Wanted: Dead or Undead (Zombie West) (2 page)

Trace cast a downward glance at the five cards in his
hand—two queens, a pair of deuces, and a five of spades that did him no good.
The old bugger who sat on the opposite side of the table chewed the end of his
unlit cigar while he kept his good eye fixed on Trace—a dusty eye patch covered
the other. Trace could tell he was bluffing.

"I raise." He slid a stack of coins into the
middle of the table and increased the pot by an additional hundred dollars,
fifty dollars more than the other man's bet. The old gambler arched a wrinkled
brow as he reviewed his own hand once again. Trace remained neutral and waited
for the old timer to decide whether to match Trace's bet or fold.

The gambler added another fifty dollars to the growing pile
and took two new cards from the dealer. Trace watched the old man's face as he
studied his cards, and was rewarded with a quick twitch of the jaw line—a sure
sign the old man had nothing. Trace held onto his pair of queens, threw away
the other three cards, and nodded to the dealer, who gave him three cards off the
top of the deck.

Trace slipped them into his hand without looking. "I'm
in."

The old man placed his cards face down on the table and spit
a chunk of cigar on the floor. "You sure you want to do that, son?"
He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands over his protruding belly.
The butt of his pistol stuck out of the holster at his side.

Trace had seen many gamblers make the same move and it
didn't faze him. "I said I was in."

The gambler chortled under his breath. "I see your mama
raised a foolish child. Ain't she proud?"

Trace kept his expression blank and didn't say a word.

The old man tossed a few more bills on the pile and topped
it off with a gold pocket watch. "Lay 'em down, boy."

Trace trained his eyes on the gambler and turned each card
over in succession—queen, queen, three of hearts, queen, queen. He didn't need
to look down to know what they were.

The old man stood and directed his colt peacemaker at
Trace's chest, toppling his chair in the process. "You're cheatin'!"

The dealer stepped back from the table, and several men in
the vicinity cleared out of the way. An awkward hush fell over the room in
anticipation of gun fire.

"No, sir, not a cheater. Just lucky today, is
all."

The gambler pulled back the hammer on his pistol. "You
feel lucky now?"

Before Trace could reply, the saloon doors slammed open
against the wooden walls and rattled on their hinges. Everyone's attention
turned toward the creature that dragged itself forward on stiff legs, drooling
blood. Its milky eyes scanned the room before it threw back its head, raised
its arms, and growled toward the ceiling.

"That's Bill Johnson!" Miss Krissee called from
the balcony above. She pulled a Derringer pistol from the garter encircling her
leg and aimed it over the railing.

Trace looked up at Miss Krissee; dark ringlets fell over her
bare shoulders and her lips were the color of cherries. Rumor had it nearly all
the men in town had visited her at least once, though few admitted to it.
Indeed, she was quite a looker, but Trace disregarded women who shared their
wares so easily.

"Someone should go fetch the doc." A cowboy at the
bar made the suggestion, but no one moved to do so.

"It's too late for that." Miss Krissee shook her
head. "He's already dead. Just look at him."

Sunken features, decaying flesh and teeth that ground and
snapped against themselves—Bill was dead all right. Sure, he walked around
grunting, but that was only a technicality.

Zombie Bill lunged at the man closest to the door, ripped a
chunk of flesh from the screaming man's neck, and howled as warm blood gurgled
between his teeth.

"He's got it a'right!" someone yelled.

Beer bottles and whisky jugs exploded from ill-aimed
bullets. Wood chips showered down from the rafters and the air filled with the
metallic smell of gun smoke. Trace fired a shot or two of his own, but decided
his best option was to find some sort of shelter—drunks made horrible shooters.
He pushed the poker table over on its side and hunkered down behind it. It was
better than nothing.

The old poker player crouched beside him. "Don't go
thinking we're through just 'cause a zombie walked in here and stopped me from
killing you."

Trace shook his head. "No, sir, I figured we were just
having ourselves an intermission." He aimed his gun over the top of the
table and watched Zombie Bill continue forward, his body riddled with bullet
holes. The dead man wouldn't die.

"God, help us!" Slap Jack yelled from his safe
position behind the bar. The bartender pointed his pistol at the zombie, his
hands shaking from old age. Even in the best of circumstances, Slap Jack's aim
proved dangerous, and Trace became more thankful for the thick wooden table
every minute.

The saloon doors swung open once more and the apparition of
a fiery angel wielding a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun appeared in the door
frame. Her hair glowed in the evening sun, and the smoky room accentuated her
ethereal presence. She took a couple of steps inside, spurs clinking against
the wooden planks, and anchored two shells to the back of the zombie's skull. Once
emptied, she tossed the shotgun aside, removed two pistols from the holsters on
her hips, and fired them as well.

Where Bill's head used to be, nothing but fleshy, pink pulp
on a broken stem remained. Mangled, he continued to stand on crooked legs, until
the red-haired cowgirl lifted her boot and gave him a swift kick in the back.
The zombie wobbled and tumbled over, more dead than it had been moments before.

"He bit me!" The poor man Bill had attacked
withered on the floor, his hand pressed over his oozing neck and his eyes wild
with fear. "He bit me!"

The angel with flaming red hair reloaded, aimed, and shot
that man dead as well.

"What did you go and do that fer?" a cowboy
protested. "We might've been able to save him."

Trace sneered at the cowboy. That dead man would have
crunched his jaws on some poor sap in a matter of hours, and spread the disease
even further.

"What a shame," Hank mumbled from his place at the
end of the bar. He'd watched the earlier commotion while perched on the same
stool, finishing his liquor. "Thought we had the town protected." He
swooned on the stool, nearly falling over, but caught himself. "Ya know,
even with all them wooden fences we staked around the outskirts"—
hiccup
—"guess
we're not as immune to the plague as we thought, are we boys?"

"Hank's got a point," Slap Jack said, putting his
pistol back under the bar. "Anyone can walk into town feeling pretty
healthy and fit, not knowing the virus is destroying their internal organs.
Unless we strip everyone from head to toe, we'll never be certain. We need a
better plan."

Trace barely listened to the conversation around him as he
focused on the red-haired girl. Something about her rang familiar, but he
couldn't quite place how he knew her. She sauntered past the dead bodies and
through the crowd of inebriated cowboys. For a passing moment, she locked her
eyes on him with a blank stare. He couldn't turn away. Even if he couldn't
quite place her in his mind, he was instinctually drawn to her, and he always
trusted his gut. It had never steered him wrong before. Well, not when it
counted, anyway.

The girl propped her foot up on the brass railing that ran
the bottom length of the bar, and slammed down several coins on the counter.
"Pour me an Old Grand Daddy."

If the men's jaws hadn't been hanging before, they surely
were now. She was putting on a show, but he smirked a little at her sass,
regardless.

"Girlie, you sure you ain't wanting a glass of milk
instead? Maybe some cookies?" The men roared with laughter at Slap Jack's
joke, a dig at her youth.

Trace didn't laugh. He'd been on the receiving end of a few
such jokes himself and didn't find it funny, especially since she'd succeeded
in killing a zombie when no one else could.

The girl reached across the bar, took hold of the old man's
shirt, and pressed the barrel of her pistol under his chin. "Pour my
order."

The men hushed.

She couldn't be more than seventeen or eighteen, but held
her gun in a way that showed she'd mastered the weapon. No doubt she'd fire it
if pushed.

Slap Jack raised his hands. "A'right, a'right. Jus'
havin' a bit o' fun."

While she waited for the old man to pour her drink, she
turned to face her audience and rested her elbows on the bar behind her.
"I can tell ya right now, there's no point in havin' a plan. The disease
is spreading across the country faster and wider than you can imagine. The
whole town of Smithfield—gone. Men, women, and children. The place is a ghost
town now, except for a few walkers. And, if y'all recall, they'd put up fences,
too."

A few men shook their heads at her. "That ain't
true," one man countered. "I's jus' there last month and the place
was running like normal."

"A lot can happen in a month." She turned her back
on them once more.

"Then what's it you suggest we do?" Hank put his
bottle down long enough to pose the question. "We can't just sit here and
do nothin'."

The girl raised her glass and tossed it back. She let her
breath out slowly, as though dealing with a bunch of idiots. Trace continued to
be amused by her confident demeanor.

"One more." She set her empty glass down on the
bar. "Well, for one thing, I suggest y'all keep a loaded gun on ya at all
times, even while sleeping and taking a piss, and make sure to aim for the
head—a bullet in the gut ain't gonna do a thing. And second... well, there
ain't no second thing. Keep a gun handy. That's about all ya can do."

The men grumbled.

"She don't know nothin'," said a large man wearing
buckskin pants, a coon cap, and a beard that hung part way down his chest. He
looked
directly at the girl. "Ain't that right? You know nothin'. I bet that
zombie was your first kill. You jus' got lucky, huh, li'l girl?"

Trace saw her clutch the empty shot glass and waited for her
to aim it at the ignorant man's head, but she did no such thing. She kept calm
and approached the man with an air of utter confidence, staring him straight in
the eye.

"How many you killed?"

"Zombies?"

She nodded.

"I've killed a handful or so."

"Five?" She raised her brow.

He looked at the cowboy to his left and then back at her.
"I reckon so. Maybe more."

"So, shall we say six? Or should we give you the
benefit of the doubt and say seven? Better yet, let's round it up to an even
dozen. That sound fair?"

The man nodded in agreement, but Trace could sense a trap.

"Let's not even count that man over there." She
pointed to Bill's victim, lying dead near the entrance. "He wasn't a
full-blown zombie, yet. We all know he would've been, but for the sake of
argument, we'll let that one slide. So, your friend Bill there makes ninety-and-nine
for me."

She removed a small, pearl-handled dagger from its sleeve
and carved a quick notch in her belt, which was riddled with tiny holes.

Trace had no quarrel believing her. Everything about the
wild-haired girl rang authentic, from her dust-covered chaps to her
weather-beaten hat. She could've exaggerated, but he didn't think so. Of all
the zombies walking North America, he'd killed exactly... zero. His belt looked
as polished as ever.

The mountain man threw his head back and laughed. "A
pretty li'l thing like you? Killing all them zombies?" He lowered his head
and peered at her with a sinister expression on his face. "I don't believe
you."

"Never said you had to."

He clasped her forearm with his grimy hand and pulled her
firmly to his chest, his weathered face only inches from hers.

Trace stood, ready to step in if necessary.

She yanked her arm back and smashed the palm of her hand
into the man's pudgy nose. The crack of the break echoed through the room and
silenced the already stunned group of men. She sent an elbow into the man's
chin, to make a final point.

"Damn, girl!" The mountain man held his nose as
blood trickled down his beard.

"Hey, mister," Miss Krissee called down from the
railing above. She leaned her arms against the railing and her large chest
nearly tumbled out of her corset. "You wantin' to get frisky? Do it with
someone who won't put up a fight. It'll only cost ya three dollars."

A few men chuckled, but the red-haired girl didn't look the
least bit amused. She finished her drink and headed for the door. Before
stepping outside, she turned to no one in particular. "Make sure you burn
the bodies. If you don't, the smell will just about kill ya."

As Trace watched her walk through the swinging doors, it
dawned on him how he knew her.
Damn
. He couldn't just stand there and
watch the girl disappear. He took a step forward, but the old gambler grabbed
his arm.

"You forgettin' we're not through here?"

Trace felt a wave of disappointment as he watched the girl
swing herself up on her horse and head for the town's borders. "Didn't
forget," he lied. "Just hoped after such a crazy moment, I would've
found you in a more forgiving mood."

"I'm not too keen on forgivin'." The old man
placed his hand on the butt of his gun. "You're a cheater."

"I would have to disagree." Trace slid his hands
over his own pistols. "I played a fair game. The cards just happened to be
in my favor. You wouldn't want to shoot an innocent man, now would you?"

The old man narrowed his gaze, but didn't remove his hand
from the gun. Trace flicked his eyes toward the girl now riding off across the
desert plains.