Blood & Dust (Lonesome Ridge Book 2) (9 page)

When they reached the steps, Connor pounded on the first one. They waited. And waited. Minutes dripped by like water from a leaky spigot. Connor pounded again. And again they waited. Finally Abby raised her gun higher and pointed at the door. The sheriff gave her a nod and inched sideways up the stairs. Nothing moved inside, not even the curtains from the open window.

Abby followed Connor into the main room. They searched the whole house, bottom to top, but found nothing. All the undead that they had killed before remained exactly where they were. The old man’s chair no longer rocked as his dead eyes stared straight ahead.

“Clear,” Connor declared after they checked the shallow root cellar. “Let’s grab some supplies, anything usable.” He reached for a jar filled with red vegetables and stuffed it into one of his pockets.

Abby stared at him with her mouth cracked open and didn’t move.

“They’re not coming back, Abs.” He didn’t turn around to look at her. Instead, he grabbed another jar. “Not ever.”

He paused with his hand on a jar of pickled cucumbers and listened for movement behind him. It was another several seconds before Abby moved to a different shelf. They didn’t take much, just a few jars of preserves and some potatoes from last year’s harvest. But it was enough to get them by and keep them going. They had packed supplies, but the less they had to use of their own, the better. They had no idea how long they would be out here. A jar of whiskey sat on a shelf near the door and Connor paused as he walked by. His hand hovered over it. His fingers danced over the cool glass. He could almost feel the fire running through his veins and the taste of the burning liquor on his tongue, the sweet numbness flooding through him. He shuddered and jerked away.

“Come on,” Connor said as he bobbed his head toward the stairs leading back up to the main house. “We gotta keep moving so we don’t lose the trail.”

Abby swallowed and tucked a small satchel of herbs under her arm. They headed back out to the horses and loaded them down with their goodies. Abby used the fence to climb up onto her horse, refusing all help from Connor.

As the sheriff watched the girl scale the fence and swing into the saddle, he couldn’t help but think about how well she was adapting to missing half an arm.

“What?”

Connor blinked and shook his head. “Nothin’,” he mumbled as he swung himself into his own saddle. “Let’s move.”

He jerked his horse’s reins and they headed off in the direction the undead had taken.

It wasn’t much longer until they found a small town. The silence was deafening as they approached. It was late in the afternoon and despite its small size, it should have been bustling with activity. The only movement was from the sign on the general store as it swayed in the light breeze.

Connor shot a look to the girl beside him. The fingers of her right hand tapped a frantic rhythm on the saddle horn. “You all right?”

Abby returned his concerned look with a glare. “Of course. Stop stalling.” She kicked her horse in the flanks and they moved forward into the town. A thorough search left them more baffled than anything. The town had clearly been hit by the undead. The carnage in the houses was a firm indicator of that. But from what they could tell, the majority of the townsfolk had been killed and eaten, not turned. Not a single undead was left behind.

Connor walked up to the small church beside the general store and rang the bell on the front step. He rang it long and loud. Again they waited. Nothing came. Nothing moved.

“Have to admit,” he said as he continued to ring the bell. “This is a bit more unnervin’ than actually findin’ ‘em, I think.”

Abby nodded. Her face was pale and her fingers were white where they clenched the shotgun. “I have this awful feeling that they’re laying in wait somewhere.”

Connor didn’t respond to that. Instead, he let his hand fall from the bell and walked off the steps. Abby followed him into the general store and they took a few more supplies. When they were loaded up, they searched the one house that stood apart from the others on the far end of town.

“Looks like they fared no better’n anyone else. Find anything?” Connor called from one of the few rooms in the tiny home.

He was answered by the sound of retching.

“Abby?” He dropped the picture frame he held in his hands and strode quickly into the back room where the sound had come from.

Abby crouched in the corner with her hands against the wall. She heaved and vomited into a pile that was already growing.

“Wh—?”

She waved a hand toward the other side of the room. Connor turned his head and had to press his hand to his own mouth to keep from throwing up. The bed sat askew in the middle of the room. On it lay a tiny body, or what had once been a body, anyway. It had been ripped apart and chewed on. The heart had been torn from the little chest and chunks of the arms, legs, and neck had been gnawed away. The head lay on the pillow, a good two feet from the neck.

“They’re monsters,” Abby whispered as she crawled to her feet and wobbled over to stand beside Connor.

Her face was sweaty and pale and he twitched as he thought about offering her his support. Instead, he just said, “They are. And they’re all going to be dead.”

A quick search produced some oil and tinder. Connor sent Abby from the house. The fire would purge this particular horror from the land. He wished it would purge it from his mind.

CHAPTER 13

“Who has that many children?” Charity screamed. The undead around her twitched and scuffled away as she flailed her arms. “Seriously,” she cried again. “Who has that many kids? How is it even possible? That has to go against nature.”

“Welp,” Jeremiah began from his position on the ground. “Some of ‘em was twins and such. Three o’ the girls looked exactly the same.” He shook his head and blinked a few times. “Kinda made me all-overish, if I was bein’ honest.”

“Shut up, Jeremiah,” Charity spat as she walked past him. “It was a rhetorical question.”

He raised his eyebrows at her, but laid back instead of pointing out that starting the question with ‘seriously’ meant she really wanted an answer. She was thankful that he still had a modicum of tact.

The stars overhead were bright and speckled the clear night sky like diamonds in a mine. Charity and Jeremiah waited outside while many of the undead finished their evening meal. Charity wore a new yellow dress with lace around the collar. It looked hand-sewn, not like her dresses ordered from back East, but it was pretty enough and it was clean.

“Why’d you take a bath, anyway?” She huffed and crossed her arms as she plopped herself down next to Jeremiah. If any of them had a sense of smell left, they would know that he still stank to high heaven, but she couldn’t tell and didn’t care either way.

He shrugged a single shoulder. “Dunno. Guess I just felt like it. Felt dirty, unclean.” He didn’t look her way when he spoke. His eyes stayed locked on the sky above.

“That never bothered you before,” Charity mumbled as she picked at a dried splotch of blood on her arm. It wasn’t from this most recent attack and she couldn’t remember how long it had been there. She suddenly felt a little dirty herself.

Jeremiah’s lips stayed shut.

“Fine, be that way.” Charity pushed herself to her feet and stomped away, grateful that he didn’t take the opportunity to yell at her again. He seemed to be leaving well enough alone lately.

Bodies littered the yard just in front of the house and the inside. Of the sixteen people they found, only five of them were acceptable by Charity’s standards. The father, the mother, and three of the older children. The rest, eleven all told, were too young, too small, and too weak. Charity didn’t want them to be part of her army and she didn’t want them turned.

“Fourteen kids,” she growled again as she kicked at a little body. “People are stupid.”

“Ma’am?”

Charity spun and cocked her head at the young woman who had appeared behind her. “What?” she snapped out of pure reflex. The West had not been good for her or her temper. Not for the first time she wondered what her life would have been like had she never met David.

The young woman gave her a small smile. “My brother Bill came up with an idea that I think you might like, miss.”

Charity narrowed her eyes at the girl and held up a hand. “First, let’s get one thing straight. You will refer to me as your highness, your majesty, or Queen Charity. Do you understand?”

The girl’s smile twitched but she gave Charity a quick nod. “Yes, your majesty.”

Charity’s glare softened a bit. “Good. And second, what’s your name again?”

“Norma, your highness.” The woman gave her a small curtsy and dipped her head low.

“Ah, right.” Norma and Bill were the two semi-intelligent undead that were turned at the last town. Charity hated them at first. She still wanted to hate them, but it was nice having someone around who would help her instead of question her. Still, she worried they would grow too bold in their actions and someday be a problem, but for now, she would let them live. If they were lucky.

“What’s his idea, then?” Charity crossed her arms and affected a bored look on her face.

The girl perked up once more. She grabbed Charity’s arm and gave it a little tug. “Come over here,” she said as her face beamed. “Come look.”

Charity glanced down at the bloody hand on her arm. Her nose curled and her lips pulled up almost into a snarl, but she let the girl lead her across the yard. They reached a part of the fence where several undead hovered. Per Charity’s instructions before the attack, the five adults had been bitten, but not killed. Some were bitten much more than necessary, but they were all alive. They now sat in a line, tied to the fence posts as they waited for the curse to take them.

“What am I looking at?” Charity set her hands on her hips and waited.

A man a little older than Norma walked through a hole in the fence to greet her. He bowed his head in acknowledgment before speaking. “We’re waiting for them to die, right? I say we speed it up.”

“And what do you propose?” Charity asked. “You can’t break their necks or they’ll be permanently dead.You can stab them, but if you hit their spine, that will kill them, too, and I won’t risk losing anyone we don’t have to.”

Bill grinned. “We bleed them.”

Charity cocked an eyebrow. “Bleed them, hmm?” Her eyes roved over the five living humans. The youngest, probably fourteen, was already close to death. His skin was turning the tell-tale pale gray of the undead and his breathing was slow and ragged. The rest were still a ways from the end, though, and if she had to wait for them to turn, it could be some time before they could leave this place. She was sick of it already.

“Fine. Get it done.” She waved her hand and walked away as Bill pulled a knife.

“What’re they doin’?”

Charity jumped and clapped a hand across her chest. “Dammit, Jeremiah, would you stop that?” She spun on the big man and glared up at him. “They’re bleeding them so we can get moving.”

“Ah.” His eyes shifted away from her toward the group at the fence, then they danced over toward the house.

“Oh, quit your judging,” she huffed and stomped away. She was getting tired of his morals.

Despite Bill’s idea, it still took most of the night for the dead to turn and wake, so Charity took the opportunity to scavenge through the house. She found a couple more dresses that she liked and packed them into a small bag that she made one of the other undead carry. She even let Norma pick out a dress or two. Jeremiah took the liberty of relieving the father of an outfit and his nasty, blood-covered get-up was left behind in the bedroom.

“Lookin’ good,” he said to himself as he turned in the mirror on the dresser.

Charity’s mouth puckered. “At least you look somewhat presentable now,” she scoffed, but she had to admit, he did look nice cleaned up. Still, she rolled her eyes and turned away to hide her approval.

“The sun’s almost gone. We should get moving. I don’t want to stay in one place too long. It’s too dangerous still. We don’t have enough yet.”

Jeremiah cleared his throat and admired himself one more time. “Yeah, we should. I’ll head out an’ get ‘em movin’.”

She watched him go before scampering over to the dresser. A porcelain basin with a paisley pattern sat on top, still filled with water from the night before. Her image stared back at her from the mirror. Her face was streaked with blood and dirt and her skin was barely noticeable beneath the muck. She took a sponge from nearby and washed some of the grime and blood from her visible skin. It wasn’t as good as a bath, but it would have to do.

“You may be dead, Charity Banks, but you don’t have to be disgusting.” She scolded her mirror image and wagged a finger. “Never again. You must be an example to the others.” She bobbed her head once in agreement and held her head high as she walked outside.

“Listen up,” she shouted from the porch steps. “From now on, we’re going to take pride in ourselves. We may be dead, but we don’t have to be dirty. I want you all to head to that stream over there and get cleaned up. We’re not animals.”

The others just stared at her until she screamed, “Go!”

They scampered away with Norma and Bill shooing them along.