I lead us to Lily’s house, one of the few without the front door open. I pound on the wood. “Lily, it’s me! Open up.”
There’s a scraping on the other side of the door, and then “How do I know you ain’t a shambler?”
“Shamblers don’t talk. Stop being a muttonhead and let me in.”
The door opens and Lily flies into my arms. I hug her tightly more out of surprise than anything else. “Someone came through, yelling about the town been overrun. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Get Mrs. Spencer and the little ones, we need to get out of here,” I say, pushing past Lily into the house.
“Mrs. Spencer is gone. She left yesterday afternoon and never came back. It’s just me and Thomas.” A toddler plays on the floor with a wooden horse, and he beams at me.
I think about Mr. Spencer’s body, missing its head. Was Mrs. Spencer out there as well? I didn’t see her, but I also didn’t peep at every decapitated shambler.
Katherine, the Duchess, and her girls come into the house. The Duchess’s expression goes soft when she sees Thomas. “Well, hello there, precious,” she says, picking him up. He offers her his horse before snuggling against the Duchess’s unfettered bosom.
I turn to Lily. “The Spencers got a pony? There’s a town a couple days’ ride north of here called Nicodemus. That’s our best bet.”
“No one has a pony out here. We’ve got an old horse and a wagon. But I don’t know how to hook him up.”
“I do, and Sallie here can help me,” Nessie says with an uncertain smile, gesturing to the white girl with the freckles.
We follow them out to the small stable behind the house. The door hangs open and there’s a group of three drovers there, fighting with the horse, trying to hook it up to the wagon.
“Hey, that’s our wagon!” Lily exclaims.
One of the men turns around, drawing down on us. The revolver catches the sunlight as he points it at Lily. “Sorry, little girl. That horde is picking up speed. And we ain’t about to be turned.”
“At least take the children with you,” the Duchess says. There’s resignation in her voice.
The man looks behind him to where the two drovers have almost hooked the horse up. “No deadweight.”
I reach for my sidearm, but before I can clear the holster there’s a gunshot. The drover is on the ground with a bullet right between his eyes.
“Chivalry is apparently dead.” Behind us stands Jackson, and the scream of joy that Lily lets loose as she throws herself into her brother’s arms damn near shatters my eardrums.
I point my drawn gun at the remaining drovers, who have gone still.
“Nessie, Sallie, make sure those fools have the horse hooked up right and then take those straps.”
“They’re called reins,” Jackson says, an amused drawl in his voice.
“I don’t care if they’re called shoestrings,” I snap. “That dead fellow was right. The horde is picking up speed.”
“What’s gotten into you?” Red Jack asks, and I sigh.
“Leave it to you to pick the last possible moment to show up and save the day,” I grumble.
The women move quickly, fastening things and saying soft words to calm the horse. After a few seconds Nessie nods at me.
“It’s good. Want me to drive?”
“Yes,” I say. I point my pistol at the remaining men, waving them away from the wagon. “Clear on out now before you end up like your friend here.” I move to the body and pick up the man’s pistol, handing it up to Sallie who sits next to Nessie. “You know how to use that?”
“Yep,” Sallie says, taking the gun with a gap-toothed smile.
“Take us with you,” one of the men says as Lily climbs into the wagon, the Duchess handing up Thomas before doing the same. I realize the man pleading for his life is Alan, the boy who gave us a ride in the wagon only a few hours earlier.
I give him a sneer of disgust. “I don’t take kindly to child killers or their friends.”
“But, you’re leaving us here without any weapons! We’ll be overrun.”
The click of a hammer being pulled back echoes loudly in the barn. The men turn to look at Jackson, who wears a half smile. “As long as your feet work you can run. I suggest you go before that option is lost.”
I tilt my head, feeling a calm that cannot be ascribed to the situation. Later, I will look back and wonder at myself, my lack of compassion. I know this from experience. But for right now there is only survival. “I believe the phrase is deadweight? Sorry, no deadweight.”
Nessie slaps the reins along the horse’s back and the beast takes off, carrying the working girls and the children. She steers the wagon out of the yard and down a road along the back of the houses. Once they’re clear I tip my hat to the worthless drovers. Red Jack and Katherine take off after the wagon in a jog, and I follow not far behind.
We leave town quickly, passing other people running for their lives as well. I stop briefly by the entrance to the shambler wheel chamber, but the door is locked. The armory next to it hangs open, the room beyond, empty. Dread rises up in my middle, but I put it to the side. I’m hoping that Gideon got out alive; perhaps there was another chamber down in that rabbit warren of his.
Nessie sets a good pace out of town, and we pass other families in their wagons as well as a few folks running. The dead are behind us, too far to see, too close to get comfortable. I get a side stitch and walk for a while, but not too long because I don’t want to lose sight of the wagon.
Once we clear the
