“Heard what?” he said.
“Uh huh. So what are they doing out there?”
“They’re at the marina. I guess they found the boat.”
“Not exactly hard to find. Maybe we should have hid it.”
Definitely should have hid it, he thought. “Yeah, probably.”
“So what are they doing, exactly?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“You expect them to jump into the boat and drive it back to the mainland?”
“Given everything I’ve seen so far, would that really be all that crazy?”
Keo thought about T18, about the blue-eyed ghoul that had saved his life… “Not that crazy, I guess.”
“Keo,” Jordan said.
“What?”
“I’m sorry about Gillian.”
“Are we doing this again?”
“There’s a bright side…”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve always had a bit of a crush on you. So if you’re looking for some rebound sex, I’m available.”
“Shit,” Keo said.
“Ugh, never mind, then. I was just trying to be friendly-”
“No, not that. Something’s approaching the island.”
He saw it again-a single orb of light bouncing against the water’s surface, followed quickly by the familiar and slowly growing whine of motors.
“What is it?” Jordan asked.
He looked across the semidarkness of the master bedroom at her, clutching the AR-15. “They’re here.”
“How many?”
“Just one.”
“Just one?”
“I only see one.”
Jordan gave him a confused look. “That doesn’t make any sense-”
BOOM!
The entire house shook, as if it had been hit by a meteorite, and every inch of the wall and floor and ceiling seemed to tremble and threaten to come unglued at the seams. The shock of the explosion tossed Jordan forward, the rifle spilling from her grip. A cloud of debris and smoke flooded through the open doorway and splashed into the master bedroom, swallowing up Jordan in its path.
Keo ducked instinctively, even though he didn’t have to. Jordan was somewhere on the floor in front of him, trying to get up; he only knew she was there because he could hear her coughing.
Dave!
He staggered to his feet and rushed through the billowing smoke-crunching chunks of the wall and ceiling that had fallen free under his boots-over to Jordan’s struggling form. He pulled her up, and when she was steady on her feet again, he continued on toward the door. He slipped through it, stumbling over more debris.
Once outside, he froze in his tracks.
Half of the second floor ceiling was gone, exposing the open, dark skies above. A cold chill swamped the remains of the room, and there were no signs of Dave. In the spot where Keo had last seen the other man, there were only shreds of clothing buried underneath fallen rubble and pieces of what looked like an assault rifle sprinkled across the floor.
Keo zeroed in on the gaping hole in the front wall, the same one that faced the eastern marina. The almost perfect half-circle opening in the floor looked down at a bathroom and parts of another bedroom. It looked like the explosion had torn out a huge chunk of the house, as if some giant monster had gobbled it up, leaving behind a jagged crater in the shape of its mouth.
He hadn’t gotten more than a few steps toward what remained of the front wall when-
Pop-pop-pop!
He dropped to the floor-
Pop-pop-pop!
Bullets zipped past his head and slammed into parts of the ceiling that were still above him. Keo rolled away from the opening, ignoring the stabbing pains; it seemed like every sharp edge along the Mossberg shotgun slung over his back was digging into his body.
Whoever was shooting at him must have anticipated that he would be scampering away from the opening, because they started shooting through the wall in front of him. Pieces of the house splintered, and a window that had escaped the blast unscathed shattered and rained glass around him.
He kept moving-kept rolling-because he didn’t know what else to do.
He didn’t stop until he bumped into a wall and scrambled up and ran back toward the master bedroom. Jordan was at the door, clinging to a nearby bureau to keep herself upright, and she almost shot him with her reacquired rifle when he darted back inside.
“Jesus, Keo!” she shouted. “Where’s Dave?”
He shook his head. Dave was probably dead. Or injured. Or somewhere buried on the first floor. Bottom line: Dave was out of action, and there was no telling how many men were coming into the house at this very moment.
Not just men, either, but them, too.
He ran past Jordan and to the window. He kept away from the glass and peered out and was immediately drawn back to the western marina where the boat he had seen earlier had docked in the slip next to the one holding the white shape of their twenty-footer.
What the hell is happening?
None of this made any sense. If Steve’s people-and there was no doubt that was them out there right now-had successfully sneaked unnoticed onto the island from somewhere else, then who was the lone dark figure walking calmly up the dock?
Keo might have been seeing things (again?), but he swore the throng of ghouls gathering inside the marina were separating, scrambling to get out of the figure’s way, like Moses parting the Red Sea…
CHAPTER 27
“Hey, Keo, you in there?”
Steve.
Of course it was Steve, shouting like an idiot from somewhere outside the house, though where, exactly, Keo couldn’t quite pinpoint. Who else would it be? He hadn’t for a single second (okay, maybe for a few very optimistic seconds) thought the man was dead. It was too good to be true, and if everything he had gone through since the world ended had taught him anything, it was that when things were too good to be true they usually were-especially when he was involved.
If it wasn’t for shitty luck…
“One down, two to go!”
The man sounded like he was having fun, which was more than Keo could say for him and Jordan as he scrambled out of the main bedroom while keeping as far away from the cratered wall as possible. A cold gust of wind made him shiver involuntarily, and the scar along the left side of his face tingled, the first time in a long time.
“I could be wrong, of course. It’s kind of dark out here. Hard to see.”
His one big advantage was the stairs. There were plenty of ways to get into the house-the back door, the front door, the windows-but there was only one path up to the second floor. He moved in a crouch toward it now and leaned against the wall, listening for sounds and vibrations that would signal entry.
Now this is familiar, he thought, remembering the last time he was pinned on the second floor of a house.
“But it’s going to get even darker real soon, buddy.” The voice was clearly on the move, from the back of the house toward the front.
Earlier, Keo had locked the doors and windows on the first floor, but there were no additional (and obvious) barricades over the other entrances, just in case the creatures decided to look inside. It was a risk, considering everything Gene had preached about not messing with a house’s status quo, but Keo had to risk it. The idea of hiding inside a place that wasn’t locked on purpose made his skin crawl. And besides, Gene’s way of doing things hadn’t exactly worked out the last time he was on the island…
“You still alive in there, Keo? Don’t be shy! I thought we were friends?”
Think again, Keo wanted to shout back down, but held his tongue.
“Gillian’s still waiting for you back in town. You’ll be happy to know I’ve decided not to punish her. Or Doc Jay. They’re not responsible for your bad decisions, after all.”