by Sam Sisavath
A T-shirt wasn’t the worse article of clothing they could have on at the moment. It was going to get hotter in a few more hours. There were no windows in the back room, and although there were two vents along the walls, they were both half the size of the one in the lobby. Thank God, or the creatures would have just followed them into the back room.
I guess we missed something after all…
Gillian stirred on the floor before sitting up. She squinted at him from behind a curtain of black hair.
“Hey,” he said.
She rubbed her eyes. “We’re still alive.”
“You sound surprised.”
“After last night? Hell yes.” She stretched her arms. “I don’t think I can take another night like the last two.” She stood up and looked back at the girls, then at the door. “Are they…?”
Keo shook his head. “I haven’t checked in a while.”
He did that now. Norris and Gillian watched his every step. He put his hand against the warm steel door before pressing his ear against it.
He listened.
“Well?” Norris said after Keo didn’t move or say anything for almost a minute. “Are they out there or not?”
Keo pulled his head back before giving them an uncertain look. “I can’t hear them anymore.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Yeah, but I should be able to hear something, even if they’re just standing around. There were a lot of them out there last night, remember?”
“Maybe they’re sleeping,” Gillian said. She glanced back at the sleeping forms of Rachel, Christine, and Lotte again. “They sleep, don’t they?”
“I think so,” Keo said.
“They definitely sleep,” Norris said. “Inside the buildings where they were hiding, the ones with the covered windows. Yesterday morning I woke up a whole nest of them at the gas station, remember?”
Keo leaned back against the door and held his breath. He listened again…
…and still heard nothing.
“Keo?” Gillian said.
He shook his head.
“Why would they just leave?” Norris said. “They have us trapped in here. The only way out is through that door.”
Keo didn’t have any good answers for him. He saw the frustration on Norris’s face. Gillian’s, too. He shook his head. “I don’t know, but I can’t hear a single thing. Even if they were asleep, I should be able to hear…something.”
“So what do we do now?” Gillian said. “We can’t stay in here forever. It’s already getting hot. And we don’t have food or water.”
“We should risk it,” Keo said.
“Go out there?” Norris said.
“Yeah.”
“That sounds like a bad idea.”
“Gillian’s right. We can’t stay in here forever. No food, no water. Sooner or later, we’ll have to make a run for it. What if they had left this morning and we didn’t take advantage of it? What if it’s our only chance?”
Norris shook his head. “What if you’re wrong about everything? Maybe they’re out there, just waiting for us to make a mistake.”
“I don’t see how we have any choice, old timer.”
“It’s suicide.”
“Only if they’re still out there.”
“You really can’t hear anything?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Why would they leave? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Norris,” Keo said, “we’re dealing with creatures that die in sunlight but can’t be killed even after you’ve destroyed their brains. If they even have brains anymore. What about any of this makes any sense to you?”
“Shit,” Norris said.
“Yeah.”
“Look, just make a decision,” Gillian said. She sounded resigned but defiant at the same time. “We can’t stay in here forever. We have to try something eventually, and it might as well be now, while we still have the strength. Us here, right now, is better than us after twenty-four hours of no water or food. Or am I wrong?”
“What’s going on?” a voice said behind them. They looked back at Rachel, rubbing her eyes, Christine still sound asleep in her lap. “Are they still out there?”
“That’s the question of the century,” Keo said. He glanced at Norris. “Now or later, old timer.”
Norris sighed. “I’m too old for this shit.”
*
Gillian gripped the lever and waited as Keo established himself to her right and Norris did the same to her left. They readied their Remingtons and each took a long, hard breath.
“This is such a bad idea,” Gillian said. “I’ve changed my mind. Is it too late to change my mind?”
“Yes,” Keo said.
“Dammit.”
Behind them, Rachel, Christine, and Lotte sat on the floor with their backs against the wall, all three using the overturned bench and Lotte’s wheelchair as their first line of cover. They looked terrified—all except Christine, who held up her hand and gave Keo a thumbs up. He grinned back at her.
“Ready, kid?” Norris said.
“No,” Keo said. “But do it anyway.”
“God, this is so stupid,” Gillian said between them.
“It’s your idea,” Keo smiled at her. “You’re the one who convinced us to do this.”
“I know; that’s why I think this is such a stupid idea. I’m just a bank teller, for God’s sake. No one ever does what I say.”
“See, you’re already more important than you used to be.” He changed up his grip on the shotgun for the fifth time in the last minute. “Whenever you’re ready, Gillian.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Just to be sure, we’re really doing this—”
“Yes,” Keo and Norris said at the same time.
“Okay, okay.”
She took a deep breath, then began silently counting down from ten. He watched her mouth form the word ten…
Keo stretched out his fingers before re-gripping the shotgun for the sixth time.
…nine…
Gillian was right. This really was a stupid idea.
…eight…
She was going to open the door and he was going to step outside and die.
…seven…
Because there was no way around it.
…six…
If the creatures were outside, they were dead—he and Norris.
…five…
He had shotgunned one of those things from point-blank range and blew away the top of its head, and that hadn’t even slowed it down.
…four…
He had blown off their legs and they still kept coming.
…three…
So what chance did they have out there in a hallway full of those creatures?
Not even a snowball’s chance in hell.
…two…
Dammit, I should have kept on driving yesterday.
“One,” Gillian said, and cranked the lever.
*
Blood and death filled the hallway and assaulted his senses the instant he stepped into the darkened passageway. Keo braced himself for an attack. He waited to feel pain, see bony fingers reaching for him, and be confronted with black eyes piercing his soul from the shadows.
But there was none of that.
No lifeless orbs from the pits of hell in front of him, and when he spun around, there were none behind him, either. The only sounds came from Norris’s labored breathing, pounding the air next to him.
Keo became aware of a slopping noise and looked down at thick patches of still-wet black blood on the floor and splashed across the walls. Flakes of torn skin and muscle covered the hallway and the smell was horrible, like rotting flesh left out in the sun, even though sunlight didn’t have a chance of reaching all the way back here.
He began breathing through his mouth as he moved toward the lobby. Every step meant stepping on and around and through thick patches of blood. Black, thick, and oozing, clinging to the bottom of his shoes.
Slo
p-slop. Slop-slop…
As he had guessed last night, the creatures had pulled down the vending machines over the windows and the desks from the front doors, allowing the morning sun to pour into the lobby at will. Wherever direct sunlight touched the room, there were no pools of black blood, only the red (human) kind. The familiar acidic smell of the dead creatures lingered in the air.
“That smell,” Norris said quietly.
“That’s them in sunlight,” Keo said. “Their blood evaporates, just like the rest of them.”
“This is all pretty messed up, kid.”
“You just realized that now?”
Norris grunted back.
They were only able to relax when they stepped into a pool of sunlight and looked out the windows, through the bars, and into the parking lot beyond. It was a hot bright morning, the light against their face the greatest feeling in the world.
“Did we just get really lucky?” Norris said after a moment of silence.
“Really, really lucky,” Keo said.
“You always been this lucky?”
“Nope. You?”
“First time for everything, I guess.”
“Well, it couldn’t have come at a better time.”
“Yeah, I’d say.” He looked back toward the hallway. “Let’s get the girls and get the hell out of here before our luck runs out.”
Keo hurried down the hallway, reaching the back room a few seconds later and knocking on the steel door.
Gillian opened it almost immediately. “You’re still alive.”
“You were supposed to make sure it was me before opening the door,” Keo smiled.
“Who the hell else would it be, Keo?” She leaned out and looked up and down the hallway. “Where’s Norris?”
“In the lobby.”
“Can we…?”
“You want an invitation?”
She smirked before turning serious again. “So, what now? Where do we go and what do we do after we get there? It’s always going to be night, Keo. Sooner or later, the sun always goes down.”
“Fort Damper, for now,” Keo said. “We’ll figure out the rest later.”
PART TWO
‡
THE WOODSMEN
CHAPTER 14
The world was dead. Or if it wasn’t, it was pretty damn close.
“It’s the end of the world, Keo,” Gillian said solemnly next to him. “We’re screwed, aren’t we? It’s no better out here. Maybe we should have stayed in Bentley.”
“We’ll be fine,” Keo said. “Right now, we just have to concentrate on linking up with what’s left of the U.S. Army.”
“And then what?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“We’re all going to die.”
“That’s the spirit. Keep that chin up.”
She laughed. “Sorry. I guess I was having a little pity party. By invitation only. Attendees: me.”
She wasn’t entirely wrong. Surviving Bentley had been a miracle, but he hadn’t fully realized how dire things were in the rest of the world until they started driving along Interstate 20. Except for the same pileup that Rachel and Norris had braved that first night, the road was mostly clear, and they drove for minutes at a time without seeing another vehicle, much less any signs of survivors.
The silence, along with the emptiness around them, was deafening.
This is it. This is the end.
Hunker down and pass the shotgun shells.
Keo picked up the radio from the Chevy’s dashboard. The truck was Jake’s, since Keo had left his Lancer buried in the side of the hospital back in Bentley.
“Old timer,” Keo said into the radio.
Rachel’s Durango SUV followed closely behind them, Norris behind the wheel. Interstate 20 consisted of two lanes of flat road heading west, while two eastbound lanes ran parallel on the other side of a grassy strip. There wasn’t much of a view in any direction, and every mile they had passed for the last thirty minutes looked the same as the previous one, with walls of trees along both sides. It had been ten minutes since they had last seen a roadside establishment. Keo didn’t like the idea of getting stuck out here at night, even with a shotgun on hand.
“Can you drive any slower?” Norris said through the radio. They had chosen Rachel’s car because it was better equipped to carry Lotte and her wheelchair in the back.
“What’s your hurry?” Keo said. “Damper isn’t going anywhere.”
“It’s going to have to wait a little longer, because the girls need to take care of business. I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs, either.”
“Already?”
“I’m fifty-six and retired, kid. I got cramps for cramps.”
Keo grinned. “Maybe we can grab you some diapers, too, while we’re at it.”
“Now you’re talking.”
“Up there,” Gillian said, pointing forward.
“We see something up ahead,” Keo said into the radio.
“Roger that,” Norris said.
Keo slowed down as they approached a combination gas station and diner. The roadside establishment had appeared unexpectedly out of the wall of green trees that surrounded it. A thick metal sign flopped back and forth in the wind, advertising gas for regular and diesel fuel. Even from a distance, the place gave off an abandoned vibe.
“Looks inviting,” Gillian said quietly.
“All we need is a mariachi band playing in the parking lot to welcome us in,” Keo said. “You have mariachi bands in Louisiana?”
“I’ve never seen one. But then again, Bentley is a town of 3,000 people, and I’ve never seen a six-one Korean guy in real life, either.”
Keo smiled. “First time for everything.”
*
“We’ll hit Corden in less than ten miles,” Norris said. “There have to be other survivors there. It’s twenty times bigger than Bentley.”
“Bigger population, more of those things,” Keo said. “They multiply like rats.”
“Still, if we could pick up more people on the way, I’d feel better. Strength in numbers and all that.” He looked over at Gillian, standing nearby. “You’ve been to Corden?”
She nodded. “It’s a college town. Everything pretty much revolves around Louisiana Tech University.”
They were watching Rachel as she was wheeling Lotte back from a bathroom next to the gas station. Keo had searched the single room for them earlier just to be safe, though in the back of his mind he always wondered what he was going to do if there were one of those things inside. Likely he would have ended up wasting a couple of shells on it, only to back out of there in a hurry.
They had found both the diner’s and gas station’s windows uncovered, which made some kind of sense all the way out here. Keo guessed it was because there just weren’t that many people to “turn,” so there were no reasons for them to stick around. The creatures weren’t stupid. They went where the people were.
Where the food is…
Christine was eating from a bag of chips as she walked over with the other girls. The Doritos bag was one of many they had loaded up from the gas station. The entire store remained the way it was from two nights ago, with only a small pool of dried blood near the front doors. They had stocked up on as much as they could carry, including unopened cases of bottled water and soda. The junk food and chips would come in handy, but the boxes of beef jerky were the real prize. Those could last for up to a year—longer, if properly stored.
Keo hadn’t realized how little they had until they began cleaning out the gas station. He was hoping to find a weapon behind the front counter, but there was only a baseball bat. A back room also yielded very little, though he did pick up a couple knives from the shelves. What he wouldn’t give for a nice Ka-Bar…
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Norris said. “We hit Corden, then head south down toward Alexandria and straight to the base after that. We’ll pick up any stragglers we find along the way, but let’s not l
ollygag.” He blinked up at the sun. “The faster we get there, the better I’ll feel.”
Rachel helped Lotte into the back seat of the Durango while Norris stowed the wheelchair in the back. The girl could hobble on one leg for short periods of time, but they weren’t going to be rid of her wheelchair for a while. Keo and Norris agreed they’d have to make her a crutch soon, in case she needed to be more mobile.
Gillian tapped Keo on the shoulder and handed him a candy bar.
“Ah, you’re sweet,” he smiled.
“It’s just a Snickers bar, Romeo.” She opened one herself and took a bite. “How long are these going to last, anyway?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“You look like you’d know. So, do you?”
He shrugged. “Two to four months without refrigeration. Longer, if Fort Damper has something cold to put them in. So eat up. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.”
“There goes my diet,” Gillian said, before going quiet and glancing at the flat road behind them. “I keep expecting to see a car going by.”
“Me too. The quiet is unsettling.”
“Yeah…”
Norris blared the SUV’s horn behind them and leaned out the driver side window. “Come on, kids, you can suck face later.”
“Suck face,” Keo said. “I like the sound of that.”
“What are you, fifteen?” Gillian said, walking back to the Chevy. “You coming, lover boy?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Keo said, jogging after her.
He climbed back in behind the steering wheel as she settled into the front passenger seat. Gillian picked up a map from the floor and unfolded it in her lap. She took out a marker from the glove compartment and went back to work, jotting down the location of the gas station. She had done the same thing for every notable stop they had made since leaving Bentley.
“We’re not coming back here, Gillian,” Keo said.
“I know.”
“So why do it?”
She didn’t answer him until she had finished what she was writing, then refolded the map and slipped it back into the glove compartment. “I just want to make sure we don’t forget, that’s all.”
“Forget what?”
“That these places were once here, that once upon a time they served a purpose. I just want to remember them, even if it’s just some scribbling on a map.” She shrugged. “It’s stupid, I know.”