by Sam Sisavath
They stood on the sand, in the darkest part of the beach that Keo could find. The fact that no one had shot him in the last minute or so was proof he had chosen the spot wisely. Sherry didn’t share his confidence and kept looking around them at the darkened corners of the shoreline. For someone who had been shot very recently, she looked pretty okay, though of course he didn’t discount the wonders of the meds he’d given her, then the others she’d gotten once Jonah’s people fixed her up properly.
She turned back to him now. “God, this feels like such a bad idea.”
“It’s the only one I can think of,” Keo said. “Can’t just stay put and wait for them to surround us. And that’s exactly what those snipers are out there for—to keep us pinned. If they had enough men, they would have attacked by now.”
“So you’re going to do what, go out there and kill them?”
“Best case? Yeah. Worst case, I can find out how many are actually out there and adjust accordingly. Right now, we’re just guessing.”
She sighed. “What if you drown?”
“I’m a very good swimmer.”
“How good?”
“Really good.”
She didn’t look convinced, but maybe it had something to do with him standing in nothing but his boxers while shivering against the chilly night air. Or he could have just read her wrong. It was a little difficult to see much of her in the darkness, even standing just a few feet away.
“When was the last time you swam in an ocean like this?” she asked.
“A few years ago.”
“A few years ago?”
“I haven’t exactly been around large bodies of water lately, Sherry, so the opportunities were slim.” He stared at the black Gulf of Mexico, its breeze and cold water washing against his bare legs. “But it’s not something you forget.”
“Should you really be naked? Or mostly naked? It’s really cold in there.”
“I’ll warm up once I’m inside.”
She shook her head. “I thought you were nuts before this afternoon when you tried to talk your way out of getting shot, but this…”
“I don’t see another way. Do you?”
Sherry gave him a resigned look before shaking her head. “I guess there’s nothing left to say, except good luck.”
He shook her hand and glanced over at Jonah’s building. The man himself was leaning over the railing on the side deck watching them. Or, at least, Keo thought that was him. It could have been a human-size pole, given the lack of details.
He turned back to Sherry. “See you in the morning.”
“I hope so,” Sherry said. Then, almost hesitantly, “Hey, thanks.”
“For what?”
“For saving my life yesterday, idiot.”
Keo smiled. “Didn’t think you were ever going to admit it.”
“I can be a little stubborn, too.”
“I’ll see you in the morning, Sherry,” Keo said, and tightened the straps around his body.
“Yeah, see you in the morning,” Sherry said, but he could hear the doubt in her voice.
He didn’t blame her. Keo had nothing but doubts about the plan.
Think positive thoughts. Think positive thoughts…
He took the first step into the water. A shock of electricity rushed through him as the cold ocean licked at his ankles.
This is such a bad idea, he thought, but instead of turning around, he continued forward.
The water reached up along his legs to his knees, then over the bandage along his right thigh, before sloshing around his waist.
He held his breath, thought, This is such a bad, bad idea in so, so many ways, before vanishing under the surface.
It was cold, but he’d been in colder waters before. A lot colder. The middle-of-December type of cold in San Diego’s Mission Beach. Not that that was much comfort as he went out a hundred meters just to be safe, before turning and starting north. He kept the shoreline within sight out of the corner of his left eye at all times, using the lights coming from the houses as a guide so he wouldn’t stray too far.
His legs were starting to ache, but that was not unexpected; he hadn’t gone swimming in such a long time, and his body was having to remember how to do it. By the second one-hundred-meter mark (this time northward) he was doing full strides and barely felt the waves rippling against the side of his body.
He wasn’t entirely sure how long it took, but eventually he located the beach again, and after running up the slanted floor, went into a quick crouch and looked around. The lack of gunfire was the best thing he could have hoped for, and he allowed his eyes to adjust to the new darkness while catching his breath. The months of living in the cabin by himself, with daily treks into Winding Creek, had kept him lean, so Keo wasn’t too fatigued.
Jonah’s was visible to his left farther down the shoreline. He could just barely make out the shapes of a couple of buildings, mostly thanks to the LED lanterns that hung off the second-floor decks. The snipers would probably stay as close to the structures as they possibly could without coming into danger themselves in order to keep an eye on the residents. What were the chances they would anticipate someone swimming out of there?
Or maybe the better question was, what were the chances the snipers would anticipate someone being stupid enough to swim out of there?
His breathing had slowed down when Keo unslung one of his bags and ripped it open with his fingers, then took out the MP5SD. In his experience, the H&K would have worked just fine after being submerged in water, but he hadn’t wanted to take the chance, especially since it was his only gun. He pushed up to his feet and hurried up the beach and toward the field on the other side. He didn’t stop until he was surrounded by grass.
It took him five minutes to change into his dry clothes—cargo pants, T-shirt, and thermal sweater. He slipped the sheathed knife behind his waist and took out the night-vision binoculars that Jonah had lent him. Keo scoured the area just to be sure he was still alone, even though he was pretty sure he was. After all, someone would have shot him by now if he wasn’t.
Good thoughts. Think good thoughts.
He let the binoculars dangle off his neck and got up again, then started moving up the field. It would have been nice to have night-vision goggles so he could see in the dark without having to hold the glasses to his eyes, but Jonah didn’t have any to give him.
Beggars can’t be choosers.
He took his time, grateful that he had at least four hours before morning sunlight. That was plenty. He didn’t make a lot of noise as he pushed through the endless sea of sod, thanks to the lightweight running shoes he’d chosen over the heavier, thicker boots.
With hours to spare, Keo felt no urgency and stopped multiple times to get a better sense of his position in relation to Jonah’s while making sure he wasn’t putting himself into the line of fire unnecessarily. Eventually he reached the tree lines and slipped inside. With the cover of the woods finally, he was able to start making his way back toward Jonah’s, all the while looking, listening, and feeling for evidence of Buckies in the area.
What were the odds that Buck—or whoever was calling the shots out there, this Copenhagen guy, maybe—wasn’t coming at all? Maybe the snipers, however many there actually were, were just here to cause trouble. Then again, they had killed five Buckies yesterday. True, it was really just him and Sherry, but Buck wouldn’t see it that way. Keo wondered if a “But they shot first” defense would work.
Probably not.
His hair was almost completely dry by the time Keo finally stopped and went into a crouch with the MP5SD gripped tightly in front of him. He spent five minutes—then just for good measure, another ten—listening to everything around him.
The wind whistling through the trees, the flutter of branches above him, and creatures big and small on the ground. But no sounds of movement by something big enough to qualify as human. Or voices. No threats.
He faced the tree line ten meters in front of him and
eased toward it. The snipers would be out there on the other side, though not close enough to hear him coming. They would have crawled their way through the brush toward Jonah’s to get a better field of fire on its inhabitants. How close? That would depend on how good they were and what kind of optics they were carrying.
He sat down again, and surrounded by the sounds of the woods, found himself thinking about what he was doing. He glanced behind him, into the thick army of trees. Somewhere out there was Emma and Megan. Maybe in trouble, needing his help. Instead, he was wasting his time out here dealing with snipers that had Jonah’s in their crosshairs.
What the hell am I doing?
What did he really owe Jonah and Sherry and the others? Nothing. Nothing at all. He’d come here to find Emma and Megan, but they weren’t here. There was no one in Jonah’s that mattered to him. There was Christine, but did he really know her that well? They’d had dinner a few times, but that was it. As for the rest…
You gave Jonah and Sherry your word. So what’s that worth?
He’d lied before. Gave his word and then went back on it. Six years ago, he would have done it without batting an eye.
But that was then…
Back when you were smarter.
Remember?
He sighed and turned back toward the shoreline.
He checked his watch. He had made better time than he thought—
A brush of air against the back of his neck!
Keo spun, the submachine gun swinging up, his heart hammering in his chest.
Nothing. There was nothing behind—
The hairs along his arms stood up straight and the smell came out of nowhere, striking every part of his body like a physical force, coming from—
Above!
No, no, no, no! his mind screamed as he looked up and saw it—glowing blue eyes piercing the darkness above him.
It plummeted out of the sky like a reverse bat out of hell and landed with almost no sound in front of him, and Keo thought, Oh, fuck me.
He was trying to squeeze the trigger on the MP5SD (The head! Shoot it in the head! It’s the only way to kill the blue-eyed ones!) when the creature moved, its hands a blur as it grabbed his throat with five long, bony fingers, the contact sending a jolt of electricity across Keo’s entire body. Razor-sharp bone joints pressed against his skin, digging into his flesh and threatening to slice their way to the muscles underneath.
It effortlessly slammed him backward and into a tree trunk, knocking the breath out of Keo’s lungs before it ripped the submachine gun out of his hands and tossed it away like an adult taking away a child’s toys.
His mind was still trying to process what had happened, what was happening, and failing badly. The sight of it—here, now—made him hesitate, made him doubt everything he thought he knew.
It was rangy and stood much taller than him, its skeletal frame a different shade of black than the ones he’d killed back at his cabin, then later with Jim and Duncan at the bungalow. There was an innate intelligence in its eyes—deep blue, like twin throbbing stars—that peered back at him as if it could see through him and into his soul. Moonlight gleamed off its dome-shaped head, and sections of its hairless dark black skin seemed to ripple with every slight movement it made.
Keo had seen its kind before. He had fought one and almost died because of it. He had even become friends—or as much of “friends” as you could get with an undead thing—once upon a time.
He shivered now, every inch of him recoiling from being so close to it, and something he hadn’t felt in a long time—fear, overwhelming fear—seized every single one of his bones.
It held him against the tree as if he were nothing more than a gnat to be disposed of at its whim. Keo could barely breathe because it was choking the life out of him, even though it didn’t seem to be exerting any pressure at all. It stood casually, looking at him from one angle, then another, as if trying to decide if it knew him or not.
He had forgotten just how inhuman they appeared up close, even more so than the black-eyed ones, despite the blue eyes’ ability to almost pass for human. Maybe that was why they were so much more inhuman. It was a hard concept to grasp even to his own mind, but that kind of contradicting logic wasn’t anything new when it came to the blue-eyed ghouls.
And they were so different from the black eyes. Deadlier, smarter, and much, much tougher to kill. It had been years since he’d heard of someone running across one of them after The Walk Out. They had gone into hiding, back into the shadows. A slayer he had spent a few days with around Dallas had mentioned hunting one down, but that had been the last known sighting. It was easy to think they were all gone, that somehow The Walk Out had vanquished them, too.
But Keo always knew better. He had never fully believed that they weren’t still out there, plotting, waiting, biding their time.
And here it was. God, here it was.
Finally, it pulled its head back slightly but didn’t relinquish any pressure around Keo’s neck. His windpipe threatened to break against its fingers—bony fingers that shouldn’t have been so strong, and the fact that they were, impossibly so, was so inconsistent with how the creature looked. Frail and desiccated, and yet so unnaturally powerful.
Its eyes pulsated, the things it called lips—little more than thin razor wires—forming something that could pass for a smile.
“You,” it said, its voice coming out as a whispery hiss that dug deep, deep into the very center of Keo’s being. “I know you. I’ve seen your face before. I recognize your stink.”
TWENTY-THREE
STINK? Look who’s talking!
But Keo couldn’t deliver that witty comeback, because he could barely breathe. He wouldn’t be surprised if his face was already purple, or blue, or black. Or maybe all three colors at once. (Was that even possible?) He hadn’t managed a full breath in over—
How long had it been? Seconds? Minutes? It could have been an eternity for all the (lack of) awareness he currently possessed. It didn’t help that every one of his senses was frayed, threatening to overload and explode, from the monster’s mere presence.
It radiated an odor that was beyond words—a rotting smell, like a physical thing trying to choke Keo from the inside out. The intensity of its very being, the unnatural balance of heat and cold that radiated from every fabric of its dark, pruned black skin caressed Keo’s face and other parts of his exposed body.
He wanted to retch, but he couldn’t do anything even remotely close. Instead, he struggled against it, trying to kick out with his legs, but he had no power down there. He flailed at the creature’s arm instead.
“What’s the matter?” it hissed. “Don’t have anything clever to say?”
Hey, if you want a conversation, stop choking me!
He couldn’t shout that out, either. In fact, he was pretty sure he was about to pass out from not being able to breathe.
The submachine gun. Where the hell did it go?
There, behind the monster, the smooth, round contours of its suppressor glinting against a stray path of moonlight that managed to pierce the plentiful tree crowns above them. There was just enough light for Keo to see with, to be terrified by.
The H&K. So close, and yet so far. He would never get to it in a million years, not unless he could escape from the creature’s grip. And that was impossible. Keo imagined this was what it must feel like to be in the grasp of the Jaws of Life—
The knife!
It was still behind his waist, in its sheath. All he had to do was reach it.
Oh, is that all?
“Say something,” the creature hissed. “Tell me a joke, funny man. Make me laugh.”
Maybe next time! Keo thought as he dropped his right hand and reached behind his back. Got it!
His fingers were wrapping around the handle of the combat knife, the words The brain! Plunge it into its brain! It’s the only way to kill it! booming in his head when the ghoul smirked at him—or did something with its lips that almos
t resembled a smirk.
“It won’t be that easy, clever little meat,” it hissed, before it threw him across the woods.
Keo would have opened his mouth to scream if his brain had caught up to what had just happened—that the creature had flung him away with hardly any effort—but he was still processing it when he smashed into a tree, snapping branches against his back, before falling inelegantly down to the soft earth.
He managed to somehow roll onto his back despite the pain (Jesus, was his spine broken? It felt like every joint in his body had come loose from the impact and subsequent fall), then onto his side, before frantically scrambling back up to his feet. All the while, his mind screamed, Get up, get up now or you’re going to die!
“Or worse,” a voice said in the back of his mind.
But what could be worse than death?
Oh, there were plenty of things, and he had seen them all. Plenty of things.
The knife. He had held onto it during the “flight,” thank God. It was a nine-inch stainless steel blade with a black matted handle.
Good enough, good enough.
Even if it wasn’t good enough, it would have to do because it was all he had.
The monster stalked toward him. It didn’t so much as move as it slithered through the night, a snake on two feet. He might have had trouble seeing its taut, black skin against the heavy patches of shadows in the lightless forest if not for its throbbing eyes gazing back at him. They drew him in, demanded his attention, and he couldn’t look away even if he wanted to—and God, he didn’t want to. He couldn’t afford to.
If it was even a little bit afraid of the knife in his hand, there was nothing on its inhuman face to show it. Maybe it knew he was having a hard time catching his breath, and maybe it could hear his heart hammering behind his chest. Or possibly the damn thing could smell the fear wafting out from every inch of him.
“You were there,” it said. “At the very end. In the tunnel. You were there with the rest of the meat sacks.”
“There?” Keo thought.
It didn’t take long for him to understand.