Sam Sisavath - The Isles of Elysium

Of course not, so he didn’t even bother to check.

Jordan was leaning against the center console, looking back at the marina about sixty, maybe seventy meters across the ocean. The impact of six 40mm grenade rounds had left craters in the parking lot and caused half of the docks to catch fire. Their boat was gone, sunk to the bottom in the aftermath, where he would have also gone if Jordan hadn’t jumped in after him.

The weapons weren’t the only things Ol’ Blue Eyes had left behind for them. Jordan had found two tactical packs with bags of MREs and nonperishable canned goods, along with two bottles of water. She had eaten her fill even before he woke up.

She changed his bandages (he was much too weak to protest) then opened a can of beans for him, and Keo attacked it with gusto, momentarily forgetting that every part of him was throbbing. Just breathing hurt, and swallowing wasn’t any better, but an entire day without food and a night where he almost died had left him too starved to care.

“It must have killed them,” Jordan was saying, “so it could take their boat.”

“The soldiers?”

“Uh huh. Where else would the guns and packs come from?”

He nodded, remembering how Ol’ Blue Eyes had waded into Steve’s soldiers back at T18. It had demolished almost a dozen men on horseback as if they were children, effortlessly. So what were a few soldiers that had something it needed, like a boat to cross Galveston Bay with?

“What do you think happened to him?” she asked.

Keo didn’t answer right away. Instead, he spooned beans into his mouth and looked toward the island.

It was still back there, somewhere. Was it even still alive? They couldn’t see anyone (anything) along the ridgelines, but of course it wouldn’t be there anyway, even if it had survived last night. Blue eyes or not-smarter than the average ghoul or not-it still had to avoid the sunlight like the rest.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Well, we have a quarter tank of gas left.” She tapped the console with her spork. “Where should we go?”

“Back there.”

“Where?”

He nodded at the island.

Jordan stared at him with her good eye. “No way. We barely survived last time, remember?”

“It’s still there.”

“Keo…”

“It knew my name.”

“I know, but…” She shook her head. “We should just go. Let’s just go.”

“I can’t,” he said. “I need to know, Jordan.”

Jordan sighed and sat down and stared in the opposite direction of the island. She didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, finally, “What if you don’t like the answers?”

“I have to find out either way.”

*

Half of the docks had sunk into the ocean from the fire, and the still-standing parts that they sidled alongside of and climbed up were slightly charred and blackened. They were armed again, even if they couldn’t find any more 40mm rounds for the M32. Too bad, because Keo would have loved to carry that thing back onto the island. Instead, he had to make do with a fresh M4 and a gun belt with a Beretta 9mm in the holster.

Jordan followed him up the pockmarked parking lot with another rifle. Like him last night, she had ditched all of her weapons and ammo in order to lighten her load in her dash to the boat. It still amazed him how fast she had been.

Competitive softball. Damn.

Keo walked across the parking lot wearing his damp clothes, thankful he could still move his legs at all after getting broadsided by the exploding truck last night. That was the kind of “accident” that could have just as easily snapped his spine and paralyzed him-or sliced him in half with shrapnel-instead of just leaving his entire back and the upper parts of his thighs bruised and battered.

Maybe my luck’s finally turning around after all…

Captain Optimism, as Danny would say.

The place was a surreal sight, with multiple craters scattered from one end to the other. Jordan told him that once she saw him flying through the air, she had kept firing until the M32 was empty, after which she jumped into the water after him.

Most of the vehicles that had been calling the marina home for the last year were now charred, scattered husks, which seemed appropriate given the piles of skeletal remains. The explosions hadn’t killed them, though they had severed arms and legs and detached heads from shoulders. The number of limbs spread around the area-represented this morning by the familiar sight of bleached white bones-were too many to count. And these, he reminded himself, were just the ones that hadn’t managed to crawl away before sunrise.

The lingering acidic smell of dead ghouls filled Keo’s nostrils as he walked through the cemetery of bones.

He was glad he was walking in front of Jordan so she couldn’t see him grimacing with every step. Despite taking two more of Jay’s painkillers (he had already taken two last night), he wasn’t sure how long he was going to last on his feet. His back was intact (Thank you, God) , but it was constantly letting him know it was far from okay. He wanted badly to sit down and rest but forced himself to keep moving anyway.

He must not have hid the pain well enough, because Jordan asked, “Are you okay?” from behind him.

“Fine.”

“Then why are you walking so slow?”

“I’m just taking my time. It’s a nice, sunny day. Perfect for a stroll.”

“Right,” she said, but thankfully didn’t press the issue.

There were more bleached bones and partial skeletal remains in the streets beyond the marina. These were spread out, as some of the creatures attempted to crawl toward the houses for salvation, and some had made it onto the lawns before the sun caught them. There was more of the sharp, acidic smell in the air, and Keo picked up his pace-or as much as he could, anyway-to get through it faster.

The two-story white house was exactly where they had left it last night, but being able to see it from afar and getting to it were two different things. During the long walk up the slanted road, he finally surrendered to the pain and stopped to gather his breath.

Jordan, meanwhile, stood guard. “No rush. We got all day.”

Unlike him, the morning had been a good one for Jordan, and the swelling around her right eye had gone down noticeably so that when she looked at him, it was now with both eyes.

“How’s the back?” she asked.

“Throbbing.”

“How’s everything else?”

“Throbbing.”

“Lots of throbbing.”

“Yup.”

“Here,” she said, handing him one of the water bottles from her pack.

“Save it for later,” he said, and stood up with a flinch and walked on before she could argue.

There were no signs of Steve or his men on the first floor of the house on the hill. They had left their weapons behind (including an M4 with an attached grenade launcher, probably the same one that had killed Dave), but the bodies were gone. Dead men still bled, especially the freshly dead one. Keo imagined a feeding frenzy as the ghouls, having been locked on the island for a year, got their first taste of fresh (or, well, mostly fresh) blood.

Sucks to be you, Steve.

They kicked stray bullet casings on their way through the house. Holes dotted the walls, and any furniture that wasn’t nailed down was scattered in pieces. Large patches of blood covered the floor and walls in spots where the sun couldn’t reach.

The staircase was battered and broken, with the kind of damage that could only be caused by repeatedly ramming someone’s skull into the frame. Or a lot of someones’ skulls.

Mister Blue Eyes. Did you do this?

They found more evidence of last night’s fight on what was left of the second-floor living room. Sunlight highlighted white bones along the floor, including evidence of incomplete ghouls that had been unable to crawl away as the morning stalked them. All Keo had to do was follow the trail of bones to the master bedroom, which he did while holding his shirt over his nose to keep out the stinging smell that had become nauseating after breathing it for the last hour or so.