by Tim Marquitz
Jasmine looked up through bloodshot eyes. “We... we came on the train together. We never been apart...”
Nina hugged her tight. “You did her a favor. But, we need to keep it together for now. Mourn later. We gotta watch each other’s backs, all right?”
An explosion consumed all sound. The ground rocked beneath them, and Nina fell on her ass in a daze wondering what just happened. Her first thought was some powder keg or fuel source had been lit by the raging fire. Then the sky vomited up a gory rain of blood and body parts. An arm hit the side of the wheelbarrow and plopped in the mud. Half a head landed next to Nina with a thud, eyeball oozing out on its bony skull, jaws still connected by a thread of tendon. A bloody chunk of something landed in her lap.
A strange croaking sound she’d never made before came from someplace deep in her chest, a sort of horrified revulsion she couldn’t quite bodily contain. She turned her head and vomited.
All around shouts of incredulity and surprise rang out above the dull hum in her ears.
“Dadgum ‘splosion!”
“Jesus Christ on a fuck-stick!”
“Nina, you alright?”
“Who in tarnation’s that?”
“Nina!”
Nina got to her feet and nodded to Pa, even though the world seemed distant and dreamlike. Beyond him, two figures ran toward them down the middle of Main Street. One was a large, healthy-looking man running with long, easy strides. The other was a shorter fellow, scampering crab-like, all hunched over. The two made it to the wagon, and Nina saw why the one man looked so burdened; he carried two large rucksacks packed to the hilt. The weight bore him down, but he didn’t seem to mind as evidenced by the shit-faced grin on his powder-blackened face.
Three rifles trained on the newcomers. Hammers cocked in warning.
The larger of the two stepped into the light of the fire. A tall bearded man around Pa’s age, Nina figured, looking civilized in his frock coat and fine, flat-brimmed Stetson. The kerchief round his neck had a hint of silk and paisley, which she thought a bit peculiar, then forgot it as the man’s tightened gaze measured them, each in turn.
Nina knew the look. When he got to her, she could barely hold his gaze. They stared at one another for a moment before his steely gaze moved on. “Easy, ladies and gents, easy. Just a couple of survivors like yourselves tryin’ to make heads or tails of this shitstorm.”
“Great,” Pa said. “Then you can start by telling us your names, and how much powder you’re packin’.”
The man tipped his hat. “I’m James Strobridge, Central Pacific Superintendent. This here is my foreman, Lester Woodruff,” he indicated his hunched, thick-bearded companion, who gave them a grubby, wall-eyed stare.
“Call me Woodie,” the man said with a rasp, then turned back to admire the flames and smoke behind them.
“We do apologize for the exceptionally loud entrance. Didn’t have much of a choice. The gun locker at the rail yard was robbed. Heathens took every damn decent weapon we had.”
Pa smiled through his pain and lowered his pistol. “Nice to meet you, Mister Strobridge. I’ve heard about you.” Pa introduced their group, stumbling a bit when he came to Jasmine, still bawling in her hands over her friend’s demise. “Looks like you did us a favor, blowin’ up those flesh-hungry bastards. Any idea what they are?”
Strobridge shrugged. “We’d just come out of the Canary Hotel and walked straight into this mess. Animals gone bat fuckin’ crazy. Horses and dogs eatin’ people. Cats doing their damndest to follow suit. People doing god-awful shit to one another. Hotel was overrun before we could get back inside, so we hightailed it down to the rail yard; barely made it. Engineer’s office was already ransacked, weapons gone, as well as all my goddamn surveyors and foremen.” He smiled. “We’d sure as shit feel much better on the other side of that wagon with you folks.”
Pa nodded. “Of course, Mister Strobridge. Come on over. We could probably use you and the dynamite kid there.”
Strobridge turned up one corner of his mouth as Woodie fixed a confused look back and forth between his boss and Lincoln.
“That was you who detonated half the town, was it not?” Pa directed the question at Woodie, who still looked back and forth as if waiting for permission to speak.
“Not dynamite,” he said, hefting his packs over his rounded shoulders and following Strobridge.
The Daggetts blocked Strobridge and Woodie as they tried to get through. The railroad boss stood straighter, his chest out, looking back and forth between the brothers and grinning like he got a hard-on from fighting just the same as them.
“You’re one of them railroad big bugs, huh?” Mean George meant to do his fair share of bullying, Nina reckoned, then she realized she still had one arm around Jasmine and eased herself between the woman and the men squaring off.
“Step aside,” Strobridge spoke low, his voice dangerous. “We don’t need more difficulty.”
He’s hoping they won’t step aside, though, Nina thought. Strobridge looked like he’d just as soon kill the Daggetts than bother with them another minute. She wasn’t sure who was more dangerous.
“Yes sir, Mister Bossman,” George said, stepping aside. “Come on through. Make yourself at home here at the Wagon Wheel Inn. Ya’ll need in-room breakfast in the fuckin’ mornin’?”
Mason narrowed his eyes, but let them by.
A fresh crowd of deaduns had shuffled in to replace the ones blown to hell; more damn Chinese in their pajama-lookin’ clothing, others dressed in dingy rail worker attire, all of them dirt-smeared and bloody, some still carrying pick axes and hammers. Manning stepped up by Nina and fired, then groused across at her pa and the newcomers, “While y’all were chatting our Celestial friends came back for dinner.”
The rest of the crew joined in, popping off rounds as casually as they pleased. Nina stood by the wheelbarrow and took out two deaduns creeping in behind. She didn’t want to lose Jasmine too, even if she couldn’t explain why.
“Shit,” she said, as a ponderous group of dead meat lumbered up. These were more intent, pale, white eyes filled with malice. Their mouths moved in a mockery of life, the foul stink of their breath rolling up in a cloud of stench to greet her. Nina pointed her rifle and went from left to right—just like Ma had taught her how to read—blowing seven skulls to bits, pulling out the spent magazine and trading with Jasmine. By the time she lined up the next one, the deaduns were within fifteen feet. Things were closing in, and that familiar tinge of panic grew. Nina wasn’t disappointed when Mason Daggett turned to help her, filling the darkening sky with flashes and reports.
Mason shouted, “It’s getting thick back here, folks! We’re about to be overrun.”
George backed up next to his brother and exchanged a magazine with Jasmine. “We should’ve already made a run for it, Mason. What the fuck we waitin’ fer?”
Nina caught Mason’s eye, and she couldn’t tell whether or not she liked what she saw. “Now, brother, we help these folks out and maybe get into God’s graces. It does appear to be the end of the world, after all.”
“We ain’t goin’ nowhere with that old man hangin’ around…”
“Well, you have a point there. I don’t see much help for the old man.”
Nina suppressed the urge to turn and mow them both down. This was her pa they were talkin’ about. The one who’d kept her together after Ma was murdered, the one who’d always been…just her pa. On the other hand, she knew they were right.
“Mister Strobridge,” Pa shouted in between shots. “You probably know this town better than anyone. Any place we can hole up for a spell while this clears?”
Strobridge leaned against the wagon next to Pa, fingers in his ears. “There’s the old abandoned fort down by Maples Creek.”
“Fort Bluff?”
“That’s the one. You know it?”
“I know of it. Haven’t been inside.” Pa looked at Nina with those grave eyes of his. “Mister Strobridge, if Mister
Woodruff would be kind enough to lend me some of his explosives, whatever they may be, I can hold them here for a little while, give you some time to get away.”
Nina stopped shooting. “We ain’t leavin’ you.”
“You’ve got to, Nina. I’m holding you back.”
“You heard him, honey,” Strobridge said, grabbing a hunting knife out of the wheelbarrow and flexing it in his hand. Far too practiced for a railroad boss. “Even your pa knows it.”
The deaduns encroached, a wall of reaching hands, blackened fingertips grasping at Strobridge’s jacket. The railroad boss yelled, kicking one back and put his knife through another’s eye socket with a squish. A convergence of gunfire dissolved the deaduns above the neck, heads turning to mush.
Nina’s ears hurt so bad she was sure she’d never hear the same again. She was tired and worn down. Mentally exhausted. So, to hell with it—they could say what they wanted, she wasn’t leaving Pa. Nina hustled to the wheelbarrow and began rearranging the mess inside, making a relatively comfortable place to sit.
“The hell you doing, half-breed?” Mean George loomed over her.
“We’re putting my pa in the wheelbarrow.”
“The fuck we are.”
“The fuck I am,” Nina said, then ignored George and went to her pa, got under his shoulder. She turned to see George’s rifle pointed at her.
“What I meant was the fuck you ain’t.”
Manning lined up his barrel with George’s head. Mason followed suit, aiming at Manning, and suddenly there was a crosshatch of steel trained inward with Mister Strobridge and Woodie Woodruff in the middle.
“Now, folks,” Strobridge said, raising his sooty hands. “It’s all downhill once we hit the trail. Put the gentleman in the barrow and let’s move.”
Nina looked right into the black hollow of Mean George’s Spencer. “You heard the man. It’s all downhill, you ingrate fuck.”
George’s hand tensed, just the slightest squeeze against the stock, and Nina thought a bright flash of light would be the last thing she ever saw.
“Stand down, Georgie,” Mason said, edging closer.
George’s face twisted up. “Goddamn it, Mase. This half-Injun bitch—”
“I said. Stand. Down.” Mason glared, then softened his stare and whispered something to his brother, something that seemed to ease the sumbitch into a state of relative calm.
“Let’s get movin’ then.” George gestured with his rifle at the wheelbarrow.
Nina and Pa started toward it and Manning stepped up to help, taking her father’s other arm.
“Easy now, Lincoln,” he said.
Nina was relieved for his help and watched her pa get comfortable. He looked downright chagrined but she was dead-set on not leaving behind the only person in the world she loved and who loved her.
“Everybody down! Fire in the hole!” Woodie Woodruff cackled like a madman and tossed a sizzling clay ball into the moaning crowd.
Chapter Five
Nina’s ears rang with the rush of blood, heart hammering inside her chest. Heavy boots pounded against the packed earth and glass clinked as Pa’s weight shifted atop the pile of weapons and whiskey. Manning had both wheelbarrow handles, hanging on for all his worth as they careened down the trail at breakneck speed.
The Daggetts had taken the lead, along with Strobridge and Woodie, heads swiveling as their eyes raked every forest shadow. Strobridge held a makeshift torch, just a stick wrapped in an old cloth and doused with whiskey. Nina jogged a little behind, intent on keeping those shifty Daggetts in sight, but that wasn’t her only concern; her imagination ran wild in the dark. Hands reached for her from behind every tree trunk, and the swat of sticker branches against her overalls were fingers grasping at her, teeth fastening tight on her bare skin. She pictured a horde of deaduns around every bend in the trail, weird eyes aglow with that unholy light, mouths agape with that despairing, singular moan.
Nina shook her head, figuring she’d best focus on not falling over something in the dark and busting her ass. Pa depended on her now, and she wouldn’t let him down. Her stomach twisted with the thought of losing him, and she was happy with herself for standing up to Mean George, even if she might have risked a bullet in the ol’ bean for rubbing him raw. They’d need to keep an eye on that bag of bluster. She was glad Manning seemed to be of the same mind, although she chided herself for the thought. Pa and her had always been more than sufficient, just the two of ‘em, and that’s how she preferred it. Even so, she welcomed the extra muscle.
And he weren’t none too awful to look at either.
Although as far as attraction went, Nina realized her gaze kept returning to Jasmine. The woman’s hips were hypnotizing from beneath her plain, loose dress. Nina hadn’t thought about it before, had never met many professional ladies, but she could see why men paid to have those long, dark arms around them. In any case, Jasmine helped Nina keep her mind off them deaduns, for the moment, leastwise.
But right then a noise reached Nina’s ears. She looked around, but no one else seemed to notice. Sounded like the yelp of a dog. Perhaps they hadn’t heard, or maybe her imagination was playing more tricks. Then another cry came through the trees, high-pitched, more like a person than a hound that time.
“Wait.” Nina caught Jasmine by the shoulder even as the others plowed ahead. “Stop!” she cried. Manning skidded to a halt, nearly spilling Pa. The others crouched, gripping their guns, panting.
“What?” Manning whispered, pulling a dragoon from its holster.
A dog’s bark, then the scream again. Nina’s heart thumped. Her priority was to get Pa to safety, but damned if it didn’t sound like a kid was in trouble somewhere out there, and not too far away she reckoned.
They waited, looking at one another, for half a minute or more.
“Whoever it was, they’ve stopped,” hissed Strobridge. “Let’s get mov—”
A man’s desperate voice reached them. “No! Rachel!”
Then a woman’s wail, followed by that youthful scream again.
“We have to help.” Nina grabbed a spare magazine from Jasmine.
“You fuckin’ kiddin’? Like hell!” George shook his head.
Mason approached Nina. “No offense, Injun girl, but we got our own problems. What’s theirs is theirs.”
“Damn right, brother. Exactly fuckin’ right.”
Strobridge took his hat off and put it over his heart. “Sorry for those poor folks, my dear, but they're making enough commotion to draw those things away from us. We’d be remiss not to take advantage of the opportunity.”
Nina felt bile rise in her throat. “You call yourselves men?” She shook her head.
Strobridge held up his hands. “Fine, go, but don’t go shooting in the middle of the woods. You’ll bring the goddamn monsters down on all our heads.”
Nina handed Jasmine her rifle. “Gimme my ax,” she said to Manning.
Mason kicked the ground and shook his head. “Damn, you hit low, girl. Jabbing at a man’s courage. Guess I’ll come, just to keep you from getting’ et, but if there’s more than a couple of them dead bastards, we shin out. Got it?”
Nina gave a noncommittal grunt. He was lucky to get that much from her.
Manning stepped in close to her. “I’ll come, too” he said low.
“I’d be obliged for it, but...” Nina flicked her eyes toward Mean George and that creepy Woodie feller who looked like he’d lost his mind way before this fucked-up day of days.
Manning understood and nodded. “Alright then,” he said. “Do what you gotta. Be careful. Mind your step out there, Nina…and holler like the dickens if you need help.”
She nodded, then stepped over to Pa and grabbed his hand. “I wish…”
“We been through all kinds of hell, girl. Way before this. Just do as I taught you.”
Strobridge had lit another torch and handed it to Nina. “We only got a few of these left, and I don’t want to waste any more whiskey. Get y
our asses back here pronto.”
“C’mon, Saint Joan. Let’s get this goddamned martyr’s affair done with,” said Mason, and Nina stepped past him as another yell echoed through the woods.
They hotfooted in the direction of those cries, Nina’s torch giving off a stingy half-light. They stumbled over rocks, roots, and dead limbs, any of which could have been a deadun lying in wait. If it weren’t for Nina’s hard boots, she would have twisted her ankle a half dozen times.
The two broke into a clearing and spotted the cause of the commotion; an axle-broke cart wedged against a tree, its horse gone. A terrified woman stood in the cart, arms around what Nina presumed to be her weeping daughter. A man stood his ground in their defense, wielding a large piece of lumber against at least four deaduns. He wasn’t a big man, but fierce all the same, kicking and swinging that ponderous wood, knowing exactly what was at stake.
The nearest deadun was hunched over a lifeless foxhound, gnawing away. Nina dropped her torch, took two steps, and buried her ax in the filthy deadun’s skull with a wooden thunk. She kicked the body in the back to leverage her ax out, but her hands were slick with sweat and gore and the haft slipped free of her grasp.
A deadun spun on her unexpectedly quick and grabbed her shoulder with one clawed hand. The other knocked her hat off, got a handful of her hair. Nina backed up while her head jerked forward. Her shooting hand closed around the deadun’s throat, keeping the monster at arm’s length even as it pulled her hair into its mouth and chewed. They wrestled standing up. Nina’s neck wrenched. The creature was strong as a damned ox. Might have been a man, but she couldn’t be sure in the dark all spun around.
Nina gritted her teeth and twisted her hips, trying for her hunting knife sheathed behind her holster, but the deadun gripped her tight. She kicked out, hoping to knock it off balance. Her boot connected once, twice, a third time; something popped with a sickening crunch, and the deadun went down, taking her with it.