Dead in the West

He could not pull the trigger.

Many times he had hated his father to the point of wishing death on the man, but now, when his life depended on it—and he tried to tell himself his father had no real life to lose—he could not pull the trigger.

Rhine grabbed David by the shoulders and shot his head forward, knocking aside the revolver David held. David screamed, knowing what was next and hoping he had the strength to blow his own brains out, lest he too become like the dead. And then there was a shotgun stock between him and the snapping teeth of his father.

Rhine bit a chunk of wood from the stock, and the stock moved back toward Rhine's face.

Teeth and blood flew and Rhine went down. The Reverend appeared in his place.

"Move back, boy," the Reverend yelled. "Keep it going."

David came unfrozen, began to use his revolver, but he was moving backwards by inches only. The zombies were thick as buzzards on a dead cow.

Hands came out of nowhere, clutched at the defenders. They knocked them off and kept trying to move backwards—toward the last stand—the storage room. The zombies were like a living, biting wall.

Montclaire, fat and bloody, grabbed Abby by the collars, lifted her off her feet toward his slobbering mouth. Abby cracked the barrel of her .45 across his forehead, hard, and Montclaire staggered. The dress ripped and Abby fell to the floor, crawling over brains, blood, bodies, and spent cartridges, looking for the gun she had dropped.

She found her pistol on Rhine's chest, grabbed for it, but Rhine's hand came up and gripped hers, Rhine lifted his head. His skull was cracked, but the Reverend's blow had not been fatal. Rhine snapped his mouth forward and bit off Abby's thumb.

Abby let out a cry, jerked free, crawfished backwards.

David spilled over her, fell across his father, and rolled. When he came up, Rhine was rising, and Abby's revolver fell from his chest to the floor.

David leaped for it, got it, came up rolling, twisted back to look at his father's face, and this time, he fired. Rhine's nose disappeared and he fell back with a slap.

David spiraled to his feet, tried to help Abby. Zombie hands grabbed both of them. He slugged and kicked his way free, but Abby didn't make it. A zombie slipped in the gore, went down, grabbed Abby's leg, bit through dress and kneecap. Another got her in the small of the back. One bit deep into her shoulder.

Stiff-arming her way clear, she staggered toward David. He got an arm around her waist, felt her weight slump against him. And then standing in front of them was the faceless sheriff and Caleb (still dragging guts, though most of them had been ripped out).

David shot Caleb in the face, and he went down. The sheriff bobbed his head forward and hit David with the bloody maw that had once been his face. A thick swathe of blood traced David's already powder residue-, blood-, and brain-splattered face, but without teeth, Matt could not inflict a wound.

David shot the sheriff in the maw of his face, and Matt, at peace at last, went down.

Abby lifted her head, and when she did, she saw the Reverend's back. At the same moment, the Reverend turned, and their eyes met. He saw the wounds.

"I love you," she said, and she snatched the revolver from the bewildered David's hands, pushed herself upright, put the cocked revolver under her chin, and pulled the trigger.

Like a frightened prairie dog leaping from a hole, her brains jumped out of the top of her head and she crumpled at David's feet.

David reached the revolver from Abby's hands, looked at the Reverend.

"The storeroom," the Reverend managed. "Lock yourself in. You might make it, boy."

"Not without you," David yelled.

The Reverend kicked a zombie back, slugged another aside. "Do as I say, you little bastard."

David shook his head.

At that moment, Doc went down beneath a horde of zombies, and the Reverend, stepping back to avoid snapping teeth, clubbed his attacker in the ivories-shattering them—

clubbed again, cracking the zombie's skull, dropping him.

Doc was swarmed. The zombies were on him like a pack of dogs. He cried and twisted his face toward the Reverend. Just before more zombies dropped down on Doc, the Reverend tossed aside the shotgun he had been using as a club, drew his revolver, and shot him in the narrowly exposed part of his head.

Abby and Doc dead, the life almost went out of the Reverend, but then, with the zombies diving for Doc, a path was cleared, and in a twinkling of a second, the Reverend saw the Indian.

The Indian was still standing at the base of the church steps, the storm screeching around him like a great horned owl. Behind him, the Reverend thought he could see the faintest hint of oncoming daylight.

There came a smile to the Indian's face that seemed to say: "I know what you're thinking, and you won't make it."

Snarling, the Reverend darted toward David, who had his back against the storeroom wall, and who, due to Abby and Doc being prey for the monsters, had a short lull in the onslaught in which to gain a breath. He had not tried to go into the storeroom.

Three strides brought the Reverend to the door. He snatched David up, opened the door, and set the boy inside by the scruff of his neck. Stepping in beside him, he tried to pull the door closed, but a zombie's face appeared, and then a hand, and the hand clutched the door and pulled.

The Reverend flicked out a left jab, knocking the dead man back, then he grabbed the door and tried to slam it, but the zombie was not giving up. He clutched the door, tugged, and the Reverend went sailing into the zombie's arms.

Up came the Reverend's revolver, under the zombie's chin. The Reverend fired, the dead man went down (dead for good this time).

And now they were all on him, trying to bite him, take him down like they had Doc, but the Reverend was fast and slippery. He spun, twisted, kicked, punched, cracked out with the barrel of the Navy, trying to find freedom. A kick in the face kept a twelve-year-old boy from biting him, a twist of an elbow hit a man in the neck and stumbled him back, a ducking of his head left teeth to snap air, harmlessly above him.

Then David was beside him, firing his revolver three times—BLAM—BLAM—

BLAM—and three zombies went down. It was the space they needed, and the Reverend pushed David back through the door, sending him ass over heels a few steps down the stairs, then the Reverend was clutching the knob with one hand, pushing the Navy into his sash with the other, then he had both hands on the knob, and up came David, grabbing at the Reverend's waist, serving as an anchor.

A zombie's hand was stuck between door and jamb, stopping the closing, and the Reverend, grunting, giving it all he had, and David doing the same, pulled, and the zombie's fingers cracked, snapped, and fell like little sausages onto the top step, and the door went closed, David leaping up to throw the little, weak-looking latch.

Safe.

For a moment.

The door rattled fiercely.

"Single-minded, ain't they," David said.

The Reverend nodded.

"It won't hold them will it?"

The Reverend shook his head, found the lamp and matches on the shelf beside the door, and lit it.

The door rattled steadily.

"We're dead meat, aren't we, Reverend?"

"If we can hold until daylight, we've got a chance. Can't be much longer."

And then he thought: "But how much longer do they need?"

"Come on," he said, "let's go down."

At the bottom of the stairs, the Reverend climbed on top of some crates and leaned toward the curtained window. He flicked back the curtain. The window, like the others, was barred. There would be no sneaky escape route. They were trapped like rats in a flooding ship.