“Sure,” Will said. “I got no plans.”
“Hah,” Mason said. “I’ll be back.”
The short man turned and left, closing the door after him. Will listened to the sound of a deadbolt click-clacking into place on the other side.
Alone again, he took inventory of his situation.
What did he know with absolute certainty? A couple of things.
First, Gaby and Danny had survived a second attempted ambush further up the interstate. Which meant they were still en route to Song Island. All they’d have to do now was get past Salvani, which, according to the conversation Will had just overheard, meant there were more soldiers waiting for them there.
Secondly, there was that thing about someone named Nate.
Could it be…?
That would depend on how optimistic he was willing to be at the moment.
I’m not ready to take over Captain Optimism just yet, Danny.
Not that knowing what was happening out there did him any good in here. He could hear them moving around outside the door, along with the occasional sounds of car engines in the streets beyond. He tried to re-orient himself with his surroundings, to get a better sense of direction and where everything was. He was still at Route 13, he knew that much. Everything else was open to debate.
Bottom line: He needed more information, and he wasn’t going to get it locked in here.
He leaned back against the wall. It was still noon, so there were still over six hours until sunset. Nightfall was the enemy — had always been, would always be. Besides the darkness, and the creatures lurking inside it, she would come, too.
“Don’t worry,” the blue-eyed ghoul had hissed at him last night. “It’s not going to end that easily for you, Will. Kate made us promise her this time. I think she has big plans for you.”
Kate.
Where are you now, Kate? What are you doing? Are you waiting for nightfall, too? Or are you on your way here now, the way you made the soldiers transport your shock troopers to Dunbar in the U-haul?
Somehow, some way, all his actions — what he did or didn’t do — always seemed to be spurred on by Kate in one form or another.
Eventually, inevitably, it always seemed to come back to her…
He opened his eyes to what sounded like hell on Earth and promptly sought out his watch in the semidarkness of the back room.
11:47 A.M.
Shit.
The realization that he had dozed off despite having been knocked unconscious just hours ago was troubling, because it could have been a sign there was something wrong with him. Or, at the very least, a lingering effect of the blows he had taken to the head.
That, and he knew what those thunderous brap-brap-brap sounds coming from outside were without having to think about it. God knew he had heard and been around them often enough. Someone, somewhere, was firing a machine gun, and the pop-pop-pop that accompanied it meant a gun battle.
He stared at the door, waiting for it to burst open and for someone to run inside. Maybe Mason, the short guy in charge of this mess they called an operation. People were definitely running around in the store outside; the vibrations of boots racing frantically back and forth were hard to ignore. Shouting, too, though that was mostly lost in the back and forth gunfire.
It was chaos out there, which was both good and bad for him.
It was good that someone was attacking the soldiers. The phrase, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” ran through his head.
Bad, in that he was stuck inside the back room of a gas station while men were shooting machine guns outside in the streets. Depending on how much gas was still left inside the tank under the Palermo (Or the Chevron, either/or), there was a very good chance he could die in a raging fire sometime soon. Double the chances if someone had some kind of incendiary device and decided to stupidly use it.
Okay, so it was mostly bad.
He couldn’t tell who was winning or where the shooting was coming from, because it seemed to be some kind of running gunfight.
How many men did Mason have out there, and how many were attacking them? Better yet, who was attacking, and what were the chances they could be friends instead of foes? The only group he’d seen proactively attack the soldiers had been Harrison’s group back in Dunbar. And that, unfortunately, hadn’t ended very well for them.
“What you saw out there when you tried to come through was just a small part of it,” Mason had boasted earlier. “We have people everywhere.”
But how many of those people were here, now? Especially since the ambush had succeeded. He knew for a fact Mason had sent more men up the interstate after Danny and Gaby. So how many were left? How many would Mason think he needed when he had already, essentially, won the day?
Will was still trying to come up with a viable number (or, at least, one that would make him feel better) when the door finally banged open and a familiar camo uniform rushed inside. No, not familiar. Same uniform, but different person inside it. Taller, skinnier, and younger.
The kid (he couldn’t have been more than eighteen, maybe seventeen?) spun around and slammed the door shut before stumbling away from it. He was cradling an AR-15 and wore a gun belt with a sidearm, but Will recognized the awkwardness in the way he carried the equipment.
He’s green. Really, really green.
“Kid,” Will said.
The teenager whirled around, lifting his rifle and aiming it at Will. He looked frightened, even shocked to see Will there. “Jesus! I almost shot you!”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t. What’s going on out there?”
The kid (he was tall for his age, which was amusing when Will thought about the thirty-something but much shorter Mason) lowered his weapon and shook his head. He wiped at beads of sweat along his temple and whirled back around to face the door. Then he hurried over and leaned against the wall and listened to the pop-pop-pop of gunfire still raging outside.
The battle hadn’t slowed down even a little bit in the minute or so since Will woke up. That meant there were a lot of people out there, and all of them well-armed. Meanwhile, he was stuck in here, hog-tied and weaponless.
Will looked for and finally caught the name written across the kid’s uniform: “Michael.”
“What’s going on out there, Michael?” Will asked.
The kid looked momentarily confused by the sound of his name, then must have realized how Will knew and shook it off. “They’re attacking,” he said.
“Who’s attacking?”
“I don’t know. They came out of nowhere. They must have…they must have been crawling along the fields all day toward us.”
‘Crawling along the fields all day’?
Will watched the kid closely. He was scared. That much was obvious. So Will did what he always did: He took stock of his situation and considered his available options. Because there were always options. You just had to see it.
“Kid,” Will said.
Michael didn’t react, either because he was too focused on what was happening outside or he was purposefully ignoring him. Will would have put good money that it was the former.
“Michael,” Will said, louder this time.
That did it. Michael looked over. “What?”
“Listen.”