The Fires of Atlantis (Purge of Babylon, Book 4)
Page 49
Gaby wanted to pick up Milly and put her on the bed, but she didn’t have nearly enough feeling in her left arm to lift her own hand, much less carry the girl. So she sat on the bed with Claire instead and listened to the thirteen-year-old gradually fall asleep, until eventually she was snoring in tune with Milly and Annie. Claire was still clutching the shotgun against her chest as if it were a childhood teddy bear.
She stayed awake throughout the night and morning, watching Danny as he stood, unmoving, by the window. Every now and then, he asked her to take out some food from his pack and they ate. It didn’t occur to her until much later that he could hardly move.
“You okay?” she asked as he chewed on some stale jerky.
“Sure,” he said, giving her a smile.
Danny had rinsed blood off his face with water, leaving behind a gash along his cheek and another one across his temple that he had treated. Those new wounds, along with his broken nose, ruined the California surfer good looks. But scars, she knew, would heal. It was the ones you couldn’t see that lingered.
“You did good, kid,” Danny said after a while.
“Thanks.”
“Not just tonight. The last few weeks, too, to hear Willie boy tell it.”
“I did okay.”
“Don’t be so modest. We did so good with you, I told the guy downstairs we should open a school. Willie and Danny’s School of Asskicking. What do you think? If you refer a friend, you get a free ammo can filled with silver bullets as bounty.”
She smiled. “Sign me up.”
“I’ll do that. Now, go to sleep,” Danny said. “I’ll wake you in an hour for your turn at the window.”
She didn’t argue. She simply didn’t have the strength.
Gaby lay down on the bed next to Claire’s snoring form. She didn’t think it would happen, but as soon as she closed her eyes (Just for a little bit), she was asleep.
*
Danny was still standing by the window when she opened her eyes and struggled up on the bed.
“Danny,” she said. “You were supposed to wake me.”
“You feel that?” he asked.
She did. The warmth inside the room. The brightness of the walls. The bloody stains on the floorboards looking more ghastly somehow in the morning light. And the small remnants of blood that Danny had failed to clean off his face during the night.
Morning!
“We made it,” she said softly, afraid that if she said it too loud it might jinx it.
Danny nodded. “Told you.”
She looked down at Claire, who had crawled over to sleep in her lap sometime during the night. Annie and Milly were both snoring on the floor in the corner, Milly curled up in a fetal position. The girl looked cold despite the sun that highlighted her dirty round face.
“So what now?” she asked.
“We go home,” Danny said.
“Can we?”
“I don’t see why not.”
She carefully untangled herself from Claire, then climbed off the bed and walked across the room to the window. She looked out at the empty front yard. The grass was trampled and there were signs everywhere that hundreds (thousands) of ghouls had been down there last night. The trucks, she saw with some relief, were still where she had last seen them, and they looked to be in the same condition.
“Will?” she asked.
“Still giving head downstairs.”
She smiled, then peered out across the farm at the highway in the near distance. She expected to see trucks—or technicals, as Will and Danny called them—staring back at her, waiting to finish the job, but they were gone, too.
“The soldiers?” she said.
“They made like bananas and split sometime around sunrise,” Danny said. “My guess is, they realized we had a secret weapon—” he glanced at Claire’s snoring form on the bed “—and decided not to risk it. What is she, twenty?”
“Thirteen.”
“The hell you say.”
“Uh huh.”
“Damn. That girl saved my life last night.”
“How did she manage that?”
“When Frankly Dead Sinatra came through the door, she was the one who distracted it long enough so it didn’t rip my heart out when it had the chance. Hit it with that shotgun of hers, like she was swinging a mallet at a county fair. I guess she didn’t want to risk shooting it for fear of hitting me. Thank God. Have you ever been shotgunned?”
“No.”
“Take my word for it, kid; you’re gonna want to avoid it if you can.”
“I saw her outside in the hallway. She saved my life, too.”
“Technically, you owe me since I’m the one who told her to run.” He looked over at Annie and Milly. “I told them, too, but they weren’t quite as good at following orders. Anyway, when ol’ Blue Eyes was distracted, I managed to judo it and got on top and did my thing with the knife.” He mimed it for her. “I feel sorry for it, actually. It never stood a chance.”
“I didn’t know you knew judo,” she said.
“I didn’t tell you? Judo and me go way back. She still calls me every time she’s in town. She loves to wrestle, oh boy, does she ever.”
Gaby couldn’t help but laugh. Even her left arm didn’t seem to be hurting quite as much as when she had first opened her eyes a few minutes ago. Well, that wasn’t quite true, but she figured as long as she told herself that, the pain was manageable.
Mostly, anyway.
EPILOGUE
They didn’t like seeing him around, and though they did their best to hide it, it was never really good enough. Sometimes he wondered if they were trying at all, or if their hatred for him managed to seep through anyway despite their best efforts. Not that it mattered. Their opinions didn’t have any effect on him either way.
He had been chosen. It was something they would never understand.
“Something’s happening over there,” Travis said. “Turner says there’s a lot of shooting. He could hear it from half a mile away.”
“On the island?” Josh asked.
“Yeah.”
“What did he say was happening?”
“He’s not close enough to know for sure, but he says it sounds like a gun battle, and it’s been going on for the last thirty minutes.”
Josh liked being out here, in the open at night. It was such a luxury after so many months of hiding in smelly basements and other people’s houses, and he took advantage of it whenever he could.
This is the privilege of the chosen. Freedom.
He leaned against the patio railing on the second floor of the red house overlooking Beaufont Lake. A pair of men in uniforms walked along the docks, and there were more on the other docks up and down the shoreline. Just over thirty men in all. Josh had arrived before nightfall with twenty soldiers to augment the twenty or so already here. Except when he showed up, there were only twelve left. Eight were dead.
“They hit us,” Travis had said. “They had a grenade launcher.”
Josh hadn’t bothered to ask for details, because it didn’t matter. Thirty-two men wasn’t going to be enough to overwhelm Song Island. He was already hesitant to move on them with forty, but without Will and Danny, he thought it was doable. Just women and children mostly, he had thought.
“What should we do?” Travis asked now. He sounded nervous when he added, “What does she want us to do?”
Travis was in his thirties and could have passed for Josh’s dad. He used to be some kind of supervisor at a construction company and was used to giving orders, which made him ideal to take over this group, now that the guy who was supposed to lead them had gone and gotten himself dead earlier today. Caught in an explosion, according to Travis.
“She hasn’t told me yet,” Josh said.
“When was the last time you talked to her?”
“Earlier today, before I came here.”
“I thought they slept in the day?”
“They do.”
“So how…?”
“If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you,” Josh said, cutting the older man off. “Tell Turner to get as close as he can without being seen and find out what’s happening on the island.”
Travis nodded. Josh could tell he wanted to say something else, but Travis turned and went back into the house instead. The glass door opened and slid shut behind him. Like everyone these days, even though he was safe in the night, Travis couldn’t quite shake the nervousness and preferred to stay indoors when possible.
And for good reason, too. Josh could see them out there, skirting around the spotlights his men had set up around the perimeter. After two attacks in two days, Josh wasn’t going to take any chances. He had men all the way up the highway watching everything—
Josh smelled it before it even announced its presence. They gave off a scent that was different from the black-eyed ones. Travis probably couldn’t tell the difference, but he had never really been around these new breed of ghouls. Josh had. Too many times to count.
So he didn’t have to glance back at the tall, silhouetted figure standing in the shadows behind him, blue eyes glowing softly against the darkness.
“Why haven’t you taken the island yet?” the ghoul asked. Its voice, like all the other blue-eyed ones, came out as more of a soft hiss, almost like a lisp. It was male, though sometimes it was hard to tell, even for Josh. “It’s become a haven. A beacon of hope. It has to be taken at all costs.”
“We don’t have enough people,” Josh said. His voice was calm and steady. The trick was not to let them know you were afraid. “I’ve sent for more. They’re coming tomorrow, with additional supplies.”
“And you can take the island then…”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes,” Josh said. Did his voice just quiver a little bit? Of course not. He wasn’t afraid of them. He didn’t have to be. He was one of the chosen. “Where’s Kate? She usually gives me the orders herself.”
“She’s busy.”
“With what?”
“It’s none of your concern, meat.”
“You don’t scare me.”
“Don’t I?” It sounded amused that time.
Josh fought the urge to whirl around and face the creature. It was testing him, trying to see if it could get under his skin. But he wasn’t afraid. Why should he be? He was one of the chosen. He didn’t have to fear anymore.
“Tomorrow,” the creature said. “No more excuses. You’ll take the island tomorrow.”
“What about Gaby? Kate told me she’s still alive.”
“Don’t worry; we’ll save your precious lover for you.”
“Don’t hurt her.”
The creature might have snickered. “Just do your part, meat. We’ll bring your female to you, as promised.”
“I’ll take the island, don’t you worry,” Josh said. “What else—”
He stopped. He didn’t have to look back to know it was gone. He could feel it in the way the air hung and the sudden loss of the familiar scent.
Josh refocused on the calm water of Beaufont Lake in front of him instead.
Pros and cons: What were they?
Pros: Gaby was alive. Thank God. She had escaped L15 and hadn’t perished inside the cave outside of town as reported by his men. (Those idiots.) She was stuck outside of Dunbar now. Trapped and surrounded and outmatched. But they wouldn’t harm her once they killed the others. Will and Danny, and some kids he didn’t know and didn’t care about. Gaby was all that mattered. Gaby had always been the only thing that mattered.
Cons: He would storm Song Island tomorrow once the replacements showed up. They had no shortage of manpower these days. All the civilians in the towns were volunteering by the dozens. It had to be the uniforms. Everyone was a sucker for uniforms. It was why he had come up with the military idea in the first place. Even Kate hadn’t thought of it. She and Mabry were already replicating his success in the other states and around the world. Soon, he’d join them in the global effort to domesticate the planet. But that was for later. For now, there was Song Island to deal with.
Conclusion: Gaby was alive and soon they would be reunited. He had failed to convince her before, but he couldn’t give up now. Gaby was too important. She was everything. Even if he had to lock her up for a month or a year. Sooner or later, she would come around. He just needed time. And to get that precious time, he would have to take Song Island and show Mabry he could do more than just think outside the box, that he could act—and do it successfully—too.
He was one of the chosen, after all.
One of these days, humanity would thank him. They would write books about him. Maybe he’d even get his own national holiday. Wouldn’t that be something?
Josh smiled into the darkness and looked south, where he imagined Song Island was.
Tomorrow. It would all be over tomorrow.
There would be violence. It was inevitable. Lara wouldn’t just let him land on the island. They would have to take it by force. Overwhelming force.
The white beaches were going to run red with blood.
So be it.
Wow. Six books in! Who would have thunk it? I certainly didn’t.
I began writing The Purge of Babylon about a decade ago, back when it was called The Road to Babylon. That initial version of the story came out to around 800 pages (give or take). When I resumed writing the tale in 2013 as part of a New Year’s resolution, completely retooling it from the ground up but keeping the basic core—a story about good people in impossible situations—I had no idea it would spawn a series, much less one with such a fantastic fanbase as you guys.
I’ve been asked more than once (okay, a lot) how many books I have planned for the series, and I’ve always answered honestly: I don’t know. But I do know how it’s all going to end…one of these days. I can only ask that you stick with me, and I promise it’ll be a fun, wild and crazy ride.
Until then, please consider taking a moment to leave a review for The Fires of Atlantis at a bookseller of your choice. Even a short review would be tremendously appreciated. Aunt Trudy and her pal Mabel will thank you for giving them the heads up.
Meanwhile, be on the lookout for …
The Ashes of Pompeii
(Book 5 in the Babylon Series)
Coming in Early 2015
Every war requires sacrifices.
Visit my website for news, updates, and announcements
www.roadtobabylon.com
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Books in the Babylon Series
Dedication
About The Fires of Atlantis
Prelude
Book One – S.E.R.E.
1: Keo
2: Lara
3: Gaby
4: Will
5: Gaby
6: Keo
7: Gaby
8: Lara
9: Will
10: Gaby
11: Keo
12: Gaby
13: Will
14: Gaby
15: Will
Book Two – Blue Moon Rising
16: Keo
17: Will
18: Lara
19: Will
20: Keo
21: Will
22: Gaby
23: Will
24: Lara
25: Gaby
Book Three – Run and Gun
26: Keo
27: Will
28: Gaby
29: Lara
30: Will
31: Keo
32: Gaby
33: Will
34: Gaby
Epilogue
or reading books on Archive.