Road to Babylon (Book 8): Daybreak

by Sisavath, Sam

  Felix beat him to it, the pop-pop-pop of his rifle filling the building as he opened fire at the second floor. The pek-pek-pek of rounds hitting the barrier, breaking off chunks of it, while others sailed high and pinged off other parts of the building.

  Keo searched for the ghoul among the bursts of pulverized concrete forming clouds on the second floor, but he couldn’t locate it. Either it’d returned to the shadows, or one of Felix’s rounds had landed true and it was crumpled on the floor right now, on the other side of the wall.

  One bullet. That’s all we need. One bullet in the brain. That’s all.

  “Martin!” Huston’s voice rang out just as a black blur ran past Keo.

  Keo glanced over as Martin sped across the lobby, moving so fast that Keo was surprised he was even capable of that kind of speed.

  The thought Where the hell is he going? rushed through Keo.

  The answer came just as quickly: The ghoul. Shit. He’s going after the ghoul!

  Huston appeared across Keo’s peripheral vision, chasing after Martin. Keo reached out instinctively and grabbed her just as she was about to pass him. She almost fell as he pulled her back violently and nearly jerked her off her feet. That was a mistake on his part because stopping Huston’s speeding form put tremendous strain on both of his arms. That included the right one where his shoulder was dislocated not all that long ago.

  He grimaced through the pain but held on as Huston struggled against him, shouting, “Martin! Stop! Don’t go up there!”

  Too late, Keo thought as he watched Martin jump onto the escalator and run up the steps, taking them two, then three at a time. That’s what it wants. Goddammit, Martin, you’re giving it exactly what it wants!

  “Felix!” Keo shouted.

  The slayer had turned around and immediately figured out what was happening. “Keep her here!” he shouted just before he took off after Martin.

  Keo held onto Huston as she tried to break free. He was much stronger than her even with one bum arm, and didn’t let go.

  Martin had already reached the top of the escalator and was stepping onto the second floor. Keo kept an eye on him as long as possible but lost track of the slayer when he vanished behind the three-foot wall that ringed the upper deck. The bang-bang-bang! of a pistol firing over and over again echoed from above not long after.

  “Martin!” Felix shouted as he hopped off the escalator, taking it almost as fast as Martin had seconds earlier.

  Oh, this is going well, Keo thought as Felix, too, vanished onto the second floor behind the barrier.

  Keo must have relaxed his arms too much, because Huston suddenly broke free. He grabbed at her but missed by inches, and the medic raced across the lobby and toward the escalator.

  Dammit!

  It didn’t take Keo very long to decide that staying down here by his little lonesome wasn’t a very good idea. He ran after Huston, and they were bolting up the escalator steps when there was a burst of gunfire, the suppressed but still loud brap-brap-brap! of an AR firing on full-auto like thunder rolling across the second floor ahead of them.

  And I’m running into that? Keo thought even as he did just that.

  Huston jumped over the final step, with Keo right behind her.

  The second floor was connected by long walkways on two sides and was in worse condition than below. Storefronts lined the walls, most of them with sheets of plywood over spots where windows were supposed to be. Only a few of the stores had signs in place before construction stopped, and despite the unfinished rooftop above, there were too many shadowy corners and patches of deep darkness for Keo’s liking. The lack of a completed roof meant there was a lot of visible water damage.

  Keo scanned for and immediately found Felix standing about thirty meters away. The slayer’s back was to them, and he was not moving. But he was still upright, and his AR hung at his side. It took Keo a few seconds to realize Felix was staring at something, but it was too dark for Keo to make out what.

  He and Huston rushed toward him, their boots kicking fresh empty brass casings scattered across the floor. A few skidded to the edge and ricocheted off the three-foot wall. Keo looked over at the spot where the ghoul had been standing earlier. There were chunks of brick on the floor—the results of Felix’s volley—but there were no hints that he’d struck gold with any of his shots. Or even landed a hit.

  Dammit. That’ll teach me to hope.

  Felix hadn’t moved since Keo first spotted him, and he still didn’t when Huston called his name. Keo found out why Felix wasn’t responding when he and Huston finally reached him.

  The slayer was guarding Martin’s body, which was standing against a wall underneath a slightly crooked FOREVER 21 sign.

  No, Martin wasn’t standing. He had been nailed to the brick wall with his own machete, the handle of the long blade sticking out of his chest, the grip covered in fresh, dripping blood.

  …and his head was missing.

  Twenty-Four

  Martin was dead, and they were next.

  Whoa, whoa. Let’s try to think positive, shall we?

  The ghoul was toying with them for its own sick pleasure. They might as well be pussycats chasing balls of string around.

  What did I just say about thinking positive?

  There were still over two hours to go before sunrise. Two full hours. How the hell was he going to survive 120 minutes?

  Come on, you can do it! The power of positive thinking!

  The creature wasn’t just going to stay out there all night and let the morning come. No way, no how. The only road out of this was over the fucker’s dead body.

  Now we’re talking. So what’s the plan?

  He didn’t have one. At least, not yet. There was no getting around that the blue-eyed bastard had them where it wanted them. This was the game all along. The only question was: What else did it have planned?

  Keo took stock of their situation.

  Martin was dead, which left him with two slayers. Felix was dependable, and Huston was, too, in the right circumstances. Right now wasn’t one of them. The medic was still distraught over Martin’s death, and nothing he or Felix could say was going to help. Huston and Martin were clearly more than just comrades. Keo had seen that when she was consoling him earlier; and very recently, Huston’s total collapse at the sight of Martin’s body.

  They had remained on the second floor in the aftermath of the first assault, having agreed it was the better option against future attacks. And the ghouls were coming, Keo had no doubts about that. It was just a matter of when and how. The other unseen half of the second floor was a real possible danger point, but not any more than the lobby and its many ways in. At least up here they could see them coming, instead of having ghouls drop down on top of them, like earlier.

  How many soldiers did the blue eyes have at its disposal? There was a very real chance some of the dead creatures on the first floor were former slayers, like Jack. Terminal and Rogers were dead, torn to pieces in the tunnel, according to Felix, but McBroom and Merrifield were missing. For all Keo knew, two of the emaciated forms below were them. One could even be Jackson. Keo still didn’t know if she’d made it to safety or not. His only hope was that the blue-eyed ghoul had been too preoccupied with him to go after her.

  Keo searched out the shadows of the lobby below for signs of the second wave. There was absolutely no part of him that thought tonight would end with them just walking blissfully into the morning sunlight. It wasn’t going to be that easy, and no amount of wishing was going to change that.

  Felix clearly felt the same way. The slayer walked over and handed Keo Martin’s heavily-modified AR rifle. “You’ll need this.”

  He also passed along Martin’s ammo pouches, which Keo took and cinched around his own waist. Any queasiness he might have about wearing and using a recently-dead man’s equipment was easily squashed by the need to better arm himself. The rifle was a black Colt chambered for 5.56 rounds, and there were two spare magazines for it.


  “I’m assuming you know how to use one of those?” Felix asked.

  Keo looked up at the slayer to see if he was being serious and saw a mischievous grin. “Funny guy.”

  Felix chuckled. “Just wanna make sure.”

  Keo grunted and wanted to remind Felix about the last person who wanted to “make sure” he knew how to use a weapon. But that would have brought back bad memories for Felix, since Keo assumed he and Terminal were friends. Maybe not buddies, but definitely long-time acquaintances, and Felix might not like Keo scoring points using the no-longer-among-them Terminal.

  “How are we for bullets?” Keo asked instead.

  “I got plenty left. So do you.”

  “I have two mags for this rifle and one more for the Glock. That’s it.”

  “That’s more than enough.”

  “How you figure that?”

  “We only need one bullet to end this.”

  “That’s the trick, isn’t it?”

  “Tricks are for kids, Chinaman. Bullet to the head is what adults do.”

  The slayer glanced over at Huston, still kneeling next to Martin. They’d taken the body down from the wall and laid it on the floor, using a blanket from a nearby storefront to cover him up. Huston’s back was to Keo, but he didn’t need to see her face to know she was mourning. She hadn’t moved from the spot next to Martin in a while.

  “Still nothing down there?” Felix asked.

  “Not yet,” Keo said.

  “They’re coming.”

  “Oh, they’re definitely coming. It’s just a question of how.”

  “No when?”

  “When is before daybreak.”

  “Ah. Good point.”

  Felix was in better shape than Huston, both mentally and physically, but Keo could see the effects of Martin’s loss on the other man’s face as well. The two were good friends and probably had been for a lot of years now. Most slayers Keo knew picked up the profession after The Walk Out and stuck together from their mutual bond of hating ghouls. It was a hell of a thing to base a relationship on, but Keo guessed he’d heard of worse reasons.

  “You good?” Keo asked the slayer now.

  Felix was too busy keeping an eye on the floor below to notice that Keo was scrutinizing him. He looked up and met Keo’s gaze. “Yeah, I’m good. You?”

  “I’ve been better, all things considered.”

  “That good or bad?”

  “It’s not bad.”

  “But not good.”

  “You know what we’re going to have to do, right? In order to get out of here?”

  “Sure I do. But why don’t you tell me anyway, just so we’re on the same page.”

  “We’re gonna have to kill the fucker, Felix. It’s not just going to let us walk out of here. One way or another, this thing is going to end before morning.”

  Felix nodded. “Same page.” He returned to scanning the semidarkness below them, including all those ways in. “And how are we gonna accomplish that, exactly? Stay alive, I mean?”

  “I was hoping you might have some ideas.”

  “I got nothing.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Ain’t it, though?” Then, almost absently, “You’re Korean, right? Kimchi, bibimbap, all that disgusting stuff?”

  Keo smiled. “On my mom’s side.”

  “How long were you in the service?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “You sure?”

  “I think I would know, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, I guess you would.”

  “We have to kill it,” a voice said from behind them.

  Both Keo and Felix turned around to find Huston standing behind them with the kind of intense stare that could burn through metal. He was shocked to find her back there, and apparently so was Felix, from the look on his face.

  How the hell did a grieving medic sneak up on us?

  “What did you say, Huston?” Felix asked.

  “We have to kill it,” Huston said. “Whatever it takes. We have to kill that motherfucker tonight.”

  “Well, as long as we’re all in agreement,” Felix said, looking over at Keo as if to say, “So, did you come up with any ideas since the last time we talked about this, oh, a few minutes earlier?”

  “I might have an idea,” Keo said.

  “We’re all ears.”

  “You might not like it.”

  “I like being in here even less. So spill it.”

  Keo nodded, and did.

  Felix didn’t like the idea, but failing to offer up any alternatives of his own, he reluctantly agreed.

  “That doesn’t mean it’s still not a bad idea,” the slayer said.

  “I agree, it’s a pretty bad idea,” Keo said.

  “But it could work.”

  “Yes, it could.”

  “It could also not work.”

  “That’s also a possibility, yes. I personally put the odds of it working at forty-sixty.”

  “Which one of those numbers is in favor of this working?”

  “Forty.”

  “That’s not comforting.”

  “It’s supposed to be realistic.”

  “Couldn’t you have sugarcoated it? Pretend it was fifty-fifty instead? Would that have been so hard?”

  “You’re not a ten-year-old, Felix.”

  “Sometimes it sucks being an adult. But hey, I guess it’s time to make the donuts.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  The slayer shrugged. “I don’t know. Terminal liked saying it. I like it, too. It sounds cool.”

  “It’s stupid.”

  “It grows on you.”

  “That’s doubtful,” Keo said.

  For her part, Huston had just nodded after hearing the plan. Keo got the sense that he could have come up with just about anything, and she would have agreed as long as it meant they would attempt to kill the blue-eyed ghoul. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Huston wasn’t expecting to survive this; she just wanted a shot at Martin’s killer before she went. He had thought Huston couldn’t be counted on before, but Keo was pretty sure of it now. A person with nothing to lose always ended up being more of a liability than a help, in his experience.

  They put the plan into motion soon after that, with Keo sneaking down the escalator to retrieve the supply bags Felix and Martin had brought with them but had left below in the rush to chase down Blue Eyes earlier. Everything would still be there. Hopefully. Felix covered him the entire time with his rifle, while Huston did the same for Felix’s six o’clock.

  Keo was pretty sure the ghouls would launch their second attack when he was downstairs, but there were no signs of them as he stepped off the escalator, sweeping the moonlit area with Martin’s AR. The rifle was heavy in his hands; much heavier than it should have been. Keo wondered what else Martin had done to modify it. There was a simple red dot scope mounted on top, and the trigger was light—maybe a tad too light—against his forefinger.

  The next few minutes was unnerving as Keo maneuvered around dead ghouls in order to reach his objective. He kept waiting for one of the bodies to pop up and make a grab for him like in the horror movies.

  Any second now, boys! Any second now!

  But none of them did. He was thankful for the plentiful moonlight that shone across the lobby, revealing the bulk of the room to him. The only real patches of shadows were along the edges, but that was also where the most obvious ways in were, and he’d have kept an eye on them anyway.

  Any second now! he was still thinking as he jogged around the fountain, then the big hole in the floor. He grabbed the bags and ran back without hesitation. He almost tripped at the top of the escalator but managed to stay upright. It would have been embarrassing if he’d fallen on his face; no doubt Felix would have mentioned it once or twice, or a dozen times.

  When he was safely back upstairs, Keo thought, What are you waiting for, asshole? I know you’re out there. So what are you waiting fo
r?

  He handed the bags to Felix, and the former army man went to take care of his part of the plan, while Keo wandered over to Huston. She sat on the floor with her back against the three-foot wall that overlooked the lobby on the other side, staring at Martin’s body, wrapped like a mummy across from them.

  “You okay?” Keo asked.

  She shook her head and didn’t look up. “No.”

  “I didn’t say it before, but I’m sorry about Martin.”

  She nodded robotically.

  “You two were close,” Keo said.

  “We all were,” Huston said.

  Keo wanted to sit down next to her and rest for a bit, but then he wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on the first floor. He remained standing instead while cradling Martin’s rifle. What he wouldn’t give for a shorter, lighter submachine gun...

  “You think this will work?” Huston asked.

  “I don’t know,” Keo said.

  He’d considered lying but decided truth was probably the better approach. Besides, he was pretty sure Huston knew the odds, and patronizing her wouldn’t have done either one of them any good. They were all adults here.

  “We’re going to kill it,” Huston said.

  “That’s the plan.”

  “I mean it, Keo. We’re going to kill it, no matter what it takes.”

  Yeah, about that…

  He said, “We’ll do our damn best, that’s for sure. This is going to be one of those us-or-it type of situations, no doubts about it.”

  “One bullet in the head,” Huston said. “That’s all it’ll take.”

  She had said it so simply, as if it were easy to shoot a blue-eyed ghoul in the head. He wished it were that easy. But it wasn’t. Keo would know; he’d tried it on a number of occasions. Way, way too many occasions for his own health.

  Man, I really have to reevaluate my life choices…

  Keo looked over at Martin’s mummified body. “He told me there wasn’t anything personal between him and Blue Eyes. Was that true?”

  “Yes,” Huston said. “Why would he lie about that?”