Maddie shrugged. “They’re up the road somewhere. Mason sent someone to keep an eye on them until they leave.”
“So he’s not going to attack?”
“With what? These yahoos?”
Blaine smiled. He decided he liked her.
“If you’re smart,” Maddie continued, “you’ll sign up. It’s either that or keep running and constantly looking over your shoulder. I know what that’s like. It gets old pretty fast.”
“So you’re saying it’s worth it,” Sandra said.
There was an overtly accusing tone to Sandra’s voice that made Blaine flinch, and he saw it affect Maddie the same way. Sandra wasn’t trying to make friends, and he wondered what she hoped to gain here. Didn’t she know they were at the mercy of these people, that antagonizing them wasn’t going to help the two of them one bit?
“It depends on what you want out of this life,” Maddie said matter-of-factly. “You’ll have to decide for yourself.”
Maddie opened the door and left. Blaine caught a glimpse of the tall, broad-shouldered Lenny outside, turning as the door opened, but before he could look in, Maddie closed the door in his face.
Sandra looked quickly over at Blaine and said in a low voice, “Gaby and Josh and the others. They’re still in the city.”
“Sounds that way.”
“Maybe we can get them to help us.”
“I don’t see how.”
“Gunshots, maybe. Draw their attention. The way you drew my attention back at Grime. The way we tried to call them in Lancing. Sound travels these days.”
“We’d need guns…”
“We can get guns,” she said, looking at the door.
“Too risky. Let’s wait.”
“For what?” she asked, looking unhappy.
“Maddie.”
“What about her?”
“I think she’s the key,” he said, though he didn’t quite know how yet.
Before night fell, Maddie returned with another plastic bag containing more food and warm bottles of Gatorade that she handed to Sandra. She was already wearing her hazmat suit but had her gas mask clipped to her hip. Lenny wasn’t at the door anymore, but they still kept it locked from the other side.
Blaine was standing under the window, watching the sun descend outside, and with it, the very familiar sense of dread. Mason wasn’t entirely wrong. Constantly having to outrun the darkness was a pain in the ass. The knowledge that each night you survived only meant another day where you had to do it all over again was tiring, and sometimes he just wanted to stop.
“What now?” Sandra asked Maddie.
“You’ll need to stay in here during the night,” Maddie said. “They usually leave this part of the mall alone. Mostly it’s straight up to the second floor to do what they have to do.”
“Why the suit?” Blaine asked. It had been on his mind all day.
“It’s how they tell us apart from, well, you,” Maddie said. “One of them told Mason to wear it, so we wear it. I don’t know where they got the suits, to be honest with you. After a while, you become used to it. It’s actually pretty comfortable, even out in the sun, which is a nice bonus, I guess.”
“You said ‘one of them’ told Mason to wear the suits? You mean one of the creatures?”
“Yeah. There’s one of them that talks to him from time to time.” She watched them closely, as if trying to gauge if they believed her. “It has blue eyes,” she said after a while.
Blue-eyed ghoul!
“Blue eyes?” Sandra said. He could hear the disbelief in her voice.
“Yeah,” Maddie nodded. “Damnedest thing I ever saw. Blue eyes, and it stood tall. You know, like a human. Well, I guess it used to be human, but it still carried itself like one.”
“What does it say to Mason?” Sandra asked.
“It tells him what they need us to do, that sort of stuff.”
“Was it a woman?” Blaine asked.
“What?” Maddie said, her eyes darting to him.
“The blue-eyed ghoul,” he said. “Was it a woman?”
“I don’t know,” Maddie said, and seemed to think about it for a moment. “It’s hard to tell with them. Why?”
“I was just curious.”
She stared at him, disbelieving his answer.
“After tonight, then what?” Sandra asked.
Maddie looked back to her. “Mason will want an answer by morning.”
“And if we say no?”
“Then he’ll probably shoot you. Or hand you over to the creatures. I don’t know. I do know that it’s in your best interest to say yes.”
“We’re thinking about it,” Blaine said.
He said it quickly, before Sandra could answer. He needed Maddie on their side, and the more she considered them potential allies, the better. Blaine didn’t think he had a chance in hell of convincing Mason, the cowboy, or Lenny.
Maddie is the key…
“Think fast,” Maddie said. “Mason will kill you. I hope that isn’t something you’re doubting. He will, and he won’t lose sleep over it for a single night.”
“He had a gun to my temple,” Sandra said. “I don’t doubt that at all.”
Maddie nodded and opened her mouth as if to say something else, but stopped. She turned and left instead. Blaine heard a key turning in the lock, then footsteps fading down the hallway.
Sandra looked over at him. “It would be nice, wouldn’t it?”
“What’s that?”
“To not have to keep looking over our shoulders. Not have to keep trying to outrun the day.”
He nodded. “It would be nice, yeah. But it hasn’t come to that yet. Give me until tomorrow.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He could see how tired she looked, how beaten down and exhausted by the last few days. She opened the bag and pulled out a box of animal crackers and two Gatorade bottles, one lemon-lime and the other Hawaiian punch.
She tossed him the crackers. “Your favorite.”
Blaine caught them and sat down next to her. He opened the box and fished out an elephant and took a bite. It wasn’t bad. Sandra opened one of the Gatorade bottles and drank from it. For a moment, they sat quietly and drank warm artificial drinks and snacked on slightly stale animal-shaped cookies. From time to time they glanced up at the fading light coming from the other side of the window.
“Gatorade,” Sandra said. “I used to hate this stuff. Hated it even more when it was warm like this. Now? It’s not so bad.”
Blaine felt bloated after a half-dozen crackers and handed her the box. He didn’t have to look up at the window or glance at his watch to know that night was closer. The room had started to get dark around them, inch by inch, until he couldn’t see half of the employee lounge anymore.
“That thing about the blue-eyed ghoul,” Sandra said. “Do you believe her?”
“Yes. Because I saw one, that night at the house.”
She looked at him, shocked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought we were going to die. And when we didn’t… I guess I just forgot.”
“Did it…say anything to you?”
He shook his head. “I saw it from the second-floor window. It was in front of the house while the rest of them were attacking. Like it was coordinating the attack, I guess.”
“You think it was a woman? You asked Maddie if it was a woman.”
“It could have been. It looked like a woman. But like Maddie said, it’s hard to tell with them.”
Sandra looked back toward the door. “Blue-eyed ghoul or not, I don’t want to think about what’s going to be happening outside that door tonight.”
“Then don’t.”
“How can I not?”
She leaned her head against his shoulder, like she was finally lying down for the first time after centuries of being awake. Blaine wrapped his arm around her body and pulled her tight.