The Ashes of Pompeii (Purge of Babylon, Book 5)

by Sam Sisavath

  She kicked it squarely in the chest, putting as much strength as she could muster (or as much as the rippling pain from her thigh would allow her) into the blow. The creature had nowhere else to go, and the force of the kick sent it toppling over the side. There was a satisfying plop! as it disappeared into the water.

  Lara hurried over and looked down and could see the creature sinking, reaching out with its bony arms for her. Then it was gone, and the waters of Beaufont Lake settled over the spot where it had vanished.

  “Lara,” Gaby said behind her.

  She looked back at Gaby, saw her staring past her and at the island. She followed Gaby’s gaze back to the beach—or where she thought it was supposed to be. Normally she would be able to see the long stretch of white sand from anywhere, even at night without lights. That wasn’t the case this time. Everywhere she looked, there was just shifting, moving darkness.

  Lara shivered, even though they were already forty to fifty yards from land and there was no way they could throw themselves that far. Or, at least, she hoped not.

  She looked away. She didn’t need to see anymore. The island was gone. Lost. She had fought against it—tried like mad to keep it—but the truth was staring back at her now.

  Song Island was lost. Truly, truly lost.

  She crouched next to Danny instead and felt along the side of his neck. To her great relief, he still had a pulse, but it was very weak. He was alive, though, something she hadn’t been entirely certain of earlier.

  “Is he okay?” Gaby asked.

  “He’s alive,” Lara said.

  She looked up at Gaby, who was still staring back at the island. But Lara knew what she was really looking for. Josh.

  Lara couldn’t wrap her mind around what he had done. He had saved their lives. Pushed the boat back into the water. How? That was the question. Could Will, even at full strength, have done something like that? She remembered seeing Josh buried up to his knees in the sand as they were backing up. What kind of strength had the kid possessed to do something like that?

  “Gaby, we need to go,” she said. “Blaine and the others will be waiting for us.”

  Gaby nodded and spun the steering wheel. She looked back at the island as long as she could until they had turned completely around. The boat started moving smoothly under her, and Lara fumbled her way to the bench at the front and sat down.

  She was tired, and sitting down seemed to help, even though every part of her was threatening to come apart at any second.

  “Lara,” Gaby said. She looked back as Gaby threw her a white pill bottle. “Don’t read the label; just take two.”

  Lara nodded. She didn’t have the strength to argue, anyway. She opened the bottle, took out two pills, and swallowed them. She had never been good about taking medicine without a glass of water, so she felt a little proud of herself when the pills went down surprisingly easy.

  “I think I saw someone on the other side of beach,” Gaby said. “At the same time we were running for the boat.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I don’t know. He was wearing dark clothes.” She shook her head. “It could have been one of Josh’s…” Gaby stopped in mid-sentence, then said instead, “How long will Blaine wait for us? I don’t want to leave anyone behind, Lara. Not again. Not ever again…”

  CHAPTER 26

  WILL

  Kate.

  He used the wall behind him as a crutch, because he wasn’t confident in his legs. The sight of her in person after all this time left him speechless, confused, and unable to fully understand how the last few months had all ended up with him here, face to face with her.

  She was taller than he remembered. Thin, but not quite as skeletal as the others. He recalled seeing this new version of her in the town of Harvest that morning at the water tower. But that was from afar, and though he recognized her (even now, he didn’t know how, he just did), it wasn’t the same as seeing her standing before him.

  The blue of her eyes was ethereal and nothing like the crystal blue of Lara’s. These seemed to actually pulsate, as if they were living organisms in and of themselves.

  The creatures were gone. All of them. They had slinked away into the night, leaving just the two of them, like children abandoning the room to bickering parents. He couldn’t even smell them anymore, and in their place was just the crisp night air. He didn’t know how that was possible. Usually when the ghouls were around, there was always the stink of compost.

  Maybe it was Kate. There was an iciness about her presence, an almost regal vibe that made him want to fall to his knees and bow. But of course he did no such thing, because this wasn’t the Kate he knew. That Kate was gone—dead. He would know; he had shot her in the chest himself.

  This Kate wasn’t anyone he knew. This Kate was…more.

  But even new Kate could die.

  “Shooting them doesn’t work, not even with silver bullets,” he had told Danny. “But taking out the brain seems to work just fine.”

  “You still need silver for that, or will any ol’ bullet do?” Danny had asked.

  “I have no idea. Let’s just use silver to be sure.”

  Being sure was a luxury he didn’t have at the moment, because he had no silver bullets on him. But he still had the gun, and the magazine was half-full. So there was that.

  He measured the distance between Kate and him: Three meters.

  Not too far, but not too close, either. If last night was any indication, the blue-eyed ones were fast. Much, much faster than the black eyes. (What had Kate called them? Her “brood”?) But how much faster was Kate? Could she dodge a bullet—

  “Yes,” Kate said. Her voice was almost a hiss, not the same soft and melodic sound that it was inside his head.

  “Yes”? he thought. Yes what, Kate?

  “Yes,” she said again, as if he should know.

  Because he did know.

  Yes, she was fast.

  Yes, she could take him before he could put a bullet in her head and splatter the brain inside. Because Kate, like the other blue-eyed ones, still had brains. That was their weak spot.

  All he had to do was hit the brain…

  Captain Optimism, amirite, Danny?

  “He’s dead, you know,” she said.

  Dead?

  “Danny,” the ghoul said. The creature. Kate. “On the island. He was shot, and he’s dead. Everyone’s dead, Will. Song Island is lost.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lara is gone, too. But you don’t have to join her.”

  Was she lying? She was certainly capable of it. She was a monster, after all. There was no such thing as honor among monsters. Everyone knew that.

  She might have snorted. Or made some other derisive sound. It was hard to tell because the noises that came out of her (it) were difficult to interpret.

  She hadn’t moved from her spot. Three meters, that was all that separated them, though it felt so much closer because he could hear her voice like a sharp knife. He didn’t have to strain, even though her hisses were unnaturally soft, almost whispers. Or was he hearing her inside his head, too? That could have been very possible.

  Three meters for a head shot…

  “More than enough time,” she said.

  He smiled at her. He didn’t know where it came from. Maybe it was the clown in him, or the gung-ho asshole he thought he had whipped out of his system since the first weekend of Basic Training.

  “Are you sure about that?” he asked. “Are you really that fast?”

  “Yes,” she said simply. “I’m not the one who’s dying tonight, Will.”

  “You mean dying again?”

  Thin creases, like cuts rather than lips, formed something that might have resembled a smile. He wondered how long it had been since Kate—this new Kate—had performed such an act that the result was so horrendous.

  “Do you really want to die, Will?” she asked. “Is that what you wa
nt?”

  “You think I’m scared of dying, Kate? If you think that, then you really never knew me at all.”

  He pointed the gun at her, and the moonlight glinted off its smooth side. He expected some kind of reaction, but there was none; Kate stood perfectly still, as if he were armed with nothing more than a water pistol.

  “Let’s find out how fast you really are,” he said.

  She sighed. Or seemed to sigh. He couldn’t be sure. “You’re so human, Will.”

  “When did that become a bad thing?”

  “Have you looked around you?”

  He grinned. She had a point there. “Tell me one thing: Why?”

  “Why?” she repeated.

  “Why? Why are you in my head? Why can’t I get rid of you? Why, Kate?” He was almost shouting now. “What the hell do you want from me?”

  She didn’t answer for the longest time. In fact, she seemed almost taken aback by the questions. Or was that all in his mind? Was he subscribing human traits to her again in an attempt to understand her?

  “It’s lonely,” she said finally, her voice dropping to a mere whisper, so low he wouldn’t have heard if she wasn’t standing so close to him.

  Three meters…

  “I’m surrounded by billions of us,” she said, “and it’s still so lonely.”

  A head shot at three meters. Just under ten feet. That was all it would take to end this. Maybe, like with the farmhouse last night, if he could kill Kate and use her as a shield to keep the black-eyed ones back, he could survive tonight. The other creatures were still out there, waiting—always waiting—even if he couldn’t see or hear or even smell them (Is that your doing too, Kate?).

  Maybe, just maybe, this might work.

  Then in the morning, he’d find a vehicle and make his way down to Song Island. Or he’d walk, if he couldn’t find a car. It didn’t matter. As long as he was breathing, that was all that mattered. As long as he was still sucking in breath, he could get home to Lara, because Kate was lying about Song Island being lost. She had to be.

  He almost smiled, because there it was. The opening he had been waiting for. He knew it would come sooner or later as long as he bided his time. Like always, the trick was to recognize it and jump through feetfirst.

  Kill Kate and use her to keep the black eyes back. Repeat what he had done at the farmhouse last night.

  Easy peasy.

  The only thing standing between him and seeing Lara again was a bullet and three meters. He’d made harder shots in his life. But he was only going to get one shot (Haha, good one) at this. If he missed, and she proved to be just as fast as the others (or faster), then he might not get a second try.

  The shot of your life.

  No pressure.

  “There are others,” she said, when he didn’t respond. “Like me. Like Mabry. But it’s not the same. This colonization—it’ll be over soon. We’re bringing order to the chaos, and the future is bright. You must know that this was how it was always going to end, Will. You can’t win. You must know that by now.”

  It doesn’t matter how fast she is. You can’t outrun a bullet.

  Hopefully.

  “I think you do, Will. You might deny it out loud, but deep down, in your private thoughts, you know I’m right. You can’t win. You never could. You never will.”

  He focused on the stunning glow of her blue eyes, the windows to her soul. If she even still had a soul. He imagined he could see the old Kate through those eyes, the one that existed beyond the black flesh and gangly frame.

  “When it’s over, we’ll rebuild,” she continued. “We’ve already begun. Humans will serve us and provide for us. There’ll be no more fighting. No more violence. We’ll rise above it all.” She smiled again. Or attempted to. “And when it’s over, when it’s finally all over, I’ll need someone with me. By my side. You, Will. You should be that someone.”

  Me?

  The reality of what she was saying eluded him. He understood every word of it, but he couldn’t grasp the concept. Maybe it was the idea of being with her after all of this. Or just being with her at all. It was…unnatural.

  How did she ever think it could be possible?

  How did she ever think he would agree to it?

  “I was content to let you waste your time on the island with that little girl until I could convince you to see the truth,” she continued, unbothered by his lack of response. “But then she had to go and make things difficult. That radio broadcast made Mabry angry, and he gave me no choice. And here we are.”

  She held her hand out toward him, the palm facing up, the flesh so impossibly tight that he could only see the curvature of bones underneath.

  “Fate brought us here, Will. But you don’t believe in fate, do you?”

  I believe in what I can touch, and see, and hear, and shoot. I believe you’re not the same Kate, even though you pretend to still be her.

  “No,” he said.

  “You should. Remember the first time we met? Most of the world was gone, but we still found each other. Something led me to you, and something made you stop there to wait for me. It was fate, Will. Nothing happens without a reason. Everything works to achieve a perfect balance. Order out of chaos. That’s what this is. This is order.”

  He stared at her and knew she believed every word of it. That, more than anything, was surprising. The Kate he remembered was mature, smart, and would have laughed in his face if he started talking about destiny and fate and strange, unexplainable psychic connections.

  And yet here she was, trying to convince him all of this was…fate?

  He pitied her. He hadn’t realized what he was feeling until now. There was something sad about Kate—despite her millions of ghouls, her brood—because she longed for a connection that she couldn’t have.

  You’re gonna get a good laugh out of this one, Danny ol’ chum.

  Her fingers moved as she prompted him. “Give me the gun, Will. Let it be your token of surrender. You have no choice.”

  “No,” he said.

  “No?” she repeated. There was a stunned look on her face. Or, at least, something he interpreted as stunned. It could have been anything, really.

  He grinned again. It was reckless, and he must have known she wasn’t going to receive it well, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “Sorry,” he said, “but Lara would kick my ass if she found out I was cheating on her with a corpse.”

  He caught the sudden movements out of the corner of his eye just before the ghouls came back, bringing with them the terrible smell; a swarm of them appearing from the darkness, as if oozing out of the night itself. There were too many to count, so he didn’t bother. He always knew they were out there so he wasn’t surprised, but how the hell had they appeared so fast?

  His eyes were drawn back to Kate because something had changed with her (it); a flash of emotion flickering across her blackened face, the skin so constricted it might as well have been satin over a skull in a medical lab somewhere. Even her eyes seemed to flare up, growing in size, the blue doubling (tripling?) in intensity. He might have even believed they were on fire if they weren’t so blue.

  “Lara,” she hissed, practically spitting the name out. “Always Lara. Lara. Lara.”

  Will wasn’t ready for it. He wasn’t even remotely close to understanding what was happening even as it occurred in front of him in real-time. His reaction was delayed, and it cost him dearly. The blue-eyed ghouls had been fast, but Kate (Not really Kate, this thing that used to be Kate) was beyond them.

  She was more. So, so much more.

  (“How did you ever think you could beat us when you know so little?” she had said to him.)

  She didn’t so much move as explode into a blur of motion.

  He fired—

  Three meters. Just under ten feet. He’d made tougher shots before in his career.

  —and hit empty air.

  Then she was there, in front of him, so close that when she opened her
mouth and hissed “Lara!” he felt the icy cold of her breath, and goose bumps raced through every inch of his flesh.

  He was still trying to process what he was seeing, hearing, and feeling when her hand encircled his and she squeezed, mashing his fingers against the grip of the Smith & Wesson as he reflexively fired another shot. Like the last one, the bullet sailed harmlessly past her scrawny shoulder and vanished into the night.

  She kept folding her hand over his until his fingers were so crushed against the gun’s grip that he couldn’t have squeezed the trigger a third time even if he thought it might do any good. Her other hand slithered around his neck and pushed, and he stumbled back in shock, the breath rushing out of him in a single, devastating spurt. It wasn’t so much the pain of the impact against the wall that jolted him, it was more the ferocity of her attack. That and the sheer speed of it overwhelmed all his senses until he couldn’t focus on any one thing.

  The hand around his throat was viselike, and it was all he could do to grab her wrist with his free hand and try to keep her from tightening it any further. He didn’t know if he was succeeding or if she just decided not to crush his windpipe at that very moment.

  But as suffocating as the bones wrapped around his throat were, it was nothing compared to the pressure being exerted against the fingers of his right hand. She was crushing them as if they were brittle candy. He didn’t know how that was possible given how bony her own fingers were, but there was a strength in them that defied the laws of physics. She shouldn’t have been as monstrously strong as she was, but if he was imagining this whole thing, then why was he screaming?

  “I gave you a chance,” she hissed, the icy cold of her breath hitting him in the face and piercing through his screams. Her face was so close, her eyes mere inches away, that he found his entire vision swimming in a blue irradiated ocean. “But I realize now that Mabry was right. Free will is overrated.”