by Sam Sisavath
Behind her, Danny leaned against a wall next to the open door, spooning meat from a can of SPAM as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks.
“Any suggestions?” she asked him.
“Speak from the heart,” Danny said. “Wherever that is.”
“Thanks for that.”
“Any time.”
She turned to Keo, sitting on a chair in a corner. He had found another can of warm beer and was balancing it on one knee as he looked back at her. If not for the scars and bruises, he could easily have been mistaken for the guest at someone’s backyard Fourth of July party, a man without a care in the world.
“What about you?” she asked.
“Have a sip; it’ll loosen you up,” Keo said, holding up the can in offering.
“No thanks. I learned my lesson the first time.”
“Your loss,” he said, and took a drink. “Christ, this thing sucks.”
“So why do you keep drinking it?” Danny asked.
“It was either this or water.”
“Now that’s one fine answer.”
Lara looked back at Jane. The young woman was smiling at her, as if she knew something Lara didn’t. Lara had seen that same expression on other faces, including Jolly and a few others she’d passed in the hallways on her way here.
She should have been terrified of what she was about to do, what all of them were asking her to do. For God’s sake, what did she know about leading people? About convincing traumatized soldiers to voluntarily go back to war when they had already been through so much?
This is insane. This is completely and utterly insane.
But she nodded at Jane anyway. “Okay.”
Jane turned around in her chair and pressed a button on the dashboard. “You’re connected to the intercom. Hit the transmit lever and you’ll go live.”
She took a breath, then keyed the microphone and raised it to her lips.
“This is Lara.” She paused, closed her eyes for a bit, then opened them again. “Some of you may know who I am. I’m no one special. I’m just like you, trying to survive this madness the best way I know how. But things are different now. For me. For you. For all of us.”
She hesitated, but this time didn’t depress the transmit lever.
“I came here to ask for your help. I need your help…to put an end to this fear that consumes me every time I close my eyes and try to go to sleep. This endless nightmare that we’re all living in. Right now, as I speak, we are making preparations for an attack on the enemy. The real enemy. The ghouls. The nightcrawlers. Whatever you want to call them. The things that hide in the shadows and stalk us night after night after relentless night. There is a plan to end this, to save everyone. But I need your help.”
Another pause. It was so much easier when she was practicing the speech in her head. Now, having to say it out loud with everyone watching and listening…
“It won’t be easy. I won’t lie to you. It’s going to take determination and blood and sweat and tears. But if you help me, if we come together under this single purpose, I believe we can strike a crippling blow against the enemy and take back the night.”
She took a breath.
One second, two…
“We’re going to be holding meetings for as long as it takes. Everyone is welcome to attend and ask questions. Ask anything. Ask everything. Nothing is off the table. Nothing will be held back. But you don’t have to come. This is voluntary. I won’t force you to meet with me, and neither will Rhett or anyone else. If you show up, it will be because you want to. Because like me, you look out there and you’re tired of living in fear.”
She was drained, emotionally and physically, and even keeping the transmit lever pressed seemed to take a lot out of her.
She took another deep breath and let time slip by.
One second, two, three…
“Forget about Mercer. Forget about his war, or what happened today with those loyal to him. This isn’t about him or them. This isn’t even about us. This is about your children, or the children you’ll have one day. Your children’s children. For all the generations that are going to come after us. This is for them. Don’t let them inherit a world where they have to hide from the monsters like we did.”
Another deep breath.
“We’ve lost people. Every single one of us. Friends. Family. Loved ones. We’ve all suffered and made sacrifices. We’ve done things that we aren’t proud of. I’ve been there. I’ve done all of them and more. Every single one of us has. None of us are angels. We’re just survivors trying to keep going the best way we know how. We’ve made mistakes along the way. Terrible mistakes. We’ve put our faith in people who didn’t deserve it.”
She thought about Mercer, about Will, Keo, about Carly and the kids…
“The past is the past, and it can’t be undone. But in the here and now, we can affect the future. Because this is it. This is the chance we’ve been waiting for. What we do or don’t do in the next few days will decide the path of humanity for generations to come. This is the opportunity we’ve all been waiting for.”
She released the transmit lever and took a breath.
One second, two…five…
“There is a plan to strike back at the enemy—the real enemy—and end this nightmare once and for all. But I need your help…”
20
Gaby
She was making sure the locks on the suitcase were in place for the third time in the last hour when Blaine finally returned to the barn. He was wiping dirt off his hands, and despite the fact they were all wearing mostly dark clothing, she could still make out the specks of dry blood on his shirt and under his chin. He tossed the shovel with the chipped wooden handle near the shelf where he had found it this morning and dug out a water bottle from his pack.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Gave her a nice spot under a tree about fifty yards from here,” Blaine said. “Took a while. The ground is a lot harder than it looks.”
“I could have helped.”
“Not with that shoulder. Besides, you’re going to be carrying her load from now on; might as well save it for that.”
She nodded and picked up her pack and slung it on. The duffel bag that Bonnie had been carrying since they reinserted into Texas sat nearby, and she picked that up and tossed it into the backseat of the Ford. Blaine did the same with his bag before walking to the suitcase, kicking at the empty rolls of duct tape she had used to seal the piece of luggage.
“How are we for gas?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Keep an eye out for a replacement. Our best bet is to find a car that still has some usable gas left.”
“What are the chances of that?”
“We found this one, didn’t we?”
“We got lucky.”
“Yeah, well, maybe we’ll keep getting lucky.”
Tell Bonnie that, she thought as she helped him lift the suitcase and shove it into the backseat.
“You radio the Trident yet?” Blaine asked.
“I did.”
“Did you tell them about Bonnie?”
“No. I just told them we were still on course.”
Blaine nodded solemnly. “The mission was always to get Will to where he needs to be. We’re still ahead of schedule when it comes to that, so nothing’s changed. Any news from Black Tide?”
“They made contact, and the guy in charge’s supposed to show up and meet with Lara.”
“She’ll get it done.”
“She didn’t sound all that confident.”
“She’ll get it done,” Blaine repeated without a shred of doubt.
She nodded. She wanted to share his confidence, but too many things had already gone wrong for her to be absolutely certain. She didn’t say it out loud, though. Blaine didn’t need to hear them, and frankly, neither did she.
Blaine walked around the Ford truck while Gaby went back for her rifle. She picked it up and paused, staring down at Bonnie’s M4 leaning nearby. There was blo
od on the grip and some on the barrel; she hadn’t noticed them last night, but they were clear now in the morning light.
“Kid,” Blaine called from the other side of the truck.
“What about Bonnie’s rifle?”
“Leave it. Maybe someone will find some use for it later.”
Gaby hurried to the front doors and threw them open. Sunlight pierced the barn and she blinked against the brightness, and for a moment—just a very brief moment—let herself be lost in the welcoming heat.
Then she turned around and climbed into the Ford as Blaine fired up the engine.
“How far?” she asked, glancing over at the fuel gauge.
“Not far enough,” he said, and put the car in gear.
“Not far enough” turned out to be twenty miles short of their ultimate destination. Or, at least, that was according to one of the signs on the highway where the Ford eventually slowed down, groaned for a few seconds, then simply stopped working.
Even so, she had to be happy; they had made pretty good time despite having to constantly use back and smaller country roads to avoid detection. Simply taking the on-ramp onto the freeway was out of the question, as tempting as it was. There were too many potential dangers to worry about, and all it would take was one prolonged skirmish with a collaborator patrol—or one of Mercer’s kill teams—to not just delay them but grind the mission to a halt. And they couldn’t afford that. Not now. Not after losing Bonnie just to get this far.
They spent the next three hours inside a small town called Henley looking for a replacement vehicle, or at the very least still-usable fuel. Despite being a small hole in the middle of nowhere, Henley had two gas stations. They pried the storage tank lid open on one of them, and Blaine peered down with a flashlight.
“Give me some good news, Blaine,” Gaby said.
He shook his head. “It’s gone bad. The color’s too dark and”—he wrinkled his nose—“the air’s sour.”
It was the same with the second gas station on the other side of town. Fortunately, Henley was a small community and the “other side” was only a leisurely ten-minute walk away.
“What now?” she asked as Blaine stood up and clicked off his flashlight.
He looked around, then nodded at the garage attached to the station’s store. “Check in there. Maybe someone was smart enough to sock away extra gas with some kind of stabilizer.”
“Really?” she said doubtfully.
He shrugged. “It’s the countryside. People are smarter out here.”
“If you say so. What are you going to do?”
“We passed by a used car lot a few streets back. Maybe they’ll have something we can use.”
“Good luck.”
“I’ll need it,” Blaine said, and was turning to go when she heard it: A car engine.
“Blaine!” she snapped.
But he had heard it too and spun around and darted back toward her before she could even get his name completely out. “Garage!” he hissed.
They had plenty of time to jog across the station. Sound traveled these days, especially in a place as dead as Henley, and the car could have been a mile or two—or five—away when they heard it.
She was glad they had left the bags and suitcase in the Ford, which they had pushed off of the road and into someone’s attached garage. Without the added weight, she was able to move faster and they reached the side building while the sound of car engine was still far off. In fact, they didn’t really have to run at all and she felt a little silly while trying to catch her breath.
The room was just dark enough to give her pause as she opened the door, sunlight spilling inside for possibly the first time in a year. She waited to hear shuffling—telltale signs there were creatures inside—but there was just the haggard rush of air expelling from hers and Blaine’s lungs. The smell that hit her was spilled motor oil and old chemicals and not the foul stench of undead things that shouldn’t exist.
After five seconds inside the semidarkness with no attacks from the shadowed corners, she breathed easier and moved toward the steel metal front door and peered out the small windows at the top.
Blaine appeared next to her. “They’re still a long way off.”
“What are the chances they found the Ford?”
“I don’t think so. Or at least they better hope not.”
He was referring to Will. The garage they had stashed him and the Ford in was pitch-dark, which meant anyone who found him would be making the biggest mistake of their lives, just like the two poor bastards who had tried to kill him back on the Trident.
“Best-case scenario is it’s just a patrol,” Blaine said. “They’ll show up, look around, then leave.”
“And worst case?”
“We weren’t as careful as we thought, and they saw us. Or heard us.”
He was right. Just as they could hear the car coming long before they could see it, it wouldn’t have been difficult for someone else to pick up the Ford’s engine from many miles away.
“Here it comes,” Blaine said.
A white truck with GMC in big red letters on its front grill turned the corner. She thought (hoped) it might go right past them, but the vehicle slowed down and changed to the right lane—toward the entrance into the gas station.
“Shit,” Blaine said.
“They know we’re here.”
“Or maybe they’re stopping for gas.”
“You don’t think they already know the gas here isn’t good anymore?”
He sighed. “Maybe they know we’re here,” he said, and pulled away from the small window and unslung his pack.
“What are you doing?”
“Suppressors,” Blaine said.
She understood and did the same, searching through her pack for the long metal accessory, then screwing it onto the barrel of her carbine.
“Just occurred to me,” Blaine said, “but that GMC looks like a fine replacement, don’t you think?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
He grinned. “That’s what I’m here for. The brains.”
“If you’d told me that beforehand, I wouldn’t have volunteered.”
Blaine chuckled and she smiled, then turned around and peeked out the window at the white truck as it stopped in the wide-open parking lot spaces in front of the gas pumps, to the left of the garage. She said a little silent prayer at the lack of a mounted machine gun in the back, though a man did appear from behind the cab to stretch his arms like he had just woken up from a good nap.
“Collaborators,” Blaine said.
She nodded, noting the black uniform the man standing up in the truck bed was wearing. Of course they would be collaborators. Who else would be driving around out here like they owned the place?
Two more uniformed figures climbed out of the vehicle. The driver was a tall man and his passenger was a woman with a ponytail. They both wore gun belts, though only the man reached back into their truck and pulled out an AK-47. The third man, who remained standing in the truck bed, had also picked up a Kalashnikov and slung it, all the while shielding his eyes from the sun above.
There was just enough distance—about twenty yards—and brightness for Gaby to make out the names on their uniforms. Not that she wanted to know anyway. It was easier to just think of them as obstacles to be taken out.
“This is it?” the driver asked the woman.
“This is it,” the woman said. “There’re only two gas stations in Henley.”
“One-horse town,” the third man said.
“Not even one horse,” the woman said.
The driver walked over to the gas pumps and flicked absently at the nozzles with the barrel of his rifle. “You sure you heard a car, Cory?” he called back to the truck.
Cory, the one in the truck bed, nodded. “It was definitely a car. Heard it clear as a bell.”
“It was probably one of ours,” the woman said.
“Maybe, but you wanted to detour to check, so don’t blame me if
we come up with goose eggs.”
“You’re a better shot than me, right?” Blaine said in a low voice next to her.
“Yeah,” Gaby said.
“You answered that pretty fast.”
“Why, did I hurt your feelings?”
“A little bit.”
“Too bad. I’ll take the two at the truck. You take the driver.”
“Or I take the driver and one of the two at the truck.”
“Okay, sure,” she said. “After you take the driver.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
By the time they maneuvered in the darkness back to the side door and pushed it open (Quietly!), she was afraid the three collaborators might have moved from their last position.
But they hadn’t: The driver was still at the gas pumps, though he had slung his rifle and placed his hands on his hips as he scanned the town. The woman hadn’t bothered to wander away from the truck and was leaning against the hood, looking bored. Cory had produced a pair of binoculars and was peering through them with his back turned to the garage. The three of them looked so disinterested in their surroundings, at the potential dangers hiding in all the buildings, that she almost felt sorry for them.
Gaby stepped out of the garage first, and once she did that there was nowhere to hide, because there were no other structures or covers on this side of the business. She took one, two, three, four steps away from the opening door to give Blaine the freedom to exit and move without her blocking his path. Pebbles on the cement floor crunched (Too loudly!) under her boots with each step, and she glimpsed Blaine out of the corner of her right eye as he hurried forward to get to the corner in order to see his man at the gas pumps.
The woman at the truck either heard her or Blaine’s footsteps, because she turned her head—almost lazily—around.
Twenty yards. Easy peasy.
She didn’t think about the woman as a woman—a fellow human being—and instead just saw her as what she truly was: a target. That made it easy for Gaby to pull the trigger and instantly ignore the sight of the woman dropping, or the fresh splatter of blood on the hood of the white vehicle.