The Gates of Byzantium (Purge of Babylon, Book 2) (46 page)

Two of the
people calling Song Island home were in the lobby, including a man named Tom, who Marcus had mentioned earlier. Tom was wearing khaki shorts and a gun belt, making him the first person Will had seen on the island who carried a weapon out in the open.

Tom was eating an apple and reading a book while sitting in an armchair behind the reception desk. He came over and shook their hands. The man had a strong grip, which fit his huge six-two frame. Will pegged Tom at 250, most of that muscle, which was quite a feat given the quality of food available these days.

Will thought right away,
Ex-cop
.

“
Mi casa es su casa
,” Tom said. “Or whatever the Spanish word for island is.”

“
Isla
,” Lara said.

“
Me isla es su isla,
then,” he smiled. It wasn’t quite as winning a smile as Marcus’s, of course.

The other person they met was a young kid playing some kind of space game on a fifty-inch LED TV in one corner of the lobby. He looked all of twelve. Marcus introduced him as Kyle, and the kid, hearing his name, glanced over and gave them a cursory look, though Will noticed he gave Gaby a little bit more time than the rest of them.

Kyle raised a lazy hand and said, “Hey.”

“What is that, an Xbox?” Josh asked.

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “You play?”

“A little.”

“I got
Halo
and
Call of Duty
and a bunch of other games here.”

“Cool.”

And just like that, Kyle looked back at his game, the rest of the lobby instantly forgotten. He was moving some kind of soldier through a futuristic battlefield.

Marcus chuckled. “Kid plays that thing day and night. I’d say he’s doing it to escape reality, but frankly, his mom says he was like that before this mess.”

“Kyle is Debra’s kid,” Karen explained. “You can’t blame the boy. Everyone has to cope in their own way.”

“There’s enough electricity from the solar panels to waste on games?” Will asked.

“We have more than we need here,” Karen said proudly. “Marcus, why don’t you show them to the rooms. I have a feeling the ladies are dying to see them.”

“Follow me,” Marcus said.

He led them past Tom, who had gone back to the reception desk and his book. Will glanced at the cover as they passed, catching the name of the author, Ludlum something, but not the title. Tom looked up and caught his eye, and they exchanged a brief, perfunctory nod.

Marcus continued into a hallway, leaving the lobby behind. “Basically, pick whichever room you want—there are plenty to go around. Obviously you should try to stick to the completed sections of the hotel. There’re a lot of nails and construction leftovers scattered throughout the unfinished portions. So if you’re feeling adventurous and end up stepping on a rusted nail, we might have to cut off a limb, and no one wants that.”

The hallway curved slightly to the right the farther they went. Most of the flooring was completed with more of the shiny black marble tiles, but the walls were plain white, and there was still uncovered Sheetrock lined with dried caulk in certain sections and heavy doses of spackling over drywall. Some light fixtures above them didn’t have covers or lightbulbs, and wires dangled from drilled holes. And these, he reminded himself, were the
finished
sections of the hotel.

Marcus told them about the hotel’s construction as they went.

The hotel’s floor plan consisted of a long hallway marked “Hallway A” (the one they were in now), with rooms to the left and right, the door numbers starting with A100 and counting upward. Hallway A was designed for fifty rooms, twenty-five on each side, and it was the only completed section of the entire building. There was supposed to be a complementing hallway running parallel to their left (“Hallway B”), connected by a series of hallways and hotel event rooms, but the developers had never gotten around to laying foundations. It was now impossible to tell where the other planned half of the hotel was supposed to go, thanks to the overgrowth of weeds.

As they moved through Hallway A, people began coming out of rooms to greet them. He wondered what they had been doing before now. Didn’t they already know newcomers were arriving on the island?

A young woman named Sarah came out of her room first. She was in her late twenties and had a daughter, Jenny, who was blonde and the spitting image of her mother. Sarah was friendly, while her daughter shyly introduced herself to Elise and Vera. The two girls enthusiastically introduced themselves back, but that didn’t seem to win the girl over, and Jenny slowly wandered behind her mother before disappearing into their room without a word.

“Don’t mind her, she’s a little shy,” Sarah said.

Will thought her voice sounded familiar, and Lara picked up on it, too. “You’re the voice on the recorded message,” Lara said.

“Guilty.”

“You don’t know how often we listened to that recording on the way over here.”

“Oh, God, I don’t know how to respond to that,” Sarah said, looking both pleased and a little embarrassed. “You guys should get settled in. Al and I are cooking up something good for tonight. I hope you like fish. That’s Al’s specialty.”

“As long as it doesn’t come in a can,” Lara smiled.

“Would fresh from the lake work?”

“God, yes.”

They continued up the hallway, where they met a man in his fifties—the Al that Sarah had mentioned. Al had a bit of a gut, and for some reason was trying to hide his bald spot with a comb-over. Will found that both odd and amusing.

“Finally, new blood!” Al bellowed at the sight of them.

Al’s belly shook a bit as he said it, from either too much food or too much beer, or maybe both. If it was the latter, Will wondered where Al was hiding the good stuff. In his room, maybe. He and Danny had lost their taste for beer over the last eight months. Beers were simply not meant to be drunk warm.

“Just got here myself,” Al said. “You guys play poker?”

“I only gamble with my life,” Danny said.

Al laughed. “When you guys get settled, look me up. I can’t get anyone here to give me a decent game.”

“We hear you’re a good cook,” Lara said.

“Good is subjective,” Al said. “But since I’m the only cook on this island, I guess that makes me technically the only good cook.”

Al chewed their ears off about fish and cooking for another five minutes until Marcus butted in and dragged them away.

Farther up the hallway, they met a young man named Jake, who came out of his room to meet them, along with his girlfriend Sienna. They were both in their early twenties, though Sienna, with her round, cherubic face, could have passed for a teenager. Both looked friendly enough.

“You cut the grass,” Will said to Jake.

The young man nodded. “Just the front grounds, mostly. We don’t mess with the back areas too much—no point since there’s nothing back there.”

“Welcome to Song Island. You’ll love it here,” Sienna said.

Carly sniffed Sienna. “I smell shampoo.”

“The hotel stocked up on shampoo and soap before all of this happened,” Marcus said, “so there’s plenty to go around. There are stacks and stacks of the stuff in the storage closets, and some in your rooms, I’m sure.”

“Oh, I think I’m going to love it here,” Carly said, smiling brightly at them.

Marcus led them farther up the hallway. “Let’s get you guys settled in. I know you’re all worn out just getting here.”

“How long ago did the others get here?” Lara asked.

“Al got here just two weeks ago, and Jake and Sienna were the first people who actually made it here because of the broadcast. That was about three months ago.”

Marcus finally stopped and turned around. “This is it. As far as we go. Feel free to choose any rooms you want. Most of them already have everything you’ll need—towels, blankets, et cetera—and everything else can be found in the supply closets that we passed earlier. Any questions?”

“Just one,” Danny said, way in the back.

“Yes, Danny?”

“You got hot showers here? My BO is even getting on
my
nerves.”

Carly sighed. “He’s not kidding.”

“Thanks, babe.”

“I got your back,” Carly smiled.

*

There were two
nightstands, one on each side of the bed, and a big dresser across the room. Metal brackets jutted out of the wall where a flat-screen LED TV was supposed to go. A big oval mirror hung from the wall next to the bathroom.

He had to admit, even a half-finished room at the Kilbrew Hotel and Resorts looked better than anything Harold Campbell had put together in his finished facility in Starch. It was certainly a step up from the basements they had been sheltering in during the trip here.

The floor had lush carpeting and a fan dangled from the ceiling. Not that they were going to need a working fan any time soon. The room was already cold, even though he had just turned on the air conditioner a few minutes ago. The bed was a queen, with fluffy pillows and a large blanket waiting for them. There was just a bit of dust, which meant everything had been prepared days—possibly weeks—ago.

Lara made a beeline for the bathroom, rubbing slightly at her left shoulder.

“How’s the shoulder?” he asked.

“It’s itchy,” she said, making a face. “I’m doing my best not to scratch it, but it’s really hard. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, Mister I’ve-never-been-shot.”

She disappeared into the bathroom, where he heard the sink faucet turning on and the squeak of plumbing not put to use until now coming alive. Then a second later, Lara shouting, “Yes!” followed by water pouring into the sink bowl.

“Found working plumbing?” he called over.

“What was that Gaby said?” she called from the bathroom. “Hallelujah!”

Will leaned the M4A1 and Remington against a comfortable-looking armchair in a corner next to a mini-fridge. He opened the fridge out of curiosity and found it empty. The fridge wasn’t plugged in, so he plugged it in and heard the small engine start up instantly. Satisfied that the outlets were working, he pulled the plug free.

Will walked across the room to the patio window and slid it open. He stepped out into the unfinished patio—really, just a half-circular concrete shape—and the heat immediately tried to reclaim him. He squinted in the sunlight and looked to his left, where he heard another window sliding open before Danny stepped out onto his own unfinished patio.

“Nice, a room with a view,” Danny said.

They looked across at about thirty meters of empty, undeveloped land and the wall of trees sprouting up on the other side. The grass in the middle was already up to five inches in some spots.

“Too much green, though,” Danny said. “I like my view a little more blue-ish.”

“How’s the mini-fridge in your room?”

“Wanting. I did find an uneaten mint in a corner. You?”

“Someone must have stolen our mint.”

“Bummer for you.”

“So what do you think?”

“About all this paradise?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s paradise.” Danny paused, then added, “It’s damn perfect. Sandy beaches, blue water, air conditioning, and working plumbing. What’s not to like?”

“Yeah,” Will said.

They didn’t have to say anything else, because it wasn’t necessary. He knew Danny was thinking the same thing.

It’s too perfect.

“Stay frosty,” Will said.

“I’m so frosty I can barely feel my fingers,” Danny said.

Will went back into the room, sliding the patio door shut behind him and feeling the cool breeze right away, thanks to a pair of vents along the ceiling. Will stood under one of them for a moment.

Lara came out of the bathroom with a big smile, her freshly washed face still glistening. She toweled down her wet hair, and he was surprised to see her just wearing panties and a lacy white bra, gauze tape covering up part of her left arm. “Bathroom definitely works. Haven’t used the shower yet, but it looks like it works, too. Won’t that be something? Two showers a day? How long has it been since we had working plumbing?”

“Since we left the facility.”

“It feels longer.” She walked over to the bed and sat down. “I’m going to need to change my bandages. You’re going to have to help.”

“Sure.”

“This place…” She ran the towel over her wet hair. “It’s safe, right? They’ve been here for eight months, and the ghouls haven’t attacked. They were right. It really is the sanctuary they promised.”

“It sounds that way.”

“But you don’t really believe it yet. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst?”

“Yeah.”

“Eight months, Will,” she said. “
Eight months.
And you saw how everyone is. They’re not afraid. I’ve seen fear, and these people…they don’t look afraid. At all.”

He nodded. Will didn’t take his eyes off her. The way her hair fell over her shoulders and the soft blue flicker of her eyes when she moved her head. He had never seen her happier, and he wanted desperately to keep her this way.

“What?” she said, finally looking over at him.

“Hmm?”

“You’re staring.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“I’m just reminded of how beautiful you are.”