by Sam Sisavath
Bam! Bam!
Then, more joined in:
Bam-bam-bam!
Bam-bam-bam!
Jesus, it had been close. If he hadn’t thinned their numbers with the Kahr, he wasn’t sure if he would have made it into the bedroom at all. There had been so many of them (Jesus Christ, where did they all come from?) out there. There were probably still a lot of them now, pouring into the vehicle, if the constant trembling of the floor underneath Wash’s boots were any indication.
How many of them are out there? Where were they all hiding?
“It’s been busy,” the Old Man said. “It’s been waiting for your arrival too, as it turns out.”
Roy had immediately thrown himself at the door as soon as he locked it, his back pressed against the flimsy material while his boots scrambled for traction against the floor. Wash hurried to the exposed part of the door and mirrored Roy. Their shoulders were pressed against one another as—
Bam-bam-bam!
—the ghouls crashed into the door. Over and over again.
Bam-bam-bam!
Each time they struck the fiberglass material, it moved slightly behind Wash, but the lock was holding and the door always bounced right back into place.
Bam-bam-bam!
There were no windows inside the bedroom, no other way in but through the door quaking behind Wash. He wondered if the creatures actually knew that fact, though. Nightcrawlers acted on almost pure instinct. Avoid the sunlight, feed at night, and take the easiest path to their prey.
Bam-bam-bam!
He exchanged a quick look with Roy next to him. He didn’t have to tell the kid to hold on with everything he had. The teenager had been out here too long; he knew the consequences of letting the ghouls inside the small cramped bedroom with them.
Wash nodded and got one back.
June had peeled herself from the far wall and sat down on the edge of the bed. There was so little room that the single cot was only a few feet from scraping against Wash’s knees. It was a miracle he hadn’t careened onto it or the girl when he’d made his leap into the room earlier.
He could make out fear in the girl’s eyes even with what little light there was in the bedroom. June was afraid, but it wasn’t the kind of sheer mortal terror Wash was used to seeing from civilians when they ran into their first ghoul. Just because everyone knew that nightcrawlers still existed and still roamed the night, they never really expected to come face-to-face with one…until they did.
But Wash didn’t see that on June’s face right now, and it just reminded him again that she, like her brother, had been out here for too long. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, though. On the one hand, their experience had kept them both from panicking, and that had probably saved Wash’s life. And yet, they were just kids.
“No, they’re not,” the Old Man said. “They stopped being kids when the monsters took the world.”
“Man, this sucks,” Roy was saying next to him.
Wash grinned before sliding the kukri back into its sheath so he could use both hands to keep himself upright as the door continued to wobble and push against him.
Bam-bam-bam!
“Which part?” Wash asked.
“All of it,” Roy said. “Are you out? Your gun?”
Bam-bam-bam!
Wash nodded. “Yeah.”
“That’s not good.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference if you had a whole armory,” the Old Man said. “Did you see how many were out there? Where’d they all come from, kid?”
I’ll let you know when I figure it out, old timer.
As if reading his thoughts, Roy said, “How many was out there?”
“I don’t know.”
Bam-bam-bam!
“How many did you see?” Roy asked.
Wash shook his head. It hadn’t occurred to him to count, but if he had to think about it…
“A lot,” he finally said.
“A hell of a lot,” Roy said.
Bam-bam-bam!
“Yeah,” Wash said. “That sounds about right.”
“What are we going to do now?” Roy asked.
“Keep them out there and us in here.”
“That’s your big idea?”
“Yeah.”
“Not much of an idea.”
Bam-bam-bam!
“You got any better ones?” Wash asked.
“Can’t say as I do,” Roy said.
“Okay then.”
Bam-bam-bam!
“Are we going to die?” June asked.
Wash shook his head. “No. We’re not gonna die,” he said, and thought, Because I have too much left to do.
And things to kill…
“We’re probably gonna die,” Roy said.
Wash sighed. “No, we’re not.”
Bam-bam-bam!
“You sure?” June asked, staring at Wash. Apparently, she liked Wash’s answer better than her brother’s. Wash couldn’t say he blamed her.
Wash nodded. “I’m sure.”
Bam-bam-bam!
Wash changed up his position so he could press down harder against the floor with the soles of his boots.
Next to him, Roy was doing the same thing.
“We’re not gonna die,” Wash said, though he wasn’t sure if that was for June’s benefit or his own.
Bam-bam-bam! as the monsters continued to pound at the cheap fiberglass construction at his back.
They weren’t going to stop. Not until the night gave way to daylight. How long was that?
Bam-bam-bam!
Wash glanced down at his watch and listened to the tick-tick-tick-tick of the seconds hand as it glowed green against the darkness and swept across the dial. 11:16 p.m.
Bam-bam-bam!
Over seven more hours until sunup.
Bam-bam-bam!
Wash looked up and over at Roy. The teenager had seen him checking his watch and noticed the time for himself. The kid frowned.
Bam-bam-bam!
“We’ll be fine,” Wash said. “We’ll be fine.”
That time Wash was certain he’d said the words almost entirely for his own benefit.
“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” Roy said, looking across the small room at his sister.
Bam-bam-bam!
June bit her lip back at him but didn’t say anything.
Bam-bam-bam!
“Big fat liars, the both of you,” the Old Man said.
Bam-bam-bam!
Bam-bam-bam…!
Seven
The door.
How the hell did they open the door?
Now that he had a second to breathe and wasn’t knee-deep in ghoul blood, Wash’s mind wandered back to the RV’s front door and what he had seen just before it opened. Because it had opened. It hadn’t been battered down by force. Something had happened to it.
The crowbar.
It was definitely a crowbar. Even with limited lights to see with, he was 100 percent certain it was a crowbar that had pried the RV entrance wide open for the creatures to swarm inside. They hadn’t broken it down. Maybe, eventually, they could have, but that wasn’t what happened.
A crowbar…
When did ghouls learn to use crowbars?
The answer was never. Oh, he was sure they could pick one up and use them given enough time, but they’d never shown the proclivity to do so. They were instinctive creatures, almost primitive in the way they interacted with their surroundings. They attacked in a straight line when possible and always—always—chose the easiest and quickest path.
Like now. They were still pounding on the door—
Bam-bam-bam!
—and hadn’t given it a rest for even a second. Nightcrawlers didn’t get tired. Or, at least, Wash had never seen them grow fatigued. They were going to assault the door until morning, until they couldn’t anymore. Until the sun chased them away.
Bam-bam-bam!
But they weren’t
going to get in. Wash and Roy, their bodies pressed against the slab of fiberglass, were going to ensure that.
And yet, Wash couldn’t stop thinking about a few minutes earlier. (Had it just been a few minutes ago?)
He glanced at his watch. About ten minutes ago.
That’s it?
All of this had started just ten minutes ago. Well, eleven now, give or take.
“Close enough,” the Old Man said. “Now let’s get back to that crowbar.”
The crowbar…
Had the ghouls learned to use a crowbar? Where would they pick one up? There was nothing but open land out there. How would they stumble across a crowbar in all that nothingness? Had someone—something—told them to search for the object, locate it, and bring it out here to use on the RV? Was it the blue-eyed bastard that Wash was hunting? The same one he’d been searching for? The one he called One Eye?
“How’d they get in?” Roy was asking him.
“What?” Wash said. He’d heard the question, but he’d been so lost in his own thoughts (The crowbar. How did they use the crowbar?) that it took him a few extra heartbeats to process what Roy had just asked.
“How’d they get into the RV? I locked the door,” Roy said.
“They pried it open,” Wash said.
“Who?”
“Them,” Wash said as the bam-bam-bam seemed to intensify slightly behind him, as if in response. Or was that just his imagination?
“Them?” Roy said.
“Them.”
Roy didn’t say anything right away. He was staring at Wash, as if trying to decide if Wash was crazy or not.
“Good question,” the Old Man said.
This isn’t the time, old timer.
Finally, the kid said, “Them?”
“Them,” Wash said again.
“They pried the door open?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“They used a crowbar.”
Roy kept staring at him, and, again, didn’t say anything for a few seconds.
Five seconds…
Ten…
“I saw it,” Wash said.
“They used a crowbar?” Roy said.
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure?”
“I saw it.”
“The crowbar.”
“That’s what I said.”
“They used it on the door.”
Wash sighed. Just hearing himself say it out loud seemed ludicrous, but to hear Roy repeat it, over and over…
“Yeah,” he said again.
“I’ve never seen that before,” Roy said.
“Me neither.”
“And you’re sure you saw it?”
“I saw it.”
“Them, out there, using the crowbar on the front door?”
“How many times do you want me to say it?”
“I just wanna be sure…”
“I’m sure.”
“You’re sure, sure?”
Wash was about to answer with more than a little irritation, when he stopped short.
“What?” Roy said.
Wash replayed the kid’s question over in his head:
“And you’re sure you saw it? Them, out there, using the crowbar on the front door?”
“And you’re sure you saw it?...”
“Them, out there, using the crowbar on the front door?...”
“Saw it…”
“Them…”
“Using the crowbar…”
The continuous bam-bam-bam! from behind him, causing the door to tremble with every pounding, snapped him back to the present.
Had I seen them use it?
Yes.
…and no.
Roy was squinting at him, waiting for an answer.
When Wash didn’t provide it, the teenager said, “Well? Did you see them use it or not?”
“I saw a crowbar,” Wash said. “It pried open the front door.”
“So why did it take you so long to answer—”
“I saw a crowbar,” Wash said, cutting him off. “I saw it prying the door open for the ghouls. But I didn’t see a ghoul doing it. I didn’t actually see the user. They were on the other side. When they got it open, there were just nightcrawlers.”
Roy didn’t look away, and Wash imagined the teen trying to process what Wash was telling him. Wash didn’t blame the kid. He had said it, and even he was having a hard time coming to grips with it.
But that’s what I saw…
…or didn’t see.
“I don’t understand,” Roy finally said.
Wash looked across the room at June, sitting on the bed in front and slightly to the left of him. For some reason, the kid had put her pink backpack on and was clutching to the straps hanging off her shoulders.
I guess she’s ready to get the hell out of here, too.
The girl gazed back at him, soft eyes very much visible as Wash’s night vision adapted to his surroundings. June had been listening to their conversation, and by the expression on her face, she appeared to be just as confused as Roy.
Join the club, kid.
“What do you mean?” Roy was asking him.
Wash opened his mouth to answer, to attempt to articulate what had been roiling around inside his own head for the last few seconds, when the pounding stopped.
What…?
There wasn’t complete silence, because his heartbeats, and those of Roy’s next to him, filled the empty spaces. He could even hear June’s across the room—
The thwack! as something slammed into the door behind Wash, and Roy let out a surprised scream. Roy stumbled away from the door, twisted frantically around, and something wet splashed Wash in the cheek. He thought it was saliva at first but quickly realized he was wrong when he saw blood dripping from the back of Roy’s right shoulder.
Wash spun even as his mind shouted, Don’t abandon the door! Keep it closed! Keep it closed! He didn’t back away and kept one hand on the door, ready to dive forward and use his entire body to reinforce it again, when he saw it:
A sharp object protruding through the cheap fiberglass material where Roy had been leaning against. It was the point of some kind of heavy tool. A pickaxe, maybe, or the end of a hand-wielded weapon. Whatever it was, it had broken through the door with relative ease and even stabbed Roy, sending him reeling.
“Jesus, I’m bleeding!” Roy was shouting from somewhere behind Wash.
Wash didn’t turn around to check on the teenager. He couldn’t afford to, because he was too busy trying to understand what had just happened.
One: The ghouls had stopped their relentless but ineffective attacks on the door.
Two: But no sooner had they done that—less than five seconds, by Wash’s best guess—something else had taken up the assault.
Three: That “something else” was using tools.
Just like with the crowbar…
As Wash continued trying to put all the evidence into a coherent whole, the object jerked free from the door. It left behind a jagged hole that Wash could see through and at the gathered darkness on the other side—along with something moving.
He stumbled back just as—thwack!—the pointy end of the weapon slammed into the door again, the target this time just a few inches below the original hole. It wasn’t a crowbar but something heavier, with a sharp, bladed edge.
The tool vanished and reappeared with another booming thwack!, creating a third hole between the first and second.
“What the hell is that?” Roy shouted.
“They’re coming in,” Wash said.
“Who’s coming in? Ghouls?”
Wash shook his head and thought, Ghouls don’t use tools. Not the black-eyed ones, anyway. And the blue-eyed ones don’t need them.
Thwack! as the object slammed home again.
“Should have saved the Kahr for this moment, kid,” the Old Man said.
Now you tell me.
“Hey, I can’t predict everything. I can only know wh
at you know, after all.”
Thwack!
Thwack!
Goddammit, who was out there?
Who was out there…
Another thwack!
The fifth? Sixth? Or the tenth? Whatever the number, it had been delivered at the right spot, and a large, jagged hole opened up in the middle of the door—possibly big enough for little June to squirm through.
A face, peering back at him.
A human face, wearing some kind of gas mask.
Wash only knew that he was staring back at a man and not a ghoul because there were two clear glass lenses on the mask, revealing a figure with blue eyes gazing into the bedroom at him through the opening.
For a second—or maybe it was longer than that (Five seconds? Ten?)—the two of them stood perfectly still and locked eyes, as if they were both shocked to find someone else on the other side of the door. And maybe that was the case. Despite everything he knew and had seen with his own eyes, Wash was still baffled to see another human being looking in at him.
“What the fuck,” Roy said, the teen’s voice as breathless and confused as Wash assumed his would have been if he’d managed to put his own thoughts into words. “Who is that? Who the fuck is that?”
The same one who pried open the door with the crowbar, Wash thought, though he didn’t say it out loud. It made sense, because ghouls didn’t use crowbars. They didn’t use tools at all.
But men did.
Men still did.
Who the hell are you? Wash thought as the man snapped out of it first and—thwack! as he struck at the door with his weapon again. Wash could see now that it was definitely a pickaxe—long and metal at the dangerous end, with a sleek, wooden handle underneath—and its latest impact had widened the crater in the door even further.
Wash took a step back—and collided with Roy.
“Limited space, kid, limited space!” the Old Man shouted.
Wash pulled out the kukri and tightened his grip. The blade was still coated with thick black sludge, and he dearly wished for a handgun. Well, he had a gun; just no bullets to use it with. If he had some—even just one would have done it—he could have shot the man with the pickaxe—
Thwack!
—and stopped his attack.
But he didn’t, and it was foolish to wish for something that wasn’t going to happen. He still had the machete, and that would just have to be good enough.