Apocalypse Then

by Al Lamanda

In the kitchen of the hotel, Joseph found a wood crate and loaded it with dishes, cups, saucers, soup bowls and assorted cutlery. Fully loaded the box weighed forty pounds or more and he lifted and carried it with both arms.

  Joseph carried the crate from the kitchen into the hallway and finally to the lobby. As he made the sharp turn from the hallway to the lobby, Sands raced out from behind the check-in desk and slammed into Joseph.

  Joseph hit the wall and dropped the crate. Sands roared savagely and slammed Joseph into the wall. Joseph reached for his revolver, but Sands knocked it away and grabbed Joseph by the shoulders.

  Joseph punched Sands in the face, but Sands seemed unfazed by the blows. Sands snapped his teeth and pulled Joseph closer and at the last second, Joseph snatched a heavy lantern from the desk and smashed it into Sands’ face.

  That broke the hold and Joseph turned to run. He made it as far as the front door before Sands was on him again. They crashed through the door and hit the sidewalk, rolled down the steps and into the street.

  Sands was incredibly strong and landed on top of Joseph.

  Joseph pulled his knife and shoved it into Sands’ chest to the handle. Dark blood squirted in Joseph’s face, but otherwise Sands appeared unhurt. Sands came down to bite Joseph’s neck and Joseph grabbed Sands by the throat.

  Joseph pushed hard, but he was no match for Sands’ incredible strength and Sands brought his teeth closer and closer to Joseph’s neck.

  “Stop...please…stop!” Joseph cried. “Please!”

  Shots rang out and several bullets struck Sands in the shoulders and stomach. The bullets tearing into his flesh slowed Sands, but just for a moment.

  “Help me, please!” Joseph yelled.

  More shots rang out. Bullets struck Sands in the arms and legs.

  “Aim for the head!” Poule yelled.

  Sands came down hard on the left side of Joseph’s neck and savagely tore out a huge hunk of flesh.

  With the main artery in Joseph’s neck sliced in two, blood squirted a foot into the air from the pressure of his rapidly beating heart.

  Joseph screamed at the sight of his own gushing blood.

  Sands came down for another bite and tore into the soft flesh of Joseph’s cheek.

  Shots rang out and bullets blew the top half of Sand’s head off and he fell off Joseph, twitched violently for several seconds and then went still.

  Poule and Teal ran to Joseph and knelt down to him.

  “Jesus God,” Teal said.

  “I’m gonna die,” Joseph gasped.

  Teal put pressure on the massive bite in Joseph’s neck and immediately Teal’s hands were covered in blood.

  “I don’t want to die,” Joseph said. “Not like this. Not in this stinking filthy town.”

  “Hold on,” Teal said. “Poule, get some bandages.”

  “My legs,” Joseph said. “I can’t feel my legs.”

  “Just…hold on until…” Teal said.

  “I’m so cold,” Joseph said and closed his eyes.

  A moment later the blood stopped gushing from the wound in Joseph’s neck and slowed to a trickle.

  “This is our fault,” Poule said. “We should have gone with him.”

  “Sands couldn’t have been hiding,” Teal said. “We’d have found him. He must have wandered back in somehow and we didn’t see him.”

  “What do we do now?” Poule said.

  “We bury him and wait for the Marshal,” Teal said.

  “And Sands?”

  “Get some lantern oil,” Teal said. “And the preacher’s good book. We’ll say a few words over them.”

  Chapter Thirty

  A half mile from Big Sky, Lane said, “We’re downwind of something. Do you smell that?”

  “Yes,” Red Foot said.

  “Awful stench.”

  “They’re burning a body,” Red Foot said.

  Lane looked at Red Foot. Each man had two horses in tow by looping the reins. They nodded and took the horses from a slow gate to a flat out run.

  A hundred feet outside of town on the south end, the remains of Max Sands was but a charred pile of smoking embers. Lane and Red Foot rode past it into town and dismounted at the livery stable.

  “Tend to them, Charlie,” Lane said. “I’m going to find out what’s happened here. And be quick about it. Sunset is in an hour.”

  “It was my fault,” Poule said. “I should have gone with him. I told him, but he said he’d be right back. How were we to know Sands came back?”

  “You couldn’t know,” Lane said. “It’s nobody’s fault and nobody is to blame. It’s just the way things are right now.”

  The group was having dinner at the table in the church kitchen. Although the doors were secured tight, Scripture kept watch from the balcony.

  “This is a fine meal, Mrs. McCain, Little Sky,” Lane said to try and change the subject.

  “Thank you, Marshal, but the truth is Mr. Anderson’s death is my fault,” Maura said. “I asked him to bring some of the fine china from the hotel to the church. My silly sense of decorum is the reason why he is dead.”

  “Mrs. McCain, what I told my deputy goes for you as well,” Lane said. “For all of us. Anderson is dead because of this fever sickness and no other reason. Understand?”

  Maura nodded softly. “My son is in the jail,” she said. “About to become one of them. He’ll need to be put down. Can you do that and not feel the guilt of having killed a young boy in cold blood, Marshal?”

  “No,” Lane admitted.

  “Then somebody is at fault,” Maura said.

  Scripture poked his nose into the small dining room. “Company,” he said.

  They watched from the balcony windows. The early full moon cast a glowing eerie light upon the streets and sidewalks of Big Sky.

  The ghouls were everywhere.

  Walking.

  Stumbling.

  Some with broken legs and twisted necks, gunshot wounds, missing limbs and missing eye balls.

  Some fell in the streets and others stepped over them as if the fallen weren’t there.

  Others, as the night before, entered shops and stores as if guided by some distant memory of being human.

  Most just wandered and milled without purpose or direction.

  “There’s twice as many of them as the other night,” Poule said.

  “And more on the way,” Teal said.

  Behind the first herd of ghouls, a second, smaller group stumbled into town.

  “Even from here I can see half of them are Crow and Sioux,” Poule said. “Where the hell are they coming from?”

  Red Foot looked at Lane.

  Lane nodded. “Something you should know,” he said. “Out there we found the horses in a valley between the hills about two miles from here. There was a winding twist between the hills. There must have been a thousand of them just standing there.”

  “A thousand?” Teal said. “And all of them coming here?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Lane said. “I have no idea why there are more of them. Maybe they linked up out there somehow? Maybe one group follows another, I don’t know.”

  Teal looked at Red Foot. “Still want to make that ride to Keogh?”

  “Mrs. McCain, I’ll need food for five days there and back,” Red Foot said. “Marshal, your horse is the best of the lot. Any objection to me borrowing him?”

  “No,” Lane said. “Mrs. McCain, is there anymore coffee?”

  “I’ll make a fresh pot,” Maura said.

  “Who wants first watch?” Lane said.

  “Me,” Little Sky said.

  “You sure?” Lane said.

  “I figure you men want to talk,” Little Sky said.

  “After I make a fresh pot I’ll join you,” Maura said to Little Sky.

  “You’ll have to carry grain for a round trip, that and enough iron and ammunition to last,” Lane said. “You’ll be weighted down so a flat run would only do my horse in and put you afoot.”

&
nbsp; “Are you worried about me or your horse?” Red Foot cracked.

  “If my horse doesn’t make it you don’t either,” Lane said.

  “I know the country,” Red Foot said. “We’ll both be fine.”

  “It will be ten days before you get back,” Poule said. He looked at Lane. “What do we do if he doesn’t make it?”

  “I’ll make it,” Red Foot said.

  “But if you don’t, what then?” Poule said.

  “Then my troubles are over and yours are just starting,” Red Foot said.

  “That ain’t no answer,” Poule said.

  “Deputy, I will do as I say,” Red Foot said. “If my word isn’t good enough for you then I suggest we have a serious conversation and settle this before morning.”

  “No need a that,” Lane said. He looked at Poule. “Right, Deputy?”

  “Whatever you say, Marshal,” Poule said.

  Maura entered the room. “Better have a look at this.”

  A lone ghoul walked slowly toward the church. He stumbled a bit from what appeared to be a broken foot. If he was in pain he didn’t show it. He paused at the steps and looked up.

  In the moonlight, the ghoul’s face appeared green and his eyes a sickly yellow.

  “It’s the other preacher,” Lane said.

  The preacher slowly stumbled up the steps and scratched at the heavy oak doors.

  “Looks like he wants to come in,” Teal said.

  “The preacher said that he thought they might have some memories of their past,” Lane said. “He might be remembering his church.”

  “That ain’t all he’s doing,” Red Foot said.

  Outside the hotel, several wandering ghouls took notice of the preacher scratching on the church door. They stood and watched him as if trying to figure out what he was doing.

  “He’s going to bring the whole fucking lot right on our doorstep,” Poule said.

  “Charlie, Teal, come with me,” Lane said. “The rest of you keep your rifles at the ready.”

  There was a small room behind the altar that served as a work room where repairs and maintenance had been done in the past. Lane found a heavy wood mallet used in carpentry.

  “Open the doors and step back,” Lane said as he blew out the lanterns.

  “You serious?” Red Foot said.

  “Do it,” Lane said.

  Red Foot and Teal removed the heavy wood planks from their slots and then the two iron bars. They turned and looked at Lane.

  “Open it,” Lane said.

  Red Foot and Teal slowly pulled the oak doors inward until they were open.

  Lane stepped out and came face-to-face with the preacher ghoul.

  For a split second there was no recognition in the preacher ghoul’s eyes. Then there was a moment of clarity and as the preacher ghoul opened his mouth to snarl, Lane swung the heavy wood mallet with both hands and struck the preacher ghoul in the center of his forehead.

  The blow caused a sickening thud as bone and skull caved in and the preacher ghoul fell backwards to the church steps and rolled down to the street.

  Lane stood in the open doors and looked at the ghouls wandering about in the center of town. In the shadows, Lane went unnoticed and he stepped back inside the church.

  “Close them up,” Lane said as he struck a match and relit the lanterns.

  “Gotta hand it to you, Marshal,” Red Foot said as he peered out a balcony window. “You got some set of balls.”

  From the windows they could observe the ghouls as they wandered about aimlessly through the streets and ignored the church.

  “I’m going to get some sleep,” Lane said. “Wake me in four hours to stand watch.”

  Lane walked off to the secret room.

  Maura turned to Red Foot. “Do you like corn dodgers?” she said.

  Red Foot nodded.

  “Good, because Little Sky and I are going to bake about two hundred of them for your trip.”

  Chapter Thirty One

  Poule stared down at the center of town. The ghouls had settled into a routine of slowly wandering, pausing for long periods of time and wandering again. Sometimes they would bump into each other and not even notice and other times some of them would simply fall down for no apparent reason. Occasionally one or two of them would chirp softly like a night bird.

  It would be so easy to pick a few of them off with his Winchester, but that might alert others to the church. So he took aim and killed a few in his mind like a kid playing with a toy gun made of wood.

  Years ago, Poule’s father carved him a pistol made of a solid piece of hickory wood after lightning struck a tree on their ranch. He must have been five or six, but he played with the silly thing until he was ten or eleven. He would spin around and yell, “Bang, bang,” and kill all the bad guys.

  Poule set the Winchester against the wall, pulled out his pouch and paper and rolled a cigarette.

  He smoked watching the street.

  His thoughts turned to his wife Ava.

  She was but twenty four years old, pretty as a songbird and alone back there in Harding.

  Alone and wondering where her husband was, if he was alive and returning to her anytime soon.

  Maybe she was safe.

  It was entirely possible the outbreak of…fever…sickness…whatever it was hadn’t reached as far south as Harding. Maybe it was as Little Sky said; a falling rock somehow contaminated the water supply.

  Poule tried to remember how far south that river traveled and if it reached Wyoming. It if did, a great many more people could be stricken than believed.

  His wife, his beautiful Ava could be one of them?

  Poule turned away from the window.

  Don’t think that.

  Ava is fine, at home and waiting for your return he told himself.

  But, what if she wasn’t?

  What if she was wandering Harding this very night exactly like the ghouls were doing here?

  Eating the flesh of the living.

  What if he never saw her again?

  He had to get home.

  He had to know one way or the other.

  He knew, even if the others didn’t that to stay in Big Sky was a slow death sentence.

  And he was not about to die without seeing Amy at least one more time.

  How?

  Lane would never allow him to leave.

  Poule was, after all, a US Deputy Marshal and Lane was his boss, a fully appointed US Marshal with authority inside all states and territories.

  If he could get one of the horses from the livery and had a pack full of supplies, maybe he could…?

  “I’m up,” Scripture said. “That coffee hot?”

  “Made it a bit ago,” Poule said. “Should still be fresh.”

  Scripture filled two cups and brought them to the window and gave one to Poule.

  “Thanks,” Poule said.

  Scripture set his cup on the window and pulled out his pouch and paper. “Want a smoke before you hit the bed?”

  “Sure.”

  Scripture rolled two cigarettes, gave one to Poule, struck a match and lit them both. “Anything going on with our company out there?” he said as he tossed the match out the window.

  “Naw,” Poule said. “They’re just standing there or wandering about. Every once in a while one of them chirps like a bird. I don’t know what to make of that.”

  Scripture sipped coffee and inhaled on his cigarette. “I don’t think anybody does.”

  “Do you think…there’s more of them?” Poule said. “What I mean is do you think its spread outside of Montana territory?”

  “Hell, I don’t even know what it is, much less if its spread,” Scripture said. “Maybe some doctor is looking for a cure or something like the scarlet fever, who knows?”

  “We have to get out of here,” Poule said.

  “We will.”

  “My wife,” Poule said. “She could be…”

  “She’s fine,” Scripture said. “Harding
is a long ways off and near as I can see they don’t walk too far.”

  “You don’t know that,” Poule said. “None of us do. My wife needs me home. I didn’t say anything before, but we’re expecting a child in seven months.”

  “That’s great,” Scripture said.

  “If I could get one of those horses I can ride to Harding inside of three days if I push hard,” Poule said.

  “That’s crazy talk,” Scripture said. “We’re better off here for the time being. Besides, Lane would never allow you to leave on your own.”

  “Lane ain’t God and my wife needs me,” Poule said.

  “Look, calm down,” Scripture said. “We have to give Charlie a chance to reach Keogh first. If he don’t make it, then we’ll think about riding out on our own. Sleep on that, okay. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Ten days?” Poule said. “That’s how long it will take for Charlie to get back.”

  “I know that,” Scripture said. “But if you ride out on your own, you have to sleep sometime over a three or four day ride to Harding. Do you really want to be alone out there with them wandering around? If Charlie don’t make it we leave as a group. We’ll get you back to your wife.”

  Poule looked at Scripture and slowly nodded.

  “Get some sleep,” Scripture said. “You’ll feel better when the sun’s up.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right,” Poule said. “See you in the morning.”

  Poule entered the secret room and closed the door.

  Scripture looked out a window.

  Down by the hotel, a crowd of ghouls stood around doing nothing.

  And then one of them chirped.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Maura was out of bed two hours before sunrise to get a good fire going in the four plate oven in the church kitchen. She boiled a fresh pot of coffee first and then set out what she needed to make the corn dodgers for Red Foot’s trip.

  Flour, cans of corn and condensed milk, water to thin the milk, butter from the ice box, sugar, eggs. In a large bowl she mixed ingredients with a wood spoon, then set it aside while she heated a buttered skillet.

  The skillet held six dodgers so this was going to take a while.

  Maura filled a cup with coffee and sipped while she waited to flip the dodgers. Truth was she needed something to occupy her time. In the course of less than a week her entire life and world was turned upside down. With her husband gone and her son about to become one of them, was there a reason to ever return to the ranch?