Forrester was beating himself up. He had all types of survivors guilt, on top of the fact that, despite his best efforts, his patient still ended up murdered in the church. Why was he even here? What did he hope to accomplish? Why did he think he could manage his own practice so soon out of med school? If only he had listened to the conductor and just stayed on the train. These were the thoughts running through his head without end.

“It’s useless” he thought. “Utterly useless. I should give up and go home…” But no, like it or not, this was his home now. He committed to this, and if he ran away that wouldn’t stop the Acolytes. That would only let them grow in number and spread to other areas. He needed to stop them. If only there were some law around Helmuth, he could work with them, or at least rely on them. But there was no one. It seemed the only people who stayed in Helmuth were the type of people who wouldn’t be welcome anywhere else. And the population was decreasing thanks to the Acolytes. Forrester stared out his window, daydreaming, wishing he had some way to stand his ground and make some gains against his enemies. He was daydreaming so heavily in fact that he barely noticed the man walking slowly outside, clutching his throat, and crying (more of a gurgle) before collapsing in the street. It took a second to register but once it did he leapt to his feet and ran out the door. The man was bleeding heavily from the neck, as if a major artery had been cut into. Forrester ripped off the sleeve of his shirt and used it as a makeshift bandage to put pressure on the wound and try and slow the bleeding.

“Somebody help!” He called out. He was too small to stop the bleeding and drag the man back into his office. Some people came out of the saloon, not in response to his call for help, but to urinate on the outside of the building. Forrester managed to get their attention and they helped him bring the man into his office where he could treat him properly. At first he assumed this was the work of the Acolytes, another failed attempt at sacrificing to Moloch, but this was different. This man’s throat wasn’t cut, it was bitten. It looked like it had to be an animal at least the size of a large wolf or a bear, but he couldn’t imagine a wolf or a bear would wound him like this and then leave the rest of him uneaten. He worked on the man as best he could. He tried to stitch up the wound and close the artery, but he had lost too much blood, and the man passed on.

“Another death on my table…” Said Forrester to himself, “What am I even doing calling myself a doctor?” Feeling defeated, he called for Muriel’s people to dispose of the body. He didn’t recognize the man, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t from Helmuth, it just meant Forrester didn’t get out much. Muriel’s men came to get him and Forrester asked who he was.

“I seen him in the bar a few nights back. Was really handsy with some of the girls. Other than that I don’t know him from Adam.” Said Nick, the bartender.

A few days passed and nearly the same incident happened again. Forrester saw a man collapse outside, he ran out and tried to help him, but by the time he got there the man had passed. He had the same type of injury, however, as the previous man. This happened again a few days later. Forrester issued a warning to the community that there may be a vicious animal on the loose who’s maiming people, but nobody took it to heart. These incidents kept happening and Forrester, aside from feeling like an utter failure as a doctor for not being able to save any of them, soon realized that all of the victims were unfamiliar to him. There weren’t that many people in Helmuth, you’d think someone would notice if this many villagers started dying. He deduced, then, that all the victims were from out of town. Finally Forrester had some luck! As lucky as you can be when people keep showing up maimed on your doorstep. He managed to stop the bleeding and save someone. Blood transfusions weren’t exactly easy to do way out in the middle of nowhere, but Forrester decided to give it a shot. He took as much blood as he could muster from himself without passing out and put it into his patient, and as luck would have it, it worked. As the man regained consciousness Forrester stood up, a little light headed, and was about to ask him what happened to him, when the man blurted out,

“That whore bit me!”

“That… what?” Said Forrester. “Who bit you?”

“That whore at the saloon, Daisy!” He said. “Daisy my ass. Ain’t know flower with a bite like that.”

“Well.. um… I’m sure it was a mis- did you say she bit you?” Forrester stammered.

“We was gettin’ on ok, things was heatin’ up, and then I say somethin’ about her bein’ the sweetest whore I ever seen an’ the next thing I know she dun bit me!”

“Well…” Said Forrester, “Let’s, uh, go down there and see if we can’t um… get an apology?”

“I ain’t goin’ back there!” He said, “Those women is crazy! I’m gonna git ma horse and ride out as soon as I can stand.” Forrester gave the man a meal and gave him some coffee and saw him off on his way. The doctor decided to spend some time at the saloon and see if he could find anything else out. He asked about Daisy, she seemed perfectly normal. Forrester even had a delightful conversation with her. He asked Muriel about some of the strange things that had been happening but she didn’t seem to notice anything. It was almost time to call it a night when he saw a certain gentleman acting very ungentlemanly. He was being rather loud, and crude, and drunk, and slapping the girls on the bottom and all sorts of things. Muriel looked unimpressed and actually motioned for Daisy to go over to him. Daisy put on her best “Come Hither” face and walked over to the man, whispered something in his ear and then lead him upstairs by the bolo tie. This was it! It was happening! Forrester waited until they went upstairs and then slowly tried to sneak up without anyone noticing. Luckily, this was the bar where things largely went unnoticed, and nobody cared what anyone else did as long as it didn’t interfere with the good time they were trying to have. He krept along a row of closed bedroom doors until he could here the giggling of a man and a woman, which he guessed was Daisy and the man. Just as he was about to peek through the keyhole he heard a scream in the bedroom across the hall, he ran and kicked the door, expecting it to fly open, but he was a petite man and barely made a dent. He tried the door knob, it wasn’t locked. He opened the door and found Daisy, with blood all over her face, and the body of the man collapsed on the floor in an increasingly large pool of his own blood. Shocked and horrified he turned to run, only to be met by Muriel.

“Oh, Sug. I had hoped you wouldn’t find out this way…” she said as she punched him square across the jaw. Forrester blacked out.