The Ashes of Pompeii

CHAPTER 21 WILL

He was alive, and as long as he was breathing, things weren’t completely hopeless. It would take some doing, but it could be done. He could be on his way back to Song Island by the morning and finally see Lara again after being away from her for so long.

I’ve been in worse situations.

He couldn’t remember when exactly, but it would come back to him eventually. Besides, he was dealing with two grunts who were far from home and isolated from their unit. If Mason were around, things might be different. That midget was smarter than he looked. These two, on the other hand, maybe not so much.

“You see that?” Rick asked.

The second guy, whose name turned out to be Millard (Close enough), had stood up and taken a step away from the pools of moonlight pouring in through the gas station’s glass curtain wall. Will wondered if he had done that intentionally or if it was an involuntary response. Either way, the reaction of both men told him that despite whatever deals with the devil they had struck, the fear of the creatures amassed outside hadn’t gone completely away.

“What?” Millard said.

“I thought they moved,” Rick said. He had risen from the floor but remained in a slight crouch, his M4 resting at his side like a crutch.

That’s no way to treat a rifle, soldier.

Of course, Rick wasn’t really a soldier. Despite the fact that the former paramedic had essentially saved his life, Will didn’t feel very warm toward the man. Besides, it would make having to kill Rick easier.

“I don’t see anything,” Millard said.

“No, I swear, I thought I saw them move,” Rick said.

“You said ‘thought.’”

“I saw it.”

Millard had retreated completely into the shadows at the back of the store. Will didn’t know what Rick saw (or thought he saw), but the creatures outside didn’t seem to have moved in any way. They continued to stand, shoulder to shoulder, their numbers so thick that it was impossible to see past them and at the I-10 highway in the background.

It didn’t help that this part of the world was pitch black with no source of artificial light for miles. Not that he minded that, either. Given the shape he was in now, Will wasn’t excited about seeing what he looked like anyway. The bandages, the bloodied clothes he was still wearing, the pool of dried blood he had been sitting on ever since he woke up. What part of him wasn’t covered in blood?

At least Rick had been nice enough to give him back his pill bottle as promised. Will tilted it up to his lips now and swallowed the last three remaining lifesavers. He swore it worked almost right away, but maybe that was just his mind trying to convince him his entire body wasn’t about to shut down from the pain of the last few days.

“They freak me out, man,” Millard was saying while clutching the carbine as if it were a baseball bat.

“So don’t look at them,” Rick said.

“I can’t help it. Can you?”

“No…”

Millard was skinny and tall, whereas Rick was thick and slightly pudgy. “Man, they must really want you bad,” he said to Will.

“They don’t want him,” Rick said. “She does.”

“She?”

“Yeah. She.”

“Oh,” Millard said, turning back to the window. “So what happens when she shows up? We just give him to her or something?”

“Mason says to stay out of her way. We’re just here to make sure he doesn’t run off again.”

“What about them?”

“They’re here to make sure he doesn’t run off, too.”

“I doubt he’s going anywhere. The guy looks like a bad extra from The Mummy.”

“Yeah, well, he’s done it before. So we just sit tight until she shows up.”

“Freaky,” Millard said. He looked at Will again. “I don’t know what you did, buddy, but you must have fucked up bad.”

Will chuckled.

That prompted a glance from Rick. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Will said.

Rick walked over and crouched about a foot in front of him, leaning the rifle across his knees. Will fought every instinct to grab at the weapon. It was so damn close…

“Come on,” Rick said, “I wanna hear what the dead man thinks is so funny.”

“Have you ever met her in person?” Will asked.

“Who?”

“Her.”

Rick and Millard exchanged a look.

I guess that’s a no.

“She’s not like the others, you know,” Will said. “She’s different from the ones outside.”

“Yeah, we know,” Millard said. “Blue eyes, right?”

“That’s right.”

“What else do you know?” Rick asked him.

Apparently more than you.

“They like to play,” Will said.

“Play?” Millard said. “What the hell does that mean?”

He thought about Harrison and how the blue-eyed ghouls had toyed with him. Then there were the people from Mississippi who had suffered the same fate. Gaby had also told him and Danny an interesting story about a man named Peter, whom she had escaped L15 with. Peter had fled the town because he was afraid for his life, because men had a bad habit of going missing, never to be seen again.

And there it was.

He had been searching for a way out ever since he opened his eyes, and it was right under his nose the entire time. Now all he had to do was tell a convincing enough story because his life depended on it.

“It means she’s not going to just come and take me,” Will said. “It’s not how this works.”

“‘This’?” Millard said. “What’s ‘this’?”

“This is Mason, leaving you here for a reason. This is Mason, offering you up to her.” Before they could respond, he added quickly, “You’ve heard the stories, haven’t you? About people going missing in the towns? Men who are never seen again?”

He watched their reaction: The way they exchanged another quick glance, the way their shoulders trembled ever so slightly, and the way they gripped their rifles as if their life depended on it, because maybe it did. They didn’t really understand their ghoul overlords, he realized now, but they had heard the whispers. The rumors. Maybe they’d even talked about it amongst themselves in quiet rooms when they were certain no one could hear.

God, I hope this works.

“You’ve heard the stories,” Will said.

“Maybe,” Millard said hesitantly. “Guys have said they’ve seen some crazy things.”

“About the blue-eyed ones.”

“Yeah…”

“The stories you’ve heard? No matter how crazy they sound, I can tell you this: They’re not even close to the real thing, because the truth is worse.”

“Bullshit,” Rick said.

“When she comes, it won’t be just me that she takes,” Will said, keeping his focus — directing everything out of his mouth — at Millard, and Millard only. He could feel Rick staring at him, but he ignored the other man. He didn’t have to convince both of them — he just needed one of them on his side. “The ones outside? Those are pets. The blue-eyed ones are the masters. And masters take what they want. Me, I’ll survive this, because she wants me to. But you two? I don’t see it. You’re not here to protect me, or to keep me from running off. Look at me. I’m not going anywhere. You two are here for a reason. You’re snacks.”

“He’s lying,” Rick said. “Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know anything.”

“Where’s Mason now?” Will said, pressing on as if Rick hadn’t said anything. “Did you ever wonder why he left just the two of you behind? Let me guess. You got on his bad side recently? Maybe talked back one time too many?”

“How do you know all this?” Millard said. His mouth twitched, which was either a sign Will was getting to him or…the guy just had a twitch.

“I’ve been around,” Will said. “I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. I’ve fought the blue-eyed ones. More than once. And I’ve lived to tell the tale. What about you two? You really think you’re supposed to survive this? Wake up.”

“Shut up,” Rick said. Then to Millard, “Don’t listen to him. We’re rejoining Mason in the morning.”

“Where?” Millard said. “Where’s Mason now?”

Rick didn’t answer right away.

“He doesn’t know,” Will said.

“He’s at Lake Charles,” Rick said.

“He’s lying,” Will said. “Look at his face.”

Millard peered at Rick in the semidarkness, almost leaning forward with his entire body. “He’s at Lake Charles?”

“Yes,” Rick said. “He told me himself.”

Will laughed. Loudly. When both men looked back at him, he said, with all the conviction in the world, “You’re a shitty liar, Rick. Mason’s gone. He never told you where he went because you didn’t need to know. Because he won’t see you or Millard again after tonight.”

Millard looked at Rick, then at Will, then back at Rick. “He’s in Lake Charles right now?”

“That’s right,” Rick nodded. “He’s just messing with your head. Don’t listen to him. Mason told me to be careful with this guy. He’s slippery.”

Will snorted at Rick, then smiled at Millard. “What did you do?”

“What?” Millard said.

“You must have done something to piss Mason off.”

“I didn’t—” He paused, then seemed to think about it. “I had no choice.”

“What did you do?” Will asked again.

“Don’t tell him,” Rick said.

Millard ignored him, said, “Back at Route 13. When those people from Dunbar attacked us. There were too many of them, and they had a machine gun. I…ran.”

“Mason doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who forgives something like that,” Will said. “No wonder he sent you here.”

Almost there, Will thought when he saw the conflicted look on Millard’s face. Just a little more…

“Stop talking to him,” Rick said. “He’s just filling your head with lies. I should have left him bleeding on the floor instead of saving his life.”

“What were Mason’s orders?” Millard asked Rick.

The question caught Rick by surprise. “What?”

“What were Mason’s orders?” Millard repeated, his voice growing slightly in volume, almost threatening. “He didn’t tell me. He just said to stay here with you. But he never told me how to reach him in the morning.”

“I told you, we’re supposed to meet up with him at Lake Charles tomorrow,” Rick said, looking noticeably more irritated by the second.

There was a flicker of movement outside the window. It was the ghouls. They seemed to be reacting to the growing agitation inside the store. It was just a slight tremor that rumbled across the field of black pruned flesh. Will wouldn’t have noticed it at all if they hadn’t been so still just seconds ago.

“We’re just supposed to stay here and wait for her to come get him,” Rick was saying.

“That’s it?” Millard said.

“That’s it. Just sit tight and it’ll be over soon.”

“Nice story,” Will said. “A bald-faced lie, but I’ll give you points for trying. Then again, you might actually believe it, which is pretty sad if you ask me.”

Rick looked back to him. “No one asked you, dead man.”

“If I’m the dead man, why are the two of you ready to piss your pants? Maybe it’s because you know I’m right. Mason’s gone. He may or may not be at Lake Charles, but he sure as hell doesn’t expect you to link back up with him in the morning. The rest of your unit is gone. They left you behind. Face it.”

“You don’t know a damn—” Rick said, but he never got the chance to finish because there was a loud bang! from the back of the store and Rick collapsed to the floor in a pile.

The gunshot was still echoing off the walls, causing the windows to vibrate slightly, when a voice said, “Move and you’re dead.”

Millard stood shaking over Rick’s crumpled form, desperately trying to control his breathing. He looked wide-eyed, as if he’d just run a marathon and was not quite sure if he should sit down and rest or have a heart attack. His right hand had also begun to inch toward his holstered sidearm—

Bang!

Millard dropped and laid still.

“Christ,” Will said.

“That’s two you owe me,” the voice said as its owner stepped out of the shadowed back part of the gas station.

She had looked better, but then she could probably say the same thing about him. There was a gash along her left temple that had left thick clumps of blood along the side of her face, and she moved with a noticeable limp. Other than that, it was still the same woman who was a trigger pull away from shooting him dead when they had first met back at the Palermo along Route 13.

Natasha lowered the M4 rifle and smirked at him. “That’s some silver tongue on you. I thought for sure you had them convinced.”

“Almost,” Will said.

“Listening to you back here, it occurred to me everything you might have told Leo and the others was bullshit, too.” She narrowed her eyes. “Well? Was it?”

“I needed to get to Song Island.”

“So that’s a yes.”

“Not everything. The part about the ghouls avoiding bodies of water is true. I’ve been on that island for three months and they never once crossed it.”

“Not once?” she said doubtfully.

“Not once.” He turned back to Rick’s and Millard’s still bodies. “Nice shot.”

“I’ve had practice.”

She walked over and took out a knife. The sharp edge gleamed in the moonlight and Will waited for her to strike.

Natasha snorted. “Relax. If I wanted to kill you, I would have just shot you.”

She sliced his hands free, then did the same to his legs.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Can you even stand? You look like shit.”

“I can stand.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Will stood up, even as every joint in his body popped and creaked. He had been sitting for so long that he didn’t realize just how much his entire body still ached and throbbed from the events of the last twenty-four hours. Just moving his arms to rub his wrists to get the blood flowing again made him wince. He couldn’t tell how bad his hands had been shredded by the highway underneath the gauze, and frankly he didn’t want to know. Every time he touched something, there was a painful jolt.

I should be dead.

How many times have I said that this week?

He sucked it up. None of it mattered because he was still far from his destination.

Song Island.

Lara.

Gotta get back home.

“Motherfucker,” Natasha whispered.

She was staring out the store windows at the ghouls outside. The wall of dark flesh and gleaming black faces was stirring, moving slightly left and right and front and back. The eyes that peered back at them seemed to have grown with intensity since he last looked.

It had to have been the violence. They were reacting to the deaths of Millard and Rick. So what was still keeping them back? What was holding them in place?

Not what. Who.

Kate…

“I’ve never seen so many of them in one place,” Natasha said.

She had lowered her voice to almost a whisper for some reason. He wondered if she knew that the doors weren’t even locked, that there was nothing — absolutely nothing — keeping the monsters at bay this very moment.

Will hurried forward — grimacing, trying not to scream out with every step — and turned the locks on the doors before retreating quickly back into the darkness.

When he was in the moonlight, he had spotted his reflection in the glass door and was glad he had only seen himself for a split second. The sight of a dead man wearing bloodied clothes and covered in bandages, limping badly, wasn’t something he wanted to see again.

“Are you shitting me?” Natasha said. She might have been hyperventilating a little bit. “Those doors were never locked?”

“They are now,” Will said.

“Jesus Christ,” she said breathlessly. She was still staring out the windows, unable to take her eyes away from the throng of creatures outside.

Will picked up Rick’s M4 and slung it, then rolled the man onto his back, careful to avoid the blood dribbling out the side of Rick’s head. He unclasped the gun belt with the Smith & Wesson semi-automatic in the hip holster and found a nylon sheath stuffed behind Rick’s waist. The knife inside was a tantō style model about a foot long with a seven-inch black stainless steel blade. It looked overly stylish and nothing he would have been caught dead carrying in combat or elsewhere, but you never knew when an extra weapon might come in handy.

“What are you doing back here, Natasha?” Will asked as he finished going through Rick’s pockets. “Not that I’m complaining.”

When he was done with Rick, he went through Millard’s belongings. The two men didn’t have any extra ammo on them besides the magazines already loaded in their rifles and sidearms.

“What else was I going to do?” Natasha said. She had walked back to him, but kept glancing over her shoulder and out the windows. “Figured I’d follow these assholes and kill as many of them as I could before they get me.”

“What happened?”

“You mean how did I survive?”

“Yeah.”

“I was thrown clear. Landed on the side of the highway in some thick grass. Thank God no one’s done any mowing for a year, otherwise they’d have spotted me. I woke up in time to see them hauling you away.”

“What about the others?”

She shook her head before looking behind her again.

“You limped all the way here?” he asked.

“We’re only half a mile from the crash site. I didn’t even know you were in here until I climbed in through the window in the back room just before nightfall.”

“So you heard everything.”

“Most of it. Was it true? What you said? Or were you just feeding them a line to try to turn them on each other?”

“What do you think?”

She grunted. “You’re such a fucking liar.”

“I’m just trying to get home.”

“Song Island.”

“Yeah.”

“So how are you going to get there now?” Another quick look at the ghouls behind her, before she added, “How are you going to get through that.”

Will didn’t answer her. He was too busy looking down at Rick and Millard.

No, not at the two dead men. More, specifically, at their uniforms.

“What?” Natasha said. “What are you looking at? You already took everything they have. What’s left?”

“Their uniforms,” Will said. He kneeled back down and began unbuttoning Rick’s shirt.

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“Because they leave the soldiers alone,” she said. Then, with something that almost sounded like hope in her voice for the first time since he’d met her, “You really think it’ll work?”

“Only one way to find out,” he said.

It didn’t take them long to strip the two men down to their underwear. Rick was the smaller of the two, so Natasha took his uniform into the back room. Will pulled on Millard’s, grateful to shed his own bloodied clothes.

He didn’t realize just how bruised and purple and yellow he was until he was standing in his boxers. He quickly put the uniform on and cinched the gun belt in place, covering up the scars and bandages and everything else that reminded him he was probably not going to last very long in this condition. The painkillers he had popped earlier were starting to work, but what he wouldn’t give for a little bit more pep.

He told himself he’d get the help he desperately needed when he finally made it back home. Lara could treat him. Or Zoe, though he’d insist Lara do it.

Have to get home. Get back to Lara.

Have to get home at all costs…

Natasha came back out, still doing up the buttons on Rick’s shirt. “It kind of fits. For all the good it’ll do.”

“That’s it, think positive,” Will said.

Millard’s clothes actually fit him pretty well, and he shoved the sheathed knife behind his back.

“I’m being realistic,” Natasha said. “These two didn’t even know why the uniforms work. They just accepted it because that’s what they do; they’re followers. Look how fast the tall one was willing to buy your bullshit.”

They were adapting so they wouldn’t perish. It’s human nature.

“What’s in the back room?” he asked.

“Just some empty boxes. The window was unlocked, and it was just big enough for me to crawl through.”

Then Natasha went very quiet.

“What’s—” he started to ask.

She was staring past him and out the windows again, at the creatures gathered outside. Nothing had changed that he could see. There were still too many of them, overflowing out of the parking lot and onto the feeder road. No matter how hard or long he stared, it was impossible to make out the gray concrete of the I-10 in the background. Was it even still there?

“What’s happening?” Natasha asked. Her voice had dropped noticeably again.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Nothing?”

“I don’t see anything.”

“They don’t look different to you?”

He shook his head, then glanced back at her. Natasha had retreated until she was standing (almost leaning) against the far wall, now little more than a silhouette in the shadows. He didn’t know how, but he could actually see her terrified face in the darkness.

“I swear I saw them move,” she said.

“Move?”

“Yeah. They moved.”

“How?”

“I can’t explain—”

Bang!

He spun around, lifting the M4 just as the ghoul picked itself up from the concrete sidewalk. It had smashed itself, skull first, into one of the twin glass doors and left behind a crack about an inch long. The figure slowly straightened up, tar-like black eyes finding Will and focusing in, as if it knew — it knew—who he was.

“That can’t be good,” Natasha said breathlessly behind him.

Yeah, I think that’s the understatement of the century, Natasha.

Will took another step back, then another one, when a second ghoul raced forward and flung itself into the other glass door. It struck headfirst, like the other one, and instantly fell to the sidewalk before picking itself back up. Like the first one, it had left an inch-wide crack across the glass.

What the hell were they doing? They weren’t going to break through the doors. Most convenience stores had tempered glass designed to withstand this kind of brute force attack. It would take forever to shatter unless you had a pickup truck moving at full speed. And right now he didn’t see a vehicle—

Oh, fuck.

He stumbled back as they began flinging themselves into the glass walls—bang! bang! bang! — all across the length of the store.

One after another—

Bang!

— after another—

Bang!

Each impact rang out like a gunshot—

Bang!

Worse than gunshots, because this weapon could be reloaded again and again, because they never died, they didn’t feel pain, and shattered limbs and broken bones meant nothing to them. The windows, along with the doors, were starting to chip little by little with every strike. They would break. Sooner or later, they would break.

“What now?” Natasha shouted behind him.

He didn’t answer her, because there was nowhere to run. If there were this many ghouls outside that he could see, there were probably even more surrounding the building that they couldn’t. Because it was night outside, and the night was theirs.

It was hers.

“I’m coming, Will,” she had said. “I’ll be there soon…”

“What the fuck is happening?” Natasha shouted, her voice drowning in the maddening fury of ghouls spearing the glasses with their bodies.

The constant hammer pounding, growing…

Bang!

“Hey!”

BANG!

“What now? What do we do now?”

BANG!!!

CHAPTER 22 GABY

“This is Lara! Everyone who isn’t already there, head to your designated exit points now! I repeat! Head to your exit points now! The island is lost! I repeat! The island is lost! We’re evacuating Song Island!”

She might have stopped breathing for a moment as Lara’s words echoed through the earbud. Her body was still trembling from the sight of men dying on the beach — and the fact she had contributed to that body count — when the explosion ripped through the island, followed by Lara’s voice over the radio.

“The island is lost! We’re evacuating Song Island!”

It couldn’t be possible, could it? She and Danny and Nate had risked everything to get down here just to save the island. They had left Will behind in order to do it. All that sacrifice had resulted in these bodies lying on the beach, the lapping waves of Beaufont Lake flooding the white sand with crimson blood that looked shockingly bright even with just the moonlight. At first she thought shooting men behind the night vision of her optic was surreal, like playing a videogame. The men stumbling and jumping out of their beached vessels didn’t look like actual human beings; they were more pixilated CGI.

But they were real, just like the round after round she had sent into them from the safety of the tree line. She had lost count of how many times she moved from spot to spot, never giving the black-clad assaulters a single location to shoot at. Eventually, they started believing there was more than just her in the eastern half of the beach and began spraying indiscriminately into the trees.

All of that, and for what?

“The island is lost! We’re evacuating Song Island!”

This can’t be how it ends. All this blood. All those lives…

“Gaby!” someone shouted in her ear. Danny. “Get your ass moving!”

How did he know she wasn’t already moving?

Because he was Danny, and he knew her. Just like Will knew her. They had trained her themselves on this very island, where she had dreamt about coming back to night after night. Only to have it end now…like this?

“Gaby!” Danny again. “Move your ass! That’s an order! Vamos!”

How the hell did he know she wasn’t already moving?

She pushed up from the slightly damp ground and onto her feet, then spun around and began running through the woods. She was glad to go, happy to be leaving the beach behind. If not figuratively, at least literally. She was going to have nightmares about tonight for years to come, she knew that much, and the less she could remember the images — the blood, the dead…but especially the dead — the better.

She tried to do that now — push the sight of those men falling as she shot them — as Danny and Keo shot them — out of her mind. But they were still too fresh and the best she could do was tell herself it was either her or them, because they hadn’t come here to talk. They had come here armed and ready to kill.

The wind against her face, the branches slapping her legs and arms, brought her back to the present. Back to the here and now. And right now, they were evacuating the island—

Wait, how was she moving so fast? Oh, right; because she wasn’t as weighed down by ammo as she was when the night started, because she had used up all her spare magazines. The one in the M4 at the moment was only half full, and once she used it up she would be down to just the Glock in her hip holster. At least she had two spare magazines for that.

The bodies on the beach. I did that. I killed those men.

God help me, I killed those men.

For a second or two, she entertained the idea of stopping and turning around and running back to the beach and collecting spare magazines from those very same men who she couldn’t stop thinking about.

Did they want to come here? Were they forced? Did they have friends or family waiting for them back in the towns? She remembered the woman with the boy in L15 and the countless other people walking along the sidewalks. Couples. Families. Was there a husband among the dead on the beach right now? Maybe she had killed him. Or maybe it was the man next to him—

Stop it. They’re gone. You did what you had to do.

Focus!

The clicking in her right ear helped her to concentrate on the moment, on the branches still slapping against her arms and legs, and the chill that pervaded the island and soaked her to the very bones despite her clothing.

“Lara,” a voice said.

“Keo!” Lara shouted back. “Where are you?”

“Southwest corner, just beyond the power station.”

“What do you see?”

“More assaulters. They’re coming through the shack next to the power station and heading right at you.”

“How many?”

“Too many. But if we coordinate a defense—”

“No,” Lara said, cutting him off. “It’s not the humans we have to worry about. Without the shack, there’s nothing to hold them back. Do you understand? Get to your exit point. We’re getting off the island!”

“Roger that,” Keo said, and the radio went quiet again.

Gaby burst out of the woods a moment later and into the almost pitch-black state of the hotel grounds. Even the Tower in the distance was barely visible, a hulking and darkened spire sticking out of the cliff, the familiar floodlights that usually adorned its exterior missing. Not gone, just turned off like the rest of the island, along with the LED lamps that had been inside the third floor a few hours ago.

For the first time in a long time, Gaby felt alone. The others were gone, moving toward their exit points. Soon, they’d all be converging on the Trident, anchored somewhere on the other side of the island. Lara’s Plan D, just in case everything went to hell.

I guess this means everything’s gone to hell.

She jogged across the tall grass, trying to get her bearings as she went. She had exited the woods at a random point and was much further away from the hotel than she had expected. She could see its squat one-story shape in the distance, the walls visible against the deep black of a lightless world. She was so used to seeing the grounds around the hotel lit up by bright LEDs that not having those markers now was startling.

She turned away from the hotel and ran in the direction of the Tower, where her designated exit point was. Even without lights, it was hard to miss, its structure looming against the moonlit sky. Carly or Benny would have already put the escape ladder in place over the cliff and climbed down, where two cheap aluminum boats, each with a pair of paddles inside, awaited them among the rocks. If both of them had left at the same time (which made sense), they would have left one boat down there for her. Or, at least, she hoped.

She was halfway to the Tower when the pop-pop-pop of assault rifles made her slide to a stop in the tall grass. The shooting was coming from her left, where the hotel was. The vicious back-and-forth paralyzed her, and Gaby didn’t know whether to keep running to her exit point or turn toward the hotel.

“The island is lost! I repeat! The island is lost! We’re evacuating Song Island!”

Orders were orders, but the sound of gunfire seized her and refused to let go. Maybe it was the ferocious nature of it, or its proximity — so close, and yet so far away. Who was shooting? Lara and Danny and how many assaulters? It was definitely concentrated inside the hotel, she was sure of it. There was a hollow almost echo-y quality to the gunshots, hints that they were coming from enclosed spaces.

“We’re pinned!” someone screamed in her right ear. Lara. She was shouting to be heard over the continuous roar of rifles firing at close proximity. “Blaine, take off now!”

“What?” Blaine shouted back through the radio. “We’re not leaving without you! Get over here!”

“We’re not going to make it!”

“Then we’ll come back to you!”

“Don’t be stupid!”

“Lara!”

“That’s an order, Blaine! Move your ass now or I’m sending Danny over there to kick it!”

“Yeah, what she said!” Danny chimed in.

“Danny!” Carly. “What are you doing? Get over here, you dumbass!”

“Get going!” Danny shouted back. “We’ll catch up! I promise, babe!”

“You goddamn better!”

“Scout’s honor!”

“You were never in the scouts—” Carly started to say, when a loud explosion drowned out the voices all trying to speak at the same time.

The blast had come from the hotel, almost a football field away from her, but it sounded much closer. Thick plumes of smoke were drifting into the air, looking almost poetic against the black canvas of night. But she knew there was nothing lyrical about it, especially when the gunfire temporarily halted in the aftermath.

Gaby was running full-speed toward the hotel before she even realized she had made the decision. About ten seconds into her run, the shooting started up again, the back-and-forth still as frenzied as they had been before the explosion. As horrific as it was to think so, the fact that two sides were exchanging gunfire was a good sign that either Lara or Danny (or both) were still alive.

She hoped, anyway.

To keep her mind off the fact that she was running to the sound of automatic gunfire, Gaby tried to imagine how many assaulters were waiting for her in there. They had sent anywhere from thirty to fifty on the beach alone. So how many more had gotten through the tunnel? Another thirty to fifty? God, she hoped not. The very idea of having to kill that many more made her want to stop and vomit into the grass.

But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Lara and Danny were in the hotel right now. (What happened to Roy and Stan and Sarah?) And they clearly needed her help, or Lara wouldn’t have ordered Blaine to go. She had done that to save them, Gaby knew, because for whatever reason, she and Danny weren’t going to make it to their exit point.

Gaby ran until her lungs were burning, and still the hotel seemed to remain just as far away as when she had counted the distance a few seconds ago. As she drew closer, she realized the shooting wasn’t just coming from the building in front of her. It was coming from the other side, too, as well as from her right. That was where the Trident was, waiting to shove off. There were, as far as she could tell, at least two or three gun battles going on simultaneously across the island.

And here she was, running right into the middle of one of them—

BOOM!

Another explosion tore through the hotel just as she was about to reach it. This time she was close enough to feel the ground trembling as the blast blew a hole in the roof near the middle, almost directly in front of her. It sounded like a grenade had gone off. Christ, who was throwing around grenades on the island? Was the first blast a grenade, too?

Gaby dived to her left as debris — chunks of the ceiling and God knew what else was up there at the moment, left behind when the workers abandoned the place — rained down around her. Something hard pelted her head and shoulders and she threw herself against the hotel wall and clung to it, trying desperately to make herself small against the falling pieces of the building.

She could smell the pluming smoke and hear the still-rattling gunfire from the other side of the wall she was pressed up against. Right on the other side. Even a grenade going off hadn’t stopped them for very long.

The side door was to her right, within easy reach. Even without lights to point her way, she knew there would be one around here and there it was. She moved toward it now, trying in vain to keep track of the back-and-forth clatter of assault rifles inside the hotel.

What was going on in there? Some kind of running gunfight? Although at the moment it sounded like it had stalled in one spot. The first explosion had come from her left — very close to where the lobby would be — and moved right toward the back, through the hallways. So why had it stopped now?

Stop thinking and move!

She grabbed the doorknob and took a breath, then counted to five—

One.

She pulled the door and slipped inside — raising the M4, peering through the night-vision scope — even before the door had swung completely open. It would have been pitch black inside the narrow passageway except for the staccato flash-flash-flash of assault rifles firing in the connecting hallway ten meters in front of her. She easily picked up the distinctive clink-clink-clink of ejected shell casings pelting the hotel’s smooth tile floor.

The endless flashes filled her vision while the continuous slamming of gunshots dominated her eardrums, and the lingering sting of sulfur in the air, combined with the suffocating smell of gun powder in the closed confines, threatened to overwhelm her sense of smell. There was a big hole in the ceiling in front of her where the two hallways joined, though it hadn’t done very much to vent out the place.

Gaby pushed through until she was almost at the corner, when there was a flurry of movement in front of her. A man clad all in black, with a thick beard that might have been red (though it was hard to tell when everything was awash in green), took a step backward and stopped in front of her and began reloading. The man’s night-vision goggles protruded forward from his aging face like a pair of alien eyes. She guessed he had to be in his forties, and he looked a bit like her Uncle Bill.

He must have sensed her, because he turned his head and saw her—

Gaby shot him once in the chest.

Even as the man fell, she was running up the hallway and flicking the fire selector on her rifle to full-auto. She reached the corner and stepped over the crumpled body, turning right to find three men crouched further up the narrow passageway — two on one side, the third on the opposite — with their weapons aimed at a door that had already been perforated by at least two dozen bullet holes. The backs of all three men were to her, their black uniforms glowing green under the phosphorous lens of her night-vision scope.

Once upon a time, Gaby might have hesitated. Certainly, the Gaby from a year ago, who depended on Matt (and, to a lesser extent, Josh) to keep her safe would have been horrified at the thought of shooting men in the back. That Gaby would never have made it off the beach earlier tonight.

This Gaby, at this very moment, only saw three enemies trying to kill her friends.

She emptied the remaining rounds in her magazine into the three figures. She didn’t let go of the trigger until she couldn’t feel the rifle bucking in her hands anymore. Then she immediately slung it and drew her Glock and looked for something else to shoot.

The men lay still on their stomachs and she was glad she couldn’t see their faces in the semidarkness, though one of them had his head turned slightly to one side, revealing the side profile of a young man in his twenties, the brim of his helmet riding low over his eyes, the night-vision device thrown askew against his face during the fall.

Her heart was racing, battling to be heard over the continuous pop-pop-pop of other gun battles taking place outside the hotel, on other parts of the island right this moment. She imagined the Trident engaged in its own fight. Did Nate make it to the yacht? What about Keo? What about Carly and Benny, who were at the Tower earlier—

There was a click! behind her and she spun around, finger tightening against the trigger, as a familiar voice said, “Stop, or my mom will shoot.”

He was pushing his way out of a badly damaged door at the end of the hallway. She recognized the infirmary on the other side and the owner of the messy blond hair and blue eyes looking back at her.

“Danny,” Gaby said.

“That’s me,” he said. “Aren’t you supposed to be gone by now?”

“What about you?”

“Point taken.”

While Danny struggled with the bullet-riddled door, she holstered her gun and crouched, then went through the dead bodies looking for spare magazines. She had done it instinctively, the need to have a loaded rifle overwhelming the part of her that was still squeamish about going through a dead man’s pockets.

“Where’s Lara and the others?” she asked.

“Lara’s in here with me,” Danny said. He had returned to the room, and now came back outside with Lara leaning against his shoulder. “They caught us out in the open, forced us into the hotel. Fearless leader and I stayed behind to give the others time to make their exit points.”

“Did they make it?”

“I have no idea. Too busy trying not to die. And that last grenade fried both of our radios. And, ah, other things.”

She was able to salvage three magazines and shoved two into her ammo pouch, using the third to reload her carbine. She stood up and watched Danny and Lara walk over to her.

Or hobbled. Danny was moving on his one good leg, using his rifle as a crutch, while holding Lara against him. Blood dripped down his temple, and there were cuts along his right cheek. His neck was covered in blood, as was almost the entire right side of his clothes.

“Jesus, Danny,” Gaby said. “How are you still alive?”

“It’s not mine,” he said. “Well, most of it isn’t mine.”

She didn’t have to ask whose it was. Lara had a field tourniquet wrapped around most of her left shoulder and right thigh. Blood was already seeping through them, and she leaned back against the wall and sighed, catching her breath and somehow managing to grin back at Gaby anyway. She didn’t have her rifle and her hip holster was empty.

“They threw a grenade into the lobby,” Lara said. “Looks like we’re going to have to redecorate.”

“Let’s get some better wallpaper this time,” Gaby said, trying her best to smile back. “Are you okay? Where’s your rifle?”

“Lost it. My Glock, too. Got this big piece of shrapnel in my shoulder, though.” She touched the bandage over her thigh and shook her head. “And I think I was shot here. I don’t remember.”

“She was shot down there,” Danny said. “I’m the one who wrapped it up. Trust me, that was a bullet hole.”

“If you say so,” Lara said.

“I do, I do. And I also say we gotta go.”

“Where?” Gaby asked. “Lara told Blaine to leave in the Trident, remember? The exit points are useless now.”

“The beach,” Lara said. “There are boats on the beach, remember?”

They left the hotel through the same side door she had used earlier and stepped back out into the chilly night. The world looked different behind the night-vision goggles attached to her head. She thought things were surreal peering behind the scope mounted on her rifle, but it was nothing compared to actually wearing one of the NVGs she had taken from one of the soldiers.

Gaby went outside first, then let Danny and Lara move in front while she brought up the rear. She wasn’t looking forward to returning to the beach and seeing all those dead bodies again, but they didn’t have any choice now. Blaine and the Trident were already moving and the last thing Lara wanted was to stall them, to make them vulnerable again. There were too many people on board. The kids, the adults…and Nate.

As they moved away from the hotel, they could hear isolated bursts of gunfire continuing from the other side of the island. It was difficult to pinpoint the location, almost as if the battle was constantly moving.

Gaby pulled her earbud out of her ear and disconnected the wire before keying the radio. “Blaine, come in.”

“Jesus, are you guys still alive?” Blaine said. His anxiety came through her radio’s speakers loud and clear, along with the brap-brap-brap of machine gunfire in the background, echoing what they could hear from across the island.

Gaby held the radio out for Lara, who said into it, “We’re heading to the beach for one of the boats. Is Keo with you?’

“No, I thought he was with you guys.”

Lara exchanged a brief look with Gaby, then she said into the radio, “We’ll meet you at the rendezvous point as planned, Blaine.”

“Good luck! We’ll wait as long as it takes!”

“See you soon.”

Gaby clipped the radio back on. “What about Keo?”

Lara glanced across the hotel grounds. Gaby saw the conflict on her face.

“Keo’s resourceful,” Lara said finally. “He’ll find a way off the island. I’m more worried about us.”

“Don’t forget, the guy’s half-dolphin,” Danny said.

They continued to the beach, moving as fast as Lara and Danny could manage, while essentially keeping each other from falling. Gaby wanted to lend a hand, but she was their only security at the moment and she had to make do with keeping an eye on them while also scanning the blackened grounds.

Soon, they had left the hotel behind and were moving down the cobblestone pathway that cut through the woods. She could already feel the colder air from the beach wafting up in their direction. She shivered slightly before realizing it wasn’t from the dropping temperature. No, it was the prospect of seeing those bodies lying across the sand one more time. She had wanted to avoid that at all costs, but that was impossible now.

“Watch your step,” Danny said in front of her.

“Why?” she asked, turning around and almost stepping on a helmet.

The owner of the helmet (or, at least, one of the possible owners) lay in front of her among a pile of dead men in black clothing. There must have been two dozen of them, their arms and legs draped over each other’s bodies and limbs, like friends that had fallen asleep during some kind of commando sleepover.

Gaby flinched. She always knew this was part of the plan, that the objective was always for her, Danny, and Keo to kill as many as possible on the beach while funneling the rest into the pathway where Lara and the others laid in wait for them. But knowing and being faced with the reality of what they had done…

She pulled the NVD off and sucked in a lungful of cold air.

“Gaby,” Lara said. She was standing with Danny on the other side of the bodies looking back at her. “Come on, we have to go. There’s no telling how many more of them are running around the island. Sooner or later, they’ll find their dead friends at the hotel and start looking for us.”

She nodded and started moving again, but made sure to go around the dead as much as she could, skirting along the edges and doing her best to ignore the lingering smell of almost-vomit on her lips.

The bodies, the death, the blood…

All of it made her glad they were abandoning the island, despite doing everything possible to hold it. Even if they had been successful and repelled the attack, she wasn’t sure if she could look at Song Island in the same light ever again. In the morning, the dead would still be there, and the knowledge she had contributed to the body count weighed on her.

She had helped to do this. One year removed from high school. If her friends could see her now, she wondered what they would say. Would they be impressed by her growth or horrified by what she had become?

And what was that? A shooter? A killer? A survivor?

Even she didn’t know for sure—

Bang!

She was almost beyond the pile of dead and looking back to make sure she didn’t step on a pale arm covered in blood when the gunshot exploded behind her. She spun around, lifting her M4, just as Danny and Lara collapsed to the ground in front of her.

There had just been the one shot, so her mind couldn’t reconcile why both of them were falling. That quickly gave way to the sight of the dark figures standing at the other end of the pathway, blocking the exit to the beach. With the night-vision goggles dangling around her neck instead of over her eyes, all she could see were shadows. Although she couldn’t make them out, she could see the rifles in their hands just fine, and they were all pointed at her. That wasn’t entirely true. Four of them were pointing weapons at her, but the fifth one — in the center — was pointing a handgun at Lara and Danny.

She waited for them to shoot, to get it over with. She would fire back, even knowing she had no chance of surviving this, especially at this range. She could probably take out one, maybe two. If Danny or Lara weren’t too badly hurt, they would chip in. Together, maybe the three of them could kill the rest, or enough to make this a pyrrhic victory.

“Gaby,” one of the silhouettes said. It was the one in the middle. He had lowered the handgun and was looking across the darkness at her. The way the others flanked him, she guessed he was their leader.

And his voice!

She would recognize his voice anywhere.

“Thank God you’re still alive,” Josh said, taking a step toward her until she could see his face in a sliver of moonlight. He picked up Danny’s rifle from the ground, then pulled out Danny’s sidearm and tossed both weapons into the woods. “This whole thing has been a real mess. Everyone’s shooting at everyone; no one’s following orders. I was even hoping you’d gotten on that yacht, just so you’d be safe.”

Somehow, she knew it would be him to lead this invasion. Somehow, just as Will could never escape Kate, she knew she would never be rid of Josh.

Gaby took the opportunity to glance down at Danny and Lara again. Lara was kneeling, with Danny lying on his back on the cobblestone floor, his head resting in her lap. Danny’s body was very still, and Lara was moving her hands frantically around his midsection.

She looked back at Josh, her forefinger never leaving her rifle’s trigger. She thought she’d know what to say when this moment came, but staring at him now, she didn’t have a clue. All she could remember was what she had told Lara back at the hotel, hours ago.

“He’s gone. He’s not a boy anymore. You can’t think of him as the same boy who you met in Lancing. If you get the chance — if you see him tonight — don’t hesitate. Shoot him, because he’ll shoot you.”

And she was right. Josh had done exactly that — shot Danny.

So why didn’t she pull the trigger? Why didn’t she do what she told Lara to do? Why was she hesitating?

“You shot Danny,” she said. “Jesus, you shot Danny.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know it was Danny. It’s dark…”

“You shot him.”

“I had to stop you from getting to the beach. I knew you’d come down here.” He gave her that cocky smile that she was so familiar with. “The yacht’s gone. The only place with any boats left is the beach. I knew any survivors would come down here sooner or later. It was easier than going into the hotel after you.” He was beaming, looking so very young at the moment. “I’m glad you’re alive, Gaby. I was really worried. Things have spiraled out of control so fast…”

“Let us go, Josh.”

The word came out a lot calmer than she had expected. She thought her voice would crack, maybe quiver slightly, but there was none of that. She was so still, and she wasn’t even breathing hard. Maybe it was because somehow she always knew it would end this way, with Josh in front of her and the two of them holding weapons on each other.

Josh frowned. “I can’t do that, Gaby.”

He took another step forward, then another, leaving the other four behind. They didn’t follow but stood obediently in the background, though Gaby detected a slight movement from one of them — the shortest of the four — almost as if the figure wanted to follow Josh but somehow managed to restrain itself, if just barely.

“Put the rifle down, Gaby,” Josh said. “I’m sorry about Danny. That was a mistake. An accident. Don’t do anything crazy—” He stopped and his eyes darted down to Lara. “What are you doing?”

“Saving his life,” Lara said. She had pulled a roll of gauze out of one of her pouches and was wrapping it around Danny’s waist. His shirt was pulled up, exposing his blood-slicked stomach. He groaned against her, but Gaby couldn’t tell if he was still conscious.

“Stop that,” Josh said.

“No,” Lara said.

“What?”

“I said no.”

Josh looked confused, and for a moment he reminded her of the old Josh — young and inexperienced and awkward. Then the gun in his hand started to move…

“Don’t, Josh,” she said.

Josh looked at her, then back at Lara, who hadn’t stopped treating Danny’s bleeding wound despite the threat. The four behind Josh fidgeted — the shortest of the four even more prominently — as they moved their rifles from Lara to Gaby and back again.

A part of her wanted all of this to end right here, right now. After all the bloodshed of tonight, this would be poetic. Now, while standing with all those poor souls on the beach behind them, in a burst of gunfire. Wasn’t that how all violent men’s lives ended in the history books? Bonnie and Clyde? John Dillinger? Every bank robber she had seen on TV caught in the act by the police?

“Gaby, put down the rifle,” Josh said. “It’s over.”

“I almost died ten times tonight, Josh,” Gaby said through clenched teeth. “If you came here to save me, you’re not doing a very good job.”

He sighed. “You don’t understand. It would have been worse if I hadn’t been leading the attack. Kate would have sent someone else, someone worse. And believe me, there are worse people than me out there. That’s how badly she wants this island.”

“She can have it,” Lara said. “Let us go.”

He shook his head. “I can’t do that. She doesn’t just want the island, she wants you too, Lara. But it’s not for the same reason she wants Will. I’m sorry. This is the end of the line for you and Danny.”

“Josh, don’t,” Gaby said.

He turned back to her, and she thought he looked almost apologetic. “It’s not my decision. You have to know that. It’s Kate’s. It’s always been Kate’s.”

“She’s not here. You are.”

“She’s everywhere. You don’t understand. She’s everywhere,” he said, almost whispering the word “everywhere” as if he was afraid someone (Kate) might hear it.

She could see it in his eyes: Josh was scared. Not just him, but the four behind him blocking their path onto the beach. Gaby had very clearly seen a couple of them shifting their feet nervously at the sound of Kate’s name.

No one wants to say the devil’s name out loud.

“I’m sorry,” Josh said again. “It has to be this way.”

“If you get the chance — if you see him tonight — don’t hesitate. Shoot him, because he’ll shoot you,” she had told Lara earlier.

So why couldn’t she do it now?

Because he was Josh. No matter what he had become, or what she told others he had become, when she looked at him she still saw the eighteen-year-old boy who spent nearly a year trying to keep her safe. As much as he had changed, as much as he had done, he was still Josh.

And as she stood there watching Lara trying desperately to save Danny’s life, working diligently despite the presence of the man who had just shot him standing close to her on the verge of shooting her too, Gaby realized she couldn’t have loved Lara and Danny any more than she already did.

And she didn’t want it to end. Not for her, and not for them. Not even for Josh. But most of all, not for her friends.

She wanted Danny to run into Carly’s arms again, the way she had earlier today at the pier. She wanted Lara to finally see Will one more time after being apart for so long. She wanted the two of them to take little Claire and Milly to someplace better and start all over. Even if she couldn’t go with them, she wanted that for these people, her family.

No, she didn’t want it to end tonight after all. Not this way.

It can’t end this way.

“Lara,” Gaby said. “How is he?”

Lara looked back at her and shook her head.

It shouldn’t end this way.

Gaby lowered her rifle and placed it on the ground, then did the same with her Glock. Josh sighed with relief at the sight. Even the four behind him seemed to relax a bit.

“Gaby,” Josh said, “you’re doing the right thing.”

“Let them go,” she said.

“What?”

“Let them go, and I’ll come with you.”

“Gaby, no,” Lara said, looking back at her again.

“It’s okay,” Gaby said, and smiled at her. “It’s just Josh.”

Lara didn’t believe her. Gaby could see it in her eyes.

“You’ll come with me?” Josh said, sounding so young again.

Gaby nodded. “If you let them go.”

“And you won’t try to escape?”

“No.”

“Ever.”

“I won’t try to escape. Ever.”

His eyebrows furrowed, and he looked down at the road. This was what he wanted. This had always been what he wanted. The young boy whose family lived across the street from her for all those years. The teenager who secretly admired her from the back of the classes they had together. The survivor who did everything he could to keep her safe.

It won’t end this way.

Finally, he looked back up and nodded. “I’ll tell her everyone died on the island during the assault.”

“What about them?” Gaby said, nodding at the four standing behind him.

“She talks to me, not them,” Josh said. Then he nodded again, as if to confirm what he had already decided — or maybe to convince himself he could get away with it. “All right.”

“All right?” she repeated.

“All right,” he said again. Then to Lara and Danny, “Go. Hurry.”

Lara looked back at Gaby, but before she could say anything, Gaby crouched next to her and embraced her as hard as she dared, keeping in mind Lara’s hurt shoulder and that she was still cradling Danny’s unmoving form in her lap. Lara put a hand on her arm, covering her in some of Danny’s blood.

“I’ll be okay,” Gaby whispered. “Go. Please. Danny needs you to go now. I’ve already left Will behind and there won’t be anything left of me if Danny dies, too. Please, save him. Save us. Save everyone.”

She stood up quickly before Lara could say anything and nodded at Josh.

He held out his hand.

She forced a smile and reached for it when Josh’s entire body suddenly stiffened.

“What is it?” she said.

“I…,” he stammered, tried to say something, but couldn’t get it out. Then he stared past her and back down the pathway at the black emptiness on the other side.

“Josh,” Gaby said. “What is it? What’s happening?”

“She knows,” Josh said. His voice was soft, almost a whisper. “Oh God, she knows. She knows.”

“Who? What does who know?”

He whirled on her, his eyes wide and seized with terror. “She knows!” he shouted. “She’s in my head, Gaby! She’s always been in my head! She knows everything!”

Lara had struggled up from the ground with Danny, his weight threatening to collapse the both of them. But somehow Lara was holding them up, though Gaby couldn’t fathom how since Danny had to be so much heavier, especially now that he looked completely unresponsive.

“She knows!” Josh shouted again. “And she’s pissed off!”

“Kate?” Gaby said. “Are you talking about Kate?”

“Yes!” He looked back down the pathway at the darkness. She couldn’t see anything. What was he looking at? “She’s in my head, Gaby. We’re connected. I didn’t realize — I didn’t know how much — Oh my God, she knows.”

“Josh…”

He seized her wrists and his fingers dug into her skin. “Run,” he said breathlessly.

“Josh…”

“RUN!”

Gaby was looking at Josh, trying to understand, when the hotel grounds behind him seemed to have come alive…moving.

Then she saw them. Black pits of tar piercing through the night, rays of moonlight gleaming off pruned flesh and emaciated forms. The familiar clacking of bones and the tap tap tap of bare feet against cobblestone.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, pouring into the opening on the other end.

Ghouls.

CHAPTER 23 KEO

Blood. Death. And bullets.

So what else was new?

Even the island locale wasn’t anything he hadn’t experienced before. Of course, back then he had a team behind him. Men who were grizzled beyond their years and killed with a glee usually reserved for butchers wearing plastic aprons. Tonight, all he had was a gimpy ex-Army Ranger, a teenage girl, and a bunch of civilians he wouldn’t have trusted to watch his back in a snowball fight, much less a gunfight. And the cherry on top? A third-year medical student was calling the shots.

It could have been worse, though. People could have been looking to him for leadership. Now that would have been a nightmare.

At the moment, there was a lull in the radio channel, so he assumed Lara and the others were trying to figure out what was happening. He had already darted through the woods and stepped out into the opening at the western part of the island, with the big power station visible to his left in the open field. At one time it had been surrounded by hurricane fencing but was now left exposed. A red and brown mist had gathered around the area, the result of a few layers of brick and mortar being disintegrated by explosives.

It was hard to miss the silhouetted figures pouring out of a building the size of a backyard shack next to the ugly gray structure. They were clad in the same black uniforms and Kevlar helmets as the ones that had assaulted the beach. He was too far to count their exact number, but he guessed more than ten. Maybe two dozen. Who knew how many had already made it out before he arrived?

Keo crouched just beyond the tree lines and watched the figures racing across the open field. They clearly knew where they were going — east, toward the hotel. At least the figures weren’t heading north where the Trident was currently anchored. That meant they hadn’t spotted the yacht yet. Then again, for all he knew the first stream of invaders might have gone in that direction before he arrived.

There was a click in his right ear, and he heard Lara’s voice through the comm. “This is Lara! Everyone who isn’t already there, head to your designated exit points now! I repeat! Head to your exit points now! The island is lost! I repeat! The island is lost! We’re evacuating Song Island!”

Oh, so now you want to leave?

Women. Can’t make up their minds.

A part of him wanted to laugh. They had gone through all this effort to hold the island, but all it took was one well-placed explosive to change everything.

“Lara,” he said into the radio.

“Keo!” He heard ragged breathing, which meant she was moving fast. “Where are you?”

“Southwest corner, just beyond the power station.”

“What do you see?”

“More assaulters. They’re coming through the shack next to the power station and heading right at you.”

“How many?”

A shitload, he thought, but said, “Too many. But if we coordinate a defense—”

“No,” Lara said, cutting him off. “It’s not the humans we have to worry about. Without the shack, there’s nothing to hold them back. Do you understand? Get to your exit point. We’re getting off the island!”

“Them?” Oh. Right. Them.

“Roger that,” he said.

He didn’t move right away. Instead, he bided his time and let the stream of black-clad figures race across and vanish one by one into the waiting woods that separated this part of the island from the hotel on the other side. There was no point engaging that many men. He had done more than enough killing in the last hour to last a lifetime, and that was saying something given his past—

A lone figure, clearly not part of the invading horde, had appeared on the other side of the open ground. Keo was still trying to figure who it was (it had to be one of Lara’s islanders, given how the man was trying to stay hidden), when the guy decided to ruin Keo’s night by opening fire. Two men running full speed toward the woods fell instantly.

The man kept firing, but was smart enough to start moving sideways at the same time. He darted behind trees only to pop out on the other side and shoot again.

Keo ran through the island’s inventory of men in his head. He discounted Danny because the man had come from the wrong direction. Stan the electrician would be near the hotel with Lara and Sarah, the cook. Roy would also be there with them. Benny, the other gimpy guy on the island, would be in the Tower with the redhead — or was, since Lara had given the abandon ship signal. Blaine, the big Mexican, had the important job of keeping Gage and the Trident in play.

So who did that leave?

The shooter had the right height for the kid Dwayne, but it was stretching it to think a twelve-year-old had the tactical ability he was witnessing now. No, that was a full-grown man out there who had just moved behind cover as the invaders returned fire on him.

Keo would have preferred to stay out of it, let the whole group pass him by before he made his way to his own exit point. That, unfortunately, was on the other side of the open clearing. The only other way to get to the yacht was to go around the power station using the western cliff, then circle over to the north side.

He would have liked to use the more direct approach because it was much, much faster, but as he observed the men in black starting to diverge toward the north and at the lone defender, his choices became very limited.

Remember when you were on your way to Gillian at Santa Marie Island?

Yeah. Live and learn, pal.

Keo ripped the NVD off and let it hang around his neck, then lifted the submachine gun and flicked the fire selector to full auto. He was more than a hundred meters from the closest assaulter when he stood up and unleashed all thirty rounds across the open field.

To his surprise, one of the men actually stumbled and fell to the ground, even though Keo had just fired randomly into the jagged line of attackers hoping to draw their attention away from the islander. They didn’t hear his gunshots with the attached suppressor, but they either saw one of their own going down or they recognized someone was shooting at them from behind. Half of them turned around, night-vision goggles seeking him out in the darkness.

Keo spun and ran back into the tree line as they opened up on him, the loud clatter of a dozen or so assault rifles firing at the same time crackling across the air. They were armed with M4s and firing on three-round bursts. Unlike the carbines the islanders were using, the soldiers’ weapons hadn’t been converted to full-auto, it seemed. The difference between having a pair of Rangers on hand who knew their guns…and not, he guessed.

The problem was that those M4s, fully auto or not, still had the long-distance shooting ability that his MP5SD didn’t. Fortunately for him, he was moving before they started shooting, though that didn’t stop bullets from slamming into trees and snapping branches and kicking at the ground around him as he dived the last few meters into the sanctuary of the woods.

Daebak!

He scrambled to his feet, turned right, and ran as hard as he could. The air was filled with buzzing and gunfire, branches being reduced to splints all around him. Either they knew the direction he was taking or they were shooting at everything. Not that it mattered. He was still in one piece with no extra holes in him, which was good enough.

He didn’t slow down until he could hear the lapping of the lake against the rocks at the bottom of the western cliff. Cool air floated through the trees and he stopped to catch his breath, then slipped the night-vision goggles back on. Running through a sea of trees with something blocking your vision, even if it gave you artificial night vision, wasn’t a good idea. He had learned that the hard way outside of Caracas a few years back—

BOOM!

Keo turned back around. He knew instinctively the explosion had come from the hotel even before he glimpsed the gray-white plume of smoke rising lazily into the air. It sounded like a grenade.

This night just keeps getting better and better. Now aren’t you glad you stayed?

So the bad guys had grenades, too. He guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised. They had blown up the brick wall around the shack with something pretty strong. Maybe C4 or Semtex. Probably C4, since he was on American soil. Uncle Sam’s boys in uniform hoarded those things in bunches.

The rattle of gunfire had picked up again, but this time not directed at him, thank God. He listened and judged their distance.

The hotel.

That was a bad sign, because Lara and the others were at the hotel. Or would have to go through it in order to reach their exit point as fast as possible. So he was right. More soldiers had come out of the shack before he even got there. He knew the sound of a ferocious firefight when he heard one, and he was listening to that right now.

He turned around and pushed north, even as the fight back at the hotel continued, the gunfire crashing like rolling thunder from one side of the island to the other. It was much louder than it really should have been, given the distance.

Beaufont Lake grew in volume to his left, but it wasn’t enough to replace the clatter of another running gunfight ahead of him along the northern side. That would be where the Trident was waiting. How long before Blaine decided to take off? That would probably depend on how much fire he was taking. With his luck—

His right ear clicked and he heard someone screaming through the comm, “We’re pinned!” Lara. “Blaine, take off now!”

Oh, hell no.

“What?” Blaine shouted back. “We’re not leaving without you! Get over here!”

Good call. Just wait a little longer until I get there, Blaine ol’ buddy.

“We’re not going to make it!” Lara said.

“Then we’ll come back to you!” Blaine said.

“Don’t be stupid!”

No, Blaine. Be stupid. Be really stupid.

He picked up his pace just in case tonight was the night Blaine decided to start being smart.

“Lara!” Blaine shouted.

“That’s an order, Blaine!” Lara said, most of her words drowned out by gunfire on her end. “Move your ass now, or I’m sending Danny over there to kick it!”

“Yeah, what she said!” Danny chimed in.

Then Carly said something before another BOOM! cut her off.

Keo stopped moving and glanced back toward the hotel. Another plume of smoke was rising into the air, wisps of it like a dragon’s breath.

Well, that’s not good.

He gripped the MP5SD and looked north, then east. The Trident was north. If he didn’t get there soon, Blaine was going to obey Lara’s orders and take off without him onboard. But Lara and Danny were pinned in the hotel. The bad guys also had grenades. They had made use of it twice now. What kind of chance did they have against that kind of firepower? What kind of chance did he have?

He looked north again.

I’m the dumbest man alive.

He sighed and took a step back toward the hotel, but he hadn’t completely stepped out of the tree lines when a new round of gunfire ripped across the air nearby. He dropped to the ground reflexively, expecting the trees around him to be sliced in half by the rapid brap-brap-brap of a machine gun blasting away.

The Trident.

Danny had brought the M240 with him and it was now perched along the rails of the yacht, with either Blaine or one of the islanders behind it firing away. He was trying to pinpoint the location of the machine-gun fire when it started to get louder.

Oh, for the love of God.

Keo remained pressed against the cold ground, stretching out the MP5SD in front of him, when he heard the heavy crunching of combat boots tramping grass with wild abandon as they came toward him. They were shooting as they ran, the zing-zing-zing! of bullets stripping away leaves and branches as they attempted to hit—

The yacht, its stark white color like a metallic beast swinging around the curvature of the island. He glimpsed the staccato effect of the M240 firing away from the upper deck railing, the light show blinking in and out as the boat moved across the row of trees between him and the cliff. Keo imagined the stream of empty brass casings falling into the ocean as the MG razed the column of woods as it passed.

Two men, both clad in black, burst through a pair of trees in front of him. They were somehow moving while crouched and trying to get a shot on the Trident’s machine gunner through the trees. They were ten meters away and closing in when Keo dropped both of them with a squeeze of the trigger. Rifles clattered to the ground just before a third man, out of breath, slid to a stop at the sight of his dead comrades.

Keo shot him twice in the chest, then scanned the woods, waiting for more pursuers.

The yacht had continued on behind him, its weapon still firing nonstop into a section of the woods in front of Keo. He stayed low against the ground as 7.62mm rounds, coming at 700 to 900 rounds per minute (give or take), sheared the trees around him like axes chopping down branches and reducing bark into clouds that stung his eyes.

Keo didn’t move his head for fear of getting it shot off. He didn’t breathe or move at all until the brap-brap-brap finally faded and a large branch plopped down in front of him. The smell of burnt wood filled his nostrils, and he had to switch to breathing through his mouth.

Only then did he allow himself to hop back up to his feet.

He glanced back and saw the white of the Trident fading through the trees. Keo ran after it, moving closer toward the edge as he went, but not so close that he’d run right off the cliff with one false move. He could already feel the cool swirls from the lake brushing against his face as he neared the end of the woods.

There. The yacht, like a white missile, gliding across the calm lake water and getting smaller as it went. The damn thing was picking up speed and it wasn’t going to stop for him. Nosirree. He thought about shouting after it, maybe tell it to Get the hell back here, but decided that probably wasn’t going to work. The boat was too far away and besides, shouting might bring more men in black uniforms after him.

Not daebak. This is definitely not daebak.

He headed back to where he had left the three bodies. He slung his MP5SD and snatched up one of the M4s, knowing the magazine was almost empty by how light the rifle was. He searched the bodies and found two spares, pocketing what he could. You could never have too many bullets, especially on a night like this. He was about to swap in a full mag when—

“Hey!” a voice shouted from behind him.

A man. It didn’t sound familiar, but it was close.

Keo stiffened, kept his back to the man, and didn’t move. Unfortunately for him, he was still holding the rifle at hip level.

“Terry?” the man asked.

The crunch crunch of boots on grass as the man neared. The name was clearly accompanied by a question, so the guy wasn’t certain who Keo was. Then again, he was surrounded by shadows and trees. In here, the moonlight picked and chose what it wanted to reveal, and at this very moment he was standing in one of those patches of darkness and wearing black.

“Yeah, what?” Keo said, keeping his voice as level as possible. He just hoped “Terry” didn’t have a deep voice. Or a feminine one. Hell, for all he knew, “Terry” could have been a girl.

But apparently not, because the guy said, “Where is everyone?” and the crunch crunch of grass got louder as the man got closer.

“I don’t know,” Keo said, spinning around.

He fired the carbine without lifting it first, just in case the guy had a rifle pointed at him. The first three-round burst knocked a man in a black uniform to the ground…and revealed four more standing about twenty meters behind him.

Keo pulled the trigger again but only got a click!

He turned and ran as all four opened fire at the same time.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been running, but sometime between either the third or fourth time he bent down to keep his head from getting blown off, he collided with a large tree that popped out of nowhere. Well, that wasn’t true. The tree was always there, but he hadn’t seen it because he was essentially running blind through the woods, too afraid to put on the night-vision goggles for fear of limiting what little vision he had.

Southeast.

That was all he knew; he was heading back toward the beach.

Then the tree said “Hi” and Keo bounced off it, but the impact knocked the radio loose from his hip and it went flying. He thought about trying to find it — for a brief nanosecond, anyway — but when the crack! of rifles sounded behind him, he decided he didn’t really need it and kept running instead.

With the radio now lying in some bushes behind him, Keo ripped out the earbud and throat mic and tossed them. He had also dropped the M4 to further lighten his load, because he needed the extra speed more than he needed firepower at the moment.

The four chasing him were fast and relentless, and they apparently had plenty of ammo, because they kept shooting. A couple of rounds came dangerously close to detaching his head from his shoulders, but he credited that more to dumb luck than skill. It was hard enough hitting a running man, but it was next to impossible to hit him while you were running, too.

He did manage to lengthen his lead by turning suddenly left, which threw them off a bit. About half a minute later, he righted his direction until he was running toward the beach again.

He could almost feel the lake water somewhere up ahead. Almost there. All he had to do was reach one of the boats and get the hell off this island and forget this night ever happened. Or the last few nights. Dammit, where would he be now if he hadn’t picked up Carrie and Lorelei? Probably on his way to Gillian. Or maybe already there, drinking piña colada. Did they have piña coladas on Santa Marie Island? He preferred to think they did.

To get off the island, he had to traverse about fifty meters of open beach while being shot at, which was why he was sticking to the woods for as long as possible. It had been a while since a bullet buzzed near his head, though he could still hear his pursuers crashing through branches and stomping the ground with their heavy boots behind him.

He couldn’t hear the loud mechanical roar of boat motors anymore, but that wasn’t surprising. After a while, the motors would turn off by themselves. As long as there was enough fuel left in one of the tanks, he could always turn them back on. There would be keys in the ignitions still. He didn’t remember any of the soldiers taking the time to pocket those before leaping off the beached vessels.

He was certain he was back at his old spot, where he had been lying in wait for the assaulters, when he saw moonlight glinting off spent shell casings on the ground. That was good, because a man could only run for so long. How long had he been in constant motion, anyway? He had no idea. Time had a way of slipping by when you were trying to keep from getting shot.

The sudden burst of pop-pop-pop from behind him made Keo duck his head instinctively, praying for the twentieth time in as many seconds that one of those bullets didn’t get lucky and take out his legs. Except he didn’t have to duck, because nothing was coming at him. Bark on the trees around him weren’t flying, and branches weren’t snapping into kindling. Instead, the gunfire continued behind him but, for whatever reason, it wasn’t being directed at him.

He told himself to keep running, to keep going—

Then someone screamed.

Then someone else joined in…

Keo slid to a stop and twisted around, lifting the MP5SD to fire. He was breathing hard, all the running finally catching up to him. He expected to see the four men in pursuit, but instead there were only two of them, and they were backing up toward him while shooting at something behind them.

It took only a second for Keo to see what they were shooting at.

He stared, because the sight was too much. Too…insane.

There had to be hundreds of them, so many there was no room for the trees, for the branches, for him and the two poor saps standing twenty meters in front of him, firing regular bullets into the creatures. Keo couldn’t see the other two, but he didn’t have to know where they were or what had happened to them. He could hear them screaming from inside the thick mass of moving ghouls.

I guess the uniform’s not working anymore, Keo thought before he turned and lunged out between the trees and felt mushy white sand under his boots a second later.

Run! Run, run, run, run!

Behind him, from inside the woods, the screaming and the gunfire continued, but Keo didn’t waste a second looking back. He didn’t have to. He knew what was back there. God knew he had seen plenty of it to last a lifetime. Tens of lifetimes. Right now, there was just the blood-soaked beach under him, the bodies left behind where they had fallen, and the boats still perched on the other side waiting, so close and yet so, so far away.

Christ, he didn’t remember the beach being this wide. Had it always been this wide?

Keo pushed harder, leaping over bodies and dodging rifles buried in the sand. There was so much blood it looked as if Song Island had soaked up all the plasma and was trying to give itself some kind of Grand Guignol makeover. And yet, and yet, the air still smelled fresh and clear, as if he could lie down and go to sleep right here and now and never notice the horrors.

Then the ground under his feet started to rumble. It felt like an earthquake, but of course he knew better. It wasn’t a natural disaster. Hell, there was nothing natural about this.

He didn’t have to look over his shoulder to know what was back there, but he did it anyway.

Because he had to be sure.

Because there was a chance he could be wrong—

He wasn’t wrong.

They came out of the woods, between the trees, and the sight of the beach being swallowed up by the wave of pruned black flesh, like a living flood, sent a shiver up and down his spine. This was the stuff of nightmares, and Keo might have given in to his instincts and let out a loud mindless scream if he still had any energy left to make his mouth do anything besides gasp for breath.

To keep himself from freezing with fear, Keo looked forward instead and counted the steps to the nearest boat.

Twenty meters. Not too bad.

Then what?

Jump up into the boat. Turn the engine. Pray the motor still worked. Then somehow back out into the lake—

Dead. I’m dead meat.

He didn’t have to look over his shoulder this time to know they were almost on top of him. He could smell them. The air had changed, shifting from that pleasant clean lake aroma to something thick and grimy that made breathing difficult. His lungs continued to burn from all the running he had done, and his legs became dangerously wobbly.

Ten meters…

Gunshots rang out, and Keo glanced left without breaking his stride. Someone else was also moving toward the row of boats further down the beach. Because of the distance and with only moonlight to see with, he couldn’t tell if it was a lone figure or multiple people huddled together. Or hell, an entire basketball team.

But at least they knew where they were going.

The water. Get to the water!

Five…

Four…

Three…

Then he was there, the splash of wetness against his boots, letting him know that he had made it. He ran past the closest boat without looking at it, because the air behind him crackled and he felt warm, tainted breath hit the back of his neck and what sounded like a guttural squeal of delight—

Keo took a leap of faith. Or maybe he just leaped. Through the air. He imagined he must look like some kind of dolphin.

He hit the water headfirst and went under, unable to squash the laughter even as he sucked in a mouthful of Beaufont Lake water, because this was the third time he had gone for a swim in as many nights. He sank with his entry, but thank God he was a strong swimmer, because Keo quickly righted himself.

“They will not cross bodies of water,” Lara had said in her broadcast. “An island, a boat — get to anything that can separate you from land.”

Why, exactly, wouldn’t the ghouls cross bodies of water? Lara didn’t know. No one knew. The creatures just didn’t.

Well, it was time to test that theory. Up close and personal.

Hello, Guinea Pig Island!

He was halfway to the bottom of the slanted lake floor when he whirled around and almost choked on more of the clear water when he saw them dive bombing into the lake around him, shattering the surface one by one by one. They looked like missiles falling from the sky, but they were so light (bags of bones) that they didn’t sink right away.

Keo counted.

Five…ten…

Twenty!

Maybe one more. Maybe one less. Twenty or more (or less) ghouls in the lake with him were more than enough to make this a very short swim.

He was reaching for his MP5SD, hoping the German gun would still prove effective. He had never actually fired it under water before. But hey, there was a first time for everything. Like the end of the world. Like keeping a stupid promise to a woman he hadn’t seen in half a year. Like almost giving up his life for an island full of strangers run by a third-year medical student—

Keo never had to try shooting the submachine gun under water, because one second the creatures looked as if they would right themselves at any second and the next they seemed to be convulsing, desperately trying not to swallow the lake water. Their arms and legs were thrashing about wildly and one or two, maybe more, of them began trying to swim back toward the shore. Or what appeared to be an attempt to swim. It actually looked more like frantic kicking and clawing, movements he’d seen more than once from dumb tourists who got to Mission Beach and realized, too late, that they didn’t know how to swim.

He watched with a combination of fascination and exhilaration as the closest ghoul struggled to stay afloat, its dark eyes bulging as water poured into its agape mouth, bony fingers reaching out toward him as if for a handhold. Keo treaded water, neither sinking nor going up, too mesmerized by the sight to go anywhere.

Then they stopped moving entirely, and one by one they began to sink toward the bottom. They looked like stones, blackened gargoyles with arms and legs frozen in mock surrender. These creatures that he always thought of as being entirely devoid of humanity were suddenly very human and he saw, to his surprise, what looked like terror frozen across their faces. They sank and sank, before resting softly, almost delicately, against the angled incline of the lake floor.

He waited for more of the creatures to drop down from the sky after him, into the water, and die, too. But there were no more. He could see them on the other side of the surface, like staring through a murky, flickering mirror. They crowded the beach, black shapes easy to make out, and looked after him but unwilling to pursue.

“They will not cross bodies of water. An island, a boat — get to anything that can separate you from land.”

Keo turned around and continued swimming. He stayed under for as long as he could before finally breaking the surface to suck in a lungful of fresh air.

He wasn’t surprised to find that he was surrounded by darkness. When he turned around, the island sans lights was barely visible in the distance. He couldn’t even see the beaches anymore, and it took him a few seconds to realize why.

The ghouls. There was nothing on the beaches at the moment but those shriveled black things that used to be human, so many that they blotted out the white sand.

He was staring at them when he thought he heard the sound of a motor droning somewhere behind him. Keo glanced around, but there was no boat in sight. At least, nothing on the water. There were plenty on the beach, but given what was also waiting for him there, they might as well not exist.

He pointed himself in the direction where he thought the shoreline was — even though it was impossible to see right now — and started kicking toward it.

He always liked swimming in the ocean at night anyway. You had to, in order to avoid the crowds during tourist season along San Diego’s beaches. Of course, if he had known he’d spend this much time in the water at night, he would have put in even more time.

Live and learn, pal.

Live and learn…

CHAPTER 24 WILL

“We’re going to die,” Natasha said. “I should have stayed in the back room and not come out to save you. You’re going to get me killed. Jesus, you’re going to get me killed.”

“I thought you didn’t care about dying,” Will said.

“I changed my mind.” She was visibly shaking, even in the semidarkness of the store. “I changed my mind, you hear me? I want to live. I didn’t think I did, but now I want to live.”

Check out Captain Optimism here, Danny.

“Shut up and listen,” he said.

“Listen to what? That? I can hear that just fine!”

The constant bang! bang! bang! of ghouls smashing themselves into the glass curtain wall hadn’t let up, not even for a second for him to catch his breath. There were so many of them, and they were raining blow after blow on the windows that the cracks were now stretched from one end of the frame to the other and connecting like river veins along the way.

It wouldn’t be long now. Soon, very soon, the windows would break and there would be nothing to stop them. Then it would be over. He would never reach Song Island. Never get to see Lara after so long. Never hold her hand or walk on the beach with her again.

Kate. This is your doing, isn’t it?

“Yes.”

Her voice echoed inside his head. It was unnatural and yet so intimate. Too intimate. It was like talking to a lover. Pillow talk. He shivered at the thought.

“How sweet.”

Had she just laughed? Giggled? Was it possible to project that sort of thing through…what was this? Telepathy? ESP? Insanity?

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Will.”

Where are you?

“Close.”

You’re coming here.

“Yes…”

You know.

“Yes…”

How?

“I can see you,” she said. “Inside that store. In that uniform with the woman. You’ve looked better, Will. But we can fix that. Imagine: No more wounds, no more scars, and no more illnesses.”

The uniforms aren’t going to work, are they?

“Haven’t you figured it out by now? It only works when I tell them it works.”

He stared out the cracked (breaking) windows at the creatures, past the ones flying into the glass like raindrops falling to the sidewalks, and at the wall of skeletal figures standing like good soldiers in the back. The sight of them, unmoving in the moonlight, was somehow more distracting than the ones smashing into the windows.

For some reason, he wasn’t really frightened. Disappointed and saddened, yes, but the fear wasn’t there. Even if everything ended tonight, he could take solace in one thing: At least Kate was here and not on Song Island. If nothing else, there was comfort in knowing she was too busy to pay attention to Lara—

“Oh, Will.” He sensed, even if he couldn’t actually hear it, amusement dripping with every word that echoed inside his head. “I don’t have to be there to be there. Will, Will, Will. How did you ever think you could beat us when you know so little?”

You’re attacking the island now, aren’t you?

“Not me. The island is an annoyance, but it’s not worth my time. I have people for those things.”

Like Josh. Like Mason…

“Two of many. So, so many. You have no idea.”

It made sense she wasn’t at the island in person, because she didn’t have to be. There was a legion of human collaborators willing and anxious to do her bidding. People like Rick and Millard, dead on the floor in their boxers behind him. Opportunists like Mason. Then there were all the poor, easily malleable souls like Josh, who didn’t know any better.

She laughed inside his head. “You, on the other hand…I can devote time to you, Will.”

What do you want from me, Kate?

“You’re living in the old world. It’s time to join me in the real one.”

No…

“Don’t be so naïve. You don’t have a choice.”

CRASH!

The first section of windowpane shattered and fell in streams to the tiled floor. The creature that had used itself as the final hammer flopped through among the shower of cubed glass, like sand pebbles, but only thicker and sharper. It rolled forward, bones clacking, shards of shiny glass sticking out of its cheeks and body and shoulder and chest—

“Run!” Will shouted.

By the time he turned around, Natasha was already racing toward the back room, arms swinging wildly in front of her. She had apparently forgotten all about her injuries. Like her, he couldn’t feel his own wounds anymore. His legs had stopped hurting (or, at least, that’s what he told himself) and every cut and bruise had ceased to matter. Everything faded into the background except the need to flee.

He glanced back as the ghoul rose from the floor, even as more of its brethren gave up on assaulting the other parts of the window and converged on the opening. They attacked the entrance with wild abandon, slashing their flesh against the jagged glass, thick rivulets of tainted blood arcing through the air and splashing the tiles and counters and shelves.

Run run run!

He darted into the last aisle and saw the open backroom door waiting for him at the very end. The brass handle stuck out in the semidarkness, gleaming with promise.

Natasha, already inside, was shouting at him. “Move your ass! Move your ass now!”

Gee, thanks for the suggestion, Natasha. I was just going to lollygag out here for a few minutes and then—

TAP TAP TAP!

He glanced over his shoulder again—

A flying swarm of twisted limbs and seemingly rippling flesh leaped onto the top of the shelves and knocked over products as they hopped their way toward him. Black eyes pierced the darkness and he imagined Kate, somewhere out there, looking through those very same hollowed holes at him.

“How did you ever think you could beat us when you know so little?”

She was right. She was so right. He knew so little. After all these months, he still knew so little about them. How did he—

“Come on!” Natasha’s voice cut through his thoughts.

He turned and lunged into the backroom and spilled against the cheap tiled floor. He landed on his outstretched arms and spun around until he was on his back, his hands scrambling to unsling the M4. Pain from the torn flesh underneath the bandages roared, but he pushed them aside and concentrated on getting a solid grip on the weapon.

Natasha was slamming the door—BANG! — then groping for the deadbolt and shoving it into place. She turned around and pressed her back against the slab of wood as if that would be enough to keep it shut.

It wouldn’t be. He knew it, and she knew it, too.

He looked into her eyes and knew that she wanted to live. Desperately. The woman he had met earlier, who had murdered Michael in cold blood and had some kind of death wish, really had come to an epiphany. She didn’t want to die.

He wished he could tell her that she had a choice at this moment.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

Natasha was stunned by the ferocity of the attack and staggered forward before regaining her composure and shoving herself back against the door. The sections of the wall that flanked the door quivered as the creatures assaulted it from the other side, over and over again, a ceaseless pounding of flesh against wood. Weakening wood. There was no way in hell the door was going to last the entire night. Not even close.

“Now what?” she shouted at him.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

He picked himself up from the dirty floor and glanced around the semi-dark room. He saw it right away — a small pool of moonlight shining inside through the three-by-three-feet window at the back. The same one Natasha had climbed through earlier.

“Will.”

There was an ethereal quality to her voice that seemed to sing only for him.

“It’s over, Will. Stop fighting and open the door.”

No.

“Open the door.”

No!

“Why do you always have to fight?”

Why? Because that was who he was. He didn’t surrender. He couldn’t. Lives were at stake. His. Natasha’s. Lara’s. Because he had to get home to her. Get back to Song Island. Whatever it took. However long. He had to get home.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

“Hey!” Natasha shouted behind him. He looked back at her, still pressed against the door, both feet sliding each time the creatures crashed against her on the other side. “Do something, goddammit!”

Good idea. Do something. Why didn’t I think of that?

“Will…”

Get out of my head!

“No.”

Get out of my head, damn you!

“Open the door, Will.”

No!

“Open the door!”

NO!

“Hey!” Natasha’s voice again, loud and raw, drawing him constantly out of Kate’s soothing embrace. “Don’t just stand there! Do something, for God’s sake!”

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

“This door’s not going to last! Hey! Can you hear me?”

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

“Do something!”

He nodded back at her. Or thought he did.

What do to? What to do?

The window. Use the window.

And then what?

Later. No choice.

Out there, he had a chance. A tiny chance. Miniscule. But it was better than in here. There was absolutely zero chance within the confines of this small backroom. Out there, in the wide open, maybe…

You almost believed yourself that time. Ha!

He slung the rifle and hurried across the room to the back.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

The window was locked by a simple latch at the bottom. Will stood on his tiptoes and looked out at the darkness, expecting to see a pair of black eyes staring back at him. Instead, there was just the pitch-black of night.

Was it possible the creatures were all converging on the front windows, trying to get in through the door? Was the back of the store really clear? His heart actually raced at the possibility of surviving.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

“Are you kidding me?” Natasha shouted behind him. “Aren’t there more of those things out there?”

“I don’t see any!” he shouted back.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

He swore he could feel the entire room trembling with each crash, and he pretended that he couldn’t hear the sounds of pieces of the wall falling apart around the door. Not long now. A few minutes, at the most…

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

“Do it!” Natasha shouted. “Whatever you’re gonna do, do it!”

He flicked open the latch and pulled the window up and open. Cold wind rushed inside and swamped him. He shivered, though he wasn’t sure if that was from the chill or something else.

“Will.”

He ignored it.

“Why do you persist?”

There was such a lyrical quality to her voice that made it difficult to shut out.

“This is for the best.”

He stuck his head out through the opening and looked left, then right.

“This is inevitable.”

Nothing. Emptiness.

“Song Island is gone. And Lara and Danny with it.”

There was nothing out there. He had expected to see a legion of them, but there was…nothing.

Just…nothing.

“Will…”

He didn’t answer the voice. Instead, he looked back at Natasha and nodded.

“Oh, God,” she said.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

“Come on,” Will said.

“You first.”

He gave her a grin. Or close. It might have been something awkward or half-assed. Or maybe both.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

He turned around, got a good grip on the windowsill, and pulled himself up and—

— over.

He landed in a crouch and quickly unslung the M4, scanning the darkness behind the iron sights of the weapon.

There was just the black shroud of night staring back at him from every direction. The gas station was flanked by a thick wooded area to his right and Interstate 10 to his left, its gray concrete form just barely visible under the moonlight about a hundred meters away on the other side of a feeder road and overgrown grass that swayed in the breeze. The real jungle was on the other side — thick patches of shadows, like walls, that was as inviting as stepping into a wood chipper.

He stood up just as Natasha made an oomph! sound as she landed a few inches next to him.

It didn’t take long for the door in the backroom to go. In fact, the loud crash! caught him off guard because Will expected it to last just a little bit longer. Had Natasha really been the only thing keeping it from collapsing all this time?

“Oh, shit,” Natasha said breathlessly. She stumbled, turned around, and lifted her M4, ready to shoot the first thing that came through the open window behind them.

She didn’t get the chance because the darkness behind her shifted, moving in ways that shouldn’t be possible. Natasha fell. As she did, she pulled the trigger and the carbine fired a three-round burst into the air, the staccato effect of the discharge lighting up the immediate area for a second and a half, illuminating the half dozen ghouls that were pulling her down, bony fingers clutched around her legs and arms and waist.

Natasha let out a shriek that pierced Will’s soul.

Then she was gone, swallowed up by the shadows. The air crackled and the stench of death filled his nostrils as she screamed and screamed and screamed…

He started moving toward Natasha instinctively, but froze when they emerged out of the blackness. There was just enough moonlight to make out their emaciated forms, hollowed black eyes, and the sound of bone joints popping as they scrambled toward him.

He took a step back and fired, the first three-round burst shredding the chest of one of them. The second burst drilled three holes into the head of a second. Of course he knew it wouldn’t stop them. Why should it? The bullets weren’t silver, and he might as well be throwing sand pebbles at them for all the good the rounds were doing.

But he didn’t have a choice. Will kept backing up along the wall, moving left, even though he didn’t know why left would be any better than right. Left took him toward the highway, but he had no illusions he was ever going to reach it. He should have stopped then and there to catch his breath, but that would mean surrendering. Will hadn’t given up when the world died, and he’d be goddamned if he was going to do so now.

He kept shooting, because there was nothing else to do. But it wasn’t just the ghouls coming out of the nothingness around him now; they were also pouring out of the small gas station window, dropping to the ground one after another, after another…

He shot the legs out from under a ghoul, and it fell and was instantly stepped on by two — three—a dozen others.

“Will, stop.”

There wasn’t the sound of triumph in her voice that he was expecting. There was almost…what was it? Concern? No. That had to be a trick of his mind, giving her human traits when he knew damn well Kate was no longer human. She was a monster, like these poor bastards coming at him from every direction at the moment.

He was hoping the continuous gunfire would drown out her voice, but he had no such luck. He could hear her just fine. More than fine, actually. Her words were so loud and clear despite everything that he might as well be trying to shut himself off from his own thoughts.

“Why do you keep fighting me?”

He smashed the butt of the rifle into the head of the first ghoul that reached him. He heard a crack! as its skull gave way. The blow sent it reeling, though whether he had actually hurt it or not (or maybe just annoyed it), he couldn’t tell. And he didn’t have time to find out because the others were already closing in from the right and left—

Left. Christ, the left!

“You always were so stubborn.”

He spun and started shooting in that direction, but that meant he was now cut off from the highway.

“Always so…Will.”

Click! as the rifle went empty.

Already? He didn’t have time to breathe or reload because they were everywhere, converging on him in an unending tide. He dropped the rifle and drew the Smith & Wesson, shooting the closest one point-blank in the face. The bullet drilled through its right eye and hit another ghoul behind it in the forehead. It, too, snapped back momentarily.

“The world turns whether we’re here or not.”

He shot another one in the chest, spun around, and blew out the forehead of another, and then they were all over him. One had gotten a grip on his right arm and was pulling it back, along with the gun. He punched it in the face, staggering it. That forced it to let go of his arm, but it just gave another ghoul—two—the opportunity to take its place.

“There is order in acceptance.”

He could only see the tops of their pruned foreheads as they climbed over him, and soon they were pushing him down to one knee. He fired another shot, but it was like throwing a pebble into an ocean of black tar. Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened.

“You don’t have to lose your humanity. Not all of it, anyway. I can show you how.”

Then he was kneeling, trying to rise, but unable to against their sheer number. One or two, or even a dozen wouldn’t have done it, but there was more than that. There were two, maybe even three dozen, crawling over him. Whatever had happened to them — this infection, this deviant transformation — it had shrunk them into husks of their normal size. They were shorter and lighter, but that didn’t matter when there were so many of them.

“Let go.”

He fell. He had no choice. He went down on the grass, trying desperately to punch and kick at them, but he could barely move any of his limbs.

“Just let go…”

No.

“It’s over…”

No!

“Yes…”

He couldn’t see anything — just a world of black, even darker than the night itself. This nothingness, this void was complete and suffocating. He waited to feel their teeth penetrate his skin, to inject their poisoned blood into his veins and turn him from who he was into what they were—

“No, Will. You’re not for them. You were never meant for them.”

There was a sadness in her voice. He didn’t know how he knew, but he felt it in every fiber of his being that this Kate was once again the Kate he knew, the survivor of The Purge and not the one that had become a monster. Or maybe he was fooling himself again.

“Soon you’ll understand everything.”

They had pinned his right arm against the ground near his hip, bony fingers wrapped around every inch of his skin like pricking needles.

Never.

“Yes.”

Never…

It took every ounce of muscle, but he was able to move his hand partially up the length of his body despite the arms — so many fingers, and so strong — tugging at him the entire way. Or maybe they weren’t strong at all. Maybe it was just their sheer number. How many now? Three dozen hands? Four?

It didn’t matter. There were too many. There were always too damn many.

He kept pulling anyway, willing every muscle to work, and slowly, very slowly, turned the gun in his hand until it faced up instead of down.

Lara, I’m sorry. I tried to make it back home.

He wrapped his finger around the familiar cold trigger.

I tried, baby. I really tried.

The gun wasn’t exactly right under his chin where he could be guaranteed of a killing shot, but it was close enough. Or it would have to do, anyway.

I can’t become one of them, Lara. I won’t become like her.

He wished he could see where the barrel was pointing, just to be sure. He wished, he wished, he wished…for so many things at the moment.

Please understand.

He had to get it right with the first shot, because he wouldn’t have a second one. If he just wounded himself, he might not have the strength to try again.

I hope you’ll be able to forgive me.

He started to pull the trigger…

“What are you doing, Will?”

He didn’t remember the trigger being so strong, so difficult to pull. It felt as if the gun was purposefully fighting him. Or was he just weak from all the struggling? That could have been it.

“No.”

He ignored her and closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of the wall of black flesh. He didn’t need to see them to know this was the right thing to do. He couldn’t become one of them. Never. Lara would understand.

“You can’t do this.”

At least Danny and Gaby had made it home. At least there was that. If nothing else — all the failures, the near-misses — at least he had done that one thing right.

Take care of her, Danny. I’m counting on you.

There, almost there—

“Stop it,” the voice said, and this time it wasn’t inside his head. This time it was coming from outside. “It can’t end like this.”

The ghouls pinning him to the ground unraveled, their thick layers dissolving like liquid around him. They released his arms and legs and slithered backward on their hands and knees.

He could breathe again, and sucked in a deep lungful of biting cold air.

He was still on the ground, his chest heaving, the thickness of the night sky exposed above him. It was ironic that it would end here — out in the open and under the stars. The Purge had begun inside an apartment building for him, and it seemed as if he had been hiding inside back rooms and basements ever since.

Except for all those wonderful times when he was at the island with Lara. Those were the best days of his life. The best nights, too. Because of her.

Lara…

Something moved in the darkness, flickering in the corners of his eyes. He sat up and scrambled to his feet, backing up until he was pressed against the brick wall of the store, the Smith & Wesson clenched tightly in his hand.

Almost. He’d almost pulled the trigger.

He didn’t shoot the approaching figure right away; not yet, not until he could see what he was shooting at. He could feel the weight of the gun even through the gauze covering the raw (and probably bleeding again) flesh underneath — the magazine was half empty, and he knew with absolute certainty he wouldn’t have time to reload if he emptied it now.

Not yet, not yet…

The lone ghoul emerged out of the black canvas like a ghostly apparition; it was taller than the others, and it stood straight. It walked toward him with a preternatural fluidity that shouldn’t have been possible and had the obvious hips of a woman even though anything resembling breasts were long gone, replaced by a sunken chest that, nevertheless, managed to still look strong and boastful.

The way it moved was undeniable: It owned this moment with every step, and it knew it.

Bright blue eyes pulsated in the darkness.

He knew this day would come. Somehow, some way, he knew it would end this way, with the two of them face to face in the middle of a lonely, dark night.

“Hello, Will,” she said. “It’s been a long time.”

CHAPTER 25 LARA

“Run!” the kid shouted.

Kid? Why was she calling him a kid? The Josh who had come back to the island after supposedly dying wasn’t a kid anymore. Far from it. The fact that he had just shot Danny with a pistol erased any doubts about that.

Lara was struggling to pick Danny up when Gaby grabbed him on the other side. They exchanged a brief look and as much of a smile as they could manage before they lifted Danny up from the cobblestone road.

“Run!” Josh was shouting behind them. “Get out of here, Gaby! Leave him, and get out of here now!”

But Gaby didn’t leave him, and Lara couldn’t be any more prouder of her. The girl who had come back to her was hardly recognizable, but it wasn’t because of the bruises and cuts. Gaby had changed. She had grown up. She might have still been nineteen, but Lara saw a woman when she looked across Danny.

She’s a soldier, Will. You’d be proud of her.

And she was going to need Gaby, too, because Danny was heavy. God, he was so heavy.

She hadn’t taken more than a few steps when the air became drenched with a nauseating smell. It was indescribable, and though she hadn’t seen them in such a long time, she knew exactly what the stench was a harbinger of even before she glanced back over her shoulder. She had to see for herself — the proof that all of this was happening, that Song Island really was lost to them.

The wall of pruned flesh moved against the night, blackening the already dark background on the other side of the open pathway. She swore she could hear them not just in front of her, but through the woods to both sides, too — the loud and stampeding crunch! of grass and the snap! and thwack! of branches assaulting every one of her senses.

“Faster,” Lara said, the word coming out in a breathless whisper. “Faster, Gaby!”

Gaby didn’t answer, but she did pick up her pace, and together they pushed their way through the four soldiers staring, a couple of them already lifting their rifles at the legion of creatures swarming down the pathway toward them.

Run! Lara wanted to shout at them. Run, you fools! Bullets don’t stop them! Even silver bullets only slow them down until the next hundred more take their place!

She didn’t, because she didn’t care what they did or didn’t do. She didn’t have any interest in their lives at all. They were the enemy — people who had come here to kill her and her friends — and she didn’t give a damn what happened to them. But a small part of her that thought maybe, just maybe, having the soldiers between her and the ghouls would slow the creatures down.

What was that old joke? “I don’t need to outrun the bear. I just need to outrun you!”

She wanted to laugh, but of course when she opened her mouth, the only thing that came out was harried breathing. She was already out of breath and they hadn’t even gone a few yards yet.

“Run!” someone was shouting behind them.

Josh. He wasn’t talking to her or Gaby; he couldn’t be, because they were already running. So who was he screaming at?

The soldiers. Of course.

“I can’t control them!” Josh was shouting. “Run! For God’s sake, run!”

Lara risked a second look back.

Josh was running after them even as his soldiers opened fire on the creatures bounding down the pathway at them. She had forgotten just how unnatural they looked in motion, like a flip picture book colored all in black.

“Go!” Josh shouted at her. “Don’t stop! Kate sent them! They’re not going to stop! I can’t stop them! No one can!”

“Lara, she’s coming,” Will had said. “She’s coming…”

Kate. Lara remembered how the woman had chased them from Starch, Texas to Beaumont, then all the way into Louisiana and finally, Song Island. She wouldn’t let them go. No, that wasn’t true. She was more than happy to let them go. She just wouldn’t let Will go.

You and your exes, Will, she wanted to laugh.

If Lara went another day without having to hear that creature’s name, she would die a happy woman.

As Josh chased them — no, not chased, followed — the soldiers he had abandoned were still shooting behind them. The men, anyway. The only woman among them — the twenty-something with the black ponytail — was looking after them. After Josh. There was an expression on her face that Lara had seen plenty of times before.

Hurt. Regret. Betrayed.

“The boats!” Josh shouted at her. “Get to the boats! They won’t go into the water! Get to the boats!”

Lara didn’t know what he was doing, or why. She only knew that he wasn’t shooting at them with the gun clenched in his hand, and that was all she cared about.

She turned around and got a better grip around Danny’s waist just as they stepped off the pathway and she finally—finally—felt the squishy beach under her. The sand seemed to sink under her boots and she wasn’t running nearly as fast as she had been just a second ago.

It wasn’t that she was running slower, it was Danny. He was too heavy even with her and Gaby carrying him at the same time. His head hung against his chest, his eyes closed, and sweat dripped off his temple and down his painfully pale, unresponsive face. She couldn’t help but wonder if he was already dead, if she and Gaby weren’t carrying around a dead man with them at this very moment.

Bang! Bang!

Two quick gunshots from almost directly behind her. Lara didn’t have to look back to know who was shooting. Josh. She recognized the sound of his handgun from earlier, when he’d shot Danny.

“Faster!” Josh was shouting behind them between gunshots. “Get to the boats! Gaby, get to the boats!”

Lara looked over at Gaby on the other side of Danny, but she couldn’t see the teenager past Danny’s bouncing head. She could hear Gaby’s heavy breathing just fine, though, even over the pop-pop-pop of assault rifles and Josh’s earsplitting gunshots behind them.

The water! Get to the water!

She willed herself not to look back a third time (it was hard, so hard) and kept running — or ran as much as she could, anyway. The fact was, she was mostly stumbling, Danny’s weight like a giant boulder on her shoulders. It was his feet — they were dragging across the sand like an anchor. But that couldn’t be helped. He was simply too heavy for her and Gaby to lift completely off the ground.

Josh was still firing behind them. She didn’t know why he was wasting his time. Did that handgun of his (some kind of black semiautomatic) even have silver bullets? If they didn’t, he mind as well be picking up handfuls of sand and throwing them at the ghouls for all the good he was doing.

Of course, she didn’t bother to tell him that. If he fell now, that was one more thing for the creatures to waste a precious second or two on. Another speed bump on the road to salvation.

Speed bump of the dead. Ha ha. Good one, Lara.

She might have chuckled to herself that time.

I’ve finally developed Danny’s morbid sense of humor. God help me.

They were halfway to the water when Gaby began to slow down noticeably. Lara thought about shouting encouragement when she realized the teenager was only mirroring her own flagging pace. It wasn’t just that they were both tiring, they were also literally sinking into the beach with every step.

She didn’t know why it felt as if they were running in quicksand until she looked down and saw the blood. It was all over the beach, supplied in generous amounts by the dead men that had assaulted the island. The dozens of bodies lay across the white sand, multiple jagged lines of lost lives thrown away by Kate as if they were little more than expendable sacks of meat.

That’s all we are to them. Meat.

What chance do we have? Why do we keep fighting—

The shooting behind them had suddenly stopped and there was just her and Gaby’s labored breathing, along with Josh’s (he was so close behind her that she swore she could feel his warm breath brushing against the back of her neck) crashing against the lapping waves in front of them.

My God, it was still so far away.

The water — she could see it, even smell and taste it in the air, but it was still so far away. Why was it so damn far away?

She thought about handing Danny off to Josh. He was a man now — bigger and taller and stronger. He could help Gaby carry Danny faster than she could. The two of them were uninjured and would have a better chance of reaching the boat than with her. Besides, she was pretty sure she was bleeding again. The question was, was it both her wounds or just one? Given how badly her night was going, it was probably both.

Her left shoulder and thigh were screaming at her at unimaginable decibels. It had started when she first picked Danny up, and it had only gotten worse — and louder — as she trudged across the length of the beach. Her shoulder in particular howled and bounced off the insides of her skull. Both of her legs were throbbing — and not just the one that was injured and wrapped in gauze at the moment.

She wanted to stop and sit down. No, lie down. That would be so much better. It was time to rest, anyway. She had been fighting for so long, and now she just wanted to stop for a moment and take a breath that wasn’t so labored that it felt as if her chest would cave in with every gasp of air.

Why fight it? We can’t win.

Why didn’t you tell me, Will? Why didn’t you ever tell me the truth?

We can’t win. We can’t—

She looked across and saw Gaby on the other side of Danny. Her face was locked in a tight grimace, and every inch of her was flushed with pain. But she hadn’t stopped — not even for a second. She pushed on, fighting through whatever physical hell was trying to suffocate her at the moment.

The sight of Gaby filled Lara with pride.

You’re right, Will. We have to keep fighting. Not just for us, but for everyone. For all the Gabys of the world. The Elises and the Veras and the Dwaynes.

Goddammit, you’re right. You’re always so damn right…

She could do it. She could take the pain and keep moving, because there were no other choices. It was stop and die, or keep moving and live. It didn’t matter if they only survived for another second. Or minute. Or hour.

Survive!

“The boat!” Josh’s voice, so much louder than before, as if he was almost on top of her. Had she and Gaby really slowed down that much? “Get on the boat!”

“Lara!” Gaby? Why was Gaby shouting at her? “Ready?”

Ready? Ready for wha—

Oh.

The boat. One of the ten boats that lined the beach, coming up on them. It was one of the smaller ones, and it had only partially slid up onto the sand before its occupants bailed. There was blood along the sides, and a man in a black uniform lay half-in and half-out of the water nearby, like a permanent fixture.

Then she did a stupid thing and looked back again.

They were coming out of the trees, an oozing black blob of moving limbs and black eyes. There wasn’t a single part of the beach behind her that she could see that wasn’t already turning black, as if someone had poured a giant bottle of ink that was now swallowing up the white sand inch by inch.

She couldn’t take her eyes off them — these impossibly twisted and emaciated things that were once human beings. Their speed was incomprehensible, and for a moment she was sure her eyes were lying to her. But no, they really were that fast, it was just that she hadn’t seen them for so long that she had forgotten.

“Lara!” Gaby’s voice again. “Hurry!”

She looked forward just as wetness swamped her feet.

Water?

The lake!

The boat wasn’t so tall that they couldn’t have climbed over without help, but Danny was heavy and all the running had tired her out, and her wounds were screaming inside her like banshees. Every inch of her ached, so Lara had no idea where both she and Gaby found the strength, but they hoisted Danny up—

— he went over and landed on the other side of the beached boat with a loud thump! that she hoped wasn’t a bad sign. To have gone through all the trouble to save him, only to have him land on something sharp, was a terrifying thought.

Gaby grabbed the side of the boat and disappeared up it with surprising fluidity. Lara wondered where she’d learned that. She’d ask her later…if there was a later.

She gripped the side and pulled herself up, somehow managing not to cry out as pain exploded across her body, her left arm feeling as if it would snap in two — or maybe three or four — pieces at any second.

She might have either cried or screamed (or both) as she climbed over the side and dropped to the floor on the other side. She didn’t remember, because she was scrambling to her knees next to Danny, who had fallen on top of an M4 rifle that had been left behind by one of the assaulters.

Lara grabbed the rifle and jerked it out from underneath Danny, then she made the mistake of looking back up the beach again.

They were still coming (of course they were, what did she think, they were going to give up when she wasn’t looking?) and there was so many that she imagined this must be what it was like to stare into the heart of a living and breathing black hole. There was nothing in front of her but death.

Josh. Where’s Josh?

Not far, as it turned out. He was in front of her, firing the last of his bullets into the incoming horde before dropping the gun.

He spun around, his face wild, screaming. “Go! Go!”

Go? she wanted to ask him. Go where? We’re stuck. The boat won’t move—

The roar of the engine filled the air as Josh rammed himself into the front of the boat. What was he doing? What—

“Go!” Josh was shouting. He was pushing and screaming, digging his boots into the sand for leverage and howling like a madman. “Go, get out of here! Get out of here!”

He was pushing them back into the water.

She didn’t know how he was doing it. This skinny kid who had come to her and Will months ago, who couldn’t do much of anything right. It was Gaby who had saved his life not once, but twice, because Josh was one of those kids in school who you ignored. He was average in every way — not tall enough, not big enough, and certainly not handsome enough for a girl like Gaby — and there shouldn’t have been any possible way he could actually be pushing the boat back into the water.

“Josh, what are you doing?” Gaby screamed, most of it lost over the roar of the outboard motor.

The boat kept moving, because Josh was still pushing even though she couldn’t see him in front of the vessel anymore.

This isn’t possible. How is this even possible?

And the beach got darker and darker, until there was nothing left—

Then the sound of the motor changed noticeably as the propeller finally found water to churn against, and the boat was now reversing faster off the beach and into the lake.

She could finally see Josh again. He stood on the beach, his legs buried in the sand up to his knees. He was looking after them, gasping for breath, his chest heaving with all the effort and strain of what he had just done. And yet there was something strange on his face.

It wasn’t fear. Or terror.

Was he smiling? No, not smiling. Josh was beaming as he looked back at her — or maybe he was trying to find Gaby behind her. That was probably it. At that moment, Lara didn’t think she actually existed in the teenager’s eyes. He was so serene, as if his entire life had led to this moment and he had finally achieved something that had eluded him all this time.

Then he was gone.

Josh disappeared under the tidal wave of surging pruned flesh and hollow eyes. He didn’t scream, but simply vanished under the pile of twisted limbs and blackened flesh, as if he had never existed at all.

But Josh had done it. The boat was reversing at faster speeds, moving back, back, back from the beach and away from the unending tide of creatures that blanketed it—

Not all the creatures were converging on Josh. There wasn’t enough space for all of them, so the rest kept coming. She didn’t know what they were doing.

The water. They couldn’t go into the water…could they?

As she looked on, breathless, one of the ghouls launched itself into the air and at the boat. It spilled against the side of the vessel and groped desperately for something to hold onto, but couldn’t, and went tumbling into the water.

Two — no, three more — catapulted themselves at the V-shaped front of the boat, but they too didn’t land at the right spots and failed to find something to hold onto and disappeared over the side.

The rest began plop-plop-plopping into the lake around them. They looked like kamikaze pilots sailing through the night air only to miss their target. She watched them sink into the lake water and thrash about. A few managed to break the surface again, only to drop back under like…stones?

She was still staring off the side, trying to process what she was seeing (The water! They really can’t survive in the water!), when one of them sailed across the distance and managed to land on the boat in a ball of clacking bones. It rolled forward and slammed into the bench in front of the steering console, unraveling its limbs.

As soon as it lifted its head, Lara shoved the barrel of the M4 toward it and pulled the trigger. The first half dozen bullets obliterated its eyes and nose and mouth, and the next half dozen shattered its skull and sent it stumbling back, back. She didn’t expect it to go down (no silver bullets), and it didn’t disappoint her.

Mostly headless now, it continued coming.

Lara spun the rifle around and smashed the stock into its chest. That, more than the bullets, made it reel backward. She followed it and hit it again, this time aiming for what remained of its lower jaw, sticking out like one half of a crushed watermelon. That kept it staggering back and off balance. She hit it a third time on the side of its leftover “head” and heard the stock of her rifle cracking with the impact.

She kicked it squarely in the chest, putting as much strength as she could muster (or as much as the rippling pain from her thigh would allow her) into the blow. The creature had nowhere else to go, and the force of the kick sent it toppling over the side. There was a satisfying plop! as it disappeared into the water.

Lara hurried over and looked down and could see the creature sinking, reaching out with its bony arms for her. Then it was gone, and the waters of Beaufont Lake settled over the spot where it had vanished.

“Lara,” Gaby said behind her.

She looked back at Gaby, saw her staring past her and at the island. She followed Gaby’s gaze back to the beach — or where she thought it was supposed to be. Normally she would be able to see the long stretch of white sand from anywhere, even at night without lights. That wasn’t the case this time. Everywhere she looked, there was just shifting, moving darkness.

Lara shivered, even though they were already forty to fifty yards from land and there was no way they could throw themselves that far. Or, at least, she hoped not.

She looked away. She didn’t need to see anymore. The island was gone. Lost. She had fought against it — tried like mad to keep it — but the truth was staring back at her now.

Song Island was lost. Truly, truly lost.

She crouched next to Danny instead and felt along the side of his neck. To her great relief, he still had a pulse, but it was very weak. He was alive, though, something she hadn’t been entirely certain of earlier.

“Is he okay?” Gaby asked.

“He’s alive,” Lara said.

She looked up at Gaby, who was still staring back at the island. But Lara knew what she was really looking for. Josh.

Lara couldn’t wrap her mind around what he had done. He had saved their lives. Pushed the boat back into the water. How? That was the question. Could Will, even at full strength, have done something like that? She remembered seeing Josh buried up to his knees in the sand as they were backing up. What kind of strength had the kid possessed to do something like that?

“Gaby, we need to go,” she said. “Blaine and the others will be waiting for us.”

Gaby nodded and spun the steering wheel. She looked back at the island as long as she could until they had turned completely around. The boat started moving smoothly under her, and Lara fumbled her way to the bench at the front and sat down.

She was tired, and sitting down seemed to help, even though every part of her was threatening to come apart at any second.

“Lara,” Gaby said. She looked back as Gaby threw her a white pill bottle. “Don’t read the label; just take two.”

Lara nodded. She didn’t have the strength to argue, anyway. She opened the bottle, took out two pills, and swallowed them. She had never been good about taking medicine without a glass of water, so she felt a little proud of herself when the pills went down surprisingly easy.

“I think I saw someone on the other side of beach,” Gaby said. “At the same time we were running for the boat.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know. He was wearing dark clothes.” She shook her head. “It could have been one of Josh’s…” Gaby stopped in mid-sentence, then said instead, “How long will Blaine wait for us? I don’t want to leave anyone behind, Lara. Not again. Not ever again…”

CHAPTER 26 WILL

Kate.

He used the wall behind him as a crutch, because he wasn’t confident in his legs. The sight of her in person after all this time left him speechless, confused, and unable to fully understand how the last few months had all ended up with him here, face to face with her.

She was taller than he remembered. Thin, but not quite as skeletal as the others. He recalled seeing this new version of her in the town of Harvest that morning at the water tower. But that was from afar, and though he recognized her (even now, he didn’t know how, he just did), it wasn’t the same as seeing her standing before him.

The blue of her eyes was ethereal and nothing like the crystal blue of Lara’s. These seemed to actually pulsate, as if they were living organisms in and of themselves.

The creatures were gone. All of them. They had slinked away into the night, leaving just the two of them, like children abandoning the room to bickering parents. He couldn’t even smell them anymore, and in their place was just the crisp night air. He didn’t know how that was possible. Usually when the ghouls were around, there was always the stink of compost.

Maybe it was Kate. There was an iciness about her presence, an almost regal vibe that made him want to fall to his knees and bow. But of course he did no such thing, because this wasn’t the Kate he knew. That Kate was gone — dead. He would know; he had shot her in the chest himself.

This Kate wasn’t anyone he knew. This Kate was…more.

But even new Kate could die.

“Shooting them doesn’t work, not even with silver bullets,” he had told Danny. “But taking out the brain seems to work just fine.”

“You still need silver for that, or will any ol’ bullet do?” Danny had asked.

“I have no idea. Let’s just use silver to be sure.”

Being sure was a luxury he didn’t have at the moment, because he had no silver bullets on him. But he still had the gun, and the magazine was half-full. So there was that.

He measured the distance between Kate and him: Three meters.

Not too far, but not too close, either. If last night was any indication, the blue-eyed ones were fast. Much, much faster than the black eyes. (What had Kate called them? Her “brood”?) But how much faster was Kate? Could she dodge a bullet—

“Yes,” Kate said. Her voice was almost a hiss, not the same soft and melodic sound that it was inside his head.

“Yes”? he thought. Yes what, Kate?

“Yes,” she said again, as if he should know.

Because he did know.

Yes, she was fast.

Yes, she could take him before he could put a bullet in her head and splatter the brain inside. Because Kate, like the other blue-eyed ones, still had brains. That was their weak spot.

All he had to do was hit the brain…

Captain Optimism, amirite, Danny?

“He’s dead, you know,” she said.

Dead?

“Danny,” the ghoul said. The creature. Kate. “On the island. He was shot, and he’s dead. Everyone’s dead, Will. Song Island is lost.”

“You’re lying.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“Lara is gone, too. But you don’t have to join her.”

Was she lying? She was certainly capable of it. She was a monster, after all. There was no such thing as honor among monsters. Everyone knew that.

She might have snorted. Or made some other derisive sound. It was hard to tell because the noises that came out of her (it) were difficult to interpret.

She hadn’t moved from her spot. Three meters, that was all that separated them, though it felt so much closer because he could hear her voice like a sharp knife. He didn’t have to strain, even though her hisses were unnaturally soft, almost whispers. Or was he hearing her inside his head, too? That could have been very possible.

Three meters for a head shot…

“More than enough time,” she said.

He smiled at her. He didn’t know where it came from. Maybe it was the clown in him, or the gung-ho asshole he thought he had whipped out of his system since the first weekend of Basic Training.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked. “Are you really that fast?”

“Yes,” she said simply. “I’m not the one who’s dying tonight, Will.”

“You mean dying again?”

Thin creases, like cuts rather than lips, formed something that might have resembled a smile. He wondered how long it had been since Kate — this new Kate — had performed such an act that the result was so horrendous.

“Do you really want to die, Will?” she asked. “Is that what you want?”

“You think I’m scared of dying, Kate? If you think that, then you really never knew me at all.”

He pointed the gun at her, and the moonlight glinted off its smooth side. He expected some kind of reaction, but there was none; Kate stood perfectly still, as if he were armed with nothing more than a water pistol.

“Let’s find out how fast you really are,” he said.

She sighed. Or seemed to sigh. He couldn’t be sure. “You’re so human, Will.”

“When did that become a bad thing?”

“Have you looked around you?”

He grinned. She had a point there. “Tell me one thing: Why?”

“Why?” she repeated.

“Why? Why are you in my head? Why can’t I get rid of you? Why, Kate?” He was almost shouting now. “What the hell do you want from me?”

She didn’t answer for the longest time. In fact, she seemed almost taken aback by the questions. Or was that all in his mind? Was he subscribing human traits to her again in an attempt to understand her?

“It’s lonely,” she said finally, her voice dropping to a mere whisper, so low he wouldn’t have heard if she wasn’t standing so close to him.

Three meters…

“I’m surrounded by billions of us,” she said, “and it’s still so lonely.”

A head shot at three meters. Just under ten feet. That was all it would take to end this. Maybe, like with the farmhouse last night, if he could kill Kate and use her as a shield to keep the black-eyed ones back, he could survive tonight. The other creatures were still out there, waiting — always waiting — even if he couldn’t see or hear or even smell them (Is that your doing too, Kate?).

Maybe, just maybe, this might work.

Then in the morning, he’d find a vehicle and make his way down to Song Island. Or he’d walk, if he couldn’t find a car. It didn’t matter. As long as he was breathing, that was all that mattered. As long as he was still sucking in breath, he could get home to Lara, because Kate was lying about Song Island being lost. She had to be.

He almost smiled, because there it was. The opening he had been waiting for. He knew it would come sooner or later as long as he bided his time. Like always, the trick was to recognize it and jump through feetfirst.

Kill Kate and use her to keep the black eyes back. Repeat what he had done at the farmhouse last night.

Easy peasy.

The only thing standing between him and seeing Lara again was a bullet and three meters. He’d made harder shots in his life. But he was only going to get one shot (Haha, good one) at this. If he missed, and she proved to be just as fast as the others (or faster), then he might not get a second try.

The shot of your life.

No pressure.

“There are others,” she said, when he didn’t respond. “Like me. Like Mabry. But it’s not the same. This colonization — it’ll be over soon. We’re bringing order to the chaos, and the future is bright. You must know that this was how it was always going to end, Will. You can’t win. You must know that by now.”

It doesn’t matter how fast she is. You can’t outrun a bullet.

Hopefully.

“I think you do, Will. You might deny it out loud, but deep down, in your private thoughts, you know I’m right. You can’t win. You never could. You never will.”

He focused on the stunning glow of her blue eyes, the windows to her soul. If she even still had a soul. He imagined he could see the old Kate through those eyes, the one that existed beyond the black flesh and gangly frame.

“When it’s over, we’ll rebuild,” she continued. “We’ve already begun. Humans will serve us and provide for us. There’ll be no more fighting. No more violence. We’ll rise above it all.” She smiled again. Or attempted to. “And when it’s over, when it’s finally all over, I’ll need someone with me. By my side. You, Will. You should be that someone.”

Me?

The reality of what she was saying eluded him. He understood every word of it, but he couldn’t grasp the concept. Maybe it was the idea of being with her after all of this. Or just being with her at all. It was…unnatural.

How did she ever think it could be possible?

How did she ever think he would agree to it?

“I was content to let you waste your time on the island with that little girl until I could convince you to see the truth,” she continued, unbothered by his lack of response. “But then she had to go and make things difficult. That radio broadcast made Mabry angry, and he gave me no choice. And here we are.”

She held her hand out toward him, the palm facing up, the flesh so impossibly tight that he could only see the curvature of bones underneath.

“Fate brought us here, Will. But you don’t believe in fate, do you?”

I believe in what I can touch, and see, and hear, and shoot. I believe you’re not the same Kate, even though you pretend to still be her.

“No,” he said.

“You should. Remember the first time we met? Most of the world was gone, but we still found each other. Something led me to you, and something made you stop there to wait for me. It was fate, Will. Nothing happens without a reason. Everything works to achieve a perfect balance. Order out of chaos. That’s what this is. This is order.”

He stared at her and knew she believed every word of it. That, more than anything, was surprising. The Kate he remembered was mature, smart, and would have laughed in his face if he started talking about destiny and fate and strange, unexplainable psychic connections.

And yet here she was, trying to convince him all of this was…fate?

He pitied her. He hadn’t realized what he was feeling until now. There was something sad about Kate — despite her millions of ghouls, her brood — because she longed for a connection that she couldn’t have.

You’re gonna get a good laugh out of this one, Danny ol’ chum.

Her fingers moved as she prompted him. “Give me the gun, Will. Let it be your token of surrender. You have no choice.”

“No,” he said.

“No?” she repeated. There was a stunned look on her face. Or, at least, something he interpreted as stunned. It could have been anything, really.

He grinned again. It was reckless, and he must have known she wasn’t going to receive it well, but he couldn’t help himself.

“Sorry,” he said, “but Lara would kick my ass if she found out I was cheating on her with a corpse.”

He caught the sudden movements out of the corner of his eye just before the ghouls came back, bringing with them the terrible smell; a swarm of them appearing from the darkness, as if oozing out of the night itself. There were too many to count, so he didn’t bother. He always knew they were out there so he wasn’t surprised, but how the hell had they appeared so fast?

His eyes were drawn back to Kate because something had changed with her (it); a flash of emotion flickering across her blackened face, the skin so constricted it might as well have been satin over a skull in a medical lab somewhere. Even her eyes seemed to flare up, growing in size, the blue doubling (tripling?) in intensity. He might have even believed they were on fire if they weren’t so blue.

“Lara,” she hissed, practically spitting the name out. “Always Lara. Lara. Lara.”

Will wasn’t ready for it. He wasn’t even remotely close to understanding what was happening even as it occurred in front of him in real-time. His reaction was delayed, and it cost him dearly. The blue-eyed ghouls had been fast, but Kate (Not really Kate, this thing that used to be Kate) was beyond them.

She was more. So, so much more.

(“How did you ever think you could beat us when you know so little?” she had said to him.)

She didn’t so much move as explode into a blur of motion.

He fired—

Three meters. Just under ten feet. He’d made tougher shots before in his career.

— and hit empty air.

Then she was there, in front of him, so close that when she opened her mouth and hissed “Lara!” he felt the icy cold of her breath, and goose bumps raced through every inch of his flesh.

He was still trying to process what he was seeing, hearing, and feeling when her hand encircled his and she squeezed, mashing his fingers against the grip of the Smith & Wesson as he reflexively fired another shot. Like the last one, the bullet sailed harmlessly past her scrawny shoulder and vanished into the night.

She kept folding her hand over his until his fingers were so crushed against the gun’s grip that he couldn’t have squeezed the trigger a third time even if he thought it might do any good. Her other hand slithered around his neck and pushed, and he stumbled back in shock, the breath rushing out of him in a single, devastating spurt. It wasn’t so much the pain of the impact against the wall that jolted him, it was more the ferocity of her attack. That and the sheer speed of it overwhelmed all his senses until he couldn’t focus on any one thing.

The hand around his throat was viselike, and it was all he could do to grab her wrist with his free hand and try to keep her from tightening it any further. He didn’t know if he was succeeding or if she just decided not to crush his windpipe at that very moment.

But as suffocating as the bones wrapped around his throat were, it was nothing compared to the pressure being exerted against the fingers of his right hand. She was crushing them as if they were brittle candy. He didn’t know how that was possible given how bony her own fingers were, but there was a strength in them that defied the laws of physics. She shouldn’t have been as monstrously strong as she was, but if he was imagining this whole thing, then why was he screaming?

“I gave you a chance,” she hissed, the icy cold of her breath hitting him in the face and piercing through his screams. Her face was so close, her eyes mere inches away, that he found his entire vision swimming in a blue irradiated ocean. “But I realize now that Mabry was right. Free will is overrated.”

She finally let go of his neck and pulled back. He gasped for breath and managed half of it before she hit him in the face with a balled fist. Or, at least, he thought it was a fist. It could have been something else, maybe a hammer. Or a sledgehammer, given how easily his nose broke and the metallic taste of blood flooded his mouth. His head snapped back from the blow, and she grabbed his left hand and broke it at the wrist with a casual twist.

Will had endured pain before. He had been shot more than once, for God’s sake, but actually hearing his wrist breaking — the snap! like firecrackers in the cold, still night — was a new revelation.

He opened his mouth to scream again but only sucking sounds came out, any noises he might have made drowned out by the blood pouring down his face. He swallowed as much of it as he could and did his best not to choke on his own plasma.

She still had a firm grip over his right hand, the one with the gun pointed at nothing — less than useless — and she was pressed so close to him that instead of the heat of her body, there was just the unnatural cold emanating from every pore. Why was she so cold? The other blue-eyed ghouls hadn’t been. Or was he misremembering? That was entirely possible. At the moment, the only sure thing was that he was going to die and he would never reach Song Island and never see Lara again.

He wasn’t sure when it happened, but he was sitting again, the uneven brick and mortar wall pricking against his back, keeping him upright. His right hand was on the ground, the gun lost somewhere in the grass. He didn’t remember if she had taken it from him and thrown it away, or if he had simply dropped it.

He thought about looking for it (The head. Shoot her in the head and end it!), but soon the only sensations he was aware of were coming from the side of his neck, where Kate was bent over and—

Teeth.

He felt teeth penetrating skin. Strangely, it didn’t hurt quite as much as he thought it would.

Those are teeth.

She’s…

“Don’t fight it,” Kate said.

Her voice was inside his head again. They weren’t hisses anymore, but the Kate he remembered. No, that wasn’t true. The Kate he had known didn’t really sound like this. This was an artificial version of her. This was the voice of the Kate-that-never-was.

Stop it.

“It’s too late.”

Lara…

“She’ll never accept you now.”

No…

“But I will.”

No!

There was no response that time. Maybe she was busy, or maybe she realized it was pointless to argue with someone who didn’t have a choice.

Instead, there was just the sound of slurping, of Kate drinking him.

Lara.

His thoughts were filled with Lara on the beach of Song Island, walking side by side with him because they always snuck away before the others woke up. Even before Danny could rise, which was not an easy feat.

He was back on the beach with Lara, holding hands like teenagers. Not really talking, but doing a lot of smiling. Because he was happy. He was most happy when he was with her.

Lara…

I’m not coming home.

I’m so sorry, baby, but I’m not coming home after all.

Please forgive me.

He came back to the present when Kate finally pulled herself off his neck. Her blackened mouth was covered with blood. His. It dripped from teeth that were crooked and devastated and brown and black.

She smiled gleefully at him, cradling his painfully broken right hand in hers as if they were lovers. “Let it wash over you, Will. Don’t fight it. Accept it. This is the way of things now. We’ll build the future together, beside Mabry. You and I.”

No.

“Yes,” she hissed, that hint of anger flashing across her eyes again like blue fire.

No…

She frowned. “Why do you keep resisting? When the transformation is over, there’ll be no more pain. No more diseases or illnesses or wounds to worry about. You’ll finally be free.”

No!

He summoned what strength he had left and lunged at her, seeing the surprise register on her face. Maybe she was still drunk from his blood, and it made her slow to react. Or maybe it was because she was too close, and was crouched and wallowing in her triumph. Whatever the reason, and despite all her preternatural speed, she couldn’t move fast enough.

He barreled into her with his entire body and knocked her back, reaching behind him and wrapping his hand around the hilt of the knife (Millard’s knife, the one he wouldn’t be caught dead carrying around, if he had a choice). He screamed as he forced his mangled fingers to tighten around the grip and he pulled, pulled until the blade came out of the sheath. Crushed fingers were not meant to be moved, much less grab something, and the pain was unbearable and speared him like a thousand bullets.

Below him, Kate glared, her lips moving like worms underneath the wet coat of his blood around her mouth. Her body rose, but he threw himself into her again, and though she was longer, he was still bigger and heavier. He used his body as a blunting instrument and knocked her back to the ground. He wrapped his left arm — the one with the useless broken wrist — around her long, thin neck and held on for dear life.

“What are you doing, Will?” she screamed inside his head.

He ignored her and swung the knife from behind his back. Moonlight gleamed off the sharp seven-inch blade, and Kate’s eyes were drawn irresistibly to it.

Recognition spread across her face and her straining under him grew exponentially, but he held on with his left hand and continued to crush down on her with his entire body. He refused to give an inch, to let her curl her legs underneath him in order to kick him off. As inhumanely strong as she had become, she had no leverage, and he saw something that looked amazingly like fear flicker across her eyes.

“Will!”

Her voice boomed inside his head, ricocheting off the sides of his skull. Just his name, in that feminine, unreal voice that was the real Kate but at the same time belonged to the Kate-that-never-was.

“Will!”

There was a sudden and fierce stabbing pain in his gut as she drove her fingers into his stomach. She shoved and pulled—

He screamed the flesh-rendering sensations away and drove the knife into the center of her forehead, even as her fingers wrapped around something inside him — maybe a kidney, maybe a lung — and tried to pull it out. He forced the knife to go deeper and deeper, until the guard bumped against her skull and refused to go any further.

Her hand, buried somewhere inside his stomach, went limp, and so did her body. Her eyes, once full of (unnatural) life, faded quickly, as if someone had hit a light switch, and her head lolled to one side, taking the knife with it.

He gasped for air, every inch of him shuddering, and crawled off her still form. He slid against the wall. He would have reached for his midsection to stem the flow of blood if he could, but he no longer had any control over either one of his hands. Instead, he let them dangle from his sides like the two useless limbs they had become.

Breathing hurt too much, and the air had become impossibly frozen. His insides burned, as if trying to make up for the cold outside, and he wasn’t entirely sure how his intestines weren’t already splayed in his lap.

Kate’s body lay in front of him, still so close to him that his legs were touching her malformed ones. Her head had ended up turned in his direction, the eyes — with the knife buried in the forehead between them — staring accusingly back at him.

Well, Danny, I guess any ol’ bullet (or knife) would do it, as long as you get them in the brain.

Mystery solved, ol’ buddy.

He coughed up blood and didn’t bother to wipe it from his lips or stop it from dripping off his chin. There was going to be more where it came from in the next few seconds or minutes, or however long it took him to die. Not only had she bitten (infected) him, but the human body was not designed to survive someone shoving their hand into your gut.

Soon. Very soon.

He closed his eyes. It hurt too much to keep them open.

Besides, he didn’t need to see them. He could smell them just fine and hear them shuffling against the grass. They were everywhere, their stench overwhelming his senses, trying to suffocate him in their thickness.

How long before they ripped him limb from limb, then drank him dry? If he was lucky, they would kill him before he could turn. He didn’t want to become one of them. Worst, he didn’t want to turn into something like Kate.

Was that how it even worked? He didn’t know. Shit, he didn’t know anything.

“How did you ever think you could beat us when you know so little?” Kate had said to him.

She was right. As much as he had learned about the enemy in the year since The Purge, he still didn’t know enough.

It was too late to change that now, though. Way too late.

Will relaxed and let his mind drift. He detached himself from his convulsing body and floated away from the gas station, then glided across the night sky and headed southward, back toward Song Island.

Back to Lara.

Instead of the sight of his guts spilling into the grass in front of him, he focused on the color of Lara’s crystal blue eyes, the shade of her skin under the morning Song Island sun, and the gentle sway of her blonde hair in the crisp wind.

Instead of the clacking of bones as the creatures moved closer, he concentrated on the sounds of Lara’s laugh when she allowed herself those rare moments to enjoy life again, the feel of her body against his when they came together at night and never wanted to come apart, but knowing that inevitably they would have to.

Because the days would go on, the nights would come to an end, and there would always be another sunrise on the other side.

Lara.

Lara…

CHAPTER 27 KEO

He wasn’t sure how far he had gotten toward the shoreline in the last five or ten minutes since he lost track of time. Frankly, he was just trying not to drown. Keo had learned to adapt to the water long ago, and a part of that was forgetting about everything else except the waves pushing against you.

He had taken off his boots, socks, and assault vest, and had been swimming in pants and a T-shirt for the last kilometer or so. Just as it was difficult to tell time, it was next to impossible to gauge how far he had come and how much further he had to go before he reached the nearest land mass. His vision was limited by darkness; which was to say, he couldn’t see shit at the moment.

He had, though, managed to hang onto the MP5SD.

Have German gun, will swim.

Just because he was tiring didn’t mean Keo stopped. Besides, he was used to being tired. Hell, the last year was one long run after another. What’s that old saying?

“It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.”

Whoever came up with that hadn’t been living in his boots for the last year. Sprinting from one spot to another was all he had been doing. Screw the marathon.

He couldn’t remember the last time he wasn’t tired. It seemed like just yesterday when he had taken Delia to a motel after she got off work at that terrible country and western bar. Things went downhill fast from there.

But there had been some good spots, too. Gillian, for one. Norris wasn’t such a bad guy, either. But for every Gillian and Norris, there was a Pollard and assholes in black commando uniforms trying to kill him.

None of that did anything to help with the lead weights someone had attached to his arms and legs when he wasn’t looking and were trying to pull him down to the bottom of the lake. He was pretty sure his cargo pants had ballooned to five times the size (not to mention the complimentary bloated weight), and he had drunk more of the lake than any fish that ever existed. At least he wasn’t a ghoul. If he were, he would have turned to stone and sank to the bottom.

Now that was something you didn’t see every day. He still couldn’t get over the sight of watching fear flashing across their eyes.

I guess they still remember fear. Welcome back to the human race.

Well, sort of.

He was doing calm, slow breaststrokes, simultaneously hoping to find shore and dreading it. He hadn’t figured out yet what he would do when he finally got there. Climb up and…then what? There were going to be creatures waiting for him. He had seen them from the Tower, racing back and forth like little speed freaks along the shoreline.

Where the hell was he going, anyway? Dammit. He’d lost track of his direction again. The closest shoreline would be the marina and the burnt-down house, but he couldn’t see signs of them at the moment even after stopping and twirling around in a circle.

Then again, it was so dark he could barely see more than a few meters in front of him, so that certainly didn’t help. For all he knew, he had been swimming around in circles these last few minutes…hours? No, minutes. It couldn’t have been hours yet. Could it?

He sighed. Maybe he should be grateful he couldn’t locate land. Drowning might be preferable to fighting a horde of those things, even with the silver bullets in his submachine gun and two spare magazines.

One year. He had survived for one year. Not so bad. Most of the world’s population had turned into ghoulish creatures overnight, except him. Certainly no one would have put money on him making it through this long. Only God knew how he had made it when so many hadn’t.

God.

That was funny. He didn’t believe in God, and he was pretty sure the old guy didn’t believe in him, either. Keo didn’t blame him. He had too much blood on his hands to think anyone — anything—floating on a cloud up in the sky was looking out for him.

Keo looked up at the twinkling stars. It was peaceful tonight, with only the waves sloshing against him to fill the silence. Everything was so serene he didn’t know why he was even still treading water. It was time to just stop and let go. He, too, would sink to the bottom of Beaufont Lake and join those pesky black-eyed bastards. Some people would call that poetic, but Keo was just lazy and felt like giving his legs and arms a rest.

“See the world. Kill some people. Make some—”

The gradual whine of a motorized device intruded on his thoughts.

He spun around and caught the white spotlight as it danced across the water and blasted him in the face. Keo flinched and held up one hand to keep from being blinded. He managed to peer through his fingers at a white boat. Long and sleek, being powered in his direction by what sounded like a trolling motor. He wouldn’t have heard it at all if it wasn’t the only thing running in the entire lake at the moment, and was almost on top of him.

Keo lowered his hand and gripped the MP5SD under water. The boat’s passengers hadn’t fired yet, so he assumed whoever was onboard wasn’t shooting on sight. That was good, because it meant he had the advantage.

Yeah, right!

He slipped his forefinger into the trigger guard but kept the barrel of the submachine gun under water as the boat neared. A little bit closer and he’d find out, once and for all, if the German gun could fire while partially submerged in water.

“Keo!” a voice shouted from the boat.

He relaxed at the sound of the voice and grinned against the spotlight. Of all the people he expected to see out here right now, she was definitely not one of them.

The vessel slowed down as it reached him, waves jostling him around and making staying in one place difficult. They angled alongside him and he saw the familiar tall blonde figure behind the steering wheel, two hands frantically trying to keep the boat from running him over and under. Keo had a sudden image of being saved, only to be accidentally shredded by the propellers. Now that would have been ironic.

The girl stopped the boat, hurried over to the portside, and leaned over. “You’re alive,” she said, grinning down at him.

“So are you,” Keo said. “I thought you were on the yacht.”

“No, we never made it.”

“That makes two of us. Who else made it?”

“Later. Get up here first.”

He grabbed her extended arm and let her pull him up. She was a tall kid, but lean and not very muscular. It didn’t help that he had been soaked in water for all this time and “gained” weight as a result. He crawled over the gunwale like a crab, snaking arms and legs over every stable piece along the boat he could find. Finally, he slumped over the side and landed on the floor, then struggled to sit back up with his back against the side, water pouring out of every inch of him.

Gaby wasn’t alone in the boat. Lara was in the back, using a second spotlight to treat Danny’s wound. It looked like a big ugly gunshot to the side. There was already a thick stack of bloodied gauze next to them, and it was clear Lara had been working on him for some time. She looked pretty shot up herself and was grimacing with every little movement she made.

“Glad you made it, Keo,” Lara said.

“You came looking for me?” he said, not able to hide his surprise.

“Gaby swore she saw someone else making a run for the water while we were fleeing down the beach. We weren’t sure if it was you or one of the soldiers, but we thought we needed to find out before rejoining the others.”

“What if I’d been a soldier?”

“Then I’d have run you over,” Gaby said.

He chuckled. “My lucky night, then.”

“You and I have very different definitions of ‘luck,’ Keo,” Lara smiled.

“Hey, any night where I’m alive at the end of it is a lucky night,” he smiled back. He nodded at Danny. “How’s Jokes-a-lot doing?”

She frowned. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll live.” She looked over at Gaby, that steely resolve he had come to respect so much returning in the blink of an eye. “Let’s find the Trident, Gaby. Zoe will be able to do more for Danny there.”

“We know the Trident made it?” Keo asked. “The soldiers didn’t attack it?”

“Not as far as we know,” Lara said. Then, “I guess we’ll find out soon.”

Gaby switched off the trolling motor, then hurried back behind the steering wheel and switched on the outboard motor. It coughed, then caught, and the sound of it powering up was like an explosion against the silent lake.

“Why the trolling motor?” Keo asked her, shouting over the roar.

“In case there were soldiers still around!” Gaby shouted back.

“And now?”

“We’ve been circling for almost thirty minutes. If they’re still around, we would have run into them by now!”

Just in case, Keo thought, and slipped the MP5SD in front of him and looked off the side as the boat started moving.

Gaby pushed on the throttle and the stern dipped slightly as the vessel picked up speed until they were racing across open water, the spotlight at the front lighting their path.

The Trident was exactly where it was supposed to be, drifting half a kilometer from the opening into the channel that connected Beaufont Lake with the Gulf of Mexico. He saw silhouetted figures moving on the main and upper decks as soon as they were within sight of it and wondered if one of them was manning the M240 right now, ready to blast away like they had back at the island.

The luxury yacht looked like a ghost ship afloat on the lake with all of its lights still switched off, and only the moonlight to hint at its presence. That is, until the people onboard saw the much smaller boat approaching with its spotlight shining in the darkness. The Trident’s industrial strength lights quickly blasted on at full intensity, nearly blinding Keo in the process.

All three of them (and Danny) had lost their radios in the rush to escape Song Island, so they didn’t have anything to contact the yacht with to let them know they were coming in. Fortunately, no one onboard had a happy trigger finger, and Keo was still in one piece when a figure on the main deck waved them in. Gaby, one hand shielding her eyes from the bright lights, guided the boat alongside the yacht and toward the back.

Two figures were waiting for them at the large swimming area as Gaby maneuvered over. There were already other crafts onboard, including the lightweight aluminum boats they had used to abandon the island. The two shadows turned out to be Maddie and Nate, and as they stepped into the large pool of floodlights, both were beaming back at them. The boy only had eyes for Gaby, who looked equally happy to see him alive.

True love in the apocalypse lives.

There might be hope for us yet, Gillian.

Gaby moved as close to the yacht as she dared before turning off the engine. They climbed out one by one, then Keo and Nate took Danny from Lara and carried him between them while Gaby stayed behind to help Maddie tie the twenty-footer up.

The ex-Ranger looked more dead than alive, and Nate knew it too when they grabbed the unconscious man. Keo didn’t realize he and Nate were rushing through the deck until he glanced back and saw Lara struggling to keep up with them, half-limping and half-running.

He looked over at Nate. The kid “got it” without Keo having to say a word, and they slowed down just enough for Lara to catch up.

“You okay?” he asked her.

She nodded, which was a big lie. He could see her trying to hide the pain. It was all over her face, even if she didn’t think it showed.

“You?” she asked.

“Better, now that I’m dry. Mostly dry, anyway.”

“Good,” she said, and looked away.

Keo didn’t say anything, but he pegged the chances that he’d be carrying both her and Danny over to Zoe in the next few minutes at fifty-fifty.

Nate’s radio squawked, and they heard Blaine’s voice. “Are they onboard?”

Nate unclipped the radio from his waist and handed it to Lara. “It’s for you.”

Lara took it and said into the radio, “We’re onboard, Blaine.”

“Thank God you guys are fine,” Blaine said. “We were seriously debating about going back there. I had the boat turned around and ready.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” She wiped at a bead of sweat and grimaced. “Is everyone onboard?”

“Almost everyone. Sarah’s here.”

“What about Stan and Roy? Danny and I sent them ahead with Sarah while we held the attackers back at the hotel.”

“They didn’t make it, Lara. Sarah said they were ambushed on the other side of the hotel, and Roy and Stan stayed behind to make sure she could reach the exit point.”

There was silence behind him. He thought about shooting one of those cursory, “You okay?” questions back at her, but didn’t. It would have been a stupid thing to do because she wasn’t okay. How could she be, when she had just found out two people she had sent ahead didn’t make it to their destination? Even seasoned commanders took the loss of their soldiers hard, and Lara wasn’t anywhere close to being a soldier.

He was surprised, though, that her voice was calm when she finally said, “Let’s go, Blaine.”

“Are you sure?” Blaine asked.

“Yes. Follow the plan.”

“What about Will? What about the island?”

There was a brief moment of silence before she said, “Follow the plan, Blaine.”

Blaine didn’t answer, but it didn’t take long for the Trident’s engine to power back on. Then the boat began turning, back toward the channel.

They left Danny inside the makeshift infirmary, which was really just one of the guest cabins, with the doctor, Zoe. The rest of the islanders, who had been on the Trident ever since the yacht moved from the beach to its hiding place, were confined to other rooms to keep them out of the way as Keo and the others got ready for the channel.

They had to brave it, regardless of who was waiting out there, because on the other side was the Gulf of Mexico, an ocean big enough that even the yacht could get lost in it. To get there, though, they would first have to traverse a 300-meter wide section of water, which would put them easily within shooting distance of well-armed men on both sides. Given the size of the yacht, once they started through there was no turning back.

Keo climbed up to the roof of the bridge with the M240. The damn thing was already heavy, but he had to struggle with the ammo belt the entire way, too. When he finally reached the highest point on the yacht, he crawled forward and laid down near the edge, over old dried blood and bullet holes he had put there himself. He tried looking through the holes and into the bridge below, but since Blaine had turned off the lights to make himself and Capitan Gage into harder targets, he only saw small halos of lights generated by the console illuminating nothing in particular.

He turned his attention back to the channel and situated himself behind the machine gun, getting as comfortable as possible, which was harder than he had expected with the wind whipping at him. Unfortunately he wasn’t nearly as dry from his long swim as he had thought earlier, and the combination made for a cold night out. He perched the MG on its tripod and peered through the iron sights. It would have been nice to have a night-vision scope. Then again, it would have been nice if he could fly and shoot laser beams out of his eyes, too.

He was unclipping the radio and about to set it on the roof next to him when it squawked and he heard Lara’s voice. “Keo, you set?”

“I’m set,” Keo said into the radio. “You?”

“Yeah.”

“No, I mean, can you do this?”

“Yes,” she said, with just a hint of exasperation. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who had asked that question. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. You’re the one up there in the open.”

“Thanks for reminding me. I had forgotten that I’m a goddamn idiot.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, with just a tiny hint of amusement in her voice. Then, “Blaine, maintain our current speed and keep the lights moving in case they try to put some kind of obstruction in the water.”

“Did you see any of that last time, Keo?” Blaine asked.

“I didn’t get that far,” Keo said.

“How many snipers?” Lara asked.

“Just the one.”

“But he had backup.”

“Yeah.”

“What are the chances they actually left someone behind?” Gaby asked.

“They’re not exactly tactical geniuses,” Nate said. “I think there’s a good chance they would have thrown everything they had at the island.”

“Let’s hope so,” Lara said. “Until then, everyone stay alert. No one blinks until we make it into the Gulf.”

Gaby and Nate were defending through windows on the port side, while Benny and Maddie had starboard. Lara was moving around the boat. Or limping around, anyway. Keo had caught her taking a couple of pills from a bottle after they finally delivered Danny to Zoe. He didn’t have to ask what she was taking. Lara might have been a (surprisingly) tough customer, but the way she was moving around, he kept expecting her to fall down at any moment.

She never did, though, which doubled his respect for her, and it was already high to begin with after last night.

“Entering the channel now,” Blaine announced.

Keo stiffened and pushed himself even flatter against the roof.

He hated coming back to a place where he had been shot before; it was the whole pushing your luck aspect of it that didn’t sit right with him. He wondered if Blaine and Gage could hear him moving around up here. Hopefully not. He didn’t want them to think he was fidgety, even though he was. The best-case scenario was that the height, combined with the spotlights blasting away around him instead of on him, would be just enough to make him invisible. He was heartened by the fact that when the Trident had first approached Song Island, there was a sniper up here and no one had spotted him.

He sucked in a deep breath and settled behind the M240 and did his best to ignore the wind that seemed to have picked up, causing the night to get even colder. It reminded him that he should have changed out of his wet clothes when he had the chance. Or at least put on dry boxers.

A boat the size of the Trident had a maximum speed of just fifteen knots, and fourteen when it wanted to cruise. Of course, it wasn’t going nearly that fast at the moment. Lara was right when she said to watch out for obstructions in the water. It wouldn’t have taken much to throw a barge or large fishing boat or two into their path. The soldiers would have been fully aware of the yacht’s existence and how it had entered Beaufont Lake previously. That was probably what had prompted them to put a sniper at the channel in the first place.

Swell. If it wasn’t for bad luck…

Unlike the last time he was here, the colored buoys that warned of the shallower ends of the channel reflected back the yacht’s bright lights, allowing them to easily navigate the dangerous terrain. He wondered if the soldiers knew about that or if it never occurred to them to sink the markers. Either way, he was glad to see them, because a boat the size of the Trident needed all the space (and depth) it could get.

He scanned the pitch-black buildings and swaying fields of grass to his left and right, wishing he had taken Nate’s spot down there instead. He’d be standing next to a pretty girl right now and not freezing his ass off up here. Even if there was a shooter lying in wait, he wasn’t going to see a damn thing until they started firing (hopefully not at him). Once that happened, and only then, could he unleash the machine gun’s 900 rounds a minute capability, which, admittedly, would do wonders to overcome his long-distance shooting handicap.

“How long is this thing?” Gaby asked through the radio.

“Gage says it’s just over eight kilometers,” Blaine said.

“How many is that in miles?” Carly asked.

“Five,” Lara said.

“And where are we now?” Gaby asked.

“He says just over a kilometer in,” Blaine said.

Keo reached for the radio. “Heads up. This is where they took their potshots at me.”

He imagined everyone below him sliding just a bit further away from the windows they were supposed to be manning. Where was Lara now? Probably still moving around, trying to pick out a target with her M4. Too bad they had lost the night-vision carbines back on the island. They could really have used those at the moment. Of course, they could have used a lot of—

Damn.

They were like cockroaches, sprinting through the tall fields of overgrown grass on both sides of him. More were darting in and out of the warehouses, and he swore there were a dozen or so climbing up one of the cranes. Thin silhouetted figures stood along the rooftops of buildings and watched them pass. The ones on land, racing along the sides of the channel, kept vanishing and materializing out of the moonlight.

There had to be thousands of them out there, just beyond the water’s edge to both sides of him. He shivered, reminding himself that if Gaby hadn’t found him in the water, he would have had to climb out of the lake and into…that.

“Jesus,” Gaby said through the radio, her voice barely audible. “You guys see what I’m seeing?”

“Yes,” Lara said. “Blaine, make sure Gage stays in the middle of the channel. Don’t veer too close to the edges.”

Keo remembered how the ghouls had dive-bombed into Beaufont Lake after him, knowing full well they were going to die but unable to stop themselves. He waited for these to do the same thing, and thank God the channel was over 300 meters wide and the Trident remained in the very center, as directed.

“Steady,” Lara was saying through the radio. “Stay on course. Steady…”

“Can they jump?” Nate asked.

“Yes,” Gaby said, and he thought her voice might have quivered a bit there.

“Stay on course,” Lara said again. “Stay on course…”

Keo tested the trigger on the M240 and waited for the creatures to start flinging themselves through the air. The ones back on Song Island had risked it — either because they had forgotten they couldn’t survive the water, or they had simply given in to their primal instincts.

“Dead, not stupid,” Blaine said through the radio.

“What?” Nate said.

“Something Will used to say,” Gaby said. “He always reminded us that the creatures were dead, but they weren’t stupid. It was his mantra, and something we should all keep in mind if we want to stay alive.”

Dead, not stupid. I like it.

It might have been the mention of Will’s name, because the radio went silent after that.

It turned out they didn’t have to worry about the ghouls or soldiers. There was no ambush, no obstructions in the water, and nothing at all to keep them from cruising straight into the Gulf of Mexico.

Keo sat up and looked back at the channel and the surrounding land mass, at the peaks of warehouses and towering cranes that had been abandoned a year ago. He could still see them racing back and forth, their thin forms flickering against the moonlight as if they weren’t actually real and might have just been a figment of his imagination.

He wished he were that imaginative.

He picked up the machine gun and climbed down from the roof.

Lara was leaning on the railing at the back of the upper deck, looking at the channel as the coastline of Louisiana was absorbed into the darkness. She looked at peace, even though he knew there was a lot going through that mind of hers at the moment. Not least of which was the ex-Ranger they had left behind who had never made it home.

He recalled their conversation when the other ex-Ranger and Gaby had arrived back on the island. He had asked about Will, and if she actually believed he was still alive out there.

“If you knew Will, you wouldn’t need to ask,” she had answered.

“So we’re going on faith, then?” was his smartass response.

“You honestly think your girlfriend actually made it to Santa Marie Island?” she had countered. “That she’s wearing a bikini and waiting on the beach every morning, waiting for you to finally show up?”

That last part had been a real kick in the balls, because she was right. He was — and had been for some time now — just operating on faith, like a sucker.

Keo put the M240 down on the floor and leaned against the railing next to her. He didn’t say anything, and she didn’t, either. They looked back at the dwindling coastline, almost completely swallowed up by the blackness now. Entering the Gulf of Mexico was like voyaging into the Bermuda Triangle, because at that moment they couldn’t see much of anything beyond the halos of the Trident’s lights.

Finally, he said, “You left a message for him back on the island?”

“I did,” she nodded. “It’s in a place only he’d think to look. When he finds it, he’ll know it’s from me.”

“So it’s only a matter of time before he follows you to the Bengals.”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to the Bengals?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll make a decision after we reach the refueling depot. After that…”

“What?” he said.

“Can you stay awhile, Keo? I know it’s asking a lot, after everything you’ve already done. But I have to ask anyway. Not for me, for the others. Can you stay a little longer?”

He knew it was coming, and he was fully prepared to tell her no. But standing there next to her, hearing the desperation in her voice and knowing this was the last thing she wanted to ask him, he couldn’t pull the trigger.

Christ, you’ve gotten soft.

Like a big ol marshmallow…

“How long?” he asked.

“As long as you can.”

He sighed. “Hell, why not. I’ve already invested a lot of time keeping you guys alive, wouldn’t want all my efforts to go to waste now.” He nodded. “I can stick around until the Ranger’s back on his feet.”

“That might take a while.”

“Then I guess it’ll take a while.”

“What about Gillian?”

“She’ll understand. Probably.”

“Thank you, Keo.”

“Sure.”

He looked out at the Gulf of Mexico churning against the Trident’s propellers. It would be a few more hours yet until sunrise, though for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel the internal conflict of watching darkness staring back at him.

Beside him, Lara was quiet for a long time before she finally said, “When you jumped into the lake, did you see what happened to the creatures?”

“They sank.”

“Yeah.”

“Silver, bodies of water, and…what was the third thing?”

“Ultraviolet light. But we haven’t been able to replicate what happened back at Starch.”

“Maybe you should go back there.”

She nodded. “One of these days. Right now, the lives of everyone on this boat is more important.”

She did a marvelous job of hiding it, but Keo could hear it in her voice and see it in the way she leaned against the railing. She was tired. Dead on her feet.

He knew how she felt; it had been months since he could say he was sufficiently rested. He hadn’t gotten any at the island, which was supposed to be safe. But out here, on this boat, maybe he could finally get a full night’s sleep.

“Why?” she said.

“Why?” he repeated.

“Why?”

“What’s the question?”

She gave him a knowing look, and he smiled back.

“You needed my help,” he said, and shrugged, hoping she’d let it go.

“We did,” she said. “We still do. In the worst way. But you didn’t have to do any of it. You don’t have to do it now. So why?”

“I’ve done things…” He hesitated, turning the words over, searching for the right ones. Or at least, the least objectionable ones. “I have a lot of blood on my hands, Lara. A lot. You have no idea.”

She didn’t interrupt and just listened.

“I didn’t use to do what I did for God, country, or apple pie,” he continued. “I wish I could say I was a true believer. Or at least a jingoistic moron. But I can’t.”

He paused again. Why was he even bothering to tell her any of this? What was the point? He guessed maybe he just needed to say them out loud more than he needed her to understand, because he didn’t really think she could understand.

“I have a lot to make up for,” Keo said. “I don’t know. Maybe I figured you and your friends were a good start.”

He stopped talking and waited for her to respond. He was both afraid and longed for it.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You already said that.”

“I don’t think I can ever say it enough.”

I’ll take it, he thought, and said, “You should get those wounds properly dressed. How’d you get shot twice, anyway?”

“I just got shot once. The other wound is shrapnel.”

“Hurts?”

“Everyone’s hurt. Pain lets you know you’re still alive.”

He smirked. “Daebak, Rambette.”

“One of these days you’re going to tell me what that really means.”

“Ask nicely and I might.”

“Deal.” She leaned over and surprised him by kissing him on the cheek. “Go get some rest, Keo. You’ve earned it,” she said, and pushed off the railing and hobbled through the door back into the upper deck lounge.

She moved gingerly, and though he couldn’t see her face, he imagined she was grimacing with every step. She wasn’t trying to hide the pain anymore, he realized, because there was just him around to see her vulnerable. He took that as a compliment and looked back at the ocean.

Or the big black spot where the ocean was supposed to be, anyway.

He thought about his mantra, the three sentences he had been basing his life on for the last ten years.

“See the world. Kill some people. Make some money.”

Not all that much had changed if he really thought about it. He was still seeing the world, still killing people, except no one was paying him to do it anymore. Or, well, not in stacks of green rectangular pieces of paper, anyway. Instead, there were just kisses on the cheek.

He’d take it.

CHAPTER 28 GABY

“Go, get out of here! Get out of here!”

She couldn’t stop thinking about him. The sound of his voice, the way he had screamed the words at her. There was a look on his face: terror, regret, and an absolute certainty that defied logic.

She didn’t know how he had done it, and she still didn’t despite running it over in her head again and again for the hundredth time. Josh had never been the strongest kid; it was one of the reasons they had defaulted to letting Matt call the shots after The Purge. There was no reason why Matt should have been the leader. He wasn’t older by that much and he certainly wasn’t smarter than either one of them. But he was bigger and stronger.

And yet, Josh had pushed the boat with them onboard off the beach by himself.

How? How did you do that, Josh?

She was reminded of all those stories about mothers lifting cars to save their child after an accident. Was that where Josh had summoned his strength? Had he dug deep because he wanted to save…

Her.

She found it difficult to reconcile the Josh in the uniform who had shot Danny (even if he did claim he didn’t know it was Danny) with the one that had ultimately saved her. They were the same man — and yet, so different. It didn’t make any sense, and her inability to understand him — what he was, what he had become, and what he had done at the very end on that stretch of beach — kept Gaby up all night.

After a while, she stopped trying to sleep and lay on her back, looking up at the ceiling. It was quiet outside despite the hum of the yacht’s engine everywhere. Even the gentle waves of the ocean under her didn’t lull her back to sleep.

She finally got up from the floor where she had been trying to sleep with nothing but a pillow and walked across the cabin she was sharing with some of the other girls. Bright lights from outside splashed through the windows and over Bonnie’s and Gwen’s snoring forms. The Trident ran on diesel but also had its own electric generator, which was how they still had lights now.

There were no signs of Jo, even though Gaby had seen her in the room earlier. Mary and the kids who had come with Bonnie were on the edges of the bed or spread out along the floor on the other side. She stepped around the bodies, then slipped out into the hallway, grateful she had gone to sleep — or had tried to go to sleep — with all her clothes on, including her gun belt. She didn’t have her rifle, but Gaby felt at ease enough not to go looking for it.

She stopped at another one of the cabins and peered inside at a pair of sleeping figures on the bed. She recognized the older woman who had arrived with Bonnie and Jo, sleeping with Sarah and her daughter, Jenny. The two women who had come to the island with Keo (their names escaped her) were sleeping on the floor at the foot of the bed. They were snoring, and she didn’t think anything could possibly wake them.

She closed the door back up and moved to the next one, Josh’s words still echoing inside her head.

“Go, get out of here! Get out of here!”

She found another door and opened it and leaned in.

Gaby smiled at Claire’s thin figure, curled up on a couch in the corner of the room with the FNH shotgun leaning against the wall next to her, within easy reach. She looked cold and her body was trembling slightly, even though the room was warm. Gaby slipped inside and picked up a blanket from the floor that the girl had kicked off her sometime during the night and re-draped it over Claire’s shivering body.

Gaby took a moment to look over at the bed where Annie and Milly were asleep in each other’s arms. Elise, who Gaby always thought of as Lara’s “other little sister,” was asleep with Vera, Carly’s sister, the two of them snoring lightly next to each other. They looked almost like twins.

She walked to the door and was about to step into the hallway when a small voice said, “Gaby.”

She stopped and looked back at Claire, peering at her through the semidarkness. “Go back to sleep.”

“Where are you going?” Claire asked. She reached up from under the blanket to rub her eyes.

“I just came over to make sure you were all right.”

“I’m fine,” Claire said, and smiled.

“I can see that.”

“Can’t sleep?”

Not for a while, Claire. I don’t think I’ll be able to close my eyes without having nightmares about tonight and all those men I killed on the beach. About Josh and what he did. About Danny, half-dead somewhere on this boat. And Will, out there somewhere, maybe dead, maybe alive…

She smiled at Claire. “No, but I’m going back to sleep now, and you should, too.”

Claire nodded and closed her eyes. She was asleep again almost immediately.

Gaby slipped into the hallway and closed the door soundlessly behind her.

She found Zoe in the last cabin up the hallway, keeping a vigil over Danny from a chair next to the bed. She was half-asleep and only perked up when Gaby opened the door and leaned in.

“Hey,” Zoe said, sitting up in the chair. “I know why I’m not asleep, so what’s your excuse?”

“I wanted to check up on him,” she said.

Danny was on the bed and Gaby was glad most of his body was hidden in shadows, because she wasn’t sure she could stand seeing him so helpless and near death. Danny and Will had always been invincible in her eyes, but after tonight she’d never be able to think of him in that way again. Will, too. She hadn’t realized it until now, but throughout the night she had always expected Will to come riding home just in the nick of time to save the day.

But he hadn’t, and Danny had proven less than bulletproof.

Zoe and Danny weren’t the only ones in the room. There was a third figure asleep on the floor at the foot of the bed. Carly, curled up into a ball with a blanket draped over her. She looked restless, and her lips moved as if she were stuck in some kind of endless conversation loop, though she made no sounds.

“She wouldn’t leave,” Zoe said. “I don’t think she’s had a lot of sleep these last few days.”

None of us have, Gaby thought, but said, “Has he woken up?”

“Not yet.”

Gaby leaned against the wall next to the door, just far enough from the bed so she couldn’t see Danny’s face. She remembered how unresponsive he had been during their race down the beach, and then on the ride over to the Trident. She had no trouble seeing the blood bag hanging from a steel coatrack next to the bed though. A tangle of wires connected it to one of Danny’s arms.

“How is he?” she asked.

“He lost a lot of blood,” Zoe said. “Unfortunately, only Lorelei is O-negative like Danny, so she was the only one who could give him a transfusion. But she’s not exactly Keo or Blaine, so Danny didn’t get as much as he needed. I’m going to need more from the poor girl in the morning if she’s up to it.”

“But he’ll be fine?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” She shook her head. “If he’s like Will, he’ll be too stubborn to die, but…,” Zoe paused and seemed to choose her words carefully when she said, “I’ll be able to tell for sure in the morning. I don’t know how she knew, but if Lara hadn’t insisted I had all of this stuff ready just in case things went bad…” She let it trail off, before finishing with, “I guess she knew what she was doing, after all.”

“Lara’s smart. Sometimes I don’t think she realizes just how smart she really is.”

“After tonight, I’m a believer.” Zoe stood up and walked to a mini fridge and took out a bottle of water. She took a sip and sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for some cold water right now.”

“The galley has a refrigerator. The water bottles we put in there should be cold.”

“Galley?”

“That’s what Maddie called the kitchen.”

“Oh.”

It was all part of Lara’s plan in case they had to abandon the island. Even before she and Danny had arrived, the others had been transferring some of the hotel’s inventory over to the boat and storing it. A lot of the nonperishable food, as well as supplies, ammo, and even vanity items like shirts, shoes, and personal hygiene were scattered among the rooms on all three decks. It had taken them hours, and according to Lara, they had only managed to move barely twenty percent of the island’s resources.

You would be proud of her, Will. Lara saved us. She saved all of us tonight.

Zoe sat back down in her chair. “I’ll keep an eye on him, Gaby. That’s why I’m here, remember? If things go bad between now and morning, I’ll do the best I can.”

“But you don’t know for sure if he’ll make it through the night.”

“I don’t usually believe in prayers, but if you do…well, it probably wouldn’t hurt.”

Prayers? That required faith, didn’t it?

She had faith in Will and Danny, but even that was shady these days.

“Go get some sleep,” Zoe said. “You look like you need it.”

Gaby nodded and left the room.

“Go, get out of here! Get out of here!”

Zoe was right; she did need sleep. But needing it and getting it weren’t the same things.

She climbed up the spiral staircase to the upper deck instead, stepping over some dried blood along the steps. She found Nate asleep on one of the couches in what looked like an entertainment lounge, alongside Benny. The two of them hadn’t exactly gotten along yesterday, and she wondered if they had been talking before falling asleep. Just what she needed — two men who both liked her exchanging war stories.

She glimpsed a figure moving along the railing outside through one of the windows, and Gaby stepped out just as Blaine rounded the corner.

“Hey, kid,” he said.

“Hey, Blaine. Anything?”

“Just water. Lots and lots of water.” He had his assault rifle slung over his back and a pair of night-vision binoculars hanging around his neck. “Can’t sleep?”

“Nope.”

“Yeah, me too.”

He leaned against the railing and looked out at nothing in particular. Their world at this moment began and ended in the halo of lights that encircled the Trident. It was as if the rest of the universe no longer existed; or, if it still did, it had gone into hiding.

“Did Lara say where we were going?” Gaby asked, leaning next to him.

“There was talk of some Caribbean island, but I don’t think she’s decided yet.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, I guess.”

“No?”

“Nah. One island’s the same as another.”

She didn’t think that was exactly true. Song Island had been unique.

“Where’s Lara?” she asked.

“In the captain’s quarters next to the bridge.”

“Thanks.”

As Gaby started off, Blaine stopped her with, “Hey, kid.” And when she looked back, he said, “I’m sorry about Josh.”

“Go, get out of here! Get out of here!”

“We move on,” Blaine said. “It’s hard at first, but eventually the pain hurts less. Don’t make the same mistakes I did by closing yourself off for too long. There are people who care about you.”

She gave him a pursed smile. He was talking about himself. About Sandra.

“Thanks, Blaine,” she said.

“Don’t mention it.”

Gaby went back inside.

She walked past Benny and Nate again, but this time stopped to linger on Nate for a moment. He looked peaceful, and she was glad he was still alive. Not just after tonight, but after the pawnshop. Had she ever made that clear to him? If not, she could always fix it, maybe starting this morning.

But that was for later.

Now, she continued on, finding the hallway at the back. She knocked on the first door that came up.

“It’s not locked,” a voice said from inside.

Lara was alone, looking over a heavily annotated map spread out on a table with a lamp turned on next to her. The rest of the room was dark except for sections that were lit up by moonlight filtering in through the windows.

Like Gaby, Lara hadn’t changed out of the blood-splattered clothes, and her shoulder and leg remained heavily bandaged. Gaby didn’t know how she was even still standing despite all the painkillers she had been taking throughout the night. Had she even gone to see Zoe yet? She had washed the dirt and grime (and blood) off her face, though there were still spots that she couldn’t get to or didn’t know were there.

Gaby made a mental note to talk to Keo and Blaine about forcing Lara to take a break — or at least get her off her feet. Now that Keo would be staying around for a while, they could afford to take turns getting some rest. God knew they all needed it. A lot of it.

“Can’t sleep either?” Lara asked.

Gaby shook her head. “You?”

“No rest for the weary.”

“Amen, sister.”

Gaby leaned against the table and looked down at the map.

“You checked up on Danny?” Lara asked.

“Just came from there.”

“How is he?”

“Zoe thinks it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start praying.”

“She doesn’t know him the way we do,” Lara said. “He’ll pull through. He has to. We need him now more than ever without—” She stopped herself in mid-sentence and didn’t finish.

We need him now more than ever without Will here, Gaby thought, finishing for her friend.

“Who’s watching our fearless captain?” she asked instead.

“Jo.”

“Jo?”

“Gage is handcuffed to the steering wheel. He’s not going anywhere or doing anything. I would have preferred Roy—” She stopped again and shook her head. “Dammit.”

“What?”

“No matter what we do, where we go, we keep losing people.”

Like Will. Dead or alive, somewhere out there by himself.

“He’ll be back,” Gaby said. She didn’t have to say who “he” was, because Lara already knew. “He’ll return to the island, find your message, and come look for us. Have faith.”

Lara nodded. “I do have faith.” Then, as if to convince herself, “I do have faith…”

Gaby reached over and took Lara’s hand and squeezed. They exchanged a brief half-smile. It was the best either one of them could manage at the moment.

“Is that it?” Gaby said, looking down at the map. It was covered in Lara’s notes, with a barely-visible dot in the middle of the ocean heavily circled. “Bengal Island?”

“Bengal Islands. There’s a main one and a smaller companion island.”

Lara hadn’t said it with a lot of enthusiasm — or, at least, not as much as Gaby had expected when talking about a place that was supposed to be their salvation.

“What’s wrong?” Gaby asked.

“We don’t know what’s waiting for us there,” she said, staring at the map as if she could see all the bad things lurking if she just stared hard and deep enough.

“Isn’t it like that everywhere?”

“Yes, but this place…it has everything we need, and everything we don’t want.”

“Like?”

“People with guns. A lot of guns. Bad people.”

“Badder than us?” Gaby smiled.

“According to Keo…yes. Way badder.”

They didn’t say anything for a moment, and Lara seemed to drift off with her thoughts again. They were standing across the table from each other, but her friend might as well be on the other side of the continent.

“So what do we do?” Gaby finally asked.

“We’ll figure it out,” Lara said. “Whatever happens, whatever’s out there, we’ll adapt and survive.”

“He said something similar to me back on Route 13.” Again, she didn’t have to say who “he” was. “He said, ‘Whatever happens, keep moving forward. Don’t stop to look back. Keep moving forward, because that’s how we survive.’”

Lara pursed her lips, then walked around the table and embraced her. Gaby wrapped as much of her arms around Lara as possible, careful to avoid her bandages. She was fighting back tears and could tell Lara was doing the same thing, Lara’s body trembling noticeably against hers.

“Adapt or perish,” Gaby said, just barely able to contain herself. “We should make a banner and hang it somewhere.”

Lara laughed and pulled back. The two of them took turns exchanging embarrassed smiles. “I like the sound of that.”

Gaby pushed off the table, needing to go before she ended up bawling like a little kid. She couldn’t allow that to happen, because that childish version of her had been excised and she couldn’t afford to let her back in. Not now.

“Anyway, I’m going to go keep Blaine company,” Gaby said. “I don’t think he’s slept at all the last couple of days.”

“That’s a good idea.”

Gaby walked to the door.

“Hey,” Lara said.

She stopped and looked back.

“He saved us,” Lara said. “Josh. Despite what he did to Danny, if he hadn’t pushed the boat off the beach…”

Gaby smiled at her and was surprised how easily it came out. “That was the Josh I always wanted you to meet. That was him back there. Not the one in the uniform, or the one that shot Danny, but the one that I grew up across the street from.”

“He was a good kid, that Josh.”

“He was.”

Lara nodded. “Okay, enough chick talk. Go check on Blaine, make sure he doesn’t nod off and drop into the Gulf of Mexico.”

“Aye aye, boss,” Gaby said, giving her a mock salute as she left.

She closed the door behind her and walked along the hallway, her footsteps seemingly louder than even the hum vibrating along every inch of the yacht, originating from the engine room three levels below.

“Whatever happens,” Will had said, “keep moving forward. Don’t stop to look back. Keep moving forward, because that’s how we survive.”

She owed it to Will to keep going. And Josh too, because for all his faults — and there were many — the boy she knew had returned to her last night when it mattered. And there was Nate, and Carly, and Danny, and everyone else onboard the Trident at the moment. She owed it to them, and to herself, too.

We’ll keep going, Will, because that’s what you taught us.

We’ll adapt, and we’ll keep going…and we’ll survive.