It could hear her thoughts?
How are you in my head?
“You know how, Kate.”
This is how you communicate. With the others.
“Yes.”
How is this possible?
“How is any of this possible? Why do you ask silly questions, after all you’ve seen?”
Will thought you might have a hive mind.
“He’s right. He’s very smart for a soldier. We should have killed him back in the city. He’s very dangerous, your Will.”
I’m not dead. Why haven’t you killed me?
“Because I still need you, Kate. You’ve been chosen.”
Your voice. Why does your voice sound so familiar?
Kate saw the wide-open pitch-black sky above the ghoul start to get smaller, and she realized the Door was closing. She hadn’t heard the gears stop or restart, which was strange, but then she was so preoccupied with the blue-eyed ghoul inside her head it probably wasn’t so surprising after all. She had a hard time concentrating on anything outside her mind. It all felt out of her reach, hard to grasp, and as each second passed, the blue-eyed ghoul’s voice inside her head became clearer.
I know you. I know your voice.
“Yes,” it said.
Another flood of ghouls was rushing inside the facility, leaping and darting behind the blue-eyed ghoul, hurrying through the closing Door. Kate hadn’t heard the creature talking to them, but she thought it had. She didn’t know how she knew it, she just knew.
You told them to hurry.
“Yes,” it said inside her head.
I didn’t hear you.
“You can only hear what I want you to hear, Kate. I am the master, you are the slave. You will learn first.”
You said I was chosen.
“You were.”
Why is your voice so familiar?
The blue-eyed ghoul’s lips curved into a half smile. It seemed almost human for a second, despite the black, shrunken skin that draped over its prominent skull. Why did it even bother with the skin? There was no fat or any meat underneath anymore.
“It gets cold,” the blue-eyed ghoul said, answering her unasked question. “And it serves other purposes. You’ll learn soon enough.”
Are you going to kill me?
“Why would I do that, Kate? After all you’ve done for us.”
I did it for them. For Will and the others. To free them.
“Of course you did.”
She felt a strange sensation ripple through her, and she found herself sitting up on the steps. Suddenly the aching pain in her chest, where Will had shot her, didn’t hurt so much anymore. She felt unnaturally energetic, more alive than she had ever been, though she couldn’t explain how. She stood up and found that her body was lighter, and there was an energy boiling up inside, prepare to explode if she didn’t expel it.
She looked back at the blue-eyed ghoul, standing a few steps higher behind her. It wore no clothes, not that it mattered. It had ceased to possess any semblance of sex organs. It didn’t need them. The ghouls didn’t procreate like the living.
“What did you do to me?” she asked. Her voice was calm. Everything about her was calm, and she couldn’t quite explain that either.
“I gave you what you wanted.”
“I didn’t want this.”
“Yes you did, Kate. When I looked at you outside the bank, I knew this was what you wanted. To give up. To give in.”
She heard gunshots behind her and turned as a swarm of ghouls rushed from the living quarters, past her and toward the Operations area. As each shotgun blast thundered through the hallways, she felt a stabbing pain originating from somewhere inside the deep recesses of her mind.
She reached up and pressed her palms against her temple, hoping it would help control the pain, but it did nothing. The pounding continued unabated and the shearing sensation only increased in volume.
“What’s happening? My head…” Just speaking was painful.
“Pain, Kate,” the blue-eyed ghoul said inside her head. “It is the pain of your brothers and sisters dying. You’re linked to us now. To me. To them. To every one of them. You feel what they feel, until you learn to control it. Eventually you’ll see what they see, hear what they hear, and bend them to your will, as easily as you breathe.”
Your voice…
“You know who I am, Kate. You know.”
The pain shot through her every time she heard a shotgun blast. Will and Danny with those shotgun shells loaded with silver buckshot. Will’s idea again. Will, who had come up with the perfect way to kill them. He was the bane of their existence, their one road bump since The Purge.
“Yes,” it said inside her head. “You understand now.”
“Why me?”
It smiled at her. Truly, truly smiled.
“Because you’re perfect, Kate. For what’s coming next. Just like I was perfect for the beginning, you will lead us into the ending. You, Kate, you…”
CHAPTER 43
LARA
The screaming got to her. She could stand the gunshots, the loud banging, and even the sounds of doors crashing.
But the screaming. The screaming got to her.
She hadn’t left the door since it began, though she lost track of just how long she had been standing there with the Glock gripped tightly in her hand. Seconds and minutes seemed to merge until she couldn’t judge time anymore. Fear, anticipation, and creeping terror all converged into one bubbling emotion that threatened to engulf her. She did the best she could to stave it off, but it was getting harder with every passing second that Will didn’t show up.
Where are you, Will?
Carly, who was pacing the room behind her, had put her handgun away in the Armory a long time ago. Lara never felt truly safe without hers, which was odd to admit given how she grew up, in a household where guns were seen as cruel and unnecessary things.
Behind them, Elise and Vera sat on the floor, backs against the far wall. Both girls were silent, their hands entwined. She wanted to tell them that everything would be all right, but she didn’t, because she didn’t know everything would be all right, and she was afraid that the truth would come rushing out if and when her voice trembled.
Looking at Elise, holding tightly onto Vera’s hands, Lara felt utterly depressed and guilty. What had she done? She had “saved” the girl only to bring her here.
What was that old saying? Out of the frying pan, into the fire…
She listened to the ghouls crashing against the door, trying to get in. How many of them were out there right now? Hundreds? Possibly thousands. How many had been able to enter the Door when it opened and closed?
Too many. Just too many…
She changed the gun from her right hand to her left to keep her fingers loose. Her right hand had become numb, the fingers gripped around the handle turned white. She flexed them while listening to the ghouls assault the door, every maddening thoom! loosening the door from its hinges.
She could almost feel the door slowly, inch by inch, coming looser with each strike. It had been so long since the bank that she forgot how terrifying it felt to know that the undead were right outside the door, trying to get in. She could almost feel the wall trembling each time, but maybe that was her imagination working overtime.