AAARRRRRGGGHHHGGG!

Out of the bushes burst two rotting, flesh-stripped arms, followed by a gruesome, snarling, face. Both eyes dangled lifelessly from the sockets on thin red threads of sinew. Teeth snapped. Nails reached.

Casey screamed.

Dodge punched the creature in the face.

It shook its head but kept coming. Too close to raise a gun.

Dodge gave it a solid roundhouse kick.

It stumbled sideways giving her enough time to step back and fire a bullet into its head. Then she grabbed Casey and clamped her hand over her mouth. “Shh, there might be more.”

Casey stopped screaming right as two more burst forth from the bush.

Without hesitation Dodge pulled her into a run.

A quick glance back revealed these undead to also be running, and three more behind them. Nobody knew what made some of the creatures faster than others, and some of them bigger. All anybody knew was, if you saw a runner or a gargantuan, then you better start praying.

“Oh Gods!” gasped Casey.

Ares shook his head sadly and held up a hand to stop the other Gods from intervening. “Not quite I’m afraid. I maybe lenient on which name, but it still has to be a name, and a relevant one at that.”

“Who gets Jesus then?” enquired Artemis.

Ares scowled at her, then after a pause to think and with a devilish smile, he replied, “Dionysus.”

Artemis screwed up her face. “Ugh, I hate playing with him. He’s always has to be so dramatic.”

“Not to mention he’s drunk half the time,” Hades agreed.

The quick undead ran at a similar pace to that of an average man, unfortunately Casey was no man. She was much slower.

Dodge fired her pistol with precision, keeping pace with Casey as they both moved as fast as they could. It gave them some extra time but then her first gun clicked empty.

Casey skidded to a halt, as another of the undead, a walker this time, stumbled around from the side of the inn. It stood a few feet from the kitchen door, which hung open. Casey must have forgotten to close it in her rush outside. “Oh no!” she whimpered.

Dodge spun back from shooting, to see what her fuss was about. Seeing the creature blocking their way, she immediately began scouting for another option. Her gaze swept toward the paddock where her red-roan horse pranced nervously. But there was no way they would make it there. The undead would get them first. Walkers and runners alike were spilling out of the bushes now. Too many to shoot with only nine bullets left in her other gun.

It was Casey who found a solution. She tugged at Dodge’s arm. “The stables.”

Dodge looked, and saw, in the other direction, just beyond a wooden fence there was a clear path, at least for now.

The two girls ran side by side. Dodge kept one eye on the bush line in case any more of the undead emerged to cut them off from the side. Any that got too close behind them, she swiftly put a bullet in, but her ammo was fast running out.

They reached the fence. Each climbed straight over the top. They were mere metres from the safety of the stable now.

Then Casey gave a yelp as her dress caught on a rough portion of the fence. She tugged as hard as she could but instead of breaking free, her feet slipped on the dry dirt and she fell forwards, dress still twisted on the jagged knots and splinters of the wood.

A rotting hand grabbed her ankle and pulled. She could feel uncut fingernails digging into her flesh.

BANG!

There was a gunshot and Casey felt the hand let go. Then Dodge took out a large knife and cut the bottom of Casey’s skirts right off. She pulled the woman to her feet and half dragged her toward the barn, leaving the remaining blue fabric flapping in the light balmy breeze. Moments later it was buried in a sea of limbs washing over the fence.

They reached the barn door and tugged with relief, only to find the doors were locked from the inside.

Casey turned and pressed her back against the door, her green eyes wide with fear.

SNAP!

Dodge struck out at their pursuers with a bullwhip. It did very little, so she threw it aside and fired three more shots.

BANG! BANG! CLICK!

“Where did you get that whip?” Casey asked in bewilderment as everything got a bit too much for her and her fear gave up even trying to propel her to do anything. The whole world felt distant and dreamlike and everything suddenly seemed very hilarious.

“It was on the fence,” Dodge replied as she scoured for another option, any option. She found one. “There.”

Casey couldn’t remember there being a whip on the fence. Before she could see what Dodge had found now, she was suddenly lifted off the ground as Dodge grabbed her around the thighs and pushed her up toward an open loft on the second floor of the barn. Casey was light and Dodge had no trouble getting her safely up there, but that left her still down below with no obvious way up and no way out in any direction. A sea of undead pressed in on all sides.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

As Casey looked down at Dodge and then at her own tiny arms, she was certain she did not have the strength to pull Dodge up.

But the other woman was resourceful. She leaped for a beam and then bridged her way higher, kicking one of the undead in the head, right before making another jump toward the loft. Casey watched her movement with awe. So much strength and somehow still so much beauty. As Casey glanced between the muscular Dodge and her own petite body, something in her perception shifted. But the world still felt distanced and everything remained just a little out of reach.

Dodge got her arms in but started to slip backward on the hay-covered floor, one leg scraped painfully against a nail which stuck out of the wall further down. She cried out, “Help!”

Casey finally came to her senses, grabbed Dodge by the shoulders and helped her the rest of the way up. The two of them lay there, leaning against one another, puffing and panting.

In the distance, Dodge watched as her beautiful roan mare leaped the fence and took off toward the edge of town, free from the hungry pursuers. “Good girl,” she whispered softly. Dodge would find her later, that is if they got out of this mess alive. Down below the undead were starting to climb on top of one another.

“What do we do?” asked Casey as she looked down at the hungry horde. They piled up ever higher. Then she glanced over toward the back of the saloon. “Oh no! They’re going in the house!”

“I told you half these items are useless,” Artemis told Aphrodite sympathetically, as they watched the scene unfold.

Aphrodite was frowning, one pearly finger pressed between her teeth.

“That wasn’t a bad placement of the whip though,” Ares reassured her. “Just errr... hey, at least your other new guy is doing well.”

Five pistols Jack had been in the tub when the attacks had occurred and he’d been a little slow getting outside. Now he was on the roof with nothing but a towel around his waist and suds in his hair. He was having the time of his life. With his four guns and the extra ammo he’d grabbed on his way up the stairs and out the second-floor window, he was racking up quite the score, shooting undead in the street below like fish in a barrel.

His companions down in the street were much less enthused with the current situation. To make matters worse, Pete had seen where Jack was, and he’d liked the idea so much he’d decided to copy him. He’d gotten up on the roof of the general store, and with far less precision added to the hail of bullets into the horde of undead and living alike.

In the street, the butcher swung in a circle, flail cleaning up the area around him. Any that got past his flail got a knife through the nose instead. The butcher was strong and he had no problem shoving a knife right into a face and out again. There were less creatures than last time but now he could see they’d flooded the saloon from the rear, and he had no idea how those left inside had fared. The whereabouts of the dark-haired priest, Billy, and all the women were unknown. Five-pistols Jack had at least shown up on the roof eventually.

Mitchell looked to the saloon with a similar fear but the surrounding creatures gave him little time to ponder the fates of those inside. These groups may be less this time, but as soon as the men appeared to making any progress in clearing them out, another group would round the corner. Mitchell focused on taking out the fast ones, knocking them off their feet, bullet after bullet to head after head, before they could reach the others.

Above, Artemis cheered as her score went up with every shot he took. That was until Hades pointed out his own score, courteous of the flail-wielding butcher.

But none, racked up as many points as Ares’s protegee, James The Bear.

The man was machine. At one point he grabbed one of the creatures by the feet and swung it at a nearby horde, knocking them all into the dirt, buying everyone a little more time. Then he fired his pistol.

BANG! BANG! BANG! CLICK! CLICK!

“ARRRGH! BLASTED MONGRELS!” shouted James the Bear as he reached for his ammo belt.

Before he could reload, one of the vacant-eyed creatures grabbed at the front of his shirt.

James The Bear holstered his weapon and grabbed the creature with two hands. Putting his thumbs in its eye sockets, he pulled hard, and ripped its head in two with a loud ROAR.

At the sheer volume of the sound, dead eyes and empty sockets alike, turned toward him.

The red and white priest managed to shoot several in the back of the head.

Knuckles, earning points for no one, tried in vain to clear a way back into the saloon.

Trevor, the gunslinger favoured by Artemis, laughed as he focused on the easy targets, and completely forgot to watch his back. A moment later, he screamed as teeth sunk themselves deep into his side.

Five pistols Jack shot the creature from above with a “Yee Haw!”

Trevor waited for the inevitable shot that would penetrate his own head. He’d been bitten. He was likely infected. They wouldn’t risk leaving him alive.

But only Jack had seen the bite and he was soon distracted as Billy poked his head out the second-floor window and cried, “The girls are stuck in the barn!”

“Aha!” exclaimed Artemis happily. “They didn’t shoot him! Points from the turned are worth double remember.”

Hades shook his head. “The turned never last very long, you might get two points at most.”

“And no extra points for those killed by any he manages to turn,” Ares added. “The math required got way too messy last time.”

Artemis pouted.

Asclepius entered the room. He was a tall God, with big bushy hair and beard. He wore the traditional robes and carried his pet snake, Spike, around his neck. “Did any of you lazy asses remember to empty the dishwasher like I asked? It doesn’t empty itself you know.” He gave Spike a soothing head pat as he waited for their answer.

“Oh right!” Hades sat up straight and clicked his fingers.

Asclepius gave him a dark look and an exasperated sigh. “I didn’t mean incinerate the dishes.”

“Well, you said you wanted it emptied.”

Asclepius sighed again and left the room.

“Really Hades?” chided Aphrodite, in the way one might talk to a child.

Hades shrugged and then grinned. “Hey, if you can’t do something right the first time, no one will ever ask you to do it again.”

Artemis leaned over and whispered conspiratorially in his ear, “Does that mean if you do something right it’s because you want to do it again?”

Hades raised an eyebrow as the flames on his head glowed a bright golden ember.

Ares looked from them to Aphrodite with narrowing eyes, but Aphrodite pointed to the battlefield below. “Look, Casey got some points.”

Dodge winced and glanced down at her trousers. One thigh was blood soaked. She cut away some of the material in her knife, revealing a deep gash. She put some pressure on it.

Beside her, with some effort, Casey manged to shove a bale of hay out of the loft opening. It crashed down on the creatures below, destroying their tower, and shattering a few skulls. Casey looked at her handiwork with satisfaction, but to her horror, new ones soon began to pile up again.

She turned back to Dodge. Noticing the blood for the first time, she exclaimed, ”Oh! You’re hurt!” She knelt down beside Dodge.

Dodge shook her head. “No, it’s fine, it’s just a cut. I got caught on a nail, I think.” To prove she was fine, Dodge removed her hands from her leg and showed Casey the damage.

Casey had seen many injuries during the last few years, and with her steady hands and good sewing skills she’d often had to help with the stitching up of the rangers and cowboys that wandered in after a battle. She could quickly see that this wound wasn’t fatal, but it would need some attention soon.

Forgetting who she was with and her desire to earn the woman’s affection, Casey grabbed Dodge’s blood-soaked hands and forced them back over the wound. “Keep some pressure on it, silly. That’s going to need some stitches.” But her special needles and thread were in the house and out here they were surrounded. She glanced toward the loft window, as a clammy green hand inched its way over the edge.