Free Alive and Fighting: Revelations by Cole Connelly Page B

round.
                  "Fear is most certainly the correct response to this verse. The Four Horsemen are none to be tangled with. Alone, one could easily slaughter dozens of you. Together, if allowed…they could easily purge the city of life. Though it sounds odd to hear, give thanks to our Zero, for what mercy he shows. Sightings of him or his cadre of Horsemen are all during fierce storms and other dangerous times. It is believed that he considers these times when people would be dying anyway, or perhaps he simply enjoys the chaos. I will leave you today with this, a storm is blowing in; you can see the clouds coming up the river. The Horsemen, though sightings are rare, are distinct in appearance. Their flesh is bronze, like a rusted beam, and just as tough. They are known to be adorned in heavy chains and shredded tires. Each though is distinct from the others as my verse described. Death is a much darker shade and leaves a trail of ashes in his wake, Famine is covered in black and purple bruises, Pestilence has holes that pierce all the way through his torso and arms, and War has lacerations that still bleed a horribly toxic blood. Please, finish your marketing and go home. Bolt your doors and close your windows, this is no time to seek danger." Spike warned, stepping down from the crate that served as his bandstand.
                  "Hey look! Tyrone's putting up the new wanted posters!" A Graver shouted from somewhere in the crowd.
                  The throng of eager Graveyarders that had just begun to separate from Spike's story quickly re-converged, Rose included, to see who had done what to get publicly bountied. While a few private firms of bounty hunters operated in Blood Oak, issuing bounties to the public was a rare sight and almost always meant a professional hunter had failed. These bounties usually remained unclaimed for months, and rarely did the bounties survive long enough against the undead to ever be claimed. Tyrone was well known for making rounds among the different tribes to collect wanted posters and putting them up in the Crossroad Bazaar on Saturdays. He had just put up the second, and final, poster when the group of onlookers made it to the bounty board.
                  "Wonder who's pissed off the Klan this time." Spike said, startling Rose as apparently he had directed his statement to her.
                  "I've got no idea really. I do my best to avoid them, but every few weeks I see these posters of some poor soul they've set sights on." Rose replied after realizing Spike was indeed talking to her.
                  "Honestly I'm surprised they put out as few bounties as they do; they've a lot fewer allies than enemies." Spike wondered, looking to the posters to see if they were in fact issued by the abhorred Grey Klan.
                  "I always imagined they do most of their own bounty hunting." Rose guessed, eliciting a nod from Spike as the crowd moved enough for them to read the posters.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
                  "Huh, I've been hearing about this Daniels kid. Didn't know he was causing the Klan this much trouble though," Spike said after reading the new posters.
                  "I've always wondered, why do they call themselves the Klan? Seems weird that they'd misspell their own name." Rose wondered, looking at Chase Daniels' artist rendering on the wanted poster.
                  "No, that's spelled right. The Klan's leader, goes by the name Noose, was alive before the infection. Back then there was a group that called themselves the Ku Klux Klan, bunch of racist mother fuckers whose family trees didn’t have any branches. So when the dust settled after the Infection, Noose took their name, but not their ideals, and formed his new group of Zealots. Noose claims their only intention was to wipe out the zombies, but he also knew people would still