Gavin’s room was already filled with duffel bags, dried mud on the floor, and hunting magazines piled in a corner. The bed was a generous seventy-four inch, relatively new-looking blue mattress on a cot that could be folded up and stored when not in use. Gavin’s was leaning against the far wall when they entered—unlike Earl, Gavin hadn’t bothered putting bed sheets on his—leaving plenty of space for another bed to be placed in the room.
“You used to be in the service?” Earl asked him.
“No,” Keo said. “Why?”
“You got that ex-military look.”
“My dad was. I was a former army brat.”
“That how he met your mom?”
Keo smiled. Earl was definitely a lot sharper than the good ol’ boy aw shucks vibe he gave off. “Yeah. He was stationed in Yongsan for a while. She completely married down when she hooked up with him. Were you in the service?”
“Nah. I tried to sign up a couple of times, but I have a bad ticker. Bowe came close to enlisting, but his dad lost the house and he had to go work out of high school. I made it into Boot Camp myself, but only lasted a couple of weeks before they saw my medicals and kicked me out—”
Earl was interrupted by the echoey
pop!
of a gunshot. It sounded far away, somewhere within the woods that surrounded the house.
“Bowe and Gavin?” Keo said.
Earl nodded, but he was too busy listening to speak.
Another gunshot rang out, then a third one. The shots echoed for a bit before fading away.
“Hunh,” Earl said.
“What?”
“Gavin and Bowe don’t normally miss.”
They craned their heads when they heard the
pop-pop-pop
of an AR-15 firing on full-auto.
“Shit,” Earl said, running out the door and down the hallway before Keo could even react. The man was faster than he looked.
They were inside the living room and making a beeline for the door when the
pop-pop-pop
came faster and with more intensity, as if Gavin and Bowe were trying to unload their weapons’ entire magazine in one pull of the trigger.
Rachel and Gillian came out of the right side hallway at the same time. Both women’s hair were still wet, and Gillian’s eyes immediately sought out Keo’s.
“Were those gunshots?” she asked.
Keo nodded as Levy and Norris raced out from the basement behind them, rifles thumping against their backs. Earl was already at the door. He threw it open and ran out, while Norris and Levy followed.
More gunfire rang out; then there was a long silence, maybe five seconds, before more shots clattered across the woods, a clear indication that Gavin and Bowe had just reloaded and were firing again.
Keo was almost out the door when Gillian said, “Hey.” When he looked, she added, “Be careful, huh?”
He smiled at her and she returned it.
He ran out, sliding the MP5SD around to the front of his body before he was out of the front yard. He hadn’t had time to look around the area after arriving, and Keo was momentarily surprised by the cool air, thanks to plenty of shade. There was a river to his right on the other side of some trees, and if he strained, he could hear the currents over the chirping birds and—
—the cracking of automatic gunfire chased a couple of birds into the air.
They were really pouring it on now. But at what?
It took him a full two minutes of nonstop sprinting through a sea of trees, leaping over bushes and dodging branches, before he finally reached them. Thankfully, Keo didn’t have to worry about getting lost. All he had to do was head straight toward the sound of continuous shooting.
Norris was standing in a line with Levy, Earl, Gavin, and Bowe, all five men with their backs to Keo. Gavin was pulling another magazine from a pouch that looked more empty than when Keo had first seen it earlier today. Two empty magazines were already lying at his feet. The same for Bowe.
They were staring at an old mobile home that looked as if it had arrived in the woods before the trees even began sprouting. Once upon a time it had had white walls, but the color had faded and sunlight poured through broken windows and bullet holes that stretched from one side of the five-meter-long building to the other.
“I don’t think that house’s going to bother us again,” Keo said as he walked up behind them.
Levy flashed his familiar grin. “Not anymore, it won’t.”
“Another one of yours, Earl?”
“Nope,” Earl said. “It’s been here since I bought the property. No one’s ever claimed it.”
“Owners probably ditched it decades ago, from the looks of it,” Bowe said. “It’s old enough, that’s for damn sure.”
“So what were you guys shooting at?” Keo asked.
“I saw something inside,” Gavin said. “One of those things.”
Levy chuckled. “I hear shooting, Bowe sees tracks that aren’t there, and Gavin thinks he sees those bloodsuckers everywhere he turns.”
“I’m telling you, I saw it,” Gavin said through gritted teeth.
“Sure you did.”
“Well, if it was in there, I think you got it,” Keo said.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Earl said. “I shot one of them that first night. Right in the face. Nothing. I think it just got more pissed off.”
“Yeah, I put a hammer in the eye socket of the same one Earl shot,” Bowe said. “Damned thing just kept coming.”
“Sunlight,” Norris said. “They’re afraid of sunlight. And with good reason. It’s the only thing that can kill them.”
The four men exchanged a look.
“He’s not lying,” Keo said. “I know it sounds hard to believe until you’ve seen it with your own eyes, but it’s true. Direct contact with sunlight turns them to ash, vaporizes them almost instantly.”
“The fuck?” Bowe said. “I never saw that.”
“Me, neither,” Gavin nodded.
“You know this for sure?” Levy asked Keo.
“I know it’s hard to believe,” Keo said. “One of those you have to see it to believe it things. But it’s true.” He nodded at the mobile home. “If there is something in there—”
“There was, I swear I saw it,” Gavin said.
“—and you got sunlight on it, there won’t be anything left of the creature but bones. Bleached white bones.”
“Bleached white bones?” Levy said doubtfully.
Keo shrugged. “Abnormally white, yeah.”
The four men exchanged another long and uncertain look. Keo wasn’t sure if they believed him or thought he and Norris were crazy. Given the last seventy-two hours, it was probably fifty-fifty, whereas they would have tossed him into a hospital with a straight jacket before that. These days, though, a lot of things were possible.
“Sunlight, huh?” Bowe finally said.
“Makes sense,” Earl said. Keo could see Earl’s mind working, turning over the new information in his head. “We were wondering why they wouldn’t attack us in the daytime, even when we ran across them while salvaging. They always stayed away from the doors and never came outside. Shit, it makes sense now.”
“And all those covered windows,” Gavin said. “Is that why?”
“To keep out the sun,” Keo nodded.
Earl looked over at Norris as if for confirmation. “You’ve seen it, too?”
Norris nodded. “I haven’t seen the vanishing act when sunlight hits them, but he’s not lying about the rest. I’ve seen it happen to the blood they leave behind. Trust me when I tell you, these days it pays to believe in things you normally would think were crazy.”
Earl nodded. “I can’t disagree with that.”
“There’s an easy way to prove what I’m saying,” Keo said, then nodded at the mobile home.
“How many did you say you saw?” Earl asked Gavin.
“One or two…or more,” Gavin said. He was suddenly not very certain. “I couldn’t tell. It was so dark in there, and I only got a glimpse of something moving inside when I was going through the door. What about you, Bowe?”
“Nah,” Bowe said. “Too dark, and you were backing up and shooting already.”
“I guess that explains why they didn’t follow us out after I started pouring rounds into the place,” Gavin said. “It’s still day out. The sun.”
“We should make sure,” Earl said. “See this sunlight thing for ourselves.”
“You know about how it works?” Keo asked.
“The biting thing?”
“Yeah.”
“We know,” Earl nodded, and he exchanged another private look with the other three.
They saw it happen to someone they knew on the first night, too.
“Okay,” Earl said, and moved toward the mobile home.
Levy, Gavin, and Bowe hesitated, but then followed reluctantly.
Keo and Norris remained where they were, watching the foursome approach the door, which had also taken a beating during the shooting and now hung from a single top hinge. There were at least a dozen bullet holes in it, and sunlight speared through the openings. Keo couldn’t understand how it was still hanging on.
“You get off any shots?” Keo asked Norris.
“A couple. But they were doing a pretty good job of it. I got the feeling they’ve been itching to shoot something for a while.”
“Well, at least they’re on our side.”
“Amen,” the ex-cop said.
Earl had grabbed the doorknob and pulled on it. Keo didn’t think he had even put that much effort into it when the perforated door fell loose from its last hinge and tumbled to the ground. Levy, Gavin, and Bowe nervously stepped back, even though the door hadn’t come close to hitting them.
They stared into the dark, rectangular opening, as if trying to decide whether to go on ahead with their plan or back out. Despite the broken windows and bright afternoon sun, it was difficult to see much beyond the first couple of feet inside the mobile home. That, more than anything, made them hesitate.
“Well?” Bowe asked.
“Give me a sec,” Earl said.
“Be careful,” Gavin said, his voice trembling slightly.
“We don’t really need to go in,” Levy said. “How many magazines did we put into this thing? A half dozen? If that didn’t do it, what’s the point of getting this close?”
For a moment there, Keo thought Earl had been convinced by Levy’s argument. But then he said, “We just have to make sure. It’s important. We don’t have to go in there; we just have to lure it out.”
Earl took a large breath, then took a step toward the door, raising his AR-15 in front of him.
Bullets don’t work,
Keo wanted to tell him, but Earl already knew that.
“This feels like a bad idea,” Norris said quietly.
Keo couldn’t disagree with that, even as he watched Earl stick the barrel of his carbine into the open door and lean forward. Bowe, Gavin, and Levy hadn’t moved any further and were standing a good four feet behind Earl.
“Be careful,” Levy said nervously.
“I’m just going to lure it out,” Earl said. “If it’s even in there—” He hadn’t gotten “there” all the way out when something grabbed the barrel of his AR-15 and pulled, and Earl’s body jerked toward the opening.
“Shit!” Keo shouted.
Keo and Norris raced forward just as half of Earl’s body disappeared into the mobile home opening. Levy lunged forward and grabbed for Earl’s waist, while Gavin got a leg and Bowe groped for an arm. They pulled at about the same time Earl let out a loud, bloodcurdling scream.
“Pull!” Keo shouted. “Pull him out, goddammit!”
Levy, Gavin, and Bowe did, putting every ounce of strength they had into the effort, and Earl’s body came tumbling back out of the door. All four men stumbled back, fighting for footing that wasn’t there, until their legs and arms and bodies got tangled up with each other’s and they fell to the ground in a pile.
Earl was still gripping his carbine when he began his backpedaling, and it fell out of the opening
along with one of the black-skinned creatures.
The monster let out something that sounded almost human as it was pulled out into the sunlight.
For the second time in his life, Keo witnessed the impossible: the creature’s pruned flesh turned ash gray inch by inch, as if the sun was eating it alive. It was one of those things that shouldn’t be possible, but the evidence in front of him was irrefutable.
Amazingly, it looked as if the creature was holding onto the barrel of Earl’s rifle the entire time it fell out of the door, as if it was trying to hold onto something—
anything—
to ward off what it knew was about to happen.
It didn’t work.
The flesh evaporated instantaneously, forming a thick gray cloud that lingered in the air, dissipating in seconds even as bones—white, as if they had been bleached—tumbled free and clattered to the ground. A skull bounced against the dirt and rolled until it came to rest against the sole of Levy’s boots. Levy was sitting and trying to get up, and he ended up staring at the empty eye sockets in front of him.
“Holy hell,” Norris whispered breathlessly next to Keo.
“I told you,” Keo said.
“Yeah, but… Jesus Christ.”
Levy scrambled up from the ground, coughing and holding his hand over his nostrils and mouth. “What is that smell?”
“I think I’m going to throw up,” Bowe said, stumbling away from the others and grabbing at a tree trunk for support as he bent over and retched. Somehow, he managed not to follow through with it.
“The smell’s from them,” Keo said. “That’s all that’s left of them. And the bones. Flesh. Blood. Even organs. They all go, except the smell and the bones.”
Gavin was helping Earl up, the older man clutching his right arm. Blood seeped through his fingers, running in rivulets along his forearm and past the elbow. Earl looked more stunned than hurt. Or maybe he was just unable to fully process what was happening.
“It bit you,” Keo said.
Earl shook his head. “I don’t know. I felt a stab of pain…” Earl stumbled back until he was leaning against a tree by himself for support. Sweat popped out along his temple. “That was so stupid. I shouldn’t have done that…”
Levy, Gavin, Bowe, and Norris were looking down at the bones. There was something obscenely pure about the creature’s skeletal remains, even the way it looked deformed, twisted at impossible (painful) angles. No one said a word, not even Norris, who had seen more than the others.
Bowe put his boot on the skull and pressed down on it, then jumped slightly when the head buckled. “It’s like stepping on a Mexican piñata. I thought skulls would be tougher.” He kept pushing down until the skull collapsed in on itself. “It’s like paper.”