The Fields of Lemuria (17 page)

“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.

“Stay down,” the man named Lou said. “Willie’s fine; he’s just taking a nap in the bathroom. You’ll be, too, as long as you stay out of my way.”

Keo stood up on his tiptoes and peered down at Barry, crumpled on the floor next to the door, as Lou knelt down and rifled through his pockets. Barry was still alive, but his face had turned blue as he struggled to breathe.

Lou found what he was looking for—a key—and stood up. He turned around and looked into the security glass at Keo. Late thirties, red beard, and hard brown eyes pierced the peephole. He had an AK-47 slung over his back, and there were still remnants of white paint on his face where a skull used to be before he had washed it off.

“Lou,”
one of the men who had dragged Keo through the woods earlier had said.
“This guy just shanked his brother. We better tell Pollard. There’s no telling what Lou’s gonna do to this guy. I’ve seen him do things…”

Keo took a step back as Lou unlocked the door and pushed it open. He stood in the bright hallway, one hand on the butt of his sidearm, and didn’t make any further move to enter the room. He was shorter than Keo, but he made up for it with broad shoulders and muscle. The guy outweighed him by fifty pounds easily.

“You don’t know me, do you?” Lou asked.

Sure I do, I shoved a knife into your little brother’s chest,
Keo thought, but he figured he needed to stall for time, so he said instead, “No.”

“Lou,” the man said.

“What’s this about, Lou?”

“I had a brother. Chris. You remember him, don’t you?”

“I don’t know any Chris.”

Stall for time.

And then what?

Good question…

Lou took his hand away from his sidearm and pulled a sheathed Ka-Bar knife from behind his back. He pulled the blade out, the hallway light glinting off the sharp edge. “You recognize this?”

Keo did, but he shook his head anyway. “A knife’s a knife. What about it?”

“It’s my brother’s. It belonged to Chris. You killed him with it this afternoon. You remember now?”

Keo stared back at Lou, saw the pain, anger, and hatred glaring back at him. He looked past Lou at Barry, lying on the floor, the LED lamp hanging from a hook nailed into the wall. Poor Barry was either dead or unconscious, because he wasn’t moving at all. His face was covered in blood that had drooled out of his shattered nose.

Keo’s eyes shifted back to Lou. “So what is this, revenge?”

“Yeah,” Lou said. He tossed the sheath to the floor and tightened his grip on the knife. “That’s exactly what this is.”

“You took out both of my guards just to get to me? I’m flattered. But I’m not sure Pollard’s going to be very happy with you. From what I hear, he can be a real hard ass when people disappoint him.”

“I don’t give a shit what Pollard says,” Lou said, spitting out the words.

Oh, I can see that. You clearly don’t give a shit anymore, my friend.

“Why should he be the only one who gets his pound of flesh?” Lou said. He clutched and unclutched the knife handle. “I’m going to make you scream, and no one’s going to stop me.”

Keo’s eyes fixed on the open door behind Lou.

There. That was his way out.

Literally, in this case.

Who says I can’t come up with a plan?

Oh right, everyone.

“Do you even remember him?” Lou asked. “Do you even
remember?
”