“That’s your problem, Keo,” Steve said. “You think you have everything figured out. But it never occurred to you that my guys have been keeping an eye on Santa Marie Island for months now. Those marinas aren’t the only way onto the island, sport. Dave learned that lesson the hard way.”
Keo cursed himself. He had chosen the two-story house on the hill because it gave them an expanded view of the island, along with both marinas. If he had known there were other ways onto the place, he would have opted for hiding instead, the way Gene had done the last few months when he continually evaded Steve’s people.
Live and learn, pal.
“How many men you got left down there, Steve?” he called down.
“Don’t you worry about me,” Steve said. “I got plenty more where they came from.”
“I’m sure the rest of your guys are glad to hear you say that.”
“Don’t you worry about my boys. Everyone knows where they stand. You have to, or you’ll get stepped on.”
“You come up with that yourself?”
“You like it?”
“Eh, could use some work.”
“You wanna workshop it with me?”
“Sure, why not? Come on up and we can do that right now.”
Steve let out a strained laugh. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I got a bottle of J amp;B up here. Let’s have a drink.”
“Nah, I’m going to have to pass.”
“You’re no fun.”
Keo waited for a response, but he didn’t get one. At least, not for a while.
He thought he might have heard some back and forth whispering below him, though. Some kind of argument that was getting more heated by the second.
“Sounds like the villagers are getting restless!” Keo shouted. “Maybe you shouldn’t have let them know just how expendable they were in your eyes.”
He waited for a comeback, but there was only silence.
“Steve? You still down there, ol’ buddy? Talk to me.”
“You know what?” Steve shouted up. His voice had changed, and whereas before he had been cavalier-even though Keo didn’t believe it for a second-there was none of that pretense now. “I’m tired of this shit. I’m tired of you. I was going to drag you back to town and string you up in the fields like a scarecrow to make an example of you. Show your girlfriend and the Doc that I could be nice, but there was a limit to my generosity. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s mission accomplished. I got what I needed-Jack’s killer in pieces.”
Keo looked back at Jordan and was about to tell her to get ready, but he didn’t have to. She already knew, and she nodded back at him and clenched her teeth, mentally preparing herself for what was coming next.
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” Steve was shouting, his voice rising noticeably. “You want to stay on this island? You’re going to have to fight its residents for it! You know who I’m talking about, Keo?”
Keo knew exactly who he was talking about.
“Here they come right now,” Steve said. “Good luck-”
Someone screamed, cutting off whatever Steve was about to say, followed by the sound of glass breaking. Then someone-no, more than one-opened fire, the pop-pop-pop of automatic rifles filling the first floor below them. The renewed burst of activity was sudden and ferocious, and for a few seconds Keo remained crouched and frozen. He listened, unable to pull away even if he had wanted to.
For a moment, just a moment, he thought it was a trick. Some elaborate game concocted by Steve to mess with their heads. But the more he heard, the more he realized it wasn’t. Those were real screams down there. Real gunfire, and the very real sounds of men dying.
Steve’s men.
Keo stood up, said, “Go!”
She was already up and moving, and he followed her straight into the master bedroom.
Frantic screaming continued from below them as he slammed the door shut and hurried over to help Jordan push and drag the wooden dresser over. The continuous gunfire rattled under his boots and Keo did his best to ignore them. He concentrated on getting the goddamn heavy furniture over to where he needed it, grunting through stabbing pains from his thigh and shoulder the entire time. He should have sutured both of the wounds earlier. Shit.
Shoulda, woulda, and totally screwed, pal.
Finally-finally! — they got the dresser all the way across the room and slammed it up against the door. It went up only halfway, leaving the top half vulnerable. Keo had seen what the ghouls could do when they were determined enough to get into a closed room, and he had a very bad feeling they were going to be very, very determined tonight.
They stumbled back, out of breath, listening to the gunfire rattling on and on below them, even though every gunshot sounded as if it were coming from right in front of them, on the other side of the door.
“It won’t hold,” Keo said. “It’ll never keep them out. Not all night.”
“I know,” Jordan said.
They started looking around for more things to block the door with. There was a nightstand, but it was too slim and probably wasn’t even worth carrying over. A large full-length mirror on a swivel in one corner had a sturdy look to it. And then there was the bed. A large king-size, worthy of being put into a master bedroom on a two-story house on an island hillside. It was going to be heavy, too. Really heavy. It was bad enough he was moving on a gimpy leg and a bum arm, and now he was going to have to carry that monster.
Shut up and do it!
Jordan saw where he was looking, and they both moved toward it simultaneously when-
Silence.
The shooting and screams from downstairs had stopped.
There was no prelude, no hints that it was winding down. It had simply just…stopped.
They stared at each other, and he guessed her confused face probably mirrored his own.
What the hell had Steve’s people been shooting at? Was it the ghouls? But that didn’t make any sense. If the creatures had let them onto the island and then ignored them, allowing them to assault the house, why would they attack now?
What was that Steve had said just before the gunfire started?
“Here they come right now. Good luck!”
Except Steve wasn’t going to stop at “good luck.” He was going to say something else, but never got the chance.
Why? What was out there? What did he think was “coming”?
Whatever it was, it wasn’t anything Steve had expected. The screams and shooting were proof of that. So what-
Something flickered at the corner of Keo’s eye and he spun around, unslinging the Mossberg at the same time. A black object was moving outside the back window just a split second before it smashed its way inside.
Jordan ducked her head against the flying glass, but Keo didn’t have that luxury. He was too busy lining up a shot. Between raising the shotgun and pulling the trigger, he had just enough time to register that it was a man that had crashed its way through the window.
No, not a man. Not exactly.
It was a ghoul wearing a long trench coat, the flaps swirling around him (it) like some kind of cape. Its eyes glowed blue against the semidarkness of the room and it began standing up, lengthening its impossibly gaunt frame like some kind of contortionist.
It seemed to stretch and stretch, the coat fluttering around its painfully thin legs (Like chopsticks, I can break those with my bare hands, Keo thought), and although he was sure it was just the moonlight and shadows playing tricks with his mind, he swore the damn thing had to be well over seven feet tall.
He pulled the trigger, the loud boom! ear-splitting in the closed confines of the master bedroom.
He didn’t know how the creature did it, but it twisted its body to avoid most of his shot. But it wasn’t quite fast enough-it didn’t help that it was partially still straightening up from the floor when Keo fired-and half of the buckshot tore into its left side and the rest slammed into the wall behind it. Keo had fired without aiming, because there hadn’t been any time. He had simply pointed at the biggest part of the monster, even as Danny’s words echoed inside his head: