Who, Cerberus: An RDR Undead Nightmare Story [ John Marston x OC ]

i. "Devil's getting into folk out there"

John Marston's stallion Thoreau panted for breath, his rider's desperate dash to Blackwater far from over. Snakes slithered away from the horse's racing hooves. Crows squawked menacingly overhead, silhouetted against the lightning that periodically illuminated the night sky, the rain that fell heavy on John's hat and shoulders, the horse's dun-coloured neck and flanks, drenching them both to the bone. The howls of wolves echoed in the distance, heard over Thoreau's hoofbeats. Nature itself in revolt.

He'd left his wife, Abigail, and teenage son, Jack, back at their homestead, bound and writhing on the floor, their veins blackened with some kind of sickness, mouths bloody and snapping, retching with inhuman noises. John heard the same sounds on the wind, dogging his heels into town.

The first few buildings of Blackwater came into view as Thoreau's muffled hooves took up the clatter of pavement, the horse lathered with effort. Then, the main street, nearly deserted. Most of the storefronts and apartments that made up the town's key thoroughfare had darkened windows, signage turned to "closed"; the doctor's, John's goal, among them. But the lights of the saloon were still blazing. A beacon for bad things yet to come.

John urged his horse on towards the saloon, tinkling piano and loud, drunken guffaws emerging out of the deafening rain. He hitched Thoreau around back and dashed for the front, bursting through the swinging double doors. "There's something out there," He said loudly, gesturing emphatically out at the rain, drawing the attention of several men at the bar, the blackjack table, leaning over the rail on the saloon's upper level. "Something evil."

Immediately, whispers and mutterings took over the room, the men conferring with each other. John, well-known in these parts, nonetheless disliked catching "crazy old Marston" among their hushed - and, not-so-hushed, in the case of the especially soused - conversations.

"I'm serious!" He shouted, drawing their eyes - some concerned, some entertained, some just plain pissed off - once again. "Devil's getting into folk out there." A few smirks turned into callous laughter, incensing John anew. "It's the devil! Ain't no other way to explain it!"

"Sounds like either old John Marston sorely needs a drink, or to turn the clock back 'fore he ever first had one!" A waitress chimed from the staircase, a tray of empty, sudsy glasses braced against her hip as she descended, heading for the bar. The laughter increased in volume as John insisted, "I ain't been drinking! There's something going on out there!"

"Drink it is, then," she winked, depositing the tray on the bartop and seizing a bottle of bourbon by the neck, a shot glass in her free hand. She approached him, weaving through the tables and chairs, men whistling at the swish of her skirt, cut high in the front, the shine of her ash-blond hair in the gaslamps.

"I don't want no drink," John seethed through his teeth, "I want-"

"Somethin' a little stronger, cowboy?" She interrupted, teasingly, overturning the shot glass onto the bottle's cork, fingering the rain-drenched fabric of his collar. The men in the saloon whooped, and the bartender hollered, "Give it to him, Ruby!"

John slapped her hand away from his shirt, but it returned, held fast. He felt himself being dragged towards one of the rooms on the first floor, his resistance foiled by several of the men pushing him along. She pushed him into the room, crowing "Ain't crazy horses the most fun to ride, fellas?" to cheers and hollers, before slipping in after him, closing the door and turning the lock, reaching under her skirt with her free hand.

"I'm a married man, want nothing to do with this," John held up his hands, outrage clenching them into fists. Her expression, playful and flirtatious in the bar-at-large, immediately turned grave as she pressed her back against the door, facing him, pulling out a revolver from a concealed holster somewhere by her legs.

"How many are there?" She said, setting the bottle on a nightstand. She swung open the revolver's chamber and peered through it at John, counting her bullets.

"How many...what?" He stammered, confused at her sudden change in behaviour.

"How. Many. Are. There." She repeated, pausing between each word. "The devil-people? The undead?" John, in the midst of shaking water off of his hat, froze, met her dark eyes.

He said slowly, "They can't be undead, can they?" Abigail had been very much alive until Uncle, that old bastard, bit her in the neck; Jack the same until his mother'd bitten him in turn. They seemed alive, just, well, strange.

"Tell the empty graveyards all across Lemoyne and Ambarino," she glowered, repeating her checking of bullets with a second gun. "Now, think, Marston. How many?"

John scratched at the wet strands of his hair, his beard. "No idea, didn't see them. Just heard them coming after me."

"Shit," she muttered under her breath, moved quickly to the lace curtain obscuring the window, peered out. She looked into the chambers of both guns again, as if to find more bullets there, sighed when they revealed the number to be unchanged. "You got any bullets, Marston?"

He ran his fingers along the shotgun shells pressed into their places in his bandolier, clutched for the spare box of pistol rounds in his bag. "None for you, I'm afraid." She took a deep breath, nodded.

"OK then, big fella," she fixed him with a sad look, momentarily, before it turned resolute. "I'm off to go rally the troops, sad bunch of drunks and reprobates as they are. We got about thirty minutes before this whole place is crawling with the devil's damned playthings."

She pulled the slide lock back to an open position, rested her hand on the knob, looked back to John. "You know, cowboy, you really should have that drink," she said, nodding towards the bottle on the nightstand. "It might just be your last."

*

Hello there! I hope you liked this first chapter of Who, Cerberus. I have no idea what I'm doing, so strap on in for some western-horror goodness*. Looking forward to your thoughts on this story.

*Goodness not guaranteed.