The Isles of Elysium

CHAPTER 24

“You were good back there,” Keo said. “Like Evel Knievel. But on a boat.”

Dave chuckled. “You ever been stuck on a shrimp boat in the Gulf during hurricane season?”

“That happen a lot to you?”

“Just once. But I don’t need a second time to know it’s not fun. You learn a lot about what you’re capable of when the wrath of God is bearing down on you.”

“I’m glad I brought you along, then.”

“Right, because you had a choice.”

“Yeah, that too.”

Dave paused, and Keo could sense him wanting to say something else.

“What is it?” Keo said.

“What the fuck happened back there?” Dave asked, looking back at him. “We were sitting ducks, and then I saw…something. Not just the soldiers, but something else. Did you…?”

Blue eyes, Dave. It had blue eyes, and it saved our asses.

“I don’t know what I saw,” Keo said. “We got out, that’s all that matters.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So let’s focus on staying alive.”

Dave nodded and stared off the bow, though Keo didn’t believe he was going to let it go because Keo himself hadn’t been able to since he saw it. He had spent the last few hours trying to wrap his mind around what had happened at the marina, and it still didn’t compute. If the ghouls weren’t supposed to come into the towns, then what was that thing doing back there?

Better yet, why had it attacked the soldiers? Why did it save them? Or was that what it was doing in the first place? Maybe it just saw the soldiers as the easier prey and preventing them from shooting him and Dave was just a happy coincidence.

Riiight.

Keo sat in the back of the boat, his butt on the cold floor, and finished wrapping the last piece of gauze around his left arm. The round had gone through and taken a big chunk of flesh with it, but it hadn’t impacted bone, which was the best thing he could have hoped for. The same with the hole in his right thigh. That didn’t feel quite as bad because he was sitting down and wasn’t putting a lot of pressure on it. Or, at least, that’s what he told himself.

He packed up the first-aid kit Gillian had given them back at the house and returned it to Dave’s pack. The bandages were constricting around his shoulder and thigh, but it was better than bleeding to death.

For the last two hours, they had been sitting on the twenty-footer as it shifted back and forth against the waves somewhere between Trinity and Galveston Bay. Even Dave wasn’t quite sure where since their vision was limited by the pitch blackness and they could barely see more than a few meters around them.

Floating on the water at night again. This is starting to become a bad habit.

The rainstorm was still pouring, but thankfully not at them. They had cleared its zone almost as soon as they exited the channel along what Dave said was the Kemah Boardwalk, and as Keo had guessed when they passed it earlier, the place had once been a major tourist attraction.

Lightning continued to flash in the distance, the reports of thunder following a few seconds later. If it had seemed like they were caught in the belly of a rampaging beast before, they were now watching that same monster as it ravaged the area around T18. It had taken them nearly an hour since clearing the channel to scoop up water from the boat and deposit it back into the bay. Thank God there was a plastic jug and some small containers stuffed into the livewells.

Even so, Keo was still sitting in an inch of water as he watched and listened for sounds of an incoming pursuit. There was a definite chilly wind, but his clothing had been soaking wet since the night began so he was already used to the discomfort.

“Storm’s not letting up,” Dave said after a while. “That’s a good sign, right? They wouldn’t chase us in this weather, would they?”

“Depends…”

“On what?”

“How badly they want you dead.”

Dave snorted. “What about you?”

“I didn’t kill Steve’s brother. I’m just an annoyance. Maybe he’s pissed off at me, but blood is thicker than an annoying stranger.”

“You saying that from experience?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” He slipped back into silence for a moment, perching at the front of the boat with his M4 gripped in his lap. He hadn’t left the spot since the boat ran out of gas and left them drifting in the bay. Then, “What’s the deal with you and Gillian, anyway?”

“No deal,” Keo lied.

“Bullshit.”

“Believe what you want.”

“You two used to be a couple, right? I heard the two of you talking on the second floor, remember? I was pretty sure you guys were going to start humping like rabbits right outside my door. That would have been pretty sick, by the way.”

“You have something against pregnancy sex?”

“I was talking about her doctor husband/boyfriend/whatever being on the first floor at the same time.”

“I didn’t know you were so sensitive, Dave.”

“I’m not, but that doesn’t mean I like listening to people doing it.”

Keo grinned and opened one of the side pockets on the pack and took out the small, unlabeled bottle that Jay had given him. He shook out a couple of the white pills and swallowed them.

“How is she?” Dave asked. “Doc must have given her something really good to keep her knocked out through that entire mess.”

Keo grunted up to his knees and moved over to Jordan, who was still lying on the bench at the stern of the boat. There was just enough moonlight for him to see her bundled form. The only part of her that was exposed to the elements was the upper half of her face so she could still breathe. The swelling around her right eye made him flinch every time he saw it, but thankfully her body wasn’t shivering quite as much as when they were braving the rainstorm earlier.

It was a miracle that Dave, despite all his vast experiences, had managed to steer them around the river and out here using only the spotlight at the front of the boat as a guide. And all the while, the creatures were swarming endlessly along the riverbanks to both sides of them. Keo had seen it before-when he braved a much wider channel with Lara and the others-but this time they were so close (he could smell them) he expected the darting, stick-thin figures to start throwing themselves through the air at them at any moment. But they hadn’t, for whatever reason.

Maybe my luck really is changing, he started thinking. Then almost right away, Yeah, right. Keep telling yourself that, pal.

He sat back down now. “She’s better than us right now. Sleeping like a baby.” He picked up the M4 and checked the magazine for the fifth time in the last hour. “Anything?”

“Not a thing,” Dave said. “What about you? Does it hurt?”

“Yeah, it hurts.”

“A lot?”

“Yeah.”

“Take some of those meds your girlfriend gave you.”

Keo grunted. “I already did. I’ve also cleaned, disinfected, and dressed the wounds in case you were worried.”

“You’ve done this before, huh?”

“Once or twice.”

“Before or after the end of the world?”

“Both.”

“Hunh,” Dave said.

They continued sitting and waiting, looking back in the direction of the channel. Or, at least, where they thought it was. Frankly, it was so dark Keo wouldn’t be surprised if they were looking at the wrong spot. He just had to glance around him to confirm how lifeless and lightless the world had become.

He could see the raging storm just fine from here, though, and each time lightning flashed in the distance, he managed to glimpse some of the larger signs of abandoned civilization along the Kemah Boardwalk.

Would Steve come after them? That was a no-brainer. Steve had come all the way from T18 personally to Santa Marie Island when he found out his brother was missing. What wouldn’t he do to avenge Jack’s death?

“Dave,” Keo said.

The other man looked over. “What?”

“Santa Marie Island. You know where that is?”

“It should be behind us somewhere. Why?”

“We should go there.”

“What’s there? Except more of those things.”

“Not now, but soon. We’re not going to get very far on the trolling motor alone. If Steve’s not on his way here now, he will be in the morning. I’m guessing he’ll bring more than just a few of his friends, and I don’t think he’ll be in the mood to talk things out.”

“But won’t they check that place too?”

“There might still be gas on the island that we can use before they get around to us. It’s got two large marinas, one on each side.”

“What if it’s dry?”

“It’s gotta be better than running around out here waiting for them to catch up to us.”

“Galveston Island is bigger. There’ll be more supplies still sitting around.”

“More supplies, more of those things, and easier access from T18. What are the chances they’d leave that place unguarded all this time? If we have to fight our way out of this-and let’s not fool ourselves, we’re going to have to-I’d rather they come to us, where we have the higher ground.”

Dave thought about it before finally nodding. “Makes sense, I guess.”

Good, because I’m talking out of my ass here.

He wasn’t very optimistic they would actually find fuel on Santa Marie Island. Steve’s people would have cleaned the place out by now, and the last time he was there with Gene, the teenager had told him he hadn’t run across any.

Still, for some reason that he couldn’t explain, it seemed as if he was destined to end up at Santa Marie Island. And if he was going to die soon…

“Shit,” Dave said, “I should have stayed at the cafeteria.”

Dave got up and moved back toward the stern, where he picked up the trolling motor from the floor and attached it to the back. Keo took his place at the front, wincing as he put pressure on his right thigh.

He crouched at the bow just as a particular massive bolt of lightning flashed in the distance. For a moment, just a moment, he thought he could see the Ferris wheel along the Kemah Boardwalk, but that could have just been the long, wet, and cold night playing tricks with his mind…

…just like it had back at the marina, because there was no way in hell that blue-eyed ghoul had saved his life on purpose.

Right?

*

Dave was right. Santa Marie Island was just behind them, and it didn’t take them long to find it again. Of course, the place was over eight kilometers from end to end, and its rocky formations and the sharp angles of the houses stood out against the flat ocean landscape.

They found the island with three hours left until sunrise, which meant they couldn’t just head straight to the western marina and dock. Keo could already see silhouetted figures moving along the ridgelines, the numbers increasing the closer they got.

“Look at them,” Dave whispered from the back of the boat. Keo had no trouble hearing him over the small whine of the trolling motor. “Gives me the willies every time I see them.”

“You see them a lot back in town?”

“Sometimes.”

They were within sight of the marina when Dave cut the motor and Keo dropped the anchor, leaving the twenty-footer to drift back and forth against the slight waves. He tightened his grip on the M4 in his lap, wishing badly for his MP5SD-and more importantly, the silver ammo inside the magazine-as he watched them pouring into the parking lot and spreading out along the fingers of the docks in waves.

“They can’t swim, right?” Dave asked behind him. He was still whispering for some reason.

I think they can hear and see you just fine, Dave, Keo thought, but said, “No, they can’t swim.”

At least, the black-eyed ones couldn’t. He had seen that himself back on Song Island, and the ones back at T18 had stayed as far away from the river as they could while still crowding the banks.

So what about the blue-eyed ones?

“They’re smarter than the rest,” Danny had told him during one of those days when there was nothing to do on the Trident but watch the endless ocean. “If you see them, run the other way, Obi-Wan Keobi. Or shoot them in the head. That seems to work pretty well.”

Shoot them in the head? How the hell was he going to do that? Keo had seen that thing back there, the way it was moving. Danny wasn’t kidding. The creature that had assaulted the horsemen was just a blur. How do you put a bullet in the head of something that could move that fast?

But that was a problem for another day. Right now, he focused on the black-eyed creatures along the marina. There weren’t nearly enough of them to fill up the whole place, which he guessed was the good news. The bad news, unfortunately, was that there were still enough that it was difficult to make out the docks and the parking lot floor under the sea of black, writhing flesh.

“How many are on the island?” Dave asked.

“Anywhere from one to 200…or possibly more.”

“Jeez Louise. And we want to go there?”

“There was a teenager who lived on the island for months by himself.”

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any desire to stay on that rock for months.”

“We won’t have to. Steve will find us by morning and try to kill us first.”

“Oh, okay, no worries then.”

Keo smiled. “Point is, if we can’t find any spare fuel, we’ll either kill Steve and take one of his boats and use it to get off the island, or he’ll kill us. Either way, this thing’s going to be over in twenty-four hours.”

“Man, if you’re trying to cheer me up, you’re doing a real shitty job of it.”

“Just the facts.”

“Yeah, whatever, Sergeant Joe Friday.”

“Who?”

“Joe Friday. From Dragnet?”

Keo shook his head.

“You know who James Bond is, but you don’t know Dragnet or Stanley Kubrick’s 2001?”

“Should I?”

“Hell, yes. They’re classics, dude.”

“Ah,” Keo said.

“Clueless,” Dave said. Then, “Hey, she’s waking up.”

Keo got up and hurried to the stern. “Take the front.”

Dave nodded and they swapped places.

Keo crouched next to Jordan and pulled down the zipper of her thick parka until her entire face was exposed. She had opened her eyes-or at least the one still capable of opening-and was looking back at him. Her lips were pale like the rest of her face. She was ghostlike, and she blinked up at him, overly long eyelashes flickering back and forth.

“Hey,” he said.

Her good eye darted left then right before picking his face back up. Then, softly, like she had to summon all of her strength just to get the sounds out, “Did I pee myself?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Then why are my pants wet?”

“We’re all wet. You don’t remember the rainstorm?”

“No…”

“Lightning? Thunder? Gunfire?”

“No, no, and no. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. You weren’t even supposed to wake up until tomorrow.”

“Is that why I feel like my head’s about to break open?”

“Probably.”

“Good to know.” Then, “You said ‘we’…”

“Me, Dave, and you.”

“Who’s Dave?”

“Great, she doesn’t even know who I am,” Dave grunted from the bow. “Man, I should have stayed at the cafeteria.”

“The guy who saved you,” Keo said.

“Then what are you doing here?” she asked him.

“I’m the guy who saved the guy who saved you.”

“Oh.” She blinked once, then a second time. “I dreamt of Gillian…”

“Oh yeah?”

“She’d gotten really fat in the dream, but don’t tell her I said that.”

“Scout’s honor,” Keo smiled.