About twenty minutes after the helicopter appeared and flew away, the people from the house attacked.
“They’re coming, aren’t they?” Sarah asked from the first floor.
Lara stood at the south window, and she could see the tiny dots of light dancing across the water in the distance. They were still too far away for her to make out any details, even through the binoculars. They could have been anything. Fireflies, small campfires in the distance. Except she knew better.
“It’s the water,” Will had told her. “Sound travels better away from shore.”
That, and it was night, and there were no other sounds at all. There was hardly any wind, and the waters were calm, the waves pushing tirelessly against the beach. It was like the night knew what was coming and didn’t want to interrupt, didn’t want to interject its own soundtrack into the furious violence to come.
Lara walked back to the open door in the floor and looked down at Sarah, standing anxiously below her. “Yes, I think so.”
“I can hear them,” Sarah said. “I don’t know how, but I can hear them. Boat motors. Can you see how many?”
“I can’t be sure. Four, I think. But I can’t be sure.”
“What does Will say?”
“He’s not going to see a lot from his vantage point. Danny should know more soon.”
Sarah nodded and put on a brave face, but Lara saw fear in her eyes. She didn’t blame the other woman. Sarah, like the rest of them, hadn’t gotten much sleep in the last couple of days, and it was beginning to show on all of their faces.
Lara looked over at the three girls, trying bravely to ignore everything happening around them. They sat in a corner on the floor, at the foot of Carly’s bed. Vera was the ringleader and sat in the middle holding both girls’ hands. The eight-year-old caught Lara’s eyes and smiled. Lara found the strength to smile back, hoping to comfort her, but she realized, ironically, that it was the eight-year-old who was comforting her.
Always the brave soldier. Carly would be proud.
Lara walked back to Carly to check her vitals. She was still pale, but she looked much better than she had that afternoon. She had lost a lot of blood, but Lara had been prudent enough during their stay at Harold Campbell’s facility to get everyone’s blood type. Carly was B negative, which was bad, because B negative was rare. Fortunately for them, Danny was O negative, which made him a universal blood donor. He had sat patiently for two hours cracking one bad joke after another as she had transfused his blood into Carly.
Lara watched her best friend, who looked strangely at peace. And why not? This was probably the most sleep Carly had gotten in the last few weeks. She wasn’t going to wake up for anything, even if the world ended tonight. The sedatives would make sure of that.
Get all the sleep you can, girl. You might not get another chance after tonight.
The radio clipped to Lara’s hip squawked, and she heard Will’s voice, utterly calm in the face of what she knew he could see coming right at him: “I count four.”
“So do I,” Danny said through the radio.
Danny was up on the third floor with Gaby at his side, providing what Will called “overwatch” with his ACOG-mounted rifle. Gaby was on her night-vision binoculars next to him, and her job was to search out targets for Danny to shoot. Lara didn’t know how she felt about using Gaby that way, but the teenager had agreed so quickly that Lara didn’t know how to argue against it.
They’re all growing so fast. Her, the girls…
Adapt or perish.
“There should be more than that,” Will said. “Six. You saw four new boats this afternoon.”
“That’s an affirmative,” Danny said.
“So there should be six. Where are the other two?”
“Maybe they couldn’t fix the motor I shot?”
“That still leaves five.”
“Dammit, you and your counting.”
She went to the window and picked up her binoculars and peered through them. She picked up the four boats she had seen earlier. They were closer and their lights looked bigger. Each boat had headlights and additional lights along its sides. The boats were coming in a horizontal line, spread out four wide, moving side by side. It was easy to tell how far apart they were from each other — about twenty yards each — because of their lights. And they were so loud. It was amazing how loud and obnoxious they were being as they approached the beach.
So loud…and so bright…
And so obvious…
She unclipped the radio and pressed the transmit lever: “Will. Something’s wrong.”
“I know,” Will said. “Two boats are missing.”
“No. I mean, yes, two boats are missing. But it’s not just that. Something else is wrong.”
“What do you see?”
“They’re making it too obvious. Look at them. Why do they even have lights on? They don’t need them. They know exactly where we are. Song Island is covered in lights. So is the beach.”
“So they don’t crash into each other?” Blaine said through the radio.
“No, it’s not that,” Lara insisted. “They’re too far apart to start ramming each other now.”
“She’s right,” Will said. “It’s a diversion.”
“Yes,” Lara said quickly. “It’s got to be some kind of diversion, right?”
“Danny,” Will said, “keep an eye on the incoming four. Gaby, start scanning the rest of the approaches to the island. Concentrate on our six.”
“Our what?” Gaby said through the radio.
“Behind us,” Will said.
“Oh. I’m doing it now.”
“Nice call, Lara,” Will said. She could hear the pride in his voice, and she found herself strangely exhilarated by the compliment, mostly because he gave them out so rarely.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Get a fucking room,” Danny said.
“After this,” Will said.
Lara smiled, then hurried over to the other windows and peered out. The solar-powered lampposts only reached so far, and there were whole sections of the western part of the island that were pitch-black. Lara found it difficult to separate the water from the island. She wondered if Gaby was having better luck.
“Anything?” Will asked through the radio.
“Nothing so far,” Gaby said.
“Keep looking. If they’re going to try to sneak onto the island, it’ll be either from the north or the west.”
“Will do,” Gaby said.
“Can they climb up the other sides of the island?” Lara asked into the radio.
“It’s difficult,” Will said, “but it’s doable.”
After a while, Lara went back to the south window. The girls watched her with curious eyes, following her movements without a word. Jenny was already half asleep, but Vera and Elise looked awake, even alert.
“Anything?” Sarah called from the door.
“Nothing yet,” Lara said back.
Lara picked up the four boats coming toward the beach again. It didn’t look like they were trying anything fancy — four boats flying across the lake’s surface, side by side, bright spotlights shining ahead of them.
She couldn’t tell how many men were in each boat. There had already been at least eight of them at the house before reinforcements had come. If there were even just two to a truck among the newcomers — they had counted six trucks in all earlier today — then that was already twenty people. Lara thought there had to be more. She remembered the ghoul collaborators in Dansby, Texas. There were ten of them just there alone. If Will was right, and Kate was calling in people from around the area, then there would be more than ten.