The Gates of Byzantium

CHAPTER 23 WILL

Marcus, the man who had showed up in the pontoon to pick them up, stood next to Debra, who drove the boat across Beaufont Lake and toward Song Island, still just a shimmering patch of land in the distance.

The pontoon was seven and a half meters long and looked like a floating raft with four recliners someone had decided to tack on. Then, just for good measure, they had added an admiral’s high-back reclining chair in front of a steering wheel in the middle. Faded slick vinyl covered the chairs, and the floor matting made walking surprisingly unadventurous, even in boots.

A three-inch heavy-duty deck rub rail with impact bumpers surrounded the boat, and there was just enough space to squeeze everyone inside, though it was a tight fit. Of course, it didn’t help that they brought two crates of supplies with them. On the plus side, the crates became impromptu seats. They also carried their personal items in backpacks, along with two heavy duffel bags — one for weapons and the other for ammo. It wasn’t everything they had, but it was all they could fit and still bring everyone on the first trip. Will was wary about leaving anyone behind.

The pontoon moved along at a steady clip, powered by a V8 battery that was amazingly quiet. Will remembered going fishing with Marker, his former Harris County SWAT commander, and how Marker’s aging boat’s motor sputtered plumes of smoke and leaked gasoline before it even made it out onto the water. Compared to that trip, the pontoon ran like a dream.

As they neared their destination, Will eyeballed Song Island at about one kilometer long. He had no idea about its width, given that they were approaching it from just one direction. The lighthouse/radio tower sprouted from the eastern side — possibly northeast — and not from the center as he had thought when he had first seen it through the binoculars. He guessed the eastern section was also where the survivors congregated, and probably where the main buildings were located. Thick jungle foliage covered nearly the entire western half.

Tall, glinting objects encircled the slightly jagged, oval-shaped outline of the island. Using his binoculars, he picked up an impressive array of solar panels, held in place by long, thin steel poles reaching almost as high as the trees. From a distance, they looked like flagpoles with shiny metal boards on top, soaking up the sun’s rays in crystalline cells. He could only see one side of the island, but it was clear the fence of panels extended entirely around. He did quick calculations in his head, using his guess of the island’s width and length, and came up with…a hell of a lot of solar panels.

Will lowered the binoculars. He stood at the front with Lara and Carly, and the girls sat on opposite sides of the reclining seats. His M4A1 was slung over his shoulder, something that neither Marcus nor Debra had objected to before they had boarded the pontoon boat.

Marcus and Debra had shown up at the marina less than an hour after they had arrived. Their vehicles had been spotted coming down the road by a watcher in what Marcus called the Tower — the combination radio tower and lighthouse. From the Tower, you could apparently see the shoreline along the western cove of Beaufont Lake.

“How many people are on the island?” Will asked.

“Eleven,” Marcus said. “Well, nineteen now, counting you folks.”

The six-foot-tall Marcus, in his khaki shorts, Hawaiian shirt, and sandals, looked like a yuppie who had wandered too far from his natural habitat, the big city. His blond hair and blue eyes were incongruous against overly tanned skin. Marcus was in his thirties, and Will had thought stockbroker the first time he had seen the man riding up to the marina in the pontoon.

Debra had similarly tanned features, though she looked like she actually belonged out here on the water. Shorter than Marcus by about half a foot, she was also wearing sandals and shorts, along with a loose-fitting T-shirt. Debra had a lean face, not exactly unattractive, but she was far from either Carly or Lara or the girl, Gaby. Rough hands that clearly spent a lot of time working outdoors guided the boat’s steering wheel with confidence. Frankly, she looked like the type of person a guy like Marcus would hire for a few days to take him fishing on her boat.

Neither Marcus nor Debra were armed, though Will glimpsed the barrel of a revolver in the slot under the boat’s steering wheel, within easy reach for Debra. Marcus had been all smiles as the two of them had drifted up the inlet. It occurred to Will that smiling was something Marcus did well. Like breathing.

“Eight more people is a lot,” Will said. “Is adding that many to the island in such a short time going to cause problems?”

“I don’t see why it would,” Marcus said. “There’s plenty of room and plenty of food. Plenty of fish in the lake around us, too. You guys like fish?”

“I like fish,” Danny said.

Danny stood in the back of the boat with Josh and Gaby. His M4A1 was slung over his shoulder. The fact that he was back there and Will was up front was no accident. If either Marcus or Debra noticed, they hadn’t said a word.

“Can you fish?” Marcus asked Danny.

“You didn’t say I actually had to catch my own fish,” Danny said.

Marcus laughed. “Don’t worry, there are plenty of people who don’t mind reeling in your share. Debra here’s one. It’s not like there’s a lot to do on the island. You can only explore it so many times before you run out of room.”

“Free food without having to work for it? This sounds like my dream job.”

“Why aren’t you armed?” Will asked Marcus.

Marcus smiled at him. Apparently he had been anticipating the question. “We have guns on the island, of course, but we don’t carry them around. There’s no need.”

“What about the creatures?”

“We don’t have to worry about them, either.”

“Is it the water?” Lara asked.

“Something in the water, yeah,” Marcus nodded. “I can’t tell you what exactly, not my department. But it’s like the sun to them. For some reason, they don’t go anywhere near it.”

“Do you see them at night?” Carly asked.

“Along the shores, yeah,” Marcus said. “But you’d need binoculars. We’re too far from land to see anything with the naked eye, especially in the dead of night. You can see most everything that happens on this side of the lake from the Tower, including anyone approaching the marina.”

“That’s where the radio signal is coming from?” Lara asked.

“I think they were planning to run their own radio station. I have no idea.”

“Whose idea was it to use the FEMA frequency?” Will asked.

“Karen’s. Most of this is Karen’s idea. I guess you could say she’s our fearless leader.”

“Welcome to Song Island,” Debra announced, pulling back slightly on the throttle until they were drifting, carried forward by their momentum.

Up close, the island looked much bigger. It was still around one kilometer long, give or take, but there was enough foliage, vegetation, trees, and sandy beaches to give it the impression of being a much more expansive place. The solar panels also looked more prominent, each collection tray raised at least ten meters high. And he was right the first time — the solar panels wrapped completely around the island, like a string necklace.

“What’s the story behind the solar panels?” Will asked.

“A company called Kilbrew Resorts bought Song Island about six years ago,” Marcus said. “They were going to turn it into a private island for rich people, powered exclusively by solar and wind power. It was supposed to be a paradise for the environmentally-conscious. You know, get the hippie rich people from the cities someplace to play and let them leave with a clear conscience, all that good stuff. Unfortunately, they never got around to installing the wind component, but they did finish most of the solar installations.”

“Is that how you’re powering the radio tower?” Lara asked.

“It uses very little energy to broadcast,” Marcus said. “The rest of the power goes to the rooms in the main resort buildings. We have more than enough left over for other things like TV, DVD players. The little things that make life worth living.”

“You guys get cable, too?” Danny asked.

“They’re installing it next week,” Marcus said, playing along.

“NFL network?”

“That’s extra, so no.”

“Bummer.”

“You mean there are finished rooms on the island?” Carly asked.

“Finished-ish, I guess you’d say,” Marcus said.

“But roofs and walls and the like?” Carly pressed.

“Most of them, yeah. I think you’ll like it here.”

“Docking,” Debra announced.

Debra had slowed the pontoon down almost to a crawl as they approached one of three piers sticking out of the island like wooden fingers. The piers were along one end of a clear, sandy white beach. There were already five other boats tied up, including two more pontoons and three fishing boats of different sizes and varieties.

A young man in his early twenties jogged along one of the piers in cargo pants and an LSU Tigers football jersey. He waved them over, and Debra slowly sidled the pontoon alongside him.

“That’s Berg,” Marcus said. “He was already at the marina when everything went to hell. Came to the island with us and hasn’t stepped foot off the place since. I don’t think he wants to, either.”

“Smart kid,” Danny said. “Why go out and fight monsters when you can sit here on the sandy beaches and fight crabs? Though I hear those can be pretty dangerous, too.”

“You’re thinking of the wrong kind of crabs, babe,” Carly smiled.

“Never mind, then.”

Berg, like Marcus and Debra, had dark, tanned skin from too much exposure to the sun. He grabbed a rope Marcus tossed over, the other end already tied around a metal cleat on top of the pontoon’s gunwale. Berg pulled the boat over the last few meters, then tied it into place around a metal anchor.

“You’re good,” Berg said. Then he looked over at Lara and Carly and grinned, flashing crooked and slightly yellowing teeth. “Hey, ladies, welcome to Song Island.”

Watch it, kid, I’m armed and you’re not.

They piled out of the pontoon and walked up the middle pier, Will using the time it took to travel from one end to the other to familiarize himself with his new surroundings.

The beach went on for quite a long stretch, taking up a good section of the southern side of the island, until it was abruptly cut off by encroaching trees and grass on both ends. There was enough sand and beach here to make for a very decent resort, which was probably why someone had spent a lot of money to do just that. The trees grew tall, providing plenty of shade, and the bushes were thick. The lake was invitingly blue, and he saw fish breaking the surface around them.

Behind the woods, he saw the looming structure Marcus called the Tower. It looked very much like a lighthouse, with a fat, cylindrical bottom that extended upwards, getting smaller as it neared the top. Will guessed it had to be about forty meters high, which made it taller than your average lighthouse. The height also made it a brilliant perch to see in every direction. Will saw two sets of windows, one near the top and a second set near the middle, which told him the Tower had at least three floors, not counting the unfinished section at the very top. There was supposed to be a glass housing up there, along with a revolving beacon that was never installed.

Marcus led the way up the pier, while Debra and Berg busied themselves with the pontoon behind them. Danny was all the way in the back, as planned. Will carried the heavy duffel bag holding half of their weapons and ammo. Danny carried the other half. He was surprised by how little interest Marcus and Debra had paid to what they were bringing on board the pontoon with them, almost as if they expected a level of paranoia from their visitors.

“You said eleven people?” Will asked Marcus. “How many of those came because of your broadcast?”

“Three so far, not counting you folks,” Marcus said.

“I thought there would be more,” Lara said. She walked beside Will, carrying her backpack over her good shoulder. While minus the sling, she still favored her right side whenever possible.

“I guess not everyone has a radio,” Marcus said. “Or listens to the old FEMA frequency. I think more will show up in time.”

A large, nondescript concrete building, aesthetically incomplete and the size of a four-door garage — and just as squat — sat at the end of the piers, the four windows facing them propped open. Will glimpsed boat supplies, machinery, and shelves with cartons of gasoline, oil, and thick, three-strand twisted ropes inside. The shape and construction of the boat shack reminded him of Harold Campbell’s facility.

They finally reached the end of the pier, where Vera and Elise instantly broke off from the group and hopped onto the beach and began racing around, laughing and kicking gobs of sand around them. The entire group found themselves stopping as one and staring after the girls, and for a moment, no one said a word.

Will exchanged a look with Lara. She gave him the kind of smile he hadn’t seen in a long time — happy and utterly content. She reached over and took his hand and squeezed. He smiled back at her.

“Haven’t heard that in a while,” Marcus said.

“There are no children on the island?” Lara asked.

“Two, but they’re not exactly the outdoorsy type.”

“We’re definitely coming back here and going for a swim later,” Carly said with a big grin.

“Oh hell yeah,” Gaby laughed.

“It’s not bad,” Marcus said. “But you’ll really love the hotel.”

“Girls!” Lara called.

Elise and Vera reluctantly ran back, but not before grabbing handfuls of sand and flinging them into the air and running through them. They were still picking sand out of each other’s hair as the group continued along a man-made cobblestone pathway connecting the end of the piers with the boat shack and leading across the beach. The pathway was about five meters wide, the same width as the piers. It was big enough for vehicles and a gaggle of civilians to come and go without getting sand in their shoes.

“You don’t have any guards?” Will asked.

“Don’t need any,” Marcus said. “Why? You plan on giving us trouble?”

Will smiled back, though he could imagine his smile wasn’t nearly as winning as Marcus’s.

The cobblestone pathway led them off the beach and through the woods. Will instantly became alarmed by the darkness within the trees to both sides of him and had to force himself to temper his instincts. Instead, he listened to birds chirping, the rustling of animals scurrying around branches and foliage. It was quiet, almost peaceful, and for a moment he was able to let himself go, become lost in the natural beauty of his surroundings. The only intrusions were the loud clack-clacks of their shoes on the hard stones.

He noticed black lampposts positioned every two meters along the pathway. There had been similar ones posted along the piers and beach. Each lamppost housed a lightbulb inside a glass container at the top.

“Solar-powered lampposts?” Will asked.

“Good guess,” Marcus said. “LED lights. You can’t beat it.”

“We carry portable LED lights with us.”

“Then you know how bright they can be. Wait till sundown. This island will be lit up like a Christmas tree, and none of it costs anything except the sun rays in the day.”

“That’s efficient.”

“There are lampposts like this all around the island,” Marcus added. “They store power by day, light up at night. We never have to worry about them as long as the power cells have the sun to draw from. So basically, it’s all good unless the sun blows up, which, hopefully, won’t be for a while yet.”

The leisurely welcoming walk through Mother Nature lasted for about fifty meters before they emerged onto the hotel grounds. It was quite a sight, even (as Marcus had put it) in its “finished-ish” state.

The resort hotel and its surrounding area were designed to take up nearly two football fields’ worth of space. He imagined the resort would have looked pretty spectacular when completed, but at the moment he saw a pair of unfinished swimming pools out front, each shaped into a giant peach and separated by the cobblestone pathway. On an island surrounded by water, swimming pools were the type of thing only rich people could come up with.

Likewise with the ornate water fountains scattered around the yard, in the shape of various fishes — catfish, bass, and what looked like bigmouth buffalo. The ceramic sea life was dried and cracked, the fountains devoid of water, the mouths homes to birds and their nests. Someone had attempted to turn a big section of the front yard into a garden before giving up.

Will expected to see a thick jungle where the yard used to be, but instead he smelled freshly cut grass. “You guys mow the lawn?”

“Tom and Jake take turns every other week,” Marcus said.

“Where do you get the gas?”

“There was a lot stored in the supply shacks, and we make supply runs on land every few weeks or so, whenever we run low on something. Things are spread out around here, but we can usually get what we need in less than a day’s drive.”

“Using the vehicles in the marina?”

“We have keys for every one of them,” Marcus said.

“Aren’t you afraid someone will steal them?”

“Not a chance. We stripped the batteries and there’s barely any gas in the tanks. We bring the keys, including the batteries and gas, when we need to use them. No one would bother stealing those cars. Too much hassle.”

The cobblestone pathway serpentined its way from the beach, through the trees, and all the way to the hotel’s large twin front doors sitting on a raised patio. Before it reached the doors, it branched off in a half-dozen separate directions around the hotel grounds, circling the water fountains, swimming pools, and building foundations laid out but never built upon. A small army of palm trees stood at attention around the hotel to give the resort a faux tropical theme.

The hotel wasn’t even close to being done, with much of the exterior aesthetics still missing. In its current state, the huge, sprawling building looked almost generic, and its second floor was missing. Will saw work equipment on the rooftop and wondered what else was up there that they could use. The developers had managed to erect a sign, held in place by scaffolding and metal mounts, over the front doors of the hotel. It read, “Kilbrew Hotel and Resorts” in big white letters.

The Tower loomed in the background and slightly to the right, near the northeast cliff of the island. The building was entirely white, without the colored stripes or design patterns usually used to distinguish lighthouses. He guessed the developers had never gotten around to painting the conical structure. Closer now, he could see four windows from his limited angle, two on the second and two more on the third floor. With the four other windows he couldn’t see, the Tower gave its inhabitants a maximum 360 view of the surrounding lake and island.

Using the Tower’s distance from them and adding in the walk from the beach, Will pegged the island’s width at under a quarter of a kilometer, or 250 meters, give or take. The island was definitely longer than it was wide, which made the Tower’s view all the more important.

A sniper’s dream.

“The radio that’s broadcasting the message,” Lara said. “You said it’s coming from the Tower?”

“That’s right,” Marcus said. “There’s a computer set up on the third floor.”

“Who’s up there now?” Will asked.

“Tom’s usually up there,” Marcus said. “He comes and goes, but that’s his usual haunt.”

“How much power is needed to keep the broadcast going twenty-four-seven?”

“Surprisingly, not a lot. We monitored the heck out of it the first week, but it’s incredibly efficient. This entire island is. I think that was the whole point.”

They approached the raised patio.

“But never mind all that,” Marcus said. “Let’s get you folks out of the sun. I’m sure you’re sick and tired of it by now.”

“Hallelujah,” Gaby said.

“The others are all waiting in the hotel. You can’t blame them, it’s probably 105 degrees out here.” He wiped a bead of sweat on his forehead for effect. “Welcome to Louisiana in the summer, folks.”

“It’s got nothing on Texas,” Lara said.

“Are we comparing heat indexes for state pride now?” Will smiled over at her.

She smiled back. “Texas proud, baby.”

They walked up a half-dozen marble steps, covered slightly in dust and dirt and bird excrement, to the two big doors of the hotel. The patio was constructed of the same shiny black marble and surrounded by a meter-tall wooden railing. A pair of solar-powered LED floodlights hung above them.

A woman in her late thirties stood at the top of the steps waiting to greet them. For a moment, she reminded him a bit of Kate. She was tall and attractive, with dark hair and piercing brown eyes, and something about the way she stood told him she used to be someone important before The Purge and she was reluctant to give that up.

Marcus introduced the woman, saying, “This is Karen, our fearless leader. She’s the reason we’re all here in the first place.”

“Welcome to Song Island,” Karen smiled. “We’re glad to finally get some new faces around here. If you need anything, just let me know. Anything at all.”

Politician, Will thought right away.

“I could use a bath,” Carly said.

“We have that, too.”

“What is that humming in the background?” Lara asked.

“That,” Karen said, “is air conditioning.”

Marcus grabbed one of the doors and pulled it open, and Will was instantly swamped with cold air seeking escape from the building. He was pretty sure Lara involuntarily sighed with pleasure next to him.

Two of the people calling Song Island home were in the lobby, including a man named Tom, who Marcus had mentioned earlier. Tom was wearing khaki shorts and a gun belt, making him the first person Will had seen on the island who carried a weapon out in the open.

Tom was eating an apple and reading a book while sitting in an armchair behind the reception desk. He came over and shook their hands. The man had a strong grip, which fit his huge six-two frame. Will pegged Tom at 250, most of that muscle, which was quite a feat given the quality of food available these days.

Will thought right away, Ex-cop.

“Mi casa es su casa,” Tom said. “Or whatever the Spanish word for island is.”

“Isla,” Lara said.

“Me isla es su isla, then,” he smiled. It wasn’t quite as winning a smile as Marcus’s, of course.

The other person they met was a young kid playing some kind of space game on a fifty-inch LED TV in one corner of the lobby. He looked all of twelve. Marcus introduced him as Kyle, and the kid, hearing his name, glanced over and gave them a cursory look, though Will noticed he gave Gaby a little bit more time than the rest of them.

Kyle raised a lazy hand and said, “Hey.”

“What is that, an Xbox?” Josh asked.

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “You play?”

“A little.”

“I got Halo and Call of Duty and a bunch of other games here.”

“Cool.”

And just like that, Kyle looked back at his game, the rest of the lobby instantly forgotten. He was moving some kind of soldier through a futuristic battlefield.

Marcus chuckled. “Kid plays that thing day and night. I’d say he’s doing it to escape reality, but frankly, his mom says he was like that before this mess.”

“Kyle is Debra’s kid,” Karen explained. “You can’t blame the boy. Everyone has to cope in their own way.”

“There’s enough electricity from the solar panels to waste on games?” Will asked.

“We have more than we need here,” Karen said proudly. “Marcus, why don’t you show them to the rooms. I have a feeling the ladies are dying to see them.”

“Follow me,” Marcus said.

He led them past Tom, who had gone back to the reception desk and his book. Will glanced at the cover as they passed, catching the name of the author, Ludlum something, but not the title. Tom looked up and caught his eye, and they exchanged a brief, perfunctory nod.

Marcus continued into a hallway, leaving the lobby behind. “Basically, pick whichever room you want — there are plenty to go around. Obviously you should try to stick to the completed sections of the hotel. There’re a lot of nails and construction leftovers scattered throughout the unfinished portions. So if you’re feeling adventurous and end up stepping on a rusted nail, we might have to cut off a limb, and no one wants that.”

The hallway curved slightly to the right the farther they went. Most of the flooring was completed with more of the shiny black marble tiles, but the walls were plain white, and there was still uncovered Sheetrock lined with dried caulk in certain sections and heavy doses of spackling over drywall. Some light fixtures above them didn’t have covers or lightbulbs, and wires dangled from drilled holes. And these, he reminded himself, were the finished sections of the hotel.

Marcus told them about the hotel’s construction as they went.

The hotel’s floor plan consisted of a long hallway marked “Hallway A” (the one they were in now), with rooms to the left and right, the door numbers starting with A100 and counting upward. Hallway A was designed for fifty rooms, twenty-five on each side, and it was the only completed section of the entire building. There was supposed to be a complementing hallway running parallel to their left (“Hallway B”), connected by a series of hallways and hotel event rooms, but the developers had never gotten around to laying foundations. It was now impossible to tell where the other planned half of the hotel was supposed to go, thanks to the overgrowth of weeds.

As they moved through Hallway A, people began coming out of rooms to greet them. He wondered what they had been doing before now. Didn’t they already know newcomers were arriving on the island?

A young woman named Sarah came out of her room first. She was in her late twenties and had a daughter, Jenny, who was blonde and the spitting image of her mother. Sarah was friendly, while her daughter shyly introduced herself to Elise and Vera. The two girls enthusiastically introduced themselves back, but that didn’t seem to win the girl over, and Jenny slowly wandered behind her mother before disappearing into their room without a word.

“Don’t mind her, she’s a little shy,” Sarah said.

Will thought her voice sounded familiar, and Lara picked up on it, too. “You’re the voice on the recorded message,” Lara said.

“Guilty.”

“You don’t know how often we listened to that recording on the way over here.”

“Oh, God, I don’t know how to respond to that,” Sarah said, looking both pleased and a little embarrassed. “You guys should get settled in. Al and I are cooking up something good for tonight. I hope you like fish. That’s Al’s specialty.”

“As long as it doesn’t come in a can,” Lara smiled.

“Would fresh from the lake work?”

“God, yes.”

They continued up the hallway, where they met a man in his fifties — the Al that Sarah had mentioned. Al had a bit of a gut, and for some reason was trying to hide his bald spot with a comb-over. Will found that both odd and amusing.

“Finally, new blood!” Al bellowed at the sight of them.

Al’s belly shook a bit as he said it, from either too much food or too much beer, or maybe both. If it was the latter, Will wondered where Al was hiding the good stuff. In his room, maybe. He and Danny had lost their taste for beer over the last eight months. Beers were simply not meant to be drunk warm.

“Just got here myself,” Al said. “You guys play poker?”

“I only gamble with my life,” Danny said.

Al laughed. “When you guys get settled, look me up. I can’t get anyone here to give me a decent game.”

“We hear you’re a good cook,” Lara said.

“Good is subjective,” Al said. “But since I’m the only cook on this island, I guess that makes me technically the only good cook.”

Al chewed their ears off about fish and cooking for another five minutes until Marcus butted in and dragged them away.

Farther up the hallway, they met a young man named Jake, who came out of his room to meet them, along with his girlfriend Sienna. They were both in their early twenties, though Sienna, with her round, cherubic face, could have passed for a teenager. Both looked friendly enough.

“You cut the grass,” Will said to Jake.

The young man nodded. “Just the front grounds, mostly. We don’t mess with the back areas too much — no point since there’s nothing back there.”

“Welcome to Song Island. You’ll love it here,” Sienna said.

Carly sniffed Sienna. “I smell shampoo.”

“The hotel stocked up on shampoo and soap before all of this happened,” Marcus said, “so there’s plenty to go around. There are stacks and stacks of the stuff in the storage closets, and some in your rooms, I’m sure.”

“Oh, I think I’m going to love it here,” Carly said, smiling brightly at them.

Marcus led them farther up the hallway. “Let’s get you guys settled in. I know you’re all worn out just getting here.”

“How long ago did the others get here?” Lara asked.

“Al got here just two weeks ago, and Jake and Sienna were the first people who actually made it here because of the broadcast. That was about three months ago.”

Marcus finally stopped and turned around. “This is it. As far as we go. Feel free to choose any rooms you want. Most of them already have everything you’ll need — towels, blankets, et cetera — and everything else can be found in the supply closets that we passed earlier. Any questions?”

“Just one,” Danny said, way in the back.

“Yes, Danny?”

“You got hot showers here? My BO is even getting on my nerves.”

Carly sighed. “He’s not kidding.”

“Thanks, babe.”

“I got your back,” Carly smiled.

There were two nightstands, one on each side of the bed, and a big dresser across the room. Metal brackets jutted out of the wall where a flat-screen LED TV was supposed to go. A big oval mirror hung from the wall next to the bathroom.

He had to admit, even a half-finished room at the Kilbrew Hotel and Resorts looked better than anything Harold Campbell had put together in his finished facility in Starch. It was certainly a step up from the basements they had been sheltering in during the trip here.

The floor had lush carpeting and a fan dangled from the ceiling. Not that they were going to need a working fan any time soon. The room was already cold, even though he had just turned on the air conditioner a few minutes ago. The bed was a queen, with fluffy pillows and a large blanket waiting for them. There was just a bit of dust, which meant everything had been prepared days — possibly weeks — ago.

Lara made a beeline for the bathroom, rubbing slightly at her left shoulder.

“How’s the shoulder?” he asked.

“It’s itchy,” she said, making a face. “I’m doing my best not to scratch it, but it’s really hard. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, Mister I’ve-never-been-shot.”

She disappeared into the bathroom, where he heard the sink faucet turning on and the squeak of plumbing not put to use until now coming alive. Then a second later, Lara shouting, “Yes!” followed by water pouring into the sink bowl.

“Found working plumbing?” he called over.

“What was that Gaby said?” she called from the bathroom. “Hallelujah!”

Will leaned the M4A1 and Remington against a comfortable-looking armchair in a corner next to a mini-fridge. He opened the fridge out of curiosity and found it empty. The fridge wasn’t plugged in, so he plugged it in and heard the small engine start up instantly. Satisfied that the outlets were working, he pulled the plug free.

Will walked across the room to the patio window and slid it open. He stepped out into the unfinished patio — really, just a half-circular concrete shape — and the heat immediately tried to reclaim him. He squinted in the sunlight and looked to his left, where he heard another window sliding open before Danny stepped out onto his own unfinished patio.

“Nice, a room with a view,” Danny said.

They looked across at about thirty meters of empty, undeveloped land and the wall of trees sprouting up on the other side. The grass in the middle was already up to five inches in some spots.

“Too much green, though,” Danny said. “I like my view a little more blue-ish.”

“How’s the mini-fridge in your room?”

“Wanting. I did find an uneaten mint in a corner. You?”

“Someone must have stolen our mint.”

“Bummer for you.”

“So what do you think?”

“About all this paradise?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s paradise.” Danny paused, then added, “It’s damn perfect. Sandy beaches, blue water, air conditioning, and working plumbing. What’s not to like?”

“Yeah,” Will said.

They didn’t have to say anything else, because it wasn’t necessary. He knew Danny was thinking the same thing.

It’s too perfect.

“Stay frosty,” Will said.

“I’m so frosty I can barely feel my fingers,” Danny said.

Will went back into the room, sliding the patio door shut behind him and feeling the cool breeze right away, thanks to a pair of vents along the ceiling. Will stood under one of them for a moment.

Lara came out of the bathroom with a big smile, her freshly washed face still glistening. She toweled down her wet hair, and he was surprised to see her just wearing panties and a lacy white bra, gauze tape covering up part of her left arm. “Bathroom definitely works. Haven’t used the shower yet, but it looks like it works, too. Won’t that be something? Two showers a day? How long has it been since we had working plumbing?”

“Since we left the facility.”

“It feels longer.” She walked over to the bed and sat down. “I’m going to need to change my bandages. You’re going to have to help.”

“Sure.”

“This place…” She ran the towel over her wet hair. “It’s safe, right? They’ve been here for eight months, and the ghouls haven’t attacked. They were right. It really is the sanctuary they promised.”

“It sounds that way.”

“But you don’t really believe it yet. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst?”

“Yeah.”

“Eight months, Will,” she said. “Eight months. And you saw how everyone is. They’re not afraid. I’ve seen fear, and these people…they don’t look afraid. At all.”

He nodded. Will didn’t take his eyes off her. The way her hair fell over her shoulders and the soft blue flicker of her eyes when she moved her head. He had never seen her happier, and he wanted desperately to keep her this way.

“What?” she said, finally looking over at him.

“Hmm?”

“You’re staring.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“I’m just reminded of how beautiful you are.”

“I’m already out of my pants, mister. You don’t have to work that hard.”

He smiled, and she returned it.

Lara put the towel down and leaned back suggestively on the bed. “Come here,” she said, patting the bed next to her. “Come to momma.”

“Sexy.”

She laughed. “Oh, shut up and get over here.”

“What about your arm?”

“I only need one good arm. Now come here before I change my mind and go take a nice, hot shower instead.”

He went.