Road to Babylon (Book 8): Daybreak

by Sisavath, Sam

  “I don’t think we were the first ones here,” Huston said. “I don’t mean the people it’s brought here before you and me. From the looks of it, some of this stuff—like the tuna cans—have been down here for years. And I know this creature hasn’t been around Paxton for that long.”

  Keo nodded. It jived with Martin’s tale about chasing the blue eyes from Louisiana into Texas. According to the slayers, the creature had only found Paxton recently.

  “I’ve been looking through the bags, hoping to find something that it might have missed or maybe forgot to take away,” Huston was saying. “But so far, no luck. There’s no food, either. I’m not sure how we’re going to survive down here past tomorrow. I don’t think the water is drinkable, but if you want to prove my theory wrong, be my guest.”

  “No thanks,” Keo mouthed. Then, “There has to be a way in.”

  “I know, there has to be a way in and out of this place,” Huston said. “How else would it come and go?”

  She shook her head with frustration, and Keo could tell she’d been saying the same thing to herself for a while now even before he showed up. He had to remember that Huston had been down here much longer. And by herself, too. You tended to spend a lot of time in your own head when there was no one else to talk to.

  “But I can’t find it,” Huston said. “I’ve looked, Keo. I’ve stumbled around this place for hours, but there’s just this room and the other one. There’s no way in or out. At least, nothing that I could find.”

  Keo pointed to himself.

  “What about you?” Huston asked.

  “How did it bring me here?” he mouthed.

  She cocked her head in obvious confusion.

  He tried again, this time slower, hoping that would help: “Me. Did you see when it brought me down here?”

  Huston shook her head. “You?”

  He nodded.

  “What about you?”

  Keo pointed at himself, at the ground, then made a big exaggerated shrug while mouthing the word, “How?” He felt like an idiot trying to win a game of Charades, but it was the only way he knew how to communicate with her.

  Thankfully, Huston got it. “I don’t know how it brought you here. I was tired and must have fallen asleep. Then I heard noises and woke up, and you were here. It can move pretty quietly when it wants to, Keo.”

  Keo mouthed, “The noise that woke you up. What did it sound like?”

  “I don’t know how to explain it. It sounded like…something heavy moving.” Huston shook her head. “But there’s no door, Keo. I looked. I spent hours looking. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do down here.” She let out a tired sigh. “There’s no door. I see exit signs, but there are no exits.”

  He pointed at her, at the ground, then did the big shrug again.

  “Me?” Huston said.

  He nodded.

  “I don’t know how it brought me here, either,” Huston said. “I blacked out while we were in the tunnel. It was so dark, and I think it might have done something to me. I don’t know what. I woke up here, just like you did.”

  Keo looked around at the smaller room again. It didn’t make sense that there wouldn’t be a way down here. How would the creature come and go? Maybe there was even a tunnel connecting this structure to Deuces. Was that possible? What was that Jack had said about Prohibition tunnels?

  “Keo,” Huston said.

  She had pulled open one of the flaps along her cargo pants and took out a small, clear plastic baggie. The medic opened it and shook out two white pills into her palm. It was dark, but Keo was pretty sure what they were.

  “Tramadol,” Huston said, handing them over to him. “I don’t think it cared that I had pills on me. I have more in my other pockets. It kind of comes with the job.”

  Keo gratefully took the pills from her. The first batch she’d given him back at the Deuces was in the backpack Jackson was wearing when he last saw her.

  “There’s no water,” Huston said just before Keo popped them both into his mouth and swallowed. “But I guess you don’t need—” She stopped in midsentence and turned toward the opening that connected the two rooms. “What was that?”

  He gave her a puzzled look.

  “I heard something,” Huston said. “You didn’t hear anything?”

  He shook his head.

  “You didn’t hear that?” Huston asked. “It sounded like banging.”

  Keo shook his head again. He hadn’t heard anything.

  Was she imagining things? Maybe Huston had been down here too long.

  He stood perfectly still and concentrated on listening, but there was just their breathing and the occasional scratching sounds of things that weren’t them moving around the place.

  “You must have hurt more than just your arm when you were fighting that thing,” Huston was saying.

  Keo shrugged. Maybe she was right, but he didn’t think so. He could hear her fine. Well, mostly fine.

  Huston turned suddenly. “There it is again!” Then, moving, “Come on!”

  She took off, and Keo, not exactly sure what to do, followed. He still hadn’t heard a damn thing, but Huston seemed pretty sure that she had.

  What the hell. It’s not like we’ve got anything better to do down here than run around in the dark!

  Twenty-One

  Keo was still not entirely comfortable with his surroundings and was having difficulty pinpointing where everything was—the walls, the support columns, and everything else in-between. In his condition, with a sling on one arm, he didn’t feel entirely confident he wouldn’t run into something very strong and unyielding and hurt himself even further.

  So he did the smart thing and let Huston take the lead as they weaved their way back through the darkness and over to the adjoining room. He kept her blonde hair in front of him the entire time, but even so, every hurried step he took felt overly treacherous. The squishy sounds he heard every time he stepped over a lump that was partially submerged in standing water—Clothes? Debris? Dirt? Maybe all of the above?—made him more cautious.

  He didn’t like the idea of spending more time in this place. Huston had managed, but it hadn’t been more than a day for her, either. What would happen in two days? Three? A week? Of course, that was assuming they survived to see a week in here. (Down here?) It was going to be difficult getting through the next few days without clean water to drink. Keo’s stomach turned at the prospect of having to sip the contaminated liquids he was squishing through right now.

  They didn’t have to run far or for long, which was further confirmation the rooms weren’t very big. The structure itself might have been much larger, but the creature had put them in a section that was almost its own contained space. That made sense, since it wouldn’t want them to roam around a massive room. Not that the creature had anything to fear from them as far as Keo could tell, but it would probably be a pain in the ass to keep having to search for them every time it wanted to…

  He tried not to think about what it wanted them for.

  He concentrated instead on just not tripping. One false move, and he might end up on the floor swallowing nasty helpings of unhealthy water and knocking his right shoulder out of its socket again. He’d been lucky when it happened and hadn’t felt it, but he wouldn’t be able to avoid that a second time.

  Fortunately for the both of them, Huston knew where she was going and soon they were back where they’d started, in the other room.

  He’d heard the splashing they’d caused as they came back here just fine, so there was nothing wrong with his hearing. And yet, Huston had told him she’d heard a loud banging noise when he hadn’t. What were the chances Huston had just imagined that? She’d been through a hell of an ordeal; getting kidnapped by a blue-eyed ghoul was not exactly something you got over quickly. It was bound to cause trauma even for someone who was used to being around nightcrawlers like Huston. Who knew what kind of damage, especially mentally, she might have endured?

  At the mom
ent, the medic stood in front of Keo and glanced around the dark room. The look on her face told him she hadn’t found what she was hoping to when she stopped.

  Because there’s nothing to find. Huston didn’t hear anything.

  He didn’t like thinking that, but Keo liked the consequences of it being true even worse. If Huston’s mind was playing tricks on her, then he wasn’t going to be able to count on the slayer to get out of here.

  And he needed to get out of here. Badly.

  “I’m going to take everything from you. Everything, and everyone. Including those at the ranch. Yes, I know about the ranch, meat. I know all about the ranch…”

  The hell you are, motherfucker. Over my dead body.

  The medic had moved away from him and was feeling along one of the walls, pressing her ear against the gray concrete. Keo winced at that. He didn’t like thinking about what else she might be voluntarily touching with her face.

  He would have lent a hand if he knew what he was looking for. If there was anything to look for in the first place. So Keo didn’t do anything and just stood there and watched her moving around.

  Huston finally glanced back at him through the black void. “Anything?”

  “Anything?” “Anything” what? Keo wanted to say but just shook his head instead.

  “I heard it,” Huston said. “I swear I heard it.”

  Of course you did.

  “You don’t believe me,” Huston said.

  Had she made out the dubious expression on his face? Did he have a not-quite-believing look right now?

  “I believe you,” Keo croaked out.

  “No, you don’t. I can see it on your face.”

  Dammit. My stupid face.

  “I heard it, Keo,” Huston said. She stood back slightly from the wall. “It was a banging noise. Like someone was pounding on the walls.” She looked up. “Or the ceiling. It might have come from up there.”

  Keo nodded and mouthed, Maybe.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “But you don’t believe I heard it.”

  He pursed a smile, thinking, How long has she been down here? It hasn’t even been half a day. How did she go off the deep end so quickly?

  He glanced around them. It had to be the darkness. Even if you got used to the environment, it was bound to play tricks with your mind. And that was saying nothing about the things moving around on the floor and along the walls…

  “Keo,” Huston was saying.

  He looked back at her.

  “I heard it,” she said.

  He nodded again, and hoped it was believable this time.

  But she frowned, and he guessed it hadn’t been. “You don’t believe me. You think I imagined it, don’t you?”

  He shook his head.

  “I didn’t,” Huston said. “I’m not crazy.”

  He walked over and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m not crazy,” Huston said again, though he wasn’t sure if saying it the second time was meant for him or herself.

  Maybe she did believe she’d heard a banging noise, though he wasn’t sure if that didn’t just make things worse, at least for him.

  “I heard it, Keo,” she said. “But I don’t hear it anymore. I don’t…” She paused, and there was a pained look on her face as she shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I did imagine it. God. Did I imagine it?”

  Yeah. I’m going with worse here.

  “You didn’t hear it?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Maybe I’ve been down here too long,” Huston said.

  “Okay?” Keo whispered.

  She sighed. “No. I don’t think I’m okay.” She looked around them. “Not as long as we’re down here.”

  He squeezed her shoulder and gave her a comforting smile. At least, he hoped it was comforting.

  “I—” Huston began to say when she stopped.

  What now? Keo thought, when Huston’s eyes widened so dramatically that the sclera practically overwhelmed everything else.

  He was about to risk the pain and ask her what had just happened when she tackled him.

  She tackled him!

  Keo wasn’t prepared for it and went flying backward off his feet. He might have screamed from the pain of his right shoulder slamming into the wet floor if it wasn’t for the fact he heard the boom! (Okay, I definitely heard that!) just before the ceiling he was standing underneath not more than a few seconds ago turned into a few thousand pounds of falling concrete.

  It was a localized blast of some kind, thank God, because if it’d been more spread out, he’d be dead. Both he and Huston, whose flying tackle had driven him far enough back to avoid being crushed by all the raining debris that was still coming down.

  Keo grabbed ahold of Huston, whose body was on top of his, and held on tight as he rolled away from the collapsing ceiling. She clung to him, maybe having realized the same thing or just out of instinct, and didn’t fight as he rolled them away and kept going until they bumped into a sticky and wet wall.

  Bright plumes of gray clouds invaded the dark space above and around Keo’s face and began spreading outward like smoke tentacles.

  Another alarm sounded inside his head, and Keo shouted, “Close your eyes! Close your eyes, Huston!”

  He swallowed the intense pain that came from the vocal outburst even as he followed his own warning and snapped his eyes shut. He could feel Huston, still on top of him, pressing down harder. He didn’t check to see if she’d heard him and followed through, but he hoped so because the air was going to be completely filled with all manner of materials that could blind them in seconds.

  Keo rolled them over one more time, until they were facing the wall. That just left their backs exposed to the spreading clouds of debris. He wasn’t sure who was coughing—him or Huston, or both of them (Yeah, it was probably both of them)—but that was all he could hear through the intense thrumming in his ears. His face was wet, as were pretty much all of his clothes, and he didn’t remember what had happened to the sling Huston had made for him. It was gone, and for some reason he didn’t feel the pain he was expecting.

  Adrenaline. That’s definitely good ol’ adrenaline at work again.

  Thanks, Mr. Adrenaline!

  Chunks of the ceiling were still collapsing around him but fortunately not on top of him or Huston. Keo knew that not because he could hear the concrete coming down—his ears were still ringing too loudly for that—but because he could feel the vibrations as they pelted the floor around him like raindrops. He kept his eyes closed and his mouth sealed and did the best he could not to breathe in the contamination that swarmed the room like locusts. Even so, he continued to cough, and from the sounds of it, so did Huston.

  He wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but he remained where he was, holding onto Huston. There was just a little pain coming from his right arm now, but nothing for him to really worry about. Maybe it was the fresh dose of Tramadol Huston had given him earlier. Painkillers were God’s medicine, as far as he was concerned.

  Eventually—A minute? Two? Five?—Keo pried his eyes open and turned slightly over onto his back in order to survey the damage.

  Moonlight!

  It was the first thing he noticed. There was a large pool of it inside the room that wasn’t there before. It allowed Keo to finally see more than a few feet around him at a time, including what had just nearly killed him and Huston.

  Holy shit.

  He’d been in too many warzones and seen demolition up close to miss all the signs of someone having detonated their way through the ceiling. They had left a large, jagged hole up there. Bent metal rebar and structural support beams were visible along the edges of the opening, but the rest of the blasted construction was in a pyramid-like pile about ten yards or so from where he lay. He couldn’t see skies on the other side of the newly-created “door,” but there was definitely more light up there.

  “Keo?” Huston whispered.

  “
You okay?” Keo asked. The pain in his throat was minimal for some reason, and he figured it was more adrenaline at work, letting his body do things that were needed in order to survive.

  “I think so. You?”

  “So far.”

  He relaxed his hold on her body and Huston slowly picked herself up, then rolled over to the side. Keo was finally able to sit up and got a better look at the destruction. The pile of debris wasn’t exactly a series of steps on a ladder, but it was tall enough that they could use it to climb and grab a hold of the opening above, then boost themselves up onto the higher floor. He had no idea what was up there, but it had to be better than down here, where there didn’t even seem to be any doors to come and go.

  Then a sickening thought flashed across his mind’s eye as he remembered all the wide-open doors in Paxton. The bookstore that Jackson’s people had gotten stuck inside, then the ones at Deuces that had lured him in while he was fleeing for his life.

  And look, another obvious door, just waiting for him to climb up and through.

  Am I really going to fall for it a second time?

  Do I have any choice?

  “Keo, the hole!” Huston said.

  She had jumped up to her feet even as she picked crushed concrete out of her hair and face, trying not to choke on all the dust in the air. Her skin, along with much of her clothes, was coated in thin layers of pulverized cement that sloughed off her whenever she moved. She looked a bit like Casper the Ghost, and Keo wondered if he did, too.

  Huston ran toward the opening.

  “Wait, Huston,” Keo said.

  But she wasn’t listening to him. She’d seen the way out, and she wasn’t going to wait for his permission. Not that he blamed her. She had been down here for way longer than he had, after all, and to be presented with a way out…