by Sam Sisavath
“What changed?”
“Darby Bay.”
“Darby Bay, Texas?”
She nodded before giving him a curious gaze. “You know about it, don’t you? You know what happened there.”
That last sentence was another statement. Smith guessed that she could already read the answer on his face.
“I was Black Tide,” Smith said.
“Hunh,” Margo said with a smile.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was on the other side.”
“You’re a Mercerian.”
“Were. But not anymore. Just like you aren’t Black Tide anymore.”
Smith wasn’t sure if he should laugh or cry. He’d run away from Texas to get away from Black Tide—abandoned everything that reminded him of that night that made him question everything he thought he believed in—and here he was, locked in a room with a couple of Mercerians.
What were the chances of this? Maybe one in a million. Or one in a thousand.
Or maybe God was laughing at him. He might be tempted to believe that, if Smith believed in God in the first place.
“You, Clark, and Freddy,” Smith said. “You guys ran with Buck during Darby Bay. Were you also there?”
“We were somewhere else at the time, but we heard about what happened there,” Margo said. “That city changed everything for a lot of people.”
“How did things change for you?”
“Buck going missing, for one. That was a real kick in the ass.”
“You don’t know what happened to him?”
She shook her head. “You?”
“No.”
He had heard rumors in the days and weeks after the battle, but nothing that was ever substantiated. Not that he was in a position where someone would tell him all the latest developments even if they did know about Buck’s true fate. For all Smith knew, the man was still alive somewhere out there. A part of Smith held out hope for that. That way, Smith might, one day, cross paths with the man. There was nothing in this world Smith wanted more than to look Buck in the eyes just before he put a round between them.
“You must know more than I do,” Margo was saying. She was watching him closely. “About Buck. About what happened to him?”
“Just rumors.”
“What kind of rumors?”
“For a while, there were stories that Hartford had tracked him down to someplace in Mexico and taken him out.”
“Who’s Hartford?”
“He was a commander in Black Tide. After Lara went missing, he took over. People said that in the days and weeks after Darby Bay, Hartford made it his mission to find Buck.”
“You don’t know for sure if he did or not?”
“No, just rumors. Any one of them could be true. Or none of them. I left Black Tide a couple of months after Darby Bay. I haven’t spoken or seen anyone from my old unit—or any other unit—since.”
“Why did you leave? I mean, I know why me, Clark, and Freddy did. There were no more Mercerians. After what happened, the fastest way to get killed was to keep wearing those vests with the circled M’s on them. That doesn’t explain why you ditched Black Tide. They were winning, as far as we knew.”
Smith didn’t answer her, but not because he didn’t have an answer. It was very clear to him why he’d left. What wasn’t, though, was how much he wanted to tell this woman he’d only met a few hours ago when she tried to shoot his head off.
“Look, you started this Q&A,” Margo said. She sounded slightly irritated with his silence. “If you don’t want to keep it going, then fine. Just don’t expect—”
“My friends died in Darby Bay,” Smith said. “Then Lara disappeared. And suddenly I didn’t know what I was doing running around in a uniform anymore.” He looked over and held her curious gaze. “It was a moment of clarity that I couldn’t shake. So I left.”
“You were looking for a place to belong when you joined up.”
“Yes. Most of us were.”
“So were we.” She glanced across the room at Clark and Donna. “We just chose the wrong people.”
“We heard stories about some of the things you Mercerians did. Bad shit.”
“Yeah.”
He thought she might continue, but she didn’t. Just that one word: “Yeah.”
He guessed it was enough.
Smith sneaked another look at her and tried to feel something negative about what she used to be. Except there was nothing. He’d abandoned Black Tide just as they had done Buck’s Mercerian army. The situations were different, but Darby Bay had been the breaking point for both of them. He’d seen the port city in the aftermath of the attack. The rubble, the bodies, and all the MIAs that weren’t really missing. People didn’t go “missing” anymore, not with ghouls still out there. The nightcrawlers were lesser in numbers—even if last night made him rethink that notion somewhat—but they hadn’t gone completely extinct. Not yet—and not for a long time yet.
“I hope it’s true,” Margo said after a while.
“What?” Smith asked.
“Buck. I hope those rumors you heard about your side finding him and taking him out are true.”
Smith smiled. “Not a fan of the Buckster anymore, huh?”
“Not anymore, no.”
“So you guys left together? You, Clark, and Freddy?”
She nodded. “It was pretty obvious we were fighting a lost cause. Not that we really knew what the cause was to begin with. None of us were there when Mercer was still alive. We joined later, when Buck recruited us. After he vanished, we got the hell out of there as fast as we could.”
She went quiet for a moment, still staring across at Clark and Donna.
Then: “Every night after Darby Bay, we swore we could hear fighter jets in the sky. None of us even dared to breathe easier until we were out of Texas.”
“So what happened? How’d you and Clark split from Freddy?”
“We had a disagreement.”
“What kind of disagreement?”
“The kind where you see your friends doing shit they shouldn’t be doing, and when you tell them they shouldn’t be doing it, they threaten to shoot you in the face. That kind of disagreement.”
“That sounds like a disagreement, all right.”
“Yeah,” Margo said. And, like last time, she didn’t add anything else.
They sat across the door from one another in silence for a while after that, listening to each other’s breathing, along with Clark’s and Donna’s across from them. The duo had gone to sleep almost right away when they locked the door and hadn’t woken up since.
“They’re tired,” Margo said after a while. “We’re all tired.”
She closed her eyes, only to snap them wide open a moment later, as if catching herself.
“Go to sleep,” Smith said. “I’ll stay up.”
“I’m fine.”
“Now who’s bullshitting?”
“I’m fine,” she said again, adjusting her position against the wall.
“I already got my five hours in. I don’t need more than that.”
“You only need five hours of sleep?”
“That’s about it,” Smith lied. “Go ahead. I’ll wake you up if I feel myself starting to doze off.”
She stayed silent, with both eyes wide open.
“Go on,” Smith said. “If anyone tries to get in through this door, it’s not like you won’t hear it, right?”
“Right,” Margo said.
“So go to sleep. Don’t be such a drama queen.”
She smirked but picked up her rifle and laid it on the floor next to her, then crossed her arms across her chest before closing her eyes. “I’m going to get some quick shut eye. Wake me up in two hours, and we’ll swap guard duty.”
“Sure.”
“Two hours, Smith. I mean it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t be a smartass.”
Less than two minutes later, she was snoring next to him.
Smith crawled over to their packs in the corner and went through their supplies. He took out a box of 9mm bullets, then checked the tip for silver. Bingo. He swapped out his holstered SIG’s magazine for the “right” kind of bullets, feeling much, much better when he returned the gun to its housing.
Now he was ready for anything.
Fifteen
It turned out he didn’t need those silver-tipped bullets after all. The night went by without a hitch, and by the time Margo woke up and gave him the evil eye for not waking her earlier, there was already plenty of natural light in the room with them.
“I told you to wake me up so we could swap places,” Margo said.
“There was no point. I wasn’t sleepy, and nothing happened,” Smith said.
It was only partially true. He’d actually napped for about ten minutes or so, about an hour after Margo went to sleep, but had woken back up and didn’t do it again. He didn’t let her know that, though.
Smith stood up and opened the door, then stepped outside into the empty hallway. The Archers interior was flooded with natural sunlight, and he hadn’t gone more than a few feet before he could detect the strong—and very familiar—aroma of vaporized ghoul flesh.
He found the pile of bones where he expected them, strewn across the floor on the other side of the building. The ghouls that were still whole, that had managed to escape the destroying rays of sunlight were hidden in the shadows, giving off the familiar stink of nightcrawler presence. Even in death, they stank to high heaven. Smith considered dragging them out of the darkness to join their bony brethren but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. It wasn’t like they were going to be staying at the Archers for very long anyway.
Smith searched for and found the pack he’d tossed last night lying on the floor among the deformed bones. But when he picked it up, he flinched at the stink of dead ghouls clinging to every inch of fiber. Smith found a fresh replacement from the shelves instead, then transferred the spare magazines and supplies over.
Tired of forcing himself to breathe through his mouth, he grabbed some lightweight masks that covered just the lower half of his face and passed them around to the others. Donna, who was awake and walking again, also took one. Smith also found a Casio wristwatch to replace the one he’d lost at the Private Store-It but had to go hunting for a battery to swap out the dead one.
“I’m sorry about the horses,” Donna said when they were gathered near the front doors.
The half of the teenager’s face that was visible was slightly pink, and she looked older than her fourteen years (according to Margo) this morning. Clark had replaced her bulky tourniquet with a thinner bandage that was hidden underneath her jacket, and she wasn’t wearing the same bloodstained clothes from last night. For someone who had been recently shot, she appeared surprisingly in good shape. Clark and Margo made sure she had taken plenty of pain meds, so that probably had a lot to do with her improved condition.
“Don’t worry about it, kid; the walking will do us good,” Clark said.
Donna nodded, but she wasn’t buying it. She was young, but she wasn’t stupid and knew Clark was just trying to make her feel better.
“Maybe we should stay here awhile,” Margo said. “Those horses can easily outrun ghouls. They might come back here if they think it’s safe to return.”
“How long should we do that?” Clark asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe give it an hour?”
“Or two?”
“Or two,” Margo said, nodding. She looked over at Smith. “Any objections?”
“Walking’s overrated anyway,” Smith said. “I should know; I’ve been walking everywhere since Darby Bay.”
“You were at Darby Bay?” Clark asked.
“Long story,” Margo said to him.
Clark nodded, accepting her I’ll tell you about it later look, but it didn’t stop the big man from giving Smith a suspicious glance anyway.
“Let’s wait two hours to see what shows up,” Margo said.
“I’ll be in the sports department if you need me,” Smith said before walking off.
He found three possible choices to replace his lost hat, all Kansas State Wildcats merchandise. He tried a purple one with the wildcat logo at the front first, using a small mirror on top of one of the racks to check out the fit.
“It looks good on you,” a voice said from behind him.
Smith tilted the mirror slightly to pick up Donna. The teenager was sifting through some jerseys behind him. He still couldn’t get past how much younger she looked in the morning sunlight. Donna was going through the wide selection of sports clothing without any real enthusiasm, which told him she was just keeping busy so this—whatever “this” was that was about to take place between them—didn’t get too awkward.
I think it’s too late for that, kid.
“You think so?” Smith said anyway.
“Uh huh,” Donna said. “But I’d go for the black and white one myself.”
Smith tossed the purple cap and tried on the black and white one. The fit was too snug, though.
“Thanks, for last night,” Donna said.
“What happened last night?”
“You know, saving us.”
“Who told you that?”
“Margo.”
“She said I saved you guys?”
The teenager nodded. “Didn’t you?”
“She overexaggerated. I just did my part.”
It wasn’t like I had a choice, Smith thought but didn’t add. Last night had been an alliance of convenience, and he was surprised Margo had seen it any other way. She didn’t really think he had saved them, did she?
“Maybe,” Donna was saying. “But thanks anyway, just the same.”
“Sure.” Then, when Donna gave up pretending to look for jerseys and turned to go, he said, “She your mom? Margo?”
Donna gave him a surprised look that quickly turned into a smile. “Why? Do we look like mother and daughter?”
“I don’t know. Kind of?”
The teen shook her head. “She’s the closest thing I have to a mom, now.”
“Now?” Smith thought but didn’t ask.
The truth was, he didn’t know why he’d asked the first question to begin with. As with that conversation with Margo last night, did he really want to know this much about Donna and Margo?
“That looks good, too,” Donna said when Smith had switched to a white cap with a purple wildcat in the center.
“I agree,” Smith said.
Donna smiled, then turned and walked off.
Smith watched her reflection in the mirror for a moment, trying to figure out what all that was about.
They waited two hours, but nothing showed up. No horses and no people, and no Freddy. The only thing that appeared was even more mist to complement the already muggy atmosphere. Last night’s brief downpour hadn’t helped. He’d hoped Mist City would outlive its name, but the truth was opposite: It was stubbornly living up to it, and then some.
The presence of thick gray clouds swirling around the parking lot was both comforting and worrisome. Comforting in that the atmosphere limited their vision—and, in turn, would limit anyone else trying to get the drop on them, too.
But worrisome in that, well, their vision was limited.
They didn’t just loiter around the area, though. Smith toured the parking lot, finding plenty of empty brass casings from last night, along with deformed bones stripped of every inch of flesh. He counted thirteen ghouls in all, about half of those in the lot while the rest led toward the street in a jagged line as they gave chase to Freddy and his boys. Like Margo and Clark, Freddy’s gang was also well-equipped to deal with nightcrawlers. Smith also found blood on the pavement, which had to belong to humans, because gho
ul blood, like flesh, evaporated against sunlight.
Margo eventually walked over to join him next to a bullet-riddled sedan. “Anything?”
Smith shook his head. “Just a lot of mist.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot of that.”
“Mist City.”
“What’s that?”
“This place. Mist City.”
“Is that what it’s called? I didn’t catch any signs on the way in.”
“Not it’s real name. Just the name I gave to it.”
“Oh.” Then, “I guess that’s as good a name as any.”
Smith looked over at her. “Clark said Freddy had ten or so men with him last night?”
Margo nodded. “Not counting Steve and Mitchell.”
“Who’s Steve and Mitchell?”
“The two in the store. Mitchell was the one you shotgunned in the face.”
“Ah,” Smith said. Then, “Anyways, ol’ Freddy had to have lost some men last night, given they were out here without cover against that horde.”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t think so?”
“I hope so. Like you said, they didn’t have any cover. Out here, they’d be prime targets for that horde.”
“He must have lost a few warm bodies. Must have.”
“From your lips to God’s ears.”
She glanced out at the street on the other side of the parking lot, with the massive structure of the highway just barely visible in the background. How much they could make out depended almost entirely on how the mist moved at any given second.
“Was there this much mist yesterday?” Margo asked.
“Not this much, no.”
“I can barely see anything.”
“That’s good, because it means neither can anyone else. Like Freddy, if he’s even still alive.”
“Yeah, if he’s even still alive…” She turned back to him. “I never asked how you lost your weapons and supplies.”
He pointed down the street to where the Private Store-It would be, not that he could actually make out any part of its colorful chartreuse angles against the pervading wall of mist. “There’s a Private Store-It down there. I was ambushed and lost everything.”
“I don’t see anything.”