“You can’t win. You could never win.”
He didn’t look down the side of the building to see how many of them were coming up. The answer would be too many. There were always too many. So he ran instead.
“There are no second chances. No happy endings.”
He ran faster. Faster. Faster!
“Not for you.”
Another leap of faith, the wind brushing against his face, the flaps of the trench coat fluttering behind him as he cut through the night air like a spear, unencumbered by all the things that used to make him human, that once limited what he could do.
“Wherever you go, however far, I will always be there. Always…”
He closed his eyes and plummeted headfirst into the dark woods. He could already sense them below—an ocean of black eyes—waiting for him with open arms.
25
Keo
“Shibal,” Keo muttered under his breath.
It stopped for a moment—a brief half-a-heartbeat, anyway—to let what he had said sink in, but apparently deciding it wasn’t important enough to dwell on, the creature resumed stepping inside the cage.
Keo scrambled back, managing a single step (Too slow, pal!) before it was standing directly in front of him. The speed with which it had moved left him breathless, and Keo was still trying to grapple with the physics of it when cold, bony fingers slithered around his neck and, perhaps just as a demonstration that it was in full control, pulled him slightly forward only to shove him back against the bars. The metal rods had been cold all day and were even colder now that night had fallen, but it was nothing against the wicked surge of temperatures flooding Keo’s senses like wildfire.
Frank hadn’t been this cold. Then again, Frank had worn that ugly trench coat and kept that hoodie over his head almost the entire time they were traveling together. Maybe that wool fabric did more to absorb his natural (Ha! “Natural.”) body temperature than Keo had realized. He wondered if Ol’ Blue Eyes had done that for his benefit or its own. He guessed he would never find out the answer to that one, among other things he’d never get to do again.
The one bright spot he could see—while the blue-eyed ghoul tightened its grip around his throat, threatening to crush his windpipe with a simple flick of its wrist—was that Jordan was still asleep. She lay on the floor where he had left her, warm underneath a pile of their jackets. She was curled up into a ball, just the top half of her face visible under his coat. She looked peaceful and beautiful, and he regretted all those nights when he never realized it.
“I can smell his scent on you,” it hissed, razorblade lips forming a sneer as it sniffed the air between them. “It lingers like a disease. Is he nearby? Tell me, meat, is he coming to rescue you right now?”
It was referring to Frank again. The other blue-eyed ghoul in Keo’s life. The thought made him want to laugh—if only he could at the moment.
I went looking for a girl, and all I got were blue-eyed monsters. Daebak.
Of course there was nothing awesome about this, with the metal bars against his back. He had to exert every ounce of strength just to suck in enough air to keep breathing, and that was probably because the creature still wanted to keep him alive…for now.
It cocked its head to one side, long neck flexing with a grace that shouldn’t have been possible for something so unnatural. It looked him up and down, as if trying to figure out what made him tick, or special. Keo could have told it there was absolutely nothing unique about him, though he got the impression the monster wouldn’t have believed him anyway.
“Call him for me,” it said, caressing Keo’s face in a plume of hot and cold breath, “so I can take him home, where he belongs.”
‘Call him’? I would if I could, pal. I’d call him to come here and kick your ass. Or at least tear your head off. I’ve seen him do it…
“You’re running out of time,” the creature said. It turned its head to look at Jordan’s sleeping form. “Both of you.”
Leave her alone, you fuck.
“I can smell her all over you, too,” it hissed, that bad attempt at a smile again. “Lovers rutting in a barn. How animal of you.”
Better than dead, assfuck.
“I wonder if she’ll scream for me, too,” it asked.
He clenched his teeth and managed to wheeze out a sound. It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as he had planned it in his head. But then, it was taking everything he had just to keep breathing, to suck air into his lungs.
The creature turned its gaze back to him, eyes like a siren’s call drawing him in. Goose bumps raced up and down Keo’s flesh.
“We’ll keep her alive for a while,” it hissed. “We’ll have fun with her. Play our little games. And when we’re bored, we’ll put her out of her misery. But until then, she’ll wish she was dead. Now call him.”
Keo shook his head. Or tried to. He mostly just wiggled it left, then right, then left again. He wanted to shout, “I have no fucking idea how, you piece of shit!” but he couldn’t.
God, why was it so hard to just breathe?
Then, unexpectedly, the creature’s fingers (he swore he could feel every single joint in the thing’s hand) unfurled slightly. Not enough for Keo to convince himself that he might survive tonight, but just enough that he could suck in a lungful of precious air.
“I…don’t…know…how,” he managed to gasp out.
The creature cocked its head to the other side, pulsating blue eyes watching him closely. It was reading him, trying to gauge his truthfulness.
“It’s…truth…” he croaked out.
The taut flesh over its improbably smooth domed head seemed to wrinkle in response. “No, you can’t, can you?”
Did it just sound…disappointed?
Tough nuts, pal.
“But he’s left his imprint on you,” the creature said. “He’ll be able to find you…eventually. And when he does, we’ll be there waiting. You’ll still prove useful after all, meat.”
Hey, use away, as long as you keep me alive, Keo thought, but could only get out, “Ack.”
“What was that?” it said, lips forming something that could almost be mistaken for a smile if viewed at just the right angles. “I can’t hear you. Speak louder.”
“Ack,” Keo said again.
“What was that?” It leaned forward, then turned its head, presenting a useless stump that used to be an ear to him. “Louder, meat. Convince me I should let you keep all your limbs. After all, I don’t need all of you, do I?”
Closer.
Its eyes bored into him like twin moons. “Did you say something?”
I said closer…
“I can’t hear you,” it hissed. “Speak up.”
There. That’s close enough.
He tightened his grip around the metal handle of the spork, the same one that Marcy had given back to him to eat the tuna with. The thing that was technically a scork, but he hated that name. He had palmed the utensil as the creature entered the cage, wasting a precious second when it couldn’t see where his hands were, hidden under the jacket covering Jordan’s body. He hadn’t used it yet because it was too far, and because it would have taken him at least a second to swing his arm up, then left toward his target: the creature’s head.
“They’re smarter than the rest,” Danny had said. “If you see them, run the other way, Obi-Wan Keobi. Or shoot them in the head. That seems to work pretty well.”
Shoot them in the head. Right. If only I had a gun, and it was standing perfectly still.
But at least I have a scork. Ugh, I hate that word.
He almost laughed, because it was that absurd. He was going to die trying to stab this blue-eyed freak in the head with an eating utensil. The combination fork/spoon/can opener was titanium and strong as hell, so at least there was that. All he’d have to do was punch hard enough to break skin and get it through the bone. Of course, before he could do that, he had to make sure it didn’t see him striking.
Yeah, no sweat—
<
br /> “Oh, shit,” a breathless voice said, before he could finish his thought.
The creature, just as surprised by the voice as Keo, twisted its head to find Jordan scrambling up from the dirty barn floor, the coats falling off her. She stumbled backward until she bumped against the bars on the other side of the cage. She had gone the wrong direction, Keo saw; if she had gone right instead of back, she could have easily escaped through the open door.
If she was still groggy from sleep, she was wide awake now, and her eyes snapped from the ghoul to him, where they remained.
“Go!” he croaked. “The door!”
Her eyes flashed from him to the creature, then to the open door. There was nothing to stand in her way. It couldn’t grab her and keep its hold on him at the same time. The question was: Which one of them did it want to keep inside the cage more? Of course, he already knew the answer to that one.
“But he’s left his imprint on you,” it had said. “He’ll be able to find you…eventually. And when he does, we’ll be there waiting.”
It didn’t need her, except as leverage against him. And right now—
“Go, goddammit!” he managed to get out. It wasn’t nearly as forceful as he had intended, but it was all he could muster with the creature’s fingers still wrapped around his throat like a metal glove.
But for whatever reason, Jordan didn’t move toward the door. She had seen it, and she was smart enough to know there was no way the creature could stop her. So why hadn’t she moved, for God’s sake?
“Jordan!” he said again, the effort of shouting (or trying to) making every inch of him tremble with pain. “Get out of here!”
Instead of running for the door, Jordan stood where she was, as if her feet were planted to the concrete floor. Then she did something he hadn’t expected—or wanted, for that matter. She ran right at them.
No, not at them, but at the creature.
Oh hell, Jordan, he thought as the ghoul’s ghost-thin lips slithered into a mock smile. It held him steady against the bars with one hand and began lifting the other one—
Keo pulled out his right hand, the one with the spork, out from behind his back.
Go for the head! Go for the head!
But even as he told himself what he had to do, his mind judged the speed and distance and what it would take—a wide, exaggerated arc from bottom to top, right to left, because there wasn’t any other way to get it from behind his back and to the creature’s temple where it had to go, because anywhere else was pointless.
Not enough time. Not nearly enough time.
What was the lesson he’d been taught in school? Oh, right. The fastest path to a target was a straight line. Like a bullet. Or, in this case, a goddamn spork.
So Keo jerked the titanium utensil upward and toward the ghoul’s exposed chin instead.
He felt a flush of triumph at the sight of the spork’s teeth breaking flesh, could feel the resistance from its jawbone on the other end, but he kept pushing and pushing, putting everything he had into it, until finally (Eureka!) the tines broke through bone.
It let him go then, and even as it did so, Keo pulled the spork back out, the slurp as thick black blood splashed on the ground, leaving a trail as the creature stumbled backward. Keo couldn’t tell if he had hurt it or if it was just shocked. Either way, he was free and he could breathe again, and Keo took the next few seconds to gasp for breath like a drowning man.
“Oh, Jesus!” Jordan shouted. She had frozen halfway to them.
The blue-eyed ghoul was touching its chin, thin trickles of blood oozing through its fingers. Keo couldn’t figure out if that flicker of something on its face was hurt or anger (or curiosity?), and he didn’t waste another breath thinking about it.
Air filled his lungs, and he felt renewed strength as he launched himself forward and smashed into the creature, catching it full in the chest. It was like hitting a sack of flour, and Keo couldn’t reconcile its unnatural strength with how weak its body was pushing back against him. He drove it back, back, until there was a satisfying clang! as the monster’s rail-thin form collided with the metal bars.
Keo pulled back slightly and shoved his forearm against its throat. Its neck was slick because it was covered in its own blood, but he ignored the nausea-inducing sensation and pressed harder. He pinned it to the cage with his left hand while cocking back his right, tightening his grip on the handle of the spork, just before sending it flying forward for the killing blow—
No!, his mind screamed as the creature snatched his right hand by the forearm and grabbed him by the shirt collar with its other hand and, as if it were dealing with a petulant child, threw him back. He crashed into the metal bars, felt rather than heard the entire cage rattling on impact, just like what every bone in his body was doing.
He stumbled forward, but his legs were wobbly and he couldn’t focus. He did manage to see the floor rushing toward him just in time to somehow stick his hands out before he hit the hard pavement, saving his face from a painful collision.
Get up! The voice inside his head screamed. Get up, get up, get up.
He pushed himself up from the floor, every inch of his body screaming with pain, begging him for rest. His arms had doubled in weight for some reason. Keo managed to turn his head, looking up as the creature hovered over him.
“Human,” it hissed, the act of talking (hissing), of moving its jaw up and down, sending black blood dripping to the floor a few feet from Keo’s head. “You’re only human.”
So close. So goddamn close.
It ran its ice-cold fingers through his hair, got a firm grip, then dragged him up. Keo let out an excruciating howl as his scalp burned and threatened to tear from his head, and it was all he could do to scramble to get his feet under him and stand up so he wouldn’t be completely at the creature’s mercy.
“I’ve decided,” the creature hissed, “that you don’t need your arms.”
It pushed him back into the bars, and Keo only managed to get out a grunt even as the ghoul let go of his hair and grabbed both of his arms and grinned at him.
God, that grin. For as long as he lived—however short—he would never forget—
The spork.
Shit, he’d lost the spork. It wasn’t in his hand anymore, and Keo didn’t remember when he had dropped it. Probably somewhere between being thrown around the cage like a monkey and having his hair yanked like he was someone’s bitch. Not that it would have mattered anyway, because the ghoul was tightening its fingers around both his forearms, and there was no way in hell it was going to let go this time.
It leaned forward until it was so close it could have stuck out its tongue and slipped it into his mouth. Keo almost retched at the imagery.
“This is going to hurt,” it hissed. “But don’t worry. You won’t die. We have ways to stave off death. You’ll thank me.”
It cocked its head, and again, that goddamn grin. He hated the fuck out of that goddamn grin.
“Or not,” it hissed.
Then the blue-eyed ghoul did an odd thing. It was pulling back—to get into a better position to render his arms from their sockets, he assumed—when its eyes suddenly abandoned Keo’s face and snapped left—
And Keo thought, Wait, where’s Jordan?
There was a dull thunk! from somewhere in the cage, and the ghoul released both his arms. The sudden absence of its impossibly strong grip was so swift that Keo was sinking to the floor (Again? Jesus, I can’t stay off this floor.) before he could wrap his mind around what had happened, what was happening, and why both his arms were flopping uselessly to his sides instead of lying on the cage floor in a pool of blood.
Fortunately, he was staring forward the entire time, even as he was dropping to his knees. Keo saw the ghoul let out something that sounded almost like a guttural squeal before it vanished out of his peripheral vision. There was another loud clanging! as something bounced against the cage bars yet again. Except this time, thankfully, it wasn’t him.
> Keo found the strength to turn his head until it settled on the ghoul, which was sitting on the floor with its back against the rods. Its eyes were wide open and staring forward, as if it was still trying to focus on something and having a difficult time. But of course it wasn’t, because there was a metal object sticking out of the center of its forehead between its eyes.
So that’s where the spork went.
The shiny metal had gone in deep, its handle buried halfway in the creature’s skull after having penetrated not just bone, but whatever was still back there. Small rivulets of blood poked through the point of impact and dripped along the titanium eating utensil.
A figure was crouching on the other side of him—Jordan, her face flushed with worry, brown eyes focused entirely on him. “Keo…”
“Shit, Jordan,” he said. Or croaked. Or coughed the words. One of those.
“You dropped the spork,” she said, barely managing a smile, even though he could see her lips quivering and her hands were shaking uncontrollably as she stroked his cheeks.
He smiled back at her before he saw it. The cage door. It was wide open, and the padlock was lost somewhere in the darkness of the barn.
Darkness. The barn. Night.
“Jordan,” he said.
“Shhh,” she said, peering at him. “I can’t even tell what color your neck is at the moment. Did it—”
He shook his head. “Outside. The barn. Night. Remember?”
It took a second—just a second—before she understood. Her eyes flew open, and she glanced back at the open cage door. “Oh, God. What do we do?”
“Danny told me a story,” he said, looking at the dead ghoul. “It’s about a farmhouse in Louisiana…”
They didn’t have ropes or duct tape to tie the creature up, but its bony arms and legs were pliable enough for them to shove the limbs through the bars and pull and prod them into position, at least enough to keep it in place. For something that had been unfathomably strong, its body was light enough that Jordan did most of the carrying, while he helped out the best he could with arms that had all the strength of spaghetti strings.
The Purge of Babylon Series Box Set, Vol. 3 | Books 7-9 Page 31
