The Fires of Atlantis (Purge of Babylon, Book 4) (26 page)

“Captain fucking Optimism. I’m telling Lara.”

Will grinned.

“Tommy, go see if you can hear anything happening at the side door,” Rachel said.

Tommy rushed off into the darkness. The fact that people could disappear and reappear without warning was a bit disconcerting to Will, especially since he had zero visibility outside the small pool of light provided by the single LED lamp.

BOOM!

“Definitely metal,” Danny said.

“Let’s find out for sure,” Will said.

He jogged up the stairs, where he could still see the doorframe trembling in the aftermath of the last blow just seconds ago. Whatever they were using out there was definitely heavy and doing tremendous damage. He hadn’t been counting the seconds between the impacts, but it sounded like every ten seconds.

Which was just about—

BOOM!

Every inch of the door shook, and the brick wall surrounding it threatened to come unglued at any second. And there—a noticeable indentation had appeared at the side of the door, just over where the lever and locking mechanism were.

Footsteps behind him before Rachel’s and Danny’s breaths hit him in the back of the neck.

“Holy shit,” Danny said, staring at the indentation.

“What the hell is that?” Rachel asked, out of breath.

“They’re using some kind of battering ram,” Will said. “It’s the blue-eyed ghouls. They’re running the show out there.”

“Blue-eyed—” Rachel started to say.

BOOM!

All three of them took a step back as another indentation materialized in the door, very close to the first one. It sounded as if the creatures were literally driving whatever was on the other side into the door with great force, raining one concentrated, massive blow at a time every ten seconds.

“They’re going to cave the lock in,” Will said. “The door won’t hold for long after that.”

They hurried back down the stairs just as Tommy reappeared in the light.

“Nothing,” Tommy said. “I didn’t hear anything on the other side.”

“Are you sure?” Rachel asked.

“I’m telling you, there’s nothing out there—”

BOOM!

Will swore the entire basement vibrated for a good five seconds afterward that time.

“We gotta split,” Bratt said, his gravel voice cutting through the momentary silence. “The shock troops are coming. That’s them out there. We gotta go
now
.”

Will exchanged a quick look with Danny, who nodded back.

“Rachel,” Will said. “He’s right. We gotta go.”

“The side door?” she said, looking uncertainly at him.

“Yeah.”

“We’ll never survive out there.”

“We’ll have a better shot out there than down here when they start coming through that door.”

“Not much better…”

BOOM!

“Better than down
here
,” Will said, “trapped in this one big room with nowhere to go.”

“The door will hold,” she said, looking back up the stairs.

Will could tell he wasn’t going to get through. Maybe it was fear, or determination, or just simple human stubbornness (he knew a little bit about that last one), but he wasn’t going to budge her. She had decided, made her choice, and she was going to live
(die)
with it.

“It’ll hold,” she said again.

Another
BOOM!
blasted through the entire basement.

They spun around back to the stairs almost as one just as the metal door flew wide open and a burst of cold, rancid air flooded inside.

The first ghoul raced in, its bones
clacking
loudly.

Rachel, Eaton, and Milch opened fire and the creature’s forward momentum was stopped by a hail of bullets tearing into it, ripping away flesh and revealing bleach-white bones underneath. Then they lost sight of the ghoul because the black ocean pouring in through the open door swallowed the lone creature up and flooded down the stairs in a quivering obsidian tide.

“Go go go!” Will shouted.

Danny was already running, Tommy right behind him, when Will opened fire on the stairs.

Silver bullets punched through weak flesh and ricocheted off bones. Ghouls fell, flopping down the stairs, while others threw the dead ones over the banisters to make way for more to get down faster.

“Rachel!” Will shouted.

It didn’t do any good. He didn’t even think she heard him over the roar of blazing gunfire in the tight confines of the basement. Bullet casings sprayed around her and Bratt and Milch and Eaton, the
clink-clink-clink
of empty brass almost as loud as the unrelenting boom of assault rifles firing on full-auto.

Will turned and fled.

He darted into the darkness, guessing
(praying)
at the direction of the side door, using where he had last seen Tommy going and coming out of as a marker. Then he saw moonlight spilling through a rectangular hole in the wall and ran toward it.

Screams erupted behind him. Men’s voices, then a woman’s.

He kept going, because looking back would only slow him down. A second. Half a second. It didn’t matter. Slow was slow, and slow was death.

The floor under him trembled as the creatures landed everywhere. The slapping of flesh against concrete was loud because the gunfire had all but stopped. For a split-second there was no noise at all, until Rachel’s screams filled the room and bounced off the walls, then someone began firing with a semi-automatic handgun—

Will saw Danny in the doorway, holding the door open for him. There were no signs of Tommy. “Come on!” Danny shouted. “Can you run any slower, old man?”

Will put on a burst of speed and lunged through the opening and crashed into a brick wall chest-first on the other side. Behind him came the loud
bang!
of the door slamming shut and almost instantly the sound and fury of dozens of ghouls crashing into it from the other side.

Thoom thoom thoom!

Ennis’s basement side entrance was one floor below ground, with steps leading up into an alleyway beside the bar. Danny was already halfway up, shouting, “Can’t lock the door on this side! Run run run!”

Will pushed himself off the wall and followed as a gust of wind rushed against him about the same time the door banged open and the sound of hundreds
(thousands?)
of crashing bare feet flooded his senses.

Tommy was waiting for them in the alley above, absurdly still armed with his sniper rifle, and was pointing it at the mouth of the alley.

“Go go go!” Danny shouted.

Tommy turned and ran toward the back of the alley. Will wanted to shout at him, find out if he knew where he was going, but he didn’t get the chance. Creatures were coming up fast behind him, and he skidded and nearly fell against the dirty floor. He managed to catch himself at the last second, made a quick U-turn, and pursued Danny and Tommy into the darkened alley.

There were no lights, just the weak spill of moonlight from above. Thankfully that was enough to see with, and Will caught sight of Tommy’s lanky form moving with surprising speed. The kid was running so fast, so determined to get to the end, that Will wondered if he even still realized they were behind him.

Danny slowed down in front of him, then spun around like a ballerina doing a pirouette. Will kept going, the loud
clattering
of Danny’s rifle firing on full-auto behind him even louder in the narrow passageway.

Then he began to slow down, and as soon as Danny fired his last shot, Will stopped, spun, and lifted his rifle.

Danny darted past him a split-second later. “Changing!”

Will opened up on the horde. It was a wall of living darkness, liquid black eyes against the enveloping night. He fired into the center, then swung the rifle left to right, then right to left again. The magazine emptied at an impossible rate, the carbine getting lighter and lighter with every half-second—

“Go go go!” Danny shouted behind him.

Will turned and ran, Danny commencing firing as soon as he was past him.

Up ahead, Tommy was waving them over while holding open a steel door, moonlight glinting off its shiny surface. It was beaten and old, but it was intact, and that was all that mattered.

He ejected the magazine and let it drop to the floor and shoved in a new one while shouting, “Danny! You coming or what?”

Danny was already running back toward him, a big grin on his face. “Aw, I didn’t think you cared!”

“Don’t tell anyone!” Will shouted back, then pulled the trigger again.

Ghouls stumbled and fell, creating a dangerous pile that the others slipped and stumbled against as they tried to get over to get to him. Will was backing up as he fired, watching with morbid fascination as the black-eyed undead things toppled like dominos, bullets piercing non-existent muscle and dropping more of their kind behind them. They were so crammed into the tight confines of the alley and there were so many of them he was pretty sure he was killing a half dozen
(more?)
with every silver bullet.

He wished he could have said it did any good, but it didn’t. It didn’t make a damn bit of difference at all because for every single ghoul he killed, a dozen were already scrambling over its lifeless carcass and they were constantly moving forward at an obscene rate.

“Move your ass, Kemosabe!” Danny shouted behind him, his voice shockingly close.

Will hadn’t realized he was almost on top of Danny until he spun to his left and saw the open door in front of him. He threw himself inside while Danny unleashed another full magazine into the surging tide of writhing flesh, the harsh sound of bullets snapping and glancing off bones like some kind of strange melody that could only be orchestrated by a mad composer.

Will was turning around when Danny stepped through and Tommy, who had been waiting beside him this entire time, slammed the door shut with all his might. There was the loud (and very satisfying)
clack-clack!
of a large deadbolt sliding into place. Almost instantly, the door shook as the ghouls flung themselves into it from the other side—

Thoom thoom thoom!

—and Tommy stumbled back, disoriented by the brute force on display.

But the door held.
It held.

“Where the hell are we?” Will said as he took in his surroundings.

He couldn’t see anything, but he could hear the sound of his and Danny’s instinctive reloading. Not that he needed light to change magazines. He mastered that little trick years ago and hadn’t looked back since.

Thoom thoom thoom!

Danny was standing next to him, the two of them in competition to see who was breathing harder and faster and more desperately. It was, he thought, a tie. The fact that they were standing in some kind of darkened hallway with no source of light whatsoever did nothing to make him feel any calmer. Danny apparently shared his apprehension.

Thoom thoom thoom!

Click!
A beam of light speared a long hallway with white walls, carpeted flooring, and dust flitting wildly in front of them. “Someone’s been shirking their dusting,” Danny said behind the flashlight.

Will grabbed his own flashlight from one of his pouches and flicked it on. “Tommy, where the hell are we?”

Tommy stepped in front of them, still sucking in air. He looked back every time the creatures smashed into the door.

Thoom thoom thoom!

Will and Danny had forgotten about the sound. God help them, but they had become so used to it that it didn’t even faze them now.

Thoom thoom thoom!

“It’s a museum,” Tommy said.

“A museum?” Danny said. “In Dunbar? What’s the museum for? The crawdads of Louisiana?”

“History of the town. Dunbar is, uh, kind of proud of itself.”

“I’m proud of my boxers, too, but you don’t see me starting a museum for them.”

Thoom thoom thoom!

“Are we safe in here?” Will asked.

“I, uh, hope so,” Tommy said, looking back at the door again.

Then—
silence.

The pounding had ceased without any warning.

All three of them looked back at the door, Will and Danny running their flashlights over it to make sure it was still closed. It was, and the deadbolt remained firmly in place. The frame looked slightly cracked by the vicious assault, but the door itself was still in one piece.

It was quiet around them. Not just inside, but outside as well. There were no screams, no gunshots, not even the soft but familiar
tap-tap
of bare feet. It was as if the ghouls had ceased all activity within the city limits.

“What the hell is this?” Danny whispered.

“Hell if I know,” Will whispered back.

It’s the blue-eyed ghouls.

Four of them.

Out there, somewhere.

They know we’re in here.

They have to know.

So what the hell are they up to now?

D
amn
, that plan went down the crapper fast.

The guy missed with his first two bullets, but all it took was one stray round to turn this into a very bad night. Fortunately for Keo, he had surfaced on the other side of the beach, with a good one hundred meters separating him and the man standing watch on the boat shack. He would have chastised the guy for being a lousy shot, except Keo didn’t think he could have done any better himself.

Looks like we both could use a little more time on the firing range, pal.

He pushed his way into the tree line and kept running. Bullets punched through branches behind and to the left of him as Mister Boat Shack continued to try to take him out. The guy had no chance out in the open when he could see Keo, and he had even less now.

Of course, all it took was one lucky shot…

This wasn’t how he had expected it to go down. Then again, he hadn’t anticipated finding an island lit up like a Christmas tree, with what looked like bright halogen lamps strategically placed from side to side and front to back, either. Towering solar collector trays ringed the place like a shiny necklace, which meant solar power. In a world without electricity, that alone made Song Island worth its weight in gold.

It also went a long way to confirm Allie’s story about a mysterious radio signal she had intercepted months ago that had lured seven of her people here. Those same survivors hadn’t kept in touch, which wasn’t supposed to happen. That was why Zachary and Shorty had come down here with him (well, mostly Zachary), to check up on their missing friends. It was that knowledge of those potentially missing
(dead?)
people that convinced Keo to take this particular approach.

Carrie hadn’t been enthusiastic about his idea when he told her. “You’re crazy,” she had said. “You’re going to get yourself killed. Why can’t we just go over there and tell them we’re looking for shelter and you’re looking for people who had come here before?”

His natural instinct was to respond with a cavalier,
“Because this is the real world, not Fantasyland,”
but instead he had said, “Can’t take the chance they turn out to be soldiers. This way, we’ll know who they are before they even see us.”

The three of them sat in the boat, adrift in the darkness with the island in the background. The string of lamps along the three piers looked like glowing fingers, and he could make out a silhouetted form moving on top of a shack on one side of the long stretch of beach. He couldn’t tell if the man (or woman) was armed from this distance, but that was probably a safe bet. The Song Island he was looking at now was worth killing for.

So where did that leave Allie’s people?

You owe me big for this, Zachary.

With the trolling motor turned off, the boat moved slightly back and forth on its own accord over the calm lake water. He was certain the guard would eventually spot the white paint on the boat, but so far, so good.

The lone guard didn’t concern him too much. It was the tall structure at the back of the island, with the floodlights over its windows. Some kind of lighthouse with an antenna sticking out of it. You could probably see the entire island from up there.

Now that’s one hell of an overwatch.

He expected to hear an argument between the girls, but there wasn’t one. In fact, neither woman said a word. He gave them their privacy anyway and didn’t hurry them along with a decision. It wasn’t as if he was going to run out of night anytime soon. Out here, far from land, he felt a certain freedom knowing the creatures couldn’t—
wouldn’t
—reach him. No wonder Allie and her people refused to budge from their little island—

“Okay,” Carrie said behind him. “We’ll wait here until you come back.”

He looked over. “Are you sure?”

“No, but we’ll do it anyway because we owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything.” He looked at Lorelei. “You don’t.”

“Yes, we do,” Lorelei said, with what sounded like absolute certainty. “We’d be back at L11 right now if it wasn’t for you.”

“Besides,” Carrie said, “you’re just sneaking onto the island and finding out what you can and swimming back before daylight, right? If it’s not safe, we’ll go back to shore. If it is, we’ll show ourselves like we just arrived.”

“That’s the plan.”

Carrie nodded. He wasn’t sure if that was for his benefit, or hers and Lorelei’s. “Okay. We’ll wait out here in the dark for you. What could possibly go wrong?” She had said that last part while gritting her teeth.

Famous last words.

“Use the trolling motor if you have to,” Keo said. “It got us this close without being spotted, and it should be fine to turn on again if we need it.” He paused, then, “Remember, if things go bad—and if you hear shooting, that means things have gone bad—wait an hour, and if I’m not back by then, or you see boats leaving the island and coming your way, take off.”

“Take off,” Carrie repeated. “Right.”

They both looked scared. Lorelei had all but shrunk into the back of the boat, once again trying to hide behind her curtain of blonde hair.

“Just stick to the plan,” Keo said. “As long as you keep your distance, they shouldn’t spot the boat, and I’ll be back before sunrise. We’ll be fine. No muss, no fuss.”

H
e left
his pack in the boat, strapping just the MP5SD tightly around his body before dropping off the side and into the water. It was cold at first, but his body adapted after a few minutes. He measured the distance to the beach. Not too far. Four hundred meters, give or take. He could do that in his sleep. Thank God for all those summers on Mission Beach back in San Diego.

Keo did calm breaststrokes for the first one hundred meters. He wasn’t in any hurry. The night wasn’t going anywhere, and he had plenty of time to search the island and do a little exploring. Push came to shove, there was a lot of water he could jump into from just about any part of the island and plenty of woods he could get lost in. He had a lot of experience outrunning pursuers in wooded areas these days.

At the 150 meter mark, he slipped under and didn’t come up for another fifty.

As soon as he poked his head back through the surface, he heard the roar of an outboard motor and saw the boat leaving one of the piers, bright spotlight flashing across the lake in the direction of—

Carrie and Lorelei.

On cue, he heard the boat they had commandeered this afternoon fire up its trolling motor behind him. The slow, gradual whine was almost instantly lost in the blare of the loud outboard motor pushing a bass fishing boat across the lake. Waves surged against him, jostling Keo around as the faster vessel shot across the water.

Dammit.

He treaded in place and looked after the boat as it streaked toward Carrie and Lorelei. Fast. Too fast. He couldn’t have stopped it even if he was close enough to use the submachine gun. Which he wasn’t. Instead, he helplessly watched it catch up to the white boat.

He waited to hear gunfire, hoping that he wouldn’t. Carrie still had her Glock, but if she was smart, she would get rid of it before the boat caught up to them. There was no way they were going to fight off a boat that was probably better armed, and he hoped she figured out that before it was too late.

Throw the gun away, Carrie. Throw the gun away…

Thirty seconds later, the boats were now drifting in the lake close to one another, and there still wasn’t any gunfire. That was a good sign. Carrie and Lorelei had surrendered and no one had shot anyone. They were still alive. Which meant he could still save them…later, on the island.

Keo turned and went back under the surface and continued toward the beach.

When he came back up again, he was just fifty meters from the impossibly white sands, and the craft with the loud motor was on its way back, towing Carrie and Lorelei’s boat behind it. He could just make out four figures in the first boat now. Two were seated and two were standing. He squinted, but he couldn’t tell if the two standing were wearing uniforms.

Maybe, maybe not…

He ducked back under and pushed on toward the island, fighting against the jostling waves from the boat’s wake a second time.

He was ten meters from the beach when his boots touched something mushy but just solid enough and he began walking up at an angle. He went into a crouch, half-submerged in the water. A quick check to the side found the island boat sidling up to one of the piers, where a man and a woman had appeared and were waiting for them.

Carrie and Lorelei were standing up on the boat now, so they were okay. At this point, both women alive was more than he could have hoped for, especially given the precarious nature of the night.

Of course, their capture changed everything. Without the boat waiting for him out there, he had no place to retreat to—

Crack!
A bullet splashed into the lake behind him.

He bolted up from his kneeling position and took off up the beach. Not an easy feat. He was drenched from head to toe and he was carrying extra pounds thanks to the water absorbed by his clothes. Parts of Beaufont Lake were in the pockets of his cargo pants and T-shirt, and a whole lot of it was in his boots. He picked up speed (or thought he did, anyway) with every ounce of water that literally poured out of him. He would probably look like a bloated corpse on the beach if he were to die now.

Swim fast, leave a bloated corpse. Wasn’t that the old saying?

Close enough.

I
t was going
to take a while before he dried up completely. Maybe half a day, since it was still night and he didn’t have the sun to make it go faster. He was shivering, because being out of the water and moving in wet clothes was a lot colder than when he was submerged in the lake.

The MP5SD in hand, Keo picked his way through the woods, skipping round underbrush and trees, making as little noise and leaving as few tracks as possible. The moon provided little light for him to navigate with, but he took comfort in the knowledge that if he couldn’t see where he was going, then likely his pursuers wouldn’t be able to, either.

Right. Keep telling yourself that, pal.

He was far enough from the lampposts to avoid their halos, and the only creatures that noticed his passing were birds in the trees and random land creatures that were annoyed by his presence, who scampered off. A few squirrels sat and watched him curiously. He grinned back at them. The furry little buggers had become his new lucky charms these days.

I should catch one of them, skin it, and hang its fur around my neck for good luck.

He could certainly use a little luck now. Hell, why settle for a little? He could use a
lot
more than that. It was going to be tricky if he had to fight an entire island full of soldiers, though he was starting to think that wasn’t the case. They just didn’t act
like the men in uniform he had encountered the last two days. Something about them was…different. The vibe was all off.

Groovy, man. We living and dying by vibes now?

Keo took a moment to take inventory of his supplies. Besides the Ka-Bar, the submachine gun was it. Heckler & Koch made excellent weapons, and even wet, the MP5SD would still work like a charm. He fired off a couple of rounds just to be sure, putting two bullets into the ground, the suppressor keeping both shots at minimum decibels.

Satisfied he still had a working weapon, Keo moved on.

He was sure they would chase him into the woods or attempt to locate him from the surrounding fields (with the beach behind him) almost immediately. He was wrong. They were either taking their time, or they were too smart to follow him into the darkness. He would have preferred to keep doing this under the cover of night, but daylight had its advantages too, including drying him out, which would help with the shivering.

He thought he was prepared for what he would find as he reached the end of the woods, but the sight of the hotel startled Keo and left him breathless for a moment.

Daebak. I’ve died and gone to heaven.

The building was huge, with floodlights spaced out along the walls. And it wasn’t even finished yet. He knew that because there were scaffolding and construction equipment visible on the flat rooftop. The lights coming from the rooms, particularly the front patio and lobby, told him that the quiet hum he had been hearing since stepping foot on the island was the product of a power station probably somewhere on the other side of the island where the hotel guests wouldn’t notice. That was where all the solar collector trays were sending their juices.

A solar-powered island. God bless the peaceniks.

And there was the lighthouse, about half a football field from the back of the hotel, with a sprawling lawn between the two structures. Or it looked like a lighthouse. Three floors, with a cone-shaped top. Four windows each on the top two floors, light pouring out from the openings. A figure moved back and forth between the windows on the third floor with binoculars. Possibly a woman from the curves.

Keo would have liked to move around the island while sticking to the woods, but once he reached the eastern cliff, he was stuck. The woods only went so far, leaving him with open ground filled with two large empty swimming pools and bird-poop-covered fish ornaments between him and the hotel. From here, his only choice was to retreat back to the beach.

It wasn’t an optimal fighting position. Not by a long shot.

A voice, booming across the wide-open space in front of him, snapped his attention back to the hotel. “Keo!”

A woman. Probably the same one from the beach. The fact that she knew his name was expected. Carrie and Lorelei would have given up information on him by now. He hadn’t expected them to hold out under interrogation, much less torture, if indeed that was what had happened to them in the last two hours.

“Keo!” the woman shouted again. “We talked to Carrie and Lorelei!”

No kidding, lady.

“We’re not soldiers! Or collaborators!”