Nightmare of the Dead: Rise of the Zombies (6 page)

***

The horses by the trough neighed and the dog slept on the edge of the boardwalk. The mercenaries crowded the boulevard and laughed nervously, their imaginations twisted by the prospect of Santiago's gun-slinging performance.

McPhee trailed Bannan out of the saloon and stood inches away from her. She could smell the stink of the road on him—sweat mixed with dust and earth.

The spy cleared his throat.

Santiago put up his hand to silence his band of vagrants. Their revelry ceased.

"Fifty paces," Santiago announced the terms.

"One hundred," Bannan countered.

The mercenaries howled their laughter beneath the halo of bright stars that provided the only meager illumination over the street, save for the light from inside the saloon.

"No doubt you're a good shot," McPhee said, "But in this light, at that range…"

She sharply turned her head to him. "If I wanted your opinion, I would have asked for it. Keep your trap shut."

"Fifty paces," Santiago repeated.

Grudgingly, she entered the arena where one of them would die. If she should lose, what was there for her to regret? Her questions would never have their answers, but the questions themselves would cease to matter. It made no difference to her how death might eventually find her. Santiago was apparently a man
who had
wanted her life before, and according to McPhee, he'd killed her. She was, by all accounts, already dead. She was nothing more than an immaterial wraith carried by the winds of change through the tortured hallways of her narrow mind. Was this world
she had
awakened to a hateful reflection of the world she'd left behind already? Maybe the war itself was eternal; it never had a true beginning, and it would never find its end.

It was this sense of fatalism and disconnection from reality that pushed her into the dark street. The dog lifted its head from its forepaws and whined weakly. McPhee didn't seem to know where to turn, so he slunk into the shadows in a foolish attempt to hide from the hard gazes of the other men.

She kept her eyes on Santiago, though she wanted to check the corners and the windows for signs of an ambush. The man held on to a rigid code; he intended to kill her in the duel, ambush be damned.
It
was what he wanted, though he
himself
did not fear the
bullet,
which might find its way into his own flesh. He would have accepted it as inevitable, and he may have cursed his own folly for allowing himself to be defeated.

When she finally stood across from him, she could feel the town's silence creep along the top of her spine and make its way down to the small of her back. She purged all thought from her mind. Her limbs felt incredibly loose, and her knees wanted to collapse inward. It wasn't supposed to feel this way. She was a professional killer. She'd dealt death to monsters spawned from the very depths of a deranged imagination. This had to be a dream. How did it get to this point? When a mosquito fell
on
the side of her neck, she kept her eyes wide open and dared herself to blink. She wasn't tense. Her arms felt as if they would swing around her body if a light wind glanced through the street. A man was going to kill her. She couldn't see his eyes. Nothing moved. The stars seemed only inches above the town; they might fall from the sky and burn the town with bright flame. The moment seemed to stretch on into a void where time was no longer counted and breaths were inconsequential. Her chest did not rise or fall. Crickets sang in the wilderness. Night creatures crept into the darkness and savored the air.

The revolver seemed to appear
in
her hand the moment she thought about pulling. Santiago's gun appeared in his hand. She cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger. Gunsmoke stung her nostrils, and her hand jerked back violently. She stood for a moment in the haze of gunshot, until finally realizing that her gun was no longer in her hand. Santiago stood across from her, his gun still aimed at her. She looked down at her body. There was no pain. She wasn't shot. But hadn't she fired?

Her pistol smoked in the dirt at her feet.

"You're a touch slow," Santiago said while taking deliberate steps toward her.

"Your shot was lucky," she sneered. Her heart fluttered and her entire body felt as if it were being dangled over the edge of a cliff. Suddenly, more than anything, she wanted life. Who was she? Who were these people? She'd played into their hands, but no more.

"Draw your other revolver," he demanded.

She spat. "What the hell do you want with me? What's the point of all this?"

"You truly have forgotten everything."

"You let me live. You let me survive Harper's Ferry. For what?"

"Let you survive…" Santiago stopped and considered.

"I’ll draw the revolver and give you a fight, but I want to know why. Who am I? What were those damn things supposed to be? There can't be more of them. I don't care how much of a hard-ass you think you are, you can't let more of them loose."

"You ask for much. This is the most you've spoken to me in years. The
Negro
woman corrupted you, changed you. We thought those changes would fade once your memory was wiped clean, but we were wrong. If you could be the woman I once knew…"

Hooves thundered on the edge of town, and Bannan seized the opportunity. She quickly dove into the ground and retrieved her revolver. Santiago was already moving, twisting away
; she
brought her gun up and fired from one knee. She only had a moment before the entire town was set afire by war. She was badly outnumbered, but she had to believe these men needed her alive. She rose to her feet and dove into the shadows.

"Hold your fire!" Santiago shouted to his mercenaries. Bannan drew her second revolver and inched along the wall of one the town's unfinished buildings. It was dangerous to peer out and look for her enemy; she had to bide her time.

By the light of the saloon and the moon, she was able to see the two large horse-drawn carriages pull into the town's street. McPhee was once again at the mercy of the mercenaries—they held a gun to his thick neck and pushed him into the
saloon's
light. The big man smiled through his bloody teeth and likely made a sarcastic remark; the other mercenary kicked McPhee in his shin. McPhee went down, and his aggressor lifted him to his feet.

A thin figure leapt out of the carriage and strode over to Santiago. Bannan couldn't discern his features through the dark, though he cut a slender silhouette against the saloon
s light. Santiago stood still while the figure poked into
his
chest with a deliberate finger several times.

"Come out!" the figure turned to the street and raised his hands above his head, his high-pitched voice screeching over through the darkness. "I've come for you! Forgive this farce! Please, dear girl, show yourself. Give me a chance to apologize for this man's antics! I'm Dr. Lynch, and I've come to help you."

Even though
she had
only fired two shots from one cylinder, she replaced it with a fresh one in the revolver.

"I need you alive!" the figure shouted, though it was much easier to figure out that it was a man, despite its high-pitch.

She would give her position away by shouting back, but surely, Santiago's band was already moving fluidly through the shadows in an attempt to capture her. Her chances were slim, and she'd come to the town to get her answers from Lynch. The Santiago misadventure had been a diversion from her intentions. Nevertheless, she needed a plan.

"I want all of your men in front of the saloon!" she shouted into the night.

"Call them!" the doctor leapt into the air. "Get them back here! This instant! I won't allow you to jeopardize everything I've worked for. She's too important to us!" He turned back to the shadows and called out to Bannan. "Do you hear me? You're too important! Share a meal with me and meet a woman who admires your work, very, very much."

The seven other outlaws collected in front of the saloon. She followed Santiago's movements; he walked past the doctor and strode over to one of the carriages. What was he up to? There was an obvious disagreement between the doctor and the killer.

She walked around the corner with both of her barrels leveled at the crowd. "Give the spy a weapon and some ammunition. You're going to let him go."

The doctor's features were still invisible under the cover of darkness. She wanted to see him, to know him. Whatever normal life she once had, this man had played a role in taking it away from her.

A glint
of light
from the saloon was reflected from his metallic mouth.

There was a brief struggle on the boardwalk between McPhee and some of the others. He cursed at them while they laughed and pushed him away. The dog finally left its resting place and tottered off into oblivion.

"What have you done to me?" she demanded.

The doctor put his hands into the air to show that he meant no harm. "Please, I'd hoped we could discuss this matter at length. I ask that you forgive me for allowing Santiago to meet with you. I'm afraid the loss of your memory was quite necessary. The name you're using…"

"What're you talking about? It's my name, isn't it?"

"One name is as good as another, I suppose. It certainly doesn't change who you are, or what you're capable of."

She cut him off. "Bill Carter didn't transform. I didn't either. Why?"

"You say the boy didn't succumb? Now, that
is
interesting, however
, if you'll permit me the opportunity to explain my position, or at least…"

Santiago reappeared with a large jar between his hands. The doctor leapt into the air once again.

"What're you doing? The supply is limited!"

Santiago shook his head. "It's time to see if this is what you say it is. If I'm immune, then the woman's life is forfeit. We won't need her to finish the war. She didn't change back, Doctor Lynch. She's not the woman she used to be. The damage is irreversible."

"Let's talk with her, first! Give me a chance…!"

Bannan
watched
as the jar in Santiago's hands seemed to glow and pulsate with green, swirling energy. She could see the killer's narrow, slow-blinking eyes by the energized light, and she knew exactly what was going to happen next.

Doctor Lynch roared as the jar was lifted into the air and slammed down
o
nto the
ground.
Its
contents
rolled
and
spilled
into a cloud that seemed to funnel and then lift, spiraling and spreading as if directed by a sadistic deity that desired the wailing cries of suffering humans in the mortal realm. Bannan ground her teeth and straightened her shoulders as the benevolent mist once again enchanted her vision, coloring everything in the green light.

The doctor immediately fled to his carriage and ordered the driver to begin the escape. Santiago stepped directly into the flooding tendrils that coalesced over his ears, around his neck, and around the officer's sword at his hip, lifting and flowing over his shoulders and hat.

Several men inhaled the mist and collapsed upon their knees, others rushed toward their tethered horses, though their helpless gazes couldn't help but wander back to their tortured comrades. McPhee also ran to the horses.

As the carriages turned around, Santiago closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He stared at the men who coughed and writhed upon the ground, their bodies enslaved by violent seizures that rattled their bones and forced blood from between their lips. He lifted one of his guns—Bannan quickly ducked back into the shadows before she could be shot. The blast rang out, and more gunfire followed. Damn it! She had a chance to shoot him, and instead,
she had
watched the horror show.

She quickly raced around the buildings to get to the horses. Santiago had re-focused his attention on his twitching men, forgetting about horses and his own vulnerability. The scene riveted him, and he couldn't help but observe the screams of pain. They begged him to shoot them dead while they clawed at their throats and crawled through the dirt toward him, reaching out for his boots. One man prayed while gurgling and choking on his own blood. Likenesses bubbled and melted.

"It burns!"

"Hail Mary, full of grace…
argh
…the pain…the agony
,
please God, please…"

"Kill me. Please kill me."

McPhee managed to dislodge a man from the horses and began to batter him about the face with the butt of a pistol. The horses neighed and reared up.

"Leave with me!" Doctor Lynch shrieked as the second carriage paused momentarily before leaving Cedar Rock. Santiago shot his glare in the doctor's direction as if
he had
been shaken from a dream. He ran to the carriage and leapt into the back as the green mist began to rise up into the night to obscure the stars.

The doctor fled into the night with Santiago and whatever mysteries they withheld.