Her view of the outside world was revealing, even through the metal burglar bars fastened over the window. She didn’t know if hers was the only one secured like a prison cell. The bars were so tightly pressed against the frame that it was impossible to stick her head out far enough to see around her.
The driver waiting for Josh wore the same type of uniform as Lance and Mac and looked at least twenty years older than the kid he was picking up. The two men exchanged a perfunctory nod, but nothing resembling a salute. As the Jeep moved away from the curb, she waited for Josh to look up, perhaps sensing her, but he never did. She watched them drive off until they disappeared up the street.
“I’m leaving tonight to help out with another town,” Josh had said. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. Maybe a few days. Maybe a few weeks.”
And maybe I won’t be here when you get back, Josh.
She looked around at the room.
Of course, getting out of this place was easier said than done. Besides the round-the-clock guard outside her door, she had no weapons, and they had taken away anything that could even remotely be used as a weapon ever since she had nearly killed Mac with the nightstand the first day she woke up.
But Gaby didn’t for a second think about giving up the idea of escape. She couldn’t, even if she wanted to. Surrender wasn’t a part of her DNA. It had never been, and the end of the world hadn’t changed that.
Take all the time you need, Josh. I won’t be here when you get back…
She didn’t get another visitor for the rest of the afternoon. There were no clocks in the room, so she had to use the sun outside to tell time. That and the noise, because the people on the streets were most active in the mornings and afternoons, but as it got darker, the activity died down and the town became ghostly quiet.
They still remember. This place might have become a safe haven, but they still remember what’s out there when the sun goes down.
After four days in L15, she had become used to the sight of people on horseback and kids in shorts running around the street. There wasn’t any danger of getting run over because there were so few cars in town. And you knew when a car came, because it was usually one of those big Army transport trucks settling yet another group of people. She wondered how long those vehicles had been coming and going. Sooner or later, the space would run out, and then what?
Another town. L16, maybe. Or L20.
L30?
How long had they been building these places, she wondered, and how many more were out there right now? In Louisiana, and in the other states?
What about around the world?
The sight of pregnant women had also ceased to become a novelty. She watched them from her window with a mixture of sadness and pity. Did they know what they were getting into? Of course they did. Josh had told them. Or whoever ran this place when Josh wasn’t here. She didn’t think Josh was actually responsible for the day-to-day operations. He was like an overseer, coming and going as needed.
The sun was already fading over the rooftops across the street. She didn’t need a watch or a clock to tell her that it was almost six. It would be dark in less than thirty minutes. Sometimes sooner, when you least expected it.
Night is not our friend. Not anymore.
She glanced back when the doorknob behind her jingled and Mac pushed the door open. He looked in cautiously, as if expecting her to be lying in wait for him. Gaby almost grinned at his reluctance.
“Dinner, your highness,” Mac said, with just enough of a smirk to get across his disdain for her.
A young girl who Gaby had never seen before squeezed her way past Mac. Gaby’s entire world in L15 up to this point had revolved around Josh coming in the afternoons and evenings, and Mac standing outside her door in the day and Lance at night. The girl brought a newness that stirred curiosity and suspicion in Gaby.
And who might you be, little girl?
She wore a white sundress and had short black hair cut to complement a round face. She looked all of thirteen, with big brown eyes that gave her a rare vibe of innocence, something that was in short supply these days.
She smiled at Gaby. “I brought you dinner.”
“Thank you,” Gaby said.
The girl was carrying a brown plastic tray with a red apple, a baked potato in aluminum foil, (Potatoes again? she thought, just as her stomach growled), and two pieces of bread with something that looked like ham placed with care between them.
“Where should I put it?” the girl asked her.
“Put it anywhere,” Mac said impatiently behind her.
“But I don’t want it to get dirty.”
“Just put it anywhere, for God’s sake.”
“On the bed’s fine,” Gaby said.
She smiled at the girl and got a pleasant response. “Are you sure?” the girl asked. “Peter would kill me if he saw food on my bed.”
“I won’t tell him if you don’t.”
That elicited another bright smile. The girl walked over to the bed and put the tray down over the duvet. She stepped back and seemed to hesitate for a moment.
“Get on with it,” Mac said behind her.
“I’ll come back later — for the tray — when you’re done,” the girl said. There was something about the way she looked at Gaby — a strange, almost anxiousness in her voice — that made Gaby even more curious.
“Okay,” Gaby nodded when the girl didn’t say anything else.
“Come on,” Mac said. “I don’t have all day.”
The girl hurried back to the door. Mac held it open for her then slammed it shut after them and immediately pushed the deadbolt into place on the other side.
Gaby stared at the door after them.
What was that about?
She sat on her bed, eating everything on the tray. She devoured the potato skins and apple core and crumbs from the two slices of bread. Homemade bread. She could tell. Her mom couldn’t make bread to save her life, but her friend Anna’s mom could. The ham was delicious and fresh. They weren’t from a frozen package like on the island. She guessed the townspeople got it from the same pigs as the strips of bacon Josh was boasting about earlier.
She thought about the girl as she ate and watched nightfall blanket the world outside her window. She had gotten used to leaving it open. The sight of candles and flickering lanterns from the buildings around her brought a sense of normalcy she didn’t realize she had missed until now.
But it was the girl in the white sundress that stayed at the forefront of her mind. The kid had wanted to say something, but the presence of Mac had discouraged it. What was going on behind those big eyes?
It was pitch-dark outside when she finished her meal and found herself back at the window, looking past the buildings and at the woods beyond. L15 was ringed by woods. Dark and natural, their trees teeming with things she couldn’t see. Things other than the animals on the branches, the birds perched among the crowns. Things that were moving on the ground, restless…
Ghouls.
She shivered involuntarily. They were out there right now. Somewhere. She couldn’t see them, but she could feel their presence beyond the town limits. The people around her could, too. That was why L15 shut down well before nightfall, why everyone — despite the arrangement, despite the promised safety — still operated under the assumption it wasn’t safe to wander outside in the dark.