[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/6bK49TU.jpg[/img][/center] [b]”The Ranchero of Miracle Mesa” - Strings: Part Five; Finale[/b] [center][i]“The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.”[/i][/center] [center][indent]-Anonymous[/indent][/center] [hr] [indent][b]Warpath, Texas[/b][/indent] [hr] Greg Saunders felt at the edge of his own consciousness. It was a struggle to piece his thoughts together, words drifted away from his grasp and ideas seemed to disappear in puffs of smoke. It was just about all he could do to snatch what he could and hope everything wound its way back to normal. It wasn’t so much like being a passenger in his own head, and it wasn't an out of body experience, either. It was more like watching a bad picture show, with a black screen held for an uncomfortable amount of time. Except the theater was an arena of hellfire, with demons and lost souls cheering from the sidelines. Greg would've been baffled by the enormity of the place if he could think straight. It was like the one time his Pap had taken him to the Superbowl; the seats seemed to stretch out and beyond into infinity. Each row of chairs had seas of people up and down them; there wasn’t an empty seat for miles. Occasionally the sea of deadened faces was broken up by the visage of a demon, a deep red face screwed up into a perverse smile. Usually they had their claws wrapped around the headrest of the seat in front of them, squeezing and cracking the brimstone when the black color on the screen before them seemed to shift. But the people around them were hollow. Black and white phantoms, representing what they might have been, once. The woman sat next to him was a young thing, but her cheeks festered a green color out of the monochrome. She rubbed the bump in her tummy and stared half lidded at the screen. Something seemed [i]wrong[/I] with her. Something wrong with all the people here. The woman turned to face Greg and her head lolled at an unnatural angle. There was a groove on the opposite side of her face, where a bullet had blown out her eye and ear. “You have to kill that man for us, Mr. Saunders.” Her voice crawled from her throat like a slug, the words seemed to slop out in a puddle of mucus. Greg pushed himself backwards into the fabric of his seat and averted his gaze. His eyes locked on the screen. Something was changing -- the blackness was beginning to crack… [hr] The body of Greg Saunders trembled. The doll began to steam in the Texas heat, wisps of smoke pushing through minute cracks in the wood facade. The tremble grew into a shudder, kicking up millions of sand particles. As soon as they settled onto Greg’s body they flash-burned into glass, tinkling off the side of his chest. Boiling red spiderweb cracks leaped across the surface of the laquer, up and down every inch of his form. [color=#3d045e][b]“DUUUUMMMMYYYYYY!”[/b][/color] Greg Saunder’s body detonated like a homemade grenda, wood shrapnel speeding away at a thousand miles an hour from the only thing that remained; the Spirit of Vengeance. Fire spilled from every hole and seam in what was left of Vigilante’s clothing, up to the inferno that surrounded a stark white skull. The creature pulled itself to his knees, not so much standing up as being levitated to its feet. It was a skeleton in what was left of Greg’s body. Motes of flesh still floated away and disintegrated into ash as a bony hand ripped Vigilante’s lariat from it’s hip. The lariat cracked in the monster’s hand and curled around the top car of the barrier. The monster jerked its shoulder and the junker sailed into the depths of the desert, landing with a sickening crunch. The Spirit jumped into the air in a plume of smoke and ash, easily vaulting what was left of the wall and coming down like a nuclear bomb. A corona of fire swept out from its point of impact, licking building facades and boiling away paintjobs. The Dummy stood at the far end of the road, surrounding by statues of townsfolk. Their limbs were splayed out at unnatural angles, controlled by invisible marionette strings. The man himself sat astride Billy Gunn’s truck, his hand covering his eyes from the glow. [color=#4575c1]”We-ull hoe-lee shee-it! They did-uh nawt te-ull me tha-ut yew war a gosh-dang met-uh-hoo-man!”[/color] The Dummy said. He hacked out a cough. [color=#4575c1]“That accent is fucking murder on the throat, by the way.”[/color] [color=#3d045e][b]“Your soul...”[/b][/color] The Spirit took slow steps towards the crowd, a path of glass being burned in its wake. [color=#3d045e][b]“Is stained with the blood of innocents...”[/b][/color] Its voice was powerful, booming with the power of thousands of anguished souls joined as one. It began to make slow circles with the lariat as it walked. [color=#3d045e][b]“Feel their pain.”[/b][/color] The whip cracked and shot through the air for Dummy’s neck. Before it could make contact, a hand shout out of the crowd. The burning lariat wrapped itself up and down Billy Gunn’s arm in a vice grip. The Dummy cackled. [color=#4575c1]”Oh, I’m quaking in my fucking boots. Lose the Halloween costume and the melodrama and maybe I’d take you seriously.”[/color] The Dummy levelled his tommy gun. [color=#4575c1]”You want to tell me where the trident is? Or are you interested in seeing these fine folks filled with holes?”[/color] The collective mass of dummies turned to face The Spirit, their heads hanging and awkward angles from their bodies. The Spirit snarled and the lariat untangled itself and snaked back to him. [color=#3d045e][b]“I will show you where.”[/b][/color] It croaked. It’s hand moved slow and open-palmed down its leg, moving past the holster and down to a side pocket. Skeletal fingers wrestled with the button of the pocket. The Dummy looked on, eyes locked on the Spirit’s hands. It was a regular stand-off. Two gunmen locked on one another. Waiting to see who’d shoot first. The Dummy’s finger sat inside of his trigger guard. The Spirit’s opposite hand lay on the oaken handle of his pistol, slowly boiling away in the lollicking flames. The Spirit’s hand closed around a folded sheet of paper. The Dummy looked on down his nose. The thing pulled out the paper gingerly, thumb and forefinger pressed against it. The flames seemed to recede from the paper, avoiding it at all costs. A dry wooden tongue tried to lick The Dummy’s parted lips. The Spirit brought the paper to waist level. He flicked it out to full size. The Dummy kept his eyes on the blank side of the parchment. A skeletal finger crept around to the marked side of the paper, gingerly turning it around. It was an Ad for Red Buffalo Dog Foods. The last remnant of the newspaper Vig had on him when he was dragged to hell. The Dummy’s finger started to press against the trigger, it was too late. A bullet fired through the paper, wreated in hellfire, blasting through the Dummy’s shooting hand. [color=#4575c1]”Sonofabitch!”[/color] The tommy gun dropped from the stump of The Dummy’s hand and he dropped to his knees, cradling the wound as a cascade of splinters still dropped from it. [color=#4575c1]”Kill him!”[/color] [hr] Greg Saunders still wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at. There seemed to be an ocean of wooden bodies throwing themselves at the screen, being battered and thrown away by the pair of skeletal hands that dominated the POV shot. He defeated them mercilessly, but nonlethally. After Hell, Greg could tell when someone was fighting to kill, and the creature wasn’t. He just pushed his way through the throng of bodies, sweeping some aside with the forms of another, the oak of their bodies suffering nary a crack. Greg found himself transfixed by it. There was a kind of rhythm to the violence, a beating heart and a drive to it. It was like he could feel the creature’s drive in his soul. Kill The Dummy. It was like it flowed through the theater, every set of eyes, demon and human alike, paid rapt attention to the screen. Watching, waiting for The Dummy to appear out of the random chaos. Or to start shooting. But something felt wrong to Greg. His stomach turned and grumbled, and he felt a little pressure behind his eyes. As if someone very small and very helpless was inside of Greg and trying to make themselves known. A tiny voice was whispering in the back of his head: “No.” Should he feel bad…? The thoughts were running from him faster than he could collect them. He was dimly aware of rage of the edge of his mind. That someone would come and take what he had, but a mortal man. Not one of Mephisto’s forces. There was regret, too, sadness. To kill a man. But that all seemed ephemeral now. The creature was all there was, and all that ever would be. Vengeance must be done. [hr] The Spirit grabbed a dummy's neck and hurled it back into the depths of the crowd. There were so many of them. For every puppet he dropped another rose and took its place, unconcerned with its injuries. It would be wrong to kill them, if they could die in that state. This was all about Him. Dull images flashed in The Spirit’s mind. A frail boy bathing in the blood of bully, bowie knife clenched in hand. A disfigured young man, kicking open a door and unleashing a clip on women. Children. The same small man pouring gasoline over a Chinatown eatery. There was glee on his face. Through the crowd of attackers, The Spirit could just make out The Dummy. The little man tried and failed to heft his weapon with the hand he had left, the wooden stump of the other was pressed tight against his chest. The Spirit set its jaw and hissed. There was a force behind its eyes, fueling the fires that broiled in its skull. The anguish and fear and pain of hundreds, balled up and pressurized into a cascade of hellfire, swelling up and down its body, driving its skeletal limbs towards their prize. The creature snatched another from the crowd and battered away two others with it. It pushed now, making long strides through the crowd, bowling them over and clearing a path. The Spirit discarded the battering ram and sprinted for The Dummy, who looked around in fear, for perhaps the first time in his life. The Spirit reached Gunn’s truck and battered it aside with an open palm. A burst of hellfire smashed into the car and flung it to its side, leaving nothing but open dust between The Spirit and its target. The Spirit’s jaw unhinged and free infero began spilling from it, accentuating its trail as it took its strides towards The Dummy. The mobster pushed himself back with both his feet, trying desperately to bring the gun to bear. The Spirit’s lariat snapped out and pitched the weapon through a shattered storefront. The Dummy lay back on his haunches. Oil dripped down The Dummy’s face in place of tears. [color=#4575c1]”Do it.”[/color] The Dummy whispered. Any confidence in his voice was gone. He resigned himself to his death. He leaned forward, keeping his head down. Oil slicked the sands. [color=#4575c1]”Just take me out of this fucking hell.”[/color] He begged. The Spirit placed a hand under The Dummy’s chin, and the flames licked his ligneous skin. He hefted him into the air. [color=#4575c1]”Do it!”[/color] The Dummy spat. Oil spittle burned on contact with The Spirit’s face. Two hands gripped either side of The Dummy’s head. A black blaze started in The Spirit’s eye sockets, boring into The Dummy’s soul. [color=#3d045e][b]“Look into my eyes. This is but a glimmer of the torment that awaits you.”[/b][/color] The inferno made slow, careful circles through the air, covering and wrapping around The Dummy’s eyes, boring their way into his very being. [i]He was a little boy. Smaller than the other children. Weaker. The world itself seemed unkind. Skyscrapers reached into the sky all around him, monoliths that crushed him into his place with beneath their might. Mom and Dad looked at him funny. Took him to lots of Doctors, the ones they could afford. They told them stuff ie big words he couldn’t understand. Stuff about his face being all wrong. His arms and legs didn’t fit right on his body. He’d never get to be very tall. The kids at school didn’t let him forget it. Every day, Bobby Fuentes would come around at the same time. Calling him the “Dummy Boy”. You could set your watch by it. Eventually, enough was enough. Bobby’s blood felt good on his hands. All warm and slick. It was so nice. But something felt wrong, now. A dim awareness washed over him. This was a memory. Pain started throbbing behind his eyeballs. No. Stop. He felt it again. Twisting the knife in the bully’s guts. He felt it in his own stomach, the knife churning the food in his stomach from lunch that day, slicing through muscle and sinew and snipping his intestines. Vomit rose in his throat. Please. Let me die. Now he was in Mr. Chow’s Food/Deli Emporium. He almost couldn’t focus on the smell of the gasoline over the agony in his abdomen. The fire rose up around him, licking off his skin and boiling the liquid of his eyeballs. NO! NO! NO! He felt a hand on his face, that searing, unforgivable hand. The Man With The Tattooed Hand gripped his face. The wood swept over his body, suffocating every feeling besides the pain. The pain was all that was left. Sealed from the outside world of feeling, left to stew in the fire, searing his skin off over and over again, the fragments of steel in his stomach from the knife wedging itself deeper and deeper, hundreds of gunshot wounds. Anguish over lost children he’d never had. Dead fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters. Please, God. Tears.[/i] Warpath had fallen silent. The dummies lay in a pile on the ground, unmoving without command from their master. The Dummy’s eyes were rolled back into his head. Living through the pain of every sin he’d ever committed. Over, and over, and over again. It was too good for him, but it wouldn’t be for very long. The Spirit took its time tightening the lariat around The Dummy’s neck. Dragging him to the old Saloon, gingerly stepping between the forms of the townsfolk. Dragging him way high up into the sky… [i]Release.[/i]