A terrified scream pierced the air. Billy scanned around the abandoned train yard.
"What the hell was that?"
Glancing over at his partner, he nodded to her as he cocked his gun. "I'll be on your six," he said. "Just lay low."
"Not exactly the easiest thing anymore," Daisy murmured to him before they went opposite sides of the railcar.
She paused as she drew out her magnum, pressing her free hand to a crick in her lower back. Her swollen round belly quivered as her unborn baby gave a strong kick.
"Easy in there, kid," she whispered as she crept alongside the tracks. "Mommy knows what she's doing."
Out of nowhere, her gun was kicked from her hand. Johnny Vermilion leapt out of the abandoned locomotive and grabbed Daisy roughly by the shoulders. His maniacal chuckle hissed her ear as she struggled against his grip.
She finally pulled away from him and reached for her gun.
"Uh ah ah, blondie," Vermilion had his pistol pointed directly at her head. Daisy caught her breath and held up her hands.
"Take it easy! What do you want, freak?"
"Apocalypta's taking over any town she wants." He glared at her devilishly grinning, his beady eyes shifting to her pregnant belly.
"Want that little twerp of yours to stand a chance? You and your boyfriend either join us or stay out of our way..."
As the demented thug snickered, Daisy glanced over his shoulder. Billy had come around the other way and had his piece in hand. Grinning, she dropped her gun as watched as he struck Vermilion in the head knocking him to the ground.
Daisy hovered over the two men and pulled her knife from her boot as Billy pressed the muzzle of his handgun to their enemy's brow.
"I'm taking you to the sheriff," Billy sneered.
"I think we ate him!" Vermilion hissed, and he laughed again viciously.
Tying the villain up and throwing him in the backseat of the jeep, Billy went and gave Daisy a hand as she climbed into the passenger seat.
As the engine revved up and they pulled out of Harper's Junction, Vermilion went into more psychotic hysterics.
"Gag him!" Billy said sternly. "It's gonna be a long ride..."
Daisy unbuckled from her seat and reached into the back, stuffing a long strip of cloth down Vermilion's throat before tying another over his lips.
She sank back down and strapped herself back in, letting out a winded sigh.
"You okay?" Billy murmured to her.
"Yeah," she nodded. "Just...maybe moving in a moving car should be something to avoid from now on." Smoothing her hand over her engorged abdomen, Daisy shifted her gaze ahead to the unending desert as they drove on.
~
Vermilion escaped his prison cell and death sentence long before the sunrise.
Sheriff Cooper sent word across the desert of Mayor Shelby's orders to put together a team of those willing to go and hunt down Apocalypta and her minions once and for all.
When the announcement reached them Daisy immediately volunteered herself and Billy, which didn't seem ideal to him.
"Babe come on, you're not doing this," he told her. "It's one thing just handling copperheads here, but going up the mountain?"
"I told you, I'm not just going to stay on my ass and do nothing while you're out there risking yours? Who knows if whoever else Cooper finds won't go against you or even each other? I'm not letting that happen!"
She took his hand. "Our baby deserves to be born into a world that's worth living in, with a father to love and protect it."
Billy sighed and stared at his feet, then looked back into Daisy's eyes. "All I want is both of you safe."
"We're safer if we're together," she said softly, putting his hand to her belly. He held her close. She sighed, burying her head into his shoulder.
Even if they did, and this so called team they'd be part of was any good, there was no guarantee that they could take Apocalypta down.
Not unless they were able to bring him home.
...
Jack,
I'm writing to you because I know Billy won't. Apocolypta has completely destroyed Harper's Junction and soon she'll be coming for Desert Springs. If we're gonna stop her, we need you.
Please, let's put the past aside, at least for your soon to be niece or nephew.
Daisy Jane
...
A couple of days later, back in Desert Springs, Billy and Daisy were introduced to their new comrades. By first impression, the three men seemed exactly as they looked: a sloppy gun slinging drunk, a laconic but stealth samurai type, and a short but sturdy Hispanic with artillery almost bigger than he was.
But they appeared to be serious about the job at hand as Cooper spoke, explaining the progress made tracking Vermilion since his escape. Maybe these outsiders were the right men for the job after all. Except they had never ventured out in the deserts once!
Jack had to have gotten her letter by now, but Daisy hadn't gotten any word back so there was no telling whether he would come.
By nightfall as the entire team was gathered in the town saloon, both Billy and Daisy had long accepted that she had completely wasted her time trying to get his brother back.
"Told you Jack wouldn't show," Billy strode past her in a huff.
She followed him out to the alley behind the street, where he stood sulking. "Don't be like that, baby." she sighed crossly.
"You should've known he was going to let you down!" Billy snapped. He turned away from her, regretful of his tone at her. "You shouldn't even have bothered."
Daisy came closer to him and reached for his hand. "Do you really carry all that much hate?" she asked sincerely.
"I hate that he's never been there...I hate that he's miserable...and I hate that I've given up one him." Daisy hugged him.
Suddenly they were interrupted by a spasm of growling from the end of the alley.
It was Cooper...but he wasn't definitely not himself anymore.
"Get back!" Billy stepped in front of her, firing a bullet into their former ally's head. The creature fell to the ground lifeless. But he hadn't been alone.
Billy and Daisy rushed back inside the saloon and alerted the others just a swarm of copperheads came through the door behind them.
Bullets flew, glass smashed, flesh was ripped apart as the five warriors fought against the undead.
Despite their best efforts, the barkeep and few concubines that the men had called for fell victim to the attack.
"They're still coming in!" Billy called out. Sure enough, copperheads kept flooding inside, one after the other.
One came up behind Daisy and grabbed her arm, and she yanked it away so fast that she lost her balance with her large stomach pulling her to the floor. Quickly she turned so she would fall on her back, but came face to face with the copperhead right on top of her.
She struggled, panicking. "Billy, I can't get him off me!"
Then a gunshot rang out and the ethereal being slumped to the floor next to her. Daisy looked up and saw a tall figure with a familiar face... and hat.
"Jack!"
He offered her his hand and helped her back onto her feet. "I got your message."
"I didn't think you'd come." She said softly, looking from him to Billy, who stopped his gunfire and stared at his brother with an icy glare.
"Jack? Took you long enough."
~
At sunrise the next morning, the survivors of the late night massacre were gathered with Mayor Shelby at the bar. "Well, Cooper's dead, so what's the plan?" the aptly named Whiskey Joe asked aloud, pouring himself a glass.
"You guys finish this," the mayor announced, "and I'll give you any damn thing you want."
Daisy looked up from her spot next to Billy, rubbing a sore spot on her belly. "Cooper had a plan. I think we should just stick to it."
"What about him?" the short gunman, who called himself The Vaquero, pointed to Jack. "He's supposed to know how to survive out there."
"Hey Jack, what do you think?" Whiskey Joe slipped his pipe back between his teeth.
Jack's eyes glanced up for a moment, then looked off into the sunlight streaming through the windows.
"Everybody's gotta die someday."
