[right][sub][i](Addressing: [@RedXIII], mentioning [@DragonofTheWest]'s horse)[/i][/sub][/right]

The man certainly didn’t seem fine, but he was not bleeding and he was right about others probably needing her help more. Christina headed back to the window to resume shooting, but the town gradually fell silent, only occasional shots coming from various places. She looked out to see the results of the apocalypse. Shaken people were peeking out of broken windows and various hideouts. Some of the men who held the line with the Sheriff before were walking amongst piles of bodies on the street, looking for survivors, checking whether the dead are truly dead, and finishing off any that weren’t. 

She had heard stories from soldiers who fought in the war. About battlefields filled with corpses, the injured lying among the dead, distinguishable only by their moans and cries for help. Vultures circling above, patiently waiting for their time to begin feasting. Yes, those were stories that traumatized men with empty looks in their eyes told at the campfires or when they’ve had a bit too much whiskey. Christina never really thought she was going to see something like that with her own eyes.

Jack’s muttering returned her to reality. What now? How the hell was she supposed to know? “I have no idea who might have some answers, I don’t think we have any experts on the Devil in town. Normally, it would be the Mayor in charge of everything, but I think I saw him somewhere over there.” Her finger pointed towards the water tower, to the biggest pile of the dead. “So I guess it’s all on Sheriff Reilly now. He was just here, I think he headed towards his office. I do believe he keeps some weapons there, but I can’t really be sure. Oh, and there is a hardware store down the street, where you might find some useful stuff.”

Her ear caught a quiet sound from somewhere below the saloon porch. After carefully checking that the threat had indeed passed, she left the building and peeked under the construction. A dark-haired Asian woman was hiding there, sobbing. Christina didn’t know her, but there was a group of Chinese workers that came to the town a few weeks back, resting on their way west to work on some bridge construction. The woman was most likely part of that group.

“It’s okay,” Christina said quietly, reaching her hand towards her. “I think they are all gone.” The woman said a few words and shook her head. “Yeah, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand you. But everything is all right now, you can come out.” Knowing that she probably didn’t understand Christina either, the young healer tried to at least sound calm and reassuring. It must have worked, because the woman slowly crawled out and attempted to stand up, revealing a couple of deep cuts on her leg. “Whoa,” Christina jumped closer to support her. “Yea, that’s going to need some stitches. Hey you!” she yelled at a man who was walking among the corpses, checking each one. “Yes, you, Swanson. Get this woman somewhere safe, I’ll be with her in a minute.”

“There is nowhere safe now.” His voice was solemn, but he obliged and grabbed the woman into his arms. 

“Oh shut up.” He was right though. Apparently, they were all doomed and marked for death. But for Christina, fighting the Death was daily bread, and this situation was no different. There were injured people who needed her help, period. There was no point in crying, lamenting, or sulking. “Get all injured to doctor Baum’s clinic. Kick the doors if you have to, I bet that sleazy bastard will refuse to help you.”

By a sheer miracle, all the horses tied in front of the saloon were still alive. They were frightened, desperately trying to tear the reins and run off, but alive. Carefully avoiding the dangerously looking black Breton horse she headed towards Betsie, quietly talking to her. The mare calmed down a bit, her huge eyes still rolling rapidly, ears pinned to the head, heart beating so hard it felt like it was going to jump out of her chest. “There, there. Everything is going to be alright.” Christina didn’t know whether she was talking to the horse or herself. She forbade herself from thinking about a waddling corpse with a bright yellow scarf. She couldn’t even look at the bodies in the street, fearing she would find that one face. That would be too much. She was barely even handling things as they were. “Okay, Betsie.” A few rapid blinks helped chase the tears out of her eyes. “We have injured people who need our help. So let’s get to work.”

She untied her mare from the railing and walked a bit away from other horses before jumping on her back. The others will have to wait for their own masters to return. If they are still alive.

“Hey, Jack!” she shouted loud enough so people inside could hear her. “Is this black beast yours? Someone should calm him down before he turns the whole porch into splinters. I’m heading to the clinic to help take care of the injured, you will have to find the Sheriff on your own, it’s just a bit east from here.”

The clinic was just a short ride from the saloon. The city itself wasn’t very big (if you don’t count the farms and ranches around it) so it was pretty much a short ride from any place to any other place. Apparently, her hastily given orders (not that she would have any authority to give any orders whatsoever) spread out, and bleeding people were walking, being walked, or being carried to the clinic, based on the severity of their injuries. 

“Christina!” someone called her name and she looked around to see where it was coming from. “Here!” Now she noticed a young man waving at her and raised her eyebrow. Andy Newman was a son of the richest merchant in Longwater, and barely ever paid any attention to her or any other member of the ‘poor class’. Which to the Newmans was pretty much everyone in town. “You need to take a look at my father. Doctor Baum says he has to wait, but my father shouldn’t have to wait. That old quack has no idea how serious it is.”

Christina snorted. Doctor Baum refusing to provide care? What else was new? But as she entered the clinic, she had to change her mind rapidly. She expected to find Baum yelling at everyone to get out or demand money for treating them. Instead, he was elbow-deep in the stomach of some blonde woman, his once white apron covered in blood, and small round glasses slipping off his sweaty nose. 

“Emerson!” he yelled at her just as he noticed her enter. “Grab that sewing kit and get over here! And Newman! What the fuck are you doing here again? I already told you your father has a shallow scratch, he will need two or three stitches at most. Anyone can do that. Now GET LOST!”

Christina was stunned. She had long thought all the worst about the old doctor, and most of it was justified, based on her experience. But it looked like that in a crisis he came through and did what was necessary. 

“Don’t just stand there girl, hurry up!”

She quickly grabbed the kit and rushed towards him. How ironic, she had wished for this for years, asked him if she could help him out in the clinic several times, but he always refused. Apparently, all it took was an apocalypse from hell to get them on the same side. 

“What are you staring at? Grab the needle and stitch that muscle. I bet you expected I wouldn’t help anyone, have you? Well, girl, unlike you I am a REAL doctor, I studied at a respected university, and I took an oath, which I intend to uphold. Of course, I do expect the town management to cover all my expenses. And that Swanson idiot told me you were the one who ordered him to kick out my door. You will be paying for that, miss.”

Christina gave him a sad smile. “If we survive this week, I’ll gladly pay for your door.”

“Yes, I heard. Apparently, the Devil is coming to our backwater town.” The doctor snorted and then cursed. “Stop it, dear. You are doing a surprisingly good job for a cowgirl with no education, but this girl is gone.”

Christina realized he was right. “Shit.” The girl was younger than her, a daughter of some rancher from the east, at least that’s what Christina thought. Part of her wanted to grieve for her, even though she didn’t know her personally, but there were more people that needed help. “Who’s next?” 

The doctor nodded at her with respect. That was an expression she had never seen on his face when he looked at her before. He shouted at two men to bring a stretcher with another patient and the two of them got to work together. People’s wounds were all very similar, most of them had claw marks on various parts of their bodies, some of them also had bite marks. Those were especially bad, big chunks of tissue missing caused massive bleeding and most of them didn’t survive.

Christina was just in the middle of trying to stitch someone’s torn thigh, actually pulling two teeth out of the wound, when she heard her name being called again. “Just a minute!” she shouted back without raising her eyes from the patient’s leg.

“You’re alive! Stupid girl, why didn’t you come back home?” Her father burst into the clinic, followed by her younger brother Jared, both had rifles in their hands.

“Dad!” Christina was relieved. “You’re okay, thank God, I…”

He grabbed her shoulder, yanked her up, and pushed her towards the door. “You can tell me on the way. You are coming with us.”

“Coming where?” She shook his hand off. “I can’t leave, I have a lot of work here.”

“You don’t work for this greedy asshole,” he hissed at her, glancing at the doctor. “We are leaving. We are going to head back home, barricade ourselves there and wait it out.”

“I don’t work for anybody. But as long as there are people here who need my help, I will stay.” Christina stood tall, looking straight into his eyes. It pained her to fight him, but she was not some docile little girl to be ordered around. “And if you think you can make it out on your own, you are insane! You haven’t seen the hordes he sent to the town, and it’s only going to get worse! We need to stand united! The Sheriff…”

“The Sheriff is an incompetent idiot who did nothing to stop this from happening!” Her brother barged in to support her father against her, as usual.

“Jared, use your head for once. How the hell was he supposed to stop this from happening? He stood in the street when the waves of the dead arrived in town, covering other people’s escape, without wavering, without turning his back on anyone. He saved the town. WE saved the town.” She blinked a couple of times remembering all the shooting, the hordes of dead, the brave few standing tall against the menace from hell. “I am not going to crawl into a hole now.” She took a few steps back. “You go if you want, but I am staying.”

Her father stepped in front of her, anger clearly visible in his eyes. For a second she thought he was going to hit her, but he just spread his arms and held her in a tight bear hug. “Just be careful,” he whispered into her ear, turned, and left the clinic. “Just like her mother,” she could hear him mumble.

Christina watched as they mounted their horses and rode away. “They are going to be okay,” she said to no one in particular. “All the people working on the ranch are great with guns, the main building is sturdy and easy to fortify.”

“Unless something worse is coming our way.” Doctor Baum was standing behind her, patting her shoulder. “We are nearly done here, I can take care of the last few people myself. I overheard there was a gathering at the Sheriff’s office. You should probably be there to boss those idiots around.”

The young healer chuckled as she headed towards her horse. Was she bossy? Maybe, at times, with her patients. But she really couldn’t imagine being that way around the Sheriff. Still, she wanted to be there to know what the hell was going on.