Road to Babylon (Book 9): The Ranch

by Sisavath, Sam

  A hell of a lot more.

  “You guys okay?” a voice asked from behind them.

  Keo and Lara looked back at Wilson and Thuy. The two girls had come into the entry room from the connecting common area without either Keo or Lara noticing, probably because they were still, even now, breathing too hard to hear footsteps.

  Lara nodded at the girls. “We’re okay. Everything’s okay.”

  For now, Keo thought but didn’t say out loud.

  “Will that door hold?” Thuy asked.

  “Yes,” Lara said, before looking over at Keo.

  He knew what she wanted, and he nodded, before saying to the girls, “It’ll hold. We’ll be safe in here.”

  But he thought, I hope.

  Bunker had slept through the breach in the hallway. Keo couldn’t imagine how that was even possible. There was the initial explosion, then all the gunfire. Even in here, with the thick walls and door, the noise would have been impossible for him to sleep through. Then again, he wasn’t doped up like Bunker was.

  “What did you give him, babe?” Keo asked Lara.

  He was washing his throat down with a canteen of water, having splashed his face and used a wet towel to wipe the ghoul blood off as much of his clothes as he could. Lara had done the same, though she looked a lot more refreshed than he did. He wasn’t sure how that was possible, though.

  “He wouldn’t stay down, so I had to give him enough to keep him down,” Lara said. “He’s not going to wake up until tomorrow.”

  “Was he really that bad?”

  “He was really hurt, Keo. He lost a lot of blood. I’m still not sure how he got back here on his own.”

  “He seemed okay back at the carnival.”

  “He was putting on a front.”

  “And yet, the guy still managed to shoot Carlos off a 100-foot tower.”

  “People can do a lot of incredible things when lives are on the line. You should know that more than anyone, mister.”

  “What can we do?” Wilson asked.

  The teenager was standing at the infirmary’s door with Thuy, looking in on them. The two had followed Keo and Lara in. To be honest, Keo hadn’t realized they were even still there until now.

  Wilson had her Henry rifle, but Thuy was unarmed. Keo still didn’t quite trust her enough to give her a gun even now. He’d also locked the vault room just in case she proved his instincts correct. With just one good arm, he wasn’t too worried about her forcefully wrestling the rifle from Wilson or weapons from any of them.

  “I need you in the entry room with that rifle,” Keo said to Wilson. “You stay there until I give you permission to leave.” He picked up a radio from the nightstand next to Bunker’s cot and tossed it to the kid. “Keep this turned on and on you at all times. If you even think that door might open, you squawk. Got it?”

  Wilson nodded, her lips pursed in a serious I won’t let you down expression. “Got it.”

  “Go on, then.”

  The teenager left, leaving Thuy behind. The Asian-American stared at Keo but didn’t say anything. She waited.

  Keo let her wait.

  “What about me?” Thuy finally said after about thirty seconds of silence.

  “Go back to the common area,” Keo said.

  “And do what?”

  “Watch the kids.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Is that too much for you?”

  “No. I was just…”

  “What?’

  “I can do more than that.”

  “Can you?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means what you think it means,” Keo said. “Go back to the common area until I say otherwise.”

  Thuy’s face flushed red and he fully expected an argument, but the woman surprised him by turning around and leaving without another word.

  “That was a little harsh,” Lara said when Thuy was gone.

  Keo looked back at her. “She put a gun to your head. I’m not trusting that woman with anything that even resembles a weapon. Which reminds me to restrict her from the kitchen. We have cutlery in there.”

  Lara rolled her eyes. “Really?”

  “You’re damn right, really.”

  “Look, I agree with you, about everything she did and not trusting her. But you didn’t have to treat her like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like she’s the enemy.”

  “She’s the enemy until she proves she’s not.”

  “And how is she going to do that if you don’t give her a chance?” Lara stood up from the chair she’d been sitting on and walked over to him. She slid her arms around his waist and pressed her head against his chest. “Look, I know what she did. What she tried to do. I’m never going to forget that. But right now, we have to treat her as an asset instead of a liability.”

  He smiled. “Asset? Were you in the CIA before all of this and kept that information from me?”

  Lara grinned up at him. “I’ve seen spy movies, mister.”

  She stood up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the lips. It wasn’t a quick peck, either, but a long, lingering kiss that reminded him why he thought she was the sexiest woman he’d ever met and would do just about anything for her.

  When she finally released his lips, he couldn’t help the stupid smile on his face. “What was that for?”

  “Just wanted to remind you that I love you.”

  He put both arms around her waist and pulled her tighter against him. “In that case, I think you can do better than that.”

  “Oh, barf,” a voice said.

  They both glanced back at Bunker, blinking at them like a man trying to swim out of a deep, deep sleep. He looked as if he could barely keep both eyelids open at the same time.

  “What the hell are you doing awake, Bunker?” Lara asked. “I gave you enough sedatives to put down a horse for a week.”

  “You comparing me to a horse?” Bunker said. “Besides, listening to you two makes me wanna throw up, even while unconscious.”

  The rancher made an attempt to sit up, but he might as well be trying to lift a fallen house off his chest. He didn’t even make it a few inches before giving up and lying right back down with an annoyed grunt.

  “Shit, I’m tired,” Bunker said. “What did you give me exactly?”

  Lara untangled herself from Keo and walked over to him. “What it took to keep you off your feet. Though now I see that I should have doubled the dose.”

  “Why’d you go and do a fool thing like that?”

  “Because you kept trying to leave. And falling down.”

  “Oh.” He looked from Lara, checking his vitals, to Keo, standing in the middle of the room. “Holy hell. Look at you two. What were you guys doing, frolicking around in ghoul shit while I was checking out Never Never Land?”

  Twenty-One

  “Who blew up the wall?” Bunker asked.

  “How the hell should I know?” Keo said.

  “But someone blew up the wall? It didn’t, like, fall down on its own?”

  “No. Someone definitely blew up the wall.”

  “Well, it couldn’t have been ghouls, right?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Ghouls know how to use explosives now?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Lots of maybes.”

  “Too many maybes.”

  “Definitely too many maybes. You got any confirmations for me?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay. Nice talking to you as always, Keo. Glad I woke up for this conversation.”

  They were gathered in the common area, with Bunker sitting at the kitchen table with his AR rifle spread out in front of him as he meticulously cleaned it. For a man who only had one good arm—his left was in a sling—the rancher was surprisingly adept at using the brush, oils, and cloth to get into every nook and cranny of his weapon. Keo was good at maintaining his own firearms, but Bunker was on a whole other level.

  The rest were scatte
red about, with the door connecting the common area to the entry hallway—and their last line of defense, the blast door—opened so they could see it at all times. Wilson remained on watch with a radio, not that she needed the two-way since they could see her just fine through the opening.

  Thuy had taken out a box of Scrabble from a stack of board games they’d found in one of the supply closets and was playing with Abby and Gummy. It didn’t look like a terribly exciting game, with CAT, HAT, and other three-letter words (with the occasional four-letter ones thrown in for good measure) being the order of the day. More than anything, it kept their minds off what was out there, so neither Keo nor Lara disturbed them.

  Bunker, for his part, spent his time eating beef jerky and slices of bread between cleaning his rifle and handgun. He looked refreshed, like he’d just woken up from a very long slumber instead of the few hours he’d gotten.

  It was past midnight, and the ghouls hadn’t made any attempts to breach the main door or its walls. Keo wasn’t sure if that was because whoever the creatures had working for them (he had a suspicion he knew who it was, but he didn’t want to say it out loud) had decided they couldn’t blast their way into the shelter like they had back in the tunnel. He wished the lack of action made him feel better, but it didn’t. There’d been nothing last time, too…until there was.

  After about ten minutes or so inside the room where they kept all the communications gear, Lara finally came outside. All he had to do was look at her face to know whether she’d succeeded in doing what she’d gone in there in the first place to do.

  Bunker saw it, too. “That’s not a face that screams success.”

  “What happened?” Keo asked her.

  Lara sat down at the table between him and Bunker. “I couldn’t reach Black Tide. All I got was static.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  She shook her head. “I tried every frequency, but I couldn’t get any signals.”

  “Ironic. We could have called for help when we had the chance, but didn’t. Now, when we want to…”

  Lara pursed a smile. “I hate irony.”

  Bunker stopped working on his guns and leaned back slightly. “They must have knocked down the antenna.”

  “Where is it?” Keo asked.

  “About a mile east. The McCanns built the tower themselves, ran the wires all the way down here.”

  “Is it the only way to get a signal out of here?”

  “All the way from down here? Yeah. There’s a reason those things can’t get in at us. It’s all those pounds of earth, concrete, and steel in the way.”

  “They can’t get in, and we can’t get anything out.”

  “Well, it’s not impossible, but it’d be pretty difficult.”

  “How would they know about the antenna?”

  Bunker shrugged. “Hell if I know. Maybe the same way they knew how to blast their way into the hallway outside.” He leaned forward and went back to work. “We know who it was that blew up the wall, don’t we?” He snapped his AR’s parts back together, having polished every piece until they were immaculate. He stood the rifle up and fixed the scope onto the rail. “It’s Jose.”

  “Jose?” Lara said. She had turned to look at the kids playing Scrabble across the room from them, and now turned back. “What makes you think it’s Jose?” When Bunker didn’t answer her immediately, Lara glanced over at Keo. “You think it’s Jose, too?”

  “Maybe,” Keo said.

  “Yeah, he does,” Bunker said.

  “Keo…?” Lara said.

  Keo nodded. “It’s probably Jose.”

  “It’s definitely Jose,” Bunker said with absolute certainty.

  “Is this because of what happened with Carlos?” Lara asked.

  “Partially,” Keo said. “But also because Carlos was a demolitions man in the Mexican Army. Stands to reason he’d have taught his little brother a thing or two about explosives in the years since.”

  “Jose,” Lara said, almost as if she just needed to say the name out loud to make it real. “Are you guys sure it has to be him?”

  “No, but it’s definitely him,” Bunker said.

  “How can you say ‘no,’ then ‘it’s definitely him’ in the same breath?”

  “What, that’s not allowed?”

  “No. It has to be one or the other.”

  Bunker shrugged. “Then yes, it’s definitely him. Better?”

  “Better.” She looked back at Keo again. “You knew?”

  “I suspected,” Keo said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It doesn’t matter who it was.”

  “How can you say that? Jose is our friend.”

  “So was Carlos, and you know what happened with him.”

  Keo looked across the room at the girls, sitting on the floor around the board game. If any of them had overheard the conversation, they didn’t react. Then again, none of them had ever met Carlos or his brother Jose, so the names didn’t mean anything to him. Keo wished he had that kind of response, but the truth was, he was disappointed with the brothers. Carlos then, and now Jose.

  “He’s doing it for his family,” Bunker said. He laid the AR down and finished up with his Glock. “Can’t say I blame him.”

  “No one blames him,” Keo said. “That doesn’t mean we lie down for him, either.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I’m just saying, can’t blame the guy.”

  “You’re talking about Jose like he’s the enemy,” Lara said. “He’s not.”

  Keo gazed somberly back at her. “Yeah, he is, Lara. Yeah, he is.”

  He hadn’t lied to Lara: Jose was now the enemy, and Keo would cross him off if he got the chance. Like the man’s brother had told Keo (“I am thinking about my family. I’m always thinking about my family, Keo. First, second, and last.”), protecting his family was all that mattered to Keo now.

  First, second, and last, right.

  Carlos was right about that, if not much else. The man should have brought his family over to Bunker’s, but he’d been too stubborn. Keo wasn’t sure if he entirely blamed the guy, though. Carlos had survived The Purge when so many others didn’t, and he’d made it through the years since with his family intact. He’d even grown that family. So he probably did think, with some confidence, that he could brave this, too.

  He was wrong, as it turned out.

  And I’m not making that mistake. No fucking way.

  So yes, if Keo saw Jose trying to help the ghouls into the shelter, he’d shoot the man without a second thought. Hell, if Jose was here at all, he’d shoot the man, because there would be no reason for him to be here, tonight.

  Sorry, Jose. If I see you, you’re a dead man, and that’s all there is to it.

  But Jose didn’t show himself, and nothing else did, either, for the next few hours. Keo was left to watch the girls move on from Scrabble to Candyland, while Bunker walked around the shelter to make sure he hadn’t missed anything in the years since he took over the ranch from the long-missing McCanns. The man had gone through the place for the fifth time and found nothing. As many rooms as the underground facilities had, it was still limited to just six rooms.

  Lara, meanwhile, filled up on the strips of bacon she had cooked up a few hours ago with the propane tanks. In the back of his mind, Keo wondered where they were going to get their bacon from now on, without Carlos and Jose to supply them. Most of the pigs were either scattered or, more likely, already eaten by the ghouls last night.

  “You think they’re still out there? In the hallway?” Lara asked as she forced herself to eat another strip of bacon. She knew as well as he did that they all had to keep eating, if just to stay ready in case the night didn’t go as planned.

  “I don’t know,” Keo said. “I guess it’ll depend on how long it wants to keep playing.”

  “You really got on this thing’s bad side, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t think it was anything I did. I think it was just looking for a playmate. I
just happened to run across its path at the wrong place and the wrong time.”

  Lara drank a glass of milk. “You really need to stop doing that, sweetheart. It’s not healthy.”

  “Yeah, I’m working on that.” He reached over and put a hand over hers, and squeezed. Then, probably more serious than he’d intended, “I’ll do everything I have to in order to keep you safe. You know that.”

  She pursed a smile. “I know you will.” She put her other hand over his. “That’s why I love you.”

  He returned her smile. “That’s the only reason?”

  “Well, you’re pretty good in bed, too, so that doesn’t hurt.”

  “It’s not for my looks?”

  “Honey, another couple of scars, and you’re going to look more like Frankenstein’s monster more than Frankenstein.”

  “Ouch.”

  “But I’ll still love you.”

  They exchanged a brief smile, just before someone tapped his shoulder.

  Keo glanced over to find Gummy standing behind him, her oval-shaped face almost beaming underneath the harsh LED lights. He was always shocked at how young she looked, or how she almost managed to have something on her cheeks and chin—this time there was some grease and pieces of bacon. It was almost as if the girl purposefully went around looking for ways to dirty herself.

  “She’s gone,” the girl said.

  Keo stared at her. He wasn’t sure if he was surprised to hear her talking or that she was talking to him. She’d always kept to herself or spoken only to her big sister. Lara had gotten her talking a few times, but even she admitted the girl had only said a few words to her.

  Lara, sitting across the table from Keo, looked just as surprised to see Gummy standing next to him. “Who’s gone, honey?” she asked.

  “The other lady,” Gummy said.

  Keo turned around in his seat. “What other lady?”

  “The other lady,” Gummy repeated.

  Keo glanced at Lara with a Do you know what this crazy kid is talking about? look.

  Lara shook her head and stood up, then walked the short distance to where Gummy was and crouched in front of her. “Who are you talking about, honey? What other lady?”