The Gates of Byzantium (Purge of Babylon, Book 2) (33 page)

“Yeah?”

“I need my pills.”

“In an hour.”

He groaned. “I don’t think I’m going to make it to an hour.”

“Don’t be such a baby,” she said, and walked around the Silverado’s hood back to the driver’s side.

“I’m really hurting here, babe,” he said after her.

“You’ll live.”

“Babe, please,” he said, trying his best not to beg, though it was pretty damn close. “I need more pills.”

She rolled her eyes. “God, if I knew getting shot would turn you into such a drama queen, I’d never have gone back for you.”

“Wow,” he said, feigning hurt. “Just wow, babe. That’s harsh.”

She laughed. “Get in, Meryl Streep.”

*

They drove down
Lancing’s Main Street for a few more minutes before the road became Highway 96 and, about a mile later, joined up with US 287/Route 69. Eventually, the businesses began to thin out and they were back in the countryside, passing thick patches of overgrown grass swaying in the hot sun on both sides of a series of never-ending rickety fences.

“No cows,” Blaine said quietly, almost to himself.

“What?” Sandra said.

“No cows,” he repeated. “What happened to all the cows?”

Sandra peered at the land around them. “You’re right. When did the cows start disappearing?”

Blaine remembered seeing cows as recently as a few weeks ago, when they were entering Grime. There had been cows and horses grazing on the abundant grass. Once, he had seen a couple of riderless horses roaming the streets, the
clack-clack
of their hooves like loud gunshots moving up and down the roads. He had wondered where they were going. Were they looking for their owners?

There were no cows or horses anymore. At least, none that he could see. There were no carcasses of the animals, either, which was even more disturbing.

Where the hell are the animals?

He hadn’t seen a dog or a cat in months, now that he really thought about it.

Where have all the animals gone?

They drove past a sign along the side of the road: “Beaumont, Texas 15 Miles.”

Maybe Beaumont has the answers…

WILL

They reached the
outskirts of Beaumont, Texas, by two o’clock in the afternoon, which was better time than Will had expected, given they were stuck at thirty-five miles per hour on the road. There were a couple of reasons for that. The roads got more dangerous the closer they got to a major city—and Beaumont definitely qualified, with its 118,000 population within an eighty-five-square-mile radius. There was also more debris, leftovers from the days even before The Purge. The leftovers piled up, and wind and time added to the growing menace. There was also the cargo trailer to worry about, and losing that would have been calamitous.

It was easy to tell when you were nearing a big city. The roads started to clog up with abandoned cars and personal items left behind, twisting and turning in the wind, bleached dry in the sun.

During the trip, Lara would pick up the ham radio and turn it on, and they would listen to the same recorded message from Song Island. Will wondered if Lara was afraid the message would stop, and if it did, what that would mean. He wasn’t entirely sold on Song Island, but it seemed to give her and the others hope, and who was he to take that away from them?

Hope was good. Hope kept you fighting. No one knew that more intimately than a soldier who had been in a war zone.

As they neared Beaumont, Will began looking for possible safe harbors along the feeder roads. There were plenty of buildings, stores, homes, and brand-new subdivisions. But he couldn’t settle, not with the knowledge of what was chasing them.

Kate, of all people…

They were alongside Willowstone Mall, the city’s main shopping center, when the highway suddenly became impassable, and Will pulled over to the shoulder and stopped. There were simply too many vehicles in front of them now, and the big trucks weren’t going to be able to maneuver around the wall of metal, cast iron, aluminum, chrome, and rubber.

Will grabbed the radio off the dashboard: “Danny, I think we’re stuck.”

“We haven’t tried going over them yet,” Danny said through the radio.

“I don’t think that’s going to work.”

“Oh come on, we won’t know until we try. The girls will love it.”

“Maybe next time.”

Gaby was leaning against her window, smiling at the familiar gathering of department stores that made up the Willowstone Mall to their right. “Wow, I’d kill to do some shopping right about now.”

“You’d definitely have to kill a lot to do any shopping,” Josh said. “There are probably a gazillion of those bloodsuckers in there.”

“Josh is right,” Lara said. “The ghouls are everywhere. They use the department stores as nests.”

“Figures,” Gaby sighed.

Lara looked over at Will. “If we can’t go around this traffic, where does that leave us?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Let’s get a better look outside.”

Will climbed out of the Ridgeline while Danny walked over from the Frontier.

“Monster trucks,” Danny said. “We need monster trucks. Then we could just go right over these suckers. I even came up with a name. The Danny-ator.”

“The Danny-ator?”

“Yeah, you know, like the Terminator. But with my name. Don’t steal it.”

“Try and stop me.”

Will climbed onto the hood of his Ridgeline and took a pair of binoculars from one of his pouches. The sea of cars stretched endlessly across all four lanes—two northbound and two southbound. The only positive was that the highway wasn’t elevated, so they would be able to break off and take the feeder roads whenever they needed to. But even the feeders were congested with vehicles.

Lara climbed out behind them. “What do you see?”

“Cars. Lots of cars,” Will said.

“The man has a flair for understatement,” Danny said. “Monster trucks,” he said to Lara. “That’s the ticket.”

“God help us,” Lara said.

“That’s what Carly said when I told her. What’s the deal with you girls? No love for the monster trucks?”

“No, just the thought of you behind the wheel of one, Danny.”

“Hey, I’m an excellent driver.”

“Whatever, Rain Man,” Lara said.

Will climbed down from the hood of the Ridgeline as the others climbed out of the trucks and formed a mini-circle around him. They hadn’t been outside for more than a few minutes, and everyone was already sweating in the heat.

“How are we going to get around that?” Carly asked, looking at the traffic.

Will had to admit, it was an imposing sight, as if all of Beaumont had decided to leave at the same time. And maybe they had. Beaumont was a smaller city compared to Houston or Dallas, and the ghouls might have saved them for the second wave of attacks. That would have given the residents time to digest what was happening elsewhere—on TV, the radio, or the Net—before eventually deciding to converge on the highways in a mass exodus. He had seen it happen during hurricanes.

Will glanced down at his watch: 2:26 
p.m.

“How are we for time?” Lara asked.

“Six hours and counting before nightfall,” Will said.
Thank God for Texas summers.
“We have time.”

“We’re not getting around that in six hours,” Danny said.

Will shook his head. He would have preferred to pass Beaumont in a day and be well beyond the city limits by nightfall. He remembered how many threats they’d had to deal with in Houston. Beaumont had a fraction of Houston’s population, but 118,000 was still an impressive number of potential ghouls hiding in darkness, waiting for night. And that wasn’t counting how many Kate would bring with her.

Kate. It had to be Kate, too.

“We’ll use the feeders and look for a place to hole up for the night,” Will said.

“What kind of places are we looking for?” Josh asked.

“Small, defensible, and preferably not close to places like a mall. Keep an eye out.”

They nodded and anxiously climbed back into the trucks, thankful to return to the air conditioners. Danny lingered behind until it was just the two of them on the highway.

“Kate?” Danny asked.

“Yeah,” Will nodded.

“Psychic dreams. Jesus. What’s next? Undead creatures from the pits of Hell?”

“That’ll be the day,” Will said.

*

He got lucky
and found what he was looking for a few miles up the highway. It was along the feeder road, inside a strip mall with an Exxon gas station up front and three other buildings flanking it. The place was surrounded by giant car lots selling new and used vehicles.

“See it?” Will said into the radio.

“I see it,” Danny said through the radio. “God bless Miguel. He was a piece of shit human being who insisted on shooting other people in the back, but at least he gave away valuable information freely.”

Will led them off the feeder road and into the strip mall, passing the Exxon. They drove by a Discount Tire Shop and then an Auto Zone before turning a corner with a Budget Rent-a-Car. It was behind a small furniture store called Elmo’s, in an open parking lot with contents visible all the way from the elevated highway.

“Are you kidding?” Lara said. “We’re spending the night in those things?”

“Whoa,” Josh said, leaning between the front seats. “I never once thought about using those.”

“What?” Gaby said. Then, “Oh no, not those again.”

Will stopped the Ridgeline in front of the first semitrailer, one of many lining a truck stop in the back of the plaza. The area took up nearly half of the concrete space, with one big building in a corner surrounded by at least fifty, possibly sixty, trailers resting on back tires and propped up by their landing gear. Their solid steel sides gleamed in the sun.

They climbed out of the trucks.

Will glanced over at Gaby. She looked pained. “You good?”

She looked over and nodded. “If we have to, then we have to.”

“Just this once.”

She nodded again, trying to convince herself. “Okay.”

Tough girl.

“Spread out,” Will said, “and look for one that doesn’t have a lock on the doors. We’ll need two, preferably side by side. If you find one unlocked, be careful. You don’t know what might be hiding inside.”

Will drew his Glock and replaced the magazine with one marked with an “X.” Danny and the others did the same thing.

“You’re with me, kid,” Danny said to Josh.

Gaby stayed behind with Carly and the girls. “We’ll just wait here and soak up the sun,” Carly said. “Whistle if you need anything.”

“Lara,” Will said, “you should stay behind, too.”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Your arm…”

“It’s a lot better. Besides, I’m a righty, anyway.”

He thought about arguing but saw the look on her face and decided against it.

She walked next to him as they moved through a row of about twenty trailers, testing the back doors as they went. Most of the trailers had simple locks that could be opened with a key, though some had more expensive-looking security devices on them. They went along the row, pulling at doors but finding none that would yield.

Danny said through the radio: “Locked, locked, and locked. Any luck on your end?”

“Not a one,” Will said into the radio.

“We might have to break into one of these things.”

“Looks like.”

“Good thing I packed that bolt cutter…”

Danny was probably right. The owners of the trailers hadn’t been sloppy enough to leave their property unlocked, even if there was nothing inside to steal. He guessed it was because no one liked the idea of someone playing around with their things.

“Semitrailers?” Lara said after a while.

“It’s not an entirely bad idea, and I wish I had thought of it.”

“Wouldn’t it get claustrophobic in there?”

“Maybe after a while, but we’re not going to be spending that much time in them. We should be able to cross into Louisiana by tomorrow, then Beaufont Lake later the same day.” He noticed she was looking at him closely. “What?”

“I’ve never seen you this anxious to get to Song Island.”

“I’m not.”