Rooster

by Sam Sisavath

“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

  He looked over at the door. The others were still outside, still banging on the thick slab of metal, and had been since Keo engaged the two ghouls. He just hadn’t had the time to hear them at work, or to care. The blast door was solid. More than solid, actually, and nothing was getting through it. Not even Blue Eyes, which was why it had opted to break its way in through a wall instead. Of course, it could do that again if it weren’t preoccupied with something else out there.

  Like whatever, or whoever, was setting off those explosions.

  If he was lucky, Blue Eyes would have gotten caught in the second one.

  If he was lucky.

  Fresh sounds, coming from behind him.

  Keo glanced over his shoulder to find that the first ghoul was moving again, trying to rise from the floor, and doing a piss poor job of it.

  “All right, let’s get this over with.”

  Keo changed up his grip on the Heisman.

  “Let’s find out how many swings it takes to get to the middle of a ghoulipop bar…”

  Twenty-Three

  He didn’t even pay attention to the noises coming from the hallway outside the office. As long as they continued to be muted, they could keep whaling on the door until the cows came home, for all he cared. What he was waiting for was an indication that Blue Eyes had returned, that it was now punching its way through another wall to get to him. But there was just the thump-thump-thump of weak flesh against steel, which wasn’t worth a glance from him.

  He waited and waited, but there were no signs Blue Eyes was back, that it was looking for a way in at this very moment. That should have filled him with relief, but it only made Keo more anxious.

  I know you’re out there. So what are you waiting for?

  One possibility for the creature’s continued absence was that it was dead, caught in that second explosion. Maybe that was just wishful thinking, but then where was it? Why wasn’t it here already?

  It knew where he was. It wasn’t like Keo had vanished without a trace. It would have seen him fleeing its “children” through that hive mind of theirs. That was how it worked, how the blue eyes could be at multiple places at once without actually being there.

  So where are you? What are you waiting for?

  He continued to wait, but there was still just the thump-thump-thump, like machine-gun fire, from the other side of the door.

  Thump-thump-thump.

  Thump-thump-thump.

  Thump-thump-thump…

  Keo looked over at the big brown box in the corner of the room where he had stuffed the ghouls. Both of them.

  Decapitating, then chopping them limb-by-limb, had been easy. Putting them inside the twenty-by-twenty inch cardboard box was the tricky part. The arms and legs and severed digits were afterthoughts, but the heads were a little more dangerous. All it would have taken was a bite from those jagged teeth and they could infect him with their tainted blood, so he’d had to be extra careful. It would have been much easier if they had hair for him to grab onto instead of just tight black skin that covered their bones like layers of film, but then again, what was easy these days?

  They moved against the box now, tap-tap-tapping away from the inside. He’d covered up the whole thing with a roll of duct tape he’d found inside one of the drawers, but sooner or later one of those hands or feet or fingers were going to break through. They were sharp enough that slicing an opening in the cardboard and escaping was a very real possibility. The stacks of books on top kept it from moving too much, but not completely.

  The room itself, in the aftermath of Keo’s tussle with the creatures, was covered in thick black blood. They were dripping from the walls, all over the floor, and some had even got onto the ceiling somehow. The desk had its share of pus-like fluids, and so did the chair that Winston had sat on before but Keo now occupied.

  He leaned back and stared up at the ceiling but kept his ears open for the noise that would signal Blue Eyes’s return. But there wasn’t any, just the continued thump-thump-thump from the door across the room.

  Forget the door. Don’t pay attention to the door.

  The first hour went by without incident, with Keo’s entire body coiled into a living spring, waiting to explode. He kept the ooze-covered Heisman Trophy on the desk next to him within easy reach. It was definitely heavier than twenty pounds, and he was leaning toward twenty-five. Even if the ghouls’ heads hadn’t been deformed and their bones weakened by their transformation, Keo could easily bash his way through a regular man’s skull without much effort using the bronze statue.

  Hour two caught him almost dozing in the chair, and Keo had to get up and pace the room to stay awake. He spent the majority of his time stepping around the still-wet puddles and small pieces of shattered bleach-white bones than he did listening to the weak pounding from the door.

  So far, so good.

  Hour three (or was that four?) found him back in the chair trying to stay awake, and losing. He blamed it on the constant thump-thump-thump; there was something seductive about it, almost hypnotic. Instead of keeping him awake and alert, it calmed his nerves.

  He fell asleep twice and woke up each time with a start, unsure of how much time had passed. He didn’t have a watch on him (Should have taken Brett’s watch, dammit) but it felt like midnight. Or early morning.

  Then something else caught his attention.

  Silence, because the ghouls had stopped pounding on the door.

  Keo got up and walked over to make sure.

  Yes, they had stopped.

  So what did that mean? He had no idea. There could be a myriad of reasons why they had abandoned their attack. It wasn’t because they had tired themselves out. Ghouls didn’t get tired. They didn’t feel anything at all.

  Was it morning? Was that it? Had the coming morning chased them away?

  No, he didn’t think that was it, either. He would have been able to feel it in the air if it had been morning outside. Even if he couldn’t see the rays of sunshine, Keo had spent the last six years fine-tuning his senses to the comings and goings of daylight, and it was not daylight out there right now.

  So why did they stop?

  He ceased moving and opened up his hearing.

  Nothing. He couldn’t hear anything outside the room. The only noise was the soft scratching coming from the box across from him. The pieces of the two ghouls hadn’t successfully broken through the cardboard, and the books he’d used as a paperweight were still where they should be. He had been sure the ghouls would have managed to at least burrow their way out by now, but maybe the layers of duct tape he’d covered the box with were more effective than he gave them credit for.

  Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, pal.

  Horse…

  Keo had forgotten all about the thoroughbred in all the chaos of the last few days. (Few days? Had it been a few days since he last saw Horse?) The last he saw of the animal, it was camping out on the fifth floor of the office building in Cordine City, waiting for him to return. Keo had never really gotten a solid bearing on his location when he first made his way into town, and finding that building again was going to be a real bitch.

  Assuming, of course, Horse was still up there waiting for him. That was unlikely. Even if Winston’s people hadn’t found it, the thoroughbred would have come down eventually to seek out food and water.

  What was Horse doing now, he wondered. Had it been captured by Winston’s men? Winston himself hadn’t said a word about it, but then, why would he? Why would he think Keo cared about the welfare of a horse? A horse was a horse, was a horse, wasn’t it?

  Depends on the horse.

  For some reason, he was sure the thoroughbred was fine. Horse had survived the crucial ghoul-infested first year of The Purge and had even thrived five years later. You couldn’t teach that kind of survival instinct. Some had it and some didn’t.

  He didn’t want to fall asleep again, so he stayed on his feet and paced the
room. Except this time he didn’t care about stepping into the pools of blood. Hours had passed, but most of the puddles still hadn’t dried, and Keo trekked boot prints across the room.

  He checked the box up close just to be sure it was still intact, because you could never be too careful when undead things were involved. But it was still where it should have been, and every one of the books remained piled on top, even the one hardback he had left dangling on the edge, on purpose as an early warning system.

  About an hour later, he went back to the chair with the intention of sitting down to let his feet rest for just a moment…and promptly fell asleep again.

  He snapped awake and reached for the statue sitting on the desk. He almost dropped it, forgetting how heavy it was for a second. It would have been nice if Winston had left him with something to fight with other than an old football trophy, but something was better than nothing. And it had proved effective, so maybe he shouldn’t complain too much.

  Keo got up and walked to the door to make sure it was still quiet on the other side. It was. The scratching noises from the box in the corner had also ceased, but Keo didn’t for one second believe the ghouls inside were dead. They might have been in pieces, but ghouls didn’t “die” just because their limbs and heads were no longer attached. It took silver—just a tiny drop would do—and that wasn’t something he had at his disposal at the moment. He had plenty of bronze, though. Twenty-five-something pounds of it.

  So why had they stopped trying to get out of the box?

  He walked over and crouched in front of the corner. He knew from experience that the ghouls inside could sense him. Or rather, the blood moving through his veins. He didn’t know how that worked, exactly. It was one of those undeniably crazy facts about the world that he now inhabited, where the impossible was very possible, and undead things couldn’t be (re)killed no matter what you did to them unless it involved silver.

  He stood back up when another thought occurred to him. The ghouls were terrified of sunlight, and for good reason. Besides silver, the sun was their next worst enemy. And just as he was sure they could sense his blood, they could do the same with sunlight.

  Which meant…

  It was morning. It had to be. Even in here, the ghouls could feel it. Maybe even more than he could.

  Unless, of course, he was wrong.

  He went back to the door and leaned against it, pressing his ear to the surprisingly cold metal. He listened, but he couldn’t hear anything. At least, nothing over his slightly-accelerated heartbeat.

  He pulled away and paused for a moment.

  I’m alive.

  Christ, I can’t believe I’m still alive.

  He walked back to the desk and sat down. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, and waited.

  He counted in his head to mark the passing of time.

  One Mississippi…

  Two Mississippi…

  An hour passed.

  One Mississippi…

  Two Mississippi…

  Two hours.

  He opened his eyes, and he could feel it.

  Heat. There wasn’t much of it, but it was in the air around him. It was getting warmer…

  But how much warmer? A single degree? Two? Three? Was it actually possible to detect such minor rises in temperature? What were the chances it was all in his head? An attempt by his mind to convince him to stop waiting around because it was driving him crazy?

  It’s warmer, I’m sure of it.

  Probably…

  Keo got up and walked back to the door.

  Gotta find out. Either way, gotta find out.

  He couldn’t stay down here forever. He had no food and no water. He could theoretically survive three weeks without food, but he wouldn’t last past day three without water. And did he really want to wait another full day just to be sure, all the while growing weaker? He was at his peak now, which wasn’t saying much, but it was better than five (or six or more hours) later without food or water.

  Shut up and just do it.

  Just do it!

  He stopped at the door and sucked in a deep breath before starting to count down from ten.

  He yanked the lever up on one, took another deep breath, then pulled the door open—

  —and stared out at an empty corridor.

  But there was a noticeable difference—it was the same hallway, but it wasn’t as suffocating as it had been last night. There was enough light now that he could make out the bloody footprints and handprints on the floor and walls and ceiling.

  How the hell did they get up there?

  Keo stepped outside and sniffed the air. It was thick with a very specific smell, but it wasn’t the right kind of smell—the telltale stink of ghoul presence.

  Are you sure about that?

  Maybe…

  He kept the door slightly ajar behind him, just wide enough to slip back through in a hurry if necessary but not too wide that it would take time to close back up. He moved toward the end of the hallway, tiptoeing to lessen the sounds of his movements. All the while, he kept his ears open, listening for something—anything—that might be waiting for him around the corner. He gripped the Heisman with two hands and held it at his right side, ready to swing.

  Better than a Louisville Slugger. Heavier, too.

  As he neared the turn, Keo jumped the last few steps (Aha!) and got ready to fight, but there was nothing except an empty hallway waiting for him. Like the one he had just traversed, this one was also covered in bloody hand and footprints, and just enough natural sunlight that he could see the wall on the other end.

  Keo relaxed slightly, but never relented his grip on the trophy.

  There was enough eeriness around him, with only his heartbeat and soft breathing to stave off the utter silence, that his mind began to wander. Questions that he hadn’t asked since last night came back in a rush.

  What happened last night?

  Why did Blue Eyes take off?

  Who was setting off bombs out there, and why did they stop?

  Twenty-Four

  They took the bodies of the dead ghouls in the hallways, along with Pressley. The only thing left to remind him of his mad dash for salvation was thick puddles of blood on the floor and bloody handprints along the walls. Empty brass casings stuck out from all the black liquid, partially submerged in pits of tar. Stepping around and over them was a nightmare until Keo gave up and simply walked through them.

  It was the same in the corridor with the entrance. Greengrass, Brett, and Scarlett were gone, but the ghouls hadn’t bothered with the guns. Not that everything was where Keo last saw them, because all the foot traffic had taken some of the weapons with them. He did, though, find a half-loaded Glock and an AR-15 lying in thick, viscous blood near the turn up the hallway. If he hadn’t looked closer, he would have missed them entirely.

  The next step was to find a way out, but that was the easy part. The blast door was where it should be, and it was still locked. Keo spent the next five or so minutes trying to convince himself that this wasn’t a dumb plan, that this was the only way unless he wanted to spend the rest of his life in here. Of course, there was another way out—the one Blue Eyes had created in the armory—but just the thought of taking that made his skin crawl.

  He slung the rifle and drew the Glock, then used his dominant right hand to grab the lever. It was cold to the touch. He shook off the doubts and pushed up but didn’t pull the door open right away.

  He took a deep breath first.

  Then another one.

  Just get it over with, will you? You wanna live forever?

  Kinda, yeah, he answered himself, before pulling open the door with a grunt.

  As the heavy slab of metal slowly swung open under its own momentum, he took a quick couple of steps back and lifted the Glock to chest level and aimed it straight ahead.

  An ocean of white hit him in the face, and Keo blinked for half a second before taking in the slanted concrete floor in front of him. It
was a gradual incline, covered in pools of warm sunlight. The entranceway was flanked by thick cement walls with about ten feet of space between them. It led upward toward the surface, but at the moment all Keo could glimpse was a sea of brightness filling up his vision.

  That was the best sight he could have hoped for, because sunlight meant no ghouls. He didn’t even mind the smell of evaporated ghoul flesh that clung to the air like thick molasses that assaulted his senses from every direction as soon as he was exposed to the outside world once again. It was a fantastic smell, and he wallowed in it with a big smile that, had anyone been around to witness, would surely think he was a few marbles short of a set.

  He sniffed the ghoul blood on his clothes as it turned into mist against the sunlight, the same for all the bloody patches on the floor behind him that couldn’t avoid the sun’s rays. In no time, the confined space of the hallway became thick with the familiar acrid stench.

  God, I love that smell!

  Keo holstered the pistol and unslung the rifle. There was enough space in the entranceway that he could swing the AR around without worrying about hitting walls, and a long gun was always preferable when you were stepping into a wide-open environment. Which he assumed was what was waiting for him out there at the end of however long the walkway ended up being.

  He didn’t run straight up, of course, and instead took his sweet time. He’d pulled his shirt over his mouth and nose to help with the stink, but that did nothing to stop his eyes from stinging. He grimaced the slight discomfort away as he made the halfway point, stopping briefly to see if he could hear anything on the other side.

  The chirping of birds. A lot of birds. But he couldn’t see them because there was a roof above the entranceway blocking out the sky (Keo assumed there was sky on the other side) and created a shaft-like entry point into the facility. The opening where the “shaft” ended was a wall of white, angled in a way that hid most of the outside world from view.

  Keo continued up the incline.

  He went into a slight crouch when he neared the end and listened again for any telltale signs of people in the area. He was close enough to the opening now, though, that he could make out the sky in front of him, along with a flock of birds winging by.