by Sam Sisavath
Ten yards…
…five…
She finally reached the end of the sidewalk and darted into the woods just as the man fired again, the pop-pop-pop of a three-round burst chopping into the branches above her head. She heard Milly scream and glanced back at the girl’s terrified face. Peter had picked her up and was cradling her like precious cargo as he struggled to catch up.
“Keep running!” she shouted.
He might have nodded, she couldn’t be sure. But he didn’t stop, and that was all that mattered. Milly was clinging to his neck, her face shoved against his chest. She might have also been whimpering, but Gaby couldn’t be certain with her own heartbeat slamming against her chest.
As she ran, Gaby wondered how long it would take Josh to hear about her escape and come after her. How many men would he commit to getting her back under his thumb? That would probably depend on how badly he wanted her. At the moment, she didn’t particularly care. She had weapons again and freedom, and she’d be damned if she was going to give up both of those things now.
Come and get me, Josh.
Come and get me if you can…
CHAPTER 6
KEO
SUNSET DELUCA DRIVE, with its commercial buildings and vast parking lots to one side and the crystal clear waters of Lake Dulcet on the other, made for a great morning walk. The only sounds came from the soles of his boots against the pavement, a welcome distraction after last night’s near miss. The wind blew through the palm trees and birds glided through the air with all the time in the world. He could almost believe there was nothing wrong with the universe, that at any moment the area would be filled with tourists snapping photos.
Keo walked under streetlights and alongside dead cars, most of them still with keys in their ignitions. But minus gas or working batteries, they were useless. There was surprisingly little traffic, with only the occasional sedan or abandoned truck to break the monotony of gray concrete and random spurts of weeds. He had traveled this stretch of the city dozens of times, and the silence never failed to make him just a little bit uncomfortable.
It was noon by the time he finally made it back to the marina.
He stepped out of the street and onto the cobblestone walkway, dodging the same three white trucks that had been parked there since the day he had arrived with Zachary and Shorty. He took note of each truck’s windows and their current positions and was satisfied they hadn’t been moved or tampered with since yesterday morning.
The marina had three long docks and sixteen slips, with the middle section capable of hosting eight vessels while the outer two were able to hold four each. There was only one boat in the entire place at the moment. A sailboat with blue along the sides, about thirteen meters long. It was spacious enough to house five or six comfortably, with an American flag fluttering proudly at the stern. Inside the cabin, they had found photos of a family of six. A nice-looking group of people with blue-blood genes in expensive polo sweaters and Ralph Lauren slacks.
The fact that there was only one lone sailboat in the entire marina was a bit of a mystery. Inside, they had found emergency rations, nonperishable food, and cases of bottled water, which led Keo to believe the cruisers had arrived only recently. Maybe they docked, went into the city, but never made it back onboard. In a way, it was similar to how Mark and Jordan had been surviving since the end, which would mean the previous owners knew about water being a sanctuary from the monsters.
So where were they now? Maybe out there, somewhere.
Or dead, like Zachary and Shorty.
That wasn’t entirely true. There were worse things than death these days…
The problem with the sailboat was the size. Thirteen meters was big, and the vessel wasn’t designed for single-handed sailing. Even with Zachary and Shorty, two men who were even more novices at this than he was, it would have been a chore to manage the boat along the veins of the river heading south—
Engines.
Keo was about to climb over the boat’s fender when the noise cut through the silence of the city. It was impossible to miss. Sound already traveled long distances these days, but mechanical noise was like shouting through a bullhorn.
Car engines.
He finished the climb and dropped down, flattening himself against the sun-bleached white deck. He unslung the pack and slid it in front of him, then laid the MP5SD on top of the nylon fabric. He pulled the zipper and took out the small binoculars and peered through it, past the railing in front of him.
He tracked two vehicles moving fast down Sunset Deluca Drive.
Trucks.
A sleek black GMC Sierra and a white Honda Ridgeline. They were staying close together, clearly moving in tandem. He waited for both vehicles to flash by and keep going, but instead they began to slow down—
Crap.
—before stopping completely in front of the parking lot and behind the three white trucks.
And my luck keeps getting better and better.
Two men, wearing clothes Keo didn’t think he’d ever see again, climbed out of the GMC in camo uniforms and combat boots, with sidearms and ammo pouches attached to web belts. They looked like soldiers, but Keo knew better. There were no American soldiers anymore. You would need an American government to still be around for that. Besides, these guys didn’t actually look like servicemen. Keo had been around guys in uniform almost his entire life, and these jokers looked more like civilians dressing up for Halloween. Even the shade of their camo was wrong.
One of the men reached into the large GMC and pulled out a tan-colored FN SCAR assault rifle. The second, bigger one had an M4. He was wearing some kind of an assault vest with a radio in a pouch, which the man pressed now. A loud squawk, then muffled voices, but they were too far away for Keo to eavesdrop.
He was caught in no man’s land. Escaping into the cabin behind him was a non-starter. He had only two real options at this point—fight or flee. He couldn’t flee. There was nowhere to go unless he wanted to go for a swim.
Which left fight.
Because there was no way these men were going to leave now. Even if they didn’t know the boat existed before showing up, they would have to be blind not to spot the white-painted forty-meter mast sticking up into the air like a beacon. If these bozos came any closer and looked for more than a few seconds, it would be impossible to miss the only boat in the entire marina.
So he wasn’t terribly surprised when the fat man began walking up the middle dock toward him.
If it weren’t for shitty luck…
He watched Fatty turn sideways to move between two of the trucks in the parking lot, barely making the tight squeeze. His eyes, predictably, saw the docked sailboat right away as soon as he was through.
Keo slipped the binoculars back into the pack and picked up the submachine gun. He pressed as much of his body against the deck as he could in order to lower his profile even further. The railing would hide him somewhat, but if the man came any closer…
He flicked the fire selector on the MP5SD from fully automatic to semi-auto. The sound suppressor would do a lot to hide the gunshot, but the other guy standing outside the Ridgeline would notice pretty quickly when Fatso fell down.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…
He couldn’t see up the dock anymore, so he had to rely on his ears. Heavy footsteps approached him at a slow pace. Keo didn’t think the man could hurry if he wanted to because of the girth he was carrying.
How do you stay fat at the end of the world? Now, that’s a nice trick.
“—see the boat, but I don’t see anyone,” the man was saying.
“Well, someone’s gotta have sailed that thing here,” a voice said through a radio. “The kid said it wasn’t here a month ago when he last came by.”
“Maybe he got it wrong.”
“Kid swears by it.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll check it out.”
“Careful you don’t slip and fall into the water,” the other man said, chuckling. �
�I’m not jumping in there after your fat ass.”
“Har har,” the fat man said. “You’re a funny guy.”
Keo had been counting the man’s loud footsteps, and when he got the right number, he rose up on the deck of the boat with the MP5SD in his hands.
The man was halfway up the dock when he froze at the sight of Keo.
A painful second, then two, ticked by.
The man groped for the radio and tried to lift it to his lips when Keo shot him once in the chest. He watched the man stagger for a moment, a shocked expression spreading across his generous face. Keo shot him again between the eyes, and the big man dropped to the wooden boards, his bulk making a loud thump!
Keo quickly threw himself over the boat’s fender and onto the dock. He raced back toward the parking lot with the MP5SD in front of him.
The man with the SCAR was running up the parking lot when he spotted Keo and slid to a stop.
Keo squeezed the trigger twice, putting both rounds into the man’s chest. The “soldier” stumbled but didn’t go down. Instead, the man actually put a hand back against one of the white trucks to steady himself.
Bulletproof vest? Cheater!
Keo put the third bullet in the man’s face, the silver 9mm round obliterating the nose in a shower of blood and bone. This time, the man dropped.
He reached the end of the marina and pushed on, passing the second dead man, whose radio squawked, a voice shouting through, “Milton? What’s going on out there? Milton?”
He slipped around one of the trucks instead of going between them. He flicked the fire selector to fully automatic as soon as he reached the parking lot and came up on the Ridgeline just as both front doors opened and two more uniformed men clambered outside. The passenger was trying desperately to unsling an M4 carbine, while the driver had managed to get a silver Colt 1911 automatic out of its holster and was aiming it over the hood of the truck.
Keo shot the passenger first because he was the closer target, stitching the moving man with a quick burst and catching him in the chest with three rounds. His fourth, fifth, and sixth bullets shattered the Ridgeline’s window and Keo glimpsed faces inside the truck, in the back, and heard screams.
Female screams.
The driver fired over the hood of the truck. Too fast and his hands were shaking, throwing his aim off. Barely. Keo still heard the zip! as the bullet nearly took his head off anyway.
He went into a crouch and lost sight of the driver on the other side of the truck momentarily. Not that that seemed to stop the man from shooting. He fired off two more shots, then a fourth one, the clink-clink of his bullet casings landing on the ground.
Keo stayed low and crab-walked sideways when the driver appeared from around the hood. Keo shot his legs out from under him, and the driver screamed as he slammed into the parking lot.
He got up and rushed over, kicking the fancy Colt under the Ridgeline. He ignored the driver’s screams and circled the truck before leaning into the open driver-side door and looking into the backseat.
Two faces, both draped with long hair, peered back out at him.
One of the women, a brunette, held out her hands—showing scarred palms—as if to let him know she wasn’t armed. The other one had dirty-blonde hair and seemed to be trying to disappear into the floor of the truck.
“Outside,” Keo said.
He stepped back and waited for the women to come out. They did, reluctantly, shaking with every step. They clung to one another, staring at Keo, then at the driver rolling around on the ground next to them. The driver’s eyes, like the women’s, were glued to the bloody stumps that used to be his legs.
Keo made a quick tour of both vehicles, searching for hidden passengers that didn’t exist. He gave the area a once-over and listened for sounds other than the driver screaming behind him. His own gunfire had been suppressed, but the driver’s Colt might as well have been artillery fire against the stillness of the city.
He walked back to the women. Both wore cargo pants and cotton undershirts underneath long-sleeve work shirts covered in sweat. They looked dirty, but then again, he was probably not much of a prize himself at the moment, especially after running for his life and spending all night inside a smelly attic.
“We should go,” the brunette said.
“Go where?” Keo said.
“Anywhere, as long as it’s not here.”
“Why?”
“There are others out there. Nearby.”
“How near—”
He hadn’t gotten the question out when he heard them.
Car engines.
And they were coming in his direction…fast.
*
“ARE THEY AFTER you or me?” Keo asked.
“These new guys? I don’t know. The ones from earlier were taking us back,” the brunette, Carrie, said. “But it’s not like we’re important or anything; we just had the bad luck of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. What about you? They went to that marina looking for someone. Are you important or something?”
“No. I’m just some guy trying to get to Texas.”
“What’s in Texas?”
Gillian.
“Be quiet for a moment,” he said.
They were inside an abandoned lakeside bar called Bago’s, about half a kilometer from the sailboat that Keo needed. From here, using a pair of binoculars, he had a direct line of sight to the marina across Lake Dulcet. Carrion birds were gathering in the air above the parking lot waiting to feast, except they couldn’t because there were men below them. Living men, moving around in familiar camo uniforms.
One of the men that had arrived five minutes ago started shooting into the air, scattering the birds. At least for a little while. Soon, the creatures had circled back around to where the bodies were. It didn’t look as if they were going anywhere anytime soon.
There were two new vehicles in the marina parking lot, and they had dumped six more men with assault rifles. Keo watched them from the safety of Bago’s for nearly twenty minutes as they searched through the bodies, the vehicles, and then the lone sailboat at the end of the dock. When they were satisfied he wasn’t there, two of them opened fire on the boat with their carbines, the pop-pop-pop filling the air for ten full seconds. When they were finally empty, they reloaded…and poured more rounds into the vessel.
Shit. There goes my ride to Texas.
They didn’t stay behind to watch the boat sink. Instead, they headed back to the parking lot, where one of them drew his sidearm and shot out all four tires on the already bullet-riddled Ridgeline while his friends picked up the bodies and loaded them into the trucks. Two of them climbed into the GMC and the three vehicles drove off.
Except they didn’t all go in the same direction. Instead, they headed off in separate paths, spreading out into the city. That was a search formation if he ever saw one. The closest truck came within 200 meters of Bago’s before turning and disappearing eastward. The only bright spot was that not a single one of them headed south, which was the direction he needed to go.
Yeah. Bright side. Get it where you can, pal.
“They’re gone,” Keo said, lowering his binoculars and putting it away.
“Thank God,” Carrie said behind him.
She and the blonde teenager, Lorelei, sat at a booth eating canned food from the supplies they had salvaged from the two trucks before running off. There were boxes of ammo and more weapons in the back of the vehicles, but Keo kept things efficient—as much supply as they could carry and still run. Everything else was superfluous, including two women he didn’t know until very recently.
He had thought about leaving them behind but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Maybe it was losing Zachary and Shorty last night, or maybe it was the thought of what Gillian would say if she found out he had abandoned two desperate girls just to get to her.
Gillian.
Was she even still alive out there? Did she even make it to Santa Marie Island months ago?
&
nbsp; He didn’t know, but that only meant he had to go there and find out. Whatever happened, he had to find out for sure…
Of course, doing that would have been much easier with the supplies he had left behind on the sailboat. The silver rounds they had made, the bullet-making materials, and those stacks of silverware they had collected but never got around to melting down. Losing the boat hurt in more ways than one.
In the boat’s place, he had two women he didn’t know from Adam and a world of trouble. Those uniformed men definitely hadn’t come looking for him. They had gone there looking for a boat, but not him specifically. Besides, the only person who knew he existed at all and wanted him dead was, himself, dead.
Burn in hell, Pollard. You and your son.
“I don’t understand why we didn’t just sail away on your boat,” Carrie said. “I almost had a stroke running here, and we barely made it before those guys showed up.”
“Not enough time,” Keo said.
“How long would it have taken to get a boat ready to sail?”
“More than what we had.”
“Oh.”
He sat down on a stool and finished off the can of peaches he had left open on the bar counter. He ate while trying to ignore Carrie as she watched him intently. She was an attractive girl, mid-twenties, with high cheekbones and a long, slender figure. The other girl, Lorelei, looked all of sixteen and hid behind her long hair. She barely talked, and for a while Keo thought she might have been a mute, but no, she just had very little to say, at least to him. She did whisper into Carrie’s ear every now and then. They acted like sisters, but there was no obvious resemblance.
“Those guys back there,” Keo said, “the ones that went looking for my boat. You said they were taking you somewhere?”
“They were taking us back to the town.”
“What town?”
“L11.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s what they call it,” she said and shrugged.
“L11,” Keo repeated. “Sounds like something the military would come up with.”
“You were in the military?”