“Just a headache.”
“You should take some of the meds we have in the first-aid kits.”
“No.”
“That’s what they’re there for, Gaby.”
“They’re for emergencies. Besides, it always goes away.”
“You sure?” he asked, and she could hear the concern in his voice.
“I’ll be fine.” She opened her eyes and said, before he could argue the point, “We should head back.”
She crumpled up the piece of paper and tossed it, then turned around until she was lying on her stomach again. She picked up the rifle and began crawling backward away from the ledge. The distance between them and the highway was close enough (Shooting distance, at least with the ACOG) that she took every precaution. It only added a minute or so to their retreat anyway, and they had minutes to spare at the moment. Nate mirrored her crawl until they were almost on the other side, and only then did they stand up and take the ladder in the back down to the street below.
They had walked over to their position on top of the Waffle House, so that meant walking back to where Danny and Mason were. The area they were in was oddly divided with the stores and restaurants to one side and almost exclusively traveling hotels and inns on the other. The tallest building in the entire place was a Comfort Inn and Suites. The rooftop above the hotel’s three stories would have given them a much better spying perch, but the idea of going through those floors just to get to that perfect spot spiked the hairs on the back of her neck even now.
They wound their way through the streets and buildings using the businesses as cover whenever they could. Not that she expected to be spotted from the highway, but again, there was no point in taking unnecessary risks just to shave off a few seconds or minutes. So they took their time and moved along, through, and behind a fast food joint, then a gas station, and a dozen other buildings.
“Wanna get wasted?” Nate asked as they walked past one of the many brick and mortar stores. The sign outside was in gaudy neon, reading “Gallant Liquor Store.”
Not very creative, she thought, looking in at the hundreds of bottles still sitting on display shelves. The store was remarkably undisturbed and she couldn’t find any signs of ghoul occupation—there were no blankets on the windows or blood smears. Unlike most places they had traveled through, it was rare to find evidence of a ghoul nest in Gallant. It was another reason they had decided to make camp here. That same disregard for the town by the monsters was also why it didn’t make any sense for the two collaborators to be lingering around it.
What are you two doing here?
“Let’s relive our college years,” Nate was saying.
“I never went to college.”
“Oh, right. Sometimes I forget how young you are.”
“Are you saying I look old?”
“Well, yeah.”
“You’re lucky I already like you, or else…” She playfully put a hand on the butt of her sidearm.
He raised both hands in surrender and began walking backward, grinning at her. “If you want, we can pretend we’re in school. I’ll be the big man on campus, and you’ll be my cheerleader girlfriend. I bet if we look hard enough we might even be able to find a cheerleader uniform somewhere in this place, maybe at the high school we passed earlier…”
She shook her head but couldn’t help herself and smiled anyway. “I have a better idea. Why don’t you be my cheerleader boyfriend…”
They made their temporary base about a mile from the Waffle House inside the Gallant First Bank, one of the few buildings that had everything they needed in case they were forced to stay the night in town. Large white GFB letters were easily visible on the rooftop, welded to some kind of scaffolding. It wasn’t exactly subtle, but then it fit in with its surroundings, mostly department stores, restaurants, and she guessed the cream of the commercialism crop in Gallant. The bank had security bars over the windows and doors, and when they peeked inside, found it as pristine now as it had been a year ago.
She saw Danny peeking out at them from behind blinders on one of the front windows as they approached, then a few seconds later one of the doors clicked opened before they even reached it.
They slipped inside and Danny locked it back up. “What’s the word, birdies? Tell me you haven’t been giving each other disgusting hickeys out there while I was babysitting in here?”
“A Jeep with two soldiers,” Nate said. “They showed up and parked on the I-10 around ten in the morning and haven’t moved since. We think they’re looking for something.”
“Maybe us,” Gaby said.
“Has to be, right?”
“Did you go and ask them?” Danny asked.
“Uh, no,” Nate said.
“Maybe they’re just searching for property to rent or buy. Land’s pretty cheap these days, and property’s always a good investment. Always has been, always will be.”
“We thought they might have been the same two we saw outside of Port Arthur yesterday,” Gaby said.
“Were they?”
She shook her head. “Same uniforms but different vehicle, and one of the two from yesterday was blond. These two both had dark hair.”
“Dark-haired muchachos are seriously the worst.”
“Self-loathing?” Nate asked.
“Maybe a tad,” Danny said. Then, looking at her, “Why didn’t you just shoot them? I gave you that ACOG for a reason, you know.”
“It was tempting…” Gaby said.
“Next time when in doubt, shoot.”
I almost did, she thought, and tossed her pack on the island counter in the lobby, knocking down a few deposit slips that had been left behind. She unzipped the bag and pulled out a bottle of water and took a drink.
The place was remarkably clean when they had found it, with no evidence of a fight or blood anywhere, and Nate theorized it was closed when the town succumbed to The Purge. Like most small cities around the state, the citizens probably knew something had happened when the big metropolitans like Houston and Dallas went dark. It would have been terrifying as they waited for the second night. She knew the feeling, having lived through it herself a year ago.
There were still piles of money in the registers and safes when they looked around this morning, and the two offices in the back were in immaculate condition. She kept expecting someone to clock in for work whenever she glanced at the counters. There were plenty of lights coming through the closed blinds behind her to see with, but not enough to give their position away to someone passing by, like those two guys…
Maybe Nate’s right. Maybe they are following us.
But why?
When she finished drinking and put the bottle away, she looked back at Danny. “Nate is convinced they’re tracking us.”
“What do you think?” Danny asked her.
“I don’t know, maybe. It’s just too much coincidence that they—or one of their friends—keep showing up wherever we go.”
Danny nodded but didn’t say anything. He looked lost in thought, and whenever that happened, he always reminded her so much of Will. They looked nothing alike, of course, but when the usually jovial Danny went still, it was hard to shake the resemblance.
“Where’s Mason?” Nate asked.
“Dozing, the last time I saw him,” Danny said. “Being a hostage is hard work.”
“I should go check on him.”
“You think he’s going to try something?” she asked.
Nate shrugged as he walked past her. “I just don’t like the idea of that guy being somewhere where at least one of us can’t see him at all times.”
She watched him go into the back hallway, then open the door into one of the two offices and disappear inside. Gaby turned back to Danny, who had returned to looking out the blinders at the street outside.
“Did you talk to the Trident yet?” she asked.
“Still waiting to pick us up,” Danny said. “All we have to do is get to someplace where they can do exactly that
, and then we’ll all be on the sundeck drinking piña coladas. Easy breezy.”
“Easy breezy, huh?” she said doubtfully.
“Have faith, Gabster. We’ll get there. Eventually.”
She didn’t doubt they would get home—she just hoped they all made it, and in one piece.
“I believe you,” she said.
“You should. I’m never wrong.”
“Never?”
“Well, mostly never.” He glanced up the street in the direction she and Nate had come. “You said two?”
“Two, yeah.”
“But one vehicle?”
“That I could see or hear.” When he didn’t ask or say anything, she continued: “What are you thinking?”
“That if we want to get out of here before nightfall and those two hombres are still hanging around on the highway, then we might have a problem.”
“Just one?”
“Okay, one of many. The biggest one is the noise factor. As soon as we fire up our ride, they’ll know we’re here. Then they’ll radio their friends, and who knows how many of them are between us and the coastline. We might have to wait them out.”
“How long?”
“Hopefully they won’t make us wait too long. I’m not a very patient guy when piña coladas are at stake.”
“How far is it between Gallant and the coast?”
“Twenty-five miles, give or take. The problem isn’t the distance—it’s the not knowing how many guys with guns and bad intentions are waiting for us between here and there.”
“Captain Optimism,” Gaby said.
“That’s what Carly said when I told her about our present dilemma.”
“They’ve been out there for a while. What’s their fuel situation?”
“I’ve been told that they’re dealing with it.”
“Is that good or bad?”
He shrugged. “That’s what I said.”
She heard voices from the back of the bank and glanced over. Nate had left the office door open, and she could hear him talking with Mason but couldn’t quite make out the conversation.
“What about Mason?” she asked.
“What about him?” Danny said.
“Does he know what’s waiting for us out there?”
“His knowledge is getting more limited the farther south we get. He only knows what he knew before Starch. Everything after that is all Greek to him.”
“Then why are we keeping him around?”
Danny gave her an amused look. “You sick of him already?”
“I’ve been sick of him since Starch, and I still don’t believe he doesn’t know anything about what happened to Alice and Taylor. I just don’t see any reason to keep dragging him along if he’s outlived his usefulness, Danny. ”
“Wow, talk about breaking my heart,” a voice said behind her.
She looked over at Mason coming out of the back hallway with Nate. The collaborator was still wearing the same black uniform they had captured him in back at Starch. His face was grimy with dirt and sweat—which ironically made him perfectly at home among them—and the only thing clean on him was the bandage around his right leg. He walked with a noticeable limp and a grimace, his reward for trying to kill them a few days ago.
“After all we’ve been through, too,” Mason added.
“Give me one reason why we should keep you around,” she said.
“Because I’m still more valuable to you alive than dead. You can use me—and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but what the hell—as a hostage, if it becomes necessary. And yes, I do think it’s going to be necessary.”
“Bullshit. You’re just trying to talk your way into staying alive. You’re not important to them. You never were.”
“Then why have they been tracking you all the way from Starch?”
There was just a ghost of a smile on his pale and cracked lips, probably because he knew a full-blown smile would have just pissed her off, and Mason, for all his faults—and the man had many of them—wasn’t stupid.
“Good question,” Danny said. “So, tell us, ol’ popular one, what makes you the bee’s knees? And don’t say it’s because of your stinky armpits, ’cause I’m sure I got you beat on that one.”
“It’s a secret,” Mason said.
“Is that right?”
“You can try to beat it out of me, but I’m still not going to tell you.”
“I don’t know, I’m pretty good at beating things out of people. Just ask Johnny Paulson back in middle school.”
“The difference between me and Johnny Paulson? I know keeping quiet is the only way to stay alive. The second I tell you, I’m a dead man. And I really, really like staying alive.”
Danny exchanged a look with her, then she did the same with Nate. She wasn’t sure if either one of the men believed Mason, but she got the feeling they were like her: They didn’t believe a thing that came out of his mouth, but they couldn’t disregard it out of hand, either. And that, ultimately, was what Mason was going for.
“You’re a tricky little bugger,” Danny said, pointing a finger at Mason. “You know what happens to tricky little buggers? They eventually overstay their welcome and end up being stuffed into ventilation shafts. And trust me, buddy, I know my ventilation shafts.”
“I don’t know what any of that means,” Mason said.
“Think about it.”
“I’ll pass.”
“I don’t believe you,” Gaby said.
The collaborator grinned at her. “Just ask yourself one question, sweetheart: How do you think I’ve stayed alive this long? It wasn’t because of my good looks.”
She bristled at the word sweetheart but pushed through it. The last thing she wanted was for Mason to see that he had an effect—any kind of an effect—on her with his words. It was a weak man’s weapon because right now, that was all he had.
Gaby stared at him. “The second you prove you’re no longer valuable, I’m going to end you.”
“I believe you,” Mason said.
“Good. Because when the time comes, you won’t be able to say I wasn’t honest with you.”
He smiled defiantly back at her, but she couldn’t help but notice that this time it wasn’t nearly as convincing.
Crack!
Danny, looking down at the well-worn map of Texas spread out on the bank’s island counter, snapped a quick glance at the windows that faced the street. He hadn’t said anything when two more shots, about three seconds apart, crackled across the city even before the first one had fully faded.
“Same rifle?” Gaby asked.
Danny nodded. “Bolt-action. Heavy caliber.”
“What are they shooting at—” Nate said, when the pop-pop-pop of an automatic rifle cut him off.
“Someone’s shooting back,” Gaby said.
“Is that good?” Nate asked.
“Good, bad, as long as they’re not shooting at us, that’s all that matters,” Danny said. He pushed off the counter and moved across the bank lobby to the front windows.
More gunfire washed up and down the street outside. It took her a moment, but there was enough of a sustained volley that Gaby managed to trace its origin back to the highway. Had the two collaborators in the Jeep found someone to shoot at, or had someone found them?
“Pack up,” Danny said.
Gaby folded up the map and pocketed it. “Are we leaving?”
“I don’t think we have a choice, kids. All that racket’s doing is drawing a whole lotta attention our way. Pretty soon we’ll be up our butts in bad boys in black uniforms, and I don’t know about you two, but I’d rather avoid that uncomfortableness.”
Gaby exchanged a nod with Nate, and he hurried into the back where they were keeping Mason. She snatched up her rifle leaning against the counter and grabbed her tactical pack from the floor. The weight of the ammo in the bag instantly reassured her.
A soldier who complains about too much ammo is a dead one, right, Will?
Danny was s
till peeking out the blinds, looking in the direction of the gunfire. The familiar crack of the high-powered rifle, followed by the torrent of pop-pop-pop of automatic return fire. Someone, somewhere, was wasting a lot of ammo. Will, she thought, would never approve.
“Danny, anything?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Can’t see shit, but they’re not outside, and that’s the good news. The bad news is that I can’t see shit from in here. Did I mention that?”
“It sounds like it’s coming from the highway. You think it might be Mercer’s people?”
“That would be my guess.” Danny glanced over as Nate brought Mason out from the back, keeping the shorter man in front of him. “Looks like we might be putting your supposed importance to test sooner than you think, Mason ol’ chum.”
“Looking forward to it,” Mason said.
She looked past the collaborator and at Nate behind him. “Ready?”
“Good to go,” Nate nodded.
Nate’s pack jutted out from behind his back, making him look like a hunchback. Unlike hers, his was bulkier, because aside from his own ammo, he was also carrying most of their emergency rations. They had more supplies in the truck outside, but they had learned the hard way it was a good idea to carry whatever you could on top of that because you never knew when you might lose your vehicle to an A-10 Warthog on a strafing run.
“Okay,” Danny said, “let’s blow this three-horse town.”
He rushed into the back hallway, Nate and Mason turning and following close behind, while Gaby brought up the rear. She glanced behind her at the closed blinders one last time before crossing the lobby after the others.
Outside the bank the firefight continued, the booming crack! of a bolt-action rifle now overlapping with the pop-pop-pop of return fire. Whoever was out there, they sounded determined to end one another.
Better them than us.
It was an older model red Toyota pickup, one that Danny had found in someone’s garage after the vehicle they had been using since Starch died on them. The Toyota looked nearly as beat up as the building it was hidden in, but its owner had kept it in good condition and it worked without any trouble once they replaced the battery and fed siphoned fuel into its tank.
The Purge of Babylon Series Box Set, Vol. 3 | Books 7-9 Page 42
