Official Doomtown Fiction: Echoes.

Tenth and final official Doomtown story, Echoes

Original Doomtown Fiction: Exeunt Omnes

Exeunt Omnes - By Ross Fisher-Davis.

The sword on Abram’s hip was heavy. For some time now, it had weighed on him. Heavier than the gun in his holster, heavier than the weight of his impossible charge, heavier than the crushing regrets of his past.
He ran his hand to the hilt and gripped it firmly. The weight was reassuring. The weight was his righteous force to bear. He steeled himself to swing Evanor against his enemies one last time.

The streets of Gomorra had begun to empty. People were either running, hiding, or already dead. The taste of panic still lit the dusty air, and the Fourth Rings explosions had coloured the sky with a looming miasma of red sand and dust. Down every street there were screams. Abram wanted to run to his people, to protect them from the horrors the circus had unleashed, but he gripped the hilt of Evanor tighter, and strode on. The remaining deputies had to be trusted to help the townspeople, but the head of the beast had to be severed before the jaws would stop snapping. Abram, and the souls that strode at his side towards an otherwise empty clearing near the town center, were coming for Ivor Hawley.

When Abram had come to Gomorra, he hadn’t pictured it like this. He’d seen a border town, terrors in the past. Renewing, rebuilding. Not walking through streets lit with Hell, with men and women, crazy and criminal alike, to face the forces of darkness that gripped Gomorra in a choke-hold.
At his side were the good ones, the ones who’d stepped up to take Gomorra back.
Wendy, she’d been here since the start, rifle in her steady hands, and determination on her face. Old Prescott Utter, looking like something that blew in with the tumbleweeds, but still here, and still fighting. Pancho and Kingsford, a wanted outlaw and a wanted outlaw Huckster. Almost made Abram want to smile. He didn’t know if they were doing this for the town, or just hoping for a pardon out of it. Abram liked to think he saw the best in people. Muttering to herself and wringing her hands furthest from Abram was Valeria Batten, previously of the Fourth Ring. Their conduit to information. It was this scholarly woman, one lens in her fine spectacles shattered, who had given them Ivor’s location, the convergence of his leylines.

Behind them all, frantically twisting a screw in a tiny little weapon that looked more like a child’s toy, was the Frenchman.

When Abram had met Pasteur, he’d thought the man’s nut thoroughly cracked. Seemed fair enough that everything hinged on the science of a madman now though. Abram’s arm still ached from where Louis had injected the cocktail that would, if promises held, protect the assembled from Ivor’s apocalyptic contagion.

Louis was cursing at himself in French as he fussed with the little weapon. The tiny vial within that held their hopes. No bullets, no swords would cut through the monster that Ivor had become. Pasteur claimed he could undo the ringmaster with the product of bottles and chemicals.
Abram felt the ugly truth rising again. To face the monster with untested science? Took a lot of faith.
Please let him be right. Please let us be right. His grip firm upon the hilt of his heavy sword, Abram prayed as they walked.
“Because he is my right hand, I shall not be shaken…”

______________________

Drew held a hand out and frantically motioned for Tyler and Jack to quiet down. He leaned to peer out of the horse paddock they had been setting up all night.
“He’s here I swear it, the Goblin’s here.”
There was a crash up ahead, something big.
Jack and Tyler looked at each other warily, their faces ruddy with smoke from the blasts.
“That ain’t no Goblin Drew, that sounds like a monster. We gotta get outta here!” 

Tyler was wringing his little hands like he’d seen Ms Jenks do when she examined his homework.

Drew turned on them, a child, his tiny slingshot gripped tightly in his hand.
“And go where? Back to the orphanage? Where the others are hiding like mice? No, we chased this thing down, we’re gonna trap it and get it. This is our Goblin. Then they’ll see what the Jackalope gang can do.”
“Way better than a kung-fu gang.” Chimed in Jack between coughs.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Now let's go over the plan!” Drew stepped back into the paddock. He gestured at the net they’d strung up between the rickety doors facing the town.
“So when Jack runs in here, he’ll jump over the net and lead the Goblin right into it. And then…”
Jack raised a hand.
“Why’s it gotta be me you use as bait?”
“You’re the fastest Jack.”
“Nuh uh, you’re the fastest, Drew, you always telling that story about how you outrun that dust devil coming back from the corner store.”
“I’m leader and I say so Jack, that’s why. So after you jump the net, and the goblin gets all stuck up in it, Tyler up there,” He pointed to a canvas sack, hanging precariously from the rafters, bulging with shapes, “He lets loose the big bag, it lands on the goblin’s head and wham! We got ourselves a goblin!”
Tyler examined the net and the bag suspiciously.
“What if…. I mean…You think this is gonna work Drew?”
“You gotta have faith Ty, what can go wrong?” Drew winked.


Abram drew his pistol and aimed up into the dusty haze before him. Shadows dwelt there, figures thrashing, fighting. Grisly yells and cries, sounds of a clash. Wendy readied her rifle in stoic silence.
Each one of them stood with breaths caught, waiting for the enemy to emerge from the dust.
A clown, blood spattered down the front of his motley, stumbled into view, a fire poker held in one hand. He tripped, fell, and landed splayed out in the dirt, a tomahawk buried in his back.
The figures that emerged from the dust were no fourth ring. Abram motioned for his allies to lower their weapons.
“Who goes there?!” he called out.
The first two figures were unremarkable men; a bearded soldier reloading a shotgun, and a swarthy man in a torn shirt, a curved sword slung over his shoulder. The man who walked between them, however, stood so tall it seemed for a moment a trick of the eye.
“Abram…” Wendy said, shock in her voice, “Abram, it’s the Chief. That’s Stephen Seven-Eagles.”

“Why do they call him that?” Maria asked.
“Looks like he eats that many for breakfast,” snorted Pancho.
Abram hushed them and stepped forward,
“Chief Seven-Eagles?” he said, warily. The Chief continued to approach until he stood a mere foot from Abram, his massive chest bare and crossed with war paint and spilled blood. From around his head, a corona of white feathers stood tall, each one decorated with words for ferocity, for power, for blood.
“Sheriff Grothe?” Stephen replied, a voice like rumbling thunder, “You yet live.”
“For the moment.”
Stephen looked left, then right, then back to Abram.
“Your town is broken.”
“It’s my town now, huh?” Abram raised an eyebrow.
“Your responsibility to fix it, man of God. That is your burden.” Stephen pointed at the hilt of Evanor.
“That is it. Just so happens my friends and I here are on our way to crush Ivor Hawley into the dirt.”
Stephen looked to his men, the bearded one spat as he responded.
“The circus man, the big one.”
Stephen nodded gravely.
“The Crooked Man. They say he can’t be killed.”
Abram opened his mouth to speak, when he was interrupted by a rush of enthusiasm from Pasteur. 

“He can most certainly be killed, Monsuier Oiseau. Here, here is his downfall.”
Pasteur produced the tiny pistol, beaming. Stephen didn’t look convinced.
“It’s true,” Said Valeria, her quiet voice scratchy with smoke. “His power is in his blood, in the infection. This counter-pathogen fights back, makes the infection become….allergic to itself, it’ll devour him from within.”
“Science cannot bring down magic.” Stephen said, looking at the little weapon. Pasteur positively beamed.
“Science can do everything, monsieur,” he pointed to the sharp point of the needle at the muzzle of his device, “This science will unmake his magic. I promise you.”
Stephen’s face was devoid of emotion. He looked to Abram, and to the sword on his hip again.
“Is this true, man of God?”
Abram nodded, “It’s what us men of God like to call a Hail Mary pass. It’s the only chance we got, so we’re gonna make sure it’s done right.”
“If this little dart can unwork the Crooked Man, then I will see it pierces his black heart myself. ”
“Thought it was my town.” Abram smiled.
“Your town stands atop my land, Sheriff. The wolf walks one step at a time.” He extended a hand like a slab of stone. Abram took it.

_____________________

Tyxarglenak smelled blood, and he felt good. The screams pushed him to higher and higher heights of glee as he stormed through the high street, knocking a carriage into a storefront with a smash. He felt an impact in his back, and turned to see a deputy with a smoking pistol extended before him. Gang Yi fired again, the bullet taking off a chunk of Tyx’s ear. Tyx lashed out, claws shredding the air. Gang Yi was fast, he’d always been fast, but Tyx was still testing his new powers, and the orb glowing in his chest surged with energy. Tyx came forward like a storm, thundering towards Gang Yi so fast, the deputy lost his footing, and stumbled. Claws gripped at Gang Yi’s leg before he had time to hit the floor, and with one smooth motion Tyx flung the deputy full force into the wall of the nearest building.
Smash. Tyx liked it.
Turning, Tyx saw another little creature for him to smash, standing in the road up ahead. The tiny figure was staring, mouth agape in terror, and turned to sprint away towards the open doors of a large building. Tyx grinned with joy, and followed.

“It’s not a Goblin, it’s not a Goblin!!” screamed Jack as he sprinted into the paddock and promptly tripped over the net, sending him flying headfirst into a pile of hay.
Drew peered out from behind his spot at the back and cringed as he saw the monstrosity that was Tyxarglenak chasing Jack smash through the paddock doors like they were paper.
It had on a laughably tiny outfit, ripped and torn as if it had bulged out of the clothes in a sudden growth spurt, an orb the size of a fist was pulsing and glowing in its chest, throbbing like a heart. Jaws that looked wider than Drew was tall were spitting and lashing. It stepped through the net and the poxy trap tore from the wall immediately.
“So much for that. Tyler now!” Drew yelled, pointing with his most dramatic finger.
Tyler was balanced precariously above, and reached to pull the drawstring supporting the bag.
It flopped onto Tyx with a sound like a bird flying into the orphanage window and fell to the ground in a heap.
Tyx looked up and swatted, smashing away a chunk of timber and sending Tyler swinging loose over the paddock, hanging desperately to a chunk of the second story.
Tyx reached out and tugged Jack from the hay bale, squirming and squealing in Tyx’s massive deformed grasp. At the same time, both boys let out a screech for help.
Drew was biting his lip so hard he could taste blood. He dug in the little ammo pouch for anything and fumbled to bring his slingshot to bear. It was the little chunk of ghost rock he’d found in the ruins of that creepy old manor on the edge of town. The luckiest thing he owned. He closed his eyes, thought of blue skies, and the laughs of his friends, and let it fly.

__________________________

Ivor Hawley peered deep into the eyes of Revered Perry. The priest was grasping futilely at his throat while one of Ivor’s massive claws slowly crushed the life from him, breath by choking breath. The smell of burning wafted past Ivor’s nostrils, his yellow eyes glimmered.
“Still no answer? Nothing? How disappointing.” with a crunch, he snapped the reverend’s neck and tossed him aside in a heap, flicking blood from the tips of his claws. He raised his foot off the chest of Sister Mary Gideon and she gave a heaving gasp.
Ivor’s once lithe limbs were now twisted to horrid proportions for reaching, tearing. In one wicked hand he still gripped his cane, and brought it down hard on the ground next to Sister Mary’s head. Her habit had been torn from her head, long hair spilling out thick with dirt and blood. She was gripping her bleeding side and grimacing in pain.
“Your turn then, my dear. Answer honestly, and I’ll let you go.”
Ivor leaned in, his rictus grin splitting his already monstrous face in half like a leering puppet. A mouth filled with rows of needle sharp teeth yawned down at her. He extended a claw and touched it tenderly to Sister Mary’s lips.
“Where is your God, dear sister? Why hasn’t he come to save you?”
Sister Mary stared back at the ringmaster, no fear in her eyes. He gave a great sigh in mocking sadness.
“I thought so. So sad, really. To be shown everything you’ve lived for amounts to nothing. Maybe the next one will be luckier eh?” he grabbed the front of her robe in his claw and pulled.

“Hawley!”
The call echoed across the clearing. Ivor looked up, eyes shining.
“Grothe?” Ivor muttered to himself, curious. He dropped Mary back to the dirt and rose to his full height.
Abram Grothe, Evanor gripped in his fist, approached the ringmaster.
Stephen Seven-Eagles gestured to his two men.
“Jackson, Smiling Frog, whatever it takes, you get this man close as he needs.” Stephen thrust Pasteur forward, the vial gun gripped tightly to the Frenchman’s chest.

A silence seemed to blow over the town square. Ivor ran his sickly yellow eyes over the assembled posse. Lawmen, outlaws, Native men. Ivor snorted.
“Is this it? This is the best you can do? The ones too stupid to run? Underestimating me would be an amateur mistake, Grothe.”
Ivor’s gaze found Valeria, and for just a moment his grin faltered.
Sister Mary, seeing the Ringmaster’s attention diverted, reached down into her robe and pulled her revolver, firing up into Hawley’s back.
The Ringmaster made to reach for her, but the nun was up on her feet and running, torn robe gripped to her chest.
“Ooh, shooting people in the back. Try not to get into that habit,” Ivor sneered, looking to Abram, “Catholic joke. Would have thought you’d get that.”
Abram stepped forward, raising the blade of Evanor and pointing it at Hawley’s grotesque figure.
“Ivor Hawley, by the power invested in me by the Church of almighty God and the state of California, I sentence you to death for your crimes against the people of Gomorra. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Ivor spread his hands wide, and flicked his cane in a perfect overarm arc, his coattails flapping.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, It’s SHOWTIME!”

____________________

Be it unerring accuracy, divine intervention, or sheer chance, the chunk of ghost rock flung from Drew’s slingshot struck the green orb in Tyxarglenak’s chest with a sound like the orphanage dinner bell, leaving a shining crack across the marble-like sheen. Tyx roared, sending Jack flying to the ground. Tyler swung himself down into the hay bales, and ducked for cover.
There was a rumble, quiet at first, but only at first. Growing to a deep bassy thunder that seemed to move through the spaces between the air. Tyx twitched, squinting and frowning, a pained expression on its massive face. The orb began to shudder, cracking. The boys watched, stunned and with disbelief, as it bulged outward.
“Get down lads!” Tyler yelled, and he had just hit the dirt as the orb burst. Not into shards, but into light.
A blazing green fire that brought with it a creature unlike anything they’d ever seen. If Tyx had scared them before, he looked like a puppy compared the winged horror that seemed to be emerging, beetle black and gleaming from the blazing light of the cracked orb. Clawed hands reached for Tyx, pulling him into a grinning jawed face straight from nightmare. Tyx gave a screech of terror, and the creature from within the orb roared in triumph.

The boys clamped hands over their ears, and squeezed their eyes shut tight, still seeing the blazing green light that was consuming Tyx. There was a sound, a great whoosh like a dam bursting in reverse, a blaze of light, and then silence.
When Drew cracked open an eye to see if the world had ended, there was nothing. The ground was scorched black, and nothing remained.
Then he saw it.
He shuffled over to blow on the steaming orb as it lay in the dirt. The cracks had gone, its perfectly smooth surface once more whole. Something made Drew lean a little closer, peering deep into the swirling mists within. Just for a moment, he swore he could see Tyx in there, tiny face yelling in mute rage, before the green mists swirled again.
He picked up the orb with his gloved hand, and dropped it into his ammo pouch.
You never know.

____________________

Ivor moved like lightning, his claws grabbing, punching, and thrashing. Snatching at limbs and arms and weaving between the blades and bullets of his opponents. Maria Kingsford traded blasts of energy with the ringmaster, her blazing fire slamming into his body, Abram wielded Evanor with a skill surpassing his training, the weapon hungered for it, and Abram felt himself move with strength beyond his own mortal frame. Stephen Seven-Eagles spun his axe overhead, the weapon of his ancestors, roaring his battle song. It was a blur, a frenzy, and through it all Ivor laughed at the cuts, the wounds, cackling as his twisted body knitted itself back together like an endless tapestry of horror.

One of Ivor’s long legs snapped out, catching Wendy in the side and sending her flying into Pancho, and the cane cracked Maria so hard on the side of her head she saw stars. Stephen was watching the battle in his head, waiting for the moment, watching the Ringmaster’s movements, becoming rhythmic, searching for momentum, but there was none, no way to predict where he would strike next.
Valeria came at Ivor, a gleaming cavalry saber in her hand.
“I wondered where that had got to,” Ivor purred, drawing her close, “A thief and a traitor… I’m going to save you for last Valeria.”
The sabre sizzled in Ivor’s grip and he twisted it slowly, forcing her close and close as he snarled down into Valeria’s face.
“Do it now Louis!” Stephen roared.

Smiling Frog and Jackson Trouble lifted the scientist between them, pushing him up and forward to the ringmaster’s open back. Louis reached out, aiming the precious vial gun.
“NOUS SOMME LEGION!” The Frenchman cried.
Ivor was too fast.
Sending Abram and Stephen flying with a swipe of his cane, Ivor twisted and butted Louis fully in the face. The Frenchman reeled back, blood spraying from his nose, and Ivor reached behind him, gripping Valeria by the forearm and throwing the woman like a human projectile into Louis.
“Not….nice!” Ivor screeched, launching forward to punch Jackson with all his might. Jackson’s head snapped back with a sickening crunch, and he fell to the ground like a cloth doll. Smiling Frog turned to run to Stephen’s aid, and found himself staring down at his own chest as Ivor’s cane skewered through it moments later.
Shaking the dead man from his cane. Ivor turned back to the fight at his heels.

Stephen rolled onto his back, regaining his wits and spitting dirt, and found Louis streaming with tears.
“Non…..non non…..mon Dieu, non.” He wept.
“Louis, gather yourself. We try again.”
Louis turned, his face a mask of pain. The tiny weapon lay crushed on the ground beneath where he had fallen, the glass vial broken.
Stephen fell to his knees, the precious red liquid seeping into the dirt.
He tore a feather from his headdress.


Pancho Castillo’s bullets brushed off Ivor like rain. The ringmaster advancing on him like death incarnate, Pancho questioned himself once more, why had he gotten himself into this horror, then focused. He sucked a breath in between the terror and mentally blessed his lucky bullet.
“Vete al infierno.”
The shot caught Ivor in the eye. The ringmaster clamped a hand to his face and staggered backwards.
Maria came forward next, a blast of energy from her outstretched hand knocking the ringmaster in the gut and doubling him over.
“Children’s tricks!” Ivor snarled, opening one of his clawed hand and shooting out a screaming soul blast at Abram. Maria cried out a warning, but Prescott Utter was the only one close enough. He threw his weight against the Sheriff, knocking Abram aside and taking the full brunt of the blast. The old prospector was lifted from his feet and came to the ground with a crash. He was gone before he even hit the dirt.
Abram looked around him, at the fallen dead, at the desperate fight still in his allies, and at Evanor. Ivor was regaining his footing, blood pouring down his face from Pancho’s bullet wound.
One chance.
Abram rushed forward with a cry and thrust Evanor’s point through the stomach of the ringmaster and up into his heart.
They came face to face for a moment, Ivor’s yellow teeth bared into Abram’s face.
“What now, Sheriff? What do you do when everything fails?” Ivor’s claws crept up Abram’s body, grabbing at his throat. Abram stared back, keeping his grip on Evanor tight.
“Faith, Ivor.” Abram whispered, his gaze swept over Ivor’s shoulder as Stephen Seven-Eagles leapt onto Ivor’s back, bringing down the feather in his hand with all his might. The red tipped quill piercing the ringmaster’s flesh at the apex of his bony spine.
Ivor screeched, dropping Abram as he lurched back, twisting an arm to try and reach the feather that now protruded from his back. His jaw snapped irregularly, a coarse barking noise coughing from between his teeth. Black veins were throbbing up his throat, a map of the seeking, surging counter-pathogen that was undoing the Ringmaster. He reached forward, snatching for Abram’s throat, but his claw closed on nothing. He tried again, and realized his vision was blurring, presenting him with doubles of his enemies. He saw weapons raised.
How many, six? Twelve? He wasn’t sure anymore.
Bullets rained into the ringmaster, a blast from a rifle took him in the shoulder. Again and again the thudding impacts smashed into his form.
He gave a laugh, a horrid watery giggle that squelched in the back of his throat.
“The show…” He took a step forward, leering, blood seeping at the corners of his eyes, “...must…”
Hawley crashed to the ground, one arm reaching out, grasping at nothing, his face locked in a bloody rictus grin, leering at the assembled men and women of Gomorra who had undone him.
“...go…”
A crack in the clouds was sending a tickle of light down, reflecting from the blade of Evanor. Ivor found himself staring at it, as Abram raised the blade over his head, and swung it down.
Ivor Hawley saw no more. 

Wendy Cheng sat by the horses, and watched.
Everywhere, destruction. Ruined houses, ruined lives.
She wiped dirt and blood from her face with the hem of her ripped shirt.
Her town had been broken.
It would take everything to fix it this time. So much lost.
The sky was beginning to peer through the cracks in the dust and clouds above, sending light shining down onto her town. The town she loved.
She began to reload her rifle for what felt like the hundredth time that day.
Wendy had been there since the beginning, and she knew Gomorra had seen worse.
It had lived through Knicknevin. It had seen through the storm.
Wendy knew Gomorra could survive.