Catch Me if You Can Blogfest Entry (WANTED:DEAD OR UNDEAD first 550 words)

First impressions are everything. Whether we're sizing up our blind date (Oh, my gosh. He looks likes George Costanza!) or trying to decipher if our manuscripts have the "IT" factor. Kristina Fugate is hosting a blogfest (see button above) to helps us find if we have "WOW" in our first 550 words. It's not too late to sign up. It's actually rather easy. What do you get for participating?  A chance at a $20 Amazon Gift Card AND you will hopefully receive some very helpful feedback.

If you need to email me, check out my About Me (Sorry, stupid linking thing on weebly isn't working. So  just go to the very top and click it) tab above or click over there--->. Email will be listed there. Thanks.

Here's my entry:

                                                         WANTED: DEAD OR UNDEAD

                                                                         Chapter 1

                                                                          Marked

The zombie saved his life. Normally, they don’t—it wasn’t within their nature—but this one did, and for that, Trace was grateful. 

            Because had that flesh-eating cowboy not limped its way into the saloon, causing a much-needed distraction, Trace was certain he’d be wearing a bullet between the eyes. The colt-peacemaker, cocked and ready, had not only marked him a liar and a cheat, but a dead man as well. 

            Trace didn’t view himself as a cheat. A liar maybe, but a cheat never, and he’d argue any man who thought otherwise. What one man defined as swindling, another defined as skill, and Trace felt he’d been blessed with an abundance of skill. Not many men counted cards to the extent he could, or bluffed as well either. Most men relied on the luck of the draw, but for Trace, luck had nothing to do with it. Instead, he figured it more prudent to determine his own fate. Grab the bull by the horns, so to speak. He held the same philosophy when it came to money and to those of the opposite sex. Up ’til now, he felt it had been working quite well. 

             Unfortunately, Trace hadn’t foreseen the cunningness of the poker player sitting directly across from him. He had figured the old man daft at first glance, an easy target, but appearances proved deceptive.

            But once the saloon doors swung open and the zombie wandered in, cheating, lying and stealing, became less of an issue. Staying alive, above anything else, became everyones primary focus. The timing couldn’t have been better.

             “Hell, that’s Bill Johnson!” Miss Krissee called from the balcony above. She pulled the Derringer pistol from the garter encircling her leg. If anyone were to know, it would’ve been her. Nearly all the men in town had visited Miss Krissee at least once, though no one ever readily admitted to it. 

                If what she said was true, and that creature was indeed Bill Johnson, it meant only one thing . . .

            The ailing disease had made its way to town.

            “Y’all better run,” Miss Krissee said. “He’s got it a’right. I’ve seen it before.”

            “Then someone should go fetch the doc.” A cowboy at the bar made the suggestion, but no one moved to do so. Trace didn’t blame them. Someone would have to push pass the zombie to escape the saloon, and no one was foolish enough to try that—unless they had a death wish, of course. Even though zombies were slow, they could be tricky sun of a guns too.

            “It’s too late for him.” Miss Krissee shook her head. “He’s already dead.”

            Trace knew exactly what she meant. There was no known cure, though many hot shots in the east, and even a few in the west, bragged about working on finding one. Didn’t matter no how. Cure or no cure, it was all the same. By the time a person sought out help of any kind, the infected person would become part of the walking dead before a powder could be swallowed or a shot injected into the arm.

            The only cure Trace knew of was not to get bit. Simple, yet effective.