But it held. Miraculously, it held.
The window in front of him was closed and Keo was prepared to smash it open with his weapon, but when he grabbed the bottom and tried to open it, it actually slid up for him.
Hallelujah!
He pushed it all the way up and dived inside, turned, and slammed the glass back down just as one — two—five of the creatures landed on the catwalk outside. Whomp-whomp-whomp! There were so many coming down at once that they started falling on top of each other’s heads and shoulders, then bounced off and tumbled over the railings.
The first creature to right itself slammed its fist into the window and cracked it, but it must not have been strong enough because the window held. At least, until another one of the ghouls joined the first one with its own flailing fist. Then a third and a fourth began ramming their entire bodies — one was using its skull — until the glass panes began cracking under the frenzied assault.
Keo took a couple of steps back, ejected the magazine, shoved it into his pack, and pulled out a fresh one from a pouch around his waist and slammed it home. He shot the first ghoul that made it through the jagged opening in one of the panes. It fell forward into the room, landing awkwardly on its skull.
The others continued scrambling inside, undeterred, fighting to be the first one in.
He strafed the window, emptying the magazine, and watched with morbid fascination as the mass of black, pruned flesh and skeletal bodies corralled within the four walls of the catwalk outside. The congestion didn’t slow them at all, and even more were falling out of the sky like endless raindrops.
Silver bullets or not, he wasn’t going to stop them. Not even close.
He fled, making a run for the door, grabbing it and pulling it open without a problem, and lunged into darkness. His eyes quickly adjusted, picking out the banisters at the other end of the hallway. Keo ran for it when his forehead hit something soft. He slid to a stop and looked up at a rope dangling from the ceiling.
Crash!
From below him on the first floor, the unmistakable noise of glass breaking.
Then another crash!, followed by another…
He grabbed the piece of rope and yanked it. The frame of the attic door appeared in the darkness as it opened up from the ceiling. Keo grabbed the ladder and pulled even as something smashed into the door behind him.
Thoom-thoom-thoom!
He shut the noises out — from below him, from behind him—everywhere.
Scrambled up the stairs and ignored the last few steps and jumped upward onto the wooden scaffolding above. Clouds of dust that had been gathering for the last year erupted around him. Twisting, he grabbed the ladder and pulled it up, making sure to bring the dangling rope along with him. Before the door could slam shut and join the tumultuous symphony of chaos exploding below him, Keo grabbed it at the last second, slowing its speed, and cautiously — painfully slowly, almost as if in slow-motion — tapped it shut.
Darkness swamped him, taking away what little light he had with the attic door open. The tap-tap-tap of bare feet against the wooded hallway floor filtered up from the room below him, overwhelming everything, including his own ragged breathing. There were no peepholes, so Keo had to only go with what his ears could pick up.
Footsteps on the stairs, rushing down, then up, then down again.
They were searching for him, an endless wave of the creatures moving through the hallway below, in and out of doors and rooms.
Keo moved into a sitting position facing the door in the floor, the submachine gun resting between his legs. Something small and furry scrambled next to him in the darkness, brushing up against his right arm. It was all he could do not to open fire on it. Instead, he gritted his teeth and listened to the creature burrowing through attic insulation, more afraid of him than he was of it. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on his part.
He glanced at his watch, the hands glowing in the suffocating darkness.
It was hours yet before morning.
He sat and waited and did his best not to breathe in the dust around him. The place probably had asbestos, too. Just his luck. He had survived the end of the world only to get mesothelioma. Now that would really suck.
His body had already begun to itch from the close proximity to insulation. He battled the urge to sneeze and had to cup his mouth and nostrils with one hand.
Below him, the endless tap-tap-tap of bare feet continued unabated, like an ocean’s wave lapping against a beach, soft and soothing and promising safety and shelter from the darkness.
He wondered if Gillian and Jordan and the others had made it to Santa Marie Island after all. If they were waiting for him on the beach right now, wondering why he hadn’t made it there yet like he had promised. Would Gillian understand when he finally arrived and explained what took him so long?
“See, there was this crazy guy with a small army hunting us…”
She might have even found someone else after giving up on him ever showing up. It would serve him right. Maybe Mark was the lucky guy…
“Keo. You promise me. You’ll follow us to Santa Marie Island,” Gillian had said to him when they had their last conversation.
“Yes,” he had answered. “I promise. Reserve a spot on the beach for me. I also wouldn’t mind if you were wearing a bikini when I get there.”
How long ago was that? It seemed like another lifetime now.
This’ll teach you to make promises you can’t keep, pal…
2
Lara
“This is your way of making me hate you, is that it? Because it’s working. First you let me think you were dead, then I learn you’re alive, and now you’re telling me you’re not coming home. Are you purposefully trying to piss me off, Will?”
He didn’t answer right away, and for a moment she wondered if hearing his voice for the first time in nearly a week had been just an illusion, something her grief-stricken mind had conjured up in order to spare her the pain of believing she had lost him for good. Maybe it was all a bad dream. She’d had plenty of those since he left the island with Gaby on Jen’s helicopter.
“Will? Are you still there?”
“I’m still here,” he said finally.
He sounded so close, as if she could reach out and touch him. She had to remind herself that he was alive, something she hadn’t been sure of until yesterday when Danny found him outside of Lafayette. That should have been all that mattered, but at the moment she couldn’t stop her anger from boiling to the surface.
The guilt immediately washed over her, and she struggled to control it.
“So say something, Will…”
“Lara, you know there’s nothing in this world I want more than to come back to you right now. I just can’t. Not yet.”
Of course not, Will. If you did what you wanted instead of what you needed to do, then you wouldn’t be Will, would you? You wouldn’t be the man I love.
She sighed. “Forget for a moment that I’m this close to getting in a boat and hunting your stupid, inconsiderate ass down for leaving me hanging. Forget that for one moment. Take emotion out of it and think about this logically, Will. You’re hurt. You’re bleeding. You’ve been shot. You need to come back to me. I need you to come back here so I can make sure you don’t die.”