by Tim Marquitz
Nina knew Jasmine would be tuckered out in a matter of seconds. And, unfortunately, it didn't appear these deaduns ever tired. Nina went to the wall, nearly tripping on the woman she'd just put down, and moved in from behind. Her options were break its knee, grab its shirt and pull it to the ground, or attempt another quick stab to the brain.
It. She’d been thinking of the dead man—the undead man—as an it. Damn. These poor souls didn’t choose to be this way, but...hell, it’s us or them. Us or them.
Nina meant to survive long as she could.
With that in mind, something knocked her to the ground and she found herself beneath a pile of grunting bodies. An elbow connected with her head. The world spun. A wave of nausea started in her stomach, threatening to eject what little was left in it. On instinct, she swung her fists and kicked her feet, half-crawling, fully expecting the pressure and sharp pain of a deadun’s teeth on her leg. Someone yowled, weight shifted, and she crawled free.
The scene was chaos. Across the front of the building silhouettes danced death to a damnable beat. Jasmine was bent near backward keeping shovel-head at arm’s length as he tried to gnaw her face off. The woman’s terrified gaze tugged at Nina, and she raised her fist to rush in and stab the deadun.
That’s when a cloaked figure strode out of the darkness. The man’s face was shrouded in shadow beneath the brim of his hat but for a dark beard. Nina caught a flash of white collar.
The stranger approached, placed his hand on shovel-head's shoulder, and said, “By the Grace of God and Saint Ignatius, I expel thee from the Devil’s yoke.”
Nina's jaw must have dropped when the growling deadun seized up. Its back jerked straight, hands clenching into claws. Smoke curled up from the man's fingertips where he touched the foul thing.
“Rwwreeee!” the deadun squealed, collapsing as if head-shot, never to move again.
The stranger caught Jasmine before she hit dirt. His shadowed face turned to Nina. “Are you unharmed, sister?”
She wasn’t sure just how to respond, and a nearby struggle stole her attention; the same pile she’d just crawled out from.
“Goddammit,” sputtered George Daggett, trapped beneath a deadun, grappling for his life, face twisted in a grimace with his bared teeth visible even in this merciless dark. For a moment, she debated leaving him there, but surprised herself by taking a handful of the thing’s hair and giving it the same treatment with her hunting knife she’d given blondie. Nina let it collapse on top of George.
The others milled around in various states of disarray. Apparently, everyone had made it, no one had gotten bit, which was pretty dern miraculous; Grover and Clara had even managed to wheel Pa up.
The black-robed stranger waved his hands for everyone to gather. “Listen now, brothers and sisters. More of the...unfortunates will be coming down from the hills so, if you would, please come with me.” To Nina, the man’s voice exuded an exaggerated calm with a tinge of mystic inflection, a sort of goodly importance, and a hint of something holy beyond words.
Mason Daggett, breathing heavily, was not impressed. “And who the fuck are you?”
“Easy now. Don’t you see? This man is a Black Robe,” said Strobridge, brushing at his sleeve. “Everyone, this is Father Thomas Mathias of the Society of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The man stared at Strobridge for a long, odd second. “You are all welcome here,” he said, then looked at both Daggetts, “but I respectfully beseech you not to blaspheme God’s name in my company.”
George opened his mouth to likely do just that, but his brother chimed in first. “So, there an easier way in?” Mason asked, tightening the reins on his curt tone.
“Easier, yes, if you come in peace. Much harder if you have...other intentions. We could, of course, use your help fixing up the place.”
“We’ll respect your wishes, Father. Lead on,” Pa said, and that seemed to settle it.
“Very well, let us make haste. This way.”
Manning took the wheelbarrow’s handles from the Buells with a nod, and they followed this Black Robe fellow past a set of double doors and more boarded-up windows, and then around the short side to the back. Nina watched the priest, trying to puzzle him out. She didn’t know much about the Black Robes, but whatever the man had done to that deadun spooked her about as much as the deaduns themselves.
Mathias knocked on the door and called out, “It’s me!”
Nina heard the sounds of objects being moved, and the doors scraped open, loosing the warm glow of lantern light from within.
“Don't be afraid, friends. Everyone here's on the side of the living,” the priest said, entering the room and gesturing for them to follow. “This large fellow here is Deputy Marshal Samuel Oden. He speaks softly, but carries a big stick.”
The tall, blond man tipped his dark hat and gave the party a nod. The man stood well over six-and-a-half-feet tall, with a barrel chest beneath his long coat and stained denim shirt and a jaw that looked carved from an oak tree.
Mathias smiled and patted another fellow on the back. “And this ruffian here is Buck Patterson. He may look frightful, but he knows the Lord well.”
“I attended mass once if that's what you mean, Father.” Buck's voice was a growl of pickax over gravel. He was smaller than Marshal Oden—well, they all were—and as wiry and screw-faced as Mean George, but with a heap of rugged ranger thrown in to boot.
With his shaggy mustache, greasy shoulder-length hair, and fringed rawhide jacket, Buck was certainly a rough character, Nina agreed, but he didn’t put off a bastardly streak like the Daggett brothers. She got a good feeling from the marshal, too. Something honest about the lines on his weathered face.
The rest of the group had gathered inside, seemingly glad to have four solid walls around them. Whatever this place had been, hardly a remnant remained. Based on what Nina had seen outside, and where she stood now, the structure appeared to be three large rooms—they stood in the center one—with a fourth smaller room, connected to the main facility by way of an enclosed passage. Nina’s eyes searched the darkness, but aside from a low-burning lantern sitting on an old barrel, there was no light. Just enough to see by but not be seen. Smart.
Movement caught Nina’s eye. Strobridge pulled Woodie with him off into the right-hand room. What were those two up to?
Mathias continued, “We do have two more fellows here. Hard workers. One is a good friend of Buck's...”
A figure stepped into the lantern light on Nina’s left, sending the Buells into a screeching panic. Grover pushed Clara and Rachel to the side, keeping himself between the newcomer and his family.
A native tribesman in a blood-spattered vest and beads around his neck confronted them. His complexion was at least five shades darker than Nina’s, his hair long and sleek like black silk and ornamented with a long feather. She didn’t mark him as hailing from her mother’s tribe, the Shoshone. No, his adornments gave him away as Paiute, Bannock, or Nez Perce perhaps.
The Daggetts drew their side arms and moved to shield the Buells, not so much to protect them, Nina thought, but to find a better angle to shoot from. The native took a step back, his eyes still cool, as if he’d been in a thousand similar situations.
Buck Patterson drew on the Daggetts. His weapon was the biggest, ugliest black revolver Nina had ever seen. Barrel had to be a mite larger than forty-four caliber. Hell the damn thing looked like a cannon; a decorated cannon with red and white feathers dangling from the stock.
Even George Daggett glanced down the barrel and gulped.
Mathias held up his hands and got between the two groups. “True, this man is a native of these lands, but you can rest assured he means no harm. Red Thunder is converted, friends, only wishing to—”
“Only good Injun is a dead one, and that’s a goddamn fact.” George cocked his weapon.
“That’s right,” Mason said. “I say we send him up to God and let Him decide.”
It wasn’t a difficult decision to m
ake. Nina hated the Daggetts in just about every way imaginable, so she drew her Colt and pointed it right at Mean George’s thick head. She didn’t want to see this Red Thunder hurt, but she secretly wished for an excuse to pull the trigger.
Manning aimed his dragoons, one at each brother.
“Fuckin’ figures,” George said, glancing at the array of weaponry aimed in their direction.
A grin pulled at Nina’s lips but she curbed it quick-like. James Manning was sweet on her.
“Now, boys,” Pa said. “Not every Indian is a devil.”
“You would say that, seeing as you got an Injun daugh—”
Pa started to rise up out of the wheelbarrow, and Mason switched his target to cover him.
“Don't be stupid,” said Manning, his tone low and nerveless.
“Or what?”
“Or what?” Manning raised a brow. “Look around. Five barrels, one of them a big fucking barrel, versus your two.”
Pa held up his hands. “Lord knows I understand how you boys feel. I fought my share of natives in my time, as well as Rebs like yourselves. No, don’t deny it. I see it in you. You got Confederate balls, but you’re surly as hell, too. Pissed off the war didn’t go your way. But it don’t matter none now. We all got a common enemy.” Pa pointed around. “Those deaduns out there. They don’t care a Continental whether you’re Indian, graycoat, or an old dried-up pecker like me.”
George Daggett snickered, but he wasn’t pacified in the least. “Fuck it! Those things out there gonna get us anyway. Might as well take a couple redskins with us.”
Manning cocked his dragoons. “You can try.”
Tension pushed down like lead clouds. For a moment, Nina didn’t think they would ever break, but a sudden chorus of discordant moans assaulted them from outside the open doors. Rachel Buell whimpered.
“No. The old man is right,” Mason said, uncocking and lowering his weapon. “We need every fighting man we got right now. I won’t have a problem provided that Injun and his buddy stay on that side yonder, and we’ll stay over here.”
Manning stood down, Nina reluctantly holstered her weapon. Buck put away his monster revolver. The tension unraveled, and the Daggetts, Marshal Oden, and Manning went to get the two back doors shut and shored up. Just in the nick of time, too. Soon as they slid the bar in place, the wet slap of fists pounded against the wood. The door was thick, not nearly as rotten as everything else. Seemed it would hold for a time. The men shoved an old three-legged table in front of it for good measure.
Marshal Oden said, “The room you Daggett boys are in needs two windows repaired, and there’s a three-inch crack in one of the corners.”
“Figures.” George spat.
“Let’s go see,” Mason said, slapping his brother on the shoulder.
Oden narrowed his eyes at them a little. “There’s some old wooden crates over here,” he said as they sauntered off. “We’ll grab what we can and do some shoring up. Oh, and keep an eye upward.”
Nina looked up and saw what the marshal meant. Part of the wood-shingled roof had collapsed, leaving them exposed to the night sky. Not a danger at the moment, but if those things learned to climb...
“Deputy marshal, huh?” Manning asked. “Where outta?”
“Laramie.”
“What are you doing way out here in the Sierra Nevadas?”
The two men grabbed hold of another old broken table and moved it together as the marshal continued, “Thomas and I go back a couple years, and he asked for an escort west. Got two brothers handling things for me until I get back.”
“If they’re as big as you I imagine Laramie’s in capable hands.”
They wedged the table against the back doors next to the three-legged one.
The marshal put his large hand on the door as deaduns pushed and scratched on the other side of it. “Being big has advantages…Mister Manning, is it?”
Manning nodded and Nina, being perceptive, noticed his Adam’s apple bob, like he was suddenly troubled.
“Disadvantages, too,” Oden said. “Bigger man, bigger target.” The marshal grabbed a crate in each hand and headed off to help the Daggetts secure their area.
“Making nice with the law?” Nina asked Manning.
He looked at her and let a couple seconds tick by. “Just being neighborly.” He grabbed a couple crates from the pile and followed after the marshal.
More deaduns pounded on the windows and doors, and fists thudded on the stone walls. They were growing in numbers, somehow having followed the group down out of the hills. But how so quickly? Perhaps there was a settlement nearby? Perhaps their moans had brought others. Maybe something else? Nina thought about those black-eyed deaduns, different than their soulless brethren. Not that the black-eyes had souls…
Father Mathias didn’t seem as fearful of the horde outside. He stepped nearer to Nina and looked up through the gap in the ceiling, his eyes wandering, face peaceful with a gentle smile. “And so we build this house of refuge in the name of the Lord amidst great turmoil in our hearts and minds. We face the demons, even as they seek to drag our souls down into the bowels of Hell. We will prevail, oh yes we will.”
“Hey, Father,” Mason said, having approached for another wooden crate. “Ease up on the demon talk, would ya?”
Mathias peered past Mason Daggett and his serene expression vanished. “Mister Strobridge. I didn’t think to see you again so soon.”
Strobridge had his hands on his hips, surveying rather than pitching in to help the others. “I didn’t think to see you again ever. I certainly never thought you’d have the balls to come back here, Thomas.”
The priest recovered, his peaceful aspect returning. “I couldn’t very well let you get away with blind thievery.”
“A fair deal is what it was.” Strobridge approached and stood square just a few feet away. Nina backed up a step, feeling the tension between the men. She saw Woodie standing back against the wall, clinging to the shadows but watching with interest.
“I’d hardly call it that,” said the priest. “But we can agree to disagree...for now.”
Marshal Oden returned and stopped, keen-eyed. “You two know each other?” He stepped between them.
Strobridge’s face became an expression of condescending amusement. “Oh, Thomas and I have parleyed back and forth on a couple things.”
“Back and forth. A funny way of putting it. Seems to be a one-way street with you, Mister Strobridge.”
“I guess we’ve got a problem to work out then.”
Mathias nodded. “Yes, Mister Strobridge. We do.”
“I’ll meet you in the middle once we get situated. If we’re not dead.”
Mathias nodded again. “Fair enough.”
Strobridge nodded at Mathias, again at the marshal, then gave Nina a wink.
She imparted a frown, and he gave a wry smile before turning and rejoining Woodie.
“Strobridge,” Marshal Oden said to himself, then looked at the priest. “J.H. Strobridge, that’s the railroad bug you told me about. The one who—”
“Yes, Marshal. That’s the one.”
Nina bit her tongue, wanting like hell to indulge her curiosity. Instead she fixed on James Manning, who walked by and spared her a quick look as he accompanied Buck Patterson now into the room opposite the Daggetts and Buells, discussing some weak points in the building and how to fix them. Nina was glad the Daggetts called the other room. She didn’t think she could stand dealing with the deaduns and George Daggett another second. If given a choice, she might well choose the dead folk. With all the tension in this place, the living were right obnoxious.
The only ones she felt truly sorry for were the Buells. And Jasmine.
The prostitute stood arms crossed, looking as helpless as she likely felt. Nina walked over to her, saw her once pretty dress was covered in muck and blood and she was shivering so hard Nina could practically feel her vibrations. On instinct, she reached out and put a hand on the woman’s arm. Jas
mine’s skin was cold beneath her fingers. The woman looked at Nina’s hand, then at Nina and swallowed.
“Hey,” Nina whispered.
“I want to thank you, Miss.”
“Pfft, I ain’t no miss.”
“Then that makes two of us.” They gazed at one another, then Jasmine flashed a smile and her face prettified despite the soot and blood smeared across her dark features.
Nina returned her smile. It felt like a genuine moment and she felt a feminine affinity she rarely had occasion to enjoy. “We need to get you warmed up—”
Someone cleared their throat. Both of them laid eyes on Mean George, who made a come here gesture with his fingers. “You’re with us.”
Jasmine’s gaze cut across the room and back to Nina. The smile faded, and she started over to George. Nina hadn’t let go of her arm and she squeezed it with more force than she intended, causing Jasmine to look down at her hand.
“You ain’t gotta do nothing he says.”
George clicked his tongue. “We done paid for her.”
“In case you ain’t noticed, a few things have changed since then.”
“Ownin’ pussy never changes, come hell or high water.” George smiled. “Damn, Injun girl. You in love or somethin’? Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of her. Won’t wear that hole out too much.”
Jasmine slid her arm from Nina’s grip. “It’s okay, luv. I dealt with worse.”
Nina watched her go. She sniffed and bit her bottom lip, then walked back to her pa.
“You okay, Nina girl?”
“Fine. Other than us being stuck in this goddamn nightmare.”
“Just keep it together. You and me, we’ll find a way out of all this. We just need a little respite for a few hours, then—”
“Pa. The dead are rising and walking around sinking their goddamn teeth in the living like we ain’t ought but vittles. They’re everywhere. There ain’t no place safe. And here we are like rats, holed up with more bad men, the kind we’ve been avoiding or fighting the past ten goddamn years.”