Beneath the Veil by William McNally Page A

Barry.”
    He took another sip of wine and breathed in the cold air. The sky was dark and clear and the shadows from the light of the moon painted the grounds of the plantation. He twirled around looking at the sights and sounds around him, drunk from the wine and the power he felt inside.
    “Feels better than the headaches and sickness, doesn’t it?” Evangeline asked. She moved in front of him and looked into his eyes. “You’ve spent enough time with those fools clinging to their guns and superstition.” Her lips peeled back showing a line of jagged teeth when she spoke. “You are back where you belong.”
    She left him to join the rest of her flock, drinking and laughing under the night sky.

C H A P T E R  F O R T Y - S I X
    J immy tended to the fireplace in the cabin, while Jen and Jackson sat nearby trying to stay warm. Sully approached and placed his rifle against the wall, then sat down and picked up Jimmy’s flask. He took a long swig and put the flask back down.
    “I guess we should’ve seen this coming,” he said.
    Jimmy finished tending to the fire and sat on a wooden stool. The newly added logs began to crackle as the fire engulfed them.
    “Your brother is one of ‘em,” Sully said, looking at Jen. “He always was.”
    “Aren’t there any others with you?” she asked.
    “Not anymore. They either died young or joined in with those things.”
    He took another sip from the flask.
    “The Rhodes family is connected to that thing called Evangeline and it controls them all. When it first showed up, times were hard and that family was desperate for a change.”
    “They got a change all right,” Jimmy added.
    “They did get a change,” Sully echoed. “The whole town prospered for a while. Gold money poured in and banks, hotels and churches were going up on every corner. Ezra was elected mayor and ran the town, while Evangeline spread the gospel of the true religion, claiming that an angel came to her every evening.”
    “Tell ‘em about the sermon book you found, Sully,” Jimmy added.
    “She claimed to be the hand of God and taught a literal interpretation of the Bible. The good book says whoever feeds on flesh and drinks blood gets eternal life. In her sermons, she taught her followers to do just that.”
    “That’s when the killing started,” Jimmy said.
    “She quickly showed her true self,” Sully said. “But by then, it was too late. She had already unleashed the evil within the people of this town and they became what you see, monsters.”
    “Then the gold dried up and this place became a ghost town,” Jimmy added.
    “Except the ghosts here can kill you,” Sully said. “The regular folk went into hiding, stalked by those things.”
    “We tried hunting them during the daytime. But they were just vapors.” Jimmy stood and added another log to the fire. “They couldn’t hurt us, but we couldn’t hurt ‘em either. Bastards can only be killed before dawn and you got to burn ‘em before the daylight or they go to vapor again.”
    Jackson reached into his pocket and felt the handle of his revolver, listening intently as the men spoke.
    “What do they want from us?” Jen asked. “Why can’t they leave us alone?”
    “She won’t allow us to be left alone.” Doc walked up to warm his hands by the fire. “They need us to sow their crops.”
    “I seen it first hand,” Jimmy said. “They caught poor Nat Phillips a few years back. We couldn’t help him, there were just too many of them. They set on him like a pack of wild dogs, but kept him alive. They dug up a grave, threw him in and buried him. Those things used his flesh to sow their seeds.”
    “That’s why we burn the cemeteries,” Doc added. “Whatever they’ve become, they still need to eat.”
    “We got trouble!” Jesse stared out a peep hole in the front door.
    The men scrambled into position around the cabin. Jimmy dimmed the oil lamps, while the others aimed their weapons through shooting