by Tim Marquitz
“James!” she cried out.
And he was suddenly there, bringing the butt of his dragoon down on the deadun’s head. Nina broke free as the thing collapsed, making tacky nap-napping sounds with its lips. Manning stomped its head, while Nina desperately searched for her denims and holster. She spotted them and managed to get one leg in when more figures came bulldozing through the trees not twenty feet away.
She stooped and pulled her knife free, stepping out of her pants so she didn't get tangled. So be it—she'd have to fight unshucked.
The first deadun was a boy no taller than her shoulder. Would have been nine or ten if he were still human and not a flesh-hungry biter. Since he was nearest, he'd be the first to go. She sidestepped as he darted in with a young yet feral growl and grit her teeth as she stabbed the boy through the eye, dropping him.
Part of Nina's heart turned cold; she knew they were just shambling mounds of flesh, and she’d put down deadun children before, but it still hurt her every time. It was something she decided she’d never get used to and would just have to take it out of Liao Xu’s hide.
A gunmetal-hard anger was forming around her spirit, threatening to bury her in despair, for no one could be truly cold in their hearts without also being lost. The only thing to temper her frigid transformation was the warmth emanating from the spirit world, from the voices of the People, quite naturally a part of her now.
Together, the cold and heat forged Nina into a weapon. Was this part of the sacrifice she'd thought of only minutes before? Would she lose herself completely?
Two deaduns stomped through the scrub brush, arms reaching. They bowled each other over with their clumsy momentum. It was almost laughable if they weren’t so goddamn gruesome.
Nina set upon them. She clutched one's hair and lifted its face up, exposing herself to its fetid breath. She buried her knife below the deadun’s bony chin, pulling it out along with a gout of thick, gluey blood. She let go and its head flopped down, then she backed up and coaxed the other one to her. “Come taste my knife, you shitbird.”
It rose, moaning “erheee!” to the moon. Black sigils suddenly pulsed across the skin of its forehead. It began to change, jelly-white eyes filling with spectral darkness, teeth chattering together like it had some kind of deadun flu.
He was coming. Liao Xu.
“Goddamn scouts,” Nina said.
Before the change could finish, she flipped her blade so the tip pointed down, held it two-handed as high as she could, and brought it down with all her might. The knife slammed into the top of the deadun's head, sinking to the hilt, jarring her shoulders in the process. It fell against her and then down, dragging itself across her gore-soaked breasts and leaving bits and pieces of itself behind.
Nina stepped back and pushed it to the ground before searching for other deaduns in the vicinity. There were none. Then she saw Manning, his shirt hanging open and belt buckle hanging loose, standing and staring at her, the still form of a deadun sprawled in a thorny bush not far from him. He seemed to be suppressing a chuckle.
“What?” she panted.
Manning shook his head. “I'm not sure why…I mean you're covered in blood again, but…you are one beautiful woman.”
His words disarmed her. She wanted to grin at him, but she steeled herself against his unanticipated flattery, saying, “That one was turning.”
“Turning? You mean, like, changing?”
She nodded, still looking around and trying to catch her breath.
“Into what?”
“Hell if I know,” she said. “Liao Xu, I think.”
James nodded. “Makes sense, I reckon. We know he can do it. He’s huntin’ us. You think he saw you?”
“I don’t know. But I do know I’d like to get my britches back on.”
“Hold on. There’s thorns and who knows what all around here. I’ll fetch ‘em.”
Less than a minute later, Nina had her shirt and her denims back on and was buckling her holster when another chorus of grunts and wet gurgles came from somewhere not too far away.
She and James looked at one another, their eyes wide. She bent and pulled a boot on. “Damn it…”
“They must be trackin' this way,” Manning whispered. “We need to warn the others.”
A whistle cut through the night sky.
“That’s Red.” She hurriedly yanked on her remaining boot.
“Good,” James said. “He must have discovered them, too.”
Suddenly Ramdohr's dogs started barking their heads off from somewhere past the barn some forty yards away. The mill boss must have let them out once his guests settled in. She hoped that was in their favor, trusting the dogs would be more likely to go after deaduns than her or James.
Something tore through the ring of brush and thorn. James turned as the deadun loped at them, giving a throaty hiss as it attacked.
“Don't shoot it. You'll draw the others.”
“I'm not.” James ran at it just as it ran at him. They came together, a scrunching of grass, grunts, a thwak, an exhale of air, then something tumbling to the ground.
“I hate treating my guns like this,” he said. “C’mon. Let’s scoot.”
“I need my hat.”
“Nina, we're gonna have a herd of dead, hungry bastards on our hands any second.”
The sounds of deaduns crashing through the brush grew louder, their groans and grunts like a muted stampede. It could have easily been a herd of cattle. Only cattle didn't stink like that. Not exactly.
“Damn it, Nina. Couldn't you have kept your hat on? Why’d you leave it?”
“Sorry, James. I ain't never been fucked in the woods in the pitch fuckin' black before. You were my first.”
Manning kicked at something in the darkness. Whatever it was hit the ground hard, and the wet thuds of right good skull-pounding followed. There was a pause.
“Sorry,” he said. “Just don't want you to get hurt. At the same time, I realize a woman takes her time. Ain't my place to tell you that.”
A grin broke across her lips. Manners all day, displayed even at the worst possible times. But he was right. They needed to get the hell out of here. Nina was just about to abandon the search, when she found her hat on the opposite side of the pine tree about six feet from where they’d been copulating.
“Got it,” she said, and they started running north towards the barn without looking back. The stench of the undead faded, but it wouldn't last long. The deaduns were coming.
They broke into the yard and were met with complete silence. The doors to the quarters were all closed. Not a single person stirred.
“Everyone was shit-faced just an hour ago,” James said. “No wonder they're not up.”
“Pound on the doors. You take the near end, I’ll take the far.” Nina said, going to the sawmill workers quarters, glancing over her shoulder as she did so. Red Thunder jogged out of the gloom, his bloody tomahawk in hand, and she felt an instant sense of relief…then hoped for some reason he hadn’t seen her and James in the woods having a go at it.
Cato, Christopher, and Miguel came warily out of their rooms; Cato with a shotgun in hand. “What’s wrong?” the black man asked her.
“Just come with me,” she said and went to join the emerging group.
Everybody was coming out piecemeal in various states of undress. Jasmine looked at Nina and got the hint right away; she went back inside and returned with a Spencer and ammo. Pa and Buck were already armed, although Buck was shirtless and looking like a sleep-eyed grizzly with all that daggone hair.
The brothers were predictably grumpy. Greta was nowhere to be seen.
“What’s going on?” Mason asked.
“That’s what we’d like to know,” said Cato, keeping his shotgun at the ready. Miguel and Christopher were a step behind him, one to each side.
“Deaduns in the woods and coming this way,” James said. “Load up.”
The three mill workers looked confused, and then Christopher spott
ed Red Thunder lingering behind Buck. “Injun,” he hollered and pointed.
Cato raised his barrel. “Someone better explain what this Injun doin' here. He wasn't with you last night. Y'all thinkin' of robbin' Mister Ramdohr? Cuz if you are, tell me now and let's have it out.”
Nina stepped in front of Red, spreading her arms wide with her palms up. She wasn't sure her actions wouldn't get them both killed, but on the other hand, she'd looked down plenty of barrels lately. She wasn't backing down from these fellers. “He's one of ours, but nobody’s planning to rob anyone. You have way worse than that to worry over, trust me.”
“Always making friends, Red. I wish I had yer magnetism,” George said, while his brother disappeared into their room to retrieve their Spencers.
Pa pushed passed Buck and Father Mathias to stand next to Nina. “This here is Red Thunder, and he's on our side.”
“Where was he when y'all came upon Greta and Mister Ramdohr?”
“You know as well as I that folks are trigger happy these days when they see a native; so instead, he's been out scouting the surrounds. Probably discovered the deaduns and is coming to warn us, ain’t that right, Red?”
Cato looked confused. “What you mean deaduns?”
“You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Just know that everyone's lives are in jeopardy, even Mister Ramdohr. We got a fight on our hands, and y’all best go fill your pockets with shells.”
Cato lowered his barrel. “You seem a good man, Mister Lincoln, and ya’ll have a man of the Lord with you, so we'll fight to protect our own, if we got to.”
Mason came back out and tossed his brother a rifle. “Well, you got to,” George said as he cocked the Spencer and loaded a round in the breech block by pulling down the lever and snapping it back up.
“We got the magazines,” Jasmine called over. “Bring us all the loose ammunition.” She and Rachel had been busy gathering the Spencer tubes and various pouches and weapons, sorting them on the long table. “Rachel and I wi—”
The first of the deaduns breached the tree line, hissing.
The whole swad of ‘em had been rambling forward at a decent pace, and now here they came in quickened, stiff-legged gaits. Milky orbs rolled in their heads, and their noses twitched. A motley chorus turned Nina's gut; squeals and urgent simpers, gurgling whines and whoop-like coughs—deadun intellects all expressing their insatiable hunger.
Cato and Miguel gaped, while Christopher quaked in his boots and made the sign of the cross. Nina shook her head, not because she mocked the man’s faith, but because of their priceless expressions. She and the others were long since beyond that stage.
Nina gave Cato a swat on the shoulder. “You think they look bad. Wait till you smell one up close.”
Cato's teetering sanity seemed to be playing out across his face, and Nina knew he had to say something to make sure he hadn’t just gone plumb crazy. “What…what…?”
“That’s what we call deaduns.”
“How long you been…” He couldn’t take his eyes off ‘em. “You all been running from these things?”
“About four days now, give or take some hours. My account of time’s been kind of mucked up a bit lately.”
“Where they come from?”
“I'll tell you what,” Manning said from just on the other side of her. “Worry about making it through this. If you're still around later, we'll have a few of those beers and talk about it.” Nina could hear the strain in James’ voice, and she hoped it wasn't because he thought he needed to protect her.
She picked out the first line of targets, remembering what they'd talked about on the walk there. “Couple things, fellers,” she told the sawmill workers. “Call 'em out if you can. Go deep. Shoot 'em in the bean. Best way to conserve ammunition, and the only way to take ‘em out without a scuffle.”
“That it?” Cato asked.
“That's all you need to know.”
“Ignorant-ass neck-tied cocksucker,” George Daggett called out from the center of the line, dropping the first deadun.
Nina shrugged, scanned the shambling crowd. “One-armed, red-haired beauty,” she shouted, dropping a young, snarling woman she thought might have been stunning when alive.
Shouts and gunfire erupted all around, once again delivering that ceaseless ear-pounding only a hail of lead and black powder can make. Her nose itched almost on cue, and she rubbed it to avoid a sneeze.
Several days of grave rot had made many of the deaduns indistinguishable from one another, but others had something Nina could speak on, something that set one apart from the others. Even so, it was often too loud to be heard over the guns, but calling them out was a way to make the process of mowing down biters a little easier. Kept the panic from taking hold.
Nina found one such target and named her. “Bonnet lady!” She promptly removed the woman's hat with a drop of lead.
With nine guns blazing, deaduns stumbled forward and dropped just as quick. Still, some got through, and the yard began filling up with those fortunate feeders, some missing a considerable percentage of the flesh they'd originally brought with ‘em by the time they made it halfway across the killing field.
Father Mathias bolstered the line with his preaching, holding his Bible high, slinging verses like whitewash against the undead horde.
Nina exchanged a magazine with Jasmine and resumed her position.
The priest’s invocations affected the deaduns in the most miraculous way. The majority fetched up cold where they stood, unable to move another step because of something in Father Mathias's words that kept them at bay. Still they hissed, snapped, and caterwauled at missing their chance at a meal.
“Hold!” Buck shouted. “Hold!” The firing stopped, and they waited a moment to ensure the deaduns were indeed stuck. “Okay, folks. Save your bullets. Let’s knife ‘em.”
Nina put down her rifle and waded into the sea of frozen flesh, Red Thunder at her side. She picked a victim, some nameless man whose eyes rolled at her as she approached. Knife point to its throat, she slammed her right palm against the hilt, drove the blade up into its brain. Nina was rewarded with a burst of rot-thickened matter, like popping a sore. It gushed warm over her hands, oozing between her fingers.
Over and over, Nina slew what was already dead. A true angel of death, she never missed. It was a bloody business. She knifed a dozen of them or more. Her hands throbbed, blisters springing up where her knife hilt rubbed her palm raw. She glanced at Red Thunder who had a much simpler approach; tomahawk to the top of the head, spilling brains everywhere. Nina had reckoned she was beyond gagging, but the sight of Red's handiwork nearly made her upchuck.
Ain’t no blasted way, she thought, and forced her gorge down. That meal was too damned gratifying to let loose.
“I’m sorry, friends,” Mathias said, his voice sounding weak. “I can’t hold them any longer. My faith is...lacking today.”
“Today?” George scoffed. “Yer faith sure got a way of runnin' out on you, Padre.”
Nina and Red Thunder returned to their positions after having taken down forty or fifty of the stiffened corpses. Nina was proud. That was a hell of a lot of ammo saved.
“We got a secondary plan?” Pa lifted a pistol and dropped a deadun waking from Mathias's spell. “Doesn't look like Liao's gonna run out of bodies anytime soon. Must have sent all of Reno to our doorstep.”
“There's only one plan,” Mason shouted. “Shoot till you cain't no more, then run so you can do it again.”
Buck tripped a deadun that walked right past him, headed for Jasmine. “What gave you the impression there was a place to run?” he yelled in Mason’s direction, then crushed the back of the deadun’s head with a rifle butt.
Nina hefted her Spencer, wincing as more deaduns filed into the yard, crawling over the bodies they’d already dropped. She shook her head. That hemmed-in feeling, like back at Fort Bluff, returned full force. “Liao Xu is coming after us. You know that, right, Pa?”
“I kn
ow, darlin'. For whatever reason, he's got it in for us. And we'll be back to axes and knives soon.”
“What do we do then?” Cato asked. The sawmill workers looked exhausted, mentally more than anything, their eyes still unbelieving, their hands trembling on their weapons.
A razor shriek cut the night sky. Nina instinctively dropped to a knee, her shoulders hunched protectively, thoughts of those devil crows in their multitudes. The tumultuous sounds of flapping wings descended as everyone looked up.
“Holy Christ!” someone yelled, and Nina heard Rachel scream as a massive shadow fell from the sky.
CHAPTER NINE
SOMETHING WITH HUGE, BLACK WINGS SWOOPED over their heads. The sawmill worker named Christopher fired his shotgun skyward and screamed as talons snatched his shoulders. Man and beast struggled. Christopher stomped and cursed, trying to get the large, feathered thing off him. The creature raked pieces off the man—shirt, hair, and skin went flying, spatters of red exploding—as he spun in their direction, shotgun swinging wildly back and forth, up and down.
Nina hit the deck, saw James and her pa doing likewise. Most folks stood gaping, though, at the sight of the strange creature. The shotgun went off, and Miguel's left arm disappeared, his torso peppered with shot. The Mexican screamed and collapsed.
Nina tried to draw a bead on the flying thing when Christopher's head just popped loose from his body. It arced through the air, long beard trailing like a mule’s tail, and thunked on the ground near her feet. The winged shadow beat its wings, kicking up dust and straw, as it carried what was left of the man into the sky.
“Shit! Fuck!” George cried.
“That about sums it up,” Mason said.
“What the hell was that?” George looked agape at the sky where the thing had disappeared.
“We got other things to worry about right now!” growled Buck, his modest gut bulging over his belt, weeks of road-dirt and deadun gunk having turned his skin a mottled, sweaty brown. He slapped the cylinder shut on his huge pistol after having reloaded and put a slug in one of ‘em getting too close, blowing its open-mouthed skull to bits.
