01_-_The_Alchemyst

“Necromancy,” Flamel breathed. “Dee’s raised the dead.”
Another figure loomed out of the fog: it was the partially mummified
body of a man carrying a huge railroad hammer. Behind it came another dead
man, whose remaining flesh was tanned to the consistency of leather. A pair
of withered leather gun belts was slung low across his hips, and when he
saw the group, he reached for the missing guns with skeletal fingers.
Sophie stood frozen in shock, and the wind died away from her fingers.
“They’re dead,” she whispered. “Skeletons. Mummies. They’re all dead.”
“Yep,” Scathach said matter-of-factly, “skeletons and mummies. It
depends on what type of ground they were buried in. Damp soil, you get
skeletons.” She stepped forward and swept out with a nunchaku, knocking the
head clear off another gunslinger, who’d been attempting to raise a rusted
rifle to his shoulder. “Dry soil, you get the mummies. Doesn’t stop them from
hurting you, though.” The skeletal cavalry officer with the broken sword
lashed out at her, and she parried with her own sword. His rusted blade
dissolved into dust. Scatty’s sword swung again and separated the head from
the body, which then immediately crumpled to the ground.
Although the shambling figures moved in complete silence, there were
screams all around now. And even though they were muffled by the fog, fear
and abject terror were clearly audible in them. The ordinary citizens of Ojai
had become aware that the dead were walking through their streets.
The fog was now thick with the creatures. They came from all sides,
crowding in on the trio, encircling them in the center of the road. As the
twisting sheets of dampness eddied and flowed, more and more skeletal and
mummified remains were revealed in brief glimpses: soldiers in the tattered
blues and grays of Civil War uniforms; farmers in rags of old-fashioned
overalls; cowboys in worn chaps and torn denim; women in long, sweeping
skirts, now moldy and ragged; miners in threadbare buckskins.
“He’s emptied a boot hill graveyard from one of the old abandoned
towns!” Scatty exclaimed, standing with her back to Sophie, striking out
around her. “No one here’s in clothes made after 1880.” Two skeletal women
wearing matching bonnets and the rags of their Sunday best clicked their way
on bony feet across Ojai Avenue toward her, arms outstretched. Scatty’s