The Fields of Lemuria (2 page)

Who the hell are these guys?

“How long do you think they’re going to keep this up?” Norris asked. He hadn’t looked away once from the window in the last ten minutes.

“I don’t know,” Keo said. “If they didn’t give up after the house, I don’t think they’re going to give up now.”

“How many have we killed since? Three?”

“Yeah. I got two, and you got the last one.”

“You sure I didn’t get the second one, too?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“I don’t believe you. You wouldn’t lie to an old man, would you?”

“Absolutely,” Keo smiled. “It’s not like I actually respect you—”

Pak!

A bullet drilled through the glass between the two of them. The round kept going, slicing across the room before slamming into the wall on the other side.

Keo pulled his head back, Norris doing the same across the window.

He hadn’t heard the gunshot, which meant they were using a silenced rifle. That was new. When had they resorted to that? Keo was so used to the loud rattle of gunfire that the soundless bullet shocked him for just a moment. It didn’t last long, though, and his survival instincts quickly kicked in.

“Downstairs!” he shouted, racing to the stairs.

Pak-pak-pak!

More bullets smashed through the window behind him, chipping away glass and frame and embedding into the wallpaper over his head. Keo didn’t spend too much time worrying about Norris. The ex-cop had proven himself more than capable in a gunfight. They had saved each other’s lives more times than Keo cared to count, so when he left Norris on the second floor, he knew the older man would do his job just fine.

He jumped the last four steps to the bottom. It was a stupid move, and he regretted it right away even while he was still in mid-air, because even though he had prepared himself for the jolt of pain that was coming
(You idiot, remember the bullet hole in the leg?)
it still managed to catch him by surprise.

Keo almost lost his footing as he landed and stumbled, sticking out the M4 in front of him as he crashed into the wall. The impact jarred loose a framed photo of a good-looking middle-aged couple with two teenage children, the same people he had avoided looking at two hours ago when they found the house. The frame shattered against the tiled floor and glass sprinkled the hallway.

He pushed off the wall almost at the same time as he caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his right eye. It was coming from the patio window, which was in the process of sliding open—

Keo spun and fired—
pop-pop!
—and the window shattered, glass spraying everywhere. At the same time, a black-clad figure collapsed, followed by the clatter of a rifle falling against the wooden patio floor outside. He spent half a second wondering what the weapon was, and if the man had more ammo for it. That, and if it was the right caliber.

Not that he had time to check, because as soon as he fired his second shot, the door behind him
clicked
open. Keo felt the rush of wind and the August heat
(September heat? One of those.)
immediately flooding the first floor.

He turned, ready to fire, but there was no one on the other side of the hallway, just the open door and bright sunlight blasting him in the face—

A green oblong-shaped object appeared through the door and bounced across the floor.

Keo dived to his right, not even sure where that would take him, learning a heartbeat later that it was the kitchen. He landed painfully against the dust-covered floor and slid on his side across the room, slamming into the sink counter just as the explosion ripped apart the bottom of the stairs along with the table and cabinets in the dining room on the other side of the wall that separated it and the kitchen.

Smoke and debris flooded the entire floor.

Keo struggled back to his feet, sweeping the carbine right, then left. He made sure no one had tried to follow the dead man through the patio window in front of him before turning his attention back to the house’s front door behind him.

The clatter of automatic gunfire echoed from upstairs. Norris, unloading on whoever was approaching the house from the north, out of the woods. Which meant there were at least three people assaulting them at the moment. He had killed one outside the patio, and another one had tossed the grenade. So how many was Norris shooting at? One more, at least, and two or three more if they were really unlucky.

Riiiiiiight. Because we’ve been so lucky so far.

Keo scooted toward the hallway to his right connecting the front door, dining room, and the living room. He pressed his back against the smooth side of a silver refrigerator, which still managed to feel cool anyway despite going almost a year without electricity.

He listened, waiting for the sound of heavy footsteps that he knew was coming next. Besides the plentiful black assault vests and small arms, not to mention an ungodly amount of ammo, their pursuers also seemed to have a never-ending supply of army boots and other assorted military gear.

Who the hell are these guys?

But he didn’t hear anything at the moment, which didn’t make any sense.

What were they waiting for? Maybe they didn’t think the grenade had taken him out, though more likely they were coordinating a plan of attack. If he had learned anything about these assholes, it was that they could be stubbornly patient. And why not? Sooner or later, there was going to be a lot more men in camo face paint gathering around the house. Retreating back to the house, as it turned out, hadn’t been the best move on his and Norris’s part.

“Norris!” Keo shouted. There hadn’t been any shooting from upstairs in the last ten seconds, and silence from Norris was never a good sign.

After a few seconds, Norris shouted back down, “Yeah?”

“How’s it looking up there?”

“I saw two!”

“You get ’em?”

“No! They’re somewhere along the side of the house!”

“You need to shoot better!”

“Yeah, yeah. What about you?”

“Got one!”

“What was the big bang?”

“Grenade!”

“Damn!”

“Yeah.”

Tactical gear. Assault rifles. Unlimited ammo. And now the enemy had grenades to throw around, too?

Who the hell are these guys?

Keo continued to wait. He had hoped the very loud back and forth with Norris would draw the grenade tosser forward, or at least prompt the man or one of his friends to make a move instead of just waiting for reinforcements. He needed to finish this before the others showed up.

“How many of you are out there?”

“A lot.”

Doug wasn’t lying, as it turned out.

Keo glanced quickly down at his watch: 3:16 
p.m.

Late summer in Louisiana meant long days. Sunset didn’t come until just before eight, which left them with four hours and thirty minutes (optimistically speaking) to survive this and find another place for shelter.

That took up most of his priorities these days—run, fight, evade, and shelter. When they could, they stayed at the same place for days, sometimes weeks, until they were forced to move on. He used to care about all the time they were wasting in the early days of the chase, which were usually filled with images of Gillian and his promise to her.

Not so much anymore. Now, finding a place that he and Norris could rest for more than one night in peace, without having to shoot at anyone—or be shot at—was as close to paradise as he could get. His standards for what qualified as a great day had fallen dramatically these last few months.

His watch ticked to 3:18 
p.m.

Gotta get outta here.

Gotta get outta here soon…

“You promise me,”
Gillian had said.
“You’ll follow us to Santa Marie Island.”

“Yes,”
he had said.
“I promise.”

Even when he made it, he always knew there was a very good chance he wasn’t going to be able to follow through. Not because he didn’t want to, because God only knew he wanted to desperately. It was more that he didn’t think he would get the chance. But he thought she needed to hear it at the moment, with heavily-armed men gathered all around them, trying to kill them.

The more things change…the more they don’t.

He leaned around the corner of the kitchen and glanced back toward the front door for the fifth time in as many minutes. It was still wide open, sunlight pouring inside in big, comforting swaths. The foyer was in pieces, and so was the bottom of the stairs. Chunks of glass, what used to be fine mahogany wood, and a lot of someone’s very expensive dinnerware set were scattered across the elongated open spaces.

We left our house for one weekend, and someone tosses a grenade inside. Man, this neighborhood’s going to hell!

Keo felt like laughing at the absurd thought. The fact that he was making jokes made the absurdity even more so.

Keep laughing, pal. You’re about to die, you know that, right?

He couldn’t detect signs of movement or sounds of any kind. The house opened up to the shoreline, with the lake beyond about thirty meters or so connected to the front door by a winding cobblestone walkway walled by fields of unmowed grass. He remembered seeing a combination deck and empty boathouse there, including a pair of empty slots for jet skis. Like the boats, the jet skis were missing.

Who took all the boats? Maybe the same people that cleaned out all the houses before we got here. Curiouser and curiouser…

“Hey, kid!” Norris called from upstairs.

“Yeah!” Keo shouted back.

“You still alive?”

“I just said ‘yeah,’ didn’t I?”

“Good point.” There was a slight pause, then, “Can you make it?”

“Make it where?”

“Outside.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible. You said there were two coming, and I definitely know there’s one outside the front door right now.”

“Well, we gotta make our move sooner or later. You know that, right?”

One hour. Maybe two, at the most.

Yeah, he knew it, all right.

“I’m open to suggestions,” Keo said.

“I’m thinking—” Norris began, when Keo saw a black-gloved hand appear in the open doorway and toss a can-shaped object into the house.

“Incoming!” Keo shouted, and dived back behind the kitchen wall.

Something metallic clattered into the hallway and rolled along the tiled floor. There was a loud
pop!
, followed by the
swoosh!
of a smoke canister ripping.

“Smoke!” he shouted, hoping Norris could hear him over the sharp
hiss
.

He grabbed his T-shirt and pulled it up and over his mouth and nostrils—not that he expected it to do much good once the smoke reached him. He was still tugging at the fabric when he caught movement in front of him, outside on the patio.

Two figures, both clad in black, their faces smeared with green and black paint, were moving cautiously toward the broken window with weapons raised. They looked inside, searching for him in the kitchen. They spotted him as soon as he leaned out from behind the island counter to get a better look at them. Gunfire exploded and bullets tore into the wooden structure in front of him, chunks of the granite countertop splitting off like missiles. More bullets ricocheted off the steel refrigerator behind him, the
ping-ping-ping!
filling the first floor.

Keo kept his head down and bided his time, listening, listening—

Through the chaos, he heard the loud
thumping
footsteps he had been waiting for to finally show up, coming from behind him as their owner shuffled his way up the hallway from the front door.

When the two men finally emptied their magazines and stopped shooting, Keo held the M4 over what was left of the countertop and fired off a burst in the direction of the patio window. He had no clue if he hit anything or if the men were already inside the house. The last he saw of them, they were still cautiously approaching the shattered window, so maybe he caught them while they were still outside.

There was only one way to find out, though.

He stopped firing, pulled the rifle back, and dived forward, slipping and sliding against the dirt-covered but still slick floor. He braced himself for more return gunfire but was surprised when there was no reaction to his movements.

By now, smoke had filled half of the living room and pretty much the entire foyer, so when Keo picked himself up and ran, legs struggling for purchase against the wood and granite-covered floor, into the hallway, he didn’t look up in time to see the figure coming straight at him. They collided, the impact sending the M4 flying out of his hands. The carbine hit the wall, the loud clatter unmistakable even as both he and the attacker went spilling to the floor.

Keo stabbed his hand down toward his hip, groping for the Glock G41 in its holster. The smoke stung his eyes, but he could just barely make out the form in front of him, a black shape scrambling up from the floor just a little slower than him. Unlike Keo, the man had managed to hold onto his weapon, an MP5K, despite the collision. His radio, on the other hand, hadn’t survived the fall and pieces of it dangled from a Velcro strap along the left side of his vest. The man was whirling around in search of Keo, their entire world having been reduced to nothing but a thick white cloud and vision that was limited by only a few feet at a time.

The man finally located Keo, and as he lifted his weapon, Keo shot him in the shoulder. He was aiming for the head, but the figure in front of him was moving too erratically, still spinning around, and it was a miracle he hit anything at all. A scream, then the body fell, the submachine gun falling away as the man grabbed at his wound.

Keo felt a burst of glee. The MP5K fired 9mm rounds, and its magazine was interchangeable with his now-depleted MP5SD. If the guy had spares, then that would mean more ammo for his weapon.