The Gates of Byzantium

CHAPTER 35


JOSH




PROS AND CONS: What were they?

Pros: He was alive!

Cons: He had no idea where he was or why he wasn’t dead. His body hurt. His arms hurt. His left leg was numb, but not so much he didn’t notice the sudden surge of electricity shooting from it every time he tried to move even a little bit. His head felt heavy, and each time he breathed, he thought it was going to explode.


Conclusion: I’m alive!

He had woken up in a bedroom, lying on a small bed under sheets covered in Transformers characters. It took him a while before he realized the bed was in the shape of a racing car, and it was at least half a foot too short for him. His legs were draped over the end, which didn’t help the pain in his left leg any.

Josh pulled his legs back until he was almost curled on the bed. It was cold. Very cold. Which didn’t make sense because it was hot outside, rays of sunlight flitting in through white blinds over the window to his right.

Josh pulled his head off the fluffy pillow and tried to sit up. It hurt, so he decided the smart thing to do was lie back down to catch his breath.

I’m alive!

He didn’t know how that was possible. He remembered standing up (That was stupid), then getting shot (Served me right for doing something so stupid during a gun battle), then falling. He remembered Will reaching for him, but Will must not have been fast enough, because soon Josh was in the water. Josh had never been a good swimmer, so he didn’t fool himself into thinking he had swum back to the island on his own and just didn’t remember it.

So how did he get here? Wherever “here” was?

Wet clothes clung to his body. Someone had slashed open his left pant leg and wrapped bandages around where he had been shot. That was nice of them. He saw blood on the bandages, but not as much as he thought being shot would have produced.

Josh tried to sit up again. Slowly, this time, without any sudden movements. He managed to stay upright and looked around him. Transformers posters on the walls. Toys scattered about the floor. Transformers action figures. Fluffy dinosaurs. A plastic baseball bat and a small football designed for a kid’s hands.

There was a sudden spark from his temple, and Josh lifted his hand to touch the wound. He felt gauze tape instead. Jesus. He remembered getting shot in the head. Okay, not really in the head, but close. It was just a crease. Still, it hurt like a bastard, so he stopped touching it.

He went completely still when he heard the door across the room open. A lone figure entered and stood in the doorway, but there was too much shadow and Josh couldn’t make out a face or very many details. The figure looked in at him, as if trying to figure him out. Josh stared back, unsure about what to do.

He was stuck here. In this room. This house. He could barely walk, much less run. And where was he going to go? Plus, he had to keep reminding himself that someone had saved him from the lake, so it didn’t make sense for them to hurt him now. Unless, of course, they had saved him only because they intended to do something unimaginable to him. He had seen plenty of movies like that.

The figure walked over to the window and flipped the blinds all the way open. Josh saw the outline of a woman. She was looking out at a group of men gathered in the front yard of the house. The view outside looked familiar, but Josh couldn’t quite place it. There had to be two, maybe three dozen men out there, milling around a half-dozen trucks. The click-clack-snap of weapons being loaded, even though he couldn’t quite tell what they were arming themselves with from his angle.

“Thirty men,” the woman said, looking over at him. “In case you were wondering. There are thirty men out there, waiting to kill your friends.”

The voice sounded familiar. Josh tried to focus on the face, half-hidden in the shadows.

Karen.

He was in the two-story house, the one across from the marina. In one of the rooms along the first floor. The house looked different from the inside; it was darker, more cramped, and less inviting. Even with sunlight flooding through the window, it was too dark in here.

“You’re alive,” he said. “How is that possible?”

Karen gave him an amused look. “The tunnel underneath the island comes out on the cove. They were going to run a rail system to ferry supplies and vacationers back and forth, like a nature drive underneath the lake. You should see some of the blueprints. They were going to turn Song Island into a real attraction for the rich and spoiled. Not so much now.”

So Will was right after all. The tunnel underneath the power station really did run all the way back to shore, and that was how the ghouls got on the island last night. He wondered how many of them were there now, hiding underneath the lake, waiting for their chance to come up again.

Gaby. Gaby’s still on the island…

“Josh, right?” Karen said. “I thought you looked familiar.”

“You saved me?”

“You sound surprised.”

You tried to kill me last night.

“A little,” he said instead.

“Information is power. End of the world, post-end of the world. Still the same. Information is still king.”

“Information about what?”

“The island. More specifically, the people currently inhabiting it. The new ones that just showed up. Everything.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Of course you don’t,” she said, with that same amused expression that told him she was two, three steps ahead of him every time he opened his mouth. “Your girlfriend. What’s her name. Gaby?”

“What about her?” He didn’t like the way Karen said Gaby’s name.

“I’ll let her live,” Karen said.

Gaby…

“I don’t understand,” Josh said.

“The island, Josh. It’s mine. I want it back. It’s been good to me, and I don’t like the idea of losing it. Call me a sore loser. Do you see those guys out there, the thirty men with assault rifles?”

“You’re going to attack the island again?”

“Again? No.” She almost laughed. “The first time wasn’t my idea. A couple of idiots thought they could just ride their boats over and Will would just let them land on the beach. That didn’t work out too well. I’ve convinced them to try it my way this time. The smarter way. It’s what I do well. I solve problems, Josh.”

Gaby’s still on the island…

“It’s going to cost me half those guys out there,” Karen continued. “Maybe more. But hey, you can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs.” She looked back outside at the men standing around the yard. “It’s going to work, too. The question is, when it does work, is Gaby going to be one of the people I have to kill in order to retake the island? Or one of the people I hand over to the creatures after it’s all over?”

“No,” he blurted out, instantly regretting it.

“So tell me what I need to know.”

I can’t…

“And save Gaby’s life.”

Gaby…

“You love her, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he answered quickly.

“You don’t think she wants to live?”

“Of course she wants to live.”

“So why are you hesitating? You have to actually think about saving her life?”

“What about me?”

“What about you?”

“If I tell you, and you spare Gaby, what happens to me?”

“I don’t care about you. You and Gaby both. You’re just kids. Will and Danny are the ones I’m worried about. They’re the ones she wants.”

“She?”

“The rest?” Karen continued. “Neither one of us could care less about what happens to them. I just want the island back, and she just wants the soldiers. As for you and Gaby?” She shrugged indifferently. “You could stay on the island with us, or go on your merry way and see how long you last out there. I really don’t care. And neither does she. One or two more won’t make a whole lot of difference to them. They have bigger fish to fry, and they apparently need—want—Will and Danny for that.”


He looked past her, at the men milling outside.

Thirty heavily armed men…

That was a lot. Will and Danny were soldiers. Great soldiers, from what he had seen. But could they really fight thirty heavily armed men? That was a lot to ask of them. Even with Blaine and his two friends there. That was what, five people total?

Thirty against five…

He liked Will and Danny. He liked Carly, Lara, even the girls. But he liked Gaby more. No, he didn’t like Gaby, he loved her. He had known her for most of his life. Worshipped her from across the street. And now, after all this time, she felt the same way about him. It was more than he could have hoped for, and it was real. It was tangible. She had proved it last night when they made love.

Thirty against five…

Who were Will and Danny and the others, anyway? He only knew them for a few days. It wasn’t like he grew up with them, the way he grew up with Gaby. He liked them, but he didn’t love them, the way he loved Gaby.

I have to protect Gaby…

*

SHE ASKED HIM what happened to Tom.

“Will killed him,” Josh said. “That night.”

She nodded. He wasn’t sure if he detected sadness or just acceptance. Maybe indifference. It was hard to read Karen, especially since she stood next to the window and was somehow still mostly hidden in shadows.

She asked about Marcus.

“Danny killed him. The same night.”

Again, the slight nod that he couldn’t figure out.

Then she asked him about Sarah, about Berg, about the others.

He told her what he knew.

Then about the shack at the power station, the one connected to the tunnel with the ghouls inside. He told her about the concrete wall Will and Danny had put over the door.

Then, to his surprise, she smiled and said, “Ghouls? Will calls them ghouls?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess they just looked like ghouls to him.”

“It’s not a bad description, actually. I should probably start calling them that, too. Just not to their faces.” She smiled, almost as if she expected him to return it. When he didn’t, she continued. “Who is this Blaine guy?”

“I don’t really know. He’s just some guy we met in Lancing, Texas. Then he showed up here later.”

“And the two with him?”

“Maddie and Bobby.”

“Are they soldiers, too?”

“They didn’t look like soldiers. The guy is a mute.”

“What does that mean?”

“He doesn’t talk.”

“Doesn’t talk or can’t talk?”

“I don’t know for sure. Maddie just said he doesn’t talk.”

Karen nodded. “What about the women? Carly and Lara. How good are they with weapons?”

“They can shoot.”

“Anyone can shoot,” Karen said impatiently, like he was trying to pull one over her. “The question is, how good are they with weapons?”

He flashed back to last night, standing side by side with Carly as she calmly defended the Tower with a shotgun. He knew Lara had killed before. That man in the church back in Lancing, for one.

“They’re good with weapons,” he said.

“So that’s seven.”

“I guess, yeah.”

“But it’ll probably just be the five defending the beach. Lara and Carly will most likely be back in the Tower with the kids. Speaking of the Tower…Who is up there? The one shooting this afternoon?”

“Danny.”

“What does he have on that rifle? Some kind of high-magnification scope?”

“I don’t know. Will called it an ACOG.”

“What the hell is that?”

“I don’t know. Something Tom had in the basement. It lets him shoot farther and straighter.”

“Tom had a lot of things in that basement, most of which he didn’t know how to use.” She waved a dismissive hand. “So they have a sniper. Danny. Four at the beach, because Will knows that’s the only place for boats to land. He’ll commit everyone there. It’s the smart thing to do. The obvious thing to do.”

I should stop now…

“What did you come back for?” she asked. “What was in the garage in the marina that was so important?”

I shouldn’t tell her…

“Tools,” he said.

“Tools?” She gave him a sharp, suspicious look. “Tools for what?”

“For making bullets.”

“Bullets? There are plenty of bullets on the island, underneath the Tower.”

Don’t tell her…

“Silver bullets,” he said.

Shit.

“Silver bullets?” she repeated, narrowing her eyes at him, trying to decide if he was lying to her again.

“Yes.”

“Why does he need silver bullets?”

“The ghouls. Silver bullets kill them.”

Her eyes widened and her suspicion grew. “How do you know this?”

“I’ve seen it. Will discovered it months ago, when all of this started. He and Danny have been making silver bullets whenever they could ever since. They left the tools in the garage when we arrived because there was no room on the boat.”

Karen seemed to mull it over. She didn’t know about the silver, that much was obvious. Josh wondered if that affected how she looked at the ghouls. Would she still work for them if she knew she could actually kill them?

“Smart guys,” Karen said finally. “Too smart for a couple of jarheads.”

Jarheads are Marines. Will and Danny are soldiers. Even I know that.

But he didn’t say it out loud. He was too busy trying to justify himself to the traitorous feelings washing over him like some sick, disgusting bile rising from the very pit of his stomach and forcing its way out of his mouth, onto his tongue. The taste was hideous and made him want to gag.

He watched Karen standing beside the window. She was looking off into a corner, and he could almost see her mind working, crunching the numbers. What was that Sarah had said about Karen? She was a politician; she bartered and made deals to save her own skin because that was who she was. She was the one who had struck the deal with the ghouls—with the blue-eyed ghoul in particular—to turn the island into a honey trap.

“All right,” Karen said after a while.

“So what happens now?”

“Now I take back my island.”

“What about me, I mean?”

“You stay here. I might have more questions for you if this doesn’t go well. It will,” she added quickly, “but you can never be too sure. I always like to have a backup plan. Like the tunnel at the power station. I was going to wait for the blue-eyed creature—the blue-eyed ghoul—to show up before I let them in. My big ta-da! moment, to prove to her that I could be trusted with bigger things.”

Jesus, she was using the island as a job application for a promotion. What a bitch.

“You guys spoiled that,” Karen said, with a slight frown. “But that’s all right. Nothing worth having ever comes without a little hard work.” She walked across the room, opened the door, but then stopped and looked back at him. “One last question. I’m really curious.”

“About what?”

“Sarah woke you guys up, right? She was the one who betrayed us?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I mean, yes, she betrayed you, but she wasn’t the one who woke us up. I did. I woke up first, then I convinced Sarah to help us.”

Karen stared at him for a moment, again trying to gauge his trustworthiness. “You woke up first? How? No one’s ever woken up before.”


“I barely touched the wine during the feast.”

“Shit,” she said, and almost laughed. “I should have kept an eye on you. I told Marcus to pour you the Coke instead, that you’d probably never drunk wine in your life. But you looked older, and…” She shook her head. “Sonofabitch.”

She turned back to the door.

“What about me?” he asked. “Do I just…sit here?”

“There’ll be someone outside. Try to escape and he has orders to shoot you dead. Got it?”

He nodded mutely.

“Good boy,” she said, and left, slamming the door behind her.

*

HE MANAGED TO get up and walk over to the window in his wet clothes. The pain seemed to be easing the more he moved, which was unexpected. Still, he unconsciously favored his left leg, but even when he put pressure on it, it didn’t really hurt that much. Josh couldn’t wrap his mind around that, but quickly decided he didn’t care enough to keep thinking about it.

He peered through the blinds at the men outside. They seemed to be waiting for something, sitting on open tail gates and leaning against trucks, talking quietly, almost nervously, among themselves. There were open cases of weapon around them and in the backs of the trucks. A dozen or so of the men seemed to be drinking beer. Warm beer, of course. The island probably had cold beers. But not out here. Out here, it was go warm or go home.

Thirty against seven.

They can’t win. How can they win against all those men with all those guns?

Josh looked up at the sky and right into the bright sun. What time was it? It had to be almost evening by now. He had left the island with Will in the afternoon, and God knew how long he had been asleep before Karen showed up.

The door opened behind him, and a short man with a bad haircut came in.

The man wore cargo jeans and Army boots. He had a gun belt and a rifle slung over his back. Despite that, he looked innocuous, especially since he was eating an apple when he gave Josh a bored look. “You hungry?”

“Yes,” Josh said quickly. He was famished. He hadn’t realized how famished until his stomach growled.

The man took another apple from a pouch around his waist and tossed it across the room. Josh clumsily caught it. “I found a whole tree on my way here. But don’t tell the others. They don’t know.”

“Thanks,” Josh said.

“I was the one who fished you out of the lake, you know,” the man said. He grinned at Josh, showing off a big gap where he was missing a front tooth. “Literally. There was this big pole—” he mimed it for Josh’s benefit “—with a hook at the end. I guess they used it to grab nets or some shit. I was never much of a fisherman. Never cared for the water, to be perfectly honest with you.”

“Thanks. For saving my life.”

“Sure. Happy to do it.”

“Was I…dead when you pulled me up? I don’t remember anything after I fell in.”

“Nah, you were still breathing. Mostly, anyway. I pumped on your chest a few times and you spat all the lake water out. Then you lost consciousness.”

“Thanks,” Josh said again.

“No biggie. Try the apple.”

Josh bit into the fruit. It was warm, but the juices tasted good just the same. He took another bite and savored the flavor.

“Not bad, right?” the man said. “I ate a dozen of them before I got to this place. The name’s Mason, by the way.”

“Josh.”

“Yeah, I know. The bitch told me.” Mason grinned at him. “Or, ahem, excuse me, Karen, as she likes to be called. But still a royal bitch, right?”

Josh grinned back. He couldn’t disagree with that assessment.

“Exactly,” Mason said. “I would totally still hit that, don’t get me wrong.”

Josh couldn’t imagine Mason “hitting” Karen. She had to have at least five inches on him. The last person who had “hit” it when it came to Karen was Tom, who had been a hulk of a man. Compared to Tom, Mason looked like someone’s kid trying to puff up his chest to look bigger than he really was.

But Josh didn’t say any of that out loud. The guy had given him an apple. Hell, he had even fished Josh out of the lake. That counted for something.

“She’s got a real mouth on her,” Mason was saying. “But hey, politicians, right? They can talk and talk and talk.”

“I guess.”

Mason turned to go. “Anyway, you stay in here. I’ll go outside and ‘guard’—” he made air quotes with his fingers “—you.”

“Thanks,” Josh said again. “For everything.”

“Don’t mention it, kid. Hey, we’re all in the same boat, right? Just trying to survive another day.”

Josh nodded. He couldn’t have put it better himself.

*

JOSH FINISHED OFF the apple but continued to spend his time at the window, peering out, careful not to be seen, as the men continued to get ready in the front yard. It didn’t take a genius to know what they were getting ready for. They were going to attack the island, except this time there were more men and more guns, and they weren’t going to be chased away by Danny shooting at them from the Tower.

It was going to be a massacre. People would die. He just hoped Gaby wasn’t one of them.

Every now and then, he saw Karen outside, sending one of the men here and there. They seemed to listen to her. Karen was tall and imposing, sure, but there were men out there who looked rough and dangerous. There were some big ones with no necks who filled out their camo pants and hunting vests like they were born to them. But they all obeyed Karen just the same. He wondered why.

Josh had seen trucks arriving with boats. First just two, then three, then four. From his vantage point inside the kid’s room, he tracked them heading down the driveway and toward the boathouse at the back, where he lost sight of them.

He glanced up at the sky. It was still bright, but it looked like the heat was letting up. He didn’t have his watch with him, and the clock on the wall had died a while back. But if he had to guess, it was probably evening. Six or seven o’clock. That meant darkness wasn’t too far away.

So was that it, then? Was Karen’s big plan to attack the island at night? He supposed that was probably better than driving their boats right up to the beach in daylight. The last time they had tried that, Danny had shot them up. And he was just one man. Now Will was back there, and he had three more guns with him in Blaine, Maddie, and the mute guy, Bobby.

Whatever Karen’s plans, Josh hoped Gaby stayed out of the way. He didn’t want to have done all this for nothing.

Just thinking about what he had done made him feel physically sick. He wanted to heave it out, that troubling, agitating feeling deep inside him, but when he opened his mouth, only breath that still smelled like filthy lake water puffed out.

I’m sorry, Carly. I’m sorry, Will. I’m sorry, Danny.

I’m sorry, everyone…

*

HE WASN’T SURE how long he stood at the window. Eventually he got bored and hobbled around the room, heavily favoring his left leg. He kicked at a yellow toy car and it went skating across the room and under the bed. Josh eventually ended back at the car bed, sitting down and staring at a giant poster of Optimus Prime.

That was when he noticed that the slits of sunlight coming into his room had started to taper off. He glanced toward the window and saw that it was darkening fast.

He stood back up, alarmed, his natural instincts reacting to the coming darkness. He moved quickly back to the window and looked out, and he could tell the men outside were getting a little nervous, too. They began collecting their things, picking up their weapons, as if preparing for something. Their eyes darted around and their voices became muted whispers, if they talked at all. Most of them pretended they weren’t looking around. All of them were, though.


Josh heard a generator start up. It was a low, rumbling noise at first, then got louder as tall spotlights strategically placed around the property began snapping to life. The men in the yard grimaced at the sudden brightness.

He glimpsed the first one from the corner of his right eye. It came out of nowhere, sliding around the trucks, moving into one of the spotlights, then quickly out again. He thought the men were going to start shooting it. A man in a camo hunting cap actually started to lift his rifle a bit.

Then there were two more—before two became a dozen—and before Josh knew it, the yard was filled with them.

Hundreds.

They came out of the grass beyond the road, gliding into the space around the house, swarming the men in the yard but ignoring them, as if the men didn’t exist, didn’t have the blood the ghouls so desperately desired. Even so, Josh could see the men watching, eyes darting, terror washing across their faces.

The ghouls kept going, moving toward the edge of the lake, spreading out in a long jagged line. They looked across the water, craning their necks, leaning their bodies, all toward one object.

Song Island.

He could see the island’s lights in the distance. The solar-powered lampposts and floodlights had trickled on one by one. The easiest feature to pick up with the naked eye was the Tower in the east. There were four floodlights up there under the third-floor windows, and they lit up the tall structure like the beacon that was never completed.

Josh knew, though he didn’t know how, that Gaby was in the Tower right that moment.

I did this for you, Gaby. I hope you’ll understand…

*

HE MUST HAVE wandered back to the bed and dozed off, because when he opened his eyes again, he could tell it was much later in the night. He wasn’t sure how much later, but there was a thickness in the room, a heaviness in the air that hadn’t been there before.

Josh yawned and climbed off the bed and gimped his way back to the window. His clothes had started to dry, but he could still feel his boxers clinging to his butt.

He peered out the window. Most of the men loitering around the yard were gone. There were just five left, but they seemed busy with their vehicles. Seeing men outside at night, without a care in the world struck Josh as unnatural somehow. Didn’t they know there were creatures out there?

But of course they knew. They were collaborators…just like him. And collaborators didn’t need to fear the night.

He wondered if the others were on their way to Song Island. He tried to listen for the sounds of boat motors or gunfire, but the only thing he heard was the stillness in the room and the occasional clinking sound of the men outside tinkering with their vehicles. There was also the hum of the generators around them.

Josh jumped when something appeared in front of him on the other side of the window. He took a couple of steps back as the creature pressed its pruned black face into the glass pane and seemed to sneer at him. Black eyes stared through the blinds, but there wasn’t the rabid hunger he usually saw in them.

This one just looked…curious.

Josh didn’t know whether to run out of the room or leap to the floor or race to hide beside the window. So he did nothing. The ghoul looked back at him with cold, detached eyes. Then it seemed to lose interest and moved on, leaving an impression of its deformed face on the glass.

“Freaky, huh?” a voice said behind him.

Josh looked over at Mason, leaning in the doorway, grinning at him over another apple.

“You think you’re used to them, and then one of them goes and does something like that,” Mason said casually. “Then you remember they’re not really your friends after all. Don’t worry, we’re safe in here. Boss lady’s given them the order not to mess with the house.”

“Karen?”

“Not even close. Skin and bones. Blue eyes. That boss lady.”

“Oh.”

“You ever seen it before?”

“No.”

“You think those little f*ckers are freaky? Wait ’til you meet the boss lady. Nothing about it feels right. The way it talks, the way it looks…” He shivered. “Creeps me out every time.”

“What’s going on out there?” Josh asked, hoping to steer the conversation somewhere else, somewhere less likely to raise the hairs on the back of his neck.

“Boys are getting ready to take back the island.” Mason walked over to the window and peered out. “Or at least, that’s the plan.”

“You don’t think it’s going to work?”

“I don’t give a shit if it works or not. I just care that those little bastards don’t come in here tonight.”

Mason looked toward the part of the yard still covered in darkness, safe from the spotlights powered by the generator. It occurred to Josh that he was actually taller than Mason by almost two inches.

“She’s out there, you know,” Mason said.

“Who?”

“You know. It.”

The real boss lady.

“How do you know?” Josh asked.

“Because we’re not wearing hazmat suits. We have to wear those things when it’s not around, just to be safe. But when it’s nearby, it has full command of the little buggers. It’s some kind of psychic link, right out of the comic books. The link is stronger the closer it is to its soldiers.”

“Soldiers?”

“Foot soldiers. It’s a war, you know. A war between humanity and these undead f*cks.”

He hates them. He works for them, but he hates them.

“When’s the attack?” Josh asked.

“Around midnight, I think.”

“Why not now?”

Mason shrugged. “I didn’t bother to get all the details.”

“Are you going, too?”

Mason grinned, and they were so close this time that Mason’s missing front tooth looked like a big black stain in an otherwise white sea of pearls. “Nah. I got babysitting duty, remember? I gotta thank you for that.”

“Sorry.”

He chuckled. “For what? Keeping me from storming that beach and getting my nuts shot off? No, I mean it. Thanks, man.”

Josh smiled awkwardly back at him. “You’re welcome, I guess.”

“In fact,” Mason said, “I was going to—”

He stopped in mid-sentence and went back to the window. He looked out for a moment, before pulling the blinds up, exposing the two of them to the yard and the men milling outside.

“What is it?” Josh asked.

“You see that?” Mason pointed up at the sky.

Josh looked out, following Mason’s finger. He didn’t see anything at first, but then slowly it came into view.

It was a bright light in the sky, getting bigger every second.

Even the ghouls seemed to notice the quickly approaching light, and Josh saw stirring among the shadows. The men also stopped what they were doing and stared up at the sky.

After all, it wasn’t like you saw that every day. At least, not since The Purge.

“Is that what I think it is?” Josh asked, straining to see details against the black sky.

“Holy shit,” Mason said. “That’s a helicopter, kid.”