Apocalypse Then

166 Pages·2016·0.63 MB·English

by  Lamanda Al

Apocalypse Then
By
Al Lamanda

Copyright 2012
Prologue
Run.
Don’t look back.
Just run.
Ignore the pain in your side, the burning in your lungs and the fear in your
heart.
Run as if your life depended upon it, because it did.
No rifle, horse gone, no bullets for your pistol, out here in the open you’re
a sitting duck for those…those…ghouls for lack of a better word.
All he had for a weapon was his side knife and that wasn’t much of a
weapon except as a last resort and after what he witnessed, he prayed it didn’t
come to that.
He needed to find cover and fast. Ahead, maybe a half mile, the hills
loomed invitingly. He could find some cover there and wait out the afternoon,
then travel at night. He wanted to stop for a moment to look back, but he was
afraid of what he might see. That spurred him to run faster.
His legs started to burn and cramp. His lungs were on fire. He felt dizzy
and slowed his pace for a moment, then had to stop when the need to vomit
overcame him.
He fell to his knees and puked up vile, hot liquid that burned his throat and
nose. When he stomach settled a bit, he looked back; afraid of what he would
see, knowing that he had to.
Around five hundred yards behind him, a shirtless ghoul stumbled across
the open plains. He couldn’t see the face. It was too far away, but he knew it was
one of them by the way he stumbled as if drunk, but never fell.
And it seemed to be plodding along as if following him.
He wiped his mouth, stood up and walked quickly toward the hills. When
the hills were close enough for him to run to, he raced the last five hundred feet
to the base, turned and sat on a rock to catch his breath.
The ghoul was still a long ways off, but was still coming. He could see the
lumbering outline as it plodded along step by clumsy step.
Oh, God, it just kept coming.
He pulled his Colt revolver and checked the shells. All six were spent. The
32 slots on his belt were empty and all his ammunition was miles away in the
saddlebags on the back of his horse.
He fished through his pockets and found three, .45 shells and chambered
them into the Colt. He remembered the derringer in his boot and withdrew it.
Two unfired .38 shells were in the derringer.
Five shots altogether.
Not a lot.
Better than nothing.
He returned the derringer to his boot and looked at the ghoul. It came slow
and steady, bumbling, stumbling, but always coming.
He looked up, selected a path to the rocks and started to climb.
He didn’t stop to rest until he was five hundred feet above ground. He sat
on a rock and looked down upon the open country. The ghoul had walked
several hundred feet closer, but was still too far away to see his face.
He looked up. The rocks were steeper above his head, too difficult for the
ghoul to traverse and he stood and headed straight up.
Burning, aching, his legs and lungs on fire, he forced his body to obey his
commands and reached the top after an hour of steady climbing. He sat to catch
his wind and scan the country 1500 feet below.
The ghoul had traveled another 500 feet in a direct, if wobbly straight line.
Jesus Christ, was it actually following him?
It was.
Why?
He knew the answer, but didn’t dare speak it, think it.
He stood and checked the wide plateau of land that stretched behind him.
Some good cover, trees, woodlands, enough places to hide if necessary.
From where he stood, he could see anybody on horse or on foot
approaching. He tapped his shirt pocket, then removed the tobacco pouch and
rolling paper stored there, rolled and lit a smoke off a wood match.
He sat, smoked and watched the ghoul continue its approach.
The bastard just kept coming. Stumbling, plodding, it kept moving forward
at a slow and steady pace. Maybe it was wounded, hurt in a fight or something?
Cigarette spent, he flicked it away and kept watching the ghoul.
The son of a bitch was closing in on the base of the hill and looked up as if
trying to spot him. From 1500 feet or so, that was impossible, but he kept
looking up as he fumbled along.
He stood to look down as the ghoul reached the base of the hill. It paused
for a moment, then started to climb the hill, quickly falling on its face.
“Dumb bastard,” he said as he watched the ghoul topple over.
But then it picked itself up and started again, slipping and sliding, but
slowly making ground up the hill.
“Well, when you hit the rocks, we’ll see,” he said, watching the ghoul.
Feeling a bit more confident that so lumbering a creature as the ghoul
could never make the rock climb, coupled with five rounds of ammunition gave
him a new sense of courage and he decided to stay put for a while and watch.
If it weren’t so threatening, it would almost be comical watching the ghoul
try to take the rocks. It slipped, skidded, rolled and crashed, yet it kept climbing,
grunting and growling as it made slow, steady progress.
He thought about shooting the bastard, but a shot this high could be heard
for miles in every direction and he didn’t know who was about and what their
intentions might be. He rolled and lit another smoke, sat and watched the ghoul
make a slow, but steady ascent up the rocks.
Unbelievably, the ghoul was suddenly just a hundred feet below him and
he could see clearly the hideously diseased face on the man. He was an Indian of
all things. A Crow Warrior from the looks of him. Snarling, blood foaming at the
mouth, eyes rotting in their sockets, the ghoul spotted him and quickened his
pace.
Leprosy was the word that came to mind.
Except that lepers didn’t act this way and there wasn’t a case of the
decease reported in a hundred years or more that he was aware of.
He stood up and withdrew his Colt, cocked it and aimed. The ghoul looked
right at him as if he didn’t care and kept coming.
He de-cocked the Colt and returned it to the holster. He picked up a few
rocks and threw them at the ghoul. A few hit him in the chest and the ghoul
paused for a second to hold his balance.
Okay, that worked.
He grabbed a few more rocks and hurled them at the ghoul. One hit him in
the face and drew blood. He picked up a few larger rocks, threw them, grabbed a
few more and let fly.
The ghoul backed up, snarled, and then came forward again.
He picked up a large rock, several pounds in weight and hurled it with
both hands. The heavy rock struck the ghoul square in the face, split it open and
the ghastly beast fell backward and rolled down the mountain and out of sight.
The dust cleared.
He waited.
Nothing.
No sound or movement.
It was dead.
After a hit like that and the fall of fifteen hundred feet or more, nothing
could survive.
Nothing.
He looked at the sun. Two hours or so until it set. He needed to find a
place to hold up, grab some sleep, think it through and then make his way to a
town.
He started walking west, carefully scanning the terrain for any sudden
movement. He went about a mile and spotted a small cabin in the distance. He
approached the cabin slowly, cautiously and when he was a hundred feet from it,
he drew the Colt and cocked the hammer.
He approached.
No horses.
No smoke from the chimney.
The door was open.
There was just enough sunlight left to see inside. Bed, table, woodstove,
water pump, canned goods on shelves, sacks of flour and coffee, a glass jar with
jerked beef, the cabin was well stocked.
It had to be a lineman’s shack for a ranch nearby. Maybe the lineman was
off gathering strays, or maybe he was…
A noise.
He spun and aimed. It was a rat scurrying for cover.
He sighed with relief, de-cocked the Colt and holstered it. He grabbed a tin
cup off the shelf and filled it with cool water at the pump. He drank his fill, then
scanned the canned goods on the shelves. Peaches, pears, beans, soups, stew. He
grabbed cans of peaches and pears, a few sticks of jerked beef and left the cabin.
If somebody came, he didn’t want to be trapped inside where he couldn’t
make a quick escape.
He walked around to the side and spotted a wood ladder on the side of the
wall.
Perfect.
He climbed the ladder to the flat roof ten feet high and pulled the ladder up
with him. The roof was covered in a soft layer of sod to waterproof it against the
rain. He sat, pulled out the knife on his belt and used it to open the can of
peaches.
He drank the sweet syrup first, then used the knife to spear the halved
peaches and ate them. He ate a few sticks of jerked beef and decided to eat the
rest later. He rolled a smoke, lit it with a match and felt a heavy weariness wash
over him.
Before there was no time to think about what happened, but now there was
time to reflect. In his eleven years as a US Marshal, he never came across, read
about or heard of such an incident as what happened.
With a deputy, he rode into the Crow Indian Nation to hunt for an escaped
convict named Jed Johnson, who was reportedly seen by some trappers. They
made camp at the base of the Nation and that night the ghouls came out of
nowhere.
Dozens of them.
Lumbering.
Diseased and rotting eyeballs, blood dripping from teeth.
The noise of twigs snapping woke them just in time to see the horde of
ghouls closing in on them. They pulled their Colts and shot at them. He hit one
Ghoul three times in the chest and still he kept moving forward.
He shot one in the head and he went down twitching.
He shot two more and there was no time to reload.
They were all around them with snapping teeth as if…
His deputy screamed.
A ghoul had his leg and was biting it.
No, trying to eat the flesh right off the bone.
Others jumped on, tearing and ripping at his deputy’s flesh with snapping
teeth.
For the moment, he was forgotten and he jumped back to safety.
The horde of ghouls converged on his deputy, grabbing his arms, legs,
neck and stomach as if he was a Thanksgiving turkey.
His deputy screamed in agony.
The ghouls were eating him while he was alive.
In the moonlight, he saw a ghoul rip out his deputy’s intestines and eat
them like a sausage as his deputy screamed and screamed, calling his name for
help.
Finally, the screams stopped and he knew that his deputy was dead.
The ghouls completely tore him apart, eating the flesh off his arms and
legs as blood ran everywhere.
He turned and ran.
Ran for hours, strengthened by fear.
Ran clear to daylight.
To safety.
He stubbed out the smoke in the sod of the roof and rested his head back
and looked up at the failing sunlight.
They ate his deputy alive. His intestines and liver, stomach, muscle and
heart.
All of him.
Even his eyeballs.
His deputy’s screams still echoed inside his head.
And he started to cry so hard he fell asleep.
When he opened his eyes next, the moon was bright and glowing in the
night sky. He looked at the position of the stars and estimated he was asleep for
about six hours. He ate the can of pears, the other sticks of jerked beef, then
rolled a smoke.
The moon was bright enough to travel by if he could keep his direction by
the stars. He knew the closest town was due west about ten miles. If he moved
quickly, he could arrive there by dawn.
Quietly, he lowered the ladder to the ground and climbed down into the
waiting arms of a hundred or more silent ghouls who immediately pounced on
him.
No time to grab his Colt.
They bit his arms, neck, shoulders and legs, hungry to feed upon his flesh.
He heard himself scream as a ghoul bit out his left eye and chewed on the
soft flesh like it was a child’s candy.
Down he went as they ripped out his flesh and ate him alive. They tore
open the hard flesh of his belly and he saw the pears and jerked beef spill out to
the dirt, covered with slime and blood.
And the last thing he saw just before it all went dark was the snarling face
of a ghoul just before it tore open his neck.
It was the ghoul he hit with the rock on the side of the mountain.
Chapter 1
US Federal Marshal David Lane inspected the mail delivery that came to
his office in Hardin, Wyoming by stagecoach earlier in the morning. The stage
was scheduled to arrive late yesterday afternoon, but was delayed due to a busted
wheel.
Coffee was on the woodstove and he filled a tin mug with the hot brew and
sat behind his desk. The mail was stacked four inches high. Warrants from
Washington, reward posters, two subpoenas to appear in federal court, a few
letters for his deputies and one telegram from Billings, Montana.
Before opening the telegram, Lane removed his tobacco pouch and paper
from his shirt pocket and rolled a cigarette. He lit it with a wood match, sipped
his coffee and then opened the telegram.
It was from Deputy Marshal T. James, in Billings. Marshal James Craig
and one deputy traveled to the Indian Nation three weeks ago to track down an
escaped convict Jed Johnson and haven’t been heard from since. The telegram
ended with a “Please Reply Immediately Upon Receipt.”
Lane glanced at the wall clock, which showed the time as five minutes past
eight. He pulled out his pocket watch to check the time. It was twenty one
minutes past eight. From a desk drawer, Lane removed the clock key, went to the
wall to wind it and reset the time, returned the key and picked up the telegram.
Lane left his office and walked three streets down to the Western Union
Office. Harvey, the regular clerk came on duty at eight and was drinking coffee
behind his desk.
“Morning, Marshal,” Harvey said.
“Morning, Harv,” Lane said. “I need to send a wire to Deputy Craig in
Billings.”
Harvey slid a paper and pencil across his desk.
Lane wrote, To Deputy US Marshal James. Will form search party and ride
to Billings if needed. Need more details. Marshal Lane.
“I’ll be at the hotel having breakfast,” Lane said.
“Okay,” Harvey said.
Lane left the Western Union office and crossed the dusty street and entered
the lone hotel in Hardin. It was a two story structure with small balconies
overlooking the second floor rooms. It boasted the finest dining facility in town,
but as there were only two other eating places in the entire town it was a hollow
claim.
Lane entered the lobby and then took the connecting hall to the restaurant.
Gloria, the lone waitress, greeted him as he came in. “Morning, Marshal.
Coffee or breakfast?”
“Breakfast,” Lane said. “The works.”
“Grab that empty table by the window,” Gloria said. “I’ll bring your coffee
over.”
Lane was mopping up the last bit of runny egg yoke with a slice of toast
when the boy Harvey employed to run messages around town came in with the
return telegram from Deputy James. Lane read it quickly.
Have no additional details. Marshal Craig and deputy missing in action.
Advise.
“Do you know where Deputy Poule lives?” Lane asked the boy.
“Yes, sir. Last house on Elm Street at the edge of town.”
“I want you to go there and tell him to meet me in the office right away,”
Lane said. He gave the boy a quarter.
“Wow. Thank you, sir,” the boy said and rushed out of the restaurant.
Lane finished up, left sixty cents for the breakfast and forty cents for
Gloria’s tip, left the hotel and returned to the Western Union Office.
“Send this for me, Harv,” Lane said. “Deputy Marshal James, Billings.
Will be on ten o’clock stage for Billings tomorrow morning. Marshal Lane.”
“You want to wait for a reply?” Harvey said.
“Send the boy to my office.”
As Harvey tapped his key, Lane returned to his office, rolled a smoke,
filled his cup with coffee and took a seat behind his desk.
Marshal Craig was as good a law man as they came, a former Calvary
officer in the war, a sheriff for several towns and a Marshal going on twelve
years. He knew the man and rode with him on many occasions. He was smart,
steady and efficient and for him to go missing without word for three weeks or
more wasn’t like him at all.
A few minutes later, an exhausted looking Deputy Poule came into the
office.
“What time did you get back?” Lane said.
“A little after one,” Poule said. “Dropped off two prisoners at the
courthouse and rode through the night. My wife hates to sleep alone.”
Married just eighteen months, Poule was still in the honeymoon phase of
his marriage. Just thirty, Poule was appointed a Deputy Marshal four years ago
and was shaping up to be a good one with a promising future.
Poule helped himself to a cup of coffee and sat on the edge of Lane’s desk.
“Three weeks ago, Craig and a deputy rode into Crow Nation after an