The Gates of Byzantium (The Babylon Series, Book 2)

Author:Sisavath, Sam [Sisavath, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Post-Apocalypse, thriller
Publisher: Road To Babylon Media
Published: 2014-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22

BLAINE

THEY APPEARED AS soon as the sun abandoned the world for another day. They weren’t just on the rooftop of the Sortys department store, they were all around them. He couldn’t see them, so he didn’t know how many there actually were, but he could hear and feel them along the walls, the floor, and every inch of the building, and that told him everything he needed to know.

Sandra lay on the couch in his arms, as quiet as he had ever seen her. With the painkillers still kicking around in his system, Blaine didn’t feel a whole lot of pain, but the drugs also kept him wide awake for most of the night, listening to the ghouls as they traveled back and forth, through, above, around, and, he swore, underneath him, too.

He tried not to think about what was happening on the second floor of the mall. He tried not to picture those poor souls up there. Did his best to shut out the images of teeth marks along arms and legs and necks of prone victims, hanging somewhere between life and death.

Did they know what was happening to them? Were they crying out right now, tormented by the fact that no one could hear them?

His skin rippled with a sensation Blaine hadn’t felt in a long time. A combination of fear and shame and hopelessness.

“Is it the pain?” Sandra asked.

“No,” he whispered back.

“Oh.”

It stayed with him until he finally fell asleep around three in the morning. He closed his eyes, and when he woke up, the feeling was still with him, in his mouth, like a lingering bad meal regurgitated over and over.

He also felt the renewed, unwanted sensation in his side. He quietly pulled his pill bottle from his pocket and shook two pills out, then popped them into his mouth.

“Go easy on them,” Sandra said, lying against him, her eyes still closed.

“Just two.”

“How many do you have left?”

“Not a lot.”

“Go easy,” she said again.

They heard footsteps approaching, and Sandra untangled herself from him and stood up just as the door opened and Mason came in. He was wearing his hazmat suit, but not the gas mask, looking absurd with his head sticking out of the shiny gray uniform. Maddie was behind him, but Lenny, who sometimes watched the door, wasn’t outside this morning. Blaine had learned last night that the yahoo with the country accent was Gerry. He wasn’t there, either.

“Rise and shine,” Mason said. “Decision time. Are you with us or are you against us?”

He smiled at them, but Blaine didn’t believe there was anything remotely heartfelt about the smile. Just to prove Blaine’s thoughts correct, Mason casually laid his right palm over the butt of his holstered Browning.

Blaine looked past Mason at Maddie. The two of them were almost the same height and looked like teenagers playing at being soldiers. Maddie was clearly uncomfortable with what was happening, but she looked committed nevertheless. If not to Mason, then to survival, and that meant standing behind the man with the gun.

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