by Sam Sisavath
Granger was smart enough to keep a reasonable distance, not that Keo was entertaining the idea of escaping. There was no point that he could see. Allie and her people clearly didn’t intend to harm him, despite all her unveiled threats. He knew killers when he saw and heard them, and he wasn’t in the company of killers here.
“How long has it been?” he asked.
“What’s that?” she said, leading him along the side of the boat, the large box-shaped cabin to their left.
“Since you guys shoved off land.”
“About one week after the world stopped making sense. We initially had just this one houseboat, but we added the others as more people showed up over the next few weeks and months.”
“Whose idea was this?”
“Mine.” They reached the foredeck, where Allie pointed to the man standing in front of a metal grill rooted to the boat. Fish sizzled, and the smell made Keo’s mouth water some more. “That’s Bill. Bill, this is Keo.”
Bill, who looked to be in his fifties, gave him a perfunctory nod. “What kind of name is Keo?”
“Jimmy was taken,” Keo said.
Allie smirked. “That’s a running gag with you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Whatever. Follow me.”
She led him into the cabin, which was surprisingly spacious. A man in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, sitting in the officer’s chair in front of the helm reading a magazine, stood up and shook his hand when they entered.
“Gabe, Keo. Keo, Gabe,” Allie said. “Gabe’s in charge of making sure the boats don’t sink in the middle of the night.”
“She’s exaggerating my qualifications,” Gabe said. “I’m just a beach bum.”
Gabe was in his early forties and probably a little too tanned for his own good. Keo wondered if that was an issue with the people here, with the sun always beating down on top of them with only the tents and cabins for cover.
“You staying a while?” Gabe asked.
“Not if I can help it,” Keo said.
“We’ll see about that,” Allie said, and gave him a long look. “You could use a little cleaning up.”
“Is that some kind of subtle hint?”
“I didn’t know I was being subtle.” She wrinkled her nose. “You can use that room,” she said, pointing to the back room. “That’s also where I and others sleep, so don’t touch anything. I’ll get Granger to bring you some spare clothes, and we’ll talk over fish when you’re done.”
“You have a working shower in there?”
She laughed. “No, genius. Use the lake, like the rest of us. Then you can change in there. Unless, of course, you like letting everything hang out.”
*
He swam around the island for the next ten minutes, washing every part of him with a bar of soap that Granger had tossed over while the redhead stood along the side of Allie’s houseboat doing his best not to look. The others had also courteously stopped gawking, though some of the kids couldn’t resist.
He changed into new cargo pants and a T-shirt in the back room, which took up one quarter of the cabin and held bunk beds. There were dressers, but apparently not enough for everyone, judging by the clothes hanging along wall hooks. Women’s clothes.
Allie and the others, including Gabe and Bill, and a bearded forty-something Keo hadn’t seen before, sat around the dining table in the center of the cabin eating fried fish with their hands when he came back out. It took Keo a few seconds to realize the bearded man was actually Zachary, cleaned up and wearing regular clothes.
“Look at you,” Allie said. “Cleaned up real good.”
“Was that a compliment?” Keo said.
“Mostly, sure.”
The others made room for him to sit at the table. Allie tossed a fried white bass onto a ceramic plate from a big basket at the center of the table and slid it over in front of him. His fingers were almost trembling when he picked it up and started eating.
Jesus, it tasted good.
“So, you want to tell us what’s going on out there?” Allie said. “It sounded like you guys were fighting World War III.”
“You can hear all the way out here?” Keo said.
“You’d have to be deaf not to. Sound travels these days. Plus, Zach has been tracking all of it since…when?”
“About nine days ago,” Zachary said. “Faded shots, but it was pretty clear they were coming our way. Shorty and I came to the conclusion they’ve been chasing you and your friend since that first gunshot. We wrong?”
Keo shook his head. “No.”
“Who are they?” Allie said. “The truth.”
Keo spent a moment digesting the fish. It was slightly overcooked and crunched in his mouth, but it still tasted better than anything he’d had in…well, it had been a while. Allie opened a cooler and took out a bottle of water. It tasted like rain.
“We’re running from a guy named Pollard,” Keo said. “He wants to kill us.”
“Why?” Allie asked.
“Because I killed his son.”
Allie stared at him for a moment. Then she exchanged a look with Zachary, then with Bill and Gabe. He could almost see her mind turning, crunching the numbers to see how much trouble he had brought them, and how putting a bullet in his head, then tossing him into the lake would solve all her troubles. His first instinct was that she wasn’t capable of something like that, but that was before the world went to shit. Who knew, these days, what even the most mild-mannered person was capable of…
“Why did you kill his son?” she finally asked.
“Because his son was trying to kill me,” Keo said.
“So it was self-defense.”
“Yes.”
“Or is that your interpretation of events?”
“What is this, a courtroom?”
“Why shouldn’t it be?” she said with a slight edge in her voice.
“He didn’t give me any choices. He was trying to shoot me, so I shot him first.”
“Sounds pretty straightforward.”
“It was.”
“From the beginning,” Zachary said. “The truth, kid.”
Keo told them about the attack on the house and killing Joe during the gunfight. He skipped the part about Levy, the creature in the garage, and Bobby, Pollard’s nephew. He told them about Gillian and the others escaping on Mark’s boat during the battle, then added in the ambush by Pollard’s men at the gas station along the interstate, figuring it would get him some bonus points. He left out the part where he and Norris killed two more of Pollard’s men at the barbershop.
Nothing he told them was a lie. He just elected not to tell them everything. Given their situation—hiding out here in the middle of the lake—he guessed (hopefully correctly) that they were more apt to fall on his side if forced to choose between him and a man like Pollard.
“So they just go around taking what they want?” Gabe said when Keo finished.
“They have the firepower for it,” Keo said. “From what I’ve been told, Pollard is ex-military, and he’s leading the others like a paramilitary group.”
“How do they survive out there?” Allie asked. “Do they have a base?”
“Apparently there are more of them back in Corden. Pollard just bought his killers with him. As for how they’ve been surviving since they started chasing us, I guess the same way we have—sheltering in buildings at nights, et cetera.”
“Hard to do with that many people,” Zachary said.
“Not my problem. I got the impression they were used to it, though.”
“Would have to be. Fifty is a lot of people to take care of on the road.”
Keo grabbed another bass and dug out some choice white meat. He was thinking about Norris as he ate.
Are you still alive out there, old-timer?
“So, what’s your next move?” Allie asked him.
“Go back and find my friend,” Keo said.
“What if he’s dead? Or cap
tured?”
“Doesn’t matter. I need to find out for sure. I owe him.”
Allie nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay?” he said.
“Okay,” she said again. Then, “We’ll return your stuff and you can be on your way. I assume you’ll want to leave as soon as possible.”
“You assumed correctly.” Then he added, “Thanks.”
“Don’t bother. The only reason we even believe anything you’re saying is because of what Zachary and Shorty saw out there. They backed up your story of this Pollard asshole having a paramilitary army running around in the park.”
“You saw them?” Keo said to Zachary.
Zachary nodded. “They made base at the visitors’ building at the other side of the park. Like you said, about fifty or so. Tactical assault gear and armed to the teeth. People like that are used to taking what they want.”
“So eat up, and I’ll send Zachary and Shorty to take you back to the park,” Allie said.
He smiled at her. “And, of course, me going back there keeps you out of Pollard’s crosshairs in case he notices your little island out here, right?”
“What, was I being too subtle again?” Allie said.
*
He would have liked to spend more time on the island, maybe get to know the other survivors and pick up supplies they might be willing to part with, but time wasn’t on his side at the moment.
Big surprise. Time, you’re such a bitch.
So he spent the next few minutes after lunch (or was it breakfast?) in the back room making sure the MP5SD was still working after it had been manhandled first by Shorty, then Granger. He dry fired it before loading it back up.
Allie came in while he was counting his magazines and checking the Glock. “Got enough bullets there?”
He smiled over. “You can never have too many bullets.”
“Good to hear. Wouldn’t want you to run up against this Pollard asshole without the proper tools at your disposal.”
“That would be a crying shame, all right.”
She hesitated, and he sensed she was about to say something but wasn’t quite sure how to do it.
“What’s on your mind, Allie?”
“You can stay here,” she said, “if you wanted.”
“I thought you were anxious for me to leave.”
“You can always come back later. As long as we stay under Pollard’s radar, he’ll eventually have to move on.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it, but I made a promise.”
“To your friend.”
“To him, and to someone else, too. That means heading south after all this is over.” If I’m still alive, he thought, but added instead, “But thanks for the offer. It’s tempting.”
“Too bad,” she said, then turned to go.
“How’d you know?”
She looked back. “About what?”
“The island. How’d you know the bloodsuckers couldn’t swim?”
“I didn’t. We needed a place to go and some of the people I was sheltering with in the early days knew about this place. We only learned later that they didn’t like the water. After that, it just made sense to stay here. We’ve been here for almost a year, and we haven’t run out of homes to raid for supplies yet. It’s going to be a long time before we even have to risk going farther inland.”
“It’s a good setup,” he nodded. “You guys have a good thing going here.”
“We were lucky.”
“I’ve been wondering since I arrived at the park, but whose idea was it to bring all the boats over?”
“All? You’ve only been to a small piece of the lake, Keo. The boats you see here don’t represent all the ones that were left behind. We only took the ones that we could use.”
“What about the rest?”
“We sank them.”
“All of them?”
“Haven’t you learned by now? The creatures are dangerous at night, but there are other dangerous species in the day.”
“Guys like Pollard.”
“Ding ding, give the man with the questionable name a prize.”
He chuckled. “Cute.”
“Hey, I’m a former divorce lawyer. I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Divorce lawyer. Ouch.”
“Only if you weren’t one of my clients.”
“I was never the marrying kind myself.”
“No, but you’re the loyal kind. Going back there is suicide, but you’re doing it anyway. That’s impressive.”
“Thanks,” he said, “because I’m pretty sure I’m the biggest dumbass in the universe.”
She laughed. “Hey, there are no rules that say I can’t think you’re the biggest dumbass in the universe and still respect you.”
*
Shorty, like Zachary, had changed into civilian clothes when Keo saw him again, though like his older companion, he was as heavily armed as the first time they had met. Both men were waiting in the canoe when he walked down the dock by himself and climbed in.
“You must have a death wish or something, San Diego,” Shorty said.
“He’s going to look for a friend,” Zachary said. “Can’t blame the man.”
“Sure I can. Just watch me.”
Keo settled into the same spot in the middle of the boat while Shorty pushed them off with his paddle. The two men turned them around then began stroking back toward land. Keo glanced over one shoulder and saw Allie on the deck of the houseboat looking in their direction. She wasn’t the only one. Curious strangers poked their heads out of tents, and some stood on boat decks to watch him go.
That’s right, boys and girls, get a look at the dumbest man in the known universe. He will wow you with his stupid decisions.
He turned around and faced the shoreline. The trees looked small in the distance, like blades of grass sticking out of an untended front yard. “Has anyone ever spotted the island from the shore?” he asked.
“It’s happened once or twice,” Zachary said. “It’s a lot harder than you’d think, even with binoculars, unless you know exactly where to look.”
No one said anything else for the next twenty minutes. The only noise was the soothing whoosh-whoosh of the paddles cutting through the water in front and behind, and to the left and right of him. Keo took the time to reorient himself with the shape of the park. It looked different when viewed from the middle of the lake. Longer and more expansive somehow. And it had felt pretty damn huge when he was racing through it before.
They were about 200 meters from land when Zachary said, “Stop for a moment, Shorty.”
Keo looked back at Zachary, who picked up a gym bag from the bottom of the boat and handed it to him. “Allie thought you might be able to use it. Just in case.”
Keo took the bag—it was heavy—and opened it. He looked in at an M4 rifle with a holographic gun sight on top. He also counted six spare magazines and two bottles of water.
“Those should keep you going for a while in case that German gun quits on you,” Zachary said.
“She must like you,” Shorty said from the front. Then, in a lower voice, “Maybe she’s not a lesbian after all.”
Keo ignored him and said to Zachary, “Thank Allie for me when you get back.”
“I’ll do that,” Zachary said. He picked up his paddle and dipped it back into the water.
Shorty did likewise, and the canoe started moving again, taking them closer to land with every stroke.
Back toward Pollard and his fifty men.
Back to Norris…if he was even still alive.
CHAPTER 8
He knew where the island was—or, at least, its general direction—but Keo still couldn’t see it with the naked eye no matter how hard he tried. He guessed it might be different if he had a pair of binoculars. He could see the canoe, though; it was a tiny dot in the horizon, with Zachary and Shorty two stick figures seemingly floating on top of the water.
Keo turned and hurried off the beach and into the woods, hefting th
e gym bag with the M4 over one shoulder, the MP5SD in front of him. It was still an hour before noon, but the heat was already making a menace of itself. He couldn’t imagine how much worse it would have been if he hadn’t taken a dip in the lake earlier and was still trudging around in his old dirt, mud, and blood-covered clothes.
He had to find Norris.
He didn’t know how. That was the problem. His best option—his only option—was to head back to the two-story house along the eastern shoreline and try to pick up the trail from there. Zachary had put him back on land about the same place they had taken off from, so all he had to do was backtrack and keep the lake to his right just beyond the tree lines.
If all else failed, he knew where Pollard’s base was. Of course, that was a worst-case scenario. As much as he wanted to find Norris—and save him, if he needed saving—the idea of going up against fifty (or so) men wasn’t exactly something he eagerly embraced. Keo was used to bad odds, but damn, these were really bad odds.
He walked for an hour, maintaining a steady pace, and only drank half the bottle of water he had transferred from the gym bag to his pack. If he had to run, the bag and the heavy M4 in it, not to mention the spare magazines, would have to go first. He would have loved to be able to carry both weapons, but if push came to shove, the MP5SD was always his first choice. No one made weapons like the Germans.
It was just past noon when he finally got close enough to the two-story house to spot its familiar white frame from a distance. He knew it wasn’t empty when he was still 200 meters away because he could hear voices. They weren’t being very quiet.
Keo went into a crouch and listened to a conversation in mid-stream. A man and a woman, less than sixty meters in front of him, hidden from him just like he was hidden from them (or at least, he hoped). It was a miracle they hadn’t heard his approach.
It took another ten seconds of listening before he realized they weren’t actually talking. The sounds he heard weren’t words, but moaning, grunting, and sighs of pleasure.