The rest of Babbage’s came alive. The crowd moved to the doors of the saloon but none were willing to step outside. The gunslinger stood, and as she came forward with calm, cool strides, the sea of people parted. Sadie sighed. “More time,” she said. “I just need to rest.” The crowd stared at her. Her face looked tired. “I had hoped to have more time. There’s never enough.”
“What is it?” the woman asked.
“Listen up,” the gunslinger said, taking off her hat, revealing a dark blue bandana covering her dirty blonde hair. “Do not stay here. All of you get yourself home, get to your families, and then get the hell out of Lowstone. Take to the skies if you can.”
“Abandon town?” asked one of the men. “Why the hell would we do that? What’s out there?”
The gunslinger looked around the crowd, dead serious. “I can’t rightly tell you what is out there, only that they came to my town, too. Those that should be dead, ain’t. They rise ... and they hunger. They took my husband, then my town, then every mining town I’ve come across since, and they meant to lay waste to this town, too. If you do not leave now, you will die.”
“We’ll fight!” someone called out.
“And you will die, just like my town did,” she said. “Now get!”
The crowd shifted uncomfortably, but made very little effort to leave.
The gunslinger let out a weary sigh. “I know; it’s dark out there. You men with guns . . . mind those without them and the ladies. Remember, their numbers are few, but they don’t die like regular folk. If you see one of them undead bastards, aim for the head if you intend on actually dropping one of them. Remove it if you can, but do not for a second think you can take them. Shooting ‘em anywhere except the head just seems to piss them off. Run when you can. It ain’t a coward’s road to run. I’ve chased these rotten bastards from town to town and each and every one is now only fit for ghosts.”
“You seem to have survived,” another man near the doors called out.
The gunslinger pulled off the left side of her duster and rolled up the sleeve of her shirt, revealing more of the mechanisms and the stump of her upper arm where it meshed with the gears, levers and piston rods of the replacement limb. “Not without paying a hefty price, I’d argue.”
Part of the crowd marveled at the technological wonder of it, while others turned from it with pained expressions on their faces. Those were the first to shuffle out into the night. The rest followed shortly after, the quiet of the bar falling over the gunslinger as she watched them go.
“What about us?”
She spun around to discover Alice and little Michael still standing there. “Shit,” she said. “Didn’t I tell them others to watch after the women? Where’s the boy’s father?”
“My husband Harrison works as the night watchman cliff side at the skymines, along the drop off. We had no one to run off with.”
The gunslinger let out a long, slow hiss. “Let’s get you to the mines, then, and get all three of you sky-bound in one of those mining rigs I saw riding into town.” She grabbed up the hand she had left on the table, stowed it in her bag and cocked the mechanism in her arm to reload the chamber. “Stay close and stay quiet.”
The gunslinger crossed the floor to the swinging doors leading out into Lowstone. The streets bustled with families on the run, chaos in motion, but the gunslinger ignored the throng and pressed through them, heading off towards the far side of town.
Alice ran hard to keep pace, practically dragging Michael along behind her as she fought to keep up. Fancy shoes and muddy streets were not well matched and before too long Michael led his mother, pulling her along in pursuit of the gunslinger.
“What’s out there?” the boy called out, nervous and uncertain.
“Something I should have stopped before it started,” the gunslinger said, continuing her way through the crowd. A few of them took hits from her gun arm as she shoved them out of her path, a dull metallic clang ringing out each time. “Something I should have stopped before it took my own damned fool arm, at the very least. I know that now, in hindsight.”
“Yes,” said Alice, “but what did that?”
The gunslinger stopped and looked down at a lone boot lying in the street. It belonged to the man she had shot earlier. Part of the leg was sticking out of it still, and she pushed the boy quickly past it before he could notice it, but Alice saw it.
“Sadie, what did that?”
The gunslinger looked up at her for a moment and shook her head before continuing on. “I don’t rightly know, but whatever it was I think my husband and his miners unearthed it. It killed him and it would have killed me too... if I hadn’t taken matters into my own hands, that is.”
The woman stopped. Her boy, still holding her hand, jerked to a halt as he came to the end of her arm. “You did this to yourself?”
“Had to,” the gunslinger said, waving them on with her good arm. “Keep moving, now.” She didn’t wait to see if they followed, but the sound of their footsteps right behind her was indicator enough. “I was nursing my husband when he came home with the sickness. He and his men drilled far too deep into the earth, releasing ... I don’t rightly know ... something. I tried to save him but he was feverish, incoherent, and then ... he bit me. He died, and rather than wait to see if I would suffer the same fate, I cut it off when I started to feel a bit of that fever coming on. There weren’t no one left to help me by then. Most of the town was dead.”
Alice fell silent after that, words eluding her, and she and her son continued along dutifully behind the gunslinger. The docks along the drop off came into view a few minutes later, the too-few gas lamps showing most people had either fled on foot already or had taken off in their aeroships and zeppelins. Large mechanical drills hung off the underside of dozens of sky ships, most rising up in the air, but some still docked there. The woman and her son moved along the cliffside, searching, but when the first of the shots rang out off in the distance, Alice stopped and hugged her son close to her waist.
“Keep moving,” the gunslinger said, urging them on. Several other shots rang out, each of them sounding a little closer, a bit more panicked, but the gunslinger kept the other two in motion.
“Harrison!” the woman called out a short while later, breaking into a full-on run past the gunslinger. A man with goggles resting atop his cowboy hat spun around near one of the ships, his face filling with relief.
“What in hellfire is going on, Alice?” he asked, hugging her tight as she threw herself into his arms. Little Michael joined them seconds later, wrapping himself around both their legs. “The whole town has gone wild ...”
“We have to go,” Alice said. “Now. Something terrible is coming.”
The man glanced up in the sky at all the departing aeroships. “This is madness!”
The gunslinger stepped towards them. “That it is, mister,” she said, “but that don’t mean it’s not time to get. Is there a ship here you can use?”
He nodded, but spoke with hesitance. “This one here is the private ship of the master foreman, but Mister Halsey will have my hide if I ruin it.”
The gunslinger grabbed him with her good hand, pulling him free from the woman and his son. Her eyes met his and she stared hard, unwavering. “You keep delaying and you can be sure to lose not only your hide, but that of your wife and child... as their flesh is torn from their bones. If there’s a ship, you take it. Understand?”
Even with the sparse lighting, the gunslinger watched the color drain from his face as he nodded, wide eyed. Shots rang out closer this time, along with frantic sounds of people retreating from town in the darkness.
“Sure, lady,” he said, turning to the short gangplank to the hanging basket of the underside of the aeroship’s balloon. The man ran out onto it and threw himself up over the edge of the basket, scrambling in, going head first. He righted himself, stood, then held his arms out to the edge of the cliff.
The gunslinger looked at Alice. “You next,”
she said. “I’ll hand the boy over last. I know that you won’t drop him. Your husband .. . well, I’m not too sure about. Looks a little too scared to be trusted with that right now.”
“Thank you,” Alice said, grabbing the gunslinger by both her arms.
Sadie gave a dark smile. “Don’t thank me until you’re all up in the air.”
The woman nodded, let go of the gunslinger’s arms, and teetered out onto the plank, grabbing for her husband. He caught her arms, pulling her up as she flailed into the basket beside him.
Little Michael stared wildly into the open space on either side of the thin wooden gangplank. The gunslinger knelt down before the boy.
“It’s your turn, little man,” she said. He shook his head so violently she thought it might twist off. She put her good hand on his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you fall. You need to go with your mother, son. Do you understand? Can you be brave for me?”
He paused while he thought about it, then Michael gave a reluctant nod.
“Good,” the gunslinger said, standing and grabbing him under the arms, lifting. Watching her footing, she stepped out onto the gangplank towards the boy’s mother and her open arms. The sudden sound of low moans caught her ear, but before she could react, she felt something hit her back hard, driving her off to her side as she let go of the boy. She landed on the ground, rolling along the edge of the cliff as the boy flew through the air towards his mother.
Alice caught one of her son’s hands in hers for a second, before the grip broke and he fell back onto the plank below. The wood of it cracked like thunder, the boy scrambling for the safety of solid ground behind him. The plank snapped in two and fell into the open air of the drop off as he hit the ground hard, safe for the moment.
The gunslinger rolled to her feet as a dozen or so slow shadows shambled around the boy, disjointed bodies that moved like marionettes on strings that were being jerked violently around.
“Michael!” the mother cried out. “Run!”
The gunslinger wondered just where the hell the boy was supposed to run, surrounded like that.
Michael’s eyes darted around the crowd, as a low whimper rose up in his throat.
“For God’s sake,” Alice cried out. “Save him!”
There was little time for the gunslinger to act. Certainly there was not enough time to kill them all before they tore the boy apart. Sadie couldn’t—wouldn’t—let that happen. Town after town she had come to find desertion and death, but that ended tonight. This boy would not die, even if it meant she did.
The gunslinger tore off her hat as well as the cloth bandana she wore wrapped around her head. Her long blond hair fluttered down off from the right half of her skull, but the left side was covered by a half dome of riveted steel plating. She reached up, felt for the release mechanism along its back and triggered it. Gears whirred and the steel plate lifted; the gunslinger was sure she could feel the cool western air blowing across the open hole in her skull. Another present from the night everything in her town had gone crazy.
The heads of all the shadowy figures raised, catching the scent on the air. They turned together as a group, unable to resist what she knew they wanted. One of the shadows she knew in an instant, as it sported a sharp, pronounced beard she was all too familiar with.
“Hello, Ward,” the gunslinger said, sadness thick in a word as simple as his name.
“Your husband?!” Alice called out from the basket of the ship. “I thought you said he was dead!”
“He don’t look all that alive to me,” the gunslinger shouted back, then beckoned the mass of shamblers towards her with her good hand. “Come here, you undead bastards. Come and get that singular food you rotting sons of bitches seem to crave.”
First she had to control the rest of the group, the bulk of which was closing in on her, their putrid stink filling her nostrils. She reached down into the bag across her shoulder and pulled out two lengths of tubing roughly the size of her forearm, each with metal tabs jutting out underneath them. She slotted them into fixed points on her mechanical forearm, locking them in place before cocking the switch on the outside one. The gears and pistons in her arm built up pressure within seconds before she triggered the device.
With a whoomph, a wire mesh net flew free of the tube, spreading out as the weights at its corners flew out in four different directions. The main pack of walking dead were caught in the expanse of it, the net wrapping all around them, their flailing only furthering the tangle. The gunslinger struck the activator of the second device, letting pressure build up in it. She snapped her fingers, sparking them the same way she had for Michael back at the saloon. A spray of fluid shot forth out of a tiny nozzle in the tube directly above them, the sparks igniting it. Flames shot forward across the gap between her and the mass of undead, a widening cone of fire engulfing them. Sadie prayed that the wire mesh of netting would keep them bound in place. She had made the mistake before of setting one of them on fire, uncontained, which had only left her to struggle with the flaming undead until the fire eventually consumed it, but this time she was leaving nothing to chance.
The heat coming off them was intense, the odor of burnt rotten flesh foul, and she turned away from it, securing the steel cap to her head before setting her hat back over it. The gunslinger turned her attention to the lone figure still free—her husband. She raised her arm in his direction. The creature stood stock still, head cocked at her, giving her pause.
“Ward... ?” Sadie held her fire. Was that recognition that she saw?
She looked away, closing her eyes for a minute, shaking her foolish wish away. No, that thing was no longer her husband, the twinge where her arm used to be reminded her. She raised her gun arm, leveling it at his head as tears ran down her face, leaving tiny trails in the dust covering it.
“I’m sorry it’s come to this, my darling,” she said. “I’m sorry this happened to you and that I didn’t stop it when I could.” She tapped at the metal of her arm, a lonely hollow sound in the now quiet town. “But my chase ends here.” In the end, she wasn’t sure she could shoot, even after all the ruined towns she had been through. She couldn’t do it.
Whether the creature understood her or not, the gunslinger didn’t know, but it spun away from her, instead lunging for the boy who was still frozen in place with fear. Without thinking, she shot at the creature who used to be Ward, a chunk of his head evaporating into the dark night air. The lifeless figure toppled over the edge of the cliff, which, all things considered, was probably best. She wasn’t sure she could have examined the body if it was lying there next to the boy.
The gunslinger walked over as the sound of distant gunfire faded and scooped up the boy, who was trembling. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” she whispered into his ear before handing him up to his mother.
His parents scooped him into the basket of the aeroship and hugged him hard, calming as the moments passed. They barely noticed when the gunslinger extended a blade from her mechanized arm to cut the ship’s mooring line, sending the aeroship sailing up into the night sky Alice caught one last look at the gunslinger as the ship rose, her good hand deep in one of the leather bags around her shoulder, pulling out a chain gun attachment, slotting it into place on top of her mechanical arm. She grabbed one uncoiled end of an ammunition belt from the bag on her other side.
“I tended my own, may the Lord forgive me,” the gunslinger said, slotting the first of the bullets into the chain gun. She cocked back the mechanism. “Now to tend the rest.” She took off through the town, walking off into the darkness, dropping the walking dead as she went. The chain gun made enough noise that it drew every last one of the bastards to her, a half dozen or so closing in on her once she hit the end of the town’s main street. She dropped all but one of them when the last bullet fired, leaving the whir of the chain gun the only sound, except for a low moan to her right.
Teeth dug into her shoulder, and without hesitation, she popped t
he blade in her mechanical arm and jammed it into the face of the monster. The brain would die, she knew, bullet or no. The bite on her shoulder, however, well... it was a shame she had just run out of bullets. In the chain gun, at least...
~ * ~
Alice and her family sailed up through the clouds. The night sky was filled with dozens of other aeroships, silently floating over a sea of cotton white. All of them remained aloft for several days, until food and water began to run short and the first of them descended back to the town in the light of day. Alice and her family returned with them, fearful of what they might find.
Those who had fled on foot had come back to Lowstone, the hard work of removing their dead friends and their dead enemies already under way. Alice searched the town, following the trails of chain gun fire that the locals were already patching up. She found the gunslinger at the far end of the town’s main street, lifeless, surrounded by a thick circle of the dead. Alice thought she looked at peace.
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