She felt the large gush of cool wind behind her, and knew Nate had thrown open the back door. She waited to hear his voice, calling to her to come already, that there wasn’t any time left to make their escape.
The dumpsters. If they could get to the dumpsters…
But there were no sounds from behind her, no Nate screaming, urging her backward. She wondered if he was dead, if opening the back door had only allowed more creatures waiting outside to come in.
She had to turn, had to look back, but she couldn’t. There were too many in front of her, that if she took her eyes off them for even a second, it would all be over. They would make up the distance and that would be it. That would be the end.
“Nate!” she shouted.
There was no response.
She kept firing, counting the number of bullets. Too many, too fast, too—
Empty.
She looked over her shoulder—
Nate was on the floor, his body in a heap.
And something else — a second figure — was rushing toward her. Dark, tall, and wearing a white hazmat suit.
As her mind tried to process what she was seeing, the stock of a rifle smashed into the side of her neck. Gaby gagged, more from the shock than pain, and dropped her rifle, falling to her knees. Groping at her neck, she struggled to breathe.
She looked toward Nate, at the open back door, as a second hazmat-suited figure darted inside, leaping over Nate’s prone body. The man’s gas mask made for a fiendish sight in the green of the glow stick, as if he were an alien invader coming to take her. It moved toward her with surprising speed, and before she could stand up and fight, it grabbed her and held (embraced?) her.
Then darkness, as the world was swallowed by black-skinned creatures blotting out everything around her. Glimpses of blurring flesh and bottomless pits moved toward her, then past her.
The arm around her was so tight it threatened to choke the life out of her. She wanted to fight, but barely had any strength to keep her eyes open. And the pain from her neck was impossible to ignore. She gagged, trying to remember how to breathe again. But it was difficult. It was so difficult…
Her vision started to fail her and everything became heavy. Slowly, slowly, she realized trying to breathe was too challenging, and the last thing she remembered was the sound of screaming…and she knew it wasn’t coming from her.
CHAPTER 32
WILL
He dreamt of Lara. Of white sandy beaches. A perfect breeze and the soft glow of blonde hair in the sun. Soft skin under his fingers, and kissable lips.
Lara…
“You know how to make a girl jealous,” a voice said.
He opened his eyes slowly, painfully. The spiderwebbed front windshield of the Ford F-150 was the first thing that came into view. Behind that, sunlight filtered in through holes along the steel garage door and from crevices around it.
“What time is it?” His voice sounded more like a guttural groan. How long had he been asleep?
“Morning,” Zoe said.
“What time?”
“You have a watch. Look at it.”
“I can’t feel my arms.”
Zoe leaned over, lifted his right hand, and showed him the face of his watch: 9:15 a.m.
“There,” she said. “Happy?”
“I slept through the night?”
She smiled down at him. “Yes and no.”
A bottle of water magically appeared in her hand. She tipped the opening against his lips and he opened his mouth and drank. Rain water. It still tasted better than no water, and his throat was parched.
“You slept through the last two nights,” she said.
“Two nights?”
“You almost died, Will. Again.” She frowned at him. “Honestly, I don’t know how you’re still alive right now. You’re basically seventy percent flesh and blood and thirty percent sutures. You almost bled out the last time you were conscious.”
“Good thing I’m stubborn.”
“No kidding.”
He struggled to sit up. She put her hand on his chest and pushed him back down. She must have been stronger than she looked, because he couldn’t move at all against her palm. That, or he was half dead and had little strength to resist.
“Slowly,” Zoe said. “Okay? Slowly.”
He laid back down and calmed his breathing. Better.
“The good news is, your sutures are holding and you’re not bleeding anymore,” she said.
“The bad news?”
“I tried washing your shirt in the rain, but I’m not very good at laundry.”
She held up his shirt. There were still blood stains on it, and it smelled like rain. He smiled and took it, put it on the dashboard for later. She offered him the bottle again, and he drank some more.
“Lara,” she said.
“What about her?”
“You kept saying her name in your sleep.”
“I guess I was dreaming about her.”
“I figured,” she smiled. “Hungry? I’ve been filling you up with nothing but water for the last two and a half days.”
“There’s food in my pack…”
“There was food in your pack. I ate it.” She picked up a plastic Phillips 66 bag from her floor. “But the gas station next door had some food on the shelves. Lots of stale chips, Pringles, and plenty of beef jerky and other nonperishables.”
She took out a can of Dole fruit and pulled the tab free. He smelled syrup-drenched artificial flavoring and immediately thought of Gaby.
At least one of us made it back home…
“You need to be careful about going outside the garage by yourself,” he said.
She gave him a wry look. “Give me a break. I’ve been doing it for the last two days while you were sleeping on your ass in here. I know you’re the big bad Army Ranger, but I do have some survival instincts of my own, you know. Besides—” she picked up something from the dashboard — his cross-knife “—I had this. You religious or something?”
“No.”
“So what’s with the cross?”
“You see a cross, I see a knife.”
“So, cross-knife?”
“Something like that.”
She handed it back to him, and Will slipped it into its sheath along his left hip.
“Did you have to use it?” he asked.
“No.”
“Anyone looking for us while I was out?”
“I don’t know if they were looking for us specifically, but while I was outside I saw a lot of movement along the highway the last few days. And a couple of vehicles came close enough a couple of times that I could hear them from inside the garage.” She pulled open a stick of Jack Link’s beef jerky and took a bite. Teriyaki-flavored beef drifted from her seat to his. “This thing isn’t half bad. I can see why you like it.”
He sporked a chunk of pineapple into his mouth, tried to chew it a little bit before swallowing.
“Can I ask you a question?” she said after a while.
“I’m not sure I could stop you if I wanted to, so go ahead.”
“Would you have really shot me back there at the camp, if the others had opened fire on us?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Because if they opened fire, chances are one of them would have shot you by accident first.”
She glared at him. “God, you’re such a dick.”
He wanted to laugh, but the most he could manage was a soft chuckle.
She went back to eating the jerky while he fished out the final piece of pineapple, then tilted the can over his lips and drank down the sugary liquid.