“Saw what?”
“The blue-eyed ones.”
Tommy looked hesitant, uncertain, maybe replaying what he may or may not have seen in his head. Will knew for a fact Tommy was there at the parking lot along with Rachel. They had seen the four blue-eyed ghouls emerging out of the U-Haul trailer like demons from hell. You didn’t forget a sight like that. Will certainly wasn’t going to anytime soon.
“I don’t know what I saw,” Tommy said. “Everything happened so fast…”
“You saw them,” Will said. “I saw them, too. Blue eyes.”
The kid nodded reluctantly.
“How many of them were there?” Will asked.
“I saw four,” Tommy said. “They had blue eyes like you said, and they were fast. I mean, the others—the black-eyed ones—they’re fast, too, but these ones were… They were way faster.”
“Shock troops,” Bratt said suddenly, surprising both Will and Tommy. Bratt’s voice was deep and sounded as if he were swallowing gravel with every word.
Dammit. Not now. Can’t you see I’m working on the kid here?
“What?” Tommy said, looking over at Bratt sitting next to him.
“Shock troops,” Bratt repeated. He hadn’t stopped working on his gun and didn’t look up. If Will didn’t know any better, he would swear the man was talking to himself. “In wars, they’re the point of the spear, lightning-quick and mobile. They’re sent to break through the enemy lines to lead the way for the rest of the army. That’s what they were doing here last night. They were sent into Dunbar for us.”
“Us?” Tommy said. “What are you talking about, Bratt?”
“We’ve been causing trouble. It’s Harrison’s fault.” The click-click of meaty fingers slid gun parts into place. “Attacking their convoys around the area, killing their soldiers, all that stupid-ass stuff. I told Harrison he was asking for trouble, but he wouldn’t listen.” Bratt chuckled—or was that a cackle? “I guess it’s kind of an honor. I bet they don’t send those blue-eyed freaks out for just anyone, right?”
You’re not wrong, Will thought, remembering again what Kate had said:
“This is what happens when you stick your head out and get my attention, Will. I grab a hammer.”
“Shock troops,” Tommy said to Will. “Crazy, huh?”
Will almost laughed.
Crazy? If you’ve only seen the things I’ve laid eyes on in the last eleven months, you’ll realize this is the least crazy thing, kid.
He said instead, “Yeah.”
“I mean, what makes us so special?” Tommy shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing that I can think of.”
You’re not. You’re just an annoyance to her. That’s all we are to Kate, to Mabry. Cockroaches running around, dirtying up their new house. And cockroaches get stepped on if they stray into the light—
He felt it. It was a very soft vibration at first, and there was almost no sound.
Slowly, as he listened more carefully, it grew in volume...
Danny opened his eyes next to him. “You felt that?”
“Yeah,” Will said.
Tommy said across from them, “That wasn’t just me, right? You guys felt that, too?”
Will nodded and stood up, Danny and Tommy mirroring him.
Bratt followed suit, holstering his sidearm and unslinging his AR-15. “They’re coming,” he said matter-of-factly.
“I think you better wake the others up,” Will said to Tommy.
The teenager nodded and vanished into the darkness. Will heard urgent whispering, then Rachel’s groggy voice.
The sound had picked up noticeably and it was definitely coming from above them—the basement door. Will and Danny wandered over to the landing and looked up the flight of stairs. Even in the semidarkness, the steel door seemed to gleam at the other end.
“What are the chances they’ll give us back our weapons?” Will said.
“Maybe if you ask nice like,” Danny said.
“I did. Again and again.”
“Questionable noises weren’t coming from the other side of the door then.”
Will looked over as Rachel and Tommy emerged from the blackness. Milch and two others, Eaton and George, were moving slowly after them, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes.
“What the hell’s happening?” Rachel said.
“Listen,” Will said.
Rachel did. So did the others.
Slowly, their eyes wandered over to the top of the stairs. They could all hear it now. The slight vibrations, the dull thump-thump-thump of something tapping against the thick metal door from the other side.
“I thought they gave up?” Tommy said, whispering for some reason.
“They did,” Will said. “Now they’re back.”
“They’ve never done anything like this before,” Milch said. He unslung his M4 rifle and held it in front of him at the ready. “Right?” Milch added, looking over at the others. “They’ve never stopped and started over again, right?”
It’s the blue-eyed ghouls, Will wanted to tell them. The black-eyed ones behaved differently when they were around. They became more unpredictable, more creative.
And this time there are four of them out there.
A little overkill, don’t you think, Kate?
Will exchanged a brief knowing look with Danny before he sought out Rachel in the semidarkness. “If they get in…”
“They won’t,” she said.
He didn’t buy it for a second. “We need our weapons.”
“No.”
“I thought we already came to an understanding. We’re not a threat to one another.”
She didn’t answer right away, and Will saw conflict playing across her face.
“Rachel,” Will said, “we’re not your enemy. If they get through that door—”
“Give them back their stuff,” she said to Milch and Eaton before he could finish.
“Thank you,” Will said.
“You’re definitely going on my Christmas list now,” Danny added.
Rachel grunted before turning her full attention back to the door up the stairs. “Don’t make me regret this.”
Milch and Eaton vanished into the darkness before coming back with Will’s and Danny’s M4A1s and gun belts. Will took them eagerly, as did Danny. He felt instantly whole again with the extra weight of the pouches, spare magazines, and the cross-knife in its sheath around his left thigh.
“What about our packs?” Will said to Eaton. “The radio’s in one of them.”
Eaton glanced back into the shadows. “They’re back there somewhere.”
“We need them.”
“Not my problem,” Milch said before turning back to the door.
Will exchanged a look with Danny.
“The service in this place sucks,” Danny said. “I’m definitely complaining on the comment card.”
Will started to move toward the back of the basement when above them the noise had increased and the soft, barely audible thump-thump-thump became noticeably faster and seemed to be growing in volume. That stopped him in his tracks and he gripped the rifle, turning to face the door.
What the hell are they doing out there?
He knew for a fact the creatures weren’t banging on the metal slab without a reason. Not with the blue-eyed ones guiding them. So what was it, then? How did they plan to get inside?
“What about the side door?” Will asked.
“What about it?” Rachel said.
“There’s one, right? That’s how you got in here before us.”
“Yeah.”
“We might have to use it.”
“You don’t think there are more of them waiting out there?”
“Probably, but it’s a better option than facing what’s going to be coming through this door.”
“Assuming they get through.”
“Listen to them,” Will said. “They’re going to get through. They’re just getting warmed up.” He glanced at his watch: 2:16 a.m. “And they have hours
on their side.”
“You’re a warm bowl of optimism, aren’t you, buddy?” Danny said.
“If we have to, we’ll use the side door,” Rachel said.
BOOM!
They all took an involuntarily step back from the stair landing. It wasn’t the same noise they had been hearing for the last few minutes. No. This was a single blow. Heavier, stronger, and more damaging. Will had become used to the rhythmic pattern of the ghouls slamming their useless flesh against a door, and this wasn’t it.
This was something else. Something more intense.
“Sounds metal,” Danny said.
“Yeah,” Will nodded.
“That all you got?”
“Yup.”
“You’re useless.”
“I try.”
“Shut up,” Rachel said, annoyed.
Danny mouthed at Will, “I blame this all on you.”
“We’re going to die tonight,” Will mouthed back.
“Captain fucking Optimism. I’m telling Lara.”
Will grinned.
“Tommy, go see if you can hear anything happening at the side door,” Rachel said.
Tommy rushed off into the darkness. The fact that people could disappear and reappear without warning was a bit disconcerting to Will, especially since he had zero visibility outside the small pool of light provided by the single LED lamp.
BOOM!
“Definitely metal,” Danny said.
“Let’s find out for sure,” Will said.
He jogged up the stairs, where he could still see the doorframe trembling in the aftermath of the last blow just seconds ago. Whatever they were using out there was definitely heavy and doing tremendous damage. He hadn’t been counting the seconds between the impacts, but it sounded like every ten seconds.
Which was just about—
BOOM!
Every inch of the door shook, and the brick wall surrounding it threatened to come unglued at any second. And there—a noticeable indentation had appeared at the side of the door, just over where the lever and locking mechanism were.
Footsteps behind him before Rachel’s and Danny’s breaths hit him in the back of the neck.
“Holy shit,” Danny said, staring at the indentation.
“What the hell is that?” Rachel asked, out of breath.
“They’re using some kind of battering ram,” Will said. “It’s the blue-eyed ghouls. They’re running the show out there.”
“Blue-eyed—” Rachel started to say.
BOOM!
All three of them took a step back as another indentation materialized in the door, very close to the first one. It sounded as if the creatures were literally driving whatever was on the other side into the door with great force, raining one concentrated, massive blow at a time every ten seconds.
“They’re going to cave the lock in,” Will said. “The door won’t hold for long after that.”
They hurried back down the stairs just as Tommy reappeared in the light.
“Nothing,” Tommy said. “I didn’t hear anything on the other side.”
“Are you sure?” Rachel asked.
“I’m telling you, there’s nothing out there—”
BOOM!
Will swore the entire basement vibrated for a good five seconds afterward that time.
“We gotta split,” Bratt said, his gravel voice cutting through the momentary silence. “The shock troops are coming. That’s them out there. We gotta go now.”
Will exchanged a quick look with Danny, who nodded back.
“Rachel,” Will said. “He’s right. We gotta go.”
“The side door?” she said, looking uncertainly at him.
“Yeah.”
“We’ll never survive out there.”
“We’ll have a better shot out there than down here when they start coming through that door.”
“Not much better…”
BOOM!
“Better than down here,” Will said, “trapped in this one big room with nowhere to go.”
“The door will hold,” she said, looking back up the stairs.
Will could tell he wasn’t going to get through. Maybe it was fear, or determination, or just simple human stubbornness (he knew a little bit about that last one), but he wasn’t going to budge her. She had decided, made her choice, and she was going to live (die) with it.
“It’ll hold,” she said again.
Another BOOM! blasted through the entire basement.
They spun around back to the stairs almost as one just as the metal door flew wide open and a burst of cold, rancid air flooded inside.
The first ghoul raced in, its bones clacking loudly.
Rachel, Eaton, and Milch opened fire and the creature’s forward momentum was stopped by a hail of bullets tearing into it, ripping away flesh and revealing bleach-white bones underneath. Then they lost sight of the ghoul because the black ocean pouring in through the open door swallowed the lone creature up and flooded down the stairs in a quivering obsidian tide.
“Go go go!” Will shouted.
Danny was already running, Tommy right behind him, when Will opened fire on the stairs.
Silver bullets punched through weak flesh and ricocheted off bones. Ghouls fell, flopping down the stairs, while others threw the dead ones over the banisters to make way for more to get down faster.
“Rachel!” Will shouted.
It didn’t do any good. He didn’t even think she heard him over the roar of blazing gunfire in the tight confines of the basement. Bullet casings sprayed around her and Bratt and Milch and Eaton, the clink-clink-clink of empty brass almost as loud as the unrelenting boom of assault rifles firing on full-auto.
Will turned and fled.
He darted into the darkness, guessing (praying) at the direction of the side door, using where he had last seen Tommy going and coming out of as a marker. Then he saw moonlight spilling through a rectangular hole in the wall and ran toward it.
Screams erupted behind him. Men’s voices, then a woman’s.
He kept going, because looking back would only slow him down. A second. Half a second. It didn’t matter. Slow was slow, and slow was death.
The floor under him trembled as the creatures landed everywhere. The slapping of flesh against concrete was loud because the gunfire had all but stopped. For a split-second there was no noise at all, until Rachel’s screams filled the room and bounced off the walls, then someone began firing with a semi-automatic handgun—
Will saw Danny in the doorway, holding the door open for him. There were no signs of Tommy. “Come on!” Danny shouted. “Can you run any slower, old man?”
Will put on a burst of speed and lunged through the opening and crashed into a brick wall chest-first on the other side. Behind him came the loud bang! of the door slamming shut and almost instantly the sound and fury of dozens of ghouls crashing into it from the other side.
Thoom thoom thoom!
Ennis’s basement side entrance was one floor below ground, with steps leading up into an alleyway beside the bar. Danny was already halfway up, shouting, “Can’t lock the door on this side! Run run run!”
Will pushed himself off the wall and followed as a gust of wind rushed against him about the same time the door banged open and the sound of hundreds (thousands?) of crashing bare feet flooded his senses.
Tommy was waiting for them in the alley above, absurdly still armed with his sniper rifle, and was pointing it at the mouth of the alley.
“Go go go!” Danny shouted.
Tommy turned and ran toward the back of the alley. Will wanted to shout at him, find out if he knew where he was going, but he didn’t get the chance. Creatures were coming up fast behind him, and he skidded and nearly fell against the dirty floor. He managed to catch himself at the last second, made a quick U-turn, and pursued Danny and Tommy into the darkened alley.
There were no lights, just the weak spill of moonlight from above. Thankfully that was enough to see with, and Wi
ll caught sight of Tommy’s lanky form moving with surprising speed. The kid was running so fast, so determined to get to the end, that Will wondered if he even still realized they were behind him.
Danny slowed down in front of him, then spun around like a ballerina doing a pirouette. Will kept going, the loud clattering of Danny’s rifle firing on full-auto behind him even louder in the narrow passageway.
Then he began to slow down, and as soon as Danny fired his last shot, Will stopped, spun, and lifted his rifle.
Danny darted past him a split-second later. “Changing!”
Will opened up on the horde. It was a wall of living darkness, liquid black eyes against the enveloping night. He fired into the center, then swung the rifle left to right, then right to left again. The magazine emptied at an impossible rate, the carbine getting lighter and lighter with every half-second—
“Go go go!” Danny shouted behind him.
Will turned and ran, Danny commencing firing as soon as he was past him.
Up ahead, Tommy was waving them over while holding open a steel door, moonlight glinting off its shiny surface. It was beaten and old, but it was intact, and that was all that mattered.
He ejected the magazine and let it drop to the floor and shoved in a new one while shouting, “Danny! You coming or what?”
Danny was already running back toward him, a big grin on his face. “Aw, I didn’t think you cared!”
“Don’t tell anyone!” Will shouted back, then pulled the trigger again.
Ghouls stumbled and fell, creating a dangerous pile that the others slipped and stumbled against as they tried to get over to get to him. Will was backing up as he fired, watching with morbid fascination as the black-eyed undead things toppled like dominos, bullets piercing non-existent muscle and dropping more of their kind behind them. They were so crammed into the tight confines of the alley and there were so many of them he was pretty sure he was killing a half dozen (more?) with every silver bullet.
He wished he could have said it did any good, but it didn’t. It didn’t make a damn bit of difference at all because for every single ghoul he killed, a dozen were already scrambling over its lifeless carcass and they were constantly moving forward at an obscene rate.
“Move your ass, Kemosabe!” Danny shouted behind him, his voice shockingly close.
Will hadn’t realized he was almost on top of Danny until he spun to his left and saw the open door in front of him. He threw himself inside while Danny unleashed another full magazine into the surging tide of writhing flesh, the harsh sound of bullets snapping and glancing off bones like some kind of strange melody that could only be orchestrated by a mad composer.
The Purge of Babylon Series Box Set, Vol. 2 | Books 4-6 Page 27