The Isles of Elysium

CHAPTER 17

“You’re pregnant,” he said.

“You always were a master of observation, Keo.” She smiled at him, though he thought it was probably a little more forced than she had planned.

“How long?”

“Four months.”

Four months.

It had been three months since Jordan escaped T18, and what had she said when he pressed her on why Gillian hadn’t left with her?

“She was different in the weeks leading up to the escape. To this day I don’t know what happened, but when the time came I was the only one who left. Only she can say why.”

Four months…

Keo watched her pour hot water from a pot into a pair of ceramic mugs, then open a package and dipped two tea bags into them. He was in too much of a daze, and had been for the last few minutes, to recall where the hot water came from.

“Tea?” he said.

“Black tea. The green ones expired a long time ago, though the guys running the farms say we might be able to grow our own very soon.”

She brought the mugs over and sat down across from him. Keo stared down at the tea, then at her.

“What?” she said. “You think I’m trying to poison you?”

He smiled. Or thought he did. “Of course not.”

“It’s really not that bad. I hated it in the beginning, but you learn to get used to things. Tea’s a luxury these days.”

He picked up the mug and sipped it. It wasn’t bad, but he was never much of a teetotaler. The Gillian he remembered had never been one, either. He remembered the two of them finishing off bottles of whiskey they had found in Earl’s basement. Then there was the occasional good red wine he and Norris would pick up during one of their scavenging trips.

But not tea. Never tea.

“It’s better with some milk or honey,” she was saying. “Or sugar. But those are rationed.”

I bet Steve has plenty at his house. Maybe I can go and borrow some.

“Hey, Steve, you got some milk or honey? My pregnant girlfriend would sure like some with her black tea.”

Girlfriend. Did he just refer to Gillian as his girlfriend?

Christ, maybe Tobias’s love-tap had done more damage to his brain than he thought.

Keo took out the pill bottle Jordan had given him and shook out two.

“You okay?” Gillian asked.

“Headache.”

“Does it have something to do with that?” She touched her own forehead.

“Lucky guess,” he said, and tried to force a smile, but gave up about halfway.

He swallowed the pills and put the bottle away. Then he watched her sipping tea across from him, sunlight from the open windows splashing across them. He wished it were darker inside the living room so he wouldn’t have to see her belly. The most painful part was that she was still as beautiful as he remembered; maybe even more so.

“I was wondering why they told me to come home,” Gillian said. She put the mug down and placed her hands over her belly. “It’s supposed to be safe for me to work until the end of my second trimester. Some of the women here are in their third, and they’re still in the fields.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” he asked, because he didn’t know what else to say.

“You would think so, but I guess not.” She pursed her lips. “I’m glad you’re alive, Keo. I spent a lot of restless nights worrying about you. When I saw you yesterday on the boat, you looked so different. I’m not talking about the scars. Everyone has scars. I wasn’t sure then, but seeing you again, here, I was right. You’ve changed.”

“For the better?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

She was watching him closely and Keo found it difficult to meet her stare, so he stood up and walked around the living room to get away from it.

The walls were almost entirely barren. There were no pictures or signs of the previous owners. He guessed that was on purpose. Out with the old, in with the new…

“It’s kind of plain, huh?” Gillian said, as if reading his mind. “I’m just glad I have a room with a carpet and a bed and honest to goodness pillows. They gave me the house because I’m pregnant. We all get one. Otherwise, they put you in one of the other subdivisions.”

“Steve told me there were five in all.”

“Steve?”

“Steve Miller. The guy who runs this place.”

“You’re on a first-name basis with him already?” she asked, sounding slightly amused.

“I make very good first impressions,” he said, managing to smile convincingly back at her that time.

“I remember,” she smiled back.

Keo found himself next to an empty bookcase. He absently ran his hand over the thick layer of dust on one of the shelves, then had to wipe it off on his pant leg.

“Aren’t you going to ask me?” Gillian said behind him.

“Ask what?”

“Who the father is.”

Christ, do I have to?

“I assumed he’s out there working somewhere,” he said.

“He’s one of the doctors.” She paused, maybe waiting for him to say something in reply, and when he didn’t, she added, “He’s a good man, Keo. I didn’t…really plan it. It just kind of happened.”

Keo walked across the living room and sat down on a stool next to the kitchen counter. The tabletop was spotless unlike the bookcase, and he rested his elbows on it and ran his fingers through his hair. It was dirty, and he needed a shower in the worst way.

“His name’s Jay,” she said behind him.

She was probably looking at him, but he didn’t feel like turning around to make sure. Instead, he stared across the kitchen at his reflection in a silver refrigerator, at the scar along his left cheek that looked freakishly out of proportion for some reason. He wondered why they still had the refrigerator since there was no electricity to run it. Maybe they were using it as an extra storage container. He could have thought of better uses for it, like storing Jay’s body. A good man or not, Keo bet he could fit the fucker in there just fine, even if he had to chop him up into little chunks to do it.

“Keo,” she said. “Say something.”

“That’s why you didn’t leave with Jordan,” he said.

“I wanted to, until I found out I was pregnant.”

Four months ago. What was he doing four months ago? He wished he could remember…

“She’s alive?” Gillian asked. “Jordan?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God. I’ve been so worried about her.” She paused, then, “Did she tell you what happened to the others? Mark, Rachel, and Christine?”

He nodded.

“That didn’t have to happen,” she said. “They didn’t have to die, but they did because we made bad choices.”

Keo stood up and walked to the back door, peering out at the backyard and the thick tree line in the background.

He didn’t know why he was moving around. Maybe he was hoping to find a way out of the house and away from her, from her belly. Of course, if he really wanted to do that, he could. None of the doors were locked, and the windows were all open…

There was a wooden fence out behind the house, about six feet high, separating the subdivision from the woods out back. Six feet. He could hop that easily and be in the woods before Steve even knew he was gone. Despite the presence of darkening clouds, there was still enough light out there. A few hours’ worth, at least. He could find Jordan, hiding somewhere out there, and go…someplace far from here.

So what was stopping him?

“You can leave anytime?” he asked.

“Anytime,” she said.

“And they won’t try to stop you?”

“No.”

“How do you know?” He looked back at her. “How can you be sure?”

“Keo, what do you see out there?”

“Trees.”

“Right. Trees. If you want to leave, go ahead. They’re not going to stop you. Why should they? That’s why all this fighting is so unnecessary. People are dying out there for no reason. It’s not perfect in here, but it’s worse out there.”

“They brought you here against your will, Gillian. They killed Mark and Rachel and her daughter in the process, remember?”

“I know that. Don’t you think I know that?” She looked visibly frustrated, maybe even angry with him. “I’ll never forget what happened to them. But I can’t change the past, or dwell on it. I can’t afford to.” She put her hands over her belly again. “I have to think about the future.”

And where do I fit into that future?

He knew the answer without having to ask it, without having to hear her say it. He could see it in the way she caressed her stomach, as clear as day. Gillian couldn’t afford to dwell on the past, and that was exactly what he was-the past.

“Keo,” she said.

He met her eyes and watched her get up and walk over to him.

“I’m really glad you’re alive,” she said, and he wanted desperately to believe her. “Seeing you here, safe and sound, is a miracle. I didn’t think I would ever see you again, get to touch you again…”

She placed her hand against his cheek, over the ugly scar that Pollard had left behind. Her skin felt warm and welcoming, and he couldn’t help himself and closed his eyes and leaned into her palm.

“Keo,” she whispered, and he had never heard such a wonderful sound coming out of another human being as his name from her lips.

When he opened his eyes, she was crying, but not making any sounds.

“Keo,” she whispered again.

He kissed her.

He expected her to push him away, to tell him there was only (fucking) Jay now, but she didn’t. Instead, she kissed him back and pressed forward until Keo felt her growing belly, filled with another man’s child, rubbing against him. He should have been disgusted, even angry, but he wasn’t.

He wanted her. Desperately.

Maybe it was all the months alone, with only Norris’s complaining for company. Then, later, almost dying on Song Island. Though, he thought it was more than that. It was a primitive longing for her, for this woman he had been searching for, for so long now, never really sure she was even still alive.

And to finally find her again…

She began pulling away, and even though he didn’t want to let her go, he had no choice, and did.

She was gasping for breath as she stepped back. “Keo…”

The way she said his name drove him crazy and he reached for her again, but she pushed him away and took another step back. She wiped at her tear-streaked cheeks and smiled at him, but he could tell it took her a lot of effort just to do that much.

“Jay’s a good man,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

She turned and walked away, and he watched her go up the stairs until there was just the sound of her footsteps.

Then, seconds later, a door opening and closing softly.

“Shit,” Keo said to the empty room.

*

Five houses.

Then ten.

They all looked the same. Mostly. One was two stories, one was one story, then he found another two story. One had three stories, and a woman in one of the bedroom windows watched him walk by along the sidewalk. She looked young, maybe in her late teens, and she was combing her hair. He didn’t see a belly, but there was a good chance she had one.

…just like Gillian.

The people who had been cleaning the streets when he first showed up were now gone. Maybe they had moved on to the next subdivision, or maybe the work was done. He didn’t think so, though. A place this large, with this many streets and homes, had to have plenty of trash even without the trappings of what civilization once had to offer.

The sky above him had also gotten noticeably darker since the last time he was outside. Rain was definitely coming. And soon.

He had been walking for an hour and was still no closer to the front gate. He didn’t recognize any of the streets, mostly because they all looked identical. Had he taken a wrong turn somewhere? Or had he been walking in a straight line this entire time and missed a turn? Did Steve even make a turn-

Honk!

A car horn, so small that he thought it might have come from a toy, blared behind him.

Keo turned around as Jack drove up in a golf cart. It may or may not have been the same one in which his brother had driven Keo here a few hours ago. Keo’s mind was still too clouded from his visit with Gillian, and he couldn’t be sure one way or another.

The younger Miller stopped in the street next to him. “There you are. Someone said they saw a weirdo walking around the neighborhood. I thought it had to be you.”

Keo grunted. “I thought I had a few more hours until you picked me up.”

“Change of plans.” Jack patted the seat next to him. “Climb in. Steve wants to see you now.”

“What about?”

“You’ll see when we get there.”

“What is it about you Miller boys and surprises?”

Jack grinned. “Hey, if there weren’t surprises, life would be awfully dull.”

Keo climbed in and Jack drove them off.

He made a mental note of Jack’s gun belt and a revolver in the holster. It was similar to Steve’s setup.

Like brother…like brother.

He peeked out from under the cart’s roof at the slowly darkening horizon. It wasn’t just a sign of gathering precipitation, but night was also coming. A double whammy. His watch ticked to 4:56 P.M.

“What happens when it gets dark?” he asked.

“Everyone heads home at five.” Jack glanced at his own watch. “So, soon. I know what you’re thinking: ‘But what about rush hour traffic?’ Lucky you, I know how to avoid all of that.”

“Yeah, lucky me.”

“Oh, what’s the matter, sport? The reunion didn’t go as planned?”

Keo glanced over at him. “You knew.”

“That she was preggers? ’Fraid so. I’m the one who got her off the fields and brought her home for ya.”

“That was awfully nice of you.”

“She wanted to know why, but I didn’t tell her. I figured you’d like to do the honors. You can thank me later.”

“I’ll do that. Later.”

Jack laughed. “Perk up, sport. There’s plenty of women around. We did a survey last month. There are five women for every guy. Tell me you don’t like those odds. The best part? They don’t expect you to put a ring on it.”

The younger Miller was still very amused with himself as he drove, and it was all Keo could do not to reach over and snap his neck. It was tempting. It was so tempting, but he was still walking (or riding, now) in a fog, unsure of how to proceed.

He thought about Jordan, somewhere out there, and hoped she had found shelter for the night, because darkness was coming faster than normal today.

*

After exiting T18A1, Jack turned left and took Keo back through the agriculture fields for a second time. Keo watched the multiple-and seemingly endless-streams of people returning home. They were talking, laughing, and looking for all the world like they belonged here, that all their life had led to this moment.

“I’ll never forget what happened to them. But I can’t change the past, or dwell on it. I can’t afford to. I have to think about the future.”

Could he really settle here? Take what guys like Steve gave him and be happy with it? Maybe find a woman and have a kid. Or two kids. So what if his children were destined to become another cog in the ghoul machine? So what if the entire human race had been reduced to chattel? So what if all those months of fighting and killing and almost dying more times than he could count to get here, to reunite with Gillian, had all been for nothing?

So fucking what.

“Forget her,” Jack was saying. “Plenty of fish in the ocean. That ugly mug notwithstanding, you can do pretty good here, sport. I mean, look at me. I got a woman at home. She’s giving birth to twins in five months. Life’s good.”

“They leave you guys alone?” Keo asked. “The monsters?”

“We call them crawlers.”

“Why crawlers?”

“It’s…nicer. Plus, Steve’s orders. Don’t want to start calling the bosses monsters, right? Think about the meetings. How awkward would those be?”

“Hunh.”

“But yeah, they stay out of the town at night. Don’t ask why. One of the mysteries of the universe. It’s easier if you don’t think too much about it. Better for your sanity, especially at night.”

They finally reached the marina, and this time the gate was down and two of the four soldiers guarding the booth hurried out of the small building to raise it for them. Jack turned inside.

As they drove through the empty parking lot, there were noticeably fewer soldiers around than earlier in the day. He only saw two people walking back and forth on the docks, and about a half dozen more were heading toward the gate. It made sense for such a drastic drawdown of forces at night. What idiot would attack the town under the cover of darkness? For that matter, what moron would be outside, in those woods, when night fell?

Jack drove toward the office buildings, but instead of heading for Marina 1 as Keo had expected, the younger Miller turned left and parked in front of the large warehouse at the north end of the lot.

“What’s going on?” Keo asked.

“Find out inside,” Jack said.

They climbed out and Keo peeked up at the sky again. Just past five o’clock, but it already looked impossibly dark, thanks to the gathering clouds. He could almost taste the coming precipitation.

“Looks like it’s gonna be a long and rainy night,” Jack said. “We don’t usually get a lot of that around here. Should be good for the crops.”

“Do they come out in the rain?”

“Who?”

“Them.”

Jack looked at him funny. “The crawlers? Why would they care about the rain?”

Because I’ve seen them turn to stone and sink in a lake. Because they’re freakishly terrified of bodies of water. Maybe the rain has the same effect?

But he didn’t say any of those things out loud. He had a feeling Jack didn’t know-and probably didn’t care, either.

He shrugged, said, “Just wondering.”

“You wonder too much,” Jack said. “Come on, let’s see what Steve wanted to show you. I hear it’s a real humdinger.”

Jack hobbled the short distance to the warehouse with the help of a cane, and watching him, Keo once again went through the pros and cons of taking the man’s revolver and shooting him dead right then and there.

The pro was that he would be armed again, and Jack would be dead.

The con, though, meant having to fight a lot of soldiers still inside the marina with nothing but a revolver and its six bullets. Besides the two leftovers he had seen at the docks, there were the four at the guard booth and the half dozen or so heading toward the gate.

The odds were against him at the moment.

So what else is new?

He didn’t have time to do anything anyway, because the twin doors slid open as soon as they approached them, revealing two more soldiers in black uniforms standing in front of a bright LED lamp. They stepped aside for Keo and Jack.

The interior of the warehouse was massive, and shelves lined the sides. The high ceiling was reinforced with thick beams, and a dozen or so black birds watched Keo walking underneath them like curious spectators, as if they knew something he didn’t.

It wasn’t the shelves or the lone twenty-eight-foot yacht parked in its own slot to his right that drew Keo’s attention. It was Steve. He was standing in the middle of the room, his back turned, and he was holding a knife in one hand. Blood on the blade dripped to the ground where there was already more than one fresh pool.

Steve looked over his shoulder as Keo and Jack entered the warehouse. “Hey, how’d the reunion go? Or should I take reports of you walking around the neighborhood all by your little lonesome as not a good sign?”

“Sounds about right,” Keo said. “Jacky boy says you wanted to show me something.”

“Come see.” He turned around. “Goes to show you, you never know what you’ll find unless you make the effort to look.”

Steve stepped aside to reveal a figure hanging from the ceiling beams by a blue rope.

It was a woman, though it was hard to tell because her face was covered in blood and one eye was almost entirely shut, the flesh around it black and purple. She had short blonde hair and her lips were cut, her nose possibly broken, and Steve had cut ribbons into her shirt with the knife, leaving the flesh underneath dripping red with blood.

Jordan.