The Gates of Byzantium

CHAPTER 15 JOSH

Pros and cons: What were they?

Pros: They had fallen in with a group of pretty decent people, including two ex-Army Rangers. That was a major pro right there. Matt had been a good friend and a good partner, but Matt wasn’t an ex-Army Ranger. Or an ex-SWAT commando. Will and Danny were both.

Cons: He couldn’t think of any at the moment.

Conclusion: Things were looking up. Hell yeah.

It was the first time in a long time that Josh remembered sleeping all the way through the night. Usually his sleep was filled with nightmares and memories and fear, and he would oftentimes wake up in the middle of the night wondering if this was the day, if this was the moment he was going to die.

That wasn’t the case this morning as he opened his eyes and stared up at the LED lamps hanging from the ceiling, set to low so they didn’t blaze a hole through his eyeballs like they usually did. The basement was closed off from the rest of the universe, the better to keep it beyond the reach of the bloodsuckers. Or ghouls, as the others called them.

Josh sat up on his bedroll and looked over to his right, expecting to see Gaby, but she wasn’t there. Instead, he heard voices and saw the doors at the top of the stairs were open, the thick slabs of wood used to reinforce them leaning nearby. He was the only one still in the basement, a realization that made Josh panic momentarily until he remembered the voices from above him.

He wiped sleep from his eyes and glanced down at his watch: 8:16 a.m.

Jesus, he had slept for more than twelve hours? Was that even possible? He didn’t remember the last time he had slept for more than four or five hours at a time. All that waking up in the middle of the night, the nightmares, the fear, was not conducive to naps.

Josh stumbled up from his bedroll and looked for his tennis shoes. He found them nearby and pulled them on. He heard the voices traveling down from beyond the stairs again. Just the women.

Nice going, chump. Way to make a first impression.

He climbed up the stairs and slipped out through the basement doors and looked sheepishly around. Gaby sat on one of the pews playing some kind of clapping game with Elise and Vera. Carly was nearby watching them, one of those pump-action shotguns hanging off her shoulder from a strap. Lara walked back from the front of the church, also with a shotgun hanging off her shoulder. They looked like road-weary warriors, he thought, feeling a touch unmanly with just the Glock handgun stuffed in his front waistband.

Gaby looked over at him and smiled. “Look who’s finally awake. We thought you were going to sleep forever.”

“Why didn’t anyone wake me?” he asked, slightly indignant.

“You looked like you needed all the sleep you could get,” Carly said. “Besides, there’s nothing pressing to do. Breakfast is over there,” she added, pointing at some food laid out on a long bench nearby.

Josh was about to tell them he wasn’t hungry when his stomach growled involuntarily, just low enough that only he could hear. Which was good, because he didn’t really need the added embarrassment of a rumbling, empty stomach, too.

He walked over to the table and grabbed some Vienna sausages and was surprised to see fresh bread on a plate. Well, half a loaf, anyway. He nibbled on it and was shocked by how good it tasted. Of course, that could just have been the fact that it was the first piece of fresh bread he had eaten in months.

“Enjoy it,” Carly said, “it’s pretty much the last loaf we’ll be making for a while.”

“How did you make this?”

“It’s bread, Josh, not gold from wine,” Carly said, amused. “All you need is dough and fire. We have both. Well, we had both. Kind of short on the dough part at the moment.”

“Eat up,” Lara said. “We already ate most of it — it’s only fair you get the final piece.”

He discovered he was actually starving. Josh grabbed some bottled water, and even warm as always, it tasted almost as good as the bread going down.

“Where’s Will and Danny?” he asked.

“They went out to do some scouting,” Lara said. “They’ll be back soon.”

“Any word on Blaine or Sandra?”

“No, unfortunately.” Lara looked at him for a moment, then asked, “Is that comfortable?”

She was looking at the gun in his waistband.

“Not really,” he said, slightly embarrassed again.

“Come with me.”

He grabbed the remaining piece of Vienna sausage and followed her back down to the basement. “These sausages are really good,” he said, taking the final bite and wiping his fingers on his cargo pants.

“Those are the last ones, too. We’re reaching lots of ‘last ones’ these days.”

“Maybe Song Island has more.”

“Hope springs eternal.”

“And fish. They’d have fish, don’t you think? Being on an island? I could go for some fish.”

“What about lobsters while we’re at it?”

“Yeah, those too. Why not?”

Lara led him to their stack of plastic moving crates. She opened one and pulled out a gun belt with a holster, which she handed to him. “It beats walking around with a gun stuffed down your front waistband.”

Josh put it on. It was one size fits all. He cinched it, then tried holstering the Glock. The belt fit just fine, and it even had a flap to flick over the gun so it didn’t fall out of the holster. There were also small pouches in the back and sides.

“Ammo,” Lara said, and handed him four magazines. “The ones with ‘X’ on the side are silver bullets. The ones without are plain bullets.”

“The silver bullets actually work?”

She nodded. “They really, really work.”

He slipped the magazines into the pouches and instantly noticed the difference in weight.

Lara smiled at him. “Look at you. Bad-ass Josh.”

He grinned back at her. “If only I had this in high school.”

“If you did, I’d be reading about you in the news, Josh.”

He laughed. “Oh, right.”

He went out into the parking lot with Lara when Will and Danny were half a mile from the church. Josh blinked in the sun, the heat already doing its job making his pants and shirt stick to him, and it was just morning. It would get much, much hotter in a few more hours.

They watched the black Ford Ranger, with its missing windows and duct-tape-covered windshield, turn into the parking lot and stop in front of them. Danny was driving, Will in the passenger seat.

Lara walked over to Will as he climbed out with his rifle.

Danny walked around the hood of the truck, grinning at Josh. “Look at you, all grown up and holstered. I definitely don’t want to mess with you now.”

Josh felt his cheeks flushing a bit. “Thanks, I guess.”

“We’re doing some shopping later. You should tag along.”

“I will,” Josh nodded.

“Good,” Danny said, and smacked him on the shoulder, so hard that Josh flinched a little.

They gathered back in the parking lot an hour later, after Will and Danny had eaten. Josh felt a little underdressed next to the two men, who were both wearing some kind of slimmed-down version of an assault vest. They had radios connected to throat mics, and they carried rifles and shotguns. He only had the Glock in a hip holster.

Danny, as if reading his mind, grinned. “Don’t worry, kid, one of these days you’ll get a cool assault vest just like us. And a shotgun, too, if you’re a really good boy.”

“Gee thanks, Dad,” Josh said, playing along.

Danny laughed and said to Will, “I like the kid, he’s got spunk.”

“Is that what he has? Spunk?” Will asked.

“Either that, or Cheetos.” Danny glanced back at Josh. “You got spunk or Cheetos, kid?”

“I’ll go with spunk,” Josh said.

“Spunk it is.”

Danny climbed in behind the wheel and Will took the front passenger seat. Josh slipped into the back, feeling like he was about to travel somewhere with mom and dad all over again. Except his new mom and dad were heavily armed and had probably killed a lot of people before the end of the world, which made their “Don’t make me stop this car” a hell of a lot more menacing.

Josh saw Will press a Push-to-Talk switch connected to his radio and say into the throat mic, “We’re good to go.” He listened, then responded, “See you in a few.”

“Got any more of those?” Josh asked.

“What’s that?” Will said, looking over his shoulder.

“Throat mics. They look cool.”

“That’s because they are cool,” Danny said.

“Sorry, kid,” Will said. “We had two other pairs but lost them a while back. If we pick up some more, we’ll let you know.”

“Besides,” Danny said, “they wouldn’t look nearly as cool if everyone had one.”

“Yeah, that, too.” Will nodded.

“You guys are messing with me, aren’t you?” Josh asked.

“Not at all,” Will said.

“Of course we are,” Danny said, backing them out of the parking lot and turning onto the empty road.

Danny drove south, back in the direction they had come last night. Josh caught sight of an RV park to their right, then a chicken fast food joint to their left with two cars forever frozen in the drive-through lane. He wondered how that had gone down, with the car’s occupants pulling up to the drive-through speaker box only to get something they weren’t expecting.

Must have been one hell of a surprise. I went out for chicken and all I got was dead.

They drove for another couple of minutes, passing a McDonald’s, a Burger King, and a pair of Valero gas stations on opposite ends of the same block, which had to be a first. There was a hardware store with a truck buried in the side wall and a battered motorcycle along the shoulder, missing its front tire.

Finally, Danny slowed down, passing a car wash to their left. He maneuvered around an overturned white Volkswagen Josh hadn’t seen yesterday. Danny kept going for about twenty more yards, then turned into a parking lot. Josh glanced up at the big sign as they drove under it: “Lancing Veterinary Clinic.”

“Someone has a sick dog?” he asked.

“Vets keep a lot of drugs inside,” Will said. “Small clinics like this one are always preferable to the hospitals. They’re too big, too many dark rooms. A place like this carries less risk.”

“Yeah, but animal drugs?”

“It’s just labels, and what can and can’t be sold to humans without a prescription. Antibiotics, for instance. Think about it this way: what do they test most drugs on first, before they sell them to you and me?”

“Animals,” Josh said.

“Exactly.”

“With just mild chances of barking side effects,” Danny said. “Woof. Excuse me, ahem.”

There were two vehicles in front of the brownstone building, a blue Honda with its front windows rolled down and a slightly beat-up moped with the key still in the ignition. Danny parked next to the moped and they climbed out, Will and Danny slipping their rifles behind them and unslinging the shotguns. Danny grabbed one of the portable LED lamps and clipped it behind his gun belt, which looked much heavier than the one Josh was wearing.

“Close-quarter action calls for shotguns,” Danny said. “Better maneuverability and spreading power.”

“Josh,” Will said, handing him an empty gym bag. “Stick with us for now.”

Josh took the gym bag and nodded. He opened it and saw a second bag inside.

Will tugged open the glass door of the clinic. It pulled free without a fight for a brief second before the spring pulled it close again. They looked through the glass and the layer of dirt smeared on it at the empty front lobby. There was enough sunlight to make out chairs against the front wall, a receptionist desk across from them, and a hallway on the left side.

Will took hold of the door handle again and waited for a beat while Danny got into position. When Will pulled the door open this time, Danny slipped smoothly inside, raising his shotgun. Will nodded at Josh, who darted in after Danny. Will was right behind him as a brief wind twisted inside the room just before the door softly slid shut after them.

A large swath of brownish color (dried blood) covered one side of the wall, parts of it hidden in dark shadows. Josh heard clicking sounds and saw lights appearing from underneath the barrels of Will’s and Danny’s shotguns.

Gotta get me one of those, too.

Danny moved toward the reception desk, then peeked over it, his shotgun always moving in front of him. He pulled his head back and headed toward the hallway to their left. Josh followed, Will bringing up the rear. Sunlight illuminated most of the hallway, and what they couldn’t see at first, Will’s and Danny’s flashlights illuminated.

It was a small clinic, with four doors along the hallway, including a restroom at the very back. They passed a door marked “Office” to their right, then came up to one marked “Exam Room.”

Danny put his hand on the door of the exam room and leaned against the wood to listen. After a while, he pulled his head back. “Did I tell you I used to have a dog?”

“No,” Will said.

Danny threw the door open and Will slipped inside, disappearing for a brief moment before there was a loud boom that made Josh flinch. Then he heard what sounded like something landing on a table. He peered into the room and saw a ghoul lying half-on and half-off the end of an exam table, half of its body sheared by buckshot. It looked dead, thick black blood dripping onto the polished tile floor under it.

Silver buckshot. It actually works.

Suck on that, mofos!

Danny went into the exam room and unclipped the LED lamp from his belt. He turned it on to full power and the room instantly swelled with light. Danny set the lamp on a counter as they began rummaging through drawers and shelves.

“What are we looking for?” Josh asked.

“Syringes, gauze, gloves, small vials of medicine,” Will said. “Anything that looks useful goes into the bag. Lara will pick through it later.”

Josh carefully stepped around the dripping ghoul blood and opened the closest drawer. He looked in at boxes of gloves and gauze tape stacked in neat rolls. He tossed them into the bag. Will and Danny put everything they found on the counters, and Josh scooped them up, careful with unopened boxes containing small vials. They quickly filled the bag, and Josh had to open the second gym bag. He began filling that one up, too.

“His name was Rocky,” Danny was saying. “Cutest dog you’ll ever see. He had this long tail he loved to wag. And he wagged and wagged and wagged. I thought about calling him Waggler, but you know, that would have been weird.”

“Cause Rocky isn’t weird for a dog,” Will said.

“It’s not weirder than Waggler. I mean, can you imagine? ‘Come here, Waggler! Come here, Waggler!’ That’s just weird, man.”

“So what happened to Waggler?”

“You mean Rocky.”

“Right, Rocky.”

“Well, everything was just fine and dandy, until one day my uncle accidentally ran him over. Or at least, he said it was an accident. Personally I thought the old-timer had it in for Rocky.”

“Ouch.”

“That’s what it said.”

Josh chuckled.

“I like this kid,” Danny said.

“Don’t encourage him,” Will said.

The third and last door in the hallway was a janitor’s closet that doubled as a garbage room of sorts, with old, used items in cinched garbage bags along a metal shelf. They opened one of the bags and found used rags. Another yielded used sponges.

With two gym bags full of syringes, pill bottles, and other medical supplies, they headed back to the front lobby. Josh carried one bag while Will carried the other. They were in the parking lot and under the bright, hot sun again, and Josh was feeling good. He had done his part and had even learned that silver actually worked on the ghouls, just as promised. The idea that he could finally kill these things made him strangely giddy.

Suddenly both Will and Danny froze in front of him, and as Josh tried to figure out why, he heard the distant echoes of gunfire in the air. It didn’t take long to realize where it was coming from.

The church.

“It’s Lara,” Will said. He was holding one hand over his right ear — over the earbud. “Someone’s attacking the church.”

They ran to the truck. Josh hadn’t even gotten all the way inside when Danny turned on the engine and put the car in reverse and stepped on the gas. Josh careened across his seat, the gym bag falling to the floor. He picked himself back up as the truck sped out of the parking lot and onto the road, swerving around the same overturned Volkswagen.

“We’re coming,” Will said calmly into his throat mic.

Jesus, he’s calm.

“ETA ten minutes,” Will said.

“Five minutes,” Danny said, gunning the gas. Josh heard the truck roar loudly under them.

“Five minutes,” Will repeated into the radio. “Hold on, we’re coming.”

The truck shot forward and Josh toppled in his seat a second time.

Danny maneuvered around cars in the road, swiping other vehicles that he couldn’t get around fast enough. Soon he was driving almost entirely on the shoulder, the buildings around them flashing by in a blur.

Will had put down his shotgun and was unslinging his rifle. His voice, still unfathomably calm: “Josh, when we get to the church, you need to stay in the truck.”

“Gaby’s in there,” Josh said.

“Have you ever shot someone before?”

I shot my friend Matt, he thought, but said instead, “No.”

“Stay in the truck,” Will said, and the hard, unmistakable, “Don’t argue with me” tone in his voice reminded Josh so much of his father.

Josh nodded. He wondered if he was secretly relieved and just didn’t have the courage to admit it. After all, they were running toward gunfire. It wasn’t something he had ever pictured himself doing. Ever.

More gunshots. Louder somehow, more persistent.

“Danny, faster,” Will said.

Danny didn’t answer, but he somehow coerced the truck into going even faster. Josh didn’t think that was possible, but he was wrong. The truck started to shake violently as they tore down the street.