by Sam Sisavath
“No.”
“You won’t have a choice. You never did. Neither will she. None of you ever did. You think you know how long I’ve been planning this? Putting all the pieces into place? You don’t have a clue. You’ll never truly grasp the complexity of it; you couldn’t possibly appreciate how much patience and planning and effort it took to get this far.”
“Shut up,” he said. “You talk too much.”
A hint of anger flared across Mabry’s eyes. “Show some respect.”
“You don’t deserve it.”
The razor-thin smile returned to Mabry’s lips. “I should have taken you outside the bank. It would have been mercy. For both of us. All it would have taken was a few hundred more of my children.”
“You made a mistake.”
“Yes. I did. I thought I saw something in you, something Kate thought she saw, too. But we were both wrong.”
“She’s dead. Kate.”
“Yes, she is. You took her from me.”
“You can join her.”
“No, I won’t. Every mistake can be rectified, but you will never find peace with your precious Lara. You will never find peace anywhere, because you will never leave this room alive.”
“We’ll see.”
He gripped the hilt of the knives even tighter and took the first step across the room.
“Come then,” Mabry said, and this time the ghoul’s voice thrummed, hollow and lifeless, inside his head. “Show me what you’ve learned. Show me how you’ll succeed where whole armies have failed. Show me.”
His walk became a run—faster, faster, faster—and he was on the other side of the room in the blink of an eye, and slashing—
—and missed!
He had been fast. As fast as he had ever been. Faster than he thought he was capable of—and it hadn’t been enough. It hadn’t even been close.
“Pathetic,” Mabry said.
He shut off the pain receptors to his left arm as soon as Mabry grabbed it by the wrist and broke it, and the knife clattered harmlessly to the hard floor.
“This is it?”
He hacked away with the remaining blade, but Mabry jerked his head back and the blade missed again, and again, and again.
“This is all you have?”
His chest quaked against Mabry’s open palm, bone and muscle quivering against the impact. But there was no pain, just numbness.
“You woke me up for this?”
He swung the knife in desperation at Mabry’s neck, but the ghoul effortlessly sidestepped it and got ahold of his arm, snapping it at the elbow.
“How sad.”
The second knife fell away as he stumbled back. Long—impossibly long—and warm fingers snatched him around the throat before he could retreat too far, and flung him across the room into one of the lockers. He collapsed to the floor, the warm body hanging in the locker coming loose from the impact and collapsing on top of him.
“Kate spoke so highly of you.”
He struggled to stand, but it was difficult with arms that didn’t—and couldn’t—obey his commands. At least he couldn’t feel the pain.
“She would be disappointed by this effort.”
He managed to stand and attempted to refocus on Mabry as the air around him shifted and then the ghoul was there, in front of him and grabbing him by the throat again and slamming him into the locker. Metal fragments stabbed through his back, and blood splashed the cold concrete.
“I expected more from you,” Mabry said, and smashed him into the locker, twisted sharp metal spearing his back and drawing more blood.
“I expected more fight.”
And again, into the remains of the locker. Bam!
“I expected more spirit.”
Bam!
“But Kate was wrong.”
Bam!
“And so was I.”
Bam!
“You’re just another husk.”
Bam!
“And that’s all you’ll ever be.”
The fingers finally, mercifully released him and he slid to the floor, a heap of shattered bones and ripped flesh. Blood pooled under him. Too much blood. All his. His senses were out of control, and he couldn’t focus on any one thing.
“You’re not who I thought you were,” Mabry said, talking aloud now. “Maybe you never were. I welcomed you to my side, but maybe I shouldn’t have.” Thin lips formed a frown, the disappointment radiating from every pore of the creature’s blackened flesh. “You don’t deserve it.”
“Yes,” he said, forcing the word out through a sheet of blood that dripped down his face from the open gashes along his skull. He didn’t feel any pain, but he knew it was there.
His body was broken. Everything was broken.
“Yes?” Mabry said, standing over him.
Blood dripped from the ghoul’s fingers, the rhythmic drip-drip-drip as intoxicating as what poured out of his back, his thighs, and his arms where the sharp edges of the locker had dug deep enough to slice bone.
“Yes,” he said again.
Mabry bent and grabbed him by the throat and lifted him effortlessly into the air. He had no strength left to resist. The ghoul held him in place as if he were nothing—and maybe he was nothing.
Concentrate! the voice from somewhere in his past shouted. Make it count! This is it! Make it count! You won’t get another chance!
You won’t get another chance!
He thought of Lara. It was always Lara at the back of his mind, even in his lowest of low moments. She was always there—a radiant glow, waiting to bring him back from the abyss, back to where things mattered.
Except there was something wrong with his memory of her this time. She wasn’t quite as easy to see, the crystal blue of her eyes not quite as bright, and he began to lose his way.
Lara. Lara!
“Yes?” Mabry said, leaning forward. “Yes what, Will?”
“You’re right,” he said. Croaked. Whispered?
“About what?”
“I can’t beat you.”
“No, you can’t. You never could. And you never will.”
“I can’t beat you…”
“You said that already,” Mabry said. “So what made you think you ever could?”
“I can’t beat you,” he said for the third time.
Mabry sighed and his face softened. It was such a human emotion for such an inhuman creature. Even his grip seemed to lessen out of mercy, though the ghoul didn’t let him down.
“Good-bye, Will. Go with the knowledge that you won’t be alone for very long. She’ll join you—your precious Lara. Then Danny and Gaby and the others will follow. In the years to come, we’ll train the rest to serve us, and in time they won’t remember any other life. It will be glorious.”
Now, he thought. Now, now, now!
He’d heard the footsteps when they were still in the hallway while Mabry was talking, gloating. By the time he tasted the bitter bite of new silver in the air, the figure had slipped inside the room through the open door and was running—and running fast—at Mabry.
But it wasn’t fast enough.
Mabry spun and struck, and the dark figure flew across the room and crashed into the lockers on the other side.
In that split second, he reached out and grabbed Mabry’s arm, the one still holding him in the air, and pulled himself forward and toward the ghoul. It was difficult because of his mangled hands, and getting a good grip was impossible, so he wrapped his shattered appendages around Mabry’s arm instead and kicked out and backward at the wall behind him for leverage.
Mabry turned, eyes enlarging—not in fear, no, he was beyond that—as he lunged forward. If Mabry knew what he was going to do, he didn’t stop him in time. Despite everything—his superior speed, his impossible strength—Mabry entertained a brief moment of indecision, of confusion.
That was just enough time for Will—
(My name is Will!)
—to open his mouth, extending his jaw as wide as it would go�
��and even wider still—before biting down, his teeth tearing through flesh and then the cranium itself. It was surprisingly weak and flimsy, for all the power it was sheltering, but even so two of Will’s teeth, then a third and a fourth and a fifth shattered against the frontal bone as he made contact.
And he kept pushing and pushing until he was through and finally, finally tasted the mushy thing underneath.
Mabry screamed, and a mind-numbing explosion of pain erupted inside Will’s mind. It echoed and burst and reformed and imploded again and again, even as Will tasted flesh in his mouth and blood dripped from his teeth. And this time it wasn’t just his blood.
He collapsed to the floor in a pile of pulverized bones and speared flesh as Mabry stumbled. The ghoul’s legs gave way and he dropped to his knees, hands groping at the chunk of missing flesh and bone even as he continued to scream inside Will’s head, his pain and misery piercing the river of consciousness that linked the two of them—that linked all of them.
Listen, Will thought, projecting his voice out into the hive mind. Listen!
And they did. He could sense the fear in the ones inside the tunnel just beyond the dome, from the others nesting inside the buildings around them, desperately waiting for nightfall. More than that, he could feel the ones in the other parts of the city, the state, and beyond, every single one of them watching and listening and witnessing Mabry’s fury and pain.
The images and sounds of the encounter had started broadcasting when Will first confronted the five blue-eyed ghouls, when he brought down his mental defenses and rejoined the brood, and the link remained intact when he showed himself to Mabry.
And they had listened and watched and felt every blow and pain, including the fight that proved not to be much of a fight after all. They were seeing and hearing everything he was, and the signal only got stronger as more of them plugged in.
One became two, two became four, and on and on until the numbers reached the tens of thousands, then the millions, and more.
He could sense the blue eyes trying to take control, trying to demand the hive’s attention, and failing miserably. The brood was enraptured by the sight of Mabry’s agony, the undeniable sound of his pain.
Listen! Will shouted. Do you see? Can you hear it? Can you feel it? Listen!
Mabry continued to scream, the full extent of his pain beyond anything Will had ever experienced. And he had done that. He had attacked and conquered the father—the beginning and the end, the nothing and the everything, the nowhere and the everywhere—and left him bruised and bleeding and dying.
Will rolled the meaty, gooey substance he had found with his teeth around in his mouth before finally swallowing it down. He savored the taste clinging to the roots of his shattered and bleeding mouth, not because he wanted to, but because he wanted them—all of them—to see and know it along with him.
I did this, he said without saying it. I did this!
Blood oozed down the corners of his mouth and dripped from his chin as he stood up—rising slowly, but rising nonetheless. His legs weren’t working correctly, but they obeyed him enough to carry him forward, toward Mabry, and he stood over the kneeling ghoul, whose voice continued to cry out in his mind.
The ghoul looked up at him and its thin lips quivered, though no words came out. Its eyes seemed to have dulled, more ash than blue now. There was an emptiness about the way it looked up at him, at once defiant and yet weak.
Do you see it? he said into the hive mind. Look at him. Do you see it?
Then Will shoved his fist through the open hole in Mabry’s forehead, and the spongey black and blue-veined thing on the other side offered no resistance whatsoever. He pulled his hand out as the ghoul collapsed to the floor and lay still, and Mabry’s cries faded from his mind.
Will walked back to the lockers, finding renewed strength from a place he couldn’t fathom, and sat down. He leaned against a pair of dangling feet and watched the black-clad human figure reappear, dragging one leg behind him as he approached tentatively.
The man stepped over Mabry’s body, then came over to crouch next to Will. Bright red blood covered the lower half of his face, and his breathing was ragged and slightly out of control, but he was also grinning.
“How many times have I told you not to run off all by your little lonesome like that, huh?” Danny said. “Now look at you. All bleeding and broken and shit. By the way, that was gross. You bit his fucking head off. That’s got to be the most fucking gross thing I’ve ever seen in my life, man.”
“I…adapted,” Will said. His voice came out odd, the result of broken teeth. Maybe he had just mumbled the words, though Danny seemed to understand him fine.
“So taking a literal bite out of the bad guy wasn’t part of the original plan, huh?”
“No.”
“But it worked. That’s all that matters, right? Plan G is officially in the books.”
“Not over,” he said. It was easier to say as few words as possible. There was no pain—he was beyond feeling pain at the moment—but the damage was severe all over.
Danny glanced back at Mabry’s body, then at the open door. He gripped the knife in his fist. A cross-knife with a silver blade. “What the hell are you talking about? The plan was to kill King Ghoul, and it’s game over. Cut off the head and the body dies. Right?”
“No.”
“No? What do you mean, no?” Danny narrowed his eyes at him. “You lied, didn’t you? You lied to us. Lara. Me. Everyone.”
“Yes.”
“You dick.”
“Not over.”
“Now what?”
“Help me. Up.”
“And then?”
“Finish it,” Will said. “One more. Thing. Left. Then…it’s over.”
Danny sighed, wrapping his arms around Will’s thin frame. “It’s time to get a new wardrobe, by the way. You look like a hobo. And oh, have I mentioned you’re bleeding? Like, a lot?”
“I know.”
“What the hell’s wrong with your body?”
“Broken.”
“That explains it.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, I’d say it matters, dude.”
“Doesn’t matter. One more. Left. Then…over.”
Will felt them stirring finally—the creatures in the tunnel beyond the hallway. The black eyes. A few hundred here, a few thousand out there, and the millions (billions) beyond. They waited, confused and agitated.
But mostly confused.
My children, Will projected. My brood. The father is dead. But you’re not alone. You’ll never be alone.
“You wanna give me some directions here?” Danny said as he pulled them up from the floor with some effort.
“Outside,” Will said.
“It’s still day out there.”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Outside.”
“You are aware that you’re still all spindly and shit? Or did you lie about that, too?”
“No.”
“So what then, Mr. Mushy Mouth?”
“Help me. Danny. Stop. Talking.”
“Might as well tell me to stop breathing,” Danny said as he half walked and half dragged the both of them to the door. “By the way, I think one of my legs is broken, thanks for asking.”
“You’ll. Be. Fine.”
“Shows what you know. I’m pretty sure one of my kidneys flew out of my mouth when that thing hit me, too. Is that possible? Can you lose a kidney through your mouth? Christ, you’re bleeding a lot. I’m drowning in this stuff. By the way, I’m having a kid. Did I tell you that? God, you’re bleeding a lot. It’s like a friggin’ Free Ketchup for Everyone Day back here.”
“Danny…”
“So this is it, huh?”
“I’m sorry.”
“What do you have to be sorry for? I’m the one dragging your skinny ass around, Mister Hobo. I’m the one doing all the work. But then, what else is new?”
“Sorry. Dan
ny. I’m…sorry.”
“Sorry’s not gonna fix this, man. You thought about what I’m gonna do without someone to try my awesome jokes on first?”
“You’ll. Do. Fine. All…of you. Look. After. Her. For…me.”
Danny didn’t say anything.
“Danny…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Danny said. “It’s not like I got anything else better to do, you selfish prick.”
Will smiled. A true smile this time, he was sure of it, as his friend led him to the door one step at a time.
He could sense the black eyes out there, in the tunnel, waiting for them. For him. The confusion lingered among them, but there was something else that hadn’t been there before: a growing anticipation, almost excitement.
Follow me, Will thought, pushing his voice into the hive mind. He heard it reverberate through the stream of consciousness, from one mind to the next, to the next. Don’t be afraid. There’s nothing to fear.
“No!” the blue eyes shouted, their voices rising from the ranks of the brood. They were desperate, demanding attention. “Don’t listen to the traitor! Ignore him!”
Will continued projecting, because he could feel it: He had them. The black eyes were listening to him, and him only.
I’ll show you the way, he said, his voice growing with confidence as it expanded further and further, to more and more minds.
Follow me, he said, trumping the fading voices of the blue eyes as the hive, as one, turned to him.
Follow me, he called out, his voice soothing and comforting, the way Mabry’s had been before him. The father’s dead, but you’re not alone. You’ll never be alone.
Follow me, and I’ll show you the way back to the light…
32
Lara
“We’ve engaged the enemy. I repeat: We’ve engaged the enemy.”
The calm voice coming through the Comm Room’s speakers belonged to Peele, the man in charge of the three tanks that were at this very moment butting up against the main roadblock into Houston. Peele and Rolling Thunder’s goal was less to actually break through and more to keep the collaborators from leaving their posts and interfering with Striker’s mission, which was to link up with Willie Boy and take the fight directly to Mabry. A year ago that kind of tactical planning would have made Lara question who she was; these days, it was just another decision that she hoped didn’t get too many people killed.