Monster Island(35)

Garystepped aside and the next shot missed him completely. He glanced at his companions-at the noseless man and the faceless woman and gestured for them to spread out and find cover. They communicated their inability to do so-they lacked the brainpower to identify what was covered and what wasn’t-so he wasted another second telling them mentally to duck down behind abandoned cars. The violence of the moment had sharpened him somehow, thrown everything into high contrast.

“Kev-I’m reloading-get this one!” a living human shouted.Gary swiveled to track the voice and saw a big guy with short curly black hair standing under an awning. The living man worked nervously at the action of a long-barreled hunting rifle that looked like a stick in his enormous hands. He wore a rumpled tan shirt and a nametag that read HELLO MY NAME IS Paul. There were two of them,Gary inferred, this Paul and another one named Kev.Gary stepped closer to the shooter and sent instructions to his companions to spread out and try to flank the assailants.

Something buzzed pastGary ’s eyes. A mosquito, possibly, but when he followed its trajectory it ended in a crater in a plate glass window no wider than his pinky nail. Not a bullet,Gary decided, but some kind of projectile nonetheless.

He realized for the first time that he himself was completely exposed. He stepped into the shadow of a building and scanned the street for possibilities. He couldn’t run-his legs felt like pieces of dead wood every time he tried. He couldn’t shoot back. Even if he’d possessed a gun his hands shook too much for that. He would have to try to flank these survivors and cut them off. Reaching out along the wavelength of the deadGary had his companions move farther up and down the street. He had to remind them to keep their heads down. He picked up an empty soda can from the street and threw it as hard as he could in the direction of the unseen shooter.

It had the desired effect. The shooter-his nametag read HELLO MY NAME IS Kev-came dashing out from behind a mailbox as if he’d been stung by a bee. “Paul!” he shouted. “We have to get out of here!”

Paul lifted his rifle and pointed it inGary ’s direction but didn’t shoot. “He’s over there somewhere. Do you see him?”

“Forget him! They’re everywhere!” Kev rushed to the side of a derelict limousine and yanked open the door. He clambered inside the vehicle untilGary could see nothing but the long, thin barrel of a rifle sticking out. The weapon looked like a toy.

It couldn’t possibly be a bee bee gun, could it?Gary suppressed the urge to laugh. He had a little protection there in the shadows but Paul looked ready to shoot anything that moved. The survivor wasn’t about to run-which meantGary had worked his way into a stalemate. He pushed his consciousness outward, tapped into the nervous systems of his fellow dead. He could feel a group of them just a few blocks away, clustered around the twisted remains of a burnt-out hot dog stand. It was harder to maintain contact with these-unlike the faceless woman or the noseless man this new group had eaten recently and were therefore stronger-but he knew how to get their attention. Food, he whispered to them, food here. Come here for food.

Paul fired his rifle and a window nearGary ’s head collapsed in fragments.Gary thought the big guy must be firing blind but he couldn’t be sure. The reinforcements were still minutes away-too far to be of any help, probably. He would have to take a chance and strike out on his own.

Faceless stood up from where she’d been hiding. Paul pivoted with a grace none of the undead could match and put a bullet right in the middle of the faceless woman’s chest. She ducked down again atGary ’s order, damaged but not fatally, and Paul put a hand to his eyes, trying to see what had happened. He must be wondering if he’d got her or not.

Garydidn’t plan on letting him find out. He moved as fast as he could, keeping low and dodging behind cars so that when Paul looked back in his direction again Gary was nowhere to be seen.

Kev poked his head out of the limousine but Noseless was already there.Gary sent the order and Noseless slammed the car door shut, knocking Kev backwards into the vehicle. It would only take a moment for the survivor to open the door again but in that secondGary moved even closer to Paul.

“Jesus,” Paul said, staring as the limousine rocked on its sagging tires. “What the f*ck are you doing in there, Kev? We’ve got dead guys out here, remember?”

The limousine’s back windshield erupted in shards of tinted glass. The bee bee gun emerged and then the survivor started crawling out behind it. “This is f*cked up,” Kev shouted, “they’re organized or something!”