“You won’t do anything.”
“Are you going to stop me?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Keo clenched the KA-BAR tighter. “I’m going to gut you like the miserable piece of shit you are, just like I promised I’d do back in Paxton.”
It smirked, eyes narrowing. “You failed then, Keo. You’ll fail now. And I’ll make you watch as I turn your—”
Keo saw it before the creature did, and that confused him because it was so fast and had heightened senses, so why didn’t it see or feel or hear the piece of the shadow coming alive on the other side of the tunnel until it was too late?
The Blue Eyes lost its grip on Lara when something struck it and sent it flailing down the tunnel. Lara looked as if she were momentarily suspended in the air—just before she started falling. Keo leapt forward, his arms outstretched, trying to catch her.
But he was much too far to reach her in time, and Lara slammed into the floor on her back and he saw the pain on her face as she rolled over. He pulled her up even as the entire tunnel around them vibrated with a loud thoom!, like the aftershock of an earthquake.
Keo looked back, the KA-BAR still gripped tightly in one hand, with Lara in the other.
At first he thought it was Sadistic fighting with one of the black-eyed ghouls, but when the second creature turned its head slightly—no, it wasn’t turning its head; Sadistic was trying to twist its head off its shoulders with its bare hands—Keo saw another pair of glowing blue eyes in the darkness.
There were two blue-eyed ghouls in the tunnel with him and Lara, and they were trying to kill each another.
Oh, now I’ve seen everything.
Twenty-Five
“Go!”
“What happened?”
“Go!”
“Keo! What happened? I saw—”
“Go go go!”
Lara didn’t go go go as he had implored her, but she did take the first couple of steps up the tunnel before stopping and turning back around, her eyes going right past him and toward—
Keo spun, looking in the same direction, as one of the Blue Eyes picked up the other one and slammed it into the ceiling. The entire tunnel shook under the impact, and chunks of concrete rained down on the two creatures.
…on the two creatures…
I’m looking at two blue-eyed ghouls fighting each other.
This is real. Isn’t it? I’m not imagining this?
No. This is definitely happening.
Keo glanced back at Lara. “Go! Now!”
Lara stared at him. She hadn’t moved since the last time he looked. In fact, she appeared immobilized, as if rooted to the ground.
“Now, goddammit! Get out of here now!” he shouted.
She snapped out of it, but still didn’t go. “What about you?”
“Go!”
“I’m not leaving you!”
“The baby!” Keo shouted. “The baby!”
That did it. Gripping her gun in one hand—he wasn’t sure when she’d retrieved it—Lara turned and ran up the corridor.
He kept his eyes on her the whole time, willing her to keep going, getting ready to scream at her about the baby again if she should stop and turn back around.
But she didn’t.
Thank God, she didn’t.
Finally, when he couldn’t make out her clothes in the shadows, Keo turned around and drew his SIG Sauer. He’d lost the KA-BAR while he was doing this action-movie dive to catch Lara—and failing. He scanned the floor, searching for it. The gun was a good backup, but blue-eyed ghouls had a habit of dodging bullets. They weren’t nearly as effective against a knife, probably because they tended to get very close—
Thoom! as something crashed into the concrete wall.
Keo gave up on finding the knife and glanced back down the hallway.
One of the Blue Eyes had the other one by the throat, and was—
Thoom! as it slammed the other one into the wall again, knocking loose even more fractured chunks of concrete.
In a hundred years, Keo didn’t think he’d be able to tell the ghouls apart, but looking at these two now, he didn’t have that trouble: The one being rammed into the wall was Jackson and the other one was Sadistic. He didn’t know how he knew; he just did.
“You should have kept running,” Sadistic hissed at Jackson. “You shouldn’t have come back. I gave you a chance. I gave you so many chances.”
“The children,” Jackson hissed.
“My children.”
“The children…”
“They are my children!” it shouted, pushing its head forward toward Jackson to get every single syllable into her face.
If the creatures remembered that Keo was down here with the two of them, neither ghoul showed it. Their entire attention was focused on one another. Even Jackson—
Wait. Jackson?
No, not Jackson anymore. Something else.
A ghoul now.
She’s—it’s just a ghoul.
Keo didn’t know why he was thinking about the other blue-eyed ghoul as Jackson. It hadn’t been her in over eight weeks, ever since Paxton.
And yet he found it easier to separate the two creatures. Maybe, because, he realized that the only thing standing between him (and Lara, and the others) and life and death was this unnatural thing.
This…ghoul.
That realization that made Keo shiver slightly, but he got over it quickly when he glimpsed the moving shadows on the other side of the two blue-eyed ghouls. There were still Black Eyes back there, but they weren’t attacking. Not him, or the other two. They were holding back, hesitating. Maybe they were trying to decide what to do or who to root for. Or maybe they were just as confused by what they were seeing as Keo was.
Keo started to back up, even as Sadistic continued pummeling Jackson into the wall, loosening more of the foundation around them. She had no chance. The other Blue Eyes was just stronger. Maybe faster, too.
“Father is stronger,” Jackson had said back at the fun house. “Faster. And the children belong to him. His blood courses through their veins, just as they do mine.”
That was why Jackson had tried to ally with him. She knew she couldn’t take the ghoul by herself, in a one-on-one fight.
And yet here she was, trying to do exactly just that.
Why, was the question. Why was Jackson here? It couldn’t have been just to save them, could it? She had come out of nowhere (How the hell did she get past Bunker and the kids?), rescuing Lara from Sadistic’s clutches. She hadn’t needed to do that, but she had.
Why?
Why?
“You shouldn’t have betrayed me,” Sadistic was hissing at Jackson even as she struggled against its viselike grip. She didn’t so much as fight it as she attempted to pry herself free, but to no avail.
“Father is stronger. Faster…”
Thoom! as Jackson was slammed back into the wall, each action so fast and fierce that Keo could barely follow them with his eyes.
“My child…” it hissed. “Oh, my wayward child. Why do you disappoint me so?”
Thoom!
“Betrayal has a cost. You’ll see.”
Thoom!
“Or maybe you won’t.”
Thoom!
“I’ll make new children. There are so many out there, waiting for me to claim them.”
Thoom!
“And they will be more grateful than you.”
Thoom!
“So, so much more grateful than you…”
Thoom!
They weren’t looking at him. Neither one of them. They didn’t even know he still existed. All he had to do was turn and run, and join the others farther up the tunnel. Lara would have caught up to Bunker and the kids by now.
If they were still alive. He wasn’t sure of that. Would Jackson have harmed Bunker and the girls on her way here? How the hell had she gotten past them in the first place? Keo hadn’t heard gunshots from up ahead, so Bunker hadn’t
fired. Or maybe the rancher had, but Keo hadn’t heard it with the chaos going on around him? Besides, he’d only gotten his hearing back recently—
Thoom!
Keo looked back.
Jackson had stopped struggling, and the glow of her blue eyes had softened noticeably. It was as if the life was draining from her.
“Her?” Why do you keep calling it “her?” It’s an it. An it.
These were two ghouls that he was watching, not people. They might have been, at one point, but not anymore. There were two creatures fighting—No, not fighting. One was killing the other. There was no fight. It was over before it even started.
“Father is stronger. Faster…”
Jackson, or the thing that used to be her, had known that, and yet she’d come down here anyway. She’d saved Lara’s life, and, probably his, too.
Why had she done that?
Why?
Keo wasn’t sure when he made the decision, but suddenly the SIG was in his hand and he was aiming at Sadistic’s side profile, which wasn’t very easy considering how dark it was inside the tunnel and the two creatures were beyond the reach of his light sticks.
Don’t turn around, fucker.
He gauged the distance at twenty meters, maybe a little less. It wasn’t a terribly difficult shot even with a pistol, and the creature was being very still as it held Jackson against the wall, crushing her throat with its fingers.
That’s right. Don’t you fucking tu—
It turned its head to look at him, and that stupid grin (or what it was passing off as a grin) formed on its black face. “You’re still here,” it hissed.
Sonofa…
Keo pulled the trigger…
…and the bullet missed just as he had anticipated. Instead of striking the ghoul in the head and ending this once and for all, the round sailed harmlessly past its domed forehead and struck one of the Black Eyes hiding in the shadows down the tunnel.
“Nice—” the ghoul hissed.
Keo fired again—
“—try,” it finished even as its head blurred again.
The bullet struck the wall, ricocheted off it, and bounced into a ghoul standing nearby. It collapsed, but that only opened up space for the others. They scooted forward but continued to hang back.
Keo had missed with both shots, but his attempts had distracted Sadistic just enough for Jackson to grab its extended arm with both her hands and, somehow, broke it.
Sadistic screamed and staggered back, pulling its arm away as if in shock.
Keo followed it, firing.
Bang-bang-bang!
This time he didn’t go for the head. It was too small a target, and the combination of shadows and distance, not to mention the creature’s speed, made it difficult to hit. Instead, he went for its body. It was skinny and elongated, but it still gave him a much better—and longer—target.
He struck it a few times but missed with even more bullets. Still, he’d hit it enough that the creature looked disoriented as it backed up, right arm hanging loosely at its side as if it couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Jackson had done that. Somehow, despite being weaker than the thing she called “Father,” she’d manage to actually break its arm at the elbow—
Jackson launched herself across the five feet of tunnel and crashed her shoulder into Sadistic, knocking it back the small distance into the other side of the wall.
Thoom!
The entire passageway shook with the impact, and Keo almost lost his footing. He was righting himself when something bounced off his head. He looked up just as a small flurry of concrete came loose.
Keo jumped sideways as they crashed to the floor.
“No!” a voice screamed, the single word sending a piercing knife through Keo’s soul.
It was Sadistic. It’d somehow gotten the upper hand on Jackson again and had spun her around until she now had her back against the wall. Keo watched, horrified, as the blue-eyed ghoul struck Jackson in the chest with its unbroken hand—and its fist went right through her and into the wall behind her.
Jesus Christ!
Keo wasn’t sure how to react, and from the look on her face, neither did Jackson. Keo didn’t think the Blue Eyes could even emote anymore, that the transformation had taken all the humanity out of them. But to look at Jackson—or the thing that used to be Jackson—Keo was almost certain that, somewhere in there, she was still human.
He staggered back, his legs suddenly trying to give out underneath him of their own volition. He would have grabbed at the wall for support, but both his hands, slicked with sweat, were too busy reloading the SIG Sauer.
…too busy reloading the SIG Sauer…
Sadistic propped Jackson upright, its arm still embedded in her up to almost the shoulder. Its eyes were glued to her face even as the life drained from it. Jackson’s blue eyes continued to glow blue, but they were less vibrant now, less…lively.
It’s a ghoul. It’s already dead.
No, it’s not. It’s Jackson…and she’s dying.
Then Jackson’s head turned toward Keo at the same time her hands suddenly came back alive and grappled onto Sadistic’s extended arm. Keo wasn’t sure who was more surprised—him or Sadistic.
“Keo!” Jackson hissed. “Now!”
“What?” Sadistic said. There was confusion and shock and even something that possibly could have been fear all embedded in that one single, simple word.
Keo lifted the SIG Sauer.
“No!” Sadistic shouted.
“Now!” Jackson screamed even as she held onto the ghoul’s arm as it tried to pull it free.
Keo thought he saw the creatures on the other side of the tunnel start to move, but he was too focused on the two blue-eyed ghouls in front of him.
He pulled the trigger.
Even as it struggled against Jackson, Sadistic moved its head and Keo’s round glanced off the back of its skull. It jerked its head back, its body attempting to pull free from Jackson’s grasp.
Keo ran at it and pulled the trigger, getting closer with every shot.
Bang-bang-bang!
He squeezed off shot after shot after shot.
Bang-bang-bang!
9mm rounds pekked! off the wall, others went wide, and more clipped Sadistic’s face. One struck it in the neck, went right through like knife through paper, and exited the other side.
And Jackson held on. She even continued to do so when one of Keo’s bullet struck her in the cheek and a geyser of black blood poured out and splashed the other blue-eyed ghoul.
Keo kept count of his shots—
Bang!
Bang-bang!
Bang-bang-bang!
—and he was down to one more in the magazine when he found himself almost standing right next to Sadistic, just as the creature turned its head.
They locked eyes.
Keo pushed the muzzle into its temple.
It opened its mouth to say something.
Keo pulled the trigger before it could transform its thoughts into action and then, too late, sounds.
Twenty-Six
He expected the ghouls to attack, but they didn’t. Instead, they continued to linger in the background, black eyes frozen on Jackson—or the creature that was once Jackson—and Sadistic as they slumped on the floor. There was a hole big enough for Keo to push his fist through in Sadistic’s skull, which was awfully tempting.
Keo was too busy backing up to follow through on his urges, though. He quickly ejected, then slapped a fresh magazine into the SIG Sauer in case the ghouls decided they’d waited long enough and attacked.
Except they didn’t. None of them did.
He snapped a quick look down at the bodies on the floor in front of him. Jackson and Sadistic were twisted together, and if he were to stumble across them for the first time, he might think they were embracing. They were, in a sort of way—father and daughter coming together for the final time.
Jackson was definitely dead. Her blue eyes remained blue, vi
sible against the semidarkness of the tunnel and beyond the reach of Keo’s light sticks, but they weren’t glowing anymore. The same was true for the other ghoul lying on top of her.
He continued to back up, keeping an eye on the creatures down the tunnel. They hadn’t moved, and a part of him wanted to pick them off with the pistol. It would have been easy with the silver-tipped rounds.
Except he didn’t, mostly because he wasn’t sure how many of them were still there, and if he fired, the loud gunshot might snap them out of their stupor. There was no point anyway, because they didn’t even look as if they knew he still existed. He remembered that day, underneath Houston, when Frank sacrificed everything to save them. It’d been like this, only on a much larger scale.
Keo finally turned and ran, every bone in his body aching. He hadn’t realized how much he hurt until now. Of course he hadn’t had time to recognize his pain earlier; he’d been too busy trying to stay alive, to keep breathing. But now that he wasn’t being pursued, (He glanced back just to make sure. Yup, there was nothing back there. Not yet, anyway.) it was impossible to ignore.
His chest was burning, his legs threatening to give out underneath him. Even his arms felt as if they might fall off at any second, or at least come loose from their sockets. He wasn’t even sure how he was holding the gun at his side.
The tunnel seemed to go on forever, but it was probably only twenty or thirty seconds before he finally saw moonlight pouring in through the open hatch up ahead. The light illuminated the metal ladder leading up toward it, and there were no signs of Lara, Bunker, or the girls. He looked down at the ground, searching for blood—or evidence that the others had encountered trouble on their way here.
There were a lot of booted footprints and what looked like bare feet among them, but no blood. There were no empty bullet casings either, and he would have been able to pick out the brass with his lights.
Keo shot a quick glance behind him to make sure he was still alone. He was. The black-eyed ghouls hadn’t pursued. They probably weren’t going to. He tried to picture what it was like, the sight of Sadistic and Jackson fighting. Maybe to their eyes it would be akin to watching mother and father trying to murder one another. One of these days, scientists were going to create curriculums to study how the ghouls’ psychic links worked.
Road to Babylon (Book 9): The Ranch Page 26