March 1887

                "Colt, the baby is crying." Sarah whispered sleepily in the darkness of the bedroom. Colt grunted, his face smashed tight against his pillow.

                "Yep."

                "Please, Colt... She's not hungry just fussy. I'm so tired." 

                Colt sighed and pushed himself to his feet. He fumbled in the dark for his trousers and pulled them on, nearly falling over sideways in the process and hearing Sarah laugh lightly when he grabbed the wall to regain his balance.

                "You'll pay for that laugh just as soon as I get her quiet again." Colt warned and Sarah pulled the blankets tighter around herself.

                "Promise?"

                Colt grumbled under his breath and left the bedroom, entering the den just out the door where his seven month old daughter was currently gripping the bars of her homemade crib and screaming for all she was worth.  

                The wood oven kept the inside of their tiny cabin warm, though Colt could feel the coldness of the wind when it blew and came through some of the tiny cracks between the logs. Tomorrow he would have to mud those walls up a little more.

                "What's the matter with you, little Loralie?" Colt asked gently as he picked the girl up and cradled her against his bare chest. She looked up at him, a grin spreading across her chubby , round face. Colt smiled back and then gasped with pain when she buried her fists in the dark hair of his chest and yanked.

                "Why you little..!" he growled and then his daughter laughed, doing away with any anger he might have felt seconds ago. With a sigh, Colt carried Loralie to the rocking chair he had crafted the fall before  and sat down in the dark and quiet room.

                "Alright now, little Loralie, you gotta go to sleep or else your mama and your pa arent' gonna be no good for nothin' tomorrow."

                Loralie tried to look around but Colt put his hand on the side of her head and held her against him, beginning to hum lightly as he rocked the most precious angel God had ever created.  Colt loved both the beautiful women in his life, though it wasn't in his nature to say so, they knew it was the truth.

                Colt and Sarah had been married for just over two years and while their marriage had been more out of convenience than love it had slowly turned into love and that love had been solidified with the birth of their daughter. Little Loralie. The love of Colt's life.

                He sat there humming and rocking for a long while, listening to the clock ticking on the wall and the sound of Loralie's tiny breaths. It wasn't' until her body twitched a little in his arms that he realized she was sound asleep.

                Colt, stood and walked back to the tiny crib, laying his daughter down gently and covering her with the quilt that Sarah had spent all last summer making.

                Eager to get back to bed and get to paying his wife back for that laugh, Colt strode into the bedroom, sliding out of his pants as he moved. He climbed into the bed and crawled beneath the covers, chuckling when Sarah moaned grumpily in her sleep and tried to steal the cover back.

                "Sarah...." He whispered, allowing his breath to blow against her ear. She squirmed, bringing up her shoulders to try to block his advances. "Sarah I believe I made a promise to you."

                "Colt....." Sarah moaned as Colt's lips danced across her bare shoulder and his tongue danced over the freckles that dusted them. "I'm tired...."

                Colt sighed with defeat and settled for wrapping his arm around her waist and snuggling his bare body up against hers.  Sarah mumbled a sleepy 'I'm sorry and I'll make it up to you' and Colt simply kissed her hair and told her to go to sleep and it didn't take long before sleep claimed him as well.

                The sound of his horses and chickens going crazy had him jerking awake a short time later.

                "Colt, what's going on?!" Sarah demanded with fear as Colt jumped to his feet and looked out into the darkness. He couldn't see anything but something was bothering the animals.

                "I don't know." Colt replied, pulling on his pants and his gun belt. Sarah hated the gun belt since it reminded her of Colt's less than honest past and the outlaw side of himself that he had worked hard to bury since settling down with her.

                He checked to ensure his .45 Colt was loaded and then grabbed his rifle from beside the bedroom door.

                "Just stay in the house, Sarah, I'll go check around. It's probably just a coyote or somethin'." Sarah nodded and Colt left the bedroom, glancing at Loralie sound asleep in her crib before opening the cabin door and stepping onto the porch.

                He hadn't said anything to Sarah and she hadn't said anything to him, but he knew they were both worried about the same thing. Worried that Colt's past had come back to haunt him. It seemed once you were an outlaw you were always an outlaw and you constantly had to watch your back.

                He pulled a match from his pocket and lit the lantern hanging on the porch before pulling it down and holding it toward the barn. Faintly he saw the shadow of a man through the open barn door and he yelled out angrily.

                "Hey!" he growled, setting the rifle down and pulling his revolver as he strode angrily toward the barn. He would be damned before he let someone steal his horses in the dead of night.

                He entered the barn and froze. "What the hell............" he gasped when he saw the man laying atop Colt's finest mare. The horse was dead and sprawled out in the hay and the man was chewing on her neck.

                "What the hell are you doing?!" Colt demanded and then he wished he hadn't spoken. The man stood and turned and Colt nearly cried out at the sight he was met with. The man's face was covered in blood and fur as well as open sores. His eyes were clouded over and looked much like the eyes of a dead man.

                The mans' movements were jerky and uncoordinated as he took steps toward Colt and his arms reached for him, his fingers clawing and stretching.

                Colt stumbled back several steps, the lantern  crashed to the ground quickly igniting the dry hay.

                "Gnaaa!!" the man yelled as he kept coming for Colt. Colt raised his gun and fired a shot as he continued to back away.

                The bullet ripped through the man's chest in a shot that would have dropped any living man dead. This man simply let out an ear piercing, blood curdling scream and then began to run at Colt.

                Colt jumped out of the way, rolling across the dirt as the flames picked up energy and began to lick at the walls of the barn. Colt had to kill...whatever the hell this was... and then get his horses and milk cows out of that death trap.

                Colt fired another shot into the man's back but still the man just screamed and then turned back toward Colt. Colt caught a flash of metal on the man's hand and recognized his neighbors ring.

                "Wallis?!" He demanded. "Wallis what the hell happened to you?!"  Wallis simply let out another one of those muffled 'Gnaaas!' and stumbled toward him, gnashing his teeth.  

                "COLT!!!" Sarah's voice cut through the night and Colt looked toward the cabin to see more jerking, stumbling figures entering through the open door.

                "Sarah!" Colt cried. He felt something tug on his leg, as he lay on the ground and realized that Wallis had grabbed his pants leg. Colt kicked out with his other foot, catching Wallis in the face but if it fazed the crazed man then it didn't show.

                Wallis lowered his face toward Colt's calf and Colt realized with horror that the man was trying to bite him.  He fired a shot into Wallis's head and the man released his hold on Colt and fell into the dirt.

                "Note to self: aim for the head." Colt mumbled and then he heard Sarah scream again and he jumped to his feet and raced toward the cabin. He shot a woman on the porch in the head, showing no hesitation before putting a bullet into her blood covered, gnashing mouth.

                Sarah's pain filled scream came from inside and Colt grabbed up his rifle and burst inside, his heart skittering to a stop when he saw the teenage boy on top of his wife. Sarah was fighting and struggling beneath him as he sunk his teeth into her bare shoulders and ripped out chunks of her tender flesh.

                "Sarah!" Colt bellowed as he fired a shot quickly into the back of the boys head and the boy fell to the ground. Colt turned toward Loralie's crib just in time to see a child sitting in the crib with her...A young child. A jerking, sore covered child.

                "Loralie!" Colt ran for the crib but not in time to stop the child from biting his screaming daughter's leg. Colt grabbed the three year old, he recognized him as Wallis's son, knowing that the teenaged boy biting Sarah had been Wallis's other son and the woman on the porch, his wife.  Colt hated to do it but he tossed the child on the floor and fired a single shot from his rifle into its head when it snarled and lunged for him.

                Colt scooped his screaming daughter into his arms, shaking and trembling as he tried to comfort her. He crossed the room to Sarah to find her fevered and shivering on the floor, blood pouring from the gaping wounds along her shoulders and neck.

                What the hell was going on? Was he dreaming? God please let him be dreaming!

                Colt heard more noises coming from outside and he held his daughter tight as he looked out the window and saw more jerking, slow moving figures heading toward his cabin. It seemed the whole damn town had somehow turned into these mindless killing machines hell bent on eating his family.

                "Gnaa...." Colt turned slowly when he heard that soft feminine voice behind him and then saw his wife rising from the floor. Her movements were slow and jerking, uncoordinated, as she reached out her arm for him. Her soft brown eyes were clouded and gray as she took a shuffling step his way.

                "Sarah...." Colt whispered with dread. "Sarah, you gotta snap out of it..."

                "Gnaa!" she screeched and suddenly she was rushing his way, her teeth bared and her face contorting in ways that made her unrecognizable. Colt's stomach turned as he fired off that shot and watched his wife's beautiful face disappear. He had to save his daughter.

                Rushing out the back door of the cabin, Colt raced into the darkness, hoping he could escape the townspeople  and get his daughter to safety and find out what in the hell was going on. Try to find out what kind of sickness had caused this.....

                Loralie began to twitch in his arms and Colt looked down at her, feeling how hot and fevered her skin was against his bare chest. Her lips curled back in a snarl as he looked down at her blue eyes now clouded and gray.

                "No...." the word was little more than a choked sob as it escaped Colt's lips, tearing out of his chest. Tears filled his eyes as his daughter tried to sink her teeth into his flesh and he dropped her to the dirty ground.

                Everything Colt loved was gone. His daughter continued to try to crawl her way to him, letting out shrieking screams of rage as her teeth gnashed together.

                Colt let out a bellow of anger, rage and desperation and turned. He reloaded his revolver as he ran toward the cabin and began to fire shots into the throng of monsters currently surrounding the building.

                He could hear his horses and livestock screaming in pain as the flames consumed his barn. Soon his revolver was out of shots and Colt raised the rifle, killing more. 

                Still more came and Colt wanted them all to die. They had ripped his life away from him and he had no idea why. No idea what was going on. No idea what had caused this. Colt was enraged, angry, desperate and heartbroken. Not caring if he lived or died, just wanting to send as many of these monsters to hell as he could before they took him with them.

                He picked up a shovel that had been leaning against the porch and began to swing, taking off heads and limbs as the monsters swarmed around him.

                Colt knew he was going to die; was almost welcoming it, when gun blasts sounded and the monsters began to fall away from him.

                Colt saw a woman wielding guns and riding atop a huge black horse and she cried out in anger as she rode through the monsters leaving them dead or crawling in her wake.

                Colt was shoved down, cracking his head against the porch steps, when a monster grabbed his leg, and the last thing heard before he lost consciousness was the woman screaming for the monsters around them to rot in hell.