Casey stared intently at herself in the silver-backed full-length mirror. She frowned, causing wrinkles to appear on her forehead. She immediately widened her eyes to try to smooth them out. With young slender fingers she raised both hands up and gently touched her own face. To her it felt as bumpy as mountains. Not that she’d ever seen a mountain. Out here there was nothing but dirt, dust, empty space, and Them. The ones that roamed, always hungry, never sleeping.

In the back of her head she heard her mother’s voice, “Stop touching your face Casey! You’ll make it dirty, and what man will want you then?” She pulled her fingers away as if snake bit. She gave herself a blank stare. With green eyes, and wispy blonde hair, she was the spitting image of her mother, and almost as tall now. She was pretty, wasn’t she?

She poked at her own waist. She was thin, at least that’s what the other girls said. But Casey didn’t think so. She knew they were just being nice. She glanced toward the window of her bedroom. Her room was situated on the second floor, directly above her father’s saloon. A noisy place to sleep, but Casey didn’t mind, she relished any excuse to stay up late reading. Books she was not supposed to read. Books bought to her in secret by the local lawman’s kind but useless son, Billy. Books that took her away from this small forgotten town in the middle of nowhere and the hordes of undead that regularly stumbled in.

Outside she could see a clear blue sky. Not a good sign. The attacks had been getting more frequent lately, and food more scarce. Some folks had already left town. Somewhere down the street a blacksmith’s hammer clanged against steel, forging yet another weapon to defend them against the dead that never seemed to die, or perhaps he shaped some new horseshoes for yet another one of those who fled, the ones her father called cowards.

She turned back to the mirror and stared at herself once more. Sometimes she envied the creatures that roamed the wasteland. At least they seemed to be able to eat all they wanted and never worry about getting fat. Perhaps once she found a man to marry then she wouldn’t need to worry so much. Except, she remembered her mother once when she was much younger, standing in front of this very same mirror, adjusting her own corset as tight as she could, and telling her and important truth, “It’s not enough to marry a man, you must also learn how to keep him.”

Upstairs the Gods played dice.

“Is that really a character you want to bet on for this round? Really, Aphrodite, I swear they get meeker every Saturday. You still have a free redraw you know,” Ares reminded her.

Beside Ares, Aphrodite appeared unfazed. “Sometimes the soft ones can surprise you.”

Ares dealt some cards out and grunted at his own hand. “As long as there’s no romance this time, they’re supposed to be killing zombies remember.”

Aphrodite smiled serenely and gently twisted a violet into the end of her long wavy hair.

To her left Hades held a pot over his head. The blue flame of his hair licked it’s steel base. He sighed and in a tired voice complained, “Let’s just get on with it. I’m tired of this game. The underworld hasn’t had any new dead since we started this damned apocalypse. I want to play something new.”

“Well you’ll have plenty once we’re done,” Artemis told him with an eager grin. Her sharp eyes studied the characters in the world below.

“Yes, and all the paper work that goes with it all at once,” Hades grumbled.

“Just cause you got the lawman’s son for this round’s draw doesn’t mean you need to be so snippy,” Artemis started to reply but was drowned out by Hades popcorn as it burst exuberantly to life above his head.

“What? I can’t hear you?” Hades replied with a grin.

Across the table, Ares rolled a six.

In front of the mirror, Casey braided her hair. She drew a few strands and wove them together. Then she’d drop one and pick up a new one, until a waterfall wound it’s way around her head. It took her almost an hour and by the time she was done, her arms were tired but she was satisfied with it.

“Casey!” Her mother called from somewhere down the stairs. “Come and help me with breakfast.”

“Yes mama!” Casey called back.

She rushed from her room, into the hall and down the stairs. She passed by paintings of men with their hard lines, and their sharp tools. She’d never liked them much, so fierce and so fixed. They always looked angry.

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Her mother met her at the kitchen threshold. “Oh, what have you done to your hair? What a mess that is. Well, never fear, we can fix that right up can’t we?” Her mother reached up and began untangling every delicate braid.

Somewhere outside a bell clanged loudly. The sound caused her mother’s hands to freeze and her lip to quiver. “No...” She spoke in a hush. “It’s too early, if they surround us like last time... we don’t have enough food.”

“Surely pa can get some before they get here?” Casey asked.

“Don’t be daft child. They might be slow but they’ll see anyone who goes out in the streets now, and the whole town is short on food, after what happened last time. Our best chance is to stay quiet and hope they pass right through. Go, cover up the windows in the back room and then stay quiet! Quickly!”

“Yes mama.”

Casey did as she was told and then headed for the saloon’s main room. She nearly bumped into Billy in the hallway when he come out of the kitchen door on the opposite side of the hall at the same time as her.

“Oops, sorry,” he mumbled as he nearly dropped the stack of clean glasses he was carrying. Billy was always trying to carry too much. Her father often said he was clumsier than a newborn lamb, but kitchen hands were hard to come by these days.

A group of men were huddled together whispering in the main saloon. Most of them were guests, strangers on a mission. It seemed to Casey that some of them even seemed to enjoy what the world had become.

There was the odd religious man, many of whom would preach that if only people would all repent their sins and give all their money to the church, then the world would return to normal. the dead would go back to sleep. People tried. People were desperate. They prayed often. But alas, they never seemed to get the name quite right.

Most were hunters. Some towns would pay for their services, but even if they didn’t, the dead often bore their own treasures, silver watches, gold fillings, and all the wealth they could carry in their pockets as they fled from their homes and the creatures that never stopped to rest. Others just loved the thrill of the hunt.

Casey found a spot not far from the hunters, and near the window, where she could just make out the street through a gap in the boards. She sat quietly, like the few other woman in the room, the cook, the maid, and Mrs Henderson - the butcher’s wife. There were no female guests. Only men visited the town now. The road was no place for a woman. Not in trying times like these. The fat butcher stood with a group of guests, talking in hushed whispers that Casey could just make out.

“We can’t just hole up this time. We don’t have the food to last, and if they all get here there’ll be too many and we won’t be able to hold them off. We have to fight now!” His beard shook as he spoke and he habitually wiped his clean hands on his bloody apron. Two oversized knives poked out of one apron pocket, a flail took up all the space in the other.

“If we go out there and make any noise, they’ll see us for sure, and then they’re guaranteed to stay, no matter how well we board up the walls, we’ll be goners for sure,” replied the dark-haired priest, who was all dressed in black except for the notch in his collar.

“That’s why it’s best we take them now!” The lanky red-headed, red-bearded, traveller, ‘ol Rusty’ swung an axe about with his enthusiasm as he spoke far too loudly and caused everybody to duck.

“Patience fellas,” said James The Bear in the deepest voice. The lone man had stayed seated and quiet so far. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and he sipped an early morning whiskey. Two pistols hugged his hips. “What we need is a plan.”

“There’s no time for plans!” shrieked the other priest, fair-haired, and dressed all in white. “I can see the dust. They’re almost here!”

“No need to panic,” replied James The Bear, in a far too relaxed tone.

Casey wondered how many whiskeys he’d already had this morning. Still, he was a big man, hard to bring down, and he said the whiskey helped him fight.

“Do you see any runners?” asked Casey’s father, a man named Mitchell. He too, was a big man, although no one was as big as The Bear. As a skilled sharpshooter, he currently carried a rifle on his back.

The fair-haired priest shook his head. “Not this time. The horde looks to be moving at a slow walk, but there seem to be a lot of them, more than the last group.”

BANG!

A shot fired from down the street.

“What was that?” asked Knuckles, a gunman who had only just arrived in town the day before.

Through her gap between the boarded up window Casey could see a dark figure standing in the middle of the street. The figure was holding a shotgun and was currently in the process of reloading their weapon.

“It’s damn Pete out shooting at them already,” observed Mitchell. “Well we’ve no choice now men. We better get out there and clear up as many as we can.”

“I’ll start warming up the bandages,” mumbled the old cook as she headed for the kitchen and the men all piled out the front door and into the street.

In the distance, kicking up dust, the creatures moaned. From afar they almost looked human, but their walk was jagged and jerky. Pieces of them fell off and were trampled by the rotting feet that followed. Their pace was slow but never-ending, and they hugged one another tight. No man could make it through between them and not end up drowned by the hundreds of reaching hands. Step by step they closed in toward the town. The waiting folk within, held their breath as the stench combined with the heat of the wild western plains accosted their throats and threatened to suffocate them before they could ready their lead.

Casey clutched at her chest and watched with fear as her father lined up his sights on the incoming horde.

The saloon door knocked ever quieter as it settled to a slow stop, until finally Casey’s mother, Faith locked and bolted it, keeping the woman safe, and trapping the men outside.

While upstairs, the Gods played dice.