Devon Monk - Tin Swift

He shifted his hold on Rose Small, who was still unconscious in his arms, and pulled his gun.

Shot down the two in the lead, but there were more, too many more, behind them. He couldn’t fight without putting Rose down. The townfolk paused over the two men he’d shot, they pushed at them, pulled at them. And then the men he’d shot stood back up.

Didn’t look like a bullet could kill a thing that was already dead. Leastwise not a shot to the heart or the head.

Cedar swore and started running. He needed an open door, solid walls, and something that could cause a whole hell of a lot more damage than his revolver.

The crack of a shotgun blew apart the night. Cedar jerked toward the blast.

The Madder brothers were driving the wagon hard his way, coming up from behind the undead and rolling over the ones who got in the way of the big iron-rimmed wheels.

Alun sat the driver’s seat, snapping the reins to push those big draft horses to full speed. The horses were more than willing to give it to him, dinner plate–sized hooves smashing through flesh and bone just as easily as through mud.

Cadoc Madder stood on the buckboard braced next to Alun. His geared-up shotgun was slung low at his shoulder. He took aim for the middle of the unalives again as the wagon rolled through them.

The flash of gunpowder lit up the night and Cedar’s sight went muddy.

When he could blink his focus back, he saw the dead that had just fallen picking themselves up, while others, too broken to walk, still found ways to crawl or drag themselves toward him.

“Don’t know what you did, Mr. Hunt,” Alun yelled, “but you’ve angered up a mess of Strange tonight. Never seen them so intent on taking one man down.”

“Rose is hurt,” Cedar said. “She’s bleeding.”

The Madders pulled the big wagon up beside him. Bryn was on his horse, and Rose’s and Cedar’s horses were tethered to the back of the wagon along with the mule.

Where were Mae and Wil?

Before he could ask, Mae leaned out of the wagon, throwing down the wooden steps.

“Hurry,” she said.

Cedar was up the stairs and into the wagon fast.

The undead were still coming, still running, slogging through the mud and muck. Not just the pile of people they’d gathered. More townfolk poured out from houses up a ways, places Cedar and the Madders hadn’t gotten to yet. Most of them seemed to have good strong legs beneath them, and were closing the distance fast.

“Put her on the bed,” Mae said as she found her satchel and started digging for herbs and bandages. Cedar set Rose down as gently as he could. He braced for the wagon to start rolling, expecting the lurch of the drafts pulling fast, but they were not moving.

“Go!” he yelled, not knowing what the Madders were waiting for. “Where’s Wil?”

Mae was already bent over Rose, pulling her wool coat open and unbuttoning her dress so she could see to her wound.

“I don’t know,” she said, her words coming out fast and slippery as if she was fitting them in between a conversation she was trying to listen to. “Oh. Oh, no.” She had pulled Rose’s dress away to reveal her shoulder, neck, and her chest down to the blood-soaked edge of her shift.

“I need…” Mae started. “No, not that. Not those things.” She brushed at the air as if pushing away hands that were not helping. “I need hot water. I need herbs to stanch.” She looked up at Cedar, her cheeks flushed but her eyes clear, if a bit startled. “I might need tines if there’s a bullet in there to be dug out. Can you help me see if it shot her all the way through?”

“It wasn’t a bullet,” he said, propping Rose up so Mae could hold the lantern closer to her back.

She finished pulling Rose’s coat off, then examined the back of her dress. “No blood here, so it didn’t go clean through. What hit her?”

“A key. A tin key. About half the size of my pinky,” he said. “We ran into the Strange. A trap. Triggered the fuse and”—he hesitated to go too clearly into detail about the girl exploding—“the house blew to bits. Could be wood, metal, or bone in there too.”

Mae slipped Rose’s dress the rest of the way off her so that she could look at the bare skin of her back.

Cedar supported Rose through Mae’s inspection. Why wasn’t the wagon moving? What were the Madders waiting for?

“I can’t see anything inside the wound. Nothing,” Mae said. “All right, lay her down again.”

Cedar did so.

“I’ll need water,” Mae said to herself as she turned to the kettle hung up on the ceiling hook.

It wouldn’t be hot. There was no time to stop and make a fire. And still the wagon wasn’t moving.

“I’ll be right back,” Cedar said.

Mae poured the cold water onto a cloth.

He swung out of the wagon, caught hold of the hand bar, and leaned out so he could see up along the side it.

The three Madder brothers were clumped at the front of the wagon, Alun and Cadoc in the driving seat and Bryn on the horse just beside them. They were caught up in what appeared to be a heated argument.

While all around them the undead closed in.

Cedar couldn’t hear what they were going on about. And he didn’t care.

“Get this damn box moving!” Cedar yelled.

The three brothers looked over at him, not so much guilt on their faces as a sort of determined curiosity.

“We were just having a conversation, Mr. Hunt,” Alun said around the stem of his pipe, which was held tight in his teeth. “Involves you, as a matter of fact.”

“Do you see the dead coming our way?” he asked.

Driving the wagon through the pile had done some good to slow and muddle the unalives, but they were recovering quickly and would be close enough to take hold of the wagon and the horses in about a minute.

“Yes, yes. But now, about you,” Alun said. “You said you could feel the Holder here in town. That still so?”

“Move this wagon and get us the hell out of town.”

“As soon as you point us toward the Holder, Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. “We’ll take a path that rides us close enough that one or two of us brothers can go looking into the house you point at, or the trail you scent. Shouldn’t take long.”

Cedar bit back a curse. He’d pull his gun, but threatening the Madder brothers never got them to do what he wanted anyway.

“Rose Small needs medical attention. She needs to get to the next town as soon as possible,” he said. “To a doctor. Standing here talking about the Holder’s only going to get her dead.”

“Not if we talk fast enough.” Alun gave him a hard look. “You think the Holder is more southerly or easterly?”

“I think the Holder’s going to wait.”

“That isn’t happening, Mr. Hunt.” Alun pointed his pipe at him. “You talk, or this wagon’s not going anywhere.”

Three against one. Rose hurt, maybe dying. Mae doing all she could to stay clearheaded enough to tend her. Wil missing. The dead so close he could count their buttons. Cedar didn’t have a lot of luck going his way. Faster to get the Madders to the Holder than to argue them down to reason.

Cedar thought a moment on the draw from the Holder. Strangely, he felt pulled in two directions. One toward the wagon with Mae and Rose, and the other southeast of town.

“Southeast,” he said. “Now move this crate.”

He swung back around and into the wagon, just as the undead slapped against it with flat palms, as if they didn’t know how to crack the shell to get to the meat inside.

Alun called out to the horses, and they were off, jostling hard and fast down the rutted, muddy road. The unalives couldn’t move faster than a horse could lope, and soon they had outpaced them.

But they wouldn’t be ahead of them for long.