The man with the white hat sat half-awake at the bar, neck deep in a bottle of whiskey. When he came in, he boasted about killing a Texas Ranger. Over and over again, he said, He shoulda never crossed my path! I got ‘im with five shots. As people became sick of him, they bought him one drink after another. Soon enough, he could barely see what was in front of him.

The bartender checked his pocket watch. It read 11:56.

Somewhere out in the desert, a hand that shouldn’t have moved touched a hole in a head that shouldn’t have been awake. The hand circled the rim of the hole over and over again and clenched into a rotten fist.

With a shaky hand, the man with the white hat pressed a shot to his lips. He licked the inside of the drink like a dog and his breath, hot and rank, steamed up the glass. None of the other patrons paid him any more notice. They chatted and laughed with each other as the grandfather clock in the corner clicked. It was 11:57.

Slowly, the body connected to the hand rose and trudged through the desert. It had only one boot. As it ambled on, its hat fell over the missing chunk of its head.

Somebody in the bar sneezed and the man with the white hat tried to say Bless you, but all that came out was a string of drool. He placed a hand on his revolver and fiddled with the trigger. It sent a shiver through his spine remembering how good it felt.

Somebody asked the time and someone else said it was 11:58.

Although the town rang silent, two people saw the body as it trekked through the street. One of them, a young woman, didn’t understand what she was looking at and went on her way. The other one, an old woman, saw the way its black blood had dried against its grimy hands. When the body looked at her with its vengeful, empty eye, she fainted.

Right as the man with the white hat asked for another bottle, the doors of the bar swung open. The patrons gasped. Their eyes followed the body until it stood behind the man with the white hat. It was 11:59.

The body tapped on the man’s shoulder.

Lea’ me ‘lone, he said, but the body wouldn’t stop tapping.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The man pushed his glass aside, gripped his revolver, and spun around.

Wha’ you wan’, he started to say. Then he saw it. The body. It opened its mouth and out came a groan— the voice of the dead. The man screamed.

No’ you! No, no! No’ you!

He clumsily ripped his gun out of its holster and placed it under the chin of the body. He fired his last shot, carving another hole into the body. The last dusty bits of its brain splattered against the ceiling. The body faltered for a second then reached, slowly and deliberately, for its revolver. With a howl, the man clambered out of his stool and tried to reach the door. He collapsed on the floor.

No, no! I’m so’ry! I’m so’ry!

The body fired a shot directly into the man’s head. The jagged bullet tore through his eye and brain. Flesh splattered against the floor. The body pulled back on the hammer and fired again, striking his chest. A rib exploded and red bone shards shattered. It fired twice more, each time sending spurts of blood into the air. Even when it ran out of bullets, its finger kept twitching against the trigger.

Click. Click. Click.

Then it stopped. The body fell down next to the man with the white hat. The patrons in the bar didn’t move.

On its shirt, the body wore the bloodied badge of a Texas Ranger.

The grandfather clock struck 12:00.

– Joshua Pantano

Author’s Note: This story came from combining my two favorite genres: western and supernatural. When I write flash fiction, I always have an image in my head of a particular scene that evolves into a story, and for this piece, it was the dead cowboy monotonously pulling the trigger of his revolver. Spooky, right?