“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—