The Walls of Lemuria (14 page)

And still they kept coming, and coming…

“Keo, goddammit!”

He fired his last shot and turned and ran. He didn’t have far to go because he had backed almost right up to the open back room door. He practically stumbled his way inside as Gillian and Norris slammed the heavy piece of steel shut behind him. They drove the door into its frame with their entire bodies, fueled no doubt by a healthy dose of adrenaline.

Keo’s momentum almost sent him right into the bench but he somehow managed to right himself in time. He looked back at Norris and Gillian as they took two quick, involuntary steps away from the door, which trembled slightly each time the creatures smashed into it, producing a soft, almost perversely gentle
thoom-thoom-thoom
, the noise impossibly muted by the metal door’s construction.

The door held the way it was supposed to, even against the frantic assault from the other side. It housed guns, after all, and the valuables of the station’s occupants.

Thoom-thoom-thoom.

Keo ran his flashlight around the room. Rachel and Christine were embracing each other near the back, their faces hidden from his beam. Lotte sat trembling next to them in her wheelchair, a look of half-shock, half-terror on the orphaned fourteen-year-old’s face.

Norris continued backpedaling from the door and reloading his shotgun at the same time. “Did you see Jake and Henry?”

Keo shook his head. “Back in the lobby.” He remembered Tori’s head exploding under buckshot from Jake’s shotgun… “I don’t think they made it.”

“Yeah…”

“What about Taylor?” Gillian asked.

Keo shook his head again. “I don’t know. I saw them in the office when I was running past.”

Gillian looked as if she wanted to ask something else, but maybe she already knew the answer, so she didn’t.

Behind her, the steel door vibrated slightly against the
thoom-thoom-thoom…

Keo reloaded his Remington with shells from his pouch. Jesus, was he hyperventilating? He calmed himself—or at least, did the best he could to stop the pounding in his chest.

In and out, in and out…

Gillian sat quietly down on the bench next to him while Norris leaned against one of the lockers and caught his breath. The three of them didn’t say a word and barely moved as they fixed their eyes on the piece of steel that was holding back the night. The
only
thing between them and a fate worse than death at the moment.

The creatures continued their attack, though by now the
thoom-thoom-thoom
had mostly faded into the background.

Not that they stopped. Not for a second.

Thoom-thoom-thoom.

He wondered how long they were going to keep it up.

Thoom-thoom-thoom.

Maybe all night. Maybe through tomorrow. Maybe well into the next night…

Thoom-thoom-thoom…

Thoom-thoom-thoom.

Thoom-thoom-thoom…

“Why won’t they stop?” Gillian asked around eight, three hours after nightfall.

He could barely see her in the darkness. Every now and then, either he or Norris turned on their flashlights and looked around to make sure everyone was fine. Or as fine as could be, locked inside a room where there were, possibly, hundreds of unkillable things squirming in wait on the other side of the only way out. Jake, Henry, and Tori were dead. He wondered if they were out there now, having joined the mass of undead.

Right. Because three more or less is going to make much of a difference either way.

“They can’t get through,” Gillian said. “They know that. So why don’t they just stop?”

“I don’t know,” Keo said. “Maybe they don’t know how.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“No.”

He shrugged. “I’m out of ideas.”

“You’re useless.”

“Sorry.”

Thoom-thoom-thoom.

“Did you see what happened to Taylor?” she whispered.

“No.”

“What about Jake and his girlfriend?”

“I didn’t see what happened to them, either,” he lied.

Thoom-thoom-thoom…

*

The girls finally
went to sleep around midnight after trying in vain to stay awake. Lotte simply closed her eyes and leaned back against her wheelchair, while Christine laid her head on her mother’s lap and drifted off. Gillian moved from the bench to the floor next to the lockers and slid a pile of clothes under her head, then curled up into a ball and went to sleep.

Keo remained sitting on the bench facing the door, while Norris sat with his shotgun over his knees behind him.

Thoom-thoom-thoom.

“Jake and the others?” Norris said, his voice so quiet that Keo barely heard him.

Keo shook his head. He remembered flames stabbing out of Jake’s shotgun, Henry on the floor, then Tori’s head exploding against the wall…

“Dammit,” Norris said.

“Yeah.”

Thoom-thoom-thoom.

“They’re a persistent bunch of fuckers,” Norris said.

“It’s not like they got anywhere else to be.”

“What about the surrounding towns? The cities? You said it yourself. This thing isn’t just statewide, it’s probably nationwide, too. It’s a full-scale invasion. So why are they wasting time on a half dozen people in Bentley?”

“Did you see how many were out there?”

“Looked like the whole town, and then some.”

“Yeah. Looked like the whole damn town. If it’s this bad here, think about the cities. There must be thousands—maybe tens of thousands—of those things running around in places like New Orleans and Shreveport. Maybe they’re running out of…food.”

“Already?” Then, “You think it’s gone, don’t you?”

“What?”

“The country. Good-bye, America.”

“It’s the lack of anything from FEMA that worries me.”

“No FEMA, no United States government.”

“Yeah.”

Norris didn’t say anything for a while. Finally, he said, “You’re good at this.”

“What’s that?”

“Surviving.”

“I’ve had practice.”

“Who exactly did you use to work for, kid?”

“You wouldn’t know them. They pride themselves on staying in the shadows. But if you’re ever in Downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, they have a building there. Nothing special, but they’re always looking to hire people like you.”

“People like me?”

“Ex-law enforcement types. People not shy around guns. Bonus points if you’re not queasy around blood.”

“Sounds like swell guys.”

“Oh yeah,” Keo smiled. “Not that it matters now. They’re probably gone, too. If Uncle Sam can’t survive this…”

“Was it good money?”

“Good enough.”

“But not great.”

“It depends on the gig. Every call out’s different.”

“So why do it if the money isn’t always great? I’m guessing your life’s at stake each time you go out there.”

“It’s what I’m good at,” Keo said. “I’ve never been good at very much else. Some people know they’re destined to become a singer, an actor, or go into outer space. Me? I realized I could do this pretty well.”

“What is ‘this’?”

“Fight. Survive. Make a little money while I’m at it. You know, the American Dream.”

“You’re crazy,” Norris said.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Keo said.

*

The creatures stopped
trying to break down the door around two in the morning. There were no hints that they were getting tired or signs of anything else happening outside. One second they heard the constant
thoom-thoom-thoom
, and the next there was just silence.

Keo and Norris remained where they had been for the last six hours. Keo wasn’t sure what Norris was thinking, but he was wary of the quiet and tried focusing on Gillian snoring lightly on the floor next to him instead. Rachel, Christine, and Lotte were still in the back somewhere, though it was harder to hear them.

It’s a trick. Some kind of sick, twisted trick.

He waited a minute. Then two…

…then ten…

And there was just the stillness inside and outside the back room.

“They’ve stopped,” Norris finally said. “You think it’s a trick, too?”

“Has to be,” Keo said.

“Go find out.”

“Why me?”

“You’re younger. You probably have better hearing.”

Keo stood up and moved through the darkness, walking as lightly and silently as he could manage, and leaned against the cold steel door.

He could hear them outside. Moving, but not frantically. Not like creatures with purpose. Almost…bored?

“Well?” Norris whispered behind him.

Keo took a couple of steps backward. “They’re still out there.”

“What are they doing?”

“Do I look like I have x-ray vision?”

“What did you hear, then?”

“They’re moving around. Like they’re…”

“What?” Norris pressed.

“Like they’re settling in for the night.” Keo tiptoed back to the bench and sat down. “They’re going to wait us out. You know that, right?”

“How long, do you think?”

“You don’t understand, old timer. They don’t have to go anywhere. You remember this afternoon?”

“What about it?”

“Sunlight doesn’t reach this far back into the hallway.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” Keo said.

He wondered how many were out there right now on the other side of the steel door, waiting in the darkness.

A dozen? A hundred?

How many could possibly fit into the narrow space of the passageway?

Too many. Too damn many…

*

He felt morning
rather than saw it. There was the sweat pooling under his armpits and dripping from his temple, and the suddenly noticeable stench of the blood on the front of his shirt and pants. Or, at least, he thought it was blood. It was too dark, too clumpy, and hadn’t really dried the way blood should overnight.

Keo glanced down at his watch: 6:44 
a.m.

It had actually sneaked up on him. Norris, too, from the way he opened his eyes and stood up, sighing as his joints popped from sitting all night. Or just old age. He stretched and looked around. Visibility had increased enough that everything wasn’t just black lumps around them anymore.

Keo used the precious little light available to look for new clothes in one of the lockers. He found an Under Armour T-shirt and pulled it on, then shoved the stained one inside. There were no spare pants, so he made do with the ones he had on. Norris did the same thing, finding only a white T-shirt that was just one size too small. He didn’t look happy with the fit as he pulled it on.

A T-shirt wasn’t the worse article of clothing they could have on at the moment. It was going to get hotter in a few more hours. There were no windows in the back room, and although there were two vents along the walls, they were both half the size of the one in the lobby. Thank God, or the creatures would have just followed them into the back room.

I guess we missed something after all…

Gillian stirred on the floor before sitting up. She squinted at him from behind a curtain of black hair.