“Shut your lying whore mouth!” he shouted at her.
“Go to hell!” she spat back, with all the venom she could muster.
That did it. He slapped her across the face so hard she instantly tasted blood. The force of the blow sent her staggering back onto the couch. He scrambled after her, pouncing. He grabbed her by the shoulders with two hands, pulled her back up, and slapped her across the face again. She screamed.
“I’ll teach you to lie, you stupid whore!” he shouted, his spit flying at her face.
His hands found her throat and his fingers wrapped all the way around. She felt dizziness almost immediately. His face was inches from hers, contorted in that ridiculous, angst expression she had seen a hundred times before when he wanted to argue with John but was too afraid to.
Now, now, now!
She thrust her hands forward, below his outstretched arms, and fumbled at his waistband, groping blindly until she found the handle of the gun. She tightened her grip around the curved wood and pulled, even as he was screaming into her face. But she had stopped listening. Her ears were ringing and she was starting to black out, because he was squeezing, squeezing so hard…
She thought the sound of a gunshot up close would be louder, or maybe it was because her ears were flooded with pain. She heard the bang! and felt Jack jerk backward, his fingers relaxing around her throat almost instantly, although he didn’t let go. His eyes went wide, that confused expression spreading across his face and, without thinking, she pulled the trigger again.
And again and again and again…
He slid to the floor and lay in a puddle at her feet. Blood pooled underneath him, and she could hear him still breathing, even over the loud, cacophonous thrumming inside her eardrums. His eyes were wide open and he stared at her, that dumb look of confusion plastered across his stupid Sunday face.
She had to grab the couch to keep from falling. She still had the revolver in her hand — it felt so heavy.
Lara realized suddenly how much darker the room had gotten. She didn’t have her watch anymore, and there was no wall clock in the cabin, but she knew they were pushing up against sundown.
The door, a voice inside her shouted. Lock the door! No one’s locking the door!
She turned and almost ran into the man’s chest.
She didn’t know how he had gotten into the cabin without her hearing. He was taller than Jack but a few inches smaller than John. He had short brown hair and was wearing some kind of black plastic strap around his throat. A wire dangled from his right ear, connected to a radio that was Velcroed to some kind of vest. A rifle was slung over his back.
His hand moved quickly and snatched the revolver from her grip. She didn’t realize the gun was gone until a few seconds after it was no longer there. “Just to be safe,” he said, and his voice sounded calm and kind and unthreatening, and she thought of Tony again.
Tony. Poor Tony…
A second man came into the cabin. He was about the same age as the first man and wore the same kind of clothes and had the same band around his throat, with a wire also dangling from one ear. He closed the security gate over the cabin door, then pulled on it.
“Looks like they have the place fixed up pretty good,” the second man said. “Only two windows still open, both with burglar bars. Propane tanks for cooking, gas generators for indoor plumbing, and residential well water. Quite the sweet setup for the end of the world.”
“No lights?” the first man asked. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Lara.
“Nope,” the second man said. “Looks like they go dark when it gets dark. Smart.”
The first man looked past Lara at Jack, lying on the floor behind her. “Not a friend, I take it?”
She took a couple of steps away from him and almost stumbled over Jack.
The second man was closing the windows and pulling the curtains over them, bathing the cabin in darkness.
She couldn’t see anything. Not the men, not Jack, not Fred, and not even herself.
There was a cracking sound, and seconds later two green glowing tubes appeared in the blackness, lighting up the men’s faces. They tossed the glowing sticks to the floor, then cracked two more and tossed them to other sides of the cabin. There was light again, and everyone appeared in an otherworldly fluorescent green glow.
The second man walked over to Fred. “This one looks like he’s about had it. Probably won’t make it through the night. What about that one?”
The first man crouched next to Jack. “Deader than a doorknob.”
“John?” Lara managed to say.
“John?” the first man repeated, looking up at her.
“Is John dead?” she said, forcing the words out. She had to know. She had to know.
The two men exchanged looks, then the second man shrugged. “Maybe the big one with the beard? He looks like a John to me. Or maybe a Paul. Possibly a John Bear Paul.”
“Is he dead?” she asked again.
“Yeah,” the first man said. He looked back down at Jack, then up at her. “You all right?”
“No,” Lara said and began crying uncontrollably.
Will handed her an energy bar from one of his pouches and watched her eat in the semi-darkness. It tasted like the best thing she had ever eaten. After weeks of nothing but venison — not just eating it, but also having to skin and cook it for the Sundays — anything would have tasted like caviar.
When she finished, Will handed her another one.
Danny was going through the fridge. He pulled out bags of stored venison and tossed them into the sink before locating a six-pack set of Miller Lite, with three cans still inside their rings. He brought the beers over and handed them one each.
She took it and drank half of it in one gulp.
Will and Danny exchanged a look, then laughed.
She realized what she had done and laughed with them. “I’m not really a big drinker,” she said, embarrassed.
“I can see that,” Will said and laughed again.
They sat with their backs against the wall, eyes on the door and windows, in the soft green illumination of the glow sticks.
Will told her about the silver bullets. How had she and the Sundays managed to survive all this time without them? She told them about the first week with Tony, hiding in her apartment, then finally venturing out here on the dirt bike.
She stopped talking when she heard them moving outside the cabin, drawn to the windows and probably the strange green light inside. She couldn’t tell how many there were, but Will guessed at least a dozen by the sounds. Every now and then, one would slip its hand through the burglar bars and tap against the glass.
“What are they doing?” she whispered.
“Probing,” Will said.
“They can think…?”
“They can do more than that,” Danny said.
She sat in the darkness with them and listened to the soft padding of bare feet outside. The sound kept changing — first slow, then fast, then slow again. Every now and then, something scraped against the other side of the door, and once she thought she saw a shadow flitting across a window.
She felt safe with Will and Danny sitting on both sides of her, their rifles leaning against the wall next to them. They didn’t seem alarmed by the sound of the creatures moving around outside, and their calmness had an effect on her.
She grew less and less afraid as the night went on.
“You think it’s the same group?” Danny asked.
“I don’t know,” Will said. “Maybe.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe they are following us…”