by Sam Sisavath
“You think he’s back there?” Danny asked. “Our little buddy Josh?”
“If she’s there, he’s probably there, too.”
“Kid’s got it bad. I remember the last time a girl had me so head over heels. Of course, it never occurred to me to sell out the human race for her affections. Then again, Dad always did say I lacked ambition.”
“If only he could see you now.”
“Yeah. Take that, Pops.”
They hadn’t gone more than a few minutes before Will heard it—felt it, really. He grabbed Kellerson and pushed him down onto one knee, while at the same time he and Danny went into a crouch and looked to their right through a small grouping of trees.
They were less than forty meters from the highway that connected the town to the interstate, and Will had previously spotted a couple of vehicles—both trucks—coming and going. At the moment, he caught a flash of red paint, then dull green. A pickup truck up front, followed by an Army five-ton transport, its thick tires kicking up clouds of dust in its wake.
“Haven’t seen those in a while,” Danny said. “My ass hurts just looking at them.”
Will reached over and peeled the duct tape half off Kellerson’s mouth. The man sighed with relief and sucked in a deep, fresh breath.
“Those five-tons,” Will said. “Are they always full when they show up at these places?”
“Yeah,” Kellerson nodded. He sounded hoarse, even though he had just drank some water a few hours ago. “The kid believes in efficiency, and he’s been organizing everyone into a military mindset. Thinks he’s a major or something.”
“The kid.” Josh.
You actually entrusted one of your operations to an eighteen-year-old kid, Kate? Really?
“How many does a town like L15 hold?” Will asked.
“Maybe two or three thousand,” Kellerson said.
“How many dickheads do they have watching that many people?” Danny asked.
Kellerson shrugged. “Anywhere from ten to twenty.”
“Ten to twenty for a few thousand?” Danny wrinkled his nose. “You telling a fib, Kellerson? Want Willie boy here to start working on those toes next?”
“He doesn’t get it, does he?” Kellerson said, looking at Will.
Will slapped the duct tape back over Kellerson’s mouth.
“Get what?” Danny said. “You BFFs have a joke you wanna share with me? Come on, I’m starting to feel like the third wheel here.”
“He means they don’t need a lot of guards,” Will said. “The people in these towns are here of their own free will. They don’t want to leave. My guess is, ten is more than enough, and twenty is overkill.”
“So what you’re saying is, when we finally get around to going in there guns blazing, they won’t be throwing their virginal daughters at us?”
“That’s an affirmative.”
Danny grunted. “Well, damn. I certainly signed up for the wrong road trip, didn’t I?”
*
THEY WALKED FOR another hour until they reached the spot where they had stashed the camouflage ATVs earlier—a small group of buildings about half a kilometer from I-49. It was a homestead connected to the highway by a spur road that hadn’t looked traveled even before The Purge. The house’s main building was a bungalow flanked by an empty garage. A long red barn, the paint badly chipped by neglect and weather, squatted in the back with a rusted-over tractor out front. The place was as out-of-the-way as they could find on short notice.
The ATVs were hidden inside the barn among the unused bales of hay and horseless stables. Walking the rest of the way to L15 had been necessary. Sound traveled these days, and the roar of all-terrain vehicles would have been obvious to even a deaf man.
There hadn’t been much of the bungalow to explore, and their biggest worry was the decayed sloping roof falling down on them. They found what they were looking for in the back of the house, hidden behind rotting twin doors that opened up into an underground cellar. There wasn’t much inside except for old tractor parts and stacks of cinder blocks under dust-covered tarps. They cleared out just enough space in one corner and dropped their bedrolls and supply packs.
Kellerson sat down in one corner on the dirt floor. Will let him eat a stick of beef jerky and gave him a bottle of water to wash it down with. When he was done, Will covered his mouth back up before he could say a word. The fight had gone out of Kellerson about the same time Will threatened to take the collaborator’s third finger.
They found a way to lock the doors by looping coiled steel cables around the handles and snapping a padlock in place. When that didn’t look like it would hold against a prolonged assault, they stacked the cinderblocks in front of the entrance, then threw the heavy tarps over them to make sure not a single inch of space could be seen from the other side. The creatures had proven themselves too smart at detecting people to take any chances.
If their luck did happen to run out, at least they had plenty of the right ammo to fend off an attack. Danny and Roy had left Song Island well prepared, and Will had taken all of Roy’s before they parted company this morning. Roy took the regular ammo because in the daytime, any ol’ bullet would do. Will and Danny carried two heavy bags and two tactical backpacks with them, stuffed with a combination of what Danny and Roy had brought and what they had salvaged from Kellerson’s dead crew. Dead men didn’t need beef jerky, bottled water, and spare ammo. The portable ham radio he had been using to communicate with Song Island was among the supplies.
Will looked down at his watch’s glow-in-the-dark hands: 5:34 P.M.
“You think she’s still alive in there?” Danny asked. He was chewing loudly on a stick of jerky.
“Gaby?”
“No, Yoko Ono. Yeah, Gaby.”
“She’s Gaby.”
“Yup. That’s her name, all right.”
“What I mean is, she’ll be fine. She’s a survivor. You should have seen her at the hospital.”
“Yeah?”
Will nodded. “Yeah.”
Soon, the only evidence that Danny was even leaning against the dirt wall next to him was the sound of chewing. Somewhere to his right, Kellerson was breathing deeply. How the man could make so much noise while only inhaling and exhaling through his nostrils was a mystery. Will had considered removing Kellerson’s duct tape to make it easier on him, but it never took long for the man’s crimes—those that Will knew for a fact, and likely more he didn’t even know about—to come up again, and it took all of Will’s strength not to execute him on the spot.
Night came, and they heard scurrying outside almost immediately. The soft patter of bare feet against hard ground vibrated through the dried dirt around them.
Will flicked the fire selector on his M4A1 rifle from semi-automatic to full-auto just in case.
“You nervous in the service, son?” Danny whispered somewhere in the darkness.
Will smiled.
“I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your flimsy cellar doors down,” Danny whispered.
A soft click as Danny flicked at his carbine’s fire selector.
Will sat back against the cool dirt wall and groped his pack for the all-too-light bottle of painkillers. He shook out two Tramadol and popped them into his mouth, then swallowed without chewing. He pulled up his shirt and ran his palm over the stitching along his right side and considered it a good sign he didn’t feel any wetness. His left arm had numbed over since yesterday, and he hadn’t felt anything more than the occasional slight tingles coming from his left hip in a while. Either the pills were working, or he had become used to them.
What he wouldn’t give to have Lara look him over. The last thing he needed was an infection. Battlefield wound treatment was a crapshoot at best, but leaving them for days was just asking for it.
Of course, having Lara treat him meant going back home. Back to Song Island.
And he couldn’t do that. Not yet. Not while Gaby was still out there…
*
ARO
UND MIDNIGHT HE drifted off, waking up two hours later to let Danny sleep.
Each time Will woke up, he could hear Kellerson moving erratically in the darkness, possibly from a nightmare. Or it could be the bugs and hairy legs of spiders crawling up and down his body. Will felt them too, but they were small enough that he didn’t bother chasing them off. He did slap a few that wandered too close to his neck and face, squashing them against his palm, then wiping the leftover goop on the floor.
When he was awake, he listened to the occasional movements on the other side of the cellar doors, like rats scratching in the walls. He wasn’t surprised they were out there, though it did make him more than a little uncomfortable they were this close. There was no one in the house, and surely they must have already searched it a hundred times since The Purge, so why were they back?
But the creatures’ presence in the area didn’t surprise him at all. There were people nearby in L15. Humans that had given up liberty for salvation. Blood for safety.
“They’re not like you, Will,” Zoe had said to him once. “They’re not soldiers. They’re just trying to survive the end of the world the best they can.”
I would rather die first.
Danny woke up two hours later, and Will went back to sleep.
*
HE FELT THE heat building inside the cellar with the morning, and small slivers of sunlight flitted through the barricade in front of him when he opened his eyes. Not much light, just enough to illuminate parts of the room.
He sat up and soaked in the peace and quiet of a waking world. The birds had already begun chirping, and Will thought about Lara, about waking up next to her and wishing he were there now instead of sitting inside a room literally dug out of the ground.
After about an hour of tranquility, he stood up and woke Danny, who had been sleeping soundlessly next to him.
“I’m up, I’m up,” Danny said. “What’s for breakfast?”
“Beef jerky.”
“That’s what we had yesterday.”
“Ain’t life grand?”
“I could have stayed on the island and eaten pancakes. Speaking of which, you know what else Sarah found in the kitchen freezer?”
“What’s that?”
“Jimmy Hoffa. Turns out he was in there this whole time.”
“You don’t say.”
“I just did. Sheesh. You never listen.” Danny looked over at Kellerson, sleeping awkwardly on his side across from them. “Should we wake up Sleeping Beauty?”
Will looked at Kellerson for a moment. He had been thinking about what to do with the collaborator for some time now and had even devoted one of his two-hour awake times last night just to mull over the question. The possibilities were endless. Some were bloody, others were cruel, and there were a few merciful options in there, too. Each time he had to weigh the lives Kellerson had taken against the man’s fate…all the bodies Will knew about, and all the ones he didn’t…
Finally, Will said, “We should put him out of his misery. He’s already served his purpose.”
“Kinda rude to just kill the guy after he’s been so helpful,” Danny said. “But hey, you know what they say about karma and bitches and all that good stuff.”
Will was reaching for his Glock in its hip holster when a faint noise from outside the cellar drew his attention.
“You heard that?” Danny said.
“Yeah,” Will said. He moved toward the doors and began removing the barrier they had put up there last night.
The noise they had both heard was a faint wet pop sound, something they wouldn’t have detected eleven months ago when the world was still alive.
As he and Danny were throwing cinderblocks out of their path, they heard it again. This time it wasn’t a single sound, but a continuous rattling pop-pop-pop. They knew exactly what it was and where it was coming from.
Behind them. L15.
Gunshots.
CHAPTER 5
GABY
SHE STOOD NEXT to the door, just out of the path of the sunlight pouring across the length of the room through the open window. Her back was pressed against the wall, and Gaby willed her breathing into slow beats to allow her senses to concentrate on what was outside the second floor at this very moment.
Mac was out there again, moving around loudly. He might as well be stomping cockroaches in boots. The man would be carrying his usual gear, including the AK-47, a belt with full ammo pouches, and a sidearm.
“First light. Be ready.”
It was first light, but no one had come.
Not Milly the girl or her accomplice. She knew Milly wasn’t working alone because of the first note she had received: “If we help you escape, will you take us with you?”
The “we” was the dead giveaway. If this was real. She didn’t put it past Josh to play games with her, though that was a worst-case scenario. There was no reason for Josh to deceive her now. Not after he had won. She was locked inside a room and not allowed to leave for any reason except to use the bathroom. In every way that mattered, she was at his mercy, so it was doubtful he would stoop so low as to mess with her head.
No, this wasn’t some elaborate trick. It had to be real.
Probably.
She wished she had a weapon, something that could break bone—or at least puncture skin. She had her hands, but it wasn’t nearly as easy to incapacitate someone with your fists as the movies made it out to be. She had learned that the hard way during sparring sessions with Will and Danny. Regardless of what kind of an advantage she had over a man, when it came to hand-to-hand fighting, she was still shorter, smaller, and weaker than her opponent. Girl power be damned, she would rather have a weapon.
Gaby glanced down at her watch: 7:36 A.M.
More than twenty minutes since the sun rose over the tree lines (“first light”) and bathed the town in a welcoming orange glow. To look at it, you wouldn’t know L15 was a town built on lies and desperation—
Voices, coming from the hallway outside.
About time.
Gaby slid closer to the door, leaving just a foot of space between her and the hinges, the doorknob on the other side. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with socks but no shoes. Josh hadn’t responded to her requests for shoes. Just another way to control her, to keep her at his mercy. He was good at that these days.
“Already?” a male voice said. Mac.
“I gotta go do something after this,” a soft female voice answered. Milly. There was a hint of anxiousness. Gaby hoped Mac didn’t notice.
“Like what?” Mac said.
“What do you care?” Milly countered.
“Don’t be a smartass.”
“I’m just saying, if I don’t give her her breakfast now, I won’t be around for another couple of hours. Peter’s got me busy today.”
“Okay, whatever,” Mac said. “Hurry up.”
The familiar sound of the deadbolt sliding, then the doorknob turning. A second later the door opened, followed by something hard and plastic clattering against the floor. She recognized the sound. It was one of the food trays.
“What—” she heard Mac start to say a split-second before Milly backpedaled through the open door, fumbling with a handgun in her small hands.
Oh, hell, this is the plan?
Mac was moving quickly through the door after Milly, reaching one hand out toward her. “Give that back to me, kid. What are you doing? Are you crazy? Give that back to me!”
He was so concerned with Milly—no, about his gun in her hands—that he didn’t do his usual due diligence. He didn’t look around to make sure she wasn’t lying in wait for him.
Now now now!
Gaby pushed herself off the wall and had gotten one step toward Mac—the sound of her bare feet pulling Mac’s eye away from Milly and over to her—but neither one of them managed to do anything before a fourth body slammed into Mac from behind. Arms snaked around Mac’s waist as the new figure’s head buried itself into the small of the guard’
s back. The whole thing was so awkwardly executed that Gaby actually found herself staring in astonishment.
Mac let out a loud surprised grunt as he was thrown forward by the surprise attack. He slammed into the wooden footboard of the bed with his stomach and bent over awkwardly at the waist, the AK-47 slung over his shoulder swinging wildly around him. He attempted to right himself when the other man hit him in the back of the head with a brown maple wood rolling pin, swinging the kitchen object like some kind of hammer, and thwack!
Another burst of pained sounds sprung from Mac’s mouth as he slumped forward again, his body draping over the bed’s footboard. The attacker staggered back, gasping for breath, while Milly stood nearby holding the handgun, looking impossibly frightened.
Gaby took a step forward and the attacker whirled on her, rolling pin rising to strike. Gaby ignored him and made a beeline for Mac. She grabbed the AK-47 and pulled it free. A small pool of blood had clumped at the back of Mac’s head, and he didn’t fight her as she took his rifle away.
The man and Milly were looking at her, their labored breathing filling the room as if they had just run a marathon. The man was in his mid-thirties and tall. He wore slacks and a T-shirt, but what got her attention was the Garfield apron around his waist. He opened his mouth as if to say something but ended up just sucking in more air instead.
Gaby held out her hand to Milly and the girl anxiously gave up the handgun. It was an automatic, almost entirely stainless steel except for a strip of laminated wood along the grip. Smith & Wesson SW1911TA was engraved along the side. It looked a hell of a lot more expensive than the Glocks she had been trained on, and she wondered where Mac had gotten something that fancy.
“What now?” the man said, his eyes focused on her. She couldn’t tell if he looked disappointed or confused. “Jesus, I thought you’d be older.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” she said.