The Gates of Byzantium (Purge of Babylon, Book 2) (66 page)

Adapt or perish.

Will heard them before he saw the sun glinting off their roofs. They were moving fast down Route 27, which ran parallel to the shoreline.

He reached back and flicked off the trolling motor and said, “Down, Josh.”

Josh looked back, confused. Will lowered himself to the bottom of the boat, making himself small. Josh got the hint and almost leaped to the floor of the Carver as the trucks flashed by on the road.

Will counted one, two…
three
.

They were moving fast. Too fast.

Fifty miles per hour
.
At least.

He took it as a good sign when none of the vehicles slowed down, because that would have meant they had spotted the boat adrift in the lake to their left. All three vehicles eventually slowed down before turning into the yard of the two-story house.

Will heard his right ear click, and Danny said, “You see that?”

“Yeah,” Will said.

“I counted three from a distance.”

“Three. All trucks.”

“Did you see how many per?”

“No, too far.”

“Where are you now? I can’t see you through the binoculars.”

“Southwest from your position. About 1,500 meters from the mouth of the inlet, 500 meters from the shoreline.”

After a moment, Danny said, “Ah, there you are. A tiny, unremarkable speck. Is Josh still there? I can’t tell if that’s another person in the boat with you or a pelican.”

Will smiled. “He’s here.”

Josh, who had picked himself back up from the floor of the boat, glanced back anxiously. “Is something wrong?”

“Relax,” Will said. “We’re almost there. No one’s seen us yet.”

“Yet,” Josh said, flashing Will a nervous smile.

“Stay low, just in case.”

Josh got into an uncomfortable-looking crouch next to the seat. Will wanted to tell him to relax again, but that probably wasn’t going to help. It was liable to just wind the kid up even more.

Will turned the trolling motor back on and eased the Carver forward. He angled the boat southeast, making a beeline for the shore. The ridgelines of the lake were raised high enough that if he could get the boat there without being seen, they could then travel south, closer to the marina, without being spotted the rest of the way.

Eventually, as Will turned the Carver to run parallel to the raised shoreline, he heard the unmistakable sound of outboard motors roaring to life from the house. Not one, but two. Will remembered seeing a boathouse across the inlet and two boats inside when they had arrived at the marina yesterday.

His right ear clicked, and he heard Danny’s voice: “I must be hearing things. Are those motors?”

“Those are motors,” Will said.

“What do you see?”

“Squat.”

From his angle, Will couldn’t see anything but the water in front of him and the raised shore immediately to his right, the wall of dirt and high, swaying grass less than a meter from the Carver’s starboard.

“Okay, I see them,” Danny said.

“What’s going on?” Josh said, looking back at him again.

Will shook his head. “What do you see?” he said into his throat mic.

“Two boats,” Danny said. “They’re moving down the inlet. Fast. They should be coming into your view…now.”

Two fast-moving boats blasted out of the mouth of the inlet, multiple silhouetted figures in each craft. Just as fast as they appeared, they were gone, shooting up the lake toward Song Island as fast as their powerful outboard motors could carry them. At that rate, it wouldn’t be long before they arrived at the island.

“What do you see?” Will asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Danny said. “They’re still too far away. All I see right now are stick figures on two boats coming toward us at full speed. I don’t think they’re following boating regulations, either. Someone call the Game Wardens.”

Then Danny went quiet.

Will waited, listening to the loud screams of motors racing across the lake.

After a while, Will said, “Danny, what do you see?”

“Four to a boat,” Danny said. “They’re definitely coming full bore. Looks like you were right to skirt the house on your approach. I told Carly you weren’t nearly as dumb as you look.”

“Good to know. What are you dealing with?”

“Assault rifles. A pair of AK-47s. M4s. The good stuff.”

“Can you take them?”

Will saw Josh looking worriedly back at him again, but the kid somehow managed to restrain himself from blurting something out.

“Do fish shit in the lake?” Danny asked.

“I don’t know,” Will said, playing along. “Do they?”

“Last time I checked. Anyway, you should get to the marina as fast as you can. It should be relatively clear at the moment. Or clear-ish.”

“We’re there now.”

Will aimed the Carver toward shore until the starboard side was pressing up against the dirt and flicking at branches sticking out of the ground. Will let the boat drift for a bit before they finally reached an area where he could drive the boat up onto the muddy beach.

He instantly cut the trolling motor and hopped out of the boat, landing in a hard patch of dirt and mud, with the anchor rope in hand. He saw a tree trunk nearby and wrapped the rope around it, then pulled it tight before dragging the boat farther up until he was satisfied it wouldn’t drift off on its own.

Josh stumbled out after him, cradling the Remington like it was a precious baby. Will resisted the urge to tell the kid to sling the weapon instead. The last thing he needed was for Josh to trip and accidentally blow his own head off. Besides alerting whoever was still at the house, it was going to cost him valuable manpower. Neither one of those things were acceptable losses at the moment.

Will poked his head above the ridgeline and took inventory of their position. The tall, uncut grass was both an ally and a hindrance. On the one hand, it kept him hidden, but it was hard to see through it. Fortunately, the sun had baked enough of the grass that it kept the height reasonably in check.

He was surprised to see they weren’t that far from the marina. Will could make out the high-raised roof of the gazebo about 200 meters to his left. And slightly behind that was the back of the garage. He did the math in his head and concluded that carrying the supplies over the distance was going to involve a lot of sweating and grunting, but it was doable.

Will was still gauging the distances when he heard gunfire from Song Island. He knew instantly it was Danny’s M4A1. He waited to hear return fire, but instead he heard the M4A1 fire a second, then a third time.

Josh crouched silently next to Will near the ridge as they heard loud returning fire from multiple weapons. There was a volley, shattering the calm air in a loud, reckless downpour. Then Will heard three more shots. The M4A1 again. Calm and unhurried shots.

Then there was silence.

“What happened?” Josh asked, looking over at Will.

“I don’t know,” Will said.

His right ear clicked and he heard Danny’s voice: “They’re heading back to you now, tails stuck firmly between what are no doubt very wobbly legs. Looked like weekend warriors to me. I might have clipped two. Definitely got one of the motors.”

“Good work.”

“Have Tower, will snipe. Good luck.”

“Roger that.” Will looked over at Josh. “They’re fine. You ready?”

Josh shook his head, but said, “Yeah, okay, sure.”

“You’ll do fine. Let’s go.”

He climbed up first and raced across the flat ground, thankful there were enough tall blades of grass to hide most of him, if not the top of his head. He stopped ten meters from the ridge and looked back and saw Josh following, hunkered down in that same uncomfortable pose he’d had back in the boat. At least he was low to the ground, and anyone looking from the house probably couldn’t see him.

Probably.

Will gave him a nod, hoping to give the kid some confidence. It might have worked, or it might not have. It was hard to read anything beyond Josh’s absolutely terrified expression.

Will looked forward and started moving through the grass again. He could see the garage and gazebo coming up, still a good 280 meters away, give or take.

But then something else caught his eye, and he went into a crouch. Josh, not anticipating the sudden stop, bumped into him from behind. Will grunted a bit as the barrel of the Remington Josh was carrying dug into his back.

“Sorry,” Josh said.

“You’re doing good,” Will lied.

He looked across the field and to his left at a Jeep buried in the ditch along the road. It was parked about forty-five meters from the marina, give or take, and Will could make out three figures crouched next to the vehicle, looking in the direction of the house. Two of them had binoculars.

Will slipped the M4A1 from his shoulder. He lifted the rifle and looked through the sight. He was still too far to make out any details, but there was enough for him to know two of the three were men, the third a woman. The biggest one was up front, and Will set the red dot against the side of the man’s head.

It was a fine target. Big and juicy and oblivious, just the way he liked it.

LARA

Lara hid among
the trees that lined the beach, one hand holding the radio, the other gripping the Benelli shotgun so tightly that her fingers were white. She watched them coming from a distance. They had been coming for a while, the sounds of their loud boat motors reaching the island well before they did.

They looked like toy boats from this distance, and she could see men clinging to the sides—the starboard, or port, or whatever they called those sections. The boats were moving so fast they looked like they were about to take off into the sky at any second, the front half literally hopping over the surface of the lake only to smash back down again, then going right back up. She was amazed none of the men had been tossed into the water already.

She heard Will and Danny talking back and forth on the radio. She fought the urge to butt in, reminding herself this was what they did—they cracked jokes in the middle of a crisis. She had learned a long time ago to give them their space.

Finally, the boats were close enough Lara could actually see with the naked eye that the men onboard were coming fully armed. That was when she heard the crack of Danny’s rifle, and the boats seemed to slow down all of a sudden.

Danny shot again, then a third time.

Warning shots. If Danny wanted to hit them, he would have hit them. Of course, the men on the boats didn’t know that, and they started firing back. Or firing, anyway, but not necessarily back at anything, especially Danny, high up in the Tower across the island.

Will would never waste bullets like that.

Then Danny shot again, and one of the men in the first boat doubled over and grabbed his leg. A second shot, and another man doubled over in the second boat. Danny’s third and final shot sent black smoke billowing from the first boat’s motor.

Damn, he’s good.

She knew full well Danny could have killed everyone on the boats if he wanted to, especially with that new scope mounted on his rifle. These men were getting a second chance, and the irony was that they didn’t even know it. But they did get the hint that their attack wasn’t going well and began to turn around.

Lara watched the boats heading back to the marina.

Well, at least they’re not total idiots.

*

Carly was waiting
for her at the hotel patio. They had both changed clothes at least three times today.

Clearing out the bones from the hotel grounds was easier than cleaning out the hotel hallways. Not all of the ghouls had been exposed to sunlight, and they were forced to wear respirator masks that Sarah brought out from a supply closet just to keep down what little breakfast they had managed earlier in the morning.

Dragging the twisted, pruned, and blackened bodies into the sunlight and watching them turn to fine white mist was the kind of experience Lara didn’t think she would ever forget. It was both fascinating and soul-destroying, and she remembered thinking,
This is what the human race has become. Nothing more than dust in the wind.

Scrubbing the blood and flesh from the hotel hallways and lobby had taken even more effort. By the time they had wiped down the tiles with bleach and scraped the disgusting remains of dead ghouls from the walls, she wasn’t sure if she could even smell anymore. They decided to leave all the bullet holes for Will and Danny to deal with later, since the two men were responsible for most of them in the first place.

They hadn’t decided what to do with the bones yet. Burying them was one option. The other was to throw them into the lake. Lara preferred the second option. An ocean of bones sounded better than bones buried in their backyard. Bones in the lake might drift away eventually, whereas burying them would always mean living right next to a graveyard. The human bone, depending on the condition, could last for thousands of years in the ground before it dissolved completely. She wasn’t prepared to live with that kind of timetable.

“Eight guys?” Carly said, as Lara climbed up the front steps of the patio.