The Stones of Angkor (Purge of Babylon, Book 3) (42 page)

Will unfolded the paper and glanced at it. It was a long, handwritten list of about 200 names, some with a check mark next to them. “What’re the check marks?”

“The pregnant ones,” Zoe said. “You guys need to put them in their own separate trucks and not stuff them in with everybody else like the last few times. You need to keep in mind you’re dealing with pregnant women here. They’re fragile.”

He pocketed the paper. “Is that all?”

“How long have you been here?”

“Just a few days.”

“I didn’t know they were still bringing in new people.” He heard the suspicion in her voice. “Is Givens your first or last name?”

“Does it matter?”

She shrugged. “Just curious.”

“You’re a doctor, right?”

She smiled. “Lucky guess.” She walked over to a cot and sat down heavily. “Can I ask you a question?”

Why the hell not, it’s not like I can stop you.

“Sure,” he said instead.

“What’s with the gas mask? I know, you wear it at night so the creatures steer clear of you. But why do you guys insist on wearing it in the daytime, too? I’ve always been curious.”

He couldn’t tell from the sound of her voice if it was just curiosity or something more.

“Habit,” he said.

“It can’t possibly be comfortable.”

“You get used to it.”

That seemed to strike a chord with her. “I guess we’ve all had to learn to get used to things, haven’t we?”

He wondered if she was still talking to him or herself. Zoe was kneading her forehead with her fingers, like someone with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

“You okay, doc?” he asked.

She glanced up. “Yeah, why?”

“You look tired.”

“How could you tell? Is it the wrinkles or the crow’s feet? I’m pretty sure I’ve aged a year for every week I’ve been in this place.”

“Why don’t you leave?”

Damn. Did I just say that?

Instead of flashing him another one of her suspicious glances, she smirked at him instead. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“I’m just a grunt. I follow orders.”

“Isn’t that what the Nazis said during World War II?”

“We all do what we have to in order to survive.”

“I guess so.” She sighed and stretched out on the cot, putting her hands on top of her forehead and closing her eyes. “Sorry about shitting all over you, Givens. That was unfair.”

“No worries.”

She smiled at nothing in particular. “You can go now.”

“Right.”

He stepped out of Zoe’s tent and kept walking, glad to be out of there.

One thing she had said stuck in his head:
“The next transport scheduled to leave for the town.”

He was right, after all. The camp was just a way station to someplace else—a final destination.

“The town.”

People were being relocated there from here, including the pregnant women.
Especially
the pregnant women. So what were the people sitting on the mats, the men and boys and women who weren’t pregnant, doing inside the big tent?

He walked past young men and women—teenagers—pushing carts through the mats and cots, offering up fruits and vegetables, but also more meat and venison on cheap plastic plates. Everyone seemed to be doing their part, though it was obvious the doctors—or the ones in the scrubs, anyway—were paying more attention to the pregnant women.

It didn’t escape him that he hadn’t seen a single baby, toddler, or infant. That told him all these pregnancies had occurred
after
The Purge. The furthest along, as far as he could tell, was six months. He wasn’t entirely sure what that told him, if anything. For the most part, the majority of the women looked newly pregnant.

By the time he reached the end of the tent, he had walked the entire length of the place and there wasn’t a whole lot more to see, except for an entrance tunnel that joined another, smaller tent on the other side. But this entrance had two hazmat suits guarding it, and unlike the others, these looked alert. He glimpsed people lying down in cots inside the connecting tent, their arms hooked up to tubes that were connected to red bags.

No, not red bags. Clear bags with
red liquid
inside.

Blood. They’re drawing blood.

He had trouble making out the size of the second tent through the tight opening. It looked big, though of course nowhere near as large as the blue tent. There were nurses inside, walking along the cots and checking the tubes connecting the arms and blood bags. People who were coming out of the tent looked noticeably tired and dazed, some moving on wobbly feet. Almost all of them went straight to the mats to sit or lie down.

Will thought about getting a better look at the other tent, maybe even trying to access it, but he decided against it. It was too risky, and the two men standing guard were too alert. Right now, his greatest asset was his ability to go everywhere as long as no one paid attention to his face. All it took was one hazmat suit to realize he wasn’t Givens, and he was screwed. The prospect of having to shoot his way out of the camp, with its large population of pregnant women, made him queasy.

He walked on through the tent instead, slipping into a line of people exiting out a tunnel that didn’t have any guards in front of it.

He stepped back outside and blinked in the sun, before glancing down at his watch: 2:11 
p.m.

Plenty of time.

Will walked through the camp again, passing a group of men laughing around chunks of freshly killed deer meat sizzling on a grill. The rest of the animal was in a cooler, one man tasked with fanning it to scatter the flies every time they opened it for another piece of meat. The men were drinking beer. Warm beer, but he guessed they had gotten used to that from the sounds of the drunken voices.

One of the men noticed Will and speared a thick piece of meat with a cooking fork, then got up and walked over. “Wanna grab a piece of this? We have plenty to go around. More than plenty, actually.”

“Where’d you get it?” Will asked, remembering the dearth of deer—or any animal life moving on the ground at all—that had crossed his path as he moved through the woods.

The man looked confused by the question. He was in his early forties, with a thick brown beard, and had the type of world-weary eyes Will would expect from a resistance fighter, not someone enjoying the company of his captors.

“Your buddies bring them over every morning,” the man said, “for old farts like me who can’t stand to eat out of cans anymore. You new to this camp?” he asked, switching topics with surprising dexterity. “I haven’t seen you around before.”

“You know everyone in camp?”

“Not everyone, but most of you guys. It’s not like there’s a lot of you.”

Will nodded. “I just came over a few days ago.”

“Ah, that explains it.” The man offered up his hand. “I’m Jenkins.”

Will shook it. “Givens.”

“I know, it says so on your label thingie there,” Jenkins grinned. Then he nodded at the campfire. “You wanna join us? Plenty of room. I’ve never been much of a deer man myself, but it’s surprisingly good.”

“How long have you been here, Jenkins?”

“You mean this camp?”

“Yeah.”

“Just a little over a week now.” He glanced around. “It’s a lot bigger than the last camp I was in, and also a lot more organized.”

“How many camps have you been in?”

“Counting this one? Three.”

Jesus, how many of these places are out there?

You really have been busy, Kate.

“All in Louisiana?” Will asked.

“Yup. Though I hear there’s one in Texas that’s four times the size of this one. You seen it?”

“No. Just the Louisiana camps so far.”

Then Jenkins leaned in a bit, as if he was going to say something important that he didn’t want anyone else to overhear. “The guys and I were wondering. You know when they’re gonna relocate us to the towns?”

Again with the towns.

“The next transport leaves tomorrow,” Will said. “Why, you anxious to get there?”

“Sure, why not. I mean, I don’t mind living out of a tent and eating deer meat, but it’d be nice to get back to civilization. Or as close to one as you’ll get these days, anyway.”

“How long have you been going from camp to camp, Jenkins?”

“Ever since I knew there was a choice.”

“What choice is that?”

“You know, run around out there, or come here.”

He means surrendering. Giving up.

Jenkins gave him a half-hearted smile. “You can only fight for so long, you know? And I’m getting old.” He glanced around the camp. “It’s good here. I think I made the right decision. Still, it would be nice to finally get to one of these towns I keep hearing about. Get on with living.”

“You’ve never been to one of these towns before?”

“Nah. I’ve just been shuffling from camp to camp. Sure are a lot of pregnant women here.” He whistled. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many pregnant women in one place in my life.”

“Neither have I.”

“By the way, you know anything about all the shooting in the woods? You guys having trouble or something? There are plenty of boys here who wouldn’t mind lending a hand if you need it.”

Will shook his head. “We’re fine.”

“What was all that shooting about?”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ve dealt with it.”

Jenkins was about to ask something else—the man had a thousand questions, apparently—when he stopped and stared over Will’s shoulder instead. He followed the older man’s gaze and saw a group of six hazmat suits moving through the camp. They had two figures between them, leaning against each other.

Will casually walked away from Jenkins and out of the open, slipping behind one of the tents. Not that anyone noticed, including Jenkins. Every set of eyes in the immediate area was too busy watching the new arrivals, which included a tall blonde girl covered in blood.

Aw, shit.

Will watched Gaby shouldering Nate, who was moving with some difficulty alongside her. Nate looked shot—at least twice—with almost one entire shoulder swaddled in bloodied gauze. And although she was covered in almost as much blood as Nate, Gaby didn’t actually look wounded; she seemed to be more tired than anything.

Nate’s blood.

As Gaby and Nate were led past the tent he was standing behind, Will pulled off the gas mask and tried to catch Gaby’s eye. She was looking around her, taking in the camp with an expression he imagined he must have had himself when he first saw the place up close.

Just as the group was about to pass him completely, Gaby glanced over and they locked eyes for a brief second. Her eyes widened just a bit, but then she quickly looked away, though he thought he saw a ghost of a smile cross her lips.

That’s my girl.

GABY

Josh was alive!

She didn’t know how that was possible. It shouldn’t be. But Josh was here, walking in front of her. He wasn’t just one of these people, he was
leading
them.

Her mind spun, trying to process the information. At first she thought she was still lightheaded from watching Nate get shot and then trying to keep him from bleeding to death, but she realized now that it was more than that.

Josh was alive!

“Josh,” she said, trying to get his attention.

She struggled to hold on to Nate as they were led through the woods. Gaby spent almost as much time swatting branches out of her face as she did trying to keep Nate upright. Somehow, though, he was keeping up with her. She couldn’t fathom how he was doing it. She held on to Nate with both arms, his feet moving alongside her, his eyes were closed as if he were asleep.

“Josh,” she said again, louder this time.

He finally looked back at her, his hair long and shaggy. She remembered all the times she had cut his and Matt’s hair while they were hiding together for eight months after the world ended. But the brown eyes that looked back at her now were different. The same, but not quite. He wasn’t as skinny anymore, and even the gun belt around his waist seemed to fit better.

He didn’t say anything, and instead waited (forced) her to continue.

“Why aren’t you dead?” she asked. “Will told me you died. You fell into the lake and you drowned.”

“Will was wrong,” he said. It was his first words to her after they had left the parking lot.

She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t.

“So you
didn’t
die that day?” she said.

“Gaby, I’m here, walking in front of you, aren’t I? How could I do that if I died that day?” He chuckled, and for a brief moment, she saw the old Josh again.

Gaby looked around at the men walking with them. They didn’t seem to be paying attention. Or care.

She repositioned Nate’s body against hers with some effort. Nate groaned, but his eyes remained closed. He was painfully pale and sweat dripped from his face. She still couldn’t understand how his legs were moving.

“Josh, please slow down.”

Josh did slow down, and as he did, the others followed suit without a word.

Josh looked back at her again, and his eyes drifted to Nate. “Who is he, Gaby?”

“I told you, he’s a friend. His name’s Nate.”

“Just a friend?”

“Yes. Just a friend. We only met this morning.”

That seemed to satisfy him, and his eyes softened a bit. “Do you want some help? He looks heavy.”

“No, I’m fine.” That wasn’t true, but she didn’t want him to know that. Didn’t want
them
to know that. “Josh, how are you still alive?”

“I fell in the water, but someone fished me out.” He grinned. “Literally. They used this big fishing hook thing.” He mimed it for her. “I guess I just wasn’t ready to die yet.”

“Just like that?”

“You think it should be more dramatic?”

“I guess.”

“It wasn’t.” Then he frowned at her. “You guys killed some of my people, Gaby.”

“I didn’t know they were your people,” she said, doing her best not to say the word “people” in a way that might be interpreted as anything other than a simple statement of fact. Even though the idea of Josh being one of these people sent a chill up her spine, to hear him actually call them
his people
was somehow a thousand times worse.