The Purge of Babylon: A Novel of Survival

by Sam Sisavath

  “What reality is that?”

  “That the world is gone. Your father is gone. Will is gone. That everything you know and trust and understand is gone.” He paused, as if to let his words sink in. “So tell me, Kate. What’s the point?”

  She closed her eyes.

  “What’s the point?” Mabry asked, his voice echoing inside her head.

  Or maybe it wasn’t his voice. Maybe it was actually her voice.

  What’s the point?

  *

  When she woke up in her room, on her tiny cot, her nose was bleeding. She raced to the small sink in the corner and watched the blood drip down to the metal pan, the ping-ping sound of the nose bleed almost hypnotic.

  She looked up at the thirty-two-year-old woman staring back at her in the mirror. The stranger looked haggard, dark, with no color along her cheeks or forehead. Even her lips were dark and blackened, lifeless. Her eyes gave the impression of a woman who hadn’t slept in days. They were hollow and unattractive.

  She remembered when her appearance was everything. When she could walk into a meeting with clients and, on pure will alone, get them to sign with her, commit their entire annual advertising budget with her company. She could have sold them anything.

  But that was the old world. That was the old Kate.

  What was she now? A thirty-two-year-old woman in an underground facility, surrounded by unyielding gray concrete. Living with men and women who didn’t know there was no point to all of this. They were just going through the motions, living out the remainder of their lives until they grew old and died.

  It wasn’t much of a life. It was nothing compared to the life she had.

  She idly noticed blood on her shirt. She wiped at it with some paper napkin soaked in water, but it only diluted the blood and made it cling to the cheap fabric. The old Kate would never have been caught dead wearing something like this.

  She sighed, and tossed the bloodied napkin into a nearby trash bin. She missed badly, and the crumpled sheet fell into a corner. She didn’t bother picking it up.

  She looked down at the bloodied shirt for a moment, then turned off the water.

  What was the point of cleaning it? She would never get the blood out of the shirt now. Blood was hard to get out. Blood was forever.

  So what’s the point?

  CHAPTER 38

  WILL

  “HOW MANY?” BEN asked, somewhere between incredulous and horror.

  They were back inside the Control Room, with Ben leaning against the dashboard and Will standing nearby eating a bag of MRE that tasted like dirt, but it was food and he needed the calories.

  “Five hundred,” he said, between spoonfuls of something that was supposed to be mashed potatoes. “At least. We didn’t have time to do an exact head count, but it’s definitely more than just the town. Davies said there were only 300 or so people in Dansby. There were more than that in the auditorium alone.”

  “Blood farm?” Ben said for the third time since Will filled him in on what they had found in Dansby, Texas. Will didn’t blame him. It wasn’t an easy thing to grasp—much less accept—unless you saw it for yourself.

  He nodded. “They’re smart, Ben. Way smarter than we’ve given them credit for. They definitely have a command structure. How big, how wide does it go? That’s the question.”

  “There’s probably a hell of a lot of them out there, ones like this blue-eyed bastard,” Ben said. He seemed to weigh everything Will had told him, before adding, “Alright. We’ll load up and go back there tomorrow. You think there are more of these blood farms out there? Around the country?”

  “They went through a lot of us during The Purge. If they’re as smart as we think they are, then yeah, they probably had this planned from day one. The big ones have to be in the cities, in the big population centers. I get the feeling the ones in Dansby are just local branches, so to speak.”

  Ben shook his head. “I don’t mind telling you, I’m not going to be sleeping a lot tonight. Hell, I’ll be lucky if I get even a second of shut eye.”

  “There are pills for that.”

  “I don’t want them. I want to stay as awake as possible.” Ben shook his head again. “Blood farms. Fuck.”

  Will finished the MRE, running his tongue around the interior of his mouth to dig out the horrid taste, then tossed the empty bag into a nearby trash can. “I’m gonna go get some sleep.”

  Ben sniffed him. “When was the last time you took a shower?”

  “It’s been a while.”

  “You should rectify that.”

  “That bad?”

  “I almost threw up in my mouth.”

  “Say no more.”

  Will left Ben in the Control Room and walked through the hallways, turning the blood farm and how to free those poor souls tomorrow morning over in his head. They would need more vehicles than they already had. That was the first step. The next and more important was waking those people up. That was Lara’s department. He’d leave that to her.

  Thinking of Lara made him smile. She had such wonderful, kissable lips…

  Will went back to his room, determined to think the problem through, but was dozing on the small cot almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. It wasn’t unusual. His body always knew when he was preparing for a long day, starting back in Afghanistan. In the months since The Purge, his body had reverted back to in-country mode, but instead of a mission every week or month, it was now every day.

  Survival had become the new mission, and it was ongoing.

  In his dream he was back in Afghanistan with Danny, and they were playing soccer, but with a goat’s head instead of a soccer ball. Lara was there, rooting him on from the sidelines, wearing a shiny dress that made her hair sparkle for some reason. She may or may not have been doing a cheer, because he was too busy chasing after the goat’s head to hear what she was shouting.

  It was one of his rare, fun dreams.

  *

  He woke again at 8:15 p.m. to a soft, hesitant knocking on his door. He almost didn’t hear it over the quiet hum of the turbine.

  Will got up and padded over in the semidarkness.

  8:16 p.m. That meant he had slept for almost four hours. A dream scenario in his book.

  He opened the door and was surprised to find Lara outside in the well-lit hallway.

  “Hey,” he said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “I woke you, huh?”

  “I was dreaming I was back in Afghanistan.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “I was playing soccer with Danny, but instead of a ball we were using a goat’s head.”

  “Wow.”

  “And you were there. You were doing a cheer. I think.”

  She smiled. “For you, I hope.”

  “I think so. I couldn’t really hear what you were cheering, though.”

  “I’d like to know, too. I’ve never cheered in my life.”

  “I figured. You wanna come in?”

  He stood aside, then closed the door after her and hit the light switch on the wall.

  Lara had showered and wore new pants and a T-shirt that was at least one size too large for her. Her hair looked clean and shiny like in his dream, and he decided he really liked the way her blonde strands fell around her face.

  “You smell good,” he said.

  “It’s soap.”

  “It must be great smelling soap.”

  “I bet you say that to all the girls who knock on your door in the middle of the night, while you’re having soccer dreams involving goat’s heads.”

  “Pretty much, yeah.”

  He watched her for a moment, fully aware of how painfully beautiful she looked and how great she smelled. That led to him sniffing himself discreetly. Ben was right. He really did need a shower. Or two.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked.

  “You got something?”

  “Not really, no.”

  She laughed, sounding nervous. />
  “How’s Megan and Elise?” he asked.

  “They’re adjusting. Elise has Vera to help her, so she’s doing better than I expected. Kids are good at that, you know? Adapting. Megan’s got her legs back, so she can almost walk again. The rest of it, the mental stuff, that’s going to take a while.”

  “What about you, Lara? Are you okay?”

  She turned around to face him.

  God, she’s beautiful.

  She must have seen the expression on his face, because she blushed a little. “Is it over between you and Kate?”

  “It’s been over for a while,” he said, hoping that the absolute certainty in his voice came through.

  It must have, because she nodded and said, “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said again. “I think we should finish what we started yesterday.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I’ve never been so sure of anything before in my life.”

  He moved closer to her, then put his hands on her shoulders and waited for her reaction. When she didn’t stiffen or move away, he pulled her closer and looked her in the eyes. “You’re so beautiful,” he said softly.

  She leaned forward and kissed him. Will hesitated at first, but her lips were so insistent and soft and she smelled so good that he couldn’t help himself. He leaned into her and kissed her and really tasted her mouth.

  Her hands slipped around his waist, and he pulled her tighter against him. He breathed in her scent and let his hands explore her curves over the T-shirt. It was too big and loose for her, but it didn’t do anything to hide the woman underneath. She moaned against his mouth when he slid his hands inside the fabric and brushed his fingers lightly against her belly. It was soft, like velvet, just as he knew it would be.

  For a moment he hesitated, and she must have sensed, it because she reached down and pulled the shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor. She wasn’t wearing a bra.

  She smiled at the way he was looking at her breasts, pleased by his reaction.

  Then she kissed him again, pulling back just long enough to whisper, “They’re not there just for show, you know.”

  He didn’t need further prodding.

  Will kissed the tip of one nipple. She sighed, which was all the permission he needed to kiss the other. He moved his hands down the length of her body, to her thighs, then lifted her easily into the air. She was surprisingly light. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and he carried her to the small cot, kissing her the entire way, exploring every inch of her mouth. She was intoxicating. Every time he took a breath and she filled his lungs, he wanted more.

  He laid her down softly, afraid if he dropped her the flimsy cot might crumble underneath her weight, even as light as she was. She helped him remove her pants, and they scrambled to remove his clothes, their hands everywhere, at times bumping into each other, laughing softly, nervously. She kissed his bare chest, and then wrinkled her nose playfully at him.

  “Sorry,” he said, breathless. “I was going to take a shower. Then you showed up.”

  “Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure.”

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  “It’s something my mom used to say. Never mind.”

  She pulled him down to her. Then he was inside her, and he didn’t know how he had gone so long without her. It pushed him to the edge much faster than he had expected. She wrapped her legs around his waist again and held on as his body went slack against hers.

  He lay in her arms, their bodies slick with sweat, even in the temperature-controlled room. She felt warm against him, her hand picking through his dirty hair. He should have taken that shower before the nap…

  “I’m sorry,” Will said, “it’s been a while.”

  She laughed.

  “Ouch,” he said.

  “Did I hurt your ego?”

  “A little bit, yeah.”

  “Men.” She raised his head gently until she could look him in the eyes. “See me?”

  “Yes,” he said back.

  “This is me not caring.”

  She pulled him to her and kissed him again. Her hand moved between their bodies, and he groaned as she wrapped slender fingers around him, stroking him. It didn’t take very long.

  “You wanna do something about this?” she asked playfully.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Just try to make it last longer this time, okay, Quick Draw McGraw?”

  “Ouch,” he said, and she laughed again.

  *

  They lay slick with sweat in the dark room, gasping for breath. Will was surprised the cot hadn’t given way. He had slept on Army cots that were bigger and sturdier. Even worse, this bed actually felt as if it wanted to come apart underneath him, and he wondered how romantic it would have been had they both fell to the floor naked and tangled up in a twisted bed frame.

  He was tired, but she wasn’t.

  She whispered into his ear, “Oh come on, one more time.”

  He shook his head against the pillow. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  “No fair. That first time was a total bust.”

  “You’re going to keep rubbing that in my face, aren’t you?”

  “At least until next year.”

  “You’re optimistic if you think I’m going to sleep with you again after tonight.”

  “Give me a break,” she said, “I’m making up for lost time. You are too, judging by that first, er, shot.”

  “I told you that’s never happened to me before.”

  “I believe you. Yup, totally believe you.”

  “Are you humoring me?”

  “Totally,” she said and laughed.

  He liked the sound of her laugh. She hadn’t laughed very often since they met, but when he heard it, it sounded like poetry to him.

  He rolled over onto his back until she was straddling his naked waist. She looked down at him, watching him carefully.

  She looked spectacular naked, her form outlined against the dark ceiling, blonde hair cascading around her face. He enjoyed the soft curves of her hips, the perkiness of her breasts, the way her eyebrows arched when she was thinking.

  “What?” she said, looking down at him. “What are you staring at, mister?”

  “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what? What are you talking about?”

  “That you’re beautiful.”

  He could tell that it caught her off guard, and she looked down at him, her eyes suddenly very serious. “Do you mean that?” she whispered.

  “Every word.”

  “Show me.”

  He reached up and traced her flustered cheeks with his fingers. He thought she was going to cry, but instead she leaned down and kissed him, and he wrapped his arms around her and held her against him and never wanted to let her go.

  *

  He was somewhere between asleep and awake when Lara stirred against him. She lay on the cot with her back pressed up against his chest, reminding him that he had never felt more content while surrounded by darkness in his life than he did now, at this moment.

  “Can’t sleep?” he whispered softly.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “I was already awake,” he lied. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  She was lying, he could tell. Her body had stiffened a bit against him, and her breathing was slightly irregular. He had been lying there with her long enough to become used to the soothing patterns of her heartbeat.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Nothing,” she said again. “Go back to sleep. You need it. When was the last time you slept?”

  “I slept for four hours tonight. And don’t change the subject. I’ll go back to sleep after you tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Will, it’s nothing.”

  He said, more sternly this time, “Lara, tell me what’s wr
ong, or I’m just going to keep pestering you until you give in. Trust me, I can do this all night. You’ve already seen my prowess at doing things for a long time.”

  He wished he could see her smile, but he didn’t want to untangle himself from her at this very moment. It would break the spell, the connection they shared, both physically and emotionally.

  He longed to see her face, though, to read what she was feeling right now so he could say the right words to ease her mind, to make her understand how much he cared. Right now, he was afraid the wrong word would send her racing away from him. He never wanted something more in his life than to know how to reassure her at this very moment.

  After a while, she said, “I was thinking how happy I am. Right now. At this moment with you. Even before everything happened, I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy.”

  “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “But…?”

  “I can’t see how this is going to last. And that terrifies me.”

  He wrapped his arms tighter around her, hoping to reaffirm his presence. “It might not last. I don’t know. Maybe we should just accept it in the here and now and make the best of it. We know what’s out there and how hard it is. But this, right here, this is good.”

  “It’s good,” she echoed, with some confidence in her voice.

  “So let’s just embrace it. Who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

  She didn’t answer for a moment, but then, “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said again, and he imagined her smiling in the darkness.

  He didn’t go right back to sleep. Instead, he lay perfectly still, holding her against him and listening to the soft rhythms of her breathing. After a while she drifted off, and her body relaxed in his arms, her breathing taking on the familiar pattern of REM sleep.

  With Lara finally asleep, he stopped fighting and quickly found himself going back in.

  He woke up an hour later…to the very distinct sounds of gunshots inside the facility.

  CHAPTER 39

  KATE

  WILL WAS BACK, but he hadn’t come to see her. She wished that surprised her, but it didn’t. What she had with Will, however brief, was over a long time ago. Maybe there had never really been anything beyond that one night they spent together in that old house. Did she really expect one night to balloon into something…more? What a joke that turned out to be. On her, on him, on all of them.