Free Ashes of the Dead - Bucket of Blood by Jake Page B

away from behind the bar. Only a few hours had passed since the undead had attacked, but he thought that being locked away in a saloon with nowhere to run was even worse.
    Outside, the u ndead horde continued to grow larger. Some had ripped away chunks of wood and broke through windows, and others moaned loudly as they mindlessly feasted on human remains. The initial shock of the attack had passed, but now came the slow agonizing period of waiting, and nobody seemed to know what was happening, and even worse, there were no clear ideas of what to do next. The clock continued to tick away the long night, and the undead remained.
    The last boards were nailed against the windows, and the remaining tables and chairs had already been used to reinforce the makeshift barricades that surrounded the inside of the saloon. People were forced to sit on the floor throughout the parlor or on one of the few remaining stools that were bolted to the floor.
    Eric finished pounding in the last board across a front window. “ That's all of it. There's no more wood to spare,” he said.
    “ Alright,” Pickett responded. “That's it then. Get these people upstairs.” Pickett wiped the grease from his forehead with a well-used handkerchief. “Okay people. Let's move upstairs. Nice and slow. Women and children first ,” he said as he waved his arms through the air and directed them toward the stairs. The large crowd started to file up the stairs to the second floor and move into the hallway.
    At the front of the Parlor, an u ndead arm had discovered a weak spot in the barricade and burst through. It grabbed at the air and clawed wildly for anything it could get a hold of.
    “ Shit! ” Pickett said. People started to panic at the sight of the undead arm. “Nice and slow people, nice and slow ,” he continued, still motioning the crowd toward the stairs and trying to keep them calm.
    Cutler rushed out of the parlor and into the kitchen where he grabbed a large chopping knife from the counter. He returned to the front and sliced through the decomposing arm. Thick black blood sprayed the ceiling and dripped down Cutler's face and beard as he stabbed the arm repeatedly. The undead's rotten stump withdrew, but two more took its place. The hole grew larger as more undead hands ripped away at the wood, exploiting the weak spot and pushing their way through the barricade into the parlor. Complete chaos ensued.
    People began to scream and rush up the stairs. A woman was pushed to the ground and nearly trampled to death, but a young man pulled her out of the fray. More undead were attracted to the growing host outside and continued to rip away wood from the saloon. Undead arms from everywhere were bursting through the barricades as the onslaught of undead attackers continued.
    An u ndead store clerk managed to crawl through the hole and the Gunman fired, blowing off its head. He fired again as another undead took its place. The bullet passed through its eye, causing its head to explode against the wall.
    Cutler continued to hack with the knife, chopping off hands and slicing into forearms. He stabbed eyes and fiercely bayonetted any exposed undead body parts that appeared. Eric ran out of a back room with a fire axe he had found in the kitchen.
    “ Will this help?” he asked Cutler.
    Cutler grinned maniacally. “Definitely!” he yelled, and Eric threw him the axe. Cutler began to wield it like a lumberjack and swung it wildly with both arms. His precision didn’t matter and undead body parts rained to the ground. The undead numbers continued to grow outside as they surrounded the entire building.
    Johnny fought off the undead Chinese miner as it broke through a barricaded window in the back. He plunged a knife deep into the top of its skull and twisted. Another undead man grabbed him from behind and savagely tore into his neck, blanketing the hallway in arterial red blood. He tried to push it away, but was quickly overpowered, and fell to the