Dark Days | Book 8 | Avalon

by Lukens, Mark

  More and more rippers had come from across the street, from the gas station, leaving behind the black pickup truck and the bodies they’d picked clean long ago. Many rippers congregated around the front and sides of the store, a crowd of them down there, all of them yelling and screeching, a few screaming. Many were making their way around to the back, finding the fallen fence. Kate could hear the rippers banging on the rollup door from the roof. It sounded like they were tearing it apart. Lisa was at the other end of the building, looking down at the ground with a pair of night vision goggles, her walkie-talkie in her hand.

  “Are they in yet?” Jo asked on her walkie.

  “They’re almost in,” Lisa answered back.

  Everyone was on the roof now . . . everyone except Wade and Gil who were left down below in the store.

  A moment later Wade climbed the ladder, crawling up through the skylight to the roof. He looked at Jo. “Gil said we need to get up here.”

  Jo nodded in vehement agreement, her eyes wide with fear. “Where is he?”

  “He’s coming.”

  And then Kate saw Gil on the ladder. But he didn’t climb up through the skylight—he climbed from the ladder into the scissor lift.

  “What are you doing?” Jo asked Gil. She stood at the edge of the skylight, staring down into the darkness where Gil stood.

  “I have to lower the lift back down so the rippers can’t get up here. The hydraulics will allow the lift to lower but not to lift up again.”

  Jo nodded again like she already knew that, but it didn’t seem like she wanted Gil doing it.

  “The ladder,” Jo said. “It’s still connected to the lift.”

  “I cut the ropes on the lower part of the ladder before climbing up here,” Gil said. “Just need to cut the last of the ropes.”

  Gil used a knife to saw at the ropes securing the ladder to the lift. A second later the large ladder fell away, crashing down into the darkness. Gil was at the controls of the lift a moment later, pushing on the lever to lower the lift back down, the hydraulics hissing as he sank down and disappeared into the darkness

  “Get the rope ladder ready for Gil,” Jo said.

  Wade and a few others helped Jo tie the ladder to the closest HVAC unit with some ropes they’d brought up, and then they lowered the rope ladder down into the darkness of the store through the shattered skylight.

  Brooke was with Rebecca and Patrick; she was still upset about Tiger being left in the store.

  Kate ventured closer to the skylight, standing near Jo, staring down into the black rectangular hole. The lift was lowered down all the way now and had disappeared into the darkness. There were noises from below, like Gil was taking the ladder to another part of the store so the rippers couldn’t figure out how to use it.

  Then the noises down in the store stopped.

  But the noises at the back of the store hadn’t stopped.

  “What’s he doing down there?” Jo asked no one in particular. She had her hand up to her mouth, biting her thumbnail.

  Kate was starting to get a terrible feeling that Gil wasn’t going to make it up the rope ladder in time.

  “If the rippers get inside, we’ll have to get this rope ladder back up,” Hendricks said.

  Jo didn’t say anything.

  “Jo?” Wade said. “We can’t endanger the rest of us.”

  “I know,” Jo snapped.

  “The rippers are in!” Lisa called out on the walkie-talkie. “They’ve pulled part of the door away. They’re coming into the store.”

  “Gil,” Jo yelled down into the darkness of the store on her megaphone. “Hurry! They’re coming!”

  No answer back from Gil.

  He’s not going to make it, Kate thought. We’re going to hear him screaming as he’s torn apart, as we’re pulling the rope ladder back up.

  Wade and Hendricks got into position to begin pulling the rope ladder up. Kate could see the jumpiness in them; they weren’t going to wait too much longer.

  Jo shined her flashlight beam down into the hole, holding the flashlight with one hand, her megaphone with the other. She was right at the edge of the skylight, too close to the edge. Kate was ready to grab the back of her shirt if she needed to.

  “Gil! Hurry!” Jo yelled.

  “Jo,” Wade said, already grabbing his side of the rope ladder, already beginning to pull it up. “We have to get the ladder up here now.”

  Kate watched Jo, waiting for her to nod, to give the go-ahead.

  Jo kept shining the flashlight beam down into the store. “No, wait,” she told Wade and Hendricks. “Gil’s down there. He’s climbing the ladder.”

  “More of them are getting in,” Lisa yelled. The shooter next to her began picking off rippers in the fenced-in area.

  Kate could see Gil materializing out of the darkness as he climbed the rope ladder as quickly as he could. He got to the top. Jo was there to help him up and over the roof, Rodney also lending a hand, Wade and Hendricks were still at the other side of the rope ladder with a length of the rope in their hands, ready to start pulling it up as soon as Gil was off of it.

  When Gil was safely on the roof, Jo started to hug him.

  “Hold on,” Gil told her with a smile, waving her back.

  Kate saw that Gil had something bulging in the front of his zipped-up hoodie. Tiger poked his head up out of the hoodie, looking around, eyes wide with shock.

  “Found this scared little guy running around down there.”

  “Tiger!” Brooke squealed and ran over to Gil and Jo.

  “Careful with him,” Gil said. “He’s scared. He might want to get used to it up here.” He set the cat down on the roof.

  Brooke collapsed down next to Tiger, sobbing as she pet the cat, trying to hug him. Even though Tiger was still a little freaked out, he let Brooke hug him.

  Kate crouched down next to Brooke, hugging her.

  “He found him,” Brooke said through her tears. “He saved Tiger.”

  Kate looked up at Gil, wiping at her eyes. “Thank you,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

  Jo was crying too, holding onto Gil. But Kate was sure she was crying for a different reason, happy that Gil had made it up in time.

  Wade and Hendricks got the rope ladder hauled up from the skylight. They pulled it over to the HVAC unit, keeping it carefully coiled up so that it could be unfolded easily in case they needed it again.

  But they weren’t going to need it for a while, Kate was sure of that. They were stuck on this roof now with whatever they’d been able to take with them.

  CHAPTER 33

  Jo

  Hours after nightfall the tents had been set up, one of the tents was for the storage of food, drinks, and other supplies. Kate and Brooke slept in their own tent with Tiger, and the others doubled up in the tents that were left. They had one large plastic tarp that they had tied between two of the HVAC units for the others who didn’t have a tent, and for those on watch. The tarp rustled and flapped in the freezing wind, but it would keep any rain and snow off them. They had used flashlights to get things set up because the night had come so quickly. Usually the rippers would be drawn by flashlight beams shining around, but it didn’t matter tonight, because tonight it seemed like every ripper in the world had come to the store, had invaded the store, and now ran back and forth in the darkness of the parking lot, screeching and yelling in triumph.

  Jo and Gil sat away from the others, both of them under a blanket, their backs against the farthest HVAC away, a metal structure bolted and strapped down to the asphalted rooftop. Jo sat close to Gil, snuggled up against him, listening to the sounds of the rippers coming from below the skylight. There were crashes down there; it almost sounded like the rippers were tipping over the shelves in the aisles. There were whoops and hollers. There was the sound of fighting, one of the rippers making a howling noise like a cat before a fight.

  More rippers came to the store from the night. Some of the spotters still watched at the edge of the r
oof, making sure none of the rippers were trying to build a human ladder to get to the roof. Maybe Lisa was still watching with the only pair of night vision goggles they had. Jo wouldn’t be surprised if Lisa was still on watch; it was like the woman never slept. But who among them slept much anymore?

  The air was cold. Even though everything she’d been trying to protect was gone, she felt a small sense of comfort being snuggled up under the blanket next to Gil. Although Gil was a lean man, he seemed to give off a lot of body heat. Maybe it was just her imagination.

  She had cried for a while after she and Gil were away from the others, after it was full dark, no stars above, nothing but clouds obscuring even the tiny pinpoints of starlight and the milky glow of the moon. The wind had picked up. Maybe freezing rain was coming; maybe even snow—that would be a perfect ending to this wonderful evening. She had waited until it was too dark for Gil to see her cry, but he’d heard her. And he just held her for a while and let her cry.

  “Everything . . .” Jo said when she was done crying, wiping at her tears. “Everything we’ve worked for . . . it’s all gone now.”

  Gil said nothing, knowing there was nothing he could say to comfort her, just instinctually knowing that just being there next to her was enough, his arm around her, listening to her.

  After a while Jo was cried out. She felt empty inside, yet somehow better.

  “Thank you,” Jo whispered to Gil.

  “For what?”

  “For being here. For staying with us here at the store. For finding Tiger.”

  Gil was quiet for a moment. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Jo turned to face him and he kissed her on the lips, a long and slow kiss. It wasn’t the first time they had kissed, but it still felt electric to Jo. It reminded her of kissing Jackson down by the deli only hours before he would begin to turn into a ripper. That had been the end of something that could have been, but this with Gil now, this was something that could still be.

  But the beginning of what? Their life here on the roof together? Waiting for the rippers to find a way up here, or waiting for the Dark Angels to come? Waiting to die of dehydration, starvation, or sickness? Still, it felt good to be with someone. Why couldn’t she have found someone like Gil before the Collapse?

  Gil backed away, leaning back against the metal wall of the HVAC unit, getting as comfortable as he could.

  Jo stared across the roof at the tarp strung between the two metal units, and then the tents beyond that—just dark shapes in the night now, barely discernable. They had gotten a lot of supplies up to the roof in the short time they’d had to work with. But was it enough? And even if they had enough to survive up here for a month, or even two months, then what? Would the rippers eventually leave once the food and drinks ran out below in the store? Would Luke, Max, and Phil defeat the Dragon and come back with Petra? Would Ray, Mike, Josh, and Emma come back with help from Avalon?

  Avalon. She knew Ray believed something great was there, that salvation was there, but Jo didn’t really believe that. Not anymore. She had no hope after tonight.

  “What are you thinking about?” Gil asked in his deep voice. He still had his arm around her shoulders.

  “I was thinking about Ray and the others. About the place they were looking for. Avalon.”

  “You think that place is real?”

  Jo shrugged, moving Gil’s arm just a little. “Maybe. Ray seemed so sure of it. Even if it’s a real place, we can’t be sure they even got there. Not with all of these rippers around.”

  Gil remained silent, letting her ruminate in her gloom.

  “Ray asked me to go with him,” she said. “All of us.”

  Gil waited for her to go on.

  “I turned him down. I wanted to stay here, where it was safe. Where we had food and water, medicine and supplies, guns and ammo. Where we had block walls and metal doors. Now look at it.” She looked at Gil in the darkness. “I turned him down without asking you about it, without asking anyone else. I made the decision for all of us.”

  “You can’t blame yourself. You were doing what you thought was best.”

  “And I screwed up.”

  “No way you could see the future.”

  “Ray did. He told me the rippers would eventually get in, that they would figure out a way. He’d seen one of them banging on the fence with a piece of wood and not getting shocked. He knew they would figure it out, use bigger pieces of wood to ram the fence. I didn’t want to believe it. But he was right.”

  Gil gave her a kiss on the cheek and then squeezed her a little tighter.

  “I was scared,” Jo continued. “I haven’t been out there on the road like Ray has, like Kate, Max, Petra, and Brooke have. Like everyone else here. Like you. Since the Collapse, I’ve been here at this store, believing this place was an impenetrable fortress. And now I’m scared to death to be out there.”

  Jo looked at the darkness at the edge of the roof, the landscape beyond hard to make out, just dark blobs in the darkness. The nightmarish sounds of the rippers floated up from the parking lot all around them, the sound of them coming from the woods, running over the fallen fence, in and out. Earlier, when it had still been light enough to see, Jo watched rippers running out of the store with armfuls of food and drinks. Maybe they were taking the supplies back to smaller groups of rippers.

  “Look what the world’s become,” she said in a low voice. “Most of humanity turned into monsters from some disease, and those of us left, we’re killing each other off left and right. If there was ever a reason for humans to band together, this would be it, when there’s so few of us left.”

  She snuggled closer to Gil, pulling the blanket up to her chin, leaning against him. Her eyes closed and she felt a little safer for a while.

  Just make it through the night, she told herself as she drifted off to sleep.

  CHAPTER 34

  Mike

  Mike lay on the dirty floor of the abandoned house they’d found to stay the night in. He’d grown comfortable in the sleeping bags inside the tents at the store, and now they were back to this, back to sleeping in some cold, smelly house, too scared to fall asleep, listening to every creak and pop of the rotting wood walls and ceiling, every rustle from outside in the cold wind.

  He had spotted this house, just like he had spotted the house in the trees off the road that they’d stayed in when they escaped the used car lot after Luke had been stabbed by a ripper, the house where they’d found Gil. Mike had spotted this house just before dusk, seeing the rotting hulk, the sagging roof just visible above the trees. Ray had turned the van around and drove back to the long paved driveway, then through the iron gates that were stuck halfway open.

  If Mike closed his eyes he could almost believe he was still in that first house, he could almost believe that they’d never left, that finding Jo’s store had just been a dream. But he knew it had all been real: the store, the food, the water, the other kids, the birthday party, the safety.

  And now they were doing this again.

  Mike believed his father knew what he was doing, and Emma did too, but it had been so hard to leave the certainty of safety in the store for the uncertainty of the road, and the uncertainty of Avalon.

  But he was here now. Too late to turn back now.

  When they’d gotten to the house it had been almost dark. They’d parked and Mike got behind the wheel while Josh inspected the house and Ray stood guard by the front porch, hidden in the twilight shadows, his gun in his hand. After Josh gave the okay sign, Mike helped Emma get out of the van and grabbed two of their bags. Ray moved the van closer to the house under a covered breezeway between the house and the four-car garage where it would be hidden in the shadows of night; he left the van pointed toward the winding driveway in case they needed to get away fast.

  The house was huge. Mike figured it was some kind of mansion. It was at least twice the size of their old house. It was a wreck, but it didn’t look looted. The windows were still intact, the doors
all working. His dad had been happy about that—doors that could actually close and lock. They found food in the cabinets, real food, not just a few leftover dented cans. It looked like the family that had lived here once had ransacked their own house, going through their things and taking what they could before leaving. But they’d left so much behind.

  They ate chips and crackers, even though they were a little stale. Mike didn’t care. He didn’t think he’d ever eat them again. Dad squirreled away more canned food in his backpack, along with packs of peanuts and energy bars. Mike opened up cans of soda that had been stockpiled in the pantry.

  After they ate, Dad wedged a piece of wood under the doorhandle of the front door. He did something similar with the back door that led to the garage. But there were French doors off of the family room that led to a massive pool area. Hedges lined the far edge of the pool deck. Beyond the hedges was a large lawn. And then the woods.

  It had been a nice house once. Someone’s dream home. Mike figured wealthy people had lived here with everything they had ever wanted. But most of that stuff didn’t matter anymore.

  When it was fully dark, they settled down in the family room where they could still see a little with the moonlight shining in through the plate-glass windows that looked out onto the pool deck. Dad had studied the maps earlier while they were eating, retracing the routes.

  Now everyone was quiet in the darkness, lying down. Mike was sure either Dad or Josh was supposed to be awake and on guard, but it sounded like everyone else was sleeping. Mike decided he might stay awake; he would be the guard for a while tonight. Luke had given him the handgun and he had it next to him on the floor. He touched it every once in a while just to reassure himself that it was right beside him. He wasn’t tired; he had napped a little in the van. He stared at the large windows, the moonlight bright enough so that he could see everything very clearly outside, everything bathed in a milky, light blue glow. He could also make out objects in the family room: the blocky pool table, the wet bar with the large mirror behind it reflecting the moonlight, the couches against the other wall, the flat screen TV hung on the wall, two chairs in front of a dead and cold fireplace.