by Sam Sisavath
The man didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t fidget at all.
Tom had three to four inches on him and a good, solid fifty pounds. Tom was bigger, stronger, and a hand-to-hand fight was probably not in Will’s favor. He didn’t think a guy like Tom had ever lost a fight in his life. Definitely not in a one-on-one situation. And he probably wasn’t going to lose this one, either, so his confidence was justified.
Bigger, stronger, but maybe not smarter.
Maybe.
Will went right at him.
He faked a right punch that made Tom lift his left with the intention of blocking, but instead of going through with the punch, Will launched himself forward and rammed his shoulder into Tom’s gut. He caught the big man by surprise, but Tom quickly gathered himself and smashed down with two huge elbows into Will’s back. Will ignored the pain, tried to pretend he didn’t even feel the blows connecting, though that was damn difficult. They were connecting, all right, and each blow was like a boulder crunching down on him from on high, driving him to the floor, trying to bury him.
Ignore it!
Will used his leverage and momentum to lift Tom off his feet, grunting, shouting, screaming with the effort because Tom was heavy (Too heavy!). But somehow he managed to lift the big man off his feet, however slightly, but enough to carry both of them across the room.
Will kept going long after he ran out of breath, long after every inch of his body began aching. Pushing his legs to keep churning, his arms to keep their grip around Tom’s body, even as Tom continued to slam down with his elbows. Maybe Tom realized what was happening, what Will was planning, because his blows started to come down faster and stronger. Will wondered if you could possibly break a man’s spine with just your elbows, because that was exactly what it felt like Tom was trying to do.
Then, mercifully, Will reached his destination and slammed Tom, back first, into the bookcase on the other side of the floor. Two of the shelves gave way as Tom’s back smashed into them, and books and magazines and board games tumbled down on top of their heads. Not that either of them noticed.
Will heard the breath expelling from Tom’s lungs in surprised gasps, but he didn’t spend even a single second wallowing in the minor victory. He untangled himself from Tom and stepped back, then spun to his right and grabbed the bookcase from behind and pulled it with everything he had, until the thick wood furniture careened forward, crashing into Tom’s back and plunging to the floor, taking Tom along with it.
Will didn’t have any illusions that the bookcase was going to hold Tom down for long. In fact, Tom was already halfway off the floor, the bookcase sliding off his back, when Will smashed his right knee into Tom’s left temple. That forced the big man back down, the bookcase crashing on top of him for the second time in the last ten seconds.
This time, Tom didn’t get up quite as fast. But get back up he did, pushing the bookcase off him as he slowly rose from the floor.
“That all you got?” Tom shouted, though Will didn’t detect the same level of boisterous bravado as before.
“Not by a long shot,” Will said.
Will walked over to where the Glocks were and picked one up. He checked the slide to make sure there was a bullet in the pipe.
Tom had risen from the floor behind him, and he stood like a hulking giant. A hurt but still hulking giant slightly bent at the waist, his breath coming out in ragged gasps. He eyeballed Will like a predator. “It’s not over yet, soldier boy. There’s still round three.”
“It’s over.”
Tom’s eyes went to the Glock in Will’s hand, but he managed to grin through a mouthful of blood anyway. “Bullshit. I know guys like you. We’re cut from the same cloth.”
“You don’t know me.”
“The hell I don’t. You were a cop, too, right? After the Army?”
“Yeah.”
“See.” He spat out a thick gob of blood. “I know guys like you. I went to work eight hours a day, five days a week with guys like you. Gung-ho motherfuckers to the very end. Just like me. That’s how I know you’re not going to use that gun.”
Will was tired and hurt and his back felt like it had been crushed into a thousand different sections. He stood across from Tom, watching the man breathing in a lungful of air with every gasp. “You don’t think so?”
“Fuck no,” Tom said, brimming with confidence. “You’re going to end this the only way guys like us know how. With our fists.” He held up his hands, balling them into fists for effect. “Round three, motherfucker. Show me what you got.”
Tom had on a nice, dull black watch with what looked like a polycarbonate frame. Will glimpsed a digital readout and compass and backlighting functions.
“I like your watch,” Will said.
Tom looked confused. “What?”
“Your watch. What’s that go for? Three hundred?”
“How the fuck should I know.”
“I need a watch,” Will said, and he shot Tom in the forehead.
CHAPTER 28
LARA
She was simultaneously trying to reach the surface of a swimming pool filled with dense, sticky mud and process what Josh was telling her and ignore the flaring of pain in her left arm. The bullet wound had suddenly re-manifested itself after taking a leave of absence for most of yesterday. That led to her wondering if her painkillers were still in her hotel room. The Tramadol would be nice about now, maybe even a Percocet, or a Vicodin…
Lara could tell from the looks on Carly’s and Gaby’s faces as they sat next to her that they were having the same difficulties—but minus an old gunshot wound, lucky them. The fact that she was wearing panties and one of Will’s shirts didn’t help her to adjust quickly to the situation. The shirt was about two sizes too big, though the most disturbing part was realizing someone had dressed her. She had been nude when she had fallen asleep in Will’s arms last night.
She shivered a bit as she tried to push the repulsive idea of someone molesting her while she was in bed out of her head.
She was also barefoot, and the floor was hard and cold and pricking against her feet and legs and butt, despite the air around her feeling heavy and humid. How was that possible? And the itchy sensation in her left arm was getting more intense, and it was all she could do to grit her teeth and force herself to ignore the urgent desire to rake at the scabbing wound under the bandages.
“Where’s Will?” were the first coherent words out of her mouth.
“He went to look for some clothes and weapons,” Josh said. “That was about five minutes ago.”
“Figures,” Danny said, yawning behind them.
Danny was wearing boxers covered in leaping dolphins. Unlike Lara and the others, he didn’t look like he was having very much difficulty accepting what Josh had told them. But that was Danny. Army Ranger. Ex-SWAT commando. Flippant comedian. Like Will, he adjusted amazingly well to almost any situation.
“He’s always going off and having fun without me,” Danny said. “I really need to start putting bells around that boy’s neck.”
“What about the girls?” Carly asked, looking back at Elise and Vera, still asleep on the floor behind them. Elise had curled up into a ball, her hands under the side of her head as makeshift pillows. Vera was snoring lightly with the strangest smile on her face. Lara wondered if she had looked like that while she was under, too.
Rohypnol, Josh had told them. Or roofies, the date-rape drug. She had known right away they had slipped it to her and the others during dinner, in the red wine, before Josh had even filled her in on that part.
“Will says to let the girls sleep,” Josh said.
Lara nodded. “There’s no point in waking them up.” She looked over at Sarah, standing nearby, not saying a word. Lara thought the other woman looked scared.
She should be.
“Sarah,” she said, “the wine last night. That was you.”
“I had no choice,” Sarah said.
“Of course you did,” Carly snapped.
“We all have a choice. Don’t stand there and tell me you didn’t have a fucking choice. You decided to go along with this.”
“You don’t understand,” Sarah said. She sounded close to tears. “I came here with Jenny, hoping to get away from those things out there just like the rest of you. Karen and Tom and the others were just dragging people out of their rooms by gunpoint back then. People got hurt, some got killed. A boy we came with got shot because he fought back. I convinced them they could use Rohypnol instead so that wouldn’t happen again. It was safer. That was how I saved my family. I had no choice.”
“How many times did you have to tell yourself that before you started to believe it?” Carly asked. The hard edge in her voice hadn’t softened a bit.
“Carly,” Josh said, “she came back here to help us.”
“So what’s the new angle, Sarah?” Carly’s eyes were still zeroed in on Sarah.
“There is no new angle,” Sarah said, almost offended by the suggestion.
“Bullshit. Spit it out. What angle are you playing now?”
Lara watched Sarah’s face carefully, and she thought she understood. What would she do for Will? For Elise? Or for Carly?
Lara walked over and got between the two women. “Not now. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about this later.” Before Carly could respond, Lara looked over at Josh and said, “What else did Will say? When is he coming back?”
“He didn’t say,” Josh said. “Just that we should stay here until he comes back with the weapons.”
“So where are they?” Danny asked Sarah. “The party people?”
“Karen, Marcus, Tom, and Berg are usually the only ones involved,” Sarah said. “The rest stay in their rooms until morning. Tom is in the lighthouse—the Tower. Berg is in the unfinished part of the hotel, going through the things we brought out of your rooms. He’s kind of odd; he spends a lot of time doing things the rest of us find a little disturbing. Karen and Marcus are probably asleep.”
“What about guns? I didn’t see them wear any all day except for Tom.”
“It’s part of the façade. It’s how they get people to let their guard down. Once you’re convinced the island really is as safe as they say it is, then it’s easier…later, with the Rohypnol during the feast.”
“Clever buggers. But they have guns?”
“Yes. Karen and Marcus have weapons in their rooms. The others don’t. Al, Jake and Sienna, myself—we’re not armed. I don’t know, I don’t think they really trust us that much. We came here because of the broadcast, like you did. They let us stay because we could contribute something.”
“Can’t blame them. A good cook’s hard to find in the apocalypse.”
“How many?” Lara asked. “How many have come before us? Not counting you and the others still here?”
Lara watched her reaction to the question. It wasn’t that Sarah had to think about it, because Lara thought she knew the number exactly—it was more that the answer was not going to be well received.
“How many?” Carly pressed, when Sarah didn’t answer fast enough.
“I only know of twenty-one,” Sarah said. “I don’t know how many there were before I got here.”
“Jesus Christ. Twenty-one?” Carly’s voice had risen noticeably, the menace coming through loud and clear. “You sentenced twenty-one people to their deaths, and you stand there trying to justify it?”
Sarah started to respond, but thought better of it and said nothing instead. It was smart of her, because it would only have encouraged Carly to wade into her even further. After that, Sarah seemed to drift away, even though Carly continued to stare daggers at her.
“I need clothes,” Danny said, casually breaking the thick tension in the air. “You said Will already went for them?”
“Yeah,” Josh said. “About five—well, ten minutes ago now.”
“So that means whoever’s watching over our stuff is either dead or dead-ish. That saves me the trouble. You stay here with the girls. I’ll be back soon, preferably dressed and with boots on.” He started off in his bare feet, looking absurd in his dolphin-covered boxers. “In the meantime, try not to kill each other until I get back, ladies. I love me a good ol’ fashioned chick fight. Carly, that means you.”
“No promises,” Carly said back through gritted teeth.
*
They spent the next ten minutes waiting for something to happen, and when nothing did, it only added to the already conflicted atmosphere in the room. The island itself went on as if nothing had occurred, the silence outside the hotel matched only by the silence inside what was supposed to be a ballroom, but was, at the moment, really just one big unfinished hall with concrete floors.
Lara kept busy by making sure the girls were fine. The Rohypnol had put them both into a deep slumber, as it had done to the adults. If Josh and Sarah hadn’t been tapping on their faces and nudging them awake, they would probably have slept through the entire night and most of the day. She still felt the grogginess lingering, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been in the first few minutes after opening her eyes.
Josh stood near one of the doors with Gaby, the two of them whispering softly to each other. It wasn’t hard to tell they had become more than just friends. Watching the two of them made her smile.
“I noticed they turned off the AC,” Carly said. “It’s getting swampy in here.”
“I guess they don’t need the façade anymore,” Lara said.
They stood quietly in the dark, listening to the silence. Beads of sweat appeared along Lara’s neck and temple, despite the odd chill from the floor under their bare feet.
“He’s taking too long,” Carly said after a while. She looked toward the door. “I should go after him, in case he’s in trouble.”
“Carly, the last thing he wants is for you to go after him. If he’s in trouble, there’s not going to be a lot you can do. Danny is an Army Ranger. Remember?”
Carly nodded, but she didn’t look any less concerned. Knowing didn’t keep away the fear, something Lara knew all too well. She felt the same nagging anxiousness whenever Will left her side. She knew he could take care of himself, that if anyone was equipped to survive in this new world, it was him and Danny. Knowing and accepting weren’t the same, though.
Lara looked over at Sarah, standing by herself against the other door into the ballroom. Lara felt sorry for the other woman, and her thoughts flashed back to Kevin, a young man who had sold them out to the ghouls back in Dansby, Texas. Will had killed him. Or at least she assumed he had. One moment Kevin had been there, the next he was gone. So why didn’t Will do the same to Sarah? Maybe he knew Sarah had a better reason to do what she did. Maybe he was thinking about her daughter, Jenny.
She came back to the present when the door next to Josh opened, and Josh stiffened, preparing to fight. He didn’t have to because Danny walked in, wearing cargo pants and a T-shirt and carrying one of their supply crates.
“Santa has brought clothes,” Danny announced.
They swarmed the box—all except Sarah, who was already dressed. They pulled out shirts and pants and shoes like eager kids given early Christmas gifts.
“I stuffed in as many as I could find that would fit you guys,” Danny said. “But I’m no fashionista, so if there’s something that doesn’t match, or God forbid, clashes, you’ll have to make do for now.”
Lara found a pair of cargo pants and a T-shirt that actually fit her and pulled them on. She expected to feel embarrassed stripping down to her panties in front of everyone, but the need to get some clothes on easily overwhelmed that silly notion of modesty.
The others dressed just as quickly around her, pulling on clothes and shoes and socks.
“Did you find Will?” Lara asked Danny.
“He was already gone. Went out the back door from the looks of it.” He took a knife out from behind his back. “I found this, though.”
“That’s the knife I brought over from the kitchen to cut you guys loose,�
� Sarah said.
“Why did he leave it behind?” Lara asked.
“Probably because he found something better,” Danny said. “Berg had a gun belt on him with an empty holster.”
“What happened to Berg?” Sarah asked.
“He’s alive. Will zip-tied him and left him gagged on the floor. I would say that’s his idea of irony, but I know for a fact Will doesn’t know what irony means.”
Lara rolled her eyes at him and got a grin back in response. “Maybe it’s time we go looking for him.”
“Now why would we want to do a fool thing like that?”
“You’d rather we just wait for him in here?”
“I don’t want to wait for him in here. I’m not a waiting around kinda guy, in case you haven’t noticed. But it’s the smart move. Right now, the rest of the island doesn’t know we’re free and footloose. We have the advantage. As long as they stay clueless—”
A loud gunshot from outside the hotel cut Danny off.
“Or not,” Danny finished.
“What now?” Carly asked.
Danny looked back at the others, saw that they were all dressed—or close enough, anyway—then scanned the room. “Everyone move away from the open.” He pointed to the two doors. “Stick to the walls, make like darkness so they can’t see you from the doors. Carly and Lara, get the girls.”
Carly picked up Vera while Lara picked up Elise. Lara couldn’t help but notice the girl had packed on a few pounds since the last time she had held her. They moved toward the wall, into the patch of darkness, and laid the girls back down on the floor.
Gaby and Josh slinked back against the wall a few yards from them, melting into the shadows, hands finding each other in the semidarkness.
Danny, knife in hand, moved back to the door he had come through. He didn’t say a word, only pressed his back against the wall and stood perfectly still.
There had been no sounds after the gunshot.
Lara waited to hear some kind of commotion, either from outside the hotel where the gunshot had come from, or inside, as Karen and the others woke up. Instead, there was just the silence. It was suffocating and quiet and so damn still, and Lara’s left arm was still itching like it was on fire. She rubbed against the bandages with the palm of her right hand, fighting the urge to tear the bandages free and swipe at the scabbing wound.
