Bodacious Creed: a Steampunk Zombie Western (The Adventures of Bodacious Creed Book 1)

by Jonathan Fesmire

  He flipped it open and the coyote raced down the stairs.

  “Stop!” Creed scrambled after the yipping animal.

  Jonny shouted, “What?” and Anna, “Fuck!” When Creed saw her, she already had her Deringer drawn and pointed at the canine, her eyes wide in a mix of fear and fascination. The coyote watched her for a moment, then dashed to the far side of the room.

  From the top of a far bookcase, Math stared down hissing, back arched and fangs bared.

  “It's all right.” Creed put a hand out toward the coyote and walked to it. “He just wants to play.”

  Anna tucked her pistol in the belt of her brown work trousers. “That’s from Margarita’s? How did you find it?”

  “It found me.” The coyote had its front paws on the middle shelf of the bookcase. It wagged its tail and seemed oblivious to the cat’s fear. Creed removed a glove and patted the canine’s fur. “Easy there. Come on down. That’s right.” It did exactly as he asked, sitting on its haunches but still watching Math.

  “Follow me,” Creed said, and even to his surprise, it did all the way to the staircase. When Creed told it to sit, the coyote obeyed.

  “Well I'll be fucked,” Anna intoned. “Somebody trained it.”

  “It protected me. I’ve got a couple dogs, upstairs. Dead ones. You think you could use their machinery?” He recounted his and Cantrell’s encounter with the zombie greyhounds and terriers.

  “Where did they come from? They were gone when the bounty hunter and I went to Margarita’s.”

  Creed simply shrugged, then climbed upstairs and hauled the corpses down. He placed them on the floor beside the operating table. Blood still dribbled from the holes he had shot in their heads.

  “Looks y-y-useful.”

  “Whoever did this should have left the poor things for dead.” Anna knelt beside the bodies.

  “Shouldn’t… talk. We—” Jonny pointed toward Math, still perched atop the bookcase.

  “I might be biased, Jonny, but I think we had better intentions.”

  Creed gazed at the corpses and felt a sad pang of envy. After his resurrection, his intentions had become simple, focused. He would stop outlaws preying on others wherever he found them and, most of all, find Blake. Now, less than a month later, he felt weary of fighting, and the pure darkness of non-existence called to him. He would never stop all the murders, never return to true life. Many saw him as either an angel or a demon. Few would ever see him as a person.

  Anna held her hand over her belly where the healing device made her shirt bulge. “I’ll need a look at your new friend’s machinery, too. An articulating limb. That’s new to me. I guess not strange, though. We replaced your heart and eyes.”

  Creed’s sadness deepened, but he set that aside. “I'll leave you to it. I’ve got more dogs to find.”

  When he was halfway up the stairs, the coyote whimpered, then trotted up to him. Creed pointed back to the spot on the floor, ready to tell it to go back until Jonny spoke.

  “Wild. Still a… w-wild animal.” Jonny looked from the coyote to Math.

  Creed smiled behind his mask. He and his new companion went out into the night.

  Rob Cantrell rode Malcolm down Center Street while Bernard led them, sniffing along their path. The only things Cantrell smelled were the salty ocean breeze, Malcolm’s musk, and his own sweat. Two zombie dogs had gone this way, and Rob didn’t know which Bernard was tracking. Finding both could prove tricky. When they reached Second Street, Bernard sped along it without warning, but Cantrell spotted the tan and black bull terrier straight ahead on Center. The greyhound must have turned down Second.

  “Dammit!” Cantrell exclaimed, but he thought Bernard could handle one of the mongrels. He made the split-second decision to split up. He whipped Malcolm’s reins and the horse galloped along Center Street. He doubted he could shoot the dog from his galloping horse, Malcolm's hoofbeats loud, his own body bouncing in the saddle, but drew his pistol anyway, keeping his left hand tight on the reins. The terrier ran, but Cantrell quickly caught up and fired. A miss. The animal pushed ahead, and Cantrell shot again.

  This time, it skidded in the dirt.

  Cantrell pulled Malcolm to a stop and dismounted.

  The terrier whimpered as Cantrell approached, licking its wounded front leg. The bounty hunter steadied his Colt, but the animal’s cries stayed his trigger finger. Creed had brought two dead dogs back to Anna. Maybe she could learn something from an unliving one. He holstered his pistol and took his Lawkeeper from his left holster. The selection dial was set to electrocute, but he thought that might be a bad idea, might damage the mechanical parts. He turned the gear hard to a new setting and fired at the beast.

  Instantly, the dart shivered in the animal’s left flank and delivered its sedative. The mutt turned and snarled, the sound as close to a bark as these zombies could muster before it let out a steady rumble from its throat. In seconds, its head dropped and body went lax. It’s breathing remained heavy.

  The bounty hunter took a cloth bandage from a saddle pack and tied it over the dog’s wound. The blood flowed at no more than a trickle and clung to the dark fur. As he lifted and tied the canine behind his saddle, across Malcolm’s back, he hoped Bernard had caught up to the second fugitive dog. His mechanical hound would always find its way back to him.

  The terrier shifted, as though in protest, front paws jerking.

  “You’re lucky. Probably should’ve shot you.” Cantrell mounted and urged Malcolm back to Second Street. He rode at a trot, the horse’s breathing heavy and hooves clopping, and scanned the street for Bernard. Waves rolled about a quarter mile south, and people shifted their curtains and opened shutters to look down at him. He neither saw nor heard any sign of his steely. As was the case in Railroad Flats, the streetlamps seemed dimmer than elsewhere in town, so Cantrell donned his night goggles.

  At last, he spotted something shiny beside a single-story home, in the hedges. He urged Malcolm to move a bit faster until he reached it.

  Bernard lay on its side next to a potted fern, head turned and neck facing skyward. Several plates under the jaw bent outward, almost pulled free, the piping and wiring underneath wrenched sideways, metal dented. Cantrell dropped to the ground and knelt beside his mechanical companion. Turning its head, he found another separated steel plate beneath it. Bits of brain circuitry crumbled free.

  He spotted something smooth inside and pulled out first one canine tooth, then another. Drool stuck to his gloved fingers.

  “I’ll blow out that mutt’s fucking brain when I find it,” he said under his breath. Yet if he wanted to get the terrier to Anna, he had to move. How long might the sedative keep a zombie unconscious? Also, Anna’s laboratory might be the best place to get Bernard repaired. With the same gentleness he would use with his own daughter, he placed his steely across Malcolm’s neck, in front of the saddle. He mounted and rode back toward Pacific Avenue, one hand on the reins, one holding his steely in place.

  A realization hit him. “Anna must work for Morgan. That’s how she got rich, why she has that laboratory. Hell, woman or not, I reckon if I were her, I’d want the world to know about that. Interesting times.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The next few hours saw Bodacious Creed heading out and returning to The House of Amber Doves twice before he and his new companion finally settled into the side bedroom.

  On the first trip, the coyote led Creed across the San Lorenzo River. Creed stepped sideways down the rocky embankment until they reached where the water flowed toward the ocean. This time of year, the river was perhaps three inches deep and fifteen feet wide, so they strode across, the animal giving no complaint. On the other side, the coyote sniffed around and picked up a scent again. Creed only hoped it was following one of the zombie dogs.

  They took back alleys parallel to Mission Street and breasted the tall hill. At last, Creed saw a spotted greyhound. Without a worry, it lifted a hind leg to a tree, and the coyote bounded for it. I
t stopped urinating mid-stream and rounded on Creed’s new companion, snarling, but Creed fired, his bullet putting a swift end to the encounter.

  That made three dead out of five. Creed hoped Cantrell would find the other two. The coyote sniffed the body and looked up at Creed, tail wagging.

  “Good job.” Creed stroked the coyote’s head before slinging the greyhound over his shoulder, just as he had the others.

  A mile in, they reached Heidi’s cabin nestled among the redwoods. The abandoned dwelling appeared dark and lonely under the moon. Out of curiosity, he checked the doors, gratified to find them locked, before finding a shovel in her tool shed and marching deeper into the forest.

  Creed found a small clearing and in a few minutes dug a grave. Kneeling beside the body, he flexed his fingers. The metal rings in the gloves hugged each section. With the steel claws, he reached beneath the greyhound’s head unit and tore the machine free. The skull made a gruesome crack. Chunks of meat and bone clung to the bolts as he set the piece down.

  He lowered the body into the grave, and as he shoveled dirt over it, he kept an eye on the coyote. “If you're going to follow me everywhere, you need a name.” Creed had an association with coyotes in the back of his mind. Arizona. A settlement there, and packs of the scavengers roaming the nearby desert.

  “Coconino. How’s that for your name?”

  The coyote tilted his head as though questioning and Creed figured that was good enough.

  On his way back to Amber Doves, Creed dreaded the rest of the night. He decided there was no need to tramp through the river again, so he and Coconino crossed the bridge over the San Lorenzo River after passing El Cuarto Trasero.

  Creed stared down at the gory machine clutched in his right hand. He would have to bury the other two dogs after Anna removed their machine parts. Depending on what Cantrell had accomplished, he may have to search for the other zombie animals.

  At the laboratory, Anna took the new head unit from him and asked him to dispose of the corpses. She and Jonny had indeed removed, and were cleaning, the machinery. In one corner lay the body of the black and tan bull terrier, and on the operating table, beside the various mechanical pieces removed from the zombie canines, lay Cantrell’s steely, throat torn open.

  “This is good.” Anna turned the unit Creed had brought back over in her hands. “Cantrell brought us that one.” She nodded toward the dog in the far corner.

  Creed said, “I’ll need to bury it too.”

  “It’s still alive,” said Anna. “All these units are different. We’re seeing Gilmore’s research and practice.”

  “That makes one left to find.”

  “Cantrell’s gone after that one.”

  Creed and Coconino left with the first greyhound and terrier, climbed to the forest east of town, retrieved Heidi’s shovel, and buried them near the other. As they headed to The House of Amber Doves for the third time that night, sleepiness tugged at Creed. He had exerted himself far more on many nights since his rebirth, but killing and burying the zombie animals left his spirit sapped.

  Back in Anna’s suite, Coconino dashed to Creed’s small room. In the near-darkness, she and Jonny slept, her on her side, him on his back with a hand on her hip. Creed shut his eyes, smelling peppered, buttery steak. He had grown hungry.

  The clock above Anna's bed read two twelve in the morning. He went to his small room, shut the door, flipped the light lever, and found his meal waiting on the high shelf, steam still rising from the meat and potatoes. Next to it was a wooden mug no doubt filled with beer. Coconino stood in the corner, head in the food bowl as it devoured its own meal.

  On the bed, he found a length of rope with a collar attached, and on the wall, a hook. “Easy there,” he said, sitting at the end of the bed and putting the collar around the coyote’s neck. At first, Coconino flinched, then considered Creed’s eyes, and went back to eating. With that done, Creed made a loop at the other end and slipped this onto the hook above Coconino’s head.

  Creed pushed aside fur on the coyote’s back to see its skin. Unlike the other resurrected animals—unlike him, for that matter—Coconino’s flesh remained a pale tan. He would have to bring this up to Anna, but he guessed that Dr. Gilmore had put on the prosthetics while the animal was still alive.

  The gunfighter unbuckled the leather straps around his head and placed his mask on the pillow. Using the nightstand as a table, he ate. The steak, baked potato, and pinto beans soon eased his hunger. When finished eating, he downed the beer in two gulps.

  Coconino had finished eating and lapped at the water in its drinking bowl. Creed went to the bathroom leaving the lovers, Anna mildly snoring, to their deserved rest. He pumped warm water into the tub and dropped his dirt-dusted clothes to the blue porcelain tiles. Mud caked the sides of his boots and the knees of his pants.

  Creed lowered himself into the warm water. As he let his muscles relax, his mind went to his death. The nothing. From the moments after Blake shot him to when Anna had jolted his brain back to life, nothing but space. Not even space.

  Yet what had his life become? A drive for justice, greater than what he’d experienced even in life. Metal, gears, and wires in place of eyes and heart. An ugly hunk of steel bolted to his skull. Hardly a life at all.

  Conscious or not, in death, he’d had peace.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Though Jonny’s head felt heavy when he woke, on the morning of August eleventh, he looked with hazy vision at the clock. It read just after eight in the morning. He and Anna had crawled into bed at about one ten, though at some point he had heard Maybelle come in and smelled steak; Anna had asked her to bring in a meal for Creed around that time. After she shut the door he had staggered to the bathroom, urinated, then fallen fast asleep beside Anna again.

  Now, he leaned over, ran his hand over the covers along Anna’s buttocks and thigh, and kissed her cheek. After a shallow bath, he dressed and headed to the kitchen. A cup of coffee with a dollop of cream and a spoonful of sugar would do him well. Karla was already there, tending the bar. Outside the saloon’s front doors, light fog hovered over the road.

  Ten minutes later he sat at the bar filling himself on a three-egg omelet of ground beef, bell peppers, and pepperoncini, washing it down with coffee. Customers came in slowly over the next six hours, and at around two, the usual dinner crowd began to file in.

  Jonny didn’t mind working the bar alongside Karla. He hoped his presence gave the impression of Anna being in charge, by proxy. He had to admit that, though he considered Anna the superior inventor, and himself the assistant capable of shining light on her blind spots, he wanted to be in the laboratory. Large crowds still made him uneasy, even at Amber Doves.

  Despite the brightness and warmth of the sunshine, a strange darkness tinged the saloon. Hattie had gone upstairs with a john, and without her piano playing, the overall mood turned somber, vaqueros, railroad workers, and others conferring quietly. They discussed Creed, Cantrell, missing bodies, and of course, the Plowshares slaughter. Rumor had Hartgraul at the doctor in bed all day, neck stitched and bandaged, taking nourishment at a trickle. Creed and El Tiburón came up in conversation more often than anything else. Many claimed to have seen them together fighting a pack of rabid dogs.

  Heidi Nelsen stepped through the front doors around four o’clock. Jonny squinted as she approached.

  “Mrs. Nelsen,” he said.

  Heidi crossed her arms. “I need to see Anna.”

  “Anna’s sick.” Jonny took a rag from beneath the bar and began wiping away crumbs and a cup circle.

  “I don't care. I need to see her, and I think you know why.”

  Jonny wanted to explain that he would give Anna a message. As he struggled to bring the words to his lips, Heidi gave him a bracing stare then headed straight for the hallway toward Anna's room. Surprised, Johnny followed, and though he stepped quickly, her strides left him several feet behind. He dashed past her and stood with hands held out before the door. �
�Not. No. Bad timing.”

  Heidi pushed him aside, and Jonny watched her, stunned at her audacity. She turned the knob and stepped in.

  “Well my lord,” she exclaimed. Jonny entered and shut the door.

  Heidi was looking at the open hatchway and the stairs leading down. A sustained buzz came from below, Zero shearing metal. Jonny raised a finger, but no words of explanation came. Then, behind him, Creed’s bedroom door creaked open.

  Creed wore nothing but denim trousers, and the glass dome covering Creed’s chest readings glimmered under the ceiling lights, the reflection white as his skin.

  Heidi stepped back against the door and stood like a young girl keeping a secret from her parents. “Why are you here? Why’d you come to her?”

  “Happy to see you, too,” said Creed. The coyote padded out of the small room to stand beside him. “That's just Coconino. He took a liking to me. I promise he won’t bite.”

  Jonny shut the trapdoor, cutting off the sound from below. He held his hands behind his back, sensing the tension between Creed and Heidi, but not sure if he should leave. The way Heidi blushed at the former marshal surprised him.

  “Give me a moment.” Creed stepped back toward his room, but Heidi went to him and ran her hand over the scars on his chest and the heart unit.

  “I never saw this when you were staying with me,” she said.

  “Didn’t want you to.”

  Heidi brushed a hand under her eyes. “I’ve been worried, so worried about you.” Her cheeks flushed redder.

  “No need for that.” Creed put his hands on her shoulders. She glanced at his face and wrapped her arms around him. After a long moment, Creed embraced her as well and kissed the top of her head.

  Anna stood on the stairs, poking her head through the trapdoor. “Oh, crap.”

  “Come with me.” Creed took Heidi’s hand and moved toward the stairs.

  “No you don't!” Anna exclaimed.