Free The Isles of Elysium (Purge of Babylon, Book 6) by Sam Sisavath Page B

asked Steve, standing behind them at the console.
    “No,” Steve said. “Consider it punishment for shooting my little brother in the leg. Now shut up and enjoy the ride.”
    Taylor piloted Keo’s twenty-two-footer, while Jack and Horace followed behind them on the second offshore vessel.
    They cruised along Galveston Bay for a while before Keo spotted civilization in the distance and what looked like a fairground to the left of a channel. Carnival rides, including a Ferris wheel and a large red round structure, jutted out from behind a long boardwalk next to the bay. He imagined the place teeming with tourists on the weekends, a far cry from the ghost town it had become.
    There was always something sad about seeing a once-thriving city abandoned, left to tilt against the wind and the elements. How long would these rides stay up? Maybe another year. Maybe a decade. That would probably depend on their construction, he guessed. That red thing, whatever the hell it was, looked like it could last a few more decades before tumbling back down to earth.
    If there was once thriving life to the left of the channel, there wasn’t much on the right side. He glimpsed warehouses, businesses, and overgrown fields of grass spread across undeveloped land. The juxtaposition of the two areas was stunning, and Keo found himself drawn back to the structures along the boardwalk to his left. Abandoned or not, at least there was a lot to look at over there.
    They cruised through the channel, passing silent buildings and sun-bleached parking lots still filled with vehicles. It wasn’t until they went underneath a highway that stretched across the channel that they finally saw a shipyard. It covered a huge chunk of the water and was spread out to both sides. The multitude of open slips told him hundreds of boats had once called this place home. Where were all those boats now? At the bottom of the bay, probably. Maybe the vessel he was riding in now was one of the lucky few survivors.
    After the shipyard, it became a series of turns and empty houses and buildings and more (though much smaller) docks with empty slips. Keo lost track of how many times they eased around a bend, and each time he thought they might have reached their destination, they kept going. The path was wide enough that Donovan felt at ease keeping their boat moving at a reasonable speed. At this point, the soldiers had probably traversed this same area so many times it would have been second nature to them by now. To Keo, one stretch of water and empty parking lots and the wooded areas that surrounded them looked like the dozen others they had passed in the last hour. He stopped trying to make sense of his scenery after a while.
    One thing was certain: They were getting further inland.
    Donovan didn’t slow down until they had slipped under a large highway that ran west to east. Signs told him it was Interstate 45, with Galveston back east and Houston, along with the rest of Texas, to the west. Once they went under the I-45, the river began narrowing and thick patches of woods sprouted up to both sides of them.
    Keo knew they were getting close to their destination when he started seeing men in black uniforms moving among the trees to their right. Sentries. They were all very well-armed, and a few of them waved to the boats. Donovan and Steve waved back.
    Soon, the soldiers gave way to civilians along the riverbanks. Like the soldiers, they were concentrated only on the right side. A dozen or so women were washing clothes against the rocks while half-naked kids jumped into the water, which had to be cold given the falling temperature. Keo was reminded of documentaries about frontier times, before washing machines and dryers were invented.
    The people waved excitedly at them as they passed by. He had to look long and hard before he could conclude that they either wanted to be here, or they were really good actors.
    “What are they doing?” Gene asked, straining to see the