by Sam Sisavath
“Benny?” she said.
“I almost got it.”
“Maybe I should come back later…”
“Roy showed me how this thing works. I don’t know why it’s not working now—” Finally, the familiar-looking program appeared on the screen. “There.”
She gave him a half-hearted “good job” smile.
Benny picked up the ham radio mic and handed it to her. “You can start whenever you want, and I’ll clean up the audio later. Do however many takes as you need.”
She nodded. She was always planning on one take. It was a simple message and relatively short. She had already run it by Carly and Danny, and they had given her the thumbs up. Even so, she wished Will were here. He would know if she had gotten it right.
Will, please be alive. I don’t know what I’d do without you.
Lara took a breath, then pressed the transmit lever.
*
“To any survivors out there, if you’re hearing this, you are not alone. There are things you need to know about our enemy—these creatures of the night, these ghouls. They are not invincible, and they have weaknesses other than sunlight. One: you can kill them with silver. Stab them, shoot them, or cut them with any silver weapon, and they will die. Two: they will not cross bodies of water. An island, a boat—get to anything that can separate you from land. Three: some ultraviolet light has proven effective, but flashlights and lightbulbs with UV don’t seem to have any effect. We don’t know why, so use this information with caution. If you’re hearing this message, you are not alone. Stay strong, stay smart, and adapt. We owe it to those we’ve lost to keep fighting, to never give up. Good luck.”
CHAPTER 34
WILL
The city of Harvest, Louisiana, like most small towns around the United States, maintained a backup water supply in a water tower. The one Will and Zoe were on now was fifty meters high, with the word “Harvest” stenciled down the side in big, blocky black letters to make them stand out against the bright white paint. It was the stark whiteness of the structure against the darkness that Will had spotted from a distance.
Getting up the water tower was simple enough. All it took was climbing. A lot of climbing. Fast climbing. Fifty meters up. He was pretty sure he was going to die about halfway, but somehow, some way, his stitches held, and miraculously he wasn’t bleeding by the time he got to the top.
The ghouls were on their heels by the time Will flung himself onto the tower’s cone-shaped roof. He had his pack over one shoulder, the M4A1 over the other, and he unslung the rifle and fired down, killing the closest ghoul—already halfway up the ladder—and slicing through three more behind it. They fell like dominos, tumbling backward, knocking loose more ghouls. It looked almost amusing, like a Three Stooges gag.
Will counted every bullet he fired, painfully aware of how many he had left in his arsenal. The current magazine was already minus the three rounds he had used back at the collaborator town, leaving him with twenty-seven.
One…
He couldn’t see the white Ford F-150 parked at the base of the tower anymore. It was simply gone, engulfed by the teeming mass of creatures racing toward the structure that rose out of the center of Harvest like a beacon.
Come one, come all! Free human blood! Come get them—if you can!
He must have laughed out loud, because he caught sight of Zoe out of the corner of his eye looking over at him, half terrified and half perplexed.
She was clinging to the tower’s roof, her shoes scraping for better contact against the smooth metal surface. Not an easy feat, given the day’s rain, which had made climbing and keeping a grip on the ladder’s rungs difficult. The leftover wetness also made accidentally slipping down the slanted rooftop a very real possibility. The tower itself didn’t have any protective railing at the top, which meant if you dropped off the side, you dropped.
Smartly, Zoe was using the metallic telecom antennas jutting up from around the sides of the tower as foot stops to keep from sliding off. The structure looked like a huge aboveground grain silo, with a massive girth that extended from top to bottom instead of the flat base and pencil-thin middle section of most water towers he was used to seeing.
Will had perched himself directly over the ladder extending up from the ground below. It was the only way up, which was more than he could have possibly hoped for. One way to access the rooftop meant only one spot to cover. When he realized that, he suddenly got excited. Up until that point, this had been a suicide run. But now, there was a chance. A slim one, but it was a chance nonetheless.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
And they were coming, all right—not that he had any doubts they wouldn’t be. If he had learned anything about the ghouls, it was that 1) they weren’t stupid; and 2) they were persistent. Goddamn persistent.
So he kept firing down, but only when the closest ghoul was within five meters of reaching the top. That ensured point-blank accuracy, and allowed for more creatures to be lined up directly below his target so the shot would keep traveling down, gravity giving the silver bullet an extra burst of speed for maximum collateral damage.
And he kept count of every bullet he fired.
Fifteen…
He mumbled a curse each time a bullet ricocheted off a bone and was deflected in a direction other than straight down. It was rare, but it happened.
Twenty-two…
Will pumped the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth round into the flesh of two separate ghouls, then fired the final two shots in rapid succession while the ghouls were still more than five meters from him, in order to give himself time to reload.
One magazine down, two to go.
The stitches along his side were holding, and he didn’t see blood seeping through his shirt when he glanced down. Thank God Zoe knew what she was doing when she put him back together. He looked over at her now, staring down at the squirming black horde gathered below them, so many that even the grass seemed to have been swallowed up. Her face was frozen in horror, her mouth slightly open, as if she wanted to scream but couldn’t get the sounds out.
He turned back to the ladder and fired the first bullet from the second magazine and watched three—no, four—ghouls tumble from the ladder.
One…
Another shot sent another three down, before the bullet bounced off track.
Two…
The water tower was cold against his backside, and he was high up enough that he could feel the chill night air. His pants were already soaked through.
Five…
He took a moment to snap a glance down at his watch, glowing underneath the darkness. 12:33 a.m.
Not bad. He only had to hold them off until…when? 6:30 a.m.? 7:00 a.m.? Close enough. It wasn’t the worst situation he had ever faced, though he imagined it would be easier if Danny were here.
Or Lara.
Or someone besides a terrified doctor.
Seven…
Zoe hadn’t moved from her spot on the angled roof, her feet spread out in front of her, each shoe pushing against a jutting cell tower. He almost smiled; she looked like a pregnant woman giving birth.
She looked over at him, her entire body trembling, making her stutter the words: “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”
“Of course not,” he said. “Don’t fall, and we’ll be fine.”
“Don’t fall,” she repeated. She looked back down at the creatures below. “Don’t fall…”
Eight…
“Don’t look,” he said. “Lay down on the roof and don’t look and don’t move.”
She was clearly unconvinced, but she lay down against the cold slanted metal surface anyway.
Nine…
After the first fifty or so ghouls, the rest began moving at a crawl. He was so used to seeing them attacking at frenzied speeds that watching them climbing up the ladder, being careful with every step, every rung they reached for, was a revelation. For every ghoul that managed to climb, another lost its footing or grip and
went tumbling down into the pit of writhing flesh below.
Eleven…
“How many bullets do you have left?” Zoe asked, her voice still shaking.
“Enough.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he lied.
Thirteen…
*
He was on his last magazine when he started thinking about alternatives.
One…
He had the Glock. That was fifteen more silver bullets. He also had two more magazines in his pouch. That was good for thirty more rounds, for a grand total of forty-five. Which, judging by the speed the ghouls were climbing, would probably get him through another three hours. One hour per fifteen bullets.
Captain Optimism. Danny would be so proud.
Six…
He had his cross-knife. The problem with the knife was that he needed to wait for them to get all the way up before he could strike. Potentially hazardous work. One grab around his wrist, or if the knife lodged in too deep, and he would lose it—and himself right along with it, because stabbing, even downward, required leaning over the edge.
Doable, but risky.
Then there was the whole numbers game. He could only take down one at a time, which meant for every ghoul he dispatched, another would be right behind it, giving him very little time to recover. He couldn’t count on Zoe to take up any slack. He didn’t think it was possible to even pry her from her current spot.
Eleven…
His watch read: 3:19 a.m.
Zoe looked half asleep, lying with her back against the angled roof. Every few minutes she would lift her head slightly to make sure she hadn’t slipped while she had her eyes closed. If she was afraid of heights, she hadn’t said a word as he urged her up the ladder. Of course, she was probably fueled at the time by enough adrenaline for a half dozen people.
Sixteen…
A slight wind had picked up, and Will turned his face into it. He could see most of Harvest from his perch. Or at least, as much as he could pick up with the naked eye. The moon was not being very cooperative, and he had lost the bright headlights of the Ford F-150 within the world of murky blackness, shifting flesh and glinting black eyes swarming the base of the water tower.
A sudden burst of motion drew his attention, and he looked over to find Zoe fighting with her footing, having somehow ended up slightly crouched, knees bent, with one hand bracing against the cool metal under her. After some frantic struggling, she managed to push herself back into position.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I must have fallen asleep,” she said breathlessly.
He turned his attention to the ladder and the nearest ghoul clinging to it, ten meters down. He waited for it to make up the distance, then shot it in the face a few seconds later. The bullet pierced the creature’s chest and caught two more under it, sending all three plunging down. They knocked loose two more from the ladder as they fell.
Seventeen…
“How many bullets do you have left?” she asked.
“Plenty,” he said.
“But how many?”
“More than enough.” Before she could press him again, he added, “Get closer, Zoe, so I’ll be able to catch you if you doze off again.”
She scooted over slowly, taking her time. She flinched when he leaned over the ladder and fired his eighteenth bullet without warning. He sat back and held out his hand. She took it and let him pull her closer until she was sitting only a few inches away. She immediately sought out the safety of the nearby cell antennas with her shoes.
Will leaned over, watching the closest ghoul climbing from thirty meters away. The creature reached up and took another rung and pulled itself up slowly…
He slung his rifle and dug into his pack. He pulled out the gas siphoning tube, unrolled it, then looped one end around his belt and cinched it tight. He leaned toward Zoe and reached for her waist, hooking his fingers into her belt.
“What are you doing?” she asked, alarmed.
“I’m going to tie you to me, so I’ll know if you slip again. Early warning system.”
“But what if you fall?”
“Then you’re coming down with me.”
Her face turned pale.
“I can go days without sleeping if I have to,” Will said. “Can you?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Yes. You can fall.”
“So, no, then.”
He grinned back at her, then looped the other end of the tube around her belt. He pulled at it to draw her closer, before tying it into place. He left a meter length between them so they could still move without forcing the other along. He wasn’t entirely sure if the hose would hold if one of them actually did fall off the tower, but he kept that doubt to himself.
He leaned over the ladder, shot another ghoul in the chest, and watched it tumble into the darkness below, this time taking five more along with it.
Twenty…
*
He stretched the final rifle magazine a few minutes past 4:00 a.m.—4:14 a.m., to be exact.
When she saw him slinging the M4A1 and drawing his Glock, Zoe said, “You’re almost out of bullets, aren’t you?”
“I have three magazines for the Glock.”
“Will that be enough?”
“Forty-five bullets in all.”
“How many bullets did you have for the rifles?”
“Thirty.”
“How many magazines?”
“Three. But one magazine only had twenty-seven rounds.”
“Eighty-seven bullets got us from eleven o’clock to three in the morning,” she said. “Four hours. Forty-five bullets will only get us two more hours. We’ll still be ninety minutes short of sunup, Will.”
Great, she can count, too.
“I’ll make it last,” he said.
“No, you won’t.”
He was struck by the matter-of-fact tone in her voice. The fear seemed to have been replaced by what sounded like resignation.
“What happens when the bullets run out?” she asked.
“I still have my knife.”
“Your knife…”
“We’ll be fine.”
Say it a third time and maybe she’ll actually believe you.
“You’re full of shit, Will,” Zoe said.
Or not.
He leaned over the ladder and shot a ghoul from five meters away. The bullet pierced its chest, hit a second ghoul directly below it. They tumbled free, knocking only one other ghoul with them this time.
Sonofabitch.
The rest continued to climb steadily, either unimpressed by or oblivious to the deaths of the others. He couldn’t even see the dead ghouls below, and figured they were crushed under the live ones fighting their way to the ladder to be the next one up.
Two…
*
Fifteen…
Will didn’t wait to watch the ghoul flip off the ladder. He immediately ejected the magazine, catching it with his other hand and jamming it back into the pouch (Just in case), then instinctively grabbed the next—and last—magazine.
He slipped it in, worked the slide, and leaned over the side of the water tower.
The closest ghoul was only ten meters away. Will watched it climb for a moment, one arm over the other, impossibly patient and determined, and unfathomably fearless. He wondered if they even still had the same concept of life and death anymore. Once you’ve already “died,” did it matter if you died again? Even if it was permanent this time?
“How many?” Zoe asked.
“What?”
“How many bullets do you have left?”
“This is it. Fifteen more bullets in the magazine.” He heard her chuckle, and looked over. “What’s so funny?”
“You didn’t bother to lie that time.”
He wasn’t sure if she looked horrified or amused. Maybe somewhere in between.
“I would have, but it’s obvious you know how to count,” he said.
He
heard flesh slapping metal and leaned over and shot the ghoul in the head. It tumbled, taking two down with it.
One…
Zoe’s entire body had become a living spring next to him, the siphoning tube connecting their bodies quivering each time she shifted or moved, which was every few seconds. It had also gotten much colder up here, and Zoe’s entire body was shaking. He had gone numb and couldn’t feel the vibrations coming from her, of course, but he could see the tube trembling out of the corner of his eye.
Will glanced down at his watch: 6:09 a.m.
Almost there…
“Will,” Zoe said.
“Yeah?”
“What happens when you run out of bullets?”
“We’ll improvise.”
“The knife?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re going to die,” she said, her voice so low he almost didn’t hear.
He shot another ghoul, watched it do a swan dive off the ladder, somehow managing not to take a single creature with it.
The next ghoul took its place.
Two…
He fired again, and this time was rewarded with the sight of the creature collapsing straight down, taking one—then two—ghouls with it.
Three…
He noticed they were moving faster up the ladder now, and it wasn’t going well. For every ghoul that managed to scramble up two rungs without falling, two either lost their footing or grip and tumbled down. That didn’t seem to deter the rest, and they continued clamoring, moving faster and faster up toward him.
Why?
Maybe they sensed he was running out of bullets. Or maybe they—
The sunrise. They know it’s coming.
His watch confirmed it: 6:31 a.m.
Come out, come out, wherever you are, Mister Sun.
He fired, knocking three off the ladder.
Four…
“Zoe,” he said.
“Yes?”
“You need to get ready.”
“Get ready for what?” she said, her voice quivering noticeably again.
*
6:55 a.m.
They were coming up too fast, surging up the ladder, returning to the same frenzied pace when all of this began. It was all he could do to slash and stab with the cross-knife and suck in a fresh breath of cold air before another one tried to grab at his wrist or ankle to pull him down.