by Sam Sisavath
God, he hoped it was good enough.
He did, though, have one advantage: Whoever was out there—however many of them there were—would have to come into the small, cramped bedroom to get them. Wash was used to fighting in close quarters with bladed weapons. Hallways, caves, basements, even bedrooms.
“You almost managed to convince yourself that time, kid,” the Old Man said.
Almost, Wash thought when the pickaxe smashed into the area where the deadbolt was and the door swung open.
“Time to make the donuts, kid!” the Old Man shouted.
Wash changed up his stance, willing his body to summon every strength he had left, while he forced his mind to push down all the aches and pains that were suddenly back and running rampant throughout his body.
Here we go, Wash thought as he watched the attacker—tall, broad-shouldered, and wearing black from head to toe—lower the pickaxe to his side. Like before, Wash and the man stared across the small space at each other.
Wash waited for the intruder to act, to push his attack, but he didn’t. Instead, the man just stood there, his dark clothes helping him to blend in with the blackness outside the bedroom.
Come on, what are you waiting for?
What are you waiting for?
The figure finally moved—and stepped aside. Wash glimpsed movement exploding in the darkness outside the rectangular opening.
Ghouls.
Two of them.
No, three.
Four.
Five.
They raced through the open door, the first couple of clacking bones moving low to the floor on their hands and knees like insects, while the others came high.
Wash slashed at the first nightcrawler, the kukri slicing through an exposed neck and chopping into a sunken chest on the follow-through. Two ghouls dropped, but they were quickly replaced by the three behind them.
More movements as even more creatures flooded into the room.
He pulled the kukri back without wasting the precious half-second it would have taken to cock his arm for a full slash. He caught one, two on the backstroke. They fell like the first couple, but Wash didn’t have time to enjoy his victory, because the fifth one, backed by even more—A dozen? Two dozen?—was already pouring into the bedroom.
There were too many. Simply too many.
Not that Wash allowed that to stop him from cutting and stabbing and kicking with his boots. He knocked them to the side, launching one into the air and backward into a half dozen more monsters scrambling to enter the room.
Then someone screamed behind him.
Roy? June? Maybe both of them.
“Roy!” someone shouted. That was definitely June.
“June!” And that was definitely Roy.
Unless it was him shouting both of their names.
No, it couldn’t have been. He was too busy slashing, punching, kicking, and stabbing to make any sounds other than pained grunts as every one of his muscles stretched and every bone creaked. He wasn’t even out of his twenties yet, but Wash suddenly felt so, so old.
They were everywhere, crowding into the room, claiming the air around him. And it was such a small bedroom, too. What was once an advantage (“Was it ever really an advantage, kid?” the Old Man asked.) was now the reason he couldn’t move more than two feet to either his left or right. He couldn’t even go back without running into the kids, and there was no salvation in front of him.
Then they were all over him, icy-cold fingers grappling onto his arms. He swung anyway, managing to throw one, two of them loose, but couldn’t shake the other three. His feet had become rooted to the floor on their own accord.
No, that wasn’t what was happening. There were ghouls down there, circling both legs, their number keeping him frozen in one place. He had no hopes of kicking them loose. He could barely move his arms, or turn his head, or—
Another scream.
This time Wash was 100 percent sure it was June shouting out Roy’s name. There was something in her voice that time—pure mortal terror, the missing element he hadn’t seen earlier in the girl’s eyes. There it was now, proving that she was human after all.
Too many fingers wrapping around his throat and keeping him fixed on the sight before him.
Ghouls. Dozens of them.
Dozens upon dozens.
Jesus, where did they come from? Where did they all come from?
It didn’t matter to the creatures that the room was already coated in the blood of the ghouls that came before them. Thick black sludge dripped from the ceiling and walls. The single cot to his right, just barely visible out of the corner of his eye, was slathered with the stuff.
There was a lot of blood.
God, there was a lot of blood…
Then he was falling. He wasn’t sure how. Maybe the ones on the floor, with their arms snaked around his legs, were pulling him down to their level. Or maybe he was being crushed by the weight of so many ghouls scaling up the length of his body, clubbing him into submission with their limbs.
Wash’s last image, just before two ghouls covered up his face and eyes with their black, pruned flesh, was the tall man wearing the gas mask. The attacker with the pickaxe had slid back into view, standing just outside the open door now, and was looking in.
The man was watching, motionless, as Wash succumbed.
Even as he fell, as the night drowned him in darkness, Wash thought about the Old Man and One Eye.
I’m sorry, old timer. I failed.
I failed you…
…again.
Ana
Eight
“Looks like it was a hell of a fight,” Randall said. He pointed. “Four humans were involved. Started at the front and moved to the back. Got real bloody along the way. Mostly ghoul blood.” He paused. “Well, almost all ghoul blood. Whoever the nightcrawlers were trying to take out, they were pretty feisty. Didn’t go into that good night easily.”
“‘Didn’t go into that good night easily?’” Ana said, smiling at him.
Randall shrugged. “Something Chuck liked to say.”
That explains it, Ana thought, glancing around them again. She had deduced the same thing as Randall but just hadn’t interrupted him. Randall was showing off, and she’d learned a long time ago that when men were peacocking, it was best to let them get on with it.
“Curious, though,” Randall said.
“What’s that?” Ana asked.
“There were four bodies—four humans—but they weren’t together. One stood apart from the others.”
That perked up Ana’s eyebrows. She hadn’t noticed that.
Her nostrils were still stinging from the strong odor of evaporated ghoul flesh and blood in the air. A generous amount of bleached-white bones lined the floor from the door all the way to the back, all signs pointing to a horde of ghouls assaulting the Winnebago’s occupants last night. Ana and Randall had had to be careful picking their way around the deformed limbs, but even so, they’d left more than a few broken and crushed bones in their wake. The clean cuts along the arms and legs, the holes in the chest and skulls, all pointed to sharp blades at work last night. Whoever it was, they had been good.
But not good enough…
It had all ended at the back, in one of the bedrooms. There were two rooms, but only the one on the right had played host to the battle. There was still black blood clinging to the ceiling and walls in there, along with whole ghoul bodies that had managed to escape the disintegrating reach of sunlight. A stack of nightcrawlers—a dozen that Ana could count, probably more if she’d bothered to pick through the corpses.
Re-corpses? What do you call undead things that are already dead and died…again?
She was in the middle of the RV with Randall, both of them with handkerchiefs covering their mouths to keep out the stench that pervaded every inch of the vehicle. She could make out Shelby outside through one of the dirt-caked windows. The young slayer sat in the back of the Ford truck, staring off at nothing
in particular. He looked bored, the sun bouncing off his short blond hair. Chris had wandered off, but Ana wasn’t worried she would get too far. After everything they had gone through, the teenager knew better.
She turned to Randall. “What do you mean? How did one of them stand out from the others?”
The slayer indicated what Ana had already guessed were boot prints. They led from the front door and all the way to the back. “That one showed up only after the creeper crawlers had already gotten in. Big combat boots means a big guy.”
“How can you tell he came later?”
“See the way the prints are formed?”
No, Ana thought, but said, “So?”
“He showed up after the ghouls had attacked the RV and pushed the other humans to the back. He treaded in dirt from outside and got them mixed with the blood. You can tell by the way the prints are clumped.”
Ana couldn’t “tell” that, but she didn’t let him know. She glanced up the length of the vehicle and toward the back instead.
“What was he doing? The fourth guy?” she asked.
Randall didn’t answer right away.
She looked over. “You don’t know?”
“It would just be me guessing…”
“You’re doing a pretty good job so far. Why stop now?”
“Judging by the shape of the front door and what took place back there…” He paused for a few seconds. Then, “I think he was helping them.”
“Helping the ghouls.”
“Yeah.”
“So we’re talking about a collaborator?”
“We all know they’re still out there,” Randall said. “Most of them have blended back into society, but tigers can’t change their stripes.”
“You sound like you’ve met a few.”
“Plenty. But someone once said to let bygones be bygones. Live and let live. Let the past stay in the past. Blah, blah, blah. Chuck and I mostly agreed with that sentiment.”
“Mostly?”
Randall walked to the front and stared at the door. It had been pried in by something strong. That had opened the path for the ghouls to enter.
“There are some things you can’t forgive,” Randall said quietly, mostly to himself.
It was obvious he was talking about something else—someone else—right now, but Ana didn’t pursue it. The truth was, she didn’t know Randall or Shelby that well. They’d only met a few days ago and had become traveling companions almost by default. Chuck’s death had brought them closer, but even so, she had to keep reminding herself that she really didn’t know these men. And if experience had taught her anything, it was to be wary of trusting people out here.
They heard voices from outside and glanced toward the window. Shelby had jumped down from the truck and walked over to Chris, who had returned with something in her hands.
“Kid must have found something,” Randall said.
The slayer hopped down the steps and Ana followed, both of them slipping past the bent door. She was thankful for the cold, clean air and sucked in a deep breath as they walked around the Winnebago to where Shelby and Chris were standing next to the parked Ford.
“Whatcha got?” Randall asked.
Shelby tossed a bag over to Randall, who caught it. “Chris found it.”
Randall turned the backpack over in his hands. It was pink. “What is it?”
“It’s a backpack,” Ana said.
“I can see that. But what’s this? Some kind of cat?”
“It’s Hello Kitty, Randall.”
“A what?”
“It’s a girl thing.”
“Hunh.”
Ana looked across at Chris. “Where did you find it?”
Chris pointed south. “About fifty yards from here. I also found this.” She took a white watch with plastic bands out of her back pocket. It was small, and like the pack, clearly made for a kid.
Randall had unzipped the Hello Kitty backpack and was pulling out clothes—small-size T-shirts and pants—along with two bags of unopened MREs. There were also chocolate bars inside as well as a half-eaten Nacho Cheese Flavored Doritos with the top half rolled down to safeguard the contents. Ana didn’t want to think about how long ago the junk food had expired.
The slayer lifted the bag to his nose and sniffed the fabric.
“Gross,” Shelby said.
Randall ignored him and said to Ana, “Ghoul blood covered this thing until this morning. Some’s still stuck in the crevices.”
“So we know at least one of the three that were attacked last night was a kid,” Ana said.
“Looks that way.”
“What’s a kid doing all the way out here?” Chris asked.
“She wasn’t alone. There were two people with her,” Ana said.
“Two people with her, and one against her,” Randall added, before walking away from them and scanning southward with his hands shielding his eyes from the sun.
Not too far behind them, toward the north, was the road they had been driving on when they spotted the RV sitting in the middle of nowhere. They would have missed it entirely if Shelby wasn’t in the back with a pair of binoculars. What it was doing out here, all by itself, none of them could figure out.
“Anything interesting in there besides smelly dead bodies?” Shelby asked her.
Ana shook her head. “Not that we could find.”
“Well, we got some MREs, so that’s something.”
“Are they all dead?” Chris asked.
“I don’t know,” Ana said. “There’s no trace of them.”
“Best you could hope for is a quick end,” Shelby said. “It would suck if they were dragged out of here and… Well, it would suck.”
“Yeah, it would.” Ana walked over to join Randall. “See anything?”
“You mean like trails or tracks?”
“Yes.”
“No. If there were, the wind wiped them clean last night or before we got here. Ground’s hard, and we all know how lightly those nightcrawlers can tread.”
“What’s down there?”
Randall lowered his hands. “There’s nothing on the map. Old one or new one. The next city should be Sanderson, almost ten miles farther down the road.”
“You think either those people or the ghouls came from Sanderson?”
“It’s possible.”
“But you don’t think so.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think the ghouls or those people were from Sanderson, but I don’t know where they’re from or what they were doing out here, either.”
“Maybe there’s another town nearby. One that isn’t on any map.”
Randall nodded. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“If it’s not on any map—even yours—what does that mean?”
“I don’t know, but it’s on the way, so we mind as well find out.”
“Might as well,” Ana said.
“What?”
“It’s ‘might as well,’ not ‘mind as well.’ Common mistake.”
The slayer smirked. “Get into the damn truck, woman.”
Ana grinned and walked back to the Ford.
Chris and Shelby were waiting for them.
“What’s the verdict?” Shelby asked.
“Continue south and see what we find, if anything,” Ana said.
“Isn’t that what we were going to do anyway?” Chris asked.
“Uh huh.”
“I love it when there’s a plan,” Shelby said. “Even when the plan is no plan.”
“It’s a good enough plan,” Randall said, walking up behind Ana.
“But can you call it a plan if it’s not a plan?”
“It’s a plan.”
“Not really.”
“Yes, really.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
“Good for you, spud.”
Ana climbed into the Ford with Chris. The teenager slipped into the back, while Ana filled up the front passenger seat.
&n
bsp; “Do they always bicker like this?” Chris asked as Shelby hopped into the back—the truck lowered slightly under his weight—and Randall rounded the front hood.
“I’m not sure. I barely know them myself,” Ana said.
“Swell,” the kid said.
Given what Chris had gone through, Ana didn’t blame her for being hesitant around the two slayers. Ana had a little more history with them, and she was still on guard. But she couldn’t deny that both men had essentially saved her life after she fled Talico with Chris, the two of them running away from men that looked and acted (and killed) more like monsters.
They’d been on the road for the last two days, taking it easy because of their wounds. Ana’s and Chris’s after their run-in with the Raggedy Men, and Randall, who wasn’t quite 100 percent himself after getting shot outside of Mayfield. The long drive down a road that didn’t offer much in terms of views or distractions allowed everyone to heal, and all the food the two men had brought with them hadn’t hurt. Ana had never eaten and rested so thoroughly in weeks, not since she left Newton behind.
As they traveled together, Ana sensed that neither Randall nor Shelby were really all that anxious to get down south in a hurry. They’d been headed in that direction when they still had Chuck with them, responding to rumors that there was renewed and heavy ghoul activity down there. For a trio of slayers, nightcrawlers meant jobs. But Chuck was dead, and Ana got the impression Randall and Shelby were only going through the motions, as if they felt obligated to follow through on Chuck’s original plans. She wondered how much it would take for them to change their minds. Maybe all they were really looking for was an excuse to change course.
She didn’t give them that excuse, though. Right now they were headed south, which was the same direction Wash had gone. The truck meant she was making up for all the lost time, and it was nice to have two well-armed men watching her back.
As far as she knew, Wash was still on horseback. What were the chances he’d gotten himself involved in that mess at the RV? If they had spotted the Winnebago from the road, he could have, too.
If Wash had taken the same road into Texas.