The Walls of Lemuria (23 page)

“Norris and I can help around the place,” Keo said. “I’ve been known to swing a mean hammer every now and then.”

“He used to be a cop, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What about you?”

“Nope. I never could stand taking orders from people in uniforms.”

“I thought your dad was in the Army?”

“He was.”

“Oh,” Levy said, “getting” it that time.

“Earl doesn’t have a boat?” Keo asked.

“He’s not much of a swimmer. Besides, you can fish from any part of the bank with a rod and reel and catch everything you need.”

“What kind of fish do you get around here?”

“Crappies, bass, and some catfish, too. The channel cat can grow pretty big. You fish?”

“Not so much. The funny thing is, I’m a very good swimmer.”

“You don’t say.”

“Nope.”

Levy gave him a slightly confused look, but let it go and said, “Come on, let’s get back inside. Night’s not our friend anymore, remember?”

Keo followed Levy back into the house. It was a short walk, and by the time they reached the back door, Keo had committed the area to memory. The back door, like the front, had its own steel security gate on the outside and similar reinforcements on the inside.

The others were gathered in the living room eating MRE bags from the basement and perishable foods they had brought with them from the gas station. Gavin and Bowe had returned an hour ago without any fresh kills. There was, Bowe told Keo, just nothing out there to hunt anymore.

The front door was closed and locked, the 2x4s settled into their brackets, and the wooden slates had been lowered over the two front windows, along with the windows in the separate bedrooms. Six in all. It was a simple but brilliant setup, and just one more thing to add to his list of Things To Be Grateful To Earl For.

Sorry, Earl. And I mean that.

Every now and then, Keo noticed the girls looking around nervously. They could all feel it, he thought, even if they couldn’t see it for themselves through the walls.

Night is coming.

*

Seeing the woods
from a small 2x12 inch slot—a window within the window—was a new experience. The moon had chosen tonight of all nights to hide behind the clouds, which made it almost impossible to make out the trucks from the ATVs in the front yard, much less the dirt trail and the trees.

“It’s so dark outside,” Gillian whispered over Keo’s shoulder, her warm breath against the back of his neck. It wasn’t an entirely unwelcome sensation.

She had her arms around her chest, but it wasn’t because it was cold. Even though the temperature had dipped outside, it was a nice and comfortable seventy-five degrees inside. They had left just one of the LED lamps on in the living room, but even on its lowest setting it provided surprisingly strong light throughout most of the house and even portions of the two hallways. There were more lamps that were turned off hanging from the ceiling.

“It shouldn’t be this quiet,” Gillian said.

Keo looked down at his watch: 10:16 
p.m.

They were well into the night, and there were no signs of the creatures. Keo wasn’t sure if that should have comforted him or worried him. The bloodsucker in the mobile home was proof they were out there in the woods.

But it was too dark outside to see much of anything. That would have been fine, but he couldn’t even hear the birds chirping around them anymore. They had gone quiet almost as soon as the sun disappeared. Were the animals in the trees hiding, too? Why? Could the bloodsuckers climb? That was a slightly disturbing thought.

“How are the girls?” he asked.

“They’re tired. I don’t think they realized how tired they were until they laid down on an honest to goodness bed again.”

“What about you?”

“I’m okay.”

“You look tired.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You’re still beautiful.”

“It’s the end of the world, and you’re hitting on me,” she said, though she didn’t look entirely displeased.

Keo slid the metal peephole closed and they sat down on the floor under the window. Without the generator, the house was impossibly still, and he could hear every single breath Gillian took. He could also smell her, and it was a nice smell. But then again, women always smelled good to him.

He looked across the living room at Norris, cocooned inside a sleeping bag on the floor close to the unused fireplace. Keo wasn’t sure if Norris was really asleep or if he was just pretending to be in order to give them some privacy. There was an unused bedroll next to Norris. It belonged to Gavin, who was inside his room with Earl at the moment.

“How long has he been in there?” Keo asked.

“Gavin? Three hours, I think. I’ve been looking in on them every hour.”

“Good. When Earl dies, we need to get his body outside before he turns.”

Gillian nodded. “I’ll keep checking on him throughout the night.” She paused, then, “Gavin still doesn’t think it’ll happen. He’s convinced Earl will make it.”

“He’s in denial.”

“I know.” She was looking down at her hands, though he couldn’t tell what she was looking for. They were clean, as far as he could see.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I didn’t know it was so hard to get blood off. It clings to you. I can still smell it.”

“You get used to it.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Who are you, Keo? Who are you really?”

She was looking at him intently with those green eyes, and he never wanted so badly to kiss someone in his life. She had such soft-looking lips, too, and she was sitting so close he didn’t have to make any effort at all to breathe in her intoxicating scent.

Somehow, though, Keo managed to restrain himself and smiled at her instead. “You’re going to find out, much to your disappointment, that I’m very ordinary and pretty unspectacular.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said. “But that’s okay. If we survive tonight, we can get to know each other better.”

“Daebak.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What did you just say? Did you just cuss me out in Korean?”

He chuckled. “It’s something my mom used to say to me when I was a kid and I did something good, or that she approved of.”

“So it’s a good thing.”

“Yes. Although…”

“What?”

“She said it to me when I did something bad, too, so…”

“You’re Korean. How do you not know what a Korean word means?”

“I was born on a military base in San Diego, Gillian. English is my native tongue. Besides, the closest I’ve ever been to anything remotely Korean is North Korea.”

“What were you doing in North Korea?”

“These guys I worked for sent me to get something from these other guys that had this thing they wanted.”

“So why didn’t you ask someone there what
day-
what? How do you say it again?”

“Daebak.”

“Yeah. That. Why didn’t you ask someone in North Korea what it meant while you were there?” She looked proud of herself, as if she had just beaten him at his own game.

Keo grinned. “Have you ever been to North Korea, Gillian?”

“Oh God, it’s one of those stories,” she groaned.

“You don’t stop to ask people in North Korea about things and stuff. You run and hope they don’t shoot you in the back with an AK-47.”

“Smart ass.”

“Wanna hear another story?”

“No.”

“When I was nine,” Keo said anyway, “I went to see a fortune teller. She told me I was destined to meet a cute bank teller and spend the rest of my life with her in an isolated house in the woods. Go figure,” he said, gesturing around them.

“Seriously?”

“Which part don’t you believe?”

“That I’m cute,” she said. “No one’s ever called me cute before.”

“Stunningly beautiful?” he said.

“Better,” she smiled, just before a gunshot exploded across the house and froze both of them in place.

The gunshot came
from Gavin’s room. Gavin and
Earl’s
room.

Norris snapped up from the floor even before the gunshot had finished echoing across the house. He momentarily had to fight with his own bedroll before he could stumble up to his feet and grab his M4 leaning against the wall nearby.

Keo was already running across the room. “Stay here!” he shouted back at Gillian.

She nodded and shouted back at him. “Earl’s in there! If he’s turned—”

“I know!”

Norris fell in beside him, and they made a beeline for Gavin and Earl’s room together. The gunshot had come from inside. There was no doubt about it, and Keo knew right away something had gone horribly wrong even before they heard two more shots—
pop! pop!—
coming in quick succession from inside.

Farther up the left side hallway, a door opened and Levy stumbled outside, the dull black barrel of a Glock glinting in one hand. He had apparently gone to sleep in a T-shirt and the same pants he had been wearing all day. Bowe rushed outside too, his taller frame hovering wobbly behind Levy’s.

“What’s happening?” Levy said. “Who fired the shots?”

Keo ignored him and reached Gavin’s room. Before he could get to the doorknob, the door swung open and Gavin staggered outside. The redhead grabbed the doorframe with one bloody hand, the other holding an automatic pistol tightly in his fist. An LED lamp hanging off the ceiling inside the room was turned on medium setting, illuminating Gavin’s wild and frenzied expression, like something out of a horror show.

Gavin looked confused when he saw Keo, and they stared at each other across the open doorway. That is, until blood spurted in a wide arc from Gavin’s left shoulder and splashed against the wall.

“Oh, Jesus,” Levy said. He stood paralyzed in the hallway, staring at Gavin, as if he couldn’t quite process what was happening. “What happened? Are you okay?”

Bowe didn’t stand around asking stupid questions. Instead, he rushed past Levy and toward Gavin, who heard him coming and whirled around to confront him. Bowe slid to a stop and stared at his bloodied friend.

“Gavin, Jesus, you’re bleeding,” Bowe said. “Where’s Earl?”

Gavin didn’t answer. He didn’t seem capable of answering. He turned away from Bowe and lurched out of the room, pushing his way past Keo and Norris. He moved in a crooked line, like a drunk, staggering everywhere. Somehow, he made it to the kitchen, passing a horrified Gillian, who followed him tentatively. Gavin had left bloody fingerprints everywhere as he groped his way across the house.

“Watch it, kid!” Norris shouted.

Keo spun back around, just in time to see Earl lunging at him through the open door.

No, not Earl. The thirty-something, easygoing country boy was gone, replaced by one of those creatures.
A bloodsucker.
Keo only knew it was Earl because it was still wearing Earl’s clothes, though they were now absurdly too big for its shrunken frame.

The sight of Earl surprised Keo. When had he died and turned? It couldn’t have been that long ago. But to look at him, he would swear Earl had turned days ago. How had he gotten the drop on Gavin? Was the other man sleeping? That made sense. He didn’t think even Gavin would continue holding a vigil over a dead body.

Earl used to have brown eyes, but the ones that peered out of the room at Keo now were black and lifeless. Pruned, dark skin glistened against the LED light, but it was not quite tightly pulled against its skeletal frame yet. Keo imagined the thing that used to be Earl only had to walk around another few minutes before it would simply slink out of its now ill-fitting clothes. It still had hair, but not much, and what it had flitted away as it reached for Keo with impossibly sharp and bony fingers.

Norris dove forward and slammed the butt of his M4 into the creature’s face.

“Oh, fuck!” Bowe shouted. He had been standing close to the door when Earl appeared.

Keo thought he heard the sound of bone breaking as Norris’s rifle found its mark. While that didn’t stop the creature, it slowed it down just enough. Clumps of blood
slurped
out of its shattered nose when Earl
(not anymore)
turned its head.

“Earl?” Bowe said. “Oh shit, Earl.”

Earl whirled on Bowe, who had kept moving forward.

Too close, you idiot!

Bowe realized his mistake right away and began backpedaling, but he did it too fast and tripped on his own legs and fell. And so did Earl—
over Bowe
, and for an instant the two of them looked like dancers that had gotten their legs tangled and were now falling to the floor in each other’s arms.

Then Bowe began screaming because Earl had sunk his teeth into Bowe’s neck. The sight of the taller man struggling underneath the smaller
(shrunken)
Earl left an indelible image in Keo’s mind. At least, until bright crimson red liquid splashed the floor like geysers.

Levy had smartly (or maybe he just couldn’t make himself move) stayed farther back in the hallway. He raised his gun to fire, and Keo waited for the loud explosion in the narrow passageway. Except there weren’t any because Levy didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, he stared almost in disbelief as one friend bit and chewed another’s neck.