Remains: A Post-Apocalyptic Revenge Horror/Thriller
Author: Sam Sisavath
Date: 2020-07-25 00:00:00+00:00
Description: THE VENDETTA COMES FULL CIRCLE. He's been hunting it for a long time now—a one-eyed, blue-eyed ghoul that took everything from him—and now Wash is about to confront his greatest threat. Whether it ends in victory or defeat, it will end. After her own dangerous journey on the road, Ana is more determined than ever to find Wash and finally repay him for helping to save her sister. Following through on that promise, though, might cost her everything. In Remains, the third and final installment in the After The Purge: Vendetta story, there is no turning back. In a desolate and unforgiving part of
Publisher: Barnes & Noble Press

Remains

Copyright © 2018 by Sam Sisavath

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Road to Babylon Media LLC
www.roadtobabylon.com

Edited by Jennifer Jensen, Wendy Chan & Shavonne Clarke

Cover Art by Deranged Doctor Design

Contents

Books in the After the Purge Series

Also by Sam Sisavath

About Remains (Vendetta Part 3)

Wash

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Ana

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Wash

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Ana

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Wash

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Epilogue

A Word From the Author

Books in the After the Purge Series

The “Vendetta” Storyline

Requiem

Tokens

Remains

Also by Sam Sisavath

The Purge of Babylon Post-Apocalyptic Series

The Purge of Babylon: A Novel of Survival

The Gates of Byzantium

The Stones of Angkor

The Walls of Lemuria Collection (Keo Prequel)

The Fires of Atlantis

The Ashes of Pompeii

The Isles of Elysium

The Spears of Laconia

The Horns of Avalon

The Bones of Valhalla

Mason’s War (A Purge of Babylon Story)

The Road to Babylon Post-Apocalyptic Series

Glory Box

Bombtrack

Rooster

Devil’s Haircut

Black

The Distance

The Allie Krycek Vigilante Series

Hunter/Prey

Saint/Sinner

Finders/Keepers

The Red Sky Conspiracy Series

Most Wanted

The Devil You Know

About Remains (Vendetta Part 3)

THE VENDETTA COMES FULL CIRCLE.

He’s been hunting it for a long time now—a one-eyed, blue-eyed ghoul that took everything from him—and now Wash is about to confront his greatest threat. Whether it ends in victory or defeat, it will end.

After her own dangerous journey on the road, Ana is more determined than ever to find Wash and finally repay him for helping to save her sister. Following through on that promise, though, might cost her everything.

In Remains, the third and final installment in the After The Purge: Vendetta story, there is no turning back. In a desolate and unforgiving part of northern Texas, a slayer with nothing to lose and a woman with true grit will find their resilience and courage put to the ultimate test.

Whatever happens, it ends here…

Wash

One

THEN

“How many?”

“A dozen. Maybe more.”

“Is that a dozen or more?”

“A dozen. Maybe more.”

“Be more specific. One is a dozen. That’s twelve. The other is more than twelve. Thirteen. Or fifty. See the difference?”

“What about a baker’s dozen?”

“Is it a baker’s dozen?”

“Probably not. But it also ain’t fifty.”

“So it’s definitely more than a dozen.”

Taggert sighed. “Yeah, it’s definitely more than a dozen. Jesus Christ, old timer, why you always gotta bust my chops? This is why I hate working with you. Nag, nag, nag. It’s like being married, ’cept without all that free sex.”

“I bust your chops because exact numbers matter, kid,” the Old Man said.

“I ain’t your kid,” Taggert said. He pointed at Wash. “He’s your kid.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Tags,” Williams said. “Old timer here’s so old everyone could be his kid.”

The Old Man grunted. “Keep talking that way, and I might accidentally leave you behind in a ghoul nest one of these days, Williams.”

Williams took off his wide-brim hat and wiped it on his stained pants before reaching over and slapping Wash on the back of the shoulder. “Your Old Man’s got a good sense of humor, kid.”

Wash nodded and thought about the last time someone other than the Old Man had called him kid. But then, compared to the other slayers standing around him now, he might as well be a kid. Taggert was in his late forties, and Williams was just a few years younger than that, though both men had the scars, the lines on their faces, and the gray in their hair to pass for much older. Slaying wasn’t exactly the kind of job that lent itself to looking young.

The Old Man himself was already pushing fifty-five. At least, Wash thought so. They’d never really talked about the Old Man’s true age, and these days people just looked older than they really were. It was The Purge—you grew up fast, or you didn’t grow up at all. Wash had gone through the same trial by fire himself. He was still alive, which was something most people couldn’t say.

They stood in front of the cave about half a mile or so from the town of Oakville. It wasn’t much to see—a jagged natural opening about ten feet wide and ten feet tall, give or take—on the side of a sloping hill covered in foliage. There was a stream within sight to their left, the sound of running water deceptively soothing given what they were about to do and all the things that had happened here. Getting to the spot had been easy enough; all they had to do was follow the trail of dry blood on the ground and splattered on the branches. Human blood.

“Doesn’t look big enough for ten nightcrawlers, never mind a dozen or more,” Williams was saying as he peered into the darkness in front of them.

“It’s probably longer than it’s big,” Taggert said, pulling his well-worn aviator shades down the bridge of his nose to get a better look. The lenses of his glasses were so scratched up that Wash wondered if he could actually see much of anything through them.

“That’s what I tell all the ladies, but they never buy it,” Williams said.

Taggert snickered, pushing the shades back up his nose. “It’s your face. Hard to believe anything you say once they get a good look at your ugly mug.”

Williams chuckled again. He did that a lot. Maybe it was a coping mechanism. Different guys did different things. Wash wasn’t that familiar with Williams and Taggert, but the Old Man knew them from past jobs. They’d crossed paths more than a few times, and although Williams was just a bit too easygoing and easily amused for Wash’s liking, the Old Man seemed to trust them. That was good enough for Wash. Trust was a hard thing to come by when it came to hunting monsters.

“After you,” Taggert said, making a sweeping motion with his hand at the Old Man. “Age before beauty.”

The Old Man smirked and drew his machete from its sheath before taking the first couple of steps inside the cave. He kept his shotgun slung over his back, but as usual had unhooked the clasp over the holstered SIG Sauer on his right hip just in case he needed it.

Wash drew his kukri and followed close behind, but not too close. This way, he didn’t invade the Old Man’s space. That was asking for trouble if either one of them had to pivot or move around at the spur of the moment. Wash had left his gloves behind in Oakville. Given the numbers that the other slayers were throwing out, he preferred the slightly longer-ranged ability of the machete.

Taggert and Williams entered the cave behind Wash, the two men leaving just as much room between each other and Wash so they wouldn’t get in his way and vice versa. He was dealing with professionals, men who had done this before. Many, many times before. For all the joking outside, once they got to work—and it was all work as soon as the blades came out and the lights dimmed—it was all business now.

It took a dozen steps into the cave before the wall of sunlight faded completely and was replaced by thick blackness. The Old Man stopped, and Wash waited for him to take out his flashlight and click it on. A halo of bright LED light washed across the jagged rocky formations jutting out of the walls and drooping along the ceiling. There was nothing unusual, until the beam landed on the dirt ground.

Footprints. Bloody footprints. They started about two feet into the darkness and continued deep, deep into the cave.

“Oh yeah, we’re definitely in the right place,” Taggert said from somewhere behind Wash.

“You think?” Williams said.

“Pretty sure.”

“Genius, this guy.”

The Old Man didn’t bother interjecting or shushing them. He knew, just as Wash did, that the two slayers were only trying to calm their nerves. Walking into a dark nest of ghouls wasn’t the most natural thing in the world to be doing, especially in the middle of a bright afternoon. It was a good day for a picnic, the Old Man was fond of saying, but out there, not in here.

The Old Man glanced back at Wash and gave him a slight nod. It wasn’t much, just a quick You good? between the two of them.

Wash nodded back. Yeah, I’m good.

The Old Man was turning around when the first ghoul showed itself. It was a small, shriveled-up thing, barely the size of a five-year-old. It moved slowly, limited by the stumps that used to be its legs. That, Wash thought, was the only reason it was “hanging out” so close to the light. There was nothing wrong with the creature’s eyes, which widened at the sight of the Old Man, or its shrunken nostrils, which flared with anticipation.

The pathetic wretch was reaching toward the Old Man with its trembling twig of a hand when the machete lopped off three of its extended fingers with a quick, contained swing. The dead thing slumped to the dirt floor, the silver in the blade killing it instantaneously.

The Old Man stepped over the unmoving monstrosity. Wash followed, with Taggert and Williams coming up behind him.

They killed more ghouls before it was over. Fifteen in all, to be precise. Only a few of the creatures were any real threat, and neither Wash nor the others had to resort to their guns. By the time they reached the end of the cave and found the remains of the Oakville teenagers that had gone missing, it was almost two in the afternoon.

When it was over, Williams and Taggert bagged the bodies to show their employers that they’d done the job, and they exited back into the sunlight. They waited a few minutes at the opening, giving all the ghoul blood dripping from their clothes and exposed skin the chance to be completely stripped away by the warm sun, before heading back to town.

All in all, it was a good day’s work.

* * *

“You did good back there, kid,” the Old Man said. “Not that I ever had any doubts.”

Wash smiled. “Thanks.”

“I mean it. I’m proud of you.”

“Stop it. You’re gonna make me blush and shit.”

The Old Man threw the rag at him, and Wash didn’t dodge fast enough. He got a face full of dirt and sweat and old man body odor. He doubled over and feigned trying not to gag. The Old Man rolled his eyes and tossed over a warm bottle of water that Wash, this time, managed to catch. He swallowed it down in one gulp.

The water, like the packs of dried food on the floor next to Wash’s feet, was courtesy of a grateful Oakville. They’d bathed in the stream next to the cave before returning to town, so all that was left was to dry up, put on new clothes, and eat before moving on. Taggert and Williams intended to stay overnight, but Wash and the Old Man were ready to keep going. They rarely, if ever, overstayed their welcome.

“Makes them nervous,” the Old Man had said by way of explanation that first time he insisted they keep moving.

“Who?” Wash had asked.

“The people.”

“Why would they be nervous? We just killed some ghouls for them.”

“That’s why,” the Old Man had said.

Wash hadn’t understood then, but it didn’t take long to grasp what the Old Man was trying to tell him. They were slayers—essentially hired killers, even if their victims were undead creatures that preyed on the local population. They were still assassins, and as grateful as most people were to see them arrive, they were just as eager—if not more so—to watch them leave.

“Despite everything that’s happened—The Purge, The Walk Out—most people out here don’t have blood on their hands,” the Old Man had said. “It doesn’t matter what they’ve gone through; they’re still uncomfortable around violence. And that’s what we are, kid: Walking, breathing, and, at times, bleeding violence.”

People like the ones in Oakville needed them, but they would never truly accept them. If he’d stayed for another day, he would have seen the shy glances turn to fear, curiosity morph into suspicion. Oakville would be no different, even if its citizenry had declared an impromptu celebration in their honor. Taggert and Williams had no such hesitation, and Wash and the Old Man said their good-byes to the other two slayers before heading off.

Soon, Oakville faded into the background, and all that was around them were woods again, just the way they liked it.

* * *

They kept Oakville’s dry meats in their packs and finished off the commercial MREs they had been carrying around since Wyoming. Wash wasn’t a big fan of creamy spinach fettuccini, but he swallowed it down anyway before tackling the beverages. The Old Man, as usual, took both of their teas while Wash got his fill of the sugary drinks. Dessert was hard crackers and almost-bad nuts. Not exactly the best sides to celebrate a job well done, but they would do.

They never wasted food because you never knew when the next job would come around. Unfortunately for them, The Walk Out had killed too many of the creatures, and these days there seemed to be more slayers than civilians out there.

Before night could fall completely around them, they found an intact bungalow a few miles outside of Oakville. Being on foot meant they hadn’t put as much distance between them and the town as they would have liked.

The great room was covered in elements, twigs, and animal fecal matter, and there was a hearth that likely doubled as a cooking area for the home’s previous owners. Whoever had occupied the place before them had left a long time ago, judging by the conditions they found. There were two rooms in the back that had to be secured first, and they took one each.

Wash eased his way into a small bedroom with a boarded window and a pallet that someone had been using as a bed, though there were no mattresses or bedding to make lying down on the hard wooden frame comfortable. There was a dark closet that Wash took a cursory glance at, just long and hard enough to know it was empty. Like the rest of the place, there were no obvious telltale signs of ghoul presence.

They cleaned out small sections in the big room for themselves and laid down sleeping bags before Wash decided to go check if the well they’d walked past earlier was still working. It was a long shot, but it wasn’t like he had anything else better to do in the meantime.

“Kid,” the Old Man said.

Wash turned around and almost caught the Old Man’s metal canteen on the forehead. He snatched it out of the air just in the nick of time.

“Fill ’er up,” the Old Man said.

“If there’s any water, and it’s not bad,” Wash said.

“I thought that was a given. Keep an eye out.”

“Will do,” Wash said, and left the bungalow.

It was already dark outside, but the sound of animals moving in the trees around the area and insects chirping in the overgrown grass kept Wash’s alarm bells from sounding. Besides, it wasn’t as if he had left the building naked. He had the kukri on his left hip and his SIG holstered on his right. The shotgun and rifle were back in the bungalow, but if he needed them to deal with some ghouls, he might as well just stop calling himself a slayer.

Unsurprisingly, the well was dry and the wooden bucket that he pulled up using an old, mud-encrusted rope was half-filled with dirt, leaves, and bird feces. There were more of the white splatters staining the well’s surrounding wall.

“Should have stuck around for the party,” Wash said to himself. “I bet Taggert and Williams are having fun.”

He tossed the pail back into the well and heard it plunk! (and probably break apart) as it hit the ground below. Not that he could see anything even when he leaned over and glanced down. Everything after five feet or so was lost in the murky blackness down there.

“Yup, should have stuck around for the party.”

He hadn’t turned completely around before the alarm bells went off.

What…

The woods around him had gone deathly quiet.

He couldn’t hear a single insect or bird, and there was nothing moving anymore.

…just happened?

Wash put one hand on the handle of his kukri, the other still holding the Old Man’s canteen, as he walked back to the house. He made out flickers of light between the slits along one of the home’s boarded front windows, which meant the Old Man had gotten the fireplace working to warm them for the night. Lazy trails of smoke were already drifting out of the chimney.

He was halfway to the bungalow when he heard the scream.

It was the Old Man.

Shit.

Wash dropped the canteen and ran the rest of the way, drawing the machete on the third stride.

Shit, shit.

There hadn’t been any more screams since the first one. And even that wasn’t really a scream. More like a shouting grunt. But it was definitely the Old Man.

Shit, shit, shit.

Wash didn’t bother with the door handle. He kicked the whole thing in and lunged inside.

SHIT.

There were ghouls on the floor. Three of them. Pruned dark skin flicking against the fireplace light, sickly bodies resting on top of pools of black blood. One had lost its head. Another, its right arm at the elbow. The third lay awkwardly on its side, thick liquid slurping out of a hole in its chest.

Wash turned. A fourth ghoul. This one was different from the others. It was small and wearing some kind of red cloak. He might have thought it was a child if he couldn’t see its face. It was a nightcrawler, lifeless eyes staring back at him, the small blade that the Old Man usually carried as a backup piece buried almost to the hilt in its forehead. The fabric that covered its frail body was filthy, blanketed in dirt and old blood, and the smell that wafted from its body and assaulted Wash’s senses made him want to retch.

He stepped over the small ghoul and toward the Old Man, who sat against the wall next to the hearth. His legs were splayed out in front of him, and his machete, covered in thick black tar, lay on the floor between them. The Old Man was wrapping a rag around his left forearm, his heavily lined face slicked with sweat.

“How many more?” Wash asked.

“I don’t know,” the Old Man said.

“Where did they come from?”

“Hallway.” He nodded to his left. “I was making the fire when they got the drop on me. Guess I didn’t smell them in time. It’s all the damn smoke.” He wrinkled his nose. “Plus, the olfactory, she ain’t what she used to be, kid.”

“You gonna be okay?”

“I’ll be fine. Go make sure that’s all of ’em.”

Wash hurried into the back hallway toward the two bedrooms they’d checked earlier. The first one, that the Old Man had searched, was empty. Wash made damn sure of that by searching every corner. The other, smaller one that he’d taken earlier was similarly empty, except the closet in the back was open, and Wash swore it was closed the last time he was in here.

He moved cautiously toward it, kukri in hand.

“Kid!” the Old Man called from the great room. “You good?”

“I’m good!” Wash shouted back.

“What’s taking you so long?”

“Just finishing up. Hold your horses!”

Wash concentrated on the closet door. It was halfway open, and as he neared, he could smell it.

Thick, rotting garbage prodding at his nostrils, rubbing at his exposed skin.

Ghouls. It was ghoul smell.

But how had he missed it earlier? How?

He saw how when he pushed the door open wider with the blade to get a better look inside: There was a trapdoor near the back that he had missed that was now open, and the smell (God, the smell!) was coming from inside. Deep, deep inside. He couldn’t see how deep or what else was down there from his angle. It was lightless and dark and…

Wash knocked the trapdoor closed with the kukri and stepped back. He closed the closet, then grabbed the pallet and pulled it over and raised it from the floor until it was pinned against the door.

Then he rushed back outside.

The Old Man had finished wrapping his forearm with the rag. The white cloth, already dirty from sweat and use, had now turned a bright shade of pink.

“Where’d they come from?” the Old Man asked.

Wash stared at the Old Man’s bloody rag.

“Kid,” the Old Man said. “How did they get inside?”

A bloody rag…around the Old Man’s arm…

“Kid!” the Old Man shouted.

He looked up at the Old Man’s face. “What?”

“How’d they get inside?”

“There was some kind of cellar in one of the closets. They were hiding in there.”

The Old Man looked back at him for a moment, not saying anything.

“I missed it,” Wash said. “I didn’t check the closet close enough. I missed it.”

“Well, shit,” the Old Man said. He sighed, placed his bandaged arm in his lap, and leaned his head back against the wall. “It happens.”

“I missed it,” Wash said. Then, his eyes focused in on the Old Man’s arm. “It bit you.”

He glanced back at the ghoul with the red cloak. Nightcrawlers rarely kept their clothes on. The transformation made them immune to just about every part of nature other than sunlight, so to find one still wearing something, anything, was an oddity.

“It wasn’t one of them,” the Old Man said. Then, off Wash’s confused look, “The one in the cloak. It wasn’t like the other three. There’s a reason I put the knife in its forehead.”

Wash looked back at the cloaked ghoul. He walked closer and crouched next to it, then got a better look at its face.

It was malformed, its cheeks gaunt and the sharp edges of its skull sticking out from its flesh. But there was something very different about it that made it stand out from the other three bigger ghouls.

Wash glanced back at the Old Man, who read his face and nodded. “Yeah, it was a Blue Eyes.” The Old Man lifted his bandaged arm. “It got me before I could kill it. Damned things are just so fast, and I’m getting old…”

“Shit,” Wash said. Or whispered. He wasn’t sure which.

“Yeah.” The Old Man put his arm back down and seemed to shrink before Wash’s eyes. “There’s no getting around it. It’s in me. The bad blood. I can feel it moving through my veins. Shit is right, kid. Shit is right…”

Wash sat down on the hard floor. Or he toppled slightly backward and fell on his ass. He hadn’t looked away from the Old Man the entire time. He couldn’t.

There was sympathy in the Old Man’s eyes when he smiled at Wash. “I’m not going to ask you to do it, kid.”

“Do what?” Wash said. At that moment, he wasn’t sure if he didn’t know or if he was just pretending he didn’t.

The Old Man was still smiling. “Get me some water.”

“Water?”

“I’m thirsty.” He licked his lips. “Damn if I’m not thirsty all of a sudden.”

“There isn’t any. The well’s empty.”

“Not outside, kid. In my pack. In the corner,” he said, motioning with his head to where their packs were leaning against the wall next to the front door.

“Oh,” Wash said, and got up.

“Kid,” the Old Man said from behind him.

Wash stopped and looked back. “Yeah?”

“I don’t blame you. Okay? I don’t blame you. And you shouldn’t, either. It’s done. Move past it. Next.”

Wash didn’t reply. He didn’t know how.

“Say it,” the Old Man said.

“Next,” Wash said.

“Good. Now, go get me that water. Damn, don’t think I’ve ever been this thirsty in my life.”

Wash nodded and turned back around. He stepped over the dead ghoul—the one with the red cloak—and avoided the others. He wasn’t sure if he was moving in slow motion or if the world had just sped up on him. Every step took a lot of effort, and he had a hard time breathing. There was something in his chest—a living, breathing thing, almost like an animal trying to burrow its way out. Digging and biting and chewing—

Click! from behind him.

Wash turned around.

The Old Man had his SIG Sauer in his hand, and the click Wash heard was the pistol’s hammer being cocked back. The Old Man had the gun pressed against the side of his temple.

They locked eyes.

“Don’t,” Wash said. “Please.”

“I’m proud of you, kid,” the Old Man said, just before he pulled the trigger.

Two

Sonofabitch.

The girl in the dark red cloak was a slap in the face, a reminder of all the terrible things that had happened between them, as if Wash could ever forget, even if he wanted to. Which he didn’t, because it was the memories that drove him. The good, the bad, and everything else in-between. They were the reasons he was out here, hurting but pushing through.

So why did he stop in the middle of the road anyway? It wasn’t because he didn’t have any choice. He did. Three, to be exact. Would she have chased him if he fled left or right or turned and retreated the way he’d come? Maybe, but he thought he could outrun her on the Quarter Horse. The animal was well-rested, and Wash hadn’t been pushing it very hard since they left Kanter 11 behind.

So why, despite knowing everything, had he stopped anyway?

Because it sent her, that was why, and Wash was going to be damned if he ran away from it.

Not here. Not now. Not ever.

Wash halted the orange-brown horse about ten feet from the girl. He knew she was a girl—or used to be one, anyway—because she was small, barely five feet tall, even though she looked slightly hunched over as if she were suffering from a lifetime of poor posture. The cloak, up close, was a much darker shade of red. Almost blood-red.

There were no woods around him or trees for miles. Which was how he had spotted the solitary figure from a distance. He thought she would move when he neared, spooked by his appearance, but she hadn’t. She remained slightly turned, with her back mostly exposed to him even now. He couldn’t see her face or tell what she looked like with the hood draped over her head, and there was really no reason for him to think she was a she at all.

Except he knew, because this was a call back to that night, when everything changed.

A soft wind howled from somewhere to his left, pushing against the girl’s cloak until it hugged her thin frame. Wash couldn’t make out arms or legs, just the shape of a small person. A small, bony person.

Wash held the reins of the horse with one hand, while his right dropped slightly to his holstered sidearm. A Kahr 9mm, courtesy of Marie’s people. The kukri was sheathed on his left hip should he need it, but at a distance of ten feet, Wash could nail his target without even trying. And the mag was fully loaded with silver-tipped rounds.

The horse seemed to sniff the girl and must not have liked what it smelled, because it began shuffling its unshod feet. The animal was agitated, and Wash didn’t blame it. There was something very not right about the girl, even if he couldn’t see any part of her because the red-tinted fabric covered her body from head to toe.

But there was no hiding the smell. It was strong and tainted the air, reaching out across the cold night air and caressing Wash’s face, making his nostrils twitch. His wounds, still healing days later, tingled at the nearness of that familiar stench.

Rot. Vomit. Death.

“Where is it?” he asked. His voice was even-keeled. Calm. Unhurried. Unafraid.

Because he wasn’t afraid. You couldn’t get rid of fear completely, but you could master it, temper it at the crucial moments so it wouldn’t interfere. Wash had begun doing that during The Purge, and the Old Man had taught him the rest.

When the figure didn’t answer, Wash said, “It sent you, didn’t it?”

The figure moved. Slightly. It turned its head to the left, as if it were sneaking a look back at him. Except it stopped partway, eyes and face still hidden underneath the draped hood.

Wash let his fingers brush against the grip of the Kahr. The semiautomatic was cold to the touch, but maybe that was because he hadn’t had any reason to reach for it in the last few days. The first day with the weapon had been spent testing it, getting a feel for its smooth double-action trigger and recoil. That get-to-know session had cost him exactly one full magazine. He hadn’t wasted any more since.

“What’s the point of this?” he asked the girl. “Are you just going to stand there all night or what?”

He was still sure it was a girl underneath the cloak. The height, the size—everything pointed to a kid. A kid. Why had it sent a kid to intercept him? Was this all just to remind him of that night—

The horse felt it first—the ground around him moving as something (somethings) underneath the surface began crawling their way out. The Quarter Horse lifted its head and let out a loud snort.

Wash tightened his grip on the horse’s reins even as he drew the pistol, the thoughts It’s a trap. You knew it was a trap, and you walked right into it anyway. You idiot! You goddamn idiot! racing through him.

But it was too late to turn back now. The air was suddenly suffocating, every inch of it filled with that familiar aroma of stinking garbage.

Of death. Of ghouls.

There were a half dozen of them—their black flesh gleaming against the flood of moonlight—clamoring clumsily out of the holes they’d dug into the ground on both sides of the road. He hadn’t noticed how the ground had been tampered with, because it was so dark and because he was too focused on the figure in the road. Just like it had intended.

The world slowed down to a crawl like it always did when death was in the air, and Wash spun the horse around even as the animal continued to snort loudly, bursts of white clouds expelling in slow motion out of its nostrils with every alarmed breath.

The first creature to reach the surface ran at him, wet, damp dirt flinging off its shoulders and hairless domed head. Dark eyes focusing, twisted mouth opening wide to reveal jagged yellow teeth. It was fast, but it wasn’t quick enough to dodge a bullet.

The Kahr slid easily out of its holster, and Wash fired from the hip. He caught the first ghoul in the chest with the first shot. The 9mm round punched through its sunken torso and kept going, exiting out its back and vanishing into the night air. The nightcrawler, all tainted life suddenly snuffed out of it, continued forward, its momentum driving it. Then it lost all steam and slammed into the ground at the horse’s feet.

That spooked the horse, and the animal began shuffling its feet wildly to get away from the corpse. The agitated movements threw Wash’s aim off slightly as he fired a second time, still from the hip, at two more ghouls.

One creature’s head exploded like a ripe watermelon as the 9mm round drilled through its face, smashing its nose in the process, while it was still pulling itself up from the ground. Wash missed with his third shot but not his fourth. He clipped a ghoul in the shoulder blade, and it fell back into the hole it had been hiding in all this time.

The Quarter Horse continued to move wildly, and despite Wash’s best attempts to keep it under control, he realized quickly that it was a lost cause. Wash acted before the frightened horse could throw him off, launching himself in the same direction as the dead ghouls he’d just killed. There were more ghouls scrambling out of holes on the other side, and he didn’t want to land right in the middle of the pack. This way, he’d get a few seconds to gather himself—

Pain crackled through his body as he hit the hard ground and rolled over, the smell of rotting flesh from nearby dead ghouls tearing at his nostrils. He gritted his teeth through it all—or as much of it as he could, anyway—and still might have let out a loud scream anyway.

Then he was rolling and scrambling back onto his knees. He spun around to search for the rest of the ghouls that, by now, would have already managed to dig themselves up from their hiding places.

“Four rounds! You have four rounds left, kid!” a voice shouted inside his head. It was the Old Man but not really the Old Man. An imaginary version of him, reinforcing things Wash already knew. Like right now, reminding him that he had only four rounds left in the Kahr. The magazine was limited to eight bullets, and he had already wasted four on three ghouls. Four on three ghouls.

“You’re supposed to be more accurate than this, kid,” the Old Man said.

Yeah, yeah, Wash thought as he watched the horse whirling around, puffing clouds from its flaring nostrils, before it took off down the road.

“That’s not good,” the Old Man said.

No kidding! Wash thought, when he glimpsed sudden movements from the corner of his eye.

The girl in the cloak!

He spun in that direction, the Kahr still at waist level, as she came at him.

He could see the creature in all its glory now, especially the piercing blue eyes that flashed inside the lightless interior of the hood. A blue-eyed ghoul. Not the blue-eyed ghoul Wash had been hunting, but another one.

It was fast. So, so much faster than the three black eyes he’d killed seconds earlier.

Goddammit, they’re fast!

It disintegrated the distance between them in the blink of an eye, the cloak fluttering around it as if alive, revealing its skeletal frame and deformed joints and—the eyes. All Wash could focus on were the eyes. So much so that he completely ignored the three figures on the other side of the road as they began moving toward his position.

He fired at the blue-eyed ghoul. Wash didn’t bother to lift the pistol for a better shot. He didn’t need to. He’d been shooting from the hip since he had learned to hold a gun, and he did that now.

Bang-bang-bang-bang!

All four shots, as fast as he could, and he didn’t stop pulling the trigger until the gun’s slide snapped backward and locked on the fourth (and last) bang!

And the creature kept coming.

He hadn’t hit it. He hadn’t even come close to hitting it.

But Wash didn’t think he would anyway. He already knew how fast the blue-eyed ones were, and he didn’t for one second believe he could nail it. And knowing that, he had fired at it with one hand while his left reached for the kukri and began drawing it, and it slipped out of the sheath just as the monster reached him.

It grabbed him by the neck, icy-cold fingers sliding around his throat and tightening like a vise. Razor-thin lips curved into existence from the black void that was its face, the hood still clinging to the creature’s forehead somehow. Was the damned thing glued in place? Wash wondered. How had it not fallen down yet?

It was so small—barely five feet—that it only had to bend slightly at the waist to take hold of Wash’s kneeling form—

Wash drove the kukri into the blue-eyed ghoul’s stomach. Instant shock exploded and ballooned in both of its eyes at the sharp contact. It hadn’t seen it coming, just as he had planned.

Adapt or perish, bitch! Wash thought, grinning through a mouthful of blood (Blood? Now where had that come from? Oh right, that stupid stunt where he threw himself off the horse’s saddle.) as he jerked the knife upward and eviscerated the creature from its gut all the way up to its chest before it could react.

Then he angled the kukri slightly so he could break through the chest cavity and bones and pull the blade free.

Blood splattered the air, and the blue-eyed ghoul let out an ear-splitting shriek that shouldn’t have been possible for something its size. It wasn’t the kukri’s fourteen inches of razor-sharp and curved blade that was causing it incredible pain, but the silver that coated it. Silver didn’t kill the Blue Eyes, but it hurt.

Wash saw the truth of that as the childlike figure stumbled away from him. It moved with difficulty, its severed torso causing it to sway from side to side. Not that Wash felt any sympathy for it. He had none to give this wretched thing that was once human—once a little girl that someone, somewhere called daughter or sister—but wasn’t anymore. It was just another undead monstrosity, a crime against nature, as alive as the clump of dirt that flicked from its soles as it attempted to flee.

Wash lunged after it and lopped its head off at the neck with one wide-arcing swing. He’d had too much practice with the kukri to miss. There was barely any resistance to the blade, and he cut through the bones as if they were little more than flimsy sheets of film.

The figure flopped to one side while its head went flying in the other. The head rolled away for a few feet before stopping and settling, the face turned toward Wash. Wide blue eyes, now devoid of any sheen, stared back at him while its mouth trembled in shock.

It was still alive…somehow.

“The brain, kid,” the Old Man said. “Haven’t I taught you anything?”

Right. The brain.

Wash remained on his knees, looking back at the creature, when there was a sudden surge of suffocating rot in the air.

He spun on his knees, fingers tightening around the kukri.

There was a black-eyed nightcrawler standing less than ten feet from him. Standing, because it had frozen in place, along with the other two. They didn’t even seem aware of his existence anymore and stood like statues, staring at the decapitated head of the blue-eyed ghoul.

“They control them, the Blue Eyes,” the Old Man once told him. “The Black Eyes turn into mindless machines without them. Kill one, and you’ve essentially killed all of its soldiers.”

That was what Wash was looking at now. Soldiers waiting for orders from a higher-up that would never come. The ones that were out there on their own could act independently, but once a Blue Eyes got involved, linked to their minds, they became another cog in the machine, incapable of autonomous thinking. If the black eyes could even think at all. Even after killing so many of them, Wash wasn’t so sure.

For a moment, he didn’t have to do anything. Wash took advantage of that and put his blade away before picking the Kahr back up and swapping in a fresh magazine. A loud clack! as the gun’s slide snapped into place, and the nearest ghoul turned its head in his direction. Wash wasn’t sure if it even saw him. Maybe it just noticed the gun in his hand. Or maybe it smelled the silver in the magazine. He’d encountered ghouls before that could sense when silver was nearby.

Wash shot the nearest creature in the chest, and even as it was falling, shot the other two. Bang-bang-bang, and it was over, leaving behind the echo of gunshots across the open fields. This part of Texas was almost as flat as the Oklahoma countryside he had passed to get down here, and he had a feeling those shots would be traveling for quite some time tonight.

He turned around and shot the blue-eyed ghoul in the forehead, placing the round between its now-dull blue eyes. Any semblance of light drained completely from its black flesh, until he couldn’t even be sure he was looking at something that was once alive and not just the husk of a plastic mannequin.

He hated to waste the bullets—especially now, without any more spares on him—and would have preferred to kill all four with the kukri. But he was too tired and in too much pain to believe he could get back up, and this was so much easier.

Just this once, he allowed himself the luxury of taking the easier option.

Wash glanced around and tried to find the Quarter Horse, but the animal was gone. It had taken off down the road in the direction they’d come, and he couldn’t see any evidence of it anywhere in the distance.

Smart horse.

“Smarter than you,” the Old Man said.

Wash snickered. It wasn’t the Old Man’s real voice, just Wash’s mind making up the words the Old Man would have said.

He wasn’t surprised the horse hadn’t come back. It wasn’t like he’d bonded with the animal over the last few days. The problem, of course, were those supply bags draped over the saddle. The extra ammo, the rifle, but maybe more importantly, the food.

Wash put the gun down on the ground next to him and dug out the bottle of painkillers. At least he was smart enough to carry this on his person at all times. Just prying open the childproof cap took way too much effort, but eventually he got it loose and was able to shake out the last two of the white pills and swallow them down. He tossed the empty bottle.

The meds weren’t going to do his aching side any good right away, but they would come through eventually. He’d know they had finally kicked in when he stopped seeing two copies of the headless blue-eyed ghoul, its now-black eyes staring accusingly back at him.

You had it coming, bitch.

He lay down on the ground and closed his eyes. It was dangerous, and there was no telling what else was out there, and he didn’t care. He kept his ears open for sounds of new incoming dangers, though, because he couldn’t rely on his sense of smell with the stink all around him.

There was plenty of moonlight for Wash to see just how cloudless the sky was at the moment. For a brief second, he thought there was something up there—a black shape gliding from one side of his peripheral vision to the other. It might have been a bird, or a hawk, or a vulture. Or it might have even been metal. It looked metal. A plane, maybe? Was that a plane?

Whatever it was, it was there and gone the next.

Soon, all he could hear was the soft wind blowing across the flat Texas countryside, along with the tick-tick-tick-tick of the watch on his wrist. Four ticks. Exactly four ticks per second. Most people couldn’t discern the individual beats, but Wash could.

Tick-tick-tick-tick.

They were reminders that after all that had happened and everything he had lost, the end was still somewhere ahead of him, waiting for him.

Tick-tick-tick-tick.

It wasn’t over yet, but it would be, soon.

Tick-tick-tick-tick…

Tick-tick-tick-tick…

Three

The sun was being a real pain in the ass, but at least it kept him from freezing to death last night. It didn’t, though, do much to help him alleviate the whole new universe of pain that came with morning.

Should have stayed in Kanter 11. I bet they have plenty of cozy beds.

Picking himself up from the ground took more effort than it should have. The urgency to abandon the stink of evaporated ghoul flesh lingering in the air like a swarm of locusts trying to get into his every orifice helped some. Not by a lot, but some.

“Now that’s one hell of a visual, kid,” the Old Man said inside his head. “You’re a real poet when you want to be.”

No, not the Old Man. You. You’re talking to yourself.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard the Old Man laughing.

You’re going crazy…but at least you’re still alive, even if you are surrounded by stinking ghoul bones.

He’d forgotten how badly they smelled after the sunlight got ahold of them. No, forgotten wasn’t the right word. It was more that he’d gotten used to it. The stink. The sight of bleach-white bones under the exposed sun, as if someone had come along while he slept and chemically cleansed them.

All of it was a reminder that he’d almost died last night, because he was too stubborn to turn and run.

“Adapt or perish, kid, remember?” the Old Man said.

I remember. I remember everything you taught me.

“And here I thought you barely listened.”

I always listened.

“Always?”

Always.

“I’m glad to hear that,” the Old Man said.

His stitches were still in place when he checked on them last night, and they, along with all the bruising across his skin, hadn’t gone anywhere this morning. In fact, they might have actually increased, showing up in places where they weren’t before.

Dammit. Should have stayed in Kanter 11. Should have stayed with…

“Ana?” the Old Man said.

Yes. Ana. Should have stayed with Ana.

“She wanted you to, kid.”

I know.

“You should have taken her up on her offer.”

I couldn’t.

“You mean you didn’t want to.”

No, old timer. I couldn’t. Not yet.

“Not until it’s done…”

Yes. Not until it’s done.

“Not until it’s done,” he said out loud to the empty road.

Wait. The empty road? When had he gotten up and begun walking?

Oh, who cares? I’m up. I’m up.

The scenery hadn’t changed very much since he opened his eyes, sat up, and tried not to choke on the stink of evaporated ghoul flesh clinging to his clothes and skin. His legs were heavy, and he resisted the urge to stop and rest. Walking was the easy part, even if he didn’t know how he got started. Once he allowed himself to sit down, even for a second or two, he might not be able to summon the strength to stand back up and keep going. Right now, he still had the willpower to see this (“Insane?” the Old Man said.) journey through to the very end, even if he couldn’t quite imagine the finish—

Something glinted in the distance.

He stopped and stared for a moment, squinting his eyes against the midday sun.

Wait. Midday? It’s midday?

He glanced up at the sky and grimaced at the sea of brightness. How long had he been walking? Long enough that the giant white globe was at its highest point, meaning it had been hours. He was pretty sure there was still darkness when he regained consciousness, so he’d been on his feet and moving, nonstop, for at least five hours without realizing it.

And there, the first trace of civilization since he lost his horse and almost died.

“Your fault. You should have gone around it,” the Old Man said. “Or turned away and fled.”

I’m not running from that bastard.

“You’re not thinking smart, kid. Didn’t I tell you to always think with your brain and not your knives?”

You taught me a lot of things. Good ol’ fashioned revenge was one of them.

“Me and my big mouth,” the Old Man said.

Wash honed in on the glinting object in the middle of nowhere. It was metallic—gray and shiny, reflecting back the rays of sunlight. Some kind of building rooftop, just barely visible in the distance. It wasn’t anywhere close to the road, but to the left of it—at least half a mile, but that was just a guess.

“Remember last night?” the Old Man said. “Maybe you should keep going.”

Maybe I should.

He left the dirt trail and started walking toward the structure, unable to ignore the siren’s call of gleaming metal.

“You dumb kid,” the Old Man said. “You dumb, dumb kid…”

* * *

It was an old RV parked, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing around it to suggest there was any reason why the driver would have chosen this spot to stop. The seemingly and completely arbitrary nature of it was what really struck Wash.

The light tan color along the vehicle’s side had been heavily damaged by the sun over the years, but there was still enough color for Wash to make out striped patterns. It was lighter on top than it was at the bottom, which was almost dark brown. The word Journey, embossed on the back, greeted him as he approached. He had one palm resting on the grip of his holstered Kahr, just in case.

There was a small staircase in the back that provided a path to the roof. For sightseeing? Repairs? For something. Wash had no experience with RVs. If working cars were hard to maintain after The Purge, a big gasoline-guzzler like this would be beyond most people’s abilities, and more importantly resources, to keep it running.

There were no windows on the back, but plenty on the left side. The vehicle was huge, maybe just short of forty feet in length and raised high off the ground despite resting on flat tires, allowing wind to rush back and forth underneath its carriage. The windows were covered in grime, making it nearly impossible to see what was on the other side. The tinted glass didn’t help.

Wash neared the large abandoned hunk of metal cautiously, slowly. Not that he could really move all that fast. All the walking hadn’t done him any favors, but at least most of his body had numbed over during the hours he still couldn’t recall. He was hurting—and that was going to last for a long while yet—but it wasn’t bad enough to stop him.

The door on the left side of the RV was closed, but unlike the side windows, the security glass section near the top wasn’t as darkly tinted, allowing Wash to look in at an empty driver’s seat raised off the floor. He had already unconsciously slipped his right hand along the grip of the pistol at his hip, so it would take him precisely half a second to draw the weapon. If that. Wash was by no means 100 percent, but he didn’t have to be to pull and shoot.

He stepped closer to the door and peered inside.

There were no movements when he glanced left, toward the back of the vehicle. From his outside vantage point, he could see a sofa among the shade and the lowered curtains behind it. There were no hints of people or movement, though. Not that Wash believed it right away, every part of him wary of another trap.

“Like last night?” the Old Man asked.

I knew what I was doing last night.

“Could have fooled me, kid.”

Wash knocked on the door, the thunk-thunk-thunk of his rapping knuckles the only sound except for some slight breeze howling across the flat land behind him. That, and his slightly labored breathing. Why was he having so much trouble breathing?

No one answered his knocks, and still nothing moved inside that he could see.

Wash did it again, and waited. And watched.

Thunk-thunk-thunk.

More nothing.

Thunk-thunk-thunk.

Ten seconds…

Thunk-thunk-thunk.

Thirty…

He took a step back and gave the door a long, hard look. It felt strong to the touch (and knocking) but wasn’t metal or wood. He guessed fiberglass. That was pretty tough, but not impossible to break down or pry—

When he twisted the lever and pulled at the door, it opened without resistance.

“Should have tried that first,” the Old Man laughed.

Yeah, yeah.

He hadn’t expected the door to just open for him, but maybe he should have. It was an old vehicle dumped in the middle of nowhere—literally in the middle of nowhere—so why wouldn’t it be abandoned and left unlocked? It made perfect sense.

Didn’t it?

He pulled the door open and took the first step up and inside, regretting it immediately.

Wash blamed it on the lingering pain. That, and the relief of being alive after last night’s encounter, left him vulnerable and unable to take all the precautions necessary. But the truth was, he wasn’t thinking straight. And he definitely shouldn’t have just opened a door into a strange object and stepped right through it like an idiot.

“Better luck next time,” the Old Man said about the same time something glanced off his left temple.

Then he was falling sideways.

Then backward.

Then out of the RV.

He slammed against the ground so hard that he thought he might have jarred a stitch or two (or a dozen) loose with the impact. The severe pain from last night that had numbed over this morning came roaring back with a vengeance, and it was all he could do to grit his teeth and not scream out.

Or maybe he did let out a shriek, but he couldn’t be sure. He hoped he didn’t, though. That would have been very unmanly.

He was suddenly staring up at the sun and had forgotten all about the Kahr. He had a flash of something happening just before it did and was pretty certain he had gotten the pistol halfway out of its holster before he was struck on the side of the head.

Not fast enough, as it turned out.

He closed his eyes, trying to gather the strength just to breathe.

In and out.

In and out…

He was only vaguely aware of a thrumming sensation slashing from the soles of his boots all the way up to the very top of his head. Keeping his eyes open was difficult, but he somehow managed it anyway, even as he heard footsteps (Clunk-clunk-clunk!) coming from somewhere nearby.

A round, almost cherubic face appeared above him, blocking out the sun.

For a second, Wash thought he was looking up at a baby. A round-faced baby. But no, it was just a girl, albeit one with a very dirty face, stringy blonde hair cascading down around her puffy cheeks. She might have even smiled at him when she said, “I think he’s alive.”

“Of course he’s alive,” another voice said. This one was male but young-sounding. “I just popped him in the head.”

Kids. I got suckered in and knocked out by kids.

Great.

“Could be worse,” the Old Man said.

How?

“They could have shot you instead of just smacking you in the head.”

Good point.

“Look at that,” the girl said, pointing at Wash. No, not at him, but closer to his side. “I’ve never seen a knife like that. Have you?”

A second face appeared above Wash. It was probably the male speaker from earlier. He was older than the girl, but not by much. Sixteen, maybe seventeen, though he had a skinny neck and thin face with sharp features all around.

“That’s a cool knife,” the boy said as he lowered himself toward Wash, then pulled back a few seconds later. Except now he was holding the kukri, the sunlight glinting off the sharp silver-coated blade as he turned it over in his hands. He looked as if he’d handled knives before.

“That’s mine,” Wash said.

The boy snorted. “Not anymore.”

“Why’s he just laying like that?” the girl asked. She was hovering to Wash’s right, while the boy was on his left.

“He can’t move,” the boy said.

“How come?”

“’Cause I clunked him good, that’s why.”

“Clunked?” Wash thought.

Then: I got clunked.

“You got clunked, kid,” the Old Man said.

I just said that.

“Is he paralyzed?” the girl asked. She turned her head left and right as she talked, as if trying to get a better angle at Wash.

“Nah, he’s just hurt,” the boy said. “I hit him hard, but it wasn’t that hard.” The boy put the kukri away and disappeared out of Wash’s peripheral vision again. He resurfaced with the Kahr in his hand a few seconds later. “Looks like he was hurt before he got here.” Then, directly at Wash, “You gonna die, dude?”

“No,” Wash said.

“You sure about that?”

“Yes.”

The boy chuckled. “Okay.”

The girl turned to the boy. “What are we gonna do with him, Roy?”

“I dunno,” the one named Roy said.

Wash heard a click before a black snub-nosed revolver appeared in Roy’s hand as he pointed it down at Wash. The clicking sound was the pistol’s hammer being cocked back.

“Are you gonna shoot him?” the girl asked. She sounded surprised and a little alarmed, and Wash thought, You and me both, kid. You and me both.

“It’s too dangerous to just leave him walking around,” Roy said.

“But you can’t just shoot him,” the girl said.

“Why not?”

“You just can’t.”

“Listen to her,” Wash said.

“Shut up,” Roy said. He glanced over at the girl. “He’s dangerous, June. Just like Phil and the others. Remember them?”

June nodded, clearly reliving something terrible by the look on her face.

“We have to do this,” Roy said, looking back at Wash. Then, possibly to Wash by way of explanation, “It’s the only way to be safe out here.”

“But…” the girl said.

“No buts. We have to.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Wash said.

“Yeah, I do,” Roy said, but there was something in his eyes and in the way his gun hand moved slightly. Not too much, but just enough for Wash to notice.

He’s not a killer.

God, I hope he’s not a killer.

“I’m hurt, and I’ll probably die tonight anyway,” Wash said. “You don’t have to kill me. Just leave me alone, and I’ll die soon on my own. You don’t need my blood on your hands, kid. Trust me. It’s not worth it.”

Roy stared at him but didn’t say anything. He also didn’t stop pointing the small snub nose at Wash’s face. At this range, the revolver would put Wash out of his misery with just one bullet.

But he couldn’t let the kid do that. He couldn’t just die. Not here, not now. He had things to do, creatures to kill.

He imagined it out there, laughing at him, at all of Wash’s failures.

“I’m no threat,” Wash said to Roy. “You got my gun. My knife. I don’t have anything anymore.”

“You’re still you,” Roy said.

Wash didn’t understand what that meant. Not right away, at least.

Slowly, the realization that the kid was right came to him. Even if he wasn’t a slayer, he was still a man. He was still dangerous in the kid’s eyes, and the kid would be right. What would Wash do if he had to defend a young girl like June from the dangers of the world?

He’s not wrong. I am dangerous to them.

“Don’t tell him that,” the Old Man said.

But he’s not wrong…

“Just let me die out here,” Wash said. “You can go back into the RV and close the door and just watch me die. You can even shoot me if I try anything.”

The kid didn’t move or look away, but his gun hand was moving more than before. Fortunately, the finger pushing against the trigger didn’t finish the pull.

Stay that way, stay that way. I still have too much to do. If I die now, the bastard will win. And I can’t let that happen. I can’t let that happen.

Then Roy blinked once—

Please…

—twice—

God, I can’t die here. I can’t die here, not like this…

—and pulled the revolver back.

Wash breathed a sigh of relief.

Roy didn’t take his eyes off Wash as he took one step back before looking over at June. “Go back inside. I’ll make sure he doesn’t try to get in.”

Wash couldn’t see June anymore. He had been so focused on Roy—on that gun in his hand—that he hadn’t noticed when the girl disappeared. He could only hear her now when she answered, “But don’t shoot him. Okay, Roy?”

“Okay, okay,” Roy said. “I won’t, if he doesn’t make me.”

“Promise?”

Roy sighed. “Yeah. I promise. Now git.”

Wash lay back and breathed easier. Not by much, but noticeably easier. Maybe he wasn’t going to die here, at the hands of some skinny teenager, after all.

“How many lives you got left now, kid?” the Old Man asked.

Not enough, old timer. Not nearly enough.

“Get going,” Roy was saying as he squinted down at Wash. “If you even turn around, I’ll shoot you dead.”

Wash rolled over onto his stomach, then pushed himself up from the ground and onto his knees. It took a lot of effort. More than it should have, and he was out of breath by the time he managed it.

He took a moment to compose himself, to regather his strength. He could feel Roy somewhere behind him, but all he could hear was the ticking of the automatic watch still strapped to his left wrist. At least Roy hadn’t taken that from him.

Tick-tick-tick-tick.

Tick-tick-tick-tick…

“Get going,” Roy said from behind him.

Wash sighed. “I’m trying, kid. This isn’t exactly easy as pie.”

He forced himself up onto one foot, then the other. He was winded by the time he straightened both legs, and pain lanced up and down his body. Who knew just standing up could be so life-and-death?

He took a breath.

In and out.

In and out…

Then started walking.

Or he got one foot forward, then followed up with a second foot, but as he reached back for the third, the ground came alive and was suddenly rushing up at him and—

This is not good, Wash thought as his face slammed into the hard Texas soil and his world collapsed in from all around him.

Four

The girl’s cherubic face was hovering over him when he opened his eyes again. There was dirt on her cheeks and what looked like gray (or black) grease glistening off her long strands of hair, details that had escaped him earlier. Up close, she had very deep blue eyes and a squinty nose that made him think she’d jumped out of the pages of those comic books the Old Man introduced him to once in a town outside of Canton, Ohio.

“Are you still alive?” she asked.

Wash grunted and tried to work some saliva down his parched throat. “Yes,” he croaked out.

“Roy says you were deader than you were alive.”

“Roy is right.”

“But you’re alive.”

“Yes.” He paused. “I think I am.”

June smiled. “You’re not sure?”

He returned it. Or thought he did. “I’m alive.”

“Good, ’cause it would suck if we had to bury you.”

“Why would you bury me?”

“So the monsters couldn’t get you.”

“Oh.”

“You know about the monsters, right?”

“Of course.”

“Is that what this’s for?” she asked, turning around slightly, then returning with his kukri. It was way too big—and sharp—for her tiny hands. “It looks dangerous.”

“It is,” Wash said. “Be careful with it. Don’t cut yourself.”

“I won’t.” She turned around again, this time returning with empty hands. “Roy will be back soon. He says not to let you loose if you wake up before he does.”

Not to let me “loose?”

It took a few seconds before he realized his hands were bound at the wrists with duct tape.

Ah.

It was the same with his ankles. He was lying on the floor inside the RV, between a desk to his left and a sofa to his right. June was sitting on the sofa and leaning over him.

Wash didn’t bother testing the strength of the tape. It felt strong, and he didn’t have much energy to expend anyway. Besides, if Roy was going to kill him, the teenager would have done it already. Going through the hassle of dragging him in here, then binding him, meant the two kids were willing to keep him alive, for whatever reason.

“You’re alive,” the Old Man said. “Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth, kid.”

Yeah, good idea.

He stared up at the dirty ceiling and spent a few seconds regulating his breathing. Not moving helped ease his pains somewhat, but what he wouldn’t give for the spare bottle of painkillers in his supply bag. The same bag that was probably many miles—and getting longer—down the road by now. There was enough light in the vehicle, coming through the mud-caked windows, that he didn’t think he’d been unconscious for very long. At least not enough for night to have fallen outside while he was out.

“Here,” the girl said.

Wash looked over. She was holding a bottle of water toward him. There was about half left, and his mouth watered at the sight.

He gave her an Are you sure? look, and she smiled.

“I think that’s a yes,” the Old Man said. “Better drink it, before she changes her mind.”

Wash raised his head slightly—grunting from the effort and grimacing away the stabs of pain coming from his side—as June let him have a taste. She might have allowed him to drink the whole thing, but Wash held back and took only what he needed to chase away the insects nesting in his throat.

“Thanks,” he said, handing the bottle back to her and lying down again.

“You’re welcome,” June said.

She stashed the bottle into a beat-up pink and white backpack. There was a large animal with squinting eyes on the front. Some kind of cartoon kitty. Wash didn’t get a good look at what else she had in there, but it was apparently quite a lot, because the pack was bulging as she zipped it up.

“Where did Roy go?” Wash asked.

June shrugged. “I dunno. He didn’t say.”

“How long has he been gone?”

She glanced at her wristwatch. It was white with plastic bands, and Wash could just make out the slow and purposeful tick of each quartz-powered second counting down.

“It’s been a while,” she said.

“How long is ‘a while?’”

“A while.”

Wash smiled. He knew a lost cause when he saw one. He said instead, “Roy carried me up here?”

“He dragged you up here mostly.” Then, off his surprised look, “He’s stronger than he looks.”

I guess so, Wash thought, because the teenager had looked pretty skinny.

He said, “What are you guys doing all the way out here by yourselves?”

“We’ve always been out here by ourselves.”

“Always?”

She nodded. “Pretty much.”

“How long is ‘pretty much?’”

She seemed to think about it for a moment.

Then, finally, “Pretty much.”

Wash remembered something Roy had said earlier.

“Who’s Phil?” he asked.

“Some guys,” June said.

“What happened to them?”

“Roy took care of them.”

How did he do that? Wash was going to ask, when the RV door creaked open behind him and the vehicle lowered slightly as someone came in.

“What did you find?” June asked. She wasn’t talking to Wash.

A black tactical pack landed on the sofa next to June. It looked familiar, because it was. Wash recognized it as one of the packs the Quarter Horse was carrying when it took off on him last night.

“That’s mine,” Wash said.

“Says you,” Roy said.

The lanky teenager sat down on the sofa with a tired sigh. He unwrapped a handkerchief from the lower half of his face as puffs of dust fell from his well-worn pant legs and jacket.

“That is mine,” Wash said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Roy said. “Finders keepers.”

“I don’t think it works that way, kid.”

“It does now. You been out there?”

Wash couldn’t see the snub-nosed revolver on Roy’s person, but he assumed it was there, hidden. Not that he thought the kid was going to shoot him—especially after all the effort Roy had gone through to bring Wash into the recreational vehicle when he didn’t have to.

Which led him to the same question he had been asking himself since he regained consciousness: Why had Roy saved his life? He was dealing with kids, sure, but even kids weren’t really kids these days. Not after The Purge. And Roy looked very much like he’d been around. Even June, all ten or eleven years of her, did. Wash recognized survivors when he saw one.

“Where’d you find it?” Wash asked while watching June unzipping the bag and rifling through its contents.

“Down the road,” Roy said.

The teenager took out the same bottle of water Wash had drank from earlier and drained all of it. Wash was going to tell him, Whoa there, slow down, but figured Roy probably already knew there were two extra bottles of water in the pack he’d just “rescued” from the road. As soon as Wash thought that, June pulled out one of those containers now.

“I saw the dead skinnies,” Roy said. Then, eyeing Wash, “That was you?”

“Yeah,” Wash said.

“You killed all seven of them?”

“Yes.”

Something flashed across Roy’s face that almost looked like newfound respect. Wash wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, though. Roy had already considered Wash dangerous before, and if he thought Wash was even more dangerous than initially assumed…

“He already saved your life,” the Old Man said. “He’s not going to kill you now.”

He could always change his mind.

“Would you, in his shoes?”

Maybe…

But Roy didn’t immediately fish out his revolver to prove Wash right.

Instead, the teenager said, “One of them was smaller. It wasn’t like the others.” He peered at Wash. “You know what I mean?”

“Do you?” Wash asked.

“I was born at night, but not last night.”

Wash grinned.

“I can tell by the bones,” Roy continued, sitting back. “It’s not as deformed as the others. And its back—” He reached over his shoulder and patted his own back. “It could stand straight. The others, they can’t.”

Wash nodded and thought, He really has been out here. He knows more than most adults.

“It was a Blue Eyes,” Wash said.

“You killed a Blue Eyes,” Roy said. It sounded like a question, but Wash couldn’t be sure. And again, that look of almost-respect flashing across Roy’s face. “And the other six, too.”

“Yes.”

“You some kind of slayer?”

“I am.”

“That would explain the knife.” Roy picked up the kukri from the sofa. “Haven’t run across one of these before.”

“It’s called a kukri,” Wash said.

“You make this yourself?”

“Someone I knew did.”

“Who?”

“The person who taught me how to be a slayer.”

“What happened to him?”

“He died.”

“Oh,” Roy said. The teenager stared at the sharp silver-coated metal for a moment, turning it slowly over in his hand.

“What now?” Wash asked.

Roy answered by cutting the tape from Wash’s ankles before doing the same to his wrists.

“Add another life back to your inventory, kid,” the Old Man said.

Wash sat up with a sigh and rubbed his hands together. A quick stab of pain from his old wounds told him he should probably lie right back down, but he ignored it.

“I found this in your bag,” Roy said. He took a small plastic bottle out of a jacket pocket. The spare bottle of painkillers. He tossed it to Wash. “You probably need it more.”

Wash nodded gratefully and popped open the cap. He shook out two small white pills and swallowed them.

“Make that two lives,” the Old Man said.

“You want some water?” Roy asked.

“I’m good,” Wash said.

He scooted backward until he could prop himself up against the cold upholstery of the booth that half-circled the table on his side of the RV. He looked across at the two kids. They really did look like brother and sister.

As he watched them, they returned the favor.

“I guess it is yours,” Roy said after a while and reached for Wash’s pack.

“I don’t need everything inside it,” Wash said. He held up the bottle. “I’m going to need all of this, though. And maybe one of the water bottles.”

“There’s food inside…”

“We can split it up later.”

Roy nodded, while June pulled out a see-through bag of beef jerky, one of many that Marie had gifted him before he left Kanter 11.

“Can I eat this?” June asked.

“Go for it,” Wash said.

June beamed and opened the bag. Venison aroma filled the spaces of the large RV, and Wash watched the siblings chew on sticks of jerky for a moment. It was obvious they hadn’t had this kind of “luxury” in a while. For some reason, even though he hadn’t eaten since yesterday, Wash wasn’t all that hungry and didn’t join in.

“Where did you find it?” Wash asked.

“About thirty minutes down the road from where the bones were,” Roy said. He bit into a thick piece of deer meat. “I was about to give up when I saw it lying on the ground. If it wasn’t black, I might have missed it.”

“What were you doing all the way out there?”

“What I do every day. Looking for supplies.”

Wash glanced around them at the interior of the RV. They were sitting near the front, leaving a surprisingly large back portion, including a dining area in a kitchenette. Farther back were shelves, pantries, and a refrigerator. A slightly ajar door was visible even farther back, probably leading into the sleeping areas.

“How long have you guys been here?” Wash asked.

“Week or so,” Roy said. “We stumbled across it, like you did. We had some supplies and decided to hang out for a while. Got everything we need, including a soft bed. Only thing it doesn’t have is food and water, and I’ve been scavenging the area for that.”

“There are towns around here?”

“A few. But I avoid those. People are dangerous.”

Can’t disagree with that, Wash thought, before asking, “Where do you get supplies, then?”

He grinned at Wash. “You never know when stuff will just fall into your lap.”

“Good point,” Wash said. Then, “So you’re not from here?”

Roy chuckled. “No one’s from here. It’s a Winnebago.”

“A what?”

“A Winnebago. That’s the company that makes these RVs.”

“How do you know that?”

“Old Stu told us all about them. People used to ride around in cars like this all the time before The Purge. Mostly old folks. They’d go from city to city, state to state, just exploring and stuff. I don’t know where this one came from, but they were probably doing the same thing before, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Wash said. “What happened to Old Stu?”

“Same thing that happened to the guy who made you this,” Roy said, picking the kukri back up and holding it out to Wash.

Wash took the machete and slipped it back into its sheath. “So where did you guys come from?”

“No place you know. Far south. We did spend a couple days at a place a few miles down the road from here. A town called Jasper.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Neither did we, until we stumbled across it. They weren’t exactly looking to get noticed, if you know what I mean.”

Wash nodded. “So how’d you find it?”

“Like I said, I do a lot of scavenging. Just ran across it one day.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “It seemed like a nice place. Had nice people.”

“If it’s so nice, why did the two of you leave?”

Roy and June exchanged a glance. June, a stick of jerky half in her mouth, didn’t say anything. But then she didn’t really have to. Wash could read the signs on both of their faces.

“What happened?” Wash asked.

“Nothing, really,” Roy said.

“That look June just gave you didn’t look like nothing.”

The boy shrugged. “It looked like a good place, but…” He let the rest trail off.

“But what?” Wash prompted.

“Then it wasn’t. Everything told me to get June out of there, so I did. That’s it. Haven’t seen the place or been back since.”

Wash had never heard of Jasper, and he would have if any slayers had gone through it in the past. There was also no Jasper in the official maps of the state that he’d been carrying around with him in his other now-lost pack.

“You’ve been out there, right?” Roy was asking him.

“Yeah, I have,” Wash said.

“So you know.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Jasper.”

“What about it?”

“There was something not right about it.” He shook his head, and Wash could see him struggling for the right words. “You just know, you know? You just know.”

Wash thought about all the towns he’d passed over the years, all the situations he’d gotten stuck in despite knowing—even when he didn’t know how he knew, he just knew—things were wrong. Some of those times, he’d had the advantage of the Old Man fighting next to him, but that wasn’t always the case.

“You mean like last night, kid?” the Old Man asked.

Oh, shut up.

“Yeah,” Wash said. “I know.”

Roy nodded. He stared past Wash and out the window behind him, and didn’t say anything else for a while.

Jasper, Wash thought. The name didn’t ring any bells. But then, he was at the very northern tip of Texas, and there were plenty of small towns that barely registered as a blip on a map before The Purge, never mind now, when information had reverted back to word of mouth.

“Here,” Roy said. The teenager had produced the Kahr semiautomatic from his own backpack.

Wash took the gun back. He knew it still had a mostly full magazine by the weight.

“You don’t want it?” he asked the kid.

“It’s yours,” Roy said. “Wouldn’t be right to just take it from you. Old Stu taught us right and wrong.”

“Thanks, kid.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Where’s your snub nose?”

“My what?”

“Your revolver.”

“Oh.” Roy wiped his hands on his pant legs before reaching into one of his jacket pockets and taking out the pistol. “Old Stu gave me this. Taught me how to use it, too. Before that, I’d never shot a gun. Or even held one.”

“So I guess you’re good with that thing?”

“I’m decent. There’s one problem with it, though…”

“What’s that?”

The teenager flicked open the cylinder and let one of the bullets fall out and into his palm. He pinched it with two fingers and held it up for Wash to see.

It was an empty shell casing.

“I fired the last good round I had about two weeks back,” Roy said. “Haven’t been able to find more in the same caliber since.”

Wash grunted before smiling. “Well played, kid. Well played…”

Five

He thought he’d be ready to leave the kids in a few hours, but he was wrong. He came to that conclusion when every time he turned to look at the door, his bones ached and his side gave off a pulsing pain. It was very much possible the entire thing was in his head, but Wash didn’t feel like finding out for sure one way or another. After all, the road wasn’t going anywhere, whether he got back on it today or tomorrow.

And you’ll still be there, won’t you?

You’re not going anywhere either, are you?

You sent that Blue Eyes to wait for me. That was you. I know that was you.

He didn’t know where “there” was—maybe this place called Jasper that Roy and June had gone through recently, or maybe another no-name town that wasn’t on any map or even existed until The Purge—but he would find it, because it wanted him to. It was all part of the game.

You’re waiting for me. You’re down there, somewhere, waiting for me.

Maybe you’re even laughing your ass off right now, knowing that your blue-eyed patsy almost killed me last night.

Well, fuck you, I’m still alive.

The idea that a blue-eyed ghoul was somewhere out there waiting for him should have made Wash afraid. If he were a regular person, it would have, but he wasn’t. The Purge had stripped most of the fear emotion from him, and the years since under the Old Man’s tutelage had taught him to tame the remaining parts. It wasn’t all gone, of course, because that was impossible; as long as you were alive, there would always be some fear.

Wash thought silently about all of that as he sat on the floor of the old RV, watching the sun slowly descend outside the muck-covered window across from him.

“So you’re a slayer, huh?” Roy was asking him.

Wash looked over at the teen, who was sitting in a booth next to him. June was somewhere in the back in one of the bedrooms. The two kids seemed to have an ebb and flow, understanding what the other needed without having to verbally communicate. Wash guessed it made sense, given how long they’d been out here together. He’d had something similar with the Old Man.

“Yeah,” Wash said.

“I met a few of you guys outside of Dallas,” Roy said. “Cool.”

“Cool?”

“What you do. It’s cool.”

“Thanks. I guess.”

“You don’t look like one, though.”

“No?”

“I didn’t see any scars on you when I was dragging you up here. I mean, you have some, but they’re not slayer scars.”

“What are slayer scars?”

“You know what I mean.”

Wash nodded. He did know, and he was fully aware of how different he was from all the other slayers he’d crossed paths with. “I guess I’m not like other slayers,” he said.

“I guess not,” Roy said.

Wash hated talking about himself, because invariably it led to more questions, some that he’d rather not address. He could see it in the kid’s eyes—the questions were coming—so he said, before Roy could ask them, “Tell me about Jasper.”

“What about it?”

“How far is it from here?”

“Half a day’s walk, I think.”

“That’s a lot of walking.”

“Not for us.”

“You and June walk everywhere?”

“Pretty much.”

“Is she your sister?”

“Yup.”

Roy had answered quickly and confidently, and Wash nodded. Not that he fully believed the teenager. There were plenty of makeshift families out here, and the truth was, there was nothing and no one’s right to say they weren’t any more legitimate than someone who shared the same parents. Life after the monsters was all about adaptation.

“Where are you two going next?” Wash asked.

“Dunno,” Roy said. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“You can’t stay here forever. Sooner or later, you’ll need to venture out too far to find food, and that’s going to be hard. For both of you.”

“I figured I’ll deal with that when I get to it.” Then, “You came from up north?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s up there?”

“The same thing that’s down here. A lot of empty spaces and dangerous roads and not a whole lot of us.”

“That good, huh?”

“But maybe it’s just me. Who knows, you might have better luck finding something worthwhile,” Wash said, thinking about Ana even as he said it.

“You believe that?”

“No, but I thought it was the thing to say.”

“I know what’s out there. I know it’s not safe. But there’s not a whole lot of ‘safe’ anymore these days, is there?”

“That’s not entirely true.”

“You know something I don’t?”

“There’s a town called Kanter 11 in Kansas. It’s pretty safe.”

“Is it far from here?”

“If you’re walking? Yes.”

“What other way is there?”

“Horses. Or cars.”

“Don’t have neither.”

“My horse is probably still wandering around out there somewhere…”

“I saw its tracks,” Roy said. “Thought about trying to run it down, but I don’t like leaving June alone by herself for too long.”

“She wasn’t alone.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t really know you. Still don’t.”

“Fair enough,” Wash said. “When you’re ready to leave this Winnebago behind, head north to Kanter 11. Ask for Ana. If she’s not there, ask for Marie.”

“Maybe I’ll do that,” Roy said.

“It’s a good place. With good people. It’ll be a nice change of pace for June to settle down in one location for a while, where she’ll be safe.”

“Maybe,” Roy said again.

Wash didn’t try to change the kid’s mind. What right did he have to even do so? Roy had been out here during The Purge and the years after it; he had earned every right to make his own choices. Besides, Wash didn’t think the kid could be persuaded anyway. If Roy was going to do something, it would be because he thought it was good for him and his sister.

Of course, that didn’t mean Wash couldn’t try to point them in the right direction anyway. He owed them that much for saving his life.

“I’ve been there,” he said. “Kanter 11. Good folks. You don’t see a lot of that out here these days. You should really look them up.”

Roy nodded. “I’ll think about it. It’s not like we have plans or anything.”

“How long have the two of you been out here?”

“Long enough.”

Roy didn’t say Long enough for what, but if Wash had to guess, it might have been something along the lines of, “Long enough that we don’t need you holding our hands, Mr. I’d-be-dead-if-not-for-you-kids.”

“And the kid would have a point,” the Old Man said.

Yeah.

“You look tired,” Roy was saying.

Wash sighed. “That’s because I am.”

“You took a pounding out there, huh? And not just last night, too. You been doing a lot of fighting lately?”

“That’s the understatement of the century, kid.”

“Ghouls?”

“Not always.”

“Yeah, it ain’t just the nightcrawlers that’s a threat out there.”

Wash thought about what Roy had said previously, about a man named Phil and his friends…

“Wonder what happened?” the Old Man said.

Do we really want to find out?

“Probably not. They look okay. Mostly.”

Yeah, mostly.

Roy was nodding at him. “Go ahead. Nod off. I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Only if you wake me in a few hours to take over,” Wash said.

“Sure,” Roy said, though for some reason, Wash didn’t quite believe him.

“I mean it, kid,” Wash said.

“I said sure. Go ahead. You look like shit.”

I feel worse, Wash thought, allowing himself to sink further to the floor of the RV and close his eyes.

It didn’t take very long at all for him to go right to sleep with the sun still descending outside the mud-caked windows.

* * *

He must have been more tired than he thought or was willing to admit, because when he opened his eyes again, the same window he’d been staring at before nodding off was dark and there was something out there.

He couldn’t hear it, or see it, or even smell it, but he could feel it.

It was in the way the air moved, causing the hairs along the backs of his exposed palms to bristle. The same thing happened all the way up the length of his arms and to the nape of his neck. He didn’t need his corporeal senses to know there was something unnatural in the area. It was very, very close by. Enough that his body had tightened, ready to spring, even before his mind could catch up.

And then there it was: Tap.

The first overt evidence that he wasn’t the only thing awake tonight.

Tap-tap.

It was footsteps from outside the vehicle. On top of it.

Tap-tap-tap-tap…

Whoever it was—whatever it was—was moving slowly at first before gradually picking up speed.

Tap-tap-tap-tap!

Wash craned his head slightly toward the ceiling, even as his hand searched for and found the grip of the kukri and slipped it out of its sheath. He didn’t have to wonder where Roy was. The teenager was asleep on the booth across the short distance from Wash, in mostly the same posture he’d been in when Wash last saw him—sitting upright with his head lolled slightly to one side. The boy was snoring, but he wasn’t making nearly as much noise as June in one of the bedrooms at the back of the RV—

Tap-tap-tap! from above him, now near the center of the Winnebago.

There was more than one up there, he was sure of it.

Tap-tap-tap!

Tap-tap-tap!

Wash tracked them with his ears while his eyes slowly adjusted to the new darkness. There was plenty of light thanks to what might have been a full moon outside. He didn’t bother to look down at his watch to confirm the time. He didn’t have to. Dark was dark, and when it got dark, things that would normally hide were free to roam.

He knew what was out there, right now, without having to think too much about it. Two of them, at least, but likely more, because that was how it usually worked—they tended to nest in groups. And they also hunted in groups.

The silver-coated machete blade gleamed against a stream of moonlight. He still had the Kahr and its mostly-full magazine, but he wanted to preserve that for as long as possible. Besides, if there were just two (or three, or more) out there, it was manageable numbers. Even in his current state, Wash didn’t think he’d need the gun to deal with them.

Have kukri, will slay.

He turned his head slowly, taking in the tinted windows across from him behind Roy’s sleeping frame. There was plenty of natural brightness in the background, and he thought he might have glimpsed shadows gliding past the windowpanes, but that could have just been his imagination trying to piece together what he already knew—

Silence.

It was suddenly silent above him.

The creatures had stopped moving. Why had they stopped moving?

Wash looked toward the door on his right, locating it among the shadows just as it moved slightly, followed by a long but whispery creeeeeak as someone (something) tried to pull it open from the other side.

Then nothing, as the door settled back into place.

Wash tightened his grip on the kukri, making sure he could feel every ridge of the handle. He didn’t have any doubts that he was still weakened from his encounter with the blue-eyed ghoul in the red cloak from last night, but a full day’s rest had done him a lot of good. The painkillers Roy had rescued had really done him a lot of good. Enough that if he had to move quickly and with purpose, he could do it.

“You almost convinced yourself that time, kid,” the Old Man said.

Because it’s true.

“Are you sure?”

He didn’t answer the imaginary voice.

“Cat got your tongue, kid?” the Old Man asked. Then, with what might have been a chuckle, “Or does something else have your tongue? Would it have pruned black skin, perhaps?”

It might. It just might.

Clack-clack as the door moved again.

Then, louder and with more urgency: Clack-clack-clack!

The door shook against its frame as something tried desperately to get inside. It wasn’t exactly a solid steel door on a submarine, and hell, it wasn’t even as strong as an average car door. Or a home door. It was light and malleable, and it wouldn’t have taken much force for a normal man to break inside.

Of course Wash knew he wasn’t dealing with a normal man out there. Not any “man” at all, in fact. The creatures were weak; the same disease that turned them had also zapped the strength from them. The black-eyed ones, anyway.

The Blue Eyes, on the other hand…

Clack-clack-clack!

Clack-clack-clack!

“What’s going on?” a voice asked.

Wash glanced quickly back at Roy, sitting up on the booth and rubbing his eyes.

Roy must have read the answer on Wash’s face, because the teenager’s eyes went from Wash and over to the front of the RV.

“Shit!” Roy shouted, before reaching for the snub-nosed revolver he had laid down on the table in front of him before dozing off.

Wash wanted to ask the kid what he was doing since he had no bullets for the gun. Then again, maybe Roy was going with the assumption that whoever was out there didn’t know that, and he could pull the same trick he’d gotten away with on Wash earlier. Wash wanted to tell him it wasn’t whoever out there, but whatever, and they weren’t going to care if the kid was armed with a loaded gun or not.

But Wash didn’t get the chance to say any of those things, because even as Roy launched up from the booth, they both heard the bone-chilling shriek of metal grinding against metal, and the first thing that popped into Wash’s head was, What is that? What are they doing to the door?

The answer wasn’t going to magically come to him, so Wash scrambled up from the floor. He grimaced as pain lanced through his body, and thought, Maybe I’m not that much better after last night after all!

He clenched his teeth as he ran toward the front of the RV, just in time to see the crowbar—

A crowbar?

That’s a crowbar!

—or at least a small section of it—sticking through the space where the door met the wall, and was moving, prying—

No, no, no! he thought, even as he continued moving toward the door, the kukri rising to the attack position next to him.

His mind raced, trying to understand what he was seeing:

A tool. He was looking at a metal tool being used to force open the door. Did that mean he was wrong about the presence of ghouls? Was he looking at men trying to break their way in? That had to be it, because ghouls didn’t use tools. He wasn’t even sure if they still remembered how. At least, the black-eyed ones had never—

Loud, grinding metal continued to pierce the night air, stopping only when the door snapped open, and cold air rushed inside the RV.

“What’s happening?” Roy asked from somewhere behind Wash.

Wash didn’t answer him. He was too busy staring at the harsh darkness outside the now-open door, trying to piece together what had just happened, what he was seeing, and what he was about to deal with—

Slitted dark eyes peered back at him.

Ghouls.

Ghouls?

But that didn’t make any sense. Ghouls didn’t use tools. They certainly had never used crowbars to open doors before.

This doesn’t make any sense.

What the hell is going on?

The only answer he got was a rush of movement as the creature—no, creatures—darted into the vehicle and bounded up the steps. And with them came the familiar stink of rotting garbage, clawing at Wash’s nostrils. His wounds pulsed underneath his clothes, and Roy might have gasped behind him, but Wash only had eyes for what was in front of him.

And right now he was looking at two—no, three—no, four ghouls as they raced into the Winnebago. Stray moonlight gleamed off their black skin and hairless domed heads, dull black eyes zeroing in on him even as their jaws opened and saliva flitted across the tainted night air, and caverns of filthy yellow and brown jagged teeth flashed before Wash’s eyes.

He took one step back even as the Old Man’s voice shouted inside his head, “How did they open the door? How did they open the door?”

But Wash was beyond caring about that. Maybe he would figure it out once he made it through this ordeal, once he had some time to do something other than fight for his life, but it was the least of his concerns at this very second.

Right now, he had to survive this.

Right now, there were at least five nightcrawlers—six—no, ten—coming through the door.

Wash slashed, taking the first and closest ghoul’s head off at the neck. Thick blood splashed the upholstery of the driver’s seat as the head ricocheted off it, and the body flopped lifelessly to the floor at Wash’s feet.

Not that the end of one ghoul did anything to stop the others. They jumped up the steps of the RV and at Wash like the rabid, single-minded creatures they were. It didn’t matter that he’d just killed one of them, that he could do the same to them. They saw him—they smelled the blood in his veins—and they wouldn’t be stopped.

So Wash didn’t, either.

He took another step back and swung again.

And again.

And again…

Six

…and they kept coming.

More and more, and more.

And more.

They didn’t stop, and neither did he. But Wash was forced to keep backpedaling farther and farther toward the rear of the RV. Roy was somewhere behind him—Wash could hear the teenager’s frantic shuffling, his ragged breathing—as he, too, retreated. At the same time, Wash resisted the urge to reach for the Kahr.

Not yet. Not yet!

He stuck to the kukri, and thank God he had become so adept with it that he could wield the deadly blade with minimal effort, slicing through outstretched arms and slashing at exposed chests. And, when possible, going for the head.

They were small creatures, black-skinned and thin like little children spitting out of the darkness at him. They rushed through the door and up the steps and forward across the narrow passageway. They were fast, and rabid, and they had only one goal: him.

But they couldn’t get to him. Not yet.

Not yet…

Wash was hurting, and his arms and legs ached and breathing was difficult, but he had fought through much, much worse, and he did so again now.

He lopped off a head, but even as it dropped from the flopping body, another ghoul leapt over it and made a grab for Wash with its bony fingers. He swung again and just managed to chop off two of the extended digits, but that was enough to introduce the silver coating of the kukri’s blade into the monster’s bloodstream, and it ceased to exist.

The Winnebago was filling up with the dead, but they were still coming.

Too many. There were always too many.

Too many!

“So what else is new?” the Old Man said. “You’ve done this before. What makes this one any different?”

But tonight was different. He was moving on weakened legs, and every step hurt. That didn’t stop him from continuing to back up, because the only other alternative was to stand still and let the nightcrawlers overwhelm him. He couldn’t allow that. Not with his mission unaccomplished; not with it still out there, somewhere, waiting for him.

Did it send these ghouls? Wash wondered. Just like it had sent the blue eyes in the red cloak last night? Had it unleashed this horde to find him, to end him now before he could reach it? Was it scared? Was that it?

There were no answers forthcoming in the black eyes and widening jaws and glistening jagged teeth coming at him. So Wash continued taking one step, then another back, while slashing at another leaping ghoul.

It fell, but that only opened up space for another one.

Then another, and another…

And another.

“Jesus, where are they coming from?” Roy shouted from somewhere behind him. Wash couldn’t pinpoint how far the kid was from his own position. He only had eyes for the nightcrawlers before him, scrambling over their dead as if the carcasses were little more than annoying obstacles to be overcome.

The truth was, Wash had momentarily forgotten Roy was even back there in the ten or twenty seconds (Minutes? Could whole minutes have already passed?) since the attack began. He was lost in his own world, his senses focused on the task at hand: surviving the onslaught.

Because they kept coming. More and more of them, as if the darkness itself was birthing them. Soon, he couldn’t see the front windshield or the driver’s seat anymore. Eventually the creatures realized rushing up the aisle at him in a line was too slow, and ghouls began scrambling over the seats and chairs and tables along the sides. The RV had limited room, and they fought for the precious inches that were available. When that didn’t work, they climbed over one another, desperate to reach him.

“Jesus Christ!” Roy was shouting. “Jesus Christ! Use your gun! Use your gun, man!”

“Not yet!” Wash shouted back.

“Why the hell not? Use your gun!”

“Not yet!” Wash shouted and thought, Not yet. Not yet…

“Can’t take those bullets with you if you’re dead, kid,” the Old Man said.

Not yet!

“When, then?”

I don’t know, but not yet!

The kid was still shouting something, but Wash had mostly tuned him out. He wished Roy would concentrate on continuing to back up instead of talking. The last thing Wash wanted was to stumble into the teenager’s path and get tangled up. The worst-case scenario would involve the two of them falling like idiots to the floor, losing him precious seconds as he attempted to right himself and keep from being overwhelmed by the surging tide of black flesh. The best-case would still mean losing precious seconds.

Either way, he didn’t need the hassle. Not now, not with an unrelenting tide (Mother of God, where are they all coming from?) of glistening dark skin and even darker eyes and domed heads continually crashing forward, bouncing off furniture and each other, the clack-clack-clack of bones drowning out even Wash’s own heartbeat.

“You’re running out of room and time, kid!” the Old Man shouted.

Yeah, you may be right.

“I am right! So use the Kahr!”

Not yet. Not yet…

There were too many, and he wasn’t going to be able to kill them all. Not even if he had four hands and a kukri in each one. Their numbers were seemingly endless, and more were entering the Winnebago with every passing second. He didn’t have to hear or see the newcomers; he could feel the RV rocking under their scrambling feet. And if the large vehicle was moving against such impossibly light bodies, then there had to be a lot of them.

A hell of a lot.

The air had continued to take on a foul smell, invading his pores and making the exposed parts of his face tingle. There was blood on his clothes—thick gobs of it—and small viscous liquids dripped from his chin. Not a lot, but enough to make him almost gag; and he might have, if he weren’t already so used to it. This wasn’t the first time he’d been stuck in the middle of a feeding frenzy, and it was probably not going to be his last, either.

“If you survive this,” the Old Man said.

I’ll survive this.

“Talk is cheap, kid.”

I’ll survive this. I have to, because I have to get to it. I have to kill it.

“Good,” the Old Man said. “That’s the kind of dedication you’ll need to stay alive. There’s nothing like the primal need for revenge to get the ol’ motor revving.”

And his motor was definitely revving, even as Wash tried to figure a way out of this mess. He was going to run out of real estate soon—if he wasn’t already there. All it would have taken was a quick glance back to be sure—one snap look over his shoulder to gauge how much room he had left before he bumped into Roy, and, after that, the bedrooms.

The bedrooms…

“Use what you got, kid,” the Old Man said. “It’s time. You need the extra time!”

Then I’ll be empty.

“Better empty than dead!”

Good point…

“Roy!” Wash shouted, even as he jerked his head back to dodge a pair of fingers swiping at his face. He was half a heartbeat from counterattacking at the blackened hand, but it was too fast, and he held his strike for a better opportunity.

“What?” Roy shouted back. He was still somewhere behind Wash and close enough that Wash could hear his strangled voice as if he were screaming an inch away.

“The bedroom!” Wash said. “Get into the bedroom, and get ready to close the door!”

“It’s not going to hold!” Roy shouted back.

“It’ll have to!”

“But it won’t!”

“We don’t have any choice, kid!” Then, “Get ready!”

“Get ready for what?”

“Now!”

“Now?” Roy said, but he really only got No out before Wash tossed the kukri into the air, and even as his left hand snatched at the grip, his now-empty right dipped, grabbed, and drew the Kahr.

A half-second later, Wash was firing from the hip.

Bullets pinged! off bones and ricocheted into another one. Other rounds managed to avoid obstructions completely after punching through weak skin and muscle and carried on, taking down another—then sometimes a third—ghoul behind it.

The mad rush in front of him thinned out quickly as the nightcrawlers collapsed. Wash twisted his torso left and right to catch the ghouls trying to hop across the furniture along the sides. He didn’t waste the time it would have taken to lift the gun to aim and shoot. He didn’t have to. Wash had been firing from the hip, using his eyes and body to aim instead of the iron sights, since he was a teenager.

The bang-bang-bang! of each shot boomed in the closed confines of the RV, the thunderclaps pounding almost in sync to the pings! of silver-tipped lead bouncing off bones and deflecting off glass windows and fiberglass walls.

As the numbers dwindled in front of him, Wash continued to back up. He could feel the Kahr getting lighter, the magazine emptying with dizzying speed.

Too fast, too soon, and too few bullets.

Wash knew the end was near when he turned and saw Roy back there, holding open one of the bedroom doors for him. “Go go go!”

Roy disappeared into the room, and Wash looked back toward the front of the RV, fired the last shot, and dropped the pistol into its holster. He switched the kukri back into his right hand even as more of the monsters scrambled over the piles of dead bodies between them.

Jesus, there were a lot of them. Where the hell had they all come from? Where had they been hiding all this time?

“It sent them,” the Old Man said. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Wash didn’t answer himself. He was too busy kicking at a lunging ghoul, catching it in the chest, and sending it reeling back. It knocked down two creatures behind it but did nothing to stop the one crawling over a dining table to Wash’s right, while another skittered along the length of a kitchen counter to his left.

Wash ripped a piece of flesh from the ghoul on his right with the machete and didn’t waste the precious half-second to watch it fall. He was too busy backing up, backing up, even as he heard what sounded like a door opening and a voice—young and soft and feminine—screaming, “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

June. And she was close. Which meant Wash was running out of space fast.

He spun and gutted the ghoul on his right as it torpedoed itself at him. The creature made a shrieking noise, almost as if it was in pain. Did they feel pain? Even now, after years of hunting the creatures, Wash didn’t completely know the answer to that one with any certainty—

A voice, shouting behind him, very close: “Get in, man! For God’s sake, get in here!”

Wash tore his focus off the surging horde—it was difficult, and he had to force himself to do it despite his every instinct—so he could spin around and almost dive through the open bedroom door.

He was glad he hadn’t flung himself in like an idiot, because landing on the hard floor chest-first would have really hurt. Instead, he lost his balance slightly and almost collided with June, who was already in the darkened room, her back pressed against the far wall to give him and Roy as much space as possible.

“Smart kid,” the Old Man said.

The thoom! as Roy slammed the door shut behind him and Wash heard the frantic sliding of metal as the kid forced the deadbolt into place. The sound of the latch landing hadn’t finished its echo when the first ghoul smashed itself into the fiberglass door on the other side.

Bam! Bam!

Then, more joined in:

Bam-bam-bam!

Bam-bam-bam!

Jesus, it had been close. If he hadn’t thinned their numbers with the Kahr, he wasn’t sure if he would have made it into the bedroom at all. There had been so many of them (Jesus Christ, where did they all come from?) out there. There were probably still a lot of them now, pouring into the vehicle, if the constant trembling of the floor underneath Wash’s boots were any indication.

How many of them are out there? Where were they all hiding?

“It’s been busy,” the Old Man said. “It’s been waiting for your arrival too, as it turns out.”

Roy had immediately thrown himself at the door as soon as he locked it, his back pressed against the flimsy material while his boots scrambled for traction against the floor. Wash hurried to the exposed part of the door and mirrored Roy. Their shoulders were pressed against one another as—

Bam-bam-bam!

—the ghouls crashed into the door. Over and over again.

Bam-bam-bam!

Each time they struck the fiberglass material, it moved slightly behind Wash, but the lock was holding and the door always bounced right back into place.

Bam-bam-bam!

There were no windows inside the bedroom, no other way in but through the door quaking behind Wash. He wondered if the creatures actually knew that fact, though. Nightcrawlers acted on almost pure instinct. Avoid the sunlight, feed at night, and take the easiest path to their prey.

Bam-bam-bam!

He exchanged a quick look with Roy next to him. He didn’t have to tell the kid to hold on with everything he had. The teenager had been out here too long; he knew the consequences of letting the ghouls inside the small cramped bedroom with them.

Wash nodded and got one back.

June had peeled herself from the far wall and sat down on the edge of the bed. There was so little room that the single cot was only a few feet from scraping against Wash’s knees. It was a miracle he hadn’t careened onto it or the girl when he’d made his leap into the room earlier.

He could make out fear in the girl’s eyes even with what little light there was in the bedroom. June was afraid, but it wasn’t the kind of sheer mortal terror Wash was used to seeing from civilians when they ran into their first ghoul. Just because everyone knew that nightcrawlers still existed and still roamed the night, they never really expected to come face-to-face with one…until they did.

But Wash didn’t see that on June’s face right now, and it just reminded him again that she, like her brother, had been out here for too long. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, though. On the one hand, their experience had kept them both from panicking, and that had probably saved Wash’s life. And yet, they were just kids.

“No, they’re not,” the Old Man said. “They stopped being kids when the monsters took the world.”

“Man, this sucks,” Roy was saying next to him.

Wash grinned before sliding the kukri back into its sheath so he could use both hands to keep himself upright as the door continued to wobble and push against him.

Bam-bam-bam!

“Which part?” Wash asked.

“All of it,” Roy said. “Are you out? Your gun?”

Bam-bam-bam!

Wash nodded. “Yeah.”

“That’s not good.”

“No, it’s not.”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference if you had a whole armory,” the Old Man said. “Did you see how many were out there? Where’d they all come from, kid?”

I’ll let you know when I figure it out, old timer.

As if reading his thoughts, Roy said, “How many was out there?”

“I don’t know.”

Bam-bam-bam!

“How many did you see?” Roy asked.

Wash shook his head. It hadn’t occurred to him to count, but if he had to think about it…

“A lot,” he finally said.

“A hell of a lot,” Roy said.

Bam-bam-bam!

“Yeah,” Wash said. “That sounds about right.”

“What are we going to do now?” Roy asked.

“Keep them out there and us in here.”

“That’s your big idea?”

“Yeah.”

“Not much of an idea.”

Bam-bam-bam!

“You got any better ones?” Wash asked.

“Can’t say as I do,” Roy said.

“Okay then.”

Bam-bam-bam!

“Are we going to die?” June asked.

Wash shook his head. “No. We’re not gonna die,” he said, and thought, Because I have too much left to do.

And things to kill…

“We’re probably gonna die,” Roy said.

Wash sighed. “No, we’re not.”

Bam-bam-bam!

“You sure?” June asked, staring at Wash. Apparently, she liked Wash’s answer better than her brother’s. Wash couldn’t say he blamed her.

Wash nodded. “I’m sure.”

Bam-bam-bam!

Wash changed up his position so he could press down harder against the floor with the soles of his boots.

Next to him, Roy was doing the same thing.

“We’re not gonna die,” Wash said, though he wasn’t sure if that was for June’s benefit or his own.

Bam-bam-bam! as the monsters continued to pound at the cheap fiberglass construction at his back.

They weren’t going to stop. Not until the night gave way to daylight. How long was that?

Bam-bam-bam!

Wash glanced down at his watch and listened to the tick-tick-tick-tick of the seconds hand as it glowed green against the darkness and swept across the dial. 11:16 p.m.

Bam-bam-bam!

Over seven more hours until sunup.

Bam-bam-bam!

Wash looked up and over at Roy. The teenager had seen him checking his watch and noticed the time for himself. The kid frowned.

Bam-bam-bam!

“We’ll be fine,” Wash said. “We’ll be fine.”

That time Wash was certain he’d said the words almost entirely for his own benefit.

“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” Roy said, looking across the small room at his sister.

Bam-bam-bam!

June bit her lip back at him but didn’t say anything.

Bam-bam-bam!

“Big fat liars, the both of you,” the Old Man said.

Bam-bam-bam!

Bam-bam-bam…!

Seven

The door.

How the hell did they open the door?

Now that he had a second to breathe and wasn’t knee-deep in ghoul blood, Wash’s mind wandered back to the RV’s front door and what he had seen just before it opened. Because it had opened. It hadn’t been battered down by force. Something had happened to it.

The crowbar.

It was definitely a crowbar. Even with limited lights to see with, he was 100 percent certain it was a crowbar that had pried the RV entrance wide open for the creatures to swarm inside. They hadn’t broken it down. Maybe, eventually, they could have, but that wasn’t what happened.

A crowbar…

When did ghouls learn to use crowbars?

The answer was never. Oh, he was sure they could pick one up and use them given enough time, but they’d never shown the proclivity to do so. They were instinctive creatures, almost primitive in the way they interacted with their surroundings. They attacked in a straight line when possible and always—always—chose the easiest and quickest path.

Like now. They were still pounding on the door—

Bam-bam-bam!

—and hadn’t given it a rest for even a second. Nightcrawlers didn’t get tired. Or, at least, Wash had never seen them grow fatigued. They were going to assault the door until morning, until they couldn’t anymore. Until the sun chased them away.

Bam-bam-bam!

But they weren’t going to get in. Wash and Roy, their bodies pressed against the slab of fiberglass, were going to ensure that.

And yet, Wash couldn’t stop thinking about a few minutes earlier. (Had it just been a few minutes ago?)

He glanced at his watch. About ten minutes ago.

That’s it?

All of this had started just ten minutes ago. Well, eleven now, give or take.

“Close enough,” the Old Man said. “Now let’s get back to that crowbar.”

The crowbar…

Had the ghouls learned to use a crowbar? Where would they pick one up? There was nothing but open land out there. How would they stumble across a crowbar in all that nothingness? Had someone—something—told them to search for the object, locate it, and bring it out here to use on the RV? Was it the blue-eyed bastard that Wash was hunting? The same one he’d been searching for? The one he called One Eye?

“How’d they get in?” Roy was asking him.

“What?” Wash said. He’d heard the question, but he’d been so lost in his own thoughts (The crowbar. How did they use the crowbar?) that it took him a few extra heartbeats to process what Roy had just asked.

“How’d they get into the RV? I locked the door,” Roy said.

“They pried it open,” Wash said.

“Who?”

“Them,” Wash said as the bam-bam-bam seemed to intensify slightly behind him, as if in response. Or was that just his imagination?

“Them?” Roy said.

“Them.”

Roy didn’t say anything right away. He was staring at Wash, as if trying to decide if Wash was crazy or not.

“Good question,” the Old Man said.

This isn’t the time, old timer.

Finally, the kid said, “Them?”

“Them,” Wash said again.

“They pried the door open?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“They used a crowbar.”

Roy kept staring at him, and, again, didn’t say anything for a few seconds.

Five seconds…

Ten…

“I saw it,” Wash said.

“They used a crowbar?” Roy said.

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

“I saw it.”

“The crowbar.”

“That’s what I said.”

“They used it on the door.”

Wash sighed. Just hearing himself say it out loud seemed ludicrous, but to hear Roy repeat it, over and over…

“Yeah,” he said again.

“I’ve never seen that before,” Roy said.

“Me neither.”

“And you’re sure you saw it?”

“I saw it.”

“Them, out there, using the crowbar on the front door?”

“How many times do you want me to say it?”

“I just wanna be sure…”

“I’m sure.”

“You’re sure, sure?”

Wash was about to answer with more than a little irritation, when he stopped short.

“What?” Roy said.

Wash replayed the kid’s question over in his head:

“And you’re sure you saw it? Them, out there, using the crowbar on the front door?”

“And you’re sure you saw it?...”

“Them, out there, using the crowbar on the front door?...”

“Saw it…”

“Them…”

“Using the crowbar…”

The continuous bam-bam-bam! from behind him, causing the door to tremble with every pounding, snapped him back to the present.

Had I seen them use it?

Yes.

…and no.

Roy was squinting at him, waiting for an answer.

When Wash didn’t provide it, the teenager said, “Well? Did you see them use it or not?”

“I saw a crowbar,” Wash said. “It pried open the front door.”

“So why did it take you so long to answer—”

“I saw a crowbar,” Wash said, cutting him off. “I saw it prying the door open for the ghouls. But I didn’t see a ghoul doing it. I didn’t actually see the user. They were on the other side. When they got it open, there were just nightcrawlers.”

Roy didn’t look away, and Wash imagined the teen trying to process what Wash was telling him. Wash didn’t blame the kid. He had said it, and even he was having a hard time coming to grips with it.

But that’s what I saw…

…or didn’t see.

“I don’t understand,” Roy finally said.

Wash looked across the room at June, sitting on the bed in front and slightly to the left of him. For some reason, the kid had put her pink backpack on and was clutching to the straps hanging off her shoulders.

I guess she’s ready to get the hell out of here, too.

The girl gazed back at him, soft eyes very much visible as Wash’s night vision adapted to his surroundings. June had been listening to their conversation, and by the expression on her face, she appeared to be just as confused as Roy.

Join the club, kid.

“What do you mean?” Roy was asking him.

Wash opened his mouth to answer, to attempt to articulate what had been roiling around inside his own head for the last few seconds, when the pounding stopped.

What…?

There wasn’t complete silence, because his heartbeats, and those of Roy’s next to him, filled the empty spaces. He could even hear June’s across the room—

The thwack! as something slammed into the door behind Wash, and Roy let out a surprised scream. Roy stumbled away from the door, twisted frantically around, and something wet splashed Wash in the cheek. He thought it was saliva at first but quickly realized he was wrong when he saw blood dripping from the back of Roy’s right shoulder.

Wash spun even as his mind shouted, Don’t abandon the door! Keep it closed! Keep it closed! He didn’t back away and kept one hand on the door, ready to dive forward and use his entire body to reinforce it again, when he saw it:

A sharp object protruding through the cheap fiberglass material where Roy had been leaning against. It was the point of some kind of heavy tool. A pickaxe, maybe, or the end of a hand-wielded weapon. Whatever it was, it had broken through the door with relative ease and even stabbed Roy, sending him reeling.

“Jesus, I’m bleeding!” Roy was shouting from somewhere behind Wash.

Wash didn’t turn around to check on the teenager. He couldn’t afford to, because he was too busy trying to understand what had just happened.

One: The ghouls had stopped their relentless but ineffective attacks on the door.

Two: But no sooner had they done that—less than five seconds, by Wash’s best guess—something else had taken up the assault.

Three: That “something else” was using tools.

Just like with the crowbar…

As Wash continued trying to put all the evidence into a coherent whole, the object jerked free from the door. It left behind a jagged hole that Wash could see through and at the gathered darkness on the other side—along with something moving.

He stumbled back just as—thwack!—the pointy end of the weapon slammed into the door again, the target this time just a few inches below the original hole. It wasn’t a crowbar but something heavier, with a sharp, bladed edge.

The tool vanished and reappeared with another booming thwack!, creating a third hole between the first and second.

“What the hell is that?” Roy shouted.

“They’re coming in,” Wash said.

“Who’s coming in? Ghouls?”

Wash shook his head and thought, Ghouls don’t use tools. Not the black-eyed ones, anyway. And the blue-eyed ones don’t need them.

Thwack! as the object slammed home again.

“Should have saved the Kahr for this moment, kid,” the Old Man said.

Now you tell me.

“Hey, I can’t predict everything. I can only know what you know, after all.”

Thwack!

Thwack!

Goddammit, who was out there?

Who was out there…

Another thwack!

The fifth? Sixth? Or the tenth? Whatever the number, it had been delivered at the right spot, and a large, jagged hole opened up in the middle of the door—possibly big enough for little June to squirm through.

A face, peering back at him.

A human face, wearing some kind of gas mask.

Wash only knew that he was staring back at a man and not a ghoul because there were two clear glass lenses on the mask, revealing a figure with blue eyes gazing into the bedroom at him through the opening.

For a second—or maybe it was longer than that (Five seconds? Ten?)—the two of them stood perfectly still and locked eyes, as if they were both shocked to find someone else on the other side of the door. And maybe that was the case. Despite everything he knew and had seen with his own eyes, Wash was still baffled to see another human being looking in at him.

“What the fuck,” Roy said, the teen’s voice as breathless and confused as Wash assumed his would have been if he’d managed to put his own thoughts into words. “Who is that? Who the fuck is that?”

The same one who pried open the door with the crowbar, Wash thought, though he didn’t say it out loud. It made sense, because ghouls didn’t use crowbars. They didn’t use tools at all.

But men did.

Men still did.

Who the hell are you? Wash thought as the man snapped out of it first and—thwack! as he struck at the door with his weapon again. Wash could see now that it was definitely a pickaxe—long and metal at the dangerous end, with a sleek, wooden handle underneath—and its latest impact had widened the crater in the door even further.

Wash took a step back—and collided with Roy.

“Limited space, kid, limited space!” the Old Man shouted.

Wash pulled out the kukri and tightened his grip. The blade was still coated with thick black sludge, and he dearly wished for a handgun. Well, he had a gun; just no bullets to use it with. If he had some—even just one would have done it—he could have shot the man with the pickaxe—

Thwack!

—and stopped his attack.

But he didn’t, and it was foolish to wish for something that wasn’t going to happen. He still had the machete, and that would just have to be good enough.

God, he hoped it was good enough.

He did, though, have one advantage: Whoever was out there—however many of them there were—would have to come into the small, cramped bedroom to get them. Wash was used to fighting in close quarters with bladed weapons. Hallways, caves, basements, even bedrooms.

“You almost managed to convince yourself that time, kid,” the Old Man said.

Almost, Wash thought when the pickaxe smashed into the area where the deadbolt was and the door swung open.

“Time to make the donuts, kid!” the Old Man shouted.

Wash changed up his stance, willing his body to summon every strength he had left, while he forced his mind to push down all the aches and pains that were suddenly back and running rampant throughout his body.

Here we go, Wash thought as he watched the attacker—tall, broad-shouldered, and wearing black from head to toe—lower the pickaxe to his side. Like before, Wash and the man stared across the small space at each other.

Wash waited for the intruder to act, to push his attack, but he didn’t. Instead, the man just stood there, his dark clothes helping him to blend in with the blackness outside the bedroom.

Come on, what are you waiting for?

What are you waiting for?

The figure finally moved—and stepped aside. Wash glimpsed movement exploding in the darkness outside the rectangular opening.

Ghouls.

Two of them.

No, three.

Four.

Five.

They raced through the open door, the first couple of clacking bones moving low to the floor on their hands and knees like insects, while the others came high.

Wash slashed at the first nightcrawler, the kukri slicing through an exposed neck and chopping into a sunken chest on the follow-through. Two ghouls dropped, but they were quickly replaced by the three behind them.

More movements as even more creatures flooded into the room.

He pulled the kukri back without wasting the precious half-second it would have taken to cock his arm for a full slash. He caught one, two on the backstroke. They fell like the first couple, but Wash didn’t have time to enjoy his victory, because the fifth one, backed by even more—A dozen? Two dozen?—was already pouring into the bedroom.

There were too many. Simply too many.

Not that Wash allowed that to stop him from cutting and stabbing and kicking with his boots. He knocked them to the side, launching one into the air and backward into a half dozen more monsters scrambling to enter the room.

Then someone screamed behind him.

Roy? June? Maybe both of them.

“Roy!” someone shouted. That was definitely June.

“June!” And that was definitely Roy.

Unless it was him shouting both of their names.

No, it couldn’t have been. He was too busy slashing, punching, kicking, and stabbing to make any sounds other than pained grunts as every one of his muscles stretched and every bone creaked. He wasn’t even out of his twenties yet, but Wash suddenly felt so, so old.

They were everywhere, crowding into the room, claiming the air around him. And it was such a small bedroom, too. What was once an advantage (“Was it ever really an advantage, kid?” the Old Man asked.) was now the reason he couldn’t move more than two feet to either his left or right. He couldn’t even go back without running into the kids, and there was no salvation in front of him.

Then they were all over him, icy-cold fingers grappling onto his arms. He swung anyway, managing to throw one, two of them loose, but couldn’t shake the other three. His feet had become rooted to the floor on their own accord.

No, that wasn’t what was happening. There were ghouls down there, circling both legs, their number keeping him frozen in one place. He had no hopes of kicking them loose. He could barely move his arms, or turn his head, or—

Another scream.

This time Wash was 100 percent sure it was June shouting out Roy’s name. There was something in her voice that time—pure mortal terror, the missing element he hadn’t seen earlier in the girl’s eyes. There it was now, proving that she was human after all.

Too many fingers wrapping around his throat and keeping him fixed on the sight before him.

Ghouls. Dozens of them.

Dozens upon dozens.

Jesus, where did they come from? Where did they all come from?

It didn’t matter to the creatures that the room was already coated in the blood of the ghouls that came before them. Thick black sludge dripped from the ceiling and walls. The single cot to his right, just barely visible out of the corner of his eye, was slathered with the stuff.

There was a lot of blood.

God, there was a lot of blood…

Then he was falling. He wasn’t sure how. Maybe the ones on the floor, with their arms snaked around his legs, were pulling him down to their level. Or maybe he was being crushed by the weight of so many ghouls scaling up the length of his body, clubbing him into submission with their limbs.

Wash’s last image, just before two ghouls covered up his face and eyes with their black, pruned flesh, was the tall man wearing the gas mask. The attacker with the pickaxe had slid back into view, standing just outside the open door now, and was looking in.

The man was watching, motionless, as Wash succumbed.

Even as he fell, as the night drowned him in darkness, Wash thought about the Old Man and One Eye.

I’m sorry, old timer. I failed.

I failed you…

…again.

Ana

Eight

“Looks like it was a hell of a fight,” Randall said. He pointed. “Four humans were involved. Started at the front and moved to the back. Got real bloody along the way. Mostly ghoul blood.” He paused. “Well, almost all ghoul blood. Whoever the nightcrawlers were trying to take out, they were pretty feisty. Didn’t go into that good night easily.”

“‘Didn’t go into that good night easily?’” Ana said, smiling at him.

Randall shrugged. “Something Chuck liked to say.”

That explains it, Ana thought, glancing around them again. She had deduced the same thing as Randall but just hadn’t interrupted him. Randall was showing off, and she’d learned a long time ago that when men were peacocking, it was best to let them get on with it.

“Curious, though,” Randall said.

“What’s that?” Ana asked.

“There were four bodies—four humans—but they weren’t together. One stood apart from the others.”

That perked up Ana’s eyebrows. She hadn’t noticed that.

Her nostrils were still stinging from the strong odor of evaporated ghoul flesh and blood in the air. A generous amount of bleached-white bones lined the floor from the door all the way to the back, all signs pointing to a horde of ghouls assaulting the Winnebago’s occupants last night. Ana and Randall had had to be careful picking their way around the deformed limbs, but even so, they’d left more than a few broken and crushed bones in their wake. The clean cuts along the arms and legs, the holes in the chest and skulls, all pointed to sharp blades at work last night. Whoever it was, they had been good.

But not good enough…

It had all ended at the back, in one of the bedrooms. There were two rooms, but only the one on the right had played host to the battle. There was still black blood clinging to the ceiling and walls in there, along with whole ghoul bodies that had managed to escape the disintegrating reach of sunlight. A stack of nightcrawlers—a dozen that Ana could count, probably more if she’d bothered to pick through the corpses.

Re-corpses? What do you call undead things that are already dead and died…again?

She was in the middle of the RV with Randall, both of them with handkerchiefs covering their mouths to keep out the stench that pervaded every inch of the vehicle. She could make out Shelby outside through one of the dirt-caked windows. The young slayer sat in the back of the Ford truck, staring off at nothing in particular. He looked bored, the sun bouncing off his short blond hair. Chris had wandered off, but Ana wasn’t worried she would get too far. After everything they had gone through, the teenager knew better.

She turned to Randall. “What do you mean? How did one of them stand out from the others?”

The slayer indicated what Ana had already guessed were boot prints. They led from the front door and all the way to the back. “That one showed up only after the creeper crawlers had already gotten in. Big combat boots means a big guy.”

“How can you tell he came later?”

“See the way the prints are formed?”

No, Ana thought, but said, “So?”

“He showed up after the ghouls had attacked the RV and pushed the other humans to the back. He treaded in dirt from outside and got them mixed with the blood. You can tell by the way the prints are clumped.”

Ana couldn’t “tell” that, but she didn’t let him know. She glanced up the length of the vehicle and toward the back instead.

“What was he doing? The fourth guy?” she asked.

Randall didn’t answer right away.

She looked over. “You don’t know?”

“It would just be me guessing…”

“You’re doing a pretty good job so far. Why stop now?”

“Judging by the shape of the front door and what took place back there…” He paused for a few seconds. Then, “I think he was helping them.”

“Helping the ghouls.”

“Yeah.”

“So we’re talking about a collaborator?”

“We all know they’re still out there,” Randall said. “Most of them have blended back into society, but tigers can’t change their stripes.”

“You sound like you’ve met a few.”

“Plenty. But someone once said to let bygones be bygones. Live and let live. Let the past stay in the past. Blah, blah, blah. Chuck and I mostly agreed with that sentiment.”

“Mostly?”

Randall walked to the front and stared at the door. It had been pried in by something strong. That had opened the path for the ghouls to enter.

“There are some things you can’t forgive,” Randall said quietly, mostly to himself.

It was obvious he was talking about something else—someone else—right now, but Ana didn’t pursue it. The truth was, she didn’t know Randall or Shelby that well. They’d only met a few days ago and had become traveling companions almost by default. Chuck’s death had brought them closer, but even so, she had to keep reminding herself that she really didn’t know these men. And if experience had taught her anything, it was to be wary of trusting people out here.

They heard voices from outside and glanced toward the window. Shelby had jumped down from the truck and walked over to Chris, who had returned with something in her hands.

“Kid must have found something,” Randall said.

The slayer hopped down the steps and Ana followed, both of them slipping past the bent door. She was thankful for the cold, clean air and sucked in a deep breath as they walked around the Winnebago to where Shelby and Chris were standing next to the parked Ford.

“Whatcha got?” Randall asked.

Shelby tossed a bag over to Randall, who caught it. “Chris found it.”

Randall turned the backpack over in his hands. It was pink. “What is it?”

“It’s a backpack,” Ana said.

“I can see that. But what’s this? Some kind of cat?”

“It’s Hello Kitty, Randall.”

“A what?”

“It’s a girl thing.”

“Hunh.”

Ana looked across at Chris. “Where did you find it?”

Chris pointed south. “About fifty yards from here. I also found this.” She took a white watch with plastic bands out of her back pocket. It was small, and like the pack, clearly made for a kid.

Randall had unzipped the Hello Kitty backpack and was pulling out clothes—small-size T-shirts and pants—along with two bags of unopened MREs. There were also chocolate bars inside as well as a half-eaten Nacho Cheese Flavored Doritos with the top half rolled down to safeguard the contents. Ana didn’t want to think about how long ago the junk food had expired.

The slayer lifted the bag to his nose and sniffed the fabric.

“Gross,” Shelby said.

Randall ignored him and said to Ana, “Ghoul blood covered this thing until this morning. Some’s still stuck in the crevices.”

“So we know at least one of the three that were attacked last night was a kid,” Ana said.

“Looks that way.”

“What’s a kid doing all the way out here?” Chris asked.

“She wasn’t alone. There were two people with her,” Ana said.

“Two people with her, and one against her,” Randall added, before walking away from them and scanning southward with his hands shielding his eyes from the sun.

Not too far behind them, toward the north, was the road they had been driving on when they spotted the RV sitting in the middle of nowhere. They would have missed it entirely if Shelby wasn’t in the back with a pair of binoculars. What it was doing out here, all by itself, none of them could figure out.

“Anything interesting in there besides smelly dead bodies?” Shelby asked her.

Ana shook her head. “Not that we could find.”

“Well, we got some MREs, so that’s something.”

“Are they all dead?” Chris asked.

“I don’t know,” Ana said. “There’s no trace of them.”

“Best you could hope for is a quick end,” Shelby said. “It would suck if they were dragged out of here and… Well, it would suck.”

“Yeah, it would.” Ana walked over to join Randall. “See anything?”

“You mean like trails or tracks?”

“Yes.”

“No. If there were, the wind wiped them clean last night or before we got here. Ground’s hard, and we all know how lightly those nightcrawlers can tread.”

“What’s down there?”

Randall lowered his hands. “There’s nothing on the map. Old one or new one. The next city should be Sanderson, almost ten miles farther down the road.”

“You think either those people or the ghouls came from Sanderson?”

“It’s possible.”

“But you don’t think so.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think the ghouls or those people were from Sanderson, but I don’t know where they’re from or what they were doing out here, either.”

“Maybe there’s another town nearby. One that isn’t on any map.”

Randall nodded. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“If it’s not on any map—even yours—what does that mean?”

“I don’t know, but it’s on the way, so we mind as well find out.”

“Might as well,” Ana said.

“What?”

“It’s ‘might as well,’ not ‘mind as well.’ Common mistake.”

The slayer smirked. “Get into the damn truck, woman.”

Ana grinned and walked back to the Ford.

Chris and Shelby were waiting for them.

“What’s the verdict?” Shelby asked.

“Continue south and see what we find, if anything,” Ana said.

“Isn’t that what we were going to do anyway?” Chris asked.

“Uh huh.”

“I love it when there’s a plan,” Shelby said. “Even when the plan is no plan.”

“It’s a good enough plan,” Randall said, walking up behind Ana.

“But can you call it a plan if it’s not a plan?”

“It’s a plan.”

“Not really.”

“Yes, really.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Good for you, spud.”

Ana climbed into the Ford with Chris. The teenager slipped into the back, while Ana filled up the front passenger seat.

“Do they always bicker like this?” Chris asked as Shelby hopped into the back—the truck lowered slightly under his weight—and Randall rounded the front hood.

“I’m not sure. I barely know them myself,” Ana said.

“Swell,” the kid said.

* * *

Given what Chris had gone through, Ana didn’t blame her for being hesitant around the two slayers. Ana had a little more history with them, and she was still on guard. But she couldn’t deny that both men had essentially saved her life after she fled Talico with Chris, the two of them running away from men that looked and acted (and killed) more like monsters.

They’d been on the road for the last two days, taking it easy because of their wounds. Ana’s and Chris’s after their run-in with the Raggedy Men, and Randall, who wasn’t quite 100 percent himself after getting shot outside of Mayfield. The long drive down a road that didn’t offer much in terms of views or distractions allowed everyone to heal, and all the food the two men had brought with them hadn’t hurt. Ana had never eaten and rested so thoroughly in weeks, not since she left Newton behind.

As they traveled together, Ana sensed that neither Randall nor Shelby were really all that anxious to get down south in a hurry. They’d been headed in that direction when they still had Chuck with them, responding to rumors that there was renewed and heavy ghoul activity down there. For a trio of slayers, nightcrawlers meant jobs. But Chuck was dead, and Ana got the impression Randall and Shelby were only going through the motions, as if they felt obligated to follow through on Chuck’s original plans. She wondered how much it would take for them to change their minds. Maybe all they were really looking for was an excuse to change course.

She didn’t give them that excuse, though. Right now they were headed south, which was the same direction Wash had gone. The truck meant she was making up for all the lost time, and it was nice to have two well-armed men watching her back.

As far as she knew, Wash was still on horseback. What were the chances he’d gotten himself involved in that mess at the RV? If they had spotted the Winnebago from the road, he could have, too.

If Wash had taken the same road into Texas.

If he hadn’t detoured somewhere between Kanter 11 and here.

If he was even still alive…

Where are you, Wash? Are you out there? Or am I chasing a ghost?

God, tell me I’m not chasing a dead man through Texas…

“What’s on your mind?” Randall was asking her.

Ana glanced over. The slayer drove with one hand, the other dangling out the open window. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think Randall was on a pleasant Sunday drive through the countryside. Maybe that wasn’t too far from the truth; the man did make his living killing monsters in the dark. Next to something that dangerous, driving down an empty road in the middle of a bright morning (Was it Sunday? Monday? She’d lost track of the days a long time ago) with nothing in view for miles was worth savoring.

“Just thinking,” Ana said.

“About what?”

“Wash.”

“Your slayer boyfriend.”

She pursed her lips. “He’s a friend.”

“A boy who is also a friend. Thus, boyfriend.”

Ana shot him an annoyed look. “We’re both too old for this, Randall. Act your age.”

Randall glanced up at the rearview mirror at Chris in the back. The teen sat between the two front seats, eating three-day-old bread that crunched every time she bit down. There were bags of supplies around her, along with guns and ammo. The pink Hello Kitty bag she’d found was somewhere on the floor at her feet.

“You met her boyfriend yet, kid?” Randall asked Chris.

Chris shook her head. “Not yet.”

“How’s your shoulder?” Ana asked him.

“Are you changing the conversation?” he said, grinning at her.

“Yes.”

Randall chuckled before rubbing his right shoulder gently with his left hand. He’d been shot there not too long ago by a sniper. “I’ve had worse.”

“Tough guy, huh?”

“It’s a tough gig. Wussies need not apply.”

“I bet. Are all you slayers this tough?”

“I don’t know. Did you ask your boyfriend that question?”

Ana groaned, but she ignored him and turned around in her seat to look back at Chris. “What about you?”

Crunch, as Chris bit into another tough piece of bread. “Good.”

“Everything’s good?”

Chris nodded, but Ana didn’t completely believe her. She didn’t know everything the teenager had gone through, but she knew enough. Even now, days later, Ana still had flashbacks to that Raggedy Men lair where they had taken Chris. And she’d only been down there for a few minutes; Chris had been abducted and taken against her will overnight.

But she saw the resilience in Chris’s face now and knew the kid would be fine. She might have even survived worse than Talico, though Ana didn’t want to think about what could have been worse than that.

“Maybe it’s time to give that bread a rest,” Ana said.

“It’s still good,” Chris said. Crunch, as she took another bite.

“I don’t think—”

“Heads up,” Randall said.

Ana turned around in her seat and looked out the front windshield. She was about to ask What? when she saw them.

A series of structures slowly glimmered out of thin air like a mirage.

Ana squinted to make sure they were real. They were. What might have been rooftops glinted underneath the clear skies. It was a town, far enough from the road that all it would have taken was a few clouds in the sky to make them miss it.

“How far are we from the RV?” Ana asked.

“About five miles,” Randall said as he slowed the truck until they had stopped completely.

“So it’s not Sanderson.”

“Definitely not.”

“And you didn’t know it was out here?”

“It’s not on any map I’m carrying.”

Randall put the truck in park. They weren’t in any danger of being rear-ended by another vehicle—there was no “another” vehicle for miles—but it still made Ana a little anxious. The term sitting ducks popped into her head for some reason.

Ana leaned forward against the dashboard to get a better look at the buildings. Her view didn’t really improve by very much. “It does look like a town. A small one.”

“Yup,” Randall said. He opened his car door and said to Shelby, somewhere in the back, “Take a gander, and see what you can gander.”

Ana climbed out of the truck and found Shelby already standing in the truck bed, peering through his binoculars. She waited for the young man to finish his recon.

Then, when Shelby lowered his field glasses, “What do you see, Shelby?”

“A dozen buildings, maybe more,” Shelby said. “Couldn’t make out any signs, though.”

“You see anything moving?” Randall asked. He’d also climbed out of the truck.

“Nope. But we’re too far. Gotta get a little closer for that.”

“What about a road?”

“I didn’t see one. Dirt, asphalt, or otherwise.”

Randall looked across the hood of the Ford at Ana. “There should be a road connecting it to this one.”

“What does it mean that there isn’t?” she asked.

“Maybe it’s new,” Randall said. “Maybe something that popped up after The Purge. There’s plenty of that out here.”

She gave him a doubtful look. “Out here? There’s nothing out here but dirt, Randall. I don’t think you could even grow weeds.”

Chris leaned out the back seat’s open window. “Are we going in there?”

“I don’t know,” Ana said. She looked across at Randall. “What do you think?”

“It’s not like we have to,” the slayer said. “We’re still heavy on supplies, and the real action is farther south.”

“That’s what you call a bunch of ghoul hordes? ‘Action?’”

“You do know what we do for a living, right?”

“My mistake.”

“What do you think? Should we waste a few minutes checking on the place, or just keep going?”

Wash might be there, Ana thought.

It was a small chance, and for it to even be remotely possible, he had to have been using the same stretch of roads they’d taken into Texas. There were so many ways in and out of the state, and so many possibilities, that the odds were against her.

Ana said, “That ghoul attack on the RV…”

“What about it?” Randall said.

“Those people could have come from that town.”

“That’s possible. It’s within walking distance.”

“Even if they weren’t from there, those people might not know there are ghouls in the area. If that’s the case, we owe it to them to warn them.”

“If there’s even anyone to warn.”

“It wouldn’t take long. Thirty minutes out of our time. In and out.”

“I say we check it out,” Shelby said. “There might be a lonely farmer’s daughter in there that needs some comfortin’ from yours truly.”

“There ain’t no damn farmers around here,” Randall said. “Land’s as dead as a nun’s sexual drive.” The slayer turned around and nodded at Ana. “But you’re right; warning them about what happened at that RV’s the Christian thing to do.”

“I didn’t know you were a Christian,” Ana said.

“I’m a man of many secrets.” Then, “Thirty minutes. We can spare that.”

Ana nodded before looking across the open field at the rooftops in the distance. What were the odds Wash was underneath one of those right now?

Wash, you asshat. I’m out here because of you.

She climbed back into the truck and slammed the door shut. Randall did likewise and put the Ford into drive.

“So we’re going in there?” Chris asked from the back.

“We’ll be quick,” Ana said. “In and out. If there’s nothing there, we’re gone. If there’s people, we’ll tell them about what we found at the RV.” She turned around in her seat and gave the teenager a pursed smile. “Just stay close to me, okay?”

Chris nodded and sat back in her seat, but Ana could read the wariness on her face. The kid was thinking about Talico and what it had cost her. Ana was, too, but she was trying to push through it.

She sat back in her own seat as Randall turned off the road and onto the bumpy earth. The unknown town loomed before them, getting closer with every passing second.

“You sure it’s not on your map?” Ana asked Randall.

The slayer nodded. “I’m sure. Checked it just this morning before we saw the RV.”

“Just wanted to make sure.”

Randall leaned over, picked up a pump-action shotgun resting between their seats, and put it in her lap. “Just in case.”

Ana smiled and put her hands over the weapon. Ol’ Pumpy, as Randall called it.

“Just in case,” she repeated.

“Try not to shoot me in the back, okay?”

She smirked at him. “What was that? Try to shoot you in the back?”

Randall grinned at her, but decided, wisely, not to push his luck.

Nine

That’s not a town.

That’s a ghost town.

They were looking at a group of buildings that, once upon a time, resembled something people might have called a “town.” These days, it looked and gave off the vibe of hastily put-together structures, their walls ugly and scarred by the sun and harsh climate that seemed to dominate this part of northern Texas. The glinting rooftops that Ana had seen from a distance were rusted and brown up close, and the corrugated metal lining the sides was caked in elements.

“Well, it’s a town,” Randall said.

“Sort of,” Ana said.

“Mostly. Probably hasn’t been one in a while, though.”

“How does a place go this bad, this fast? It’s been what? Only six years?”

“Out here, things go bad pretty fast. You get used to it.”

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to being out here.

“It was probably on its way here,” Randall continued. “The end of the world just rushed it along.”

They leaned forward in their seats, peering out the slightly tinted windshield of the Ford. Chris leaned between them in the back, and Ana didn’t have to look over at the teen to notice her apprehension. She could tell that from the way Chris gripped the seats.

She’s thinking about what happened in Talico. And so am I…

Next to her, Randall seemed to be gathering his thoughts, maybe trying to figure out what to do next. They were parked about fifty yards from the nearest structure—close enough to see how miserable it and its companions looked, but still too far to make out the patches of shadows between buildings. If there was anyone inside the place that had heard their approach, no one had come out to greet them. Ana wasn’t sure if that should have relaxed her or made her more alert.

Definitely more of the latter…

She counted two, maybe three dozen buildings that she could make out. She couldn’t see more of it; for that, they’d have to go inside, and she wasn’t sure she was looking forward to that. But then what was the other option? Just turn around and go around it?

“What do you think?” she asked Randall.

The slayer glanced over. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

“Well, we did come here for a reason…”

“You wanna go in there?”

“Isn’t that why we came here?”

Randall didn’t answer right away. She could see his mind working, maybe like her, trying to figure out the pros and cons.

What pros? The only pro to going in there is…

What pros?

Then, after a few more seconds, Randall said, “We could go around it.”

We could, and we should, Ana thought. If we were smart, we would do exactly that.

Except the words that came out of her mouth were, “If there’s anyone in there, we have to warn them about what had happened at the RV.”

“You really think there’s anyone in that place?” Randall asked. “Look at it. Dead as a cemetery.”

Nice choice of words, Randall.

“If there was anyone in there, they’d have heard us coming and shown themselves,” Randall continued.

“They could be scared,” Ana said.

“Of us?”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“I dunno.”

Shelby’s face appeared outside Randall’s window, the young slayer leaning upside down as he looked in at them. “So, we goin’ in or what?”

“What, for now,” Randall said.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be wussies.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being cautious, Shelby,” Ana said.

“Cautious smalcious,” Shelby said. “Let’s go in there and see what we can see. Might be some pretty girls who haven’t seen a slayer before. I got my best clothes on and everything.”

Randall sniffed the air. “You mean your best smell?”

“Yeah, that too.”

Randall snorted before looking over at Ana. “We drive in slowly, and if no one comes out to say boo, we leave. If someone does, we stay just long enough to tell them what we came to tell them, then it’s see ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya. Agreed?”

Ana nodded. “Sounds good. You want Ol’ Pumpy back?”

“You hang onto it for now.”

“I’m not very good with a shotgun.”

“It’s a shotgun. You point and pull the trigger. Wham, bam, thank you, Ol’ Pumpy.”

Ana smiled. “Slowly does it, then.”

“Good. At least I didn’t get dressed up for nuthin,” Shelby said before he vanished from Randall’s window.

Randall put the truck back in gear, and the Ford began moving again—slowly, toward the nearest building.

The more the place exposed itself, the more Ana was certain they were looking at a ghost town.

Now why doesn’t that make me feel any better?

* * *

As they drove slowly into the unnamed town, Ana heard Shelby moving around in the rear of the vehicle. She glanced back and could make out the young slayer’s legs standing near the cab’s window, probably leaning over the roof to get a better look at what lay ahead of them. Chris had sat back and was clutching the backpack Randall had given her as if waiting for the opportunity to jump out of the Ford and take off. After everything she had been through—everything they had been through—Ana couldn’t say she blamed the teenager.

“You doing okay back there?” she asked Chris.

Chris nodded, but what Ana saw in the teen’s eyes was far from “okay.”

“We’ll be in and out in a flash,” Ana said. “We just have to warn them about what happened at the RV. We’d want someone to warn us too, right?”

“Uh huh,” Chris said, looking wholly unconvinced.

And she’s right; we should probably keep going, Ana thought as she turned around in her seat and adjusted the pump-action shotgun in her lap.

She refocused on the town in front of her. The view hadn’t gotten any better now that they were closer. If anything, the run-down nature of the buildings was even more apparent. There were still no movements except for a flurry of pebbles ricocheting off one of the building’s walls as they drove past it. How long, she wondered, since this whole place was abandoned? The vibe it gave off screamed more than six years. Maybe The Purge had hastened the exile, but it couldn’t have been the cause.

There wasn’t anything that resembled a proper street for them to take, so Randall simply guided the Ford between two buildings. There was plenty of space to maneuver, so they didn’t worry about hitting anything on their way in. More rusted and corrugated walls greeted them, and for a moment Ana was convinced this was some kind of industrial area. Except that didn’t explain the presence of brick and mortar structures mixed in with all the metal construction.

What the hell is this place?

Ana had been through a lot of towns since The Purge—some bigger than others—and the appearance of this one left her baffled. Everything about the place screamed abandoned, from the buildings to the hardened and cracked earth underneath the Ford’s tires. Earth, because there wasn’t anything close to a road. So how did whoever used to live here drive back and forth? Or did they drive at all? She hadn’t spotted a single car since they entered town. That was another oddity. Even the smallest towns had at least one or two vehicles left over from the days when everyone had a car and gas was plentiful.

The more they saw, the more it looked like the whole area was built to form a rough circle around a single structure in the very middle: a church.

Now who would put that there? Or was it here first, and everything else came after?

There was no mistaking the church, with its towering steeple over the front twin doors. There was once a cross at the very top, but it was gone, leaving behind a jagged spire. No wonder they hadn’t seen it as they approached. A cross would have been unmissable even from a distance.

The rest of the unnamed town was just over three dozen buildings—at least the ones that she could see from her open truck window—of various shapes and sizes. She guessed the bigger ones were intended for communal use, while others could have passed for multi-family homes or storage. Most of the ones within immediate view were small one-floor structures. The church was the tallest thing by far, its steeple rising ominously in front of them. Sunlight reflected off the white paint, casting a large and exaggerated shadow across the hard ground.

Randall leaned against his steering wheel, still slowly letting the truck crawl through town. Because of the almost circular nature of the place, it was natural for him to head straight toward the church. Maybe that was the point? If there was a point to any of this.

“Figured the church would be the most prominent building in the place,” Randall said.

“Why’s that?” Ana asked.

“Small towns like this, they take their religion seriously.”

“You’ve been through small towns like this before?”

“Not quite. This is pretty…”

“Creepy?”

“Unique,” Randall finished. Then, chuckling, “But I guess creepy works, too. Ever seen that movie Children of the Corn?”

“No. What was it about?”

“Children. Cornfields. Really creepy children in cornfields.”

Ana wasn’t sure if he was messing with her, but she didn’t feel like pursuing it. He wasn’t wrong about religion and small towns, though. It’d been the same in Newton, where she came from.

Randall stopped in front of the church and put the truck in park, the shadowed spire climbing up the hood and taking over a large part of the dirty windshield. The slayer leaned back in his seat and glanced around at the empty town.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Randall said in a sing-song voice that made the hairs on the back of Ana’s neck rise slightly.

Even with both their windows open, Ana couldn’t hear anything outside except for the occasional pek-pek-pek of pebbles ricocheting off the walls and the occasional eerie howls of wind as they moved between buildings.

“Looks dead,” Randall said after a while.

Ana winced and thought, Again with the fine choice of words, Randall.

“Maybe we should keep going,” she said.

“Already?” Randall said.

“There’s no one here. There probably hasn’t been anyone here for a while, from the looks of it. And like you said, if there were anyone here, they would have heard us coming and come out.”

And I really, really want to get the hell out of here, she wanted to add but decided not to, for Chris’s sake. And hers.

“Yeah, we should go,” Chris said from the back.

“Let’s give it a sec,” Randall said before he leaned out his window and glanced into the truck bed at Shelby. “You see anything?”

Ana heard Shelby’s voice answering, “Does squat count as ‘anything?’”

“I don’t see why not,” Randall said.

“Then I see exactly squat, squat, and even more squat,” Shelby said.

“We really need to improve your vocab, Shelby.”

“I ain’t got time for readin’ and such.”

Randall pulled his head back in and turned to look at Ana. “Okay.”

“Let’s go,” Ana said. “We made the effort. Now it’s time to move on.”

“You don’t wanna check the church?”

“No.”

“What about the other—”

“Let’s go, Randall.”

The slayer chuckled. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and was reaching for the gear when there was a loud banging from above them.

Shelby, in the back of the truck. “We got company!”

Randall took his hand off the gear, but instead of putting it back on the steering wheel, he dropped it casually toward his hip, where he had his semiautomatic handgun holstered.

“Nine o’clock,” Shelby said from outside.

Nine o’clock? Ana thought.

Randall apparently understood what Shelby meant and glanced out his open window. She followed where he was looking—

There, a figure standing in the alleyway between two buildings, looking out at them. The figure was too far and too well-hidden for Ana to tell if it was a man or woman or even make out details like what they were wearing. The angle was all wrong, and the figure was effectively obscured by shadows cast down by the angled rooftops above them.

For about five seconds, Ana didn’t move or look away (she wasn’t sure if she was even breathing), and neither did Randall. Ana could hear Chris in the back squeezing her backpack tighter, but she didn’t take her eyes off the dark figure.

It was watching them back—almost as if, like them, it couldn’t look away.

Somewhere behind them Shelby was moving around, and Ana found some comfort in that. Shelby was armed with a rifle, and she knew for a fact he was proficient with it. She’d seen the young man in action and was glad he was out there watching over them.

“Three o’clock!” Shelby shouted.

Three o’clock? What the hell is three o’clock?

Randall, again, knew and responded to Shelby’s voice by turning his head to look at her—

No, not at her, but past her.

Again, she followed his gaze out her own window—

Another figure had appeared in the spaces between two buildings, but there was just enough light this time for Ana to make out a long coat and some kind of handkerchief over the lower half of a face.

For a brief, paralyzing second, Ana had visions of the Raggedy Men back in Talico. The same thought must have flashed across Chris’s mind, because Ana swore the teen gasped audibly in the back seat.

We’re not in Talico. And those aren’t Raggedy Men.

God, I hope those aren’t Raggedy Men…

“I think we should go, Randall,” Ana said. “I think we should go now.”

“Fuck yeah,” Randall said, reaching for the gear between their seats and putting it in reverse—

Boom! as something exploded outside, and the front driver-side of the Ford dipped slightly to the ground.

That was a shotgun blast. That was a damn shotgun blast!

Ana had heard enough of the sound—she had even pulled the trigger enough times to cause them—to instantly recognize what she’d just heard.

Boom! as her side of the truck also dropped, even as the Ford began reversing.

Randall, thank God, hadn’t taken his foot off the gas even after the first shot.

It was a trap. The whole thing was a trap. Luring them in, then drawing their attention with the shadowy figures.

It was a trap!

“Hold on!” Randall was shouting.

“Just drive!” she shouted back.

“What do you think I’m doing?”

“Shut up, and just drive!”

“Nag, nag, nag!” Randall said, and she swore he was also laughing.

This is no time to be laughing! Ana thought as she gripped Ol’ Pumpy. She was lifting the shotgun off her lap to ready it for use when she caught movement out of the corner of her eyes and looked up.

Two figures were charging out of the suddenly open twin doors of the church. When had the doors opened? Was that before or after the shotgun blasts? It had to be before. Didn’t it?

Who the hell cares? They’re going to shoot again!

But not yet, as both men were clearly caught off guard by Randall’s handling of the Ford. Either that, or they were shocked the first two blasts hadn’t disabled the vehicle.

Go, Randall, go! Ana thought as the two men, both wearing boots and trench coats—one of them had a Houston Astros cap on, stringy blond hair falling around his face—raced after them with shotguns that looked very much like the one she was holding. Except she was inside the Ford and in no position to shoot back, and they were out there and taking aim—

“Randall!” Ana got out before another boom! snapped the hood of the truck loose, and it flipped up and blocked Ana’s view of everything in front of her. It also cut off her ability to track the attackers, but at the same time kept the men from unloading on her and Randall through the windshield. At least she could be grateful for that!

“Go, Randall, go go go!” Ana shouted.

Randall didn’t answer. He was too busy reversing, his head turned and his eyes fixed out the rear windshield so he could see where he was going. The two blown front tires were grinding against the hard earth, spitting clouds of dust into the air. Ana coughed as debris flicked into her open window and off her cheeks.

“Hold on!” Randall shouted.

Hold on to what? Ana thought as she lifted the shotgun and turned in her seat. She didn’t expect the two men to stay where she’d last spotted them, outside the church. She couldn’t see them, but they’d have no trouble following the retreating vehicle. The only good news was that she hadn’t heard another devastating shotgun blast yet.

There!

The man in the baseball cap was appearing and disappearing out her window as Randall frantically spun the truck in an effort to avoid what looked like a water fountain. Where the hell had that come from? Ana didn’t remember seeing it the first time they drove through town. Had someone put it there? No, of course not. That was stupid. Who and how—

Wait. Shelby.

Was Shelby even still in the back of the truck? She hadn’t heard any returning fire from behind her, and she should have. The young slayer wasn’t shy about using his rifle, especially if someone had shot at them first. Two someones.

Ana glanced back—

Chris! Where’s Chris?

There she was. The teenager was on the floor behind Ana’s seat, huddled so low that it took a heartbeat for Ana to recognize the top of her head.

Now Shelby. Now where the hell is Shelby?

She looked out the rear cab window but couldn’t find Shelby back there. She should have been able to see his legs moving around, but there were no signs of him.

What happened to Shelby?

What happened to Shelby???

Another boom! thundered, and this time the back of the Ford dipped suddenly. Chris let out a scream, but it was from shock and not pain.

“Randall!” she shouted.

“I know, I know!” he shouted back.

The truck slammed to a stop, and Randall was reaching for the gear to put it in drive when he froze. Ana opened her mouth to ask why he’d done that when she spotted the shotgun pointing at Randall outside his open window.

The second man that had rushed out of the church stood beyond, not more than five feet from Randall’s door, pointing his weapon straight at the slayer. At that range, he couldn’t have missed even if he tried. And once all that buckshot took Randall’s head off, they would keep coming and take Ana’s as well.

“Don’t even think about it,” the man with the shotgun said, his eyes snapping from Randall to Ana and back again.

She wasn’t sure who he was talking to, not that it mattered. If she tried to point Ol’ Pumpy at him, he would have fired and cut Randall to pieces. Ana imagined the top half of the slayer missing, sitting next to her…

Slowly, Ana took her hands off the shotgun, even as the man in the Astros ball cap appeared next to her window. He kept a safe distance, his own weapon aimed at her head while he moved around to get a better look at the interior of the Ford.

“One more in the back!” Ball Cap shouted. He was referring to Chris.

Where the hell is Shelby?

Was he dead? Had someone shot him before the two with the shotguns came out of the church?

“Let me have that; don’t want you tempted,” Ball Cap said before he reached into Ana’s open window and grabbed the pump-action shotgun from her hands. “He’s got a sidearm,” the man said as he backed away again, his eyes fixed on Randall.

The attacker on Randall’s side hadn’t moved. As far as Ana could tell, he hadn’t even breathed. He was an older man than Ball Cap—early forties, at least, with short brown hair and a button nose that looked as if it had been broken more than once. He held his weapon like it was a part of him, and Ana once again envisioned Randall shot to pieces…

Randall must have seen the same things and understood the dangers, because he hadn’t done anything. He also hadn’t taken his hands off the steering wheel and gearshift.

“I told you, don’t even think about it,” the man said, drilling Randall with hard eyes.

Randall didn’t answer.

“Turn it off,” the man said.

Randall did, taking his hands off the gear and turning the key until the truck’s engine went dead. Ana was able to hear her own heartbeat pounding inside her chest again. She wasn’t the only one; Chris’s was just as loud in the back.

“Outta the car,” Ball Cap said, opening Ana’s door before scooting away. He wasn’t quite as intimidating as the older man, but Ana didn’t think he was any less dangerous with that shotgun.

Even as she stepped outside, Ana couldn’t stop thinking about Shelby. Where was he? Was he dead? Had someone else—a third shooter—killed the young slayer? That was the only explanation. Otherwise, she would have heard him back there shooting back. Shelby was young, but he’d been in gun battles before.

When she was finally outside, Ana raised her hands. Ball Cap immediately started patting her down, looking for a hidden weapon (He’s done this before.), but Ana ignored him and focused on the back of the truck, hoping for signs of Shelby. He was nowhere to be found, but when she turned around—

There, a body was sprawled on the ground about halfway between them and the church.

Shelby.

She couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead, but he wasn’t moving.

Oh, Shelby.

The sound of another door opening. Ana looked across the front seats and watched as Randall climbed out, then kneeled on the ground. His knees hadn’t completely touched down when the older man stepped toward Randall and struck him across the head with the butt of his weapon.

“Randall!” Ana shouted.

She got one step—then almost two—before something hit her in the small of the back and agony exploded through her. Ana stumbled and just managed to stick out both hands in time to prevent what would have been a painful collision with the open door. She was holding onto that door, trying to maintain her balance, when something else—heavier, like the hand of God—impacted the back of the head.

Ana fell to the ground, smashing into it with her cheek. It should have hurt, but there was already too much pain from everywhere else, and she hardly noticed.

She could, though, hear Chris’s voice, clear as day, shouting her name…

Ten

She had a pounding headache. The kind that made her want to lie perfectly still and never move or open her eyes ever again. But she couldn’t afford to do that. Not after everything that had happened. And what, exactly, had happened?

The two men with shotguns coming out of the church…

Randall reversing the truck like a madman…

Shotgun blasts…

Shelby on the ground…

Men with shotguns…

She opened her eyes and sat up gingerly, something that felt like very weak wooden walls scraping at her back through her clothes. Her legs were stiff, as was the rest of her body, but the discomfort had nothing on the insistent throbbing coming from the back of her head.

Ana reached behind her with one hand and carefully felt around. She brought the hand back and stared at the small clumps of blood and hair in her palm. That explained the awful feeling of her skull on the verge of caving in on itself. The only positive—and she was definitely reaching here—was that the wound had closed up when the blood coagulated, so she was in no danger of bleeding to death back there.

Yeah, you’re definitely reaching.

She wiped the blood off on her pant legs, realizing right away that her captors had taken her knife from its hidden compartment inside her sleeve. Dammit, she liked that knife. It had saved her life on a number of occasions, and being without it felt almost…naked.

Ana glanced around her, getting her first good look at her situation. It was, in a word, bad.

Badder than bad, in fact.

Really, really bad.

She was inside a small building (What is this, a shack?), and she wasn’t alone. Randall lay crumpled in front of her. Shelby was also there, resting on one side with his back turned to her.

Shelby!

Ana crawled over to the young slayer. She grabbed him by his raised shoulder and turned him over onto his back. There was cold, dirt ground underneath them. She hadn’t noticed that before, but it was impossible to ignore now.

“Thank God,” Ana whispered when she noticed the rise and fall of Shelby’s chest underneath his clothes.

He was still alive, and when she put her hand underneath his nostrils, she could feel the gradual push of warm breath coming out. After her last glimpse of him, sprawled on the ground, this was a welcome relief. There was a big gash on his temple where something had struck him. It was an ugly scar but not a killing one. It had, though, been enough to knock him off the back of the truck while Randall was reversing. Thank God the Ford hadn’t run him over. Ana didn’t want to think about all the things that could have gone wrong with Shelby lying helpless on the ground and Randall trying frantically to get away in a half-ton truck.

Ana moved over to check on Randall. Dry blood caked the lower half of his face where one of their ambushers had struck him with the butt of his weapon. Randall’s nose was broken, and it probably looked worse than it really was. Not that there was anything good about a shattered nose, but like Shelby, she could see Randall was still breathing, if struggling more than his young partner. But he was still breathing, and that was all that mattered.

Ana sat back on the hard ground, relieved that both men were still alive. She looked around her. Really, really looked around her this time.

They were in a shack. Or a shed. Was there a difference? It was a small building, that much she was certain of. Sunlight streaked inside through gaps in the walls. That gave her some additional comfort. Even now, years after The Purge, she still got nervous when darkness fell and she wasn’t indoors.

It had to have been just a few hours since they were attacked. The insistent throbbing coming from the back of her head was a clue, along with Randall and Shelby’s unconscious state. Ana was surprised she had woken up before the men. They were both bigger, stronger, and—

“Chris,” she said breathlessly.

She glanced around her again, this time with more urgency.

Chris. Where was Chris?

The teenager wasn’t in the building with them, and it took her no time at all to be 100 percent certain of that.

“Chris,” she said again as she stood up.

Or tried to. Her legs were wobbly, and it took a couple of tries before she was finally able to rise to her feet, groping the splintered walls for support. When she was sure she had firm footing, she took the couple of steps toward the door. There was a rusted lever on it, but even though she knew better, Ana reached for and pulled it down anyway.

The door moved but didn’t open. She glimpsed chains moving on the other side through slivers in the wooden frame, jingling loudly with her efforts. She pulled and pushed and prodded at the lever for a few more seconds, shaking the door and the walls along with it. She wondered if she could knock the whole thing down if she kept at it hard and long enough. But it was probably not a good idea to bring the building down on top of her, since she’d be in the middle of it. Her head was still pounding as it was.

Ana stopped fighting with the door and leaned against it, peeking through a wide opening between two boards. She got an eyeful of sun-scorched earth and more corrugated metal in the background, but nothing that looked like a guard—

A brown eye appeared in front of her, and Ana jerked her head back in shock.

Someone laughed, before a man’s voice said, “Gotcha.”

Sonofabitch.

She sucked in a breath and willed herself to calm down. Then, “Who are you?”

The figure outside didn’t answer. The voice had belonged to a man, and she could see him—not all of him, but enough—straightening back up and taking a couple of steps away from the door.

“Hey,” Ana said, louder this time. “Who are you? Why did you attack us?”

No answer except for the sound of something clicking, but she couldn’t place what it was. A lighter, maybe? But she didn’t smell cigarette smoke. Unless, of course, the man was just playing with a lighter, flicking the cover open and closed.

“Hey!” she said again, even louder.

“I heard you the first time,” the man said.

“Why did you attack us?” Then, when she didn’t get an answer after five seconds, “Hey!”

“You might wanna save your voice,” her guard said. “You’re going to need it later.”

“Need it for what?”

Silence, except for that clicking noise. What the hell was that? She still couldn’t see what was making it, and it was driving her a little crazy.

“We came here to warn you,” Ana said, forcing herself to be calm again. She wasn’t going to get anywhere shouting at her captor. No, the correct approach here was to reason with him. “There was an RV out there. It was attacked by ghouls last night. We came here because we thought you might be in danger.”

Her guard remained silent.

“Did you hear me?” Ana said. “We were doing you a favor. We came here to warn you about ghouls in the area. Why did you attack us?”

She was hoping for some response, but the man remained silent. She couldn’t tell from the quick glimpse of the eyeball that had startled her earlier if it belonged to one of the two men that had attacked them outside the church, but the guard’s voice had sounded young, so it could have been the one in the ball cap. The guy outside was wearing some kind of hat…

Ana shook the lever again, just to get the man’s attention. “Hey. Did you hear what I said? We came here to do you a favor. So why did you attack us?”

Her captor didn’t answer and never turned around. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he couldn’t hear her, but that was impossible given his close proximity.

The asshat’s just ignoring me.

“Hey!” Ana shouted.

Still, no response.

She pulled back from the door. “Asshat.”

“Hey, what’s with all the racket?” a voice said behind her.

Ana turned around to find Shelby sitting on the floor. He was touching his temple with his right hand and grimacing at the contact.

“Ouchie,” Shelby said.

“You’re hurt. Don’t try to move too fast,” Ana said, kneeling next to him. “What happened to you?”

“Something hit me,” Shelby said. He wiped the blood on his palms off on his pants leg. “Some kid with a slingshot, I think.”

“A slingshot?”

“Yeah.” He mimed “firing” a slingshot. “Got me right in the ol’ noggin. Lucky thing I have a hard head.”

“Yeah, lucky.”

Shelby glanced over at Randall, lying nearby. “He don’t look so good.”

“No, he doesn’t, but he’s alive,” Ana said.

“What happened to his face?”

“Someone hit him with the butt of their shotgun.” Just saying the words out loud reminded her of her own pain, and Ana winced slightly.

“You okay?” Shelby asked.

“My head’s pounding, but I’ll be okay.”

“Seems like ‘okay’ is good enough for now.”

“For now, yeah.”

Shelby stood up and looked around them. He didn’t seem to have any trouble moving. “Where are we?”

“A shed.”

“Looks more like a shack.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Potato, potato.” Then, “We’re still in that rickety ass town, aren’t we?”

“I don’t know. But I think so.”

“I was hoping it was all just a nightmare.” He touched his scarred forehead again. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. It all happened so fast. One second, we’re parked in front of the church; the next, someone’s shooting.”

“Shotguns.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s all I remember.”

“There wasn’t a whole lot after that. We were ambushed.” She stood up next to him. She was feeling a little better and didn’t have to reach for the wall this time. “One of them is outside now.”

Shelby glanced toward the door. They could both see the guard’s silhouetted form through the gaps in the wood.

He turned back to her, and, dropping his voice to almost a whisper, “Armed?”

“That would be my guess,” Ana said, matching his pitch.

“What do they want?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Did you tell them why we came here?” Shelby asked, this time letting his voice grow louder. Ana assumed that was because he wanted the guard to hear this part of their conversation.

Ana nodded. “I did.”

“And?”

“I don’t think he cares.”

“Bummer.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

She walked back over to the door and peered out at their captor. All she could see was his back and a lot of brightness in front of him. She looked over at Shelby, crouching next to Randall and feeling his pulse.

“How is he?” she asked.

Shelby nodded. “He ain’t croaked yet. What more could you ask for?”

A lot, actually, she thought, but said, “We need to keep an eye on him. They really hit him hard.”

“What about you?”

Ana felt the lump behind her head again. “It’s getting better,” she lied.

The truth was, it still hurt, and every time she thought about it, the intensity notched up a little bit more.

So stop thinking about it.

But that was easier said than done, especially with the continuous lancing pain coming from back there every few seconds.

Shelby stood up and glanced around him with his hands on his hips. “Boards don’t look all that tough,” he said, again dropping his voice to almost a whisper.

Ana nodded toward the door—at the guard outside.

Shelby held up one finger, as if to say, “Just one?”

She nodded and was going to say something else when she caught a flicker of movement coming from her left, opposite the door.

“Looks like we have a visitor,” Shelby said.

Someone was peering in at her and Shelby from the back of the shed, a single, blinking round eye at about chest level, going from Ana to Shelby and back again. Either the owner was kneeling, or it was a small person. For a second, Ana thought it was Chris, but the eye color was wrong—brown where Chris’s was blue.

Ana took one step forward, expecting the figure to flee.

But it didn’t. Instead, the eye focused in on her.

Someone’s very curious.

Ana took another step forward. “Hi,” she said, in a voice loud enough to be heard by the girl, but not by the guard on the other side of the shed. She had a feeling their captors didn’t know this Curious George (Curious Georgette?) was here right now.

Ana glimpsed pale lips underneath the single eye. “Hi,” they said back. It was a soft, almost squeaky whisper.

She knows about the guard. She doesn’t want him to hear, either.

Smart kid.

“Do you have a name?” Ana asked.

The girl didn’t answer that one as readily.

“Mine’s Ana. What’s yours?”

Still no answer, even though the eye never left Ana as she crouched in front of the wooden boards.

Easy does it. Don’t spook her.

Ana decided to try a different question. “How old are you?”

“Eight,” the figure whispered.

Ana smiled. “I’m older than that.” She thought she might have heard Shelby chuckling behind her, but ignored him and continued. “Do you have a name?”

“Betsy,” was the answer.

“Betsy’s an old lady’s name,” Shelby said.

Ana glanced back and gave him a That’s not helping look. He lifted his hands and made an Oops face back at her.

She turned back to Betsy, who hadn’t moved from her spot. “Hi, Betsy. I’m Ana. That loudmouth’s Shelby.”

The girl giggled.

Ana smiled. “What—”

“Hey!” a voice shouted, just before Ana caught the guard’s shadow flitting across the holes in the boards to her left, running from the front of the shack to the rear.

Ana stood up as Betsy fled. She expected their captor to run after the girl, but he stopped and stood looking after her instead. Then the man turned around and walked back to the front. She glimpsed sunlight reflecting off the barrel of his weapon, hanging off one shoulder as he passed her by.

“Welp, that almost worked,” Shelby said. “You were trying to get her to help us, right?”

Ana sighed. “Something like that.”

She stared at the guard’s shadowed form in silence and tried to figure out what Betsy’s presence meant. The only thing she could come up with that was even slightly useful was that there were kids here. Was there anything else?

Shelby had sat back down on the cold floor, his legs splayed out in front of him. “We should have stayed on the road. This is what happens when you try to do something nice for someone. Chuck used to say—” He stopped short. “Well, Chuck used to say lots.”

Ana walked over and sat down next to him. They both stared at Randall’s unconscious form for a moment. The older slayer hadn’t moved at all, but he looked to be breathing normally again. At least, he didn’t look as if he was struggling like earlier.

“So this guy you’re looking for,” Shelby was saying.

“Wash,” Ana said.

“Yeah, Washateria.”

She smiled.

“You think he’s still out there?” Shelby asked.

“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“It is.” She sighed. “I’m just playing it by ear.”

“Your ears starting to hurt yet?”

“You’re an ass.”

Shelby grinned. “Just doing my job.”

Ana glanced over at the door, at the silhouetted figure partially visible outside. The man hadn’t moved since the last time she looked. What the hell was he waiting for? What was the point of all of this?

The attack, locking them up in here.

Taking Chris from her…

“It’s just one guy,” Shelby said. He had dropped his voice again.

“He’s armed,” Ana said.

“Still just one guy.”

“It only takes one guy to shoot both of us.”

“Be more glass half empty, why doncha.”

Ana looked back at Randall, then at the far wall. She was hoping Betsy might have come back, but there were no signs of the girl. And even if there were, how exactly was an eight-year-old kid going to help them get out of this mess?

“She said she was eight?” Shelby asked.

“Yeah,” Ana said.

“That would mean she was born before The Purge.”

“So you know a little math. And?”

“Just barely,” Shelby said. “And nothing. I see a lot of kids born after that whole mess, but few kids that were that young when it went down are still around now. I thought that was just an interesting little tidbit, is all.”

Ana didn’t know how interesting any of it was, and right now it didn’t do her or the slayers any good. They were still stuck inside a shack in some run-down town that didn’t even have a name, while a man with a gun stood guard outside. She had no doubts he would shoot her and Shelby if they tried anything. The two that had attacked them earlier hadn’t been very hesitant about using their weapons. Any one of their shotgun blasts could have killed her or Randall, or both, at any time during the assault.

“Your head still hurting?” Shelby asked after a while.

“Yes,” Ana said, the pain coming back as soon as Shelby brought the subject up. “Yours?”

“Like someone’s playing bongos on my skull.”

Better than someone playing a complete set of drums, she thought, leaning her head back against the wall and closing her eyes.

“Ana,” Shelby whispered.

She opened her eyes. “What?”

“She’s baaaaaaack.”

Across from them, a familiar large brown eye looked in between two wooden boards at her.

Betsy.

The pain ebbed away as Ana concentrated on the girl.

“Hey,” Ana said. “You’re back.”

“Uh huh,” the girl said.

Good start, Ana thought. Now let’s see where this goes…

Eleven

Betsy’s return didn’t yield very much to help Ana and Shelby escape. It did, though, provide some more information, just nothing they could use while still stuck inside the shack.

The girl had returned despite the scare with the guard, but the close encounter must have stuck in her mind, because she didn’t stay around for very long. Ana could see the way the girl’s eye kept shifting to the side. They had exactly eleven minutes, during which time Ana attempted to get as much out of the kid as she could. It was like pulling teeth; either the girl didn’t know very much about the attack (or anything, really), or she just…

No, Ana was almost certain Betsy didn’t know anything that could help them. Ana did learn that there were other people in the unnamed town besides Betsy and the two shotgun-wielding asshats. There were other women and kids somewhere out there, probably in one of the many buildings they’d driven past earlier in the day.

Eventually, they both heard footsteps moving around the shack, and Betsy vanished. This time, Ana didn’t hear their captor screaming after the girl; either he realized it wouldn’t do any good, or the kid had been quick and managed to escape unseen.

Ana sat back on the ground next to Shelby and watched the guard’s shadow moving back to the front to resume his post.

“That was disappointing,” Shelby said.

“At least we know it’s not just her and the asshat outside now,” Ana said.

“But how does that help us?”

“It doesn’t.”

“So I was right. It’s disappointing.”

Well, he’s not wrong, she thought, looking over at Randall’s unmoving form and expecting him to wake up at any moment. He never did. From time to time, Ana checked on Randall’s status. His pulse seesawed between steady and erratic, but the rest of him remained unchanged.

“Man, we are really screwed,” Shelby was saying next to her.

Definitely screwed, Ana thought as she reran everything that had happened to them since spotting the RV.

If only they hadn’t detoured to investigate.

If only they had kept going.

If, if, if…

But none of that wishful thinking did her or Shelby or Randall any good now.

And yet…

Should have kept right on going.

Should have kept right on going.

She said out loud, “We’ll be fine.”

“How you figure that?” Shelby asked.

“We just have to find out what they want.”

She glanced over at the door. She couldn’t see the guard from this angle but was sure he was out there. Where would he go, after all?

“Kinda obvious what they want,” Shelby said.

He was rubbing at the scar along his temple. It was more purple than red now and looked nastier than before. She didn’t want to think about what the back of her head looked like. The pain had numbed, but that was only because she stopped touching it.

“Is it?” she said.

“Isn’t it?”

“Not to me. Unless you discovered something that I missed.”

Shelby started to answer but stopped himself. He seemed to think about it for a bit before finally shrugging. “Maybe it’s not so obvious.”

“Didn’t think so.”

“So, what do they want?”

“I don’t know. That’s the problem. We can’t figure a way out of this until we get that answer. And they’re not talking. At least, the guy out there isn’t talking.”

“There’s a name for that, right? Something Chuck used to say. Catch…something.”

“Catch-22.”

“Catch-22? You sure?”

“Uh huh.”

“Where’s the 22 come from?”

“I don’t know. It’s just something some writer made up in a book years ago. But it fits our current predicament.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Haven’t read a book since… Well, it’s been a while.”

“I’m sure you had other things to do besides cracking open a book, Shelby.”

“Killing nightcrawlers is a full-time job…”

Ana smiled, her thoughts wandering off to Wash. He was the reason she was down here in the first place, but she couldn’t find it in herself to be mad at him. She’d tried—God knows she’d tried, and often—but she could never really embrace it. He was the reason she still had a sister, after all. Ana had a lot of belief in her ability to survive out here, but even she knew that successfully rescuing Emily from Mathison by herself would have been a minor miracle. But Wash had changed that equation. He had skills she couldn’t hope to match. The way he fought, the way he attacked the enemy…

I could use you right now, Wash. I could really, really use you right about now.

She was still thinking about Wash when the door moved and the chains outside jingled. Ana quickly scrambled up to her feet, Shelby doing likewise next to her.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Ana said under her breath to Shelby.

“Who, me?” Shelby said, matching her pitch.

“Yeah, you.”

Shelby grunted as they both watched the door open and the man in the Houston Astros ball cap appear on the other side. He didn’t step through the opening and instead kept about three feet between himself and the shack. If Ana had any illusions about trying anything, the pump-action shotgun—it looked almost identical to Randall’s Ol’ Pumpy, but was more beat up—gripped casually in the man’s hands erased those foolish notions.

Shelby, thank God, came to the same conclusion. For now, anyway.

Easy does it, Shelby.

Please, please don’t get me killed.

Ball Cap didn’t step into the room or come any closer when he said, “Is he dead?” while briefly eyeing Randall’s unmoving form.

“No,” Ana said.

“You sure?” Ball Cap said. “He looks pretty dead to me.”

“He’s not.”

“You checked him?”

“Yes. Often. He’s alive. Hurt, but alive.”

Ball Cap didn’t look as if he believed her. Ana took the opportunity to stare at the man. He was young, about Shelby’s age, and the dirty strands of blond hair that sneaked out from underneath his cap made him appear even more youthful. He was dressed in dirty jeans and a drab olive green jacket with a gun holster on his right hip and shells for the shotgun in loops around his belt. Despite his age, Ana recognized the hardness on his face. He was like Shelby in that regard—young, but experienced in blood.

“He could use some water,” Shelby was saying. “You got any water?”

“Yeah, we got water,” their captor said.

When the man didn’t continue, Shelby said, “So can we have some, or what?”

“No,” Ball Cap said, and turned to go.

“Hey,” Ana said.

Ball Cap stopped.

“Why did you attack us?” Ana asked. “We came here to warn you about ghouls in the area. We were no danger to you.”

“You’ll find out,” Ball Cap said, and before Ana could respond, a second figure (Where the hell did he come from?) slammed the door in her face. They heard the chains jingling outside again.

Ana moved closer to the door and peered out at Ball Cap as he walked away, leaving behind a new guard to take his place. Ana could only see the man’s back, but he looked shorter, wearing some kind of thick camouflage jacket.

“Well, that was informative,” Shelby said. The young slayer was crouched next to Randall, checking his vitals.

“How is he?” she asked.

“Still in La La Land,” Shelby said. He looked up. “You still think we’ll be fine?”

I’m not sure any of us is going to be fine, Shelby.

She nodded at him instead. “Yeah. He’ll be fine. And so will we.”

She couldn’t tell if Shelby believed her, and Ana turned back to the door. She replayed Ball Cap’s reaction when she told him about ghouls in the area. He hadn’t even flinched or done anything to indicate he was worried. In fact, he didn’t give even the slightest hint that she was telling him anything he didn’t already know.

He knows. He knows all about the ghouls…

* * *

Seconds became minutes, and minutes became hours. Betsy didn’t come back, and neither did Ball Cap. No one came to check on Randall or to talk to them and provide answers. The man who had replaced Ball Cap didn’t say a word or respond to her and Shelby’s attempts to engage him in conversation. Their new guard acted as if he couldn’t hear them, which of course was bullshit. Though the man did occasionally walk around the building (maybe Ball Cap had told him to look out for Betsy), he never strayed more than a few feet from their walls.

The walls. Ana thought about the walls more and more. They were flimsy enough that she could hear every pekking sound whenever a stray pebble struck the outside. Just as Shelby had said when he first woke up, it wouldn’t take very much to break through them. Hell, she could do it with a few strategic kicks.

But the problem was the guard. Ball Cap had been armed, and his replacement was, too. Ana couldn’t tell for sure what he was carrying—there were slivers in the walls to see through, but the man had an uncanny ability to always keep his back to them—but a weapon was a weapon.

And right now, he had one and they didn’t.

So yes, they could very easily bust their way out of their prison. Shelby, especially. He was big and strong enough and could make a door with one good kick in the right spot. But then he’d have to get outside. Even if Shelby were to attack the back of their shed while their captor was at the front, how long before the man ran around the very, very small building to intercept the slayer?

It didn’t matter what kind of scenarios she ran through her head; it always ended up the same way: Violent, and with either her or Shelby, or both of them, on the wrong side of a firearm.

And I can’t die here. Not out here, not without finding Wash first.

…Or going back to Em.

To do either of those two things, she had to change their situation. That was the problem. There was something about the way Ball Cap had acted and spoken earlier that told Ana they had a reason for everything they’d done so far. The ambush, the imprisonment…

What the hell do they want?

If she could only get her hands on that answer, she’d have a better chance of talking her way out of this. Ana was good at that. She’d always been. Verbal gymnastics was a skill she’d learned since she was a kid, and high school and college had sharpened it. But it was hard to convince someone to see things your way if they never told you what they wanted. She had no ammunition. None whatsoever.

Catch-22. Goddammit.

It was still morning when they were ambushed, and when she opened her eyes in the shack, the hours had quickly given way to midday.

Then afternoon came and went.

And now, the temperatures were starting to fall noticeably, and the world outside had begun to pale. With those changes, the slow understanding that things were about to get really, really bad grew in the pit of Ana’s gut.

They occasionally checked on Randall, making sure he was still alive while trying not to let their stomachs growl too much. No one had come to feed them or offer water. Ana’s lips were already parched this morning, and the situation got worse as afternoon became evening.

Out of frustration, Ana walked to the door and pulled on it. “Hey! Hey, I’m talking to you!”

Her guard turned his head slightly, but not all the way. She still hadn’t gotten a good look at his face, just the back of his dirt-speckled short black hair. She did, though, glimpse the long barrel of a shotgun before it disappeared again.

“Hey!” Ana shouted, pulling on the door. The chains and door quaked with her efforts. “I know you can hear me! Who are you people? What do you want with us? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Like the last six or so hours, she didn’t hear a peep out of the man.

“What did he say?” Shelby asked.

She glanced over and caught him grinning mischievously at her.

She grunted. “This isn’t funny, Shelby.”

“Who’s laughing?” the young slayer said. He stood up and walked the short distance over to her. Then, dropping his voice to almost a whisper, “I think it’s time.”

She stared at him but didn’t ask what he meant by it’s time. She already knew. He had come to the same conclusions as she had. Their captors weren’t going to tell them a damn thing, and by the time they discovered the reason for the ambush, it was going to be too late. She knew it and Shelby knew it, even without either one of them putting their thoughts into words.

Ana nodded, and they walked away from the door, putting more space between them and the lone figure outside.

When they were as far as they could go, Ana leaned close to Shelby. “What about Randall?”

Shelby looked briefly over at his friend. There was a steely look on his face that she hadn’t seen before. The jocular kid was gone, replaced by a man who slayed monsters for a living.

God, he looks so much like Wash.

“I don’t wanna leave him. Trust me, I don’t,” Shelby said. “It’s the last thing I wanna be doing right now. But we don’t have any choice. We can’t do anything for him if we’re all locked up in here when those jackoffs finally show their true colors. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t have very good feelings about what they’ve got planned for us. We need to get out there, get our hands on some weapons, and then come back. What are they gonna do, shoot him while he’s unconscious? If they were gonna do that, they’d have done it already. No, I got a feeling they kept us here for a reason, and whatever that reason is, it’s gonna happen when night falls.” He shook his head and pursed his lips. “I don’t wanna be stuck in here when that happens. Rand would understand. He’d do the exact same thing in our shoes. This is the only move, Ana. I wish it wasn’t, but it is what it is.”

Wow. Is this the same kid I’ve been traveling with the last few days? Ana thought, but didn’t say anything.

Instead, she gazed intently at Shelby and knew that he meant every word of what he’d just said. This wasn’t a spur of the moment thing, but a course of action he had been thinking about for hours now. It was dangerous, and they would have to leave Randall behind, if just temporarily, because what other options did they have?

She thought about all the things that could go wrong, running the scenarios over and over in her head. And single every time, Ana arrived at the same conclusion: He’s right. We don’t have any choice. It’s stay here or die, or… Fight back and maybe die anyway. But at least it’ll happen on our own terms.

She glanced at the door one more time. “What about Chris?”

“I’m not leaving her behind, either,” Shelby said. “I’m not leaving anyone behind. But we can’t do anything for them from in here.”

Ana nodded. “No, we can’t.” Then, “You know how to do it?”

“I’ve been checking out the walls.” He took a couple of steps back before stopping and placing his palm against a moldy section of a board. “Termites have done most of the work for us. I can finish it off.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Shelby. You sure?” She sneaked another look at the door. “We might only get one chance at this.”

Shelby rubbed the board with his palm before pulling his hand back and wiping dirt on his pants leg. “We’re running out of time.” He glanced down at his watch. “An hour, maybe less, before sundown. You know what happens then.”

“All right,” Ana said. “Whenever you’re—”

Shelby smashed his boot into the board he’d been touching only seconds ago, and a big, jagged hole opened up in the back of the shack.

Goddammit, Shelby! Ana thought but didn’t get the chance to turn it into a shout before the young slayer threw his entire body into the opening and snapped three of the connecting boards in half as he lunged outside.

Despite Ana’s original fears, the shack remained standing even though every inch of it was trembling and layers of dust from the ceiling rained down on top of her head and shoulders. But she was already turning and practically threw herself out of the exit that Shelby had created for them.

Night was coming, but it wasn’t here yet, and there was still strong sunlight outside to temporarily blind Ana as she stumbled her way out of their prison. Even as she gathered herself, blinking away the stinging light, the only thought that raced across her mind was, The guard definitely heard that. He’d have to be dumb and blind and dead not to have heard that!

Just as she thought that, Ana wondered who else had heard Shelby’s exit and snapped a look over her shoulder and back into the shack—

Randall, on the floor, as still as he’d been when she’d checked on him last time, only minutes ago. Seeing him like that, oblivious to the world—to the craziness happening all around him—made her wonder for the umpteenth time if he wasn’t actually dead or in some kind of coma. How hard had Ball Cap’s partner struck Randall with that shotgun of his?

Ana’s attention snapped back to the present when she heard footsteps coming from nearby. She turned to her left just in time to see the barrel of a shotgun appearing, then heartbeats later, going from being pointed at the ground to rising, rising—

Shelby, fleeing across the wide-open spaces, with only ten or so meters between him and the cover of a run-down-looking warehouse. But he wasn’t there yet, and there was no way he was going to make it in time—

“No!” Ana shouted, just before she slapped both extended hands against the shotgun barrel as it took aim at Shelby.

The boom! was earsplitting, and Ana didn’t know if she’d done enough to throw off the man’s aim because she was too busy falling, falling, until she finally crashed into the ground. Dirt erupted around her as she rolled onto her back and grimaced, pain slashing through her body from everywhere.

She coughed as dirt swarmed her, the sun above shining down like a big spotlight. There was relief when a silhouette appeared above her and a dark face looked down. Ana’s eyes abandoned the detail-free face and dropped slightly to the shotgun in the man’s hands as he racked it. An empty shell ejected and arced through the air, and Ana stared after it, mesmerized by its flight path.

“That was a stupid thing to do,” the shadow said, before he turned the shotgun and pointed it at her face.

Ana sighed and closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

Wash

Twelve

He regained consciousness to the tick-tick-tick-tick of the watch on his left wrist.

I’m dead. (Or worse.)

But he wasn’t.

Aren’t I?

No. He wasn’t. He was still alive, because he could still hear the tick-tick-tick-tick. Dead men couldn’t hear. He also couldn’t wrinkle his nostrils at the overwhelming stench of death. He could hear and smell, which meant he was still alive.

Why aren’t I dead?

Unless he was wrong. Unless he was dead but just didn’t know it. Could you retain your sense of smell and hearing after death? He didn’t know the answer to that one. He’d never died before. He’d come close a few times. (A lot of times, actually.) But he’d never actually succumbed. Sooner or later, that would change when his luck ran out. Sooner or later, he would lose, and it would be all over.

But not yet.

Despite the wave of ghouls stuffing themselves in the RV, into the small bedroom in the back, he wasn’t dead yet.

Why aren’t I dead?

He opened his eyes. It was harder than it should have been. There were sticky fluids over his eyelids. More, dripping down his cheeks and jaw.

Thick. And smelly. Disgusting.

Ghoul blood. I’m covered in ghoul blood.

He closed up his sense of smell and began breathing through his mouth. Another sniff of the foul odor might have made Wash gag. Or throw up. Or throw up while gagging. None of those possibilities were very appealing.

I’m still alive. Why am I still alive?

He remembered fighting for his life, then being overwhelmed. Roy and June screaming, but mostly June. He recalled the terror coming from the little girl. And then he was on the floor, scrambling and trying to fight, but losing, losing against the tide.

And now he was here.

Why aren’t I dead?

That was the question that bounced around in his head, even as he opened his eyes fully and took in his dark surroundings. He was in a building, with just enough streams of moonlight coming from holes and slits along the walls to see with.

Wash blinked, forcing his night eyes to adapt to his new environment. He became aware of a painful straining along his arms. Both of them. His legs, too, were overly outstretched, and he could barely touch the dirt ground with his toes. Paling strands of old hay were scattered around the floor—or the sections he could make out with his still-adjusting eyes.

He was in some kind of barn or stable. That would explain the random strips of hay. But it didn’t explain why he was still alive.

WHY AREN’T I DEAD?

Wait. His toes. Who took off his boots? He wasn’t even wearing socks anymore. A small, lazy bubble of liquid hung off the big toe of his right foot, just before it let go and fell the short distance and joined a bigger puddle waiting below it. Sweat. It was cold, and he was still sweating for some reason.

Wash glanced up. Or as much as he could. His arms were extended upward, his shoulder joints twisted at impossible angles. A thick rawhide rope dangled from a pair of scarred rafters above. His arms were pressed against one another and held in place by the end of the rope, wrapped so tightly around his wrists that just breathing hurt.

I’m alive.

That was the only thing that mattered. He was still alive, and though every bone in his body ached and every inch of muscle felt as if it were on fire, he was alive. And as long as he stayed that way, he could still finish what he’d promised the Old Man. He could still kill it.

“Maybe you should concentrate on surviving this first, kid,” the Old Man said. “Everything else can wait.”

That was a good idea. He was still breathing, even if it was laborous and his chest was working overtime. That was the good news. The bad? He was strung up and covered in ghoul blood.

I’m alive. I’m still alive…

He clung to that. It was the only thing he had going for him, but it was a big one, even if he couldn’t breathe properly. Having to suck in and expel air using just his mouth didn’t help.

But at least he was alive. At least he had that.

Slowly, his new world revealed itself further. Old wooden walls to his right and left and in front of him (and he assumed, also behind him), along with stacks of hay. Old hay. The ones immediately to his right, about half a dozen feet away, gave off a slightly grayish-white tint. It was probably also sending out a moldy aroma too, if he’d allowed himself to smell anything, which he didn’t. There were empty stalls farther to his left, but no animals in them. There was nothing inside but him.

There was no light, just streams of moonlight invading the empty spaces through a variety of openings that dotted the roof and random points along the walls. This building hadn’t been kept in very good condition, though the rafters were strong enough to hold him not just in place but slightly off the ground on his tiptoes.

Where am I?

He couldn’t pick out anything else of note around him, but the many patches of shadows probably had a lot to do with that. Shadows, and partial darkness, because it was still night outside. And night meant creatures…

…like all those ghouls from the RV.

Wait. How long ago was that?

He couldn’t detect the warm and welcoming encroachment of morning, which meant sunup was still a long way off. In the years since The Purge, and since he took up the kukri and became a slayer alongside the Old Man, Wash had developed a heightened sense of alertness when it came to daylight. And right now, all his abilities were telling him it was still very much night out there.

So where were the ghouls that had assaulted the Winnebago? Had they dragged him here? Where exactly was “here?” And what happened to Roy and June, because he couldn’t see them. Couldn’t even find any traces of them.

Why am I still alive?

He had no answers for that. Ghouls didn’t leave people alive. At least, not the black-eyed ones. They were insatiable when it came to blood and didn’t understand the concept of moderation. They suckled their victims until they were dead, literally bleeding them dry. And after they had nothing left…

So why was he still alive? How had he gotten out of the RV?

The RV…

He remembered the eyes of the man in the trench coat, looking back at him from behind the gas mask. He hadn’t seen that in a long time—men in gas masks. There was a time, after The Purge, when human collaborators would wear them to identify themselves to the creatures. It was an unholy alliance that had come to an end after The Walk Out. Wash had encountered some of those traitors more than once since, and it had always ended badly.

It hadn’t occurred to him at the time (he was way too busy trying to stay alive), but now it was obvious. The man in the coat had used the pickaxe to break in the bedroom door so the ghouls could enter. He was probably also responsible for the crowbar that had opened up the Winnebago. Ghouls didn’t use tools, but men still did.

Collaborators still did…

Putting together the puzzle brought some clarity to the muddled mess, but it did nothing to relieve him of the pain pulsating from his outstretched arms. There was no doubt whoever had strung him up had made sure his feet didn’t touch the ground on purpose. The more to inflict unnecessary pain onto him, no doubt. As if the rawhide burning its way through the skin along his wrists wasn’t enough.

Collaborator sonofabitch.

Or was that sonofabitches? He’d only seen one man back at the RV, but that didn’t mean there was just one of them. From his experience, collaborators usually worked in groups. And yet, he’d only seen one—

What was that?

Something flitting across one of the larger holes along the wall to his right. Wash spun in that direction, the rope cutting into his wrists as punishment for the sudden movement. He gritted his teeth through it and squinted his eyes, watching as whatever was out there vanished beyond the small opening.

Wash twisted to his left, but there was nothing on that side. Or, at least, nothing that he could see, because he had no delusions there was nothing outside the building right now. He didn’t need his olfactory senses to know that. He could feel it around him, in the heaviness of the stale air that invaded his lungs every time he took a breath.

Footsteps, approaching.

Boots. Heavy boots. They filled in the silence between his haggard breathing and the scratching of the rope against the rafters.

Wash spun around again as one of the barn’s two front doors opened, revealing a tall, silhouetted form against a moonlit background. The figure stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Wash knew it was a man immediately, even if he couldn’t pick out the face from the heavy shadows. The height, the broad shoulders, and the way the tail of the trench coat flapped behind him as he turned around to close the door.

The trench coat…

The figure walked over, holding something in his hands. Wash’s kukri, still in its sheath. Wash hadn’t realized he had been disarmed, but of course he was. When he glanced down to check, he saw that he wasn’t even wearing his utility belt with the gun holster and pouches. They had taken his boots (he still didn’t know the reason for that), along with anything else he could use to fight back. They hadn’t bothered with his watch, though. He guessed he should be grateful for that.

The man strode with purpose and confidence toward him. Wash didn’t recognize the face, but the clothes were familiar. The coat, the boots, and those very unfriendly blue eyes. It was the same man from the RV. The human that had opened the door for the ghouls.

The collaborator.

“You,” Wash said.

The man nodded. “Me.”

“Who are you? Where am I? Why aren’t I dead?”

“Which question would you like me to answer first?”

“Take your pick.”

“Keith.”

“Is that your name?”

“What else would it be?”

“Just making sure.”

The other man smirked. “As for the other two questions, you’ll find out soon enough.”

“That means he’s not going to kill you tonight,” the Old Man said.

Yeah, I figured that one out on my own, old timer.

“Just checking.”

Wash said, “You were working with them. The ghouls. You’re a collaborator.”

“You can call me that, if you want,” the man said.

“Aren’t you?”

“Maybe. It just never occurred to me to call myself that.”

The man stopped about five feet in front of Wash, as if he expected Wash to try something like—what? Kick at him with his shoeless feet? Wash couldn’t have done that even if he wanted to. The effort just to swing in any direction would have taken too much out of him. Certainly more than he had right now. Besides, just the thought of it made his bones ache even further.

“Why am I still alive?” Wash asked.

“Like I said: You’ll find that out soon,” Keith said. “I wouldn’t be in such a hurry if I were you.”

“If you’re not here to chat or to let me down, then why are you here?”

“Make sure you’re still breathing. And it looks like you are.”

They were close enough now that Wash didn’t need extra lights to see what the man looked like. He was in his late thirties, with short black hair and gaunt cheeks. A big, nasty scar ran across his forehead, shifting shapes every time Keith raised his eyebrows even slightly. He had a good four to five inches on Wash, and despite the thick clothes to protect him from the cold night, had a wrestler’s build.

Wash tried to imagine all the scenarios where he could take Keith in a one-on-one fight and came up empty.

“That’s what guns are for,” the Old Man said. “Or knives. Either/or.”

I might have neither in a fight.

“Then I guess you better be real careful around him.”

Thanks for the advice.

“This is unique,” Keith was saying as he pulled the kukri out of its sheath. The blade was still coated in a thin layer of milky ghoul blood. “What do you call it?”

“A kukri,” Wash said.

“Good name. Sounds exotic. You made it yourself?”

“Someone made it for me.”

“Who?”

“I’ll tell you as soon as you tell me why I’m still alive.”

Keith put the knife away, then shoved the sheath into his belt behind his back. “You already know the answer to that, but you keep asking it anyway. Why is that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you?”

“No.”

“I doubt that.”

“If I already know the answer, then it can’t hurt to tell me.”

Keith narrowed his eyes at him. “I can’t tell if you’re playing games with me, kid.”

Wash could have taken offense to being called kid, except the guy wasn’t entirely wrong. There had to be at least ten years between them, and Keith clearly had a lifetime’s worth of experience if all the wrinkles on his face were any indication. In a lot of ways, Wash’s captor reminded him of the Old Man. Except, of course, the Old Man would never be caught dead working with the ghouls.

“You got that goddamn right,” the Old Man said.

“I’m not playing with you,” Wash said to Keith. “Look at me. You think I’m in any position to be playing games with you? I don’t know what you want with me. Or why you kept me alive.” Then, “Where are they?”

“Who?” Keith said.

“The kids. Roy and June.”

Keith shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“What the hell do you mean, you don’t know? They were in the RV with me.”

“I mean, I don’t know what happened to them.”

“Bullshit.”

“My orders were to bring you here. The kids…” He shook his head, and there was something on his face that almost looked like… Regret? Was that regret on Keith’s face? “I don’t know what happened to them.”

Wash narrowed his eyes back at Keith. “You fucker. They were just kids.”

“I saw them,” Keith said. “I know what they were.”

“You fucker,” Wash spat, and strained against the rope.

Not that he got very far, and Keith knew he wouldn’t because he didn’t move a single muscle. There might have been something that could possibly—maybe—pass for regret on Keith’s face earlier, but the eyes that stared back at Wash now did nothing to soften the hatred Wash was feeling for the man.

Especially when it came to June. Little June, with her round, cherubic face. She was the only reason he was still alive. She’d gotten Roy not to pull the trigger when he had the chance. Even if Roy’s gun had been empty, there was nothing to stop him from using Wash’s own weapons on him. Instead, they had saved his life and pulled him into the RV. That was probably June’s idea, too.

I’m sorry, kid. I’m so sorry.

The taller man continued staring at Wash, as if trying to read him.

Finally, he said, “To answer your question, you’re in Jasper.”

“Jasper?” Wash said.

He knew that name.

Right. Jasper.

He remembered Roy telling him about the place:

“They weren’t exactly looking to get noticed, if you know what I mean… It seemed like a nice place. Had nice people.”

“Had nice people,” Roy had said. Wash wondered what the teenager would think now about Jasper and its citizenry.

“Did you know them?” Wash asked.

“Who?” Keith said.

“Roy and June. The two kids.”

Keith shook his head. “No.”

“They were here before. In Jasper.”

“Maybe they were, but I didn’t see them. But, I’ve been a little busy lately,” Keith said before he turned and began walking away.

“Hey!” Wash called after him.

“Hang tight,” Keith said without stopping. “Morning will come soon enough. And then we’ll be out of each other’s hairs.”

“Come back here,” Wash said, even though he didn’t expect Keith to obey. “Do you hear me? Come back here, you fucker! I’m going to rip your fucking heart out!”

Keith ignored him and stepped outside, the door clicking closed behind him. Wash heard what sounded like chains jangling, then silence.

He sighed and sagged against the rope. The strain against his wrists introduced more pain, but Wash was too tired and annoyed and pissed off to acknowledge it.

“Time to get control of yourself, kid,” the Old Man said. “You can’t rip anyone’s heart out if you don’t make it out of here.”

Those kids are dead, old timer.

“I know that. And you know that. But you can’t do anything about it now.”

He killed them by letting those ghouls in.

“I know, kid. I know. But there’s nothing you can do about that now. Get control of yourself. Concentrate. Concentrate!”

Wash slowed down his breathing, then pushed it out slowly.

Then inhaled again…

“Now. You remember what he said?” the Old Man asked. “About bringing you here?”

Yes.

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘My orders were to bring you here,’” Wash said out loud, just under his breath.

“Yup. That’s what he said, all right,” the Old Man said. “The question is: Whose orders was he following?”

Wash didn’t answer the Old Man. Which was to say, he didn’t answer his own thoughts.

“I think we both know the answer to that one, don’t we?” the Old Man asked.

Wash remained quiet.

“Don’t we, kid?”

“Yeah,” Wash said again, out loud. “Yeah…”

Thirteen

Keith didn’t return all night, and when morning sunlight finally poured into the barn from the rafters above and over Wash’s face, he opened his eyes just in time to see a thin figure slipping through one of the twin doors in front of him.

A woman this time, moving with purpose. The hem of her white dress brushed the filthy floor behind her, not that she seemed to notice as she walked across the building toward him. Wash wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or not that it wasn’t Keith. He had a lot more questions for the man and a few more choice four-letter words.

He smelled blood, but it wasn’t coming from the woman. It was in the air, wafting around his head. Sunlight had stripped the tainted ghoul blood from his face, along with the parts of his exposed body and clothes that they could touch, leaving behind a strong, acidic odor that was impossible to ignore. He welcomed it if it meant not having the disgusting things clinging to his skin. His cheeks tingled, as did his forehead and chin.

He breathed through his nostrils again—a nice change of pace after last night—and focused on the woman as she approached. She had left one of the twin doors open behind her, not that it did Wash any good. There was too much bright sunlight, and all he could make out was a wall of light beyond the rectangular opening.

The same rawhide rope that dangled him from the rafters continued to bite into his wrists, but by now Wash had gotten used to the sensation. He was pretty sure he was bleeding up there, the blood—his blood, this time—trailing down his outstretched arms underneath his jacket sleeves. He couldn’t feel it, and maybe that was a good thing.

Thanks to the growing warmth in the room, his uncovered feet weren’t freezing like they were last night. For some reason—maybe because the rope was sagging a bit from his heavy weight—it wasn’t just his toes touching the hay-covered floor now. The soles of both feet were flat again, which was a relief after having to “stand” on his tiptoes all night. At least, the hours when he was conscious, anyway.

All in all, the situation had gotten brighter—literally and figuratively—this morning. Though every inch of him was aching, the pain was bearable. Not that he wouldn’t give anything to get out of this mess, but like the Old Man used to say, just because he wished for something, it didn’t make it automatically true.

Wash concentrated on the woman. Late twenties, short blonde hair, and tall. She was skinny, but not too thin. She was carrying a beat-up metal pail in one hand and a rag that was almost as dirty as her dress in the other. Water sloshed around inside the small container, and Wash licked his lips, though of course he wasn’t going to drink that. He had a hunch that the rag had been in that bucket once or twice before the woman carrying them arrived at the barn.

“Breakfast time?” Wash asked.

She didn’t answer. She also wasn’t nearly as frail as her lanky frame would suggest, and she was easily carrying the bucket in her hand. She didn’t lose a single drop as she put it down in front of Wash, then dipped the cloth inside it before wringing the liquid out.

Yup, I’m definitely not drinking that.

Wash licked his lips again anyway at the sight of water. It had only been a day or so (Less? More?) since the last time he’d tasted anything liquid, but he swore it was years. There were little furry creatures moving around inside his mouth, tickling at his throat. He did his best to fight back the thirst, to not let it show on his face, but it was probably a lost cause.

His visitor didn’t say anything as she began wiping down his face with the rag. The contact with cold water made him wince slightly, but he quickly got over it. She cleaned him from forehead to chin, then moved around his dangling body to get at the nape of his neck.

“Are we going somewhere?” Wash asked as the woman worked. “I feel like I’m being cleaned for something special.”

She remained quiet as she dipped the rag back into the pail and wrung out the blood and grime before returning to work on his hands. She pulled up his jacket sleeves to get at his arms.

“Keith still around?” Wash asked. When mentioning Keith’s name didn’t elicit a response, he said, “I know, he’s busy, right? Apparently Keith is busy a lot these days.”

He was hoping Keith’s name would elicit a response, but he only got back silence. Even as the woman worked, Wash was still thinking about what Keith had said last night.

“My orders were to bring you here,” the man had said. Then he’d added, “Morning will come soon enough. And then we’ll be out of each other’s hairs.”

Morning was here, but Keith wasn’t. What did that mean?

“Maybe she knows,” the Old Man said.

Maybe, Wash thought, and said to the woman, “What’s your name?”

The woman didn’t offer it as she jerked his jacket sleeves back into place and dipped the rag into the pail to cleanse it again.

“I’m Wash,” he said.

She was kneeling next to the bucket when she looked up at him with something he thought might have passed for amusement. “Wash?”

“Yeah.”

“Your name’s Wash?”

“Yes. What’s yours?”

“Is that short for something?”

“Washington.”

“I could have guessed that,” she said, standing up and lifting the bucket with her.

“What’s yours?” Wash asked again.

She turned and walked across the barn.

“What’s your name?” Wash called after her. “Can you at least tell me your name? Keith told me his.”

The woman was at the door when she looked back at him. “Lyla,” she said, before she stepped outside and the door clicked shut behind her.

So now he knew there were at least two people in Jasper: Keith and Lyla.

“And this helps you how?” the Old Man asked.

I don’t know.

“What do you know?”

He knew that it was morning, and Keith had promised him something would happen in the morning that would make Wash no longer the man’s problem.

“It’s morning now,” the Old Man said.

Yes, it is.

“So where’s Keith?”

Good question, Wash thought. Now that’s a good question…

* * *

Lyla came back twice to feed him. The first time with some stale bread (though it tasted like the best thing ever), and the second time with chunks of SPAM. The meals weren’t nearly enough to replace all the energy he’d lost in the last forty-eight hours, but they were a lot better than nothing. In fact, they were a hell of a lot better than nothing.

The first time she returned, Wash tried to engage her in conversation—he’d gotten her name out of her, which meant she wasn’t completely closed off from him—but she didn’t bite. She fed him small pieces of bread carefully, as if she were afraid he might try to bite her fingers off as she pushed food into his open mouth.

When she was halfway back to the door, Wash said, “Is it here?”

That made her stop, but she didn’t turn around. And yet, he could see her head moving slightly, as if she wanted to look back at him but something was holding her back.

“It’s here, isn’t it?” Wash said.

Then she was gone.

Dammit, he thought, and had to wait five more hours before she returned. He couldn’t see his watch (he could hear it tick-tick-tick-ticking just fine, and it was hard to guess the time from the ticking seconds), but he guessed it had to be around four in the afternoon. Midday had already come and gone hours earlier.

“Time flies when you’re strung up in a barn,” the Old Man said.

No shit.

As Lyla scooped SPAM from a tin cup into his mouth with a spork, Wash tried to catch her eyes. She had soft hazel eyes that complemented her sharp facial features. He’d thought she was attractive when he first saw her despite the dirty one-piece dress—she hadn’t changed since this morning, and he was wondering if she had anything else to change into—but was sure of it when she got closer to feed him his meals.

He was starving and devoured the SPAM despite the grimy taste. It might have already gone bad, but he was in no position to turn it away. His first priority was to retain some semblance of strength, and he couldn’t do that without eating. So he swallowed the slimy chunks down without complaint and sought out, found, and kept contact with his caretaker.

“How long have you lived in Jasper?” he asked. “Were you here before The Purge? Did you settle here afterward?”

He had other questions, like why couldn’t he hear anyone else moving around outside the barn? Where was the rest of Jasper’s population? Was there anyone here besides Lyla and Keith?

Lyla stayed silent, but he thought she might have been thinking about the answers instead of just ignoring him. Or maybe she was weighing whether to respond or not.

“Do you have any family?” he asked. “What about a husband? You must have a boyfriend. You’re too pretty not to have a boyfriend.”

That last one got a smirk from her. It was a small thing, but it was a response—the first response to his myriad of questions.

“Open up,” Lyla said.

Wash did, taking another chunk of SPAM, while noticing that the tin was running low. Two more sporks, and he would be out of time.

Better make them count, then.

“I’ve never heard of Jasper, and I’ve been everywhere,” Wash said.

“Everywhere?” Lyla said.

“Almost everywhere.”

“No one’s been everywhere. Even before everything happened.”

“And that is what gets her talking?” the Old Man said.

Hey, whatever works, Wash thought.

He said out loud, “Okay, maybe not everywhere, but I’ve been to a lot of places. A lot of states and a whole lot of towns.”

He opened his mouth for another bite.

One left…

“But I’ve never heard of Jasper,” Wash said as he chewed, then forced the meat (or whatever SPAM was made of) down his throat a little at a time. He was hungry, but the damn thing just tasted so bad. He wondered if that was because it had already gone bad. He couldn’t remember if SPAM had an expiration date.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to talk with your mouth full?” Lyla asked.

“Nope. No one has.”

“Well, someone should have.”

“I guess you just did.”

“I guess I did.” She sporked the last piece and held it up. “Ready?”

“Is it just you and Keith here?” Wash asked.

“Open your mouth.”

“Tell me who else is in Jasper first. I can’t hear anyone out there. Is there anyone other than you and Keith out there?”

“Open your mouth.”

“Not until you tell me more about this place.”

She let out an exasperated sigh. “If you don’t open your mouth and eat this last bite, I’ll leave with it. I don’t think you want that, because it’s the last thing you’ll get today.”

Wash relented and opened his mouth, and she fed him.

He was still chewing, trying to swallow the last of the food down, when she turned around and said, “No.”

“No?” Wash said as he forced down the SPAM.

“No, it’s not just Keith and me.” She walked back to the door. “There’s a lot of other people in Jasper.”

“Why can’t I see or hear any of them?”

“They’re scared of you.”

“Me? Why would they be scared of me?”

She stopped halfway to the door but didn’t turn around.

“Lyla?” Wash said. “Why are they scared of me?”

“Because of who you are,” Lyla said.

“And what’s that? What am I?”

“Because of why Keith brought you here,” she said, and turned to go.

“Where is Keith?”

Lyla didn’t answer him and opened the door.

“Where is Keith?” Wash asked again. “He said we’d be out of each other’s hair by morning. It’s morning. So where’s Keith? Lyla, where’s Keith?”

The door clicked shut after Lyla.

* * *

He couldn’t force or trick or cajole more answers out of Lyla because she didn’t come back after his feast of SPAM. Instead, Wash was left to hang from the barn’s rafters, a posture his body had adapted to, mostly because he had lost feeling in both arms. He wouldn’t even know his arms were stretched over his head if he didn’t look up, and it made him wonder if he’d be able to do anything if someone showed up and cut him down in the next few seconds.

Hopefully I’ll get to find out.

Because the alternative was…not good.

“That’s an understatement,” the Old Man said.

I’m trying to be optimistic.

“This is your idea of ‘optimism?’”

Something like that.

The Old Man laughed, but Wash ignored it.

“You know you’re just ignoring yourself, right?” the Old Man asked.

Wash ignored that, too.

Eventually, night arrived, and the town of Jasper…didn’t change whatsoever. The only difference that Wash could detect was darker air inside the barn that forced the dirty floor and random carpets of old hay he knew were scattered around him into the shadows. He kept waiting for Lyla to come back, or for Keith to show up and make good on his ominous promises, but neither one did.

Left to his own devices, and unable to do anything but hang around (Har har, now that’s a good one.), Wash thought about the last thing Lyla had said before she left:

“They’re scared of you,” she had said.

“Me? Why would they be scared of me?” he had asked.

“Because of who you are,” Lyla said. “Because of why Keith brought you here.”

That last sentence stuck in his mind. That, and what Keith had said to him last night:

“My orders were to bring you here.”

Wash didn’t have to think too long or too hard to understand what they were saying, even if they didn’t come right out and say it. He had to admit, though, that he didn’t think it would work out quite this way. He’d imagined it bloody and violent, not with him hanging from a barn’s rafters all day long, bored out of his mind.

“Better bored than dead,” the Old Man said. “And look, it’s getting darker. Maybe you won’t have to be bored for very much longer.”

Yeah, maybe.

The barn had become colder as more shadows appeared in its corners. Eventually the day disappeared, and Wash waited to hear the telltale signs of nightcrawlers finally coming out of their hiding holes, finally making good on Keith’s promise. But the night dragged on, and he couldn’t hear or couldn’t make them out through the slivers along the sides. The doors also remained closed.

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

Nothing. Nothing out there, and nothing in here with him.

No ghouls, or Keith, or Lyla—

The faded, distant pop-pop-pop of gunfire, coming from beyond the walls.

Now what?

Wash turned toward the sound. They were faint, obviously coming from far away, but there was no denying what they were. He’d heard them too many times, in too many situations, not to recognize the bursts of semiautomatic gunfire when he heard it.

Pop-pop-pop…

Pop-pop-pop…

Wash looked back at the door, expecting Lyla or Keith (or maybe someone else—something else) to burst inside, but no one did.

Pop-pop-pop…

Pop-pop-pop…

It wasn’t coming from nearby, he knew that much. Definitely not in the town of Jasper itself, or anywhere around it, but from much farther away. Sound carried these days, and in this flat part of Texas, without even a shrub to provide any kind of obstacle, he could have been eavesdropping on a gun battle from many miles away.

“Someone’s having a party, and they didn’t invite you,” the Old Man said. “Now that’s just rude.”

Maybe my invitation got lost in the mail.

“Good one,” the Old Man said, and Wash was smiling dumbly to himself when—

Bang! as one of the twin barn doors slammed open and a black figure rushed inside. Moonlight flooded into the barn, silhouetting the figure as it hurried across the open space toward him—

Lyla.

She was wearing a jacket over pants, and instead of sandals she had on boots that looked a size or so too big for her. Her face was flushed as she approached him, but Wash forgot all about that when the knife appeared in her hand.

“Wait—” He got out just before she slashed—

And he fell, his limp legs folding underneath him. His knees slammed into the cold, hard ground, and his arms, formerly extended over his head, flopped uselessly in his lap. Wash wasn’t even sure if he could feel them anymore, much less get them to do anything. The rope that had been holding him up all last night and most of today was severed about a foot from his still-bound wrists.

Lyla crouched next to him, white clouds rushing out between pale lips as she hyperventilated. She had either been running before she reached the barn or—

Scared. She was scared.

No, more than that. She was terrified.

“We have to go,” Lyla said. “Can you walk?”

“What’s happening?” Wash asked.

“Can you walk?”

He nodded, even though it was a lie. He didn’t know if he could actually walk until he tried, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. The poor woman looked as if she’d been to hell and back, and he couldn’t tell which one of them had been hanging in the barn for the last twenty-four hours.

“Come on,” Lyla said, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him up with a heavy grunt.

Wash tried to help out as much as he could, but getting the circulation back in both legs took longer than the few seconds he had. Eventually, he managed to stumble up to his feet and wobbled for a few seconds, but he could feel himself getting stronger, more in control of his appendages with every passing heartbeat. His arms, too, were coming back, but thank God the bruising and bleeding around his wrists were still mostly numb and he hardly felt the tingling against the cold air. Mostly.

“My wrists,” Wash said.

“Later,” Lyla said, and turned to go.

“Lyla, I need my hands free.”

“Later.”

“No, Lyla, now.”

She faced him again, and he thought she might argue, or get mad and run away, leaving him behind. Instead, she sighed and began cutting into the rope with her knife. It was a tactical blade, the kind Wash had seen other slayers carry. It was black and sharp, with a serrated back, and not something he’d ever associate with a skinny woman like Lyla. A big, burly ex-Marine, maybe.

“Marine, kid,” the Old Man said. “How many times have I told you? There are no ex-Marines, there are just Marines.”

Yeah, yeah.

Lyla was still cutting him free when he asked, “What’s happening out there? Who’s shooting?”

He could still hear the echoing action in the background. The continued, almost dry pop-pop-pop of automatic rifle fire. It was either one hell of a gunfight or one hell of a last stand.

“Lyla,” Wash said when she didn’t answer him. “What’s happening out there?”

“He’s back, and he’ll be coming here soon,” Lyla said, her voice dropping to almost a whisper.

She was trying desperately to cut him loose. It should have been an easy task—the knife looked sharp enough, the blade gleaming dangerously in the moonlight—but it wasn’t, mostly because her hands were shaking so badly.

Jesus. What’s she so afraid of?

“Are you really asking that question?” the Old Man said.

Oh, right.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Lyla was saying, still whispering.

“How long do we have?” he asked.

“I don’t know. We just have to get out of here.”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide, the fear plastered on every inch of her face. “You understand, right?” Then, her voice almost cracking, “You understand, right?”

“Yes,” Wash said. “I understand.”

Relief washed across her face, and Lyla finally managed to cut through the last inch of rope. She immediately turned and ran toward the door.

Wash followed on her heels, even as the Old Man said, “Isn’t this what you wanted, kid? Isn’t this why you chased it all the way down south?”

Yes, it is.

“Well, you’ve found it,” the Old Man said. “Or should we say, it’s found you. The real question is: Now what are you going to do about it?”

Fourteen

Jasper remained eerily quiet, even when Wash finally managed to escape the barn. The only sounds were still the gunfire in the distant background, the echoey pop-pop-pop reaching out to them from a far enough distance that Wash couldn’t even see hints of muzzle flashes in the suffocating blackness.

“Where’s all that shooting coming from?” he asked Lyla.

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

She had answered too fast, and Wash didn’t believe her.

“What are they shooting at?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

What do you know? he almost asked but didn’t. Right now she was helping him, and Wash didn’t want to introduce anything that could even remotely be interpreted as conflict between the two of them.

There’ll be time for that later, he thought, remembering where he’d been—or actually, how he’d been—the last day or so.

He concentrated on the town around him instead. Jasper wasn’t exactly a big place, but he could make out buildings. The barn where they’d been keeping him was at the edge of town, with almost everything else behind him and nothing except a lot of flat, open land—at least the parts of the area that he could make out with the naked eye—on the other side.

The closest building looked as decrepit as the barn he’d been kept in all day. Flickering lights from lamps emanated from a few of them, but the rest were dark. He could make out a street—just one—that ran through Jasper proper. More buildings up ahead, but it was hard to get a better look without any lights. Jasper, whether on purpose or not, was dark and in lockdown. Wash could recognize people who were trying very hard not to be noticed when he saw one.

With only moonlight to see with, Wash couldn’t really gauge the true size of Jasper, but if anyone had noticed his escape, no one came out of their homes to stop him. That, he thought, was the takeaway here, not how hidden Jasper was. He was finally free.

“Now let’s keep it that way,” the Old Man said. “We got things to do, nightcrawlers to kill.”

You’re goddamn right.

Then Lyla was moving, going around the corner. Wash jogged after her and didn’t stop until he’d caught up. His legs were working fine now that he’d gotten them used to walking again. He was getting feeling back in his arms even though his wrists remained numbed, but numb was better than pain.

Definitely better than pain.

“Where are we going?” Wash asked, glancing behind him, when a new burst of automatic gunfire ripped across the night. This time he saw something he hadn’t seen before.

Well, that’s new.

Or maybe it wasn’t new, but he’d just noticed it now because his eyes had finally adjusted to the new normal outside. It was a brightness in the distance, flickering in the darkness like a wick candle flustered by the Texas wind. It was rising, slowly rising, into the pitch blackness from the same general direction where Wash had determined all the shooting was coming from.

“That’s a fire,” Wash said. “Something’s on fire.”

“Forget about it,” Lyla said.

Wash turned back to her. “That’s where the shooting’s coming from. Where is that?”

“Just forget about it,” Lyla said. “We have to go. We have to get away.”

She definitely knows something she doesn’t want to tell me, Wash thought, but said, “Away where? Where are we going?”

“Away from here.”

“Lyla, what’s—”

She stopped suddenly and turned around. Wash took a step back, surprised by her quickness, and fully expected her to tell him to shut the hell up and just follow her.

Instead, she took something out from behind her back that was hidden under her jacket. “I couldn’t get everything of yours, but I got this,” she said, and held it out to him.

His sheathed kukri. “The last time I saw this, Keith had it. Where is he, by the way?”

Lyla didn’t answer. She turned around and kept going.

Wash, now feeling less naked with the machete, hurried after her. “What happened to Keith? Lyla. What happened to Keith?”

She shook her head but didn’t look back at him.

“Lyla,” Wash said. “What’s going on? Why did you help me escape?”

She stayed quiet.

“Lyla. Hey, Lyla!”

He reached over and grabbed her wrist. She whirled on him, her eyes wide with shock, and struggled to get free.

Despite everything he’d gone through, Wash was much stronger, and he didn’t let go of her. “Keith. Where is Keith?” Then, when she still wouldn’t answer, he said again, louder this time to let her know he meant business, “Where is Keith?”

She glared at him and kept trying to pull free.

“We’re not going anywhere until you tell me where Keith is,” Wash said. He didn’t let go of her wrist but did relax his grip a bit. “Lyla. Where is Keith?”

She seemed to finally accept that she couldn’t pull free and stopped fighting him. Then she looked past him.

Wash glanced over his shoulder, back toward the small fire (or, at least, it looked insignificant from where he stood) and the shooting. He could still hear the faint pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire.

He turned back to Lyla. “Keith’s there, now. It’s another town, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “I don’t think it has a name. Maybe it used to, but no one remembers it. It’s just a bunch of old buildings around a church now. It’s been abandoned for a long time, but…”

“Not anymore?”

“Not anymore.”

Wash let go of her wrist. She stepped back and rubbed at it, giving him a look that told him she was hurt, both physically and emotionally, by his aggression.

“I’m sorry,” Wash said.

“You should be,” she snapped back.

“Always the ladies’ man, aren’t you, kid?” the Old Man said, laughing.

Oh, shut up, Wash thought, and said to Lyla, “Tell me about the town. What’s happening there now?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you know Keith is there.”

She nodded.

“What else?” he asked.

She shook her head, when Wash asked, “Is it there, too?”

Lyla froze, her eyes widening into saucers.

“Oh yeah, it’s there,” the Old Man said.

But because he had to be sure, Wash asked Lyla, “Is it there right now? With Keith? Is that why they haven’t dealt with me yet?”

Lyla wouldn’t answer him, and when Wash put one comforting hand on her shoulder, he could feel her entire body trembling.

“Lyla,” Wash said. “I need to know. Is it there? Now?”

“Not for long,” she said. “It’ll be back.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“When, Lyla?”

“Soon,” she said, staring over his shoulder. “They drew it away. The people who took over the no-name town. Keith had to go, too. That’s why I came for you.” Her lips were quivering slightly when she looked back at him. “We have to go. They’ll be coming back soon. Keith, it, and all the rest of them.”

Lyla turned, hesitantly, to go. Maybe she was expecting Wash to grab her wrist to stop her again, but he didn’t.

Instead, he watched her go.

After five steps, maybe six steps, Lyla realized he wasn’t behind her, and stopped and turned back around. “What are you doing? Did you hear what I said? We have to go.”

“I can’t go,” Wash said.

“What?”

“It’s the reason I’m here.”

“I don’t understand…”

“The creature,” Wash said. “It’s why I’m here in the first place. But you already know that. Keith told you.”

Even in the darkness, Wash could make out Lyla’s cheeks turning paler, as if Wash had stepped over her grave.

“It has one eye, doesn’t it?” Wash said. “A one-eyed, blue-eyed ghoul.”

Lyla didn’t answer, but her shoulders had drooped slightly. She didn’t have to say a word. He could read it all over her face.

Yes. The answer was yes.

“You should go,” Wash said.

She walked back to him. “You’re not coming with me?”

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?”

“I can’t, Lyla.”

She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, trying to understand, but having trouble.

“You should go before they come back,” Wash said.

“But you’re not coming,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“No.”

“You’re going to stay here?”

“I can’t leave.”

“You can’t, or you won’t?”

Is there a difference? Because I don’t see a difference.

He said instead, “Get going before they come back.”

“They’ll come after me…”

“They’ll have other things to worry about.”

“You don’t understand. The only reason I helped you escape was so you could help me get out of this place. I can’t survive out there on my own. Have you been out there?”

Wash almost laughed. Had he been out there? He’d been surviving out there since he was a teenager. First on his own, then with the Old Man. He knew exactly what was out there, but he didn’t think Lyla needed him to confirm her greatest fears about the world outside Jasper.

“You’ll be fine,” Wash said, and thought, Did that sound convincing? Shit, I hope that was convincing.

“What if it comes after me?”

“It won’t.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because it wants me, not you. It’s not going to come after you. At least, not until it’s done with me, and it’s not going to be done with me that easily.”

“What about Keith? He’s working with it.”

“Working with it, or working for it?”

“Is there a difference?”

Good question, Wash thought.

“He does what it tells him to do,” Lyla said. “He says it’s to protect us, to keep the town safe, but…”

“You don’t believe him?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She shook her head, desperately searching for the right answer. “I just know that I can’t keep doing this. I can’t live like this. Jasper is a prison. It didn’t used to be, but that’s what it is now.”

“You think Keith will come after you?”

“Maybe…”

“If he’s working for One Eye, he’ll stay behind until it’s done with me,” Wash said. “It won’t come after you, and neither will Keith, for a while,” he added, and thought he was almost convincing that time. Almost. He had no idea if Keith would stay behind, but that was also not something Lyla needed to hear tonight.

She shook her head. “You’re crazy.”

He grinned and thought, Yeah, I know, but said, “Good luck.”

“Here, you’ll probably need this if you’re going to do what I think you’re going to do.” Lyla took a small plastic bottle out from her pocket. “Painkillers. I don’t know what they are, but our doctor—or the closest thing we have to a doctor in town, anyway—gives them to us for pain. I stole a bottle.”

Wash took the bottle, opened it, and shook two of the small, round white pills straight into his mouth.

“Wait, don’t—” Lyla said, but he was already crunching the pills between his teeth.

“What?” Wash said.

“They’re pretty strong. You probably shouldn’t have done that. One is usually enough.”

Wash gave the bottle another look, but there were no labels on it. “Should be fine.”

“You better hope so,” Lyla said as she began backpedaling. “You’re crazy for staying here, knowing everything you know. Why are you doing this?”

“I made someone a promise,” Wash said.

“Well, I hope they appreciate it,” Lyla said, before she twisted around and broke off into a sprint.

Wash watched her slipping into the darkness beyond two buildings, the pale black colors of her jacket fading, fading…before disappearing completely.

Yeah, I hope he appreciates it too, Wash thought as he turned around.

He smelled it about a split second before the hairs on the back of his neck turned to spikes. That was just enough warning for Wash to reach for the kukri, tighten his fingers around the handle, and take one, two, three steps away from the nearest wall.

It plummeted down from the night sky and slammed into him, knocking Wash to the ground and all the breath from his lungs. Its stink clawed its way into his nostrils, while icy-cold and pruned black flesh scraped against his exposed skin. His legs buckled and he went down, but thank God the creature was as light as a feather, and instead of burying Wash into the soft, wet dirt with the impact, it just pushed roughly against him as he landed on his back. Not that it still didn’t hurt, because it could have been much worse if the creature were bigger or heavier.

He got his legs underneath it and catapulted it off him, then rolled away—one revolution, two revolutions—and was scrambling to his knees a second later. He drew the kukri, spinning around on his knees as the nightcrawler, already back on its feet, lunged at him, bony fingers raking at his face. Wash jerked his head back, the stench of rot on its fingernails-less hands caressing his cheek as they swept past.

He wasn’t entirely sure how he was moving so fast. Maybe it was all muscle memory taking over, refusing to acknowledge his sore joints and aching bones, because there were definitely a lot of those. However he was doing it, Wash let it happen.

He stumbled back, still moving on his knees. There was no time to bend his legs and rise fully to his feet. The creature wasn’t going to let him anyway, as it threw itself at him a second time, going again for his face.

Wash struck out with the machete, aiming for its exposed throat. He cut into the side of its head instead, entering at the spot where its left ear used to be, and the sharp blade of the kukri exited halfway down the bridge of the nightcrawler’s nose. The undead thing’s flesh and bone offered no resistance whatsoever. Its body flopped forward and to the ground, slamming with a lifeless thump even before the severed top half of its body landed with a squishy plomp next to it.

Wash staggered up to his feet and had to reach for one of the nearby walls to keep from going right back down. He sucked in some of the cold air, ignoring the foul smell emanating freely from the dead ghoul at his feet. It wasn’t moving. They never did once you hit them with silver.

He looked left, then right, then upward into the black sky. He expected more. When you saw one ghoul, you usually got its partner or two—or a dozen. But the creature was alone. Wash should have been glad for that, but it just stoked more of his paranoia. It couldn’t have just been one of them out here, could it?

“Maybe this is your lucky night, kid,” the Old Man said.

About damn time.

Wash pushed off the wall and walked back to the barn. The building was as unremarkable-looking on the outside as it had appeared from the inside. He looked past it and toward where all the shooting was coming from. It wasn’t hard to find. All he had to do was seek out—and locate—the burning wick in the pitch darkness.

“They drew it away,” Lyla had said. “The people who took over the no-name town. Keith had to go, too. That’s why I came for you.”

Wash tightened his grip on the kukri. The blade was slick with blood, and he bent slightly to clean it off using some pathetic-looking weeds sticking out of the ground. The dead ghoul lay behind him, unmoving, but it had seen Wash. Which meant…

“It’s seen you, too,” the Old Man said.

Yeah, I know.

Wash slid the machete back into its sheath and started walking again. No one had come out from any of Jasper’s buildings to stop him earlier, and no one came out now. They might have missed his escape, but there was no way they could have been deaf to the streams of gunfire out there. Not tonight.

“See no evil, hear no evil,” the Old Man said.

That seems to be the plan.

He looked toward the fire. It may or may not have grown in size in the last few seconds. Or maybe that was just because the fire had begun to spread. From his distance, he couldn’t be sure of anything.

Nothing, that is, except where to go.

Wash took the bottle Lyla had given him and shook out two more of the round, white pills. He popped them into his mouth and this time swallowed them without bothering to break them apart with his teeth first.

“Might want to go easy on that. Never know when they’ll come in handy later,” the Old Man said.

Wash started jogging toward the fire and the echoing pop-pop-pop.

“It knows you’re coming,” the Old Man said. “You know that, right?”

I know.

“But you’re still going. You’re still running right toward it.”

I guess I am.

The Old Man laughed. “Hey, if you gotta go, might as well go in a blaze of glory, right? That’s the slayer way, after all.”

The night opened up in front of him, and Wash ran straight into its underbelly, using the flickering flames in the black sky as a beacon.

Here I come, you fucker. Here I come…

Ana

Fifteen

Ghouls.

There were ghouls all around her.

There wasn’t one, or two, or ten. Maybe she could have dealt with ten. (Yeah, right.) Or twenty. (Now you’re just daydreaming.) But there was more than that. More than the ones she could see. A lot more.

My God, where did they all come from? Where have they been hiding all this time? I didn’t even know there were this many still alive!

This wasn’t exactly where she thought she’d end up after staring at the barrel of a shotgun pointed down at her face less than four hours ago, but here she was anyway. The question was: Did she regret running south after Wash?

Yes. Yes she did.

But it wasn’t like she had any other choice. He’d saved her sister’s life and saved hers, too, from something even worse than death. What would Mathison have done to them if Wash hadn’t burst into the cabin, with guns blazing, like some maniac cowboy? She’d managed to get the upper hand on Mathison before then, sure, but there were all his men outside still to deal with. To get through all of that, alone, with a scared girl depending on her…

Wash had changed all that, and they escaped together—Ana and her sister. And Wash, too, though there were a few moments when she didn’t think she’d find him alive in those woods after all the shooting was over.

Everything led her here. This no-name town, where the only thing worth saving was a big white church without a cross on top. She knew now why the buildings looked so abandoned. That was because they were. They hadn’t been lived in or kept up for years, maybe even before The Purge dramatically decreased the human race. This place had always been dead.

And as luck would have it, she was going to be too, very soon.

Yeah, I don’t think this qualifies as luck, girl.

She would have chuckled to herself if she could make her mouth move, but her jaw was too busy opening wide at the sight of the creatures as they slowly, oh so slowly, appeared out of the darkness around her one by one by one.

There were five that she could see at first. Then three more joined them. There were more out there that she couldn’t see but could smell. The air stung with their stench, groping at her cheeks and wide-open eyes and trying to choke the life from her.

Good. Then maybe I won’t have to see what happens next.

There were plenty of times in her life when she felt helpless, but Ana was always convinced there was a way out of them. Even a sliver of a path to freedom was better than none, and she was usually very good at spotting them. Here, she couldn’t see it. She couldn’t even imagine one, no matter how hard she tried.

It didn’t help that her sense of smell was being dominated by the fresh hell that was ghoul presence, and all she could concentrate on was the drip-drip-drip sounds her blood made as they fell from the tips of her fingers and down to the dirt ground.

Blood. Her blood.

One of her captors had cut three strips into her forearm with a knife Ana wasn’t sure wasn’t rusted. That was after they had tied her to a pole. She didn’t know where the pole had come from; it hadn’t been there this morning when she arrived with Randall and Shelby in the truck. Maybe they had put it up while she was locked in the shack earlier. But it was here now, and she was fastened so tightly to it with thick ropes that breathing took effort and she could feel every wooden splinter pricking at her back.

Drip-drip-drip.

The cuts, thank God, weren’t large or deep enough to kill her. But that, she assumed, was the point. Like sharks in the ocean, the ghouls could smell blood. That was, if the large fire gathering steam as it crackled underneath the dark night sky behind her wasn’t already enough to attract their attention. That was the reason for all of this, the answer she had been desperate to know while imprisoned earlier.

She was being used as bait.

But not just her…

Ana glanced over at Randall. They’d strapped him onto his own pole next to hers, the ropes wrapped around his body literally the only thing holding him upright. His chin rested against his chest, his disheveled and wet (Why is his hair wet? I’m freezing out here.) hair draped over his forehead. She couldn’t see his eyes, and she could just barely detect his chest moving underneath his shirt. Maybe. It was difficult to be 100% sure with the fire behind his back, causing shadows to grow in front of him.

Don’t be dead, Randall. Don’t be dead.

She hadn’t gotten a good look at him as they were dragged across the town and roped into place. Ana had been too busy trying to get a solid grasp of what was going on, where they were being taken, and, more importantly, why. She found that last part out very quickly when night fell and the smell in the air changed. Her skin tingled, and she saw the first one stepping out from between two of the smaller buildings in front of her.

I’m bait. Me and Randall. That’s why they attacked us. That’s why they didn’t bother talking to us or do anything with us during the day. Because this was the plan all along.

To use us as bait…

The church was about fifty yards behind her, far enough that she wasn’t in fear of being swallowed up by its flames but close enough that she could feel the heat seeping through her clothes. There was no way for her to avoid what was about to happen. Oh sure, she could close her eyes and attempt to block out all her senses, then wait for the inevitable. But that wasn’t how Ana was raised or how she’d lived her life before, during, or since The Purge. She didn’t give up when the world went to shit, and she wasn’t going to just surrender now.

That suddenly defiant thought made her renew her fight against the rope—a blend of polyester and nylon fabric—but it was as useless now as it’d been when she started an hour earlier. It was too tight and bit into her arms even through her long sleeves. When she’d seen Ball Cap bring it out, she thought it looked like something a cowboy would use to round up cattle. Ana guessed that wasn’t too far from the truth.

Dark black eyes were watching her struggle, and Ana thought again, Where did they all come from? Where have they been hiding all this time?

They moved under the cover of darkness, from between buildings and patches of thick shadows. The air grew denser with each new figure, moonlight gleaming off their hairless domed heads and dirty black skin. It should have been difficult to make them out against the blackness of night, but it wasn’t. The light from the fire behind her danced off their solid obsidian eyes.

She snapped a quick glance over at Randall again. Blood dripped from his own wounds cut along his forearms, mirroring her own. Poor Randall. He hadn’t woken when they dragged him across the town and hadn’t opened his eyes when they tied him in place. They’d manhandled him, and a part of Ana thought the slayer was playing dead, that he was already conscious but was just waiting for the chance to surprise and overwhelm their captors.

But no. Randall just wasn’t…here.

You’re lucky, Randall. You’re so lucky you don’t have to see this.

Ana turned back to face the creatures. The closest one was only twenty yards away and moving cautiously toward her. Too cautiously. It had a stump for a right arm, but there was nothing wrong with its legs—as thin and frail as they were. Did it know this was some kind of trap set up by Ball Cap and his allies? She’d never seen nightcrawlers act so hesitant when there was prey available. Not when they had all their limbs.

She thought about the last time she’d come face-to-face with a ghoul. That was in Mayfield. Or, precisely, a basement under the town. The asshat Gabriel had put her down there and tied her to a chair before tossing a ghoul in with her. He’d done it as an experiment, to see how long it would take the creature to get to her. Fortunately, that ghoul was incapable of moving fast.

This one moving toward her, and its peers, had no such trouble.

And yet, here they were, biding their time. They sniffed the air—sniffed her—but they were showing amazing discipline. That should have relieved her, but the oddity of it just produced more paranoia.

What were they doing? What were they waiting for?

Drip-drip-drip as blood fell to the ground, forming small puddles near her feet. She’d moved her legs slightly to keep her boots from getting splashed. That was the only real control she had over her body right now. God only knew the rest of her was exactly where her captors wanted them.

Out here, exposed—bait.

Drip-drip-drip.

Drip-drip-drip…

And yet, Stumpy Ghoul squinted (Did ghouls squint? Could they?) tentatively back at her, before almost grudgingly taking one step forward, then another. Its hollowed, dark eyes shifted left and right, its one fully intact left arm hanging limply at its side like a useless appendage. Why was it moving so slowly? What did it see or smell or hear that she couldn’t, that kept it so hesitant?

It wasn’t just this one nightcrawler, either. The others were the same, even as more of them stepped out of the shadows and began forming an almost jagged circle around her and Randall. There might have been more behind her that she couldn’t see, but she chose not to think about that. It was bad enough knowing what was in front of her; she didn’t need to imagine what was back there—

The first gunshot startled Ana, but it was worst for Stumpy Ghoul. The creature’s head snapped back just before it flopped to the ground. She had no idea where the shot had come from, just that it had originated from somewhere behind her.

Silver bullet. Someone just shot it with a silver bullet.

That was the only reason Stumpy Ghoul hadn’t picked itself right back up.

The others knew it, too, and they stopped their forward momentum to look at the crumpled ghoul.

Okay, now turn and run away, you fuckers.

They did turn and run—except instead of fleeing they ran toward her, and Ana thought, Oh, hell.

Pop-pop-pop!

A continuous stream of gunfire this time, also coming from behind her. Rounds struck ghouls in their tracks and dropped one, two—five of the creatures. Another nightcrawler was between strides and toppled comically forward on its face while both bow-legged feet were still in the air. It landed in a pile, bones clacking.

There was more than one shooter, she was sure of it, because nightcrawlers were dying to the left and right of her. Two more, making a beeline for her and Randall, when they too slammed into the hard earth. She swore she’d felt the zip! of a bullet passing her right ear that time. Despite that close encounter, she was happy for the results.

Pop-pop-pop!

Pop-pop-pop!

Ghouls were falling all around her, but that seemed to only encourage more of them to come out of the shadows.

Jesus Christ. Where are they all coming from?

They raced out of the darkness, the deformed edges of their faces glowing orange against the church fire burning behind Ana. But instead of charging at her and Randall, they were streaming off in different directions. Away from them.

There was a burst of elation as Ana realized the nightcrawlers were going after the shooters, as if she and Randall didn’t even exist anymore. But that quickly gave way to uncertainty. They were fine now, but what happened if the creatures managed to get to Ball Cap and his buddies? The answer was easy: They’d return to her and Randall. And they would have all night, with no one to stop them.

A shiver ran up and down her spine at the thought.

Pop-pop-pop!

Pop-pop-pop!

She swore the shooting had picked up even as the number of ghouls seemed to multiply. They were appearing in packs of twos and threes now, and again she thought, Where are they coming from? How are there still so many of them out here?

She knew all about the occasional ghouls hiding in the woods, using the thick crowns to stay out of the light. There were stories about ghouls hiding underground, digging shallow graves to stave off the sunlight. Then there were the tales about the ones roaming the cities, using all those abandoned buildings and apartments as nests. Not just undead nightmares, but the human monster variety, too.

The clanking echoes of feet pounding on corrugated steel drew her eyes to more of the creatures. They were racing across rooftops now. Was that where the shooters were? It made sense for Ball Cap and his friends to lay in wait high up, so they could see the entire town—

Someone screamed, and Ana twisted her body, trying to look behind her. It was an impossible task, and all she got was another eyeful of Randall’s slacked form fastened against his pole.

But the scream. It’d sounded like a woman. Or a girl.

Chris? Was it Chris? It could have been anyone.

God, don’t let that be Chris…

Or maybe it was little Betsy, the curious girl from earlier, who had gone missing after Ana and Shelby’s attempted escape.

The ghouls were completely disinterested in her and Randall now. The ones on the ground, that she could see in the flickering light of the church fire, were going around them. The ones moving among the shadows were appearing and disappearing in and out and above the buildings that surrounded her.

Had she misjudged the creatures? Maybe they weren’t as dumb as she had always believed. Instead of throwing number after number to reach her and Randall, exposing themselves to the light and gunfire, they were now targeting Ball Cap and his friends, who hid among the houses and in the darkness. Was it possible that everything she thought she knew about ghouls was wrong?

Ana was still trying to grapple with that possibility when she felt it—a sudden change in the air. It had grown cold. Colder than it had been seconds ago—

No, not cold. Warm. It was warm now.

But how was that possible?

She looked away from the shadows, and forward.

What is that?

Something pulsed in the darkness. It had appeared out of the thick canvas of nothing in front of her, like the embers of a dying campfire. Except this one was growing with every breath she managed to draw in and every puff of white cloud that left her lips.

It took a second—maybe less than that; maybe just half a heartbeat—for her to realize what she was seeing.

An eye. She was staring at a blue eye.

Pop-pop-pop! as the shooting around her escalated. Someone screamed—then someone else joined them.

Somewhere, not too far away, a shotgun fired.

Then another…

But Ana didn’t avert her eyes from what was in front of her. She couldn’t, because the glowing blue orb was looking back at her.

Right back at her.

There was no mistaking it. It had seen her and had locked on. She swore it was glowing, throbbing against a calm ocean of black tar. Too mesmerizing for her to look away, to pretend she didn’t know it was.

Ana forgot to breathe as she waited for the other blue eye to appear, to join its cohort. What was taking it so long?

Except there continued to be only one in the darkness, drawing her in with its suffocating brightness.

It was a blue-eyed ghoul.

A one-eyed, blue-eyed ghoul…

Sixteen

“The one I’m looking for’s got one eye. The right one. Have you seen it or heard someone seeing something like that around here?”

She was looking across the dark night at an eye. The right one. She knew that because of the shape of the head. It was thin and long, unnaturally stretched, with a jaw that almost seemed to extend lower than (humanly) possible.

“You’re looking for one of them? No one looks for the blue eyes.”

She’d said those words to Wash the first night they met, when he had asked her about a one-eyed, blue-eyed ghoul. The very idea of such a thing was ludicrous. A one-eyed, blue-eyed ghoul? Was there even such a thing?

Apparently, yes, because Wash was looking for one. It was the reason he was down here in Texas. That had led to her following him south and straight into this mess.

“It’s down there, isn’t it?” she remembered asking him. “One Eye. The blue-eyed ghoul you’re looking for. It’s in Texas. How were you going to find it? Like you said, Texas is a big place. It could be anywhere. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that the blue eyes are good at hiding.”

Texas was a big place (Everything’s bigger in Texas, right?), but it wasn’t big enough, because here she was, staring at death itself.

Ana didn’t remember the last time she breathed in the cold air that was tinged with the smell of dead ghouls and gunpowder. All she could concentrate on was the dark, silhouetted figure in front of her, looking back at her.

Does it know me? God, please don’t let it know me.

She squeezed her eyes tight, hoping to will it away.

Go away, you fucker. Go away!

She couldn’t ignore the pop-pop-pop of gunfire, occasionally broken by the boom! of a shotgun blast. What was once just shooting from behind her had now spread out to all along her left and right. The fighting was coming from everywhere all at once. If this was Ball Cap and his friends’ plan, Ana had a feeling it had gone astray.

Someone was screaming. The same person as last time, or someone else? Female or male this time? She couldn’t tell. She was too busy chanting, over and over in her head:

Go away! Go away!

Rain, rain, go away, come back another—

Warm air pressed against her face, heavy and thick like molasses.

Oh…

She opened her eyes.

…God.

It was so close that if she moved her head even just a fraction forward, she would have bumped up against the tip of its chin, because it stood taller than her. Much, much taller. It practically hovered like a father before a prostrated child.

But she wasn’t a child. She was a grown woman, and this…

…and this…

“I’m not going to ask you to go after One Eye with me,” Wash had said. “You won’t want to, anyway. It’s dangerous beyond belief. I’ve already made peace with it.”

She’d understood what he meant even before she asked the question anyway:

“Made peace with what?”

“That it’s going to be a one-way trip down south for me,” Wash had answered.

Because no one went after blue-eyed ghouls. She’d heard stories of slayers who had confronted a couple and gotten out alive, but they’d always taken the challenge on as a group. Or, at the very least, in pairs. Wash didn’t have a partner, and neither did she, now.

Neither did she, now…

It moved even closer (Is that possible?), and Ana stopped hearing the gunfire in the background entirely. She stopped feeling the cold air (or was it warm now?) flowing between buildings and swirling around her. There was just this creature in front of her, invading her space, the unnatural hot and cold emanating from its hairless flesh, encompassing all and making her a part of it.

Oh God oh God oh God.

Her eyes were glued to its skeletal face, its throbbing right eye refusing to let her go. She wanted badly to shrink away, but the rope fastening her to the heavy wooden pole wouldn’t let her do even that. All she could manage was to turn her head slightly, then watch out of the corner of one eye as the creature…sniffed her?

It was so close that she didn’t think there was any space left between them. But that couldn’t have been true, because then their flesh would be touching, and they weren’t doing that yet.

God, please don’t touch me.

Please, please, please…

The monster pulled back slightly, just far enough (Not far enough. Not far enough!) to grin. Or smirk. Or did something with its thin lips (Those are strings—bloody strings—not lips…) that might have resembled a smile in one of those funny carnival mirrors.

“I can smell him on you,” it said. Hissed. Its voice reached out to her ears with an almost dreamlike quality, as if it wasn’t really talking out loud but was somewhere inside her head, its words meant for the two of them only.

Him? Who was it talking about? Who was him? Who was…

Oh.

“The one I’m looking for’s got one eye. The right one. Have you seen it or heard someone seeing something like that around here?”

Yes, Wash. I’ve seen it now. I’m staring at it right now. Right fucking at it.

Slowly, very slowly, the gunfire came back to her senses, but they continued to ebb and flow in the background. She was too busy concentrating on the thing hovering over her, its razor lips forming that ghastly expression it probably thought was a smile but wasn’t. Not really.

“He’s here,” it hissed. “He’s close. Closer than he’s supposed to be.”

Wash. It’s talking about Wash again.

“I’ll go see him when I’m done here,” the creature said, its voice caressing her face, heating and chilling the skin over her turned right cheek.

How is this possible? How is it both hot and cold?

It lifted one of its hands, bony fingers radiating a nauseating stench as they closed in on her face. She tried to turn her head, but it wasn’t going to work. The only escape was to break free from her bonds. It hadn’t been possible before, and it wouldn’t be now, no matter how desperately she wanted it to be.

It traced her forehead with its forefinger, smooth flesh (Warm. Or cold? I can’t tell!) rubbing against hers, creating an odd sensation that she couldn’t decide was horrific or tantalizing or…

Horrific. It’s horrific!

“There’ll be time for you later,” it whispered, leaning closer still. How much space was left? Not much. Not much at all. “You’re special to him. That means you’re special to me—”

The pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire interrupted the creature’s sentence, and wooden splinters flicked at Ana’s cheeks. She jerked her head to the other side, and out of the corner of her other eye saw the ghoul snap its head back as thick, black liquid oozed from a hole in its cheek that hadn’t been there seconds earlier.

It’d been shot. Someone had shot it. Someone had fired at them, striking the pole she was strapped to, but had also managed to hit the creature!

Don’t shoot! You’re going to hit me, you idiot! she wanted to shout, but at the same time, seeing the monster taking a step back as wetness dripped from its face, Keep shooting! Don’t stop now! Keep shooting, you idiot!

The creature tilted its head slightly, its one eye (A one-eyed, blue-eyed ghoul. Jesus Christ, Wash, it’s real. It’s real!) refocusing on her, the still-raging church fire behind her flickering off its ocean of blue.

Then the monster moved—and vanished.

It was there, one labored heartbeat, and gone before she could even hear the thump of another one.

She tried to find it (Don’t look for it! Are you crazy? Just pretend it’s not there! Just pretend none of this is happening!), but there was no trace of the monster. The only evidence that it’d even been there at all was the continued heat and cold of its presence still clinging to her skin, even underneath her thick clothes. That, and the puddle of black blood on the ground in front of her.

Here it is, Wash. The thing you’ve been searching for. It’s here…and it’s found me.

It’s found you.

“He’s here. He’s close,” the creature had hissed. “Closer than he’s supposed to be. I’ll go see him when I’m done here.”

It knows you’re here, Wash. It knows you’re here!

Run. Run, before it’s too late—

The booming blasts of shotguns from behind her, like cannons firing, startled Ana back to the present. They were slightly muffled, which meant they were coming from inside the buildings. That was a sign the battle was moving indoors. Was that good or bad for her? Was any of this good or bad—

An echoing chomp! behind her, and the pole shook slightly.

It’s back. Jesus, it’s back!

She twisted her head to get a look behind her, ready for the worst, but the farthest she got was Randall, still slack against the rope imprisoning him against his pole—

Chomp! coming from behind her again.

Ana turned her head some more—or tried to—hoping to see what was happening back there.

Chomp!

There, a figure (It’s back! It’s back! And it’s doing something to me that I can’t see!) swinging something in its hands.

Chomp! as the metal ax slammed into the wooden pole—

—and suddenly she was free!

Ana fell forward, caught by surprise, and landed on both knees against the hard ground. Pain, but it wasn’t enough to keep her from staggering right back up to her feet, her mind reeling, shouting, Get up! Get up now!

She spun around as a small, dark shadow rushed toward her. “It’s me!” it said, just before Chris appeared in a stream of moonlight, gripping a small ax in one hand.

“Chris!”

The teen smiled and reached for Ana. “You okay?”

“Chris?” Ana said. It seemed to be the only thing she could make her mouth say. Then, again: “Chris?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” Chris said. “We gotta go, okay? We gotta go quick!”

The kid glanced over her shoulder, and for the first time Ana was able to see what was happening back there.

Warped shadows were racing along rooftops and scrambling up the sides of buildings, moving so quickly she could barely follow any one of them. It would have been impossible to see very much if not for the raging fire that was still engulfing the church. It was like a beacon, a siren’s call drawing more and more ghouls out of the shadows. It was also spreading, eating up a couple of nearby structures and going for more.

The staccato flashes of muzzle fire appeared along countless windows, and Ana could make out multiple (Dozens? It has to be dozens.) of unmoving figures on the ground. Dead nightcrawlers. She couldn’t see anything that looked like a human body, but she was too far away (Thank God) from the actual battle to be absolutely sure.

“Ana, Ana,” Chris was saying as she grabbed Ana by the arm. “We have to go. We have to go now!”

Ana turned back to the teenager, standing there with the ax in one hand, her hair plastered to her forehead in a layer of sweat.

“Come on!” Chris said and tugged at her.

“Wait, Randall!” Ana said.

Ana glanced back at Randall. The slayer remained unconscious, his body as unmoving now as all the other times she’d looked. Was he even still alive?

She was reaching for his neck to feel for a pulse when she saw the trail of blood. It was coming out of a hole along the side of his throat. At first, she thought it was a bite mark and imagined a ghoul feasting on Randall while she struggled, unnoticed, nearby. But no, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t teeth marks at all. It was round, and there was just one.

“Is he dead?” Chris asked behind her. “Ana?”

Ana searched for signs that Randall was still breathing, that his wound (Bullet. That’s a bullet hole.) wasn’t fatal. She hoped to find warm breath coming out of his nostrils, but there was none. He had no pulse either, and his chest wasn’t moving. Even his skin felt clammy to the touch, as if he’d been dead for days and not what must have been just a few minutes.

“Ana!” The teenager was tugging at her arm from behind. “Come on! We have to go! We have to go now, while they’re busy with each other!”

She’s right. Chris is right.

Ana turned around and locked on Chris’s eyes. The kid was terrified, and it was all over her face. And yet she’d braved everything to come out here—God knows from where—to rescue Ana. How much courage had that taken?

“Come on!” Chris said, turning and running off.

Ana ran after the kid, even as gunfire, screams, and the crackling of flames filled the night air behind them. But all Ana could concentrate on was what One Eye had said as it towered over her, smiling that gruesome smile.

“He’s here. He’s close,” the creature had hissed. “Closer than he’s supposed to be. I’ll go see him when I’m done here.”

Wash. It was talking about Wash.

It knows you’re here, Wash.

Run! Run away, before it’s too late!

Seventeen

She wasn’t sure how long they ran. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, but her legs were becoming rubbery, so it had to have been longer than that. It didn’t help that the crisp cold air was trying to suffocate her, or that there was simply nothing to look at once they abandoned the unnamed town and the last of the rooftops was absorbed back into the pitch-black night.

She could still locate the town whenever she glanced back, thanks to the fires that had begun to spread to even more buildings. The orange sky above the town grew larger and wider every time she peeked backward to make sure no one (no thing) was chasing them.

For now, it was still just them out here.

Stay that way. Please, dear God, stay that way.

She was running alongside Chris, and had been for some time, until the teenager began to slow down. Ana did too, until they were both walking, before stopping completely. They both took the opportunity to grab their hips and sucked in deep lungfuls of welcoming, cool air.

“Ana, you’re bleeding,” Chris said as she reached over.

“What?”

“You’re bleeding.”

Ana looked down at her forearms, at the scars from the bloodletting. The pain had numbed, allowing her to forget about them even though there was still blood coming out of the cuts. There was also something else she hadn’t noticed until now: A large splinter sticking out of her left arm, just above the elbow. She remembered a bullet striking the pole she’d been tied to, maybe from the same group of bullets that had struck the blue-eyed ghoul and, possibly, killed Randall.

“Does it hurt?” Chris asked.

Ana shook her head and pulled the splinter out and flicked it away. It didn’t hurt. Or, at least, she didn’t allow it to hurt. After what happened to Randall, and maybe Shelby, too, she didn’t have any right to whine about a little splinter.

“I have something,” Chris said. She took a handkerchief out of her pocket and began ripping it into smaller strips.

“Shelby,” Ana said. “Did you see what happened to Shelby?”

Chris shook her head before tying the strips around Ana’s cuts. It took four—two on each arm.

“What about back there? Just now?” Ana asked. “Did you see Shelby?”

“No,” Chris said. She finished up and handed Ana a couple extra unused strips before wiping the blood on her fingers on her pants legs. “I didn’t see anything. I was just trying to get to you.”

What about the blue-eyed ghoul? Did you see it out there? Ana thought about asking, but Chris hadn’t said anything about it, and she would have if she’d seen it. Ana was sure of it. You didn’t not talk about something like that.

Ana pocketed the cloth Chris had given her. “Come on, let’s keep moving.”

She took the teenager by the hand and they began walking again, putting more distance between them and the town. Ana glanced back one more time, but there was still nothing between them and the wall of flames except black emptiness.

Good. Stay that way. Just stay that way.

“After they attacked the truck, they grabbed me,” Chris was saying.

“Who grabbed you?” Ana asked.

“The ones that attacked us.”

“What happened then?”

“They took me to one of the houses. There were kids there. Some my age, some even younger. And women.”

“Women?”

“Yeah.”

“How many?”

“I’m not sure. I think about half a dozen?”

“Did you see how many men there were?”

“Another half dozen? I’m not sure. They came and went. They were getting ready…” She glanced back at the town. “For that.”

“Did they do anything to you?”

“No. They left me with the women and kids. I didn’t even know where you and the others were. Not until they took you into the center of town and tied you and Randall up to those poles.”

Ana looked down at Chris’s hands. She was still gripping the ax in her right, clutching it so tightly the teenager’s knuckles were visibly white.

“How did you escape?” Ana asked.

“After everything happened, after the ghouls attacked, everything went nuts,” Chris said. “I don’t think they expected it to turn out like that.”

“Who? Did you get a name?”

“Just Mitchell. He’s the leader, I think. The one who knocked Randall out.”

Ana remembered an older man attacking Randall, while the younger Ball Cap struck her from behind with the butt of his shotgun.

Gunfire echoed from behind them, and it took a moment for Ana to realize the night air had been free of shooting until now. How long had it been since the last barrage? Five, maybe ten minutes? Whatever was still going on back there, it was definitely slowing down, even if the flames didn’t seem to be any closer to running out of fuel anytime soon.

“What else did you find out?” she asked Chris.

“They planned this,” Chris said. “They used you and Randall to lure the ghouls here so they could kill them. So they could kill it.”

It? Ana thought, but she didn’t ask the question out loud. The answer came a second later, and she shivered slightly.

“I can smell him on you,” it had whispered to her, its voice strangely…elegant? Was that the right word?

She felt another chill run up and down her spine and hoped Chris didn’t notice that one, either.

“But I don’t think they thought there’d be so many,” Chris was saying. “I think that caught them by surprise.”

“Where did they take you?” Ana asked.

“One of the houses in the back. It had a basement.”

“How did you get out of there?”

“It wasn’t easy, and they tried to stop me, but I managed to slip out.”

“Then what happened? Where’d you find the ax?”

“It was in the house I was being kept in,” Chris said. Then, glancing behind her, and in a softer voice, “I hope they got out.”

“Who?”

“The ones in the basement with me. The last time I saw them, they were still hiding down there.”

The teenager went silent for a moment, and the only sounds for the next five or ten seconds were the soft tap-tap-tap of their shoes on the hard Texas ground. The gunfire, again, had ceased momentarily.

“I hope they’re okay,” Chris said, so quietly Ana barely heard her.

Ana looked back at the wall of flames. It was reaching higher into the sky, maybe because it was finding more and more fuel to grow. Soon, there would be nothing left of the place, not even the house where Chris was being kept. Like the church that was used to lure the ghouls in, there would just be ashes in the morning.

“They planned this,” Chris had said. “They used you and Randall to lure the ghouls here so they could kill them. So they could kill it.”

Best-laid schemes, and all that crap, Ana thought.

She wanted to feel sorry for them. For Mitchell and Ball Cap, and whoever that second guard had been, but it was difficult to muster up the sympathy. She had no doubts those men back there would have done the same to Shelby if he hadn’t escaped. A trifecta of cheese.

“Ana,” Chris was saying. Then, when Ana didn’t respond fast enough, “Ana!”

She turned around and saw Chris pointing at a pair of lights. They were growing bigger and brighter, and at the same time, closer.

Headlights. She was staring at a pair of headlights coming right at them.

She grabbed Chris’s arm and shouted, “Run!”

They broke off into a sprint. Ana held onto Chris’s left hand, which allowed the teenager to maintain her grip on the ax in case they needed it with her right.

Oh, who are you kidding? You’re definitely going to need that ax!

They veered right, hoping to get out of the headlights’ path before they could be spotted, but that turned out pointless. The vehicle was also turning, those same pair of headlights pointing in their direction again.

He’s seen us. Shit, he’s seen us!

“Ana!” Chris was shouting.

“Keep running!” she shouted back.

“But Ana!”

“What?”

“Behind us!”

Oh, Jesus Christ, what now? Ana thought as she tossed a quick glance behind her.

Goddammit. When it rains, it pours!

There were two of them, and they were bounding across the flat Texas plain as if they had rubber for legs and springs for hands. The sight of them—low to the ground like black-skinned jackrabbits—made her wonder if this wasn’t all just some twisted nightmare, and maybe she was still tied up in the no-name town, waiting for the end.

Stop daydreaming, and run! Run run run!

She ran, and so did Chris next to her. Even though both of them were exhausted, they didn’t stop. They couldn’t. They couldn’t.

Either the creatures had spotted them, or they’d been lured to their position by the same vehicle that Ana and Chris were trying to dodge now. Not that the how of it mattered, because all Ana could do was run faster and make sure she didn’t lose her grip on Chris’s smallish forearm as she did so.

“Don’t stop!” Ana shouted. “Don’t stop, Chris!”

Chris didn’t shout anything back, maybe because she was too busy gasping for breath as Ana picked up her pace. It didn’t take long before Chris started to slow down, and Ana found herself tugging at the teenager’s arm more than usual.

Ana looked over at Chris’s sweat-slicked face. Perspiration whipped off her cheeks and chin and hair despite the chilly environment. Chris was doing the best she could, but she was losing the battle. They’d been running since the town, with only that brief walk-and-talk. Ana was tired, too, but she just couldn’t afford to slow down.

Can’t stop. Can’t let us stop!

She glanced back again.

They were closer, their forms growing in size. She thought she could make out the black of their eyes against all that darkness, but maybe that was mostly her imagination at work. She could, though, start to smell them, and it stood up every hair along her arms.

We’re not going to make it. We’re not fast enough. Either that, or they’re faster.

She looked forward, then around her. There was nothing out here, no place to escape to or buildings to hide inside. They were going to have to run and run and run until morning, because the nightcrawlers wouldn’t get tired. She would. So would Chris. They would run out of steam long before—

“Ana!” Chris shouted, just before she collapsed to the ground.

It was all Ana could do to let go of the teenager’s hand, otherwise she might accidentally pull Chris’s arm out of its socket. She slid to a stop and spun around, the brightening headlights getting even bigger out of the corner of her left eye (It’s still there. Of course it’s still there! When it rains it pours, remember?), while her right fixed on the two black forms racing toward them.

“The ax!” Ana shouted. “Give me the ax!”

Chris held the weapon out to her, the sharp blade gleaming in the moonlight, and Ana thought, Is it silver? Damn, I hope it’s silver!

The sharp edge didn’t have to be all silver, just enough coating the right parts to be effective. She would have asked Chris to be sure if she’d had the time, but she didn’t.

Five seconds.

Two. Just two ghouls. That was the good news.

Four seconds…

She told herself it could have been worse. There could have been three or four or a dozen instead of just the two she could make out with the naked eye. Take one out first, then handle the second. Yeah. That’s all.

Three seconds…

She tightened her grip on the ax’s wooden handle. It was a small and compact weapon, but she could feel the nice balance. It was a fine tool. Made for cutting. Made for chopping. Made for surviving.

Two seconds…

Ana didn’t step away from Chris, who was struggling to get back up on her feet. She couldn’t do that, otherwise the teenager might end up a separate target. This way, the monsters would have to come at them, and with her standing in front of Chris, they’d aim right for her. They were predictable that way. It didn’t matter that she had the ax. All they would see was her: Prey.

One!

Spittle flew out the corners of their mouths as dark black eyes, devoid of anything that even resembled humanity, widened exponentially as they pounced.

Ana swung, aiming for the neck of the nearest nightcrawler, but the creature jerked back its torso at the last second, and the blade sank into its chest with a sickening thwack! instead.

Shit!

With the ax still embedded in the ghoul’s body, Ana continued with the momentum of her swing and lifted the struggling creature up with a grunt and swung it into the second one even as it tried to leap past the first. She just barely clipped the other undead thing in the legs, but it was enough to knock it off course.

The ghoul with the blade buried deep in its torso slammed to the earth on its back first. Before it could get up, Ana smashed her boot down on top of its shoulder and attempted to pull the ax out. It should have been easy. The monster should have lain still, the silver in the weapon having done its job, except that wasn’t what happened, because there was no silver in the ax’s blade.

Shit shit shit!

The monster thrashed against the end of the blade, still buried halfway between where its breasts used to be, as Ana struggled to pull the ax free. Finally, finally, she managed to jerk the ax loose. Without wasting any time, she cocked it backwards and over her head before driving it back down and into the ghoul’s skull as it attempted to rise up from the ground.

Her aim was true the second time, and the blade cleaved the nightcrawler’s head in two, from the forehead down, before slicing through its jaw. Blood sprayed everywhere, including Ana’s clothes and chin, but she refused to let the disgust register.

The monster sagged against the ax, but it was still alive, still standing despite its head having been separated into two sections. Gravity was already pulling each half of its head to the sides and downwards, making it stumble like a drunken idiot. It was a grotesque sight, and one that Ana was sure would give her nightmares for years to come if she survived this.

If I survive this! she thought, and swung again, the bloodied blade lopping the stumbling monster’s head off its shoulders.

Ana was sucking in a deep breath, wondering how many chunks she was going to have to chop the creature into before it would no longer be a threat, when a voice screamed out, “Ana!”

She spun toward the sound of the voice (Chris!) and found the teenager fleeing with the second ghoul chasing behind her.

“Chris!” Ana shouted, and took off after them.

Even as her legs pistoned and she tightened her grip on the ax, afraid she might lose it, Ana knew she wasn’t going to reach the teenager in time. At least not before the ghoul did, because it had a head start and Chris was already tired, already slowing down…

“Faster, Chris, faster!” Ana shouted.

She wasn’t even sure if Chris could hear her. She could barely register her own voice with the wind howling in her ears and her heartbeat racing uncontrollably against her chest, pounding away like a drumline on crack.

Oh God, I’m not going to make it. I’m not going to make it.

Oh God, oh God, oh God…

Eighteen

Run faster, you idiot, run faster! Chris is not going to outrun that thing, so you have to run faster.

Faster!

FASTER!

It didn’t matter how hard she pushed herself or how much she ignored the pain; she still wasn’t going to be fast enough. The same was true for Chris, who was tiring. Ana could see it in her shorter strides and the way she kept looking over her shoulder at the undead thing behind her. She was scared, because she knew—knew—that it wasn’t going to be enough.

Don’t stop, Chris! Don’t stop!

The escape from the town, the long trek through the plains before they even saw the headlights (Headlights. Where are the headlights? Find the headlights—No, no, concentrate on Chris. Get to Chris. Get to Chris first!), had tired the teenager out. It was tiring her out, and Ana had gotten a moment’s respite as she battled the first ghoul.

That thing was still back there, somewhere, but she couldn’t afford to find and finish it off. It was already headless, so it wasn’t nearly as dangerous now. Not that the monsters needed eyes to “see” with. She’d heard all the stories and even witnessed it in person. You could chop off their arms and legs and heads, and the ghouls would still keep coming.

But she couldn’t and didn’t worry about the first ghoul as she gave chase, following in Chris’s and the monster’s footsteps. They were too far ahead of her—at least thirty yards. She was cutting into their lead, but it was taking too long.

It was just taking too damn long!

Ana sucked in a lungful of air and shouted out, as loud as she could muster, “Chris! Run! Run! Don’t stop! Don’t stop!”

And Chris did keep running. God bless the kid; she kept running for all she was worth, but Ana could see that the ghoul was catching up. The monsters were always faster when they had all their limbs, their unnatural weightlessness allowing them to move at quicker speeds. The creature was gaining on Chris little by little, by little…

I won’t make it. Oh God, I won’t make it in time.

Bright lights flashed at her eyes, and Ana slid to a stop without thinking, twisting her head to escape the blinding brightness even before she realized what she had done. It was too late, because she had stopped and now there would be no way to catch up to Chris and save her—

The thwump! sounded like a gunshot exploding in the night air.

What…

Ana opened her eyes to a vision of the ghoul flying across the night sky in front of her.

…the hell?

It flew in a wide arc as if shot from a cannon, and landed a good thirty, maybe forty yards away.

How…?

The vehicle. The same one that had been heading right at her and Chris. It was now parked in front of her (How’d it get here so fast?), loose clouds of dirt converging around it like some kind of fog monster. She was close enough to make out moonlight glinting off its damaged side and white paint job.

Ana looked back at the ghoul. It was picking itself up, but slowly. It’d been hurt by that impact. Not enough to keep it down (Silver. I’ll need silver for that.), but just enough to make it wobbly as it stumbled back onto thin chopstick-like legs. But for now, it was no threat. Not to her or, more importantly, Chris.

Thank God. Thank God.

Ana took the moment to grab her waist and catch her breath.

Metal ground against metal as the truck’s door opened and the driver stepped outside.

No way, she thought as the man grinned across the darkness at her and said, “Damn, you run pretty fast for a little ol’ redhead.”

“Shelby,” Ana said, the name coming out in a relieved gasp.

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” Shelby said. He reached back into the vehicle and pulled out a long machete. “Excuse me while I take care of this.”

“Take your time.”

She had to force her legs to move again and walked over to the truck. She was winded, and every breath took way too much effort. She pushed on anyway. She was still breathing, and so was Chris, who appeared around the front hood of the vehicle. The headlights illuminated her filthy clothes and wet face.

“Ana?” the teenager said.

“I’m here,” Ana said.

“You okay?”

Ana smiled. Hey, that’s my line, she thought, but said, “Yeah. You?”

Chris nodded, before running over and into Ana’s arms. She grabbed the kid, suddenly finding strength she didn’t think was there. But there it was, holding the two of them upright while she looked across at Shelby.

The slayer was walking calmly toward the ghoul as it charged at him. It was reaching out with one hand when he slashed at its arm and cut the limb off at the elbow. The monster crumpled, sending up a thin layer of dust, and didn’t get back up.

Silver, Ana thought as Shelby turned and walked back to them. I could have used some of that earlier.

“Ana,” Chris said, her voice barely a whisper.

Ana turned around, following Chris’s gaze.

The ghoul she’d decapitated was stumbling across the desert floor toward them. The lack of a head was clearly affecting its balance, and it swerved left and right, to and fro as it staggered toward her and Chris.

It doesn’t have eyes, but it still knows where we are. How the hell does it still know where we are?

“Shelby,” Ana said.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” Shelby said. He walked past them to intercept the ghoul.

The headless thing turned its entire body, as if sensing his approach. It lumbered forward, and as it did, Shelby sank the machete into a spot between its neck and shoulder blade, and the creature collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.

“It’s over,” Chris said.

The teenager was looking toward the town in the distance, or what little of it they could see. The reverberations of gunfire were gone, but the fire wasn’t. It wasn’t nearly as bright or wide as before, but Ana wasn’t sure if that was because they’d put more distance between it and them, or because the flames were running out of fuel.

She thought about Randall, still back there, in the middle of the town. She hoped he was dead. It was a terrible thing to think, but the alternative…

“Let’s get the hell outta here,” Shelby said as he reached them. “I’ll drive, if you don’t mind.”

“Be my guest,” Ana said.

She hurried around the truck with Chris. They climbed inside while Shelby slid behind the driver’s seat. The young slayer had blood along his forehead, cheeks, and clothes. It was dry, which meant he’d been injured earlier in the day. His face was bruised, but nothing, as far as Ana could tell, was broken.

“Are you okay, Shelby?” Ana asked him.

He tossed the machete onto the floor and put the truck into drive before stepping on the gas. “As peppy and cheery as the day my momma gave birth to me. Why do you ask?”

“You look…rough.”

He shrugged, guiding them through a dark patch of countryside. There was nothing in front or around them, and if not for the orange glow of the no-name town in the rearview mirror, she could easily imagine them driving through some kind of Twilight Zone where nothing existed and there was an endless “road” ahead of them.

“They sent some guys after me,” Shelby was saying. “Had to dodge them all day, but I wouldn’t have made it outta there if you hadn’t provided cover. So thanks for that.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I don’t think they expected me to come back, though.”

Neither did I, Ana thought, but said, “But you did.”

“Of course I did,” Shelby said, as if it was a given.

“Of course you did,” Ana said.

“Got back there in time to see them tying you guys up. Couldn’t figure out what they were up to.” Then, “What the hell were those nutcases up to, anyway?”

“They were using us to lure ghouls to them.”

“Damn. That’s hardcore.”

“I wish I could say it’s never happened before, but it’s not the first time someone’s tied me up and used me as ghoul bait.”

Shelby chuckled. “Right. Back in that Mayfield basement.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“You’re a little Miss Damsel in Distress, aren’t you?”

She sighed. “Shut up.”

Ana looked down at her arms, at the strips of cloth that covered the cuts Mitchell’s people had put on her. There was no pain, just a general numbness. The memories of the blue-eyed ghoul as it leaned toward her, though, remained with her. She shivered slightly and was glad the interior of the truck was dark, or Shelby might have seen it. He might have anyway, but he didn’t say anything if he did.

“Did you see it?” she asked.

“See what?” Shelby said.

“There was a Blue Eyes back there.”

“No shit?”

“It had one eye.”

Shelby shot her a quick Are you messing with me? look.

Ana shook her head. “It had one eye, Shelby. The right one.”

“So it’s true? What your slayer boyfriend said?”

“Yes.”

“Well, shit.”

Ana smiled. That, she thought, was probably the most succinct and appropriate reaction she’d heard to the existence of a one-eyed, blue-eyed ghoul. Her own reaction had been full of doubts and trying to make sense of it, but Shelby’s was so much better.

“Glad I, uh, missed that,” Shelby said.

“Lucky you.”

“Momma always did say I was born under a lucky star. ’Course, Momma says lots.”

“How’d you get your hands on the truck, anyway?”

“They had it parked away from all the action with a couple of other vehicles we didn’t see earlier. Had the key in the ignition and they’d changed the blown tires for me and everything. I guess they were planning on using it later. Hell, it was almost like they were begging me to steal it back. I obliged.”

“And you stayed hidden all that time?”

“Plenty of buildings no one was using. And I’m good at hiding. You’re looking at the hide-and-seek champ of Carthage, Indiana. Anyways, after everything went tits up, saw you and the kid taking off like bandits. Took me forever to locate you guys, though. I was driving in the dark, trying to keep all incognito-like. Must have gone in circles around the town at least a half dozen times. I was almost outta there, when bam, there you were.”

“Thank God you didn’t take off.”

“I almost did. Almost.”

Ana didn’t say anything for a moment.

Then, finally, “Shelby, about Randall…”

“I know,” Shelby said. “I saw what they did to him. He’d be here with you and the kid if he was able, but he ain’t, so…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. You did all you could.” He glanced up at the rearview mirror at Chris in the back. “Where’d the kid come from? Couldn’t find her anywhere all day.”

Ana glanced up at the same rearview mirror at Chris. “It’s a long story.”

“We got plenty of time.”

“Where are we going, anyway?” Ana asked, staring out the windshield at the absolute nothingness before them.

“I have no idea. Figured we’ll drive until we run out of gas.” He glanced at the dashboard. “And that’ll be about ten minutes from now, give or take.”

“Best plan I’ve heard yet,” Ana said, and leaned back in her seat and allowed her body to sag against the soft upholstery. After being tied to a pole all night, even the hard fabrics of the truck were like discovering that heaven really did exist and she had her own private cloud.

Chris reached over and found Ana’s hand, and squeezed. Ana glanced back at her, and the two of them exchanged a brief but tired smile in the semidarkness of the truck’s interior. They didn’t say anything, but they didn’t have to. The relief on both of their faces said it all.

Ana turned back around and closed her eyes, but it didn’t matter how hard she tried; Ana couldn’t forget the feel of One Eye’s presence, the smell of its rotting flesh invading her nostrils, or the words that had come out of its mouth:

“He’s here. He’s close. Closer than he’s supposed to be. I’ll go see him when I’m done here.”

She opened her eyes when the Ford ran over some holes along the uneven ground.

“Sorry,” Shelby said. “It’s dark as hell out there.”

“It’s okay,” Ana said.

She stared out the window at the visible flat countryside lit up by the truck’s headlights. She had no idea Texas was so barren. At least this northern part of it. Where were all the cities? All the small towns? The ranches and roadside gas stations that she’d seen in the movies? Where—

A figure appeared out of the ocean of darkness in front of them.

Oh, no.

Ana opened her mouth to scream, but she didn’t have to. Shelby had already seen it, and he slammed on the brakes. The truck stopped on a dime, and Ana felt the thump! as Chris, in the back, crashed into her seat.

She spun around and found the teenager crumpled up in a ball on the floor. “Jesus. Are you okay?”

Chris looked up at her. “What happened?”

Ana didn’t answer, and instead turned back around and looked out the front windshield at—

Nothing.

It was gone.

It.

Because it was One Eye. It was impossible to mistake its thin, elongated frame as anything but that same blue-eyed demon. The single glowing right eye was the dead giveaway. Even out here, with no lights except for the truck’s to see with, she knew with absolute certainty that Wash’s One Eye had found them.

But how? How?

She couldn’t ask it, because it was gone. There was nothing in front of them except fireflies flitting across the headlights.

Ana looked over at Shelby, who was leaning against the steering wheel, also peering out the mud-caked windshield. “Where did it go?”

Shelby shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“You didn’t see it move?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“You sure, sure—”

Thwump! as something landed on the rooftop of the cab above them.

“Oh, sh—” Shelby began to say, but never got the chance to finish before his driver-side window shattered and the young slayer was sucked outside. Blood splashed the driver’s seat’s upholstery—Shelby’s skin, gashed on the glass fragments sticking along the window frame, as he was brutally pulled outside.

“Shelby!” Ana screamed, but the only reply was the truck’s engine still running, the gear stuck on park.

“Ana?” Chris whispered from the back seat.

“Shhh,” Ana said.

“Shelby…”

“Shhh. It’s still out there.”

“Oh God,” Chris whispered. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

Ana glimpsed Chris out of the corner of her left eye as the teenager slid farther back against her seat, as if hoping to disappear among the shadows. Ana wanted to tell her it wasn’t going to work because it was out there, and right now it could probably hear their racing heartbeats.

All the stories she’d heard over the years, from slayers and civilians, said the same thing: The blue-eyed ghouls were not like the black eyes. They were so much faster, so much harder to kill, and so, so much more dangerous. She’d seen all of that—and more—for herself tonight.

Ana looked down at the ax in her hand. Chris’s ax. She didn’t remember still holding onto it. Clutching onto it. It was nice to have a weapon, but oh God, did she wish it was something else at the moment. The blade, as sharp and tough as it had proven, had no silver coating, which made it nothing more than a blunt instrument against something that wouldn’t go down even if you shot it with silver bullets.

And now Shelby was gone.

The truck. You still have the truck.

The engine was running, turning smoothly underneath the hood despite everything it had been put through. The dashboard next to her trembled slightly, its cracked exterior vibrating, while the maps and various supplies Randall had put into the glove compartment clattered around noticeably. All of it served to draw her attention and tell her that the truck was still good and that she still had the truck!

Now all she had to do was slide into the driver’s seat, grab the wheel, and put the gear into drive.

All she had to do was step on the gas.

All she had to do was avoid the monster if it tried to grab her the same way it had done to Shelby.

All she had to do…was not die.

Oh, that’s it?

And it was so damn quiet out there. Why was it so quiet? Why had One Eye just gone silent? What was it doing with Shelby right this very second? Or was it doing anything with him at all? She couldn’t tell if the monster had left the rooftop above them. She hadn’t heard anything after the initial thwump that would lead her to believe it had jumped down.

It had to still be up there.

Didn’t it?

I don’t know. That’s the problem. I don’t know!

And all she had to do was hop into the driver’s seat and take off. That, and avoid all that fragmented glass sprinkled across the seat, some of which had blood on it.

Shelby’s blood…

What is it doing with him out there? Is it playing with him? Is it…feeding on him?

God, it’s feeding on him, isn’t it? It’s feeding on him!

Ana turned to look into the back seat. She sought out Chris’s eyes, found them, and whispered, “Hold on!”

Chris’s eyes widened, either in confusion or fear—not that it mattered which—as Ana all but threw herself into the driver’s seat. Glass crunched and cracked under her butt, and she ignored the pricking sensation to grab the steering wheel with one hand while the other reached for the gear shift. Trying to pretend she couldn’t feel the cold air outside the shattered window right next to her was a little harder, but she pushed through—

Thwack! as something smashed into the windshield, so hard that it spiderwebbed the glass in front of her.

In the back seat, Chris screamed.

Ana slammed on the gas pedal and held onto the steering wheel for dear life as the truck lurched forward.

Shelby’s body, covered in an impossibly thick coating of his own blood, rolled onto the hood with the sudden movement, landing with a thump!, before bouncing off the side and vanishing into the night.

Ana clung to the steering wheel with both hands to control the vehicle, to keep it from skidding left and right as the gas poured into the engine. Her foot—no, both her feet, for some reason—ground the pedal into the floor in an attempt to make the Ford go faster, faster, FASTER, you stupid piece of shit! Why can’t you go any faster?

Nineteen

She wasn’t entirely sure how long she had both feet on the gas pedal (Is it going faster? Does having two feet on the pedal make it go faster? Dammit, why isn’t it going any faster!) and had it pressed against the floor of the truck. All the way against the floor. It could have been just a few seconds, or a few minutes, or a few hours.

That last option was unlikely, and so was the second one, for that matter. So it had to have only been a few seconds. But how much was “a few” seconds? Two seconds? Three? Ten? What qualified as “a few?”

The answer became irrelevant when it appeared out of thin air and crouched on the hood of the Ford. She didn’t know where it had come from. Had it jumped out of the sky somehow and landed perfectly in that position? Was that possible? Or had it popped up from the ground and smashed its way through the engine block and out the hood?

Impossible. This is impossible.

But there it was, grinning at her through the spidery cracks in the windshield. Or was that mockery? Was it mocking her? Its face was whole again, the bullet puncture in its cheek having somehow closed up. There was no trace of the injury whatsoever.

It was perched on the same spot that Shelby’s body had crashed onto earlier. Ana knew that, because she could still make out the splatters of blood the young slayer had left behind before he rolled off and disappeared.

Disappeared? He didn’t disappear. Shelby is out there somewhere. Maybe he’s even still alive. Maybe he was alive when you drove off and abandoned him.

Just like you abandoned Randall…

She let out a wild scream that forced the accusing voice back, back into the deepest recesses of her mind, while at the same time slamming on the brake pedal.

The truck came to a sudden stop, throwing Ana into the steering wheel. There was a loud thump! as poor Chris tumbled into the front passenger seat in the back again.

At the same time, the blue-eyed ghoul careened into the windshield, its thin and deformed body colliding with the already-cracked glass, making a surprisingly dull whump! As the Ford’s front tires dug into the dirt, the creature jerked backward and rolled off the hood, vanishing into the pool of bright headlights.

Ana’s mind shouted, What are you waiting for? Do it! Do it now! even as she shoved everything she had down on the gas pedal. The truck once again lurched forward, and she felt rather than heard the right passenger tire running over something. She kept going, kept the pedal pressed to the floor, and was rewarded with a second thump!, as this time the rear passenger side tire also hit a bump.

No, not a bump. One Eye. She’d just run it over.

She’d just run it over!

Would that do it? Would that kill it?

But she didn’t need to kill it. She just needed to wound it—to hurt it—and give herself enough time to escape with Chris in the truck.

That was it. That was all she needed—

The vehicle had stopped moving.

No, no…

It didn’t matter how hard or long she kept her boot on the gas. The damn thing wouldn’t move.

No, no, no…

Ana didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to look up and slightly to her right at the rearview mirror. She already knew what she would find back there, even if she couldn’t see it. She could just feel it.

Don’t do it. Don’t do it!

But she did, because she had to. She had to know.

It was behind the truck, its exaggerated stick frame lit by the rear red lights of the Ford, as twisted and frail-looking (Bullshit. There’s nothing frail about that bastard!) as the last time she had seen it crouched on the hood in front of her. Except now it was behind her, and though she couldn’t see what it was doing, she accepted that it had stopped them from moving. Maybe it was holding onto the back bumper or something similarly impossible like that.

“Impossible?” What does impossible even mean?

There’s a one-eyed, blue-eyed ghoul back there.

Nothing is impossible anymore! Nothing!

She stared at it in the rearview mirror, and the monster returned the favor, its one blue eye seeming to glimmer against the rear red lights.

We’re not moving, because it won’t let us move. It won’t let us move!

Slowly, the loud grind of the front tires turning against the hard Texas earth began registering. She didn’t have to look down at the dashboard to see that the speedometer was cranked all the way up, because she hadn’t taken her foot off the gas. She couldn’t. She was too afraid to.

She stared at it, and it stared back. It might have even grinned—or what it probably thought was a grin but was instead an unnatural abomination—except there was a clump of something disgusting on the windshield, in the spot where the creature’s mouth was, and she couldn’t be certain.

How long could it keep this up? Would it eventually tire? Did the monsters even get tired anymore?

Smoke started appearing out of the hood in front of her, partially obscuring her view of (Nothing. There’s nothing out there.) the Texas plains. And still she wouldn’t ease up on the gas. Not even for a second—

Chris screamed, then Ana joined her, when the truck lifted into the air and began spinning like a top. There was nothing but open skies around them as they turned—one revolution, two revolutions! She lost count of how many times they spun, but was thankful when finally, mercifully, they crashed back onto the hard ground with a resounding bang!

Ana wasn’t sure when she stopped screaming. Maybe it was when she found herself gasping for breath, trying desperately to keep her chest from imploding, as she stared up at the driver-side floor and the dirt-stained pedals.

Why was she looking at the floor and not the ceiling?

Because they were upside down.

She hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt when it happened, and she was now crumpled, resting partially on the back of her neck, on top of the truck’s ceiling. The tires were still spinning and the engine continued to bellow from somewhere above her, loose dirt and pebbles cascading down the sides of the windows like dirty rain.

And there, next to her, was Shelby’s machete, still partially covered in ghoul blood. Where the hell had it come from, and how close had she come to getting chopped in half by that thing while the vehicle was spinning in the air?

“Ana!” Chris, shouting from somewhere behind her. Or was that in front of her? To the sides of her? Which side? “Ana!”

“I’m here!” Ana shouted back. “I’m here, Chris!”

“What are we going to do? What are we going to do?”

She didn’t need to see Chris’s face to know the terror the poor kid was going through. Ana recognized it because she could hear it in her own voice when she shouted back, “Stay there! Don’t leave the truck! Don’t leave the truck until I tell you to!”

Ana grabbed the heavily-taped handle of Shelby’s machete and pried herself free from the Ford’s ceiling. It was easy. There was nothing holding her in place, but trying to get her feet under her was a little more difficult—

Something grabbed her left arm, and before Ana could scream or tell her brain to try to pull free, her entire body was snatched sideways. She was unbalanced and having trouble figuring out which side was down, and never really resolved that before she was jerked through the driver-side window and tossed across the darkening sky.

I’m flying! Ana thought, about a second (Two? Three?) before she slammed face- and chest-first into the cold, hard Texas ground.

The machete was jarred from her grip by the impact, and Ana’s mind screamed, No, no, don’t lose the machete! Don’t lose the machete!

Knowing what she had to do and following through were two different things. The fingers of her right hand were scratching at the dirt, hoping and praying that the knife hadn’t gone very far, while her left pushed her body up even if every inch of triumph came with slivers of throbbing pain firing up and down her entire body.

But she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t just lay there and lick her wounds and do nothing. Because to do nothing would be to give up, to let the creature have its pound of flesh. Once it was done with her, it would turn to Chris.

Ana couldn’t let that happen.

She wouldn’t let that happen.

She’d be goddamned if she let that happen!

Ana was able to finally raise herself up onto shaky legs, but at least she wasn’t lying flat on her face like before. Her hands were still empty (The machete! Where the hell is it? Where the hell is it?), and she glanced desperately around her, but there were no signs of the weapon. It couldn’t have flown that far from her grasp, could it? Apparently it could, because she was unable to locate the damn thing. It didn’t help that it was pitch-dark around her, and the only source of light was from the truck.

The truck…

She spun until she found the vehicle lying on its roof not too far away. All four tires were still spinning, but they were starting to noticeably slow down despite the engine continuing to churn. Smoke billowed up from the crumpled hood, but she couldn’t see anything that looked like immediate danger. No fires, at least. So Chris was still safe as long as she stayed inside the overturned vehicle.

Safe? No one’s safe tonight, least of all you!

The ghoul. Where was the ghoul?

She twisted again, searching for it. Her hands formed fists at her sides even as a voice from deep, deep down asked her, What are you going to do? Punch it? Did you miss the part where someone shot it in the face and it just got annoyed?

She didn’t care. She still had some strength left—not a lot, but some—to fight back with. There was no way Ana was going to just sit down and take the beating. She hadn’t when the world ended, not when it recuperated, and not when Mathison took Emily. She hadn’t back in Mayfield, when everything was grim and hopeless, and she wasn’t going to start now.

Not now.

Not right goddamn now.

So where was it? Was it hiding from her? She couldn’t spot it near the truck, and all the lights were there. She couldn’t smell it, either, and these things reeked.

It wasn’t behind her.

Or to her right.

On her left…

So where—

She glanced up, fully expecting it to drop out of the sky and pounce on her, but there was nothing up there except cold wind whipping across the flat Texas landscape, and just enough moonlight to see with. But not enough to give her a better view of everything around her. Not nearly enough.

Chris. Get to Chris!

Ana turned and started running back to the truck. If she couldn’t find the monster, she couldn’t fight it. But Chris was still there, and she could still help the teenager—

“Where are you going so fast?” a voice hissed.

She stopped and spun and swung with her balled right fist even as her mind shouted, Hit it fast, and hit it hard, and pray! Pray with everything you’ve got!

It was so much taller than her, and Ana had to tilt her swing upward almost at the last moment. She landed the punch across its jaw, and its head turned slightly. Slightly.

Then it smiled at her. Or did something with its lips that almost resembled a smile.

“Cute,” it hissed. “Now I know why he likes you.”

She staggered back, hands still clenched into fists. Hitting it had been like slapping a punching bag at the gym. Its flesh had been soft and malleable, like clay, but at the same time, indestructible.

“Oh, go ahead,” it hissed, its voice oozing with mockery. “You know you want to. It’ll make you feel better.”

Ana swung again with everything she had, determined to knock that stupid smirk off its face.

Except the monster lied, and instead of letting her get in another punch, it intercepted her fist in midair.

“You meat sacks,” it hissed, lips curling into that damaged version of a smile. “You’re always so predictable.”

It pushed her in the chest with its other hand, letting go of her trapped fist at the same time. It had moved with such blinding speed that she couldn’t dodge or sidestep or duck in time. Freezing cold swarmed her body as her torso burned with unseen flames (How is this possible?) as she was flung backward, backward through the air.

This is going to hurt, she thought just before she landed on her butt. Her back followed half a second later and slammed into the ground, and pain—pure, miserable pain—spread all over her extremities.

Get up! Get up now, or you’re going to die! Chris is going to die! So get up! I know it hurts, but you have to get up! Get your ass up right now!

So she got up. She didn’t know how, but she did. She raised herself on wobbly feet for the second (Third? Fourth?) time that night and clenched her fists at her sides again. Ana summoned every little strength she had left to remain standing and watched as the creature walked toward her.

Sauntered toward her.

“We’re going to have a lot of fun tonight,” it said. “You, me, and him.”

Again with the him. Who was the creature talking about? Who—

Oh.

It was talking about Wash, wasn’t it? What was that it had said to her back at the town? That it could “smell” him on her?

Wash, it knows you’re here. It knows!

The creature kept coming. Slowly, but with purpose, as if it had all the time in the world. And maybe it did. It knew it had the advantage. It knew she couldn’t beat it. And there was nowhere to run. Absolutely nowhere to run.

The bastard had it all figured out and was having fun at her expense. She could see that realization in its exaggerated walk, in its gaunt face and sallow cheeks and gleaming domed head. And that one glowing blue eye. There was something so odd about it, reminding her again of just how unnatural this creature was.

“You haven’t given up yet, have you?” it asked in an almost singsong voice. “Well, have you?”

“Not tonight, asshole,” she said. Or grunted out. Just breathing hurt.

“Show me,” it said. “Let me see that human spirit. Let me taste it.”

Then it was in front of her—again, moving so fast she couldn’t keep track of it.

Instead of trying to figure it out, Ana swung.

And missed.

It had stepped to the side, its taunting grin widening. Before she could balance herself and strike again, cold, skeletal fingers grabbed her around the throat and lifted her into the air, and Ana thought, This is it. This is the end. God, I’m going to die out here in fucking Texas.

I hate Texas…

But she didn’t die. At least, not right away.

Instead, Ana was moved through the air, maneuvered like she was little more than a rag doll in the hands of an impatient child. There was pain in all her extremities, but maybe the worst was the burning fire in her chest, threatening to cave the universe in on her. Her legs kicked at empty air as it held her up with hardly any effort. She couldn’t even fight back with her boots or her fists because she didn’t know where it was behind her. The damn thing couldn’t even give her that little bit of dignity in death.

“You took your time,” it hissed.

What?

“But you’re finally here,” it said.

Finally here? What the hell are you talking about, you stupid piece of shit?

Ana’s mind went blank when she saw him stepping out of the darkness. He walked toward them with all the patience of a saint, and there was nothing that even looked remotely looked like fear on his face.

She didn’t think she’d ever see him alive again, but there he was.

Wash.

His eyes lingered on her, and Ana felt suddenly embarrassed. She tried to imagine the sight of her face—purple and bruised, her cracked lips bleeding. It was anything but the image she’d wanted to give him when they finally reunited.

There was just a ghost of a smile on his lips, as if he was saying to her, Everything will be all right. Everything will be fine.

She wanted desperately to believe him, but she couldn’t. How could she?

Then Wash looked past her even as he continued walking toward them. He wasn’t armed with anything but that strange knife of his, still in a sheath at his side. He hadn’t even pulled it out yet. Why hadn’t he taken it out yet? What was he waiting for?

“I told you I’d find you,” Wash said. He wasn’t talking to her.

One Eye might have snickered behind her. It made something that resembled a snicker, anyway. “Find me?” it hissed. “You didn’t find me, boy. I allowed you to catch up. There’s nothing you’ve done up to this point that hasn’t been with my blessing. The girl at the farmhouse, the one in the road…”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Wash said.

“The truth hurts.”

“The truth is that I’m going to kill you.”

“You think so, don’t you? You really, really think so.”

“I’ve killed plenty of your kind. What makes you so different?”

It grunted. “I saw you, through one of my children’s eyes. Escaping from the barn earlier. But I knew you wouldn’t follow the woman. I knew you would turn around and run toward the fire. Because that’s who you are. You can’t deny your nature.”

“You told them to hold me in Jasper until you came back. That mistake is going to cost you.”

“Please. I told you I wasn’t going to end our little game until I was ready.”

“Are you ready now?”

“I’m bored now,” the monster said. “So it ends here, tonight—”

The creature stopped in mid-sentence and made what might have been sniffing sounds, and Ana thought, Why is it sniffing the air?

“You’re not alone,” it hissed. “You’re trying to hide someone from me, but I can smell him. I can hear his heartbeat—”

Wash’s eyes had suddenly shifted back to her about a split second before he shouted, “Now!”

Now? Ana thought just before thick warm wetness splashed her from behind and she was suddenly free from the creature’s icy-cold grip.

Then she was falling, falling…

Wash

Twenty

He didn’t hear the gunshot, but he felt its heat as it punched through his left thigh. There was an instant jolt of pain, but not the unrelenting torture that would have accompanied a better-placed shot. It was good enough, though, to knock him down. He managed to stick both arms out just in time to keep himself from eating a mouthful of dirt.

Wash remained that way—on his knees with palms pressed into the ground, bent over like a victim waiting for the final blow—for the next few seconds. He closed his eyes and counted to five. There was no point in getting back up and running. The shooter had already spotted him, and now all they had to do was move their weapon slightly and finish Wash where he kneeled.

Four seconds…

Three…

Two…

One?

Wash sucked in a deep breath before sitting down and taking a long look at his wound. If the sniper was still intent on ending him, he continued to have a perfect opportunity. Wash wouldn’t have even seen or heard the bullet coming, just like he hadn’t seen or heard the first shot.

“Walked right into it, huh, kid?” the Old Man said. “Should have stayed back at the barn.”

I should have done a lot of things. What’s one more wrong move?

For a brief moment, Wash entertained the idea that he’d been clipped by a stray shot from the town he’d been running toward, but that couldn’t have been true. He was still too far from the place; not that it would have been impossible, just very improbable. Besides, while he could continue to make out fire flickering in the distance, the gunfire had lessened to only the occasional volleys, signs that the fighting was almost over.

Wash let the rest of the cold night fade into the background and concentrated instead on his immediate surroundings. Whoever was out there, they were using a suppressed rifle. No one was going to hit him from a distance with a pistol. But there’d been no muzzle flashes. It might have been dark, but his night eyes had adjusted and he was seeing fine enough despite the lack of light. You didn’t do the kind of work he did without developing extraordinary night eyes.

“And yet, he tagged you first,” the Old Man said.

What’s your point?

“Maybe your eyes aren’t as good as you think?”

Wash unfurled the cloth he’d been using to cover up the rope scars on his left wrist and tied it around his thigh. The bullet hadn’t missed by much, but it could have been a lot worse. He would take the small amount of blood over a shattered femur any day of the week. Still, the impact site throbbed noticeably and continued to do so long after he had tied the fabric around it to stanch the minor bleeding. It wasn’t the blood he was worried about; like everything else out here, it was the infection that killed you.

He worked calmly, without hurry. If the sniper had wanted to finish him off, he would have done so a long time ago. So Wash wasn’t worried about that. He’d find out the who and why of it soon enough.

In the meantime, he lay down on the ground to catch his breath and stare up at the dark, starless sky. He was tired, his legs sore even before the shot. How many kilometers had he run from Jasper? Two? Three? Somewhere around there. It was a little tricky to gauge distance when you couldn’t really make out more than a few meters in front or around you at any given time. And no matter how long he ran, the burning town never seemed to get any closer.

“So you’re just going to lie here and wait for death?” the Old Man asked.

Sure, why not.

“I thought you had a mission, kid. What happened to the mission?”

It’s not going anywhere.

“It?”

It…

Footsteps, getting closer.

“Uh oh. Here comes the Grim Reaper,” the Old Man said. “Maybe it’s time to get up now?”

No.

“You sure?”

Yes.

“Well, it’s your funeral.” Then the Old Man chuckled. “It’s our funeral, actually.”

Har har, Wash thought as the tick-tick-tick-tick on his wrist counted down the seconds since the footsteps initially registered.

Thirty seconds now…

Tick-tick-tick-tick…

One minute…

Tick-tick-tick-tick…

“You going to just lie there?” a voice called out. Wash easily recognized the voice.

Keith.

Of course it was Keith. Who else would be lying in wait for him all the way out here, in the middle of nowhere? The man was a bane on Wash’s existence.

“There’s a lot of ways to get rid of banes,” the Old Man said. “That kukri would work just fine.”

The machete was on the ground next to him, where he had laid it down, but Wash didn’t reach for it. His hands—both of them—were on his chest, rising and falling with his shallow heartbeats. He was calm and under control, even as everything Lyla had told him about Keith echoed inside his head.

But it was one thing she’d said that stuck out the most:

“He’s working with it… He does what it tells him to do. He says it’s to protect us, to keep the town safe…”

There’s the angle. There’s my opening.

He sat up and looked forward, in the direction the shot had come from. Keith stepped out of the darkness, cradling a semiautomatic rifle with a suppressor at the end of the barrel. Like that first night when Wash saw him, Keith was wearing black from head to toe; he might have even had the same trench coat on. And there was the gas mask, swaying back and forth from his left hip, over a big sheathed knife. He had a gun holster on his right.

The man walked over casually, his eyes on Wash. Small flickers of flame from the no-name town continued to move sporadically in the background, casting Keith in an almost eerie silhouette that could have passed for the specter of death.

“Not too far from the truth,” the Old Man said.

This isn’t the time, old timer.

“When is the time?”

When I’m dead.

“Soon, then?”

Wash smirked.

“What’s so funny?” Keith asked.

“Private joke,” Wash said.

“Oh, come on. You can share.”

“Not with the man who’s almost killed me twice now.”

“If I’d wanted to kill you either times, you’d be dead.”

“He’s got a point,” the Old Man said.

Yeah, he’s got a point.

Keith stopped about ten meters from Wash, that rifle of his held in such a way that all he had to do was tilt it slightly upward and pull the trigger, and Wash was a dead man. Not that Wash thought Keith was going to do that. Not the “dead” part, anyway, but there were other options available to Keith. Like how he had shot Wash in the leg earlier, when he could have aimed for any body part…

“Nice shot,” Wash said, rubbing his bandaged thigh.

“Could have been better, but you were moving too fast.” He looked past Wash for a second, toward Jasper. “You ran all the way from Jasper?”

“Pretty much. Had to stop to take a breather or two.”

“Impressive.”

“You’re too easily impressed.”

Keith smirked. “I meant for a guy in your condition.”

“No thanks to you.”

“We all do what we have to.”

“Is that why you’re doing this? You’re surviving?”

“What do you think?”

“You’re trying to protect your town. I get that. Maybe I would have even done the same thing, in your shoes. Your back was up against the wall. You didn’t have a lot of options. I get that. I really do.”

Keith narrowed his eyes at Wash. “You’ve been talking to Lyla.”

“How do you think I got out of the barn?”

Keith grunted. “I told that girl so many times…”

He looked past Wash and toward Jasper again, as if he could see it in the distance. “Is she out there somewhere? You didn’t do something stupid like bring her with you, did you?”

“No,” Wash said.

Keith didn’t look like he believed Wash.

“She fled,” Wash said. “She knows where you were, and she went in the other direction.”

“Of course she did.” The Jasper man sighed. “It’s okay. Not the first time she’s done something like this. That kid is too headstrong for her own good.”

The way he was talking about Lyla, including his reactions, struck Wash as funny. He had expected Keith to be angry, but instead there was this odd…acceptance?

“She’s your sister, isn’t she?” Wash said.

Keith looked back at him. “She told you that, too?”

“No. But it’s not hard to figure out. The only people in this world who can drive us as crazy as she’s clearly driven you is family.”

“You speaking from experience?”

Wash shrugged.

“Yeah. She’s my little sister,” Keith said. “Although, she doesn’t always act like it.”

“Family, right?”

“Yeah, family.”

“Is it all true? Everything she said about you and why you’re doing this?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“You hung me up in your barn for a whole day, and you just fucking shot me. I’m thinking it’s my business.”

“Fair point,” Keith said.

Keith glanced behind him, toward the unnamed town. There was still some sporadic gunfire, but they were far and few now. Whatever was going on back there, it was definitely winding down. If it was a fight, someone was winning, and someone was about to lose very soon.

“I can kill it,” Wash said.

Keith looked back at him. “Kill what?”

“It.”

“It?”

“It,” Wash said.

“Nothing can kill it,” Keith said. “I’ve seen them without their heads. Silver can kill the black eyes, but this one….” He shook his head. “It’s different. The blue eyes are different.”

“You’re right, they are. But they have their own weaknesses. You can kill them if you know how.”

“Bullshit.”

“The brain.”

“The brain?”

“Destroy the brain, and you kill the blue eyes.”

Keith stared at him but stayed silent. Maybe he was trying to decide how much to trust Wash. Or maybe he was trying to figure out where he could shoot Wash again and still keep him alive for One Eye. It was difficult to read the man’s face, and the lack of light, coupled with Keith’s naturally placid expression, didn’t help.

“So this is your plan?” the Old Man asked.

Yup.

“Then I guess you better make it one hell of a sales pitch, kid!”

That’s the plan.

“It’s true,” Wash said. “Take out the brain, and you waste the blue eyes.”

“And how exactly did you come by this knowledge?” Keith asked.

“It’s my job. It’s what I do.” Wash nodded at the kukri on the ground next to him. “I’m a slayer.”

“Bullshit. I’ve seen what you look like underneath those clothes. You don’t have the marks.”

“Just like the nightcrawlers, not all slayers are the same.”

Something flashed across Keith’s face. Was that…doubt?

“But is he doubting you, or One Eye?” the Old Man asked.

“You saw me at the RV,” Wash continued. “You saw what I could do. I would have beaten them back—all of them—if you hadn’t shown up.”

“Maybe…” Keith said.

“I can kill it,” Wash said. “We can kill it. Then you wouldn’t have to keep doing what you’ve been doing. You wouldn’t have to work with it just to keep your town safe. You wouldn’t have to stay its slave. And you know what happens to slaves. They survive at the whim of their masters.”

Another silent response from Keith, though his face had changed. It was subtle, but it was there: More doubt.

At least, Wash hoped he had read it correctly, because if he was wrong…

“If you’re wrong, so what?” the Old Man said. “What’s he going to do that he wasn’t going to do before you started your little sales pitch?”

Good point.

“That’s what I’m here for,” the Old Man laughed.

“How?” Keith asked.

“How good are you with that rifle?” Wash asked.

“Before that”—Keith nodded at Wash’s bandaged left thigh—“I would have said pretty good. But now, maybe adequate would be more appropriate.”

“Like you said, I was moving. But you still got me.”

“Barely.”

“Barely counts.”

“You trying to make me feel better?”

I’m trying to get out of here alive, and if that means making you feel better about your shooting prowess, then that’s what it’ll take.

“It won’t be moving when you take your next shot,” Wash said.

Keith cocked his head slightly to one side, as if to say, Go on without actually saying it. Maybe he was worried One Eye might overhear. Out here, sounds traveled, and Wash knew that the blue eyes had hypersensitive hearing. Keith might know that, too.

“It’ll be too focused on me,” Wash said. “While it’s doing that, all you have to do is shoot it in the head.”

“That’s it, huh?” Keith said. He looked like he was about to laugh, but didn’t. “Just shoot it in the head?”

“In the brain, to be more specific. Do that, and your troubles are over. Jasper will be free.”

“Jasper is free now.”

“As long as you help it. As long as you stay its slave.”

“It’s called cooperation.”

“It’s called slavery,” Wash said. “Jasper is safe as long as you do its bidding. What happens when it changes its mind? When it decides it’d rather play with you than those poor bastards back there?”

“Careful now,” the Old Man said. “You don’t want to push too hard, kid. Reel the fish in. Reel it in slowly…”

Keith had glanced briefly over his shoulder, back at the no-name town, the two of them listening to the suddenly empty silence around them. Whatever was going on back there, Wash had a feeling it was over.

“Who were they?” Wash asked. “The people back there?”

“Pissed-off survivors,” Keith said. “Blue Eyes attacked their town, killed most of the people. The little nightcrawlers it has running around out here? Most of them are from that one place. It turned almost the entire population.”

And I bet you lent a hand in doing that, didn’t you? Wash thought, but of course didn’t say out loud. It was an accusation—probably a true one—but it wouldn’t have done his cause a lick of good.

He said instead, “They followed it? The survivors?”

Keith nodded. “They took over those buildings, put some kind of trap into motion from what I could gather. Lured it in. I don’t know where they got all the guns and silver bullets. Maybe they always had it with them.” He shrugged. “They sought it out, and they got what they wanted. Well, maybe not exactly what they wanted...”

“Revenge,” Wash said.

“Good ol’ fashioned revenge, yeah.”

“What better reason to do anything?” the Old Man asked.

“Sounds like the fight’s over back there,” Wash said.

“Yeah, sounds pretty much over to me, too,” Keith said.

Wash thought he detected something that almost sounded like regret in the man’s voice.

He was hoping it would work, that those survivors could kill One Eye.

“You hope,” the Old Man said.

That has to be it.

“You hope that’s it.”

It has to be.

“They like to play,” Wash said. “The Blue Eyes. But you already know that, don’t you? You’ve seen it play. It’s a monster, Keith. It’s not your friend, and it’s never going to be. You live and breathe by its mercy, and they aren’t exactly known for mercy. But then I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, am I?”

Keith didn’t respond, but he didn’t have to. Wash could read that on his face clear as day. Keith had seen it up close, had probably even been party to it—whether willingly or not—and he knew Wash wasn’t lying.

“It wants me,” Wash continued. “Alive. That’s why you haven’t finished me off. That’s why it told you to keep me hanging in that barn, waiting for its return. Where did it go, by the way? Why didn’t it show up last night?”

“I’m not sure,” Keith said. “All I know is that it headed somewhere south. Said something about being called away, but it didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask. Not that any of it matters, because it’s back now.”

“It told you to intercept me. It knew I was coming.”

“Yeah, it did. Don’t bother asking me how it knew.”

“One of its creatures saw me back in Jasper. That’s how it works, you know. What they see, it sees. That’s how their hive mind functions. You know about that?”

“I’ve heard of it. But then, I’ve heard a lot of things. Most of them are just stories to scare kids.”

“What I’m telling you is true.”

“If you say so.”

“We can kill it. Together. I can make it focus on me. It thinks it’s in my head, and it’s right. But I’m also in its head. That’s why we’re playing this game. We’re connected. It wants me here. It wants me.”

Keith narrowed his eyes at him. “Who are you?”

“Wash. My name’s Wash.”

“No. I mean, who are you?”

Wash picked himself up from the ground, brushing at the dirt on his pants. His thigh, where he’d been shot, protested slightly, but he ignored it.

“It doesn’t matter who I am,” Wash said. “All that should matter to you is what I’m offering.”

“And what is that, exactly?” Keith asked.

“Freedom,” Wash said. “The question is: How badly do you want it?”

Keith didn’t answer him.

Five seconds…

Ten…

“Well?” Wash finally said.

“I’m listening,” Keith said.

Twenty-One

Wash didn’t hear Keith’s shot, just as he hadn’t heard it when he was shot earlier in the night. The Jasper man had taken up a position far enough away that One Eye couldn’t detect his presence. Or, at least, not right away.

Wash knew the element of surprise was gone when the blue-eyed ghoul’s remaining right eye shifted, first darting slightly upward—not a lot, just barely perceptible—before focusing back, accusingly, on Wash.

“You’re not alone,” it said. “You’re trying to hide someone from me, but I can smell him. I can hear his heartbeat—”

“Now!” Wash shouted even as he lunged forward, simultaneously reaching behind his back for the 1911 pistol that Keith had given him.

Keith’s aim was good, and it would have been true if One Eye had remained standing exactly where it was, unmoving. But it did move, turning its head just enough to keep the 5.56 round from punching through the back of its skull and striking the brain on the other side. Instead, the bullet chopped through the ghoul’s head, around the base of the neck, ricocheted off the jawbone, and out of its cheek, splashing Ana with thick, coagulated black blood.

Dammit dammit dammit! Wash thought as he ran forward, the semiautomatic swinging free.

Ana had fallen chest-first onto the ground, but Wash couldn’t help her. He was too busy racing toward the ghoul, zeroing in on the creature as it staggered sideways, blood from the hole in its cheek flicking around the air. They locked eyes even as the creature twisted its body—

Zip! as a silent bullet passed the creature and nearly took Wash’s head off.

Keith, firing again, trying to hit One Eye, and instead almost killing Wash.

Wash wanted to shout out for Keith to hold his fire, but he didn’t have the time or energy. But mainly, there was just no time. Besides, a part of him didn’t think Keith would have listened anyway even if the man could even hear him from wherever he was camped at the moment. Wash imagined Keith frantically trying to end this right here and now, because the alternative was to face the consequences of his betrayal.

“Take it down! Take it down now, kid!” the Old Man shouted.

Time slowed as Wash lined up the shot, squinting behind the iron sights of the 1911. The monster was less than ten meters away. It was an easy shot. He’d made harder ones at greater distances while on the move.

Slow is smooth…

The creature turned back toward him and scowled. It knew what he was going to do, not that it could do anything to stop him. He was already doing it. Wash was also fully anticipating its insane speed, its ability to adjust on the fly with alarming quickness, just as it had dodged Keith’s two shots. Wash compensated for that disadvantage by predicting everything ahead of time so he would stay, if not one step ahead, then at least parallel to the undead thing.

…smooth is fast.

Wash pulled the trigger—

And the monster raised its hand up to its own face—and Wash’s round struck the back of its palm.

Mother…

One Eye lowered its hand and bared a set of yellow and rotten teeth at him.

…fucker!

The 9mm bullet had punched through the creature’s palm, but its velocity was slowed just enough by the impact that it was currently lodged in the ghoul’s forehead instead of smashing through the skull and into the brain. The round, flat bottom of the bullet gleamed in the moonlight like a stuck coin.

Close. So close!

The shot hadn’t gotten through, but it had hurt the monster. Wash could see it on its malformed face and in the way it squinted its remaining blue eye at him.

It was hurt.

It was hurt.

Wash quickly fired again.

One Eye turned its head, flicking even more blood across the cold night air, and Wash’s second round sailed into the night, missing its target.

Damn damn damn!

Instead of trying for the headshot again, Wash went for the bigger, broader target—the torso. He was moving toward it as he fired, compensating on the fly for the creature’s speed. It was fast—they were always so damn fast—but Wash, again, anticipated its abilities and shot where he expected it to be instead of where it was.

He fired five times in quick succession and hit it twice.

Slow it down! Slow it down, and finish it off!

But his next few shots missed entirely as One Eye spun—Wash glimpsed its cheek, the gash from the bullet wound already closing up, leaving blood pooling around its jawline—and took off.

No!

Wash continued to fire after it, trying to track its fast-moving form the best he could. But it was fast.

God, it was fast.

The pistol’s magazine emptied at a dizzying rate, and although Wash didn’t have any delusions his bullets were going to kill the monster, it could slow it down just enough for him to finish the job. If he could drop it, he could take its head. Or better yet, shove the kukri right through its brain.

Keith had the same idea apparently and was still firing, his silent rounds zip-zip-zipping around the fleeing nightcrawler. A few landed short, others went wide, and more struck the ground as One Eye vanished into the darkness.

Wash managed to hit the creature a few more times in the back as it fled. Or he thought he did, anyway. It was hard to tell for sure as the ghoul’s black form seemed to melt into the surrounding darkness.

Then it was gone.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Wash said under his breath as he reloaded the magazine, eyes glued in the direction the creature had gone. He couldn’t see it anymore, but he could easily spot the glistening drops of blood the monster had left in its wake.

All he had to do was follow it…

Yeah, right. I’m not that stupid.

He’d chased nightcrawlers into their nest before, but never a blue-eyed ghoul. That was suicide. He’d nailed it twice in the chest—maybe a few more in the back—and Keith had added to the damage. And yet, the damn thing was still able to flee.

And as long as it did that, it would heal and come back.

It would come back…

Wash turned and hurried to where Ana lay. She was picking herself up slowly, hands rubbing at her neck. Her throat was red and purple, and she struggled to breathe.

“You okay?” he asked.

Ana rested on her knees and looked back at him. “Did you get it?”

“I got it.”

“Did you kill it?”

He shook his head.

“Shit,” Ana said.

“Yeah,” Wash said.

He crouched next to her and got a good look. He hadn’t had the chance earlier with all of his attention on the creature, trying to keep it focused on him in turn. Ana was bruised and hurt, with straps of fabric tied around both forearms. Trails of dry blood were visible around her wrists and palms, and more on her face—forehead, cheeks, and jawline. She’d been through a lot.

“So who isn’t hurt, bruised, and bleeding tonight?” the Old Man asked.

“You okay?” Wash asked her again.

She shook her head. “Not in the slightest.” Ana looked past him. “Chris…”

“Who?”

“In the truck,” she said, and stumbled to her feet.

“Easy,” Wash said, grabbing her arms to keep her from falling back down. Her legs looked a little wobbly.

Ana turned around and looked at him for a moment. He had forgotten how short she was, and at the same time how much fire she had. Maybe the red hair helped, but it was mostly in her eyes. She was the same Ana he remembered.

And she punched him in the chest. “You asshat!”

He hadn’t expected it, and it actually hurt, though he got over it pretty quickly.

“Jesus, Ana,” Wash said.

“You made me follow you down here!”

He made her?

Wash shook his head. “I didn’t—”

She hit him again, and this time he was ready for it and could have avoided it easily. Except he didn’t, and he let her connect a second time. It was better to let her get it all off her chest now rather than later, even if it was his chest getting all the bruises.

“You done?” Wash asked.

“Not even close,” Ana said, and ran off.

Wash looked after her. She was headed for the overturned Ford that he had walked past earlier. It was the vehicle’s headlights that had brought him here. He’d seen the truck moving across the Texas plains and saw it stopping. It wasn’t until he got closer that he realized it hadn’t stopped but had met…resistance.

He glanced over in the direction where he guessed Keith was by the trajectory of his shots. Somewhere out there, in the darkness, maybe right now wondering just how much he had screwed up by attempting to assassinate One Eye, and failing. Maybe, if he were smart, Keith might be contemplating trying to make up for that treachery. Would shooting Wash do it? Or would Keith conclude what was done was done, and try to salvage this?

“You better hope it’s the latter, kid,” the Old Man said.

Yeah, let’s hope.

“Then again, considering how well tonight’s gone…”

Yeah, yeah.

He couldn’t see Keith out there, but Wash couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he was standing in the crosshairs of the Jasper man’s scope right now.

“Well, he hasn’t shot yet,” the Old Man said. “That’s good.”

Yeah, not yet.

Wash turned back at the truck as Ana pulled a small figure out of it. Wash thought it might have been Emily, Ana’s sister, but that didn’t make any sense because Ana had called the figure “Chris,” and what were the chances Ana would put her sister in danger again after Mathison?

He walked over to join them. Chris, as it turned out, was a teenage girl.

“Must be short for Chrissy,” the Old Man said.

Must be.

“She okay?” Wash asked.

Ana nodded. “She’s just a little hurt.”

Everyone’s hurt, he thought, but said, “We have to get out of the open. It might come back.”

“‘Might?’” the Old Man said.

Wash stared off at the no-name town he’d been running toward all night. Except he couldn’t really make it out anymore; it was just glowing embers in the thick black night now.

“Why didn’t you shoot it in the head?” Ana was asking him.

He looked over. “I did.”

“I thought you were a good shot.”

“I am.”

“But you missed.”

“I didn’t miss,” Wash said.

He took a second or two to get a better look at the kid standing next to Ana. Fifteen or sixteen, standing on shaky legs, while Ana stood protectively over her. There was an obvious bond between the two, the kind that could only have been forged by fire. Wash had seen that unspoken relationship often among slayers. Whatever Ana had gone through to get to him, he had a feeling Chris had shared those experiences.

No wonder she’s so pissed.

“We need to get out of the open,” he said again.

“And go where?” Ana asked. “I don’t see anything out here.”

“Jasper,” a voice said.

Wash glanced back as Keith walked toward them. He was cradling his rifle, and when Wash locked eyes with him, he didn’t see anything that looked like You fucked me over, you asshole on the other man’s face.

Of course, Wash could have been wrong. He hoped he wasn’t wrong, and he didn’t hand the 1911 back to Keith or put it away, just in case. Keith wasn’t a ghoul—black eyes or blue—and it wouldn’t be nearly as challenging to end their “partnership” if necessary.

“You suckered him into this, now you’re thinking about shooting him?” the Old Man asked with a chuckle.

I’m just playing it safe, old timer.

“Last time I was in Jasper, you had me strung up in a barn,” Wash said to Keith.

“Yeah, well, things change,” Keith said. He continued past Wash, but not before adding, “You missed.”

“I didn’t miss. I hit what I was aiming at. But you didn’t.”

“It moved too fast.” He stopped for a moment, turning his head slightly but not his body. “I almost had it, but the damn thing moved too fast.”

Keith walked on ahead of them, leaving Ana and Chris to stare, before turning back to Wash.

“Who the hell’s that?” Ana asked.

Someone who is either going to shoot me before the night is over, or our best chance to survive this.

He said, “He’s from a nearby town. It’s our best option right now.”

Wash started to follow Keith, who had put a good twenty meters between them. Ana and Chris were at his heels.

“Can we trust him?” Ana asked. She had lowered her voice noticeably.

Wash slowed down until he was walking alongside the two women. Chris had put herself on Ana’s other side, maybe wanting to keep some distance between herself and Wash.

“For now,” Wash said, matching her pitch, not that he didn’t think Keith couldn’t overhear if he really tried. It was certainly quiet enough out here, and sound traveled even if you whispered.

“What was that you said about being strung up in a barn?” Ana asked.

“It’s nothing.”

“It didn’t sound like nothing.”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“You better.” Then, “Wash.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I have your knife?”

“Kukri.”

“Yeah, that.”

He took the machete out and handed it to her. She gripped it tightly.

“Better?” he asked.

“Better,” she nodded, even as her eyes roamed the dark Texas landscape around them.

With the truck left behind, there were no lights in front or to their sides. Except for the tap-tap of their shoes, there was dead silence all around. Even the animals and insects knew better than to come out tonight.

Wash caught the kid, Chris, also glancing suspiciously at their surroundings. That was a sign she’d been out here before and was well-aware of the potential dangers. Like him and Ana, the teenager was waiting for—anticipating, even—creatures to leap out of the night at them.

Wash flexed his fingers around the 1911. He had a full mag. That was good. He wished he had more, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“Wash,” Ana said after a few seconds of walking in silence.

“Yeah?” he said.

“I’m glad you’re still alive.”

“Me too.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“I didn’t think I’d actually find you.”

“No?”

“Texas is a big state.”

“It’s getting bigger every day.”

“That’s not possible,” Chris said. It was the first time the teenager had spoken up, and it caught Wash momentarily off guard.

“What isn’t?” Ana said.

“Texas,” the kid said. “It can’t get any bigger than it already is. Unless, I don’t know, someone redraws the state maps, but who’s gonna do that now?”

Wash smiled. “I meant it feels bigger now, without as many people around.”

“Oh.”

“How did you end up down here?” Wash asked Ana. “How did you know which roads I’d take?”

“I didn’t,” Ana said. “I guessed and hoped for the best.”

“You shouldn’t have come looking for me, Ana.”

“You shouldn’t have left me in Kanter 11.”

He sighed. He had a feeling their reunion would end up something like this—going back and forth with no resolution in sight. He hadn’t expected the punches, though, but maybe he should have, given their very first meeting.

“You still shouldn’t have followed me,” Wash said.

“I shouldn’t have done a lot of things,” Ana said.

“You’re too stubborn for your own good.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“She’s got a point,” the Old Man said.

Oh, shut up, Wash thought, when in front of them Keith stopped suddenly.

Ana, Chris, and Wash did, too.

All four of them stood perfectly still and scanned their immediate area. The parts that they could make out in the darkness, anyway. Ana had pulled Chris closer to her, while her right hand clutched and unclutched the machete’s handle. Wash took a couple of steps away from the women to give himself room in case he had to shoot, at the same time providing Ana with space to swing the kukri if necessary.

“It’s coming back to finish the job,” the Old Man said. “Did you think it’d actually stay away all night? You heard it, kid. It’s bored now. It’s going to end this. You should have ended it first when you had the chance.”

I did. I shot it in the head. You told me a headshot would kill a blue-eyed ghoul.

“I wasn’t lying.”

I shot it in the head.

“And it stopped the bullet from penetrating with its hand. Can’t exactly blame me for that now, can you?”

Wash looked over at Keith. The Jasper man had his back turned to them.

“Anything?” Wash asked.

Keith shook his head. “I thought I saw something.”

“And now?”

“I don’t see anything now.” He gave Wash a look that said, But it’s out there. I know it’s out there.

Wash agreed, but like Keith, he didn’t put his thoughts into words. He said instead, “Let’s keep going. Better than just standing around out here all day. How far are we from Jasper?”

“You don’t know?”

“How would I know?”

“You were just there.”

“I was running, and it was dark.”

And I was hoping I would never see that place again.

Keith started walking again. “It’s not far.”

“How far is ‘not far?’” Ana asked.

“Not far.”

Ana looked after Keith for a second before turning to Wash and narrowing her eyes. “Charming. Almost on the verge of asshattery.”

Wash grinned. “You should have seen him yesterday.”

“What happened yesterday?”

“He was in full-on asshat mode.”

“I heard that,” Keith said.

“Good for you,” Wash said.

Ana raised both eyebrows at Wash but said nothing.

They walked on, following in Keith’s footprints, but Wash allowed the other man to get ahead of them while still keeping him within sight at all times.

And within close enough proximity for a handgun…

Twenty-Two

Jasper looked different on the return. Of course, this time Wash had the benefit of entering it while conscious, with the man in charge leading the way.

Like most places that had survived The Purge and remained standing—sometimes even thriving afterward—Jasper had returned to its Western roots. There was a single main street in the center flanked by brick and mortar buildings. The barn where Wash had been kept was on the south end, his “prison” purposefully chosen because of its distance from the rest of the population. There were lampposts along the wooden plank sidewalks, but they were dark, which had made it difficult to get a full view of the place earlier—and still did now.

“No lights?” Wash asked as he, Ana, and Chris trailed behind Keith.

Keith led the way, just as he had for the last mile or so. Wash hadn’t realized how far he’d run, but the no-name town was at least five miles west of Jasper. He had only made it halfway before he was intercepted by Keith.

Wash thought he could see curtains moving to his right, along with round shapes peeking out that might have been faces. The windows were protected with metal rebar, and he assumed the doors were reinforced similarly on the other side. Jasper may have struck a deal with One Eye, but they’d had to brave other ghouls in the past, just like every other place Wash had gone through in recent years.

“Lights need fuel,” Keith was saying. “Those don’t grow out of the desert. We got used to it.”

Wash shot a quick glance over his shoulder at the wall of darkness behind them. They were hours away from morning, and there could have been one or two—or a hundred—ghouls out there watching him back and he wouldn’t know it.

“We know at least one ghoul is watching us, don’t we?” the Old Man asked.

One Eye.

“Oh yeah, he’s definitely not going anywhere tonight, kid.”

Let him come.

“Be careful what you wish for!”

A door opened in front and to the right of them, and a man holding a shotgun stepped outside a dark building. He was wearing pajamas and a winter coat and had a long white beard. The wooden floorboards creaked under his weight.

“Keith,” the man said, “what’s happening? Who’re they?”

“Go back inside and lock your door, Jim,” Keith said.

“Who’re they?” the man named Jim asked again.

“Don’t worry about them. Go back inside, and do what I say. Make sure everyone else stays where they are, too.”

“You gonna tell me what happened? All the shooting stopped.”

“Dammit, Jim, do what I say for once.”

Jim grunted, and Wash thought he was about to keep arguing but must have thought better of it, because he disappeared back into his building. Wash glimpsed a woman, also with white hair, peering out at them from inside just before Jim closed the door.

“How many people do you have here?” Wash asked Keith.

“Fifty-two,” Keith said. Then, “Fifty-one.”

Ana gave Wash a questioning look, and he mouthed back, “I’ll tell you later.”

They continued following Keith, who led them a few more meters before stepping up onto the sidewalk and to a small red one-story building that didn’t look like anything special. At least nothing that would indicate this was where the leader of Jasper spent his days and nights.

That leader took out a key, unlocking first the security gate over the door, then the door itself. “Inside,” Keith said, holding the door open for them while his eyes roamed the darkness.

Ana and Chris went in first, but Wash lingered next to Keith.

“It’s out there,” Wash said. “You know that.”

“No shit,” Keith said.

“Just wanted to make sure we’re on the same wavelength.”

Wash slipped into the building, and Keith followed. There were two pieces of lumber leaning against the wall nearby, and Keith picked them up and slid them over the door, using latches to hold them in place.

“You expecting trouble?” Wash asked.

“Like you said, it’s out there,” Keith said.

They stood in what looked like a spacious studio apartment with a fireplace in the back and a kitchen next to it. Another door on the left was probably either the bathroom or the closet. If the exterior hadn’t looked particularly outstanding, the interior was just confirmation.

Keith walked over to a lantern on the kitchen counter and struck a match, then put the fire to the wick. As light slowly filled the room, it occurred to Wash that they might be in the only building in the entire town that had any lights on whatsoever.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Wash asked.

“It already knows we’re here,” Keith said. “Damn thing’s been watching us for a while now.”

Ana gave Wash a startled look before turning to Keith. “It was out there with us the entire time?”

“Either it or one of its black eyes,” Keith said. “Probably one of the black eyes. Point is, it knows we’re here. It knows what building.”

Ana glanced over at Wash with a Should we really be standing here with this crazy asshat? look.

“There’s not exactly a lot of choices out there,” Wash said. “This is the best option. It also just happens to be our only option.”

Ana didn’t look convinced.

Wash turned to Keith. “What about the others? The other fifty-one people in town?”

“Fifty,” Keith said. “I’m fifty-one.”

“Fifty. Fifty-one. Whatever.”

Keith went to the kitchen and opened a fridge. There were no lights and no electricity to keep anything inside cool, which explained why the bottle of water he took out and tossed to Wash was warm. Keith kept one for himself.

“There’s three of us,” Wash said.

“Share,” Keith said.

The Jasper man walked to an armchair in a corner and slumped down with a heavy grunt. It was next to a pallet with what looked like a comfortable mattress on top of it that Wash hadn’t seen earlier in the darkness but was hard to miss now with the candlelight. Keith drained his bottle of water and leaned back, looking for all intents and purposes like a beaten man who had already accepted his fate.

Wash didn’t have to twist his bottle’s cap very hard to open it. The plastic seal was already broken.

“It’s purified,” Keith said when he saw the way Wash stared at the bottle. “Relax.”

Yeah right, relax, Wash thought as he took a small drink before handing it to Ana. She did the same, then passed it over to Chris.

The two women walked over to one side of the room and sat down on the floor, leaning back with tired sighs against the brick wall. Wash exchanged a look with Ana. She’d wiped most of the blood off her face and chin, but not everything. It was difficult to see all the specks in the flickering light of Keith’s lantern, but it was obvious she was hurt in more places than just the ones he could see.

He walked over and crouched in front of her before taking out the bottle of painkillers that Lyla had given him. He shook one out for himself—there were a dozen or so left inside—and handed the rest over to Ana.

“What is it?” Ana asked.

“Painkiller,” Wash said.

“But what is it?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know, but it works.”

Ana turned the bottle over, looking for a nonexistent label.

“It’s good stuff,” Wash said.

“How good?” Ana asked.

“They had me hanging from a rope inside a barn for twenty-four hours. As soon as I got out, I ran nearly two—maybe three—miles to where you were. And I don’t feel a thing.”

That last part wasn’t entirely true, but Ana was convinced and shook out two of the pills for herself, then spent a few seconds looking them over, too. Like the bottle they came in, the white pills had nothing on them to indicate what they were.

She gave him a doubtful look.

“Trust me,” Wash said.

She downed both pills with the leftover water from the bottle.

“Can I have some?” Chris asked.

Ana took out one and passed it over to the teen.

“Just one?” Chris said.

“That’s all you need,” Ana said.

“My bones hurt.”

“Are they broken?”

“I don’t know. They feel broken.”

“You could still walk just fine. So they’re not broken.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. All you need is one.”

The teenager frowned but took the small white pill and swallowed it down with water. Unlike Wash and Ana, she grimaced at the taste.

“Where did she go?” Keith asked from the other side of the room.

Wash glanced over. “Who?”

“Lyla.”

“East.”

“That’s it? East?”

“I don’t know the area. You dragged me here while I was unconscious, remember?”

“Technically, I didn’t drag you here,” Keith said.

“Drag you here?” Ana said, raising both eyebrows at Wash.

“Long story,” he said.

“Of course it is.”

Wash stood up and turned to Keith. The Jasper man was firmly planted in his corner armchair, the nearby light reflecting off his placid face. His AR leaned against the wall next to him within easy reach, not that he seemed to be in anything even remotely approaching an alarmed state. Keith still had that resigned look about him.

“Do they know?” Keith asked.

It took a second or two before Wash understood the question.

He shook his head. “No.”

“Know what?” Ana asked.

“Why ol’ One Eye’s got such a hard-on for him,” Keith said. He stared at Wash. “The way it talks about you, I got the feeling it was very personal. So what’s the story?”

“Yeah, Wash, what’s the story?” Ana asked.

Wash didn’t answer them right away. How much to tell? How much to leave out? Could they really understand if he spilled everything? He’d learned a long time ago that civilians could never fully grasp what slayers did or why. Oh, they knew the superficial stuff—the PTSD, the revenge factor. But they never dug deep under the surface. Most of them never cared to try.

“Well?” Keith said when Wash didn’t say anything.

So Wash told them, but not everything.

When he was finished, Ana said, “Jesus, Wash.”

“Hell of a story,” Keith said. “And you’re right; they do like to play games. I’ve seen that up close and personal.”

“I thought you’d be pissed after what happened out there,” Wash said.

“I am.”

“You don’t look pissed.”

“It is what it is.” Keith shrugged. “I was—really pissed, I mean—when it didn’t drop the way you said it would.”

“You didn’t shoot it where I told you to shoot it.”

“Besides the point,” Keith said, waving a dismissive hand. “I was angry, until I saw it running away. It ran away.”

“It ran away?” Ana said.

Wash nodded. “It ran away.”

“But you missed.”

“I didn’t miss. It blocked my shot.”

“It blocked your shot? How did it block your shot?” Then, before Wash could say it, “I know, I know, you’ll explain later.”

He smiled and turned back to Keith.

“I saw it flee,” Keith said. “It didn’t fight back. It didn’t attack. It ran away from there as fast as it could. It was afraid,” he repeated, like he couldn’t believe it unless he said it again. “I’ve never seen them afraid. I’ve never seen it afraid before.”

Then Keith smiled.

Wash wasn’t sure how to respond to that. It was partially comforting—Keith wasn’t mad, and he wasn’t going to shoot Wash anytime soon—but at the same time, there was a slight unhinged quality to that smile…

“I missed, and so did you—” Keith said.

“I didn’t miss,” Wash said.

“—but we scared it,” Keith continued. “It’ll come back. Probably tonight. Definitely tonight. It’s a long, long way to morning. It won’t forgive me for what I did. That’s a given. But now I know I can kill it.”

“All it takes is one shot,” Wash said.

“The brain.”

“Put a round in its brain, and it’s goodnight, Irene.”

“Yeah,” Keith said, and grinned.

“Who’s Irene?” Chris asked.

“It’s the title of a song,” Ana said. Then, to Wash, “You said it’s going to come back. Here. Tonight.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“There’s no doubt about it,” Keith said.

“It was hurt, and it fled, but it’s going to recover,” Wash said. “And when it does, it’ll come to finish what we started.” He stared back at Keith. “You were at that town. The one that was on fire. How many ghouls does it have left?”

Keith thought about it before answering. Then, “The guys who set up the ambush got a lot of them. More than I thought they would.”

“He’s right,” Ana said. “I saw dozens of dead nightcrawlers. They were using silver bullets.”

“So how many does that leave?” Wash asked Keith. “How many can it still throw at us? It has to be a limited number.”

“It is,” Keith nodded.

“You got a number for me?”

Again, Keith thought about it.

“They’re coming here?” Wash heard Chris asking Ana, the teenager almost whispering the question.

He didn’t hear Ana respond—she might have just nodded back—because Wash was too busy waiting for Keith’s answer.

“Keith,” Wash said. “How many more does it have out there?”

“They killed a lot of them,” Keith finally said. “And you did, too, at the RV.”

“So how many?”

“Anywhere from twenty to fifty.”

“Jesus,” Ana whispered.

“Is it more like twenty or closer to fifty?” Wash asked Keith.

“I have no idea,” Keith said. “The first time it came here, it couldn’t have had more than twenty with it. But then it kept adding more and more.”

“Some were from the town where those people back there came from,” Wash said.

Keith nodded. “Some.”

“You mean the ones that laid the trap for the creature?” Ana asked.

“Yeah.”

“Looks like ol’ One Eye’s been busy,” the Old Man said.

Looks like it.

“Who were they?” Ana asked.

“I don’t know the specifics,” Keith said.

“They came from Millville,” Chris said.

Wash looked back at the teenager. “Millville?”

Chris nodded. “One of the women told me. She said the monsters came one night and took the place. They killed and turned a lot of people, but she and the others escaped. She said the ghouls have been chasing them ever since.”

“So they decided to make a stand and fight back.”

“I think so.”

“They should have kept running,” Keith said.

“Yeah, well, they didn’t,” Ana said, staring past Wash and at Keith. Wash didn’t miss the silent accusation in her eyes.

“Not right now, kid. We don’t need that right now,” the Old Man said.

Wash agreed, and said out loud to Keith, “Okay, so twenty or more. That’s not too bad.”

“It’s not?” Ana said.

“I’ve dealt with worse.”

“The black eyes aren’t the problem anyway,” Keith said.

“One Eye.”

“Uh huh.”

“A one-eyed, blue-eyed ghoul,” Ana said. “I thought you were making it up, Wash. But there it was…”

Wash looked back at her. “There was a reason I told you not to follow me down here, Ana. That’s why.”

She sighed. “Remind me to listen to you next time.”

Wash grinned, when there was a scream from outside the building. He looked toward the door, as did Ana and Chris.

Keith was already out of the armchair and racing across the room, but instead of going to the door, he headed for one of the windows. Wash hurried over to join Keith as he brushed aside the curtains and looked out and through the rebars.

It was as dark out there now as it had been when they first walked through Jasper, and Wash imagined the candle flickering in the lantern behind them was the only source of light for miles around. So if there was someone—something—out there, then they definitely knew which building to zero in on.

Maybe we should blow that damn candle out…

But there was nothing out there. At least, nothing Wash could see.

“What was that?” Ana asked as she joined them. Chris had wisely stayed behind. “That sounded like a scream. Was that a scream?”

“It sounded like one,” Wash said. He looked over at Keith standing next to him. “What do you see?”

“Nothing,” Keith said.

“What did you hear?”

“I don’t know.”

But the way Keith had said it made Wash doubt him.

Wash said, “What did you hear, Keith?”

The Jasper man shook his head but didn’t answer.

“Keith,” Wash said.

“Lyla,” Keith finally said. “I thought it sounded like Lyla screaming.”

“You mentioned that name before,” Ana said. “Who’s Lyla?”

“His sister,” Wash said.

“Oh.”

Keith remained perfectly still looking out the window, peering between two rusted rebars. Wash didn’t think the man could actually see anything because he couldn’t, and he was pretty sure he had better night vision than everyone in the room.

Another scream, and this time it was much longer, and female.

Wash stared out the window, looking up and down the street, but couldn’t see anything out there. There were thick, dark patches of shadows everywhere, and Wash could just barely make out silhouettes peeking out from behind the windows on a two-story brick building across the street from them. They weren’t the only ones who had heard the screams, apparently.

“Keith?” Wash said. “Is it her?”

“Yeah,” Keith said quietly. “It’s Lyla…”

Twenty-Three

“It’s Lyla,” Keith said again, almost as if he were trying to convince himself and not the other people in the building with him.

“Are you sure?” Wash asked.

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure? Because I can’t see shit out there.”

“Neither can I, but that’s her voice.”

You know what your sister sounds like when she’s screaming? Wash wanted to ask, but it was probably not the most appropriate question at the moment. Besides, if it wasn’t Lyla, who else would it be? She was out there in the dark, alone, because—

“You let her run off by herself,” the Old Man said.

I didn’t have any choice.

“Didn’t you?”

No.

“Didn’t you?”

Wash didn’t answer.

He said out loud instead, “Anything? Can you see anything now?”

“No, still nothing,” Keith said.

Wash glanced back at Ana, but she too shook her head. She was standing on the right side of Keith, with Wash on the left. The kid, Chris, had remained where she was and was either too scared to get up and join them or— There was no or that he could come up with.

Wash focused on the darkness outside the building. And that was all he could see—darkness. Patches of shadows in the alleyways between buildings and slight movements that may or may not have been other Jasper residents peeking out from behind rebar-secured windows. Not that he could be absolutely certain of anything. Even the moon seemed to have gone shy, leaving very little light of any kind to work with.

“What will the others do?” Wash asked.

“The others?” Keith said.

“Your people. What will they do?”

“They’ll stay indoors. If it goes bad, they’ll use their basements.”

“You guys have basements?”

“Yes. The ones that didn’t have one, we put them in. We’ve been here since The Walk Out. We know what’s out there.”

“You have a protocol,” Wash said.

Keith nodded. He hadn’t, Wash noticed, taken his eyes off the darkness outside for even a second. “We had one before One Eye showed up, and we tweaked it afterwards. If everything goes to shit, the others will lock themselves underground and wait for morning.”

“The basements are that strong?”

“Against the black eyes, yeah.”

“But it’s not just black eyes out there, Keith.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem.”

Understatement of the century, Wash thought, looking across and finding Ana already gazing in his direction. They locked eyes for a moment, and he thought he could read everything going through her mind:

We just need to survive the night.

We just need to get to morning.

We just need to hold out that long.

Wash glanced down at his watch. The second hand swept smoothly around the dial, the lumed indices indicating the time: 3:11 a.m.

Tick-tick-tick-tick.

Three and a half more hours left before morning.

Tick-tick-tick-tick.

Three and a half hours too much…

Tick-tick-tick-tick…

“Keith?” a voice called from outside.

Wash looked up and out the window, then checked to see that Keith and Ana had heard it too, and that it wasn’t all in his mind. It wasn’t. Keith’s entire body had gone taut, and Ana’s mouth was slightly open as she stared outside.

I guess they heard it, too.

“Keith?” the same voice called out. “Can you hear me? Keith, please help me! Keith! God, Keith! Please!”

It was a female voice, and Wash thought, Lyla. That’s Lyla.

He hadn’t been sure before when he’d just heard the screams, but now that there were actual words, he couldn’t deny it.

Had Lyla returned to Jasper on her own? But that didn’t make any sense. Why would she be screaming, then shouting Keith’s name, if that were the case? Wouldn’t she just walk back home and knock on a door—maybe even Keith’s—instead of making so much unnecessary noise and drawing attention to herself?

Unless she didn’t have any choice…

“Keith!” Lyla shouted again. She sounded far away, and her voice echoed slightly off the buildings around them. “Please help me! Please, Keith! I’m sorry! I’m sorry for leaving! Keith! I won’t do it again! I promise!”

Keith, standing at the window between Wash and Ana, tightened his grip on the barrel of the AR rifle in his hands. His knuckles had turned ghostly.

They couldn’t see Lyla out there, but there was no denying where her voice was coming from. The west end of town, the same direction Wash and the others had entered Jasper earlier. She was still too far away for them to catch any glimpses of her, but they had no problems hearing her.

“It’s a trap,” Wash said. “You know that, right?”

Keith didn’t answer him.

“Keith,” Wash said.

“I know, goddammit,” Keith said, grunting the words out as if each one caused him a great deal of pain.

“It’s out there, isn’t it?” Ana asked.

Wash nodded. “Yeah. That’s a good bet.”

“Shit,” Ana said, almost whispering the word.

He could read the fear on her face, but Wash didn’t share it.

Tonight. One way or another, it ends tonight.

And he was ready for it. He had been ready, for days, weeks, and months now.

“This is why you chased it all the way down here,” the Old Man said. “Might as well get it over with tonight, kid.”

Might as well, Wash thought.

“They’re using her, aren’t they?” Ana asked. “They’re making her do this. It’s making her do this.”

“It’s playing,” Wash said. “That’s what they do. The blue eyes. They like to play games.”

“Is that what it did with you? Back at the farmhouse with the girl?”

“The farmhouse was just another one in a long line of sick games. This is how they get their kicks. They’re sadistic motherfuckers that way.”

“Jesus,” Ana said softly.

Wash turned to Keith. The man’s eyes were glued on the window. Wash couldn’t be sure if he’d looked away for even a brief heartbeat.

“Keith!” Lyla called out again. She’d been quiet for the last thirty or so seconds before that. “Keith, it’s me! Keith! Come help me! Please! Please! I’m so sorry for leaving. I promise, Keith, I promise I won’t do it again!”

Wash stared at Keith, knowing exactly what was going through the other man’s mind at the moment. His first instincts were to talk Keith from doing what Wash knew he was about to do, but Wash didn’t follow through.

It ends tonight. One way or another, it ends tonight.

“Oh my God,” Ana whispered.

Wash followed her gaze out the window. Something had appeared in the streets.

No, not something, but someone.

“Is that her?” Ana whispered.

“I think so,” Wash said.

It was hard to make her out as she walked slowly up the street. Something looked off about the way she was moving, as if every tiny step caused her tremendous pain. She was also leaning slightly, favoring one side of her body. And just in case he wasn’t already 100 percent sure he was looking at a wounded Lyla, there was her voice, clearly coming from the approaching figure:

“Keith! Please! It’s me! It’s Lyla! I’m hurt so bad, Keith! Are you there? Can you hear me? Please help me! I don’t think I can make it! Keith!”

Every word that echoed up the street was like a dagger driving into Keith. His face tightened, and his mouth twisted. His eyes squinted, and he kept clutching and unclutching his grip around the rifle’s barrel.

Then Keith took a sudden step back, away from the window, and glanced over at Wash. He didn’t say anything, but then he didn’t have to.

“What about the girls?” Wash asked.

Keith understood the question. He turned and hurried across the room.

“Where’s he going?” Ana asked.

“Dunno,” Wash said.

They watched Keith as he reached the room in the back and swung the door open. It was a closet, not a bathroom. He crouched and yanked open what looked like a trapdoor in the floor.

“Basement,” Wash said to Ana.

Keith grabbed some items farther inside the closet space before standing up and walking back to them. He had slung his rifle and was holding a pump-action shotgun in one hand and another rifle in the other. He was also carrying a faded brown duffel bag by the strap.

“Can you use this?” Keith asked, holding up the rifle slightly toward Wash.

Wash took it. The weapon looked like a cross between a standard AR and the U.S. Army’s M4, but there was Heckler & Koch written on the side of the magazine well in white letters. Wash pulled out the magazine and thumbed the silver point on the 5.56 round at the top.

“Yeah,” Wash said, “I can use it.”

“Are you good with it?” Keith asked. He was staring hard at Wash.

“Yeah,” Wash said.

“I’ve seen him shoot,” Ana said. “He’s pretty good. Really good, actually.”

Keith nodded, before looking past Wash at the window behind him.

“It’s a trick,” Wash said. “You know that. It wants us out there.”

“I know that, you know that, and it knows that,” Keith said. “But I still have to go out there.”

“So you’re going to do exactly what it wants you to do?” Ana asked. Wash wasn’t sure if she sounded alarmed or dumbfounded. Maybe a little of both.

“Doesn’t change anything. That’s still my sister out there.”

Almost as if on cue, Lyla’s voice echoed from outside: “Keith! Oh God, Keith, please help me! Keith! Keith, it’s me! It’s Lyla! I’m hurt so bad. I need help. I don’t think I can make it. Keith! Can you hear me?”

Wash locked eyes with Keith. The other man’s face was grim, but the determination was unabated.

“It’s your town, and that’s your sister,” Wash said. “It’s your call how we play this.”

“What?” Ana said. “Play what? What are you talking about?”

Before Wash could answer, Keith jammed the shotgun into Ana’s hands, startling her, before he dug into the bag and took out a box of shells. Ana looked down at the gun and ammo in her hands, as if unsure how they got there.

“For the girl,” Keith said, holding out a knife still in its sheath.

Ana took it, glancing back quickly at Chris.

“The closet,” Keith said, nodding at the small room in the back. “The trapdoor leads into a cellar. It’s small, but it’s reinforced. There are nonperishables down there and more ammo. You and the girl can last for some time if you have to.”

“What are you going to do?” Ana asked him. When he didn’t answer, she turned to Wash and was about to ask the same thing, but she saw his face and didn’t. She said instead, “Wash, don’t. This is stupid. You know this is stupid.”

“It has to end tonight,” Wash said. “I’m tired of hunting it. Sick and tired of it.”

“So you’re just going to walk out there and let it kill you?”

“That’s not the plan.”

“Then what is the plan?”

“When it shows itself, I’ll kill it. That’s the plan.”

“That’s assuming it doesn’t have another army out there.”

“She’s got a point,” Wash said to Keith.

The Jasper man took out a pair of magazines from the bag and stuffed one into his pockets. He handed Wash two extra mags for his H&K. “That’s all I have. There’s more in the other buildings, but…”

“They’ll have to do,” Wash said.

He put one magazine in his back pocket and the other one into his front right side so it wouldn’t interfere with the sheathed kukri on his left hip. What he wouldn’t give for a decent pouch or a MOLLE vest to carry everything, though.

“How about a tactical nuke while you’re at it?” the Old Man asked.

Yeah, that’ll work, too.

“Will the others help?” Wash asked Keith.

Keith shook his head. “They’re not fighters. Most of them are like Jim. Older people. The few that can fight have families to think about. I wouldn’t ask them to risk their lives anyway.”

“So it was always just you out there helping One Eye.”

“It’s always been my job to look after them. That’s the reason I do everything. I promised them they’d be safe here.”

“Keith!” Lyla shouted. Her voice sounded much closer that time, and Wash discovered why when he glanced out the window.

She was almost at their building. Twenty meters, maybe less. And now that she had made up the distance, Wash could distinguish her from the darkness. She was still wearing the same black clothes from the last time he saw her outside the barn. And she was definitely hurt, holding onto one arm while dragging a leg behind her, leaving a continuous trail in her wake.

Lyla knew exactly where they were, because she was staring in their direction. Or, more precisely, she knew where Keith stayed. Besides, it would have been hard not to know where to look because their building was the only one with a light flickering in the background.

“Keith!” Lyla shouted. “Help me, Keith! God, it hurts! Keith! Please! It hurts so much!”

Wash wondered if Lyla could see them standing on the other side of the rebars. They could see her, so it stood to reason she could make them out in return.

He scanned the streets, then the buildings. They were as dark now as when he’d looked the last time. Maybe even more so, if that was possible. There was nothing out there that even remotely looked like a perching ghoul, black eyes or otherwise, that he could make out.

But you’re out there, aren’t you? You’re watching this. Enjoying every second of it. Having fun at our expense.

You bastard.

“Wash,” Ana said from the other side of the window. Then, when Wash turned to her, “Don’t do this.”

“I have to,” Wash said.

“You don’t have to. Stay in here with us. With Chris and me.”

Wash glanced at Keith. If the other man had heard Ana—and it would have been impossible for him not to, standing between them—he didn’t react to any of it.

Wash met Ana’s eyes again. “That door and these bars can keep the black eyes out, but they won’t do a damn thing against One Eye. It’ll tear through them like paper. Even if I don’t do this, it’ll end tonight regardless.” He tried to smile, but it probably came out wrong. “I can’t keep this up, Ana. Chasing it down, playing its games… It has to end tonight.”

“What if it kills you?” Ana asked.

“Then it kills me.”

“You’re an idiot.”

He smiled and was sure that one came out better. “I know, but you still chased after me, didn’t you?”

She sighed. “I guess I’m an idiot, too.”

Keith finally pulled back from the window. “You two done?” he asked before walking to the door with his rifle.

Wash focused on Ana. He was trying to think about what to say to her—maybe apologize for such a shitty reunion, or maybe tell her how he felt about her—but she beat him to it. Ana walked over, grabbed him, and kissed him on the mouth. He pulled her body tight against his, and for a second—maybe ten seconds, maybe twenty—he was able to block everything out and just concentrate on her.

But it didn’t last. It never lasted.

Keith, waiting at the door…

Lyla, screaming out her brother’s name outside in the streets...

And One Eye, somewhere out there, watching, waiting…

Ana pulled away first. “Don’t die.”

He nodded and opened his mouth to answer, but she shushed him with her palm against his lips, and said again, “Don’t die.”

“I’ll try,” Wash said.

“Don’t try. Just do what I tell you, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay,” he said again.

Wash looked past her and at Keith. The Jasper man had already removed the lumber from the door and had his hand on the deadbolt.

They exchanged a look, followed by a nod.

“I’ll be right back,” Wash said.

Ana stepped aside without a word.

Wash walked over to join Keith. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Keith answered by pulling back the deadbolt with a loud, echoing chank!, then throwing the door wide open. Moonlight poured inside the room and over them, and Wash thought, Any last piece of advice, old timer?

“The girl’s got it right,” the Old Man said. “Don’t die. Or if you can’t hack that, at least take it with you.”

Twenty-Four

It was cold. So much colder than it should have been. A lot colder than when he was out here earlier. But then, maybe all of that had to do with the unsettling sense of dread gathering steam in the pit of his stomach as he stepped out of the building and onto the sidewalk behind Keith. The wooden floorboards creaked underneath their boots—again, much louder than it should have been.

Behind Wash, the door closed, followed by the grating sound of wood against wood as Ana put the pieces of lumber back in place. The surprisingly loud chank! as the deadbolt slid into its housing.

“It’s all in your head, kid,” the Old Man said.

Probably.

“No probably about it. You need to calm down.”

I’m trying.

“Try harder. This is it. This is where it all ends. Tonight. Now. You have to be absolutely ready.”

He concentrated on the world around him instead of arguing with himself:

A sudden gust of wind contributing to the growing chill...

Lyla was where he’d last seen her, in the middle of the street…

Keith, walking toward her now, his rifle hanging at his side…

Lyla waiting, waiting, as darkness continued to grow around them…

Wash resisted the urge to look back at the door, to make sure Ana had closed and barricaded it. He had to trust her. She was a smart woman. Way too smart to leave the door open for no reason whatsoever. Way smarter than him, at least.

“That goes without saying,” the Old Man said.

Don’t rub it in.

“Why shouldn’t I? You’re out here, and she’s in there.”

Good point.

Wash stepped off the sidewalk and onto the street as Keith continued on ahead of him, toward Lyla. She had stopped moving, and though Wash couldn’t make out most of her face, he could see enough to know that it really was her and not some ghoul trick. Well, it was a ghoul trick, but Lyla wasn’t one of them yet. She was still Lyla. Now all Wash and her brother had to do was keep her that way.

Keith reached out a hand toward his sister. “Lyla…”

“Keith,” she said. Her voice was strained, every word on the verge of tears. “Keith. I’m sorry. I should have listened to you. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Lyla. It’s okay.”

“I should have listened to you…”

“It’s okay. I’m here now.”

“God, Keith, I’m so sorry…”

“It’s okay. All’s forgiven. Everything’s going to be okay from now on…”

Wash didn’t particularly agree with that last statement. There was nothing okay about tonight. Not with the three of them out here, in the open, as the night air turned every one of their breaths into exploding white clouds.

His night eyes had adjusted enough for him to notice the tiny movements behind curtains across the street. More of the same to his right, but no indication anyone else was going to come out here to join the party.

Wash tightened his grip on the H&K. He wasn’t familiar with the model or how many bullets the mag held (Probably should have checked, or asked Keith…), but it had to be over a dozen given the 5.56 caliber rounds it was loaded with. Fifteen, at a minimum, but probably more like thirty. He’d find out eventually when the shooting started.

“Keith, I’m sorry,” Lyla was saying. She was holding out both hands toward her brother as he closed in on her. Keith was moving cautiously, just as aware as Wash was that they weren’t alone out here.

“You don’t have to be,” Keith said. “We’re family. You don’t have to be. Ever, baby sister.”

“I’m so sorry,” Lyla said. The distance made it hard for Wash to get a good look at her face, but he swore she was staring past her brother and right at him.

“What happened to you?” Keith was asking Lyla. “Where did you go?”

“It did it,” Lyla said, her voice cracking even more. “It did it, Keith. It did this to me…”

Movement, out of the corner of his right eye.

Here we go!

Dark stick figures were racing across the rooftop of the buildings across from them. Two—three—more. They were small and low to the ground, darting along the edges, unbothered by how close they were to falling off the side. They were there one second and gone the next, but they hadn’t been fast enough to stay unseen.

“Keith!” Wash shouted. “The rooftops!”

Keith had reached Lyla and put one hand on her shoulder when he looked up and around at the sound of Wash’s voice. Wash was about to point out the ghouls’ last sighting, but the Jasper man saw them quickly enough—nightcrawlers, at least five of them, now moving across a different series of rooftops.

Keith swung up his rifle with one hand, grabbing Lyla’s wrist with the other. “Go! Get inside!”

“Keith!” Lyla shouted.

“Jesus Christ, do as I say for once in your life, Lyla!”

Even if Lyla wanted to do just that, the problem was that she couldn’t move very fast. She was more hurt than Wash originally thought, and that was abundantly clear when she tried to hobble away from Keith and toward him. She was dragging her right leg while clutching her left arm.

She won’t make it. She’s never going to make it in time.

Wash took a couple of quick steps toward Lyla when the pfft-pfft-pfft! of suppressed rifle fire echoed behind her.

Keith, shooting at something down the street.

It took Wash only a second of looking in that direction to know what that “something” was:

Ghouls.

They were on the ground and racing toward them. Wash couldn’t see them clearly, but it was hard to miss their malformed silhouettes as they lunged out of the shadows and fell one by one as Keith picked them off with a series of bursts.

Keith stopped shooting just long enough to throw a quick glance over his shoulder and locked eyes with Wash, shouting, “Get her inside, goddammit! Get her inside!”

Wash ran toward Lyla, who had stopped moving entirely to look back at her brother. Keith was shooting again, the pfft-pfft-pfft! of his gunshots the only noise in the entire town besides Lyla’s haggard gasps and Wash’s footsteps.

“Lyla,” Wash said as he reached her and grabbed one of her arms.

Her hand was slick with blood, as were her clothes, the side of her neck, and cheeks. There was a gash along her temple, and parts of her jacket were ripped. She barely had any resemblance to the woman who had saved him earlier tonight. The terror on her face didn’t help.

Wash smiled at her. Or tried to. He did his best and was turning to lead her back into the red building when the boom! of a shotgun blast shattered the night air. It had exploded from nearby and left his ears ringing for a moment.

What…?

He dropped Lyla’s hand and lifted the H&K, but found two twisted black shapes lying crumpled in the street in front of him. The door into Keith’s building was open, and Ana was standing just outside it, the shotgun in her hands.

Wash was about to call her name when Ana fired again. Flames stabbed forth and eviscerated a ghoul as it fell down from a nearby building’s rooftop, its remains splattering the sidewalk and streets with chunks.

Ana looked over, racking the shotgun. “Come on! Come on!”

Wash slipped his free arm around Lyla’s waist, said, “Put your arm around me!” and began half-dragging, half-carrying her to Ana.

The pfft-pfft-pfft! of Keith’s continued gunfire behind them (Did it sound closer than before?) was all the assurance Wash needed that the man was still alive and Wash didn’t have to keep an eye on that side of the street, too.

Boom! as Ana’s shotgun fired at two more ghouls running out of an alleyway from across the street. One seemed to trip over an invisible wire and slammed face-first into the ground, but the other one kept coming.

Another boom! and it, too, dropped.

“Goddammit, Wash, hurry it up, will you?” Ana shouted as another spent shell flicked out of her pump-action shotgun.

“I’m trying, I’m trying!” Wash shouted back.

“Keith!” Lyla said. She was looking behind them at her brother. “Oh God, Keith. We can’t leave him behind! Please! We can’t leave him behind!”

Wash glanced over to check. Keith was backing up, following in their footsteps, while reloading his rifle.

Wait. He was reloading already? That meant he only had one spare left.

Ana, shouting, “Wash! Get your ass in here now!”

Wash locked eyes with Lyla. Tears flooded down her cheeks, smearing the not-quite drying blood.

“Please,” Lyla said. “Don’t leave him. Oh God, please don’t leave him!”

Wash sighed. Or thought he did. He probably just grunted and blew out another desperate lungful of air.

“Wash!” Ana shouted. “Move it or lose it!”

“Please,” Lyla said.

“You’re really popular tonight, kid!” the Old Man laughed.

Oh, shut up, Wash thought just before he unhooked his arm from Lyla’s waist and passed her off to Ana, who had jumped down from the sidewalk and run over.

“Take her inside!” Wash said.

Ana’s eyes widened. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Something really stupid, Wash thought, but he shouted back at her instead, “Go! We’ll be right behind you!”

He saw the question in her eyes: “We?”

But she didn’t say it, maybe because there was no time. Ana took Lyla, who was both bigger and taller than her, and somehow still managed to drag the other woman to the red building. Barely.

They’re not going to make it, Wash thought, and was ready to take Lyla back from Ana when Chris was suddenly there, putting her arm around Lyla, and both women began half-carrying and half-dragging the Jasper woman to safety.

Ana threw a quick glance over her shoulder at him. “Come on!”

“Not yet!” Wash said.

“Wash, you asshat!”

He grinned at her, when there was a flurry of motion as the night spat out ghouls from up the street. They bounded toward them, moving with unnatural speed, heading right for the women.

Wash fired, the rifle butt slamming against his shoulder as the first loud pop! cracked. He hadn’t realized just how quiet the night was despite everything—Keith shooting behind him and all the screaming back and forth. There was nothing like the first loud roar of a semiautomatic rifle to light things up.

He picked off the ghouls with three shots—pop-pop-pop!—and dropped all three. He couldn’t afford to waste bullets, especially when he didn’t know how many of the creatures were out here. How many did One Eye still have in its arsenal?

I guess we’re going to find out!

Wash looked back and found Ana, Chris, and Lyla going up the sidewalk. Once again, Ana glanced over, and they locked eyes.

“Don’t stop! Go!” Wash shouted at her.

She nodded and, with Chris’s help, carried Lyla into the building.

“Lock the door!” Wash shouted after them. “Lock the door!”

Ana reappeared at the doorframe, her shotgun in her hands again. “What about you?”

“We’ll be there soon!” he said just before he turned and shot two more ghouls that had fallen down from the rooftop across the street.

Both creatures were so thin, their bones so fragile, that one of Wash’s rounds punched through its target and smashed into a window somewhere in the background. The nightcrawler fell where it was shot.

Wash heard the door slamming behind him, which was all he needed to know that Ana was following through on his instructions. He turned to Keith, who was already reloading again (Shit! He’s reloading again?) while he continued backpedaling calmly toward Wash’s position. There was a jagged line of dead ghouls up the street, the nearest one less than two meters from Keith.

“Keith,” Wash said.

The Jasper man looked over his shoulder and grinned. “Easier than I thought.”

“It’s not over yet.”

“Almost—”

A ghoul burst out of an alley between the red building and the next one over. Wash opened his mouth to scream out a warning, but it wasn’t necessary. Keith had either already seen it out of the corner of his eye or heard the creature, and was already pivoting in its direction.

Pfft! as the creature’s torso snapped backward in midair and it collapsed.

But even before the monster struck the ground, two—three—too many more ghouls were already flooding out of the same patch of shadows after it.

Too many! That’s too many!

Wash lifted his rifle to take aim at the moving figures. If they even noticed his presence they couldn’t care less, because every single one was headed straight for Keith even as the Jasper man fired into them. Wash knocked down two ghouls as they streaked past him, the sounds of their two weapons raking across the town almost in sync: The pop-pop-pop of his unsuppressed weapon and Keith’s suppressed pfft-pfft-pfft!

But it wasn’t going to be enough. Wash knew that even as he kept firing, even as a couple of ghouls gave up on reaching Keith and made a sudden turn. Wash jumped up the sidewalk and shot the first one, then another.

Keith, screaming, “Fuck you! Fuck you!”

Wash looked over just in time to see Keith before he was swallowed up by the night itself. No, not the darkness, but a carpet of squirming black tar pummeling him to the ground. The muffled pfft-pfft! of Keith’s rifle still firing from underneath the swarm, his rounds punching through weakened flesh and vanishing into the sky.

Fuck.

It seemed to go on for a while, at least in Wash’s mind. But the truth was, it might have only lasted a few seconds before Keith succumbed and his rifle went silent.

Wash shot one of the ghouls at the top of the pile, striking it in the cheek. It toppled off the mound and slid down the backs of the others. He’d aimed high on purpose, knowing that his round would go right through the creature. He hadn’t wanted to accidentally hit Keith if he was still alive down there.

He took aim at another ghoul and pulled the trigger—but there was no shot.

Empty!

The rifle was suddenly very light in his hands. Too light. How had he missed that? It was all the action, all the running and shooting, all the—

“Excuses, excuses,” the Old Man said.

Wash began backing up, ejecting the spent mag and snapping in a fresh one. He was halfway back to the red building’s door when he pulled back the charging handle on the H&K and spun around.

It stood in front of him, towering over him. Its one blue eye glowed like a beating, malformed heart in the shadows, even as its lips creased into a smile.

“Hello, Washington,” it hissed.

Oh…

The monster was too close and too fast, and even before Wash could send the command from his brain to his arms to squeeze the trigger on the rifle, the creature grabbed the H&K by the barrel and wrestled it out of his hands and tossed it into the street. It did so with hardly any effort, as if Wash was little more than a child trying to resist a grown man.

…fuck…

Wash staggered back and reached behind him for the 1911 that Keith had given him. He’d managed to wrap his fingers around the grip, when the monster touched his right arm and Wash lost all feeling in it.

…me.

“There’ll be none of that,” the creature hissed.

The clatter of the pistol as it dropped from his numbed fingers and banged against the wooden sidewalk.

What? How’d he lost his grip on the weapon? Better yet, why couldn’t he feel anything along the entire length of his right arm?

Wash continued to stumble back—it was the only move left to him—and the one-eyed ghoul followed.

“You knew it would end this way,” it hissed. “How many times have I told you? You should have listened…kid.”

Twenty-Five

THEN

By morning, all that was left for Wash to do was drag the bodies out of the bungalow and let the sunlight take care of them. The flesh and blood, anyway. He did the blue-eyed ghoul in the red cloak last, telling himself there was a reason for it but wasn’t sure what it was. Wash was numbed and moving on autopilot, doing the things he knew had to be done, things he’d done countless times. It was mundane and passionless work, but they kept him busy and his thoughts from straying.

He didn’t bother digging holes to bury the remaining ghoul bones. The carrions and insects needed to eat, too. There was a reason you didn’t find a lot of ghoul remains after The Walk Out. All Wash had to do was listen to the wildlife around him to know these four leftovers would be gone before the end of the week.

When he returned to the house, the Old Man’s body was still wrapped in his sleeping blanket and bundled with duct tape. The Old Man used to say there was nothing a roll of duct tape couldn’t fix, and Wash had found that to be true for the most part. It worked wonders to keep a body hidden.

He spent the remainder of the morning getting ready to leave and doing his best to pretend the Old Man’s body wasn’t there, resting on the floor in a corner, waiting for him to finally deal with it. When he was done packing, it was time to do the inevitable, even if the thought made him sick to his stomach.

He dragged the mummified body out into the back and dug a grave just deep enough to keep the animals away, then put the Old Man inside. He didn’t bother with a cross—the Old Man was the least religious person Wash knew—or markers. The Old Man had no family, and besides the occasional slayers they would partner up with on the road, no close friends who would come looking for him. No one, anyway, except Wash.

Morning was fading when Wash glimpsed two mounted figures through one of the windows, sunlight blinking off a pair of aviator shades one of them was wearing. He hadn’t heard them approaching because the riders were on unshod horses and the animals barely made any noise against the damp earth.

Wash grabbed his pack and went outside to meet them. He was carrying more this afternoon than when he’d showed up last night, even though he’d left most of the Old Man’s stuff behind. He didn’t need more guns or bullets; they were too heavy, and the payment from Oakville was more valuable anyway. You could always find more unclaimed ammo and weapons out there just lying around.

The two slayers were waiting outside. Wash hadn’t realized how dirty he was or how tired he looked until he saw his own reflection in the lenses of Taggert’s glasses.

“You look like shit, kid,” Williams said, as if reading Wash’s thoughts.

“Didn’t think you guys would still be around,” Taggert said. “You weren’t waiting for us, were you?”

“No,” Wash said.

“Is that the Old Man’s pack?” Williams asked.

“Yeah.”

“He using you as a pack mule now?” Williams said with a chuckle.

Taggert pushed his glasses down the bridge of his nose and leaned forward to get a better look at Wash. “Something happened.” Then, “What happened, kid?”

“He’s dead,” Wash said.

“Who’s dead?” Williams said.

“The Old Man.”

“Did you say the Old Man’s dead?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Wash said, and walked past the two mounted slayers.

“Kid,” Taggert said from behind him, but Wash didn’t stop. “Kid, what happened? Kid!”

Wash kept going and never looked back.

* * *

He didn’t know what Taggert and Williams did after their encounter, and Wash didn’t really care, either. He kept walking, heading west. He wasn’t sure where he was going exactly, and it didn’t matter anyway; he just had to get as far away from the bungalow as possible.

He avoided a couple of towns before the day was over. There were people in one, but the other might have been empty. Maybe. Wash didn’t feel like human contact and went around both. He didn’t need a new job so soon after Oakville, not with the Old Man’s share. Not that slayers really did what they did for payment; it was always just a byproduct of what they did instead of the why.

With an hour or so before nightfall and his legs tired from the nonstop walking—his arms were also fatigued from the digging earlier—Wash began looking for a place to take shelter. He considered going back to the last town he’d passed about an hour or so back. It would be a close one, but he thought he could make it. Besides, even if he couldn’t and found himself on the road when it got dark, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Instead, Wash decided not to waste time doing anything. He stashed his packs inside a brush to keep it from prying eyes and climbed up a large tree nearby, choosing a hefty branch about ten feet up from the ground. He latched himself into place with some rope and settled in.

It had been a long time since he used a tree to get through the night. The last time he could remember was a few months before he met the Old Man. That meeting had changed everything. Before, Wash got by, but the Old Man taught him how to survive.

He thought about their first encounter and all the years since, and how it only took one day before he reverted back to his old ways. But he was by himself now, so maybe it was a good thing he knew how to get by without someone to watch his back. Slayers rarely worked alone, and for good reason. When a partner died, you either found another one, or you joined an existing group. Wash couldn’t see himself doing either.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he felt. Sadness, yes, because the Old Man was an important fixture in his life, and he’d taught Wash more about the world than anyone ever had before or after The Purge. And now he was gone, because Wash didn’t look closely enough at the closet in the bungalow. It was his fault, but he didn’t dwell on that. If he were alive, the Old Man would tell him that regrets were meaningless, that the past can’t be altered, so it was better to just get on with it.

“Shit happens to everyone, good or bad,” the Old Man once said. “No one ever said life was fair. You learn from the shitty things, and you move on. Doing anything else is just a big fat waste of time.”

Wash closed his eyes and went to sleep with birds chirping in his ears and land animals scurrying on the ground below. He woke up intermittently through the night but was always lulled back to sleep by the continued noise of nature going about its business around him.

“Get on with it,” the Old Man would say. “Just get on with it, kid.”

* * *

He lurched wide awake, his right hand reaching across his waist for the handle of the kukri on pure instinct. He didn’t pull the machete right away, and instead listened…to nothing.

And that was the problem.

The living beings around him had gone quiet, and except for the rustling of branches and a wind howling between the stationary trees, there was heavy silence.

Wash was still perfectly situated on the branch where he’d put himself, so he hadn’t moved very much during the night. He had to admit, he’d been a little worried he might not be able to go right back to his old ways, but that doubt had proven unnecessary.

Why is it so quiet?

He carefully pulled the knot on the rope—all it took was one simple tug, exactly how it was supposed to work for quick disengagement—and let it dangle off the side of the branch. He could move again, but he didn’t.

The crunch-crunch of brittle leaves breaking as something walked over them, like firecrackers in the suddenly still woods. Whoever it was—whatever it was—wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding their presence. Either that, or they weren’t trying. Wash wasn’t sure which answer made him feel better.

He kept the kukri in its sheath as he scanned the woods. There were too many black shadows for him to see everything, the tall tree crowns above keeping most of the moonlight at bay and further adding to the darkness below. The lack of animal noise was what got his alarm bells ringing.

Crunch-crunch.

It sounded like a pair of feet moving down there, but that was just a guess. He could have been wrong—he could have been very wrong—but Wash didn’t think so. With so little happening, it wasn’t hard to pinpoint where the footsteps were coming from.

Crunch-crunch.

East, which was the same direction as the last town—and beyond that, the bungalow.

Crunch-crunch.

Wash slowly eased the machete out of its sheath.

Crunch-crunch.

He was high up enough that he could go unnoticed by anyone passing by below him. Unless, of course, they looked up, which they would have no reason to do. The branches around him were extra camouflage from everything except the squirrels and birds already up here with him.

Crunch-crunch.

Wash focused on the ground, the kukri gripped tightly in front of him, its very sharp silver-coated blade glinting against a stream of moonlight that had managed to penetrate the crowns above. Not a lot, but enough.

Crunch-crunch.

Wash stared, his eyes widening at the sight.

A ghoul.

It was a blue-eyed ghoul.

What…

Wash knew what he was looking at because of the way it walked—slow and purposeful, its body long and straight, sinewy muscles almost glistening in the darkness. He would know even if he wasn’t staring down at its hairless domed head, the skull underneath the flesh peeking through at deformed angles.

…the…

It stopped almost directly below him and seemed to look around for a moment.

…fuck…

Then it craned its head and looked up at him.

…is…

It looked straight up at him.

…happening?

It was wearing glasses. But not just any glasses—aviator shades, the lenses so scratched up that Wash wondered how it could see anything from behind them. Then the damn thing smiled at him with thin strings that could only be mistaken for lips if you had never seen human mouths before. Its nose was shrunken against its gaunt cheeks, and Wash didn’t know how the glasses stayed perched on its face and didn’t just slide off.

The shades, with their scratched lenses…

Taggert’s. He was looking at the same aviator shades that Taggert always wore and had been wearing when Wash saw him this afternoon. So why was the creature below him wearing Taggert’s sunglasses?

Like every ghoul Wash had crossed paths with, this one was naked, its elongated frame giving the impression it was more plastic mannequin than actual flesh and blood. Slippery, pruned black skin wrapped tightly around its protruding bones, as if every movement it made should hurt.

Wash couldn’t see its eyes with the shades on, but he thought he could just make out a glowing blue orb behind the right lens…

One glowing blue orb.

There had to be something wrong with the angle, because Wash could only make out one pulsating object behind the glasses. Eyes came in pairs. Wash had seen black-eyed ghouls with just one eye—sometimes with none—but it was different with the blue eyes. They could regenerate limbs and heal from bullet wounds. They didn’t lose eyeballs.

Unless he was wrong. Unless this wasn’t a blue-eyed ghoul.

But then, what the hell was it?

Wash was reaching for his holstered SIG when the creature slid the shades off its face to reveal its eyes.

No, not eyes.

Its one glowing blue eye.

What the fuck? Wash thought when the monster lifted a slightly crooked forefinger to its lips.

Then it winked at him—it winked at him—before darting off, leaving the aviator shades on the ground in its wake.

Wash looked after the monster, the kukri and gun in his hands, trying to understand what had just happened.

Or had it happened at all? Had he dreamt the whole thing up? Was he still asleep?

Wake up. Wake up!

But he was awake. He was wide awake and sweating despite the cold night air, despite the fact that every breath he took produced small white clouds.

And then there were the shades, on the ground below him, staring back up at him…

* * *

He didn’t close his eyes or go back to sleep again that night. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to, and he didn’t.

As soon as the first hints of sunlight began spreading across the woods around him, Wash jumped down from the tree. He picked up the aviator shades from the ground where they’d been dropped, not having moved all night. He’d been certain they were Taggert’s from ten feet up, and up close that certainty proved correct. There were specks of blood on the inside of the lenses and more along the temples. Human blood.

Wash looked in the direction the ghoul had gone, but instead of chasing it, he turned and retrieved his packs, then began running back in the direction of the bungalow. It took him all morning and most of the afternoon, bypassing the same two towns from last night.

By the time he reached the house, he was tired and ready to sit down and never get back up. But he forced himself to keep going, pushing open the closed door with the barrel of his shotgun. The absence of horses outside the bungalow wasn’t too surprising because like most people, the slayers would have put their mounts indoors with them to keep them out of harm’s way. Horses were a more precious commodity these days than most people.

The smell of human blood—so distinct from that of a ghoul’s—immediately set Wash’s alarm bells ringing. He stepped inside, leaving the door wide open behind him to let air in and help with the stink.

Williams’s body was the first one to greet him. It lay stiffly in the great room on its back next to a machete. The slayer was missing almost his entire right arm, and for some reason, Williams’s eyes were open and staring up at the cobwebbed ceiling. His wide-brim hat hung from a hook along the wall nearby. If not for the missing arm and all the coagulated blood that surrounded him, Wash might have thought Williams was just resting awkwardly on the floor.

The same couldn’t be said for Taggert, who sat next to the hearth, almost in the same spot where the Old Man had spent his last few seconds the night before. There was a hole in Taggert’s chest, and his head was lolled to one side, his eyes mercifully closed. His shades were missing, and there was writing on the wall above his head, written in big blocky, bloody letters.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN KID

Wash replayed last night over in his head:

The blue-eyed ghoul—a one-eyed, blue-eyed ghoul—smiling up at him, taunting him.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN KID, the letters read. They were written in Taggert’s blood; or maybe both his and Williams’s. There was so much of it that they had to have come from both slayers.

Wash jumped over Williams’s body on his way to the back hallway. He burst out of the rear door and into the yard behind the bungalow.

There was a hole where the grave he’d dug yesterday for the Old Man used to be. A sleeping bag, the same one he’d wrapped the Old Man in, was unfurled on the ground, pieces of duct tape still clinging to parts of it. Footprints led from the hole and back to the door behind Wash, along with shredded clothes that suggested someone had pulled them off strip by strip.

He ran back into the house, but there was nothing for him to see, nothing to discover that would lead to any conclusions different from what was already reverberating around inside his head.

He walked over to Taggert’s body and stared at the bloody words on the wall.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN KID

Wash replayed the last few seconds of last night when the Old Man squeezed the trigger on the SIG Sauer that he’d pressed against his own temple. Wash had screamed and lunged at him, trying to stop the gunshot, to get to the gun, but he had no hopes of reaching him in time. He wasn’t faster than a bullet, and all he’d managed to do was rush the Old Man slightly.

And that, maybe, just maybe, had thrown off the bullet’s trajectory enough that instead of going through the Old Man’s brain and out the other temple, it had exited his left eye. The Old Man had slumped to the floor then, blood oozing out of the hole on the side of his head, but most of it coming out of the much bigger one where his left eye used to be.

…where his left eye used to be…

The bullet might not have gone straight through the Old Man’s brain, but it had killed him all the same. Wash knew that, because he had checked the Old Man’s pulse and sat there staring at his unmoving body for the remainder of the night, a small part of him expecting all of it to be one big joke.

But it wasn’t. The Old Man was dead, and he stayed dead. Wash had buried him in the back of the house the next morning. His arms were still tired from all the digging.

He looked up at the jagged, bloody letters hanging over Taggert’s head, exactly where it knew Wash would be sure to look:

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN KID, it read, the same now as it did the first ten times he read it.

That was what the Old Man called him, ever since they first met. Kid. The Old Man rarely called Wash by his name.

“CATCH ME IF YOU CAN KID”

“CATCH ME IF YOU CAN…”

“…KID…”

Twenty-Six

NOW

Wash wondered if this was what freefalling from outer space was like for astronauts. The wind ripping at his face, the odd feeling of weightlessness, and then finally, at the very end, the bone-crunching (This is going to hurt!) impact of smashing down to earth.

He was right. It did hurt. A lot.

There was throbbing pain everywhere, but Wash didn’t let that stop him from immediately rolling over onto his stomach and pushing himself back up onto his knees, every joint along his body groaning in protest.

“This is it, kid!” the Old Man shouted inside his head. “This is the end of the road! No time to be lollygagging!”

He still had the kukri safely holstered in its sheath, thank God, and Wash drew it now with his left hand. He would have used his right—his dominant hand—but he didn’t have control of it. The entire arm was numb and dangled at his side like a superfluous appendage. One Eye had pulled it out of its socket with a flick of its wrist.

“It’s too strong,” the Old Man said. “Don’t let it touch you again, kid!”

That’s the trick, isn’t it?

There was blood in his mouth, and Wash swirled it around before spitting it out. He was in the streets of Jasper, surrounded by ghouls and scared civilians watching him from behind curtains, from the safety of their darkened homes. He didn’t believe for a second anyone was coming out to help. They hadn’t when they heard Lyla earlier. And still hadn’t budged when Keith tried to rescue her.

“You always knew it would end like this,” the Old Man said. “One on one. Mano-a-mano. Slayer versus monster. This is the life, kid.”

I know.

“So stop waiting for help that’s not gonna come, and get on with killing the fucker already!”

Yes, sir.

Wash gritted his teeth before slamming his right shoulder into the ground. Roaring pain flooded over him, and it took everything he had not to scream out in agony.

Instead, the only sounds in the streets were his haggard breathing mixed in with the slurp-slurp-slurp of black-eyed ghouls feasting on Keith’s body. From where he kneeled, Wash could make out four, maybe five of the creatures. The rest were dead. The ones that weren’t were either too busy with Keith to notice him, or it wouldn’t let them interfere.

Wash looked over at it now.

One Eye casually hopped down the sidewalk and sauntered over to him, that stupid thing it probably thought was a grin plastered over its bony face. It looked very much like a walking skeleton, as if it had broken free from a high school science lab somewhere, slapped on a thin film of black layer, and called it flesh, then wandered out into the world. There was nothing natural about it, and Wash didn’t see anything that reminded him of what it used to be.

Who it used to be.

“I’m dead, kid,” the Old Man said. “That’s not me. You know that.”

I know.

“So stop thinking about it, and get on with it! Kill the fucker!”

I’m trying, old timer, I’m trying.

“That must have hurt,” the creature hissed, its echoey voice infiltrating Wash’s thoughts.

Wash pushed himself up onto two shaky legs. Fire burned up and down the entire length of his right arm, but he was able to (mostly) shove that into the background. Mostly. He waited for the numbness to set in.

Any second now…

“What’s the matter, kid?” One Eye said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Wash clenched his teeth. “All I see is a piece of shit that needs killing.”

“And then what? Are you going to bury me again?”

“This time, I’m going to cut off your head and drive this knife through your fucking brain first.”

One Eye snickered. It continued walking toward him, moving slowly on purpose. Wash knew what it was trying to do—prolonging their encounter so it could taunt him for as long as possible. This was all a game. Everything was a game to it.

Wash focused on the glowing blue eye. The only eye, because the left was gone, a black hole where an eyeball used to be. It was destroyed when the Old Man tried to blow his brains out at the bungalow, but Wash had thrown off his aim. He’d still died, though. The bullet had gotten just enough of his brain to kill him.

This wasn’t the Old Man. Not anymore. It was something else. A ghoul. A blue-eyed ghoul. Everything that made the Old Man what he was, was gone. Wash couldn’t see any clues to his friend’s existence in the monster’s face, because this was a monster and nothing more.

It was just another monster.

“You’re wondering how it happened, aren’t you?” the creature hissed. “Why I didn’t die that night. You’re wondering why it took so long for the transformation to happen. Or why this”—he tapped the shrunken emptiness where his left eye used to be—“hasn’t regenerated yet. To be honest, I don’t know the answers either.”

The ghoul wasn’t entirely wrong. Wash had been asking himself those questions since this “game” of theirs began. But the more he thought about them, the more the Old Man’s words kept coming back to him:

“You’re wasting your time thinking about it,” the Old Man once said. “It is what it is, kid. Silver kills the monsters, so we use silver. If dirt took them down, we’d be using dirt. Let the eggheads spend their time thinking about the why’s. That’s not our job. Next!”

Next, Wash thought, before saying out loud, “I don’t care. There’s nothing special about you. You’re just another notch on my knife.”

“I don’t believe you,” the creature said, tilting its head slightly to one side. “I think you do care…kid.”

It smiled when it said kid, clearly trying to get under his skin.

And it worked, because Wash lunged forward, slicing with the kukri. Even if the ghoul didn’t know what he was about to do before he did it, it could have simply sidestepped to avoid his attack. It was fast enough, and he was moving too slowly, his motions handicapped by all the aches and pains coming from everywhere.

Instead, One Eye just grabbed the machete by the blade and wrested it from his grip. Wash staggered away, almost fell to his knees again, but managed to maintain his balance—or, at least, remain upright, if just barely.

He put some more distance between himself and the creature, at the same time glimpsing the H&K rifle lying a few meters down the street. It was too far for him to grab, and surely the ghoul—because it was so goddamn fast—could intercept him without any problems before he was even halfway there.

So Wash looked away from the rifle and at the monster as it held the kukri it had taken from him in its hand, while the other hand—the one it had used to grab the machete—bled black drops of blood to the street. Not that the monster seemed to notice or care. It would heal from it soon enough.

“I made this for you,” it said, turning the blade over and letting the moonlight glint off the shiny surface. “The memories come and go, but it’s always strongest when I think about you. I remember this.”

The creature stood still, staring at the machete in its hand. For a second, Wash could almost believe that this thing, this monster, actually remembered what it was like to be the Old Man. That maybe, just maybe, there was a small part of his friend still in there, somewhere.

No.

Was it possible?

No!

He was in uncharted territory here. After all, what did he really know about the transformation from human to ghoul? Maybe—

No, goddammit, NO!

“You didn’t make shit for me,” Wash said, spitting the words out. “He did, and he’s dead.”

And just like that, whatever shred of humanity might have lingered in the nightcrawler’s face disappeared as it tossed the long knife to the street.

Then it looked up and made a tsk-tsk motion with its finger. “I guess it’s true what they say; no one can hurt you as much as your kids.”

“I’m not your fucking kid,” Wash said.

“I taught you everything you know.”

“You didn’t teach me shit. He did. And he’s dead.” Wash spat out another mouthful of blood. “You’re nothing, and I’m going to end you tonight.”

“How? You can’t even use one of your arms.”

“I don’t need both arms.”

“Then show me!” it hissed, its face contorting maniacally.

Wash dived to the side and shouted, “Now!” just before the door into the red building opened and Ana stepped outside with the shotgun.

He’d seen her in the window behind the creature, watching them in the streets. Thanks to Keith’s lantern, which she was holding next to her face, he was able to read her expression—but especially her eyes—and knew what she was thinking, what she wanted to do. Wash didn’t know if One Eye either didn’t notice her presence back there, or if it just didn’t care because it didn’t think she was any threat. Or maybe, just maybe, it was so focused on him—like it had been out in the plains when Keith almost got the drop on it—that it was caught off guard.

The boom! of Ana’s shotgun blast shattered the stillness for the second time that night as Wash lunged for the H&K on the street. He wanted desperately to look over to see if she’d managed to nail One Eye—maybe take its whole fucking head off with the shot—but he couldn’t afford the extra second or two that would have cost him.

The gun! Get to the gun now now NOW!

Wash focused everything he had on the rifle, snatching it up from the street even as pain rippled through him and his right arm tried to pull itself free from its socket again. He clenched down to force away the thousand explosions going on across his body and concentrated on the heavy weight of the H&K. The magazine was fully loaded, and Wash lifted it, finally looking toward the red building—

One Eye held Ana by the throat and was slamming her against the wall of Keith’s building over and over and over. Ana had lost the shotgun, which explained why she hadn’t gotten off a second shot. One was all she’d managed, because One Eye was that fast.

Wash lifted the rifle, sucked in a deep breath, and took aim.

It turned its head to look back at him—there were small holes in its cheeks, tiny craters where buckshot from Ana’s first and only shot had landed—just before Wash squeezed the trigger—

—it jerked its head back just a fraction—

—and the round pekked! off the brick wall between the creature and Ana!

No! Goddammit, no!

It swung Ana around, fingers still gripping tightly around her throat, moving her from one spot to another as if she were little more than a rag doll. Her body swayed lifelessly, clear signs that Ana had either blacked out or—

No, she’s alive. She has to still be alive!

In the second or two after Wash’s shot echoed, he couldn’t pull the trigger again. Ana was in the way—which was exactly what the creature had intended by moving her between the two of them.

He thought he saw it grinning just before it threw Ana at him.

Wash didn’t think—he didn’t have time to think—and dropped the H&K and caught Ana’s body as it sailed through the cold air toward him. The only other option would have been to sidestep and let her crash into the street, and he was too afraid that might kill her because she had looked so lifeless in its grip.

So he gave up the rifle and caught her instead.

Ana’s weight, combined with his already weakened state, sent him reeling backward. Then his legs gave, and he went down on one knee with Ana’s limp body in his arms—

The sudden pop-pop-pop! of new gunshots made Wash look up.

One Eye, staggering back from the red brick building as—

The kid, Chris, standing in the doorway and firing a handgun at the creature. The rattle of her shots was like thunderclaps running up and down the streets of Jasper. She was firing so fast and striking the monster in the chest with every other shot.

“You see how fast she’s shooting? She’s not going to last very long, kid!” the Old Man shouted.

I know, I know!

Wash laid Ana down—a little rougher than he would have liked, though she didn’t make a sound, maybe because she was already (Don’t say it! Don’t you even think it!) dead—and searched for, found, and grabbed the H&K he’d tossed nearby.

Chris had stopped shooting, and Wash didn’t need to glance over to know the kid had spent all her bullets. If she had a good head on her shoulders, she would be trying to close the door, then praying that One Eye didn’t go after her. If she didn’t, then she might do something stupid like try to reload while still exposed.

Wash stood up, lifting the rifle, at the same time looking over at Chris.

The kid was trying to reload her pistol, but she was in too much of a hurry and having trouble getting the spare magazine into the gun. One Eye stood in the street with an expression that could almost pass for bemusement on its blood-covered face.

Wash was taking aim at the ghoul when something moved in the corner of his eye. He turned just in time to see a lone nightcrawler running toward him, its lithe body seeming to hop against the dark ground. Wash shot it, and even before it dropped, he spun around—

One Eye was standing in front of him. “Hey, kid,” it hissed, just before it hit him in the chest with an open palm.

Wash flew through the air and smashed into the rebars securing a window on a building across the street. Fire erupted from his toes and flared up his legs, threatening to engulf his mind even as he fell back down to the wooden sidewalk.

And yet, somehow, he’d managed to hold on to the H&K!

“Don’t lose the gun! Don’t lose the gun!” the Old Man shouted inside his head.

One Eye was walking toward him, when Ana (She’s alive!) scrambled to her knees and drove a knife—the same Keith had given her to give to Chris earlier!—into the creature’s back. It roared before reaching around and backhanding her, sending Ana flipping through the air and into one of the foundation poles in front of the red building. She collapsed to the dirt street and lay in a pile, and this time he was afraid she really might be dead.

“Don’t think about her!” the Old Man shouted. “End it now, kid! End it now!”

Wash was on his knees when he lifted the H&K and took aim. One Eye turned around, Ana’s knife sticking out of its back like a useless third arm.

“John!” Wash shouted. “John Kelly!”

The ghoul froze at the name.

It wasn’t much. It was maybe half a heartbeat—maybe even less than that—and the same look that Wash had seen before, when it was holding the kukri, flashed across its face.

Slow is smooth…

Wash squeezed the trigger—

…and smooth is fast!

—and hit the creature between the eyes!

There was a momentary look of confusion on the ghoul’s face, as if it were trying to figure out what had just happened. Whether it reached a conclusion or not, the results were the same: Its legs buckled underneath it, and it collapsed to the street, resting perfectly still where it fell.

Wash stood up and turned around, just as the remaining nightcrawlers disengaged themselves from Keith’s corpse and stared at One Eye’s body. If they were still capable of emotion, Wash might have thought they were confused by what they saw, and that confusion had led to paralysis.

He shot them one by one. It was easy, like shooting fish in a barrel. Even after the first one dropped, the others didn’t try to evade his fire or even seem to have the will to do so. He felt almost sorry for them.

Almost.

Epilogue

“Who’s John Kelly?”

“You heard that?”

“I wasn’t the only one who heard it,” Ana said. “It heard you, too.” Then, when he still hadn’t answered her question, “So, who’s John Kelly?”

“John Kelly was the man who trained me,” Wash said. “But no one calls him that. I’m not sure anyone else but me even knows his real name.” Wash paused for a moment, before continuing. “It’s not something he talked about very often. His old life before The Purge. Before everything. To him, John Kelly was who he used to be but wasn’t anymore.”

Ana forced herself to sit up on the bed, grimacing with pain as she did so.

“Hey, come on,” Wash said, reaching for her.

“I’m fine,” Ana said, even though he could see on her face that she wasn’t.

She managed to sit up just enough with the help of the big pillow behind her. Ana searched out his face, maybe trying to read him. The truth was, he belonged on another bed next to Ana. His body was bruised and battered from his toes all the way up to his head, but that generous dose of painkillers Lyla had found for him (and for herself, after her own ordeal) was having a hell of an effect. His brain knew there was pain, but his body, fortunately, wasn’t cooperating.

He sat at the foot of Ana’s bed and watched her back. Her face was bruised and her nose was broken, with a bandage over the bridge. Given what she had gone through last night, he didn’t have to imagine how bad she looked underneath her clothes. She didn’t look herself, but he thought she was still breathtakingly beautiful anyway. Maybe the fact that she was alive when he thought she was dead last night had a little something to do with that.

“You lied to us,” Ana finally said. “To me and Keith last night.”

“I didn’t,” Wash said.

“Yes, you did. You said that thing killed your mentor. You didn’t say anything about it being your mentor.”

“That part must have slipped my mind.”

“Uh huh.”

“It was…complicated.”

“That’s not complicated, Wash. That’s borderline insane.”

He smiled. “Would it have made much of a difference if I told you the whole truth?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“It is what it is. Can’t change any of that now.”

“I’m still going to hold it against you.”

“And I wouldn’t blame you.”

She glanced over at the window across the room from them. Silhouetted figures were moving around on the sidewalk.

“Chris?” she asked.

“She’s way better than us this morning,” Wash said. “That’s a tough kid.”

“What’s she doing out there?”

“Helping Lyla and the townspeople pick up the pieces. There’s a lot to pick up after last night.”

“Keith?”

Wash shook his head.

“And the creature…it’s dead?” Ana asked. “Truly dead?”

“Yeah, it’s dead,” Wash said. “Truly dead.”

“What about the others? The black eyes that were out there last night?”

“I killed the ones that were on the street. Nothing showed up after that, so it’s safe to say they’re dead, too.”

“I don’t think ‘safe’ is the right word this morning, Wash.”

“Safe enough.”

Ana was still staring at the figures moving around outside their window.

“They’ll be fine,” Wash said. “They survived The Purge. They can survive anything after that.”

“Have you met them?”

“A couple. The ones that came to my room with Lyla.”

“How is she, by the way?”

“Hobbling around on a crutch, but she’s alive. After last night, that’s a victory.”

“Yeah,” Ana said, and grimaced again.

“You okay?”

She sighed and fixed him with an annoyed look. “I can barely move without feeling like I might vomit, Wash. I don’t think I’m going to be ‘okay’ for a while.”

“We don’t have to leave right away. We’ll heal up first, then go when we’re ready.”

She smiled at him. “‘We?’ Who is this ‘we’ you’re referring to?”

“I was just thinking…”

“And what were you just thinking?”

“That maybe I’ve been meaning to walk through Nebraska again. You know, see if there are some jobs up there. I heard about this place called Newton…”

Ana frowned.

“No?” Wash said.

“Forget Newton,” Ana said. “I like Kansas better.”

“What I meant was, I’ve been meaning to walk through Kansas again…”

Ana smiled again. “Maybe you’re not such an asshat after all.”

He laughed. “And all it took was almost dying in Texas for you to realize that, huh?”

“Hey, it’s a big state; it took me awhile.”

“Better late than never.”

Ana glanced back at the window and didn’t say anything for a while.

“What is it?” Wash asked.

She turned back to him. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“Back to Kanter 11. Back to Emmy.”

“We will, after you heal up. After we both heal up.”

“I’m fine.”

“Bullshit.”

“I want to leave this place, Washington. I want to go back to Emily.” She reached over and took his hand, and squeezed. “Let’s go. Let’s leave today. Maybe not this morning, but today. You, me, and Chris. Let’s just…go.”

Wash sighed. Just the thought of packing up and climbing on a horse now, after everything they had been through, made his bones ache.

But he saw the determination on Ana’s face and knew she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Hell, if he said no, there was a very real possibility she might just leave him behind and go on her own anyway.

He nodded and squeezed her hand back. “I’ll ask Lyla for more painkillers.”

“A lot more,” Ana said.

He grinned. “Yeah, a whole lot more.”

A Word From the Author

And just like that, the 3-part “Vendetta” storyline comes to a close. Does this mean there will be no more After The Purge books? Perish the thought! I have plenty of stories about more people set in different locations fighting different enemies to tell. Too many, in fact.

If you would like to see more of what’s going on out there, please take a second to leave a review for Remains at a bookseller of your choice. And if you haven’t already, please do the same for the first two parts in the series. Even a short review would be tremendously appreciated, and it would let me know you guys want more.

Thanks again for reading, and until next time… Stay out of the dark!