Keo wouldn’t have bothered with a verbal back and forth with Sean if he could have helped it. But he couldn’t, because the only way out of Bunkhouse 14 was to be allowed out. It was also the only way in.
Every Bunkhouse—at least the three Keo had seen the interior of—consisted of a single entry point in the lobby. It was monitored by a four-man team, with two of them always present in case the other duo needed to take a break or make a trip to the little boys’ room. The front door was made up of two sections—the door itself and a metal gate on the outside. Not that it would have been difficult to break both down, if you had the right equipment.
Keo, at the moment, didn’t have any of the right equipment. He’d surrendered everything he’d been given after returning from Roy’s house last night. The Bunkhouses had armories in the lobby, which were guarded by two armed men.
“Well?” Sean said when Keo didn’t say anything to him. “What’s my name? Say my name, and I’ll open the door for you.”
Sean’s partner was a big black man name Ronald, who looked up from his very old—and very frayed around the corners—copy of Penthouse to see what was going on. Ronald, all 310 or so pounds of him, sat in a metal chair with twisted legs. Keo always wondered how long it would take that chair to collapse underneath the massive weight of its daily occupant.
Ronald didn’t say anything and went back to “reading” his magazine. From the bulge in his pants as he scanned the pages, Keo guessed Ronald had other interests at the moment, and Keo’s back and forth with Sean wasn’t anywhere near the top.
“Sean,” Keo finally said.
The tall redhead grinned. “That’s right. I’m Sean. And you’re chink. Chang. I meant Chang.” He grinned. “Honest mistake.”
“Funny.”
Sean chortled. “I know, right? I’m a riot.”
“You’re something, all right.”
The lanky idiot finally unhooked the keys from his belt and unlocked the front door. “What’d they have you doing last night?”
“Didn’t Harvey tell you?”
“Nah.”
“Then I guess you don’t need to know.”
Sean narrowed his eyes at Keo. “Think you’re suddenly special, don’t you? Because you got called off Shit Duty for a day…”
Actually, it was just for the night, Keo thought, but didn’t bother correcting the man.
He said, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
“Huh?”
“Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
“What’s that mean?”
Keo narrowed his eyes at the man. “Are you serious?”
“Why?”
“He means, it’s one step at a time,” Ronald said from behind his old copy of Penthouse.
Sean glanced back at him. “How’s that?”
“Rome,” Ronald said.
“What about it?”
Keo imagined Ronald rolling his eyes behind the skin mag’s pages, but of course couldn’t see.
Sean didn’t wait for his guard partner to answer. He turned back to the door and finished opening it, before taking out another key and unlocking the gate. It was an overly complicated procedure that had no reason to exist except, in Keo’s opinion, annoy the Bunkhouse residents.
“Sign out,” Ronald said.
Keo did, scratching his name and apartment number—Chang 411—on a yellowing notepad with the word OUT written in big letters at the top. A second pad with IN sat next to it. There were already four or so dozen names before his on the first pad. Once it was filled, the guards would turn it over to make use of the other side. When the entire pad was full, they’d replace it. Shaker Town’s storage probably had stacks of the stuff, because every Bunkhouse used the same archaic system to keep tabs on its, as Claire had said, Shitties.
As Keo scribbled down his name and room number, he’d taken a second or two to search for Claire’s name on the list. He couldn’t find it, which was odd because how else had she gotten in? Everyone had to sign in and out.
“Remember curfew,” Ronald said as Keo put the pencil down.
“You say that every time,” Keo said.
“And yet, people still ‘forget,’” Ronald said, making air quotes with one hand.
“Yeah, don’t forget, Chang, wouldn’t want you to get in trouble,” Sean said as he held the door open for Keo.
Keo smiled at the man. “We wouldn’t want that, would we?”
As he walked past Sean, Keo sneaked a peek at the man’s hip. Or, more precisely, the SIG Sauer 9mm in the holster. It would have been easy to reach for it—Sean had one hand on the door, the other twirling his key ring—but there was no point. He would still be stuck in Shaker Town, surrounded by even more people with guns. Besides, he’d come here on a mission, and the end to that was still nowhere in sight.
The metal door clanged shut behind him, followed by the inner door.
Clank-clank-clank! as Sean did the locks.
Three total, all deadbolts. The top first, followed by the middle, then the bottom one. Keo had memorized how Sean—or Willard and Orin, who usually manned the night shift—favored locking the door.
Keo turned left and walked up the sidewalk, passing another one of the Bunkhouses. Like his, this one had a giant number painted over the front walls, some of the white paint interrupted by a pair of windows.
It read: 12.
You would have to be blind not to see it from a block away. Or two blocks. The door was similarly marked, though not as big. Over the years, parts of the number had faded and been repainted. Keo could tell that by how jagged the lines were at different points.
Shaker Town was made up of four areas: Residents, Downtown, Resorts, and Fields.
Most of those were self-explanatory, especially the first, where, of course, the higher ranks lived in their nice homes. People like Roy and Harvey, even though the latter usually spent most of his time in Resorts. The Fields supplied the food while Downtown—where Keo was walking along now—gave shelter to the mass of people that made up the non-military population. The whole place numbered 2,000 or so at last count, according to Black Tide.
There were plenty of those civilians around Keo right now. Young boys and girls ran along the sidewalks and played in the streets, while women hung clothes out windows to dry them in the morning sun. People shouted at one another from their apartments, while others sat on front doorsteps talking about something that was interesting to them. There was a park nearby where old men played cards and checkers, but Keo tended to avoid that.
All the buildings were numbered, but not all of them were Bunkhouses like the ones he’d been assigned. The rest were apartments, homes to the people that worked the fields that kept Shaker Town fed. But you couldn’t “graduate” to one of those until you were married. And you couldn’t get married until you were done with Shit Duty. The problem, as far as Keo knew, was that there were no obvious steps to get ahead. Two months later, and he was still trying to figure out how Shaker Town’s hierarchy worked.
The first day Keo arrived, he was surprised by just how normal the place looked, sounded, and felt. The vibe was wrong. At least, “wrong” in the sense that he had expected something else. Something more…depressing. Except there was nothing bleak about the people around him. They looked, for all intents and purposes, like normal men and women going about their lives, as if The Purge never happened.
Keo knew better, of course. He’d read the reports and seen some slivers of the dangers that Shaker Town held. The place was good at hiding it, but you could pick out the cracks if you looked hard enough. Or bothered to look in the first place. None of that made the city any different than countless others he’d gone through since the end of the world. The only difference was why he was here in the first place. Two nights ago had been his first crack at moving the mission along.
So much for best laid plans.
But not everything was a total loss. He’d won Harvey’s…interest? Was that the word? Whatever it was, ther
e was a possibility it could lead to something—
The sidewalk underneath him trembled as something loud came up behind him.
Keo glanced over as two horse-drawn wagons rumbled up the street, carrying men and women in the back. Two kids that were kicking a ball around in the street darted out of the way just in time, a woman in an apron shouting at them to “Get the hell out of the street!”
He looked after the wagons. More Shitties. There were a variety of them, too. Old and young and a mix of races. Not everyone looked like they wanted to be here, or maybe they just didn’t like being crammed into the back of a wagon moving on wobbly wheels. It didn’t help that the drivers were whipping their horses to move faster.
One of the wagons jumped a curb and nearly tipped over. One of the boys in the back—he couldn’t have been older than ten—was tossed into the air. The kid might have landed in the street if one of the older men didn’t grab him by the arm and pull him back down first.
That was a close one.
Something bounced off Keo’s right leg. A ball. He bent to pick it up.
“Hey, mister,” a voice said.
Keo glanced over at a kid in torn jeans. He was one of the two that had almost gotten run over by the wagons. The kid had his hands on his hips, face contorted into an expression of impatience. He had an unwieldy bush of red hair sitting on top of his head. Freckles adorned his cheeks, and he looked a bit like a mini version of Sean. Keo wondered if they were related. Did a woman hate herself so much that she voluntarily had sex with Sean and produced an offspring?
“Can I have it back?” the kid asked.
“Catch,” Keo said, and kicked the ball up the street as hard as he could.
The ball disappeared into the air in a wide arc before coming back down, nearly bouncing off the head of a man, wearing an olive-green jacket, who was walking across the street. The guy managed to duck just in time as the ball sailed over his head. He straightened up, snapped a quick look in Keo’s direction, and scowled.
Keo gave him a Sorry about that, pal wave, but the guy ignored him and hopped up onto the sidewalk and knocked on Bunkhouse #17.
“Hey!” the kid with red hair said. “Why’d you do that?”
“Sorry. I got a lead foot,” Keo said.
He wasn’t sure if the kid believed him or not, or even knew what a lead foot was. The boy turned and raced up the street after his ball. A second kid, this one blond and wearing ragged overalls, ran hot on his heels.
“You fucking asshole,” a familiar voice said, chuckling behind him. “He’s gonna go tell his mom on you.”
Keo looked back at Lance, sitting on a horse in the street. His short bunkmate was leaning forward on his mount, with one arm braced against the saddle’s horn and the other holding a half-eaten apple. Lance’s horse, not the same one from last night, was a big brown animal with a white stripe on its forehead. The animal stared back at Keo with large brown eyes, maybe wondering why he was looking at it so closely.
If Lance hadn’t spoken up, Keo would have smelled him eventually. Cigarette stink radiated from his clothes, though he didn’t have one dangling from his lips this morning. Maybe he’d run out of smokes.
“Nice horse,” Keo said.
“I’m thinking I might get to keep this one,” Lance said. He rubbed the horse’s mane with one hand. “Supposed to be a Missouri Fox Tractor.”
“Trotter.”
“Trotter?”
“No such thing as a Missouri Fox Tractor. But there is a Missouri Fox Trotter. This looks like one.”
Keo walked over and held up a tentative hand toward the horse. When it didn’t move away, he gave it a quick rub on the side of the head.
“Hey, stop touching my horse, you fucker,” Lance said.
Keo grinned. “It’s a nice animal.”
“A horse’s a horse.”
Not really, Keo thought.
He said, “You came back to give me a ride over to the resort?”
“Hell no. Only one of us gonna ever ride this bad boy.” Lance started up the street, sticking close to the curb where Keo walked alongside him on the sidewalk. “You and Sean get into it again this morning?”
“I think he likes me.”
Lance chuckled. “I doubt that.”
“You know what they say about bullies.”
“What’s that?”
“You only bully the ones you like.”
“I think that only works with girls.”
“Maybe Sean’s an equal opportunity bully.”
“Hope you never find out.”
“Hey, it’s a free country. He can like whoever he wants.”
Lance chortled, when another approaching rumble and a third wagon full of Shitties appeared behind them. This one was mostly women. Very young women. They were holding on for dear life as the drivers took the turn up ahead. Unlike the previous one, these guys were better at it and managed to skirt the curb with aplomb.
“More Shitties,” Keo said.
“Harvey said to expect more of them today,” Lance said.
“Where are they coming from?”
“He didn’t say.”
“You didn’t ask?”
Lance shrugged, before looking down at Keo. “Harvey said something interesting about you this morning.”
“Should I be happy or scared?”
“I’m not sure. He seemed impressed.”
“He said that?”
“That’s why I said seemed. Go figure. You disobey orders and shoot old boy Roy without his permission, but instead of getting the shit kicked out of you, I think he’s going to make you permanent.”
“Sweet. So that means no more Shit Duty?”
“Well, maybe some Shit Duty, but definitely not as much as before.”
An old TV song about “moving on up” came to mind, not that Keo could actually remember all the words. He could probably hum most of it if someone were to put a gun to his head, though. Something about the good life and something, something, something.
They continued up the street, just as the guy in the olive-green military jacket stepped into Bunkhouse #17 farther up the sidewalk.
“Oh, and get this,” Lance was saying.
“More good news?”
“Harvey wants you to meet him.”
“I already met Harvey. Last night.”
“No, numb nuts. Not Harvey. The Deacon.”
“The Deacon?”
“Yeah. He wants to meet you.”
That was unexpected. Keo hadn’t come here to meet the man who led Shaker Town to its current height, and he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to. For one, John Deacon, who everyone called The Deacon, had nothing to do with Keo’s mission. And right now, Keo just wanted to get it done and go back to Lara.
“You’ve met The Deacon?” Keo asked.
“Twice,” Lance said.
“What’s he like?”
“I dunno. Just a guy, I guess.”
“Really. ‘Just a guy?’”
Lance grinned sideways at him. “Okay, maybe not just a guy.”
“The man built Shaker Town into a powerhouse. He’s the reason this place exists.”
“Yeah, well, he still puts his pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“You’ve been listening to too many rumors.”
“I’ve heard people saying they’d do anything for him. Do just about anything he told them without question. They worship the guy.”
“People talk lots.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?” Lance said, when something exploded on Keo’s left side and showered him and Lance with brick and mortar…
…and glass…
…and body parts…
Five
There was the familiar taste of metal in his mouth and the smell of burning flesh in his nostrils. They were not good sensations to be experiencing. Keo thought he’d left them behind a long time ago
, but as the saying went, The more things changed…
His ears were ringing, but he was more concerned with the unrelenting throbbing originating from one side of his head—just one side, for some reason—and a general numbness that had come over almost his entire left arm. Again, just the one side.
He looked to his right, where he’d last seen Lance, while picking himself up from the sidewalk. He had to use his right hand to push himself up because he couldn’t trust his legs. Chunks of debris—jagged stone and brick—pricked at his palm as he did so.
A severed arm lay on the sidewalk a few feet from him. A man’s, by the size. It’d been ripped off about two or three inches above the elbow, the flesh and small hairs scorched. Keo could still make out a golden ring on the ring finger.
Smells like chicken, he thought as he blinked through the haze of smoke.
He struggled against the pervading soot in the air. He might have been coughing, but he couldn’t be sure. (There was that whole ear ringing thing...) He could feel his heartbeat sledgehammering against his chest just fine, though; it was on the verge of busting through and exploding out into the tainted air. He’d seen a movie like that once. It had aliens in it.
Water dripped from his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He was pretty sure he was coughing now. (Pretty sure.) He wondered if his left arm was gone.
No, it was still there.
Daebak.
The same couldn’t be said for the building that was once Bunkhouse #17. It was still there but was missing a big chunk of its front façade. Glass covered the concrete floor around Keo’s boots, more than a few blood-smeared shards sliding off his shoulders and top of his head as he moved around, trying to get his bearings.
His equilibrium was shot. That probably had a little something to do with the unrelenting buzzing in his skull.
Nah, there was no probably about it. That was definitely it.
You sure, pal? he asked himself.
Yes, he was sure.
Mostly.
Ghostly figures manifested themselves out of a massive hole which used to be a part of the apartment’s front door. Men and women staggered like drunks on their way home from a bar after one too many drinks. They were covered in dust, looking more like undead specters than people. Some were bloody, others dazed. More than a few were helping each other outside, every single one of them trying desperately not to slip on the carpet of brick and mortar and glass and body parts.
Road To Babylon | Book 10 | 100 Deep Page 4