Dave thought about it before finally nodding. “Makes sense, I guess.”
Good, because I’m talking out of my ass here.
He wasn’t very optimistic they would actually find fuel on Santa Marie Island. Steve’s people would have cleaned the place out by now, and the last time he was there with Gene, the teenager had told him he hadn’t run across any.
Still, for some reason that he couldn’t explain, it seemed as if he was destined to end up at Santa Marie Island. And if he was going to die soon…
“Shit,” Dave said, “I should have stayed at the cafeteria.”
Dave got up and moved back toward the stern, where he picked up the trolling motor from the floor and attached it to the back. Keo took his place at the front, wincing as he put pressure on his right thigh.
He crouched at the bow just as a particular massive bolt of lightning flashed in the distance. For a moment, just a moment, he thought he could see the Ferris wheel along the Kemah Boardwalk, but that could have just been the long, wet, and cold night playing tricks with his mind…
…just like it had back at the marina, because there was no way in hell that blue-eyed ghoul had saved his life on purpose.
Right?
*
Dave was right. Santa Marie Island was just behind them, and it didn’t take them long to find it again. Of course, the place was over eight kilometers from end to end, and its rocky formations and the sharp angles of the houses stood out against the flat ocean landscape.
They found the island with three hours left until sunrise, which meant they couldn’t just head straight to the western marina and dock. Keo could already see silhouetted figures moving along the ridgelines, the numbers increasing the closer they got.
“Look at them,” Dave whispered from the back of the boat. Keo had no trouble hearing him over the small whine of the trolling motor. “Gives me the willies every time I see them.”
“You see them a lot back in town?”
“Sometimes.”
They were within sight of the marina when Dave cut the motor and Keo dropped the anchor, leaving the twenty-footer to drift back and forth against the slight waves. He tightened his grip on the M4 in his lap, wishing badly for his MP5SD-and more importantly, the silver ammo inside the magazine-as he watched them pouring into the parking lot and spreading out along the fingers of the docks in waves.
“They can’t swim, right?” Dave asked behind him. He was still whispering for some reason.
I think they can hear and see you just fine, Dave, Keo thought, but said, “No, they can’t swim.”
At least, the black-eyed ones couldn’t. He had seen that himself back on Song Island, and the ones back at T18 had stayed as far away from the river as they could while still crowding the banks.
So what about the blue-eyed ones?
“They’re smarter than the rest,” Danny had told him during one of those days when there was nothing to do on the Trident but watch the endless ocean. “If you see them, run the other way, Obi-Wan Keobi. Or shoot them in the head. That seems to work pretty well.”
Shoot them in the head? How the hell was he going to do that? Keo had seen that thing back there, the way it was moving. Danny wasn’t kidding. The creature that had assaulted the horsemen was just a blur. How do you put a bullet in the head of something that could move that fast?
But that was a problem for another day. Right now, he focused on the black-eyed creatures along the marina. There weren’t nearly enough of them to fill up the whole place, which he guessed was the good news. The bad news, unfortunately, was that there were still enough that it was difficult to make out the docks and the parking lot floor under the sea of black, writhing flesh.
“How many are on the island?” Dave asked.
“Anywhere from one to 200…or possibly more.”
“Jeez Louise. And we want to go there?”
“There was a teenager who lived on the island for months by himself.”
“I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any desire to stay on that rock for months.”
“We won’t have to. Steve will find us by morning and try to kill us first.”
“Oh, okay, no worries then.”
Keo smiled. “Point is, if we can’t find any spare fuel, we’ll either kill Steve and take one of his boats and use it to get off the island, or he’ll kill us. Either way, this thing’s going to be over in twenty-four hours.”
“Man, if you’re trying to cheer me up, you’re doing a real shitty job of it.”
“Just the facts.”
“Yeah, whatever, Sergeant Joe Friday.”
“Who?”
“Joe Friday. From Dragnet?”
Keo shook his head.
“You know who James Bond is, but you don’t know Dragnet or Stanley Kubrick’s 2001?”
“Should I?”
“Hell, yes. They’re classics, dude.”
“Ah,” Keo said.
“Clueless,” Dave said. Then, “Hey, she’s waking up.”
Keo got up and hurried to the stern. “Take the front.”
Dave nodded and they swapped places.
Keo crouched next to Jordan and pulled down the zipper of her thick parka until her entire face was exposed. She had opened her eyes-or at least the one still capable of opening-and was looking back at him. Her lips were pale like the rest of her face. She was ghostlike, and she blinked up at him, overly long eyelashes flickering back and forth.
“Hey,” he said.
Her good eye darted left then right before picking his face back up. Then, softly, like she had to summon all of her strength just to get the sounds out, “Did I pee myself?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Then why are my pants wet?”
“We’re all wet. You don’t remember the rainstorm?”
“No…”
“Lightning? Thunder? Gunfire?”
“No, no, and no. Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You weren’t even supposed to wake up until tomorrow.”
“Is that why I feel like my head’s about to break open?”
“Probably.”
“Good to know.” Then, “You said ‘we’…”
“Me, Dave, and you.”
“Who’s Dave?”
“Great, she doesn’t even know who I am,” Dave grunted from the bow. “Man, I should have stayed at the cafeteria.”
“The guy who saved you,” Keo said.
“Then what are you doing here?” she asked him.
“I’m the guy who saved the guy who saved you.”
“Oh.” She blinked once, then a second time. “I dreamt of Gillian…”
“Oh yeah?”
“She’d gotten really fat in the dream, but don’t tell her I said that.”
“Scout’s honor,” Keo smiled.
CHAPTER 25
Morning came and chased the ghouls back to wherever they had been hiding before nightfall. There, they would wait and wait, because inevitably their time would come again.
“Look at them,” Jordan said. “That’s all they do, isn’t it, day after day? They come out at night and hide in the day. Then they do it all over again the next night. Do they ever starve, you think?”
“I don’t know,” Keo said.
“You ever think about it?”
“Not really.”
“You’re not the curious type, is that it?”
“I’m curious, I just don’t have any answers, so I figured I should probably keep it all to myself until I do. What’s that saying about opening your mouth and proving to the world you’re a fool?”
“Are you calling me a fool, Keo?”
“Not at all. Maybe if we’re still alive after tonight, we can talk about what these things do and don’t do, and blah blah blah.”
“I just realized what I missed most about you.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
He chuckled. “I don’t believe that.”
Keo sat next to her at the bow of the twenty-footer as Dave turned on the trolling motor and guided the boat toward the marina. Now that he was approaching the island from the western side, Keo could see the large area reserved for the ferry, the ball-diamond-ball day shapes still hanging off the large metal pole next to the ramp. They were staying away from it and angling toward the docks designed for smaller crafts.