Sam Sisavath - The Isles of Elysium

“No.”

That wasn’t entirely true. He did smell something. Abandonment. But that was normal these days. You couldn’t stick your head into a building, a vehicle, or anything with enclosed spaces and not get a whiff. It was everywhere.

“No smell means they’re not inside,” Gene was saying.

The second floor was wide open, with curtainless windows exposing the calm waters of Galveston Bay on the other side.

“You sure we’re going to be safe up here?” Keo asked.

“I’ve stayed here before,” Gene said. “The last time was almost three weeks ago. They’ve never come close to sniffing me.”

“First time for everything.”

“Trust me, we’ll be fine.”

Famous last words, kid.

Miller, moving in front of him, must have had the same thought, because he gave Keo a quick look.

“What?” Keo said.

“I didn’t say anything,” Miller said.

“Uh huh.” Then, “I have a question for you.”

“What?”

“How do they know to avoid you?”

“Avoid me?”

“Yeah. How do they know not to have you for dinner?”

Miller seemed to actually think about it for a moment. “I don’t know. They just do.”

“That’s it? You’re not even curious?”

“It works. I don’t care why or how, just that it does.”

“I bet that’s what the Nazi sympathizers said during World War II.”

“There’s a difference between me and them.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’m still alive.”

“For now.”

Miller snorted. “Have you looked around you?”

“What about it?”

“There’s no winning here, sport. We’re down for the count. The faster you accept it, the easier it’ll be.”

“Are you trying to recruit me?”

Miller grinned back at him. “You interested?”

Keo chuckled. “I’ll let you know in the morning.”

Gene pushed his way into the master bedroom at the end of the second-floor hallway. It was appropriately huge, with satin sheets crumpled on the floor. The king-size bed looked to be in good condition, though clouds of dust flitted off the sheets and across the streams of fading sunlight coming in through an open window.

The teenager led them past the bed, a massive dresser, and LCD TV, and toward a pair of doors in the back. Keo already knew what was on the other side even before Gene pulled them open. It was a bathroom, big enough to fit a couple of families and their pet. More sunlight poured in through a window behind a large bathtub and reflected off the long mirror opposite from it.

“Here?” Keo said.

“Doors are solid wood, super tough,” Gene said. He knocked on one of the mahogany slabs for effect, producing dull thudding sounds. “They’re going to need a battering ram to get through them. Push comes to shove, we can always escape through the window.”

“The window?” Keo said doubtfully.

“I’ve tested it out. You can climb onto the roof from it.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Why, you scared of heights?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I want to go around climbing people’s roofs, Gene.”

The kid smiled mischievously before walking over and opening the cabinet underneath the sink. He took out a backpack and put it on the counter, then unzipped it and pulled out a bottle of water that he tossed to Keo. It was warm, and Keo brushed aside a generous layer of gathered dust.

“I have go-bags in all the safe zones around the island,” Gene said. “Lots of water, but I’m running out of food.” He also pulled out a Glock handgun. “You need another one?”

“I’m good,” Keo said. Then to Miller, “What about you? You need a gun?”

Miller gave him a look that said he wasn’t entirely certain if Keo was kidding. “Yes.”

“Too bad. Have a seat instead.”

Miller grunted, then hobbled over to the toilet in the back. It was separated from the shower stall by a three-inch wall, and the wounded soldier sat down gratefully on the porcelain lid.

Keo stared at the man for a moment. He had expected Miller to at least try to escape once during the trek from the marina over to the house, but he had remained perfectly obliging. In fact, it seemed as if he hadn’t given the possibility of escape a single thought.

“How long before your friends show up looking for you?” he asked Miller.

“My friends?” Miller said. Either the guy was surprised by the question, or he really was a very good liar.

“When you don’t return to T18. What happens then?”

Miller shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

“Are you telling me no one’s going to care if you don’t report back in?”

“Report back? Man, you’re way overestimating us. We’re not nearly that organized. I wish we were. It’d make a lot of things easier.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe what you want. No skin off my nose.”

Keo eyed him closely, but if Miller had a tell, he disguised it well.

He looked over at Gene instead. “I’ve seen them climb before. The ghouls. You sure we shouldn’t cover up the window?”

“There are no handholds out there,” Gene said. “We’ll be fine. I told you. I’ve been here before, and they’ve never come close to checking the place out.” Gene pulled back the sleeve of his sweatshirt and glanced down at a black sports watch. “Two more hours until nightfall.” Then he gave Keo a crooked, almost nervous grin. “Should be fun, right?”

“Yeah, sure, kid,” Keo said. “But just to be safe-” he opened his tactical pack and took out a spare Glock and handed it to Gene “-here’s something you can use. Magazine’s loaded with silver bullets.”

“Thanks.” Gene took it and turned it over in his hands. “You remember all those guns from the other house?”

“Uh huh.”

“You think some of them had silver bullets?”

“You didn’t check?”

“It never occurred to me to.”

“We’ll go through them tomorrow morning and find out. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Until then, let’s just try to survive tonight first.” He glanced over at Miller. “What about you?”

Miller looked over. “What about me?”

“You have something to add? Maybe a secret handshake that’ll keep the crawlers at bay?”

“Nah,” Miller said. He leaned back against the toilet and closed his eyes. “Looks like you and the kid got it all figured out.”

Keo could be wrong, but he swore Miller almost smiled that time.

Once upon a time, he was trapped inside an attic listening to the creatures as they tap-tap-tapped below him. This time he was inside a second-floor bathroom. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, apparently.

Gene had heard the sudden movements-like scratching -from outside the house too, and his entire body stiffened. Keo could just make out the teenager’s dirty sweatshirt in the semidarkness. He sat inside the bathtub with his back against the wall, the only window inches to the left of his head. The kid’s eyes kept darting between Keo and the window and Miller, sitting against the glass shower stall to Keo’s right. A large swath of moonlight illuminated half of the room in a strangely serene baby-blue tint.

Keo tightened his grip on the MP5SD resting in his lap. He felt better knowing the bullets were silver, but that might not do him a lot of good if there were a lot of them out there right now. Sooner or later, he would use up his spare magazines, and then what? He remembered seeing Danny carrying a silver knife around with him. Smart. Guns ran out of bullets, but knives didn’t.

I need to get me one of those. Maybe a sword.

“Hey,” Keo whispered across the room at Gene. When the kid glanced over, “How many of them are out there?”