The Gates of Byzantium (Purge of Babylon, Book 2) (45 page)

“You’re thinking of the wrong kind of crabs, babe,” Carly smiled.

“Never mind, then.”

Berg, like Marcus and Debra, had dark, tanned skin from too much exposure to the sun. He grabbed a rope Marcus tossed over, the other end already tied around a metal cleat on top of the pontoon’s gunwale. Berg pulled the boat over the last few meters, then tied it into place around a metal anchor.

“You’re good,” Berg said. Then he looked over at Lara and Carly and grinned, flashing crooked and slightly yellowing teeth. “Hey, ladies, welcome to Song Island.”

Watch it, kid, I’m armed and you’re not.

*

They piled out
of the pontoon and walked up the middle pier, Will using the time it took to travel from one end to the other to familiarize himself with his new surroundings.

The beach went on for quite a long stretch, taking up a good section of the southern side of the island, until it was abruptly cut off by encroaching trees and grass on both ends. There was enough sand and beach here to make for a very decent resort, which was probably why someone had spent a lot of money to do just that. The trees grew tall, providing plenty of shade, and the bushes were thick. The lake was invitingly blue, and he saw fish breaking the surface around them.

Behind the woods, he saw the looming structure Marcus called the Tower. It looked very much like a lighthouse, with a fat, cylindrical bottom that extended upwards, getting smaller as it neared the top. Will guessed it had to be about forty meters high, which made it taller than your average lighthouse. The height also made it a brilliant perch to see in every direction. Will saw two sets of windows, one near the top and a second set near the middle, which told him the Tower had at least three floors, not counting the unfinished section at the very top. There was supposed to be a glass housing up there, along with a revolving beacon that was never installed.

Marcus led the way up the pier, while Debra and Berg busied themselves with the pontoon behind them. Danny was all the way in the back, as planned. Will carried the heavy duffel bag holding half of their weapons and ammo. Danny carried the other half. He was surprised by how little interest Marcus and Debra had paid to what they were bringing on board the pontoon with them, almost as if they expected a level of paranoia from their visitors.

“You said eleven people?” Will asked Marcus. “How many of those came because of your broadcast?”

“Three so far, not counting you folks,” Marcus said.

“I thought there would be more,” Lara said. She walked beside Will, carrying her backpack over her good shoulder. While minus the sling, she still favored her right side whenever possible.

“I guess not everyone has a radio,” Marcus said. “Or listens to the old FEMA frequency. I think more will show up in time.”

A large, nondescript concrete building, aesthetically incomplete and the size of a four-door garage—and just as squat—sat at the end of the piers, the four windows facing them propped open. Will glimpsed boat supplies, machinery, and shelves with cartons of gasoline, oil, and thick, three-strand twisted ropes inside. The shape and construction of the boat shack reminded him of Harold Campbell’s facility.

They finally reached the end of the pier, where Vera and Elise instantly broke off from the group and hopped onto the beach and began racing around, laughing and kicking gobs of sand around them. The entire group found themselves stopping as one and staring after the girls, and for a moment, no one said a word.

Will exchanged a look with Lara. She gave him the kind of smile he hadn’t seen in a long time—happy and utterly content. She reached over and took his hand and squeezed. He smiled back at her.

“Haven’t heard that in a while,” Marcus said.

“There are no children on the island?” Lara asked.

“Two, but they’re not exactly the outdoorsy type.”

“We’re definitely coming back here and going for a swim later,” Carly said with a big grin.

“Oh hell yeah,” Gaby laughed.

“It’s not bad,” Marcus said. “But you’ll really love the hotel.”

“Girls!” Lara called.

Elise and Vera reluctantly ran back, but not before grabbing handfuls of sand and flinging them into the air and running through them. They were still picking sand out of each other’s hair as the group continued along a man-made cobblestone pathway connecting the end of the piers with the boat shack and leading across the beach. The pathway was about five meters wide, the same width as the piers. It was big enough for vehicles and a gaggle of civilians to come and go without getting sand in their shoes.

“You don’t have any guards?” Will asked.

“Don’t need any,” Marcus said. “Why? You plan on giving us trouble?”

Will smiled back, though he could imagine his smile wasn’t nearly as winning as Marcus’s.

The cobblestone pathway led them off the beach and through the woods. Will instantly became alarmed by the darkness within the trees to both sides of him and had to force himself to temper his instincts. Instead, he listened to birds chirping, the rustling of animals scurrying around branches and foliage. It was quiet, almost peaceful, and for a moment he was able to let himself go, become lost in the natural beauty of his surroundings. The only intrusions were the loud
clack-clack
s of their shoes on the hard stones.

He noticed black lampposts positioned every two meters along the pathway. There had been similar ones posted along the piers and beach. Each lamppost housed a lightbulb inside a glass container at the top.

“Solar-powered lampposts?” Will asked.

“Good guess,” Marcus said. “LED lights. You can’t beat it.”

“We carry portable LED lights with us.”

“Then you know how bright they can be. Wait till sundown. This island will be lit up like a Christmas tree, and none of it costs anything except the sun rays in the day.”

“That’s efficient.”

“There are lampposts like this all around the island,” Marcus added. “They store power by day, light up at night. We never have to worry about them as long as the power cells have the sun to draw from. So basically, it’s all good unless the sun blows up, which, hopefully, won’t be for a while yet.”

The leisurely welcoming walk through Mother Nature lasted for about fifty meters before they emerged onto the hotel grounds. It was quite a sight, even (as Marcus had put it) in its “finished-ish” state.

The resort hotel and its surrounding area were designed to take up nearly two football fields’ worth of space. He imagined the resort would have looked pretty spectacular when completed, but at the moment he saw a pair of unfinished swimming pools out front, each shaped into a giant peach and separated by the cobblestone pathway. On an island surrounded by water, swimming pools were the type of thing only rich people could come up with.

Likewise with the ornate water fountains scattered around the yard, in the shape of various fishes—catfish, bass, and what looked like bigmouth buffalo. The ceramic sea life was dried and cracked, the fountains devoid of water, the mouths homes to birds and their nests. Someone had attempted to turn a big section of the front yard into a garden before giving up.

Will expected to see a thick jungle where the yard used to be, but instead he smelled freshly cut grass. “You guys mow the lawn?”

“Tom and Jake take turns every other week,” Marcus said.

“Where do you get the gas?”

“There was a lot stored in the supply shacks, and we make supply runs on land every few weeks or so, whenever we run low on something. Things are spread out around here, but we can usually get what we need in less than a day’s drive.”

“Using the vehicles in the marina?”

“We have keys for every one of them,” Marcus said.

“Aren’t you afraid someone will steal them?”

“Not a chance. We stripped the batteries and there’s barely any gas in the tanks. We bring the keys, including the batteries and gas, when we need to use them. No one would bother stealing those cars. Too much hassle.”

The cobblestone pathway serpentined its way from the beach, through the trees, and all the way to the hotel’s large twin front doors sitting on a raised patio. Before it reached the doors, it branched off in a half-dozen separate directions around the hotel grounds, circling the water fountains, swimming pools, and building foundations laid out but never built upon. A small army of palm trees stood at attention around the hotel to give the resort a faux tropical theme.

The hotel wasn’t even close to being done, with much of the exterior aesthetics still missing. In its current state, the huge, sprawling building looked almost generic, and its second floor was missing. Will saw work equipment on the rooftop and wondered what else was up there that they could use. The developers had managed to erect a sign, held in place by scaffolding and metal mounts, over the front doors of the hotel. It read, “Kilbrew Hotel and Resorts” in big white letters.

The Tower loomed in the background and slightly to the right, near the northeast cliff of the island. The building was entirely white, without the colored stripes or design patterns usually used to distinguish lighthouses. He guessed the developers had never gotten around to painting the conical structure. Closer now, he could see four windows from his limited angle, two on the second and two more on the third floor. With the four other windows he couldn’t see, the Tower gave its inhabitants a maximum 360 view of the surrounding lake and island.

Using the Tower’s distance from them and adding in the walk from the beach, Will pegged the island’s width at under a quarter of a kilometer, or 250 meters, give or take. The island was definitely longer than it was wide, which made the Tower’s view all the more important.

A sniper’s dream
.

“The radio that’s broadcasting the message,” Lara said. “You said it’s coming from the Tower?”

“That’s right,” Marcus said. “There’s a computer set up on the third floor.”

“Who’s up there now?” Will asked.

“Tom’s usually up there,” Marcus said. “He comes and goes, but that’s his usual haunt.”

“How much power is needed to keep the broadcast going twenty-four-seven?”

“Surprisingly, not a lot. We monitored the heck out of it the first week, but it’s incredibly efficient. This entire island is. I think that was the whole point.”

They approached the raised patio.

“But never mind all that,” Marcus said. “Let’s get you folks out of the sun. I’m sure you’re sick and tired of it by now.”

“Hallelujah,” Gaby said.

“The others are all waiting in the hotel. You can’t blame them, it’s probably 105 degrees out here.” He wiped a bead of sweat on his forehead for effect. “Welcome to Louisiana in the summer, folks.”

“It’s got nothing on Texas,” Lara said.

“Are we comparing heat indexes for state pride now?” Will smiled over at her.

She smiled back. “Texas proud, baby.”

They walked up a half-dozen marble steps, covered slightly in dust and dirt and bird excrement, to the two big doors of the hotel. The patio was constructed of the same shiny black marble and surrounded by a meter-tall wooden railing. A pair of solar-powered LED floodlights hung above them.

A woman in her late thirties stood at the top of the steps waiting to greet them. For a moment, she reminded him a bit of Kate. She was tall and attractive, with dark hair and piercing brown eyes, and something about the way she stood told him she used to be someone important before The Purge and she was reluctant to give that up.

Marcus introduced the woman, saying, “This is Karen, our fearless leader. She’s the reason we’re all here in the first place.”

“Welcome to Song Island,” Karen smiled. “We’re glad to finally get some new faces around here. If you need anything, just let me know. Anything at all.”

Politician,
Will thought right away.

“I could use a bath,” Carly said.

“We have that, too.”

“What is that humming in the background?” Lara asked.

“That,” Karen said, “is air conditioning.”

Marcus grabbed one of the doors and pulled it open, and Will was instantly swamped with cold air seeking escape from the building. He was pretty sure Lara involuntarily sighed with pleasure next to him.

*