The Fires of Atlantis (Purge of Babylon, Book 4) (29 page)

Will squeezed the trigger.

It was fast and somehow—and Will didn’t understand how—the creature was actually
dodging
his bullets! But as impossibly fleet of foot as it was (and God help him, it was
fast
)
,
Will still managed to put two bullets into its chest.

But it didn’t go down.

Instead it kept coming, moving with a swiftness that defied logic
(so what else is new?)
, disintegrating the distance between them even before Will felt the last silver round leave the carbine and smash into the curving wall, taking a big chunk of the creature’s shoulder with it.

Then it was there, in front of him, batting the rifle out of his hands.

Up close, Will saw black blood oozing out of the holes in its chest. He had put those there with two silver bullets.

Silver bullets!

Will opened his mouth to scream Danny’s name, but before he could get anything out, smooth black flesh wrapped around his throat and he was flailing from one side of the narrow hallway to the other. His breath exploded from his half-open mouth and his lungs burned in a sea of fire as it slammed him into the wall.

Where the hell’s Danny?

Will’s eyes darted left, up the hallway—and saw Danny firing
at another blue-eyed ghoul
running toward him from the other side. The damned thing was dodging Danny’s bullets, too. It also had something on its face that almost looked like a grin. But that was impossible. These things didn’t grin…
right?

The creature grabbed Danny by the face and slammed his head into the wall, and a second later Danny’s body went slack and crumpled to the floor. The blue-eyed ghoul stood over Danny and there was fresh blood covering its mouth, the bright red liquid glistening in what little moonlight managed to penetrate this far into the hallway.

Tommy’s blood…

It looked up at him. No, not at him, but at the first creature, the one holding Will in place with a single hand, as if Will were fifty pounds of nothing. Its fingers dug into his throat, threatening to crush his windpipe with just a little bit of pressure.

And then the creatures did something Will had never seen them do before, that he didn’t think they could even still do.

They spoke.

“I told you it’d be easy,” the second one said. Its voice came out as a sharp hiss, almost like hot steam venting. It didn’t sound the least bit human. It was more than that. More than human.
Beyond
human.

“So you did,” the first one said. It manipulated Will’s eyes back to its face by turning his head, like a grown man would an infant that was completely and utterly at its mercy.

Forced to stare at it, Will couldn’t help but marvel at the smoothness of the creature’s skin and its domed, hairless head. Its face was encased in impossibly tight flesh, showing none of the pruned bumps that covered the black-eyed ones. The smooth contour of its skin from the neck up looked almost pristine, like something fresh and newly born. The holes in its chest, where he had shot it, had cauterized in the last few seconds, even if the monster probably didn’t consider them wounds in the first place. It sure as hell hadn’t acted like getting shot
(with silver bullets!)
had hurt at all.

The eyes were closer to a shade of sky blue, and the unnatural thing’s long and bony
(and cold)
fingers were wrapped so tightly around his throat that Will had trouble breathing. He guessed that was the point.

“Will,” it said, its voice coming out in the same unnatural hiss. “Kate says you’re a hard man to kill. But I told her you couldn’t be. After all, you’re only human
.
”

“Kate exaggerates,” the other ghoul said, and it made a noise Will didn’t understand at first, until he realized it was laughter. Soft laughter, as if it didn’t quite remember how to do it properly but thought that this was just close enough.

“Would you like to play a game, Will?” the one in front of him asked.

“Kate wants him,” the other creature said.

“We’ll tell her he resisted. Oops.” Lines where lips should be morphed into a smile. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

“Mabry will know.”

“Mabry thinks she’s too obsessed with him. He’ll approve of this.”

“You’ve talked me into it.” And it, too, smiled. “Go on, then. Tell him the rules.”

“The rules are simple,” the first one said to Will. “We’ll have a blast—” It stopped talking and stiffened, and its fingers tightened further
(Is that even possible?)
around his throat as the creature hissed, “A knife? Really, Will?”

Cross-knife
, Will thought.

He didn’t know when he had even reached for it, much less pulled it out of its sheath. But there it was, in his hand, gleaming in the moonlight as it moved in a wide arc from his thigh toward the ghoul’s head. He wasn’t sure if he was even aiming, but the knife seemed to know where it was going, as if it had a mind of its own.

The ghoul glared at him and there was a glint of something that could have been pity just a split-second before the knife punctured the side of its head. The blade kept going, penetrating the skull—it was surprisingly tough—and Will kept pushing with everything he had—which wasn’t much at the moment, but there was just enough—until the hilt of the weapon rammed up against slightly cold flesh and the knife couldn’t go any further.

He thought the creature would let out a scream, a cry of pain, maybe even panic, but it did none of those things. Instead, the sparkling blue in its eyes lost their luster and it collapsed in front of him. The fingers let go and Will could breathe again, and he slid down the wall, sucking in air, following the falling motion of the creature with his own. The
clack-clack
of bones as the ghoul hit the tiled floor first, then
thump
as Will landed on his ass.

There was a sharp hissing sound and Will looked up at the second ghoul. It stared at the creature lying motionless in front of him, the cross-knife still embedded in its skull. Then its eyes shifted over to Will and it moved—

The Glock, like the knife, had somehow magically appeared in Will’s hand without him ever knowing how it had gotten there. He stopped thinking about it, stopped trying to understand what was happening, and just pulled the trigger.

He fired once—twice—
three times
—hitting the creature in the chest with all three rounds.

It didn’t stop it. Of course it didn’t stop it. He knew it wouldn’t, but he was trained to hit center mass and that’s what he did.

The monster shook off the three silver bullets and kept coming.

Will tilted the gun up slightly and fired, creasing the ghoul’s right cheek. It flinched that time and actually paused for a second.

For a moment—just a brief, optimistic moment
(Captain fucking Optimism, yeah right)
—Will thought he had forced it to change its mind, that it would now turn and run away.

But of course it didn’t.

It lunged at him again, and Will fired instinctively and from point blank range, hitting it square in the center of the forehead. Something that might have been brains—or whatever still passed for brains inside them—exploded out the back of the ghoul’s head. The creature’s body—emaciated, yes, but somehow stronger and tougher and fuller looking than the black-eyed ones—twisted at the last moment and flopped to the floor, bones
clacking
and blood oozing out of what was left of its skull. The entire back part of its head was gone, leaving just the front.

Will gasped for breath, every successful attempt sending a jolt of pain through his body. He wondered if his old wounds had opened up. It would be ironic if he survived these blue-eyed bastards only to die from a gunshot wound inflicted by a human traitor.

Ironic, or was that tragic?

Who gives a shit.

But he wasn’t dead yet, and Will grabbed the cross-knife and jerked it out of the dead ghoul’s head. It came out easily, with no resistance whatsoever, just a soft
slurp
. He picked up his rifle and slung it, then crawled on his hands and knees over the two dead bony things to get to Danny.

He reached for the neck first and felt a strong pulse.

When he turned Danny over onto his back, he thought he might have felt a pulse that wasn’t there, because the face he was staring down at was covered in a thick layer of blood. Will felt his neck again just to be sure and got the same response. The bleeding must have looked way worse than the actual wound. He hoped, anyway.

He snatched up Danny’s carbine, then got a good grip on the back of his friend’s shirt collar and began dragging him up the hallway. He kept his eyes glued in front of him, at the half-circle arch into the lobby, and his ears open for any noises coming from behind him. He wasn’t entirely sure if he was seeing very much or hearing anything at all over the roaring pain in his chest and throat and ears.

Jesus, was there a part of him that wasn’t hurting at the moment?

Stupid question. Of course there wasn’t. He didn’t even know how he was still moving. It had to be adrenaline. It would hurt later, but for now, he could still make his legs move and keep his grip on Danny, and that was all that mattered.

He moved on automatic pilot, trying not to think about every aching bone and pulsating muscle in his body. It didn’t help that Danny was heavier than he remembered. Or maybe he was just getting weaker.

Will glanced back and saw the bathroom door coming up. It was open, unable to close because of the shadow-covered body lying half-in and half-out of it. Tommy. How the hell had the ghoul gotten behind them? They had searched the entire building and found no other way into the museum except through the front doors. The offices didn’t even have windows, for God’s sake. So how had the blue-eyed bastards sneaked inside?

When he finally reached the bathroom, his suspicions were confirmed. It was Tommy. Or most of him, anyway. It was actually just everything from the neck down, because his head was missing. Teeth marks covered the stump where the head had been attached.

He pulled Tommy’s lanky frame out into the hallway to clear the door, then dragged Danny inside. He closed the heavy stainless steel door, then turned the lock and heard the satisfying
click-clank
of the metal bolt sliding into place.

With Danny inside, Will unslung his rifle and scanned the bathroom just to be sure. There were no windows in here, so the other blue-eyed creature had to have gotten in from somewhere else. Maybe another window they had missed. It was dark and they were moving by flashlight, so just about anything was possible.

He fished out the flashlight and clicked it on. He slung the rifle and drew the Glock, then went through the three stalls inside the bathroom again, just to be sure. He found nothing, which made him relax a little bit, though not by much since even just breathing hurt.

He walked back over to Danny and sat down next to him.

Even under the mask of blood, Danny had something on his face that looked suspiciously like a smile. Maybe he was dreaming he was back on the island with Carly. Danny had the right idea. What Will wouldn’t give to be back on Song Island right now, walking on the beach with Lara…

He thought about last night’s dream. Of Kate again. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. The way she had proudly admitted to orchestrating everything that had happened in Dunbar yesterday. The trap with the U-Haul, with the blue-eyed ghouls inside. Four of them.

Four of them…

He glanced at the door. There were two out there. He couldn’t tell if they were the same ones from the dream, the same group that had ambushed Harrison’s people. But they had blue eyes, and there had been
four
of them when Kate showed him the…what the hell was it? A memory? A dream? More like a nightmare…

So where were the other two now? Did they always work in fours? Or did the other two leave after they had decimated Harrison’s people? No, that didn’t make any damn sense at all.

Because, obviously, all of this makes perfect sense.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

He stuck his hand into his cargo pants pocket and pulled out the small bottle. Thank God Rachel hadn’t taken it from him last night along with his pack and weapons. He couldn’t read the label in the dark, not that it mattered. He twisted off the cap and shook out a couple of pills and swallowed them, then realized that wasn’t going to work and tossed down two more.

He put the bottle away and pulled his shirt up to make sure his wounds hadn’t reopened during the fight. No wetness along his waist, which was good. That was the one stitching he was worried most about opening up again. But Zoe had done a hell of a job, and the stitches were still in place. He’d have to thank her again when he got back to the island.

Now who’s being Captain Optimism?

He tucked his shirt into his pants, then picked up the M4A1 and made sure it was still in one piece. He laid it across his lap and leaned back against the wall, trying to see if he could hear them through the door. It was so dead silent he could hear just about everything, including the thrumming in his chest, the creak of his bones, and the throbbing from all the bruises up and down his body.

He wasn’t too worried about the black-eyed ghouls, though. They were weak and they didn’t have the creativity to break down a metal door. But the others, the blue-eyed ones, were dangerous. Ennis’s metal basement door hadn’t stood a chance, so if those other two bastards were out there somewhere…

He drew the Glock and laid it on the floor next to him.

Blue eyes or not, faster and stronger or not, they still went down if you got them in the right spot: the head. Or was it the brain?

Either/or.

Just to be sure, he’d just shoot them in the head until there wasn’t a head anymore.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

T
he cemetery didn’t look
any less inhospitable in the daylight, but that could just have been the plentiful weeds and scattered debris that had overtaken the place since it had last seen a caretaker. Nothing ever looked the same these days; the cities were always too hollow and unwelcoming, the houses too dark and depressing, and the streets too wide and empty. There was no reason a place where the dead resided would be any different.

Gaby kept to the winding path, staying out of the grass with the girls following closely behind. Donna kept pace behind her, followed by Milly, and Claire brought up the rear with her Winchester clutched tightly in her small hands. Though Donna was older and taller, Gaby had no doubt that when things went sideways—and they usually did, these days—she wanted Claire to be the one standing beside her, shooting.

She didn’t remember the front gate of the cemetery being as far as it was or the place being so big. She couldn’t see Route 13 from here, but the sunlight danced off a pair of large buildings to her right. Not far, maybe half a mile.

“What’s over there?” she asked, pointing.

“Dunbar Airport,” Donna said.

“Big airport?”

“Not really. Just a couple of hangars and a waiting room in one of the buildings. Not much to look at, and most of the planes that land there are those small ones. Why?”

“It’s always a good idea to reload on supplies whenever you can.”

“I remember a couple of vending machines. Drinks and stuff.”

Gaby shook her head. “Not worth walking all that way for just drinks and stuff. We’ll make do with the supplies we took from the VFW hall.”

“You think that’ll be enough?”

If it’s not, that means we didn’t make it to Song Island,
Gaby thought, but she decided the girls didn’t need to hear that. She said instead, “It should be.”

She looked back at Milly. The girl had been quiet since they woke up in the crypt this morning. Not the best morning she’d faced before or since the end of the world, and it had to be worse for Milly, who had just lost Peter. The two of them weren’t related, but they shared a stronger connection, one created from survival. She knew what that was like. Her link with Will, Danny, and Lara—those were the kind of bonds she could never have created with her friends or even family before The Purge. It was the kind cemented in fire and combat.

“Hey, are you hungry?” she asked Milly.

The girl looked up, big eyes peering through long, dirty hair. She shook her head silently.

“If you are, tell me, and we can stop and eat again,” Gaby said.

Milly nodded. She looked as if she were moving in a stupor, not connected to the world the way Gaby and the sisters were. Gaby would have to keep an eye on her. She owed Peter that at least.

“Claire said you guys had been wanting to leave Dunbar even before I arrived,” she said to Donna. “Why?”

“It’s Claire’s idea,” Donna said. “Ever since she heard that radio broadcast, she’s been obsessed with it. She plays the tape recorder once every hour, and to anyone who’ll listen. It’s kind of annoying.”

“That’s the only reason?”

Donna shrugged. “Harrison… I never liked him. My dad used to teach us about what kind of man to stay away from. You know, when we got older. Harrison fit his description perfectly.”

“So why did you stay with them for so long?”

“Dunbar’s the only place we know. And besides, the others were pretty cool. Rachel, for one.”

“Was she back at the VFW hall?”

“No. She was outside with Harrison. She’s like his second-in-command.”

“She’s really your friend?” Claire asked from behind them. “The woman on the radio?”

“She is,” Gaby said.

“She sounds cool.”

“She is pretty cool.”

“And the island is safe?” Donna said doubtfully. “The creatures—these ghoul things—can’t get to it?”

“I was there for three months and they never crossed the water,” Gaby said.

“What about the hotel? Tell me about the hotel. You said it had power, which means hot showers, right?”

Gaby nodded. “All the hot showers you want.”

“Oh my God,” Donna smiled widely. “It’s been so long since I’ve had an honest to goodness real shower.”

“You smell it, too,” Claire said.

Donna rolled her eyes. “It’s not like you smell any better.”

“Better than you.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Claire snorted, but didn’t have any comeback for that one. The thirteen-year-old continued to keep watch behind them, eyes roaming the cemetery for potential threats or surprises.

“Can she really use that rifle?” Gaby asked Donna.

“She was good with it before all of this,” Donna said. “Now, she goes to sleep with that thing in her arms. It’s creepy.”

“I heard that,” Claire said.

“You were supposed to.”

“Whatever.”

Gaby smiled. It had been a while since she heard sisterly bickering. In some strange way, she liked it. It reminded her that, whatever happened, sisters would still be sisters even at the end of the world.

“Come on,” Gaby said, glancing up at the sun. “The faster we get up Route 13, the faster we’ll hit Interstate 10.”

“And Song Island after that,” Donna said.

“And Song Island after that. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for any vehicles. It’d be nice not to have to walk the entire way there.”

“Can you drive?”

“A little.”

“Good, because I never got my driver’s license.”

“I doubt anyone’s going to ticket you, Donna.”

“No, but she might drive into a ditch and kill us all,” Claire said.

Donna groaned. “God, you’re stupid, Claire.”

“Whatever.”

They finally reached the front gates of the cemetery and stepped through it. They turned left, heading back toward the highway in the distance.

T
hey hadn’t gone very far
toward the highway when Gaby saw sunlight glinting off the metal dome of a vehicle parked at the intersection between Route 13 and the country road that had led them to the cemetery. The car hadn’t been there last night.

She grabbed Donna’s arm and pulled her left, toward the ditch and off the road, snapping, “Car.”

Behind them, Milly and Claire smartly followed without a word. Gaby slipped to one knee and unslung the M4, flicking off the safety.

Donna was on both knees in the grass, peering forward. “Is that a truck?”

Gaby nodded. It was a big silver truck, about 200 yards further up the road and parked along the shoulder. She couldn’t tell what kind of vehicle from this distance, not that she had ever been particularly good at distinguishing one car from another. The end of the world hadn’t done a whole lot to fill in that particular knowledge gap.

A man was climbing out of the front passenger seat of the truck now and did something she couldn’t quite make out from this distance. Too bad she hadn’t grabbed a pair of binoculars. She remembered seeing a few of them on the shelf in the basement under the VFW hall. Will and Danny would have picked one up just in case.

“Hope for the best, prepare for the worst,”
they would say.

“What should we do?” Donna whispered. She didn’t really have to, given how far they were from the highway. Then again, sound did travel these days, so maybe the girl was wiser than Gaby gave her credit for.

She glanced back at Claire and Milly. They were crouched behind them, Claire with her rifle in front of her, looking ready for action. Milly was a quivering mess, and Gaby expected her to jump up and run off at any second.

She looked back at the truck just in time to catch a second figure approaching from the other side of the road. Both men. She could tell by the way they moved. After a while, she began to make out the multiple colors of their camo uniforms.

Josh’s soldiers.

Were they looking for her? Had Josh sent them? He would have been informed by now of her escape. There was one thing about Josh—the old and the new—that she knew with absolute certainty: he didn’t give up when he set his mind on achieving a goal. Unfortunately, that was her at the moment.

Whatever he had become, whatever he had deluded himself into believing, he was still, at heart, the kid who fell in love with her the day she moved in across the street from him. She knew that because he had told her.

Kid? Did I just call him a kid?

He’s not a kid anymore. He’s nineteen. Old enough to know better. Old enough to stop lying to himself.

“Gaby?” Donna whispered. “What should we do?”

They were watching her curiously. Donna next to her and the two girls behind them.

Good question.

Options. What were her available options?

She could look at this as a stroke of bad luck, but that was probably not what Will or Danny would have done. No, they would see the soldiers and the truck (but especially the truck) as an opportunity.

Besides, she didn’t feel like walking the rest of the way to Beaufont Lake, anyway.

“Stay here,” Gaby said, looking first at Donna, then at the thirteen-year-olds. “Don’t move from this position, and stay as low as you can until I give you the word.”

“I can help,” Claire said eagerly.

“Yes, you can—by keeping everyone here safe with that rifle.”

She fixed the girl with a hard look and Claire, understanding—which didn’t mean she liked it one bit by the way she gritted her teeth—nodded reluctantly.

“Remember, keep low,” Gaby said. “Don’t make a sound. If anything happens and I don’t come back, wait until they leave, then keep going south until you reach Beaufont Lake. Understand?”

Donna nodded without any enthusiasm. Like her sister, she apparently didn’t see any point in arguing. Milly just looked mortified by the whole thing.

“Okay,” Gaby said. “I’ll be back.”

She gave them her best smile, then shrugged off her pack and handed it to Milly since Donna was already carrying the supply bag. She got up and began jogging up the country road, back toward the highway. With just the rifle, her holstered sidearm, and spare magazines around her waist, she felt lighter on her feet, though of course that could just be the adrenaline trying to convince her she could, possibly, survive this.

Captain Optimism, right, Danny?

They needed the truck. It was going to make returning to Beaufont Lake easier, faster, and safer. There was no way around it. That truck had a working battery and likely a full tank of gas to be out here by itself. She needed that damn truck in the worst way.

Gaby was fortunate the country road had ditches on both sides, each about four feet deep. That allowed her to slide all the way down to the bottom of one of them and, hunched slightly over, move up the road without being seen.

Or, at least, she hoped she couldn’t be seen.

The morning heat had picked up noticeably and Gaby was already sweating after twenty yards of bent-over running. She kept the M4 in front of her the entire time, ready to use at a moment’s notice. Her legs carried her forward on automatic pilot, and she kept her eyes focused straight-ahead at all times. She prayed something didn’t pop up in front of her—like a tree root—and trip her up. It wouldn’t have taken much, given how little attention she was paying to what was on the ground at the moment.

Thirty yards…

…forty…

She watched the soldiers the entire time. There were definitely just the two of them, which was the good news.

The bad news was, there were still two of them, and just one of her.

She gripped the carbine tighter, wishing she had her own weapon. The rifle she had now had proven decent back at the VFW hall, but she understood why Will and Danny were so adamant about holding onto their M4A1s all the way from Afghanistan. Soldiers weren’t supposed to bring weapons back home with them, but the two had managed it anyway.
“We knew someone who knew someone,”
was all Will would say when she asked how he had managed that.

She missed her old M4. The feel of this one wasn’t quite right, though she imagined it was all in her mind. Probably.

Sixty yards…

She concentrated on the two soldiers to take her mind off the things she didn’t have but wished that she did. She still couldn’t make out a whole lot of details, but they were definitely both men. Gaby had only killed men so far, but she didn’t think she would have trouble pulling the trigger on a woman. A collaborator was a collaborator. And uniform or not, these were still members of the human race that had sold out their kind. She couldn’t summon any sympathy for them even if she tried.

Eighty…

They hadn’t spotted her yet and seemed to be too busy talking to really pay any attention to their surroundings.

After moving steadily up the ditch for a while, she stopped and went into a crouch. She took the opportunity to glance back at the girls. They were lying on their stomachs and watching her back. Or she assumed they were looking in her direction. She could only really see three lumps in the grass, and that was only because she knew where to look.

She faced forward again and caught her breath: one of the soldiers was turning in her direction when he stopped and seemed to stare right at her from across the distance.

She gripped the M4 tighter and mentally prepped herself to launch into battle—

False alarm.

The man hadn’t seen her. He was looking down while trying to open some kind of bag. Then he was turning away, stuffing something into his mouth as he did so.

She forced her fingers to loosen around the rifle.

Jumpy. She was way too jumpy.

When the man had turned his back to her again, she got up and continued along the ditch at a half-trot while slightly bent over at the waist to lower her profile.

Ninety yards…

She was at one hundred when she stopped a second time to get her bearings. The man on her side of the silver vehicle was leaning against the front grill and staring off down the road at nothing in particular. Their lack of attention to the land around them was incredible.

You need better “soldiers,” Josh.