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

“Lollapalooza,” Maddie finished.

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s an alternative rock concert. I went to it once when they came to Austin a few years back.” She waved her hand. “Never mind. Neither here nor there. But is it possible? Do you think the United States government really is still functioning out there?”

Lara shook her head. It had been nearly a year since they knew of anything even remotely resembling an official government broadcast. To hear it now, out of the blue, was unreal. The fact that they were responding to
her
message was, frankly, unsettling.

“Is it just on the FEMA frequency?” Lara asked.

“As far as I know,” Maddie nodded.

“How long have they been broadcasting?”

“No idea. I heard it about thirty minutes ago while playing around with the radio.” She shrugged. “It gets boring up here by yourself.”

“…this is the United States government,” the voice repeated on the radio, “trying to reach the person or persons responsible for the message that has been broadcasting across the radio frequencies…”

Lara reached for the radio’s microphone and lifted it to her lips but didn’t press the transmit lever right away. She took a deep breath, and then, only then, answered. “This is the person responsible for the broadcast, responding to your message. Over.”

She released the lever and waited, but the only response was silence from the other end. The “sixteen-year-old virgin” had stopped broadcasting.

Lara pressed the transmit lever again. “Hello. If you can hear me, please respond. Over.”

She waited five seconds, then ten…

“Hello,” a voice finally answered. It was different from the one she and Maddie had been listening to. Older, with an authoritative tone that came through even over the radio. “Who am I speaking to. Over.”

“Identify yourself first,” Lara said.

“Colonel Beecher,” the man said. “Commanding officer of what currently remains of the United States of America.”

She looked back at Maddie, who frowned. “That can’t be a good sign. My dad used to say the military is good at a lot of things, but running a democracy isn’t one of them.”

Lara turned back to the radio. “I wasn’t aware the military had taken charge of the country, Colonel.”

“I assure you, I didn’t come to this command voluntarily,” Beecher said. “As far as I know, we’re it. We haven’t been able to make contact with any other civilian or military authority. So I’m left to assume there is no one else out there. Now that I’ve identified myself, would you mind responding in kind, Miss?”

“My name is Lara.”

“Lara, it’s good to hear your voice. We have a lot of questions.”

“Such as?”

“Are you in charge over there?”

No. Far from it. I’m so out of my depth I feel like I’m constantly drowning, except people keep telling me I’m doing fine. Great, even.

God help us.

“Yes,” she said into the microphone.

“Where are you currently located?” Beecher asked.

Nice try.

“That’s not information I’m willing to divulge at the moment, Colonel.”

“Is there a reason?”

“I don’t trust you.”

Beecher chuckled. “Fair enough. It’s a dangerous world out there. It’s difficult to know who to trust.”

“Agreed.”

“So what
can
you tell me, Lara?”

“Ask, and we’ll find out together.”

“All right.” Beecher paused for a moment. Then, “First of all, the silver. We’ve been trying to kill these things for nearly a year, then overnight your broadcast changed everything. How in God’s name did you know about silver?”

“Trial and error and a lot of experience,” she said. “My turn, Colonel.”

“Fire away.”

“Are you willing to say where you’re located?”

“We’re in Colorado. Five miles out of Denver.”

“Are you in some kind of bunker?”

“Nice try,” Beecher said.

She smiled. “Your turn.”

“Now that you brought it up, are you under or aboveground?”

“Aboveground. You?”

“Both.”

“Now who’s being cute?”

Another chuckle. “I don’t mean to be. Have you ever heard of Bayonet Mountain?”

“No.”

“It’s an old 1950s Cold War bomb shelter designed to withstand an atomic bomb. As it turns out, it works just as well against ghouls, as you call them. That’s where we are now. My men and a sizable civilian population.”

“What’s your definition of
sizable
, Colonel?”

“At the moment, just over 4,000 military personnel and civilians,” Beecher said. “How about you? How many do you have over there?”

She looked back at Maddie, who mouthed back,
“Four thousand?”

Lara took a breath and said into the microphone, “We have, uh, just slightly less than that, Colonel.”

“Can you say how many?” Beecher asked.

“Not at this time.”

“Fair enough. So tell me, Lara. Any ideas about how to take back the planet from these bloodsucking bastards?”

That made Lara pause.

“Lara?” Beecher said. “Are you still there?”

“I’m still here, Colonel.”

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No. I’m just not sure why you’re asking me that question. You’re the one with 4,000 people with you, including soldiers. I’m just a civilian.”

“You’re more than that. Your message saved our lives, Lara. Learning about silver has turned the tide for us.” He paused again. Then, “You don’t have a clue what you’ve done, do you?”

She didn’t, because she had put out the message at Danny and Roy’s insistence. Lara was still grieving what she thought at the time were Will’s and Gaby’s deaths. The radio message was supposed to give whoever was still out there hope, but in so many ways it was to give
herself
hope.

“No,” she said finally. “I guess I don’t.”

“You gave us a fighting chance,” Beecher said. “Your broadcast changed everything, and I’m willing to bet there are others monitoring this frequency right now, who have been waiting for someone to lead them...”

T
he spork was
white and plastic and flimsy in her hand. It was one of those disposable utensils that came in cases of a thousand. It barely held together as she picked her way through the baked potato, so it was a good thing the toughest food on the brown cafeteria-style tray were strips of shriveled bacon, dirty brown rice, and two buttered biscuits.

As for its ability to penetrate the human skin, well, she didn’t have very high hopes. They didn’t even trust her enough to give her one of those plastic butter knives. As if she could actually stab anyone with it. Of course, that wouldn’t have kept her from trying, though the point was moot since she didn’t have one.

“You barely touched your food.”

She rubbed her thumb along the teeth of the spork. The two middle claws were probably too weak to puncture anything as tough as human skin, but the two flanking teeth were twice the size and just as sharp. Better yet, they were reinforced by the oval-shaped spoon connected to them. So, pretty tough, as far as flimsy plastic utensils went.

“Gaby?”

Even if she couldn’t get the plastic teeth through flesh, she might still be able to dish out some hurt. It wouldn’t be a killing blow and she probably couldn’t dig deep enough to sever a major artery, but there were possibilities—

“Gaby!”

She looked up at him. “What?”

“You hardly touched your food,” Josh said. “You should. We’re celebrating.”

“What are we celebrating?”

“My birthday.”

“Your birthday?”

“I turned nineteen last month. I was going to tell you when we met in the park, but… Well, you know.”

She nodded. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks. Too bad we don’t have any cake. Do you guys have cake on the island?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh well, I guess it doesn’t matter.” He smiled. “We’re not kids anymore. Do you realize that? We’re both nineteen. Damn. When did that happen?”

She sat across from him, the frail portable table between them. The tabletop space was so limited that a quarter of their trays dangled off the ends. Josh had eaten most of his potato, wrapped in aluminum foil and baked over a grill, and was shoveling a sporkful of brown rice into his mouth. He seemed to have grown since the last time
(Days? Weeks? How long have I been here?)
she had seen him back at the camp in Sandwhite Wildlife State Park. In another couple of weeks, his hair would be long enough to tie in a ponytail. She wondered if he had left it long on purpose, or if he was too busy for a barber because of the demands of his new job.

What was the job interview like, Josh?

“I know it’s not a lot,” Josh said, almost apologetically. “But it’s more than most of the people here get to eat. We have to ration the food until we can grow more in the fields. Most of them are still eating MREs and stale bagged chips. Cans of SPAM, if they’re lucky. We found cases of those in a warehouse outside Shreveport. Mountains of them. I guess it’s true what they say. When the world ends, only the cockroaches and SPAM will be left.”

I’m supposed to be grateful for this. Potatoes baked over a grill. Strips of bacon. Dirty brown rice.

“Where did you get the bacon?” she asked.

“Wild hogs. They’re all over the place. Somehow, they managed to survive all this time; I have no idea how. We already have farmers raising them, and in a few years they’ll be plentiful and everyone will be eating bacon and biscuits in the mornings. Oh, and eggs, too. Plenty of chickens are still running around out there. When we’re done, the farms will be the biggest part of the towns.” Josh picked up his water bottle from the floor and twisted it open. “You never asked me how I found you at the pawnshop.”

“How did you find me?”

“She told me. The blue-eyed ghoul. Kate.”

“Will’s Kate…”

“Uh huh. After the black-eyed ones located you, she told them to stay back, to wait until I got there. I guess they sort of jumped the gun a bit, but I arrived just in time, didn’t I?” He smiled, probably expecting her to acknowledge it. “She knew you were important to me. Because you are, Gaby.”

She rubbed her thumb against the teeth of the spork again before glancing over at the closed door to her left. There was a man on the other side named Mac. He took turns walking around the second floor hallway with another one of her guards, Lance. It was afternoon and sunlight was visible through the open window across the room, so Mac was out there because Lance had the night shift.

She turned back to Josh. He was wiping his hands on a handkerchief before stuffing the wool cloth back into his shirt pocket. Josh didn’t wear a hazmat suit when he came to have lunch with her. She wondered if he still did. Mac and Lance didn’t wear one, either. In fact, it had been a while since she had seen a hazmat suit on one of the collaborators.

“What do you want from me, Josh?”

He didn’t answer right away. Maybe he didn’t have an answer. Or, more likely, he just wanted her to wait. Josh did that these days. He had the power, and he knew it. The old Josh, who would do anything to please her, was long gone. The transformation showed in the way he walked, the way he sat, and in the way he looked at and talked to her. She used to adore his shyness, but there was none of that anymore.

This Josh…he knew who he was.
What
he was. And most of all, he understood and embraced the authority he wielded. Over the others, over the town, and most of all, over her.

Finally, he said, “I just want you to understand what I’ve been doing here, that’s all.”

“And what’s that, Josh?”

He stood up and walked across the room to the window, looking out at the street below. Her eyes went to the chair and she wondered if she could take Josh out with it, then break off a leg and use it on Mac.

Maybe…

“How many times have you stood here and looked out this window?” he asked.

“What does it matter?”

“Just answer me, please, Gaby.”

“Plenty of times.”

“And what do you see?”

“I don’t understand what you want me to say.”

“It’s just a conversation, Gaby.” He sounded a bit exasperated. “When you look outside, what do you see?”

“People.”

“That’s right. People going on with their lives. Little kids not scared of walking in broad daylight.
This
, Gaby, this is what we’ve always wanted, don’t you remember? To live freely. To not be afraid. Isn’t this what we talked about all those times in every dark and stinky basement we’ve ever hid in since the world ended?”

She stared at him, trying to understand. This new Josh, who was so different from the boy she had known. Where did this Josh come from?

“I did this, Gaby,” he continued. “I helped them put all of this together. Those people down there, they’re going to live out the rest of their natural lives. And all they have to do is give a little blood every night and teach their children to do the same.”

You’re breeding a race of slaves, Josh.

“What’s so bad about that?” He was watching her face intently. “Tell me, Gaby, what’s so bad about what I’ve done here?”

You don’t know. You’re so deep in it, you’re incapable of seeing it.

“What?” he said, narrowing his eyes at her.

Gaby realized she had been smiling at him.

“Share with the class,” he said, the annoyance creeping back into his voice.

“I get it now,” Gaby said.

“Get what?”

“That you’re delusional.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but stopped and sighed instead. “Don’t say that, Gaby.” He sounded genuinely hurt. Or maybe it was just more playacting. “Please don’t say that. I did all of this for you.”

“Stop saying that.”

“It’s true.”

“Stop saying that, Josh. I want nothing to do with this place.” She could feel her patience slipping and did her best to rein it in. Emotion was the enemy here.
(Stay in control!)
“Get it through your head, Josh: I don’t want any part of this.”

He walked silently back over and gathered up the sporks, dumped them on her plate, over her uneaten potato and strips of bacon and dirty brown rice, and stacked the trays together. “I’m leaving tonight to help out with another town.” His voice was still calm, even-keeled. Josh had mastered his emotions. Somewhat. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. Maybe a few days. Maybe a few weeks.” He picked up the trays and walked to the door without another glance in her direction. “Mac!”

The door opened and Mac leaned in. He had an AK-47 slung over his shoulder and was wearing a camo uniform that made him look almost like a soldier, though she guessed Will and Danny would disagree. Lance had been wearing the same identical clothing the last few days, and so had other men with guns she had seen on the streets.

Is this another one of your doing, Josh? Turning collaborators into soldiers?

“Grab the chair,” Josh said before stepping outside the room.

Mac came inside and walked over to the bed. He gave her a sharp look, almost daring her to do something, as he picked up the chair.

“How’s the head?” she asked. “Stitches holding up?”

He smirked. “Keep it up. Your boyfriend won’t be here forever.” He had said that last part almost in a low whisper, as if afraid Josh would overhear.

He’s afraid of Josh. This grown man is afraid of a nineteen-year-old teenager who was in high school last year.

Mac exited and slammed the door after him. She heard the familiar
click-chank
of the deadbolt sliding into place on the other side.

When she was alone again, Gaby stopped fighting and let her stomach growl and wished she had at least eaten the potato. Or the bacon. When was the last time she was going to get a chance to eat fried bacon again?

At least they had left her the water bottle. She picked it up from the floor and drank greedily. It was warm—but then, they all were these days. The liquid helped soothe her throat, which still hurt from the night at the pawnshop when one of Josh’s people had struck her with the butt of his rifle. It was Josh who had wrapped her up in a ball, his hazmat suit saving the two of them from the horde of ghouls rushing into the room. He had saved her, but what about…

Nate.

He had been there too, though Josh refused to tell her what had happened to him. Josh wouldn’t even tell her if Nate was alive or dead. Or worse—if he had been turned. It was Josh’s way of punishing her, letting her know that, ultimately, he held all the cards.

Because he did. All fifty-two of them.

She walked to the window, hoping that staying active would keep her hunger temporarily at bay. They had left her plenty of clothes. Or whoever used to live in the room before her had. The jeans and T-shirt fit fine, and there were even socks, but no signs of shoes of any type. Not that she needed to wear shoes at all. The only place they would allow her to go was a single bathroom two doors down the hallway. She hadn’t even made it far enough to the end of the second floor to see down to the first.

Gaby looked out at the sun-streaked streets below, just in time to catch Josh emerging from the building and climbing into a waiting green Jeep. As far as she could tell, they were keeping her in some kind of boarding house. Not exactly a hotel, but one of those bed-and-breakfasts. That explained the other rooms. She heard plenty of people coming and going over the last few days, even if she never actually got the chance to lay eyes on them. If this was some kind of prison, she was the only one locked up.

Her view of the outside world was revealing, even through the metal burglar bars fastened over the window. She didn’t know if hers was the only one secured like a prison cell. The bars were so tightly pressed against the frame that it was impossible to stick her head out far enough to see around her.

The driver waiting for Josh wore the same type of uniform as Lance and Mac and looked at least twenty years older than the kid he was picking up. The two men exchanged a perfunctory nod, but nothing resembling a salute. As the Jeep moved away from the curb, she waited for Josh to look up, perhaps sensing her, but he never did. She watched them drive off until they disappeared up the street.

“I’m leaving tonight to help out with another town,”
Josh had said.
“I don’t know when I’ll be back. Maybe a few days. Maybe a few weeks.”

And maybe I won’t be here when you get back, Josh.

She looked around at the room.

Of course, getting out of this place was easier said than done. Besides the round-the-clock guard outside her door, she had no weapons, and they had taken away anything that could even remotely be used as a weapon ever since she had nearly killed Mac with the nightstand the first day she woke up.

But Gaby didn’t for a second think about giving up the idea of escape. She couldn’t, even if she wanted to. Surrender wasn’t a part of her DNA. It had never been, and the end of the world hadn’t changed that.

Take all the time you need, Josh. I won’t be here when you get back…

S
he didn’t get
another visitor for the rest of the afternoon. There were no clocks in the room, so she had to use the sun outside to tell time. That and the noise, because the people on the streets were most active in the mornings and afternoons, but as it got darker, the activity died down and the town became ghostly quiet.

They still remember. This place might have become a safe haven, but they still remember what’s out there when the sun goes down.

After four days in L15, she had become used to the sight of people on horseback and kids in shorts running around the street. There wasn’t any danger of getting run over because there were so few cars in town. And you knew when a car came, because it was usually one of those big Army transport trucks settling yet another group of people. She wondered how long those vehicles had been coming and going. Sooner or later, the space would run out, and then what?

Another town. L16, maybe. Or L20.

L30?

How long had they been building these places, she wondered, and how many more were out there right now? In Louisiana, and in the other states?