Ashes of the Dead - Bucket of Blood (9 page)

“
How? We don't have any water. And we already ran out of food.”

The
Gunman stood there, silently looking at the street. “We will have to go out there and get some.”

“I'm
coming with you,” she said without hesitation.

The
Gunman kept staring, his gaze moving from one building to the next. “No. Only a few of us are going. We’ll have to move quickly.”

“But I want
to help,” she told him.

“I know, and y
ou can. Stay here and keep an eye on things. Use that cannon of yours if you need to,” he told her, pointing to the shotgun across her lap.

“
Do you really think anybody else is even alive out there?”

“Can’t say,” he said grimly.
Something caught his eye below, but it was just another undead, feeding on an arm. “But we're still alive,” he told her reassuringly. “Hell may have opened and spit out these things against us…but I sure as hell ain’t going down without a fight.”

“Find my brother. Bring him back,” she
pleaded. “
Please
.”

“I’ll try my best.” He turned to leave but stopped,
and then gave Rose a handful of shotgun shells from his satchel. “Keep your gun close, at all times,” he said. “We'll be back by dawn.” He walked toward the door, but glanced briefly over his shoulder before leaving. Rose cocked the shotgun and set it against the wall, and then looked out the window and continued her silent vigil. She was a strong young woman, a born leader with raw nerve. He left and walked down the hallway, but not without wanting to stay and spend the rest of the night by her side.

A sun-bleached wooden board on the Bucket of Blood rooftop shifted loosely from side-to-side, the rusted nails not wanting to let it go easily. The board popped upright, and then another board beside it, and light poured upward through the hole. A hand appeared and more boards were ripped away, allowing Eric’s head to appear. He quickly scanned the surroundings and looked back down into the room below.

“All clear,” he said quiet
ly. He pulled himself up the rest of the way and reached back down to help the others climb up. First the Gunman and Cutler, followed by Pickett, Pearce and Andrew.

Staying as low as
possible they made their way toward the edge of the roof. Cutler peaked into the alley and saw two undead wandering below, trying unsuccessfully to get into the adjacent building. He turned back to the others and placed a finger over his lips, showing them to stay quiet. “We need to find something to crawl across, it’s too far to jump,” he whispered.

Pickett crawled away and soon returned
with the boards that Eric had wrenched loose from the rooftop. “These should work.”

“
Are you kidding?” Eric hissed. “Those won't hold us.”

“
Have more faith, son…” Cutler said, with a shit-eating grin, “…since you're going first.

The
y slid the boards silently across the wide gap above the alley. Eric slowly began to make his way across, the wood bowing and creaking beneath his weight. He looked back at the others, unsure that the boards would hold him, but they only urged him forward. He looked down at the undead below him as he dangled above the alley, knowing that this wasn’t how he wanted to die, so he pushed onward, shuffling across one inch at a time. As soon as he had traversed the gap, the others began to crawl across, one-by-one. The boards bent farther and farther, cracking under their weight. Pearce was last to move across the ever-weakening boards.

“Alright
, father,” Cutler whispered, and waved him onward.

Pearce sat poised on the ledge, with his feet dangling over the side, but he hesitated to move
. He watched the undead below for a moment longer, making sure that he hadn’t been discovered. He crossed himself with the rosary and started to crawl across. He moved slowly on the quaking boards, inching himself forward. But as he neared the middle, the boards started to crack and split in half. Pearce leapt the remaining distance, just as the boards buckled beneath him, and Cutler grabbed his arm. The broken pieces fell onto an undead below.

“
Gotcha!” Cutler said, holding Pearce as he dangled above the alley.

The undead noticed him hanging there and reached
upward for his feet as Cutler lifted him up, just in time. Pearce sat there for a moment, trying to catch his breath.

“That was close,” Cutler
said.

Pearce nodded
in agreement as Cutler helped him to his feet. “Thank you, son.”

“
No problem.”

They
made their way to the other side of the roof, silhouetted by glowing moonlight. They stood in front of the gap separating them from the next rooftop, an easy leap of only a few feet, and everybody made it across effortlessly, even Father Pearce. They moved quickly across the rooftop and jumped to the next building, finally reaching the end of the road. They had reached the edge of the last building on the block and there were no more rooftops to hide on.

“
We'll have to cross the road to the next set of buildings,” Pickett told them.

“
But we’ll be exposed,” the Gunman said.

“
It’s the only way.”

“
How will we get down safely?” Eric asked.

“Chop
our way in,” Cutler said as he untied the bloodstained axe that was strapped to his back.

“We have to be
quiet…” the Gunman said, but Cutler swung the axe and broke through the roof in a single stroke, not waiting for him to finish. He winked at the Gunman and tied the axe back over his shoulder. The Gunman only shrugged at this. “Good enough.”

Cutler grabbed
Eric and lowered him through the hole into a storage room full of dried food and supplies. He quickly scanned the room, squinting in the darkness. “All clear,” he whispered as he slid over a barrel, allowing the others to climb down.

The
Gunman holstered his revolver and grabbed a butcher’s knife from the counter, and turned to Cutler. “We don't want to alarm any of our friends outside.”

The others follow
ed his lead and grabbed knifes, and Cutler wielded his axe. Father Pearce couldn’t seem to find anything, so he grabbed a rolling pin, still covered in flour from its last use. Cutler furrowed his brow, as if he was asking:
are you really going to use that?
Pearce shrugged and put it down, then grabbed an iron poker next to a wood-fire stove instead. Cutler grinned widely. “Better...much better.”

The
Gunman cracked open the storage room door, but stiffened. On the other side of the door, roaming around inside of the general store, were three undead. He turned to the others, placed a finger over his lips and readied his butcher's knife. The others nodded, preparing themselves to attack. The Gunman threw open the door, bolted out of the storeroom and jumped over the counter. He plunged his knife deep into the closest undead's neck. He hacked again, spraying filthy blood on his face, and the undead fell to the ground but continued to claw for his neck.

Cutler was
right behind him and beheaded the second undead with one swing of his axe. The Gunman continued hacking at the first undead’s neck until it was completely severed, and then kicked away the head. As the Gunman leaned over the torso it continued to move and flail its arms violently, even without the head. He stabbed the undead body in the chest repeatedly, until it finally stopped, and lay motionless between his legs.

The third undead
shuffled toward the Gunman from behind, and Cutler swung his axe, but Father Pearce plunged his poker deep into the undead's eye. Black blood sprayed his face and the undead fell to the ground with the poker still sticking from its eye socket.

“Thanks,” Cutler said.

“Don't mention it.” Pearce stepped onto the undead woman's forehead and wrenched the poker loose, and wiped it on his sleeve. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the blood from his face. “Just protecting my flock.”

Andrew
bent over and began to inspect one of the undead bodies. He carefully examined it the best he could without touching it. “Interesting.”

“
What?” Pickett asked, and stepped closer to the body.

“Well,
this man's body was already decomposed.”

“What do you mean? Decompose?”

“Like rotting meat.” He looked even closer at the body and lifted open the shirt. “Things only decompose when they're dead,” he said as he inspected its chest.

“
But he is dead,” Eric said. “We just killed him.”

“No.
He was already dead. Long before today.”

“That doesn't make any sense,” Pickett added.

“None of this makes any sense.” Andrew began to press his hands against the undead’s abdomen, palpating in a circular motion. “Hand me your knife, Sheriff.”

Pickett
hesitantly held out the blade, handle first. “What are you gonna do with it?” he questioned as Andrew took it from him.

“I need to check something, might give us some answers,” he told him,
and then plunged the knife deep into the undead’s gut and started to saw length-wise.

“Jesus!” Eric cried. “What are you doing?”

Andrew didn’t answer and continued with the knife until the undead’s gut was fully exposed. He set the knife aside and grabbed hold of the stomach, pulling it out and starting to inspect it with his glasses perched on the tip of his nose. “Just what I suspected.”

“Suspected what?” the Gunman asked.

“Here, I’ll show you.” Andrew used the sharp blade to slice open the stomach, spilling the contents out onto the wooden floor. “The stomach was distended, yet none of the contents have been digested.”

“And…what does that mean,” Eric
asked, plugging his nose from the pungent smell, but still interested in what the doctor had to say.

“Well, it means that
everything this thing has eaten over the past two days has remained in the stomach, undigested, and suggesting that it's been dead the entire time.”

“But those things are still moving…walking even,” Pickett said.

“Exactly.”

But before he could
examine it any closer, pots and pans fell in a closet, banging together and making a tremendous noise as they fell against the hard floor. The men steadied themselves and readied their weapons to attack more undead. Cutler approached the closet door with the others close behind him. He ripped the door open and raised his axe, and began to swing, but stopped mid-stroke and stared into the closet.

“
What is it?” Pickett asked him, unable to see inside with Cutler's large frame in his way.

Cutler lowered his axe to his side. “Come see for yourself
, Sheriff.”

The
Gunman and Pickett moved into the doorway and saw a young boy hiding in the corner, caked in blood, his eyes red. It was Caleb Dawsen, Rose’s younger brother, completely unrecognizable.

“
Is…is he like the others?” Eric asked.

Cutler
shook his head and walked away toward the back storage room. Pickett crouched down, reaching out his hand to the boy. “It's okay. We're not going to hurt you.” Caleb recoiled as Pickett inched closer. “We're the good guys, son,” he said as he winked from underneath his hat.

Caleb had a wild look in his eye
s and hadn’t slept since the day before. He clutched a ragged teddy bear next to his chest, the one he had since childhood, now dirty and torn and coated with blood. He slowly reached out and grabbed Pickett's hand, and then followed him out of the closet, still unsure if it was safe to come out. “Are…are there more of them?" he asked.

Pickett smiled
at him. “You're safe now.”

Cutler reappeared
from the storage room, holding fresh ammo under his arm and a sack full of food in the other. “Found this in the back.” He handed out ammo to everybody, and then reached into the bag and pulled out some stale bread and handed it to Caleb. “Thought you’d be hungry, little man.” He patted Caleb on the back, who bit into the bread ravenously, still holding the teddy bear close to his chest. Cutler followed the Gunman to the front of the store, where they could see undead roaming the street outside, aimlessly looking for food.

“
We have to find a way out of here,” the Gunman said.

“There's a back door that o
pens to the alley. Might be our safest bet,” Cutler said.

The Gunman
grabbed a handful of bullets from the box Cutler had found in the storeroom, and began to load them into his holster. “Okay. Lets go.”

•  •  •

The Gunman led the way through the alley, followed closely by Pearce, Andrew and Eric. Pickett held Caleb's hand and kept a close eye on him. Cutler brought up the rear, holding his axe ready and often walking backward and peering into the darkness behind them. For a barber who had spent the last three years cutting hair, he sure seemed able to handle himself in a fight.

They reached the end of the alley, and the Gunman
peered around the corner and checked both ways down the street. Then he floated across the street in complete silence. He made it to the opposite alley and waved the others across. First Pearce and Eric, followed closely by Andrew, Pickett and Caleb. Cutler took off sprinting, but stopped dead in the middle of the road. Several undead at the far end of the street had spotted him.

“
Shit
.”

The Gunman waved
him onward. “Hurry!”

Father Pearce knocked
out a window with his poker and crawled through the broken glass. Eric, Andrew, Pickett and Caleb all followed behind him, while the Gunman and Cutler stood in the alley, armed and ready, waiting for the undead to attack.

The un
dead entered the far end of the alley and shuffled straight for them. The Gunman and Cutler launched toward them and began to dismember the undead. They hacked at necks, stabbed skulls, and kept as silent as possible. Cutler chopped off an undead's leg with the axe and sliced through its neck. Putrid blood soaked into the dirt. Once finished, the Gunman and Cutler stood in the alley surrounded by undead effluence. An undead torso still moved, reaching out for them and trying to crawl closer. Cutler stepped toward it and swung the axe, quickly removing the head, and kicked it into a puddle of bloody mud. Its eyes continued to look around and twitch uncontrollably, so Cutler pulled out a long knife and stabbed it in the forehead.

They stood there for a moment longer, making sure nothing else was coming,
and then crawled through the window and escaped into the building, finding refuge, if only for the moment.