West of Hell Omnibus Edition (West of Hell 1-3)

by Brant, Jason

  “Didn’t you hear what the kid said? I’m Mad Dog McCall. I do what I want, when I want.” He hated being so harsh to people who had one foot in the grave, but he needed them to fear him if he wanted to keep them in line.

  McCall took a step back and then kicked the moaner in the face as hard as he could. A satisfying crunch quieted the room. Though he knew that it wouldn’t even slow it down, he still felt a little better. Commotion broke out behind him but he didn’t pay it any heed.

  The noseless beast fell over, landing on its side. It flopped around as it tried to get back up without the use of its arms and failed miserably. McCall grabbed the back of the moaner’s shirt and dragged it to the rear door that stood off to the left, instead of the back wall. He popped the door open with a kick and threw the animated corpse out of the car like a man tossing a log into a furnace.

  Through the open door, McCall could see Gehenna burning in the distance. The glow of the raging fire must have been visible for miles. Small silhouettes stood out in the open desert, slowly moving along in aimless directions. The train still trudged along at slow pace, struggling to accelerate, and hadn’t yet put enough distance between them and the blazing town to make him comfortable. Those things moved slowly, but they were singular in their desire and he had little hope they would succumb to the elements.

  He watched the body tumble and roll along the ground before it slid to a stop. It began squirming again as it tried to stand. More of them approached from a few hundred yards away, stumbling after the train and its occupants. McCall straightened his hat and shut the door, preparing himself to deal with the wounded behind him.

  “You animal!” The voice came from just behind him.

  McCall spun around, placing his hand on the butt of his pistol. A fist connected with his right eye before he finished turning, sending stars cascading across his vision. He pulled his weapon free but couldn’t see where to aim it as he tumbled backward.

  His head connected with the back wall of the car, knocking his hat free, and skewing his equilibrium. A large hand grabbed hold of his wrist, wrenching it away from his body and loosening his grip on the pistol. He tried to pull the trigger, hoping to blindly connect with his attacker, but the gun was jerked from his hand before he could do so.

  Another blow hammered against his forehead, sending him crashing to the floor. He tried to get up, but found that his body refused to work. So there he sat, waiting for his sight to return and cradling his aching head in his hands. He could hear the occupants of the car chattering in front of him, but couldn’t understand them as he fought against unconsciousness.

  McCall’s eyes slowly focused again, and he saw a pair of bloody boots standing directly before him. He followed the legs up and saw a wiry, but strong looking man staring down at him. McCall’s gun rested loosely in the man’s hand as if he had little concern about the outlaw’s ability to take it from him.

  This struck Mad Dog as odd – he rarely encountered someone who didn’t quake in his presence. Normally people couldn’t even maintain eye contact with him, let alone attack and get the better of him.

  “Well, well, well, what do we have here?” the man asked with a thick southern drawl. “If it ain’t Mad Dog McCall.”

  McCall shook his head, trying to clear the fog that had descended from the punches. He pushed himself into an upright position against the wall and glared up at the man.

  “At least we know you aren’t deaf,” McCall said. He gathered the small amount of saliva he had in his mouth and spat on the man’s thigh. “Too bad you hit like a sissy.”

  The man’s smile melted as he looked at his leg. He raised the revolver and pointed it at McCall’s head with the clear intention of revenge when a woman pushed past him and slapped McCall in his eye. It was the same eye he’d been sucker punched in, which magnified the pain of the slap.

  “Why would you throw a man so grievously wounded from a moving train?” The woman screamed in his face, her eyes alight with fury. “He was clearly insane and needed help!” She slapped him again on the other cheek, using the back of her hand.

  McCall blinked his swelling eye a few times, wincing with each one. He inspected her briefly, trying to determine if she had bite marks. Though she had copious amounts of blood covering the front of her beige dress, she didn’t seem to have any cuts or wounds.

  “I don’t have time to explain. If you value your life you’ll get of this car right now.”

  The man standing behind her scoffed and adjusted his hat. The anger in his eyes remained, but he stuffed the pistol into his belt. “Is everybody hearing this? Mad Dog McCall just saved our lives.”

  A few people turned in their seats and watched, but most were still tending to their injured friends or family.

  The woman in front of him grabbed McCall’s chin and adjusted his head until they were staring in each other’s eyes. “That man was no threat to us anymore. He was tied up.”

  McCall pushed her back with all of his strength, knocking her into the legs of the man behind her. He tried to hop to his feet, but found that he hadn’t fully recovered from the blows to his head. He staggered to a standing position and took a swing at the tall man before him.

  Though the aggressive woman had fallen into his knees, the man maintained his balance. He’d managed to take a quick step back, minimizing the amount of her weight that hit his legs. His eyes never left McCall and he ducked the wild punch with relative ease.

  Mad Dog was shocked at the speed with which this man could move. In that moment, despite the exhaustion that racked his body, McCall knew that he couldn’t beat this man in a fight on his best day.

  When the man ducked his punch, McCall used his forward momentum to try to tackle him to the ground. His attack was thwarted once again as the man sidestepped and pushed Mad Dog past him like a matador avoiding a charging bull. McCall sprawled across the center of the car.

  “Is that the best you’ve got?” the wiry man asked. He let out a hearty laugh.

  McCall rolled to his back and looked up at a small group of passengers that gathered around him. Some were wounded, others were not, but all of them appeared to be very angry. Two or three of them were downright pissed.

  “What should we do with him?” asked a short, portly man. He bled copiously from his left forearm. A woman that McCall presumed to be his wife held a tattered piece of cloth to the gash.

  “I say we throw him from the train like the animal he is.” McCall couldn’t tell who said that. “Give him a taste of his own medicine.”

  “No! Two wrongs don’t make a right.” The woman who enjoyed slapping stepped forward, looking down at him in disgust.

  “I’ll take care of this piece of shit,” someone said from off to his right.

  He turned his head in time to see the toe of a boot just before it connected with his temple.

  Chapter 2

  “What happened to you, missy?” An elderly couple sat off to Karen’s right, watching her with concern. “Why are you covered in blood?”

  The white-haired old man didn’t seem worried with the fact that she brandished a weapon, even though Karen had it pointed in his face a minute earlier. His wife concentrated on the gun in Karen’s hands. Karen tried to keep her attention on the man with the steely blue eyes in the back – the one that watched her intently.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Karen said. “Everyone just stay calm and don’t get out of your seats.”

  “Are you robbing us?”

  Two small boys and their mother sat off to Karen’s left, staring up at her.

  “Is that really Mad Dog McCall?” The older of the two boys asked, clearly excited at the thought of being so near a famous outlaw.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Are you his wife?” The youngest boy, no more than seven years old, could barely keep still in his seat. His white, cheek length blonde hair stood in stark contrast to his deeply tanned skin.

  “No, I’m not.”

  The express
ion on their mother’s face didn’t match the excitement of her sons’. She looked like she wanted to snatch the gun from Karen’s hand and beat her to death with it.

  “What did you do to Gehenna? The entire town is burning and you just happen to be hijacking the train that’s passing through with one of the countries’ most infamous murderers?”

  Karen kept her attention on the intense man in the back of the car. “We aren’t hijacking the train. We just needed a ride out of town.”

  “What’s happening back there? What was going on with all of those people chasing you?” the old man asked.

  “It’s a long story,” Karen said. “They were... sick.”

  “Why aren’t we stopping to help them then?” the mother of the young boys asked. She watched the gun in Karen’s hand.

  Karen knew she couldn’t explain the insanity that she just survived. Who would believe that the entire town had turned into walking, flesh-eating corpses? If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes she wouldn’t believe it either.

  “They were trying to kill us,” she said. She thought about all of the friends she had lost in the last hour and had to fight against tears. “There is some kind of epidemic going on.”

  The door behind her opened. She wanted to turn around and see who it was, but feared taking her eyes off the man in the back. Something about him put her on edge.

  “Where is McCall?” She recognized the voice as the conductor’s.

  “He went into the other car,” the small, blonde child said. “He sure is scary.”

  Karen tried to block the conductor’s view of the gun with her body, afraid that he would realize she held everyone hostage without any bullets. It didn’t work.

  “That gun is empty,” he said from behind her.

  “What’s that?” The intimidating man in the back rose from his seat. “Speak up little man.”

  The conductor cleared his throat. “I said that the gun she’s pointing at you has no bullets in it.”

  Blue eyes stalked forward, advancing on her at a rapid clip. “Is that a fact?”

  “He’s lying,” Karen said. She took a tentative step back, unsure of what to do.

  The man spread his arms out to his sides, lifting them to shoulder height. “Shoot me then.”

  “Shit,” Karen mumbled to herself, still walking backward. She threw the gun at the man’s head and turned to flee, only to run into the conductor.

  The two of them fell over in a jumble. His glasses flew from his face and one of the lenses cracked as Karen fell on top of them. She pushed him away and struggled back to her feet just as the man from the back of the car reached her.

  He grabbed a handful of her hair and jerked her backward, angling her face up at his. She threw an open hand slap, but he caught it with his free hand and wrenched her wrist. A cry escaped her as she fought against his grip, struggling to break free.

  “Stop fighting or I’ll hurt you.”

  Something in his voice made Karen stop. His tone told her that he meant it. She looked into his sharp, blue eyes and saw the look of a killer. Going along with whatever he had in mind would be her best option – for now.

  A few minutes later, she was struggling against the wire that he used to bind her hands and feet. She sat on the floor in the corner by the door leading to the engine car. Her hands were tied behind her back by the thin wire, which cut off their circulation.

  The man with the blue eyes had taken charge, even surpassing the conductor in the hierarchy of the train. Everyone remained seated except for the two of them.

  “I’ll stop the train. We’ll see if we can help some of those poor people out,” the conductor said. He kept fiddling with his broken glasses, trying to get them bent back into their proper position. One of the lenses had completely shattered which must have played hell on his vision.

  “No, keep us going. We need to get to the Tartarus River by nightfall,” blue eyes said. He looked out the window at the rising plumes of smoke from Gehenna, which were now barely visible in the distance.

  “But what ab—”

  “I said keep us going.”

  The elderly couple sat a few rows up from Karen, whispering back and forth. The old man stood and took a half step into the aisle.

  “We need to go back. You saw how much blood is on the crazy lady there.” He nodded in Karen’s direction. “Lord knows how many people she butchered with that damned criminal back there.”

  Blue eyes turned away from the window and gave the old man a glare that would have melted ice. “I said we ain’t goin’ back.”

  “Well, who the hell put you—”

  The door on the back of the car opened and a thin, tall man stepped through, a pistol brandished in his right hand. He had the gait of someone who had complete confidence in himself. His long stride allowed him to cover half the car in a few steps, where he stopped in front of blue eyes.

  “Lose something, Evans?” he asked. He handed the pistol to blue eyes with a smirk. “Maybe you should be a little more careful with this?”

  Evans? Karen thought. She searched her memory, trying to remember where she knew the name.

  “He punched me out of nowhere,” Evans said, snatching the pistol away. He pushed it into his belt with an angry, exaggerated movement.

  “I don’t run with you because you get ‘punched out of nowhere.’ I run with you to keep a handle on situations like this.”

  “Situations like this? Who in the hell thought we would find Gehenna burning? Did you expect Mad Dog McCall to jump on the train?” Evans nearly spat the words. He was clearly embarrassed about McCall getting the jump on him. “I didn’t think so. Stay off my back, Jones.”

  “Uh, excuse me gentlemen, but you aren’t supposed to be armed when you ride the rail.” The conductor stood a few feet from Karen, his hands fidgeting as he addressed the two men. “I’m going to have to ask you to—”

  Evans and Jones turned around and stared at the small, meek conductor.

  “Why don’t you come over here and take them from us then,” Evans said.

  It finally occurred to Karen where she knew these two. She had seen pictures of them on wanted posters, just as she had McCall. Both of them were known for their violent killing sprees. They liked to rob banks and then dispose of any witnesses.

  They were thieving murderers, same as Mad Dog. Except the man she had escaped Gehenna with didn’t have the same cold-blooded mentality these two exhibited. McCall had a worse reputation than Evans and Jones, but came across much more humane.

  “Well, I...” The conductor sputtered and stammered.

  “Go back to the engine and get this piece of shit going faster. If we aren’t there by sundown, you’re a dead man,” Jones said.

  “Now hold on, young man,” the elderly man said. “Who do you think you are to give orders around here?”

  Jones backhanded him across the face. “Speak when you’re spoken to you, old bastard.”

  The old man fell back into his seat, holding his eye. His wife bent over him, trying to tend to him, crying as she did.

  “Anyone else feel like saying something?” Jones asked. He looked around the car at everyone. No one spoke. Even the young boys knew better than to say anything.

  Evans pointed at the conductor. “Get in there and get some coal in that furnace before I cut you down.”

  The squirrelly little man turned without another word and half ran to the steam engine.

  “Where’s McCall?” Evans asked.

  “He’s tied up back there,” Jones said. “I was about to finish him off, but I didn’t want to let everyone back there know who I was.”

  “What was all the screaming about?”

  “Some crazy fuck started biting and clawing at everyone. There’s blood all over the place back there,” Jones said. His eyes fell on Karen. “Who the hell is that?”

  “She came with McCall. I don’t know if she’s his whore or what.” He looked down at her dress. “Looks like they’ve bee
n in some serious shit though.”

  Jones walked down the aisle toward her, inspecting her from head to toe. “Who are you? What are you doing with McCall?”

  Karen thought about telling him to kiss her ass, but she wasn’t sure if she could take the beating that would likely follow. Now that she was sitting down, her body felt like it could collapse in on itself. She’d never felt so tired in her entire life.

  “My name is Karen and I’m no one’s whore. Well, not anymore anyway.”

  “How do you know McCall?” Evans asked.

  “I don’t.”

  “Do we look like two men you want to lie to?” Jones asked.

  If they had any idea what she had been through in the last dozen hours, they wouldn’t have asked her that. The things she’d seen would have turned these tough guys into sniveling babies. They could threaten her all they wanted; she wouldn’t tell them anything unless she wanted to.

  “You look like a couple of small time thugs to me.”

  Jones smirked. Evans didn’t take it quite so well. He stomped across the ten feet between them and dropped to a knee in front of her. He put his face inches from hers, his mouth twisted in a snarl.

  “Say something again, bitch.”

  Karen batted her eyes and gave him the most sarcastic smile she could. “You. Are. A. Pussy.” She paused for effect between each word, savoring his increasing anger at every syllable.

  Evans pulled his hand back and slapped her across the face. She blew him a kiss. He went to hit her again when Jones caught his wrist.

  “Stop. We need to figure out what we’re going to do next, and she’s the only person who can give us some answers,” Jones said.

  “Yeah, Evans. Why don’t you take your phallic shaped pistol and go fuck yourself.”

  “What’s a Phyllis shaped pistol?” Evans asked, his forehead wrinkling in confusion.

  Jones let out a hardy laugh and shook his head. He looked down at Karen with what appeared to be approval, but she couldn’t be sure. It didn’t matter to her either way, as long as she could keep them talking.