by Sam Sisavath
Three weeks ago she would have cringed at the rifle’s cold, hard aluminum and alloy parts pressed against her skin, but those days were long gone. Like Will, she was decked out in black thermal pants, shirt, sweater, and socks. A black wool cap covered the top of her head, leaving her face mostly exposed to the chilly December night. She blew little clouds of mist whenever she breathed or talked.
The water tower, like the abandoned buildings sprinkled among the trees and bushes around them, was part of Cleveland, Texas. It was a small town of 8,000 or so people about forty miles outside Houston, along Highway 59.
Will took a pair of energy bars out of his pouch and handed one to her. Strawberry flavored. She liked the fact that he knew to give her the strawberry-flavored bar without asking. She took a bite and frowned at the taste. The artificial strawberry flavoring made it just a little bit more edible than it otherwise would have been. Barely.
“You’re getting dangerously good with that rifle,” he said. They kept their voices low. Out here, in the open, voices tended to travel, especially at night. “You would have made a decent Ranger.”
“Just decent?” she said, feigning offense.
“I need to see how you handle a fifty-pound rucksack during a morning run up a hill first.”
“Oh yeah? How far?”
“Twenty-nine klicks in less than five hours.”
“What’s a ‘klick’?”
“A kilometer.”
“What’s a kilometer?”
“What?”
“I don’t know how far a kilometer is.”
“A kilometer is point six two miles. So twenty-nine klicks is approximately eighteen miles, give or take.”
“So why didn’t you just say that in the first place?” she teased.
He smiled. “Sorry.”
“Eighteen miles up and down a hill with a fifty-pound thing strapped to my back? Sounds like a legal way to kill someone.”
“I think you could do it.”
“I doubt that.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“Gee, thanks.”
The back and forth came easily. It always did with Will, especially when they were by themselves. It was harder with the others around. She was particularly self-conscious if Luke was within earshot. Which was stupid, but it was hard to explain.
Out here, in the darkness with Will, though, she felt loose and free.
“I used to protest against guns when I was in college,” she said after a while.
“Oh yeah?”
“I don’t even remember what the group was called. Students Against Guns, or something on the nose like that. Not very creative. But you know college students. It was my freshman year, and I’m pretty sure a guy was involved.”
“That’s a first.”
“What?”
“A girl joining a cause she doesn’t believe in for a guy.”
Kate remembered those days as if they were someone else’s memories. It was so long ago now. Had it really been her? Had she ever really been that naïve? That idealistic? Or maybe just that horny?
“Yeah,” she said, smiling to herself.
“So what happened?”
“We dated until sophomore year. Then I ditched him for this French foreign exchange student. Suddenly I was very interested in French history.”
“Nice.”
“Did you go to college?”
“I did.”
“Where did you go?”
“The Forty Acres.”
“The University of Texas?”
“Yup. I enlisted in the Army two days after I graduated.”
“What did you study?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Bullshit. What did you study?”
He smiled to himself and scanned the area with his binoculars for a moment. The longer it took him to answer, the more interested she became.
“Tell me,” she said. “I’m dying to know.”
After a while, he said, “Greek History.”
“What about Greek History specifically?”
“I was a fan of Greek Warfare. Thermopylae, the Spartans, the Hoplite.”
“What’s that?”
“Which part?”
“Hoplite.”
“The Greeks used to fight in a style called Hoplite, using foot soldiers primarily armed with a shield and a spear. They would gather on a field, in a tight unit, and decimate their opponents. The entire foundation of the Hoplite was about trusting the man to your right to protect you with his shield, while you protected the man to your left with yours. If everyone did their job, you won the battle. When two Hoplite units faced off in battle, the one that didn’t break was usually the winner.”
“Sounds hard.”
“It’s about discipline and trust. If one person fails, the unit collapses. It’s been translated to modern fighting. Special Forces operators are almost entirely dependent on watching each other’s back. No man left behind, et cetera.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“Yup.”
Kate smiled. “Was she cute?”
“Oh yeah,” he laughed.
*
Two hours later, no other ghouls had shown up. So Kate and Will packed up and climbed down the water tower, then headed back in the direction of tonight’s home base.
Back in the city, it would have been unthinkable to walk in the darkness at night, but out here in the countryside the risks were lower. At least, enough for Will to commit to random nights of ghoul sniping.
It was almost midnight when they found the suburb again. Base camp was a house near the end of a street, with its basement turned into a bomb shelter by the previous owner. It consisted of walls, a lone steel door, a nice rug, and it was big—and comfortable—enough for all seven of them. The owner had been something of a gun nut, and there were racks of rifles and handguns in one corner and boxes of ammunition stacked on shelves.
Over the last three weeks, they had become used to staying in other people’s homes. The ghouls didn’t particularly like to shelter in residences during the day. Will reasoned the houses were too small and had too many windows. Even when they slept in buildings, the ghouls stuck to the back rooms. So they had become experts at choosing houses that could accommodate them and were defensible at night. During the day, they gathered supplies and spent at least two to three hours making silver bullets.
Their priorities were always the same: silver bullets, shelter, then supplies.
They entered the suburbs from the south end. Will used the backyards, staying away from the streets and sidewalks and keeping to the darkness as much as possible. Kate was used to walking around in the dark by now, though the overwhelming muteness of the world around her still managed to be disturbing if she stopped to listen.
They made it to within 300 yards of base camp when they heard the soft—and by now very familiar—padding of feet against asphalt. She knew what the sound meant without having to think about it.
They moved quickly behind a big grouping of bushes along the side of a two-story house, just as a flurry of ghouls flashed by in front of them, along the sidewalk. She watched from behind shrubbery as the thin, preternatural silhouetted figures raced up the street. She counted, but gave up after fifteen.
Will crouched silently next to her, his rifle slung across his chest, forefinger tapping quietly against the trigger guard. He was counting. Each tap for every ghoul. Once the last ghoul disappeared, he stopped.
“How many?” she whispered.
“Twenty-three.”
They circled back and entered the two-story house through the unlocked back door. She was right behind him, unholstering her Glock and holding it against her side as she went. The Glock had long ago stopped feeling strange against her bare skin. The strangeness now came when she couldn’t feel its weight against her hip.
Will scanned the house in the darkness. Moonlight shone through the windows, enough to see where everything was. The front door w
as closed, but also unlocked. The windows were broken, jagged pieces of remaining glass jutting out from corners, dried blood smeared along the sharp edges and windowsills. Nothing she hadn’t seen in dozens of homes since they began making their way out of the city three weeks ago.
Will tapped her on the shoulder and pointed up the stairs. They hurried up, Will taking point. She kept close behind him, leaving enough space that if he needed to spin at the last instant, she wouldn’t block his path. When she needed to move close to him, she kept one hand on his back to let him know she was there. She had learned the hard way that forgetting that one little trick was deadly. A week back, he almost cracked her forehead open with his rifle while turning in a hallway, because she had lazily taken her hand off his back as they were moving through a house. She was sore for days.
On the second floor, there were more patches of dried blood along the carpets and walls. They moved quietly through the hallway and found the master bedroom at the end. The bed was unmade, but showed no signs of struggle or death.
“This looks good,” Will whispered.
She nodded.
He moved to the window and peered out from behind the curtains, careful not to move them. She did the same on the other side.
There were at least two dozen of them, moving from house to house up the street. They scampered like cats, quick and silent and with complete focus. They slipped in and out of doors and windows, continually moving up the street, away from them. She caught her breath as a ghoul darted inside the house the others were staying in.
Base camp.
“It’ll be okay,” Will whispered, reading her expression. “Danny won’t let them expose themselves that easily.”
About thirty seconds later, the ghoul emerged and ran to the house next door.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
“We’ll stay here until morning,” Will said, “in case they decide to double back and do a second round of searches. There’s no point in risking exposure in case they leave a spy behind.”
She nodded. The ghouls had left spies before.
What was that saying Will had about them?
Dead, but not stupid.
*
She fell asleep on the king-sized bed with the M4A1 across her chest. It felt so comfortable, even natural, to have the rifle close to her. When she woke sometime later in the night, Will was standing watch at the window.
He had been there as she fell asleep, and it didn’t look as if he had moved at all.
He looked over, brown eyes and two-day stubble barely visible in the darkness. “Looks clear out there. I haven’t seen one for a few hours now.”
She sat up and glanced down at the black plastic watch around her wrist. Neon blue numbers glowed in the darkness. “You should have woken me for my shift.”
“It’ll be morning soon. Go back to sleep.”
“Will, you should have woken me.”
“I’ll wake you next time.”
She swung her legs off the bed and sat in the blackness, taking a moment to shake off the remnants of sleep. She was surprised she had dozed off at all. It was not something that came easy these days, not since that night at the Archers warehouse store in Houston.
“Did you get in contact with Danny?” she asked.
“He knows we’re close by.” Will was wearing his communications gear, with the earbud in his right ear and the Motorola radio clipped to his assault vest. They were close enough that he could reach Danny’s radio.
She walked across the room. The M4A1 dangled from the strap in front of her. She used to think it cumbersome and heavy, but now she hardly felt it at all. She leaned against the wall by the window, mirroring Will’s pose.
“You should get some sleep,” he said.
“I did.”
“Are you sleeping okay? In general, I mean. Carly’s been using some melatonin pills. You should ask her for some.”
“She already gave me a handful.”
“You didn’t take them,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t need them,” she lied.
“Kate, if you need them, you should take them.”
“I don’t need them.”
“Kate…”
“Don’t do that,” she said, looking across the small space at him. “I hate it when you do that.”
“Do what?”
“You know what. Treating me like a helpless damsel in distress. Maybe I was when we first met, but I’m not anymore.”
“It’s not what I meant.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “I don’t need the pills. If I need them, I’ll take them.”
He nodded, though she could tell he wasn’t convinced. He was about to say something when they both heard a noise from the first floor.
It was the unmistakable tap-tap of bare feet.
He was moving forward in the darkness before she could say anything. She followed, drawing her Glock from its holster. He stopped at the door and they exchanged a brief, wordless nod. He opened it softly, one hand on the doorknob, the other holding the M4A1 in front of him, and slipped outside. She was right behind him.
He moved along the dark hallway, toward the staircase at the end, a shaft of moonlight from a small second floor window illuminating their path. He moved silently, like a ghost. She couldn’t figure out how he did that, with all the equipment he was carrying and the heavy combat boots he wore. She swore she creaked and crunched with every step.
He moved stealthily to the staircase, then slipped down it, disappearing out of sight.
She waited.
Five seconds.
Ten, fifteen, twenty…
She felt a sting of panic and began to hurry forward when he suddenly reappeared just below her, looking relaxed. “False alarm. Wild dog.”
“Are you kidding me?” She let her body relax and holstered the Glock. “How did it get inside?”
“Dogs can be pretty resourceful when they have to be. My guess is it saw the ghouls moving around outside and didn’t want to risk it.”
“Do you think they’d attack a dog?”
“I haven’t seen it happen yet, but doesn’t mean it won’t. What exactly is the thing that drives them? Human blood, or just blood?”
“Good question.”
He shrugged. “Maybe we’ll find out the answer one of these days.”
Three weeks later, and they still knew so little about the ghouls. Will had his theories, Carly had hers, and even Danny threw out some outlandish ideas that were more about being a smartass than coming up with actual theories. The one constant was that they were all guessing.
She turned to head back to the bedroom.
“Kate.”
She turned back and he was right there in front of her, his face as close to hers as it had ever been. He was taller than her, so she had to look up at him, and as she did he kissed her on the lips.
She was surprised but allowed her hands to slip around his waist. His own were suddenly on her body, his mouth moving roughly against hers. His hands felt surprisingly fine, even tender, roaming around the thick fabric of her thermal shirt. He caressed the exposed part of her neck and pulled her closer, kissed her harder.
She wanted this, she realized, but there was never the right time. Every day ended with all seven of them exhausted, always watching for ghouls, making bullets, scouring buildings and stores and houses for supplies. There never seemed to be a right time.
“Not out here,” she whispered. “In the bedroom.”
“Okay.”
She forced herself to pull away from him. He followed, and closed the bedroom door behind them, already taking off his clothes. She struggled with her boots.
“Here,” he said, moving toward her. “Milady.”
She stifled a laugh. He knelt on the floor in front and made her sit on the end of the bed. He removed her boots one at a time, then eased her pants down. She felt like a teenage girl be
ing undressed for the first time, and the feeling was electric.
“If you want me to stop…” His voice was soft in the darkness.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered.
She lay back on the bed, and he covered her body almost immediately, his mouth seeking hers, devouring her. His body was so warm, even in the chilly bedroom air, and the satin fabric of the sheets gentle underneath her bare back and buttocks as he entered her.
She moaned against his mouth and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and clung to him as he thrust inside her again and again. His intensity increased with each movement, and she felt overwhelmed and delirious, wanting more of him.
She wanted to cry out, but didn’t.
She clung to him instead, breathing him in, and wondered why she had waited so long.
*
The blanket rested next to her, but she didn’t reach for it. His body, already heated before sex, was like an oven afterward. She lay on top of him, letting his body heat warm her against the cool air. She could see his breath, forming mist as soon as it left his lips.
She listened to the eerie nothingness around them, outside the house. Her ears tuned in to every rustling of the wind, creaking floorboards, and falling leaves. She tried to concentrate on the feel of him against her, her breasts crushed down against his warm chest, neither one of them caring about appearances.
She felt satisfied for the first time in a long time.
“What did you do before all of this?” he asked softly.
“Why?”
“I’m curious. I’m going to guess construction worker, but I might be wrong.”
“Close,” she smiled. “I made commercials.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Not really.” She sighed. “You don’t realize how utterly pointless your career choice is until the world crumbles, and all the skills you spent so much time learning in order to be the best in your field become instantly useless.”
Will chuckled in the darkness. “You make a lot of money doing something like that?”
“More than a cop.”
“Ouch.”
She laughed softly. “Let me ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
“I’ve always wanted to know. Do they pay you extra for being in SWAT?”
“Enough to order two Whoppers instead of one.”