Road to Babylon (Book 8): Daybreak

by Sisavath, Sam

  Nope, that’s not good at all.

  Keo wasn’t sure when he made up his mind, but suddenly he was running at the creature even as he slid the KA-BAR out of its sheath. He didn’t need the silver along the knife’s blade to cut the thing’s head from its bony frame. That was all it was going to take. If you couldn’t get a blue eyes in the head, decapitating it was just as good.

  All Keo had to do was get close enough.

  Get close enough!

  It turned around, and the worms that occupied the lower half of its face slithered around until they formed a smirk.

  There goes the element of surprise!

  But Keo didn’t slow down and lunged at it, cocking back his right arm to plunge the knife down into its chest. He would have gone for the head, but it was too long and thin and he was afraid he’d miss. His eyes were still having trouble adjusting, and he didn’t completely trust all of his senses.

  Not that choosing the bigger target did him any good, because the ghoul simply reached up and snatched Keo in the face with its left palm. A bucket of ice water swallowed Keo’s entire head whole, but he somehow managed to push through it anyway—pushed and pushed and pushed!—and followed through with his swing.

  But instead of its chest, he plunged the blade into the side of the creature’s throat!

  The KA-BAR sank in deep, and the undead thing reflexively let go of Keo’s face. It stumbled back, groping at the handle of the knife jutting out of its neck. Its ugly face (You ugly motherfucker!) contorted and cringed, and Keo knew he’d hurt it. The ghoul wouldn’t die, but he’d hurt it.

  He’d hurt it bad.

  There was sudden movement in the road behind the ghoul.

  Are you kidding me? Keo thought as Martin’s mare suddenly popped back up to its feet as if nothing had happened.

  …Or it’d been playing possum this whole time and was finally springing its surprise.

  Jesus, it really is smarter than me.

  “Keo!” Jackson shouted even as she ran out of the field and onto the road. She was going for the horse, which was about to take off when Jackson grabbed its flailing reins. “Keo, come on!”

  “Come on?” Keo thought before it struck him that Jackson expected him to make it past the ghoul and for them to climb onto the Morgan and take off together. She was being very optimistic, apparently.

  The blue eyes was hurt, but it wasn’t dead. If anything, stabbing it in the throat had only pissed it off. Keo could see it in its eyes as it glared at him while it slowly, oh so slowly pulled the knife out of its neck. The long, sharp blade came out with a sickening pop!, and a gush of black blood spurted out of the gash.

  The creature smirked at Keo, as if to say, Now I’m really going to fucking kill you, even as behind it Jackson swung into the saddle and whirled the horse around, still trying desperately to get control of it. The mare wanted to take off right now, but Jackson was succeeding in holding her back, if just barely.

  Keo had to admit, he was impressed with the kid. When he’d first met her, she’d been just a subordinate to Liz and Sharon, and maybe that was why he hadn’t thought much of her abilities. But out here, in the middle of this countryside road with a blue-eyed ghoul, Jackson had shown her mettle.

  And she still had the pack on her. His bag.

  Lara’s bag.

  “Keo, come on!” Jackson shouted. “Come on!”

  Keo shook his head and shouted back, “Go!”

  Jackson gave him a confused look.

  “Go!” Keo shouted. “Remember what I told you!”

  Finally understanding, Jackson opened her mouth to answer, when the ghoul spun and Keo’s KA-BAR flashed through the air. Keo managed an incoherent shout just before the knife struck Jackson in the right shoulder. She screamed and almost fell off the horse, but thank God she had the reins wrapped so tightly around both hands that she was able to hang on.

  NO!

  It took only a second—maybe not even that; maybe half a heartbeat—for Keo to make up his mind. He reached behind him and grabbed the folding knife out of his back pocket. His backup blade. He didn’t really like using it. Compared to the KA-BAR, it might as well be a kid’s toy.

  He flicked open the three-inch serrated blade.

  The creature must have heard the very quiet click! that the blade made as it came out, because it turned to look back at him, and something that reminded Keo of an amused smirk flickered across its face.

  Keo ignored it and shouted at Jackson, “Go! Now!”

  Jackson was almost lying on top of the mare as she struggled to simultaneously hold on and glance back at him. It didn’t help that the horse was struggling underneath her, clearly sensing the urgency of the moment. Jackson’s face was a mask of pain, the KA-BAR sticking out of her shoulder.

  He wasn’t sure if Jackson was the one who decided to take off or if it was the horse. One of them did—or maybe both—because the mare turned and fled up the road, with Jackson holding on for dear life.

  The creature turned to look after Jackson, but it didn’t move to stop her.

  “It’s her or me,” Keo said as he began walking toward it.

  Blue eyes turned around to take him in. It did so casually, even as blood leaked out of the hole in its neck. The same hole that was already half-closed. It had happened so quickly, too. Keo wouldn’t be able to tell there was ever a wound there in another few minutes.

  …But that was okay, as long as Keo could cut a bigger hole in its face.

  “What’s it gonna be?” he asked as he continued walking toward it.

  “You think you’ve saved her?” it hissed.

  Keo’s skin pickled at the sound of its voice. Even the moonlight seemed to dim just a little bit more, hoping to avoid contact with the creature.

  “You think she’s safe now?” it asked.

  “She will be, when I gut you with this,” Keo said, holding up the knife. He couldn’t help but think how small it looked compared to the KA-BAR on the ground. Why did it have to be so small?

  “You surprise me, meat,” it hissed. “I thought you would look for the doctor, or for the missing slayers.”

  “Missing slayers?” Keo thought.

  Then: It’s talking about Jack, McBroom, and Merrifield.

  Why? Because it was responsible for them going “missing,” that’s why. Because everything that had happened at the Deuces was just another part of its game.

  Fuck this thing and its games.

  Fuck it right up the asshole.

  Keo gripped the knife tighter as he made up more ground between them. He couldn’t see Jackson or the horse anymore, and that convinced him he’d done the right thing. Jackson would reach the ranch, and Lara would get what she needed. Even if he didn’t make it back, that was still a pretty good happy ending. Given all the shit he’d done in his life, “pretty good” was more than he could have hoped for.

  Sorry I couldn’t make it home, Lara. I guess I meandered too much.

  “You’re going to die,” the creature hissed. The wound in its neck had completely healed now. (Already?) “You know that, don’t you, meat?”

  Keo didn’t answer. His close—and getting closer—proximity to the creature made his eyes sting and his nostrils twitch. That unnatural combination of heat and cold emanating from its flesh reached out across the small distance that now separated them and attempted to embrace Keo. He shivered.

  “I have a counter proposal,” Keo said. Then, when it cocked its head in curiosity, “Why don’t I cut off your head instead, then do you the favor of burying your skinny bones in the fields so the crows can’t get at them. Sound good to you?”

  It laughed.

  Keo threw himself at the creature.

  Second time’s the charm!

  Except it wasn’t.

  The fucker backhanded Keo in the chest as if he were an annoying gnat. He landed back somewhere in the field of grass for the second time that night. Fortunately, the shock of being bitch-slapped and tossed God
only knew how far kept him from feeling the pain.

  Mostly.

  He stared up at the cloudless moonlit sky above him.

  Get up! Get up!

  This is no time to be lying down on the job, pal!

  But before he could obey the voice, it was there.

  It stood over him, skinny legs at both sides of him, and its head hovering five inches from his face. The worms that it was trying to pass off as lips creased into a Joker-like grin.

  “Pathetic,” it hissed. “Did you really think this was a fight? You’re just my playthings, meat. You’re just my temporary cure against boredom.”

  Keo imagined a hundred possible comebacks—some witty and others not so much—but before he could put any of them into words, the monster grabbed him by the throat. Impossibly cold fingers, like icicles, slid around his neck and tightened.

  Slowly, he began to lose focus. Which was fine, because Keo didn’t like the idea of being so close to the creature anyway. So close, in fact, that he could see his own reflection in its eyes, and he had looked a lot better.

  “I’m going to take everything from you,” it hissed. “Everything, and everyone. Including those at the ranch. Yes, I know about the ranch, meat. I know all about the ranch…”

  Twenty

  “Keo.”

  Lara?

  “Wake up.”

  Lara, what are you doing here?

  “Can you hear me?”

  Why did you leave the ranch? Why did you come here?

  “Hey, Keo.”

  It’s not safe to be here. You have to go back. You have to go back to the ranch now.

  “Wake up.”

  Why did Bunker let you leave? That fucker. I’m going to kick—

  “Wake up, Keo!”

  He opened his eyes, but it wasn’t Lara hovering over him. It was a familiar face, though.

  Huston. It was Huston. Her short blonde hair was covered in dirt and… Mud? Was that mud in her hair and speckled on both cheeks and forehead? Why was Huston covered in mud? Or maybe the better question was, how had he mistook her voice for Lara’s? They didn’t look anything alike, and they sounded nothing alike, either.

  “Be careful,” Huston said as she helped him up into a sitting position.

  The ground was wet underneath his ass, and the same mud that caked Huston’s face and hair was on the palm of his left hand as he lifted it up to rub his neck, spreading the wetness across his throat. Breathing was difficult for some reason, and it took a lot of effort to push air out of his lungs, up his trachea, and expel it.

  “Easy,” Huston said. “Take it easy.”

  He was using his left hand because his right was in some kind of sling made up of strips of cloth and a tattered T-shirt that was so old he thought it might tear if he put too much strain on it. Or even a little strain. He stared at the sling for a moment, trying to figure out how he’d gotten it on or why he needed one in the first place.

  “Your shoulder was dislocated,” Huston said when she noticed where he was looking. “I had to pop it back in for you. The sling’s just a precaution. Does it hurt?”

  Keo shook his head. “Not really,” he said. Or tried to. He barely got the words out because his throat was on fire and that attempt introduced pain all along the length of his clearly-bruised larynx.

  They were sitting in some kind of dark room, but Huston was close enough that he could make out the worry on her face, and vice versa.

  “What happened?” he tried to say but only ended up producing pathetic-sounding noises. He mouthed the words instead.

  “‘What happened?’” Huston asked.

  Keo nodded.

  “It brought you here,” Huston said. “I saw that your shoulder was dislocated. Don’t move it if you don’t have to. There’s going to be some pain for a while.” Then, looking at him, “What did you do? Got into a fistfight with a blue-eyed ghoul?”

  It wasn’t much of a fight, Keo thought but didn’t want to make the effort to say the words.

  He kept his mouth shut and took in his new surroundings instead.

  There was a reason it felt as if he were sitting in a swamp. The floor was concrete, but it was covered in a layer of overgrown moss and whatever else had managed to grow in the darkness between when this place was first constructed and shut down. Or maybe “shut down” wasn’t the right phrasing. Abandoned when the human race no longer needed it was probably the better way to put it.

  “How’s your other shoulder?” Huston was asking him.

  He looked back at her. His “other shoulder?”

  “Jack shot you back at the Deuces, remember?” Huston said.

  Oh, that.

  “I checked it earlier,” Huston said. “It’s not bleeding again, so that’s good. I guess you’ve been shot before, huh?”

  Too many times to count, unfortunately.

  “Where are we?” Keo managed to squeak out.

  “It’s a small section of an underground parking garage. It took me awhile to figure that out. I think there’s a mall above us, but I’m not sure. I haven’t been able to find a way up.”

  He gave her a look that he hoped said, “Then how do you know there’s probably a mall up there?”, but for all he knew it probably came out as, “I think I need to go to the bathroom.”

  Huston seemed to get the gist of his expression, though. “I found some signs pointing to exits that’re supposed to take you up to a mall. Signs, but I haven’t been able to find those exits yet.”

  The fact that they were both sitting in pitch blackness was probably to blame for her lack of success. He might not have even been able to make out Huston if she wasn’t crouched so close to him and had blonde hair. For someone who Keo had last seen being taken away by a blue-eyed ghoul, the medic was in surprisingly good shape. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but this wasn’t it.

  He got up to get a better look at their prison. Or attempted to, anyway. He almost keeled over, but Huston was there to grab him before he could fall flat on his face in the muddy waters that sloshed around his boots.

  “Don’t try to move too fast,” Huston said. “You’ve been unconscious for almost three hours.”

  Three hours? He’d been unconscious for three hours?

  “I kept checking up on you, thinking you might have died on me while I waited for you to wake up,” Huston said. “Your breathing’s better. It was pretty ragged before. Were you having a nightmare?”

  Was he? Keo couldn’t remember and shook his head.

  “Who’s Lara?” Huston asked.

  His eyes widened in surprise.

  “You were talking in your sleep,” the medic said. “You kept mentioning someone named Lara.”

  Keo shook his head, mouthed the word, “Later,” and took another long look around them while he steadied himself with Huston’s help.

  Their surroundings didn’t look any better now that he was on his feet. Huston was right: they were in an underground parking garage of some kind. He could make out massive gray concrete columns holding up the ceiling. There was probably another level or two up there, and maybe more below.

  He was glad he was still wearing boots, which prevented him from stepping on something other than puddles of water. His clothes were wet and covered in mud, and he had to pick cobwebs out of his hair. He wiped the strings and maybe a spider or two on his pants legs and sniffed the stale air. There was plenty of oxygen, so there had to be an opening somewhere.

  Keo glanced down at his watch, but it was gone. Did the ghoul take his watch, too? It didn’t make any sense for the creature to have done that, but then what about tonight made any damn bit of sense?

  What was that the ghoul had said to him back in the road?

  “You’re just my playthings, meat. You’re just my temporary cure against boredom.”

  You won’t be so bored when I shove a knife into your skull, you fucker.

  He pointed at his sling hand, mouthing the words, “How did you make this?” at Hu
ston.

  “The sling?” the medic asked.

  He nodded.

  “I found clothes in another room,” Huston said. “I think they’re from people it brought here before us.” Before he could ask what had happened to those people, Huston said, “It’s just us down here now. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  She led him through the dark, open space, the ground crunching wetly underneath them, like walking across a floor made of sponges. More intricate cobwebs dangled from the ceiling, trying to entangle his face. Keo swiped at them with his good hand. He hadn’t bothered to ask Huston about weapons. She didn’t have any on her, and neither did he.

  It was hard to get a good sense of how big the room was without any lights to see with. Keo would have been groping around in the dark if not for Huston’s presence. He was slowly adjusting to the conditions, but Huston had more hours down here and knew her way around.

  As he followed Huston through the dark, Keo thought about Jackson. The last time he saw her, she was fleeing into the night on the mare. Eventually, if she did what he told her, she’d reach Longmire. The ranch wouldn’t be too far after that.

  That is, if she did what he told her.

  Jackson was hurt, too. Keo hadn’t forgotten that part. She was flying on a horse with a KA-BAR sticking out of her shoulder. He also recalled the look on her face. She was in tremendous pain. There was no telling how far she would be able to travel in those conditions. And if she didn’t make it to Lara…

  No, he had to think positive. Jackson would make it. Lara would get what she needed. And then…

  And then what?

  Nothing. Because nothing else mattered as long as that bag got to Lara.

  Don’t let me down, Jackson. Don’t let me down!

  Huston didn’t so much as lead Keo to another room as to an adjoining open space that was separated from the one he’d woken up in by a large slab of concrete. There were signs along the separating wall warning of ongoing construction and at least two yellow signs with arrows pointing to exits in case of emergency. Keo didn’t try to find where those were; Huston had already told him she couldn’t locate any.

  The other room was smaller but just as dark. The parts of it that he could see were similarly gray and dreary, the ground covered with sticky wetness. Huston walked over to a corner, and Keo followed. There were multiple piles of old clothing there, along with backpacks and at least three pairs of shoes. Something that sounded like an aluminum can skidded across the floor when Keo accidentally kicked it. He tried to follow its path, but it vanished into a darker part of the room, and he gave up.