Road to Babylon (Book 9): The Ranch

by Sisavath, Sam

  Lara asked the obvious question when he showed back up at the ranch with the sisters:

  “You brought two kids here with you, knowing what’s going to be coming at us tonight, and how many other nights after this?”

  Keo sighed. “I was very frank with them. I told them what we were dealing with.”

  “Everything?”

  “I tried to convince them they were safer on their own. But apparently they thought otherwise.”

  “You really told them everything?”

  “Yes, Lara. Everything.”

  “And they still came back with you?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  Lara glanced toward the back hallway of the main house as the sisters got settled into another one of the spare rooms. Theirs was next to Thuy’s, and across the hall from Keo and Lara’s. Bunker had his own room, and like Keo and Lara’s, it was at the front where they could keep an eye on the main grounds of the property. All the rooms were on the second floor and there were two more still available even farther back. Keo was hoping they wouldn’t need to use them anytime soon.

  “From the looks of them, they haven’t had a decent meal in a while,” Lara said.

  “Yeah, they look pretty bad off,” Keo said.

  “Starving is more like it. Did you see them with the corned beef? I’ve never seen anyone attack a corned beef like that.”

  Keo smiled. He had seen that. Wilson had been just as anxious to wolf down the food but hadn’t made it as obvious as her little sister. Gummy hadn’t cared that everyone was looking at her. Lara was right; the poor kid was starving, and had been for God knows how long before she and her sister ran into Keo back in Hamlock.

  “What about Carlos?” Lara asked, turning back to him.

  Keo shook his head. “I tried to convince him to bring his family here.”

  “He said no.”

  “Knowing what he knows? Including what happened to Longmire?”

  “Yes.”

  “Goddammit. That man is some kind of stubborn. What did the wives say?”

  “They’re trying to convince him. Jose, too.”

  “So it’s three against one?”

  “It’s three against Carlos. He’s—”

  “Stubborn,” Lara finished for him.

  “Yeah,” Keo said. “But if they want it badly enough, they’ll convince him. If not…” He shook his head. “We can’t make them do something they don’t want to, Lara.”

  “I know,” Lara said.

  She leaned back against the wall and shook her head. He wasn’t sure if she was annoyed, irritated, or confused. Oh, who was he kidding? This was Lara being annoyed and irritated. There was no confusion at all.

  “I don’t know how Donna puts up with him,” Lara said.

  “Probably for the same reason you put up with me,” Keo said.

  “You’re not that stubborn.”

  “Aren’t I?”

  “Well…”

  “Who’s stubborn?” a voice asked from behind them.

  They looked over as Bunker came up the stairs. He was wiping sweat and dirt on his gloves off on his denim jeans.

  “Keo?” Bunker said. “Yeah, this bronco is pretty stubborn, all right.”

  Keo rolled his eyes. “Everything good?”

  The rancher shrugged. “Depends on your definition of good.”

  “We doing that again?”

  “Are we going to survive tonight?” Lara said.

  “We’ll see about that.” He pulled off his working gloves and put them into one of his back pockets. “As for everything else, well, we’re as ‘good’ as we’re ever going to get. If your pal shows up, it’ll find that we’re a tougher out than the folks in Longmire.”

  “It’s not my pal,” Keo said.

  “It sure seems to awfully like you.”

  “He’s got a good point,” Lara said, giving Keo a smile. “It does seem a little—what’s the word, obsessed?—with you.”

  “I guess I made a big impression,” Keo said. “Unfortunately.”

  “You’re too charming, that’s your problem.”

  Keo smiled. “I know. It’s a curse.”

  “Yeah, well, you might wanna turn it down some, Captain Charisma,” Bunker said.

  The rancher peered down the hallway at the rooms in the back. They couldn’t see the girls, but they could hear Wilson and Gummy moving inside their room, possibly sliding furniture around.

  “When did I give you guys the impression I was running an orphanage?” Bunker asked.

  “They’re kids, Bunker,” Lara said. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  “Bringing them here? With what’s coming tonight?”

  “I gave them every opportunity to not take my offer,” Keo said. “They decided the risks were worth it.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Bunker said. “But you couldn’t bring a couple of strapping young lads to help out? It had to be two itty bitty girls?”

  “You could have turned them away.”

  “Yeah, right. What am I, an uncaring monster?” Then, looking at Keo, “Come on, let’s finish up the man work while Lara here does the lady things.”

  Lara grunted. “Then maybe you should stay up here while I take care of downstairs with Keo.”

  Bunker grinned. “No offense.”

  “Plenty taken,” Lara said.

  Keo walked over to Bunker and slapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, before Lara throws you down your own stairs.”

  Bunker did the wise thing and followed Keo down.

  “How many times have you gone over everything?” Keo asked.

  “Once or twice,” the rancher said.

  “Just once or twice?”

  “Multiply by four or five times. If it’s coming tonight—”

  “It’s coming tonight.”

  “—then we’ll be ready.”

  Keo walked with Bunker to the front doors, then outside. The air had gotten noticeably chillier, a signal that nightfall wasn’t very far behind. He’d made good progress back from Hamlock and still had a good two hours before darkness.

  Still, he didn’t like how the skies had turned a gloomy gray color. It was also strangely empty of birds. The same was true for the vast fields of grass that he could see with the naked eye. If he were being paranoid, he’d think the animals knew what was coming and were getting out of the way.

  “I gave Carlos a ring after you came back,” Bunker said.

  “Were you able to convince him to come here?” Keo asked.

  “Nope. He didn’t go for it.”

  “Stubborn.”

  “Yup.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “You don’t sound very concerned about what’s going to happen tonight.”

  Bunker stood next to him, casually rolling a Backwoods Smokes cigar with some tobacco. It was something Bunker did often. While Keo could stomach the smell that the makeshift cigarette produced, Lara hated it, which was why Bunker usually only did it around him and not her.

  “Should I be?” Bunker asked as he licked to moisten the dangling piece at the end of his roll to seal it. He fished out a lighter with a decal of Bevo, the Texas Longhorns mascot, on the side. “It’s just another ghoul. I’ve killed plenty of ghouls.”

  “A blue-eyed one?”

  “Well, no. Never had the pleasure.”

  “‘Pleasure’ wouldn’t be the word I’d use.”

  “What word would you use?”

  “‘Unfortunate.’ ‘Really bad luck.’ ‘God hates me.’”

  “Those are words, not word.”

  “Close enough.”

  “Point is, you’ve faced one of these things.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “So has Lara.”

  “Yes.”

  “Shoot it in the head, right?” Bunker said as he lit up.

  “Decapitation works, too. As long as you sever the head
from the rest of the body.”

  “The brain.”

  “Exactly. Obliterating the whole shebang with explosives seems to work, too.”

  “Fire?”

  “As long as you manage to roast the brain in the process.”

  “The brain. Got it. Take out the brain.”

  Keo sighed. He really did hope Bunker “got it,” because if he didn’t…

  Have to trust the man.

  Then: It’s not like you have much of a choice, pal.

  “I just hope this place is as tough as you claim it is,” Keo said.

  Bunker took a puff from his cigar. “She may not have gone head-to-head with one of those blue-eyed hombres yet, but I can assure you, she’s up to the task.”

  In the months since he and Lara made a home at Bunker’s ranch, they’d been lucky to avoid any encounters with ghouls. There had been a couple of smaller problems with their fellow humans, but those had been easy to deal with. Through all those times, he always had a good idea of what the ranch had in its back pocket should the need call for its full capabilities. The problem, of course, was that those backup plans had never been tested. At least, not tested against what was coming at them tonight.

  Trust Bunker. Trust this place.

  Trust…because you don’t have any choice right now.

  “This one we’re dealing with,” Bunker was saying. “How dangerous is it?”

  The rancher puffed on his cigar as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Keo knew better. Like another easygoing blonde that Keo knew, Bunker hid his concerns behind a devil-may-care demeanor.

  “It’s dangerous, Bunker.”

  “How dangerous? Let’s say, on a scale of one to ten.”

  “Are we really going to do this?”

  “Humor me.”

  “Then, eleven.”

  “I said one to ten. Didn’t your momma teach you how to count?”

  “Eleven,” Keo repeated without hesitation.

  “Remind me to teach you how to properly count when this is over,” Bunker said.

  Seven

  Darkness fell over the ranch without fanfare, and if Keo didn’t know any better, he wouldn’t think there was an impending attack by an army of ghouls led by a Blue Eyes on the horizon. But of course he knew better. It was out there, and it was coming. If not now, then soon.

  Very, very soon.

  I know you’re out there, fucker. So show yourself, and let’s get this over with.

  They ate dinner just before nightfall, loading up on carbs and protein. Lara cooked, but the newcomer, Thuy, helped. The girls, Wilson and Gummy, also lent a hand. Keo and Bunker did their part, too.

  The meal was filling and they mostly ate at the dinner table in the back, with only the occasional chatter of conversation. Everyone seemed to know what was coming, even the two girls. Keo waited for the sisters to let him know that they were regretting their choice to come back to the ranch with him, but one look as they gulped down their food, and he didn’t think they had any such regrets. It made him wonder, again, just what kind of trouble they’d gotten into out there on their own, that being in here with them was preferable. He could tell that Lara had the same questions, and like him, didn’t seek the opportunity to ask them. There were just too many other, bigger things to worry about right now. Besides, if the girls wanted to talk, they would; and right now, they were satisfied to eat everything in sight.

  Keo had been in situations where he knew a battle was coming but had to wait for the first bullets to start flying. He knew people who couldn’t stand it, who did various things to waste time until the action kicked in. Keo wasn’t one of them. He enjoyed the downtime, even though he knew it wasn’t going to last forever, and that when it did end, there would be screaming and shooting and blood. There was always a lot of blood. He just hoped this time those would be thick black sludges and not bright red.

  After dinner, Lara saw to it Thuy and the girls knew where to go and what to do. Lara from four months ago, who wasn’t pregnant, would have been annoyed she’d been assigned “babysitting” duties. But this Lara was different. She was four months pregnant and, more than anyone, she had other priorities besides giving in to her pride.

  The stairs were slightly dark, as was the rest of the house, because they’d turned off the lights. They did so the other times too, even when they weren’t expecting a ghoul attack, but usually not this early. It was only 7:15 p.m., and the sun was still visible over the hills in the horizon. The immediate grounds outside his window were only now starting to darken. It would be completely pitch black out there in less than thirty minutes, just like the rest of the world around them.

  Heavy footsteps behind him as Bunker returned from the back, his boots moving loudly against the floorboards. Bunker was always a loud mover, but he was more so tonight because of all the gear he was wearing—an assault vest, gun belt, and pouches with extra ammo and equipment. He looked like a man in search of a war to fight.

  Don’t worry, Bunker; that war’s coming to us very soon.

  The rancher checked the front double doors to make sure all the bolts and locks and extra barricades were in place before sliding over to his window on the other side. He leaned his AR rifle against the wall and pushed aside the protective steel plates to peer out at the outside world. They still had dimmed nightlights along the floors, but it wasn’t enough for Keo to make out every detail on Bunker’s face across from him.

  “Everything good?” Keo asked.

  “How many times you gonna ask me that?” Bunker said.

  “You can never be too sure.”

  “Yeah, you can. That’s about the third time you asked the same stupid question. That’s when it’s crossed the too-sure threshold.”

  “So…”

  “Yeah, yeah, everything’s good.”

  Keo smiled. Then, “You okay with losing the ranch?”

  “Hell no. And who’s to say we’re going to lose the ranch?”

  “No one. But it’s a possibility.”

  “So let’s make sure it doesn’t happen.”

  “That’s the plan. But it’s good to be prepared. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”

  “That your personal motto?”

  “Something like that.”

  “It’s a stupid motto.”

  “Hey, I’m making do with what I got.”

  Bunker leaned back against the wall and took out another Backwoods Smokes from a baggie and began rolling himself a cigar. “But no, to answer your question. I’m not ready to give this place up. As long as she hasn’t burned down to the ground, I can fix her up again. It’s not like I got anything better to do after tonight. Do you?”

  “No, sir, I don’t.”

  “That settles that, then. We kill this blue-eyed buddy of yours—”

  “It’s not my buddy.”

  “—then we get on with our lives. Easy peasy.”

  “‘Easy peasy,’ huh?”

  Bunker licked the end of the cigar to dampen it. “Sure, easy peasy. Why you gotta make everything more complicated?”

  “Easy peasy,” Keo said.

  “That’s right, hombre. Easy peasy.”

  Keo grinned to himself. He didn’t think tonight was going to be anything even remotely close to easy peasy, but he was hoping.

  “You sure it’s coming?” Bunker asked after a while.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” Keo said. “If not tonight, then tomorrow night. Or the night after that. But I think it’s going to start tonight.”

  “It told you that?”

  “In a matter of speaking. Longmire, Thuy with the pacifier… It wants me to know it’s coming.” He paused for a moment, before continuing. “It’s coming tonight, Bunker. Be ready.”

  “I’m always ready,” the rancher said. “You think it’s bringing an army?”

  “That’s a given. It sure as hell didn’t take Longmire by itself.”

  “You think it turned all eighty-three people?”


  “If not all of them, then most of them. Either way, it’s still a lot of people. A lot of ghouls.”

  “Thuy’s folks, too. How many did Lara say there were?”

  “Six.”

  “Six more, on top of the eighty-three from Longmire. That’s ninety, if my math is right.”

  Ninety souls, turned into ghouls. And they were coming here tonight.

  Or if they didn’t show up in a few hours, then they would do so tomorrow night.

  Or the night after that.

  But they were coming. Keo had no doubts about that.

  They were coming…

  Nothing happened when the Howard Miller grandfather clock in the corner of the great room ticked and tocked its way to 8:00 p.m. The watch’s curving Tuscany Cherry veneer shone even in the darkness. The cost ran in the thousands, and Keo suspected Bunker had found it somewhere before “relocating” it here. Not that he asked, nor did the rancher offer details about the clock’s origins.

  Tick-tock…

  Tick-tock…

  8:00 p.m. became 8:01 p.m.…

  Which became 8:02 p.m.…

  And there was no attack. The grounds outside remained pitch black as they’d been almost an hour ago when the last of the sunlight faded and nightfall completely overwhelmed the countryside beyond Keo’s window.

  Where are you, you fucker? What are you waiting for?

  The M4 rifle remained leaning against the wall next to him, but Keo hadn’t needed to reach for it yet. He kept the MP5 slung from one shoulder, extra ammo for both weapons, along with the Glock pistol at his hip—and a spare behind his back—weighing him down. He didn’t like having so many extra pounds on him, but as the saying went, it was always better to carry too much firepower than not enough.

  Bunker hadn’t said a word since the world went dark, and he remained quiet across the double doors from Keo. The rancher had finished his cigar, leaving behind a surprisingly pleasant aroma in the room, and hadn’t rolled another one. He bided his time between peering outside his window and sitting back, lost with, Keo assumed, his own thoughts.

  They were both waiting for something to happen.

  “You see anything yet?” Keo finally asked.

  “Nada,” Bunker said. “You?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe they’re not coming.”