An Ode to the Dearly Departed IX
Season slowly creeps up the darkened stairs, fireworks popping in the distance. The shuffling gets louder. She hears a groan behind a door that’s slightly open. She knows no-one’s working right now, so she slowly pushes it open, but in a flash of light she is beset upon, and taken into the darkened room with nary a sound.
Just outside the graveyard, Eric stops by the pyre for the stranger, and sees the shadowed figures mourning their lost son. The mother is kneeling down on her son’s grave, the father stands closely over her. Something is wrong however, a flash of fireworks light reveals. The grave has been dug up. The mother is holding her son in her arms, sobbing. Then, screaming. The father begins to move, but Eric notices a hand raise out of the ground, and grab the father’s ankle, sending him tumbling down. Old Gus erupts from the ground, and begins to feast. The young apprentice takes off running back to the town.
In a room in the second floor of the saloon, Season’s mouth is let go of.
“Oh god please don’t eat me.”
“Don’t worry nothin about that, sweet-heart, just tell me where your little friend got my gun?”
“Who are you? What gun? What friend?”
“Red hair, red dress, a little taller than you. Seemed to think plenty of her self.”
“Oh, that’s just Maggie, she owns this place, got it from her dad.”
“Your friend Maggie stole my gun; walked into the Sheriff’s station not long after I got locked up, and took it. Laughed and left me there to rot.”
“She ain’t too trustworthy to men, but I don’t know a thing about any guns that ain’t my own. Don’t know why she’d want anything to do with some rando’s gun either.”
“This ain’t no time for games.”
“Way I see it, according to you, this is exactly the time for games.”
“How so?”
“Well, I have my gun pointed at your knee, you seem to be missing yours, so if you wanna walk outta here, stranger, lets just relax. I didn’t steal anything from you, I can understand your anger. Tell me about yourself, maybe?”
Outside, the Gunsmith’s apprentice is unable to find the Sheriff. Panicked, he uses his key to hide inside the locked gunsmith’s store beside the Sheriff’s office. He slams the door, and runs up the stairs of the residential main floor, and into the upstairs workshop. Guns line the walls. He hides in a cupboard.
A few jiggers and a conversation in a bedroom of the saloon has brought two strangers to an auspicious understanding. The fireworks have reached their zenith during the exchange and the town is quiet again.
“Why would these things come here though?”
“No telling, still don’t know why they attacked my old town. I reckoned they were after me, but the Six-Shooters seemed surprised to see me. Otherwise, these things, they seem pretty mindless, so I’d say they’re attracted to those dang fireworks. Alls I can say is that, whoever’s raising them up, they must have a pretty big reason.”
“Then it looks like we need to get your gun back, Kurt.” With no idea of where to go to find Maggie, they head out the back way.
“C’mon, the gunsmith’s shop is just by the Sheriff’s, but you wouldn’t guess it from the ground floor.” They sneak behind the buildings, and make it to the gunsmith’s. They hear some movement inside.
“What was that?”
“Must be the apprentice pickin up some things. Gunsmith’s sister was bitten today.”
“Bitten?”
“Yeah, it’s probably what you think.”
June 26, 2012 at 11:11 am
I love the mood in this one. I’m looking forward to reading the next installment.