Yeah, I know, Rick. Fuck you, too.
He gave up what little fight he still had in him and slipped back, back into darkness.
The next time he woke up, he felt cold, hard floor underneath him. He was getting some feeling back, which meant the thrumming pain coursing through every inch of his body, from head to toe, was worse. Much worse. He wanted to call Rick over and demand those refills he had been promised, but when he tried to open his mouth, the only thing he heard was air escaping his lips. Very, very soft air. Even breathing was difficult.
At least the sticky sensation he had felt all over his body from earlier was gone. He guessed that was because his blood had (mostly) dried since he last woke up. Given how much he was bleeding after the highway, he wouldn’t be surprised if there were parts of him still leaking plasma.
“Your job is to keep him alive for another three hours,” Mason had said.
Three hours.
Three hours until what? He should know this. It was right there, at the tip of his very dry tongue—
Wait. How much time had he lost since the last time he was awake? Hopefully not too much. That would make escaping difficult if it was—
Night.
It was dark outside the glass windows, the blackness overwhelming everything, including the long stretch of interstate road and the…
Eyes. Black eyes, like endless oceans of tar looking through the tall panes of glass back at him.
Ghouls.
A lot of them. Hundreds. Thousands.
So many that the parking lot outside (A gas station? Was he in another gas station? Christ, how many of these places were there along the highway?) was carpeted with them — a sea of pruned flesh swaying against one another. They were deathly silent, as if biding their time, waiting for something.
He expected them to attack the store at any moment, to smash their limbs and skulls against the glass to try to bash their way in like rabid dogs. But they didn’t assault the store. In fact, they hardly moved at all.
Movement.
He wasn’t alone inside. A pair of camo print uniforms shifted in the darkness in front of him. Two men, their backs to him, the barrels of their rifles outlined against the moonlight pouring into the front half of the store. There were shelves to the left of him and the counter along with an abandoned cash register to the right.
Weapons. He needed weapons.
If the soldiers knew he was awake, they didn’t show it. Or seem to care. And why should they? He only had to look down to see that his hands were bound with zip ties, as were his ankles. Again. This was becoming the worst kind of déjà vu.
His head continued to throb, and for some reason both his palms were tingling. Oh, of course. When he was flying down the interstate, he had stuck out his hands to slow his slide. That hadn’t exactly been the smartest thing he had ever done in his life. As a result, the skin was torn and bleeding, though someone had since treated the flesh and wrapped gauze tape around both hands.
He could just barely make out the stark whiteness of the bandages wrapped around him, and since he wasn’t bleeding to death at the moment, he guessed there was more around his waist under his blood-covered shirt. Bandages clung to his temples and cheeks, which he was grateful for, even though he had no interest in seeing himself at the moment. What must he look like, he wondered. Maybe a mummy, only less capable at the moment.
One of the men finally turned around. He was older than Mason, with specks of white in his hair. “Welcome back,” the man said.
Will recognized the voice: Rick.
My savior.
“Well, shit, Rick, if you can’t keep him alive, then what the hell am I dragging you around for?” Mason had said.
My reluctant savior.
“Didn’t think you were going to be awake to see this,” Rick was saying. “You’re lucky I did a stint as a paramedic, otherwise you’d have definitely bled to death.” He looked almost sorry for Will when he added, “Of course, it might have been better for you if you couldn’t see this.”
“See what?” Will said. Or thought he did. He might have just croaked the words out. He swallowed and tried again. “See what?”
“She’s coming for you, kid. You know who I’m talking about, don’t you?”
He did.
She.
There was only one “she” that continued to plague him since The Purge. He knew all about her, all right.
“As sorry as I am about what’s going to happen to you, I’m anxious to see it for myself,” Rick said. “I’ve never seen them before, you know. The blue-eyed ones.”
“Me neither,” the other one said. He was sitting much closer to the twin glass doors of the store, his face partially lit by the moonlight. He was younger than Rick, even younger than Will, and there was an eagerness on his face that defied logic.
Didn’t this man know there were monsters outside the windows?
“I’ve heard stories,” the man added, “but I didn’t think they actually existed. Especially her. I’ve heard them talking about her. She’s…different, they say.”
You have no idea, buddy. No idea at all.
Will looked past them and out the windows, at the mass of black-eyed creatures. They looked like gargoyles, unmoving and watchful. Except he knew they weren’t made of stone; far from it. They were very real and alive (-ish), and he kept waiting for them to spring to life.
Any moment now…
“They’re not coming in,” Rick said. He had apparently seen where Will was looking. “The doors aren’t even locked. There’s nothing to stop them from coming in if they want to, but they won’t.”
“Why?” Will asked. His voice sounded better to his own ears, if a little too gravelly. What he wouldn’t do for a little water.
“Because we’re in here,” Rick said.
“It’s the uniforms,” the other man said.
“You’re just guessing.”
“What else could it be?”
He’s right. It has to be the uniforms. They recognize them. Or the patches on them. Or…something.
But they know. Somehow, they recognize allies from foes.
Dead, not stupid, remember?
“What did you do?” the young one asked, eyeing Will curiously across the semidarkness of the room. Will couldn’t quite make out the name on his shirt. Something starting with the letter “M.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Will said.
“You must have done something. I’ve never seen this before, or heard of it happening.”
“I did what I had to in order to survive.”
“Yeah, a lot of that going around,” M-something said before turning back to the windows.
“That’s it?” Rick said. He was apparently less satisfied with Will’s answer as M-something had been. “There has to be more than that. What aren’t you telling us?”
“Ask Mason,” Will said.
Rick’s face soured at the sound of Mason’s name. “He doesn’t tell us much.”
“Then ask Josh.”
“Josh? Who is Josh?”