He glanced down at his watch: 1:40 a.m.
The turbine went offline around 2:11 a.m., and the lights — all the lights — went off exactly eleven seconds after that.
As darkness swamped the Green Room, he heard scrambling as what must have been every ghoul in the room swarmed forward as one. But even before that it felt as if electricity had charged the air.
They knew what was going to happen before it happened.
Will stood up and stepped in front of Lara as the ghouls converged. He held the glow stick in one hand, illuminating their faces in garish green as they charged across the short distance like rabid dogs, some even moving on all fours.
Eleven seconds…
The first one reached him two seconds later…
Nine seconds…
He stabbed it through the head, then sliced the chest of another ghoul…
Eight seconds…
He kicked another one out of the way, then backhanded loose with his left fist the jagged teeth of another lunging for him…
Seven seconds…
Slashed the necks of two ghouls…
Six seconds…
One lunged for his leg, wrapped cold, bony fingers around his ankles…
Five seconds…
He stabbed it through the top of the head…
Four seconds…
Two fell out of the air duct to his left…
Three seconds…
A dozen surrounded him…
Two seconds…
More jostling for positions…
One second…
The lights came back on without warning, the large UV lamps on the ceiling snapping back to life. A ghoul only two feet from Will’s face let out a loud, surprised squeal as its skin turned into powder, and it fell to the floor in a twisted stack of falling bones.
There were at least fifty, maybe more, in the pool of bright light, and they didn’t fare any better. A fine white smog materialized in a matter of seconds and swirled around the back half of the room, covering Lara and him in a thick blanket, making them cough from the overwhelming odor. It was otherworldly and unnatural, and it got in their eyes and nostrils and mouth and hair.
The remaining ghouls stayed where they were at the edge of the UV halo. The small spaces in the room left by the dead ghouls had instantly been replaced by new ones from the hallway.
“What happened?” Lara asked, clinging to his shoulders.
“They got to the turbine, but the backup generators kicked in.”
“And they can’t get to those, right?”
“No,” he said. God, I hope not.
It took a while before Lara stopped shaking.
They sat back down on the floor.
He was exhausted, his body sore from the soles of his feet all the way up to his ears. He didn’t show it, because she didn’t need to know that right now. Besides, if he didn’t show it, he didn’t have to really acknowledge it.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
“How much longer?” she asked.
Will glanced at his watch. “Too long. Go to sleep. I’ll wake you up if something interesting happens.”
“You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to fall asleep in the middle of this,” she said. Then added, sheepishly, “Again.”
Thirty minutes later, she was snoring lightly against his shoulder.
Will let her sleep while he kept watch on the ghouls around them. He wiped the bloody cross-knife on his pants, and kept at it until he could see the glinting silver underneath again.
The creatures seemed to know that the sun was creeping up on them. He thought he could sense them starting to fidget uncomfortably amongst each other, though it was hard to tell — they were so thickly packed into the room it was difficult to know where one ended and another began, much less if they were actually moving or just swaying against each other accidentally.
They looked like one big, giant black blob.
He was waiting, too. At sunup, he expected to hear the Door start to open again. That would be the sign that Danny had in fact made it to the Control Room.
Despite what he told Lara, he wasn’t sure if Danny really had made it. He was relying almost purely on gut instinct and, more importantly, Danny’s abilities. The Green Room was close enough to the Control Room that Danny hadn’t needed to go much farther to reach safety. The good news was he heard Danny’s M4A1 firing in the air ducts long after he jumped down into the Green Room.
Of course, after that, he didn’t hear anything else.
Four more hours, and he would know for sure, one way or another.
Come on, Danny boy, don’t let me down…
At 4:13 a.m. the ghouls started to actively move around, nervously and visibly jostling against each other.
He had never seen this behavior before, and he didn’t want to be the only one to witness it, so he woke Lara up.
She was as surprised as he was. The ghouls looked clearly agitated, and the mild jostling started to give way to overt panic. There was also a low rumbling rising from the masses that he thought was coming from the creatures’ throats. It wasn’t language, it was more primal, instinctive.
Fear.
Lara stared for a long moment. “They know it’s coming. The sun. And they’re scared. They don’t know what to do.”
The ghouls were trapped inside the facility, the darkness quickly dissolving outside, something that, if they indeed had the hive mind he thought they possessed, would be relayed to them by the other ghouls topside.
And it scared them. It scared the shit out of them.
He smiled. He liked seeing them scared.
At that moment, he wished he still had his radio. It was gone, lost somewhere in the air ducts during the chaos.
“You still have your radio?” he asked.
She looked down at her hip. “I must have lost it in the ducts.”
He grinned. “How many times have I told you, Lara? Keep your radio on you at all times.”
“Funny. Where’s yours?”
“That’s not the point.”
She rolled her eyes. “So what now?”
He glanced up at the air duct entrance.
Lara saw where he was looking. “What are you thinking?”
“I need to get in contact with Danny.”
“How?”
“There’s only one way.”
He stood up and climbed onto the trough directly underneath the air duct.
Lara followed. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’s the only way.”
“Will, there are more of them up there.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“Will, don’t go…”
“I have to get in contact with Danny.”
“If he’s even there…”
“He’s there.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“He’s there.” Then, with as much confidence as he could muster, he added, “Trust me.”
“I do trust you. I followed you all the way here, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did. So trust me again.”
She sighed. “Do I have a choice?”
He took his last glow stick out of his pouch and cracked it, then tossed it up through the hole and heard it land inside. The opening instantly glowed green and revealed the square-shaped metal above him. He waited to see if something would grab the glow stick, but the light never shifted.
He walked back to Lara. She was about to say something, but he kissed her first, catching her off guard.
Then he quickly pulled free. “Stay here.”