It was a bloodbath, not that he could see any “blood” out here. What liquids he could make out over the shadows were all black, some gathering in thicker puddles than others. The creatures had swarmed the slayers to no avail. But there had been a lot of them, Oliver was right about that. Morning sunlight would give him a more exact count, but Keo thought there had to be at least thirty bodies out here.
The door was wide open behind him, and there was a long line of more undead things stretching from it to the back hallway. Horse had come outside along with Keo, and the thoroughbred was grazing in the open, far away from the nearest dead ghoul or their blood. Like Keo, it was taking advantage of the opportunity to stand around in the night. Even the birds in the trees and the animals in the surrounding woods had returned to making noises now that the threat was over.
Keo noticed the slayers were watching him, waiting for a response.
“I have no idea,” he finally said. “I was trying to catch some Z’s when they knocked on my door.”
“And you’ve never seen them before?” Oliver asked. He didn’t sound like he bought Keo’s answer.
“These ones?” Keo shrugged. “One dead ghoul looks the same as another dead ghoul to me.”
“That’s such a living person thing to say,” Oliver smirked.
“I’ve been accused of a lot of things, but that’s a new one.”
“You Japanese?” Chloe asked. Then, before he could answer, “I was always into manga when I was a kid. Then I graduated to anime.”
“I don’t know what any of that is.”
“What kind of an Asian are you?”
“The kind that doesn’t know what manga or anime is, apparently.”
“I saw one of them staying away from the fight,” Lam was saying. He had said it so somberly that they all looked over at him. “It had blue eyes.”
“Yeah, I saw it, too,” Chloe said, serious again. “I don’t know when it took off, though.” She might have shivered slightly while doing her best to cover it up. “That’s the first time in a while.”
“A lot of first times tonight,” Willis said.
“I didn’t see it,” Oliver said.
“It was there,” Chloe said.
“I believe you. I just didn’t see it.” He looked back at Keo. “What did you see?”
“They’re right, it was here,” Keo said. He jerked a thumb at the door behind him.
“It did that?” Oliver asked. When Keo nodded, he climbed up the porch, took out a flashlight, and inspected the damage.
“What’re you guys doing back here?” Keo asked Lam and Willis. “I thought you were dead set on committing suicide by heading into Houston?”
“We were,” Willis said. “Still might anyway. But that was before we ran into Chloe and Oliver.” To Chloe: “Tell him.”
“We were tracking them,” Chloe said. “The ones that attacked your place.”
Not my place, just some poor bastard who is probably dead, along with his family, Keo thought, but didn’t think the information was relevant, so he didn’t interrupt her.
“Like Oliver said, it’s been a while since we’ve seen this many in one place,” Chloe continued. “A literal swarm of ghouls. And they weren’t staying put. They were moving. We stumbled across their tracks outside of Kerry’s Mills, about ten miles from here. We were doing a job for the locals; three ghouls were snacking on livestock. Oliver thinks those three probably broke off from this group.”
Lam glanced back at the bodies in the yard. “That’s a goddamn lot of ghouls. You don’t see something like this every day. At least, not anymore.”
“It was definitely a blue eye,” Oliver said. He hopped off the porch and put his flashlight away. “I’ve seen those things take out whole buildings. Strong bastards. Fast, too.” He gave Keo what might have been a slightly impressed look. “And you survived it.”
I survived it again, he thought. Maybe.
“Barely, thanks to you guys,” he said instead.
“When did you get that?” Oliver asked, tracing one side of his face with a forefinger. “Before or after?”
“After.”
“Wanna tell me about it?”
“What are you, writing a book?”
“He is writing a book, actually,” Chloe said.
“The Ghoulish History of the World,” Oliver said, before shrugging. “It’s just a working title.”
“You got a publisher for it yet?” Keo asked.
“Still looking. You know anyone in New York who might be interested? I’d hate to end up in the slush pile.”
“Everyone in New York’s dead, as far as I know.”
“Dead schmead, as long as they know how to sell books,” Oliver said. “Speaking of dead, you mind if we bunk here for the night?”
“You’ve earned it,” Keo said. He stood up, before adding, “You’ll have to, uh, help me clean up the mess first, though.”
It didn’t take them long to drag the bodies into the yard, and Keo got away with not doing the hard work by telling them he’d been shot earlier and showing them the bandages around his waist. Afterward, Oliver and Chloe took the master bedroom at the back, while Keo settled into the same kids’ room. Horse remained in the great room with Lam and Willis, and the last thing Keo heard was Chloe moaning on the other side of the wall before he drifted off to sleep for the second time that night.
He dreamt of Blue Eyes, chasing him through the woods. He was alone, and unarmed, and it was just him and the monster.
“Where are you going, funny man?” the creature called after him. “Tell me a joke. Tell me a funny story before I rip your guts out and eat your intestines.”
But he didn’t stop, and kept running, and running some more even when he didn’t think he could anymore.
“I’m going to play with you,” Blue Eyes shouted after him. “You’ll beg me to kill you, to end it, but I won’t… It’ll be fun. For me, at least. But for you, it’ll be an everlasting nightmare…”
He woke up three times during the night and gave up sleeping after the third instance.
Lam and Willis were already up before Keo stumbled outside. The two slayers were dragging the leftover remains of dead ghouls—mostly bleach-white bones and deformed skulls now, in the light of day—into a large hole they had dug toward the edge of Henry’s front yard. Both men had their half-masks on, covering their nostrils and mouth to keep out the smell, but even so they looked pale and were sweating profusely under the rising sun.
The stench of evaporated ghoul flesh clung to the air around the house and hit Keo like a semi truck as soon as he stepped onto the porch. He pulled his shirt up and over the lower half of his face and kept it there. No wonder the slayers always wore half-masks. It was ideal to stave off the stink whenever they had to “go to work.”
Horse was already up and on the other side of the property chewing on leaves dangling off hanging branches. There were no signs of Chloe and Oliver, and Keo assumed they were still asleep inside the house.
It took Lam and Willis two more hours before they tossed the last bones into the hole and began to fill it back up. By the time they were done, there were just little bits of evidence—a bony finger here, a shattered limb there—that there were ever thirty or more undead things here just last night.
He looked around him and wondered how many other hidden mass graves, similarly filled with deformed bones and skulls, were in just this part of the world. He could never forget that day when the creatures started pouring out of the buildings, stepping out into the sunlight and dying (again) before his eyes. One after another, after another. People called it The Walk Out, and only a handful of people really knew why it had happened. Some called it a miracle.
Keo went back into the house and came out with two warm bottles of water and tossed them to the slayers as they sat on the porch.
“Cheers, boys,” Keo said.
“Appreciate it,” Lam said, and drank his all in one gulp.
Willis
went a little easier on his and pulled down his mask just long enough to down half of the bottle before pulling it back up. “So did you find them?” he asked, his voice slightly muffled. “The mother and daughter you were looking for?”
“I found one of them,” Keo said.
He told them about Jonah’s and his encounters with the Buckies. He left out the skirmish with Blue Eyes in the woods, mostly because he still couldn’t decide if it, being the same one from last night, terrified him or—
Oh, who are you kidding. Terrified is definitely the right word for it.
“You think she’s in Fenton now?” Lam asked. “How sure are you?”
“That’s where they would have taken her,” Keo nodded.
“Maybe they didn’t,” Willis said. “I’ve seen some bad things out there. A woman like that—the way you describe her…” He shook his head.
Keo knew exactly what he was trying to say. He remembered Wendy in her apartment with the line of Buckies waiting outside her door for their turn...
He sighed, said, “I gotta believe she’s there. Even if she isn’t, I have to make sure. I promised the kid.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Willis said. “I never do.”
“Yeah, well, now you tell me.”
Willis chuckled.
“Fenton,” Lam was saying, shaking his head. “That place… Something’s going on in that place. Something I don’t want any part of.”
“Lam’s right,” Oliver said, coming out of the house behind them. “Chloe and I thought about going inside when we ran across it, but… I don’t know. We both got this bad vibe, like we might not come out if we went in.”
“Same with us,” Willis said. “There’s some seriously bad juju coming outta there, man. I’d steer clear, if I were you.”
“These Buckies,” Oliver said, “they’re the ones with the M in the white circles?”
Keo nodded. “That’s them.”
“What’s the M stand for?”
“I don’t know,” Keo lied. “But I’ll be sure to ask them when I get to Fenton.”
“I’m sure they won’t mind telling you,” Willis chuckled. “Just make sure they’re not pointing their guns at you when you do.”
“Sound advice if I ever heard some, thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Still going to Houston after this?”
“We’re actually thinking about going around it, try our luck someplace else before moving on to another state. Maybe eventually end up in Cali. See if there are more opportunities over there.”
“Was is something I said?” Keo smiled.
“Don’t look so proud of yourself,” Lam snickered. “Mostly it’s because we’re running out of opportunities in Texas. Besides, ghouls aren’t the only dangerous things out there these days.”
“You scared, Lam?”
“I didn’t get into this to kill people. I’d rather avoid that whenever I can.”
“Too bad,” Keo said. “I could definitely use your help in Fenton.”
Oliver shook his head and gave Keo an almost sympathetic look. “It’s your funeral, man. You should be careful, though; after last night, you might not have a whole lot of lives left.”
Keo flashed back to the sight of Blue Eyes standing in the doorway, staring in at him.
Was it the same one from the woods outside Jonah’s? And if it was, was it following him? Or was it hunting him?
“Yeah, careful’s the name of the game,” Keo said instead.
The slayers left an hour later to get a jumpstart on their journey. He heard Chloe telling the others that maybe they should “get a car, so we don’t have to walk everywhere,” as they disappeared into the woods.
Keo spent some extra time in the house checking on, then changing the dressing around his waist. The pounding along his skull had ceased when he woke up this morning and continued to be MIA, but he took a couple of more pills anyway just in case.
Horse remained outside the entire time, occasionally disappearing into the woods but always returning. Keo didn’t know where it kept going or why, but it was waiting for him in the yard when he came back outside, feeling as fresh as he had since, well, before he got shot.
After going through some of the supplies Jonah and Sherry had given him, Keo replenished what he needed from Henry’s pantries that the slayers hadn’t needed. He tossed the packs over Horse’s saddle before giving the thoroughbred a tap on the head.
“You know where I’m going, right? It’s going to be dangerous. So you should know what you’re getting into.”
The horse looked back at him before letting out a brief snort.
“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Again.”
When he climbed onto the saddle there was a slight irritating buzz from his side, but it was nothing like yesterday. Not even close. That was either a sign he was healing up nicely or the meds were working.
Either/or.
He left Henry’s property, slipping into the woods before aiming northwest. He had memorized a map of the area, and his current route would take him around Winding Creek, then back near Princeville, before he would eventually end up at Fenton. Keo didn’t really know what he would do once he reached his ultimate destination, but he guessed that would mostly depend on what he found.
“Something bad’s going on in that place,” Oliver had said.
“There’s some bad juju coming outta there,” Willis had added.
It wasn’t like he had any choice, though. Emma was in there. Probably.
Probably? This is one hell of a trip just for “probably,” pal.
Keo let out a loud sigh and thought to himself for the thirtieth time since leaving Jonah’s behind about what he was doing. All of this, because he had promised a little girl?
No, it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t that simple.
He liked Emma. He liked her a lot. She’d been good to him, treated him well, and even allowed him into her bed. He still regretted not staying the night at least once.
Couldn’t you have done it just once, you idiot? Just once?
But he hadn’t, and it was too late to change that.
Well, maybe not too late, but rectifying that mistake would mean first finding Emma, then rescuing her from the Buckies, and then…
And then what?
He had no idea.
He skirted around Princeville, listening for activity coming from the state highway that ran through the city. There wasn’t any—no car engines, no human voices, and nothing that would indicate human beings other than himself were present in the area.
Fenton was farther north, and Keo continued on with a mixture of dread and anticipation.
“There’s some bad juju coming outta there,” Willis had said, and Keo thought he could feel some of that “bad juju” right now even if he didn’t necessarily believe in such things. The only reason he kept going anyway was the thought of Emma, in trouble, and Megan waiting for her mother.
He liked them. Both of them. God help him, but Keo had come to enjoy their company. There was Emma’s great food and all those useless chats with Megan at his cabin after school. But most of all, he just liked them.
And the Buckies had hurt them.
They had hurt Megan and Emma, and they still had Emma. They were probably hurting her right now, and the more he thought about that—the more he focused on that—the angrier Keo got.
By the time he was within a mile or so of Fenton, Keo was ready to kill someone.
Thirty-One
There were three of them, and they were camped in a small clearing that looked as if it had been put to use previously in the very recent past. He identified them as Buckies right away by the white circled M in the middle on their assault vests.
They were armed with gun belts and had rifles leaning nearby, and all three had two-way radios clipped to their hips. They had built a fire and were spit roasting something that looked like a small fawn. Keo saw the smoke coming f
rom their campfire a hundred meters away and climbed off Horse and walked the rest of the way over, listening for signs of more Buckies in the area the entire time. He was too close now that the last thing he wanted was to lose his element of surprise.
What element of surprise? You’re walking right into a big ol’ mess of bad guys.
He ignored the voice and pushed on.
He heard them talking—loudly—as he got closer; they clearly had no cares in the world. And maybe they didn’t need them, this close to Fenton. He was the one who was almost behind enemy lines—if he wasn’t already, depending on how wide those “lines” were. As far as he knew, there could have been a dozen camps like this one around Fenton, some kind of loose outer perimeter, perhaps. The slayers hadn’t mentioned seeing them, but it would have been easy to walk right by given how thick and plentiful the woods were in this part of the state. Keo would have done exactly that if he hadn’t spotted their smoke.
He made sure the MP5SD was on semiauto when he left Horse behind and walked the final ten meters or so. The thoroughbred seemed to understand his intentions and didn’t follow. Either that, or it didn’t care enough to follow him.
Either/or, Keo thought as he went into a slight crouch and looked out from behind a massive tree trunk into the clearing.
A man was working the metal contraption they were using to spit roast their meal, which further convinced Keo this was a regular spot because that rotisserie looked way too heavy to be moved back and forth. The Bucky—thirties, with sandy blond hair—was applying a generous coat of sauce from a plastic Tupperware box onto the skinned fawn with a brush, while another man peeled potatoes he was pulling out of a sack on the ground next to him. The third and last Bucky was digging into his tactical bag and finally found what he was looking for.
“My man,” Sandy Blond laughed when he saw the third guy pull out a six-pack of beer, except there were only four left.
“Never leave home without it,” Six-Pack said. He peeled one off and tossed it to Sandy Blond, then sailed the other one at Mr. Potato.
Road To Babylon Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 27
