Ashes of the Dead - Bucket of Blood (6 page)

“
You left your drink on the table,” Rose said, holding the Gunman’s beer.

He
turned around and saw Rose standing there on the boardwalk. He removed his hand from the gun and hung his arms back over the railing. Rose stepped out from the shadows into the moonlight. Her hair was messy and her dress was wrinkled from hard work. But she was beautiful.
Stunningly beautiful
.

“I w
asn't thirsty.”

She smirked
. “You’re not from around here, are you?” she said, taking a step closer to him.

“Far from it.”
He flicked the cigarette into the street and watched it smolder in the darkness.

She stared at the side of his face, his chiseled jawline
, dark locks of hair that curled onto the back of his neck. He was ruggedly handsome and she shifted her weight back and forth from one foot to the other, uncomfortably trying to push the conversation forward. “You’re not much for talking, are you?”

“
Nope.”

Rose pulled
a shawl over her shoulders, stepping even closer to him. “Here’s your beer.”

He turned and took the beer from her tender hand. Their fing
ers touched for a brief moment and she felt a chill run up her arm and down her spine.

“
Where are you from?” she asked him.

He took a sip of the stale beer. “A long way from here.
But I’m just passin' through.”

“
I see. Some of the folks here think you're trouble.”

“Like I said
, just passin' through,” he said and finished the remaining beer.

“
Oh,” she said, not wanting to ask him too many questions, knowing that it made him uncomfortable. She continued to stare at him, looking straight into his eyes. “I can take that glass if you’d like,” she offered. He casually handed her the empty glass.

She loo
ked at him for a moment longer and realized that he wasn’t much more for conversation. “I'll see you around,” she said and turned to walk back to the saloon. The Gunman watched her in silence, stunned by her beauty. He regretted not talking to her more and turned back to the railing as he returned to his turbid thoughts.

Emmett waited
for Rose in the doorway, wondering where she had disappeared to. “You alright?”

“
Of course I am. Why?”

“
Just checkin'.”

Rose turned
back to the Gunman. A freshly rolled cigarette was already hanging from his mouth. “Oh. Him.” She smiled and placed her hand on Emmett’s shoulder. “I can handle myself, dad.” She kissed him gently on the cheek and stepped back inside.

Emmett
took a moment to survey the Gunman, then retreated back into the saloon.

•  •  •

Deputy Gerald Markley drove an old wooden cart down a twisted road. A body lay in the back, Rebecca’s undead body, wrapped in a white bed sheet and stained red with blood. When the deputy had entered the Forred home he found Rebecca in the doorway, her head completely blown off. They had been friends since she had helped his wife find a good job in town, and he hung his head low as he pushed the cart forward down the road, unable to comprehend how Andrew could have done such a horrible thing to her. Nothing like this had ever happened in the small town. Sure, people had been shot during a scuffle in the street, but nobody had ever killed in cold blood, not like this.

Clouds swallow
ed the moon and surrounded the Deputy in darkness. He slowed the cart and peered down the road. He knew this road well, but the deep black night seemed to have a strange effect on him. He was a grown man, well over thirty, but something about the night had always scared him.

Markley
could see a farmhouse sitting in the distance with yellow light emanating from the windows. He whipped the horses and pushed the cart forward down the road, hoping to make it back to town as soon as he could.

As he passed closer to the house he heard
the sound of
breaking glass
echo from inside, followed by a
scream
, and then complete silence.

He
stopped the cart and jumped to the ground. He pulled his gun and cocked it as he moved toward the Miller’s house. Deputy or not, Markley handled his gun with unsteady hands, like a schoolboy who had just found his father’s pistol. He snuck up to the front porch near a row of thick bushes and hid behind them. The front door was broken down and the windows had been smashed to pieces. He slowly stepped onto the porch and peered through a window.

He
froze in place, horrified, and sweat began to pour from his forehead. The gun shook violently in his hand as his heartbeat penetrated his senses. What he saw was beyond any nightmare he could possibly imagine. He leaned closer to the window, a witness to unbelievable carnage and blood lust. Several undead were inside the Miller's dining room, devouring the entire Miller family, their bodies strewn everywhere.

The father
lay sprawled across the table with his intestines draped across a freshly cooked roast beef dinner. An undead farmer was face-deep in his stomach, consuming his innards. The mother lay in the doorway on her face, ripped apart by an undead boy. The two young daughters lay next to the table, a tender buffet for three undead. And Allison Miller, Roses’ best friend, was in the kitchen, her half-eaten liver hanging from the mouth of the undead whore.

M
arkley's jaw quivered in fear. He stepped back from window and slowly turned, ready to run away from this madness, but he stopped instantly when he saw an undead man on the porch in front of him, head cocked, eyeing him hungrily. Before he knew what was happening the undead lunged for his neck. Markley still had the pistol in his hand and he shoved it deep into the undead’s gut and fired three times, but nothing happened. The undead man bit into his shoulder and tore away a mouth-full of flesh. Markley pointed the pistol at its temple and fired the remaining three bullets, showering the porch with undead brain, and then ran back to the cart in a panic.

He
leapt onto the cart and whipped the horses forward, steering wildly back toward town. He used one hand to hold the reins and clutched his shoulder with the other as blood ran down his arm. He could see the glowing lights of the small town in the distance and whipped the horses again, continuing to gain speed. As he turned onto Main Street, he overcorrected, and lost control of the cart. The horses broke free and the cart smashed into the front of the general store, throwing Markley forward out of the seat.

The
Gunman heard the commotion and stepped from the boardwalk into the street. Cutler, Rose, Johnny and Mason all exited the saloon behind him, with several others in tow. The sound of the smashing cart had drawn them out of the saloon and they stared down the street, trying to figure out what had happened.

“
Oh my god!” Rose screamed when she saw Markley slumped over the front of the cart, not moving. She bolted toward him, followed closely by the others.

Markley tried
desperately to push himself up, but stumbled, and fell from the cart and landed face-first in the dirt. Rose grabbed him and helped turn him over onto his back.

“What happened?” she asked him.

Markley spit blood into the dirt and held his gut. He had started to enter shock and couldn’t answer her.

Rose turned to the others, who
just there stood watching. “Somebody help me!” she pleaded.

Johnny moved in and grabbed
Markley’s arm.

“We need to take him inside,” she told him.

Johnny quickly inspected his injured shoulder. “He's bleeding real bad. He needs the doctor!”

Cutler stepped in and helped them get Markley to his feet. “
The doc is indisposed at the moment. Just help get him inside dammit.”

Rose and Johnny
held Markley upright and started walking toward the saloon. As the Gunman looked on, considering the situation, and wondering what the hell had happened, something caught his eye at the far end of town, moving slowly down the road.

Three u
ndead emerged from the darkness and shuffled toward them. Their clothes were ragged and torn, their teeth rotten black. Decaying skin hung loosely from their bones. He turned and pulled a revolver, cocked and ready, unsure of what to do.

Cutler could see them as well. “
What the hell?”

Before anybody
could react, an undead man lunged onto Mason and bit into his chest. It tore flesh from his ribcage and ravenously dug at the wound with its ragged fingers. Mason struggled against the undead man, but couldn’t push him away. “Jesus Christ! Get him off me!”

Cutler kicked the u
ndead in the side, knocking it back into the dirt. It turned and snarled, then bit at the air, dirt plastering its decaying face.

It moved
to attack again and
boom
! Cutler flinched as the undead fell to the ground, shot in the chest. The Gunman stood next to him holding his revolver as smoke poured from the barrel. The undead man kept moving and tried to stand upright. It stumbled back onto Mason and bit into his thigh, blood gushing from its mangled jowls.

“
Ahhh!!!” Mason screamed as it tore into the muscle and ripped away more flesh.

Cutler fired his revolver and hit the u
ndead man in the gut, but it kept attacking, ravenously tearing into Mason's leg. It was unstoppable. The Gunman fired again and the bullet entered the undead man’s temple and passed straight through its skull. Putrid black brain sprayed the dirt and fragments of bone ricocheted off a nearby building. The other two undead staggered straight for Rose, Johnny and Deputy Markley, snarling and moaning as they slowly moved across the street toward them.

The Gunman spun on his heels and fired, sending a
bullet that split an undead's forehead. Cutler fired as well, and hit a second undead in the neck. The Gunman shot again, striking the third undead in the head.

Johnny continued toward
the saloon with Markley’s arm over his shoulder. “Holy shit!”

But C
utler waved them forward. “Keep moving! Get him inside!” He turned to the Gunman. All three of the undead lay in the dirt, motionless with lead in their brains. “What the hell is going on?”

But the Gunman could only
shake his head as he reloaded his revolver, empty brass shells falling onto the street.

Several people
began to step out of nearby buildings, concerned from all the shooting. A thick haze of gun smoke filled the air, penetrated by lamplights that faintly brightened the street. The full moon passed behind a patch of clouds and blanketed them in a veil of darkness.

Sheriff Picket
t jogged toward them, gun drawn and eyes aflame. He saw the bodies with brains splattered in the dirt. “I need answers! What the hell happened?”

The Gunman holstered his
weapon and turned to the Sheriff. “They attacked us.”

“
Bullshit!”

Pickett overturned an u
ndead with his boot. “This man was unarmed.” He inspected closer. “You shot him straight through the head!”

Cutler held pressure to Mason's ble
eding chest with a handkerchief and used his other hand to stabilize the bleeding from his thigh. “They attacked Mason. And something happened to the Deputy.” Cutler picked up Mason and started walking back to the saloon with him cradled in his arms. “He's inside with Rose,” he told the Sheriff, motioning with his head.

Pickett
still glared at the Gunman and holstered his weapon, knowing that he had a lot of questions to answer, but that could wait, and everyone had already stepped back into the saloon.

I
nside, Rose helped Cutler with Mason and held a bar towel against his chest as he bled on a table and moaned in pain. Cutler took off his belt and bound it tightly around Mason’s thigh. He notched the belt tighter and blood oozed from the deep wounds, and Mason squirmed in agony.

“
Hold still,” Rose told him as she lifted the bloody towel from his chest to check the wound, but blood gushed instantly and she quickly replaced it.

“Go get the doctor,” she told Cutler.

“I’m not sure he’s up to it, Rose.”

“Just get him. He’
ll know what to do. He’s gonna die if the doctor doesn’t help.”

Cutler conceded and
ran up the stairs as fast as his thick legs would carry him. Rose continued to hold pressure against the wound, trying desperately to prevent him from bleeding to death. Deputy Markley sat nearby on a bar stool, staring at the floor. He was still in shock from his ordeal with the undead, and the gruesome images of the Miller family continued to flash through his mind. Rose turned to him. “Can you hand me that towel?” she asked.

Markley’s
gaze was still caught on the floor and he didn’t respond. Mason took deep breaths and gasped for air. He grew pale from blood loss and his lips had lost their color.