by Sam Sisavath
A branch snapped.
A twig broke in half.
Then someone coughed, the sound muffled because the man had covered his mouth just in time.
That, though, led to a chain reaction, and two others coughed after the first.
Come on, everybody, let’s all cough together!
He might have chuckled quietly. It was an absurd thought, but then what wasn’t absurd about what he was doing tonight?
Wash tuned them out and concentrated instead on the smooth tick-tick-tick-tick from underneath the sleeve on his left hand.
Tick-tick-tick-tick …
He willed his heartbeat to slow down.
Tick-tick-tick-tick …
He relaxed his fingers around the pistol grip of the Mossberg. The shotgun was cold, mirroring the elements around him. Wetness covered the leaves hanging off branches above his head, their drops landing occasionally on his shoulders in the last twenty or so minutes he had been sitting there waiting…and waiting.
Tick-tick-tick-tick …
He didn’t have to see them to know they were close.
So, so close.
Tick-tick-tick-tick …
He could smell them, too. Gunpowder and smoke. The tear gas from the cabin still clinging to the fabric of their clothes. Every breath they took either through their mouths or nostrils was impossibly loud, as were the drops of sweat that fell from their faces despite the cold night air. He wasn’t even sure how that was possible.
Tick-tick-tick-tick …
Five men. Possibly four. Heavily armed men, he was sure of that.
Tick-tick-tick-tick …
They were almost on top of him, and all Wash could think of was the Old Man and what he had said that day when Wash picked up a gun for the first time in his life.
“This thing kills people. Men, women, children. Married, single, divorced. Old, young, or ancient. It doesn’t care. It kills people. It snuffs them out. Takes away everything they got or will ever get. Remember that when you hold it. Remember that when you load it. And remember that when you pull the trigger.”
He remembered all those things as he stood up, his back scraping against the bark of the tree he’d been hiding behind, the precious tick-tick-tick-ticks of the watch in his ears the entire time. He spun left, coming out from his cover, and hoping he’d guessed correctly.
Everything began moving in slow motion, from the clouds forming in front of his face to the two men in front of them. Both were wearing thick coats—one in something that might have been fur, the collars high and hugging the sides of his neck—in the process of moving through a stream of moonlight that had managed to penetrate the thick canopies above. They cradled rifles with gloved hands and they were separated by five feet or so, the one farther in the back standing slightly to the left of his comrade.
The man closest to Wash was short and stocky, and one side of his face was covered by a fresh gauze pad. He was blinking rapidly, wiping at the eye on the exposed part of his face, when Wash appeared in front of him less than ten feet away. The man froze, pale and cracked lips starting to open as he began the process of forming words—
The first boom! sent balls of lead into the man chest-first and knocked him down.
His partner ducked as stray buckshot zipped! around his head, but that move meant he couldn’t immediately return fire. Not that he didn’t try, but he was clumsy and not ready, just as Wash had hoped.
Wash racked the shotgun, swung slightly, and fired again. The second man collapsed behind a bush even as blood and shredded flesh flew from his face.
Flashes of movement erupted from Wash’s left peripheral vision, but Wash was already turning and running, sliding back the forend to reload another cartridge into the Mossberg as he did so.
Run run run!
The explosive pop-pop-pop of automatic rifle fire scattered whatever animals that hadn’t taken off when Wash unleashed his first two shots. He wasn’t worried about innocent little creatures at the moment. He was only concerned with himself.
Faster, faster, faster!
His feet, in midstride, gave out underneath him, and he somersaulted forward and would have slammed face-first into the damp ground if he didn’t drop the shotgun and reach forward with both hands to preserve himself. He managed to tuck and roll (Second time’s the charm!), landing on the back of his neck instead of his face, and pain screamed through every part of him as he slid headfirst into a bush. He kept going, sliding like a maniac, and came out on the other side covered in leaves and broken branches.
What the hell?
Had he tripped on his own legs? A branch sticking out of the ground? Maybe one of those innocent critters trying to flee the onslaught of bullets?
No, none of those things, because he was bleeding. There was a hole at the front of his right leg, two inches above the kneecap. Blood oozed out of it, along with the second hole in the back of his leg.
He’d been shot. One of the bullets had clipped him. He hadn’t even felt the pain, but then maybe he was too busy trying to deal with the fire burning from his side—
Voices shouting, overlapping, and way too close.
“Where is he?”
“Over there!”
“I don’t see him!”
“There!”
“Where? Where?”
“There!”
Gunfire followed the last There! and the bush Wash had slid through was cut down to half its size against a tidal wave of bullets.
He didn’t dare scramble to his feet, because that would have gotten his head shot off. Instead, he began crawling away, reaching down for the Beretta as he did so. The shooting continued, the rounds coming fast and furious. He wasn’t sure if there was anything left of the bush he’d crashed into, but there must have been some because they hadn’t hit him (again) yet. The ground erupted, specks of dirt flicking at his face and clothes.
A voice, shouting, sounding even closer than before.
“Hold your fire! I said hold your fire, goddammit!”
Was that Mathison? Maybe. It wasn’t as if Wash had gotten a good bead on what the man sounded like back at the cabin. He’d only heard Mathison’s voice once when the man had asked, almost nonchalantly, “The fuck are you?”
Whoever it was that had made the command, it took a while—Five seconds? Six?—before the shooters finally obeyed.
Thank God!
Footsteps, coming fast.
Wash rolled over onto his back, lifting the Beretta at the same time a figure lumbered through what was left of the bush—
A brief half-second of recognition as the man realized his mistake.
Wash fired, aiming for the man’s large chest, and kept squeezing the trigger until the black-clad human being collapsed in front of him, slamming face-first into the bullet-pocked ground less than two feet from where Wash lay.
His legs kicked at the dirt, and Wash turned back onto his belly before scrambling up to his feet. He took off, legs pistoning, hoping the man’s partners (How many were left now? Two? Three? He’d lost count, dammit!) were still far enough away that they couldn’t pick him off—
The boom! of a shotgun exploded in his ears just before the round followed. It struck him in one of his shoulder blades, and Wash spun like a top in midstride.
He wasn’t sure which part of him hit the ground first—his outstretched hands (The Beretta! What happened to the Beretta?) or his head. Whichever did, he barely felt the contact before he was already up on his knees even as the entire length of his back burned with a raging flame that began spreading to the rest of his body.
He spent a second—more?—trying to figure out why he was still alive. He had clearly heard a shotgun blast and something had hit him from behind, so why wasn’t he dead? It had to be some kind of slug round, because buckshot would have sent lead balls into more than just one spot near his shoulder blade.
Voices, followed by heavy footsteps, coming up behind him fast.
This time Wash’s head w
as spinning too fast and the fire was burning through every inch of him, lessening his ability to decipher the voices. He somehow managed to reach out, find the gnarled trunk of a tree, and use it as leverage to pull himself up on two wobbly feet.
Why am I still alive?
“Don’t kill him!” a voice shouted. “Not until we get the girls back. Go, see if you can find them.”
“By myself?” another voice asked.
“You see anyone else here? Beside, you’re the tracker. It’s your job. So do your fucking job.”
“Shit, man, it’s just us now. Forget the girls.”
“What did you say?”
“I…”
“Go. Now.”
“Yeah, okay,” the second voice said.
Wash managed to remain on his feet (How?) and turned around, using the tree for support. His vision blurred, but he somehow found a way to peer through the haze at a figure standing in front of him holding a pump-action shotgun. The man was huge, and it was impossible to miss the domed head and goatee.
Mathison.
He was somehow even uglier up close. The cheekbones were too high and the nose too big and too flat. The forehead was too wide and his neck, possibly the size of Wash’s thigh, too sinewy and unnaturally shaped. He had bad teeth and wore a bandoleer of shotgun shells across his chest. The rifle slung over his back looked like a child’s toy, as did the gun in the holster on his right hip. Wash could see fresh scars along one side of his cheek, so the man hadn’t managed to avoid Wash’s fire back at the cabin completely unscathed.
“Still up, huh?” Mathison was saying. “I guess they don’t make LTL ammo like they used to.”
LTL?
Mathison kicked at something on the ground, and it flicked past Wash’s head. It was a bean bag, small enough to fit into a shotgun shell.
LTL. Less Than Lethal.
Bean bag rounds.
That’s why I’m still alive. That’s the only reason I’m still alive.
He forced himself to refocus on Mathison, standing less than ten feet from him. Too far for a (desperate, at best) punch or a kick, but maybe just right for the kukri still in its sheath on Wash’s left hip. Of course, he’d have to get his hands on the machete first, which was difficult at the moment with both palms flat against the trunk of the tree behind him; that was the only thing keeping him from collapsing right back down to the ground. Compared to the pain burning its way through him, the blood dripping out of his right thigh didn’t even compute.
And where were his guns? The Beretta was gone, and so was the shotgun. He was down to the machete, something he had hoped wouldn’t happen but always knew was inevitable. It had served him well for a long time, so why wouldn’t it again?
Except this time there was a man with a shotgun to contend with, even if the ammo in his weapon was the non-lethal kind. Those bean bags didn’t kill, but they sure as hell had dropped Wash like a ton of bricks earlier, and would no doubt do so again. Or kill him this time if Mathison shot him anywhere close to his wounded side. Just the thought of that made Wash grimace with discomfort.
“Where are they?” Mathison was asking. “They’re mine. Both of them. They belong to me now. I took them fair and square.”
“Fair and square?” Wash thought. You’re one sick fuck, you know that?
But he couldn’t make himself say the words out loud. It was hard enough just breathing and trying not to choke on whatever it was that was crawling its way down his throat. His chest heaved, and his legs threatened to come undone. If it weren’t for the tree, he would be lying on his face in a pool of his own blood right now.
“Well?” Mathison said. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
He heard Mathison’s question, but his focus had slipped away from the man and gone over his shoulder. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was seeing at first, but then it became clearer as it moved closer, slowly emerging out of a heavily shadowed part of the woods.
About fucking time, Wash thought, and grinned.
It was a ghoul, and it was moving straight for Mathison.
Twenty-Four
He knew it would happen sooner or later. Knew that all the shooting at the cabin, then later in the woods, would bring them out of hiding. If they weren’t around the area, they would be drawn over like moths to a flame. A roaring, raging flame. Sound traveled these days, and the continuous thunderclaps of gunfire were a clear signal that man was around.
Man and the blood in their veins.
He wasn’t too surprised that it had taken the first ghoul this long to appear. Six years ago, at the height of The Purge, the minute after the first gunshot would have seen a flood of the creatures swarming the vicinity. Those days were long gone and the nightcrawlers were massively reduced in numbers, so it took them longer to cover more ground.
But they were still out there, and sooner or later, he knew they’d show up.
And they did, finally.
Or one of them did, anyway.
It had to just be one, didn’t it? When I needed them the most—when I finally need them around—all I could get was one lousy undead asshat.
He grinned at the word asshat. Ana’s favorite descriptor.
Ana. Had she gotten away? Her and her sister? Did they make it out of the woods? Were they still running for their lives right now? He’d given them enough time. He hoped he had, anyway. What he wouldn’t give to know if they’d made it or not. He already had too many regrets. The biggest one of them all was that he’d never reach Texas. He’d never find One Eye and take its other eye.
“He’s gone now, but he says to tell you he’ll be waiting in Texas. He says not to keep him waiting too long, because he gets bored easily.”
The girl at the farmhouse had said those things, but it was One Eye’s voice that came out of her mouth.
I guess you’ll have to wait a little longer, you piece of shit. How does forever sound?
But it wasn’t over yet. It was close to the end, but he wasn’t there yet.
Not quite yet.
Wash stared at the ghoul as it walked slowly (God, why is it so damn slow?) toward Mathison. It was ugly and frail, and against the hulking size of a man like Mathison, impossibly pathetic. The moonlight gleamed off its domed head, so it had that in common with the human piece of shit standing in front of it. Its hairless, pruned body seemed to ripple as it moved awkwardly forward on deformed legs. It was slightly hunched over at the waist, looking more insect than man.
It wasn’t much (God, was it not much), but it was all Wash had.
How sad is that?
“Pretty damn sad is the answer, kid,” Imaginary Old Man answered.
Gee thanks, old timer. Glad you’re here to lift my spirits!
If Wash hadn’t seen the creature, he would have smelled its presence. The cool, crisp night had turned thick with rot, the ghoul’s decaying stench fouling everything around it with its mere existence.
Wash’s eyes snapped back to Mathison. Did he know? He had to know, didn’t he? He had to be able to smell the nightcrawler back there, even if he couldn’t see or hear its approach. How could he not? Wash’s senses were on fire, and his back throbbed from the spot where the bean bag had struck him, and he could still smell the creature easily.
Then Mathison grinned at him.
He knows…
Baldy lifted one forefinger to his lips, and in his best Elmer Fudd impression, “Shhhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet.”
What the hell is he doing?
The look on Mathison’s face only added to what Wash already thought of the man. Dangerous, reckless, and out of his mind.
He’s insane. He thinks it’s a game.
God, I want to kill this motherfucker so bad…
The nightcrawler had gotten halfway to Mathison when he turned and shot it. Boom! as the bean bag punched its way through the undead thing’s chest and blasted out of its back, splattering thick, black blood across the grass. The monster glanced down at the gaping hole in
its torso, then back at Mathison, just before it lunged at him.
Wash grinned, thought, That didn’t work out quite as you planned, did it, Mathison?
Bang! as Mathison drew his pistol—the large Desert Eagle—and shot the creature at almost point-blank range. The gunshot was so ear shattering that Wash thought it might have been even louder than the shotgun blasts from earlier.
The pistol round entered the middle of the ghoul’s face and exited the back, shattering the skull in its path with barely any resistance, before the large caliber round disappeared into the darkness beyond. The nightcrawler flopped to the ground and lay still, its body resting at an odd angle with its legs bent underneath it like it should have hurt. A lot. But of course Wash knew it didn’t, because the black eyes didn’t feel pain anymore.
So much for being saved by a monster. What was I thinking?
He pictured the Old Man grinning and shouting, “Time to save yourself, kid!”
Good call!
Mathison’s back was still turned to him when Wash pulled one of his hands away from the tree that was keeping him upright and drew the kukri. It slid freely from its sheath, and he tightened his finger around the handle, unsure of his own grip. The combination of bleeding and pain from being struck by the bean bag was still wreaking havoc with his senses, and he couldn’t be 100 percent certain of anything.
Wash got the machete out as Mathison was turning around. The big man stared at him for a moment, then looked down at the blade, before turning dark brown eyes back up to Wash’s face.
Mathison chuckled. “What’re you gonna to do with that pig sticker?” The man calmly slid his Desert Eagle back into its holster, unslung his shotgun, and racked it. “I think you need to get down on your knees and beg me not to kill you.”
“That’ll be the day,” Wash said. It came out as more of a growl, and he couldn’t be sure if Mathison had even heard it, because he barely heard it.