Back in the store, Ted and Danny were lifting the heavier exercise equipment into position over the inner doors. Carly, Luke, and Kate helped with the smaller items. They had all the doors secured in less than forty minutes, which was better than yesterday’s hour and change. The front outer doors, like last night, had only been locked and not reinforced. The interior doors were the important ones anyway. If the creatures breached those, it would make a hell of a racket and give them time to prepare for an assault. That was the idea, anyway.
Will looked over the makeshift barricade before turning to Danny. “Could be our last night here.”
“Yup,” Danny said.
“C4 in place?”
“Plan Z in full effect.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Right,” Danny said, “and Santa’s not screwing around behind Mrs. Claus’s back with Doris the sexy elf.”
“Where do you get this shit?”
“It’s called comedic genius, pal.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” He looked over at the others. “I’ll take first guard and wake Danny up at midnight. Everyone get some sleep. Even if we get through this night unscathed, it’ll be our last night here. We’re going to be doing a lot of traveling soon, and sleep might come in unpredictable spurts. All right? Good. Let’s get to it.”
Everyone drifted back to the camping area except for Kate. She was staring at the doors in silence.
“They’ll hold,” he said.
“Are you sure?” She looked at him, and he could tell she was trying to gauge his reaction, to see if he was lying.
He did his best to hide it.
“I’m sure. If all else fails, there’s Plan Z.”
“That’s such an awful name, Will. Couldn’t you have come up with something better? Something more, I don’t know, less last-resort-ish?”
He grinned. “Don’t diss Plan Z. It’s been working for Danny and me since Afghanistan.”
She didn’t look convinced. Kate struck him as an incredibly serious woman. He wondered what she was like before all of this changed everything.
“Carly said there were thousands of those things in the Walmart next door,” she said. “And there are more of them out there in the rest of the city. I’ve seen them converging like ants when they pick up a scent, Will. What if they all attack at the same time? Do you really think these doors will hold them back?”
Again, he did his best to hide his doubts. “Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.”
“What are the chances of that?”
“Pretty good.”
“Really?”
“Hope springs eternal…”
The ghouls showed up at the outer doors at 8:05 p.m.
At first Will was convinced they would ignore the Archers for a second straight night, and with each wave of ghouls that passed the front doors in the moonlight, he became more hopeful. But then one stopped and faced the outer windows.
Then one became two, and two became five…then ten.
Then suddenly there were hundreds in the parking lot, so many that they blocked out the police car outside and there was just blackness.
So much for hope springing eternally.
He sat in the darkness, far from the pool of moonlight that splashed through the two sets of front doors. He didn’t think they could possibly see him. He was well-hidden, and they hadn’t proven they had anything resembling heightened vision.
He unslung the Remington 870 shotgun and laid it on the floor in front of him. He was wearing a web belt with a variety of pouches, most of them holding extra shells for the shotguns and magazines for the rifle. He unslung the M4A1 and switched on the mounted laser pointer. The naked eye couldn’t spot it, but when he slipped on the night-vision goggles he could see the laser pointer clear as day.
He found the Motorola radio’s push-to-talk switch in the darkness and clicked it once. He heard Danny’s voice, wide alert through his earbud: “Talk to me.”
“They’re at the outer doors.”
“I guess they know we’re here.”
“Either that, or they think there’s a sale on Texans jerseys.”
“Hey, jokes are my area, dickhead.”
Will grinned. “You should get up to the catwalks.”
“Roof?”
“Chances are…”
“On my way.”
He imagined Danny already moving toward the second floor catwalk to cover the rooftop door. They would be up there, too, seeing if they could gain entrance from that direction. They would also try the back doors and side doors just to be sure.
Dead, not stupid.
Everything he had learned about the ghouls told him they were anything but stupid. That made them dangerous. Very, very dangerous.
He was also convinced there was a command structure in place. Field commanders calling the shots, relaying orders. Otherwise the ghouls outside would already be throwing themselves at the glass doors, mindlessly trying to batter them down.
But they weren’t. Someone—something—was telling them not to. Yet.
The earbud in his right ear clicked: “I can hear them moving outside on the rooftop,” Danny said. “I think we’re good to go up here, though. Door’s sturdy — they’re not getting through here in a million years. How’s it going down there?”
“They’re waiting for something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe their leader? Commanding officer? You said it yourself, they behave like infantry soldiers. They might be waiting for orders.”
“Maybe…”
“Stay frosty.”
“Will do.”
He heard shuffling behind him, then Kate and Carly emerged out of the darkness. Kate had the Glock 19 in a hip holster. It looked odd on her. Civilians and guns. It was a combination that always made him nervous.
The women sat down in the darkness next to him, then looked into the moonlight at the sea of ghouls beyond the front glass doors. Carly gasped audibly.
“How many are out there?” Kate whispered.
“I have no idea,” he said honestly. “Could be thousands.”
Carly’s voice shook a bit when she asked, “Will the doors hold, Will?”
“They’ll hold,” he lied.
“Where’s Danny?”
He pointed up into the air.
“I’ll go see if he needs help,” she said and hurried off, seemingly anxious to be away. He didn’t blame her.
Kate, though, remained crouched next to him in the darkness. “It’s not going to hold,” she said softly.
He thought about lying. But he said instead, “No.”
“What happens then?”
“We do what we practiced this afternoon.”
“That’ll work?” She added quickly, “Feel free to lie.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Are you lying?”
“No.”
“I can’t tell if you’re lying or not.”
“It’ll work.”
“How can you be so calm?”
“Am I?”
“It’s annoying.”
“Sorry,” he smiled.
She became quiet, staring at the amassing creatures. Was there more of them since the last time he looked? How was that even possible?
“What is it?” he asked.
“I was just thinking about a friend of mine. I wonder if he’s out there right now, among those…things.”
“It’s a big city, Kate.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself.” She went quiet again. After a moment, she said, “Can you tell them apart?”