by Sam Sisavath
Keo could feel the darkness creeping up on the bungalow even if he couldn’t see the woods through the blocked window. It was in the way the room slowly darkened as natural sunlight faded and the air chilled.
The horse had laid down on its stomach in the very center of the room, and with its eyes on the door the entire time, rested its jaw on the floorboards.
It’s definitely done this before, Keo thought, wondering how long the animal had been out here, surviving. Maybe that was why it preferred human company; an extra layer of protection against the things that still hid in the night.
Smart. Much smarter than most people I know.
“Keep an eye out. Make a sound if you hear anything.”
The animal turned its head in response to his voice.
“I’m counting on you, horse. Horse. That’s your name from now on. You like it?”
The horse looked back at the door.
“You’re welcome.”
He laid the MP5SD across his lap and the pack next to him, and closed his eyes. Keo leaned against the corner and tried to get some sleep, knowing full well it wasn’t going to happen for a while.
It took two hours before he got sleepy, then another hour before he drifted off.
He dreamt of Emma, but it could have just been memories of their last night together when she asked him to stay. He hadn’t answered, even though he knew it had taken a lot for her to put herself out like that.
“Don’t leave tonight,” she had said. “Stay with me. Stay with us.”
But he had left anyway. Because even though he tried not to be, sometimes he couldn’t help but default to being his old asshole self.
FOURTEEN
CRUNCH-CRUNCH.
Crunch-crunch.
Keo opened his eyes for the second time that night, and this time he stayed awake even as his hands tightened around the submachine gun resting in his lap. His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness before glancing down at the neon hands of his watch:
2:51 a.m.
The sounds were coming from behind him and slightly to the left, which meant…
The window. The one with the big dresser blocking it. Someone—or something, more likely—was moving around on the other side.
Crunch-crunch.
Keo looked across the pitch-black room at the horse, lying in the middle of the room sprawled out on its side where Keo had last seen it before he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. For a big animal, it was being surprisingly quiet, and if not for the absolutely still world around him at the moment, he might not have even noticed it was there.
Ninja horse, Keo thought, when he heard it again:
Crunch-crunch.
He glanced over at the dresser. It was still in place over the window and didn’t seem to have moved since the last time he checked on it. Of course he was looking at it from the side, so his angle was a little askew. It could have very well inched slightly in either direction, and he might not know since he hadn’t paid super close attention to its positioning. He only knew it was completely covering the window, and that had been good enough.
He calmly checked that the MP5SD’s fire selector was on semiautomatic (there was no point in wasting bullets if he didn’t have to, not when one would do just as well as a dozen against a ghoul) before slowly, quietly sliding his legs underneath him and then pushing up, up along the length of the wall.
A slight jab of pain from his right thigh, a reminder of the bullet graze from earlier today—No, yesterday, now.
He ignored it and kept pushing up on both feet.
Once fully on his feet, Keo took a tentative step toward the window. Then another, and another, until he was standing almost right next to it.
Crunch-crunch.
There was definitely something out there, something stepping on brittle leaves that covered the yard. He’d made the same noises when he was walking through the place yesterday. Whoever—or whatever—was out there wasn’t being very shy about their presence.
Keo was fully loaded with silver rounds, and he had the knife with its silver-coated blade as a backup. He hoped he didn’t need it. He was pretty decent in hand-to-hand combat, but it was a last resort he’d rather avoid if at all possible, especially if there was more than one ghoul out there—
Voices. He could hear voices outside.
Human voices.
Of course they’re human voices. Ghouls don’t talk, idiot.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He had met a few ghouls that could talk—even hung around one in particular for a few days, but those were a special breed. The usual run-of-the-mill ghouls, with black eyes, could make guttural noises that could possibly pass for screams, but they didn’t actually form words, if they even remembered how. The ones that could talk had blue eyes. Stark, pulsating blue eyes that you never forgot once you looked into them.
He shivered just thinking about it.
But Keo was sure he wasn’t hearing a blue-eyed ghoul talking on the other side of the cabin walls right now. It helped that the speakers didn’t appear to be whispering but talking almost in a normal voice. There was none of the hiss that usually accompanied the blue-eyed ghouls when they spoke. Then again, it had been years since Keo was in a room with one of them, and maybe his memory was a little hazy.
No. They’re humans. Gotta be.
Which meant what, exactly? The first and easiest explanation was that Buck’s people had found him, had tracked him from the outskirts of Princeville where he had left Lewis in the truck and all the way here. He hadn’t exactly been careful about leaving behind tracks—in fact, it had never occurred to him to be careful—so any decent pair of eyes could have followed him all the way to his current hiding spot.
Crunch-crunch as whoever was out there moved back to the window.
Keo stood perfectly still, the submachine gun in front of him, and listened very carefully as voices passed by his position moving from right to left, coming closer toward the barricaded hole in the wall.
“How many?” someone asked. Male.
“I don’t know,” someone else answered. Also male. “It’s too dark in there. I couldn’t see shit.”
“Did you go inside?”
“You fucking kidding me? Do I look stupid to you?”
The first guy chuckled. “Is that a trick question?”
“Blow me.”
“Maybe tomorrow.” Then, “You have a flashlight. Why didn’t you use it?”
“Might spook them.”
“That’s the point.”
“It’s too easy. I’d rather have some fun first.”
“Ugh, you and fun,” the first one said.
“Fun’s what makes this all worth it.”
“Let’s get this over with. I’m tired.”
“You’re always tired. Must be all that sodium.”
“Better than eating dirt.”
“I hear that.”
Crunch-crunch as the voices faded, this time moving away from Keo and the window.
What were the chances they would keep going and leave the house behind?
With your luck? About one in a few million.
He leaned sideways toward the dresser, listening for more conversation, but the two men seemed to have finished saying everything they had to say. Instead, he heard silence except for the hoots of an owl nearby and crickets in the grass.
Keo checked the horse. It was still asleep, oblivious to what was happening.
Some ninja horse.
He was marveling at just how well the horse could sleep and envying it when the first BAM! exploded from the window and made him jerk slightly back from the wall in shock.
The dresser wobbled and moved back a full two or three inches, and even as it was settling back down there was another BAM!, and this time the furniture began toppling backward from the blow, moving almost in slow-motion before it crashed! against the floor.
The horse jumped to its feet at the loud crash! It whinnied loudly as it whirled around, s
eeking out the cause. It moved impossibly fast for such a large animal, and Keo had a mental image of it kicking him by accident and putting a horseshoe-size dent in his forehead.
But it didn’t. It might have gotten a start, but Horse wasn’t out of control.
Keo turned back to the window, and he wasn’t sure who looked more shocked at what they were seeing: Horse inside the room or the man standing outside the window holding a shotgun in his hands while he peered inside.
The man was wearing almost all black, with a heavily frayed bulletproof vest over a long-sleeve sweater. His face was partially covered by a blood-red half-mask that only hid his mouth and nostrils, giving the man an almost demon-like appearance.
“What the fuck?” the man said, his voice slightly muffled. He had directed that comment at the horse since he had no way of seeing Keo standing next to the window, hidden against the wall.
“What is it?” a second male voice said from somewhere outside.
“It’s a horse,” the first one said, as if he still couldn’t quite believe it.
“A horse?”
“It’s a fucking horse!”
That “fucking horse” snorted and scraped one of its front legs on the floorboard, a warning to the half-masked figure outside.
“What’s it doing inside?” the second man asked.
“The hell if I know,” the first one said. “Sleeping, I guess.”
“Sleeping? Inside?”
“I guess?”
“How’d it get inside the house?”
“Through the door, I’d imagine.”
“Yeah, but that door was locked from the other side.”
“The fuck?”
You have no idea, pal! Keo thought, and was preparing to give the man the (second) surprise of his life by spinning into view when an object sailed through the window in a wide arc before he could act. It bounced on the floor almost in front of Horse and instantly began spewing a thick white cloud.
The thoroughbred immediately realized the danger and let out a loud whinny before it began thrashing around, and Keo thought, Oh, goddammit, it’s going to kill me. It’s going to get in an accidental kick and knock my head right off.
He started backing away, trying to put as much distance between himself and the suddenly wild animal as he could. Keo pulled his shirt over his mouth and nostrils, but he knew it wasn’t going to do a damn bit of good because the thick smoke had begun to swallow up the small room. The first wracking cough hit him like a freight train, and soon his eyes were watering, and it wasn’t long before his skin began feeling as if it had caught on fire.
“Did you hear that?” a voice said. Keo had lost track of who it was.
“Hear what?” a second voice said.
“I hear coughing.” Then, with alarm, “Someone’s in there with the horse!”
Keo continued backing up until he bumped into the corner where he had spent most of the night and there was nowhere else to go.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit!
“You sure?” a voice asked.
“You can’t hear that?” the other one said.
“I can’t hear shit. I can’t see shit, either.”
Keo’s eyes were burning as he looked for a way out. The door was to his right, but it was across the room with Horse in his way. The thoroughbred was spinning in circles and letting out pained whinnying noises. What were the chances he could somehow squeeze around it without getting kicked in the head? Or kicked anywhere else, for that matter? He assumed it was going to hurt regardless of where the animal landed its thousand pound-backed blow.
The window! It was open, and smoke was flooding out of it. It was the only real path out of the room. Except there were at least two people out there. They may or may not be Buckies, but either way they weren’t just going to let him climb out—
Fuck it, he thought and ran toward the window.
He saw flashes of movement around him—the horse, then someone at the window backing up as he approached—but it was all a blur as he dove through the opening.
He landed in a pile and instantly sucked in as much air as he could while simultaneously gasping for breath.
The blow came from behind him, like a rock smashing into the base of his head.
God, he hoped it wasn’t a rock. Better yet, he hoped it wasn’t whatever the men had used to dislodge the dresser earlier. Compared to that heavy piece of furniture, his skull might as well be papier-mâché.
He slammed face-first into the grass and couldn’t muster the energy to pick himself back up. Wetness seeped into his skin (why was the ground wet?), and he heard the panicked sounds of the horse somewhere behind him. He felt bad for the animal, but he was in no position to help it or even himself.
“Is he dead?” someone asked.
“I dunno,” someone else said.
“You hit him pretty hard.”
“Shit, you saw how he shot through that window. Like a friggin’ bat outta hell.”
“Like Meat Loaf?”
“Yeah, like Meat Loaf,” one of them laughed. “Only skinnier.”
Jokes, Keo thought. They got jokes, these assholes.
He might have offered up a comeback of his own, but every inch of his skin was burning, and the only thing Keo could think of to do was mercifully close his eyes and wait for the bullet.
FIFTEEN
HE WOKE up to a throbbing headache, like a one-hundred-and-twenty-eight-pound cannonball was ricocheting back and forth endlessly inside his skull. But his brain seemed (seemed!) intact, and when he opened his eyes, he could see just fine. Well, not really just fine, but he could see, and that was the important takeaway. There were some white spots in his vision, sure, but they were easy enough to look past at the two guys sitting across from him while snacking on strips of beef jerky.
Keo sat up with some effort and looked around him.
He was inside the great room of the same cabin, lights from the fireplace separating him and his two captors providing plenty of illumination to see with. The men were well-armed, with gun belts and knives—no, not knives, but machetes; there was a big difference, namely the reach and cutting power—strapped to their hips, and each one had a pump-action shotgun slung over his back. One was in his early thirties, the other younger, about late twenties. They both sported thick facial hair and would have looked identical, except one of them was a redhead.
Keo’s hands and legs were free, which confused him. His weapons were gone, but they had left his gun belt with an empty holster. He spotted both the MP5SD, his pistol, and knife in a pile along with his bug-out bag in the corner to his left.
“You got a name?” the older of the two, who wasn’t the redhead, asked.
“Yeah,” Keo said.
When he didn’t keep going, the two men exchanged an amused look before Redhead said, “You being a smartass?”
“Not nearly smart enough,” Keo said, and reached back to rub at the bump at the base of his skull.
“Sorry about that. You sort of, uh, came at us out of nowhere, and we weren’t sure what to do. You’re lucky; we usually shoot first and ask questions later. Does it hurt?”
“What do you think?”
He stared at the two men again. They weren’t Buckies, he knew that much. Not only because he couldn’t locate a circled M anywhere on their bulletproof vests, but more importantly he wasn’t restrained or, worst case, dead.
That knowledge allowed him to relax, if just slightly.
“Which one of you geniuses hit me?” Keo asked.
“Him,” Redhead said, indicating his partner.
“Guilty,” the other guy said, reaching back and patting his shotgun. “I call her Annie.”
“Annie’s a real bitch,” Keo said.
The guy chuckled. “That she is.”
“Your horse got away,” Redhead said.
“What?” Keo said.
“Your horse. It got away. Sucker was waiting for me at the front door when I opened it. Quiet as a mouse; I
didn’t even hear a peep out of it until it nearly took my head off. Last I saw, it vanished into the woods.” Then, with a crooked grin, “You always sleep with your horse?”
“It’s not my horse.”
“No?”
Keo shook his head. “No.”
“It looked pretty domesticated to me,” Not Redhead said. “You took it from its previous owner?”
“He didn’t need it anymore.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
Not Redhead grinned. “Yeah, I do. It’s a tough world out there.” He reached into his pack and took out a see-through bag and tossed it over.
Keo caught it, opened it, and smelled dehydrated jerky. “What is this?”
“Deer,” the redhead said.
Keo took out a piece, gave it a try, decided it was good enough, and finished off the stick before dipping in for seconds.
“Mikey, I think he likes it!” Not Redhead chuckled.
“I guess so,” his partner said. Then, “I’m Willis. That’s Lam.”
“Like the Lamb of God, minus the b at the end,” the guy named Lam said.
“Thanks for the tip,” Keo said. “I’m Keo.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“John was taken.”
“Say what?”
“Exactly.”
Willis and Lam exchanged another look, this one more confused than amused. But they shrugged it off.
Definitely not Buckies.
Keo glanced around him while he chewed on another piece of jerky. His watch read 5:11 a.m., which explained why it wasn’t nearly as black outside the windows, but it was still dark enough that Willis and Lam shouldn’t have been sitting here with a raging fireplace, making themselves into a target for any ghouls passing by. He would have been alarmed if he didn’t already know who the two men were, or what they did for a living. The shotgun and the machete gave it away.
“You know who we are, don’t you?” the one named Willis asked, one corner of his mouth grinning at Keo.
