Undead Outlaws: Necromancer Haze and the Soul-Rot Plague

Undead Outlaws: Necromancer Haze and the Soul-Rot Plague

Matthew David

www.undeadoutlaws.net

Copyright 2016 by Matthew David

All rights reserved.

ISBN 9781370221110

To my biggest fan, my mother. Thanks for believing in me.

Book 1

The Patchwork Bounty Hunter

If the afterlife were a renewable resource, it’s safe to assume that mankind would find a way to exploit it.

Just imagine if the afterlife, the shadow world that’s right next door to us, could be tapped into, siphoned, condensed, liquefied, and burned for fuel. As long as people, plants, and animals kept living and, more importantly, kept dying, their spent life force, no longer in use, would be there for the taking—the ultimate in renewable energy.

Not easy to get to, granted, but for the enterprising cross-dimensional engineer with proper funding and under the right circumstances (the secrets of which would be carefully guarded), holes through the fabric of reality could be bored and the essence of the spirit world slowly drained out.

On one world, Mear, some enterprising people did just that, tapping into this resource using principles and knowledge that on Mear were practically as old as written history. They’d looked at things in a slightly different way, dusted off some old myths, held them up to the light of science, and found, surprisingly, many grains of truth there.

After all, the proof of it could be seen every night, walking around right in front of them—shambling forms raised up by the practitioners of the Dark Arts. These practitioners had been messing with the afterlife for centuries. Why couldn’t anyone else?

It took just a little time, effort, and, most importantly of all for inventors, sheer dumb luck, and suddenly, the etheria—pure, concentrated afterlife—was flowing.

So far, there hadn’t been any negative effects.

So far.

Haze had a damn good memory. It had helped shoot him to a very high status at the University of the Dead in a very short time. The university had a reputation for being home to a bunch of stuck-up grave robbers who meddled in things they didn’t understand. True or not, the things they did understand were contained in books—a vast, impossible number of books. Haze had read many of them before he had taken up a life of crime. Right now, he was remembering what one particular book had to say about the effects of dehydration. It was much on his mind lately.

Picture this—an open stretch of dry, desolate desert, with sagebrush growing in patches and brittle tumbleweeds loafing around, too lazy to get a move on in the heat.

The lone cowboy trudged through the middle of the desert wasteland, very tired and very undersupplied. He trudged due to the weight of the load he pulled, but we’ll come to that in a bit.

The lone cowboy, Haze, with his six-shooters holstered at his sides, his handsome young face dripping with sweat, dirty and unkempt. He pulled himself forward one footstep at a time—while giving a lecture.

Lightheadedness is actually caused by a drop in blood pressure and blood volume. Blood volume drops because the body is literally drying out. His classroom of rocks, tumbleweeds, and sagebrush sat around him in rapt attention. Lightheadedness is accompanied by confusion and a sluggishness of cognitive brain…uh…stuff.

Haze’s eyes fixed on a nearby beetle that looked as if it had been drifting off to sleep during his lecture. The beetle, noticing Haze’s gaze in time, sat up in attention. Haze kept his eye on it, ready to punish the errant bug with a lack of participation credit for the day.

He also realized he might be getting a little delirious.

Just a little.

Fainting like a little sissy isn’t uncommon, he said, though, thankfully, we’re not quite at that stage yet.

Haze, distracted by his lecture, managed to walk over the only tumbleweed in his path, getting it caught on his boots. After a moment of frantic kicking to dislodge it and almost falling over, he continued walking.

Haze paused to gather his thoughts, a task that was getting harder to do. A nearby piece of sandstone doodled in its notebook as it waited for the professor to continue. Inwardly, Haze grimaced at the waste of good paper.

Realizing that perhaps he was dropping too far into his musings, Haze decided to experiment with the here and now by offering an opinion of his current circumstances.

I really should have drunk my own urine.

He hoped for some kind of response. Normally, a statement like that was sure to elicit one. The lack of response didn’t bode well.

Now we should talk about what Haze was pulling.

Around the cowboy’s neck and body was a mule harness, currently repurposed as a Haze harness. Attached to the Haze harness was a coffin, with spoked wheels built into it. The wheels seemed to be a permanent part of the coffin’s construction. In fact, a small advertising logo had been painted on the side of the coffin: Mugsby’s Traveling Coffins: Coffins for Corpses on the Go!

Haze stopped for a moment to survey the vast emptiness of dust and rock around him.

You know, he said absently, the fact that the dynamite at the vault blew too soon, the sheriff untied himself, and our getaway horses ran away isn’t my fault.

An unintelligible, muffled swearing emitted from the coffin in a steady stream. Haze sighed in relief.

He reached into his shirt pocket and took out what was, at first glance, a pocket watch. The cowboy pressed it against his head for a few seconds, flipped it open, and read it. Instead of numbers, the watch showed strange symbols, with only a single hand on the clock face.

Haze sighed, closed the watch, and mentally shrugged. Honestly, what had he been expecting?

The swearing from the coffin stopped. Haze froze. The swearing started up again, and Haze relaxed. Well, if you’re going to be like that, he said, maybe you’d like to drive.

The coffin lid opened a fraction of an inch. From within came a gravel-chewing voice.

Haze? the voice asked.

Yeah, Ern?

You’re terrible at being a criminal.

I know, Ern. I know.

"And could you not go over every damn rock in the desert? If I still had a stomach, I’d be nauseous."

On a hilltop not too far away, a tall figure on horseback watched them. Satisfied, and with a kick of the spurs, the figure rode hell-bent after Haze and the coffin.

The sun touched the horizon as Haze turned to address his classroom again, his back to a sheer cliff drop. Free now of the Haze harness, he paced about, gesturing for emphasis as he made his points. A vulture sat on a nearby rock and HRWAK-ed encouragement.

Class, I have a testable hypothesis, he said.

A groan emerged from the coffin.

Haze gestured down the thirty-foot sheer cliff to the train tracks below. Assertion: that two subjects, jumping from here to the back of a train moving at approximately forty miles per hour, would not only survive but would also be transported to a land flowing with water, whiskey, and wanton women.

Haze sprang to the side of the coffin and cracked the lid a fraction. What do you say, Ern? he asked. Care to be a part of this grand experiment?

You’re an idiot.

Haze slammed the lid shut in response. Thank you, Ern. Your contribution to science will not be forgotten.

A gunshot rang out, and a puff of dust exploded by Haze’s boots. Haze’s boots were there only a millisecond longer before, along with the rest of Haze, they dove behind the coffin. Before Haze hit the ground and rolled to put his back to the coffin, his six-shooters were already drawn.

A tiny part of Haze couldn’t help but give a critique. Not bad, not bad, but then again, if you were a real criminal, you never would have been ambushed in the first place.

More gunshots rang out, several of them hitting the coffin. Haze heard the occasional muffled ow from Ern.

Finally the gunshots stopped.

Gentlemen! called a woman’s voice.

Haze heard the lazy walk of the woman as she came straight for him. He also heard a brief whinny of a horse very close by and the telltale click clacks of guns being reloaded.

What baffled Haze, however, was the 100 percent authentic, sheer good-natured cheerfulness in the woman’s voice. It was almost enough to leave him breathless.

I’m Ellie, and it will be my joy and privilege to arrest you today, the woman said. You are to drop your weapons and come with me back to Sand City, where you will be held accountable for your crimes of attempted theft, destruction of property, and illegal usage of alchemy.

A pause followed, filled only by the gentle click clacks of bullets and lazy spur-rattling footsteps.

Haze decided to try the diplomatic approach. That sometimes works for criminals, right? Let’s give it a shot.

Can’t we just talk about this? asked Haze a moment before he jumped up and started unloading both his guns into the approaching woman. Reverse ambush! That’s a criminal thing, right?

Haze’s following emotional state can be broken down thusly. Adrenaline-pumping joy that he finally had done something properly criminal. Dumb shock as he stopped firing and made a realization. A patchwork? They sent a patchwork bounty hunter after us? Complete shame as he realized his victim would still be alive to judge him for playing dirty.

Ellie, already recovered from Haze’s bullets and still reloading, smiled. Also dressed in cowboy style, complete with a long duster, Ellie’s face was crisscrossed with stitches, as if someone had stitched her mismatched skin together from a number of different corpses—which was exactly what someone had done. Large metal bolts stuck out of her neck. Rail-thin, she was tall, towering a few inches over Haze. Haze probably would have found her cute (despite the stitches) if she wasn’t about to capture him, drag him to justice, and hang him.

Yup! You boys must have really pissed off someone important! Ellie said.

Ellie raised her own six-shooters and fired. Haze once again cowered behind the coffin.

It was a good move, he thought. It really was! It just wasn’t fair that his opponent was a tiny bit indestructible.

Getting hanged is really going to hurt…

In the distance, a train whistle blew. Haze’s eyes shot down the tracks. In the dusk light, at the edge of his vision, the train approached.

Haze’s eyes spun to the opposite horizon. The sun was almost completely set; only a few slivers remained. In his dehydrated, delirious, adrenaline-soaked brain, a plan started to form. Now if only—

Haze’s thoughts were interrupted by the thunk behind him and over his head. The patchwork woman, Ellie, stood on top of the coffin, both barrels of her six-shooters centered on Haze.

Once again, that cheerful, upbeat voice, which Haze was starting to hate. Well, Necromancer, you going to come quietly?

Haze put his hands up as he stood. He glanced toward the setting sun. Well, I might…

The sun set.

Haze looked Ellie dead in the eyes. "But I doubt he will," he said.

Ellie’s face registered confusion for a moment before the coffin lid exploded upward, sending her flying; she crashed down several feet away.

Ern stood up. In life, Ern might have been a handsome older man, but not so much anymore. The desiccated corpse, with mummy-like skin drawn tight over his scowling face, got to work. He grabbed a large piece of broken coffin lid and bashed a rising Ellie with it, dropping her to her hands and knees; then he kicked her in the gut a couple of times for good measure.

Haze tore his eyes from the fight, glanced at the train (getting closer!), and grabbed a length of rope that hung from the side of the destroyed coffin. He started tying a lasso, hands going automatically through the motions, and looked back at the fight.

Ellie had somehow gotten Ern off his feet, and the two rolled away from each other and then stood.

The stare off. The sizing up. The zombie outlaw and the patchwork bounty hunter. Ellie cracked her neck, her neck bolts sparking a few times. Ern popped his knuckles. Haze, having finally managed to tie his lasso, ran between the two toward Ellie’s horse.

"Anytime,