Deal In The Dark.
1059 Words
Part 1-The Tracker And The Devil
Night on the open plains wasn’t quiet.
It breathed.
Out here, the wind didn’t whisper—it warned. Coyotes didn’t sing—they questioned. And the stars? They watched like a jury waiting on a verdict.
She made camp in a hollow between two ridges where the land dipped just enough to hide a fire—if she bothered to light one. She didn’t. Fire drew men. And men drew worse things.
Her horse grazed dry tufts of grass like it didn’t care that invisible footsteps circled the camp perimeter.
The shadow—her shadow—moved without moving.
Watching.
Guarding.
Pacing the edges like a chained wolf dreaming of broken links.
She unrolled her bedroll and sat with her back against a rock, the cold of it good, grounding, real. The map Jeb had given her lay across her knees—the trail marked in old ink, the places between marked in blood or bone.
Drywater Gorge.
Two days north if she pushed hard.
Too long if the preacher was already stirring things best left rotting.
She didn’t get to study long.
A shape detached from the darkness across the ridge—slow, careful, trying too damn hard to be quiet.
Her hand slid to her gun.
“Come out,” she said. “Or I’ll shoot you where you’re crouched.”
The movement stopped. Then a voice croaked, “Don’t shoot. I’m unarmed.”
“Everyone is unarmed until they’re not.”
A scrawny man stepped into the moonlight—mid-30s, nervous as a rabbit in a wolf den. Clothes torn. One boot missing. Blood on his sleeve.
He held his hands up high. “I—I saw your fire—”
“No fire,” she said.
“…Right,” he whispered, already sweating. “Then I saw… you.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
He swallowed hard. “Please. I need help.”
The shadow behind her tightened, condensing into a single dark shape—taller, broader, closer than anything human. The newcomer didn’t see it yet.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
He glanced over his shoulder as if afraid something had followed him. “Preacher’s men. They raided our camp. Took everyone who could stand. Shot those who couldn’t.”
“And you?”
“I ran.”
Coward or survivor—often the same thing.
She gestured to the blood. “Yours?”
He shook his head. “My brother’s.”
A pang hit her chest—unexpected.
Memories she kept locked down tried clawing their way up.
“You want help,” she said flatly, “you start with truth.”
The man’s face twisted. Shame. Fear. Something deeper.
“They weren’t… human,” he whispered finally.
She stilled. “Explain.”
“They had eyes like glass. Didn’t bleed right. Didn’t move right. Not natural.”
Her jaw tensed. “The Shepherd does that.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head with wild urgency. “No, you don’t understand. The preacher didn’t make those things. He just… woke them up.”
A hot coil of dread tightened in her gut.
“Woke what?”
“The dead,” the man rasped. “He woke the dead.”
Wind tore through the hollow, ripping the words into the night like a curse.
Behind her, the shadow surged—sharp, predatory, reacting to the scent of old graves disturbed. The sand shifted where its feet would have stepped, though nothing visible moved.
Finally, the man saw it.
He froze.
Eyes widened.
Breath hitched.
“What… what’s standing behind you?” he whispered.
She didn’t answer.
He stumbled back. “Lady… oh God… what the hell is that thing?”
“It’s not hell,” she said. “Hell has rules.”
He shook all over now, knees knocking. “Is it—are you—are you bound to it?”
She looked at him with flat, tired eyes.
“No. It’s bound to me.”
Lightning cracked across the sky—dry, silent, unnatural.
The man flinched. “Please. You have to help me. Preacher’s headed to Drywater Gorge. He’s… he’s callin’ something up. Something old. Says he needs a sacrifice.”
“What kind of sacrifice?” she asked.
“A living one.”
Her stomach went cold as steel.
“Who?”
The man’s voice broke.
“Anyone unlucky enough to cross his path. A stranger. A traveler. Doesn’t matter.”
No—she thought.
It mattered plenty.
She rose slowly, brushing the dust from her coat.
“You got a name?” she asked.
He blinked. “Rudy.”
“Well, Rudy… tonight’s your lucky night.”
She extended her hand to him—not warm, but steady.
But the moment he reached for her—
The shadow lunged.
A streak of darkness slammed into the ground between them, throwing Rudy backward like a rag doll. He hit the sand, gasping.
“GET IT OFF ME!” he screamed, flailing at the darkness gripping his ankle.
She stepped forward, voice low, commanding, the way she’d learned over years of bargaining with something not meant for words:
“Enough.”
The shadow froze.
Rudy scrambled away, sobbing, shaking. “What the hell was THAT?!”
“Mine,” she said simply. “And you’d do well not to run. It likes the chase.”
Rudy collapsed to his knees. “You’re… you’re takin’ me with you, right? You won’t leave me out here?”
She holstered her gun.
Sighed.
Looked at him with a mixture of pity and old, tired resolve.
“You want to live?” she asked.
“Yes,” he choked out.
“Then you follow close,” she said.
“Close enough the devil don’t think you’re prey.”
The shadow slid back behind her, reforming like smoke finding its container.
Rudy stared at her like she wasn’t a woman at all—but a knife the world had sharpened too many times.
She packed her gear.
“We ride at dawn,” she said.
Rudy nodded violently. “Y-yes ma’am.”
She turned toward the horizon—toward Drywater Gorge—toward the Shepherd.
Toward the night the past would finally come due.
Behind her, the shadow coiled once more.
Ready.
Waiting.
Hungry.
- Writer
