The Isles of Elysium (Purge of Babylon, Book 6) (2 page)

For a few minutes, neither one of them moved. Keo kept expecting the man’s reinforcements to show up, but they never did. Was it possible he was being thwarted by a single individual?

After a while, the shooter disappeared from the ridgeline, and about a minute later he reappeared at the marina before walking all the way out to the end of one of the docks.

Five minutes after that, with nothing except the birds in the air, the fishes breaking the surface, and the calm waves of the Gulf
sloshing
against his hull to break the monotony of silence, Keo concluded that the man had no help coming. Instead of relief, that realization made him just a little bit depressed, because if there wasn’t anyone else on the entire island to lend a hand…

What was that Lara had said to him, once upon a time?

“You honestly think your girlfriend actually made it to Santa Marie Island? That she’s wearing a bikini and waiting on the beach every morning, waiting for you to finally show up?”

Maybe, maybe not. But he had to find out for sure one way or another. After all these months, he had to be absolutely certain. And there was really only one way to do that, and it was staring back at him.

Crack!
as the guy fired again and the round sailed harmlessly over his head.

He went down on one knee and waited for the man to try again, but the shooter didn’t. Instead, the guy lowered his rifle and just looked back at him.

Keo thought about returning fire with the M4 but decided he didn’t want to waste a couple of bullets on some dick-measuring contest. He had a full magazine and three spares in his tactical pack, with the rest of his ammo geared for the MP5SD, his primary weapon. The German gun had served him well in the last twelve months, and Keo was the kind of guy who appreciated that kind of unquestionable loyalty.

He sat down on one of the high-raised seats in front of the steering console, opened a bottle of water, and took a sip. The November weather was a tricky beast; last night’s temperatures had dropped to around thirty degrees, only to climb back up to fifty at sunrise. It had since settled at around sixty, though with the cool breeze he could almost believe it was fifty-five.

What to do, what to do?

There were only two directions open to him: Go forward, or go back.

He didn’t fancy the latter. He had come this far and braved too many obstacles to turn back now. The very idea of backtracking made him want to vomit.

So it was a no-brainer. He had to go forward.

But how?

A lone shooter was a dream scenario. It had been almost an hour since the first shot, and he was still just staring at one man with a rifle. No reinforcements. No help.

…and no Gillian on the island.

Maybe.

Have to find out. One way or another, have to find out for sure.

Keo stood up and waved his hands to get the shooter’s attention. The man went rigid and peered at him with his binoculars. With the man watching, Keo unslung his MP5SD and laid it on the seat behind him.

“Can you hear me?” he shouted, folding his hands into a funnel over his mouth to project his voice across the water.

He listened and heard a reply, but he was too far away to understand the words. It could have been a
Yes,
or possibly a
No
, or maybe even a
Come any closer and I’m going to shoot your balls off.

Keo sighed. He had done some pretty dumb things in his life, and many of them since the world went kaput, but he had to know.
He had to know.

He walked back to the trolling motor, gripped the tiller, and switched it on. The low whine started gradually before increasing in volume. He directed the boat forward, back toward land, all the while watching the man closely. He waited for signs of an aggressive move that would likely be followed by a gunshot. Or two, or three.

He had gone twenty meters when he shut off the engine again.

Closer now, he stood up and shouted, “Can you hear me?”

The sun was in his eyes, which made it difficult to see how the man was reacting. But at least he could make out the rifle easily enough. If that barrel started moving, he would know he was in trouble.

Ten seconds ticked by in absolute silence, then twenty…

“Yeah!” the guy finally shouted back, his voice bouncing against the water’s surface until it reached Keo as barely a soft whisper. “What do you want?”

“For you not to shoot me!”

He couldn’t be sure, but the guy might have laughed. “What else?”

“I need to get on that island!”

“You and what army?”

“No army, just me!”

A brief pause. Then: “Why?”

“I’m looking for someone!”

“Who isn’t?”

Smartass,
Keo thought, but shouted, “I’m coming in, so don’t shoot!”

The guy didn’t answer, but he also hadn’t raised his rifle into a firing position, either. That was a good sign. A really good sign. Now all Keo needed to do was grease the wheels a bit. How? Maybe offer something he had that the guy needed.

And what would that be?

Weapons? Probably not. Santa Marie Island was a part of Texas, and there was a good bet you could find plenty of guns in all the houses that dotted the ridgeline. Even out here, you weren’t going to convince a Texan to part with his Second Amendment rights.

So what, then? Maybe something more valuable than bullets these days. Which would be?

Ah.

“I have supplies!” Keo shouted.

“You got supplies?” the guy asked. Keo might have barely heard his voice over the distance, but he swore it sounded almost hopeful.

You willing to risk your life on that, pal?

“Yeah!” he shouted back. “I got supplies! Let me dock, and I’ll split it with you!”

Another long pause, but this time only ten seconds went by.

Then, “Put your weapons down and come in slowly, hands where I can see you the entire time! You make one wrong move, and I’m gonna plug ya!”

‘Plug ya’?

Keo grinned to himself before shouting back, “Deal!”

This is such a bad idea,
he thought as he unclasped his gun belt and let it drop to the still-wet floor.

Bad idea or not, he had to get on that damn island. He had to make sure, one way or another, because he was faced with one absolute certainty at the moment: He couldn’t keep doing this forever. Hell, there had been a few times when he had almost convinced himself to stay on the
Trident
with Lara and the others. Carrie had done everything she could to make him stay. She’d said all the right words, made all the right overtures, and if he wasn’t the complete idiot that he was surely being at the moment, he would have stuck around.

But no, he had to be here, standing on a boat in the middle of the ocean voluntarily letting his holstered sidearm, along with the ammo pouches,
thump
to his feet.

Keo made sure his actions were “loud” enough that the guy watching him the entire time with binoculars could see everything. Finally, Keo switched on the trolling motor again and guided the twenty-two-footer forward one more time, all the while telling himself that this was stupid, that it was possibly the dumbest thing he had ever done, which was saying something given the last few months.

But he had to know.

One way or another, he had to know for sure…

*

The “man” wasn’t
a man at all. He was a teenager. Barely seventeen, maybe just a few months past his sixteenth birthday. Keo made a mental note to ask him later when he was certain the kid wasn’t going to shoot him, which at the moment wasn’t a given.

The teenager was lanky and wore mud-caked boots, jeans, and a stained cream cotton sweatshirt that looked like he had put it on a few days ago and hadn’t gotten around to taking off since. He wasn’t exactly the picture of a survivalist, and from the looks of it he had acted as his own barber very recently. The fact that this
kid
almost blew his head off made Keo just a little bit queasy.

Okay, a lot queasy.

His almost-killer might have been young and skinny and looked as if he was starving, but he was also holding a cherry-red bolt-action rifle, and at this range—less than fifty meters—he wouldn’t have had any trouble putting a nice large-caliber round through the boat and Keo at the same time. So Keo eased his vessel toward the marina and did everything humanly possible not to look or act threatening.

Speed wasn’t an issue, because trolling motors were not made to go fast anyway, which also meant if he had to turn around now…well, he’d have better luck jumping into the ocean instead. They didn’t call him half-dolphin for nothing, after all.

Up close, the docks looked much bigger than it had from afar, especially without a single vessel tied in place. He guessed at least two or three dozen numbered (and very empty looking) slips, some bigger than others. That made sense since there weren’t a lot of other ways on or off the sea-locked landmass except by boat that he could see. Maybe there was a small airstrip somewhere he hadn’t been able to spot, but he thought it unlikely given the uneven nature of Santa Marie Island.

Once he finally slid past the day markers, “No Wake” signs, and other warnings that surrounded the island, he was sure the boy wasn’t going to shoot him. The teenager continued to hold the rifle at the ready in front of him anyway, forefinger in the trigger guard for a quick lift-and-shoot motion, if necessary.

Smart kid.

“You got a name?” Keo shouted, before realizing he was close enough now that he could have asked in a normal voice.

“Gene,” the kid said. “You?”

“Keo.”

The kid gave him a look before saying, “What kind of name is Keo?”

“Chuck was taken.”

Gene gave him a confused look. “Hunh?”

“Just a joke.”

“Oh. You Chinese or something?”

“Or something.”

Another confused look.

At the ten-meter mark, Keo said, “You’re not going to shoot me, are you, Gene?”

“If I was gonna shoot you, I would have done it already, don’t you think?”

“Good point. Just wanted to make sure, that’s all.”

“Sure’s sure.”

Keo didn’t know what that meant, but he decided not to ask. He said instead, “You alone, Gene?”

“No.”

For some reason, Keo didn’t believe him.

Gene held up his rifle. “I got my friend Deuce here with me.”

Keo grinned and angled the boat toward the dock before switching off the motor and letting his forward momentum take him into one of the slips.

“What now?” he asked.

“I dunno,” Gene said. “I guess we tie up your ride and you come up.” He shrugged. “Work for you?”

Keo nodded. “Works for me.”

“All right, then.”

He tossed his line over and Gene tied the boat in place.

Up close, Gene had bags under his eyes. He clearly hadn’t been sleeping well and hadn’t for some time now. He was wearing fingerless wool gloves and the sun glinted off large-caliber bullets around his waist, housed in their own individual loops. The getup made him look like a bandit out of a Western, the rifle almost bigger than both his arms put together. The scope on top was massive, which explained how he had managed to put holes into Keo’s boat from such a long distance. Even an amateur could have managed that. If the teenager had just been a little better, Keo would be fish food by now.

Thank God for amateurs.

He climbed onto the dock while Gene gave the boat a cursory look before asking, “You said you have supplies?”

“MREs, bottled water, and beef jerky.”

“What kind of water?”

“Filtered.”

“Where’d you get those?”

“From a hotel.”

“No shit?”

“Nope.”

Keo looked around at the rocky ridgeline of Santa Marie Island, taking in the still houses to the left and right of him. He didn’t know what he expected, maybe more…life. Instead, it was like looking at a vivid painting rather than a real place that people actually used to live in.

“So how long have you and Deuce been here?” he asked.

“For a while now,” Gene said. “Who was it you were looking for?”

“A woman named Gillian.”

Gene shook his head. “Never heard of her.”

“You didn’t even think about it.”

“Don’t have to. Never heard of her.”

“Well, shit.”

Gene shrugged. “Sorry, man.”

Keo sighed.

Yeah, you and me both, pal.

“Where is everyone?”
Keo asked.

“What you see? That’s it,” Gene said between mouthfuls of cheesy lasagna. Or what was supposed to be lasagna, anyway. The kid didn’t seem to notice the difference though.

They walked up the road from the marina, passing houses with overgrown lawns and stalled vehicles along the curb and driveways. Santa Marie Island looked frozen in time, a picture of what once was. He didn’t have any trouble imagining that things were exactly like this a year ago. He kept expecting to see a housewife in a flower-print dress and apron calling her husband, who would likely be busy mowing the lawn, in for dinner. Or a dog barking. Or kids on bicycles swerving up and down the sidewalk, trying not to hit him.