by Sam Sisavath
“No,” he said. “You did what you had to do. No one can blame you.”
“Do you?”
“No. I don’t blame you, Zoe.”
“Thank you.”
He nodded, and slowly tuned out the noises from above. That was a distraction. He could almost sense them trying to lull him, like sirens grabbing at his attention.
Instead, he focused on the garage door directly in front of him. That was where the danger would come from. It would take too much effort to crash through the roof, but the doors, held down by a simple latch that could be opened from both sides, was the real problem. All it would take was for one ghoul to realize that…
Then he saw the door moving slightly—ever so slightly—and Will put his hand over the key. Behind him, he heard a soft click, and grinned at the image of Zoe putting on her seatbelt.
Buckle up, here they come.
Before he had even finished his thought, they threw the garage door open—first one, then the other—with such a sudden explosion of sound and fury that he actually jumped. His senses, already overloaded, went into overdrive when he glimpsed darkness beyond and the ghouls packed into the parking lot.
Then every inch of him erupted into action.
He flicked the key in the ignition and heard the F-150 roar to life about the same time the first ghoul leaped through the door, which was still in the process of sliding open, and landed on the hood, scrambling on all fours up to the damaged window. Will ignored its gaunt face and slobbering mouth—caverns of twisted and brown and yellow teeth—and slammed his fingers down on the power window switches. His right hand was already moving, falling down on the gear shift and pulling it into drive.
The ghoul was perched directly in front of him, glaring through the windshield with intense dark eyes, as if it could will itself through the bullet holes. Will slammed down on the gas pedal just as two—three—four more of the creatures flung themselves through the air and landed on the hood with loud thumps.
More plopped against the windshield and careened off as the F-150 powered forward and burst out of the garage, all four tires spinning desperately under its massive bulk.
The headlights had popped on automatically as soon as he turned the key, and Will saw a sea of ghouls crowding around the parking lot. They seemed to fly at him, landing and bouncing off the hood and windshield and sides of the vehicle like baseballs, each impact denting and cratering but doing nothing to halt the momentum of the almost 5,000-pound vehicle.
He heard the loud crunch of bodies and bones and skulls under the truck’s large twenty-nine inch tires, most of it lost in the roar of a powerful engine designed to tow over 11,000 pounds. Against that kind of brute force, creatures that were essentially bags of skin and bones didn’t stand a chance.
By now both windows were fully closed, though that didn’t stop the ghouls from endlessly smashing into them with their fists—and skulls—anyway. It was a hail Mary of sharp, bony bodies, jackhammering fists, and flailing legs coming from everywhere even as the truck battered its way down Fredo’s driveway and into the streets, splashing puddles as it went. The truck’s magnificently bright headlights flashed across scowling faces and shrunken bodies.
There had to be hundreds. Thousands. The streets were lined with them. Wall upon wall of shriveled figures, so many that eventually even the truck began to slow down under the onslaught, the number of crushed ghouls clogging up the tires and undercarriage.
“There’s too many!” Zoe shouted from the backseat.
Gee, thanks for the fine observation, Zoe.
He jerked the steering wheel and took the F-150 off the streets and into the grass. Instantly, he felt the difference in how the vehicle handled, minus the bodies trying to cling to it from every inch of the roof, hood, and sides. He was pretty sure a number of the creatures had leaped into the truck bed and were now clinging on for dear life, but he didn’t have time to look in the rearview mirror to make sure.
Now that he had abandoned the strip mall, he was moving through uncharted territory. Literally. The ground before and around and under him was constantly shifting, from smooth asphalt to concrete to grass and back again. Every bump and hop and sudden dip threatened to send them careening to their deaths. The truck was rising and falling more than it was moving on solid ground. It took all of his concentration not to broadside parked vehicles or take a tree head-on.
And through it all, the cascading sounds of bodies bouncing off the hood and grill and back bumper. The squeal of flesh trying to grapple onto the smooth sides of the truck to no avail. The constant glimpses of marble eyes, like small rain drops of tar, pouring at him from left and right and front and back, and at one point, he swore they were falling out of the sky, too.
We’re going to die. Soon, the truck will run out of gas, and we’re going to die.
Then, like a tunnel opening up in an ocean of nothingness, he saw it in the distance. It was long and lean and looked tiny, but that was only because it was still too far away to see in any detail. It was bright, blinding whiteness in a dark universe. He remembered seeing it days ago when he first drove through Harvest. It was a kilometer away, maybe more.
Doable.
He stepped on the gas and the truck poured it on, crunching ghouls and turning skulls and bones to dust and pulverizing skin into paper. Would that even kill them? He wasn’t so sure. He had seen ghouls moving with half their heads literally caved in, seen severed hands still acting like they had minds. Compared to those things, getting caught under a truck’s tires was probably child’s play.
Behind him, Zoe was screaming. He wasn’t entirely sure why she had suddenly let loose. Was it the fear? The sight of the ghouls flinging themselves at them with wild abandon? He couldn’t really blame her; if he were seeing it all for the first time, he might have lost it, too.
He tuned her out instead and concentrated on the objective in front of him. Literally. It was getting closer, becoming more and more real as the truck tore across the open land. He was leaving the ghouls behind, but he had no illusions that this small victory was going to last. He could outrun them, but only for a little while.
There were too many; they were simply everywhere, coming out of every inch of darkness around him. And they weren’t going to give up. Not as long as he was out here in the wide open with them.
He slammed his foot down on the accelerator and willed the truck to go faster. In the back, Zoe was screaming her head off.
Plan Z, Danny.
You would have loved this one, buddy…
CHAPTER 33
LARA
WILL WAS DEAD. Gaby, too.
There were no other explanations as to why neither one of them had contacted Song Island since she’d last heard from Gaby. If he was still alive and capable, Will would have attempted to contact her by now.
Unless he’s dead…
Whatever optimism she had managed to cling to vanished when Gaby missed her check-in yesterday. Even Benny, who had been hobbling around the island beaming with anticipation of Gaby’s return, had begun to realize something had gone very, very wrong.
Danny, too, took the silence badly. “That fucking rain. I should have told her to push on through.”
She wanted to tell him not to blame himself, but it was a moot point. Like Will, Danny took responsibility for Gaby. The two of them had molded her into a soldier in their image, and in so many ways, became brother figures to her.
It’s not your fault, Danny, it’s my fault. I should never have let them go.
If I hadn’t insisted on the medical supplies, if I didn’t have so much faith in Will, if I had argued harder against taking Gaby…
…if…if…
It took Stan, one of the people who had arrived with Benny, to get her mind back to the work of the island. For a while, anyway.
She stood outside the main generator building at the Power Station, listening to Stan, wishing she were somewhere else, but grateful to be there at the same time.<
br />
This is Will’s job, she thought, listening to Stan as he explained how Song Island’s generator worked. Stan was an electrician and had spent the last few days looking at the island’s energy set-up, jotting down notes, diagrams, and spending more time at the Power Station than he did at the hotel.
“It’s an amazing piece of machinery,” Stan was saying. “The energy grid for the entire island is designed for maximum efficiency. Even with half of the system unaccounted for, I don’t see why we couldn’t crank up the AC in the summers and heating in the winters.”
Stan went on, but Lara had already stopped listening.
This is your job, Will. You should be here right now. You should be in charge. Not me. I’m not ready for this. I was never ready for this.
After a while, Stan seemed to realize that she wasn’t listening. He stopped talking and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
“They’ll show up,” Stan said. “They looked pretty capable. Give them more time, and they’ll show up.”
She nodded and tried to smile back at him, but she knew it came out badly. “Can you handle this place by yourself?”
“I don’t see why not. As long as the power grid doesn’t suffer some kind of catastrophic damage, this thing could conceivably keep running for years with just some basic maintenance.”
“Do you need anything? Supplies?”
“Plenty,” Stan said.
“Make a list, and we’ll try to fill it when we do supply runs later in the week.”
“I’ll get on it.”
She left him, and was glad when she made it back to the pathway and her teeth stopped chattering.
For a place that was so vital to the health of Song Island, the Power Station was her least favorite building. Not only because of the intense vibrations emanating from the generator, but because having to walk anywhere close to the small, walled off shack next door made her squeamish, even now, months after Danny and Will had collapsed the tunnel entrance along the shore. She always imagined she could feel them in there, back again after Will had cleared them out a few days ago…
Will, goddamn you.
She was on her way back to the hotel when her radio squawked.
It was Danny: “Lara, got a minute?”
She unclipped the radio. “What is it, Danny?”
“Roy has something to show you.”
She took a breath. She didn’t want to talk to Danny right now, much less Roy. She had barely managed to summon enough energy to talk to Stan, and the only reason she had even done that was to get away from the hotel, from the others. She needed the time alone that the long walk supplied, and she wasn’t quite ready to give it up yet.
She keyed the radio. “Danny, can it wait?”
“Lara,” Danny said, and there was something in his voice—an insistence—that she hadn’t heard before. “You’ll want to see this.”
“I’ll be there soon.”
*
“WHAT IS IT?” Lara asked.
“It’s a laptop,” Roy said.
“I can see that, Roy. But why am I looking at it?”
They were on the third floor of the Tower, with nightfall spreading across the lake outside the windows. She spent the entire time trying to ignore the darkness, and the image of Will and Gaby out there, trying to survive another night.
If they’re even still alive…
Roy was sitting at the table in front of a laptop. There were two ham radios on the tabletop now, one on each side of the computer. The radio she was familiar with, that was still dialed into their designated emergency frequency and waiting to hear from Will and Gaby, was in one piece, while the one Benny had brought back with him looked gutted. Its cover was open, and there were multicolored wires connecting it to the laptop, which was also open at the back. Clearly, Roy had been doing more than just tinkering with the devices.
Danny leaned next to one of the windows, eating fried fish on a ceramic plate. “I told Roy Rogers here to go crazy with the spare radio, and he goes and does that.”
“What is ‘that’?” she asked.
“He wants to spread the word about the ghouls. Their weaknesses, their bad skin condition, and that ghastly smell that’s like getting tossed into a year-old dumpster.”
“Danny filled me in about the computer program that brought us here,” Roy said. He indicated what looked like a series of random numbers running inside an open window on the laptop’s screen. “I couldn’t duplicate exactly what the people who sent the FEMA broadcast had, but I think I got the gist of it. I’ve connected the two devices so we can now control the ham radio’s operations through the laptop. And, I’ve added some improvements.”
“What kind of improvements?” she asked.
“Instead of broadcasting on one frequency, it’ll broadcast across all of them, across all the bands, one after another. This way, we’ll be able to send the same recorded message over and over, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, but not be limited to just one frequency.”
“And it’s all automated?”
“As long as the laptop’s running and the Tower’s still standing, yeah.”
“Jinx,” Danny said.
“Oops, sorry,” Roy said. “You know what I mean.”
“What do you think?” she asked Danny.
Danny shrugged. “It’s not a bad idea and we don’t really have anything to lose. The broadcast doesn’t take that much power, and we still have the other radio for everything else. We know a lot about these buggers, maybe more than most people out there. Seems like the nice thing to do, don’t you think?”
She nodded, then looked back at Roy. “What do you need to set everything up?”
“Everything’s already set up,” Roy said. “I just need a message to send out there.” He picked up the radio’s receiver and held it out to her. “Fire away.”
She stared at him, then at Danny. “Me?”
“You’re the boss,” Danny said.
“Danny…”
“Carly’s not going to do it. She hates the sound of her own voice. And Sarah’s not going to do it, not after…well, you know.”
“What about Bonnie? She used to be a model.”
“We asked her,” Roy said. “She says models are seen, not heard.”
“We talked, and we all agreed you should do it,” Danny said.
“You ‘talked’?” she said. “When did that happen?”
“It’s a secret. We do that, you know, talk behind your back. Quite often, actually.”
“Why does it have to be a woman, anyway?”
“Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally, Hanoi Hannah…”
“Really, Danny?”
“Point is, it’s gotta be a woman. Makes people feel all warm and fuzzy.”
She sighed. “What should I say?”
“It should be short. The facts, but nothing about us or our location. I like Roy Rogers here and all, but we don’t need people showing up every day. It’ll get crowded real fast.”
She nodded. “I guess I’ll sleep on it.”
*
AFTER ROY LEFT to go eat, Lara stayed behind in the Tower with Danny. They stood next to each other, ignoring—but intimately aware of—the darkness covering the island and the lake outside the windows.
Neither one said anything for a while. She imagined he was thinking the same things she had been turning over in her head for the last few days.
About Will, about Gaby…
“I need to know,” she said after a while.
He nodded. “It’s a good thing I know where to start looking.”
“The pawnshop.”
“She gave us the address. Too bad we don’t have GPS, but we’ll make do. I hear they invented maps and such that work just as well.”
“It’ll be dangerous, Danny.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Will would hate me for asking you to do this. He always says either him or you should be here on the island at all times.”
; “Willie boy has been known to make sense every now and then.”
“And you’ll have to leave Carly…”
“I’ll talk to her tonight and leave at sunup.”
“She’ll hate me.”
“Probably.”
Lara sighed. Then, “Who can you take with you? Blaine’s still hurt, even though he pretends he’s not.”
“Maddie, maybe. Or Roy.”
“Roy?”
“He’s a lousy shot, but all I need is a warm body to distract the other guys.”
She smiled. “You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t I?”
“No.”
“Maybe not.”
They stood in silence again.
“If they’re out there, I’ll bring them home,” Danny said after a while.
“I know you will,” she said.
*
“OKAY?” SHE ASKED.
“Um, not yet,” Benny said. “Give me a sec.”
She waited patiently as Benny moved his finger around the laptop’s touchpad, directing the pointer onscreen. He clicked a couple of times, but the program she had seen running when Roy was working the same laptop last night didn’t show up.
Morning sunlight flooded in through the windows along the Tower’s third floor. She had barely slept last night, her mind filled with thoughts of Will and Gaby, and now Danny’s leaving. Her eyes had looked red in the bathroom mirror, as if she had been crying all night, though she didn’t remember doing it. Maybe she had just blocked it out.
“Benny?” she said.
“I almost got it.”
“Maybe I should come back later…”
“Roy showed me how this thing works. I don’t know why it’s not working now—” Finally, the familiar-looking program appeared on the screen. “There.”
She gave him a half-hearted “good job” smile.
Benny picked up the ham radio receiver and handed it to her. “You can start whenever you want, and I’ll clean up the audio later. Do however many takes as you need.”
She nodded. She was always planning on one take. It was a simple message and relatively short. She had already run it by Carly and Danny, and they had given her the thumbs up. Even so, she wished Will were here. He would know if she had gotten it right.
