Stanton Creed Pt. Two

Stanton moved over to the cooler, squatting down to examine the various bottles of liquor arrayed before him. Despite the rot betwixt his ears, he could hear the girls murmuring between themselves, the remaining two boys muttering dark mutterings. Scooping up a heavy glass bottle of rum bearing an image of a cocky pirate, Stanton looked over his shoulder.

“Negro? You got a name?” Stanton asked, preferring not to have to call him by his race the entire game.

“It’s James you racist motherfucker.” The man replied through gritted teeth, a fist clenched at his side. “And you can’t just make us do this! What if we just run?”

Stanton let out a wicked laugh as he burst into a puff of black sand and shadow, reforming between the two men holding the bottle of rum, both arms slung around their shoulders. “I’m cursed to roam these lands boy,” Stanton said, stressing the last word with amusement before shoving the bottle into the older boys hands. “Since we’re getting along like a circle with a peace pipe, let’s hear some names so I don’t have to call you by what I think of you.”

The older boy, holding the bottle and looking a tad confused, merely said his name in a single word as he moved to grab shot glasses fro his backpack. “Jesse.”

“Jesse and James,” Stanton said with a thick chuckle, taking a moment to hawk and spit a globule of mud and roaches from his lungs, wiping his mouth on his dirt encrusted sleeve. “I knew a Jesse and a James back when I was more flesh than bone. Good fellas, honest through and through.”

“I’m Jessica,” A blonde girl in a two piece swimsuit, sitting next to a girl with similar hair and facial features. “And this is my sister Becky.”

Stanton merely waved at them with a cocky grin before turning his eyes as cold as death upon the last two women, Jesse walking amongst them passing out shot glasses, one by one.

Stanton smiled as his shot glass bore a small drawing of a devil on it, along with the words “South Padre” across the creatures furry ass.

“I’m Sara,” a thin brunette said, her hands in her lap and eyes on the bonfire. Girl’s in shock… Stanton thought, looking down at the corpse of the man he’d shot for being difficult. Toeing him with his muddy boot, Sara winced as he did so bringing a horrid smile to Stanon’s wrinkled features.

“And I’m Jackie,” Said a thicker girl that, if Stanton’s rotten eyes weren’t mistaken, was of injun blood.

“And who’s this lump,” Stanton asked, kicking the warm corpse soaking in it’s own bloody sand.

“Jay,” Sara said with a choke.

“Ah… young love.” Stanton said with a sneer. “You beat me in this contest girl, I’ll bring him back for you, healthy as a horse. But old Stanton’ll want something in exchange for this extra bet.”

“What do you want?” She asked, tears welling at the edges of her eyes.

“If I win, I get your soul nonetheless, as well as his, but I also want two additional souls. Don’t care how you get them. You just gotta kill two people before offing yourself.” Stanton said, smiling as he face went a further shade of pale. “You win, I’ll bring the boy back. Simple enough?”

“Now wait a minute mister!” Jackie said suddenly, standing and pointing down at the dead man perched atop a comfortable mound of sand. “Who the hell do you think you are to do this to us? What do we get if we win other than what we already had?”

Stanton stared at Jackie with his dead eyes for a moment before a wry smile cracked his face. “My oh my, a woman with sense! Alright then, you best ol’ Stanton Creed in the game of Drink and toss my body in the well at the top of the hill, you’ll find buried beneath my headstone a sack of gold. Don’t ask me how I got it ‘cause you won’t like the answer, but suffice to say it should make you all plenty happy.”

Quiet murmurs broke out around the camp at the sudden addition of not only living past this night, but possibly being richer. Only Sara remained silent, staring across the bonfire into the glimmering dead eyes of Stanton Creed.

“We’ll play your little game cowboy,” She said in a low voice, “and we’ll beat you too. We have to.”

Stanton just smiled as Jesse began filling up everyone’s shot glass one by one.

The game was on.