The Ashes of Pompeii (Purge of Babylon, Book 5) (46 page)

You’re attacking the island now, aren’t you?

“Not me. The island is an annoyance, but it’s not worth my time. I have people for those things.”

Like Josh. Like Mason…

“Two of many. So, so many. You have no idea.”

It made sense she wasn’t at the island in person, because she didn’t have to be. There was a legion of human collaborators willing and anxious to do her bidding. People like Rick and Millard, dead on the floor in their boxers behind him. Opportunists like Mason. Then there were all the poor, easily malleable souls like Josh, who didn’t know any better.

She laughed inside his head.
“You, on the other hand…I can devote time to you, Will.”

What do you want from me, Kate?

“You’re living in the old world. It’s time to join me in the real one.”

No…

“Don’t be so naïve. You don’t have a choice.”

CRASH!

The first section of windowpane shattered and fell in streams to the tiled floor. The creature that had used itself as the final hammer flopped through among the shower of cubed glass, like sand pebbles, but only thicker and sharper. It rolled forward, bones
clacking
, shards of shiny glass sticking out of its cheeks and body and shoulder and chest—

“Run!” Will shouted.

By the time he turned around, Natasha was already racing toward the back room, arms swinging wildly in front of her. She had apparently forgotten all about her injuries. Like her, he couldn’t feel his own wounds anymore. His legs had stopped hurting (or, at least, that’s what he told himself) and every cut and bruise had ceased to matter. Everything faded into the background except the need to flee.

He glanced back as the ghoul rose from the floor, even as more of its brethren gave up on assaulting the other parts of the window and converged on the opening. They attacked the entrance with wild abandon, slashing their flesh against the jagged glass, thick rivulets of tainted blood arcing through the air and splashing the tiles and counters and shelves.

Run run run!

He darted into the last aisle and saw the open backroom door waiting for him at the very end. The brass handle stuck out in the semidarkness, gleaming with promise.

Natasha, already inside, was shouting at him. “Move your ass! Move your ass now!”

Gee, thanks for the suggestion, Natasha. I was just going to lollygag out here for a few minutes and then—

TAP TAP TAP!

He glanced over his shoulder again—

A flying swarm of twisted limbs and seemingly rippling flesh leaped onto the top of the shelves and knocked over products as they hopped their way toward him. Black eyes pierced the darkness and he imagined Kate, somewhere out there, looking through those very same hollowed holes at him.

“
How did you ever think you could beat us when you know so little?”

She was right. She was so right. He knew so little. After all these months, he still knew so little about them. How did he—

“Come on!” Natasha’s voice cut through his thoughts.

He turned and lunged into the backroom and spilled against the cheap tiled floor. He landed on his outstretched arms and spun around until he was on his back, his hands scrambling to unsling the M4. Pain from the torn flesh underneath the bandages roared, but he pushed them aside and concentrated on getting a solid grip on the weapon.

Natasha was slamming the door—
BANG!
—then groping for the deadbolt and shoving it into place. She turned around and pressed her back against the slab of wood as if that would be enough to keep it shut.

It wouldn’t be. He knew it, and she knew it, too.

He looked into her eyes and knew that she wanted to live. Desperately. The woman he had met earlier, who had murdered Michael in cold blood and had some kind of death wish, really had come to an epiphany. She didn’t want to die.

He wished he could tell her that she had a choice at this moment.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

Natasha was stunned by the ferocity of the attack and staggered forward before regaining her composure and shoving herself back against the door. The sections of the wall that flanked the door quivered as the creatures assaulted it from the other side, over and over again, a ceaseless pounding of flesh against wood. Weakening wood. There was no way in hell the door was going to last the entire night. Not even close.

“Now what?” she shouted at him.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

He picked himself up from the dirty floor and glanced around the semi-dark room. He saw it right away—a small pool of moonlight shining inside through the three-by-three-feet window at the back. The same one Natasha had climbed through earlier.

“Will.”

There was an ethereal quality to her voice that seemed to sing only for him.

“It’s over, Will. Stop fighting and open the door.”

No.

“Open the door.”

No!

“Why do you always have to fight?”

Why? Because that was who he was. He didn’t surrender. He couldn’t. Lives were at stake. His. Natasha’s. Lara’s. Because he had to get home to her. Get back to Song Island. Whatever it took. However long. He had to get home.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

“Hey!” Natasha shouted behind him. He looked back at her, still pressed against the door, both feet sliding each time the creatures crashed against her on the other side. “Do something, goddammit!”

Good idea. Do something. Why didn’t I think of that?

“Will…”

Get out of my head!

“No.”

Get out of my head, damn you!

“Open the door, Will.”

No!

“Open the door!”

NO!

“Hey!” Natasha’s voice again, loud and raw, drawing him constantly out of Kate’s soothing embrace. “Don’t just stand there! Do something, for God’s sake!”

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

“This door’s not going to last! Hey! Can you hear me?”

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

“Do something!”

He nodded back at her. Or thought he did.

What do to? What to do?

The window. Use the window.

And then what?

Later. No choice.

Out there, he had a chance. A tiny chance. Miniscule. But it was better than in here. There was absolutely zero chance within the confines of this small backroom. Out there, in the wide open, maybe…

You almost believed yourself that time. Ha!

He slung the rifle and hurried across the room to the back.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

The window was locked by a simple latch at the bottom. Will stood on his tiptoes and looked out at the darkness, expecting to see a pair of black eyes staring back at him. Instead, there was just the pitch-black of night.

Was it possible the creatures were all converging on the front windows, trying to get in through the door? Was the back of the store really clear? His heart actually raced at the possibility of surviving.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

“Are you kidding me?” Natasha shouted behind him. “Aren’t there more of those things out there?”

“I don’t see any!” he shouted back.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

He swore he could feel the entire room trembling with each crash, and he pretended that he couldn’t hear the sounds of pieces of the wall falling apart around the door. Not long now. A few minutes, at the most…

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

“Do it!” Natasha shouted. “Whatever you’re gonna do, do it!”

He flicked open the latch and pulled the window up and open. Cold wind rushed inside and swamped him. He shivered, though he wasn’t sure if that was from the chill or something else.

“Will.”

He ignored it.

“Why do you persist?”

There was such a lyrical quality to her voice that made it difficult to shut out.

“This is for the best.”

He stuck his head out through the opening and looked left, then right.

“This is inevitable.”

Nothing. Emptiness.

“Song Island is gone. And Lara and Danny with it.”

There was nothing out there. He had expected to see a legion of them, but there was…nothing.

Just…nothing.

“Will…”

He didn’t answer the voice. Instead, he looked back at Natasha and nodded.

“Oh, God,” she said.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

“Come on,” Will said.

“You first.”

He gave her a grin. Or close. It might have been something awkward or half-assed. Or maybe both.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

He turned around, got a good grip on the windowsill, and pulled himself up and—

—
over.

He landed in a crouch and quickly unslung the M4, scanning the darkness behind the iron sights of the weapon.

There was just the black shroud of night staring back at him from every direction. The gas station was flanked by a thick wooded area to his right and Interstate 10 to his left, its gray concrete form just barely visible under the moonlight about a hundred meters away on the other side of a feeder road and overgrown grass that swayed in the breeze. The real jungle was on the other side—thick patches of shadows, like walls, that was as inviting as stepping into a wood chipper.

He stood up just as Natasha made an
oomph!
sound as she landed a few inches next to him.

It didn’t take long for the door in the backroom to go. In fact, the loud
crash!
caught him off guard because Will expected it to last just a little bit longer. Had Natasha really been the only thing keeping it from collapsing all this time?

“Oh, shit,” Natasha said breathlessly. She stumbled, turned around, and lifted her M4, ready to shoot the first thing that came through the open window behind them.

She didn’t get the chance because the darkness behind her shifted, moving in ways that shouldn’t be possible. Natasha fell. As she did, she pulled the trigger and the carbine fired a three-round burst into the air, the staccato effect of the discharge lighting up the immediate area for a second and a half, illuminating the half dozen ghouls that were pulling her down, bony fingers clutched around her legs and arms and waist.

Natasha let out a shriek that pierced Will’s soul.

Then she was gone, swallowed up by the shadows. The air crackled and the stench of death filled his nostrils as she screamed and screamed and screamed…

He started moving toward Natasha instinctively, but froze when they emerged out of the blackness. There was just enough moonlight to make out their emaciated forms, hollowed black eyes, and the sound of bone joints
popping
as they scrambled toward him.

He took a step back and fired, the first three-round burst shredding the chest of one of them. The second burst drilled three holes into the head of a second. Of course he knew it wouldn’t stop them. Why should it? The bullets weren’t silver, and he might as well be throwing sand pebbles at them for all the good the rounds were doing.

But he didn’t have a choice. Will kept backing up along the wall, moving left, even though he didn’t know why left would be any better than right. Left took him toward the highway, but he had no illusions he was ever going to reach it. He should have stopped then and there to catch his breath, but that would mean surrendering. Will hadn’t given up when the world died, and he’d be goddamned if he was going to do so now.

He kept shooting, because there was nothing else to do. But it wasn’t just the ghouls coming out of the nothingness around him now; they were also pouring out of the small gas station window, dropping to the ground one after another, after another…

He shot the legs out from under a ghoul, and it fell and was instantly stepped on by two—three—
a dozen
others.

“Will, stop.”

There wasn’t the sound of triumph in her voice that he was expecting. There was almost…what was it? Concern? No. That had to be a trick of his mind, giving her human traits when he knew damn well Kate was no longer human. She was a monster, like these poor bastards coming at him from every direction at the moment.

He was hoping the continuous gunfire would drown out her voice, but he had no such luck. He could hear her just fine. More than fine, actually. Her words were so loud and clear despite everything that he might as well be trying to shut himself off from his own thoughts.

“Why do you keep fighting me?”

He smashed the butt of the rifle into the head of the first ghoul that reached him. He heard a
crack!
as its skull gave way. The blow sent it reeling, though whether he had actually hurt it or not (or maybe just annoyed it), he couldn’t tell. And he didn’t have time to find out because the others were already closing in from the right and left—

Left. Christ, the left!

“You always were so stubborn.”

He spun and started shooting in that direction, but that meant he was now cut off from the highway.

“Always so…Will.”

Click!
as the rifle went empty.

Already? He didn’t have time to breathe or reload because they were everywhere, converging on him in an unending tide. He dropped the rifle and drew the Smith & Wesson, shooting the closest one point-blank in the face. The bullet drilled through its right eye and hit another ghoul behind it in the forehead. It, too, snapped back momentarily.

“The world turns whether we’re here or not.”

He shot another one in the chest, spun around, and blew out the forehead of another, and then they were all over him. One had gotten a grip on his right arm and was pulling it back, along with the gun. He punched it in the face, staggering it. That forced it to let go of his arm, but it just gave another ghoul—
two—
the opportunity to take its place.

“There is order in acceptance.”

He could only see the tops of their pruned foreheads as they climbed over him, and soon they were pushing him down to one knee. He fired another shot, but it was like throwing a pebble into an ocean of black tar. Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened.