by Sam Sisavath
God help me, I’m going to get killed.
Those were some of the thoughts that raced through her head as Gaby walked down the hallway in the hazmat suit. She was at least comforted by the fact that the suit’s original wearer wasn’t fat despite his slightly pudgy face, and the suit wasn’t too big for her. With the gun belt strapped around her waist and the M4 in her hands, she could almost pull it off.
Hopefully.
Benny gave her an ‘okay’ nod when she asked him how she looked, but she could tell by his eyes that he was scared. Not for himself, but for her. Which was both sweet and worrisome. Was he scared because he liked her and didn’t want her to get hurt? Or frightened because she didn’t look convincing in the suit?
She couldn’t tell how she looked, and frankly, she didn’t want to. She concentrated instead on how she felt, which was surprisingly calm. With the combat boots on, she wouldn’t necessarily look out of place. And the gas mask hid most of her face, if not the blonde ponytail.
They’re going to see the ponytail…
But not if she kept in front of them. It was hard enough to see the eyes of someone wearing a gas mask; maybe they wouldn’t notice what was behind her, either.
This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.
I am so going to die.
She kept walking, because if she stopped for even a second she might change her mind and run back to the lounge. And then what? Hide in the old bathroom? Sure, that might work for a while…until nightfall. Then the ghouls would be all over the tenth floor, and the idea of being surrounded by those things, with just a fridge, a poster, and a flimsy door as protection made her skin crawl.
She made it halfway to her destination without meeting another person on the floor, though she saw plenty of bodies. Some of Mike’s soldiers, but a lot of the civilians, too. Men and women, some still in their teens. Blood smeared the walls and open doors, and the entire floor had the thick aura of abandonment and death.
She turned another corner and slowed down.
The rooftop access door was at the end of the hallway, and there was a man in a hazmat suit standing in front of it, eating from a can of beans, his gas mask hanging off his web belt. But it wasn’t the man that startled her. It was the door to the man’s right, the one that accessed the other nine floors of the hospital. The lumber that had been nailed across the door, keeping it barricaded, had been pried loose and was piled nearby on the floor.
The door was open.
She could see blackness inside the stairwell door, and it was…moving.
Quickly, she checked the windows along the hallway. The blinds were pulled up and sunlight filtered in, illuminating large swaths of the tiled floor. That was why the ghouls hadn’t come out of the stairwell yet. Still too much sunlight. She wondered if the men in hazmat suits had left the windows uncovered intentionally.
Maybe they’re still human, after all.
She was halfway to the man when he finally looked up. He licked at brown stains around his lips, before saying, “What are you still doing up here?”
“Are we leaving already?” she asked.
My God, how is my voice so calm?
“You didn’t get the signal?” the man asked. “That’s what the radio’s for, genius.”
Gaby looked down at the radio clipped to her hip. “I think mine’s dead. Where is everyone?”
“Downstairs, loading up the Humvees.” He glanced down at his watch. “We got five hours to bag all the supplies before this place goes dark. I don’t know about you, but I don’t wanna be here when that happens.”
Gaby was thirty yards away now. She moved her head around to purposefully avoid looking him in the eyes because she could see him trying to get a better look at her. He had also subtly let his right hand drift toward his holstered handgun. His rifle, another M4 (Where did they get all the M4s?), rested on the wall behind him.
“That’s you, right, Janice?” the man said, peering at her. “I thought you were on the roof.”
“I was,” Gaby said. “I came down for some food.”
Keep walking. Don’t stop.
Keep walking…
“You’re supposed to be on the roof,” the man said. Then a flicker of alarm crossed his face. “Bullshit. You’re not Janice.”
The man reached for his handgun, dropping the can of beans at the same instant.
Gaby had been walking with her rifle in her arms the entire time, and all she had to do was lift it and shoot the man in the chest. She was so close—less than fifteen yards away—that it wasn’t much of a shot and she barely had to aim or use the red dot sight.
It was the sound of the gunshot that startled her. It was too loud.
The man slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor. He sat awkwardly with his head hanging against his chest, as if he were asleep. A small, thin trail of blood dripped out of the white hazmat suit.
Gaby looked back down the hallway, hoping Jen and the others had heard that. Of course they had heard that. Everyone must have heard that shot.
She moved toward the dead man, saw the darkness shifting in the open stairwell door to her left, just barely visible out of the corner of her eye. She could feel the intensity growing, the sudden squirming of bodies jammed inside, the almost palpable vibe of growing excitement.
Ignore them. They can’t come out.
Ignore them!
She looked away as the radio clipped to her hip squawked, and a man’s deep voice came through: “What the fuck was that? Where did that shot come from?”
A female voice answered, “That’s from the tenth floor.”
“Gary,” the man said. “Come in, Gary.” When no one answered, the man said, “Mark, are you there? Where the fuck are you guys?”
Mark and Gary. Probably the man with the pudgy face whose suit she was wearing, and the dead man in front of her. Not that it mattered.
She ripped the gas mask off and tossed it, then glanced back down the hallway, expecting to see Jen and the others charging toward her at any second.
But there was no one back there except an empty hallway.
Come on, guys.
She waited.
Seconds felt like hours, and her heart beat erratically against her chest.
Come on, dammit.
What if Jen didn’t think the gunshot was the signal? She couldn’t really blame them. She didn’t even know what the signal would be. What if they were still back there, hiding inside the bathroom? What if—
She heard feet pounding down the hallway and spun around, lifting her rifle.
Jen, taking the corner, slid to a stop, the pudgy man’s rifle gripped tightly in her hands and the big medical supply bag jutting out from behind her back. “It’s just us!” she shouted.
Benny, shouldering the other medical bag, turned the corner so recklessly he almost crashed into Jen. Amy was behind him, holding the kid, whose arms were wrapped tightly around the former Army medic’s neck, his face buried in her shoulder.
Gaby waved them over. “What happened to the other guy?”
“I hit him with my rifle,” Benny said. “I think he’s unconscious. Or dead. I’m not sure.”
“Good enough.”
A loud burst of gunfire tore through the air outside the building, making all five of them—including the kid—jump. The pop-pop-pop of automatic rifle fire seemed to fill every inch and space of the world around her. They were coming from below and behind and above them all at the same time.
The radio on the floor squawked, and she heard the same man with the deep voice, this time the unmistakable quiver of fear coming through in every word he shouted:
“We’re under attack! I repeat, we’re under attack!”
CHAPTER 13
WILL
NINE.
That was how many times he thought Gaby would tell him she was through, that she was done with the training, the scars, the bruises, and the waking up with every inch of her body aching, where even breathing h
urt.
Nine times.
The first week was the hardest, because it had to be. It would get easier if she stuck with it, but he had to know what kind of fortitude she had, what kind of quit she had in her, if any. His version of Basic Training was quick and painful and soul-crushing. It was difficult, but nothing compared to what he and Danny had gone through. They squeezed in Basic along with Ranger discipline, with half of her days spent on building up her stamina and the other half on weapons training.
And she stuck with it.
They told her she could quit any day. Every day. They told her when they started at the beginning of the day, and later when she was done at night. They pushed her. She complained often and loudly, but she never quit.
After a while, she even stopped complaining.
And she was a natural shooter. He hadn’t expected that. Under Danny’s tutelage, she flourished, and he gave her more time in the Tower with the ACOG to get her used to the riflescope. In time, he had no doubt she would surpass him, and maybe even Danny.
He remembered his conversations with Lara about Gaby. Lara’s problem was that she still thought of Gaby as a kid, a little sister, and wasn’t convinced turning her into a soldier was the right path. Not that she could have stopped the teenager. They weren’t the girl’s parents, and she was eighteen. In post-Purge years, that was plenty old enough.
“What if she gets hurt?” Lara had asked. “People get hurt during Basic Training all the time, don’t they?”
“Of course they do,” he had answered. “That’s why you’re here.”
“I’m just a third-year medical student, Will.”
“So hopefully she’ll only have a third-year medical-student-type accident.”
“Not funny.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“She’s just a kid.”
“She’s eighteen going on thirty.”
That led to Lara’s theory that Gaby was throwing herself into training so she wouldn’t have to think about Josh, the kid who had died under Will’s watch. Maybe. Probably. It wasn’t his job to dig under Gaby’s motivations. He only cared that she had motivations.
It didn’t really hit him just how young she really was until they spent two weeks together in the woods. The exercise was simple—live and survive off the land, eating only what they killed, and using only what they could scavenge. Roots, plants, bugs, and animals.
Over a campfire one night, he saw her smiling to herself.
“What’s so funny?” he had asked.
“I was just thinking how funny all of this is,” she had said. “I’m camping in the woods, eating plants and bugs. This isn’t exactly my thing, Will. I’m not sure if my friends would be horrified or impressed if they saw me today.”
“You’re surprisingly good at this.”
“That’s a compliment, right?”
“Lara wasn’t sure Danny and I should be pushing you this hard.”
“Lara’s sweet. She’s the big sister I never had.”
“I told her you could handle it.”
“Thanks.”
“Nine times, you know.”
“Nine times what?”
“That’s how many times I thought you would come and tell me you were quitting. All of it in the first month.”
She had laughed. “Nine sounds a little low. I was thinking more around thirtyish.”
“But you didn’t quit.”
“No…”
“Why not?”
“I’m good at this. God knows I had no idea I would be. But I am. Go figure, right?”
“This is just the beginning.”
“What, it gets harder?”
“A lot harder.”
“Oh.” She had picked up a stick and was poking at the fire. “But you and Danny will be there, right?”
“We’re not going anywhere.”
“Good.” Then she had smiled across the fire at him. “Then bring it.”
*
GABY.
He smiled when he saw her in his binoculars, looking out from one of the windows along the north face of Mercy Hospital. She was scanning for something among the cars in the parking lot below her.
Will leaned farther out from behind a big orange building across the street and to the left of the parking lot. In a bit of a twist, he had a better view of the snipers on the rooftop than they did of him. They had the better vantage point from high up, sure, but it was easy to avoid them if you chose the right angles.
He lowered the binoculars and glanced back at Mike, crouched behind him. “It’s Gaby. She’s alive.”
“The teenager?”
“Looks like she found a place to hide during the attack. Maybe she managed to save some of your people, too.”
Mike fished out a pair of binoculars from his pack and leaned out from behind the building and looked through them.
“Four windows from the left,” Will said.
“That’s the nurses’ lounge,” Mike said. “There’s an old, unused bathroom in the back.” Mike lowered his binoculars. “You’re right, she’s probably not alone. Most of my people know about that bathroom, so someone must have taken her there.”
Mike moved back behind cover, stuffing the binoculars into his pack. They had returned to the Archers after interrogating Jones, exchanging the bulky gym bags for tactical packs made of heavy-duty nylon. They had brought back with them only what they needed for the assault on the hospital, to make sure there were no survivors left to save. Neither one of them was willing to leave until they had made absolutely damn sure.
Will searched inside his pack and pulled out a small mirror housed inside a pouch. It was a part of a baton kit, but right now he only needed the mirror. He leaned back out, made sure Gaby was still visible in the window, then stuck the mirror into the open and flicked it back and forth to catch the light.
“What are you doing?” Mike asked behind him.
“Trying to get her attention.”
“Morse code?”
“I don’t think she knows Morse code. At least, I never taught her. It’s just to let her know she’s not alone up there.”
“And then?”
“She’s a resourceful kid. If she knows she has help down here, she’ll act accordingly.”
“Jen’s helicopter is still on the roof,” Mike said. “If Jen’s still alive, they could use it to escape. But that’ll mean taking out the snipers on the rooftop first.”
“One thing at a time,” Will said.
He heard the gunshot a split second before the piece of brick a few centimeters from his face cracked and showered the air with a fine orange clay cloud. He pulled his head back as a second shot broke another brick in half.
“You hit?” Mike asked.
Will brushed flecks of powder out of his hair. “I’m fine. You ready?”
Mike unslung one of the M4s he had taken from one of the dead collaborators. He had a second one for backup, and had ditched his shotgun. If this was going to work, they couldn’t be seen. They were already outnumbered, so they needed every advantage they could get.
Will made do with his M4A1, but he had loaded on extra magazines. He nodded at Mike. “Stick to the plan.”
“I have a choice?”
“Not really, no.”
He grinned. “You know, I outrank you. I should be the one giving the orders.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been at this longer than you.”
“Can’t argue with that. I’ll see you when I see you, then.”
Mike jogged off, keeping low and behind the other orange building. He was safe, unless the snipers on the rooftop could see through brick walls.
Will watched him go for a moment, then stuck his head back out of the building to look at the rooftop. He pulled it back just before a gunshot sent another flurry of orange into the air around him.
*
THERE WERE FOUR military Humvees in desert camo parked in a line in front of the hospital’s front lobby outside the north towe
r. They hadn’t been there this morning. All four vehicles looked well-worn, their tires covered in mud, and flying insect carcasses splattered across the back windows facing him.
Men in hazmat suits and gas masks were leading a couple of kids toward one of the Humvees. There were already other children inside two of the vehicles. The other hazmat suits stood guard with M4s. Will counted four, not including the two in the process of shoving the kids into a Humvee. He was too far to hear anything, but some of kids were crying, their tear-streaked faces glancing around in terror, clear as day through his binoculars.
He remembered what Jones had said: “They don’t want anyone who resists. They just want the kids.”
He hadn’t heard a single thing through the radio clipped to his hip. He was surprised by that. Whoever was in charge—maybe this Kellerson that Jones had mentioned—wasn’t stupid after all. They knew Will and Mike had probably procured radios from the four men they had killed earlier, so it was possible the collaborators had switched to a different frequency. That level of tactical thinking already made them more dangerous than the ones he had run across in Dansby, Texas.
Even their human minions are getting smarter.
Will skirted the parking lot, easily avoiding the rooftop sentries. He moved as quickly as he could up the empty street, until he was safely pressed up against the side of a brown low-to-the-ground building on the outskirts of the parking lot. It was some kind of auxiliary building, with a small flight of stairs leading to a side door.
He leaned around the corner and did the numbers in his head.
Four Humvees. Six men outside the lobby. Two more on the rooftop that he could see, probably more that he couldn’t. He and Mike had already killed four, and Jones said there were sixteen in all. That left four unaccounted for. Maybe one of the men standing around the Humvees was Kellerson himself. Will would have loved to take out Kellerson first.
Cut the head off the snake and the body falls.
He pulled back and waited. The building’s wooden wall felt flimsy behind his back. It wasn’t going to provide him with a lot of protection when the bullets started flying, but at least they couldn’t see him from either the front driveway or the rooftop.
