by Sam Sisavath
Ted grinned and came over and shook their hands.
“Ted, this is Luke and Kate,” Carly said. “Ted here was the first guy we met that night. He saved my sister and me all by himself.”
Ted’s cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. “It was nothing,” he said.
“Don’t believe him,” Carly said. “It was something, all right.”
“You guys hungry?” Ted asked, clearly trying to take the attention away from himself.
He had made two tacos and put them inside Taco Bell wrappers. The finished product didn’t look anything like the commercials she remembered, but the smell of cooked ground beef and fresh cheese made her mouth water just the same.
“It’s not much,” Carly said, “but we’re trying to eat as much as we can before it all goes to waste.”
“We’ve been eating nothing but jalapeno-flavored beef jerky for the last two days,” Kate said. “Trust me, this is a vast improvement.”
“Then dig in, before Ted eats it all.”
Kate and Luke exchanged a look, then happily dove in.
CHAPTER 16
WILL
“You remember that whole Mayan 2012 thing?” Danny asked.
“End of the world?” Will said.
“Yeah.”
“What about it?”
Danny chuckled. “I got Stacy Patterson to sleep with me because of that. Best sex of my life.”
“She hated your guts.”
“Not that night. She believed in the whole Mayan thing.”
“So you tricked her.”
“Shut your mouth. I was just agreeing with her.”
Will laughed. Stacy Patterson was a part-time dispatcher at their SWAT house, an attractive twenty-five-year-old with a strict policy of not dating cops, especially the SWAT guys she worked with. Danny had been after her ever since they arrived, his constant failures to get even a date a running joke among the guys. The fact that Stacy developed a new, even stricter policy of not speaking to Danny after December 22, 2012, the day after the Mayan calendar predicted the world would end, now made perfect sense.
“What brought that up?” Will asked.
“I dunno. I was just thinking about her all of a sudden. She had a really nice rack.”
“Great rack.”
“Tremendous.”
They were back on the Archers roof, scanning the city with binoculars. Below them, the police siren wailed away in the hope of attracting more survivors. It had already worked twice…
Danny said, “So, Harold Campbell?”
“You got a better idea?”
“Can’t say that I do.”
“We can’t stay in the city. The numbers don’t work out.”
“Math was never my strong suit.”
“We’ve been lucky so far,” Will said, “but that’s not going to last. Tonight. Tomorrow. The day after. This city belongs to them now, and whatever unlucky bastards are still hiding out there, they’re going to wish they weren’t very soon. We need someplace more defensible.”
“Howard Campbell,” Danny said.
“Howard Campbell, yeah.”
“Good plan, but it still leaves a big city to make it through in one piece.”
“Cars are out of the question. Not with the cluttered highways. We could take the small roads, but that’d take forever. We could always island-hop. Travel by day, shelter up at night. We’d eventually make it out of the city.”
“Eventually sounds like a long time.”
“Safety first. The longer we stay here, the higher the risks. You saw them last night. It’s more than just a hive mind, Danny. They’re being led. You don’t take down the country in one night without a chain of command.”
“You thought this out.”
“Except the part where we don’t all die.”
“Yeah, that’d be nice, too.” Danny took out some of the jerky that Kate and Luke brought with them and took a bite. Jalapeno-flavored beef lingered in the air. “So how do we bypass the highways?”
“Maybe with bikes.”
“Ride piggyback, two to a bike?”
“Something like that.”
“Gonna have to teach the big guy and one of the girls to ride if the two new ones decide to come along.”
“True.”
“What about the guns?”
“That’s a problem.”
“Lots of problems if you ask me.”
“Yup.”
“Maybe find another way.”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
“Fly out?”
“We’d need to find a helicopter. You said you knew how to fly one, right?”
“I said I’ve flown in a helicopter. So did you. In Stan. I had sex in the cockpit of one once. Does that count?”
“Not really, no.”
“There goes that option.”
“Yup. Got another one of those?”
Danny fished out another stick of beef jerky. Will took a bite in silence.
“You come up with another idea yet?” Danny said after a few minutes.
“Nope.”
“Some brains of the operation you turned out to be.”
“Who’s the brains of the operation?” a voice said behind them.
Will glanced back at Kate as she walked across the roof toward them. He stared just a bit longer than he should have. He couldn’t help himself—she was a looker, even in the plain pants and T-shirt that was at least a size too big. She had no make-up on, not that it seemed to matter.
“This guy,” Danny said, hiking a thumb in Will’s direction. “Supposedly, anyway.”
“Did you and Luke eat?” Will asked her.
“We definitely filled up on our share of tacos,” she said. “What’s for tomorrow, Subway sandwiches? I saw one on the way here. It looked small. Probably not many of those creatures inside. They like the bigger buildings, don’t they?”
“Have no fear, we have God on our side,” Danny said, tapping the silver cross-knife strapped against his left leg. “And silver bullets. Those are good, too.”
“We were talking about leaving,” Will said. “You’re welcome to come with us. You and Luke both.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate that. We both do.” Kate walked to the edge of the roof and looked down at the quiet parking lot spread out in front of them. “Carly told me about this Harold Campbell. You know for a fact that his facility’s there?”
“Yes.”
“And we can get there?”
“That part’s going to require a bit of faith.”
“Just faith, huh? Short supply of that these days…”
“Faith is bullets,” Danny said. “A few thousand rounds, to be exact. We’ll make more as we go, collecting silver along the way. Kinda like the great train robbery, minus the whole people giving a shit part.”
“Don’t you guys already have a few thousand rounds stashed down there?” she asked. “Carly says you’ve been making bullets since you got here.”
“We should definitely get there by tonight,” Will said.
“And that’s going to be enough?” she asked doubtfully.
“Not nearly. But it’s a start.”
*
Soon they were back at work making more bullets, with Danny and Ted melting and pouring silver and mixing them with lead in one room, while Will knocked out rounds for the Glocks in the setup area.
Kate showed up as he banged a plastic hammer on the molds to free the freshly cast bullets, plopping them into a bucket of water, the hot lead and silver weights hissing and sizzling in the bucket.
“Isn’t there an easier way to make bullets?” she asked.
“About a million different ways. Unfortunately all of them involve machines that we don’t have. And electricity.”
“How did people make bullets before electricity?”
“You’re looking at it.”
He took the molds back to the workbench. The pot of lead and silver liquid was almost empty,
though he could probably bang out a dozen or more before waiting for a new batch. Danny and Ted worked nearby, the acidic evidence of melting lead and silver thick in the air around them.
Kate looked nervous, shuffling her sneakers once or twice. She had the look of a woman who wanted to ask something but didn’t quite know how to broach the subject.
“What’s on your mind, Kate?”
She pursed her lips. “Can anyone learn to shoot?”
“If you want to learn, I can teach you.”
“I should learn, right?”
“It’s up to you.”
“I should learn,” she said, obviously trying to convince herself.
She looked down at the bucket, at the 200 or 300 rounds resting at the bottom. Once the bucket was half full, he would prime and recast them into new bullets. They wouldn’t be nearly as perfect as the ones out of a factory, but those didn’t have silver in them. In this new war, these were the new perfection.
“What’s up first?” she asked. “Learning to shoot, I mean.”
“Have you ever owned a gun before?”
“No.”
“Hold one?”
“Not really, no.”
“Does that mean you’ve touched one?”
“At the pawnshop before we came here. But Luke and I were too scared to actually use them.” She gave him an embarrassed smile. “I’m a lost cause, aren’t I?”
“Everyone has to start somewhere.”
“Are you just trying to make me feel better, Will?”
“Yes,” he smiled back.
*
“This is a Glock,” Will said. “It’s an excellent gun for a beginner because of the simplicity. Pros swear by them because it’s one of the most reliable brands out there.”
She held the Glock 19 with both hands. She looked exactly how he had expected her to look—uncomfortable. He showed her the proper way to hold it, then had her repeatedly holster and draw the weapon over and over.
“You’re holding a Glock 19,” he continued. “It’s what you’d call a starter Glock. It’s twenty-one ounces unloaded, thirty-one with a full magazine. Go ahead and load it, but don’t chamber a round.”
She picked up the magazine from the counter and loaded the weapon without chambering a round. She had done it five times already, and each time she got better at it. He was impressed, but not terribly surprised. He had met women like Kate before—career-minded, driven, and ambitious. When they put their minds to something, nothing was impossible. Guns were, after all, just tools. Anyone could learn how to use a tool. Eventually.
“The Glock 19 magazine holds fifteen rounds. Can you feel the difference between a loaded Glock and an unloaded one?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “It’s a lot heavier with the magazine in. I didn’t really expect it to be that heavy.”
“Good. So next time when you’re watching a movie and they pull that bullshit ‘I gave the bad guy an unloaded gun, and he tried to shoot me with it, thus proving his bad guy-ness,’ you’ll now be the only one in the theater laughing your ass off.”
“Are we talking from personal experience?”
“Not at all… Okay, maybe once or twice.”
“I notice there’s no hammer,” she said.
“There isn’t one. There’s also no safety switch. But if you’re worried about accidental discharges, don’t. I can count on one hand the number of times a Glock has misfired on me.”
“That’s a lot.”
“I said one hand, not all five fingers, Kate.”
“Oh.”
“Okay, let’s go ahead and chamber a round…”
*
He got her shooting at paper targets plastered to the wall until it was nearly dark. Luke and Carly had come over to watch. Will noticed Luke looking on anxiously, wanting to get in on the action.
Boys and guns.
With darkness coming, he cut Kate’s lesson short so they could prepare the Archers for the night. He and Danny slipped their SWAT gear back on, then he went outside to turn off the siren. He spent a minute scanning the parking lot, still startled at how quiet the city could be without people.
Back in the store, Ted and Danny were lifting the heavier exercise equipment into position over the inner doors. Carly, Luke, and Kate helped with the smaller items. They had all the doors secured in less than forty minutes, which was better than yesterday’s hour and change. The front outer doors, like last night, had only been locked and not reinforced. The interior doors were the important ones anyway. If the creatures breached those, it would make a hell of a racket and give them time to prepare for an assault. That was the idea, anyway.
Will looked over the makeshift barricade before turning to Danny. “Could be our last night here.”
“Yup,” Danny said.
“C4 in place?”
“Plan Z in full effect.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Right,” Danny said, “and Santa’s not screwing around behind Mrs. Claus’s back with Doris the sexy elf.”
“Where do you get this shit?”
“It’s called comedic genius, pal.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” He looked over at the others. “I’ll take first guard and wake Danny up at midnight. Everyone get some sleep. Even if we get through this night unscathed, it’ll be our last night here. We’re going to be doing a lot of traveling soon, and sleep might come in unpredictable spurts. All right? Good. Let’s get to it.”
Everyone drifted back to the camping area except for Kate. She was staring at the doors in silence.
“They’ll hold,” he said.
“Are you sure?” She looked at him, and he could tell she was trying to gauge his reaction, to see if he was lying.
He did his best to hide it.
“I’m sure. If all else fails, there’s Plan Z.”
“That’s such an awful name, Will. Couldn’t you have come up with something better? Something more, I don’t know, less last-resort-ish?”
He grinned. “Don’t diss Plan Z. It’s been working for Danny and me since Afghanistan.”
She didn’t look convinced. Kate struck him as an incredibly serious woman. He wondered what she was like before all of this changed everything.
“Carly said there were thousands of those things in the Walmart next door,” she said. “And there are more of them out there in the rest of the city. I’ve seen them converging like ants when they pick up a scent, Will. What if they all attack at the same time? Do you really think these doors will hold them back?”
Again, he did his best to hide his doubts. “Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.”
“What are the chances of that?”
“Pretty good.”
“Really?”
“Hope springs eternal…”
*
The ghouls showed up at the outer doors at 8:05 p.m.
At first Will was convinced they would ignore the Archers for a second straight night, and with each wave of ghouls that passed the front doors in the moonlight, he became more hopeful. But then one stopped and faced the outer windows.
Then one became two, and two became five…then ten.
Then suddenly there were hundreds in the parking lot, so many that they blocked out the police car outside and there was just blackness.
So much for hope springing eternally.
He sat in the darkness, far from the pool of moonlight that splashed through the two sets of front doors. He didn’t think they could possibly see him. He was well-hidden, and they hadn’t proven they had anything resembling heightened vision.
He unslung the Remington 870 shotgun and laid it on the floor in front of him. He was wearing a web belt with a variety of pouches, most of them holding extra shells for the shotguns and magazines for the rifle. He unslung the M4A1 and switched on the mounted laser pointer. The naked eye couldn’t spot it, but when he slipped on the night-vision goggles he could see the laser pointer clear as day.
“They’re at the outer doors.”
“I guess they know we’re here.”
“Either that, or they think there’s a sale on Texans jerseys.”
“Hey, jokes are my area, dickhead.”
Will grinned. “You should get up to the catwalks.”
“Roof?”
“Chances are…”
“On my way.”
He imagined Danny already moving toward the second floor catwalk to cover the rooftop door. They would be up there, too, seeing if they could gain entrance from that direction. They would also try the back doors and side doors just to be sure.
Dead, not stupid.
Everything he had learned about the ghouls told him they were anything but stupid. That made them dangerous. Very, very dangerous.
He was also convinced there was a command structure in place. Field commanders calling the shots, relaying orders. Otherwise the ghouls outside would already be throwing themselves at the glass doors, mindlessly trying to batter them down.
But they weren’t. Someone—something—was telling them not to. Yet.
The earbud in his right ear clicked: “I can hear them moving outside on the rooftop,” Danny said. “I think we’re good to go up here, though. Door’s sturdy—they’re not getting through here in a million years. How’s it going down there?”
“They’re waiting for something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe their leader? Commanding officer? You said it yourself, they behave like infantry soldiers. They might be waiting for orders.”
“Maybe…”
“Stay frosty.”
“Will do.”
He heard shuffling behind him, then Kate and Carly emerged out of the darkness. Kate had the Glock 19 in a hip holster. It looked odd on her. Civilians and guns. It was a combination that always made him nervous.
The women sat down in the darkness next to him, then looked into the moonlight at the sea of ghouls beyond the front glass doors. Carly gasped audibly.
“How many are out there?” Kate whispered.
“I have no idea,” he said honestly. “Could be thousands.”