The Gates of Byzantium

CHAPTER 12


BLAINE




HE LEFT LANCING with plenty of sunlight to spare. The Toyota was in good working shape, with plenty of gas in the tank when its owner had abandoned it eight months ago. The car battery hadn’t worked when he had found it, but Will and Danny carried spares in the back of their trucks, along with solar-powered chargers that delivered trickle charges to keep them filled until they were needed.

It was a pretty smart setup, and it didn’t surprise Blaine that a pair of Army Rangers would think of something like that. Back when Blaine was traveling with Deeks and Sandra, they had simply swapped car batteries. Not exactly Boy Scout always-be-prepared, but then again, he was just some guy from the bad part of Dallas, so what the hell did he know about preparedness?

Blaine had the map spread out in the front passenger seat, not that he really needed it. From Lancing, it was a straight shot up US 287/Route 69 back to Grime. If Sandra was headed back there—back to where he was shot—she might end up in Grime again after not finding him on the road.

He drove as fast as he could, which was about forty miles per hour. When he didn’t see anything looming on the road up ahead, he gunned it up to fifty, but even that was pushing it. Going fast was the reason he was separated from Sandra in the first place, a fact that weighed him down like a devil on his shoulder.

For some reason, he hadn’t been shocked when the girl had told him Sandra was gone. That was his Sandra—spirited, full of passion and independence and fire. Suddenly free of the clutches of Folger, the first thing she would do was go back for him. Even if she thought he was dead. It made perfect sense only if you knew Sandra the way he did.

After a while he drove past the familiar two-story house from last night. It looked bigger, more isolated than he remembered. Blaine made a mental note of the house’s location. You never knew when you would need a house for the night…

He glanced at his watch: 3:26 P.M.

Blaine began to slow down as he approached the old Jeep sitting in the middle of the road. Folger’s Jeep. Exactly where Folger had left it. There were no other vehicles and no signs of Sandra.

He felt deflated and shot all over again. For some reason he had been almost certain she would be here, waiting for him, as if she knew he would be coming for her.


God, what was he thinking?

*

HE DROVE SLOWLY through Grime. He had no idea what kind of car she was driving. The girl had been too afraid to come out of the basement when Sandra had driven off. And the kid, Josh, had never bothered to check the garage, so he didn’t know what car was in there, either.

Grime wasn’t a particularly big town, but it did cover about four square miles, according to the map. That meant too many stores, buildings, and houses that weren’t connected to Pine Street, the main road through town.

Blaine drove as slowly as he could, honking his horn as he went. If she was here, she would hear him. Probably. Or maybe she would think it was some crazy person and stay exactly where she was—hidden. After Folger, he wouldn’t blame her.

It all added up to the same thing—finding her was going to be next to impossible.

But what choice did he have? Sandra was out here, somewhere, and he had to find her. Losing her to Folger and his men was like a knife through his gut, more painful than the bullet that had gone through his side or in his shoulder or thigh. No painkiller was going to dull that sensation. And to have been so close earlier today, only to lose her again…

It was maddening.

It took a while, but eventually he reached the end of Grime and stopped in the middle of the road. Blaine sat still for a moment, looking at the rearview mirror, back at the town behind him.

Would Sandra keep driving? No, that didn’t make any sense. Why would she go backward, in the direction they had come? There was nothing back there. Dallas, maybe, farther back. But why would she go back to Dallas? The city, with its massive population, was more dangerous than out here, where the people were spread out and the buildings weren’t thick with the monsters—or ghouls, as Will called them.

No, Sandra wouldn’t go all the way back to Dallas. So where would she go next? He didn’t think she would leave Grime just yet. The closest big city farther down US 287 was Woodville, which was too far away to make in the daylight left. Sandra wasn’t stupid, so she would stay in Grime at least until tomorrow. He was almost certain of it.

Blaine put the truck in reverse and headed back into town. Except this time, instead of sticking to Pine Street, he started taking smaller roads, still honking his horn, looking for signs of survivors. Any damn sign at all.

He drove along dirt roads, passing homes that had been here for decades, possibly longer. A church that looked more like someone’s house and a long building with a bright red roof. A Family Dollar store advertising a sale, a Chevron gas station at the corner of a busy four-way intersection.

Blaine slowed down and glanced at the truck’s gas gauge. He was almost down to a quarter tank. Jesus, how long had he been driving?

He glanced down at his watch: 5:16 P.M.

He was pushing it now. Pretty soon, he would need to find shelter for the night, and that meant stopping his search. If he didn’t find her today, she might be gone by tomorrow morning, and that knowledge hung over him like a black cloud. Sandra would be looking for a place, too, if she hadn’t found one already.

Blaine stepped on the brake.

He had been looking at this all wrong. Sandra would know night was coming, too, so she would be looking for a place to spend the night.

A safe place.

*

BLAINE DROVE BACK up north along Pine Street with renewed purpose. This time he was looking for a building that looked safe, that could last the night. Sandra would be looking for the same thing, and from the main road, just like him.

He passed two, three churches, surprised that a town this small had more than one. He kept driving, until he realized he was almost out of Grime completely—again—and began to slow down. He saw a Shell truck stop to his right, with a parking lot dotted with two, maybe three dozen semitrailers and big rigs. The stop was in a somewhat deserted part of town, surrounded by undeveloped land and woods in the back.

But it was the semitrailers that got his attention.

He remembered what Miguel had said, about why Folger and the others were dragging a semitrailer around with them: “Have you seen those semitrailers? You can’t tear into those things. They’re like a moving safe.”

Blaine remembered seeing the look on Will’s and Danny’s faces. They hadn’t thought of it, but were wishing they had. And Sandra was kept in a semitrailer before she escaped. She would have known about their potential as a safety net.

There were cars in the Shell parking lot, sprinkled among the hulking semitrailers, as he pulled inside. The pumps served mostly diesel, which was probably why he didn’t see very many cars frozen in line waiting for service. There were a couple of trucks, one with a pump dangling from its open tank.

He parked next to a big rig with hot rod flames shooting along the sides—it looked new, like it had been in service for only a few years—and a black big rig dragging one of those trailers with cars in the back, though this one was only half-full.

He got out with the AR-15 and began walking along the row of vehicles, banging on the sides as he went. He also started screaming, hoping that if he made enough noise, she would hear him.

“Sandra! Sandraaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

His voice bounced off the metallic sides of the semitrailers, and he stopped to listen for a reaction. There was nothing, so he continued, rounding the back end of a trailer and banging on the next one, opening the back doors of the ones that weren’t locked, though most of them were.

“Sandraaaaaaaaaaa!”

He kept at it, banging on every trailer, shouting out her name each time he turned the corner and started on a new row. He felt like a madman and wondered if he was in fact mad.

Maybe. Probably.

Not that it mattered. He had to find her.

He had to find her.

The sun was still oppressive, and he was already sweating after only a few minutes of walking. Soon, he had other things to worry about, like the throbbing in his side. Blaine paused every now and then to catch his breath and let the pain subside.

Then he continued, starting over, calling out her name, banging on steel.

He lost track of how many big rigs he passed, how many rows he walked through, and how many times he shouted out Sandra’s name. His throat started to hurt about the same time his legs started to feel a little wobbly.

After a while, Blaine stopped to gather himself, pressing one hand against the heated side of a semitrailer just to keep himself upright. Breathing became difficult again, and Blaine realized he had left the bottle of painkillers in the truck.

Way to go, a*shole.

He was still leaning against the semitrailer when he heard the sound.

He wouldn’t have heard it if he weren’t standing perfectly still, trying to somehow will the misery coursing through his body into submission. It wasn’t working, but it did keep him quiet as a mouse, enough to hear one of the doors of the semitrailer behind him slowly, carefully opening. Blaine looked over his shoulder and saw a man’s head leaning out. The man was tall, with short blond hair, and as he turned his head, scanning the area, he had specks of yellow slivers in his eyes that reminded Blaine of cats’ eyes.

The man had apparently expected Blaine to keep moving and wasn’t prepared to find him leaning against one of the trailers right next to him.

They locked eyes for a moment, and Blaine thought, I know you, don’t I?, as the man pulled out his right hand and Blaine saw the steel barrel of an automatic handgun.

Blaine twisted around—too fast, and he almost heard the stitches in his side popping—and ducked just as the man lifted his gun and fired. The bullet slammed into the side of the semitrailer behind Blaine and ricocheted. Blaine swore he could hear the zing-zing! of the bullet over his head—not once, but twice, the first time when it came at him, and again when it ricocheted, nearly clipping him even as he was going down.


Blaine was unslinging the AR-15 as he slid down, willing every ounce of his body to move move move, even though it seemed like he was stuck in quicksand. He managed to get the strap of the rifle free, and he was still sliding down when he squeezed the trigger. The AR-15 leaped uncontrollably in his hands. Unlike the AR-15s he and Deeks had, someone had converted this one to fully automatic, and one heavy squeeze of the trigger unleashed nearly half of the magazine.

The guy was taking aim again when Blaine’s bullets stitched the side of the open trailer door and kept going and going until one of them hit the guy in the neck, and he careened out of the trailer and landed on the hard concrete ground in a pile.

Blaine stopped firing about the same time his butt hit the ground. He stared forward at the blond guy as he lay at an odd, twisted angle, blood gushing out of a surprisingly small hole in his neck. The man’s eyes were open, and he stared blankly back at Blaine, mouth opening and closing, like a fish trying to catch its breath on land. A thick pool of blood spread underneath the man, much faster than Blaine thought was possible.

He stared back into the cat-like eyes.

I know you, don’t I?

The man closed his eyes, and his body seemed to sag, and then it stopped moving completely. His bleeding started to slow to a trickle, and the pool of blood stopped getting larger and settled, looking amazingly bright red underneath the scorching hot sun. Blaine and the dead man were squeezed into the confined space between two semitrailers, which was much hotter thanks to the two vehicles absorbing and coughing the heat back and forth between their steel bulks.

Blaine didn’t know how long he sat there and watched the guy bleeding onto the warm concrete. The AR-15 rested in his lap, but it felt much heavier than before, and he had to push it aside in order to slowly rise, one hand holding the rifle as a crutch, the other searching along the side of the semitrailer behind him for extra support.

He was finally able to struggle to his feet and stumble off. He didn’t have to look down to see he was bleeding again, that blood was seeping through his T-shirt. After some painful shuffling, he finally gave in and glanced down briefly. There was a nice, palm-sized patch of blood at his waist.

By the time he made it back to the Toyota, he was certain someone had moved it. That was the only explanation for why it took him so long to reach the damn thing. He was sure of it, though the screaming from deep in his gut became so loud and insistent he had to push the thought out of his mind and reach into the passenger side and grab the white, girly makeup bag.

He fished out the bottle of pills, shook out two, and downed them in one gulp. He climbed into the truck and sat in the passenger seat and waited, but nothing seemed to be happening. Why wasn’t anything happening?

He shook out two more pills and dropped them into his mouth, crunching them first this time, hoping that would make some kind of difference. It must have, because he began to feel better almost instantly.

Blaine closed his eyes. The sun was too bright. It shouldn’t be that bright. Why the hell was it so bright? What he wouldn’t give for a little shade. Or a little nightfall.

That’s crazy talk.

He chuckled to himself.

Or he thought he did. The noise might have been something else. He swore it even sounded like a car engine, approaching…

*

IN HIS PAIN-ADDLED dream, he was back with Sandra, and she was leaning over him, poking and prodding at his wound. Well, one of his wounds. When she lifted her hand, her fingers were covered in blood, but she still looked gorgeous with long blonde hair falling over half of her face. He was reminded all over again of what he wouldn’t do for her. Which was nothing.

Sandra.

But if it was just a dream, why did it hurt so much?

She smiled at him, dried tears staining her cheeks. “Hey, there.”

“I’m dead,” he said, his voice hoarse (from all the screaming, probably).

“Not yet.” She stroked his face, her fingers warm against his skin. “I got blood all over your face.”

She picked up a rag from somewhere and swiped at his cheeks and jaw.

“This isn’t a dream?” he asked.

“God, I hope not,” she said, and laughed, except it came out as a half-laugh and half-sob.

“How did you find me?”

“I heard gunshots.”

“This guy tried to kill me. He’s probably still there…”

“Is he dead?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Screw him, then.” Her bloodied hands were busy just beyond his peripheral vision. “I went back for you, you know.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here. I came back for you.”

She smiled. “Funny how it all worked out.”

“Yeah,” he said, and smiled back at her.

She kissed his forehead gingerly, then lingered with her face next to him, and he marveled at the green of her eyes. “The wound in your side’s opened up. I’m not sure what to do.”

“There’s a white bag.”

“I see it.”

“Inside is some duct tape.”

“Duct tape?”

“Apparently it’s the next best thing to superglue.”

“Superglue?”

“A doctor told me. Well, third-year medical student. Close enough.”

She gave him a doubtful look, then picked up the small white bag, opened it and pulled out the roll of gray duct tape. She looked at the duct tape, then over at him. “Are you sure?”

“No, but use it anyway. Pull a strip that’s big enough to cover the wound. Then pinch it as tightly closed as you can with your fingers and cover it up.”

“I don’t know, Blaine…”

“It’s okay. I’m all hopped up on painkillers anyway. I won’t feel a thing.”

“Okay,” she said, still unconvinced.

He couldn’t see her working, but he heard her tearing a strip off the duct tape. She picked up a bloodied bandage and tossed it out the open door. Then, giving him a brief but still very doubtful look, she put the duct tape over his side. He felt the cotton mesh against his skin, but didn’t really feel much of anything else. There was just a lot of numbness.

She sat back and took in her handiwork. “Are you sure this was a good idea?”

“Am I still bleeding?”

“Well, no.”

“Then it was a good idea.”

She gave him a wry look. “Smart-ass.”

“Where’s your car?” he asked.

“Nearby. Why?”

“How did you get it to work?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, the battery still worked after all this time?”

“Oh.” She shrugged. “The family whose house we stayed in had solar panels on the roof. They had the car battery charging the whole time. Why?”

“I dunno. Just curious, I guess.”

She gave him an odd look. “You’re close to dying and that’s all you can think about? How I got an eight-month-old car to run?”

He somehow managed to grin, though he couldn’t really vouch for how it came out. “I used to work on cars in my uncle’s garage back in Dallas. I guess I was just curious.”

“So now you know.”

“Yeah.”

She frowned at him. “You almost died.”

“But I didn’t.”

“But you almost did.”

“But I didn’t.” He reached up and stroked her cheek. “Face it, lady, you’re not getting rid of me that easily. I don’t care how many times you call the cops.”


She smiled and leaned against his hand, and he felt her tears falling over his fingers.

*

IT WAS 6:17 P.M. when he was able to sit up, and Sandra transferred a box with bottled water, canned fruits, and a half-dozen bags of Kung Fu brand noodles from her car to his truck. Her white Ford Neon had barely any gas left, and she had been looking for supplies a mile away when she had heard the gunshots, arriving to find him lying unconscious and bleeding all over the seat of his truck.

She helped him into a new shirt from the care package Lara had packed for him. He hadn’t even known there were clothes in there until Sandra rifled through it. “Boxers, too,” she said.

“Lara’s very thorough, I guess.”

“What kind of people are they?”

“Good people. They found me on the road and picked me up and put me back together. They didn’t have to, but they did.”

She nodded. “I want to meet them so I can thank them.”

“That’s the plan.”

She settled behind the steering wheel before glancing down at the gas gauge. “I think we need more gas.”

“There’s enough to make it back to Lancing.”

“Let’s hope so.”

She slammed the door shut and turned on the engine.

“You didn’t hear me screaming your name?” he asked.

“You were screaming my name?” She flashed him an amused look.

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry I missed it.”

“I’m not. It was kind of pathetic.”

“Now I’m really sorry I missed it.”

Sandra drove them out of the truck stop, turning left and heading back along Pine Street/US 287. “Are you sure they’ll still be in Lancing? What if we get there and they’re gone?”

“The only reason they’d leave early is if something happened that put the group in jeopardy.”

“How will we find them when we get there?”

“They were staying at a courthouse. The same place where Folger was keeping you in the semitrailer.”

“Did you get them? Folger?” she asked.

“I got one of them, and Will got another one.”

“What did they look like?”

“Why?”

“I just need to know…”

She kept driving, both hands on the steering wheel, and wouldn’t look at him.

“It doesn’t matter, Sandra,” he said.

“Of course it matters,” she said quickly.

“Not to me.”

“Bullshit. It matters.” Her voice was cold and matter-of-fact.

“No, you’re wrong. It doesn’t matter.”

“You say that now. But it matters. Maybe not now, but later. It’ll come up and it’ll matter.”

She drove in silence for a while, her fingers tightening around the steering wheel. They hadn’t gone more than a minute before tears spilled down her cheeks and she stepped on the brake. He had to grab the door handle to keep from getting thrown into the dashboard.

She put the truck in park and looked over at him. She was crying freely now. “You’re lying to me,” she said through the tears.

He leaned over the seat. It took a lot of effort and a sharp jolt raced through his body, but he did his best to ignore it. He cupped her face in his hands, then kissed her softly on the lips.

She blinked back at him, and she looked as vulnerable as he had ever seen her.

“The day I found you was the best day of my miserable life.” He smiled. “This changes nothing. Not a goddamn thing. Look at me, and tell me I’m lying to you.”

She looked at him. Closely. Reading. Trying to decide if he was lying to her…

“Do you believe me?” he asked.

She nodded, and the tears rolled down in waves and she lunged forward and grabbed him in a tight hug. Blaine grimaced, the pain exploding through his body, but he said nothing and didn’t make a sound, and held her back as tightly as he could.