by Tim Marquitz
Buck stepped back from the porch rail, interrupting the moment. “Gotta reload, James. Need ya, son. Glad you’re still with us, Nina.” The roughrider sat down at a table illuminated with a partially-shuttered lantern. Pouches of powder and lead balls were scattered across the surface. Buck began assembling loads for his pistol.
Manning nodded and gave Nina a peck on the forehead, then hurried to the porch rail. He aimed a dragoon into the yard and ripped off a shot.
Nina grabbed George's lantern from him and shined it about. Mason, Mathias, and Red Thunder were at the rail dealing with the gathering crowd of deaduns around the homestead, George going to join them. Pa sat down across from Buck and worked on his own loads.
Where were the girls?
Then she saw them hunched against the wall between two rocking chairs. Jasmine was slumped over, her head in Rachel's arms. “Nina, thank the Lord,” the black woman said, reaching up. “Thought you were dead.”
Nina knelt and took Jasmine's blood-covered fingers in her own. “I'm fine. What happened?”
Jasmine lightly touched the back of her neck, winced. “Just a scratch. Biter caught up to me...didn't even see it in all the mess. Got me as I fought the bastards. Couldn't get away. But you never guess who saved me.”
Nina raised her brows.
“Goddamn George Daggett. Now I owe him.”
“You don't owe either of those Daggetts nothing but a boot up the backside. Speaking of, where's Strobridge?”
“Mister Ramdohr sent one of his men with Strobridge to fetch a wagon. Him and Greta and another man are gathering supplies.”
“Good,” said Nina. “Guess Ramdohr understands we need to head for the hills.”
Rachel chimed in, “He said they ain't coming.”
“What? That don't make no sense.”
“He don’t seem a very reasonable man,” Rachel responded, still clinging tight to Jasmine.
Some strands of hair were pasted to Rachel's cheek and Nina brushed them away, then shook her head as she looked at Jasmine. “Imagine that. An unreasonable man.”
Both of them smiled.
“You gonna be okay, Jaz?“
The woman nodded and gripped Nina's hand. “I'm fine, girl. Just tired of runnin’...”
“You rest.” Nina gave Jasmine’s hand a squeeze, then she went and squatted by Pa as he loaded. The scent of stale beer wafted off him. She was sure her father regretted drinkin' tonight. They probably all did. In the space of a few minutes, they'd almost cashed in. Likely because they'd been too stupid drunk to move their asses with any degree of urgency. But she wouldn't let herself regret what happened between her and James tonight. No, not one bit, and she'd do it again if given the chance.
“What's the outlook?”
Pa's face was sweaty, his lip quivering as he measured powder into the cylinder. “It's grim, darlin', but we're holdin' 'em for now.”
“Not for long,” she said, miserable to be the bearer of such bad tidings. “Cato and I climbed up on the roof back at the barn. There's gotta be a thousand of them coming out of them woods.”
Pa nodded, took a deep breath. He took her hand, and she could tell his was shaking. “Mister Ramdohr offered to get us a wagon, take us to safety.”
“That's what I hea—”
The front door burst open and Nina took a hop back and got to her feet. Ramdohr’s pit bulldogs came tearing out, huffing and puffing and straining at the ends of their long chains. At the other end was Jon Ramdohr, chains wrapped around one arm, his cane in the other. “Intruders,” he spat, his face quivering and eyes glaring. “Damn yard’s full of intruders!”
“Before long they will be everywhere,” Father Mathias said, stepping into the dim halo of lantern light. He looked a haggard sight in those bleak, flickering shadows. “Hundreds, maybe a thousand. Do you understand what we're dealing with here, Mister Ramdohr?”
Ramdohr scowled and glared out into the yard. “I see ruffians...an army of lawless anfallare…” He adjusted his scowl to the shooters standing against the porch rail. “...and a bunch of fools who can't shoot worth a damn.”
George Daggett pulled the trigger on his pistol. A shadow dropped in the yard. He turned to look at Ramdohr. “How you like that piece of shootin’, Mister Big Britches?”
“We're scoring hits, Mister Ramdohr,” Father Mathias interrupted George. The priest stepped as near as he dared to the man, staying just out of reach of those worked-up hounds. “But as a man of God, you must believe me when I say raiders they may be, but these are no ruffians.”
Ramdohr stiffened, his face visibly reddening even in the dimness of the porch. Nina thought he might release his hounds on Mathias for a second. “You come to my house under the guise of peace and a mean crew of interlopers come trailing after you! I've a mind to hand you over to them.”
“Just keep those coonhounds bawling and they’ll take care of that for ya,” George tossed back.
“I think the guns might be attracting them more than the hounds,” Buck ventured as he stood and returned to the porch rail, relieving Manning. Deaduns were coming in numbers now. Buck was correct. The incessant sounds of gunfire was most assuredly drawing them in. Some biters were feeling their way around the stone foundation. Red Thunder patrolled the porch, braining them with his tomahawk.
“Getting low on ammo here,” Mason called out. “Where’s the damn wagon at?”
Ramdohr squinted, pointed the tip of his cane at Mathias. “The only reason I allowed any of you here was because of your association with Mister Strobridge. I've seen ruffians before, and I'll not have any man, even a man of the Lord, tell me what kind of interlopers are on my property.”
“Mister Ramdohr, please,” Mathias replied, “retire within your home until—”
“Look, you deuced idiot,” George came off the rail. “They're living dead. Corpses sprung to life just like…like evil bloomin’ flowers or some strange shit.”
“You keep your mouth shut before I sic these hounds on you. I don't abide deceivers or troublemakers, and I’ve already heard enough out of you.” The sawmill boss turned to Cato. “Where's Christopher and Miguel? I need you three to deal with this situation, since Mister Strobridge's men obviously cannot handle matters.”
Cato cowered before his angry boss. “I'm sorry, Mister Ramdohr, but Chris and Miguel, they's dead.”
“What?” Ramdohr's jaw dropped. He started to bluster just as his daughter threw open the door. The dogs yanked at their chains and growled.
Greta had her ax in hand, while right behind her came one of Ramdohr's other log men with a shotgun. The big girl nodded at Father Mathias. “We put some airtights and water on the back porch. Ready for y'all to take 'em.” She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, what’s that god-awful stench?”
Mathias skirted Ramdohr's hounds and placed his hand on Greta’s shoulder. “That would be the walking dead, my dear. Hell has descended upon the world, and now it visits your homestead. I beg you and yours to gather what you can and accompany us. There is nothing here anymore but death.”
Greta glanced about uncertainly, then peered out into the yard where the complaints of deaduns grew louder by the minute. “I do what my...what…what are they?” Greta stuttered. It was clear she just made out the situation a lot more plainly than her mule-ass of a father.
“I'm out,” Mason announced. He tucked his pistol in his belt and loosed his knife.
“Same here,” said Buck. He hefted an ax and went about helping Red Thunder clear deaduns from the rail.
Jon Ramdohr fumed. “I'll show you how to run interlopers off your property. Fan dårar! The only tolerable one among you is Mister Strobridge…”
Nina almost chuckled at that, despite the goings-on, suddenly not so sure this crusty old Ramdohr feller was much count at that point, considering his lofty estimation of the self-interested railroad boss. What she didn’t expect was for him to march to the edge of the porch with his dogs, scattering the Daggetts out of his way,
and calling his man to follow. “Greta, stay! Gustaf!”
“Ja?”
“Let's show these inkompetent idioter the meaning of Sisu!”
“Ja!” Gustaf went down the porch steps behind his boss, albeit somewhat hesitantly.
“Sic ‘em!” Ramdohr hollered, turning loose of his hounds.
Nina went to the porch rail, opening the lantern to shed enough light for the fools to see by—to give them some kind of chance.
The massive hounds charged in amongst the deadun ranks, grasping rotted arms and legs, pulling biters off balance, shaking them like toys. One dog flew back with a deadun hand in its mouth. The growling beast dropped it and went in for more.
No, Nina thought, but it was too late. For all their ferociousness, the dogs didn't stand a chance. Deaduns were immune to pain, and they simply fell on the poor animals and started tearing them to pieces. The barks turned into yelps and howls.
“Gå av, era djävlar! Get off my dogs!” Ramdohr lifted his cane and charged into the mass ripping away at his hounds. His man, Gustaf, yelled out for him, but went charged in his wake regardless, blasting a deadun before several came up and grabbed his arms, pulling him screaming to the ground.
“Far!” Greta tromped down the steps and into the yard, chasing after her father. She caught up with the sawmill owner just as he broke his cane over a deadun's head. The big girl took one of her father's arms, but a deadun got hold of the other. A third biter fell on Ramdohr and sunk its teeth into his shoulder.
The man screamed. Greta cried out, pulling even harder, so strong she nearly got her father free. But more deaduns grabbed hold and clung like they always did once they had you. Fingers clenched like vices, arms with steel-banded strength driven by evil, mouths clamping on flesh, chewing, tearing.
Jon Ramdohr came apart at the shoulder with a bloody pop, leaving Greta holding his arm, red tendons hanging from the stump. The rest of him disappeared screaming into the mass of hungry monsters.
Nina aimed her pistol at the hellish mob. “Greta!” she called, not willing to abandon the girl if she could get her wits about her. “Come on! He's gone.”
Greta hung on to her father's arm, her blubbering sobs somehow competing with the moaning mass of deaduns. With an angry scream, she swung the arm at the nearest deadun, catching it in the face and sending it sprawling. She swung it again in a backhanded stroke and knocked another across the gob where it went ass-over-elbows to the ground. It didn't put either of ‘em down for good, but it was nonetheless impressive. She wanted to fight on, but the deaduns were closing, and she found herself surrounded by the same reaching, red-stained hands that had just ripped Jon Ramdohr to pieces.
Greta threw her father's arm down, hitched up her skirts, and rushed back toward the house, deaduns loping, hissing after her. She ascended the stairs as Red Thunder and Buck hacked away at her pursuers. At the top, she looked with horrified eyes at Nina. “You were right,” she panted, her face splattered with gore. “They’re as dead as anything I ever saw that was dead. But…how?”
“It's a long story.”
“It's that fuckin’ bayou magic,” George shouted. “What they call it?”
“Voodoo?” Mason answered.
“That’s it. Walking dead, devils, evil spirits and shit…” George paused to put a bullet in a deadun trying to reach through the railing. “The end of the fuckin’ world.”
Nina pulled Greta away. “Never mind them. They're just tryin' to scare you is all—”
Mason was suddenly in Nina's face. “You don't know shit, you know that?”
Nina’s first instinct was to fetch him another rap in the nose just like she done a couple days ago, but something calmed within her. Something about Mason's eyes. Fear? Uncertainty? He suddenly seemed just a scared boy in all this hellabaloo.
And then, in a surprising move, he stepped around Nina and put his hand on Greta’s back, bringing the girl into his embrace. She folded into Mason, sobs shaking her. “Min far,” she said in what must be her native tongue, Nina reckoned. “Min far…”
“They're all comin’,” George yelled. “All of ‘em!”
“Here.” Mason pushed Greta into Nina’s arms, and the woman laid her head on Nina’s shoulder, still sobbing at the sudden grisly loss of her father. The men formed a line at the top of the porch steps: Manning, Mason, George, and Cato, side-by-side with their guns and blades, while her pa, Red Thunder, and Buck went from spot-to-spot to keep the deaduns from pulling the rails apart.
Nina awkwardly patted Greta’s back a couple times. “Hey, mourn later.” She held the woman at arm’s length, looking up into her watery eyes—she had to be a good six inches taller. Nina bent and picked up Greta’s ax, so dumbstruck was she that she’d rushed to her father’s rescue without it. Nina pushed it into her hands. “They come at you, use it, hear me?”
Greta nodded, sniffling. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and nodded again.
Then Jasmine and Rachel started screaming.
A PACK OF DEADUNS FILED AROUND the corner of the house. “Deaduns on the porch!” Nina yelled. They’d somehow figured out a way up around the side or back and made their way to the front, likely drawn to the ruckus.
Rachel screamed again and the leader, a deadun with a large gouge out of its cheek, extended its arms and shuffled for her. She was still huddled with Jasmine against the wall, and it snatched at her skirts, baring its teeth. Rachel kicked and extended her legs to keep it away, but it was a pertinacious cuss.
Jasmine leaned across Rachel, started pushing at the deadun’s head, her hand perilously close to its gnashing teeth. A second one came to pile on, but Red Thunder intercepted it, burying his tomahawk in the back of its skull. He whipped around to help the women but two more grabbed him and he was forced to fight them off.
Damn! There was at least ten of ‘em and still more rounding that corner of the porch, coming single file, as if getting themselves into a doggone Sunday gospel mill—but they was fixin’ to prey in a different manner than the churchy meaning of the word.
Nina rushed forward as the deadun setting on the girls grabbed Jasmine’s arm in both its hand and drew its lips back. Jasmine screamed and tugged to no avail. That mouth opened wide, maggots spilling out, then Nina pulled the trigger on her iron and put a load point blank in the bastard’s piehole. The back of its head decorated the wall and the deadun sagged sidewise like a big sack of rotten apples.
Nina went to help Rachel and Jasmine to their feet, saying, “We gotta get inside!”
Then she saw one grab Pa from behind and she leapt on the damn thing, grabbed the back of its ratty coat and yanked, slinging the deadun to the floorboards. It rolled into the back of Red Thunder’s legs and nearly tripped the Indian up, but he managed to recover and swipe his weapon down on its crown as it struggled to get up.
Pa turned. “Look out!” he yelled, pointing behind her. Nina ducked sideways, narrowly avoiding a pair of swiping arms.
Manning was there and put a bullet in its temple. “We’re done here,” he hollered. “Through the house!” He pointed his dragoon at another and put it down, but it was replaced by two more.
Buck yelled, “Let’s get the hell out of here!” He flung the front door open and started to push Greta through; she’d been standing paralyzed the whole time. “Come on!”
Father Mathias stood in between Buck and the Daggetts, peering about and looking more weary than panic-struck. The brothers were falling back, measured, shoulder to shoulder, Mason stabbing his knife in and out, George using his rifle’s stock to whack deaduns to the left and right. The defense had thinned on the porch steps so the horde was invading from that direction now, as well.
“Get inside, goddammit!” George bawled. “Jesus!”
Red screamed a war cry that made Nina’s hair stand on end. She looked to see him and Cato like two warriors of olden times, the Indian swinging his tomahawk and holding a knife in a reverse grip in the other, spinning and stabbing, while the b
ig man lanced deaduns through their heads with the spike on the end of his hooked spear and kicked them away. It was a wall of biters and the two men were reaping a bloody harvest. Even so, some flopped by their vicious attacks, while others lurched up the porch steps. They were overrun.
Suddenly Rachel lifted one of the oil lamps and before Nina could yell stop she smashed it over a deadun reaching for Jasmine. Gouts of liquid fire splashed, lighting it up, though it didn’t deviate from its target, its fiery arms grasping wildly.
Jasmine dodged away from it and within arm’s reach of Buck, who readily seized hold of her arm and catapulted the woman through the open door and into the house. “Let’s bail out! Everyone! Red! Cato!” Buck yelled.
Nina fired her last shot at a deadun coming up the steps.
“Let’s go!” Pa yanked her by the elbow, and she turned to see the one that was on fire was bumping into others, and within the blink of an eye, two more of ‘em became walking torches.
Buck pushed Rachel through the doorway next, then ushered Father Mathias inside. Manning buffeted a tooth-clacking female deadun with the butt of one of his dragoons as he came up against Nina and Pa. “Go,” he said, kicked another in the chest, knocking it backwards into more of ‘em. “Go, go, go!” he yelled again and shoved them toward the door.
“Mason, George, come on!”
“Trying!” George was struggling to disencumber himself from a biter that had taken hold of his shirt. Cato was there of a sudden. He used the hook part of his spear to chop the deadun’s arm off at the elbow. The black man and the Confederate looked at one another for all of half-a-second, and George nodded his thanks.
“Red!” Buck yelled as Nina, Pa, and the Daggetts rushed inside. Mason ducked beneath an attempted fiery deadun-hug before he ran in and promptly stumbled over a bunched-up rug. He hit the floor and cussed as he got back up, Pa helping with a hand beneath Mason’s arm.
Manning, Cato, Buck, and Red Thunder hurried inside, in that order, with James careening into Nina but holding her steady. Red tried to pull the door shut, but a burning biter wedged itself in, the heat forcing the Indian back.
