Nightmare of the Dead: Rise of the Zombies (14 page)

Neasa was attempting to down a shot of whiskey, but immediately spat it out of her mouth. She wiped her mouth and said, "I've always loved your sense of humor."

Ambala pursed her lips and dropped her cards facedown. "You know what your problem is? You don't believe."

"Believe in what? I thought we were playing cards."

"There is good in people. Well, maybe not whites, but…"

"There you go again with your jokes."

"What is funny about this? Don’t you think we should enjoy life? We only get one."

"Really? Just one? The world is ruled by death, not life. Here we are, in the middle of a damn war, and you want to talk about flowers and sunshine?"

"You are running," Ambala suggested. "A person who does not live is a person who is already dead. Death is something earned. On this, we have agreed, yes?"

"Whatever you say."

"When we met, you promised we would ride together for money, nothing else. You told me that you were done with the Collective, and you are on your own, now. But you are not alone."

She tried to change the subject. "Did you hear about the dead outlaw they found near Harper's Ferry? Her poster's still up over there by the bar. She's been dead for over a year."

Ambala shook her head. "You avoid the truth. You don’t need money, or the thrill. You want violence and blood. This war is perfect for you. It will be a long fight, here in the valley. Stay with me. You already think about leaving."

"We have a job to do. The doctor…"

"A personal vendetta. He is here, in town, but we delay. When his life has been taken, what is next for you? Violence for the sake of violence? It is true that we make a good living, but how do we know this living is good? We drink and smoke it away, here, in these places."

The conversation infuriated Neasa. It was a talk that could lead to the separation she'd dreaded, but always believed to be inevitable. It was the way of such partnerships, but yet, she knew she didn't want it to end, and this frustrated her further. Without speaking about it, they both knew it was over between them once the doctor was cold and
dead
and they were simply delaying that moment. It was supposed to be easy to walk away. What was different about their partnership?

"What's your point?" Neasa demanded. "If you're right, does that change anything? Are you with me because you want to change me? You want to figure me out? I thought you wanted to kill rebels and free slaves. There's plenty of killing to be done. If you want to figure out the secrets of the universe, find someone else to help you."

Ambala smiled. "You've done a great job so far. I've learned more than I thought I ever would." The gleam in her eye was easy to spot.

Neasa wanted Ambala to say so much more. She surprised herself by wanting to hear the other woman's words. She'd never realized how much fun she could actually have with a partner on the road. She was used to one mode, one method by which she could make all decisions. The gun dictated everything.

With Ambala, there was laughter. There was some different, exciting future that couldn't be guessed at, a road that seemed to stretch past the blood-spattered dust and toward a horizon upon which the sun would never set.

But these feelings didn't have words, and their implications made Neasa feel uncomfortable. As exciting as their adventures had been, she couldn't change her entire sense of worth. There was still the Collective, and they wouldn't let her go so easily.

And then, of course, there was her asshole brother.

The mad doctor, the butcher, the mass-murde
rer
who'd slaughtered several slaves in a holding pen for the sake of some insane experiment. It was an act that angered Ambala, and more than anything, it was an excuse for Neasa to kill him once and for all.

Ambala wanted to hire a mercenary for a job, and that was how the two women met. It was a coincidence that Saul Lynch was the man who murdered
Negroes
. It was a coincidence that the two women would ride together for several weeks, delaying their hunt for the madman while spending more than their fair share of time gambling, drinking, and fighting.

The whispers they shared in the dark were the best part of it all.

"I still have a thing or two to teach you," Bannan shifted in her seat. "Including how to play cards."

"We should just go out and kill the doctor now, because you're a little more fun after you've killed somebody."

"Yeah? We should make this last, then. After I blow my brother's brains out, I'll draw attention to myself again. I told you there are people who want me dead."

"I wanted you dead too, the first time I saw you."

"Just listen for a fucking minute, will you? I'm not going to be shot to death. These people are evil bastards. If they think that… if they somehow believe that we're friends, then they'll hurt you, too."

"Friends? I'm touched."

"Cut the shit. I don't want to see you get hurt. Isn't that enough for you?"

She could see the disappointment in Ambala's eyes. She wanted Neasa to say something else; they'd spent so much of their time half-drunk and crazed, she'd avoided reflection. She didn't want to think about what was happening, but whenever her and Ambala spent one moment apart, she became dizzy with worry. She'd dragged Ambala into a world of madness and despair, but why did she want to protect her so badly?

Ambala's shoulders dropped, but she was unwilling to give up. "This isn't the end. I can kill plenty of whites for as long as we ride together. Nobody else is allowed to take your life, because your ass belongs to me. I'm not done having fun."

"Then cut the speech. I want to get drunk and get…"

The saloon's doors slammed open, emitting a foul, green light.  A soldier staggered in, dragging his boots across the floor. All conversation stopped completely, and Ambala rose to her feet and drew both revolvers. While the man stumbled face-first onto the floor, the other men in the room drew their own weapons and pointed them at Ambala.

"That doctor," the man on the floor choked, "he's working with the rebels…put something in me…"

A round of murmuring passed among the men as they all agreed that the doctor was quite a strange man; they'd all said so before.

"That's Lyle," a red-eyed soldier emerged through the crowd. "He's my cousin. Got wounded in the shoulder by them sumbitches."

"Put your guns down!" a drunken Union man demanded of Ambala.

"Someone get that negro to drop them guns!"

The Union soldier, who'd interrupted the casual afternoon debauchery, writhed against the floor while holding his stomach as if its contents threatened to spill out. His lips flared back over his yellow, tobacco-stained teeth. While guns were leveled at Ambala, Neasa watched from her seat as two soldiers slowly approached their tortured companion.

The man coughed up wads of blood onto the floor. As if his limbs were commanded by puppeteer's strings, he suddenly jerked upright while his entire body heaved and convulsed. His mouth opened and blood poured out of his gullet. He choked while his blood splashed across the floor. He vomited again, though this time blood poured out of his nose and through his eyes. The soldier slumped forward into puddles of his own gore, his body twitching violently. When his body jerked upright again, steam rose from the exposed flesh on his hands, face, and neck. Clumps of hair slid over his skull while his flesh bubbled and melted as if it were nothing more than exposed cheese over an open flame. His nose and ears melted away.

Neasa was on her feet, the guns leaping into her hands, firepower erupting from her just as Ambala opened fire on the dying man; a chorus of guns replied all at once. Through the sudden haze of gunsmoke, Neasa emptied both cylinders. She felt no rush of excitement, no adrenaline, no fear of death. These things were not weighed as consequential. Each trigger pull was nothing more than a motion demanded of her by her life's purpose. She was the blacksmith hammering away at steel, or the barber cutting hair; she was a stable-hand shoeing a horse, and she was a judge handing out a guilty verdict. Gunplay meant nothing to her; it was an act as simple as putting on her boots or riding her horse.

She could no longer hear the gunfire, or hear the screams of gut-shot men. When she'd first started her career as
a
killer-for-hire, she would have dropped the table and used it as a shield. Now, she gave little though
t
to safeguarding her own life, but she needed to reload.

Ambala screamed through the fog of war.

Neasa upended the table and dropped behind it to reload her cylinders. With her guns ready for battle, she shot to her feet and found that her companion was being savaged by a bloody figure.

Ambala's attacker had bitten into the woman's forearm. As the horrendous face leered with skin between its teeth, Neasa understood that she was looking at the man who'd interrupted their afternoon card game; only a moment ago he'd bled out of his face, and his skin had started to melt, and there he stood, gorging himself on Ambala.

Neasa fired one shot directly between the bloody eyes of the raging savage. She didn't bother to check whether or not her strike was fatal—a dot in the head always proved fatal. A quick scan around the saloon revealed a number of wounded or dying men lying on the floor and against the bar.

She grabbed Ambala as a group of rifle-toting soldiers rushed into the saloon, shouting and asking questions. She couldn't see the color of their jackets through the smoke—she couldn't afford to take chances.

They leaned together closely while scrambling out of the saloon through the rear door. Bright sunshine caused both of them to grimace against the light after spending hours in the dim saloon. They leaned against the back wall of another building while Neasa peered over a corner to see a contingent of Confederate soldiers rushing through the street beneath a hail of gunfire.

Blood seemed to pour
out
of a million wounds in Ambala's body.

"It wasn't human," Ambala gasped.

"It was human enough to die," Neasa said while holding the woman tightly. "We're not going for the horses. We'll have to walk out of here."

"You know I won't make it."

"Are you gut-shot?"

Ambala tried to squeeze Neasa's shoulder. She shook her head and choked. "Don't think so."

"Then what's your damn problem? Your legs still work."

"The horses," Ambala closed her eyes. "We're not wearing colors. We're women, so those men will help…"

"Help
you
? When was the last time you looked in a mirror?"

The battle raged in the streets of the small town. She eased Ambala against the wall, painting a thick swath of blood against the wood.

"I can see things," Ambala grimaced, her chest rising and falling rapidly. "There are things now… I don't know where this is. There were eight men with my mother…"

Neasa looked down upon her wounded comrade and wondered if they really could get to the horses. But how long did Ambala have? What were her chances? She knew there'd been moments where she hadn’t thought twice about leaving someone behind. Why did she second-guess herself now? It didn't matter what they'd shared or how much they accomplished. As a partner, Ambala might be useless if she survived. Neasa certainly wouldn't want to live her own life as a cripple.

She cocked the hammer back on a revolver. Ambala's eyes widened.

"I don't often do favors for people," Neasa said.

"I'm going to live! I'm not an animal. They only got me twice. I'll live."

"I've got unfinished business here," Neasa reminded her.

"The doctor did that…to the soldier," she waved at her own words impatiently, as if they somehow obscured her vision. "I can die here, and that doesn't matter to you. After everything you've said…"

"You're wasting your strength. You knew what I would do. I can do it for you, too."

"It wasn't a lie," Ambala stared into her. "Everything I said, and everything I felt. It was real. All real."

"Damn you," Neasa spat into the dust. She shook her head and cursed herself several times for considering mercy as an option; it was contrary to what she
believed
and only put her own life in hazard's way. Fighting for the lives of others was hardly her way.

"Damn you," she said again.

Ambala's chest rose and fell rapidly.

Neasa checked around the corner again. She already knew what she was going to do before she did it. Ambala couldn't die. Not here, not now.

The stables were completely surrounded by rebel soldiers, their eyes trained over the inaccurate sights of their rifles. After squeezing off a shot, they would begin the arduous, nerve-wracking process of reloading their weapons while under fire. Women cried out from behind closed doors, and a few scattered corpses lay flat in the dust while the scant wind played with tufts of hair that would continue to grow.

Any moment, and the entire town would erupt into flame
s
.

Her chances of getting to the horses were slim, but she was willing to risk her life to give Ambala a fighting chance at survival. What was the point? The woman was likely going to die, and even if she lived, her days as a supply-train harrier were likely over.