Deadlands: Ghostwalkers

by Jonathan Maberry

  “Is it?” asked Looks Away.

  “It is indeed,” said Saint. He moistened a finger and held it up, then nodded to himself. “The storm is in the east but the wind is coming in from the ocean. That’s good, my boys, that’s very good.”

  “In what way, exactly?” asked Grey.

  “I’m delighted that you asked.” The scientist chuckled as if this was all great fun. He turned and jogged back to the steps, crossed to one of the two carts and began untying the ropes that held the tarp in place. Grey leaned close to Looks Away.

  “Does he actually have a plan, or is he just crazy as a barn owl?”

  The Sioux frowned. “I’ll give you even odds either way.”

  Saint called out to them as he held the corner of the tarp in one small, brown hand. When he spoke, he pitched his voice loud enough for the crowd to hear.

  “You all know what’s coming,” he said. “You’ve been told about Aleksander Deray and his machines. You’ve seen the walking dead. You know that we are facing an army of considerable size and power.”

  The crowd stared at him in silent anticipation. The fear was now etched far more heavily on their faces than a moment ago.

  Grey murmured, “Jesus. Some opener to a rousing call to arms.”

  Looks Away said, “I suppose it’s better than ‘we who are about to die salute you.’”

  “Not much.”

  The scientist did not hear this quiet exchange. Still smiling, he pointed to the sky above them all. “This is the modern age. We are already taking the first steps out of the darkness of the nineteenth century and into the world of wonder that is the twentieth.” He paused for effect, though Grey was certain that no one in the crowd was enthused by the march of scientific progress. “Thousands of years ago wars were fought hand to hand. Then the sword was invented, and those who wielded them triumphed over those who used clubs or fists. Then came the bow and arrow, then the crossbow, the cannon, the rifle. With each advancement in the science of warfare we see that the wise, the evolved triumph over the brutish. Not even the strongest and most skilled swordsman in the world can stand against a bullet, even if that bullet is fired from a gun in the hands of a weak man, a woman, or even a child.”

  The crowd was listening now, and their eyes flicked now and again to whatever was under the tarps. Even Grey found himself interested.

  “Aleksander Deray has his weapons,” continued Saint, “and I will grant you that they are formidable. In any ordinary battle he would sweep through a town like ours with impunity, with arrogance, and with certain knowledge of his superiority.”

  “Wait for it,” said Looks Away, leaning forward over the rail, eyes alight.

  “But what he does not know, my friends,” said Saint, “is that Paradise Falls is not his for the taking. We are not debris to be swept aside. We are not inconveniences to be disposed of. Oh no, that is not the case. I submit to you that we are not to be dismissed so readily. When Deray’s minions bring their war to us, it is war they will find. We will not fall. I tell you now that when the storm breaks upon us, Deray will find that Paradise rises!”

  With that he whipped back the tarp to reveal a cargo of hundreds of brightly colored rubber balloons. Each was filled with gas, and as the tarp fell away, they stirred and lifted and rose quickly into the air. Reds and blues, greens and yellows, oranges and purples and a few that were as white as snow. They drifted upward and were caught by the freshening breeze, then scattered and blown high above the town.

  The crowd gasped at first, and here and there were small cheers. But these faded as the people understood what they were seeing. The big reveal, the scientist’s secret weapon, were mere balloons.

  One by one the looks of wonder changed to confusion and then to doubt. Finally they lowered their heads and glared at the scientist.

  “That’s it?” cried Mrs. O’Malley. “That’s our secret weapon? Land’s sakes, Doctor Saint, you’re as mad as the moon. I do believe you’ve killed us all.”

  The crowd became angry and hard words filled the air.

  “Oh boy,” said Grey, and when he glanced at his friend he saw only confusion and embarrassment on the Sioux’s face.

  “No! No, wait,” yelled Saint, holding his hands up, “you don’t understand…”

  “We’re all gonna die,” said one of the farmers, throwing down his pitch fork. “Lord a’mighty we’re gonna die.”

  The crowd surged around Saint, yelling at him, cursing him to hell, calling him names. Mothers pulled their children to them and wept openly. And all the time the doctor tried to calm them, tried to explain.

  “I’d better do something,” said Looks Away as he leaped from the porch and waded through the crowd. He grabbed Saint by the shoulder and half pulled, half carried him through the press and pushed him roughly up onto the porch. Some of the people swung at the scientist, needing to hit something in order to vent their frustration.

  “No!” pleaded Saint. “You must listen. You must!”

  “Get him inside,” warned Grey as he shifted to block the stairs. He pushed a few people back, and though they were angry, he was bigger and stronger.

  Finally Saint tore free of Looks Away, shoved the Sioux away from him, whipped the strange pistol from its holster, and wheeled on the crowd. “Shut up!” he roared.

  Grey had his hand on his Colt in an instant. “Whoa! Whoa now, Doc.”

  “No,” snapped Saint, “I want you and everyone to listen to me.”

  The crowd fell into an uneasy silence, everyone casting glances at the gun clutched in Doctor Saint’s hand.

  “Now you people listen to me,” he growled. “I bring you hope and you turn on me? You ungrateful—.”

  “Careful now, Doc,” warned Grey. “If you have something to say, then say it.”

  Doctor Saint gave him a withering stare, but then nodded. Holding the gun in his right hand, he dug something out of one of the voluminous pockets of his topcoat. He held out his hand to show a small metal box not much larger than a pack of playing cards. It was gold and had a black dial mounted on the top and several buttons along the side. He turned the dial with his thumb and then pressed a button. Nothing appeared to happen, but then a shadow moved across his face and everyone looked up to see one of the balloons—a bright blue one—come drifting back down. It stopped ten feet above the scientist and despite the wind it did not blow away. That’s when Grey saw that there was a tiny box attached to its base, and on the box were two sets of little blades that spun like windmills during a hurricane.

  “Do you fools think I came out here to play with children’s toys?” said Saint, and the scolding tone in his voice was reflected in the looks of doubt that now clouded the faces of the crowd. “I’m not a toymaker … I am a maker of weapons, and these are something I designed for warfare. Modern warfare. Behold the Little Disaster. Do you even know what that word means? Disaster? It’s a Greek word that means ‘bad star.’ A pejorative, I’ll admit, but in this case the ill fortune it carries is meant for our enemies. Watch and learn what I have made for you, for this fight.”

  With another turn of the dial, Saint made the balloon move away. It rose to the very top of the house and then wafted over toward an old cottonwood tree that had died from lack of water. The Disaster entered the network of withered branches and then stopped again. Grey could not guess what the little maniac was up to with all this.

  Then Doctor Saint raised the control box and pushed a different button.

  Bang!

  The balloon exploded into a fireball of painfully intense blue-white light. Electricity writhed like snakes in the air. The tree flew apart, showering the crowd and the street and everything around it with splinters that burned to ash before they landed. The shock wave knocked fifty people flat on their faces and broke the windows of every house for half a block.

  Grey and Looks Away were plucked off their feet and slammed against the side of the house, and even Saint was sent sprawling. The echo of that blast knocke
d all other sound out of the world and left the entire crowd dazed.

  It took a long time for Grey to make sense of who he was and what had happened. The blast had been that intense. He sat down hard with his back to the wall, legs splayed, mouth opening and closing, eyes blinking, ears ringing.

  He watched Doctor Saint get back to his feet. The little scientist was chuckling even though he had a small cut over his eye that ran with blood. Beyond him, fixed hard against the storm clouds, the other balloons seemed frozen into the moment.

  Disasters, waiting to happen.

  One by one the townspeople climbed back to their feet. Shocked and wide-eyed, they picked up their weapons and stared with a mix of shock and wonder at Doctor Saint.

  “Lord a’mighty,” repeated the farmer who had been complaining a minute before.

  The scientist held the control box out. “I have spent many years attempting to rediscover the secret of Greek fire—that most elusive of the weapons of war. The incendiary that struck terror into the hearts of anyone who dared attack the Byzantine Empire. I have long suspected that the ancient Greeks found some substance similar to ghost rock and employed it as a weapon of war. I have done the same. Each of my little disasters is filled with ghost rock fumes and balanced with other chemical combinations of my own devising. I made fifty of them,” he said, then with asperity added, “It is unfortunate that you made me waste one to prove that you should trust what I say. Let’s all hope we won’t have needed that last one.”

  As if in response to those words, thunder boomed on the edge of town. Lightning forked the sky, silhouetting the ugly shapes of flying creatures that were larger and more terrible than any birds. Legions of them were coming. And behind them, a ship rose in the east, seeming to come from nowhere, rising up between the peaks of two broken mountains. It was like a frigate from a painting of old pirates, with a deep keel and a fanlike rudder. Instead of sails, a vast envelope of silk and canvas, distended with gas and painted with the hideous face of Medusa the Gorgon. A thousand serpents writhed around her image.

  On the plains below the ship, a line of machines rolled on clanking metal treads. And lines of armed men marched in squadrons, each of them carrying a strange rifle. Grey could not tell if Deray was supported by the foreign generals or if these were his own men. Not that it mattered—there were hundreds of them. Scores of living men, and hundreds upon hundreds of the walking dead. All of the corpses they’d seen heaped in the train cars. Soldiers from all over the divided country, including dead Sioux. Behind the column of tanks strode the metal giant, Samson, legs sweeping, arms swinging, lightning striking fire from its chest.

  Grey got to his feet and turned to see the looks on the faces of the people of Paradise Falls. Even with the remaining Little Disasters hanging in the sky, even with the promise of the Lazarus pistols and Kingdom guns. Even with their own determination, they were few and marching toward them was an army the likes of which had never before been seen on Mother Earth. An army of science and magic, an army of flesh and steel, an army of the living and the dead.

  “By the Queen’s…,” began Looks Away, but words failed him and he simply stared.

  “Good God,” whispered Grey. He glanced around at his friends, at the town, and then at the approaching army. This was going to be a slaughter. Everyone knew it. Jenny Pearl came out onto the porch and stood next to Grey. She slipped her cool hand into his and interlaced their fingers.

  “Don’t worry,” she said softly. So softly that only he could hear her. “Death isn’t the end.”

  The storm growled and the winds howled with the voices of the damned.

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Grey forced himself to shake off his shock and despair. He let go of Jenny’s hand and slapped his hand hard on the rail. It sounded like a gunshot and people jumped.

  “They’re coming,” he barked. “You see it, I see it, we all do. They’re coming. This is happening. You wanted to stay here and make a fight of it. Then by God that’s what we’re going to do. As of now, you’ve all seen what we’re facing. You’re shocked. Okay.” He paused and in a harsh, cold voice said, “Now get over it.”

  The crowd stared at him.

  “We know what they have to throw against us,” he continued. “They don’t know what we have. Doctor Saint’s gadgets. Our unity. The fortifications. And … something else I have cooked up. We’re done being helpless. This is a war, God damn it, so let’s stop gaping and go fight it.”

  It wasn’t a great speech, Grey knew that, but it broke the spell. He saw eyes harden and jaws grow firm. He would like to have seen heroic resolve and confidence, but that was too much to ask. Too much. People began moving away. First walking and then running to take up their positions. Finally the whole crowd scattered like leaves. Some few were even laughing with some strange kind of mad battle glee as they ran off.

  Jenny and Looks Away came down to stand with Grey; and after a moment, so did Doctor Saint.

  “Well,” said Looks Away, “that wasn’t Henry at Agincourt, but it got them moving.”

  “Going to be a long day,” said Doctor Saint. He cut a look at the others. “Should be fun, though.”

  “Fun?” echoed Jenny.

  “Sure. This is how history is made. A bold few standing against many.”

  “We happy few,” said Looks Away. “We band of brothers. Let’s just hope its closer to Henry V than the Leonidas at the Hot Gates.”

  He tipped an imaginary hat to Jenny, punched Grey lightly on the arm, nodded to Saint, then walked off to take up his post.

  “Once more into the breach,” said Saint, still smiling. He nodded to the waiting boys to bring his second wagon. They headed off toward one of the sandbag barriers. The cloud of brightly colored Little Disasters followed in their wake.

  That left Jenny and Grey standing alone for a moment. He wanted to say something to her. The atmosphere of the day seemed to require it, but no poetic words occurred to him. Not even lines from Shakespeare. Instead he took her in his arms and kissed her. It was a long, slow, sweet kiss.

  “Jenny, I—,” he began, but she stopped his words with a second kiss.

  “Whatever you have to say,” she murmured, “tell me after this is all over.”

  “What if there’s no chance to tell you? What if—?”

  “No,” she said. “Find me and tell me. No matter what happens, I’ll be waiting for you.”

  She released him, picked up the gun belt that lay on the porch rocker, examined the Lazarus pistol, snugged it back into its holster, nodded to herself, and strapped it on. She paused for a moment, looking back at him with those blue eyes.

  Thunder rumbled again and a cold rain began to fall.

  “Be careful,” he said.

  Jenny nodded slowly. The rain looked like tears on her cheeks.

  “It’s been a long, strange road since Ballard Creek,” she said, and her words stabbed him.

  “How did you—? Oh … you talked to Looks Away, didn’t you?”

  “War is a hungry, hungry monster, Grey. It feeds on life and love.”

  With that she turned away and walked into the swirling rain, leaving Grey standing there. He was more profoundly confused than he had ever been.

  “This is all a goddamn nightmare,” he told the storm. The cry of a pteranodon far above him seemed to agree.

  “Madness,” said Grey as he drew his gun and went to find someone or something to kill.

  Chapter Eighty

  Grey took up position at the main barrier on the desert side of town. He had forty of the town’s hardiest fighters with him, and a solid wall of sandbags. Less able townsfolk huddled behind the row of shooters, ready with ammunition, water, and bandages. The women among them also carried knives hidden in their skirts. It would be up to them to cut the throats of any enemy wounded. Taking prisoners was not part of the plan.

  Brother Joe and a few of his most devoted followers—those whose beliefs would not permit them to fight—were rea
dy to tend the town’s wounded.

  Deray halted his advance a quarter mile beyond the edge of town. His troops stood in ordered lines, indifferent to the rain. The tanks formed in a half circle on the far side of Icarus Bridge. and Grey could see two small figures creeping along the structure, bent close to study it. Engineers, he judged, deciding if the bridge would bear the weight of the war machines.

  Grey fetched his field glasses from Picky’s saddlebag and studied the opposition. A closer look did nothing to increase his confidence. Grey searched the sky for Deray’s sky frigate, and saw it fading like a ghost ship into the storm clouds. He caught one brief glimpse of the necromancer, standing at the forward rail of the airship with a heavy cloak pulled around him and a wide-brimmed hat to shield his eyes from the rain. Deray raised a cup of coffee to his smiling mouth, then paused and raised his cup in mock salute. Although the distance was too great for Deray to see him, Grey swore that the man had directed that gesture directly to him.

  And for some reason he could never thereafter explain to himself, Grey nodded and touched a finger to the brim of his hat.

  Perhaps it was some kind of salute between enemies. Maybe it was two of the damned acknowledging each other from opposite sides of the Pit. Grey didn’t know and suddenly there was no time to think about it.

  With howls of predatory glee, the swarm of pteranodons came hurtling down from the clouds.

  “Guns up!” bellowed Grey, and a line of rifles, muskets and shotguns rose toward the oncoming flock of monsters. “Kill the bastards!”

  They fired, throwing their own thunder against the storm.

  The pterosaurs were in full dive, spiking downward at full speed and there was no chance to avoid the volley. Three of them suddenly twisted in midair, blood bursting from chests and heads. They twisted artlessly into screaming deadfalls, slamming into others of their kind, bringing two more down.

  The rest kept coming.