Blood & Dust (Lonesome Ridge Book 2) Read online

  “How many?” Connor asked as the shooting tapered off.

  Jasper fired a bullet into the skull of a man that was twitching on the ground. “Seven,” he replied after counting.

  Connor turned his back on Abby and lowered his voice. “Any family?”

  Jasper followed Connor’s lead and turned as well. “Abe, in the corner. He’s the first one you took out.”

  The sheriff nodded. “’Kay. Try not to let her see.” He reloaded his guns. “Nathan, Moses, Patrick, watch this door. Nothing comes out, and I mean nothing. You see one of us coming through there, shoot us. Got it?”

  The three men exchanged doubtful looks, but they nodded.

  Connor gave them a hard stare before turning to the last man. “Tripper, you’re with us. Let’s go.”

  “Where we goin’?” the man asked as he trotted along behind Connor, Jasper, and Abby.

  “Gotta clear the other side of the barn.” The sheriff paused and looked in a window that was low enough to the ground to see into. “No movement. Let’s keep going.”

  He rounded the barn and prepared to open the other doors. No growling or movement could be heard inside.

  “Maybe we got’em all,” Tripper whispered.

  Connor glanced at him, but didn’t respond. He was positive they didn’t. There were still too many bodies missing and the bad feeling in the pit of his stomach said there were more undead here than seven.

  “Ready?” he mouthed to the group. They all nodded. He swung the door open and leveled his gun at the interior of the barn. Not a sound could be heard. It was unnaturally quiet.

  The four of them crept inside, keeping their guns up and their mouths shut. They used the light from the windows and doors to check the corners and inside the little room just inside the door.

  “Anything?” Jasper whispered as he stood next to Connor as they popped more bullets into their guns.

  “Nothing. Not even a body. This place was on fire, clearly, but someone put it out. That ain’t right. Those things wouldn’t do that, not that I’ve seen, anyway. Something’s off here.”

  Tripper came out of the room with a lantern that was sooty and blackened but usable. “We could use this.” He struck a match and held the lantern up. Shadows danced before it, illuminating just enough of the barn to make it even creepier than before. “You hear that?”

  The four of them paused and listened. It was silent, deadly silent. “No,” Connor said. “What’d you hear?”

  The man shrugged. “I dunno. It came from over there. Coulda been a rat or somethin’. I’ll check it out.” He strode forward with the lantern held high in one hand and his gun in the other.

  “No,” Connor hissed at him. “Get back here.”

  The man waved the hand that held the gun at Connor. “Watch my back,” he said and tossed Abby a wink.

  “Dammit,” Connor swore as he raised both of his guns. “Jasper, Abby, watch the door.” He stepped out and started after Tripper just as the man reached the middle of the barn.

  A blood-curdling scream echoed off the rafters, followed almost immediately by the high-pitched squeal of a man in terror. Tripper stumbled back from the stall he was just about to enter and a body flew at him. It connected with him and took him down. His screams bounced down the barn to both ends. Silhouettes appeared at the other door and gunshots mingled with the screams.

  “Shit,” Connor shouted and stumbled back toward Jasper and Abby. He ducked behind a wooden post and hunkered down low. Bullets tore down the length of the barn, aiming for the bodies in the middle, but hitting everything and anything in their path. Wood splintered, dirt danced, and Tripper continued to scream.

  “Get down,” Connor hissed at Abby as he saw her poke her head out from where she had hidden behind a few barrels.

  “That’s Ma,” she cried and fixed him with a look that almost tore his heart straight from his chest.

  The screams finally stopped. Connor risked his head and peeked around the post. The bodies in the middle of the barn were still. “Stop shooting,” he called down to the men on the other side. “For God’s sakes, stop shooting.” It took several more seconds, but the firing finally came to a halt. “I’m standing up,” Connor called again. “Don’t shoot me.”

  “Sorry, sheriff,” Nathan called from the other end. “Who was that?”

  “Trip. I’m gonna check if he’s dead.”

  The others were silent. They’d all lost more friends than they could count in the last week. This was just another wound that wouldn’t heal.

  Abby came up behind Connor. He almost told her to stay back, but decided she needed this. They walked side by side up the middle of the barn until they reached the two still bodies. Tripper was clearly dead. Not only had his throat been torn out, but several bullets had exploded in his head, leaving everything above his shoulders a mangled mess. He wouldn’t be coming back.

  Ma Crawford lay on the ground, face down. She didn’t move. Connor trained both of his guns on her and poked her with a boot. Nothing happened. Her body was riddled with holes, but her head appeared intact.

  “Abby,” he whispered and cocked his head toward her mother’s still form.

  The girl nodded and took a deep breath. She aimed the shotgun and tucked her foot under Ma’s stomach. She shoved. Ma didn’t roll over. Instead, she lurched to a crouch and threw herself at Abby. The shotgun went off before Connor had time to react and Ma and Abby crashed to the ground.

  “Abby!” Connor shouted as he shoved one gun into its holster and grabbed Ma Crawford’s hair with his free hand. It came away in chunks. Abby’s mother’s body rolled away from her. Abby was covered in blood and shaking so badly she almost couldn’t stand, but she managed to climb to her feet with a little assistance from Connor.

  He stowed his other gun and his hands buzzed over her body. “Are you bit? Did she bite you?”

  Abby slapped at his hands once, but let him finish his search. “I’m fine,” she whispered, but her voice betrayed her. He offered his arm for support and she leaned against him. “I’m fine,” she said again, this time with more conviction. She stared down at her mother’s still form. The shotgun had gone off right in the woman’s face. The woman Abby had once thought was the most beautiful person she had ever seen was now an image of mottled flesh and bone. She wouldn’t be moving again. Not ever. Abby stared at her for a count of ten, then she turned from Connor and walked back toward the way they’d come in. Her steps were a bit wobbly, but she held her head high and kept her mouth shut.

  They closed and barred the barn doors from the outside. They hadn’t finished clearing the barn, but with all the commotion, nothing else had reared its ugly head, so they felt safe enough locking whatever might still be inside in and keeping it there until they decided what to do with it. They found nothing but blood inside the house.

  “I need a few things,” Abby said as they all stood out on the dirt path that led up to the house they’d just vacated.

  Connor nodded. “Take Jasper with you.”

  She disappeared into the house with the deputy in tow.

  “Looks like rain,” one of the others said as they all watched the sun sink below the horizon.

  The sheriff glanced up at the clouds. “Yup. ‘Bout time. We haven’t had any in two weeks. We need it to wash all the damn blood away.”

  The others agreed silently. Abby came out of the house carrying a small pack on her shoulder. She walked up to Connor and stopped in front of him.

  “Burn it,” she said in hard tone.

  He didn’t expect that sort of response from her and was taken aback. “What?”

  “I want to burn it. All of it. The house, the barn, everything. I want it gone. Burn it to the ground.”

  Connor looked between Jasper and Abby. The deputy bobbed his head gently. Connor looked up at the clouds again. “Storm’s comin’ soon. If you wanna burn it, we gotta do it now.” He pulled a little box of matches from his pocket and handed it to Abby.
r />   They set up camp under the small copse of trees where they had tied their horses and watched the flames lick the night.

  CHAPTER 5

  The wind pawed at Summer Rain as she pushed through the expanse of land that wound between two cliffs. The rain pelted her with fat droplets that splashed across her bare skin and fell through the hole in her cheek to coat her tongue. Her hair plastered itself to her face and neck and obscured her vision. With a growl, she shoved the black strands away from her eyes and lowered her head.

  For the last week, she had called this place home, hunting the deer and other wildlife that came to drink at the river that snaked across the valley floor, only venturing out once to attack a homestead very near the canyon. She had stumbled upon the refuge as she fled Lonesome Ridge with a hole in her face and another in her back. Bitter hatred flooded into her, drowning out the rain. She hated that town. She hated it with every part of her being. For the briefest of moments, she had dared to hope that she could be something more than just a ruthless killer, that she could be part of something great, but it had fallen to pieces in spectacular form. The citizens of Lonesome Ridge had defended their town and they had defended it well. Summer Rain’s fellow undead fell to pieces around her.

  Summer Rain swerved around a bush that danced in the wind and headed toward the cliff face. A black mouth gaped at her and she made a beeline for it. The hole was in a piece of rock that jutted out from the wall and hidden by two large boulders that pressed together. The small cave inside was protected from the elements and served as a nice hideout.

  She stumbled inside and sank against the wall. A dark figure rose up further inside the cave, near the back where she often waited out the sun’s deadly rays. It stalked toward her with its shoulders hunched and its head low to the ground. It advanced upon her, but she just watched it. The faint light around the cave’s entrance illuminated the wolf’s head. One ear was torn and a scar traced across his snout, curling one side of his face into a sneer.

  The wolf walked up to Summer Rain and sniffed her wet clothes. As he did, her hand came up and brushed along his scruffy fur. She stared into his orange eyes and he stared back.

  The wolf broke the trance first. He leaned forward and licked the hole in her cheek. Despite the rain, a small bit of blood still dripped from it, leftovers from her earlier hunt.

  “Here,” she said as she lifted her hand up. In her fist dangled the remains of her meal, a scraggly rabbit she had managed to catch further down the canyon before the rains came up so quickly.

  The wolf sniffed at it before snatching it from her grasp. He padded back to the end of the cave and curled up. His movements were obscured by the darkness, but she could hear him ripping into the meat, tearing the flesh from the bone. She had drank all the blood and eaten many of the organs, but she saved the meat for him. She always did. Together, they had become a team, a pair of ruthless predators feared by the weak animals of the canyon.

  “We have to leave,” she said out loud.

  The wolf raised his head to her for the briefest of moments before returning to his meal.

  “We must avenge the dead.” This time, the wolf didn’t respond at all.

  “Yes,” she said, to herself more than the wolf this time. “We must avenge. It is why we were made. Vengeance. Pain. We must avenge the dead.”

  She turned her head away from the wolf and looked back out into the storm howling outside her cave. She wasn’t far from Lonesome Ridge. She could go back. She could try again.

  Her lips pressed together. She would try again.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Don’t look too big from here,” Jeremiah observed as he leaned against a thin tree on a small knoll overlooking an even smaller settlement. It was bigger than the one they had attacked a few days before, with the handful of houses and outbuildings, but not by much. “Matter o’ fact, I think I been here before with Jed awhile back. Was just a few families who settled down together, built themselves a little town. Maybe a couple dozen people, if that.”

  “That sounds like the perfect place, then. We’ll wait until the sun goes down and hit them while they’re asleep. Much safer for us that way. I don’t want another fiasco like we had at Lonesome Ridge.” Her face was set into a hard mask as she glared at the town below them. Despite her renewed enthusiasm for building a kingdom of her own, that battle had left an unpleasant taste in her mouth that she never wanted to know again. She had been too cocky, too sure of herself, and she overestimated the abilities of her fellow undead. It was a mistake she would not make again. She would be safe and sure of victory before she would attack.

  Charity glanced around at the people milling behind her. That’s always how she thought of their movements when they weren’t attacking or eating. Milling, like cattle. They were her herd and she was their master. Her lips curled into something that wasn’t a smile or a snarl. It was more of a grimace. “A herd,” she mumbled and the word was bile on her tongue. Not exactly a kingdom.

  “What was that?” Jeremiah chewed on a small bone and raised his eyebrows at her.

  “Nothing,” she said with a bit more bite than she intended. “I was just thinking out loud to myself.”

  Jeremiah’s eyebrows twitched again, but all he said was “Ah.”

  Charity’s jaw clenched and she shot a glare at him, but his face was turned back toward the town. Ever since they hit the little Mormon settlement, Jeremiah had been aloof, annoyingly so. “What do you mean ‘ah’?” she snapped.

  He turned to look at her. His eyes were wide and his mouth sagged open to reveal his tobacco-stained teeth. “I dunno,” he said with a confused shrug. “I was just sayin’ ‘ah’. Didn’t know what else to say.” He shrugged again and his puppy-dog face made Charity sigh.

  “Well, stop,” she said, this time keeping her voice soft and even. “It’s irritating.”

  Jeremiah’s mouth worked a couple times, but in the end, he just shrugged and said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  Charity pressed her lips together as he turned back toward the town. She wanted to yell at him again, to curse him out and tell him to stop doing what he was doing, but she couldn’t figure out exactly what it was that he was doing that made her so mad. Instead, she growled softly and walked back down the hill behind them to stand under a thick tree to wait for the night to come. She had been doing a lot of waiting lately, it seemed. And that was making her even madder. They couldn’t move around much in the sun. It burned them, dried them out and made their skin crack. It sucked the energy from them. The night was much better. They could walk without fear in the blackest part of the night, when nearly all other creatures were hiding. This disease, or whatever it was, let them see better in the dark. It seemed to favor the night.

  A girl barely fifteen wandered over and stood beside Charity. She stared out at the expanse of land before them, the land they had just crossed from her home where her family had been slaughtered and abandoned.

  “What?” Charity growled at her.

  The girl turned her gray eyes to Charity and stared at her with the same blank expression all the others had. She cocked her head to the side and looked at her like she expected Charity to say something.

  “Go away,” was all Charity offered.

  The girl turned and wandered back toward the others. “Cattle are smarter,” Charity grumbled, but she kept her voice low enough that no one would hear. Not that most of them would care. Besides, cattle may be smarter, but she wasn’t sure she wanted her herd to be any smarter. They followed her commands without fail, as long as she was very specific about what she wanted and explained it all very slowly. It was fantastic and irritating in the same token.

  The horde of undead stayed where they were, safe in the trees, until the sun disappeared and the small chunk of moon rose into the clear night sky. At Jeremiah’s command, the group followed him down to the town, keeping to the shadows and out of any light that might give them away. Charity stayed near the back, ready to save herself if nec
essary. She could replace the others. She couldn’t replace herself. They reached the outer houses without incident and broke off into teams of two.

  “Don’t kill them all,” Charity hissed as the groups separated. “We need some more.”

  Jeremiah led his team to the farthest of the homes. They would attack from the far side. She found herself with the girl from before, the fifteen-year-old who randomly decided to attach herself to Charity. Charity glared at her, but accepted her fate. The two of them moved in to the closest house and crept up the single step to the porch. The door opened without a sound. Charity pressed her finger to her lips as the girl looked at her again. The girl blinked. Charity bit back a sigh and walked into the house. They crept quietly through the first room, side by side.

  It was a single-story house and it was tiny by Charity’s standards. One main room with a table, a fireplace, and a few chairs strewn about, and two doors along the far wall. Charity led the girl to one door and opened it. It was a small pantry stocked with food. Nothing of interest to either of them. There was one other door. Charity raised the latch and peered inside. A large single bed sat along the far wall. Three bodies lay on it, all of them breathing deeply in peaceful slumber. The tiniest body lay in the middle.

  Charity pulled the door all the way open and motioned for the girl to go the opposite direction she did. Charity pressed her finger to her lips again and stared at the girl for a few seconds as she moved into position.

  “Now,” Charity hissed, and they both grabbed the body nearest to them. Screams erupted in the room, bouncing off the walls. One cut off immediately as the girl ripped the throat out of a woman not much older than she was. Charity sneered as her hands wrapped around the throat of the woman’s husband. He tried to shout, but Charity squeezed and his breath was cut off. He struggled and slapped at her arms, but she was strong, much stronger than he was. She leaned over as he kicked and thrashed and let her teeth sink into the flesh of his cheek.