Two more riders appeared from down the street, meeting the first two halfway for some kind of powwow. After a moment, they turned and headed off toward the other side of town, picking up speed as they went.
“That’s definitely a posse,” Will said, lowering his binoculars. “And they’re headed to the other side. What’s back there?”
Danny took out a folded map from one of his pouches and spread it on the ground. “Woods. Lots of woods. So many, they should call the place Woodsville. And there’s a lake.”
“The lake would explain why they chose this place. It gives them a water supply.”
Danny folded the map back up and put it away. “What’s the plan, Kemosabe?”
“Wait and see?”
“I’m not good at waiting and seeing. I’m more of an action man. That’s what they used to call me back in college. Action Danny.”
“Skirt around the woods, see what’s happening on the other side, then?”
“Sounds like a better plan. Action Danny approves.”
“Glad to hear it,” Will said.
He got up and began moving alongside the clearing while still sticking to the woods. Danny kept pace behind him.
“You didn’t tell me we’d be running this much,” Danny said.
“Hey, I’m the one with bullet holes in me.”
“Stop yer bitchin’. Those bullet holes are already a few days old. Plus, I was thinking…”
“Uh oh.”
“Shaddup. Anyway, I was thinking, we shoulda brought Kellerson along. I’ve always wanted my own personal pack mule. You think he could have carried me, too?”
“Not without two fingers. Hard to get a grip.”
“Yeah, well, whose fault is that?”
“He hesitated when I asked him a question.”
“He said, ‘Huh,’ just before you cut off his pinky finger.”
“What are you, Amnesty International?”
“I didn’t tell you? They even sent me a membership card. That shit was laminated and everything.”
It took them another twenty minutes of steady jogging before they reached the highway. It wasn’t much to look at—two lanes with fading yellow dividers. There were steel guardrails along the sides that they had to climb over before darting across the open to the other side.
Back in the comfort of the woods again, they continued around trees and bushes before risking a run across open ground with L15 fading to their right. After another thirty minutes, they finally reached the other side of the woods.
Will didn’t breathe easier until he had trees around him again.
They hadn’t come to a complete stop when they heard gunfire from somewhere further ahead. The unmistakable clatter of assault rifles, and this time it wasn’t a one-sided fight. There was clearly a back-and-forth gun battle going on.
They went down on one knee and listened.
“AK-47?” Will said when the shooting finally stopped.
“And at least one other rifle,” Danny said.
“How many shooters?”
“Two, possibly three.”
“Sounds about right. If it is our girl, it’s four against one. I don’t like those odds.”
“She’s a lot tougher than you think, Danny. You should have seen her at Mercy Hospital.”
“Yeah?”
Will nodded.
“Damn,” Danny said. “We should definitely open up that school we’ve been talking about. Danny and Will’s School of Badassness. My name goes first, of course. Purely based on awesomeness, you understand.”
“That goes without saying,” Will said.
They got up and moved forward, toward the source of the gunfire.
More gunshots, this time coming from a different section of the woods, which told him they were going in the wrong direction and had been for some time. Either that, or the action was on the move.
There was something odd about this new round of gunfire—there was just a volley, the very clear indication of a single rifle firing on full-auto.
“AK-47?” Danny said.
Will nodded. “Yup. Plus, we’re going the wrong way.”
“That’s the last time I let you drive.”
They changed course, heading even deeper into the woods.
There was blood on the ground. Fresh. Small splatters that led them to a brown horse grazing on grass next to a big oak tree, shading itself from the morning glare. The animal lifted its head when they approached, nostrils flaring in warning. When they didn’t do anything, it went back to blissfully feeding.
The blood belonged to a man in a camo uniform sitting against a tree. His eyes stared off at nothing in particular, face frozen with an oddly perplexed expression. A still-wet pool of blood seemed to originate from his bottom.
“Ass shot,” Danny said.
“Yup,” Will nodded.
“Gregson” was written on a nametag over the man’s right breast pocket, with a large but simple white star-shaped patch on the right shoulder. There was another patch, this one in the shape of a boot on his left side. After scrutinizing the “boot” for a moment, Will realized it was actually the state of Louisiana.
“Look at this,” Will said.
Danny, who was busy watching the horse dine out, glanced over. “Whatcha find?”
“They’re organizing. Names on uniforms. Regional declarations.”
“Well, damn, it’s about time they got their shit together.” Then, “Hey, you know how to ride a horse?”
“Can’t say I’ve ever ridden one.”
“Don’t you think that’s weird?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re from Houston.”
“So?”
“And we’ve never ridden a horse before.”
“And I’ve never owned a Stetson or cowboy boots or a belt buckle the size of my head. What’s your point?”
Danny shrugged. “Seems kind of wrong, that’s all.”
Will stood up and pointed at the ground. “There was another horse heading south. Let’s see where it leads.”
“Famous last words,” Danny smirked.
The trail didn’t lead him to Gaby as he had hoped. Instead, it took them to two of the men on horseback they had seen earlier. One of the riders had climbed off his mount and was peering cautiously into the mouth of a dark cave. He saw something in there that he didn’t like, and it kept him from getting too close to the opening.
Then the man took a step back and kicked at some bones on the ground.
A dead ghoul.
Will glimpsed nametags on their uniforms, along with the same white star and the Louisiana boot. He didn’t bother trying to make out their names, though he and Danny were close enough that they could hear the two men talking just fine.
“Are we going in there to make sure?” the one still mounted asked.
“Fuck no,” the one on the ground said. “I’m not going in there.” He kicked at a deformed skull as if it were a soccer ball and watched it roll all the way into the cave, where Will saw something (somethings) squirming within the darkness.
“You see that?” the mounted one said.
“Yeah,” the second one said before walking back and climbing into his saddle. “Freaks me out every time.”
“What are we going to tell the kid?”
“The kid”? Will thought.
The second man reined his horse around. “We tell him the truth—that his girlfriend had the misfortune of trying to hide inside a cave full of the bloodsuckers and didn’t come out.”
“Girlfriend”? “The kid”?
They’re talking about Josh and Gaby…
“Just like that?” the first one said.
“But more tactfully, of course,” the other one said, chuckling.
“Of course.”
Will and Danny watched them go.
When they couldn’t hear the horses anymore, they stood up and made their way over to the cave.
“One guess what’s in there
,” Danny said. He kicked dirt at the bones. They were almost pure white under the sun and looked malformed. He sniffed the air. “Lots of them, too.”
“Why don’t you go in to make sure,” Will said.
“Maybe later. So now what?”
“Those guys are either smarter than they look and she’s dead, or they’re just as dumb as they look and she’s not.”
“That’s so convoluted I bet you think it actually made sense, huh?”
Danny peered into the dark cave opening while Will looked around for tracks.
The ground was soft and malleable, which was both a good thing and a problem, because there had been a lot of activity around the area very recently. There were more than one set of tracks, both on foot and on horseback. He noted then quickly dismissed the horseshoes, along with the newest pair of boots belonging to one of the dismounted (wannabe) soldiers. With those out of the way, he was able to focus on three separate pairs of shoes. Two sneakers and one pair of boots.
“What’s your Injun skills tell you?” Danny said, coming up behind him.
“Three people went inside—either separately or together, but they all went inside—the cave, and the same three came back out later and headed south.”
“That’s a good sign. Everyone who went in came back out.”
“That’s a very good sign.” Will stood up and followed the tracks until they vanished through some underbrush. “Those two seemed convinced one of those tracks belonged to Gaby.”
“The ‘girlfriend’ in question?”
“Yup. If they go back to town and tell Josh she’s dead, that means she’s free and clear of him.”
Danny chuckled. “Now who’s Captain Optimism?”
Will grinned. “Let’s go find our girl.”
“Let’s,” Danny said.
They headed off, Will feeling more hopeful than he had in days.
Gaby was out there. If he had to guess, the two with her were friendlies. That was the good news. The thought of Gaby having to face all of this alone bothered him more than he wanted to admit. It was his fault she was out here in the first place. Also his fault that she had gotten caught, because he had sent her on ahead of him.
Hang on, Gaby. Hang on a little longer…
After about twenty minutes of steadily tracking Gaby and her two companions, it became clear they were using the lake—Hillman’s Lake, according to the map—as a guide while traveling further south.
“We’re going to have to stop so I can call in to Song Island,” Will said. He glanced at his watch. “I promised Lara at least two contacts a day.”
Danny made an exaggerated whipping sound.
Will grinned. “Until then, what’s up ahead?”
Danny fished out the same map. “If they keep along the lake, they’ll run across a place called Dunbar about thirty-five klicks south. If they turn left between here and Dunbar, they’ll be heading toward a place called Harvest.”
“I know Harvest.”
“Fun times?”
“Oodles.”
“Tell me about it never. In the meantime, what the hell’s in Dunbar?”
“No idea. She either has a map or one of the people she’s traveling with knows the area. Anything smaller that’s worth stopping for between us and there?”
“We’re in the sticks, buddy. They probably have towns out here that have been around since the days of Tutankhamun.”
“Who?”
“Tutankhamun.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Egyptian pharaoh. He’s the dude all you uneducated types call King Tut.”
“You been sneaking off to read again?”
Danny smirked. “It’s amazing what you can shove into your learning hole when you’re bored.”
“Carly know you’ve been shoving things into inappropriate places?”
“Oh, the things you don’t know about that little demon redhead—”
The whine of an engine cut Danny off and sent both of them into a crouch among the tall grass. They scooted over behind a large tree and put it between them and the lake just as the noise turned into the roar of an outboard motor.
It was an aluminum twenty-footer, gray sides reflecting back the sun as it skidded smoothly across the lake’s surface. There were two men onboard, one sitting on a swivel chair on the bow cradling an M4 while the other stood behind the steering wheel near the center. Both were wearing the same uniforms as the ones they’d seen so far.
They watched the boat disappear up the lake, the man up front glancing around and talking into a radio.
“Lake patrol?” Danny said.
“Looks like it,” Will said.
“First uniforms with nametags and now this? Looks like our boy Josh has really whipped these naughty buggers into shape.”
“Looks like it.”
“Is that all you can say?”
“Sounds like it.”
“Better.”
After the boat faded into the distance, they got up and continued alongside the lake, but this time sticking closer to the thicker parts of the woods to keep from being spotted. The good news was that they could hear the motors coming from a distance, which gave them plenty of time to hide. After all, no one had ever accused the collaborators of being subtle.
“You know what this means, right?” Danny said after a while. “About the kid.”
Will nodded. “Yeah.”
“We see the kid, we gotta pop him. He’s getting too dangerous to let run around out here. Him and his newfangled ideas are begging for a reckoning.”
“A ‘reckoning,’” Will said, grinning at him. “What are you, John Wayne?”
“I’m just saying. The kid’s become a royal pain in the butt cheeks.”
“Even if we popped Josh, it still wouldn’t stop what’s happening out there with the camps and towns. Kate probably has a hundred more like him running the show for her in the daytime. Take one of them out and she’ll just replace him with another eager beaver.”
“Yeah, well, I’d still like to put the kid over my knees and give him a good spanking,” Danny said. “Bad boy, Josh. You’ve been a very bad boy.”
Will recalled that day when he thought Josh had died. The eighteen-year-old had done something stupid and stood up during a boat chase and had gotten shot as a result. He had ended up falling into Beaufont Lake. How was Will to know the teenager would float back up later and turn into…this?
I should have put a bullet in him while he was drowning in the lake.
Still not too late for that, Josh.
Still not too late for that…
10
Gaby
“He had a Mohawk,” Gaby said.
“A Mohawk?” Peter thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. “I don’t remember seeing anyone like that. And I would definitely have remembered a guy with a Mohawk. Milly?”
“What’s a Mohawk?” Milly said.
“You don’t know what a Mohawk is?” Peter asked, slightly amused.
“No.”
“It’s a hairstyle. Like in those cowboys and Indians movies.”
“I don’t like cowboys and Indians movies.”
“Okay, um.” He paused, then, “It’s mostly a shaved head, except for the middle that stands up.” Peter demonstrated by flattening his own hair and leaving just the middle section standing up. “Like this.” He looked over at Gaby. “Right?”
She nodded. “Something like that. But shorter. You didn’t see anyone with hair like that in town, Milly?”
The girl shook her head. “Nope. Was he your friend?”
“He’s my friend, yes.”
Was. Nate’s dead. You know it. Stop pretending he’s not. Josh would never have let him live even if he had survived that night. Maybe the old Josh would, but that Josh is long gone.
I’m sorry, Nate. You shouldn’t have been there with me that night…
She walked on in silence and could feel Peter’s and Milly’s eyes
on her back. She ignored them and continued to set the pace through the woods, moving close enough to the shoreline to their right to get some of the cool breeze, but far enough that they couldn’t be seen. Peter told her there were boat patrols along Hillman’s Lake.
They had been walking for the last two hours, keeping to the shade provided by the trees. Every now and then she looked around her, expecting an attack by someone in a camo uniform. Josh’s people. Or maybe Josh himself.
He’ll never let me go. In his deranged mind, he’s doing all of this for me.
“Where are we going?” Milly asked after a while.
“There’s a place called Dunbar up ahead,” Peter said. “A small city with a state highway running through it. We should be able to find shelter and food there, then figure out where to go next.”
Song Island. Where else but Song Island?
“Are there a lot of people in Dunbar?” Milly asked.
“Well, there was supposed to be about 10,000 people,” Peter said. “I’m not sure now.”
“Is it close to the interstate?” Gaby asked, looking back at him.
He shook his head. “It’s about thirty miles from Interstate 10.”
“You’ve been there.”
“I used to live there before I went to New Orleans for work.”
“They took you from New Orleans?”
“Uh huh.”
“What were you doing there? What was ‘work’?”
He smiled. “What, you don’t think I was a cook in my previous life?”
“Call it a hunch.”
“Human Resources,” Peter said. “Boring job, but it made use of my degrees. Of course, I wish I had spent more time in the woods hunting or something. What about you? What did you do before all of this?”
“I was in high school.”
“Oh,” he said.
She smiled. “I’m nineteen, Peter.”
“I thought you were older.”
“You keep saying that. Why?”
“Why?”
“Why did you think I was older? Don’t I look nineteen?”
The question was rhetorical, because Gaby knew she didn’t look nineteen. The Purge aged you and she hadn’t looked—much less felt—nineteen in a year.
The Purge of Babylon Series Box Set, Vol. 2 | Books 4-6 Page 12