It was a crying shame too.
Sterling had leafed through plenty of magazines and books detailing what the world used to be like. It was frustrating seeing those pictures, New York City, London, Tokyo, Seattle—big places, places that required a lot of behind-the-scenes work to operate. The list went on and on, organized society built in stacks, most people following the rules to varying degrees.
He couldn’t imagine what those big old cities looked like now.
There’d been a couple times over the last several years when he had thought about packing his things up and riding to the east or west, just seeing how far the destruction went. But he’d always come to the same conclusion: What good would there be in that? Everyone was suffering everywhere. Best to just keep to himself.
Sterling spotted a building along the highway that looked like it would be a good place to camp out. He wasn’t that far from Hatch, where a friend of his lived, and he could cover most of the distance in the morning between here and Las Cruces.
“Molly B’s Dry Dock,” he read as he approached the parking lot, his revolver in hand. Sterling cleared his throat. “Hey! Anyone in there? I’m just looking for a place to relax for the night. I’ll keep moving on if you’re in there, so say something now. I’m armed. Fair warning.”
He waited, and he thought about firing a shot to the sky just to let any squatters know he was serious. But he also got the sense that the place was empty. Just to be sure, he made another announcement, this one a little more urgent.
Sterling got off his horse. He kept his revolver at the ready as he went to the first open doorway he could find, which was an office.
Bam!
A rat caused him to waste a bullet. It scurried behind a toppled watercooler, Sterling on edge for a moment as he waited for any other disturbances. “Damn things,” he said as he moved to another room, this one clear of all of its furniture, and with a partially boarded up window that looked out toward the highway.
Sterling walked to the window and noticed something in the distance, a bonfire fueled by someone with a little more juice than your average local.
“Killbillies,” Sterling said, as if he was having a conversation with himself. He could sit here and watch them all night, or he could use the cover of night and his unique power to attack the bandits, rid the world of a few more Killbillies, and collect some loot and XP in the process.
Sterling stepped outside and whistled for Manchester.
“Might as well end the day right,” he said to his bone horse as he mounted up.
Sterling reached the highway and took a quick look around, checking to see if there were any highway grave markings. From his experience, people buried their dead wherever it was convenient, and they usually marked the graves with either crosses, or other found objects that looters wouldn’t take.
He spotted a couple abandoned vehicles between his current location and the large bonfire on the other side of the highway. After hopping off Manchester, Sterling started to check the abandoned vehicles, looking for a little help.
“Let me help you there, ma’am,” he said as he opened the door of a rusted SUV. The smell was nearly overwhelming, but Sterling powered through it, breathing out of his mouth as he animated the rotting woman sitting in the passenger seat. He didn’t know how long she had been there, but being stuck inside the car had somewhat preserved her.
Even if she looked gruesome, Sterling no longer experienced shock at what he could do. He didn’t have any remorse for his animates—they were all dead anyway—but he knew their effects on the living, how terrifying they could be. His animates were by no means smart, but they understood simple commands, and there seemed to be an almost telepathic link between him and them. Maybe they would get smarter once he could finally level up his Resurrection ability.
As his animate stood there awaiting orders, Sterling checked the other vehicles, relying on his Death Sense ability to let him know if there were any other bodies around. Unfortunately, there weren’t.
“Looks like you’re all I got, ma’am,” he told his animate as he motioned for her to follow him across the highway. It was quiet out, and aside from the bonfire blazing on the hill about a quarter of a mile away from them, the only available light came from the moon and the stars.
Sterling felt a nicotine craving coming on, but he knew he was close enough now that if one of them went off to take a piss or something, they might be able to smell the cigarette. Nope, the only way he was going to handle this was through shock and awe, something Sterling excelled in.
He clicked his tongue and Manchester trotted across the highway, joining Sterling and his grisly animate. Sterling placed his hand on the side of Manchester’s skull.
“Are you ready to help me out, Pingo?” he asked as he ran his hand down the bone horse’s face, lightly grazing his fingers across the top of Manchester’s cold teeth. Manchester could no longer make sounds, considering he didn’t have any vital organs, but the horse did nod his head up and down, stomping his feet lightly against the gravel.
“Good. Here’s how this is going to play out: You’re going to ride right into that camp and freak them the hell out.” Sterling turned to his other animate, the zombie woman. “And you’re going to come in after, from the west. Surprise and conquer.”
The woman hunched over, and made a sound that almost resembled a snort. She took off, moving at an almost superhuman speed, running like an ape.
“You’re up,” he told Manchester as he slapped him on the hip bone. The horse trotted ahead, Sterling following close behind him.
His all-black clothing helped in scenarios like this, and as he followed Manchester, Sterling kept low to the ground, his revolver at the ready. He had plenty of Mana, and he didn’t expect there to be more than ten Killbillies or so. If they weren’t Killbillies, they were likely another bandit group, or perhaps a patrol from the White Sands Militia, even though this was pretty far out of their territory. Either way, Sterling wasn’t about to ask any questions—it wasn’t that kind of world anymore.
Manchester was the first to reach the bonfire, Sterling’s skeletal steed doing exactly what he wanted him to do. Without stopping, Manchester galloped right through the middle of the enemy camp, the sounds of screams and people scrambling reaching Sterling’s ears as he continued to creep through the darkness.
The female animate arrived, and Sterling heard an actual firearm, its report telling Sterling that it was a shotgun.
Click-click, boom!
While this would certainly stop his animate, she would still be able to give them hell and cause the distraction that Sterling needed.
Pausing behind a shrub, Sterling waited until a man charged off in his direction, seemingly planning to do a sweep of the area. Sterling confirmed he was a Killbilly—pretty easy to tell with the yellow bandanna around his neck and his body armor with the letters KB spray-painted across the chest. In his mad dash, the Killbilly ran right past Sterling, only to find the cowboy necromancer suddenly standing behind him, the muzzle of his revolver pointed at the back of his head.
“How many are there?” Sterling asked as his single animate continued to cause chaos. He imagined that by now the shotgun wound had torn her body in half, that she was crawling toward one of the Killbillies, a horrifying sight. “Don’t turn around, boy, or I’ll blow your head off. I’ll ask one last time: how many?”
“I’m not telling you shit,” the man growled.
Sterling knew at that point he should have pulled the trigger, but a moment’s hesitation was enough for the bandit to flip high into the air and land behind Sterling. He wasn’t one of the Adapted, but the beefy Killbilly had put plenty of Stat Points in his Strength, and there was no telling what he had done with the Technique Points he had received.
Sterling swiveled, hoping to shoot the bandit. He lost his revolver as he was tackled to the ground, the man stinking of sweat and tequila, a rage in his eyes illuminated by the bonfire, an urge to survive. Calli
ng upon his own unique strength, and secretly cursing himself for being rusty in a situation like this, Sterling sent a fist up that connected with the man’s jaw. He managed to roll on top of the Killbilly, his cowboy hat flying off his head in the process. Using his leverage to his advantage, Sterling lifted the man by his shoulders and headbutted him twice. He was just about to reach for his sickle-sword when a foot connected with the top of his back, sending Sterling tumbling away.
He rolled down the hill and landed in a cactus patch that added insult to injury, tiny spikes of pain radiating. He looked up to see another Killbilly charging in his direction, his silhouette growing in size. The man jumped, and landed right next to Sterling, preparing to stomp him out.
But Sterling was a scrappy fighter, and he wasn’t one to forgo an advantage for something akin to honor. He struck the man in the groin, making the brute yelp. Back to his feet, Sterling unsheathed his sickle-sword, turquoise energy radiating off its tip as he took a precision swipe at his assailant, a trail of blood following the end of his weapon as it cut through the man’s throat.
Knowing that these Killbillies could heal just as well as he could, Sterling stepped behind the man as he began to fall, and used the inner curve of his blade to cleave the man’s head clean off.
Ain’t no healing from that.
The Killbilly he’d engaged earlier was just starting to press himself to his feet when Sterling descended upon him. Rather than say anything, he quickly killed the bandit by slitting his throat, the man’s body rolling down the hill.
Sterling still heard some struggle up at the campfire.
He located his black cowboy hat as well as his revolver and approached the campfire with his weapon drawn, cursing himself under his breath for losing his weapon twice in one day. You’ve got to get your shit together.
Just as he had predicted, Sterling found his animate cut in half by the shotgun blast. She had also managed to overpower the man with the weapon, and was currently ripping him apart as another bandit tried to fight her off. Sterling shot the Killbilly that was still standing, the man instantly falling over from the fatal wound, the magic bullet passing right through his skull and bursting out the back of his head. He walked over to the man that was still struggling and shot him as well. Another bullet between the eyes, another wound he wouldn’t be able to heal from.
Something wasn’t right.
There were only four of them, and Sterling knew that any patrol worthy enough to have an actual firearm usually traveled with more bandits. “That accounts for one…” he said as he saw a female Killbilly who had been trampled by Manchester.
Sterling was just turning around when a flying female Killbilly collided with him. She grabbed hold of him and spun Sterling high into the air. She was a muscular woman, shaved head, corn fed and raised on a steady diet of milk and meat like most of the Killbillies. Sterling tried to elbow the tops of her shoulders and the side of her head as she carried him higher into the sky. After a few heartbeats of struggle, he managed to swivel around, Sterling now with his arm wrapped around her neck. “This ain’t going to end well for you,” he told her as he pressed his revolver into the side of her head, trying to ignore the fear of heights he was experiencing.
“It won’t end well for you either,” she hissed, the two of them about seventy feet up now. “Do it, asshole.”
“Shee-it…” Sterling mumbled as his fear overcame him. He hadn’t been anywhere near this high for years, and to have it happen twice in the same day. Later, he would look back on this moment and smirk. It had been a hell of a day.
“Take me down and I’ll let you live,” he suddenly told her through gritted teeth, the air starting to grow cooler. “I’m serious, damn you, take me down!”
When the woman kept climbing, Sterling did the only thing he knew would stop the lady from going any higher.
Bam!
He blew out the side of her head, and the woman went limp in his arms.
Gravity soon took over. The two of them spiraled back toward the arid landscape below. Sterling tried to maneuver the woman so she would be the one to take most of the impact, but the ground came faster than he could react.
And it hurt.
Everything flashed black as soon as he hit the ground, and for a moment Sterling experienced memories he didn’t recognize. A child, a woman, the world around him vibrant, no longer the start of a hellscape, no longer the beginning of the end. Then heads exploding all around him, then chaos.
A surge of oxygen came to Sterling, filling his lungs. He didn’t know how many bones were broken in his body, but he knew they were several, perhaps some internal injuries as well. The Killbilly woman had taken the brunt of the fall and protected him to some degree, but that didn’t stop Sterling’s entire body from aching with pain.
“Goddammit…” he muttered as he stared up at the stars above, feeling as if they were mocking him. He chuckled, ignoring the twinge of pain along his ribcage. “You goddamn amateur,” he mumbled as Manchester slowly approached. His bone horse looked down at Sterling, and nudged him with the front of his face.
“I ain’t dead yet,” Sterling said with a groan. “But it’s going to be a minute.”
.Chapter Four.
The pain from his fall put Sterling in a delirium, the cowboy necromancer not able to tell if he was awake or dreaming. As usual, or as had been usual for him over the last three years or so, at some point in the delirium that followed, Sterling found himself thinking about peppers. He had written a few desert haiku about peppers, his favorite still being the first one he’d ever penned, one that he had memorized and could recite readily.
Chili pepper fall
Christmas comes in September
Peppers unite us
Sterling knew that Christmas was a holiday that the before people had celebrated. Considering his age, he assumed that he had probably celebrated the holiday as well. But that wasn’t why he had included the word in his haiku. In New Mexico, at least according to numerous travel guides he’d skimmed through and how the locals spoke, ‘Christmas’ meant the combination of green and red chili peppers on whatever dish you were eating. Even now, after the Reset, someone serving food would generally ask: “Red, green, or Christmas?”
Sometimes Sterling was feeling red, especially if they were talking about some Chimayó peppers, maybe some NuMex Sweet Paprika, which tasted like sun-dried tomato cherries, and featured a tantalizing flavor, not as much of a kick. Sterling could eat those things whole, just munching on them all day if he had to. But he also liked green peppers as well, a different mild flavor with a hint of robust bitterness.
As he wavered somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness, sprawled out somewhere between Truth or Consequences and what was once the US-Mexico border, more pepper facts danced around his head.
He’d read that the chili pepper was a fruit that had originated in Central America. Borders, cities, counties, other countries, big pockets of civilization on either coast—as far as Sterling knew, all these things were long gone. Yet the chili pepper remained, thriving in a post-apocalyptic world. Sterling had found the book on peppers in the abandoned bookstore in T or C, which turned into an epic fight with another man over ownership of the book. In the end, the two agreed to share the book. And as it turned out, they later became fast friends and drinking buddies, Sterling and Kip never coming to blows again. Red, green, orange, yellow, even dark purple. Various shades of peppers, good enough to enjoy at every meal, had united the two men.
Sterling knew that it was birds that had helped bring the peppers up from Central America to Mexico, thousands of years before Christopher Columbus ever set sail. According to the book, Columbus was more or less responsible for the spread of the chili seed all around the world, which was quite the claim. Starting with Europe, then Africa, and Asia, the seed spread quickly. And just like that, people had a spice they could sink their teeth into. Soon, chili peppers had become an ideal mediator between Europeans and N
ative Americans, one of the first things shared in the Southwest alongside disease, the history of the spicy fruit still being written.
Hours passed as his body mended itself back together amidst bouts of sleep, Sterling salivating about peppers as he dipped in and out of consciousness, sounds coming to him and leaving as quickly as they appeared. It was early morning when the cowboy necromancer finally came to his senses, confusion immediately setting in. For a moment, Sterling didn’t know where he was, and he certainly wasn’t prepared to find himself lying next to a dead female Killbilly, everything coming back to him in a flash.
“Best turn back,” he growled to a gray-necked vulture circling overhead, glaring at the bird. The sun was just coming up on the horizon and the temperature had dropped; his lips were chapped, his mouth dry, and his skin cold. He wasn’t surprised to find that he no longer felt any pain from his fall. He did, however, feel a crick in his neck from sleeping funny, something that was remedied once he sat up.
After rummaging around for a moment, Sterling found his cowboy hat, and placed it on his head. He saw a pile of bones with a saddle near it and raised his hand, his skeletal steed coming to life.
“Morning, boy,” he said to his horse as he fixed the saddle over the bone horse’s body. “Good, Pingo, real good. And before you ask, you’re goddamn right I’m going to do better today. The next time I fly, it better be on an airplane,” he joked, recalling the pictures of airplanes he’d seen in magazines, and the few crashed planes he’d encountered in the desert. “It ain’t my fault anyway. I’m a bit rusty when it comes to dealing with these kinds of situations. You’ll see, today is going to be better than yesterday.”
Before stepping away from the woman who had flown him high into the air, Sterling checked her pockets for any loot. There wasn’t always loot because most people kept things in their inventory list. But sometimes Sterling found things like charms, or armor that he could equip. Other folks continued to store things in their pockets even though they didn’t need to, which was always a plus for Sterling when he found himself on a looting mission.
Cowboy Necromancer: Infinite Dusk Page 5