by Sam Sisavath
Houston. It’s talking about Houston.
Under Houston, to be exact.
“Yeah, I was there,” Keo said, the words coming out with some difficulty. He might have actually croaked some sounds that he thought were words. In fact, there was a very good chance he was choking on his own bile right this minute.
His mind spun, and he almost lost his balance. Keo backpedaled once, then again before he bumped into the trunk of the tree he’d crashed into. One of the branches he’d broken loose snapped under his feet.
He pushed through the pain, through the heavy fog in his head. “I saw the big guy go down. I heard him squealing like a little girl, too.”
He watched for clues that he was getting through to it, but the creature’s face was placid. He knew for a fact that the blue eyes were very different from their black-eyed counterparts—they weren’t just more intelligent, but they had emotions. Stories about how they would toy with their victims just for the fun of it were legion, whereas the black eyes just wanted to feed.
“No, you didn’t,” the creature hissed. “But you were there. With the others. You were close enough, at the end. I’ll find them, too, and I’ll make them all pay. Every last one of them, no matter how long it takes.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.”
“You’re going to help me. You’re going to tell me where they are.”
“Only if you say please.”
“But first I’m going to punish you. Because you killed one of us. I saw it, through his eyes. You and the woman, in the barn...”
The woman? Keo thought. Then, understanding, Keep her out of this, you piece of shit!
He changed up his grip on the knife.
God, he wished he had a gun. Why the hell didn’t he bring one, extra weight be damn? Probably because he wasn’t 100% sold on his swimming ability after such a long hiatus.
Should have risked it anyway. Now here you are, with a knife against something that can move faster than you can blink. Should have brought the gun.
Or two guns.
Or five…
The creature was still taking its sweet time walking to him, like it knew every step it took only increased Keo’s anxiety and made him question every decision he had made since the attack on Winding Creek. And there were so, so many questionable decisions in just the last few days alone.
Keo briefly considered making a run for it but dismissed the idea almost right away. There was nowhere to go. At least, nowhere he could make before the ghoul caught up to him. The blue eyes were so much faster and smarter. Their speed alone limited his options.
So he didn’t move. At least this way he could see the monster coming, and that gave him a chance. It wasn’t a big one, but being able to look the ghoul in the eyes meant he could react in time.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that, pal.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” it hissed.
“I’ve killed a lot of your kind,” Keo said. “You’re going to have to narrow it down.”
“No, not a lot. Just one.”
Shit. It really does know. What else does this thing know, and do I really want to find out?
“Whatever you say, ugly,” Keo said instead, and thought, Jesus. I’m trading barbs with a ghoul. This is insane.
He almost laughed. Which part about tonight wasn’t insane? Was it when he decided to go for a midnight swim in nothing but his boxers? Or was it the part where he bumped into Blue Eyes?
What the hell was it doing in here? How long has it been here? Was it…waiting for someone?
The creature’s lips were curving into something that might have been a grin. It wasn’t quite successful, but he was certain that was the intention. “I’m going to play with you,” it hissed. “You’ll beg me to kill you, to end it, but I won’t.”
“Sounds like you got it all planned out.”
“It’ll be fun,” it continued, as if he hadn’t said anything. “For me, at least. But for you, it’ll be an everlasting nightmare—”
It didn’t finish, and instead suddenly stopped and turned its head, and Keo glimpsed a large brown wall (Wall?) bursting through a large bush and piercing his peripheral vision like a missile. The ghoul lifted its hands, turning fully, when something smashed into its chest, and the bony blue-eyed figure seemed to crumple against the impact just before it lifted into the air and sailed backward.
Holy shit!
The ghoul demolished a tree branch—then another—before crashing back down to earth more than twenty meters away, just as—
Horse!
It stood where the monster had been seconds ago, raking the ground with one of its front legs while snorting in the air like it was getting ready for round two. It stopped only for a second to glance over at Keo before turning its attention back to—
Blue Eyes was already on its feet, and Keo thought, The gun, you idiot, the gun!
He ran for it, even as the creature raced across the open grounds, though Keo couldn’t tell what its target was—him or the thoroughbred. He decided it didn’t matter and dove the last five or so yards for the submachine gun, reaching out with both hands—
Got it!
He hit the ground in a tuck and roll (Hollywood, eat your heart out!) and snapped back up into a kneeling position. The creature had launched itself into the air, aiming right for Horse, who refused to move.
Keo squeezed the trigger.
He would have worried about his shots being overheard by the snipers he’d been trying to sneak up on if not for the built-in suppressor that made each gunshot sound barely above a coughing noise. Not quite silent, and there was just enough of an echo to make him nervous, but it was nowhere near the loud gunshots that would have attracted the attention of everyone within a mile (or five) radius.
The first few rounds missed, but the next two or three didn’t, and the ghoul jerked back while in midair as bullets struck it in the chest—they went right through its flimsy skin and slammed into branches in the background—and it fell down. Not that it stayed that way—and not that Keo expected it to die the way the black eyes had, instantaneously after being shot with silver bullets. The blue eyes were different—faster, smarter, and harder to kill.
The head! Go for the head and take out the brain!
It was the only way to kill them, something Keo and just about anyone who had ever encountered one of the blue-eyed freaks had learned a long time ago. But shooting something that could move so goddamn fast wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, especially when it was flying through the air, so he had aimed for the biggest part of the monster instead.
Now that the creature was on the ground and wasn’t moving nearly as fast, Keo aimed for its head and fired—and hit it in the cheek. The silver round dug out a big chunk of the monster’s face, and thick, coagulated black blood splattered the sod at its feet.
It twisted slightly when it was shot, and Keo’s second bullet grazed off its forehead.
Dammit!
The ghoul seemed to smirk at him before it turned and fled, and Keo jumped up to his feet, switched back to full auto—
Oh no you don’t, you ugly bastard!
—and emptied the rest of the magazine after it.
The creature launched itself into the air, jumping onto branches and using them to ricochet onto another tree, each time going higher and higher like some kind of goddamn bouncing ball. Keo continued shooting after it, striking it in the back a couple of times, but the monster kept going—up and up and up—until it had vanished completely into the darkened tree crowns above them.
Sonofabitch.
Keo quickly reloaded. It took two seconds, and each one was excruciating. He kept expecting the creature to pounce and never allowed his eyes to remain at one spot for longer than half a heartbeat, but the only sounds came from the weapon in his hands as he reloaded.
There, done!
He thought about pursuing Blue Eyes, but one look at the dark patch of shadows in front of him, and Keo g
ave up on that notion. He’d hurt the creature, gotten it at least five or six times (maybe), but he’d seen them heal from much worse wounds. Five or six bullets, even ones made of silver, had barely slowed this one down.
Yeah, no thanks.
He looked over at Horse instead and found the animal staring back at him. “Remember what I said about putting a bell around your neck? Yeah, let’s not do that.”
The thoroughbred snorted, then nonchalantly lowered its head to start grazing.
Keo walked over to the animal, every part of him aching. But aches were better than feeling nothing at all, which was what he would be doing if Horse hadn’t saved his bacon. A horse! How was he going to tell people that a horse (even a ninja one) had saved his life?
His throat was still sore, and he imagined there was some bruising around his neck. He rubbed at it now, trying to massage away some of the pain. It didn’t help, but he could breathe and swallow, and that was good enough for now.
“I distracted him, you know,” Keo said. “That’s how you managed to sneak up on him. It was definitely not because you move like a friggin’ ninja. It was absolutely a team effort. Admit it.”
Horse ignored him and continued to eat.
“What are you doing here, anyway? They just let you walk out of Jonah’s? Is that—”
The horse lifted its head suddenly and sniffed the air, and Keo turned, following the animal’s gaze before spinning around in a full 360 degrees.
But there was nothing out there.
Nothing that looked like a ghoul, anyway.
Just trees. And branches.
And more trees.
“Well?” Keo whispered. He kept his eyes on the darkness around and above him, but mostly he kept tabs on Horse’s responses. The animal definitely had better senses than him. “You smell it? Is it still out there? Let me know if it’s still out there. It’s kind of important.”
Keo didn’t relax until the thoroughbred went back to grazing.
He sighed and came out of his shooting stance. “Jesus, I think you just gave me a stroke—”
The snap! of a dry twig from behind him made Keo turn toward the source, his forefinger tightening against the trigger of the submachine gun, the thoughts Shoot for the head. That’s the only way to kill them; shoot for the head! racing through his mind.
But instead of a blue-eyed ghoul, there was a soft human voice, whispering out from behind a tree. “Keo. Don’t shoot.”
TWENTY-FOUR
THE FACE PEERED out hesitantly from behind the scarred trunk of a large elm tree, and even with limited light, his eyes had adjusted enough to the night to make out a human face. The eyes that looked back at him were green and filled with humanity. There was dirt on her face, dried mud along her forehead and above her lips.
She didn’t look as if she had eaten in a few days when she stepped out into the open and smiled at him. “Don’t shoot, Keo.”
“Jesus,” Keo said, and came out of his shooting stance. “Wonsungi.”
The girl raced across the clearing and jumped into his arms. Keo wasn’t ready for it, even though he figured out what she was doing when she was halfway to him. She still caught him by surprise, and he just barely managed to adapt at the last second or else she would have sent both of them to the ground.
She wasn’t openly bawling, but she was sobbing against him. For such a small girl, she had deceptively strong arms, and if he didn’t know she was ten years old, Keo might have thought she was a full-blown teenager.
He kept his eyes on the woods around them while she clung to him, unsure exactly how long this was supposed to go on. She didn’t seem willing to let go anytime soon, and Keo didn’t like the idea of prying her off like some unwanted annoyance. The girl was clearly traumatized, and it didn’t escape him that it was just her, with no signs of Emma anywhere.
Horse stood nearby watching them, but that curiosity lasted only for a few seconds before he went back to dining on the plentiful grass.
After a while, Keo figured enough time had gone by that he started pulling back slightly, then set her down to get a better look at her. She was wearing baggy pants and a sweater, with plenty of dirt and mud covering both articles of clothing. Her hair was a mess, leaves poking out of them like they were growing out of her head. Her eyes were bruised, but only because she had been crying.
“Where’s your mother?” Keo asked.
She shook her head and struggled to answer, then unraveled her arms from around him and wiped at her eyes and cheeks. “She’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
The girl shook her head. “They took her.”
“Who?”
“The men…”
“The same ones that attacked the town?”
She nodded. “I think so.”
“Were they wearing assault vests?” Then, when she gave him a questioning look (Right. How would she know what an assault vest was?), he kneeled, and using his knife, carved a circle with the letter M in the middle into the dirt. “Did they have this on their clothes?”
That resulted in an enthusiastic nod. “Uh huh.”
Buckies. Of course it’d be Buckies. Who else would it be?
“Where did they get your mother?” he asked.
“Yesterday, while we were coming here.”
“You were on your way to Jonah’s?”
Another nod. “There were five of us, but we got split up. Mom and me went one way, and they went another. I heard shooting, the screaming…”
“How did they track you?”
“I don’t know. They were just there.”
“But you got away?”
“I ran. Mom told me to run, so I ran.”
Keo looked around them again just to make sure they were still alone before he turned back to her. “This was yesterday? In the daytime?”
“Uh huh.”
“How many men took her?”
“I don’t know…”
“A dozen?”
“Maybe.”
“More?”
“Maybe…”
The more questions he asked, the more confused she looked.
She’s a kid, and she’s scared. Stop with the Twenty Questions, you idiot.
Keo pursed a smile at her and nodded. “Okay. That’s good enough for now.”
He stood back up, but before he could say or do anything, the girl grabbed him around the waist and didn’t seem as if she was ever going to let go.
“Don’t leave me, Keo,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Why would I?” Keo sighed. “I’m not going to leave you. Okay?”
She craned her head to look up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. He’d never seen her cry before, and the sight broke his heart. “You promise?”
“I promise,” Keo said.
“Say it again.”
“What?”
“Mom says if you say it twice, it’s a real promise.”
Keo smiled. “Okay, wonsungi. I promise. Again. Good?”
She nodded and went back to smearing tears against his clothes.
Keo sighed, then glanced back at the tree line. Jonah’s was on the other side, along with the snipers between here and there. How many snipers? That was the question.
He checked his watch. Three hours until morning.
He patted Megan on the back, not quite sure what he was supposed to do in this situation. It wasn’t like he’d ever had to take care of a kid before. They usually avoided him, and vice versa.
“All right, kid,” Keo said quietly. “Everything’s going to be okay. You’re safe now. You’re safe now…”
Depending on how he wanted to look at it, the situation had either turned out very well or gone sideways on him. The upside was that he had found Megan (One out of two ain’t bad, he thought, especially considering the week he’d been having), but her presence also made carrying out the original plan difficult. How was he going to take out two (maybe three, or possibly more) snipers with a
ten-year-old kid in tow?
Who says you have to keep your promise to Jonah’s? You came here looking for Emma and Megan. Well, you found one of them.
He was tempted to go with that. After all, what did he owe Jonah or Sherry and the others, really? If anything, he’d already done his part by saving Sherry from the Buckies earlier. Even if he hadn’t shown up, Jonah’s would still have had to deal with Buck’s boys. So really, when he thought about it logically, there was no reason for him to stay.
So why are you still here?
Good question…
He was weighing his choices as he led Megan away from the spot where he had tangled with Blue Eyes and went farther back into the woods, away from the tree line and the snipers on the other side. He’d gotten lucky that his fight with the creature hadn’t alerted the Buckies—if they had been close enough to the woods to overhear, anyway—but Keo was still trying to figure out what the hell the monster was doing out here.
Had the ghoul been stalking the snipers? Or was there another reason it was sitting in the tree just…waiting.
Was it waiting? And if so, for what? Or who?
Keo kneeled next to a large bush while Megan crouched in front of him. She had been carrying some berries in her pockets that she had picked while heading south with her mother, and was eating those now. The horse stood next to them, chewing leaves from a low-hanging branch. Keo felt better with the thoroughbred nearby; it had proven it possessed the survival instincts to make it out here by itself, and the animal definitely had a better sense of smell and hearing than he or Megan did.
Ninja horse to the rescue. I can dig it.
He spent a few minutes watching Megan eating her berries one by one. She wasn’t wolfing them down but cherishing each and every one as if afraid they would run out. She didn’t look as malnourished now as when he had first spotted her, which made sense since it had only between two days since the attack on Winding Creek, and Emma would have done everything possible to keep her fed until they were forcibly separated yesterday.
“Where were you when you guys ran across the Buckies?” Keo asked. He kept his voice as low as possible while still allowing Megan to hear.