by Sam Sisavath
She actually smiled that time.
“What?” he said.
“Nothing. You’re very cute.”
He grinned. “That’s good, right?”
“Better than the alternative.”
He finally got his pants off, revealing brown boxers with Peanuts characters on them.
He saw where she was looking and blushed. “It was the only pair I had left that was still, you know, wearable.”
“You guys don’t do laundry around here?”
“Kinda hard without power.”
“You could always hang them on the roof.”
“Not a lot of water to spare, either.”
“No wonder everyone stinks. When was the last time you showered?”
“I poured some water on myself last night. Does that count?”
“Not really, no.”
He didn’t really smell any better than when she had sniffed him yesterday, but she didn’t feel like crushing that desperate-to-please look on his face at the moment. Gaby stepped out of her cargo pants and moved toward him in red silk panties. He stood perfectly still and stared at her. It was cute and charming, and she hoped he didn’t have a stroke when she took off her shirt.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He swallowed. “You’re so beautiful.”
“Thanks. Now come here.”
He walked toward her. She put her arms around his waist and stood slightly on her tiptoes to kiss him. Benny put his arms around her waist and pulled her greedily against his mouth. He wasn’t exactly the world’s best kisser, but she had been attacked by worse.
She moaned against his mouth, and Benny, being a smart boy, rightfully took that as approval and cupped her breasts with both hands.
*
THEY STAYED IN her room long after, but since the bed was designed for only one person, she was forced to lay on top of Benny. What she really wanted was the bed all to herself, but kicking Benny out so she could catch up on some of the sleep she hadn’t managed to get last night was probably too rude. Not that she didn’t actually think about it really hard.
There was very little ventilation on the entire floor, and none in her room, so she wasn’t sure if she was sweating from that or the sex. Maybe a little of both.
“That was awesome,” Benny said after a while.
Gaby smiled. Men said the least creative things after sex. “How long has it been?”
“A while. Most of the girls here are already spoken for. It’s mostly just jacking off, but even that loses its charm once you’ve done it a few hundred times.”
“I didn’t know that was possible with guys.”
“Oh, trust me, it’s possible. But anyway, you smelled really nice. Even down there.”
Okay, that’s a new one.
“You’re not even wearing any perfume, right?” Benny asked.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“What’s that smell, then?”
“Soap, Benny.”
He laughed. “No kidding? It smells really nice. You’re easily the best smelling boy or girl in this entire building.”
No kidding.
“Thanks,” she said, not sure what else to say.
“You guys have your own rooms and everything, huh? Back on the island?”
“Uh huh.”
“Air conditioning, too?”
“We do, but we don’t turn it on to conserve power. We might turn the heat on if it gets really cold down here, though.”
“It doesn’t get too cold, though.”
“Then we probably won’t turn the heat on.”
“And you guys have a freezer.”
“Yup.”
“That means ice.”
“Uh huh.”
“Man, I haven’t had ice in ages. I’d love to have some in a glass with some Coke.” He licked his lips. “I’m drooling just thinking about it.”
“When you get there, the first glass of ice Coke is on me.”
“Sweet.” He was quiet for a moment, then said, “You don’t have a boyfriend back on the island, do you?”
I did, but he’s dead.
“No,” she said.
“I know this is too early and everything, and I don’t want to freak you out, but would you consider me?”
He said it with such earnestness that she couldn’t help but lift her head. He met her gaze and she thought he had the most puppy dog look she had ever seen. She almost laughed, but realizing that might hurt his feelings, she nodded instead.
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll give you a spin.”
He laughed again. “Gee, thanks.”
She sat up, and no surprise, his eyes went straight to her breasts. “Will and the others are gonna be back soon, but I can spare ten more minutes. What do you think?”
“Fuck yeah,” he said without hesitation.
*
JEN LOOKED REFRESHED when she knocked on Gaby’s door, then barged inside without warning. She caught Benny struggling to pull on his shirt next to the bed, while Gaby had already dressed.
“Oops,” Jen said. Then she grinned at Gaby. “Fitting right in, I see.”
“There’s not a lot to do around here,” Gaby said. She was surprised she didn’t sound more embarrassed.
“I hear ya, sister. Come on, Amy’s got those medical supplies Lara wanted.”
Jen left, and Gaby looked over at Benny, who was stuffing his shirt into his pants.
He smiled at her. “You’ll be around after today?”
“That’s up to Will,” she said, slipping the M4 over her shoulder.
“Will’s going to let me go there, right? To the island?”
“Maybe.”
He frowned. “Any ideas on how I can increase my odds?”
“Easy. Don’t be a dumbass. He hates that.”
“Oh, that’s it?”
She smiled and he returned it. It was a nice moment, and she quickly hurried out of the room before he had the chance to ruin it, like by trying to kiss her.
Jen’s long strides had already carried her down the hallway, and Gaby had to run to catch up. “You in a hurry?” Gaby called after her.
“Just trying to keep you on your toes, kid.”
Kid. Right.
They turned a corner, where Gaby saw a five-year-old with a button nose and a face that probably hadn’t seen water in a few days peering out at them from a slightly ajar door. Gaby smiled at the boy, who responded by running off to hide, leaving the door open behind him.
“How you like the hospital so far?” Jen asked.
“It’s okay.”
“Bullshit. It’s depressing as hell. This is the kind of place that makes you think about your mortality and how shitty everything is. Hospitals already do that, but this place, at this time? This is fifty times worse.”
Gaby didn’t argue. How could she? Jen was right about everything.
“Why do you think I’m always flying around out there?” Jen asked.
“Do you ever think about not coming back?”
“Every time.”
“But you do.”
She shrugged. “God help me, I guess I’ve become fond of these people. Speaking of which…”
“Are we really going to talk about that?” Gaby said.
The older woman grinned. “Don’t sweat it, kid. I’ve pretty much screwed every available guy in this place. If I didn’t, I’d probably go nuts or try to kill myself. It’s all so fucking depressing.”
“Thanks for sharing.”
Jen laughed. “Benny’s a good kid, though.”
“He’s all right,” Gaby said.
*
AMY WAS IN the east tower, packing medical equipment into bundles, with plenty of foam for protection against damage, before wrapping them up in thick coatings of shrink wrap. She had filled three gym bags when Jen led Gaby inside what looked like a large inventory room.
“Did Mike come back yet?” Amy asked.
“Not yet,” Jen said.
“They should be back soon,” Gaby said. “Will’s got a scheduled call back to Song Island at ten. He wouldn’t miss that.”
“Well, until then,” Amy said. She picked up a large bundle of gauze tape and shoved it into a gym bag, then zipped it up and held it out to Gaby. “I’ve filled about eighty percent of the list Will gave me. Gauze, IV drips, syringes, anesthesia, and pain killers. Since we’re going to be partners for hopefully a long time, I included some of the good ones for goodwill. Vicodin, Percocet, and I even threw in some OxyContin, so you’re welcome. I take it you guys have had past troubles? A lot of this stuff is shit-happens type of supplies.”
“We’ve had our share of problems.”
If you only knew half of it.
“What about the other twenty percent?” Gaby asked.
“Depends on how many’s going back with you guys,” Amy said. “It’s mostly about rationing. Any ideas when you plan on heading back?”
“If I had to guess, it might be later today. Will wants to get this stuff back to the island as soon as possible.”
“Do you guys have sick people?” Amy asked. There was a note of concern in her voice.
“He just likes being prepared. It’s a Ranger thing.”
“I guess we’ll let the men hash it out,” Jen said. “Us little women aren’t smart enough for all that negotiatin’ talk.”
“It would be nice to sit on a beach sipping Mai Tais,” Amy said with a smile.
“What’s that?” Gaby asked.
“Mai Tais? Rum, pineapple, and lime in a highball glass.”
“I don’t know what any of that is. The closest I ever got to alcohol was a Budweiser.”
“How old are you, kid?” Jen asked.
“I turned nineteen today.”
“Holy crap. You look older.”
“Thanks,” Gaby said. “I guess.”
Jen laughed.
“Happy birthday,” Amy said. She picked up another gym bag and handed it to Gaby. “Some rolls of gauze tape and IV bags. Don’t say I never gave you anything.”
“Oh, I think she already got something this afternoon,” Jen said with a wink.
Gaby shook her head. “Nice. Real mature, Jen.”
“Benny,” Amy said knowingly.
“How’d you know?” Jen asked.
“Are you kidding? That poor kid’s on the verge of quivering into bowls of jelly every time he’s around her.”
“Okay, okay,” Gaby said. “Enough with the talking about my sex life like I’m not even here. It’s becoming annoying.”
“Only if you promise to tell us all the gory details,” Jen said.
“Whatever,” Gaby said, and headed for the door.
The two women grabbed a gym bag each and followed her.
“Did he take a trip down south?” Jen asked.
Gaby groaned. “Give it a rest.”
They were almost at the door when a scream, followed quickly by a gunshot, ripped across the tenth floor. The gunshot was followed by a series of gunfire—the pop-pop-pop of a three-round burst—and Gaby knew right away that more than one person was shooting in different parts of the building at the same time.
They dropped the gym bags and rushed to the door, Gaby already unslinging her M4. Jen, with her longer stride, beat her to the door, and as the pilot threw it open, Gaby lunged outside and slid to a stop in the hallway, her boots battling against the slick vinyl.
She saw a man in a dull white tactical hazmat suit and gas mask moving away from her, stepping over a body lying prone on the floor. The suit was thin, one of those Level B hazmat suits. The man was wearing boots, and as he stepped over the dead man, she could see blood on his soles. She recognized an M4, identical to her own, in the man’s hands. As soon as the shooter heard the sound of the inventory room door opening behind him, he stopped and turned around.
Gaby glimpsed dark black eyes behind the gas mask’s single face covering, a stunted one-piece air purifier jutting out from underneath.
The man started to lift his rifle, but he hadn’t gotten it halfway up before Gaby shot him in the chest. She fired without thinking—“muscle memory” Will would have said—and was momentarily stunned by the sight of the man collapsing in front of her. The bullet had drilled into the thin fabric of his suit, and it didn’t look as if there were any blood at all. But of course, she knew better. The suit kept the blood inside, leaving behind a small hole in its wake.
Just like that man in Beaumont, Texas…
Jen and Amy stumbled out of the room behind her. It didn’t occur to Gaby how vulnerable the two women were. They were both unarmed, and they gasped at the sight of the dead man in the hazmat suit lying near one of their own.
“Oh my God, Dan!” Amy said, rushing forward.
She hadn’t gotten more than a few yards when gunfire ripped over her head and shredded a large painting hanging on the wall beside her. Amy instinctively fell to the floor headfirst, sliding comically along the smooth tiles with her hands thrown over her head, as if that would somehow protect her from bullets.
Gaby turned to her right, looking down the hall as another man in a hazmat suit moved toward them, also armed with an M4. The man was taking aim at Amy’s scrambling form when Gaby fired at him. Her first shot missed, but her second shot hit the man in the leg and he stumbled, then turned and hobbled desperately behind a corner.
She heard gunfire from other parts of the hospital, and Gaby desperately longed for a radio. Will insisted everyone on the island carried one, but Mike didn’t have that kind of system in place.
God, they’re so unprepared. How did they survive for so long?
She stopped thinking when the same gas-masked face peered out from behind the corner down the hallway. She snapped a quick shot in his direction, and the man jerked his head back behind the wall as her bullet tore a big chunk off the corner.
Gaby kept her rifle on semi-automatic. She wasn’t worried about ammo. She had two magazines for the rifle around her waist and two more for the Glock in her pouches. She had even more in her pack…back in her room.
She risked a quick look behind her, and saw Jen helping Amy up from the floor, shouting, “Come on, we can’t do anything for him now!” Then she looked back at Gaby. “We have to go!”
“Go where?” Gaby shouted back. “They’re all over the floor! Listen!”
The two women stopped their frantic movements and listened. Gaby saw their faces go from pale and confused to horrified.
The screaming, the gunshots—it was coming from all around them, as if they had just stumbled into the middle of a war zone.
And this day started off so well, too…
CHAPTER 10
LARA
SHE DIDN’T KNOW how Will wore his communications rig all day. It was cumbersome and unwieldy, and she thought the plastic mic around her throat was going to choke the life out of her with every step she took. The thing was supposed to work on bone vibrations, or something like that. The earbud didn’t look like it would stay in her ear, though when she purposefully moved around like a spastic, it refused to dislodge.
She was wearing the assault vest Will had designed specifically for her a month ago. She remembered almost swooning. How many girls got custom-made assault vests? It was a slimmed-down version of the kind he and Danny wore, with pouches for equipment, such as the radio connected to the throat mic and earbud. It was a lot more convenient than holding the radio with one hand, especially when she was moving.
An hour after kneeling on the wet ground inside the woods in the western half of the island, the Benelli shotgun had begun to feel almost weightless leaning against her knee. The first signs of sunup appeared in the distance, casting the kind of glow across the sky that still took her breath away many mornings later.
Danny was somewhere to her left, hidden among the foliage. The woods were brightening around her, slivers of the clear sky coming through where it was pitch dark moments before. Every now and then she heard moveme
nt that prompted her to tighten up, get ready to spring into action. The paranoia was justified, because he was out here somewhere.
West.
He and Brody had done exactly what Bonnie had predicted they would do. She chastised herself for not seeing it sooner. Thank God they had padlocked the Tower basement, where all the weapons were stored. She didn’t want to think about what would have happened had both West and Brody gotten to their rifles while the rest of them slept, with only Blaine on the third floor to stand in their way.
This wouldn’t have happened if Will was here.
The thought popped into her head every few minutes, twisting her into knots, and confirming what she already knew: She wasn’t ready for this. Not even close. So why did the others think she was? Whatever possessed them to put so much faith in her judgment? She wasn’t ready—
She was startled by a clicking sound in her right ear, before Danny’s voice came through a second later to soothe her nerves: “Look how pretty the sky is. Makes you appreciate all the finer things in life, doesn’t it?”
“Like what?” she whispered.
She had learned a few hours ago that even when she barely whispered, Danny could hear her just fine.
No wonder Will loves these things.
“Girls,” Danny said. “Fresh air. Girls. Walking around the woods at night. Girls.”
“You forgot girls.”
“Oh, right, girls.”
She smiled despite herself. “Where are you now? I can’t see you.”
“Your eleven o’clock.”
“I don’t know what that is, Danny.”
“Imagine the hands on a clock.”
“Okay…”
“Now imagine where eleven o’clock is.”
“So, to my left?”
“Close. Northwest of you.”
“Couldn’t you have just said that in the first place?”
“Sure, but it’s cooler this way.”
Snap!
She shot up to her feet and spun around, the shotgun rising, her forefinger slipping into the trigger guard—
“Don’t shoot!” Roy shouted.
He stood twenty yards behind her, hands trembling in the air.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed.
He hesitated, as if trying to decide if he should turn back around or proceed forward. She took pity on him and motioned for him to join her. He rushed over, making so much noise that she now understood what it was like for Will and Danny whenever they had to deal with her and the others.