by Sam Sisavath
“Hey,” Jordan said.
“What?”
“What kind of name is Keo, anyway?”
“Paul was taken,” he said.
*
The boat was a twenty-two footer, just over six and a half meters long, with an almost two-and-a-half meter beam. The white paint had seen plenty of activity, including overlapping and month-old dirt-caked shoe prints along the deck stretching from bow to stern. Mud clung to the sides, and the cabin was visible through long windows on the sides and front. It was in reasonably good shape.
“It looks like a tight squeeze,” Keo said.
He stood on the bank looking down at the boat, anchored in place against the soft river current, just within climbing distance from land.
“The five of us spent a whole day in and around it before everything went to shit,” Jordan said, standing next to him. “It was a pretty tight squeeze, even with Mark and Henry spending most of the time on deck.”
“What about the motor?”
“We still have some fuel left for it. Not much, but some. We grabbed as much as we could from the marina back at Pontchartrain, but we don’t use it unless we absolutely have to. Mark is really good at sailing with just the wind.”
“Have the creatures ever tried to board the boat in any way?”
She shook her head. “I told you, they have a thing about the water. They’ll go right up to it—along the banks, like where we are now—but they never step foot into the water. There were times when we came so dangerously close to land that I was sure they might try to leap onboard. I mean, it wouldn’t have been much of a risk because they would have made it easily.”
“But they didn’t.”
“Never. Not once. I used to spend days and weeks trying to understand it. Now, I just accept it as a gift from the gods and move on.”
“So we now know they have two Achilles’ heels: sunlight and bodies of water.”
“What about that?” she asked, nodding at the MP5SD slung over his back.
“I’d like to tell you the thirty rounds make a difference, but they don’t. I emptied half the magazine into one of them at point-blank range. It just gave me an annoyed look and went on about its business.”
“But it’s so awesome looking.”
He chuckled.
“You got another one?” she asked.
“You like guns?”
“I hate guns. But I hate dying more.”
“I don’t think there’s another one in the basement, but we can probably get you something equally awesome looking.”
“Cool.” Then, “You never told me how you guys found this place.”
He told her about leaving Bentley, then meeting Earl, Gavin, Bowe, and Levy.
“Doesn’t sound like you guys have had it too bad,” she said.
“You’ve met others before us?”
“A few. A couple of them took some pop shots at us. I don’t know why. They just opened fire. We became leery of other survivors real fast after that.”
“But you still kept moving north on the river.”
She shrugged. “I guess we were hoping we might find some non-assholes still hanging around. Hope springs eternal, I guess. It’s disappointing, you know?”
“What’s that?”
“Most of the planet’s dead, and we still can’t completely trust the few human beings that are still around. That’s why it took me so long to put down my weapon back there.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
Then she narrowed her eyes at him. “So what’s the deal?”
“Deal?”
“I know you didn’t ask me here just to show you the boat. That’s Mark’s department. Jill and I just try to stay out of his way when we’re on the water. So what’s on your mind, Keo?”
Smart girl.
“What are the chances you, Mark, and Jill are staying with us?” he asked.
“Are you kidding? Did you see the two of them back there? You’re going to need a crowbar to pry us away.”
He laughed.
“So what’s the catch?” she asked.
“You said the boat can fit five comfortably?”
“Comfortably,” she nodded. “But you can squeeze more in there if you need to.”
“How many more?”
“How many you got?”
He nodded. “A couple of days after all this began, we were heading for Fort Damper to find some answers. On the way over, we were ambushed by men with assault rifles at a gas station along the interstate. Like you said, it’s still hard to trust people these days. That’s why I think we should talk about an exit strategy, in case we ever need one.”
“And you want to use the boat for that?”
“I think it’s perfect, don’t you?”
“Maybe. What’s in this for us?”
“I’ll let you stay at the house.”
“You mean you weren’t going to before?”
“Not if you said no to my offer.”
She smirked. “Some Good Samaritan you turned out to be.”
“Nothing in life’s for free, Jordan. Especially these days. So, you wanna hear the details?”
She nodded. “I’m listening…”
CHAPTER 26
The creatures came out in force that night. Keo wondered if it was because they knew (somehow) that there were more people in the house than in previous nights. He didn’t need to look through the peepholes to know that there were a lot more of them out there than there had been the last few months. He could hear them moving around, sometimes rattling the metal bars.
Still probing. Still looking for a weakness, for a mistake…
Keo and Norris gave the room that they had been sharing so Jordan and Jill could have it, while Mark slept in the living room with them. To Keo’s surprise, none of the three friends were sleeping together, though it was obvious Mark had some affections for both girls. They didn’t share his feelings, apparently, even after five months of being crammed in the same boat.
Jordan told him as much when he asked about it one day.
“No,” she had said.
“No?” he had repeated.
She rolled her eyes. “He’s a guy. Of course he wanted to. But he’s our friend. We’ve known him since high school. It’s one of the reasons we all ended up at Tulane University. Rick and I were a couple, and Jill had Henry. Mark was always sort of the odd man out.” She had shrugged then. “I mean, I don’t know, maybe Mark and I might have gotten together eventually. Or he and Jill. It just hasn’t happened yet, that’s all.”
Keo was impressed with Mark’s self-control. Both Jordan and Jill were attractive women, and to live in the same twenty-two foot space with them day and night for five months with nothing happening was a hell of a feat. Keo wasn’t sure if he could have lasted more than a few months. Just one month of waiting for Gillian had been torture.
With Keo and Norris back in the living room, that left Levy as the only man in the house with his own room. For his part, Levy didn’t seem to have any problems with three new people joining them. Keo had expected at least some token hostility toward the idea, but Levy was surprisingly fine with it.
Mark’s boat was moved over from the bungalow and tied out back at the pier behind the house. Keo and Jordan made arrangements to squirrel away supplies in the boat in case of emergencies. They didn’t worry about someone stealing it. Anyone who got close enough to do that would probably try to take the house instead. Besides, a boat was not like a car; you needed to know more than just how to steer it in order to “drive” one.
Keo and Norris taught Jordan, Mark, and Jill how to shoot with weapons from the basement, though mostly it was just Jordan and Mark. Jill didn’t have her heart in the lessons and after a while, they stopped insisting she keep it up. Jordan showed tremendous promise, even more so than Mark. For some reason, Keo wasn’t surprised by that. Jordan, he thought, was the kind of woman who could do just about anything, given the time and necessity.
/> The world had come to an end going on six months when Jordan was comfortable enough with her Glock to ask to go out on supply runs with him. Her presence allowed Keo to leave Norris back at the house, which made both him and the ex-cop feel better. After the run-in with the two men in assault vests, Keo was always worried about leaving the house undefended. As comfortable as Gillian and Rachel had become with their weapons, there was a stark difference between shooting at trees in the woods and shooting a living, breathing target.
Keo and Jordan were coming back from one of their supply runs when the radio Keo always kept on the dashboard of the Bronco squawked, and he heard Gillian’s voice: “Keo. Are you back yet?”
He picked up the radio. “We’re coming up the trail now. What’s up?”
“It’s Levy,” Gillian said. “Rachel found out where he’s been spending all his time.”
Levy.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Jordan said from the front passenger seat.
“Nope,” Keo said.
Levy had been spending more and more time alone and away from them these days. It was easier to lose track of him with three more new bodies around, but on the days when Keo noticed that Levy wasn’t there, it always struck him as odd that the guy simply disappeared without telling anyone. There were even times when Levy beat Keo out of the house in the mornings, which meant he had to have been up pretty early. Levy always came back hours later, though, and he always seemed in a good mood. That, more than anything, convinced Keo that the kid was okay.
Now, though, he wasn’t so sure, especially when he heard the anxiety in Gillian’s voice.
“Is it bad?” he said into the radio.
“It’s pretty bad,” Gillian said. “Hurry back.”
*
Curiosity had gotten the better of Rachel, but coincidence offered her the opportunity.
“She was in the back, washing the girls’ clothes in the river this morning,” Gillian said. “Levy came out and didn’t see her. I guess she was just curious about where he goes all day, so she decided to follow him.”
“And he didn’t notice?” Keo asked.
He was in the front yard with Norris and Gillian. Jordan was there, along with Mark, but Jill was inside the house somewhere with the girls. She had become very close to Lotte and Christine in the last few weeks.
“I guess not,” Gillian said.
“She can be pretty light on her feet,” Norris said.
“She came back about an hour ago,” Gillian added.
“Where is she now?” Keo asked.
“She was telling us about what she saw when she started throwing up. She’s in the house changing her clothes—”
Rachel came out before Gillian could finish. “I’m okay,” she said. “I just had to get myself together, that’s all. Sorry, Gillian.”
Gillian rubbed the other woman’s shoulders. “Don’t be. Are you sure you’re okay?”
Rachel nodded, but she didn’t look close to being okay. Keo had never seen her so pale.
“You don’t have to come,” Keo said to Rachel. “I think I know the house you’re talking about. Norris and I could probably go there by ourselves.”
She tried to smile. “I’m fine, Keo. Let’s just go.”
“All right. Lead the way, then.”
She started off with Norris.
Keo turned to follow when Gillian reached for his arm. “Be careful. And remember what he’s been through, okay?”
He nodded. “I’ll be on the other side of the radio if you need me.” He looked at Jordan. “Keep an eye out.”
“Don’t worry about us,” Jordan said.
Keo jogged after the others, catching up to Norris and Rachel halfway to the tree line. “How far?” he asked Rachel.
“I think about half a mile,” she said. “I almost gave up following him a couple of times because he just kept walking. I guess this is why it takes him so long to come back every day.”
“And he didn’t see you?”
“No. I think he was too busy with…whatever he was thinking about.” Rachel looked down at her hands, which were shaking a bit. She stuffed them into her pockets. “It wasn’t wrong, was it? That I followed him? I was just curious where he went every day, and it was the first time I saw him leave the house.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Norris said. “I would have followed him too, if I could wake up early enough to see him leave the house.”
Rachel clearly knew where she was going, and looking around them, Keo could spot shoe prints along the slightly damp ground. Some were fresh, but many had been tread over the weeks and months. This was definitely where Levy had gone every morning.
After about thirty minutes of walking in almost near silence, Rachel slowed down. Keo recognized the area, and as they stepped out of the woods and into a clearing, he saw the familiar carcass of a burnt out two-story house and the unattached two-car garage next to it. The garage was the only thing still standing, and the last time Keo had stumbled across the property during one of his scouting passes, there had been a rectangular hole where a door used to be. That hole was now covered up with a partially burnt door still bearing the scars from the fire that had gutted the house next to it. The padlock over it was new, though.
As they got closer, Keo saw jagged gutters along the surface of the door, and it took him a moment to realize they were actually created by clawing fingers. Someone (somethings) had been trying to get into the garage very recently.
Rachel stopped between the woods and the garage, and Keo and Norris stopped with her. She gave him a hesitant look. “He’s in there.”
“Is he alone?” Norris asked.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Okay, kid, you did your job, now stay here,” Norris said.
She nodded gratefully and took a step back. Keo expected her to turn and run back to the woods at any second, but she didn’t. She wanted to, though. He could see that much in her eyes.
He and Norris exchanged a look, then they walked the rest of the way to the garage. Norris had subconsciously (or maybe purposefully?) slid his M4 from behind him to the front. Keo made a conscious effort to leave his MP5SD where it was, behind his back. He didn’t want Levy to see the two of them on approach with weapons at the ready.
“Be careful. And remember what he’s been through, okay?”
They were five meters from the door when it opened and Levy stepped outside.
He didn’t look surprised to see them, and Keo guessed he had either spotted them coming or heard them talking to Rachel. Sounds carried these days.
Levy was smiling at them, but the important thing was that he wasn’t reaching for his sidearm. “What are you guys doing here?”
“What’s in the garage, Levy?” Norris asked.
“The garage?”
“Yeah, the garage. What’s inside?”
Levy looked past them and at Rachel. Keo couldn’t tell if that was anger, indifference, or amusement playing across his face.
“Levy,” Keo said, drawing his attention back to them. “Show us what’s in the garage.”
He looked indecisive, and for a moment Keo thought he might reach for the Glock in his hip holster. Levy always left with his AR-15, but it was nowhere to be seen at the moment.
“Levy,” Keo said again. “Show us the garage.”
“You want to see the garage?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Norris said.
“Okay, then. Come see what’s in the garage.”
He turned around and led the way. Keo and Norris followed. Rachel, not surprisingly, hadn’t gotten any closer. She looked rooted to the ground behind them.
Levy opened the garage door and disappeared inside, leaving the door open invitingly for them. They went inside, but they hadn’t gone more than a few feet before Keo smelled it.
It wasn’t a smell you ever forgot. Like rotten cabbage inside a trash Dumpster left out in the sun for too long. As physically nausea-inducing as any
thing he had ever had the displeasure of sniffing. He remembered it from the motel that night, then from the police station in Bentley during the attack. It was unmistakable, and it assaulted his senses like sharp knives. Even breathing through his mouth did little to deter it now that it had invaded his system.
“Jesus, Levy,” Norris said. “What the fuck?”
It took a few seconds before Keo’s eyes could adjust to the semidarkness inside the two-car garage. One half of the room was filled with piles of burnt furniture, most of them still covered with the heavy plastic tarps Keo had discovered when he first looked through the building months ago. It was the unoccupied half of the structure that drew his attention.
Keo knew what he would see there before his eyes became accustomed to the dim lighting. The stench had given it away. He just wasn’t sure how he would react, and it took everything he had not to throw up.
It was perched in the corner, which allowed it to stay as far away from the sunlight pouring in through holes in the roof and along the walls. A metal spike had been driven into the floor and was connected to a thick rawhide rope that disappeared into the darkened corner. Inside the small section of blackness, Keo heard movement. The dirty, mud-caked rope, in response, slithered against the ground.
“I found them in here,” Levy said. “There were two of them. What I think happened was, they must have overslept and got stuck inside after sunrise. Did you know they could oversleep? I was surprised, too.”
Overslept?
Keo wasn’t sure if Levy sounded desperate to believe his own explanation, or if he had actually gone off the deep end. Oversleeping was a human trait, and what was inside that corner was not human.
Or at least, not anymore.
“At first, I thought about shooting them,” Levy continued, “but I realized that wouldn’t have done anything. And they couldn’t hurt me. Not in the daytime, anyway. All I had to do was stay in the light. That was before I found a way to capture them. It wasn’t easy, but with a little ingenuity and patience, it all worked out.”
Keo took out his flashlight and clicked it on. He splashed the bright LED beam into the corner, illuminating the creature hiding within.