Just Can't Die

CARTER COULD STILL HEAR the screams and gunshots echoing out from the fiery valley behind him and his crew. The last week had been filled with the same screams of terror and sharp cracks of any gun the terrified could get their hands on. The wind had vanished almost altogether, the autumn trees frozen in time and any flag not ripped from its base was flat as a sheet of paper. Yet somehow, the stench of death and those awful sounds still carried over the mountains.

Carter's group had been riding down a rocky mountainside for the better part of a day, taking a break around noon to brew some coffee and eat the measly pickings of a few weasels shot the day before. He found it strange while chewing on the fatty cubes of weasel cut out by his uncle. The birds. They were there in the trees, going about their daily business of picking worms and building nests. But there wasn't a chirp to be heard. Even the birds knew to be quiet.

Carter's uncle, Barnum had ripped him out from his bed in the dead of night last Tuesday. At the time, he was angry, smelling the familiar layer of booze on his face and clothes. But now, he was more than grateful. When they left his hometown of Deer Creek, bodies were crawling in the dirt roads and buildings were ablaze. Despite the heavy, galloping stomps of Barnum's horse, a powerful Appaloosa with spots and speckles of black and white, Carter was well aware of the shouts and hollers of the small town ripping itself apart.

"They went for the bank first. Those sons a' bitches. When the sheriff came in, I was at the bar." Barnum said as Carter returned to the present, treading along on a smaller horse found with a fully-packed saddle once the two had escaped Deer Creek.

He was talking with the latest member of their little party of six, the husky brute who called himself Joseph. Although most of the time, he didn't even respond to his own name. Carter guessed he was either half-deaf from all the shooting or lying about his past.

"Shit. Having a drink right before this happened? Surprised you didn't fall off your horse.” Joseph replied to his uncle with a snort.

"Me and Hancey got a good bond. She's taken a bullet for me and I've for her." Barnum said with a small smile, gently patting Hancey's thick neck and brushing her mane. His hand was like sandpaper on her hair, years and years of lumber work turned any man's hands into a rocky riverbed.

Joseph turned back to Carter and looked him up and down.

"How old are you, boy? Been with y'all for three days now and haven't seen a lick of hair on your face."

Carter shivered at his slippery voice.

"Fifteen. Sixteen next month." Carter replied, trying to dig deep within his throat so he didn't sound like such a boy.

But he was. A boy orphan, now without a home and only an uncle he barely knew until the last year. Mom and Dad had been gone for months, taken by fever during early winter. The sheriff had promised to look after him and got him a job bailing hay at the local horse feed. Now he had nobody left. Except for the stern uncle and the random horse. He hadn't even named her yet.

"He ain't no boy. Not anymore. Saved my skin." Anna Hargrave said, appearing at Carter's left side.

Carter smiled. Anna was an older woman, blessed with gorgeous red hair that came down to her waist in a braid and a velvet-smooth voice that reminded him of Mom. She had a beautiful belt with two holsters at her hips. But the revolver on her right was stolen by a bandit the day before last. Carter had been stirred from sleep once again, hearing the nice lady scream out as the bandit was nearly wrapped up with her in the canvas blanket. Carter jumped on top and didn't even think about plunging a finger deep into his eye socket. The eye popped out pretty easy to Carter's surprise. Along with an unwelcome gush of blood and some pink strings holding the eye in place. After the struggle, Anna kicked him in the face and he crawled away, the pistol wedged between his fingers. Barnum had clipped him in the shoulder with his shotgun as he ran off into the brush, but of course, that didn't matter.

The bandit tumbled off the cliffside they were camping at, his body smacking into the boulders and rocks below. Carter could hear every bone break and the smashing of flesh. He remembered peering over the cliffside at dusk, seeing the bandit a couple hundred feet down the slope, still crawling away with the trail of dark blood behind him.

They won't stay dead...

That was the first thing Barnum had told Carter once they left his house. It chilled him to the bone. Worse than the winter that killed his parents. He had seen more than twenty men and women die in the last week. Only to watch them rise up seconds later, screaming in pain as they stumbled around. There was no cause he could figure. The people weren’t sick or possessed by the Devil. It was as if one day, God just decided to close up Heaven and Hell.

The worst one by far was the woman who was crushed by a runaway wagon, her baby in her arms. The four-horse wagon went through them without so much as a small bump. Carter stopped in his tracks, dropping the firewood gathered on a small wooded trail to take back to camp. He saw her pull herself from the mud that had sucked her face down, watching her spit out teeth as the remaining part of her hanging jaw tapping against a golden, heart-shaped locket. She stared right at him, her eyes caked with the black mud of the rain that had stopped the night before. She was alive. And in pain. But she didn't even blink, turning around and falling to her crooked knees and pulling her baby from the dirt. The infant was screaming, the thick mud in its throat bubbling up as the woman wiped the scum from its face.

Barnum pulled Carter away, grabbing his hand as they returned to camp a mile away. Although his uncle would probably never speak of it again, he saw tears falling down his pockmarked, scraggly face.

"Not like it matters anymore. Nobody really needs saving when you think about it." Joseph said, once again bringing Carter back to the present.

"Whaddya' mean?" Anna asked, her kind face roughing up at the brow.

"Well, shit. As Bannen said, we can't die."

"Name's Barnum." Barnum said loudly, turning his head to face the giant as Hancey continued to lead the posse.

"Right." Joseph said quietly.

"But I guess it's hard to remember names right now. Odd times, huh?" Barnum continued.

Carter could almost feel the heat coming off from Joseph's now-red ears poking out from his obnoxious wide-brimmed hat. The man laughed in a strange rhythm, as if he had forgotten how to laugh properly. Barnum scared Carter quite often. But when towns were burning and the people were killing each other without any hope of actually dying... he was glad to have a scary man on his side.

THE NEXT FEW MINUTES were silent as they reached the bottom of the mountain, into the flatter plains of Wicker Hills, Montana. Barnum had rolled a cigarette that he shared with Anna. Joseph had just about emptied his flask that he said had wine inside. But Carter didn’t know wine smelled so much like the kerosene he’d use to light the lanterns at night. The other members of the posse, an old woman named Vandy and her son, Horis were calmly humming a church hymn while sharing their family-owned horse. They hadn’t talked much. Horis couldn’t talk due to an infection when he was little. But while the sharply-dressed Vandy was silent, Carter knew she was always thinking. Anything to pass the time and push away the thoughts of what awaited them at the actual town of Wicker Hills. Many whispers from passerby over the last week had put Wicker Hills up on a pedestal. A fortified city that kept up the thick wooden walls long after their year-long battle against the Indians of the northwestern part of Montana.

Wicker Hills was said to be an active town of 400, the local spring that sliced through the middle of the town perfect for fishing and other resources. Barnum was hesitant, joking that the only reason it was still standing was because nobody had tried killing each other yet.

Joseph finished the rest of his flask in a large gulp that made him rear his head. He shoved the flask back into his horse’s satchel. He was on Carter’s right in formation, staring at him for minutes on end before mumbling to him followed by the occasional belch that smelled like pure fuel. He started to hum along with Vandy and Horis… not in some religious harmony… but mocking them. The rest tried to ignore it, with Vandy closing her eyes and saying a silent prayer while Horis stared the brute down.

“So… by my woes!” Joseph blurted out, interrupted the humming by singing the song in a high-pitched tone while stretching his arms up to the sky.

Barnum stopped the posse, pulling back on Hancey’s reins and turning her around to face the singing… and very drunk idiot.

“Joseph…” Barnum said calmly.

“To be nearer to my God… to thee!” Joseph continued, the song now turning into a drawn-out shout.

Anna got close to Carter, looking him in the eyes and shaking her head. He watched her place a gloved hand on her left side. Barnum did the same.

“Or if on a joyful wing… nearer to my… my fucking God to thee!”

He wouldn’t stop shouting. He brought his hands back down to the saddle and slowly reached into his satchel.

“Take your hands off that bag and put ‘em back on the reins.” Barnum said, the click of his pistol’s hammer making Carter jump.

His uncle locked eyes with as Anna had done. It was about to happen. They were about to find out if this drunken creep could really die. Barnum looked back at Joseph a second too late.

A pop! cracked through the air and Barnum’s forehead blew open, Hancey rising up and neighing loudly as his body fell.

“No!” Carter screamed, looking back at Joseph who was grasping his pistol with both hands as he fired off the rest of the shots at Hancey and Anna. Carter’s horse took off toward a ditch next to the posse while Joseph continued to scream the song.

Horis and Vandy both pulled out their guns and fired at Joseph’s back. The blaring of gunshots rung in Carter’s ears as his horse tripped over the large ditch and threw him into the air. The next thing he saw was darkness.

CARTER AWOKE TO THE all-too-familiar sounds of screams. But he was somewhat relieved. They were those of Joseph. He pulled himself from the tough grass and looked up to see Barnum wielding his hunting knife, a bloody hole in his head, slicing off the remaining black, hissing tendrils connecting Joseph’s head to his neck. The screaming didn’t stop until they threw his head into the nearby river. His body kept wiggling around as well, even after the hogties.

The next day, the group was silent. Beaten, bloody, but alive.

“What now?” Carter asked as they approached the wooded walls of Wicker Hills, quiet thunder booming.

“We keep on moving.” Barnum said, a tightly-wrapped bandage sticking out from under his hat.

“And why not…”

“It seems we just can’t die.”