Will slipped the M4A1 from his shoulder. He lifted the rifle and looked through the sight. He was still too far to make out any details, but there was enough for him to know two of the three were men, the third a woman. The biggest one was up front, and Will set the red dot against the side of the man’s head.
It was a fine target. Big and juicy and oblivious, just the way he liked it.
CHAPTER 32
LARA
Lara hid among the trees that lined the beach, one hand holding the radio, the other gripping the Benelli shotgun so tightly that her fingers were white. She watched them coming from a distance. They had been coming for a while, the sounds of their loud boat motors reaching the island well before they did.
They looked like toy boats from this distance, and she could see men clinging to the sides — the starboard, or port, or whatever they called those sections. The boats were moving so fast they looked like they were about to take off into the sky at any second, the front half literally hopping over the surface of the lake only to smash back down again, then going right back up. She was amazed none of the men had been tossed into the water already.
She heard Will and Danny talking back and forth on the radio. She fought the urge to butt in, reminding herself this was what they did — they cracked jokes in the middle of a crisis. She had learned a long time ago to give them their space.
Finally, the boats were close enough Lara could actually see with the naked eye that the men onboard were coming fully armed. That was when she heard the crack of Danny’s rifle, and the boats seemed to slow down all of a sudden.
Danny shot again, then a third time.
Warning shots. If Danny wanted to hit them, he would have hit them. Of course, the men on the boats didn’t know that, and they started firing back. Or firing, anyway, but not necessarily back at anything, especially Danny, high up in the Tower across the island.
Will would never waste bullets like that.
Then Danny shot again, and one of the men in the first boat doubled over and grabbed his leg. A second shot, and another man doubled over in the second boat. Danny’s third and final shot sent black smoke billowing from the first boat’s motor.
Damn, he’s good.
She knew full well Danny could have killed everyone on the boats if he wanted to, especially with that new scope mounted on his rifle. These men were getting a second chance, and the irony was that they didn’t even know it. But they did get the hint that their attack wasn’t going well and began to turn around.
Lara watched the boats heading back to the marina.
Well, at least they’re not total idiots.
Carly was waiting for her at the hotel patio. They had both changed clothes at least three times today.
Clearing out the bones from the hotel grounds was easier than cleaning out the hotel hallways. Not all of the ghouls had been exposed to sunlight, and they were forced to wear respirator masks that Sarah brought out from a supply closet just to keep down what little breakfast they had managed earlier in the morning.
Dragging the twisted, pruned, and blackened bodies into the sunlight and watching them turn to fine white mist was the kind of experience Lara didn’t think she would ever forget. It was both fascinating and soul-destroying, and she remembered thinking, This is what the human race has become. Nothing more than dust in the wind.
Scrubbing the blood and flesh from the hotel hallways and lobby had taken even more effort. By the time they had wiped down the tiles with bleach and scraped the disgusting remains of dead ghouls from the walls, she wasn’t sure if she could even smell anymore. They decided to leave all the bullet holes for Will and Danny to deal with later, since the two men were responsible for most of them in the first place.
They hadn’t decided what to do with the bones yet. Burying them was one option. The other was to throw them into the lake. Lara preferred the second option. An ocean of bones sounded better than bones buried in their backyard. Bones in the lake might drift away eventually, whereas burying them would always mean living right next to a graveyard. The human bone, depending on the condition, could last for thousands of years in the ground before it dissolved completely. She wasn’t prepared to live with that kind of timetable.
“Eight guys?” Carly said, as Lara climbed up the front steps of the patio.
Carly handed her a bottle of cold water. Lara took it gratefully and drained it. She hadn’t realized how much she missed something as simple as a cold bottle of water until she finally tasted it again yesterday.
“Eight guys, give or take,” Lara said.
“Are we sure they weren’t just survivors responding to the message? Like us?”
“They didn’t look very friendly.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter now. How many did Danny kill?”
“He wounded two.”
“Lucky them. He’s a pretty good shot.”
Lara sniffed the air. The smell of fried fish was strong and thankfully horned in on the still-lingering acidic aroma of evaporated dead ghouls still clinging to parts of the island. “Are you frying fish?”
“I’m trying to overwhelm this morning’s disgusting smell in fish, yeah. Al left plenty in the freezer.”
“No wonder I smell something burning.”
Carly made a face. “It’s all part of my master plan to convince Sarah to take over the kitchen.”
“Are you two getting along now?”
“I guess,” Carly said, and shrugged. “I should probably apologize for trying to devour her soul last night.”
“I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”
“Yeah, well, I’m still working up the courage to actually do it.”
Lara looked around. “Have you seen Sienna?”
“No. Why?”
“I haven’t seen her since this morning.”
Sienna had helped with the bones that morning. She had worked quietly, almost robotically, and the half-dozen times Lara had stopped to check on her, the other woman had simply smiled back mutely. Once, she had nodded, but that was it.
“She’ll come around,” Carly said. “We all have to adapt. What’s that saying you and Will came up with? Adapt or perish?”
“Yeah.”
“That should be our motto from now on. We should make a big banner and hang it right there—” she made an imaginary banner with her hands “—in big bold letters: ‘Adapt Or Perish.’”
“Capital letters?”
“Of course. Gotta be capital letters. Maybe different colors, too.”
“Now you’re just being silly.”
Carly laughed. “We could get the girls to help.”
They headed back into the hotel lobby. The AC was turned off, and it was hot again, even with the windows and doors open all night and this morning to help cleanse the place of the smell of dead ghouls.
Sarah told them the AC was never something Karen and the others kept on at all times. All the luxuries they were shown yesterday were to impress them. Them, and everyone who had come before them, whose clothes, weapons, and other personal belongings were buried in the unfinished sections of the hotel and in the Tower’s basement. Even Kyle’s games weren’t something he was normally allowed.
No wonder the kid could barely pull himself away from them. He only got to play them when one of us showed up.
“God, I miss air conditioning,” Carly sighed. “When did Will say we can turn it back on?”
“When he’s sure there’s enough juice in the generators to power the island.”
“That doesn’t sound very hopeful.”