“You thought this through?” the man said after a while. “You’re not who you once were, you know. What’s to stop the Ranger from shooting first and listening to you never?”
“You’ll convince them.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” A brief pause, with only the man’s soft breathing and calm heartbeat from under his clothes to fill the void. “Did you ever wonder that maybe it’s better for her — for all of them — if they stayed away from Texas?”
“She has to know…”
“So you keep saying, but she’s not the woman you remember.” Another pause. “I’m just saying, this reunion might not work out the way you hope.”
Another stick of jerky, followed by crunching and swallowing.
He looked down at the silhouetted forms racing back and forth below. They were free to roam and explore, to search every hole for him. But, like him, they would soon have to seek shelter, because the sun would be here.
How long had it been since he’d seen the sun? Months. It had been months, even though it felt like centuries.
“You miss it, don’t you?” the man asked.
“Yes.”
“You ever tempted to just say ‘Fuck it,’ and stepping into the light, so to speak?”
Tempted? Yes. It was worse in the early days, like an itch he couldn’t scratch, a siren’s call beckoning him to let it all go, to let her go. But he couldn’t. He had failed to keep his promises, but he could still save her, even if it meant prolonging this miserable existence.
“Whatever it takes,” he had said, “whatever happens, you won’t have to face another night alone.”
“No,” he hissed.
“I don’t believe you,” the man said.
“Believe what you want.”
“Gee, thanks, I’ll do that.”
Another click as the woman came out to join them. He had smelled her when she was still in the stairwell and heard her soft, careful footsteps from five floors down. Her heartbeat accelerated slightly under her winter clothing as she emerged into the open night, but he knew it wasn’t the cold air — it was the sight of him.
It was why he wore the trench coat when he was around them, with the hoodie covering most of his face, only his eyes peering out from under the frayed brim. It seemed to work with the man, but then the man was an odd one. Weeks later, and the woman was still trying to get used to being around him.
“Did they show up yet?” she whispered to the man. He didn’t know why she was whispering. Up here, the black eyes wouldn’t be able to hear them anyway.
“Don’t know,” the man said.
“He can’t see the ocean from here?”
“Apparently he can’t see that far.”
“Hunh.”
“What I said.”
“What about our other friends?”
“I don’t think they’re going anywhere anytime soon, but they’re definitely tracking us.”
“How?”
“Haven’t figured that part out yet.”
“Well, let me know when you do.”
“That might take a while.”
“Goes without saying.”
The man snorted. “Anything going on downstairs?”
“I didn’t hear anything. We locked all the doors, right?”
“I think so.”
“You think so?”
“I’m pretty sure we did.”
“You’re always so comforting, Keo.”
“I try.”
The woman leaned over the edge, her short blonde hair moving against the breeze. “Jesus, look at them. If they find us in here…”
“That’s it, positive thoughts,” the man said.
She sighed. “We should have made a run for the beach. They don’t like the water, right?”
“Definitely not.”
“We should have made a run for the beach,” she repeated.
“Lara and the Trident aren’t here yet. We’d just end up waiting for them down there anyway. At least here we have a lot of floors between us and them.”
The woman glanced over at him, brown eyes focusing as if she could make out his face behind the hoodie. “How many?” she asked.
“Too many,” he hissed.
“Can you be more specific?”
“No.”
“But you can see them down there.”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“Yes…”
The man chuckled. “Chatterbox, this guy.”
The man and woman had names, but it was easier to think of them as just the man and the woman. They were somewhere on the twentieth floor above him, their voices reaching down through the vibrations that traveled along the steel and concrete and glass of the building. Though he couldn’t hear every single word they spoke, he could hear just enough.
“…going to get us killed,” the woman was saying.
“Relax,” the man said.
“‘Relax’?” She might have laughed, but that kind of nuance was lost on its way down the stairwell. “We’re inside a building with a blue-eyed ghoul, Keo. And you want me to relax?”
“You don’t have to be here. Tobias—”
“Screw Tobias.”
“I thought you said there was nothing between the two of you?”
Silence. Then, two seconds later, the woman said, “You’re an asshole.”
The man laughed softly. “So that’s a no?”
“I told you, there was never anything between us.”
“All that time…”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“All that time alone, looking for us. Did you ever…?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you. Even with that ugly scar, there are still plenty of desperate women out there.”
“Ouch,” he said.
This time he was sure she did laugh. “No offense.”
“Oh sure, why should I take offense to that?”
The woman answered, but he had already gotten up and slipped out of the stairwell and into the darkened lobby before her words reached him. He sat inside the shadows, feeling at home among the forgotten relics of an old world.
A stubborn pool of moonlight managed to filter in through the glass walls across from him, the sidewalks and streets on the other side dull and gray. He wasn’t worried about being exposed, because the black eyes had no special ability or heightened senses. But the creatures did have eyes and some measure of intelligence, enough that they could recognize the disturbances in their surroundings.
Dead, not stupid, someone once called them.
Who had said that? He couldn’t remember, but it would come to him eventually. It always did, usually when he least expected it.
Flickers of movement as a dozen of the creatures emerged out of the darkness and moved up the sidewalk. He expected them to keep going past the building, because surely they hadn’t left any clues to their presence outside, had they? He was sure of it, but then one of the black eyes stopped and cocked its head. He realized it was just glaring at its own reflection in the glass wall.
He was relieved, until the skeletal thing moved forward and grabbed the handle of one of the twin glass doors and tried pulling it instead of continuing on its way. The door didn’t budge. Its black eyes looked confused for a moment, and then it tried pulling a few more times.
If it had stopped, that might have been the end of it, except the damn thing seemed suddenly determined to get inside. Its activity attracted the attention of the others, and a second — then a third — of the ghouls stopped and grabbed the other handle and began pulling at it, too.