by Sam Sisavath
After four days in L15, she had become used to the sight of people on horseback and kids in shorts running around the street. There wasn’t any danger of getting run over because there were so few cars in town. And you knew when a car came, because it was usually one of those big Army transport trucks settling yet another group of people. She wondered how long those vehicles had been coming and going. Sooner or later, the space would run out, and then what?
Another town. L16, maybe. Or L20.
L30?
How long had they been building these places, she wondered, and how many more were out there right now? In Louisiana, and in the other states?
What about around the world?
The sight of pregnant women had also ceased to become a novelty. She watched them from her window with a mixture of sadness and pity. Did they know what they were getting into? Of course they did. Josh had told them. Or whoever ran this place when Josh wasn’t here. She didn’t think Josh was actually responsible for the day-to-day operations. He was like an overseer, coming and going as needed.
The sun was already fading over the rooftops across the street. She didn’t need a watch or a clock to tell her that it was almost six. It would be dark in less than thirty minutes. Sometimes sooner, when you least expected it.
Night is not our friend. Not anymore.
She glanced back when the doorknob behind her jingled and Mac pushed the door open. He looked in cautiously, as if expecting her to be lying in wait for him. Gaby almost grinned at his reluctance.
“Dinner, your highness,” Mac said, with just enough of a smirk to get across his disdain for her.
A young girl who Gaby had never seen before squeezed her way past Mac. Gaby’s entire world in L15 up to this point had revolved around Josh coming in the afternoons and evenings, and Mac standing outside her door in the day and Lance at night. The girl brought a newness that stirred curiosity and suspicion in Gaby.
And who might you be, little girl?
She wore a white sundress and had short black hair cut to complement a round face. She looked all of thirteen, with big brown eyes that gave her a rare vibe of innocence, something that was in short supply these days.
She smiled at Gaby. “I brought you dinner.”
“Thank you,” Gaby said.
The girl was carrying a brown plastic tray with a red apple, a baked potato in aluminum foil, (Potatoes again? she thought, just as her stomach growled), and two pieces of bread with something that looked like ham placed with care between them.
“Where should I put it?” the girl asked her.
“Put it anywhere,” Mac said impatiently behind her.
“But I don’t want it to get dirty.”
“Just put it anywhere, for God’s sake.”
“On the bed’s fine,” Gaby said.
She smiled at the girl and got a pleasant response. “Are you sure?” the girl asked. “Peter would kill me if he saw food on my bed.”
“I won’t tell him if you don’t.”
That elicited another bright smile. The girl walked over to the bed and put the tray down over the duvet. She stepped back and seemed to hesitate for a moment.
“Get on with it,” Mac said behind her.
“I’ll come back later—for the tray—when you’re done,” the girl said. There was something about the way she looked at Gaby—a strange, almost anxiousness in her voice—that made Gaby even more curious.
“Okay,” Gaby nodded when the girl didn’t say anything else.
“Come on,” Mac said. “I don’t have all day.”
The girl hurried back to the door. Mac held it open for her then slammed it shut after them and immediately pushed the deadbolt into place on the other side.
Gaby stared at the door after them.
What was that about?
*
She sat on her bed, eating everything on the tray. She devoured the potato skins and apple core and crumbs from the two slices of bread. Homemade bread. She could tell. Her mom couldn’t make bread to save her life, but her friend Anna’s mom could. The ham was delicious and fresh. They weren’t from a frozen package like on the island. She guessed the townspeople got it from the same pigs as the strips of bacon Josh was boasting about earlier.
She thought about the girl as she ate and watched nightfall blanket the world outside her window. She had gotten used to leaving it open. The sight of candles and flickering lanterns from the buildings around her brought a sense of normalcy she didn’t realize she had missed until now.
But it was the girl in the white sundress that stayed at the forefront of her mind. The kid had wanted to say something, but the presence of Mac had discouraged it. What was going on behind those big eyes?
It was pitch-dark outside when she finished her meal and found herself back at the window, looking past the buildings and at the woods beyond. L15 was ringed by woods. Dark and natural, their trees teeming with things she couldn’t see. Things other than the animals on the branches, the birds perched among the crowns. Things that were moving on the ground, restless…
Ghouls.
She shivered involuntarily. They were out there right now. Somewhere. She couldn’t see them, but she could feel their presence beyond the town limits. The people around her could, too. That was why L15 shut down well before nightfall, why everyone—despite the arrangement, despite the promised safety—still operated under the assumption it wasn’t safe to wander outside in the dark.
How many were out there right now, in the woods? Hundreds? Thousands? Easily thousands. The creatures always seemed to know where people congregated. And there were a hell of a lot of people here, right now, in these buildings around her. What was keeping them from coming in one of these days?
Or maybe the better question was, who was holding them back…
*
The girl with the round face and the big eyes came back five minutes later, still wearing the sundress, while Gaby was at the window. Mac did his usual look-inside-first move before letting the girl in. Then he stayed behind at the open door, watching Gaby like a hawk. He was so consumed with her that he didn’t pay any attention to the girl.
“Get it and let’s go,” Mac said.
The girl hurried inside and picked up the tray, glanced briefly at Gaby—sideways, so Mac couldn’t see their brief exchange (Okay, now what was that about?)—before leaving again without a word.
“Sleep tight,” Mac said. “Don’t let the bed bugs bite, princess.”
“Can I ask you something, Mac?” Gaby said.
That caught him by surprise. He hesitated, then said guardedly, “What?”
“Have you lived it down yet?”
“Lived what down?”
“Almost getting your head bashed in by a girl with an end table.”
He grunted. “Yeah, you keep bringing that up, princess. Like I keep telling you, one of these days your boyfriend might not be in charge anymore. Those things out there? Those bloodsuckers? They’ve been known to change their minds.”
Mac gave her a big grin, one that was intended to scare her.
It didn’t work. “Josh thinks you’re a pussy. He told me himself. Can’t stand you. Says you don’t bathe.”
His face turned slightly pale even in the semidarkness of her room, and he was about to respond when he apparently decided against it and left without a word instead. Gaby sighed when she heard the deadbolt snapping into place. She didn’t think very highly of Mac, but the man was damn good about always locking her inside.
The girl had left without a word while she was talking with Mac. Gaby cursed herself. Why hadn’t she paid more attention to the kid instead of wasting her time with—
Then she saw it. A piece of folded paper, tucked underneath the duvet near where the tray had been.
She hurried across the room, suddenly terrified Mac might choose tonight, of all nights, to come back in for a last-minute check before turning the shift over to Lance. She picked up the paper and walked toward the
door on tiptoes, making as little noise as possible, and leaned against the wall and listened.
Mac, moving around, the creak of his heavy combat boots against the floorboards.
Gaby unfolded the note. It was a small piece of what looked to be from a sheet of 8x11 piece of writing paper. There was writing on it in black pen, the letters drafted in fine, almost elegant cursive letters. Which meant the girl didn’t write it. Gaby had known plenty of girls at thirteen—herself included—and none ever had this kind of penmanship.
She scanned the letters, her eyes widening with every line she read:
“If we help you escape, will you take us with you? Destroy this when done.”
Gaby re-read the note again just to be sure her desperate mind hadn’t accidentally (purposefully?) “rewritten” the note for its own purposes:
“If we help you escape, will you take us with you? Destroy this when done.”
No. It was still the same.
“If we help you escape, will you take us with you?”
Gaby folded the note back up until it was barely the size of her thumb, then slipped it into her mouth and swallowed.
*
She woke up sometime in the middle of the night to the sound of footsteps outside her door. They were too quiet, someone walking on tiptoes, to be Lance. So quiet, in fact, that she only heard it because she had been sitting on the bed waiting for it, or something like it, for the last few hours.
The second floor was partially lit by a portable LED lantern hanging from the ceiling somewhere in the middle of the hallway, between her door and the staircase on the other side. It was rechargeable, and she had seen Mac taking it down to recharge every morning when he showed up for his shift.
There was definitely a figure moving against the hallway light now, visible as elongated shadows through the slit under the door. The figure stopped, shifted (crouched?), then the sound of paper sliding across the floor.
Gaby climbed out of bed and raced toward the door just as the figure stood up and turned to go. “Wait,” Gaby said, whispering just loudly enough to be heard. She snatched up the paper—the same size as the other one—and pocketed it. “Don’t go.”
The shadow turned, then someone pressed against the door. A soft, familiar voice whispered, “You’re awake.”
Gaby smiled. It was the girl in the sundress. “What’s your name?”
“Milly.”
“Milly, who sent you—”
“I have to go,” Milly said, cutting her off. “He’s coming back.”
“Wait—”
But Milly was gone, the barely audible tap-tap of bare feet against the hallway floor, before a door opened and closed softly seconds later. Gaby was certain Milly had disappeared into a room somewhere further down the hallway, which meant she lived in the building and was one of the many unseen neighbors that came and went every day.
A few seconds later, loud footsteps—like thunder compared to Milly’s—climbed up the stairs and moved across the hallway.
Lance.
She got up and tiptoed back to her bed, lay down, and pulled the duvet over her chest and under her chin as the footsteps got closer. Lance moved with all the grace of a bear wearing combat boots.
Gaby closed her eyes when she heard the metal scraping—the familiar noise of the deadbolt sliding free. The door opened a crack and dimmed LED lights flooded into the room. She imagined, but didn’t open her eyes to see, Lance’s familiar hulking frame in the doorway, making sure she hadn’t escaped while he was gone.
A few seconds later, the door closed and the click-chank of the deadbolt once again locked her in.
She sat up, took out the note, and unwrapped it.
It was the same black ink written in the same careful cursive handwriting:
“First light. Be ready. Destroy this note.”
Gaby re-read the note again, making sure she didn’t miss anything, before folding it back up and swallowing it.
She looked over at the window and the darkness outside.
“First light” was sunrise. The “Be ready” part was obvious.
What wasn’t clear was what they were planning. She didn’t believe Milly was acting on her own, and the careful handwriting proved it. So Milly was working with someone. Who? Maybe her father. Or a brother. Maybe just a friend. Gaby was no expert, but the handwriting looked like a man’s. Then again, for all she knew, it really could just have been little Milly. Was that possible?
She lay back down and closed her eyes. If there was some kind of escape being planned for tomorrow, she had to be ready. And that meant getting as much sleep as possible now so she would be alert for tomorrow.
“First light…”
*
An hour later, she was still awake.
An hour after that, she gave up trying to sleep altogether.
Gaby climbed out of bed and did push-ups on the floor. She had been keeping up her strength ever since she first opened her eyes in L15, knowing that eventually the time would come when she would need it, so the sudden burst of physical activity wasn’t anything new to her body.
She did thirty push-ups, then threw in fifty sit-ups, hoping to tire herself out enough to get the sleep she needed. When that still didn’t work, she shadowboxed in the dark, careful to stay away from the window where someone outside could see her.
She didn’t stop until she was covered in sweat and her body was sore all over.
When she lay down on the bed for the second time, she had no trouble falling asleep.
“First light. Be ready…”
CHAPTER 4
WILL
“We go in, hit the bars, deflower the virgins, and we’re outta there with no one the wiser,” Danny said. “Easy peasy.”
“What about the guys with guns?” Will asked.
“Weekend warriors. We’ll be nice and give them a couple of rounds’ head start. But that’s as far as I’m willing to bend over for these bozos.” He glanced back at Kellerson. “What do you think? That strike you as fair?”
Kellerson stared blankly back at him. He couldn’t have said a word even if he wanted to, not with a strip of duct tape over his mouth. His hands, resting limply in his lap, were bound at the wrists. The pinky and ring finger of his left hand were missing, and blood was seeping through the fresh gauze Will had put on the man this morning. Kellerson was quickly becoming more trouble than he was worth.
“Not much of a conversationalist, huh?” Danny said.
“He’s shy,” Will said. “Cut him some slack.”
“‘Cut him’?” Danny snorted.
Will smiled. “No pun intended.”
“What pun? Oh, you meant those missing fingers of his?”
They were hidden in the woods, looking out from cover at what used to be a small town called Downer Plateau. There was a good kilometer of open clearing and small roads between them and the town, now referred to by the collaborators as simply L15. Behind them, hidden by trees for at least another three kilometers, was Interstate 49, the primary road through this part of Louisiana.
L15—or what parts of it he could see—had been a good-sized place once upon a time. Big enough for thousands of people to call it home. It was connected to the interstate by a state highway, and from what he could see most of the buildings were concentrated around a central main street. The place gave off an old-fashioned vibe, which was exactly what the ghouls and their human collaborators were going for.
“We think it’s because they want us to start over,” someone had once told him. “A fresh start. The cities are filled with reminders of the old world. Our achievements, our art, our evolution as human beings. Out here, surrounded by farmland, woods… It’s like going back to our roots. No power, no electricity… It’s easier to believe the last two centuries never happened.”
It wasn’t a bad place, if you were looking to start all over without actually beginning from scratch. The people moving around the streets were there willingly. Children poked thei
r heads out of apartment windows, and every now and then he heard the clop-clop of horseshoes on roads meant for cars. The last collaborator town he had been this close to had armed men on rooftops and walking the streets. But there was a noticeable lack of anything resembling “the enemy” at L15.
He looked back at Kellerson again, leaning lifelessly against a tree. The man’s face was white, his eyes hollow, and Will kept expecting him to bolt any second, but losing two fingers must have taken all the fight out of him. That, and he just didn’t look like he had the strength to stand up, much less think he might be able to outrun them.
“L15,” Will said to Kellerson. “That means there are fourteen more towns just like this one?”
Kellerson nodded and mumbled something behind the duct tape.
“How far does the number go? Twenty? Higher?”
Another nod.
“Thirty?”
Kellerson seemed to think about it, then shrugged.
“You don’t know for sure.”
Nod.
“I guess you were right,” Danny said. “Little buggers have been busy while we were twiddling our thumbs back on the beach and drinking piña coladas.”
“Looks like it.”
Will glanced at his watch. 4:14 P.M.
Two hours before sunset. Even with the ATVs Kellerson and his men had been using (when they weren’t tooling around in their armored Humvees), it had taken him and Danny too long to travel from Lafayette, where they had parted company with Roy and Zoe earlier this morning. He couldn’t afford to let Zoe go yesterday after she had been shot, not until he was sure she wouldn’t die on Roy while they were en route. Zoe was a doctor, and those were more valuable than bullets these days.
“It’s going to be dark soon,” Will said.
“Of course it is,” Danny said. “If it didn’t, then this would just be another boring jaunt through the woods. And I forgot my jaunting pants at the island.”
“Shoulda packed appropriately.”
“Shoulda, coulda, but didn’ta.”
Will gestured at Kellerson, who pushed himself off the tree with some effort, turned around, and began marching back through the woods. There was enough light splashing through the trees around them that Will didn’t feel like he was walking through a nest of ghouls, something that you had to take into consideration these days, especially when you were close to an area filled with humans—or prey, to the creatures. They crunched dried leaves and snapped twigs under them, the noise swallowed up by birds perched along branches.