Blood & Dust (Lonesome Ridge Book 2) (5 page)

“Don’t kill them all,” Charity hissed as the groups separated. “We need some more.”

Jeremiah led his team to the farthest of the homes. They would attack from the far side. She found herself with the girl from before, the fifteen-year-old who randomly decided to attach herself to Charity. Charity glared at her, but accepted her fate. The two of them moved in to the closest house and crept up the single step to the porch. The door opened without a sound. Charity pressed her finger to her lips as the girl looked at her again. The girl blinked. Charity bit back a sigh and walked into the house. They crept quietly through the first room, side by side.

It was a single-story house and it was tiny by Charity’s standards. One main room with a table, a fireplace, and a few chairs strewn about, and two doors along the far wall. Charity led the girl to one door and opened it. It was a small pantry stocked with food. Nothing of interest to either of them. There was one other door. Charity raised the latch and peered inside. A large single bed sat along the far wall. Three bodies lay on it, all of them breathing deeply in peaceful slumber. The tiniest body lay in the middle.

Charity pulled the door all the way open and motioned for the girl to go the opposite direction she did. Charity pressed her finger to her lips again and stared at the girl for a few seconds as she moved into position.

“Now,” Charity hissed, and they both grabbed the body nearest to them. Screams erupted in the room, bouncing off the walls. One cut off immediately as the girl ripped the throat out of a woman not much older than she was. Charity sneered as her hands wrapped around the throat of the woman’s husband. He tried to shout, but Charity squeezed and his breath was cut off. He struggled and slapped at her arms, but she was strong, much stronger than he was. She leaned over as he kicked and thrashed and let her teeth sink into the flesh of his cheek.

A strangled cry ripped from his throat and she felt the vibrations through her fingers. Her body sang with joy and she couldn’t help but think how much better this was than any of those times she had lain with David. Her sneer turned into a snarl and her fingers clenched at the thought of her long gone husband. The bones beneath her hands snapped and the man slumped.

“Dammit,” Charity cried as she jerked the man’s still body off the bed. It thumped to the floor behind her and stayed there.

The girl was still tearing flesh from the dead woman’s face. The throat was gone and the bones were visible at the back of the neck. They were shattered. Neither of the bodies would be turning. A child no more than four crouched against the headboard as she tried to hide behind her mother’s blood-soaked pillow. Her shrill screams pierced the air and ripped through Charity’s head. “Kill her,” she snarled before stomping out of the room. The child’s screams turned from fear to pain before they cut off completely.

Charity growled to herself as she stormed out onto the porch. The sounds of horror through the little village were fading quickly. She hadn’t heard a single gunshot. That was a plus. She hoped the others had faired better than she had. Three people, three dead, none turned. Disappointing, to say the least. She plopped herself down on the steps and cupped her chin in her hands while she waited for the others.

“Any luck?” Jeremiah asked as he draped himself over the railing a little while later. Blood dripped from his chin and hair.

Charity growled. “No.” She jerked her head at the house. “That girl is an idiot.”

Jeremiah cocked a grin. “Most of ‘em are, darlin’. That’s why you need me.”

Charity grunted, but she couldn’t keep the touch of a smile from her face. He annoyed her, but he had his moments. “What’d you get?”

“Two. Older folk, but they’ll do. I’ll go check the others.”

He gave her a small bow before sauntering off. Charity sat on the steps for nearly half an hour, watching as the others wandered about the small village. All told, they turned another six. That was far less than what Charity was hoping for, but none of those already turned died. That was a small blessing.

“That one’s talkin’ a bit,” Jeremiah said as he bobbed his head toward a young man standing in a group of other undead. “And his sister don’t seem to be so dumb, either.”

Charity’s nose curled. “Wonderful,” she said, though her tone said otherwise. “Are we ready?”

“Yup. Let’s head out.” He held out his arm and Charity hooked hers through it. They beckoned to the others and strode down the middle of the street.

A small cry echoed from the house at the very end of the village as they passed by. Charity froze.

“What’s that?” Charity she asked as she cocked her head to the side.

“Nothin’,” Jeremiah said much too quickly.

She turned and glared at him. “That wasn’t nothing, Jeremiah. That sounded like a child.” She stalked up the stairs and into the house.

It was small, just a handful of rooms, and it didn’t take her long to search through them all. “And what do we have here?” she asked as a little tow-headed boy poked his fat face out from behind the bed.

“Just leave him, Char. Please. He’s just a baby.”

Charity spun toward Jeremiah as the anger surged up into her chest. Her nostrils flared and her hands clenched into little balls. “No survivors,” she spat. “That’s the rule, you know that.”

He snorted. “Since when?”

“Since always. Dead or undead, nothing else. We can’t risk anything else.” She stepped toward the boy and Jeremiah’s hand gripped her arm. She spun on him.

“Please, Char,” he pleaded. “He’s not doin’ nothin’. He prolly can’t even talk. Why do we have to kill him?”

Charity’s eyes narrowed to bare slits and she jerked her arm from his grip. “I didn’t think you were soft, Jeremiah Gaines. If you can’t handle the job, maybe you should just leave.”

Jeremiah’s chin rose, but his face fell and his lips pressed tightly together. He stood there a few moments longer before stomping back out into the street with the other undead.

Charity watched him go until the little boy whimpered behind her. The predator’s sneer returned and she twisted slowly toward him. “Hello, little one,” she cooed. He rose a tiny bit from his spot behind the best, enticed by her soft voice. She grinned and pounced.

CHAPTER 7

A chunk of cornbread and a slice of sausage sat on a tin plate on the desk in front of Sheriff McClane. It had been there since breakfast, untouched and unwanted. Abby had refilled the coffee pot twice since breakfast and Connor chugged the strong black liquid like it was the last drink he’d ever have.

“No matter how hard you want it to be whiskey, it’s never gonna happen.” Abby sat in a chair across the desk, sewing a hole in Connor’s long black trench coat.

The sheriff narrowed his eyes at her briefly before turning back to the map on his desk. It was an older map of Lonesome Ridge that one of Robert’s daughters had modified. She had a talent for art and she had marked the new boundaries, added the walls, and figured out the best checkpoints based on the town’s new layout. She even marked possible fall-back points and safe houses should the town be attacked again.

“Why’d you stop?”

Connor gritted his teeth together and made a conscious effort not to glare at Abby. “Why’d I stop what?”

“Drinking. You haven’t had a drink since the attack.”

The pin in Connor’s hand shook. “Why do you think that?” he growled as he stabbed the pin into the map with enough force to bend it.

“Your hands shake all the time, and you sweat a lot more than you used to, not that you sweat a lot before. And sometimes you’re so distracted by what’s going on in your head, it’s like you’re not even here. I’m not an idiot, Connor. I’ve seen it before. When I was a kid, my pa was hooked on whiskey. He’d come back in from the barn and you could just smell it on it. He’d even pass out in the yard some days. Ma gave him an ultimatum, the drink or us. Thankfully, he chose us, but for a few weeks there, it was rough. Real rough. I didn’t know if he was gonna make it.”

Conner bit back the nasty, snarky reply that leapt to his tongue and glared at the map awhile longer. Silence fell over them and Abby went back to her sewing. He could feel her eyes on him, though. He could feel her determination. Since the attack, she had been there every time he turned around, it seemed. At first, it was because he kept her locked in a cell for three days while they waited to see if she would turn. She didn’t. When her arm was bitten, her youngest sister Hannah, her only surviving kin, was quick on her feet. The girl chopped Abby’s arm off three inches above the wrist. Abby was left with a stump, but she refused to be crippled by it. Even missing a hand, Abby was one of the toughest women Connor had ever met. And she seemed to have attached herself to him, for some God forsaken reason. He still wasn’t sure why, and he wasn’t sure he was happy about it, but she was there and she didn’t seem to be going away.

“I promised Cora,” he said awhile later, still refusing to look up.

“Oh.” Abby nodded, but left it at that. She had internal wounds of her own that would take time to heal, so she understood his more than many could.

Cora was Connor’s younger sister. They had been close most of their lives, despite Cora’s decision to become a dancing girl at the saloon in order to make ends meet. She was beloved by everyone in town, and her death had hit them all hard. Connor had made a promise to her, after she was gone, that he would never, ever drink again. It was a promise he really didn’t want to keep most of the time, and he had stumbled once already despite Abby’s belief, but he was determined to keep trying.

“Connor, my lad. Have a spare moment?”

Both Connor and Abby looked up as a big shadow obscured the doorway.

“Sure, Robert. Come on in.”

The big burly butcher strode into the room and bowed before Abby. “Miss Crawford, I hope yer feelin’ well today.”

A genuine smile blossomed across the young woman’s face. It was one of the few smiles Connor had seen since the night she and her sister had brought their brother Wyatt into town. “I’m doing just fine, Robert. Thank you.”

Robert bobbed his head once at her and turned to wave a hand at the man who had followed him in. “This here is Philip Smith. He has some disturbin’ news.”

“Oh?” Connor cocked an eyebrow and indicated the chair Abby was sitting in. She stood and walked over to prop herself against the window sill.

The man settled himself onto the edge of the seat and took off his hat. His coat was a little worn and dusty and looked like a cast-off to begin with. “I do, sheriff,” he said. “Disturbing indeed.” He lowered his voice and fixed Connor with the same look that the troubadours got during the stage show of the yearly traveling carnival.

Connor shot Robert a look.

“No play actin’,” the big man chided as he poked Philip on the shoulder. “Just say what you come to say. None ‘a that rigmarole you gave me. Get to it.”

Philip held up his hands. “All right, all right. I’m a bit of a roamer, going from town to town, doing a bit of research, you know. And I’ve been hearing some strange things as of late, some very strange things. Things about people attacking other people, people rising from the dead.” His face pinched and he glanced back at Robert, who nodded for him to go on. “I know it sounds crazy,” he continued. “I mean, people can’t rise from the dead, right? Once they’re dead, they’re good and dead. No comin’ back. But that’s what people are saying. I even talked to one fella nearby in Paxton at the saloon there. Says he saw one up close. Says the thing killed his family. He was drinkin’ hard, though, so I thought it was probably just the whiskey doin’ him in. But then I get here, and you folks are building a wall, makin’ yourselves a real fortress. And now I don’t know what to think. Either everyone’s gone plum crazy, or there’s something to these tales I’ve been hearing.”

“Tell him about the train,” Robert prodded.

The man leaned back and stuck a leg out in front of him.

“Ah, yes, the train.” He raised his hands in a defensive gesture. “Mind you, I didn’t see this either. People just like to tell me things, so it’s all second-hand.”

He was enjoying the attention and it made Connor want to reach across the desk and punch him. But the sheriff was used to dealing with troublesome folks and he held his tongue.

“I heard rumors that a train left here, Lonesome Ridge, a week ago or so. That would be about right, I think, so no big deal there. But it never reached where it was goin’. Rumor has it that the train exploded in the middle of the prairie, just outside of town.”

Connor glanced up at Robert, who shrugged. None of them had heard anything about an explosion, definitely not close to town. The sheriff leaned forward and set his elbows on the desk. “You sure about that? Where’d you get this information?”

The man shrugged. “Some fellas in a bar. That’s where I get most of my information. Ply someone with enough drink and they’ll tell you anything. Mind you, no one’s seen the train to know its true fate. But it never arrived, that’s for sure. Followed up on that bit myself.” The man grinned.

Connor clenched his fists together so he didn’t do something rash, like punch Philip in his weaselly face. “Abby, will you go find Jasper for me please?”

The young woman pushed herself away from the window and set down the coat before walking swiftly out the door.