Chapter 3
The blood drained from Caleb’s face, leaving him gripping the edges of the open trapdoor so hard his knuckles turned white. That voice. It was a voice he had buried alongside a shallow grave outside of Abilene four years ago. A voice he had whispered prayers over while the prairie fire consumed what was left of the wagon train.
“That’s impossible,” Caleb whispered to the empty air of the back room, his chest tightening as a cold sweat broke out across his forehead. “You died in the fire. I pulled your charred body out myself.”
From the darkness beneath the floorboards came the sound of slow, mocking applause, followed by the metallic scrape of a match being struck. A tiny yellow flame bloomed in the subterranean gloom, illuminating the gaunt, sunken features of a man holding a half-burned cheroot. The flickering light caught the glint of a silver sheriff’s star pinned haphazardly to a torn vest—the very star Caleb’s brother, Jonah, had worn the day he vanished.
“Bodies burn down to ash, Caleb, but sins just ferment,” Jonah said, taking a slow puff of his cheroot. The orange glow painted his hollow cheeks in demonic shades of red. “You always were a sloppy coroner.”
Caleb stood up slowly, keeping his revolver leveled at the opening, though his hand trembled slightly. The sheer absurdity of the moment fought a violent war with his survival instincts.
“You left us to die,” Caleb growled, stepping closer to the edge of the pit. “The whole town saw you ride off with the payroll chest while the raiders burned the church.”
Jonah chuckled, a wet, rattling sound that ended in a harsh cough. He blew a ring of smoke up toward the ceiling.
“And you stayed behind to play the grieving hero. Tell me, brother, how’s that working out for you? You look like a man who’s been chasing his own shadow across three territories.”
Footsteps sounded behind Caleb. He spun around, weapon raised, only to find the two little girls standing in the doorway of the back room. They weren't looking at him; their hollow, expressionless eyes were fixed entirely on Jonah down in the hole. The older sister casually tossed her piece of stale bread onto the floorboards, as if feeding an animal in a cage.
“He has the keys,” the older girl said, her voice completely devoid of childhood innocence.
Caleb glanced back and forth between the girls and his supposedly dead brother. A cold realization began to dawn on him, gnawing at the edges of his sanity.
“What are they to you, Jonah?” Caleb demanded, lowering the gun by a fraction of an inch. “What have you dragged into this wasteland?”
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Jonah’s smile vanished, replaced by a dark, knowing scowl as he tossed the cheroot down, watching the spark die in the dirt.
“They aren't my prisoners, Caleb,” Jonah whispered, leaning back into the shadows. “They’re my wardens. And now that you’ve stepped through that door, you’ve just taken my shift.”
