“Which part?”
“Both?”
“Good to know, good to know…”
Around midnight, they heard movement throughout the building and thought the ghouls might launch another attack, but it didn’t happen. Will and Danny crouched in the darkness, crosses in their fists, ears pressed against the walls and floors listening for noise. Any noise. Though the ghouls were quiet, they still made some noise, and against the stillness of the city outside, it was enough to travel through the floorboards.
But no further attack came.
Not at midnight. Or one in the morning.
Two in the morning came, and there was still no attack.
Instead, the lights outside died.
“Oh, great,” Danny said. He was guarding the window while Will kept watch over what was left of the door. “I think we just lost the lights.”
“You think?”
“I’m pretty sure we just lost the lights.”
“Your power of observation is stunning, Danny.”
“I know, but don’t tell anyone. I like playing the thickheaded Neanderthal.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
Will moved across the living room to the window as quietly as he could, stepping over bodies as he went. He did his best to move around them, but even using the flashlight and moonlight as guides, he still managed to step on a head, heard the crunching noise as the skull feebly caved in underneath the sole of his boot.
Are skulls supposed to be that weak?
He flattened his back against the wall across the window from Danny. He looked out, slightly stale night air rushing against his face. He thought he was prepared for what he would see, but he was wrong.
He stared into blackness.
Will had to strain to see by moonlight. The street lights had shut down, and every window he could see for miles had gone dark. The Downtown skyscrapers in the distance, once visible beyond the 45 like towering Christmas trees, had been reduced to shadowy giants hovering over smaller buildings of concrete, glass, and steel.
And he felt it in the air, along the streets, and even inside the room with Danny. It was unmistakable. A sensation he often had when they were stuck in combat back in Afghanistan and he knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that not everyone was going to make it out alive.
The very air around them vibrated dread. It coursed through every fiber of his being.
“What happened?” he asked.
“You tell me. One second there are lights, the next — poof. No lights.”
“Power grids must have gone down.”
“That supposed to happen?”
“If power grids could run themselves, there wouldn’t be jobs for Joe Electricity Employee. You know how many people the city employs just to keep the water and power going day-to-day?”
“I take it the answer is a lot.”
“A lot, yeah.”
“Awesome. What do I win, Charlie?”
“Peeks might have some power bars squirreled away in his pockets. Why don’t you check?”
“Bleh. I’ll pass.”
Will looked around, taking in as much as possible. There was enough moonlight to see parts of the streets below them, but just about everything else was a solid black canvas. The police lights that were spinning earlier in the night had stopped, and he couldn’t quite make out the vehicles parked along the streets anymore. Even the SWAT van had been swallowed up by the overwhelming nothingness.
“So,” Danny said. “The crosses.”
“What about the crosses?”
“We going with coincidence, then?”
“What else could it be?”
“I dunno…” Danny shrugged. “Something else?”
“Like what?”
“I dunno.”
“You know how I feel about…that.”
“Yeah, me too, but man, those things being there when we needed something that would kill these things.” He shook his head. “Makes you think.”
“Does it hurt?”
Danny grunted. “Bite me.”
Will grinned.
“You see it?” Danny asked.
“We back on the crosses again?”
“No. There.” Danny pointed across the street.
Will looked where he was pointing. Two of the creatures, crouched low to the ground, were watching them from an alleyway entrance between two apartment buildings. Even under the blanket of darkness, he could make out the unnerving obsidian eyes. They stared intensely back at them, unmoved by having been seen.
“They’ve been going up and down the street,” Danny said. “In the apartments, too. Coming and going like busy bees. They were out there even before the lights went out.”
Will nodded. It made sense. They had been fighting for countless hours inside the Wilshire Apartments. Except for when they had looked out the window, they had been occupied with trying to stay alive.
“How many did you count?” Will asked.
“Hundreds. I stopped counting after a while.”
“That’s not good.”
“Nope. I don’t think they’re the same ones that are in here with us, though. I think there’re a lot of them out there. And hey, I could be wrong—’cause it’s been known to happen — but I’m pretty sure there’s more and more of them every hour.”
“Like Peeks. They’re turning people.”
“That would certainly explain the increased numbers in such a short time.”
“Hunh.”
Danny gave him an annoyed look. “Really? I tell you there are armies of those things crawling around outside the building, waiting for us — assuming we do manage to get out of here in one piece — and all you have to say is ‘Hunh’?”
“I guess we’re screwed,” Will said.
“I would certainly not disagree with that particular assessment, no sirree. I do believe we are truly and royally screwed. So what’s the plan?”
“Plans A and B went up in ashes around midnight.”
“So where are we now?”
“Plan Z or thereabouts.”
“Well, that blows. Your Plan Zs are always shit.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“That’s true,” Danny said, “but in the overwhelming opinion of those who have been surveyed, they say your Plan Zs are always shit.”
CHAPTER 7
LARA
Despite her best efforts, Lara fell asleep around midnight and woke up later when a loud bang from somewhere along Holman Street reverberated all the way up to her apartment. To her disappointment, she opened her eyes to the same dark room she had gone to sleep in.
It’s still night…
She scrambled up from the floor where she had been lying crumpled up in a tight ball. She was too frightened to use the bed, too afraid of being seen from the window, even though she had closed the curtains tight and hadn’t turned any lights on. She had even closed her laptop, afraid the flickering screen might give her away.
She looked across the room to the digital alarm clock on the nightstand, but it was turned off. She stared at it for a moment, confused. She crawled toward her work desk and, still staying low to the floor, blindly groped the tabletop for her iPhone. She grasped the cold, small rectangle lump and then crawled back to her position between the bed and window.
Lara looked down at the iPhone and thumbed the “slide to unlock” animation, bringing up the password prompt. She entered the four numbers, but did it so quickly that she put in wrong numbers. Calming herself, she tried again and the iPhone opened up. She still had no bars, and the iPhone’s battery was at twenty-five percent. She had forgotten to charge it last night.
She tried calling 9-1-1 again, but the phone call never connected. She tried turning on the Safari browser, but it returned a “No Connection” message. She turned on Messaging, typed a quick sentence to Tracy, and tried sending it, but it refused to connect.