Purge of Babylon (Book 3): The Stones of Angkor Read online

  “How’s everyone adjusting to life without Will and Gaby?” Lara asked.

  “Maddie’ll take over Gaby’s spot and we’ll cycle through the nightshift so everyone gets daylight duty every other day.”

  “Why, Danny, are you actually being responsible for once?”

  “Yes, but don’t tell anyone.”

  “And the arm?”

  Danny moved his right arm around in a circular motion, like a baseball pitcher winding up for a pitch. “It only hurts when I do this.”

  “So don’t do that.”

  He grunted. “Set you up pretty good for that one, huh?”

  She smiled. “And I appreciate it.”

  “Did I ever tell you the joke about the priest and the clown?”

  “I don’t wanna hear it.”

  “Ah, come on, without Willie here, you’re the next best thing.”

  “There’s Blaine.”

  “Too scary.”

  “Maddie.”

  “Too short.”

  “Sarah?”

  “Too always-cooking-something.”

  “I guess you’re out of luck, then.”

  Lara grabbed one of the binoculars hanging along the wall. She peered south and saw Blaine and Maddie working on the boat shack on the beach in front of the piers. Elise and Vera were building castles, while Jenny struggled with a fishing pole, screaming excitedly at the other girls.

  “Jenny caught another fish,” Lara said.

  “Fishing pole?”

  “What else would she use?”

  “I threw a rock into the lake this morning. Two fish floated to the top.”

  Danny was exaggerating, but not by much. Beaufont Lake was teeming with fish. Without fishermen to thin the herd, there was enough sea life in the water to feed them for a long time. Lara found that both reassuring and oddly a little depressing.

  Still better than cans of SPAM, I guess.

  “Anything from Will?” she asked.

  Danny glanced at his watch. “He’s only been gone for two hours, Lara. Relax. It usually takes Big Willie at least three hours to pick up a girl from the bar. The forever love that knows no bounds you two crazy kids share is still safe for at least another hour.”

  “I knew I could count on you to cheer me up, Danny.”

  He chuckled. “That’s what I’m here for. But just in case you’d like to remind him you have something better to offer back home, I wrote down the hospital radio’s frequency, along with the one for Jen’s helicopter.”

  Lara hung the binoculars and walked over to a table on the other side of the room. There was a ham radio on the tabletop and a sheet of paper duct taped next to it. An antenna extended outside the Tower gave the radio excellent range, not that they had made use of it in the last few months. Surviving, waiting constantly for Kate to attack, had taken precedence over broadcasting out into the world. Besides, without the computer that once ran Karen’s automated FEMA signal, the idea of manually calling out seemed like too much of a crapshoot—and too much work.

  “Give it half a year,” Will had said. “If we’re still around then, we’ll see if anyone’s still out there. Right now, we need to help ourselves first.”

  The radio was one of the things they had found in the Tower’s basement, one of the few places on the island she dreaded visiting. Every time she did wander down there—and usually only when she absolutely had to—she couldn’t help but feel a great sense of loss and tragedy. The equipment, the supplies, and the clothes stacked in piles were reminders of the poor souls that had come here seeking hope, only to find tragedy. It never failed to depress her.

  She sat down in a swivel chair and turned the ham radio on, then manipulated the frequency dial for a moment until she found the correct one.

  She pressed the transmit lever and spoke into the receiver. “Hello, this is Song Island to Mercy Hospital. Can you hear me?”

  “Say ‘over,’” Danny said behind her.

  “What?”

  “You have to say ‘over’ when you’re done talking. It’s a radio thing.”

  “I used to talk on the radio all the time when I was a kid, and I never said ‘over.’”

  “Well, you’re all grown up now. Different rules.”

  She turned back to the receiver. “This is Song Island to Mercy Hospital. Are you receiving this? Um, over.”

  She waited, listening to static on the other end.

  “Say it with more conviction,” Danny said.

  She pressed the lever again: “This is Song Island to Mercy Hospital. Can anyone hear me over there? Over.”

  She waited again, but there was still no reply.

  “Are you sure this is the right frequency?” she asked Danny.

  A male voice answered through the radio before Danny could respond: “This is Mercy Hospital. We read you loud and clear, Song Island. Over.”

  “Told ya,” Danny said.

  “Shut up,” she said. Then into the radio: “Roger that, Mercy Hospital. I’m looking for one of ours. He should have arrived by now. His name is Will. Over.”

  “He’s here, Song Island. I’ll go fetch him for you. Over.”

  “Thanks. Uh, over.”

  “Ask him if there are any hot girls over there,” Danny said.

  “What do you care? You already have a hot girl here.”

  “Hey, I like to keep my options open.”

  “I’ll tell Carly you said that.”

  “Go ahead. She’s keeping her options open, too.”

  Before Lara could reply, a familiar voice spoke through the radio: “Hey there, beautiful, you were looking for me?”

  She smiled at the sound of Will’s voice.

  “What’s he talking about?” Danny said behind her. “I wasn’t looking for him.”

  Lara ignored him, and said into the receiver, “How was the ride?”

  “Slightly bumpy,” Will said, “and the flight movie kinda sucked. How are things over there?”

  “It’s only been two hours, but we’ve managed to get by without you. Although it’s been tough. You are, after all, indispensable.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  “How’s the situation over there?”

  “What Jen said. They’ve sealed the entire floor off from the ghouls, but that still leaves nine infested floors below them.”

  Lara felt the hairs along her arms and neck prickle at the thought. “Great. Fresh nightmares for tonight. Thanks, Will.”

  He laughed. “Sorry.”

  “Sounds like they’ve gotten by so far.”

  “So far, yeah. Anyways, I was talking to Mike, and he wants to make other arrangements.”

  “What kind of ‘arrangements’?”

  “He wants to bring his people over to the island.”

  “You think that’s a good idea?”

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Right now, it’s just an idea. But we have to be open to it, or something like it.” He paused, then continued, “So, tell me how much you’ve missed me already…”

  *

  SHE FELT REFRESHED after talking with Will, and walked down to the beach along the cobblestone pathway that serpentined around the island like the many heads of a hydra. The short walk through the woods between the beach and the hotel grounds always allowed her to pretend there was nothing wrong with the world. It was quiet and cool, the trees supplying plenty of shade against the September sun.

  When she stepped onto the beach, Lara stayed on the path and watched the girls darting in and out of the lake, splashing each other with water. The fish that Jenny had caught was nowhere to be found, and she guessed they had released it. With so many fish already in the freezer back at the hotel kitchen, it was overkill to do more than just catch and release these days.

  Another luxury we didn’t have three months ago. Please, God, let us never run out of luxuries.

  She smiled to herself. What would her mother say if she knew her little girl had begun praying to an u
nseen, unknown, and unnamed God? Her father would probably have chuckled in amusement, but her mother…

  Sorry, Mom, try not to be too disappointed.

  Maddie was on top of the boat shack, a long, rectangular brick building that squatted in front of the piers. She sat in a lawn chair with her M4 rifle across her lap, binoculars hanging from her neck, and a bottle of sunscreen nearby. She looked like a teenager sitting in cutoff jean shorts and a T-shirt.

  “I hope you remembered to put that sunscreen on,” Lara called up to her.

  Maddie, in dark shades, sat up a little and smiled down. “Always, doc.”

  “See anything up there?”

  “Does the sun count?”

  “Just make sure it doesn’t try anything funny.”

  “That’s what the rifle’s for,” Maddie said, and went back to reclining.

  Will wanted to build a guard tower on top of the boat shack, to give the beach the same kind of coverage that the Tower provided. It was another item on a to-do list that was getting longer every week. Not that she minded. If you didn’t work or enjoy running around the beach every day, there wasn’t much else to do on the island.

  “Where’s Blaine?” Lara asked.

  “He went to the hotel for a bite,” Maddie said. “He’ll be back to relieve me in a few hours.”

  “Keep an eye on the girls for me.”

  “You got it, doc.”

  Lara headed back up the path. She liked Maddie. The country girl had come to them with Blaine and a young man named Bobby. Bobby was gone, killed during the attack on the island. It had been a bad night for all of them, but to look at the island now, she couldn’t even see signs that there had been a bloodbath on the beach just three months ago. The bodies were buried in the field behind the marina, and the blood had been washed away by the tide.

  *

  SHE HEARD LAUGHTER from the kitchen, and inside she found Blaine leaning against one of the counters, picking at a plate of baked fish wrapped in aluminum foil, while Sarah ate from her own plate with a fork. Sarah’s cheeks look flustered, her long blonde hair—the longest on the island by far—in a ponytail that went all the way down to her waist.

  Blaine was licking his fingers when she came into the kitchen. “Hey, want some fish?”

  “Smells good,” Lara said.

  “It would be nice if we had some vegetables to go with it,” Sarah said. “Cilantro or basil would be wonderful.”

  “Zucchini or green olives, too?”

  “See, I knew there was a cook in there somewhere.”

  “She must be very well hidden, then.”

  There was suddenly awkward silence, and Lara got the sense she had interrupted something.

  She quickly turned to go. “I’m going to go do something…that isn’t here. Carry on.”

  She caught Sarah blushing a bit as she left, but Blaine was already out of her peripheral vision so she couldn’t tell his reaction.

  Blaine and Sarah? Was it possible?

  She reminded herself what Blaine had lost just to get to the island. For the first few days after the fight, they weren’t even sure he was going to stay. At one point, she remembered Will telling her not to be surprised if Blaine disappeared into the western section of the island, into the woods, and never came back. Blaine was looking noticeably less haggard in recent weeks, and whether it was the island weather finally doing its job, or the (Sarah’s) company, he seemed to have more life in his eyes now than in all the time she had known him.

  She was happy for him, for Sarah. Or maybe she was reading too much into what was really just a simple, innocent moment? She hoped it was true. The two of them had been through a lot. They all had. To find a little slice of peace, maybe even happiness, was more than any of them could have asked for when so many people had lost their lives.

  She thought of Will again and couldn’t help but smile to herself as she walked through the hotel. Sometimes she forgot she was on an island, that just beyond those waters were creatures that shouldn’t exist, but did. But here, now, in this place that was designed for rich people but had never been finished, none of the world’s problems mattered.

  This is our home now. God help those who try to take it from us.

  Lara found Carly in the laundry room, near the back of Hallway A—the main hallway that connected the completed sections of the hotel—past the ballroom and squeezed in between some employee lounges and large storage rooms. It wasn’t quite the bowels of the hotel, but it was close.

  Carly was folding bedsheets and humming some pop song Lara vaguely recalled being popular on the radio. Lara tapped her on the shoulder.

  A month ago, Carly would have jumped, but this afternoon she just glanced over and pulled free one iPod earbud. “Hey. How you holding up during this separation from your lover?”

  Lara groaned. “Please, dear God, don’t ever say ‘lover’ again.”

  Carly laughed. “Agreed. I died a little as soon as I said it.”

  Lara grabbed some dry sheets and clothes out of the industrial-size machines that lined one wall and dumped them onto an island counter. Washers took up space on the other side of the room, with a large pantry stuffed with detergent and drying sheets, along with spare baskets and miscellaneous inventory. Washing what they used was a good way to cut down on unnecessary supply runs for clean clothes, and allowed them to focus on more valuable items like silver, medical supplies, and ammo. There was no such thing as “too much” ammo.

  She began folding what looked like the girls’ clothes. Elise’s or Vera’s, or possibly Jenny’s. Not that it mattered. Everyone needed clean clothes.

  “How’s your neck?” she asked.

  Carly self-consciously touched the bullet scar along the left side of her neck. It was tiny, but visible if you peeked. “Vera thinks it makes me look like a badass.”

  “And you don’t have any trouble breathing? Or swallowing?”

  “Danny hasn’t complained.”

  Lara made a face. “Oh, gross.”

  “Come on, we’re both adults here. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do to keep her man happy, am I right?”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far. As Gaby would say, TMI, Carly. Way too much information.”

  Carly laughed again, and Lara joined her.

  When they finally calmed down, Carly said, “Speaking of which, I’m not a big fan of Gaby going with Will. She’s just a kid.”

  “She’s just two years younger than you.”

  “Oh, right, bring facts into this.”

  Lara smiled. “Anyway, I told him the same thing, but he disagrees. He says…” She paused.

  “What?”

  “He says she’s the best shooter by far after him and Danny.”

  “That’s what Danny says, too.”

  “Is that…good?”

  Carly shrugged. “I don’t know. They seem to think it is.”

  “What do you think?”

  “If none of this had happened, Gaby would be getting ready for the prom and college, not learning to shoot and fight. I bet she never thought she’d be doing that a year ago.”

  “I don’t think any of us thought we’d be doing this a year ago.”

  “Yeah, laundry was never in any of my plans,” Carly said.

  “Well, you’re really good at it.”

  “Shut up, that’s not funny. How long did Will say he’ll be gone, anyway?”

  “He should know by tonight. Right now, he’s talking to Mike—the guy leading the group over there.”

  “Their version of Will.”

  “Uh huh. He says—”

  She didn’t get to finish because the radio clipped to her hip squawked, and they heard Danny’s voice: “Heads up, we have vehicles on approach.”

  Lara unclipped her radio. “How many, Danny?”

  “Four. Three trucks and one van.” He paused, then added, “They’re pulling into the marina.”

  “I’m on the way.”

  Carly aba
ndoned the laundry and jogged out of the room with Lara, who headed for the closest side exit.

  “I thought we shut down the FEMA broadcast?” Carly said.

  “We did,” Lara said. “Even before it got blown up. Whoever these people are, if they’re here because of Karen’s broadcast, they’re three months late.”

  *

  LARA REACHED THE Tower and found Danny at the south window on the third floor, looking out with binoculars. Carly had separated from her outside the hotel, making a beeline for the beach to gather up the kids and bring them back to the hotel. It was a system Will had put in place, and everyone knew their roles.

  Lara snatched the spare binoculars off a hook and peered out across the lake at the marina.

  Or what was left of it. Will had burned it down, along with a storage garage. He had also set ablaze the two-story house across a small inlet from the marina at the same time, leaving only old trampled hurricane fencing behind. There were exactly eleven vehicles in the marina parking lot at the moment. A few hours ago, there had only been seven.

  She saw tiny black dots climbing out of the newly arrived vehicles, the figures gathering near the water’s edge. She could tell they had spotted the Tower and Song Island by the glint of binocular lenses staring back in their direction.

  “How many do you count, Danny?”

  “Seven from the trucks, four out of the van,” Danny said.

  Lara swung the binoculars toward the beach, at Maddie on the roof of the boat shack.

  On cue, her radio squawked, and she heard Maddie’s voice: “What are we looking at?”

  “Eleven people so far,” Lara said into the radio.

  “Any ideas what they want?” Carly asked from somewhere else on the island, likely the hotel where she, Blaine, and Sarah were guarding the girls.

  “Not yet,” Danny said. He glanced over at Lara. “What do you think?”

  “Why are you asking me?” she said, meeting his gaze.

  “Well, Will’s not here, so that kind of leaves you in charge.”

  She stared speechlessly back at him.

  Her face must have also looked stunned, because he grinned and said, “Oh come on, that’s surprising to you? Look, I don’t say this a lot, but Willie boy’s really good at this sort of stuff. Me, I’m just a lover and a fighter. Got a farmer’s daughter you want seduced? I’m your man. Need a way out of an Afghanistan mountainside covered in Taliban? Uh, ask Will. Failing that, ask Lara.”