by Sam Sisavath
He sneaked a look at the rearview mirror—except there was nothing up there but a piece of the black plastic that used to hold the mirror in place. That explained all the glass he heard zinging around his head. He twisted in his seat to peek out through the big rectangular hole behind him instead.
Princeville was getting smaller in the background, and Keo couldn’t make out the Chevy or its occupants anymore. The lack of pursuit was definitely good, though it probably wouldn’t be that way forever. Sooner or later, Buck was going to send people after him. And sooner or later, someone was going to stumble into the motel and find Wagner’s body.
Keo reached over and put one hand on Lewis’s neck, pressing his palm against the wound. Without the gunfire and the sounds of bullets punching into the Ford, Keo could now hear Lewis’s labored breathing. He pushed hard, heard the man grunting—which was what he was hoping for, because grunting meant Lewis was still alive.
For now.
“Hey, hey,” Keo said. “You still with me? Lewis ol’ pal, you still with me?”
Lewis wheezed, even as more blood pumped against Keo’s palm. Wetness began oozing through his fingers and down the length of his arm underneath his long-sleeve thermal sweater, until he could feel them against his armpit.
“Lewis, Lewis,” Keo said. “Where are the girls? Lewis, where did the girls go?”
Keo slowed down just enough to give Lewis a quick look—saw the other man staring back at him with his one good eye that he was barely able to keep open.
“Lewis,” Keo said, “you’re going to die. I’m sorry, man, but you’re going to die. You know that, right?”
Lewis didn’t say anything. Keo wasn’t even sure if he could, even if he wanted to.
“You’re bleeding way too much,” Keo said. “And it’s not going to stop. I can’t make it stop. You know that, right? Lewis?”
He alternated between looking Lewis in the eye—to let the other man know he was dead serious—and keeping the road ahead of him. The last thing he needed right now was to rear-end an abandoned vehicle. There was little chance of that out here in the countryside, but all it would really take was one stray chunk of metal in the road to end their little escape attempt.
“You’re gonna die, and I can’t do anything about it,” Keo said. “So you gotta tell me where the girls are. I can’t help them if I can’t find them. You understand? Lewis, you understand? Where are the girls?”
Lewis’s eye was glassy, and he was clearly struggling to keep it open. Finally, he somehow managed a slow nod.
Keo breathed a sigh of relief. “Where are they? Where’s Emma and Megan and the others?”
“Jonah,” Lewis said. Or croaked.
“Jonah?” Keo said. “What’s that? A guy? A city?”
“Jonah,” Lewis repeated.
“I don’t know what that is, Lewis. What’s Jonah? A town? Is it a town? Did the girls escape to another town called Jonah?”
Lewis didn’t answer. He had closed his eye, and his body had become heavier as it pushed against Keo’s hand.
Keo shot his side mirror another quick look. There was nothing behind him but smooth, paved road. The taller buildings of Princeville were still visible in the distance, but there was still no sunlight reflecting off incoming vehicles.
He eased his foot off the gas and stopped the Ford in the middle of the road and put the gear in park. He twisted in his seat and concentrated on Lewis, on keeping his hand against the other man’s neck so Lewis didn’t bleed out on him faster than he already was.
Keo leaned across the seat, ignoring the damp upholstery under him, the wetness seeping through his clothes. If he wasn’t already covered in blood, he might have grimaced at the warm contact.
He gave Lewis’s cheeks a couple of taps to wake him up, and when the man opened his eye again—or halfway, anyway—Keo said, “Jonah, Lewis. What’s Jonah? Who is Jonah?”
“South,” Lewis whispered.
“South? Jonah is down south? So it’s a town?”
“South…east.”
“Southeast?” Then, when it looked like Lewis was going for a nod, “Along the coastline?”
There, an honest to goodness nod.
“It’s a town?” Keo asked. “Jonah is a town along the coastline?”
But Lewis had closed his eye again, and his body slumped against Keo’s hand. Even the blood seemed to stop gushing against Keo’s palm, and when Keo took his sticky hand away, Lewis didn’t notice—or move at all.
Keo sat back in the driver’s seat. He was covered in blood, but none of it was his.
“Swell,” he said when he saw the gas gauge on the truck’s dashboard. It had been half-empty the last time he looked, but the needle was already scraping the red now. The M249 puncturing the gas tank had been a very real concern given the man’s firing position, but Keo had been hoping…
He sighed and put the truck back into drive. He checked the side mirror before stepping on the gas. They were going to come after him, which meant he had to put as many miles between him and his pursuers as possible before the Ford gave out.
Another mile, if he was lucky. Two, if he was really lucky.
THIRTEEN
THERE WERE no Buckies on his tail, which was the good news; the bad news was the leaking gas tank that allowed him to drive for another five miles before he hit the E and the truck simply died on him. But five miles was more than he had been hoping for, so maybe it was great news instead of just good.
Maybe my luck’s finally changing. Let’s hope.
Keo grabbed his things and the extra Glock from Lewis and jogged off the road and humped it to the woods. It took him half a minute to cross the field of waist-high grass, and he kept expecting a technical or two (or a dozen) to bear down on him at any second. Except they didn’t; there weren’t even hints that Buck had sent anyone in pursuit, and Keo reached the tree line unmolested.
Losing Lewis was a blow; not the man himself—Keo didn’t know him well enough to care one way or another—but the information in his head.
“Jonah,” Lewis had said.
It could have been anything. A town, a store, or someone’s name. But at least Keo had a direction—southeast, which would take him to the coastline. It wasn’t exactly a map he could hold in his hands, but it was more than he had before he stepped into Princeville.
Jonah. Somewhere along the coastline. Either a town or a place, or someone who lived down there.
A lot of maybes.
He was still covered in Lewis’s blood when he stepped one foot, then another dozen into the woods and immediately noticed the major dip in temperature, the tall tree crowns around him keeping the sun from contact with his skin. He’d chosen a corner with too many shadows, and Keo’s antenna went up even though it had been ages since he was afraid of the dark. Not since that time in Houston, anyway.
His instincts were to keep going, to put as much distance between him and the road as possible, but he didn’t. Instead, Keo turned around to face the tree line and went into a slight crouch and waited.
He had a much longer wait than he expected—almost twelve minutes, to be exact—before the first vehicle showed up. It was, predictably, a technical, and the machine gunner in the back swiveled the MG around from left to right. A second vehicle came up quickly behind the first. One of the trucks turned slightly so it covered the woods where Keo was currently hidden inside while the second one faced the other direction, creating an almost V-shaped defensive posture in the middle of the four-lane road.
A man in a Houston Texans ball cap climbed out of the first truck while three other figures from the two vehicles swarmed the abandoned F-150. Fading sunlight reflected off the barrels of their rifles as they circled, then crowded around the Ford. Ball Cap peered inside, probably to check Lewis for vitals, before leaning back out. He said something—Keo was much too far to hear what, and the man hadn’t bothered to shout for his benefit—and the others relaxed, though they didn’t put their weapons awa
y.
The machine gunners, Keo saw, had remained alert throughout.
Not bad for a bunch of amateurs.
But were they really amateurs? No, not really. Maybe Vince and Lewis had been, but not Buckaroo’s men. These guys clearly had some military training.
Ball Cap walked a few yards down the road and, hands on his hips, glanced around. It wasn’t Buck, even though Keo couldn’t see his hair with the hat on. But the man was younger and longer in the face, and he unclipped a portable two-way and said something into it before waiting for a response.
Keo was secured enough inside the woods that he wasn’t afraid of being spotted. Of course, if one of the machine gunners decided to spray and pray in his direction he was a dead man, but Keo doubted they would do that if he didn’t give them any reasons to. After all, what idiot would stay behind to watch?
Just you, pal. Just you.
He waited for the men on the country road to spread out and continue their pursuit. He wanted one of those vehicles, even if it meant having to go head-to-head with an MG. After all, it couldn’t shoot him if it couldn’t see him.
But instead, his pursuers climbed back into their technicals and turned their trucks around. Keo watched them disappear back in the direction they’d come until he couldn’t see or hear them anymore.
He had to admit, that was unexpected. Who was on the other end of that two-way, and what had they said? Buck, most likely. So why hadn’t Buck ordered them to pursue him? He had just killed Wagner and likely Buzz Cut, too, while Lewis had taken out Failed Mustache. Of course, Buck didn’t know Keo was responsible for those bodies unless someone at the roadblock had managed to get a good enough look to describe him to their leader.
What were the chances Buck could put two and two together? Maybe the better question was, would a guy like Buck care? He seemed to have plenty of men to spare. Or maybe, unlike Keo, Buck wasn’t prone to giving in to petty revenge.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Keo thought, and stood up and headed farther into the dark woods.
He glanced up, peeking through the thick crowns at the sky on the other side. It was hard to tell how much light was left from what little he could see, so he glanced down at his watch instead.
Two hours before sunset.
He picked up his pace, every inch of him warm and sticky with Lewis’s blood.
Jonah.
Jonah-what? Jonah-who?
You couldn’t have given me more than just a name, Lewis ol’ pal? Or at least tell me what it’s a name for?
Keo didn’t know anyone named Jonah, or a place called Jonah, and he didn’t have a map on him, either. There was one back in the cabin, and that was where he was headed now. According to Lewis, Emma and Megan (and however many had made it out of Winding Creek with them—twenty or so, if Wagner could be believed) had headed southeast away from town during the attack.
At least he had a direction, and soon he’d have a map to help out with a “what.”
Jonah Town? Jonah City? Jonah’s Fun-o-Rama?
It could have been anything. Or anyone. This was Texas, and Keo had met plenty of guys with strange names, and “Jonah” wouldn’t even count as the strangest.
Two hours wasn’t going to be nearly enough time for him to beat nightfall, though. (Was that why the Buckies hadn’t pursued him? Were they counting the clock, too?) At least, not on foot. The stuffed backpack already weighed him down, slowing his progress, and without the thoroughbred to pick up the slack, he would be lucky to make half the distance to the cabin before darkness caught up to him.
Fortunately, Keo was familiar with the miles between Winding Creek and Princeville and knew of a few good candidates to bunk down for the night. But not yet. It took him half an hour to circle back to where he had stashed his bug-out pack before heading into town. He pulled it out of a large bush and took a quick peek at the trees above him. The dwindling light was all the incentive he needed to pick up his pace. He couldn’t remember the last time the prospect of being caught outside after sundown left him this anxious.
The more things change—
Keo stopped and pivoted, the MP5SD swinging up to chest level, and he peered through the optic at his target.
He’d heard it a few minutes earlier—something occasionally moving behind him—but it had come and gone, and he wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination. But then there it was again, except much closer this time, and Keo didn’t understand why he was still alive unless whoever was back there didn’t have a gun, because they were certainly close enough to put a round into the back of his head.
Except no one fired a shot—including Keo himself—because the only thing staring back at him was…the horse.
The same thoroughbred he’d acquired from one of Buck’s people outside of Winding Creek, that Keo had let go before entering Princeville. He was pretty sure it was the same one, too, given its color and those curious brown eyes peering back at him from thirty paces. It had been quiet as a mouse except for the times when it accidentally stepped on a dry twig or bumped into a low-hanging branch.
A friggin’ ninja horse, Keo thought as he lowered his weapon.
“I almost shot you. You know that?”
The animal seemed to relax in turn before starting to walk over.
“What are you doing?”
The horse, of course, didn’t answer.
“I asked you a question. What do you think you’re doing?”
It stopped momentarily to chew on some grass before continuing over to his position.
“Stupid animal. You’re probably safer out there by yourself. Do you realize that?”
It peered at him with its big brown eyes.
“Okay, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Keo turned and resumed his way southeast through the woods.
He walked for about a minute before sneaking a look back. The horse was still back there, but it didn’t look like it had gotten any closer. When it saw Keo looking back, the animal stopped and stared.
“Well, come on then, if you’re gonna come.”
He resumed walking, and it took another five minutes before the horse appeared beside him. Keo looked over at it and got a sideways glance in return.
“You’re an odd duck, aren’t you? What’s the matter, got so used to human company and now you don’t know how to do without? Is that it?” Keo chuckled. “What am I saying? I’m the one talking to a horse.”
He kept walking, and the horse kept pace beside him. For such a big animal, it was amazingly quiet and light on its feet.
“I’m gonna have to put a bell on you. That’ll keep you from sneaking up on me again.”
It snorted in reply.
“Or two bells. Don’t think I won’t.”
Sunlight was fading faster than Keo had anticipated. Even the horse seemed to sense the coming darkness, if its constant sniffing was any indication. Then again, the animal could have just had something in its nose, for all Keo knew. It wasn’t like he was a horse expert or anything.
Keo found what he was looking for with twenty or so minutes to spare: an old bungalow near the same stream that fed into Winding Creek’s farms. They were still about five or so miles from town and Keo wasn’t thrilled about being so near what had been, until very recently, a thriving place, but was now nothing more than a graveyard. But at least Emma and Megan weren’t two of the casualties, and that eased his mind tremendously.
He did a quick circuit around the old building, looking for signs of occupancy. He paid attention to the smell, which was the first sign there were ghouls nearby. The creatures reeked of decay and dead things, and the longer they stayed in one place, the stronger the odor.
The air was relatively clean, and he found the front door intact. The windows were devoid of glass or any barriers, and just about anything could have climbed into the place at any time. But the smell wasn’t there and, when Keo made his way inside he found the great room in shambles, the floor littered with dust and
elements from the woods outside, but the house was otherwise uninhabited.
When Keo stepped back outside, the horse was waiting near the door. It gave him a look of anticipation, which Keo couldn’t quite figure out.
“What?”
The animal seemed to look up at the darkening skies.
“You want to come in, is that it?”
It stared at him.
“You are housebroken, right?”
It sniffed the air between them.
“Fine. But wipe your hooves. Unless you were raised in a barn. You weren’t raised in a barn, were you?”
Keo went back inside and the horse followed, its horseshoes clop-clopping against the wooden floorboards. Keo closed the door, but instead of a lock, there was a two-by-four on the floor that could be slipped into a latch over the bigger slab of wood. He did that now, though he did have second thoughts since the windows were unprotected and anything that could climb three feet up the wall could break their way in through those entry points. Keo had seen ghouls climb a lot higher than that.
He headed straight into the back hallway, still mindful of the many shadowy corners. But again, the air smelled fine, and even the horse didn’t seem spooked by anything in front of them as it followed behind him. He was pretty sure the animal’s sense of smell was much better than his, and if it wasn’t worried…
“We good?” he asked the horse.
It sniffed the air and remained calm.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
There were two bedrooms, both the same size, and Keo chose the one farthest back. There was only one window, and it already had a dresser pushed up against it. The mostly cherry red furniture looked intact, and it was heavy enough that it took a lot of effort for Keo to even budge it. Whoever had placed it there had chosen wisely.
He closed the door, pushed the deadbolt into place, and settled into one of the corners. There was no bed or even a cot, so someone had “liberated” the place before he showed up. He didn’t mind sitting on the floor, though, because Keo wasn’t sure if he could get any sleep anyway.