Then they stopped moving entirely, and one by one they began to sink toward the bottom. They looked like stones, blackened gargoyles with arms and legs frozen in mock surrender. These creatures that he always thought of as being entirely devoid of humanity were suddenly very human and he saw, to his surprise, what looked like terror frozen across their faces. They sank and sank, before resting softly, almost delicately, against the angled incline of the lake floor.
He waited for more of the creatures to drop down from the sky after him, into the water, and die, too. But there were no more. He could see them on the other side of the surface, like staring through a murky, flickering mirror. They crowded the beach, black shapes easy to make out, and looked after him but unwilling to pursue.
“They will not cross bodies of water. An island, a boat — get to anything that can separate you from land.”
Keo turned around and continued swimming. He stayed under for as long as he could before finally breaking the surface to suck in a lungful of fresh air.
He wasn’t surprised to find that he was surrounded by darkness. When he turned around, the island sans lights was barely visible in the distance. He couldn’t even see the beaches anymore, and it took him a few seconds to realize why.
The ghouls. There was nothing on the beaches at the moment but those shriveled black things that used to be human, so many that they blotted out the white sand.
He was staring at them when he thought he heard the sound of a motor droning somewhere behind him. Keo glanced around, but there was no boat in sight. At least, nothing on the water. There were plenty on the beach, but given what was also waiting for him there, they might as well not exist.
He pointed himself in the direction where he thought the shoreline was — even though it was impossible to see right now — and started kicking toward it.
He always liked swimming in the ocean at night anyway. You had to, in order to avoid the crowds during tourist season along San Diego’s beaches. Of course, if he had known he’d spend this much time in the water at night, he would have put in even more time.
Live and learn, pal.
Live and learn…
CHAPTER 24
WILL
“We’re going to die,” Natasha said. “I should have stayed in the back room and not come out to save you. You’re going to get me killed. Jesus, you’re going to get me killed.”
“I thought you didn’t care about dying,” Will said.
“I changed my mind.” She was visibly shaking, even in the semidarkness of the store. “I changed my mind, you hear me? I want to live. I didn’t think I did, but now I want to live.”
Check out Captain Optimism here, Danny.
“Shut up and listen,” he said.
“Listen to what? That? I can hear that just fine!”
The constant bang! bang! bang! of ghouls smashing themselves into the glass curtain wall hadn’t let up, not even for a second for him to catch his breath. There were so many of them, and they were raining blow after blow on the windows that the cracks were now stretched from one end of the frame to the other and connecting like river veins along the way.
It wouldn’t be long now. Soon, very soon, the windows would break and there would be nothing to stop them. Then it would be over. He would never reach Song Island. Never get to see Lara after so long. Never hold her hand or walk on the beach with her again.
Kate. This is your doing, isn’t it?
“Yes.”
Her voice echoed inside his head. It was unnatural and yet so intimate. Too intimate. It was like talking to a lover. Pillow talk. He shivered at the thought.
“How sweet.”
Had she just laughed? Giggled? Was it possible to project that sort of thing through…what was this? Telepathy? ESP? Insanity?
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Will.”
Where are you?
“Close.”
You’re coming here.
“Yes…”
You know.
“Yes…”
How?
“I can see you,” she said. “Inside that store. In that uniform with the woman. You’ve looked better, Will. But we can fix that. Imagine: No more wounds, no more scars, and no more illnesses.”
The uniforms aren’t going to work, are they?
“Haven’t you figured it out by now? It only works when I tell them it works.”
He stared out the cracked (breaking) windows at the creatures, past the ones flying into the glass like raindrops falling to the sidewalks, and at the wall of skeletal figures standing like good soldiers in the back. The sight of them, unmoving in the moonlight, was somehow more distracting than the ones smashing into the windows.
For some reason, he wasn’t really frightened. Disappointed and saddened, yes, but the fear wasn’t there. Even if everything ended tonight, he could take solace in one thing: At least Kate was here and not on Song Island. If nothing else, there was comfort in knowing she was too busy to pay attention to Lara—
“Oh, Will.” He sensed, even if he couldn’t actually hear it, amusement dripping with every word that echoed inside his head. “I don’t have to be there to be there. Will, Will, Will. How did you ever think you could beat us when you know so little?”
You’re attacking the island now, aren’t you?
“Not me. The island is an annoyance, but it’s not worth my time. I have people for those things.”
Like Josh. Like Mason…
“Two of many. So, so many. You have no idea.”
It made sense she wasn’t at the island in person, because she didn’t have to be. There was a legion of human collaborators willing and anxious to do her bidding. People like Rick and Millard, dead on the floor in their boxers behind him. Opportunists like Mason. Then there were all the poor, easily malleable souls like Josh, who didn’t know any better.
She laughed inside his head. “You, on the other hand…I can devote time to you, Will.”
What do you want from me, Kate?
“You’re living in the old world. It’s time to join me in the real one.”
No…
“Don’t be so naïve. You don’t have a choice.”
CRASH!
The first section of windowpane shattered and fell in streams to the tiled floor. The creature that had used itself as the final hammer flopped through among the shower of cubed glass, like sand pebbles, but only thicker and sharper. It rolled forward, bones clacking, shards of shiny glass sticking out of its cheeks and body and shoulder and chest—
“Run!” Will shouted.
By the time he turned around, Natasha was already racing toward the back room, arms swinging wildly in front of her. She had apparently forgotten all about her injuries. Like her, he couldn’t feel his own wounds anymore. His legs had stopped hurting (or, at least, that’s what he told himself) and every cut and bruise had ceased to matter. Everything faded into the background except the need to flee.