“You fired two more times after that. What were those for?”
Danny’s face changed slightly, from relaxed to something she hadn’t seen in a while, not even when they had discovered that their expedition to Harold Campbell’s facility was for nothing.
It looked like…uncertainty.
“Danny…”
He shook his head. “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you, kid.”
“After all we’ve been through? After last night in the hangar?”
He grinned, though she could tell he didn’t quite have his heart in it.
“What was it, Danny?” she pressed.
“Remember back at the farmhouse?”
“What about it?”
“The blue-eyed ghouls?”
“Wanna play?” the creature had asked her, the sound of its voice burying itself so deep into her soul that she would never be able to forget it for as long as she lived.
“What about them?” she asked.
“One of them was here tonight. Earlier.”
Nate’s shadowed outline stiffened at the other end of the counter. She should have reacted the same way, but she was surprisingly…calm. Maybe it was the last few days, or last night back in the hangar at the Larkin airfield, but for some reason she couldn’t quite summon the fear that should have been natural when told there had been a blue-eyed ghoul inside the store with them earlier tonight.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I can’t explain it,” Danny said.
“Try.”
“It told me to put on the uniform and gas mask. Told me they would work to keep the ghouls out.”
She didn’t reply. Neither did Nate. How do you respond to something like that?
“Jesus, Danny,” was all she could manage.
“I told you you wouldn’t believe me,” Danny chuckled. “Hell, I still don’t believe it, and I actually lived through it. Unless, of course, this is all one big dream, in which case where are the bikini-clad girls? In my dreams only, you understand, so don’t be running off half-cocked and blabbing that last part to Carly without proper context.”
“You said it told you the uniforms would work?” Nate asked.
“Uh huh.”
“Why would it do that?”
“I haven’t a clue, kid. Not a clue.” He paused, then added, “There was something weird about it…”
“You mean besides the fact that it was a blue-eyed ghoul and it was talking to you, while simultaneously not trying to kill you?”
He grinned. “Yeah, that too.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know. Something…” He shook his head again. “I don’t know how to explain it. Hell, I might have just imagined the whole thing. It was pretty danky up there in the attic with you two. Lots of bad BO going around.”
Despite the jokes, she could see it on his face: Danny was at a loss for words, something she couldn’t say with any regularity. But whatever had happened before she and Nate came down the attic, it had struck him speechless. More than that, it had left him confused and unsure of himself.
“I’m still not convinced this isn’t a dream,” Danny said.
“It’s not,” Gaby said.
“You sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Ditto,” Nate said.
“Well, shit,” Danny said, “if I can’t trust you, who can I trust, Nathaniel Ramsey? You are, after all, a war hero.”
“I still don’t know who that is,” Nate said.
“You should pick up a book sometime. Books, in case you crazy kids and your wacky Internets don’t know, are these heavy things made of paper and bound into a big boxlike object that you can also employ as a rat beater. Very useful.”
“Did it, uh, say anything else?” Nate asked. “This…thing?”
“Nope. It said to put on the uniforms and gas masks, then to show myself to the looky-loos outside.” He shrugged, and Gaby thought he might have reached down instinctively to clutch the M4 in his lap just to be sure it was still there. “Figured, what the hell. The damn thing had me by the balls and it tells me how to save myself, then just runs off? Didn’t think I had much to lose after that.”
“Jesus Christ, Danny,” she said again, unable to think of anything else to say.
“Yeah,” he said, and stared into the darkness again.
She wondered if he was replaying the moment with the blue-eyed ghoul over and over in his head, still unsure of everything he had seen or heard even now, long after the creature had gone. God knew her own encounter with one of those things had been traumatic enough, and hers only wanted to kill her. This one wanted to…save them?
And here she thought things were finally starting to make some sense. Returning to Texas had completely undermined that belief. First, there was the insanity at the airport hangar, and now this. Whatever “this” was. She still wasn’t entirely sure, and judging by the continued confused expression on Danny’s face, neither did the ex-Ranger.
We should have stayed away. We should have stayed out of Texas. God, why did we ever come back? For lights?
They didn’t say anything after that for the entire night. No one knew what to say. Not Danny, not her, and not Nate. Instead, they sat in silence and watched the shadows with suspicion, and waited for an attack that never came.
In the morning, it was a different story.
27
Keo
Hey, Frank, you out there? Someone was looking for you last night. Give me a call back when you get this, pal. We gotta have a nice, long talk.
“You’re looking thoughtful,” Jordan said.
“Do I?” he said.
“I’m guessing you’re either thinking about Gillian or Frank.”
“It’s not Gillian.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t thought about Gillian all night.”
“Was it something I said?”
“Something you did.”
“Ah,” she said, and he thought she looked pleased with his answer.
“You did it very well,” he said.
“I’ve had practice. Though probably not nearly as much as you.”
“Are you calling me a whore?”
“Adventurous,” she smiled.
“Sounds better,” he smiled back.
“The arms?”
“Like a fat man’s sitting on them.”
“Try not to move them.”
“Sound advice,” he said, peering through the half-an-inch of viewing space between the door and the side of the barn.
He could see just enough of the farmhouse’s front yard to know that all the vehicles that were still capable of moving had done just that last night, taking along with them any visible signs of soldiers on the premises. There also wasn’t any of the familiar aroma of vaporized flesh outside, unlike behind him and Jordan at the moment.
They had opened their eyes to the sight of the blue-eyed ghoul, still fastened over the cage door, slowly turning to ash as morning sunlight claimed it. The creature had simply wasted away, leaving just bleached white limbs to continue clinging to the bars.
A few minutes after that and they were running through the barn, trying to figure out how they were going to fight their way through men with guns who already thought they were a part of Mercer’s murderous brigade. Except they didn’t have to, because the collaborators really had abandoned the place last night, which was probably also why Marcy had never come back for the spork.
“Don’t resist,” she had said last night. “Answer every question you’re asked, and don’t lie. Because they’ll know.”
Keo got the feeling Marcy didn’t expect to ever see him again after last night. He didn’t blame her; he wasn’t even sure how he had survived himself. But all he had to do was look across the barn doors at Jordan, leaning across from him and peering out at the empty front yard, for his answer.
“What?” Jordan said.
“Just thinking
—”
“Uh oh.”
“—how you saved my life last night.”
“Oh,” she said. Then, “What did you come up with?”
“I’m glad you were here.”
She chuckled. “Because I saved your life?”
“Yeah, that too.”
She rolled her eyes. “Are we talking about the sex again?”
“It was very good sex.”
“Save it for later, Romeo.”
“The sex, or talking about it?”
“Both. For now, what are our options?”
“What options? I just see one. They’re not out there right now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come back.”
“You think they’re coming back?”
“I don’t see why they’d just abandon this place.”
“I don’t, either.” She paused for a moment, then, “Are you sure you can do this in your condition?”
“I’m fine,” he lied. He reached into his back pocket and produced the spork. “Besides, I’m in possession of a very lethal weapon.”
“Watch where you’re pointing that thing.”
“Are you talking about the spork?”
“Cute.” She looked back at the door. “Ready?”
“On five?”
“On five,” she said.
He faced the door and began silently counting down from five. On one he pushed his door open, Jordan doing the same to hers.
He had put on a game face when Jordan asked if he was all right, but pressing his shoulder into the door made him wonder if the blue-eyed bastard hadn’t actually broken every single bone in his body last night, given the relentless throbbing and wobbly knees that suddenly made their presence known. He grunted through the pulsing pain and kept pushing, until the warmth of the sun surrounded him and he blinked up at the wide-open skies.
He had the spork gripped tightly in one hand and ready to fight, as if it was going to do a damn bit of good if someone with a gun was standing outside waiting for them. Then again, he bet the dead blue-eyed ghoul probably hadn’t thought the eating utensil was much of a weapon, either, but it had since learned otherwise.
Fortunately for both of them, the farmhouse was just as deserted as it had appeared from inside the barn. The only reminder that there had been men and women here yesterday was a white pickup truck parked at the edge of the wide clearing. Keo hurried over to it, but he already knew what he’d find—or not—before he even reached it.
There was no convenient car key dangling from the steering wheel, and when he opened the hood, there was no battery. He lowered the hood back down, careful not to let it slam, just in case there were people in the area. Sound traveled these days.
“Can we use it?” Jordan called from the front porch of the main house. She had been peering through the windows but hadn’t tried to go in yet.
“They abandoned it for a reason. Anything over there?”
“It’s too dark inside, but I’m pretty sure I saw something moving in the back hallway. Maybe we should risk it. There might be weapons, food…”
“Move on. It’s too risky.”
She gave one of the windows another quick glance before hopping off the porch and walking back to him.
Keo had climbed into the pickup, in search of something, anything, he could use. He found a rusty tire iron on the floor and pulled it outside with him. It wasn’t a gun or a knife, but he wasn’t going to complain about a melee weapon. If nothing else, it had better reach than the spork.
“Whatcha got there?” Jordan asked.
He tossed the tire iron over to her.
“Ah, you shouldn’t have,” she said, catching and turning the rusted object over in her hands, before wiping some (though not all, by any means) of the rust off on her pants. “Could be a little cleaner.”
“Could be a gun, too, but we can’t always get what we want.”
“No kidding. I was hoping to wake up on a nice comfy bed this morning.”
“Such an optimist.”
“And someone with less scars on his face.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Eh, I’ll live.” She smiled at him, before her eyes dropped to his feet. “What’s that?”
“What?”
She pointed and Keo looked down at a white piece of paper, about half the size of normal writing paper, trapped under one of his boots. He took a step back and picked it up. It would have been pristine if not for his boot print, and there was lettering on it in big, blocky capital letters, as if it had been cranked out by a printer.
Jordan leaned in to get a better look. “What’s it say?”
It read, in three separate rows:
JOIN THE FIGHT TO TAKE BACK TEXAS
WAR IS HERE PICK A SIDE
THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING
Keo read it out loud, then handed her the paper. Jordan peered at it, as if she could see more than what was printed on the page. He walked over and glanced into the back of the pickup and saw two more identical pieces of paper inside.
He scooped them up and walked back to her. “Saw them back there earlier, but I thought they were just litter.”
“Mercer?” Jordan said.
“I’d bet my spork on it.”
“So, what, they’re driving around throwing these things out of their car windows? I hope they’re getting good gas mileage, because it’s a big state.”
“They wouldn’t need to hit the entire state; just the areas where they’ve struck. Remember the map from Gregson’s tank? The towns they were attacking were almost entirely clustered around the southeast.” He glanced up at the clear skies. “Besides, maybe they have a better delivery system.”
“Planes?”
“It would take a lot to hide planes from the collaborators for all this time, but they managed exactly that with the tanks and themselves, so maybe…”
Jordan turned the paper over, but it was blank on the other side. “So this is some kind of propaganda?”
“Gregson did say Mercer has a plan. I guess this is part of it.”
“What’s that? Bomb the shit out of people, then ask them to join you?” She stared at the paper. “It says to ‘pick a side,’ but doesn’t say how, or where to go.”
“Maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll run into more of Mercer’s people between here and T18, and you can ask them for all the details.”
“Again with the warped definition of luck.” She crumpled the flyer and flung it across the yard with everything she could muster. “So what do you think?”
“About?”
“‘Pick a side.’ What happens if we don’t?”
He didn’t answer right away. Keo had never had any problems choosing sides—it was usually the people who paid him the most. But that kind of no-brainer decision wasn’t going to work anymore. Which was too bad; he liked it better when things were simpler.
“We might not have a choice,” he said. “The people who get hurt the most in a war are usually the ones caught in the middle.”
“Like the civilians in the towns. Like Gillian.”
He nodded.
“There’s some sense to it, I guess,” Jordan said. “What Mercer’s doing. The townspeople would have heard about what had happened to the other places by now. Even if the ones in charge of the towns managed to stick all the survivors from the attacks into a dark room somewhere, there’s still the soldiers. They wouldn’t be able to stop blabbing about it. That’s how it is in T18, and I’m guessing in the other settlements, too: the soldiers are just civilians with uniforms. Most of them are married or living with someone. You’re encouraged to, because being a couple means getting out of the dorms and into your own house.”
“Coupling plus sex equals babies?”
“Pretty much. Anyway, you can’t hide something like this. This kind of news will spread like wildfire.” She paused, then, “What was that Gregson said? Something about letting everyone know there were other things out there scarier than the ghouls? He was talk
ing about them. Mercer’s troops.”
“Sounds like it.”
“So what do you think?”
“About what?”
“About everything. Mercer. This plan of his. The war with the collaborators. All of it.”
Keo shook his head. “I think this Mercer guy knows exactly what he’s doing. Either that, or he’s fucking insane.”
“Can’t it be both?” Jordan asked.
He chuckled. “Definitely.”
His instincts were to leave as quickly as possible, just in case Marcy and the others did return, but there was still too much of the place left to explore for potential weapons. The optimist in him was hoping to find something useful the collaborators might have forgotten or left behind, maybe either because they were in a hurry or were just clueless. He was, after all, just dealing with, when you got right down to it, conscripted soldiers.
They spent half an hour searching the parts of the farmhouse that they could be sure didn’t have any ghouls hiding inside, including a storage shack in one corner of the property. Inside, Keo found a lot of tools, an old tractor that might have still worked if there were gas, and enough parts to probably make two more of the machine. He also discovered an old, rusted over machete on a shelf near some piles of lug nuts and spare tires.
“Got a knife,” he said when he came back out of the shack.
“Looks more like a sword,” Jordan said.
“Technically a machete.”
“Can you even cut anything with that?”
“Sure, if you hit them hard and often enough,” he said, and switched the machete for her tire iron.
“Aw, you get me all the bestest gifts, Keo.”
“I like to show my appreciation when a woman does me the honor of boinking me in a barn.”
“If I knew boinking guys in barns would get me this much gratitude, I’d have done it throughout college.”
“I have a feeling you didn’t have a lot of problems getting guys to do what you wanted in college, Jordan.”
She smiled at him. “You don’t have to kiss my ass anymore. You already got in my pants, remember?”
The Purge of Babylon Series Box Set, Vol. 3 | Books 7-9 Page 33