The Fields of Lemuria (20 page)

“Where we going?” Norris asked.

“Anywhere but here.”

He glanced back at the broken window and into the pitch-black hallway at the far end one last time, then began moving the two of them away from the building. Norris walked as much as he could, but Keo could tell it was taking a lot out of him even just to shuffle his feet one step at a time. It took Keo a few seconds to adjust to Norris’s non-existent pace.

“You sure it’s safe in there?” Norris said, staring at the dark woods in front of them. “I can’t see shit.”

Keo blinked at the rising sun, comforted by the warmth massaging his face. It wouldn’t be completely light for another five, maybe ten minutes. But there was enough to get by, or at least send the creatures back to their hiding places. For once, the bloodsuckers’ seemingly innate ability to sense the coming dawn, that allowed them to rush off well in advance of the sunlight, would work in their favor.

Unless, of course, he was wrong about the whole thing.

“There’s plenty of light,” Keo said. “We’ll be fine.”

*

He was hoping
for an hour, but realistically only expecting thirty minutes. It turned out to be more like twenty before he heard the first burst of engines coming from behind them. It would have been nice if he had grabbed one of those. Of course, that would mean finding the key or hot-wiring one. Could you even hot-wire an all-terrain vehicle?

It would also have been nice if Norris could move a little faster, too. As much as he was pushing the old-timer, they made slow progress.

“Aw, dammit,” Norris grunted, when he heard the engines start up behind them. “You gotta go on, kid. I’m just slowing you down.”

“Shut up and keep moving,” Keo said.

“This is it for me. The faster you accept that, the better chance one of us will live through this.”

“You talk too much. Keep moving.”

“Kid—”

“Which part of shut up and keep moving don’t you understand?”

Norris sighed. “You damn whippersnappers. You never listen.”

They had only managed to put about a hundred meters between them and the clearing when Keo heard not one, but at least three, ATVs revving their engines. So that meant at least three survivors from last night’s attack. More, if they decided to ride piggyback. How many of the sports vehicles had he seen? A dozen?

Too many. Always too damn many…

“We gotta pick it up,” Keo said.

“I would if I could,” Norris grunted back. “I told you, just leave me here. I got a gun. I’ll try to give you some extra time.”

Keo said nothing.

“Kid,” Norris said.

“Shut up and walk faster.”

“What is this, a death wish? You did everything you could. You even came back for me, for God’s sake. I didn’t expect that, but you did, and I’m grateful—”

Crunch-crunch.

Keo didn’t so much as drop Norris as he simply cast him off to one side. Even as he was spinning toward the source of the sound, he was unslinging the AK-47 from his shoulder, praying that dry firing the weapon back earlier had been enough to make sure it was still in one piece and would work when he needed it, like now.

“Aw, geez,” Norris said as he landed on the ground with a
thump
.

Keo didn’t have time to make sure he was all right. He was already peering through the assault rifle’s iron sight at a large bush standing up next to a tree. It looked as if a part of the woods had come alive and were staring back at him.

Wait.
Staring
back at him?

“Goddammit, Zachary,” Keo said, lowering the rifle. “I almost shot you.”

Zachary grinned, white teeth showing behind the layer of dirt and mud that covered his face. He walked toward them in his ghillie suit. “You look like shit.”

“You smell like it too, San Diego,” a second voice said behind him.

Keo looked over at Shorty, wearing his own ghillie suit, emerging out from behind a tree. Both men looked as if they had slept in the woods all night.

And Norris thinks
I’m
crazy.

“Holy shit, I think I’m losing my mind, kid,” Norris said, somehow managing to sit up on the ground, “because I think the forest is coming alive and talking to me.”

Keo smiled. “Don’t shoot. They’re friends.”

“Shoot? I can’t even lift my hands. I told you that.” Both of Norris’s arms were flat on the ground beside him, including the one holding the Sig Sauer.

“I guess you found him, huh?” Zachary said.

“Yeah,” Keo said. “What are you guys doing here?”

“Shorty and I were bored on the island, so we decided to come watch you get yourself killed.”

“Island?” Norris said.

“Long story,” Keo said. “Can you guys give me a hand with him?”

“Depends,” Zachary said. “Can he do anything other than look mostly dead?”

Norris grunted. “I’m way too old for this shit.”

*

With Zachary and
Shorty’s help, they were able to cover more ground. The two men were racing through the woods, carrying Norris between them. Norris’s body had gone slack, though Keo couldn’t tell if he was just tired or unconscious. Keo trailed behind them, keeping his ears and eyes open. In less than five minutes, they had gone nearly 200 meters, five times the distance he and Norris had managed in the previous twenty minutes by themselves.

The continued roar of the ATVs had changed behind them, and Keo knew the vehicles were now moving.

He stopped, but Zachary and Shorty didn’t. The older of the two men threw a look over his shoulder and met Keo’s eyes.

“Go, I’ll catch up,” Keo said.

“Same place as last time,” Zachary said. “We’ll wait thirty minutes. If you’re not there by then—”

“Thirty minutes. Go.”

Zachary narrowed his eyes at him. Keo guessed the older man already knew what he was planning. “You’re insane, you know that?”

“Look who’s talking. The guy who slept last night in the woods voluntarily.”

Zachary grinned. “Good point. I’ll see you when I see you.”

“Don’t wait for me.”

Zachary nodded, turned, and continued forward.

“Adios, San Diego!” Shorty shouted, just a bit too loudly.

The sight of them vanishing between two huge trees was surreal. Shorty and Zachary, in their ghillie suits, looked like monsters hauling off an unconscious victim. If he were a child, it might have given him nightmares.

Keo slid behind a tree and faced back toward the park visitors’ building before taking inventory of what he had left.

There was the Sig Sauer .45 he had taken back from Norris. It still had eight rounds. The AK-47 was still loaded with the full magazine, which was thirty more.

Thirty-eight bullets.

I’ve had to make do with less.

*

He waited and
listened. It sounded as if the vehicles were spreading out, going in different directions, trying to cover as much ground as possible.

He was trying to figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing. The point here was to draw the chase
to
him and away from Shorty and Zachary. But if the pursuers were spreading out, he wouldn’t be able to effectively do that—

The man burst through the bushes on a beat-up yellow Yamaha, turning all the scenarios in his head into a moot point.

The all-terrain vehicle was chewing up the ground at a fast clip—probably moving a little too fast for someone traveling in a world full of unmovable objects that could end his ride at any second with the slightest wrong turn. The man didn’t seem to notice the potential dangers, though, and Keo was glad to see he was alone.

The vehicle was twenty meters away when Keo spun out from behind the tree and into the oncoming vehicle’s path. He was close enough—and getting closer with every second—to see the rider’s widening eyes.

He fired off a burst, shattering one of the front headlights. Pieces of the brake lever exploded and filled the air. A split-second later the rider flipped backward off the seat, which kept going long after it had lost its rider. Keo cursed and ran out of the vehicle’s path as metal and plastic and chrome flashed by him in a blur, two inches or so from clipping him as it continued going on its own before smashing into a tree and coming to rest.

Keo stumbled back up to his feet and rushed forward.

The man was still alive, though his legs looked like pretzels under his awkwardly positioned body. One hand was clutching his stomach, where blood squirted out between his fingers, while the other was reaching for his weapon, which had fallen during his tumble and now lay a few feet from his outstretched hand.

Keo smiled at the sight of the Heckler & Koch MP5SD on the ground. He picked it up and gave the familiar dents and scratches a quick brush with his fingers. He didn’t think he’d see it again, so it had to be fate that the submachine gun would, literally, fall back into his lap.

Fucking daebak.

He crouched next to the rider, ignored the man’s pleading eyes, and opened his pouches and pulled out three long magazines and two shorter ones for the 9mm Glock that Keo also pulled out of a holster. The man grimaced silently through the pain, pale blue eyes watching Keo with a measure of anticipation and hate.

“Is Pollard alive?” Keo asked him.

The man stared at him, but didn’t answer.

“How many of you are still out there?”

Nothing.

“Ten? Twenty?”

The man closed his eyes and seemed to drift off to sleep. He was still alive, judging by the slight rise and fall of his chest under his assault vest, though probably not for long. Keo had seen guys who had been gut shot before. It was never pretty, and it never ended well.

“Fine, be an asshole.”

Keo unclipped the man’s radio, stood up, and jogged off.

He could already hear the other ATVs coming in his direction, having broken off from their previous paths to respond to his gunfire. Good, because he had been afraid they would keep going after Zachary and Shorty.

He picked up his pace, tossing the AK-47 and flicking the fire-selector on the MP5SD from semi-automatic to full-auto. At least he had his weapon back, so things were definitely starting to look up.

After a minute of silently walking back toward the shoreline, following in Zachary and Shorty’s footsteps, Keo began to slow down. He could still hear the ATVs coming, but they were still far off.

What am I doing?

Good question. He needed to keep going. Zachary wasn’t going to wait forever at the beach with Norris. There was no reason to still be inside the woods after today. He had rescued Norris, and now he could retreat to the island and wait them out. Sooner or later, Pollard (if he was even still alive) would have to leave when their supplies ran low, or when the creatures finally, eventually, broke through the park visitors’ building.

So what was he doing, standing still? It was a no-brainer.

Wasn’t it?

He didn’t know when he decided (or if he did at all; everything was a blur), but soon the radio was in his hand and he had pressed the transmit lever and was lifting it to his lips.

“Pollard,” he said into the radio. “You still alive?”