The Stones of Angkor (Purge of Babylon, Book 3) (25 page)

Behind her, the others shuffled nervously. They were farther down the hallway, but they might as well have been standing an inch behind her because they were making so much noise. Or maybe that was just her imagination. Her senses were heightened beyond belief.

She couldn’t make out anything through the two dozen or so holes she had put into the door, only the dull, gray wall in the background. So that was a good sign. If anyone were still alive, she would have seen movement flitting across the holes.

The radio clipped to the dead man in front of her squawked again, and she heard the same deep male voice: “What the hell was that? Where did that come from? Gary? Janice? Someone answer me!”

Muffled gunshots, like firecrackers, echoed from the other side of the radio.

Then Benny was suddenly crouched next to her, breathing too hard. “Now what?”

“I need you to open the door.”

He gave her a terrified look.

“Just throw it open and step out of the way,” she said.

Benny summoned his courage, slung his rifle, and moved toward the door, stepping over the dead body from earlier. Gaby glanced back at Amy, Jen, and the kid with the button nose, keeping low to the ground twenty yards behind her. They were watching her closely, waiting.

She looked back at Benny and gave him the go-ahead nod.

He began counting down to himself, then grabbed the doorknob and pulled in one quick motion.

Gaby’s finger tightened against the trigger, but she didn’t have to press it. There were two bodies in hazmat suits crumpled on the stairwell landing before her, blood dripping from holes in the fronts of their uniforms. She had put almost as many bullets into the two bodies as she had the brick wall behind them, and there was a fine white concrete cloud hovering inside the LED-illuminated room.

Gaby stood up and looked back at Jen. “We have to go up.”

Jen grinned back at her. “After you, G.I. Jane.”

“G.I. what?”

“
G.I. Jane.
That movie with Demi Moore?”

“Who’s Demi Moore?”

Jen shook her head. “Never mind. Let’s go.”

Gaby looked at Benny. “You okay?”

He nodded. “Rooftop?”

“Yeah. While they’re still busy with whoever is out there. Maybe Will. Maybe Mike. Or both.”

“Let’s do it, then,” he said.

She could almost believe there was some bravado in there somewhere, if she didn’t know for certain he was scared out of his mind. She didn’t blame him. To Benny, Jen, and Amy, this was probably the first time they had actually seen combat, before or since The Purge. It hadn’t been quite as uneventful for her.

“Stay behind me, okay?” she said.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” he nodded back.

Gaby stepped into the stairwell, rifle at the ready in case someone poked their head down from the top of the stairs. There was no one, so she continued toward the first step and went up. Benny’s labored breathing followed closely behind. She wished he wasn’t moving so close to her. If she turned around now, she would crack his skull with the rifle. Didn’t he realize that? Probably not.

Amy and Jen entered behind them with the kid.

She made it all the way up to the door without encountering resistance, probably because whoever was up there was too busy shooting at someone else. How many were on the rooftop right now? Definitely more than one, because the shooting never stopped. The only way that could be possible was if someone else was firing while another person reloaded.

She looked back at Benny, still standing too close behind her. “I need you to open the door for me again.”

He nodded, then moved forward and gripped the door handle. The door opened outward, so he would have to push out. It was hot in the stairwell, and Benny’s face was already slick with sweat. She could feel her own perspiration running down the sides of her face.

“Try to stay to the side,” Gaby said. “Don’t move into my line of fire. Whenever you’re ready…”

Benny turned back to the door and began counting to himself. Then, taking a deep breath, he opened the door, rammed his entire body into it, and stumbled outside, losing his footing on the loose, graveled rooftop along the way. He was still carrying the medical supply bag, and its weight probably hadn’t done him any favors.

Gaby rushed past Benny. She saw wide open skies, but no one in front of her. The door had opened up into the center of the rooftop, and the first thing she saw was Jen’s helicopter, sitting where she had last seen it.

Loud, booming gunfire erupted from behind her on the other side of the stairwell access building.

She turned to her left and navigated as fast as she could around the building. A woman standing at the edge of the rooftop wearing a white hazmat suit turned in response to the sound of Gaby’s boots.

Janice, I presume.

The woman hesitated, just as Gaby assumed she would. Even without wearing the gas mask, the fact that she was still wearing a hazmat suit caused the woman to waste precious seconds processing the information. While she was doing that, Gaby shot her once in the chest, and because she couldn’t be sure, shot the woman a second time even as she was going down.

She heard gravel shuffling loudly and swiveled to her left, seeing a man in a hazmat suit standing on the other side pointing his M4 at her. She stared into the barrel of the man’s rifle, while her own was still in the process of coming up, knowing, but unable to accept, that she was too late, she was dead—

She flinched at the loud sound of gunfire and waited for the pain. Except there was none. Instead, Gaby watched the man crumple in front of her as two bloody dots spread across his chest like bright red watercolor.

Gaby looked over and found Benny standing on the other side of the rooftop access building, numbly lowering his AR-15. He looked almost stunned by what had just happened, his eyes glued to the dead body in front of him.

There was a loud roar from below them and Gaby snapped out of it first, hurrying to the edge of the rooftop and looking down. There were four military Humvees parked in front of the lobby, and one of them had made a wide U-turn and was picking up speed. There was a man poking his head out from a circular hole in the roof while two others jogged behind the vehicle, using it like some kind of moving shield. They were making a beeline toward the west tower.

She ran back, passing Benny, who still looked stunned, then Jen and Amy farther back. Jen shouted something at her, but Gaby was too busy concentrating on the Humvee below, tracing its progress by sound. She turned right and ran down the length of the west tower rooftop, just in time to see the Humvee taking the corner below her.

And there, a figure moving away from the charging Humvee. She couldn’t tell if it was Will or Mike, or someone else, because she could only see the man’s head. But the people in the Humvee were collaborators, and that was all she needed to know.

The man standing out of the hole in the Humvee’s roof was taking aim at the running figure when Gaby fired down at him. Her first shot missed, hitting the desert camo rooftop instead, but it startled the man enough that he abandoned his target and looked up at her. Her second shot hit him just above the right eye, and his lifeless body slipped back through the hole.

The two men running behind the Humvee opened up on her. Gaby dived backward, falling to the gravel floor as bullets tore at the rooftop edge, sprinkling her with chunks of loosed brick. She didn’t know how long the gunfire went; it might have just been a few seconds. Her heart was pounding in her chest, making telling time difficult.

Then the shooting stopped, and she heard what sounded like a car crash in the distance.

She pulled herself back up and moved slowly back toward the edge. It was so suddenly quiet that she couldn’t help but feel as if she was being lured into the open. She cautiously peered down one more time and saw the man she had saved, looking back up at her.

Will.

She waved down at him, and he waved back.

Gaby backtracked and hurried over to another section of the rooftop. She glimpsed the two men in hazmat suits fleeing back toward the front driveway. She lifted her rifle, but they were moving too fast and she was at the wrong angle. She heard a gunshot and one of the men stumbled and fell, but the second one managed to slip behind a support column and take cover.

A moment later, two of the Humvees roared to life and took off. She watched them go, winding around the driveway, picking up speed as they drove through the parking lot. She was glad to see them retreating, glad it was over, until she saw the small faces pressed up against the back windshields.

No. No…

Then they turned into the street and were gone, the loud sounds of their heavy engines fading up the road. She didn’t know how long she stood there and listened, but it seemed like hours. Or maybe that was just her mind reliving the sight of the small faces in the back of the Humvees.

The children. Where are they taking the children?

*

It took Jen
a while to find a safe place to land the helicopter. She hovered over the parking lot, then tried the side streets, but there were always too many cables, cars, or trees in the way. Finally, she found a mostly empty parking lot in a strip mall half a block away and touched down.

Will was moving under them the entire time. Gaby, sitting in the cockpit’s passenger seat, spotted him climbing up, then down, a billboard between where they eventually landed and the hospital parking lot.

Gaby hopped out of the helicopter before the rotors stopped spinning and jogged over to meet Will halfway. He had a black military-type backpack slung over his back.

“Where’s Mike?” she asked.

Will shook his head.

Gaby looked back at Jen, Benny, and Amy as they climbed down the helicopter. The kid stayed behind, looking out the back window, button nose pressed against the glass.

“Where’s Mike?” Jen asked as soon as she reached them.

Will pointed back at the billboard he had climbed earlier. “He was covering me from there. One of them must have gotten in a lucky shot.”

“Are you sure?” Amy asked.

“He’s still up there.”

The three of them hurried past him and toward the billboard.

Gaby stayed where she was. “The other two guys?”

“Snipers on the roof took them out when we were coming back,” Will said. “What about everyone inside?”

She shook her head. “There’s no one left. They killed everyone.”

“Not everyone. They took the children.”

“I saw them in the Humvees. Why did they take the children, Will? For the ghouls?”

“Mike and I captured one of the collaborators. He told us the ghouls had some kind of plan for them. Their orders were to kill the adults and anyone who fought back.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Don’t they need every ounce of blood they can get? There’s not exactly a lot of us still running around.”

“Apparently not anymore.”

He looked back at the billboard, at Jen and Amy as they climbed up to the scaffolding while Benny waited at the bottom.

“Your arm,” she said, noticing the bloody handkerchief around his left arm.

“It’s fine. Just a scratch.”

“I grabbed the medical supplies Amy put together for us. They’re in the helicopter.”

“Good. At least we won’t be going back empty-handed.”

“Are we going back to the island?”

“I don’t know yet.” Will looked down at his watch. “Those Humvees…”

“Tell me we’re going after them,” she said, surprised by the conviction in her voice. “We can’t just let them take the kids, Will.”

“It’s not entirely up to us.”

Jen, Amy, and Benny were already walking back toward them. Amy had an M4 rifle slung over her shoulder, and Benny was carrying a pack similar to Will’s. They look sullen, like relatives at a funeral. Which, she guessed, wasn’t too far from the truth.

“Should we bury him?” Jen asked, when she finally reached them.

“We can,” Will said. “Or we can go after the Humvees. They left with the kids inside, and they have a thirty-minute head start on us.”

“What are we going to do?” Benny asked.

“It’s your call,” Will said. “The three of you. It’s your friends up there in the hospital. If you want to chase them and get the kids back, Gaby and I will come with you. Or you can cut your losses and come back to the island with us.”

The three of them exchanged a look, and Gaby was happy to see the strong resolve in Amy’s and Jen’s faces, though Benny didn’t look completely sold on the idea. He looked even younger than his eighteen years at that moment, bad facial hair and all.

“We can’t just let them get away with it,” Jen said.

“Those were our friends,” Amy said. “Those kids…we knew their parents. They’re our families, too.”

“What about you?” Will asked Benny.

“How would we even find them?” Benny said.

“Look around you,” Jen said. There was a look of determination on her face, maybe even anger. “This city’s dead. If they’re on the road, we’ll find them, because they’ll be the only things moving for miles.”