Nightmare of the Dead: Rise of the Zombies (5 page)

"We're supposed to meet," she said curtly.

The men stopped their laughing and stomping all at once. They seemed to lean forward, straining their ears to hear their leader's low, toneless voice.

"Something like that," he replied without any hint of an accent. "You had an eventful train ride. Where's the train?"

He asked his question as if it wasn't a question at all, but a statement of fact.

"I lost it," she replied. "Besides, you're not in any position to ask all the questions."

The men started to laugh again, but when their leader quickly put up his hand to silence them, their chortling ceased.

"You've lost your identity," he said, "but not your sense of humor."

"I'm not looking for anything. I know how to kill a man easy enough, and that's about all I need."

"You remain unshaken. What did you see on the train?"

"You seem to know everything. Maybe you know why you let me live on the Potomac."

He shifted and re-crossed his arms. "Tell me your name," he suggested.

"You all know who I am."

The man on the ground piped up. "Neasa fuckin' Bannan! The living legend! Why don't you blow this asshole away and ride into the sunrise? You're everything they said you would be…"

The Mexican kicked the man in his ribs twice. He curled into a ball and clutched at himself. Without missing a beat, the Mexican turned back to Bannan.

"Very well…Bannan…my name is Santiago. You have forgotten it. Try as you might, there are only pieces left inside of your head," he unrolled his sleeve to reveal the same fiery horse branded on the inside of his forearm. "Can you recall what this means?"

"What difference does it make?" she stepped into the saloon. "You're playing a game, and I'm not interested. Where's Dr. Lynch?"

Santiago re-covered his arm. "He'll be along shortly. I'm sure you have several questions for him. You're going to help us end the war. Does this please you?"

"I don't give a shit about the war," she pulled a chair across the floorboards and sat down at a table. "Pour me a drink while I'm waiting."

Santiago gestured for one of his men to bring drinks while he pulled up his own chair and sat down across from her. He dropped his chin onto his fist and stared at her from beneath the brim of his wide hat.

"You're not a fool," he said with his even, cool voice. "You refuse to feel fear. Yet, this is what threatens you. There is nothing that you know. There is nothing that you have. You are alone, yet, you remain unmovable. It's true you're a puppet now, only there is no master pulling at your strings, and at any moment
,
those strings will fall and you will sit flatly against a wall with your head upon your chest. This is the end of you, and another man would think it a sad thing. It was I who argued that your life should be forfeit. Others have seen fit to intervene on your behalf."

"You're quite the poet," glasses were plopped in front of them, and amber liquor was poured. "You're also full of shit."

"We will make a deal," Santiago drained his glass and gently replaced the glass on the table. The entire room remained silent as the spectators watched their legendary leader as if his actions were foretold. He was simply an actor playing the role of a man whose fate was intertwined with mortal folly and sorrow.

She slammed her own glass and felt the warmth course down her throat. While it burned, her fingers convulsed against the glass. She wanted another sip; the rush of heat to the top of her skull satisfied a primordial need.

"Waste your time," she suggested to him. "Dr. Lynch wants me for something. Whatever it is, you're playing his game, too. I'm supposed to be alive. Why don't you get your dirty ass off that chair and go sulk in the corner with your friends."

The beaten man on the floor sat up and wiped blood away from his face. Santiago watched him for a moment, and then returned his gaze to Bannan. He continued as if
she had
never spoken at all.

"Your life will become a hellish realm fraught with torment and pain. I may promise to kill you now, in exchange for information. This is the best I can do for you. You will tell me all about your experience on the train."

She had
tried to erase the fight on the train completely from her mind. Once again, she saw those fleshless, hungry creatures bleeding and crawling along the floor of the train. She could hear Carter scream through a face that had been ripped into loose ribbons.

Bannan shuddered.

"Let me think for a moment," she said. "I'm afraid I can't give you an answer unless you give me another drink. It takes a few sips to loosen up a girl—I can't be seen talking to an unsavory character like yourself in front of all these gentleman. What would they think about me?"

"You're a fool," he leaned back in his chair and slipped his fingers into his belt loops.

Her face grew hot. "Really? Do you have any idea what those things are? Why do you want to know what happened so badly? You people put me through this shit, and you expect me to just cooperate?"

Santiago shook his head slowly. "I don't know what they are. I've yet to see them. I never wanted to make a game of this. I thought it would have been better just to kill you, when we had you in our possession."

"We're going to make a trade. You'll give me the fat boy on the floor, and I'll let you walk out of here. Now, I think that's a fair trade."

Santiago leaned forward again. "This man is a Union spy. I will give him to you, but you will trade your life for his. He is a dead man, and now, you have taken his place. This is the way of things. It matters not what Dr. Lynch wants. His project will move on without you. I will ask you to renege…"

"You can't help me. You won't answer my questions, so what good are you?"

"If you still had your memory, you would remember what we've done, what we've seen, together. I gave you a chance to return to the Collective, but you became a weak, emotional woman…"

She inclined her head upward,
a
signal for him to leave. "I've had enough of your shit."

Why didn't he get the hint? He wasn't going to intimidate her with his death-stare. Besides, he was bluffing.
He had
"allowed" her to live this long for the sake of some un-nameable project. Santiago wanted information; without it, he was clearly crippled. It meant everything to him.

Santiago slowly stood from his chair. "It is done. You will die as a dog in the middle of the street. When you are finished with the pig, you will come outside, where I will give you the courtesy of a duel. The gun which clears the holster first takes a life."

He gestured for his men to exit the saloon, and they moved languidly, picking up their leather vests and picking at their teeth while fingering the hammers on their guns absently with their eyes perched upon the woman, wondering at the waste of flesh, the inhumanity, the unfairness. They strode past as if her face lay exposed within an open, velvet-lined casket.

When they were finally gone, the red-bearded man laughed uproariously and crawled along the floor. He reached up for the table and braced himself against it while rising to his feet. "I'm dead, anyway," he said between chuckles. "Neasa Bannan herself is going to die for me? I couldn’t have written it better myself."

"Your blood is on my boot," she nodded at the stray dribble that landed on the edge of her boot. "Get me a drink, sit down, and answer my damn questions. In that order."

The barroom looked as if
it had
never been used before. The floorboards were unsoiled by alcohol, sweat, and vomit. Tobacco smoke had yet to stain the wood, and the bar itself was laden with dust from it
s
disuse.

"Name's Lionel McPhee," he announced while returning to the table with the liquor.

"I didn't ask," she said while he poured her glass. "If they figured you for a spy, then maybe you got a habit of running your mouth. You talk when I ask you a question."

The big man excitedly sat down across from her, a stark contrast to the tombstone-demeanor of the man who'd sat in his seat only recently. He waited while Bannan knocked back another glass of the welcome elixir.

"What're you doing with these people?" she asked.

"Well, it's pretty simple, really. I'm looking for the weapon the Confederates are developing. I don't know what it is, what it does, or when they plan to use it, but they're working on something."

She had a good idea what that weapon might be.

"You're a shitty spy," she decided.

"Pardon my manners, ma'am, but I'm not half the bank robber or gambler you are."

"That's obvious. Have you met Lynch?"

"Crazy looking bastard, if you can mind my…"

"Stop the damn pleasantries and get on with it."

"Right. Well, he's the mind behind the mission. Santiago's working with him but not for him. He doesn't exactly like being a subordinate. He's got his own mission. His
crew is
a bunch of mercenaries, some wannabes from Texas. He's done some downright rotten things. Don't have no soul or conscience. I should you tell you about what happened here in Cedar
Rock
and what I had to do…"

"You're worse than he is.
You like
to hear yourself talk. What's the last thing you know about me? The last thing I was involved in. Rumors."

"You're a dead woman walking. They shot you dead at Harper's Ferry. People think you were working with John Brown. Nobody knows for sure, but they were convinced you were dead."

"How do you know I'm not?"

"Seen you in Houston, once. I don't know if you remember, but you'd robbed that bank with a negro woman helping you. Killed five men. Found your body a few months later at the Ferry. Everyone knew it was you. Your face, see…it's unforgettable. Ain't a woman alive who looks like she's been to Hell and ripped out the heart of the Devil himself."

She weighed his words and eyed the bottle that was inches away from his fist. More than anything, she wanted to continue drinking. The confrontation with the hellish beasts on the train seemed like it happened to someone else, perhaps in a piece of gothic fiction written by an opium-enhanced madman. Everyone knew more about her own life than she did, and yet, she maintained her show of bravado because it was all that she had. She could shoot, fight, and drink. She understood the land, and she suspected that she knew how to mount and ride a horse if she needed to. The war wasn't a mystery to her, and Santiago had appeared to her in a vision.

Santiago wanted her dead, and his own hands were surely unclean. He was an experienced killer, and was more than confident in his abilities. He'd already hesitated to kill her; his hand was stayed by a twisted sense of loyalty to whatever cause he followed. Why would he suddenly change his mind?

"Let me ride with you," McPhee suggested.

"For what?"

"Well, ma'am, a man's got to make an honest living. Robbing and stealing is hard work, and it pays. People don't see it like that. Everyone thinks outlaws have it easy, but they don't. I got a wife in Pennsylvania, and a boy. He thinks I'm off fighting in the war for the Yankees, and I was, for a while. But it don't pay. I tried to explain that to Santiago, but he took it the wrong way. The money's still honest. I see that now. You put your life on the line, and it don't matter if you're breaking the law, because you're doing everything it takes to make it for yourself. I learned that. There ain't no brotherhood, or even a common good. None of that matters. You have to do it all for yourself. I'm sure you understand."

She didn't. She felt completely disconnected from this philosophy which may have dictated her life in the past. Money didn't matter to her. There had to be another reason why she'd chosen such a dangerous path for herself. Maybe it had something to do with the group she supposedly belonged
to.
Maybe they instilled some benign purpose in her, but she didn't understand the importance of gold or the lure of infamy.

"Take some time to think about it," he ventured.

"You've betrayed your country. You're a dishonorable dog. Changing your mind is a bit too easy for you."

"I didn't betray my country. That's not the way I see it. I'm a normal man. I'm regular, and there's opportunity, you know? Every man is supposed to find opportunity to make himself better, to support his family. There's no difference between what I do and what the locomotive companies do. They step on each other to make their fortunes, and devil-be-damned who gets in the way. That's what life's all about. If a man gets trampled, why, we shouldn't lower our hands to help him up. We're supposed to keep walking, keep running, you see. It's every man for himself, and if I'm a criminal, then I'm a company unto myself. I'm my own business."

"You got it all worked out. You'll get in my way, unless you have something important to offer. The way I see it, you'll trample over anyone, like you say. It's not my prerogative to let that happen. I'm sure enough men have trampled women into the dirt."

The hammers on both revolvers were half-cocked.

The reputable outlaw stood up from her chair and said, "Come out and enjoy the show, McPhee."