A Bloody Bloody Mess In The Wild Wild West

by Justin Bienvenue

  “Respect?” He laughs again. “You’re even denser than I thought boy. It’s got nothing to do with respect. It’s about the simple fact that I was given an opportunity to seize a whole town and become as accomplished as my brother, and by god, I’m going to make sure it

  happens!” Javier says.

  “Your brother?” Emerson says to him. “Yes, my brother, Juan. He’s the one who told me to come here to Toomswood and takeover.” “I’m guessing he’s as ruthless as you then?” Emerson asks. “Nah, he’s a bit of a softy. He’s the good one in the family although he can get his hands dirty every once in a while. If he came here, I doubt he’d do things the way I have or maybe even he would realize what low down fools you all are,” Javier again says with a maddening laugh. Emerson grips his gun but does nothing else. “Why don’t you go help the rest of your town while you can? Like I said, it ain’t time for me and you to fight.”

  “We have a time?” Emerson says. Javier laughs. “When the sun starts to go down and everyone’s just about had enough and I have caused enough bloodshed that is when it will be our time.” They both glare at one another before Javier turns around. His men huddle in front of him in case Emerson decides to shoot him in the back. Emerson kneels down to Alonzo’s dead body.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get to know you better, my friend.” He closes Alonzo’s eyes and as he does, three undead civil war soldiers and a saloon girl surround Emerson. He gets up and looks around him.

  “Gentleman, Ma’am,” he says to them, grabbing his hat to greet them. He draws his gun and shoots two of the men in his direction and turns just enough, shooting the other man but stops at the woman. Just as he goes to shoot her, she drops to the ground from getting hit with a shovel. “You said grab what ya can and even the women gotta die!” a town’s person says to him. Emerson just laughs and thanks the man. The hotel of the town soon begins falling to pieces to the ground.

  “Everyone out of the way!” Clive yells as people start running as far back as they can. The burning hotel falls, adding more mess to the already chaotic and disastrous scene. Both sides lose people as the hotel falls, however giving the townspeople a slight upper hand.

  “Well that may have helped us out!” someone yells.

  The soldiers near Clive are busy eating a body and as Clive himself turns to witness this display, he is hit in the back of the head. His body is dragged to where no one is and he is kicked over and over and then picked up and grabbed tightly. He is hit again in the back of the head and as Clive looks up, he sees Joey Morrey.

  “Boss…said...it’s…time…you...died…so…no w...you…die...” Joey says to him.

  Clive gets up and swings hard, punching Joey in his only arm and again across his face. He breaks what’s left of structure in Joey’s face as the skin tissue collapses against the bone leaving Joey with only a bare skull for a head with skin and blood dripping off. Joey, now armless, goes to bite Clive but his head is shot before he can. Clive takes a step back, aims his gun and fires it three times at Joey, hitting his skull and his neck.

  Joey Morrey, or what’s left of him, falls back on the ground, landing with a hard, hollow thud. Clive waves over a town’s person with a shotgun and has him fire two final shots into Morrey. One in his head, shattering his skull into thousands of pieces and one into his chest as his insides explode and pour out.

  The two men then go back into the crowd and start shooting away at their enemies. Javier has now become gutsy. He gets on his horse, taking a cavalry saber from one of the soldiers, and begins riding into the crowd slashing and killing townsfolk. Javier is the only one now with a horse since everyone else had been killed earlier in the battle. Javier makes quick work of twelve people as he rides past them, slashing his way across their bodies. Javier is however shot off his horse and kicked hard. He runs for cover to avoid any scuffles with people. The town has become an endless fight.

  Solider after soldier drop as towns person after towns person also drop. Merely half of Javier’s soldiers have been killed. However, the total number is still quite a bit. Captain Wallace was still going strong, fighting and shooting his way through undead bodies before he is face to face with Stonewall Jackson.

  “Stonewall do you remember me? It’s Gervis Wallace. You taught me everything I know back when I first came up in the forces.”

  Stonewall merely looks at him, giving him an even colder look than he gave people when he was alive. He shows no expression on his face and as Wallace is talking, he just fires at him. Wallace avoids as many shots as he can but is by no means fast enough. He is hit twice in the arm and then the leg. Wallace lowers his gun and shoots General Jackson, hitting him in the legs. They just barely wound him and he keeps on firing. Wallace spins out of the way and fires a shot, hitting an undead soldier in the back. The soldier turns around and fires a shot toward Wallace. Wallace ducks out of the way and the shot hits Stonewall Jackson in the head. Jackson falls to the ground.

  “Well, I’ll be. Killed by your own men yet again,” Wallace says as he shoots him again to make sure he stays dead. Emerson finds himself backed up against a wall with three undead saloon girls approaching him.

  “Now ladies, I’m sure there’s an easy way for us to settle this.”

  “Come...on...big...boy...just...one....kiss...”one of the girls says to him as she approaches closer. Emerson draws his gun and shoots the two that are still a good distance away from him. He grabs the one near him and throws her into the window of the saloon. She gets up with shards of glass embedded in her body.

  Emerson grabs his shotgun and shoots her clear across the room as her body hits up against the front of the counter. He then blows her head off before turning around to face the doorway and blows away the two other girls that are making their way in.

  “I had more of a good time with those girls just now than I did when they were alive,” Emerson says to himself as he makes his way out of the saloon and back into the battling crowd. Javier makes his way back into the crowd, shooting people left and right, seemingly untouchable. Emerson and Clive meet up again and get back to back, shooting their way through the mass of undead soldiers.

  Captain Wallace is shot two more times as he slowly limps his way over to Emerson. “Well Emerson…I think I’ve done my part. I won’t let you or this town down and I’m going out with a fight.” Wallace then screams at the top of his lungs and fires shot after shot, knocking over soldier after soldier. He puts up a courageous fight but he is finally finished off as a bullet finds its way into his chest and he falls to the ground dead.

  The towns people have noticed that they are even more greatly outnumbered than they were in the beginning.

  “Emerson I don’t know how much more we can take. We are outnumbered and it’s like we’ve hardly put a dent in them,” Clive says. More blood is shed as more men defending the town drop to their knees, taking their last breaths before their faces meet the dirt.

  “I have an idea,” Emerson says to Clive. “Well, let’s hear it then!”

  “No, I’ll show you!” Emerson lures a group of soldiers over to one of the buildings on fire. He gets the soldiers right where he wants them and shoots a dangling piece of burning wood. It falls onto the group of soldiers as they scurry around in flames, burning themselves further into death.

  “You see Clive?!” Emerson yells over to him. “Fire!” Clive makes his way over to the alley with undead people still following him. Along the alley sits a row of barrels containing

  gunpowder. Clive rolls the barrels into the soldiers. He then begins setting them on fire from flaming debris and rolls them into the soldiers. The soldiers fall and catch on fire quickly. However, some pick up the barrels and throw them out of the alley and into the town.

  Clive yells out, “someone lure them near the alley.” Towns people make their way toward the alley while the soldiers follow. Clive then throws as many burning barrels as he can and sets his distance between them and himself.

  “
Alright, everyone out of the way.” Clive shoots the burning barrels as they blow up, taking out half the soldiers in the alley. The explosion causes body parts to fly into the air and scatter all over town. With some still staggering, Clive merely shoots them down as he walks back into the town. Emerson makes his way back into the now dwindled down crowd of people and gets back into shooting. The battle that had once been utter chaos has quieted down.

  Javier walks toward the crowd and yells for his men to stop. “Hold your fire!” His men on command do as they are told. As the towns folk that are still alive await as well.

  “I do say, you have all put up quite a good fight but my men will not stop until they are the only ones left standing.”

  “Let’s kill Javier!” some of the crowd’s people yell. Javier only laughs at this statement before drawing his pistol quickly and killing two of the vocal people.

  “I am giving you a chance to walk away and this is my only offer. I will gladly let the rest of you… which is how many exactly? I will let you walk right out of town.”

  “We’re staying right here until the end!” yells a towns folk. Emerson makes his way through the crowd.

  “You know how this is going to end

  Javier…with you dead.” “You and your bold claims and threats, boy. Well, I did say when the sun goes down it’d be time for me and you to finish this once and for all and it is almost that time. You don’t have nearly enough people to stop my men.” “You’ve weakened the town Javier. You got what you wanted. Now you leave your men out of this.”

  “I suppose you’re right Emerson. I don’t need my men anymore. Alright, men you did a good job, let’s give the little people left of this desolate shithole their pride back. I think I got it from here.” It is then that Javier’s undead civil war soldiers begin making their way back up the hill.

  “Wait! I didn’t say leave! Where are you going? Come back!” Soon all of the soldiers leave and go back to the cemetery leaving Javier with only the people he and his men killed before he got the soldiers. Emerson smiles, “Well it looks like your men did their job and now they’re gone. And, if I might add Javier, it looks like the odds have just evened out.”

  Chapter 10 Duel or Die

  “Where in the hell are you bastards goin?!” Javier screams, now enraged. He runs over to an undead soldier and punches him but he just ignores Javier’s attempts and keeps walking up toward the cemetery.

  “What’s wrong with you all?! We aren’t done fighting!” Javier pulls out his pistol and unloads his gun into one of the soldiers. Still, they keep moving. “This is ridiculous! You serve me you hear?!” Javier walks around now growing impatient and furious. It is then that out of a puff of smoke, Mr. Roland Helmsfeld appears.

  “Well Mr. Jones,” Helmsfeld says pondering for a moment. “It seems you are quite upset, if I do say so myself.”

  “You! You’re the reason why my men are fleeing up the damn hill! Why? I thought they were serving me!?” Javier asks him, still furious.

  “Well you see Mr. Jones, when you said you don’t need your men anymore that indicated to them that they were no longer needed and therefore they walked back up the hill from which they came,” Helmsfeld says.

  “I didn’t imply for them to leave me! I was gonna go conquer Edgeville and then come back here and celebrate! I was gonna become a Mexican Legend!” Javier adds.

  “On the contrary Mr. Jones, it doesn’t work that way. You see, I gave you the power and I gave you the men for the sole purpose of you unleashing a war here and you’ve done just that, I would even go so far as to say you’ve won so far. Haven’t you heard the saying of quitting while you’re ahead, Mr. Jones?”

  “So, because I’ve won they leave? What kinda crap is that and what do you mean ‘so far’?” Javier says to him.

  Helmsfeld merely laughs. “Well I do believe I see people in town still standing and Mr. Emerson Shaw, the most righteous man in all of Toomswood, still stands. I would say you still have work to finish, Mr. Jones. I shall stand aside over here and watch this final battle take place.” Helmsfeld walks over and stands by the saloon. He winks at Javier, letting him know he’s watching. Javier walks over to Emerson and stands face to face with him with a grin. He spits to the side and looks back to him.

  “You ready to do this boy?” he asks Emerson. “How about you and I step aside and have our men fight it out and then you and I finish this off in an old-fashioned duel, Javier?”

  “Hmm… That doesn’t sound like a bad idea, Shaw. You got yourself a deal,” Javier says. “Oh, and I say your buddy Halloway steps aside too. I got someone special for him to duel against.”

  Emerson and Clive look at each other and Clive shrugs, as if to say ‘why not.’ “Okay Jones, I don’t back down from a challenge,” Clive says back. Emerson, Javier and Clive all step aside as the remaining towns people and Javier’s men battle it out. Among the towns people is Otto the Butcher. He continues to slash through people along while decapitating and gutting them. Shots are fired back and forth and it seems that most of the towns people have been done in but this would not be the case. The towns people are actually formulating a strategy. They each pick up an undead man and use them as shields. Whenever shots are fired, they simply move the body around and since the undead men are no longer smart, just keep on firing and firing until they waste all their bullets.

  After it seems like their bullets are gone and they are vulnerable, the towns people begin loading their shotguns and then firing away in front of them blowing away the soldiers they encounter. Otto the Butcher throws his beyond bloody meat cleaver right at one of the men, splitting his head right open. Soon after this, the towns people begin getting a hold of things and would seem to have captured a bit of glory much to Javier’s dismay. Compared to what the war once began as to now it was quite easy to see that a change was in the air.

  The chaos that had once erupted, slowed down. It ebbed and flowed for a while but eventually died down completely. Javier now slightly outraged knew he could do nothing since he agreed to stand back and watch the last of his men duke it out. As the massacre reached its end, the triumph would begin as the towns people were left standing victorious.

  Helmsfeld claps as if he were watching a show at a theater. “Bravo, Bravo! I do say that was most

  entertaining and I did enjoy watching the war from afar.”

  “You mean you been watching this whole time?” Javier asks him. “But of course, Mr. Jones. After all, it was I who set this all in motion for you. It was the least I could do to watch the chaos you’ve created.” Javier just looks at him bewildered and yet not surprised by the mysterious man. “We’re proud we could do this town justice Emerson and we just hope Javier here realizes he’s done here!” a townsman says.

  Javier laughs. “With the damage I’ve done in this town, you’ll all be lucky if you have a pot to piss in.”

  “Well, Jones just who exactly do you have for me to duel against?” Clive asks. Javier laughs again. “Well I kept him back at the cemetery and not fighting in the war cause I was saving him for a moment just like this.”

  “Who is it Jones?” Clive asks again, looking at him curiously. Javier whistles over to the cemetery to give the go ahead to his mystery man. The man slowly makes his way down the hill and begins walking to the center of where everyone is. Clive and Emerson gasp in shock when they see who it is.

  “It can’t be!”

  “Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Clive’s opponent, Mr. Henry Dugan.”

  “But…how? I saw his body all over the cell!” Emerson says. “Well, you see, the mangled body in the cell was of someone else in town that my boys slaughtered and feasted on. It was so awful in there you couldn’t identify that body if you wanted to. I confronted Dugan myself and shot him dead before he knew what was coming to him. But, as you may remember, anyone I killed during that period of time was to become undead. So I thought, who better to kill and make into an undead mad man than the newly named S
heriff!” Javier laughs.

  Dugan looked at them with no expression. He wasn’t human anymore. His face was now gaunt like the rest. He had a laceration down the left side of his face and the place where he was shot was still noticeable as blood was still gushing from the wound along with a dark bloody stain on his shirt. His legs looked as though they had been clawed and slashed at with gashes and bruises upon them. It was hard to tell whether or not it was the material, skin or bone because of the amount of blood that seeped between them all. It was clearly obvious that Henry Dugan no longer looked like the man he once was.

  “Hello there…boys,” “Dugan!” Emerson exclaims.

  “It’s…so…much...better...this way...” Dugan says.

  “I won’t fight him!” Clive says. “Clive you have to. That’s not Henry anymore. He’s one of them. He has to die.” Clive looks down and sighs.

  “Alright…fine,” he says with a sigh.

  Javier laughs. “Excellent! Now go out in the open over there by the clearing and let’s get this show on the road!” Clive and Henry begin walking in opposite directions, then turn and face each other from afar.

  “Wait!” Clive says. “He’s undead so I gotta shoot him in the head just right, If not I can’t win.”

  “Very true Halloway. You really gotta put your bullets in the right spots,” Javier says. Emerson looks over at Helmsfeld. “You’re the one who created these inhuman things. Can he really kill Dugan with just a pistol?”

  “It was done during the war if shot in the right spots, as Mr. Jones has said. And, for the record, I did not create them. I gave Mr. Jones the ability to make them rise,” Helmsfeld adds. “Besides he’s undead and slow. How fast can he really be with a pistol?” Helmsfeld laughs as he goes into his bag and pulls out two dueling pistols to give to both men.

  Clive looks over at Dugan and he realizes that the man staring back at him is not the man he’s known for years but a walking undead man. He knows now that he has to get this right the first time because there may only be a first time. Clive steadies his hand and gets ready to draw. Dugan stares back but it’s even more uncertain to know when he’ll draw since he has no expression.