Sam Sisavath - The Isles of Elysium

“If they’re outside and they heard anything through this monsoon, they’ll be all over us in a few minutes anyway, so this conversation is irrelevant. But if we got real lucky, then it’s going to take some time before they realize where these two were last seen.”

“But they’ll figure it out eventually. They’ll ask around, and sooner or later they’ll get to a house where the soldiers didn’t search yet, then they’ll backtrack to us.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I gotta get Jordan and Dave out of here before then.”

“What about Jay and me?”

Keo looked past her at Jay, still sitting at the bottom of the stairs staring at his hands. He wasn’t sure what Jay was looking at because his hands looked fine and there were no traces of trembling that Keo could see from across the room.

“Keo?” Gillian said.

“I’m thinking,” Keo said, and hurried across the room to the front door.

He peered out through the peephole, but he might as well be looking into an empty black ocean with the sheets of falling rain obscuring everything, including the LED lights up and down the streets. The only time he could see the sidewalk and the street beyond it was when thunder clapped and lightning lit up the subdivision for a brief second.

Gillian had followed him over. “Keo,” she said, much quieter than she really had to. “What now?”

“You’ll be fine,” he said, trying to sound as confident as he could muster.

“How will we be fine after this?” She looked back at Owen’s body, then Ronny in the living room. “This isn’t fine.”

“You didn’t do this. I did.”

“They’re not going to see it that way.”

“Look at him,” Keo said, nodding at Jay.

The doctor was still in his own world, oblivious to them.

“What do you see?” Keo asked her.

“I don’t understand…”

“He’s a doctor.”

“So?”

“How many doctors do you have in town?”

“Two, with four full-time nurses and a dozen trainees. Three doctors, if you count Bannerman, but no one does. Steve won’t let him come near the civilians after what he’s done in the past. We’re lucky. I’ve heard from some of the soldiers that other towns have to make do with just one doctor.”

“Two doctors, and Jay’s one of them. That’s the number you should be focusing on, because that’s the number that tells me Steve’s not going to do anything to him. Or to you. He can’t afford to. His number one job is to keep this place running smoothly so the ghouls get their blood and the pregnancies are on schedule.”

She was looking intently at him. “What’s out there, Keo? When Jordan and I were trying to get to Santa Marie Island, we didn’t even know places like this existed. What’s happening out there that we don’t know about?”

He thought about Song Island, all the stories about the towns, the soldiers, and ghouls with blue eyes. It was enough to give him goose bumps, but he didn’t tell her about them. Right now, Gillian didn’t need to know. Right now-and he hated to admit it-T18 was the best thing for her and the life growing inside her stomach.

“You’ll be safe here,” he said. “You were right not to leave with Jordan. You made the right choice.”

“I know,” she said. “But are you absolutely sure about your buddy Steve?”

“I know guys like him. I’ve been around them most of my life, even before all of this. They compartmentalize. Maybe he’ll come to the conclusion that you and Jay might have something to do with it, but he’ll let it go, because he knows I wouldn’t hesitate to do this. So don’t clean this mess up. Don’t try to hide the bodies. In the morning, wake up Grant and let him go. Or if he’s still out, go outside and get one of the soldiers. Tell them everything, that I’m responsible for the shooting. Grant will be able to corroborate most of it, including when I ordered Jay to put him out.”

“You’ve thought all this out, huh?”

“Not even close. But I don’t think it’s going to really matter how good your story is. It’ll be good enough for Steve to let this go, which will allow him to focus on coming after me, and especially Dave.”

“Why Dave?”

“Dave killed his brother, before he came here.”

“Oh.”

“So you’ll be fine. He has no choice but to let you and Jay off the hook.”

“Assuming you’re right…”

“I am,” he said, thinking, Christ, I hope I’m right.

“ Assuming you’re right,” she said anyway, “then what about you? You said he would come after you.”

“Don’t worry about me. Just worry about yourself.” He put a hand on her belly. “And him. Or her.”

“By the way it’s kicking, it’s probably a him.”

“Either way, I know you’ll be a great mother.”

She tried to smile. “I’m never going to see you again, am I?”

Thunder crackled outside and lightning flashed, illuminating the lawn for a brief moment. Instead of slowing down, it sounded like the rain was increasing, as if everything up till now had just been a prelude to the real storm that was coming.

“Of course you will,” Keo said. “I’ll come around on the holidays to say hi. Bring gifts for the little slugger.”

She tried to laugh it off before looking back at Jay. He wasn’t paying attention to them; or if he was, he was hiding it well.

Gillian looked back at Keo and reached up and caressed his cheek, the one with the scar. He leaned into her palm, enjoying the warmth of her skin against his.

“Time to go,” he said.

*

He was drenched from head to boot as soon as he stepped outside the house. By the time he had traveled the short distance from the door to the driveway where the golf cart was sitting, he was pretty sure he had gained five extra pounds just from his clothes absorbing all the rainwater.

And the cold. Jesus Christ on a stick, it was cold.

Keo didn’t know if his heart was racing so hard because he was anticipating gunshots to come out of the darkness around him, or if the organ was trying to pump enough blood to the rest of his body so he wouldn’t freeze to death. There was nothing out there but a murky black pool of nothing, the LED lights barely having any effect against the unrelenting elements.

There was one bright spot (Ha ha, “bright” spot, get it?) : If he couldn’t see anything, there was a good chance no one out there could see him, either. And in this weather, only the really dedicated would be out hunting Dave and Jordan. What were the chances that described a lot of Steve’s “soldiers”?

If there were still people moving around in the streets, he couldn’t see them. Then again, he couldn’t see much of anything except the twenty or so feet in front of him at the moment. The solar-powered garden lights were little more than white dots in the darkness and he stepped off the walkway twice, his boots soaking up more water and drenching the socks inside as a result, before finding the driveway in all the nothingness.

When he finally reached the vehicle and no one had fired a shot yet, Keo breathed easier, though he still couldn’t quite make his teeth stop their chattering. He was pretty sure they were snapping so fast and furious that there was a good chance he might end up biting his own tongue off by accident.

Death by chattering. Now that would be a hell of a way to go.

Fortunately, he still had his tongue when he climbed into the cart and turned the key. The raindrops landing on the solar panels above him sounded like machine-gun fire, which wasn’t quite the imagery he needed at the moment.

Keo stepped on the gas pedal and spun the wheel, aiming the slow-moving vehicle toward the front door of Gillian’s house. He turned around, then reversed into position, going up the slight step until half of the cart was out of the rain.