The Fields of Lemuria Read online

  A muffled (but familiar) voice said, “Bring him back to the base. He’s not going to die that easily.”

  Pollard.

  Hands grabbed him and pulled him up from the ground. Someone yanked the MP5SD off him, then someone else ripped the pack and the Glock free. Then they were dragging him through the woods, with Jacks leading the way.

  They hadn’t been walking for very long when two more figures appeared in front of them like ghosts. One of them also had a white skull painted over his face, but the other one just looked like a normal forty-something who could have been a teacher or a salesman in a previous life.

  Skull Face #3 ran past Keo as if he didn’t exist. That was fine with Keo. The last thing he needed was another asshole focusing in on him. Everyone else seemed to have just one thing on their minds: Killing him.

  A moment later, someone began screaming. It sounded as if he were in pain. Or that could have just been Keo’s mind trying to interpret the strange wailing noise. At the moment, he found it difficult to hear much of anything with the ringing in his ears and the warm feel of blood dripping down the back of his neck.

  Jacks stopped and turned around, then grinned at Keo. “Man, you just can’t stop making friends, can you?”

  Keo didn’t know how to answer that. He didn’t think he could, anyway.

  The two guys holding him upright started moving again, passing Jacks, who had stayed behind to watch the show with something that looked like an amused grin on his face.

  Keo decided to stop trying to make sense of what was happening around him and let his body go completely slack. If they were going to take him back to Pollard to be killed, he would let them do all the work of carrying him there.

  “Who was that?” one of guys dragging him asked.

  “Where?” the second one said. “Jacks?”

  “No. The other one. The dead guy.”

  “That’s Chris.”

  “Who’s the guy crying over him?”

  “Lou. This guy just shanked his brother.” The guy went quiet for a moment before adding, “We better tell Pollard. There’s no telling what Lou’s gonna do to this guy. I’ve seen him do things…”

  “What kind of things?” the other one wanted to know.

  “I don’t wanna talk about it. Just remember to tell Pollard about what this asshole did to Lou’s brother when we get back.”

  “Jesus,” the first guy said. “Was it that bad?”

  The second guy didn’t answer, though Keo was pretty sure the man had shivered slightly at the question. Unless, of course, he was just imagining it.

  CHAPTER 12

  “What was that word? Daebook?”

  Keo smiled. Or tried to. He couldn’t quite focus on the room no matter how hard he tried, much less Norris sitting across from him. “Close enough.”

  “Didn’t your mom ever teach you any other Korean words?”

  “Here and there, but Mom embraced being an American wholeheartedly. She liked to say either commit to something, or don’t even try. Daebak was one of her few exceptions.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Is it?”

  “Not really,” Norris said. “I don’t think this is that, huh? There doesn’t seem to be anything remotely awesome about this.”

  “Nope.”

  “How’s the head?”

  “Am I still bleeding?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Then pretty good.”

  “You look like shit, though.”

  “Yeah, well, I feel worse.”

  “I don’t see how that’s possible.”

  Keo smirked and sat up on the cold tiled floor. “Thanks for the optimism, old-timer.”

  They were inside a small back room with an equally small window at the top providing just enough light for Keo to make out Norris’s bruised face staring back at him. The room was about five feet wide and ten feet long but felt much more claustrophobic. Norris looked to be in one piece sitting on the floor with his back against the other wall. He wasn’t moving, though. Keo couldn’t tell if that was because he couldn’t, or if he didn’t want to.

  The former. Definitely the former.

  It took him a moment to pick up the empty shelves squeezed into the already small room with them. An old faded yellow mop bucket with a side press wringer was jammed into the corner nearby. There wasn’t a lot of room to move without his shoulder hitting something.

  The janitorial closet.

  From the last time he and Norris had stayed here, Keo knew the room was almost at the end of the main L-shaped administrative building. The front doors would be to his right, with a window facing the side yard to his left. Unless, of course, his memory was fuzzy due to the blow to the head. That was entirely possible, too.

  “Glad to see you’re still alive,” Keo said.

  “I guess he thought he might still have some uses for me,” Norris said. “I’m not sure about that now that he’s got you. Way to go, kid. I thought you’d be smarter than this.”

  “I guess I got caught up in the whole Murtaugh and Riggs thing.”

  Norris grunted. “Now all you need is a faithful dog.”

  “A dog?”

  “Yeah. Riggs had a dog.”

  “I’m not sure, but I’m reasonably certain dogs are even more endangered these days than us.”

  “Good point.”

  Norris was sitting next to a metal door. Through a security glass window near the top, Keo spotted the back of a man’s head standing guard outside in the hallway. Light from an LED lamp flooded inside the closet through the small slot under the door.

  “How long?” Keo asked.

  “About an hour,” Norris said. “You got any more bright ideas?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Did you ever have any bright ideas?”

  “Nope.”

  “I figured.”

  Keo glanced back at the small window above him. The light outside had begun shifting from bright to gloomy.

  Night is coming…

  He glanced down at his watch, but it was gone. Everything he had was gone, including the black assault vest, gun belt, and of course, his weapons. He saw himself reflected off the metal door across the room. They had even wiped the black and green paint off his face for some reason. At least they hadn’t bothered to put him in restraints, so there was that.

  Keo touched the back part of his head, where the occasional throbbing was coming from. The sensation was more tingling than full-blown pain. It was still wet back there, but someone had stitched the cut skin while he was unconscious. They had also applied ointment to keep the wound closed. Just feeling the cut made him wince.

  “It was just a scratch, relax,” Norris said. “The girl that patched you up was also nice enough to clean your face, in case you were wondering.”

  “Why didn’t they just let me bleed to death?”

  “Pollard wouldn’t let them. He’s got plans for you, kid. I don’t wanna be you when the sun comes up tomorrow. I mean, it sucks being me now, but the look he gave you?”

  “That bad, huh?”

  Norris started to say something, but stopped himself.

  That bad.

  Keo leaned against the wall, careful to keep his head tilted slightly forward so he didn’t bump the wound against the hard concrete. There was a mild dizziness whenever he moved any part of his body too fast, but especially his head.

  “What was with the camo and clothes, anyway?” Norris said. “I assumed there was a point to them?”

  “I thought it would give me an advantage.”

  “You didn’t really think this through, did you?”

  Keo sighed. “I’ve always been more of a snatch-and-grab kinda guy. Not so much the careful planning. That was always someone else’s job.”

  “I can see that.” Then, “You almost had him, though.”

  “Who?”

  “Pollard. That shot—you came close.”

  “How close?”

  “You
pissed him off for a good thirty minutes afterward, that’s how close,” Norris smiled. “He calmed down after they caught up to you, though. He was a happy little lamb after that. I think he might have even smiled when he thought no one was looking. It was like watching the devil learn to grin for the very time in his life. Gave me the heebie-jeebies.”

  Now that his eyes had time to adjust to his surroundings, he turned his attention to Norris. The fifty-six-year-old didn’t look nearly as bad as Keo had feared. He’d been hit. That was obvious. Keo could see evidence of bruising on his face, jaw, and forehead. But his eyes were in reasonably good shape.

  Norris saw how Keo was looking at him and said, “They worked on the body. The face stuff was just to get my attention in the beginning.”

  “Can you walk?”

  “Barely. I think they broke a couple of ribs. I’m not sure. I can’t breathe without wishing I was dead.”

  “Pollard has people with him that know how to get information. Your friend’s in bad shape, Keo.”

  “Sorry, Norris,” he said.

  “What are you sorry about, kid? I’m the one who got caught.”

  “How did they catch you?”

  “One of their patrols. That girl Fiona wasn’t lying. Pollard’s got himself a small army out there.”

  Keo nodded, but didn’t know what to say. They stared across at each other for a moment.

  “Kid, we’ve been at this for how long now? Nine, ten months?” Norris said, breaking the silence. “Let’s face it, neither one of us expected to survive this long. If it ends tonight, or tomorrow, I’m fine with it. And I’m not pulling that out of my ass. I really am fine with it.”

  “What about Santa Marie Island?”

  “Hey, you’re the one with the pretty girl waiting for you. I was never much of a lounging on the beach type to begin with.”

  Gillian was waiting for him at Santa Marie Island right now, probably wondering what was taking him so long. He imagined her going down to the beach every day to watch the Gulf of Mexico for signs of him.

  Sorry, babe, doesn’t look like I’ll make it there anytime soon.

  “Where’s Pollard?” Keo asked.

  “Probably trying to figure out the most painful way to kill you,” Norris chuckled.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “I guess it’s a matter of perspective. I don’t think they’re going to be doing anything tonight, though.” He glanced at the window above Keo. “You said you’re bad with plans?”

  “You saw how the last one worked out, didn’t you?”

  “You better get good at it, then, because I don’t think either one of us is going to enjoy what happens tomorrow morning.”

  “What happened last night?”

  “With the bloodsuckers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They have barricades over the windows and the doors. Takes the ones over the windows down in the day for sunlight, puts them back up at night. They found a key ring the size of my head in one of the offices for all the office doors and they’re using it as backup just in case the creatures break through. They haven’t yet, though.”

  “I guess we missed that key ring.”

  “We didn’t have fifty men searching the place, either.”

  “Looks like they have it all figured out.”

  “It’s a pretty slick operation. You can tell Pollard’s had them doing this for a while now. Everyone knows their roles. Hell, if they hadn’t been trying to kill me for the last few months, I would have signed up without batting an eye.”

  “Good to know.”

  Keo looked up at the darkening window above him. Norris seemed to be doing his best to regulate his breathing, though Keo could hear how labored it was despite the ex-cop’s best efforts. Norris was in pain. Even just sitting there, moving almost no part of his body, he was obviously hurting.

  “You come up with a plan yet?” Norris asked after a while.

  “Not yet.”

  “Better hurry. For the first time in a long time, night’s our friend.”

  “How you figure that?”

  “Pollard and his boys have other things to worry about that don’t involve us as long as it’s dark outside. That gives you what—ten hours?—to come up with something that won’t end up with both of us dead.”

  “Ten hours?”

  “Ten hours.”

  Keo nodded. “Ten hours, then.”

  Ten hours to save both our lives.

  No pressure.

  *

  They were both alive. For now.

  Pollard hadn’t bothered to come and talk to him, not even to gloat a little bit. For some reason, Keo hadn’t expected anything less from the man. Even during the chase across the woods there was always a patience, a detached methodology to how Pollard’s men pushed them day after day. Or maybe he was just subscribing more to the man than he deserved.

  Either way, Pollard had won. He had them dead to rights.

  Ten hours to save our lives.

  Well, nine, now…

  It was pitch black outside, with the only light coming from the hallway outside the door to see by. The guard came and went, and Keo could hear him walking back and forth every few minutes, and sometimes he would appear in the security glass just before moving on again. Apparently standing still had become a chore, and he was doing everything possible to keep himself from getting bored. Or falling asleep. Either/or.

  Norris hadn’t moved from his spot next to the door. The older man looked tired, his head leaned back, eyes staring up at the dark ceiling as if he could find something interesting up there besides dancing shadows. He looked consistently on the verge of sleep, probably from a combination of fatigue and pain. Keo didn’t want to push him on it because Norris clearly didn’t want to reveal too much.

  The creatures came out as soon as darkness fell. Like clockwork. They were so goddamn predictable.

  Keo couldn’t see them, but he could feel them. There was something different in the air whenever they were around. A charged atmosphere, fueled by their preternatural existence, the fact that there were hundreds (thousands) of them outside at this very moment. He imagined them coming out of the tree lines in swarms from wherever they had been hiding during the day. Wave after wave of black, pruned flesh and obsidian eyes. Moving silently except for the tap-tap-tap of bare feet against the earth.

  Keo waited to hear ferocious pounding against the windows and doors, but there wasn’t any. That, more than anything, made him uneasy.

  “They’re up there,” Norris said quietly. “On the rooftop. Can you feel them?”

  He put both hands on the cold brick wall behind him and stopped breathing for a moment. The vibrations were slight, almost indistinguishable from the normal hum of the night, but if he really focused…

  There.

  “Yeah,” Keo said.

  “They were up there last night, too. Running back and forth, probing for weaknesses like they always do. But there aren’t any weaknesses. Not last night, and I don’t think there’s going to be any tonight, either. Pollard’s too good, kid. Too thorough. Which translates into a big problem for us. You, specifically.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m a broken-down old man. You’re young and spry, and I get the feeling he’s going to want to slice you open to see the insides of the man who killed his one and only offspring.”

  Keo grinned. “You sure have a way with words, old-timer.”

  Norris chuckled, but didn’t say anything for a while. Finally, he said, “You come up with a plan yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “Are you thinking of one?”

  “If it makes you feel better, then sure, I’m thinking of a plan that’ll spring the both of us right now.”

  Norris frowned. “Why are you lying to an old man, kid?”

  *

  By midnight, Norris had dozed off on the other side of the room. He still hadn’t moved from the spot where Keo first saw him when he woke up
. Again, Keo guessed it was because he couldn’t move, or it hurt too much to try.

  Keo had recovered enough to get up and moved around the cramped space. First, he made sure the window was sealed. It was. There was no latch to open it, so nothing was coming through there. Even though it was small—barely 1x1 feet—the bloodsuckers had showed an amazing ability to squeeze into the smallest spaces.

  He walked over to the door, and keeping to the side so he couldn’t be seen through the security glass, looked out into the hallway. There was a lever, but as Norris had said, the door was locked from the other side. The window was barely a 6x6-inch square at the top of the steel slab, so there was no way he was getting through that.

  How the hell was he going to get out before sunup?

  He thought there was only one guard, but he was wrong. There were two—a young man in his twenties and an older man in his forties—and they took turns standing outside while the other one walked up and down the hallway.

  Keo listened (hoped) for sounds of a battle, but there was none. That was disappointing. He couldn’t get out of the closet, and by morning Pollard would finally get to do what he had been waiting months for—

  Footsteps, approaching from the right side of the hallway. This one was different. It was loud, made by someone moving with purpose.

  “What are you doing here?” the younger guard outside the door asked, looking up the hallway at the source of the heavy footsteps. “You’re not supposed to be down here.”

  A second voice answered, but Keo couldn’t make out the words. It didn’t sound as if they were having an argument, though.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” the guard said again. He didn’t sound angry, but more confused and a bit indecisive.

  “Where’s Willie?” the newcomer said. He was close enough now that Keo could hear him if he pressed his ear against the door.

  “He went for a bathroom break,” the guard said. “You didn’t see him?”

  “I must have passed him by. I need a favor, Barry.”

  Barry, the guard, shook his head. “You know I can’t help you, Lou. I have orders. You’re not supposed to go anywhere near him. Pollard said—”

  There was a flurry of movement—too fast for Keo to catch in time through the small opening—as something seemed to hit Barry in the throat. A hand. A very fast-moving hand. The guard gagged and grabbed at his neck, just as something else hit him in the face (this time Keo saw it pretty clearly—it was the stock of a rifle) and Barry dropped beyond his field of vision.