Again, another quick glance among the three women.
“I didn’t think of that,” Liz said.
“Neither did I,” Sharon said.
Jackson grinned at Keo. “Maybe we’re not going to regret saving your life after all, Mr. Knockout.”
“I’ve been told worse things,” Keo said.
“Oh yeah? Does that have anything to do with that nasty-looking scar?”
He smiled. He was wondering when one of them would bring that up. Whenever he met someone new, they invariably commented on the scar that ran down almost the entire length of the left side of his face. It was a lasting parting gift from one of the many men that Keo had encountered in his life that had tried to kill him. Like the others, the scar’s giver had also failed.
“It doesn’t not have anything to do with it,” Keo said.
“Must be a good story,” Jackson said.
“It’s pretty—” Keo began but stopped in midsentence. He shot up from the floor and glanced up the hallway, which was the same direction Sharon and Liz were also staring at that same time. Because the two women had heard it, too.
Or, in this case, didn’t hear it: The pounding against the rear door had stopped, and there was just a deep, deep silence in its place.
“They stopped,” Sharon said.
“Why did they stop?” Liz asked.
“I don’t know. They’ve never done that before, either.” She glanced over at Keo but didn’t say anything.
“What?” Keo said.
“You’ve seen this before?”
“I’ve seen a lot of things before. You’ll have to narrow it down.”
“The black eyes stopping their attack when they know there’s prey on the other side,” Liz said.
Keo didn’t answer right away. Had he ever seen something like this before? The black eyes doing something completely out of character? Like, say, take Carter prisoner? Or, now, ending their assault on a door without rhyme or reason?
“You’ve seen this before,” Sharon said, watching his face closely.
“Yes,” Keo said. He glanced up the hallway. Jackson’s light didn’t extend far enough for him to make out the door, but he could just vaguely make out its shape. “By themselves, the black eyes are predictable. Dangerous, but predictable. It’s when there’s something else around that they become…unpredictable, and that makes them even more dangerous.”
“Something else around?” Jackson asked. “Like what? These collaborators you guys were talking about?”
“No,” Keo said, thinking about Darby Bay, about a little Texas town that none of the three women had probably even heard of before called Axton. “I’m not talking about collaborators.”
“What, then?”
Keo didn’t answer her. He looked over at Sharon instead.
The older woman met his gaze, and he knew that she knew exactly what he was talking about. “I didn’t see one out there. Did you?”
“No,” Keo said, shaking his head. “But it doesn’t mean it’s not here in Paxton with us. The way the black eyes are behaving, it would make sense. As much as anything makes sense anymore in this world.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Liz asked. “What else could be out there that explains any of this?”
Sharon turned to the taller woman. “Denver. About five years back. Remember?”
Liz’s eyes widened slightly. “Fuck.”
“What? What happened in Denver?” Jackson asked, looking from Liz to Sharon.
“You hadn’t joined us then,” Liz said to the younger woman. Her face had sobered up. “The only reason we added more to the group was because we’d lost some friends in Denver. That…opened up space for you and Carter and the others.”
“So what happened in Denver?” Jackson asked. “And why haven’t I ever heard about it until now?”
Liz didn’t answer, and Sharon was too busy staring at Keo.
“A blue-eyed ghoul,” the older woman said. “You think there’s one in Paxton with us.”
“Yeah,” Keo said quietly.
“Fuck,” Liz said. It was almost a whisper, as if she was afraid someone—something—out there might overhear.
“Oh,” Jackson said, her face paling noticeably under the glow of her LED light. “You guys think…?”
“Maybe,” Keo said. “It explains a lot. The blue eyes are still capable of thinking, planning. The black eyes wouldn’t take Carter the way they did. I think we all know that.”
Sharon nodded but didn’t interrupt him.
“There has to be something else going on that we haven’t seen yet,” Keo continued. “A blue eyes running the show would explain a lot, but not everything.”
“No?” Liz asked. “What wouldn’t it explain? What other crazy shit has happened in this godawful place that we don’t know about yet?”
“For one, it wouldn’t explain why it didn’t attack me personally back at the warehouse,” Keo said. “Or why it hasn’t shown up here yet.” He looked toward the rear door, hidden somewhere among the shadows. “It could take that door down easily. Hell, it wouldn’t even break a sweat. And yet…”
“Maybe it’s hiding?” Jackson said. Keo thought she sounded almost hopeful.
“From what?” Liz asked.
The younger woman shrugged. “I don’t know. From us?”
Keo almost laughed but managed to rein it in in time. He said instead, “You think a blue-eyed ghoul would be scared of us?” He took his KA-BAR out of its sheath and held it up to her light. “Me, with my knife? You ladies, with your bullets?” Keo put the knife away. “No, it’s not scared of us. That’s not the reason it hasn’t shown itself.”
“If there’s actually one of them out there,” Sharon said.
“He’s right; it would explain a lot,” Liz said, looking across at Sharon.
“But not everything. He’s right about that, too.”
“Goddammit. This night just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it?”
“Not quite the word I’d use,” Keo said.
“FUBAR, then.”
“What’s that?” Jackson asked.
“He knows,” Liz said, nodding at Keo.
“Fucked Up Beyond All Reason,” Keo said.
“Oh,” Jackson said.
“We don’t know anything for certain,” Sharon said. “We’re just guessing here.”
“Educated guesses,” Liz said. “You have to admit that, Sharon.”
“Still just guesses. There may or may not be a blue-eyed ghoul calling the shots out there. I don’t know. And you don’t know, either. But all four of us know one thing for certain: Carter is nearby, and that kid needs our help.”
“She’s right,” Liz said. She nodded, as if trying to convince herself. “We have to find Carter. We’ve already lost too much tonight. We can’t lose her, too.”
“We’ll find her,” Sharon said.
“Yeah, we’ll find her,” Jackson added.
Keo kept his mouth shut, but he thought, Easier said than done, ladies, especially with that horde of ghouls out there.
And maybe, just maybe, a blue eyes among them.
That last thought made Keo shiver slightly. It didn’t matter how many times he had been confronted with a blue-eyed ghoul, the image of one of them boring into his soul with those glowing blue eyes of theirs always made him ice cold.
Keo looked down at his watch.
7:49 p.m.
Less than twenty minutes since he’d been saved by the women, and so, so many hours still to go before daybreak.
Seven
“You don’t have silver bullets?” Keo asked.
He’d couched the question as innocuously as he could so that it came out along the lines of, “Oh, you guys happen to have any silver bullets on you? ’Cause, you know, that would be really helpful right now,” instead of the more accusing (and infinitely more apt to be taken badly) “What kind of idiots run around at night without silver bullets? And this is coming from a
n idiot who was running around out there with just a knife!”
He was hoping that came across, and maybe it did, because Sharon sighed and said, “We did, but they were in our supply bags. The same bags that were on our horses when we were attacked.”
“They spooked your horses?”
“Among other things,” Liz said. “It was almost like they were waiting for us. I know it’s hard to believe, but it really did seem that way.”
“‘Waiting’ for you?” Keo said.
“Yeah.” She shook her head. “I know it sounds ridiculous. The black eyes don’t do that. They just attack.”
Unless there’s a blue eyes in the area commanding them.
There was just something so odd about everything that had transpired in Paxton tonight, from ghouls not acting like they normally did to the almost tactical way he, and now the women, were ambushed. None of it made much sense, and whenever he thought he had an answer, something came along to contradict it.
And then there was what had happened to Carter. That was a real headscratcher, but it was also something he could overlook, mostly because it didn’t matter to him. Right now, his goal—his only goal—was to retrieve the backpack he’d brought from Galveston and get the hell out of Paxton. To accomplish that, he had a feeling he was going to need help. If there was something out there, something intelligent, then Keo was loath to try his luck all by himself.
Of course, he could wait until morning. The supplies might still be out there tomorrow, just waiting for him to reclaim them…or they might not.
That was the dilemma he faced. They could still be there, untouched, or they could be gone. And if they were still out there, what if someone else showed up in the morning and ran off with them before he could? Could he take that chance?
It had taken him nine days to reach Galveston and return, and that was when he had Mirabelle. He didn’t have the Appaloosa anymore. To get a new horse, he’d need to return to the ranch first…
Could Lara afford that much delay? Or maybe the better question was, could he afford to take that risk? If it were just his skin he had to risk, the answer was simple. The problem, of course, was that it wasn’t just his life on the line here.
So he sat back and allowed the women to hash out their dilemma: They wanted to find the teenager, Carter. It didn’t take a genius to know it wasn’t just about rescuing the girl but saving, at least in spirit, the rest of their lost doomed comrades through her. According to Sharon, there had been four others watching their horses outside the warehouse, along with Carter, when the ghouls attacked. They were now down to three—or four, if he counted Carter. Keo didn’t think very highly of the kid’s chances, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud.
Eventually the women came up with a plan: They would leave the safety of the office building and venture out to search for Carter. The possibility that she was nearby and inside the basement of a bar or some kind of drinking establishment would help narrow down the search. It wouldn’t pinpoint her exact location—their lack of knowledge about Paxton didn’t help—but it was a good starting point.
Although they didn’t say it, Keo thought all three women shared his discomfort in the sudden lack of ghouls trying to break into the office. It was just one more thing that didn’t make any sense in a night full of them.
Something’s going on out there. Something…not right.
To give the women some privacy, Keo wandered over to the front of the building to get a better look at the other way in. Not that he didn’t believe Sharon when she told him it was secured, but—well, mostly he didn’t believe her. It turned out she was right: The entry was identical to the one in the back. There were windows, but they were high up, and unless the ghouls had learned to fly… The thought of that made him cringe a bit.
Damn, here’s hoping that never happens.
There was nothing in the large room up front that he could use as a weapon to supplant the KA-BAR, though a foot-long metal rod—complete with sanded-down pointy end—came close. It looked like someone had once used it as a weapon but apparently didn’t need it anymore. Keo thought he could still see dark spots along its length, which could be ghoul or human blood. Besides that, there wasn’t much he could find that would be useful in a fight. The floor was covered in dirt and old footprints, and a large desk was close enough to the door that Keo knew it’d been used as a barricade at some point in the office’s existence. And for some reason, someone had scrawled the words krycek was here with a knife along one of the walls.
When he returned to the back hallway, things had taken a bad turn. Not that any of the three women said anything to him immediately, but he could read the body language.
“Carter?” Keo said.
Sharon looked over and nodded. “She isn’t answering our radio calls.”
“Was she, before? Or was she always the first one to make contact?”
“She’s answered before,” Liz said. “We’ve been purposefully not radioing her more than we absolutely had to, so we don’t accidentally give her away if she needed to stay quiet.”
“This time she’s not answering,” Sharon said.
“So what does that mean?” Keo asked.
“It could be anything. Her radio’s battery could have run out of power. Or she’s in a part of the basement that’s too thick for her signal to get through.”
Or whoever put her down there might have realized their mistake and came back and took the radio from her.
“We don’t know why she’s not answering. That’s the problem,” Liz said.
“Or she could be in trouble,” Jackson said.
The women exchanged a look, and Keo knew they’d already made up their minds about what to do next while he was hunting for a weapon at the front of the building. This latest silence from Carter had just convinced them to move quicker.
He said, “You’re going outside.”
“We don’t have any choice,” Sharon said. “We have a good idea of where she is. You said it yourself. She has to be nearby. It has to be the same bar that Jackson saw.”
“I could be wrong.”
“Are you? Wrong?” Liz asked.
Keo shrugged. “All I know is that, if you’re going out there, you probably shouldn’t take my word for it. I wouldn’t.”
“We don’t have any choice,” Sharon said again. Keo wondered if she was trying to convince herself or him, or the other two. Maybe all three.
He couldn’t say he blamed them. He didn’t know these people or what they had been through together. The fact that they were all women—even though Sharon hadn’t confirmed that when it came to the ones they’d already lost to the ghouls tonight—spoke volumes. They’d seen some shit, that was for sure, and whatever he said—a man—wasn’t going to change their minds one bit.
“You gotta do what you have to do,” Keo said.
“Yeah,” Sharon said, exchanging a look with the other two women, “we do.”
“Here,” Liz said.
When Keo turned to her, the tall woman held a Glock pistol out toward him. She still had an almost identical one in her holster, so he assumed she’d been carrying the extra in her pack.
“What’s this?” Keo asked.
“It’s the best we can do for you,” Liz said.
Jackson took a pair of magazines out of her pouch and held them out to Keo. “This’ll work for the pistol.”
“You both carry Glocks?” he asked, taking the magazines.
“We all do,” Sharon said. “9mm. It helps to have just one caliber to worry about. Same with our rifles.”
Keo nodded. He’d noticed that they were all carrying AR-15 variants chambered for 5.56 rounds.
As he put the magazines away—there was already one loaded into the Glock—Keo asked, “I don’t suppose these have silver bullets?”
Sharon frowned. “No.”
“It’s been a while since we encountered this many ghouls in one place,” Liz said. “Before, it was never anything th
at we couldn’t have dealt with with just these,” she added, patting her sheathed knife. Sharon had already told Keo that their knives, like his, were silver-coated along the edge. “We let our guards down. Got complacent.”
“We got lazy,” Sharon said, pursing her lips. “That won’t happen again.”
“No, it won’t.”
I’ve heard that before, Keo thought. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve said that exact same thing, too. Then tonight happened.
“You’re going out there with just those knives and guns that won’t do any good?” Keo asked.
“Why not?” Jackson said. “You did the same thing with just that little knife of yours.”
Keo smirked. “It’s not that little.”
The teenager smiled. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to insult your little knife. I know guys are sensitive about the size of their…knives.”
Keo narrowed his eyes and wondered just how much Jackson knew about men and their obsession with sizes. Then he had to remember that she might have been young, but out here you grew up fast.
He said, “I wish I could help you, but I have my own problems.”
“Is one of those problems the reason why you were out there?” Sharon asked. “Instead of staying put in that warehouse like a sane person?”
Keo sighed. “It doesn’t not have something to do with that.”
“It’s a secret, huh?” Liz said.
“No, just…not something that would interest you.”
“I guess we all have our problems tonight,” Sharon said. She reached over and shook his hand. “I wish I could say it’s been swell, Keo, but frankly, I don’t know you well enough for that.”
“Yeah, you could be a real asshole, for all we know,” Liz added even as she, too, shook his hand.
“Definitely an asshole,” Jackson said, doing the same but with a smile that almost verged on being flirty. “But we’ve met worse guys out there.”
I bet you all have, Keo thought, but said, “I wish you guys all the luck in the world.”
Road to Babylon (Book 8): Daybreak Page 6