“Hey,” Tommy said.
Tommy might have continued his protest, except whatever sound was going to come out of his mouth turned into an involuntary gasp when they heard the tap-tap-tap of bare feet against concrete, and the streets outside the broken front doors blackened. It wasn’t because the moonlight had disappeared, though Will thought that might have been the preferable explanation. Instead, it was because a swarm of ghouls had come out of nowhere and converged on the sidewalk and began squeezing their way through the openings.
The sight of them slashing their skins against the glass shards hanging off the doorframes — thick clumps of black blood wetting the tiled floor — while desperately forcing their way in was hypnotic. There were so many of them it was hard for Will to know where one began and ended and the rest continued. It looked like one continuous squirming flesh, accompanied by the plop-plop-plop of blood on the floor and the patter of footsteps growing in intensity with every passing second as more arrived.
“It’s about damn time,” Danny said. He had dispensed with the whispering. “My legs were starting to cramp anyway.”
Will flicked his rifle to semi-auto, leaned out, and shot the first ghoul that was almost through in the chest. The bullet easily punched through the creature’s skin and muscle and hit another one — then another — behind it. As the undead thing fell lifelessly (again) forward, it was pulled unceremoniously back through the door and the next one flopped inside.
And just like that, the dam broke.
They moved with the same speed and agility, and with the absolute and complete lack of self-preservation that always managed to both fascinate and terrify Will. While he stared, Danny stood up and fired on full-auto, dropping a dozen ghouls on the first volley as they raced across the room. Silver bullets punched through soft, yielding flesh and slammed into bones and muscle.
“Go!” Will shouted back at Tommy.
The teenager gave him a horrified look before stumbling to his feet and running up the hallway to their right. He was moving so fast he was literally tripping over his own legs.
“Changing!” Danny shouted.
Will flicked the M4A1 to full-auto and pulled the trigger.
Ghouls fell, others slipped and slid, and multiple streams of arcing black liquid sprayed the lobby. Not that it did anything to slow them down. Not even close. The surging black wave of amassing flesh began to spread out, at once providing easy targets and too many to concentrate on.
“You coming or what!” Danny shouted behind him.
Will stopped firing and turned and ran.
He followed Danny up the hallway, reloading as he went, dropping the magazine and snapping in his next-to-last one. “Stick to the plan!”
“As long as it’s not Plan Z!”
“You love Plan Z!”
“You misheard! I said I love zucchini lasagna!”
They ran past offices and closets and didn’t bother to stop at any of them. They had checked earlier: the doors were cheap wood and wouldn’t last against a prolonged attack, even with a barricade using desks and filing cabinets. Maybe against just the black-eyed ghouls they might have stood a small chance, but that wasn’t all they were dealing with tonight. Not by a long shot.
They get creative when the blue-eyed ones are around.
The metal basement door under Ennis was proof of that.
But there was one, a bathroom at the end, that could work. Or, at least, it had the most potential to get them to sunrise. It had a stainless steel door with a large deadbolt on the other side and no windows. It was easily their best choice by a good margin, and the plan was always to retreat to it once the attack began.
Now all they had to do was get to it…
Then something happened. It was so unexpected that Will couldn’t have explained how he knew, except that he just sensed it.
He slid to a stop. “Danny.”
Danny stopped a few meters up the hallway and looked back, then opened his mouth to ask— Will held up his hand and Danny didn’t follow through with it.
Except for their labored breathing, they couldn’t hear anything.
The building, as it had been just a few minutes ago, was dead silent again.
“The fuck?” Danny mouthed at him.
“No clue,” Will mouthed back.
They both looked down the hallway — at the empty nothingness staring back. There was no wave of ghouls, no black eyes seeking them out, or moving death nipping at their heels like rabid dogs. Even the telltale patter of bare feet against tiled floor was gone, along with the all-too-familiar clacking of bones underneath sagging flesh.
There was just…silence.
Five seconds…
…then ten…
Until a scream pierced the hallway from behind them.
Tommy!
They looked back up the hallway and Danny started moving, and Will was right behind him when—
— he heard it, the noise he had been waiting for — anticipating with dread — coming from behind him: the tap-tap of bare feet coming, inhumanly fast.
He spun back around, lifting his rifle and expecting to see a flood of ghouls making their way up the narrow passageway.
But there was just one.
A tall, silhouetted figure with piercing, almost pulsating blue eyes. It wasn’t quite as thin as the ghouls he was used to seeing; it actually looked almost healthy, like the one that was standing outside of Ennis last night.
Ennis…last night…blue-eyed ghoul…
Silver…
It didn’t go down.
Will squeezed the trigger.
It was fast and somehow — and Will didn’t understand how — the creature was actually dodging his bullets! But as impossibly fleet of foot as it was (and God help him, it was fast), Will still managed to put two bullets into its chest.
But it didn’t go down.
Instead it kept coming, moving with a swiftness that defied logic (so what else is new?), disintegrating the distance between them even before Will felt the last silver round leave the carbine and smash into the curving wall, taking a big chunk of the creature’s shoulder with it.
Then it was there, in front of him, batting the rifle out of his hands.
Up close, Will saw black blood oozing out of the holes in its chest. He had put those there with two silver bullets.
Silver bullets!
Will opened his mouth to scream Danny’s name, but before he could get anything out, smooth black flesh wrapped around his throat and he was flailing from one side of the narrow hallway to the other. His breath exploded from his half-open mouth and his lungs burned in a sea of fire as it slammed him into the wall.
Where the hell’s Danny?
Will’s eyes darted left, up the hallway — and saw Danny firing at another blue-eyed ghoul running toward him from the other side. The damned thing was dodging Danny’s bullets, too. It also had something on its face that almost looked like a grin. But that was impossible. These things didn’t grin…right?
The creature grabbed Danny by the face and slammed his head into the wall, and a second later Danny’s body went slack and crumpled to the floor. The blue-eyed ghoul stood over Danny and there was fresh blood covering its mouth, the bright red liquid glistening in what little moonlight managed to penetrate this far into the hallway.