The Walls of Lemuria by Sam Sisavath Read Free Book Online

bit, showing obvious wear and tear (from last night?) , but it was going to take a lot of effort and sweat—not to mention the right tools—to pry it free from the walls. There were a couple of windows to his right, so Keo moved over to them, stepping on flower beds and skirting bushes along his path.
    The only noise for miles belonged to his footsteps crunching the damp soil and the clang! clang! of a metal latch banging against one of the flagpoles behind him.
    The burglar bars were still in place over the windows, and pulling at them for a couple of minutes only tired out his arms. Keo peered in through the curtainless window. Despite the sun, there were too many patches of shadows on the other side, and he could barely make out a group of desks and chairs. If there were people in there, they would have spotted him easily enough.
    So where were they? The doors were still locked, which meant someone had made it here last night. So why were they hiding—
    The loud boom! of a shotgun blast rocked the town behind him.
    Keo looked back and across the street at a row of storefronts just as a flock of birds perched on a nearby roof took flight in terror.
    A second boom! tore through the air.
    Keo ran across the parking lot as a third and fourth shot rang out less than a second apart. He was on the road when a figure emerged out of a gas station in front of him. There were clothes draped over the building’s windows, along with newspapers and plastic bags. It looked like a makeshift mural of leftovers from an old, dying world.
    The man who was backpedaling out of the store lost his footing when he stepped off the walkway and didn’t account for the slight drop. He fell down to the hard concrete on his butt, but somehow still managed to hold onto the shotgun.
    Keo slowed down as he crossed the gas station parking lot. “That last step’s a doozy.”
    The man scrambled up and spun around at the sound of Keo’s voice, taking aim with the weapon. Keo slid to a stop and instinctively raised his hands as high as they would go, praying he didn’t get shotgunned to death in the next few seconds.
    Right. Crack a dumb joke at a guy with a shotgun. You’re a real dumbass.
    Something behind the man drew Keo’s attention. The store door was slowly closing, and Keo saw two pairs of dark black eyes looking out at him from the shadows. One of the creatures, its black skin almost invisible in the semidarkness, had a hole in its chest and was missing almost its entire left arm, cracked bone sticking out at an impossible angle. The rest of the arm was on the floor in a pool of (moving?) black blood. Then the door closed, blocking Keo’s view.
    The sound of the shotgun racking snapped Keo’s attention back to the man. A pair of intense brown eyes looked out at him from underneath an LSU Tigers cap. The face was hardened—mid-fifties, eyes that had seen their share of bad things even before last night. He wore civilian clothes, jeans and a sweat-stained T-shirt, and there was a padded pouch on his left hip, bulging with what Keo guessed were extra shells for the shotgun currently pointed at his head.
    “Put it down, string bean,” the man said. “Put the tire iron down now. ”
    Keo slowly bent at the knees (Slowly, don’t get shot) and laid down the tire iron.
    “Step back,” the man said.
    Keo did, raising his hands back up without having to be told. He eyed the man from top to bottom, getting a good feel for who he was dealing with. The man’s voice was hoarse, which matched his grizzled face. He was barrel-chested, maybe five-eight, and African-American. He looked in reasonably decent shape for a man his age. Sunlight reflected off a bald head and the grays were liberally spread out across a five-clock shadow.
    What Keo really noticed, though, were the man’s hands. Despite his recent encounter with the creatures inside the gas station, those hands were rock steady.
    That’s a man who knows how to use a weapon.
    “I was just