The Fires of Atlantis (Purge of Babylon, Book 4) (23 page)

The boat roared to life, drowning out the sound of gunfire. Even so, he could hear the
buzzing
noise of bullets
zipping
past his head.

“Stay down!” Keo shouted.

Not that he had to. Both women looked permanently stuck against the bottom, Lorelei with her hands thrown over her head and Carrie doing her best not to look at the face of a dead man staring back at her with lifeless eyes.

The boat shot forward, fighting against his control. He got it turned around and pointed it down the lake even as bullets continued to
zip-zip-zip
around him, punching into different parts of the boat and vanishing into the brown water. He pushed the throttle up as far as it would go and the boat rocked, the bow lifting dangerously into the air as the motor poured on the power and the stern dipped, threatening to go under the lake’s surface.

Keo finally allowed himself to duck down into a crouch, still tightly gripping the steering wheel above him with one hand. Thank God the lake was wide enough that he didn’t have to worry about driving them right into the shoreline.

He threw a quick look back at the soldiers as they finally reached the dock he had just abandoned. A couple of the men were still firing, but the boat was already a good sixty, seventy meters away and putting more space between them with every passing second. Keo couldn’t even hear the sound of gunshots over the motor anymore, even when a bullet snapped off one of the windshield fragments in front of him and disappeared into the dashboard.

Close, but no cigar.

Soon the soldiers faded into the background, and Keo finally stood back up to take full control of the steering wheel. Carrie was rising next to him, looking back at the house. Lorelei was still on the floor, apparently having decided not to risk it, even if she was lying across a dead man’s legs.

“You okay?” he shouted at Carrie.

She nodded back. “You?”

“One piece.”

“Do we have enough gas to get to Song Island?”

He looked down at the gas gauge. It was almost at “E.”

Carrie frowned. “We’ll never make it!”

Keo nodded at the skinny trolling motor latched to the bow. “We’ll get there. It just might not be as fast as we want.” He looked up at the darkening skies and could feel Carrie tightening up next to him. “We’ll make it.”

She gave him a pursed smile. “If you say so.”

“I promise,” he shouted. “And I always keep my promises, even if it might take a while.”

“
K
ate
.”

“Hello, Will.”

“What are you doing here?”

She smiled at him. “I could ask you the same thing.”

The Kate he remembered smiled rarely. Which was how he knew all of this was a lie, even if it did feel, sound, and even
smell
real.

“You’re not really here,” he said.

“I’m not,” she said. “I know it’s hard to believe, Will, but I have things on my mind at the moment other than you.”

“Mabry’s keeping you busy.”

“I’m always busy.”

“Are you still in the state?”

“Maybe. But then, when has distance ever stopped the two of us? Whether you want to admit it or not, there is something that ties us together, you and I. A bond beyond the physical that you’ll never have with Lara.”

Lara…

Stop it. She can read your mind.

“Oh, Will. You still think you can keep things from me. Haven’t you learned by now? When I’m with you, I know everything. I know things you don’t even realize you know.”

“How are you in my head right now, Kate?”

“There are ways. So many ways that you can’t even imagine. What’s that saying you love so much, Will?
‘Know thy enemy’?
You’ll never know us. Never really know us. Which is why you’ll never win.”

They were still in Dunbar. He knew that much. Night was falling around him, but for some reason he wasn’t anxious at all, which didn’t make any sense. Every inch of him should have been tingling at the moment, itching to get indoors. Darkness was not his friend. It hadn’t been for almost a year now.

But of course, it was just a dream. Or a figment of his imagination. Or whatever the hell Kate did when she invaded his head.

Trying to make sense of it—any of it—was pointless.

She was wearing a long white dress. It was silk or gossamer. One of those. Almost see-through, though it played tricks with his mind, the hem billowing as if it had a life of its own. She looked radiant, long black hair glimmering under the falling dusk. He couldn’t have looked away even if he wanted to, and he didn’t want to.

“You always were a charmer, Will,” she smiled.

She’s in your head.

He forced himself to look away from her, to take in his environment instead. Occupy his mind with other thoughts that weren’t so dangerous.

Hide his secrets…

The street looked familiar, and it took him a moment to recognize the strip mall where the soldiers and the U-Haul had taken up residence earlier in the day. Except most of the men in uniform were dead, their bodies spread around the white and orange trailer in an almost semicircle. The gunfight he had listened to with Danny was over.

This is yesterday. Why am I seeing a day that’s already happened?

A man with red hair, wearing a military vest, stood over one of Josh’s soldiers. The injured man was lying on the parking lot looking up, one bloodied hand raised in some kind of meek defense. Neither one of them seemed to noticed that Will was watching them.

So this is what it feels like to be a ghost.

The man with red hair shot the soldier in the head with a 9mm handgun. Then he calmly ejected the magazine and put in a new one before looking over at the U-Haul nearby. “Open it,” the man said.

Big mistake,
Will thought, though he didn’t know why.

He heard giggling behind him and looked back at Kate. She stood a short distance away, hands clasped in front of her, a wicked, knowing grin spreading across blood-red lips.

“What’s in the trailer?” he asked her.

“You’ll find out,” she said.

“Kate,
what’s in the trailer?
”

“It’s a surprise. You still like surprises, don’t you, Will? You’re going to get a kick out of this one. It was my idea, you know. This town, this little city in the middle of nowhere, was becoming a nuisance.” The smile faded, replaced by something dark and dangerous. “Like a certain little island that should have stayed quiet. This is what happens when you stick your head out and get my attention, Will. I grab a hammer.”

The island. She’s talking about Song Island.

“Now pay attention,” Kate said. “This is where it gets really fun.”

He looked back at the man with red hair. There were others gathered around him now. Two dozen or so, mostly men, but a couple of women among them, all well-armed and loaded for bear. They had moved in a rough, jagged circle around the U-Haul, having emerged from the alleys and streets and buildings while he wasn’t looking. They stepped over the dead bodies, some going out of their way to move around the pooling blood. A few looked squeamish.

Only a couple of them seemed to notice the fading sunlight. The others, like the man with red hair
(the leader)
, was too busy focusing on the trailer at the center of the death and destruction. There were bullet holes in the sides of the orange and white vehicle. Stray bullets, he guessed, during the gun battle.

The man with red hair pointed at the U-Haul. “I said open it.”

Look up, you idiot. Look up!

But the man didn’t look up. Instead, he took another tentative step toward the parked vehicle, clenching and unclenching his handgun, one of those fancy Smith & Wesson semi-automatics.

Look up!

Two men with assault rifles moved toward the trailer and one of them grabbed the lever at the bottom, twisted it open, then pulled at the door—but it didn’t budge. He paused and exchanged a nervous look with his comrade before slinging his rifle and grabbing hold of the lever with both hands and this time really yanked.

Nothing. The door refused to move.

“It’s exciting, isn’t it?” Kate said gleefully behind him. “It was such an easy sell, too. Give them something mysterious, something intriguing. They couldn’t leave it alone even if they wanted to. Look at them, Will. Most of them are so caught up with it they don’t even notice the sun is disappearing, little by little, by little....”

She was standing right next to him now. He didn’t know how she had done that.

This is her dream. She can do anything she wants.

They were standing in the middle of the group, people with rifles fidgeting around them, more than a few looking nervously at the darkening streets, some even glancing at the blackening sky. So some of them
had
noticed the setting sun. But not nearly enough, he saw.

“Harrison,” one of them said. A woman. Will recognized her from the basement last night.
(Today? This morning?)
“We have to go, it’s almost dark!”

Harrison looked conflicted. He glanced back at the U-Haul, then at the others.

He’s target fixated. He’s so focused on what’s in front of him, he doesn’t see the danger coming up behind him. Or…above him.

“Yes,” Kate said. “That’s the idea. Not bad for a civilian, huh?

“Harrison!” the woman shouted. “We have to go now!”

The others were backing up, their precarious situation finally dawning on them. Half of them looked ready to turn and run, but something was holding them back. They kept shooting quick questioning looks at Harrison.

He’s the leader and they’re scared of him. Even with night coming, death waiting in the wings, they won’t run. Not without his permission.

Idiots!

“Harrison!” the woman shouted again. When Harrison still didn’t respond, the woman whirled on the others. “Everyone head to the designated safe buildings! Go! Now now now, goddammit!”

They finally moved. Some of them, anyway, but a few still hesitated, waiting for Harrison’s orders, though they too looked on the verge of fleeing.

Then even Harrison turned and ran.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” Kate said in a singsong voice, and he swore she might have cackled. Or maybe he just misheard?

The two men who had been trying to open the U-Haul had also turned to go when the door flew open behind them and the trailer actually
quaked
against the truck connected to it as something—some
things
—exploded with movement from inside.

There were two of them—no,
four—
coming out of the trailer.

Blue-eyed ghouls.

He recognized one of them instantly. It was the same one he had shot outside Ennis’s bar, who took the silver round and flinched but didn’t go down.

It didn’t go down.

The man who had been trying to open the trailer heard the vehicle squeaking and turned around. It was a mistake. He let out a piercing scream just before one of the blue-eyed creatures landed on top of him, pummeling his much larger frame down to the concrete floor. The ghoul bent and flesh tore and the man kept screaming as blood flowed.

The second man had made it almost out of the parking lot when he heard his friend’s howls. He spun around and let loose with his rifle on full-auto, shredding one of the blue-eyed monsters as it was almost on top of him. Blood and flesh were ripped from the creature’s skeletal frame, but it kept coming and seemed to smash into the man and drive him down behind a parked blue Chevy, where they both disappeared out of Will’s sight.

A woman stumbled and fell. She turned around on her back and was reaching for her sidearm when another of the blue-eyed things fell on top of her. She didn’t even get a chance to scream.

Then the ghoul was back up and running, its jaw slicked with fresh blood that was visible even in the darkness swallowing up whole sections of the streets. Gunfire exploded across the city, a continuous cacophony of gunshots and screams.

Then they came. The others. The black-eyed ones.

Harrison’s people were scattered—in buildings, alleyways, some poor souls trying to escape in the streets—and their cries filled the air along with the endless
pop-pop-pop
of automatic weapon fire.

“You wanted to know,” Kate said.

“You were here last night,” he said.

“No. But I have a strong link with the others.”

“‘Others’?”

“The other blue-eyed ones. Our bonds are stronger, and I can communicate with them over greater distances. Of course, even if I knew you were here, I couldn’t have come anyway. Like you said, Will, Mabry has me very busy these days.”

He heard
slurping
and looked behind him at a blue-eyed ghoul perched over one of Harrison’s locals. The man’s eyes were open and he stared up at the dark sky, mouth quivering as the ghoul suckled rabidly at his neck. The creature looked in a state of frenzy, like a man about to orgasm.

“You did this,” Will said. “You planned this…massacre.”

“Most of it. But I admit, I didn’t expect them to attack so fast and so ferociously. What’s that saying you soldiers have? No plan survives contact with the enemy?” She smiled. “Are you impressed, Will?”

“Yes…”

“There’s a reason Mabry chose me. He knew my potential.”

“The same reason you chose Josh? Because of potential?”

“The young ones are always the most malleable. But yes, he’s a lot smarter than many of these...” she looked around at the dead soldiers, the ones he had come to call Josh’s men, “…cannon fodder. This is what they’re good for. Josh and the other young ones will keep going. What’s that saying, Will? The children are the future. So true. So true…”

Will stared at the bodies spread around the parking lot. So many. Soldiers and locals. Spent bullet casings by the thousands. Pools of blood everywhere. And still, the shooting went on and on, along with the screams.

The screams…

“What now?” he said, turning back to face her.

But she wasn’t there anymore, and he was no longer standing in the streets of Dunbar.

Instead, he was in Ennis’s bar, the same one he and Danny had used as their last stand before escaping through the basement door. He was sitting on one of the stools at the counter, which wasn’t covered in dust and time like it had been earlier.

This is her domain. She can do anything, because none of this is real.

She’s not really here.

Right?

That didn’t explain how she was sitting on the stool next to him, wearing some kind of formal evening gown. It was bright outside the windows, and the sun glinted off her exquisitely long neck as she saluted him with a small glass of brandy. “To your health, Will,” she said, and took a sip.

“I didn’t know you cared.”

“You don’t think I worry about you? Running around out here? Trying to stop the inevitable? It’s like watching a child standing on the tracks trying to hold back a runaway train. You don’t hate the child, Will, you feel sorry for him, because you know the train is going to run him over. All you can really do is try to reason with him, get him off the tracks before then.”

“Is that what I’m doing, Kate? Standing on a train track?”

“What do you think, Will?” A bottle of brandy, the liquid inside brilliant orange against the glow of the sun, had appeared on the counter between them. Kate picked it up and poured him a glass. He wasn’t sure where the glass had come from, either. “Drink up, Will. We should talk.”

“What about?”

She poured with precision, another skill he didn’t know she possessed. Or was that the dream? Kate could do things in dreams that were impossible in the real world. But was this his dream or hers?

Or…theirs?

“What about? You, me, this world,” she said.

He stared at the glass. Was that real cognac inside? It smelled like it.

“I almost had you in Harvest,” she said, pinching her fingers together. “Missed you by that much.”

“You tried to kill me.”

“Don’t be silly. Death doesn’t mean what it used to anymore. You of all people should know that by now.”

Will picked up the glass and took a sip. The taste was sweet, followed by the familiar warm aftermath.

“The towns, the pregnancies,” she continued. “They’re all just the beginning. In ten, twenty years, you won’t recognize any of this. In a couple of generations, man will have forgotten they were ever in control of the planet.”

“Is that the long-term goal?”

“You say that as if there is a short-term one, Will. There isn’t. We’ve shed the mortal coil. Time is no longer the enemy. Days, months, years, even centuries. They mean nothing anymore. You have no idea how long they’ve been preparing for this.”