by Tim Marquitz
“Nina, help me settle ‘em down and get Oatmeal re-hitched,” Pa said, reaching down to check the injured horse.
She nodded, looking around for Meany. Nowhere to be found.
Nina hurried to the back of the wagon to see the street. “We need to get turned around. It’s the only way outta here,” she said. Otherwise, they’d have to grab some necessaries and manage on foot. Whatever was going on, they couldn’t stay in this hellish place.
A man ran from an alley, chased by a pack of gnashing dogs on stiff, jerky legs. Their howls wormed into Nina’s ears and set her hands to shaking. The man made it to the middle of the street before the dogs pulled him down. They bit into him, dragging apart his arms and legs, tearing into his belly, plunging their muzzles deep inside to feast. His screams withered amid a chorus of gurgles and growls. Crimson foam welled from his mouth.
Nina just couldn’t quite reckon it. She’d raised her gun, then lowered it. Poor bastard was already dead. Hardly thinking, she reached into the back of the wagon and pulled out a pouch of rounds, hooking the strap over her shoulder.
“Nina!”
Pa clung to Oatmeal’s bridle, half-dragged into the street, feet buried in the muck, trying to keep the injured horse calm. Only problem was Apple shared Oatmeal’s sentiment, and both wanted to get the fuck out of Coburn. Nina couldn’t blame them, but she’d never get Pa into the moving wagon.
“It’s okay, Oatmeal,” she cooed, putting her arm around the horse’s neck, one hand clutching his bridle as they were pulled along. “Settle down, boy. Let’s get you situated, and then I prom—”
Pa grunted, a hard man for his fifty-odd years of frontier living, but not strong enough to hold a wagon horse. Oatmeal’s coat was slick with blood, which made it all the harder. One of Pa’s hands draped across the horse’s neck, the other across the top of his snout, as he did his damndest to cover Oatmeal’s eyes.
For a brief moment, Nina thought they might win. Oatmeal stopped tugging, and the wagon settled to a stop. She was about to tell Pa to get in, when a shotgun went off nearby. Oatmeal jerked from Nina’s grasp and strained against the wagon’s weight. Apple kicked, and together the horses sped off. Pa went face-first into the muck. Nina slipped, too, her hand grasping the raw wound on Oatmeal’s neck for a split second before losing her grip and landing on her backside. They watched as their supplies trundled down the lane through the chaos and disappeared around the bend.
“Goldernit,” Pa sputtered, wiped his mouth on his coat sleeve.
Nina rolled over and snatched the dropped Colt from the mud, wiped it on her sleeve, and went to help her father. “You got your gun, Pa?”
“I got it. Sorry, Nina. I couldn’t…” He shook his head and grit his teeth.
“Not your fault, Pa, but we gotta get off this street. All Hell’s done broke loose.”
“Looks that way. Let’s get back inside Smith’s.”
Nina led the way up on to the walk, turned the brass knob of Smith & Towne’s Fineries and pushed the door. It didn’t budge. She threw her shoulder against the rough wood and met solid resistance. She stepped back. A closed sign swayed in the front window.
Pa slapped his hand on the siding and yelled, “John Smith, open up! I just cut you a hell of a deal on that cutlery set.”
Nina heard scratching, claws against wood, then something huge slammed into her from the side. She tumbled, landing on her shoulder, and smacking her chin. She brought up her gun just as two paws struck her chest, followed by a slavering maw, long canines descending like the teeth of a dern bear trap. Nina grabbed a handful of shaggy hair and slammed the butt of her pistol against the dog’s head once, twice, three times, all to no effect. The thing’s fetid breath rolled over her, made her gag. Nina fired her weapon point blank, unsure if she hit anything. The teeth snapped again, nearly clipping her nose. She realized Pa was kicking the shit out of it, screaming her name.
Suddenly, the weight was gone. Nina sucked in a deep breath and saw a man holding the dog by its scruff and rump. He heaved the big hound off the walk and into the mud, pulled a pistol, and shot it through the eye before it had stopped sliding. They all watched a moment to make sure the dog was dead. The man holstered his weapon, turned and clapped Pa on the shoulder.
Pa nodded and took a breath while the stranger offered his hand to Nina. She hesitated before she accepted. The man brought her quick to her feet with a solid pull.
It was Mustache. He tipped his hat and gave Nina a crooked smile. Handsome, though. She stopped herself thinking that and muttered her thanks.
“C’mon.” Mustache walked east, away from the general store and the finery shop, striding with calm, reserved confidence. He stuck close to the buildings and checked around corners before moving ahead. It looked like he’d done some sneaking a time or two in his life, so Nina was fine following a few steps behind. She wasn’t sure if they could trust him, but alternatives seemed few and far between.
A dense fog rolled down Main from the direction the horses had vanished, seeping between buildings and feeling its way around like a blind, hungry beast. Even the sky darkened; a black blanket of clouds rolling in above them, as if God had passed judgment on Coburn Station and sentenced the pisswater hole to death by suffocation.
Nina noticed the sounds of terror had faded, leaving behind an eerie quiet. Their footsteps on the boardwalk resounded. Pa had his five-shot Cooper pointed skyward, and she knew he had another stowed in his hip pocket holster.
Two dogs slunk along the street, stalking, growling with red-stained muzzles. Pa drew on them, but Mustache whipped out a second six-shooter and blew the hounds away with two quick shots. Mustache spit through a haze of gun smoke.
“Ain’t seen too many can sling that fast,” said Pa.
Nina narrowed her eyes at the man, then considered the dead dogs.
“Name’s Manning. James Manning.”
“Lincoln Weaver. This here’s my daughter, Nina.”
“Lincoln. Nina. Pleasure. Now let’s begone.”
They continued down the boardwalk, passing the boot store and slaughter barn. Smells of carcasses teetering on the edge of decay plucked at their noses. The flat, coppery scent of blood. Slavering grunts met their ears. They passed quietly, attracting no attention from the things feasting on fresh-slaughtered animals.
They hunkered down in front of the door to the law office. Nina shoved, but it was locked; probably barred, too. They could break in, creating some noise, maybe get shot in the process.
Manning whispered to no one in particular. “What on God’s earth is going on?”
“Hell if I know,” said Nina. “You got any kind of plan, Mister Manning?”
He fixed her with a look. She took note of his dark hair, sweaty beneath his hat, eyes the color of blue stone, then made herself stop. Again.
Th’hell’s wrong with me, and with all this going on…
“Alright, Nina, Mister Weaver—”
“Just Lincoln.”
“Fair enough, Lincoln. I figure we cross over to the other side and see if anyone’s guarding the stables. If there’s a horse left alive, we’re gonna need—”
Ragged screams grabbed their attention. From the fog came Oatmeal and Apple, pulling the wagon behind them, the canvas cover blazing like a reckless comet. The horses careened to their side of the street, the wagon clacking and creaking.
“Someone must have shot it up,” Pa said, shaking his head and looking for something to duck behind. Nina pursed her lips, tugging Manning’s coat sleeve and pulling him behind a couple water barrels, silently shooing their poor horses away. “Get down,” she hissed.
Manning looked all quizzical.
“There’s powder on that wagon.”
“Oh.” He ducked.
Thankfully, Apple and Oatmeal rushed by without the wagon erupting. They peeked over the barrels as the horses struggled and bucked back across the street, a pounding, out-of-control mass of wood and horseflesh weaving in front of
the Pony Express post. The horses banked right, hit a rut, and Nina gasped as the wagon keeled on two wheels for several yards, then it overbalanced and exploded against the wooden poles holding up the livery office porch.
A ball of fire plumed. The concussion rocked the ground. Nina felt the heat all the way to their hiding spot. Debris whizzed by, landing in the mud with thunks. The smells of charred wood, powder, and cooked horse burned her eyes. The livery office blazed; the stable roof was on fire, too.
“There goes that idea.” Pa stood and frowned at the conflagration. “All Coburn will go up in flames in minutes. If there were any horses alive in there...”
“Ain’t all we got to worry about, Lincoln.”
They followed Manning’s nod, looked down the street where a dark shadow came pressing down from the west. Beneath its oppressiveness, folks ambled in the capering fog, forty or fifty strong; men and women, gunshot or hacked, afflicted with grievous wounds that should have killed them; yet, they stood, bleeding and warped, teeth gnashing like those sick dogs and horses, a small army of persistent flesh. Some looked recently dug up, skin glowing gray in the mist, hair hanging in patches from skull-bare heads.
Nina felt sick. Her gut screamed at her to flee. “Pa. Mister Manning...”
“I’m there with ya, darlin’,” Manning said.
The three of them backed away, boots creaking on the wooden boards. Several pairs of rheumy eyes among the legion of…undead…turned their way. Nina cupped her hands over her ears as a collective moan went up.
Pa took aim, but then drew back. “Too many. Whatever the hell they are.”
Nina looked at her father. “What do we do?”
“Run,” he said.
Then two cadaverous claws broke through the store window behind James Manning and took hold of his shoulders.
Chapter Three
Nina hollered and kicked at the grasping arms. Her heavy boot snapped one at the elbow and pinned both limbs against the opposite side of the windowsill. Manning spun free and fired a shot through the window, sending the grabby bastard reeling.
“Appreciate it,” Manning said with a nod.
Before Nina could reply, the door to the law office flew open and a fine-dressed gentleman-type barged through, locked his hands around Pa’s throat. The gent had mindless eyes and gray skin just like the others, but close up, Nina saw an unholy fever, too; angry red pimples all spattered across his face and neck, oozing pustules of pale discharge.
Pa put his fists together and shoved upwards, knocking the man’s hands away, and hit him in the face with the butt of his gun. His bulbous nose exploded like a ripe tomato. Nina put her gun to his temple and told herself it’s either this lunatic or her pa; she squeezed the trigger, coating the law office’s facing with the gent’s blood and brains. He buckled and hit the ground like a sack of grain.
“That’s…that’s Eli Frankel…” Pa looked down at the dead gent. He swallowed hard.
Not anymore it ain’t, Nina thought.
“He and I go back a ways.” Pa sighed and shook his head a little. “Damn. What is happening to these poor people?”
“These aren’t people,” Nina said. Whoever they might have been once was gone now. They had become voracious, persistent things. Got no feelings or needs Nina could fathom, other than biting and tearing the nearest living thing to gory pieces.
Pa looked at her. “Don’t say that.”
“She might be right,” said Manning. “They look like walking dead to me. Ain’t no way your pal Frankel would have come at us if he was still breathing. I put lead right through his throat and he still came milling for us.”
“C’mon then,” Pa said. He led them east along the boardwalk, trying to put some distance between themselves and the shambling forms. “All I’m saying is Eli was fine just a half-hour ago. We had coffee.”
“What do you think it is then, Pa?”
“Might be we’re dealing with some kind of sickness,” Manning said.
“I won’t disagree with that,” Pa said. “That seems the likeliest explanation, ask me.”
Nina glanced back at the deaduns, moaning and glaring with their voracious hunger. She gulped. They weren’t fast, but they weren’t slow, neither. “What kind of sickness makes the dead walk then?”
No one could answer that perplexing question, but Pa had another. “How many people you reckon were alive in Coburn before all this?”
Manning answered, “I’d say two-thousand, maybe another thousand or two in the surrounds. Lots of coolies laying track way down east of Summit and such.”
“And we know whatever this ruckus is...people who were otherwise healthy got it, and fast, too.” Pa paused, fixing to check around a corner. “If it spreads like that...”
Nina got his point, and she was sure Manning did too.
“We don’t have that many bullets, Lincoln.”
A half-dozen forms emerged from the alley ahead. They surged forward, arms outstretched, fingers locked into claws in a semblance of living rigor mortis.
Pa fired twice. One fell. Manning backed into the street and dropped two more in as many shots. Glass broke and Nina heard some shuffling on the awning above. She looked up; a form stood precariously on the edge, teetering forward, hands outstretched. It took a step into space, crashing to the ground beside her. Without thinking, Nina lifted her boot and stomped his head, repeatedly, her hard soles sloughing off pieces of dark hair and flesh as the thing gargled on mud. Her last stomp slid down the skull and snapped its backbone.
Pa fired another shot. Nina looked to see a Chinaman just ten feet away, coming for her, a blood-gushing bullet hole in the side of his neck. She raised her gun, but the man’s windmilling arms knocked her back, nearly tripping her over the poor bastard she’d just boot-stomped. Nina steadied herself in the slick muck, grabbed the man’s arm, twisted and yanked, using his momentum to throw him to the ground. She stepped forward and blew his brains through the front of his skull, turning the mud to rust.
She looked up as Manning dropped another Chinese laborer two steps before it reached him, then saw Pa having some trouble. A monstrous woman in a filthy nightgown had a handful of his coat. Her head jutted forward, teeth chomping for his face. Pa dropped his gun and craned his head away from those clacking teeth, keeping himself stiff-legged as he could, but the woman was huge and pushed him through the mud.
“Get this behemoth off me!” Pa’s face purpled with effort as he struggled against those meaty arms.
“Hold on!” Only one bullet remained in her Navy and, besides that, she didn’t want to risk shooting her father instead. She switched her gun to her off-hand and pulled her hunting knife.
Where was the softest spot? Nina turned slightly left, reverse-gripped her knife and whipped it backhanded, burying the blade three-quarters deep into the woman’s temple. She collapsed back to dead.
Pa rolled the large woman off. “Good girl,” he said, standing up and sucking wind.
“Sorry, Pa. Just got one bullet left.”
Manning handed Pa’s weapon to him. “She’s got a point,” he said. “We need more rounds. Could stand to have an ax or two.”
The main horde that had been trailing them had closed within thirty to forty feet now, lots of Celestials, and sudden panic welled up inside Nina. That might explain all the ruckus she’d seen uphill when they rolled into town. They must’ve been dealing with some kind of outbreak, and now they’d all spilled down into Coburn proper.
She took a deep breath and sighted up the nearest Chinaman.
Pa touched her on the arm. “Let’s just get a move on. They ain’t stoppin’ and neither can we.”
She nodded and tucked her pistol.
They proceeded slow but steady down Main, staying ahead of the shambling masses. “Stick to the middle,” Pa said. “Anything might come outta those alleys and buildings. Stay sharp.”
“You got a destination in mind?” asked Manning.
“East is all I got at
the moment. I’m thinkin’.”
The conflagration was consuming everything along the left side of the street, burning its way to the end. Nina wondered when it would spread to the other side, trapping them between twin Hells. What if they made it out of town? What then? What if the deaduns followed and hunted them down in the cold woods? Nina shivered.
“Hey! You seein’ what I’m seein’?” Manning pointed at a covered supply wagon, overturned in the middle of the lane to their right, several wares all tumbled out into the street.
“Yes, sir,” Pa said. “I say we help ourselves. I reckon we could make do with a quick breather too, before the fire comes thisaway.”
Manning opened the front flap, lifting the splintered wood of the collapsed cover, while Pa checked the back. Nina took a moment to reload her weapon, placing five paper cartridges into the empty chambers and packing them down with the loading lever. Her hands shook as she placed her caps, so she kept one thumb on the hammer to avoid blowing her own tits off.
“Got an ax here, couple decent knives, and a rifle,” Manning called out. “No loadin’ pouch though...wait, here it is.”
Pa made a frustrated sound. “Can’t find a dern thing back here. Goldern mess of clothes done spilled out over everything. Nina girl, you wanna try on some dresses?”
Nina grunted.
“I didn’t think so.”
She finished loading and glanced up with a smile, which quickly evaporated when she saw two deaduns coming. “Pa!” She moved around for a better shot.
Pa’s rump stuck out the back of the wagon, one leg kicking out like a mule even as one undead bent, grasping at it. Nina shot the other in the jaw, teeth and bone shattering, sending the bald bastard reeling into the mud.
The one on Pa caught his ankle with two hands, twisting it. Pa screamed and flipped on his back, kicking. The thing’s legs got swept out, and it landed on him, taking up a mouthful of Pa’s trousers near his crotch, shaking its head like a dog with a bone. Nina angled for a shot but reckoned Pa wouldn’t appreciate a bullet near the nethers.