The Ashes of Pompeii (Purge of Babylon, Book 5) (13 page)

He leaned back against the wall. It was still noon, so there were still over six hours until sunset. Nightfall was the enemy—had always been, would always be. Besides the darkness, and the creatures lurking inside it,
she
would come, too.

“Don’t worry,”
the blue-eyed ghoul had hissed at him last night.
“It’s not going to end that easily for you, Will. Kate made us promise her this time. I think she has big plans for you.”

Kate.

Where are you now, Kate? What are you doing? Are you waiting for nightfall, too? Or are you on your way here now, the way you made the soldiers transport your shock troopers to Dunbar in the U-haul?

Somehow, some way, all his actions—what he did or didn’t do—always seemed to be spurred on by Kate in one form or another.

Eventually, inevitably, it always seemed to come back to her…

*

He opened his
eyes to what sounded like hell on Earth and promptly sought out his watch in the semidarkness of the back room.

11:47 
A.M.

Shit.

The realization that he had dozed off despite having been knocked unconscious just hours ago was troubling, because it could have been a sign there was something wrong with him. Or, at the very least, a lingering effect of the blows he had taken to the head.

That, and he knew what those thunderous
brap-brap-brap
sounds coming from outside were without having to think about it. God knew he had heard and been around them often enough. Someone, somewhere, was firing a machine gun, and the
pop-pop-pop
that accompanied it meant a gun battle.

He stared at the door, waiting for it to burst open and for someone to run inside. Maybe Mason, the short guy in charge of this mess they called an operation. People were definitely running around in the store outside; the vibrations of boots racing frantically back and forth were hard to ignore. Shouting, too, though that was mostly lost in the back and forth gunfire.

It was chaos out there, which was both good and bad for him.

It was good that someone was attacking the soldiers. The phrase,
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend”
ran through his head.

Bad, in that he was stuck inside the back room of a gas station while men were shooting machine guns outside in the streets. Depending on how much gas was still left inside the tank under the Palermo
(Or the Chevron, either/or)
, there was a very good chance he could die in a raging fire sometime soon. Double the chances if someone had some kind of incendiary device and decided to stupidly use it.

Okay, so it was mostly bad.

He couldn’t tell who was winning or where the shooting was coming from, because it seemed to be some kind of running gunfight.

How many men did Mason have out there, and how many were attacking them? Better yet,
who
was attacking, and what were the chances they could be friends instead of foes? The only group he’d seen proactively attack the soldiers had been Harrison’s group back in Dunbar. And that, unfortunately, hadn’t ended very well for them.

“What you saw out there when you tried to come through was just a small part of it,”
Mason had boasted earlier.
“We have people everywhere.”

But how many of those people were here, now? Especially since the ambush had succeeded. He knew for a fact Mason had sent more men up the interstate after Danny and Gaby. So how many were left? How many would Mason think he needed when he had already, essentially, won the day?

Will was still trying to come up with a viable number (or, at least, one that would make him feel better) when the door finally banged open and a familiar camo uniform rushed inside. No, not familiar. Same uniform, but different person inside it. Taller, skinnier, and younger.

The kid (he couldn’t have been more than eighteen, maybe seventeen?) spun around and slammed the door shut before stumbling away from it. He was cradling an AR-15 and wore a gun belt with a sidearm, but Will recognized the awkwardness in the way he carried the equipment.

He’s green. Really, really green.

“Kid,” Will said.

The teenager whirled around, lifting his rifle and aiming it at Will. He looked frightened, even shocked to see Will there. “Jesus! I almost shot you!”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t. What’s going on out there?”

The kid (he was tall for his age, which was amusing when Will thought about the thirty-something but much shorter Mason) lowered his weapon and shook his head. He wiped at beads of sweat along his temple and whirled back around to face the door. Then he hurried over and leaned against the wall and listened to the
pop-pop-pop
of gunfire still raging outside.

The battle hadn’t slowed down even a little bit in the minute or so since Will woke up. That meant there were a lot of people out there, and all of them well-armed. Meanwhile, he was stuck in here, hog-tied and weaponless.

Will looked for and finally caught the name written across the kid’s uniform: “Michael.”

“What’s going on out there, Michael?” Will asked.

The kid looked momentarily confused by the sound of his name, then must have realized how Will knew and shook it off. “They’re attacking,” he said.

“Who’s attacking?”

“I don’t know. They came out of nowhere. They must have…they must have been crawling along the fields all day toward us.”

‘Crawling along the fields all day’?

Will watched the kid closely. He was scared. That much was obvious. So Will did what he always did: He took stock of his situation and considered his available options. Because there were always options. You just had to see it.

“Kid,” Will said.

Michael didn’t react, either because he was too focused on what was happening outside or he was purposefully ignoring him. Will would have put good money that it was the former.

“Michael,” Will said, louder this time.

That did it. Michael looked over. “What?”

“Listen.”

“I am…”

“No, I mean,
really
listen.”

Michael looked confused again.

Doesn’t take much, does it, kid?

“You’re losing,” Will said. “You know that, right? The other guys are winning. You can hear that, can’t you?”

Will had said it all with absolute certainty. It was in his voice and on his face. He knew what he was talking about, and Michael would be smart to listen.

Of course, it was all bullshit. It was impossible to tell who was winning the battle outside. He had no idea how many were taking part or even who they were—two very important details needed to predict the outcome of a gun battle. Who were the good guys and who were the bad guys? If there were any good guys at all. For all he knew, Mason and his men could be putting down the attackers right this moment, which would lead him right back to where he started.

But he didn’t tell Michael that. No. The kid was frightened and out of his element. Running in here to hide was proof of that. The shaking hands trying desperately to keep their grip on the assault rifle sealed it.

“Your unit’s losing,” Will pressed. “Mason’s losing. If he’s not already dead.”

Michael didn’t answer. Instead, he looked back at the door so Will couldn’t see his face to gauge if he was getting through.

“You need to get out of here, kid,” Will said. “Before it’s too late.”

“There’s too many of them out there,” Michael said. His voice shook noticeably. “I think they’re using our trucks. The ones with the machine guns. How’d they get those?”

“I know, I can hear them using it,” Will said. More bullshit. He couldn’t tell one way or another who was firing the machine guns, but Michael didn’t need to know that at the moment, either. “Trust me, kid, I’ve been through enough of these situations to know a losing side when I hear it. And your side’s losing.
Bad.
”

Michael shook his head. “You can’t be sure of that.”

“I am. And you are, too.” Then, with a harder edge to his voice, “You wanna live or not?”

Michael glanced over. He opened his mouth to answer, but then snapped it shut just as quickly.

A second, then five…

“Yes,” Michael said finally. “I want to live.”

Will held out his bound wrists. “Cut me loose, and I’ll get us out of here.”

“How?”

“You’ll have to trust me on this.”

“What? No fucking—”

An explosion ripped through the building and something smashed into the door on the other side. The clatter of shelves falling, glass pelting tiled floors, and someone (or
someones
) screaming in pain. Chunks of the ceiling rained down on them, and Michael threw his arms over his head as if that would save him. Thankfully, the bulk of the store remained in one piece, leaving them to cough in the aftermath of falling debris.

Oh, hell. That was definitely a grenade.

“Kid,” Will said, watching Michael pick himself up from the floor and coughing. “It’s either get out of here with me, or stay here and die with the rest of your guys. What’s it going to be?”

Michael was on his knees and looking for his rifle. He had accidentally tossed it while falling and grabbing for his head. Now he crawled over and picked it up, even as the gunfire continued to rage outside, the
brap-brap-brap
of a machine gun continuing to fill the air as if the damn thing had an endless supply of belt-fed ammo.

“Michael,” Will said. “You gotta decide and you gotta decide
now
: You wanna live or not?”

The teenager got up and hurried over, drawing his knife. The blade was trembling as he cut the zip tie from around Will’s wrists, then did the same to the one around his ankles.

“What now?” Michael said. “How are we going to get out of here?”

“I need a gun,” Will said.

The soldier stared at him.

“A sign of good faith,” Will continued.

Michael sighed and drew his sidearm—a Sig Sauer 9mm—and handed it over reluctantly. “Can I trust you?”

Will stood up. “Kind of a little late to be asking that, don’t you think?”

The kid made to smile back, but it came out badly forced. “I guess.”

“A deal’s a deal,” Will said. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here before whoever’s wiping out your friends finishes the job and comes looking for us next.”

He grinned at the kid.

For a moment there, Will actually thought he was in trouble.

Option found. Opportunity seized.

I’ll be home soon, Lara.

*

“How many of
you are out there?” Will asked.

“Ten,” Michael said.

“I saw more than that this morning. A lot more.”

“Most of them left after we captured you.”

“Where did they go?”

“I don’t know. They really don’t tell me very much.”

Of course not. You’re the kid so wet behind the ears he runs into the closest room to hide the first time someone’s shooting at him.

“What about Mason?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I think he left before the attack. Like I said, they don’t really tell me very much.”

Will crouched among the ruins of the gas station (the Palermo, as it turned out) and watched through the broken windows as a bullet-riddled blue Ford F-250, its front windshield dotted with the same bullet holes that had punctured its side and front hood, moved slowly down the street. There were two men in the back, one swiveling a heavy M60 perched on the roof of the vehicle.

Christ, no wonder Mason’s people hadn’t stood a chance. The all-purpose American machine gun was capable of firing 500 rounds per minute with an effective range of over 500 meters and beyond. That single weapon probably accounted for all the broken windows in the stores up and down the street that he could see, not to mention the destroyed cars that hadn’t been there this morning, along with the crumpled uniformed bodies visible in the parking lot on his side of Route 13.

The Ford looked like one of the technicals Josh’s soldiers had been using, though he’d never seen this one before. While one man was behind the machine gun, a second was slightly crouched behind him with an AK-47. Other well-armed men were walking alongside them, easily keeping up with the truck’s slow pace.