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

by Sam Sisavath

  The sight of them slashing their skins against the glass shards hanging off the doorframes—thick clumps of black blood wetting the tiled floor—while desperately forcing their way in was hypnotic. There were so many of them it was hard for Will to know where one began and ended and the rest continued. It looked like one continuous squirming flesh, accompanied by the plop-plop-plop of blood on the floor and the patter of footsteps growing in intensity with every passing second as more arrived.

  “It’s about damn time,” Danny said. He had dispensed with the whispering. “My legs were starting to cramp anyway.”

  Will flicked his rifle to semi-auto, leaned out, and shot the first ghoul that was almost through in the chest. The bullet easily punched through the creature’s skin and muscle and hit another one—then another—behind it. As the undead thing fell lifelessly (again) forward, it was pulled unceremoniously back through the door and the next one flopped inside.

  And just like that, the dam broke.

  They moved with the same speed and agility, and with the absolute and complete lack of self-preservation that always managed to both fascinate and terrify Will. While he stared, Danny stood up and fired on full-auto, dropping a dozen ghouls on the first volley as they raced across the room. Silver bullets punched through soft, yielding flesh and slammed into bones and muscle.

  “Go!” Will shouted back at Tommy.

  The teenager gave him a horrified look before stumbling to his feet and running up the hallway to their right. He was moving so fast he was literally tripping over his own legs.

  “Changing!” Danny shouted.

  Will flicked the M4A1 to full-auto and pulled the trigger.

  Ghouls fell, others slipped and slid, and multiple streams of arcing black liquid sprayed the lobby. Not that it did anything to slow them down. Not even close. The surging black wave of amassing flesh began to spread out, at once providing easy targets and too many to concentrate on.

  “You coming or what!” Danny shouted behind him.

  Will stopped firing and turned and ran.

  He followed Danny up the hallway, reloading as he went, dropping the magazine and snapping in his next-to-last one. “Stick to the plan!”

  “As long as it’s not Plan Z!”

  “You love Plan Z!”

  “You misheard! I said I love zucchini lasagna!”

  They ran past offices and closets and didn’t bother to stop at any of them. They had checked earlier: the doors were cheap wood and wouldn’t last against a prolonged attack, even with a barricade using desks and filing cabinets. Maybe against just the black-eyed ghouls they might have stood a small chance, but that wasn’t all they were dealing with tonight. Not by a long shot.

  They get creative when the blue-eyed ones are around.

  The metal basement door under Ennis was proof of that.

  But there was one, a bathroom at the end, that could work. Or, at least, it had the most potential to get them to sunrise. It had a stainless steel door with a large deadbolt on the other side and no windows. It was easily their best choice by a good margin, and the plan was always to retreat to it once the attack began.

  Now all they had to do was get to it…

  Then something happened. It was so unexpected that Will couldn’t have explained how he knew, except that he just sensed it.

  He slid to a stop. “Danny.”

  Danny stopped a few meters up the hallway and looked back, then opened his mouth to ask—Will held up his hand and Danny didn’t follow through with it.

  Except for their labored breathing, they couldn’t hear anything.

  The building, as it had been just a few minutes ago, was dead silent again.

  “The fuck?” Danny mouthed at him.

  “No clue,” Will mouthed back.

  They both looked down the hallway—at the empty nothingness staring back. There was no wave of ghouls, no black eyes seeking them out, or moving death nipping at their heels like rabid dogs. Even the telltale patter of bare feet against tiled floor was gone, along with the all-too-familiar clacking of bones underneath sagging flesh.

  There was just…silence.

  Five seconds…

  …then ten…

  Until a scream pierced the hallway from behind them.

  Tommy!

  They looked back up the hallway and Danny started moving, and Will was right behind him when—

  —he heard it, the noise he had been waiting for—anticipating with dread—coming from behind him: the tap-tap of bare feet coming, inhumanly fast.

  He spun back around, lifting his rifle and expecting to see a flood of ghouls making their way up the narrow passageway.

  But there was just one.

  A tall, silhouetted figure with piercing, almost pulsating blue eyes. It wasn’t quite as thin as the ghouls he was used to seeing; it actually looked almost healthy, like the one that was standing outside of Ennis last night.

  Ennis…last night…blue-eyed ghoul…

  Silver…

  It didn’t go down.

  Will squeezed the trigger.

  It was fast and somehow—and Will didn’t understand how—the creature was actually dodging his bullets! But as impossibly fleet of foot as it was (and God help him, it was fast), Will still managed to put two bullets into its chest.

  But it didn’t go down.

  Instead it kept coming, moving with a swiftness that defied logic (so what else is new?), disintegrating the distance between them even before Will felt the last silver round leave the carbine and smash into the curving wall, taking a big chunk of the creature’s shoulder with it.

  Then it was there, in front of him, batting the rifle out of his hands.

  Up close, Will saw black blood oozing out of the holes in its chest. He had put those there with two silver bullets.

  Silver bullets!

  Will opened his mouth to scream Danny’s name, but before he could get anything out, smooth black flesh wrapped around his throat and he was flailing from one side of the narrow hallway to the other. His breath exploded from his half-open mouth and his lungs burned in a sea of fire as it slammed him into the wall.

  Where the hell’s Danny?

  Will’s eyes darted left, up the hallway—and saw Danny firing at another blue-eyed ghoul running toward him from the other side. The damned thing was dodging Danny’s bullets, too. It also had something on its face that almost looked like a grin. But that was impossible. These things didn’t grin…right?

  The creature grabbed Danny by the face and slammed his head into the wall, and a second later Danny’s body went slack and crumpled to the floor. The blue-eyed ghoul stood over Danny and there was fresh blood covering its mouth, the bright red liquid glistening in what little moonlight managed to penetrate this far into the hallway.

  Tommy’s blood…

  It looked up at him. No, not at him, but at the first creature, the one holding Will in place with a single hand, as if Will were fifty pounds of nothing. Its fingers dug into his throat, threatening to crush his windpipe with just a little bit of pressure.

  And then the creatures did something Will had never seen them do before, that he didn’t think they could even still do.

  They spoke.

  “I told you it’d be easy,” the second one said. Its voice came out as a sharp hiss, almost like hot steam venting. It didn’t sound the least bit human. It was more than that. More than human. Beyond human.

  “So you did,” the first one said. It manipulated Will’s eyes back to its face by turning his head, like a grown man would an infant that was completely and utterly at its mercy.

  Forced to stare at it, Will couldn’t help but marvel at the smoothness of the creature’s skin and its domed, hairless head. Its face was encased in impossibly tight flesh, showing none of the pruned bumps that covered the black-eyed ones. The smooth contour of its skin from the neck up looked almost pristine, like something fresh and newly born. The holes in its chest, where he had shot it, had cauterize
d in the last few seconds, even if the monster probably didn’t consider them wounds in the first place. It sure as hell hadn’t acted like getting shot (with silver bullets!) had hurt at all.

  The eyes were closer to a shade of sky blue, and the unnatural thing’s long and bony (and cold) fingers were wrapped so tightly around his throat that Will had trouble breathing. He guessed that was the point.

  “Will,” it said, its voice coming out in the same unnatural hiss. “Kate says you’re a hard man to kill. But I told her you couldn’t be. After all, you’re only human.”

  “Kate exaggerates,” the other ghoul said, and it made a noise Will didn’t understand at first, until he realized it was laughter. Soft laughter, as if it didn’t quite remember how to do it properly but thought that this was just close enough.

  “Would you like to play a game, Will?” the one in front of him asked.

  “Kate wants him,” the other creature said.

  “We’ll tell her he resisted. Oops.” Lines where lips should be morphed into a smile. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

  “Mabry will know.”

  “Mabry thinks she’s too obsessed with him. He’ll approve of this.”

  “You’ve talked me into it.” And it, too, smiled. “Go on, then. Tell him the rules.”

  “The rules are simple,” the first one said to Will. “We’ll have a blast—” It stopped talking and stiffened, and its fingers tightened further (Is that even possible?) around his throat as the creature hissed, “A knife? Really, Will?”

  Cross-knife, Will thought.

  He didn’t know when he had even reached for it, much less pulled it out of its sheath. But there it was, in his hand, gleaming in the moonlight as it moved in a wide arc from his thigh toward the ghoul’s head. He wasn’t sure if he was even aiming, but the knife seemed to know where it was going, as if it had a mind of its own.

  The ghoul glared at him and there was a glint of something that could have been pity just a split-second before the knife punctured the side of its head. The blade kept going, penetrating the skull—it was surprisingly tough—and Will kept pushing with everything he had—which wasn’t much at the moment, but there was just enough—until the hilt of the weapon rammed up against slightly cold flesh and the knife couldn’t go any further.

  He thought the creature would let out a scream, a cry of pain, maybe even panic, but it did none of those things. Instead, the sparkling blue in its eyes lost their luster and it collapsed in front of him. The fingers let go and Will could breathe again, and he slid down the wall, sucking in air, following the falling motion of the creature with his own. The clack-clack of bones as the ghoul hit the tiled floor first, then thump as Will landed on his ass.

  There was a sharp hissing sound and Will looked up at the second ghoul. It stared at the creature lying motionless in front of him, the cross-knife still embedded in its skull. Then its eyes shifted over to Will and it moved—

  The Glock, like the knife, had somehow magically appeared in Will’s hand without him ever knowing how it had gotten there. He stopped thinking about it, stopped trying to understand what was happening, and just pulled the trigger.

  He fired once—twice—three times—hitting the creature in the chest with all three rounds.

  It didn’t stop it. Of course it didn’t stop it. He knew it wouldn’t, but he was trained to hit center mass and that’s what he did.

  The monster shook off the three silver bullets and kept coming.

  Will tilted the gun up slightly and fired, creasing the ghoul’s right cheek. It flinched that time and actually paused for a second.

  For a moment—just a brief, optimistic moment (Captain fucking Optimism, yeah right)—Will thought he had forced it to change its mind, that it would now turn and run away.

  But of course it didn’t.

  It lunged at him again, and Will fired instinctively and from point blank range, hitting it square in the center of the forehead. Something that might have been brains—or whatever still passed for brains inside them—exploded out the back of the ghoul’s head. The creature’s body—emaciated, yes, but somehow stronger and tougher and fuller looking than the black-eyed ones—twisted at the last moment and flopped to the floor, bones clacking and blood oozing out of what was left of its skull. The entire back part of its head was gone, leaving just the front.

  Will gasped for breath, every successful attempt sending a jolt of pain through his body. He wondered if his old wounds had opened up. It would be ironic if he survived these blue-eyed bastards only to die from a gunshot wound inflicted by a human traitor.

  Ironic, or was that tragic?

  Who gives a shit.

  But he wasn’t dead yet, and Will grabbed the cross-knife and jerked it out of the dead ghoul’s head. It came out easily, with no resistance whatsoever, just a soft slurp. He picked up his rifle and slung it, then crawled on his hands and knees over the two dead bony things to get to Danny.

  He reached for the neck first and felt a strong pulse.

  When he turned Danny over onto his back, he thought he might have felt a pulse that wasn’t there, because the face he was staring down at was covered in a thick layer of blood. Will felt his neck again just to be sure and got the same response. The bleeding must have looked way worse than the actual wound. He hoped, anyway.

  He snatched up Danny’s carbine, then got a good grip on the back of his friend’s shirt collar and began dragging him up the hallway. He kept his eyes glued in front of him, at the half-circle arch into the lobby, and his ears open for any noises coming from behind him. He wasn’t entirely sure if he was seeing very much or hearing anything at all over the roaring pain in his chest and throat and ears.

  Jesus, was there a part of him that wasn’t hurting at the moment?

  Stupid question. Of course there wasn’t. He didn’t even know how he was still moving. It had to be adrenaline. It would hurt later, but for now, he could still make his legs move and keep his grip on Danny, and that was all that mattered.

  He moved on automatic pilot, trying not to think about every aching bone and pulsating muscle in his body. It didn’t help that Danny was heavier than he remembered. Or maybe he was just getting weaker.

  Will glanced back and saw the bathroom door coming up. It was open, unable to close because of the shadow-covered body lying half-in and half-out of it. Tommy. How the hell had the ghoul gotten behind them? They had searched the entire building and found no other way into the museum except through the front doors. The offices didn’t even have windows, for God’s sake. So how had the blue-eyed bastards sneaked inside?

  When he finally reached the bathroom, his suspicions were confirmed. It was Tommy. Or most of him, anyway. It was actually just everything from the neck down, because his head was missing. Teeth marks covered the stump where the head had been attached.

  He pulled Tommy’s lanky frame out into the hallway to clear the door, then dragged Danny inside. He closed the heavy stainless steel door, then turned the lock and heard the satisfying click-clank of the metal bolt sliding into place.

  With Danny inside, Will unslung his rifle and scanned the bathroom just to be sure. There were no windows in here, so the other blue-eyed creature had to have gotten in from somewhere else. Maybe another window they had missed. It was dark and they were moving by flashlight, so just about anything was possible.

  He fished out the flashlight and clicked it on. He slung the rifle and drew the Glock, then went through the three stalls inside the bathroom again, just to be sure. He found nothing, which made him relax a little bit, though not by much since even just breathing hurt.

  He walked back over to Danny and sat down next to him.

  Even under the mask of blood, Danny had something on his face that looked suspiciously like a smile. Maybe he was dreaming he was back on the island with Carly. Danny had the right idea. What Will wouldn’t give to be back on Song Island right now, walking on the beach with Lara…

  He
thought about last night’s dream. Of Kate again. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. The way she had proudly admitted to orchestrating everything that had happened in Dunbar yesterday. The trap with the U-Haul, with the blue-eyed ghouls inside. Four of them.

  Four of them…

  He glanced at the door. There were two out there. He couldn’t tell if they were the same ones from the dream, the same group that had ambushed Harrison’s people. But they had blue eyes, and there had been four of them when Kate showed him the…what the hell was it? A memory? A dream? More like a nightmare…

  So where were the other two now? Did they always work in fours? Or did the other two leave after they had decimated Harrison’s people? No, that didn’t make any damn sense at all.

  Because, obviously, all of this makes perfect sense.

  Yeah, that’s the ticket.

  He stuck his hand into his cargo pants pocket and pulled out the small bottle. Thank God Rachel hadn’t taken it from him last night along with his pack and weapons. He couldn’t read the label in the dark, not that it mattered. He twisted off the cap and shook out a couple of pills and swallowed them, then realized that wasn’t going to work and tossed down two more.

  He put the bottle away and pulled his shirt up to make sure his wounds hadn’t reopened during the fight. No wetness along his waist, which was good. That was the one stitching he was worried most about opening up again. But Zoe had done a hell of a job, and the stitches were still in place. He’d have to thank her again when he got back to the island.

  Now who’s being Captain Optimism?

  He tucked his shirt into his pants, then picked up the M4A1 and made sure it was still in one piece. He laid it across his lap and leaned back against the wall, trying to see if he could hear them through the door. It was so dead silent he could hear just about everything, including the thrumming in his chest, the creak of his bones, and the throbbing from all the bruises up and down his body.