The Gates of Byzantium (Purge of Babylon, Book 2)

by Sam Sisavath

  “Go go go!” Danny shouted, to no one in particular.

  “Shotgun!” Will yelled.

  Carly tossed the shotgun at him and Will snatched it out of the air. He immediately stopped and spun and fired, erasing a wall of ghouls emerging out of the night to his left. Josh hadn’t even seen them until Will fired, the flames from the shotgun lighting them up in the half-second it took the buckshot to rip into them.

  Then Lara was there, and Sienna, and they ran into the open Tower door behind him.

  Then Danny, ten yards away, shouting, “Shotgun!”

  Josh didn’t think, he just reacted, and tossed the shotgun at Danny. But he must have had too much adrenaline pumping through him, because the weapon sailed right over Danny’s head. Danny glanced back, following the trajectory of the shotgun as it landed and disappeared into the grass behind him.

  Will was backing up toward them, firing into the darkness. “Go go go!”

  Danny didn’t go back for the shotgun. He kept coming, grabbed Carly with one hand, and lunged for the door. Josh followed, heard Will firing one last time before he, too, was suddenly behind Josh and pushing him inside.

  Josh lost his balance and sprawled on the hard concrete floor and rolled over, saw Danny slamming the door shut behind them, shoving the deadbolt into place just as bang! something crashed into the thick wood on the other side.

  “Josh,” Carly said, standing next to him.

  She grabbed his arm and pulled him up. Josh felt tired and heavy, but somehow she managed to get him up anyway. Carly led him away from the door as Will and Danny carried the heavy bookcase over, grunting with the effort. Lara hurried over to help, flinching noticeably with pain, and they slammed it down against the door, even as the pounding increased in volume and urgency.

  “Second floor,” Will said calmly. “Go go go.”

  They hurried up the flight of stairs, moving in a train. Squeezed in between Carly behind him and Sienna in front of him, Josh felt his feet moving on automatic pilot. Sienna was crying, tears flooding down her cheeks, though he couldn’t hear her over the pounding noise from below and the loud roaring in his ears.

  “Keep moving, Josh,” Carly said behind him.

  Farther up the staircase, he glanced down and saw Danny crouched next to the open basement door, reaching down and pulling out weapons and boxes of ammo that Will was passing up to him from somewhere inside the opening. The beam of a flashlight flickered back and forth from inside the basement.

  “Hurry,” a voice said above them. Josh looked up and saw Gaby leaning through the open second-floor door.

  The others were waiting, with Elise and Vera peering down from the third-floor door above them. Sienna had found the cot and was sitting on it, crying quietly to herself. Lara walked over and put her arms around the other woman and Sienna broke down, tears splashing across Lara’s already sweat-stained shirt.

  “Where’re Danny and Will?” Gaby asked.

  “They’re coming,” Carly said. “Where’s Sarah?”

  “Third floor. That’s where we should all be.”

  “Go. I’ll wait for them.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, go,” Carly said.

  Lara took Sienna up first, the other woman stumbling, shell-shocked, every step of the way.

  Gaby was also on her way up when she realized Josh hadn’t moved and looked back. “Josh, come on.”

  “I’ll be right up,” he said.

  “Hurry,” she said, and climbed the stairs.

  Josh stayed behind. He wasn’t sure why, but the idea of abandoning Carly now didn’t seem right. So he didn’t move and waited alongside her.

  The pounding from below them went on and on. Relentless.

  “Can they climb?” he asked nervously.

  “Yes,” she said, “but not if there’s nothing to hang onto. Is there anything to hang onto out there?”

  He shook his head. The Tower was a smooth conical structure that got smaller as it got taller. And it went pretty tall. But he didn’t recall anything that could be used as handholds.

  Carly smiled at him. “You did good out there.”

  “Thanks.”

  “For a kid.”

  He managed a decent grin back at her.

  Will and Danny finally arrived, climbing through the door in the floor. They were carrying duffel bags that looked heavy.

  Josh’s eyes went to the front door. It was still closed, and the bookcase was still pressed against it, but he could see the thick oak shelves trembling each time the ghouls smashed into the door. It had begun to slide half an inch at a time with each impact, moving back a little every time…

  Will slammed the floor door shut, so loudly Josh jumped a bit. Will and Danny picked up the bookcase and moved it over, then laid it on top of the door. They took a step back and exchanged a look.

  “That’s not going to hold,” Danny said.

  “Probably not,” Will nodded. “What else we got?”

  “The computers on the third floor,” Josh said quickly.

  “What else?”

  Danny looked over at Josh and grinned through the mask of dripping black ghoul blood and flesh. “Hey, kid, how much do you weigh?”

  *

  The first-floor door gave way ten minutes later, but by then they had reinforced the second-floor door with the bookcase and about twenty pounds of computer equipment from the third floor, including the desk. Everything else that wasn’t nailed down went on top of the door, including paintings, pieces of the cot, and all the hardcover books.

  While they were stacking books on top of the door, Danny said, “We should have kept Tom around. He’s what, a good 250?”

  “About that,” Will said.

  “Definitely should have kept him around. Make the big lug useful for once.”

  The ghouls began pounding on the second-floor door almost immediately, but there was no leverage for them to break the deadbolt. Still, they continued at it, banging away, pouring an unrelenting torrent of force that did little good. Even though the door held, and didn’t look to be in danger of giving any time soon, Josh couldn’t shake the disconcerting feeling of so many of the creatures below them, salivating at the thought of coming through.

  The island isn’t safe. It was all a lie…

  Josh crouched next to the open third-floor door and looked down through the opening at Will and Danny, sitting calmly on top of the bookcase. They had wiped the black clumps of dead ghoul flesh and blood off their faces and gotten as much out of their clothes and hair as they could manage. They still looked like homeless soldiers wearing camouflage face paint that refused to wash off. They had transferred most of the weapons they had taken out of the basement up to the third floor, leaving just enough on the second floor. They were loading a couple of shotguns with shells that didn’t have an “X” on them.

  We’re out of silver bullets.

  The third floor was crowded, but they made do. The girls, Elise and Vera, sat in a corner together, holding hands, and eventually dozed off. Lara sat with Sienna, doing her best to calm the other woman. Josh didn’t have to ask what had happened to Jake, Sienna’s boyfriend. Or Al. Or Debra and her son. At least Sarah and her daughter, Jenny, had made it, and mother and daughter sat on their own side of the wall, the girl asleep in her mother’s lap. Sarah stroked Jenny’s hair, staring off at nothing in particular.

  Gaby and Carly had shotguns, and the two women guarded the windows around them. He was feeling pretty useless sitting next to the open door in case Will or Danny needed anything. The continuous banging against the door below didn’t help.

  “Hey, kid,” Danny said below him. “Nice throw for a computer nerd. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  Josh gave him an embarrassed grin. “I’m not a computer nerd.”

  “Nothing to be ashamed of. Nerds rule the world. Well, used to, anyway. We all know who rules the world now, don’t we?”

  “Ghouls?”

  “No, g
uys with shotguns.”

  There was a thunderous boom behind Josh that made him jump. He looked back at Carly, who was leaning out one of the windows. She racked her shotgun and fired down the side of the Tower a second time.

  “What’s going on?” Will asked from below.

  “I don’t know,” Josh said.

  “They’re trying to climb the walls,” Carly shouted.

  Will stood up and walked to one of the second-floor windows. He glanced out, then Josh saw him fire two shots down the side of the Tower.

  “They’re climbing the walls?” Danny asked.

  “Yeah, they’re climbing the walls,” Will said.

  “How the hell they doing that?”

  “They’re standing on top of one another. Like pyramids.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “I gotta see this.” Danny walked over to another window and looked down. “Wow. They’re climbing the walls.”

  Danny fired down the side of the Tower with his shotgun. He paused, then racked and fired a second time.

  “Did that stop them?” Josh asked. He couldn’t see anything from his position.

  “No, but it’s slowing them down,” Danny said. “Hard to climb with a face full of buckshot, silver or no.” He stuck his shotgun out the window and fired two more times. “Come on, I got all day.”

  “We don’t need all day,” Will said. “We only need two hours.”

  Will was right. Josh didn’t have his watch, but his instinctive internal clock told him it was going to be sunup soon. All they had to do was wait a little longer.

  Behind him, Carly fired down the side of the Tower again, and then Gaby did the same thing on her side. Carly had the south side, Gaby the north, while Will and Danny took the east and west windows. Between the four of them, they had all four sides of the Tower covered.

  It went like that throughout the night.

  Will and Danny fired, then stopped. Then Gaby and Carly fired while Will and Danny reloaded below them. When they were done, Will and Danny went back to shooting, and Gaby and Carly reloaded.

  Somehow, despite the tumultuous crash of shotgun blasts all around and below them, Sienna managed to fall asleep against Lara’s shoulder. Lara was wide awake, though Josh could tell she was struggling to stay that way. Sarah had already fallen asleep nearby, her daughter still lying with her head in her mother’s lap.

  Josh’s eyelids started to become heavy, and after a while he stood up and paced the floor to keep his feet moving and his blood flowing.

  Gaby held the shotgun out to him. “Your turn. My arms are about to fall off.”

  Josh took the shotgun gratefully and went to the window and looked down.

  He thought he was prepared for the sight of ghouls below them, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. There were so many of them that he couldn’t see the grass anymore. They stretched across the hotel grounds, and there weren’t nearly enough lights to illuminate them all. They moved around restlessly, climbing over each other to be the next creature at the bottom of the pyramids amassed around the base of the Tower. And they were climbing, using each other as stepping stones.

  But they never got very far up the side of the Tower—at least not far enough to grab onto the windows on the second floor—before a shotgun blast tore through the closest ghoul. The force of the blasts knocked it free from the squirming, living pyramid and sent it tumbling back down.

  But each time that happened, another ghoul was there to take its place.

  Josh fired straight down the side of the Tower. Some of the buckshot scraped against the building’s side, tearing off chunks of concrete, but most found their target. He watched a ghoul’s face disappear, revealing a deformed but polished skull underneath, and the ghoul lost its footing and dropped ten yards into the pile below. Then the ghoul got back up and started climbing again, scarred bones glaring up at Josh from under sheared flesh.

  Josh worked the slide of the shotgun and fired again, knocking another handful of ghouls free from the swaying hill of black flesh. Like the last ones, these picked themselves up and got back in line to climb as if nothing had happened.

  “Ammo,” Gaby said, and passed him a handful of shells.

  He loaded the shotgun, stopping momentarily to look up at Gaby, smiling at him. He smiled back.

  Then she picked up another shotgun and leaned out the window and fired down at the ghouls below. The giddiness with which she did it made him grin.

  Who would have thought? He and Gaby, at the end of the world, standing on the third floor of a lighthouse, shooting ghouls in the face while trying to wait out the night.

  Suck on that, mofos!

  CHAPTER 30

  BLAINE

  Blaine heard them moving all around him. Something was different tonight. They sounded more active, and their footsteps were heavier somehow. The ghouls were always amazingly light on their feet, a result of their dwindling muscles and the fact that they were mostly skin and bones because that was all they needed.

  And the blood. They needed the blood most of all.

  But tonight was different, and looking across the employee lounge at Maddie, sitting on the dirty orange couch in her hazmat suit, the gas mask in her lap, trying not to fall asleep, he could tell she knew it, too. Even mute Bobby, leaning a few inches from the fridge pushed against the door, seemed aware of it also.

  The room was pitch-dark, with only a few strands of moonlight finding their way through the high window. They sat silently in the Sortys employee lounge and listened. Blaine listened without interest. He was still numbed, still empty. Still trying to decide whether it was even worth it to keep going without Sandra.

  The ghouls were indifferent to his pain, and their activity went on for hours. It started as soon as darkness fell, and it didn’t stop. He heard footsteps throughout the early morning hours, racing across the rooftops, outside in the parking lot. But they never strayed into the hallway outside the lounge. Maybe they knew there was nothing for them there from their previous forays into the mall. Or maybe they were all assigned other duties. Blaine knew from experience the creatures weren’t stupid. Far from it. They were disciplined, and they did as they were told.

  The blue-eyed ghoul…

  He didn’t care. They could come through the door. It didn’t make any difference to him.

  After what seemed like hours of sitting in silence in the darkness, Maddie finally whispered across the room at him. “What are they doing?”

  He shook his head. He didn’t know what she expected him to say. Blaine wasn’t even sure he could talk. Or if he wanted to.

  “I’ve never seen this before,” she whispered. “They’ve never been this…active.”

  Bobby pointed up at the ceiling. Maddie nodded.

  “The second floor,” Maddie said. “He’s saying most of the activity is on the second floor. Where the sleepers are.” She shook her head again. “This is something new. I’ve never seen anything like this before in all the months I’ve been here.”

  He didn’t care. His mind was elsewhere.

  “If you love me—if you care about me—you’ll keep going,” Sandra had said as she died in front of him.

  But how could he keep going? Without her?

  Blaine laid the Glock down on the floor next to him and leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.

  “If you love me—if you care about me—you’ll keep going.”

  Impossible. How could she tell him that? How could he keep going without her? All of this was for her. Blaine would have been happy to spend the rest of his life in someone’s dark basement, running from town to town. As long as she was with him.

  He had wanted Song Island for her. What was the point of going there now?

  Not without you, baby. Not without you…

  Blaine closed his eyes. He didn’t even remember when he fell asleep, but he welcomed the darkness for the very first time in a long time.

  *
>
  When he opened his eyes it was morning, and sunlight was splashed across the room. Blaine pulled himself up from the floor where he had slid during the night. His neck hurt and there was silence around him, reminding him how quiet it could be in the mornings when most of the planet was dead.

  Like Sandra…

  Maddie wasn’t on the sofa, and the fridge lay on its side. Bobby wasn’t anywhere in the room, either, and Blaine couldn’t find signs of a battle. The door was open, and it looked to be in good shape. The ghouls hadn’t attacked last night.

  He sucked in air for a moment.

  “If you love me—if you care about me—you’ll keep going.”

  He looked down at the Glock in his hand. He didn’t remember when he had picked it up from the floor.

  “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop…”

  He didn’t recall when he had started to lift the gun, but it was suddenly up to his chest when he heard footsteps and looked over as Maddie walked into the lounge.

  She had her M4 rifle over one shoulder and a backpack over the other. She saw him and gave him a brief, awkward smile. “You’re up.”

  Blaine consciously lowered the gun and glanced at his watch. Already 10:16 a.m.? He had slept through most of the morning. “You should have woken me.”

  She shrugged. “You looked like you needed the rest. Besides, there wasn’t a lot to do.”

  “The others…?”

  “Gerry’s gone. Lenny, too.”

  “What about Sandra?”

  “I’m sorry. She’s gone, too.”

  Of course they would take Sandra, too. Why would the world allow him to grieve properly?

  She walked over to the couch and sat down. Her eyes went to the gun in his hand. “No signs of Mason, but I have Bobby on the roof just in case he comes back.”

  “Is that safe?”

  “Safer than all of us sitting in here where he can sneak up on us.”

  Blaine looked down at the Glock in his hand. It looked foreign, and the feel of it against his palm was unnatural.

  “Blaine,” Maddie said, “put the gun away.”

  He looked up at her, momentarily taken aback by the hardness in her voice. What did she think he was going to do with the gun? Kill himself? He wasn’t going to kill himself.