The Gates of Byzantium (The Babylon Series, Book 2) Read online

  “I’m afraid.”

  That caught her by surprise.

  Will wasn’t afraid of anything. Even in the midst of life and death, he was always calm. She had come to see him as the Plymouth Rock in her life, keeping her anchored in the moment, but longing for the future, a reminder that everything would be fine and all she had to do was believe in him.

  To hear him admit he was afraid made her shiver a bit.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “It’s Kate. What she said in the dream.”

  “It was just a dream…”

  “It was more than that. It was really Kate.”

  “What else did she say?” Lara asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

  “She told me it wasn’t going to end until this was over. Until we were over. They’re going to keep coming after us, Lara. That scares me, because it means whatever I do, wherever we go, it might not be enough to protect you.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, and leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips. “And I’ll stay fine as long as you’re with me. As long as we’re together.”

  She smiled at him, hoping some of that got through. Maybe it did, because he smiled back and suddenly he looked like his usual Will self again.

  Strong and assured and calm. Always calm.

  “What else did Kate say in the dream?” she asked.

  “She knows we’re here. In this basement.”

  “So that’s the real reason we’re leaving.”

  He nodded.

  “The others?” she asked.

  “Outside, getting ready.”

  “Is it still morning?”

  “A few minutes past noon.”

  “You should have woken me up earlier.”

  “You needed the rest. And besides, we still have plenty of time. We can be in Beaumont in a few hours, barring any troubles along the road.”

  “That’s the tricky part, isn’t it?”

  “That’s always the tricky part, yeah.”

  “We’ll be fine,” she said, hoping that he understood she didn’t mean just about Beaumont, but about everything.

  He did. “We’ll be fine,” he nodded, and smiled at her again.

  “Okay, then. Now, about getting me a new shirt…”

  *

  THE OTHERS HAD packed most of their things back into crates and carried them out to the parking lot while she had slept. There were only a few crates still left in the church when she emerged from the basement.

  The girls were helping out with the smaller items, though Vera actually managed to carry one of the ammo bags by herself. Elise made do with their backpacks, filled with clothes, shoes, and socks. Little things they had come to rely on, that they could still call their own. Lara felt guilty watching them do all the work while she could only manage her shotgun and her personal backpack. She didn’t like having only one arm.

  She walked across the chancel and stopped when she saw the thick patch of dark red on the brown carpeted stairs. The body was gone, and she wondered briefly where the others took it, before deciding she would rather not know.

  She went outside, where Danny was stacking crates into the back of a Honda Ridgeline truck. Will and Danny had switched the damaged Ford Rangers for the Ridgeline and a white Nissan Frontier. Both trucks looked new, with four doors apiece. The trade-off was the truck beds, which were smaller and couldn’t carry everything they were used to taking with them. To make up for that, Will and Danny had hitched a five-by-ten U-Haul cargo trailer behind the Frontier. It looked more than spacious for all their crates.

  She stepped around a dried blood trail leading out of the church’s side door that ended in a big puddle of blood ten feet into the parking lot. There were bullet casings, but no body. She didn’t bother asking where the man with white hair was, either.

  “Look at you,” Danny said. “Walking wounded. You know Will and I have never actually been shot? And we’ve been to Afghanistan.”

  She touched the butt of her sidearm. “I can change that.”

  He laughed, throwing his hands up. “Don’t shoot! I surrender!”

  “Just keep it up.” She looked around the parking lot. “Where’s Will?”

  Danny pointed across the street. “We found where they were hiding. Sonsofbitches were just waiting for us to skedaddle before coming over. Marauding assholes just aren’t as honorable as they used to be.”

  Will was jogging back toward them now, crossing the street, then the parking lot.

  “Find anything?” she asked.

  “A Jeep,” Will said. “Could have been the one Blaine lost.”

  “What about the semitrailer?” Danny asked.

  “No signs of it. They either dumped it or parked it somewhere else.”

  “Weren’t there supposed to be three of them?” Lara asked.

  “I didn’t see anyone else,” Will said.

  “Maybe the third one left earlier with the big rig,” Danny said. “Wouldn’t surprise me. A gang that marauds together don’t necessarily stay together. Too bad, too. That semitrailer might be worth finding. They must have collected a lot of things over the last eight months.”

  “I’d rather we don’t find it,” Lara said. “I don’t want to use what they took. God knows how they got it, if this is how they’ve been surviving since The Purge.”

  “Yeah, but they could have had some really cool stuff,” Danny insisted.

  The others came out and piled what they were carrying into the back of the two trucks, but those quickly filled up and they started loading the cargo trailer. The guns and ammo stayed with them inside the vehicles, like always.

  Lara walked over to the Ridgeline and climbed into the front passenger side, while Josh and Gaby took the back seats. It was harder to climb in and out of vehicles with one arm in a sling.

  Carly boarded the Frontier with Danny and the girls.

  Lara watched Will and Danny talking outside the truck, but she couldn’t hear anything over the roar of the air conditioner blasting in her face. Carly and the girls were enjoying the air conditioner of the Frontier almost as much, the girls sticking their faces toward the cool air between the two front seats.

  “Oh my God, air conditioning,” Gaby said in the back seat. “I think we should live out of trucks from now on.”

  “I’m all for that,” Josh said.

  “How did you guys get from place to place?” Lara asked.

  “Matt had a truck.”

  “Whenever we found a place that was safe, we tried to stay as long as possible,” Gaby added. “As long as the supplies lasted, anyway, which was never that long. It always got too dangerous after a while, so we kept moving.”

  “The only good thing about the rest of the world turning into bloodsucking monsters was all the stuff lying around,” Josh said. “It’d be nice if some of it tasted better.”

  “Just give me canned peaches any day,” Gaby said.

  Will and Danny finally walked over to their respective vehicles. Will climbed into the Ridgeline and unclipped his radio, sticking it on the dashboard where it was held in place by freshly installed Velcro.

  “We good?” he asked them.

  “Good to go,” Josh said.

  Gaby nodded.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Lara said.

  The radio squawked and they heard Danny’s voice: “Let’s blow this joint.”

  They headed out of the parking lot, the Ridgeline up front, with the Frontier dragging the cargo trailer behind them. They turned back onto the road and headed south.

  Lara glanced at her side mirror as the First Assembly of the Lord receded into the background, until it was finally gone completely. People went to church for forgiveness, didn’t they? And she was fleeing one. So what did that say about her?

  She looked forward, surprised to find herself wallowing in moody thoughts. She didn’t want the others to see, especially Will.

  I’ve killed two men now.

  It wasn’t just the deaths that
stuck with her, it was the fact that she was supposed to feel guilty…except she didn’t. Not a bit. And that, more than anything, kept pricking at the back of her mind. Had she really changed that much?

  “We good?” Will’s voice, bringing her back. He reached over and squeezed her hand.

  She smiled back at him, putting as much conviction into it as she could muster. “Shoulder aside, we’re good.”

  “We’ll be fine.”

  “I know.” To her surprise, she believed it.

  As long as you’re here with me…

  “Have you ever been to Beaumont before?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “What about you guys?” she asked Gaby and Josh in the backseat.

  “I never left Ridley until eight months ago,” Josh said.

  “I’ve been to Dallas a few times,” Gaby said, “but that’s about it.”

  “I’ve never been to Dallas,” Josh said. “Which is sad, considering it’s just next door. What’s it like?”

  “Loud,” Gaby said.

  “That’s it?”

  She thought about it a little bit more. “Pretty much.”

  “Blaine’s from Dallas, too, right?” Josh said. “Sandra said they left Dallas together after everything happened. I wonder what happened to him?”

  Lara looked over at Will. She could tell he was wondering the same thing.

  Are you still alive out there, Blaine?

  CHAPTER 17

  BLAINE

  WE SHOULD BE dead.

  But they weren’t, and the only proof he needed was Sandra sleeping against him, the soft beating of her heart telling him they were still very much alive.

  They were inside a room. It was small, designed for less than two people, though you might have been able to squeeze in one more if you didn’t mind the lack of leg room. It was hidden in the back of the pink bedroom’s closet, a six-by-five stainless steel space. It had a lock and a vault-style door handle, and Blaine had felt a rush of disappointment when he thought he might need a key to get in. But Sandra had tried turning the handle and it had spun invitingly, without hesitation.

  There was a set of keys inside, resting on a small shelf along one side of the wall. Two wrenches, a small portable LED lamp, and a cordless phone still docked in its station were lined up next to the keys. It was crowded at first, but they had managed to cram inside and swing the door shut, the handle spinning automatically as soon as the latch caught, and Blaine heard at least three locks snapping into place, one after another. The walls were so thick the room barely shook when the ghouls crashed pointlessly against it. The noises from outside came through two air vents—oval-shaped holes with mesh wiring about two inches wide—along the sides.

  It was a safe room.

  And it was well-hidden, too. It was only after retreating all the way into the back of the closet that they had even stumbled across it. At first he had been perplexed, but that had changed quickly when he realized what he was looking at.

  Blaine had never actually seen a safe room in person, but he had seen schematics. This one wasn’t the most expensive or elaborate, but it clearly served its purpose well enough—it kept things out. The wrenches, he concluded, were for the bolts connecting the pieces of the room together.

  Blaine turned off the LED lamp sometime during the night. He didn’t need it to hear the ghouls outside, thumping against the door a few feet from him. They couldn’t get to the air vents because the back part of the safe room was embedded within the wall itself. Blaine guessed the homeowners had assembled it piece by piece, another major draw of the simple design.

  There was nothing about the pink bedroom to suggest its owner needed a safe room. He wondered if there were other rooms like this installed in the other bedrooms. Will and the others hadn’t seen it when they were here yesterday, but they hadn’t really searched. Blaine had seen their crates—they had enough clothes for a few lifetimes.

  The ghouls kept pounding on the door for what seemed like hours, long after Blaine and Sandra had retreated inside. Blaine listened, feeling the slight (very slight) vibrations from every impact. They attacked for hours on end, well into the night and early morning hours.

  Then, finally, they just stopped.

  By then, Blaine had been forcing himself to stay awake, but his side had begun hurting again, and he felt sore all over. His pills were outside, along with everything else. He closed his eyes, intending to only take a brief nap, but ended up falling asleep with Sandra’s head in his lap.

  *

  HE OPENED HIS eyes to find Sandra standing in front of him, looking through a peephole in the door. Though he had no way of knowing for sure, he was certain it was daylight outside. It was one of those things his body just knew without actually seeing, an evolution of living in a world where darkness brought death.

  The LED lamp was on and Blaine could make out Sandra’s tall frame, which put her just under the vault ceiling.

  She looked over her shoulder and smiled, radiant even against the unnaturally bright light. “We made it.”

  “We did,” he smiled back.

  Jesus, my body feels like it’s on fire.

  He managed to suppress the grimace so she wouldn’t see. “See anything out there?”

  “Not much. There are clothes over the peephole.”

  “Can you open it?”

  “I don’t know.” Sandra looked around the polished steel interior of their surroundings. “What is this place, anyway?”

  “It’s a safe room.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve seen one before. Duncan, this guy I used to work with, had catalogs of the stuff. He was going to get into the business of installing safe rooms for rich people across town. Said they all wanted one after 9/11.”

  “You think the other rooms have one, too?”

  “Probably. Unless the daughter is just a special case.”

  “How do you drag something this heavy up here?”

  “You don’t have to. You can install them section-by-section. You can even expand it out the back just by buying more sections.”

  “I guess that’s convenient.” She walked back and sat down next to him. “Are you okay?”

  “Sore.”

  “Where?”

  “All over.”

  “That bad?”

  “I forgot my painkillers outside.”

  “Oops.”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  She leaned against him for a moment. “Did Duncan ever get around to starting that business?”

  “Nah. He decided to rob rich people instead. Thinking back, maybe he never really planned to install safe rooms for them.”

  “Would Duncan know how we get out of here?”

  “Turn the lever.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Pretty much. It’s designed to keep people out, not to keep you in once you’re inside.”

  She stood up and walked back to the door. She put her hands tentatively around two of the three handles that jutted out from the center, like a boat’s steering wheel. Sandra looked back at him. “Just turn it?”

  “Counter clockwise,” he said, miming it for her.

  Sandra took a breath, then turned the handles counter clockwise. They spun, and kept spinning.

  “Keep going,” he said.

  She kept spinning until the lever stopped and they heard the three locks disengaging one by one.

  “Push it,” he said.

  She did, but the door didn’t budge. She stopped pushing and looked back at him, hands on her hips. “It pushes open? Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. You can’t pull it, there isn’t enough room.”

  “Good point.” She turned back to the door and put her weight on it this time, and the door slowly began sliding outward an inch at a time. She grunted. “There is definitely something blocking the door.”

  “Probably shelves. Or lots and lots of clothes.”

  “I’m going with the former,” she sa
id between gasps. “Clothes aren’t this heavy.”

  Sandra was finally able to open the door wide enough to slip outside. Blaine didn’t remember the door being that heavy, but then again, he was probably filled with adrenaline last night and everything seemed easier.

  He heard heavy grunting and what sounded like metal and furniture being dragged around the room.

  “It’s most of the shelves,” Sandra shouted. “And a shoe rack, I think. They brought most of the clothes down, too. Too bad everything’s for a teenage girl. It looks pretty expensive. I wonder where you buy brand-name stuff like this out here in the boondocks?”

  Blaine smiled. Women and clothes…

  Sandra removed enough of the closet’s obstruction that she was able to push the safe door all the way open, letting just a small sliver of sunlight inside. Immediately, Blaine knew they had overslept.

  He glanced down at his watch: 12:25 P.M.

  They had slept through the entire morning.

  It was the vault. Being inside something that impenetrable was like being in a cocoon. Their bodies had taken full advantage of it, allowing them to catch up on sleep they had missed out on in the last few days.

  Sandra stuck her head back into the opening and said, “I’ll be back,” in her best impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger from The Terminator.

  He grinned, and got a smile back from her.

  Sandra reached into the vault and picked up the shotgun. She turned left and disappeared from his field of vision. With nothing to do, Blaine sat back and waited. He heard her walking along the second floor, then going down the steps.

  It might have been a few minutes later, or possibly a few seconds later, when she finally came back and crouched in front of him. He wasn’t even sure how she had gotten from the first floor all the way up here and back into the vault again without him hearing or seeing her coming until she was suddenly just there.

  She held a water bottle in one hand and his pill bottle in the other. She shook out a couple of pills and he opened his mouth like a drowning man and swallowed. She tilted his head back to help him drink. He hadn’t realized how weak he was, how racked with pain, until he found the simple act of slurping down water such a monumental task he wanted to give up on it about halfway through. Thankfully, Sandra was persistent, and he chased the pills down with warm water and sighed with relief.