The Bandit

All was black and Oisin Azor had never been so scared. A cloak of utter Darkness had descended upon the bandit, robbing him of all sight. And in that perfect dark, monsters stirred. Though sight was denied him, Oisin’s other senses were sharper than ever. He could hear the dreadful snarls the monsters made as they stalked around him. He could smell the rottenness of their breath as they closed to attack. He could feel their claws and teeth raking his flesh. He could taste his own blood in the air.

More terrible than all of this was the Darkness itself. He could feel its menace pinning him to the ground. He was smothered by its hatred. He burned as the Darkness clawed its way to the centre of his being and tore at his soul. Oisin fought and screamed but it was no use. The torture was all-consuming. It had no beginning and no end. Nothing else existed. There was only the Darkness. And as it took him downward into nothingness, a thin, shrill voice whispered a terrible word in his ear: “Mine.”

Suddenly, a single but powerful beam of green light pierced the sky. The monsters fled as this unexpected illumination burned and blinded them. Yet the Darkness was not so easy to defeat. If anything, it grabbed Oisin even harder and pulled him towards the void with more ferocity. “MINE,” it screamed. “MINE! MINE! MINE!” Despite this impossible increase in suffering, Oisin’s heart swelled with hope. He saw now that the Darkness could be fought. Gathering the last of what remained of his will, he channelled it toward the Darkness as a single thought: NO!

The light exploded in every direction, banishing the Darkness. As the luminescence washed over the bandit, he heard a beautiful voice issue an undeniable command: “OISIN AZOR! WAKE UP!”

Oisin lurched awake, smashed his head against the back of a chair, and flopped back down to the ground. He lay there for a minute, with his hand pressed against the side of his head. Eventually the pain dropped to a manageable level, and he sat up more slowly. “Well, that was shite,” he growled. He rubbed a hand through his dark red hair and then placed his Stetson gingerly on his head.

Pulling himself to his feet, Oisin got his first good look at his surroundings. He had been lying behind a seat near the rear end of a train car. It was obvious that he was not in first class. The simple fact he had been allowed to sleep on the floor told him that much. The décor confirmed this: simple wooden benches, no carpets on the floor, no wood panelling on the walls. The sun had set, but the railway staff hadn’t even bothered to light any of the lamps in the car, despite the fact the carriage was half full of passengers. “Cheap bunch of gobshites,” he mumbled. He reached into his pocket, looking for his ticket. He was gonna try and get his money back when they arrived at… wherever it was they were going. The search of his pockets proved fruitless. Occasionally he kept things in the brim of his hat, but no ticket was to be found there either. It was all very odd. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember where he was headed… or where he had boarded. He thought more about it, and realised he couldn’t remember a single thing about this train trip. That was bloody concerning. He must have hit his head harder than he thought. Or he’d been drunk. Either way, some fresh air seemed like a good idea.

He turned to the exit door at the rear of the car and saw it hanging open slightly. The latching mechanism was missing, the wood around it badly splintered. Somebody shot the lock out, he thought. Instinctively, he reached for the Schofield pistol he wore on his right hip. To his great dismay, he found the holster empty. His shock quickly gave way to anger. He turned back to face the front of carriage, his emerald green eyes flaring. “Which one of youse did it,” he yelled. “Which thieving bastard stole me iron!?” All the passengers were oddly still, sitting stiffly in their seats. Nobody turned to look at him. No one answered his question.

Furious at being ignored, the bandit stalked up aisle towards the passenger nearest to him. This turned out to be plump man with grey hair, wearing a tall green top hat and a fancy but dishevelled light blue coat. A large black satchel sat on the bench next to him. Bloody snake oil seller, thought Oisin. Perfect. The bandit disliked quacks in general, and was more than happy slap this one around until he got some answers. And then he would slap him a few more times. “What about you, ya charlatan? Are you the dirty bollocks who filched my sidearm?!” He smacked the plump quack hard in the back of the head. To Oisin’s surprise, the salesman didn’t cry out. Nor did he recoil, or try to defend himself. In fact he didn’t react at all. Oisin attempted to pull the plump man to his feet. His body was rigid, like a corpse a few hours after death. At first Oisin thought he was dead, but then he saw the man’s face. It was contorted into a look of abject terror. His eyes were bulging out of his head; his mouth was hanging open, the muscles in his jaw and neck straining. It looked as though he was trying to scream, but no sound came from the quack’s throat except for a dry rasp.

Oisin released his hold on the man and backed away cautiously. He turned to the next passenger, a tall bearded man dressed in a long black coat. Next to him sat a young woman in a homely grey frock. Like the quack, they sat as still as statues, wide eyes staring at unseen horrors, mouths open to soundless screams. The bandit worked his way to the front of the car and every patron was locked into a similar pose. Their suffering was palpable, and Oisin could bear to look at them no longer. He wanted nothing more than to run for the back exit and jump off the train. But that meant walking past all those tortured husks that barely resembled humans anymore. “I’m not nearly drunk enough for that,” he said as he turned to flee into the next carriage. But as he reached for the handle, the door opened.

A nightmare entered the carriage. It was vaguely humanoid in form, but no one would ever mistake it for human. It was over seven feet tall and cadaverously thin. The Creature’s limbs were disproportionately long. The legs were hinged backwards like the hind legs of a goat. The left arm was severed at the elbow joint and was leaking some hideous brown fluid. The right arm ended in a misshapen claw, bones and ligaments barely covered by a thin, patchy layer of rotting flesh. The Creature’s skin was the colour of ash and its hair looked like a mixture of mould, moss, and seaweed. But most frightening were its eyes: bone white pupils that bled into a sclera of deep onyx. The Creature looked down at the bandit and an almost-human look of surprise alighted upon its alien features. “Still awake” said the Creature in a high, shrill voice. “No, no, no. That won’t do at all.” It reached out toward him with its right hand. Oisin wasn’t gonna hang about to see what came next. He turned and ran for the rear exit of the train.

He’d made it about halfway down the carriage when an invisible lance of force leapt from the Creature’s claw and struck him between the shoulder blades. The impact drove him into the back wall. He hit hard, and crumpled to the ground very nearly where he had woken only minutes before. Pain flared throughout his body, but he dared not stay on the ground any longer. He tried to push himself back up, but the air above him began to crush him down like a mound of heavy stones.

“Do not fight,” whispered the Creature, gently. “You cannot escape. Just give yourself over to the Darkness.” The bandit screamed as once again a menacing wave of black engulfed him, drowned him, consumed him. He felt himself slipping away into the void and was powerless to stop it.

“Yes,” said the Creature. “Let go. What use is resistance? You are Mine.”

Mine. The voice in his nightmare had said the same thing. Gathering his flagging will, he threw back the same reply: NO!

Green light exploded from the bandit, cutting through the darkness and smashing into the Creature, knocking it on its bony arse. The Creature stared in shock as Oisin sat up. The bandit's flaming red hair had turned into actual flames; his emerald eyes had gone many sizes larger and shone with an ethereal green light. “Changeling” said the Creature in a voice strangled by fear. Then Oisin shook his head. The flames turned back to red locks and the emerald light vanished from his eyes as they returned to their normal size. The moment had passed.

The Creature found its courage again. Springing to its dirty feet, it pulled rusty, jagged dagger from its belt. With roar of fury it began to charge. Thunder erupted in the carriage. An angry wound blossomed in the Creature's chest. The monster stared dumbly at the injury for a moment as pale red blood began to flow. A click sounded from the rear of the carriage. The Creature looked up and found itself staring down the barrel of Oisin’s gun. “Thought I’d lost this,” said the bandit in a conversational tone. “It was underneath one of the benches. Only spotted it because you threw me against the wall. So… thanks, I guess. Now piss off, ya ugly git.” Oisin shot the Creature a second time. And a third time. Then decided to shoot him three more times. The monster turned and fled back into the other car, wailing all the way. “Didn’t like that, did ya” crowed Oisin. He flipped open his revolver to eject the spent cartridges. “It appears your voodoo is no match for a 45.” From the other carriage, the Creature continued to wail. The sound was like a large kettle, whistling as it boiled. Oisin laughed out loud as he finished reloading his pistol. With his weapon raised, he began to move cautiously towards his foe. “We ain’t done yet boyo! You might wanna grab a few friends. Make it a fair fight!”

The wailing abruptly stopped. Oisin wasn’t sure if that was a good sign. Please be dead. Please be dead. Please be dead.

He heard the sound of movement behind him. Oisin spun to face the noise. The quack was standing up. But something was off about the way he held himself. His head and shoulders were slumped forward. He was weirdly balanced on the balls of his feet. The salesman turned and slowly lurched towards the bandit. Something about the way the quack moved made Oisin think of a marionette he had seen once at fair. “You’ll sit your arse back down if ya know what’s good for ya.”

The quack finally looked up at the gunman. Oisin hadn’t noticed what colour eyes the quack had earlier, but now he had white pupils surrounded by black. Exactly like the Creature. The quack let out a vicious growl and flung himself at Oisin. The bandit shot him instinctively. At such close quarters, he was never gonna miss. The bullet ripped through the quacks throat, spraying his blood on the windows. The change in the salesman’s demeanour was immediate, the weird lurching gone from his movements. He fell backward into his seat, his hands clutching at his throat. His eye colour changed from white and black to hazel. Oisin saw this because those eyes were locked on him now, filled with a mixture of fear and confusion. Those eyes remained fixed on Oisin until the light went out of them. “Oh Lord, what have I done?” Oisin gasped. He felt sick. He had killed men before; hard to avoid it when you rob people for a living. But for the first time in his life Oisin felt like he had murdered someone. No…can’t think like that… not my fault… that freak did it… the same eyes… I’m not a monster… not my fault…not my fault… make that monster pay. He let loose a long, bitter howl. “I’m gonna bloody kill you!”

The man in the black coat lurched to his feet. A second later, the woman in the grey frock followed him. One by one, every passenger arose. They all stood in the same weird marionette pose. Then in unison they all raised their heads and stared at him with bone white pupils. “Bugger this,” shrieked Oisin as he fled toward the rear exit, the passengers in hot pursuit. He made it out the door and pulled it shut behind him. His pursuers flung themselves against the barrier in a frenzy of growls and snarls. The lock had been shot out though. The door wouldn’t hold them for long. Time to get off. As Oisin braced himself to jump, the train began to hurtle across a bridge. He’d need to wait until they reached the other side.

As he stared down into the canyon below, he noticed for the first time that train was moving much faster than it should be. The bridge. The canyon. Suddenly he remembered why he had boarded, why he didn’t have a ticket. He was there to rob the train. The rest of his gang was further down the track. They had built an earth barricade to intercept the train. Oisin groaned as he realised that the driver was probably hypnotised, just like the passengers. This meant there was nobody to stop the train from smashing into his gang’s impromptu stop. At this speed, the train would likely derail and probably kill everyone on board. Unless someone does something about it. But the carriage in front of him was still full yammering crazies, intent on ripping him to shreds. And the Creature was behind them. So going the normal, sane route through the cars was not an option. Which left only one other way.

“Dammit,” said Oisin, as he pulled himself onto the roof of the train. “I’m not nearly drunk enough for this.”