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

by Sisavath, Sam

  “Everything heals eventually, Keo. She’s lucky I believed you, otherwise I would have really gone to work.”

  “You mean you weren’t ‘really’ working back there?”

  “That was a warm-up. You don’t wanna see me really working.” He stared at Keo when he added, “Trust me on that.”

  “Sure. Whatever you say, Steve.”

  “Good.” He climbed into the golf cart. “The first step to a healthy partnership is to recognize your position in the hierarchy. In T18, what I say goes. Got it?”

  “Gotten.”

  “That’s a good soldier.” He grinned. “Now, let’s go have dinner. I’m famished.”

  Steve lived in T18A3, two subdivisions over from the one where Gillian (and Fuck-You-Jay) lived. The housing areas were separated by the same six-foot wooden fencing he had seen in the back of Gillian’s house. Nothing that would keep anyone out, but just enough to separate the different areas into their own little corners.

  With the gathering clouds growing darker above him, it felt as if they were driving through nightfall. Keo had to temper his growing anxiety about still being outside, especially without his guns.

  “Relax,” Steve said behind the steering wheel. “They don’t come into town. There’s an invisible line that they don’t cross. When I decide I can fully trust you, I might tell you how it all works. Until then, you’ll just have to be satisfied with Rule #1.”

  “Which is?”

  “Everything within the town is safe. Everything beyond it? Go at your own risk.”

  “Good to know…”

  Lights hanging from repurposed power poles along the road had begun slowly turning on as they traveled from the marina back to the subdivisions. The lights had come on by themselves, and he guessed they were similar to the solar-powered lamps he’d seen on Song Island, only smaller and less efficient. They weren’t quite bright enough to push back the darkness completely, but there were enough of them to navigate by.

  “Where’d you find the lights?” Keo asked.

  “Archers,” Steve said. “From Home Depot and Lowe’s, too. You name it, we’ve raided them. That’s why there isn’t very much left out there. Before he went rogue, Tobias and I knew we’d be able to use all the renewable resources from the old world, so we began stockpiling them pretty early on. No one had bothered looting them, so we had our pick. The guys in charge of the other towns did the same thing.”

  “You talk to them?”

  “Oh, sure, I call them on the phone every other day.”

  “Hunh.”

  Steve smiled, amused with himself.

  They drove past the gate into Gillian’s T18A1, then T18A2, before slowing down and turning into T18A3. Armed soldiers came out of another booth to push the gate open, and one of them actually (and awkwardly) saluted Steve.

  They went up a street flanked by lights that were slowly coming on by themselves. Most of the lamps were hanging from power poles that no longer had any uses, with smaller versions jutting out of front lawns. There were very few lights coming from inside the homes, but he did spot a couple of soldiers walking along the sidewalks carrying flashlights.

  “Where is everyone?” Keo asked.

  “Settling down for dinner at the cafeterias after a hard day’s work,” Steve said. “All the food is kept at a central location and well-guarded, so no one will be tempted to help themselves beyond scheduled meals. Gotta keep everyone well-fed and healthy, otherwise this place shuts down.”

  “And keep them healthy enough to keep giving blood, of course.”

  “That goes without saying.”

  “How often do they donate?”

  “Once a day, every day. We don’t take enough to make them so tired they can’t work. You’ll discover that we do everything in moderation. We have to, or the supplies won’t last. But everyone has to do and give their fair share.”

  “Well, not everyone.”

  “Now you’re getting it. Privileges, Keo. Humans may have been relegated to second-class citizens in this brave new world, but there are still classes within classes. You’re one of us now. Enjoy it.”

  Until I put a bullet in your head, Keo thought, thinking about Jordan hanging from the rafters in the warehouse back in the marina.

  “So where are we going?” he asked instead. “To the cafeteria for dinner?”

  Steve chuckled. “Does the President of the United States eat at Luby’s?”

  Steve lived in a two-story house that was almost exactly in the middle of T18A3. Keo had expected something bigger and more grand as befitting the “president” of T18, but it looked like all the others—half brick up front and mostly wood paneling along the sides and in the back.

  Solar-powered LED lights in the ground lit their way up the driveway and to the front door. Each light no doubt had a very sharp point on the other end, and Keo fantasized about pulling one of the stakes up and shoving it into the back of Steve’s head as he followed the man up the walkway.

  Steve didn’t knock or need a key to open the door. He just opened it, and the aroma of fried chicken hit Keo as soon as he stepped inside.

  “Yum yum yum,” Steve said, smacking his lips. “Now that smells good!”

  “Be ready in a few minutes!” a woman called over to them.

  “That’s my lady,” Steve said. “She’s a great cook.”

  “Fried chicken?” Keo said. “You have chicken?”

  “We have a farm behind one of the fields. Chickens, ducks, cows… Where do you think the horses come from? A man can’t live on MREs and vegetables his entire life, Keo.”

  “Does everyone get fried chicken?”

  “Sure, once a week. Maybe once every two weeks. Portions, anyway.”

  Classes within classes. Right.

  The woman in the kitchen was picking up pieces of drumsticks frying in a pan and putting them onto plates. She glanced over at Keo and smiled. Mid-twenties, blonde, and much prettier than someone like Steve deserved. She was wearing a flower-printed dress and an apron, and her hair was done in an old-fashioned style that made Keo wonder if he had stepped into a real-life Leave It To Beaver episode.

  “Keo, this is Lois, my better half,” Steve said. “Darling, this is Keo.”

  “Is that Japanese?” Lois asked.

  “Korean,” Keo said.

  “Oh, cool.”

  “Keo’s a half-breed, right?” Steve said.

  “Honey, that’s not nice!” Lois said.

  “He doesn’t mind. Right, Keo?”

  “Right,” Keo nodded, just barely suppressing a grimace.

  “See?” Steve said. He went into the kitchen, slipped his arms around Lois’s waist, and nuzzled her neck. “Smells good. And the food, too.”

  “Steve,” Lois said.

  They were doing that pretend-annoyed thing that husbands and wives did in front of company. Keo wanted to throw up.

  “Show Keo where to clean up,” Lois said. “I’ll have everything ready by the time you guys are done.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Steve kissed her neck and grabbed her ass with both hands.

  She yelped. “Steve!”

  Steve laughed, and Keo couldn’t decide if all of this was some theater for his benefit, or if they really were this sickeningly satisfied with their lives inside the safe zone of T18.

  “Come on, you look and smell like shit,” Steve said to him. “I was going to send a uniform over to Gillian’s house, but I guess that can wait.”

  “A uniform?” Keo said.

  “You might as well look the part if you’re going to stay. You are going to stay, aren’t you?”

  Keo shrugged. He didn’t want to come across as too anxious. “Maybe. There’s not much out there.”

  “Not unless you believe the radio.”

  “Radio?”

  “Want a laugh? Come take a listen.”

  Steve led him into a study that was partially lit by a pair of LED lights clamped to the windowsills. Keo saw a soldier outside
across the street, smoking a cigarette, the outline of his M4 rifle jutting out from behind his back. Keo thought about all the things he could do with that weapon.

  Steve walked to a dresser and turned on a battery-powered radio and fidgeted with the knobs. Keo only heard static, but Steve seemed certain there was something there and kept hunting around the dials.

  “They had another message they were broadcasting before this one,” Steve was saying. “It went kaput about a month ago. I assumed my compatriots did that. Anyway, one of my guys picked up this new one yesterday. It’s definitely the same people.” He found what he was looking for and stopped, then turned up the volume. “Here it is. Same woman, different message.”

  Keo already knew what he was going to hear before he heard it, because he had been there in person when they recorded the message on the bridge of the Trident.

  “…silver. Bodies of water. And sunlight,” a female voice said through the radio. “These are three things that we know for certain that can, and will, kill the creatures, these things in the darkness we call ghouls.”

  He almost smiled at the sound of Lara’s voice but managed to stop himself at the very last second because Steve was watching him, maybe trying to gauge his reaction across the semidarkness of the room.

  “For their human collaborators, the traitors in uniforms that scour the countryside in the daylight for survivors,” Lara continued, “any bullet will do. If you’re able, get to a place that is surrounded by bodies of water. Stock up on silver; if you know how, make silver bullets, or any silver-bladed weapons. The daylight is no longer your friend, but don’t be discouraged. As long as you’re breathing, as long as you are free, there is hope. We will adapt and keep going, because that’s what we do. This is Lara, and I’m still fighting alongside you.”

  The message paused for about five seconds before it repeated itself:

  “This is Lara, broadcasting to you from safe harbor. If you’re hearing this, that means you’re still out there, too. Remember: Silver. Bodies of water. And sunlight. These are three things that we know for certain that can, and will, kill the creatures, these things in the darkness we call ghouls…”

  Steve turned down the volume until Keo could barely hear Lara’s voice. “She believes it, too. Just like Tobias. She thinks you can keep fighting them. The sad part is, we’ve caught a couple of people listening to this propaganda bullshit. Luckily, we’ve managed to nip those in the bud before they got out of control. This type of thing is like a virus; if you don’t stamp it out immediately, it spreads. We can’t have that.”

  “How are you going to stop it?” Keo asked.

  “Easy. I outlawed radios.” Then he smiled. “Anyway, let’s go wash up. The chicken smells ready.”

  On cue, Lois called from outside in that much-too-June-Cleaver voice, “Come and get ’em, boys!”

  Lois was pretty and lively, and while she was bringing the plates of fried chicken, beans, and corncobs over, Steve leaned over to Keo and whispered, “She wants to get pregnant—you know, do her part for the town—but I won’t let her. I don’t know about you, but I prefer them slim and hot.”

  Keo smiled and nodded, but all he could think about was Gillian. She was pregnant right now with another man’s baby. Four months pregnant. What was he doing four months ago? He couldn’t even remember. Somewhere in the Louisiana woods, trying to survive Pollard’s small army of paramilitary assholes, probably.

  Steve had grabbed the biggest piece of chicken thigh on the plate and was about to wrap his mouth around it when his radio squawked, and a male voice said, “Sir? It’s Grant. Come in.”

  Lois sighed. “Honey, why do you still have that thing turned on? It’s dinnertime.”

  Steve ignored her, put down the chicken, and unclipped the radio from his belt. He keyed it, said, “What is it?”

  “Uh, sorry to disturb you, sir, but I have some bad news,” Grant said.

  “Steve,” Lois started to say, but she froze when Steve shot her a hard glance. She looked down at her plate of beans instead.

  “Go on,” Steve said into the radio.

  “It’s, uh, your brother, sir,” Grant said. He sounded nervous.

  “What about Jack?”

  “He’s dead, sir.”

  “What the fuck do you mean he’s dead?”

  Steve shot up from the table, nearly knocking it over. Lois gasped and grabbed onto a corncob as it rolled off a plate.

  “The woman,” Grant said, and Keo thought his voice was trembling slightly. “She’s gone. Someone busted in on Doctor Bannerman’s place and took her. They, uh, shot Jack while they were escaping.”

  Keo thought he was ready for it, but even he was surprised when Steve punched the table so hard that everything—the dishes, the chicken, and the corncobs—flew everywhere. Lois screamed and stumbled to her feet while Keo managed to grab onto a chicken leg as it bounced into the air.

  “Fuck!” Steve screamed.

  Keo didn’t say anything. He took a bite out of the chicken leg. It tasted good, but then he hadn’t had fried chicken in years, so Lois could have actually been an awful cook and he might not have noticed.

  Besides, he needed something for his mouth to do, otherwise he might have burst out laughing uncontrollably at the sight of Steve raging in front of him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Keo still had the taste of chicken in his mouth, and maybe a small piece of meat hidden somewhere between his molars at the back, when he was driven over to T18A2, next door to Gillian’s subdivision, and climbed out of the golf cart in front of a squat one-story house. There were already five soldiers standing in the driveway, with a horse grazing on the lawn nearby, oblivious to the activity.

  One of the men hurried over. He was sweating even in the chilly air and with storm clouds continuing to gather above them. With thirty minutes before nightfall, it already looked pitch-dark outside, and most of the streetlights (and the few sprinkled among the lawns) had come on all around them.

  “What the fuck happened?” was the first thing out of Steve’s mouth.

  “Someone helped her escape,” the man said. Keo recognized his voice from the radio. Grant.

  “How many?”

  “Bannerman said there was just one.”

  “And Jack?”

  “He’s inside.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know exactly, sir. He was inside the garage with Bannerman and the woman when it happened. They shot Roger on their way out.”

  Steve brushed past Grant and made a beeline for the door. The other soldiers hurried out of his path. They were all wearing gun belts and cradling M4 rifles, and Keo kept count of all the others around the area. Counting these five, there were the two standing guard at the gate and a half dozen more he had seen on his way over here.

  Too many. Always too damn many.

  Unlike Steve’s house, the interior of Bannerman’s was sparsely lit by a pair of LED lamps, one resting on the kitchen counter and another in the living room over the fireplace. It almost looked as if no one lived here, but of course the blood on the floor and a dead soldier lying facedown on the carpet said differently. Keo stepped around the blood and followed Steve to the back of the house.

  Steve marched straight to a door that opened into the garage, crunching heavy tarp covering every inch of the concrete floor as he did so. The room had been converted into some kind of operating room, though it looked and smelled more like a butcher shop. A pair of metal tables sat in the center, flanked by steel trays with surgical instruments; one had been upended, its contents tossed liberally across the room. One of the tables was covered in blood and there were fresh, bloody footprints all over the place.

  A man in his sixties, wearing white hospital scrubs, sat in a comfortable-looking armchair in the corner, cradling his arm in his lap. Someone had bundled the arm up with gauze and the man looked tired, wiping sweat from his face. The garage door was closed—and didn’t look capable of opening�
��and there was very little ventilation, which probably accounted for the old man’s perspiration.

  The lack of circulating air also kept in the smell of the blood that pooled underneath Jack. The younger Miller sat awkwardly against the far wall, his head lolled to one side, eyes open, as if he had simply decided to sit down to rest and could stand up at any moment.

  Steve ignored the old man and walked straight to Jack. He kicked a surgical scissor in his path and it skidded across the room. He crouched in front of his brother and held Jack’s sweat-slicked face in his hands, staring at him in silence.

  Keo looked over at the old man, Bannerman. “What happened?”

  Bannerman picked up a bottle of water on a table next to him with his good hand and took a slow, drawn-out sip. “Some guy in a ski mask. Came in and shot Jack, then took the woman. I guess he shot someone else in the living room, too?”

  “You didn’t go out to check?”

  “He shot me, too,” Bannerman said, holding up his wounded arm as proof. “I thought it’d be more prudent to wait for help instead of running out there. I’m just a doctor.”

  More like a butcher.

  Steve stood up and ran his fingers through his hair for a moment. Keo waited for the outburst, the profanity, but instead Steve just whirled around and walked past Keo and back into the hallway. The man hadn’t spared a single glance at Bannerman, which, Keo guessed, the old man was grateful for.

  Keo followed Steve through the living room, then to the front door. “What now?” he asked.

  “Find her and kill her,” Steve said.

  Oh, that’s all?

  Grant hadn’t gone anywhere and was waiting for them in the driveway. For a man who was barely a few years younger than Steve, Grant looked overly small and frail and fidgeted back and forth nervously.

  “There was gunfire,” Steve said. “Why didn’t anyone stop them?”

  “No one heard gunshots,” Grant said. “I think he was using a silencer or something.”

  “You think?”

  “He must have,” Grant said, trying his best to sound more confident—and failing miserably. “It wasn’t until Pete stumbled across Roger’s body inside the house and called it in that we even knew what had happened.”