by Sam Sisavath
He marveled at their persistence, their ability to shun all sense of self-preservation. They didn’t stop. Not for a second. The tide kept coming, churning, one after another, and for every black-skinned thing he dispatched, another took its place.
And they kept coming, and climbing, and coming…
…and climbing…
7:01 A.M…
When was sunrise? 7:10 A.M.? 7:20 A.M.?
Whatever the time, they could sense it. The ghouls were desperate to get up to the rooftop, as if they knew they only had a few minutes left. Will couldn’t see light in the skies or on the horizon. He didn’t know how much time was left. How much longer he had to hold on. So he stabbed and slashed, moving back, then forward again, then back…
And they kept coming.
Again and again, again and again…
7:09 A.M…
He was covered in slabs of thick black blood and torn flesh. The smell was overwhelming, assaulting his nostrils, making his eyes flare uncontrollably, his skin tingling with the acidic stench of death and decay. He wiped at copious globs of fluid that dripped from his hair down to his forehead and into his right eye. He spat out something that tasted like flesh, but it could have been dirt, or garbage, or some kind of filth he had no name for.
Zoe did her best to keep out of his way, struggling to hold on to the antennas, the two of them literally tied together by a hose that wasn’t designed for the task. Still, it was better than nothing, and it allowed him to keep track of her without having to look back, because he didn’t have time for that. He prayed she didn’t slip and fall, because if she did, he would go over the side right along with her. Unless, of course, the tube snapped. That was possible, too.
Amazingly, he had begun to get feelings back in his body. The more he moved, the more sensations returned to his hands, to his legs, and to his joints. It took all his strength to keep scrambling, stabbing and slashing, kicking and punching. They were weak things, like striking bags of flour. They relied on numbers, which was useless when there was only one path up the water tower.
He had to stay clear of their mouths and the crooked yellow and brown teeth, like caverns of smaller bones trying to gnaw at him. Those were dangerous. Blood itself didn’t do anything to you, but if they bit you, the direct transfer of fluids was what caused the infection.
Teeth of Death. I should write a book.
7:15 A.M…
Goddammit, where’s that damn sun?
Slowly, he became aware that the speed with which each new ghoul appeared had begun to flag. They were coming up at longer intervals now, and he was able to breathe a little bit before he had to engage another one.
He killed a ghoul, then kicked it in the chest and watched it flip over the side, and waited for the next one.
The cross-knife in his right hand was covered in blood and skin, viscous things that looked like a concentrated form of foul-smelling sweat dripping over his fist. He was only dimly aware of his ragged breathing, and his legs screamed at him for rest. His lungs burned, but it was nothing compared to the fire burning away in his side. Was he bleeding again?
He looked down. No. No blood. Well, not the red kind, anyway.
A little rest right about now would be nice.
No. Not yet.
Not yet…
He waited for the next one to emerge up the ladder, but it didn’t come.
He kept waiting…
“Will, what’s happening?” Zoe said behind him.
He shook his head and stood perfectly still.
Will hadn’t looked over the tower in a while. He hadn’t had the opportunity.
But now he did, and he saw there wasn’t a single ghoul on the ladder. They were all on the ground, and as he watched, they began to dissolve, like a pool of black ink flowing away from the base of the tower, until the grass below became visible again. And there, the Ford F-150, unveiled as if by magic (Ta-da!).
“They’re leaving,” Zoe said, her voice breathless, as if afraid just saying those two simple words out loud might jinx it somehow.
He checked his watch: 7:18 A.M.
“Oh my God, are they leaving?” she asked, her voice shaking, filled with hope.
“I think so, yeah.”
“Oh my God, Will. Oh my God.”
She rushed forward and grabbed him—and almost knocked him backward and off the side of the tower. He managed to right himself at the last moment and held on to a telecom antenna to keep from falling.
“You did it,” she said, gasping for breath, somewhere between crying and screaming with joy. “You did it, Will. I can’t believe you did it.”
Something caught his attention.
A flicker of something distinctive below, in the corner of his eye.
Something blue.
He looked down and saw, among the writhing black canvas, something that stood out. It was about forty meters from the base of the water tower, and it didn’t move as the ghouls flowed around it, like Moses parting the Red Sea. It was looking back up at him, and Will saw intense, bright blue eyes radiating out of the darkness.
Will didn’t know how he knew, he just knew who it was.
Kate.
Not the Kate he remembered, but the Kate that Lara had seen that night outside the Green Room in Harold Campbell’s facility. He had dreamt of her, but she came to him in those dreams as the old Kate, the woman he remembered and for one night, loved.
This new Kate, this ghoul Kate, was another creature entirely, and despite the distance, he could see its deep blue eyes pulsating. They weren’t like the blue of Lara’s—these were more intense, like staring into the sun. He couldn’t look away. They drew him in, fascinating him.
Then Kate smiled.
No, not Kate. A ghoul. He had to stop thinking of her (it) as Kate. This was the enemy now. This creature.
It turned and walked away with a preternatural grace that was almost majestic. He watched it go, the other ghouls squirming around it, swallowing it up—or was it the other way around?
They merged into the darkness, becoming one…then nothing.
Just like that, they were gone.
A few minutes later, the first slivers of sunlight poked through the clouds. He smiled at the sight and pushed away all thoughts of Kate, remembering all the sunrises with Lara on the beach back at Song Island instead.
7:25 A.M. Sunrise.
Good to know, good to know…
CHAPTER 35
GABY
SUNLIGHT DREW HER out of a deep slumber, whether she wanted it to or not. Her head seemed stuck in some kind of cocoon where just thinking was difficult, and it felt as if she had been sleeping for the last few centuries. Every part of her body ached, and there was a lightness to her chest that wasn’t normal, as if she were still asleep and dreaming all of this.
Nate.
She sat up on a bed that was almost as big as the one in her hotel room on Song Island, but fluffier, like sleeping on clouds. She swung her legs off the bed and took in the room. A closet to her right, windows in front, and a door to her left. Barren white walls, and old-fashioned wooden floors.
Gaby blinked away the sun, loose hair falling over her face. She swiped at them and stood up. She regretted it almost immediately, and had to reach over to the wall to keep from falling. Her legs were jelly and her stomach growled from hunger. Her throat was sore and felt constricted, and she flinched when she touched it.
She forced herself to pad across the room, determined to reach the window, drawn to the bright warm light. Voices from outside made her move faster. Strength returned to her legs with every step, and by the time she reached the window, she felt like herself again.
Almost.
Dainty peach-colored curtains lifted gently against a slight breeze flowing through the open window. At the prospect of meeting other people, she became aware that she wasn’t just shoeless, but wearing only white cotton panties and a bra. She didn’t remember either articles of clothing when she had los
t consciousness last night.
Was it last night? It felt longer.
She brushed aside the curtains and was confronted with burglar bars over the window. She peered down at the city street below her. No, not a city, more like a small town in the countryside. She should know. She had lived in a small town for most of her life.
People moved along the sidewalks. Adults and children in civilian clothes. A pair of men rode by on horses in the street, the clop-clop-clop of horseshoes against concrete making for a strange sound and an even odder sight.
Where the hell am I?
She made sure to keep herself hidden, very aware of her half-nakedness. A woman was holding a boy’s hand as they stood on the sidewalk watching the men on horseback pass them by. The boy waved at the horsemen. They waved back. The woman smiled, even beamed.
This isn’t right.
She looked behind her at the door and walked quickly over to it. She grabbed the doorknob and to her surprise, it turned—except the door didn’t move. There was a deadbolt or some kind of lock on the other side. She pulled at it harder, but the door wouldn’t budge. She leaned toward it, listening for sounds. There was nothing.
She banged her fist once on the door, shouted, “Hello? Can anyone hear me?”
She waited, ear pressed against the smooth wood, but there was no reply.
Where the hell was she?
Gaby slammed her fist into the door again, and shouted louder, “Is anyone out there? Can anyone hear me?”
Finally, she heard footsteps approaching. Heavy footsteps.
Combat boots.
Gaby scanned the room, looking for a weapon. She felt naked without her guns.
There was nothing in the room that could be mistaken for a weapon. Whoever had put her in here had made sure of that. There were just the big pillows on the bed and the duvet she had thrown aside when she woke up. A small end table next to the bed, spalted maple, with tall, thin legs, and an armoire next to the window.
“Adapt or perish.”
Gaby moved quickly across the room and picked up the end table by two of its legs. It was surprisingly light and barely weighed more than a pound despite its length. She hurried back to the door, moving on tiptoes to keep the noise down. She lifted the nightstand up to her shoulders, positioning herself near the hinges of the door so that whoever opened it wouldn’t be able to see her right away.
She sucked in a breath and waited.
The footsteps finally reached the door, and moments later, she heard the deadbolt retracting. Then the door opened slowly, cautiously, and she gripped the legs of the end table even tighter. A man’s head peered in, looking toward the bed, and she saw the barrel of an AK-47 over the man’s shoulder.
She smashed the table down on top of the man’s head, breaking all four legs on impact. The man slumped to the floor and Gaby grabbed the door and threw it open and—
Stared at a man holding a Glock in her face.
He was short, and for a moment she thought he was a kid. As the adrenaline faded, the kid morphed into a man who stood five feet away from the door. It suddenly occurred to her that he had probably used the first man as bait.
He motioned for her to step back, and she did. He grinned, showing perfect teeth—except for a big gap in the front, which looked like a dark tunnel surrounded by white pearls.
“I told this dummy you were probably going to try something,” the man said. “Girls, I told him, you just can’t trust them. Always conniving, am I right?” The short man stepped over the other man stirring on the floor. “Can I call you Gaby?”
“Sure,” Gaby said, “as long as you tell me where I am.”
“You can call me Mason.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He grinned. He was either very satisfied with himself, or maybe that was just his natural look. Either way, she battled the urge to leap forward and punch him in the face.
“Where the hell am I?” she asked.
She had retreated all the way back to the bed. She saw the way Mason looked at her—leered at her, really—but she had learned to detach herself from that kind of overt pig behavior a long time ago. Now, she allowed him to get a good look while she used the time to go over her options.
Not that she had very many at the moment, but if training with Will and Danny had taught her anything, it was that there were always options, a way out. You just had to look for it. The problem was, some were trickier to recognize than others.
She used the time to gather intelligence, looking past Mason without letting him know she was doing it. There was a long hallway behind him, doors, and the beginning of a staircase at the far end.
“L15,” Mason said.
“What?”
“This place. L15.”
“L15?” she repeated. “What kind of name is that?”
Mason holstered his gun. He had wisely kept a large enough distance between them that Gaby estimated she would need at least a full two seconds to reach him. That was plenty of time for him to see her coming.
The asshole’s smarter than he looks.
“They haven’t gotten around to giving the place a proper name yet,” Mason said. “Right now it’s just L15.”
Behind Mason, the first man was slowly pulling himself up from the floor. He got to his knees and rubbed at his head, and when he saw blood on his palms, he gave Gaby a nasty glare.
Mason glanced back and chuckled. “You might want to get that looked at, Mac. You don’t look so hot.”
Mac picked himself up from the floor with some effort, made sure he still had his AK-47, then stumbled back through the open door, dripping blood as he went.
“How did I get here?” Gaby asked.
“You don’t know?” Mason said.
“I don’t remember.”
“It’ll all come back to you eventually.”
“Where’s Nate?”
“Who?”
“The man I was with.”
“What do I look like, your personal assistant? How the fuck should I know.”
Mason turned and stepped over the pieces of the end table scattered on the floor. For a second—just a second—she considered rushing him, but he was too far away, and her chances were slim.
“They’ll bring you some food soon,” Mason said, stepping into the hallway. “If you’re smart, you won’t try this again. I’m a patient man, but some of these guys, like Mac? Not so much.” He looked back at her, one hand on the doorknob, eyes roaming her body without an ounce of discretion. “There are clothes in the closet. It’s been a while since these boys have seen a hot piece of ass like you, so you might want to cover up, show less skin, if you know what I mean.”
He closed the door and she heard the deadbolt sliding back into place, then footsteps fading into the background.
Gaby remembered flashes of images from last night—was it last night? Maybe longer, from the way her stomach was growling. Her tongue felt as if it were moving across an arid desert.
Nate…
The loud, rumbling sound of an approaching vehicle (vehicles?) invaded her thoughts. She hurried across the room and back to the window, and saw a group of green military transport trucks moving down the street. She remembered them from the camp in Sandwhite Wildlife State Park, though these were probably not the same ones. Or were they?
People in the streets had stopped to watch as five of the trucks entered town, moving at very slow speeds. Not that they had to. There were no other vehicles anywhere that she could see, unless you counted the half dozen people on horseback.
As the trucks drove under her window, Gaby glimpsed the faces of men, women, and children looking out from the back flaps. Bright, smiling faces. Eager faces. The trucks came to squelching stops, and people began climbing out of the backs. Pregnant women, dozens of them, were helped down from their own transports. More people came out of buildings, gathering in the streets and converging on the newcomers, offering food, water, handshakes, and hugs.
&nb
sp; They think this is salvation. This place. This…L15.
She felt a hollowness in her stomach that had nothing to do with the lack of food. Her mind spun, trying to understand, processing everything she was seeing, everything she had learned the last few days.
Sandwhite. Josh. And now, L15.
She remembered what Will had said, back when they first discovered the camp in Sandwhite: “I think we’re looking at the next phase of whatever final solution the ghouls are moving toward.”
Was this it? The final solution? Humans living in towns run by ghouls?
She shivered even as she listened to the bright, contagious laughter coming from the street below her, the very real, very unmistakable sounds of people delirious with happiness.
This is how mankind ends. Not with resistance, but with laughter…
CHAPTER 36
WILL
“SO MANY CARS,” Zoe said. “You’d think there would be at least one that would work. My feet are killing me.”
They had been walking for the last hour, ever since they climbed down from the Harvest water tower and discovered the Ford F-150 destroyed. The truck’s engine was gutted and the battery missing. Will expected the truck to be useless after the damage it endured last night, but the fact that they took the battery was unexpected. He wondered if it had anything to do with Kate being here last night. The ghouls tended to act unpredictable when the blue-eyed ones were around.
His pack had felt disturbingly light as he climbed down the water tower, reminding him that he was carrying around empty magazines for the carbine and Glock. On the ground again, he took a moment to wipe goop and blood and guts off the knife as best he could by running it through the grass. They walked away from the water tower, over the cemetery of bones bleached white by the sun around the base of the structure. The lingering smell of vaporized flesh was suffocating and Zoe threw up twice before she finally made it to the other side.
His clothes were drenched in blood, pus, and tainted flesh, and he had begun breathing through his mouth. Zoe took twenty minutes to clean his bandages and check his stitches.