Night had started to fall on my brother’s farm. Finding my way should not have been easy in the dusklight. However, as the darkness fell my ability to see did not. I knocked on the door to the house. Only the wind proffered an answer. I pushed open the door and looked for a lantern or something to get some light in the dark. I found one after fumbling around in the weird twilight that my vision started to become in the dark. I go into my pockets to find a match to light the lantern. The warm light coming from the lantern illuminates the front room. There is a small layer of untouched dust on everything and I went to the bedrooms. Both the kids bedroom and the main bedroom were empty. ‘What happened, where is Molly? Did she take Patrick and Geneva somewhere’ I think as I look around.

I go to an armoire in the bedroom. I gave my brother a chest to look after, my old uniform and some unofficial weapons I bought for me to use during the wars that I didn’t use during my time as a bounty hunter. Metal cartridges are much easier to use than paper after all. I find the false bottom of the armoire, I lift it up and bring out the medium sized chest. I set it on the bed and opened it revealing the contents by lantern light. My old cavalry uniform and coat I had retired in during my time in the Union army, there were also 6 colt navy revolvers with bullets, caps and powder to load them all 3 times. Gun belts and shoulder holsters to hold all of them and my henry repeater, my golden boy I used to call it, I stopped using it due dust always getting in the bullet tube. I started to load each and every pistol slowly and carefully making sure to load them in a way so that they wouldn't chain fire on me. Then I see it, one of the trophies from the first war I was in. A weird pistol some officers in the south decided to use. It had a nine shot cylinder, which was odd but not too startling. What made it unique was what the cylinder spun around, a short barrel you could load grapeshot in, the Lagant it's called.

I remember when I got this, I wasn’t calvary at the time, just simple infantry and very young. It was in miller’s cornfield, I chanced upon a very lost confederate and sent johnny marching home earlier than he planned. I took his horse and then rode through the rest of that charnel house shooting as many of them as I could find. After the battle I got dressed down by my officer for that, but due to my shown skill on a horse, I was also invited into the calvary. I stop reminiscing when I feel, no feel ain’t quite the word, sense hits closer but see would be most accurate a man entering the room behind me revolver in hand.

As I recall this part, I struggle to say “see” as I was not facing him but he radiated something off of him that I could at once see, and smell. I could see a dull light emanate off of him, and the smell, I can only describe the feelings it elicited from me. I felt at once both hungry and angry. I turned and faced the person and then as I saw his face and then the muzzle of his revolver flashes and I feel a stinging and burning pain in my stomach.

The pain of the first shot is sharp as it burns and stings in my chest, however it was not as painful as I have come to expect from previous gunshot wounds. For I have been shot before, in fact when I was hung I stillI had a bullet buried in my shoulder. That shot hurt more than this one. Four more flashes in quick succession come from his revolver and each one hurts, but less than the last. Then I see his face, it is one of the deputies of the former sheriff.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Former sheriff because I put a bullet in the back of head while he was playing cards. He had it coming after killing my brother, killing a man since he wouldn’t sell his land is a gutless and cowardly reason to kill a man and unbecoming of someone supposed to uphold the law. Even if the man he was saying no to was Mayor Eastman, the Sheriff Eastman’s brother. My brother had struck oil on his ranch and knew he could get more money from his land, unfortunately so did the Eastman brother’s and I assume they figured a widow would be easier to pressure into getting her to sell them the land cheaply.

I pulled out my revolver from its shoulder holster, ignoring the dull pain in my chest, and put a bullet center mass into the befuddled deputy. A gut wound, which he will die from, albeit slowly. He looks at me as he clutches his chest, surprise registering in his eyes as he recognizes my face. “You’re supposed to be dead…” he stammers.

I go over to him, blood seeping out from my own wounds making the clothes i am wearing stained with my blood. “I got better” I rasp as I kneel. I am so angry I want to both watch him die slowly in front of me and bash his head in on the ground till he stops moving. I make a sign of the cross and try to control myself. “Answer me this question and I will go ahead and end your life quickly so you don’t linger and suffer. How many of Eastman’s men are in town and has he got any more since his brother died?”

The man coughs out some blood and shakes, he has started to go into shock already. “Not yet,” he says blood coming out of his mouth as he talks, “this one man from the Railroad offered him some security from the Pinkertons if he also allowed a trainline to be built to this town, but Eastman has so far declined, says the man is to sketchy and would rather get a pipeline to the next town, cheaper in the long run to maintain and more profit for him.”

“Thank you,” I say, then I have to hold myself back, not only is the anger there, I also now have this hunger welling up inside, and the smell emanating and permeating the air that is coming from him makes me want to bite into him. To tear his flesh with my mouth as he lives and devour him physically and torturing him with that pain as he dies. I long ago swore to never do that again, to never eat anyone no matter the circumstance and definitely not to someone who is still alive. I put the pistol to his head, “May you find peace with the Lord” I struggled to say and then I pulled the hammer back on the revolver and pulled the trigger, blowing his brains onto the floor.

I then run around opening every cabinet and cupboard looking for something, anything to eat. The hunger is overwhelming, more powerful than any hunger I have ever experienced including my times in the Dakota’s. I chanced upon some potted meat and jerky and canned peaches. I devour them quickly as if I have not eaten in days. The meat and jerky are especially satisfying, more so than the sweet canned peaches. I feel something weird in my stomach and lift my shirt, the bullet holes proceed to close up and heal before my eyes. “That is not natural…” I think I still have some hunger but it is manageable now.