She missed her old M4. The feel of this one wasn’t quite right, though she imagined it was all in her mind. Probably.
Sixty yards…
She concentrated on the two soldiers to take her mind off the things she didn’t have but wished that she did. She still couldn’t make out a whole lot of details, but they were definitely both men. Gaby had only killed men so far, but she didn’t think she would have trouble pulling the trigger on a woman. A collaborator was a collaborator. And uniform or not, these were still members of the human race that had sold out their kind. She couldn’t summon any sympathy for them even if she tried.
Eighty…
They hadn’t spotted her yet and seemed to be too busy talking to really pay any attention to their surroundings.
After moving steadily up the ditch for a while, she stopped and went into a crouch. She took the opportunity to glance back at the girls. They were lying on their stomachs and watching her back. Or she assumed they were looking in her direction. She could only really see three lumps in the grass, and that was only because she knew where to look.
She faced forward again and caught her breath: one of the soldiers was turning in her direction when he stopped and seemed to stare right at her from across the distance.
She gripped the M4 tighter and mentally prepped herself to launch into battle—
False alarm.
The man hadn’t seen her. He was looking down while trying to open some kind of bag. Then he was turning away, stuffing something into his mouth as he did so.
She forced her fingers to loosen around the rifle.
Jumpy. She was way too jumpy.
When the man had turned his back to her again, she got up and continued along the ditch at a half-trot while slightly bent over at the waist to lower her profile.
Ninety yards…
She was at one hundred when she stopped a second time to get her bearings. The man on her side of the silver vehicle was leaning against the front grill and staring off down the road at nothing in particular. Their lack of attention to the land around them was incredible.
You need better “soldiers,” Josh.
She got up again and kept going.
110 yards…
The second one was walking back around the truck and handed the first one a bottle of water. They drank while looking down the highway, back toward Dunbar. They were clearly waiting for someone and weren’t going anywhere soon.
130 yards…
She took a second to make sure the fire selector on the M4 was set to semi-auto.
150 yards…
She was close enough now that she could hear them talking. They sounded young, and she could make out blond hair on one soldier, while the other one had a long black ponytail.
160 yards…
She wasn’t sure what happened. Maybe she wasn’t being nearly as quiet as she thought she was. Or maybe one of them, by some fluke, saw something that alerted him to her presence, the way she had seen the reflection of their truck under the sun earlier.
Either way, one of them saw her, said something, and both men began unslinging their rifles.
Gaby immediately stopped, took aim through the red dot scope, and fired—and missed.
Her bullet pinged! harmlessly off the hood of the truck. It was a bad shot, but it still made one of them dart for cover, so at least it had some impact. The one that didn’t move opened fire on her, the pop-pop-pop of his three-round burst filling the air even before her own shot’s echo had faded.
Gaby forced herself to stand perfectly still and reacquire her target even as the ground to her right, at shoulder level, exploded and she was showered with loosened dirt and grass. The man was firing too fast, too wildly, probably trying to fight against the same adrenaline that was pumping through every inch of her at the moment.
Whoever these men were, they didn’t have the advantage of being trained by a pair of Army Rangers. Will and Danny hadn’t held back—not once in the three months they broke her down and built her back up on the island.
She summoned that experience now and forced one of her senses to ignore the sound of bullets buzzing past her head.
She corrected her aim, swiveling slightly to the right, and fired again.
This time she hit the man in the waist, and he dropped his rifle and grabbed at the spot where he had been shot. When the man tried to run around the truck for cover, Gaby calmly took aim again and shot him in the back.
The man stumbled and slammed into the hood of the truck and slid down the smooth surface, but by then Gaby was already rushing up the ditch again. This time she dispensed with the slow jog and was in a full sprint mode, peering through her weapon’s sight the entire time and searching for another target.
Where’s the other one? Where’s the other one?
Running forward was the only path open to her. She couldn’t retreat, not with one of the (fake) soldiers still alive. He had the truck and she needed it. She knew exactly where the resolve came from: the very real desire to get back home to Song Island at all costs.
That’s my truck, asshole!
The second man was moving along the length of the truck, smartly keeping behind cover. Unfortunately for him, thanks to her lowered vantage point inside the ditch, she easily spotted his boots moving underneath the vehicle. The man was clearly trying to reach the back of the truck (a Chevy, as it turned out), probably in hopes of catching her by surprise. Either he didn’t know she could see his feet or he was counting on her not picking it up.
When he poked his head out the back, she snapped off a shot. Her bullet shattered one of the taillights and the man jerked his head back instinctively.
Gaby picked up the pace. She was twenty yards away now and she could still see the man’s boots, this time holding their position at the middle of the truck. Gaby laid the M4 on top of the ditch, took careful aim, and shot the man in the right ankle. There was a loud scream and the figure crumpled to the ground on the other side of the Chevy.
Gotcha.
She climbed up the ditch and scrambled up the road. The first man she had shot was dead, lying facedown on the hot asphalt in a pool of his own blood. Gaby scanned all the sides of the highway, looking for any potential threats. She hadn’t seen any before, but that didn’t mean someone hadn’t heard the shots and was responding. It was a big road and seemed to go on endlessly in both directions. She hadn’t properly realized what a huge task it would have been to travel it on foot until now.
I definitely need that truck.
She skirted around the hood of the Chevy, the rifle ready to shoot the second man on sight. He must have had plenty of time to prepare for her by now. It had taken her how long to climb up the ditch and then jog over? Twenty seconds? Maybe thirty?
More than enough time. Maybe he was going to make a final bloody stand, hoping to take her with him. She wasn’t going to give him that chance if she could help it. She was tired of giving people the benefit of the doubt. They always ended up disappointing her, like Josh…
But the man wasn’t a threat. Not anymore.
He sat on the highway, back against the driver side door, trying desperately to tie a handkerchief around his bleeding ankle. His face was locked in a tight grimace, sweat pouring down his temple and chin, and he didn’t seemed to notice her at all. He was young, too. He couldn’t have been more than twenty, and “Darren” was stenciled over his nametag.
Gaby tightened her finger on the M4’s trigger.
Darren finally realized she was there and looked up. He didn’t make a move for his weapons and only clenched his teeth in pain. “Please, please don’t shoot.”
Gaby stared at him. He had soft blue eyes and a burgeoning stubble. He didn’t look dangerous, but then, none of them did. It wasn’t what they did that made them her enemy; it was what they were committed to.
“Please,” Darren said again. “God, please, don’t kill me.”
She wanted to shoot him. It was the smart thing to do. He was
the enemy and she was, without a doubt, stuck behind enemy lines. If she let him go, he would alert the others to her presence. If Josh had sent him, he would go back and tell him where she was. Josh would immediately know where she was heading, and what roads she would take.
Letting this man (boy) go would be the dumbest thing she could do at this very moment. Will would shoot him. He wouldn’t even hesitate.
So why was she?
Gaby breathed for the first time in what seemed like hours and took her finger off the trigger. Darren, seeing her response, sighed with great relief.
“Don’t move,” Gaby said.
He nodded.
She scooted over and picked up his assault rifle. She pulled his sidearm out of its holster and shoved it into her waistband, then took a step back. “I need your magazines.”
Darren began removing them from his pouches and placing them on the road without hesitation. Gaby stepped back a little bit more and gave Darren a quick look, then glanced down the road and waved with both hands at the girls. She hoped they would understand and was grateful to see all three rising and running up the road as fast as they could. From this distance, they looked like stick figures twinkling against the sun.
She looked back at Darren as he took out the last magazine. “Is there gas in the truck?”
He nodded. “We filled it up this morning.”
“From where?”
“In town.”
“Dunbar?”
“Yes.”
“You were there last night?”
“No, I arrived this morning.”
“What are you doing out here? Are you looking for someone?”
He looked reluctant to answer.
“Are you really going to make me ask twice?” she said, trying to inject as much menace as she could into her voice. Will wouldn’t have had a problem with it, but then, she wasn’t an ex-Army Ranger.
“There were people still left in the city,” Darren said. “We were supposed to make sure no one tried to leave.”
“Did Josh send you?”
“Who?”
She stared at his face. Was he lying to her? The way he had answered the question—quickly, without even taking a second to think about it—made him either the world’s best liar or he was telling the truth. Josh hadn’t sent him. He didn’t even seem to know who Josh was.
If Josh didn’t send you, then who did?
“Never mind,” she said.
Gaby glanced over again. She could make out Claire in the lead, with Milly behind her, and Donna lagging in the back because of the heavy supply bag she was carrying.
“Where’s the key?” she asked Darren.
“Inside,” he said. Then, blinking in the sun at her, “Are you going to kill me?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
His face turned ghostly white. “Please…”
“Stop begging,” she said, fighting the growing irritation.
“Be a man,” she wanted to say. “Accept the consequences of your decisions and your actions. You and Josh and the rest of them.”
Instead, she motioned for him to get away from the truck. He struggled to his feet, then dragged one leg behind him as he hobbled away, leaving a bloody trail in his wake. His eyes shifted down the road for a brief moment.
“Expecting reinforcements?” she asked.
He shook his head quickly. “No, I was just…” He didn’t finish and instead looked down at nothing.
She slung her rifle and drew the Glock, then opened the driver side door. The key was in the ignition. She pulled it out and pocketed it, then opened the back door and looked in. There were two cases of refilled water bottles in the back, unopened bags of MREs, and spare magazines thrown haphazardly across the seats.
“How many others are out here?” she asked.
He seemed to think about it. “This far out? Just us.”
She fixed him with a hard look.
He swallowed. “I swear.”
She didn’t know whether to believe him or not. She had never been particularly good at reading faces anyway, but Darren looked too scared to lie.
“I’m going to take your truck,” she said.
“Take it,” he said quickly.
The girls had reached them by now, Claire clutching her rifle at the sight of Darren. Donna was out of breath and leaned against the hood for support. Milly looked winded but was too busy being queasy at the sight of the dead soldier.
Claire returned Gaby’s pack, but her eyes were fixed on Darren. “What are we going to do with him?”
“I don’t know yet,” Gaby said. “What do you think?”
The girl was eyeballing Darren like a predator. Although he was five-ten and probably had one hundred pounds on the thirteen-year-old, Darren still shrunk back from her intense stare. He glanced from Claire to Gaby, then back again.
Gaby couldn’t tell if he was more afraid of her or the kid.
Definitely the kid, she thought with a smile.
23
Will
“Am I dead?”
“Almost,” Will said.
“Thank God,” Danny groaned. “Because if I’m dead and your ugly mug’s the first thing I see, it’s a pretty good bet I didn’t go, you know, up there.” He hiked a thumb upward, then looked down at his shirt, which was covered in a thick film of dry blood from last night. “All this red stuff mine?”
“Yup. There’s more on your face.”
“Shit.”
“Yup.”
“So that explains the sore joints, aching bones, and this wicked pounding inside my skull.”
Danny winced as he sat up, pushing back against the wall for support. In the glow of morning that filled up the bathroom, his face was covered in dried blood, and to look at him, it was unfathomable that he was still alive. His nose was crooked and broken at the bridge. Will had stuffed two wads of year-old toilet paper into each nostril.
“Morning?” Danny said.
“Morning.”
“We made it.”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s not do last night again.”
“Deal.”
Danny pulled the tissue paper out and flicked them away. “I hate nosebleeds.”
“I wouldn’t call what you had last night nosebleeds. More like a blood-gushing torrent.”
“That bad, huh?”
“I was pretty sure you were dead. I had a speech prepared for Carly and everything.”
“I kinda wish I was.” He glanced over at Will, sitting to his right. “You look like how I feel.”
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
Will didn’t feel like moving from where he had been sitting for the last few hours. In-between chewing on a pair of granola bars from one of his pockets, he had downed two more painkillers. His side throbbed and his neck hurt, but he was alive, even if every inch of him claimed otherwise.
“Water?” Danny said.
“Back in Ennis’s basement.”
He looked over at one of the stalls. “I can’t believe I’m asking this, but…toilet water?”
“Went dry a long time ago.”
“So what’s the good news?”
“We’re still alive.”
“That’ll work. So, you got anymore of the good stuff?”
Will pulled out the light bottle of painkillers and tossed it over. “Finish it off.”
“This everything?”
“More in the packs…”
“…back at Ennis’s,” Danny finished. He shook out two, then decided four was the better number and popped them into his mouth and chewed on them as if they were rock candy. He tossed the empty bottle away and watched it skid across the room. “It wasn’t my imagination, right? There was one of those blue-eyed buggers in the hallway.”
“Yup.”
“I shot it.”
“You did.”
“With silver bullets.”
“Uh huh.”
“I mean, I shot the c
rap out of it. A dozen rounds. At least six.”
“Give or take.”
“So how the mother truckin’ hell did it keep coming?”
“I was going to tell you,” Will said. “I saw one of them outside the bar last night. I shot it with a silver bullet and it didn’t go down.”
Danny smirked. “And you were saving this for…when?”
Will shrugged. “Eventually. We were sort of preoccupied with other things last night. Like trying to keep Rachel from killing us. Then I fell asleep. And you know what happened after that.”
“Excuses, excuses.” Danny paused, then, “So why are we still alive?”
“Shooting them doesn’t work, not even with silver bullets. But taking out the brain seems to work just fine.”
“You still need silver for that, or will any ol’ bullet do?”
“I have no idea. Let’s just use silver to be sure.”
“Sounds good to me. That’s what they used to call me back in college, you know. Sure Thing Danny.” He paused again to catch his breath. “Damn, I could use some water.”
“Yup.”
They sat in silence for a moment, staring at nothing in particular. Talking was easier than moving, but it seemed to have tired Danny out almost as much as it had Will.
Danny touched the gash along his left temple, fingers sticky from the ointment and disinfectant Will had used to cover it up when there was enough light to work with. He had wiped as much blood off Danny’s face as he could, but even so, Danny looked like the result of a plastic surgery gone awry.
Danny flinched. “Goddamn, that hurts.”
“So don’t touch it.”
“Yeah, good idea. You’re full of good ideas this morning.” Danny nodded at the long trail of dried blood that led to the door. “Is that mine or Tommy’s?”
“Both.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I think one of them found another way in. Waited for Tommy, then…you know.” He added, almost as if in afterthought, “It took his head.”
“It took his head?”
“Yeah. It took his head.”
“The fuck?”
“What I said.”
“Did you…find it?”
“No. I don’t want to, either.”
The Purge of Babylon Series Box Set, Vol. 2 | Books 4-6 Page 32
