by Sam Sisavath
It didn’t take them long to drag the bodies into the yard, and Keo got away with not doing the hard work by telling them he’d been shot earlier and showing them the bandages around his waist. Afterward, Oliver and Chloe took the master bedroom at the back, while Keo settled into the same kids’ room. Horse remained in the great room with Lam and Willis, and the last thing Keo heard was Chloe moaning on the other side of the wall before he drifted off to sleep for the second time that night.
He dreamt of Blue Eyes, chasing him through the woods. He was alone, and unarmed, and it was just him and the monster.
“Where are you going, funny man?” the creature called after him. “Tell me a joke. Tell me a funny story before I rip your guts out and eat your intestines.”
But he didn’t stop, and kept running, and running some more even when he didn’t think he could anymore.
“I’m going to play with you,” Blue Eyes shouted after him. “You’ll beg me to kill you, to end it, but I won’t… It’ll be fun. For me, at least. But for you, it’ll be an everlasting nightmare…”
He woke up three times during the night and gave up sleeping after the third instance.
Lam and Willis were already up before Keo stumbled outside. The two slayers were dragging the leftover remains of dead ghouls—mostly bleach-white bones and deformed skulls now, in the light of day—into a large hole they had dug toward the edge of Henry’s front yard. Both men had their half-masks on, covering their nostrils and mouth to keep out the smell, but even so they looked pale and were sweating profusely under the rising sun.
The stench of evaporated ghoul flesh clung to the air around the house and hit Keo like a semi truck as soon as he stepped onto the porch. He pulled his shirt up and over the lower half of his face and kept it there. No wonder the slayers always wore half-masks. It was ideal to stave off the stink whenever they had to “go to work.”
Horse was already up and on the other side of the property chewing on leaves dangling off hanging branches. There were no signs of Chloe and Oliver, and Keo assumed they were still asleep inside the house.
It took Lam and Willis two more hours before they tossed the last bones into the hole and began to fill it back up. By the time they were done, there were just little bits of evidence—a bony finger here, a shattered limb there—that there were ever thirty or more undead things here just last night.
He looked around him and wondered how many other hidden mass graves, similarly filled with deformed bones and skulls, were in just this part of the world. He could never forget that day when the creatures started pouring out of the buildings, stepping out into the sunlight and dying (again) before his eyes. One after another, after another. People called it The Walk Out, and only a handful of people really knew why it had happened. Some called it a miracle.
Keo went back into the house and came out with two warm bottles of water and tossed them to the slayers as they sat on the porch.
“Cheers, boys,” Keo said.
“Appreciate it,” Lam said, and drank his all in one gulp.
Willis went a little easier on his and pulled down his mask just long enough to down half of the bottle before pulling it back up. “So did you find them?” he asked, his voice slightly muffled. “The mother and daughter you were looking for?”
“I found one of them,” Keo said.
He told them about Jonah’s and his encounters with the Buckies. He left out the skirmish with Blue Eyes in the woods, mostly because he still couldn’t decide if it, being the same one from last night, terrified him or—
Oh, who are you kidding. Terrified is definitely the right word for it.
“You think she’s in Fenton now?” Lam asked. “How sure are you?”
“That’s where they would have taken her,” Keo nodded.
“Maybe they didn’t,” Willis said. “I’ve seen some bad things out there. A woman like that—the way you describe her…” He shook his head.
Keo knew exactly what he was trying to say. He remembered Wendy in her apartment with the line of Buckies waiting outside her door for their turn...
He sighed, said, “I gotta believe she’s there. Even if she isn’t, I have to make sure. I promised the kid.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Willis said. “I never do.”
“Yeah, well, now you tell me.”
Willis chuckled.
“Fenton,” Lam was saying, shaking his head. “That place… Something’s going on in that place. Something I don’t want any part of.”
“Lam’s right,” Oliver said, coming out of the house behind them. “Chloe and I thought about going inside when we ran across it, but… I don’t know. We both got this bad vibe, like we might not come out if we went in.”
“Same with us,” Willis said. “There’s some seriously bad juju coming outta there, man. I’d steer clear, if I were you.”
“These Buckies,” Oliver said, “they’re the ones with the M in the white circles?”
Keo nodded. “That’s them.”
“What’s the M stand for?”
“I don’t know,” Keo lied. “But I’ll be sure to ask them when I get to Fenton.”
“I’m sure they won’t mind telling you,” Willis chuckled. “Just make sure they’re not pointing their guns at you when you do.”
“Sound advice if I ever heard some, thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Still going to Houston after this?”
“We’re actually thinking about going around it, try our luck someplace else before moving on to another state. Maybe eventually end up in Cali. See if there are more opportunities over there.”
“Was is something I said?” Keo smiled.
“Don’t look so proud of yourself,” Lam snickered. “Mostly it’s because we’re running out of opportunities in Texas. Besides, ghouls aren’t the only dangerous things out there these days.”
“You scared, Lam?”
“I didn’t get into this to kill people. I’d rather avoid that whenever I can.”
“Too bad,” Keo said. “I could definitely use your help in Fenton.”
Oliver shook his head and gave Keo an almost sympathetic look. “It’s your funeral, man. You should be careful, though; after last night, you might not have a whole lot of lives left.”
Keo flashed back to the sight of Blue Eyes standing in the doorway, staring in at him.
Was it the same one from the woods outside Jonah’s? And if it was, was it following him? Or was it hunting him?
“Yeah, careful’s the name of the game,” Keo said instead.
The slayers left an hour later to get a jumpstart on their journey. He heard Chloe telling the others that maybe they should “get a car, so we don’t have to walk everywhere,” as they disappeared into the woods.
Keo spent some extra time in the house checking on, then changing the dressing around his waist. The pounding along his skull had ceased when he woke up this morning and continued to be MIA, but he took a couple of more pills anyway just in case.
Horse remained outside the entire time, occasionally disappearing into the woods but always returning. Keo didn’t know where it kept going or why, but it was waiting for him in the yard when he came back outside, feeling as fresh as he had since, well, before he got shot.
After going through some of the supplies Jonah and Sherry had given him, Keo replenished what he needed from Henry’s pantries that the slayers hadn’t needed. He tossed the packs over Horse’s saddle before giving the thoroughbred a tap on the head.
“You know where I’m going, right? It’s going to be dangerous. So you should know what you’re getting into.”
The horse looked back at him before letting out a brief snort.
“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Again.”
When he climbed onto the saddle there was a slight irritating buzz from his side, but it was nothing like yesterday. Not even close. That was either a sign he was healing up nicely or the meds wer
e working.
Either/or.
He left Henry’s property, slipping into the woods before aiming northwest. He had memorized a map of the area, and his current route would take him around Winding Creek, then back near Princeville, before he would eventually end up at Fenton. Keo didn’t really know what he would do once he reached his ultimate destination, but he guessed that would mostly depend on what he found.
“Something bad’s going on in that place,” Oliver had said.
“There’s some bad juju coming outta there,” Willis had added.
It wasn’t like he had any choice, though. Emma was in there. Probably.
Probably? This is one hell of a trip just for “probably,” pal.
Keo let out a loud sigh and thought to himself for the thirtieth time since leaving Jonah’s behind about what he was doing. All of this, because he had promised a little girl?
No, it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t that simple.
He liked Emma. He liked her a lot. She’d been good to him, treated him well, and even allowed him into her bed. He still regretted not staying the night at least once.
Couldn’t you have done it just once, you idiot? Just once?
But he hadn’t, and it was too late to change that.
Well, maybe not too late, but rectifying that mistake would mean first finding Emma, then rescuing her from the Buckies, and then…
And then what?
He had no idea.
He skirted around Princeville, listening for activity coming from the state highway that ran through the city. There wasn’t any—no car engines, no human voices, and nothing that would indicate human beings other than himself were present in the area.
Fenton was farther north, and Keo continued on with a mixture of dread and anticipation.
“There’s some bad juju coming outta there,” Willis had said, and Keo thought he could feel some of that “bad juju” right now even if he didn’t necessarily believe in such things. The only reason he kept going anyway was the thought of Emma, in trouble, and Megan waiting for her mother.
He liked them. Both of them. God help him, but Keo had come to enjoy their company. There was Emma’s great food and all those useless chats with Megan at his cabin after school. But most of all, he just liked them.
And the Buckies had hurt them.
They had hurt Megan and Emma, and they still had Emma. They were probably hurting her right now, and the more he thought about that—the more he focused on that—the angrier Keo got.
By the time he was within a mile or so of Fenton, Keo was ready to kill someone.
THIRTY-ONE
THERE WERE THREE OF THEM, and they were camped in a small clearing that looked as if it had been put to use previously in the very recent past. He identified them as Buckies right away by the white circled M in the middle on their assault vests.
They were armed with gun belts and had rifles leaning nearby, and all three had two-way radios clipped to their hips. They had built a fire and were spit roasting something that looked like a small fawn. Keo saw the smoke coming from their campfire a hundred meters away and climbed off Horse and walked the rest of the way over, listening for signs of more Buckies in the area the entire time. He was too close now that the last thing he wanted was to lose his element of surprise.
What element of surprise? You’re walking right into a big ol’ mess of bad guys.
He ignored the voice and pushed on.
He heard them talking—loudly—as he got closer; they clearly had no cares in the world. And maybe they didn’t need them, this close to Fenton. He was the one who was almost behind enemy lines—if he wasn’t already, depending on how wide those “lines” were. As far as he knew, there could have been a dozen camps like this one around Fenton, some kind of loose outer perimeter, perhaps. The slayers hadn’t mentioned seeing them, but it would have been easy to walk right by given how thick and plentiful the woods were in this part of the state. Keo would have done exactly that if he hadn’t spotted their smoke.
He made sure the MP5SD was on semiauto when he left Horse behind and walked the final ten meters or so. The thoroughbred seemed to understand his intentions and didn’t follow. Either that, or it didn’t care enough to follow him.
Either/or, Keo thought as he went into a slight crouch and looked out from behind a massive tree trunk into the clearing.
A man was working the metal contraption they were using to spit roast their meal, which further convinced Keo this was a regular spot because that rotisserie looked way too heavy to be moved back and forth. The Bucky—thirties, with sandy blond hair—was applying a generous coat of sauce from a plastic Tupperware box onto the skinned fawn with a brush, while another man peeled potatoes he was pulling out of a sack on the ground next to him. The third and last Bucky was digging into his tactical bag and finally found what he was looking for.
“My man,” Sandy Blond laughed when he saw the third guy pull out a six-pack of beer, except there were only four left.
“Never leave home without it,” Six-Pack said. He peeled one off and tossed it to Sandy Blond, then sailed the other one at Mr. Potato.
“Warm,” Mr. Potato said as he caught the beer and made a face.
“Hey, beggars can’t be choosers,” Six-Pack said.
“You know we have ice in town, right?”
“Shut up and drink; or don’t, and give it back.”
“I’m just saying,” Mr. Potato said.
“You say too much,” Sandy Blond said. “That’s your problem.”
“I’m a thinker, that’s all,” Mr. Potato said. He was in his early twenties, with what Keo thought was the beginnings of a mullet.
Six-Pack was by far the oldest—maybe forties—and he popped his beer and took a long drink before lowering it. Warm or not, he seemed to enjoy the brew just fine. “Damn, that’s good stuff.”
“Does beer expire?” Mr. Potato asked as he turned his can over in his hand.
Six-Pack shrugged. “I don’t taste any difference.”
“I think they do,” Sandy Blond said. “But that could just be Big Beer trying to trick you into buying more.”
“Big Beer?” Mr. Potato said doubtfully.
“Yeah, you know, the guys who run the beer business. Telling you something expires is like encouraging you to drink it faster, then you’ll have to buy more sooner. It’s a vicious circle.”
“It’s a fucking delicious vicious circle,” Six-Pack said, just before he let out a loud burp.
The other two chuckled, and Sandy Blond was still working on the fawn with the brush while Mr. Potato had gone back to peeling his potatoes, when Keo stepped outside and shot Six-Pack—who was closest to him by far—in the back.
As the man collapsed, Keo swung and shot Sandy Blond in the face.
Mr. Potato had his small tactical knife in one hand and a potato in the other when he froze in place. His eyes went first to Six-Pack, lying on his stomach on the ground, then to Sandy Blond next to the rotisserie. The MP5SD hadn’t made very much noise at all when it fired both times, so it was taking the Bucky a little longer to fully grasp what had just happened.
Finally, the man’s eyes found and stayed on Keo as he walked over. Keo was pretty sure the man would either scream or go for his holstered sidearm or even the rifle leaning against the tree behind him, but the only thing Mr. Potato managed to do was utter the single word, “What?”
Keo shot Six-Pack in the back two more times as he walked past the Bucky, both as insurance and to let the last survivor know he meant business. He didn’t bother doing the same with Sandy Blond, who lay next to the campfire with one hand burning in the flames. Even if the man had somehow managed to survive a bullet to the face, he would have been jumping around by now.
Halfway to Mr. Potato, Keo motioned with the submachine gun. The Bucky didn’t seem to understand, so Keo said, “The knife, idiot. Throw it away.”
The man dropped it instead of throwing it away. Keo smirked and wondered if th
at was on purpose or if the Bucky was just too paralyzed with indecision to do more than just release the knife from his grip.
Keo kicked the knife away, then grabbed the gun out of the man’s holster and tossed it. He did the same to the rifle before taking a few steps back and lowering the H&K.
The Bucky was still holding onto his half-peeled potato, which Keo found amusing and didn’t tell him to drop. A part of him wanted to see how long the man would continue to hold onto it.
“What’s your name?” Keo asked.
Mr. Potato stared at him but didn’t answer.
“You got a name?” Keo said.
“Hatch,” the man finally said.
“Like hatchback?”
“I guess?”
Keo glanced around the camp, listening for noises—voices, the thump-thump of horse hooves or even car engines. And like the last few times, he didn’t find anything out there. That didn’t really make sense this close to Fenton, which Keo expected to be bustling with activity with people coming and going at all hours. Unless, of course, he still had a long way to go in order to reach Fenton. Maybe he wasn’t even close.
He looked back at Hatch. “Just the three of you?”
Hatch nodded. He was, Keo noticed, still holding onto the potato.
“What are you guys doing out here?” Keo asked.
“Patrol,” Hatch said.
“How close are we to Fenton?”
“Two miles?”
“Are you sure?”
Hatch seemed to think about it. “I think so? Maybe more?”
Keo smiled. The man didn’t sound sure at all, but Keo asked instead, “How many other patrols are out here?”
Hatch seemed to think about that one, too, and took longer this time. Either he was not sure about his answer, or he wasn’t sure if he even should answer.
Keo decided to help him out and fired a shot into the ground barely an inch from Hatch’s right thigh. The man flinched with his entire body as dirt kicked at his face.
“How many other patrols?” Keo asked again.