The Hinkle

CW: Contains violence, gore, and murder

Grub Steak, Wyoming

1875

Marshal Payton Pardee, his deputy, Carson Williams, and Dr. Lyle Covington are drinking coffee and laughing heartily over the latest antics of the town drunk when a chilling scream tears them from their seats.

They are stunned by the sight of Millie Johnston, the Mayor’s wife, staggering toward them, clutching her head.

“Always thought Millie was a teetotaler,” the young deputy comments.

Payton runs his finger across his mustache, summoning a diplomatic smile. Rangy, with coarse features creased by twenty-five years of protecting the people of Grub Steak, forty-eight-year-old Payton Pardee knows when to be tough and when to act like a politician, and this appears to be one of those times.

Twenty-two-year-old Carson Williams is his fifth deputy, fair-haired, inquisitive, and eager to act, and perhaps too cute for the job. Payton often relies on sixty-seven-year-old Doc Covington, a sober-looking gentleman with a block jaw, a Romanesque nose, and steely gray-black hair, to serve as the town’s conscience.

Thanks to a pair of flourishing silver mines, Grub Steak, population 365 and rising, has a diverse mix of immigrants, farmers, ranchers, gamblers, and painted ladies.

Doc grabs Millie by the shoulders, steadying her. He looks into her bulging eyes.

“She’s not drunk. She’s in shock.”

“What do you suppose happened to put her in such a state?” Carson asks.

Millie lets out a blood-curdling scream. Doc shakes her, snapping Millie out of her fugue state.

She blinks, hyperventilating.

“Whatever’s happened, Millie, you’re safe. What’s wrong?”

Turning, she points down the street at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church.

                                               ***

The three men cautiously enter the church, gasping in unison at the sight of Reverend Van Hoten hanging from a large cross behind the altar.

The preacher’s organs have been torn out, leaving him an empty husk.

“Look familiar?” Payton asks.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Doc responds.

“Outlaws don’t ordinarily gut preachers.”

Olin Barris, who owns a large cattle ranch ten miles outside of town, bursts through the doorway, startling them.

Barris’ face is pasty, and his clothes are soaked with sweat. His voice is shaky, and his demeanor is frantic. “I was at the Lansing’s ranch a few hours ago… They’s all dead! Robert, Katy, the two boys, Grandpa Lansing, all dead meat!”

“Slow down, Olin,” Payton says calmly. “Any sign of who done it?”

“Might be bandits or renegade Indians,” Carson interjects.

“Nothin’ human could’a done what was done to them. They was split open, like fresh cut logs. Their innards was gone!” Looking at Reverend Van Hoten, Barris shrieks, “Just like him!”

Payton sighs heavily. “…Oh god, it’s back…”

Doc rubs his forehead. “Think hard, Olin. Was there a green substance anywhere near the bodies?”

“Matter’a fact, there was, next to Robert Lansing, near his shotgun.”

“Sounds like Robert got a shot off before the Hinkle killed him.”

“What’s a Hinkle?” Carson asks.

“A nightmare,” Doc replies. “A creature that feeds on human flesh. It stalks us by changing into us…”

“How?”

“We didn’t take the time to ask it,” Payton says. “Twenty years ago, it killed a dozen people before we could figure out what was happenin’. It might have massacred the whole town if it hadn’t tried to jump into George Hinkle’s body.”

“Near as we could figure, it got stymied because George was special…,” Doc explains. “George was touched, a dullard. Maybe that’s what kept the creature from taking over his body. The creature inherited George’s infirmity.”

“We chased the creature through town. It tore Bill Casey and his wife apart as they were runnin’ for the general store,” Payton elaborates. “I shot it again when it slaughtered Belle Dwyer. Belle owned The Dixie Clipper Saloon. She was full of gumption. When she heard what was happenin’, she came outta her saloon, bold as brass, and blasted that thing with a shotgun. She done some damage, slowin’ it down some, but then it took the shotgun from her, and it beat her to death with it… It took practically every man in town to track the Hinkle down. When we cornered it, one side of the creature was a lizard-like thing, green with sharp teeth, scales, and a tail. The other half was still George… And he was ballin’ in pain…”

                                               ***

The posse traps the creature in an alley. It viciously pounds at the wall in anger in the hope of escape, and the wall begins to crumble under the assault of its fists. Marshall Payton Pardee, Deputy Angel Ruiz, and rancher Monty Roth fire at it, landing at least six shots, but the bullets have little effect, and the creature’s wounds drip green fluid onto the dusty earth.

Payton ropes the creature. The other men follow suit, wrapping up the creature’s limbs. It struggles to free itself, roaring frightfully at the men, a green spray issuing from its mouth.

The men’s horses struggle to move the creature. It takes the combined strength of four horses to drag it to jail. None of the men can bear touching the half-man, half-beast, so they pull it into a cell like a bunch of drunken revelers playing tug-of-war.

Breathing heavily, Angel asks, “Well, what do we do now? I doubt we’ll be able to find a jury of its peers for a trial.”

Reverend Furlock Van Hoten approaches the cell, his skeletal features drawn together in a frown. The creature tries to reach through the bars to attack him.

“I recognize you, Satan. We have you, and we’re going to destroy you!”

“Make a fine attraction at the town fair,” Monty Roth says.

“You volunteering to be its keeper, Monty?” Payton asks.

“Heck no. What do you suppose it wants?”

Doc Covington jumps into the conversation. “It wants us dead. It feeds on us. It’s a predator, like a rabid wolf. There’s no rhyme or reason to it other than hunger and the satisfaction it gets from knowing it can terrorize us. Maybe it feeds on our fears, too.”

Payton springs into action. “Angel, you and Monty go down to the general store. Bring back all the kerosene you can carry.”

“You gonna burn it?” Angel asks.

“There must be something else we can do,” Doc says. “Part of it is still George Hinkle, a seventeen-year-old dullard who’s never meant anyone any harm.”

Payton moves close enough to the cell to feel and smell the creature's incendiary, death-like breath.

Tears are running down George’s cheeks.

“I know there’s a part of you in there somewhere, George. You may be sharing a body with this thing, but you know better than anybody else what it’s like, what it wants, and what it plans to do. What should we do?”

The side of the creature with George Hinkle’s face rasps, “…Kill me…”

                                               ***

The men back away as flames envelope the jail and its timbers collapse.

As the ashes cool, Payton digs through the debris, exposing the creature’s singed skeleton.

Angel says to Monty, “How ‘bout a jolt or two to celebrate?”

Angel and Monty head down the street toward the Last Chance Saloon, glancing back at the creature’s remains the whole time.

“Gonna say a prayer for George?” Doc asks Reverend Van Hoten.

The preacher spits on the smoldering ashes. “Go to blazes, Satan. It’s back to the realm of the damned for you.”

Doc Covington notices a gooey white fluid in the dirt leading away from the skeleton but dismisses it, relieved that the creature is dead.

                                               ***

“So where did this Hinkle come from?” Carson asks.

“From deep inside the mines,” Payton answers, his roughly hewn face distorting into a frown. “Willie Bates, one of the miners, came into town twenty years ago, ravin’ that he saw a big lizard grab his partner, Miraly Jones, and choke him to death. Willie said he saw the lizard change into Jones, and it was the most disgustin’ thing he’d seen since he’d pulled a dead, deformed calf from its momma. Willie was a jokester, so we laughed it off, even after Willie cussed us out, and lit outta town.”

Doc continues the tale. “Then Miraly Jones came to town. Miraly was a quiet man, so we didn’t think anything was wrong with him, except that he was supposed to be dead. But I remember his eyes. They were drained of emotion or caring. Miraly started by slaughtering the blacksmith, then he ran into the opera house in the middle of a performance, ran right up on stage, and tore apart three showgirls like they were rag dolls.”

“Then I came in and shot him,” Payton says. “I shot at Miraly Jones until my gun was empty. He run off while I was reloadin’. That was when he must’ve run into poor George Hinkle.” 

“You funnin’ me?” Carson asks.

“Look up at the Reverend Van Hoten and tell me this is a joke,” Payton replies.

Doc clicks his tongue. “I’d have sworn on a stack of bibles that we killed it.”

“The preacher did and look at him.”

Doc snaps his fingers. “The ooze… That white stuff that was on the ground near the skeleton…”

“What about it?’

“I bet my stethoscope it was amniotic fluid.”

“You lost me, Doc.”

“It’s the fluid that comes out during birth.”

“So, George… I mean that creature was pregnant?”

“That’d be my guess. Maybe it takes twenty years for one of them to mature.”

“So, what do we do, Marshal?” Carson asks.

“For starters, you and Olin pull the Preacher down. Wrap him up in somethin’ and take him to the mortician. Olin, I want you to knock on everyone’s doors and tell them I’m orderin’ them to stay inside.”

“You think he looks like Robert or Grandpa Lansing?” Doc asks.

“Neither. The Hinkle may be a killin’ machine, but it’s got a brain. It knows we’ll be lookin’ for one of the Lansings. If I was the Hinkle, I’d disguise myself in the body of a stranger. We need to bring the strangers in for a little talk.”

                                               ***

Carson finishes binding the two men to their chairs.

Payton lights a torch.

Doc shakes his head. “Wish there was another way. But it’s scared of fire.”

“Me too. That don’t make me a monster,” Carson replies. “Or does it?”

Payton and Doc Covington stare Carson up and down.

“You’d have torn us apart by now if you were the Hinkle,” Payton concludes.

The first man, a dandy with a waxed mustache wearing a fancy plaid suit, squirms anxiously.

“What’s wrong with you people? I’m not a monster. I’m just Dandy Devine, a drummer from Cleveland.”

Curling his lower lip, Payton applies the torch to Devine’s arm. Devine shrieks in pain as smoke rises from his skin.

Gritting his teeth, Devine seethes, “I’m gonna get me a lawyer and sue the livin’ hell outta you people!”

Their second prisoner, a bearded man with intense blue eyes, glares threateningly at Payton.

Payton holds the torch over his arm. “You’re mighty calm for somebody about to get scorched.”

Payton brings the torch down on the man’s arm. He howls, his face distorting into Miraly Jones’ features. Its face continues to morph. Other faces flash before them: Robert Lansing, Belle Dwyer, Reverend Van Hoten, George Hinkle – all the men, women, and children the creature has killed.

The man growls like an angered animal, snapping the ropes and handcuffs that had held him at bay.

Snarling, curling his hands like claws, he rises from the chair.

Drawing his gun, Carson steps in front of him. “Now, just a doggone minute… You’re under arrest.”

The man hits Carson in the chest. His fist goes through Carson’s body, leaving a gaping hole that Payton and Doc can see through.

Carson's body drops to the floor. Roaring, its fetid breath stinking up the air, the Hinkle races to the door, then through it, at a speed that defies logic.

Payton scrambles to the splintered doorway. “Dadgummit. It’s headed toward the Last Chance.”

                                               ***

Payton bursts through the bat-wing doors of the Last Chance Saloon, guns drawn. Half a dozen hard-case cowboys from the Powderhorn Ranch gape at him. Buster Brodie, the saloon’s bald, barrel-chested bartender and a former prizefighter, pipes up.

“You lookin’ for a bearded man, Marshal? He run lickity split up the stairs to Miss Lovejoy’s boudoir.”

A long, tortured scream paralyzes the men.

Penelope Lovejoy runs out of her room, the sleeve of her expensive dress torn, the auburn hair she takes great pride in piling on her head a disorganized mess.

Screaming, she runs past everyone and into the street.

Butch remarks, “Never seen Penny turn tail against any man.”

“Exactly,” Payton responds, running up the stairs.

He pauses in the doorway of Penelope’s room. Penelope Lovejoy lies on her back, her chest torn open, a look of surprise in her dead eyes.

Payton rushes downstairs. “You men are hereby deputized. If you see Penelope Lovejoy, you shoot to kill.”

“Now just a dad-blamed minute, Marshal,” Butch protests. “You’re talkin’ bout my boss, my woman.”

“Your woman is lyin’ upstairs dead, torn open like a piñata. Go check if you don’t believe me.”

Moments later, Butch slowly descends the stairs, his face as white as milk and his jaw hanging open.

“…She’s there all right. What’s left of her… I don’t understand, Marshal.”

“Remember the stories you’ve heard about the Hinkle?”

“I thought they was tall tales, stories told to kids to give ‘em nightmares.”

“It’s a nightmare all right. A nightmare come to life.”

Doc enters the saloon. “I heard a scream on my way over here. It was coming from the livery stable.”

“Grab your guns, men.”

“You sure about this, Marshal?” Nate Ashbury, the bespeckled owner of the general store, asks. “I mean gunnin’ down a lady in cold blood.”

“Go upstairs and look for yourself, Nate.”

Payton pushes through the bat-wing doors, planting his feet on the wooden sidewalk's planks.

Butch, Nate, and the others join him, brandishing their weapons.

“I’m gonna blast that monster to kingdom come, pick up its corpse and blast it again,” Butch says.

“It’s probably miles away by now,” Doc replies. “At least for our sake, I hope it is.”

The pounding of hooves on the dusty earth drowns out the peaceful chirping of cicadas.

A shadow on a snorting steed appears in the blackened night.

Penelope Lovejoy rides up, laughing at them.

Payton raises his gun. “Don’t stand there with your mouths gapin’ open, men. FIRE!”

The night sky is lit up by the sight and sound of dozens of bullets from the shotguns and revolvers leveled at Penelope.

The massive fusillade knocks the Hinkle masquerading as Penelope from the saddle. It falls to the ground, stunned.

Payton grabs Nate’s shotgun. Walking to the Hinkle, he stands over it.

Its legs shattered by shotgun blasts, the Hinkle is powerless to move.

The Hinkle with Penelope’s face laughs at him.

Payton blasts her face away.

Even with its face obliterated, the Hinkle continues to laugh at its attackers.

“Nate, Butch, get some kerosene and set this thing on fire. Turn it into ash.”

“Be glad to. But first… I need to do somethin’… for Penny,” Butch says, pumping two more shotgun shells into her body.

Doc examines the ground near the Hinkle’s body.

Doc points to a green trail leading down the street. “Look at this, Payton.”

“Two of you men come with us,” Payton commands.

The four men follow the trail to the livery stable, stepping over the owner’s ruptured remains in the doorway.

A pool of slimy goo has gathered near one of the stalls.

“Don’t step in that,” Doc cautions.

“Didn’t even spare the horses,” Payton notes, looking at the dead ponies.

“What are we lookin’ for, Doc?” one of the men asks.

“That,” Doc answers, pointing to a stall in the far corner.

There are three large eggs in the stall. The eggs have cracked open.