by Sam Sisavath
“We haven’t run across them the entire time we’ve been in the Gulf.”
She saw the disappointment on Jordan’s face before the other woman turned back around as they stepped onto the road. Bonnie had moved further inland, her M4 cradled alertly in front of her, watching the other direction. Lara thought she could see some kind of domed buildings blinking in the distance.
She looked back at Keo. “You wanna tell me what was so important I had to drop everything and meet you down here?”
“I wanted you to meet someone,” Keo said. “But he’s not here right now. We got separated two nights ago.”
“Who was it?”
“Let’s call him Frank.”
Lara caught Jordan sneaking a look at Keo and saw him shaking his head back in reply. Both movements had been very slight and were hardly noticeable—except they were walking right in front of her, and she was staring at them.
Now what was that about?
“Why did you want me to meet him?” she asked instead.
“He had information about the ghouls,” Keo said.
“Like what?”
“How they operate, their chain of command, all the nitty-gritty stuff.” Then, he added, almost as an afterthought, “He also said he knew how to beat them.”
She perked up. “How?”
“He didn’t say.”
“He didn’t say? How does he not say, and how do you not force him to tell you something like that, Keo?”
Keo hesitated, and she thought he was picking his words very carefully when he said, “It’s complicated, but he would only talk to you.”
“Why me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Keo…”
“I don’t know, Lara. Frank’s not the most talkative type. You can ask him all the questions you want when you meet him.”
They were moving through the field beyond the beach now, tall brown grass slapping at her legs. She thought she could smell something burning, like someone had left a stove on, but it was mostly obfuscated by the breeze coming from the nearby ocean.
“Tell me something,” Lara said.
“If I can…” Keo said.
“Do you trust this guy?”
“I do,” he said without hesitation.
“Why?”
“He saved my life. Three times now.”
“Mine, too,” Jordan said.
“What is he, some kind of collaborator?” Lara asked.
“Sort of,” Keo said.
“Sort of?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“That seems to be a common theme with you today.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” he said. “Trust me when I say this wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. Things…got complicated.”
She had more questions—so many more questions—but the sight of the grass around them turning from brown and green to almost entirely charred black, with large swaths that had been burned completely away leaving behind only blackened dirt, caught her by surprise. The air had also begun to shift noticeably from bearable to almost suffocating.
“Here,” Keo said, holding out a small T-shirt to her.
She took it gratefully and pushed it against her mouth and nose. In front of her, Jordan did the same thing with another shirt, but Keo seemed to be fine with the air. Maybe he had just gotten used to it, though she couldn’t understand how.
She forgot about everything else when she saw the tank sitting in the fields in front of them. It was so out of place and impossible to miss, especially the cannon jutting out from it. The tan-colored vehicle was surrounded by large swaths of charred earth and what looked like the carcasses of two-story houses that had been toppled like dominoes, except for a few that still, somehow, remained standing. She almost lost her balance when a crater that shouldn’t be there popped up in front of her.
“Watch your step,” Keo said.
She thought he was talking about the craters until she heard the crunch. Lara looked down at the remains of an arm—the radius was missing, but half of the ulna was still intact—as it crumbled under her boot. The fingers were all there, but the thumb had been blown off. She stepped over it, then around a small pile of bones—then another. They were scattered everywhere amongst the scorched ground, their numbers increasing exponentially the closer she got to the tank. Every step she took produced a loud crunch that made her wince.
The carnage was spread out, as if the battle had dragged from one side of the field to the other, leaving death everywhere. There was no blood, but she didn’t expect to find any because the ghouls bled a different kind of blood that evaporated against sunlight. Even though she couldn’t smell most of the acidic stench that still lingered in the air thanks to Keo’s T-shirt, she could smell enough that she wished she were already on the Trident again, or at least back on the beach.
She focused on the tank instead, hoping that would take her mind off everything else. “How many tanks?”
“Just the one,” Keo said.
“And you’re sure it’s not U.S. Army?”
“It may have belonged to Uncle Sam once upon a time, but not anymore.”
The crack of a bone snapping under her boots made her flinch, but she willed herself not to look down.
“Did you find out who they were?” she asked.
Keo pointed at a twenty-something man sitting against the tank’s wheels. He was only wearing an undershirt and khaki shorts, and one of his thighs was bandaged. His face was pale under the bright sun, and he didn’t look like he could keep his eyes open as he watched them approach.
“His name’s Gregson,” Keo said. “Had to kill the rest of his crew.”
“‘Had to?’” she said.
“One of them went for their gun and, well, shit went downhill from there.”
“Doesn’t it always with you?”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“Depends on who you ask.”
Gregson blinked up at her as they stopped in front of him. He looked paler and much weaker up close, and there was a thick clump of blood underneath him. Lara had seen enough people bleeding to last a lifetime and knew without a doubt this man wasn’t going to survive the day unless someone treated his wound.
“What’s with you and shooting people in the leg?” she asked Keo.
“I’m developing bad habits,” he said. “Used to be I’d just shoot them in the head.” He said to Gregson, “Tell her what you told us. Everything, including what you were using this bad boy for.” He banged on the tank, producing dull thuds. “Don’t leave out any details.”
“I need medical attention,” Gregson said. His voice was weak and his lips were cracked.
“You’ll get it after we go over it again,” Keo said.
Gregson squinted at Keo, as if trying to gauge his trustworthiness.
Good luck with that, she wanted to tell him. She had known Keo longer, and even she couldn’t tell if he had meant what he just promised.
“We had a mission…” Gregson began.
*
SHE LISTENED TO Gregson talking in a slow, almost uninterested drawl. He spoke in such a matter-of-fact monotone that she had to remind herself she was standing in the middle of a warzone surrounded by the bones of ghouls and not in a park somewhere discussing the weather.
Jesus Christ. What’s going on out here?
When he was done, Gregson lowered his head and stared down at the ground. That was, if his eyes were even still open, which she couldn’t tell for sure. He seemed to have so little energy left after talking that he might have even forgotten to demand that medical attention Keo had promised.
She looked over at Keo, standing on top of the tank behind Gregson, looking back in the direction of the domed buildings she had glimpsed earlier. Jordan was turned the other way, back toward the beach with the shirt pressed against half of her face. They had heard Gregson’s story already and might not even have noticed he had stopped talking.
“How
many towns have they attacked so far?” she asked Keo.
He shrugged. “Apparently they were at it all day yesterday. That was the plan. Shock and awe. Hit hard and hit fast, before the collaborators could mount a proper defense. Sounds like they’ve been planning it for months.”
He took a folded map out of his pocket and tossed it down to her. She opened it and stared at the circled locations. There were dozens of them.
“What am I looking at?” she asked.
“The circles are collaborator towns in Texas.”
“I didn’t know there were so many…”
“I don’t think that’s all of them, just the ones Mercer’s people know about. Scouted in advance of yesterday.”
There had to be at least two, possibly closer to three, dozen circles in all, and all of them concentrated in the southeast. Did that mean there weren’t more in other parts of the state, or were these the only ones Mercer’s people had “scouted”? Each one was marked with a T, followed by a number. About a dozen of the towns had large red X’s scratched across them. One in particular was somewhere between the towns of Hellion and Starch.
Oh, dammit.
“I was at T18 last week,” Jordan said, walking over. She pulled the shirt down just long enough to talk. “Gillian’s there.”
“Your Gillian?” Lara asked Keo.
He nodded. “Long story.”
“Of course it is,” she said. Then, “I’ve never been to any of these places, but from what I hear, there are supposed to be a lot of people in these towns.”
“Hundreds, sometimes thousands,” Keo said.
“T18 had around 4,000 the last time I was there,” Jordan said. “A lot of the women are pregnant.”
“Enemies of the state,” Gregson said. His voice came out of nowhere and he still looked (and sounded) sapped of energy. “Take them out, and you starve the enemy.”
“‘Starve the enemy’?” Lara repeated.
“He means killing the collaborators,” Keo said. “They’re trying to take away what the ghouls prize most—the people in those towns.”
“It’s barbaric,” Jordan said. She stared daggers at Gregson, daring him to challenge her, but he’d already looked back down at the ground. “I would rather die than give blood to those things, but slaughtering them …” She shook her head. “The man who came up with that plan should be hung for war crimes.”
“They’re the enemy,” Gregson muttered to himself. “You’re with us, or you’re against us…”
“Apparently that’s the slogan,” Keo said. There wasn’t any trace of humor in his voice, and he was looking out at the ocean across the charred field. “By the way, where’s the Ranger? I expected to see him make the trip, not you.”
“I sent him, Gaby, and Nate to Starch,” she said. “That was a few days ago, before you got in touch. We’re supposed to be in Port Arthur now, waiting to pick them back up.”
“What’s in Starch?” Jordan asked.
“An underground facility built by a man named Harold Campbell. We sealed it months ago before we left for Louisiana. It has supplies, ammo, guns, and something else Will and I have always talked about retrieving, just in case.”
“Must be important for you to send them back out here,” Keo said.
I thought it was, but now I’m not so sure, she thought, but nodded and said, “Lights.”
“Lights?”
“UV lights.”
Keo looked confused, maybe even doubtful. “Lara, you can go into any store and trip over all the UV lights you can carry. You didn’t have to send the ex-Ranger and the girl to Starch for that.”
“Those lights aren’t like the ones in Starch,” she said.
*
“THEY WORK,” LARA said. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Ghouls turn to ash against them, the way they do against sunlight.”
“That’s a hell of a weapon,” Keo said.
“It is,” she nodded.
“And you’re only trying to retrieve these lights now?”
“We didn’t need them before. We had the island.”
“And now?”
“After you left, we talked about needing an extra layer of security, just in case. I don’t know what Harold Campbell’s people did to those lights—or what they’re actually made of—but we haven’t been able to replicate them. Danny, Gaby, and I had a long talk, and we decided sending an expedition to Starch was worth the risk. If I knew there was even a remote possibility they would be walking into the middle of a warzone…” She shook her head. “Shit, Keo, if anything happens to them…”
“You didn’t know,” Keo said. “Neither did we, until last night. It’s a big state, Lara.”
“I know,” she said, and looked past him at Bonnie, standing guard on the road with Jordan. The two women looked like they were in the middle of a conversation. She was grateful for the cool wind whipping in from the Gulf of Mexico, because they kept her from smelling the lingering fumes from the fields.
“What now?” Keo asked.
“My primary concern is keeping the Trident and everyone on it safe. And that’s what I’m going to do while we head back to Port Arthur to wait for Danny to make contact.”
“How long has it been?”
“Yesterday morning. His last position was outside a town called Hellion. Close enough to Starch that the next time he radioed in, I expected him to be doing it from inside Harold Campbell’s facility.”
“Did you say Hellion and Starch?”
She nodded somberly. “I saw them on the map.”
“He could have gone around it. The Ranger’s resourceful, bad jokes notwithstanding. And the girl’s good.”
“Gaby.”
“Yeah, her. I’m not sure about the kid with the Mohawk, though.”
She managed a smile. “He’s a good kid.”
“Yeah, but that haircut…”
“I know.”
She looked off into the ocean, in the direction where she knew Blaine and the Trident were waiting for them right now. She couldn’t see the yacht from here, which made her feel relieved. The last thing she needed was to have to fight off collaborators on the ocean, too.
“We’re dealing with a Ranger here,” Keo was saying. “I’ve crossed a few of them in my time, so don’t press the panic button just yet. At least not for another day, and maybe not even then.”
She wanted badly to agree with him, but the doubts made that impossible.
Would you have done it, Will? Or would you have been satisfied with staying on the Trident?
God, where are you when I need you most?
“What about Gillian and T18?” she asked. “How are you going to handle that one?”
“It’s tricky.”
“When is it not tricky with you?”
He grunted before glancing back at Jordan, on the road behind them with Bonnie. The two women still looked like they were in the middle of conversation.
“You got extra room for her?” he asked.
“If you’re not coming, I have a feeling she won’t, either.”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
Lara gave him an almost pitying look. “For a smart guy, you can be amazingly dense at times, Keo.”
“When are people going to stop overestimating me? I keep telling everyone I’m just a guy with a gun.”
“Right,” she smiled. “You’re just a guy with a gun.”
CHAPTER 17
GABY
“HOW MANY, YOU think?” Nate asked.
She shook her head. “It’s hard to tell. God knows how many more are buried underneath all that.”
“It looks worse than I thought it would be.”
“It’s kind of what I expected.”
“Really?”
“Mostly.”
“I guess you have a better imagination than me.”
“Well, this looks familiar,” Danny said, climbing up the rubble behind them. He walked the short distance over and crouched next to her and looked o
ut at the airfield. “Plan Z,” he said quietly.
“What?” she said.
“Just thinking out loud. Don’t mind me.”
She followed his gaze back out to the world beyond the hangar. Or what was left of it. If she didn’t already know she was looking at an airfield, she wouldn’t have been able to guess from the remains. The ground had taken a lot of punishment, the slabs of asphalt and concrete that made up the runway scattered across the surrounding area. The group of administrative buildings on the other side was practically invisible against the widespread destruction.
Bleached white bones poked out of the discombobulated green, brown, and gray of the obliterated field like furless prairie dogs playing hide and seek with the sun. Dead (again?) ghouls. So many that she could have started counting and never finished before nightfall, and those were just the ones she could see from her perch. How many more were hidden underneath all that loosened earth and man-made material? What about behind them right now? Or among the scorched trees that flanked the airfield?
“Cluster bombs,” Danny had said when Nate told him about the small parachutes he’d seen falling from the sky last night.
There was just enough wind to disperse most of the lingering stench of vaporized ghoul flesh, otherwise it would have been unbearable against so much unnatural death. Even so, she pulled her shirt up over half of her face, Danny and Nate doing the same next to her. Her eyes stung, a combination of the acrid smell of the dead and the scorched foliage from the woods around them.
They were crouched on a section of the hangar’s front wall that was still standing, the top half blown off by one of the blasts from last night. Pieces of the caved-in roof provided a ladder of sorts, with just enough hand and footholds to crawl up its length. The only thing left now was to hop the ten feet down to the sturdy ground below, where most of the bombs had fallen short. Or maybe the pilots had hit exactly what they were supposed to and the hangar wasn’t one of them.
Pilots. Because there was more than one plane last night. How many? Maybe it didn’t matter. One or two, or ten of those Warthogs would still have changed everything. The bloody mess at T29 was proof of that.
“Well?” a voice said from behind them, from inside the hangar. “What’s the verdict?”