed rushed over to him, helping his brother up to his unsteady feet and hugging him.

“How’s it you ain’t dead, Clyde?” Brodie asked.

Clyde closed his eyes for a moment, making him look almost normal, except for his unusual height. When he opened them again there was a pitiful look in them, as if someone he’d known had indeed died. “I ain’t never gonna die here, Reed,” he said in a subdued tone. “You don’t die in this world. You just become … more like them.”

“How could you know such a thing?” Brodie asked.

Clyde looked at the group around him, then pointed at his eyes. “I see them. I’m … it’s like I’m a part of … of him. I can see through his eyes….”

Darke drew back the hammer of his Colt and looked up at the canyon walls. “Where is he, Clyde? Is he here? Where’d he go after we shot him?”

“No,” Clyde said. No, he ain’t here. He’s … he’s kinda scared of us. He ain’t never seen nothin’ like this before. He’s …” Clyde closed his eyes in apparent concentration. “He’s gonna watch us awhile. It’s like I know a little of what he’s thinking, though I don’t think he knows my thoughts. Right now he’s …” – Clyde closed his eyes again – “… at a camp.”

“A camp?” Brodie said. “It can’t be very far away, then.”

“It is. It’s a half-day’s ride for us. Maybe more. He made the trip in an instant when y’all shot him. And…”

Clyde’s eyes suddenly looked hollow despite their glow. What little strength he’d had left seemed to sap from his body.

“And what?” Brodie asked.

“And there’s people there. People like me. Dozens. A hundred, maybe. His men are … doing unspeakable things to them, making them like him. Like me.”

“Clyde,” Darke said. “How exactly did they make you this way?”

“We died on the battlefield at Williamsburg, me and Clyde,” Reed said, ignoring that the question had been for his brother. “Then we found ourselves walking through a fog and wound up here. We walked for a few days, starving, before Barrow found us. Then they tortured Clyde and made me watch, saying I was next, but only after I suffered by watching my brother suffer. They cut him. They done awful things to him that he shouldn’t oughta be lived through. But he healed quick. And each time he healed, he became … a little more like them.”

“Clyde,” Darke said. “I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on all this, simply because it feels true. I lived much of my life going on intuition and it never failed me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.