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

  “We don’t have anything to trade, and chances are you don’t have anything we want.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure. You should go back to your Jeep and keep heading down the road.”

  “We don’t want any trouble,” the guy said. And he held his hands up in surrender, then casually smiled at Blaine.

  “There won’t be any if you just go back and—”

  Blaine never finished, because at that moment someone popped up behind the roof of the F-150, the sun glinting off the steel barrel of a rifle as the guy laid it across the roof and took aim. Blaine saw it two seconds before the guy fired and he felt the bullet chop into his left side, exit, and bury itself in the asphalt highway behind him.

  He heard Sandra’s voice: “Blaine!”

  Blaine didn’t think, didn’t try to figure out what the hell was going on, and instinctively lifted the AR-15 to open up on the guy with white hair. But the guy was anticipating it and was already running sideways, and he leaped into the ditch before Blaine could fire. Suddenly without a target, Blaine swiveled the assault rifle back to the F-150 and fired off two quick shots. His bullets stitched the front windshield of the truck, and the sniper ducked back behind cover.

  Blaine saw the Jeep’s driver scurrying behind the Jeep. Meanwhile, two men had rushed out of the GMC, both armed with rifles.

  “Blaine!” Sandra screamed behind him again.

  He turned and began running back as the two guys at the GMC opened up on him with full-automatic rifles. The highway around him exploded into big, scorching chunks of asphalt, and Blaine swore there was no way he was going to survive this. He could hear bullets ricocheting off the sides of the Jeep and zipping past his ears.

  Sonofabitch!

  He and Deeks were stuck with semi-automatic rifles while the bad guys were unloading on full-auto. That was some shitty luck right there.

  Deeks was at the hood of the Jeep, shooting back with his AR-15. Casually, like he had all the time in the world. The old man was either delusional or didn’t realize how much trouble they were in.

  Sandra was crouched next to the Jeep’s front grill when Blaine reached it. Her eyes, wide with relief at the sight of him, quickly turned to horror. “Oh my God, you’re bleeding!”

  “I know, I know.” It was all he could get out.

  He knew he was bleeding because he had felt the throbbing pain all the way from the back of the Jeep to the hood. The bullet had gone clean through, which he thought was a good thing—not that he knew anything about getting shot. He was sure of one thing, though—it hurt like a sonofabitch.

  Blaine popped up from behind the Jeep and fired off four quick shots at the guys at the GMC. They had retreated behind the vehicle now and were firing back from safety. Blaine saw the Jeep’s driver hiding behind his own vehicle, shooting with an assault rifle. Blaine thought it looked like an AK-47.

  Suddenly, the driver of the F-150 opened his door and dived out and ran for cover behind the truck. As he did so, the sniper in the bed of the truck popped back up and fired over the roof. Blaine felt the bullet zip past his head, an inch from taking it clean off at the shoulders. He ducked back behind the Jeep, thankful he still had a head to duck with.

  He became aware of Sandra fumbling with his waist, trying to stanch the flow of blood. He had no idea when she had started doing that, but he didn’t stop her. He was bleeding too badly and he was already feeling light-headed from the blood loss. At least it wasn’t a gut shot. He wouldn’t be dead right away from a gut shot, but he wouldn’t get better, either. A bullet that went clean through his side meant he could survive it. Probably.

  Then Blaine heard a loud pop and turned and saw Deeks falling to the highway behind Sandra. There was a hole in Deeks’s left temple and one side of his head was completely gone. His AR-15 clattered to the hot asphalt next to him. Sandra saw the body and clutched her mouth to keep from screaming, though her eyes screamed plenty for her.

  The guy with white hair! That fuck!

  It had to be. The gunshot had come from up close, and it was from a handgun. No one was going to hit Deeks with a handgun from forty yards away. But the guy with white hair was closer, and the last time Blaine had seen him, the man was diving into the ditch beside the road.

  Blaine leaned out from behind the Jeep’s grill in the direction of the ditch and saw white hair moving steadily up the highway, crouching low. The guy saw Blaine a split-second after Blaine saw him, and the man fired—too fast—and the bullet ricocheted off the Jeep’s hood and burrowed into dirt along the ditch, but it kicked up enough paint and metal that Blaine felt the heat against his face even as he pulled his head back.

  “Nice shotgun!” the guy shouted.

  The sound of the Mossberg being racked from the back of the Jeep.

  He looked over at Sandra and saw her staring back at him, one hand still clamped over her mouth, eyes wide and afraid.

  Save her, you idiot. Find a way to save her.

  He looked toward the woods to his left. It wasn’t too far away. Thirty yards, maybe. Probably a little bit more. Sandra was a runner, had been her entire life, from high school to college, where she got a scholarship to run track and field. So she could run. She could really run. All she needed was a chance, and he could provide that.

  He stared at her, willing her to listen to him. “When I give the word, you run into the woods. Understand?”

  She shook her head furiously back at him.

  “You have to!” Blaine hissed, putting as much force into his voice as he dared without white hair overhearing. “You can make it,” he said, calmer this time, trying to be convincing. “You’re fast enough. Remember? You’re fast. On the count of three…”

  She was still shaking her head.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” he lied.

  She finally nodded, though he could tell she didn’t completely believe him.

  “I promise,” he smiled, and before she could say anything, he said, “One, two…three!”

  Blaine lunged out from behind the Jeep, moving to his right. In the two-second advantage that the sudden, unpredictable move allotted him while the shooters adjusted, Blaine saw the guy with white hair hiding behind the back of the Jeep, the top of his head just barely visible. Blaine took aim, but before he could fire, the guys up the road began shooting first and Blaine felt his right leg buckle slightly.

  At first he thought he had stepped into something, maybe a pothole in the highway and twisted his leg, but no, he had been shot in the left thigh.

  Blaine pulled his aim away from the guy with white hair and squeezed off as many shots as he could at the three vehicles. That got most of them running back behind cover. Even while he was shooting, Blaine saw from the corner of his eye Sandra running out from behind the Jeep and racing into the ditch, then up and over it and toward the woods.

  She was running fast, his Sandra, like the wind.

  Faster, girl, faster!

  He was afraid they would start shooting at her, but they didn’t. Instead, they concentrated all their fire on him, and Blaine kept moving to his right, drawing their attention away from Sandra.

  She was halfway to the woods now, and she was still moving fast. He smiled. She would make it. If nothing else, at least she would make it.

  He felt a burst of happiness that was short-lived when a third bullet tore through his right shoulder, and suddenly he could no longer hold the AR-15. Blaine crumpled to the highway on his knees and lowered his head, and waited for the fourth and final bullet to find its mark.

  He waited, and waited, but the final bullet never came.

  Instead, the shooting stopped, and he heard the guy with white hair shouting. “That’s enough! Hold your fire!”

  Blaine couldn’t find the strength to lift his head. He wasn’t even sure how he was still on his knees. Shouldn’t he have fallen by now? He was bleeding pretty badly. Not just from the wound in his side, but the one that had taken a big chunk out of his
thigh, too. The third one, in the shoulder, had hurt the most, and the bullet had probably shattered a bone or two. It had to be his right arm, too. What the hell was he going to do without his right arm?

  Nothing but die.

  Footsteps approaching, then the guy with white hair crouched in front of him, the Mossberg shotgun draped lazily over his lap. “I know what you’re thinking, but don’t you worry about the girl. We’ll find her for you. Hell, you didn’t think we chased you down for you and the old man, did you?” The guy laughed. “Nah. It was always for the girl. How did a bum like you land her, anyway? Must be pretty slim pickings for a ten like that to voluntarily go with a two—generously speaking—like you. No offense.”

  Sandra, run like the wind, girl, run like the wind…

  More footsteps approaching along the highway, then a new male voice said, “Should we put the poor sucker out of his misery?”

  White hair stood up. “No point. Look at him. He’s not going anywhere. If he makes it to tonight, then what?”

  “Tasty treat,” someone else said.

  Another voice: “What about the girl, Folger?”

  The guy with white hair, Folger, said, “We got plenty of daylight. Spread out and start looking. She couldn’t have gone far.”

  “She took off like a fucking deer,” another guy said, and there was laughter. “That girl can run.”

  “First guy who catches her gets dibs,” Folger said.

  “She’s mine, boys!” someone shouted.

  Running footsteps all around him. Into the grass. Or maybe already in the woods. No, that was impossible. They couldn’t move that fast. Even Sandra hadn’t been able to move that fast.

  He heard Folger’s voice, coming from somewhere very far away now: “Don’t worry, amigo, we’ll treat her nice. We treat them all nice. At first, anyway. Guys get bored easy, you know?”

  Then Blaine couldn’t hear anymore, because everything became dark and he must have finally toppled sideways. Suddenly the side of his head was pressed into the hot highway surface, and the only sensations were heat and hardness and the sound of blood pumping free.

  His blood. Who knew bleeding to death could be so damn noisy?

  Run, Sandra, run…run like the wind, girl…

  CHAPTER 3

  WILL

  They showed up sometime around ten at night. He guessed between 300 to 400, maybe more because his vantage point was limited. Grime, Texas, like most small towns around the state, was surrounded by trees, and you never knew how many of them were in the darkness of the woods.

  He watched through night-vision goggles as they spread out across the street below him. Darting, hunched over, black-shaped moving things—ghouls. Already preternatural, they looked even more so in the green phosphorus.

  Through the earbud in his right ear, Danny was, of course, making with the jokes.

  “So this businessman has an extremely important trip coming up. It’s make or break for the company, depending on whether he gets the client to sign on the dotted line. The guy is desperate, and during his presentation, he starts sweating and knows he’s not making much of an impression. So he makes a decision to just go for it, starts undressing, falls to his knees in front of the client, and begs, ‘Please, sir, give me this contract and I swear I’ll suck your dick!’ The client gives him a pitying look and says, ‘I’m sorry, son, but that’s just not how the Church rolls these days!’ But then the client leans down and in a hushed voice adds, ‘But would you happen to have a younger salesman you could send over?’”

  “Oh, a Church sex joke,” Will whispered into the throat mic. “Really? That all you got?”

  “It’s funny because it’s true.”

  “Are we speaking from experience here?”

  “Hey, that’s between me and Father Al. He had very soft hands.”

  “Oh, Danny,” Carly said, and Will could picture her rolling her eyes at him back in the basement a few streets over.

  Will was alone, crouched against the edge of the clock tower along the side of the town’s Main Street. He was twenty-five meters up, high enough that anyone on the streets below couldn’t see him. The clock tower looked more like a church steeple, and getting to the very top required climbing some rickety stairs he hadn’t been confident wouldn’t shatter the first time he put pressure on them.

  Grime was a small town that used to house around 2,000 people, and like most small towns, it was squeezed into a few square miles. Will figured he was somewhere in the center of town, with Route 69 about eight hundred meters to his right.

  “Speaking of which,” Danny said in his right ear, “how’s the show out there?”

  “I see about 300 to 400 ghouls. Maybe more. They’re searching the city, so keep your heads low.”

  “It’s as low as it can go, buddy. I got the girls covered. You just keep from getting dead.”

  “Will do.”

  He heard Lara’s voice: “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “I’ll try my best.”

  “I mean it, Will,” she added, and he could hear the burden in her voice. “I have too much invested in you.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Danny made the sound of a cracking whip.

  “Shut up, Danny,” Lara said.

  Will smiled, and watched a couple of the creatures peering into a bright red truck parked at the curb below him. They spent no more than a few seconds on it before bounding up the street to join the swarm flowing southbound, so many that they swallowed up the roads and streets with their vast numbers.

  Maybe 400, maybe more…

  “So what’s the verdict?” Danny asked. “You just out for a walk, or is there something worth watching out there?”

  “They’re definitely looking for something.”

  “Aren’t they always looking for something? What else is new?”

  “It’s been eight months since The Purge. I’m pretty sure they’ve cleaned out every small town like this one. And even if they were just looking for survivors, they wouldn’t need 400 to do it. No, they’re looking for something specific.”

  “Us,” Lara said.

  “Yeah,” Will said. “I think they’re looking for us. And have been since we left Starch.”

  “You sure you’re not just indulging in your paranoia again?” Danny asked.

  “It’s not paranoia if there are blood-drinking creatures chasing you.”

  “I saw that coming from a mile away.”

  “I’ll radio back if something happens.”

  “Roger that.”

  Will laid the Remington 870 tactical shotgun on the concrete floor behind him. He only carried the shotgun and a Glock in a hip holster with him, having left his tried and true M4A1 assault rifle back at base. His weapons were loaded with silver ammo, the only thing besides sunlight that could kill the ghouls. Silver, even a tiny amount, once exposed to the creature’s bloodstream, caused a kind of chain reaction that destroyed it almost instantly. Because of that, his group collected silver like junkies, smelting and recasting it into bullets whenever they got the chance. Sunlight was the only thing the ghouls feared more, but it was a little harder to wield the sun as an offensive weapon.

  Night hadn’t done a lot to temper the heat around him, and Will was already sweating underneath the black T-shirt and stripped-down urban assault vest. He reached down and touched the handle of the cross-knife, in a sheath strapped on his left hip, just to make sure it was still there. The knife’s double-edged blade was covered in silver, and it was a reminder of that very first night when all of this started—The Purge, as they had come to call it. That was when Will had discovered the killing properties of silver, the main reason they were still alive to this day. He hated to think it was superstition, but he did feel naked without the knife on him at all times.

  He heard glass breaking from somewhere behind him and moved to the other side of the clock tower. Two dozen ghouls streamed up the driveway of a house. They had accessed the residence throug
h the windows—their usual M.O.—and gaunt figures flitted across the second-floor windows, briefly visible in the moonlight. After a while, the ghouls came rushing back out, down the same driveway, then spilled back out into the night, spreading out in different directions.

  They’re definitely looking for something…

  Will had suspected it, but he had become convinced when they had stopped for a few days at a small incorporated community called Village Mills about six kilometers back. There was no reason for the ghouls to be there. The place was barely a blip on the map, and Will made sure to keep their vehicles away from the main roads. Over the months, they had become good at hiding their tracks. And yet, there they were, about a hundred or so of the creatures, scouring through the few buildings in the area.

  Looking, searching for something.

  Someone.

  This wasn’t a ghoul scouting party in search of random survivors. He was convinced of that now. This was a ghoul hunting party. They were being hunted. Will, Danny, Lara, and the others. And they had been ever since they had abandoned Harold Campbell’s facility in the town of Starch, Texas, three months ago.

  In the back of his mind, Will wondered if she was down there, too…

  *

  He blocked out the rickety noise as he climbed down. He hopped the last couple of meters to the floor below just to be safe, and as soon as the soles of his boots touched the hard concrete, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  Another day, another dollar.

  He clicked the Push-to-Talk switch connected to the radio clipped to his vest. “Danny, I’m headed back now.”

  “Grab some breakfast, will ya?” Danny said.

  “McDonald’s or Burger King?”

  “You even have to ask? Mickey D’s all the way. Grab me one of their world-famous Big Breakfasts. The one with hotcakes.”

  “You want syrup with that, too?”

  “What are you, high? Of course I want syrup with my hotcakes.”

  “I’ll grab a dozen on the way back.”

  “My man.”

  Will pushed at the heavy display case in front of the clock tower’s glass doors, just enough to squeeze through. He stepped outside, blinking under the bright sun, then glanced down at his watch: 7:11 a.m.