Rooster

by Sam Sisavath

  The places he’d stumbled across since Axton hadn’t been as generous with much-needed supplies or nonperishables as they had been five years ago. There were too many survivors running around out there these days, and he’d known more than a few towns that hoarded everything they could find around them so strangers passing by (Like you?) couldn’t loot them. The people calling Cordine City home now had likely done the same, if the empty Wallbys and Archers he’d searched before nightfall were any indication.

  Should have asked Peters for more of their stuff.

  Or better yet, should have stayed in Axton and taken my chances with them, Blue Eyes or not. Maybe I’d be back at Black Tide right now instead of hiding from people with guns. Now wouldn’t that be nice?

  His stomach growled, and Horse lifted its head and glanced over.

  “What?” Keo said. “Haven’t you ever seen a man regretting every decision he’s ever made in his life before?”

  Two

  It took another fifty minutes before the posse finally climbed back into their saddles and rode off, turning right into a street about two hundred meters farther up the road. Keo listened but couldn’t hear the telltale clop-clop-clop echoes of horseshoes on hard concrete, which meant their animals weren’t shod. And he would have heard the noise given how empty and silent the city around him was at the moment.

  Keo finally allowed himself to relax before pushing up from the floor with a groan. He remembered someone once saying to him that they were Too old for this shit, and Keo was starting to sympathize lately. He really was getting too old for this shit. All the running and fighting could grind a man down.

  So what else you got going on?

  Not much, when he really thought about it, which was probably why he tried not to think too much about it. Right now he had goals that needed to be reached, and that was good enough for him.

  Stay alive. Link up with Black Tide. Rescue Emma. And if there’s time, kill the fuck out of Buck.

  Easy as pie.

  Riiiiight.

  He continued watching the downtown road from his high angle while sitting next to a cubicle wall. He was surrounded by cubicles, some having fallen down over the years, but most remained standing at attention, as if they were waiting for their old officemates to come back to work any day now.

  Behind him, Horse had gone silent after eating their remaining jerky. Keo couldn’t blame the animal for being hungry after all the running he had been doing the last few days. And they were going to have to move again real soon. They had to, because there was no upside to staying in one spot for too long. He’d managed to stay one step ahead of the ghouls since Axton, but he didn’t fool himself into believing that would last forever.

  Are they working together? Is that it?

  He remembered what he had told Gaby back in Axton. It had seemed so ludicrous at the time, but now, after two full nights and three days of being hunted across Texas, the impossible was looking less so.

  “Fenton and the blue-eyed ghoul. They were at all three places at about the same time. Four now, counting Axton. That’s a hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

  Coincidence my ass.

  Seven years ago, he would have laughed at the very thought. He might have even gotten a good chortle out of it five, maybe six years ago, despite everything he had seen. But these days, not so much.

  Blue Eyes had been at Jonah’s, Winding Creek, and Axton—all at the same time as Buck’s men. And now, for two nights and three straight days, here they were again. Humans in the day, ghouls at night. It was almost as if they were passing a baton back and forth, picking up where the other left off.

  He shivered at the unpleasant thought.

  More like unnatural.

  Humans and ghouls working together was nothing new. Thousands (millions?) of humans had done it in the year after The Purge. Even he had done it at one point with ol’ Frank—the only blue-eyed ghoul Keo wouldn’t automatically debrain, as far as he was concerned. Of course, when Keo allied himself with “the enemy,” it was for a good cause.

  While the idea of Fenton working with Blue Eyes made him gag, at least it was just the black eyes on his tail the last two nights. He hadn’t glimpsed Blue Eyes itself since Axton, which should have made him feel better, but it didn’t.

  I’ll feel better when I’m dead.

  Jinx!

  Keo opened the last bottle of water and drank a quarter of it, quenching a thirst that had been haunting him since last night before putting it away. He took the radio out of the pack and set it on the dirty carpet and stared at it. He willed it to squawk, to make a sound, but it remained as quiet this morning as it had since he fled Axton.

  Small flakes of dust flitted in slow motion across a path of sunlight radiating through the dirty window in front of him. The place smelled of abandonment, but it was better than the other stink—the one that had ghouls hiding in dark corners. Another day in this place and his nose and throat might become choked with dust. That unpleasant thought reminded him to spit out something grimy that had been accumulating on his tongue since last night.

  Keo picked up the radio and pressed the transmit lever. “Come in, Gaby. If you’re out there, if you can hear me, please respond.”

  He kept his voice low enough so it didn’t travel too far beyond the floor, but loud enough to be heard by anyone listening on the other end. Not that he thought anyone out there could hear him, but it was good habit to stay as quiet as possible, whenever possible.

  Like the dozen or so times he’d transmitted, there was no response. Either he was hopelessly beyond Gaby’s range, or…

  She made it. They all made it. They’re at Black Tide right now, with Lara. And soon they’ll be knocking on Fenton’s door. Even if I die out here, they’ll rescue Emma. She’ll be safe, just like I promised her daughter.

  Yeah, that’s it. Just keep telling yourself that, pal.

  A soft nickering behind him, and Keo glanced back at Horse. The thoroughbred had lifted its head up from the floor and was staring toward the window.

  “What?” Keo said.

  The horse turned its head in his direction, big brown eyes squinting slightly against a ray of sunlight.

  “What?” Keo said again.

  He would have said it a third time, if the radio he’d set back down on the floor didn’t shatter as the subsonic round tore through it and sent its electronic guts flying in every direction, along with the handheld’s plastic shell that flicked at Keo’s face and chest.

  Sniper!

  He snatched the MP5SD off the carpet and jumped to his feet. He dove to his right, seeking the shelter of the closest cubicle wall. But cubicles were made of flimsy materials that weren’t going to stop a bullet, and Keo landed on his chest and quickly scrambled up to his knees and fast-crawled forward even as—pek! pek! pek!—bullets punched through the top half of the paneling above his head, spraying him with chipped wood and shredded dirty cloth.

  “Shit shit shit!”

  The clop-clop-clop! of Horse moving somewhere behind him, going in the other direction.

  Smart horse! Get as far away from the idiot human as possible!

  He didn’t stop moving until he’d finally gotten behind something that was made of brick and mortar. There was a line of holes in the cubicles he’d crawled past to his left, and flakes of wood were lingering in the morning sunlight.

  I hate snipers. Hate them!

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He hated snipers when they were shooting at him, but they weren’t too bad if they were on his side. Which led to the question: Was it one sniper or more? He couldn’t tell by the number of subsonic rounds that had chased him all the way to his current cover. The number of holes in the tempered windows would seem to indicate more than one shooter, but someone with a fast trigger finger could have easily accomplished the same amount of damage.

  But one or more didn’t really matter. What did matter was that they knew exactly where he was.

 
That’s not good. That’s not good at all.

  Being behind thick cover allowed Keo to catch his breath and take stock of his (shitty) situation. He had the submachine gun, which was a major (Major!) plus. There was the SIG Sauer in his gun belt, but he’d left his pack with all the spare magazines inside and that last bottle of water behind.

  That’s definitely not good.

  It was still there, next to the remains of the radio about twenty meters across the floor—and exposed to the shooter. Shafts of sunlight streamed in through the holes in the windows, creating polka dot patterns across the floor and far wall.

  Horse had smartly moved as far away from the windows as possible and now stood in a shadowy section of the room. The animal looked across the large space at him as if to ask, Now what?

  Good question, Keo thought. Now what?

  The biggest puzzle he had to solve was the sniper’s (snipers’?) identity. That would go a long way toward deciding what to do next. Of course, that was easier said than done. How was he going to find out the answer to that one if he was stuck behind a wall five floors up, with no way out? It was likely a given that the sniper (or snipers) had friends.

  At least five of them, I bet.

  He counted to ten, and on ten stuck his head out from behind the wall and looked out the nearest window and into the street, expecting to see at least a few figures charging toward the building. He saw nothing moving down there in the second (half a second?) he had exposed himself to gunfire before pulling his head back.

  Keo looked across the room at the pieces of the radio again. So how was he going to make contact with Gaby or Black Tide now? Sure, the handheld portable had limited range, but limited was better than none. Now it was just plastic junk and wiring strewn across the dirty floor.

  Too bad I don’t have duct tape. Maybe I can put it back together.

  He almost laughed out loud at that one. Almost.

  Keo took a moment to think about what he’d seen outside. Not much. Nothing, in fact, except what he’d seen when he woke up this morning. Empty streets, empty sidewalks, and empty buildings. Of course, he’d only gotten a second-long snapshot, and that wasn’t nearly enough time to confirm anything.

  He counted to five, and on five stuck his head out from behind cover—

  Pek! as a round pierced the window, leaving behind a hole in the tempered glass, and zipped! past his head and embedded itself into the far wall.

  Christ!

  Keo pulled his head back and ducked down into a crouch, expecting more incoming.

  That was a close one. Too close!

  He lifted his hand to his face and felt along his cheeks, then his forehead just to make sure the bullet hadn’t actually torn a piece of skin with it.

  No holes. No blood.

  He sighed with relief, shocked he wasn’t sporting an extra hole, because he had actually felt the heat of the bullet going past him. Which meant the shooter knew where he was. Exactly where he was. And if Keo tried to peek a third time, he wasn’t sure he was going to have anything to pull back behind the wall.

  He glanced across the floor at his pack. He needed it. Not just the spare magazines, but the water bottle inside. Just twenty meters from his position, but at the moment it might as well be two hundred—

  Pek! as another subsonic round punched its way through the same window and hit the same section of wall across the room.

  Then a second one—pek!

  Keo didn’t move, but he did crouch just a little bit lower and wondered if bullets could go through a thick brick wall.

  Pek-pek-pek-pek-pek! as pieces of tempered glass flicked across the room, spraying the carpeted floor to Keo’s left.

  Five rounds, so fast that they almost sounded more like two or three.

  What the hell is he shooting at?

  Keo glanced over at the points of impact.

  The shooter had put the first two bullets above a lone bullet crater, while the last five were purposefully positioned below the hole and in some kind of upward arc—

  Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.

  A smiley face. The sonofabitch had “drawn” a smiley face on the wall of the office floor with bullets. Against the rays of sunlight filtering in through the fresh holes in the window, the caricature seemed to almost glow.

  Keo grunted. The guy was taunting him.

  Well done, asshole.

  Keo stuck his left hand out into the open, middle finger up, and pulled it back just as quickly.

  How you like that—

  The boom! of a shotgun blast ripped across the city, followed by the sounds of glass pelting hard concrete.

  Well, that didn’t take long.

  It was all coming from directly below him, on street level, and Keo knew exactly what it was without having to think about it: Someone had just made themselves a door and were storming into the lobby.

  Keo sighed, regripped the submachine gun, and thought, Here we go again!

  Three

  They played me. Sonsofbitches played me like a two-dollar piano at a garage sale.

  What a sucker!

  Knowing what had happened didn’t exactly make him feel any better, but at least it was the impetus Keo needed to get over his shock and move move move!

  He was on his feet and running across the floor, back toward the stairwell door next to the elevator, even knowing full well the sniper (snipers?) was still out there and in position to perforate him a dozen times over.

  But he didn’t have any choice. Staying still meant death.

  To hell with that!

  Keo bent at the waist as much as possible while he ran, hoping all the cubicle walls would partially conceal him. The better option would have been to slowly, very slowly, crawl his way over while sticking to the carpet, but that would have taken too much time, and time wasn’t something he had in abundance right now.

  He was halfway toward his destination when it occurred to him that no one was shooting at him.

  What the hell?

  He glanced over at the windows just to be absolutely certain he wasn’t imagining how uneventful his mad dash across the floor was going. There were plenty of holes across the field of glass windows, especially where Mr. Smiley Face had done his best work, but there were no new ones.

  Maybe he’s out of bullets? Can I be that lucky?

  And the voice of reason charging forth from the back of his mind, shouting, Who cares, you idiot!

  He only slowed down long enough to reach down and snatch the pack from the floor, then he was running full speed again. This time he didn’t slow down until he’d made it to where Horse stood, hidden behind a section of the floor that wasn’t exposed to the windows. The thoroughbred shuffled its feet and took a few steps back as Keo approached before letting out an annoyed snort.

  “Hey, at least he’s not shooting at you,” Keo said before looking past Horse at the stairwell door farther down the floor.

  The elevator was useless and had been for years now, but you didn’t need power to climb five flights of stairs. There was only one door in and out, which meant only one way up and down. That was good and bad for him. Good in that he only had one entry point to defend, but bad because it was the only way down. Unless, of course, he felt like jumping forty feet to the sidewalk below.

  Yeah, not gonna happen, especially with Mr. Smiley Face out there.

  Keo sneaked a peek across the room and toward the bullet holes that faced the street beyond. He couldn’t see much of anything from his current position, but there didn’t seem to be any movements in the road or on the sidewalks below.

  Where are you, Mr. Smiley Face? Why didn’t you shoot?

  Maybe the guy was playing with him. The smiley face with the bullets was a pretty good indicator the man had a sense of humor.

  Unless it’s a woman. You’re such a sexist. A woman is perfectly capable of shooting you dead as any guy.

  Keo pulled out two spare magazines from the pack—one for the submachine gun and on
e for the SIG—before moving past Horse and toward the stairwell door. He slung the MP5SD so he could remove the two monitors he’d stacked on top of the heaviest oak desk he could find last night before pushing it against the entrance. It wasn’t going to stop a full-blown assault, but its job was really just as an early warning system in case of a breach.

  He set the monitors on the floor, then pushed the desk away. He grabbed the door and swung it open, the Heckler & Koch moving in front of him the entire time so that he could shoot the first thing he saw.

  As soon as the door opened even a fraction, Keo heard them—heavy boots pounding on the same series of steps he’d taken with Horse last night. They were moving fast and with purpose, and weren’t trying to hide their approach.

  Keo slipped through the slightly ajar door, making his steps light on purpose so the people charging up couldn’t hear him the way he was easily detecting them. The stairwell was dank and poorly lit, with more shadows than he would have liked in the corners immediately to his right and left and in front of him. Another flight of stairs led up to the rooftop access door, but there was nothing coming down from there.

  No, everything was coming from below, and getting closer.

  Keo leaned over the railing and peeked down, and glimpsed black, matte-domed helmets moving below him. They were rounding the second floor and were about to reach the third, and would have been on top of Keo if he hadn’t made his move when he did. A minute—even thirty seconds—of delay and they would have been on top of him.

  Pek! as a bullet zipped past his face and struck the concrete wall above his head, sending a shower of pulverized gray and white dust down on him.

  Way to go, Mr. Not-So-Sneaky!

  There wasn’t enough powdery debris to interfere with his breathing or vision, but plenty to let him know that the big, jagged hole in the ceiling could have been his forehead if the shooter had aimed better.

  Keo pulled his head away from the railing and fanned his face to get the clouds out of his eyes and nose. The round had come from below him, followed by the slight echoing pfft! of the suppressed gun that had sent it. Just like the sniper, the ones coming up the stairs now were using silenced weapons.