Author: Sam Sisavath
Date: 2019-10-23 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Post-Apocalyptic | Infected
Description: Book #8 in The Road to Babylon post-apocalyptic series. ALL HE HAS TO DO IS SURVIVE THE NIGHT. On his way back from a vital supply run, Keo is ambushed and stranded in an abandoned town that, as it turns out, isn’t so empty after all. With little to count on except his wits and what weapons he can scavenge, he’ll have to fight tooth and nail to see morning. But Keo isn’t alone forever. He’s joined by a group of slayers bent on cleansing the town of its ghoul infestation. Potential allies should be good news, but these humans also bring along their own problems—a blue-eyed ghoul with a particul
Publisher: Barnes & Noble Press

Daybreak

Copyright © 2019 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, and Shavonne Clarke

Cover Art by Deranged Doctor Design

Contents

Books in the Road to Babylon Series

Also by Sam Sisavath

About Daybreak

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Epilogue

More From The Road to Babylon…

Books in the Road to Babylon Series

Glory Box

Bombtrack

Rooster

Devil’s Haircut

Black

The Distance

Hollow

Daybreak

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 After the Purge Post-Apocalyptic Series

Requiem

Tokens

Requiem

Mist City

The Allie Krycek Vigilante Series

Hunter/Prey

Saint/Sinner

Finders/Keepers

Savior/Corruptor

The Red Sky Conspiracy Series

Most Wanted

The Devil You Know

About Daybreak

ALL HE HAS TO DO IS SURVIVE THE NIGHT.

On his way back from a vital supply run, Keo is ambushed and stranded in an abandoned town that, as it turns out, isn’t so empty after all. With little to count on except his wits and what weapons he can scavenge, he’ll have to fight tooth and nail to see morning.

But Keo isn’t alone forever. He’s joined by a group of slayers bent on cleansing the town of its ghoul infestation. Potential allies should be good news, but these humans also bring along their own problems—a blue-eyed ghoul with a particularly sadistic streak.

The blue eyes have always been unpredictable creatures, but this one in particular seems to take great joy in playing with its victims before striking the fatal blow. And Keo has just found himself in its crosshairs.

The only thing that matters to Keo is to get home. To do that, all he has to do is survive long enough to see daybreak. It’s just one night.

One very, very long night…

One

“No meandering. Get there, get what you need, and come home. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I mean it, Keo.”

“I know you do.”

“If I have to go after you, I’m going to be really angry.”

“We wouldn’t want that, would we?”

That was the plan, anyway. Get there, get what he needed, and head back home. No muss, no fuss. Wham, bam, thank you very much, ma’am, but I best be going before my lady comes and finds me and kicks my ass.

Of course, it hadn’t exactly gone as planned.

Keo liked to think it wasn’t his fault. Well, not entirely, anyway. It was possibly 10 percent his fault. Maybe 15 percent, if he were feeling generous, but definitely not more than that.

Probably.

But how he got here wasn’t of paramount concern at the moment. Getting out of it was what he was focusing on. That and Lara’s voice, in the back of his mind, warning that she was going to find him and kick his ass if he didn’t make it home. He wasn’t entirely sure what was scarier—his current predicament or Lara’s wrath.

No, that wasn’t true. As scary as disappointed Lara could be, being stalked through a dilapidated warehouse where every step he took seemed to cause the metal walls to vibrate and create an ungodly loud echo was likely much more frightening. That, and the fact there were things out there looking for him.

Things.

Not people.

But things.

As in, undead things.

Should have waited for morning before coming back. But no, you had to push your luck, didn’t you? Had to ride through the night.

Yeah, this was probably about 50 percent his fault.

Now he was stuck up the proverbial creek without a paddle. But at least he still had a knife with a silver-coated blade, so that was something.

Something? It was probably the only reason he was still alive. He’d used up all his ammo running for his life along three blocks of empty streets after he lost Mirabelle. Well, “lost” probably wasn’t quite the right word. The Appaloosa had been taken away from him by force. She hadn’t gone willingly, but in the end, she’d succumbed. Keo was still trying to figure out how he was going to explain losing the horse to Bunker. He imagined a lot of talking on his part and a lot of fuming on the rancher’s.

Probably should come up with a better explanation before I see him.

“You see, Bunker, they came out of nowhere. Totally out of nowhere. If it wasn’t for Mirabelle, they would have gotten me, too. The bastards were so focused on her that I was able to make my escape.”

It was the truth, but it was probably not going to be much comfort to Bunker, who loved his horses more than he did other human beings, Keo included.

There’s something wrong with that guy.

When Mirabelle went down, she’d taken the supply bags with her, including the submachine gun and extra ammo. Keo had two magazines for the SIG Sauer, but without the pistol—somewhere on the streets right now, maybe half a block from his current location, but it wasn’t like he was familiar with the place—they were dead weight holding him down. Still, he resisted the urge to toss them; you never know when they might come in handy, especially since all the bullets were silver-tipped.

Keo changed up his grip on the KA-BAR. Seven inches of blade gleamed in the semidarkness, the silver coating along the very sharp edge still slathered with a thin layer of viscous liquid that looked as if it might drip off the knife at any second but somehow hung on.

Thick, black blood.

Ghoul blood.

They’d followed him to the warehouse and inside it. Not all of them—most of them were busy with the horse—but enough. He had also glimpsed additional fleeting shadows on the rooftops of the buildings along both sides of the street as he fled through the darkness with only the moonlight to guide his way. The flashlight, along with everything else, had gone down with Mirabelle.

He still didn’t understand where they’d all come from. And so close to the ranch, too. Too close. How did Bunker not know about their existence? You just didn’t see this kind of concentration of ghouls out here anymore. There were the big cities, of course, but anyone with half a brain avoided those.

So where the hell did they come from?

Keo was going to have to sit Bunker down and have a good long talk with the rancher and find out how much he really knew about his area. But that could wait until he got out of here. Right now, Keo had more urgent matters to deal with.

He didn’t have to see them to know some of them were inside the warehouse. He could smell them. Their stench tarnished the air around him, tainting everything they came in contact with. And then there was the soft patter of their footsteps.

Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap…

Bare feet, moving—gliding?—across the dirty concrete floor still slick with a variety of oils that had been used to keep the machines around him functioning. He was leaning against one of those hulking objects right now. It was bulky, and the steel was cold against his back even through his thick jacket and the thermal shirt underneath. While the cargo pants and boots gave him plenty of additional shelter from the surprisingly cold Texas nights, they did nothing to keep his breath from coming out in puffs of white clouds whenever they left his lips.

His breathing was under control, and his heartbeat steady. He’d had ten, maybe eleven minutes to rest and gather himself. It was more than enough time for Keo to push back the adrenaline that had sent him racing through the streets of Paxton like a man possessed. It’d been a while since Keo had to tread lightly after nightfall. There was that time in Axton, but he’d had a horse named Horse to help him get through it. That wasn’t really the animal’s name, but one Keo had given him. Horse was as fast as he was smart. Too smart, in fact, because he eventually decided sticking around Keo was not good for his health.

Smart horse, that Horse.

Mirabelle hadn’t been nearly as clever as Horse or had the thoroughbred’s speed. But she’d done her best. It wasn’t enough, as it turned out.

Should have waited for morning to travel. Dammit, why didn’t I wait for morning?

Because he’d been anxious to get home, to return to Lara. She needed—

The stench was a silent explosion, ripping across the chilly space around Keo’s immediate vicinity and trying to suffocate him. It came out of nowhere and without warning, and Keo almost didn’t react in time.

Almost.

He took two steps away from the bulky machinery he’d been hiding behind and glanced up as it fell out of a pocket that had opened in space-time above him. Keo stabbed upward with the KA-BAR, the sharp point ripping through the creature’s flimsy chest cavity, the knife and Keo’s hand punching right through its body and out its back. It hadn’t taken very much force because the creatures were so weak. It was that lack of girth that made them so fast and quiet, allowing this one to sneak up on him.

He’d forgotten how ugly the buggers were up close. The pruned black flesh that covered their bony frame, the shiny domed heads devoid of even a single strand of hair, and the almost obsidian black of their eyes, simultaneously lifeless and filled with desire to suck every last millimeter of blood from his veins. Seeing them up close again, after so long, was a shock to the system.

Darby Bay had been a painful reminder of how dangerous they could still be, but months after that battle had reset the status quo. Ghouls weren’t supposed to be a threat anymore. There weren’t supposed to be this many of them in one place.

And yet, here they were.

And yet, here he was, in the thick of them.

I gotta get out more.

The ghoul died instantly upon contact with the silver that covered the KA-BAR, but its body slammed into Keo and knocked him down to one knee. That was more out of surprise than the impact. He struggled back up and stumbled away, shaking the creature off and watching it slide with a lifeless thump to the greasy floor.

Keo turned, his knife instantly up and ready. Where you found one ghoul you usually found more, and he was damn sure they’d tracked him into the warehouse.

So where were the rest? Maybe he’d gotten lucky and only one had managed to find him.

No, he couldn’t afford to believe that. Not tonight.

He began moving, heading further into the building. That required going around the massive blocks of shiny steel, each new one seemingly bigger than the last. Keo hadn’t figured out what they were doing here before the end of the world put everyone out of business; there’d been no signs outside, and it was much too dark to get a good look at all the machinery. Not that he had the free time to investigate anyway. There would be—

Tap-tap-tap!

The sudden patter of footsteps behind him.

There they are!

They were coming from the front, which meant he was going in the right direction. He was making a lot of noise himself too, his boots pounding against the hard concrete floor, every step ricocheting off the steel walls. Even a deaf man would know where he was right now, not that he could do anything about it. Sure, he could walk softer, but that would mean slowing down, and right now “slow” wasn’t in the cards.

Tap-tap-tap!

Tap-tap-tap!

Bare feet, like pounding drums, behind him.

Faster. Move faster!

Intermittent streams of moonlight poured in from high windows along the top of the building, keeping him from running into one of the machines. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but extra light always helped—

A ghoul bounced out from behind one of the many towering structures in front of him, moving with such speed that Keo realized right away that he couldn’t stop or dodge it. It was simply too fast and there was no warning, so instead of slowing down, Keo ran at it.

He thought he might have seen something that looked almost like surprise in the undead thing’s eyes, but that couldn’t have possibly been true because ghouls didn’t have emotions. Surprise was a human reaction, and these creatures were far removed from what they used to be. Weren’t they?

Whatever it was that flickered across the ghoul’s eyes just before Keo slashed at it with the knife, getting it across the chest and slicing off a part of its chin, it vanished as the creature fell. Keo immediately stepped over it.

Move move move! No hanging around to enjoy your handiwork, pal! More of them coming, remember?

He remembered. Even if he didn’t, he could hear them.

Tap-tap-tap!

Tap-tap-tap!

They were so loud. How many were back there? All he had to do to find out was to glance back.

But he didn’t want to.

Tap-tap-tap!

Or did he?

No. Resist the urge.

Tap-tap-tap!

Resist it!

He couldn’t, and looked back.

Aw, hell.

He was right. There were more than a few of them back there. A lot more. So many that they couldn’t all chase him on foot, so some had scampered up onto the bulky machines and were jumping from one steel block after another to keep up. The ones on the ground were dark black shapes twisting and turning against the shadows, while the ones on top were more silhouetted monkeys against the spilling moonlight.

Goddamn, there was a lot of them. Where had they all come from? He hadn’t expected to run into a nest of ghouls on the way back. He’d ridden Mirabelle right through Paxton nine days ago on his way to Galveston without a problem. It was a small Texas town in the middle of nowhere, and he wouldn’t even know it existed if he hadn’t stumbled across it while making his way north. Bunker hadn’t mentioned it, maybe because he didn’t know it was out here himself. There were little ghost towns like this everywhere in the country now.

The first time he’d gone through Paxton, it was daytime. He’d had no reason to believe the night would change anything. He hadn’t seen the obvious signs of ghoul occupation: boarded windows from The Purge days, blood in the streets, and evidence that, once upon a time, people had fought to survive here. There had been none of that. Not a single thing. So where the hell did the ghouls come from?

He darted around something with a long, protruding metal lever and almost ran right into a giant block of brushed metal. Keo skirted around it, losing a few precious seconds in the process. Thank God he had a nice head start.

Wait. He still had a head start, right?

Keo glanced back.

Yup, still back there. More of the creatures had joined the ones jumping from machine to machine. He wasn’t sure if they were any faster than the ones on the ground below. The time it took to just leap—

One of them missed its landing spot and tumbled down and crashed into the heads of three others below it.

Damn, that looked like it hurt!

But pain was another human trait. Ghouls didn’t feel pain. They didn’t feel anything at all.

As if to prove Keo correct, the one that had fallen bolted right back up and was running among the pack on the ground.

Keo turned and focused on what was ahead of him, just in case another lever showed up out of nowhere. How much longer did he have before he hit the back of the warehouse? Twenty meters? Thirty? It was a little hard to gauge distance in the semidarkness. He just hoped there was a door back there—a rear exit out of the place. If not, he was going to have to turn around and actually count all the ghouls behind him.

Yeah, don’t wanna be doing that.

So he had to run faster!

And he did, even as his heartbeat slammed wildly against his chest. Christ, was he out of shape or something? No, that couldn’t be it. He’d managed to flee the horde earlier, so he couldn’t have been that out of shape. So why was he breathing so damn hard? Why did it feel like his legs were turning to jelly, that every additional step—

Watch out!

Keo dodged another lever, this one twice as big as the first. There was writing along its length, just slightly visible in the moonlight, but Keo had no time to stop and read.

Run run run!

He did just that, sometimes grabbing the tarps that covered the machines and using them to slingshot him around the massive objects underneath them. Christ, there were a lot of these things. What the hell were they using this warehouse for? Pressing steel? Making giant tools? Or maybe giant coffins—

Wrong thoughts! Wrong thoughts, pal!

He flexed his grip around the KA-BAR’s handle. At least he had his knife. And as long as he had it, he could survive the night.

Goddammit, he wished he had more than a damn knife!

Between labored breaths and the sounds of his boots squeaking against the hard floor and the rumblings of bare feet gaining on him from behind, Keo thought about Lara and the last conversation they’d had before he left the ranch.

“No meandering,” she had said. “Get there, get what you need, and come home. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he had replied.

“I mean it, Keo,” she had said, with that stare that was supposed to reinforce the I mean it part, as if he didn’t already know that she meant it.

“I know you do.”

“If I have to go after you, I’m going to be really angry.”

“We wouldn’t want that, would we?”

We definitely wouldn’t want that, he thought now as he reached down and found a little reservoir of energy that he didn’t think he had. But there it was, sitting there waiting for him to grab it and put it to work.

He did that now, increasing his speed. He tuned out the crushing sounds of bare feet—like stampeding herds of longhorns catching up to him—and closed his senses to the stink of rotting garbage. Instead, he focused entirely on what was ahead of him—the back of the warehouse, rushing up on him fast.

And a door. A way out of here.

God, he hoped there was a way out of here back there!

Two

But there wasn’t a door.

Fuck, there wasn’t a door!

There should have been a door. A rear exit. Wasn’t that some kind of OSHA regulation? Not that Keo would know anything about what OSHA required of businesses in America. He’d never held down a 9-to-5 job in his life. No white collars or blue collars had ever been a part of his past. Unless you counted all the times he had to wear a suit in order to blend in for an up-close-and-in-person job.

The point was, there wasn’t anything that even looked like a door for him to grab and pull open and lunge through and into the cold night air on the other side. He had already pictured himself doing just that with action-movie flair—one hand on the doorknob or lever, the other gripping the knife, ready to slash at whatever awaited him outside.

It turned out he didn’t have to worry about whatever was outside waiting for him, because there was no door.

Where the hell was the door? There should have been a door, but there wasn’t.

Goddammit, there wasn’t.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuck me.

He stopped a few feet from running straight into a steel wall and spun around. The KA-BAR was heavier in his fist for some reason as he tightened his grip around the handle, the pommel slick with the fresh blood of the ghoul he’d eviscerated less than a minute ago.

A minute ago? No, less than that. Maybe thirty seconds ago. How long had he been running through this place?

He didn’t have to wait long for the rest of that dead ghoul’s friends to catch up. The first two to arrive leapt down from the machines in front of him, moonlight flickering off their dead eyes.

Keo sliced off the head of the first one even as he punched at the second. His fist sank right through its cheek and shattered weak bone underneath. The undead thing let out a surprised squeal as Keo swung violently with his left hand, sending it to the floor where it slid along the surface and thudded against one of the heavy machineries.

The ghoul Keo had decapitated flopped to the floor near his boots. Keo took off running again. The back of the warehouse flashed by on his right while skeletal figures flitted to his left as ghouls broke off from the pack and tried to catch up any way they could from every direction open to them.

There were a dozen that he could see out of the corner of his eye, maybe more.

…maybe more…

He wished he still had the submachine gun. Hell, he wished he had a bazooka. Or a laser weapon. One of those things that went pew-pew when you fired it like in an old episode of the 1930s Flash Gordon TV show.

It’s official: You’ve gone a little daffy, pal!

The air shifted and parted above his head, and Keo ducked instinctively.

The creature flew right past him and right into a lever jutting out of some kind of metal presser, impaling itself. The ghoul thrashed, its shriveled head flinging wildly from side to side as it attempted to pull itself free. All it would have taken to put the creature out of its and his misery was a swipe with the KA-BAR—except that required two, maybe three seconds. Keo didn’t have that much time, so he just ran past it instead.

He didn’t have to sneak a look behind him to know the rest were still back there, because of course they were still back there. All of them. All the ones that weren’t preoccupied with Mirabelle’s corpse in the streets. Keo didn’t like picturing ghouls feasting on the Appaloosa’s corpse.

Bunker’s going to kill me.

The upside was that Bunker couldn’t kill him if he was already dead.

Joke’s on you, Bunker!

Moonlight blinked off something bright in front of him. Not metal, but glass.

A glass window!

It was a smaller section of a very bright blue door that seemed to almost glow in the semidarkness, as if beckoning him toward it.

Keo didn’t resist its pull.

The door was metal with a smooth surface, but it wouldn’t lead to a rear exit. More likely an office of some type. It wasn’t what he was hoping for, but it was better than nothing.

It was a lot better than nothing, actually.

Keo picked up speed—or told himself he did—toward the door.

The tap-tap-tap! of bare feet behind him had grown in volume. There were either more of them since he last looked, or they were getting closer. Or both. Not that either possibility was preferable. They were both pretty bad. Everything about tonight was pretty bad.

Keo considered diving headfirst into the glass section of the door and breaking his way through to the other side. It was the kind of stunt he’d seen action heroes do plenty of times in movies. But rational thought got the better of fanciful Hollywood clichés, and he spent the extra two seconds to stop, grab the doorknob, twist it—saying a silent Thank you, God! when it didn’t fight him—and pushed the door open.

He lunged inside even as something brushed against the nape of his neck, and Keo shivered slightly, the thoughts So that’s what it feels like when someone walks over your grave! flashing across his mind.

He spun around, shoved one hand against the door, and pushed it with everything he had, longing to hear that loud, satisfying slam as the door made its way home.

But it wasn’t to be.

The ghoul was halfway inside when Keo tried to cram the door back into its frame. He smashed the heavy structure into the creature instead, catching it across the body while it was partially in the air, and wedged it into place.

Sonofabitch!

It wasn’t what Keo had planned. In fact, it was the opposite. With the deformed thing in the way, he couldn’t close the door. So what other options did he have?

An army of black eyes glared at him from the squirming darkness outside. Moonlight glinted off hairless domed heads and the twisted bodies underneath them as the creatures surged across the shadows. It looked more like one moving wall of flesh rather than a series of bodies.

Jesus H. Christ. Where did they all come from?

There were more out there than he’d expected. He had guessed a dozen, maybe two at most, but this? You just didn’t find a lot of ghouls in one place anymore. The combination of The Walk Out and slayers roaming the countryside had thinned their numbers dramatically. A dozen strong ghouls capable of taking down a horse like Mirabelle in one place was already such a rarity, but two or more?

And they were coming, and he couldn’t close the door. Not with the ghoul still wedged between it and the frame.

So Keo did what he didn’t want to do—he jerked the door open to let the ghoul drop to the floor, then crouched slightly in order to grab the creature by the arm even as it attempted to pick itself up. Keo gave it a literal hand and pulled the undead thing inside the room with a hard jerk. He imagined the shock on the nightcrawler’s face as it slid along the smooth concrete floor and vanished into the dark interior of the office while he slammed the door home and pushed the deadbolt into place.

Bam! as the first creature crashed into the door on the other side, followed by the thud! as another one smashed its domed head into the glass section. The creature that had struck the window reared back and smashed its forehead into the glass again with another resounding thud!

Bam-bam-bam! as other ghouls assaulted the metal part of the door, the continuous bam-bam-bam and thud-thud-thud merging into one ongoing symphony that filled every inch of the office around him. He could see the ones flailing against the square section of glass, their skeletal limbs thud-thud-thudding against the opaque material.

The hot stink of rotting garbage, too close for comfort, found its way to Keo’s nostrils.

He whirled around just as the ghoul he’d let in pounced.

Almost forgot about you, pal!

It got both spindly legs around his waist and would have driven him down to the floor with its weight if it weighed anything at all. Instead, it was like being attacked by a living pillow. But if its physical self couldn’t pummel Keo into submission, then its smell—up close and personal and vomitous—came close.

Keo glimpsed ugly jagged yellow teeth as the creature flung its head toward him, mouth opening wide as it went for his neck even as its arms fought for handholds around his shoulders. Keo managed to reach up and smacked his palm against the undead thing’s forehead, keeping its teeth away from his flesh. Its eyes were so close to Keo’s that he could see just how ill-fitting its eyeballs were in their sockets. How did they even stay in place? What was holding them in there?

The ghoul’s legs tightened around his waist, its hands fighting for purchase around his neck. It was determined to reach him with its teeth. The feel of it against his exposed skin made Keo want to throw up. Pungent, oozing sweat covered every inch of the grizzled flesh that came into contact with him.

I think I’m going to barf!

He pushed its head back just enough to stab it through the side of the skull with the KA-BAR. The creature’s limbs immediately let go of him, and its body sloughed off before landing on the floor with a soft and anticlimactic thump.

Keo turned around, the bam-bam-bam! and thud-thud-thud! of ghouls continuing to throw themselves against the door growing louder. He stumbled back, his blood-slicked knife gripped tightly in one hand.

Something wet and thick dripped from his chin and fell from his right ear. There was more of the unknown substance—at least he didn’t want to know what it was—plastered to the front of his clothes.

Weapons. He needed weapons!

He spent the next ten seconds or so inventorying the contents of the office.

No weapons. Shit. No weapons!

But there was a metal filing cabinet in the corner that Keo ran to, grabbed with both hands, and began maneuvering across the room. He took note of the big oak desk at the back that was minus a chair. (Who would steal a chair?) Old pieces of paper littered the floor along with miscellaneous supplies. He kicked a stapler, stepped over a couple of pens, and felt old brown folders wrinkling under his boots.

Keo shoved the cabinet against the door, pushing it flat against the center where it covered up the bulk of the square window near the top. That was the most vulnerable part of the door. It might take a while before the ghouls could shatter the glass, but there was a very real possibility they could manage that eventually.

Bam-bam-bam!

Thud-thud-thud!

It was almost as if they knew what he was doing and were picking up their attacks. Of course, it could have all just been his imagination. From experience, he knew that ghouls didn’t tire and they didn’t give up. That, coupled with their inability to think tactically, usually meant they would pound away at an obstacle until they couldn’t anymore.

And right now, only daylight was going to make the creatures stop and push them back into hiding.

Keo glanced down at his watch.

The neon minute hand glowed as it ticked, ticked, ticked in a clockwise motion. But it was the hour hand that he focused on.

6:19 p.m.

Exactly 6:19 p.m.

Bam-bam-bam!

Thud-thud-thud!

It was winter in Texas, and sunset always came early this time of year. It’d done exactly just that today a little over an hour ago.

Bam-bam-bam!

Thud-thud-thud!

And just as he could count on darkness falling around 5:30 p.m., he could put the whole house on sunrise arriving no earlier than 7:00 a.m. in the morning.

Bam-bam-bam!

Thud-thud-thud!

His watch ticked slowly—painfully slowly—to 6:20 p.m.

Another minute. That was it. He still had hours to go before daylight. Just over thirteen more hours, give or take.

Bam-bam-bam!

Thud-thud-thud!

Keo looked back at the door.

Bam-bam-bam!

Thud-thud-thud!

He had a feeling it was going to be a long, long night.

And this was only the beginning…

Three

They were going to get through the door. Maybe not now, or in the next few hours, but soon. Eventually. That was the important part: Eventually.

Bam-bam-bam!

Thud-thud-thud!

They may be shells of their former selves, but there were a lot of them and they were tireless. They were going to keep at it for hours if necessary. Hours.

Bam-bam-bam!

Thud-thud-thud!

It was what they did. It was what they were. Relentless, when there was prey around. And right now, that was him. And because of him, they wanted in. They wanted to get at him.

Bam-bam-bam!

Thud-thud-thud!

Keo shivered and was glad there was no one else inside the room to see him. There was the dead ghoul he’d dragged into the corner, but its seeing days were long over. The reaction was a reminder that it’d been a while since he was afraid of ghouls. Months. Years. Okay, maybe not years, but months.

Bam-bam-bam!

Thud-thud-thud!

It didn’t matter how many of them he’d already killed. First outside in the streets; then later, in the warehouse. They had no sense of loss, no notion of fear. Those were human emotions, and they hadn’t been human for a long time now. They had no such weaknesses.

Bam-bam-bam!

Thud-thud-thud!

He couldn’t see the glass breaking behind the metal file cabinet, but Keo thought he could hear it happening, small cracks appearing against the unrelenting onslaught.

Bam-bam-bam!

Thud-thud-thud!

He wasn’t worried about the metal part of the door giving way. That would hold all the way to morning. But the glass pane… Slowly, he tuned out the strikes against the main part of the door and concentrated on the ones against the glass portion.

Thud-thud-thud!

He could just barely make out the frantic and attacking figures outside through the slivers that the cabinet didn’t cover up.

Thud-thud-thud!

They were out there. But of course they were still out there. They weren’t going anywhere tonight. Not as long as he was in here.

Thud-thud-thud!

Keo felt something that was dangerously close to fear race up and down his spine. It’d been a while since that, too.

Thud-thud-thud!

Then, the sound he’d been dreading—a sharp crack as a part of the glass panel gave way.

Here we go…

Keo took a step backward even though he didn’t have to. A small part of the window had broken, but not the entire thing. It would take more than a single—

Crack!

A second one. Damn.

Crack!

A third!

Keo looked around and began searching for another way out of the office. He might as well be looking for that bazooka that wasn’t there the first or the second time he’d pored over the interior of the dark room.

Thud-thud-thud! from behind him.

The office was four walls and one door, a ceiling and a floor, and that was it. There was no second way in or out, no window to slide open and jump outside into the cold Paxton air. He was trapped in here. It’d been his salvation earlier, but it had now become his final destination.

There you go, pal. Positive thoughts!

He snickered, though he wasn’t sure if that was directed toward himself or the shitty moment he was currently trapped in. Maybe a little of both. He had to remind himself that he’d been in worse situations and had always gotten through them all. Bruised and battered and bloody, and usually with a few extra scars and holes in him, sure, but he’d survived them nonetheless. He’d always been able to find hope out of the darkness, even if it was just a tiny sliver.

So where was that sliver now? He was looking, but he couldn’t see it.

But it had to be there.

Somewhere.

Another crack! from behind him.

He glanced back. He couldn’t see it with the cabinet in the way, but he was pretty sure a piece of glass had fallen loose. That was one piece down, and how many left? That would probably depend on—

The first pop! made Keo jump slightly.

Gunshot. That was a gunshot!

One became two, then three. Those were followed by a half dozen as the pop-pop-pop of a semiautomatic rifle fired in quick succession.

Keo ducked as something struck the door from the other side and punched its way through the metal material.

A bullet zipped past his head about two feet to the left side and pekked! against the back of the office.

He stood up, the thought Christ, that was close running through his head when he heard the ping-ping! of two more shots striking the file cabinet almost directly in front of him. Before he could react, two more rounds zip-zipped! past his head.

Keo jumped down to the floor a little too late, landing on his chest. His breath was pounding when he looked up—

Geronimo! Keo thought as he rolled away quickly.

The filing cabinet slammed into the floor next to him, drawers banging open and sending their contents across the office around him. The bullets had penetrated the door, struck the cabinet, and sent it tumbling down almost on top of him.

Keo stared for a second or two at one of the open drawers six inches from his face. There were two holes just above the handle. That’d been close. Too close.

Then, the door!

Keo pushed up from the floor and surveyed the damage, ready to run forward and use his body to defend the door now that the cabinet was on the ground.

But he didn’t have to.

The glass part of the door was still intact, and he could see shadowed movements on the other side, but the ghouls had stopped attacking it.

Why? Why had they stopped?

His answer came in the form of renewed gunfire, the pop-pop-pop of semiautomatic rifles going off outside. The gunshots sounded much louder—more echoey—than normal because they were coming from inside the steel-encased warehouse. Each shot was like a hammer striking those heavy machines outside.

Keo rushed forward and slid up against the wall next to the door. He took the opportunity to catch his breath even as the pop-pop-pop of rifle fire continued.

Someone was shooting out there. More than someone—someones. There had to be at least two rifles taking turns firing. Possibly more than two. However many there were, they were drawing attention away from him because he couldn’t glimpse shadowed ghoul forms outside the window anymore.

Yay for me.

He pressed tighter against the cold wall, feeling a lot safer now that he had concrete blocks at his back. Stray bullets were going to have a little more difficulty penetrating the wall than they had with the metal door and file cabinet.

Keo thought he could hear voices—shouting—but couldn’t be sure. He had no difficulty continuing to pick up the gunfire, though. Rifles and handguns. It was easy to tell the two apart. Sure signs he was listening to at least two individuals engaging the ghouls outside, since it would have been idiotic for one person to use both a handgun and rifle at the same time. Not that it was impossible, just unlikely.

So the question was: Who was out there?

The other question was: Did he care?

No. The answer was no, he didn’t care. All that mattered was that they had drawn the ghouls away from him. No surprise there. Given another, easier option to satisfy their urges—like people in the warehouse not hiding behind a door—the creatures always chose the quickest path. They were simple beings that way, God bless their dark dead souls.

Not that it kept Keo from wondering who was out there and why they’d fired on the ghouls in the first place. Maybe they hadn’t intended to but came under attack and were defending themselves. He hadn’t seen other survivors in Paxton when he’d ridden through it the first time and hadn’t spotted any when he was fleeing down its streets earlier tonight.

So who were these people?

And again, did he care?

Nope. I definitely don’t care.

So he stayed where he was, safe behind his thick walls, and listened to the continued gunfire outside.

“No meandering. Get there, get what you need, and come home. Got it?” Lara had said before he left the ranch on his journey.

I’m working on it, babe, Keo thought. I’m working on it.

* * *

It’d been almost fifteen minutes since the first gunshot drew the ghouls away from the office and whatever was happening out there had apparently run its course. Keo couldn’t pick up anything. There was no more gunfire, no voices; nothing that even remotely hinted at any sort of activity.

Was it just him in the warehouse now? If so, that was good. Anything that didn’t include a horde of ghouls banging on his door trying to make their way in to feast on him was a major improvement on his situation. Sure, it was selfish, because whoever was running around out there had probably (Probably? Let’s go with definitely.) saved his life whether they meant to or not. It was unlikely they’d done it on purpose; Keo had a hard time imagining survivors deciding to put themselves in harm’s way for a perfect stranger.

Was it possible? Yes, but these days, highly unlikely.

He kept listening just in case the creatures came back. All it would have taken was one of them to get curious. Once a black eyes spotted you, the rest would, too. When he’d killed that first one in the warehouse, the rest came running. The creatures shared a hive mind, a kind of supernatural psychic link. Ten years ago Keo would have scoffed at such a silly thing, but that was ten years ago.

So he had to make absolutely sure there wasn’t something out there waiting for him to do something really stupid, like poke his head out.

Five more minutes passed.

Then five more…

It was two minutes past seven in the evening when Keo finally peeled himself from the safety of the wall and moved toward the door. He skirted the rusted end of the fallen filing cabinet and peeked out through the dozen or so cracks in the window. The bullet holes in the door were too small to get a good look.

There were patches of skin and black sludge across the glass pane, left behind by the ghouls that hadn’t cared they were harming themselves or not as they pounded away. There were glass fragments on the floor next to his boots. A piece here, another there. Small ones, but they would have become big ones eventually had the creatures continued their assault.

More importantly, there was nothing out there for him to find. Zilch. A big fat zero. There was nothing moving among the shadows or around the machines. No voices that he could detect and absolutely nothing that sounded like sentient things—undead or otherwise—waiting for him on the other side.

It was almost too good to be true. Could he really be this lucky?

Maybe I’m due for some luck.

Despite every evidence of an “all clear,” the smart move was to remain inside the office. He could pick the filing cabinet back up and even add the desk to the barricade because the glass panel wasn’t going to last much longer. Those two things would be more than enough to keep the ghouls out even if the window eventually gave if the assault resumed. He’d seen less sturdy barricades keep ghouls out before.

He checked his watch again. 7:12 p.m.

Twelve more hours to go before morning. Twelve friggin’ more hours to go.

Keo ran the scenarios around in his head. It was crazy to go out there. Only an idiot would leave the sanctuary of the office if he didn’t have to, and Keo wasn’t an idiot. He was safe in here. There was no telling how long that would last, yeah, but for now he didn’t have to worry about fighting for his life.

He stiffened slightly and leaned toward the door when he heard it: The renewed but noticeably much fainter pop-pop-pop of gunfire.

They were back. So his saviors were still alive, after all.

Each gunshot had the fading quality of wet firecrackers. Telltale signs that they were coming from not just outside the warehouse but farther down the Paxton street. He could just barely make them out, and there wasn’t the same intensity or urgency as before.

Keo peeked out the square glass frame again. Shadows and darkness stared back at him. That was good. Shadows and darkness were better than lifeless hollow eyes and glinting domed heads on top of pruned shoulders. Anything was better than those things. There were enough shafts of moonlight to give him a good look at the immediate area, including all the machine sentries that covered the place.

Then, like a lightning bolt, the realization that there were no bodies outside.

There are no bodies. Where are all the bodies?

There weren’t any, not even a single dead ghoul. Whoever was out there had fired a lot of bullets at the creatures, and some of those bullets were inside the office with Keo now. So how could they have missed everything…

…unless they hadn’t.

They’re not using silver bullets.

Why the hell are they running around out here at night without silver bullets? Who does that?

He listened to the continued faint pop-pop-pop coming from some other part of Paxton. The poor, dumb bastards. They were toast. There were no two ways about it. It was just a matter of time before they ran out of ammo.

And when the ghouls were done with them, they might turn their attention back to him. Would they remember he was back here and come to finish what they had started? Could he really take the chance?

If not, what were his options? Go out there and find another hiding spot and hope for the best? That was the only thing he could think of. But what if he couldn’t find a better replacement than this office? What if—

The supply bags.

He’d forgotten about them. There was just one in particular that he cared about. The backpack. It was what he’d gone to Galveston for in the first place. It was also the whole reason he was out here. Nothing else mattered if he made it back to the ranch without it. Nothing.

The bag. Dammit, the bag.

He’d forgotten all about it. It was on Mirabelle when the horse got taken out from underneath him. He’d been running for his life all night that it’d slipped his mind he’d left it behind.

How had that happened? He didn’t know, but now that he remembered, he couldn’t think about anything else. Because the contents of that bag were everything. Everything.

And it was still out there, somewhere…

Four

How far away had he left Mirabelle? Two blocks? Three? He didn’t know. He only had a vague recollection of houses and stores and buildings flashing by as he ran for his life. Nothing had mattered except getting out of the streets and finding a place to hide. Then the warehouse popped up out of nowhere, its smooth metal siding standing out against the mostly dark and not-at-all-inviting structures.

The horse was somewhere back down the street. That was all he knew. Thank God Paxton wasn’t a big city. It had multiple streets and plenty of side alleys, but it wouldn’t be hard to stick to the main one and returned to the scene of the crime. He’d know when he got there when he found Mirabelle’s corpse. Or what was left of Bunker’s horse.

He’s definitely going to be pissed off about losing the Appaloosa.

But Keo would worry about Bunker’s wrath later. Right now, he needed to retrieve that pack. Without it, he might as well lie down and let the ghouls finish him off. And that wasn’t going to happen. No way, no how.

The warehouse remained quiet around him, which was exactly what he wanted. He could still make out the sporadic pop of gunfire in the distance, but they were much more infrequent now. Either the fight was winding down, or—

No, there was no or about it. Keo’s saviors hadn’t been smart enough to move around at night with silver-tipped ammo, and it was a mistake they were quickly regretting. He wondered if they were locals, or if, like him, they’d stumbled across this ghouls’ nest and quickly gotten in over their heads. The fact that he could still hear shooting meant they hadn’t found a suitable place to take refuge in yet; otherwise they wouldn’t need to defend themselves with bullets.

Bullet casings on the floor glinted against strays of moonlight as Keo stepped around them. One, two—a dozen. More were wedged against the edges of the warehouse’s machines, all of it leading right toward the front doors. That was all the reason Keo needed to turn left.

“Keep your eye on the ball, and hit ’em where they ain’t,” as Willie Keeler once said. Right now where they ain’t was any direction that didn’t have ghouls waiting to say Boo! to him.

He hadn’t found a rear exit the last time he was here, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. He just hadn’t had time to search every inch of the area. Because there had to be another way in and out of the building. Didn’t there?

Keo picked his way carefully around the bulky objects that adorned the place like Christmas decorations. He imagined the warehouse would look very different in the daylight, but he didn’t fancy being stuck here to find out hours from now.

The gunfire had all but stopped—there was a single, barely-audible pop, then nothing for a good three or so minutes afterward—when Keo finally (Aha!) located the back door he was sure was there. It was made of steel like the one back at the office and was all the way near the left side corner of the warehouse, which was an odd spot to put a door. Wouldn’t the middle be more convenient? Apparently, someone had thought differently.

The lever moved when he tried it, pushing the door open slightly. Keo peeked outside, knife in one hand, ready for a pair (or more) of black eyes to scowl back at him from the darkness. Instead, there was just a big blue dumpster that looked as if it had survived a nuclear blast. Keo couldn’t tell where the peeling blue paint ended and the black and brown (and other colored spots) began.

Paxton had gone deathly silent outside, which was both comforting and alarming. The lack of gunfire convinced him the fight between his saviors and the ghoul horde was over, but it didn’t definitely answer the question of who had won. Because someone had definitely won.

Or something had, anyway.

But that wasn’t his problem.

The backpack. That was his problem. He had to retrieve the bag, even if it killed him.

Famous last words, pal!

He needed what was in that bag. More importantly, Lara needed them. Of course he could always just go back to Galveston and get more. The people he’d gotten them from wouldn’t say no if he went back. His name still carried some weight out there, though he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing then, and still didn’t, now.

Yeah, he could spend nine more days to repeat the process, or he could retrieve the supplies and go home tomorrow. And he was so, so close to home right now that he could feel Lara’s arms and the sweet taste of her lips.

God, he wanted to see her again, and so badly.

But he had to get that bag. He had to get that damn bag first!

Keo skirted along the rear of the warehouse, sticking as close to the cold metal walls—and the plentiful shadows provided by the overhanging eaves—as much as possible. He was keenly aware that he was still only armed with a knife. It was a good knife. A KA-BAR was worth its weight in steel. But it was still just a knife. A close-range weapon. More than enough against a ghoul. Or even two or three. But against the horde that had been chasing him all night?

Shut up and focus on finding the bag. Lara needs that bag.

He didn’t stop moving until he was at the end of the warehouse. Keo leaned around the corner and spied the streets on the other side. It was as dark and foreboding now as the last time he’d spotted it when he was running for his life.

But it was empty now. There wasn’t a single soul out there, undead or otherwise.

He scampered away from the warehouse and over to the rear of the autobody shop next door. As he moved, making as little noise as possible—he even held his breath when he was momentarily exposed to the streets as he crossed the alleyway—Keo imagined Lara scolding him for taking such a chance when he didn’t have to.

“You did what?” would probably be the first thing she’d say. “You had an office, but you abandoned it in order to retrieve supplies from the streets, while there’s a horde of ghouls out there?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” he would say.

“Of course you did. You just made the dumbest one possible!”

“I had to get the bag. You needed it.”

“You could have gone back to Galveston for more.”

“It would have taken me nine more days. You needed what was in that bag now.”

He wasn’t sure if that last part was true or not, but Lara hadn’t looked all that good when he left her behind. She’d done her best to pretend that she was fine, but he could see through it. She just hadn’t been the same these last few weeks.

No, she needed what was in that backpack lying in the street now, not nine days from now. Besides, who said he had to tell her every excruciating detail? What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her—or get her pissed off at him. Keo was used to making risky moves. In fact, he could say that was how he ended up with her in the first place, so if it worked before…

That’s your excuse?

Lame, pal. Real lame.

Oh shut up, me, Keo thought as he continued darting in and out of darkness, sticking to the back alleys of Paxton and the shadows they provided as much as possible. The streets were wide open to his right, partially illuminated by too much moonlight. Thankfully, there were enough buildings around him for Keo to hide within their shadows, and as long as he didn’t run into an unexpected undead thing, he’d be fine.

The brick and mortar walls of some kind of store scraped against Keo as he walked alongside it and toward yet another alleyway. At the rate he was moving, it would take him a while to return to the scene of the crime. As early as approximately thirty minutes and as late as an hour. Or longer. The truth was, he didn’t know how far he’d run; he’d been too busy just running. That was the problem with fleeing for your life; it was vastly difficult to keep track of time while you were doing it.

Keo glanced down at his watch.

7:25 p.m.

For some reason he had expected more time to have passed, because 7:25 p.m. meant he was still far, far away from the warm embrace of daybreak. At least he was well-dressed for Paxton’s chilly environment, with the days on the road having prepared him for the cold conditions out here. Texas didn’t get many cold nights, but after the sweltering heat of summer, any significant drop in temperature was noticeable.

Now where did he lose Mirabelle? Somewhere up ahead. Not exactly detailed directions, but good enough for tonight. All he had to do was stick to the back alleys with the street always to his right. As long as he could see the wide-open roads, he would know he was moving in the right direction.

Keo jogged across another alleyway and slid against the wall of a flower shop—a place called stacy’s roses, the name partially visible on the glass portion of the rear door into the building—when he smelled it.

It wasn’t roses, either.

Every part of Keo froze except for the fingers of his right hand, which flexed against the grip of the KA-BAR to get the blood flowing and make sure he still had the ability to strike when he needed to.

A ghoul. Just one, but that was definitely a ghoul.

It was perched on an aluminum garbage can in the alleyway between Stacy’s flower shop and the building next door. Its back was to Keo, the malformed spine giving the creature the appearance of a gargoyle sans wings, waiting on a rooftop ready to pounce on an unwitting victim walking below. A thin streak of moonlight bounced off its domed head as it sat there, waiting, waiting…

What was it waiting for?

The monster was facing the street, so it didn’t see Keo when he almost took a step out from behind the flower shop. If it heard or sensed him back here, it hadn’t reacted, and it would have. The black eyes were not known for their ability to play possum, and they didn’t know the meaning of the word patience.

No, it was obvious it didn’t know he was back here, and Keo wanted to keep it that way. That meant not moving for the next ten or so minutes, which was easier said than done. It was a good thing he was well-covered, or else the cold would have turned his joints stiff from the lack of action. He had slowed down his breathing so the spurts of mist leaving his mouth were smaller and less apt to be noticed even if the creature did happen to turn—

Its head snapped with surprising speed in his direction.

Keo pulled back until he was completely behind the corner. He stopped breathing, even as he mentally prepared himself to strike. If he had to act, it would be a worst-case scenario because as soon as this one lone ghoul spotted him, the rest would as well. They would “see” him through its eyes and come running, and the chase would be on again.

He really, really didn’t want the chase to be on again.

Keo imagined the ghoul’s dark black eyes scouring the side of stacy’s roses. Had he made a noise? Breathed too hard? Or did he shuffle his feet without realizing it? It could have been anything.

Or nothing.

Maybe the creature had just turned its head for some reason other than because he’d given himself away. But he’d find out one way or another. If it saw him, it’d act. And if it didn’t—

A loud clang! echoed from the alley around the corner.

The aluminum trash can, toppling over.

Ah, hell!

Keo stepped out from behind the corner even as the ghoul bounded across the alley on all fours in his direction. It moved incredibly fast, almost flying across the floor, while its eyes zeroed in on him.

…its eyes zeroed in on him.

That meant the others would know where he was, now. It was over. He’d lost the element of surprise. The only thing left was to run back to the warehouse, get inside the back office, and pray the filing cabinet and desk held.

But first!

Keo slashed, the KA-BAR gutting the creature from one side of its chest to the other. It flopped to the floor even as a spray of black blood hit Keo’s right cheek. More splashed the front of his clothes and long sleeves.

He flinched at the foul stink, the smell as bad now as it’d been all the other times. But there was no time to clean himself, so he turned in the direction he’d come. He could still make it back to the warehouse if he ran. It wasn’t that far back.

What about the bag? a voice asked. Lara needs it, remember?

Shit. The bag.

But he couldn’t retrieve it if he was dead, so Keo took off back toward the warehouse.

Shouldn’t have left the warehouse in the first place! Jesus Christ, what were you thinking?

The tap-tap-tap of bare feet on cold, hard concrete cut through his thoughts, and Keo slid to a stop just as two—three—four ghouls turned the corner in front of him.

Too late. It was too late to retreat back to the warehouse!

Keo spun around and ran in the other direction.

Hit ’em where they ain’t, right, Willie? he wanted to shout out loud while laughing hysterically, but of course he was too busy sucking in a deep lungful of suddenly-tarnished cold Paxton air to do that.

He glanced back, praying there were just still the four of them back there, because he could deal with four. It wouldn’t be easy, but four was manageable.

God, let there just be four back there.

Let there just be four…

There were more than four.

Fuck!

They scampered across the ground, looking more like insects than creatures that once stood tall and proud and on two feet. Their hands seemed to almost dig into the floor as they propelled their thin frames forward, moonlight flashing across slick flesh and at least one broken skull. The sight of that one—the entire right half of its head missing, running among its complete fellow ghouls—was almost enough to make Keo stop, turn around, and ask how it was still alive (Well, kind of) in its current condition.

Keo gripped the KA-BAR tighter so he wouldn’t lose it. If that were to happen…

Good thoughts! Think good thoughts, pal!

He had no idea where he was going, just that any place in front of him was better than what was behind him. The sides of brick and wood and steel buildings flashed by the corners of his eyes, some with doors inside and others without. The back alley got deeper and darker as he went, and Keo didn’t stop.

He couldn’t stop. At least, not if he wanted to stay alive. And he definitely wanted that!

He was making a lot of noise now, but that couldn’t be avoided. It was a little difficult to tiptoe when there was a horde of hungry ghouls behind you. Keo didn’t need to smell or hear them—though those were easy enough to do, too—because he could feel them back there. It was all in the air that he breathed in, as if someone had poured a steaming landfill over the area. He might have vomited from the smell if he could afford to take even a second off from running.

But he couldn’t, so he kept pumping his legs, and the buildings appeared and disappeared around him. Alleyways came and went, and each time he crossed them, Keo thought about turning right and heading into the streets. He didn’t, though. There was nothing out there except more open space to introduce even more ghouls. And he had plenty of those right now, back here where everything was crammed.

A new alleyway, except this time Keo glimpsed at least two ghouls appearing off the streets, their dark shapes flashing across the corner of his right eye. If he didn’t already know what they were, he might have thought they were running children. Very, very quick children that seemed to glide across the ground instead of running over it on the two legs God had given them.

Definitely not children!

The backs of buildings flashed by, including signs and names.

Was that another auto body shop?

What the hell was a BLAST-OFF POINT?

He was moving too fast to get a good read. That was good. That was actually very good. Going fast was better than going slow, because he knew for a fact the ghouls weren’t going to slow down. They didn’t get tired. They never got tired. Which meant Keo had to run faster, and faster, and faster.

A sudden flash in front of him—

What?

—just before he heard the very loud pop! of a rifle shot.

He didn’t see the bullet and wasn’t prepared for it, but the realization of what just happened caused him to skid to a sudden stop. He lost his footing and almost flipped over but somehow managed to remain upright even if it probably looked comical to anyone watching him.

He waited for the pain, but there was none.

He wasn’t shot!

Keo glanced back in time to see one of the ghouls picking itself up from the ground, but before it could fully right itself, it was trampled underneath a forest of crashing limbs.

“Move your ass, dipshit!”

The voice had come from in front of him.

“Dipshit?” Keo thought even as he looked forward again.

“Now, dipshit! Now!”

Again with the “dipshit!”

Keo was moving his ass as fast as he could, running toward the sound of the voice. The only reason he did that instead of looking for another direction to take was because the gunshot hadn’t been meant for him. Had the shooter wanted to take him out, they would have already. He hadn’t seen the weapon or even sensed another presence up ahead until the shot was already made.

Besides, it wasn’t like he had anywhere to go but forward. The only other clear path was to backtrack, and he couldn’t very well do that. There were the side alleys he kept seeing out of the corners of his eyes, but there was no telling how many—

Three more poured into another alleyway.

Yup, can’t go there!

So Keo ran toward a black steel door that had opened up in front of him about twenty meters away. The door’s color was what had helped it to blend in with the night and darkness, making it practically invisible until now.

Sudden movement as someone moved inside the doorframe, followed by the very distinct shape of a rifle poking out from the shadows. Bright muzzle flashes as the new weapon opened fire.

Keo ducked his head and veered slightly to the right as he continued to run.

Fifteen meters…

…ten…

The rifle was spitting a stream of fire now, its bullets passing Keo and, he assumed, hitting ghouls behind him. He could have confirmed that guess by taking a quick glance over his shoulder, but Keo didn’t do that. That would have cost him a second. Maybe two. He couldn’t afford either at the moment.

So he ran instead, zeroing in on the open door and the firing rifle, when another barrel appeared next to the first. This one was positioned halfway down to the floor, and it too opened up until all Keo could hear was the pop-pop-pop of two semiautomatic rifles firing simultaneously, their muzzle flashes lighting up more parts of the ugly door along with two figures in the doorway, one crouching while the other stood.

Five meters…

“Get back, he’s coming in!” the standing shooter shouted.

The second shooter stood up and backed into the shadows with the first, leaving the doorway wide open for him. Keo never slowed down and all but lunged through the opening and—

He crashed into a figure standing in the darkness, and the two of them spilled to the floor. Keo somehow managed to hold onto his KA-BAR as a door slammed shut behind him with such force that it echoed inside his ears, fighting for space with his heavy breathing.

“Sonofabitch!” a voice from very nearby shouted.

“Lock it, lock the door!” someone else screamed.

“What do you think I’m doing?” a third voice replied.

Keo didn’t have to wait long to hear the inevitable: The loud and persistent bam-bam-bam! as ghouls crashed into the door on the other side, like machine-gun fire.

Bam-bam-bam!

Bam-bam-bam!

Bam-bam-bam!

“Get off me!” the first voice shouted. Keo figured out why it had sounded so nearby earlier; because it was coming from underneath him.

Before he could “get off” the voice’s owner, a pair of hands did the work for him. Then, for good measure, a knee sank into his rib cage. He let out a grunt and rolled over onto a cold, hard floor before sitting up.

Click! as a light turned on.

It was some kind of portable flashlight taped to the back of a hand. The LED was bright enough that Keo could easily make out the hard faces of three people gathered around him, staring at him. He couldn’t help but immediately notice that they were all women. The one he’d landed on top of was brushing at her clothes as she picked herself up.

“What should we do with him?” one of them asked.

“Shoot him,” the one next to her said.

“We just rescued him.”

“Whose bright idea was that?”

The first exchanged a look with the one Keo had run into.

The third one, the oldest of the three, sighed. “Never mind.” Then, turning back to Keo, “So who are you, mister, and why are you running around out there with nothing but a knife?”

Five

Things got better after that. Or, at least, no one was pointing weapons at him. Which, for Keo, was the best definition of “better.”

Unlike Keo, his rescuers were fully armed—holstered sidearms, magazine pouches, and semiautomatic rifles. They were also slinging packs. The only thing they were lacking, from what he could tell, was proper ammo, but he wasn’t about to chide them on that. He was the guy running around with nothing but a knife, after all, so who was he to talk?

“You got a name?” the oldest one of the three, who had identified herself as Sharon, asked. Even though no one had said it, she was clearly in charge. Keo could read it in her body language and the way the two younger women responded to her. A true alpha in a room always revealed itself without having to try very hard.

“Keo.”

“What’s that mean?” the youngest one asked.

“What’s what mean?”

“Your name.”

“What about it?”

“You said KO? Like knockout?”

“Uh, no. Keo. K-e-o. It’s my name.”

“Oh. I thought it stood for something.”

“Nope. Just plain ol’ boring Keo.”

“Well, it’s a weird name.”

Keo shrugged. “Everything else was taken.”

“Huh?”

“Exactly.”

“So what are you doing running around out here with just that knife, Keo?” Sharon asked before the young one could say anything else.

“I didn’t always just have a knife,” Keo said. “I look dumb, but I’m not that dumb.”

Liz, the woman who Keo had fallen into and gotten a knee in the rib cage from as a reward, snorted.

“True story,” Keo said.

“Whatever,” Liz said.

“So what happened?” Sharon asked him.

“What happened what?” Keo said.

This was less an interrogation and more of a What were you doing running around out there by yourself, you dumbass? questioning. Keo considered telling them about the bag but didn’t. He couldn’t risk them taking an interest in it. It was probably paranoia on his part, but what the hell, better safe than sorry. He really, really didn’t fancy going back to Galveston for more.

“How’d you lose your weapons?” Sharon was asking him.

“I didn’t have a choice. They jumped my horse. I used up everything I had, until I only had this,” Keo said, tapping his sheathed KA-BAR.

“You were at the big warehouse,” Liz said. It wasn’t a question. “That’s why all those crawlers were in there.”

Keo nodded. “That was me.”

“What were you doing in there?”

“Trying not to get eaten.”

“Oh yeah? And how was that going?” Jackson, the youngest one, asked.

“Pretty good, actually. I’m still in one piece.”

“Barely.”

“Barely’s good enough these days.”

She smiled. “Can’t argue with that logic.”

“Yeah, you can,” Liz said. “It’s not just about surviving anymore. We did that during The Purge. Anyone can just survive.”

Keo didn’t ask her what she meant by that. The women had clearly been through a lot in the short time since night fell over Paxton. He could tell that much from the way they moved—ready to shoot anything that wasn’t them—and the state of their clothes certainly gave it away. Not their choice of wardrobe—which was long pants, long-sleeve shirt and jackets, and boots—but the black blood that speckled them. They might not have managed to kill ghouls with their bullets, but they’d spilled plenty of creature blood and gotten it on them.

No, these weren’t innocent damsels in distress. They’d been out here and knew how to handle themselves. Which, he guessed, made it all the more curious that they were using regular ammo. Shouldn’t they have known better?

They were inside another, smaller building that was part of a car wash next door. Some kind of office space, with brick walls. The only two ways in were made of solid metal. One of those was up the hallway, where Keo could still hear the almost dull thump-thump-thump of ghouls pounding away on the other side. The front door was down the hallway and inside a lobby, and according to Sharon, was equally strong. The strength of those entrances was why the trio had chosen this place after their encounter with the ghouls at the warehouse.

“It’s just the three of you?” Keo asked them.

“There was more of us,” Sharon said. “When we ran into that nest at your warehouse, we got split up. It was chaos.”

“What happened to the others?”

The three survivors exchanged a glance. There was enough light coming from the LED strapped to Jackson’s wrist for Keo to know the women weren’t sure how much to tell him. Or if they even wanted to.

“We don’t know,” Jackson finally said.

“At least one of them is still alive,” Liz said quietly. She was the tallest woman in the group, with short blonde hair and brown eyes. Keo’s six-one frame had a few inches on her, but not by much. She wore a white choker around her neck with a diamond-encrusted basketball. The shiny jewelry didn’t fit with the tough exterior Liz was trying to give off and mostly succeeding.

“Just one survivor?” Keo asked.

“We’re only sure about one,” Sharon said. She was older than the other two by a good decade and had a stoic toughness about her. Unlike Liz, she didn’t have to try to make it obvious.

“How are you even sure about that?”

They were loitering around in the hallway, occasionally glancing at the back door as the ghouls continued to pound away.

Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump…

After a while, Keo had started to tune them out. They weren’t going to get through that steel door no matter how long they kept at it. Hours? Days? It didn’t matter. They could coat it with as much of their flesh and blood as they wanted, and it wouldn’t make any difference.

In response to his question, Liz had produced a handheld radio from a satchel that she carried around her waist. She turned up the volume, but nothing came through the speakers.

“What am I supposed to be listening to?” he asked.

“The only one we’re sure that made it,” Sharon said. “Her name’s Carter.”

“She has a radio?”

“Yes,” Liz said. She was staring at the two-way in her hand. “After we got split up, we were sure the others didn’t make it. But then Carter contacted us. She’s still alive.”

“Where is she now?”

“We don’t know,” Sharon said. “Carter doesn’t know, either. She was taken.”

“‘Taken?’”

Again, the three women exchanged a quick look.

“That’s what Carter said when she first radioed us,” Jackson said. She was the only African-American among the three, and shorter than the other two by nearly a foot. Keo at first thought she might have been in her early twenties, but then later settled on younger than that. Eighteen or maybe nineteen. Not that age really mattered much anymore; you grew up fast these days or you didn’t at all.

“What else did she tell you?” Keo asked.

“She was unconscious when they took her, after her group was overrun,” Sharon said. “She doesn’t know what happened to the others, just that she woke up in some kind of basement later on. She was still carrying most of her equipment, including her radio.”

“Weapons?”

Liz shook her head. “She said she ran out of ammo and lost her knife during the struggle, before she was knocked out.”

“And she’s alive?” Keo said, when what he really wanted to ask was, “And she’s not underneath a swarm of ghouls right now, being fed on?”

“She’s alive,” Sharon said with a nod. The look on the older woman’s face told Keo even she didn’t quite believe it. “She doesn’t know why, either. But they haven’t done anything to her.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know,” Sharon said. “It didn’t make any sense to us, either. But Carter wouldn’t lie about that. Why would she?”

“Maybe because she wants you to come rescue her. If you knew she was already bitten…” Keo let the rest of it trail off before continuing. “You know how it works, right?”

Sharon looked almost offended. “Of course I know how it works. Everyone knows how it works. They bite you, and if that doesn’t kill you, you turn into one of them. You become infected. Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes minutes. It depends on the strength of the infection.” She paused for a moment. Then, “I know how it works. We all do.”

“And so does Carter,” Liz said. “And she said she wasn’t bitten.”

“What about the others?” Keo asked. “How many more of your people were out there?”

“Four,” Jackson said somberly.

None of the three women added details about what had happened to those other four, but Keo could guess. He’d heard the gunfire go on for some time before just stopping completely. And the fact that none of them were carrying silver ammo made their fate all the more obvious.

The younger Jackson sat down on the floor across from Keo while Sharon remained standing to Keo’s right, occasionally checking the rear door up the hallway where the thump-thump-thump of ghoul pounding continued unabated.

Liz had begun pacing to Keo’s left. “We have to go get Carter. She’d come after us.”

“We don’t know where she is,” Sharon said.

“We have to go after her, Sharon.”

“I know, Liz, but that doesn’t change the fact we don’t know where she is.” Sharon looked over at Keo. “What about you?”

“What about me?” Keo said.

“You’re from here, aren’t you?” Jackson asked. “You know this city. You must have some ideas where they might be keeping her.”

Keo shook his head. “I’m not from around here, either.”

“Goddammit,” Liz said, turning away.

“We were hoping…” Jackson said, before she, too, looked away.

“Was that the only reason you guys saved me?” Keo asked.

“You’d have to ask these two,” Sharon said. “I didn’t know what they were doing before they did it.”

Keo looked to Jackson, who gave him a sheepish look and a shrug.

“It was a long shot,” Liz said.

“Sorry for the bad news,” Keo said. “But thanks for saving my life anyway.”

“Yeah, sure.”

I don’t think she means that, Keo thought with a half-smile.

He looked over at Sharon, who was once again staring up the hallway. They were far enough from the door that Jackson’s light didn’t reach it, which was probably just as well. Listening to the ghouls banging away was enough to know they were still out there.

“Did Carter say if she’s alone in that basement?” Keo asked.

“She said she was alone,” Sharon said.

“Is she sure?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, were there lights in this place? Or did she have that”—he nodded at the LED on Jackson’s wrist, held in place by, from what he could tell, leather straps—“on her?”

“She doesn’t,” Jackson said. She held up her wrist and smiled with some pride. “I did this myself. I offered to make them one, too, but the others didn’t want it.”

“What difference does it make?” Sharon asked Keo.

“Is she absolutely sure she’s alone down there?” Keo said. “There’s a big difference between being alone and not being alone, you know.”

“She said she was alone, and we believe her.” She paused before adding, “But she also didn’t say if she had any lights with her.”

“The kid was terrified,” Liz said. “She’s only fourteen.”

“Fourteen?” Keo said.

“Just fourteen,” Sharon said. “She’s been with us since she was just a little kid. I can’t imagine her down there all alone.”

As if on cue, the radio clipped to Liz’s hip came to life:

“Guys? Guys? Are you still there? Guys?”

The speaker was female, and her words were mostly intact, but it wasn’t crystal clear. There were occasional breakups and static interruption. Despite that, Keo could easily detect the fear in the girl’s voice.

“Guys? Guys?” the voice that Keo assumed was Carter continued. “Are you still there? God, I hope you guys are still there.”

Liz quickly unclipped her radio again and pressed the transmit lever. Then, in a calm voice that probably took a lot out of her, said into the two-way, “Carter, we’re still here. We hear you. Are you okay?”

“Oh, thank God,” Carter said, the relief in her voice coming through despite a brief interruption between the thank and the God part. She sounded very young.

Only fourteen, and alone in the dark. Damn.

“I’m okay. They haven’t come back for me yet.” Then, with some excitement, “Guys, I found something. It’s in the room with me. I think it might be important.”

Sharon had moved closer to the radio in Liz’s hand. Keo stayed where he was and kept his mouth shut and just listened.

“What is it?” Liz asked. “Did you find out where they’re keeping you?”

“No, no, not yet,” Carter said. “But I did find something. I don’t know, maybe it might be a clue?”

“What did you find, Carter?”

“—barrels. Like, a dozen of them, all lined up against the wall.”

“Barrels? Did you say barrels?”

“Yeah. Those things you put beer in? And pour beer out of? I don’t know what you call—” Some static, before the girl’s voice returned: “—look like barrels to me.”

Liz glanced over at Jackson and Sharon. She had no idea what Carter was talking about, and from the looks on their faces, neither did the other two women.

“Beer kegs,” Keo said. “She’s talking about beer kegs.”

“Kegs,” Sharon said. “He’s right.” Then, her eyes widening slightly, “Some place that serves beer from kegs. Or used to.”

“A bar?” Liz said.

“Maybe. Ask her what else she found.”

Liz turned back to the radio. “Carter, what else did you find down there besides barrels?”

“—pool table,” Carter said. “It was hidden—” The radio cut out, before returning: “—kind of tarp. I bumped into it. Hurt like hell, too. It’s really dark down here, guys. I can barely see—” Her voice cut out again.

“A pool table,” Sharon said. Keo thought he could actually hear the gears in her head turning as she tried to piece together the clues. “She’s in the basement of some kind of bar. They always store their used kegs down there. The pool table confirms it.”

“Carter,” Liz said into the radio, “do you see anything that looks like a sign? Or the name of an establishment? A bar? Anything that could help us nail down your location?”

“No,” Carter said. “It’s really dark down here. I can barely—” She disappeared in midsentence one more time.

They waited for Carter to come back, and when she didn’t after a few seconds:

“Carter,” Liz said, her fingers gripping the radio tighter. “Are you okay? What happened? Carter, come in. Carter!”

“—okay,” Carter said. Keo thought the teenager was whispering a little softer now, and at the same time with even more urgency in her voice.

“What just happened?” Liz asked.

“—clothes down here, in one of the corners,” Carter said. “I didn’t see them before because it’s so dark—” Static, before she returned a couple of seconds later: “—smelled them.”

That drew another round of confusing looks among the three women.

“They’re in a pile,” Carter was saying. “There’s blood on them. That’s what I was smelling. The blood—” Her radio cut off again.

“Bloody clothes?” Sharon said while they waited to hear from Carter again. She was looking at Liz when she said it, though she could have just been saying it out loud to herself.

“What the hell is this place?” Liz said.

“It sounds like a temporary holding cell of some kind,” Keo said.

Liz looked over at him. “A holding cell for what?”

What do you think? Keo wanted to ask, but he thought Liz already knew the answer to her own question.

The radio squawked, and Carter came back. “Guys, are you still there?” Keo thought her voice had grown even more panicky since they last heard from her. “I think there was someone down here before me. I don’t think I’m the first one they brought down here...”

Six

Thump-thump-thump…

Thump-thump-thump…

If Keo closed his eyes, he could almost convince himself there wasn’t a horde of ghouls out there with just a metal door standing between him and them. Well, if he closed his eyes and stuck his fingers into both ears and started chanting Lara’s name over and over.

Thump-thump-thump…

Thump-thump-thump…

Keep at it, boys. Keep right on at it.

“How are we going to find her?” Jackson was asking.

“There can’t be that many bars in Paxton,” Liz said. “All we have to do is find the right one. We can’t afford to wait till morning. We don’t know how long she’s going to last in there by herself. You heard her; she’s not the first one they put down there.”

“She said the blood was fresh,” Sharon said.

“Yeah, she did. Someone was down there before her. How long before they come back for her, too? They put her there for a reason.”

“They,” Keo thought. The women were either being very deliberate not to expand on who they were, or… No, there was no or, because they were ghouls. The same ones that had taken out the rest of Sharon’s group and also absconded with the kid.

Unless there hadn’t just been ghouls out there in the first place. Was that possible? Was there something else?

Someone else?

“Did you see anyone out there while you were fighting those ghouls?” Keo asked.

The women turned to look at him. They were now all standing in the hallway together, almost huddling as they went back and forth between the three of them. For all he knew, they might have even forgotten he was sitting on the floor nearby until he spoke up.

“What?” Sharon said.

“Did you see anyone out there when you were fighting earlier?”

“You mean besides us?” Liz asked.

“Yeah,” Keo said. He added, “Someone else,” and left the rest hanging.

Liz and Sharon picked up on it right away, but Jackson, in the middle, looked lost.

“No,” Sharon said, shaking her head. “It was just us and those nightcrawlers out there the entire time. If there were someone else, I didn’t see them.”

“Neither did I,” Liz said. “Why does it matter if there were?”

“Because I’ve never heard of the black eyes doing this,” Keo said. “Taking a survivor without hurting them. Putting them in a basement for…some reason. I’ve never heard of that happening. Not with the black eyes. Have either of you?”

Liz and Sharon exchanged a look, before Sharon said (answering for both of them, Keo guessed), “No. Never.”

“None of this makes any sense,” Keo said. “If there was someone else out there besides a ghoul, then why didn’t they take her radio away, too? Why just take her guns and knife, but leave the radio? They had to know she’d try to contact you. Right?”

“Maybe,” Sharon said.

“There’s no maybe about it. The fact that they left her her radio…” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense, especially if someone other than the black eyes took her.”

“What is he talking about?” Jackson asked the two women. “What else could have been out there besides those nightcrawlers?”

“Collaborators,” Liz said. “He’s talking about ghoul collaborators. There were a lot of them during The Purge.”

“Collaborators? What are those?”

“Humans that worked with the creatures,” Sharon said.

“‘Worked’ with them?”

It didn’t surprise Keo that Jackson had never heard of or seen a collaborator in person. She was too young. It was likely she’d run across one or two of them before but just never knew what they used to be. Unlike him, Sharon, and Liz, the kid had grown up in this new world and didn’t have to deal with all the intricacies of that hellish yearlong Purge.

“They were on the bad guys’ side,” Liz was saying. “That’s all you need to know.” Then, to Keo, “But you’re right. I’ve never heard of the black eyes taking prisoners, either. At least, not the way they took Carter.”

Keo nodded. Liz hadn’t come right out and said it, but by “the way they took Carter” what she meant was that the ghouls hadn’t fed on her immediately. He’d seen ghoul nests with half-dead survivors slowly being drained of their blood, but he’d never heard of something similar to Carter’s current situation.

It didn’t make any sense. None of this thing with Carter did.

And that was the problem. When it came to ghouls, you could bet the shirt on your back on their reaction to certain situations. They were predictable in their simplicity: Hunt, feed, and survive. They didn’t grab survivors and put them inside a makeshift prison for…what?

It didn’t make a lick of sense to Keo, and he could see that both Sharon and Liz were realizing the same thing. Even Jackson was starting to figure it out, albeit a little slower.

“It doesn’t matter how she got there, she’s there,” Sharon said. There was finality in her voice—the leader asserting control. “What matters is finding her. Anyone got any ideas on how to achieve that?”

“We know she’s in the basement of some bar,” Liz said. “But I didn’t see one while we were moving through town earlier. When the fighting began, we were already in the back alleys. Hard to pick up signs back here.” To Jackson, “What about you? Did you see one?”

Jackson seemed to think about it. “Maybe…”

“What did you see?” Sharon asked.

“There was a place with a couple of beer pitchers on a sign above it. It looked like a bar. I didn’t catch the name though. It was too dark. But I remember the sign as we rode past it.”

“There could be a dozen bars in a town this size,” Liz said.

“Maybe, but she’s in the one that’s closest to us,” Keo said. “Possibly even the one that Jackson saw. How far was that place?”

All three women turned to look at him. Again, he had a feeling they’d temporarily forgotten he was sitting nearby.

“It’s just down the street,” Jackson said. “Maybe half a block?”

“What makes you think they’re keeping Carter nearby?” Sharon asked.

“You said she had a two-way portable radio on her,” Keo said.

Liz took out her own radio. “Like this one. And?”

“Two-ways work best when there’s nothing between them, like a perfect line of sight. You put a brick wall—or, say, a basement—and they don’t work quite as well. The fact that you could receive Carter’s radio signal at all given her current location has to mean she’s relatively close by.”

Again, another quick glance among the three women.

“I didn’t think of that,” Liz said.

“Neither did I,” Sharon said.

Jackson grinned at Keo. “Maybe we’re not going to regret saving your life after all, Mr. Knockout.”

“I’ve been told worse things,” Keo said.

“Oh yeah? Does that have anything to do with that nasty-looking scar?”

He smiled. He was wondering when one of them would bring that up. Whenever he met someone new, they invariably commented on the scar that ran down almost the entire length of the left side of his face. It was a lasting parting gift from one of the many men that Keo had encountered in his life that had tried to kill him. Like the others, the scar’s giver had also failed.

“It doesn’t not have anything to do with it,” Keo said.

“Must be a good story,” Jackson said.

“It’s pretty—” Keo began but stopped in midsentence. He shot up from the floor and glanced up the hallway, which was the same direction Sharon and Liz were also staring at that same time. Because the two women had heard it, too.

Or, in this case, didn’t hear it: The pounding against the rear door had stopped, and there was just a deep, deep silence in its place.

“They stopped,” Sharon said.

“Why did they stop?” Liz asked.

“I don’t know. They’ve never done that before, either.” She glanced over at Keo but didn’t say anything.

“What?” Keo said.

“You’ve seen this before?”

“I’ve seen a lot of things before. You’ll have to narrow it down.”

“The black eyes stopping their attack when they know there’s prey on the other side,” Liz said.

Keo didn’t answer right away. Had he ever seen something like this before? The black eyes doing something completely out of character? Like, say, take Carter prisoner? Or, now, ending their assault on a door without rhyme or reason?

“You’ve seen this before,” Sharon said, watching his face closely.

“Yes,” Keo said. He glanced up the hallway. Jackson’s light didn’t extend far enough for him to make out the door, but he could just vaguely make out its shape. “By themselves, the black eyes are predictable. Dangerous, but predictable. It’s when there’s something else around that they become…unpredictable, and that makes them even more dangerous.”

“Something else around?” Jackson asked. “Like what? These collaborators you guys were talking about?”

“No,” Keo said, thinking about Darby Bay, about a little Texas town that none of the three women had probably even heard of before called Axton. “I’m not talking about collaborators.”

“What, then?”

Keo didn’t answer her. He looked over at Sharon instead.

The older woman met his gaze, and he knew that she knew exactly what he was talking about. “I didn’t see one out there. Did you?”

“No,” Keo said, shaking his head. “But it doesn’t mean it’s not here in Paxton with us. The way the black eyes are behaving, it would make sense. As much as anything makes sense anymore in this world.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Liz asked. “What else could be out there that explains any of this?”

Sharon turned to the taller woman. “Denver. About five years back. Remember?”

Liz’s eyes widened slightly. “Fuck.”

“What? What happened in Denver?” Jackson asked, looking from Liz to Sharon.

“You hadn’t joined us then,” Liz said to the younger woman. Her face had sobered up. “The only reason we added more to the group was because we’d lost some friends in Denver. That…opened up space for you and Carter and the others.”

“So what happened in Denver?” Jackson asked. “And why haven’t I ever heard about it until now?”

Liz didn’t answer, and Sharon was too busy staring at Keo.

“A blue-eyed ghoul,” the older woman said. “You think there’s one in Paxton with us.”

“Yeah,” Keo said quietly.

“Fuck,” Liz said. It was almost a whisper, as if she was afraid someone—something—out there might overhear.

“Oh,” Jackson said, her face paling noticeably under the glow of her LED light. “You guys think…?”

“Maybe,” Keo said. “It explains a lot. The blue eyes are still capable of thinking, planning. The black eyes wouldn’t take Carter the way they did. I think we all know that.”

Sharon nodded but didn’t interrupt him.

“There has to be something else going on that we haven’t seen yet,” Keo continued. “A blue eyes running the show would explain a lot, but not everything.”

“No?” Liz asked. “What wouldn’t it explain? What other crazy shit has happened in this godawful place that we don’t know about yet?”

“For one, it wouldn’t explain why it didn’t attack me personally back at the warehouse,” Keo said. “Or why it hasn’t shown up here yet.” He looked toward the rear door, hidden somewhere among the shadows. “It could take that door down easily. Hell, it wouldn’t even break a sweat. And yet…”

“Maybe it’s hiding?” Jackson said. Keo thought she sounded almost hopeful.

“From what?” Liz asked.

The younger woman shrugged. “I don’t know. From us?”

Keo almost laughed but managed to rein it in in time. He said instead, “You think a blue-eyed ghoul would be scared of us?” He took his KA-BAR out of its sheath and held it up to her light. “Me, with my knife? You ladies, with your bullets?” Keo put the knife away. “No, it’s not scared of us. That’s not the reason it hasn’t shown itself.”

“If there’s actually one of them out there,” Sharon said.

“He’s right; it would explain a lot,” Liz said, looking across at Sharon.

“But not everything. He’s right about that, too.”

“Goddammit. This night just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it?”

“Not quite the word I’d use,” Keo said.

“FUBAR, then.”

“What’s that?” Jackson asked.

“He knows,” Liz said, nodding at Keo.

“Fucked Up Beyond All Reason,” Keo said.

“Oh,” Jackson said.

“We don’t know anything for certain,” Sharon said. “We’re just guessing here.”

“Educated guesses,” Liz said. “You have to admit that, Sharon.”

“Still just guesses. There may or may not be a blue-eyed ghoul calling the shots out there. I don’t know. And you don’t know, either. But all four of us know one thing for certain: Carter is nearby, and that kid needs our help.”

“She’s right,” Liz said. She nodded, as if trying to convince herself. “We have to find Carter. We’ve already lost too much tonight. We can’t lose her, too.”

“We’ll find her,” Sharon said.

“Yeah, we’ll find her,” Jackson added.

Keo kept his mouth shut, but he thought, Easier said than done, ladies, especially with that horde of ghouls out there.

And maybe, just maybe, a blue eyes among them.

That last thought made Keo shiver slightly. It didn’t matter how many times he had been confronted with a blue-eyed ghoul, the image of one of them boring into his soul with those glowing blue eyes of theirs always made him ice cold.

Keo looked down at his watch.

7:49 p.m.

Less than twenty minutes since he’d been saved by the women, and so, so many hours still to go before daybreak.

Seven

“You don’t have silver bullets?” Keo asked.

He’d couched the question as innocuously as he could so that it came out along the lines of, “Oh, you guys happen to have any silver bullets on you? ’Cause, you know, that would be really helpful right now,” instead of the more accusing (and infinitely more apt to be taken badly) “What kind of idiots run around at night without silver bullets? And this is coming from an idiot who was running around out there with just a knife!”

He was hoping that came across, and maybe it did, because Sharon sighed and said, “We did, but they were in our supply bags. The same bags that were on our horses when we were attacked.”

“They spooked your horses?”

“Among other things,” Liz said. “It was almost like they were waiting for us. I know it’s hard to believe, but it really did seem that way.”

“‘Waiting’ for you?” Keo said.

“Yeah.” She shook her head. “I know it sounds ridiculous. The black eyes don’t do that. They just attack.”

Unless there’s a blue eyes in the area commanding them.

There was just something so odd about everything that had transpired in Paxton tonight, from ghouls not acting like they normally did to the almost tactical way he, and now the women, were ambushed. None of it made much sense, and whenever he thought he had an answer, something came along to contradict it.

And then there was what had happened to Carter. That was a real headscratcher, but it was also something he could overlook, mostly because it didn’t matter to him. Right now, his goal—his only goal—was to retrieve the backpack he’d brought from Galveston and get the hell out of Paxton. To accomplish that, he had a feeling he was going to need help. If there was something out there, something intelligent, then Keo was loath to try his luck all by himself.

Of course, he could wait until morning. The supplies might still be out there tomorrow, just waiting for him to reclaim them…or they might not.

That was the dilemma he faced. They could still be there, untouched, or they could be gone. And if they were still out there, what if someone else showed up in the morning and ran off with them before he could? Could he take that chance?

It had taken him nine days to reach Galveston and return, and that was when he had Mirabelle. He didn’t have the Appaloosa anymore. To get a new horse, he’d need to return to the ranch first…

Could Lara afford that much delay? Or maybe the better question was, could he afford to take that risk? If it were just his skin he had to risk, the answer was simple. The problem, of course, was that it wasn’t just his life on the line here.

So he sat back and allowed the women to hash out their dilemma: They wanted to find the teenager, Carter. It didn’t take a genius to know it wasn’t just about rescuing the girl but saving, at least in spirit, the rest of their lost doomed comrades through her. According to Sharon, there had been four others watching their horses outside the warehouse, along with Carter, when the ghouls attacked. They were now down to three—or four, if he counted Carter. Keo didn’t think very highly of the kid’s chances, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud.

Eventually the women came up with a plan: They would leave the safety of the office building and venture out to search for Carter. The possibility that she was nearby and inside the basement of a bar or some kind of drinking establishment would help narrow down the search. It wouldn’t pinpoint her exact location—their lack of knowledge about Paxton didn’t help—but it was a good starting point.

Although they didn’t say it, Keo thought all three women shared his discomfort in the sudden lack of ghouls trying to break into the office. It was just one more thing that didn’t make any sense in a night full of them.

Something’s going on out there. Something…not right.

To give the women some privacy, Keo wandered over to the front of the building to get a better look at the other way in. Not that he didn’t believe Sharon when she told him it was secured, but—well, mostly he didn’t believe her. It turned out she was right: The entry was identical to the one in the back. There were windows, but they were high up, and unless the ghouls had learned to fly… The thought of that made him cringe a bit.

Damn, here’s hoping that never happens.

There was nothing in the large room up front that he could use as a weapon to supplant the KA-BAR, though a foot-long metal rod—complete with sanded-down pointy end—came close. It looked like someone had once used it as a weapon but apparently didn’t need it anymore. Keo thought he could still see dark spots along its length, which could be ghoul or human blood. Besides that, there wasn’t much he could find that would be useful in a fight. The floor was covered in dirt and old footprints, and a large desk was close enough to the door that Keo knew it’d been used as a barricade at some point in the office’s existence. And for some reason, someone had scrawled the words krycek was here with a knife along one of the walls.

When he returned to the back hallway, things had taken a bad turn. Not that any of the three women said anything to him immediately, but he could read the body language.

“Carter?” Keo said.

Sharon looked over and nodded. “She isn’t answering our radio calls.”

“Was she, before? Or was she always the first one to make contact?”

“She’s answered before,” Liz said. “We’ve been purposefully not radioing her more than we absolutely had to, so we don’t accidentally give her away if she needed to stay quiet.”

“This time she’s not answering,” Sharon said.

“So what does that mean?” Keo asked.

“It could be anything. Her radio’s battery could have run out of power. Or she’s in a part of the basement that’s too thick for her signal to get through.”

Or whoever put her down there might have realized their mistake and came back and took the radio from her.

“We don’t know why she’s not answering. That’s the problem,” Liz said.

“Or she could be in trouble,” Jackson said.

The women exchanged a look, and Keo knew they’d already made up their minds about what to do next while he was hunting for a weapon at the front of the building. This latest silence from Carter had just convinced them to move quicker.

He said, “You’re going outside.”

“We don’t have any choice,” Sharon said. “We have a good idea of where she is. You said it yourself. She has to be nearby. It has to be the same bar that Jackson saw.”

“I could be wrong.”

“Are you? Wrong?” Liz asked.

Keo shrugged. “All I know is that, if you’re going out there, you probably shouldn’t take my word for it. I wouldn’t.”

“We don’t have any choice,” Sharon said again. Keo wondered if she was trying to convince herself or him, or the other two. Maybe all three.

He couldn’t say he blamed them. He didn’t know these people or what they had been through together. The fact that they were all women—even though Sharon hadn’t confirmed that when it came to the ones they’d already lost to the ghouls tonight—spoke volumes. They’d seen some shit, that was for sure, and whatever he said—a man—wasn’t going to change their minds one bit.

“You gotta do what you have to do,” Keo said.

“Yeah,” Sharon said, exchanging a look with the other two women, “we do.”

“Here,” Liz said.

When Keo turned to her, the tall woman held a Glock pistol out toward him. She still had an almost identical one in her holster, so he assumed she’d been carrying the extra in her pack.

“What’s this?” Keo asked.

“It’s the best we can do for you,” Liz said.

Jackson took a pair of magazines out of her pouch and held them out to Keo. “This’ll work for the pistol.”

“You both carry Glocks?” he asked, taking the magazines.

“We all do,” Sharon said. “9mm. It helps to have just one caliber to worry about. Same with our rifles.”

Keo nodded. He’d noticed that they were all carrying AR-15 variants chambered for 5.56 rounds.

As he put the magazines away—there was already one loaded into the Glock—Keo asked, “I don’t suppose these have silver bullets?”

Sharon frowned. “No.”

“It’s been a while since we encountered this many ghouls in one place,” Liz said. “Before, it was never anything that we couldn’t have dealt with with just these,” she added, patting her sheathed knife. Sharon had already told Keo that their knives, like his, were silver-coated along the edge. “We let our guards down. Got complacent.”

“We got lazy,” Sharon said, pursing her lips. “That won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t.”

I’ve heard that before, Keo thought. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve said that exact same thing, too. Then tonight happened.

“You’re going out there with just those knives and guns that won’t do any good?” Keo asked.

“Why not?” Jackson said. “You did the same thing with just that little knife of yours.”

Keo smirked. “It’s not that little.”

The teenager smiled. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to insult your little knife. I know guys are sensitive about the size of their…knives.”

Keo narrowed his eyes and wondered just how much Jackson knew about men and their obsession with sizes. Then he had to remember that she might have been young, but out here you grew up fast.

He said, “I wish I could help you, but I have my own problems.”

“Is one of those problems the reason why you were out there?” Sharon asked. “Instead of staying put in that warehouse like a sane person?”

Keo sighed. “It doesn’t not have something to do with that.”

“It’s a secret, huh?” Liz said.

“No, just…not something that would interest you.”

“I guess we all have our problems tonight,” Sharon said. She reached over and shook his hand. “I wish I could say it’s been swell, Keo, but frankly, I don’t know you well enough for that.”

“Yeah, you could be a real asshole, for all we know,” Liz added even as she, too, shook his hand.

“Definitely an asshole,” Jackson said, doing the same but with a smile that almost verged on being flirty. “But we’ve met worse guys out there.”

I bet you all have, Keo thought, but said, “I wish you guys all the luck in the world.”

“Thanks,” Sharon said. “You too.”

“Yeah, you too,” Liz said.

The women picked up their packs and shrugged them on. Jackson, the smallest of the trio by a mile, struggled a bit but finally got the straps in place. She looked like a child playing army with the rifle slung in front of her and the possibly-too-big belt that carried not just a gun holster but also the knife on the other hip, and pouches. Looking at her…

Dammit, Keo thought, wondering what Lara would say if she found out he’d let these three women—with the way-too-young-and-small Jackson—go out there on their own. That was the problem with Lara—she was too good for him, and in all the time he’d been with her, Keo had been trying to make up that ground. Bottom line: He wanted to be good enough to deserve her. He’d done some shitty things in his life, most of which Lara would never know about. He could live with them because he could tell himself he didn’t know any better then.

But now? After finding and convincing someone like Lara to love him back?

Fuck it all.

“How can I help?” Keo asked before he could change his mind.

* * *

They told him the plan, and it was as bad as he’d expected.

They were going to go out there, into the surprisingly cold Texas night, and look for the building holding Carter. Failing that, they would die trying. It was the latter part that Keo had a problem with and considered telling them that he’d changed his mind.

I could have probably come up with a better plan.

Probably.

Ten years ago he wouldn’t have any problems changing his mind and backing out of this, but this wasn’t ten years ago and he wasn’t the man he once was. Unfortunately, Keo couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or not.

He tried not to think too much about it (Just do it, pal, like Nike says!) as he got into position next to the door, with Liz already across from him. Jackson was slightly behind Keo with her rifle, giving him just enough space that he could barely feel the warmth of her breath against the back of his neck as she breathed in and out just a little bit too hard. Sharon stood in the middle, one hand on her slung rifle while the other got a grip on the door’s handle.

Sharon looked to Liz first, then to Keo. She didn’t say anything, but they did exchange a nod. Keo assumed Sharon did the same with Jackson behind him, but he’d already focused back on the door.

Liz was watching his face from across the door. “So what made you change your mind?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Keo said.

“Not really. Most men in your shoes wouldn’t be here right now.”

Keo wondered how many men she’d run across since The Purge that did everything possible to smear the reputation of his gender.

He said, “I’m an idiot, that’s why.”

Liz grinned. “I guess we all are.”

He sighed and thought, Some of us more than others.

But it was too late to change his mind now (Crap.), because Sharon had turned her wrist and the door was opening and Liz’s tall frame blurred by him as she slipped outside first. Keo went next, the KA-BAR in his hand. He had the Glock holstered and would have felt pretty good having it on his person if he didn’t know how useless it was right now, in the dark.

…in the dark.

He heard slightly-accelerated breathing behind him as Sharon and Jackson came out after him, followed by the surprisingly soft click! as the door slid shut. Jackson had been given the task of keeping it from slamming, and the kid had done her job.

Keo waited for the inevitable—ghouls that had been hiding out here to reveal themselves, to prove that he was right and that this was a monumental mistake. Except nothing came out of the shadows, and no sickly figures leaped off the rooftops above them when he scanned the moonlit sky.

The lack of immediate attack didn’t keep his heart from pounding against his chest. The same was happening with Sharon behind him and Liz in front of him, because Keo could hear it.

Well, at least I’m not the only idiot out here in the dark with no silver bullets.

As soon as they were outside, Liz turned left, then went around the back of the office building. The warehouse that Keo had voluntarily abandoned earlier was somewhere behind them. The bar that Jackson remembered was farther up the street, which was the direction they were headed now.

Liz was staying purposefully close so she didn’t lose the rest of them, but she was also keeping a steady pace so they wouldn’t get bogged down in the back alleys. The tall woman had her rifle in front of her the entire time, moving like a trained infantryman, sweeping the dark corners and shadowed buildings as she went. Keo guessed she had a lot of experience with the weapon. Even Jackson, back there somewhere, was no virgin to gunfights.

His surroundings looked a hell of a lot darker than the last time Keo was out here, but maybe that was just his imagination.

He sneaked a look back at the other two women.

Sharon was a few meters back, Jackson farther behind her. Sharon’s face was stoic and unafraid. Either that or she was very good at hiding her fears. Small spurts of cloud filtered out between her clenched lips, her face paling somewhat against the cold air. He couldn’t make out Jackson’s appearance in the back of their moving line. There just wasn’t enough lights to see with, and the teenager had turned off her wrist LED so they didn’t draw any unwanted attention. And out here, every attention was unwanted.

Sharon locked in on his gaze. He could tell that she was thinking the exact same thing that he was:

Where are they? Where are the ghouls?

Keo looked back to Liz in front of him. She was about to approach the first alleyway, squeezed in between the car wash and the building next door. Somewhere up the road was the bar where Carter was being kept. That is, if the kid was even still alive. Keo was beginning to have doubts.

Everything about Carter’s situation was confusing. Why would ghouls abduct her and put her in a basement? Why would they leave her with her radio? If he were the paranoid type, Keo would almost think someone was trying to lure the others out of hiding in order to go rescue Carter.

…trying to lure the others out of hiding…

Keo stopped and glanced back at Sharon, closing in behind him. He locked eyes with her again and was about to say, “This is a mistake. We have to go back,” when Jackson, moving behind Sharon, opened fire.

“Ghouls!” Jackson shouted, the staccato flash of her weapon’s muzzle lighting up her young face.

Keo didn’t look at where Jackson was shooting. He was too busy turning back to Liz as she, too, opened up with her AR, peppering dark shapes that were pouring out of the rear door of a building across the alleyway from them. Keo hadn’t seen it before, but had that door always been open? Or did the ghouls open it? How did ghouls learn to open doors?

This isn’t right.

Then: Are you kidding me? Nothing about tonight has been right!

The back alleys had lit up against the muzzle flashes of Liz’s weapon in front of him and Jackson’s behind him. Keo had no trouble seeing skeletal figures leaping out of the shadows around them, dark black eyes gleaming against the flashes of gunfire even as their bodies jerked back against the bullet impacts.

But that wasn’t going to stop them, because they were all using bullets that didn’t have a trace of silver in them. The wrong kind of ammo.

We’re fucked. We’re so fucked!

Keo tightened his grip on the KA-BAR and breathed in the cold air. Then he steeled himself for what was coming.

“Get back! It’s a trap! Get back to the office!” Sharon was shouting from behind him just before her own rifle joined the fray.

Too late for that, Keo thought as hellacious gunfire pounded in his ears and echoed off the back alley walls around him, and the thick, oh-so-thick stench of death closed in on them from every side…

Eight

“You remember everything I told you?”

“Yes.”

“And everything we need?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Lara. You wrote a list, for God’s sake. I know how to read a list. I’m not that dense, despite what Bunker says. I’ll just hand it to the first medic I see and ask very nicely for them to fill it. Failing that, I’ll use my gun.”

“Don’t use your gun!”

“I was just kidding. I’ll just ask nicely.”

“And what if they say no?”

“They won’t.”

“But what if?”

“They won’t.”

“I just want to be sure, that’s all. This is very important.”

“I know it’s very important. Trust me, babe, I know this is very important. It’s probably the most important thing I’ll ever do.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Yes. I absolutely mean that.”

“It’s just that I don’t like you going out there by yourself.”

“There’s no way around it. You need to stay here, and Bunker needs to keep you out of trouble. Besides, I’ll be able to travel faster on my own. Bunker’s lending me his fastest horse.”

“Mirabelle?”

“I thought it was Mirror Ball.”

“There’s no Mirror Ball, but there is a Mirabelle.”

“Must be that one, then. I don’t really keep up with their names.”

“You prefer to name all your horses Horse.”

“It works.”

“What if you have more than one horse?”

“Horse One, Horse Two, et cetera.”

“I should be going with you. That’s the only way to be sure. They might say no to you, but they won’t say no to me.”

“Someone might recognize you.”

“That’s unlikely. My hair is longer.”

“Long hair or not, you’re still Lara. They probably have pictures of you hanging on walls.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m totally serious.”

“If you’re going to be stupid like this, then it’s just more reason for me to come with you.”

“You’re not coming with me.”

“It’s just a few days’ ride.”

“It’s five days to Galveston and five days back. That’s more than a few days’ ride.”

“So it’ll be five days there and five days back. You’ll be with me the entire time.”

“No.”

“Bunker doesn’t need me to watch the ranch with him.”

“We both know the reason you’re not going has nothing to do with Bunker or this ranch, Lara.”

“I’m going, Keo.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not. And that’s final.”

“Don’t talk to me that way. I’m not a child.”

“So stop acting like one.”

“I’m really not liking you right now.”

“I don’t care. You’re still not coming with me. So relax. Get some rest. Everything will be fine.”

“I hate you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Okay…”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good.”

“But promise me this.”

“Anything.”

“No meandering. Get there, get what you need, and come home. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I mean it, Keo.”

“I know you do.”

“If I have to go after you, I’m going to be really angry.”

“We wouldn’t want that, would we?”

* * *

“Get back! It’s a trap! Get back to the office!”

Oh, now she wants to go back into the office!

Keo wasn’t sure who was doing the shouting, but he assumed it was Sharon. Then again, it could have been Liz or the kid Jackson, for all he knew. The voice was mostly lost in the pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire and the pek-pek-pek of bullets impacting brick walls, with a few pings! as the occasional round bounced off a metal siding. Keo swore he could even hear the clink-clink-clink! of bullet casings landing on the floor and ricocheting off the walls against all the other sounds.

The night itself seemed to have come alive, and he had trouble distinguishing brick from metal from shadows from concrete. He wasn’t sure where the creatures were coming from—Doors? Alleyways? Holes in the ground that had spontaneously opened up?—just that they seemed to be coming from everywhere.

He shot a ghoul at almost point-blank range, drilling the 9mm round through its right eye socket. The bullet popped the eyeball as if it were a grape and exited the back of the skull before vanishing into the pitch blackness. All that did was cause the creature’s head to snap back, its forward momentum toward him momentarily paused. That was just enough time for Keo to slash it across the chest using the KA-BAR.

Don’t lose the knife! You lose the knife, and you’re FUBAR’ed, pal!

FUBAR’ed or worse. Keo didn’t want to think too much about the “worse” part. Fortunately, he didn’t have time to dwell on all the possible “worse” ways this could go wrong.

How many ways can I die horribly? Let me not count the ways!

He was moving, cutting, shooting, and when he had to, kicking. They lunged at his legs, spindly arms trying to get a literal foothold. He stomped on a pair of limbs, then something that might have been a skull, though it felt just a little too light. All he’d needed to see what he’d just stomped on was to glance down, but he didn’t have the time. He didn’t have time.

All he cared about was that he was still upright and moving, constantly moving.

Keep moving! Keep moving! Stop, and you die! Don’t stop, and you won’t die!

Sure, should be simple enough!

He didn’t for a second think any of the gunfire was going to stop the ghouls, but it slowed the creatures down. Mostly. That is, until the Glock in his left hand ran dry and Keo wasted exactly a second and a half to holster it. He still had two spares for the weapon, but it would have cost him way too much time to reload. And he just didn’t have that much time to waste on something that wasn’t going to do real damage.

At least the KA-BAR never ran out of ammo or needed to be reloaded. The knife already felt noticeably heavier in his hand as he swung and stabbed and slashed. There was a generous coating of dripping black sludge over it, from the sharp point all the way down to the brass guard. Soon it was going to feel like he was wielding a halberd.

From somewhere behind him, he heard Sharon’s voice (Or was that Liz’s? Jackson’s?), screaming, “Go back! Go back!”

Then, someone else shouting, “What are you doing?”

“Do what I tell you, goddammit! Go now! Now now now!”

Then what sounded like ten rifles firing at once, but it was really just a single AR firing on full-auto. That was a mistake because that kind of fire selection was going to drain the weapon faster. And then what? Surely Sharon or Liz (Jackson?) would know better than that. Wouldn’t they? They’d been out here long enough.

Unless they didn’t have any choice…

Keo kicked at a ghoul that launched itself at him in the chest, sending it flailing back and into two others. They fell to the ground like bowling pins, and Keo almost chuckled. Almost, because he didn’t really have the time.

Keep moving! Keep moving, or you’re dead! You don’t wanna be dead, do you? Well, do you?

No, sir! No sirree!

So keep moving, pal!

Yes, sir!

He glanced over his shoulder and was somehow able to locate Sharon among all the shadows and darkness that were belching ghouls out of every orifice. She had to be at least fifteen meters away (How’d she get so far from him?), spraying one of the alleyways as a wave of ghouls flooded through the narrow passageway. When she was empty, Sharon quickly ejected the magazine and slapped in a new one and continued firing. Keo wondered how many more spares she had left. It couldn’t have been that many considering how long they’d been fighting.

No, he was wrong. They hadn’t been doing this for very long at all. Not even a minute. Thirty seconds? It had to have been longer than thirty seconds since the ghouls revealed themselves. He couldn’t be sure about anything. Time had a way of slowing down when undead things were trying to eat you.

Liz and Jackson. Where were the other two women?

Keo scanned the back alleys around him—

There! They were running away from him. How’d they gotten so far away? Were they abandoning him, or—

No, it was him. He was moving away from them.

And they weren’t both running. Liz was dragging Jackson away by the arm, pulling the younger girl as she resisted.

“Sharon!” Jackson was shouting. “Sharon!”

But Jackson’s voice was mostly lost in Sharon’s gunfire, the continued brap-brap-brap! of her fully auto rifle unleashing against a horde.

Something landed on Keo from above, sharp toes digging into his shoulder blades through his thick clothing. What the hell? It was a ghoul. Had it fallen out of the sky? Or from a nearby roof?

Keo reached up and grabbed for it, finding something round and slick and wet. His fingers dug right through the flesh, and slimy wetness covered his palm. Keo yanked the creature off him and threw it at two of the three ghouls that had picked themselves up from the ground where he’d sent them earlier.

He slashed at a fourth creature, unintentionally decapitating it with the knife. The head went in one direction and the body the other, falling across the toes of his boots.

Keo took a step back, then another one, when the world around him went dead silent.

He glanced over at where he’d last seen Sharon. She was smashing a ghoul in the head with the butt of her AR, then using the barrel to skewer another one through the chest. Her face was awash in a film of black liquid, more of the substance flicking from her head and hair as she twisted side to side, hitting a third, a fourth, then a fifth ghoul as they swarmed at her.

“Sharon! Sharon!”

Jackson’s voice coming from somewhere to the right and behind him.

Keo was turning to follow the other two women so he could also retreat back to the office when he felt the explosion before he heard it.

The heatwave cascaded over him from behind, throwing Keo to the filthy floor on his face. Luckily, he was able to stick out his hands to keep from crashing right into the grime-covered ground. The knuckles of his right hand went slightly numb as they slammed into the hard concrete while still gripping the KA-BAR, a voice inside his head shouting at him, Don’t lose the knife! You lose the knife, and you’re dead! You hear me? Don’t lose the knife!

Don’t lose the knife…

That’s right! Don’t lose the knife, pal!

And he didn’t, even as intense heat enveloped him. Chunks of cement and brick pelted his back and legs, and he braced himself against the onslaught, counting down from ten.

…nine…

A severed black limb landed in front of him, the flesh sizzling at the elbow.

…eight…

Pieces of a leg bounced off the top of his head, leaving behind a black sludge that he could already smell.

…seven…

Fingers—or were those toes?—ricocheted off the floor around him like heavy rain, each droplet black and pruned and hairless.

…six…

Keo’s sense of smell was already stuffed with the rotting garbage of attacking ghouls, but it was now overloaded with the aroma of burning flesh.

…five…

A ghoul, half of its head missing and its jaw hanging onto the rest of its face by thin sinews of muscle, stumbled into Keo’s peripheral vision. It turned, as if sensing him. One eye was missing, but the remaining one narrowed at the sight of Keo.

…four…

Keo shook off the shock and numbness and snapped up to his knees as the creature staggered toward him, moving on legs that were slightly bent outward. He stabbed it in the chest, and even before it could fully sag to the ground, Keo jumped up to his feet and spun around.

There was a big crater where Sharon had been standing. The blast (Was that a grenade? Where the hell had she been hiding a grenade?) had taken out parts of the back alley walls as well as a large number of ghouls that had been charging toward the woman. There were limbs everywhere. The thick scent of scorched flesh mingled with the choking stink of smoke and soot.

Keo took a couple of steps back as a pair of ghouls crawled toward him, dragging the upper half of their bodies now that they no longer had legs. He didn’t waste time killing them. They weren’t going to reach him anyway unless he just stood there like an idiot and didn’t move for at least a day.

Movement from behind!

Keo spun and slashed, taking out one—two—four ghouls that converged on him. As soon as they fell, others began appearing out of the smoke and shadows toward him.

Jackson and Liz. Where were Jackson and Liz?

Shut up! What did I tell you about keep moving? Keep moving, you dummy!

Keo took off, making a beeline for the closest alleyway. He’d lost all sense of direction and didn’t know where he was going, but this seemed like the right choice given the huge number of ghouls coming from the opposite direction.

There was just enough moonlight to keep him from running right into a brick wall, but that was about it. He couldn’t make out anything on the other end of the corridor. There could be a fence back there or another wall—

The street!

He pivoted onto the sidewalk and jumped onto the street and continued running.

Faster! Faster!

He could hear them coming behind him, and a quick glance—

There had to be ten back there and even more pouring out of the alleyway. Their natural stink, now coupled with the smell of singed flesh, tickled at his senses. He might have been able to hear the sound of their stampeding feet if both his ears weren’t still ringing from Sharon’s blast. The only bright side—and that was stretching it big time—was that there was nothing in front of him. The creatures were all behind him, so he didn’t have to fight his way up the street.

The street. Get off the street!

Nothing good was going to happen as long as he stayed out in the open underneath the moonlight. He thought he could glimpse figures flitting across the rooftops on both sides of him but didn’t want to make sure. The ones up there didn’t matter when considering how many were behind him right now.

Then Keo spotted it.

A door.

A wide-open door among a wall of closed ones. It might as well be a lighthouse with a big bright spotlight telling him to “Come here! This is your salvation! Get in here now!”

Maybe, if he’d had a second or two—or five—to think about it, Keo would have kept right on going past the wide-open door, but he didn’t. He wasn’t even sure how long he’d been running.

A minute? Two?

Five seconds?

And there was the door, begging him to take it. The only one in the entire street, it seemed, that wasn’t sealed shut.

Take it! a voice shouted.

Don’t take it! his gut instincts chimed in.

Take it! Get out of the streets! Get out of the streets now, you idiot!

His instincts lost, and Keo veered left and out of the street.

As he turned, he was able to glimpse a stream of moving shadows behind him. He could have seen more if he took another half second to tilt his head, but the truth was he didn’t want to know. Knowing that they were back there, and charging fast, was enough.

Keo jumped up the sidewalk and darted into the opening, spun on a dime, grabbed the door, and slammed it shut. There was a deadbolt, and he slid it into place, then glanced around. A black and shiny Foosball table stood out the most, and he dived for it.

Bam-bam-bam! like machinegun fire crashing into the door behind him.

Keo had gotten a good grip on the smooth edge of the table and was about to summon a dose of Herculean strength to lift and carry it over to the door when he heard the crash!

He turned, gasping for breath.

Ghouls were falling through the two windows that flanked the front entrance. They were literally pouring into the building, scrambling over each other to be the first one inside. They sliced their flesh against the jagged glass—not that any of them noticed what they were doing to their frail, thin, and emaciated bodies.

Keo abandoned the Foosball table and stumbled back farther into the building. He glanced around desperately, looking for a way out. Or at least something that was better than a front door and two now-useless windows.

A back office, maybe, one with a sturdy oak—

A hallway, behind him. It had to do!

He ran for it, telling himself not to glance back because there was no point. He already knew what he would see: Ghouls, flopping their way through both windows.

A door at the end of the corridor in front of him. There was a deadbolt on it, just above the silver doorknob. A basement of some kind? It was either that, or the bathroom to his right.

The basement! Take the basement!

Keo unlocked the door and pulled the heavy lumber (Good! Heavy is good!) out of the frame and lunged inside. He almost fell down a flight of stairs—it was so dark he could barely see anything—but managed to hold up in time. The truth was, he wasn’t even close to tumbling down the steps, but it seemed way closer because it was so damn dark inside the basement.

He spun around and pulled the door closed, and immediately realized a big problem: The door was made to be locked from the outside, not the inside. That was why he’d had to pull the deadbolt to get in.

Should have taken the restroom. Dammit!

It was too late to change his mind now. They were right behind him.

They were right behind him.

Keo grabbed the lever with both hands and held on for dear life, and waited for the inevitable.

One second.

Two…

Bam-bam-bam! as the first wave of ghouls pummeled the thick piece of lumber on the other side.

Bam-bam-bam!

Bam-bam-bam!

Bam-bam-bam…!

Nine

It was dark.

Bam-bam-bam!

Really dark.

Bam-bam-bam!

Dark enough that Keo had almost done a header down a flight of stairs that began about seven or so feet behind him. His mind was conjuring up all kinds of nasty scenarios even as he maintained his grip on the cold and slippery doorknob (Jesus. Why is it so slippery? Is that sweat? Blood? My blood? If not mine, then whose?) while he braced against the heavy wooden slab with his left shoulder.

Bam-bam-bam!

He wanted desperately to turn around to make sure there wasn’t anything creeping up the stairs behind him. Luckily, his ears had gotten better and the ringing was fading. At least it wasn’t overwhelming his senses right now as he grunted against the door, feeling every bam-bam-bam as the ghouls continued their relentless assault.

He was feeling good about the door holding as long as he kept the lever from turning. It felt extremely solid and heavy, and was going to take a legion of ghouls to break it down. And even that wouldn’t be enough. Even if there were a hundred (Shit. I hope there’s not a hundred of them out there.), there were only so many pairs of bodies that could ram themselves against the door at a single given time.

The doorknob moved constantly against his grip, but he had no trouble holding on. Ghouls were bumping against it, some probably even groping at it, but it didn’t seem as if they were trying to actually turn it. He had to remember that the creatures didn’t know how to open doors. For them it was an obstacle to get around or through, so they banged themselves against it, trying to batter it down.

Bless your simple-minded undead hearts!

So he was feeling pretty good. Not exactly ecstatic, but as good as a man covered in ghoul sludge could, anyway. Every breath he took filled his nostrils with a vile odor that was akin to being punched repeatedly in the face by Mike Tyson. There was liquid dripping off his chin and right cheek, and the front of his shirt was thick with the stuff. His pants legs, too, but that was easier to ignore.

I smell like shit. No, that’s not true. I wish it was shit. This is more like dog vomit.

His thoughts strayed to Liz and Jackson. Had they made it back to the office? He didn’t have to wonder so much about Sharon. She was gone. Grenades didn’t go off by themselves. Someone had to pull the pin. Someone who wanted to give her friends a chance to escape even if the cost was her own life. Sharon had gone out like a champ. If Keo had any choice in the matter, he wouldn’t mind ending it the same—

Floorboards creaking behind him.

Keo spun around, taking one hand off the doorknob while the other stabbed down for his sheathed KA-BAR. He pulled it out just as the small figure appeared out of the darkness, looking out at him with wide eyes.

It was a girl with short blonde hair and large blue eyes.

Keo stared at her, and she stared back, and neither one of them said anything. If she was anything like him, she was trying to recover from the almost heart attack at seeing the other.

Definitely an almost heart attack there.

She was only visible from the chest up because she hadn’t come all the way up the stairs. He searched for a weapon, but the closest thing he could find was the bulbous head of an aluminum baseball bat held defensively in front of her. If she were scared of him, Keo couldn’t detect it in her eyes.

Bam-bam-bam! from behind him, reminding him that it wasn’t just the girl he had to worry about.

And that was what she was—a girl. Even without any lights to see with, Keo could tell that much. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, if that.

Bam-bam-bam! as the door moved slightly behind him now that he wasn’t pushing against it with everything he had. Keo changed that by pushing his back flush against the smooth wooden frame while keeping one hand permanently glued to the doorknob.

Slowly, the noise from the hallway outside faded until Keo could focus just on the girl in front of him.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” the girl said back.

Okay, that was a good start. He could detect obvious hesitation and maybe some fear in her voice, but apparently not enough for her to turn and flee.

Or attack him with the bat.

“What are you doing down here?” he asked.

“What are you doing down here?” she shot back.

He couldn’t help but grin at that. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“Neither did I.”

“You gonna hit me with that?” he asked, nodding at the baseball bat in her hand.

“Depends. You gonna stab me with that?” she asked, nodding at the KA-BAR in his hand.

“Oh, this.”

Keo slipped the knife back into its sheath. The girl was at least ten feet away, with enough stairs and the landing between them that he wasn’t afraid she could make up the distance and bash his head in with the bat before he could get the knife back out to defend himself. That, and the fact she was so tiny, Keo thought he had a reasonable chance of taking her even barehanded.

“Better?” Keo said.

“Depends,” the girl said.

“On?”

“Who are you, and what are you doing down here?”

Keo glanced around him, but all he could see were cobwebbed corners and a wooden ceiling. There were no lights, and though his eyes had adjusted somewhat, he was still, literally, in the dark about his surroundings.

“Where is ‘here,’ anyway?” he asked.

The girl shook her head. She may or may not have relaxed slightly. Maybe because she could see that he didn’t want to be down here any more than she did and that there were other things on the other side of the door neither one of them wanted to face. The continued bam-bam-bam! of ghouls ramming against the door didn’t hurt Keo’s status as the lesser of two evils.

That’s me. The lesser of two evils.

Hey, whatever works.

“I don’t know,” the girl said. Then, before he could ask anything else, “Who are you?”

“I’m Keo.”

“K-who?”

He smiled. He’d gotten worse reactions. “Keo. Rhymes with mayo.”

“Oh. That’s your name.”

“Yes. What’s yours?”

“Carter.”

Carter? Now where have I heard—

Oh, right.

Was he inside a bar? Maybe. He hadn’t exactly had the time to look around at his surroundings while he was running for his life through them. There were the round tables, the Foosball table, and something that looked like a counter on his left side…

He hadn’t noticed a sign outside when he was making a beeline for the door. Then again, he was so intent on getting inside that he would have missed a giant glowing neon logo even if it’d struck him in the face.

Keo almost laughed at the irony of stumbling into Carter when he wasn’t even trying to find her but didn’t because that was probably not going to go over well with the clearly-frightened kid. She might have become less ready to take his head off with the bat, but they weren’t exactly best friends forever yet.

He said, “Carter. You were on the radio with Liz and Sharon.”

Those blue eyes widened. “You know Liz and Sharon?”

“I was with them when they were talking to you on the radio.” Then, remembering what Liz had told him, “They tried to radio you earlier, but you didn’t answer.”

“I couldn’t.”

“What happened?”

“My radio died. It ran out of power.”

Of course that’s the reason, Keo thought, wondering how Liz and Jackson (if they were even still alive) were going to feel when they heard that. The women had believed Carter was in imminent danger when they left their sanctuary. That decision had cost Sharon her life. But since they were planning on looking for Carter anyway, maybe their belief that Carter was in trouble had just sped things up.

Keo didn’t tell the kid standing in front of him any of that, though.

“Are they okay?” Carter was asking him even as she took the rest of the stairs until she was standing on the landing with the bat hanging to one side of her small body. That was a lot better than when it was poised to attack.

Sharon’s dead, Keo thought. Blew herself up in a dark alley not far from here. And I have no idea about Liz and Jackson.

He said out loud, “I don’t know. I think so.”

“What happened?”

“We were ambushed on the way here.”

“You guys were coming here? To rescue me?”

“Yes.”

She pursed her lips, like she was choking back tears of happiness. “I knew it. I knew they wouldn’t abandon me. Where are they now?”

“I don’t know,” Keo lied. Well, it was only partially a lie. He didn’t know what had happened with Liz and Jackson, but he knew pretty damn well what’d become of Sharon. “We got separated.”

“But they’re safe?”

Keo shook his head. “I don’t know that either, kid. I assume they are.”

He was surprised how easy the lies came, but it looked like Carter believed him. The joy and renewed hope on her face was hard to miss.

“What’s down there?” he asked, hoping to take the conversation elsewhere.

“Nothing,” Carter said. She looked past him and at the door. “They’re out there.”

Keo nodded even as he thought, Gee, what gave it away, kid? The pounding or me trying desperately to keep this door closed?

The ghouls were doing their part to remind him that they were still out there and trying to get in at him. At them, now.

Bam-bam-bam!

Bam-bam-bam!

Bam-bam-bam!

The girl had wandered closer, and if he wanted to he could have reached over and snatched the bat out of her hand. But of course he did no such thing. Instead, he got a better look at her.

She was young, but he already knew that. What he hadn’t seen before was the patch of dry blood along the right side of her face, caking parts of her hair. The girl didn’t appear to be in any pain, which made him wonder if she even knew about the blood. Maybe it wasn’t hers; didn’t Sharon tell him that Carter had been in the thick of battle with the others, against the ghouls before she was taken?

“How many of them are out there?” Carter was asking him.

“A lot.”

“How many is a lot?”

“More than a little, and less than infinity.”

That elicited a grin from Carter. “You’re alone?”

“Not anymore.”

“Who else—” Then, “Oh. You mean me.”

“Unless there’s someone else other than the two of us down here?”

Carter shook her head. “There’s just us. I checked. This place is empty.”

“But it wasn’t always?”

“No. There are piles of clothes down there.” She shivered, wrapping her arms around her chest. “At first I thought there was just one pile, but there are others. I’m not the first one they brought down here. I don’t even think I’m the first one they brought down here today. The blood is still wet on some of the clothes.”

“You keep saying ‘they’ brought you down here. Who?”

Carter shook her head. “I don’t know. I woke up and I was here. I don’t know what happened before that, or how.”

“Sharon said you were running with the others when the ghouls attacked.”

She nodded. “After we lost the horses, we tried to take shelter in a bookstore down the street, but they were already inside, almost…” She stopped.

“Almost what?” Keo prodded.

“Almost like they were waiting for us. Like they knew we’d go in there.”

“Let me guess. The door was wide open, while all the others were closed?”

“Yeah. How did you know?”

“Because that’s what happened to me.”

Carter’s eyes got wide. “Hey.”

“What?”

“The door…”

“What about—” He stopped, because he quickly realized what she was trying to say.

The door. The banging had stopped. The ghouls had ceased their attack.

Now what?

Keo turned to look at the door, but the only sounds he could pick up was his own slightly-labored breathing and that of the girl’s behind him, filling up the stale air of the basement. He leaned forward and placed one ear against the door but still couldn’t pick up any noises other than his cheek rubbing against the hard wood.

“What happened?” Carter whispered behind him. “Why did they stop?”

“I don’t know,” Keo said, remembering that the same thing had happened back at the office where he’d found refuge with the three women.

Someone’s playing games. Someone’s playing fucking games.

Keo pulled back slightly but never took his hand off the doorknob. He didn’t trust the door not to burst open once he let his guard down.

He glanced back at Carter. She hadn’t moved from her spot, but the bat had returned to its ready position in front of her. She was choking up on it like a slugger ready to do battle.

“There’s no way to lock this door from this side,” Keo said. “Did you see anything down there that we could use?”

Carter seemed to think about it for a moment, before shaking her head. “I don’t know. It’s really dark. I don’t think… Wait.”

“What?”

“There’s a pool table.”

“A pool table?”

“I think it’s heavy enough to block the door.”

Keo chuckled. “I’m sure it is, but how am I going to get it up here?”

“I could help.”

“What are you, fifty pounds soaking wet?”

She puffed up her chest slightly. “Three times that.”

Doubtful, Keo thought but he said, “We need something smaller, but still strong enough. A cabinet, maybe. Or a bookcase. Did you see anything like that below?”

Again, the girl took a moment to think.

Finally, she shook her head. “I don’t think so. But there might be, and I just didn’t see it. Like I said, it’s really dark down there.”

It’s really dark up here too, kid.

The only option Keo could come up with was to leave her up here to hold the door while he went down to check for himself. That, unfortunately, meant leaving a kid up here to hold the door while he went downstairs.

No, he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t risk it. She looked like a healthy girl, and he had no doubt she was stronger than a ghoul. Hell, she could probably go toe-to-toe with two of them with that baseball bat. Maybe even three. But there wasn’t just two or three of them out there; there was a whole goddamn horde.

Or, at least, there used to be. Right now, he had no idea about the state of the hallway outside.

And there was that nagging feeling that he couldn’t shake, that told him someone—or something—was toying with him. All of this felt manipulated, as if he were being led from point A to point B like a rat through a maze.

Keo didn’t like that. He didn’t like it one goddamn bit.

Carter had been watching him closely, not saying anything, as Keo went through the possibilities in his head. The girl finally spoke up: “They’re dead, aren’t they?”

“Who?”

“The others. Sharon, Liz, and Jackson.”

“No,” Keo lied. “The last time I saw them—”

“You’re lying.”

Damn, she can see it on my face.

“They’re dead,” Carter said. She sat down on the top of the stairs and turned her back to him. “I can feel it. They’re dead, aren’t they?”

Keo sighed. “Sharon’s dead, but I don’t know what happened to Liz and Jackson.”

Carter looked back over her shoulder at him and narrowed her eyes, as if trying to read him. Oh, who was he kidding? That was exactly what the kid was doing.

And she must have believed him this time, because she nodded and said somberly, “It’s my fault. They were coming here to rescue me. If it wasn’t for me…”

“They weren’t going to leave you behind. What happened to the others? The ones you got separated with?”

“They’re dead.”

“All of them?”

Carter nodded. “I saw them die. I thought I was going to die, too.” She paused. Then, “I don’t know what happened exactly. It’s still a blur.”

“How did you get down here, kid?” he wanted to ask. “Something out there brought you down here. Why? What is the point of all this?”

But he didn’t ask those questions because Carter didn’t have the answers. She was just a scared kid who had just found out all of her friends were either dead or probably dead.

“Liz and Jackson,” Carter said.

“What about them?”

“You think they might still be alive?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. The last time I saw them, they were.”

“What were they doing?”

Running for their lives, Keo thought, but he said, “Retreating back into the building we were staying in.”

“But you don’t know if they made it or not.”

“No. I was too busy running for my life.” Then, because he thought it was the thing to say, “I’m sorry, kid.”

“Yeah, me too,” she said, and turned back around. She laid the bat across her lap and stared off at the thick darkness in front of her.

Keo wanted to assure the kid that it wasn’t her fault, but he didn’t know how to. The truth was, it probably was her fault the others were dead—Sharon, for sure—but saying that wasn’t exactly going to help their cause.

He said instead, “What else did you find down there? Anything that could explain who brought you here, or why?”

She shook her head but didn’t glance back. “No. And I looked in every corner. Besides those barrels and the pool table, there’s just piles of bloody clothes.”

“Ghouls?”

“I didn’t see any.”

And I don’t smell them, either.

It was the first thing he did after he slammed the door shut. He’d sniffed the air, searching for the toxic stench that usually filled rooms where ghouls had made their nests. But there was none to be found down here. Not then, and still not now.

“But someone brought you down here for a reason,” Keo said.

Carter nodded but didn’t say anything. She continued staring forward, lost in her own thoughts. And guilt, no doubt.

Keo left her alone and glanced down at his watch.

8:11 p.m.

Ten more hours to go before daybreak, which might as well be a lifetime given everything that had happened.

And, he had a bad feeling, was still to come.

Ten

Something’s out there, and it’s fucking with me.

I don’t like to be fucked with.

I don’t like it at all.

Knowing that (Okay, so maybe he didn’t really know that for certain; maybe the correct phrasing was highly suspicious of.) and doing something about it was another thing entirely. Especially at the moment, stuck inside a dark basement with a fourteen-year-old girl who had just lost another one of her friends. That was the best-case scenario, anyway. The worst case had her losing all her friends in the span of one night. Keo had had to endure some shitty nights before, but even he had to admit this was eligible for the Shittiest Night Ever crown.

Carter had disappeared down the stairs to look for something they could use to defend the door and hadn’t returned yet. That gave Keo a lot of free time to think about what he was going to do next, and to count down the slowly—so, so slowly—time ticking by on his watch.

8:15 p.m.

8:16 p.m.

8:16 and 30 seconds p.m.

8:16 and 31 seconds p.m….

It’d been a while since he was afraid of the dark, and today was a reminder he’d had it too easy for too long. The last time he hated staring into the pitch blackness was back in Axton when that blue-eyed bastard had cornered him in a church. Keo hadn’t been alone then; he’d had Gaby at his side and a few other capable guys. He wasn’t really alone now, either, but there was a massive difference between battle-hardened Black Tiders and a not-so-battle-hardened teenager.

The silence didn’t help Keo’s flagging confidence any. It was so damn quiet out there on the other side of the door. So much so that he almost preferred the relentless pounding. At least he knew what was happening then.

This, on the other hand…

Why did they stop? What the hell is going on out there?

Footsteps, as Carter came back up the stairs hauling something with her. Keo stood up—he’d been sitting down, giving his legs a rest—to get a better look. The teenager was carrying a tall wooden chair with her. The furniture was almost as big as her, and Keo kept expecting Carter to drop it from fatigue.

But she never did and sat it in front of him with a big sigh, before brushing at beads of sweat dripping down her forehead. “This is all I could find. Will it work?”

It was a heavy chair, which made him even more impressed that the kid had been able to carry it up here all on her own. The damn thing must have weighed half her.

He leaned the chair against the door at an angle, sticking the headrest underneath the doorknob. It was an old-fashioned way to barricade a door, but it wasn’t like he had any other choice at the moment.

Beggars can’t be choosers, pal.

Keo glanced back at Carter, and just to be sure, asked, “This is the best you could find?”

She nodded. “I looked everywhere. Maybe we could use those beer barrels?”

“Are they empty?”

“Uh huh.”

“Then they’re no good to us. We need something heavy.”

Keo took a step away from the door to get a better look at the chair pinned underneath the doorknob. He didn’t have a whole lot of faith it would work, but…

Beggars can’t be choosers, remember?

“Let’s see what’s down there,” Keo said.

Carter headed back down, and Keo followed. He shot a few quick glances over his shoulder at the door once or twice (or five times, give or take) on the way down, expecting the ghouls to recommence their attack on cue.

But they didn’t.

Not yet, anyway.

Let’s stay that way, boys. Give me a breather, okay? Maybe an hour.

Or two…or ten.

It was darker at the bottom than it was at the top as Keo stared down the long flights of steps. He could barely see anything waiting below or even make out the floor. The way down wasn’t easy to navigate either, and Keo ended up relying on Carter’s tan shirts and pants, along with her blonde hair in front of him, to get his bearings. The kid had been down here longer and had clearly developed a better sense of their surroundings.

A part of him was glad he couldn’t see everything. Keo had a feeling he knew what the basement was being used for, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be able to see all the bloody stains on the floor or walls. Those were things he was almost certain were there but couldn’t prove, or really, wanted to.

He could smell it, though. Not the foul stench that usually accompanied ghoul presence, but blood. It was in the air. Carter was right, someone—or someones—had bled down here very recently. He thought he could even taste it against the tip of his tongue. It wasn’t a very good sensation.

“You doing okay, kid?” Keo asked.

Carter glanced back at him with a somewhat surprised look. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, are you injured? Hurt?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re not sure?”

“I don’t think I am.” She shook her head. “I don’t feel hurt.”

“You have blood on the right side of your face.”

“I do?” The teenager stopped at the bottom of the steps and touched the right side of her face. She brought her hand back and stared at the blood on her fingertips. “It’s not mine.”

“You sure?”

She touched the blood again. “It’s not mine,” she repeated somberly before turning—

Keo reached forward and grabbed her arm.

Carter whirled around, her eyes widening in shock. Keo lunged forward and slapped one hand over her mouth before she could say anything.

“Shhh,” he said.

She struggled against him, but Keo was bigger and stronger and held her in place. Thank God she had put down the bat, or she might have hit him over the head with it.

“I hear something,” Keo whispered.

That got her to calm down, but not completely. He let her go, taking a step back while putting one hand to his lips. Carter didn’t say a word, but judging by her expression, Keo thought he might have lost a lot of her trust with that move. But he’d had to do it because he had heard something.

Keo rushed back up the stairs. Carter didn’t follow immediately but was soon coming up behind him. They were making a hell of a lot of noise as their boots pounded on the wooden steps, but it couldn’t be helped.

The door was still closed and the chair was where it was supposed to be, jammed underneath the doorknob. Keo breathed a sigh of relief as he crossed the landing and leaned against the door, pressing one ear to the smooth surface. He was keenly aware of Carter behind him, waiting patiently even as her breathing increased slightly.

“What did you hear?” Carter whispered.

Keo lifted one hand to shush her, even as he continued listening.

What did he hear?

A noise.

No, not a noise.

Noises.

He couldn’t place them, but they sounded familiar. The presence of the door made it difficult to pinpoint their source with absolute certainty, but Keo swore he’d heard a series of—

There, again.

Not voices or movements.

Not ghouls, either. At least, he didn’t think they sounded like ghouls out there. It would have been so much easier if he could open the door and get a good listen.

“Keo?” Carter whispered. “I don’t hear anything. What did you hear?”

He didn’t answer her. He was too busy listening for—

Pop-pop-pop.

There. Gunshots.

Not just gunshots, but muffled gunshots. Someone was using a rifle with a suppressor.

Pop-pop-pop.

Pop-pop-pop.

The question was, were the shots coming from the bar or in the streets? It couldn’t have been from the back hallway. The sounds were too faded, too obscured. He could barely make them out or tell how many weapons were firing at the same time. It could have been one lone gunman squeezing the trigger at high speeds or multiple shooters.

And what were they shooting at? Why were they using suppressors? You didn’t use silenced weapons unless you were trying to stay low-key.

“Keo?” Carter said, sounding even more anxious than the last few times.

“Gunshots,” Keo finally said. “Someone’s using a suppressed weapon outside.”

“Suppressed weapon? What’s that?”

“A silencer.”

“Oh.” Then, barely able to contain her enthusiasm, “Maybe it’s Liz and Jackson. Maybe they made it after all.”

“Maybe. Do you guys use suppressors for your weapons?”

Keo didn’t look back at the kid’s face, but he assumed it was frowning when Carter answered, “No. None of us did.”

Then it’s probably not them.

He continued listening but couldn’t pick up anything else. It was as if whoever was making all the ruckus earlier knew he was eavesdropping and decided not to give him anything to play with. Which was, of course, ridiculous. Then again, after everything that had happened—or more precisely, how—anything was possible tonight.

“Anything?” Carter whispered behind him. She’d gotten closer, and he could feel her warm breath against the back of his neck.

Keo shook his head, hoping she’d get the hint.

She didn’t, because she asked, “What’s going on out there?”

“I don’t—”

He hadn’t gotten all of don’t out when something struck the door about a foot above his head and he heard the subsonic zip! of that same something moving through the air.

A bullet! That was a bullet!

Keo looked up at the hole in the door that hadn’t been there before. Thank God he was crouched on one knee or else the round would have gone right through his skull.

“You okay, kid?” Keo asked.

Carter didn’t answer.

“Kid?” Keo said.

When Carter still didn’t reply, Keo glanced over his shoulder.

The teenager was lying on the landing on her back, gasping for breath while she clutched her chest with both hands. Even in the semidarkness, Keo could see blood seeping through her fingers as her eyes, wide as the moon, looked up at him. Keo had seen that expression of shock and confusion too many times to count.

“Jesus Christ,” Keo said as he turned around and crouched next to her.

He put both hands over hers as Carter’s mouth moved erratically, like a fish struggling to breathe on land. Her body was surprisingly calm, belying the blood that oozed generously out of her.

Too much blood. She was losing way too much blood.

“Kid, do you have a first-aid kit?” Keo asked.

Carter stared up at him. He wasn’t sure if she’d even heard him; or if she did, if she understood a single word he’d said.

Keo unzipped his jacket and took it off. Getting Carter to take her hands away from her wound was another matter. She fought him, but eventually he won, and pressed his bundled jacket down against the wound. He had to exert a lot of pressure to make sure he could cut off the bleeding, and Carter gasped loudly and began thrashing from the pain.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Keo said. “I just need to stop the bleeding. You’ll be okay, kid. You’ll be okay.”

It was a lie, because the wound was bad. The bullet had struck her where one of her lungs would be. That explained the blood bubbling out between her lips and her struggles to keep breathing, even as her body continued fighting him.

“Stay with me, Carter,” Keo said. “We’ll find Liz and Jackson together, but you have to stay with me first, kid. Do you hear me?”

Carter’s lips quivered as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t form the words.

“Don’t die,” Keo said. “You can’t die. Liz and Jackson are looking for you. Do you hear me? They’re out there looking for you right now.”

Carter closed her eyes.

“Carter, open your eyes. Carter!”

Her eyes remained closed, and the teenager stopped fighting him. A few seconds later, her body ceased moving altogether.

“Carter. Carter!”

There was no response. The kid was gone. Keo had seen too many people die in front of him to know the signs.

Carter was dead.

Goddammit, Carter was—

Crash!

Keo had his back turned to the door so he didn’t see the chair buckling and coming loose, but he did glimpse it flying past him and Carter’s still body, and vanish down the dark flight of stairs. By the time he looked up and over, the door was swinging open, and a hulking figure was striding inside.

It wasn’t a ghoul but a man wearing black clothes and an equally dark trench coat, the tail of it brushing against the floor as he moved. Moonlight silhouetted his massive frame, but it was the sledgehammer with the bright-red metal head gripped tightly in his hands that really grabbed Keo’s attention. There were what looked like spikes jutting from what should have been smooth surfaces.

A hard face scowled back at Keo from the shadows.

Keo jumped up to his feet and spun around. The KA-BAR was already in his hand, his blood-slicked fingers wrapping tightly around the grip.

What was left of the door hung on a single hinge, three quarters of the heavy slab of wood having come undone against the might of the sledgehammer that had “opened it” and freed the chair.

The dark figure stepped farther inside, kicking at a piece of the door in his path with a steel-toe boot. The man had to be well over six-five, with a neck that was probably the same size as both of Keo’s thighs combined. Those same dark eyes shifted from Keo to Carter, lying on the stair landing behind him, before settling back on Keo.

“What did you do to her?” the man asked. Or grunted out.

Yeah, it was definitely more of a grunt.

“Do to her?” Keo thought but never got the chance to say before the hulking figure ran at him, the sledgehammer cocking back to deliver the mother of blows.

Keo had only two options that he could see: Attack or retreat.

The latter was clearly the smarter move, but there was nothing down there for him except the opportunity to find himself cornered like an animal. And there was no way Keo was going to let that happen.

So Keo charged at the dark figure instead. It was admittedly a stupid move on Keo’s part and was probably what made the intruder pause momentarily. It was only half a second—maybe not even that—but it was all Keo needed to avoid all twenty or so pounds of the sledgehammer as it whooshed! over his head.

Keo got as low as possible while still staying on his feet, just before he lunged to the right. The second move got him around his attacker, who stumbled past him, his momentum carrying him toward Carter’s body.

Somehow the guy managed to stop himself from stepping on Carter, but before he could reverse course, Keo sprang up and drove the KA-BAR into the meatiest part of his victim’s back. He successfully lodged nearly half of the seven-inch straight blade somewhere just underneath his target’s clavicle.

Mr. Sledgehammer jerked back and upward, letting out a monstrous roar that was part pain and part anger—or maybe it was all anger—and seemed to shake the basement wall. Not that Keo gave a damn about the man’s pain as he held onto the handle of the knife and tried to push it in even further. He didn’t stop until the attacker dropped to the landing on his knees. Somehow, though, the man still managed to cling onto the sledgehammer.

Keo was still pushing, trying to get the other half of the knife into the thick flesh, when he heard the thump-thump-thump! of heavy footsteps behind him. He glanced back just as two figures rushed up the hallway.

Great. He has reinforcements!

Like Mr. Sledgehammer, these two new figures were also wearing dark clothing and trench coats, their heavy boots slamming into the floorboards as they rushed at him. Unlike their compatriot, these two weren’t nearly as physically intimidating, even if Keo could only see their silhouetted shapes.

Keo pulled the knife out of Mr. Sledgehammer and spun around to face the new threats. He heard the big man collapsing to the floor behind him, which was all the assurance Keo needed that he wouldn’t have to deal with the man for the time being.

Which was a good thing, because as soon as Keo got all the way around, the first man was on top of him.

Is that a machete? Keo thought when something very long and sharp arced through the air and at him.

Keo jumped back, and the weapon (Yup, that’s definitely a machete!) missed slicing his gut open by about a few inches. But Keo had gone back too far and landed on Mr. Sledgehammer’s arm. The big man, still conscious, released a pained howl.

Better you than me, pal! Keo thought even as he righted himself and pushed forward. It’d worked the first time, and he did it again: Instead of retreating, he lunged into his second attacker’s space.

Trench Coat Guy #2 had swung his weapon so wide and hard that it hadn’t just missed Keo but lodged itself into the wall of the narrow corridor. The guy was still trying to pull it free when Keo punched him in the face. The man let go of the long blade and reeled backward, arms flailing. Keo could have sank the KA-BAR into his face, but he didn’t want to get it stuck the way it had with Mr. Sledgehammer, so he hit Trench Coat Guy #2 in the face again instead. He was pretty sure he heard bone breaking that time.

Mr. Machete went down like a brick.

That left Keo to confront Trench Coat Guy #3, who had smartly decided to stop about ten feet away instead of running blindly at Keo the way his comrade had. The man had put away his weapon, another machete (What’s the deal with these guys and machetes?), and was reaching for his holstered sidearm. He could have also gone for his slung rifle but had smartly decided the pistol would be quicker.

Keo’s eyes were already focused on the hand that was reaching for the sidearm, but even if they weren’t, the gold watch on the man’s wrist would have gotten his attention anyway. It was hard to miss the bling.

Trench Coat Guy #3’s face was exposed in the moonlight, giving Keo a clear view of the slightly flustered and youngish face. Keo wasn’t exactly dealing with a kid, but this was clearly someone who wasn’t as experienced in a fight as the others.

Maybe that inexperience was why Trench Coat Guy #3 was having such a difficult time getting his pistol out of its holster. It probably didn’t help that both his hands were trembling badly. Despite the extra second or two Trench Coat Guy #3 was giving Keo as he fumbled to draw his gun, there was no way Keo was going to reach the man before he got the pistol out.

So Keo did the only thing he could think of: He threw the KA-BAR.

Except the guy ducked, and the knife flew right over his head and vanished into the bar’s lobby!

Sonofabitch!

Keo charged, jumping over Trench Coat Guy #2 while the man rolled around on the floor holding his nose and screaming—or crying. It sounded like something between crying and screaming.

But even as he made his mad dash to reach Trench Coat Guy #3 before he could pull the trigger, Keo didn’t think he’d make it. Ten feet was a lot of ground to cover, and he’d have to be an Olympic caliber sprinter to make it up before the man took aim and—

The bang! was booming in the closed confines of the back hallway. Keo felt the round land somewhere on his left shoulder (Better than my face!), and the impact spun him while he was still in midair, forcing his body to twist in midjump.

Bang! as the guy fired again.

As it turned out, the unwitting pirouette was probably the only thing that saved Keo’s life, because he felt the heat of the second bullet as it scorched its way through the air inches from his face.

He landed on his feet and dived to make up the rest of the space between him and the shooter, and crashed headfirst into his target’s gut. The shooter let out a pained grunt as he fell with Keo on top of him the entire way down. Trench Coat Guy #3 was so skinny that it was like landing on top of twigs that buckled and threatened to snap in half as they crashed to the floor.

Keo got up first and straddled the shooter’s waist between his thighs to keep the man pinned. He searched for and quickly found a weapon—the guy’s sheathed machete.

Eureka!

Keo grabbed the long blade from the guy’s left hip and gutted the man from crotch to ear with his own weapon. Kid or not, the man and his friends had just tried to murder him, and Keo wasn’t about to let that slide.

Or Keo was getting ready to teach young Mr. Trench Coat Guy #3 a hard lesson about life, anyway, when he heard the click! of a gun hammer being cocked back and looked up to find a fourth figure in the bar pointing a pistol at him.

Unlike the squirming figure underneath him, who had missed two easy shots because his hands were shaking so badly, Trench Coat Guy #4 had a very steady hold on the gun as it drew a bead on Keo’s head.

Way, way too steady.

Eleven

This was not good. On the scale of bad and good, this was somewhere past bad and well into seriously screwed territory.

So, not good.

Not good at all.

Carter was dead, for one. That was pretty bad. Keo had failed to save the kid. Failure seemed to follow him like a specter these days. And what’s more, he was about to join her very soon if he didn’t somehow turn this situation back in his favor. How to go about that was the question.

Gee, that’s it? That’s the only question? Look around you, pal. You’re up a creek, and you don’t even have a canoe!

Yeah, it was a bad situation all around. He’d been in worse, though. There was that time on Black Tide Island when he ended up being shot in the head for his troubles. Keo was hoping to avoid that. Being shot in the head was not fun.

Mostly, he thought about Carter, lying dead in the basement somewhere behind him right now. Shot through the door. It was either a stray bullet, or someone had purposefully put a round through the door. Not that it really mattered how it happened, because the end result was the same.

Sorry, kid. I hope you have better luck in the next life.

And then there was Lara. He had to get back to Lara. There was more than just his life riding on this outcome. The guy with the gun pointed at him—not at Keo’s head but at his chest for an easier shot—was going to have a lot to do with how all of this ended.

He stared intently at the guy’s eyes—or at least where Keo assumed the eyes were. He couldn’t make out the face from the semidarkness that covered the interior of the bar, but Keo could easily pick up the bodies on the floor around the man’s feet.

Ghouls. At least five of them that he could see, maybe more because the joint was starting to stink of the dead. That was the problem with ghouls; they reeked in life and in death. Or was that re-life and re-death?

He hadn’t noticed the dead creatures earlier because he was too busy trying not to get his brains smashed in by Mr. Sledgehammer, and then later by his two buddies in trench coats. There was enough moonlight filtering in through the open door behind the guy with the gun and the destroyed windows that it was now impossible to miss the carnage. While he was hiding with Carter in the basement, there was a battle going on out here, apparently.

The muffled gunfire he’d heard (But, strangely enough, couldn’t detect anymore.) was explained away by the suppressors on the barrels of the rifles carried by the trench coat squad. Keo also hadn’t noticed that little detail earlier because there were too many shadows and, again, he was too busy trying not to get smashed into pieces or hacked in half by one of their machetes.

Machetes. Trench coats. Dead ghouls.

Slayers.

He was dealing with slayers here.

That explained everything from the outfits to the bodies inside the bar and, Keo assumed, outside in the streets as well, even though he couldn’t see that far. From his current vantage point, he couldn’t make out anything going on out there, so either the fight was over or it had moved on to another part of Paxton. He was more inclined to believe the former, given how quiet it was out there right now.

All of that told Keo one undeniable fact: These slayers were very, very good at their job.

It would have been dead silent in the bar too if the young Mr. Trench Coat Guy #3 wasn’t breathing so hard Keo was a little afraid the poor guy might have a stroke. Not that Keo cared if the man died on him; it was just that a dead hostage made for a very poor one.

Keo hadn’t taken his eyes off Trench Coat Guy #4 even while his right hand, holding the machete, kept the bloody blade against Trench Coat Guy #3’s neck. There was a lot of black goo sticking to the sharp edge. Ghoul blood. A simple wrist move and the guy was dead by his own weapon, and he knew it, too. Which was probably why his eyes were so wide Keo thought he could see straight into the man’s soul. He saw a scared little kid looking back at him. A scared little kid sporting a gold Rolex. The watch was so blingy it gave Keo a headache.

Mr. Rolex’s friend, the one with the pistol. That was a 1911, from what Keo could tell, thanks to a generous pool of moonlight reflected off a partially-shattered mirror behind the bar. The handgun came with a hammer, thus the dramatic click Keo had heard earlier.

So why hadn’t Trench Coat Guy #4 pulled the trigger yet?

Keo gauged the distance between him and the would-be shooter at about fifteen or so feet. The guy hadn’t exactly snuck into the bar while Keo was fighting his friends, but he’d gone unnoticed until he pulled out the gun. He could have shot Keo already, but he hadn’t.

So why hadn’t he?

The only reason Keo could think of was because he wanted to keep the young man underneath Keo alive. Maybe it was his brother. Or son. It wasn’t like Keo could make out the gunman’s age.

What mattered was that the man wasn’t willing to take the chance. Which was good. Keo could use that to try to keep himself alive. It was always so much easier dealing with an antagonist who wasn’t a total homicidal maniac, who didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. Or even himself, for that matter. Keo had had to contend with plenty of those guys, too.

“Pull the trigger, and I cut his throat open,” Keo said, hoping to confirm his theory.

“You’re not gonna do that,” Trench Coat Guy #4 said.

“You think I give a shit about any of you?”

“I know you don’t give a shit about us. I’m just telling you that if you hurt him, I’ll put out your lights. Permanently.”

Was that the confirmation he’d been looking for?

Maybe…

“So like I said. Pull the trigger and I cut his throat open,” Keo said.

“You can’t do that if you’re dead,” the gunman said.

“Can you make the shot?”

“I’m a pretty good shot.”

“Are you, now?”

“You’ll just have to find out. You want to risk it?”

Sounds like someone doesn’t want to take the shot. Good. I can use that.

Keo was a little annoyed at the way the guy was holding the gun. He had been staring at that weapon for a while now, and it hadn’t moved even a little bit.

Fuck it all, he’s calm.

“We don’t have to find out one way or another,” Trench Coat Guy #4 was saying.

“You don’t think so?” Keo said.

“You’re not a ghoul.”

“What gave it away?”

The guy smirked. “Let him go, and this is over.”

“He shot me.”

“He attacked us!” Trench Coat Guy #3, still trapped on the floor between Keo’s legs, shouted. It was a mistake, because he almost skinned his Adam’s apple on the blade of his own machete.

“Be quiet, Jack,” Trench Coat Guy #4 said.

“Yeah, Jack, be quiet and let the adults talk,” Keo said. Then, up at Trench Coat Guy #4, “What are you guys doing in Paxton?”

“Who’s that?”

“Who’s what?”

“Paxton.”

“The town. It’s called Paxton.”

The guy shrugged. “How am I supposed to know that?”

“So why are you here, then?”

“Why are you here?”

“I asked first.”

“I asked second.”

Keo snorted. “You always this clever?”

“Only when I have the upper hand.”

“Do you?”

“From where I’m standing? You betcha.”

So why haven’t you taken the shot yet?

“Anyway, isn’t it obvious what we’re doing here?” the guy said. “We’re hunting.”

“You finished with that?” Keo asked.

“Not quite.”

Keo scanned the floor again. There were a lot of dead ghouls in here and probably more out there. The building was getting overwhelmed with the stench of death now. Nothing tainted a place faster than a pile of monsters.

So the guy and his buddies had certainly known what they were doing when they went to work painting Paxton red. Or, well, black in this case. The suppressed weapons, the machetes—all of which were no doubt coated with generous silver. Slayers wouldn’t be caught dead plying their trade without silver weapons. Even the sledgehammer had spikes on them. More silver, Keo assumed.

“You realize you’re bleeding, right?” Trench Coat Guy #4 was asking him.

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“You’re seeing things. I’m perfectly fine.”

“Are you crazy?”

“You’re the one seeing things, pal.”

“You’re definitely crazy.”

Keo was definitely bleeding in the left shoulder where Trench Coat Guy #3, a.k.a. Jack, had shot him. The question was: How bad was it? Because right now he couldn’t tell. The wound didn’t really hurt as much as it should, which meant it wasn’t nearly as bad as he had suspected (Come on, flesh wound! Let’s go with a flesh wound for the win, folks!) or good ol’ adrenaline was doing its job keeping him from going into shock. Either option was acceptable, because at the moment Keo didn’t have the time to acknowledge his injuries.

He heard a deep rumbling groan from behind him. That would be Mr. Sledgehammer, way back in the basement. So he was still alive, despite Keo having pushed half of his KA-BAR into his back. Given the size of the man, it was probably going to take all of the knife and in the right spot to put him down permanently.

Trench Coat Guy #2, the one Keo had punched twice in the face, hadn’t woken up yet. Or if he had, he was keeping very quiet. Keo hoped he was still out, because he wasn’t confident he could deal with him, Jack, and Mr. Sledgehammer all at the same time.

And that was not counting the guy with the gun pointed at him. Yeah, this was the one Keo had to be absolutely focused on right now.

“You gonna shoot me or what?” Keo asked the gunman.

“You want me to shoot you?” Trench Coat Guy #4 said.

“Gee, what do you think?”

“If you don’t want to get shot, take your knife away from Jack’s throat and we’ll talk like sensible human beings.”

“Are we?”

“Are we what?”

“Sensible human beings.”

Trench Coat Guy #4 seemed to think about it for a second or two. “I don’t know. We’re definitely still human beings, I know that much.”

“There’s that.”

“Besides, I have the clear advantage here.”

“How so?”

“I got this,” the guy said, turning the 1911 in his hand slightly for effect. “Meanwhile, you got that.”

“This is a very good machete, and I’m pretty sure it can cut ol’ Jack from nut to throat with ease. Looks sharp enough. Also looks like it’s done a whole lotta cutting tonight. What’s one more?”

“You don’t wanna do that.”

“Don’t tell me what I wanna or don’t wanna be doing, pal. I’m very much on edge right now. You don’t want to be messing with a guy who’s on edge while he’s holding a machete to someone’s neck. Someone that just shot him.”

Jack made a noise that Keo interpreted as heavy swallowing, but he didn’t take his eyes off Trench Coat Guy #4 to check for sure. All he knew was that Jack wasn’t willing to risk getting his throat slashed, and that was good enough. It was too bad Keo couldn’t locate Jack’s gun, which was somewhere in the dark hallway with them right now. A gun would be better than a machete, if he could reach it.

“Still just a knife,” Trench Coat Guy #4 was saying.

“Considering what I had before, it’s an improvement,” Keo said. Then, “You’re slayers.”

“You know about us?”

“Everyone knows about you.”

“Then you know we’re the good guys.”

“Doesn’t change the fact your boys attacked me first.”

“That’s not—” Jack started to say.

Keo shut him up by pressing the machete closer to the slayer’s throat until he could feel skin against the blade. “Shhh. Didn’t I tell you to let the adults talk?”

Jack smartly didn’t reply.

“Okay, let’s talk this through,” Trench Coat Guy #4 said.

Keo could be wrong, but he thought he’d detected a trace of anxiety in the guy’s voice. It once again made him think Trench Coat Guy #4 and Jack were more than just slayers-in-arms.

“You like olives?” the guy asked him.

Keo narrowed his eyes. “I feel like I’m being set up for a punchline, so let’s just get to it and skip the foreplay, shall we?”

The guy might have smiled as he uncocked his weapon and lowered it. That was a good sign. That was a very good sign.

“Here’s my olive branch,” the guy said.

It took all of his willpower for Keo not to let out a sigh of relief. He thought a little still managed to slip through and hoped Jack, underneath him, didn’t notice.

“Cute,” Keo said.

“Glad you think so,” the guy said. “Now it’s your turn.”

“It could be a trick. You could still easily shoot me.”

“I don’t have to trick you. I don’t have to do anything. How many times do I have to say it? I’m the guy with the gun. You’re the one with the knife.”

“A very sharp and long knife. You should know. You have one, too.”

“Oh, come on. If I’d wanted to shoot your dumb ass, I would have done it already. Trust me, I had the shot. I always had the shot. The only reason you’re not dead right now is because I can clearly see this was a misunderstanding. That, and I don’t go around killing humans unless I absolutely, positively have to. So don’t make me absolutely, positively have to tonight.”

He’s not lying, Keo thought, replaying the scenario over in his head. It didn’t matter how many times he viewed it or from what angle, it always came up the same way: He was lucky to still be breathing right now.

“The machete,” the guy said. “Throw it, before I lose my patience.”

“It might dent the blade,” Keo said.

“Don’t make me ask again, buddy.”

“I’m not your buddy, pal.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re getting on my nerves. Just do it, will you?”

Keo grinned and tossed the machete, then picked himself up from Jack. The young slayer let out a loud sigh of relief, but unlike Keo, he hadn’t tried to hide it.

“You okay, Jack?” Trench Coat Guy #4 asked.

“Peachy,” Jack said. Then, holding up his right hand and checking his watch, “I think he might have put a scratch on my Rollie, though.”

“Then it’ll be an improvement,” Keo said.

“You know how much this costs?”

“To you? Nothing.”

“Well, yeah, technically.”

“Jack,” Trench Coat Guy #4 said. “Are you okay.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m alive. I don’t know if that counts as okay.”

“It counts.” The slayer holstered his pistol before turning his attention back on Keo. “I almost killed you.”

“Almost only counts in horseshoes and grenades,” Keo said.

The guy chuckled. “My daddy used to say that whenever I brought home a bad grade and made an excuse.”

“He was clearly a wise man.”

“That’s debatable.”

“Daddy issues?”

“Not anymore.”

“Harsh,” Keo said, while thinking, Definitely daddy issues.

Trench Coat Guy #4 picked something up from the floor before walking over toward Keo and revealing his face. He was older than Jack—late thirties, maybe early forties—and there was just enough of a resemblance between the two slayers that it lent further credence to Keo’s theory they were brothers.

“This yours?” the guy asked as he held Keo’s KA-BAR out to him.

“Looks familiar,” Keo said as he took the knife and slid it back into its sheath.

Now that he wasn’t in any immediate danger, he took a look at his left shoulder. There was a hole in his jacket, along with a little blood.

“It’s just a scratch,” Trench Coat Guy #4 said. “You’re lucky Jack was never much of a shot.”

“Hey, he threw a knife at me,” Jack said as he picked himself up from the floor.

“Don’t make excuses.”

“It’s a pretty damn good excuse.”

“You done?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Keo said to the older slayer, “So, is the hunt over?”

Trench Coat Guy #4 shook his head. “Not yet.”

“There’s still a blue eyes out there,” Jack said as he picked his machete up from the floor and put it away. “It’s here, in town. We’re gonna find it, and we’re gonna stake it through the fucking brain, and then it’ll be over.”

Jack’s brother smiled. “What he said.”

Keo didn’t say anything, but he thought, Yeah, I’ve heard all that before.

Twelve

Trench Coat Guy #4’s real name was Martin, and he was Jack’s older brother. He was also the de facto leader of this particular group of slayers. Keo found all this out through the young woman who sewed the hole in his shoulder.

“It’s not like there was a vote or anything. One day he just sorta became the boss, and since we liked him well enough, we decided to just go along with it.”

Keo smiled at that. “That’s all it takes, huh?”

“Pretty much. It helps that it’s not exactly a high-paying job.”

“You guys get paid?”

“No. That’s the point.”

“Ah.”

The group’s medic was named Huston, who explained her name’s spelling even though he hadn’t asked: “Not the city, but the director.”

“What director?” Keo asked.

“John Huston?”

“Is he from Houston?”

“No. That’s just his name. Huston. H-u-s-t-o-n.”

“If you say so.”

“The African Queen? The Maltese Falcon? The Treasure of the friggin’ Sierra Madre?”

“That’s not helping at all.”

“Not a cinephile, I take it.”

“Maybe, maybe not, but no one’s ever proved it in court.”

That had drawn a smirk. “Was that a joke?”

“It was supposed to be, yeah.”

“Not funny.”

“I gave it a shot,” Keo said with a shrug.

Huston didn’t tend to Keo right away, of course. She prioritized the big guy Keo had stabbed with the KA-BAR. And she still didn’t turn her attention to Keo until after she’d taken care of Trench Coat Guy #2 and his broken face. Mr. Sledgehammer’s real name was Rondo, while Trench Coat Guy #2, sporting a busted nose for his troubles, was going around under the moniker Terminal. Keo guessed the nickname was supposed to be intimidating, or something.

10:19 p.m. ticked by on Keo’s watch as he sat on a stool at the bar and Huston sewed up the small hole in his shoulder. She had a deft touch for someone who didn’t have an MD after her name, and she reminded him a bit of Lara.

The slayers had brought portable solar-powered LED lamps with them, and one was set nearby on the counter while two others took up space on separate tables in the room. The place was probably at its brightest now than it’d been in God knows how many past nights.

“How’d you get involved with these guys?” Keo asked Huston as she worked.

“Long story,” Huston said.

She snipped a line before starting a second one. The bullet was a graze and wasn’t nearly as bad as he had feared. An inch higher or more to the left, and the round would have missed him entirely. He was lucky it was the young and inexperienced Jack who had done the shooting. If it had been his brother, Keo would probably be dead right now.

“It’s a flesh wound. Don’t be such a sissy,” Huston had said when she took a quick look at Jack’s handiwork almost thirty minutes ago, before leaving Keo in order to take care of her fellow slayers.

Flesh wound or not, it still hurt. Fortunately Huston was nice enough to hand him a handful of Tramadol while he waited his turn. She had plenty of painkillers in the medic bag that she carried with her, along with sutures and every other tool needed to mend her friends together. It was easy to tell by the way she went about her job that Huston was no stranger to blood.

While Huston patched up his “flesh wound,” the other slayers, along with Martin and his younger brother Jack, continued their work outside. Apparently, it wasn’t quite over yet. Every now and then, Keo picked up the soft and muffled pop-pop of a suppressed rifle firing. But for the most part, the slayers stuck to their bladed weapons. It was an effective way of taking care of the enemy while also conserving ammo.

Having met plenty of slayers in his lifetime, Keo didn’t think those were the only reasons they favored blades over guns. Almost every slayer he’d ever met had a personal grudge against the ghouls for what had transpired during the yearlong Purge. The romantic thing to say was that the slayers were saving those who couldn’t save themselves from the monsters. The reality of it was that they were getting payback. Bullets were more effective, but it didn’t feel nearly as good as delimbing a ghoul with a machete at close-range.

Before he left, Martin and his boys had been nice enough to drag all the dead ghouls inside the bar out into the street so Keo didn’t have to endure their stink. Not that that he still couldn’t smell them anyway. There was a lingering stench in the air, but Keo was too tired to worry about that right now.

Keo didn’t ask Huston how she’d fallen in with the slayers. Everyone had their own stories, and the truth was he didn’t want to know. He wasn’t planning on staying around for very long anyway. There was no reason to. Carter was dead, and according to Martin, they hadn’t found anyone at the office where Liz and Jackson were fleeing toward when Keo last saw the women. All that was left for Keo was to retrieve his bag and continue home.

The problem was finding the bag.

“It’s a black tactical pack. It should be in the street about a block from here,” Keo had said to Martin. “There may or may not be the carcass of a horse next to it. There’s other supplies, but I just need the bag.”

“We’ll keep an eye for it,” Martin said, “but we’re a little busy right now.”

“I thought it was over.”

“Not yet. Not until we find it.”

“It” was a blue-eyed ghoul that Martin and his group had been hunting since Monroe, Louisiana. Somehow, the creature had eluded them and made its way south, before turning west and crossing the state line into Texas. It had created its own small army along the way and continued to do so as it hunkered down in Paxton sometime between when Keo first rode Mirabelle through it almost nine days ago now and tonight. At least, that was the theory Keo was going with because the place had looked pretty damn abandoned the first time.

“What’s it doing here?” Keo had asked Martin.

“Looks like it’s regrouping,” Martin said. “We thought it’d head for Houston at first, but all signs pointed away from the big city. It’s a tricky bastard. Unpredictable. It’s been a month since we started this little game of hide and seek.”

“You’ve been stalking this thing for a month?”

“A month and change, yeah.” Martin’s face was somber as he recounted his tale. “It knows we’re hunting it. And it’s hurt. My guess is, it’s using Paxton to lay low. We almost lost it a few times, but we finally tracked it here.”

“You said it was hurt?”

“Badly.”

“A blue eyes? You know they can regenerate, right? You cut off a limb, and they can grow it back like a fucking lizard. The only way to kill a blue eyes is to shoot it in the head. Destroy the brain, and you take them out.”

“Who are you talking to, Keo?” Martin had looked almost offended when he said that. “I’ve been hunting these things since The Walk Out. I know how to kill the blue eyes. I know what they’re capable of.”

“So how exactly did you ‘hurt’ this one?”

Martin had drawn his machete. It was still partially caked in fresh ghoul blood from the night’s action. “I almost got through its skull with this.”

“You wounded it in the brain?”

“Another inch, and it would have been over. The lucky fuck.”

“That’s a first. I didn’t know you could just wound it in the brain.”

“It’s been running from me since that night. It’s here now, and I’ll find it. When I do, I’ll finish the job.”

Martin also told him that he’d found the remains of Sharon’s group about half a block up the street from where they were at the moment. Two of the survivors were in the process of turning when the slayers finished them off.

“Looked like a pretty good fight,” Martin said. “But running around out here without silver bullets did them in. They had the right knives, but that wasn’t enough to keep them alive.”

“They had silver bullets,” Keo said. “But they lost them when the ghouls ambushed them and chased off their horses.”

“Silver bullets don’t do you any good if you don’t have them loaded.”

“They let their guard down. I don’t think they’ve ever encountered such a big group of ghouls before. It was a mistake.”

“I’m not surprised. People think the night’s safe again after The Walk Out. It’s only when they realize they’re wrong that it’s too late. But who am I to complain? If it wasn’t for them, guys like me wouldn’t have a job.”

Keo didn’t have to ask Martin if he was talking from personal experience, because it was obvious that he was. There was a reason slayers still roamed the countryside beyond Paxton. There was plenty of need for their services, if even people like Sharon’s group—which from everything Keo had seen, were more capable than most—could fall prey to a ghoul attack.

Martin had left with the others after the conversation, taking his brother Jack with him. The younger slayer stuck to Martin’s side like a lost puppy. Terminal, with bandages over his broken nose, had also exited, but not before staring daggers at Keo.

Rondo would probably be doing the same if he wasn’t too busy snoring on the floor in a makeshift bed in the bar while the combination of morphine and sedatives Huston had given him kept him out of the fight. Rondo’s sledgehammer, leaning on the wall next to the sleeping behemoth, was covered in silver-coated studs just as Keo had guessed. The only reason a man like Rondo would carry such a clumsy tool around was because he really liked bashing ghouls’ heads in.

There were other slayers that Keo hadn’t met yet, that occasionally walked across the broken windows and open door of the Deuces. That was the name of the establishment. There was a sign outside featuring two pitchers of drinking glasses “clinking,” while two deuce playing cards floated inside them. Keo had missed the big sign the first time because he’d been too busy running for his life.

“So what’s in the bag?” Huston asked when she was done wiping the blood off him.

Keo picked up a jacket draped over a stool and put it on. It wasn’t his; his own jacket was still in the basement covering up Carter’s body. The fit was a little snug, but he figured it was better than nothing. Besides, his old jacket was starting to stink from all the ghoul blood anyway.

“The way you were asking about it, I got the sense it was important,” Huston said.

“It’s important to me, but probably no one else,” Keo said.

“So what’s in it?”

Keo considered telling Huston. She was a medic (Well, sort of.), and she would appreciate the pack’s contents. But she also might decide it would be beneficial to her group to keep the bag for themselves, and Keo couldn’t risk that. Sure, it was a small chance, given how well Martin and his people had treated him despite Keo stabbing one of them, broken the nose of another, and nearly cut Jack’s throat open with his own machete.

But still…

“You’re not going to tell me,” Huston said when Keo didn’t answer. She began putting her tools away. “Fine. Be that way.”

“It’s personal,” Keo said. “Guy stuff.”

Huston glanced over her shoulder and flashed him a dubious smirk. “Yeah, right. Guy stuff.”

“Really.”

“Uh huh.”

One of the slayers rode up the street on his horse, passing by the window, followed by the open door. It was a nice brown animal, maybe even a thoroughbred.

I could use one of those.

“I think we ran into them,” Huston was saying as she cleaned her bloody hands with a bottle of water. Bloodstains poured down to the floor.

“Who?” Keo asked.

“The group of women you mentioned earlier. There were fresh tracks into the city. What were they doing in here?”

“I don’t know. Probably just looking for a place to bed down for the night.”

“Martin said they weren’t using silver bullets.”

“They had a limited supply, but not on them when they were attacked.”

“That was stupid.”

Keo nodded. It was stupid and he felt bad for the women, but… Yeah, it was stupid, especially these days. And it had cost them dearly.

“Poor kid,” Huston said, looking toward the back hallway. She was talking about Carter. “What was her name?”

“Carter.”

“You said her group was all girls?”

“The ones I saw. I didn’t ask for details.”

“Makes sense.”

“Does it?”

“Guys can be real fuckers.” She smirked. “No offense.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“It’s too bad about what happened. But it wasn’t your fault.”

“I know.”

“I’m just saying.”

“I know,” Keo said, and didn’t say anything else about it.

Huston got the hint and didn’t, either.

She said instead, “You’re leaving?”

Keo nodded. “I have to go find my pack.”

“Stay here and rest for a while. If the others find it, they’ll bring it to you. Martin gave his word.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“Martin always keeps his word.”

“I see.”

“Always,” Huston said, looking slightly offended that he might think otherwise.

“What’s the deal with him and this blue-eyed ghoul he’s been hunting for over a month and across two states?”

“What do you mean?”

“The way he was talking about it, it sounded personal.”

“It’s not.”

“No?”

“I mean, not any more personal than all the other ghouls we’ve hunted.”

Keo didn’t completely believe her. Maybe Huston thought that, but the way Martin had talked about the creature…

No, there’s something there. Maybe he didn’t tell Huston or the others, but there’s definitely something there.

Huston walked over to a pool table, where the group had laid out all of their supplies. There were enough guns and gear and food to equip a small army. Which, Keo guessed, was what the slayers were.

The medic opened one of their packs and walked back to him. “Here. Maybe you can get some use out of this.”

She was holding out a gun belt toward him. It looked like something out of a Western, complete with a six-shot revolver in the holster and loops for bullets. Only half were full, but they all had gleaming silver tips.

Keo took it. “Thanks.”

“It belonged to one of us.”

“He doesn’t need it anymore?”

“He’s dead.”

“Oh.”

Keo drew the pistol. It was a Ruger with a silver body and hard walnut grip. A double-action, and there were four rounds instead of six in the chamber. Keo wondered if that was because the gun’s previous owner had only gotten off two shots before he died.

“Did he have a name?” Keo asked.

“Billy,” Huston said. “We called him Billy the Kid.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why Billy the Kid? Was he a kid?”

“No. Because he carried that. You know, like the notorious Western outlaw?”

Keo shook his head. “I don’t know much American history.”

“What are you, Chinese or something?”

“Or something.”

“You met Felix yet?”

“No. Why?”

“He’s Chinese, too.”

“Ah.”

Keo didn’t waste time correcting her. He tried the belt on instead but had to take off his original one to do it. He also transferred the KA-BAR sheath over to the new belt before tightening it, then took a couple of practice draws with the revolver.

“Not bad,” Keo said.

“Beats running around with just a knife,” Huston said.

“Can’t argue with that.” Then, “How many blue eyes have you guys seen out there?”

“Just one other, outside of Memphis. You know where that is?”

“Tennessee.”

Huston grinned. “Just wanted to see if you knew your American geography, too.”

“I’ve been around.”

“I’m sure you have. Anyway, this other one didn’t go down without a fight, either. We lost two guys taking it.”

Just two? Keo thought. He knew what the blue eyes were capable of, and losing just two was a hell of a bargain.

“How many have you lost to this one?” Keo asked. “Other than this gun’s previous owner?”

“Just Billy,” Huston said. “It could have been a lot worse. It set a trap for us in Lake Dulcet, then again outside of Houston. It’s a clever fucker. Thank God Martin knows what he’s doing.”

“He still lost one man.”

“Like I said, it could have been a lot worse.”

Keo nodded. It wasn’t like he could contradict her; and he didn’t want to, anyway. From what he had seen, Martin knew his way around ghouls. The rest of his men did, too. Even Huston carried a machete (with a silver edge, no doubt) in a sheath with her at all times. She had a pistol on the other hip, but unlike the others didn’t carry a rifle or shotgun. He didn’t insult her by asking if she knew how to use her gun. Huston was a slayer, even if she wasn’t out there running around with the others looking for ghouls to kill.

He walked over to the window and looked out. There was black blood along the jagged glass that still clung to the frames. For now. In the morning, sunlight would evaporate everything, leaving behind just the lingering acidic taste in the air. In a few days or weeks, even those would disappear, and Paxton wouldn’t remember that it used to be teeming with ghouls.

…teeming with ghouls…

He was disturbed by just how many ghouls there were, so close to the ranch. It made sense that Bunker didn’t know about the creatures’ presence considering Martin’s story about hunting the blue-eyed ghoul and its army down here from Louisiana. They hadn’t been here nine days ago when Keo first went through the city. But they were here, now, and Paxton was too close to the ranch. The thought of Lara having to deal with this, in her current condition, left him cold.

Huston’s horse and Rondo’s was tied up on a street sign outside. The animals loitered about, oblivious to the bodies in the streets and on the sidewalks. In broad daylight, the sight of so many bodies would have been chilling, but darkness had a way of blunting the effects. Keo guessed the animals were probably used to the dead. Horses, unlike people, adapted quickly to their surroundings. And these weren’t just any horses, they were slayer horses.

Keo couldn’t hear shooting or voices in the streets, so the fight was probably on its last legs. He glimpsed a horse moving farther down the street, but—

“Keo.” Huston’s voice, from behind him.

“What?” Keo said even as he felt a slight change in the air. It was cold inside the bar, but the temperature seemed to have dipped suddenly inside, and by more than just a few degrees within seconds.

“Keo,” Huston said again.

Keo glanced over his shoulder. “What?”

Huston was standing in the middle of the room, except she wasn’t alone. There was a dark silhouetted figure behind her, one side of its head poking out from the right side of Huston’s face like a tumorous growth. Long fingers—thin and crooked—were wrapped around the medic’s chin and forehead.

Oh, fuck me.

Huston was frozen in place, but that didn’t stop her body from trembling anyway. The thing behind her was wearing some kind of brown leather fabric that covered most of its face, leaving only an almost rectangular slit for the one eye that was visible to Keo.

The eye that Keo could see was blue, it was glowing, and the shadows around it were moving as if trying to escape its presence.

It was a ghoul.

It was a fucking blue-eyed ghoul.

“Huston, everything will be okay,” Keo said, even as he thought, Bullshit. Nothing’s going to be okay. Not a goddamn thing.

Huston’s arms hung at her sides, and there was clear and obvious absolute terror in her eyes that he could see even from across the room. He didn’t blame her one bit. It didn’t matter how many times Keo came face to face with these things, they always brought out the scared little boy in him. They were death incarnate, and Keo had to exert every ounce of willpower not to tremble in its presence.

The monster stared at him, its single, visible blue eye seeming to pulse. Brighter then softer, then brighter again, then soft. Keo couldn’t make out the rest of its form because it was so much thinner than even Huston’s small frame. But Huston wasn’t very tall, which meant the creature couldn’t have been, either. That was a new one. The blue eyes were usually almost caricatures in their stretchy, elongated forms.

All of this information swept through Keo’s mind, but it was something else that stuck with him: It’s using Huston as a shield. Why is it using Huston as a shield?

The blue eyes were impossibly fast and strong and so, so hard to kill. Keo had seen them dodge bullets. There was no reason for the monster to be using Huston right now. It could have easily snapped her neck and then come for Keo before he could even draw his newly-acquired revolver.

But instead, it had forced her to call his name rather than attacking.

Why?

“Tell him he shouldn’t have followed me,” the monster hissed.

Ice slipped down Keo’s spine, then somehow reversed course and retreated until it reached the nape of his neck.

Fuck me.

The sound that had slipped out between the creature’s razor-thin lips was something out of a nightmare. If Keo had any doubts it was a blue-eyed ghoul (Why is it wearing clothes? Why is it wearing a mask? Why is it using Huston as a shield?) he didn’t anymore. Nothing else in this universe could make those sounds. Nothing came even close.

“Tell him I’ll see him soon,” it hissed, even as it began to slink into the shadows at the back of the bar, taking Huston with it.

Keo drew his pistol but didn’t pull the trigger. He couldn’t, with Huston in the way. He was a good shot up close, but he wasn’t that good.

Bloody lines that the ghoul was passing for lips grinned mischievously from behind Huston’s trembling head. It maintained that pose even as it slipped farther into the much-too-dark section of the bar. It didn’t so much as walk as it evaporated into the darkness…

…and just like that, it was gone.

Thirteen

What are you doing?

He chased it. He didn’t know why, but he ran after the creature.

Are you crazy?

No, not the ghoul. Huston. He was pursuing Huston.

What are you doing?

Keo raced across the bar, the Ruger revolver in both hands because he didn’t trust himself to keep it steady with just one even though doing so meant having to use his hurt left shoulder. The bullet might not have hit bone and was just a flesh wound, but it still stung.

Stop, a voice said inside his head. What are you doing?

It’s got Huston, he answered.

So?

It’s got Huston!

So??? the voice shouted.

Keo ignored the voice and continued running toward the back of the bar and into the corridor. The same one that led toward the basement.

The basement.

The same place where they’d been keeping Carter.

The creature was retreating into it.

And it was going to be so dark in there…

Keo stopped outside the door, still hanging off just one hinge post-Rondo attack. There was nothing on the other side but an intense darkness that seemed to almost ebb and flow like a beating heartbeat, daring him to enter.

Don’t go in there, the voice said, calmer now. Maybe because it was trying to reason with him? Don’t you dare go in there.

As if it could hear his inner voice, the creature—hidden among the shadows inside the basement—hissed, “Well? Are you coming or not?”

The hiss. God, he hated that sound.

Keo didn’t move, even when he heard a low, droning cackling sound coming from the shadows. There was nothing in there but darkness.

Empty, black darkness.

He wouldn’t be able to see a goddamn thing. Not a goddamn thing.

Keo took a step back.

I’m sorry, Huston. I’m so—

“Where’s Huston?” a voice asked, this one from behind him.

Keo whirled around, the gun in his hand. He was a breath away from pulling the trigger but managed to hold off just in time.

Jack stood in the bar’s front entrance across the room, looking back at him.

The slayer, surprised by Keo’s turn—or maybe the pistol in his hand; probably both—quickly raised his arms into the air. “Don’t shoot!”

“Jesus, Jack,” Keo said.

“Don’t shoot, man. Don’t shoot me!”

Keo lowered the gun and hurried out of the back hallway. He glanced over his shoulder at the basement, but there was just the same mocking wall of black nothing staring back at him.

“Where’s Huston?” Jack asked. “Did something happen?”

Keo holstered the Ruger and hurried to the counter and behind it. He hadn’t seen it before when he initially ran through the place, but there was a large framed black-and-white portrait of two men, arms over each other’s shoulders, smiling for the camera as they stood outside a nascent version of the bar’s exterior. A plaque underneath it read: DEUCES. Then under that: EST. 1930.

“Yeah,” Keo said. “Something happened.”

He rifled among the bottles and shot glasses and mugs behind the bar, looking for something to drink. He was about to give up when he located a half-full and dust-covered bottle of Maker’s Mark. Keo took it out, unscrewed it, and poured himself a drink with a dirty shot glass.

Jack walked over to him. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

Keo took a sip, decided it was good enough, and drained the whole glass. He cringed as hot bourbon whiskey flushed down his throat before winding its way through his intestines.

“What the fuck happened?” Jack asked. “Where’s Huston?”

“It took her,” Keo said.

“Who took her?”

“It.”

“‘It?’”

“It.”

“It who?”

Keo stared across the counter at the younger man. “It.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, man? What is ‘it?’”

“It,” Keo said. “It. Fucking it.”

“It what?” another voice said.

Both Keo and Jack turned to look at Martin as he walked inside. His horse, a big black mare, stood outside on the sidewalk.

“What are you two talking about?” Martin asked. Then, looking around, “Where’s Huston?”

Keo was about to answer when he saw the backpack in Martin’s hand. It looked very familiar.

“Well? Where’s Huston?” Martin asked again.

“He said it took her,” Jack said, hiking one thumb at Keo.

“‘It?’”

“Yeah. It.”

“What’s ‘it?’”

Jack shrugged. “Ask—”

“It,” Keo said before the young slayer could finish. “Fucking it, Martin.”

Martin stared at Keo. “It?”

“Yeah. It.”

“Fuck,” Martin whispered.

“Yeah,” Keo said. “That about sums it up.”

Jack turned from Martin to Keo, then back again. “What’s he talking about? What is ‘it?’”

Martin ignored his brother. “When?”

“Less than a minute ago,” Keo said.

“It took her?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“The fuck if I know.” Keo poured himself another glass of Maker’s Mark and drained that, too. When he was done, he nodded toward the back hallway. “It’s waiting for you.”

“For me?” Martin asked.

“That’s what it said.”

“What exactly did it say?”

“‘Tell him he shouldn’t have followed me.’”

“That’s what it said?”

“That’s what it said.”

“Word for word?”

“Word for fucking word. And oh, it also said, ‘Tell him I’ll see him soon.’”

“And it took Huston.”

“Yeah.”

Jack had been listening intently and silently and had finally understood. His face was flushed red as he said to Keo, “You let a fucking blue-eyed ghoul take Huston?”

“Let it?” Keo said. “I didn’t fucking let it do anything, kid. But it took her just the same. The bastard got the drop on me. On her, too.” Keo glanced at the dark back hallway again. “It left the same way it came in: Through the basement.”

Martin took a couple of steps toward the back, the palm of his right hand resting on his still-holstered pistol. He looked back at Keo. “How many?”

“Just the one,” Keo said.

“Just one?”

“Just one. No black eyes. Just it.”

“Jesus Christ, it’s waiting in that basement for us to come down?” Jack asked.

Martin ignored his brother again and said to Keo, “You were in there before. Did you see it?”

Keo shook his head. “It wasn’t in there when I was. Not when the girl was in there, either.”

“You sure?”

“I would fucking know, Martin.”

Martin nodded. “There has to be another way into the place, then.”

“You’re free to find out.”

Keo thought about taking a third shot but decided against it. His adrenaline had run its course, and he was calmer now. Either that, or he was too drunk to tell the difference.

He focused on the pack in Martin’s hand. “Is that mine?”

Martin tossed the bag over the counter, and Keo caught it. “Found it three blocks from here, next to the remains of a horse, just like you said. Didn’t see anything else, though. You said you also had weapons bags?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t find those. Maybe they took it.”

“Ghouls?”

“They do funny things when the blue eyes are around. You know that.”

Keo nodded. “Yeah.”

He looked down at the bag and turned it over in his hands. It was definitely his. The fabric was designed to withstand wear and tear, because the person who’d given it to him knew the importance of its contents. And the pack had done its job very well despite looking as if it’d been dragged across a dozen blocks. It was heavily scratched, and there was blood—black and red—over much of the lower half, including pieces of the white inguz rune patch—two X’s one on top of another—near the top.

Keo opened it up and checked the contents, breathing a sigh of relief. Everything was there. Thank God, everything was still there.

“It’s a trap,” Jack was saying to Martin. He was standing next to his brother, the two of them looking at the dark corridor that led into the basement on the other side. “You know that, right, Martin?”

Of course he knows that, Keo thought.

“Of course I know that,” Martin said out loud.

Great minds think alike, Keo thought as he came out from behind the bar. He said, “It wants you to follow it inside.”

“What’s in there?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know. I never made it completely down the stairs. But it’s dark.”

“How dark?”

“Fucking dark.”

Martin glanced back at Jack, who wordlessly unzipped the tactical pack he carried and took out a flashlight.

“I just have one,” Jack said.

“Give it to me,” Martin said. Then, after Jack had passed it over, “Stay up here.”

“The hell I am. I’m going down there with you.”

“Stay up here,” Martin said.

Keo thought Jack might keep arguing, but the edge in Martin’s voice did the trick, and the younger slayer backed down.

Martin turned to Keo. “What’s in there?”

“I told you, I never made it down the stairs,” Keo said.

Martin flicked on the flashlight and shined it into the basement. The light slipped through the open door and vanished into the darkness beyond, as if the shadows had simply swallowed it up.

“It was wearing some kind of mask,” Keo said.

“The creature?” Martin said.

“Yeah. That’s a first. They don’t usually wear masks. Or anything.”

“This one does.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It just does.”

“You don’t think that’s a little odd?”

“I don’t think much about it at all. And right now, all I care about is getting Huston back,” Martin said as he began walking toward the basement.

Keo didn’t know why he did what he did next. Later, he would think that the terror on Huston’s face as she was dragged into the darkness might have had a little something to do with it.

Whatever the reason, Keo looked over at Jack before tossing him the pack he’d been so desperate to find all night. “Hold this for me. Don’t lose it. I mean it. Don’t fucking lose it.”

“Where you going?” Jack asked.

“Where do you think?”

He turned and followed Martin.

The slayer stopped and looked back at him. “What are you doing?”

“What the hell does it look like I’m doing?” Keo asked.

Martin grinned. “Your funeral.”

No shit, Keo thought, but he said, “Don’t rub it in.”

Martin turned and continued on. Keo followed but remembered the four rounds in the Ruger and drew it, and added the missing two bullets from the loop around his waist.

“Shoot for the head,” Martin said without looking back at him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Keo said. “This isn’t my first rodeo, pal.”

* * *

Martin’s flashlight revealed bare footprints that had walked over the leftover puddles of blood on the basement landing. They led toward the stairs before disappearing down into the darkness below. There was only one pair of tracks, as if the creature was carrying Huston the entire way. There was also no reason for the ghoul to have stepped into the blood. It had done so purposefully.

Sadistic fucker, Keo thought as he followed Martin down the stairs, the single beam of light leading their way.

Keo hadn’t seen the clutter in the basement before, but it was impossible to miss now with the flashlight giving him a better look at his environment. There was the pool table that Carter had mentioned, still partially covered in a tarp. Cue sticks for it on a rack against the nearby wall, along with a shelf holding large glass mugs covered in a thick film of dust.

Bar stools stacked in another corner…

Framed pictures of dogs playing poker…

Piles of clothes…

Piles of bloody clothes, though Keo couldn’t see those details, but he was pretty damn sure they were there.

Martin stopped halfway down the stairs to wipe at a bead of sweat on his forehead. Keo was going to ask why he was sweating when it was so chilly down here, but then felt perspiration on his own cheek and brushed at it.

“I don’t see anything,” Martin said, not quite whispering. “You?”

“No,” Keo said, matching Martin’s pitch.

He had stopped a few feet behind the slayer to give him room in case he had to move abruptly. The last thing Keo wanted was to be so close that Martin got tangled up with him while they were on the stairs and had to react to something. Like, say, a blue-eyed ghoul leaping out at them from the shadows.

“You saw it come down here?” Martin asked.

“Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Unless I went blind the last hour, then yeah, it came down here. You saw those footprints.”

“Right,” Martin said, before he started moving again.

There was an impossible-to-miss bad smell in the air, but not the kind of overwhelming stench that usually signaled the presence of ghouls. But it was unmistakable, and it hadn’t been here when Keo was last in the basement.

“It’s not here anymore,” Keo said, trying very hard not to let the relief come through. “It’s gone.”

“Where did it go?” Martin asked.

They’d reached the bottom of the stairs, and Martin ran his flashlight across the scarred brick walls. There were more shelves storing everything from clothes to mugs to pitchers to boxes of playing cards.

“Wait,” Keo said.

“What?” Martin said.

One of the shelves was angled awkwardly, as if it someone had moved it out of place. Keo might not have noticed it if the other shelves weren’t so perfectly flush against the wall. It was almost as if…the bastard had wanted them to see it.

It’s a game. It’s playing a game with us.

“You see it?” Keo asked.

“Yeah,” Martin said.

The slayer moved across the room toward the far wall, his flashlight bouncing up and down against the large oak shelf. It had definitely been moved, and very recently. The dust that coated the floor had been shifted, and not for the first time.

Martin slid alongside the shelf, gun and flashlight shining into an opening behind the furniture. It was some kind of door leading into an even darker (Of course it’s darker. Why wouldn’t it be darker? I’m not that lucky.) passageway on the other side.

The lone beam of light raked across old and moldy brick walls and disappeared down a long, long tunnel that seemed to keep going and going.

Martin looked back at him. “What the hell is this, Keo?”

The dark road to hell, would be my guess, Keo thought.

Fourteen

Martin wasn’t a coward, but he also wasn’t stupid enough to just run into a dark tunnel armed with a flashlight and Keo as backup, not when he had a small army of willing slayers that could back him up instead. The blue-eyed ghoul clearly wanted Martin to follow it inside, and maybe that was more than enough to keep him from doing just that.

What was that Huston had said about the man?

“It could have been a whole lot worse. It set a trap for us in Lake Dulcet, then again outside of Houston. It’s a clever fucker. Thank God Martin knows what he’s doing.”

Keo’s conversation with Martin after they backtracked and left the basement behind mostly confirmed Huston’s belief in the man.

“They like to play games,” Martin said. “I’ve seen it. They toy with you. It’s how they get off. That, and the other thing.”

The other thing was when they stopped playing and fed. Keo had seen that, too.

“It wants you down there,” Keo said. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“You said it wasn’t personal, but all of this feels pretty damn personal to me.”

“It’s not personal.”

“You sure about that?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Keo. It’s not personal. This is business. I kill ghouls. After I kill this fucker, I’ll move on to the next fucker, and I’ll put a bullet into its brain, too. That’s the job.”

Martin had said all that with absolute confidence, but for some reason Keo continued to have his doubts. He’d seen vendettas before, and this smelled like one of those times. And the last thing he wanted was to get in the middle of one man and his undead friend’s very personal grudge match.

After they returned topside, Martin radioed his men. It didn’t take long before Terminal returned with a couple of others—Felix, the Chinese guy Huston had mentioned before, and Rogers, who was nearly as big and broad as Rondo and might have been able to pass for his “little” brother in the dark.

“We call them R&R,” Jack said as Rogers broke out a plastic carrying case from their supplies and began spreading around headlamps. They were rectangle light boxes attached to a plastic strap that went around the head.

Jack grabbed a couple of them. “They run on three triple A batteries. That’s why we don’t use them unless we have to. Batteries don’t come cheap these days. The ones that run these can be recharged, but those take forever.” He showed Keo the only big button on the front that took up one half of the light box, while the other half was devoted to the flashlight itself. “On and off. So simple even a monkey could do it.”

Jack pressed the button, and a bright light hit Keo in the eyes. He flinched, not ready for the sudden brightness.

“Bright, right?” Jack said.

“Yeah,” Keo said, blinking to get his vision back.

“LED. Clicking the button cycles through the options.” He demonstrated each one. “Close. Distance. Night vision.” Jack tapped the side of the box, and the brightness lessened. “Dimming function. Tap it again, and it goes back to full power.”

Jack slipped the headlamp around his forehead and handed a second one to Keo, who took it but didn’t put it on.

“Try it on,” Jack said.

“I don’t need to. I’m not going back down there,” Keo said.

“Say what?”

“You heard me. I’m not going back down there.”

“Why not?”

Because I don’t plan on dying in this shithole of a town for total strangers. And because I need to be somewhere else.

But Keo didn’t think either one of those answers would satisfy Jack, so he said instead, “That’s what it wants us to do. So I’m not going to do the one thing it wants me to do.”

“No one has to go down there who doesn’t want to,” Martin said. He’d already put his headlamp on and was checking his M4 carbine. “But it’s got Doc, and we don’t leave people behind. Having said that, this is strictly on a volunteer basis.”

Terminal, his face still heavily bandaged, picked his machete up from the bar and slid it back into its sheath. “I’m in.” He shot Keo something that could only be interpreted as disgust. “I’m not a fucking coward.”

“It’s not about being a coward,” Keo said. “It’s about not giving the creature what it wants.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“You sure?” Martin said to Terminal.

“You damn straight I’m sure.”

“What about your face?”

“What about it?” He grabbed a headlamp from Rogers and snapped it on. “Doc’s saved my life more times than I can count. Least I could do is go after her.” The slayer trained those disgusted eyes on Keo again. “She saved your life, too, Chinaman.” Then, glancing over at Felix, the only Asian in their group, “No offense.”

“He’s not Chinese,” Felix said.

“For real?”

“Yeah.”

“What is he, then?”

Felix shrugged. “Maybe Japanese. Or Korean. But he’s definitely not Chinese.”

“Whatever,” Terminal said. “Close enough.”

Keo didn’t respond to any of that. He was sure the slayer was hoping for some kind of reaction, maybe even one that he could use as an excuse to avenge his broken nose. Keo wasn’t about to give him what he wanted.

Martin didn’t seemed to care one way or another if Keo was going with them. He was already turning to Felix. “What about you?”

“I’m in,” Felix said.

“Betsy and me definitely ain’t missing the fun,” Rogers said. Keo guessed “Betsy” was the large 12-gauge shotgun Rogers was rubbing with a cloth.

Martin looked over at two more slayers that had arrived minutes earlier but remained standing near the door. Keo hadn’t met either one of them until now—a man named McBroom and another one named Merrifield. They were much older than the others and didn’t look nearly as enthusiastic about going into the basement.

“You two stay up here to watch our six,” the slayer leader said to them. “Last thing we need is for that fucker to creep up behind us.” He unsnapped a radio from his waist and held it up. “Don’t squawk unless it’s something you can’t handle. I don’t know what’s down there, so maintain radio silence unless absolutely necessary.”

“Gotcha, boss,” McBroom said. He was in his fifties and looked a bit like a grizzly bear with his thick facial hair.

“We got this. You guys find Doc,” Merrifield said. He was shorter than McBroom, but wider. Not exactly fat—none of the slayers were—but maybe the most “healthy” of the bunch.

“What about me?” Jack asked.

“You’re staying up here with them,” Martin said.

“What? No way!”

“You’ll follow orders.”

“You said anyone could volunteer.”

“Yes, I did, but I didn’t say I’d accept it.”

“Martin, he took Doc!”

“It’s not up for debate. You’re staying up here with McBroom and Merrifield to make sure that blue-eyed fuck doesn’t try to sic a swarm of black eyes on us from behind. That’s final.”

“Goddammit, Martin,” Jack said. He looked away and pouted.

Martin glanced over at Keo. “You sure you don’t want a piece of this?”

“You have your priorities, and I have mine.” Keo picked up the pack from the counter and slipped it on. “Mine doesn’t involve going face to ugly face with a blue eyes, sorry.”

“Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.” He stuck out his hand, and Keo shook it. If there was any resentment in Martin’s face, Keo couldn’t find it. “Sorry I can’t give you a horse. We need everything we got.”

What about Huston’s? Keo thought but didn’t say.

He said instead, “I’ll make do. I always have.”

Martin noted Keo’s holstered revolver. “You might need more than that little peashooter if you’re gonna be running around out there all night. Help yourself to what we have.”

“You sure?”

“Plenty to go around.” He nodded at the pool table where the slayers had piled their supplies. “You can give it back to me when we meet again.”

“I appreciate that,” Keo said, and he meant it.

“All right. Final check, boys,” Martin said to his men. “Any last questions before we go down there?”

“Just one,” Felix said.

“Go on.”

“It’s not just waiting for us, is it?”

“No. The basement’s empty, but there’s a secret entranceway in the back, hidden behind a shelf that leads into some kind of underground tunnel. We wouldn’t have seen it or even known to look for it if that thing hadn’t used it to take Huston.”

“A tunnel? Are you kidding me?” Terminal said. “What kind of bar has a fucking tunnel in the basement?”

“This place is pretty old,” Jack said. “I’ve read about bars using secret passageways to bring booze in and out during Prohibition. This place opened in 1930, which was when Prohibition was still in effect.”

“You read too much, Jack.”

“Never heard that before…”

“You changed your mind, Terminal?” Martin asked.

“Fuck no,” Terminal said. “If we gotta go into a dark tunnel, then we’ll go into a dark tunnel. Who wants to live forever, anyway?”

Me, for one, Keo thought but kept quiet.

“Good. Because that’s exactly what we’re gonna be doing,” Martin said.

“Fucking A, man. Fucking A,” Terminal said, though he didn’t sound nearly as gung-ho as he had just a few seconds ago.

“This is bullshit, Martin,” Jack said. “I’m going with you guys.”

“You’re staying up here with McBroom and Merrifield,” Martin said.

“Marty—”

“That’s not a suggestion. It was an order.”

The two brothers continued arguing, but Keo had walked over to the supply table. He bypassed the gear and food and sifted through the weapons.

Shotguns, rifles, pistols, knives…

He had the KA-BAR so didn’t need an additional blade. The Ruger would serve as a sidearm, but he picked up a Glock and put it behind his back anyway, because you could never have too many guns, especially on a night like this one.

“You’re not going,” Martin was saying behind him. “And that’s final.”

“Goddammit, Marty,” Jack said, close to whining now.

Keo would have kept listening to their bickering if he didn’t spot something that drew his attention.

A Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun. It wasn’t exactly an MP5SD, but…

Beggars can’t be choosers.

He picked it up. It’d taken a beating, and there were scratches along the sides, but he liked the collapsible stock and its short length. He’d never been a fan of long rifles, though he’d always made an exception for the MP5SDs and their slightly-longer barrel due to the built-in suppressor.

“Remember not to accidentally shoot yourself in the foot while you’re running around out there taking care of numero uno,” a voice said behind him.

Keo glanced back at Terminal, standing a little too close for comfort. The slayer was rubbing the handle of his sheathed machete. It was probably supposed to be threatening, but Keo found it comical, especially with Terminal’s bandaged face making him look like the victim of a botched plastic surgery operation.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Keo said.

“I never took you for a coward.”

“You haven’t known me long enough to take me for anything, pal.”

Felix appeared behind Terminal. “Leave the man alone. He’s just doing what he has to. We all are.”

“I’m giving him some good advice, Felix,” Terminal said. “Just ’cause you guys are from the same continent don’t mean you have to stand up for him.”

“Pretty sure neither one of us are from any continent other than North America, Terminal.”

“Lighten up, man. Keo knows I have nothing but good intentions.” He grinned at Keo, showing slightly yellow teeth. “Ain’t that right, Keo?”

“Absolutely,” Keo said. “Nothing but good intentions, all right.”

“See?” Terminal said. “Time to make the donuts.”

The slayer winked at Keo before walking away to rejoin the others.

Keo looked after him, wondering if he was going to find himself at the wrong end of Terminal’s machete again very soon. If he did, at least this time he’d have a submachine gun ready to defend himself with, so he liked his chances.

“I’d tell you he’s harmless, but he’s not,” Felix said. “If you see him again out there, I’d watch your back.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” Keo said.

“Though I don’t know why I’m telling you this. You look like you can handle yourself.”

“I’ve been known to get into a scrap or two.”

“I bet.”

“Which part of Taiwan is your family from?”

Felix grinned. “How’d you know?”

“You’re Chinese, but obviously not a Mainlander. Too American. And you don’t have the Hong Konger accent. So I settled on American-born Taiwanese ABC.”

“You’re smarter than you look.”

“Don’t let that fool you. I’m really not.”

Felix chuckled. “Family’s from Kaohsiung City, but all I know is the plains of Tulsa, Oklahoma. That, and line dancing. Can’t get enough line dancing.”

Felix was in his early thirties, with a goatee he’d probably been growing for a while, and a big, jagged scar across his forehead that looked like it’d been put there by something other than a knife. The slayer, like his comrades, wore thick and long-sleeve trench coats, but Keo thought he could just make out ugly red lines along the side of his neck. They might have been teeth marks from years ago that hadn’t vanished and never would.

“Tulsa’s a long way from Kaohsiung City,” Keo said.

“You been there?” Felix asked.

“Did this thing for these people around Tainan City once or twice. Not a bad town. Good and cheap food. Spent enough time with some locals to recognize the accents.”

“You don’t say.”

“Didn’t get the chance to see more of Taiwan, unfortunately. Maybe I’ll rectify that one day.”

“Yeah, maybe one day,” Felix said.

They exchanged a nod.

“Good luck out there,” the slayer said.

I’m not the one going into a dark tunnel after a blue-eyed ghoul.

Keo said, “Yeah, you too, Felix. Don’t get dead.”

“That’s the idea,” Felix said, before walking over to his friends.

Keo turned around and picked up a couple of magazines for the MP5. He inserted one into the mag well and worked the slide and decided that he liked the sound it made.

“So what’s the plan, boss?” Rogers was saying behind him.

“Kill anything with glowing blue eyes,” Martin said.

“Are we sure it’s the same one?” Felix asked.

“Pretty damn sure. Anyone has any other questions?”

“I got first dibs,” Terminal said.

“Not if I get him with Betsy first,” Rogers said.

“Over my dead body.”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“Hardy har har, big man.”

They sounded unafraid, but Keo knew better. He’d been around too many soldiers—not that slayers were really soldiers, but they had a lot of the same personalities—to be deceived. The joking was just a way of coping with the stress, their way of overcoming the fear of the unknown. In this case, a dark tunnel with a blue-eyed ghoul on the other side.

Jesus Christ, this is such a bad idea.

But it’s not my problem now.

Keo slung the MP5 and walked over to a dejected Jack as the young man watched Martin and the other slayers heading into the back hallway.

“I should be going with them,” Jack said quietly.

Why the hell would you want to be doing a stupid thing like that? Keo thought as he watched the slayers disappear through the basement door one by one.

“What are you gonna do now?” Jack asked, looking over at him.

“I’m going home,” Keo said, and turned around to do just that.

“Just like that?” Jack said from behind him.

Keo stopped and looked back at him. “Kid, when you get to be as old as me, you’ll realize that sometimes you have to make sacrifices. Sometimes that means letting people down. Other times it means looking like an asshole.”

“So that’s your excuse?”

“Yeah, that’s my excuse.” Then, “I need a flashlight—”

“Fuck off, Keo.”

I deserve that, Keo said and turned to leave.

On his way to the door, Keo looked over at McBroom and Merrifield, milling about a dartboard on the other side of the bar. Neither man had spoken up and were doing their best not to meet his gaze.

“You guys want to chime in?” Keo asked them.

McBroom, the older to the two, shrugged. “About what?”

“About anything.”

“It’s your life, man.”

“You do what you gotta do,” Merrifield said.

“All right, then,” Keo said, and stepped through the Deuces’ front door.

Fifteen

“No meandering. Get there, get what you need, and come home. Got it? If I have to go after you, I’m going to be really angry.”

Only an idiot would want Lara to be angry with them. Keo had learned that lesson a long time ago. So had a lot of other people, in fact, and not all of them were still alive.

Keo was thinking about that as he came out of the Deuces and walked past the horses tied up outside to one of the street signs. For a second or two (okay, maybe five seconds; possibly ten or more) Keo considered taking one of them. It would make his trip back to the ranch so much faster, not to mention safer. There was no telling what was waiting for him out there on the road. A day ago he would have thought that was just paranoia, but after the night he’d been having…

Just one horse. They don’t need all of them.

Besides, what were the chances Martin’s entire gang would return from their basement adventures with Huston, or with the same number they’d gone down there with? The odds were against them. They were good at their jobs, no doubt, but were they that good? Against a blue-eyed devil?

Just one horse. That was all he needed.

Dammit, I’ve gone too soft, he thought as he kept walking past the animals and turned south, in the same direction he’d been headed before the ghouls ambushed him.

The ranch wasn’t very far now. Mirabelle would have gotten him home within half a day, and he could probably make the same distance in a day on foot. Okay, maybe a day and a half if he was feeling lazy, which he wasn’t.

But he would get home, that was the important part. Not just that, but he’d bring back what he needed to. What Lara needed. This entire trip would have been for naught if Martin hadn’t found his pack.

Thanks, Martin. Sorry I couldn’t be more help, buddy.

The streets of Paxton were a lot safer now after the slayers had made mincemeat of the remaining ghouls. There were corpses on the streets and along the sidewalks, some of the bodies left where they had fallen while others were dragged over to put into piles. Unmoving forms of twisted limbs and shattered skulls and lifeless eyes greeted Keo. There was surprisingly little obvious blood on the ground, but maybe the darkness had something to do with that. The smell was bad enough that he took out the half-mask he carried in one of his cargo pants pockets and slipped it on.

Better. Not perfect by any means, but noticeably better.

The bodies would be there all night, but come morning they’d be gone. The sunlight’s purifying rays would take care of the tainted flesh. The blood that the slayers had spilled throughout town would also be gone, as if they were never here. All that would be left would be the deformed bones, but even those would be taken care of by the animals in the days, weeks, and months to come. Eventually Paxton would revert back to its abandoned state, just as innocuous as Keo had found it when he first rode through nine days ago.

“All’s well that ends well,” he said quietly to the empty streets, small puffs of white clouds coming out of the half-mask’s fleece material.

Dark and empty alleyways greeted him as he passed the first block and continued on, leaving the Deuces and the slayers behind. Paxton hadn’t looked that big when Keo first rode through it the first time, but that’d been with daylight at his back. Now, without much light except whatever the moon could provide, it looked twice as big.

Keo put a reassuring hand on the butt of the holstered Ruger. He’d refilled all six chambers, so was feeling a little better. If he needed backup, there was the Glock behind his waist. Both weapons were loaded with silver-tipped rounds. And then there was the MP5 hanging by a strap off his right shoulder. He didn’t expect a fight, but he was ready if he ran into one.

He glanced down at his watch.

10:34 p.m.

Just a shade over two hours since he’d run into Martin’s crew back at the Deuces and almost killed them and vice versa. The whole of Paxton was a bad memory Keo wanted to get rid of for good. The faster he could put it in the rearview mirror, the better he’d feel.

Keo tightened the straps of the pack around his shoulders, grimacing a bit as the heavy material bit into his left shoulder and the recently-bandaged wound underneath his clothes. Thanks to Huston, he wasn’t bleeding anymore.

…thanks to Huston.

He stopped and glanced back up the road. He couldn’t see the bar anymore, but it was back there somewhere. It was too late to change his mind now. Martin and the others were already in the basement and, likely, inside the tunnel. Even if he ran back at full speed, he wouldn’t be able to catch up. Hell, he’d probably end up shot by mistake when he startled them from behind.

No. It was better to keep going, so that was what he did. Decisions, whether rightly or wrongly, had been made. He still thought it was the right one, but maybe he was a little biased. Just a tad.

The bag’s contents were the most important thing to him other than getting back to the ranch. One wasn’t going to mean very much without the other, so he had to achieve both. Lara was waiting, and Lara was priority number one. She’d always been.

“No meandering,” she’d said.

Lara’s words were still reverberating around in his head, urging him forward despite all his lingering doubts, when some kind of light flickered at the corner of his right eye. He might not have noticed it at all if the town wasn’t so pitch-black around him.

Keo stopped again, his hand dipping for the Ruger, and turned toward a pair of buildings. A Wendy’s, with a two-story bed-and-breakfast called Edna’s B&B next to it. Keo focused on the B&B—or more specifically on its windows facing the street. They were all dark, with no signs of movement.

He waited. He’d seen something. A light of some kind. He was sure of it.

Five seconds…

Or was he? Maybe he had just imagined it. It was so dark out here.

Ten seconds…

Had he imagined the whole thing? No. He swore he’d seen a light—

There!

It was a single flickering flame from a lighter, partially illuminating a figure standing behind one of the windows at the right side of the B&B. He couldn’t make out the face—it was too dark, and the dirty glass made details impossible—but Keo didn’t have any trouble picking up the hand waving wildly in the air to get his attention.

Keo jumped up the sidewalk and toward the bed-and-breakfast’s front door. It was wide open, and Keo thought, Now where have I seen this before?

He could see into the building, but not completely. There were just enough lights to highlight a large lobby with furniture inside. Keo was keeping one eye on the window with the figure as he moved cautiously forward. It was a good thing he did, because the figure seemed to glance over their shoulder before ducking down, disappearing completely from view and taking the lighter with them.

Someone up there was in trouble.

Unless this was another trick, one more piece of an ongoing game that Keo was unknowingly playing. Everything about tonight pointed to a mastermind moving him around like some remote control toy.

Keo didn’t like that feeling. He didn’t like it at all.

But could he really ignore the figure in the window? What if someone up there really did need his help? Someone like Carter…

…or Huston…

Two people he’d let down tonight. One was dead for sure, and the other was either already dead or would be soon. Keo hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to stop their fates.

Goddammit. This conscience bullshit is going to be the death of me, Keo thought as he took a moment to orient himself.

He was almost a block and a half from the Deuces. The sidewalks around him were mostly clear, with only a couple of random ghoul bodies to remind him Paxton wasn’t the peaceful town he’d thought it was.

Oh, just get this over with, will you?

Keo eased his way into the B&B’s lobby, which looked more like a large living room, complete with dust-covered furniture and carpeted flooring. There was a dining room to one side, a kitchen near the back, and a reception area featuring a big Edna’s B&B logo in ghastly pink. Pastel-colored walls looked as gaudy partially obscured by shadows as they likely did in the daylight. And there, a set of stairs leading upward to the second floor, a helpful sign pointing the way: rooms upstairs.

Crack! as something broke under his boots. A piece of glass.

He stopped for a moment to look around, the submachine gun at the ready, and the thought Thank God for silver bullets racing through his head.

When nothing jumped out of the dark at him, Keo continued toward the stairs, moving as quietly as he could while wearing heavy boots. Which was to say he wasn’t very quiet at all. Every step sounded like someone stomping wildly on wet bags filled with excrement. But maybe he was imagining that part.

A pool of moonlight shone across the steps to let him know he wasn’t the first person to head in this direction. And very recently, too. There were bloody boot prints on them, and from the look of it, someone was in a hurry, because the wearer was jumping up three steps at a time. In a hurry or running away from something.

Keo didn’t see any suggestions as to what that “something” could be. At least not until he’d taken the first step himself and turned slightly to get a better look at the rest of the stairs waiting for him.

There. More bloody prints, but these were bare feet alongside the booted ones.

A ghoul.

He’d guessed correctly: Whoever was in the window trying to get his attention had been chased up the second floor by a nightcrawler.

So maybe this isn’t a trap after all.

…unless that’s what they want me to think.

Keo shook his head. He couldn’t start second-guessing himself now. His entire existence had been about going with his gut. And right now, his gut told him someone on the second floor needed his help.

God, he hoped he was right. It was going to really suck if this was just another trick.

The building was old, and every time he put a boot down on the steps, it produced an impossibly loud creak. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that loud, but it sure as hell sounded awfully loud to his ears.

He couldn’t see the second floor from his current position, just below the halfway point. There was a turn in the stairway and too many shadows beyond the banisters. Keo couldn’t even make out the ceiling, much less the hallway or whatever else was waiting for him up there.

So how was he going to solve this little riddle? Sneaking up wasn’t going to work. He was making too much noise.

But there was one other option…

Keo gritted his teeth just before launching himself up the steps. He took the next two one by one before hopping two at a time and saw the banister coming up. He kept his hands on the submachine gun, the weapon in front of him the whole time and ready to shoot anything that popped out of the shadows. He just hoped that “anything” wasn’t the same person that had been trying to flag him down. That would be one more unnecessary death on a conscience that was getting heavier as the night wore on.

This fucking night will never be over!

Fortunately, no one emerged out of the darkness to startle him, so Keo didn’t shoot anyone as he rounded the top of the stairs and made it onto the second floor. The hallway split up into two directions, right and left. Each side had multiple doors with the two closest ones he could make out wide open, though they didn’t reveal a single damn thing within.

But of course they didn’t, because if they did, then this would be way too easy. And nothing about tonight had been easy.

Keo slid his half-mask partially down to take a sniff.

Oh yeah, there it was.

It was in the air—a foul odor that was hard to miss. It wasn’t just the familiar stink of abandonment, which almost every building he went into these days was brimming with, but something else, something unnatural.

There was a ghoul on the second floor.

He couldn’t tell how close it was from the stink, but it was here. Maybe it was in one of those rooms or another one that he couldn’t make out yet. Now that Keo had confirmed its presence, he pulled the half-mask back up.

Crash! as an unseen door smashed open from the very end of the hallway to his left!

Keo ran toward it, hoping he didn’t trip over something on the floor. He couldn’t see very much, but there was carpet under his boots. He passed one door, two—

A figure lunged out of the third door in front of him and rammed into the wall across the narrow hallway. The figure twisted around, something skinny and metal (Is that a pipe?) flickering in the shadows in its right hand.

Keo would have collided right with the silhouetted figure if he’d kept running, but fortunately he managed to stop in time and was about to open his mouth to shout either a warning or a threat—he had no idea what was going to come out—when a second shadow burst out of the open doorway and right at the first one.

“Get down!” Keo screamed.

The first figure dropped to the floor even as its head turned in his direction.

Keo fired three shots, striking the second figure as it was flying across the hallway. He had no idea how many of his rounds landed, but at least one did because the creature went limp while still in midair. Except its momentum carried it forward and into the first shadow, already crumpled on the floor.

“Oh God, oh God!” the figure screamed.

It was a woman’s voice, and she was desperately trying to throw the ghoul off her. It took a few tries before she managed to get a good enough hold on the lifeless corpse that had ended up draped all over her and push it off.

I know that voice.

The woman struggled up to her feet, her breath coming out in short and loud spurts. She turned, saw him, and jumped back while raising the metal rod in her hand.

“Whoa, whoa,” Keo said, taking a quick step back. He pulled down the half-mask while holding out one hand, palm up to shield himself from an incoming blow. “It’s me. Jackson! It’s me!”

Jackson didn’t let down her guard but did lean forward to get a better look at him. Hazel eyes flickered with recognition. “Jesus, you’re still alive.”

“You, too.”

“Barely,” Jackson said, even as she wiped at black liquid dripping from her face. Thick globs of the stuff clung to her right cheek and chin, and it was either the smell or just the sensation of having ghoul blood on her, but Jackson looked like she was about to vomit.

“You okay?” Keo asked.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Are you bleeding? Are you hurt?”

“No. No…”

“Are you sure? You don’t sound sure.”

“Yes. Yes...” She leaned back against the wall and looked down at the ghoul crumpled on the floor between them. “Is it dead?”

“I was using silver bullets.”

“But is it dead?”

Keo thought that was an odd question. His mention of “silver bullets” should have ended the conversation, but apparently it hadn’t.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” he said.

He crouched next to the body and poked at it with the submachine gun. The ghoul was bigger and longer than most, though that wasn’t saying much. It had nevertheless shrunk from its natural size, its bones becoming deformed like the rest when they were turned, but it had some remaining heft to it. That wouldn’t have lasted past the night, if it were alive.

Keo turned the creature over onto its back. It was naked, because ghouls didn’t need clothes, but sometimes you found one or two of them walking around with lingering articles of clothing on them that they couldn’t get rid of. Most of those were recently turned.

He glanced up at Jackson. The teenager hadn’t moved from the same spot and hadn’t looked away from the dead ghoul at her feet.

“You sure you’re okay?” Keo asked.

Jackson nodded but didn’t say anything. Keo couldn’t tell if she just didn’t have the words or she didn’t know what to say. And she kept staring down at the dead creature as if she couldn’t look away.

“What is it?” Keo asked.

“It’s Liz,” Jackson said. Her voice came out softly, as if she didn’t want to say it.

“What?”

“It’s Liz.”

“It’s Liz?”

Jackson nodded.

Keo was going to ask, “Are you sure?” when Jackson made an odd gurgling sound and bent over at the waist. Keo knew what was coming and shot back up to his feet and jumped back, but even so, Jackson still managed to get some vomit on the tips of his boots.

Sixteen

“You’re still alive.”

“So are you.”

“I thought you were dead. We both did.”

Keo didn’t have to ask who the we included. Jackson was talking about herself and Liz, who lay between them on the dirty carpeted floor of Edna’s B&B. Or what used to be Liz. That woman was long gone, replaced by a frail skeletal creature.

“How did you get away?” Jackson asked.

She sat across the hallway from him, her head hidden somewhere between her bent legs. She was flicking the lighter that she’d used to signal him on and off, on and off, and staring at the flame.

“I’m not sure,” Keo said. “I ran. I don’t remember anything after that.”

“How far did you get?”

“Not far enough. They caught up to me.”

“But you survived.”

“Barely.”

“But you survived.”

Keo nodded, and thought, I guess that’s the goal these days. Survive at all costs.

He thought about telling her about Carter, how he’d found the teenager purely by accident at the Deuces…only to lose her to a stray bullet. Was there anything to be gained from revealing that information, though? Jackson had already lost Sharon and Liz, not to mention all the others before that. If this entire night had gone badly for him, it was doubly—Twice? Infinitely?—worse for her.

Keo said, “There are slayers a couple blocks from here. They were the ones who took care of the ghouls for us.”

“Slayers?” Jackson said, raising her head. “I heard shooting out there before, but I wasn’t sure who it was. It sounded bad.”

“The slayers knew what they were doing.”

“I guess they would. It’s their job.”

“Yeah.”

“How did Liz get bitten?” Keo wanted to ask but didn’t.

As with Carter, what did it matter how Liz had been turned? The fact was that she had, and now lay between them. Knowing the hows of it wasn’t going to change anything.

“What are you going to do now?” Keo asked.

“I don’t know,” Jackson said.

“You could join the slayers.”

“Why would I do that? I’m not one of them.”

“But you could stick with them for a while. It’ll be a lot safer in their company.”

“I’ve met slayers before. They’re too…” She seemed to struggle to find the right words. Finally, she just shook her head. “I don’t know how to say it. I just never felt right around them. I mean, I don’t like ghouls; none of us do. But the slayers, they really don’t like them.”

You wouldn’t too if you were fed on and kept alive by the bastards, just so they could keep feeding on you.

He knew what really drove slayers, but maybe Jackson didn’t. It wouldn’t surprise him. Not everyone understood the full magnitude of what had happened to the human race during the yearlong Purge. Keo did, but he’d been in the thick of it, fighting with Black Tide up to the very end.

He said, “Well, you can’t just walk around out there by yourself. It’s too dangerous.”

“It’ll be morning soon,” she said. “I’ll be okay then.”

Keo glanced down at his watch.

10:58 p.m.

“It’s not going to be morning for a long time,” he said.

“You said it yourself; the slayers killed all the ghouls.”

“Not all of them.”

“How many are left?”

Keo looked across the small space at her. “There’s one out there that I know for sure of. A blue-eyed ghoul. The slayers are hunting it right now.”

Jackson stopped playing with the lighter and lifted her head. Even in the semidarkness, Keo saw the change come over her face. “A blue eyes. Just like you guys were talking about earlier. You thought there was one out there, calling the shots.”

“Turns out we were right.”

“Oh God,” Jackson said, and wrapped her arms around her bent legs.

Keo didn’t say anything for a while, and neither did Jackson. They were content to sit in silence with Liz between them. The corpse didn’t smell as much as ghouls normally did; Keo passed that off to Liz’s recent transformation. Her body hadn’t gotten the chance to rot yet. Then again, it could very well be that it was Liz and not just some random ghoul, and that made all the difference.

Jackson untangled her arms from around her knees to continue cleaning her face with Keo’s half-mask. He’d given it to the teenager because neither one of them had anything else for her to wipe away the blood on her face with. There was more on her clothes, but she ignored it. They didn’t have any water, so she’d had to make do with spit, but that wasn’t going to clean everything off. That was the problem with ghouls—no matter what you did, you could never completely get rid of them.

Eventually, Keo picked himself up from the floor. “I gotta go, kid. But you can’t stay in this city on your own. The way I see it, you have two options: Come with me or join the slayers. What’s it gonna be?”

Jackson looked up at him but didn’t say anything. He couldn’t tell if she was trying to decide if his continued company was better than the slayers’, or if something else was going through her mind.

“Make a choice,” Keo said, glancing down at his watch for effect, even though he’d already done it a minute earlier and knew exactly what time it was.

Jackson did, standing up alongside him after picking up the metal rod she’d been using as a weapon. It was the same one from the lobby of the office where they’d been hiding out in earlier. Jackson had grabbed it while she was fleeing the ghoul, and only after she’d run out of every bullet and lost her knife. God only knew how long she and the creature had been playing hide-and-seek through the backstreets of Paxton. Keo didn’t feel like making the kid relive what was clearly a mentally and physically painful ordeal, so he hadn’t asked for details.

“Where are we going?” Jackson asked.

I guess that means she’s coming with me, Keo thought as he turned and walked down the hallway toward the stairs, with Jackson following closely behind.

He said, “Home.”

“Where’s home?”

“A ranch about twenty kilometers from here. I’m staying there with a couple of people.”

“Why did you leave in the first place?”

“I was doing a supply run.” Keo patted the pack strapped to his back. “This.”

“Is that what you were looking for earlier?”

“Uh huh.”

“How’d you find it?”

They went down the stairs, the same steps creaking even more loudly underneath his boots now that he wasn’t attempting to tiptoe. But since he wasn’t trying to creep up on someone this time, Keo didn’t care as much.

“Luck,” Keo said. “Once we reach the ranch, you can decide if you want to stay with us or not.”

“Okay,” Jackson said.

Keo stopped and looked back at her, standing on a couple of steps behind and slightly above him. “You sure you’re okay? If you’re hurt, I have some Tramadol.”

“What’s that?”

“Painkillers.”

“Oh.” Jackson pursed a smile. “I’m okay,” she said, but he didn’t believe her for a second. At least, he didn’t think she was anything close to being mentally “okay.”

He continued down.

“Keo,” Jackson said.

“Yeah?”

“You want your mask thing back?”

“Um, no,” Keo said, thinking about how much ghoul blood and vomit was already on that thing.

* * *

“You have guns again,” Jackson said when they stepped out of Edna’s and onto the sidewalk.

Keo had reflexively taken a quick glance up the street toward Deuces to see if anything had changed since the last time he was outside. There were no gunshots or screams, so he relaxed a bit as he and Jackson turned toward the other end of town.

“The slayers,” Keo said. “They had more guns than they knew what to do with them.” He took out the Glock and handed it to her. “Here.”

“What about you?”

Keo patted the revolver. “I have this.” Then, doing the same to the MP5, “And this.”

Jackson put the Glock into her empty hip holster. Keo also passed along the two magazines for the pistol.

“Silver bullets?” Jackson asked.

“Uh huh.”

“Good.”

He looked down at the rod she had put into her waist belt. “What happened to your knife?”

“I lost it.”

He was going to ask How? but decided that it didn’t matter. Besides, it probably involved her running or fighting the thing that used to be Liz.

They walked in silence for a while, content to let their footsteps be the only sounds up and down the empty streets. Paxton wasn’t nearly as frightening now without ghouls jumping out of the darkness. It felt almost peaceful.

Until it’s not.

So he kept his eyes open and his ears listening, and reminded himself that there was still a blue-eyed ghoul out there, somewhere. He wondered if Martin and the slayers had caught up to the creature yet. Maybe he should have asked for a spare radio, that way he could monitor their progress. But he hadn’t, so that was a moot point.

“What’s in the bag?” Jackson asked finally.

Keo smiled. He’d been waiting for the question and was surprised it had taken her so long. “Medical stuff.”

“What kind of medical stuff?”

“Just medical stuff.”

“For you?”

“No.”

“I thought it might be for that ugly scar of yours.”

“Is that any way to talk to the guy who just saved your life?”

“Yeah, well, we saved your life first, so we’re even-steven.”

Keo guessed he couldn’t really disagree with that. “Good point.”

“So what’s in the bag?” Jackson asked again.

“I already told you.”

“You said ‘medical stuff.’ That could be anything from bandages to drugs.”

“It’s not drugs.” He thought about it for a second, then, “Well, it could be drugs, I guess. But not the type of drugs that Hollywood hunks and starlets do at cool parties.”

“You’re not going to tell me, huh?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Are you afraid I’ll take it from you?”

“No.”

“So what’s in the bag?”

“Medical stuff.”

“Fine. Be a jerk.”

He looked over at her walking alongside him. He hadn’t seen it before, but she had dirt and cobwebs in her hair. He wondered how she’d gotten those.

“How am I a jerk because I don’t want to tell you what’s in my bag?” he asked.

“We’re traveling partners now,” Jackson said. “We should trust each other. It’s hard for me to trust you if you won’t tell me what’s in your bag.”

“You’re just going to keep asking, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. It’s medical supplies and antibiotics.”

“Antibiotics?”

“Yes.”

“For you?”

“No. Someone else at the ranch where we’re going. Satisfied?”

Jackson seemed to think about it for a moment.

Finally, she nodded. “For now.”

Keo sighed. “Are you always this—”

He stopped talking when he heard the clop-clop-clop coming from behind them. Keo spun around, unslinging the MP5 as he did so. Jackson had heard it, too, and she also turned, already drawing the Glock.

“Is that…?” Jackson asked.

“That’s a horse,” Keo said.

He knew the sound as soon as he heard it and watched the source galloping toward him and Jackson at a fast run.

It was a black horse, its color making it nearly invisible against the semidarkness of Paxton. The only reason Keo could make it out at all was thanks to the white stripes along the animal’s mane that bounced up and down and side to side as it sped down the street in his direction.

He let go of the MP5 and stepped into the street as the horse neared.

“What are you doing?” Jackson asked, alarmed. She hadn’t moved from the sidewalk.

“Wait there,” Keo said.

“Keo, what are you doing?”

“We could use a horse.”

“Not if it runs you over.”

She’s got a point.

The animal was twenty meters away when Keo stepped in front of it and lifted both hands, thinking to himself, Holy crap. Jackson’s right, you’re going to get run over, you idiot!

But he didn’t, because the horse began to slow down.

Thank God, Keo thought and said out loud, “Easy, boy, easy!”

The horse responded as he hoped it would, and dropped into a less-frenzied trot as it got closer. Keo waited in the streets.

“Keo,” Jackson said.

“Stay there,” Keo said.

He waited until almost the very last second before sidestepping out of the animal’s path and grabbed the reins just as it passed him by. He pulled gently on the rope as he jogged alongside it for a second, then two more, all the while cooing, “Whoa, girl, whoa. Whoa!”

The horse, a familiar-looking black mare (That’s Martin’s horse), began to slowly respond, until it stopped completely.

Keo walked over. “That’s a good girl. That’s a good girl.” He put one tentative hand on its mane before rubbing the silky smooth hair. “Good girl. Good girl.”

The horse was a Morgan breed, and had it kept going right through Keo, he’d probably be lying on the street, either dazed or dead. It still had its saddle, but the sheath for a rifle was empty and the supply bags Keo had seen on it back at the Deuces were gone. The last time he saw the mare, it was tied up to a street sign with three others.

Something happened at the Deuces, Keo thought as he looked back down the street.

“I thought for sure it was going to run you over,” Jackson said as she walked over to him. “Man, you’re crazy.”

“I’ve been called worse,” Keo said.

He leaned closer to the horse to get a better look at some dark spots along the Morgan’s right flank that he’d glimpsed earlier. They were, as he had feared, sticky to his touch.

Black, oozing liquid.

Blood.

Ghoul blood.

“You know this horse?” Jackson asked.

“It’s Martin’s horse,” Keo said.

“Who’s Martin?”

Keo looked up the street again, back in the direction of the Deuces. “One of the slayers I told you about.”

“The ones that were going after the blue-eyed ghoul?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” Jackson said. Then, almost tentatively and following his gaze back up the street, “You think they found it?”

I don’t think this horse ran off because it wanted to. I think it ran off because it had to.

Keo said, “I need to find out.”

“How?”

Instead of answering her, Keo put his boot into the stirrup and climbed onto the horse’s saddle.

Jackson stood on the street, looking up at him. “What are you going to do?”

“I need to find out what happened back there,” Keo said. “You can stay here or come with me.”

“Well, I’m not staying here by myself.” She sighed. “I guess I’m sitting in the back?”

Keo smiled. “I’m the one who took the chance at stopping a charging horse. I get the front as a reward.”

“Darn it.”

He helped her up and onto the back of the Morgan.

“Here,” Keo said, slipping off his pack and handing it back to her.

She didn’t reach for it right away. “Why are you giving it to me?”

“It’s going to be a little uncomfortable back there with this thing in your face.”

“Oh, good point.” Jackson took the backpack and slipped it on. “Why are you even going back there, anyway? You didn’t know these guys until tonight.”

I didn’t know you until tonight, too, Keo thought, but said, “I need to find out what happened. They might need my help.”

So why did you abandon them in the first place? a voice asked from somewhere in the back of Keo’s mind.

Oh, shut up.

“Maybe we should just leave town,” Jackson said. She put her arms around his waist. “I mean, if it’s there, this blue-eyed ghoul…”

“They may need my help,” Keo said again. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince her or himself.

“I thought you wanted to go home? Wasn’t that the only thing that mattered to you before? So let’s go to your ranch instead.”

She made a very good point. He had everything he needed, and now he had a horse to get him to the ranch even faster.

And Lara did tell him not to meander…

So why was he hesitating?

He hadn’t heard a single sound coming from up the block. No gunshots or shouts or anything that would indicate a fight. Paxton was so quiet around him that he should have heard something. Except he hadn’t, and that fact gnawed at him.

What the hell happened back there?

“Keo, let’s just go,” Jackson said from behind him, her voice dangerously close to pleading. “Can we just go?”

“I can’t,” Keo said, and turned the Morgan around.

The horse followed his instructions, but it didn’t immediately start moving back toward the Deuces. He could feel its hesitation underneath him, but just in case he missed the signals, the animal let out a slightly annoyed whinny.

“I don’t think it wants to go back,” Jackson said.

“We don’t have a choice,” Keo said.

“Tell it that.”

Keo did just that. He leaned forward while nudging the horse on both of its flanks. At the same time, he loosened the reins to urge it forward.

When that still didn’t work, Keo leaned lower, and whispered to the mare, “Let’s go, girl. We have to find out what happened. Martin might be in trouble. You wanna find out what happened to Martin, don’t you?”

That seemed to get the Morgan moving.

Slowly, but moving.

“This is such a bad idea,” Jackson said.

Keo sighed and thought, I have to know. God help me, I have to know.

Seventeen

He expected to find carnage. Bodies in the streets and bullet casings everywhere. Dead slayers lying among the ghouls that Martin’s people had piled up along the sidewalks outside the Deuces.

But there was none of that.

The nightcrawlers were still where Keo last saw them, but the horses were gone. Keo assumed the animals had gotten loose just as Martin’s had, but instead of heading down the street. they’d taken off in other directions. Either that, or they hadn’t made it, but Keo didn’t see any evidence to support that. If not obvious clues, then something.

But there was nothing.

Turn around. Head south. Go home.

Are you listening? Go home, you idiot.

Except he didn’t turn the mare around, and instead kept it moving steadily toward the bar.

“What are we doing?” Jackson asked from behind him.

Good question, Keo thought.

But he said, “They saved my life. I owe it to them to find out what happened.”

“I thought you wanted to get home.”

“I do.”

“So why aren’t we going the other direction instead?”

Dammit, woman, stop asking such good questions!

Keo didn’t know how to answer her, so he didn’t. Thank God Jackson saw something else that got her attention.

“Is that…?” she said, pointing at the sign with the two clinking mugs that hung over the Deuces.

Double dammit. Forgot about that.

He’d been hoping to avoid this conversation—and the entire topic of Carter—but there it was. On the plus side, at least it took her mind off the other thing that he didn’t have any answers for.

Keo nodded. “You recognize it?”

“Is it the same one?”

“Yes. And you were right. That’s the bar where Carter was being kept.”

“Wait. Carter’s in there?”

“She’s gone, Jackson.”

“Gone? Gone how?”

“She was killed during the slayer attack on the town. I wanted to wait until we were out of the city to tell you. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, no. That poor kid.”

Keo waited for Jackson to ask for more information about Carter’s death, but she never did. Maybe, like him and Liz, Jackson would rather not know all the grisly details. But if she had, he’d already decided some white lies would be in order. It would have been all for the teenager’s benefit. Or, at least, that’s what he told himself.

He stopped the mare about four buildings down from the bar and climbed off. “Stay here.”

“Stay where?” Jackson asked.

“On the horse.” He handed the reins to her. “If anything happens, take off.”

“Without you?”

“Yes.”

“And go where? You said it yourself: The last thing I want to be doing is going out there by myself before morning.”

“If something happens to me, then anywhere will be better than here.” He unslung the MP5. “Head south and you’ll come to a two-lane interstate. Keep following it southwest. Eventually you’ll see a town called Longmire. About two miles west of that will be a ranch. You can’t miss it. It’ll be the only thing that’s still alive all the way out there.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“Just in case,” Keo repeated, because he thought she already knew the answer but just didn’t want to accept it. “Don’t wait for me. Just go. And make sure that pack goes with you to the ranch. Do not leave it behind, do you understand? It’s vital that it gets to the ranch. Ask for Bunker or Lara, and tell them it’s from me.”

Jackson nodded mutely, but he could see the fear on her face and a hundred more questions in her eyes. But she kept quiet, and Keo was glad for that. He didn’t like talking as if he wasn’t going to make it back to Lara, but like he’d told Jackson, just in case.

He turned and focused on the bar.

The street sign where the horses had been tied up to earlier was bent at an obvious angle, and the rectangular metal piece that denoted the street name was on the ground a few feet away. That was how the mare had gotten loose—it, along with the other animals, had not just bent the pole but had snapped the sign off and were able to slide their reins free. He didn’t see any horse corpses in the area or on the way here, so that meant the others had all managed to escape as well.

The mare shuffled its feet and let out a small snicker, as if in warning, as Keo walked past it.

Smart horse. It doesn’t want to be here.

Wish I was as smart as a horse.

Keo glanced back at Jackson. “Remember what I said.”

“Be careful,” Jackson said, both fists gripping the reins tightly. She looked like she was about to take off at any second. Both her and the horse.

Keo continued up the sidewalk toward the Deuces.

The door was wide open and the windows were just as broken as before, with shattered glass scattered across the sidewalks and parts of the street. He could make out LED glows coming from within the establishment, and as he neared, was able to see inside through the nearest window.

The exterior might have looked the same as when he was last here, but the interior was a different story. The place was trashed. Tables were overturned and chairs scattered. The slayers were also missing. There was no Jack, or Merrifield, or McBroom. They’d simply vanished. He had a feeling that they hadn’t gone voluntarily, if the mess inside was any indication.

He went around the dead ghouls piled on the sidewalk and stopped at the door before looking back at Jackson again. The girl remained seated on the mare, staring back at him with a look of confusion on her face. Maybe she just couldn’t wrap her mind around what they were doing here or why. The horse gave Keo a similar questionable gaze.

He turned and stepped through the door before he could change his mind, the MP5 leading the way.

The Deuces was as empty inside as it’d looked from the window. Jack wasn’t at the bar, and Merrifield and McBroom were nowhere to be found. Rondo, who had been snoring away in the corner on the makeshift bed, was similarly MIA. The portable LED lamps were on the floor, their lights spilling across random parts of the bar. Something had knocked them from their original perches.

The pile of weapons and supplies that Keo had helped himself to earlier wasn’t on the pool table in the corner anymore. They were scattered across the floor. Guns, along with boxes of ammo and packs. He’d have to get closer to know for sure if anyone had taken anything, but there were an awful lot of weapons still down there.

Clink! as Keo’s boot kicked something on the floor.

A machete skidding away, the blade gleaming as the knife spun into a pool of LED light.

There, another knife. This one was next to one of the overturned tables. A KA-BAR similar to his own, but this one had duct tape over the handle. The blade was whistle clean, so whoever had lost it hadn’t managed to draw blood. Ghoul’s or human’s.

There were bullet scars across some of the furniture and walls, but those had been put there during the initial assault on the town by Martin’s group. Besides, if anyone had gotten off a shot, Keo would have heard it. Even with suppressors, the rifles would have made some noise, especially considering how dead Paxton had been for the last hour or so.

So what did all this mean? A lot of things, and none of them good. None of them even remotely good.

“What are we doing?” Jackson had asked.

It was a damn good question then, and it was an even better good question now.

Remember what Lara said? About not meandering? Yeah, I think this qualifies as meandering.

Keo looked across the Deuces at the back hallway. As luck would have it, (Shitty luck, anyway.) none of the fallen lamps were casting a single light in that direction, so all he could see was…

Nothing.

A big, fat nothing.

There could have been a single ghoul in there or a million of them, just waiting for him to get closer before they poured out. It was all the more reason for him to turn around immediately and get out of there.

“What are we doing?” Jackson had asked.

I have no idea, Keo thought as he relaxed his grip on the MP5 and sent the command from his brain to his legs to turn around.

“You!” a voice shouted just before a hulking form lumbered out of the shadows that filled the back hallway.

Stray streaks of moonlight revealed silver-coated spikes welded onto smooth metal surfaces, followed by the sausage-like hands clutching them. The black fabric of a trench coat came next, then the man himself.

“It’s you!” the figure said, the shout turning into a partial grunt.

Me? Keo thought even as he took a couple of steps back.

It was Rondo.

And he was pissed.

“I’m going to kill you!” the slayer roared.

The sledgehammer in Rondo’s hands was impossible to miss, but it was his face that really drew Keo’s focus. It was flushed red and twisted into something that almost looked like a permanent scowl. The eyes were wide and wild and out of control, and they were zeroed in on Keo.

Keo saw nothing but bad intentions in them.

“Whoa, whoa,” Keo said as he took even more steps back. By now he was already halfway to the wide-open door behind him. “No one’s killing anyone here tonight!” Then, when that didn’t seem to have any effect, he shouted even louder, “Rondo! Hey, Rondo!”

The man stopped his charge suddenly, and Keo saw confusion flicker across the reddened face. For a heartbeat or two, Keo thought he’d gotten through to the slayer.

He was wrong.

The momentary distraction was just that, and before Keo could say anything else to calm the situation down, Rondo was moving, then running. His boots pounded against the floor, his face contorting even further into something that didn’t even look human. But he was still very much human. Wasn’t he?

As Rondo got closer, Keo glimpsed blood—dark black and some red—on the front of Rondo’s clothes. They looked pretty fresh, too.

“Rondo!” Keo got out just before the big man was nearly on top of him, both arms cocking back the sledgehammer for a sideways blow.

Don’t let it hit you. Don’t let it hit you!

The hammer was already capable of tremendous damage and that wasn’t even counting the addition of spikes. Not that Keo stood still and found out just how much of a mess Rondo could do to the human body with his weapon of choice.

He ducked, then heard as well as felt the whoosh! as the sledgehammer sliced through the air above his head. Instead of springing right back up to his feet, Keo dived to the side to get as far away from the slayer as possible.

Somehow, Rondo proved to be more fluid now than he’d been when they first met inside the basement, and quickly righted himself. The sledgehammer was already moving back around for a second stab at Keo’s head.

Keo scrambled away as the big man destroyed one of the few tables still standing in the Deuces with a swing. Slivers of hard wood bounced off walls and floors, and more than a few spikes pelted Keo in the back of the legs as he dashed away from the madman.

Because that was Rondo right now. Mad. Keo had no delusions he was going to be able to reason with the slayer. At least not in his current state. But if he could calm him down, get him talking…

You’ll need to stay alive to do that, pal!

Keo stumbled over a large glass pitcher on the floor and almost lost his footing but got it back just before he ran into a wall. He was glad he didn’t have the heavy tactical pack on, because the extra weight would have cut into his agility and balance. He stuck out both hands to prevent the collision. It worked, but it also sent a fresh jolt of pain through his left shoulder.

He pushed off the wall half a second later, the part of his mind keeping count of how many seconds he had left before Rondo caught up to him shouting, Move move move! Move faster! Faster!

He didn’t look back to see if Rondo was back there. He knew Rondo was back there. All he had to do was listen to the heavy and almost animalistic grunting exploding behind him.

Keo ran alongside the wall, making a beeline for the bar counter nearby.

It would have been easy to stop Rondo. All Keo had to do was shoot him with the MP5. Two rounds in the chest. Or, if that didn’t work, four rounds. And if that didn’t work, well, he had plenty of bullets until he got the desired outcome.

But he didn’t do that, because Rondo was clearly not himself. Something had happened when Keo wasn’t here, something that had involved Jack, McBroom, and Merrifield. For all Keo knew, those three men were dead and Rondo had woken up to find the place empty. Or maybe, given his current state, the slayer had been conscious when it happened but somehow managed to stay alive when the others didn’t. That was definitely fresh blood on his clothes.

So why was he attacking Keo so fervently? That was the part that didn’t make any sense. Keo looked nothing like a ghoul. So why—

Then it occurred to him:

He doesn’t know me! The last time he saw me was in the basement and we were trying to kill each other!

Keo put even more distance between him and the slayer. He needed time to get the big man to see reason. The logical part of him didn’t blame Rondo for trying to kill him. After all, he did stab the guy in the back with a KA-BAR. That was liable to put a crimp in any potential friendship the two of them might have developed. So Keo thought he owed the big man the benefit of the doubt as long as it didn’t kill him trying to do so.

He had gotten behind the bar when Rondo finally caught up to him, but instead of following Keo directly, the slayer attempted to get at him over the counter.

Smash! as the sledgehammer pulverized a section of the heavy countertop and splintered it, sending half of the glasses that were underneath the bar to the floor in showers of glass. The countertop itself stayed intact somehow.

But for how long?

“Rondo!” Keo shouted, trying to get through whatever blood haze the slayer was under. “I’m not your enemy! Stop it!”

“Kill you!” Rondo shouted. “Kill you good!”

Rondo started moving along the length of the bar, and Keo knew he was trying to get around it. He let Rondo do just that, but was mentally preparing himself to hop over the counter at the same time. It wasn’t going to be easy, but he thought he could pull it off. Or he hoped he could, anyway.

“What happened to Jack?” Keo said. “Where’s McBroom and Merrifield? Rondo! What happened to Jack?”

Rondo slowed down until he’d stopped completely. And again, that look of confusion flashed across his face, momentarily overcoming the rage. “What did you say?”

“Jack!” Keo said. “What happened to Jack?”

Jack’s name had clearly struck a chord with Rondo, and Keo thought, Why the hell didn’t I try that first?

“Jack?” Rondo said. That perplexed look on his face had deepened, and Keo knew he was on the right track.

“Yes, Jack,” Keo said. “What hap—”

Bang! as a gunshot rang out, and the slayer’s body jerked.

No, no! I was so close!

Rondo had been shot, but he didn’t go down. Instead, the slayer slowly turned until he was facing the door. Keo had to lean around Rondo to see who the big man was looking at.

Jackson, standing just inside the Deuces, the Glock in her hands. She had shot Rondo. Keo could see the bullet hole in Rondo’s trench coat as impossibly small trails of blood dripped out of it. Was Rondo even hurt? Or was he just annoyed? Keo had to remember he’d put half of his KA-BAR into the slayer and the man was still standing.

“Jackson, don’t!” Keo shouted. “Don’t shoot!”

But it was too late, because whatever calmness Keo had seen on Rondo’s face with the mention of Jack’s name was gone. Keo didn’t actually need to see Rondo’s face to know that, because the big man let out a massive roar and charged at Jackson, his sledgehammer cocking above his head.

“Don’t shoot, Jackson! Don’t shoot!” Keo shouted.

Jackson may or may not have heard him, but he couldn’t blame her for only concentrating on the massive human being with the spiked sledgehammer running full speed at her.

She fired again.

Then again.

And again.

It took four shots—including one that punched through the slayer’s forehead and out the back, sending a shower of brains to the floor—before Rondo dropped the sledgehammer and simply fell.

Daebak, Keo thought as he leaned back against the battered counter and let out a tired, regretful sigh.

Eighteen

“I had no choice.”

“I know.”

“I thought he was going to kill you.”

“I know, Jackson.”

“I didn’t have a choice. Right?”

Keo glanced up at her. “I’m probably alive because of you.”

That may or may not have been true, but Keo had said it as convincingly as possible. Jackson nodded back, but he couldn’t be sure if she completely bought it.

He looked back at Rondo’s body, sprawled on the floor. Blood pooled underneath his large frame, though most of it was being soaked up by the fabric of his thick trench coat. The rounds in his chest hadn’t stopped him, but the one that struck his face had. Keo wasn’t sure if Jackson was aiming for the head, but the results were the same nonetheless.

“God, I think I’m going to be sick,” Jackson said. She took a couple of steps back and bumped into an overturned table.

“Sit down, Jackson.”

“I’m all right.”

“Sit down, before you throw up on me a second time.”

She picked up one of the fallen chairs and sat down on it. The Glock was still in her hand, and she rested it in her lap instead of putting it away. Keo didn’t ask, but he had the feeling this was the first time she’d ever killed another human being. He’d seen that look before: The shock and realization that they’d taken another life. The first time always left a mark. He had no doubts Jackson had killed plenty of ghouls, but you could almost dismiss that as putting them down—a mercy killing—whereas it was harder to justify ending another person’s life.

Keo turned Rondo’s head slightly to the side, just enough to confirm the bullet hole above the bridge of his nose. There were no fresh bite marks on Rondo’s neck or anywhere else on the exposed parts of his body, so he hadn’t been bitten. That didn’t explain the blood on his clothes, though. Not all of them had come from Jackson’s bullets.

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

Keo stood up. “I don’t know.”

“We should leave. We should just get the hell out of Paxton now, Keo. Now.”

He didn’t answer her for a moment, and instead looked toward the back hallway. Rondo had come out of there, which was ironic because the first time they’d met, the slayer was headed inside. What was he doing in there? Maybe he’d woken up and found himself alone, saw the same things Keo did—signs of a fight—and went looking for his friends. Maybe he was doing exactly just that when Keo came in and interrupted his search.

“Keo?” Jackson said. “We should go, right?” Then, when he didn’t answer her fast enough (which was about a second and a half of silence): “Can we go? Now? Please?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Let’s get out of here.”

Jackson stood up and put the Glock away. She looked down at Rondo’s body. “What about him?”

“I don’t think we can do anything for him.”

“No, I mean, do we just…leave him like that?”

Keo wasn’t sure what she was asking, and it must have shown on his face.

“Paxton might not be completely empty,” Jackson said. “If they find him in here, like this…”

Ah, now he understood.

Keo shook his head. “He’s dead. I don’t think he’ll care what happens to his corpse. If we leave now, we can reach the ranch before daybreak.”

* * *

“No meandering. Get there, get what you need, and come home. Got it?”

I’m definitely not meandering, Lara.

At least, he wasn’t anymore. Maybe he had been the last couple of hours, but Keo decided he wasn’t going to let her know that. Unless, of course, it accidentally slipped out. Secrets tended to do that when he was around her.

Jackson was more than happy to climb back onto Martin’s mare and let Keo guide them out of Paxton. They had taken some bullets and supplies—emergency kits and MREs, along with canteens of water—and tossed the saddles over the horse. There was a heavy duffel bag that Keo didn’t open the first time, with blocks of C4 inside, along with a detonator and cord. Keo had no idea what the slayers would need something like that for, but he certainly didn’t need them.

They took only what they needed. Too much, and it would just slow them down. Besides, his goal wasn’t to last a week out here; it was to get back to the ranch as soon as possible, and he could achieve that by morning if he didn’t “meander” anymore along the way.

No meandering. Definitely no more meandering.

Jackson didn’t say a word as they rode at a not-fast-but-not-slow-either pace toward the south end of town. The only sounds he could hear were the clop-clop-clop of the horse’s shod feet on the hard concrete floor. Despite the lack of activity around them, Keo couldn’t shake the feeling they were being watched. It was an unsettling sensation, but after everything that had happened…

It can’t be this easy.

Can it?

Why not? If anyone was due for “easy,” it was him, especially after the long day he’d had. It felt even longer because he was so, so close to home. Paxton had become truly a pain in the ass, and Keo thought about coming back here later and razing the place to the ground.

That’ll teach this fucking town to mess with me.

Dae-fucking-bak.

The cold wind slapped against his face, and he was glad he had a jacket on, even if it continued to be a tad too snug around the waist. Apparently, the previous owner was a thinner fellow. It was the first time Keo had actually thought about that. He wondered if the warm jacket, like the Ruger at his hip, belonged to the same person.

“We called him Billy the Kid,” Huston had said. “Because he carried that. You know, like the notorious Western outlaw?”

Huston. Shit. He’d forgotten all about her. Was she even still alive? Had Martin managed to find her? What happened to Jack and the others? Did Rondo have to die?

Goddammit, stop it. Put Paxton behind you. Go home.

Just go home!

The horse was a powerful Morgan and carried him and Jackson easily. Keo thought he should probably give the animal a name but decided against it. Better to let Bunker have that honor, since Keo was going to hand it over to the rancher anyway. It was the least he could do after getting Mirabelle killed. Keo planned on skipping all the gory details about the Appaloosa’s demise, if just for his own health.

There was more than enough moonlight to see the road ahead, along with the end of the city limits. It was twenty-something past midnight, the last time he checked. Keo didn’t bother getting a more specific time; twenty minutes or an hour didn’t matter anymore. Morning was coming, and by the time it did, he’d be back at the ranch.

Mission accomplished.

Even if it did, well, take more time than he’d anticipated.

Better late than never. Right, Lara?

The buildings around him were getting smaller and less cluttered as they left the town center behind. Apartments and multiple-story structures gave way to strip centers and the odd business. Paxton had a suburban area, but it was on the western edge; Keo had glimpsed the white picket fences and unmowed lawns as he rode through nine days ago in the daylight, but it was all hidden underneath the blanket of darkness tonight.

He was thinking about how dark it was out here when Keo shivered slightly. Was it just him, or had the temperature suddenly dropped a few more degrees? Maybe even the mare felt it, because it had picked up speed without prompting from Keo.

Then, out of the corner of his eyes, he glimpsed black shadows flitting across a narrow alleyway on his right side.

Dammit.

He guessed it was too much to hope he’d make it out of Paxton without having to kill something first. That was the problem with being hopeful; you always invariably end up disappointed.

Captain Optimism I’m not.

He had picked it up out of the corner of his eyes but didn’t turn his head to get a better look. It took everything he had to keep facing forward.

The edge of town. So close now.

Beyond that was the road.

And farther down was the ranch.

Close now. Very close. All he had to do was keep going.

Just keep going.

Don’t look! he told himself as silhouetted figures leaped across rooftops on his left side.

He didn’t look. He kept his eyes forward.

Eyes on the prize, pal! Eyes on the prize!

The mare had picked up even more speed.

It knows. Of course it knows.

I’m bringing you a really smart horse here, Bunker! Hope you appreciate it!

But, like Keo, the horse didn’t slow down or turn to look. It just kept going, knowing that it had to get out of Paxton.

“Keo…” Jackson whispered behind him.

“I know,” Keo said. “I know.”

“What are we gonna do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“We’re almost there.”

“What if—”

“We’re almost there,” he said again, before she could finish.

Jackson either sensed his urgency or was too scared to say anything else, because she kept quiet. Her arms spoke volumes by tightening further around his waist. If she kept that up, Keo wasn’t sure he was going to be able to breathe. It was already a bit hard now.

Another strip mall flashed by, forcing the shadows to his left to jump down onto the lower rooftops to keep up with their pace. The ones on his right were now moving along the sidewalks. They remained in the darkness, seemingly content to keep parallel to him; to keep him within striking distance.

They shouldn’t be doing that. They should be attacking right now. So why aren’t they?

Then: Because it is controlling them. It is telling them what to do.

Did that mean Martin and his group had failed? And if so, what about Huston’s fate? Was she dead? Were all of them dead?

But more importantly, if the slayers were gone, then it was still out there.

A slight shiver raced up and down his spine.

“Jackson,” Keo said.

“Yes?” Jackson said. He heard the fear in her voice even through the wind blasting in his ears.

“Whatever happens, stay on the horse.”

“What?”

“Head southwest, just like I told you, until you reach the ranch. And whatever you do, don’t lose the pack. Do you understand?”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Just in case.”

“Just in case of what?”

“Just in case of anything!”

“Oh God.”

Yeah, that sounds about right.

He wasn’t sure if she understood or not, because Keo wasn’t sure he did. He just knew he couldn’t lose the pack, not this close to the ranch. Lara needed it. All of this would be for nothing if she didn’t get what was inside it.

“Keo, they’re not attacking,” Jackson said, her voice almost breathless. “Why aren’t they attacking?”

Because it’s here. The fucker is probably watching us now.

So what’s it waiting for?

The creatures continued to shadow them, racing up and over buildings and darting around trash cans and parked vehicles. Keo continued not to look, so he didn’t know how many of them there were. A part of him didn’t want to know, and the other part was afraid to take his eyes off the road in fear of losing sight of it. Maybe it was silly to think the road could just vanish if he glanced away for even a second, but what the hell, he wasn’t taking any chances tonight.

Too close. I’m too close to home!

He couldn’t look—he didn’t want to look—but Jackson didn’t have that issue. Keo didn’t even have to see her looking to know that she was.

“How many?” Keo asked.

“Too many,” Jackson said.

Keo wanted to laugh. That was always the right answer. There was always too many of the damn things. Even now, years after The Walk Out, there was still too many of them out here. It was times like these that Keo wished there were more slayers, people like Martin, to thin the herd further.

Martin…

Again, Keo thought about Martin. He couldn’t help it. His mind wouldn’t allow him to tune it out completely.

The slayer was probably dead.

Just like Jack and McBroom and Merrifield were probably dead.

And Rondo was definitely dead.

And Huston...

You didn’t fuck with the blue eyes. Martin thought he was hunting the creature, but Keo wouldn’t be surprised to learn it was always the other way around.

It likes to play games. Martin knew that…and he still fell for it.

And if a battle-hardened veteran like Martin couldn’t survive a blue eyes, with plenty of men behind him, how was Keo going to? All he had was a horse and Jackson.

“Are you giving up?” he imagined Lara asking him. “Well? Are you?”

Hell no.

“So stop thinking, and get the hell back to the ranch! As in now, mister!”

Yes, ma’am. That’s exactly—

Oh…

It was here.

…God…

In the road.

…damn…

He’d been waiting and waiting for it, and now it was here.

…it!

They were far enough away from it—Fifty meters? More?—that he might have not seen the creature at all if its eyes weren’t glowing so bright that they looked like twin stars pulsating in a vast sea of empty space.

The horse let out a loud whinny, and Keo thought, Yeah, buddy, I see it, too. I see it, too!

Keo leaned forward to pat the horse on the side of its neck, below the mane. “Don’t stop. You hear me? Don’t stop!”

The mare reacted with confusion for a moment, but that quickly turned to understanding, because they began to pick up speed.

“Keo, what are you doing?” Jackson shouted. She may or may not have seen the ghoul in front of them.

“Remember what I said!” he shouted back. “If anything happens, head southwest along the interstate! Find Longmire! Find the ranch!”

“I’m not doing this alone!”

“Just remember what I said!”

“I—” Then, “Oh, my God! What are you doing? Can’t you see it? Can’t you see it?”

Jackson had finally spotted it, so Keo guessed she hadn’t seen the thing before. The blue eyes were glowing so bright he imagined them being doused with Super-LumiNova.

He remembered what Martin had told him:

“I almost got through its skull with this,” the slayer had said, indicating his machete. “Another inch, and it would have been over.”

Damn you, Martin, why couldn’t you have taken this thing out when you had the chance?

Another inch, and I wouldn’t be here, about to go mano-a-mano with it.

Another inch, and you might not be dead in a tunnel underneath an abandoned city.

Another inch, and—

“Keo!” Jackson shouted, her voice beyond hysterical now. He couldn’t blame her, either. “Stop it! What are you doing? You’re running right at it!”

He hadn’t responded, because he was too busy gripping the reins with one hand and unslinging the MP5 with the other. He took aim, using those glowing eyes as a point of reference.

Before he could pull the trigger, the targets seemed to fade…

…and fade some more, until…

They blinked out of existence.

What the fuck?

It was gone. How the hell had it just disappeared like that?

“Where did it go? Where did it go?” Jackson shouted, echoing his thoughts. “Do you see it? Do you still see it?”

“No!” Keo shouted back.

“I can’t find it,” Jackson said. “I can’t—” She stopped for just a heartbeat before shouting, even louder (if that was possible), “Keo!” and pointing.

Fast-moving silhouettes were running out of an empty field on their left side.

About damn time.

The ghouls were finally making their move, and Keo finally glanced over.

They had left the bulk of Paxton behind, and there were rolling hills in the background, their humps reminiscent of resting camels. But all Keo could focus on were the glimmers of moonlight dancing off domed heads and pruned black skin. If his ears weren’t filled with air and his own pounding heartbeat, he could probably hear spit coming out of their mouths in rivers as they closed in for the kill.

He glanced right.

There were a cluster of buildings on this side, and little else. More fast-moving shadows were racing over and around automobiles parked inside a used car lot. Colorful ribbons that once broadcasted LIMITED TIME SALE! BUY NOW! lay trampled on the ground as the creatures made their way across the gravel floor.

There wasn’t the endless wave of ghouls that he was expecting. Instead, there were only a dozen or so on either side of him and Jackson. Where did the rest go? Or did he have the slayers to thank for thinning their numbers so dramatically? Were these all the blue eyes had in reserve?

But it wasn’t these small count of ghouls that was his primary concern. It was the blue-eyed bastard. It was still out there, somewhere.

Where are you, you fucker? Show yourself so I can put a bullet in your brain!

“Keo!” Jackson shouted.

“I see them!” Keo said just before he flicked the fire selector on the MP5 and pulled the trigger.

He hated to waste so many bullets with one pull, but he wasn’t in a position to pick off the ghouls one by one with semiautomatic gunfire. The mare was moving too fast, as were the creatures.

He glimpsed three running forms tripping on nothing and going down to his right. Not all of them, because Keo could glimpse the still-upright ones continuing their pursuit out of the corner of his eye.

They had all but left Paxton behind now, and the road had gone from hard concrete to asphalt blacktop. Keo could hear the difference in the way the horseshoes struck the pavement, but even that was suddenly lost against the whirring of the MP5’s parts as Keo raked the left side with a burst.

More ghouls “tripped” and fell as 9mm rounds tipped with silver ripped into them. As with the ones on his left, that didn’t stop the rest from continuing their pursuit.

Manageable numbers. Very manageable numbers!

Keo would have kept firing, except they were too far ahead of the remaining creatures now, with nothing but open road in front of them. Besides, the submachine gun was feeling very light in his hands.

“Jackson!” Keo shouted.

“What?” Jackson shouted back.

“Take the reins!”

“What?”

“Take the reins! I need to reload!”

He passed the reins back to her. Jackson missed them the first time but got them on the second try.

Keo ejected the magazine from the MP5, then grabbed a spare from his pouch. He slipped it in and was in the process of smacking the bolt into place when Jackson jerked on the reins and shouted, “Keo!”

“What?” he was going to say but never got the chance, because it was suddenly there, standing in the middle of the blacktop in front of them.

Five meters!

Four!

Three!

The horse tried to slow down.

Tried.

Keo wasn’t entirely sure what happened, but one second he was in the saddle and the next he was flying through the air and a field of swaying grass, impossibly green even underneath the moonlight, was coming toward his face at blazing speeds.

He landed chest first, and the pain was immense. His entire body shook for what seemed like an eternity afterward, but it was probably just a matter of seconds.

Get up, you idiot.

The entire left side of his body was screaming, as were parts of his right.

Get up, now.

The backpack. Where was the backpack? Jesus Christ, he hoped he didn’t lose the backpack. Lara needed it.

Get up!

Jackson had the pack. Which meant he had to find Jackson. If he couldn’t make it back to the ranch, then she had to. One of them had to.

Are you listening to me?

Get your ass up NOW!

NOW NOW FUCKING NOW!

Nineteen

He got up.

He didn’t know how, but he got up.

Or, more precisely, he managed to make it up to his knees as his eyes frantically searched the field of grass for the submachine gun, because it wasn’t in his hands anymore.

You lost it. How could you lose it?

He didn’t know how, but he had to find it again.

He looked left, right, behind him—

There!

Oh God, thank you, thank you, I promise never to do another evil thing ever again! Praise Jesus!

The MP5 wasn’t quite lost among the waist-high grass a few feet in front of him. Fortunately, it was close, because if it’d been just another foot away, he might not have been able to locate it in all that weed with so little light to see with.

He grabbed for it, even as he heard the loud whinny of a horse from behind him and looked up and over.

Martin’s mare was lying on the road, trying desperately to raise its head. It got up a few inches before falling back down. The horse stopped moving entirely after that. Keo hadn’t seen how badly it was wounded or couldn’t even recall how the creature had stopped the horse so easily. Was the animal dead? He hoped not. He didn’t like his or Jackson’s chances of getting out of this on foot.

The supply bags were spilled across the road, but Keo didn’t care about any of them right now. The MREs inside weren’t going to do him a bit of good if he didn’t survive tonight. Or the next few minutes. Besides, all he had to do was get home. That was it. Get home, and everything he’d need would be there.

Get home. Just get home…

He struggled up to his feet, both legs so wobbly he wasn’t sure if they were still intact. He risked a quick glance.

Yup. He still had legs. Whoopity doo.

Movement from behind him!

He spun and raked the air with a burst of the MP5, falling creatures as they raced toward him. They collapsed and vanished into the tall grass that flanked both sides of the country road like sentries.

He didn’t get all of them with the first sweep but took care of the remaining two on the follow-through.

Unfortunately, he’d fired almost entirely on instinct and hadn’t thought about how fast an MP5 could empty if you weren’t careful with the trigger. By the time the last ghoul collapsed against the silver bullets and he couldn’t locate it among the grass, the submachine gun was feeling hopelessly light in his hands once again.

Keo scrambled to reload, reaching for the final magazine even as he whirled back toward the road.

The blue eyes. Where’s the blue eyes?

Then:

Jackson. Where’s Jackson? She has the pack! I need that pack! Lara needs it!

But he couldn’t find Jackson among the grass on his side of the road or the other—

“Keo?” a voice called out.

Jackson!

He ran back to the road, forcing his legs to move even though doing so sent an incredible amount of pain shooting through both limbs and into every one of his appendages, including the fingers that were busy reloading the submachine gun and slapping the charging handle into place. Keo didn’t even have to look to perform the action; he and the H&K line of guns were old friends.

“Jackson!” he shouted. “Jackson! Where are you? Jackson!”

“Keo!” a voice responded. “Over here!”

This time he was able to trace it to the other side of the road. Close by!

Keo hopped out of the field and onto the blacktop—

—then he was in the air again, flying in one direction while the MP5 went in the other.

Christ! his mind screamed as he landed on the hard pavement on his back, more pain lancing through his body. He was pretty sure that the pickup truck that had just broadsided him might have bruised more than a couple of ribs, if not broken them.

Get up!

He couldn’t get up. It hurt too much.

No time to lick your wounds, pal!

He just needed to stay down for a minute or two. Just lie on the road and catch his breath.

Get up!

Just one minute. Okay, half a minute. Ten seconds…

Get the hell up now, or you’re dead!

He got up for the second time, even if he did stagger sideways, then back and forth like some drunk trying to make his way home after a long bout of drinking. The ground had gone uneven, and the earth was spinning erratically.

The same voice that had been urging him on all night shouted, Get control. Get control now, and focus!

That was easier said than done, but he managed it.

Somehow.

Eventually.

He wasn’t sure how long it took. Maybe a second. Maybe five. Maybe an hour?

No, not an hour. He’d be dead if it’d taken an hour.

He’d be dead…

The bang-bang-bang! of gunfire snapped him out of his stupor. Someone was firing, but not at him.

At what, then? And who was doing the shooting?

A dark brown shape emerged out of the blurry shadows in front of him. A black-clad figure. For a second, Keo thought it was one of Martin’s slayers. It was wearing a trench coat, the kind that the slayers had worn all night, except…

The head. It was domed and hairless and black. Deep, dark black, like the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

The ghoul.

The blue-eyed ghoul.

It was wearing clothes for some reason, though it had rid itself of the mask from when Keo first saw it back at the Deuces.

His mind flashed back to that conversation with Martin:

“It was wearing some kind of mask,” Keo had said. “That’s a first. They don’t usually wear masks. Or anything.”

“This one does,” Martin had said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It just does.”

“You don’t think that’s a little odd?”

“I don’t think much about it at all. And right now, all I care about is getting Huston back.”

Somehow, Keo didn’t think Martin had achieved that task. If he had, the blue-eyed ghoul wouldn’t be here, now, on the road out of Paxton with Keo.

You fucked up again, didn’t you, Martin? Jesus Christ. If I ever need a slayer that can’t slay, I’ll know who to call!

Keo focused on the ghoul now.

How had he not seen it before now? It’d clearly been moving toward him when the shooting began, and now the creature was turning, its body snapping left and right as rounds buzzed its thin frame. One of those bullets came dangerously close to taking Keo’s ear off, the heat of the silver-tipped 9mm leaving a trail across his right cheek.

“Hey, watch where you’re shooting!” he wanted to shout but couldn’t get his mouth to work.

His eyes were glued on the thick fabric of the trench coat as it fluttered like a cape—an ugly, filth-covered cape—before him. Where the hell had the ghoul gotten something like that? Why was it even wearing it? Ghouls didn’t wear clothes.

“This one does,” Martin had said.

Yeah, I guess this one does do that.

This one wasn’t like all the other blue eyes Keo had met, and that made it vastly more unpredictable. But despite that, it was still just going to take one bullet in the head to finish it off.

Which was exactly what Jackson was trying to do as she stood in the field, firing at the creature with her Glock. She had the gun in both hands and was pulling the trigger steadily. One shot after another, after another. To look at her, Keo would believe this was just shooting practice, that there wasn’t a blue-eyed devil glaring at her, daring her to hit it.

Bang-bang-bang!

She was trying, and it was walking toward her. Not exactly slowly, but not quickly, either. As if it wanted her to know there was nothing she could do to stop it from reaching her. The creature twisted and turned and jerked its body or its head—sometimes both—to evade every gunshot. Jackson was shooting for its head because she knew that was the only way to stop a blue-eyed ghoul.

Bang!

It kept walking toward her.

Bang!

Closer.

Bang!

Closer still…

Jackson hadn’t missed completely. Keo could see a hole in the back of the creature’s coat and drips of black blood running down the length of it. But it wasn’t a killing shot. You needed a head shot for that.

It was still moving torturously slow toward Jackson when Keo reached for his Ruger.

Except it wasn’t there.

No, no, no…

He’d lost it. How? When?

Fuck!

Jackson stopped shooting, and when Keo looked over, saw her reaching for a spare magazine—and finding nothing. She was either out, or she’d lost the spares when she was thrown off the horse.

That’s not good.

Nope, that’s not good at all.

Keo wasn’t sure when he made up his mind, but suddenly he was running at the creature even as he slid the KA-BAR out of its sheath. He didn’t need the silver along the knife’s blade to cut the thing’s head from its bony frame. That was all it was going to take. If you couldn’t get a blue eyes in the head, decapitating it was just as good.

All Keo had to do was get close enough.

Get close enough!

It turned around, and the worms that occupied the lower half of its face slithered around until they formed a smirk.

There goes the element of surprise!

But Keo didn’t slow down and lunged at it, cocking back his right arm to plunge the knife down into its chest. He would have gone for the head, but it was too long and thin and he was afraid he’d miss. His eyes were still having trouble adjusting, and he didn’t completely trust all of his senses.

Not that choosing the bigger target did him any good, because the ghoul simply reached up and snatched Keo in the face with its left palm. A bucket of ice water swallowed Keo’s entire head whole, but he somehow managed to push through it anyway—pushed and pushed and pushed!—and followed through with his swing.

But instead of its chest, he plunged the blade into the side of the creature’s throat!

The KA-BAR sank in deep, and the undead thing reflexively let go of Keo’s face. It stumbled back, groping at the handle of the knife jutting out of its neck. Its ugly face (You ugly motherfucker!) contorted and cringed, and Keo knew he’d hurt it. The ghoul wouldn’t die, but he’d hurt it.

He’d hurt it bad.

There was sudden movement in the road behind the ghoul.

Are you kidding me? Keo thought as Martin’s mare suddenly popped back up to its feet as if nothing had happened.

…Or it’d been playing possum this whole time and was finally springing its surprise.

Jesus, it really is smarter than me.

“Keo!” Jackson shouted even as she ran out of the field and onto the road. She was going for the horse, which was about to take off when Jackson grabbed its flailing reins. “Keo, come on!”

“Come on?” Keo thought before it struck him that Jackson expected him to make it past the ghoul and for them to climb onto the Morgan and take off together. She was being very optimistic, apparently.

The blue eyes was hurt, but it wasn’t dead. If anything, stabbing it in the throat had only pissed it off. Keo could see it in its eyes as it glared at him while it slowly, oh so slowly pulled the knife out of its neck. The long, sharp blade came out with a sickening pop!, and a gush of black blood spurted out of the gash.

The creature smirked at Keo, as if to say, Now I’m really going to fucking kill you, even as behind it Jackson swung into the saddle and whirled the horse around, still trying desperately to get control of it. The mare wanted to take off right now, but Jackson was succeeding in holding her back, if just barely.

Keo had to admit, he was impressed with the kid. When he’d first met her, she’d been just a subordinate to Liz and Sharon, and maybe that was why he hadn’t thought much of her abilities. But out here, in the middle of this countryside road with a blue-eyed ghoul, Jackson had shown her mettle.

And she still had the pack on her. His bag.

Lara’s bag.

“Keo, come on!” Jackson shouted. “Come on!”

Keo shook his head and shouted back, “Go!”

Jackson gave him a confused look.

“Go!” Keo shouted. “Remember what I told you!”

Finally understanding, Jackson opened her mouth to answer, when the ghoul spun and Keo’s KA-BAR flashed through the air. Keo managed an incoherent shout just before the knife struck Jackson in the right shoulder. She screamed and almost fell off the horse, but thank God she had the reins wrapped so tightly around both hands that she was able to hang on.

NO!

It took only a second—maybe not even that; maybe half a heartbeat—for Keo to make up his mind. He reached behind him and grabbed the folding knife out of his back pocket. His backup blade. He didn’t really like using it. Compared to the KA-BAR, it might as well be a kid’s toy.

He flicked open the three-inch serrated blade.

The creature must have heard the very quiet click! that the blade made as it came out, because it turned to look back at him, and something that reminded Keo of an amused smirk flickered across its face.

Keo ignored it and shouted at Jackson, “Go! Now!”

Jackson was almost lying on top of the mare as she struggled to simultaneously hold on and glance back at him. It didn’t help that the horse was struggling underneath her, clearly sensing the urgency of the moment. Jackson’s face was a mask of pain, the KA-BAR sticking out of her shoulder.

He wasn’t sure if Jackson was the one who decided to take off or if it was the horse. One of them did—or maybe both—because the mare turned and fled up the road, with Jackson holding on for dear life.

The creature turned to look after Jackson, but it didn’t move to stop her.

“It’s her or me,” Keo said as he began walking toward it.

Blue eyes turned around to take him in. It did so casually, even as blood leaked out of the hole in its neck. The same hole that was already half-closed. It had happened so quickly, too. Keo wouldn’t be able to tell there was ever a wound there in another few minutes.

…But that was okay, as long as Keo could cut a bigger hole in its face.

“What’s it gonna be?” he asked as he continued walking toward it.

“You think you’ve saved her?” it hissed.

Keo’s skin pickled at the sound of its voice. Even the moonlight seemed to dim just a little bit more, hoping to avoid contact with the creature.

“You think she’s safe now?” it asked.

“She will be, when I gut you with this,” Keo said, holding up the knife. He couldn’t help but think how small it looked compared to the KA-BAR on the ground. Why did it have to be so small?

“You surprise me, meat,” it hissed. “I thought you would look for the doctor, or for the missing slayers.”

“Missing slayers?” Keo thought.

Then: It’s talking about Jack, McBroom, and Merrifield.

Why? Because it was responsible for them going “missing,” that’s why. Because everything that had happened at the Deuces was just another part of its game.

Fuck this thing and its games.

Fuck it right up the asshole.

Keo gripped the knife tighter as he made up more ground between them. He couldn’t see Jackson or the horse anymore, and that convinced him he’d done the right thing. Jackson would reach the ranch, and Lara would get what she needed. Even if he didn’t make it back, that was still a pretty good happy ending. Given all the shit he’d done in his life, “pretty good” was more than he could have hoped for.

Sorry I couldn’t make it home, Lara. I guess I meandered too much.

“You’re going to die,” the creature hissed. The wound in its neck had completely healed now. (Already?) “You know that, don’t you, meat?”

Keo didn’t answer. His close—and getting closer—proximity to the creature made his eyes sting and his nostrils twitch. That unnatural combination of heat and cold emanating from its flesh reached out across the small distance that now separated them and attempted to embrace Keo. He shivered.

“I have a counter proposal,” Keo said. Then, when it cocked its head in curiosity, “Why don’t I cut off your head instead, then do you the favor of burying your skinny bones in the fields so the crows can’t get at them. Sound good to you?”

It laughed.

Keo threw himself at the creature.

Second time’s the charm!

Except it wasn’t.

The fucker backhanded Keo in the chest as if he were an annoying gnat. He landed back somewhere in the field of grass for the second time that night. Fortunately, the shock of being bitch-slapped and tossed God only knew how far kept him from feeling the pain.

Mostly.

He stared up at the cloudless moonlit sky above him.

Get up! Get up!

This is no time to be lying down on the job, pal!

But before he could obey the voice, it was there.

It stood over him, skinny legs at both sides of him, and its head hovering five inches from his face. The worms that it was trying to pass off as lips creased into a Joker-like grin.

“Pathetic,” it hissed. “Did you really think this was a fight? You’re just my playthings, meat. You’re just my temporary cure against boredom.”

Keo imagined a hundred possible comebacks—some witty and others not so much—but before he could put any of them into words, the monster grabbed him by the throat. Impossibly cold fingers, like icicles, slid around his neck and tightened.

Slowly, he began to lose focus. Which was fine, because Keo didn’t like the idea of being so close to the creature anyway. So close, in fact, that he could see his own reflection in its eyes, and he had looked a lot better.

“I’m going to take everything from you,” it hissed. “Everything, and everyone. Including those at the ranch. Yes, I know about the ranch, meat. I know all about the ranch…”

Twenty

“Keo.”

Lara?

“Wake up.”

Lara, what are you doing here?

“Can you hear me?”

Why did you leave the ranch? Why did you come here?

“Hey, Keo.”

It’s not safe to be here. You have to go back. You have to go back to the ranch now.

“Wake up.”

Why did Bunker let you leave? That fucker. I’m going to kick—

“Wake up, Keo!”

He opened his eyes, but it wasn’t Lara hovering over him. It was a familiar face, though.

Huston. It was Huston. Her short blonde hair was covered in dirt and… Mud? Was that mud in her hair and speckled on both cheeks and forehead? Why was Huston covered in mud? Or maybe the better question was, how had he mistook her voice for Lara’s? They didn’t look anything alike, and they sounded nothing alike, either.

“Be careful,” Huston said as she helped him up into a sitting position.

The ground was wet underneath his ass, and the same mud that caked Huston’s face and hair was on the palm of his left hand as he lifted it up to rub his neck, spreading the wetness across his throat. Breathing was difficult for some reason, and it took a lot of effort to push air out of his lungs, up his trachea, and expel it.

“Easy,” Huston said. “Take it easy.”

He was using his left hand because his right was in some kind of sling made up of strips of cloth and a tattered T-shirt that was so old he thought it might tear if he put too much strain on it. Or even a little strain. He stared at the sling for a moment, trying to figure out how he’d gotten it on or why he needed one in the first place.

“Your shoulder was dislocated,” Huston said when she noticed where he was looking. “I had to pop it back in for you. The sling’s just a precaution. Does it hurt?”

Keo shook his head. “Not really,” he said. Or tried to. He barely got the words out because his throat was on fire and that attempt introduced pain all along the length of his clearly-bruised larynx.

They were sitting in some kind of dark room, but Huston was close enough that he could make out the worry on her face, and vice versa.

“What happened?” he tried to say but only ended up producing pathetic-sounding noises. He mouthed the words instead.

“‘What happened?’” Huston asked.

Keo nodded.

“It brought you here,” Huston said. “I saw that your shoulder was dislocated. Don’t move it if you don’t have to. There’s going to be some pain for a while.” Then, looking at him, “What did you do? Got into a fistfight with a blue-eyed ghoul?”

It wasn’t much of a fight, Keo thought but didn’t want to make the effort to say the words.

He kept his mouth shut and took in his new surroundings instead.

There was a reason it felt as if he were sitting in a swamp. The floor was concrete, but it was covered in a layer of overgrown moss and whatever else had managed to grow in the darkness between when this place was first constructed and shut down. Or maybe “shut down” wasn’t the right phrasing. Abandoned when the human race no longer needed it was probably the better way to put it.

“How’s your other shoulder?” Huston was asking him.

He looked back at her. His “other shoulder?”

“Jack shot you back at the Deuces, remember?” Huston said.

Oh, that.

“I checked it earlier,” Huston said. “It’s not bleeding again, so that’s good. I guess you’ve been shot before, huh?”

Too many times to count, unfortunately.

“Where are we?” Keo managed to squeak out.

“It’s a small section of an underground parking garage. It took me awhile to figure that out. I think there’s a mall above us, but I’m not sure. I haven’t been able to find a way up.”

He gave her a look that he hoped said, “Then how do you know there’s probably a mall up there?”, but for all he knew it probably came out as, “I think I need to go to the bathroom.”

Huston seemed to get the gist of his expression, though. “I found some signs pointing to exits that’re supposed to take you up to a mall. Signs, but I haven’t been able to find those exits yet.”

The fact that they were both sitting in pitch blackness was probably to blame for her lack of success. He might not have even been able to make out Huston if she wasn’t crouched so close to him and had blonde hair. For someone who Keo had last seen being taken away by a blue-eyed ghoul, the medic was in surprisingly good shape. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but this wasn’t it.

He got up to get a better look at their prison. Or attempted to, anyway. He almost keeled over, but Huston was there to grab him before he could fall flat on his face in the muddy waters that sloshed around his boots.

“Don’t try to move too fast,” Huston said. “You’ve been unconscious for almost three hours.”

Three hours? He’d been unconscious for three hours?

“I kept checking up on you, thinking you might have died on me while I waited for you to wake up,” Huston said. “Your breathing’s better. It was pretty ragged before. Were you having a nightmare?”

Was he? Keo couldn’t remember and shook his head.

“Who’s Lara?” Huston asked.

His eyes widened in surprise.

“You were talking in your sleep,” the medic said. “You kept mentioning someone named Lara.”

Keo shook his head, mouthed the word, “Later,” and took another long look around them while he steadied himself with Huston’s help.

Their surroundings didn’t look any better now that he was on his feet. Huston was right: they were in an underground parking garage of some kind. He could make out massive gray concrete columns holding up the ceiling. There was probably another level or two up there, and maybe more below.

He was glad he was still wearing boots, which prevented him from stepping on something other than puddles of water. His clothes were wet and covered in mud, and he had to pick cobwebs out of his hair. He wiped the strings and maybe a spider or two on his pants legs and sniffed the stale air. There was plenty of oxygen, so there had to be an opening somewhere.

Keo glanced down at his watch, but it was gone. Did the ghoul take his watch, too? It didn’t make any sense for the creature to have done that, but then what about tonight made any damn bit of sense?

What was that the ghoul had said to him back in the road?

“You’re just my playthings, meat. You’re just my temporary cure against boredom.”

You won’t be so bored when I shove a knife into your skull, you fucker.

He pointed at his sling hand, mouthing the words, “How did you make this?” at Huston.

“The sling?” the medic asked.

He nodded.

“I found clothes in another room,” Huston said. “I think they’re from people it brought here before us.” Before he could ask what had happened to those people, Huston said, “It’s just us down here now. Come on, I’ll show you.”

She led him through the dark, open space, the ground crunching wetly underneath them, like walking across a floor made of sponges. More intricate cobwebs dangled from the ceiling, trying to entangle his face. Keo swiped at them with his good hand. He hadn’t bothered to ask Huston about weapons. She didn’t have any on her, and neither did he.

It was hard to get a good sense of how big the room was without any lights to see with. Keo would have been groping around in the dark if not for Huston’s presence. He was slowly adjusting to the conditions, but Huston had more hours down here and knew her way around.

As he followed Huston through the dark, Keo thought about Jackson. The last time he saw her, she was fleeing into the night on the mare. Eventually, if she did what he told her, she’d reach Longmire. The ranch wouldn’t be too far after that.

That is, if she did what he told her.

Jackson was hurt, too. Keo hadn’t forgotten that part. She was flying on a horse with a KA-BAR sticking out of her shoulder. He also recalled the look on her face. She was in tremendous pain. There was no telling how far she would be able to travel in those conditions. And if she didn’t make it to Lara…

No, he had to think positive. Jackson would make it. Lara would get what she needed. And then…

And then what?

Nothing. Because nothing else mattered as long as that bag got to Lara.

Don’t let me down, Jackson. Don’t let me down!

Huston didn’t so much as lead Keo to another room as to an adjoining open space that was separated from the one he’d woken up in by a large slab of concrete. There were signs along the separating wall warning of ongoing construction and at least two yellow signs with arrows pointing to exits in case of emergency. Keo didn’t try to find where those were; Huston had already told him she couldn’t locate any.

The other room was smaller but just as dark. The parts of it that he could see were similarly gray and dreary, the ground covered with sticky wetness. Huston walked over to a corner, and Keo followed. There were multiple piles of old clothing there, along with backpacks and at least three pairs of shoes. Something that sounded like an aluminum can skidded across the floor when Keo accidentally kicked it. He tried to follow its path, but it vanished into a darker part of the room, and he gave up.

“I don’t think we were the first ones here,” Huston said. “I don’t mean the people it’s brought here before you and me. From the looks of it, some of this stuff—like the tuna cans—have been down here for years. And I know this creature hasn’t been around Paxton for that long.”

Keo nodded. It jived with Martin’s tale about chasing the blue eyes from Louisiana into Texas. According to the slayers, the creature had only found Paxton recently.

“I’ve been looking through the bags, hoping to find something that it might have missed or maybe forgot to take away,” Huston was saying. “But so far, no luck. There’s no food, either. I’m not sure how we’re going to survive down here past tomorrow. I don’t think the water is drinkable, but if you want to prove my theory wrong, be my guest.”

“No thanks,” Keo mouthed. Then, “There has to be a way in.”

“I know, there has to be a way in and out of this place,” Huston said. “How else would it come and go?”

She shook her head with frustration, and Keo could tell she’d been saying the same thing to herself for a while now even before he showed up. He had to remember that Huston had been down here much longer. And by herself, too. You tended to spend a lot of time in your own head when there was no one else to talk to.

“But I can’t find it,” Huston said. “I’ve looked, Keo. I’ve stumbled around this place for hours, but there’s just this room and the other one. There’s no way in or out. At least, nothing that I could find.”

Keo pointed to himself.

“What about you?” Huston asked.

“How did it bring me here?” he mouthed.

She cocked her head in obvious confusion.

He tried again, this time slower, hoping that would help: “Me. Did you see when it brought me down here?”

Huston shook her head. “You?”

He nodded.

“What about you?”

Keo pointed at himself, at the ground, then made a big exaggerated shrug while mouthing the word, “How?” He felt like an idiot trying to win a game of Charades, but it was the only way he knew how to communicate with her.

Thankfully, Huston got it. “I don’t know how it brought you here. I was tired and must have fallen asleep. Then I heard noises and woke up, and you were here. It can move pretty quietly when it wants to, Keo.”

Keo mouthed, “The noise that woke you up. What did it sound like?”

“I don’t know how to explain it. It sounded like…something heavy moving.” Huston shook her head. “But there’s no door, Keo. I looked. I spent hours looking. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do down here.” She let out a tired sigh. “There’s no door. I see exit signs, but there are no exits.”

He pointed at her, at the ground, then did the big shrug again.

“Me?” Huston said.

He nodded.

“I don’t know how it brought me here, either,” Huston said. “I blacked out while we were in the tunnel. It was so dark, and I think it might have done something to me. I don’t know what. I woke up here, just like you did.”

Keo looked around at the smaller room again. It didn’t make sense that there wouldn’t be a way down here. How would the creature come and go? Maybe there was even a tunnel connecting this structure to Deuces. Was that possible? What was that Jack had said about Prohibition tunnels?

“Keo,” Huston said.

She had pulled open one of the flaps along her cargo pants and took out a small, clear plastic baggie. The medic opened it and shook out two white pills into her palm. It was dark, but Keo was pretty sure what they were.

“Tramadol,” Huston said, handing them over to him. “I don’t think it cared that I had pills on me. I have more in my other pockets. It kind of comes with the job.”

Keo gratefully took the pills from her. The first batch she’d given him back at the Deuces was in the backpack Jackson was wearing when he last saw her.

“There’s no water,” Huston said just before Keo popped them both into his mouth and swallowed. “But I guess you don’t need—” She stopped in midsentence and turned toward the opening that connected the two rooms. “What was that?”

He gave her a puzzled look.

“I heard something,” Huston said. “You didn’t hear anything?”

He shook his head.

“You didn’t hear that?” Huston asked. “It sounded like banging.”

Keo shook his head again. He hadn’t heard anything.

Was she imagining things? Maybe Huston had been down here too long.

He stood perfectly still and concentrated on listening, but there was just their breathing and the occasional scratching sounds of things that weren’t them moving around the place.

“You must have hurt more than just your arm when you were fighting that thing,” Huston was saying.

Keo shrugged. Maybe she was right, but he didn’t think so. He could hear her fine. Well, mostly fine.

Huston turned suddenly. “There it is again!” Then, moving, “Come on!”

She took off, and Keo, not exactly sure what to do, followed. He still hadn’t heard a damn thing, but Huston seemed pretty sure that she had.

What the hell. It’s not like we’ve got anything better to do down here than run around in the dark!

Twenty-One

Keo was still not entirely comfortable with his surroundings and was having difficulty pinpointing where everything was—the walls, the support columns, and everything else in-between. In his condition, with a sling on one arm, he didn’t feel entirely confident he wouldn’t run into something very strong and unyielding and hurt himself even further.

So he did the smart thing and let Huston take the lead as they weaved their way back through the darkness and over to the adjoining room. He kept her blonde hair in front of him the entire time, but even so, every hurried step he took felt overly treacherous. The squishy sounds he heard every time he stepped over a lump that was partially submerged in standing water—Clothes? Debris? Dirt? Maybe all of the above?—made him more cautious.

He didn’t like the idea of spending more time in this place. Huston had managed, but it hadn’t been more than a day for her, either. What would happen in two days? Three? A week? Of course, that was assuming they survived to see a week in here. (Down here?) It was going to be difficult getting through the next few days without clean water to drink. Keo’s stomach turned at the prospect of having to sip the contaminated liquids he was squishing through right now.

They didn’t have to run far or for long, which was further confirmation the rooms weren’t very big. The structure itself might have been much larger, but the creature had put them in a section that was almost its own contained space. That made sense, since it wouldn’t want them to roam around a massive room. Not that the creature had anything to fear from them as far as Keo could tell, but it would probably be a pain in the ass to keep having to search for them every time it wanted to…

He tried not to think about what it wanted them for.

He concentrated instead on just not tripping. One false move, and he might end up on the floor swallowing nasty helpings of unhealthy water and knocking his right shoulder out of its socket again. He’d been lucky when it happened and hadn’t felt it, but he wouldn’t be able to avoid that a second time.

Fortunately for the both of them, Huston knew where she was going and soon they were back where they’d started, in the other room.

He’d heard the splashing they’d caused as they came back here just fine, so there was nothing wrong with his hearing. And yet, Huston had told him she’d heard a loud banging noise when he hadn’t. What were the chances Huston had just imagined that? She’d been through a hell of an ordeal; getting kidnapped by a blue-eyed ghoul was not exactly something you got over quickly. It was bound to cause trauma even for someone who was used to being around nightcrawlers like Huston. Who knew what kind of damage, especially mentally, she might have endured?

At the moment, the medic stood in front of Keo and glanced around the dark room. The look on her face told him she hadn’t found what she was hoping to when she stopped.

Because there’s nothing to find. Huston didn’t hear anything.

He didn’t like thinking that, but Keo liked the consequences of it being true even worse. If Huston’s mind was playing tricks on her, then he wasn’t going to be able to count on the slayer to get out of here.

And he needed to get out of here. Badly.

“I’m going to take everything from you. Everything, and everyone. Including those at the ranch. Yes, I know about the ranch, meat. I know all about the ranch…”

The hell you are, motherfucker. Over my dead body.

The medic had moved away from him and was feeling along one of the walls, pressing her ear against the gray concrete. Keo winced at that. He didn’t like thinking about what else she might be voluntarily touching with her face.

He would have lent a hand if he knew what he was looking for. If there was anything to look for in the first place. So Keo didn’t do anything and just stood there and watched her moving around.

Huston finally glanced back at him through the black void. “Anything?”

“Anything?” “Anything” what? Keo wanted to say but just shook his head instead.

“I heard it,” Huston said. “I swear I heard it.”

Of course you did.

“You don’t believe me,” Huston said.

Had she made out the dubious expression on his face? Did he have a not-quite-believing look right now?

“I believe you,” Keo croaked out.

“No, you don’t. I can see it on your face.”

Dammit. My stupid face.

“I heard it, Keo,” Huston said. She stood back slightly from the wall. “It was a banging noise. Like someone was pounding on the walls.” She looked up. “Or the ceiling. It might have come from up there.”

Keo nodded and mouthed, Maybe.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “But you don’t believe I heard it.”

He pursed a smile, thinking, How long has she been down here? It hasn’t even been half a day. How did she go off the deep end so quickly?

He glanced around them. It had to be the darkness. Even if you got used to the environment, it was bound to play tricks with your mind. And that was saying nothing about the things moving around on the floor and along the walls…

“Keo,” Huston was saying.

He looked back at her.

“I heard it,” she said.

He nodded again, and hoped it was believable this time.

But she frowned, and he guessed it hadn’t been. “You don’t believe me. You think I imagined it, don’t you?”

He shook his head.

“I didn’t,” Huston said. “I’m not crazy.”

He walked over and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“I’m not crazy,” Huston said again, though he wasn’t sure if saying it the second time was meant for him or herself.

Maybe she did believe she’d heard a banging noise, though he wasn’t sure if that didn’t just make things worse, at least for him.

“I heard it, Keo,” she said. “But I don’t hear it anymore. I don’t…” She paused, and there was a pained look on her face as she shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I did imagine it. God. Did I imagine it?”

Yeah. I’m going with worse here.

“You didn’t hear it?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Maybe I’ve been down here too long,” Huston said.

“Okay?” Keo whispered.

She sighed. “No. I don’t think I’m okay.” She looked around them. “Not as long as we’re down here.”

He squeezed her shoulder and gave her a comforting smile. At least, he hoped it was comforting.

“I—” Huston began to say when she stopped.

What now? Keo thought, when Huston’s eyes widened so dramatically that the sclera practically overwhelmed everything else.

He was about to risk the pain and ask her what had just happened when she tackled him.

She tackled him!

Keo wasn’t prepared for it and went flying backward off his feet. He might have screamed from the pain of his right shoulder slamming into the wet floor if it wasn’t for the fact he heard the boom! (Okay, I definitely heard that!) just before the ceiling he was standing underneath not more than a few seconds ago turned into a few thousand pounds of falling concrete.

It was a localized blast of some kind, thank God, because if it’d been more spread out, he’d be dead. Both he and Huston, whose flying tackle had driven him far enough back to avoid being crushed by all the raining debris that was still coming down.

Keo grabbed ahold of Huston, whose body was on top of his, and held on tight as he rolled away from the collapsing ceiling. She clung to him, maybe having realized the same thing or just out of instinct, and didn’t fight as he rolled them away and kept going until they bumped into a sticky and wet wall.

Bright plumes of gray clouds invaded the dark space above and around Keo’s face and began spreading outward like smoke tentacles.

Another alarm sounded inside his head, and Keo shouted, “Close your eyes! Close your eyes, Huston!”

He swallowed the intense pain that came from the vocal outburst even as he followed his own warning and snapped his eyes shut. He could feel Huston, still on top of him, pressing down harder. He didn’t check to see if she’d heard him and followed through, but he hoped so because the air was going to be completely filled with all manner of materials that could blind them in seconds.

Keo rolled them over one more time, until they were facing the wall. That just left their backs exposed to the spreading clouds of debris. He wasn’t sure who was coughing—him or Huston, or both of them (Yeah, it was probably both of them)—but that was all he could hear through the intense thrumming in his ears. His face was wet, as were pretty much all of his clothes, and he didn’t remember what had happened to the sling Huston had made for him. It was gone, and for some reason he didn’t feel the pain he was expecting.

Adrenaline. That’s definitely good ol’ adrenaline at work again.

Thanks, Mr. Adrenaline!

Chunks of the ceiling were still collapsing around him but fortunately not on top of him or Huston. Keo knew that not because he could hear the concrete coming down—his ears were still ringing too loudly for that—but because he could feel the vibrations as they pelted the floor around him like raindrops. He kept his eyes closed and his mouth sealed and did the best he could not to breathe in the contamination that swarmed the room like locusts. Even so, he continued to cough, and from the sounds of it, so did Huston.

He wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but he remained where he was, holding onto Huston. There was just a little pain coming from his right arm now, but nothing for him to really worry about. Maybe it was the fresh dose of Tramadol Huston had given him earlier. Painkillers were God’s medicine, as far as he was concerned.

Eventually—A minute? Two? Five?—Keo pried his eyes open and turned slightly over onto his back in order to survey the damage.

Moonlight!

It was the first thing he noticed. There was a large pool of it inside the room that wasn’t there before. It allowed Keo to finally see more than a few feet around him at a time, including what had just nearly killed him and Huston.

Holy shit.

He’d been in too many warzones and seen demolition up close to miss all the signs of someone having detonated their way through the ceiling. They had left a large, jagged hole up there. Bent metal rebar and structural support beams were visible along the edges of the opening, but the rest of the blasted construction was in a pyramid-like pile about ten yards or so from where he lay. He couldn’t see skies on the other side of the newly-created “door,” but there was definitely more light up there.

“Keo?” Huston whispered.

“You okay?” Keo asked. The pain in his throat was minimal for some reason, and he figured it was more adrenaline at work, letting his body do things that were needed in order to survive.

“I think so. You?”

“So far.”

He relaxed his hold on her body and Huston slowly picked herself up, then rolled over to the side. Keo was finally able to sit up and got a better look at the destruction. The pile of debris wasn’t exactly a series of steps on a ladder, but it was tall enough that they could use it to climb and grab a hold of the opening above, then boost themselves up onto the higher floor. He had no idea what was up there, but it had to be better than down here, where there didn’t even seem to be any doors to come and go.

Then a sickening thought flashed across his mind’s eye as he remembered all the wide-open doors in Paxton. The bookstore that Jackson’s people had gotten stuck inside, then the ones at Deuces that had lured him in while he was fleeing for his life.

And look, another obvious door, just waiting for him to climb up and through.

Am I really going to fall for it a second time?

Do I have any choice?

“Keo, the hole!” Huston said.

She had jumped up to her feet even as she picked crushed concrete out of her hair and face, trying not to choke on all the dust in the air. Her skin, along with much of her clothes, was coated in thin layers of pulverized cement that sloughed off her whenever she moved. She looked a bit like Casper the Ghost, and Keo wondered if he did, too.

Huston ran toward the opening.

“Wait, Huston,” Keo said.

But she wasn’t listening to him. She’d seen the way out, and she wasn’t going to wait for his permission. Not that he blamed her. She had been down here for way longer than he had, after all, and to be presented with a way out…

Just like at the Deuces.

Just like with Jackson and the bookstore.

This is a trick. This is another one of its tricks!

The ghoul’s voice, hissing hot and cold breath against Keo’s face, came back to him:

“Pathetic. Did you really think this was a fight? You’re just my playthings, meat. You’re just my temporary cure against boredom.”

“Huston!” Keo shouted again even as he scrambled to his feet. He must not have called her name loudly enough, because Huston didn’t stop.

Either that, or she had heard him but didn’t care.

Keo went after her, doing his best to navigate the road of broken concrete in his path. Some were as big as his head and others as small as his pinky finger, and every one of them seemed to be trying purposefully to uproot him as he moved over them. He spent as much time trying to maintain his balance as he did not choking on the debris that still crowded the air and filled his nostrils and mouth.

Not surprisingly, Huston reached the big pile of rocks first. She stood next to it and looked up at the opening above her.

“Huston, it might be a trap,” Keo said.

“There’s someone up there,” Huston said.

Wait. Had she said someone or something? He was hoping it was the former, because if it was the latter, then his fear that this was all just another game had come true.

Keo reached Huston and looked up.

Huston was right. There was someone up there. But that someone could also be a something, because Keo could only see a hooded figure standing near the edge of the crater looking down at them. He—or it—was wearing a dark trench coat, the kind that was very similar to the one the blue-eyed ghoul was wearing on the road earlier.

Keo reached for Huston’s arm to drag her away, to run, when a second hooded figure appeared next to the first one. It was only then that Keo noticed the rifle cradled in the first hooded figure’s arms.

Ghouls don’t use guns. They don’t need them.

These weren’t ghouls after all.

But was that a good thing or just more reasons to worry?

Keo noticed more details about the men. Their rifles had attached suppressors, and the hilts of machetes clung to their hips.

Rifles with suppressors and machetes…

Keo sighed with relief. “I thought you guys were dead.”

One of the men flipped back his hood and pulled down his half-mask to reveal his face. It was Felix, alive and well.

Or alive, anyway. Keo couldn’t be sure about the “well” part just yet.

The Taiwanese raised a pair of curious eyebrows back at him. “Could say the same thing to you, Chinaman. What are you doing down there?”

“Oh, you know, had some free time,” Keo said, though most of it came out as a whisper. “You made it out of the tunnel.”

“Barely.”

“What happened?”

“Long story. What’s wrong with your voice?”

Keo rubbed his throat. “Long story, too.”

“Does it have blue eyes?”

“Lucky guess.”

Felix grunted. “Nothing lucky about it.”

“You’re still alive,” Huston said as she stared at the second figure, standing next to Felix. “I thought you guys were dead.”

“You okay, Doc?” the second figure asked.

“As good as can be expected.” Then, anxiously, “What happened? Where’s everyone else?”

The second figure flipped back his hood and pulled down his half-mask. It was Martin. For a moment, Keo had expected to find Terminal, which would have been annoying but just his luck given how badly the night had gone for him so far.

But it was Martin, and he didn’t look very happy. In fact, he looked like he’d just been to hell and back.

The slayer leader looked down at Keo and Huston, clearly searching for a very specific face among the two of them. It wasn’t his or Huston’s that Martin was hoping to find, Keo could tell that much.

“Where’s Jack?” Martin asked.

“Isn’t he with you?” Huston said.

Martin and Felix exchanged a quick look.

“Martin?” Huston said. “What happened to Jack?”

“We don’t know,” Martin said.

“What about everyone else?”

Martin’s face turned somber, and Keo thought, I guess not everyone made it out of the tunnel.

Twenty-Two

“It ambushed us. Killed Rogers and Terminal. Ripped them apart with its bare hands. It was like there was a dozen of the fuckers down there instead of just one. We didn’t stand a chance. After a while, it became obvious it was just fucking with us.”

Felix had recounted the events with a stoned face. Keo assumed that was because he’d detached himself from the loss. It was what soldiers did when they saw comrades go down: Talk about it like a witness to the events instead of a participant; that way, you take away some of the sting.

Some, but not all. You could never get rid of all of it. Keo had managed to dodge that trap because he never really allowed himself to become close to the people he worked with. They were always just assets, extra personnel to help him get the job done. He never got involved. Hell, he never bothered to learn their real names when he could help it. They were always Tall Guy, Short Guy, Guy with an Accent, and Blonde Lady.

These days, though, that level of attachment was a little harder to achieve. These days, he had people he truly cared about. There was one woman, in particular…

He pushed her image out of his mind. He wasn’t there yet. So close, and yet so far away. Right now, he needed to focus on the present, on surviving this.

Right now, that was all that mattered.

Keo and Huston had been helped out of the underground parking garage and into the lobby of a mall still under construction. The walls were done, but there were large gaping holes in the roof, and the floors were only partially covered in tiles. There was a large, round fountain in the middle that looked as if it might have been a real crowd-pleaser if it’d ever been finished; right now, it was covered in moss and dust and bird shit. Storefronts—some glass, others boarded up with lumber—surrounded them, but only half sported names. There were plenty of for rent signs everywhere. Non-functioning escalators led up to an equally in-process second floor.

He sat with Felix on a loveseat that was covered in a thick, heavy tarp, the two of them eating bags of civilian MREs. The area was supposed to be for tired shoppers to take a load off, and there were spaces for more furniture to come. Keo hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the slayer brought out some food. His stomach was growling even as the flameless ration heater did its job warming up the beef entrées and Felix mixed coffee in a bag with water from a canteen.

“Nothing like a bag of Meal, Ready-to-Eat in the morning,” the slayer said.

“It’s not morning,” Keo said.

“Close enough.”

Felix was used to MREs not because it was a primary source of food for many in the aftermath of The Purge, but because he was a former army man. That explained his expertise with the C4 he’d used to make a “door” for Keo’s escape from the underground structure earlier.

“Seven years in the army as a combat engineer, and I’d probably be a lifer if the end of the world didn’t happen,” Felix said.

“Let me guess: This wasn’t the first time you’ve used C4 since The Purge?” Keo asked.

Felix chuckled. “There’s been a time or two when we didn’t want to crawl into a dark cave after some nightcrawler. Those nests of theirs are nasty business. Sometimes it’s easier to just blow them to hell. Works just as well as chopping them to bits. Safer, too.”

“I didn’t know you guys cared about safer.”

“There are times when you get tired of being covered in ghoul shit.”

“You mean blood?”

“Same difference.”

Felix had picked up the C4 back at the Deuces, along with all the other weapons and supplies Keo and Jackson hadn’t bothered to take. They were in one of the heavier duffel bags that Keo had bypassed right away.

After his rescue, Keo had armed himself with a gun that the slayers had brought along with them for backup. Like Jackson and him earlier, Felix and Martin had left a lot more behind at the Deuces but had plans to go back when all of this was over. The lack of horses had diminished their ability to carry more than just a couple of spare handguns and ammo. Their focus, smartly, had been on emergency items.

Despite his and Martin’s harrowing ordeals in the tunnel, Felix had escaped the events entirely unscathed. The same was true for Martin. At least physically. While Keo and Felix ate, Huston and Martin were talking—and had been for some time—across the large and empty lobby from them. They were keeping their voices down, not that Keo thought they were afraid he might eavesdrop, but because the topic wasn’t something that required loud words.

He wasn’t sure if it was just the much-cleaner air he was enjoying, but his throat didn’t hurt nearly as much as before. There was still some discomfort, but not enough to keep him quiet. His right arm, too, had vastly improved. Not that Keo was about to test that theory by lifting heavy boulders anytime soon.

He was through half of his entrée bag when Keo finally asked Felix the question that had been on his mind: “How did you and Martin get out of that tunnel alive?”

“To be honest with you, I don’t know,” Felix said.

The slayer stared past Keo, as if reliving what had happened down there. Keo had seen that plenty of times on the faces of people who had just been involved in their first firefight. But this wasn’t Felix’s first time going up against a blue-eyed ghoul. According to Martin, they’d been chasing the thing for a month now ever since Louisiana. Maybe, Keo thought, Felix was finally starting to realize that they hadn’t been hunting it, but the other way around.

“We were making pretty good progress, too, for a while,” Felix said.

“So what happened?”

“Ran into some kind of cave-in.”

“Natural?”

“I don’t know. There was just a wall of rocks. We turned around and were headed back to the Deuces when it attacked.”

“That’s when you lost Terminal and Rogers.”

“Yeah. After it killed Rogers and Terminal, it left.”

“It left?”

“Yeah. It just left.”

Because it’s playing. It wants the good times to keep rolling. Killing you and Martin down there would have been too easy. And easy is boring.

“You guys went back to the Deuces,” Keo said.

Felix nodded. “It was the only way out, back through the basement.”

“Did you get any licks in?”

“We pumped enough silver bullets into the fucker, but nothing where it would have really counted. It took Terminal with it, but it would have taken Rogers, too.”

“It took Terminal?”

“Put his body over its shoulder like he was nothing and just disappeared. I don’t even want to think about what it’s doing to his body right now. Rogers…” Felix paused for a moment. Then, “We couldn’t bring his body back with us, so we made sure he wouldn’t come back.”

Keo didn’t ask how Felix and Martin had managed that.

He’d also lost his appetite and put the half-empty MRE bag on the floor next to him. He sat back against the comfortable fabric to process everything Felix had told him. The more details he heard about what had happened to the slayers in the tunnels, the less he liked it.

“What?” Felix said. They weren’t exactly sitting directly across from one another—the loveseat was in an L shape—but Felix didn’t have to squint very hard at all to pick up Keo’s expressions. “What’s on your mind?”

“You went back to the Deuces.”

“Yes. I told you that already.”

“Was anyone there?”

“No. Everyone was gone.”

“Everyone?”

“Yeah, everyone. Why?”

Because not everyone was gone when I went back to the Deuces. Rondo was there, and he tried to kill me, but Jackson killed him instead. When I left, his body was still there.

But apparently that wasn’t the case by the time Felix and Martin returned. So what had happened to Rondo’s body? Did ghouls take it? That wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Dead bodies still had the one thing the nightcrawlers craved—blood. They were known to dig up corpses and feed on roadkill, so a “fresh” dead body like Rondo’s wouldn’t have just been allowed to rot.

Felix said again, with just a hint of annoyance, “What?”

“Then what?”

“Then what, what?”

“What happened after you and Martin came back to the Deuces?”

“We packed up what we could and went looking for everyone. We found you and Huston here instead.”

“How did that happen? How did you find this place?”

“We followed tracks here.”

“What kind of tracks?”

“Blood. There was a lot of blood. Like someone or something had been dragging bodies across Paxton. It wasn’t that hard.”

Keo didn’t reply, but Felix’s words echoed inside his head:

“There was a lot of blood. Like someone or something had been dragging bodies across Paxton. It wasn’t that hard.”

“…it wasn’t that hard.”

He glanced over at Martin, still talking with Huston across the lobby. Their foreheads were pressed against one another now, Huston’s hands around his neck. It was a very intimate moment, and Keo quickly looked away to give them some privacy.

He stared instead at a sign on the wall next to where Huston and Martin were standing. Big block letters pointed to one side with the words underground parking lot. The room Keo and Huston had found themselves in was, in fact, part of an underground structure. Or it was supposed to be, but the section they were in was the only completed area. Even now, Keo couldn’t figure out how the ghoul had been accessing the place. Felix and Martin certainly hadn’t found another way in and wouldn’t have stumbled across them if they hadn’t blasted their way through at just the right spot.

…if they hadn’t blasted their way through at just the right spot…

“…it wasn’t that hard.”

Felix had returned to eating when Keo looked back at him. The slayer must have sensed him staring, because he looked up, spork halfway to his mouth, and said, sounding even more agitated now, “What? What?”

Keo stood up and walked over until he was standing next to the jagged opening where Felix had blasted a hole into the lobby floor with his C4.

…if they hadn’t blasted their way through at just the right spot…

Keo glanced back at Felix, chewing his meal. “How did you know where to set the charges?”

He didn’t know why it took him so long to ask the question. Maybe he was just so happy to have escaped from his underground prison that it hadn’t occurred to him until now. Whatever the reason, now that it had snapped to the forefront of his mind, he couldn’t do anything to get rid of it.

And he didn’t want to, either, because it didn’t make any sense.

“…it wasn’t that hard.”

“What do you mean?” Felix asked.

“I mean, how did you know exactly where to set the charges? The room we were in was a small part of a larger unfinished structure. The rest was sealed off. The odds of you choosing this exact spot to set your charges, directly above us, was pretty goddamn good luck. So how did you know where to set the charges?”

Felix put down his MRE and got up. Even as the slayer walked over, Keo could see the gears turning in his head as he, too, began questioning everything that had happened tonight.

“Felix,” Keo said when the slayer didn’t answer him fast enough. “How did you know to choose this spot? This exact spot? Did you just guess?”

“Of course not,” Felix said, sounding almost offended. “I don’t guess when it comes to C4.”

“So, how did you choose?”

Felix stared down the hole before looking back up at Keo. “We found a sledgehammer. It was Rondo’s.”

“Rondo’s? Are you sure?”

“I’ve seen it more times than I care to count. It was Rondo’s.”

Felix walked around the crater to the water fountain. He disappeared behind it, before returning, dragging a familiar-looking sledgehammer with him. It was definitely Rondo’s. Keo was sure of it. It was kind of hard to mistake something that had already tried to kill him twice now.

“What was it doing here?” Keo asked.

He distinctively remembered leaving it behind, along with Rondo’s body back at the Deuces. But according to Felix, Rondo’s body was missing when they returned.

“…it wasn’t that hard.”

Felix dropped the sledgehammer onto the floor. “It looked like he—or someone using his sledgehammer—was trying to break through that spot. We didn’t know you and Huston were down there. It was a stab in the dark.”

Keo stared at him in silence for a moment.

Rondo’s missing body could be easily explained. Ghouls weren’t picky about their meals. But why would the creatures take his sledgehammer? Or, if it wasn’t them, then who was it? And how did it end up here, trying to smash through the very spot that led down to where he and Huston were being kept?

Felix continued: “The sledgehammer was already here before we showed up. Martin sort of lost his cool when he saw it. He picked it up and went to town. I didn’t want him to kill himself trying to break through the floor, so I convinced him to let me use the C4s. I guess we were both curious what was down there. I think he was hoping it might be Jack. We still don’t know what happened to him or the others.”

Suddenly, it all made sense to Keo.

Huston had heard banging sounds before Felix took out the ceiling. Keo had thought she was imagining it, but she hadn’t. She’d been hearing Martin attacking the floor with Rondo’s sledgehammer.

“We got lucky,” Felix said. “That’s all.”

“No, you didn’t,” Keo said.

“What do you mean?”

“It likes to play games.”

“Who? Who likes to play games?”

“Them.”

“Them?”

“Them.”

He glanced across the lobby at Martin and Huston. They were still where he’d last seen them, holding one another, too wrapped up in their grief to have heard a single thing he and Felix had said.

“Martin!” Keo shouted, even though doing so stretched his throat and reminded him that he was in no shape to be shouting anything.

Martin and Huston looked over.

“It’s a trap,” Keo said.

“What?” Martin said.

“It’s a trap!” Keo shouted, ignoring the blistering pain.

“What’s a trap?” Huston asked.

“This. All of this. It led you, Martin, and Felix here. It wanted you to find us. It’s playing games. They like to play games, remember? The ghoul! The blue-eyed ghoul you’ve been hunting! It’s toying with us!”

He hadn’t gotten us out before he heard it:

It was a low, almost whistling laugh that got louder and louder.

Keo looked up, his hands going to the Glock pistol in its holster, the thoughts Shoot it in the head. Shoot it in the fucking head! flashing through his mind.

He didn’t have to search very far to find it.

The creature was perched on one of the rafters high above them, its skinny frame nearly invisible against the dark metal beams that crisscrossed the underside of the unfinished roof. If Keo didn’t know what he was looking at and had a general direction, he might have missed it completely.

And it was laughing.

At him.

At Felix.

At Martin and Huston.

“Motherfucker,” Felix said as he ran forward and unslung his rifle, taking aim.

Before the slayer could even pull the trigger, it fled, vanishing behind a finished part of the mall roof. There were no footsteps, no noisy retreat.

It was there, and then it was simply gone.

“Shit!” Felix spat out as he pulled his rifle back down.

Martin and Huston had run over, both of them with weapons in their hands.

“Where did it go?” Huston asked even as she scanned the interior of the mall around them.

The place seemed to have gotten noticeably darker, but maybe Keo was just imagining that.

“Anyone see where it went?” Huston was asking.

Martin didn’t say anything, but he did exchange a look with Keo. There was no fear in the other man’s face, and Keo wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

“It wants you down there,” Keo had said to the man earlier tonight, when the ghoul first revealed itself. “Why?”

“Why what?” Martin had answered.

“You said it wasn’t personal, but all of this sure feels pretty damn personal to me.”

“It’s not personal.”

“You sure about that?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Keo. It’s not personal. This is business. I kill ghouls. When I’ve killed this fucker, I’ll move on to the next fucker, and I’ll put a bullet into its brain, too. That’s the job.”

Now, as he looked across at Martin, Keo had a feeling a lot of things had changed since that conversation. Maybe it hadn’t been anything personal for Martin then, but that sure as hell wasn’t the case anymore.

And me right in the middle of their personal grudge.

Dae-fucking-bak.

Twenty-Three

“It’s playing with us,” Felix said.

“Yeah,” Martin said.

“It’s probably out there right now, waiting for us to do something dumb. I have a feeling it’s not going to stay out there until daybreak.”

“No, I don’t suspect it will.”

“So what are we gonna do about it, Martin?”

The slayer leader didn’t answer. In fact, he didn’t look as if he’d even heard Felix’s last question, but of course he must have since the Taiwanese-American was standing right next to him as they looked toward the exits on the other side of the lobby.

They hadn’t gone very far since the ghoul made its presence known. Keo’s first instincts had been to run outside, guns blazing, but sanity prevailed. He didn’t do something that stupid, and neither did Martin, Felix, or Huston. That was what the bastard wanted. Or, if not that, then something pretty close.

Because this was all a game to it, including everything that had happened at the Deuces. It wanted this. It craved it like a sadistic junkie looking for his next fix.

So what were their choices?

Felix was right; the creature wasn’t going to just stay outside the mall the entire night and wait for morning to chase it away. That was pretty goddamn unlikely, because all of last night and this morning had led to this, whatever “this” was.

“Martin?” Felix said when the other slayer still hadn’t answered him. “What are we going to do?”

Keo didn’t have a watch anymore, but according to Felix it was almost 4:00 a.m., which put them at just a shade under three hours before sunrise. The sun had a bad habit of taking its time during winter in Texas.

Still, three hours… He could survive three hours. Couldn’t he?

“Nothing,” Martin finally said.

Keo wondered if the shocked look on Felix’s face mirrored his own.

“What do you mean, nothing?” Felix asked.

“We’re going to do nothing,” Martin said. “If it wants us, it can come in and get us.” He looked over at Keo. “How’s your arm? Huston said it was dislocated.”

“I’ll live,” Keo said.

“You sure?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

“Then it’s fine and dandy.”

Besides the spare Glock in his holster, Keo also had a six-inch blade to replace his lost KA-BAR. The only thing missing was a rifle or a shotgun, but the slayers hadn’t brought the extra weight with them. He had to be satisfied with a gun and knife, which was a lot more than what he’d had an hour ago.

“So we’re just going to stand here and wait for it to come in and get us?” Felix was asking Martin. “That’s the plan?”

“That’s exactly the plan,” Martin said. He focused on the main entrance, the same one he and Felix had used to enter the mall. “It wants us out there, where it can pick us off one by one. In here, we have numbers.” He glanced down at his own watch. “And it’s running out of time.”

Felix grunted. “I liked it better when we were hunting the fucker.”

“Things change, Felix. This is one of those times.”

“No shit.” Felix looked over at Keo. “You got any bright ideas, Chinaman?”

“Why are you asking me?” Keo said.

“I don’t know. You look like a guy who has bright ideas. Or dumb ideas he thinks are bright.”

Keo had to grin at that. Felix wasn’t entirely wrong.

“I agree with Martin,” Keo said. “There’s no reason to go out there, where it has all the advantage. In here, we can watch each other’s backs. We can see it when it comes. Not so much out there.”

“You think it’s the only one out there?” Huston asked.

“I think it’s the only blue eyes in town, yeah. If there were more, we’d probably have seen them by now.”

“I meant all of them. Including the black eyes.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“How many did you see out there? In the road when it attacked you?”

“Not many. I killed everything it threw at me and Jackson.”

“All of them?” Felix said doubtfully.

“The ones that it had with it, anyway,” Keo said.

“How many was that?”

“A handful. No more.”

“Maybe it really is running out of nightcrawlers.”

“So it could be the last one in Paxton,” Huston said. She hadn’t tried to hide the hope in her voice.

“Maybe,” Keo said. “I don’t know.”

But shit, I sure hope it doesn’t have another small army of black eyes still waiting to unleash on us.

“Maybe we should move to higher ground,” Felix said. He was looking over at the closest escalator, on the other side of the fountain.

“Did you happen to see where that thing was earlier?” Keo asked him.

“What’s your point?”

“My point is, I don’t think higher ground is really much of an advantage against it.”

“You have a point.”

“It’s been known to happen.”

Next to Keo, Martin was scanning the dark parts of the mall lobby, the forefinger of his right hand rubbing against the trigger of his slung rifle. What Keo wouldn’t give for one of those right about now.

“Martin?” Huston said to the slayer. “Are you okay?”

Martin might have been about to answer when there was the sound of hands clapping.

It came out of nowhere. Slowly and painfully drawn out.

Keo’s hand dropped, groped for, and found the gun at his side. The pistol felt slick and foreign against his hand, but he managed to get a good grip and draw the Glock anyway. The weight of the fully-loaded magazine was music to his ears.

The others had heard the clapping, too (Good, so I’m not crazy.), and they were also seeking out the source. Felix, next to Keo, raised his rifle and searched the second floor, while Martin and Huston stepped a little closer toward Keo and Felix. Instinctively, all four of them had turned their backs to each other until they’d formed a semicircle.

The clap continued, as agonizingly slow and mind-numbingly drawn out as it’d been when Keo first heard it.

Where the hell is that coming from?

Keo looked up at where the creature had been before, but there were no signs of it up there this time. There was nothing on the parts of the second floor that he could see either, but his vision was obscured by a protective three-foot wall all along the edges to keep people from falling over.

Slowly, achingly slowly, the clapping began to fade…until there was just the sounds of their slightly anxious breathing in the lobby.

“You guys heard that too, right?” Felix asked.

The slayer was to Keo’s right, with Martin to his left. Huston was on the other side between the two men.

“Yes,” Huston said. “I think we all heard it, Felix.”

“Good. Thought I was going a little bonkers there for a minute.”

“Where was it coming from?” Keo asked. “Did anyone see it?”

“I couldn’t tell,” Felix said.

“Me, neither,” Huston said.

“I guess it’s not going to wait till morning,” Keo said.

“I guess not,” Felix said. “Too bad. I was hoping it would.”

“You and me both, pal.”

“You have someplace to be, Keo?” Huston asked.

“Hell yes. No offense, but trapped in a mall with you guys wasn’t on my to-do list this month.”

“Shit happens, then you get stuck in an unfinished mall,” Felix said.

“Martin?” Huston said. “You okay?”

Oh right, Martin was there with them, too. He’d been so quiet Keo had forgotten all about the other slayer for a moment.

“Stick to the plan,” Martin said. “Just like we discussed. Let it come in and get us. Nothing’s changed.”

“What if it doesn’t come in alone?” Huston asked.

“Then we’ll deal with them like we dealt with all the others in the past. This isn’t the first time we’ve had our backs against a wall. It won’t be the last, either.”

Talking exactly like a man looking for a reason to get dead, Keo thought. Sorry, Martin, but I got things to do, people to see, and a woman to go home to.

Keo said, “You got any more of those C4 left, Felix?”

“Just a couple of bricks,” Felix said. “I’m not a pack mule, you know.”

“So why’d you bring them in the first place?”

“Force of habit. You can take the boy out of the army, but you can’t take the love for explosives out of the boy. What are you thinking?”

“How many of those would it take to bring this place down?”

“More than what I got.”

“How much more?”

“A hell of a lot more.”

“That’s a lot.”

“No shit, Einstein.”

“So—” Keo began.

“Martin!” Huston shouted, cutting Keo off.

Keo turned toward the sound of her voice. Huston was facing one of the rear doors, and he saw immediately what had prompted her to call out Martin’s name.

A pair of ghouls had entered the mall, moonlight dancing off their pruned black flesh as they bounded across the lobby. They were moving on all fours like cheetahs, except there was nothing natural about these creatures.

Just two? Keo thought, when two more entered the same doors behind the first two. They were moving just as fast, just as low to the ground.

Not just two, then.

Still, the number surprised him. He was expecting more than just four. Four ghouls, against the four of them, was not even a challenge, especially when they had silver bullets. The blue eyes had to know that, didn’t it?

Martin and Felix moved first, stepping between Huston and the ghouls and opening up. The suppressed pop-pop-pop of their weapons felled all four creatures before they could even make it halfway across the lobby.

Well, that was easy, Keo thought as the ejected empty brass casings clink-clink-clinked on the tiled flooring around his boots.

The bang-bang-bang! of Huston’s handgun made him turn toward her a second time.

The medic was shooting at two more ghouls as they raced through the front entrance. She hit one and it fell, but its partner kept coming. Not that it got very far. Felix turned, aimed, and took it down with one shot to the chest.

And just like that, it was over. Keo hadn’t even had to fire a single shot.

That was easy. Is it really going to be this easy all night?

The answer came in the form of movements flickering at the corner of his eyes. Keo looked up just as two more black shapes vaulted over the three-foot wall that circled the edge of the second floor above them.

More ghouls!

He fired, striking one of them while it was still in the air. His bullet punched through its chest and pinged! off one of the metal beams along the unfinished roof.

Martin shot the second one, and it landed on the floor with a painful crunch, like watermelon breaking in half against the ground.

The one Keo had killed had touched down a few feet from the second one. It lay crumpled on its stomach and head, legs twisted in impossible angles behind and slightly above it. If it’d been able to feel anything, the uninspired landing would have hurt beyond words.

But it wasn’t the dead creature’s painful final form that Keo was staring at. It was its right arm. Or, more specifically, its right wrist. There was something on it. Something odd that didn’t belong.

What the hell is that? Keo was thinking when Martin walked past him and over to the creature.

“Martin, what are you doing?” Huston asked.

The slayer leader ignored her and crouched next to the dead black eyes. He reached down to touch the one Keo had shot, then turned its head slightly, almost gingerly. Whatever he saw down there kept Martin from getting up and returning to them.

“Martin,” Huston said again. “What’s wrong?”

“Hey, Martin,” Felix said. “We have to stay together, remember?” Then, when Martin still didn’t respond, “Buddy. Hey.”

But Martin continued to ignore the both of them.

Keo exchanged a look with Felix, who shrugged. The three of them walked over to join Martin, looking around the lobby the entire time for more ghouls. But the attack had stopped. At least, for now.

This can’t be it, Keo thought. It’s too easy. It’s way too easy.

This can’t be all it has. Can it?

He stopped behind Martin and got a better look at the dead ghoul that the slayer couldn’t seem to pull himself from. Martin remained crouched, almost transfixed by what he was seeing. So what had so entranced him?

It was a watch. An all-gold watch. It dangled off the right wrist of the ghoul that Keo had shot. The leather strap was cinched as tightly as possible to keep it from falling off the emaciated wrist.

It was a gold Rolex 36mm Datejust, as blingy and out of place now as it’d been when Keo first saw it at the Deuces not very long ago.

On Jack’s wrist.

The ghoul was Jack.

Or it used to be, because nothing about the dead creature in front of them resembled the human being it once was. The ghoul could have been anyone in a past life—maybe Rondo or McBroom or even Merrifield—but the watch was the giveaway. Martin had spotted it immediately and put two and two together. Keo couldn’t see Martin’s face, but he imagined a hurricane of emotions rushing across it this very second.

“What the fuck?” Felix said. “Is that what I think it is? Why’s it wearing a watch? They don’t wear watches. They don’t even wear clothes.”

No, they didn’t, unless it told them to. There was no reason whatsoever why the ghoul should have been sporting jewelry that, once upon a time, cost thousands of dollars. The only reason would be…

It’s fucking with us.

But specifically, it was playing with Martin. It knew exactly how to get to him.

Through Jack.

“It’s a trick,” Keo said. “Don’t do anything stupid, Martin.”

Huston glanced over at Keo. “What are you talking about? He’s not going to do anything.”

Keo ignored her and focused on Martin. “Remember, it’s toying with us. Don’t give it what it wants. We need to stay right here and let it come to us, just like you said. Stick to the plan. Let it come—”

The sound of laughter bled across the open lobby air.

Keo looked up toward the second floor where the voice had come from.

It was leaning over the three-foot barrier, spindly arms casually draped over the top of the wall as it laughed. Moonlight bounced off its hairless domed head, and its blue eyes gleamed with mischief and pleasure.

Keo’s face tingled at the sight of it, and a part of him wanted to turn and run. But he didn’t, and instead lifted the Glock—

Felix beat him to it, the pop-pop-pop of his rifle filling the building as he opened fire at the second floor. The pek-pek-pek of rounds hitting the barrier, breaking off chunks of it, while others sailed high and pinged off other parts of the building.

Keo searched for the ghoul among the bursts of pulverized concrete forming clouds on the second floor, but he couldn’t locate it. Either it’d returned to the shadows, or one of Felix’s rounds had landed true and it was crumpled on the floor right now, on the other side of the wall.

One bullet. That’s all we need. One bullet in the brain. That’s all.

“Martin!” Huston’s voice rang out just as a black blur ran past Keo.

Keo glanced over as Martin sped across the lobby, moving so fast that Keo was surprised he was even capable of that kind of speed.

The thought Where the hell is he going? rushed through Keo.

The answer came just as quickly: The ghoul. Shit. He’s going after the ghoul!

Huston appeared across Keo’s peripheral vision, chasing after Martin. Keo reached out instinctively and grabbed her just as she was about to pass him. She almost fell as he pulled her back violently and nearly jerked her off her feet. That was a mistake on his part because stopping Huston’s speeding form put tremendous strain on both of his arms. That included the right one where his shoulder was dislocated not all that long ago.

He grimaced through the pain but held on as Huston struggled against him, shouting, “Martin! Stop! Don’t go up there!”

Too late, Keo thought as he watched Martin jump onto the escalator and run up the steps, taking them two, then three at a time. That’s what it wants. Goddammit, Martin, you’re giving it exactly what it wants!

“Felix!” Keo shouted.

The slayer had turned around and immediately figured out what was happening. “Keep her here!” he shouted just before he took off after Martin.

Keo held onto Huston as she tried to break free. He was much stronger than her even with one bum arm, and didn’t let go.

Martin had already reached the top of the escalator and was stepping onto the second floor. Keo kept an eye on him as long as possible but lost track of the slayer when he vanished behind the three-foot wall that ringed the upper deck. The bang-bang-bang! of a pistol firing over and over again echoed from above not long after.

“Martin!” Felix shouted as he hopped off the escalator, taking it almost as fast as Martin had seconds earlier.

Oh, this is going well, Keo thought as Felix, too, vanished onto the second floor behind the barrier.

Keo must have relaxed his arms too much, because Huston suddenly broke free. He grabbed at her but missed by inches, and the medic raced across the lobby and toward the escalator.

Dammit!

It didn’t take Keo very long to decide that staying down here by his little lonesome wasn’t a very good idea. He ran after Huston, and they were bolting up the escalator steps when there was a burst of gunfire, the suppressed but still loud brap-brap-brap! of an AR firing on full-auto like thunder rolling across the second floor ahead of them.

And I’m running into that? Keo thought even as he did just that.

Huston jumped over the final step, with Keo right behind her.

The second floor was connected by long walkways on two sides and was in worse condition than below. Storefronts lined the walls, most of them with sheets of plywood over spots where windows were supposed to be. Only a few of the stores had signs in place before construction stopped, and despite the unfinished rooftop above, there were too many shadowy corners and patches of deep darkness for Keo’s liking. The lack of a completed roof meant there was a lot of visible water damage.

Keo scanned for and immediately found Felix standing about thirty meters away. The slayer’s back was to them, and he was not moving. But he was still upright, and his AR hung at his side. It took Keo a few seconds to realize Felix was staring at something, but it was too dark for Keo to make out what.

He and Huston rushed toward him, their boots kicking fresh empty brass casings scattered across the floor. A few skidded to the edge and ricocheted off the three-foot wall. Keo looked over at the spot where the ghoul had been standing earlier. There were chunks of brick on the floor—the results of Felix’s volley—but there were no hints that he’d struck gold with any of his shots. Or even landed a hit.

Dammit. That’ll teach me to hope.

Felix hadn’t moved since Keo first spotted him, and he still didn’t when Huston called his name. Keo found out why Felix wasn’t responding when he and Huston finally reached him.

The slayer was guarding Martin’s body, which was standing against a wall underneath a slightly crooked FOREVER 21 sign.

No, Martin wasn’t standing. He had been nailed to the brick wall with his own machete, the handle of the long blade sticking out of his chest, the grip covered in fresh, dripping blood.

…and his head was missing.

Twenty-Four

Martin was dead, and they were next.

Whoa, whoa. Let’s try to think positive, shall we?

The ghoul was toying with them for its own sick pleasure. They might as well be pussycats chasing balls of string around.

What did I just say about thinking positive?

There were still over two hours to go before sunrise. Two full hours. How the hell was he going to survive 120 minutes?

Come on, you can do it! The power of positive thinking!

The creature wasn’t just going to stay out there all night and let the morning come. No way, no how. The only road out of this was over the fucker’s dead body.

Now we’re talking. So what’s the plan?

He didn’t have one. At least, not yet. There was no getting around that the blue-eyed bastard had them where it wanted them. This was the game all along. The only question was: What else did it have planned?

Keo took stock of their situation.

Martin was dead, which left him with two slayers. Felix was dependable, and Huston was, too, in the right circumstances. Right now wasn’t one of them. The medic was still distraught over Martin’s death, and nothing he or Felix could say was going to help. Huston and Martin were clearly more than just comrades. Keo had seen that when she was consoling him earlier; and very recently, Huston’s total collapse at the sight of Martin’s body.

They had remained on the second floor in the aftermath of the first assault, having agreed it was the better option against future attacks. And the ghouls were coming, Keo had no doubts about that. It was just a matter of when and how. The other unseen half of the second floor was a real possible danger point, but not any more than the lobby and its many ways in. At least up here they could see them coming, instead of having ghouls drop down on top of them, like earlier.

How many soldiers did the blue eyes have at its disposal? There was a very real chance some of the dead creatures on the first floor were former slayers, like Jack. Terminal and Rogers were dead, torn to pieces in the tunnel, according to Felix, but McBroom and Merrifield were missing. For all Keo knew, two of the emaciated forms below were them. One could even be Jackson. Keo still didn’t know if she’d made it to safety or not. His only hope was that the blue-eyed ghoul had been too preoccupied with him to go after her.

Keo searched out the shadows of the lobby below for signs of the second wave. There was absolutely no part of him that thought tonight would end with them just walking blissfully into the morning sunlight. It wasn’t going to be that easy, and no amount of wishing was going to change that.

Felix clearly felt the same way. The slayer walked over and handed Keo Martin’s heavily-modified AR rifle. “You’ll need this.”

He also passed along Martin’s ammo pouches, which Keo took and cinched around his own waist. Any queasiness he might have about wearing and using a recently-dead man’s equipment was easily squashed by the need to better arm himself. The rifle was a black Colt chambered for 5.56 rounds, and there were two spare magazines for it.

“I’m assuming you know how to use one of those?” Felix asked.

Keo looked up at the slayer to see if he was being serious and saw a mischievous grin. “Funny guy.”

Felix chuckled. “Just wanna make sure.”

Keo grunted and wanted to remind Felix about the last person who wanted to “make sure” he knew how to use a weapon. But that would have brought back bad memories for Felix, since Keo assumed he and Terminal were friends. Maybe not buddies, but definitely long-time acquaintances, and Felix might not like Keo scoring points using the no-longer-among-them Terminal.

“How are we for bullets?” Keo asked instead.

“I got plenty left. So do you.”

“I have two mags for this rifle and one more for the Glock. That’s it.”

“That’s more than enough.”

“How you figure that?”

“We only need one bullet to end this.”

“That’s the trick, isn’t it?”

“Tricks are for kids, Chinaman. Bullet to the head is what adults do.”

The slayer glanced over at Huston, still kneeling next to Martin. They’d taken the body down from the wall and laid it on the floor, using a blanket from a nearby storefront to cover him up. Huston’s back was to Keo, but he didn’t need to see her face to know she was mourning. She hadn’t moved from the spot next to Martin in a while.

“Still nothing down there?” Felix asked.

“Not yet,” Keo said.

“They’re coming.”

“Oh, they’re definitely coming. It’s just a question of how.”

“No when?”

“When is before daybreak.”

“Ah. Good point.”

Felix was in better shape than Huston, both mentally and physically, but Keo could see the effects of Martin’s loss on the other man’s face as well. The two were good friends and probably had been for a lot of years now. Most slayers Keo knew picked up the profession after The Walk Out and stuck together from their mutual bond of hating ghouls. It was a hell of a thing to base a relationship on, but Keo guessed he’d heard of worse reasons.

“You good?” Keo asked the slayer now.

Felix was too busy keeping an eye on the floor below to notice that Keo was scrutinizing him. He looked up and met Keo’s gaze. “Yeah, I’m good. You?”

“I’ve been better, all things considered.”

“That good or bad?”

“It’s not bad.”

“But not good.”

“You know what we’re going to have to do, right? In order to get out of here?”

“Sure I do. But why don’t you tell me anyway, just so we’re on the same page.”

“We’re gonna have to kill the fucker, Felix. It’s not just going to let us walk out of here. One way or another, this thing is going to end before morning.”

Felix nodded. “Same page.” He returned to scanning the semidarkness below them, including all those ways in. “And how are we gonna accomplish that, exactly? Stay alive, I mean?”

“I was hoping you might have some ideas.”

“I got nothing.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Ain’t it, though?” Then, almost absently, “You’re Korean, right? Kimchi, bibimbap, all that disgusting stuff?”

Keo smiled. “On my mom’s side.”

“How long were you in the service?”

“I wasn’t.”

“You sure?”

“I think I would know, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I guess you would.”

“We have to kill it,” a voice said from behind them.

Both Keo and Felix turned around to find Huston standing behind them with the kind of intense stare that could burn through metal. He was shocked to find her back there, and apparently so was Felix, from the look on his face.

How the hell did a grieving medic sneak up on us?

“What did you say, Huston?” Felix asked.

“We have to kill it,” Huston said. “Whatever it takes. We have to kill that motherfucker tonight.”

“Well, as long as we’re all in agreement,” Felix said, looking over at Keo as if to say, “So, did you come up with any ideas since the last time we talked about this, oh, a few minutes earlier?”

“I might have an idea,” Keo said.

“We’re all ears.”

“You might not like it.”

“I like being in here even less. So spill it.”

Keo nodded, and did.

* * *

Felix didn’t like the idea, but failing to offer up any alternatives of his own, he reluctantly agreed.

“That doesn’t mean it’s still not a bad idea,” the slayer said.

“I agree, it’s a pretty bad idea,” Keo said.

“But it could work.”

“Yes, it could.”

“It could also not work.”

“That’s also a possibility, yes. I personally put the odds of it working at forty-sixty.”

“Which one of those numbers is in favor of this working?”

“Forty.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“It’s supposed to be realistic.”

“Couldn’t you have sugarcoated it? Pretend it was fifty-fifty instead? Would that have been so hard?”

“You’re not a ten-year-old, Felix.”

“Sometimes it sucks being an adult. But hey, I guess it’s time to make the donuts.”

“What does that even mean?”

The slayer shrugged. “I don’t know. Terminal liked saying it. I like it, too. It sounds cool.”

“It’s stupid.”

“It grows on you.”

“That’s doubtful,” Keo said.

For her part, Huston had just nodded after hearing the plan. Keo got the sense that he could have come up with just about anything, and she would have agreed as long as it meant they would attempt to kill the blue-eyed ghoul. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Huston wasn’t expecting to survive this; she just wanted a shot at Martin’s killer before she went. He had thought Huston couldn’t be counted on before, but Keo was pretty sure of it now. A person with nothing to lose always ended up being more of a liability than a help, in his experience.

They put the plan into motion soon after that, with Keo sneaking down the escalator to retrieve the supply bags Felix and Martin had brought with them but had left below in the rush to chase down Blue Eyes earlier. Everything would still be there. Hopefully. Felix covered him the entire time with his rifle, while Huston did the same for Felix’s six o’clock.

Keo was pretty sure the ghouls would launch their second attack when he was downstairs, but there were no signs of them as he stepped off the escalator, sweeping the moonlit area with Martin’s AR. The rifle was heavy in his hands; much heavier than it should have been. Keo wondered what else Martin had done to modify it. There was a simple red dot scope mounted on top, and the trigger was light—maybe a tad too light—against his forefinger.

The next few minutes was unnerving as Keo maneuvered around dead ghouls in order to reach his objective. He kept waiting for one of the bodies to pop up and make a grab for him like in the horror movies.

Any second now, boys! Any second now!

But none of them did. He was thankful for the plentiful moonlight that shone across the lobby, revealing the bulk of the room to him. The only real patches of shadows were along the edges, but that was also where the most obvious ways in were, and he’d have kept an eye on them anyway.

Any second now! he was still thinking as he jogged around the fountain, then the big hole in the floor. He grabbed the bags and ran back without hesitation. He almost tripped at the top of the escalator but managed to stay upright. It would have been embarrassing if he’d fallen on his face; no doubt Felix would have mentioned it once or twice, or a dozen times.

When he was safely back upstairs, Keo thought, What are you waiting for, asshole? I know you’re out there. So what are you waiting for?

He handed the bags to Felix, and the former army man went to take care of his part of the plan, while Keo wandered over to Huston. She sat on the floor with her back against the three-foot wall that overlooked the lobby on the other side, staring at Martin’s body, wrapped like a mummy across from them.

“You okay?” Keo asked.

She shook her head and didn’t look up. “No.”

“I didn’t say it before, but I’m sorry about Martin.”

She nodded robotically.

“You two were close,” Keo said.

“We all were,” Huston said.

Keo wanted to sit down next to her and rest for a bit, but then he wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on the first floor. He remained standing instead while cradling Martin’s rifle. What he wouldn’t give for a shorter, lighter submachine gun...

“You think this will work?” Huston asked.

“I don’t know,” Keo said.

He’d considered lying but decided truth was probably the better approach. Besides, he was pretty sure Huston knew the odds, and patronizing her wouldn’t have done either one of them any good. They were all adults here.

“We’re going to kill it,” Huston said.

“That’s the plan.”

“I mean it, Keo. We’re going to kill it, no matter what it takes.”

Yeah, about that…

He said, “We’ll do our damn best, that’s for sure. This is going to be one of those us-or-it type of situations, no doubts about it.”

“One bullet in the head,” Huston said. “That’s all it’ll take.”

She had said it so simply, as if it were easy to shoot a blue-eyed ghoul in the head. He wished it were that easy. But it wasn’t. Keo would know; he’d tried it on a number of occasions. Way, way too many occasions for his own health.

Man, I really have to reevaluate my life choices…

Keo looked over at Martin’s mummified body. “He told me there wasn’t anything personal between him and Blue Eyes. Was that true?”

“Yes,” Huston said. “Why would he lie about that?”

“I don’t know. The way this thing is playing with us…” He shook his head. “It seems personal to me. It’s going out of its way to fuck with us. I get that the blue eyes like to play games, but this one… Man, it feels personal.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Are you sure? Maybe he didn’t tell you everything.”

“He did.”

“Did what?”

“Told me everything,” Huston said, but she didn’t elaborate.

Keo guessed she didn’t have to. He’d seen the way the two of them were together today.

Yeah, they’re definitely more than just friends and comrades.

He said, “Martin told me that he wounded it.”

“He did, but it managed to get away.” She paused briefly, still looking at Martin’s covered body. Then, “If he’d gotten it then, everyone would still be alive right now. Terminal, Rogers, Rondo, Jack…”

Huston let the rest trail off. Keo waited for the tears, but none appeared. He guessed she was a lot tougher than he gave her credit—

Something flashed across a moonlit part of the lobby below.

What…

It was oval and looked as if it’d been tossed inside through one of the open doors.

…the…

It landed almost exactly in the middle of the mall and rattled around before settling in one spot.

…fuck.

“Jesus Christ,” Keo whispered.

“What?” Huston said.

He didn’t answer her, but she caught the shocked look on his face. Huston quickly stood up and turned around.

It was Martin.

Or actually, just Martin’s head.

It lay below them, the face turned upward and, while not exactly looking up at them, was in their general direction. It was almost as if whoever had thrown it inside had planned it exactly that way, but of course that was impossible. There was just as good a chance the head would land on its face or turn in the wrong direction.

“Huston, remember the plan,” Keo said.

The medic didn’t respond, but her entire body was shaking.

“Huston,” Keo said again.

She still didn’t answer, but she drew her sidearm and turned around to face the side of the second floor that Keo couldn’t see.

“Felix!” Keo shouted.

“What?” Felix shouted back from somewhere behind him.

“It’s time!”

“Already?”

“Yes!”

“You sure?”

I’m staring down at Martin’s decapitated head as we speak! he thought but shouted back, “Yeah, I’m sure!”

The first one entered through the back door. It was a single ghoul, and instead of racing across the lobby and toward the non-functioning escalator, it hung back in the shadows.

Okay, now that’s new.

The ghouls didn’t normally do that. They attacked. They didn’t wait. They also didn’t try to hide when there was prey around.

“I’m almost done!” Felix shouted.

“Work faster!” Keo shouted back.

“You wanna do this?”

“Shut up and work faster!”

“Bite me!”

The second one appeared almost directly below Keo, having entered through a side door. It stopped as soon as it revealed itself and craned its neck up to look at them. Before Keo could shoot it, the skeletal figure dashed behind cover.

“It’s here, too,” Keo said quietly to Huston.

“It’s here?” Huston said. She kept her eyes glued to the back of the second floor, but Keo could sense her anxiousness. She wanted desperately to turn around to look for herself, but was sticking to the plan. “The blue eyes? It’s here? Downstairs?”

“Yes, but I don’t see it yet.”

“Then how do you know it’s here?”

“The black eyes. They aren’t behaving like usual. The only reason they’d do that is if a blue eyes is around, giving commands.”

“Almost done!” Felix shouted from behind him.

“How many so far?” Huston asked.

“Just two,” Keo said.

“Just two?”

“Yeah, just two so far.”

“Maybe that’s all it has left.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

The ghoul that had entered through the rear door darted into the light and made a beeline for the escalator. It was fast, but not fast enough.

Keo moved along the length of the wall and opened fire.

It took him three bullets, but he finally struck the fast-moving creature in the neck. Black liquid sprayed the wall as the ghoul ran alongside it before seeming to trip on an invisible wire and sprawling across the tiled floor. It actually skidded for a few feet before crumpling in a heap against the escalator.

Bang-bang! from nearby as Huston opened fire.

Keo looked over and saw where she was pointing her gun and faced that direction.

They were coming out of the darkness from the other side of the second floor. It was the most obvious point of entry if they wanted to get up here, so Keo wasn’t too surprised. There were only three of them that he could see.

Just three?

Huston was firing, steadily pulling the trigger, but the creatures were still too far away. Fifty meters, at least, but closing in fast. Keo kept waiting for more of them to reveal themselves.

One second…

Five…

But there remained just the three.

Just three? he thought again even as one of Huston’s rounds finally struck a ghoul and it pitched forward.

The remaining two simply jumped over the dead one and kept coming.

Then Keo remembered the second ghoul that had showed itself in the lobby earlier and turned back around, looking instantly toward the escalator.

You sneaky little devil, Keo thought as he located the nightcrawler. It was already halfway up the escalator.

Keo shot it, striking it once in the shoulder. The creature twisted in midair from the impact, but even as it fell back down the stairs, Keo thought, This is it? This can’t possibly be it. Can it?

Goddamn. I might actually survive tonight!

Twenty-Five

Before he could survive the night, there was still the two remaining ghouls to deal with. Huston was trying to take care of them, but she was using a pistol from thirty-five meters away—thirty, now, as her targets closed in—and missing. Keo helped her out and took off a ghoul’s arm at the shoulder; the rest of the creature flopped to the floor, along with its now-useless appendage.

Huston took down the third and final ghoul with two shots. As soon as the nightcrawler skidded across the tiles and bumped harmlessly against the bottom of the wall that lined the edges, Huston was already reloading.

“How many do you have left?” Keo asked.

“One more,” Huston said. “You?”

“Two. I have spares for the pistol.”

“I’ll let you know if I need them.” She glanced over. “But I just need one bullet to end this.”

That’s the trick, isn’t it?

He didn’t blame her for positive thinking. This was all going a lot better than he’d anticipated. Keo was expecting one of those endless swarms of ghouls to come at him, not a couple here and a couple there. Now this, he could deal with. If this was all Blue Eyes had at his disposal, then Keo was feeling pretty good.

He glanced over at Rosetto’s, the Italian clothing store where Felix had been busy inside this entire time. “Hey, Felix, you done yet?”

“Get your asses in here!” Felix shouted back. Keo could make out the slayer’s shadow moving around on the other side of the opaque windows.

“You heard the man,” Keo said to Huston.

She nodded and began moving toward the store. Keo turned around to make sure nothing had come up the escalator while they were busy with the ghouls on the second floor.

There wasn’t anything back there.

There was nothing in the lobby either when he glanced down to check it.

Can it really be this easy? It can’t possibly be this easy.

Can it?

Why the hell not? The entire night had been one close brush with death after another, so why shouldn’t he catch a break at least once?

Because you don’t catch breaks, pal. Because nothing is ever this easy.

And so far, this was easy. This was just too easy.

Keo turned around just as one of Rosetto’s windows exploded outward, glass fragments firing like missiles at Huston. She reared sideways and back, lifting both arms to protect herself against the projectiles.

But it wasn’t just small and sharp things coming out of the store—Felix also crashed his way through and slammed into the floor, before sliding across it and stopping just short of Huston’s boots.

This’ll teach me to be Captain Optimism! Keo thought even as he ran over.

He was halfway to Huston, who had gone down on one knee, when something landed with a solid thunk! very close by and to his left. Keo spun in that direction just as the ghoul picked itself up. It had broken both legs from the fall, not that the creature seemed to notice.

A second and a third ghoul fell down from the sky and crashed into the first, pummeling it to the floor like an accordion. Keo heard bones snapping, and blood splattered the wall behind them. He was pretty sure that wasn’t the plan, not that the creatures gave a damn about what had happened to the first one as they leapt at Keo.

There was no time to aim with the rifle, so Keo smacked the closest one in the head with the butt of the Colt. A loud cracking sound as its skull caved in and its head snapped back, before its body also flung backward.

The third one kept coming, but by then Keo was able to turn the AR and squeezed off a shot. He hit it with the first round but fired again anyway just to be sure as the creature flopped to the floor. His second shot went wide and pekked against the wall behind it.

The ghoul with the crushed skull was already picking itself back up when Keo shot it in the head. The bullet punched through the weak bone and sailed across the floor and pekked into plywood somewhere in the darkness on the other side.

He stepped forward and took quick aim at the first one as it attempted to pull itself forward by nailless fingers. It dragged useless legs with it, the spinal column twisted at an awkward and impossible direction. It scowled at Keo just before he shot it in the face.

“Felix!”

Huston, screaming behind him.

Keo whirled around. Huston was already back on her feet and was standing between him and Felix. She was clearly hurt—he could see blood dripping to the floor around her feet and knew they were coming from her—but wasn’t done. She was far from done.

The problem was Felix. The slayer wasn’t on the floor where Keo had last seen him. He was floating in the air. No, not floating. Felix was being held up by the blue-eyed ghoul. Mr. You’re-My-Playthings-Until-I-Get-Bored-With-You had finally made his grand appearance. The black eyes were just the prelude, the setup to this payoff.

Fucker really likes to make dramatic entrances.

Why did he think it would be so easy? Nothing had ever come easy. Ever. So of course this made perfect sense. If he was going to survive tonight, it was going to have to be over Blue Eyes’ body.

Fine. Your corpse it is, pal!

The creature had a firm grip on Felix’s throat even as the slayer thrashed in the air, his legs searching for ground to stand on while he whaled away at the hand that held him in place with hardly any effort. Felix was throwing haymakers, connecting with the thing’s face. Not that any of it did any good.

Huston hadn’t fired because she didn’t have a shot. Every time she moved left or right to get a better angle with her pistol, the ghoul mirrored her movements with Felix, using the slayer as a human shield.

“Let him go, you fucker!” Huston was shouting. Blood poured down one side of her face from cuts she’d sustained when the Rosetto’s window shattered, and what looked like a two-inch piece of glass sticking out of her right cheek.

Huston kept moving anyway, constantly trying to get a clear shot, and didn’t let her wounds stop her.

She’s way tougher than I gave her credit for.

It was either that or Huston was really determined to kill Blue Eyes, even if it killed her, too.

“Face me like the sack of shit you are!” Huston was shouting. “Are you afraid of me? Are you afraid of me, you fucker?”

Yeah, she’s definitely determined to kill it.

Huston’s demands only made the monster smile. Then it did something, and Felix jerked spastically against its grip…then stopped moving altogether.

Keo made his move, running over to try to outflank the ghoul by going left while Huston kept edging right. The creature’s piercing blue eyes snapped in his direction, and Keo saw recognition flickering across its face.

Before Keo could finish his plan, the ghoul flung Felix at him, as if the slayer was little more than a football to be tossed around. It was all Keo could to do drop the rifle—thank God it was on a strap—and reach up. He did it more out of self-preservation than an actual attempt to catch Felix, because there was no way—

Felix struck him in the face and chest with his body, the blow sending Keo backward and down to the floor.

Goddammit, Felix, you need to lose some weight!

Keo landed on his ass, then his back, but luckily not his skull, too, because that would have really hurt. Pain exploded from everywhere, including his gut, where Felix’s body had landed over the slung rifle and sent the gun’s sharp edges into Keo’s stomach.

The bang-bang! of gunshots from in front of him as Huston, now free to shoot, did so.

Nail it, Huston! Nail the fucker!

Keo struggled to get up, but first he had to push Felix’s limp body off him. Was he dead? Keo hoped not, but he also knew what it felt like to have those icy cold fingers around your throat. It wasn’t pleasant, to put it lightly.

Felix finally rolled over and twumped! against the floor. It sounded bad—his head must have struck the hard tiles—but Keo didn’t have time to check on him. Right now, Huston was on her own.

Bang-bang!

His hands were scrambling to find, then get a grip, on the rifle slung in front of him while he struggled up.

Huston, retreating while still firing.

Bang-bang-bang!

The creature was walking toward her. Slowly, purposely, with that twisted expression on its face it probably thought resembled a smile but wasn’t even close. It was milking every second of this and was clearly not expecting a single one of Huston’s bullets to land.

And it was right. Its body twitched every time she fired—moving so fast Keo could barely keep up—and the rounds vanished into Rosetto’s behind it. Some struck the wall, and others pinged off metal.

Looks like the plan’s out the window!

Felix had been inside the Italian clothing store when the creature attacked, likely catching him by surprise. The slayer was lying unconscious next to Keo now. His throat was almost entirely black and purple, and his limbs had rested at awkward angles. He was probably still alive—Keo didn’t waste two or so seconds he would have needed to confirm—but certainly out of the fight.

And the plan…

It’d been a good plan. Ok, maybe “good” wasn’t the right word. It was a decent one. At least Keo thought so. All they had to do was lure Mr. Joker into Rosetto’s. He, Felix, and Huston would escape into the back room while it was coming and bring the ceiling down on top of it using Felix’s C4. If it was still alive after getting a whole roof dropped on its head, they would rectify that with a bullet in its head. It was strong, but it wouldn’t have been able to climb out of a pile of rubble so quickly before they could finish the job.

That was the plan, anyway.

Now it was about improvising. Keo was good at that, too. So was this undead bastard, apparently.

Keo was scrambling to his knees when Huston let out the kind of scream that shook the walls and unfinished roof of the mall. Keo raised the AR, but he didn’t have a shot. Huston was between him and the creature, and it was doing something—

Oh, God.

The sickening sound of flesh tearing filled Keo’s ears as the ghoul ripped Huston’s right arm out as if it were little more than a piece of cooked turkey leg. Huston’s scream grew louder and more shrill as blood poured out of her right shoulder. It let her go, and the medic slid to her knees on the floor, her left hand reaching across her body in an attempt to stop the flow of blood. It was a futile gesture, but Huston didn’t know that. Blood squirted out between her fingers as she continued to scream.

And scream…

It was a disturbing sight, one that Keo hoped he never had to see again, but that was probably wishful thinking. This was going to stick with him long after tonight. That is, if he managed to somehow survive. At the moment, that wasn’t a given.

Hell, all the odds were probably against him surviving this.

The ghoul waltzed around Huston. It was almost sauntering, like it was taking a stroll in the park.

You fucker, was all Keo could think. He didn’t stop the rising anger building from deep down and trying to get out. He didn’t want to. This fucker had just mutilated Huston, and now it was coming for him. It was grinning, too, like the maniac it was.

This fucker.

This fucker!

He calmly flicked the fire selector on the rifle to full-auto and fired off a burst at the creature. Ten rounds left the AR in less time than it took Keo to inhale and another ten also sailed before he could exhale the same burst of air.

For some reason, it hadn’t expected Keo to do that, and he hit it twice in the chest even as it reacted, jumping to avoid his fire. Keo hadn’t been aiming for the head—it would have been too difficult, and it was just too small a target. But he’d been hoping for a lucky shot anyway.

As it turned out, he wasn’t so lucky.

There was no time to reload the AR, so Keo tossed it and pulled the Glock. The ghoul was already halfway to him by the time Keo got the gun out, and it burned through the remaining distance by the time he was straightening his arm to fire.

Goddamn, it was fast.

Keo just barely managed to pull the trigger—he had a pinpoint bead on its head!—when it batted the gun out of his hand—

—Bang! as the round went off—

—and broke his left wrist in the process.

Keo would have screamed in pain if he had the chance, but he didn’t, because before he could even open his mouth, it struck him in the chest with the heel of its palm. He flew across the air and slammed into the three-foot wall, and his tilting momentum would have flipped him right over the edge if the creature hadn’t grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him back.

Jesus Christ, it was fast. How was it so fast?

Glowing blue eyes bored into Keo’s soul, and he couldn’t have looked away even if he wanted to. The eyes were hypnotic, their every beat seemingly in sync to his own heartbeat. (How is that possible?) The impossible sensations of cold and heat radiated from every one of its pores and reached out across the space between them to blanket Keo, and no amount of squirming he did could prevent it.

His body was imprisoned against the wall, and he could feel empty space behind him. The only thing keeping him from toppling over and falling, if not to his death, then a very painful landing, was a grinning abomination that shouldn’t exist at all, but there it was, there it was.

It leaned toward him, fingers tangled up in the fabric of his jacket. It wasn’t straining; despite its elongated frame and rail-thin form, the ghoul had the strength of ten men, if not more. And it could, right now, snap his neck if it wanted to.

It could do just about anything to him right now, if it wanted to.

“Haven’t you been enjoying our little game, meat?” it hissed. “I sense displeasure in how things are going. Why? Did you think it would end any other way? Well, did you?”

Keo grimaced. The sound of its voice was like gravel pouring into his mouth, scratching and clawing at his tongue and throat as it went down.

He pushed through the disgust to grit his teeth back at the creature. “If you’re asking for opinions, may I suggest you go fuck yourself.”

Even as he said those words, Keo remembered the knife on his left hip. Not his, but the spare Felix had given him. It was six inches of silver-coated metal, and all he needed to do was to reach for it and drive the point through the monster’s head. The brain on the other side was its Achilles’ heel. If he couldn’t shoot it, maybe he could knife it.

His fingers were already close to the knife’s hilt. Two inches, maybe less. It would take half a second to grab it, draw it, and raise it.

…grab it, draw it, and raise it…

One second. That was all he’d need. He’d have to catch it by surprise because it was so fast. So, so goddamn fast.

Maybe he needed just a little over a second…

“I’ve found her, you know,” the creature hissed.

Her? Keo thought, his eyes and every part of his focus on the creature leaning over him. He could feel its heat against his cheeks, the fluctuations going from ice cold to warm, then scalding hot, to freezing again. It was unsettling. Everything about this creature was impossible.

“I tracked her smell all the way to the city, and beyond,” it said.

“Beyond?” What the hell is it talking about?

Its lips—razor-thin, like bloody veins—creased into a smile. “The ranch,” it hissed, its hot breath brushing against his exposed skin, causing his body to pickle all over. “I found the ranch, meat sack. Your ranch.”

The ranch…

It was talking about Bunker’s ranch, just behind the city of Longmire. The same place Keo and Lara had called home for the last few months. Where they’d found peace and quiet and began talking about starting a family.

The ranch…

It had found the ranch. It had, somehow, tracked Jackson there. That meant it had found, by extension, Lara, even if it didn’t know she existed. (God, he hoped it didn’t know she existed.) Even if it didn’t know she was the only reason Keo was still alive now, desperate to get back to her.

The ranch…

It must have read the reaction on his face, because the creature’s smile widened, the corners creeping even higher. If it were still capable of human joy, Keo thought that was what it was flushed with right now. It had gotten to him, saw his response to its taunts, and it was bathing in his distress.

The fucker was enjoying every second of Keo’s misery.

Now.

Now now now!

Keo reached for the knife and drew it from the sheath.

One second. Maybe less!

It laughed and grabbed the knife by the blade with its bare hand and ripped it out of his grip. Keo hadn’t even managed to lift the weapon high enough to attempt a strike. The ghoul had been too fast, too ready, and for all he knew, it’d just been luring him in to make the attempt just so it could spoil it, so it could cause him even more distress as he saw his improvised plan go up in smoke.

It pushed him further against the wall, then almost over the top. The only thing keeping him from going completely over was the ghoul’s fingers holding onto a thick wad of his jacket. A simple effortless shove, and he’d go right over. It wasn’t a terribly long fall—just one floor—but it would hurt nonetheless. And if he happened to land on the wrong body part, it might also cost him more than that.

The creature tossed the knife away. Keo watched the blade clatter against the floor, landing close enough to Felix’s unconscious form that it nearly cut the slayer across the forehead as it skidded past.

Felix. He was still where Keo last saw him, his back turned to Keo. The slayer hadn’t gotten up or even shown signs that he was alive. For all Keo knew, he might have been dead. Keo didn’t know how badly the man was injured. Had the creature actually killed Felix before throwing him at Keo? There had been no time to check on Felix’s condition, but given how little the man was moving now…

He’s dead. He’s probably dead.

What about…

Huston. She had gone silent a while ago, but Keo hadn’t noticed until now because he had his own problems to deal with. She was also where he’d last seen her, but not on her knees anymore. Huston lay sprawled on the floor, a dark red pool of blood getting bigger underneath her unmoving body. Her detached right arm, somehow still gripping onto her pistol, rested a few meters away.

There was a good chance Huston was dead.

A “good chance?” Oh, who was he kidding. The medic was 100 percent dead. One hundred fucking percent.

And he was next.

The creature was holding its cut hand over Keo’s head. He tried to turn away as thick drops of blood dripped onto his forehead and slowly, disgustingly slid down the bridge of his nose and cheeks.

“What do you say, meat sack?” it hissed, its voice digging into his skin like knives. “Should I make you one of mine? This game of ours has run its course, don’t you think? Maybe I should take you along with me, as I descend on this ranch of yours. Would you like that? Would you like to go home?”

It loosened its grip on his shirt, and Keo’s body tilted dangerously over the top of the wall. He stuck out both hands in search of a handhold but couldn’t find any. He fought through the urge to grab at the creature’s extended arm to keep himself from falling. He imagined it howling with laughter if he did that.

“Answer me, meat,” it hissed. “You’re starting to bore me.”

Then, out of the corner of Keo’s right eye, there was movement.

Felix.

Felix was moving.

The creature either heard or glimpsed the slayer rolling over on the floor, or it saw the shocked expression on Keo’s face and figured it out, because it turned its head to look in Felix’s direction.

“Still alive?” it asked in a singsong voice that told Keo it wasn’t the least bit scared. If anything, it sounded almost happy, maybe because it meant it could torture Felix, too, once it was done with Keo.

Felix had rolled over onto his back. Blood dripped from gashes along his cheeks and forehead, and his nose might have been broken. He was bleeding from a dozen other cuts, and blood pooled greedily around him, more dripping from his chin.

The slayer was holding something in both hands, clutched against his chest. In his left was a small cream-colored object that looked like a long block of cheese. Keo had no idea where Felix had been hiding it all this time, but he knew exactly what that metal device sticking out of the object was, and why there was a yellow cord running from it over to a mustard-colored boxy device in Felix’s right hand.

Felix grinned at Keo, revealing a wall of blood-covered teeth. “Hey, Keo, time to make the donuts!”

The ghoul whirled around, shouting, “No!” just before Felix pressed a switch on the detonator.

Keo heard the loud and satisfying click! just as the ghoul let go of him and lunged toward Felix.

It was fast. Impossibly fast.

But it wasn’t fast enough to stop the block of C4 in Felix’s palm from detonating.

Then Keo was flying backwards through the air along with chunks of the wall he’d been pinned against, even as an intense heat swarmed and swallowed his body whole. Large and small pieces of the mall’s second floor zip-zip-zipped! around him, some coming inches from breaking open his face.

All Keo could think as he freefell through the air was Don’t break your neck! Don’t break your neck in the landing!

Twenty-Six

“Keo.”

Felix was dead. Blown up. Huston, too. He still couldn’t shake the image of the medic on her knees screaming as blood poured out of the stump that used to be her right arm. That image was going to stay with him for some time.

“Keo, can you hear me?”

He was supposed to be dead along with them. He might have been, if the concussive force of Felix’s blast didn’t send him flying off the second floor where he was able to avoid most of the mall as it caved down. That was probably the only thing that had saved his life. At least, he thought he was still alive. Wasn’t he? Must be, because dead people didn’t have stupid, inane thoughts.

“Wake up.”

Huston, bleeding…

“Wake up.”

Felix, grinning at him just before he clicked the detonator. How he’d managed to hold onto it and the C4 after everything that had happened, after all their plans went out the window, Keo would never know. Maybe that was what he was doing while the ghoul was torturing Keo. Ol’ Felix was putting his bomb together while he lay on the floor. But Keo would never know the truth now. In the end, the slayer had gotten the last laugh.

“Come on, wake up.”

How badly was he hurt? That was the big question. He wasn’t even sure when he’d regained consciousness. Was it morning? Was it still dark? Shit. If it was still night, then all it would take was one little ghoul to stumble over his body and finish—

“Keo!”

Who was calling his name? The voice sounded familiar, even though it seemed to come from very far away. The other side of the planet. Maybe the moon. What did words from the moon sound like?

“Keo!”

Like that. Calling his name. Why was someone on the other side of the moon calling his name? Now that was odd.

“Wake up!”

Was that…Lara? No, it couldn’t be Lara. What would Lara be doing here? She was supposed to be back at the ranch, safe and sound. He’d made sure of that. He hadn’t allowed her to come with him because she was everything to him. Besides, it was a quick jaunt up and down the Texas coastline. He could do that in his sleep—

“Wake up, goddammit!”

Lara… No, it wasn’t Lara. It was just Huston again. Like last time. But Huston was dead. Wasn’t she? Or had she actually survived?

“I said wake up, mister!”

Why not? He’d survived. Why couldn’t the medic have as well? Hell, for all he knew, Felix might have also—

“WAKE UP!”

He woke up. Or he opened his eyes.

She’d let her hair grow out, and it fell around her beautiful face, her crystal blue eyes full of life against the morning sunlight.

…the morning sunlight…

She smiled down at him. “Keo.”

“Yes, ma’am, what can I do for you?” Keo said. Or croaked out. Then he was coughing as his chest constricted and about a hundred different particles of dust trapped inside his nostrils and mouth and throat tried to choke him to death.

“Water! I need some more water!” Lara was shouting.

Lara. It was Lara.

His Lara.

What was she doing here? It was too dangerous. There were ghouls…

No, not dangerous. Morning sunlight against his skin, causing him to blink as he looked up at Lara while she tilted his head back. Keo opened his mouth and let warm liquid satisfy his parched mouth and flow down his throat. He swallowed it greedily, white dust covering his eyes, obscuring parts of his vision.

But the parts that he could see—Lara, hovering protectively over him—was everything.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. Or, again, croaked out.

She shook her head and sighed. Not quite exasperated but clearly annoyed. “I told you no meandering, didn’t I?”

“I wasn’t meandering. I was laywaid.”

“Laywaid? That’s not a word.”

“Bunker says it is.”

“It’s waylaid, you numbskull,” a familiar voice said from somewhere in the background.

Lara turned her head to look at the speaker. “Don’t call my man names, Bunker.”

“He’s an idiot,” the man said.

“He’s my idiot.” She turned back to him. God, her eyes were so blue, and how he loved the way they sparkled in the sunlight. “Aren’t you?”

He smiled up at her. “Yes, ma’am.” Then, “How did you find me?”

“It wasn’t hard. We just followed the path of destruction. How much of that was your doing?”

“Only a small part.”

“Now why don’t I believe you?”

“It’s true.”

“I definitely don’t believe you,” she said, and sat him up further.

Keo scanned the destruction. There were blocks of concrete in piles scattered across the length of the lobby. Glass fragments carpeted the floor, crunching every time Bunker walked over them as he went through the rubble, poking at crevices with his AR rifle. The rancher looked as if he’d come armed with everything he had. Keo hoped they’d brought along a spare horse with them, because he didn’t think he could walk that far home.

The acidic smell of vaporized ghoul flesh stung his nostrils and the exposed parts of his face. He wanted to move but couldn’t, so made do with sitting on what felt like a part of a fallen wall as Lara tended to him.

She was cleaning his face with a wet wipe while keeping him sitting up with her other hand. The cold and wet towel tingled against his skin, and there was feeling in his legs and arms, so that meant he wasn’t paralyzed from the explosion and subsequent fall. The rest of him was a throbbing sea of pain and aches and bruises. His shirt was open, and there were bandages along his face, arms, legs, and chest. He didn’t even want to see what he looked like underneath the articles of clothing Lara hadn’t cut away to treat his wounds.

But he’d get to see, because he was still alive.

He was still alive!

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“What do you think I’m doing here, mister? Looking for you.” She continued cleaning him, moving around to get at every part of his face and neck. “God, you look like shit. And that’s me being nice.”

He managed a grin. “That’s you being nice?”

She frowned. “You’re so wrapped up with bandages that you look like a mummy right now. You have burns along your arms and body and face. Plus, I’m going to need to make splints for your legs before we can even begin trying to move you.”

“That good, huh?”

“Worse.”

“Can’t possibly be worse.”

“It’s worse. You’re in really bad shape. I would ask if a building fell on you, but I already know the answer. Can you feel your legs?”

“Yes.”

“Is there pain?”

“A little,” he lied.

Not that Lara believed him, by the look on her face. Of course, Lara had seen plenty of injuries in her lifetime. Even if she didn’t have that experience, she could probably read the lie on his face easily enough. Most people couldn’t—at least, Keo liked to think most people couldn’t—but it was impossible to lie to Lara.

“Just a little, huh?” she asked.

“I’m fine.”

“The hell you are.”

“I’ll get better.”

“Yes, you will, because I’ll make sure of it. You got that?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page. How’s—”

“Jackson,” Keo said, cutting her off. “Did she find the ranch?”

“She did,” Lara said, nodding. “And she brought me what I needed, thanks to you.”

“She’s okay?”

“I tended to her wound, but she was touch and go all night. She was still unconscious when Bunker and I left her at the ranch.”

Lara stopped wiping his face and leaned forward. She kissed him softly on the lips, as if afraid she might hurt him if she pressed too hard. He was glad she’d gone the gentle route, because he wasn’t sure he could handle anything stronger, even if it did feel incredible.

“You did good, mister,” she whispered. “Really good.”

“Aw, shucks,” Keo said.

She sat back and smiled. Then she looked down and put her hand over her belly.

It was a little more obvious now even underneath the thick fabric of her jacket and the vest she was wearing. Not by very much, because she still wasn’t that far along. Anyone who didn’t know her situation wouldn’t have guessed.

He put his hand over hers. “You’re okay?”

She nodded. “We’re doing fine, and we’ll stay that way because of you.”

Everything about her was radiant, and he was reminded of what people used to say about how pregnant women always had a glow about them. He hadn’t believed it before. But now, looking at Lara as she glowed in front of him, he decided they were right after all.

“What happened here last night?” Bunker asked as he walked over to them, crunching concrete and glass along the way. He was even more heavily armed than when Keo first glimpsed him wandering around the lobby earlier.

Both the rancher and Lara had come fully prepared for a battle. Lara’s rifle was on the ground next to her bulky tactical pack that she was taking medical supplies out of. She wore a pistol on her right hip and carried a knife on her left.

“A blue-eyed ghoul happened,” Keo said.

“It did this?” Bunker asked

“We did, trying to blow it up.”

“‘We?’” Lara asked. “We only found you down here.”

“There were some slayers with me last night.”

“Explosion got them?” Bunker asked.

It got Felix, but Huston was already gone, Keo thought, but he didn’t think those details were important right now, so he only said, “Yeah.”

The rancher put his hands on his hips and glanced around at the lobby. “Well, I hope whoever owns this place has insurance.”

“Did you find it?” Keo asked.

“Find what?”

“The blue eyes.”

Bunker shook his head. “I didn’t know I was supposed to be looking for one.” He took off his Stetson and fanned himself, though that only scattered the dust in the air around them more. “Found a few of the suckers still underneath all the damage, but nothing that looked like a blue eyes.”

Keo glanced up at the half domed-shaped crater that Felix’s explosion had gutted out from the rest of the upper floor. It almost looked as if a giant shark had taken a bite.

“Hey, Keo, time to make the donuts!”

Felix’s last words, even as he was grinning like a madman.

“It was up there when the explosion went off,” Keo said.

“We didn’t go up there yet,” Lara said. “It didn’t seem as important as making sure you were alive.”

“What was the explosion?” Bunker asked.

“A block of C4,” Keo said.

“That’ll do it.” He turned and walked toward the escalator. “I’ll check, just in case. Better safe than sorry when it comes to those suckers.”

“Yeah, you do that, Bunker.”

“Hey, look at me,” Lara said. When he turned to her, she continued cleaning his face. “How are you feeling?”

“Worse than shit, remember?”

“But you’re alive.”

“I am alive, yes.”

Thanks to Felix and Huston.

“That’s all that matters,” Lara said. “We’ll be fine. Whatever happens, we’ll be fine.”

He nodded and returned her smile, because she was right. As long as he was still alive, they would be fine. As long as he had her…

He put his hand on her belly again. “Did you name it yet?”

“Of course not,” Lara said. “I told you I’d wait until you came home. Why? Did you think up a name while you were running around out here having fun without me?”

“What about Felix?”

“Who’s Felix?”

“The guy that saved my life last night.”

“Oh,” Lara said. She sat back and seemed to think about it for a moment.

“It can be another name,” Keo said. “I’m not married to the idea.”

Lara shook her head. “No. Felix doesn’t sound too bad. It’s different enough, in a good way. But what if it’s a girl?”

“How about Huston?”

“The city?”

“The director.”

“John Huston. H-u-s-t-o-n.”

“That’s him.”

Lara smiled. “I like that one, too.”

“Good,” Keo said.

They exchanged a smile.

Lara went back to cleaning him as Keo looked up and over at Bunker. The rancher was climbing up the escalator, which had been spared most of the explosion, but there was apparently debris on the steps that Bunker had to navigate around.

The blue-eyed ghoul’s body was up there, somewhere. Keo wouldn’t feel good about last night—or the nights that would come after this one—until Bunker found the fucker’s bones bleaching in the morning sunlight.

“It couldn’t have survived last night,” Lara said when she saw where he was looking. “Even the blue-eyed ones aren’t invulnerable.”

“But they can heal fast,” Keo said.

“Against what took out most of the second floor?” Lara shook her head. “It’s dead, Keo. Everything’s okay now. You can relax.”

Keo nodded, even as the blue-eyed ghoul’s last words echoed inside his head:

“What do you say, meat sack? Should I make you one of mine? This game of ours has run its course, don’t you think? Maybe I should take you along with me, as I descend on this ranch of yours.”

Keo hoped that Lara was right, that it was dead, because as long as it was out there, they weren’t safe.

Not him, not Lara, and not the child growing inside her.

“Everything’s okay now,” Lara said. She held his head gently between her hands and stared lovingly down at him. “We’ll go home. You’ll heal. And one day, not too far from now, either Felix or Huston will join us. How does that sound to you?”

Keo grinned up at her. “That’s the best offer I’ve had all day.”

Epilogue

After the humans left, taking away the stink of their sweat and their loud, inane chatter with them, his children came.

She led them.

There were just a handful of his children, but soon there would be more. He would rise again, like a phoenix from the ashes. He imagined it all in his head, and it was glorious. Most of all, it would be fun.

She caressed his damaged flesh as the others pulled him out of his prison. He was a mangled version of what he used to be, but it wouldn’t last. All he needed to heal was time.

“Father,” she whispered. Her lips didn’t move, and her voice was like a second heartbeat inside his mind. “Father, you’re hurt. You’re hurt so bad.”

“I’ll heal,” he whispered back in the same way. “All I need is time.”

“They did this. The humans.”

“Yes.”

“They’ll pay.”

“In time. Time is on our side.”

“Yes…”

“We’ll make more children first.”

“Make more children,” she repeated, with just a ghost of a smile on her lips. Her face, a darker shade than her original form, blushed against the moonlight.

The children crowded around them. Anxious. Their voices echoed in his head, longing for his love.

“Soon, children,” he cooed to them, sending his words through the hive and into their minds. Their small, simple minds. “Soon.”

“The ranch,” she whispered inside his mind. “They’re at the ranch, Father.”

“Yes,” he said. “The ranch. The ranch…”

More From The Road to Babylon…

Keo, Lara, and Bunker will return in…

The Ranch

(Coming Soon)