The Fires of Atlantis (Purge of Babylon, Book 4) (37 page)

“They played games with them,” Lance said, and his eyes drifted over into the fields that surrounded the property. “It’s so quiet at night, you can hear a long way even through walls.”

Annie reached over and squeezed Lance’s hand.

“What about the house?” Will asked. “What happened to it?”

“We burned it down,” Lance said. “After last night, there wasn’t any point in staying. And they were in there…”

“They?”

“The creatures. They were hiding in the basement. When we came out of the secret room, we could hear them moving around under the house.”

“Lance thought we might be able to kill a few of them,” Annie said. She was staring back at the house now. The smoke had all but vanished, leaving behind just a twisted, blackened carcass. “I don’t know if it worked, or if the basement is still down there under all that. Should we…find out?”

Will exchanged another look with Danny.

“There could be a couple of Mister Blue Eyes down there,” Danny said. “Might be worth it to find out.”

“Through that?” Will said. “It’d take the whole day to sift through the wreckage. We don’t have that kind of time with Gaby still out there.”

“You mentioned her before,” Lance said. “Who’s Gaby?”

“A friend of ours. We’ve been looking for her since Dunbar.”

“We saw a lot of vehicles coming from Dunbar all morning.”

“Was one of them a Silverado truck?” Danny asked.

“I don’t know, I didn’t see one. Annie?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what a Silverado looks like. And I only got glimpses of them from the barn.”

“But there was something else,” Lance said. “We heard shooting from farther up the road.”

“How long ago?” Danny asked.

“I don’t know, I think thirty or forty minutes?”

“The timing’s about right,” Will said. He looked back at Lance and Annie. “You guys can come—”

“Yes,” Annie said before Will could even finish.

Lance grinned sheepishly. “What she said.”

T
he Chevy Silverado
was inside a ditch, resting on its back bumper with the front grill facing the cloudless sky. Harsh sun beat down on its chrome and hood, streams of sunlight piercing bullet holes that stitched the front windshield. There was a dead man outside the driver side door with two bullet holes in his chest. All the car windows were broken, with glass sprinkled liberally over the seats and spread out among the splashes of blood.

Will climbed up the ditch and back onto the highway, where the Bronco idled in the road. Lance and Annie were standing outside in the sun glancing around.

“Bad news?” Lance said, looking over.

“Not good news,” Will said.

He blinked up the road at Danny, walking back from a lone red pickup parked across one of the two-lane roads. He was dropping spent bullet casings from one hand.

“Anything?” Will called.

“There was a second car,” Danny shouted back. “Some kind of half-assed roadside ambush.”

“To stop the Silverado.”

“Looks like it. And these,” he said, flicking one of the bullet casings in Will’s direction.

Will crouched and picked up a 5.56x45mm brass casing. Assault rifles. Probably M4 or AR-15. God knew there were plenty of those just lying around these days.

God bless the Second Amendment.

“There’s a dead body up there,” Danny said. “Poor bastard decided to go up against the Silverado and—surprise—lost. Any signs of Gaby?”

“No, and that’s a good thing.”

“Pray tell.”

“No body means she’s still alive.”

Danny peered up the road. “They must have taken off in the third car. That thing’s leaking motor oil. I get the feeling they intended to dump it, grab the first vehicle that came across their little slapdash barricade, but—” he looked over at the undercarriage of the Silverado “—I’m thinking that didn’t quite work out as planned. That car can’t be moving very fast at all. If we haul ass…”

“So let’s get to hauling,” Will said.

D
anny was
able to track the motor oil stain on the highway from the Bronco’s driver seat. This way, they would know if the vehicle unexpectedly left the road. It hadn’t so far. Will just hoped they could catch up to it before it reached the interstate up ahead. It was going to be difficult, leaking motor oil or not, after that.

He hung out the window listening for sounds that didn’t belong and scanned the horizon just in case the trail they were following proved deceptive. Lance and Annie pitched in, the couple leaning out their windows while armed with Will’s and Danny’s binoculars.

They were ten minutes into the pursuit when Will said, “How’s it looking?”

“It’s looking,” Danny said. “Whatever they’re driving, it’s leaking good. No wonder they were so hot to switch vehicles. I’m guessing the red pickup must have been in worse condition or else they would have taken it instead.”

“We’re pushing up on time here, Danny. If we don’t find her and hit the interstate soon, we’re not reaching Song Island by tonight.”

“I know, I know.”

They drove on for another few minutes, the only sound coming from the wind rushing through the vehicle and the engine churning under them.

Behind them, Lance asked, “Anything?”

“Nothing,” Annie said. “Just a lot of empty land. God, there is so much emptiness out here. We were so lucky to find the house.”

“Yeah, lucky.”

“I mean before last night,” Annie said softly.

“I know what you meant, babe. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Will imagined them smiling at each other back there, trying to comfort one another as best they could. The same way he would do with Lara...

“Aw, shit,” Danny said beside him.

Will looked out the windshield and saw it.

A lump in the road:
a body.

Danny slowed down as Will picked up his M4A1 and looked into the back at Lance and Annie. “Stay inside.”

They nodded silently back.

Danny stopped the Bronco, and Will opened the car door and hopped out. He heard Danny’s door opening behind him, but he was already moving quickly toward the body, scanning the ditch to his right and the landmass beyond. He didn’t bother with his left side because he didn’t have to—Danny was covering it. Traces of leaked motor oil zig-zagged in front of him, already drying in the heat.

The body was thirty meters away and Will reached it first. He felt a tightness in his gut at the sight of blonde hair blowing against a slight wind. The lump lay on its stomach, arms awkwardly folded under it, as if the woman had attempted to stop her fall as she fell.

She was wearing shorts, a long-sleeve shirt, and sneakers. Blood gathered under her, glimmering against the harsh sun. He crouched next to the body and slowly, almost hesitantly, turned the woman over onto her back.

A girl. Young. Maybe seventeen.

But not Gaby.

“Is it her?” Danny said behind him.

“It’s not her,” Will said.

The girl’s face was partially covered in blood, and there were deep cuts along her cheeks and temple, likely from glass. From far away, she might have been mistaken for Gaby, but Will knew Gaby’s face well enough to see through the scars and blood.

“They dumped her,” Will said. “She was probably still alive at the time.”

“One of the girls with Gaby?”

“Maybe.”

Will thought about searching the girl for clues but quickly dismissed it. She looked at peace, and considering what she had gone through, she didn’t need him digging around her pockets.

“What’s the word?” Danny said.

“Let’s go.” He got up and they jogged back to the Bronco. Will could feel the urgency in every one of his bones. “She’s still fresh. Five minutes. Maybe less. We’re catching up to them.”

“Shitty car,” Danny said. “They’re probably moving slow, too. Good for us and good for Gaby. We get her and head home. No muss, no fuss.”

“Yeah,” Will said, glancing down at his watch.

12:40 p.m.

Too close. We’re cutting it too close…

S
he was still dazed
from the pain, trying desperately to make sense of what was happening to them, when Harrison stopped the car and threw Donna’s body outside. Then he climbed back in and drove off, leaving Claire’s sister to die in the middle of the highway. She was vaguely aware of Milly sniffling next to her, just barely able to stop herself from outright bawling, while Claire pressed the rag down against Gaby’s mouth, trying to stop the bleeding from her broken nose.

Gaby’s entire body was on fire, and the scorching sun that turned the backseat of the old Dodge Neon into an oven didn’t help. She couldn’t tell how Claire was handling the situation because she could barely make out the girl’s face through the haze that blanketed her vision. Claire wasn’t crying—she could tell that much because the girl was so close to her—but Milly was doing enough of that for both of them.

Harrison had taken their weapons and tossed them into the trunk before putting all three of them into the vehicle. The handcuffs dug into Gaby’s wrists, but she found herself grateful for them because the biting metal sensation took away some of the pain coursing endlessly through the rest of her body. Every inch of her face hurt, and her nose was clearly broken. If only her high school friends could see her now, they might not even recognize her.

She struggled to sit up and was only able to do so with Claire’s help. The thirteen-year-old took the blood-soaked rag away because she wasn’t bleeding anymore. She couldn’t tell if the sun was overly bright this afternoon or if something was wrong with her eyes. Maybe a loosened socket or two. She wouldn’t be surprised if she was bleeding internally, too. It felt like it.

“Donna…” she said.

Claire, sitting to Gaby’s left, shook her head silently. The girl looked resolute in her determination not to let any emotion show on her face, though when she glanced forward at Harrison, sitting directly in front of her, the hate shone through. Milly had turned herself into a ball to Gaby’s right, arms folded across bent legs and her head placed between her knees, like a tortoise hoping to escape from all this.

Harrison drove in silence. What was that he had said when he pulled her out of the Silverado?

“Everything was going fine until you showed up. Everything that’s happened, it’s all your fault.”

Screw you, Harrison.

There were a lot of things wrong with that statement, but she was sure Harrison wasn’t in the mood to debate them. Not that she was, either, as her eyes drifted from his face, reflected in the rearview mirror, to the Remington shotgun lying across the front passenger seat, the stock facing him. As luck would have it, she had sat up in the middle of the backseat and there was nothing at all between her and the weapon. All she had to do was lean forward and reach for it—

Harrison’s eyes shifted, picking her up in the rearview mirror. “You’re up.”

Sonofabitch.

“What happened to Donna?” she asked.

“The same thing that’ll happen to you and the kids if you make trouble.”

“Donna wasn’t making trouble.”

“She was going to die anyway.” He shrugged. “I saved us both the hassle. You should thank me.”

I’ll kill you instead.

Claire tensed up next to her. It never occurred to Gaby just how small Claire really was until now. The driver’s seat completely covered her up, which meant Harrison couldn’t see her.

As the fog began to clear from her head, Gaby’s mind went to work. She turned over everything that had happened, that was happening, and that would likely happen if they were still here, in this car with Harrison, when night fell.

Options. What were her options?

She couldn’t think of one at the moment. The shotgun was her best bet, but with Harrison already alerted to her conscious presence, her chances of reaching it before he struck was, at best, fifty-fifty. At worse, he was baiting her so he could hurt her some more. She wouldn’t put it past him to play games. He seemed sadistic enough to get his jollies out of something like that. And there were the handcuffs. Grabbing the shotgun and using it was going to be problematic with her limited mobility.

Her other option involved Claire. The girl was able and willing to act, but how? Maybe, if Claire could distract Harrison long enough for her to reach the shotgun…

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Harrison didn’t answer right away. Maybe he didn’t know. She guessed that Interstate 10 was somewhere in front of them, at the end of Route 13. At the moment, the road looked never ending, just another mile of flat highway and sunburned farmland to the sides. There were so few houses and nonexistent businesses that they might as well be traveling across another planet. Mars, maybe. Was Mars this hot?

“The kids said you were taking them to an island,” Harrison said. “The radio broadcast. You believe it. About the bloodsuckers not being able to cross bodies of water.”

“Yes,” she said.

Stall for time. That’s what Will would do. He would stall for time while he came up with other options. Because there are always options.

I just have to see it…

“It’s true,” Gaby continued. “Silver bullets. Bodies of water. They’re all true.”

“And ultraviolet?”

“I don’t know about that one.”

She couldn’t tell if he believed her. His face, in the rearview mirror, was placid. But then it always looked that way. Even back in the VFW basement when he admitted to beating Peter to within an inch of his life because he
“had to be sure”
Peter was telling the truth. There was a casualness about Harrison that bothered her. That, and a clear mean streak, a desire to inflict pain because he could. It was as simple as that. Some people, she had come to learn, were just born mean.

I’m going to kill you, Harrison. It’s just a matter of time.

She must have been staring at him without realizing it, because Harrison looked up at the rearview mirror and snickered at her reflection. “You want the shotgun? Go for it. It’s right there. All you have to do is grab it. What are you waiting for?”

She didn’t move. She didn’t reply and didn’t grab for the weapon.

What are my other options?

She was watching Harrison’s face when she picked up something in the distance. A slab of gray concrete rising out of the ground like some mirage. At first she wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but the longer she stared, the more certain she was that it was the real thing.

Interstate 10! Finally!

Harrison saw it too, and he eased the Dodge down to a slower rate of speed. It wasn’t just the interstate in front of them that got his attention, but also the outlines of businesses on both sides of the road. Gas stations, maybe even strip malls. They were still too far away—a mile? two?—to really make out any details, but after so much nothingness, the sudden appearance (silhouettes?) of civilization was unmistakable.

Then Harrison stopped the car completely and leaned forward against the steering wheel, peering out the dirty windshield. It took her a few seconds to see what he was looking at: men on horseback, loitering on the road near the buildings, still so far away that they looked more like slivers of shadows than actual figures.

The posse. L15…

She knew immediately who they were and wondered if Harrison did, too. By the way he was staring—part confused, part intrigued—she wasn’t so sure.

“They’re soldiers,” she said.

He didn’t respond. Had he even heard her?

“They’ll kill you,” Gaby said, thinking,
And us, too. Or worse, they’ll take us back to the towns. Back to Josh. Back to the blood farms. Back to breeding for future generations of ghouls to feed on.

Harrison leaned back against his seat, his eyes still focused on the figures dancing across the highway toward them now. She could practically see through the back of his head to his mind as the gears turned, as he tried to come up with a new plan of action. The only path for him at the moment was to go backward. He couldn’t go around the soldiers, even if he could survive the ditches and attempt to go around them by using the open land. The Silverado hadn’t managed that feat, and it was a hell of a lot more powerful and sturdier than the car they were riding in at the moment.

Gaby looked over at Claire, saw the girl staring back at her. Waiting
(begging?)
for her to do something.

Options. What are my options?

The idea of staying another day with Harrison was too much. What would he do to her? To the girls? She couldn’t even understand why he kept her alive. Did he plan on using her for other purposes? She shivered at the thought.

The hell with that.

Gaby caught Claire’s eyes again and nodded her head slightly forward.

Claire gave her a questioning look:
“What?”

She rocked forward slightly—
just enough
—to let Claire know what she wanted her to do. The girl stared back for a moment, then a light went off behind her eyes. She nodded back and grinned.

That’s my girl.

Gaby steeled herself, turning forward again. Harrison was still concentrating out the windshield, both hands on the steering wheel, a foot no doubt poised over the gas pedal just in case. He hadn’t put the car in neutral, which was smart of him. But he hadn’t put it in reverse yet, either.

She took a big breath and snapped a quick glance at the shotgun resting on the front passenger seat. She looked just with her eyes while keeping her head facing forward.

How far? About four feet of space between her and the weapon.

Just four feet.

She could do it.

It was just four feet…

“Now!” Gaby shouted.

Claire rammed her entire body (all eighty or so pounds of it) into the front seat. She was so small and slight that she didn’t get nearly as much force into it as Gaby would have liked, but it was enough to rock Harrison forward, knocking him momentarily off-balance. He must have also stepped on the accelerator involuntarily, because the Neon lurched forward a good three feet before he was able to jam down on the brake again.

Gaby threw herself between the two front seats. She reached forward with both handcuffed hands, lunging for the shotgun. When Harrison stepped on the gas pedal, the weapon actually swiveled toward her, decreasing the distance between her and it. But as soon as her fingers brushed against the stock, Harrison stepped on the brake and the shotgun
slid forward
and off the seat and onto the floor!

With no choice and her body already stuck between the two front seats, Gaby changed course and swung left at Harrison. She balled her handcuffed hands into fists a split-second before she slammed them into the side of his face. She wasn’t sure if that little stunt hurt him or her more, because both her arms and entire body were vibrating from the impact.

Keep moving! Keep moving, or you’re going to die!

Gaby shoved the rest of her body through the front seats, and with her knees braced against the armrest—one knee actually dipped inside a cup holder—she rained blows down on Harrison, summoning as much force as she could muster with each strike. Her entire body screamed and her broken nose felt as if it would break free from the rest of her face at any second.

Harrison was caught off-guard and seemed to be struggling with keeping the car from going forward and warding off her attack at the same time. If her blows were having any impact, he didn’t show it, especially when he swung his right
(sharp)
elbow and caught her in the chest. Stabbing pain flooded her, as if she had been impaled by a sword.

Well, at least he didn’t go for my nose again,
she thought even as she fought through the bursting sensations and continued hitting him with her balled fists over and over again. Except now Gaby had begun using the steel handcuffs, angling the metal just right, in order to cut into Harrison’s temple and face with every successful contact.

Blood sprayed the air between them.

She must have done a hell of a better job than she thought, because Harrison took his foot off the brake and somehow stepped on the gas and the Dodge started moving forward again. His face was bloody, his eyes lolling in their sockets, and his body went slack against the seat.

Gaby stopped hitting him long enough to lean over his body, grab the door lever, and jerk on it. The door swung open and she leaned back, put both feet against Harrison’s shoulder, and pushed with everything she had. He didn’t fight her—he didn’t look as if he were capable of fighting her. Thank God he wasn’t wearing his seat belt, because his body toppled toward the open door and disappeared into the air, landing with a solid
thump!
against the highway moments later.

“Gaby!” Claire shouted behind her.

Gaby looked back at the girl, saw her pointing, and turned toward the front windshield.

The horsemen were coming right at them at a fast gallop. There had to be at least a half dozen of them, and there was no confusing the camo uniform they were wearing.

Josh’s soldiers. I hate it when I’m right.

She climbed into the driver’s seat, jammed a foot down on the brake, and pulled the gear into reverse. She grabbed the steering wheel and switched her foot over to the gas pedal, pushing down as far as it would go until she felt it touch the floor.

“Hold on!” she shouted.

Here we go again,
she thought as the Dodge began to reverse up the highway.

She struggled to keep it straight, using both the rearview and side mirrors, jerking the steering wheel left and right the entire time, trying to compensate for the drift. It was amazingly harder to drive backward than she had expected, but then, she knew that all too well. The last time she had tried this, she ended up in one of the ditches…

And the horsemen were coming
.
She had no idea horses could move that quickly.

She kept backing up, praying she was going straight enough. The last thing she needed was to go into the ditch
again.

“Left, left!” Claire shouted behind her.