Massacre at Lonesome Ridge: A Zombie Western (19 page)

****

Charity and Jeremiah climbed down from the carriage outside of town. They heard the repeated barks of rifles, shotguns, and pistols. Charity glared down the street and propped her hands on her hips.

"Don't sound good," he said.

"No, it doesn't. That's what I get for trusting others to do the job I should have done." She pressed her lips together. "Let's head around, attack them from behind."

"'Kay." He fidgeted with his hat as he followed her out and around the houses.

They walked along in the darkness of the shadows behind the train station. The train Jeremiah was going to rob sat on the tracks. People were sitting in the passenger cars, silent and still, but with their face pressed to the glass, trying to catch a glimpse of the carnage in the streets. The engineer was in the locomotive, working frantically to get the fire going.

More shots rang out from the far end of town, but the noise was dwindling. Jeremiah and Charity broke into a trot, expecting to see the humans overrun. They came upon a fierce battle between the undead and the townsfolk.

****

Abby gripped the woman's neck tightly, but not tight enough. She had never killed anyone and her will to survive was less fierce than the woman's will to eat. With a warrior cry, the other woman kicked and threw Abby off balance. Abby flew over her and smashed into a set of steps. The Indian leapt on top of her just as Abby threw her arm up to protect herself. The woman's teeth sank into the bare skin of her forearm and tore a chunk free.

Hannah's scream mingled with Abby's. The younger woman pulled a knife from her belt and tossed it with deadly accuracy. It stuck between the Indian woman's shoulder blades. The attacker spun from her prey, spraying droplets of blood everywhere as she turned to meet the new threat.

"Hannah, no!" Jasper made a grab for Hannah, but she gripped her knives firmly in her hands and stomped toward her sister's attacker.

The woman smiled at her. Jasper froze. He knew that smile, that face. She was the one who attacked Jeremiah. He raised his pistol and fired.

At the same time, Hannah swung her arm forward.

The undead woman stumbled to the side as a bullet tore through her cheek and a knife sank into her shoulder. She blinked rapidly and tripped over bodies as she made for a gap between two houses. Jasper fired again, putting a bullet in the woman's upper back, but she made the safety of the shadows and disappeared.

Hannah ran to Abby. She pulled her older sister off the steps and cradled her in her arms. Abby stared at her with glassy eyes as tears poured down her cheeks. "It hurts," she whispered. "Oh God, Hannah, it hurts so bad. I don't want to die. Please, not like Wyatt. Please."

Hannah gripped Abby's arm and looked at the wound. It was an inch above Abby's wrist. "You won't," she promised as she pulled another knife from her belt. It was big, like one of those Robert Zane used in his shop. "But it's going to hurt. Bite down on this."

Hannah stuck the handle of a smaller knife between Abby's teeth and laid Abby's arm out on the steps. Then she placed her knee on the inside of Abby's elbow to steady her. "Ready?"

Abby nodded. Hannah pulled her own arm back and brought the knife down hard.

Charity and Jeremiah crept quietly into the small gap between two houses. The battle was raging on the other side of the buildings and they wanted to get a closer look before they jumped in. Jeremiah paused at the corner and peeked around as Charity came up beside him.

A young blond haired woman kneeled on the ground very near to them. Another woman lay on the ground in front of her, unconscious. The blond girl worked furiously as she bound a belt around the other girl's stump of an arm. The rest of it lay several feet away, with a clear bite near the wrist.

"Oh, no. Poor Abby," Jeremiah whispered. He hadn't realized how difficult it would be to see people who he knew all his life suffering at the hands of these creatures he now called family.

Jasper knelt beside Abby, holding her free hand as he kept his pistol trained on the area around them.

Charity gripped Jeremiah's arm. "Do you know them?" she whispered as she slipped her arm into his.

He leaned further out from cover. Their army was falling quickly to the townsfolk. While many of the living had been killed, nearly all of the undead were laying motionless on the ground. They were losing, badly. Jeremiah's eyes locked on Jasper just as the young man looked up. Jasper's eyes went wide and his pistol wavered as it pointed at his older brother. The younger Gaines boy reached over and pulled Hannah tightly to him.

"Yes," Jeremiah murmured. "That's my little brother."

The train rumbled behind them as it began to pull out of the station at a slow crawl.

"Your little brother?" She stared at the young man as him and the girl next to him stared back at them in abject horror.

"Yeah," he said. "Jasper. That's Hannah, and her sister Abby. Your men killed the rest of their family. They're all alone now. All they have is my brother."

Charity glanced up at Jeremiah and then at the train tracks behind them. She tugged at his arm. "Come on. Let's go."

He jerked beside her as if he had been shot. "Yeah? You wanna just leave?"

She looked back at Jeremiah's brother, then at all the dead lying in the street. She had known the whole thing was lost as soon as those first shots rang out on the other side of town. "Yes. We've lost. It's time to go."

He shrugged as he turned away from his brother's accusing stare. "Okay. Where we gonna go?"

She nodded to the train behind them. "Away. Someplace else. We'll start over. Somewhere where we don't know anyone."

He gave her a small smile and pulled her in for a half hug. She wrinkled her nose and pushed him away. As she walked toward the train, he leaned around the wall once more. Jasper's eyes kept darting back in his direction. Jeremiah waved to catch his attention. Jasper stared at him as he held up his hand, then placed it across his chest. Tears sprang to the boy's eyes and he nodded.

Jeremiah melted back into the alley and followed Charity to the tracks. The train was picking up speed as it went by. The passenger cars were rolling past them. He could see the passengers in the windows. Some of them were townsfolk trying to escape the bloodshed, but most of them were simply people who were heading further out west and had been caught on the wrong train at the wrong time. They pressed their faces against the glass with their eyes wide as they caught glimpses of the butchery beyond the houses. Jeremiah doubted that they knew the truth about what was happening.

"Let's go." He grabbed Charity's hand and began to run. They made it to the tracks just as the last of the passenger cars flew by. He reached out a hand and gripped the railing by the stairs. Using all his strength, he swung himself and Charity up on to the small platform at the back.

Charity grinned at him as they righted themselves. "Shall we have a little fun?"

He glanced at the door. A woman was peering out the window at them. He returned Charity's grin. "I always love a little fun."

The screams of the passengers echoed out across the empty prairie as the train barreled west.

****

Connor reloaded his rifle once more and picked off the last of the undead that were moving around on the street below. Robert Zane and Neil Avery had formed a group to go from house to house to search for any that had been missed.

"Nice shooting," he said as he fired one last round into a man who was flopping on the ground with a missing leg.

His sister leaned against the wall and grunted beside him. His stomach churned at the sound.

He pulled back and set his rifle down on the roof. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before looking at her. She was pale and feverish and her hands were shaking so bad she could no longer hold the rifle. She drooped against the wall, taking deep, laborious breaths.

"Shit." Connor removed his hat and ran a hand through his hair. "I knew it."

She offered him a weak smile, a pale imitation of her normally endearing grin. "I didn't want you to worry."

"Cora..." he began, but he couldn't finish. He placed his hand on her cheek and brushed it with his thumb. "Cora," he said again.

She patted his hand gently. "I know, little brother. I know. I never told you thank you, by the way. For the thing with Michael."

He gave her a small smile and patted her hand. "I would do anything for you. You know that."

She gave him a tiny laugh. "As long as I didn't drive you too crazy."

He smiled at her. "You always drive me crazy. That's what sisters do."

Her eyes shone brightly in the moonlight. "I hope I did a good job, then."

They sat there for a few minutes before she cleared her throat. With weak fingers, she tugged her skirts up to reveal her legs. Just above the holster for her little pistol was the wound Connor had desperately feared. It was black and festering, and it smelled like days-old beef.

"Can you give me a moment please, Connor? Just a moment."

He met Cora's eyes again and held them as he tried to convey all the things he had never spoken aloud. Then he leaned over and kissed her forehead before standing up. As he walked to the opposite edge of the roof, he heard the gun leave its holster. The bullet that pierced her brain ripped through his heart as well.

****

Connor laid Cora's body down on the road in front of the saloon with all the other bodies that had been gathered there. He stood and met Jasper as he was walking down the road. The young deputy carried a body in his arms. Abby Crawford. Connor was numb to all feeling by that point, so he just stroked the girl's hair once and pointed to Cora.

"No, oh no. I'm so sorry, Connor." Jasper's face pinched with grief for the sheriff. Hannah wrapped her arms around Connor's waist and gave him a big hug. He returned it, and didn't want to let go.

"Abby?" Connor pointed his chin at the girl in Jasper's arms. Her chest was rising and falling, albeit slowly, but it was an important detail he had missed before. "She's not dead?"

Hannah pulled away from him and lifted up her sister's mutilated arm. "No, but..." She paused and looked at the sheriff with tear-filled eyes. "Please don't kill her. Please. She's all I have left."

Connor took the arm from Hannah and examined it. It was a rough amputation job, but he could find no bites anywhere on her body. "Take her to the saloon. Have Avery fix it up, get it sterilized and wrapped. Once that's done, take her to the jail and lock her in a cell. She stays there for a week, until we're sure she hasn't become one of those things. Got it?"

Hannah threw her arms around him again. "Oh, thank you, Connor! Thank you!"

She started walking up the saloon steps. Jasper turned to follow.

"Jasper," Connor called before they went inside. The young man turned around. "If she dies..."

Jasper pressed his lips into a tight line and nodded. Then he followed Hannah inside.

Connor turned toward the jail, but he came upon Robert Zane as he was leaving a house with a small body in his arms. "What's the damage?" Connor asked.

"Coulda been worse," Robert responded as he laid the boy on the ground. "I'd say we lost about a third of the town, maybe a bit more, plus all those outside town. But we got all them, so far's we can tell. That's a win, I guess."

Connor frowned. "I guess. Are we sure we got them all?"

Robert shrugged. "No, but there aren't anymore in town that we can see. Come mornin', we'll set up a search party and follow any tracks we find, see if there were any stragglers we missed. Til then, not much we can do but hunker down."

The sheriff chewed his lip for a minute. "All right. Good work, Robert. Good work."

He patted Robert on the shoulder and walked to the jailhouse. He glanced around to make sure no one needed him before he went inside and up the stairs without removing his boots, hat, or jacket. He walked into his bedroom and locked the door behind him.

Connor pressed his hands against the wood and closed his eyes as he took several deep breaths. His chest hurt. The air burned as it entered his lungs. He captured his lip in his teeth and staggered to the dresser. With shaking hands, he jerked the bottom drawer open. He searched blindly, tossing clothing to the floor, until his fingertips brushed against the cool glass. He yanked the cork out of the bottle of whiskey before it had cleared the drawer and it was at his lips a moment later. His eyes settled on the picture of his sister tucked into his mirror. The amber liquid hovered at the edge of the bottle, teasing him, begging him to drink.

As the first drop hit his tongue, Cora's voice echoed in his head. "Drinking again, are we, little brother?"

With a shout, Connor spun and slammed the bottle against the wall. It shattered into a million pieces and showered him with glass and ruined whiskey.

"No more," he growled as he pounded his fist against the dresser. "I swear, no more drinking. Not until those things are wiped from the face of this earth. Not until I make them pay for what they did to you."

Connor swore his promise to Cora's image. Then he sank to the floor and let the tears flow.

****

"How are you feeling?" A week after the massacre at Lonesome Ridge, Connor McClane leaned against the bars to the only locked cell in the jail. His knuckles were white as he clenched his hands into fists to fight off the jitters that had taken hold.

"Tired." Abby Crawford lay on the cot inside and gave the sheriff a weak smile. "And sore."

The sheriff nodded as he looked the girl up and down. She was still pale, but her color was starting to return. For the first three days, he walked into the jailhouse every morning expecting the worst, but each day she proved his fears invalid. "How's your arm?"

She gave a small shrug and raised her left arm. It disappeared three inches below the elbow. The stump was wrapped heavily in bandages. The bleeding had only just stopped the day before and now the wound oozed, but Sylvia, the whore-turned-nurse, had kept it clean and it was starting to heal.

"Connor?"

He pulled his eyes away from the shortened limb and looked into Abby's eyes. "Mmm?"

"When are you going to let me out?" She waved the white lump in the air. "It's been a week. I haven't turned. I feel fine." She sat up and winced. "Well, as fine as can be expected. How long are you going to make me stay in here?"

He stared at her for a minute with a pinched face before he nodded. "Yeah, all right." He took the keys off his belt and unlocked the door. "Come on."

The young woman grunted as she raised herself into a seated position and swung her legs over the edge. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Connor walked into the cell and tucked his hand under her good arm. Her lips twitched gratefully and she leaned her weight on him as he hoisted her into a standing position. The going was slow, but they made it out onto the boardwalk.

"It doesn't even look like anything happened," Abby mused as she got her first glimpse of the town after the battle.

Connor shrugged. "We've done a lot of clean-up. We have to move on. Life doesn't stop for us, no matter how much we want it to."

Abby glanced up at him and he gave her a sad smile.

"What happened to..." She paused, looking for the right words. "What about all those who were bitten?"

"We had a ceremony." His voice quivered and he pressed his lips together as he blinked rapidly before he continued. "We gave them the best death we could. Then we burned the bodies outside town. The cemetery is littered with crosses now, but no new graves."

They watched as a three-man patrol passed in front of them. The men were bristling with weapons and moved with purpose. They all tipped their hats to Connor as they walked by. Connor steered Abby in the direction of the doctor's old house.

"We have patrols set up all around town. And we're building a wall. No one comes in or out without being checked for bites first."

"This is a strong town," Abby said as she shuffled along. "We'll be okay. We'll survive."

They had reached the doctor's home and Connor paused. "Yeah, we will." He smiled at her as he knocked on the door. "And so will you."

A moment later, the door flew open. "Abby!" Hannah wrapped her arms around her older sister and hugged her tight.

Abby grunted as she placed her right hand on Hannah's back.