Then there were two more — before two became a dozen — and before Josh knew it, the yard was filled with them.
Hundreds.
They came out of the grass beyond the road, gliding into the space around the house, swarming the men in the yard but ignoring them, as if the men didn’t exist, didn’t have the blood the ghouls so desperately desired. Even so, Josh could see the men watching, eyes darting, terror washing across their faces.
The ghouls kept going, moving toward the edge of the lake, spreading out in a long jagged line. They looked across the water, craning their necks, leaning their bodies, all toward one object.
Song Island.
He could see the island’s lights in the distance. The solar-powered lampposts and floodlights had trickled on one by one. The easiest feature to pick up with the naked eye was the Tower in the east. There were four floodlights up there under the third-floor windows, and they lit up the tall structure like the beacon that was never completed.
Josh knew, though he didn’t know how, that Gaby was in the Tower right that moment.
I did this for you, Gaby. I hope you’ll understand…
He must have wandered back to the bed and dozed off, because when he opened his eyes again, he could tell it was much later in the night. He wasn’t sure how much later, but there was a thickness in the room, a heaviness in the air that hadn’t been there before.
Josh yawned and climbed off the bed and gimped his way back to the window. His clothes had started to dry, but he could still feel his boxers clinging to his butt.
He peered out the window. Most of the men loitering around the yard were gone. There were just five left, but they seemed busy with their vehicles. Seeing men outside at night, without a care in the world struck Josh as unnatural somehow. Didn’t they know there were creatures out there?
But of course they knew. They were collaborators…just like him. And collaborators didn’t need to fear the night.
He wondered if the others were on their way to Song Island. He tried to listen for the sounds of boat motors or gunfire, but the only thing he heard was the stillness in the room and the occasional clinking sound of the men outside tinkering with their vehicles. There was also the hum of the generators around them.
Josh jumped when something appeared in front of him on the other side of the window. He took a couple of steps back as the creature pressed its pruned black face into the glass pane and seemed to sneer at him. Black eyes stared through the blinds, but there wasn’t the rabid hunger he usually saw in them.
This one just looked…curious.
Josh didn’t know whether to run out of the room or leap to the floor or race to hide beside the window. So he did nothing. The ghoul looked back at him with cold, detached eyes. Then it seemed to lose interest and moved on, leaving an impression of its deformed face on the glass.
“Freaky, huh?” a voice said behind him.
Josh looked over at Mason, leaning in the doorway, grinning at him over another apple.
“You think you’re used to them, and then one of them goes and does something like that,” Mason said casually. “Then you remember they’re not really your friends after all. Don’t worry, we’re safe in here. Boss lady’s given them the order not to mess with the house.”
“Karen?”
“Not even close. Skin and bones. Blue eyes. That boss lady.”
“Oh.”
“You ever seen it before?”
“No.”
“You think those little fuckers are freaky? Wait till you meet the boss lady. Nothing about it feels right. The way it talks, the way it looks…” He shivered. “Creeps me out every time.”
“What’s going on out there?” Josh asked, hoping to steer the conversation somewhere else, somewhere less likely to raise the hairs on the back of his neck.
“Boys are getting ready to take back the island.” Mason walked over to the window and peered out. “Or at least, that’s the plan.”
“You don’t think it’s going to work?”
“I don’t give a shit if it works or not. I just care that those little bastards don’t come in here tonight.”
Mason looked toward the part of the yard still covered in darkness, safe from the spotlights powered by the generator. It occurred to Josh that he was actually taller than Mason by almost two inches.
“She’s out there, you know,” Mason said.
“Who?”
“You know. It.”
The real boss lady.
“How do you know?” Josh asked.
“Because we’re not wearing hazmat suits. We have to wear those things when it’s not around, just to be safe. But when it’s nearby, it has full command of the little buggers. It’s some kind of psychic link, right out of the comic books. The link is stronger the closer it is to its soldiers.”
“Soldiers?”
“Foot soldiers. It’s a war, you know. A war between humanity and these undead fucks.”
He hates them. He works for them, but he hates them.
“When’s the attack?” Josh asked.
“Around midnight, I think.”
“Why not now?”
Mason shrugged. “I didn’t bother to get all the details.”
“Are you going, too?”
Mason grinned, and they were so close this time that Mason’s missing front tooth looked like a big black stain in an otherwise white sea of pearls. “Nah. I got babysitting duty, remember? I gotta thank you for that.”
“Sorry.”
He chuckled. “For what? Keeping me from storming that beach and getting my nuts shot off? No, I mean it. Thanks, man.”
Josh smiled awkwardly back at him. “You’re welcome, I guess.”
“In fact,” Mason said, “I was going to—”
He stopped in mid-sentence and went back to the window. He looked out for a moment before pulling the blinds up, exposing the two of them to the yard and the men milling outside.
“What is it?” Josh asked.
“You see that?” Mason pointed up at the sky.
Josh looked out, following Mason’s finger. He didn’t see anything at first, but then slowly it came into view.
It was a bright light in the sky, getting bigger every second.
Even the ghouls seemed to notice the quickly approaching light, and Josh saw stirring among the shadows. The men also stopped what they were doing and stared up at the sky.
After all, it wasn’t like you saw that every day. At least, not since The Purge.
“Is that what I think it is?” Josh asked, straining to see details against the black sky.
“Holy shit,” Mason said. “That’s a helicopter, kid.”
CHAPTER 36
LARA
They started the attack thirty minutes after midnight.
Lara could hear them coming from a distance, even through the thick concrete walls of the Tower, where she was staying on the second floor standing watch over Carly and the girls. It was the sound of their boat motors. They were loud and screeching, announcing their arrival well in advance. As Will had predicted, they were making a beeline for the beach.
It’s a beach landing. Like something out of World War II.
How did we come to this?
At first, Lara had thought they might not attack at all tonight, especially after the helicopter had shown up out of nowhere. Her fear that the helicopter was part of the attack quickly gave way to curiosity when it circled them twice before turning and heading off, vanishing into the distance, never to be seen again. She would have chalked it up to an overactive imagination, except everyone on the island had seen it, too.