Dead in the West

by Joe R. Lansdale

  "We can't hold," Abby said.

  "Make for the storage room," Doc said.

  David and Abby—as if by instinct—turned back to back with Doc and the Reverend, ready to defend the rear, and they walked forward, as their companions walked backwards, fighting all the while. Doc swung the barrel of his Winchester at a zombie who came leaping through the smoke, and the sound of it striking the dead man's skull was as loud as a shot. It was Nolan. His skull cracked open and a burst of brains, like puked oatmeal, spewed onto Doc.

  Nolan's falling body parted the Doc and Reverend, pushing Jeb a bit more to the rear, and pushing Abby forward.

  The Reverend didn't need a flash from God to know that their defense was falling apart, and it looked as if they would not make the storage room, for now zombies had worked down the pews and were standing before it.

  …

  David's shoulder felt as if it were going to fall off. The shotgun's recoil had worn it raw.

  He stole a moment to rest his arm.

  The shotgun he held had only one round left, and then he had the revolver in his belt, a bit of ammo in his pocket—and all that would be left after that was using the weapons as clubs—and finally nothing more than assholes and elbows until the end—which would not be the end, but a horrible beginning of sorts.

  A hand came out of the smoke and confusion, grabbed the barrel of David's shotgun, wrenched it from him, and sent it clattering off into the pews and zombie bodies.

  David whirled around to stare into the face of his father. It looked strangely calm, in spite of the face wounds and the splatterings of blood. David jerked the revolver from his belt, pointed the gun at his father.

  And froze.

  He could not pull the trigger.

  Many times he had hated his father to the point of wishing death on the man, but now, when his life depended on it—and he tried to tell himself his father had no real life to lose—he could not pull the trigger.

  Rhine grabbed David by the shoulders and shot his head forward, knocking aside the revolver David held. David screamed, knowing what was next and hoping he had the strength to blow his own brains out, lest he too become like the dead. And then there was a shotgun stock between him and the snapping teeth of his father.

  Rhine bit a chunk of wood from the stock, and the stock moved back toward Rhine's face.

  Teeth and blood flew and Rhine went down. The Reverend appeared in his place.

  "Move back, boy," the Reverend yelled. "Keep it going."

  David came unfrozen, began to use his revolver, but he was moving backwards by inches only. The zombies were thick as buzzards on a dead cow.

  Hands came out of nowhere, clutched at the defenders. They knocked them off and kept trying to move backwards—toward the last stand—the storage room. The zombies were like a living, biting wall.

  Montclaire, fat and bloody, grabbed Abby by the collars, lifted her off her feet toward his slobbering mouth. Abby cracked the barrel of her .45 across his forehead, hard, and Montclaire staggered. The dress ripped and Abby fell to the floor, crawling over brains, blood, bodies, and spent cartridges, looking for the gun she had dropped.

  She found her pistol on Rhine's chest, grabbed for it, but Rhine's hand came up and gripped hers, Rhine lifted his head. His skull was cracked, but the Reverend's blow had not been fatal. Rhine snapped his mouth forward and bit off Abby's thumb.

  Abby let out a cry, jerked free, crawfished backwards.

  David spilled over her, fell across his father, and rolled. When he came up, Rhine was rising, and Abby's revolver fell from his chest to the floor.

  David leaped for it, got it, came up rolling, twisted back to look at his father's face, and this time, he fired. Rhine's nose disappeared and he fell back with a slap.

  David spiraled to his feet, tried to help Abby. Zombie hands grabbed both of them. He slugged and kicked his way free, but Abby didn't make it. A zombie slipped in the gore, went down, grabbed Abby's leg, bit through dress and kneecap. Another got her in the small of the back. One bit deep into her shoulder.

  Stiff-arming her way clear, she staggered toward David. He got an arm around her waist, felt her weight slump against him. And then standing in front of them was the faceless sheriff and Caleb (still dragging guts, though most of them had been ripped out).

  David shot Caleb in the face, and he went down. The sheriff bobbed his head forward and hit David with the bloody maw that had once been his face. A thick swathe of blood traced David's already powder residue-, blood-, and brain-splattered face, but without teeth, Matt could not inflict a wound.

  David shot the sheriff in the maw of his face, and Matt, at peace at last, went down.

  Abby lifted her head, and when she did, she saw the Reverend's back. At the same moment, the Reverend turned, and their eyes met. He saw the wounds.

  "I love you," she said, and she snatched the revolver from the bewildered David's hands, pushed herself upright, put the cocked revolver under her chin, and pulled the trigger.

  Like a frightened prairie dog leaping from a hole, her brains jumped out of the top of her head and she crumpled at David's feet.

  David reached the revolver from Abby's hands, looked at the Reverend.

  "The storeroom," the Reverend managed. "Lock yourself in. You might make it, boy."

  "Not without you," David yelled.

  The Reverend kicked a zombie back, slugged another aside. "Do as I say, you little bastard."

  David shook his head.

  At that moment, Doc went down beneath a horde of zombies, and the Reverend, stepping back to avoid snapping teeth, clubbed his attacker in the ivories-shattering them—

  clubbed again, cracking the zombie's skull, dropping him.

  Doc was swarmed. The zombies were on him like a pack of dogs. He cried and twisted his face toward the Reverend. Just before more zombies dropped down on Doc, the Reverend tossed aside the shotgun he had been using as a club, drew his revolver, and shot him in the narrowly exposed part of his head.

  Abby and Doc dead, the life almost went out of the Reverend, but then, with the zombies diving for Doc, a path was cleared, and in a twinkling of a second, the Reverend saw the Indian.

  The Indian was still standing at the base of the church steps, the storm screeching around him like a great horned owl. Behind him, the Reverend thought he could see the faintest hint of oncoming daylight.

  There came a smile to the Indian's face that seemed to say: "I know what you're thinking, and you won't make it."

  Snarling, the Reverend darted toward David, who had his back against the storeroom wall, and who, due to Abby and Doc being prey for the monsters, had a short lull in the onslaught in which to gain a breath. He had not tried to go into the storeroom.

  Three strides brought the Reverend to the door. He snatched David up, opened the door, and set the boy inside by the scruff of his neck. Stepping in beside him, he tried to pull the door closed, but a zombie's face appeared, and then a hand, and the hand clutched the door and pulled.

  The Reverend flicked out a left jab, knocking the dead man back, then he grabbed the door and tried to slam it, but the zombie was not giving up. He clutched the door, tugged, and the Reverend went sailing into the zombie's arms.

  Up came the Reverend's revolver, under the zombie's chin. The Reverend fired, the dead man went down (dead for good this time).

  And now they were all on him, trying to bite him, take him down like they had Doc, but the Reverend was fast and slippery. He spun, twisted, kicked, punched, cracked out with the barrel of the Navy, trying to find freedom. A kick in the face kept a twelve-year-old boy from biting him, a twist of an elbow hit a man in the neck and stumbled him back, a ducking of his head left teeth to snap air, harmlessly above him.

  Then David was beside him, firing his revolver three times—BLAM—BLAM—

  BLAM—and three zombies went down. It was the space they needed, and the Reverend pushed David back through the door, sending him ass over hee
ls a few steps down the stairs, then the Reverend was clutching the knob with one hand, pushing the Navy into his sash with the other, then he had both hands on the knob, and up came David, grabbing at the Reverend's waist, serving as an anchor.

  A zombie's hand was stuck between door and jamb, stopping the closing, and the Reverend, grunting, giving it all he had, and David doing the same, pulled, and the zombie's fingers cracked, snapped, and fell like little sausages onto the top step, and the door went closed, David leaping up to throw the little, weak-looking latch.

  Safe.

  For a moment.

  The door rattled fiercely.

  "Single-minded, ain't they," David said.

  The Reverend nodded.

  "It won't hold them will it?"

  The Reverend shook his head, found the lamp and matches on the shelf beside the door, and lit it.

  The door rattled steadily.

  "We're dead meat, aren't we, Reverend?"

  "If we can hold until daylight, we've got a chance. Can't be much longer."

  And then he thought: "But how much longer do they need?"

  "Come on," he said, "let's go down."

  At the bottom of the stairs, the Reverend climbed on top of some crates and leaned toward the curtained window. He flicked back the curtain. The window, like the others, was barred. There would be no sneaky escape route. They were trapped like rats in a flooding ship.

  But a flickering of hope surged through him. He could see the first pink rays of morning.

  He let go of the curtain and climbed down.

  "Only way out of here," he said to David, "is the way we came in. But it's almost sunup.

  We might make it."

  The Reverend loaded his revolver with the remaining rounds in his coat pocket.

  Altogether, he managed five rounds. "One short of a full house," he said. "And you?"

  "Empty," David said hollowly.

  The Reverend handed David the Navy.

  "No," David said. "You're better with it. I do okay with a shotgun or pistol at point-blank range—but—well, you keep it. And Reverend. Don't let me end up like them— know what I mean?"

  The Reverend nodded grimly.

  The door stopped rattling.

  David and the Reverend looked up the stairs.

  "Have they gone away?" David asked.

  The Reverend glanced toward the curtain. From where he stood, he couldn't see daylight, only the light of the lantern he had set on a crate.

  "I don't think so," the Reverend said.

  Then there was a bang like the end of the world. The door at the top of the stairs had split apart, and the tip of the great cross that had hung on the wall poked through.

  The cross was pulled out and came back with a terrific wham! The door split completely open and fell away, except for a fragment that swung out on the one remaining hinge at the top.

  The Indian stepped into the doorway, holding the cross. His hands were spilling forth white smoke where he held the cross. Even his boots where they touched the hallowed ground boiled smoke.

  But the Indian was smiling. And perched on his shoulder like some terrible parrot, chattering like a monkey, was the little girl with the doll.

  Behind the Indian and the little girl, the dead pushed forward, licking their lips, moaning eagerly.

  "They're mine," hissed the Indian, and the dead moved back.

  The Indian stared at the Reverend for a long moment, as if to show him that the cross and the church were not enough. "Greetings from hell, preacher man," he said, and he tossed the huge cross at the Reverend and David.

  The cross struck the floor where the Reverend had stood, and the end of it came slamming down on the last two stair steps, shattering them to splinters.

  The Reverend jerked up the Navy and fired, hit the little girl in the forehead, sent her flying from the Indian's shoulder. Her doll came clattering down the stairs.

  "How noble," said the Indian. "Saving a little child from hell." Then stretching out the words:

  "But who will save you?"

  The Indian started down the stairs.

  Perhaps it was instinct, the desire to do something, even if you knew it was futile.

  The Reverend shot the Indian through the forehead. A hole appeared, but the Indian continued down the steps.

  The Reverend saw the spider-thing birthmark on the Indian's chest and knew that this was prophecy of his dream come true. In the dream he had been devoured by the spider-thing, and in a symbolic way, that was about to become a reality.

  The Reverend found his eyes latched to the spidery marking, and he felt the terror of the dream again—the long boat with the boatman in black, poling into the spidery maw of doom.

  And then a thought came to him. Perhaps, if the Lord had revealed his evil through a symbol in a dream, he had also revealed the evil one's Achilles' heel.

  He fired a shot into the spider-thing on the Indian's chest.

  But no. The Indian laughed.

  Then the Indian moved, like a flash of lightning he moved, and he had the Reverend by the throat with one huge hand, lifting him off his feet, to look him in the eyes.

  And behind the dead eyes of the Indian were the blazing fires of the demon, and the Reverend saw the bullet holes in the head, the little pieces of lead shot from Matt's shotgun puckered there, and the rope burn on the neck, and the spider-thing on his chest—the spider-thing that seemed to crawl in the darkness.

  The Reverend's breath came in gasps. His tongue protruded. His feet kicked. The gun hung limply in his right hand, plopping uselessly against something in his pocket—

  THE LITTLE BIBLE.

  Holy objects, if you believe in them, Doc had said, if you believe in them they have power.

  Tossing the revolver to his left hand, the Reverend pulled the Bible free with his right hand and pushed it into the Indian's face, calling upon the God almighty in his head, since he had neither the wind nor the tongue for it.

  Upon contact with the Indian's face, the Bible blazed, burned out the big man's right eye.

  Growling, the Indian twisted his head, and his cheek sent the Bible flying across the room, where it struck a crate and fell in a smoking ruin to the floor.

  Smoke curled out of the Indian's eye socket, and a sudden cairn came over him. He smiled at the Reverend and said, "Little, little man."

  The Indian opened his mouth. His jaw came unhinged.

  All of this had happened in seconds, and for part of it David had stood frozen, mesmerized, but now he moved, hammered against the Indian's legs.

  The Indian, with a brush of his hand, sent David spinning roughly into a crate, as if he were nothing more than an annoying dog trying to hump his leg.

  David rolled to his feet and pulled his jackknife from his pocket. Opening it, he rushed forward, slammed it into the Indian's leg.

  The Indian swatted David with his free hand again, this time the blow was so vicious, it knocked the boy against a crate with such force he seemed to drip down the side of it.

  The Reverend was losing consciousness. He could see the great mouth opening and the impossible teeth growing, could smell the odor of death churning up through the tunnel of doom—covering him with its stink as if it were an oversized nightcap.

  And then, just before all went black, he saw out of the corner of his left eye, a ray of sunlight—just a tiny needle of light, but light, just the same.

  Painfully twisting his head to the left as far as the Indian's grip would allow, he saw that by straining his left eye, he could see the rope that held the curtain over the window.

  Even as the Indian was about to engulf the Reverend's face, the Reverend lifted his left hand, fired the revolver, missed (there was the sound of tinkling glass), fired again, and cut the rope.

  A thin sword of light stabbed in and broadened as the curtain swung fully aside, and the room went from black to golden.

  The zombies at the top of the stairs screeched in chorus, not only was light
edging in at them from the storeroom, but it had crept upon them, unnoticed, from behind. In a mad scramble they turned to flee. The Indian, who had been diving his head forward for the fatal bite, was hit full in the face by the sunlight, and it was like a blow to him.

  Screaming, he thrust the Reverend from him, smashing him into a crate, turned, and started up the stairs, taking marvelous leaps. The Indian's back started to puff black smoke.

  "You okay, Reverend?" David asked, helping him up.

  "Yeah. Thanks to your distraction."

  "I didn't do nothing. That was some shooting."

  "Yeah," said the Reverend. "It was, wasn't it?"

  He pushed the revolver into his sash and they went up the stairs, slowly.

  The church was on fire. Zombies had burst into flames from the sunlight, had heaped up amongst the shattered pews, and had fallen against the walls, setting it ablaze.

  The Indian stood in the center aisle. He was trying to make his legs move, but they were melting like candle wax, flowing out of his pant legs, filling his boots.

  He dropped to the floor, face first, arms out in crucifix position.

  The church was really ablaze now. The walls had caught good and the flames had spread to the rafters. The old roof was creaking threateningly.

  The Reverend and David made a run for it, leaping over the dissolving body of the Indian as they went. The Reverend first. David second—

  —and one of the Indian's hands shot out and grabbed David by the ankle, pulling him to the floor. Wheeling, the Reverend saw the Indian's ruined, blackened face, the jaws spread, showing teeth through rents in his cheeks, and like some sort of monstrous lizard, the Indian lunged forward—his teeth snapping against David's face.

  Too late, the Reverend leaped forward, kicking the Indian's head. The head, like a powdered ball of ash paper, came apart and the teeth scattered like rotten peppermints to join the smoking remains of the other zombies on the blood-slick floor.

  When the Reverend turned to look at David (hardly able to do it), the boy was staring at him, a look of horror on his face.

  The Reverend dropped to his knees to help him up.

  "No good," David said. "I'm a goner. Kill me."

  But the Reverend could not bring himself to do it. He knew the thing for him to do was take his empty revolver and smash the boy's head without warning, but he simply could not.