Black (Road To Babylon, Book 5)

by Sam Sisavath

  But they didn’t have permission, because Blue Eyes hadn’t given it.

  Kill Blue Eyes and it’s over. That’s all it’ll take.

  One bullet…

  Her finger moved against the trigger, but she didn’t pull it. Neither did Becker or Peters, though she didn’t know why they weren’t. Gaby only knew that she was afraid to, frightened that the loud clap of a gunshot would start the black eyes moving again.

  And then what? There was nowhere to go. Nowhere but forward…or back…and down.

  Either option was undesirable.

  She thought about Will and what he always said about opportunities.

  “Buckle up, Buttercup. This is no time to wallow in your failures. Put on your big girl pants and focus. Stay alive and look for your windows of opportunity. And there will be opportunities; you just have to see it. So pay attention.”

  So she did that now, searching for the window.

  It was there somewhere. All she had to do was see it.

  So why couldn’t she see it? Maybe because there wasn’t one this time. Will was usually right about a lot of things, but not always. No one could always be right, even Will—

  The growing roar of jet engines from behind them, getting louder and louder—

  She glanced back as the gray mechanical beast appeared in the sky, approaching them at a thousand miles per hour.

  Mayfield.

  Blue Eyes saw it, too, and it glanced toward the approaching aircraft—

  Now!

  Gaby fired—and struck the creature in the forehead!

  No, not the forehead—her bullet had grazed its temple! Had the damned thing moved at the very last crucial millisecond? Had it heard the gunshot or felt the bullet ripping through the air and twitched just soon enough?

  No, no, no!

  She fired again, a split second before the blue-eyed ghoul vanished off the access building and the roar of Mayfield’s engines grew louder still behind them.

  Then Becker and Peters were shooting, too, because the ghouls to the sides of them were moving again—

  Brooooooooooorrrrttttttttt!

  The middle of the rooftop exploded under the onslaught of 30mm rounds, and the floor underneath Gaby began breaking apart at the seams. Debris showered her, thousands (millions?) of individual gravel that used to be around her feet now in the air and raining back down like hail. More than a few struck her in the head and face, even more ricocheting off her chest and arms and legs.

  Jesus! What did you do, Mayfield? What did you do!

  She fought to stay upright against the onslaught of pebbles and whatever else had been jettisoned into the air—severed heads, limbs, endless sheets of flesh, and gallons and gallons of thick black blood. She struggled to maintain her grip on the Glock (Don’t lose your weapon! Whatever you do, don’t lose your weapon!) while her other hand reached for and found Becker’s arm.

  “It’s coming apart!” she shouted over the roar of jet engine and screams.

  Screams? Who was screaming?

  The ghouls. The ones still intact and the ones that weren’t; they were screaming—or making screeching noises that sounded like screams—as they tumbled and fell through an opening that was forming in front of her.

  Oh, my God, the rooftop is disappearing…

  Becker was grabbing her arm in response, shouting, “Hold on! Hold on!”

  “Fuck me!” Peters shouted as he, too, scrambled to grab onto anything he could find—that turned out to be Becker’s other arm—as all three of them careened toward the middle with the sinking rooftop, threatening to fall through the widening hole with all the ghouls already slipping and sliding and falling.

  The rooftop. The sinking rooftop!

  In the years since she had become a member of Black Tide, Gaby had slowly become used to the sights and sounds of a Warthog fighting with her instead of against her. But she still thanked God every chance she got that she never had to go up against them again, or be in their crosshairs. She remembered those early days of The Purge when only the bad guys had airpower, and even though she knew Mayfield was trying to save their lives (or, at least, she hoped that was what the pilot had intended!), she couldn’t stop every inch of her being from shaking right along with the building.

  And then, just as quickly as it had begun pulling itself apart, the structure underneath her began steadying. She embraced the rush of exhilaration as she looked after the Warthog, now getting smaller in the distance.

  The pek-pek-pek of gravel sliding off the slanted parts of the rooftop and bouncing off the abandoned apartments underneath them drew her back to her situation. The echoing sounds of loosened chunks of brick and mortar and seemingly millions of pieces of glass pelting the streets seven floors below them filled the night air.

  But the rest of the apartment was still standing, and them right along with it.

  They were still standing!

  The roof access had disappeared along with Blue Eyes, but Gaby didn’t believe for one second that Mayfield had killed the bastard. Even if the pilot had spotted it and was aiming for the creature—that made sense because she had fired right into the middle, hadn’t she?—it had plenty of time to see the Warthog coming and to take action. And it was fast. It was so fast.

  Not that she stopped herself from hoping anyway.

  Be dead, you bastard. Be dead!

  Please, God, let it be dead!

  As she, Becker, and Peters stumbled backward, it allowed Gaby a moment to take stock of what had happened:

  The middle of the rooftop had come undone under the Warthog’s assault, leaving a trough-like crevice flanked by the remaining east and west sections, now islands on different sides of the rooftop. The western section they were standing on was slanted noticeably toward the middle, but there were enough spaces for them to move around without fear of falling into the gaping hole that wasn’t there just seconds ago.

  They backed up some more, even as ghouls launched themselves across the black opening to get at them from the eastern half. But the distance was too big, and they fell into the abyss one by one. A few almost made it, desperately grabbing for any handholds along the sloped areas but not finding any and sliding down into the dark apartments below along with the rest. She could hear them thrashing around down there and glimpsed dark shapes moving in the blackness as they desperately searched for some way back up. A few managed to somehow grab at the angled edges and tried to pull themselves up, but Becker and Peters stabbed at them with their silver-bladed knives.

  A wall of ghouls faced them from the other side of the trough. They fidgeted anxiously, shuffling their feet back and forth. They kept jostling for space, accidentally (or purposefully?) knocking the ghouls at the front off the edge and into the hole. Gaby eyeballed at least twenty meters of open space between them and the creatures.

  That’s enough. That’s more than enough…

  They bared their teeth at her, but she ignored them and instead searched for and found Mayfield’s Thunderbolt in the sky, only now banking to come back for a second pass.

  Mayfield. What was she going to do now? What could she do?

  For that matter, what could they do? They were trapped up here, with even less real estate to maneuver. They might have been temporarily safe from the black eyes—she imagined they could keep stabbing ghouls that attempted to climb up from the floor below or jump onto their side until morning—but what about Blue Eyes? If it was still out there—

  It’s not dead. You know damn well it’s not dead.

  Gaby turned to Peters. “Mayfield. She still has the Mavericks.”

  “So?” Peters said, eyeing the jagged ledge before him for another ghoul to kill.

  Gaby took him by the shoulders and made him look at her. They locked eyes. It was just a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. “If it’s not dead…”

  “Blue Eyes?” Peters said.

  “If it’s not dead, and it’s still up here with us…” She paused. Then, “Mayfi
eld still has the Mavericks.”

  “Yeah, she does,” Peters said.

  He took out his radio but didn’t press the transmit lever right away. Instead, he looked at her as if to say Are you sure about this?

  “It’s the only way to keep her safe,” Gaby said.

  “Yeah. It’s the only way,” Peters said, and was about to press the transmit lever when something flickered in the corner of Gaby’s eyes.

  She spun around just as something sailed over the gaping twenty-meter hole that kept them safe from the army of ghouls.

  No, no…

  Gaby lifted her Glock to shoot it, but it was too fast and it landed behind Peters, taking away her ability to fire.

  “Peters!” she got out.

  Peters spun, his hand with the SIG swinging up, and he got off a shot before the blue-eyed ghoul threw him off the edge.

  Peters!

  It had grabbed, lifted, and tossed Peters as if he were nothing more than a bothersome gnat not worth the monster’s time to toy with. One second her friend was there, and the next he was simply…gone.

  “No!” Gaby shouted and ran to the edge even as Becker opened fire behind her.

  She almost pitched right off the ledge but managed to stop herself in time by sliding to her knees. She looked down but couldn’t find Peters anywhere among all the piles of debris down there.

  First Jolly, now Peters. Everyone was dying around her.

  All her friends…

  Moonlight glinted off something next to her. Gaby turned and saw Peters’s radio. She lunged for it even as Becker continued to shoot at the creature, the bang-bang-bang! of his gunshots reassuring her that he was still alive, still giving her the precious few seconds she’d need to do what she needed to do.

  “Two Maverick air-to-surface missiles and just enough 30mm rounds to scratch an itch,” Peters had said.

  She grabbed the radio and looked back as Becker walked calmly toward Blue Eyes, firing the entire time with both hands on his gun for maximum accuracy. The creature was twisting its body and turning its head to avoid Becker’s bullets. Becker managed to hit it in the chest, the shoulder, but the closest he got to nailing the monster in the head was a round through its cheek, ripping loose a glob of flesh and exposing bone underneath.

  Then there was a very loud click as the slide on Becker’s weapon locked in place. Instead of reloading—did he even have anything to reload with?—Becker turned and looked back at Gaby, and she thought he might have smiled.

  Or tried to, before the creature shoved its fist into Becker’s chest and ripped out his heart.

  Gaby screamed, “No!” and scrambled to her feet, backing up even as Becker’s body slithered to the rooftop floor and Blue Eyes stood over him, a bloodied heart beating in its palm. Blood dripped from its fingers, and the monster smirked at her.

  A voice, coming through the speaker in Gaby’s hand. Mayfield. “Coming back for a second pass. You guys gotta get off the rooftop. I don’t know how, but you gotta get off that rooftop. There’s not going to be anything left if I hit it again.”

  Gaby stared at Blue Eyes as it let Becker’s heart drop, then lifted its hand to its lips and licked at the dripping blood.

  Becker.

  Joe…

  She was suddenly very calm. She wasn’t sure why or how she was so calm. Why wasn’t she more afraid? She should be, shouldn’t she? Peters was gone. So was Joe. Everyone was gone now, except for her.

  She should have been terrified—she was all alone—but she wasn’t. The calmness filled her up, allowing her to do what she had to.

  Gaby let the Glock drop from her hand. It was empty anyway. She didn’t remember when she had fired the last shot, but there was nothing left.

  The creature was still licking its fingers, enjoying the taste of Becker’s blood, when Gaby pressed the transmit lever and raised the radio to her lips and said very calmly into it, “Mayfield. This is Gaby. I want you to use your Mavericks. Both of them.”

  “Gaby?” Mayfield said through the radio. “Please confirm that last part. I need confirmation on the last part.”

  “Use the Mavericks,” Gaby said into the radio.

  “Gaby, are you sure?”

  “It’s the only way to keep Lara safe.”

  The creature stopped licking its lips and narrowed its eyes at her. Suddenly its twin blue orbs seemed to lose some of their luster.

  “Do it,” Gaby said. Then, shouting into the radio, “Do it, do it, do it!”

  The creature was suddenly standing in front of her. She managed a single step backward—

  “Do it, Mayfield! That’s an order!”

  —when it swatted the radio out of her hand and it vanished over the ledge. Her shouts turned into screams of agony as every bone in her fingers broke.

  She would have fallen to her knees against the unbearable pain if it had let her, but the monster didn’t. It was holding her up by the throat with one hand, long and delicate (and cold; so, so cold) fingers tightening against her flesh.

  Gaby gagged and struggled to breathe. Her vision began to blur, but not completely. That was unfortunate, because she would have liked not to see what was about to happen next.

  “So you were there,” it said. Hissed. Its words caressed her face in an impossible blanket of heat and cold. How could something be both at once? “You and Keo, and the others. How many more?”

  It leaned toward her, the brightness of its blue eyes returning—glowing even more marvelously than before, as if they had gotten a new breath of life. She couldn’t look away even if she wanted—

  A gray dot in the sky drew her eyes, and she focused on it.

  A small object, growing larger with every struggling heartbeat she managed.

  “Don’t worry about Hanson,” the ghoul hissed. “I already found him.”

  Hanson? Oh.

  Then: Focus!

  She shifted her eyes back to the creature. She couldn’t give it away. She couldn’t let it know what was coming. Not that it seemed to have even noticed where she was looking or what was approaching them, even though Gaby thought it had to have heard the Warthog’s engines, so loud against the silent night.

  It took time to sniff her instead, its sunken nostrils twitching. “I can smell them on you,” it hissed. “Keo. And the other one. They’ll both end up in the same place. They’ll both wish I had killed them. But I won’t. Oh no, I won’t. It won’t be that easy.”

  Gaby didn’t say anything. What could she say, even if she could still make sounds? Her throat was beyond constricted. The creature was crushing her windpipe.

  Instead, she looked away from the monster and down at Joe’s body. He had fallen on his stomach, the back of his head turned to her. That was probably for the best, because she didn’t want to see the frozen horror on his face and have it be her last image of him. She preferred the smiling Joe. The handsome, blond soldier who had saved her life so many times tonight.

  I’m sorry, Joe. I would have liked to go on that date.

  “Did you really think you could kill me?” Blue Eyes hissed. “Did you really think you could keep me from your precious Lara forever?” Bloody strings that could pass for lips arched in what it probably thought (wrongly) was a smile. “Oh, I know what you did. Or what you tried to do. After this, I’ll go back for her. I’ll tell her you tried your best, but that in the end, you’re just a sack of meat like all the others. You’re only…human.”

  Gaby could barely hear its taunts. She didn’t care anyway, because the Warthog was growing larger in the background. If Blue Eyes had convinced itself to ignore the increasing roar of Mayfield’s jet engines before, it couldn’t any longer.

  It glanced briefly over its shoulder, and when it turned back around, Gaby saw the realization in its eyes.

  It knew.

  “You can’t have her,” Gaby said, desperately grunting out each word with everything she had, which wasn’t much, but it was enough. It was just enough for one final moment of re
bellion. “You can’t have Lara,” she said again. Then, shouting as loud as she could, “You can’t have my friend, you fucker!”

  There was a flash as something ignited underneath one of the approaching Warthog’s fixed wings. The plane was close enough now that Gaby imagined she could see a clown’s face grinning back at her.

  The blue-eyed ghoul turned to flee, but Gaby reached forward with both arms and wrapped them around its neck before it could. She sagged against the creature’s hot-cold flesh and let her weight pull it down to the floor with her. She held on even as the monster tried to pry her loose, tried to fling her off and escape.

  Bones broke, but she wasn’t sure it was hers or—Oh, who was she kidding? It was hers. She didn’t know which part of her body had broken, and it didn’t matter anyway.

  She held onto it and refused to let go.

  Wet blood splashed her chin. Also hers.

  An organ burst. There should have been pain, but she didn’t feel anything. She guessed she had only seconds left to live.

  They were moving across the rooftop, but she was slowing it down. She was too heavy. Gravity and her slackened body refused to let it move any faster.

  A second light flickered underneath the Warthog’s other fixed wing. Now Gaby was pretty sure she could see the clown’s face as the A-10 began to bank upward, exposing its magnificent gray belly to the ghouls suddenly going mad on the rooftop all around her.

  “No!” the creature she was clinging to hissed.

  Yes, she thought.

  There was intense heat, the kind that could melt flesh from bone in the blink of an eye, but all Gaby cared about was the sound of Blue Eyes screaming.

  It was music to her ears, and she let the triumph wash over her, and managed a smile at the very end.

  Epilogue

  “This is Keo to any Black Tide assets still out there. If you’re hearing this, please respond. I repeat: This is Keo to any Black Tide assets still out there. If you’re hearing this, please respond. Someone, anyone, please respond…”