The Gates of Byzantium (Purge of Babylon, Book 2) (70 page)

Josh grinned back at him. He had a point there.

“Hold on!” Maddie shouted.

Josh looked forward just in time to see Bobby and Maddie, with him hoisted like a child between them, jumping down the ridge and landing on the wet ground below. Mud splashed, some spraying the boat. The crate full of silverware was already inside, in front of the steering wheel in the middle.

Josh heard heavy grunting and looked over to see Blaine landing beside him. The big man instantly turned around and grabbed his end of the crate—dangling dangerously off the ridge above them—just as Will hopped down after him. The crate came down with Will, slamming into the ground and sending thick patches of mud in every direction.

“Go go go!” Will shouted.

Maddie and Bobby stumbled forward, dragging Josh between them. They practically threw him into the boat, and he grabbed at the silverware crate as it came rushing up at him. He managed to get his hands on the edge at the last second, then somehow got himself turned around to sit down on it. The crate was hard and uncomfortable, but it was better than sitting on the floor.

Josh unslung the Remington shotgun and looked up at the ridgeline, expecting the men with guns to show up at any second. He thought he could hear them coming by the heavy trembling around him, but after a second he realized it was just his body shaking uncontrollably.

Will and Blaine almost tossed their crate into the boat, and it slammed home behind the steering wheel. The boat dipped dangerously under the sudden added weight, but the Carver somehow stayed afloat anyway.

Thank God.

He was still looking at the ridge, the shotgun at the ready, when he heard the big outboard motor fire up in the back, the sound so much louder than the trolling motor that it made him jump.

Then they were moving away from the beach, thanks to Blaine, who pushed off with a paddle. He was grunting with the effort of moving five people in a boat designed for four, not counting the two unwieldy crates between them.

They were twenty yards from the beach when Josh saw the first man appear along the ridgeline. He was short and stocky and wearing an old, faded Houston Astros cap with the five-sided star on the brim. The man was holding one of those AK-47 assault rifles that even a gun virgin like Josh recognized instantly.

Josh saw the man and the man saw Josh at almost the exact same time. The man lifted the AK-47 to aim and Josh pulled the trigger on the Remington purely on instinct. He thought he was prepared for the recoil, unlike last night, but the blast still knocked him loose from the crate. Even as he fell backward, Josh saw bright red wetness spread across the man’s chest before he vanished from the ridgeline as if by magic.

Josh continued falling, slamming into the floor of the boat when he heard someone—probably Will—yelling, “Covering fire!”

Gunfire exploded around him, so much louder than before. Something small and hot fell on Josh’s head. It burned his scalp, but before he could get out a scream and swat at it, the spent bullet casing fell away and clattered to the boat floor next to him. Other casings were falling around him and on the crates, the
click-clack
sounds almost melodic.

Josh struggled back up into a sitting position while Maddie and Bobby shot back at the beach. The boat was moving fast now, the speed of the outboard motor making Josh completely forget about the snail-like pace of the trolling motor. Despite the burden they were putting on it, the boat was moving smoothly, with Will driving in the center, keeping just low enough to not get his head shot off.

By the time Blaine, Bobby, and Maddie stopped shooting in order to reload, the boat was almost a full 150 yards away from the beach. Far enough that when the men chasing them finally got the courage to stand up and shoot back, their bullets harmlessly sank into the water around them, the
plop-plop-plop
of bullets disappearing into the lake.

“Look,” Maddie said, pointing toward the mouth of the inlet.

A boat appeared out of the inlet, hitting the main lake at full speed. It immediately turned left, pointing in their direction. It slowed down real fast when Blaine, Maddie, and Bobby all unleashed a torrent of bullets in its direction. Josh saw men on the boat diving to the floor and the boat seemed to jerk off-target.

There was a loud
ping!
and Josh jumped. One of the bullets fired from the ridgeline had actually hit the side of the boat, kept going, and almost put a hole in Josh’s right sneaker, missing only by a few inches. The bullet punched through the bottom of the boat and water sprang inside.

But the bullet had surprised him, and Josh stood up without thinking, ignoring the electric pain in his left leg.

Oh, there’s the pain.

He looked down and saw a thin trickle of blood from the earlier gunshot. He was still marveling at how little blood there was when he heard one of those bees screaming right next to his ear. He looked up and saw one of the men on the ridgeline taking careful aim with a rifle. Josh couldn’t tell if it was an AK-47, but he did remember that AK-47s were notoriously bad for long-distance shooting. Or at least, that’s what he had once read on the Internet.

Josh grinned at the man.

Give it up. You’re not going to hit anything, dude.

Behind him, he heard Will’s voice: “Josh, sit the fuck down!”

Josh looked back at Will and smiled. “He’s too far away to hit anything,” he said, when he heard that loud, screaming bee coming back for another pass, but this time instead of zipping by harmlessly, the bee actually
hit him in the side of the head
.

Josh stumbled across the boat, suddenly very light-headed. His legs didn’t seem to be doing what he was telling them
(Stop, you idiots, stop!)
, which was annoying.

He caught sight of Will, who for some reason looked like he was moving sideways, lunging at him from across the boat, his hand reaching out, screaming, “Josh!”

Oh, shit
.

Josh reached out for Will’s hand—but missed it by inches.

Then he was falling, falling, and there was water all around him and he knew he was in the lake.

And he was sinking.

Sinking…

WILL

Good news and
bad news. The good news is, we got what we went back to the marina for. The bad news? I got the kid shot up and now he’s at the bottom of the lake.

Of course, he didn’t say that when Lara and Sarah came out to greet them at the pier. It didn’t take Lara very long to notice Josh wasn’t in the boat with them, though, but he thought her face looked pale even before that.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Sienna shot Carly,” Lara said.

“Is she okay?”

“She lost a lot of blood. I won’t know for sure until tomorrow, and maybe not even then.”

“Where’s Sienna now?”

“Danny shot her.” She looked at the boat, at the faces that were climbing out, and looked back at him. “Where’s Josh?”

“He got shot and fell into the water. I had to leave him behind.”

“You left him behind?”

He couldn’t tell if she sounded incredulous, angry, or confused. Maybe none of the above. Possibly all three. “I had to leave him behind,” Will said again.

Lara looked at him blankly. He could tell she was still traumatized by what had happened with Carly and Sienna and wasn’t quite sure how to process what he had just told her about Josh.

After a while, she nodded. “Let me tell Gaby.”

Will nodded back. He felt relief and guilt, but mostly relief. He had lost men in combat before, but it wasn’t the same as losing the kid. Josh wasn’t a soldier, and Will hadn’t expected him to contribute much in a firefight. But he was a decent enough kid, and that counted for something when there were so few decent people still around these days.

They transferred the crates from the boat to the pier, then carried them back to the hotel. Will and Blaine took the tools to one of the unfinished rooms in the back where there were plenty of walls without windows for ventilation. Maddie and Bobby followed inside with the crate of silver.

Danny showed up later to shake hands with Blaine. “Good to see you back in one piece.”

“Good to be in one piece,” Blaine said. “Mostly, anyway.”

“Sorry about Sandra.”

“Yeah,” Blaine said. “I hope Carly’s okay.”

“She will be,” Danny said, with absolute certainty.

“This is Maddie and Bobby. Bobby doesn’t speak.”

“Yeah? I bet the girls go crazy for that,” Danny said.

Bobby grinned sheepishly back at him.

“Don’t worry, I make up for his lack of speaking,” Maddie said.

“Welcome to Song Island,” Danny said. “Unlike the previous landlords, we’re not going to feed you to the ghouls.”

Maddie, Blaine, and Bobby exchanged a confused look.

Blaine looked over at Will. “Wanna fill us in? There seems to be an awful lot of shooting around this place. I didn’t quite expect that.”

“I know you thought you came here to get away from the fighting,” Will said, “but it’s more complicated than that.”

“How complicated?” Maddie asked.

*

Will and Danny
gave them a brief, half-assed tour of the island, filling them in on Karen, Tom, and Marcus along the way. They told them about the previous night, about the ghouls, and ended the tour at the power station, where they stood in front of the concrete wall they had built over the door of the shack.

“Are you serious?” Blaine said. “They’re in there
right now?”

“Yeah,” Will nodded.

“How many?” Maddie asked.

“A few hundred,” Danny said. “Give or take. If by ‘take’ you mean possibly lots of hundreds. Or thousands.”

“The only way to tell is to go in there,” Will said.

“We’re taking volunteers,” Danny added.

“Where do they come from?” Maddie asked.

“We think there’s a tunnel under there,” Will said. “We don’t know where it goes, or how far it runs under the lake. Eventually, we’ll have to figure it out, but that’s for later.”

“But the island is safe, though? They can’t swim over?”

“We don’t think so. As far as we know, this tunnel seems to be their only access to the island.”

“As far as you know?” Blaine said doubtfully.

“We can’t be sure,” Will said. “But as far as we know, yeah.”

“So they’re stuck in there?” Maddie asked, exchanging a private look with Bobby.

“That’s the going assumption,” Will said.

“And you know what happens when you assume,” Danny said.

“They’ve been down there all day?” Blaine asked.

“Since last night, yeah,” Will nodded.

“Jesus Christ.”

Danny chuckled. “Get to the island, it’ll be safe. No more ghouls to worry about. Except for the few thousand already waiting underneath it. Hey, it beats running around out there, right?”

Blaine, Maddie, and Bobby exchanged a look that said they weren’t entirely sure about that anymore.

“It’s not too late,” Will said. “They want the island, but you don’t have to be here when they try to take it. If you decide to leave before they come back, we’ll give you everything you can carry—food, ammo, weapons, and supplies—and we’ll give you a boat and help you get back on land, avoid the people at the house. There are other places to dock that don’t involve the marina, and we’ll do everything we can to help you move on. No hard feelings.”

They listened quietly, not saying a word. He could see their minds reeling, then gathering, then trying to sift through the pros and cons.

“But if you want to stay here,” he continued, “you’ll have to fight for the privilege. That may sound like a shitty deal, but it’s all I have to give you at the moment.”

Maddie and Bobby exchanged another private look that didn’t involve Blaine.

Then Maddie said, “One question.”

“Shoot,” Will said.

“Who the hell are those guys at the house?”

“Ghoul collaborators,” Danny said. “Assholes working with the creatures in exchange for their hides. Like Song Island’s previous tenants.”

The three of them exchanged another series of quick looks, and he wondered if they believed Danny. The concept of collaborators, human survivors throwing in their lot with the ghouls, was a hard pill to swallow. He might not have believed it himself if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes twice now.

Blaine said to Maddie and Bobby, “If you guys want to go, I’ll go with you.”

“You were the one who wanted to come here,” Maddie said. There was no accusation in her voice, it was just a statement of fact. She even sounded a bit confused by his offer.

“I know, but Sandra’s death changed things for me. My priorities have changed.” He seemed to struggle with his thoughts. “Let’s face it, it’s no better out there. Hell, it’s probably worse. Here, at least, there’s a chance at something approaching a normal life for you and Bobby. So we’ll have to fight for it. So what else is new?”

Maddie glanced over at Bobby again. The mute boy nodded and gave her the “OK” sign with his fingers.

“Why the hell not,” Maddie said. She looked over at Will. “So, silver bullets?”