The desert had never felt so damn quiet.
Jesse and his crew rode hard, the stolen chest strapped tight behind his saddle. The moon cut through the night like a silver blade, turning the canyon's jagged edges into long shadows that stretched like grasping fingers.
Nobody spoke.
Because everyone felt it.
The weight. The thing sitting behind them like an extra rider. The fact that they'd cracked open something not meant to be touched.
Clint was the first to break the silence. "So, we just ain't gonna talk about the angry ghosts we barely outran?"
Maggie exhaled through her nose. "Nope."
Darla sighed, adjusting her hat. "Still gonna have nightmares, though."
"I'll drink to that," Clint muttered.
Jesse stayed quiet, eyes scanning the horizon. Something didn't sit right in his gut.
Zeke pulled his horse alongside him, flipping a tarot card over his fingers. "You feel it too, don't you?"
Jesse didn't answer.
Because he did.
A pressure in the air. A wrongness, slithering between them like a snake waiting to strike. The kind of feeling that usually meant somebody was already dead—they just didn't know it yet.
The town of Greywater was just a few miles ahead. A small place, quiet, barely a handful of buildings and one saloon worth drinking in. They could rest there, get supplies, figure out what the hell to do with the chest.
At least, that had been the plan.
But plans had a nasty habit of going to hell around Jesse McGraw.
Because that's when the storm rolled in.
Ghost Riders in the Storm
It didn't come slow like normal storms. No gradual change in the wind, no scent of rain creeping in.
One second the sky was clear. The next, black clouds swallowed the moon whole.
Jesse yanked on the reins. "Hold up!"
The crew pulled to a stop.
And then they saw them.
Figures. Riders. Coming fast through the dust, their horses moving too smooth—too silent. Their coats billowed, but no wind touched them.
Their faces were hidden beneath wide-brimmed hats, but their eyes—God help them, their eyes—
They burned.
Clint cursed. "Hell no."
Darla cocked her rifle. "We just put you bastards back in the box!"
The riders didn't slow.
Jesse drew his gun, jaw tightening. "Yeah? Looks like they didn't like it much."
The first shot rang out—sharp, echoing through the desert.
Zeke barely dodged in time as a ghostly bullet tore through the air.
Then the storm came alive.
The wind howled, kicking up dust so thick it felt like a hundred hands clawing at them. The ground trembled, and suddenly the world wasn't the world anymore.
They weren't in the desert.
They were somewhere else.
Somewhere dark. Somewhere cold.
Somewhere the living didn't belong.
Jesse turned his horse hard, trying to see through the storm.
"Maggie?!" he called.
"Here!" Her voice came through the dust.
"Clint?"
"Still breathin'!"
A gunshot. Then another.
Zeke swore. "They're circling us!"
Jesse fired into the storm, his bullet vanishing before it could hit anything.
Then, out of the swirling darkness, one of the ghost riders lunged.
Jesse only had a split second to react.
He twisted in the saddle, ducked, and the rider's clawed hand missed his throat by an inch. Jesse fired point-blank—
The bullet hit nothing.
Like the rider wasn't even real.
Maggie's horse reared as another phantom charged her, passing straight through her like mist. She gasped, shuddering as if something had crawled into her bones.
Zeke flipped another card—The Chariot.
A pulse of golden light burst from his hands, blasting back one of the spirits. It shrieked, its form flickering—
But it didn't fall.
They weren't fighting men.
They were fighting memories.
And you couldn't kill what was already dead.
Jesse's mind worked fast. There was no winning this fight.
But they could still outrun it.
"The chest!" he yelled. "It's what they're after!"
Darla turned to him, firing another shot. "What are you saying, McGraw?"
Jesse's grip tightened on the reins. "I'm saying we cut it loose."
Clint gawked. "We just risked our damn lives for that thing!"
"Yeah?" Jesse shot back. "And we'll lose 'em if we keep it!"
Maggie swore under her breath. "Fine. But if we live through this, you owe me a drink."
Jesse didn't waste time. He reached back, unhooking the chest's straps. The damn thing hummed under his fingers, like it knew what was about to happen.
"Hold on tight!" he growled—
And then he kicked it loose.
The chest hit the ground with a heavy thud.
The ghost riders screeched.
The storm howled.
And then—
Everything stopped.
The wind died. The dust settled. The ghostly riders froze in place.
And then—they vanished.
Just like that.
Like they'd never been there at all.
The night was still again. The sky clear. The desert back to normal.
Jesse exhaled, running a hand down his face. "Well. That sucked."
Maggie groaned. "We lost the damn chest."
Zeke sat there, staring at the place where the storm had swallowed them. He didn't speak. Didn't even blink.
Clint nudged him. "Zeke?"
The fortune teller finally turned. His face was pale. His voice quiet.
"It ain't over."
Darla frowned. "What do you mean? We ditched it."
Zeke shook his head, pulling a single tarot card from his deck. He held it up.
It was blank.
The color drained from Jesse's face.
Blank cards meant one thing.
Something new had entered the game.
Something unwritten.
Something no one could predict.
And whatever it was… it was still coming.