by Sam Sisavath
He looked after her. He could see just far enough into the curving hallway to pick up Carly leaning out of the office, looking worriedly back at him. He gave her a brief smile, though it probably wasn’t nearly as convincing as he had hoped.
He looked back out the peephole and saw that Danny was right. The ghouls had taken up almost every inch of space in the parking lot and, as impossible as it seemed, more of them had appeared out of thin air, squeezing forward until there were no spaces left.
They stood quietly, still, like soldiers waiting for orders. He couldn’t tell where they ended and the night began.
“If I had a grenade,” Danny muttered.
“We have something better. We have Plan Z.”
“I hate your Plan Z. Have I told you that? Hate it. Hate it with every fiber of my being. If you gave me a survey now and asked me to rate your Plan Z from one to ten, with ten being ‘Hate it with a passion,’ I’d write in twenty. That’s how much I hate your Plan Z.”
“You whine like a housewife.”
“Fuck your Plan Z,” Danny insisted.
Then Will saw something that made him perk up.
One of the ghouls, somewhere in the middle of the densely packed parking lot, stood out from the others, because it actually stood.
He stared for a few seconds, just to be sure.
But yes, he wasn’t seeing things. The ghoul stood without hunching over like the others, and that alone made it looked taller, regal, like a king among prostrated servants.
Is it possible?
Will quickly lifted the M4A1 and slipped the barrel through the peephole, using the boards as a perch, and flicked on the sight’s night-vision.
There.
Will could see it clearly now, bathed in fluorescent green that turned night into day. It was staring back at him with fearless, defiant eyes. It stood perfectly straight and it was very clear that the ghoul had dark, crystal pale blue eyes.
Will took his eyes away from the sight. He wondered if Danny had seen it. Had he really seen it?
He looked back through the sight again, just to be sure.
And yes, he could still see it. The ghoul hadn’t moved, hadn’t tried to hide, and remained standing in the parking lot thirty meters from the bank, towering over the other ghouls hunched around it.
Fuck you.
He squeezed the trigger.
The bullet punched a hole through the glass window and traveled out…and one of the black-eyed ghouls threw itself into Will’s line of fire, the silver bullet punching through its chest and landing a full two meters short of the blue-eyed creature.
As the dead ghoul fell sideways, Will switched the M4A1’s fire selector to full-auto and pressed the trigger, and this time the window shattered under the assault. He watched, fascinated, impressed, and pissed off, as one ghoul, then two, then three—then a dozen—threw themselves into his line of fire, silver bullets slamming into them one after another.
Will jerked his finger off the trigger and watched as the crowd of ghouls stirred, then settled back down, as if nothing had happened.
And the blue-eyed ghoul, still standing, still defiantly tall, continued to stare back at him. Then it did something he didn’t expect—it grinned at him.
Will took a step back and quickly reloaded the M4A1.
Danny was looking across the door at him. “What’s going on? You trying to pick a fight or something?”
“You didn’t see it?” Will asked.
“See what?”
“You didn’t see it?”
“No,” Danny said, shaking his head. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”
“There was a ghoul in the parking lot.”
“There are lots of ghouls in the parking lot. What’s your point?”
“This one had blue eyes and it stood tall, not like the others. It was different, Danny. It had blue eyes.”
“The fuck you say?”
“And it grinned at me.”
“It grinned at you?”
Will slapped the new magazine in and slipped the M4A1’s barrel back through the peephole again and peered out through the sight. He scanned the parking lot, but the blue-eyed ghoul was gone.
He continued sweeping the parking lot, back and forth, but saw only dead black eyes staring back at him.
“Is it still out there?” Danny asked.
“It’s gone.” Will pulled the rifle back.
Danny did the same, then looked at him again. He couldn’t tell if Danny believed him. “You said it had blue eyes? And it stood tall?”
“Blue eyes and it stood tall.”
“Did you at least hit it?”
“No, the other ghouls threw themselves in front of it.”
“The fuck you say. Like some kind of Secret Service for the United States of the Undead?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Did it, I don’t know, say anything after that?”
“No, it just looked at me.”
“And it grinned at you.”
“And it grinned at me, yeah.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Will said.
“Well, fuck me,” Danny said.
CHAPTER 25
LARA
Lara didn’t pray. She didn’t come from a praying family, and her parents didn’t believe in a “mythical being in the clouds,” as her mom would say. Her dad was a little more open-minded, but even he enjoyed the occasional eye roll whenever someone with a heavily religious persuasion came on TV.
Lara wondered what her parents would say now, in the days and weeks after The Purge, as Will and the others called it.
As she sat in the bank manager’s office and listened to footsteps moving above her on the rooftop, she wanted to believe that all of this could be explained away by science. But it was hard to hold fast to everything she grew up believing—and disbelieving—when the dead didn’t stay dead. She thought about all those stories in the history books of people returning from the grave, fantastical tales eventually explained away by science. There had to be explanations for what was happening now, right?
Maybe…
She sat on the floor with Vera and Luke, who sat with his back against the wall, heavy gauze wrapped tightly around his abdomen. He looked much younger than the first time she had seen him this morning. He craned his head upwards, listening to the ghouls. She didn’t know what they were doing, but their constant movement unnerved her.
She felt safe in here, with the LED lanterns spread out along the ceiling and walls. Ironically, the room was much brighter with the lanterns than in its normal daytime setting. She found a strange sort of comfort in the humming sounds of the lights and the unnatural brightness.
Even the exposed weapons in the room didn’t disturb her nearly as much as she thought they would. There were four shotguns and two military rifles leaning against and on top of the weapons crate to her left. There were pouches of ammo, filled with rifle magazines and shotgun shells, scattered about the floor along the side wall next to the crate. She wasn’t sure what Will intended to do with all the weapons, but she guessed there was a reason he had chosen the office as their fall-back position. It was the biggest room, safely tucked between the lobby and the employee lounge. If all else failed, they would come in here.
She marveled at these people she had fallen in with, who had saved her from the Sundays. Even the little girl, Vera, seemed to have adjusted surprisingly well. Or maybe that was just a coping mechanism. Kids were highly adaptable, but they could also quickly retreat into a state of mind that cut them off from the real world. She hadn’t known the kid long enough to know for sure either way, and Carly didn’t seem overly concerned.
Carly was leaning against the opened doorframe, looking out to her left at the bank lobby. They had seen Kate and Ted go by a few minutes ago. The employee lounge was farther up the hallway, hidden by the bend.
She looked down at the Glock in her hands. It was a smaller gun than the ones W
ill and Danny carried, though it was about the same size as Carly’s and Kate’s. Luke also had a Glock, though his was a little bigger.
The gun felt cold and rubbery in her hands, unlike the cold steel of the revolver that killed Jack Sunday. That gun felt real and heavy, the way an instrument that could take someone’s life should feel.
She remembered killing him, though the details eluded her. How many times had she shot him? Did he die right away? Why did she keep pulling the trigger? The memories were hazy and she wondered if she was purposefully forgetting them, or if her mind decided to keep them from her to spare her the gory details.
He’s dead, that’s all that matters. The Sundays are dead. All three of them…
There was a loud crash of gunfire from the lobby. First a single shot, then the loud clatter of a full magazine being unloaded.
Carly leaned out farther to see what was happening, and the machete she wore in a sheath at her left hip stuck out. It was an absurdly long weapon, though Carly looked comfortable wearing it.
After a moment, Carly looked back at them and shook her head. “It’s fine. Will was shooting at something. But it’s fine now.”
Carly didn’t sound entirely convinced by her own assurances. But there were no other sounds from the lobby, which was a good sign. Wasn’t it?
Lara looked over at Luke, grimacing silently next to her. “Are you okay?”
He tried to smile it off. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. Maybe I should take a look at the wound. You might be bleeding again.”
He waved her off with another attempt at a smile. “I’m good, Doc. It’s not bleeding. Just hurts a little when I try to move, that’s all.”
“So don’t try to move.”
“Good advice,” Luke said and leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. “I think I’m just gonna rest for a while…”
She looked down at Vera, lying prone on the floor, cautiously filling in Snoopy’s body with white crayon. Her tongue stuck out one corner of her mouth in intense concentration. She looked oblivious to what was happening and hadn’t even looked up when Will fired in the lobby.
She’s used to it. And I don’t know if that’s a good thing…
Lara looked back down at the small Glock in her hand. The magazine was loaded with silver bullets, and she only needed one shot to kill (Re-kill?) them, according to Will. Shooting it with anything else, or even decapitating it, did nothing. There had to be an explanation as to why the ghouls were fatally allergic to any form of contact whatsoever with silver. A scientific explanation. And if there was a scientific explanation for how the ghouls died, then there had to be one for the ghouls themselves.
If she only had the time and the materials to study them…
But that was for later. For tomorrow. Or the day after that. She had to survive tonight first. That was the trick, wasn’t it?
She heard them moving above her again, and suddenly the Glock felt heavier in her hands. It didn’t have a hammer, and the trigger was much easier to pull than the revolver. She had fired off an entire magazine—not a ‘clip’, she had been told, but a ‘magazine’—earlier today, and while it felt unnatural in her hands at first, it wasn’t anything she couldn’t adjust to. God knows she had already adjusted to a lot in the last few weeks.
She was looking up at the ceiling when Luke spoke: “Don’t let them get to you. Will’s right, they’re not going to break through the ceiling. They never have.”
First time for everything. “What are they doing up there?”
“Who knows? Don’t let it bother you.”
I can’t help it…
She leaned back against the wall. At least the shooting from the lobby had stopped. Seconds counted down slowly in the silence and the minutes seemed to move at a snail’s pace. For a while, it seemed as if the night would never end.
Carly was still glued to the door, while Luke had fallen asleep with the gun in his hand. Lara crawled over and slowly removed it from his grip, then placed it on top of one of the weapons crates. The thought of Luke squeezing the trigger by accident while asleep was disconcerting.
Seven o’clock turned into eight, and they heard nothing from the lobby, though she could still hear the creatures moving above. What were they doing up there? What were they doing out in the parking lot, for that matter?
What are they waiting for?
She started to drift off, lulled by the quiet, when gunfire erupted from the bank lobby for a second time.
Carly looked back into the room with another progress report. “It’s okay. They’re shooting through the peepholes. I don’t know why. Maybe they saw something out there.”
Vera had gone to sleep on the floor and was snoring quietly. She slept next to her coloring books, a blue crayon clutched in one of her hands. Lara picked up a blanket from a nearby bedroll and placed it over Vera.
“Thanks,” Carly said behind her.
“Should I carry her over to her bedroll?”
“She’s used to sleeping like that.”
Lara glanced at Luke sleeping soundly against the wall. Like Vera, the fresh gunfire from the lobby hadn’t disturbed his sleep.
She walked over to Carly and leaned out of the door. She looked left, toward the bank lobby. Will and Danny were sitting on the floor, their backs against the wall on either side of the doors. Neither looked anxious and seemed to be passing the time cleaning their rifles and shotguns.
“They’re so calm,” she said.
“They’re always like that,” Carly said. “It’s kind of annoying, to be perfectly honest with you.”
Lara smiled. “You’ve been with them from the beginning?”
“Pretty much. We were lucky to find them. Ted and Vera and me.”
Lara looked to her right, down the hallway, which curved slightly to the right about ten yards from their door. Both Kate and Ted were sitting on the floor, guns in front of them, backs against the wall. They looked tired and nervous and hungry. She was struck by just how different they looked from Will and Danny.
The hallway extended for another ten yards, leading to the back door, with the employee lounge somewhere before that. It was impossible to see the back door from here, or the furniture and shelves they had stacked up in front of it earlier.
Nothing’s getting through there. Hopefully.
“We’ll be okay,” Carly said. “We’ll get through tonight.”
Lara nodded and wondered for whose benefit Carly had said that. She didn’t really know these people very well, though she thought they were good people. She was lucky to have found them, and she wished Tony were here, too. How differently things might have turned out if she had met Will and Danny before all of this, run across them while they were leaving the city. From what Will told her, she and Tony were only a few days ahead of them. If only they had started their exodus a day later, or the others started theirs a day earlier…
The past now. All in the past.
Concentrate on surviving tonight!
She glanced back toward the bank lobby and saw a dark shape slip silently through the peephole in the window over Will’s right shoulder.
It was a hand.
She was about to scream but realized what would happen if she did. Will would turn and shoot it with a silver bullet, or use that strange cross-knife of his, and it would be over. Instant contact with silver would kill the creature, and the hand would be useless to her.
There has to be a scientific explanation, she thought, even as she pulled Carly’s machete out of its sheath and rushed up the hallway and into the lobby.
Will looked up at the sound of her footsteps and his eyes went wide. He shot up from the floor when he felt it, and jumped back from the window even as the hand reached for him. The arm was straining against the glass shards, cutting itself into ribbons, clumpy black blood spraying the boards.
Will reached for his Glock, but before he could pull it free, Lara lopped the hand off at the wris
t. They heard a shriek, then the creature pulled its remaining arm out of the hole, leaving behind a patch of blood and skin on the jagged glass.
Will stood over the severed hand and watched it flop around the marble floor at his feet. The fingers grabbed fruitlessly at the smooth surface, pumping a small amount of black ooze in its wake.
“What the fuck?” Will said and aimed the Glock.
“No!” Lara shouted at him.
Will stopped short of pulling the trigger and looked questioningly at her.
“I need it,” she said.
“What the hell for?”
“Look, it’s still alive.”
He looked down at it, then stepped on it with his boot, pinning it by the back of the palm to the floor. It flopped desperately against his boot, trying to find leverage that wasn’t there.
“How is it still alive?” she asked.
He looked at her for a moment, then back down at the hand. “That’s a good question. How is it still alive?”
She sought out his eyes. “Please, don’t shoot it. Not yet.”
He didn’t respond, but his eyes softened a bit.
“Wait,” she said, and before he could say anything, she ran quickly back to the hallway.
Carly was staring at her as she ran back. “I’m confused. What’s happening?”
“I need to know,” Lara said and handed the stunned woman back her machete.
Lara found what she was looking for in one of the supply crates in the office—a backpack filled with socks and rags. She dumped them out—toilet paper, toothbrushes, and tooth paste fell out, too—and hurried back to the lobby.
“What are you going to do with that?” Will asked. He was still standing over the hand, moving underneath his boot.
She crouched in front of him and held the backpack open. “Okay, when I give the word, lift your boot.”
“What?”
“I’m going to throw this backpack over it and put it inside.”
“Why the hell are you going to do that?”
“Look at it, Will, it’s still alive. Even after I cut it off at the wrist, the hand is still sentient, essentially its own entity now. Don’t you think it’s worth finding out how that’s possible?”