Even the birds that usually chirped away, oblivious to human presence on the island, had gone uncharacteristically quiet tonight.
Did they know? Of course not. How could they?
Behind her, Sarah shifted back and forth on the balls of her feet, apparently unable to decide whether she wanted to sit down or remain standing.
“You okay?” Lara whispered over her shoulder.
Like Stan a few seconds ago, Sarah tried to smile, and just like Stan, it came out poorly. “I’ve never shot anyone before.”
“You’ll do fine. Just follow my lead.”
“What’s it like?”
“What?”
“Killing someone. What’s it like?”
“Don’t think about it. Shoot, reload, and keep shooting until there’s nothing to shoot at anymore. They’re coming here to kill us. Just keep reminding yourself of that. Do it for Jenny. For Mae. For everyone who is counting on us right now.”
Sarah nodded mutely, then went back to trying to decide whether to sit or stand, and constantly changing up her grip on the M4.
“You’ll do fine,” Lara said again, and hoped it was at least convincing. Judging by Sarah’s face, she guessed she was only halfway successful.
There was a time when Lara had been just like Sarah—scared and uncomfortable with a gun in her hands. Those days were long gone, and even as she turned back to the darkness, she wished Will’s face was looking back at her.
You promised me, Will. Where are you?
But he wasn’t there. Instead, she saw Roy, his blond hair easy to spot in the semidarkness. He had moved away from the trees and was standing next to Stan in a spot that allowed him to remain behind cover while still able to peer down the pathway and at the moonlit beach on the other side. Compared to Stan, Roy looked strangely serene, the M4 hanging almost naturally from a sling in front of him. She knew better, of course. Roy was a former IT man, and the closest he’d ever come to holding a gun in his life before The Purge was playing Call of Duty on the PlayStation.
Roy glanced over and grinned at her. “Remember that time in the woods? When we were chasing West?”
She smiled back. “Yes.”
“Man, I was so unprepared back then.”
“Not anymore.”
“Not anymore. What’s that motto of yours again?”
“Which one?”
“‘Adapt or perish’?”
“Ah.”
“I guess you can say I’ve successfully adapted.”
And not a moment too soon.
“They’re taking their sweet time,” Roy said. “I wish they’d get here already. My legs are cramping up from the waiting.”
Be careful what you wish for, Lara thought for the second time as the sound of motors seemed to increase in decibel on cue.
It wouldn’t be long now…
There was a click in her right ear, and she heard Blaine’s voice through the earbud connected to her radio. “Lara.”
Lara pressed the PTT dangling from her vest. “Yeah, Blaine.”
“They’re getting closer, right? We can hear them all the way on the other side of the island.”
“Yeah, they’re getting closer.”
“Keo said ten boats?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand why they’re just attacking the beach with ten boats. Is that all they have?”
“I don’t know,” Lara said. Then, “Keo.”
“Yeah,” Keo said through the radio.
“How many boats did you see when you were at their staging area?”
“I didn’t exactly do an official count. Most of them were already in the water.” He paused, seemed to think about it some more, before adding, “Remember what we talked about? How they’ve been going around sinking boats for a while now, trying to keep everyone on land? Maybe these ten are all they have left in the area.”
“What a bunch of asshats,” Danny said. “I bet a lot of people paid good money for those boats.”
“What are you thinking, Blaine?” Lara asked.
“I don’t know what I’m thinking,” Blaine said.
“Spit it out,” Danny said.
“It’s just that…this is pretty bold of them, to just think they can invade Song Island by hitting the beach,” Blaine said. “Especially knowing how it all turned out last time.”
She didn’t blame Blaine for being suspicious. That was all she had been doing since they spotted the ten boats. But there was no way to alter the plan now, not with the attackers bearing down on them.
“Blaine has a point,” she said into the radio. “This could all be one big diversion. There could be more approaching from the other sides. Report in as soon as you see or hear anything out of the ordinary. Anything at all. Understand?”
The others responded one by one.
“I wish Will was here,” Sarah said quietly behind her.
So do I. God, so do I.
On the other side of the trees, the sound of boat motors seemed to have picked up in volume. She knew what that meant: They were getting closer.
“Look alive, boys and girls,” Danny said through the radio. “Here they come. Shoot straight, shoot often, and keep moving. Do not—I say again—do not let them get a bead on you. It’s a big beach. Use it.”
*
Keo fired first. She knew it was him because the gunshot came from the other side of the pathway. Danny was in the middle, while Gaby was camped to her left.
Once Keo let go with the first shot, the shooting didn’t stop. It sounded like thunder crashing against the beach over and over again, first concentrated on one side, then the other, and before she knew it, it was impossible to pinpoint where the bulk of the gunfire was coming from because it seemed to be coming from everywhere.
If Sarah was nervous, she was on overdrive now. Lara could feel the other woman’s anxiety in the warm breaths hitting her in the back of the neck. Across from her, Stan was equally anxious, gripping and ungripping his M4 at least a dozen times in as many seconds. Roy seemed to be faring better, though even he had gone into a crouch to keep his feet from fidgeting.
Lara had to fight her own instincts. She wanted badly to peek into the pathway, to see if they were coming yet, or get a glimpse of the gunfight that was taking place on the beach at this very moment. But she didn’t, because doing so might give away her position. That, and the prospect of getting hit with a stray bullet flying from the beach was more than enough motivation to keep her rooted in place.
Staying still became more difficult when bullets began pelting the trees behind and around her. Branches snapped off and whenever a round zipped! nearby, she flinched, while Sarah gasped audibly. The assaulters were pouring everything they had into the woods, obviously trying to hit Danny, who was somewhere in front of them, moving constantly and using the trees as cover. That didn’t stop them from firing into the woods anyway, and branches were continually snapping around her, some just a little bit too close for comfort.
She exerted every ounce of control she had to remain perfectly still, even if every instinct she had told her to move, move, move.
No one was talking—not Danny or Keo or Gaby, or anyone else plugged into the channel, which was everyone on the island with a radio. Like her, they were mesmerized by the chaotic back and forth, the never-ending pop-pop-pop of assault rifles crashing up and down the length of the beach.
It went on and on, and whenever she thought it would calm down, having run its course, it picked up again.
My God, how many men are out there? How many have they killed already? How many more do we have to kill? I don’t want this. This bloodbath.
God help me, I never wanted this…
Then, through the tumultuous pounding of gunfire and her own thrumming chest, she heard the click! that she had been waiting for, followed by Danny’s voice, slightly out of breath, shouting into her ear. “Hot Gates! Persians in the Hot Gates!”
Lara snapped her eyes shut and counted down
from ten.
The first step was to rein in her heartbeat. It was racing too fast, threatening to overwhelm her.
Nine…
She clutched and unclutched the pistol grip under the M4’s barrel.
Eight…
Made sure the fire selector was on full-auto.
Seven…
Behind her, Sarah whispered, “Oh, God.”
Six…
Opened her eyes back up.
Five…
Roy was staring across the pathway at her, and he managed a nervous smile.
Four…
She smiled back at him, hoping the confidence she was faking came through all right, but knowing it probably wasn’t even close to being convincing.
Three…
“Oh, God,” Sarah said again.
Two…
She located the trigger on her rifle.
One…
“Now!” she screamed.
She might have run or walked really fast. She wasn’t quite sure. One second she was hiding behind the trees, the next she had moved out from behind cover and into the open, spun around sixty degrees until she was facing the beach, and even before she saw the first black-clad figure rushing up the cobblestone path right at her, she was already squeezing the trigger.
There had to be a dozen of them—maybe more—racing up the ten-yard-wide opening with wild abandon, the adrenaline of the beach landing clearly surging through them. She didn’t need the lamps to see they were wearing black uniforms and helmets. Moonlight glinted off the rifles swinging back and forth in their hands as they charged forward.
They had no idea she was there. Or Stan, running out from behind his part of the woods and going into a crouch. Or Roy, positioning himself behind the electrician. Sarah might have followed her out from cover and into the open, too, but Lara didn’t have the second or two it would have taken to make sure.
She was too busy shooting.
They fell like dominos. She was glad it was too dark to make out each individual man, because that would have meant thinking of them as men. Right now, she couldn’t afford that, because killing was still unnatural to her even as she tried to convince herself this was necessary, that it was kill or be killed. The anger that had carried her through the last few minutes flooded out of her with every bullet she poured into the mass of bodies, replaced by pity and horror.
But none of that made her take her finger off the trigger—all she had to do was think of Elise, of Vera, of the teenagers who had come with Bonnie—and she was able to hold on as the rifle bucked and the magazine emptied at a dizzying rate. She wasn’t shooting at any one person—she was shooting at all of them.
Roy and Stan were still firing into the ten-yard-wide pathway when Lara ejected her magazine and grabbed a new one, slamming it home. She became vaguely aware of Sarah crying while the rifle in her hands was bucking again and again. The other woman still had her weapon set to semi-automatic for some reason.
They were crumpled in front of her, the closest one having gotten halfway up the road before she felled him. She didn’t count the number of lumps lying across the cobblestone floor. She didn’t want to.
(A dozen? Two? Too many…)
She finished reloading and started shooting again. She didn’t even know what she was shooting at. There may or may not still be men moving around in front of her. She might have simply been firing into the pile of bodies now, looking for survivors that might not even exist.
She thought of Elise and Vera again and didn’t stop shooting until she was empty a second time. Then she instinctively ejected the magazine and groped for a third one from around her waist.
Roy and Stan were frantically changing magazines to her right, but Sarah was holding her M4 uselessly at her side. The woman had stopped crying, and the sudden quiet was deafening, with the only noise coming from the clicking of metal as they reloaded their weapons.
“Oh, Jesus,” Roy said.
He was looking at a lone black-clad figure crawling out of the pile of bodies. It was a man, but he might as well have been a ghoul because that was all they could see—a twisted, bloodied black thing moving slowly, painfully toward them. He might have been groaning, or moaning, or even saying something, but it was hard to tell. Or maybe she just didn’t want to know for sure. The man was having trouble pulling his legs out of the unmoving bodies stacked on top of him.
Roy put away his rifle, drew his handgun, and aimed at the man.
Lara waited for him to shoot, but the gunshot never came.
Roy finally let out a sigh and lowered the gun to his side. “I can’t,” he said, almost breathlessly.
Lara drew her own sidearm slowly. It was the only way she could get it out because her hand was shaking, her fingers having a difficult time gripping the Glock.
She took aim at the figure, even as the man lifted a hand toward her, but before she could fire there was a loud bang!
One side of the man’s head exploded and showered the cobblestone. The body slumped to the ground and didn’t move again.
A figure walked calmly out of the tree line to their left side, and a voice said, “I come in peace.”
Danny.
Lara gratefully holstered her gun. Her hand was still trembling slightly, and she had to grip the M4 to give it something to do.
Danny walked toward them with a noticeable slight limp. He opened his mouth to say something when—
BOOM!
The ground shook for a few seconds, and Sarah gasped loudly behind her.
“What the hell was that?” Roy almost shouted.
“That was an explosion,” Stan said.
“What was that?” Lara said into her radio. “Anyone know what that was or where it came from?” When no one answered, she shouted, “Someone answer me!”
She waited for a response, but there wasn’t one for what seemed like an eternity, until Carly finally said, “The shack! It’s the shack!”
Oh, God, did she just say the shack?
“Shack?” Nate said through the radio. “What shack?”
“The one at the power station!” Carly shouted. “It’s open! Lara, the shack’s open!”
The power station was halfway between the hotel and the western cliff. It was a large but unremarkable gray building that controlled the island’s power source. Without it, Song Island was just another dry patch of dirt. But the station itself wasn’t “the shack” Carly was referring to. That was the building next to it—a structure no bigger than what you’d find in someone’s backyard. It was locked and sealed, because on the other side was a tunnel that connected the island to an entranceway along the shoreline of Beaufont Lake. There hadn’t been any activity there for months. Even if someone had managed to sneak their way into the tunnel unnoticed, the door was sealed. It would take…
“The explosion,” Lara said breathlessly.
She was still trying to wrap her mind around the last few seconds when a new burst of gunfire ripped across the island. It wasn’t coming from the beach, because the landing had failed and the invaders were dead. This time it came from the other side of the sprawling but darkened hotel, from the direction of the power station.
Lara spun around and almost bumped into Danny.
“It’s time,” he said.
He was amazingly calm despite everything that had happened, despite what he must know (because she knew, too) what was about to happen.
“Will,” she said, her voice coming out in gasps. “What about Will?”
“He can take care of himself,” Danny said. “We have to go. Now.”
“Lara, what do we do?” Roy asked.
“The shack,” Stan said. He was looking in that direction. “Without the shack…” He didn’t finish.
“Lara?” Sarah said. “What should we do?”
She glanced at Danny one last time.
He nodded.
She turned around and fumbled with the radio, found the right switches, and shouted into it.
> “This is Lara! Everyone who isn’t already there, head to your designated exit points now! I repeat! Head to your exit points now! The island is lost! I repeat! The island is lost! We’re evacuating Song Island!”
BOOK THREE
‡
ALL GOOD THINGS…
CHAPTER 21
WILL
He was alive, and as long as he was breathing, things weren’t completely hopeless. It would take some doing, but it could be done. He could be on his way back to Song Island by the morning and finally see Lara again after being away from her for so long.
I’ve been in worse situations.
He couldn’t remember when exactly, but it would come back to him eventually. Besides, he was dealing with two grunts who were far from home and isolated from their unit. If Mason were around, things might be different. That midget was smarter than he looked. These two, on the other hand, maybe not so much.
“You see that?” Rick asked.
The second guy, whose name turned out to be Millard (Close enough), had stood up and taken a step away from the pools of moonlight pouring in through the gas station’s glass curtain wall. Will wondered if he had done that intentionally or if it was an involuntary response. Either way, the reaction of both men told him that despite whatever deals with the devil they had struck, the fear of the creatures amassed outside hadn’t gone completely away.
“What?” Millard said.
“I thought they moved,” Rick said. He had risen from the floor but remained in a slight crouch, his M4 resting at his side like a crutch.
That’s no way to treat a rifle, soldier.
Of course, Rick wasn’t really a soldier. Despite the fact that the former paramedic had essentially saved his life, Will didn’t feel very warm toward the man. Besides, it would make having to kill Rick easier.
“I don’t see anything,” Millard said.
“No, I swear, I thought I saw them move,” Rick said.
“You said ‘thought.’”
“I saw it.”
Millard had retreated completely into the shadows at the back of the store. Will didn’t know what Rick saw (or thought he saw), but the creatures outside didn’t seem to have moved in any way. They continued to stand, shoulder to shoulder, their numbers so thick that it was impossible to see past them and at the I-10 highway in the background.
Purge of Babylon (Book 5): The Ashes of Pompeii Page 28