by Lukens, Mark
The gunshot would hold them for a moment, but others would be coming. They didn’t have a lot of time to make a decision.
“How do we know this isn’t a trap?” Jo said, still hesitating.
“We are defecting from the Dragon’s army!” the man with the megaphone yelled. “He’s evil and we don’t want to be with him anymore! I know you don’t believe us or trust us! You can take our weapons! Tie our hands! Lock us up! Just please . . . don’t let us get ripped to shreds out here!”
“I don’t know,” Ray sighed.
Jo felt a little relieved. She’d only know Ray a few days, but she respected his judgment. If he was wary, she didn’t feel so bad. “They got a mole in here before,” she told him. “This could be the same thing.”
Luke shot another ripper coming up through the ditch. Hundreds of them were coming from the gas station and other buildings across the street.
“We can help you!” the man on the megaphone said. He was beginning to sound panicky. “We know things about the Dragon, about his army, his plans! He’s got one of yours! A woman named Petra!”
“Where’s Petra?” Max yelled.
Jo repeated Max’s question into her megaphone. “Where’s Petra? Is she alive?”
“She’s okay!” the man answered. “Unharmed last I know of, last time I saw her! I can tell you more. A lot more! But first you need to let us inside!”
“We need to open the gates,” Max said. He was already up and running for the skylight.
“Shit,” Jo hissed. Her decision had been made for her. “Phil, go with him please.”
“I’ll go too,” Ray said. “Luke?”
“I’ll stay up here,” Luke said. “Cover you guys from the corner of the roof over there. Just keep them out in the open when you get them inside the fence.”
“Lisa,” Jo said, “stay up here and keep watching for the rippers.”
She nodded, the binoculars still up to her eyes.
Jo followed Ray and Josh to the skylight.
CHAPTER 16
Max
They know something.
Max raced through the store, past the tents. Kate was at the tents, watching him as he ran by. Phil was right behind him.
He got to the loading bay. Phil grabbed his long rubber gloves and unlocked the back door. Max had the .30-06 in his hands. Ray and Josh joined them at the back door, Ray with his handgun and Josh with the M-16.
As soon as they were outside and down the concrete steps, they ran down the back wall of the building while Wade unhooked the cables to the car batteries that electrified the fence.
At the gate, Phil unlocked the padlock and rolled the gate back, waiting to close it again when everyone was back inside.
Max could hear the rippers beyond the parking lot. Luke, perched above them at the corner of the roof, took two more shots with his rifle, hopefully keeping the rippers back for a few more seconds. Eventually the rippers would rush the store together as one mob, like they knew Luke couldn’t get them all. Maybe they were willing to lose a few of their own—it would be more food for them in the end.
“The vehicles,” Ray said when he caught up to Max. “We need them. We need to get them inside the fence.”
Max had already gone through the gate after Phil slid it open. He aimed his rifle at the men as he approached. “We’ve got a sniper on the roof!” he yelled at them. “Lay all of your weapons down!”
“Throw them in the back of the pickup truck,” Ray corrected.
Max didn’t contradict Ray—he realized that it was a better idea to have the weapons inside a vehicle, better to have them than leave them outside on the pavement for the rippers to get to. The men in the cage of the truck had already been instructed by the man with the megaphone to climb out and get down on the ground with the others.
“He’s right,” Ray told the Dark Angels as he got closer to them, his handgun aimed at them. “Our snipers can take you out in a heartbeat if you make one wrong move.”
“We just want to help,” the man who’d been yelling through the megaphone said. He turned and nodded at the four Dark Angels who still had their weapons aimed at the four Dark Angels on the ground. “Do what they said. Get all the weapons into the back of that pickup truck. Hurry!”
“Leave the keys to the vehicles inside on the driver’s seats,” Ray yelled.
The four Dark Angels did exactly as Ray ordered.
Max realized Ray was a natural leader, automatically gaining the Dark Angels’ respect and fear.
Rippers cried out, screeching. One female ripper let out a long, blood-curdling wail that seemed to roll across the cold parking lot like thunder.
The woman’s call spurred Max and Ray on.
Luke shot two more times, the cracks of the rifle shots echoing through the cold air.
Max’s walkie crackled to life. “Need to hurry, guys,” Lisa said. “A lot more rippers are coming now.”
Max didn’t reply; he could hear the approaching army well enough. Hundreds would be over the barricade of cars and trucks in a few moments, more coming from the woods beyond the fence in back of the store. Eventually they might figure out that they can climb the fence when the gate is open and the batteries are unhooked.
“All of you in a line,” Ray told the Dark Angels. “March to that gate. Get inside the fence. Max, Josh, you keep an eye on them. Guns on them at all times.”
“Thank you,” the man who’d had the megaphone said, then he led the line of Dark Angels toward the fence, all of them jogging quickly to the open gate.
“I need drivers,” Ray said as the Dark Angels hurried toward the fenced-in area. “We need those vehicles. Get them over by the fence back there,” Ray told a man with an M-16. “Keep them within Luke’s view from the roof.” Ray looked at Max. “Can you drive one of the trucks?”
Max nodded. He was past Ray in a flash. Josh hurried out to the last vehicle, the pickup truck, and got inside the driver’s seat, starting it up.
Kate hurried up to Ray, out of breath from her run from inside the store. “I’ll help. What can I do?”
“Help Max and Josh drive these trucks.”
Max got into the first Humvee just as Kate was running past him to the second one, getting inside to drive.
The smell hit Max as soon as he sat down inside. He remembered the two dead men inside, one in the back, one slumped over in the passenger seat, the door sticky with the man’s blood. He got out and opened the back door, pulling the man out onto the pavement, the body plopping down, arms and legs flapping. He saw a pistol holstered on the side of the man’s camo pants. He pulled the gun out and tossed it into the back seat. He closed the door and ran around the rear to the passenger side to pull the other man out from the passenger seat.
“What are you doing?” Ray screamed at him.
Max didn’t have time to answer. He didn’t have time to tell Ray that they would only have to drag the dead bodies out here at some later time; they couldn’t have them in the fenced-in area, not just because of health concerns, but also because it would be a big temptation for the rippers—they’d never leave the fence alone.
Luke shot constantly now, picking off rippers as soon as they breached the edge of the parking lot. He wasn’t going to get them all. Max could hear more of them coming. His nerves sizzled as he grabbed the man with the shattered head and pulled him out of the Humvee. With the adrenaline coursing through his body, the man seemed to weigh nothing, a scarecrow of straw.
Max didn’t want to crawl across the passenger seat to the driver’s seat, didn’t want to crawl across the dead man’s blood, but he was pretty sure he didn’t have the seconds to waste running around the front of the truck to get into the other side.
More shots sounded from the roof.
“Hurry!” Ray yelled.
Kate’s Humvee roared past Max’s, then Josh went by in the pickup truck.
Max got into the passenger seat, his long legs getting stuck for just a moment as he tried
to squeeze into the driver’s seat from the center, an explosion of panic inside of him for just a moment. The roar of the rippers was getting louder, Luke was shooting constantly now, Kate and Josh had driven their vehicles inside the fence, where Ray was, where Phil was ready to push the gate shut.
He twisted the keys once he was finally settled into the seat. He didn’t want to look to his left at the barricade of cars and trucks in the distance, didn’t want to see the rippers crawling over them. They were so close. A few rocks pelted the door just as he got it shut.
The Humvee rumbled with power as he shifted into drive and stomped down on the gas pedal. Max drove toward the gate as more rocks pelted his truck. Luke shot at the rippers closest to him, and Max saw two of the rippers falling back from the gunshots out of the corner of his eye, arms flailing, bodies collapsing suddenly to the ground, others running and tripping over the fallen rippers.
Almost there . . . almost there . . .
Max remembered when he and Fernando had raced back from the parking lot, speeding in through the gate as the rippers chased them, when he’d gone looking for the M-16s. Fernando hadn’t panicked then, and Max wasn’t going to panic now. He was just going to keep staring straight ahead, at the wide eyes of Phil as he started sliding the gate shut, at Ray aiming his gun just beyond Phil, already shooting.
God, the rippers had to be so close.
Max was through the gate, not sure how he had fit through. Ray was shooting, emptying his gun of bullets. Luke was still shooting as fast as he could from the roof. Someone else was shooting an M-16; Max thought the shooter was on the roof, but he couldn’t be sure. He had to force himself to stop before he raced across the back area into the other fence. He stomped down on the brake pedal, the tires screeching, the truck sliding. But then he was stopped. He was inside. He was alive.
Had they gotten the gate shut in time?
He turned and saw that Phil had gotten the chain wrapped around the gate and the padlock secured. The fence was shut, and it was still electrified.
“We made it,” Max said aloud inside the Humvee. No one could hear him. He hadn’t even shut off the vehicle yet. He wanted to wipe at the tears in his eyes but he had the Dark Angel’s blood on his hands from crawling across the front seats. “We made it,” he said again, a little softer this time.
The adrenaline drained out of him in seconds, and it was replaced by fury. Now they would get some answers from these Dark Angels, answers about Petra.
CHAPTER 17
Ray
That had been close . . . too close.
Ray’s heart was still thudding, his body still energized and shaky. He kept his gun aimed at the fence as the horde got to it. He expected the rippers to slam into the fence, to push against it, through it, rippers pushing against rippers, pouring through the mesh like flesh through a meat grinder, like he’d seen in his dream.
But the rippers stopped. It was like they had learned the fence was electrified. A few grabbed at the fence, getting knocked back, screaming in pain, some convulsing on the ground, two of them knocked unconscious. The others learned from their mistakes.
They’re getting smarter.
Other rippers were all over the dead bodies of the Dark Angels that had been pulled out of the Humvees, the men torn open already. Some of the rippers at the fence were already turning back to get their share of the feast, fighting each other for a bloody scrap of meat. And some of the other rippers were still coming from the woods, rushing the fence from that side, still intent on getting the “food” that was inside the fenced area.
The group of Dark Angels looked around, wide-eyed with shock. The two men with guns on the prisoners looked antsy, like they were ready to run at the first sign of a break in the fencing.
“This way!” Ray said, hurrying up to the rear corner of the building, his eyes darting from one side of the fenced-in area to the other. “Bring the trucks.”
The fence isn’t going to hold forever, Ray thought. Maybe the electricity works for now, but eventually enough desperate rippers will get hungry enough to all climb the fence together, possibly shorting the batteries out. Maybe the dead Dark Angels in the parking lot (and the dozen or so rippers Luke had shot) would stave off the mob for now; maybe that’s why Max had taken the time to pull the two dead Dark Angels out of the Humvee before he drove it into the back area.
The Dark Angel prisoners marched willingly toward the back doors of the store at the other end of the building, guided by the two men with the guns. Ray kept his own handgun aimed at the men as they approached.
Josh, Max, and Kate drove ahead, parking the two Humvees and the pickup truck near Ray’s van. Phil and a woman were already helping them unload the guns and supplies from the vehicles. Josh had climbed the bars of the pickup to get into the bed of the truck so he could hand the weapons through the bars they’d stashed there.
Jo waited by the smaller metal door as Ray and the two men got the nine Dark Angels into a group by the trucks. The men and the one woman had their hands raised over their heads like they’d been instructed.
“Gil’s coming back with some zip ties from my office,” Jo said. “They’re for construction, but they should hold them.”
Ray nodded. He looked at Max as he came back out through the loading bay door, hopping down to take the last of the guns Josh was poking through the bars of the cage in the back of the pickup. Ray saw the look in Max’s eyes, the urge to grab the man who had negotiated through the megaphone and shake the answers out of him.
But they needed to wait. While the two men kept their weapons on the Dark Angels, Ray approached Jo. “Where can we keep these guys in here?” he asked when they were inside the loading bay.
“There’s a meeting room,” Jo said. “The doors can be locked. We can give them a bucket for a bathroom, some bottles of water.”
“Okay,” Ray said, his voice lower. “I think we should question them one at a time.”
Jo nodded in agreement. “We’ll start with the guy on the megaphone. He seems like he might be their leader. Then we’ll see if their stories match.”
Ray was thinking the same thing.
Gil came back with the zip ties. “I’ll help you with these,” he offered to Ray.
Ray took Gil’s offer. He wanted to get the Dark Angels patted down and their hands tied, then he wanted to get everyone inside the building as quickly as possible before the rippers got desperate enough to storm the fence. A few prowled the outside of the fence. One of them banged a wooden stick on the fence, realizing that he wouldn’t be shocked by using the stick. How long would it take the rippers to figure out that they could use wood to ram the fence, maybe a large branch or a log from a fallen tree, use it as a battering ram? He wondered if Jo had thought about that. Maybe not. Ray tended to think of the worst-case scenarios.
They got the Dark Angels’ hands bound in front of them, none of them giving a fight at all—it seemed like they wanted to be inside the building as much as Ray wanted them in there.
Moments later they were in the loading bay, the rollup door closed and locked, the smaller but sturdy metal door closed and locked. They marched the Dark Angels to the meeting room that Jo had talked about. It was much larger than Ray had expected. They pushed the table against the wall to give the Dark Angels more room. Some sat on the floor, but most sat in the chairs. Gil brought in two plastic buckets for them to use, setting them in the corner.
Jo locked the door to the meeting room after Gil used a cordless screw gun to attach a metal bracket so they could padlock the door to the doorframe. It wasn’t the sturdiest of locks, but it would have to do for now. They had agreed to keep at least one armed guard posted outside the door at all times.
Ray felt like he could relax for a moment, letting his energy wind down some. It was over; the Dark Angels were locked inside the meeting room, three of their trucks were parked in back and they now had a shitload of weapons, ammo, a few grenades, and a small C-4 bomb and triggering devi
ce that Ray was sure at least one of the Dark Angels knew how to use. They would inspect the trucks later after the crowd of rippers died down some.
Jo kept in contact with Lisa and Luke on the roof, making sure more Dark Angels weren’t coming.
None so far.
“It’s time to question them,” Max said when they were back in the loading bay. “Find out what they know.”
Jo agreed “We’ll do it out here. Keep them out of the store for now. I don’t want them to see what we have.”
“Sounds good,” Ray said. “I think Emma should be here when we question them.”
CHAPTER 18
Ray
It took a few minutes to set up a few chairs in the middle of the loading bay, one chair by itself for the Dark Angel being interrogated, and then a line of chairs across from that one. They’d gotten the chairs from the folding tables where they’d eaten a birthday dinner and a piece of Jo’s improvised birthday cake only an hour ago.
As a few volunteers put food away and worked in the deli kitchen, Kate stayed with Mike, Brooke, and Patrick; Kate and Rebecca tried to keep the kids interested in a board game that Josh had picked out of the pile of nonessentials in the loading bay earlier in the day. For just a moment Ray had considered letting Mike in on the questions, just as an observer. Mike needed to grow up in a hurry, needed to see the realities that were faced every day now. But Ray had decided against it. Mike had learned enough for one day: driving the van, shooting the rifle on the rooftop, and then the chaos of the Dark Angels turning themselves in; it was enough for one day, Ray thought. He decided to let Mike have a little fun and relaxation.
As they worked to get the chairs set up, Gil brought back some food and bottles of water, possible peace offerings to the Dark Angel being questioned. Ray got a notepad and a pen so he could jot down anything they could learn from the Dark Angels, and he planned on asking a few of them to draw a detailed map of Hell Town and the route from the store to the town. Ray also brought the maps he had of North and South Carolina so they could mark out the route.