The Walls of Lemuria (16 page)

“Can you drive any slower?” Norris said through the radio. They had chosen Rachel’s car because it was better equipped to carry Lotte and her wheelchair in the back.

“What’s your hurry?” Keo said. “Damper isn’t going anywhere.”

“It’s going to have to wait a little longer, because the girls need to take care of business. I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs, either.”

“Already?”

“I’m fifty-six and retired, kid. I got cramps for cramps.”

Keo grinned. “Maybe we can grab you some diapers, too, while we’re at it.”

“Now you’re talking.”

“Up there,” Gillian said, pointing forward.

“We see something up ahead,” Keo said into the radio.

“Roger that,” Norris said.

Keo slowed down as they approached a combination gas station and diner. The roadside establishment had appeared unexpectedly out of the wall of green trees that surrounded it. A thick metal sign flopped back and forth in the wind, advertising gas for regular and diesel fuel. Even from a distance, the place gave off an abandoned vibe.

“Looks inviting,” Gillian said quietly.

“All we need is a mariachi band playing in the parking lot to welcome us in,” Keo said. “You have mariachi bands in Louisiana?”

“I’ve never seen one. But then again, Bentley is a town of 3,000 people, and I’ve never seen a six-one Korean guy in real life, either.”

Keo smiled. “First time for everything.”

*

“We’ll hit Corden
in less than ten miles,” Norris said. “There have to be other survivors there. It’s twenty times bigger than Bentley.”

“Bigger population, more of those things,” Keo said. “They multiply like rats.”

“Still, if we could pick up more people on the way, I’d feel better. Strength in numbers and all that.” He looked over at Gillian, standing nearby. “You’ve been to Corden?”

She nodded. “It’s a college town. Everything pretty much revolves around Louisiana Tech University.”

They were watching Rachel as she was wheeling Lotte back from a bathroom next to the gas station. Keo had searched the single room for them earlier just to be safe, though in the back of his mind he always wondered what he was going to do if there were one of those things inside. Likely he would have ended up wasting a couple of shells on it, only to back out of there in a hurry.

They had found both the diner’s and gas station’s windows uncovered, which made some kind of sense all the way out here. Keo guessed it was because there just weren’t that many people to “turn,” so there were no reasons for them to stick around. The creatures weren’t stupid. They went where the people were.

Where the food is…

Christine was eating from a bag of chips as she walked over with the other girls. The Doritos bag was one of many they had loaded up from the gas station. The entire store remained the way it was from two nights ago, with only a small pool of dried blood near the front doors. They had stocked up on as much as they could carry, including unopened cases of bottled water and soda. The junk food and chips would come in handy, but the boxes of beef jerky were the real prize. Those could last for up to a year—longer, if properly stored.

Keo hadn’t realized how little they had until they began cleaning out the gas station. He was hoping to find a weapon behind the front counter, but there was only a baseball bat. A back room also yielded very little, though he did pick up a couple knives from the shelves. What he wouldn’t give for a nice Ka-Bar…

“Let’s get this show on the road,” Norris said. “We hit Corden, then head south down toward Alexandria and straight to the base after that. We’ll pick up any stragglers we find along the way, but let’s not lollygag.” He blinked up at the sun. “The faster we get there, the better I’ll feel.”

Rachel helped Lotte into the back seat of the Durango while Norris stowed the wheelchair in the back. The girl could hobble on one leg for short periods of time, but they weren’t going to be rid of her wheelchair for a while. Keo and Norris agreed they’d have to make her a crutch soon, in case she needed to be more mobile.

Gillian tapped Keo on the shoulder and handed him a candy bar.

“Ah, you’re sweet,” he smiled.

“It’s just a Snickers bar, Romeo.” She opened one herself and took a bite. “How long are these going to last, anyway?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“You look like you’d know. So, do you?”

He shrugged. “Two to four months without refrigeration. Longer, if Fort Damper has something cold to put them in. So eat up. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.”

“There goes my diet,” Gillian said, before going quiet and glancing at the flat road behind them. “I keep expecting to see a car going by.”

“Me too. The quiet is unsettling.”

“Yeah…”

Norris blared the SUV’s horn behind them and leaned out the driver side window. “Come on, kids, you can suck face later.”

“Suck face,” Keo said. “I like the sound of that.”

“What are you, fifteen?” Gillian said, walking back to the Chevy. “You coming, lover boy?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Keo said, jogging after her.

He climbed back in behind the steering wheel as she settled into the front passenger seat. Gillian picked up a map from the floor and unfolded it in her lap. She took out a marker from the glove compartment and went back to work, jotting down the location of the gas station. She had done the same thing for every notable stop they had made since leaving Bentley.

“We’re not coming back here, Gillian,” Keo said.

“I know.”

“So why do it?”

She didn’t answer him until she had finished what she was writing, then refolded the map and slipped it back into the glove compartment. “I just want to make sure we don’t forget, that’s all.”

“Forget what?”

“That these places were once here, that once upon a time they served a purpose. I just want to remember them, even if it’s just some scribbling on a map.” She shrugged. “It’s stupid, I know.”

“It’s not.”

“Yeah?”

He started the truck. “No. Not at all.”

“Are you just saying that because you want to get in my pants?”

He smiled. “Not at all.”

“Liar.”

He cleared his throat. “So, you used to live in Corden?”

“Oh, that’s slick—” she started to say, but the words turned into a scream when
a gunshot split the air
and the windshield spiderwebbed.

Keo reached across the seats and grabbed Gillian’s head, pushing her down. She struggled against him, caught somewhere between paralyzing fear and surprise, but he was stronger and he managed to get her down just enough that the second and third shots smashed through the windshield and stitched the headrest of her seat instead of her head.

He stuck his free hand toward the dashboard and groped for the radio at the last place he remembered seeing it less than a second ago. Got a hold of something plastic and cold and pulled it down, pressed the lever, and shouted into it, “Drive, drive, drive!”

Keo dropped the radio just as bullets punched into the front hood of the Chevy and he heard the
ping-ping!
of lead slicing through metal. He didn’t look up—he didn’t have to—letting go of Gillian and grabbing the steering wheel with one hand and pulling the gear into drive with the other, then slammed his foot down on the gas pedal.

The truck lurched forward—
ping-ping!
as two more shots pierced the side and the rear passenger window shattered against a third shot—as Keo struggled to control the steering wheel. He pulled himself up into a sitting position just as he felt a slight bump and knew they were out of the parking lot and back on the highway.

He caught a glimpse of the shooter—no,
shooters
—coming out from behind the gas station as he sped off. Two men, both armed with assault rifles, but it wasn’t their weapons that got his attention. It was the fact that they were both wearing black shirts and black pants with the legs shoved inside black army boots, and their faces were covered in green and black paint. They were also wearing some kind of stripped down assault gear, and their waists bulged with pouches he was sure were stuffed with magazines for their weapons.

Ping-ping-ping!
as bullets punched into the side of the Chevy even as he drove past them, willing the truck to go faster faster
faster
. The gas pedal was completely pressed against the floor, and he would have shoved it all the way through the vehicle if he could at that moment.

The tires struggled mightily against his control, even with both hands gripping the steering wheel. The two shooters only stopped firing at Keo because they had begun shooting at Norris in the Durango, which was following him onto the highway. He thought he could hear the girls in the SUV screaming, but of course that was impossible with bullets flying around him—

And more shooters
were emerging out of the stretch of grass that lined the highway divider. (Jesus, how had he not seen them before?) There were two more of them, similarly dressed, their faces covered. One was firing an AK-47 and the rounds punched into the side of the Chevy behind Keo’s seat, one shattering the window.

Keo didn’t stop to find out if there were more of them somewhere out there. Four was enough. Four was goddamn too many already.

He kept the gas pedal shoved against the floor, hands on the steering wheel, and the truck pointed west up the road. He glanced quickly at his side mirror and saw the Durango keeping pace, swerving a bit on the road, just a split second before the image—and the glass—exploded in front of his face.

He looked up at the rearview mirror instead. The two shooters at the gas station had moved into the road and were shooting after them. They weren’t hitting much of anything at this distance, though Keo imagined they must have been aiming for the Durango behind him and not the Chevy. He hoped the girls had gotten down as low as they could go back there.

He pulled his foot off the gas pedal just enough to let the SUV catch up. He spotted Norris in the rearview mirror, leaning forward against the steering wheel. Norris’s own windshield was pockmarked with holes, but the vehicle seemed to be moving fine.

It wasn’t until they were far enough down the highway and he couldn’t hear any more shooting that Keo allowed himself to relax a bit and pulled his foot slightly off the gas pedal. He looked over at Gillian, picking herself up from the floor of the front passenger seat. She had glass in her hair and there was a small cut along her left cheek. She must not have noticed it as she sat back on her seat, crunching broken glass under her. She didn’t seem to have heard (or felt) that, either.

“Gillian,” Keo said.

She didn’t react to the sound of his voice.

“Gillian,” he said again, louder this time.

She finally looked at him. Her face was calm, but that was a façade. He had seen it before from civilians in the aftermath of a gunfight. The real her was in turmoil, every emotion she had ever felt in her lifetime swirling around inside her at this very moment, like ocean waves trying to drown her. He had felt the same thing during his first couple of combat experiences.

“Gillian,” he said a third time.

“Yes,” she said, and just saying that one word brought her back closer to the surface. She looked down at her hands. They were shaking in her lap. A drop of blood from her cut cheek dripped and landed on the back of one hand, and she finally noticed the wound. “Oh God, I’m bleeding.”

“It’s okay. It’s just a graze. You’ll be fine.”

She looked at him, and he didn’t think she believed him.

“Trust me,” he said. “I’ve seen people shot before. You’re not shot. You were just cut by flying glass. Okay?” When she didn’t respond, he said again, more forcefully, “Okay?”

She nodded mutely.

“I need the radio, Gillian,” Keo said, pointing to the two-way Motorola on the floor at her feet.

She picked it up, looking at it as if she didn’t know what she was holding, then finally held it over to him before reaching back up to her cheek to feel the cut. Her fingers came away with some blood, but thankfully not too much.

Keo pressed the transmit lever on the radio. “Norris, you still with me?”

“Yeah,” Norris said through the radio. It sounded like he was hyperventilating slightly. It took a moment for Keo to realize that he was, too.

In and out, in and out…

“You and Gillian?” Norris asked through the radio.

Keo checked on Gillian. She was still staring silently down at the smeared blood on her fingers. “We’re fine,” he said into the radio. “How’s everyone in your car?”

“The girls are freaking out,” Norris said. “What the hell happened back there? Who were those guys?”

Good question.

Who the hell were those guys? Where did they come from? Where did they get those weapons?

“I don’t know,” Keo said.

He looked down at his speedometer. He was still going well over sixty miles per hour. That meant Norris was, too. He took his foot off the gas a little bit more.

“Gotta slow down, Norris,” he said into the radio. “The last thing we want is to get into a wreck out here.”