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

  Somewhere else in the department store, Bobby was hiding behind a counter, waiting to pop up with his M4. Even if the kid couldn’t shoot—or hit the broad side of a barn, according to Maddie—Blaine only needed him to aim in the right direction. The M4s had semi-automatic and three-shot burst capabilities.

  As soon as Mason and Gerry entered the store, they stopped at the sight of Maddie, waiting in the aisle in front of them. She was too far away for Blaine to see her, but he knew where she would be and heard her just fine.

  “We have a problem,” Maddie said.

  “What kind of problem?” Mason asked.

  “It’s Lenny.”

  “What about Lenny?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “What?”

  As Mason and Gerry started to process that bit of news, Blaine popped up from behind the clothing rack, took aim, and fired.

  He realized he was still too far from his targets as soon as he shot and watched the bullet obliterate the head of a mannequin two feet behind Gerry’s head.

  Shit!

  Before he could get off a second shot, Mason and Gerry were moving, reacting amazingly fast to the ambush. One second they were standing in front of the doors, exchanging words with Maddie, and the next the glass doors behind them shattered as Maddie opened fire with her M4, letting the bullets fly in a loud, thunderous three-round burst.

  Pieces of mannequins exploded and flew everywhere, and the ear-splitting sound of three assault rifles firing at the same time erupted like rolling thunder. Even though he had been anticipating it, the loud and continuous hammering of gunfire inside a confined building still managed to startle him.

  Gerry turned slightly to his right, tracking where Blaine’s shot came from. Blaine didn’t know if the yokel actually saw him, but that didn’t stop the man from opening fire in his direction anyway. A pair of plastic mannequins exploded in front of Blaine, forcing him to crouch as he ran for cover.

  Blaine got off a second and third shot—both going wild like the first one—even as he lunged to the floor in a desperate act of self-preservation. The Nike clothing rack above him was ripped apart by Gerry’s bullets, and pieces of clothing fell on top of him and bits of shredded fabric scattered into the air. He marveled at how much damage a thirty-bullet magazine could do in a series of nonstop three-round bursts.

  He crawled away as quickly as he could, seeking shelter behind a shoe rack. As soon as he reached the hiding place, bullets punched through the wooden frame and slammed into jackets hanging on the wall behind him. Blaine rolled away along the carpeted floor and didn’t stop until he felt cold tiles under him.

  Suddenly the three assault rifles were joined by a fourth (Bobby!), and Blaine couldn’t help but think to himself, Well, this isn’t going well at all.

  He managed to scramble back up to his feet and dart across an aisle, clothes tearing and bullets ricocheting off steel frames around him. It had to be Gerry, trying to take him down. He didn’t think Mason would be so single-minded about trying to kill him.

  Stupid country yokel.

  Blaine fired back blindly as he ran, but he knew the three shots he had just wasted weren’t going to hit anything. Or anyone. Not even close. But they did do something, which was make Gerry stop shooting for a while and take cover. Or maybe Gerry was just reloading. Whatever he was doing, Gerry stopped shooting long enough for Blaine to find temporary safety.

  He had made it all the way back to where the jewelry cases were. Blaine pushed himself up from the floor and leaned against one of the counters. He looked to his left and saw Maddie reloading her M4 while crouched behind another counter across the store from him. She looked over and grinned, but he saw fear and doubt in her eyes.

  Maddie stood back up and fired another three-round burst in Mason’s direction before dipping back behind the counter. Blaine heard more windows breaking and glass shattering against floor tiles. He knew she was trying to conserve bullets because they had a limited amount. She was already on her second magazine. Her last magazine.

  Blaine leaned out from behind the counter to try to find Gerry, when two bullets zipped through the wooden counter and almost took his head off. Chipped wood flew inches from his face, spraying the floor and tossing slivers into his hair. He ducked and crawled backward away from the spot, expecting Gerry to keep shooting, but for some reason the man finally stopped.

  Maybe he’s running out of bullets…

  Yeah, right.

  He looked over at Maddie again, back behind cover, biding her time. She seemed lost in thought, and he imagined she was probably counting how many shots she had fired. He saw her switching her rifle’s fire selector to semi-automatic.

  “You still alive over there, Maddie?” Mason shouted from somewhere in the store.

  “More alive than Lenny,” Maddie shouted back.

  “Shit, you killed Lenny?”

  “Damn right! We have his weapons, too.”

  Blaine grinned.

  Smart girl.

  Someone fired off two quick shots, followed by silence. Bullet casings clattered around on the store tiles in the aftermath.

  “You missed, Bobby!” Mason shouted. His voice echoed, and it was hard to pinpoint where it was coming from. “You never could shoot for shit, kid. Frankly, I’m disappointed you joined in on this fun exercise. I expected more from you.”

  Blaine heard another couple of shots, then two more bullet casings clacking against the floor. Bobby, replying the only way he knew how, with his rifle.

  “Miss me, miss me, now you gotta kiss me!” Mason shouted, then laughed hysterically.

  The guy’s out of his fucking mind.

  Blaine was counting how many bullets he had fired (Five…or six?) when he heard a loud crunch behind him and instantly knew it was boots stepping on broken glass. He shot up like a cannon, raising his gun—

  And saw Gerry standing ten feet away, pointing his M4 in his face. Blaine’s gun was only halfway up and he knew he was dead. Gerry knew it, too, because he had the mother of all self-satisfied smirk on his face as he stared back at Blaine behind the iron sights of the rifle.

  Before Gerry could fire, there was a gunshot and Gerry’s right shoulder seemed to explode and blood spurted out. He twisted sideways and as he did, he squeezed the trigger and the M4 raked the store in a series of three-round bursts that blew away mannequins and scarred racks of clothes and shattered counter tops.

  Blaine finished raising his gun and shot Gerry twice in the side. This time he didn’t miss.

  Gerry stumbled into racks of clothes and pulled them down with him to the floor, until he was lying still, his body and face covered in pants and shirts.

  Blaine hurried over to where the gunshot that had saved his life had come from. He found Sandra leaning against a full-length mirror that covered the door of a fitting room. She slid down to the floor as he rushed over. The Glock—Lenny’s Glock—dropped from her fingers.

  His eyes widened at the sight of her hands, holding her stomach, and blood slipping through her fingers in bright red streams.

  He kneeled next to her and put his hands over hers. “You’ll be fine,” he said, trying to smile, trying to convince her. To convince himself. It wasn’t working. “You’ll be fine. I’ve seen worse.”

  “Really?” Her voice was soft and calm, and came out almost as a whisper. She was smiling at him as she said it. “Where did you see worse, babe?”

  “You’re talking to a guy who was shot three times, remember? You just got shot once. This is child’s play. You’ll be fine.”

  “He got me pretty good, babe.”

  “You’ll be fine,” he said again. “You’ll be fine.”

  He grabbed some clothes draped over a rack and pulled them free. He took her hands and pried them from her stomach. She fought him, but he was stronger and she finally let go. Blood gushed out in the split second it took him to push the shirts over her wound. He wrapped the long sleeves of one of the shirts around her body to
keep them in place. Blood instantly soaked the pink fabric and turned it a dark, violent red.

  “See?” he said, smiling at her. Or trying to. He couldn’t hide the desperation in his voice, and he knew she could hear it, too. “Good as new. I told you. Good as new.”

  She looked at him through pain and sweat, and she still looked beautiful. Amazingly beautiful. “You’re sweet, but you’re a lousy liar.”

  “Who’s lying?”

  “You are.”

  “Bullshit. You’ll be fine.”

  “Liar,” she whispered, “but I love you anyway.”

  “I love you too,” he said.

  The emotions came suddenly, washing over him in waves, and he felt terrified and impotent.

  Sandra reached up with one bloodied hand and touched his cheek gently. “Go to Song Island,” she said, her voice so soft and weak he had to strain to hear her. “Take Maddie and Bobby. Go to Song Island and try to be happy.”

  He shook his head. “Not without you. That’s the plan, remember?”

  “I’m not coming back from this. Not this one. We’ve used up all our lives, baby. You and me. But you have to keep going. If you love me—if you care about me—you’ll keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”

  “I—” he started, but stopped.

  Sandra closed her eyes, and she wasn’t breathing anymore. Her head tilted to one side, and all the life drained from her face. His beautiful Sandra, who had changed his life, given him the best gift anyone had ever given him by loving him back.

  She was gone. Just like that, she was gone.

  Blaine sat and stared at her. He wasn’t sure how long he kept that pose, unable to move, to feel. His brain might have shut down on him, and he wasn’t aware of actually breathing or thinking or even being. Even the continued sounds of gunfire behind him didn’t shake him loose. He could barely hear them anyway.

  He willed Sandra’s eyes to open, for her lips to part and start breathing again. It might have been seconds, or minutes, or maybe hours.

  The sounds of footsteps invaded his fog, followed by voices. He wasn’t sure who they belonged to. Maddie, perhaps, or maybe Mason come to finish what Gerry started. Maybe that was for the best. He couldn’t imagine going on without Sandra anyway.

  So he waited for the bullet that never came.

  Then Maddie was crouching next to him, nudging him on the shoulder, trying to get his attention. “Blaine. Blaine…”

  He turned his head slowly to look at her, saw the whiteness of her face, the worry in her eyes, the thin sheet of stinging sweat. He looked back at Sandra, because he was afraid she might disappear if he took his eyes away from her for too long.

  Come back, Sandra, come back to me…

  “He’s gone,” Maddie was saying. “Mason. After you killed Gerry, he ran off. It’s almost nightfall. We need to get ready for tonight. I don’t know how this is going to affect them. The ghouls. We need to get ready, just in case.”

  Hands grabbed and lifted him from the floor. Blaine wasn’t sure if he was supposed to fight them or not. So he did nothing. Bobby was surprisingly strong.

  Then he was walking through the store, through the destroyed racks of clothing and bullet-riddled counters. Over shirts and pants and shoes and jewelry. There was glass everywhere. And more jewelry, and even more clothing, and bullet casings sliding under their shoes.

  Silver. Take the silver. Make bullets. Silver bullets.

  Then he was back inside the employee lounge and sitting on the couch. He didn’t know how he got there so quickly.

  Bobby locked the door and leaned against it.

  Maddie sat on the couch next to him. She wiped at a thick patch of sweat clinging to her face and she had an extra M4 rifle slung over her shoulder. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next. With the ghouls. I don’t know how they’re going to respond to the bodies in the store. Lenny’s and Gerry’s… and Sandra’s. So we have to be ready for anything.”

  He didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure if he could talk.

  “We have to put the suits back on,” Maddie said. “Just in case, okay?”

  Bobby retrieved their suits from the corner where they had left them. Blaine heard the rustling of clothes and zippers, and a hazmat suit and gas mask somehow ended up in his hands. There was another suit and mask on the floor, like someone had abandoned it.

  Sandra’s…

  “Bobby, you gotta help me put it on him,” he heard Maddie say.

  Bobby took Blaine’s suit and mask from him. They stood him up, directing his actions like he was a two-year-old. They raised his arms and lifted his legs, then someone—Bobby, probably—handed him back the gas mask and patted him lightly on the shoulder, like a father would his wounded son, as if to say, “You’ll be fine, my boy.”

  Bobby, in his hazmat suit, walked back to the door and sat down, the rifle resting between his legs, the gas mask draped over one knee. He leaned back against the door and waited. He didn’t have to wait very long.

  Darkness came quickly, and with it, the ghouls.

  For the first time in the last eight months, Blaine discovered he didn’t really care that the ghouls were coming, that it was dark outside.

  What did any of it matter without Sandra?

  CHAPTER 25

  JOSH

  PROS AND CONS: What were they?

  Pros: He was finally safe, on an island the ghouls couldn’t get to, and he had never been closer to Gaby. She finally accepted him as more than just a neighbor and a friend, and there were signs she was willing to be more, something he never could have expected just a few days ago.

  Cons: There were none. At least, none that he could see. It was hot on the island, but then it was hot everywhere. In Texas. In Louisiana. Where wasn’t it hot?

  Conclusion: Sure, the world had essentially come to an end, but his life was looking pretty bright right about now.

  Suck on that, mofos!

  After he settled into his room, Josh spent the first few hours on the island exploring, careful to stick to the cobblestone paths that snaked everywhere. He had planned to invite Gaby along, but he could hear the shower running in her room next to his. His face still throbbed, and it felt good to be out in the sun. There was a nice breeze, and it soothed Josh’s bruises and seemed to help with the swelling around his eyes.

  He had left his gun back in his room. There was something about the island, about the way the islanders walked around without guns—except for the big guy, Tom—that made it seem all right for Josh to do the same. If it was good enough for them…

  While everyone stuck to the hotel and the air conditioning, Josh was irresistibly drawn to the Tower, about half a football field from the back of the hotel, perched on the eastern cliff. He stood next to the concrete base of the thick, conical structure, craning his neck to look up at the unfinished glass housing at the top. It was high up, and his neck hurt trying to take in the entire sight.

  Josh pulled open the thick wooden door to the Tower. It was a lot heavier than it looked. Or maybe he just needed to work out more. Probably a little of both.

  He stepped inside.

  There wasn’t much of a first floor. There was a chair in a corner and another thick wooden door built into the concrete floor with a ring handle. The basement, he guessed. There was for a bookcase with hardcover books, paperbacks, and stacks of yellowing magazines. A spiral cast-iron staircase wrapped around the wall of the Tower’s interior like a skeletal snake, gradually extending upward before ending at another wooden door in the first-floor ceiling.

  Josh climbed the staircase and was out of breath by the time he reached the door at the end. He pushed at it, felt it giving way grudgingly, and had to put his shoulder into it just to push it all the way up. The damn thing was heavy, and he felt like one of those submariners pushing open the top hatch of the sub in order to step outside. He poked his head through the rectangular opening, not quite sure what to expect.

  The second floor was smalle
r than the first, which made sense since the Tower contracted inward the higher it went up. There was another bookcase across the room, but what really caught his attention were the paintings along one side of the wall. A dog with something in its mouth, a big deer, and a guy peering out from behind some bushes. There was a cot with meticulously folded blankets and sheets. Another section of spiral staircase circled the wall, leading up to yet another thick door in another floor above him.

  Josh climbed all the way up and walked to the window across the room. The breeze up here was definitely cooler. There were no curtains on the windows, which were really just big square holes in the wall. He wondered if there was supposed to be more—like window frames with glass, maybe.

  Josh leaned out the window and looked around. He could see almost everything on the eastern side of Song Island, including the beach to the south. There was a solar-powered LED floodlight directly above him, hanging just below the windowsill of a third-floor window.

  “Nice view, huh?” a voice said behind him.

  Josh was startled and turned quickly, surprised to find Tom sitting on the other side of the floor, behind the open door. Tom had apparently been there the whole time, eating what looked like blueberries out of a Ziploc bag; his lips had turned purple from berry juice. The cheap fold-out chair under him looked as if it shouldn’t be able to support a man of his weight.

  Tom looked pleased at Josh’s reaction. “Sorry, kid, didn’t mean to scare you. This is sort of my place.”

  “I didn’t know anyone was up here,” Josh said. And how the hell didn’t I see you sitting back there all this time?

  “No worries.” Tom wiped his hands on his cargo shorts, smearing purple juice over the fabric. “Ugh. Now that’s going to stain.”

  “Baking soda will get that out.”

  “That right? Baking soda?”

  “You can usually rub it out with a wet rag.”

  “I think we have some baking soda in the kitchen,” Tom said, flicking at the stains on his pants. “Josh, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened to your face?”