“Daebak,” Keo said out loud as he went back down on his knees and sliced Suzanna’s zip ties free.
He dragged her up to her feet.
“What now?” she asked.
“Run,” he said.
Ten
Suzanna did run, but first she grabbed the pistol out of Shaggy’s holster and then snatched up his M4 off the ground. Then she fumbled for about ten extra seconds to remove a spare magazine from his pouch. That was smart of her. Keo had been debating whether to hand her his Beretta. He didn’t exactly like the idea very much, but thought it was necessary to arm her for what was coming. Turned out he didn’t have to. As far as he knew, she’d gone for the M4 because it was smaller and lighter than Squatty’s FAL. Of course, that was just a guess.
She was still trying to get the second mag loose—apparently Shaggy had stuffed too much into his pouch and everything was jammed in there—when Keo grabbed her by the arm and jerked her up.
“Now!” he hissed.
“Shit,” she said, but she gave up on the spare mag and took off into the woods.
He ran after her, sneaking a look back only after a few paces.
There was no one back there.
Yet.
That would change soon enough. There was no way Harvey and the other Shakers hadn’t heard the two MP5 bursts he’d used to end Shaggy’s and Squatty’s lives. The two men were lying in the grass right now, mosquitos buzzing around their lifeless corpses.
Keo refocused on Suzanna in front of him. She was moving pretty well for someone who’d been shot twice and had been kept zip-tied almost all day. Maybe the fact she was running for her life had a little something with that. Staying alive was a hell of an incentive.
Of course, she did have two bullet holes in her (three, if he really wanted to get technical about it), and eventually she would start to slow down as a result. She continued to move, but was now limping noticeably. She might have always been limping, for all he knew; he just didn’t pick up on it until now.
Keo easily caught up with her, ducking just as a tree branch nearly took his head off. “You good?”
“Hell no,” she said through gritted teeth. She was holding onto the M4 as if her life depended on it, which it probably did.
Keo grinned. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.
He shot a quick glance over his shoulder again.
There was still no one back there.
Correction: There was still no one back there yet.
Keo turned back to Suzanna and wondered if it would be faster if he tossed her over his shoulder and carried her. Probably not, because she wasn’t exactly a small woman. Though she wasn’t big by any means—about 110 or so pounds, he guessed. Then there was also the possibility of both of them getting run down. Keo wasn’t looking forward to that possibility either.
Not one bit.
It had taken him about twenty seconds since they’d started running to notice they weren’t actually going straight ahead. He’d been assuming Suzanna shared his desire to put as much distance between them and Harvey’s gang as possible. It turned out he was wrong.
This is what happens when you assume, pal!
Suzanna wasn’t going straight, but rather angling slightly to the left with every step. And Keo, without thinking, was following on her heels.
“Are we heading back toward the town?” he asked.
She gave him a quick What the hell do you think we’ve been doing all this time? expression, before actually responding verbally. “Yeah.”
“Just wondering.”
“Where did you think—” she began, but never got to finish before the crack! of a rifle exploded in the night and a round zipped! between their heads and pekked! off a tree trunk somewhere in front of them.
He ducked instinctively—and so did Suzanna next to him—when he felt the burning trail of the round pass him by. It was much too late, of course, because if the shooter had been true, either one of them would be dead.
Keo rose back up to his full height even as he snapped a quick look back.
Shadows flickering in the background. They weren’t on top of them yet, but that wouldn’t last forever. He wasn’t moving as fast as he could have because of Suzanna. He was at 50% speed, maybe even less, because that was all his Arrowhead running partner could muster at the moment.
And even that was taking a lot out of her. Her face was clearly straining, every stride she managed seeming to take a lot out of her. She continued to limp badly. Unlike him, she never sneaked a peek back at their pursuers. That was awfully smart of her. They both knew what was already back there.
“Keep going,” Keo said.
She didn’t respond but did exactly just that, even as she continued to angle left as she (limped) ran.
Keo slowed down just enough to turn around, the MP5 swinging up.
There, two figures bursting out of the night air, the brim of their black Falcons cap hiding their eyes and most of their faces. They had to go around a massive tree that blocked their path, one plowing his way through a brush while the other ducked underneath a large branch so he didn’t get decapitated.
There were just two of them, though. They were probably the fastest runners in Harvey’s crew. The rest were undoubtedly back there, trying to catch up. Keo was surprised they weren’t on horseback. Then again, there were so many trees that the Shakers had climbed off their mounts and walked the last ten kilometers or so to reach Arrowhead. The wilderness was too thick, with obscene amounts of low-hanging trees, to ride horses through safely.
These duo were thirty meters away but closing.
One of the runners started to lift his weapon. Keo didn’t recognize the man but could easily make out the pump-action shotgun in his hands. There wasn’t a lot of light in this part of the forest but enough that Keo knew the man had spotted him.
Keo fired off a burst, and the man stumbled and fell.
He didn’t bother watching where the Shaker had landed or if he would get up again. Keo was already too busy swinging the submachine gun toward the other guy—
Crack! as the man squeezed off a shot from his bolt-action rifle.
But the Shaker was running and shooting, and despite their nearness—just twenty or so meters separated them now—the man still missed Keo by a mile.
He didn’t give the man a second shot. (Or third, actually, since that first round also belonged to this guy.) He squeezed off another burst from his submachine gun, and the man fell face-first into a dark shrub, scattering a family of rabbits hiding inside.
Keo turned and ran.
He caught back up to Suzanna without much trouble because she had slowed down tremendously, her limp even more exaggerated now. Her mouth was contorted in pain, sweat pouring down her face.
“You’re not gonna make it,” Keo said.
“I’ll make it,” she said, without looking over at him.
“No, you’re not.”
“Shut up.”
“You’re not gonna to make it.”
“I said, shut up!”
She was a tough cookie, he’d give her that, but there was a limit to that toughness. And apparently getting shot twice earlier today had located it.
“You’re not gonna make it,” Keo said again. “We have to find a place to hide.”
“I’ll—” she started to argue.
“Now,” he snapped.
She sighed. “I know a place. We’re not far from it.”
He was about to ask You know ‘a place?’ then remembered that this was her stomping ground. She’d probably been through these woods hundreds of times, maybe thousands. Even in the middle of the night, with only slivers of moonlight to guide them, she had a better understanding of where they were and where they had to go than he did.
“Lead the way,” he said.
She did, turning suddenly right and dipping underneath a large tree branch. Keo did likewise, letting her get ahead of him so he could watch their six. If anyone popped up in
front of them, she could deal with the threat. Right now, it was the ones behind him that he was more concerned with.
He sneaked a glance back.
Nothing.
Check that: Nothing yet.
Sooner or later, Harvey’s crew was going to catch up to them because he was moving too slowly. Way, way too slowly. He didn’t have any choice. His speed was constrained by Suzanna’s, and right now he wouldn’t be surprised if she fell down and didn’t get up.
And yet, she continued to hobble and strain in front of him. Her grunting was getting louder and louder.
Snap! as a twig broke in half somewhere behind and slightly to his left.
Keo spun in that direction just as a horse jumped through the air between two trees.
The animal was coming right for him, unshod shoes aiming straight for his head. He wasn’t sure if that was on purpose, or if the animal and its rider just happened to have picked the perfect spot to time their jump. Either way, they were going to land right on his face.
The horse—a brown animal with white stripes—would have done exactly that if Keo hadn’t ducked, letting his legs go rubbery as he collapsed to the ground. He struck the soft earth on his ass just as the horse glided over his head, its screeching whine coming out of its mouth and filling his ears. It was almost as if the animal wanted to let him know that it’d almost stomped him to death.
As if Keo needed the extra notice.
He quickly picked himself up from the ground, the MP5 gripped in his hands, forefinger sliding into the trigger guard. The thoughts, Try not to hit the horse. It’s just a poor innocent horse! raced through his mind as he did so.
By the time Keo was back on his feet and turned around, the horse had already stopped moving, and the man in its saddle was already taking aim at him with an M4 rifle. It was another one of Harvey’s boys, his black Atlanta Falcons hat tilted slightly to one side.
And the guy had Keo dead to rights.
A single, purposeful pop! echoed from behind him, and Keo watched the rider slide off his saddle and hit the ground with a hard, resounding thwump!
He turned around to find Suzanna standing behind him with her M4 still raised.
She lowered the rifle. “The horse,” she said.
The horse? he thought.
Right. The horse!
Keo spun around just as the now-riderless horse bolted into the forest night.
“Come on, we’re almost there,” Suzanna said behind him.
“There, where?” he was going to ask, but she was already moving again.
Or limping, anyway.
He hurried after her, keeping his ears open and continually looking behind him every ten or so steps. Suzanna seemed to know where she was going. Either that, or she was doing a very good job of faking it. He didn’t think so, even if he couldn’t see very much of anything around him because they’d wandered into a thicker part of the woods. There was now more darkness than light.
Way, way more.
Every step Keo took was an adventure. When he snapped a branch, it surprised him. When he stumbled into brush, he couldn’t understand where it’d come from. More than once, he almost walked right into a gnarled tree trunk. Woodland creatures scurried out of his path, and birds that had been squatting above him took flight. Keo thought he could hear an owl or two—or three—hooting somewhere in the vicinity.
And all the while, he kept Suzanna’s continually moving form in front of him. He was glad she was hurt and going barely at half-speed, because otherwise he might have lost sight of her on more than one occasion.
Yeah, he felt a little guilty about thinking that.
Just a little.
If Harvey’s men were still in pursuit, they weren’t in any big hurry to show themselves. Not that Keo even allowed himself to think the big man would just let them go. If nothing else, Harvey was liable to hunt Keo down—forget about Suzanna—out of spite. He seemed like that kind of fellow.
“Here,” Suzanna finally said.
Keo turned around. She was waiting for him in front of a pitch-black opening in the side of a slanted hill. It was the jagged round entrance into a cave.
“There?” Keo said.
She nodded. “It’s safe.”
He was going to ask “Are you sure?” when she slipped inside.
I guess so, he thought and followed her in.
It was dark inside. Really dark. Keo stumbled over large pebbles, feeling along the prickly and damp walls with one hand to keep from falling on his face. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the blackness, but it was slow going. There was a smell in the air that he couldn’t quite place. Not the acrid stench of nearby ghouls, which was the important part.
Keo didn’t like wandering around dark places if he could help it. Ghouls weren’t the menace they used to be, but you didn’t need a horde to make things difficult. One or two of the creatures, in the wrong locations, could be real trouble.
But he couldn’t smell any of the telltale signs of ghoul presence, so he breathed a little easier. Not literally, of course, because there was definitely some strange staleness in the air that was not pleasant to suck in.
He wasn’t sure how far they went into the cave, but it was deep enough that when he glanced back he could barely see the opening and the trees on the other side. He supposed that was a good sign, because if he could barely see out, then anyone out there could barely see in.
Something scurried along the wall on his left, and Keo pulled his hand back just in time, though he was certain he’d felt something…hairy. He glanced back again, hoping to get a good look at what that “something” was. It was a fast sucker, and he only glimpsed shadows moving before it disappeared completely.
Oh, well. Maybe it was better he couldn’t see what else was in here with them.
“This is good,” Suzanna said from behind him.
Keo turned around.
His eyes were starting to adjust enough to the darkness surrounding them, so he could make out some details now.
Details, such as the muzzle of the M4 carbine in Suzanna’s hands as she pointed the rifle at his head.
Hunh, Keo thought. I guess I should have seen this coming.
Eleven
“Daebak.”
“What?”
“I should have seen this coming.”
“After that. You said something else.”
“Did I?”
“Yeah, you did.”
Keo shrugged. It was dark in the cave, but Suzanna would have seen it since she was standing barely five feet from him. The black barrel of her M4 was easy to pick out. It helped that it was aimed straight at him.
“Just wondering how I ended up in this situation, with a gun pointed at my face and someone else’s finger on the trigger,” Keo said.
“You murdered my friends,” Suzanna (or whatever her name was) said.
“I didn’t do any such thing.”
“You and the others.”
“Not me. I kept my finger off the trigger. Which I’d like you to do at this very moment, if you don’t mind.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“You do remember that I saved your life back there, don’t you? Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Why did you save my life?”
“Do you really need a reason?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Just saving your life wasn’t enough?”
“No.”
He sighed, before sneaking a look over his shoulder back at the cave entrance. It was easy to locate it—a jagged opening in the pitch blackness. He saw woods, trees, and not much else on the other side. That was good, because it meant Harvey’s boys hadn’t found them yet. But how long was that going to last? He guessed it probably depended on how hard it was to find the cave if you didn’t know it existed in the first place. He was hoping the answer was really hard.<
br />
He turned back to Suzanna. “They’re going to find us, you know.”
“Maybe,” she said.
“No maybe about it. Sooner or later, they’re going to find us. It’s not like this cave of yours is all that well-hidden. You found it without any problems.”
“I knew where it was.”
“Point taken, but it’s still not hidden. Or am I wrong?”
She thought about it for a moment. Or he thought she was, anyway. His night eyes hadn’t completely adjusted to the darkness, so he could have been wrong. He didn’t think he was, though.
Probably.
“I saved your life, because I’m not one of them,” Keo said.
“Then who are you?”
“Not one of them. That’s the important takeaway here.”
She scrunched her nose at him. Or it looked like a scrunch. Her nostrils might have just twitched because she was itchy—
The snap-snap-snap! of footsteps.
Keo went down on his knees, Suzanna doing the same in front of him. He glanced back again toward the cave opening and just barely caught a glimpse of a furry creature going past it. There and gone a heartbeat later. Was that a boar? A bear?
Whatever it was, it had no interest in coming into the cave. He breathed a sigh of relief, and so did Suzanna behind him.
When he turned back around, she still had the M4 pointed at his head.
“Oh, come on,” Keo said.
She squinted at him. “Come on what?”
“I saved your life. How many times do I have to say it? Doesn’t that count for something? Something?”
“Why did you?”
“Because I’m not one of them.”
She reached forward with the barrel of the carbine to tap the brim of the Atlanta Falcons cap he was wearing. “That says different.”
Damn. He’d forgotten all about the hat. Keo reached up and took it off. “I didn’t exactly have a choice.”
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Keo.”
“I heard them calling you Chang.”
“Because I’m not who they think I am.”
“So who are you?”
“Not one of them.”
Road To Babylon | Book 10 | 100 Deep Page 9