WILL
The city of Harvest, Louisiana, like most small towns around the United States, maintained a backup water supply in a water tower. The one Will and Zoe were on now was fifty meters high, with the word “Harvest” stenciled down the side in big, blocky black letters to make them stand out against the bright white paint. It was the stark whiteness of the structure against the darkness that Will had spotted from a distance.
Getting up the water tower was simple enough. All it took was climbing. A lot of climbing. Fast climbing. Fifty meters up. He was pretty sure he was going to die about halfway, but somehow, some way, his stitches held, and miraculously he wasn’t bleeding by the time he got to the top.
The ghouls were on their heels by the time Will flung himself onto the tower’s cone-shaped roof. He had his pack over one shoulder, the M4A1 over the other, and he unslung the rifle and fired down, killing the closest ghoul—already halfway up the ladder—and slicing through three more behind it. They fell like dominos, tumbling backward, knocking loose more ghouls. It looked almost amusing, like a Three Stooges gag.
Will counted every bullet he fired, painfully aware of how many he had left in his arsenal. The current magazine was already minus the three rounds he had used back at the collaborator town, leaving him with twenty-seven.
One…
He couldn’t see the white Ford F-150 parked at the base of the tower anymore. It was simply gone, engulfed by the teeming mass of creatures racing toward the structure that rose out of the center of Harvest like a beacon.
Come one, come all! Free human blood! Come get them—if you can!
He must have laughed out loud, because he caught sight of Zoe out of the corner of his eye looking over at him, half terrified and half perplexed.
She was clinging to the tower’s roof, her shoes scraping for better contact against the smooth metal surface. Not an easy feat, given the day’s rain, which had made climbing and keeping a grip on the ladder’s rungs difficult. The leftover wetness also made accidentally slipping down the slanted rooftop a very real possibility. The tower itself didn’t have any protective railing at the top, which meant if you dropped off the side, you dropped.
Smartly, Zoe was using the metallic telecom antennas jutting up from around the sides of the tower as foot stops to keep from sliding off. The structure looked like a huge aboveground grain silo, with a massive girth that extended from top to bottom instead of the flat base and pencil-thin middle section of most water towers he was used to seeing.
Will had perched himself directly over the ladder extending up from the ground below. It was the only way up, which was more than he could have possibly hoped for. One way to access the rooftop meant only one spot to cover. When he realized that, he suddenly got excited. Up until that point, this had been a suicide run. But now, there was a chance. A slim one, but it was a chance nonetheless.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
And they were coming, all right—not that he had any doubts they wouldn’t be. If he had learned anything about the ghouls, it was that 1) they weren’t stupid; and 2) they were persistent. Goddamn persistent.
So he kept firing down, but only when the closest ghoul was within five meters of reaching the top. That ensured point-blank accuracy, and allowed for more creatures to be lined up directly below his target so the shot would keep traveling down, gravity giving the silver bullet an extra burst of speed for maximum collateral damage.
And he kept count of every bullet he fired.
Fifteen…
He mumbled a curse each time a bullet ricocheted off a bone and was deflected in a direction other than straight down. It was rare, but it happened.
Twenty-two…
Will pumped the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth round into the flesh of two separate ghouls, then fired the final two shots in rapid succession while the ghouls were still more than five meters from him, in order to give himself time to reload.
One magazine down, two to go.
The stitches along his side were holding, and he didn’t see blood seeping through his shirt when he glanced down. Thank God Zoe knew what she was doing when she put him back together. He looked over at her now, staring down at the squirming black horde gathered below them, so many that even the grass seemed to have been swallowed up. Her face was frozen in horror, her mouth slightly open, as if she wanted to scream but couldn’t get the sounds out.
He turned back to the ladder and fired the first bullet from the second magazine and watched three—no, four—ghouls tumble from the ladder.
One…
Another shot sent another three down, before the bullet bounced off track.
Two…
The water tower was cold against his backside, and he was high up enough that he could feel the chill night air. His pants were already soaked through.
Five…
He took a moment to snap a glance down at his watch, glowing underneath the darkness. 12:33 a.m.
Not bad. He only had to hold them off until…when? 6:30 a.m.? 7:00 a.m.? Close enough. It wasn’t the worst situation he had ever faced, though he imagined it would be easier if Danny were here.
Or Lara.
Or someone besides a terrified doctor.
Seven…
Zoe hadn’t moved from her spot on the angled roof, her feet spread out in front of her, each shoe pushing against a jutting cell tower. He almost smiled; she looked like a pregnant woman giving birth.
She looked over at him, her entire body trembling, making her stutter the words: “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”
“Of course not,” he said. “Don’t fall, and we’ll be fine.”
“Don’t fall,” she repeated. She looked back down at the creatures below. “Don’t fall…”
Eight…
“Don’t look,” he said. “Lay down on the roof and don’t look and don’t move.”
She was clearly unconvinced, but she lay down against the cold slanted metal surface anyway.
Nine…
After the first fifty or so ghouls, the rest began moving at a crawl. He was so used to seeing them attacking at frenzied speeds that watching them climbing up the ladder, being careful with every step, every rung they reached for, was a revelation. For every ghoul that managed to climb, another lost its footing or grip and went tumbling down into the pit of writhing flesh below.
Eleven…
“How many bullets do you have left?” Zoe asked, her voice still shaking.
“Enough.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he lied.
Thirteen…
*
He was on his last magazine when he started thinking about alternatives.
One…
He had the Glock. That was fifteen more silver bullets. He also had two more magazines in his pouch. That was good for thirty more rounds, for a grand total of forty-five. Which, judging by the speed the ghouls were climbing, would probably get him through another three hours. One hour per fifteen bullets.
Captain Optimism. Danny would be so proud.
Six…
He had his cross-knife. The problem with the knife was that he needed to wait for them to get all the way up before he could strike. Potentially hazardous work. One grab around his wrist, or if the knife lodged in too deep, and he would lose it—and himself right along with it, because stabbing, even downward, required leaning over the edge.
Doable, but risky.
Then there was the whole numbers game. He could only take down one at a time, which meant for every ghoul he dispatched, another would be right behind it, giving him very little time to recover. He couldn’t count on Zoe to take up any slack. He didn’t think it was possible to even pry her from her current spot.
Eleven…
His watch read: 3:19 a.m.
Zoe looked half asleep, lying with her back against the angled roof. Every few minutes she would lift her head slightly to make sure she hadn’t slipped while she had her eyes closed. If she was afraid of heights, she hadn’t said a word as he urged her up the ladder. Of course, she was probably fueled at the time by enough adrenaline for a half dozen people.
Sixteen…
A slight wind had picked up, and Will turned his face into it. He could see most of Harvest from his perch. Or at least, as much as he could pick up with the naked eye. The moon was not being very cooperative, and he had lost the bright headlights of the Ford F-150 within the world of murky blackness, shifting flesh and glinting black eyes swarming the base of the water tower.
A sudden burst of motion drew his attention, and he looked over to find Zoe fighting with her footing, having somehow ended up slightly crouched, knees bent, with one hand bracing against the cool metal under her. After some frantic struggling, she managed to push herself back into position.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I must have fallen asleep,” she said breathlessly.
He turned his attention to the ladder and the nearest ghoul clinging to it, ten meters down. He waited for it to make up the distance, then shot it in the face a few seconds later. The bullet pierced the creature’s chest and caught two more under it, sending all three plunging down. They knocked loose two more from the ladder as they fell.
Seventeen…
“How many bullets do you have left?” she asked.
“Plenty,” he said.
“But how many?”
“More than enough.” Before she could press him again, he added, “Get closer, Zoe, so I’ll be able to catch you if you doze off again.”
She scooted over slowly, taking her time. She flinched when he leaned over the ladder and fired his eighteenth bullet without warning. He sat back and held out his hand. She took it and let him pull her closer until she was sitting only a few inches away. She immediately sought out the safety of the nearby cell antennas with her shoes.
Will leaned over, watching the closest ghoul climbing from thirty meters away. The creature reached up and took another rung and pulled itself up slowly…
He slung his rifle and dug into his pack. He pulled out the gas siphoning tube, unrolled it, then looped one end around his belt and cinched it tight. He leaned toward Zoe and reached for her waist, hooking his fingers into her belt.
“What are you doing?” she asked, alarmed.
“I’m going to tie you to me, so I’ll know if you slip again. Early warning system.”
“But what if you fall?”
“Then you’re coming down with me.”
Her face turned pale.
“I can go days without sleeping if I have to,” Will said. “Can you?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Yes. You can fall.”
“So, no, then.”
He grinned back at her, then looped the other end of the tube around her belt. He pulled at it to draw her closer, before tying it into place. He left a meter length between them so they could still move without forcing the other along. He wasn’t entirely sure if the hose would hold if one of them actually did fall off the tower, but he kept that doubt to himself.
He leaned over the ladder, shot another ghoul in the chest, and watched it tumble into the darkness below, this time taking five more along with it.
Twenty…
*
He stretched the final rifle magazine a few minutes past 4:00 a.m.—4:14 a.m., to be exact.
When she saw him slinging the M4A1 and drawing his Glock, Zoe said, “You’re almost out of bullets, aren’t you?”
“I have three magazines for the Glock.”
“Will that be enough?”
“Forty-five bullets in all.”
“How many bullets did you have for the rifles?”
“Thirty.”
“How many magazines?”
“Three. But one magazine only had twenty-seven rounds.”
“Eighty-seven bullets got us from eleven o’clock to three in the morning,” she said. “Four hours. Forty-five bullets will only get us two more hours. We’ll still be ninety minutes short of sunup, Will.”
Great, she can count, too.
“I’ll make it last,” he said.
“No, you won’t.”
He was struck by the matter-of-fact tone in her voice. The fear seemed to have been replaced by what sounded like resignation.
“What happens when the bullets run out?” she asked.
“I still have my knife.”
“Your knife…”
“We’ll be fine.”
Say it a third time and maybe she’ll actually believe you.
“You’re full of shit, Will,” Zoe said.
Or not.
He leaned over the ladder and shot a ghoul from five meters away. The bullet pierced its chest, hit a second ghoul directly below it. They tumbled free, knocking only one other ghoul with them this time.
Sonofabitch.
The rest continued to climb steadily, either unimpressed by or oblivious to the deaths of the others. He couldn’t even see the dead ghouls below, and figured they were crushed under the live ones fighting their way to the ladder to be the next one up.
Two…
*
Fifteen…
Will didn’t wait to watch the ghoul flip off the ladder. He immediately ejected the magazine, catching it with his other hand and jamming it back into the pouch (Just in case), then instinctively grabbed the next—and last—magazine.
He slipped it in, worked the slide, and leaned over the side of the water tower.
The closest ghoul was only ten meters away. Will watched it climb for a moment, one arm over the other, impossibly patient and determined, and unfathomably fearless. He wondered if they even still had the same concept of life and death anymore. Once you’ve already “died,” did it matter if you died again? Even if it was permanent this time?
“How many?” Zoe asked.
“What?”
“How many bullets do you have left?”
“This is it. Fifteen more bullets in the magazine.” He heard her chuckle, and looked over. “What’s so funny?”
“You didn’t bother to lie that time.”
He wasn’t sure if she looked horrified or amused. Maybe somewhere in between.
“I would have, but it’s obvious you know how to count,” he said.
He heard flesh slapping metal and leaned over and shot the ghoul in the head. It tumbled, taking two down with it.
One…
Zoe’s entire body had become a living spring next to him, the siphoning tube connecting their bodies quivering each time she shifted or moved, which was every few seconds. It had also gotten much colder up here, and Zoe’s entire body was shaking. He had gone numb and couldn’t feel the vibrations coming from her, of course, but he could see the tube trembling out of the corner of his eye.
Will glanced down at his watch: 6:09 a.m.
Almost there…
“Will,” Zoe said.
“Yeah?”
“What happens when you run out of bullets?”
“We’ll improvise.”
“The knife?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re going to die,” she said, her voice so low he almost didn’t hear.
He shot another ghoul, watched it do a swan dive off the ladder, somehow managing not to take a single creature with it.
The next ghoul took its place.
Two…
He fired again, and this time was rewarded with the sight of the creature collapsing straight down, taking one—then two—ghouls with it.
Three…
He noticed they were moving faster up the ladder now, and it wasn’t going well. For every ghoul that managed to scramble up two rungs without falling, two either lost their footing or grip and tumbled down. That didn’t seem to deter the rest, and they continued clamoring, moving faster and faster up toward him.
Why?
Maybe they sensed he was running out of bullets. Or maybe they—
The sunrise. They know it’s coming.
His watch confirmed it: 6:31 a.m.
Come out, come out, wherever you are, Mister Sun.
He fired, knocking three off the ladder.
Four…
“Zoe,” he said.
“Yes?”
“You need to get ready.”
“Get ready for what?” she said, her voice quivering noticeably again.
*
6:55 a.m.
They were coming up too fast, surging up the ladder, returning to the same frenzied pace when all of this began. It was all he could do to slash and stab with the cross-knife and suck in a fresh breath of cold air before another one tried to grab at his wrist or ankle to pull him down.
Thank God turning into ghouls hadn’t granted them any special strength; he was able to shake them off, at times kicking them loose from whatever they were hanging on to and sending them fluttering back down to the mass of bodies below.
Not that it stopped them. Or slowed them down for even a second.
Zoe was moving next to him, navigating the small, precious space at the edge of the water tower. She grabbed on to the cell antennas as if they were a lifeline, shuffling left then right, trying to keep up with his movements. She had to keep moving, because each time one of the ghouls reached the top, Will had to step back before he could slash or stab. Then once the ghoul fell, he moved forward again, back toward the ladder to greet the next one up.
He marveled at their persistence, their ability to shun all sense of self-preservation. They didn’t stop. Not for a second. The tide kept coming, churning, one after another, and for every black-skinned thing he dispatched, another took its place.
And they kept coming, and climbing, and coming…
…and climbing…
7:01 a.m…
When was sunrise? 7:10 a.m.? 7:20 a.m.?
Whatever the time, they could sense it. The ghouls were desperate to get up to the rooftop, as if they knew they only had a few minutes left. Will couldn’t see light in the skies or on the horizon. He didn’t know how much time was left. How much longer he had to hold on. So he stabbed and slashed, moving back, then forward again, then back…
And they kept coming.
Again and again, again and again…
7:09 a.m…
He was covered in slabs of thick black blood and torn flesh. The smell was overwhelming, assaulting his nostrils, making his eyes flare uncontrollably, his skin tingling with the acidic stench of death and decay. He wiped at copious globs of fluid that dripped from his hair down to his forehead and into his right eye. He spat out something that tasted like flesh, but it could have been dirt, or garbage, or some kind of filth he had no name for.
Zoe did her best to keep out of his way, struggling to hold on to the antennas, the two of them literally tied together by a hose that wasn’t designed for the task. Still, it was better than nothing, and it allowed him to keep track of her without having to look back, because he didn’t have time for that. He prayed she didn’t slip and fall, because if she did, he would go over the side right along with her. Unless, of course, the tube snapped. That was possible, too.
Amazingly, he had begun to get feelings back in his body. The more he moved, the more sensations returned to his hands, to his legs, and to his joints. It took all his strength to keep scrambling, stabbing and slashing, kicking and punching. They were weak things, like striking bags of flour. They relied on numbers, which was useless when there was only one path up the water tower.
He had to stay clear of their mouths and the crooked yellow and brown teeth, like caverns of smaller bones trying to gnaw at him. Those were dangerous. Blood itself didn’t do anything to you, but if they bit you, the direct transfer of fluids was what caused the infection.
Teeth of Death. I should write a book.
7:15 a.m…
Goddammit, where’s that damn sun?
Slowly, he became aware that the speed with which each new ghoul appeared had begun to flag. They were coming up at longer intervals now, and he was able to breathe a little bit before he had to engage another one.
He killed a ghoul, then kicked it in the chest and watched it flip over the side, and waited for the next one.
The cross-knife in his right hand was covered in blood and skin, viscous things that looked like a concentrated form of foul-smelling sweat dripping over his fist. He was only dimly aware of his ragged breathing, and his legs screamed at him for rest. His lungs burned, but it was nothing compared to the fire burning away in his side. Was he bleeding again?
He looked down. No. No blood. Well, not the red kind, anyway.
A little rest right about now would be nice.
No. Not yet.
Not yet…
He waited for the next one to emerge up the ladder, but it didn’t come.
He kept waiting…
“Will, what’s happening?” Zoe said behind him.
He shook his head and stood perfectly still.
Will hadn’t looked over the tower in a while. He hadn’t had the opportunity.
But now he did, and he saw there wasn’t a single ghoul on the ladder. They were all on the ground, and as he watched, they began to dissolve, like a pool of black ink flowing away from the base of the tower, until the grass below became visible again. And there, the Ford F-150, unveiled as if by magic (Ta-da!).
“They’re leaving,” Zoe said, her voice breathless, as if afraid just saying those two simple words out loud might jinx it somehow.
He checked his watch: 7:18 a.m.
“Oh my God, are they leaving?” she asked, her voice shaking, filled with hope.
“I think so, yeah.”
“Oh my God, Will. Oh my God.”
She rushed forward and grabbed him—and almost knocked him backward and off the side of the tower. He managed to right himself at the last moment and held on to a telecom antenna to keep from falling.
“You did it,” she said, gasping for breath, somewhere between crying and screaming with joy. “You did it, Will. I can’t believe you did it.”
Something caught his attention.
A flicker of something distinctive below, in the corner of his eye.
Something blue.
He looked down and saw, among the writhing black canvas, something that stood out. It was about forty meters from the base of the water tower, and it didn’t move as the ghouls flowed around it, like Moses parting the Red Sea. It was looking back up at him, and Will saw intense, bright blue eyes radiating out of the darkness.
Will didn’t know how he knew, he just knew who it was.
Kate.
Not the Kate he remembered, but the Kate that Lara had seen that night outside the Green Room in Harold Campbell’s facility. He had dreamt of her, but she came to him in those dreams as the old Kate, the woman he remembered and for one night, loved.
This new Kate, this ghoul Kate, was another creature entirely, and despite the distance, he could see its deep blue eyes pulsating. They weren’t like the blue of Lara’s—these were more intense, like staring into the sun. He couldn’t look away. They drew him in, fascinating him.
Then Kate smiled.
No, not Kate. A ghoul. He had to stop thinking of her (it) as Kate. This was the enemy now. This creature.
It turned and walked away with a preternatural grace that was almost majestic. He watched it go, the other ghouls squirming around it, swallowing it up—or was it the other way around?
They merged into the darkness, becoming one…then nothing.
Just like that, they were gone.
A few minutes later, the first slivers of sunlight poked through the clouds. He smiled at the sight and pushed away all thoughts of Kate, remembering all the sunrises with Lara on the beach back at Song Island instead.
7:25 a.m. Sunrise.
Good to know, good to know…