by Sam Sisavath
He thought about how she had come back to rescue him when she didn’t have to…
“Four!”
He flicked the fire selector on the M4A1 to full-auto. If they tried to bull rush him, he could probably take three, maybe four if he was really lucky.
Captain fucking Optimism.
Not that he had much of a choice. He and Zoe were dead if he stayed still.
“Three!”
They had stopped firing, and he guessed they were getting ready to do exactly what Kellerson had promised—move on him. Of course, they weren’t going to make it easy to pick them off. They would probably do it slowly, moving between vehicles, keeping behind cover the entire time. Eventually, they would reach him. That was the problem.
Eventually they would be right on top of him.
“Two!”
Will was going to stand up, take the fight to them, when he heard a series of gunshots—and this time the bullets weren’t coming at him or hitting the Suburban or scalping the highway around his vicinity. Instead, the gunfire sounded like they were coming from a handgun—a Glock—and they were hitting cars up the highway—behind the ambushers.
The hell—?
Will stood up behind the Suburban and peeked through the broken windows. The hazmat suits were returning fire on someone else further up the highway. The figure was wearing black and had ducked behind the highway barrier on the northbound lane after drawing their attention, and bullets were chopping into the thick concrete block in front of him, spraying the air with a fine white powder.
For a moment, he thought it was the blond who had tried to flank him earlier, but no, it couldn’t have been the same person. That guy was wearing a hazmat suit, while this one was dressed all in black. It looked like some kind of assault vest, too.
Then there was a single, very deliberate shot, and Will saw the man with the hunting rifle flinching as something hit him in the chest. He collapsed to the highway, disappearing behind the ’80s station wagon he had been using as cover.
A second player.
There was a second shot, and another man stood up, grabbing at his neck as blood gushed out between his fingers. A third shot knocked the man down for good.
Kellerson’s men were returning fire in the direction of the second gunman now. The man was leaning out from behind a white van with “Arnold’s Plumbing” stenciled across the side, along with a cartoon picture of a toilet with a smiley face. The shooter, also wearing dark black (assault vest?), had slipped behind the van to dodge the return volley. Bullets stitched the side of the van and shattered windows.
Will quickly came out from behind the Suburban and moved steadily up the highway, using the distraction to his advantage. The phrase “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” rushed across his mind.
He flicked the fire selector on the M4A1 back to semi-auto as he spotted the closest man in a hazmat suit to him, standing behind a Dodge Ram. The man was reloading his M4, desperately trying to jam the magazine in but having a difficult time lining it up. Will shot the man twice in the back and watched him disappear behind the truck.
Another man in a hazmat suit stood up from behind a brown Buick, directly in front of Will. The man was lifting his rifle and spinning around, but Will beat him to it and shot him once in the chest. The man staggered backward but didn’t go down. Will saw the familiar rectangular lump of a Kevlar vest over the man’s chest and shot him again, this time in the face.
Two figures flashed across his peripheral vision, moving out from cars in front of him. The white-clad men raced across the lane toward the concrete barrier. One of them threw himself over it so fast he tripped and fell down on the other side. Someone shot the second man in the back before he could make the jump, and he stumbled and comically hit his forehead on the concrete divider, sliding down it face-first.
Will hurried out from behind the Buick and glanced over at the plumbing van, seeing a familiar face grinning back at him over the distance.
Sonofabitch.
Will returned the man’s grin, then jogged over to the barrier and leaped over it, landing on the other side. He moved up quickly toward the hazmat suit that had stumbled and fallen. There were fresh blood splatters along this side of the highway, most likely from the blond he had shot earlier.
He found a man in a hazmat suit lying on his back near the divider, still alive and holding on to his right arm, which was twisted at an odd, unnatural angle. One of the man’s knees was scraped and bloodied, and his M4 rifle lay forgotten at his feet. The man looked over as Will jogged toward him, and for a moment—just a moment—Will was sure he would reach for his weapon.
But he didn’t. Instead, the man lay still until Will was finally standing over him.
Will looked past the man and up the highway, and spotted another hazmat suit-clad figure lying on its stomach about ten meters farther up the northbound lane. The blond he had shot earlier. The poor bastard had apparently run into someone else who had finished him off.
Will turned his attention back to the man at his feet. He was in his forties, and in another time, another place, Will would have pegged him as a husband with two kids, a house in the suburbs, and a wife that constantly browbeat him about drinking or smoking too much. The guy looked completely average and plain.
“Kellerson?” Will said.
The man grinned up at him. “Shit, you cheated. You had reinforcements.”
“In my defense, I didn’t know they were coming.”
“That right?” Kellerson said.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, then, I guess that changes everything.” Kellerson sighed. “So what happens now?”
Will pulled a silver-chromed .45 Smith & Wesson revolver out of Kellerson’s holster. “Nice gun.”
“Thanks. I stole it.”
“I figured.”
“Then again, is it really stealing if it’s just lying there?”
“Probably not.”
Will heard footsteps and looked over at a blond in his mid-twenties coming toward him from the other side of the barrier. He was wearing a stripped-down black assault vest and throat mic rig, and was holding a Glock in his hand. He looked almost shell-shocked.
“You good?” Will asked.
The guy stared back at him, as if unsure how to respond. Finally, he nodded and said, “I think I’m okay.”
“Okay’s always good.”
“You must be Will,” he said.
“I must be. Got a name?”
“Roy.”
Will nodded at the dead blond. “You?”
“Yeah, he sort of just ran into me,” Roy said, almost embarrassed. “I got really lucky.”
“You’re one of the newbies that showed up on the island. You came with Bonnie and the others.”
“Yeah.”
“Nice work, Roy.”
“Thanks. I was just doing what Danny told me.”
Danny appeared, eating beef jerky out of an Oberto bag, his rifle slung over his shoulder. He looked as if he were on a casual stroll. “Well, well, well, look who I gone and stumbled across. You look like shit, buddy.”
“Good to see you, too,” Will said. “How’s Lara?”
“She’s miffed. But good. Bossing the whole island around while you were gone.”
“That’s my girl.”
“I keep telling her to move on, that she’s way too good for you. You never call, you never write, you never visit. You’re no damn good, I say. She could do so much better.”
“You’re a real pal, Danny.”
“My advice? Put on a cup before you step back onto Song Island.”
“Noted.”
Danny glanced down the highway. “I saw someone else with you back there. Wouldn’t happen to be Gaby, would it?”
“Gaby?” Will looked back at him. “Isn’t she back at the island? She left me days ago.”
“She didn’t show up. That’s why I’m out here. Lara sent me to come looking for you two idiots.”
; Will frowned. “I don’t know where she is.”
“From what I can tell, she had major ghoul trouble at a pawnshop off the highway where she was staying. It looked like a hell of a fight. That’s where we were coming from when we heard your little spontaneous block party up here.”
Gaby.
Dammit. He was hoping at least one of them had made it back home.
“You found blood at the pawnshop?” Will asked.
“A lot, yeah,” Danny said.
“Shit.”
“You talking about the blonde?” Kellerson said. “Josh’s girl.”
Will looked down at him. “What do you know about it?”
“Lots.”
“Bullshit.”
“Blonde. Five-seven. Gorgeous. Hard to forget a piece of ass like that.”
Will and Danny exchanged a look, before Will focused his stare back on Kellerson. “Is she alive?”
“Last time I saw her,” Kellerson said.
“When was this?”
“A day ago.”
“The blood back there was old,” Danny said. “At least two days. If he saw her a day ago, that means she’s still alive.”
“What else do you know?” Will asked.
Kellerson grinned back at him. “Why should I tell you? You’re just going to kill me anyway. Howzabout we make a deal first. I tell you what I know, and we forget this little unfortunate incident ever happened. What do you say?”
“Danny,” Will said, “there’s someone down the highway. Her name’s Zoe. I don’t know if she’s still alive or not. Behind the Bronco.”
“Come on, kid,” Danny said to Roy. “Let’s go lend a hand.”
“What’s he gonna do?” Roy asked.
“Don’t worry about it. Willie boy’s a real smooth talker when he wants to be. How’d you think he got Lara in the first place?”
Roy gave Will and Kellerson a hesitant look before turning and following Danny down the highway.
“You wanna hear a joke?” Danny asked.
“Sure, I guess,” Roy said.
“A priest, a rabbit, and a horse walk into a bar…” Danny began, his voice fading down the highway.
Kellerson was staring up at Will, though he seemed to have lost some of his earlier confidence. “We have a deal?”
Will pulled out his cross-knife. The sunlight glinted off the silver double-edged blade.
“You’re bluffing,” Kellerson said, his eyes shifting from the knife to Will and back again. “You’re not going to kill me. You’ll never find the girl if you do.”
“I don’t have to kill you,” Will said. “I just have to make you wish you were dead. But you are going to tell me everything you know. If you make me ask a question twice, I’ll take a finger. When I’m out of fingers, I’ll start taking toes…”
EPILOGUE
It wasn’t fair. He had given up. He had given in. He had even donated blood, for God’s sake. How many times did they ask him to give blood, day after day, and how many times did he say no?
Never. Not once. Not fucking once.
And here he was anyway, running for his life.
It wasn’t fair. God, why was it so damn unfair?
He was a good guy. He tried to do the right things. He even took care of those women and that idiot out of Oklahoma. But then they finally reached the island and that bitch Lara, and everything fell apart.
It was so unfair. Why was the world so goddamn unfair?
West could hear them, even though he couldn’t see them. Not that it was easy to see anything in the pitch darkness. There was barely any moonlight. Even the moon was hiding behind the clouds, giving him almost nothing to navigate by. It was all he could do not to trip or run right into a tree. Even so, he had stopped counting the number of times a branch slashed at his body, slicing at his cheeks and drawing blood. At least the new scars took his mind off his old wounds.
It’s not fair. It’s not fair!
Another branch nearly took his head off, but he ducked just in time, felt the leaves brushing against his already wet hair. Even out here in the chilly night, he was sweating from every pore.
How long had he been running? A few minutes? A few hours? It was hard to tell. Time was an elusive bastard.
His body ached from head to toe. The old wounds were coming back with a fury.
But he kept running, because there was no other choice. He couldn’t go back. They wouldn’t let him go back. It wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t out here alone. He was never good at being alone, that’s why he and Brody got along so well. It was good to have someone watching your back, someone you could trust. But Brody went and got his head blown off by that Mexican on the island—
Snap!
West told himself not to look back, to keep running. Don’t stop. Don’t look back and don’t stop. There was nothing back there but death.
Don’t look back!
But he couldn’t help himself and he looked back.
It glared at him from a tree branch, perched like some kind of gargoyle from hell, prune-black skin almost invisible against the unrelenting darkness of the woods. But he could see its eyes—bright blue, gleaming like a pair of precious jewels.
He had always heard the whispers, people who claimed to have seen them in person. Blue-eyed bloodsuckers. West had scoffed at the idea. Now, looking back, he wondered if he had just dismissed the stories because he chose not to believe, because believing opened up possibilities he didn’t want to accept.
It stood up on the branch, stretching, until it was upright. It looked so human that for a moment he found himself staring, even as he ran and—
He stumbled and fell and rolled, tucking in his shoulders at the last moment (You idiot!), until his forward momentum drove him into the trunk of a large tree. Pain exploded across his body and he ended up on his stomach, writhing in the dirt on the wet ground.
No! No!
Finally, after what seemed like hours, he managed to turn over on his back, but he couldn’t find the strength to get up. Instead, he reached up to his head, where most of the pain was coming from. He felt something sticky against his palm.
Blood. Of course he was bleeding. His skull had probably split open.
Tap-tap.
West looked up and saw the blue-eyed creature crouched on a branch above him (How did it get up there so fast?), looking down at him with something approaching…amusement? Was the damn thing having fun at his expense?
It’s so unfair.
Its blue eyes really did seem to glow up close, but that could just have been the contrast of blue against black. Or maybe his mind was making all of this up, a result of the concussion and subsequent pain. That was possible, too.
Crunch-crunch.
West looked forward as another blue-eyed creature walked toward him—slowly, effortlessly, in that strange motion that was at once so human and supernatural.
There were two of them?
Crunch-crunch.
No, not two. He wished there were just two, because a third one was coming out of the night to his right, blue eyes blazing.
Then he looked to his left, at a fourth one.
Four of them. My God. There are four of them.
The one above him jumped down, startling him. West kicked at the dirt with his shoes and scooted back until he bumped against the tree. Oh God. Now he was trapped. He had no place to go.
It’s so unfair…
They stood around him in a half circle, watching him. There was something about one of the blue-eyed creatures that looked different. It took him a few seconds of staring before he finally realized what it was. The other three were male, but this one, the one standing closest to him, was female. He was sure of it. There were even small bumps on its chest where breasts used to be. And the hips were wider, though he couldn’t imagine what it would need wide hips for anymore.
The female blue-eyed bloodsucker smiled at him. “Run,” it said, its voice almost a hiss, breaking through the natural sounds of
the woods.
Fear sliced through West’s core like thousands of knives. He didn’t understand. Run? Did it want him to run?
Then it did something else he had never seen the creatures do—the female smiled at him.
“Run,” it said again.
He scrambled up with some difficulty, his sneakers slipping under him. The blood was still coming down the side of his head, and it was hard to keep his balance as a result. That was it, wasn’t it? It was the bleeding, not the crushing terror that made every step precarious, every movement extraordinarily clumsy.
Somehow, he managed to climb back to his feet. He turned, skirted the tree, and continued fleeing through the woods. He tasted blood in his mouth, more dripping down his chin. He must have gashed himself even more than he thought.
He wiped at a thick patch of it and flicked it away.
Snap-snap!
West told himself not to look back. He knew what was back there. He shouldn’t look back. He should keep running for all he was worth.
How did it all go so wrong? He wasn’t a bad guy. What did he ever do to deserve this?
He looked up at the sky, but he couldn’t see much of anything over the thick tree canopy swaying against a slight breeze. How long before the sun came out? How long before he could stop running?
Too long. Too damn long.
Crunch-crunch!
He screamed at himself not to look back. He knew what was back there. How many were back there. Four. There were four of them.
Four!
And they were playing with him. This was a game, one he had no choice but to take part in, because the alternative was to sit down and die. He couldn’t do that. West wasn’t a quitter. If he had been, he would never have survived the end of the world.
Screw that. West was a fighter. It was too bad Brody wasn’t here with him. He could have used his buddy’s help. The two of them could take on anything…
…except an island led by a little blonde girl.
No!
He saw the tree branch on the ground, twenty yards away. It was as long as his arm and twice as big. He used to play baseball when he was a kid. He was good as it, too. Then again, sports always came naturally to him.