The Walls of Lemuria (12 page)

“You think we might have missed something? A weakness in the construction somewhere?”

“Don’t you?”

“I’ve gone over the building twice already. Top to bottom. Side to side. Front to back. We didn’t miss anything.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t make any sense.” He shook his head again. “Maybe I’m overthinking it.”

“That happen a lot?”

He grunted. “Not since I wore a uniform in Orlando.”

“When was that?”

“Last time was about ten years ago. I hung it up after twenty-three years. Could have been stubborn and stayed for another four, hit the max and get pushed out, but what the hell—I’d always wanted to travel.”

“How long have you been traveling?”

“On and off for ten years now.”

“That’s a hell of a lot of traveling, Norris.”

“Retirement, kid. You keep waiting for it, thinking about all the things you’re going to do when you hit that magic number. Then it creeps up on you, and suddenly you realize you don’t wanna do half of the things on your list. So what
do
you do? You look for other adventures.”

“Where’s your next stop?”

“No idea. Wherever the wind takes me. A few weeks ago I got an itch to see the Deep South. And here I am. What about you? Got plans after retirement?”

“Making plans would mean I expect to live to retirement age, old timer. To be honest with you, I’ve already overachieved after last night.”

“That’s a hell of a thing to say, kid.”

“It’s been a hell of a life,” Keo said. “So, about tonight.”

“What about it?”

“What you said about the back room. You think it can withstand a prolonged attack?”

“I think so,” Norris nodded. “I saw them attacking the windows and doors last night. They kept at it for hours and hours, but they didn’t make a dent in the bars. I don’t think they’re that strong. Hell, I think they’re weaker than they used to be—”

He stopped in mid-sentence when they heard the faint
pop-pop-pop
of automatic gunfire coming from well across town. The source was so far away that they would have missed it entirely if they hadn’t been standing on the rooftop at that moment.

“You heard that?” Norris said.

“Yeah,” Keo nodded, looking in the direction of the gunfire.

“How many shots did you hear?”

“About a half dozen. Maybe seven.”

“It’s stopped.” Norris scratched his chin and thought about it. “Could be anything. Anyone. Maybe one of those people from the hospital.”

“If any of them are still out there, they should be making their way to us by now.”

“What were they shooting at, you think?”

“Too bad we can’t ask them,” Keo said.

*

Gillian was waiting
for them in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs when they climbed down from the roof.

“I thought I might have heard gunshots,” she said.

“You did,” Keo said. “But no one showed up and we didn’t hear it again.”

“It might have been Brent and the others. I don’t understand why they’re not here yet. It’s going to be dark pretty soon.”

“I’m sure they’re fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’m just trying to think positively.”

“Maybe they left town,” Norris said, hopping down behind Keo. “That’d be the smart thing to do, rain-slicked roads or not. We probably should have done the same thing. The more I think about it, the more I think we’re pushing our luck staying here two nights in a row like this.”

“We didn’t miss anything,” Keo said.

“That’s what I keep telling myself too, kid.”

“You’re just being paranoid.”

“I’ve been called worse,” Norris grunted, then walked past them and up the hallway.

Gillian looked after him, while Keo down at his watch. “We’ll get through this. We didn’t know what we were dealing with last night, but this time we do.”

“You really think that’s going to matter when they come out of their hiding places and swarm the building?” she asked.

Keo smiled at her. “Absolutely,” he lied.

The one hour
until nightfall felt like an eternity.

They gathered in the lobby and waited in silence. Keo spent the time checking the Remington while Gillian sat quietly next to him. One of the portable LED lamps glowed a few meters away, throwing a halo around them and half of Norris’s face, the ex-cop leaning nearby against a desk. The only noises were the wrinkling of bags, the crunch of chips, and the occasional sloshing of bottled water.

Keo busied himself with duct-taping the flashlight to one side of his Remington’s barrel. When he was done, he tossed the roll over to Norris, who did the same to his weapon.

“I used to love the fact that it got dark so fast this time of year,” Gillian said after a while.

“Night owl?” Keo said.

“No, it wasn’t that. I just liked the quiet. Of course, I didn’t know what real quiet was until now.” She surprised him by leaning her head against his shoulder. “Do you mind?”

“No. But let me know when my breathing becomes too annoying.”

She smiled. “Deal.”

“Remember,” Norris said, his voice practically booming in the quiet of the lobby. “We turn off the lamps in thirty minutes. We might be the only people left in this town, so let’s not draw attention to ourselves.”

Keo felt Gillian shivering involuntarily against him.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Aaron said.

It had been such a long time since he had said anything that the sound of his voice prompted Keo to look around for the source. Aaron sat on the floor next to one of the vending machines that covered up a window. He hadn’t moved from the spot even though he couldn’t look outside anymore. Keo wondered who (or what) he was looking for all those other times.

“Where else would we be?” Henry said from the front doors, where he sat on the floor with his shotgun resting between his legs.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Aaron repeated. His eyes seemed to be focused on a patch of wall across the room. There was nothing there that Keo could see. “In this place. This building. This town. We should have left when we had the chance.”

“We couldn’t,” Norris said. “Not with that monsoon earlier.”

“We should have tried. Don’t you see? They left for a reason. We should have left, too.”

“Who’s he talking about?” Rachel asked.

“The deputies,” Norris said. “The ones who were here before us last night.”

“Did we ever find out why they left?”

Norris shook his head.

“They had a reason,” Aaron said. His voice cracked a bit and his eyes drifted down to the floor. “We should have left when we had the chance. We shouldn’t be here…”

All eyes had turned to Aaron, not that the young man seemed to notice. He looked lost in his own world, staring at a wet spot on the floor.

“We looked everywhere,” Norris said. “Every room. Every nook and cranny. There aren’t any other ways in here.”

“He’s right,” Keo said. He wasn’t sure if Norris actually believed what he was saying, but he had said it with just enough conviction that Keo could see the others almost buying into it. He thought he’d help out. “There aren’t any other ways in except through the windows and doors, and we covered those up. We’re good in here, guys. They’re not getting in.”

Daebak. I almost convinced myself that time.

“Just remember,” Norris said, “lights out in—” he glanced at his watch “—twenty minutes. We don’t make a peep and they won’t know we’re here.”

*

The unmistakable sounds
of doors opening and closing could be heard up and down the street outside the police station. It was followed by the growing cacophony of bare feet against hard concrete and splashing puddles from this afternoon’s rain. All of it flooded across the silent town of Bentley without any resistance.

They’re coming.

If the noise outside was impossible to ignore, the quiet inside was deafening. Keo wasn’t sure if Gillian was even breathing next to him. Or Norris nearby. Or anyone else. Even little Christine was clutching her mother’s waist, the two of them sitting next to Lotte’s wheelchair. Rachel was holding the teenager’s hand, though Keo couldn’t make out who had the tighter grip in the pitch-black darkness.

It didn’t take very long for all of them to accept that the creatures knew exactly where they were. Keo realized it right away when the stampede of footsteps grew louder and louder as they got closer and closer.

“They know we’re here,” Gillian whispered next to him.

“I know,” he whispered back.

“What now?”

“I don’t know. The doors and windows should hold.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he said.

He put his hand over hers and felt her tense at first, surprised by the contact, before relaxing a bit when she realized it was just him. He couldn’t see all of her face in the darkness, just the soft green of her eyes.

Norris was to Gillian’s left, sitting with his back against one of the desks. Taylor and Aaron had moved away from the windows and were now somewhere inside the sheriff’s office to their left in the back. He didn’t know what they were doing in there. The idea was always to retreat to the back room with its steel door if they lost the lobby. He hoped the two of them remembered that.

They waited for something to happen because the noise outside was growing, getting louder and somehow more intimate at the same time. Thoughts
(doubts)
swirled around in his head, making Keo question everything.

Did we miss something?

We must have missed something.

Why did the deputies abandon the station last night?

Did we miss something?

Maybe crazy Aaron was right.

Fort Damper’s looking pretty good right about now.

Did we miss something?

There was a
click!
to his left. Norris, thumbing the safety off his shotgun. It was a tiny sound, unnoticed by everyone else in the room except him. Keo took his hand away from Gillian’s and did the same thing to his Remington.

“Remember, the back room,” he whispered to her.

“What?” she whispered back, leaning closer to hear him better.

“If anything happens, go to the back room. Where the lockers are.”

“Like we planned.”

“Like we planned,” he nodded, though of course she probably couldn’t see him in the darkness.

Did we miss something?

No. We didn’t.

Right?

“Can you hear that?” Gillian whispered.

“Outside?”

“No. Something else…”

“Where?”

“I don’t know, exactly.”

He stopped moving and breathing entirely and listened, but he still couldn’t hear anything. “Where?” he asked again.

“It sounds like it’s coming from inside the building,” Gillian said, her breath catching a bit as the words came out.

Keo glanced up at the ceiling, expecting to see something, but only saw the dirty tiles visible against a small sliver of moonlight that had somehow managed to invade the room through one of the vending machines stacked in front of the windows.

He was going to ask her again when he heard it.

Clack-clack-clack…

“What is that?” Norris whispered, just loud enough to get their attention. “What’s that sound? Where’s it coming from?”

Clack-clack-clack…

The noise was getting louder, but Keo couldn’t quite pinpoint its exact location. It seemed to be moving. At first it sounded as if it were coming from outside, but the more he listened, the more certain he was it was originating from
inside
the police station.

But that couldn’t have been possible.

Did we miss something?

Keo stood up to better track the sound.

Clack-clack-clack…

Norris was moving somewhere else in the room. “Where is it?” he said, just the hint of panic in his voice.

The others were standing up too, the sudden explosion of movement overwhelming Keo’s focus and forced him to abandon it. He put his hand against the wall instead and could feel the vibrations. Slight, but they were there.