The Gates of Byzantium

CHAPTER 29 JOSH

Pros and cons: What were they?

Pros: They had taken the island from Tom, Karen, and Marcus. Tom was dead, which was a major plus. Josh didn’t ever want to deal with that asshole again, and stumbling across his body on the second floor of the Tower hadn’t disturbed him nearly as much as he had thought it would. Marcus was also dead, which to a lesser extent Josh supposed was a good thing. The others, like Sarah, had just gone along in order to survive. Josh could understand that. Hell, he might have done the same thing if Gaby’s life were at stake.

Cons: Karen was unaccounted for. Which was disturbing, because Karen was, to hear Sarah tell it, the real brains of the operation. Josh didn’t doubt that at all. Karen looked like the kind of woman who would barter and trade for what she needed, and survival was a hell of a need. So he didn’t like having her out there, running around in the dark. Who knew what she was up to?

Conclusion: It could be worse.

He was up on the third floor of the Tower, along with Gaby. Carly and the girls were below them on the second floor, with the girls still sound asleep on the cot Tom used as his bed. The second floor had been a mess when they had arrived, with a small pool of blood where Tom lay, a neat hole in his forehead. The real mess was on the wall, where his brain had splattered when Will had shot him.

Will had ordered them to toss Tom’s body out the window to save them the trouble of carrying it down the narrow spiral staircase. Josh thought he would feel a little queasy about just tossing Tom out the window, but he felt strangely okay with it as he watched the corpse tumble down the side of the Tower to land in a bush. Well, after it bounced off the bulging base of the Tower.

Instead of cleaning up the blood, they threw a towel over it and picked up the bookcase and tossed the books and Playboy magazines and board games back on the shelves. You could tell there had been a fight, but it wasn’t like Elise or Vera noticed as they snored. Carly, for her part, sat and watched them sleep with a shotgun leaning against the wall next to her. She looked too tired to care that someone had been shot in the room not all that long ago.

The radio broadcast that had lured them to Song Island came from a simple setup that looked like something he could have put together back in his bedroom in Ridley with parts from the local Radio Shack. A thirty-inch LED monitor sat in front of a tower hard drive and keyboard, with a broadcasting microphone hanging from a thin metal arm bracket. There was a pile of black cords under the table, hooked into multiple jacks along the wall. The monitor showed a program running over a Windows 7 desktop.

Microsoft. End of the world or bust.

Will radioed them right away, asking if they had seen Karen from the windows. They hadn’t.

“Keep an eye out and let me know if you see anything on or off the island,” Will said.

“Will do,” Josh said.

Gaby looked over at the computer setup, then grinned at him. “Didn’t you used to have something like this at home?”

“Something like this, yeah. Wait, when were you in my room?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she said, and gave him a mischievous wink.

Like on the second floor, there were four windows around them, spaced out to give them an excellent, all-encompassing view of the island and beyond. They were both armed with night-vision binoculars that were hanging from hooks along the wall when they arrived. Gaby was over on the south window, which faced the beach. She leaned the Remington shotgun against the wall next to her and tossed two ammo pouches filled with shells on the floor.

“Have you ever fired that shotgun before?” he asked.

“No,” Gaby said, “but it can’t be that hard. Just point and shoot, right?”

“I guess.”

“Danny says there’s supposed to be a big kick.”

She looked comfortable with the shotgun. He hadn’t even wanted to touch the thing. It looked dangerous, like it could go off in his hands by accident if he touched it the wrong way. The Glock, by comparison, looked innocuous.

Josh turned back to the west window and began scanning the trees in the distance with his binoculars. This side was mostly dark forest, with only the occasional glint of moonlight against the solar panels ringing the island.

“See anything?” he asked.

“Water,” Gaby said.

“I got more water on this side.”

“This is not a competition, Josh.”

“I win.”

She laughed.

He was thinking about how much he liked the sound of her laughter when he saw a strangely bright, colored figure darting through the trees in the pitch-darkness.

Karen.

“Ghouls,” Gaby said breathlessly. “Oh my God, there are ghouls on the island.”

Josh didn’t believe her at first, because it was absurd. Wasn’t it? They had seen night fall, and there were no ghouls. Even if Song Island was a trap, he had seen night come with his own eyes and there hadn’t been any ghouls.

So why would there be ghouls now? It didn’t make any sense.

But there they were, flowing across the open grass, dark black shapes rendered clear as day in the fluorescent green neon of his night-vision binoculars.

Ghouls!

There were so many they swallowed up the ground underneath them, dark figures merging perfectly with the surrounding night. They crashed out of the power station and across the clearing and smashed into the wall of trees and seemed to stampede anything and everything in their path.

The radio in Josh’s hand squawked, and he heard Will’s voice shouting (but somehow calm, though Josh didn’t know how that was even possible): “We’re taking them through the hotel to slow them down! Let anyone into the Tower who isn’t undead!”

“Roger that,” Josh said, though he wasn’t sure if what he actually said was “Roger that” or something else. He might have even babbled something unintelligible. It was hard to tell because his heart was pounding and his fingers were numb.

There are ghouls on the island!

Song Island isn’t safe!

He heard movement behind him and looked back and saw that Carly was standing behind them. When did she even come up here? Then she was moving across the room, snatching up the Remington shotgun Gaby had leaned against the wall. She picked up the pouches of ammo as well and walked back to them.

He watched helplessly as Carly took the radio out of his hand and replaced it with the shotgun and ammo, handing the radio to Gaby. “Gaby, you stay up here and keep in communication with Will and Danny. They might need a spotter. That’s you.” She looked over at him, eyes hard, in full command. “Josh, you come downstairs with me. Understand?”

He heard Gaby, surprisingly calm, reply, “Okay, go.”

Then he was moving, following Carly to the door in the floor and hurrying down the narrow spiral staircase to the second floor. The girls were up and sitting on the cot, rubbing at their eyes, looking disoriented.

“Stay up here, girls, and don’t move,” Carly said. “Don’t go near the windows. Don’t move from that cot. Understand?”

They nodded back and didn’t argue. Josh knew how they felt. At that moment, Carly sounded like the voice of God.

Carly snatched up her shotgun from the wall, then disappeared through the door. He heard her moving down the spiral staircase. “Josh, come on!”

He hurried after her. The new set of metal steps under him felt flimsy and undependable all of a sudden. Carly was in front, moving downward with purpose.

“Hurry, Josh,” Carly said between breaths.

He followed her down to the first floor, surprised he didn’t trip or fall to his death on the way down. He could barely feel his legs moving. It didn’t help that he could hear gunshots the whole time. Booming gunshots. Shotguns.

They’re getting closer, leading them right to us…

“Stay calm,” Carly said.

He nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

She opened the heavy wooden door and stepped outside. Josh followed obediently, fumbling with the shotgun in his hands.

He knew how a shotgun worked. You pulled the slide back to load a shell into the chamber and you squeezed the trigger. It wasn’t all that hard. Even the dumbest person alive could pull it off. All you needed was the strength to work the slide — or whatever it was called — because the trigger was easy. He had fired a gun before. A shotgun wouldn’t really be that much harder, would it?

They stepped outside, into the night air. It had gotten more humid. How was that possible? It had felt almost chilly back on the third floor. Maybe it was the altitude?

The crash of gunshots snapped Josh back to the present. They were even closer now, coming from within the hotel, less than fifty yards from their position. When Josh looked in the direction of the building, he saw a dark figure emerge from the blackness.

A familiar voice, shouting at them, “Don’t shoot! Please don’t shoot!”

Sarah appeared in a circle of bright LED lights. She was holding Jenny in her arms, the girl clutching her mother’s neck, small face buried in Sarah’s chest. Sarah was running as fast as she could, but to Josh it looked like she was moving in quicksand. Why was she running so slowly? Didn’t she know what was coming?

Josh didn’t remember exactly when he made the decision, but he was suddenly racing toward Sarah, the shotgun slung over his back, the big heavy barrel tapping him over and over again.

Sarah ran straight to him.

“Give her to me!” Josh shouted.

Sarah pried Jenny loose and handed the girl to him. Josh took her, could feel the girl wiggling in his arms, fighting, but he ignored her resistance and began racing back toward the Tower, Sarah running next to him. He was actually running faster than her, even with Jenny and the shotgun, and had to slow down for her to catch up. She was tired and out of breath, but she pushed forward until they finally reached Carly and the Tower.

“Where are the others?” Carly shouted at them.

“I don’t know!” Sarah shouted back.

“Get inside!”

Josh handed Jenny back to her mother and Sarah gave him a grateful nod before she disappeared into the Tower. Josh wished he were right behind her instead of standing out here in the dark. Even with the LED floodlights pouring down from the third-floor windows, he still felt like he was swimming blind.

Josh looked back toward the hotel, then suddenly heard a new sound.

Rifles.

Will and Danny were using their assault rifles now. What did that mean?

He didn’t have to wait long to find out. They heard Gaby’s voice from directly above them. She was leaning out the window, radio in one hand. “They’re coming! Get ready!”

Josh was going to ask “Who?” when he saw them.

“The roof!” Gaby shouted above them.

He thought he was prepared for it, but he was wrong. He stopped breathing at the sight of them racing across the rooftop of the hotel, almost gliding, dodging and leaping and weaving around parts of the construction that had never — and would never — be finished. He had forgotten how sickly they looked, how amazingly fast and preternatural their movements were. They seemed to come out of nowhere, spat out by the night. One second there was nothing, and then the next, the island was bristling with them.

My God, there’s so many…

Then they weren’t just on the roof anymore. They were all over the hotel grounds, too, swarming around the big building in their path. There were so many that at first he had trouble separating them from the bushes and grass and trees. But then it became easier as they began darting in and out of the LED lights. They were converging on the hotel, almost as if they hadn’t noticed the Tower existed yet. The continuous, smashing sounds of gunfire were drawing them like moths to flame.

Will and the others are still in there.

“Get ready!” Carly shouted.

Josh lifted the shotgun up to his shoulder. What was that Gaby had said? “There’s supposed to be a big kick.”

Okay. No problem. He was smart. Smarter than most people his age. Smarter than most people older than him. He could handle the recoil of a shotgun as long as he knew it was coming. And he knew it was coming.

“Josh,” Carly said, her voice strangely clear despite the fog dominating his brain at the moment. “Don’t shoot until you see the black of their eyes. The shotgun has a limited range. Understand?”

“Yes,” he said hoarsely.

The sound of gunfire was constant, a steady stream of shots that sounded closer and closer with every passing second. Were Danny and Will even reloading? Every second seemed to be filled with gunfire. How was that even possible?

“Back exit!” Gaby shouted from above.

Josh looked toward the back of the hotel and saw figures racing through the inky blackness, then the stabbing flames of a gun firing backward. Handguns. They were down to handguns now.

That’s not good. That’s not good at all.

Will and Lara emerged out of the shadows, running as fast as they could. Will was loading his Glock as he ran, the M4A1 bouncing wildly behind his back. Lara was trying desperately to keep up, but falling behind. Each time she fell too far back, Will slowed down and turned and shot into the darkness.

Josh saw ghouls leaping off the rooftop behind them.

“Oh, fuck,” Carly whispered.

Josh pried his eyes away from the back of the hotel. They were moving so fast, and there were so many of them, it was hard not to see them, rampaging across the hotel grounds. They darted in and out of the halos of the scattered lampposts, the lights flickering off their smooth, hairless, and malformed bodies. They were still far away, but getting closer. Josh was reminded of a stampeding herd of cattle.

Is the ground trembling? I swear the ground is trembling.

There was a loud boom next to him. It was so close he thought he had gone instantly deaf, but that proved false when he heard a second boom and turned to see Carly firing into the shadows to her left. Josh watched with odd fascination as two ghouls emerging from the darkness evaporated before his eyes, their skin ripped free from shiny white bone as Carly’s shotgun blasts tore into them.

Oh God, how did they get so close?

Then he heard them coming from his right. He turned and saw hollow black eyes moving quickly across the darkness and into the light.

Two eyes — no, four — no, six—

Josh lifted the shotgun and thought, There’s going to be a kick, prepare for the kick, and pulled the trigger.

Immediately he was sure his shoulder was dislocated. He grunted through the pain and saw the first ghoul come unglued under the onslaught of buckshot. He hadn’t fully grasped what had happened to the creature — it was there one second and gone the next — when two more instantly appeared and sprinted across the distance at him.

He worked the slide and fired again and watched buckshot catch both ghouls in mid-stride and exploding chunks of skin scattering into the night air. The creatures didn’t make a sound, not even a squeak, as they fell, but the sight of them dying (Dying!) was something to behold. He recalled the ghoul in the back of the store in Lancing where Matt was bitten, watching them with its head hanging off its shoulder, refusing to die.

Not here. Not this time. Not against silver.

Suck on that, mofos!

Suddenly the pain in his shoulder didn’t hurt so much anymore, and the shotgun felt lighter in his hands.

Carly shouted next to him, “Hurry up!”

Will and Lara were twenty yards away and getting closer. As Will neared them, Josh saw that his clothes were covered in thick clumps of black goo. Lara was running next to Will, trying to keep up. Will was purposely staying with her, never straying too far ahead.

There was another figure behind Will and Lara. Sienna, Jake’s girlfriend. She wore pajamas and a T-shirt and there was a horrified expression on her face as she ran. Josh wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying. It might have been both, or neither.

“Where’s Danny?” Carly shouted.

As soon as she said it, Danny appeared behind Sienna. He was running calmly but fast, loading his Glock at the same time. Like Will, Danny’s clothes and parts of his face were covered in the black, gooey substance. Danny reached up and wiped a thick slab of the goop off his face, flicking it into the grass as he ran.

“Go go go!” Danny shouted, to no one in particular.

“Shotgun!” Will yelled.

Carly tossed the shotgun at him and Will snatched it out of the air. He immediately stopped and spun and fired, erasing a wall of ghouls emerging out of the night to his left. Josh hadn’t even seen them until Will fired, the flames from the shotgun lighting them up in the half-second it took the buckshot to rip into them.

Then Lara was there, and Sienna, and they ran into the open Tower door behind him.

Then Danny, ten yards away, shouting, “Shotgun!”

Josh didn’t think, he just reacted, and tossed the shotgun at Danny. But he must have had too much adrenaline pumping through him, because the weapon sailed right over Danny’s head. Danny glanced back, following the trajectory of the shotgun as it landed and disappeared into the grass behind him.

Will was backing up toward them, firing into the darkness. “Go go go!”

Danny didn’t go back for the shotgun. He kept coming, grabbed Carly with one hand, and lunged for the door. Josh followed, heard Will firing one last time before he, too, was suddenly behind Josh and pushing him inside.

Josh lost his balance and sprawled on the hard concrete floor and rolled over, saw Danny slamming the door shut behind them, shoving the deadbolt into place just as bang! something crashed into the thick wood on the other side.

“Josh,” Carly said, standing next to him.

She grabbed his arm and pulled him up. Josh felt tired and heavy, but somehow she managed to get him up anyway. Carly led him away from the door as Will and Danny carried the heavy bookcase over, grunting with the effort. Lara hurried over to help, flinching noticeably with pain, and they slammed it down against the door, even as the pounding increased in volume and urgency.

“Second floor,” Will said calmly. “Go go go.”

They hurried up the flight of stairs, moving in a train. Squeezed in between Carly behind him and Sienna in front of him, Josh felt his feet moving on automatic pilot. Sienna was crying, tears flooding down her cheeks, though he couldn’t hear her over the pounding noise from below and the loud roaring in his ears.

“Keep moving, Josh,” Carly said behind him.

Farther up the staircase, he glanced down and saw Danny crouched next to the open basement door, reaching down and pulling out weapons and boxes of ammo that Will was passing up to him from somewhere inside the opening. The beam of a flashlight flickered back and forth from inside the basement.

“Hurry,” a voice said above them. Josh looked up and saw Gaby leaning through the open second-floor door.

The others were waiting, with Elise and Vera peering down from the third-floor door above them. Sienna had found the cot and was sitting on it, crying quietly to herself. Lara walked over and put her arms around the other woman and Sienna broke down, tears splashing across Lara’s already sweat-stained shirt.

“Where’re Danny and Will?” Gaby asked.

“They’re coming,” Carly said. “Where’s Sarah?”

“Third floor. That’s where we should all be.”

“Go. I’ll wait for them.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, go,” Carly said.

Lara took Sienna up first, the other woman stumbling, shell-shocked, every step of the way.

Gaby was also on her way up when she realized Josh hadn’t moved and looked back. “Josh, come on.”

“I’ll be right up,” he said.

“Hurry,” she said, and climbed the stairs.

Josh stayed behind. He wasn’t sure why, but the idea of abandoning Carly now didn’t seem right. So he didn’t move and waited alongside her.

The pounding from below them went on and on. Relentless.

“Can they climb?” he asked nervously.

“Yes,” she said, “but not if there’s nothing to hang onto. Is there anything to hang onto out there?”

He shook his head. The Tower was a smooth conical structure that got smaller as it got taller. And it went pretty tall. But he didn’t recall anything that could be used as handholds.

Carly smiled at him. “You did good out there.”

“Thanks.”

“For a kid.”

He managed a decent grin back at her.

Will and Danny finally arrived, climbing through the door in the floor. They were carrying duffel bags that looked heavy.

Josh’s eyes went to the front door. It was still closed, and the bookcase was still pressed against it, but he could see the thick oak shelves trembling each time the ghouls smashed into the door. It had begun to slide half an inch at a time with each impact, moving back a little every time…

Will slammed the floor door shut, so loudly Josh jumped a bit. Will and Danny picked up the bookcase and moved it over, then laid it on top of the door. They took a step back and exchanged a look.

“That’s not going to hold,” Danny said.

“Probably not,” Will nodded. “What else we got?”

“The computers on the third floor,” Josh said quickly.

“What else?”

Danny looked over at Josh and grinned through the mask of dripping black ghoul blood and flesh. “Hey, kid, how much do you weigh?”

The first-floor door gave way ten minutes later, but by then they had reinforced the second-floor door with the bookcase and about twenty pounds of computer equipment from the third floor, including the desk. Everything else that wasn’t nailed down went on top of the door, including paintings, pieces of the cot, and all the hardcover books.

While they were stacking books on top of the door, Danny said, “We should have kept Tom around. He’s what, a good 250?”

“About that,” Will said.

“Definitely should have kept him around. Make the big lug useful for once.”

The ghouls began pounding on the second-floor door almost immediately, but there was no leverage for them to break the deadbolt. Still, they continued at it, banging away, pouring an unrelenting torrent of force that did little good. Even though the door held, and didn’t look to be in danger of giving any time soon, Josh couldn’t shake the disconcerting feeling of so many of the creatures below them, salivating at the thought of coming through.

The island isn’t safe. It was all a lie…

Josh crouched next to the open third-floor door and looked down through the opening at Will and Danny, sitting calmly on top of the bookcase. They had wiped the black clumps of dead ghoul flesh and blood off their faces and gotten as much out of their clothes and hair as they could manage. They still looked like homeless soldiers wearing camouflage face paint that refused to wash off. They had transferred most of the weapons they had taken out of the basement up to the third floor, leaving just enough on the second floor. They were loading a couple of shotguns with shells that didn’t have an “X” on them.

We’re out of silver bullets.

The third floor was crowded, but they made do. The girls, Elise and Vera, sat in a corner together, holding hands, and eventually dozed off. Lara sat with Sienna, doing her best to calm the other woman. Josh didn’t have to ask what had happened to Jake, Sienna’s boyfriend. Or Al. Or Debra and her son. At least Sarah and her daughter, Jenny, had made it, and mother and daughter sat on their own side of the wall, the girl asleep in her mother’s lap. Sarah stroked Jenny’s hair, staring off at nothing in particular.

Gaby and Carly had shotguns, and the two women guarded the windows around them. He was feeling pretty useless sitting next to the open door in case Will or Danny needed anything. The continuous banging against the door below didn’t help.

“Hey, kid,” Danny said below him. “Nice throw for a computer nerd. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Josh gave him an embarrassed grin. “I’m not a computer nerd.”

“Nothing to be ashamed of. Nerds rule the world. Well, used to, anyway. We all know who rules the world now, don’t we?”

“Ghouls?”

“No, guys with shotguns.”

There was a thunderous boom behind Josh that made him jump. He looked back at Carly, who was leaning out one of the windows. She racked her shotgun and fired down the side of the Tower a second time.

“What’s going on?” Will asked from below.

“I don’t know,” Josh said.

“They’re trying to climb the walls,” Carly shouted.

Will stood up and walked to one of the second-floor windows. He glanced out, then Josh saw him fire two shots down the side of the Tower.

“They’re climbing the walls?” Danny asked.

“Yeah, they’re climbing the walls,” Will said.

“How the hell they doing that?”

“They’re standing on top of one another. Like pyramids.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“I gotta see this.” Danny walked over to another window and looked down. “Wow. They’re climbing the walls.”

Danny fired down the side of the Tower with his shotgun. He paused, then racked and fired a second time.

“Did that stop them?” Josh asked. He couldn’t see anything from his position.

“No, but it’s slowing them down,” Danny said. “Hard to climb with a face full of buckshot, silver or no.” He stuck his shotgun out the window and fired two more times. “Come on, I got all day.”

“We don’t need all day,” Will said. “We only need two hours.”

Will was right. Josh didn’t have his watch, but his instinctive internal clock told him it was going to be sunup soon. All they had to do was wait a little longer.

Behind him, Carly fired down the side of the Tower again, and then Gaby did the same thing on her side. Carly had the south side, Gaby the north, while Will and Danny took the east and west windows. Between the four of them, they had all four sides of the Tower covered.

It went like that throughout the night.

Will and Danny fired, then stopped. Then Gaby and Carly fired while Will and Danny reloaded below them. When they were done, Will and Danny went back to shooting, and Gaby and Carly reloaded.

Somehow, despite the tumultuous crash of shotgun blasts all around and below them, Sienna managed to fall asleep against Lara’s shoulder. Lara was wide awake, though Josh could tell she was struggling to stay that way. Sarah had already fallen asleep nearby, her daughter still lying with her head in her mother’s lap.

Josh’s eyelids started to become heavy, and after a while he stood up and paced the floor to keep his feet moving and his blood flowing.

Gaby held the shotgun out to him. “Your turn. My arms are about to fall off.”

Josh took the shotgun gratefully and went to the window and looked down.

He thought he was prepared for the sight of ghouls below them, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. There were so many of them that he couldn’t see the grass anymore. They stretched across the hotel grounds, and there weren’t nearly enough lights to illuminate them all. They moved around restlessly, climbing over each other to be the next creature at the bottom of the pyramids amassed around the base of the Tower. And they were climbing, using each other as stepping stones.

But they never got very far up the side of the Tower — at least not far enough to grab onto the windows on the second floor — before a shotgun blast tore through the closest ghoul. The force of the blasts knocked it free from the squirming, living pyramid and sent it tumbling back down.

But each time that happened, another ghoul was there to take its place.

Josh fired straight down the side of the Tower. Some of the buckshot scraped against the building’s side, tearing off chunks of concrete, but most found their target. He watched a ghoul’s face disappear, revealing a deformed but polished skull underneath, and the ghoul lost its footing and dropped ten yards into the pile below. Then the ghoul got back up and started climbing again, scarred bones glaring up at Josh from under sheared flesh.

Josh worked the slide of the shotgun and fired again, knocking another handful of ghouls free from the swaying hill of black flesh. Like the last ones, these picked themselves up and got back in line to climb as if nothing had happened.

“Ammo,” Gaby said, and passed him a handful of shells.

He loaded the shotgun, stopping momentarily to look up at Gaby, smiling at him. He smiled back.

Then she picked up another shotgun and leaned out the window and fired down at the ghouls below. The giddiness with which she did it made him grin.

Who would have thought? He and Gaby, at the end of the world, standing on the third floor of a lighthouse, shooting ghouls in the face while trying to wait out the night.

Suck on that, mofos!