The guy was walking from the end of the dock toward the middle, appearing for just a brief second in a small pool of light when Keo first saw him. Now that the man had continued on, he morphed into a moving black (and shivering) silhouette. Keo could just barely make out clouds of mist with every breath the man took and wondered if he was producing the same kind of telltale signs.
He took a moment to sweep the other docks. Were there more men walking or standing around trying not to freeze to death on those other platforms? If there were, they were doing a hell of a good job hiding themselves. Was it possible they would only leave one unlucky bastard out here while everyone else kept warm inside Marina 1?
Anything was possible, especially on a night like this. It wasn’t like he was dealing with real soldiers here. These weren’t men who had been whipped into shape by Boot Camp and demanding drill instructors. They were civilians playing dress up, many of them just barely worthy of the weapons they were carrying.
He suddenly felt very generous, and Keo hiked his chances of surviving the night to a whopping sixty percent.
He stood up and slung his rifle, then began walking toward the middle dock, the one where he had seen the soldier walking back and forth on. The man spotted him almost right away, but instead of going for his weapon, he stepped into a weak halo of light and rubbed his hands together and blew into them.
It was the raincoat. Of course it was the raincoat. Just like the soldier at the T18A1 gate could only see the golf cart, this one saw the raincoat and rifle and thought Keo was one of them, too. And why wouldn’t he? Keo didn’t just look like he belonged, he walked like it, too.
He stepped onto the dock and continued toward the sentry. Water from the surging river splashed his boots and pant legs, though by now he was already so soaked from head to toe that he hardly felt the additional wetness.
“Can you believe this fucking night?” Keo shouted.
The guy nodded back and tried to peer through the sleets of rain at him.
Good luck with that, Keo wanted to tell him.
The soldier was standing under an LED bulb and Keo couldn’t even see his face under the hood, so there was very little chance the man could see Keo with nothing at all to illuminate him. Of course, all that was going to change when he got closer. What were the chances the soldier recognized the faces of every soldier in town? It was possible. After all, Ronny had recognized Grant in Gillian’s house. Or had he just gone with the name on the uniform?
“Where is everyone?” Keo shouted. “I can’t see shit!”
“Nothing to see!” the soldier shouted back. “You my replacement?”
“Yeah!” Keo continued walking toward the man, letting his right hand drift casually toward the fold of his raincoat. “Go on, I got this!”
“Halle-fucking-lujah!”
The man began walking quickly toward him, still rubbing his hands desperately together. Keo calmly slipped his right hand into the folds of his coat and reached for the Glock in its holster-
“Hey,” a voice said, freezing Keo in place.
Keo looked to his right at the nearby platform as a second raincoat-cloaked figure emerged out of the darkness and into another small pool of light.
“What’s going on?” the second man asked. “We finally getting replacements?”
Keo finished wrapping his fingers around the Glock and pulled it out and shot the soldier in front of him in the head, then spun slightly and shot the other one in the chest-just as lightning pierced the blackened night above them, lighting all three of them up for a brief moment…then it was gone again.
The second soldier was stumbling, trying not to fall, when Keo shot him a second time in the chest, just as the thunder that had been promised a second ago finally reached them and boomed across the skyline.
The one in front of Keo collapsed to the dock while the second soldier fell into the water, the moving river quickly grabbing onto his body and dragging him into its current. The speed of it surprised Keo, and he was still looking after the body when a second lightning bolt struck and-
Eyes.
An army of blackened eyes on the other side of the river, looking back at him from the banks, gleaming rain-drenched dark flesh writhing between the throng of trees.
Jesus Christ.
They weren’t so much as hiding from him as they were trying to stay away from the powerful currents splashing against the riverbanks, threatening to overflow and flood the woods. There were so many of them that he couldn’t have begun to count even if he had wanted to. Their numbers stretched from one side of the woods to the other, an endless multitude of moving black flesh and hollow eyes and herky-jerky movements, completely unnatural and surreal against the rain.
The river. They couldn’t, didn’t, or wouldn’t cross the river.
“Relax,” Steve had said. “They don’t come into town. There’s an invisible line that they don’t cross. When I decide I can fully trust you, I might tell you how it all works.”
An invisible line that the creatures didn’t cross. Like the river. Or the tree lines. Or maybe those flimsy six-foot fences that surrounded the subdivisions.
Whatever it was (maybe all of it), the ghouls didn’t cross.
He should have felt good, even safe at the sight of them wanting (desperately) to cross the river but holding back, but he shivered from head to toe instead.
It was only thanks to the returning darkness once the lightning disappeared that he was able to push down the overpowering need to run and hide. He couldn’t see them anymore and that somehow made it better, even though he knew they were still out there watching his every movement.
He forced himself to move again, crouched, and rolled the dead soldier into the water, then walked the brief distance over to the first slip. The boat inside was a twenty-footer with a single motor in the back, thin and sleek with a T-overhead canvas. It didn’t look nearly powerful enough to outrun most of the boats tied up around him, but he didn’t need a fast vessel right now; he just needed one that would run. The currents would make up for any speed deficiencies.
He hurried back to the same metal box in front of the docks, the one that housed all of the keys to the boats. It was still unlocked and inside were the keys, designated by slip numbers. He found the one he needed and pocketed it and slammed the lid shut-
He didn’t hear the gunshot, but he felt it buzz past his head just before the bullet pinged! against the metal box, leaving behind a large dent.
Keo spun around, quickly tracing the trajectory of the bullet back to-
The water tower.
If it wasn’t for bad luck…
He would have unslung the M4 and fired back if he thought it would do any good. But it wouldn’t have, because the tower was too far away and he would be essentially shooting into the darkness, because although he could just barely make out the rocket-shaped structure, he had absolutely no clue where the shooter was.
Buzz! as a second bullet passed over his head and disappeared into the parking lot behind him.
Just as he had predicted, shooting in this condition was hit and miss, and right now, thank God it was two in the miss column and none in the first. It wasn’t just the distance and the suffocating darkness, it was also the wind and the cold adding to the difficulty scale.
The problem was, although the first bullet had nearly taken Keo’s head off and the second had gone long, it was only a matter of time before the sniper adjusted and found just the right distance. Either that, or until he radioed-