Read Nightmare of the Dead: Rise of the Zombies for Free Online Page A

their leather vests and picking at their teeth while fingering the hammers on their guns absently with their eyes perched upon the woman, wondering at the waste of flesh, the inhumanity, the unfairness. They strode past as if her face lay exposed within an open, velvet-lined casket.
    When they were finally gone, the red-bearded man laughed uproariously and crawled along the floor. He reached up for the table and braced himself against it while rising to his feet. "I'm dead, anyway," he said between chuckles. "Neasa Bannan herself is going to die for me? I couldn’t have written it better myself."
    "Your blood is on my boot," she nodded at the stray dribble that landed on the edge of her boot. "Get me a drink, sit down, and answer my damn questions. In that order."
    The barroom looked as if it had never been used before. The floorboards were unsoiled by alcohol, sweat, and vomit. Tobacco smoke had yet to stain the wood, and the bar itself was laden with dust from it s disuse.
    "Name's Lionel McPhee," he announced while returning to the table with the liquor.
    "I didn't ask," she said while he poured her glass. "If they figured you for a spy, then maybe you got a habit of running your mouth. You talk when I ask you a question."
    The big man excitedly sat down across from her, a stark contrast to the tombstone-demeanor of the man who'd sat in his seat only recently. He waited while Bannan knocked back another glass of the welcome elixir.
    "What're you doing with these people?" she asked.
    "Well, it's pretty simple, really. I'm looking for the weapon the Confederates are developing. I don't know what it is, what it does, or when they plan to use it, but they're working on something."
    She had a good idea what that weapon might be.
    "You're a shitty spy," she decided.
    "Pardon my manners, ma'am, but I'm not half the bank robber or gambler you are."
    "That's obvious. Have you met Lynch?"
    "Crazy looking bastard, if you can mind my…"
    "Stop the damn pleasantries and get on with it."
    "Right. Well, he's the mind behind the mission. Santiago's working with him but not for him. He doesn't exactly like being a subordinate. He's got his own mission. His crew is a bunch of mercenaries, some wannabes from Texas. He's done some downright rotten things. Don't have no soul or conscience. I should you tell you about what happened here in Cedar Rock and what I had to do…"
    "You're worse than he is. You like to hear yourself talk. What's the last thing you know about me? The last thing I was involved in. Rumors."
    "You're a dead woman walking. They shot you dead at Harper's Ferry. People think you were working with John Brown. Nobody knows for sure, but they were convinced you were dead."
    "How do you know I'm not?"
    "Seen you in Houston, once. I don't know if you remember, but you'd robbed that bank with a negro woman helping you. Killed five men. Found your body a few months later at the Ferry. Everyone knew it was you. Your face, see…it's unforgettable. Ain't a woman alive who looks like she's been to Hell and ripped out the heart of the Devil himself."
    She weighed his words and eyed the bottle that was inches away from his fist. More than anything, she wanted to continue drinking. The confrontation with the hellish beasts on the train seemed like it happened to someone else, perhaps in a piece of gothic fiction written by an opium-enhanced madman. Everyone knew more about her own life than she did, and yet, she maintained her show of bravado because it was all that she had. She could shoot, fight, and drink. She understood the land, and she suspected that she knew how to mount and ride a horse if she needed to. The war wasn't a mystery to her, and Santiago had appeared to her in a vision.
    Santiago wanted her dead, and his own hands were surely unclean. He was an experienced killer, and was more than confident in his abilities. He'd already hesitated to kill her; his hand was stayed by a twisted sense of loyalty to whatever cause he