“I didn’t know last night.”
“Yeah, well, this broken face is still your fault.”
“Relax. You still look pretty.”
“That goes without saying…”
Even among the shadows, multiple streaks of blood ran up and down the hallway, including a long jagged trail from when Will dragged Danny to the bathroom. And another big swath of blood, where Tommy’s body used to be.
“They take the bodies, right?” Danny said.
“As far as I know.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea.”
“We should really sit down one of these days and talk about everything we know about them. I’ll dictate and you type.”
“What makes you think I can type?”
“I dunno, but you look like the typing kind.”
“What kind is that?”
“You know, with dainty fingers and such.”
They moved toward the lobby, passing the spot where he had last seen the blue-eyed ghouls. He wasn’t surprised to find them gone, leaving behind only smeared, clumpy black blood in their wake, too far from the sunlight to have evaporated. There was still a wet quality about the liquid, which shouldn’t have been possible given how many hours since they had bled out.
“That them?” Danny asked.
“Yup.”
“Blood’s still wet.”
“Yup.”
“How’s that possible?”
“Hell if I know.”
“Do you know anything?”
Will pointed at the patch of dried red blood on the wall. “I know that’s you.”
“Damn. Are you sure I’m still alive? Maybe this is just one big freaky Jacob’s Ladder type of scenario?”
“Are you saying you’re Tim Robbins?”
“Hell no. I’m much handsomer.”
“Keep telling yourself that, buddy.”
“I do every day. Someone’s gotta.”
They stepped over the blood — a difficult feat, since there was so much spread around the narrow passageway — and continued down toward the lobby, drawn forward by the warmth of the morning heat. There was just enough sunlight as they neared the half-circle arched entrance that they began to relax.
“Right in the head?” Danny said.
“How many times are you going to ask me?”
“So it’s the brain.”
“I think so, yeah.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”
“When will that be, you think?”
“Five years, two months, one week, and three days from now.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that. Anything else you wanna share, now that we’re both in a sharing mood?”
“I think Kate’s going to attack the island.”
Danny sighed. “How many times have I told you? Stop dating the psycho bitches. But do you ever listen to me? Noooooo.”
“In my defense, we barely dated.”
“You know what I always say about those one-night stands, man. They’re killer.”
The lobby looked like a war zone, with shards of glass covering most of the tiled floor, scattered among dozens of bleached-white bones. The acrid smell of evaporated flesh and tainted blood hung in the air.
Will started breathing through his mouth again. It seemed like he was doing a lot of that lately.
They maneuvered around the chaos and death and stepped outside onto the sidewalk and into the hot sun. The street looked even more empty this morning, and the city of Dunbar was eerily quiet, with hardly any wind at all. Debris and spent shell casings littered the streets.
Except for the two of them, there were no sounds or signs of any other survivors.
Danny looked over at Ennis’s next door. “You think any of them made it?”
“Doubt it.”
“Maybe Rachel got out.”
“You think?”
Danny thought about it, then shook his head. “Nah, I can’t even muster up enough optimism for that one.”
“Some Captain Optimism.”
“I know, I’m really not living up to the title these days. You wanna give it a try for a while?”
“No thanks.”
Danny glanced around him for a moment, then said, “So, what else did your ghoulfriend say about attacking the island?”
Ennis’s basement was covered in swaths of dried red blood. Or, at least, the part of it that they could see using the light pouring in from the side door. There were still large sections of the room covered in darkness, and Will and Danny scanned the place with their flashlights first and were surprised to find it empty.
They headed straight into the back, where Rachel’s people had taken their packs last night. They found what they needed in a corner, some of the contents spilled around the area. Everything was still there, including the radio.
They hurried out and climbed back up to the alley next door, then stepped through another graveyard of bones, this one thicker and deeper and longer than the one in the Dunbar museum. It was impossible to take a step without crunching a femur or snapping a finger or pulverizing ribcages. The lingering acrid smell of dead ghouls was overwhelming, and they had to put handkerchiefs over their mouths and nose to get through the alley on their way in and out.
Will took a moment to gather himself back out on the sidewalk, pulling out a warm bottle of water from one of the packs and quenching his thirst. He spent the rest of it washing as much of the blood and grime off his face and hands as possible. Danny had already wasted two bottles cleaning the dry blood off his face, grimacing and hissing each time he touched his broken nose.
The city hadn’t gotten any livelier since they stepped outside the museum thirty minutes ago, though it seemed to have gotten hotter, the streets on both sides of him flickering like mirages.
He found a beat-up red truck on the curb and sat the portable ham radio down on the hood and powered it on. He pressed the pre-set button to bring up the island’s designated emergency frequency and adjusted the attached antenna as high as it would go.
“How’s this going to work?” Danny asked, drinking the rest of his second bottle. Mostly free of his bloody mask, he actually looked even more bruised and battered in the sunlight, if that was possible.
“What do you mean?”
“So, you’re just going to tell Lara that your psycho ex is going to launch an attack on the island, and that she told you herself in a dream?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And this doesn’t strike you as the least bit odd?”
He thought about it. Then, “Lara and I have talked about it before.”
“And she believes you?”
“Of course she does.”
“Why?”
“Because—” Will stopped.
It was a good question. But whenever he thought about it, he always came back to the same answer: because Lara had seen Kate that night in Harold Campbell’s facility back in Starch, Texas. Once you’ve seen the blue-eyed creatures and had their existence confirmed with your own eyes, it was easier to accept that they were capable of things that weren’t always entirely explainable. Danny, for all his involvement in their survival, had never actually seen Kate. Last night was, in fact, the first time he even saw one of the blue-eyed ones.
“Because she’s seen them,” Will said finally. “Just like you did last night. Did you really believe me before then?”
“Of course,” Danny said without hesitation.
“Really?”
“Well…” Danny grinned. “Okay, I had my doubts.”
“And after last night?”
Danny sighed and nodded at the radio. “Call the island. Then we have to get the hell back there as soon as we can.”
“Are you sure?” Lara asked.
“Yes,” Will said.
“Will, are you sure?”