Will glanced back and saw the bathroom door coming up. It was open, unable to close because of the shadow-covered body lying half-in and half-out of it. Tommy. How the hell had the ghoul gotten behind them? They had searched the entire building and found no other way into the museum except through the front doors. The offices didn’t even have windows, for God’s sake. So how had the blue-eyed bastards sneaked inside?
When he finally reached the bathroom, his suspicions were confirmed. It was Tommy. Or most of him, anyway. It was actually just everything from the neck down, because his head was missing. Teeth marks covered the stump where the head had been attached.
He pulled Tommy’s lanky frame out into the hallway to clear the door, then dragged Danny inside. He closed the heavy stainless steel door, then turned the lock and heard the satisfying click-clank of the metal bolt sliding into place.
With Danny inside, Will unslung his rifle and scanned the bathroom just to be sure. There were no windows in here, so the other blue-eyed creature had to have gotten in from somewhere else. Maybe another window they had missed. It was dark and they were moving by flashlight, so just about anything was possible.
He fished out the flashlight and clicked it on. He slung the rifle and drew the Glock, then went through the three stalls inside the bathroom again, just to be sure. He found nothing, which made him relax a little bit, though not by much since even just breathing hurt.
He walked back over to Danny and sat down next to him.
Even under the mask of blood, Danny had something on his face that looked suspiciously like a smile. Maybe he was dreaming he was back on the island with Carly. Danny had the right idea. What Will wouldn’t give to be back on Song Island right now, walking on the beach with Lara…
He thought about last night’s dream. Of Kate again. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. The way she had proudly admitted to orchestrating everything that had happened in Dunbar yesterday. The trap with the U-Haul, with the blue-eyed ghouls inside. Four of them.
Four of them…
He glanced at the door. There were two out there. He couldn’t tell if they were the same ones from the dream, the same group that had ambushed Harrison’s people. But they had blue eyes, and there had been four of them when Kate showed him the…what the hell was it? A memory? A dream? More like a nightmare…
So where were the other two now? Did they always work in fours? Or did the other two leave after they had decimated Harrison’s people? No, that didn’t make any damn sense at all.
Because, obviously, all of this makes perfect sense.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
He stuck his hand into his cargo pants pocket and pulled out the small bottle. Thank God Rachel hadn’t taken it from him last night along with his pack and weapons. He couldn’t read the label in the dark, not that it mattered. He twisted off the cap and shook out a couple of pills and swallowed them, then realized that wasn’t going to work and tossed down two more.
He put the bottle away and pulled his shirt up to make sure his wounds hadn’t reopened during the fight. No wetness along his waist, which was good. That was the one stitching he was worried most about opening up again. But Zoe had done a hell of a job, and the stitches were still in place. He’d have to thank her again when he got back to the island.
Now who’s being Captain Optimism?
He tucked his shirt into his pants, then picked up the M4A1 and made sure it was still in one piece. He laid it across his lap and leaned back against the wall, trying to see if he could hear them through the door. It was so dead silent he could hear just about everything, including the thrumming in his chest, the creak of his bones, and the throbbing from all the bruises up and down his body.
He wasn’t too worried about the black-eyed ghouls, though. They were weak and they didn’t have the creativity to break down a metal door. But the others, the blue-eyed ones, were dangerous. Ennis’s metal basement door hadn’t stood a chance, so if those other two bastards were out there somewhere…
He drew the Glock and laid it on the floor next to him.
Blue eyes or not, faster and stronger or not, they still went down if you got them in the right spot: the head. Or was it the brain?
Either/or.
Just to be sure, he’d just shoot them in the head until there wasn’t a head anymore.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
22
Gaby
The cemetery didn’t look any less inhospitable in the daylight, but that could just have been the plentiful weeds and scattered debris that had overtaken the place since it had last seen a caretaker. Nothing ever looked the same these days; the cities were always too hollow and unwelcoming, the houses too dark and depressing, and the streets too wide and empty. There was no reason a place where the dead resided would be any different.
Gaby kept to the winding path, staying out of the grass with the girls following closely behind. Donna kept pace behind her, followed by Milly, and Claire brought up the rear with her Winchester clutched tightly in her small hands. Though Donna was older and taller, Gaby had no doubt that when things went sideways — and they usually did, these days — she wanted Claire to be the one standing beside her, shooting.
She didn’t remember the front gate of the cemetery being as far as it was or the place being so big. She couldn’t see Route 13 from here, but the sunlight danced off a pair of large buildings to her right. Not far, maybe half a mile.
“What’s over there?” she asked, pointing.
“Dunbar Airport,” Donna said.
“Big airport?”
“Not really. Just a couple of hangars and a waiting room in one of the buildings. Not much to look at, and most of the planes that land there are those small ones. Why?”
“It’s always a good idea to reload on supplies whenever you can.”
“I remember a couple of vending machines. Drinks and stuff.”
Gaby shook her head. “Not worth walking all that way for just drinks and stuff. We’ll make do with the supplies we took from the VFW hall.”
“You think that’ll be enough?”
If it’s not, that means we didn’t make it to Song Island, Gaby thought, but she decided the girls didn’t need to hear that. She said instead, “It should be.”
She looked back at Milly. The girl had been quiet since they woke up in the crypt this morning. Not the best morning she’d faced before or since the end of the world, and it had to be worse for Milly, who had just lost Peter. The two of them weren’t related, but they shared a stronger connection, one created from survival. She knew what that was like. Her link with Will, Danny, and Lara — those were the kind of bonds she could never have created with her friends or even family before The Purge. It was the kind cemented in fire and combat.
“Hey, are you hungry?” she asked Milly.
The girl looked up, big eyes peering through long, dirty hair. She shook her head silently.
“If you are, tell me, and we can stop and eat again,” Gaby said.
Milly nodded. She looked as if she were moving in a stupor, not connected to the world the way Gaby and the sisters were. Gaby would have to keep an eye on her. She owed Peter that at least.
“Claire said you guys had been wanting to leave Dunbar even before I arrived,” she said to Donna. “Why?”
“It’s Claire’s idea,” Donna said. “Ever since she heard that radio broadcast, she’s been obsessed with it. She plays the tape recorder once every hour, and to anyone who’ll listen. It’s kind of annoying.”