XXIV

What Caff saw first was a house. A huge, old three-story relic build into the lee of a steep hill. Each story had a porch wrapping around it, shaded from weather and sun by tiled awnings held up by ivy-clung pillars. He counted four intact chimneys, cold and dead, in each corner. The jagged spear of brick in the center marked where the fifth once was. Another, smaller house was built into its side. It, too, had a chimney. A long, squat stable stood nearby, timbers rotted and collapsed inward. The faded, peeling remnants of paint, white paint, could be seen everywhere. Even the bricks. It was the largest, most lavish piece of construction he'd ever laid eyes on. It could be nothing other than the Talmadge family home.

That place had been full of life, once. Generations born, growing, living, and dying beneath its arching roof. History, plain as day, in its halls and many rooms and the strength of its walls. It wasn't hard to imagine grown Talmadges seated on that porch to watch younger Talmadges run and play in the yellow glow cast from the windows into the evening. Once ablaze with life, light, and noise, it now was a dead, dark, silence. What windows remained were grimy and stained. The missing panes were either boarded over or left to gleam jagged in the afternoon sun. Plantlife grew unchecked all around it, and that – the second thing he saw – put a chill fingertip down his spine.

Gravegrass. Ink-black and out of place. “Have I – am I gone mad?” He asked quietly. His voice sounded loud and unwelcome over the rustle of grass in the gentle breeze. Until he spoke, it had been the only sound. Even the horses were mute and still.

“If you have,” Jennie muttered, brows dropped low and drawn tight over her eyes, “I did, too.”

He grunted. See, the thing about gravegrass was that it would only – and he did mean only – grow over places where a great gathering of human dead had been buried. Not just once, either, but many times over many years. No other life would prompt it. He did not know why. Nor did he know why it grew here. Well, he did, it was just that it didn't make any kind of sense. “How–” he stopped to clear his throat, “How many people lived here?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. Fifty, maybe? Few dozen families?” Her eyes drifted across the desolate little town. “I don't see a graveyard.”

“There isn't one,” he replied. “Town law says the dead are buried in the graveyard, and nowhere else.”

“Think they didn't listen?” She asked.

“Do you?” he asked in turn.

She shook her head. “No. This is something else.”

He grunted. The gravegrass was everywhere, haloed around every building. The mill, with its tattered cloth sails and rotted, broken stocks, had it. The church, crumbled stone and broken windows, had long, thin fingers of it reaching out. Ruined house after ruined house after ruined house. Even the well, right there in the middle of it all, had a thick ruff around its walls.

Everywhere.

It put a block of ice in his gut. It was wrong. This shouldn't be here. It shouldn't have happened at all, not without someone noticing. But then, how long had it been since someone came up this way? Mayor Liberty maybe, for some reason or another. It couldn't have been recently, though. That man was no one's fool and no idiot besides. He'd have seen it.

Maybe, just maybe, he had, and been made to forget. Artemus Talmadge had thrice shown himself able to reach into a mind and do with it as he willed. Ruby Pendleton, Elijah, Rupert Wagner, Everett Swanson, and who knew how many others. Probably he was real skilled at it by now. In comparison to taking a mind over, having it forget would be easy.

“What do we do?” Jennie asked, voice a hoarse whisper. She had a tight grip on her twelve-gauge. Pale-knuckle tight. “How do we – where is everyone?” She knew, though. She had to, because he did, and she was smarter than him.

He answered anyway, “I...I think they're dead. I think they've been dead a long time.” At this, she let out a low, soft sound.

“I...” She swallowed and went on, “I was afraid you'd say that. What do we do?” she asked again. He watched her muster her resolve, battle the fear that writ large across her whole being. With his answer, which she again knew, he would put it to the test. Not like he was free of it, himself. Not fearing death was not the same as fearing nothing, and there was something here to dread. He did. Oh, he did.

He had to clear his throat to say it, though, “We – we go down there. We go and get this done.”

Jennie nodded, resigned. “Afraid you'd say that, too.”

- - -

It was worse up close. So, so much worse up close. Back up the hill the air had been chill and there had been a merry little breeze that pushed the grass and chaparral bush to-and-fro. That breeze was gone, leaving stillness in its wake, and the chill had turned biting. He and Jennie came on foot, their horses having refused to take a single step further than they had already gone. With her twelve-gauge tight against her shoulder, Jennie was a half-step ahead of him. Always and no more than a half-step. He had the rifle, lever-actioned this time, tight and raised as well. The barrels of both of their weapons swept back and forth as they moved.

Buildings loomed larger in his gaze than they stood on the ground. The shadows they cast were deeper and darker than they ought to be. It wasn't quiet. That made it worse. Timbers groaned and cracked and grumbled. There would come a clatter every so often, a small crashing sound that had both of them looking wildly for its source. They'd not found it yet. It sounded like pieces of roof or wall coming free and falling. He did not believe it was.

They had been nearest to the mill when they'd began. Ahead of them, in the lee of that steep hill, lay the Talmadge house. The rest of it was in between. It was a long, long way to go, with every nerve wound tighter by each passing second. Neither of them said a word.

It happened a while after they had passed the mill, as they were among a quartet of houses. The sun darkened, just for a moment, as a wave of something cold and sinister passed over them. It traced chill, long-nailed fingertips down their spines and drew revolted shudders from their bodies. He moved when she did, each turning to place their backs to one another. A great and terrible sound rose, unlike anything he'd heard before. It was a low, rattling chorus of dreadful noise coming from all around them.

Then he saw.

Movement drew his eyes to the free standing doorframe of one of the houses. Rising to its knees, until now hidden by shadow, was a corpse. Then he saw another, pulling itself from beneath the collapsed timbers of a roof. Then more, standing from tall, ink-black gravegrass. Corpses by the dozen, rising from everywhere around them. Clothed in the tattered, rotten remnants of what they died in, their eyes cloud and rolling, they stood. Their rotten, blackened teeth glistened from behind swollen, purpled lips. It was from their throats that the sound came. A choir of the once-dead.

One climbed from the well. A sodden brown dress clung in tatters to a small body. It was not the only child's corpse. Just the first he saw.

Jennie's words came back to him. Fifty, maybe? Few dozen families? She was right. He had been too, saying they were dead. He had just forgotten, and hated himself for it, that dead did not mean what it once had where Artemus Talmadge was concerned. He pressed his back to Jennie's, feeling the shudders of her terror. “They're behind us,” she hissed, “Oh, fuck, they're everywhere!”

The corpse closest to him was less than ten feet away. In life, it had been a man of considerable height and appreciable breadth. Strong and solidly built, like a smith or farrier. Like Gus. Caff pulled the trigger and put a bullet between its eyes, rifle jerking into his shoulder. He watched the back of its skull explode outwards and spray the rising corpses behind it with congealed, rotted blood and shards of bone. He worked the lever, brass flying from the chamber like a gunsmoke comet, as the corpse fell to the ground and did not rise again. Strings cut.

“Caff?” Jennie's voice shook. He wondered what she'd imagined, having only heard the gunshot and a body falling. He wondered if she thought he'd left her alone here. He pushed back against her, bumping their shoulders together. Still here. “I – what do we do?”

“Stay with me,” he answered. His heart thundered, rising up into his throat. Fear for Jennie's life brought a viciousness to the fore, a willingness to strike first and hard. “Aim for the head.” She wouldn't die here. He wouldn't either. “Come on.”

This time, when he fired, her twelve-gauge rolled thunder alongside.

- - -

They had so few things in their corner. Three, by his count. The corpses moved slow and clumsy, worse than the most sodden of drunks. Dragging, faltering stumbles that had them falling to the ground more often than not. They were spread out, moving towards Jennie and himself in a slowly tightening circle. Plenty of holes to get through and opportunities to make more, should the need arise. Caff picked one and made it wider, shooting one corpse in the nose, the other just above its eye. Both fell. Empty shells spun away as he worked the lever. He jerked his elbow back into Jennie's side and called, “C'mon!”, before rushing through the widened gap. Jennie followed, backpedaling to keep their shoulders pressed together, and fired.

A woman's corpse slashed at him, jagged nails at the ends of its swollen fingers, and missed by a pair of inches. He used his rifle as a bar to shove it back. Made enough space to bring it up properly and take the top of its head off. Chunk-clack went the lever. Another empty brass shell spun through the air. “How many's this hold?!” he called over his shoulder. Jennie gave a grunt of exertion that was followed by her twelve-gauge sounding.

“Twelve!” She answered. The wood-metal clack of her slide was heard and the spent casing bounced off his shoulder. “You got eight left!” Eight in the rifle. Six in his pistol. Way more than fourteen corpses left moving. He had more ammuntion in his pockets and on his belt, but he wasn't so stupid as to think he'd have a chance to reload in the middle of all this.

“What about you?!” He asked, right as she fired again. They were stood in front of two ruined houses, a little alley between them that led around back. He eyed it. They could cut through, break the circle, get some moving room. Catch was that if there were corpses on the other side, hidden or waiting, they'd be trapped in that little alley. That would be their deaths.

“What?!” She called back. She grunted again, and he looked over his shoulder to see her driving the stock of her twelve-gauge into a corpse's chest, driving it far enough away that she could put her boot to it and shove it into the ones behind. They went down in a pile of limbs and tattered clothes.

Oh, for – he lifted his voice higher, near-to shouting in her ear, over the tinny ring left in their ears by gunfire and the low, rattling groan of the many corpses. “How much – amuunition – do you have?!” A corpse stagger-fell his way. It was missing its arms and was too, too small. A mouthful of broken, blackened teeth snapped as it lunged. He stepped aside, too late realizing that he'd separated himself from Jennie. Oh, not by much, just the width of that little corpse. That small space was too much.

Jennie felt his absence and looked away from what was in front of her. Not for long, just enough for her take it all in. In that moment her eyes went wide, a look of horrified betrayal crossing her face. She thought he was leaving her. Running to save his own skin. His heart broke, cracking open and freeing a rush of some heated kind of pain. That she thought him capable of it hurt worse than being stabbed. Caff? Her mouth shaped the word, too quiet to be heard.

He drew his pistol and shot the corpse in the back of the head just as it had struggled to its knees. The bullet erupted out the other side and into the earth beyond. His pistol went back in its holster, then he took up a grip on his rifle. There were eight rounds left in it. He put six through skulls, eyes, and noses before reaching out to grab Jennie's shirt. Pulled her his way, towards that little alley. “Won't ever,” he growled as they retreated. “hear? Not ever.”

“I know,” she answered. “I just – I know.” Then she squared her shoulders, turned to walk backwards, and opened fire. The horde, instead of splitting around the houses to surround them, bunched to file after them through the alley. It was then that he knew; they'd be all right. Here, they had every advantage. Here, they would win. In a cloud of roaring gunsmoke and ringing ears, they did just that.