back to the bodies and noticed for the first time a piece of paper stuck to Riley’s chest by a wooden stake. He threw the man to the ground and walked up to Williams, grabbing the paper and momentarily flinching as he realized the note had been written in blood. He then called over to Hollis and handed him the paper.
Hollis took his brother’s hint and read the note out loud to conceal Dick’s illiteracy.
To the Rush Brothers:
If you’d like to avenge your
fallen partners,
meet me tonight at midnight
in front of the courthouse.
Dick was about to lash out at the crowd again when Jeb suddenly called over from George’s body. “Dick! He’s alive!”
Dick and Hollis rushed over to George and looked up at him. His eyes were glazed, but moving.
“Hold, on, George, we’ll get you down!”
The brothers tried pulling up on the stake but it would not budge.
“Dick!” George tried to yell but all he could manage was a gasping whisper. “Dick!”
The brothers stopped and looked up at him.
“Dick,” George wheezed. “It was . . . the judge.”
“What? George, I don’t understand.”
“He . . . bit me. I . . . couldn’t move.”
George’s head dropped and his eyes closed. They did not open again.
IX
At ten minutes before midnight the Rush brothers stood in the street outside of the courthouse, armed to the teeth. Each brother carried both pistols and shotguns. The townspeople had paid dearly for leaving George and Riley hanging up there. After George died, Dick drew his pistol and began firing indiscriminately into the crowd. Jeb and Hollis soon followed suit. When his rage was finally sated eleven people lay dead in the street while dozens more escaped with severe wounds.
Now Dick waited to meet the man who had butchered his friends. He had instructed his brothers to only aim for extremities—he wanted this bastard alive. If this fucker thought impaling was brutal, wait until he saw what Dick and his brothers had in store for him. When it came to torture, Dick was an artist—he had once tortured a man for two straight days through various methods of burning, cutting, and bludgeoning, but that was child’s play compared to what he would do to this son of a bitch.
Dick looked down at his timepiece and saw that midnight had passed two minutes ago. “Where is this fucker?”
“Maybe he chickened out,” Jeb said.
“If he has half a brain he won’t show, but we’ll still hunt him down.”
“Do you smell gas?” Hollis asked.
At that moment a figure stepped into the moonlight shining down on the courthouse steps. Two small lights glowed in front of his darkened face. Dick thought he was gazing upon some demon with glowing eyes until he realized that the lights were cigarettes. Before anyone could react, the man removed the cigarettes from his mouth and flung them to the ground on either side of him.
Large flames erupted on both sides of the stairs and rushed down in parallel lines around the Rush brothers before meeting up behind them—trapping them in a circle of flame. The massive flames illuminated the man at the top of the steps, his body enveloped in a long black judge’s robe, his bearded face hidden in the shadow cast by his dark hat.
The man slowly descended the stairs. “Dick Rush, your day of judgment has come. I condemn you to death, sentence to be carried out immediately.”
Completely forgetting his admonition to take the man alive, Dick screamed, “Kill the bastard!” and opened fire with his pistol. His brothers joined him with their shotguns and the air screamed with the sound of gunfire.
The man became a blur, darting back and forth, swirling around them like a tornado. Before Dick knew what had happened, his brothers lay dead on the ground in bloody heaps of flesh and his gun hand was empty.
The man in black stood before him holding Dick’s gun, his robe flowing in the wind.
Dick tripped to the ground and began backing away. He nearly vomited at what was left of his brothers. “I’ll kill you for this, mother fucker!”
“Yet I seem to be the one holding the gun.”
“W-what are you?”
“I am what you made me.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? I know that voice. Who are you?”
The man threw off his hat and dashed forward. In a split second he was face to face with Dick. “Haven’t you figured that out yet, asshole? The courthouse? The judge’s robe? You murdered my family! You gang raped my wife and made me watch!”
Dick’s eyes widened. “You? That’s not possible! Are you some kind of ghost?”
“Not a ghost, Dick. I’m something much worse. And I’m here to send you to hell.”
Dalton opened his mouth wide to reveal his fangs. Dick screeched at the sight but before he could even think about trying to escape, Dalton thrust the fangs into his neck.
X
Dick awoke to find himself naked and lying face down somewhere in the desert in the middle of the night, spread-eagled with his arms and legs tied to stakes in the ground. He tried to struggle but found himself unable to move or speak. A fire blazed nearby and Dick saw Dalton holding something long over the fire.
As if he knew he was being watched, Dalton suddenly looked in Dick’s direction. “Still can’t move, eh? It’s a side effect of a vampire bite. I wasn’t sure how long it lasted so I tied you up just to be safe.”
Dalton rose and walked toward Dick brandishing a long iron rod glowing orange on the end that had been in the fire.
“I tried to think of a proper punishment for what you did to my family, and particularly to my wife. Then I recalled the story of Edward II of England. It is said that he was murdered when his assassins shoved a hot piece of iron up his ass . . . or was it copper?” He shook his head. “It matters not. Suffice it to say he was killed with a hot poker similar to the one I hold here.” He positioned himself over Dick’s body. “I imagine that such a death must have been very painful. Very painful.”
XI
The next day, Dalton rode out of the Ransom city limits. When he stopped for the evening he lit a fire and sat crying for several hours. His mind had been so bent on vengeance for so long that he had not allowed himself to properly mourn for his family, but it was more than that. He also mourned the man he used to be and lamented what he had become.
Still, he could not deny the intoxicating power he now possessed and the possibilities such power offered. He had promised Marina that he would return to her when his revenge was complete, but he wasn’t ready to do that just yet. Rush was now dead but there were others out there like him—bad people who needed to be brought to justice—and Dalton now had the ability to be the instrument of that justice. At least some good could come from all this horror. He looked down at his judge’s robe and an idea occurred to him.
XII
Word soon spread among the towns of Arizona. Outlaws everywhere grew to fear the wrath of The Judge.
About the Author
Michael Rappa has been writing stories and poetry since early childhood, eventually parlaying his love of the written word into a Communications degree from Rowan University. The Eyes of Mictlan is his first novel. Michael is also an avid traveler and photographer who blogs about his experiences at rappastudios.wordpress.com. In the real world he works as a web designer in New Jersey, where he lives with his wife Jen and his dog Oliver.
Follow Michael on Twitter and Instagram at @njrappa, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/michaelanthonyrappa, or visit his website at https://www.michaelrappa.net/.
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