by Sam Sisavath
“Tough guy, huh?” Mathison said.
I guess he heard it.
“Tough enough,” Wash said.
“I guess we’ll have to test that theory out.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“You won’t be the first to try—or the first to fail.” Mathison lifted the shotgun and aimed it at Wash’s chest. “You’re lucky I still need you alive, boy, just in case Kelly can’t find where you stashed my girls. I’m betting he can, though. Guy’s a natural tracker. Born and raised in the woods. But just ’cause I might need you breathing don’t mean I need you standin’, too.”
Get ready, get ready, Wash thought as he mentally prepared himself to push off against the tree with everything he had.
Was there a chance he could do something dramatic, like twist and avoid Mathison’s shot? Probably not. At least, not from the seven or so feet that currently separated them.
Looks closer to eight. Or ten…
Wash wasn’t convinced he would make it two or three feet, never mind the entire way when he did push off the tree, before he would end up on his face against the ground. He had almost no feeling in either leg. He could see the blood dripping from one thigh but didn’t actually feel it happening, which was a bad sign.
A very bad sign.
“So?” Mathison said. “You gonna to do something with that pig sticker or not—” He stopped short and took a quick step back, before throwing the shotgun down—
What the hell?
—and quickly pulling out the Desert Eagle with one hand, while drawing a Ka-Bar knife from a sheath along his left hip with the other.
Wash couldn’t understand what was happening. Was Mathison going to fight him hand to hand? Then why did he take out his sidearm—
Oh.
The air had shifted again. It had done so a few seconds ago, but Wash hadn’t noticed until now. Slowly, the rotting stink of week-old garbage invaded his nostrils, and he heard the tap-tap of bare feet against the soft, damp earth.
Wash pushed slightly off the tree, tightening his grip on the kukri, and turned around just as they raced out of the dark at him.
Ghouls!
He swung with the machete purely on instinct and lopped off a head at the neck as the others came out of the shadows behind it, like little malformed children with arms outstretched to hug him.
Wash was stumbling and didn’t know how he was even still on his feet, if just barely. Maybe it was because every part of him knew that if he fell now he was done, that there would be no way back up because they would be all over him.
So he didn’t fall (How am I doing this?) and kept backpedaling even as one of the creatures leapt at him, its thick spittle splashing Wash in the face. He grimaced through the disgust and chopped, and got it across the shoulder blade. The machete kept going, cutting through flesh and weak bone, and severed the nightcrawler into two pieces.
A massive bang! from behind him.
Wash went still and waited for the pain, for the unbelievable torture of being struck by a large caliber bullet at close range. It was going to hurt way more than the bean bag had.
Except it didn’t. Nothing hit him because Mathison hadn’t fired at him.
He wanted to glance back to see what Mathison was shooting at, but he had a feeling he already knew the answer. The thick stench in the air was all the evidence he needed. It was now coming from everywhere, which meant they were everywhere.
But he was only concerned with the ones in front of him. They trampled over the remains of the halved ghoul, seeking the quickest path to their goal: Him.
Wash stumbled back some more, even as gunshots continued from behind him, each one seemingly louder than the last. So loud, in fact, that every ghoul in the area would have heard them if they hadn’t already been drawn over by all the shooting previously.
But Mathison shooting at nightcrawlers meant he wasn’t shooting at Wash, and right now that was all Wash cared about. The second Baldy’s gun went quiet was when Wash was in really deep, deep trouble. Not that he wasn’t already in a lot of trouble.
Wash slashed with the kukri and raked the closest ghoul across the face. He had struck too soon and just barely gotten the creature as it was in mid-lunge. It was a minor wound, and although it sliced off a piece of the thing’s already mutilated nose, it shouldn’t have killed it. It shouldn’t have been anything but an annoyance. Except it was more than that because the kukri’s blade was partially made of silver and that was all it took—contact with their bloodstream, and the ghoul fell.
But the undead thing hadn’t settled on the ground for more than a heartbeat before the four behind it crushed its corpse under their feet.
Wash continued backpedaling, every step sending painful electricity through his body. His vision continued to get worse, and the ghouls were starting to blur, looking more like charred and black stick figures lumbering out of an unnatural fog.
He willed every ounce of him to remain on his feet, because he couldn’t afford to fall. Not now. Not now.
Bang! from behind him, this time so close (and loud!) that he wondered if he hadn’t inadvertently stumbled into Mathison’s field of fire.
Then again—bang!
And again—bang!
Don’t run out of ammo, Mathison. Don’t run out of ammo, you piece of shit!
Because it wasn’t just the ghouls in front of Wash that he had to worry about. It was the ones behind him that he couldn’t see. The only reason they weren’t coming for him yet was because of Mathison’s presence. He was closer to them, and the ghouls always went for the easiest prey.
Don’t you run out of ammo, Mathison. Don’t you run out of ammo, you slimy, miserable excuse for a human being!
He hacked at a ghoul as it reached for him from barely two feet away and its arm flew off at the elbow joint. The creature’s eyes—already solid black—became even more lifeless (Is that possible?) as it pitched forward and slammed into the ground in front of him.
That left three more, already stepping over their dead to get to him.
Shouldn’t have wished for too many earlier! Wash thought as he slashed again, putting everything he had into the swing.
Twenty-Five
Mathison’s Desert Eagle was still thundering behind him.
Again and again and again.
He found comfort in their earsplitting crashes, in the knowledge that the man himself was still back there killing ghouls with his silver-tipped bullets. And as long as Mathison was back there, he was drawing the other creatures to him and keeping them away from Wash.
Keep shooting, Mathison. Keep shooting!
But there was something weird about that last shot. It hadn’t sounded like the others. It had sounded more...distant. Not by much, but enough to be noticeable. Unless, of course, Wash was imagining it. After all, every part of him was screaming, so could he really trust his hearing right now?
God, let me be imagining it.
Please, please, please.
He risked a glance (he had to, he just had to know!) and found Mathison backing away from him while shooting and stabbing with his Ka-Bar. He was surrounded by ghouls—even more than the three in front of Wash at the moment. There had to be at least a half dozen of the spindly things, and they were converging on him as if Wash didn’t even exist.
Better him than me!
That was the good part. The flip side was that Mathison was leaving him to fend for himself, and each step he took led him farther away. Soon, Mathison might not be the closest living thing to the ghouls anymore. Soon, it might end up being Wash.
Sonofabitch!
Wash guessed he should be thankful Mathison hadn’t sent one of those large rounds in his direction. He wouldn’t have survived being shot by a Desert Eagle. Very few people could, but especially someone who was already badly hurt like he was. God, he was leaking blood everywhere, and he was pretty sure his side had opened up and was bleeding again, but he just couldn’t afford the second or t
wo (or ten) it would have taken to pull up his shirt to check.
Who cares if you’re bleeding if you end up dead in the next few seconds!
Wetness flicked at his forehead, and Wash swung the kukri again, catching a ghoul as it came within a foot of biting his face, its arms outstretched to grab a piece of him.
But he’d swung the machete wrong—it was a combination of being weak and swinging too hard to make up for that weakness, all the while being slightly off-balance—and hadn’t taken the time to aim. The curved blade went in from the side of the creature’s neck and straight down in a diagonal slash, chopping its way past the chest just before it became lodged in the ghoul’s ribcage.
Shit!
Wash tried to pull the machete out but only succeeded in lifting the lifeless dead thing clinging to its sharp blade up from the ground. Maybe if he weren’t wounded or so weak, or barely standing and moving on pure fumes, he might have been able to jerk the kukri free.
Shit shit shit!
The two remaining ghouls charged, breaking off from their head-on approach to go around the dead nightcrawler. He was sure they hadn’t planned it; the black eyes weren’t that smart. They had no head for tactics and acted purely on a primal instinct to feed.
And right now Wash was the key to satiating their hunger. He could see it in their dark, hollowed eyes, in the thick saliva that flitted from the jagged things that were once teeth but were now broken and cracked spikes jutting out along the sides of their open mouths.
Wash frantically grabbed the dead ghoul by the shoulder with one hand, the other still clinging to the handle of the kukri, and swung the creature into one of the attacking nightcrawlers. His plan was to use the dead ghoul as a battering ram—hit one, then the other—but instead he lost his grip on the machete as it flew out of his hand.
No no no!
But something good came out of the loss. The sharp edge of the machete, still embedded in the dead ghoul, slashed the arm of the attacking nightcrawler as they collided, and both creatures fell to the ground in a twisted pile of clacking bones and entwined limbs.
Except Wash didn’t have any chance to wallow in his accidental victory because the last ghoul pounced, its slim frame crashing into Wash and driving him back, back!
He lost his footing and went down, and the creature fell right on top of him. It was so weak, so thin and skinny and barely weighed anything, and if he had his legs under him, Wash would never have allowed himself to be taken like that. But he didn’t, and all he could think was, Don’t let it bite you. Jesus, don’t let it get its blood into you!
He punched the ghoul in the side of the head with a balled fist and caved in a part of its brittle skull. Not that the blow did anything to make the creature jump off him or even hesitate. Instead, it opened its mouth to reveal those same jagged teeth covered in layers of dripping black liquid and leaned toward Wash’s face.
He grabbed it by the throat with his left hand, every motion causing unnatural agony to rip across his frame. He might have screamed out once or twice (or a dozen times), but he couldn’t keep track. He kept it at bay (Its teeth! Watch out for its teeth!) with his left hand while he hit it again with his right, aiming for the same spot.
When that didn’t seem to have any effect on the ghoul, Wash struck it in the cheek.
Then again, and again, and again.
Through it all, he couldn’t help but notice that the night around him had gone deathly quiet. There were just his own gasps and the unnatural sound of the creature’s bones breaking apart against every one of his desperate blows pounding in Wash’s ears.
Mathison had stopped shooting.
Mathison had stopped shooting!
He had done that either because he was dead or he’d run out of bullets, or both. Without Mathison, there was no one left to help whittle down the ghouls in the area. Wash didn’t even know how many were left, if any. He’d seen a dozen of them converging on Mathison earlier. Had there been more? He only knew for certain that there had been enough that the entire woods reeked of vomit, and it was all Wash could do not to gag.
But he didn’t, because everything he had was being used to keep the ghoul from getting closer, even as the creature’s legs fought for purchase against his own while its hands kept trying to reach for him. Wash had it at arm’s length, and thank God the ghoul’s arms were deformed and shorter and it couldn’t make up the difference. Instead, it flailed away at his chest and arms, and if it had nails at all, it would have raked bloody strips across Wash’s exposed skin.
He was keeping it back, but it wasn’t going to last forever. Time wasn’t on his side. It didn’t matter how many times he hit it or how long he held it in place, because sooner or later he would tire. His arms would turn to mush and his strength would be sapped, and the creature, with its skull cracked a dozen spots over, would never, ever tire. Even as its left eyeball threatened to pop free from its socket, the damn thing kept moving, kept trying to push against his left arm, kept coming.
And it would keep coming, and coming, and he wouldn’t be able to kill it. He didn’t have anything. Not even a silver knife. Right now he would settle for a rock, but he didn’t even have that. All he could do was hold it back and pray—
He heard a strange gurgling sound and turned his head to the right. There was a pile of bodies next to him—ghouls, thick black blood oozing out of holes in their chests and faces and severed limbs. Mathison’s handiwork.
Except it wasn’t the corpses that Wash focused on.
It was the lone figure walking toward him.
Oh, shit.
It was a ghoul, dragging one of its legs behind it, black eyes glinting in the moonlight as it zeroed in on him.
Oh, shit!
He didn’t know where it came from or why it was late to the party. Maybe the fact that it was moving so slowly, pulling one leg behind it, was the reason it had taken the creature this long to reach them when all of its other brethren were already here. Maybe that was why the monster was alive and the rest were dead.
No, not all dead. The one on top of him was still very much alive, still fighting, still trying to lean forward and bite a chunk out of Wash’s face. It wouldn’t stop squirming against his outstretched arm and it kept pushing, and pushing…
Wash looked over at Leggy.
“Leggy?” Did you just give the undead ghoul a name?
He wanted to let out a laugh at the absurd thought, but he could barely afford the strength to gasp for each breath.
And Leggy was still coming, pulling that grotesque broken leg behind it.
Slowly. Slowly…
Bang! as the bark on a tree at least ten feet behind Leggy exploded.
Except nothing happened to Leggy itself. The creature kept coming, oblivious to the bullet that had almost taken its life (again).
Wash swung his head back to the left.
Ana!
She was standing nearby with the Glock in both hands, the gun aimed at Leggy. She was squinting behind the iron sights, trying to line up a shot.
“The chest!” Wash shouted. “Shoot it in the chest!”
“I’m trying!” Ana said, and fired again.
Wash glanced back at Leggy.
It was still coming.
She’d missed again!
“The chest!” he shouted.
“Shut up!” Ana shouted back and squeezed the trigger a third time.
Leggy flinched when the bullet creased its shoulder—barely—and took a lump of flesh along with it. But a graze was all that was necessary, and the ghoul stumbled for a bit, as if drunk, before falling sideways to the ground, its bad leg sticking out at an impossible angle from underneath its bruised form.
Wash turned back to Ana, saw the shock on her face. He would have grinned if he thought he was in the clear, but he wasn’t. Snappy, the other ghoul (Are you serious right now? Stop giving them cute names, you dummy!), was still on top of him, still trying to get at him. It was oblivious to what had happened
to Leggy or even Ana’s presence. It just didn’t care.
Ana hurried over and pointed the gun at the creature, the Glock trembling dangerously in both her hands.
“No, no, don’t!” Wash shouted.
“What?” Ana said.
“You’ll miss!”
Ana gave him an annoyed look, but she didn’t pull the trigger.
“Closer!” he said.
“How much closer?”
“Closer!”
The ghoul finally glanced up when Ana approached them, and for a moment Wash thought it would go for her. But all it did was look back down at him and snap its teeth and lean in some more.
“Do it!” Wash said.
“Are you sure—” Ana started.
“Do it!”
She fired, and the round entered one side of the ghoul’s head and exploded out the other, covering parts of Wash’s right hand and the grass nearby in a shower of black blood, chunks of bone, and shredded flesh.
Wash sighed and held the ghoul up with both arms before rolling away. It landed back on the ground next to him because he hadn’t gotten more than a few feet from his original spot before the pain was too much and he had to stop to breathe.
Ana stepped over the dead creature and kneeled next to him. He didn’t have to ask her how he looked, because her face told him everything.
“Mathison,” Wash said.
“What?” Ana said.
“Mathison…
“What about him?”
“He’s alive…”
Her expression changed, but instead of fear, there was just anger.
That’s my girl, Wash thought.
Ana picked up the gun she’d placed next to them and glanced around. “Where is he, Wash?”
“I don’t know. He boogied.”
“Boogied?”
“Ran off.”
She looked back down at him. “I didn’t see him when I came back.”
“He might still be around…”
She shook her head and put the gun back down. “Forget about Mathison. Let’s concentrate on keeping you alive first.”
“Emily?”