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

by Sisavath, Sam

  What he wouldn’t give for a gun, or two. And silver bullets, of course. Always silver bullets.

  Tobias’s men followed them inside, then immediately began spreading out without having to be told. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing, including Wyatt, who gave Keo a hard stare before vanishing behind one of the many identical trees around them.

  There were, he counted, five other people inside the woods with him and Jordan at the moment. Five people meant five potential sources of weapons. He’d prefer his MP5SD and the silver ammo, but he was good at making do. He had been looking for the man who had taken his things, but the guy had either left with Tobias or was somewhere else in the woods at the moment.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Jordan said beside him.

  “Think about what?”

  “You know damn well what.” She flashed him a warning stare with her brown eyes.

  He smiled innocently back at her. “I’m just following you, Jordan. That’s all I’m thinking about at the moment.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “No.”

  “I’m hurt.”

  “And I’m a virgin.”

  “You mean you’re not?”

  She rolled her eyes. “This isn’t a date, Keo.”

  “Too bad.”

  The last time he saw Jordan she was a shooter in training, but she had clearly progressed past that stage. As he watched her walking with a gun belt and her beat-up M4 held at the ready in front of her, he had no doubts she had been putting all those lessons at the cabin to good use since they separated almost six months ago.

  “Where’d you get all the M4s?” he asked.

  “T18 supplies them. But don’t tell them that.”

  “Mum’s the word. How long has this been going on? You guys and T18.”

  “Before there was even a T18. You know about the camps?”

  “I’ve heard of them.”

  “T18 was just a camp when we first showed up. It wasn’t that bad in the beginning, despite how they brought us here. I mean, I wanted to kill every last one of them for what happened back at Santa Marie Island, but it wasn’t like we had a lot of choices, or chances.”

  “You and Gillian.”

  “Yeah.”

  “She stayed and you left. Why?”

  “You’ll have to ask her.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “And I’m telling you, you’ll have to ask her.”

  “Was it the whole pregnancy thing? Is that why you left?”

  “That was a big part of it. The ‘donating’—” she used air quotes “—blood part, I might have been able to live with. It made me physically sick each time they forced us to go into those tents and give blood, but the idea of conceiving and then raising a child for that cycle to continue? That made me want to throw up.”

  “I saw a lot of people back there. They seemed okay with it.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not a lot of people, Keo.”

  He looked over at her again. She was still the tall athletic girl he had almost killed back in Louisiana, and the same college student who had kept Mark and Jill alive for months after The Purge. Her hair was shorter, but somehow the new cut complemented the shape of her face more.

  “What?” she said, narrowing her eyes back at him.

  “Nothing.”

  “So stop staring like a perv.”

  “Sorry.”

  “So, have you come up with a better story yet? Because, make no mistake about it, Tobias would have killed you back there if I hadn’t stopped him.”

  “And I appreciate that.”

  “That’s not the point. You need to make him believe you weren’t a part of the ambush. Can you do that?”

  “I didn’t know about the ambush because I came here to kill Tobias,” he thought about saying, but of course, didn’t. He said instead, “It’s the truth.”

  “I don’t think Tobias is going to like your truth very much. And out here, what he says goes.”

  “Even with you?”

  “Even with me.”

  “You guys involved?”

  “What?”

  “Are you guys—”

  “I heard you the first time.” She paused, then, “Why would you ask me that?”

  “I don’t know. Back in the office, the way you guys were talking…” He shrugged. “The two of you seemed to have a very copacetic relationship.”

  “Just because we see eye-to-eye doesn’t mean we’re screwing, too.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not?” she repeated, as if she didn’t understand the question.

  “The guy’s Captain America. Who doesn’t want to jump Captain America’s bones?”

  She actually smiled. “I was always more of a Punisher fan myself.”

  “Punisher? I didn’t know you rolled that way.”

  “What way?”

  “Sex and punishment?”

  “Oh, God,” she groaned. “I meant the Punisher. The comic book character?”

  “I don’t read comic books.”

  “He had a couple of movies. Three, I think.”

  “I don’t watch a lot of movies, either.”

  “What exactly did you use to do with all your free time, Keo?”

  “Troll bars for women.”

  She sighed. “Why did I even ask?”

  He smiled. “So, that’s a no on the sex and punishment?”

  They had been walking for half an hour, and it didn’t seem as if they were any closer to reaching their destination. Keo spent most of that time keeping tabs on Tobias’s people, but they moved like ghosts, coming and going around him. He had no trouble at all understanding why Steve had such a hard time pinning them down. These people had made themselves comfortable out here, with guys like Wyatt and the two scouts he had encountered earlier probably giving the soldiers fits around T18.

  The only person who was close enough for him to even consider taking her weapons was Jordan. Maybe it was the soft gooey part of him that had developed in the last year despite his best efforts, but the idea of hurting her for her guns didn’t sit well with him.

  You’ve gone soft, pal. Real soft.

  “I’m sorry about Mark,” he said after they had been walking in silence for a while.

  “Yeah, me too,” Jordan said.

  She was slightly in front, the handle of her holstered Glock staring invitingly back at him. It was tempting. So, so tempting.

  He thought about Gillian. He could do it for her if he had to. Finding Gillian again after all these months was a minor miracle, and all he had to do to be permanently reunited with her was kill Tobias and return to T18. But to do that, he needed guns, such as the one staring back at him right now…

  “What happened to you?” Jordan asked, looking over her shoulder at him. “After the cabin, we were pretty resigned to you and Norris being dead. Even Gillian. She kept waiting for you to find us, you know. After Santa Marie Island, and even when we were at T18. I would catch her staring off at nothing for long stretches until it occurred to me she was looking for you. Waiting for you to show up to rescue her.”

  “Norris and I ran into trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “The kind that kept me away for almost six months.”

  He told her about Pollard. About Joe. About running for his life in the woods of Louisiana and not knowing where the hell he was going, until he finally ran out of room. He skipped the part about Allie but told her Norris had found some survivors to stay with and that he was probably still safe right now, living out his remaining years.

  Then he told her about Song Island. About Lara. And about the soldiers.

  “Jesus, how many of them are out there?” she asked.

  “My understanding is that they’re everywhere. Every state. Maybe every country. Who knows?”

  She was speechless for a moment. After a while, she shook her head. “I guess it makes sense. Everyone
we knew in the camp was either from Texas or Louisiana, so we didn’t get any information about what was happening in the rest of the country. Talk about a myopic view of the world, huh?”

  “The big picture is overrated.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  They walked on for another few minutes in silence before Keo said, “Are we almost there yet?”

  “What are you, ten?”

  “It’s going to get dark soon, Jordan.”

  “We’re almost there. The base is temporary because we never stay at one place for too long. Sooner or later, they find us.”

  “The soldiers?”

  “No.”

  She’s talking about ghouls.

  He thought about his guns again, about the silver ammo inside them…

  “What are you carrying?” he asked.

  “About five pounds lighter since the last time you saw me,” she said, grinning back at him. “I like to think I’m at my perfect fighting weight.”

  He chuckled. “You got funnier.”

  “You think?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I try.”

  “What about silver?” he asked. “Do you guys know about silver?”

  She stopped and turned around, then stared at him curiously for a moment. “Do you?”

  “About silver?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know a lot about it.”

  “What do you know?”

  “The people I told you about, on Song Island? They’re the ones who sent out those broadcasts about the silver.”

  “No shit? We picked up their broadcast over a month ago. We didn’t believe it at first, but we tested it out and now we’re believers.”

  She pulled out a spare magazine from her pouches and tossed it to him. Keo thumbed off a round and held it up to what little light managed to pierce the canopies, easily making out the silver tip.

  “Silver bullets,” Keo said.

  “The problem is finding enough silver lying around out there.” She took the magazine back. “I just have the one for the Glock. Everyone has just one, too. Everything else is loaded with regular ammo. We put them in at night and never before. They’re more valuable than gold these days.”

  He kept his mouth shut about the silver loaded in his weapons that one of her people was carrying around out there. Chances were the man hadn’t inspected his belongings very closely, so he could still retrieve them later. Hopefully. The last thing he needed was to “share” the valuable bullets with strangers he was planning to double cross as soon as he got Tobias in his crosshairs.

  “What else do you know?” Jordan asked. “Do the other things the islanders mentioned actually work? Bodies of water? Ultraviolet lights?”

  “The bodies of water, yeah.”

  “How?”

  “I have no idea. I just know it works.”

  “You saw it?”

  “I saw it.”

  “What happened?”

  They turn to stone and drown, he thought about telling her, but it sounded crazy even in his own head.

  “It works,” he said instead. “I don’t know how. Just like I don’t know how shooting or cutting them with silver works. It just does.”

  She nodded. “Where’s a scientist when you need one, huh? An explanation would be nice.”

  Keo glanced at his watch again. 3:14 p.m.

  “Clock’s ticking,” he said.

  “Relax, we’re close. This isn’t our first rodeo, you know. We have this entire area mapped out. We know where everything is.”

  “And yet T18 still managed to ambush you.”

  Her entire body flinched, and Keo instantly regretted saying it.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Were some of them your friends?”

  “A lot of them were my friends.”

  “I’m sorry, Jordan.”

  She sighed. “Whatever.”

  “I mean it.”

  She nodded but began walking faster in front of him. He had to pick up his pace to catch up.

  “Have you come up with a better story yet?” Jordan asked after a while.

  “I’ll just tell him the truth,” Keo said. Then, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Can I stop you?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Then go ahead.”

  “What are you still doing here? You, Tobias, and the others. Why are you guys spending your days making life miserable for T18?”

  She didn’t answer right away.

  “Jordan?”

  “These guys helped me escape,” she said finally. “I’m paying them back.”

  “That doesn’t explain why they don’t just pack up and leave. Why is Tobias keeping the others here?”

  “Almost all of them still have friends and family in town. They won’t leave until they get everyone out.”

  He recalled seeing the soldiers along the riverbanks, at the marina, and riding around on horseback. It wasn’t just their numbers or their weaponry that Tobias’s people were going up against, but the enemy also had the night, not to mention the creatures inside them, at their side. Steve and his brother had all the advantages. All of it.

  Keo had seen lost causes before, but this was ridiculously unfair.

  “Jordan,” he said.

  “What?”

  “How many did you lose back there?”

  “Seven.”

  “How many do you have left?”

  “Not enough,” she said quietly. “Not nearly enough.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The temporary base Jordan took him to was a YMCA building, about half a kilometer from the long and empty stretch of I-45 in the distance. It was part of a business center, but had its own separate area. Two empty swimming pools greeted them as they stepped out of the woods and trudged through thick, overgrown grass that covered the backyard.

  Keo followed Jordan while the rest of Tobias’s people emerged out of the tree lines around them. Wyatt was among them, along with the two familiar scouts. They were greeted by sentries along the rooftops of the YMCA. One of them waved, and Jordan returned it.

  Keo checked his watch again. 4:41 p.m.

  “How long have you guys been here?” he asked.

  “Two days,” Jordan said. “Counting today. Can’t afford to stay in one place for too long. Like I said before, it’s not the soldiers we have to worry about. They usually don’t wander out this far unless they come with everything they have. You saw all the boats they have back there? They can afford to stick to the river, use it to go back and forth from the Gulf. This far from T18, it’s just the crawlers we have to stay one step ahead of.”

  “It must be tough, fighting a two-front war.”

  “It’s not easy, no.”

  The YMCA building was only one-story, but it was spread out with multiple wings. There was a shooter on three of the rooftops, possibly even the same men that had been at the strip mall earlier.

  “I usually try to steer clear of big buildings,” Keo said.

  “So do we,” Jordan said. “They like using them for nests. But this one’s secure, for now.”

  They skirted around the bigger of the two swimming pools and entered the main building through a metal back door guarded by a man with an M4.

  Jordan nodded at him. “Hey, Tim.”

  “Welcome back,” Tim said. “I heard things went sideways out there.”

  “Yeah, they did.”

  “Who’s he?” the guard asked, looking at Keo.

  “Keo.”

  “What kind—”

  “Don’t,” Jordan said.

  Keo smiled and followed her into a back hallway. It was surprisingly bright inside, thanks to a series of high ceiling windows flooding the room with sunlight. He could hear activity on the other end even before they stepped out into a large cafeteria where Tobias’s men were gathered.

  Pita was there, moving through the wounded men that had traveled here earlier by vehicle. Three of them were unconscious while a fourth drank
from a bottle of water as Pita undressed his bloody bandages and grabbed a fresh roll from a teenage girl who was acting as her helper.

  He counted about two dozen men in all, including Wyatt and the others that had arrived with them. The three or four men who hadn’t had to brave Steve’s ambush were easy to tell apart from the rest—they were the ones without blood on their clothes. Besides Pita and the girl, there were only two other women in the place. Like the men, they wore gun belts, but unlike Jordan, they didn’t look very dangerous at all.

  Keo looked around but couldn’t find Tobias anywhere. Maybe he was in a back room, trying to come up with a plan to regroup after the shellacking they had taken. No one went toe-to-toe with an M60 and came out unscathed.

  “Is this it?” Keo asked.

  “There was a lot more this morning,” Jordan said quietly. She grabbed a man with a thick red beard as he was walking past them. “Where’s Tobias?”

  “Back office with Reese,” the man said.

  “Thanks,” Jordan said. Then to Keo, “Come on.”

  He kept pace with her through the cafeteria, which looked abandoned despite the company of men and women moving around it at the moment. The cavernous feel, he guessed, was because the room was designed for a large army of hungry teens and not the two dozen or so people eating MREs or talking quietly among themselves. They all looked beaten and whipped, and he wondered how long Tobias was going to be able to keep this fight up after today.

  “Where’d you get all the MREs?” he asked.

  “Same place we get most of our weapons. T18.”

  “You have an inside man.”

  “We have inside men. One of them supplies us with as much nonperishables as he can get his hands on.”

  “Where does he get them?”

  “T18 has a storage warehouse filled when the Millers raided the surrounding areas. One of them sold mail-order civilian versions of Army MREs. Prepper food. That’s what we’ve been living on for the last month or so. Before that, we were surviving off the land.”

  “Hunting?”

  “Hunting, fishing, whatever it took. It’s a big river. They can’t guard every inch of it twenty-four hours a day.”

  “They seem to go back and forth along it just fine in those boats.”