Ashes of the Dead - Bucket of Blood (11 page)

Clay stood over Aaron’s body watching him die as
the others finished off the remaining undead. When the killing was over, the alley was carpeted with the remains of dozens of undead, some still twitching and moving as they clung to life. Even the fingers on a dismembered arm moved and clawed at the dirt. Cutler stepped over the brutalized body of an undead woman, still clinging to life, and chopped into its forehead with his axe. Its eyes twitched briefly as Cutler dislodged his weapon. He stared at it for a moment longer, making sure it was completely ‘dead’.

Clay was still standing over Aaron’s body when
Jack walked over next to him, raised his gun, and blew Aaron’s brains out. Without hesitating he reloaded his gun and started walking toward the end of the alley. “I expect all of you to do the same for me. For
any
of us,” he told them as he holstered the revolver. “There are enough of those things wandering around already.” Clay stood there for a moment longer, stunned by what Jack had done. But shook it off, knowing that it was for the best.

The men crossed the next street with ease and found their way back to the general store. They climbed up to the roof
through the storeroom and jumped from one building to the next until they reached the Bucket of Blood. They had returned, but not without blood loss.

•  •  •

Rose and Elijah held the bedroom door shut, pushing their backs against it with all of their weight. The door rattled and shook violently as the undead from the other side pushed against them with incredible force. Elijah dug his heels into the floor, leaving black boot marks on the wooden surface as he threw his body hard against the door. He tried frantically to keep it barred, but the door began to crack open and an undead hand managed to push through the thin opening, clawing and scraping on the doorjamb. More undead continued to shove their way into the hallway and push against the door, wrenching it open a little farther. Rose used her free hand to grab the shotgun and shoved it through the crack, and then blasted the undead in the head. The hand retreated from the opening and they managed to slam the door shut again. Elijah reached up and held the door handle, trying desperately to prevent them from coming through again.

Everybody
from the Bucket of Blood had crammed inside the room when the horde of undead had overtaken the second floor, and this was their only refuge. Two men grabbed a desk and wedged it against the door as best they could.

“
What are we gonna do?” Elijah asked.

“They'll come back for us,”
Rose said, just as more undead surged against the door, and it began to splinter down the middle from their weight.

“
It can’t hold much longer,” he said, struggling to keep the door shut.

The two men
grabbed the bed and slid it against the desk, but it was no use, the door cracked farther and undead began to crawl through. At that same moment, an axe slammed through the roof, breaking through boards and crushing the plaster. It chopped again and again, until a hole appeared through the roof and Cutler popped his head down.

“Rose!
Hurry!” he yelled.

Cutler and
the Gunman reached down and began hoisting people through the small hole, first women and children, then the rest. Rose stayed with Elijah and tried to hold back the undead. She reloaded her shotgun and blasted another undead in the chest as it crawled through the cracked door. She fired again and blew off the undead’s head, but more quickly took its place and continued to push their way through the door.

“
Rose, go!” Elijah commanded. “I'll hold them off as long as I can!” More undead piled against the door and the furniture slid forward, allowing the door to open a few inches farther. Elijah leaned even harder against the door, digging and kicking his boots into the floor, pushing back against the immense weight. The undead fingered his shoulders and clawed at his collar. “Go Rose…now!”

“Rose.
Hurry!” Cutler yelled through the hole.

The undead
grasped Elijah’s neck and were only moments away from overtaking him. “I can't hold it much longer. Go!”

Rose
leapt forward and jumped toward the hole, and Cutler grabbed her forearm and lifted her to safety. As soon as Rose disappeared through the hole, Elijah lunged forward and the door exploded open behind him, and undead flooded into the room. They rushed him, biting into his arms, digging at his stomach, and ripping flesh from his neck. He screamed in agony as the undead ate him alive. Rose reached down through the hole trying to grab his hand as he fought his way closer, their fingers touching for a brief moment, but it was too late, and the undead pulled him down to the ground.

“No!
Elijah!” She yelled as Cutler held her back.

Rose
fell to her knees, panting hard as Elijah screamed from the room below, still clinging to life. His frantic screams were followed by silence, and nothing but the insatiable undead could be heard in the room below. Rose embraced Caleb and pulled him into her chest as he cried out for his best friend, tears streaking down his swollen cheeks.

The
Gunman turned to Jack with no time to waste. “How do we get to the mineshaft?”

“
It runs underneath the church,” Jack responded.

“
That's right,” Father Pearce added, “The church was built over it…years ago.”

“
Let's get these people out of here,” the Gunman told them. "We have no time to waste."

“All of them? Wom
en? Children? Everybody?” Jack asked.

Gunman
checked his revolvers and looked at Rose. “
Everybody
.”

•  •  •

Cutler and Eric stole around a corner and hid behind a railing. They saw the church perched across the street, sitting ominously in the moonlight and shrouded in darkness. They looked both ways, checking for the undead as the Gunman and Sheriff Pickett waited nearby in the shadows.

“Alright,” Cutler whispered, “Let’s go.” Cutler waved
them forward, and the Gunman and Pickett started to lead people across the street, keeping low and moving as quick as they could. They reached the church and the Gunman peered through a dark window, studying the inside. He unholstered a revolver and cracked open the immense front doors, which groaned and shuttered under their own weight, in desperate need of oiling.

He paused in the doorway and
studied the inside. The church was empty, nothing but darkness penetrated by faint pillars of lamplight that filtered through the clouded windows from outside. “Okay. Everyone in.” He stood there and carefully watched the street as the townspeople filed into the church. It was a safe haven for now, but the Gunman wasn’t sure how long that would last. Even if they made it out of town, it was hard to say how far this sickness had spread. He had watched how the undead killed needlessly and without purpose, and how everyone they touched would eventually rise again. He pushed these thoughts away and went back to watching the street.

One-by-one
, the people found places to sit. Elderly lay down in the pews. Women and children found seats on the floor. As soon as everybody had made it into the church, Cutler and Eric pushed a heavy wooden pew toward the door. Andrew jumped in at the last second and helped to slide the pew against the door. Cutler barred the door shut with a candlestick, and then grabbed another pew and slid it into place. They continued pushing pews against the front doors until a mound of them blocked the entrance.

Deeply satisfied with his
minor contribution, Andrew wiped his hands and sat in one of the pews, watching as Cutler and Eric continued to block the windows and worked to reinforce the inside of the church.

The
Gunman stood near a window, keeping watch while people around him began to fall asleep from exhaustion. Pickett sat down next to him and rested his eyes for a moment. It was now well past midnight, and many people had gone without sleep since the day before. The Sheriff's head rested firmly against the wall, but he was too restless to get any more than a few moments of peace, and was soon awakened by his own thoughts.

He turned to the Gunman, who hadn’t taken his piercing eyes off of the street outside. “
Now what?” he asked him.

The Gunman holstered
his revolver and looked at Cutler, and watched him drag another pew toward the growing stack in front of the church doors. “We dig.”

Early morning sunlight fell through the church, bathing a huge stack of pews that had been piled against the door. Andrew lay in one of them, trying his best to get a few more minutes of sleep, but at the opposite end of the church, Cutler and Clay were already hard at work. They stood neck-deep in a hole, surrounded by ripped up floorboards and a huge pile of dirt. Cutler swung a huge pickaxe and made a tremendous amount of noise as he repeatedly beat against the ground, breaking into the rock-hard dirt. Clay used a shovel to remove the loose dirt out of the hole in between Cutler's blows.

An effigy of Jesus
hung on a cross above them and supervised their work, watching them desecrate
His
church. Jack sat nearby, staring at the rising sun through a crack in the window while finishing the remnants of a tattered cigar.

At the other end of the church,
Caleb lay on a pew next to Rose, cuddling closely and dreaming hard as she caressed his head and ran her fingers through his dirty blonde hair. The Gunman kept watch by a window and squinted hard into the rising sun. He saw an undead wandering down the street, but it was no threat at the moment. Pearce was sitting on the floor reading a pocket-sized bible, one that he had always kept with him whenever he traveled.

“
Where's your god now, Father?” the Gunman asked him.

Pearce
marked his spot in the Bible and tucked it away, exchanging it for a small silver flask hidden on the inside pocket of his coat. He took a short swig. “Oh…he's still out there, son.” He took another drink.

“Don’t tell me that he ‘works in mysterious ways’,” the Gunman responded.

“No. His ways are always clear to those who look for them. But somebody sure pissed him off,” he said smiling, and then took another drink and tucked the flask away.

O
n the other side of the church, Cutler and Clay continued to work, standing even deeper in the hole than before. Cutler swung the pickaxe, c
lunk,
and struck a solid surface, reinforced hard wood. He beat against it again. “We're there!” he yelled as he threw the pickaxe out of the hole and grabbed his axe. He began swinging and chopped through the hard wood like butter.

Rose rubbed Caleb's shoulder and started to wake him. “Time to go, sweetie.”

Caleb rubbed his eyes. Like any child he never had any problems sleeping through just about anything, from thunderstorms to somebody beating on reinforced wood with an axe only a few feet away. Rose helped him to his feet and took his hand. “What’s going on?”

“We’re leaving, honey,” she said, and then started to lead him toward the opening.

Everybody started to gather around the hole, now wide awake and ready to get the hell out of there. Cutler swung again and the roof of the mineshaft gave way, causing a cloud of dirt to mushroom into the air and fill the church in a thick haze. Cutler waved his arm through the air, clearing the cloud of dirt, and revealing an underground tunnel.

Jack
stood and finished his cigar, and then smashed it into the floor with his boot, smearing half-burnt tobacco into the wood. “Alright.” He walked over to the hole as Cutler was still waiting for the air to clear. “I knew it,” he said, patting Cutler on the back. “Good work.” Jack had a way of always letting other men, often better men, do the hard work for him. Then he would step in when the time was right and take the credit.

Clay
climbed down into the tunnel and looked into pitch-blackness as he checked both ways, making sure that it was safe to enter. “All clear.”

Eric lit a kerosene lantern and
handed it to Clay, who held it as high as he could in the crammed space to check the tunnel one more time. He let his eyes adjust and then moved ahead, keeping low and running his hand along the dirt wall. Jack jumped in behind him and disappeared as well.

“Alright folks,” Pickett directed, “Into the tunnel, one at a time.”

Everybody followed suit and stepped down into the tight space. Pickett hopped down next and helped Rose and Caleb. Cutler, Andrew and Pearce were right behind them, and the Gunman took one last look around the church before jumping in, bringing up the rear.

Jack and Clay
led the way through the dark tunnel with everyone following eagerly behind them. The ground in the tunnel seemed to slope upward and the mineshaft branched several times, with endless tunnels that disappeared into the darkness. Nobody spoke as they walked and their journey underground became eerily quiet. Only the shuffling of feet and an occasional cough was heard. The Gunman and Cutler walked near the front of the pack, with Rose and Caleb right behind them. Cutler had found an old rusted lantern and managed to get it lit, but the kerosene had slowly been leaking out over the years and there was no telling how much longer it would produce the precious light that they needed to find their way.

“Ever think you’d be walking through a mineshaft leading a group of people to safety as you escaped a horde of wretched murdering psychopaths?” Cutler asked the Gunman.

“It hadn’t crossed my mind when I woke up this morning,” the Gunman replied, “But then again, there are a lot of things in this world that hadn’t crossed my mind before this morning,” he said smiling, his face outlined roughly by dim lantern light.

Cutler laughed. “You can say that again. It’s been a while since I’ve had this much adventure in my life.
And forgetting the circumstances, this has been kind of fun,” he told him, a devious smile curling on his face.

They
continued to fumble through the dark, slowly making progress with no end in sight. Farther up the tunnel, Jack and Clay started to pick up the pace. Before the others could realize what was happening, Jack and Clay were racing down the tunnel, far ahead of everybody. For several minutes they ran as fast as they could through the darkness. Their lantern light suddenly disappeared around a corner.

“
Jack-- slow down!” Rose yelled. But there was no response, only darkness. Rose tightened her grip on Caleb’s hand, holding him closer. “Jack!”

Far u
p ahead, Jack and Clay had stopped near a huge support beam, panting hard as they caught their breath. They were now well ahead of everybody and had taken at least two hard corners, keeping them far out of sight.

“Jack, w
hat the hell are we doing?” Clay asked, just as confused as the people running behind them.

Jack
threw him a shovel that he had grabbed before jumping into the tunnel. “Take out the support beam.”

“
What about those people? This will bring the whole thing down!”

“Just do it,” he demanded, “
Now, god dammit!”

Clay
hesitated, and then began to beat the shovel against the beam. After several hard blows the old rotten beam cracked through the middle and began to splinter apart. Dirt trickled from the ceiling, a sure sign that something really bad was about to happen. Clay beat it again, but his sweaty hand slipped on the handle, shoving a sliver deep into his palm. “Ah fuck--.” He sucked his palm, attempting to remove it, but it had been shoved deep, and the lantern light was too dim to see where it was.

“You fucking idiot
! Give me that,” Jack said as he ripped the shovel out of Clay's hand and swung it hard against the beam. The beam cracked in half and shifted under the weight of the collapsing roof. Dirt began to pour from the ceiling as Jack and Clay turned and sprinted down the tunnel. Dirt and rocks covered their tracks and a sea of destruction followed in their wake. What had stood for years was destroyed in mere seconds from their brazen recklessness.

Rose
kept running as fast as she could with Caleb in hand, trying desperately to catch up to Jack and Clay. The ground began to rumble under her feet and the walls shook violently. She slid to a stop with the others close behind her.

“
Get down!” Pickett yelled.

Emmett
tackled Rose and Caleb and covered them with his body, creating a human shield as the mineshaft collapsed around them. Several men and woman were crushed to death instantly under the weight, encased in a tomb of rock and dirt. The Gunman jumped to the ground and covered the back of his head just as a rock struck him in the temple, knocking him unconscious.

•  •  •

A broken lantern flickered in the darkness, faintly lighting the tunnel, which was clouded with settling dust from the collapsed ceiling. Broken beams and cracked rocks laid scattered throughout the mineshaft and the outlines of several bodies were intertwined among them, twisted and broken.

A hand
appeared from the fray, tattered and bloody, not unlike the hand of an undead crawling out of its tomb. An arm appeared and pushed away a cracked beam and fallen rocks. Finally, the rest of Cutler appeared as he dug himself out of the chaos. He was covered head-to-toe in dirt and debris from the collapse. He grabbed a broken finger and twisted it back into place, and then dusted off his clothes as best he could.

Nearby,
Pickett awoke and began to moan in pain underneath a pile of rubble. He was pinned under a thick heavy beam. He tried to push it off, grunting hard and straining against the immense weight, but it wouldn’t budge. Cutler saw him struggling and rushed over to help.

“
Sheriff!"

“
Get this fucking thing off me--,” he said, coughing up blood and spitting it into the dirt. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Come on…I can't stay under here all day.”

Cutler
grabbed the beam and squatted hard, and Pickett pushed at the same time. The beam moved an inch, but no more. “
Fuck
,” Cutler yelled as he set the beam back down.

Faint
light appeared behind them. The broken light streamed from the cracked glass of a lantern, filtering through a fog of dust that still hung in the air and choked the tunnel. It was the Gunman, Andrew and Pearce, covered head to toe in dirt and filth.

“Get over here,” Cutl
er said, “The Sheriff’s hurt.”

The
Gunman walked over and held the lantern over Pickett. His face was grim and ashen from the pain of two cracked ribs making it hard for him to breathe.

Cutler,
the Gunman, Andrew and Pearce grabbed the beam together. “1, 2, lift!” They said, and heaved it an entire foot. “Quickly! Pull him out!” the Gunman yelled.

Pearce
grabbed Pickett's feet and slid him out as the others let go of the beam, letting it slam down to the ground. Pickett leaned against the wall and held his side, clenching his jaw in pain. Cutler patted him on the back, misting a cloud of dust into the air. “You alright, Sheriff?”

“I think so,” he said, and spit
more blood into the dirt. He cracked his back and picked up his hat, and then molded it back into shape and placed it on his dirty head. “Think I bit my tongue though,” he said, dabbing blood from his mouth with the edge of his sleeve. “Where is everybody?” he said, looking around the dim tunnel.

“Well, if I had to guess
…” Cutler said, and pointed behind Pickett, “…on the other side of that.”

Pickett turned, but couldn’t quite see what was behind him
in the darkness. The Gunman picked up the lantern and walked over and lifted it high, revealing a wall of rock, dirt and broken wood that completely blocked the tunnel. Cutler approached the blockage and tried to lift one of the rocks, but it was far too heavy. He reached for a much smaller rock and threw it aside casually. Then, they heard coughing coming from the other side, a woman’s cough, barely audible through the rock and dirt. “
Rose--
,” Cutler said, and then started to dig frantically near the top of the blockage. “Rose!” he yelled, but there was still no answer. He continued to dig near the top and was joined by the Gunman and Andrew, throwing rocks and dirt out of their way, all digging like rabid terriers. “Rose! Anybody!”

A small hole appeared
at the top of the rock pile, only big enough to fit a small hand through. “Yes--,” Rose cracked. She coughed in the darkness on the other side. “We’re here!”

The
Gunman lifted the lantern higher and peered through to the other side. He could just barely see the outline of Rose’s soft face in the dim light. The others continued to dig, trying to remove the heavy rocks and wooden beams that blocked their way. “Are you okay?” he asked, staring through the hole with his piercing blue eyes.

“
I think so.”

“
Who's all with you?

“I’m not sure,” she said,
and coughed from dust still hanging thickly in the tunnel.

“Can you find a lantern?”

Rose turned around and searched on her hands and knees for any signs of life, sliding her palms across the dirt floor. Her eyes began to slowly adjust to the penetrating blackness that surrounded her, but it was still difficult to see anything clearly. A thin beam of light from the Gunman’s lantern fell on a small shoe. It was Caleb’s. She grabbed it frantically and continued her search. “Caleb!” she shouted in the darkness. “Caleb!”