by Sam Sisavath
“And that makes sense to you?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Are you always this negative?”
“It helps to keep me from being constantly disappointed. What kind of name is Keo, anyway?”
“Fred was taken,” he said.
*
The rain started just as they turned into the parking lot of the police station, thick heavy drops pelting the roof of the ambulance like machine-gun fire. Aaron was on the roof when they pulled in, and he hurried off to get away from the rain while Norris ran outside as Jake parked as close to the front doors as he could.
Keo opened the back and helped Taylor out, then lowered the ramp while Gillian pushed Lotte’s wheelchair down.
“Looks like we’re in for a heavy storm!” Keo shouted over the rain at Norris.
“This is what I get for waiting for you!” Norris shouted back.
“Do we still go in this?”
Norris shook his head. “The only thing worse than rushing in a crisis is rushing in a crisis during a rainstorm! We still have time. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll stop soon.”
Keo nodded back, though he didn’t believe a single word of it.
He saw that Rachel’s SUV was parked in the handicap spot nearby, and its back was already full of supplies. Jake and his would-be father-in-law’s trucks had also been moved closer to the front doors.
The rain pummeled them, and the parking lot had already been covered in puddles in the couple of minutes since the shower began. Keo felt as if he were drowning; it was difficult to breathe, and his clothes clung to his bones. It didn’t help that the wind had picked up and was howling around them like some banshee.
“Let’s get out of this monsoon!” Keo shouted.
Norris led them up the walkway to the front doors.
“What about the medical supplies?” Gillian shouted at Keo.
“We’ll get them later, when it stops raining!”
She wiped water off her face with one hand and looked up at the skies. They had gotten impossibly dark in such a short time. “Looks like it might rain for a while!”
Aaron, soaking wet, stood holding the doors with Henry for them. They rushed inside, trudging through an obscene amount of water as lightning flashed across the horizon and thunder boomed somewhere nearby.
If this isn’t the end of the world, it sure as hell sounds like it.
When they finally made it into the lobby of the police station, Rachel and Tori hurried over with rolls of paper towels and they wiped the water off them as much as they could, but it was obvious it wasn’t enough. Keo’s teeth were still chattering and so were the others’ around him. Christine, Rachel’s daughter, looked on with fascination from a swivel chair behind a large desk.
“What about Damper?” Keo asked Norris.
The ex-cop shook his head. “We’re not going anywhere in this weather, kid.”
“What about when it stops?” Rachel asked.
“Depends on how long it lasts. Same difference if there’s still a lot of water on the roads. We’ll just have to wait and see. Play it by ear.”
“We were safe here last night. They couldn’t get in. If we have to, we should be fine staying here again tonight. Right, Norris?”
“If we have to stay, we should be,” Norris nodded, though Keo wasn’t quite sure if he was trying to convince her or himself.
“So, no road trip?” Gillian said behind them.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Keo said.
*
Gillian was going through the personal lockers in the back room. There were two dozen of them, twelve on each side, but only six had anything in them. They had names on the doors and combination locks that Norris and Keo had pried open for their contents, which turned out to be mostly clothes. Keo had been hoping for one of the weapons that would load those boxes of 5.56 rounds.
There were no windows in the room, but there was enough natural light from the hallway spilling in through the open door to see with. They could hear the rain pounding on the rooftop above them. There were no hints that it would stop anytime soon, and, in fact, seemed to be stretching itself out.
Gillian had taken off her wet clothes and put on a pair of men’s jeans about a size too big for her. She should have looked ridiculous in them, but she didn’t. He watched her flip her hair out of the shirt and tie it back with a cheap rubber band.
“You look good in hand-me-downs,” he said.
She smiled back at him. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”
He looked down at the slacks and T-shirt he had raided from one of the lockers. He had also found socks and sneakers, and his wet clothes were in a pile at the back along with the others’.
“Six deputies and not a single woman among them,” Gillian said. “The Bentley PD needs an equal opportunity lecture.”
“You can bring it up at the next town meeting.”
“What town meeting? I think this is it for Bentley. Maybe for the entire state.”
“I’m almost one hundred percent certain it goes beyond the state.”
“You think so?”
He nodded.
She frowned and sat down on the bench, pulling on a pair of dry socks. She had found sneakers that looked as if they could fit her, though like the jeans and T-shirt, might be a size or two too big.
“I didn’t realize how bad it was until we were driving through town,” she said. “I mean, I knew it was bad after last night. All that screaming and people dying, and the blood was everywhere. But I didn’t really know for sure until I saw the rest of the town. It was like driving through a cemetery out there, Keo.”
“But you’re handling it well.”
“It’s all an act. Underneath this calm exterior, I’m like Taylor—shell-shocked and scared shitless.” She looked over at him. “But you’re not. It’s not an act with you, is it? You’re actually…fine with all this.”
He thought about Delia…
“About all this?” he said. “No. But I guess I’m good at compartmentalizing.”
“How do you compartmentalize the end of the world? Let me in on your secret. I’d like to do a little of it myself.”
“On the one hand, everything we know and accept has been irrevocably changed. For better or worse, things will never be the same again after last night. On the other hand, life goes on. And so do we.”
“I wish it were that simple.”
“It is.”
She shook her head. “Maybe for you. Not for us. We’re just regular ol’ human beings.”
He chuckled. “I think I should be offended by that.”
“That was a compliment.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded. “You hungry?”
“Famished.” She stood up and tucked the shirt into her waistline. “What’s for lunch?”
“Vending machine food and warm soda.”
“Yum,” she said. “The tsunami raging outside notwithstanding, this day’s already looking up.”
*
The others were back in the lobby. Taylor had joined Aaron at his familiar spot by the window, the two of them staring outside at the curtain of rain as if trying to see who could remain catatonic-like the longest. The only time either one of them moved at all was to drink from soda cans and eat granola bars rescued from the vending machines.
Jake and Tori sat together on the floor, Tori with her head against his shoulder, while Henry stood in front of the twin doors looking out. Rainwater had made its way inside through the broken glass frames, and puddles were growing larger near the toes of his boots. Henry stood guard with his shotgun, his face mostly unreadable.
Rachel was rifling through a large duffel bag they had stuffed full of vending machine food for the trip, while Christine sat nearby on a desk, legs swinging back and forth, waiting to find out what Rachel would produce next. Open cans of soft drinks were scattered along the floor and desks around th
em.
The men had changed out of their wet clothes and into dry ones from the lockers in the back. Luckily for Tori, Taylor, and Lotte, they were all about the same size as Rachel, who had run back outside to grab her luggage from the Durango and spread its contents around. Gillian had tried on a couple of Rachel’s clothes before realizing they were too small for her and had settled for the men’s wardrobe from the lockers instead.
The room had gotten noticeably darker since Keo went to find Gillian. He didn’t have to look very far to see why. Gray clouds covered the skies outside, and the lack of working lightbulbs only added to the gloom.
“Did anyone show up yet?” Gillian asked. “From the hospital?”
“Not a soul,” Norris said. He was peering out of a window closer to the doors, keeping an eye on the soaking wet highway beyond.
“They know to come here?” Rachel asked.
Gillian nodded. “I told them where we were going after the hospital, and where we’d be going after that.”
“Fort Damper,” Keo added.
“Where did they go?” Tori asked.
“Home, work, other places,” Gillian said. “They had to make sure, that’s all. I can’t blame them.”
“Saw a few vehicles going down the street before you guys showed up,” Norris said. “It was probably them. None of them pulled in though, even with Aaron up there on the rooftop trying to wave them down.”
“Were any of them armed?” Rachel asked.
“Not when we left the hospital,” Keo said. “Why?”
“I thought I might have heard gunshots when I was up on the roof earlier.”
“We’re lucky we weren’t out there on the roads when this monsoon began,” Norris said. He glanced over at Keo. “You probably did us a favor by lollygagging and making us wait for you, kid.”
“I guess you owe me then, old timer,” Keo smiled back.
“I’m not that old,” Norris grunted.
The conversation petered out after that. For a while, they were content to listen to the consistent sound of the rain against the rooftop and outside in the parking lot. It was almost melodic and soothing, despite the howling wind that caused the rain to slash sideways at times.
Gillian wandered over to where Keo was sitting on one of the desks near the offices. She sat down beside him. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” he said, and handed her a bag of chips and a bottle of warm water. “Don’t say I never took you anywhere fancy.”
She made a face. “You’re such a charmer, Keo.” She opened the bag and snacked on cheese-covered chips. “So now what?”
“Wait until the rain stops.”
“What if it doesn’t stop anytime soon?”
“Tomorrow’s another day.”
“Yeah, but tonight comes before tomorrow,” she said.
He nodded. “There’s that.”
She looked around at the darkening lobby. “Well, at least this place is better than the morgue.”
“Better company too, right?”
She seemed to think about it for a moment before shrugging. “We’ll see.”
CHAPTER 10
It wouldn’t stop raining.
By 1:30 p.m., they began making preparations to spend the night at the police station. It would be the second time for Norris, Rachel, Christine, and Aaron, but the first for Keo and the others. There was enough food and water on hand to last for one more night, so they decided not to risk searching the surrounding buildings for more.
Keo and Norris ended up looking at the security gate over the front doors. The spaces between the bars were about four inches, too small for most things to slide through. But Keo remembered how thin the creatures were. Some of them were practically skin and bones, and skin and bones could slide through a lot of places…
“We should barricade the doors,” Keo said. “Just to be safe.”
“What are you thinking?” Norris said.
“Town’s empty; it’s just us now. If they want to get in badly enough…”
“Yeah,” Norris said, “good point. A couple of the desks should do it. We have plenty to go around.”
“The windows, too.”
Henry and Jake helped drag one of the larger desks over. They turned it onto its side, then slid it forward, pressing the desktop flat against the doors before pinning it in place with a second desk. They did the same to the two windows, but this time using the vending machines, and reinforced those with metal shelves from the offices.
Rachel had found a box of portable LED lamps in a supply closet when she was searching the building earlier in the day. Norris turned two of them on now, putting them in two corners of the lobby to provide just enough light to see with.
“Everyone should get settled in for the night,” Norris announced. “We’re not going anywhere until tomorrow.”
Keo looked around and saw a light glowing from one of the offices. He walked over and found Gillian taking inventory of the drawers on a big desk. The room had once belonged to the sheriff (a man named Stan, according to Henry), with framed photos featuring a large man in a Bentley Police Department uniform and two blondes, one a teenage girl, lining the walls like some kind of museum.
“You look at home,” Keo said.
She gave him a pursed smile. “I never had my own office at the bank, and I always wanted a big desk like this one, too. One day, I told myself, I’d be running the place. I guess that’s not going to happen.”
“The bank’s still there.”
“Yeah, well, not exactly the same anymore, is it?”
Keo looked back into the lobby at Lotte, sitting with Christine. They were eating chips that the younger girl was pulling out of a pink Hello Kitty backpack.
“How is she?” Keo asked.
“Lotte?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s handling it well. Or as well as can be expected.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine. Mostly.” She stopped going through the drawers and closed them back up, then leaned her elbows on the desk and put her chin in her palms. “What time is it?”
He glanced down at his watch. “Almost four.”
“It’ll be dark soon.”
“Uh huh.”
“No more sunlight.”
“That’s usually what happens when it gets dark, yeah.”
“They’ll be out again.”
He nodded.
“I’m scared,” she said, and looked past him out into the lobby. “At least last night I didn’t know what was coming. This time, I know exactly what’s going to happen. They’re going to come out and we’ll be the only ones here.” She shifted her green eyes over to him. “Does that scare you, Keo?”
“It’s natural to be scared. You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t.”
“But are you scared?” she pressed.
He nodded. “I am.”
“You don’t look scared.”
“I hide it well.”
She watched him for a moment. Then, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I believe you. You’re scared, too, which makes me feel a little better. If a big, tough guy like you gets scared…”
He chuckled. “Who says I’m a tough guy?”
“You look like a tough guy. Where are you from, anyway?”
“San Diego.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“My mom was Korean.”
“South Korea?”
“God, I hope so,” Keo said.
*
The rain stopped ten minutes after four, when Keo climbed up to the roof. He walked through puddles and a lingering drizzle. The still-dark clouds gave the impression the day’s rain hadn’t completely given up on flooding the town just yet, and that it could return at any moment.
The highway beyond the police station parking lot was covered in water, as were large swaths of the town that he could see from up here. Leftover rainwater dripped from the rooftop
s of businesses and signs along the street, the tap-tap-tap filling the quiet air.
Keo kept waiting for something to happen—an explosion of activity, of violence—and when nothing did, it just made him more anxious. He wasn’t used to seeing and hearing the world like this.
“On second thought, we might end up wishing we had braved the rain,” Norris said. He was already at the edge of the rooftop. “I’m definitely not looking forward to nightfall. We got real lucky last time. I always hate pushing my luck.”
“Doors and windows are covered. There’s no way in.”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“So what’s got you worried?”
His thick eyebrows furrowed in thought. “I told you we found the station empty, right?”
“You did.”
“So where’d they go? The deputies?” He shook his head and ground his teeth together. “Something about this place doesn’t sit right with me. Who leaves a solid location like this? And that back room with the steel door; there’s no way these things can get through it. So why did the sheriff and his deputies abandon the place?”
“You think we might have missed something? A weakness in the construction somewhere?”
“Don’t you?”
“I’ve gone over the building twice already. Top to bottom. Side to side. Front to back. We didn’t miss anything.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t make any sense.” He shook his head again. “Maybe I’m overthinking it.”
“That happen a lot?”
He grunted. “Not since I wore a uniform in Orlando.”
“When was that?”
“Last time was about ten years ago. I hung it up after twenty-three years. Could have been stubborn and stayed for another four, hit the max and get pushed out, but what the hell—I’d always wanted to travel.”
“How long have you been traveling?”
“On and off for ten years now.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of traveling, Norris.”
“Retirement, kid. You keep waiting for it, thinking about all the things you’re going to do when you hit that magic number. Then it creeps up on you, and suddenly you realize you don’t wanna do half of the things on your list. So what do you do? You look for other adventures.”
“Where’s your next stop?”