The Purge of Babylon Series Box Set, Vol. 2 | Books 4-6

by Sisavath, Sam

  “It’s okay,” Gaby said, and smiled at her. “It’s just Josh.”

  Lara didn’t believe her. Gaby could see it in her eyes.

  “You’ll come with me?” Josh said, sounding so young again.

  Gaby nodded. “If you let them go.”

  “And you won’t try to escape?”

  “No.”

  “Ever.”

  “I won’t try to escape. Ever.”

  His eyebrows furrowed, and he looked down at the road. This was what he wanted. This had always been what he wanted. The young boy whose family lived across the street from her for all those years. The teenager who secretly admired her from the back of the classes they had together. The survivor who did everything he could to keep her safe.

  It won’t end this way.

  Finally, he looked back up and nodded. “I’ll tell her everyone died on the island during the assault.”

  “What about them?” Gaby said, nodding at the four standing behind him.

  “She talks to me, not them,” Josh said. Then he nodded again, as if to confirm what he had already decided—or maybe to convince himself he could get away with it. “All right.”

  “All right?” she repeated.

  “All right,” he said again. Then to Lara and Danny, “Go. Hurry.”

  Lara looked back at Gaby, but before she could say anything, Gaby crouched next to her and embraced her as hard as she dared, keeping in mind Lara’s hurt shoulder and that she was still cradling Danny’s unmoving form in her lap. Lara put a hand on her arm, covering her in some of Danny’s blood.

  “I’ll be okay,” Gaby whispered. “Go. Please. Danny needs you to go now. I’ve already left Will behind and there won’t be anything left of me if Danny dies, too. Please, save him. Save us. Save everyone.”

  She stood up quickly before Lara could say anything and nodded at Josh.

  He held out his hand.

  She forced a smile and reached for it when Josh’s entire body suddenly stiffened.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “I…” he stammered, tried to say something, but couldn’t get it out. Then he stared past her and back down the pathway at the black emptiness on the other side.

  “Josh,” Gaby said. “What is it? What’s happening?”

  “She knows,” Josh said. His voice was soft, almost a whisper. “Oh God, she knows. She knows.”

  “Who? What does who know?”

  He whirled on her, his eyes wide and seized with terror. “She knows!” he shouted. “She’s in my head, Gaby! She’s always been in my head! She knows everything!”

  Lara had struggled up from the ground with Danny, his weight threatening to collapse the both of them. But somehow Lara was holding them up, though Gaby couldn’t fathom how since Danny had to be so much heavier, especially now that he looked completely unresponsive.

  “She knows!” Josh shouted again. “And she’s pissed off!”

  “Kate?” Gaby said. “Are you talking about Kate?”

  “Yes!” He looked back down the pathway at the darkness. She couldn’t see anything. What was he looking at? “She’s in my head, Gaby. We’re connected. I didn’t realize—I didn’t know how much—Oh my God, she knows.”

  “Josh…”

  He seized her wrists and his fingers dug into her skin. “Run,” he said breathlessly.

  “Josh…”

  “RUN!”

  Gaby was looking at Josh, trying to understand, when the hotel grounds behind him seemed to have come alive…moving.

  Then she saw them. Black pits of tar piercing through the night, rays of moonlight gleaming off pruned flesh and emaciated forms. The familiar clacking of bones and the tap tap tap of bare feet against cobblestone.

  Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, pouring into the opening on the other end.

  Ghouls.

  23

  Keo

  Blood. Death. And bullets.

  So what else was new?

  Even the island locale wasn’t anything he hadn’t experienced before. Of course, back then he had a team behind him. Men who were grizzled beyond their years and killed with a glee usually reserved for butchers wearing plastic aprons. Tonight, all he had was a gimpy ex-Army Ranger, a teenage girl, and a bunch of civilians he wouldn’t have trusted to watch his back in a snowball fight, much less a gunfight. And the cherry on top? A third-year medical student was calling the shots.

  It could have been worse, though. People could have been looking to him for leadership. Now that would have been a nightmare.

  At the moment, there was a lull in the radio channel, so he assumed Lara and the others were trying to figure out what was happening. He had already darted through the woods and stepped out into the opening at the western part of the island, with the big power station visible to his left in the open field. At one time it had been surrounded by hurricane fencing but was now left exposed. A red and brown mist had gathered around the area, the result of a few layers of brick and mortar being disintegrated by explosives.

  It was hard to miss the silhouetted figures pouring out of a building the size of a backyard shack next to the ugly gray structure. They were clad in the same black uniforms and Kevlar helmets as the ones that had assaulted the beach. He was too far to count their exact number, but he guessed more than ten. Maybe two dozen. Who knew how many had already made it out before he arrived?

  Keo crouched just beyond the tree lines and watched the figures racing across the open field. They clearly knew where they were going—east, toward the hotel. At least the figures weren’t heading north where the Trident was currently anchored. That meant they hadn’t spotted the yacht yet. Then again, for all he knew the first stream of invaders might have gone in that direction before he arrived.

  There was a click in his right ear, and he heard Lara’s voice through the comm. “This is Lara! Everyone who isn’t already there, head to your designated exit points now! I repeat! Head to your exit points now! The island is lost! I repeat! The island is lost! We’re evacuating Song Island!”

  Oh, so now you want to leave?

  Women. Can’t make up their minds.

  A part of him wanted to laugh. They had gone through all this effort to hold the island, but all it took was one well-placed explosive to change everything.

  “Lara,” he said into the radio.

  “Keo!” He heard ragged breathing, which meant she was moving fast. “Where are you?”

  “Southwest corner, just beyond the power station.”

  “What do you see?”

  “More assaulters. They’re coming through the shack next to the power station and heading right at you.”

  “How many?”

  A shitload, he thought, but said, “Too many. But if we coordinate a defense—”

  “No,” Lara said, cutting him off. “It’s not the humans we have to worry about. Without the shack, there’s nothing to hold them back. Do you understand? Get to your exit point. We’re getting off the island!”

  “Them?” Oh. Right. Them.

  “Roger that,” he said.

  He didn’t move right away. Instead, he bided his time and let the stream of black-clad figures race across and vanish one by one into the waiting woods that separated this part of the island from the hotel on the other side. There was no point engaging that many men. He had done more than enough killing in the last hour to last a lifetime, and that was saying something given his past—

  A lone figure, clearly not part of the invading horde, had appeared on the other side of the open ground. Keo was still trying to figure who it was (it had to be one of Lara’s islanders, given how the man was trying to stay hidden), when the guy decided to ruin Keo’s night by opening fire. Two men running full speed toward the woods fell instantly.

  The man kept firing, but was smart enough to start moving sideways at the same time. He darted behind trees only to pop out on the other side and shoot again.

  Keo ran through the island’s inventory of men
in his head. He discounted Danny because the man had come from the wrong direction. Stan the electrician would be near the hotel with Lara and Sarah, the cook. Roy would also be there with them. Benny, the other gimpy guy on the island, would be in the Tower with the redhead—or was, since Lara had given the abandon ship signal. Blaine, the big Mexican, had the important job of keeping Gage and the Trident in play.

  So who did that leave?

  The shooter had the right height for the kid Dwayne, but it was stretching it to think a twelve-year-old had the tactical ability he was witnessing now. No, that was a full-grown man out there who had just moved behind cover as the invaders returned fire on him.

  Keo would have preferred to stay out of it, let the whole group pass him by before he made his way to his own exit point. That, unfortunately, was on the other side of the open clearing. The only other way to get to the yacht was to go around the power station using the western cliff, then circle over to the north side.

  He would have liked to use the more direct approach because it was much, much faster, but as he observed the men in black starting to diverge toward the north and at the lone defender, his choices became very limited.

  Remember when you were on your way to Gillian at Santa Marie Island?

  Yeah. Live and learn, pal.

  Keo ripped the NVD off and let it hang around his neck, then lifted the submachine gun and flicked the fire selector to full auto. He was more than a hundred meters from the closest assaulter when he stood up and unleashed all thirty rounds across the open field.

  To his surprise, one of the men actually stumbled and fell to the ground, even though Keo had just fired randomly into the jagged line of attackers hoping to draw their attention away from the islander. They didn’t hear his gunshots with the attached suppressor, but they either saw one of their own going down or they recognized someone was shooting at them from behind. Half of them turned around, night-vision goggles seeking him out in the darkness.

  Keo spun and ran back into the tree line as they opened up on him, the loud clatter of a dozen or so assault rifles firing at the same time crackling across the air. They were armed with M4s and firing on three-round bursts. Unlike the carbines the islanders were using, the soldiers’ weapons hadn’t been converted to full-auto, it seemed. The difference between having a pair of Rangers on hand who knew their guns…and not, he guessed.

  The problem was that those M4s, fully auto or not, still had the long-distance shooting ability that his MP5SD didn’t. Fortunately for him, he was moving before they started shooting, though that didn’t stop bullets from slamming into trees and snapping branches and kicking at the ground around him as he dived the last few meters into the sanctuary of the woods.

  Daebak!

  He scrambled to his feet, turned right, and ran as hard as he could. The air was filled with buzzing and gunfire, branches being reduced to splinters all around him. Either they knew the direction he was taking or they were shooting at everything. Not that it mattered. He was still in one piece with no extra holes in him, which was good enough.

  He didn’t slow down until he could hear the lapping of the lake against the rocks at the bottom of the western cliff. Cool air floated through the trees and he stopped to catch his breath, then slipped the night-vision goggles back on. Running through a sea of trees with something blocking your vision, even if it gave you artificial night vision, wasn’t a good idea. He had learned that the hard way outside of Caracas a few years back—

  BOOM!

  Keo turned back around. He knew instinctively the explosion had come from the hotel even before he glimpsed the gray-white plume of smoke rising lazily into the air. It sounded like a grenade.

  This night just keeps getting better and better. Now aren’t you glad you stayed?

  So the bad guys had grenades, too. He guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised. They had blown up the brick wall around the shack with something pretty strong. Maybe C4 or Semtex. Probably C4, since he was on American soil. Uncle Sam’s boys in uniform hoarded those things in bunches.

  The rattle of gunfire had picked up again, but this time not directed at him, thank God. He listened and judged their distance.

  The hotel.

  That was a bad sign, because Lara and the others were at the hotel. Or would have to go through it in order to reach their exit point as fast as possible. So he was right. More soldiers had come out of the shack before he even got there. He knew the sound of a ferocious firefight when he heard one, and he was listening to that right now.

  He turned around and pushed north, even as the fight back at the hotel continued, the gunfire crashing like rolling thunder from one side of the island to the other. It was much louder than it really should have been, given the distance.

  Beaufont Lake grew in volume to his left, but it wasn’t enough to replace the clatter of another running gunfight ahead of him along the northern side. That would be where the Trident was waiting. How long before Blaine decided to take off? That would probably depend on how much fire he was taking. With his luck—

  His right ear clicked and he heard someone screaming through the comm, “We’re pinned!” Lara. “Blaine, take off now!”

  Oh, hell no.

  “What?” Blaine shouted back. “We’re not leaving without you! Get over here!”

  Good call. Just wait a little longer until I get there, Blaine ol’ buddy.

  “We’re not going to make it!” Lara said.

  “Then we’ll come back to you!” Blaine said.

  “Don’t be stupid!”

  No, Blaine. Be stupid. Be really stupid.

  He picked up his pace just in case tonight was the night Blaine decided to start being smart.

  “Lara!” Blaine shouted.

  “That’s an order, Blaine!” Lara said, most of her words drowned out by gunfire on her end. “Move your ass now, or I’m sending Danny over there to kick it!”

  “Yeah, what she said!” Danny chimed in.

  Then Carly said something before another BOOM! cut her off.

  Keo stopped moving and glanced back toward the hotel. Another plume of smoke was rising into the air, wisps of it like a dragon’s breath.

  Well, that’s not good.

  He gripped the MP5SD and looked north, then east. The Trident was north. If he didn’t get there soon, Blaine was going to obey Lara’s orders and take off without him onboard. But Lara and Danny were pinned in the hotel. The bad guys also had grenades. They had made use of them twice now. What kind of chance did they have against that kind of firepower? What kind of chance did he have?

  He looked north again.

  I’m the dumbest man alive.

  He sighed and took a step back toward the hotel, but he hadn’t completely stepped out of the tree lines when a new round of gunfire ripped across the air nearby. He dropped to the ground reflexively, expecting the trees around him to be sliced in half by the rapid brap-brap-brap of a machine gun blasting away.

  The Trident.

  Danny had brought the M240 with him and it was now perched along the rails of the yacht, with either Blaine or one of the islanders behind it firing away. He was trying to pinpoint the location of the machine-gun fire when it started to get louder.

  Oh, for the love of God.

  Keo remained pressed against the cold ground, stretching out the MP5SD in front of him, when he heard the heavy crunching of combat boots tramping grass with wild abandon as they came toward him. They were shooting as they ran, the zing-zing-zing! of bullets stripping away leaves and branches as they attempted to hit—

  The yacht, its stark white color like a metallic beast swinging around the curvature of the island. He glimpsed the staccato effect of the M240 firing away from the upper deck railing, the light show blinking in and out as the boat moved across the row of trees between him and the cliff. Keo imagined the stream of empty brass casings falling into the ocean as the MG razed the column of woods as it passed.

  Two men, both clad in bl
ack, burst through a pair of trees in front of him. They were somehow moving while crouched and trying to get a shot on the Trident’s machine gunner through the trees. They were ten meters away and closing in when Keo dropped both of them with a squeeze of the trigger. Rifles clattered to the ground just before a third man, out of breath, slid to a stop at the sight of his dead comrades.

  Keo shot him twice in the chest, then scanned the woods, waiting for more pursuers.

  The yacht had continued on behind him, its weapon still firing nonstop into a section of the woods in front of Keo. He stayed low against the ground as 7.62mm rounds, coming at 700 to 900 rounds per minute (give or take), sheared the trees around him like axes chopping down branches and reducing bark into clouds that stung his eyes.

  Keo didn’t move his head for fear of getting it shot off. He didn’t breathe or move at all until the brap-brap-brap finally faded and a large branch plopped down in front of him. The smell of burnt wood filled his nostrils, and he had to switch to breathing through his mouth.

  Only then did he allow himself to hop back up to his feet.

  He glanced back and saw the white of the Trident fading through the trees. Keo ran after it, moving closer toward the edge as he went, but not so close that he’d run right off the cliff with one false move. He could already feel the cool swirls from the lake brushing against his face as he neared the end of the woods.

  There. The yacht, like a white missile, gliding across the calm lake water and getting smaller as it went. The damn thing was picking up speed and it wasn’t going to stop for him. Nosirree. He thought about shouting after it, maybe tell it to Get the hell back here, but decided that probably wasn’t going to work. The boat was too far away and besides, shouting might bring more men in black uniforms after him.

  Not daebak. This is definitely not daebak.

  He headed back to where he had left the three bodies. He slung his MP5SD and snatched up one of the M4s, knowing the magazine was almost empty by how light the rifle was. He searched the bodies and found two spares, pocketing what he could. You could never have too many bullets, especially on a night like this. He was about to swap in a full mag when—