Buckle watched with bemused interest as a stranger clad in red walked up to the church. He was a man, and the moment the two locked eyes, Buckle felt a deep dread emerging in his chest. Before he could muster up a word or two, the man in red carried on towards the church. Buckle eyed a heavy metal gauntlet, tipped with claws for fingers, secured snugly to man's left arm. This was already turning into the strangest job Buckle had undertook, and he once sat up all night watching a cave because some Indians down on one of those depressing reservations were certain a spirit was emerging from it nightly to take their children. He didn't see any spirit, but he saw the dollar bills they threw at him afterwards. 

"Well I'll be," muttered Buckle in a gruff voice, "if that ain't one strange individual." 

[i]Buckle.[/i]

Buckle dropped his cigarette, drew his revolver and turned in one fluid movement. Darkness greeted him, and aside from a few intermittent noises from the natural night life, he saw and heard nothing. Passing it off as a feat of his imagination, the retired bounty hunter holstered his pistol and looked at the church. With a sigh and a shrug, he made his way towards the meagre structure, and placed his hand against one of the doors. It moved on rusted hinges, but he was careful to keep things quiet. Before he threw his lot in with a bunch of crazies, he at least wanted to know more about the situation. 

Peering in through the opening, he eyed the preacher. He was a haggard old man, but with the deep fire of passion burning in his eyes, and Buckle knew there and then that this man was either terribly ill of mind, or he was genuinely troubled by something; something as real as the howling wind. After listening to the old man talk of Paradise's peril, and how time was not a quality in abundance, he was startled by the sight of the preacher throwing onto the floor the body of a half-naked roughian. 

[b]"This... is a vampire,"[/b] the old man proclaimed. 

Buckle stifled laughter, and took a step back but allowing the door to shut as silently as he had opened it. Vampires? Was the old bastard as desperate as to kill a homeless man, play surgeon with his face and then pass him off as a thing of legend? Whenever Holy men were involved, reasoned Buckle, anything was possible. Feeling that this was one party he wanted no part in, the bounty hunter turned to leave. Fighting children's bedtime stories was one thing, but murdering innocent folk was quite another - Buckle had done enough of that in his time, and the bitter after taste it left had never leaved him, no matter how good the money. As he started back down the path through the graveyard, he suddenly became aware that he was being stalked.

Foot steps sounded behind him, and he gripped his pistol. [i]Easy now Buckle, let 'em think you've got the jump.[/i] Pulling back the hammer of his trusty 44., the bounty hunter listened intently. He hadn't heard the church doors open, though it was possible someone had slipped out with great care - but it would have taken a few seconds, they wouldn't have been right up behind him. If they'd rounded the church as he was walking away from it, then he'd of heard their feet crossing over the dried earth of the graveyard. This was odd indeed, but what troubled Buckle more was the pace of the foot steps. There was the solid sound of a boot being planted in the ground, but it was accompanied by a dragging noise. Whoever it was, they were limping. 

[i]Why, Buckle?[/i]

Buckle sprinted forwards, threw himself to the floor, rolled onto his feet and looked down the sights of his pistol. A woman, pale and limp at the shoulders, with her head cocked violently to one side, approached him. Her face was a mess of broken bones and blood, and there was a large pooling stain on her abdomen. Her eyes are what really bore into Buckle though, for they were misty - as if they'd belonged to someone dead several days. He knew this woman, knew her well, and the impossibility of the situation froze him into inaction. 

Then she vanished, as quickly as she had appeared. Buckle stood for several moments, his limbs locked rigid, and his heart pounding so heavily he was certain it was about to give up on him. The church doors started to open, and this shook him from his fear. He quickly dived behind a low-lying shrub, trying his best to conceal himself. Peering through the gaps in the branches, Buckle eyed the man in red leaving down the path. Keeping silent, he tried to soothe himself. 

"That was not real," he whispered , "she's long dead. It wasn't your fault, it wasn't your fault. This is just your conscience, see? It was not real."

After a few minutes, Buckle stood from his cover. A powerful yearning to walk into that church and ask the preacher more about the situation suddenly possessed him, despite his rational mind doing its best to get him out of the town without delay. Real or not, what he had seen didn't belong in the waking world, and if somehow evil really was afoot, Buckle wanted no part in it. That all said, however, he stormed towards the church, suddenly feeling that perhaps the old bastard had played some kind of trick on him. How hard would it be to dress someone up in- he stopped there. [i]How would anyone out here know what she looked like?[/i]

"You ain't finding answers out here, so you best get yourself inside," he told himself. 

Putting a heavy hand on the door, Buckle pushed his way into the building. There he saw the priest, standing over the deformed creature.

"Bill Furrows, a pleasure really," he said, walking up to the preacher. "Mind telling me about what exactly it is we're up against here?" Pausing, Buckle felt he'd better make himself for specific. "I mean, just saying for a second that the dead are walking, and that there are frickin' vampires flying around, what is the true picture?" 

Realising he was making a confudled mess of himself, and suddenly becoming obvious to the buckets of sweat rolling down his forehead, Buckle breathed deeply. "Let me try that again," he said with a cough. "Are guns going to do us any good against whatever it is that might be out there?"