Apocalypse Then

by Al Lamanda

  “I’ll send the clerk over from the general store,” Marks said. “You can tell him what you need.”

  “Thanks Colonel,” Red Foot said.

  After Marks left, the doctor checked the bandages on Red Foot’s chest. “I can give you something to sleep for a while,” he said.

  “No, I’m okay,” Red Foot said. “What you said about studying the virus?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Crow think it came from a…what do you call them…a meteor that landed in the river on their reservation,” Red Foot said. “The river travels south into Wyoming and has many branches. We rescued a woman from the reservation, Little sky. You should talk to her and the Crow. They know where the river branches out to and how far.”

  “I’ll send a wire to Minnesota and see what they think,” the doctor said. “Right now I think you should get some rest.”

  “When you send that wire, can you send one to the outpost and tell my wife I’m alive?” Red Foot said.

  The doctor nodded. “I can do that,” he said.

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Scripture sipped hot coffee as he watched the streets outside the balcony windows. He started his watch at four in the morning. The sun would be up in two hours and by seven the streets would be clear of ghouls as they followed the sunlight out of town like so many ponies following the Mustang.

  Six days ago Red Foot rode off to Fort Keogh and they had no way of knowing if he was successful or not. In private talks with the Marshal, they made plans to leave Big Sky and travel to Keogh in wagons and by horse, carrying as much supplies in the wagons as they could hold.

  Poule was kept out of the talks as he grew more agitated and unstable each day. So unstable that he was relieved of his watch and the difference was made up by standing an extra hour at the windows.

  Scripture could understand Poule’s concern over his wife and unborn child, but the man needed to keep his head and act like a US Deputy Marshal.

  Scripture set his coffee cup on the ledge of a window and pulled out his tobacco pouch and paper. He started to roll a cigarette when the door to the secret room opened and Poule came out and softly closed the door.

  “Got to use the toilet,” Poule said.

  “Sure,” Scripture said.

  The toilet bowls were located inside the small room just off the balcony stairs.

  “How’s it going out there?” Poule said.

  Scripture turned to look out a window. “Quiet.”

  In the dark interior of the balcony Scripture didn’t pay too close attention to Poule when he came out of the secret room, so he didn’t really notice that Poule was fully dressed including boots, gun belt and hat.

  “Good,” Poule said, drew his Colt and smacked Scripture on the back of the head with the heavy barrel.

  As Scripture collapsed, Poule caught him and gently lowered him to the floor. “I’m sorry,” Poule said, softly. “But I’m not sticking around here waiting to die when my wife and unborn child need me at home.”

  Poule grabbed a lantern and walked down the balcony steps as quietly as possible to the front doors. Setting the lantern on a table, he removed the four door barriers and slowly opened one door. There wasn’t a ghoul within a hundred yards of the church as he eased out to the steps.

  A few ghouls mingled in front of the livery but they seemed out of it and not much of a threat. The others were displaced everywhere on Main Street. He looked back at the church doors. They were impossible to close from the outside so there was no choice but to leave them open. Poule came down the steps and moved into the dark shadows left of the church and walked slowly toward the rear of the livery.

  He encountered not one ghoul along the narrow back street. The rear door of the livery was unlocked and he opened it and stepped inside. Poule’s horse was asleep in a center stall. He quickly saddled her, gave her a few sugar cubes to calm her nerves and mounted up.

  “Now let’s go out of here quietly,” Poule said.

  Poule rode his horse through the open back door where six ghouls were in his immediate path. His horse, sensing danger, reared up a bit and Poule had to yank back tight on the reins.

  “Easy girl,” Poule said. “We’ll be out of here in a second.”

  A ghoul came out of the shadows and reached for Poule’s right leg.

  Poule grabbed his Colt, cocked it and shot the ghoul in the face. The other ghoul’s charged Poule. He shot two more, turned his horse and rode down the narrow side street to the edge of town and didn’t look back.

  Lane’s eyes snapped open at the first gunshot and he rolled out of bed, grabbing his Winchester before his feet hit the floor.

  Teal sat up in his bed. “Was that a…?” he said.

  “Grab your rifle,” Lane said as he put on his gun belt. “You women stay in here. Brace the door and don’t open it until I say so.”

  Lane and Teal found Scripture on the floor. A thin trail of blood ran down from the blow he took from Poule’s Colt.

  “He’s run off,” Teal said.

  Plodding footsteps sounded from down in the church interior.

  “Downstairs,” Lane said.

  Lane raced down the balcony steps and stopped halfway down. Ghouls were piling in fast, drawn to the lantern Poule left on a table.

  A ghoul at the stairs started walking up. Poule shot him in the head with his Winchester. The ghoul fell backward and crashed into another ghoul and Lane cocked the lever and shot him, too.

  “Teal get down here!” Lane shouted.

  Teal appeared on the stairs. “That fucking Poule!” he yelled.

  “Never mind that now,” Lane said. “Start killing these things quick.”

  Lane and Teal opened fire, killing ghoul after ghoul, but for every one they shot, two more walked in through the open doors.

  Lane turned and tossed his Winchester to Teal. “Clear me a path to the door.”

  Lane drew his Colts and shot his way closer to the doors. Behind him, Teal picked off ghouls to Lane’s left and right.

  At the doors, Ghouls pushed their way in and Lane shot one after another until the doors were clear and he shoved them closed. He placed one wood plank into its slot and turned just as a ghoul reached for him.

  Lane shot the ghoul between the eyes.

  On the stairs, five or six ghouls snarled as they reached for Teal.

  Lane cocked a Colt, aimed and heard the metallic click of an empty gun. He cocked the second Colt and fired a shot into the back of the head of a ghoul on the steps. He cocked the hammer again, pulled the trigger and the second Colt was empty.

  Teal fired the Winchester into a ghoul’s face, cocked the lever and the rifle was empty. The four remaining ghouls on the stairs rushed after him.

  Lane spotted the heavy wood mallet against the wall, grabbed it and ran to the stairs. He swung the mallet and caved in the top of a ghoul’s head.

  The ghoul closest to Teal jumped on him and Teal shoved the barrel of the Winchester between the ghoul’s teeth.

  A ghoul turned and snarled at Lane and Lane all but decapitated the ghoul with the mallet. Lane raised the mallet and came down hard on the top of the head of the fifth ghoul on the stairs and the head exploded like an overripe melon.

  The ghoul on top of Teal yanked the Winchester out of its mouth, snarled and came down to bite Teal just as Lane swung the mallet and caved in its skull.

  “Oh, fuck…fuck,” Teal said as he shoved the dead ghoul off him.

  “Are you bit?” Lane said.

  “Fucking things,” Teal said as he stood up.

  “Are you bit?”

  “No.”

  “Reload,” Lane said. “We have to make sure they’re all dead.”

  When Scripture opened his eyes he was dizzy and out of focus from the concussion caused by Poule’s heavy Colt pistol. He heard the shooting but was so disoriented he couldn’t identify where the shots were coming from.

  He stood and fell, then stood and held onto the wall for balance.
The shooting stopped and then started again as he guided himself along the wall to the secret room.

  With a thud, Scripture fell against the door and moaned.

  Inside the secret room, Maura and Little Sky stood at the door and listened to the gunfire. Maura held her Colt pistol in her right hand, cocked and ready to kill the first ghoul that tried to bust down the door.

  There was a sudden loud thud followed by a moan and Maura aimed the Colt and fired through the door.

  There was another thud, another moan and then silence.

  Lane looked at the twitching ghoul at his feet, raised the mallet and smashed his skull into mush. “That’s the last of them,” he said.

  Teal was at the door, setting the remaining three bars into the slots.

  A shot rang out from the balcony and a moment later there was a loud thud.

  Both Lane and Teal turned to look up at the stairs.

  “Scripture,” Lane said.

  Chapter Forty

  “I thought he was one of them,” Maura said with distress in her voice as what she’d done. “I thought he was one of them trying to get in.”

  “Never mind that now,” Lane said. “Get his shirt off,”

  Teal pulled the shirt open, ripping the buttons, exposing Scriptures blood soaked undershirt. Blood ran down onto the cot and spilled over onto the floor.

  “Rip it,” Lane said.

  Teal ripped the shirt in two. The bullet had entered Scripture’s left side a few inches from his naval and lodged three inches deep into his abdomen.

  “The door slowed the bullet,” Lane said. “Or he’d be dead by now. Teal, see if there’s anymore of that wine or some whiskey and get something clean we can use for a bandage.”

  Teal nodded and left the secret room.

  “The bullet has to come out or he’ll die,” Maura said.

  “I know it,” Lane said.

  “I’ve removed arrows, but never a bullet,” Little Sky said.

  “We need to get the medical books from the doctor’s office,” Lane said. “Read what we’ll need to remove the bullet.”

  “He’s losing a lot of blood,” Maura said. “We’ll need to get it out and soon.”

  “As soon as the sun’s up we’ll get to the doctor’s office,” Lane said. “Who takes the bullet out?”

  “I will,” Maura said. “I put it in.”

  Lane and Teal watched the sun slowly rise and gently bathe the streets of Big Sky in reddish sunlight. As the sun rose higher, the ghouls became active and started following the light out of town.

  Maura came out from the secret room, went to the woodstove in the corner and filled three cups with hot coffee. She carried the cups to the windows and set two on the ledge.

  “The bleeding has stopped for now,” she said. “He’s running a fever and I expect it’s from the bullet in his side.”

  Lane and Teal picked up their cups and took sips.

  “We’ll give them another hour to mingle out, then we’ll make a run for the doctor’s office,” Lane said.

  “I guess that gives me time to fix some breakfast,” Maura said.

  Lane, Teal, Maura and Little Sky stood at the church doors. Maura and Little Sky held Winchester rifles. Teal also held a Winchester and his Colt sidearm. Lane wore two holstered Colts and another two tucked into his belt.

  “Don’t leave the first step and don’t hesitate to close the doors if need be,” Lane said. “I mean it.”

  Lane and Teal removed the four barriers from the doors, opened them and stepped outside and stood on the church steps.

  A dozen to fifteen ghouls mingled about on Main Street.

  “Why don’t they leave with the others?” Teal said.

  “I don’t know,” Lane said. “Maybe they have stronger memory retention? No matter, let’s go.”

  Lane drew the Colts from his belt, cocked them and walked down the steps to the street with Teal by his side.

  The made it to the first intersection before the ghouls noticed them. It took a few seconds for them to become animated and then they snarled and rushed toward Lane and Teal.

  Lane and Teal opened fire, shooting ghoul after ghoul in the head. When his two Colts were empty, Lane dropped them to the street, pulled the two in his holster and continued firing.

  When all the ghouls on the street were dead, Lane picked up the discarded Colts. “Reload,” he said.

  After reloading, Lane and Teal stood in the street, watching and waiting.

  “Looks like we got them all,” Teal said.

  A noise sounded behind them and they spun around to face the staircase that led to the second floor doctor’s office. A ghoul wearing a dark suit, missing his left eye and right arm came stumbling down the steps.

  The ghoul reached the street and walked toward Lane and Teal with his left arm extended, snarling and drooling.

  “When I was in the doc’s office I saw some pictures of him on the wall,” Lane said. “I wondered what happened to him.”

  “You mean that’s the doctor?” Teal said.

  Lane cocked a Colt and put a bullet in the doctor’s skull. “Used to be,” Lane said.

  Teal watched the doctor fall to the street with his brains blown out. “A shame,” Teal said.

  “Watch the street,” Lane said. “Shoot anything that moves. Except for Mrs. McCain and Little Sky. And me.”

  Lane searched the shelves and found a thick text book on modern day surgery. He turned to the chapter on removing bullets and arrows and made a list of everything they would need. He gathered scalpels, tweezers, pinchers, tiny mirrors, a special candle box that focused light, sewing kit, bottles of alcohol, ether, morphine and opium. What he couldn’t find was a text book on infections and then remembered Anderson had carried some books across the street to the hotel.

  Lane stuffed a large calico bag with supplies and books and then went back downstairs to the street where Teal was on guard.

  “Quiet,” Teal said.

  Lane set the bag down beside Teal. “I need to check the hotel where Anderson brought over some of the doctor’s books,” he said.

  Lane crossed the street and walked along the wood sidewalk to the hotel. He peered through the large window before entering the lobby. The medical books were on the table between two sofas.

  Lane picked up the books and walked out to the sidewalk and into the street. As he walked toward Teal the sun was in Lane’s eyes. He saw Teal standing there, but the glare was blinding.

  For a split second Lane saw something behind Teal.

  A ghoul.

  “Down!” Lane yelled.

  Teal dropped to one knee as Lane tossed the books, drew his right Colt, cocked and fired into the glare.

  The shot struck the ghoul in the chest and backed him up a bit, but didn’t stop him. He roared savagely at Teal, who, from his knees, cocked the Winchester and shot the ghoul under the chin, blowing the top of his head off.

  Lane holstered the Colt, picked up the books and walked to Teal.

  “Were you aiming for his chest?” Teal said.

  “No,” Lane said. “Sun was in my eyes.”

  Chapter Forty One

  Major Kessler led the sixty man detachment from Keogh to Big Sky. Forty eight Calvary soldiers and four wagons carrying Gatlin Guns with three men to a wagon.

  Red Foot rode scout next to Kessler, although it wasn’t really necessary as almost every one of the sixty knew the way to Big Sky.

  Kessler was second in command at Keogh, a man all of thirty and hell bent at making Colonel before he turned thirty five. Too young to fight in the war, Kessler won the respect of the men with ferocious tenacity, discipline and the willingness to mix it up with the best of them. And he would stop at nothing to see a mission through to fruition, so Red Foot heard from some of the men.

  On the second day of the five day ride, Red Foot felt more like his old self and rode on ahead to scout the terrain. He rode back after several miles to tell Kessler that a large group of up
to seventy or more ghouls was wandering about in an open field.

  “Wandering?” Kessler said.

  “That’s what they do,” Red Foot said. “Marshal Lane thinks they follow the path of the sun as it travels across the sky.”

  “Interesting,” Kessler said.

  What Red Foot found interesting was how efficiently Kessler went about the business of killing when they arrived at the field where the ghouls were gathering.

  “Sergeant Floyd!” Kessler commanded.

  Floyd, a crusty Calvary Sergeant of twenty years rode quickly to Kessler’s side.

  “Major?” Floyd said.

  “Take care of this on the double.”

  “Yes, sir,” Floyd said.

  Floyd rode back to the wagons and led them to the front and had them take a side-by-side position. “Lock and load,” Floyd told the gunners manning the Gatling’s.

  The two man teams in the wagon slid thirty round magazine clips into the top loader of the Gatling Guns.

  “Volunteers,” Floyd said. “At least six men.”

  Six soldiers dismounted and stood beside Floyd’s horse.

  “Well, go get them,” Floyd commanded.

  The six soldiers sprinted three hundred yards downfield where the ghouls stood aimlessly by, stopped a hundred feet in front of them and started whistling and shouting to get the ghouls attention.

  They got it.

  Almost in unison, the ghouls became animated and charged after the six soldiers. The soldiers turned and ran back to the detachment with the ghouls in snarling hot pursuit.

  When the six soldiers reached the four wagons, they stopped and turned.

  The ghouls were just seventy five feet behind them.

  “Gunners, fire,” Floyd commanded.

  A hail of .50 caliber bullets tore into the horde of ghouls and it was as if they hit an invisible wall. Those closest that took head shots went down immediately. Those behind them who lost arms and legs kept coming and a second rain of bullets put them down.

  The four Gatling Guns kept firing until not a ghoul was left standing.

  “Detail for cleanup, front and center!” Floyd shouted.