Fiya considered it for a moment without replying, rubbing her chin. If there was an evacuation, wouldn’t there have been roadblocks or checkpoints? They hadn’t seen anything like that when they went through the town a couple nights before then. Then her eyes lit up. “Maybe they’re digging that thing up.”
Raising his eyebrows, Rutger turned in his seat to look at her, wanting her to go on.
“That Bahtzuul demon ... Maybe whoever’s planning on reviving him is using ghouls as slaves to dig him up?” She shrugged. “Perhaps not all of them, but a good chunk, maybe, that way they can dig him up fast.”
He turned back around and gripped the wheel. “That’s a sound theory. I hate it.” He inched the bus into the facility, and then the gate closed behind them. They rolled down the center aisle with caution and then came to a stop near the end. At the end of the aisle, they came to where they could only go left or right, and there wasn’t enough room to get the bus around the corners. Rutger realized then that the only way to exit the facility was to back up, so he parked at the end of the aisle and hopped out of the bus. Fiya followed.
Thomas got up from his chair, and when Liama did the same, Thomas turned to her and said, “Stay right here. Don’t move from this seat, okay?”
Liama appeared disappointed but nodded her head to show she understood, although with her lower lip pouting. She didn’t like having to wait behind, but she knew she was safer in the bus than out there.
Outside, Rutger walked to his storage unit against the back wall. The front of the bus remained in his line of sight. Fiya was at his heels, and a terrible thought struck her. “You don’t have your keys do you?” She winced as the words came out of her mouth.
Rutger glanced back at her as they reached his unit and replied, “We did leave in a bit of a hurry, and yeah, I didn’t have time to grab my keys.” He lifted the lock on his door as if to display it to her. “Luckily, I have a combination lock.”
Fiya relaxed again while Rutger scrolled the dial on the lock for the five-digit combination.
Thomas caught up to them just as Rutger lifted the unit door; the rattling metal echoed throughout the facility, bouncing off the concrete walls. Fiya and Thomas immediately turned to survey their surroundings, making sure no one noticed the noise. Thomas glanced back at the bus and saw Liama watching them from a window. He assumed it was the same seat where he told her to stay put.
When he returned his gaze back to the storage unit, his jaw dropped. Rutger looked at Thomas and smiled at his dumbfounded face. “Think you can handle any of these?”
“By the power of Grayskull,” Thomas muttered as he stared in astonishment at the grand sight of a 4’ x 9’ storage unit filled with shotguns, rifles, and ammunition. There were other weapons stashed: silver daggers, stakes, and a katana-wakizashi set, but Thomas marveled at the firearms.
Then, in an instant, he realized how fucked up it was that they were about to load a school bus with firearms to storm an elementary school. He shook off the sour taste, knowing that this was a completely different circumstance than what he usually saw in the news, but the irony didn’t escape him. He just hoped authorities didn’t bust them.
“Now, there’s only one box of 12 silver bullets in there, and they’re for that deer rifle.” Rutger grabbed the deer rifle zipped in a canvas case and handed it to Thomas. He opened the case and made a brief examination of it before putting it back. It looked like it was in good condition to him, but he didn’t consider himself the best judge.
As Thomas studied the firearms, he found himself disappointed that there wasn’t heavier artillery. He had voted in every election to get assault rifles out of the hands of the general public, yet now he wished they were available anywhere. Then he noticed something else: There wasn’t a handgun in sight.
“Is this it?” Thomas asked.
Brushing aside a blanket, Rutger checked an old dresser drawer cabinet underneath. He slid the top drawer out and pulled out various flannel jackets. “The little one may need one of these,” he suggested.
Thomas grabbed a blue-and-black flannel, thinking she’d prefer it to the construction orange. In his grip it felt soft, which would be perfect.
Then Rutger continued, “This is it. There were pistols, but they were destroyed designing Fiya’s Blackhawk. I didn’t get it right on the first, second, or even sixth try. I have these mostly because I did a lot of traditional game hunting, in addition to hunting undead and monsters, so I’ve built a collection over the years.”
Rutger opened the second drawer from the top and found a near-empty box of bullets, just the right gauge for the Blackhawk. “These aren’t silver, just the regular stuff, but we don’t want to waste all your silver bullets on ghouls, ya know?” He looked inside the box: four bullets rattled in there. He laid them carefully in his palm and handed them to Fiya. “There’s not much there, but at least you won’t be empty.”
She took them and didn’t say anything as she placed them in her jacket pocket. The revolver was left in its holster, sitting on the bus with her sword. Rutger had done the same with his axe. “What about those?” She asked, pointing to the katana-wakizashi set. They had an emerald-green ribbon threaded in the grip and a black dragon cross-guard design.
Rutger grunted a laugh. “Those are basically toys. They’ll shatter once they hit bone if you hit hard enough. They’re nothing but a fancy souvenir.”
Fiya shrugged, thinking they could still work against the soft tissue of the ghouls.
The next thing Rutger did was shift the dresser aside to pull out the dolly cart it sat on. He shimmied it out, placed it next to the rifles and shotguns, and then layered the guns gently until there was a stack full enough to cart over to the bus. Thomas helped him, and Fiya bent down to grab boxes of rifle bullets and shotgun shells.
Fiya cradled the ammo boxes in her arms and followed Thomas and Rutger back to the bus. Since Rutger planned on making more than one trip, he didn’t bother to shut the unit door.
Something moved toward the south end that caught Fiya’s attention. A slightly overweight woman with brown hair walked aimlessly at the south side. She wore cargo shorts and a light blue tank top.
Fiya sped up to Rutger and asked, “Hey, what’s Tammy look like?”
Rutger turned to check out the woman in the distance. She didn’t seem to notice they were there. She shuffled her feet with her head hanging low like she just got home from a long walk of shame. Then Rutger said, “About like that.”
“Hey, Tammy!” When Fiya called out to her, Rutger jumped like a ghost had just tapped him on the shoulder. His eyes bulged at Fiya, shocked she would bring any kind of attention to them carrying firearms on a school bus. He didn’t take into consideration that they had probably been on camera the entire time.
Tammy slowly turned her head toward them after a long delay and scratched her shoulder. It was entirely possible she was drunk: Life can be boring out here for some people, especially those who lived on-site, and Rutger knew she was one of those people. Drinking became a way for her to pass the time. She was known for drunkenly wandering around in the lot, but she never caused harm or bothered renters, so no one made a stink of it. Who’d complain? She was the owner, after all. Some took advantage of her by saying they’d paid rent but didn’t get a receipt. Rutger genuinely thought this was one of those drunker times again until she let out a wet gurgling hiss.
“Confirmation: That’s not Tammy anymore,” Fiya said, twisting back to Rutger with all the ammo as he reached into one of the boxes for a rifle bullet.
Taking his eyes off Tammy for a moment as she lurched toward them, Rutger grabbed one of the rifles and loaded a bullet into it.
Fiya kept her eye on Tammy the entire time while he aimed, and when he had a steady shot, he pulled the trigger.
A cracking boom shuddered in the storage unit lot, louder than the rattling of the door rolling up. Tammy was thrown back after the back of her head exploded in a cloud of crimson. Her b
ody rolled on the concrete, stopping when her rear faced the sky.
The three of them stood watching, anticipating Tammy to crawl back up. Just because they saw blood from a successful headshot didn’t necessarily mean they nailed the brain, so it became a good practice to wait and be sure. Rutger loaded another round into the rifle, just in case.
Tammy didn’t budge.
Rutger set the rifle back on the dolly and nodded to Thomas to continue. “Guess that was a good test to see if these still work.”
Thomas nodded in return and took the dolly with him to the bus.
Fiya never took her eyes off Tammy, but she listened very closely to everything around them. A gunshot like that could draw attention, alive or undead, and with the way things seemed to be headed, Fiya felt there could be more undead around the corner.
“You okay?”
She blinked and looked at her mentor with a blank, emotionless face.
“Fiya, did you eat something yet?”
In fact, she did, right after they stole the bus. She finished off the cookies-and-cream protein bar she started earlier. She had two of those and a bar of dark chocolate, peanut, and cherry bar left. She forced it down, even though she was feeling the sour burn again. “Of course,” she answered, without giving the details.
“Just checking, you seem a little drawn out, like maybe a lack of energy.”
“I’m fine.”
As Fiya’s phone dwindled down to 32 percent, she brought up a browser to search for any kind of news while she had enough power for service; preferably local news. It bothered her how quiet it was at Tammy’s Storage and that Tammy herself had become a ghoul. That storage place was a good distance away from Skyhill, so to Fiya, that meant the Ghoul Fever had definitely spread, and she wanted to see how far. She reduced the screen brightness to as dim as possible to conserve battery life while still being visible.
They were en route to the school where Thomas and Liama claimed they were held. Of course, they didn’t know exactly where it was because they had run off into the heavy woods rather than taking the streets. Fortunately, before they left the school-bus retirement lot, they found maps of bus routes, and Thomas was able to spot the school based on the shape of the building alone: Timberwild Elementary. If that one didn’t pan out, Rutger had him look at other possible buildings, just in case.
Dissatisfied with the lack of any news popping up on her Google news app, Fiya decided to turn to a different source as if it had been filtered out. She opened her YouTube app, searched for Seattle, and sorted by most-recent videos. Other people may simply have used their Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts to search for local news, but Fiya had none of these. Her only real friend was Rutger, and he was the closest thing to a hermit she knew, so there was an even less chance of him being on Facebook. It was uncommon for anyone in the Order of the Immortuos Venandi to have a social media account, anyway ... frowned upon, but not against the rules.
A video titled Bainbridge Island Ferry Ragers had been uploaded only two hours ago; strangely, nothing had been uploaded since that. She clicked on it and lowered the volume, not to upset Liama if she came snooping around.
The video showed footage of a man who appeared drunk, ready to fall over the balcony rails of one of the Seattle ferries. He slumped, and when an employee tried to shake him out of it, the man bit the employee’s face. Panic ensued on the ferry; soon, the employee got up and attacked another passenger, knocking a girl over the rail. Her splattery death by hitting the car deck below was caught on the phone in closer detail. Fiya winced. The cameraman had yelled, “Holy shit!” The first man had staggered off-camera, chasing the others; the balcony was a dripping, bloody mess. The footage stopped as the cameraman’s friend told him to stop filming and just jump off the ferry right now. Fiya hoped they had.
There were some other videos uploaded over the past 12 hours. All of them sounded similar, some of them using the correct term of Ghoul Fever, and others putting in all caps “ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE IS HERE!” Fiya didn’t click on any; she got the idea. While they’d been helping Thomas and Liama, someone spread a massive Ghoul Fever leak in a highly populated area that had gotten far out of control. The local news seemed to be ignoring it, at least from what she’d pulled up. Just the idea of a bigger mess waiting for her after she got done with this one did wonders to her already sour stomach.
Her phone reached 26 percent when she finished with YouTube. She sighed and then tried resending the same message to IVO but still got a “failure to deliver” error in return. YouTube worked, so she knew she had internet service.
She wanted to throw up again.
How long had Violess, the Keeper of Vermin, and her cult been stationed where they tainted the town? The question lingered in their heads repeatedly, and Thomas wished he had an answer for them.
Power lines were cut from the police station nearby and the same thing with every neighboring building. Driving into Skyhill during the day allowed them to see just how isolated the town had become. The police station was deserted and was the bloodiest sight. Blood splattered the windows and painted the sidewalks. Trails of blood leading into the buildings gave evidence that someone dragged bodies indoors. The rains had washed away most of the blood, but without proper scrubbing, the red would be stained into the cement for a long time as a witness of that day.
The Rose Motel was just as vacant as the rest of the town, and this allowed Fiya to be more comfortable when hopping behind the front desk and grabbing a key. Thomas raised his hand to stop her but realized it wouldn't matter. No one was around anymore. They had all been enslaved into ghouls or killed.
What was strange was that there were no bodies. Sure, it was a small town, a population that certainly didn’t warrant an elementary school with two floors, and they felt an eerie presence to stand in the streets without anyone in sight. Small enough to not get noticed by traffic coming through, if any traffic bothered to come this far away from the highways. It reminded Fiya of ghost towns in the California deserts, except these buildings didn’t look like they came from the set of an old Hollywood western.
A candy machine filled with Skittles ─ who knew how old ─ sat in the corner of the lobby, luring Liama's hungry eyes. She resisted the temptation and turned away from the machine, just as Fiya climbed back over the counter. She jangled a key with a plastic card attached to it, with a big black number 3 printed on it, and smiled. "No electronic locks, this'll be easy."
While keeping a close eye on their surroundings, the four of them moved to room three, tried the lock, and, with success, they entered.
The carpet was a dark-green shag, and the room smelled as if it hadn't been dusted in months. Two queen-sized beds, with comforters matching the dark green of the carpet, lined against the wall. Fiya found a bit of charm in the wood paneling on the walls.
Rutger stayed at the door while the others stepped inside. Thomas set Liama on the bed farthest from the door and knelt to her at eye level. "Now, remember what we talked about?"
She nodded without a smile.
"Do not open the door for anyone other than us. Do not move the curtains, keep them closed. We do not want anyone to know you're here. They might have eyes on the town."
He paused and glanced toward Fiya and Rutger. Rutger kept his eyes on the outside, slightly squinting as he turned his gaze to the sun. In the parking lot behind him sat the school bus. Fiya stood on the threshold and turned her attention to Rutger, acting as the eyes in the back of his head.
Thomas felt a little better about the decision he was making. He tried to justify bringing her along for the raid, but no matter how he sliced it, he couldn't take part in the irresponsibility of her even being there. They all could die in the effort; it could even be a trap. She even wanted to come along, but the three adults vetoed it, and eventually, she understood. Liama may have hated it, but she understood. She’d been through too much at her age already; taking her back into the lion's den could be rubbing more than
salt in the wounds.
In his hand was a plastic bag of junk food they raided at the grocery store the moment they got into town. Mostly Hostess Cupcakes and Twinkies; not ideal food, but the sugar would be needed. He set the bag on the bed next to Liama. "Do not open the door for anyone unless it's us," he repeated. "Got it?"
She nodded again.
"Good girl," he said and leaned in to kiss her forehead.
"What if the maid shows up?" she asked.
"Well ..." Thomas started to say but struggled how to finish it. With the whole town seemingly abandoned, he didn't think of that part.
"We'll put this on the door," Fiya answered, removing the Do Not Disturb sign from the inside of the door and put it on the outside. Then she shrugged. "Couldn't hurt. The maids won't check to see if the room is actually occupied." She wasn't sure how accurate that was but needed to say it to comfort the Bradleys.
Thomas said, ”Yeah, we can do that, and the maid won't even knock."
Fiya took a step closer to the beds and said, "If anyone does come to the door, knocks on it, scratches, or makes any sounds that you may not like, hide in the bathroom or under the bed." As Thomas rose to his feet, she added, "Or if there's a cabinet under the sink in the bathroom that you can fit in, do that. Ghouls won't think too hard to look there." Of course, she knew damn well that there were others who could think of that, but this still was their safest option regarding Liama's well-being.
Placing a hand on Liama’s head, Thomas said, “Hopefully, we won’t be long. Love ya, bug.” He kissed the top of her head and went to the door; looking back, her face reminded him of a sad puppy, sitting at the edge of the bed.
Then Fiya held up her hand to prevent Thomas from leaving the motel room. “Wait,” she whispered, “just in case something’s watching, and we can’t see it…”
A guttural “Huh?” escaped from Thomas’ throat as Rutger cocked his head at Fiya.
She rushed into the room and grabbed one of the long pillows from the bed. Then she held the pillow near Liama, who looked on, just as confused as her father. “Not too bad,” she said, comparing the pillow to the little girl. Next, she yanked the comforter off the bed and wrapped it up like a burrito, leaving the bottom end of the fabric dangle openly. As if the wrapped pillow were her own child, she picked it up and held it against her chest, and suddenly Thomas picked up on what she was doing: Fiya was creating a decoy. Letting the comforter cover the entire pillow provided a realistic illusion, at least at a distance, that there could be a small child, as long as she held it correctly. "There's no telling what vermin they might control, so just because we don't see people here doesn’t mean there aren’t spies in the forms of birds or small animals."
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