Dead in the West

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.

But a flickering of hope surged through him. He could see the first pink rays of morning.

He let go of the curtain and climbed down.

"Only way out of here," he said to David, "is the way we came in. But it's almost sunup.

We might make it."

The Reverend loaded his revolver with the remaining rounds in his coat pocket.

Altogether, he managed five rounds. "One short of a full house," he said. "And you?"

"Empty," David said hollowly.

The Reverend handed David the Navy.

"No," David said. "You're better with it. I do okay with a shotgun or pistol at point-blank range—but—well, you keep it. And Reverend. Don't let me end up like them— know what I mean?"

The Reverend nodded grimly.

The door stopped rattling.

David and the Reverend looked up the stairs.

"Have they gone away?" David asked.

The Reverend glanced toward the curtain. From where he stood, he couldn't see daylight, only the light of the lantern he had set on a crate.

"I don't think so," the Reverend said.

Then there was a bang like the end of the world. The door at the top of the stairs had split apart, and the tip of the great cross that had hung on the wall poked through.

The cross was pulled out and came back with a terrific wham! The door split completely open and fell away, except for a fragment that swung out on the one remaining hinge at the top.

The Indian stepped into the doorway, holding the cross. His hands were spilling forth white smoke where he held the cross. Even his boots where they touched the hallowed ground boiled smoke.

But the Indian was smiling. And perched on his shoulder like some terrible parrot, chattering like a monkey, was the little girl with the doll.

Behind the Indian and the little girl, the dead pushed forward, licking their lips, moaning eagerly.

"They're mine," hissed the Indian, and the dead moved back.

The Indian stared at the Reverend for a long moment, as if to show him that the cross and the church were not enough. "Greetings from hell, preacher man," he said, and he tossed the huge cross at the Reverend and David.

The cross struck the floor where the Reverend had stood, and the end of it came slamming down on the last two stair steps, shattering them to splinters.

The Reverend jerked up the Navy and fired, hit the little girl in the forehead, sent her flying from the Indian's shoulder. Her doll came clattering down the stairs.

"How noble," said the Indian. "Saving a little child from hell." Then stretching out the words:

"But who will save you?"

The Indian started down the stairs.

Perhaps it was instinct, the desire to do something, even if you knew it was futile.

The Reverend shot the Indian through the forehead. A hole appeared, but the Indian continued down the steps.

The Reverend saw the spider-thing birthmark on the Indian's chest and knew that this was prophecy of his dream come true. In the dream he had been devoured by the spider-thing, and in a symbolic way, that was about to become a reality.

The Reverend found his eyes latched to the spidery marking, and he felt the terror of the dream again—the long boat with the boatman in black, poling into the spidery maw of doom.

And then a thought came to him. Perhaps, if the Lord had revealed his evil through a symbol in a dream, he had also revealed the evil one's Achilles' heel.

He fired a shot into the spider-thing on the Indian's chest.

But no. The Indian laughed.

Then the Indian moved, like a flash of lightning he moved, and he had the Reverend by the throat with one huge hand, lifting him off his feet, to look him in the eyes.

And behind the dead eyes of the Indian were the blazing fires of the demon, and the Reverend saw the bullet holes in the head, the little pieces of lead shot from Matt's shotgun puckered there, and the rope burn on the neck, and the spider-thing on his chest—the spider-thing that seemed to crawl in the darkness.

The Reverend's breath came in gasps. His tongue protruded. His feet kicked. The gun hung limply in his right hand, plopping uselessly against something in his pocket—

THE LITTLE BIBLE.

Holy objects, if you believe in them, Doc had said, if you believe in them they have power.

Tossing the revolver to his left hand, the Reverend pulled the Bible free with his right hand and pushed it into the Indian's face, calling upon the God almighty in his head, since he had neither the wind nor the tongue for it.

Upon contact with the Indian's face, the Bible blazed, burned out the big man's right eye.

Growling, the Indian twisted his head, and his cheek sent the Bible flying across the room, where it struck a crate and fell in a smoking ruin to the floor.

Smoke curled out of the Indian's eye socket, and a sudden cairn came over him. He smiled at the Reverend and said, "Little, little man."

The Indian opened his mouth. His jaw came unhinged.

All of this had happened in seconds, and for part of it David had stood frozen, mesmerized, but now he moved, hammered against the Indian's legs.

The Indian, with a brush of his hand, sent David spinning roughly into a crate, as if he were nothing more than an annoying dog trying to hump his leg.

David rolled to his feet and pulled his jackknife from his pocket. Opening it, he rushed forward, slammed it into the Indian's leg.

The Indian swatted David with his free hand again, this time the blow was so vicious, it knocked the boy against a crate with such force he seemed to drip down the side of it.

The Reverend was losing consciousness. He could see the great mouth opening and the impossible teeth growing, could smell the odor of death churning up through the tunnel of doom—covering him with its stink as if it were an oversized nightcap.

And then, just before all went black, he saw out of the corner of his left eye, a ray of sunlight—just a tiny needle of light, but light, just the same.

Painfully twisting his head to the left as far as the Indian's grip would allow, he saw that by straining his left eye, he could see the rope that held the curtain over the window.

Even as the Indian was about to engulf the Reverend's face, the Reverend lifted his left hand, fired the revolver, missed (there was the sound of tinkling glass), fired again, and cut the rope.

A thin sword of light stabbed in and broadened as the curtain swung fully aside, and the room went from black to golden.

The zombies at the top of the stairs screeched in chorus, not only was light edging in at them from the storeroom, but it had crept upon them, unnoticed, from behind. In a mad scramble they turned to flee. The Indian, who had been diving his head forward for the fatal bite, was hit full in the face by the sunlight, and it was like a blow to him.

Screaming, he thrust the Reverend from him, smashing him into a crate, turned, and started up the stairs, taking marvelous leaps. The Indian's back started to puff black smoke.

"You okay, Reverend?" David asked, helping him up.

"Yeah. Thanks to your distraction."

"I didn't do nothing. That was some shooting."

"Yeah," said the Reverend. "It was, wasn't it?"

He pushed the revolver into his sash and they went up the stairs, slowly.

The church was on fire. Zombies had burst into flames from the sunlight, had heaped up amongst the shattered pews, and had fallen against the walls, setting it ablaze.

The Indian stood in the center aisle. He was trying to make his legs move, but they were melting like candle wax, flowing out of his pant legs, filling his boots.

He dropped to the floor, face first, arms out in crucifix position.

The church was really ablaze now. The walls had caught good and the flames had spread to the rafters. The old roof was creaking threateningly.

The Reverend and David made a run for it, leaping over the dissolving body of the Indian as they went. The Reverend first. David second—

—and one of the Indian's hands shot out and grabbed David by the ankle, pulling him to the floor. Wheeling, the Reverend saw the Indian's ruined, blackened face, the jaws spread, showing teeth through rents in his cheeks, and like some sort of monstrous lizard, the Indian lunged forward—his teeth snapping against David's face.

Too late, the Reverend leaped forward, kicking the Indian's head. The head, like a powdered ball of ash paper, came apart and the teeth scattered like rotten peppermints to join the smoking remains of the other zombies on the blood-slick floor.

When the Reverend turned to look at David (hardly able to do it), the boy was staring at him, a look of horror on his face.

The Reverend dropped to his knees to help him up.

"No good," David said. "I'm a goner. Kill me."

But the Reverend could not bring himself to do it. He knew the thing for him to do was take his empty revolver and smash the boy's head without warning, but he simply could not.

With his arm around David's waist, he helped him outside, avoiding blazing timbers and the burning remains of zombies. By the time they had gotten down the steps, fire had totally claimed the church, and a tongue of flame licked out of the doorway at their backs.

The Reverend laid David down in front of the crate that held the Indian's woman, held the boy's head up with his hand.

"Feel weak," David said. "I—I'm so sorry."

Blood was running down the boy's cheek, into his shirt collar.

In a moment, the wound would sicken David to death, then he would live again. Or rather the shell—that had been David—would move. And it would be hungry, ready to bite and spread the Indian's poison.

"For the sake of God, Reverend—Jeb. Don't let this happen to me," David moaned.

The sake of God, thought the Reverend, frozen, unable to move. THE SAKE OF GOD!

That old bastard had certainly gotten his pound of flesh out of this one. Pounds of flesh.

He has made everything I touch sour and decay. Defeating the Indian, his evil, was nothing but an empty victory.

"Please" David said.

"Okay, son " the Reverend said, and he got his feet under him, began looking about for something to do the deed with other than his revolver. Something heavy or sharp.

Then it was out of his hands.

David closed his eyes and breathed no more.

The Reverend stepped back, staring at the body, wondering if the Indian's disease could be spread after he was dead.

David's eyes popped open.

The Reverend pulled the empty revolver from his sash. It would have to do after all.

David pulled his feet beneath him, stood. But the rays of the sun were on him, and immediately he began to dissolve. He let out one little screech, caught fire, and fell.

II

The Reverend buried what was left of David behind the church and made a rude cross out of some blackened wood. He put the lid on the crate with the woman's body in it, stacked kindling around it, and set it on fire, burned it until it was nothing more than gray ash that was caught up by the wind and carried away.

He let all the stock he could find in town go free, then he took brands from the smoldering church, worked them to flame, and set fire to the town—lest some monster might be hiding in the shadows of a building, waiting for sundown.

Then, with his horse saddled and a few supplies taken from the General Store, he rode out of Mud Creek.

Up on the hilltop, the same from which he had first surveyed the town, he looked down at the smoking ruins and the little blazes here and there and thought of Abby, Doc, and David. He thought of all the lives— literally gone up in smoke—because of a savage moment on a dark night.

He thought about God and his harsh ways, and tried to figure some answer for it, but none would come.

Finally, he turned the horse, gave it his boot heels, and disappeared into the tall East Texas pines.

III

What the Reverend didn't see was a very large spiderlike thing—the exact shape and size of the birthmark on the Indian's chest—crawl out from beneath the shadowy protection of a fallen church beam and move lumberingly, smoking all the while, puffing up little spurts of flame, toward a large hole that had once been beneath the church and had been the home for a prosperous ground hog.

It tumbled into the hole, out of sight, and a wisp of dark smoke belched out after it to temporarily mark its passing.

Then the smoke was gone and the sky was clear and the day turned hot.

This edition of Dead in the West © 2005

by Night Shade Books

Jacket illustration © 2005 by Colleen Doran

Jacket & interior layout and design by Jeremy Lassen Scanned/OCR/Proof:

Meatisgood

First Edition

ISBN 1-59780-014-7 (Trade Hardcover)

ISBN 1-59780-015-5 (Limited edition)

Night Shade Books

http://www.nightshadebooks.com