Their M4A1s were where they always left them, along a separate rack in a corner. They grabbed the rifles, loaded them, then grabbed the Remington 870s from another rack. They filled up on ammo, shoving in as many magazines and shells as the pouches would hold. He also grabbed a handful of glow sticks from a box.
“We going to a rave first?” Danny asked.
“The turbine,” Will said. “In case it goes…”
“Now you’re just being paranoid.”
“I’m being cautious.”
Danny shrugged, then grabbed a handful of glow sticks and stuffed them into one of his pouches, too. “Why the hell not.”
“Sheep,” Will grinned.
“Baaaaaaah,” Danny said.
As he fed shells filled with silver buckshot into the Remington, he heard the solid thoomp! as the Door finally closed shut above them, and suddenly the world was silent again, except for the hum of the turbine down the hallway from them.
The ghouls had stopped pounding on the door, and they could hear the sudden burst of violence — screams and gunshots — erupting around the facility. As one scream faded, another took its place. The gunshots were random in nature, quick shots followed by silence.
He forced himself to keep stuffing magazines into his pouch, trying his best to shut out the noises outside the Armory. There was nothing he could do for them now, for those caught outside when the ghouls flooded in.
“It’s been a while,” Danny said. “Maybe we should make sure they’re okay…?”
He nodded. It was rare when he could hear fear in Danny’s voice. Danny wasn’t afraid for himself, it was for Carly and Vera.
Will unclipped the radio and pressed it. “Lara, can you hear me? Come in.”
He waited, but there was no reply. Danny had stopped what he was doing to listen.
Will tried again: “Lara, come in. Can you hear me?”
Several excruciating seconds later they finally heard Lara’s voice: “Will, thank God you’re okay. Is Danny with you?”
“He’s with me.” He exchanged a relieved look with Danny, who went back to reloading and stuffing. “We’re in the Armory right now. Are you safe?”
“Yes,” Lara said, her voice trembling noticeably. “For now.”
“What about the girls? Did you get to Carly and the girls?”
“Yes, they’re here with me right now. We’re all fine for the time being.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“We’re locked inside Carly’s room,” Lara continued. “I can hear them outside, Will. They’re going from hallway to hallway, room to room, breaking down doors.” She paused, and he could hear her breathing as she tried to find the right words. “Will, I don’t think this door is going to hold them when they get to us.”
“We’re coming to get you, but until then, grab whatever you can find — the bed, the dresser, everything — and pile them in front of the door. Everything, Lara.”
“We’re doing that now. But please hurry.”
“We will.” He hesitated for a moment. “Lara…”
“Yes?”
“I’ll see you soon.”
“Okay,” she said. “Hurry.”
“Soon,” he said again.
Will clipped the radio back on his belt. He looked over at Danny, who had moved back to the door, one ear pressed up against the thick steel.
“Anything?” he asked.
“Squat. Nada.”
“They’re going after easier targets,” Will said. “The Armory door is steel, and it’s not going to break anytime soon. But the living quarters have wooden doors. They’ll break sooner or later. Dead but not stupid, remember?”
“I’ll settle for dead. Again. Whatever.” He looked over at Will. “So what’s the plan?”
“What choice do we have?”
“You think we have enough ammo?”
“Only one way to find out.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a plan.”
“Can’t be helped. We have to get to the girls now.”
“Fuck it. Let’s do it.”
Will walked over to face the door. Danny wrapped his fingers around the lever, and they exchanged a brief look. He nodded and Danny mouthed down from five, four, three, two, one…
Danny twisted the lever and swung the door open, and Will immediately stepped through, shotgun swinging up, looking for a target.
He found an empty hallway instead, with dark black flesh sticking to the other side of the steel door. There were hundreds of bright red bloody footprints on the floor, and bloody handprints along the walls and ceiling.
The ceiling. What the hell?
Danny swung the Armory door shut, then stood beside him.
“Ready?” Will asked.
“Not yet, can I have a moment?”
“No. Let’s go.”
They moved forward.
He tried to maneuver around the bloody footprints on the floor, but after a while gave up and stepped into them instead. Danny did the same. There were going to be bloody prints all over the facility by the time tonight was over. There was no point in avoiding it.
As they neared the turn, a gunshot echoed through the hallways, followed by screams. Both had come from the other side of the facility — the Quarters. That was where everyone was now. It was night, and Operations was usually empty except for the Control Room, and maybe Peter in the Turbine Room, but even Peter had the good sense to sleep in his own cot every now and then. Will could hear and feel the hum of the turbine, so it was still running. Maybe Peter was in there now, safe.
They were five meters from the turn when he stopped, and Danny immediately froze next to him. They exchanged a brief look, Will hoping to see in Danny’s face that he heard it, too. Danny nodded.
Footsteps. Soft, padding footsteps. The kind generated by bare feet against concrete floors. There were a lot of them. Maybe a dozen. Maybe more.
He and Danny moved as one, turning the corner together, side by side. The hallway was slick with blood, and four ghouls were bent over a body. He couldn’t tell who it was right away. The face was covered in blood, and the arms and legs were twitching, flopping against the floor like fish on land. There was a gun nearby. A six-shot revolver.
Mike.
The ghouls covered Mike like a blanket, two suckling at his thighs while two more slurped greedily at his throat. Their dark, shrunken forms reminded him of children.
He’s still alive.
Mike’s fingers twitched in the pool of blood that gushed from his wounds. The slurp-slurp-slurp sound filled the hallway.
The nearest ghoul, drinking at Mike’s right thigh, looked up and saw them standing at the corner. Blood drooled from its chin, the lower half of its face covered in a thick layer of red paint, and its dark black eyes glinted in the bright ceiling lights. It looked drunk, lost in ecstasy.
Will shot it in the chest. The ghoul took the brunt of the buckshot and was thrown halfway down the hallway.
Danny shot the second ghoul, while Will shot the final two, though it only took one shell. The silver buckshot did their job with brutal efficiency, spreading between the two crouched figures, splattering thick black blood among the bright crimson red.
He and Danny waited for more ghouls to appear in the hallway, to respond to the loud booms of gunfire, but to their surprise none came. Instead, only silence once their shotgun blasts finished their fading echoes.
“You think they heard that?” Danny asked.
“Nah,” he said.
He walked quickly toward Mike, whose eyes were still open, though he didn’t look as if he had control of his body anymore. Mike was a mechanic, he remembered, who spent most of his free time up on the surface fixing the vehicles they used for their runs. He was a nice enough guy who insisted on hanging onto his revolver. It was a.38 Smith and Wesson and, to hear Mike tell it, a gift from his father, passed down through the generations. Will wasn’t sure about that. The gun looked pretty new to him, but Mike was a good guy, and Will didn’t feel like calling him on his story.