Read Online The Walls of Lemuria by Sam Sisavath - Free Book Online Page B

managed to grab this radio from a deputy who was in the lobby when those creatures attacked.”
    “No gun?”
    “I think he lost it after he, you know, died. I’m just glad he had the radio already set to the same frequency as yours, or else I’d be talking to air at the moment.”
    “Okay. We’re on our way now. Stay put.”
    “Well, I had a hot date, but whatever,” Gillian said.
    Keo smiled to himself. He decided that he liked the sound of her voice.
    *
    “How big is the hospital?” Keo asked.
    “Not too big,” Jake said. “One floor, and a couple of wings and the lobby.”
    “You’ve been there before?”
    “Once or twice. They expanded it a year ago. I don’t know how big it’s gotten since the last time I was there, though.”
    Jake wasn’t entirely wrong. Bentley Hospital was a one-story building much like the police station they had left twenty minutes ago, except about three times as wide. There were about two dozen vehicles in the parking lot, including an ambulance parked near the entrance with its doors, including the double doors at the back, left open. Unlike the buildings he had driven past in the last few hours, the hospital’s front glass curtain walls were uncovered and sunlight spilled inside, lighting up large portions of the lobby. Portions, but not all of it.
    Keo parked next to the ambulance and climbed out. He keyed the radio. “Gillian, I’m at the front entrance now.”
    “You actually came,” Gillian said through the radio. “You must be crazier than I thought.”
    “I’ve been called worse.”
    “Like what?”
    “I’ll let you know when I see you.”
    “An optimist, too, I see.” Then, with surprising seriousness, “Be careful, Keo. We can hear them outside. I think…I think they know you’re here. They sound more active than they’ve been all morning.”
    “Where are you, exactly?”
    “The last room in the back of Hallway C.”
    “What’s back there?”
    “The morgue,” Gillian said. “It’s the only room in the place with a steel door. I think that’s what spared us. The only thing.”
    Keo glanced over at Jake, the younger man’s face plastered with uncertainty. “You good?” Keo asked.
    Jake gave him a less than convincing nod. “Yeah. You?”
    “Stay behind me, keep your weapon down, and only shoot when you see the black of their eyes.”
    “The black of their eyes,” Jake repeated. “Got it.”
    Keo wasn’t entirely sure if Jake really had “gotten it,” but he didn’t have much of a choice at the moment.
    He swiveled the Remington into position. The hospital was going to have a lot of tight spots, and a shotgun with its spreading power would be ideal for that kind of situation. Of course, shooting and expecting them to go down was another story.
    Jake must have come to the same conclusion. “What’s the point of the shotguns?” he asked. “It’s not going to kill them anyway, right?”
    “No, but it might slow them down.”
    “Slow them down for what?”
    “To run the hell out of there,” Keo said.
    “Oh,” Jake said.
    Keo looked through the glass wall into the lobby as they neared the entrance. Bright sunlight filtered inside, illuminating large swaths of the room. A good sixty, maybe sixty-five percent of the building was visible to him. Keo glimpsed fallen chairs and dried blood splatters on the walls and floor and over toppled furniture. It was like looking into a butcher shop.
    Behind him, Jake swallowed audibly.
    “Stick behind me,” Keo said. “And don’t shoot at anything in front of me, understand? Only behind me.”
    “Only behind you,” Jake repeated.
    Daebak. The kid is definitely going to end up shooting me in the back.
    Keo grabbed the first glass door and pulled it open without resistance. He gave himself a few seconds to breathe in the strong, lingering stench of day-old blood—behind him, Jake might have fought back a choking noise—before slipping inside and stepping over a bloodied white shoe.
    If