“No. I think that’s the point.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re homogenizing the population. Turning everyone into them. Ghouls.”
“I never thought about it that way, but you’re right.” Then, “Ghouls? You call them ghouls?”
“What do you call them?”
“I guess I just thought of them as creatures. Why ghouls?”
“When I first saw them that was the first word that popped into my head. Ghouls.”
“So ghouls look like that?”
“In the movies that I’ve seen, yeah.”
“I don’t watch a lot of horror movies.”
“I always figured you for a Friday the 13th kind of gal, Kate.”
She made a face. “Was that a joke?”
“Yes.”
“Hunh,” she said.
They watched the ghouls in the darkness. The creatures seemed to have stopped moving entirely, so both Will and Kate remained still, too.
“You should head back, Kate,” he said after a while.
“And leave you here by yourself?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll stay.”
“Kate…”
“I’ll stay,” she said firmly.
He sighed. “All right. Go back and pick up one of the night-vision goggles and come back if you really want to.”
She nodded, got up, and hurried off.
He sat back and enjoyed the brief solitude, but she returned much quicker than he had expected. He wasn’t sure if he heard or smelled her first. She certainly smelled nice.
She sat back down, holding the night-vision goggles. “How do you put this thing on?”
He slipped the strap around her head and adjusted the protruding lens in front of her eyes. “Can you see my rifle’s laser pointer?”
“Yes.”
“Take out your Glock.”
He took it from her, then opened another one of his pouches and took out a smaller version of the laser pointer mounted on the rifle and snapped it underneath her Glock. He switched it on and pointed it at the door.
“See it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Good.” He handed her back the weapon. “Point and shoot. The bullet will go wherever the laser is.”
“Always?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Did you guys have this in Afghanistan?”
“Most of the time. It was almost like cheating when we got into a firefight at night. Not that we minded, of course.”
“Whatever works, right?”
He nodded. “Whatever works.”
His earbud clicked, then Danny’s voice: “Sounds like they’ve stopped probing the rooftop door. How goes below?”
“Quiet,” he said.
“Maybe they gave up,” Danny said.
“Don’t fret. They’ll start getting serious soon enough. Stay alert.”
“I’m on my third can of Red Bull in the last five minutes. Forget staying alert, I’m not sleeping for a week.”
“Where did you get Red Bull?”
“Carly brought them over.”
Kate interrupted. “What’s he saying? Are they coming through the roof?”
Will shook his head. “They were just probing up there, too.”
“Maybe they’ve given up.”
“Just wait for it.”
“For what?”
“They’re gathering, Kate. That’s a prelude to invasion. They’re coming. They’re just waiting for orders.”
“Orders?”
There was a thunderous boom, then loud crashing sounds as one of the outer glass doors gave way and glass shattered into thousands of pieces onto the floor of the waiting area.
Will didn’t need the night-vision goggles to know what had happened. The ghouls had just taken down one of the glass doors, shatterproof filming and all, and they were coming in.
“It’s starting,” he said.
CHAPTER 17
KATE
Kate felt fear, but that wasn’t anything new. She had been in a state of constant fear for the last few days. But for some reason, this time it was more pronounced, more paralyzing. It was the claustrophobic nature of the store. They were coming, and she was trapped inside waiting for them, with no other place to go.
No, not trapped. That wasn’t entirely true. There was a plan that Will and Danny had laid out for them earlier.
Will’s Plan Z.
It was such a bad name for a plan that was supposed to save them when the worst happened, and the creatures—ghouls as Will called them — attacked. There was a plan, but it didn’t prevent the shaking. The fear gripped her, tightening around her chest and throat, and she had to remind herself to breathe.
In and out, in and out…
Will was on one knee next to her, calmly laying the shotgun in front of him. The ghouls were coming. There was no stopping them now. They had shattered the outer glass doors and pretty soon they would be in the waiting area. Then crashing against the inner doors. Then they would be inside the store.
Inside the store!
“It’ll be okay,” he said. His voice seemed to come from the other side of the planet. “Just follow the plan. You’re going to live through this, Kate. I promise.”
She tried to smile back, but it came out all wrong. He was already checking his rifle again, for what must have been the tenth time in the last five minutes.
Time and space seemed to have contracted, making it hard to tell how long they had been sitting there in the darkness listening to the ghouls breaking down the outer doors, the shatterproof glass falling in chunks to the floor. So loud in the eerie silence of the night.
The massive black tide moved and squirmed against the doors, anxious to pour inside.
She was shaking. Her hands were trembling, and her feet tapped involuntarily against the floor. She tried to stop them, but they refused to listen.
Will’s hand folded over her wrist and she stopped trembling. “You’ll do fine, Kate.” His voice came through much clearer now. “You’ve come this far, you’re not going to give up now. Just do what we talked about, and everything will go according to plan.”
“Plan Z, right?” she said, trying to smile again, but her lips were quivering too badly, and she bailed on the attempt halfway through.
“You have to trust me, okay?”
She nodded. Or thought she did. Her chest felt tight, and she had to again remind herself to breathe.
“Okay,” she heard herself say. (Or had she?)
“You have to go now. No arguing this time. Go. Just like we talked about earlier. Kate, are you listening?”
She managed to nod.
“Go, Kate. Now.”
She stood up on trembling legs and took a few hesitant steps backward before stopping.
He had already returned to checking his rifle when he must have sensed her hesitation, because he looked over. He looked so young and boyish in the darkness. He and Danny. So seasoned for their age. She couldn’t imagine what they had already seen and done in their lives to make the end of the world just another battlefield for them.
“Kate, now,” he said gently. “Go.”
“You’ll come too, right?”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
She couldn’t tell if he was lying.
Kate turned to go, willing her legs to move one step at a time, expecting that at any moment the doors would give and they would be inside and Will would be shooting.
But there was no crashing sound and he didn’t shoot, and she managed to keep moving until she was running through the darkness. There was enough light to navigate around the clothing racks and shelves, though she mostly kept to the pre-planned path, turning left, then right, then straight. The night-vision goggles bounced against her chest, hanging from a strap around her neck, but it never occurred to her to slip them back on.