The Isles of Elysium (Purge of Babylon, Book 6) (5 page)

Shit,
he thought when he saw the soldiers turning and heading back toward their boat. One of them had grabbed the wounded (not really “fat”) man and was half-dragging and half-carrying him, while the third continued raining fire on the ridgeline where they’d last spotted Gene.

Keep your head down, kid.

That was exactly what he should have done, too. There was no point in pursuing the soldiers. Hell, he’d have to get a lot closer just to shoot them with his weapon.

Yup. The smart thing here was to hang back. He could always wait for another group to show up. Gene said they came around regularly, didn’t he? Once a week?

Just hang back and wait. There was no point in doing something stupid now, when the men down there didn’t even know he existed. He could gather intelligence about the operation around here some other way. Maybe even find out if they had Gillian somewhere, if he was really, really lucky.

Right. Because he had been really lucky these last few months.

Keo sighed and slipped out from behind cover and jogged across the parking lot.

He used the parked vehicles as cover, darting from one to the other, but always moving east toward the docks.

While he was going as fast as he could, the soldiers had bogged down halfway back to their boat. The wounded man had proven too hurt to keep moving and was sitting down while the second one tried to dress his wounds, blood spurting on the deck around them. The third soldier was pulling security, pointing his rifle at the ridgeline and still searching for something to shoot. Gene was being very smart, though, and not giving the man anything.

Keo was halfway to the docks, willing the guard to keep his eyes focused on the ridgeline, when the man decided to look down and saw Keo just as he slid behind a blue Chevy truck. The man didn’t waste any time and opened fire.

Ping-ping-ping!
as bullets pelted the other side of the vehicle.

“Hurry up!” someone shouted between shots. The shooter. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

The gunfire was continuous, bullets smashing into the truck, some going astray and chipping the pavement around him. Finally, after about ten seconds of nonstop shooting, there was a brief respite.

Keo peeked out from behind the bumper at the soldier as the man was backing up, reloading as he went. His friends had stood up and were continuing to hobble back to their boat.

Should have parked closer, dummies.

Crack!
as a bullet punched into the wooden dock floor in front of the third soldier.

Gene, back in play.

But before Gene could correct his errant second shot, the soldier turned toward another part of the ridgeline and opened up with a new magazine.

Keo took the opportunity to slip out from behind the Chevy and race across the parking lot. He picked up speed as he went, taking the remaining meters in a matter of seconds and reaching the docks just as the soldier turned back toward him.

He let loose with a burst and didn’t release the trigger until the man fell sideways and off the dock,
splashing
into the water below.

The other two were almost at their boat. They were shouldering each other, alternating between hobbling and running, when they turned around just as their comrade disappeared into the water behind them. They hadn’t heard Keo’s gunshots because the MP5SD barely made any noise when it fired, except for the cyclical whirring of its parts. Compared to the crash of the M4 and Gene’s rifle, Keo might as well be spitting. So the remaining soldiers weren’t reacting to Keo’s gunshots, but rather the loud
splash
of their friend falling into the water.

Keo was running full speed up the dock now, stepping on the trail of blood one of the soldiers had left in his wake as he was dragged off. He switched the submachine gun’s fire to semiautomatic as the second soldier dropped his friend and tried to unsling his rifle.

Keo shot the second soldier once in the thigh, then as the man screamed and grabbed for his leg, shot him again in the chest. Unlike his friend, this one only crumpled to the deck, where he lay still and didn’t move.

The not-really-fat soldier looked shocked to see the body fall next to him. Then he snapped out of it and glanced over at Keo before scrambling to unsling his rifle.

“Don’t make me kill you!” Keo shouted.

The wounded man looked conflicted, and Keo was sure he might finish going for his M4 after all—there was at least a fifty-fifty chance—but the man was apparently smarter than he looked. Either that, or he wanted to live more. He pulled his hands away from the rifle and placed them over his thigh to stanch the bleeding instead.

Blood was squirting out through the man’s fingers when Keo finally reached him. He grabbed the wounded man’s rifle and tossed it up the dock, then kicked the dead soldier’s rifle into the water. Once he secured the remaining soldier’s handgun—a nice-looking Smith & Wesson .32 semiautomatic—Keo took a step back to catch his breath.

“Keo!” Gene, waving with both hands (and Deuce) at him from the ridgeline.

Keo waved back. “All clear!”

He looked back at his captive. Like the soldiers Keo had encountered recently, this one had a name tag over his right breast pocket. It read: “J. Miller.” Unlike the ones in Louisiana, Miller and his fellow Texans had a patch of the Lone Star State over one shoulder.

“We gotta stop meeting like this,” Keo said.

“Huh?” Miller said, blinking the sweat and sun out of his eyes.

“Me, you guys, and marinas.”

Miller continued to blink at him, unsure how to respond. He finally said, “I don’t know you, man.”

“No? Hunh. I must be thinking about some other douchebags in uniforms, then.” He looked down at the blood oozing out between Miller’s fingers. “Hurts?”

“What do you think?”

“Looks like it hurts.”

“That’s because it does.”

“You need a doctor?”

“I got medical supplies in the boat.”

“Oh, do you now? That’s convenient.”

Miller didn’t say anything.

Keo glanced at the dead soldier nearby. His name tag read: “Matthew.” Keo hadn’t caught the third soldier’s name before he did his swan dive into Galveston Bay. Not that it mattered. Fish food didn’t need names.

“So,” Keo said, looking back at Miller. “I have a few questions. You mind answering them for me?”

“I got a choice?” Miller asked.

Keo grinned. “Of course you do. It’s a free country, isn’t it? Well, it used to be, anyway.”

J. Miller, as
it turned out, was a former paramedic, and when Keo tossed him a first-aid kit he had retrieved from the soldiers’ boat, the man quickly took out what he needed, cut off a large chunk of his pant leg, and treated his own wound. He worked without making a sound, though every now and then his breathing accelerated slightly.

They were in the parking lot, with Miller leaning against a white Bronco and the sun beating down mercilessly on both of them. Keo gave Miller space to keep himself from bleeding to death while Gene had retreated back to the ridgeline overlooking the western marina in case more soldiers tried sneaking up on them.

When Miller was finished, Keo handed him a refilled bottle of water, also from the soldiers’ boat. The vessel was packed with supplies, including spare magazines with 5.56 rounds but no 9mm, which was what Keo would have preferred. He’d only used up half of the bullets in his MP5SD and he still had two full spares, but a man with extra ammo (especially the right kind) was a rich one these days.

Miller, his hands covered with his own blood, swiped them on his one good pant leg before taking the water and gulping it down in one long swig. He was in his early thirties, with a somewhat pudgy face and already stripes of gray among his dark hair. He eyed Keo suspiciously over the bottle as he drank.

“Careful there, don’t wanna drown yourself,” Keo said. “How’s the leg? Any broken bones?”

Miller slowed down but kept drinking. “It went clean through.”

“Lucky you.”

“Yeah, lucky me,” Miller said, clenching his teeth.

“J. Miller,” Keo read. “That’s a first.”

“What’s that?” Miller said, lowering the bottle. He sighed with relief.

“The initial on your tag.”

“There was another Miller in my outfit, so I had to add a J.”

“What’s it stand for?”

“Jack.”

“Ah. So should I call you Jack or Miller?”

“I don’t give a shit,” Miller said, and handed the bottle of water back.

Keo put it away. “Fair enough.”

“Who the fuck are you, anyway?”

“I’m just a guy with a gun. Those two back there your friends?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You guess?”

He shrugged. “I’ve only known them for a few months. It’s not like we had dinner at each other’s houses or anything.”

“You guys have houses out here?”

“Rooms might have been more appropriate. So what’s the deal with you and the kid?”

“I guess he lives here. I just showed up earlier this morning.”

“Your boat…”

“Uh huh.”

“What are you, Japanese or something?”

“Or something,” Keo said. “You did pretty good there with the leg.”

“I could still use some real medical attention, I’m not gonna lie.”

“And where would you find something like that?”

“T18 has a full medical staff.”

“T18?”

“Where I’m based.”

“What’s the
T
stand for?”

Miller gave him an
Are you kidding me with that question?
look. Then he said, “Texas.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“Where you from, anyway?”

“San Diego. But I’m assuming you meant recently. In which case, that would be Louisiana.”

“I’ve never been to Louisiana,” Miller said almost wistfully.

“Not too late. It’s just next door. I hear the traffic’s pretty light these days.”

“Can’t. Got a job to do.”

“I can appreciate that. But speaking of going places, how far is T18?”

Miller clammed up. Apparently he realized (too late) that he shouldn’t have said anything in the first place.

“Look,” Keo said, “here’s the deal. I need information, and you have it. I’d prefer if you told me what I needed to know without all that messy bloodshed. Er, well, more bloodshed. I mean, you’re already hurt, but you can still walk. Mostly. Just tell me what I need to know and we’re cool. You go your way, and I go mine. Tell me that’s not the best deal you’re gonna get all day.”

Miller gave him that long look again, as if he could read Keo’s face.

Good luck with that, pal.

“Well?” Keo said. “What’s it going to be?”

“You know where League City is?” Miller asked.

“For the sake of avoiding further pointless questions, let’s just pretend I’ve never stepped foot in the great state of Texas in my entire life.”

“It’s about thirty miles from here. Up the I-45. It used to be a town called Wilmont.”

“How big is T18?”

“Pretty big.”

“Okay, let’s put it another way. How many people are in T18 right now?”

Miller thought about it for a moment, then, “Around 4,000.”

Keo whistled. “That’s a lot of people.”

“It’s probably the smallest town in Texas. There’s one outside of Dallas that has almost 10,000.”

Keo wished he could say he was surprised. From everything he had heard, there were a hell of a lot more towns out there he would never know about, all of them filled with survivors. He used to think the creatures had either killed everyone or turned them into ghouls, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. There had been a plan in effect from the very first day of The Purge, and he was only now starting to fully grasp the scope of it. He had never been especially good at out-of-the-box long-term thinking, but Keo had to admit, what the creatures had done and what they were currently doing out there was beyond impressive.

“Good to know,” Keo said, hoping his face didn’t betray his thoughts. “So, let’s pretend you and your friends caught survivors running around out here. Say, like my little buddy Gene. Where would you take him?”

“Our orders are to take everyone we find to T18.”

“How many did you take in the last, say, six months?”

“Me personally? None. I just joined Matthew and Bo out here two weeks ago. Before that, I had guard duty back in town.”

“So this is a promotion?”

“It beats looking at the same patch of dirt every day.”

“Thirty miles is a pretty long drive to take people back and forth.”

“Not if there’s nothing between here and League City.”

“Nothing?”

“I mean, there are small towns, but no one lives out here if they can help it. It’s not exactly fertile ground.”

“What about T18?”

“It’s the exception. It’s connected to Trinity Bay by a river, and there are large undeveloped lands in the area.”

“Wildlife?”

“Yeah, sure. Some of them are just starting to come back now that the crawlers aren’t feeding on them anymore.” Miller paused, then added, “You’re looking for someone.”

Keo nodded. “I am.”

“You think they’re in T18?”

“Don’t know. I guess the only way to find out is to go there and look.”

Miller smiled at him.

“That’s funny to you?” Keo asked.

“If you go to T18, you won’t come out alive.”

“Really.”

“Really,” Miller nodded.

“I thought these towns were paradise. Peace and quiet. Sanctuary from the night. All that good stuff. You telling me all of that’s a big fat lie?”

“They’re supposed to be, but T18’s different. It’s…problematic.”

“How so?”

“It’s at war. If you go there, you better choose sides.”

“So tell me who the good guys are.”

“That’s the problem. There’s no such thing. There’s just the bad guys and the badder guys.”

Sounds familiar,
Keo thought, and asked, “And which ones are you and your buddies?”

“The bad guys,” Miller said. “The badder guys? Trust me, when you meet them you’re going to wish you were on our side.”

*