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

by Brant, Jason

  Dozens more came then, followed by hundreds. Karen dropped to a knee and began taking aim and firing, methodically dropping one moaner after another until her rifle was empty. She looked down the line as she reloaded, dismayed at the haphazard way the people fought. They fired randomly, rarely connecting with anything.

  McCall still hadn’t fired a single shot. He held his shotgun at the ready and waited. The gun had a limited range, and she knew that he wouldn’t shoot until he was certain he would get a kill. His calm demeanor made it look like he was contemplating taking a nap. Karen felt like she could cry, laugh, and scream all at the same time.

  “You watch my back and I’ll watch yours,” McCall said. He looked down the line, frowning. “There’s nothing more we can do for them.”

  She knew he was right, but it didn’t make her feel any better. Every time she thought about the possibility of Sheol falling, she pictured Stephen’s face. The poor boy had lost his brother and mother, walked across the desert, and now would die in this shithole of a city.

  Most of the grass burned away in a hurry, leaving the two large fires in the middle of the field to provide most of the light. As the smoke and flames directly in front of them cleared, Karen could see hundreds more of the creatures coming out of the forest. They looked like swarming locusts, swallowing everything in sight.

  As the fires in the grass died down, so would their temporary advantage. Karen had ordered the argumentative old man to dig small holes randomly around the town and pour kerosene into them. They would provide some light after the fires in the field burned out, and could be used as a last resort.

  More screams erupted from down the line and Karen looked over to see several people flee back into the city. She’d been disturbed to see how few people had believed what she and McCall had said about the oncoming horde. She felt even more disappointed at the turnout here on the edge of town. Now, as she watched people running away, she wondered if anyone would survive the night.

  McCall’s shotgun boomed and the head of a moaner disintegrated. He racked another shell in and waited for a new corpse to move in close enough. As more of them wandered forward he began putting them down in rapid succession.

  “Where has this gun been my whole life?” he asked himself as he reloaded.

  Moaners that hadn’t been touched by the fire came close enough for Karen to see more details than she would have liked. The desert hadn’t been kind to them. Most of their skin had blackened and split. Their eyes had dried out in their sockets, looking like old grapes still on the vine. Flies covered their heads, buzzing angrily, enshrouding the rotting flesh.

  The woman beside Karen vomited. When she finished she turned and ran, wailing as she went. Karen wanted to curse her for a coward, but she couldn’t blame her for wilting in the face of these monstrosities. Expecting anything else from someone would be foolish.

  McCall emptied his shotgun again. Karen dropped more of the moaners as he reloaded and then he did the same when she ran out of bullets. They worked in this cycle for several minutes, laying waste to anything that moved in front of them, littering the field with the dead. She could taste the powder from her shots and had to spit it out several times.

  They both stopped firing then and waited for the smoke to clear. While dozens of bodies covered the ground, they hadn’t even made a dent in the massive wall that approached. Karen’s head reeled at the sheer number coming their way. She doubted if there was enough ammunition in all of Sheol to kill this many.

  “Switch me,” McCall said, handing her his shotgun. He dumped all of the shells from his pockets on the ground in front of her. “Wait until they’re within thirty yards before you shoot, and watch for the kick.”

  Karen gave over the rifle without question. He took it from her hands in a hurry and dropped to a knee. She watched him as he aimed across the field and wondered why he spent so much more time than usual to fire. When he finally squeezed off a shot she understood.

  Two moaners dropped to the ground by the fires, one in front of the other. He worked the lever-action and aimed again, putting down two more. Mad Dog waited until two of them lined up and then nailed them both with one bullet.

  “Damn,” Karen said, seriously impressed.

  “Instead of watching me, maybe you could you shoot the one coming up beside us,” McCall said without looking away from the gun sight.

  Karen looked over his head and saw a walking corpse less than ten feet away. “Oh shit!” She pointed the shotgun at its head and fired. The kick from the shot slammed the butt of the gun into her shoulder and pushed her back a step. Her arm went numb from the impact and a wave of pain ran down her right side.

  “Damn!” She shook her arm, trying to get it to wake up. The moaner’s brain matter was scattered all over the grass.

  “Told you,” McCall said. He dropped two more and then went about reloading. “We’re going to have to start backing up.”

  All down the line people were falling back, running to the temporary safety of their homes or businesses. Karen had already tried that tactic in Gehenna, and had no plans of repeating that mistake unless absolutely necessary. At the pace they were losing guns on the front line, Karen and McCall would be alone soon.

  A woman missing the majority of her left arm stumbled into a short man a couple of yards to Karen’s left. She bit the man’s face, tearing away most of his eyebrow. The rest of the line beyond him broke and everyone scrambled in different directions. No one bothered to help the poor bastard before running away.

  Karen took a few steps toward the moaner and shot away the side of its face. She worked another shell in and then shot its victim, mercifully putting a stop to his pain-ridden wails. A moment’s reflection made her realize that she had just killed a man without hesitation, an act that would have horrified her less than a week ago.

  One of those trying to escape, a dark-haired teenager, tripped over something unseen and fell face first in the dirt. Two moaners fell on her as she rolled to her back. She tried to bat them away with her hands as they tore into her stomach, going wrist deep in her abdomen. Her cries turned to gurgles as they pulled organs out.

  Karen ran at them, trying not to vomit, bringing the shotgun to her shoulder. The head of the nearest cannibal, covered in buzzing flies and blackened flesh, vaporized when Karen shot it from less than five feet. The second monster was feasting on the girl’s liver when Karen blew most of its neck away.

  “I’m so sorry,” Karen said to the girl. She looked into her eyes as she worked the pump, and saw nothing recognizable in them. Blood bubbled out of her mouth. Aiming at the girl’s forehead, she pulled the trigger and received only a click.

  “We have to go, now!” McCall yelled from behind her.

  Karen stared at the girl before her in horror. “I’m empty!”

  “That’s why we’re leaving!”

  “I can’t just abandon her like—”

  A hole was punctured in the side of the woman’s head, twisting her neck. Karen spun around to see McCall aiming his rifle in her direction. He grabbed a handful of shotgun shells from the ground and ran over to her, handing the ammo over.

  “Ten thousand people are about to die painful deaths. If we have to stop and mercy kill all of them, it’s going to be a long night.”

  Karen fed the shells into her shotgun and said nothing. She knew what he said to be true, but she didn’t think she had it in her to watch someone squirm in agony. The harshness of it didn’t sit well with her. Even if it put her in danger, she would do whatever she could to ease their suffering.

  McCall grabbed his axe off the ground and jogged into the city.

  “Everyone move back! Follow the plan! Get into the alleys and funnel them into you!” Karen shouted as she followed McCall. Only a few people still stood their ground and she was pleased to see that Gary and Mike were among them. The two deputies fired off another shot each before falling in line behind Karen, staying a few dozen feet behind her.

 
They ran between the first two buildings and stopped at the end of the alley between them. McCall dropped his axe to the ground and turned around, already bringing the rifle to his shoulder. Karen watched as he shot over Gary’s shoulder and took out a moaner that was almost on top of him. Gary ducked when he saw McCall aiming the gun at him and spun around in time to see the body hit the ground. He turned back to McCall, but the outlaw had already moved on to another target.

  The third part of Karen’s plan, after the explosions and standoff at the edge of town, was to narrow the space the moaners had to move in by utilizing the smaller alleys between the buildings. She hoped that the bodies of the dead would at least slow their progress, if nothing else. They weren’t the most graceful of creatures.

  Gary and Mike came up beside them, dropping rounds into their six-shooters as they ran. Mike had blood splattered across the front of his shirt. His tanned skin had lost a lot of its color.

  “Are you bit?” Karen asked.

  “No, it’s someone else’s,” he said.

  McCall fired down the alley, dropping two more with one shot. He repeated the feat again and again with ease. Karen could think of no one else she would rather have on her side in this madness. He was a killing machine, plain and simple.

  Gary and Mike shot with their pistols, but their accuracy was questionable at best. They only scored a kill every three or four bullets. Karen had hoped they would have been more helpful because of their jobs as deputies. Apparently they didn’t fire their weapons very often.

  Their supply of bullets exhausted less than a minute after they started shooting in the alley. Karen knew they couldn’t continue to fight at this pace for long, but she didn’t expect them to run out so quickly. Having to fall back further into the city already hadn’t been a part of her scheme.

  When his rifle ran out of ammo, McCall dropped it and snatched up the axe. He gave Karen a wink and charged at the oncoming moaners.

  Chapter 11

  McCall lopped off the head of what had once been a woman.

  The axe sailed effortlessly through her neck and embedded in the shoulder of a tall dead man to the left. Its arm dislodged and hung from the joint, attached by a strip of ashy skin. McCall put his foot against the former man’s hip and pulled the axe free. He swung it over his head and embedded it in the creature’s skull.

  “McCall! Let’s go!”

  He jerked the axe loose and backpedalled down the alley, joining Karen at the end. More of the moaners came toward them, but they tripped over their fallen comrades and stumbled to the ground.

  “Now what do we do?” Gary asked.

  McCall had hoped their ammo supply would have held out longer. He wanted to massacre as many of these damned things as they could before they retreated further into the city. With any luck, the other groups were faring better, though he doubted it.

  “Drop back to the next ammunition site and stock up. Move back up as far as you can. Don’t give these bastards an inch unless you have to!” Karen said.

  Gary and Mike ran down the street and disappeared around a corner. Karen had made some people create stockpiles of ammo around the town for just this occasion. She’d wanted to make sure that running out of bullets didn’t become an issue. McCall was deeply impressed by how many layers she had baked into this plan, and he hoped to be alive long enough to congratulate her on it.

  Together they ran along the front of a store, heading two blocks into the city. They came upon a group of thirty people, all reloading their guns in stunned silence. When they noticed Karen and McCall coming their faces lit up, as if they expected another grand scheme from Karen.

  McCall didn’t waste any breath on them, and stood off to the side while Karen grabbed some more shotgun shells. He’d left the rifle behind, knowing it wouldn’t do him much good in the close quarters of the city streets. Two pistols still sat on his hips, but he intended to save them until they were cornered and had no other options.

  “Start the kerosene wells,” Karen ordered two young men who stared at her.

  They took off at a full run without asking any questions. McCall appreciated their spirit, and wondered if it hadn’t been dulled by this godforsaken town because they weren’t old enough yet. Everyone else seemed lazy and sad, their joy for life long forgotten.

  He noticed a double barrel lying in the street and picked it up, pulling the two spent shell casings from the barrel and stuffing new ones in. He used his sleeve to wipe away splattered blood from the stock. After stuffing a couple of handfuls of shells into his pockets, he stood by Karen and waited.

  When she finished handing out orders she turned back to McCall and took a long, deep breath. Her hair fell across her face in frazzled strands. McCall gently brushed them away and secured them behind her ear. He wanted to express how truly impressed he was by her in every way, but he didn’t have the words. Though he’d never been much of a wordsmith, his time alone over the past several years had severely stunted his ability to communicate anything except anger.

  He opened his mouth, unsure of what would come out, when screams destroyed the moment. Dropping his shoulders in resignation, McCall turned and ran in the direction of the shouts, intent on mowing some more of the moaners down. He could hear Karen coming along behind him as he turned a corner and ran down a narrow alley. He stopped in mid-stride, his boots sliding across the dirt, when he saw a few dozen of the cannibals jamming the street ahead of him.

  Karen crashed into his back. “What are you—”

  McCall’s shotgun cut her off as he unloaded both barrels into the crowd at head height. Four of them dropped at once, their heads oozing as they crumpled to the ground. Karen followed his lead and pumped shell after shell into the group. Almost all of her shots hit pay dirt, which impressed McCall.

  He dropped in two more shells and painted the street red and white with globs of blood and chunks of skull. The bodies were piled two and three deep, standing at knee height. Karen and McCall stopped shooting and stood there for a second, admiring their handiwork as smoke trailed from the ends of their barrels. The alley was only five feet wide, not leaving much room for the corpses to spread out. The bodies worked as a temporary, but rather effective, barrier.

  Their success was short-lived as twenty more moaners rounded the corner on the far side of the alley and spotted them. They cut the mindless beasts down as they tried to climb the barricade of bodies, building the stack even higher.

  Though more of the dead kept coming, their progress was hindered by the low stack of bodies. Karen grabbed McCall’s arm and pulled him back into one of the main roads. As they turned the corner they were taken aback by the pandemonium spreading in all directions.

  People were being eaten alive at every corner. Entrails stretched across the porch of a saloon, looping around a pillar and running through the double doors. Two mangled men dragged the lower half of a female body down the street, away from the others, and went to work on the thighs.

  A small child, infected long ago judging by the condition of its skin, hung on the back of a man and tore away chunks of skin with its teeth. The man stumbled around the street, trying to pull the beast free and failing miserably. Blood poured down the front of his shirt and soaked the crotch of his pants. He fell to his knees, his eyes rolling wildly, before he collapsed to his back, pinning the creature underneath him.

  A teenage girl ran by them, screaming and crying, with a large, seeping wound on her forearm. She tripped as she rounded a corner and fell into one of the lit kerosene wells. Flames erupted around her as the liquid splashed out of the hole, lighting the ground and the girl at once. She rolled furiously in the dirt, batting at her burning hair, her screams turning to ear-piercing shrieks. Two moaners pounced on her, tearing away stripes of flaming clothing and flesh.

  One of the infected was the old man that had given Karen so much grief at the gallows. He’d only gone along with her ideas because McCall had threatened him. Now he was a walking dead man.


  “No!” Karen shouted at the madness in front of them.

  McCall realized that the situation was beyond repair and grabbed Karen, pulling her down the center of the street. They maintained a quick pace, staying out of the reach of anything that tried to grab them. McCall used the butt of the shotgun to knock away any hands that got a hold of their clothing or limbs. Karen began to falter, her arm limp in McCall’s hand. He dared a quick glance back at her.

  “These people are dying because of me! I told them what to do!”

  “The hell they are,” McCall said. He growled as he stuck the end of the shotgun in a dead man’s eye and pulled the trigger. “Some of them are still alive because of you.”

  “What’s the point?” Karen asked. She’d slowed down and McCall was practically dragging her along.

  He stopped and turned back to her. “What?” A newly deceased middle-aged woman stumbled toward Karen, her scalp mostly torn away. McCall shot her in the neck, detaching her head.

  “Why should we go on? We can’t win. Look at this,” she said, gesturing toward a pile of guts ten feet away. “We’re damned, don’t you get it? No matter where we go, or what we do, we can’t escape.”

  McCall slapped her across the face. Her head rocked back and she nearly fell over. When she looked back at him she had a teary shine to her eyes. He couldn’t tell if they were of pain, shock, or both. Striking a woman, regardless of the situation, didn’t sit well with him. Even then, knowing that he needed to do something shocking to break her out of her state of mind, he hated himself for doing it.

  “I walked across that fucking desert for you. I’m here, fighting for these people because of you. If you give up on me now, then you’re telling me that everything I’ve done has been for nothing. You were worth it, no matter what happens.” He could see the weight of the situation crushing her. Everyone had followed her plan, and now they were dying.

  Though he kept his gaze locked on hers, he used his peripheral vision to scan their surroundings. The only thing keeping them alive right then, arguing in the midst of a massive slaughter, was the large of amount of dead bodies covering the street. The moaners seemed preoccupied with those, for now. He knew that they enjoyed fresh meat the best though, so they wouldn’t be distracted for long.