Free Deadman's Crossing by Joe R. Lansdale

man...only, I didn’t. He started to move fast then, a funny kind of move, like some of the moves was left out, and then just before he had me his pecker got stiff, like he was gonna do some business, and maybe he was I thought, and I screamed again. Big and loud and I couldn’t stop till he stopped me, his teeth in my throat. I don’t remember much after that, but the next thing I knowed I was here in this hotel, and thinkin’ I’d dreamed. But I couldn’t get nobody to see me. And then gradually, there was more spirits like me, ’cause that cloud come through the street every night, and then them wolves would come. Kind of folded out of the shadows. Caught everyone here eventually. Before they did, they once got trapped in the old hotel across the street. The real hotel. And the folks in the town burned it down. And them things, they come out of there afire, their hair and flesh growing back fast as bullets fly. They went on a rampage, and then there wasn’t no one left in this town but ghosts, like me. They took to eating horses and cats and rats and dogs, whatever stray animal might wander in. After that, there wasn’t nothing. And then they kept coming around. Kept waiting for something. More meat I guess. I don’t know why they didn’t go off somewhere else, but they didn’t. Maybe far as the trees where me and my poor pals found them was as far as they could go, ’cause I know one night I seen the big one up there on the hill, howling at the moon. I figure it was ’cause he was so hungry his stomach thought its throat was cut.”
    “They’re confined to this area,” Jebidiah said. “The cloud is part of the evil that came out of the graves. They were held there by the sharp ends of the oak. Some evil can’t stand oak. And this, obviously, is that evil. Unfortunately, you released them.”
    “Unless it’s hickory,” Dol said. “Or some kind of other tree. Ain’t nothing says it’s oak. I didn’t tell you it was oak. I don’t remember.”
    “You have a point,” Jebidiah said, “but from my experience, I’m betting on oak.”
    “It’s your bet,” Dol said.
    “I don’t understand,” Mary said. “He bit you, like he bit them Spaniards so long ago. They become wolves until the Indians killed them...or held them down with the sticks. But you got bit, the others got bit, why ain’t you and them wolf-things?”
    Dol shook his head. “Ain’t got a nugget on that. Nothin’.”
    “Because,” said Jebidiah, “the leader, he is one, and they are six, and together they are seven.”
    “Well now, that clears it right up,” Dol said.
    “Satan’s minions, that’s what they are. And there is one directly from Satan, and there are six that he made. That allows seven. They can kill others, but they can only make so many, and seven is their number. If they were vampires, or ghouls, they could make more, but the hairy things, they can only make seven.”
    “Who made that rule?” Mary said.
    “My guess is the gentleman in charge,” Jebidiah said.
    “God?” Dol said.
    “He likes his little games,” the Reverend said. “They have no rhyme or reason to us, or perhaps to him, but, they are his games and they are real and they affect us all. Seven. That is the number for the hairy ones.”
    “How do you know that?” Mary asked.
    “I’ve seen more than I would like, read tomes that are not that delightful to read.”
    “So you seen it, or you read about it?” Mary said.
    “In this case, I read about it.”
    “So you ain’t had no practical experience on the matter?” Mary said.
    “On this, no. On things like it, yes.”
    “Well, Mary said, “I hope this is some like them other things, or otherwise we can bend over now and look up between our legs and piss on ourselves.”
    The night grew heavy and the shadow fled through all parts of the town. In the hotel, and in the other buildings, it was nothing more than a dark, cool, fog, a malaise that swept over Jebidiah and Mary.