“What’s over there?”
“Shoes.”
“Boots?”
“No, just tennis shoes.”
Mike gave him a curious look.
“It’s for Lara,” Will said.
“The girlfriend?”
“She’s more than that.”
“Say no more. What’s it like over there? The island?”
“What do you wanna know?”
“Jen made it sound like paradise.” He gave Will a skeptical look. “Is it paradise? Between the two of us. Man to man. Grunt to grunt.”
Will grinned. “That’s the first time an officer’s ever referred to himself as a grunt in front of me. But yeah, it’s pretty damn close to paradise.”
“How’s the fishing?”
“You fish?”
“Every now and then.”
“You know how when you go fishing, sometimes you catch something and sometimes you don’t?”
“I know that feeling too well. Mostly the latter.”
“You won’t have that problem on the island. You could dip a bucket into the lake and you’d scoop up enough fish to eat for a week.”
“You’re not fucking with me, are you?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“Damn. I could get used to that.” He held up a box of bullets. “You need some for that rifle?”
“Nah, I stocked up before I left the island.”
“What’s that, M4A1? That thing looks like it’s been through the wringer.”
“It’s been with me since Afghanistan.”
“No kidding. How’d you get Uncle Sam to let you keep it?”
“I know a guy who knows a guy, who made it happen.”
Mike chuckled. “Say no more.” He finished up and walked out from behind the counter. The soles of his boots squeaked, leaving bloodied prints in his wake. He sniffed himself. “Jesus, they smell. I had no idea they smelled worse when they’re dead.”
They could hear Paul and Johnson farther back in the store, making a ruckus, and what sounded like something falling down from a high place on a shelf and crashing.
Like going shopping with Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.
“I wish we could lock this place up,” Mike said.
“Your private stash?”
“Something like that.” He shook his head. “It’s not just the ghouls we have to worry about coming back here tomorrow night. Those marauders I told you about. I wouldn’t be surprised if they heard all the shooting. With the city this dead, you’d probably be able to hear a fart from a mile away.”
“Good to know,” Will said. He glanced at his watch. “It’s early. You can come back for more later. Bring more people.”
“I might have to seriously consider that.”
Johnson appeared in the aisle behind them, flashlight bouncing wildly. He was carrying two gym bags.
“We good?” Mike called over.
“We good,” Johnson called back.
“Where’s Paul?”
“He’s on his way.”
They headed toward the front of the store, Paul appearing out of nowhere and falling in behind them along the way. He was hauling two bags too, though they looked like toys against his huge frame.
“I want to be back at the hospital by nine,” Mike said. He looked over at Will. “When’s your next scheduled call with Song Island?”
“Ten,” Will said.
“Must be nice to have a woman waiting for you on an island. That sounds like the plot of a bad romance book.”
Will smiled. “There’s nothing bad about it.”
They hadn’t gone more than half a block when they heard the first series of gunshots. The sound exploded across the city like a flash of lightning, one after another.
Instantly, Will knew they had come from the hospital.
Before Mike could say a word, Will was racing up the sidewalk, easily outpacing Mike’s people. He was one and a half blocks away from the hospital, listening to the low, rumbling booms of gunshots as if they were coming from right across the street. He knew it was just the stillness of the city. Sound traveled these days, and the hard, violent cracks of gunfire moved with startling intensity.
Will didn’t slow down until he was half a block from the hospital. He spotted movement along the rooftops. There had to be at least half a dozen figures, and there was something very wrong about their shapes…
He was jogging at a much slower pace as he approached the parking lot. He could hear Mike coming up behind him, gasping for breath. Will looked back, saw that Mike had dropped one of his gym bags. Even just hauling one bag, Mike still look badly winded. Will looked past Mike at Paul and Johnson, a good fifty meters behind them. They were also just clinging to one bag apiece now, and looked even more out of shape than Mike.
“How are you not breathing hard?” Mike gasped at him.
“I haven’t spent eleven months inside a hospital,” Will said.
They reached the end of the parking lot, keeping an eye on the cars in front of them and the rooftops of the hospital’s visible three towers on the other side. The figures he had spotted earlier seemed to have disappeared, and that set off alarm bells inside Will’s head.
But he couldn’t stop. Not now. Not with gunfire still echoing from inside the building.
Gaby…
Mercy Hospital was only ten floors, but it looked much bigger from ground level, though it could just be the building’s odd four-sided tower construction playing tricks with his eyes.
“Marauders?” Will asked.
“Maybe,” Mike said between breaths. “If it is, then it’ll be the first time. They’ve never been this bold before. Even if they waited for us to leave, they would have to know I’ve got more men up there.”
“But how did they get up there?”
“I haven’t a fucking clue,” Mike said.
They reached the edge of the parking lot and were slowing down even further, the ringing inside Will’s head increasing in volume.
The figures on the rooftop. Where did they go? Where—
He hadn’t finished his thought when he saw a head pop up from the north tower rooftop.
“Sniper!” Will shouted.
Mike darted left and Will darted right as a man, wearing a white Level B hazmat suit, stood up and opened fire down on them. Will slid behind a parked white Ford as the vehicle’s dust-covered windows shattered, the ping-ping-ping of bullets punching into doors. He kept low, taking into consideration the sniper’s high angle that gave the man maximum coverage of the area.
No, not sniper. Snipers.
There were more than one. He could tell that just from the torrent of bullets raining down on him and Mike. From the sounds of it, they were shooting on three-round bursts, which accounted for the continuous ping-ping-ping! all around him.
Will glanced over at Mike, who had his back against a black Mercedes, the vehicle’s windows shattered, glass fragments scattered on the parking lot around his boots. Mike’s eyes were locked on something in front of him, back toward the street.
Will followed Mike’s gaze over to Paul and Johnson, lying in the street, blood pooling around them. Johnson had fallen over his gym bag, while Paul was crumpled up like a marionette. Will couldn’t tell how they had been shot. Not that it mattered. Dead was dead.
Gaby…
“Mike!” Will shouted over the gunfire. “We can’t stay here!”
Mike looked back and nodded.
“Start running on three!” Will shouted. “One, two—three!”
Will spun around, slid the M4A1’s barrel over the hood of the Ford, and fired three quick rounds up at the roof. In the split second that he fired, he spotted five figures on the rooftop, all wearing Level B hazmat suits with gas masks clipped to their waists. Three of the collaborators scurried away from the rooftop edge on instinct, but the remaining two turned toward him and opened up.