by Sam Sisavath
“I can dig it. Badass guys don’t need to tell people how badass they are.”
She smiled to herself, deciding that she liked the way he put things in perspective without making a big deal out of it. It was too bad about the Mohawk, though. What the hell was that about?
“Where’s this pawnshop?” she asked.
“There,” he said, pointing to a place called Leroy’s Stuff, squeezed between a Subway sandwich shop and an AT&T outlet store.
There were bigger stores in the strip mall, but Leroy’s managed to stand out because of its burglar bars over its glass wall and front door.
“See them?” Nate said, pointing at a shelf behind the counter inside the store.
Gaby saw a large selection of radios and recognized a couple that looked like the ham radio they had back in the Tower on Song Island.
“How are we going to get inside?” she asked, looking at the burglar bars. “Can you squeeze through?”
“Are you serious? I’m bigger than you.”
“You’re taller, but you’re not bigger.”
“I’m at least fifty pounds heavier. What are you, a hundred soaking wet?”
“In your dreams.”
“I could probably bend the bars back far enough to slide under.”
She put a hand on his right bicep and squeezed. “With what? This little thing?”
He snickered. “That’s a challenge if I ever heard one. Step back.”
He crouched and used the butt of his rifle to break the glass window near the bottom. He then used the barrel to knock loose the glass shards still sticking along the frame.
“Why a bolt-action rifle?” she asked. It had been on her mind ever since she saw it.
“I don’t know, really, I grabbed it when all of this was happening. I never thought much about trading up. Why the M4?”
“I learned to shoot with it.”
“Yeah? You good with that thing?”
“I could probably shoot a target from eighty yards.”
“That’s not bad for a civilian.”
“Gee, thanks.”
He chuckled, then cracked his knuckles. “Moment of truth.”
“Fair warning: if you hurt yourself, I’m heading back without you.”
He gave her a wry look. “You don’t have to be such a bitch, Gaby. I’m just trying to impress you here.”
She smirked. “So shut up and impress me already.”
*
IT TOOK NATE almost an hour to bend the bars back, creating a makeshift entrance near the bottom to crawl under. Before he could slide under the bent bars, she handed him her Glock. Nate carried an M1911 Colt .45 loaded with regular ammo, and her spare magazines weren’t going to fit his weapon.
The building was brightly lit by sunlight up front, but the back was pitch-dark. Gaby didn’t think there was anything back there because the pawnshop gave off that undisturbed vibe, but she didn’t feel like taking the risk anyway.
When he was inside, she followed, moving on her belly to slide under the bars.
He pulled her up from the floor. “I think we’re safe. No monsters. Or what do you guys call them?”
“Ghouls.”
“Interesting name.”
“Will’s idea. I used to just call them ‘bloodsuckers.’” She looked around the interior of the pawnshop. It looked a lot more claustrophobic now that she was inside. “Look for something we can use and I’ll grab the radio.”
“Who put you in charge?”
“Just do it, will you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, snapping her a mock salute before disappearing into the back with her Glock.
Gaby, safe in the sunlight, went behind the counter and looked over the radios. She grabbed a couple, choosing the newest looking ones. She found bags, but they looked too flimsy. There were backpacks hanging from hooks nearby, and she brought a couple over and stuffed two of the radios into one bag, then grabbed unopened battery packs from a rack. By the time she was done, the backpack with the batteries was at least twice as heavy as the one with the radios.
“Nate,” she called.
“Yeah?” he called back. She couldn’t see him in the shadowed parts of the store.
“Find anything?”
“Junk. Lots and lots of useless junk.”
“It’s a pawnshop, not the Sharper Image. Let’s go, Will’s waiting.”
“What’s the hurry?”
“We haven’t been in contact with Song Island for two days now. They’re probably worried sick about us.”
“Coming…”
While she was waiting, she grabbed some silver jewelry from the glass counter and tossed them into a backpack, then snatched up some silver pens and cutlery, too. She looked up as Nate walked back over to her, twirling a machete in one hand. With the Mohawk, he looked like some bad extra from a post-apocalyptic movie.
“Check this out,” he grinned.
“It looks good on you.”
“You think?”
“Sure. Now all you need is some face paint.”
“Don’t tempt me, because I will do it.”
“Somehow, I believe you,” she said, tossing him the heavy backpack with the batteries.
*
WHEN THEY GOT back to the house, she knew something was wrong when the first person she saw wasn’t Will, but Benny. He was waiting for her next to the Caravan, the minivan’s hood propped open and jumper cables dangling from it.
“Where’s Will?” she asked.
“He’s gone,” Benny said.
“Gone? What do you mean, ‘gone’?”
“He took off about thirty minutes ago.”
“How the hell did he do that?”
“He found a motorcycle in the garage next door. He charged the battery with the minivan’s, then took off.”
“Where did he go?”
“After that Kellerson guy.”
Gaby looked in the direction of the highway. She tried to see if she could hear the sound of a motorcycle, but couldn’t.
“By himself?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Benny said.
“What about the island?” Nate asked.
Benny took out a map from his back pocket and laid it across the minivan’s driver seat. “He showed me how to get there. It’s pretty much a straight shot down south. He also jotted down the radio frequency to contact the island.”
Gaby didn’t pay attention to what they were saying behind her. Her mind was elsewhere.
Of course Will would go after Kellerson. It wasn’t just that Kellerson murdered Mike’s group; he also took the children. Will knew, more than anyone, what the ghouls did to people they captured. He had seen the blood farms up close, something she had only heard about but never witnessed.
She wasn’t even sure if she could blame him. The image of those kids, pressing their faces against the back windshield, still gnawed at her core.
“Gaby?” Nate said behind her. “He’s got a motorcycle. You’ll never catch up to him.”
“Benny,” she said, ignoring Nate, “I need you to take them to Song Island.” She pulled one of the radios out of the backpack, along with a handful of batteries. “Contact Lara before you get there, let them know you’re coming so they can come get you at the marina.”
“You’re not coming?” Benny asked.
“I’m going after Will.”
“You’ll never find him, Gaby. He’s got a thirty-minute lead on you.”
“Will thinks he can find this Kellerson asshole, or he wouldn’t have gone. Maybe I can, too.”
“That’s a lot of maybes,” Nate said.
She continued to ignore him, and said to Benny, “I’ll follow you down to the island with Will as soon as I can.”
“This is nuts, Gaby,” Benny said, frowning miserably at her. He looked so young, so out of his element. “Come with me. Please.”
This time she ignored Benny and looked over at Nate. “I need a car. Can you find me something I can use to get t
hrough all the traffic? Maybe something small?”
“Are you seriously going after him?” Nate asked.
“Yes. Now, can you help me or not?”
He shrugged. “I saw something that might work, back in the auto body garage.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you kidding me?” Benny said, his face turning slightly red with frustration, though directed at Nate this time. “You’re going to help her?”
“She wants to go, I’m not stopping her,” Nate said. “It’s her choice.”
Nate walked over to the hood and detached the jumper cables, then slammed the hood down and climbed into the driver’s seat, tossing the cables to the floor. The key was already in the ignition.
Gaby hurried around the hood to the passenger side, where she looked back across at Benny. “Don’t stop for anything, okay? Just keep going south, and radio Lara when you’re almost there.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but she was already climbing into the passenger side as Nate fired up the minivan. They drove off, leaving Benny to stare after them in the side mirror, his mouth still hanging open in disbelief.
Nate turned up the street, moving around a couple of overturned vehicles. “You might need some help,” he said.
“I don’t.”
“Tough girl, huh?”
“Tough enough.”
“All right then. I’m volunteering.”
She gave him a quizzical look. “Volunteering for what?”
“To go with you.”
“I don’t need you to come with me.”
“Doesn’t matter. That’s why they call it volunteering.”
“What about your people?”
“They’ll be fine with Benny. According to the map, it’s a straightforward trip down south and they should get there by this afternoon. Besides, Stan’s pretty good in a pinch, and Dwayne isn’t bad with the rifle.”
“The kid?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s just a kid.”
“So are you.”
“I’m nineteen.”
“Yeah, well, still a kid. Anyways, we’ll go pick up the car I mentioned and come back and give them the van. Sound good?”
She looked forward. “Your funeral.”
“You ever heard of the power of positive thinking?”
“Is that how you’ve survived this long? Positive thinking?”
“Sure,” he said. Then added, “That, and hiding. That works pretty well, too.”
CHAPTER 19
WILL
IT WAS EASY to track the Humvees—at least for a while. All he had to do was ride the Triumph Bonneville through the clearing they had carved out of the highway traffic. He picked up the trail along I-10 before taking the ramp at the Marabond Throughway onto I-49 and continuing north.
As soon as he left the city and its stalled traffic behind, things got more iffy. There were signs here and there that the Humvees had come through, mostly the occasional vehicles pushed to the sides, their doors baring the aggressive markings of contact with the Humvees’ makeshift V-shaped steel plows. After a while, traffic thinned out so much that he went for whole kilometers without seeing a single confirmation he was on the right path. His only hope was that Kellerson’s destination was still far off, which would allow him to pick up the trail farther up the highway.
Without traffic, he made good time, reaching the small city of Harvest within an hour of leaving Lafayette behind. The I-49 had gone flat to the ground a few kilometers back, and he was able to scan the sides of the highway for a gas station when the Triumph’s fuel gauge dipped dangerously close to ‘E.’
Harvest, Louisiana, was a city of about 5,000 people, and was oddly spread out almost entirely on the left side of the highway. There was a Holiday Inn near the feeder road, and across the street a sprawling Walmart with a parking lot teeming with vehicles.
And there, a Shell gas station two streets up from the Walmart.
Will slowed down, then turned off the I-45, rode across a small strip of grass down to a frontage road, before turning right into the Shell. There were already two vehicles waiting in line—a red Chevy station wagon and a white Mazda with red trimmings, both occupying separate gas pumps. He wasn’t going to get the pumps working, not without electricity, so he eased the bike alongside the Chevy and parked, removing the motorcycle helmet and hanging it on one of the handlebars.
He pulled out a clear siphoning hose from his pack. Nate had placed a box full of them in the back of the Caravan. The kid was well-prepared, which was more than Will could say for a lot of survivors he had met along the road. That included Mike, unfortunately.
Will took a moment to look at his surroundings before getting to work pulling the fuel pump nozzle out of the station wagon’s gas tank. Leaning down, he took a whiff. Not much. Gas in car tanks could sometimes last up to a year, so he was hopeful to find something to refuel the Triumph with. He moved on to the Mazda and did the same thing and got better results this time. He moved the Triumph over, then dipped the hose as far down into the Mazda’s tank as it would go. He sucked on his end until he saw gas flowing, then slipped the clear plastic hose into the Triumph’s open gas tank.
He sat down on the curb between the pumps and took out the bottle of tramadol from his pack. He swallowed three pills, then hunted for some food. Two strips of Jalapeno-flavored Jack Link’s beef jerky tasted better than anything he had ever eaten before, which was an obvious indication he was starving. He chased them down with warm water, wishing badly for the cold drinks of Song Island.
As he was rummaging in the pack for more beef jerky, he touched something soft and pulled it out. It was the plush Hello Kitty doll from Mercy Hospital. Will stared at it for a moment, unable to recall when he had decided to hang on to it.
But he wasn’t here because of the doll. It was the picture of the family whose house Nate’s people were staying in that convinced him he couldn’t let it go. There was no way in hell he could just let Kellerson run off with the kids from the hospital. That picture showed a nice-looking family: nice-looking parents and their nice-looking children. Two girls and a boy. They looked happy, innocent, and wide-eyed with hope. He was already considering it when he woke up this morning, but that picture, staring back at him in the living room…
Lara would understand why he couldn’t go back to Song Island. At least, not yet. Not until he knew for sure.
She’ll understand…
The sound of dripping water got his attention. He got up quickly, dropping the Hello Kitty, and grabbed the hose and pulled it free from the Triumph’s tank as gas spilled. He jerked the hose out of the Mazda and dropped it to the ground, then screwed the lid back over the tank.
He wiped his gas-slicked hands on his pant legs and was about to climb back on the bike when he remembered the doll. Will leaned down for it when he heard the crack! of a gunshot and a bullet zipped past his head and drilled into the gas pump in front of him, shattering the glass display and scattering shards into the air.
He dove off the Triumph and darted between the pumps as two more shots smashed into the machines behind him. A fourth shot buzzed past his right ear and hit the glass door of the Shell. Will made a quick left turn as the gunshots came faster, shattering the gas station windows one by one by one.
He found salvation by lunging behind an ugly green dumpster at the end of the parking lot. It was stained and smelled, but it was also six cubic yards of fourteen gauge steel. Immediately, the sharp ping-ping! of bullets peppered the other side of the dumpster, vibrating across the metal and through his body.
Will almost laughed when he realized he had held on to the Hello Kitty the entire time.
God bless you, Hello Kitty.
He stuffed the plush doll back into his pack and unslung the M4A1.
As the last gunshot faded, he waited for more, but there weren’t any.
Silence, as the shooter—or shooters—stopped firing.
Will reached into hi
s pack and pulled out the baton and mirror kit. He snapped the metal rod to its full sixteen inches, then attached the mirror to the end with a solid click. Careful not to show himself, he stuck the baton, mirror-first, out the side of the dumpster, keeping it low enough to the ground to avoid detection.
First, he made sure no one was moving in on his position, which was his first worry. If there were more than two, he was in trouble. Two, he could probably handle. More, and they could come at him from multiple angles.
When he was certain a forward charge wasn’t coming, he moved the mirror back to the highway to study the vehicles, in case the shooter was hiding behind one of them. Because the I-49 was flat to the ground, he could easily see the other side.
He glimpsed a row of buildings, including what looked like an auto body shop next to a school. The buildings were all one story, so he concentrated on the roofs because that was where the sniper—or snipers—were likely to be. A high vantage point was always the key to a successful ambush.
He picked up a structure in the distance, jutting up from the ground, and looked like some type of water tower. A lot of small cities like Harvest had their own water towers, and this one was bright white and tall. It would have made for a terrific shooting spot if it wasn’t way back on the other side of the city—more than half a kilometer—and the chances of someone shooting from that distance were dismal.
He spotted another possibility, this one closer to the highway. Not the buildings that were low to the ground, but rising steel struts that went high up. He angled the mirror to get a better view, revealing a giant billboard advertising something called the Sandwhite Wildlife State Park. Cute cartoon animals poked their heads out from behind bushes, and a family of four smiled back at him as they set up camp for a picnic.
He saw a metallic reflection along the length of the billboard scaffolding, about the same time a gunshot interrupted the calmness and a bullet slammed into the concrete floor just three inches from the mirror.
Will quickly pulled the baton back.
He took a moment, gauging the distance between him and the sniper—120 meters, give or take. That meant two possible scenarios—the man was either a really good shot, or he had a nice riflescope on top of what sounded like an M4 doing most of the aiming for him.
