by Sam Sisavath
“You’re Korean. How do you not know what a Korean word means?”
“I was born on a military base in San Diego, Gillian. English is my native tongue. Besides, the closest I’ve ever been to anything remotely Korean is North Korea.”
“What were you doing in North Korea?”
“These guys I worked for sent me to get something from these other guys that had this thing they wanted.”
“So why didn’t you ask someone there what day-what? How do you say it again?”
“Daebak.”
“Yeah. That. Why didn’t you ask someone in North Korea what it meant while you were there?” She looked proud of herself, as if she had just beaten him at his own game.
Keo grinned. “Have you ever been to North Korea, Gillian?”
“Oh God, it’s one of those stories,” she groaned.
“You don’t stop to ask people in North Korea about things and stuff. You run and hope they don’t shoot you in the back with an AK-47.”
“Smart ass.”
“Wanna hear another story?”
“No.”
“When I was nine,” Keo said anyway, “I went to see a fortune teller. She told me I was destined to meet a cute bank teller and spend the rest of my life with her in an isolated house in the woods. Go figure,” he said, gesturing around them.
“Seriously?”
“Which part don’t you believe?”
“That I’m cute,” she said. “No one’s ever called me cute before.”
“Stunningly beautiful?” he said.
“Better,” she smiled, just before a gunshot exploded across the house and froze both of them in place.
CHAPTER 19
The gunshot came from Gavin’s room. Gavin and Earl’s room.
Norris snapped up from the floor even before the gunshot had finished echoing across the house. He momentarily had to fight with his own bedroll before he could stumble up to his feet and grab his M4 leaning against the wall nearby.
Keo was already running across the room. “Stay here!” he shouted back at Gillian.
She nodded and shouted back at him. “Earl’s in there! If he’s turned—”
“I know!”
Norris fell in beside him, and they made a beeline for Gavin and Earl’s room together. The gunshot had come from inside. There was no doubt about it, and Keo knew right away something had gone horribly wrong even before they heard two more shots—pop! pop!—coming in quick succession from inside.
Farther up the left side hallway, a door opened and Levy stumbled outside, the dull black barrel of a Glock glinting in one hand. He had apparently gone to sleep in a T-shirt and the same pants he had been wearing all day. Bowe rushed outside too, his taller frame hovering wobbly behind Levy’s.
“What’s happening?” Levy said. “Who fired the shots?”
Keo ignored him and reached Gavin’s room. Before he could get to the doorknob, the door swung open and Gavin staggered outside. The redhead grabbed the doorframe with one bloody hand, the other holding an automatic pistol tightly in his fist. An LED lamp hanging off the ceiling inside the room was turned on medium setting, illuminating Gavin’s wild and frenzied expression, like something out of a horror show.
Gavin looked confused when he saw Keo, and they stared at each other across the open doorway. That is, until blood spurted in a wide arc from Gavin’s left shoulder and splashed against the wall.
“Oh, Jesus,” Levy said. He stood paralyzed in the hallway, staring at Gavin, as if he couldn’t quite process what was happening. “What happened? Are you okay?”
Bowe didn’t stand around asking stupid questions. Instead, he rushed past Levy and toward Gavin, who heard him coming and whirled around to confront him. Bowe slid to a stop and stared at his bloodied friend.
“Gavin, Jesus, you’re bleeding,” Bowe said. “Where’s Earl?”
Gavin didn’t answer. He didn’t seem capable of answering. He turned away from Bowe and lurched out of the room, pushing his way past Keo and Norris. He moved in a crooked line, like a drunk, staggering everywhere. Somehow, he made it to the kitchen, passing a horrified Gillian, who followed him tentatively. Gavin had left bloody fingerprints everywhere as he groped his way across the house.
“Watch it, kid!” Norris shouted.
Keo spun back around, just in time to see Earl lunging at him through the open door.
No, not Earl. The thirty-something, easygoing country boy was gone, replaced by one of those creatures. A bloodsucker. Keo only knew it was Earl because it was still wearing Earl’s clothes, though they were now absurdly too big for its shrunken frame.
The sight of Earl surprised Keo. When had he died and turned? It couldn’t have been that long ago. But to look at him, he would swear Earl had turned days ago. How had he gotten the drop on Gavin? Was the other man sleeping? That made sense. He didn’t think even Gavin would continue holding a vigil over a dead body.
Earl used to have brown eyes, but the ones that peered out of the room at Keo now were black and lifeless. Pruned, dark skin glistened against the LED light, but it was not quite tightly pulled against its skeletal frame yet. Keo imagined the thing that used to be Earl only had to walk around another few minutes before it would simply slink out of its now ill-fitting clothes. It still had hair, but not much, and what it had flitted away as it reached for Keo with impossibly sharp and bony fingers.
Norris dove forward and slammed the butt of his M4 into the creature’s face.
“Oh, fuck!” Bowe shouted. He had been standing close to the door when Earl appeared.
Keo thought he heard the sound of bone breaking as Norris’s rifle found its mark. While that didn’t stop the creature, it slowed it down just enough. Clumps of blood slurped out of its shattered nose when Earl (not anymore) turned its head.
“Earl?” Bowe said. “Oh shit, Earl.”
Earl whirled on Bowe, who had kept moving forward.
Too close, you idiot!
Bowe realized his mistake right away and began backpedaling, but he did it too fast and tripped on his own legs and fell. And so did Earl—over Bowe, and for an instant the two of them looked like dancers that had gotten their legs tangled and were now falling to the floor in each other’s arms.
Then Bowe began screaming because Earl had sunk his teeth into Bowe’s neck. The sight of the taller man struggling underneath the smaller (shrunken) Earl left an indelible image in Keo’s mind. At least, until bright crimson red liquid splashed the floor like geysers.
Levy had smartly (or maybe he just couldn’t make himself move) stayed farther back in the hallway. He raised his gun to fire, and Keo waited for the loud explosion in the narrow passageway. Except there weren’t any because Levy didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, he stared almost in disbelief as one friend bit and chewed another’s neck.
Bowe was thrashing violently on the floor, long limbs flailing wildly, trying to dislodge Earl. He grabbed Earl’s thin neck and tried to push him off, but Earl wouldn’t let go. Either that, or its teeth had sunk so deeply into Bowe’s flesh that it couldn’t be pried loose even by the Jaws of Life.
Keo unslung the MP5SD and fired.
Despite the attached metal suppressor, the submachine gun wasn’t completely silent as Keo concentrated half of the magazine’s thirty rounds into Earl’s back. Dark liquid (blood?) sprayed the air and walls and Earl twitched. Levy had stumbled back down the hallway, throwing his hands over his face to keep back the blood splatters and chunks of flesh and muscle that came loose from Earl’s body with every impacting 9mm round.
When Keo finally stopped shooting, Earl looked up and seemed to sneer at him. For a moment, Keo wondered why he thought shooting it would work. Shotguns hadn’t done a damn thing, so why did he think submachine gun rounds would prove different?
You’re a world class idiot, that’s why.
Earl climbed off Bowe, who had stopped moving on the floor. It wasn’t because Earl had feasted on him (though that probably had a lit
tle something to do with it, too), but Bowe was now bleeding from not just the neck, but also from three bullet holes in his chest. Keo’s bullets, he realized, because the creatures had soft bodies and bullets went right through them. What didn’t hit Bowe had slammed into the ground around him.
Keo stumbled back, feeling slightly sick to his stomach.
Aw, Jesus. I shot him. I shot Bowe.
Earl had forgotten about Keo, Norris, and Levy, and he (it?) grabbed Bowe by one leg and pulled him toward the door. Bowe didn’t struggle. He didn’t have the strength. His eyes were glassy and blood trickled out of the wounds across his body, though they were nothing compared to the stream slurping out of the gash in his neck where Earl had bitten him. How a bite could possibly be worse than bullet wounds defied logic.
The second Bowe’s body disappeared into the room, Norris rushed forward and grabbed the doorknob and slammed the door shut.
“Hold on,” Keo said.
“I got nowhere else to be,” Norris grunted back.
Norris gripped the doorknob with both hands, but he didn’t really have to. There were no movements from the other side, no loud crashing against the door, or any attempts by Earl to come back out. Because he—it—didn’t want to come out. Not yet, anyway. It was busy in the room.
With Bowe…
As if to confirm it, blood appeared out the bottom of the door, spreading into the hallway in a thick (way too thick) gush.
“Jesus,” Norris said, and moved his feet away. “Do something, will you?”
Keo turned to leave the hallway, kicking spent shell casings from the MP5SD strewn across the floor. It was a timely reminder, and Keo pulled out the half-empty magazine and slapped in a full one.
Half-empty. Because I pumped three of them into Bowe, too.
Aw, Jesus.
He didn’t know why it bothered him so much. It wasn’t like this was the first time he had shot someone. Not even close. Of course, all those other times he had meant to do it. This time was a little different.
Gillian was at the kitchen with Gavin, holding a rag against his shoulder and trying to stanch the bleeding. It wasn’t working, and the proof were two similar rags already in a pile on the counter, both soaked with blood. She met Keo’s eyes, and he was impressed by the calmness he saw looking back at him.
What happened to the woman who shook for an hour after the ambush yesterday? She was gone, replaced by this Gillian, who though clearly terrified of what was happening managed to do her part anyway.
“Are you okay?” Keo asked.
She nodded back, probably because she didn’t trust herself to answer vocally.
“How’s Gavin?” he asked.
“He’s…fine,” she said hesitantly, but her face told him a different story. “He said he fell asleep and when he woke up…” She didn’t finish, because she didn’t have to.
If Gavin had heard their exchange, he didn’t say anything. He looked like he could barely stand, and if not for Gillian pinning him against the counter with her body, he might have toppled off the stool at any moment.
“Do the best you can,” Keo said.
“I will. Go back there and help Norris.”
He nodded and hurried back to the left side hallway.
Norris was still leaning against the door, both hands gripped tightly around the doorknob. He had positioned his feet to keep them away from the spreading blood on the floor, but he was quickly running out of space. How many pints of blood did a human body contain? Because it looked like all of it was coming out of Gavin’s room at the moment.
“You back already?” the ex-cop said.
Keo looked up the hallway at Levy, standing silently behind Norris. He was there, but he wasn’t really there. “Levy, you still with us?”
Levy glanced over at him. “What’s he going to do with Bowe?” he asked quietly.
You know damn well what he’s doing with Bowe right now, Keo thought, but said, “You have anything in that basement to keep this door locked?”
“Why?”
“We need to keep Earl sealed inside until morning.”
And Bowe with him, too.
And Gavin makes three…
“Right. Morning,” Levy said. He sounded robotic, on automatic pilot.
“I need you to go get something to lock this door with. Maybe the same kind of latches you guys put on the windows. Do you have any of those left?”
“I think so…”
“We’re going to need a screwdriver and screws, too. Grab a drill if you have one. Okay?”
“Okay,” Levy repeated, though he hadn’t moved.
“Levy,” Keo said. When that didn’t get any response from Levy, Keo said louder, “Levy.” The other man’s glazed eyes shifted back to him. “Go. Now.”
Levy nodded and hurried off. He was still clutching the Glock in one hand, though Keo wasn’t sure if he even knew that.
Norris looked after Levy. “He looked bad to you?”
“He just saw his best friend try to eat his other best friend, and actually succeeded in eating another one,” Keo said. “Hard to look good after that.”
“Good point.” Norris’s eyes drifted to the path of blood Gavin had left behind as he ran off. “That kid ain’t going to be okay. You know that, right?”
“You just worry about that door and I’ll worry about Gavin.”
Norris looked back at the door. “I don’t think he’s going to try to leave the room. Or if he does, I’m pretty sure I can stop him. Unless he can break down the door, he needs to turn this doorknob, and from what I’ve seen, they’re not that strong. So go on.”
“I’ll be back,” Keo said, and returned to the living room.
Gavin was lying on one of the couches now, with Gillian kneeling next to him, wrapping a thick roll of gauze tightly around his shoulder and looping them around his arm. She had already applied so much that Gavin looked like a baseball pitcher with a bag of ice taped to his throwing arm. Rachel was crouched nearby in pajamas and T-shirt, putting scissors away into an open first aid kit. Additional bloody rags were spread out on the floor around them.
Gavin didn’t look as if he was even aware the women were working on him. His face was ghostly pale and his eyes were closed. The women had turned on a second LED lamp nearby, and the room glowed unnaturally bright.
“The girls?” Keo said to Rachel.
“They’re inside my room,” Rachel said. “I told them not to come out unless I came to get them.”
“Are they okay?”
“Scared out of their minds from all the screaming and shooting, but I think—God, I can’t believe I’m saying this—they might be getting used to it by now. What about Bowe?”
Keo shook his head.
“You were right,” Rachel said. “If they bite you, it’s over.”
Keo walked over and got a closer look at Gavin. He looked asleep, and Rachel had wrapped a thick blanket around him. He was almost peaceful. For now, anyway.
He’s going to die. Then he’ll turn.
Like Delia.
Like Earl…
“Gillian,” Keo said.
“I know,” she said softly. She sat back on her haunches, staring at the bandages around Gavin’s shoulder as they slowly, ever so slowly, started to redden an inch at a time. “It won’t stop bleeding. Just like with Earl.”
“We need to put him someplace where he can’t hurt anyone.”
“Like where? There aren’t a lot of choices left, Keo.”
“There’s the basement,” Levy said, coming out of the right side hallway. He had a padlock and a steel hasp in one hand and a battery-operated power drill in the other. His Glock was stuffed into his front waistband, and Levy looked better than when Keo had last seen him a few minutes ago. He seemed to be more in control, as if the initial shock and paralysis had worn off. A little, anyway.
“The basement?” Gillian said. “Will that work?”
“It’s a big room and the door is pretty stro
ng. He’d never be able to get out.”
“That’s not going to work,” Keo said.
“Why not? If he’s in the basement, he won’t be able to hurt anyone.”
“Exactly. He’ll be in the basement. You want to go down there to get him when he turns?”
“We don’t know—” he started to say, but quickly stopped himself. Levy looked down at the tools in his hands instead.
“Right,” Keo said. “We’re going to do this my way this time.”
CHAPTER 20
After Levy went back to the basement and got another set of locks, they drilled the steel plate over Gavin’s door first, then added the padlock and snapped it into place. Then they stepped back from the door and waited for the creature that used to be Earl to do something, but it never did.
How long does it take to drink Bowe dry?
Keo didn’t say it out loud, of course. Levy was standing next to him, and he already looked pale from just being so close to the room.
“You okay, Levy?” Keo asked.
Levy gave him a blank look, as if he didn’t quite understand the question. “Bowe’s in there.”
“Yeah.”
“Earl’s…eating Bowe?”
Drinking Bowe is more like it, Keo thought, but said, “Try not to think about it. I know it’s hard, but it’s not going to do you any good imagining what’s happening behind this door.”
Levy nodded and looked away.
Norris tried opening the door by jiggling the doorknob. It opened just a few inches, but not enough to see inside. Which was good. Keo didn’t want to see what Earl was doing in there to Bowe anyway. He already knew.
“They’re not strong enough to break the door down,” Norris said. “We should be good.”
“There are two of them in there now,” Keo said.
“Shit, that’s right. Bowe, too.” He glanced over at Levy, but the younger man didn’t seem to have heard him. Levy was focused almost entirely on the thick puddle of blood under the door. Norris said to Keo, “You think it makes any difference?”
“I don’t know,” Keo said. “I guess we’ll find out.” He put a hand on Levy’s shoulder. “Let’s do your door next.”