The Purge of Babylon Series Box Set, Vol. 2 | Books 4-6

by Sisavath, Sam

  “I can dig it,” Will said.

  “There’s a box of ammo in the back if you can find it.”

  Will had to rummage around the water and lumps of shiny MRE bags before he found the box of shells on the floor. He tossed it into his pack. “This was all in the VFW hall?”

  “Most of it.”

  “Last stand?”

  “Looked like it. A hell of a mess. I think they had kids in there, too.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “I just could,” Danny said, but didn’t elaborate.

  “So there were definitely more goodies in the basement,” Will said. “An armory, maybe, where they kept more of these.”

  “Probably.”

  “It might have been worth it to go down there.”

  “Not in this lifetime.”

  “When did you get so queasy around these things?”

  “Since shooting them only got me these little keepsakes,” Danny said, touching his broken nose, then rubbing—and grimacing—the red gash along his temple. “Now I know how you feel walking around with that face all day.”

  “Keep your eyes on the road, pretty boy.”

  “What the hell for? There’s nothing out here. Even less than nothing. If there was a name for this place, they’d call it Nothingland. Nothingapolis. Loadacrapola.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Route 13 out of Dunbar was uneventful. Will was ready for an ambush or at least some kind of activity on their way out, but there was none. The streets remained deserted, and the main highway connecting Dunbar to Interstate 10 was a flat two-lane road with empty scenery on both sides of them. He expected to start seeing farmland and houses soon, but apparently they hadn’t ventured far out enough.

  ‘Loadacrapola’ is right.

  Then Danny said, “Whoa,” and slowly stepped on the brake.

  Will looked out the front windshield and immediately saw a body lying across the highway where Route 13 intersected with a country road on its right side.

  “Body?” Will said.

  “Body,” Danny nodded.

  “Stay sharp.”

  “I’m so sharp I give myself pinpricks.”

  Will put down the FNH and unslung the M4A1. The window was already rolled down, so all he had to do was focus in order to listen in on his surroundings. Not that he could hear very much over the churning of the Ford’s engines. He did glimpse something to his right in the distance, along the country road. It looked like a cemetery.

  Now that’s not an ominous sign at all.

  Danny stopped in front of the body. It was wearing a camo uniform and lying on its stomach. “Ambush?”

  “Doubt it.”

  “You go out and make sure while I wait in here.”

  “Don’t leave without me.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  Will opened the passenger side door and hopped down. He scanned the area—the land to his right, then up and down the highway. He stepped on bullet casings as he moved toward the body.

  The figure was definitely dead, fresh blood pooling underneath him. The man’s hip holster was empty and there was no sign of a weapon nearby. Will turned the man over onto his back with the toe of his boot. Male, twenties, with a ponytail. “Lumis” was written over his right breast pocket. He hadn’t been dead for very long. There were no vultures or crows circling above, so the smell hadn’t reached the carrions yet. He had been shot once in the hip, then again in the back.

  His right ear clicked, and Danny’s voice came through the earbud in his ear, part of the comm system they had recovered from Ennis’s basement earlier. “Dead?”

  “Looks dead to me.”

  “Give it mouth to mouth just in case.”

  “I think I’ll skip that part.”

  “Why, cause he’s a guy? You’re such a homophobe.”

  Will straightened up and looked around at the flat country landscape again. There was nothing out here, which made stumbling across a body odd. Someone had to have killed this man. Maybe someone had actually survived Dunbar last night. Maybe that person might have even been Gaby…

  Captain Optimism.

  “I’m heading back,” he said into his throat mic.

  He was halfway to the Bronco when he heard rustling and spun back around toward the ditch that ran alongside the country road. He didn’t hesitate and ran toward the source of the sound with his rifle at the ready.

  “Don’t shoot!” a voice shouted as he neared.

  Another man in his early twenties, also wearing camo, was crouched in the ditch with his hands raised high. The man was unarmed, sporting an empty hip holster and a makeshift tourniquet around his right ankle. His face was pale and he was covered in sweat, and the name “Darren” was stenciled across his nametag.

  “Don’t shoot!” Darren shouted again.

  “Get up here,” Will said.

  Darren hesitated, then stood up and climbed out of the ditch with some difficulty. The handkerchief he had tied around his ankle was covered in blood and he winced each time he put pressure on the leg.

  Danny had come out of the Bronco and was standing behind Will now, scanning their surroundings for possible signs of a threat. “Looks like we missed the party.”

  “Looks like,” Will said. Then to Darren, “What happened here?”

  “We were parked on the road when someone attacked us,” Darren said.

  “You were in a car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is it?”

  “They took it.”

  “Who is ‘they’?”

  “I don’t know,” Darren said. He wiped at the beads of sweat dripping down his face. “There were four of them.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “They were girls.”

  “Girls?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You mean kids?”

  Darren seemed to think about the question before answering. “Teenagers, I guess.”

  Will exchanged a quick look with Danny, who grinned back at him. “Ya think?”

  Maybe…

  “Was one of those teenagers blonde, tall, about five-seven?” Will asked Darren. “Pretty, despite the bruises on her face?”

  “You know, the kind you’d give that right leg to take to the prom?” Danny added.

  Darren grimaced at him for a few seconds. Will wasn’t sure if it was because of the sun, the pain, the memory of what had happened to him, or maybe all three.

  The kid finally nodded. “You guys know her or something?”

  Will smiled. “Yeah, we’ve met. Where’d she go, and how long ago?”

  24

  Lara

  Carrie and Lorelei had good things to say about Keo, but more important was what they told her about the “soldiers” and Keo’s reaction to them. He wasn’t their friend. Far from it.

  The enemy of my enemy is friend. Isn’t that the old saying, Will?

  Then Will called on the radio and told her about Kate. A part of her was still annoyed his ex-girlfriend was visiting him in his dreams. In his dreams. But that was the kid in her talking. The pre-med student who had survived The Purge on pure luck. The new her, the one who had been running Song Island for the last few weeks, was concerned about other things.

  Like survival. Hers. And Carly’s. Elise’s and Vera’s, too. The new people who had joined them, hoping for a fresh start. Or, at least, a less terrifying existence. All these people who had come here and now depended on her, and she didn’t know when it would all fall apart.

  That was what concerned her the most. The not knowing. Today, tonight, or tomorrow. Or the week after. She knew one thing: they were sitting ducks. The enemy knew where they were at all times. The island that was such a godsend also made them an easy target. There was nowhere to run or hide, just fight.

  Just fight…

  Those thoughts swirled around her head as she walked to the back of the hotel.

  Survival. Their chances would increase when Will and Danny returned. B
ut that wasn’t for a while. A day at least. Maybe two. Gaby was still out there, too. The thought of losing her because Will had to rush back home tormented Lara.

  Roy was sitting on a chair outside the makeshift jail cell, an old inventory room with a steel door, when she turned the corner. He glanced up when he heard her footsteps.

  “Did you eat yet?” she asked.

  “Not yet. Blaine’s supposed to show up in thirty minutes.” He looked nervous this morning, and she guessed he had been waiting for this—the two of them talking—since last night. “Lara, about what happened …”

  “We’re not talking about that right now, Roy.”

  “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. Going out there was stupid—”

  “Later,” she said, cutting him off. “For now, go get something to eat.”

  He looked confused. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” She peered through the security glass.

  “Lara, about last night, with Gwen…”

  She gave him a reassuring smile. “Roy, we’re all adults here, aren’t we?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s fine. You found someone. I’m happy for you. For Gwen, too. And about what you did… Well, it worked out for the best. I’m not saying it was the right thing to do—and yes, I’m still pissed off you did it—but no one died. That’s all that matters for now.”

  He nodded, looking not pleased exactly, but relieved. “Just be careful with him. I’ve seen guys like this before.”

  “What kind of guys is that?”

  “The dangerous kind,” Roy said.

  She nodded. He was talking about West and Brody, two men Roy had traveled with since The Purge. He was right. Those two were dangerous men. Every now and then, she wondered whatever became of West…

  “Go grab some breakfast, Roy.”

  “Just be careful with him,” Roy said again before heading down the hallway.

  “Roy,” she said after him. When he stopped and looked back, “Don’t ever do that again without asking for my permission first. Do you understand?”

  He nodded and pursed his lips. “I understand.”

  “Go eat some breakfast.”

  She waited until he turned the corner before reaching for the key that hung from a hook. She unlocked the makeshift cell door and pulled it open.

  Keo looked up from the floor where he was sitting with his back against the far wall. A white plastic plate with thick dripping syrup rested between his bent legs while he shoved the last piece of fluffy pancakes into his mouth using a flimsy plastic spork. Crumbs from biscuits were sprinkled liberally on his clothes and around him.

  “Frozen pancakes,” he said.

  “Frozen pancakes,” she nodded.

  “Tastes just like the real thing.”

  “They are the real thing. Just thawed out. How’d you like the biscuits?”

  “What’s not to like? The only thing missing are eggs and sausages.”

  “We were thinking about bringing a hog or two onto the island and letting them run wild in the woods.”

  “I always wanted to try my hand at being a pig farmer.”

  She picked up Roy’s chair and set it down in front of the open door, then sat down on it. She leaned forward and smiled at him. “You don’t strike me as the farming type, Keo.”

  “What do I strike you as?”

  “Dangerous. That’s what everyone says.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”

  He hadn’t moved from the floor and his eyes watched her curiously, first dropping to the Glock in her hip holster, then to the open door behind her. Ten feet of space separated them. It wasn’t very much and she wished it were more.

  He was tall for an Asian-American. Six-one, easily, and was obviously in good shape. Muscled; more toned than huge like Blaine. Fast, too, she thought, remembering last night. If she had any doubt that he was, as Roy said, dangerous, one look at that long scar along one side of his face took it away. This was a man used to violence, even before the world came to an unceremonious end.

  So what were the chances she wasn’t about to make the biggest mistake of her life right now?

  You wanted to be the leader, so lead. This is what it means to lead.

  The hard choices. The tough calls. This is it.

  So lead.

  She replayed everything Carrie had told her about this man in her head for the fifth time in as many minutes. The soldiers at the marina in Dulcet Lake. The ones on the shoreline of Beaufont the next day. The man was dangerous. A professional, she had thought when she heard about what he had done. She had come so close to telling Will about him during their radio call this morning.

  So why hadn’t she?

  Because Keo is dangerous. Too dangerous.

  And after West and Brody, Will would never agree to let me do this. And maybe he’s right, and I’m dead wrong, because that’s exactly what I’ll be if I misjudge this man.

  But she had other information Will didn’t. She had seen Keo up close and in person. She knew what he had done, why he was even on the island. The fact that he had saved Carrie and Lorelei and never asked for anything in return and in fact had shouldered the responsibility of bringing them down here with him…

  “I’m Lara, by the way,” she said. “We didn’t get a chance at introductions last night.”

  He stuck a finger into the leftover syrup and licked it clean. “You know what I miss most about the end of the world, Lara?”

  “What’s that?”

  “IHOP. Best damned pancakes in the history of the world. Their French toasts with fruit topping and sweet cream? To die for.”

  “I don’t think we have any of that in our kitchen.”

  “Heaven without the fluffy clouds?” he smiled.

  She smiled back. “Carrie told me you were headed somewhere else, that you only came here to find out whatever became of your friends.”

  “I’m keeping a dead man’s promise. It was the only reason he came down here with me in the first place. I figured, what the hell. It’s already on my way.”

  “The seven people.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you don’t know if they actually made it to the island.”

  “Nope.”

  “But I didn’t lie to you last night. If they did make it here, then they’re probably dead. My group only survived because we got lucky. Does that answer your question?”

  “Yes, if you’re telling the truth.”

  “What reason would I have to lie? Look at where you are now.”

  He chuckled. “Point taken.”

  This time, it was her turn to watch him closely. She thought he looked almost relieved by what she had told him. Then again, she didn’t know this man at all, and she could be misreading him completely.

  God, please don’t let me get everyone here killed.

  “So what’s next for you?” she asked.

  “I move on.”

  “Santa Marie Island.”

  “That was the original plan.”

  “Who is she?”

  “What makes you think there’s a ‘she’?”

  “There’s always a she, Keo.”

  He grinned. “I met her when all of this first happened. We got close, and like a fool, I told her I’d meet up with her later. It’s been four—five?—months since, and I’m still trying to make good on it. Hell, I don’t even know if she’s still alive.”

  “So all of this could be for nothing?”

  “A big fat nothing, yup.”

  “Must be true love.”

  “Sure, that’s one way to look at it.” He nodded at the Glock at her hip. “Can you use that thing?”

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation.

  “I believe you.” He picked up the spork and sucked at the syrup clinging to it. “So what happens now? You going to lock me in here for the rest of my life? Even after how Carrie and Lorelei told you what a swell guy I am?”

  She leaned back in the chair.
“I have a proposition for you, Keo.”

  “I thought you already have a boyfriend.”

  “You wanna hear it or not?”

  He gave her a noncommittal shrug. “Not like I have a choice.”

  “I’m expecting an impending attack. It might be today, or tonight, or tomorrow. But it’s coming.”

  He gave her a knowing look. “The soldiers I ran into yesterday.”

  She nodded. “You told Carrie you thought it was a staging area. She also told me about the boat that was going up and down the lake. It was watching us.”

  He nodded. “They were reconning you.”

  “Here’s my offer, Keo. Lend us a hand, and I’ll give you everything you need to reach Santa Marie Island. It beats swimming over there.”

  “I don’t know, I can swim pretty far, as you saw last night.”

  She continued as if he hadn’t said anything. “I’ll give you a sailboat with an outboard motor and plenty of fuel and supplies to last for weeks out in the Gulf of Mexico. The way I hear it, boats are in pretty short supply these days.”

  “I’m sure there’s one lying around somewhere…”

  “Not according to what Carrie told me.”

  “Carrie talks too much.”

  “She wants to stay here. Lorelei, too.”

  “Are they?”

  “You mean, am I going to let them?”

  “Yes.”

  “I am,” she nodded. “There’s no reason not to.”

  “That’s big of you.”

  “It’s common decency.”

  “I’ve heard of that. Never had much use for it.”

  She smiled at him. “That’s not what the girls told me.”

  “Like I said, they talk too much.” He sucked on the spork again. “I could always just walk to Texas.”

  “Yes, you could. It’s a long way, but hey, maybe one day you’ll actually make it. Hide in basements at night, walk in the day. Of course, you might run into those soldier buddies of yours again, or some nutcase with a sniper rifle who decides he wants your stuff.” She shrugged. “Who knows, you might even find a working vehicle.”

  “You’ve thought this through.”

  “I’ve been out there, Keo.”

  “All right. I’ll play along. What exactly do I have to do to win this great prize of yours, Barbie Barker?”