2. The Bank Job

Ruby hits the heart, despite the darkness. The creature explodes into dust, raining down on the gruesome carnage below.

As if it's fate, the player piano runs out of time just then, and silence reigns.

Only for a second, as from elsewhere in the town, you hear the shrieks of two more vampires, outraged at your insolent displays of gunplay.

"Well hells bells and damned tarnation, do these things ever go away?"

Kane is about done with these creatures, and he wonders how much longer until their luck runs out. Granted, their group could handle their weapons, but still, they've mostly cone out of all this vampire slaying intact, Delilah being the sad exception, and it was only a matter of time...

"If these fiends keep coming at us, how long until another of us goes down?"

He turns toward the shrieks. "Nice shot Ruby! I'm hopin' you have a few more of those in ya," he remarks as he heads toward the sounds. "Come on Dirt, Rev," he calls back behind him.

"They are creatures of the night, Mr. Kane!" Reverend Turner says as Deadshot calls to him, heading off across town.

"And they are making more of their kind! The Lord will not allow it! His flock are not mean to rise again in death, but to know final rest, to meet St. Peter and pass into the afterlife!"

Saying that, the man moves into the building they just shot the hell out of... looking for survivors and those that have or will turn.

"Thanks for that. I am unfortunately getting more practice than I would like. If I knew this place was so infested by bloodsuckers I would have stayed home." She enters with the reverend to scope out the building. "It sounds like there are a few other undead about. Maybe we can lay an ambush here if they come to investigate?"

"Every one we put down is another that can’t get us… nor nobody else!" Dirt says, though it was stating the obvious.

"There can’t be a great many of them, or else the whole country would know about them." he goes on, hoping it’s true!

When the plan for an ambush comes up, Dirt reckons it’s a good idea. Though if he offered himself as bait again, the others might wonder about his eagerness to die.

"How to draw them in?" he asks, with an eyebrow raised.

"Makin' more?" Kane calls out to the rev's back as he goes into the building. "Guess that's what those fiends do, huh?"

"Dunno, Ruby, whacha thinkin'?" Kane asks the woman when she mentions setting up an ambush. "I ain't a big believer in humans as bait. Any dogs around?" he asks, half joking.

After what happened with DD and several others, having risen from the dead after being killed by vampires, you suspect but don't know if the victims in the saloon will rise too, in a few hours. Burning them before then has worked.

The first floor contains a fair-sized saloon. There’s also a kitchen in the back where simple meals are prepared. The second floor has four rooms, all situated along a balcony overlooking the saloon floor.

The five nosferatu were feeding on the remains of the patrons and saloon gals who were enjoying an evening of revelry. No one else is alive in the saloon.

"A pyre, we will need. A holy pyre!" the Reverend declares. "The Lord's flames will drive the evil from these poor wretches... but it will also draw more of the fiends to us. Perhaps we can use that to our advantage, and place some guns in places unseen -- to ambush the loathsome creatures as they approach..."

Dirt grunts as if to say that it wasn’t the worst idea he had ever heard.

"Don’t seem like there’s anyone else about!" he says, already working on hefting wooden furniture where it needs to be for the fire!

"I reckon the padre here has the right idea. Less they’re afraid of fire that is. I can’t say for certain!" he goes on, hefting more and more before motioning to one of the others for help pushing the piano into the bonfire pile.

Ruby doesn't see the need in sacrificing an entire building just for the fire. What if a wind spreads it and sets the whole town up? But in the end her nerves are too frayed to put her misgivings to words so she just mutely nods and begins piling up wood in the center.

Kane grunts his assent and looks for anything that will add to the pyre after helping Dirt move the piano.

"Seems a shame to destroy a nice piece like that piano but there ain't a lot of ready tinder around."

From outside, Rev and Dirt hear something a little like voices. Not shrieks, but normal voices.

"Ain’t nobody to play the dang thing neither." Dirt says with a sorry sigh, dusting himself down after he and Kane finish moving the thing.

His ears prick at the sound then, and his head goes on a swivel. He pulls loose his pistols again, and watches all about!

"You hear that? Sounds like someone’s still breathing!" he says to the others.

The Reverend approaches the door, hearing the sounds as well. "From outside," he says simply, leading the way with his shotgun half-raised...

"Aw hell we better get outside then, huh? At least they ain't screeching none."

Kane makes for the door, Big Fifty at the ready.

"What now?" Ruby grumbles. She takes up a position near one of the broken windows that they had recently shot through to kill the bloodsuckers, weapon drawn, again.

Across the street, past the church, toward the bank.

Now they get to spring a trap on us… something whispered at the back of Dirt’s mind. He’d heard tell of folk laying traps like that in the past. Set up some damsel in need of saving so others could be drawn in.

He wouldn’t be surprised if the crew he had run with had pulled stunts like that at one point or another!

He shakes the thought loose, and grunts:

"We do the same for these ones as we did for them ones!" he says, jerking his weapon in the direction of the saloon! "Come on, now!" he says, and follows the reverend and his shotgun!

"Let's find out if there's people alive!" Turner says, leading the way with his shotgun. "And remember the pyre. If we don't purify these ones we found, there will be more!"

"These ones, those ones. Let's follow that one," Kane says, pointing to the Rev as he falls in behind him.