Dead-Eyed God: A Pitchfork County Novel Read online

  Dead-Eyed God

  A Pitchfork County Novel

  Sam Witt

  Pitchfork Publishing

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  A Web of Evil

  Stay in Touch and Get Free Books!

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Come Back to Pitchfork

  Also by Sam Witt

  The Apocalypse Hive Has Opened

  Shit the Author Says

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, business establishments, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  HALF-MADE GIRLS

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Pitchfork Press

  Copyright © 2015 by Sam Witt

  Cover art by KPGS

  This e-book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  First Edition: November, 2015

  To Kim, for reading every word, even the bad ones.

  To Lethe, for killing the dumb stuff.

  To Aurelia, for keeping it real.

  To Kait, for spreading the word.

  To my readers, for sharing the journey.

  A Web of Evil

  Something is draining Pitchfork’s citizens dry and hanging them from trees. But when Joe Hark tries to get to the bottom of the string of murders, he finds himself at odds with the new sheriff and at war with the Long Man.

  As Joe unravels the web of betrayal and ancient evil, he finds himself alone and forced to make a terrible gamble that will either save Pitchfork County, or damn them all.

  Stay in Touch and Get Free Books!

  Learn about new releases, download free books, and get cool swag at http://www.samwitt.com/free/main-amz

  1

  The Ranchero screamed down I-44 like a banshee with its ass on fire. Lenny clung to the steering wheel like the captain of a haunted pirate ship. She howled along with the radio, screaming lyrics that made her heart race and her teeth itch for the feel of skin between them. Next to her, Roger drummed on the car’s cracked plastic dash and ground his teeth into a manic meth grin. “We almost there?

  Lenny nodded. She could feel how close they were. She’d never thought they’d come back, not after what the Night Marshal had done to the Haunter in Darkness, but she’d been wrong. The great bat had demanded they return. It had plans for them.

  They’d been driving all day, hightailing it out of Oklahoma where the rest of the family had holed up near some casino or other and were so high on meth and bloodlust Lenny was amazed they hadn’t killed anyone yet. That’ll change, she thought to herself. Real soon.

  It was three in the morning before they found their turnoff and started winding their way deep into Pitchfork’s backcountry. Lenny killed the radio and slapped Roger when he looked at her funny. “Shut up. We gotta keep it down, now. We’re in his territory.”

  This was the hard part of the trip. If they could reach their destination without attracting any attention, they had a good chance of carrying out the rest of their plan. But if the fucking Night Marshal found them before they could get set up, they were good as dead. Lenny could still see the slaughter when she closed her eyes before falling asleep. The Night Marshal wasn’t a man; he was a devil.

  “But you’re gonna get yours, asshole,” she whispered.

  “What’d you say?” Roger was staring at her again. He looked at her in a way that made her feel beautiful and weird. Despite her spade-like nose and scalloped ears, Roger was fascinated by her. Lenny didn’t know how to deal with that.

  So she slapped him.

  “Goddamn, why ya always gotta hit me?”

  Lenny smiled at him and pressed her fingertip to his lips. “Shhhh, okay?”

  It took her longer than she’d expected to find the house. Blackberry bushes scraped along the Ranchero’s sides and Ortiz yelped from the back. Lenny looked in the rearview mirror and saw him sucking on a long gash on his arm. He’d be okay.

  The house was huge, bigger than any Lenny’d ever been in before. It was also dark. It was four in the morning, and winter was still heavy on the land; it’d be hours before the sun was up. Perfect.

  She killed the Ranchero a hundred yards from the house and punched out the overhead light before she opened her door. They’d stolen the car from some shithole of a gas station on the border. What’d she care what happened to it?

  “Leave the doors open,” she whispered, to keep Roger from slamming his door and waking up the whole damned county.

  Roger and Ortiz followed her up to the house. She kept expecting something to happen, but they reached the door without incident. “Old bitch must be losing her touch,” she snickered to herself.

  Ortiz passed Lenny and knelt before the lock. He flipped out a little wallet filled with shiny metal tools and went to work. Within a few seconds, he had it open. He backed away from the door and sketched a bow to Lenny. “After you, m’lady.”

  She gave Ortiz a halfhearted punch and went into the house. The witch had failed them in the caves, so she had to pay. Plus, they needed a place to crash for a couple of days until the rest of the plan fell into place.

  They crept through the house, quiet as shadows. The Haunter had prepared them for this trip. Even injured, the great bat was powerful enough to hide them in its darkness.

  The smell of failure led them to the old witch. She slept sitting up in a recliner, a CPAP machine plastered over her deformed nose. Its thumping whoosh was the only thing that let the old woman sleep without choking to death. Lenny jabbed a finger at the machine. “That’s what losing looks like.”

  She wasn’t trying to be quiet anymore. It was clear the witch had lost her touch and no longer had any of the Haunter’s blessing. She slapped the CPAP machine off the witch’s face and then backhanded her hard across the mouth before she woke.

  “Wha-”

  Lenny backhanded her again and was pleased to see her rings dug furrows into the bitch’s cheek. “Miss us, you stupid bitch?”

  Recognition burst like a firefly’s tail in the witch’s eyes. “No, I did what I
was told. I did my best.”

  Lenny motioned to Ortiz and Roger. They pinned the woman’s flabby arms back to the sides of the recliner. She couldn’t move. All she could do now was stare up at Lenny.

  When Lenny was a little girl, her daddy had given her a special present. It was long and smooth and sharp as hell. The straight razor had been worn down by years of honing, but it still held a keen edge. The special part was the jutting point that stuck out from its leading edge. It was a spike of sharpened steel that let her use the razor like a dagger once it was locked into position.

  She snapped it open and held the tip of the blade just below the witch’s jaw. “Your best wasn’t good enough. And now it’s time to pay.”

  The spike slipped through the crepe-paper skin under the old woman’s jaw. Blood welled around its tip and burbled up through the old lady’s lips.

  Lenny wanted to slice her open and drain her dry, but that wasn’t part of the plan. The old woman had failed their master, and so her blood was tainted. Drinking from her was forbidden.

  Lenny tore the blade from the woman’s neck. Blood shot from the wound, and Lenny reveled in the sticky warmth as it splashed across her face and throat. This was her favorite part.

  Ortiz and Roger let the old lady go, and she sprang up out of the recliner like a jack-in-the-box on crack. Her hands flew to the wound on her neck, and she ran spurting through the house. Lenny laughed, and the three of them chased after her.

  They let her run but kept her from escaping the house. She’d get almost to the door before one of them would leap out of the shadows and scream into her face. The game went on for minutes, and the house filled with the perfume of blood and fear.

  At last, the old woman ran out of blood. She made it halfway up the stairs before collapsing in a bloody heap. Lenny knelt down next to her and brushed the greasy hair from the witch’s face. She liked to see them like this, just as the last of their life faded away and their face was still locked in a mask of eternal horror. It made Lenny feel strong.

  Satisfied the witch had paid her price, Lenny led the others upstairs. They weren’t done just yet.

  Because there was another person they needed to see. They needed him to play a part in their plan, so they wouldn’t kill him. Not yet.

  She sniffed him out by the smell of urine. He was hiding in his bedroom, under the bed in a puddle of his own piss. She motioned, and Ortiz and Roger flipped the bed up against the wall.

  He cowered in his underwear, curled in on himself like an infant. He didn’t look at them, just clamped his eyes shut and whimpered, “Don’t kill me.”

  Lenny hated cowards. She flicked the razor across his thigh, opening a gash in the pallid flesh. “Open your fucking eyes, asshole.”

  He did. They were a dull brown, almost yellow. He flinched away from her gaze, unwilling to meet her eyes. “Please.”

  Lenny cut him again and grinned at his cries. “Do you recognize us?”

  He nodded.

  “Good.” She slashed him across the ribs and watched the blood ooze down his side. She licked her lips. “We need your help.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t do anything. I don’t know what you want. Leave me alone.”

  Lenny laughed at that. She lunged forward and bit Frank on the shoulder. She bore down with her teeth as he screamed. Her incisors punched through his flesh, and she tasted his terror. She tore a chunk of meat from him and swallowed it down. “That’s not gonna happen. Nosirree, you’re going to help us see this through.”

  He peered at her through the fingers clamped across his face. “What do you want from me?”

  Lenny leaned forward until her face was close to his. “Mr. Frank Blackbriar, this is the luckiest day of your life.”

  She grinned and licked his blood from her teeth.

  “You’re gonna help us kill the Night Marshal.”

  2

  Jimmy saw the first spider farting around under the edge of the sink. Its skinny legs tip-tapped up the dirty porcelain as it dragged its bloated, juicy belly up onto the rim. Jimmy froze and bit his lip to keep from squealing like a little girl. He hated spiders, always had. “Fuck you, bug.”

  He grabbed the filthy washrag he kept in the bathroom for the rare times he bothered to scrub his hands after taking care of business and smashed the eight-legged bastard against the side of the sink. The belly ruptured under his fingers, soaking the threadbare cloth with green goo. Jimmy tossed the spider-stained rag into the toilet and flushed it without a thought for how it might gum up his plumbing. He didn’t breathe again until the toilet had swallowed it whole. He leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and brushed the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “You got it,” he whispered to himself, “good job.”

  He opened his eyes and screamed.

  Another spider clung to the wall behind the toilet. It scrambled across the cracking wallpaper toward the ceiling. Jimmy chased the spider with his eyes, and immediately wished he hadn’t. A cluster of arachnids crouched where the ceiling met the wall. The clump swelled as more spiders crawled out of the shadows to join them. Their black eyes reflected the light from the nicotine-stained bulb hanging naked from the bathroom’s ceiling, coating them in a sulfurous sheen. “Oh, fuck this,” Jimmy gasped, “just fuck this.”

  He scrambled out of the bathroom, slipping as his heel splattered another of the spiders against the tiles. Its guts stuck to the bottom of his shoe and felt like gritty snot, slippery and waiting to trip him up. He dragged his foot across the carpet in the hall, leaving a sticky smear of spider remains in his wake. As hard as he scrubbed his foot against the patchy carpet, he couldn’t get the greasy smear off the sole of his shoe.

  Something crawled across the back of Jimmy’s neck. He jumped away from the wall and scraped his hands from the base of his skull down to his shoulders. His fingers came away covered in silvery threads that clung to his flesh like glue. He rubbed his palm against the stained thighs of his jeans, but the stuff wouldn’t come off. It clung to whatever it touched and seemed to multiply as it spread.

  Jimmy ran down the hall into more gluey threads. The sticky fibers clung to his face, sealing his left eye closed and coating his lips. His hands shot to his face as he staggered, an instinct that only served to make the situation worse. Jimmy’s palm stuck to his cheek, and the webs glued the fingers of his other hand to his cheek.

  Where had all these fucking spiders come from? The trailer wasn’t the cleanest place, but Jimmy had never seen an infestation like this. They were everywhere. Spiders crawled across the ceiling in thick lines. They scrambled over the walls like a living blanket. It was as if someone had herded a dump truck full of the little bastards right through his front door.

  Jimmy peeled his hands from his face and stumbled down the hall. He had to get out of the trailer. He could call an exterminator, get the place fumigated. Or maybe he’d just burn it to the ground and make sure he got all the little fuckers.

  The spiders weren’t ready to let Jimmy go. He careened through another web, and another. Spider silk covered his head and torso, an organic sheath that grew heavier with every step he took. Jimmy imagined the hundreds, maybe thousands, of juicy spiders that had spun the webs. Those spiders were still in the house. They could be crawling all over him right that second, but he couldn’t tell because he was so gummed up with their webs. The thought sent a desperate whine spiraling up from Jimmy’s lungs.

  Blinded by the webs coating his face, Jimmy struggled to find a way out of the trailer. Greasy spider guts spurted from the bellies of spiders he stomped on, turning the rough carpet slippery. Jimmy’s feet shot out from underneath him, and he crashed to the floor. Dozens of spiders pounced on him the instant he fell. They cast more silken lines over him, trying to pin him to the floor. Jimmy’s whine became a full-throated scream. He struggled to his knees, splattering more of the spiders under his body and crawled in what he hoped was the direction of the front door.

  Spiders
popped like juicy bubble wrap beneath his palms. Fat plops across his back told him more of the eight-legged horrors were falling from the ceiling. He struggled to breathe as the spiders swarmed over him and clogged his nostrils and mouth with fresh layers of webs.

  I’ll burn it down, he thought. He’d get outside, circle around to the plastic shed where he kept his lawnmower and its gas. He’d douse the whole trailer then light the fucker up. It wasn’t like he was ever going to be able to go back into the place, much less live there. All he’d ever be able to see was an undulating mob of spiders waiting to spin their webs around him and suck him dry. No, fuck that; it was time for the purifying flames to burn that nightmare away.

  The front door’s knob banged into Jimmy’s hip, and tears of relief welled in his eyes. His sticky hands made it hard to turn the knob. Hairy legs scuttled through his hair, and prickly feet scraped against his ears. He tried the knob again, but fear and frustration made him clumsy. Panicked, he drew back from the door and threw himself against it.

  Spiders smashed between his shoulder and the door, soaking through the web and into his shirt. He reared back again and threw himself forward, sobbing with panic. More spiders ruptured, and their gooey guts plastered his shirt to his skin, but this time the thin aluminum door burst free from its frame with a sharp crack.

  Jimmy tripped over the top step and sprawled headlong into the trailer’s gravel driveway. Rocks bit into the palms of his hands and scraped patches of skin from his chin and cheeks, but he was glad for the pain’s distraction. He was glad, too, that the rocks ground away at least some of the webs clinging to him. The night air slipped through the shredded webs and tickled against his abraded skin. He’d never felt anything more welcome; it was like being able to breathe again.

  Better yet, the dirt and stones clung to the webs and replaced their sticky surfaces with a layer of grit. Jimmy was able to clear swathes of silver silk away from his hands and face. He gulped in air and wept with the raw relief of being free of the trailer. He’d lived in the little shitbox his entire life, but he was going to be happy to see it burn. “Fucking spiders,” he growled and swatted one of them from his left shoulder.