by Sam Sisavath
Carly’s voice shook a bit when she asked, “Will the doors hold, Will?”
“They’ll hold,” he lied.
“Where’s Danny?”
He pointed up into the air.
“I’ll go see if he needs help,” she said and hurried off, seemingly anxious to be away. He didn’t blame her.
Kate, though, remained crouched next to him in the darkness. “It’s not going to hold,” she said softly.
He thought about lying. But he said instead, “No.”
“What happens then?”
“We do what we practiced this afternoon.”
“That’ll work?” She added quickly, “Feel free to lie.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Are you lying?”
“No.”
“I can’t tell if you’re lying or not.”
“It’ll work.”
“How can you be so calm?”
“Am I?”
“It’s annoying.”
“Sorry,” he smiled.
She became quiet, staring at the amassing creatures. Was there more of them since the last time he looked? How was that even possible?
“What is it?” he asked.
“I was just thinking about a friend of mine. I wonder if he’s out there right now, among those…things.”
“It’s a big city, Kate.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself.” She went quiet again. After a moment, she said, “Can you tell them apart?”
“No. I think that’s the point.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re homogenizing the population. Turning everyone into them. Ghouls.”
“I never thought about it that way, but you’re right.” Then, “Ghouls? You call them ghouls?”
“What do you call them?”
“I guess I just thought of them as creatures. Why ghouls?”
“When I first saw them that was the first word that popped into my head. Ghouls.”
“So ghouls look like that?”
“In the movies that I’ve seen, yeah.”
“I don’t watch a lot of horror movies.”
“I always figured you for a Friday the 13th kind of gal, Kate.”
She made a face. “Was that a joke?”
“Yes.”
“Hunh,” she said.
They watched the ghouls in the darkness. The creatures seemed to have stopped moving entirely, so both Will and Kate remained still, too.
“You should head back, Kate,” he said after a while.
“And leave you here by yourself?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll stay.”
“Kate…”
“I’ll stay,” she said firmly.
He sighed. “All right. Go back and pick up one of the night-vision goggles and come back if you really want to.”
She nodded, got up, and hurried off.
He sat back and enjoyed the brief solitude, but she returned much quicker than he had expected. He wasn’t sure if he heard or smelled her first. She certainly smelled nice.
She sat back down, holding the night-vision goggles. “How do you put this thing on?”
He slipped the strap around her head and adjusted the protruding lens in front of her eyes. “Can you see my rifle’s laser pointer?”
“Yes.”
“Take out your Glock.”
He took it from her, then opened another one of his pouches and took out a smaller version of the laser pointer mounted on the rifle and snapped it underneath her Glock. He switched it on and pointed it at the door.
“See it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Good.” He handed her back the weapon. “Point and shoot. The bullet will go wherever the laser is.”
“Always?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Did you guys have this in Afghanistan?”
“Most of the time. It was almost like cheating when we got into a firefight at night. Not that we minded, of course.”
“Whatever works, right?”
He nodded. “Whatever works.”
His earbud clicked, then Danny’s voice: “Sounds like they’ve stopped probing the rooftop door. How goes below?”
“Quiet,” he said.
“Maybe they gave up,” Danny said.
“Don’t fret. They’ll start getting serious soon enough. Stay alert.”
“I’m on my third can of Red Bull in the last five minutes. Forget staying alert, I’m not sleeping for a week.”
“Where did you get Red Bull?”
“Carly brought them over.”
Kate interrupted. “What’s he saying? Are they coming through the roof?”
Will shook his head. “They were just probing up there, too.”
“Maybe they’ve given up.”
“Just wait for it.”
“For what?”
“They’re gathering, Kate. That’s a prelude to invasion. They’re coming. They’re just waiting for orders.”
“Orders?”
There was a thunderous boom, then loud crashing sounds as one of the outer glass doors gave way and glass shattered into thousands of pieces onto the floor of the waiting area.
Will didn’t need the night-vision goggles to know what had happened. The ghouls had just taken down one of the glass doors, shatterproof filming and all, and they were coming in.
“It’s starting,” he said.
CHAPTER 17
KATE
Kate felt fear, but that wasn’t anything new. She had been in a state of constant fear for the last few days. But for some reason, this time it was more pronounced, more paralyzing. It was the claustrophobic nature of the store. They were coming, and she was trapped inside waiting for them, with no other place to go.
No, not trapped. That wasn’t entirely true. There was a plan that Will and Danny had laid out for them earlier.
Will’s Plan Z.
It was such a bad name for a plan that was supposed to save them when the worst happened, and the creatures—ghouls as Will called them—attacked. There was a plan, but it didn’t prevent the shaking. The fear gripped her, tightening around her chest and throat, and she had to remind herself to breathe.
In and out, in and out…
Will was on one knee next to her, calmly laying the shotgun in front of him. The ghouls were coming. There was no stopping them now. They had shattered the outer glass doors and pretty soon they would be in the waiting area. Then crashing against the inner doors. Then they would be inside the store.
Inside the store!
“It’ll be okay,” he said. His voice seemed to come from the other side of the planet. “Just follow the plan. You’re going to live through this, Kate. I promise.”
She tried to smile back, but it came out all wrong. He was already checking his rifle again, for what must have been the tenth time in the last five minutes.
Time and space seemed to have contracted, making it hard to tell how long they had been sitting there in the darkness listening to the ghouls breaking down the outer doors, the shatterproof glass falling in chunks to the floor. So loud in the eerie silence of the night.
The massive black tide moved and squirmed against the doors, anxious to pour inside.
She was shaking. Her hands were trembling, and her feet tapped involuntarily against the floor. She tried to stop them, but they refused to listen.
Will’s hand folded over her wrist and she stopped trembling. “You’ll do fine, Kate.” His voice came through much clearer now. “You’ve come this far, you’re not going to give up now. Just do what we talked about, and everything will go according to plan.”
“Plan Z, right?” she said, trying to smile again, but her lips were quivering too badly, and she bailed on the attempt halfway through.
“You have to trust me, okay?”
She nodded. Or thought she did. Her chest felt tight, and she had to again remind herself to breathe.
“Okay,” she heard herself
say. (Or had she?)
“You have to go now. No arguing this time. Go. Just like we talked about earlier. Kate, are you listening?”
She managed to nod.
“Go, Kate. Now.”
She stood up on trembling legs and took a few hesitant steps backward before stopping.
He had already returned to checking his rifle when he must have sensed her hesitation, because he looked over. He looked so young and boyish in the darkness. He and Danny. So seasoned for their age. She couldn’t imagine what they had already seen and done in their lives to make the end of the world just another battlefield for them.
“Kate, now,” he said gently. “Go.”
“You’ll come too, right?”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
She couldn’t tell if he was lying.
Kate turned to go, willing her legs to move one step at a time, expecting that at any moment the doors would give and they would be inside and Will would be shooting.
But there was no crashing sound and he didn’t shoot, and she managed to keep moving until she was running through the darkness. There was enough light to navigate around the clothing racks and shelves, though she mostly kept to the pre-planned path, turning left, then right, then straight. The night-vision goggles bounced against her chest, hanging from a strap around her neck, but it never occurred to her to slip them back on.
Danny was already on the first floor when she reached their camping spot. He was rushing Carly and Vera as the two girls struggled to get their supplies together. All three wore glow sticks around their necks, dangling from strings, which gave their faces and the immediate space around them a green neon glow. They looked like aliens moving in the darkness.
“Kate.” Danny handed her a glow stick with an attached string.
She bent it the way he had shown her this afternoon until she heard the sharp crack! and the stick began to glow an intense neon green. She looped the string around her neck and rushed to help Vera pack her clothes. The girl smiled at her, showing absolutely no fear, and went about collecting her coloring books and crayons while Kate scooped up their backpacks. They were light, housing only changes of clothing.
Luke appeared out of the darkness with Ted, both already breathing hard. Their faces were also lit up by glow sticks hanging from their necks.
“Is it time?” Luke asked, his eyes darting from Kate to Danny and back again.
“As good a time as any,” Danny said. He pressed the PTT switch dangling from his radio and said, “You still alive?” He listened for a moment, then replied, “Try not to die until I get over there.” He listened to Will’s reply, then grinned at the rest of them. “Always gotta have the last word, that guy.”
“Now?” Ted asked.
“Now,” Danny nodded. “Okay, everyone, just like we rehearsed this afternoon. Vamos!”
He led them through the store, holding a glow stick. Despite wearing his tactical gear and carrying the rifle and shotgun, he still somehow moved faster than them all, and had to slow down for them to keep up.
Kate looked at Vera, walking beside her. “It’ll be okay.”
Vera smiled back. “I know.”
The girl’s steadfast courage was contagious. Kate didn’t have children—had never even considered having them—but looking down at Vera now, she couldn’t help but wonder what she had missed out on.
Carly was shouting at Danny, “Where’s Will?”
“Don’t worry about him, he’ll be fine.”
“But is he coming?”
“Eventually.”
“Should we go back to help him?” Luke said.
“No,” Danny said, in a voice that told them the decision was already made. “Keep going.”
Kate heard gunshots like thunderclaps echoing through the store, through the racks of clothes and aisles of shoes and sports supplies and hunting gear. It didn’t sound like a Glock, which she had become accustomed to after the hour or so of shooting instructions from Will.
It sounded like a rifle.
Will.
Carly stopped and looked back, but Kate quickly grabbed her wrist and urged her forward. “Come on, Carly.”
Up ahead, Danny snapped at them, “Let’s go! Now!”
Kate tugged on Carly’s wrist and got her moving again. Vera, Ted, and Luke had already disappeared into the employee lounge. She led Carly through the door, trying her best to ignore the loud booming sound of gunfire behind her.
The lounge was lit up with Rayovac LED lanterns in the four corners of the room. Each lantern had 4-watt LEDs that were brighter than anything Kate had seen, despite the fact that they were barely bigger than two soda cans put together. According to Will, the lanterns ran on three solar rechargeable D batteries, which made them invaluable with the power grid down. They had gathered up every lantern from the shelves, about twenty in all, along with every rechargeable and non-rechargeable battery they could find.
Danny stepped inside and turned to Ted. “Remember what we talked about.”
Ted nodded back. He looked afraid, but was trying his best not to show it. He flinched each time gunshots rang out from the front of the store. They all did, except Danny.
“Close the door,” Danny said, “and don’t open until I give you the go-ahead.”
He tapped his earbud. Ted, who was wearing the same communications gear that Danny and Will wore, nodded back.
Danny jogged off, the neon green glow around him fading into the darkness of the store. Ted was already closing the door, sliding two newly attached deadbolts into place. The loud gunfire, which seconds ago had sounded so close and immediate, now receded into the background, reaching them as thudding echoes instead of pounding hammers.
Kate walked to the back wall and sat down on one of the sofas next to Vera and Carly. Vera had opened one of her coloring books and was already penciling in color to Dora’s camping clothes, blue where it should have been khaki brown. Carly sat quietly next to her sister, sweaty palms rested on trembling knees.
Kate reached across to Carly, took the other woman’s wet hand, and squeezed. Carly looked over and smiled, but neither said a word.
They both jerked a little at a new round of gunfire from the other side of the door. There seemed to be more urgency, the gunshots coming faster and faster. The ghouls must be coming in now, swarming the front doors, or Will wouldn’t be shooting so much, so fast. He wouldn’t waste bullets like that, would he?
Was this what being in a warzone was like? Was this what Will and Danny lived with every day when they were in Afghanistan? Was this what it sounded and felt like to live in a country turned into a battlefield? Loud, crashing violence and paralyzing terror?
The gunshots seemed to double in quantity and volume, and she knew Danny had made it to the front of the store and was shooting, too. Will had help now, and that made her feel better. But they were still out there, on the other side of the door, while she was safe in here. What if they didn’t make it back? There was no guarantee Will’s plan would work, but what if they never even got around to trying it?
She knew it was all in her head. The doubt, the fear, the what-ifs and indecision. Out there, Will and Danny didn’t have the same luxury. Their weapons fired non-stop now. Over and over again. How many bullets had they fired in the few minutes since their retreat into the employee lounge?
A few hundred? Maybe a thousand? How many bullets did they have left?
“There must be thousands of them in there. I mean thousands,” Carly had said to her about the Walmart next door.
Thousands…
Ted and Luke were at the door, Luke tapping his Nike sneakers nervously against the floor. Ted looked calmer, crouched in front of the door and staring at it intently, as if he could see right through to was happening on the other side.
“That’s Danny, right?” Luke said when they heard the new round of gunfire.
“Yeah,” Ted said. “They’re both up front now. They’re using the rifles. Soon they’ll
switch to the shot—”
The unmistakable sound of shotgun blasts interrupted him. The rifles had sounded like thunderclaps, but the shotguns were like explosions going off next door.
“—guns,” Ted finished.
“What does that mean?” Luke asked.
“It means they’re about to head back. Get ready with the locks.”
Luke nodded and put his hands on the deadbolts, while Ted gripped the doorknob and waited, and Kate wondered how hard their chests were heaving at that moment. Especially Luke’s. She could see how focused he was on the locks, oblivious to beads of sweat dripping down his temples.
She counted down the number of shots from the other side. She learned this afternoon that each shotgun held seven shots, something she would never have known in her previous life. Seven shots didn’t sound like a lot to her.
Ted cupped his earpiece and turned to them. “They’re taking turns reloading and shooting, but they’re about to run out of ammo. Get ready,” he said, the last one directed at Luke, who nodded back and licked his lips. Sweat dripped down his cheeks.
Kate turned to Carly. The younger woman looked back anxiously. “It’ll be all right. It’ll work.” Kate smiled, surprised how easily the lie left her lips.
The shotgun blasts continued unabated, seemingly louder if that was possible. Then she realized they weren’t just getting louder—they were getting closer.
Ted shouted, “Now!”
Luke slid both deadbolts back and jumped out of the way as Ted turned the doorknob and threw the door open. Suddenly Danny was there, appearing out of the darkness like a ghost. He slid inside, out of breath, the shotgun in his hands, the rifle bouncing against his back. He was covered in blood and skin, and for a second Kate thought he was wounded until she realized it wasn’t his blood.
Luke said, “Where’s Will?”
“On his way,” Danny said between gasps.
They heard a shotgun blast, then Will was there, visible in the doorframe as he turned and fired his final shot. Kate heard an inhuman shriek and then there was nothing but the sound of rushing feet.
Will rushed through the door, screaming, “Close it! Close it!”
Ted slammed it shut and Luke rammed both deadbolts into place just as something crashed into the door from the other side. It was such a hard impact that the door shook for a second. Ted and Luke took a couple of quick steps backward as more bodies collided, one after another.