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December, traditionally, is a time of bounty. At least for men like me.
People who are desperate to make an extra bit of money before their children expect that St. Nicholas will bring them things their parents can ill afford; men who think a little judicious wagering at the end of the year will somehow make up for twelve months of not bothering to pay the lease on the land… Easy pickings, my mother would say.
This time of year, everyone is out to make a buck. Including me.
This December, of course, is different. And every one after shall be as well, I expect.
Oh, there are still the rare folk who wander into town intent on making enough money to leave the territory, of course, but it isn’t like it used to be. And so I sit here alone at my table in the saloon I now call home, three days before Christmas, a penny poorer than a pauper as dear Aces would say.
Any other year, I’d be flush and happily counting my winnings.
The saloon’s winter door swings open, letting in the chill. Not like the frigid blast of our recent cold snap, thank God. No, that weather has moved on, and the unrelenting hordes of undead have gone with it.
“Nobody willing to let you lighten their purses?”
I look up to see Chris Larabee standing there, lovely and untouchable as ever. I hate this world. More and more each day. That a man like him and a man like me should be unable to come to a meeting of far more than minds… All because of a damned, single bite.
“I expect Mr. Sheppard will produce at least one unsuspecting rube when the stage comes in,” I assure him.
“World’s full of them, they say,” Chris comments, sitting across from me. He’s taunting me, as always. I ain’t gonna jump you! he told me just a week ago, when the never-ending parade of attacks had left me nearly as mindless as the enemy. Sometimes I wish he would. Just get the worst part over with, so I’d no longer have to worry about what doom might befall him.
It would hardly be my fault, then, would it? If I have infected others with my past indiscretions, that is firmly on my head and I shall no doubt pay for it in Hell, but Chris Larabee? I cannot be the cause of this man’s downfall.
“I got a couple of dollars,” he tells me. “If you’re up for penny ante?”
I sigh, shuffling my cards cleanly. “As pennies are about all I have at the moment,” I reply, dealing him five. “It appears to be the perfect time to make that suggestion.”
The saloon remains stubbornly empty as we play, the tension between us too thick for my reflective mood. I have them more and more these days, moments of introspection. Perhaps becoming less than human has made me consider life in a different way.
“Are you planning to continue this game indefinitely, Mr. Larabee?” I ask him quietly, taking the current pot with ease and dealing him a kinder hand as he tosses in another penny.
“Long as my pennies hold out,” he says with a wry grin.
He is incorrigible.
“I made it abundantly clear months ago that want you want—”
“And you want,” he points out ruthlessly.
“Very well,” I concede. “What we wish to happen can never be. Torturing us both does little good for anyone.” The pressure that is always in my bones, waiting for the damn zombies to remind me of my place in this cursed world, is building.
I rise, tossing my losing hand into the pot. “Luckily for me, the undead appear to be as tired of this cat and mouse as I am.”
I see the hurt and the want in his eyes as he opens his mouth to respond, but whatever he might say is cut off by the alarm bells on the West Gate, as I knew it would be. With a growl, he follows me out into the chilly afternoon.
“Fourteen to the south!” Casey Wells calls out. I grab up a rifle and position myself at one of the gun slits. Chris slides into the one beside and the shooting begins.
“Damn it,” Chris mutters.
I look over at him, then back through the slit to try to see what he does. Of course. The stage.
“Stage is coming in!” Vin hollers from the guard house above us. “Shit.” He jumps to the ground like a cat and heads for the nearby paddock.
“Fifteen more by the stage!” Casey cries.
I can see them. Sheppard is striving to control the horses hard, terrified as they are at the smell of the undead. He’s shooting as well, but at the speed they’re going, he’d be hard pressed to shoot anything.
As a rule, zombies are easier to avoid on horseback or carriage, but stages are slow. Zombies, contrary to the shambling look of them, are not. And stages have to keep to ground that is level enough to keep from—
“Wheel’s gone on the stage!” comes the inevitable call from Miss Wells. I head for the paddock myself, rifle in hand.
“Ezra, where the hell are you going!?” Chris yells, though of course, the fool follows me.
Vin is already mounted bareback on Peso, who’s pawing at the ground, ready to go. Two of the stable boys are saddling Job and Chaucer as we approach, thank God. Chaucer wouldn’t tolerate a run like that without a saddle—she’d make me pay for weeks.
“Open the gate!” Chris calls out. Damn it, I wish he’d stay in town. There’s little the undead can do to Vin and myself. If Chris were bit…
“Larabee, damn it!” Buck calls out in frustration, but he knows as well as I do that Chris is a noble fool. We shall keep him safe, I promise silently. I can’t do anything but.
The nearer zombies are all dead again, piles of bone and rag ready for the fire pit. The three of us put on a burst of speed as Sheppard’s rifle and another gun step up their volley at the stage, and our added firepower makes short work of the secondary horde.
“Everyone okay?” Chris calls out as we dismount. The stage has cracked like an egg. The broken wheel at high speed was enough to all but upend it, and the passengers look to be badly shaken.
“Unbit anyway, thanks to you,” a tall black man proclaims. His hair is wild, to his shoulders, and bone white, and his attire speaks of wealth. His accent is Northern. Perhaps Chicago? “I’m Thaddeus Pennington.” He grins gently at two small heads that stick out from the stage’s broken window frame. “My daughters Helena and ‘Dite.”
“As in Aphrodite?” I ask, walking slightly closer, smiling at them both. Young Dite nods her head and comes out, a little, a hand wrapped tight around her sister’s. Both are truly lovely children. “Oh, you are aptly named, young lady,” I tell her. Her older sister pouts a moment. “But of course, you were both named for the most beautiful women in all the world, weren’t you?” I nod to their father, who watches curiously. “Your father obviously had amazing foresight, to know how well you would both live up to it.”
The family consists of these three, only, we discover as we wait for the wagon that no doubt left town the moment the last zombie fell. The only other traveler is a young business man, escaping the west coast in hopes of returning to Virginia. He looks well heeled, and I frown at Chris’s grin when he catches me sizing the man up.
“Don’t take him for everything,” he murmurs to me as we mount up in the gathering dusk and head for home, walking our steeds beside the heavy-laden wagon. Sheppard and Jurgen will no doubt be out here repairing the stage at first light. “Remember it’s nearly Christmas.”
“I shall leave him enough,” I promise. I might even keep that promise, too.
*********
Young Mr. Usher proved to be as rich as his clothing, and a proper challenge besides. I sit back at the end of a profitably long night and bid him adieu, his purse the lighter, but his smile bright.
“Haven’t had a chance to play a proper game of poker in a while, sir,” he tells me, settling his drinks with our lovely Miss Inez. “I’ll be leaving on the stage east tomorrow, soon as it gets fixed.” He looks at me sincerely. “Thank you—you and your friends—for coming after us. There aren’t many who’d do that these days.”
No, I expect there aren’t. “There are a few, though,” I tell him. “You’ll overnight at the stage stop east of here tomorrow night. Look up a man named Clay.” I smile wryly. “He’ll give you a hell of a game.”
“Thanks again,” he says, grinning. “Good luck.”
Good luck . I drain the last of my whiskey, look over at the table in the corner, where Chris watches. Waits.
No good luck here, dear boy. I collect my winnings—still too light for a night in December—and head upstairs, alone, without another word.
Because really, what is there to say?
*******
the end