Road to Babylon (Book 9): The Ranch

by Sisavath, Sam

  Keo climbed out first, sucking in a deep lungful of fresh air as he did so.

  “Goddamn, Bunker, you need to take a shower,” Keo said when the rancher climbed out after him.

  “Look who’s talking,” Bunker said. “You try being the caboose next time.”

  “You wanted me to go first.”

  “Yeah, but that was before I realized how much you stunk.”

  “Live and learn, pal. Live and learn.”

  “I’m learning, I’m learning…”

  They hurried over to the edge of the clearing, scattering woodland creatures around them. Birds chirped above them, and generous pools of sunlight poured in from around the tree crowns. There hadn’t been any sort of human presence in this part of the prairie in years, and from what Keo could see, would stay that way for many more years. That was good news for the escape hatch.

  Keo crouched next to a large oak tree and glanced out in the direction of the ranch. The distance to the fence that ringed the property was nearly 200 meters across an open field with knee-high grass. The main house, next to the stables, was even farther back, looking more like miniature toys from his current position.

  Bunker sat down on his butt next to him and took it easy. He fished out a bag of jerky and passed it to Keo, and they ate and waited.

  Then they waited some more…

  After about thirty minutes, they finally got up and poked their heads out of the woods to get it shot—if there had been anyone out there to shoot at them. But there wasn’t, and they stepped out of the woods and began the long walk back to the house.

  They hadn’t gone more than a few meters when Bunker stopped and glanced around.

  “What?” Keo said.

  “You smell that?” Bunker asked.

  “Smell—” Keo started, but stopped, because he did smell it.

  He turned completely around and looked past the field at tendrils of smoke drifting lazily into the sky behind them.

  “Shit,” Keo said.

  “That’s Carlos’s place,” Bunker said.

  He’d forgotten all about Carlos. Bunker, too, from the surprised look on his face. Keo couldn’t be angry with himself, though; last night had been a whirlwind of action and terror, and he had more on his mind than how Carlos’s family was faring. Lara, Thuy, a blue-eyed ghoul trying to punch its way through an inch-thick steel door, were among his bigger fishes to fry.

  But this morning, under the warmth of sunlight, he could afford to think about someone else again.

  Like Carlos…

  Keo thought about the man and his brother, Jose.

  About their wives and their kids.

  …their kids…

  “Don’t be a hero. Think about your family,” Keo remembered saying to Carlos.

  “I am thinking about my family,” Carlos had replied. “I’m always thinking about my family, Keo. First, second, and last.”

  Goddammit, Carlos, Keo thought now. You stubborn bastard.

  Keo turned to Bunker. The man looked visibly pained. “It wouldn’t take us more than an hour to reach them by foot.”

  Bunker’s face cringed slightly, but whatever thoughts were rushing through his head, he pushed them away and turned around. “No. Let’s clear the property first. We’ll find out what happened to them after we’re done.”

  “You sure, Bunker?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” Bunker said as he started walking back toward his ranch.

  Keo didn’t believe him for a second, but he didn’t put his doubts into words. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of Carlos’s ranch one last time before turning and following Bunker through the field.

  There were no overt signs that the ranch had been crawling with ghouls last night until they reached the fences, where Keo saw the footprints, clear as day in the sunlight. There were no creatures in sight, of course; the morning had chased them all away. The ghouls, as far as he could tell, had converged on the property from all sides. They’d either hopped the fences or gone underneath them.

  Keo didn’t start sniffing the remnants of dead ghouls until they were halfway to the main house. He could make out the steel legs of the windmill that the creatures had pulled loose and used as a battering ram on the front doors. It was still there, along with a dozen or so ghoul remains on the ground. The flesh was gone, stripped clean by the sun and leaving behind just bleached white bones among the dirt and short grass.

  Bunker tapped him on the arm, and when Keo looked back, the rancher held out one of his half masks to him. Keo took it gratefully and slipped it on. The light fabric didn’t completely block out all the stench, but it was a lot better than breathing it all in unopposed.

  There were more clear signs of ghoul presence on the property leading to the house, and even more among the buildings scattered around it. Even the big stables nearby had seen activity, though the creatures hadn’t attempted to enter. Bunker had been concerned about the horses within, and he breathed a heavy sigh of relief when the doors and windows looked to be fully intact. While Bunker went to check on the horses, Keo continued on to the house.

  He had to walk around the slightly-bent windmill and stepped over bones to get into the great room. Ghoul corpses, the ones that couldn’t be reached by sunlight, lined the floor—some intact, others only partially. The smell was unbearable even with the half mask covering his mouth and nostrils.

  He went inside but didn’t venture too far until Bunker rejoined him.

  “The horses okay?” Keo asked.

  “Freaked out from all the scratches they put on their stalls, but they’re all still there,” Bunker said. “You were right; those creepy crawlers did bypass the stables last night.”

  “Told you,” Keo said, but thought, I can’t believe they actually left the stables alone.

  He didn’t say that out loud, of course. He was just glad he wasn’t wrong. He’d been ready to apologize to Bunker for losing his horses and mentally preparing himself for the shitstorm to follow.

  Before he joined Keo inside the house, Bunker glanced behind him and back toward Carlos’s house. They could still see smoke in the distance, and Keo couldn’t imagine what was going through Bunker’s mind at the moment. Carlos’s family was more than just Bunker’s neighbors; they were his friends. And for a man who had very few friends, purposefully, that said a lot.

  “You can go. I’ll clear the house,” Keo said.

  Bunker looked back at him and shook his head. “Let’s get this done first.”

  “You sure?”

  The rancher nodded, and he said, “Yeah,” but his face said otherwise.

  Like back when they were in the fields, Keo didn’t push the topic. Sooner or later, they would have to find out what happened to Carlos’s family. But that was for later. Right now, they had to make sure the house was safe for the others to come up from the shelter below.

  They cleared the rooms on the first floor first, very cognizant of all the patches of shadows that had managed to hang on despite the coming morning. There were too many dark corners and open doors leading into even more dark rooms. That made some sense, since they’d left all the curtains closed and the windows barricaded in preparation for the attack.

  There were tracks all over the floor—blood and mud and grass—along with bloody handprints smeared across the walls. Sunlight would have erased those from existence, but not if they couldn’t reach them. Which they couldn’t do this far back into the building.

  They cleared the second floor—and its many, many shadowy corners and rooms—before returning to the first unmolested and not having fired a single shot. Eventually, they made it into the back hallway and basement at the end.

  The light bulbs had been destroyed, but there was enough natural lighting for them to quickly make out the steel door lying on the landing, looking more like a twisted piece of cardboard instead of the 12-gauge galvanized steel that it was. It was pockmarked with fist-sized craters, all of them concentrated around a small area near t
he middle.

  Jesus Christ, Keo thought, looking at the kind of damage the ghoul had managed. Thank God the door downstairs was twice as thick, and the one into the main shelter even stronger than that.

  “You don’t suppose we can buff that out, do you?” Bunker was asking as he peered down at the basement door.

  Keo smiled. “No, I don’t think so. We’re gonna need a bigger door.”

  “Good luck with that. The McCanns had to special order all their doors from a company in Midland, Texas. Dollar to donuts it’s not in business anymore.”

  “We can always take a trip to Midland when this is all over and find out.”

  “But then we wouldn’t really need it once this was over, would we?”

  “Now who’s being Captain Optimism?”

  “Must be all the stinky stink,” Bunker said.

  The rancher stepped over the door and leaned over to get a look down the stairs at what awaited them below. There was a distinct ghoul smell to the room, but then again, that was the case for the entire house. It was going to take a few hours, at least, to vent the whole building. From his spot behind Bunker, Keo could make out more footprints leading down the steps, so the creatures had ventured downstairs last night after all.

  “You smell anything?” Bunker asked.

  “Just you,” Keo said.

  Bunker snorted. “We should probably go see what they did to the place, if anything.”

  “After you.”

  The other man headed down, his AR leading the way. Keo followed on his heels.

  They got halfway down when Bunker stopped. “Hunh. Now that’s something you don’t see every day.”

  “What?” Keo said.

  “I think it’s for you.”

  “What is?”

  Keo scooted past Bunker and further down the steps.

  There were no ghouls down here, even though the floor was covered in their tracks. There was still some remnants of ghoul stink in the air, but not enough to convince Keo he had to be worried about one of the creatures jumping out of the dark at him.

  He stared across the room at what Bunker had been looking at. Keo couldn’t have missed it if he wanted to.

  Someone—something—had written, in dripping ghoul blood on the walls and across the door into the shelter, the words:

  ROUND ONE

  And under that:

  WELL PLAYED

  Thirteen

  They dragged the remains of dead ghouls that the morning sunlight couldn’t reach outside to let the sun take care of them. When they were finished, they brought out four of the horses and used them to drag the windmill to the back of the house. By the time they were done cleaning out the place, there were bones scattered across the front yard and they both reeked of spoiled vomit. The smell was everywhere—on their clothes and in their hair and clinging to their skin.

  As they worked, they kept an eye on the horizon—toward Carlos’s place. There was still smoke in the air, drifting from where the ranch would be. Bunker, more than Keo, kept looking over there.

  “Once we’re done, I’ll make contact on the radio,” Bunker said. “Hopefully they’re okay.”

  Keo nodded, even as he thought, I’m not sure okay is the word, Bunker. Otherwise there wouldn’t be smoke coming from their place.

  Afterward, Bunker remained topside with the sisters, Wilson and Gummy, who insisted on helping him clean the place while Keo headed back down to the shelter after taking a long, hot shower and changing clothes. He shoved his old shirt, pants, boots, even his socks and underwear, into a bag, cinched it up, and tossed it out the bedroom window to be burned later.

  When Keo returned to the shelter and the infirmary, Thuy was awake and eating breakfast. Lara stood nearby, listening to her talk. When Keo entered, Thuy’s eyes immediately went to him, and he saw obvious fear in them.

  You should be scared, he thought but didn’t say.

  “Where are the girls?” Lara asked him.

  “They’re helping Bunker with the cleanup,” Keo said.

  “They volunteered?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know.”

  “What about the horses?”

  “They left them alone.” Then, off Lara’s surprised look, “Yeah. I was surprised, too.”

  “Bunker must have been relieved.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  Lara turned back around to Thuy and saw the way she was staring at Keo. If she could hide underneath her blanket, the woman would have.

  “It’s okay,” Lara said. “We talked about what you did last night. We both agree that you didn’t have any choice.”

  Thuy looked over at her, before returning to Keo as if to ask, Is she right?

  Keo nodded as he took a seat next to the door. “You did what you had to do. What we want to know is why, and how we can help.”

  “Why would you want to?” Thuy asked.

  “Like I said: You did what you thought you had to do. We’ve both been there. Lara and me. So has Bunker. So have the girls. We’ve all done things that we didn’t want to in order to survive.”

  He wasn’t sure if she completely believed him—hell, he wasn’t sure if he completely believed himself—but she did look slightly relieved as she went back to eating her meal—mashed potatoes and bread with pieces of bacon. She ate with one hand, her right still encased in the brace that covered almost her entire arm from shoulder to wrist. The protective device was designed to keep her from moving, to allow the fractured bone underneath to heal. If she was in pain, Keo didn’t see it on her face. Then again, Lara had given her plenty of meds for that.

  “So why don’t you tell us everything,” Keo continued.

  “It wasn’t all a lie,” Thuy said. “There were seven of us, and they did ambush us in the park where we were staying. Except it didn’t kill everyone but me. It killed five of the people traveling with me, but it left two of us alive. Me…and Abby, my sister.”

  “Your sister?” Lara said.

  Thuy nodded. “It killed the others in front of us. It…” She paused, seeming to struggle with the right words. Finally, she finished, “It turned them.”

  “But it spared you and Abby,” Keo said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t know either, at first. But then it told me. It wanted me to come here. It wanted me to find out what you had at the ranch.”

  “How did it know about the shelter?”

  “It didn’t.”

  “Ah,” Keo said.

  “What does that mean?” Lara asked.

  “It was using her to collect intel,” Keo said. “Same thing I was trying to do when I ran into Gummy and Wilson in Hamlock. It’s likely been watching the ranch for weeks now, but it wanted to know more. It wanted to know what kind of defenses we had.”

  “Yes,” Thuy said. “It didn’t know about this place. The shelter underneath the house.”

  “Because you didn’t know about it,” Lara said.

  “Yes.”

  “Then it told you to open the door.”

  Thuy nodded. “But I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I panicked, and…”

  “So you took me hostage.”

  “I didn’t want to…”

  “What would you have done if that hadn’t worked?” Keo asked.

  His question apparently caught her off guard, because Thuy didn’t say anything for a while.

  Finally, she said, “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.”

  “How did it know you failed?” Lara asked. “It stopped its attack almost right away because it knew it wasn’t going to be able to get in here. How did it know you failed?”

  Thuy stared at the pieces of bacon on the plastic tray resting in her lap in silence for a moment, almost as if she hadn’t even heard Lara’s question. That wasn’t true, of course. Thuy either didn’t have the answer, or she didn’t want to tell them.

  “Thuy?” L
ara said. “We need to know. You need to tell us everything. Everything.”

  “It came to me after I lost consciousness,” Thuy said. “It wanted to know what happened; if I had gotten the door open.”

  “What did you tell it?”

  “The truth. That I failed.”

  “What did it do or say then?”

  “Nothing. It just left.”

  “It didn’t say anything about your sister?” Keo asked.

  “No.”

  “You think it’ll hurt her?”

  “I don’t know.” Then, looking at him, “God, I hope it doesn’t. I hope it doesn’t punish her for my failure.”

  Keo exchanged a quick glance with Lara.

  Thuy saw it. “Do you think it’ll hurt her? Will it hurt Abby?”

  “No,” Keo said. “Not as long as it still wants you to do its bidding.”

  It wasn’t completely a lie. But it wasn’t the truth, either. If he were being completely honest with himself, he didn’t know for sure one way or another, but that was probably not the answer Thuy was hoping to hear.

  He must not have been very convincing, because Thuy put the bacon she’d been nibbling on back down, looking very much as if she’d lost her appetite completely.

  “Is it there right now? In your head?” Keo asked, and thought, Is it listening to us right now? Is that fucker eavesdropping this very second?

  “No,” Thuy said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “When it’s in my head, I can feel it.” She paused and again seemed to be searching for the right words.

  That seemed to happen a lot when people were trying to tell others about what it was like to deal with a blue-eyed ghoul. Lara had suffered through it last night, and so had he when talking to Bunker. The Blue Eyes were difficult to explain; even harder if the ones you were trying to convince had been spared their vile presence.

  “You just know,” Lara said. “You just know when it’s there.”

  Thuy turned to her. “Yes. You just know when it’s there. You can’t escape it. It’s like…”

  “A kind of itching, at the back of your mind.”

  “Yes…”