Free 0692672400 (S) by Sam Sisavath

surprise turned into a grin, because for some reason a part of him expected to see—well, hear, anyway—her again even all the way out here.
    “…the traitors in uniforms that scour the countryside in the daylight for survivors, any bullet will do…”
    Lara’s voice, clear as day. He had been on the bridge of the Trident when she recorded the message, and he still remembered the lines.
    “…get to a place that is surrounded by bodies of water. Stock up on silver; if you know how, make silver bullets, or any silver-bladed weapons. The daylight is no longer your friend, but don’t be discouraged. As long as you’re breathing, as long as you are free, there is hope. We will adapt and keep going, because that’s what we do. This is Lara, and I’m still fighting alongside you.”
    There was a brief pause before the message repeated itself.
    Keo popped the bud out of his ear. Why had Butch and Davis gone through the trouble of recording the message, looping it, then uploading it to an iPod? He would have liked to ask Butch, but that wasn’t going to happen. Davis would have had the answer, in all likelihood, but that ship had sailed, too.
    He made a mental note to tell Lara when he saw her again. He wasn’t sure if she was going to get a kick out of it or find it creepy. How many of Mercer’s men were carrying around her message on iPods out there?
    Definitely creepy.
    He flicked off the on switch and the little green light faded into nothingness, leaving him sitting in the dark all by himself again.
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    H E DIDN’T GET a whole lot of sleep, not helped by the fact he kept waking up every other hour to throbbing in his legs. Both of them. He didn’t know how that was possible and gave up trying to dismiss it as being just figments of imagination after the third time.
    He got a total of two hours of shut-eye, spending the rest of the night listening to them moving on the other side of the door. They were going through the farmhouse behind him, racing up and down both stories. There was a barn on the other side of the property, and he heard them raiding it, too.
    Did they know he was around? Smell him? Sense him somehow? Or maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe they were tracking Mercer’s men. That was more likely. Mercer’s goons might have managed to stay under the radar all this time, setting up their little FOBs around the state before they finally struck, but once the genie was out of the bag…
    What were the chances the ghouls were going to get to whoever—and however many—were hiding just outside of Lochlyn at the moment?
    He drifted in and out of sleep while waiting for the night to give way to morning, most of it spent staring at the door and listening for the first signs that he had been discovered. He was so used to hearing them out there, skittering across the open, that he found the sound of their movements almost…comforting?
    It’s official: I’ve lost my fucking mind.
    Around three in the morning, their numbers started to thin out and it became more difficult to pick them up. By four, they were almost completely gone except for the occasional strays that walked or ran or stopped just a little too close to the cellar entrance. He could see their shadowy figures flitting across the small openings, and a few of them paused just a bit too long for his liking.
    He kept waiting to hear gunshots, which would be a sign that the creatures had found Mercer’s men. But there weren’t any. Not at midnight, or at three, or four, or when the first signs of morning finally began filtering through the cellar and the ground under him started warming up. Not a lot, just enough to be noticeable after sitting on the cold, damp earth all night.
    The lack of shooting or hints of confrontation between Mercer’s men and the ghouls last night was a good sign, because it just meant more men for him to kill.
    Yeah, we’re officially a little bloodthirsty now, aren’t we?
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    M ERCER’S PEOPLE weren’t inside Lochlyn