Kate turned to Carly. The younger woman looked back anxiously. “It’ll be all right. It’ll work.” Kate smiled, surprised how easily the lie left her lips.
The shotgun blasts continued unabated, seemingly louder if that was possible. Then she realized they weren’t just getting louder — they were getting closer.
Ted shouted, “Now!”
Luke slid both deadbolts back and jumped out of the way as Ted turned the doorknob and threw the door open. Suddenly Danny was there, appearing out of the darkness like a ghost. He slid inside, out of breath, the shotgun in his hands, the rifle bouncing against his back. He was covered in blood and skin, and for a second Kate thought he was wounded until she realized it wasn’t his blood.
Luke said, “Where’s Will?”
“On his way,” Danny said between gasps.
They heard a shotgun blast, then Will was there, visible in the doorframe as he turned and fired his final shot. Kate heard an inhuman shriek and then there was nothing but the sound of rushing feet.
Will rushed through the door, screaming, “Close it! Close it!”
Ted slammed it shut and Luke rammed both deadbolts into place just as something crashed into the door from the other side. It was such a hard impact that the door shook for a second. Ted and Luke took a couple of quick steps backward as more bodies collided, one after another.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Over and over again.
The frame and wall around the door shuddered with each impact.
Will looked over at Danny and nodded. “Do it.”
“You sure this isn’t going to kill us all?” Danny asked.
“Probably not.”
Danny smirked at him. “That’s it? That’s your big pep talk?”
Will grinned back at him. “You wanna live forever?”
“Kinda, yeah.”
“So do it.”
Danny slung his shotgun and pulled a mustard-covered square object from one of his pouches. It was the size of a cigarette box, with a fat black antenna at the top and a lever on one side.
Plan Z.
“Fire in the hole,” Danny said calmly before closing his palm around the device.
Kate heard a click, then her world threatened to come apart at the seams. For a brief, terrifying second, she was sure the ceiling would collapse and kill them all.
But it didn’t.
The initial explosion was tremendous and tossed an unprepared Luke to the floor, while Ted had to grab at the nearest wall to stay upright.
The sofa underneath her shook, and Carly grabbed Vera, pulling the little girl into her chest in a protective bubble. Vera put her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut but didn’t scream or cry.
Brave girl. What a brave girl…
Will and Danny had been prepared for the explosion and held onto the walls as the building around them moved and trembled and did its best to cave in on itself.
It was just the beginning.
A moment later, a series of smaller explosions ripped through the building, and Kate remembered watching Danny and Will setting up the C4 explosives — small strips of plastic that looked like molding clay, with small black charges attached to them — and propane tanks around the store, strapping them to the huge struts that held up the ceiling.
Will had explained that the explosions were set up in a pattern that would keep the resulting damage from reaching the employee lounge, but would do maximum damage to the rest of the store. If all went well, the C4 would detonate the propane tank, and the two combined explosions would cave in most of the Archers, creating a thick, impregnable semicircle of brick and mortar and concrete around the employee lounge.
That was the idea, anyway.
She didn’t know if that was what was happening outside, but as the last explosion shook the lounge like the hand of God and aftershocks followed, she marveled that they were still alive and the room was still standing, even though cracks had appeared along the walls and pieces of the ceiling had peeled off and fallen down around them.
But it held!
She didn’t know when she had started clutching onto the cheap plastic upholstery of the couch. She listened to the loud groaning as the building fell around them before it slowly began to settle.
Will and Danny slumped down on the floor in front of her, both exhausted, and grabbed bottled water out of a box beside them. They splashed their faces and gulped down the rest. They had prepared for this with boxes containing supplies scattered about the room and inside the powerless fridge near the back.
Will looked over at Danny and began laughing. Danny joined in. They looked like frat boys having fun at a sleepover, wet faces and mischievous eyes clear as day against the LED lanterns.
They’re insane. Both of them. They’re insane.
But they did it… We’re alive!
“What’s the grade?” Will asked after they had stopped laughing.
“We’re still standing,” Danny said. “B-plus.”
“Good enough.”
The building creaked in the aftermath, and rubble continued to fall outside the employee lounge. She wondered how much of the store was left. There would be unforeseen damage, things that even Will’s Plan Z hadn’t accounted for.
She felt exhilaration that they were still alive, and horror that they had actually blown up a building to save themselves.
As the building continued to settle, they heard noises from the other side of the door. Shuffling movements. Will and Danny didn’t seem disturbed by it, but she and Luke looked up. It sounded too close.
“What is that?” Luke asked. “Can you guys hear that?”
“Ghouls,” Will said. “Some would have made it through before Danny boy hit the switch.”
“Can’t be too many,” Danny said. “Probably a hundred or so.”
“Around there,” Will nodded.
“Can they get through?” Luke asked, concerned.
“I doubt it,” Danny said.
There were three quick thuds against the door, then silence.
Then another series of pounding.
She knew Danny was right. The creatures would never break down the door. They were fast and they relied on numbers, but they didn’t have the strength. As proof, the pounding grew weaker and weaker by the minute.
She looked back at Will and Danny. They were opening more bottles of water and gulping them down and washing more blood and skin off their faces. Their boots were caked in thick black mud that they had tracked all the way through the store and into the lounge.
No, not mud.
Blood…
“Get some sleep,” Will said. “We have a long day tomorrow.”
She fought against sleep, beating it handily for the first few hours, drinking water and eating chips and more beef jerky than was probably healthy. She hated the taste, but the jalapeno kept her alert.
By ten o’clock she started to feel drowsy, and in a perverse way the constant drumming against the door started to lull her to sleep. A part of her was afraid of what would happen and what she would find when she woke. If she woke at all.
Will and Danny were convinced the door would hold. They were probably right. It had held without so much as a crack for the last three hours.
Luke and Ted sat on the other couch, trying hard to stay awake, but Ted eventually gave in around eleven. Luke lasted until midnight, but was dozing a few minutes later. Carly and Vera, curled up on the couch next to Kate, had fallen asleep long ago, with Vera wrapped tightly against Carly’s chest.