The Isles of Elysium

CHAPTER 1

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…

What was that Lara had said to him, once upon a time?

“You honestly think your girlfriend actually made it to Santa Marie Island? That she’s wearing a bikini and waiting on the beach every morning, waiting for you to finally show up?”

Maybe, maybe not. But he had to find out for sure one way or another. After all these months, he had to be absolutely certain. And there was really only one way to do that, and it was staring back at him.

Crack! as the guy fired again and the round sailed harmlessly over his head.

He went down on one knee and waited for the man to try again, but the shooter didn’t. Instead, the guy lowered his rifle and just looked back at him.

Keo thought about returning fire with the M4 but decided he didn’t want to waste a couple of bullets on some dick-measuring contest. He had a full magazine and three spares in his tactical pack, with the rest of his ammo geared for the MP5SD, his primary weapon. The German gun had served him well in the last twelve months, and Keo was the kind of guy who appreciated that kind of unquestionable loyalty.

He sat down on one of the high-raised seats in front of the steering console, opened a bottle of water, and took a sip. The November weather was a tricky beast; last night’s temperatures had dropped to around thirty degrees, only to climb back up to fifty at sunrise. It had since settled at around sixty, though with the cool breeze he could almost believe it was fifty-five.

What to do, what to do?

There were only two directions open to him: Go forward, or go back.

He didn’t fancy the latter. He had come this far and braved too many obstacles to turn back now. The very idea of backtracking made him want to vomit.

So it was a no-brainer. He had to go forward.

But how?

A lone shooter was a dream scenario. It had been almost an hour since the first shot, and he was still just staring at one man with a rifle. No reinforcements. No help.

…and no Gillian on the island.

Maybe.

Have to find out. One way or another, have to find out for sure.

Keo stood up and waved his hands to get the shooter’s attention. The man went rigid and peered at him with his binoculars. With the man watching, Keo unslung his MP5SD and laid it on the seat behind him.

“Can you hear me?” he shouted, folding his hands into a funnel over his mouth to project his voice across the water.

He listened and heard a reply, but he was too far away to understand the words. It could have been a Yes, or possibly a No, or maybe even a Come any closer and I’m going to shoot your balls off.

Keo sighed. He had done some pretty dumb things in his life, and many of them since the world went kaput, but he had to know. He had to know.

He walked back to the trolling motor, gripped the tiller, and switched it on. The low whine started gradually before increasing in volume. He directed the boat forward, back toward land, all the while watching the man closely. He waited for signs of an aggressive move that would likely be followed by a gunshot. Or two, or three.

He had gone twenty meters when he shut off the engine again.

Closer now, he stood up and shouted, “Can you hear me?”

The sun was in his eyes, which made it difficult to see how the man was reacting. But at least he could make out the rifle easily enough. If that barrel started moving, he would know he was in trouble.

Ten seconds ticked by in absolute silence, then twenty…

“Yeah!” the guy finally shouted back, his voice bouncing against the water’s surface until it reached Keo as barely a soft whisper. “What do you want?”

“For you not to shoot me!”

He couldn’t be sure, but the guy might have laughed. “What else?”

“I need to get on that island!”

“You and what army?”

“No army, just me!”

A brief pause. Then: “Why?”

“I’m looking for someone!”

“Who isn’t?”

Smartass, Keo thought, but shouted, “I’m coming in, so don’t shoot!”

The guy didn’t answer, but he also hadn’t raised his rifle into a firing position, either. That was a good sign. A really good sign. Now all Keo needed to do was grease the wheels a bit. How? Maybe offer something he had that the guy needed.

And what would that be?

Weapons? Probably not. Santa Marie Island was a part of Texas, and there was a good bet you could find plenty of guns in all the houses that dotted the ridgeline. Even out here, you weren’t going to convince a Texan to part with his Second Amendment rights.

So what, then? Maybe something more valuable than bullets these days. Which would be?

Ah.

“I have supplies!” Keo shouted.

“You got supplies?” the guy asked. Keo might have barely heard his voice over the distance, but he swore it sounded almost hopeful.

You willing to risk your life on that, pal?

“Yeah!” he shouted back. “I got supplies! Let me dock, and I’ll split it with you!”

Another long pause, but this time only ten seconds went by.

Then, “Put your weapons down and come in slowly, hands where I can see you the entire time! You make one wrong move, and I’m gonna plug ya!”

‘Plug ya’?

Keo grinned to himself before shouting back, “Deal!”

This is such a bad idea, he thought as he unclasped his gun belt and let it drop to the still-wet floor.

Bad idea or not, he had to get on that damn island. He had to make sure, one way or another, because he was faced with one absolute certainty at the moment: He couldn’t keep doing this forever. Hell, there had been a few times when he had almost convinced himself to stay on the Trident with Lara and the others. Carrie had done everything she could to make him stay. She’d said all the right words, made all the right overtures, and if he wasn’t the complete idiot that he was surely being at the moment, he would have stuck around.

But no, he had to be here, standing on a boat in the middle of the ocean voluntarily letting his holstered sidearm, along with the ammo pouches, thump to his feet.

Keo made sure his actions were “loud” enough that the guy watching him the entire time with binoculars could see everything. Finally, Keo switched on the trolling motor again and guided the twenty-two-footer forward one more time, all the while telling himself that this was stupid, that it was possibly the dumbest thing he had ever done, which was saying something given the last few months.

But he had to know.

One way or another, he had to know for sure…

*

The “man” wasn’t a man at all. He was a teenager. Barely seventeen, maybe just a few months past his sixteenth birthday. Keo made a mental note to ask him later when he was certain the kid wasn’t going to shoot him, which at the moment wasn’t a given.

The teenager was lanky and wore mud-caked boots, jeans, and a stained cream cotton sweatshirt that looked like he had put it on a few days ago and hadn’t gotten around to taking off since. He wasn’t exactly the picture of a survivalist, and from the looks of it he had acted as his own barber very recently. The fact that this kid almost blew his head off made Keo just a little bit queasy.

Okay, a lot queasy.

His almost-killer might have been young and skinny and looked as if he was starving, but he was also holding a cherry-red bolt-action rifle, and at this range-less than fifty meters-he wouldn’t have had any trouble putting a nice large-caliber round through the boat and Keo at the same time. So Keo eased his vessel toward the marina and did everything humanly possible not to look or act threatening.

Speed wasn’t an issue, because trolling motors were not made to go fast anyway, which also meant if he had to turn around now…well, he’d have better luck jumping into the ocean instead. They didn’t call him half-dolphin for nothing, after all.

Up close, the docks looked much bigger than it had from afar, especially without a single vessel tied in place. He guessed at least two or three dozen numbered (and very empty looking) slips, some bigger than others. That made sense since there weren’t a lot of other ways on or off the sea-locked landmass except by boat that he could see. Maybe there was a small airstrip somewhere he hadn’t been able to spot, but he thought it unlikely given the uneven nature of Santa Marie Island.

Once he finally slid past the day markers, “No Wake” signs, and other warnings that surrounded the island, he was sure the boy wasn’t going to shoot him. The teenager continued to hold the rifle at the ready in front of him anyway, forefinger in the trigger guard for a quick lift-and-shoot motion, if necessary.

Smart kid.

“You got a name?” Keo shouted, before realizing he was close enough now that he could have asked in a normal voice.

“Gene,” the kid said. “You?”

“Keo.”

The kid gave him a look before saying, “What kind of name is Keo?”

“Chuck was taken.”

Gene gave him a confused look. “Hunh?”

“Just a joke.”

“Oh. You Chinese or something?”

“Or something.”

Another confused look.

At the ten-meter mark, Keo said, “You’re not going to shoot me, are you, Gene?”

“If I was gonna shoot you, I would have done it already, don’t you think?”

“Good point. Just wanted to make sure, that’s all.”

“Sure’s sure.”

Keo didn’t know what that meant, but he decided not to ask. He said instead, “You alone, Gene?”

“No.”

For some reason, Keo didn’t believe him.

Gene held up his rifle. “I got my friend Deuce here with me.”

Keo grinned and angled the boat toward the dock before switching off the motor and letting his forward momentum take him into one of the slips.

“What now?” he asked.

“I dunno,” Gene said. “I guess we tie up your ride and you come up.” He shrugged. “Work for you?”

Keo nodded. “Works for me.”

“All right, then.”

He tossed his line over and Gene tied the boat in place.

Up close, Gene had bags under his eyes. He clearly hadn’t been sleeping well and hadn’t for some time now. He was wearing fingerless wool gloves and the sun glinted off large-caliber bullets around his waist, housed in their own individual loops. The getup made him look like a bandit out of a Western, the rifle almost bigger than both his arms put together. The scope on top was massive, which explained how he had managed to put holes into Keo’s boat from such a long distance. Even an amateur could have managed that. If the teenager had just been a little better, Keo would be fish food by now.

Thank God for amateurs.

He climbed onto the dock while Gene gave the boat a cursory look before asking, “You said you have supplies?”

“MREs, bottled water, and beef jerky.”

“What kind of water?”

“Filtered.”

“Where’d you get those?”

“From a hotel.”

“No shit?”

“Nope.”

Keo looked around at the rocky ridgeline of Santa Marie Island, taking in the still houses to the left and right of him. He didn’t know what he expected, maybe more…life. Instead, it was like looking at a vivid painting rather than a real place that people actually used to live in.

“So how long have you and Deuce been here?” he asked.

“For a while now,” Gene said. “Who was it you were looking for?”

“A woman named Gillian.”

Gene shook his head. “Never heard of her.”

“You didn’t even think about it.”

“Don’t have to. Never heard of her.”

“Well, shit.”

Gene shrugged. “Sorry, man.”

Keo sighed.

Yeah, you and me both, pal.