Sam Sisavath - The Isles of Elysium

I should have stayed on the Trident.

That thought rushed through Keo’s head as he watched water from Galveston Bay pool around his boots. The only thing standing between him and the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico at the moment was the fiberglass hull of the boat that had been his home for the last three days and two nights.

And the morning had started off so well, too.

He was halfway through a bag of roast beef MRE, and Santa Marie Island-the place he had been chasing for half a year-was finally within sight. There were times when he didn’t think he’d ever actually make it here. After all the days and nights, weeks and months, and the pile of trouble that he’d had to overcome, there it was.

Pollard, Song Island, and ghouls.

Lots of ghouls.

A hell of a lot of ghouls.

But there it was, at last, and he was so close he could almost feel the sharp edges of the rocks that haloed the ridgeline of the island. The rooftops of houses poked out from one side to the other, and there was a raised hill in the center of the place with a couple of residences on top of it. One of those homes would have made a perfect sniper’s perch.

I bet Danny and Gaby could hold off an army from up there.

He had approached the island from the east and could just make out the marina with the naked eye. It extended out from near the bottom of the oval-shaped landmass and was a welcoming sight, even if he couldn’t spot a single boat among the slips. Not that he expected to find any. If previous experience was any indication, boats were few and far between these days. Or, at least, ones that weren’t already being used by ghoul collaborators, guys he’d rather avoid whenever possible.

Santa Marie Island was coveted real estate, and according to Rachel, he was looking at an island that was eight kilometers long and one and a half wide. The size made it easy to spot from a distance once he slipped into Galveston Bay. There it was, sticking out of the ocean like a fabled land, with the Texas coastline (Everything’s bigger in Texas) surrounding it in the background.

He was a few minutes away from finally reaching land, finding Gillian, and finally (finally!) running in slow motion up the beach and into her arms like in the movies. Keo should have felt dumb running that kind of scenario through his head, but what the hell, he was feeling a little giddy at that moment.

That was when the guy came out of nowhere and started shooting at him.

Keo assumed it was a guy, anyway. The shooter was positioned on the ridge to the left of the marina. The man was a decent shot and the round plopped! into the water just a few feet from Keo’s starboard.

For about four seconds after the shot, Keo had a rare moment of indecision.

Maybe it was the fact that he had finally (finally!) reached Santa Marie Island after months of traveling that slowed his reaction time, or maybe he just hadn’t expected the first person he would see after three days on the ocean would try to kill him. Considering the past year, he really shouldn’t have been that surprised. Who wasn’t shooting at him these days?

He was back to his old self just as the second loud crack! rang out and was followed by a bullet punching into the floor of his twenty-two-footer just a couple of feet from the nose of his boots.

Water instantly began to spring inside, pooling around his feet.

Oh, hell.

The third shot nearly took his head off. It was so close that Keo heard the zip! as the large-caliber round slashed through the air a few inches from his right ear. He finally did what he should have done when he heard the first shot and dropped to his stomach, bracing with his hands against the now-wet floor of the boat.

He reached to his right and grabbed the steering end of the trolling motor, jerking it left until the boat started to turn. The good news was due to the motor’s low power, he had only traveled another twenty meters toward the island after the first shot. The bad news was that it was taking longer to turn than he would have liked, and meanwhile the guy had a perfect (and closer) bead on him.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Three more shots, about three seconds apart. That meant the guy was using a bolt-action rifle. It took at least one second to eject the spent shell casing, another second to punch in a new round, then a third second to take aim and squeeze the trigger. Three seconds was impressive, but it also meant the guy wasn’t taking his time. He was shooting too fast, either because he was an amateur and was rushing it, or he was really good.

Keo leaned toward the former when a fourth bullet sailed harmlessly over his head and a fifth punched into the starboard because Keo was forced to present that side of the boat as he completed the U-turn. The last round missed by a mile.

Then the boat had finished its turn, and Keo kept it pointed away from the island. He waited for more shots-he was still well within range of a bolt-action with a good scope-but none came. The shooter had apparently decided to save his ammo. Or maybe the idea was just to scare Keo away. He wasn’t exactly scared (Okay, maybe just a little), but he had definitely gotten the hint: He wasn’t welcome on Santa Marie Island.

He turned his attention to the Gulf of Mexico making its way into his boat. The craft had continued to take in water while he was scrambling to keep his head attached to his shoulders, and the shiny half-empty bag of MRE he had been eating a moment ago was now floating in front of him.

Damn. I should have stayed on the Trident…

*

He didn’t stop completely until he had put another 200 meters between him and the shooter and felt safe enough to cut off the trolling motor and pick himself up from the wet floor. Keo plugged up the bullet holes with wooden plugs from an emergency kit, then spent the next twenty minutes collecting and tossing the water back into Galveston Bay using a ceramic mug with “The World’s Greatest Boat Captain” written on the side. The mug was a good-bye gift from Lara before he left her and the Trident behind. There was still water in the boat when he finally stopped to rest, but at least he wasn’t sinking anymore.

After the short rest, Keo walked up to the bow and looked back at the island with a pair of binoculars. He could just make out the lone figure standing at the same part of the ridge as before, watching him back with his own binoculars. If the man expected him to just turn around and leave, he was very disappointed right now, because Keo wasn’t going anywhere.

Gillian was on that island. Or she was supposed to be. Either way, he wasn’t leaving, not after all the trouble he’d gone through to get here.

Keo was still too far away to make out the face or any distinguishing features on his nemesis. At first he thought it might have been Mark shooting at him, but he dismissed that idea because Mark couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, much less a moving boat. Of course, it didn’t take a well-trained sniper to hit a slow-moving target like his twenty-two-footer, especially if that rifle was equipped with a really good scope.

For a few minutes, neither one of them moved. Keo kept expecting the man’s reinforcements to show up, but they never did. Was it possible he was being thwarted by a single individual?

After a while, the shooter disappeared from the ridgeline, and about a minute later he reappeared at the marina before walking all the way out to the end of one of the docks.

Five minutes after that, with nothing except the birds in the air, the fishes breaking the surface, and the calm waves of the Gulf sloshing against his hull to break the monotony of silence, Keo concluded that the man had no help coming. Instead of relief, that realization made him just a little bit depressed, because if there wasn’t anyone else on the entire island to lend a hand…