Wanted: Dead or Undead (Zombie West) (4 page)

Darkness had fallen and Red felt on edge. Even though she
sat high in the saddle, she couldn't see far into the distance, so her other
senses had to compensate. She listened for footsteps, the sound of a breaking
branch, or the unmistakable smell of a zombie—rotting fish dipped in outhouse
waste, with a hint of syrupy sweetness.

Cowboy had actually smelled rather nice. She noticed that
about him right away. Most men had a good month's worth of filth and body odor
working against them, but he obviously took great pride in his cleanliness if
he made time to shave even at camp. She sniffed her own armpits and recoiled at
the stench. She wouldn't go so far as to say she stunk like a zombie, but close
enough. Maybe in the next town she'd use her small amount of money to buy
herself a bath—a warm one in a big ol' tub with bubbles. No frigid river baths
this time.

"Hey, Classy," she whispered to her horse,
"looks like we'll be sleeping out here tonight."

It was late and she'd been riding for miles. Junipers and
pines stood scattered randomly about, but she'd hoped to find a ridge line of
some sort. It was safer and more practical to sleep on a hill or mountainside
than on the open plains. The infected didn't climb very well, but they often
walked the flatlands.

Red pulled back on the reins and slowed her horse.
"You're a good girl, yes you are." She rubbed Classy's neck.
"Thanks for carrying me all this way."

She dismounted, tied a rope between two trees, and attached
the horse to it, making sure Classy had plenty of brush and grass to nibble on.

She hadn't taken a break for a meal since breakfast, aside
from a short rest along a river for her horse to take a drink. She started a
fire, and small swirls of smoke rose up through the thin branches above. Although
moving on would have been preferable, her rumbling stomach demanded attention.  She
stopped and listened for any unnatural sounds, but only an occasional coyote
baying in the distance broke the silence.

The bag of food Cowboy had left for her hung from her saddle
horn.  She hadn't wanted to take it, but like he'd said, it would've been
wasteful to leave it behind. She untied the small rope that cinched the bag
closed and stared at the contents in wonder—dried fruit, jerky, sausage, a slab
of bacon, some flatbread, three whole potatoes, several handfuls of red and
white beans, two eggs that somehow hadn't busted open, and an onion. If the
food wasn't enough to make her feel rotten for being unkind to the man, the
small stack of rolled bills nestled in the middle certainly did.

She sighed and chose not to wallow over it. Nothing could be
done about it now, and the bacon begged to be fried. She pulled a skillet from
her supplies and warmed it over the fire. Hardly able to contain herself, she
cooked up half the bacon and used the fat to fry an egg as well. It was the
best meal she'd had in a long time, not counting the rabbit.

She'd just finished eating when Classy neighed loudly and
yanked her head against the tether, straining for freedom. If the horse hadn't
been tied up, she would have bolted.

"What is it, girl?"

Classy's behavior could only mean one thing. Red gripped her
guns. When the thick smell of decay assailed her nose, she jumped to her feet.
There was no mistaking that smell, but the darkness made it impossible to know
how many zombies approached her camp.

She trained her guns on the sound of movement to her left,
listening and waiting. Given the minimal noise, only one or two zombies
approached, at most. Manageable.

Classy was having a fit, but zombies always went for the
humans first. They only turned to animals when their appetites left them no
other option. By saving herself, Red would ultimately save her horse.

A decrepit, rotting corpse dragged itself into her line of
sight. She took stock: right arm missing, left ankle broken with bones
protruding from the skin, eyes cloudy, and facial and rib bones quite visible.
She couldn't tell its gender, but it appeared to have gone without sustenance
for quite some time. More than likely, it had laid itself out on the plains and
withered away while waiting for some unlucky soul to wander by. Unfortunately
for the zombie, Red wasn't unlucky.

She raised her gun and put one bullet through the forehead,
another through the neck. She liked it that way: the first shot for the kill,
the second for certainty. Quick and easy. The zombie crumpled into a heap and
lay there unmoving while she continued to listen. Silence, except for nature's
peaceful sounds. Still, Red waited a few seconds more before lowering her guns
and putting them in her holsters.

She gathered her items, repacked everything, and retied
Classy to a tree a little farther from the camp. She slipped some nice, good
quality gloves on. They were three weeks old—three weeks! A new record. She
sighed as she moved her fingers around inside the firm leather, and even raised
the gloves to her nose. They still smelled new. Well, she knew how she'd use
part of her new-found wealth. This would make pair number seventy-six.

Red had disposed of dead zombies often enough to know that
putting it off only made matters worse. She grabbed the corpse by the
feet—broken ankle and all—and dragged it to the fire pit. Zombies, especially
the more decayed ones, weighed little more than a child. Most of the time, she
could manage on her own.

She'd once gunned down a recently turned, overweight zombie
priest. His weight had played to her disadvantage; one look and she knew the
zombie wasn't going anywhere. Instead, she built a fire around him in the
middle of Main Street. She didn't like to make a show of it—tried to give the
zombies a little respect in their official deaths—but the fat priest had given her
no choice. The townsfolk watched the grizzly cremation as if it were some
circus show, but Red refused to take part in that kind of gawking. She'd
mounted her horse and left the townsfolk to clean up the remains.

This zombie, however, had very little muscle mass, and Red
easily maneuvered the body into position next to the fire. She gathered more
brush and branches to bring the fire to a nice roar, rolled the dead zombie on
top of it, and watched until the body blazed.

"Rest in peace." She sighed. If she were ever
turned, she hoped someone would have the decency to do the same for her.

***

Trace kept a safe distance and followed Red along a parallel
path, just north of her own. He lost sight of her a few times and it made him
nervous, but it couldn't be helped. As they progressed, trees occasionally
obscured his view, or mighty river crossings demanded all his attention, but
once she returned to his line of vision, he settled into a comfortable rhythm.

When she set up camp for the night, he did the same about a
mile away. He wanted to build a fire—the chill air cut deep—but she'd likely spot
it, and would probably kill him before he could reveal his identity. He spread
his bedroll under a couple of scrawny trees for cover, and kept his lantern
burning low.

The sound of gunfire echoed over the distance, one right
after another, and he scrambled to his feet with a pistol clutched in his hand.
He ran toward her, jumping over sage brush and rocks while the moonlight illuminated
his way. The gunshots had most likely been fired by her, but he prepared
himself for anything.

Not even halfway to her camp, the rot attacked his nostrils.
As she bent over and dragged the dead zombie toward her fire, Trace pulled
back, slowed his gait, and spun his head around to check for any sign of
additional walkers in the area. Zombies rarely wandered this far out in the
middle of nowhere—bandits and outlaws would have seemed more likely.

Still, though cloaked in darkness, he was easy prey and probably
in more danger than she was.

Damn.
Not a sound broke the night, other than the
crackle of fire that licked at the zombie body and sent up a plume of putrid
smoke. He took a few quiet steps backward, then turned around and started back
for his camp on the ridge.

Chapter 5
– The Makings of a Posse

Red surveyed the small valley below from her position on the
rise. A dozen or so wagons parked in a circular formation, but there appeared
to be no signs of life. A good thing, in some ways, as no movement meant they
wouldn't have any walkers to contend with. Even so, the disheartening silence
raised a few goosebumps on her arms.

There should have been a number of people down there—men,
women, and children—cooking food, watering animals, playing stick games, taking
a rest from many days of travel on their way out west. Normalcy.

But nothing about the situation below appeared normal. No
people. No animals. No sound.

She sighed and slumped down a little lower in her saddle.
The caravan appeared abandoned, but Red couldn't fathom the idea of that many
people walking away and leaving all their possessions behind. Things should
have appeared more hopeful heading west, but the silent wagons below cut deep
into that hope.

The sound of a quick, low whistle from behind brought her
upright. She turned with her guns ready, and let out an aggravated sigh.

It was him—Cowboy.
What's with this guy?

She debated whether or not to put her guns away. He
had
supplied her with enough fresh food to sustain her over the past day and a
half. Still, annoyance crept in and she had a mind to shoot him for following
her.

He raised his hand with a wave of sorts, before trotting his
horse up beside her. "I thought I'd give you a warning, so you didn't
shoot me accidentally."

"If I shot you, it wouldn't be accidental." She
slipped the guns back into her holsters."What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing." He removed his
hat, ran his hands through his dark locks, and smiled. "I figured you'd be
long gone by now. Are ya stalking me or something?"

She huffed.
What a piece of work
. "You're the
one who came up on me, not the other way around."

He winked at her and placed his hat back on his head.
"What's going on down there?" He motioned to the scene below.

She shook her head. "Sadly, not a thing."

He scanned the area for a moment. "Where do you think
they all went?"

"Everything looks the same as they would have left
it." She pointed toward the wagons. "See the clothes hung out to dry,
the fire pit in the middle, untouched supplies? Every wagon looks to be intact
as well. If it were Indians, it wouldn't look this tidy."

"Zombies?"

"Nothing else makes sense."

"A whole wagon train, turned?" He shook his head.
"There'd be bodies lying around, you know? People shooting each other,
trying to survive."

Red shrugged. "It's the strangest thing I've ever
seen."

"Should we go down and check it—"

"Did you see that?" A flicker of movement from
inside one of the wagons, the third one from the left, caught her attention.
She swore the wagon shifted from side to side.

"What? I don't see—"

"There. That wagon." She pointed, but when Cowboy
followed the line of her finger, the wagon stopped moving. "I'm positive I
saw it move. Just give it a second."

"I don't know, it looks pretty dead down there, pardon
my expression."

She kept her eyes on the wagon, but it didn't move. Maybe it
was the wind? The air hung around them, calm and still, not even a hint of a
breeze.

"You don't think the wagons are full of sleeping
zombies, do you?" The smirk on his face told her that he wasn't serious.

What an idiot
. "Of course not. If there were
zombies down there, they would've smelled us by now and clamored over one
another to feed on us."

"Then let's go check it out. What're we waiting
for?"

"That." Red nodded in the direction of the moving
wagon once again.

Someone moved around down there. The perplexed look on
Cowboy's face gave her great satisfaction.

"You need to trust me more." She feared that, at
some point, Cowboy would get the two of them killed.

He tipped his hat at her. "You're right. From now on, I
will."

"What do you mean, 'from now on?' We're not traveling
companions."

Before Cowboy could respond, a young man jumped out of the
end of the moving wagon, threw a bag over his shoulder, and took a few steps
into the middle of the ring. Red's horse neighed, alerting him to their
presence, and he quickly dove behind a wagon for shelter, pistol drawn.

"You sick?" His voice echoed from the valley
below.

Cowboy raised his arms in surrender, or perhaps in an act of
peace. Red trained her own gun on the stranger, establishing equality between
both parties. She'd put her hands up for no one.

"Nope!" Cowboy yelled down. "We're clean.
You?"

"I'm clean. No bites."

"You alone?" Red yelled. With so many covered
wagons, anything was possible.

"It's just me. That's all. Everyone—gone. I needed
supplies."

"Can you both put the guns away so we can come down and
check things out, too? We could use supplies as well." Cowboy made the
negotiations, but Red didn't intend to put her gun away unless the man she
trained it on put his down first.

"Yes, yes. Come down! There's plenty!" He put his
gun in his holster, stepped out into the open, apparently trusting she wouldn't
shoot, and waved them forward.

Cowboy turned to her and smiled. "A new friend. Ain't
that nice?" He urged his horse to descend the hill and headed into the
valley ahead of her.

Red didn't like it one bit. Cowboy was too eager and
trusting. She couldn't help but wonder if they were setting themselves up for
an ambush.

"Come on." Cowboy gestured for her to follow him.
"If he wanted to kill us, he would have shot me by now, don't ya think?
You know, get the man out of the way and keep the pretty girl as a
plaything?"

Boy, I really want to shoot him.
If she needed a
friend, maybe she could swap him out for the Asian man waiting for them below.
"You think you're funny, don't you?"

"I'm not?"

Smug, son of a—nope, she wouldn't go there. He wasn't worth
her energy. She would get away from him as soon as possible.

"Your humor's gonna get you killed, you know."

Cowboy shrugged. "Sounds like a mighty fine way to go,
if you ask me."

"Well, when your humor puts a bullet in your hind end,
I'd like to be as far away from you as possible."

He laughed. "Come on. The guy looks harmless. Besides,
it's getting late and I can't think of a better place to set up camp for the
night. There's bound to be some pretty nice bedding in some of those wagons.
Just think about sleeping up off the ground—wouldn't that be a nice
change?"

She didn't respond, but guided her horse to follow close
behind his. Although she holstered her gun, her left hand perched on top.

Cowboy climbed off his horse and approached the man with his
hand outstretched, full of city boy manners. "Anything of use?"

The other man smiled and clasped Cowboy's hand in between
both of his own and shook it eagerly while he nodded his head. "It's very
strange." The man swung his arm around, indicating the campsite. "It
looks as though they were here one minute and then vanished the next. Food,
supplies—they left it all behind."

"What do you think happened?" Cowboy took off his
hat and held it in his hands as he scanned the dozen or so abandoned wagons.

Red climbed down from her horse and stood a few steps behind
him, listening to the conversation. She remained cautious and kept her eyes and
ears open. Someone had to.

The man shook his head. "Not sure. But whatever it was,
it couldn't have been good." He looked them both over. "You guys come
from the east?"

Cowboy nodded.

"How is it back there?"

"Not good. The disease is spreading like wildfire.
That's why we're"—he glanced at Red, but she just glared at him—"
I'm
heading west."

The man squatted and held his head in his hands. "But
there are survivors, right?" He looked up at them, his almond-shaped eyes
pleading.

Cowboy shot a warning glance to Red, and then nodded.
"I'm sure there are."

The zombie-to-human ratio on the East Coast was now roughly
two-to-one, perhaps more. The plague thrived where a higher concentration of
people congregated, the reason so many folk headed westward, loading up wagons
in hopes of outrunning the plague.

The man stood up again, took a deep breath, and slowly let
it out. "My sister and her husband live back east, and I had hoped the
situation was better there." He sighed again, appearing to come to terms
with the news. "It's not good, is it?"

"No," Red said. Cowboy cast an incredulous look
her way, but she couldn't give the man a false sense of hope and ultimately
send him to his death. "It's not good at all. It's getting worse every day,
actually. Those who survived the initial outbreak left a long time ago. No
choice, really. If your sister and her family are alive, they're not back east
anymore, I can promise you that."

The man crumpled onto the packed dirt, not crying, not doing
much of anything. He needed a moment.

Cowboy attempted to change the focus and lighten the mood.
"What about California? How's the situation there?"

The man looked up at them and shook his head. "Not good
there either, though better than the east, it sounds. There are a few camps in
the mountains for the unaffected. A few in Oregon, too, but they're dwindling
fast. There used to be several hundred set up. Now, I think there may only be a
dozen or so. They're quite selective too, careful about who they let in.
Depends on who's in charge."

"What do you mean 'who they let in'?" It seemed
easy enough to Red. "Anyone who's unaffected should be let in,
right?"

The man smirked. "They wouldn't let me in. Apparently,
I'm too 'yellow.' The Indians are finding it just as difficult. The blacks,
too. It depends on which camp you go to. But after being turned away from four
camps, I got the picture." He shook his head. "I'm on my own, but you
should both be allowed in."

Cowboy reached down to help the man to his feet. "It doesn't
sound like a place I'd much like to be myself, I can tell you that. This sure
as hell isn't the time for that nonsense. It's the living against the
non-living—that's all."

"I appreciate that," the man said. "But it
doesn't change a thing."

Red released a frustrated sigh. "There have to be other
camps. Maybe farther north, in Canada?"

"Yeah, maybe." He shrugged. "Up until now, my
plan was to find my sister. Not sure what I'm going to do at this point."

"Not sure what I'm doing myself," Cowboy said.
"Maybe we should just stick together until we figure it out. Safety in
numbers, you know."

Red didn't like the sound of that—putting together a posse.
She tried to avoid this kind of thing.

"My name's Wen," he said before Red had a chance
to stop him.

Her breath caught in her throat. She would have been content
to call him "the man" until she left in the morning. Now she knew his
name.
Wen
. It made a difference.

"I'm Cowboy." She found it interesting that he
used his nickname. "This here's Red."

Wen laughed. "Seriously? You look more like a city
fella to me. Your ma must've had some sense of humor."

"She should've called him Jackass." Red smiled.
"I know I would've."

"Seems more fittin'." Wen tipped his head back and
smiled.

Grateful for the change in his demeanor, she couldn't help
but smile back. She and this stranger now had something in common—a shared joke
at Cowboy's expense.

"Hey, wait right there." Cowboy turned to Red.
"Really? You think I'm a jackass?"

She shrugged and tried to ignore the fact that he seemed
hurt by her comment. "Don't push me, or I'll start calling you Jackass
right now."

Cowboy pointed at her with a serious expression on his face,
though Red could hardly take it as such. "That's it," he said.
"You can't have any more of my potatoes."