Nate turned back around and looked across at her. “You think Danny saw them?”
She nodded but didn’t say anything. He started to ask another question, but stopped himself and looked down the street instead.
In many ways, he was still the same Nate she remembered (and missed dearly when she thought he was dead), but he had also changed a lot. His smiles didn’t come out quite as easily as before, and when they did, she couldn’t tell if they were genuine or forced. Maybe somewhere in between. As much as she noticed the slight change in him, he probably saw the same thing in her. Beyond the physical (bruises and broken noses didn’t heal overnight), she wasn’t the same girl she was when they had first met in Lafayette.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the truck and wanted nothing more than to just go to sleep. Maybe when she woke up she’d finally be at Song Island, back home again. She tried to imagine that the hard steel vibrating behind her was her soft mattress back at the hotel. Of course it was like trying to convince herself the blood and dirt on her tongue was milk chocolate.
“Gaby,” Nate said.
She opened her eyes and looked across the small space at him.
“You’re still as beautiful as I remembered,” he said.
“Bullshit. My nose is broken and I have scars all over me that are never going to heal properly. For the last few days, I’ve purposefully stayed away from shiny surfaces so I wouldn’t have to look at myself.”
He surprised her by chuckling.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, unable to hide her annoyance.
“That you think you’re still not the most beautiful girl running around out here.”
“You know we’re probably going to die tonight, right?”
“You mean at the island?”
“Yeah.”
“So we’re racing like crazy to get to this island of yours, just so we can end up dying there tonight?”
“Yup,” she said. “How you like them apples?”
He laughed. “I like ’em just fine, as long as you’re there. How about you?”
“We’re all going to die one of these days anyway. If my time comes, I’d rather it be at home with my friends.”
As soon as she said it, Gaby knew she meant it. Every single word of it. She had managed to survive when so many had perished, but if her time came tonight, or tomorrow, or the day after that, she would embrace it with open arms. Just as long as she had the right people by her side. Her friends…
“So where do I fit into that scenario?” Nate asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, “but we’ll figure it out.”
CHAPTER 11
WILL
They only stopped once so Ray and Leo could take a leak. Natasha didn’t move from the back of the truck, and neither did Will. He opened one of the MRE bags they had shared with him and spooned out some meat loaf.
“Mississippi, huh?” Natasha said.
He nodded.
“Which part of Mississippi?” she asked.
“South.”
“Where, south?”
He chewed slowly, enjoying the taste. Natasha never took her eyes off him the entire time.
“Hattiesburg,” he finally said. Then, before she could ask anything else, “We took I-59 down before switching over to the I-10. We were originally headed for New Orleans, but it was too big, and you know what that means.”
“The creatures…”
“Yeah. So we headed west instead, looking for someplace smaller where we could get lost.”
“You found that along Route 13?”
“Uh huh.”
“That’s a pretty obscure road. I wouldn’t even know it existed if I didn’t live in Dunbar all my life.”
“We had a map and we were looking for a quiet place. Route 13 is pretty desolate, which was what we thought we needed.” He took a sip from a refilled bottle of water. “It worked for us. For a while, anyway.”
“I’m surprised you guys never went into Dunbar.”
“We had everything we needed, brought most of it with us. Maybe we’d have to start looking for more supplies eventually, but we never got that far.”
“How long were you there?”
“A couple of months.”
He wasn’t sure if he had been convincing enough, because Will didn’t look up at her as he spun his tale. But when Natasha finally took her eyes off him and watched the others coming back from wherever they had gone to do their business, he figured he had probably done a decent enough job.
“I’m sorry about your daughter,” Will said.
She didn’t reply.
“Leo told me about her,” he continued.
“Leo talks too much,” she said.
“I heard that,” Leo said, climbing back into the truck.
“You were supposed to,” Natasha said.
“He understands, Nat,” Leo said, settling in across from Will. “He’s lost someone, too, remember? We all have.”
Natasha didn’t respond. Instead, she closed her eyes and folded her arms across her chest and pretended to go to sleep. Or maybe that was just her way of letting them know she wasn’t interested in this conversation anymore.
“You lost someone?” Will asked Leo.
The older man nodded. “I guess you could say I was luckier than most. Some friends, but no family to lose when everything went tits up.”
Leo opened another bag of MRE and sniffed the contents before peering inside. He must have liked what he saw, because he produced a metal spork from his pocket and devoured the food with a flourish usually reserved for starving homeless people.
Ray climbed up behind them and walked to the front, where he banged on the cab window. “Let’s go, guys! We’re losing daylight!” He glanced at his watch. “We’re cutting it close. I don’t like it.” Ray banged on the window again. “Drive faster!”
“Fuck off!” Olsen shouted from inside.
The Ford started up and they were moving again a few seconds later. The truck began picking up speed, and although he couldn’t see the speedometer, Will guessed they were topping off at around sixty miles per hour, judging by the speed with which the concrete barricade was flashing by in front of him.
Too fast. We’re going way too fast.
He wanted to get to Song Island as soon as possible, but he also remembered all the accidents and ambushes he had endured on the road in the last year. Of course, he didn’t expect someone with a rocket launcher to pop up in front of them, but the possibility existed because Josh’s soldiers had free rein of the state’s armory. The machine guns up and down Route 13, including the one perched on the roof of the truck’s cab right now, were proof of that.
“Ray,” Will said.
Ray looked up from a bag of jerky. “What?”
“We’re going too fast.”
“So?”
“There could be hazards on the road. Barnes is going too fast.”
Ray smirked. “Relax, Mississippi. You want to get down there before sunset, don’t you?”
“He’s right,” Leo said. “Tell them to slow down.”
“Jesus Christ, what are you two, grandfathers?” Ray said. “Keep your diapers on. There’s nothing on the fucking road. It’s been a year since the end of the world, for God’s sake.” He looked at Will. “And besides, you got all the way over here from Mississippi just fine. We’re not even going that far.”
Will was hoping Leo would press the issue—it would have been better coming from him—but the older man had already gone back to eating his MRE. Nearby, Natasha had opened her eyes and was staring at him intently. There was something about the way she was eyeballing him that made him think he hadn’t really thrown her off the scent at all.
He leaned out and looked up the highway. It was flat and empty, with no vehicles other than theirs for miles in any direction. No wonder Barnes didn’t see any problems with going sixty miles an hour along this stretch of road. Maybe he was worried about nothing
; maybe Ray was right, after all.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
*
He was expecting it. He had turned all the possible scenarios over in his head and how he would react to each one, but as mentally prepared as he was for it to happen, the how still caught him by surprise. It was worse for Natasha, Leo, and Ray in the back of the truck with him, because when the tires blew, no one was ready for it.
At first there was a loud series of popping sounds, like small explosions ringing out one after another underneath them. Then the truck spun, and Will imagined Barnes inside fighting for control of the vehicle. Olsen might have even screamed. Or it sounded like someone was screaming behind him, the voice slightly muffled by the wall between them.
Will went from looking at the divider wall behind Leo to staring back down the highway as the car skidded off course, tires screeching as the brakes clamped down and the stinging smell of burnt rubber filled the air. A moment later, the front bumper dug into the concrete and the F-250 was no longer on the highway.
That was when Will leaped out of the truck. It wasn’t anything he had planned, but he was already being flung anyway by the vehicle’s chaotic flipping momentum, so he decided to stop fighting it. His one hope of surviving was to get far enough from the tumbling vehicle not to get caught—and dragged—underneath it.
Then he was sailing through the air, the wind rushing against his face, grinding metal filling his ears. He blocked the noises out and curled his body inward, doing his best impersonation of a flying human ball, just before he slammed into the highway on his right shoulder. The pain lanced through his body as he tumbled once, twice, and three times before unfurling his legs and arms in an attempt to stop his momentum.
He finally came to a stop on his stomach and was turned in the right direction, allowing him to see the truck as it rolled down the highway on its side, roof and undercarriage taking turns digging gaping divots in the concrete pavement as it went. Pieces of the F-250 flung wildly into the air around it, falling back down to earth just as the vehicle—or what was left of it—rolled one final time and…settled. It had left large chunks of glass and aluminum and metal in its wake, along with thick bloody swaths from bodies it had dragged.
The M60 that was once soldered onto the roof was nowhere to be found, leaving only the twisted legs of its bipod behind. He was thinking about the weapon, about all the other guns that were inside the truck, and where they were now. Tossed free, most likely, along with his newly acquired M4.
What the hell happened?
He was alive, even if his arms and legs were numbed from the collision. He had somehow been tossed almost across the road and now lay in an unmoving pile against one of the guardrails.
Will managed to pull himself up from the scathing hot floor and onto his knees. His palms were cut and bloodied, and he was pretty sure that the warm sensation dripping down both sides of his face was blood. Although it was hard to concentrate, he looked around anyway, searching for bodies. That long and thick trail of blood had to have come from someone (someones).
The sun glinted off a long strip of something metallic lying in a jagged line back down the highway. Linked square-shaped objects stretched from one side of the two lanes to the other, sharp spikes at the end of them pointing in the air.
Police spikes. Christ, they put police spikes on the road and Barnes drove right over them.
You idiot, Barnes, I told you, you were going too fast…
He was still trying to come to terms with what had happened, how Barnes had screwed them over, when sudden movements in the corner of one eye caught his attention. He turned around as men in camo uniforms were climbing over the middle concrete divider. Had they been there the whole time? Probably, given the presence of the spikes on the road. This was the plan all along. Stop them without firing a shot.
Maybe they’re not so dumb after all.
There were a half dozen of them. Or maybe five dozen. He couldn’t be certain because they seemed to be multiplying the more he tried to focus.
There was more movement from behind him, the shuffling of boots against concrete. He turned around (something red—blood?—flicked away as he did so) as another half dozen men in camo were rising up from the fields of swaying grass along the feeder road. They looked like serpents coming out of the ground.
Snakes in the grass. With assault rifles.
One of them stepped over a body (Leo? Ray?) that had been tossed all the way across the highway, while a second man paused to check the prone figure’s pulse before standing back up and moving on a few moments later.
The first group of men was converging on the truck, resting on its crumpled roof. The loud crunch crunch of boots on broken glass and metal were almost as loud as the drip drip of gasoline from the overturned Ford’s tank. Smoke drifted from the battered hood and one of the wheels, now missing its tire, was still spinning in the air. How long was it going to keep doing that, he wondered.
He wasn’t entirely sure why he hadn’t reached for the Sig Sauer in his hip holster yet. It was within easy reach, so close that it wouldn’t have taken much to move his hand toward it. Except that hand was covered in a thick film of blood that drip dripped from his fingers to the concrete, where they appeared to sizzle as if they were hitting a frying pan.
Christ, it’s hot out here. Didn’t the weather just cool down?
You know what they say about Louisiana. If you don’t like the weather, just wait a few…
Wait, or is that Texas?
The soldiers were now moving cautiously toward him, but no one had fired a shot yet. He kept waiting for it (Here it comes, here it comes) but it never happened. He blinked at the first few faces before they started going out of focus and it became impossible for him to see more than just clouds.
Bloodied red clouds.
He didn’t even feel anything when his face hit the concrete the second time.
*
“Is he still alive?” a voice asked.
“I think so,” a second voice answered.
“You think so?” The first man chuckled. “You better hope he lives, or it’s your ass on the line. You told me those spikes would work.”
“They did work.”
“So what happened?”
“I don’t know. The guy must have lost control of the truck, or pulled the steering wheel too hard or something. What happened back there wasn’t supposed to happen. Not like that, anyway.”
“Yeah, well, looks like you just got one of your nine lives back, because he’s awake.”
Will opened his eyes to sunlight flooding in through tall glass windows. Too bright, and he immediately had to close his eyes again.
He was alive, but at the moment he wished he weren’t. Every inch of him hurt and there was an incessant banging in his head, like a thousand drums going off at once, that wouldn’t go away. He couldn’t open his eyes a second time and didn’t want to. His entire body felt sticky, as if he were covered in syrup.
Blood. I’m lying in my own blood.
Can someone spare a towel?
“Who is this guy, anyway?” the second man asked. “Why’s he so important?”
“Don’t you worry about him,” the first one said.
That voice. It sounded familiar.
Mason.
The short dickhead in charge of the ambush at Route 13. In charge of more than that, for all Will knew. Was Mason behind the ambush? And, more importantly, he wondered if the man knew where his M4A1 was…
“Just keep him breathing until nightfall,” Mason was saying. “Can you handle that?”
“I’m not a doctor,” the other man said. “I’ll do what I can, but I’m not guaranteeing anything. The guy was in shitty shape even before the truck flipped.”
“He had a little vehicular accident earlier today.”
“So he was already hurt. You can’t put it all on me.”
“The spike strip was your idea, remember?’
“I told you, it
wasn’t supposed to do that. If this guy dies, it’s not my fault.”
“Well, shit, Rick, if you can’t keep him alive, then what the hell am I dragging you around for? Might as well put someone else in charge of him, right?”
“I’ll keep him alive,” Rick said quickly.
Will didn’t entirely believe Rick, because the man hadn’t been all that convincing. It sounded like poor Rick was afraid for his own life and was saying whatever Mason wanted to hear.
Join the party, buddy. You and me, up a creek without pants on.
“So it’s true?” Rick said. “She’s coming here?”
“You scared?” Mason asked.
“Shit, yeah. Aren’t you?”
“If you’d seen all the things I’ve seen, Rick ol’ buddy, you wouldn’t be. Now, less questions, more action. Your job is to keep him alive for another three hours. Can you handle that?” Mason’s voice sounded like it was coming from across the room this time. “Get it done, or, well, you know.”
The sound of something opening and closing.
Then, silence.
Will couldn’t be certain how long that lasted, before the man who had stayed behind (Rick) said, “You hear that? Three hours. That’s all you got left.”
Three hours…
“You’re welcome, by the way,” Rick said. “For saving your life. Truthfully, I don’t even know how you’re still moving around even before I got my hands on you. I guess the painkillers help, huh?” Clinking noises. “You’re running out of those, by the way. Don’t worry, we got plenty of refills. Lucky you.” Then, Rick chuckled. “Well, not really lucky you, but…you know.”
Yeah, I know, Rick. Fuck you, too.
He gave up what little fight he still had in him and slipped back, back into darkness.
*
The next time he woke up, he felt cold, hard floor underneath him. He was getting some feeling back, which meant the thrumming pain coursing through every inch of his body, from head to toe, was worse. Much worse. He wanted to call Rick over and demand those refills he had been promised, but when he tried to open his mouth, the only thing he heard was air escaping his lips. Very, very soft air. Even breathing was difficult.
Purge of Babylon (Book 5): The Ashes of Pompeii Page 16