Lloyd Grange deserved to die.
I had come to the decision early one morning after seeing his wife and two little girls leaving town. They were in the buckboard wagon, their few possessions loaded up in the back. Each of them had been beaten so badly that they were nearly unrecognizable.
Mary, his wife, was having a difficult time guiding the gelding, so I brought the three of them back to Blood Farm, put them in the first-floor library where they would be safe from those creatures which prowled the upper floors, and gave Mary a shotgun. Along with the weapon, I gave her explicit instructions to shoot whoever came through the door that wasn’t me. There were things in the house, I explained, that were less than pleasant.
With the Grange women safe in the library, I took my Colts, saddled my horse, and set off for the Grange house on North Road.
When I reached the drive, I dismounted, slapped him on the haunch, and set him off toward home. A scream sent the horse off at a gallop.
As the sound of his hooves faded, I approached the home, Colts drawn and hammers back. The front door was broken down, and the powerful scent of incense wafted out toward me.
When I entered the home, I heard a whimpering sound from the kitchen, and so I went down the hall toward the room.
I found Lloyd in his chair. What was left of him.
Seated in the chair beside him was a man in preacher’s cloth. There was blood on his lips and in his mustache. He was eating Lloyd’s left arm, the only limb the man had left.
When the stranger looked at me, his nostrils flared. I kept my Colts level, both barrels aimed at his broad chest.
“Will you interfere?” the stranger asked.
“No. I was on my way to kill him,” I replied.
The stranger smiled. “We are the same.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I am a sin eater in my now. My when,” he explained, taking a bite. “You are the same.”
“Why are you here?”
“I smelled him,” the stranger answered, straightening up. “Smelled him as I was taking a walk this morning. He is, well, delicious. Would you like a bite?”
I shook my head.
I was still full from breakfast.
#horror #monsters #supernatural #death
