The Purge of Babylon Series Box Set, Vol. 3 | Books 7-9

by Sisavath, Sam

  “Is that…?” Jordan said.

  “Yeah,” he nodded, reaching for a rifle. “That’s a boat heading this way.”

  16

  Lara

  “You look like shit, Keo,” Maddie said. “I mean, no offense, but compared to when we last saw you, it looked like you got caught in a combine.”

  “He was definitely handsomer the last time we saw him,” Bonnie chimed in.

  “I don’t know, scars give a man character.”

  “Yeah? Then Keo went and got himself a big ass load of character.”

  Keo smirked at the two women. “Nice to see you guys, too. Especially you, Bonnie.”

  Bonnie rolled her eyes at him. “Give it a rest. I gave you plenty of chances when you were on the Trident.”

  “What can I say. I’m an idiot.”

  “Won’t get any arguments from me.”

  Bonnie glanced past Keo to the woman standing on the road behind him. She was holding a rifle, with another one slung over her back, and looked as if she was waiting for some kind of signal that everything was okay. Keo did that now, turning and waving, then slung his own weapon. The woman nodded back but didn’t come over.

  “Is that her?” Bonnie asked. “The one you kept turning me down for?”

  “That’s Jordan,” Keo said. “Things didn’t work out with Gillian. Long story.”

  “Must be.”

  “What did happen to your face?” Lara asked.

  “That’s part of the long story.”

  “I guess we’re going to be here awhile,” Maddie said. She looked over at Lara. “Where do you want us, boss?”

  “Stay close,” Lara said. When Maddie had started back toward the boat they had arrived ashore in, she said to Bonnie, “Keo’s friend has the right idea. We don’t want anyone sneaking up on us. Coming here was risky enough; let’s not push our luck.”

  Bonnie nodded, then said to Keo, “Don’t be a stranger,” before heading up the beach with her M4.

  Lara noticed that the ex-model walked a bit wobbly at first and was slowly adjusting with every step. The result of living on the Trident for so long, she thought; they had all become used to the boat’s movements. She wondered if she looked that odd. Maddie, on the other hand, seemed to have no problems re-familiarizing herself with walking on land.

  She glanced around them again, unable to fully shake the paranoia. The place had looked deserted when they were on approach, but after last night, she wasn’t willing to just accept anything at face value. These days, ambushes were easy to come by and harder to spot from a distance, and God knew you could hear a motor coming for miles if you had ears.

  “Yachting accident?” Keo asked, looking at her bandaged arm.

  “Something like that.”

  With Bonnie now watching the road, Keo’s friend walked down the beach toward them. She was pretty, with short blonde hair, and younger than Lara by at least a few years.

  The woman stuck out her hand. “You must be Lara. Keo has told me a lot about you.”

  Lara shook her hand. “All good, I hope.”

  “Eh.”

  They exchanged a brief, easy smile.

  “We were afraid you might have left when I didn’t radio in yesterday,” Keo said.

  “I should have, especially after the fireworks show last night. You wanna fill me in on what happened? I guess I should have known you would be right in the middle of it.”

  “Long story.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Where’s the tugboat?”

  “It’s out there somewhere.”

  “Who’s captaining it?”

  “Blaine.”

  “What happened to el capitan?”

  “He’s been dealt with.”

  “Hunh.”

  “Yeah.”

  He fixed her with a long look. She couldn’t tell if he was impressed or disturbed. Keo had never been particularly easy to read, and the weeks they’d spent on the Trident together hadn’t helped her understand him any better. Then again, it wasn’t like she didn’t have a lot on her mind at the time. Or still did.

  “Didn’t think you had it in you,” he said.

  “He didn’t give me much of a choice.” Then, because she didn’t want him to ask any more questions about Gage, “So, where is it? The last time I saw one in person, it was in a museum and I was ten.”

  “You know about that?”

  “Impossible not to. Woke me up from this,” she said, holding up her left arm.

  “This way.” Keo turned around, and with Jordan, led her up the beach.

  “Was it them?” Lara asked.

  “Depends on who you mean by ‘them,’” Keo said.

  “The U.S. Army.”

  “Then no.”

  “Dammit.”

  “You were hoping, too?” Jordan asked, looking back at her.

  Lara nodded and told her about Beecher, a colonel who was in charge of a few thousand soldiers and civilians somewhere in Colorado. “That’s the only remnants of the U.S. Army I know of, and I got the sense they were barely surviving up there.”

  “What about the Navy?”

  “We haven’t run across them the entire time we’ve been in the Gulf.”

  She saw the disappointment on Jordan’s face before the other woman turned back around as they stepped onto the road. Bonnie had moved further inland, her M4 cradled alertly in front of her, watching the other direction. Lara thought she could see some kind of domed buildings blinking in the distance.

  She looked back at Keo. “You wanna tell me what was so important I had to drop everything and meet you down here?”

  “I wanted you to meet someone,” Keo said. “But he’s not here right now. We got separated two nights ago.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Let’s call him Frank.”

  Lara caught Jordan sneaking a look at Keo and saw him shaking his head back in reply. Both movements had been very slight and were hardly noticeable—except they were walking right in front of her, and she was staring at them.

  Now what was that about?

  “Why did you want me to meet him?” she asked instead.

  “He had information about the ghouls,” Keo said.

  “Like what?”

  “How they operate, their chain of command, all the nitty-gritty stuff.” Then, he added, almost as an afterthought, “He also said he knew how to beat them.”

  She perked up. “How?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “He didn’t say? How does he not say, and how do you not force him to tell you something like that, Keo?”

  Keo hesitated, and she thought he was picking his words very carefully when he said, “It’s complicated, but he would only talk to you.”

  “Why me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Keo…”

  “I don’t know, Lara. Frank’s not the most talkative type. You can ask him all the questions you want when you meet him.”

  They were moving through the field beyond the beach now, tall brown grass slapping at her legs. She thought she could smell something burning, like someone had left a stove on, but it was mostly obfuscated by the breeze coming from the nearby ocean.

  “Tell me something,” Lara said.

  “If I can…” Keo said.

  “Do you trust this guy?”

  “I do,” he said without hesitation.

  “Why?”

  “He saved my life. Three times now.”

  “Mine, too,” Jordan said.

  “What is he, some kind of collaborator?” Lara asked.

  “Sort of,” Keo said.

  “Sort of?”

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “That seems to be a common theme with you today.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” he said. “Trust me when I say this wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. Things…got complicated.”

  She had more questions—so many more questions—but the sight of the gra
ss around them turning from brown and green to almost entirely charred black, with large swaths that had been burned completely away leaving behind only blackened dirt, caught her by surprise. The air had also begun to shift noticeably from bearable to almost suffocating.

  “Here,” Keo said, holding out a small T-shirt to her.

  She took it gratefully and pushed it against her mouth and nose. In front of her, Jordan did the same thing with another shirt, but Keo seemed to be fine with the air. Maybe he had just gotten used to it, though she couldn’t understand how.

  She forgot about everything else when she saw the tank sitting in the fields in front of them. It was so out of place and impossible to miss, especially the cannon jutting out from it. The tan-colored vehicle was surrounded by large swaths of charred earth and what looked like the carcasses of two-story houses that had been toppled like dominoes, except for a few that still, somehow, remained standing. She almost lost her balance when a crater that shouldn’t be there popped up in front of her.

  “Watch your step,” Keo said.

  She thought he was talking about the craters until she heard the crunch. Lara looked down at the remains of an arm—the radius was missing, but half of the ulna was still intact—as it crumbled under her boot. The fingers were all there, but the thumb had been blown off. She stepped over it, then around a small pile of bones—then another. They were scattered everywhere amongst the scorched ground, their numbers increasing exponentially the closer she got to the tank. Every step she took produced a loud crunch that made her wince.

  The carnage was spread out, as if the battle had dragged from one side of the field to the other, leaving death everywhere. There was no blood, but she didn’t expect to find any because the ghouls bled a different kind of blood that evaporated against sunlight. Even though she couldn’t smell most of the acidic stench that still lingered in the air thanks to Keo’s T-shirt, she could smell enough that she wished she were already on the Trident again, or at least back on the beach.

  She focused on the tank instead, hoping that would take her mind off everything else. “How many tanks?”

  “Just the one,” Keo said.

  “And you’re sure it’s not U.S. Army?”

  “It may have belonged to Uncle Sam once upon a time, but not anymore.”

  The crack of a bone snapping under her boots made her flinch, but she willed herself not to look down.

  “Did you find out who they were?” she asked.

  Keo pointed at a twenty-something man sitting against the tank’s wheels. He was only wearing an undershirt and khaki shorts, and one of his thighs was bandaged. His face was pale under the bright sun, and he didn’t look like he could keep his eyes open as he watched them approach.

  “His name’s Gregson,” Keo said. “Had to kill the rest of his crew.”

  “‘Had to?’” she said.

  “One of them went for their gun and, well, shit went downhill from there.”

  “Doesn’t it always with you?”

  “That wasn’t a compliment.”

  “Depends on who you ask.”

  Gregson blinked up at her as they stopped in front of him. He looked paler and much weaker up close, and there was a thick clump of blood underneath him. Lara had seen enough people bleeding to last a lifetime and knew without a doubt this man wasn’t going to survive the day unless someone treated his wound.

  “What’s with you and shooting people in the leg?” she asked Keo.

  “I’m developing bad habits,” he said. “Used to be I’d just shoot them in the head.” He said to Gregson, “Tell her what you told us. Everything, including what you were using this bad boy for.” He banged on the tank, producing dull thuds. “Don’t leave out any details.”

  “I need medical attention,” Gregson said. His voice was weak and his lips were cracked.

  “You’ll get it after we go over it again,” Keo said.

  Gregson squinted at Keo, as if trying to gauge his trustworthiness.

  Good luck with that, she wanted to tell him. She had known Keo longer, and even she couldn’t tell if he had meant what he just promised.

  “We had a mission…” Gregson began.

  She listened to Gregson talking in a slow, almost uninterested drawl. He spoke in such a matter-of-fact monotone that she had to remind herself she was standing in the middle of a warzone surrounded by the bones of ghouls and not in a park somewhere discussing the weather.

  Jesus Christ. What’s going on out here?

  When he was done, Gregson lowered his head and stared down at the ground. That was, if his eyes were even still open, which she couldn’t tell for sure. He seemed to have so little energy left after talking that he might have even forgotten to demand that medical attention Keo had promised.

  She looked over at Keo, standing on top of the tank behind Gregson, looking back in the direction of the domed buildings she had glimpsed earlier. Jordan was turned the other way, back toward the beach with the shirt pressed against half of her face. They had heard Gregson’s story already and might not even have noticed he had stopped talking.

  “How many towns have they attacked so far?” she asked Keo.

  He shrugged. “Apparently they were at it all day yesterday. That was the plan. Shock and awe. Hit hard and hit fast, before the collaborators could mount a proper defense. Sounds like they’ve been planning it for months.”

  He took a folded map out of his pocket and tossed it down to her. She opened it and stared at the circled locations. There were dozens of them.

  “What am I looking at?” she asked.

  “The circles are collaborator towns in Texas.”

  “I didn’t know there were so many…”

  “I don’t think that’s all of them, just the ones Mercer’s people know about. Scouted in advance of yesterday.”

  There had to be at least two, possibly closer to three, dozen circles in all, and all of them concentrated in the southeast. Did that mean there weren’t more in other parts of the state, or were these the only ones Mercer’s people had “scouted”? Each one was marked with a T, followed by a number. About a dozen of the towns had large red X’s scratched across them. One in particular was somewhere between the towns of Hellion and Starch.

  Oh, dammit.

  “I was at T18 last week,” Jordan said, walking over. She pulled the shirt down just long enough to talk. “Gillian’s there.”

  “Your Gillian?” Lara asked Keo.

  He nodded. “Long story.”

  “Of course it is,” she said. Then, “I’ve never been to any of these places, but from what I hear, there are supposed to be a lot of people in these towns.”

  “Hundreds, sometimes thousands,” Keo said.

  “T18 had around 4,000 the last time I was there,” Jordan said. “A lot of the women are pregnant.”

  “Enemies of the state,” Gregson said. His voice came out of nowhere and he still looked (and sounded) sapped of energy. “Take them out, and you starve the enemy.”

  “‘Starve the enemy’?” Lara repeated.

  “He means killing the collaborators,” Keo said. “They’re trying to take away what the ghouls prize most—the people in those towns.”

  “It’s barbaric,” Jordan said. She stared daggers at Gregson, daring him to challenge her, but he’d already looked back down at the ground. “I would rather die than give blood to those things, but slaughtering them …” She shook her head. “The man who came up with that plan should be hung for war crimes.”

  “They’re the enemy,” Gregson muttered to himself. “You’re with us, or you’re against us…”

  “Apparently that’s the slogan,” Keo said. There wasn’t any trace of humor in his voice, and he was looking out at the ocean across the charred field. “By the way, where’s the Ranger? I expected to see him make the trip, not you.”

  “I sent him, Gaby, and Nate to Starch,” she said. “That was a few days ago, before you got in touch. We’re supposed to be in Port A
rthur now, waiting to pick them back up.”

  “What’s in Starch?” Jordan asked.

  “An underground facility built by a man named Harold Campbell. We sealed it months ago before we left for Louisiana. It has supplies, ammo, guns, and something else Will and I have always talked about retrieving, just in case.”

  “Must be important for you to send them back out here,” Keo said.

  I thought it was, but now I’m not so sure, she thought, but nodded and said, “Lights.”

  “Lights?”

  “UV lights.”

  Keo looked confused, maybe even doubtful. “Lara, you can go into any store and trip over all the UV lights you can carry. You didn’t have to send the ex-Ranger and the girl to Starch for that.”

  “Those lights aren’t like the ones in Starch,” she said.

  “They work,” Lara said. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Ghouls turn to ash against them, the way they do against sunlight.”

  “That’s a hell of a weapon,” Keo said.

  “It is,” she nodded.

  “And you’re only trying to retrieve these lights now?”

  “We didn’t need them before. We had the island.”

  “And now?”

  “After you left, we talked about needing an extra layer of security, just in case. I don’t know what Harold Campbell’s people did to those lights—or what they’re actually made of—but we haven’t been able to replicate them. Danny, Gaby, and I had a long talk, and we decided sending an expedition to Starch was worth the risk. If I knew there was even a remote possibility they would be walking into the middle of a warzone...” She shook her head. “Shit, Keo, if anything happens to them…”

  “You didn’t know,” Keo said. “Neither did we, until last night. It’s a big state, Lara.”

  “I know,” she said, and looked past him at Bonnie, standing guard on the road with Jordan. The two women looked like they were in the middle of a conversation. She was grateful for the cool wind whipping in from the Gulf of Mexico, because they kept her from smelling the lingering fumes from the fields.