Black (Road To Babylon, Book 5)

by Sam Sisavath

  Hanson had been so silent since they arrived at the back table that Gaby had forgotten he was even there. “Yes, ma’am,” the big man said.

  Lara looked over at Parrish. “Start making the arrangements. We attack at dawn.”

  “Roger that,” Parrish said.

  Lara led them away from Parrish and the others and toward another smaller table in a corner. There was food spread out—MREs and bread, along with canned goods. Another small light sat in the middle providing some illumination, but not too much.

  “Any word from Larabie and Galveston?” Gaby asked as she grabbed a loaf of bread and pulled it apart with her teeth. It was old—at least twenty-four hours—but still tasted better than anything she’d ever eaten.

  Lara shook her head. “We finally heard back from some survivors. They’re all saying the same thing: A horde of ghouls came out of nowhere and swarmed the FOBs. I don’t think they even believed what they were saying. And I might not have believed it either, if everyone didn’t say the same thing.”

  “What about Louisiana?”

  “There’s been no activity in Louisiana since Danny left. The base is on high alert, but so far there haven’t been any attacks.”

  “And Danny?”

  “I don’t know. He left for Black Tide Island hours ago. I don’t know if he made it there or not. We still haven’t heard anything from the island itself.”

  “Nothing?”

  “There’s still some kind of storm over the Gulf of Mexico that’s making communications difficult. Danny should have reached the island by now, but…” She paused for a moment. “I don’t know what’s going on over there.”

  Gaby saw the misery on Lara’s face. They weren’t just talking about Black Tide bases anymore or Black Tide personnel, but friends.

  Danny, Carly, Little William…

  “Keo was right,” Lara said. “This thing—this blue-eyed ghoul—it’s allied itself with Buck, and they’ve been building their armies in secret for years. God only knows how many of them are out there that we haven’t even seen yet.”

  The thought made Gaby shiver. More that they haven’t even seen yet? The idea would have been ludicrous twenty-four hours ago, but it was very much a possibility now.

  “What about the ones that were in Darby Bay?” Gaby asked. “The ones in the tunnels? We saw a few of them in the alley while we were crossing through the city, but less than I thought there would be.”

  “A lot of them left the city. The A-10 pilots reported seeing them moving into the woods after we encountered them in the tunnels. It was almost like they were being called away.”

  “That’s what Peters said,” Gaby said. “Like something called them away.”

  Lara nodded and pursed her lips. They both knew what that something was, but neither one of them really wanted to say it out loud.

  “Called away how?” Hanson, standing behind them, finally piped up. “Who are we talking about here?”

  “I asked Danny to reassign you here for a reason,” Lara said.

  “I figured,” the big man said. “I just don’t know what that reason is.”

  “Houston,” Gaby said.

  “What about Houston?”

  “The black-eyed ghouls that were in the city—the army that attacked Larabie and Galveston tonight—didn’t show up out of nowhere. Someone created them. Some thing.”

  Hanson stared at Gaby in silence for a moment before turning to Lara.

  Finally, he said, “Blue eyes.”

  “Yes,” Lara said. Then, to Gaby, “Tell him what Keo told us.”

  Gaby nodded and focused on Hanson. “A lot of people went under Houston five years ago to help end The Purge, but only four came out. Keo, Danny, me…and you.”

  Twenty

  “Well, damn,” Hanson said.

  Gaby smiled. “You’re taking this well.”

  The big man shrugged and spooned another chunk of SPAM out of a can. “Truth be told, I always knew Houston would come back to bite me in the ass sooner or later. After all, you can’t have all that glory without some of the poop, too, right?”

  “Glory?”

  “Hey, how many people can say they fought at The Battle of Houston? What, a handful?”

  “There were more than that, Hanson. If you’re counting the tankers and the pilots.”

  “Sure, but who counts those guys?”

  “They do, for one.”

  “Yeah, but no one else does.”

  “I guess that’s one way to look at it.”

  “Girls dig a hero.”

  “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  Hanson chewed on his food in silence for a bit, looking across the warehouse at the throng of people gathered in front and around them. It seemed as if the numbers had dwindled, but that was probably just because Gaby had gotten used to how many lives were crammed into this one building. According to Lara, most of the local citizenry was still out there, trying to hide out the war.

  Lara was back at the table with Parrish and the others. She was pointing and talking, and the men—and they were all men, Gaby saw—listened intently. Lara taking control wasn’t an unusual sight, but Gaby had to admit there was something impressive about how her friend had managed to overcome all the losses and failures of the night and not even once let on that she was in pain.

  And Lara was in pain. Gaby had seen it when they were walking over to have their private conversation with Hanson. She was still suffering physically from the assassination attempt. She tried to hide it, but Gaby could see through the masquerade. Maybe because Gaby recognized all the signs in herself. Putting on a show for other people’s benefit had become a habit of Gaby’s, too.

  She reached into her pocket and took out the packet of pills that Jolly had given her earlier. She punched out a couple and swallowed them with a bottle of lukewarm water. Her belly was full and she couldn’t eat another bite, and sitting on the hard floor and just resting—doing nothing but just resting—was more than she could have asked for when this long night first began.

  Her watch ticked on. 3:11 a.m.

  Over three more hours before morning. Three and a half hours, give or take. It couldn’t get here fast enough for her. The faster the sun arrived, the faster they could launch the counterattack without worrying about stray ghouls giving the plan away. Even though the last known reports of large ghoul activity were over two hours ago, there was no point in risking an encounter if it could be avoided.

  “Just in case,” Lara had said.

  Just in case is right, Gaby thought as she put the pills away.

  “You all right?” Hanson asked.

  “I’m fine,” Gaby said.

  He was sitting next to her, their backs against the wall. His SAW leaned nearby while she still had the beat up but working carbine she’d been carrying since the encounter at the alley. They’d swapped the enemy’s circled M vests for their own blue BDUs to distinguish themselves for the fight to come. It felt good to be wearing the Inguz patch again.

  Gaby could feel it—that buzzing, that primitive surge of anticipation. She’d learned to control it a long time ago, but sometimes she was still surprised by how anxious she could get when she knew a fight was right around the corner. Anxious…and a little excited.

  “No word from him yet?” Hanson was asking her.

  “Who?” Gaby said.

  “Keyster.”

  She shook her head. “Our last contact with him was yesterday when he was inserting into Fenton. We’re not supposed to hear from him again until morning.”

  “You think we will?”

  Gaby didn’t answer right away, because she understood the real question Hanson was asking. It wasn’t about whether Keo would radio in, but rather, could he. Hanson was wondering the same thing she was: Was Keo even still alive out there?

  “If he can, we’ll hear from him,” Gaby finally said.

  “This Buck, he’s a smart motherfucker,” Hanson said.

  I wish
everyone would stop calling him smart.

  Then: But they’re right. He’s turned out to be one smart motherfucker, all right. Smarter than any of us thought.

  “That appears to be the case,” she said.

  “He had this planned out. I heard the conversation between Lara and Parrish earlier. They underestimated him.”

  “We all did. Keo, me, Lara… We all did.”

  “Five years,” Hanson said. “He’s been planning this for five years. Holy shit. I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, and motherfucker’s been planning it for five friggin’ years. Christ. Talk about a vendetta.”

  “Yeah,” Gaby said and thought, It’s a vendetta, all right. And it’s not just him. It’s Blue Eyes, too.

  Gaby looked over as Becker walked toward them. He was wearing new clothes and had bandages over cuts along his temple, chin, and forehead. He was probably just as bruised and scarred in places she couldn’t see, but he looked like a new man after the blood-covered visage she’d seen earlier. He’d found a helmet and a new carbine, but he still had a noticeable limp as he wandered over.

  “This a private party?” Becker asked.

  “Nah, take a load off,” Hanson said as he started to get up. “I gotta go stretch these legs anyway.”

  The big man picked up his M249 and headed off.

  Becker looked after him for a moment before turning back to Gaby. “Was it something I said?”

  “No, but you do reek,” Gaby said.

  Becker sniffed himself. “You should have seen what they put on my legs and arms. I almost lost consciousness from the smell. The medics didn’t want to give me back my gun, but I told them to screw their Hippopotamus Oath.”

  Gaby smiled.

  He sat down next to her. “So. How you doing?”

  “Better than I’ve felt all day.”

  “Is it the pills or the food?”

  “Both.”

  “I probably got you beat on pills.” He patted one of the pouches around his waist. “They gave me enough to tranq a rhino.”

  “Well, you do look like Frankenstein.”

  “Ouch.”

  “No offense.”

  “None taken. But you actually mean Frankenstein’s monster.”

  “Did I?”

  “It’s a common mistake. Frankenstein was the name of the doctor who created the monster in Mary Shelley’s book. The monster itself didn’t actually have a name. So, technically, when you’re referring to the monster, it’s Frankenstein’s monster, not Frankenstein.”

  “Hunh. I guess you do learn something new every day.” Then, “I thought you were on duty, Frankenstein’s monster?”

  He chuckled. “Boss gave me some time off to recover. It’s pretty quiet out there anyway. At least, until the big push in the morning. Most I’d do is limp around getting in people’s way.”

  Becker didn’t say anything else for a while and seemed content to sit next to her watching a couple of kids running around Lara’s table. Two girls, both barely four, which meant they were born after The Purge. Gaby envied their innocence. What she wouldn’t give to be oblivious to the ramifications of tonight…

  Becker finally spoke up. “If we survive this…”

  Before he could finish, she said, “We will survive this.”

  “When we survive this, then,” Becker continued, “how about you and me go on a date.”

  She looked over at him. “A date?”

  “You know, the thing people used to do before everything went to shit. They called it a date.”

  Gaby didn’t know how to respond. She hadn’t been on a date since…

  She couldn’t remember. It had been a long time. Since high school, at least. She’d never had time for it since The Purge. There were men, but they came and went. She couldn’t spare the requisite emotional investment that a relationship would have required, and she didn’t want to try. Not since Nate, anyway.

  “Well?” Becker was asking.

  “Well, what?”

  “You gonna go out on a date with me when this is over or not?”

  She smirked. “You make it sound as romantic as KP duty.”

  “But hopefully less messy.” Then, grinning mostly to himself, “Or is that, hopefully more messy?”

  “‘More messy?’”

  “More messier?”

  “I think just messier would work.”

  “You think so?”

  “Lara would know,” Gaby said, watching her friend focusing on the map on the table.

  “I heard she used to be a teacher,” Becker said.

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “It’s not true?”

  “She was pre-med.”

  “A doctor?”

  “She was studying to be a doctor.”

  “Wait. She was studying to be a doctor?”

  “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  Becker shrugged. “I dunno. I guess the things she’s done over the years just doesn’t seem like the kind of stuff someone who was pre-med could do.”

  “Lara is a woman of many talents. Leading the human race is just one of them.”

  “I guess so. Wow.”

  “You heard she was a teacher?”

  “Some kind of education field, yeah.”

  “You never asked her to be sure?”

  Becker gave her a look that told Gaby it’d never even occurred to him. “I’m just a bodyguard. Q&A with the asset is not really part of the job description.”

  “She would have told you if you’d asked,” Gaby said.

  “Good to know.”

  There was a flurry of activity, and Gaby looked over as a Black Tider ran down the aisle and toward the table where Lara and Parrish were gathered with the others.

  “Who’s that?” Gaby asked.

  “Don’t know,” Becker said. “Lots of new faces around here.”

  The newcomer must have said something that bothered Lara and Parrish, because they exchanged a quick worried look.

  Gaby got up. “Something’s happening.”

  “Way above my pay grade,” Becker said, standing up next to her. “But not yours.”

  She hurried across the warehouse, dodging the same pair of kids that had been running rings around the table earlier. The mood at the table had shifted noticeably after the soldier’s arrival. It was obvious in the glances and the worried look on Lara’s face.

  She heard Lara asking the newcomer, “How long ago?”

  “Five minutes, ma’am,” the man said. Gaby had never seen him before, but he had night-vision goggles perched on top of his forehead. Which meant he was one of the guys pulling security outside.

  “How many?” Parrish asked.

  “Two that we’re sure of, another that couldn’t be confirmed,” the soldier said.

  “Did something happen?” Gaby asked when she was closer.

  Lara looked over. “A couple of the snipers on Overwatch saw ghoul activity in the area.”

  “Are we talking individual ghouls or a group?”

  “For now, it looks to be just individuals. There might have been a third sighting, but that’s unconfirmed.”

  “Could they be back? The ones that left earlier?”

  “I don’t know,” Lara said. “It could just be isolated incidents like the three you ran across in the alley. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than that.”

  Even as Lara said it, Gaby could see the hope in her friend’s eyes.

  Captain Optimism, right, Lara? she thought about saying out loud, but didn’t because of the others around them.

  “I’m getting an update,” Parrish said as he cupped his right ear and listened to the earbud hooked to his Velcroed radio.

  Five seconds ticked by where the only sounds were someone coughing behind them.

  Gaby and Lara exchanged a long look. Or it felt long, anyway. It was probably just a few seconds.

  Ten seconds more went by before Parrish finally looked up. “We have confirm
ed ghoul contact.”

  “What happened?” Lara asked.

  “Snipers just killed two ghouls half a block from here. They were headed toward us.”

  “The same ones from earlier?”

  “No. Another—” He stopped in midsentence and cupped his ear again. Gaby watched his face closely and saw it paling.

  That’s not good.

  “Captain,” Lara said, barely able to contain her impatience as Parrish remained quiet.

  Parrish shook his head. “Overwatch says they’re seeing ghoul activity near the woods behind us.”

  “How many?” Lara asked.

  Parrish clicked his radio before speaking into his throat mic. “How many do you see, Overwatch?” He paused to listen. Then, “Give me an estimate.”

  Another five seconds.

  Seven…

  Gaby felt a presence behind her and glanced back to find Becker, standing very close and watching (and listening) silently. They exchanged a look, and if she could read minds, Gaby would guess something along the lines of Here we go again was running through Becker’s at the moment.

  “Too many,” Parrish was saying when Gaby turned back around to the table. “They don’t have a hard count, but there’s a lot of them, and they’re gathering at the edge of the woods.”

  “They haven’t moved toward the city yet?” Lara asked.

  Parrish shook his head. “They seem to be amassing, for now.”

  “It’s them,” Gaby said. “The ones that left the city earlier. They’re back.”

  “You don’t know that,” Parrish said.

  “Yes, I do.” Gaby locked eyes with Lara. “The ghouls that the snipers shot were just scouts. What they saw, the hive saw, too.”

  Lara stared back at her but didn’t say anything.

  “They know where we are, Lara,” Gaby continued. “They’re just building up their numbers before they attack. And if they’re doing something like that…”

  “Something like what?” Parrish asked.

  “Organization,” Lara said.

  Gaby nodded. She didn’t say it out loud—she didn’t want to—but she knew Lara was thinking the same thing: If the hive mind knew, then it knew.

  “It wants us,” Keo had said. “Everyone who was down there, underneath Houston when Will took out Mabry. Me, Danny, Gaby, and Hanson. Everyone else who was there that day is dead. It’s just the four of us left.”