“Sorry.”
“You’re forgiven.”
He went suddenly very quiet, his eyes never leaving the streets outside.
“What is it?” she asked.
“When I was hanging up, I told Carly that I loved her, and she cried.”
“She misses you.”
“I mean, yes, she misses me. Who wouldn’t? What I meant was, I think she knew the truth even though I tried to bullshit my way through it. That redhead knows me too well. When I said ‘I love you,’ she started crying and didn’t stop before I signed off.”
“I’m sorry, Danny.”
“Yeah, me too, kid.” He glanced back at the offices. “I think it’s time to try on some new clothes.”
She nodded, picked up the two collaborator uniforms waiting in a small pile next to her, and jogged across the lobby and into the back hallway. The clothes she was carrying were the least bloody ones she could find among the dead; even so, her stomach churned at the thought of having to wear them. But it had to be done. Even if it didn’t work (It has to work), they had to try, because what the hell else were they going to do? The only other option was to give up, and there wasn’t a single quitter among them.
Nate was sitting at the back of the office when she entered, a large pile of rifle magazines and bullets scattered between his legs. An M4 leaned against the wall next to him and he was wearing one of the collaborator’s gun belts.
He looked up when she stepped inside. “Everything okay?”
She nodded. “Time to get dressed.”
He looked at the bundle in her hands and sighed. “You know, you used to have much better taste in clothes.”
“I don’t like it any more than you do.”
He caught one of the uniforms she tossed over and grimaced at the sudden movement (Shit, I forgot; sorry, Nate), then wrinkled his nose at the stench of blood clinging to the fabric.
“Try not to think too much about it,” she said.
Nate stuck his finger through one of the bullet holes and wiggled it around. “Look at what I can do, Ma.”
She rolled her eyes. “Put it on.” Then, “You need help?”
“Nah, I mastered changing clothes when I was ten.”
“Ten?”
“I was a late bloomer,” Nate said, struggling to stand up.
She wanted desperately to reach over and help him but managed to restrain herself. Nate needed to do it himself; even more importantly, he needed to know that he could. Finally, he was able to stand up on both feet—they were a bit unsteady at first, but that went away after a few seconds—and began undressing.
She gave him as much privacy as possible—which wasn’t much since they were in the same room together—while changing into her own pair of blood-stained shirt and slacks.
When he was done, Nate sat gingerly back down and pinched his nose. “Ugh. I thought it’d be easier the second time, but not so much.”
He was referring to Starch, when they had used a similar tactic to survive the night. The fact that it had worked then was the only thing giving her any hope at the moment.
If it worked once, it should work again, right?
While working on the buttons of her shirt, she sneaked a quick glance across the room at Nate. He looked so much better since a night ago, and all the rest he’d gotten had definitely helped. He was still shaky on his feet and it would take a while before he was even close to being 100% again, but she felt a lot better knowing that he had survived the worst of his wound.
Now all we have to do is survive everything else they’re going to throw at us tonight.
She finished with her shirt by pushing the hem into the waistband. It was a little loose everywhere, but it was the best fit she could find.
“Bandages still okay?” she asked him.
He nodded. “You said Danny stitched me?”
“Uh huh.”
“He did a pretty good job. It totally doesn’t feel like my guts are about to burst out whatsoever.”
“Not funny.”
“Too soon?”
“Way too soon,” she smiled.
“True, though,” he said, picking up a magazine from the floor and thumbing rounds into it.
“How’s the inventory look?”
“We have eleven magazines for the rifles and thirteen for the handguns. I separated them by caliber,” he added, indicating the smaller individualized sections.
“Nicely done.”
“Hey, you give me a job, I’m gonna do it gangbusters or not bother at all.”
“I never had any doubt.”
She walked over and sat down next to him, placing her rifle on the floor within easy reach.
Nate leaned over and sniffed her. “You stink worse than me.”
“I’m pretty sure we stink about the same amount.”
“Definitely not.”
“Whatever.”
He pinched his nose again and said, his voice slightly distorted, “I heard Danny on the radio earlier. How’s the Trident?”
“Better than us right now.” She sensed him watching her intensely and turned to meet his gaze. “What?”
“You’re so beautiful.”
“My nose hasn’t healed right…”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“The scars on my cheeks…”
“I don’t care about scars.”
“I’m wearing a dead man’s clothes…”
“So am I.”
“…and covered in his blood…”
“Ditto.”
“I haven’t showered in days…”
“You smell wonderful.”
She gave him a wry smile. “You’re too easily pleased.”
“Only when it comes to you,” he smiled back.
She leaned over and kissed him. His fingers slipped into her hair, and he tugged her closer. She tried to pull away, not wanting to aggravate his wound, but his mouth was so insistent that she gave up and just enjoyed it because, she told herself, this could very well be the last time they had the chance.
“Tick tock. Tick tock, goes the clock.”
The sun wasn’t completely gone, but it had dipped below the rooftop of Gallant’s Best, so she couldn’t see it anymore. The street outside the bank had darkened enough that she couldn’t tell if the Jeep was brand new or scarred by the same explosion that had taken out a large chunk of the wall.
Her watch ticked to 5:13 p.m.
“Time to check under the beds and in the closet for monsters.”
She could barely hear Mason’s voice with the two-way handheld radio’s volume set to almost its lowest setting. Turning it off completely to silence the man’s irritating voice was an option, but Mason talking meant Mason potentially giving away something they could use.
“Hear that?” Mason said. “That’s the sound of the real world starting to wake up.”
She thought she saw shadows moving behind one of the drawn curtains that covered a window along the department store across the street. Or was that just her imagination? How big was that building anyway? Big enough for a few hundred ghouls to be hiding inside right this moment? Maybe more if they crammed into both floors. And why wouldn’t they? The creatures couldn’t care less about comfort. That was a human thing, and they were well beyond that now.
“You think he knows?” Gaby asked.
“About the uniforms?” Danny said.
She nodded.
He shrugged. “He hasn’t mentioned it yet if he noticed, and that guy runs his mouth more than a fat guy on a treadmill in January.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t made a run for it yet,” Mason was saying through the radio. “If I were a betting man—and I’ve been known to lay a few shekels here and there on the roulette table—I’d put good money on the Ranger taking his chances before the sun sets. Of course he wouldn’t have made it, but he’d have gotten an A for effort.”
“Oh, for the love of God, shut him up,” Danny said from across the blasted opening in the wall. He was almost c
ompletely sitting in shadows, and if not for the white clouds of mist forming as he spoke, she wouldn’t know where he was.
Gaby reached down and switched off the radio, then picked it up and clipped it behind her belt. A radio was too valuable to just throw away these days, even if the only person on the other side was Mason.
She glanced down at her watch again: 5:15 p.m.
Christ, where did the last two minutes go?
She searched out Danny in the darkness. “I don’t think they’re coming.”
“Doesn’t look that way.”
Despite every indication that Mason would stay back until nightfall, they couldn’t risk retreating into the backroom until they were absolutely certain. The man was a liar, after all, and couldn’t be trusted. But now that the sun had all but vanished and she thought she could feel the floor under her vibrating as…things began moving across Gallant…
“Time to boogie,” Danny said. He got up and began moving backward across the lobby.
She did the same, anxious to get the hell as far away from the opening as possible. But they didn’t rush it and backpedaled one step at a time while keeping their eyes on the wall and the doors and windows in front of them. She turned around only when she saw the island counter passing by to her left and rushed after Danny, past the first office (with the bodies, and Fritz), and toward the manager’s room in the back.
“Nate,” she called.
He poked his head out of the office, his M4 clutched in his hands. “Okay?”
She nodded. “You got guard duty.”
“Gotcha.”
Nate stepped out into the hallway and stood guard while she and Danny went all the way to the back and removed the large metal filing cabinet they had helped Fritz put over the alley entrance earlier. They took it into the office, with Nate retreating into the room after them. They closed the door, then leaned the heavy cabinet against it before pinning it in place with the desk.
It was a decent barricade, and if it was just the black eyes trying to get in, she thought their chances were pretty good the door would hold. But that was the problem. She knew very well it wouldn’t just be the black eyes. The blue-eyed ones would also be around tonight, just like they had last night, and that time at the farmhouse in Louisiana…
With the door closed, Gaby could barely make out Danny and Nate standing in the room with her. Danny had unslung Benford’s pack and was rummaging through it. A few seconds later there was a double cracking sound, and two glow sticks gradually filled the room.
Danny’s face, suddenly awash in fluorescent green, grinned at her. “And then God said, ‘Let there be awesome green disco lights, and so there was.’”
“Not quite sure that’s the line,” she smiled back at him.
“Eh, I never was much of a church goin’ boy.”
“Looks good,” Nate said, nodding his approval at their handiwork over the door. “Definitely looks like it could last through the night.”
“Winter springs eternal, kids,” Danny said.
“You don’t think so?”
“If it were just those black-eyed bastards? Yeah. But that’s not the case, is it?”
I guess I’m not the only one who remembers.
She looked at her watch, the white neon hand more green than white: 5:20 p.m.
If they thought Gallant was quiet before, listening to the excruciating silence from inside a small office in the back of a bank surrounded by four walls and a barricaded door was an entirely new experience.
She sat with Nate at the back, with the door in front and to her right. Danny sat to their left in the corner. No one had said a word since they settled down to wait, and as they listened to what Mason called “the real world” coming awake around them, they continued to maintain the quiet, the anticipation of what all three of them knew was coming (Anytime now, you bastards) almost suffocating.
The ghouls were out there by the hundreds, maybe the thousands, so why hadn’t they begun assaulting the door yet? Despite straining to hear, she couldn’t detect them outside in the hallway or the bank lobby. Which didn’t make any damn sense at all. They had to know the three of them were in here. Even the black-eyed creatures, with their limited intelligence (Dead, not stupid, right, Will?) could trace the new blood from the streets to the gaping hole in the wall and sniff their trail to the back of the building. And if even by some miracle they couldn’t, the presence of the blue eyes would make up for it.
“He’ll come for them soon.”
“Yes.”
“And when he does…”
“We’ll end him.”
“Finally…”
All of this was for one man. Who the hell were they waiting for?
The question turned over and over in her head and had been since last night. Except now it was so much louder and so much more persistent, with nothing for her to do but listen to the silence as she waited and waited for the creatures to show themselves.
What are you waiting for?
She looked over in Danny’s direction, his face covered in the green light from the glow sticks. He had his rifle between his legs, the muzzle pointed up at the roof, and was staring at the door across from him. She couldn’t tell if he was lost in his own thoughts or if he was just as mystified by the lack of an attack as she was.
She felt welcome warmth as Nate reached over and found her hand and squeezed. “Can’t wait to get our own room on the Trident,” he said quietly.
“It’s going to be loud down there with the engine next door,” she said, matching his soft pitch.
“Who cares. That’s what earplugs are for. Plus, no one will know what we’re doing down there. Know what I mean?”
“Not a clue.” She kissed him on the cheek, then pulling back slightly, whispered, “I love you.”
“Finally,” he whispered back. “I didn’t think you would ever say it.”
She smiled and kissed him again, then rested her head against his shoulder.
“Tired?” he asked.
She nodded. “You?”
“Like every part of me is about to go all Scanners.”
“Scanners?”
“You know, that movie where the guy’s head blows up?”
She shook her head.
“We’ll add it to the Netflix queue when we get back to the Trident,” Nate said.
“Deal.”
The office looked different swimming in green, almost surreal somehow. Nate slipped an arm around her, and she wanted to close her eyes and forget about what was going to happen in the next few minutes, or hours. But it was going to happen tonight. The blue eyes hadn’t gone through all this trouble to forget about them now.
“He’ll come for them soon,” one of the creatures had said.
He. Who the hell was he?
She allowed herself to close her eyes for a moment even as her ears kept listening for telltale signs that the creatures had finally arrived outside their door, or beyond the walls of the bank, or maybe even above them on the rooftop. Except they weren’t in any of those places because there was just dead silence all around them.
What in God’s name are they waiting for?
She had her eyes partially closed and was concentrating on the warmth of Nate’s body against hers when there was a massive boom! that tore through the room, so close and immediate that her ears were still ringing even as she struggled to open her eyes and move, move, move, dammit!
By the time she managed to fully open her eyes, green tendrils of smoke were already starting to fill the room at a dizzying speed. Then Danny was shooting, his face lit up by a staccato effect of green and white and orange as flames stabbed from his M4. He had somehow made it onto his feet before either she or Nate could react and was actually pushing his way into the smoke instead of running away from it like a sensible human being.
Since when does Danny qualify as “sensible?” she thought even as she scrambled to get ahold of her rifle, which she had dropped about the same time the explo
sion knocked Nate’s arm from its place around her body.
She wasn’t sure when she lost sight of Danny, but one second he was in front of her and in the next breath he had vanished into the spreading green smoke, and the only thing she could make out was the pop-pop-pop of his rifle assaulting her ears as the ringing from the explosion subsided. The M4s they were armed with were only capable of three-round bursts, but Danny was squeezing the trigger so fast that they sounded almost like one continuous full-auto blast.
She finally (finally!) got her numbed feet under her and scrambled up, gripping her rifle in one hand and shouting, “Stay here!” back at Nate.
He was coughing and trying not to gag against the smoke, but he somehow still managed to flash her a defiant look as he shook his head. “The hell I am!”
“Nate, please!”
“No!” he shouted back.
Loud crackles of gunfire reached them, coming from the hole in the wall that hadn’t been there before.
They blasted through from the other room. Jesus Christ!
Nate was already on his feet when she began moving forward. She could hear him coughing behind her as he followed, and Gaby lifted her rifle as—
A figure stumbled through the jagged opening in front of her. He was wearing black and she glimpsed the shiny lens of his gas mask—
She fired, and the man, moving between rooms, fell awkwardly, landing in the middle of the hole with one part of his body in their room and his legs in the manager’s office.
How the hell did he get past Danny?
It was impossible not to inhale the smoke—a combination of disintegrated Sheetrock and explosive powder swarming around the opening—and she started to cough along with Nate even as they kept pushing forward.
Questions swirled around in her head as she forced her legs to move:
Why did the collaborators attack? Why risk an explosion when Mason had strict orders to keep them alive? Or had the “him” that the blue-eyed ghouls were waiting for finally arrived, and their usefulness as bait had finally come to an end?
“Danny!” she shouted as she stepped over the dead man and into the connecting room. There had been a lot of smoke in the other office, but there was even more in here, almost as if the collaborators hadn’t properly executed their breach.
The Purge of Babylon Series Box Set, Vol. 3 | Books 7-9 Page 60
