Prologue by Tim Ahrens, excerpted from the book the Dutchman originally created by Tim Ahrens and Neil Riebe; displayed with permission of the book's co-author.

I had just finished watching Once Upon a Time in the West directed by Sergio Leone. The first scene of that movie always hypnotizes me. Being in an extremely gothic mood at that moment, I set out to capture that same feel in this story while still writing a horror element.

Ten-year-old Allyson Waite sat mindlessly scooping dirt into a bleached skull. Her filth encrusted hands driving disfigured fingers and blood-filled nails into travel-hardened soil. Her once long, feathery hair, the shade of newly ripened corn, hung in greasy strips over her face and neck. Occasionally some insect or large mass of lice would move within its oily collection, dislodging a small clump of mud or unrecognizable piece of waste. Formerly vivid blue eyes, now dull and clouded, mindlessly follow with indifference the digging and filling of the skull before her. Pieces of a torn and ragged nightshirt stained by mud, dust, and human droppings, hung from Allyson like a tattered flag left out in the elements too long. Randomly she would pause in her work to rub filthy palms on what was left of the garment, smearing more refuse on her grime-covered body than on the rag she wore.

Sitting alone in the middle of the main dirt street of the town of Amigo, Allyson Waite dug her hole. Dirt toppled from the over-filled skull onto the ground, allowing Allyson to pause. Slowly she raised her head and cast a glassy-eyed look about her. The empty, faded buildings of Amigo’s Main Street shimmered in the afternoon heat. Light reflected off of their broken, cracked, and clouded widows. Bleached bones of some of the former residents of Amigo lay scattered about its porches and street. A soundless wail seemed to fill every inch of the dead town.

For a moment the fog cleared from her eyes and Allyson remembered the town as it had been six short weeks ago. Amigo had thrived on excitement and hope. Eighteen sixty-six had been a good year for the small town. The war had ended and with it a flood of new settlers had inundated the area. Allyson remembered the mass of wagons, horses, and settlers that had flowed and ebbed about Amigo. A slight smile cracked her dry lips as she thought of how she and her friends had jumped and dogged around all the strangers on their way to Mr. Tavish’s general store. Mr. Tavish, a fat, bald, sweaty man with the twinkle of the devil in his eyes, or so her mother had said on occasion. Would always be rushing here or there as if his life moved from one crisis to another. When Allyson and her friends would burst into his store he’d stop on a dime, turn, and try his best to rush them out again. Yet somehow he’d always seem to leave a piece of rock candy in each of their hands, a glitter of mischief bright in his green eyes.

Allyson turned her head to look across the street to another empty building. The faded words on the big sign above the door was barely readable.

“S-A-L-L-O-O-N,” she mouthed the word soundlessly. Pretty music used to flow from within. Allyson remembered how Mr. Rake had played his piano and pounded his foot, all the while emptying a tall, thick glass of yellow water. Smoke would fill the air, causing her to sneeze. Ladies in beautiful dresses would stop and pat her on the head before moving to the stairs with a strange man in tow. She would weave in and out of the crowded tables passed people, known and unknown, until she reached the huge wooden counter at the back of the room. There, as always, was her grandfather. He would look down at her as she tugged at his shirt. A smile would burst onto his worn face and he would lean down close to her.

“That time already?” he’d whisper in her ear.

“Mom said sup's ready,” she would whisper back. He’d nod and she’d take his hand. Many would shout or laugh as she led him to the door. He’d return it all with a grin and a wave. Once outside he’d hoist her on his shoulder and they’d walk the long walk home.

Allyson looked from one empty, dead building to another. In each a memory would flame and then die. Minutes or months could have passed. She was unaware of time. Then the plague had come. At least that is what Doc Morgan had called it. The Indians of the area had whispered of curses. The reverend had shouted something about the damned. Whatever the truth was, in days the sickness had ended what had taken two generations to build. Now no one came to Amigo. Some said its name had even been removed from the maps. Allyson eventually returned her eyes to the dirt-filled skull.

“T-A-V-I-S-H,” she mouthed. Then the dark thing that flowed within her mind surged forth and her eyes glazed over again. Taking the full skull she dumped the dirt over her head until it was empty. Placing it back on the ground, she returned to her digging.

The heat was giving way to the cold of evening when Allyson looked up again. From her spot in the main street she saw an approaching figure riding in the distance. Allyson’s dull stare became hooded as if possessed by intelligence greater than her own. The dark mass of her mind flowed violently in her thoughts. She stopped her digging and slid the skull aside.

The horse the stranger rode was black, as black as the bottom of Mr. Kenton the blacksmith’s forge. Allyson centered her vision on the animal. It was large for a mare. One might even mistake it for a stallion. Calm and steady, the horse’s eyes scanned the remains of Amigo as it approached, moving its head ever so slightly from distant building to distant building as if scouting for some hidden danger. When they came to rest on Allyson the horse hesitated. Its muscles became taught as it slowed its walk. It suddenly bared its teeth and whinnied. Not out of fear but out of fury. The rider reached down patting his mount’s neck softly, then whispered something in its twitching ear. Allyson looked up from the horse to its owner.

The rider was a big man, his frame hardy and broad. He wore faded leather chaps over brown canvas pants and a homespun shirt opened at the chest. Week-old stubble shadowed a chiseled jaw. His strong, ageless face held no emotion. He lightly held the reins of the mare in one gloved hand. The other hand rested comfortably at his side, just brushing the worn leather of a gun holster and the handle of a well-used Colt within. Allyson's gaze followed the gun belt around the stranger's waist until it came to rest on the gun’s mate. Moving his free hand away from the gun, he ran his gloved fingers through brown windblown hair, as if trying to decide how to proceed. Seeming to come to a decision his hand dropped back to his gun and the horse picked up its pace.

Allyson stood on shaky legs. The huge black mare, her teeth still bared, walked a few feet from where she stood and halted. The man looked down at her and frowned. Allyson took her first solid look at his soft, pale brown eyes. They held a timeless quality about them. As if trying to look within her, they bore deeply into her own dull ones.

Somewhere deep inside Allyson’s tortured mind a small spark began to glow. The inky sludge, sensing something, covered her reason with a blanket of oily darkness. Still the spark did not fade.

The man called the Dutchman cautiously dismounted. Silently he studied the ragged stick girl before him. Her wispy body shook with the effort to stand. In three steps he towered over her. He was about to reach out when her cracked and withered mouth opened wide, exposing bloody, rotten teeth. Her milky eyes took on the look of glee and she danced away from his grasp.

“Welcome, Dutchman!” The abrasive sound of an old man’s voice caterwauled from her open mouth. “Welcome to my little amusement!”

“Hello, Stitch!” The Dutchman spat the words more then spoke them.

“You don’t seem pleased!” The girl did a little grotesque dance as Hickory Stitch continued. “And after I went to so much trouble to make you feel needed!” The girl stopped her prancing and cocked her head to one side. “Well, actually it wasn’t really that much trouble.” A hissing laugh wheezed out from the child’s mouth.

“Why bother at all, Stitch?” the Dutchman asked as he cast a brief glance around. “Unless you’ve suddenly entered your second childhood?”

“We’re all children at heart.” The girl motioned to indicate herself. “Some of us are just more needy than others. Which brings me to my play. A melodrama I have spared no one to enact. I call it the Living Dead of Amigo!” Allyson Waite raised her hands above her head.

A low, pain-filled moan mushroomed in the night air, followed by mutable sounds of labored movement. From hollow buildings and night-blackened streets, bodies moved and shifted as twelve rotting corpses of the townspeople shambled into view.

“So what do you think?” Hickory Stitch’s voice boomed from the girl’s mouth. “I’ll admit that using zombies are a bit old hat. But what can I say? I’ve always been a fan of the classics.”

With a deep whinny the Dutchman’s black mare cantered away from the moving corpses and seemed to retreat to the edge of town.

“There goes your ride!” Stitch bellowed with laughter as the small group of zombies closed on each side of the Dutchman.

Acting with inhuman speed the Dutchman drew his Colt revolvers. Six cracks from each gun sounded in rapid succession. Six moving corpses to the left and the right of him dropped hard to the ground, each sporting a large caliber hole in the center of their heads. The Dutchman snapped the release on the handguns and let the empty shells fall. With practiced calmness he began to reload.

“The trouble with zombies, Stitch, is that they’re easy to kill. One bullet to the brain and they drop like stones.”

“I have more.” The smile on the girl’s face widened. A moan, louder than the first, ruptured the night. “Tell me, my faithful bloodhound, just how much ammo do you carry in that belt of yours?”

Dozens of Stitch’s corrupted cadavers shuffled out of hiding. Even as the Dutchman finished reloading, he knew he couldn’t get them all before they fell on him. The mass of dead formed a large circle about their prey, silently waiting for the command from their master to feast.

“Come now, Dutchman.” Stitch’s voice took on the pleasant tone of one who was assured of victory. “I don’t want to kill you. Really I don’t. Why, I do believe you’ve dogged me long enough, and for what? These things?” The girl motioned to the dead. “Why, what you see before you is the true human form. This is all you have left when you get right down to their core. Yet you insist on hunting me down for their sake?”

“Yes.” The Dutchman’s tone cut the night air. “For their sakes.”

“Well then, if you care so much for humanity why not just give up and help me complete the task I have set for myself? Things would go so much faster if you helped me instead of always sticking your nose in where is doesn’t belong. Why, in no time at all the Dark Ones I serve would be free to roam, as they will. Of course, man will be much happier as slaves than not. After all they are nothing more than what you see before you.”

“Stitch, your vision is as twisted as your methods.” The Dutchman holstered his guns. “I don’t chase you to save the humans from themselves. I hound you to save them from what your masters would make them into.”

“So you refuse to accept the truth?” The girl shook her head slowly. “You still believe there’s something more to these things than what you see here?”

“Yes.”

“Prove it!” Hickory stitch leered from behind the girl’s eyes.

The Dutchman stood very still, his arms crossed about his chest, and looked deep into Allyson Waite’s eyes. He reached with his mind for what he knew slept within.

“What are you doing?” Stitch's voice hissed.

“Honoring your request,” the Dutchman whispered.

Deep inside the liquid chaos that was Allyson’s mind the small spark began to grow. In the distant darkness a voice called her name over and over.

“Allyson, Allyson.” The familiar voice grew closer to what was left of the little girl inside the horror. Allyson reached out to the voice and the warmth it brought. In a sudden flash she found herself sitting on her grandfather’s lap. Wrapped in a heavy wool blanket she rested her face against his aging chest. The old rocker they sat in was just as she remembered it. It swayed gently back and forth. For the first time in six long, endless weeks Allyson felt at peace.

“Come on, little one,” her grandfather softly coaxed. “You can’t go to bed yet.”

“But, Grampy,” she frowned, “I’m so tired.”

“I know, my little one,” he replied, and Allyson smiled a happy smile. He always called her that when he wanted her to do something she wouldn’t like. “But there’s something you have to do for me first.”

“I’ll finish the chores tomorrow. I promise.”

“No.” His weather worn hand gently lifted her head until he could look into her eyes. “Something more important than chores.”

“Really?” Her eyes got big and round. To her there wasn’t anything more important than that.

“You remember when we talked about why your dad left to fight in the war?”

Allyson nodded slowly. “Because sometimes you have to make a stand for what’s right. Even when everyone else tells you you’re wrong,” she dutifully repeated what he’d told her.

“What else?”

Allyson’s face scrunched in concentration. “Never to pick a fight. But always finish one!”

“That’s right.” Her grandfather said as he hugged her close. “Well, I need you to finish a fight for me.”

“Me?” Allyson peeped out.

“That’s right,” he said, sadness filling his voice. “You have to be strong. Like the time the cows got lost in that bad storm and your mom and me had to leave you alone to watch things, remember?”

Allyson did. “But I’m scared.” She shivered inside the blanket. “I don’t know what to do?”

“You know deep inside what to do.” Her grandfather’s voice began to fade.

Allyson realized suddenly that she did.

“That’s my little one.” Her grandfather’s voice was now nothing more than a whisper to her. “Your mother and I will be waiting. Always remember our love is with you.”

Allyson Waite stood alone again in her very dark place. But the warmth that had been missing before now filled her. Balling her hands into fists, Allyson looked back at the darkness, her mouth and jaw forming a familiar stubborn line. “Get out,” she began to chant softly, slowly. But with each passing moment her voice grew louder.

“Well!” Hickory Stitch purred. “I don’t think your proof will be coming anytime this century. In truth I grow bored with this game as well.” The girl’s hands rose above her head once more. “And now it’s time to say farewe…” Hickory Stitch stopped in mid sentence. The Dutchman watched as the girl’s mouth snapped shut and took a decidedly stubborn look.

“Get out,” emitted a faint whisper of words from the girl. Her body suddenly dropped to its knees. Her fists began to pound the ground. “Get out, get out, get out!” she repeated, her cracking, child-like voice moving from a murmur to a shout.

The zombies that surrounded the two started to moan in confusion. Their momentary loss of direction was what the Dutchman had been waiting for.

“Now!” he yelled. The sound of baying wolves shook the night. From nothing ash-colored lupine specters winked into existence. They crowded the streets and rooftops of Amigo as if they’d always been there. An answering howl came from a massive black wolf that now stood where the Dutchmen’s horse had been a moment ago. As one large mass they swarmed over the directionless dead and with savage delight began to rip them into tiny animated pieces. The packs fed on the dead; their blazing red eyes a fire with lust. The black wolf, the largest of all, simply turned away from its brothers' feeding frenzy and returned to its spot at the entrance of the town. In an instant the wolf was gone, having reshaped itself into the Dutchman’s black mare.

The girl’s shouts became ear-numbing screams. Blood ran freely from her ears and nose yet still she screamed on until at last she pitched forward and vomited out a putrid, glutinous mass. The girl threw herself backward after vomiting the thing. Landing on the ground, she remained motionless.

The gelatinous pile shot sticky tentacles out of itself in a vain attempt to run. With huge strides the Dutchman bound up to it. One sickly yellow eye opened in the mass just in time to see the Dutchman’s heel come down and squash it. He turned his foot back and forth a few times to make sure the thing was dead. At the sound of puss exploding from the little horror, the spectral wolves paused. What was left of the zombies had returned to being just dead flesh. The Dutchman turned slowly in a circle, motioning thanks to the proud animals. As he finished the gesture, more of the specters faded away into the night. The town was empty once again, and he then turned his attention to the girl. Kneeling down he gently lifted her paper-light body into his arms. Her eyes opened. Clear blue, they looked past him to something in the distance.

“Did I do good?” her raspy voice asked the phantom behind his shoulder. A true smile blossomed on her face at his silent answer. “Can I go to bed now? Good, I’m even more tired than I was before.”

Two spindly little arms wrapped themselves around the Dutchman’s neck as she set her head in the cleft of his arm. “Good night, Grampy,” she whispered as she closed her eyes. Content with the praise only she could hear, Allyson Waite’s life slipped away.

The Dutchman held her in his arms the rest of the night, grieving for the lost little girl in the forgotten town of Amigo. Hoping, as he rocked her in his arms, and looking up at the full and silent moon, that she’d finally found her way home.