by Sam Sisavath
She offered the gun back and looked at him, as if to say, “Here’s your second chance to turn it down.”
Josh hesitated. It was always Matt who led the group and made the major decisions. Matt was bigger, stronger, and older. It was Matt who went into the rooms first when it was too dark, or took risks that freaked Josh out. It was always Matt…
But Matt couldn’t do any of those things now, and Gaby was giving him Matt’s gun.
He understood what she was doing. She was trusting him. The very idea horrified him, and at the same time made him swell with pride.
I’m the guy…
Josh took the gun for the second time.
“It’s loaded,” she said, “so be careful with it.”
“Do I have to pull this back?” he asked, his thumb on the hammer. It was heavy, and he had to exert a lot of strength just to pull it back even a little.
“No,” she said, “but it makes shooting easier.” She looked at him closely for a moment. “Maybe I should keep it…”
“No,” Josh said quickly. “It’s a gun. Guns are simple things, that’s what makes them so deadly. Anyone can use them.”
She didn’t look entirely convinced, but nodded anyway.
Josh sat back down and placed the gun on the floor next to him. “Matt will probably be fine,” he said.
“Yeah, probably,” she said, and smiled back at him.
He could tell she was lying, too.
*
Around three in the afternoon, it seemed like Matt was getting better. Or at least, he stopped shaking, and for a moment Josh was afraid he had died. But no, he wasn’t dead. Matt had simply gone to sleep. His face, already pale for the last few hours, now turned an almost opaque shade of white. The only movement was the steady rise and fall of his chest.
Gaby felt Matt’s forehead. “It’s so much hotter than before. He’s really burning up.”
“What does that mean?” Josh asked.
“I don’t know, Josh. But it’s probably not good.”
“But look at him,” Josh said. He stood up and walked over to stand beside Gaby. “He just looks asleep.”
“He shouldn’t be this hot, though. This isn’t just a fever.”
“Maybe we should—” Josh started, but stopped himself. He looked down and saw he was holding the gun in his right hand.
When did I pick the gun up?
“What is it?” Gaby asked. Then she saw the gun. “Josh…”
He looked over at Matt, and he could feel Gaby watching him closely.
“Not yet, Josh,” Gaby said.
“When?” he asked, not even sure he wanted to know the answer.
“I don’t know, but not yet. He’s still…Matt.”
“But he won’t be for long. Look at him. You said it yourself. He’s not getting better, he’s getting worse.”
“I’m not a doctor, Josh. I could be wrong. I probably am wrong.”
But he didn’t buy it. She wasn’t committed to the answer. She wanted to believe. So did he. But he had eyes, and it was hard to believe when his eyes told him something completely different.
“Gaby,” he said, “you should step back.”
“Why?”
Because I’m the guy, he thought, but said, “Just in case.”
She seemed to think about it, then got up and began moving away from Matt.
She had gotten three steps before Josh shot Matt in the head.
He expected the gun to buck a little harder. There was a kick—a big kick—but not big enough to knock his aim completely off. Maybe he had actually expected it and was able to absorb it. Or maybe he felt so numbed by what he was about to do that when the kick happened, he hardly felt it.
There was a lot of blood. Or something that looked like blood. It was thick and clumpy, and it was splashed across the bedroll and the concrete floor around Matt’s head and on the wall behind him. There were thick gobs of it everywhere.
Gaby turned back around and looked at what was left of Matt. She didn’t say a word.
I’m the guy…
“What should we do with the body?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we should put it outside.”
“I guess.”
“It’s still light outside. We could take him farther away—”
Josh suddenly lost his voice when Matt sat up on the bedroll. Gaby let out a loud, bloodcurdling noise and stumbled backward, her hands clamping over her mouth.
Josh didn’t know what was happening, but found himself backpedaling with her.
Matt was dead. He had to be dead. But then dead people didn’t sit up and stare back at you. And Matt had done exactly that. Was doing exactly that. Which should have been impossible, because Matt didn’t have a brain anymore. Josh knew this because he was the one who had splattered Matt’s brains all over the bedroll and wall and floor.
So how was he still moving?
Like the bloodsucker at the store…
Josh lifted the gun, and that was when Matt seemed to notice him for the first time. Except Matt’s eyes had changed. They were black now. Like a bloodsucker’s. His skin had started to harden, and strands of his hair fell free as he sat up.
Then he heard Gaby’s voice behind him, filling the basement, shouting, “Shoot him! Shoot him, Josh!”
Josh shot Matt again.
This time he actually felt the gun kicking, and it was all he could do to hold on to the revolver with both hands.
He shot again.
Both bullets hit Matt in the chest. Except Matt didn’t go down, didn’t even seem to feel the gunshots. Both bullets had gone clean through Matt and embedded in the wall behind him, leaving two small holes in his shirt.
Matt was almost on his feet when Josh shot him again, and again, and again.
He kept squeezing the trigger until all he heard was the click-click of the hammer striking down on empty chambers.
“Run!” Josh screamed.
Gaby turned and raced to the stairs. Josh ran after her, and he was halfway to the stairs when he saw Matt’s backpack on the crates in the corner. Josh stopped at the last second and ran over and grabbed the backpack.
He heard Gaby, from the top of the stairs, shouting after him, “Josh, come on! What are you doing?”
“I’m coming!” he shouted back.
Josh ran back to the stairs and took the first step, then the second, then a third—and risked a glance over his shoulder. Matt had stood up and was looking at him, and as he tilted his head—in some kind of curious pose—something solid but also wet dropped out of the hole in the back of his head and plopped to the floor behind him.
“Josh!” Gaby’s voice, pulling him back to the present.
Josh turned and ran, taking the next few steps two at a time until he was at the top of the stairs, where Gaby was waiting for him. Her eyes met his and for a split second he recalled that first night in his basement.
He slipped through the door and grabbed it and slammed it shut. There were no locks on this side of the basement door, but that didn’t matter. It was still afternoon, and there was sunlight outside. He could feel the heat in the air. He fled through the living room after Gaby, kicking aside a chair and knocking free a vase along the way but not giving a damn.
They burst out into the sunlight, racing down the porch, and stopped only when he could feel the harsh rays against his face. Gaby lowered herself into a crouch next to him, gasping for breath. Josh looked back through the open front door. He could see easily through the house, down the hallway, with the basement at the very end.
The basement door opened a fraction, and a dark, blackened hand with prune skin peeked out from the other side, feeling along the frame. Josh waited, but no one (no thing) came out. Instead, the door closed again, softly, and there was only silence.
He looked down at the gun in his hand. He didn’t know how he had held on to it the entire time. But it was empty now, and the gun felt lighter. He looked at Matt
’s backpack in his left hand and wondered if there were more bullets inside, or if he had risked his life for nothing.
Please, God, let there be more bullets inside.
They stood silently next to each other and stared back at the house, down the hallway, at the closed basement door on the other side. For some reason, Josh expected the door to open again, for Matt to come bursting out and scream that it was just a joke, that he had planned the whole thing as a gag.
They waited for something to happen, and nothing did.
Finally, Josh said, “We should go. We need to find another place before nightfall.”
“Just leave?” Gaby said. Sweat dripped from her face.
“We can’t stay here. We need to find somewhere else before nightfall.”
They heard the sound of a vehicle braking loudly behind them, and they both spun around. Three men were climbing out of a Jeep parked twenty yards away, dust still swirling around the vehicle.
One of the men had a full head of white hair. The other two men walked closely behind the first, both wearing military-style clothes over plain white T-shirts and combat boots. They were both armed with assault rifles that looked ugly and dangerous.
It had been such a long time since he had seen other people besides the three of them that for a moment Josh was paralyzed with indecision. By the time warning bells went off in his head, the men were already ten yards away and getting closer. Josh was also suddenly very cognizant that he had no more bullets left in Matt’s gun.
“Don’t shoot,” the man with white hair said, grinning at them and lifting both hands in mock surrender.
“What do you want?” Josh said.
“Right to business, huh?” He looked away from Josh and over at Gaby. “My name’s Folger. You have a name, miss?”
Gaby didn’t answer. Josh could feel her body tensing up into a ball of nervous energy next to him.
Josh didn’t realize when exactly he made up his mind, but suddenly he was standing protectively in front of Gaby and pointing Matt’s silver chrome revolver at Folger’s face, even cocking back the hammer for effect. “Stay back,” he said, trying to inject as much menace as he could muster into his voice.
The two men behind Folger raised their assault rifles and aimed them at Josh, but for some reason Josh wasn’t afraid. He didn’t know why, maybe it was stupidity, or maybe it was even courage. He could sense Gaby behind him, trembling slightly, and he realized all of a sudden that he would do anything—do everything—to keep her safe.
I’m the guy…
He expected to see fear in Folger’s eyes, but there wasn’t any. Instead, Folger seemed almost amused by the situation. “Are you sure you have any bullets left in that thing, young fella?” Folger asked.
Josh felt his heart miss a beat.
“I heard you firing it a number of times before we pulled up,” Folger continued. “How did you think we knew you were here in the first place? Sound travels these days, you know. Heard that first gunshot from a few streets down. From my count, you fired at least five times. Is my math right, Del?”
One of the men behind Folger, a big man with a bald head and almost no neck, grunted out, “Five sounds about right.”
“What about you, Betts?” Folger asked.
The third man said, “Five, maybe six. I don’t think the kid has any bullets left. I think he’s just playing hero.”
Betts towered over the other two like a scarecrow. He sported a big, ugly scar that ran from the corner of his right eye all the way down to his jawline. Josh found himself wondering how anyone had managed to get high enough to put that scar on Betts’s face.
“You think so?” Folger said. “You just playing hero, young man?”
“Take one step and you’ll find out,” Josh said.
“Oh, that’s dangerous talk,” Del said.
“Kid’s dangerous,” Betts chimed in, though he said it without any trace of humor.
Josh’s eyes darted to his left and right. There was nowhere to go. There was the house behind them, but Matt was in there. The good news was, Matt was in the basement, which still left the rest of the house. If he and Gaby could make it back inside, he could open the backpack and grab more bullets. If there were more bullets to be grabbed. He wasn’t even sure about that.
It was a plan. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was a plan. He only knew he couldn’t let these men get their hands on Gaby. He saw the way all three of them were looking at her, and he didn’t like it one bit.
“Five bullets,” Folger was saying. “At least. The way you were firing it, over and over again, my guess is you didn’t have time to reload before the two of you bolted out of that house. So, I’m willing to bet you either have one bullet left in that gun, or none.”
“You don’t want to find out,” Josh said.
“I think I do,” Del said.
“No, you don’t—”
But he never got the chance to finish before Del walked forward and snatched the gun out of his hand with such swiftness for a man of his size that it stunned Josh. He was still trying to come to terms with what had happened when Folger drew his gun and stepped forward and hit him across the face.
Josh felt a massive stabbing pain, like someone had thrown ten tons of rocks on his head, and he was aware of falling. Then darkness.
From somewhere in the blackness, the sound of screaming cut through.
It wasn’t him screaming, though, it was Gaby…
No, no, I’m the guy… I’m the guy…
CHAPTER 5
LARA
Will considered continuing on to Lancing, a city farther down the road, before stopping for the day, but eventually they decided to pull off Route 69, turning into the driveway of a sprawling estate on the side of the road. It was an impressive house and looked relatively new, with a huge surrounding yard filled with something they had seen plenty of recently—an overgrown lawn that in a year or two would probably end up covering half of the house. They went up a concrete driveway, and Lara saw an attached two-car garage.
She looked back at the man they had picked up, literally, from the road, just to make sure he was still alive. She hadn’t been sure he would even survive the short trip, but he had. The man looked back at her through a mask of pain.
“Man’s got something to live for,” Will had said when they carried him off the road.
She had done the best she could with his wounds, but she didn’t give him much of a chance. The man had, after all, been shot three times and was lying on the road for God knew how long. Fortunately, there was only one bullet still in him—in the right shoulder, about half an inch from shattering his humerus bone, which would have completely taken away the use of his right arm. He was lucky, or as lucky as any man could be with three bullet holes in him.
“Will says you’ve got something to live for,” Lara said to the man.
He looked back at her, and she could tell he wanted to respond, but he couldn’t. His lips quivered and he blinked once, twice, but even that seemed to take a lot out of him.
“Don’t try to speak,” she told him. “We’re going to stop for the day and I’m going to sew you back up. You’ve already survived this long, stay with me for a few more hours and I promise, you’ll live through the night. Do you understand?”
He moved his head. Yes.
Tough guy. Let’s see if he’s tough enough to last the night…
*
Lara waited outside the house with Carly, both of them armed with shotguns. It wasn’t just for show. They were trained on the weapons—had been ever since the ghouls had laid siege to Harold Campbell’s facility in Starch. During the first few days of training, she had gone to sleep with throbbing pain in her shoulders, which wasn’t too bad since every other part of her body from the waist up was also aching. If she thought the Glock had a kick, the shotgun was like getting body-slammed by a mule.
Slowly but surely she had gotten used to it, and though she still felt it every time they d
id target practice, the ear-shattering blast didn’t surprise her anymore and she was able to hit her target. Most of the time, anyway. That was the point of a shotgun. It had spreading power, which made it invaluable in close-quarters battles.
Lara and Carly stood watch at the trucks, with the girls still inside Danny’s Ranger. The man from the road was in the black Ranger, unconscious in the back seat. Lara kept her eyes on the road behind them, a good fifty yards away. The house was big, and she could see at least three bedrooms from the front. She guessed there were probably more inside. Five, maybe six in all.
She glanced down at her watch: 2:11 p.m.
Will and Danny had gone inside ten minutes ago, and she considered it a good sign that they hadn’t fired a single shot. It never took them more than twenty minutes to clear a building, depending on how many rooms they were confronted with.
Lara found herself staring at two Labrador dog statues perched on their hind legs, standing guard at the front doors like dutiful sentries.
“Cute dogs,” Carly said. “If I ever get a house, I’d like one of those. Or maybe one of those weiner dogs. What do you call them?”
“Chihuahuas? I don’t know my dogs.”
“Sounds right.”
“Not much of guard dogs, though.”
“Danny with a shotgun should make up for that.”
Lara smiled at the image of Danny standing permanently outside a house with a shotgun, boyish blond hair fluttering in the breeze. “Now that’s an image.”
“I know, right?” Carly looked over at the black Ranger. “Has he said anything yet? Like his name?”
“He’s trying.”
“Danny said he was shot three times.”
“He was.”
“How do you survive being shot three times?”
“Determination. Guts. A reason to keep living…”