He appeared below her. “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
“It’s outside.”
“What’s outside?”
“Your horse.”
“My horse?”
“Your horse named Horse.”
“For real?”
She couldn’t help but smile. “You can’t see him?”
“I was checking the back.”
“Who’s watching the front?”
Keo looked away for a moment before turning back. “No one. Jolly’s asleep on the floor and Peters is out cold on the pews. I guess the boys are tired.”
That surprised Gaby. She was sure Peters would force himself to stay awake all night.
“I guess so,” Gaby said. “You need help with the doors?”
“I’ll wake the Jolly Green Giant.”
“Okay.”
Gaby went back to the wall and looked down at Horse. The thoroughbred was waiting quietly below her, only occasionally glancing behind it as if it expected something to (try) to creep up behind it.
I think something’s out there…
Gaby peered through Peters’s night-vision scope and scanned the area around the front of the church, but there was nothing out there but abandoned houses and empty streets.
Below her, the doors opened, and Horse walked up the three concrete steps, horseshoes clopping gently against the stone. Was it tiptoeing? Did horses tiptoe?
“What the hell?” she heard Peters saying groggily through the hole behind her.
“It’s a horse,” Jolly said. He sounded almost amused. “It’s Keo’s horse.”
“That’s your horse?” Peters asked.
“Kind of,” Keo said.
“Well is it or isn’t it?”
“I guess it is. Kind of.”
Gaby smiled at the thought of Keo’s face, flushed red as he answered, and she was still visualizing that amusing moment when she noticed it.
It wafted through the air, coming from somewhere behind her. Like a physical hand, searching out with tangible fingers, until it finally found her in the church tower:
A rotting garbage smell, thick and vile, and it instantly dug its way into her senses and clung onto her skin.
She turned and lifted the rifle back up before walking over to that side of the wall. Her heart hammered against her chest, and she knew what she’d find before she even got there.
It was the stink that gave it away. The unnatural stench of dead things. She hadn’t forgotten what it was like to be so close to so many of them at one time. She couldn’t, and wouldn’t, no matter how much time passed since Houston. That day, underneath the city, surrounded…
The darkness parted before her naked eyes. Slowly, revealing it inch by inch.
It snarled at her, what remained of its teeth—a few jagged yellow pieces here, a few there—yellow and brown against the moonlight. It had somehow climbed up the outside wall of the church and was straddling the middle arch of the rooftop now, just barely five feet from the bell tower.
And it wasn’t alone.
Two others were climbing up behind it, pulling themselves onto the roof with hands so thin they might as well be chopsticks. Crooked, jointed chopsticks.
One of the creatures knocked a shingle loose and it fell, then shattered somewhere below.
Horse, Gaby thought. It knew they were out there. That’s why it came back to the church. That’s why it was looking for shelter.
“So where are they?” she had been asking herself all night.
But she’d always assumed she was looking for them—flesh and blood enemies. Buckies, from Fenton.
Not this.
She lifted the rifle at the same time the ghoul bounded across the rooftop, slipping and sliding on more loose shingles as it did so. Saliva flitted from its own mouth, and lifeless black eyes zeroed in on her—
Crack! as the bolt-action bucked in her hands, the gunshot thundering across the open dark skies.
The creature seemed to pause, as if shocked by the .308 Winchester round that had just torn through its chest with hardly any resistance at all before it tumbled sideways and plopped down the angled rooftop before disappearing over the edge.
Even as it did that, the two that had climbed up behind it also fell—one going left after the first one, while the other went right.
Three for the price of one, she thought, even as Gaby jerked the bolt back and shoved it forward again to reload.
Silver bullets. She hadn’t asked Peters what his rifle was loaded with, but of course it would be silver bullets. Just like everything Buck’s men were armed with. You were a fool if you didn’t put some silver into your ammo—or knives, or whatever it was you carried “just in case” you got caught outside at night.
A dead fool…or worse.
What was worse than dead? She was looking at it right now.
More fingers gripped the end of the rooftop, and a domed head, pruned black skin glinting under the harsh moonlight, appeared behind them.
Gaby lifted the rifle to fire when the air shifted around her.
She spun to her right just as another ghoul dragged itself over the wall. Gaby fired—the second crack! even louder than the first—and the creature careened backward and over the wall—only to make room for two more to clamber up in its place.
“Gaby!” Keo, shouting from below her.
“They’re here!” she shouted back, even as she worked a third round into the rifle and began backing up. “They’re around us! They’re all around us!”
One—two—five ghouls were pulling themselves up onto the roof in front of her.
No, not just in front of her. When she looked left, it was the same. More were coming up that side of the building.
She didn’t bother turning to her right, because she knew what she would find over there, too. More of them. Pruned flesh, dead black eyes, and malformed bones—revenants with skin that hung off skeletal frames.
“Gaby!” Keo, from below her again. “Get down here now!”
“Coming!” she shouted back, and turned around, slinging the rifle—
—when she saw it:
It stood in the road on the other side of the church’s front yard, surrounded by a carpet of writhing black flesh. She shouldn’t have been able to see it with so much darkness outside, but even if she couldn’t, she thought she would have felt its presence.
It seemed to pulsate with (undead) life, like some kind of unnatural black hole in an endless starry sky.
My God, where did they all come from? Where were they hiding? Where was it hiding all this time?
Even as the questions bounced around in her head, all she could focus on was the creature in the middle, standing tall as if it were human (You’re not human. Not anymore.) while a seemingly endless horde of ghouls moved around its legs. Pathetically small and sickly children, trying to get a parent’s attention, and failing.
Because it only had eyes for her. For her.
They were everywhere, crawling around the church’s front yard, while others perched on rooftops of surrounding buildings. And still more, emerging out of the pockets of shadows in-between houses.
How are there so many of them still left?
It wasn’t just the sight of them (So many. God, there are so many) that temporarily paralyzed her, it was what Keo had said to her back at the ranch. The same words that had made her skin crawl then, and still did now, as she recalled them:
“It knows I was there, in Houston… I think it was hunting me, for what happened that day. I think it’s hunting all of us now…”
Twenty-Six
“Gaby!”
I’m coming.
“Hurry up!”
I’m coming, dammit!
She would have shouted back down at Keo, except Gaby was too busy holding onto the ladder with one hand while groping desperately for the large deadbolt on this side of the trapdoor and pushing it into place above her, the loud clank! as the metal piece landing home almo
st as loud as the—
Thoom-thoom-thoom! as the door quivered above her—but held.
Thoom-thoom-thoom!
Ghouls. More than one.
Thoom-thoom-thoom!
A hell of a lot more than one. Pounding on the door on the other side. She could smell them through the tiny slivers around the frame as it moved against their repeated attacks.
“Gaby!” She glanced down at Keo standing next to the ladder, looking up at her. “You okay?”
She nodded and finally (finally!) allowed herself to breathe again.
“Jump, and I’ll catch you,” Keo said.
Gaby narrowed her eyes at him, but even with very little lights to see with, she could make out that mischievous grin on his face.
“I’ll manage,” Gaby said, and began climbing down. She took her time because her legs were throbbing.
Legs. Not just one leg, but both. She wasn’t entirely sure how that was possible, and she didn’t have time to investigate—
Thoom-thoom-thoom!
The pounding from above her wasn’t nearly as loud as it had been when she was higher up on the ladder. Or maybe they were never that loud to begin with, but her mind was playing tricks—
Thoom-thoom-thoom!
She pushed the noise into the background and stepped off the ladder, just as there was a soft crack—then another one—behind her before the church’s interior began to light up, slowly, with an unnatural brightness.
Gaby looked over at Peters and Jolly as the two men snapped and then shook white chemical night sticks before tossing them into different corners of the room. Soon, Gaby didn’t have to rely on her night eyes anymore and could see where everyone was standing, including Horse near the back of the building, between the first row of pews and the stage.
The thoroughbred retreated a few steps when a glow stick bounced off a nearby seat and landed too close to him. He gave the device a suspicious look before letting out what Gaby thought sounded a lot like a warning snort.
Peters walked over and handed Gaby her AR before taking back his bolt-action. “No point in hiding anymore. They know where we are.”
Gaby nodded and checked her rifle, even as the thoom-thoom-thoom rang out from the bell tower above her. She ignored it (They’re not getting through; yeah, that’s the ticket) and turned to check the front doors.
They remained closed, the extra barricades in place, and there were no signs that the ghouls were assaulting it on the other side the way they were doing with the access hatch above her. They also weren’t attacking the windows, which didn’t make any sense.
Why aren’t they pounding against the doors and windows?
It couldn’t have been the presence of Jolly and Bart, who were manning the two windows. Besides the barricades that were already in place, Peters had ordered three of the heavy wooden pews to be stacked on top of one another in front of the doors to provide an extra layer of defense in case of breach.
Donald remained with Carter near the back, and Gaby could hear the wounded man snoring.
“He’s still out?” she asked Peters.
The team leader nodded. “Donald gave him some more sedatives earlier.” Peters pursed his lips. “If we don’t make it out of here, he won’t notice.”
“He hopes he doesn’t notice,” Keo said.
Peters gave him a questioning look, but Keo ignored him and exchanged a look with Gaby, who knew exactly what he was talking about.
Because there are worse things than death these days, right, Keo?
She glanced back up the ladder.
Thoom-thoom-thoom!
They hadn’t stopped or slowed down for even a second since they fled the tower. Not for one goddamned second. It was like they never grew tired, or if one did, it was replaced by another one. Did ghouls even get tired?
Thoom-thoom-thoom!
Keo eyed the trapdoor. “That’s not going to last all night.”
“It lasted for whoever was here before us,” Gaby said.
“There’s that,” he said, but she didn’t think he actually believed it.
God, I hope I’m not wrong, she thought before looking into the back. “If they do manage to get through, we’ll have to retreat into one of those rooms.”
“Which one?” Peters asked.
“One’s as good as the other,” Keo said. “We’ll split up. Take both rooms.”
“Is splitting up really smart?” Gaby asked.
Keo shrugged. “Two rooms will take longer to break into than one.”
Gaby didn’t think even Keo believed that. She’d seen the office doors in the back. They were flimsy and cheap and weren’t reinforced like the front entrance and windows. If the ghouls found a way in, how long could they possibly last?
Not long. Not long at all…
But Gaby didn’t give voice to her doubts. It wasn’t going to do anyone any good. Besides, maybe they could keep the ghouls out all night. After all, the people who had used the church before them had done exactly that. There was no blood or signs of struggle inside the building, and the barricades had remained intact when they found the place.
We can survive this. Others did, before us. So we can, too.
Right?
“Jolly, grab Carter and take him into the right-side back room,” Peters was saying. “Donald, get him settled in there.”
The big man nodded and slung his rifle, then hurried away from the window. He picked Carter up from the pew with a loud grunt, and with Donald in tow, carried the unconscious man across the church and into one of the rooms.
Keo walked the short distance to take over Jolly’s place at the left-side window. He was peering out through the inch-wide slat in the barricade when Gaby went over to join him.
“What do you see?” she asked.
“Take a look,” Keo said, and stepped aside for her.
Thoom-thoom-thoom! from behind and above her (Ignore them, they’re not getting through) as Gaby took Keo’s spot and looked out through the small opening.
They were everywhere, crawling around every inch of Axton that she could see from her limited angle. How many more of them were out there that she couldn’t see? The church’s front yard was gone and so were the old cars parked on the road this afternoon. Even the mailbox had vanished, and in its place was a vast field of blackness.
Moving blackness.
And it was gone. The blue-eyed ghoul she had spotted from the bell tower. It wasn’t out there anymore, because if it were, she would have no trouble making it out from the complete nothingness staring back at her.
Staring back at her…
Gaby pulled back and looked over at Keo, who was standing nearby. She remembered the last time they were this close—under the city of Houston, in that filthy sewage tunnel as a horde of ghouls surged toward them from front and back. She remembered the look on Keo’s face when he saw the frag grenade in her palm.
“Did you see it?” she asked, so quietly she wasn’t sure Keo had actually heard her.
But he nodded. “I saw it.”
“Was it the same one? The same creature that you said was hunting you?” was on the tip of her tongue, but before she could put them into words, Bart said from the other window, “I saw it, too.” Then, when they looked over at him, “It was standing out there like it owned the damn planet.”
“Saw what?” Peters said from behind them. “What did you guys see out there?”
“It was a blue eyes,” Bart said, looking at Gaby and Keo for confirmation.
They both nodded.
“Yeah,” Keo said. “It was a blue-eyed ghoul. Outside.”
“Was it the same one? Was it the same one?” she wanted to ask Keo, but the words that came out were, “It’s not out there now. Where did it go?”
Keo shook his head. “It wasn’t there when I looked a second time. It—” He stopped in mid-sentence.
She heard it, too.
Or didn’t hear it.
Gaby walked back to the ladder and
glanced up at the door. It had stopped moving, because the ghouls had stopped pounding on it. The sudden quiet was as unsettling as anything she had ever experienced.
The night’s still young…
Peters appeared beside her. “They stopped. Why did they stop?”
“I don’t know,” Gaby said.
“What’s it mean?” Bart asked behind them.
“Maybe they got bored and gave up,” Keo said.
Gaby looked back at him with a wry smirk.
He grunted. “I know, I know. Captain Optimism, right?”
She smiled and thought, One of us has to be, because I’m sure as hell not feeling very optimistic right now. Especially after what I saw out there. What’s still out there, even if we can’t see it anymore.
“Feels like a funeral in here,” a voice said.
They all turned to look at Jolly as the big man came out of the back room.
Jolly stopped when he saw everyone staring at him. “What? It’s a figure of speech.”
“That’s a hell of a figure of speech for a time like this, man,” Bart said.
“Too soon?”
“Way too fucking soon.”
“My bad,” Jolly said, and walked over to take his position at the window across the doors from Bart.
“What are they doing now?” Peters asked.
Gaby looked over at Keo, who shook his head and said, “I don’t know.”
“Someone wanna clue me in here?” Bart said. He was peeking out through the two-by-fours nailed over his window. “What the hell’s going on?”
“What do you see?” Peters asked.
“Nothing.” The blond young man shook his head. “They’re just…standing around doing nothing. Christ, there’s so many of them.”
“Jolly?” Peters asked.
The big man peered out. “He’s right. They’re just standing around. Like they’re waiting for something.”
“Where did they all come from?” Bart asked. He sounded like he was talking more to himself than them.
“They must have been hiding,” Jolly said.
“Yeah, but where? Christ, I didn’t know there were this many still around in the whole damn country. How is this possible?”
Road To Babylon Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 54