The Fires of Atlantis (Purge of Babylon, Book 4) (43 page)

He reached the boat’s stern just as it was passing him by and grabbed at one of the two ladders half-submerged at the back. He thought he had missed it for a moment but felt smooth metal at the last second and tightened his grip, then let himself be dragged through the water. He reached out with his other hand, got a good grip on the wet ladder, and slowly began climbing. The only sound other than the engine was the tricolor Mexican flag flapping from a long metal staff above him.

Keo crawled onto the lower deck, dripping pools of Lake Beaufont everywhere. A large floodlight created a giant halo with him in the center. This part of the boat was designed for lounging and easy access to the water. Fortunately, there was no one around at the moment to see him. He didn’t worry about being overheard, either. The churning engine, “whisper quiet” or not, still overwhelmed most noises around him, especially at night.

He swung the MP5SD forward and flicked off the safety, then darted out of the pool of light.

Keo could feel the vibrations of the boat’s engine room under his bare feet, humming as it pushed the
Trident
at a ridiculously slow pace toward the island. The boat was definitely moving at speeds well below its capability. So what was the point of that?

Even from his limited angle in the back of the luxury yacht, he could see the well-lit beach of Song Island spread out like a huge welcome mat. The piers in front, the long stretch of white sands, and the ring of solar-powered collector plates looked like glittering jewelry.

Windows and glass doors in front of him provided a nice view of a dimly lit dining room. No movement, so he ignored it and moved to the side toward one of the ladders leading up to the main deck. Keo climbed as quickly as he could, very aware that he was still dripping water with every rung he took.

He was almost at the top when he heard voices. He flattened his body against the ladder as two men walked past above him. Male voices talking in English, with heavy footsteps. He couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, though they sounded excited.

Keo waited until the voices faded before continuing up.

He swung over the rail and landed in a crouch in the back of the main deck, the MP5SD swinging in front of him at the ready. Keo scanned the boat, wondering what he looked like at the moment if someone spotted him. A tall barefoot guy in wet black clothes with a silenced submachine gun. He wouldn’t blame them if the first person who spotted him started shooting. He would, in their shoes.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. He was operating under the assumption that the people on the boat had ulterior motives. Lara thought the same, which was why she had agreed to let him take this approach.

“Don’t shoot unless you have to,” she had said.

“Trust me,” he had replied, “if you hear shooting on the boat, there’s a very damn good reason for it.”

She had nodded solemnly back at him.

Tough girl,
he remembered thinking.
Tough call. Ballsy call.

He was impressed with her. Keo wasn’t a leader; he didn’t give orders, but he appreciated people who could. Lara was one. He wondered if she had known she possessed that kind of fortitude before the world crapped out on them. Not everyone knew their full potential until they were faced with a cliff and had to take the leap. Lara had, in his eyes, passed with flying colors.

He was squatting in another lounging area, one that was open to the moonless sky, with a darkened room in front of him. Sofas, chairs, and a bar. Entertainment center. The bridge was above him on the upper deck, and he moved toward another rung of ladders and climbed again. He wasn’t dripping quite as much water this time and didn’t encounter voices above him, either.

He went into a crouch next to the ladders and took a moment to orient himself with the boat’s layout. Then, after about ten seconds, he found an unlocked door and slipped inside.

Another entertainment room, with a big-screen TV on a wall with a wide array of media players and electronics facing comfortable sofas. There was plenty of evidence that the place had been lived in, but the details were hidden in semidarkness. He slipped through the spacious room, reaching a spiral staircase to his right that led back down to the main deck. The bridge was in front of him and around a slight turn in the narrow passageway.

He tiptoed down the hallway, then peered around the corner and into the bridge through an open door. There were two men inside, one standing at the helm, the other one next to him looking through binoculars at the island. They wore gun belts with sidearms in hip holsters, and an AK-47 lay across an empty chair, another one leaning against the console. Their backs were to him, so he couldn’t see their faces and only caught glimpses of their reflections in the wide windshield up front. The one with his hands on the steering wheel was wearing a white captain’s hat that didn’t look like it quite fit him.

They were in the middle of a conversation, so Keo leaned back and listened.

“How many do you see?” the “captain” asked.

“Just three,” the other one said.

“What does Rod say?”

The man with the binoculars grabbed a radio off the console and said into it, “Give me a count, Rod.”

“I see two,” a third muffled voice said through the radio. “But I saw four about thirty minutes ago when we were on approach. One’s gone and one’s just disappeared. I think one of them went into the woods.”

“Where’d the fourth one go?”

He’s behind you,
Keo thought.

“I have no idea,” the man named Rod said.

“Do you have a shot?” the captain asked.

Rod didn’t answer right away.

“Rod,” the captain pressed, “do you have a shot?”

“One’s moving around too much,” Rod said. “But the other one’s pretty still. He’s crouched on top of a building. Looks like a storage shack. Short fucker, too.”

“Can you take him?” the second man asked.

“Probably,” Rod said.

“‘Probably’ isn’t good enough.”

“Yeah, well, that’s all you’re gonna get,” Rod said. “Take it or leave it.”

The captain grunted. “We should have put Hank up there instead. He always follows orders.”

“Rod’s okay,” the second man said. “You think they got diesel in that place?”

“Fat chance of that. But you see those things around the island? Those are solar panels. That means they have a constant reliable power source. When was the last time we had that?”

“So we’re definitely doing this, then.”

“Hell yeah,” the captain said. “Tell the boys to stay hidden, but get ready. We’ll see what kind of firepower they have first.”

“I still think we should have taken the lifeboats inland instead of just showing up with lights flashing.”

“It’s called a Trojan Horse. And it’s worked before. If it ain’t broke…”

“…don’t fix it,” the other man finished.

There was a slight tremor in their voices. It wasn’t fear. Keo recognized it from all those times he was deployed into a new arena.

It was excitement.

Clang-clang
from behind him, coming from the spiral staircase that connected the main and upper decks.

Keo hurried back down the hallway and slipped behind the staircase just as a bearded man wearing a sweat-drenched T-shirt climbed up the steps. The man had a shotgun slung over his back and a gun belt was riding low around his waist. He was turning, the staircase moving him from left to right as he climbed higher and higher.

Keo slung the MP5SD and slowly, silently, slid the Ka-Bar out of its sheath.

He took a breath, and just as the man put his foot onto the wooden floor of the upper deck, Keo lunged forward and slapped one hand over the man’s mouth and stabbed him once, twice, three times in the side before the man could get out his first startled gasp. Keo kept his grip over the man’s mouth as he lowered the still-twitching body to the floor. Blood poured out of the gaping wounds and over Keo’s fingers, but he ignored the warm sensation.

His eyes remained fixed down the hallway, toward the bridge hidden around the bend. He could still hear them talking.

“You think they have women on the island?” one of them was asking. It sounded like the one with the binoculars.

“What are the chances they don’t?” the captain said.

“It’ll be nice to get some new ones onboard.”

The other man chuckled. “Just keep it in your pants until we have the whole place locked down.”

“Remember, we get first dibs.”

The bearded man had gone completely still in Keo’s arms. He lowered the body all the way to the floor and wiped blood off his hand against the man’s dry pants.

“Rod sound a little rebellious to you a while ago?” the “first mate” was asking.

“A little,” the captain said. “Probably cabin fever. We’ve been at sea for way too long.”

“Must be.”

Keo tugged the shotgun from the lifeless body and stood up. He would have used the MP5SD, but the suppressor wasn’t going to make a lot of noise. And right now, he needed to make noise. Enough that Lara could hear all the way from the island.

“Don’t shoot unless you have to,”
she had said.

“Trust me, if you hear shooting on the boat, there’s a very damn good reason for it,”
he had answered.

He headed back down the hallway and turned the corner, and as soon as he stepped inside the bridge, the captain saw his reflection in the glass.

The man looked over his shoulder. “Who the fuck are you?”

“You the captain?” Keo asked.

The “first mate” turned around and went for his sidearm. Keo fired and the man’s head disintegrated in a hail of buckshot that continued and spiderwebbed the windshield behind him, splattering chunks of brain and skull against the console.

Keo racked the shotgun and swung it back over to the captain. “I asked you a question.”

“I—I guess,” the man said.

Keo stepped forward and pulled the man’s sidearm out of its holster. It was a fancy silver chrome six-shot revolver. “Nice gun.”

“Thanks,” the captain said.

Keo shot the man in the right kneecap with his own gun. The captain howled in pain and fell to the floor. Keo grabbed him by the back of his shirt collar and dragged him across the room, then deposited him into a corner.

“Stay,” Keo said.

Even through the captain’s high-pitched cries, Keo heard footsteps pounding across the boat, originating from outside the bridge. They weren’t being the least bit subtle about it. Then again, they probably didn’t know what the hell was happening.

He slid the revolver into his waistband and leaned out the door just as a bald man poked his head up the spiral staircase. Keo lowered the shotgun’s iron sight over the melon-size target.

Nice and juicy, just the way he liked them.

S
he shouldn’t be
this afraid. If her chances were decent when she was lugging around three girls, then having Will and Danny beside her was a hell of an improvement. But of course all those times didn’t involve a small army of Josh’s soldiers pinning her inside a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere and the knowledge that the coming night was going to bring out something worse.

Will said there had been four of them in Dunbar. He had killed two. Four minus two got you two.

Four!

She wasn’t sure she wanted to see them. Just hearing stories about the creatures—from Will, from Lara, from Blaine and Maddie—was creepy enough. She had never actually felt the need to ever come face-to-face with the abominations.

Gaby shivered slightly and was glad no one was around to see it.

She was on the second floor, crouched at the head of the stairs, looking down at total darkness. Ten feet. That was all that separated her from the first floor, where the ghouls would come in first. Unless, of course, they decided to try climbing the two-story house. That was possible, too.

“They can be creative when the blue-eyed ones are around,”
Will had said.

Gaby shifted her bent legs to keep them from falling asleep. Lance was sitting against the wall next to her, an AR-15 loaded with silver ammo in his lap. His eyes were focused on the peeling wallpaper in front of him, just barely visible in the streams of moonlight filtering through the main bedroom further down the hallway to their left. The door was open and Danny’s silhouetted form stood still, peering out the slots they had left in the window after covering it up with slabs of countertop from the second-floor bathroom.

There wasn’t enough light to see much of anything, though her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and her mind filled in the missing pieces. She couldn’t see Will on the first floor, but she could hear him moving from one barricaded window to another every few minutes. Nightfall had come an hour ago, and they were still waiting for signs of an attack.

Because it was coming. She knew that for a fact. There was no way they were getting through tonight untouched.

Gaby was in the center of the second floor, with two bedrooms to her right and a bathroom at the very end. All three doors had been removed to cover the first-floor windows and reinforce the main bedroom. Closet doors, along with whatever else they could take down, had also been used to block the other windows along the floor. It wasn’t impossible to get through the barriers, but it would take a lot of force and there wasn’t a lot of leverage to be had while clinging to the outside. Just the same, they had sealed up the other bedroom windows with dresser, beds, and furniture.

Better safe than sorry. Always better safe than sorry.

She felt reasonably safe up here. It was the first floor that they had to worry about. The fortification would hold for a while, but not forever. Sooner or later, the ghouls would batter their way through. And if they couldn’t, then their human allies could open the door, literally, for the creatures. Then there would just be the stairs to block their path.

A
click
in her right ear, and Danny’s voice. “Anyone huffing and puffing down there yet?”

She heard him loud and clear through the earbud, connected to a Motorola radio clipped to her hip. Danny and Will only had two of their assault vests, but Danny had brought along an additional comm rig when he came looking for them days ago and found Will outside of Lafayette. She reached up and pulled at the plastic band wrapped around her throat. Gaby didn’t think she would ever get used to the constricting feel of it against her skin.

“Nothing in the front yards,” Will said. “You?”

“I got zilch and nada,” Danny said.

“What about the soldiers?”

“Still hanging around. Buggers aren’t leaving anytime soon. All dressed up and nowhere to go.”

“Ghouls?”

“I see them.”

“How many?”

“How do you say ‘a shit lot’ in Spanish?”

“What are they doing? How are they reacting to the soldiers?”

“They’re leaving them alone.”

Gaby keyed her radio. “How do they know to leave the soldiers alone? Is it the uniforms?”

“Maybe,” Will said.

“Like with the hazmat suits.”

“Likely.”

“Aw, shit,” Danny said.

“What is it?” Will said.

“Buckle up your seat belt, kids, here comes trouble. And the bitch brought friends.”

Will didn’t respond. Gaby waited impatiently, wanting to ask what they were seeing, but somehow managed to bite her tongue. She felt a pair of eyes on her and glanced over at Lance. He was watching her and had been for a while. Questions flooded his eyes, but like her, he was exercising amazing restraint. Lance was in his late twenties but looked older.

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head at him.

He nodded, grateful for at least that much.

Then Will’s voice, finally, in her right ear. “Gaby.”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Remember: shoot them in the head.”

“In the head,” she repeated. Then, “How many of them are out there?”

“Four.”

“Four?”
Gaby said, almost shouting the word out.

“You think it’s a new group, or did they get reinforcements?” Danny asked.

“I have no idea,” Will said. “I can’t tell them apart. One blue-eyed fuck looks like the other to me.”

“You’re such a racist.”

“
Four?”
Gaby said again.

“It’s probably because of what Willie boy did back in Dunbar,” Danny said.

“Or protocol,” Will said. “They operate as squads of four. They lose two, they replace two. Or maybe it’s an entirely different group. That doesn’t seem likely, though.”

“Maybe one of them’s your ghoulfriend.”

“Ex-ghoulfriend.”

“What are they doing, Will?” Gaby asked.

“The black-eyed ones are staying back along with the soldiers. It’s just the shock troops.”

“Shock troops?”

“That’s what this guy back in Dunbar called them. It’s not a bad theory.”

“What was that guy’s name, Brick?” Danny said.

“Bratt,” Will said.

“Ah, that’s right.”

“What happened to him?” Gaby asked.

“He didn’t make it,” Will said.

Of course not. What a stupid question.

Gaby heard a soft tapping noise and looked over at Lance. His fingers were moving nervously against the side of the AR-15 while his eyes had returned to the same patch of dirty wallpaper in front of him.

“Lance,” she whispered.

He glanced over. “Hmm?”

“You okay?”

He nodded and tried to smile. “Yeah. You?”

“We’ll be fine. Will and Danny are really good at this. Just do what we talked about, okay?
Exactly
what we talked about, and you’ll get through this fine.”

“Okay,” he said, and made another futile attempt at a smile.

She turned back to the stairs and peered down at the pool of darkness below, wondering just where her ability to suddenly bullshit with such conviction came from. She had never been a particularly good liar, but these days, lying came easier. She wanted to think it was because Lance needed the assurance, but maybe it was for her own benefit, too.

A
click
in her right ear, followed by Danny’s voice. “Gaby.”

“Yeah?” she said.

“You’ve never seen one of them before, right?”

“No…”

“Come take a look.”

Gaby stood up and said “Stay here” to Lance then jogged up the hallway toward the bedroom.

Danny peeked over his shoulder as she approached. “It’s time you find out what all the crazy kids are talking about. It’s a real gas, man.”

Gaby moved across the large bedroom, looking briefly over at Claire, Milly, and Annie huddled on the floor next to the king-size bed. Claire had the FNH gripped tightly in her hands, while Milly was lying across Annie’s lap, her eyes closed. Annie stroked the girl’s hair, the two of them finding comfort in each other. Claire, though, was all business. She caught Gaby’s eyes and nodded. Gaby smiled back at her.

She’s going to make a great soldier one of these days.

Gaby reached the window and slid against the wall across from Danny. They had left plenty of slots to see out through, with the biggest being a few inches wide. He pointed at the front yard, lit up by the moonlight. It was amazingly bright out there and she could make out a lone figure standing next to one of the trucks with the mounted machine guns.

The first thing she noticed was the way it stood—tall, like a human male. It also looked noticeably healthier than the other ghouls she was used to seeing, which usually made her think of loose flesh draped over skeletal remains. And its eyes. If she couldn’t quite make out the details of its body, she had no trouble seeing its eyes.

Blue eyes. Blue fucking eyes.

She always believed Will and the others when they told her about the existence of the blue-eyed ghouls, but maybe there was a part of her (a very, very small part) that was doubtful. But here, now, staring down the window at one of them—and being watched back by it—she felt a hollowness in the pit of her stomach.

They’re real. Jesus, they’re real.

In some ways, she thought she knew the world. Even after The Purge when she was confronted with an all-new set of realities, she had become accustomed to it and understood its rules: Stay out of the dark. Silver kills. Bodies of water. Now there was something new, and suddenly everything was upside down again. It was almost enough to make her want to scream and pull out her hair.

“There and there,” Danny said.

She followed where he was pointing and saw a second one standing next to the supply shack on the left side of the yard. And there, a third, perched on top of the same building. Three pairs of blue eyes glowed in the darkness.

Radiant blue, like diamonds…

“Three,” she said, her voice coming out strangely calm
(Why am I so calm?)
. “You said there were four.”

He pointed again. “And heeeeeere’s Johnny.”

The fourth blue-eyed ghoul emerged out of the sea of black, moving with impossibly fluid steps for something that shouldn’t even exist. It was pulling a man behind it by a strap it held almost nonchalantly in its right hand. The other end of the line was wrapped around the man’s neck, like some kind of dog leash. The man didn’t struggle against his restraints or seemed capable of resistance. All the fight had clearly been beaten out of him.

The ghoul and its “pet” stopped about ten feet from the front door of the farmhouse. It tugged at the leash and the man staggered forward until he was standing beside his “master” before falling (gratefully, tiredly) to his knees. The man had distinctive red hair, the color providing an absurd contrast next to the black-skinned creature with the smooth black skull.

The man lifted his head and looked in her direction. Blood coated his face from forehead to chin, and he peered across the short distance through badly bruised eyes.

Harrison.

She always wondered what had happened to him after she pushed him out of the car. Now she knew.

Gaby keyed her radio. “That’s Harrison.”

“Yeah,” Will said in her ear.

“You’ve met him before?”

“No.”

“How did you know who he was?”

“It’s a long story.”

“The guy from Dunbar?” Danny asked.

“Uh huh,” Will said.

“What’s it doing with him?” Gaby said.

She had no love for Harrison. She hated the man’s guts. He had killed Peter, all because he
“had to make sure.”
That phrase haunted Gaby. They were such simple words, but there was nothing simple about the result.

“They like to play,” Will said through her earbud. “They played with Lance and Annie’s friends last night. And they were toying with us back in Dunbar, too. They called off the dogs when they had us trapped just so they could have more fun. It’s all a game to them. A sick, bloody game.”

“I’ve been telling Willie boy,” Danny said, “that if they like games so much, we should introduce them to Parcheesi or Monopoly. All the fun and none of the fatality. Win-win.”

The other blue-eyed monstrosities in the yard hadn’t moved. The one on the roof of the shack continued to stare in her direction while the other two remained perfectly still, as if waiting for the show to begin. There was an effortlessness about the way they just stood that unnerved her, as if they could stay in that pose all night and never have to move for even a second. It was so…
unnatural
.

“Here we go,” Danny said softly.

The ghoul tugged on the leash, and Harrison stood up obediently. Gaby braced herself for what she thought she knew was coming when the creature beckoned its captive toward it. Long, delicate fingers reached toward Harrison’s throat, and when they pulled away seconds later, the leash was no longer attached. It had freed him.

Why?

When Harrison realized this, he groped at his neck to make sure. He stared at the creature, then around the front yard, before finally up at the second floor. She wondered if he could see her and Danny peeking back at him through the slits. Maybe just her eyes. Was that enough? Did he know she was up here? For some reason, she hoped he didn’t. The prospect of her name being shouted out loud in front of those
things
made her shiver.

The blue-eyed ghoul opened its mouth and said something to Harrison. Its voice was too low for her to hear from up here.

Its voice.

It’s talking!

“Oh yeah, apparently they can talk, too,” Danny, seeing her reaction, said from across the window.

Harrison was backpedaling in the yard now. First slowly, then quicker, while glancing wildly around him. Then he did what she knew he would do—what she feared he would: He ran toward the farmhouse and straight to the front door. He disappeared under the window and a second later she heard loud banging from below.

Then Harrison’s voice, pained and panicked. “Open the door! Please, open the door! Let me in! You have to let me in!”

The ghoul tossed away the rope and watched Harrison. There was a look on its face, something she had never seen before on the creatures. It looked
amused
. She turned slightly and saw the same look on the faces of the other three.