“Earl Claudius Wade,” said the specter, “time ta fess up. What did ya do? Help me feel it.”

Earl chuckled at Claude the Specter backlit by the fire crackling in the sooty fireplace. He shared much with the ghost he had named after himself due to their physical similarities being exact right down to the hawkish face, shorn blonde hair, and the clothes and guns they wore. Each of them sported double-action Colts strapped around grubby pants threadbare at the knees, their gray shirts sweat-stained. Like Earl’s shirt, Claude’s stretched open at the collar to expose a sinewy neck still showing signs of the hanging Earl counted himself lucky to have survived.

Maybe, he reckoned, not all of him had lived. His mirror-image Claude the Specter appeared for the first time shortly after Earl was cut free of the noose. That was an uncomfortable thought the ghost seemed to catch; Claude glared at him through close-set eyes blazing bright brown.

Earl dropped his gaze to the dirt floor of the dilapidated cabin. Spots floated in his vision, like when after he stared at the sun for too long and his body mimicked one of them hot-air balloons pulling to break free of its tethers. He grabbed hold of his Colts’ grips, the basket secured.

“What did ya do?” Claude insisted.

Earl whispered, “Ya know already. I did nary a thing the bitch didn’t deserve. She needed ta die.”

“Why?”

Because she had sniggered at…made fun of his—“Shad-up, Claude.”

“She went and poked fun at yer tally-whacker, didn’t she, Wade?”

Belinda, she of feathery chocolaty tresses, had possessed boobs that jiggled whenever the whore erupted into laughter; as she did upon Earl dropping his baggy, brown trousers and proudly thrusting his hips forward to give Belinda a view of his pecker. Downright spooky it was how fast she changed from a pretty shakester of plump features naked and spread-eagled on a bed to a she-bitch bouncing and yapping at his manhood. Quite likely she was one of them doppelgangers he once struggled to read about in a dime novel. Her abrupt change had left him with no choice other than to bash in her skull. That was…two weeks ago. He smiled a tad recalling how Belinda’s blood splattered his face, spotting his tongue.

Claude nodded. “Ya liked the iron flavor, didn’t ya? Tasted good.”

Earl rubbed the growing bulge in his pants.

“Feels good, huh?” Claude pointed at a window akin to the cabin’s every other see-through. The window sported a busted frame from which shards of mucky glass jutted and glowed in the snow-brightened moonlight. “They’re out there, the posse. Idiots, ridin’ in the night regardless the moon’s fullness and sky cloudless. Stupid horses makin’ all that ruckus; their hooves poundin’ the ground. Hellfire, a deaf man miles away could hear them beasts stomp. Comin’ for ya they are. What ya gonna do, Wade?”

Grinning wide, Earl yanked his pistols free of their holsters. How the steel whisked against leather, the grips melding with his palms and zest for slaughter spring-loading his every muscle; he could kill anyone or anything at any time and would these four, maybe five heathens chasing him no different than the devil pursuing a damned man’s soul.

“Hellhound heathens,” grumbled Earl.

“Uh-huh.” Claude sashayed his hips. “Put ‘em in their place, Wade. Six feet under, pushin’ up daisies, catchin’ a ride with the ferryman. Ya go on now. Send them heathens straight back ta Hell!”

Earl whirled on a boot heel and kicked the shoddy door hanging by a rusty hinge. Rotted wood splintered and cracked, the door crashing to the fallen-in porch as he dashed out into the cold, snickering. A bit unexpected, the posse finding him inside a day’s worth of fast-travel. Regardless, he would kill them, all of them, and spray crimson onto the snow where the white carpet went uninterrupted by sinister shadows of pine and aspen, where the ghostly snow twinkled with the moon all high and pretty.