Hellfire Read Online Free PDF

stars of the evening were starting to come out. They were beautiful.
    The roaring in his ears was real. Men were shouting back and forth. Nate rolled his head over to look at them.
    One was the sheriff from Bastrop. Nate had seen him a few times before, bringing in wanted posters or sitting with a prisoner at the station. He was a hard man, a serious man who was willing to work. Nate liked him.
    The other man had a waxed mustache and a suit that cost more than a month of Nate’s pay. He had asked about the monsters. Then he had hit Nate.
    There was also the little man in the leather mask. He was one of the misshapen hires of the Rail Agency; “hunchbacks” everyone called them. He wasn’t yelling. He just stood there, stinking of sin, like something that came out of the wrong end of the pig.
    Nate wasn’t sure what it was, but the short man made his stomach open like a pit. Nate stared, even if he couldn’t see anything under that wide-brimmed hat.
    The short man suddenly started forward. Nate took in a ragged gasp and tried to crawl away, but Parvis grabbed Nate with a heavy, gloved hand.
    “Easy there! He’s injured!” the sheriff called.
    Nate squeezed his eyes shut. His right arm felt bloated and dull. His fingers didn’t seem to want to move. Somehow, Nate had forgotten all about it.
    “We won’t hurt him,” the man with the waxed mustache said, his voice breathy with exasperation. “We’ll get him the help he needs.”
    Nate opened his eyes. “What help? Where are you taking me?”
    From behind his mask, the short hunchback said with a voice that sounded like the buzzing of flies, “You are unwell. We will take you to a doctor.”
    Nate had heard that voice before. It had spoken to him out of the fire.
    Something welled up in the pit of Nate’s stomach and escaped his mouth as a scream. He screamed as long and loud as he possibly could. The thing from the firebox danced in front of his eyes.
    When his lungs ran out of air, he stopped and sucked in fresh twilight air. It was tainted with the putrid stink of the hunchback.
    Nate was done sitting and staring. He kicked with both legs, planting his boots squarely on the chest of the little hunchback. The hunchback made a spitting belch and flew backward, tripping over his long coat and falling to the ground.
    Before anyone else could act, Nate threw himself over the edge of the wagon. As soon as his boots touched the ground, he broke into a run. His second step planted firmly on the chest of the short hunchback again, making him gurgle.
    Shouting broke out all around him. The sheriff and the man with the waxed mustache both charged after him.
    Nate had to get out of there, and he had to be fast about it. He stomped through the bayou. Mud threatened to swallow up his boots with every step. He forced his feet on, fighting to the tree where the slim man who asked too many questions had tied his horse.
    She puffed air through her lips at him.
    “Help me get away,” Nate told the horse.
    She watched him with a huge brown eye.
    A hand grabbed Nate’s right arm. Stabbing pain burst through his shoulder. He’d gotten stitches there, he remembered. The lady with the lemonade had given them to him.
    Nate turned. It was one of the sheriff’s deputies.
    “Steady there,” the deputy told him.
    Nate threw his head forward, butting the man squarely in the nose.
    The deputy screamed and let go. His hands wrapped around his face. Already the blood flowed.
    Nate shook off his daze and pulled the horse’s reins free from the tree. He drew his steed back away and threw himself up onto the saddle. A wave of pain bit at the stitches in his shoulder, but Nate had to press on.
    He righted himself just in time to see the other deputy lunge at him. Nate threw up his boot and caught him with the sole between the neck and shoulder. He pushed. The deputy flew backward with a huge muddy clump stuck to his collar.
    The man with the waxed mustache screamed something. Nate stabbed