She aimed for the head—
“Remember: shoot them in the head,” Will had said.
— and fired.
It flicked its head to one side, and the bullet sailed harmlessly past it and hit the master bedroom doorframe at the other end of the second floor.
“Remember…”
She fired again.
It moved its head left, and again the bullet disappeared up the hallway, but this time it vanished into the darkened bedroom. She prayed she didn’t accidentally hit Danny or one of the girls.
“…shoot them in the head.”
She squeezed the trigger again and again and again—
The creature continued coming toward her, its head snapping left, then right, as if it were sashaying, a dancer with absolute control over every inch of its body, every slight twitch. Its head bobbed and weaved like a boxer.
And it kept coming…
It was three feet away when she fired her final shot and watched the bullet graze its cheek, taking away flesh and cutting into bone underneath. There was a thin trickle of black blood before the wound seemed to seal itself up.
It stood so close to her now that she could feel its breath — acidic and strangely warm — against her face. It watched her struggling to reload the Glock, her fingers trembling from the adrenaline and terror and the sight of this undead thing standing so close to her that it could reach out at any moment and lick her face.
She managed to put the magazine in and worked the slide, and as she lifted the weapon there was a blur of black skin and the gun flew from her hand. Her arm stung from the blow and she backpedaled again in shock.
It followed and grabbed her by the shoulders, smashing her into the wall. The entire house shook. Or maybe that was just her imagination. The world that existed from her toes to her head definitely trembled because she couldn’t focus on any one thing anymore as pain exploded through every fiber of her being.
She slid to the floor, thankful that the wall was there to prevent her from collapsing like the sad sack of useless meat she felt like at the moment. Her ears might have been bleeding, and she couldn’t feel the shape of the earbud in her ear anymore. When had she lost that? And where was the radio? It was gone, too. When had that happened? Maybe it was for the best, since she couldn’t hear much of anything anyway, even the gunfire from below her.
Will.
And Danny from the main bedroom. Was he shooting? Was that the pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire? Or something else? Maybe all the noises were being conjured up by her mind, which at the moment might have been on fire.
Was that possible? Could her mind actually be burning?
And pain. There was so much pain…
She couldn’t feel her left arm, which had jammed into the wall first. Was it broken? She couldn’t move it no matter how hard she tried. So maybe.
And what the hell was that ringing in her ears?
It was crouching in front of her, long bony legs bending at awkward angles. Its smooth skin, pulled taut over a sharp skeletal frame, reminding her of all those anorexic supermodels in lingerie catalogs. Eat something, she wanted to say to it, then maybe laugh in its face. Of course, when she opened her mouth to do just that, only a slight gasp came out.
Had she even opened her mouth? Could her mouth even move?
It touched her cheek with one long, slender finger. There was no fingernail, only a fleshy nub. The contact was surprisingly gentle, almost like a lover’s caress. She didn’t feel very loved, though, but trying to pull away was not working. She only managed to turn her head slightly, but even that took a lot of effort, and the creature simply grabbed her chin with its other hand and forced her to stare back at it again.
“I knew someone,” it said, hissing out the words.
Unfathomably bright eyes pierced through her as if they could touch her soul, but she didn’t see what she expected to see. There was no glaring evil on the other side, just something that, once upon a time, was human, but wasn’t anymore.
“She looked like you,” it said.
It turned her head carefully left, then right again, as if to get a good look at every inch of her face, to memorize every line, every bruise and healing scar. The broken nose from this morning and the cuts from the helicopter crash that still hadn’t fully healed yet, and might never.
“Not as pretty, but close,” it said.
The crashing of gunshots. Danny and Will. Fighting for their lives against how many more of these monsters inside the house? Three? One was definitely inside the room with Danny, so were the other two downstairs with Will? How was Will going to fight off two when she and Danny could barely survive one each?
We’re dead. We’re all dead.
If we’re lucky…
The creature turned its head, looking back toward the bedroom, just as a small figure emerged out of the blackness.
Claire.
The thirteen-year-old was holding the shotgun Will had given her. It still looked ridiculously massive against her slight frame. Claire was running toward them when she slid to a stop in front of the pile of debris — and Lance, still buried under them — as the ghoul feasted its eyes on her.
“Shoot it!” Gaby shouted. “Shoot it in the head!”
The creature was standing up when Claire fired, the shotgun blast so loud in the narrow passageway that Gaby physically flinched at the explosion. The ghoul turned its body slightly right as most of the buckshot glanced off its shoulder, the rounds punching through soft flesh and embedding into the wall.
Then it moved toward the girl.
No, not Claire! Stay away from her!
Gaby’s eyes darted down to the floor.
The Glock. Where the hell was the Glock?
There!
Less than three feet away. She lunged for it, throwing her entire body forward with everything she had, unsure if it would even work until her chest slammed into the floor. That was a stupid move. More blinding flashes of pain, but she gritted her teeth through them and she reached for the 9mm handgun, wrapped her numbed fingers around it—
She struggled to sit back up.
The creature was almost on top of Claire, who had backed up and fired again. A large chunk of the ghoul’s thigh disintegrated, but the creature kept advancing, undeterred. It could have reached Claire faster, she realized. She had seen it move with blinding speed when it wanted to. But it wasn’t at the moment. Why not?
Because this is a game. It’s playing with her.
It’s all just a game to them…
“Hey!” Gaby shouted.
It turned and looked back at her, and its mouth curved into a grin.
“Run!” Gaby shouted, not at the creature, but at Claire. “Go to Will! Go now!”
Claire climbed over the debris and Lance and darted down the stairs.
The ghoul didn’t seem interested in pursuing Claire anymore. It only had eyes for her again. “Still want to play?” it hissed.
“No,” she said, and shot it in the right kneecap.
The gun was steady in her hand. She didn’t know how that was possible, but it barely moved as she fired.
The creature’s leg buckled, and as it went down, she shot it again, this time in the left kneecap, forcing it to involuntarily kneel in front of her.
Then she saw it in its eyes.
Understanding.
It knew what she was doing, and it wasn’t smiling anymore.
It started to get up when she shot it again, but this time her hand moved slightly for whatever reason, and she hit it in the cheek. The impact snapped its head upward like a spring. Before it could fully recover, she shot it in the center of the face. Its nose — or what was left of it — exploded into tiny chunks, and something punched its way out of the back of its skull, sticky wet goop splattering across the walls.