Bodacious Creed: a Steampunk Zombie Western (The Adventures of Bodacious Creed Book 1)

by Jonathan Fesmire

  Rumors of Bodacious Creed sightings flew around the bordello. Anna asked the girls about any pillow talk concerning the gunfighter. A couple had heard mention of a “syndicate” in connection with Blake but had no idea what that meant. About Creed, some johns were grateful for his presence, while a few expressed distaste for a dead man who didn’t stay dead.

  Anna felt at the eye of a storm. Bits of news about Creed found their way into The House of Amber Doves, but never Creed himself. Outside, the whirlwind of activity continued with city residents, her father, the marshals, and perhaps a conglomeration of outlaws.

  On the night of the twenty-ninth, Anna served customers at the bar and gave a gentle slap on the hand to an older man flirting with her. “Any of the other ladies, sir. I’m retired,” Anna said over the strumming of Whiskey Zombie Collective. She winked, and while she usually enjoyed this sort of friendly banter, she had to force a smile.

  When Anna had stepped out of her room, only a few girls worked the saloon. She figured the rest had taken men upstairs.

  Jonny strode toward the bar and when she raised an eyebrow at him, he took her hand.

  Somebody whistled high, probably thinking that Jonny had come to get her for a session of raucous lovemaking, but she knew better. She wished that could be the case after the last few exhausting days. Their fluffy bed looked inviting.

  In the laboratory, Jonny presented her with a new tracker, and he pointed at the final sketches in their shared schematics. He had adjusted for healing ether rods working in conjunction with human brain activity.

  “You cracked it?” She grinned wide and felt tears building. “Jonny, this might be better than sex.”

  He rolled his eyes and put an arm around her hips.

  The arrow pointed west and slightly south. This tracker had two circular tracks, with markers, going around the dial, the outer for miles, the inner for feet up to a mile. The mile marker sat at zero, while the feet marker wavered around one thousand, three hundred.

  Anna considered this for a moment, then dread set in. She knew exactly where to find her father.

  Plowshares.

  Espiritu galloped along Lincoln Street, hoofs clopping loudly against the dirt, and the pack with the tracker thumped against its side. Anna held tightly to the reins. “Not far to go,” she whispered.

  Within a minute, she rounded the corner to Chestnut Street and pulled Espiritu’s reins hard. Even at their brightest, the Tesla bulbs along the road never quite chased away the dimness of night.

  In front of Plowshares, a handful of women in pricey dresses beat on a figure lying in the road. Their shadows, cast in several directions, looked like malevolent spirits helping them in their assault. Shouts of “Fuck you!” and “Damn you to hell!” created their own unintentional music.

  As Anna slid out of the saddle, Nancy Hartgraul emerged from Plowshares with a shotgun. Seemingly from nowhere, Creed appeared. One moment, Nancy stood firmly in the doorway, light streaming past her from the saloon inside. The next, Creed tackled her. The rifle flew from her hands while Creed stood and dashed off.

  Anna looked for him but had no clue where he went. How did he move so fast? In resurrecting him, she hadn’t anticipated his incredible speed or strength. Had death granted him abilities beyond the mortal?

  A man’s cries came from beneath the hits, kicks, and shouts of the women. It had to be Edward Hartgraul. With a gasp, Anna saw Charlotte land a kick to his shoulder and she realized that none of the doves worked for Plowshares. These were all her girls! They must have planned the attack, maybe over the last few days while Anna worked in her laboratory. Had she lost all sense of the doves in her employment, women who used to trust her?

  Creed seemed to appear from behind the small mob and wedged himself between the pimp and the mob. A few began punching him.

  It had taken a good eight minutes for Anna to retrieve Espiritu and make it here. How long had the girls been beating Hartgraul? She doubted for more than a few minutes, so Creed must have been here before it started.

  “Get back! You know what he's done!” Charlotte cried while the doves tried to pull Creed from among them, but he remained still.

  Anna fired her Deringer into the air. As the bang faded, she yelled, “Stop this, now!”

  The women froze and turned to her, and Creed pulled Hartgraul from the circle. Anna rushed to the prostitutes and had a look at the big daddy of Plowshares. His nose bent to the right, the area around one eye puffed out, and blood ran from his face into his shirt.

  “This isn't the way,” Creed said before Anna could speak.

  His voice no longer sounded so raspy. Anna placed her hand over her heart to steady herself. It was the voice she recognized from her childhood, though deeper and imbued with something new, like a metallic hum.

  Creed lay Hartgraul beside the Plowshares steps and stood with hands near his revolvers. “He deserves punishment when the law decides. What you've done here is criminal.”

  “What else can we do?” Charlotte said in an imploring tone. “Bateman let him go after he beat me. Ain't you about justice?”

  Creed stared at Hartgraul. “I will be watching you.”

  The pimp cringed. A moment later, Nancy knelt beside him, hands on his shoulders.

  “Step aside, Creed, please!” Charlotte leaned forward, hands balled into fists.

  “No!” Anna cried. “Come on, ladies. It's time to go home.” If anyone besides Creed stood there, Anna thought the women might have piled on Hartgraul again and beat his wife for good measure. Anna touched Charlotte's shoulder and the dove flinched. “You'll go to trial if you don't leave, now. Bateman or one of his deputies will arrive any minute. Creed's giving you the opportunity to get away.”

  “Yeah, let's get go,” one of the other girls said.

  “No, we're doing what we came for,” Charlotte said, but her shoulders slumped as the others backed away.

  Anna held Charlotte's hand. “You could get hanged for murder.”

  “What about her?” Charlotte intoned, pointing at Nancy. “She’s almost as bad.”

  “Go,” Creed said. “I hear horses coming from the south. Don't try this again. I will bring you in.”

  At last, Charlotte turned, and the girls unhitched and mounted four horses at Hargraul’s hitching post. They rode up Lincoln, some alone, some doubled up.

  Anna looked at Creed, his hat casting shadows over his eyes, a black bandana covering the lower part of his face. She went to Espiritu, leading Charlotte by the hand, and mounted with the younger woman climbing up behind her.

  As they rode away, Nancy Hartgraul screamed after them. “Marshals be damned. I will punish you!”

  Across town, the harsh light of an electric torch shone across the cemetery. The shadows of gravestones stretched like monsters, blades of grass like tendrils. Maxwell Gregg, called Heilong, or “Black Dragon,” by Chinese residents in the Flats, held the light steady as he walked, two Auto Sapient guard steelies following him as clouds passed over the waxing moon. That warm night, the graveyard smelled of damp grass.

  “Over here,” he said, approaching a tombstone up the hill. He shined the light on the inscription.

  Here lies

  U.S. Marshal James Creed

  Seeker of Justice

  Hero to Many

  August 1, 1825 - July 4, 1776.

  The Black Dragon of Railroad Flats shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  He looked back in surprise when the steelies dashed away and two mechanical dogs leaped at them. While Gregg thought a battle might prove entertaining, he felt for a device on his belt and flipped two switches. All four steelies collapsed. He strode to where they lay, the canine models and one of his in the grass, his other draped over a gravestone, and took a minute to open panels and reactivate the humanoid models.

  “No need to damage the property,” he said as his possessions stood. “Just dig. Let's see if there's any truth to the rumors.”

  The automatons unstrapped shov
els from their backs and dirt flew as they dug up the grave. Five minutes later, Gregg stared down into the pit. Though his steelies had gone down a good seven feet, the grave held no coffin.

  “So, it's true. This could be exciting.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Over the next three days, stories continued to circulate about Bodacious Creed’s vigilantism around Santa Cruz. Rumors placed him mostly in Railroad Flats, though reports also had him near the Morgan’s Mechanicals factory, in the forest, and elsewhere. Anna kept watching the tracker and discovered something that dismayed her. It only registered Creed’s location at a third of a mile away or less.

  Chasing after him seemed pointless, as she now felt sure he wouldn’t talk to her. Also, people would notice if she confronted him again. So, she worked most days on one of the duplicate trackers, hoping to configure it to track Zero. Jonny focused on the Creed tracker.

  Late on the evening of August first, Anna found a handwritten note on the floor of her bedroom, by the door. When she turned it over, she looked, stunned, at the words written in her code. Only Creed could have penned it.

  She opened her door and looked down the hall toward the saloon. Talking and laughter came from the main room and Maybelle passed a wooden mug to a man at the bar. There was no music, as Whiskey Zombie Collective wasn’t playing that night, and Hattie had probably taken a john to her room. Anna checked the back door. Jonny had replaced the locks after Creed’s escape, and the back door did not budge as she turned the handle. Either Creed had picked the lock or had someone else drop off the note.

  Anna went into her room and shut the door. Pacing, she read the letter.

  “Meet me at the Dooley farm house at eight thirty in the post meridian tomorrow, Wednesday.”

  Anna sat at her vanity and looked toward the ceiling with a smile. Creed wanted to see her. She wished he had asked for her to come that very evening, his fifty-first birthday. Still, what would she do? Bring him a present?

  One more day and she could talk to him. She rushed down to the laboratory to tell Jonny the good news.

  At about seven forty-five in the evening on August second, James Creed strode through the redwoods to an abandoned farm on the western side of Santa Cruz, about a mile beyond Morgan’s factories. The fog had come in to cool the night after a warm day and added a salty tang to the forest air. The sun had just descended, and darkness would help conceal his meeting with Anna Boyd. He suspected her companion, Jonny, would accompany her.

  In the last week, he had thought frequently about what he should say to them, usually as he tried to sleep on an extra mattress at Heidi’s in the morning. He needed little sleep since the change, as he spent many hours lying there, thinking, and, slowly, remembering. The night he died, he had meant to have dinner with the madam. Heidi said that Anna Boyd had cradled him moments after his death.

  Why had she brought him back? While stopping outlaws in Santa Cruz, he felt in control, his emotions contained. When he had time to think, sadness crept into his heart and he wished for the quiet of death.

  Creed wanted to understand why she had resurrected him, so here he waited. With his canine-like night vision, Creed saw that the enormous Dooley barn had been cleaned of hay and all tools removed. Heidi had told him the Dooley’s moved after gaining a large inheritance, and while the land was open for sale, no one had purchased it. She had even suggested that Creed stay there. He could scarcely blame her for wanting him out of her sight. Even he hated the look of his damaged, pale face in the mirror.

  Hoofbeats and the clank of steely parts grew steadily louder in the distance, and Creed thought they came from about a quarter mile away.

  Anna was slightly early. Creed waited in the barn, intending to reveal himself only when Anna drew close. He heard one horse, so if Jonny came with her, then they rode on the same steed. Bringing a steely along seemed wise. He had no doubt he would escape if they intended to bring him back, but if he had a steely, he would have brought it as well.

  When he judged them to be about twenty feet from the barn and their movement slowed, Creed meant to step into the open but hesitated. No one spoke, though feet hit the earth, cracking twigs.

  As the footsteps, both steely and human, drew near, Creed knew something was wrong. The whiny of the horse did not sound like Anna’s ominous black stallion. The footfalls sounded too heavy.

  Creed had discovered something amazing over the last week. He could fire both guns, at once, with high accuracy. It was a myth that one could shoot two guns at the same time without bullets going wild, but due to his new eyes, his resurrection, or a combination of the two, he had gained that ability. When necessary he could focus on two targets at once.

  He drew both pistols.

  The strangers stepped in, a steely leaner and shorter than Zero, though still nearly six feet, and a man just over Anna’s height. Light shined from the steely’s forehead allowing Creed to see color. The man accompanying it had dark brown, trimmed hair, a well-kempt beard, and graying temples. The wrinkles creasing his forehead and the crow’s feet beside his eyes suggested he was in his sixties. He wore a dark suit complete with tie, though instead of classy shoes, he wore practical, chestnut boots.

  As Creed raised both pistols, pain as sharp as when Anna had removed his eyes shot through his body. He fell stiffly, nerves on fire. The man stepped toward him but Creed found himself unable to move, though he saw and heard everything.

  Anna bounced in the saddle as Espiritu rushed past Morgan’s factories along Cabrillo Highway, then into the forest. Behind her, Jonny rode his steed, a white stallion with brown spots named Cyclone, and Lucky clanked beside him. Questions filled her mind, and she felt an urgent desire to meet with Creed. What did he have to tell her? What should she ask? Did he know now who she was? Had he recovered some of his personality, or did he remain focused on taking in outlaws like a spirit of western justice?

  In the hour before they headed out, Jonny had shown Anna that the device could now track Creed at a greater distance. She glanced back to where he had it strapped across his horse’s neck.

  About a quarter mile from the abandoned farm, Jonny sidled up beside Anna. She slowed Espiritu to a trot and Jonny did the same with Cyclone.

  “Stop for a minute,” she said, and they brought their mounts to a halt. The arrow wavered slightly and the button for distance slid upward. Anna knew the area, but not well enough to interpret what this meant. Creed might be getting closer to the barn or departing.

  Her belly tensed with trepidation. “Yah!” she cried and Espiritu leaped to a gallop. In moments, she heard Cyclone and Lucky crunching leaves behind. She skirted around trees until reaching the clearing around the farm. The main building stood nearby but Jonny raced ahead.

  Lucky dashed past Jonny, twigs snapping off trees as it passed them without ducking. Anna’s heart throbbed as she and Jonny followed the automaton. Light shined from its forehead, bouncing as it went, but giving Anna a better view of what lay ahead.

  Flashes of metal and hints of cloth jerked between the redwoods and pines. Then the light from Lucky’s forehead lamp swung around as the automaton ran back toward them. Though the sun had not quite gone down, forest shadows covered them. Lucky stopped and shined the beamon Creed, lying limply in its arms.

  Anna planned to stop about ten feet from them and run to Lucky. Just as she and Jonny slowed their approach, she heard clanks and rustling branches beyond. From behind her automaton came another steely.

  Three gunshots fired and the larger Auto Sapient crashed into the brush. Anna realized her steely had fired bullets from gun barrels in its back. Lucky lay Creed in the grass, turned, and rushed toward the newcomer. Steelies were designed to be bullet proof, and the larger model lurched to its feet as Lucky’s lights shined across its frame.

  Anna kicked at Espiritu’s sides and turned her steed to gallop toward the intruding automaton. Espiritu rammed into it full-force with its right flank.

  The steely lifted off
the forest floor and was thrown back.

  In the distance, the light of the nearly-full moon shined from behind a figure. Though she saw it for less than a second, she felt sure she had seen a man departing on a horse.

  Anna spun Espiritu around to ride away from the automaton, but in a half second, it leaped to its feet. It dashed for them and hit the horse from behind. Espiritu jumped and gave a loud, pained whinny. Anna held on tight as it managed to avoid a thick redwood. As her steed spun around, Lucky raced toward their enemy.

  Espiritu bucked and brayed with pain. Anna wished she could dismount, but held tight and patted her horse's neck, calling into its ear, “That's all right, darlin'. That's my beautiful boy!”

  After what felt like a minute, Espiritu seemed to listen, and it calmed. Anna dropped to the ground, where she found Jonny by Creed’s side, aiming one of the marshal’s long-barreled pistols at the automaton battle.

  Anna drew her father's second gun from his hip, though she figured shooting would be useless. Neither she nor Jonny could aim well enough to cripple the larger steely. She stepped forward, captivated by the battle and trying to not shake.

  Sparks flashed off steel as the automatons slammed into each other and landed punches that would crush a human skull. Lucky grabbed a plate of the other’s head casing and wrenched. The metal gave a great creak as it pulled upward. Then, Lucky reached in.

  The other reared up, arms lifting Lucky above it. Anna’s steely held tight for a moment, but the larger one tossed it hard to the ground, where Lucky lay still.

  The big steely rushed toward Creed, giving Anna no time to think. She lifted the heavy gun. In that millisecond, her body stopped shaking. Her hand tracked the steely's movement toward Jonny and her father, and she stared into the chink that Lucky had made in its armor. As it passed her, she fired.