Night crept over the town of Misery, a spill of ink across the evening sky. Rolling black clouds and an eerie wind swept in from the west, lifting tufts of dirt to tug at the hems of skirts and trousers.

Respectable folk hurried home to their farmsteads, locking their doors and shuttering their windows, but in town, those of less repute remained, occupying one of Misery's two saloons or its brothel.

Three different merry tunes jangled from three different pianos and a woman's laugh carried out an open window and startled awake a cat.

The cat, a rotund orange tabby, belonged to the brothel, but if you asked him, he would have told you the brothel, and its occupants, belonged to him. It wasn't a question anyone thought to ask him though, so ownership of the Swollen Purse remained somewhat vague, with most of the credit going to a woman named Jin who was equally as rotund as the cat, but, unarguably, less affectionate.

She had been passably pretty once, but age and a love of food had left her with little to please the eye. Luckily for the men who came with purses full to bursting, it was not her wares for sale tonight, but those of the dewy-eyed young woman who sat to her right.

Lara was pretty as a penny, and at first glance looked nothing like a whore. Silky blonde hair and a dimpled smile she had polished as dilligently as any gunslinger their beloved pistol. She was the image of feminine delicacy.

Jin knew better. Lara was a clever and cunning harlot. One of her best.

Or she had been.

Jin watched as she flashed an easy smile at the man next to her. It might have been a genuine smile if her eyes hadn't flickered a quarter inch to far to the right. Luckily, the man, his gaze fixated somewhere below her chin, never noticed. Jin did, though. And she frowned.

Following the line of Lara's almost glance, she caught sight of a man who made her sigh. Rey.

Dressed in cowboy leathers, Rey should have looked like he belonged, but his stiff stance made him stand out a mile. It was obvious he was uncomfortable and trying not to show it.

Ruby, one of Jin's other girls, tried to engage him in conversation, but he had eyes only for Lara. He didn't bother with quarter inch eye flicks either. Instead, he watched her with a burning devotion that almost made bile rise in Jins throat.

Their infatuation had passed from sweet to unsettling some weeks ago, the only saving grace being neither of them seemed aware of the other's feelings. Jin hoped to keep it that way.

The pungent smell of opium and the sound of laughter from the back of the room drew her attention. Letting her gaze slip from Rey, Jin made her way to the circle of men and women sprawled indolently on cushions at the far end of the saloon.

Bo Jay, his head resting in the lap of a buxom red-head, cradled the long, straight stem of an opium pipe in one hand while his other hand smoothed the tips of his meticulously groomed handlebar mustache. He laughed again at something another man said before he noticed Jin. He smiled.

Bo Jay was a smallish man with a background so mixed it was difficult to tell where one race left off and another began. There was a hint of Asian in the tilt of his eyes, and a touch of Navajo in the set of his nose. Mostly though, he was as he was, which was to say, at this moment, inebriated and loud.

Tawny, the woman who's lap he occupied, held a tankard of ale in each hand and raised both in greeting as Jin approached. "Salud."

"Salud," Jin replied.

Tawny was not one hers, a fact Jin lamented. Her hair alone could have fetched a pretty price.

"Enjoying your evening, I hope," Jin said.

Bo blew out a cloud of smoke, "How could we not, now that you're here?"

Jin snorted. Bo was a consummate flatterer. Never an outright liar, but he sidestepped the truth like a horse sidesteps a rattlesnake.

"Have you picked a girl for the evening?" Jin asked.

Tawny eyed the room lazily. "Not yet. Were we thinking blonde?" That last she directed at Bo.

Bo closed his eyes as he inhaled another hit from the pipe. He held it for a moment before releasing it.

"We did blonde last time. Maybe something a little darker tonight?"

Tawny smiled and downed one tankard before replying. "Darker it is."

"I will send some girls," Jin said, turning to leave.

"Only your best," Bo called out after her.

She didn't turn back, but spoke over her shoulder. "All my girls are the best."

***

Mac wiped the sweat off his brow and leaned on his shovel for a moment's respite. Night had fallen, but it was still hotter than hell when you were digging.

He peered over the lip of the grave he had excavated towards another one a few feet away.

"How you coming along, Gib?" he called out.

There was a grunt from Gib's direction, followed by a terse, "Fine."

Gib wasn't much a talker. Neither was Mac on most nights, but sometimes he liked a fine conversation.

There was a muffled thump nearby, and Mac peered out over the edge of dirt again.

"You hear that?" he asked Gib.

"Nope," came the reply.

Mac shook his head. Digging graves at night would give most men the willies, but Mac was not most men. He'd been digging graves most of his adult life, and not once had he ever felt uneasy. Until now.

Resting his shovel against the side, he pulled himself up out of the pit and scanned the towns only graveyard. The silhouette of the church was to his left, and everywhere else stood the shadowed shapes of grave markers.

Everything was quiet except the hollow sound of Gib's shovel hitting the dirt.

There was something in the air, though, that crawled along his skin and made the hair stand up.

Gib's shovel stopped and a moment later he stood next to Mac.

"You feel that too," Mac said.

Gib scratched at one ear, then pointed out into the darkness. "There."

Mac turned to follow the line of Gib's outstretched finger and blinked in confusion.

Shambling out of the shadows, still covered in dirt, was the form of Mrs. Mayhew. She looked surprisingly agile considering they had just buried her last week.

Behind her, more corpses struggled from the dirt. 

"That's probably not good," Mac said, but when he turned to look, Gib was already gone.