by Lukens, Mark
“Nick,” the guard said.
“Nick,” Luke repeated. “How many Dark Angels were sent there?”
“I’m not sure. Probably a small group. Maybe eight to ten of them.”
“And they’re still there?”
“As far as I know. I believe this bunker was the Dragon’s escape plan if things went wrong. I don’t know much more than that. I’m sorry. But I do know where it is. I can show you how to get there.”
“You better not be lying,” Luke growled at Nick.
“I’m not. The Dragon’s dead. None of us are with him anymore. I’m with you now. All of us are.”
Luke wasn’t so sure about that.
“Okay,” Jo said and then looked at Nick. “Can you draw us a map?”
Nick nodded.
“We’ll leave in the morning,” Jo said. “Is everyone on board with that?”
Luke heard the murmurs of agreement, but he didn’t care whether all of them were on board or not. If they wanted to leave, they were free to. They would have their chance to go their own way in the morning. Otherwise, everyone was headed to Avalon.
CHAPTER 65
Josh
They had eaten and drunk water in the near-darkness of the lab. They had rested. They had slept. Josh’s sleep had been riddled with dreams, but not the nightmares of the Dragon. Not anymore. His dreams were erratic, just images and sounds that didn’t make much sense after he woke up and thought about them.
After they’d been awake for hours, with no idea what time it was, if it was day or night, Josh had to speak up.
“We need to get out of here,” Josh said.
Ray sighed—he knew what was coming.
Josh didn’t care. “I can climb the elevator shaft. Get to the top. Pry the doors open. Get outside. I can ambush any Dark Angels before they come down here.
Emma reached out and touched Josh’s forearm, holding onto it, finding his hand, cupping hers within his. He squeezed his hand around hers gently.
“Those Dark Angels aren’t going to wait forever before they come down here,” Josh said. “If they get down here, it’s going to be a shootout. They might cut the power again. They might have night vision goggles. They might have bombs. Or tear gas. We can’t take that chance. I think we should strike first.”
Ray was silent, but Josh could tell he was considering his idea.
“How are you going to climb an elevator shaft?” Mike asked, part curiosity part smart ass.
“There should be a ladder embedded in the wall, recessed in so the elevator can go up and down smoothly. All newer elevator shafts have them now. It’s a narrow metal ladder used for emergencies and maintenance.” Of course there was always the chance there was no ladder, but he would have to figure something else out if that was the case.
“Maybe Ray’s right,” Emma said. “We wait. We just wait for a while and come up with a plan.”
Josh understood Emma’s reluctance—she didn’t want him to get hurt.
“We should at least try,” Josh said, looking from Emma, to Mike, and then to Ray in the weak light of the lantern. “I could just go up there and scope things out. I’ll bring my gun, but I won’t use it unless I really need to. I’ll bring binoculars. See what’s going on up there. We need some kind of information to work with.”
“I could go with you,” Ray offered.
“I think it would be best if I went alone,” Josh said. “If something were to . . . to happen to me, you would still be here for Mike and Emma.”
Finally, Ray nodded.
*
Twenty minutes later Ray helped Josh pry the elevator doors open. Even though they had searched the bunker and were sure there were no rippers left alive, Ray wanted Mike and Emma to remain inside the lab with the door locked.
Josh found a ladder in a storage room off of the kitchen. The ladder was tall enough for Josh to reach the panels of the elevator ceiling. He pulled them away, revealing a metal door in the ceiling to get onto the top of the car. He shoved his M-16 through the open doorway and set it on the ceiling with a slight thump. He had his flashlight with him and his backpack. Inside the pack he had the extra magazine for the M-16 fully loaded with the bullets he had left, two bottles of water, a few protein bars, and a small pry bar he would use at the top of the shaft to pry the elevator doors open when he got to them. He also had a small plastic container with the two Molotov cocktails stuffed down inside that he had gotten ready at the store. He was a little loaded down with the supplies, a little more loaded down than he wanted to be while climbing a metal ladder hooked to the side of an elevator shaft, but he needed the items he had with him.
“You ready?” Ray asked.
Josh stood on the ladder, staring down at Ray. “Yeah. I’m ready.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Ray said. “We could wait a while longer. Search this place more. We could be prepared for any kind of attack they have planned. They can only come down the elevator if they get the power turned back on, or the stairs if they clear the rubble away, and we would hear them clearing away the rubble.”
“They might be waiting for reinforcements,” Josh said. “If we wait a few days, there could be a hundred Dark Angels here.”
Ray didn’t argue. Josh knew that Ray couldn’t disagree with him.
“Be careful,” Ray finally said.
Josh was going to say: “Yes, mother,” but decided not to; there was something about the look in Ray’s eyes right now.
A moment later, Josh was up through the small doorway in the ceiling of the elevator. He stood gingerly on the solid metal roof of the elevator car, making sure it was going to hold his weight. He didn’t pick up his rifle just yet. Instead, he pulled his flashlight out and turned it on, shining it all around him, and then up at the walls, the walls disappearing into darkness the farther they went up.
They were down deeper in the earth than Josh had expected.
A clattering sounded from the elevator car and then Ray poked his head up through the open panel.
Josh thought Ray had changed his mind about joining him.
“I brought an extra lantern,” Ray said, setting the lantern on top of the roof and turning it on, allowing more light for Josh to see. “Is there a ladder in the wall?” He sounded like he hoped there wasn’t a ladder.
“Yeah,” Josh said, aiming his flashlight at a niche in the wall, rising all the way up, the space recessed into the wall just enough to fit a person inside, a metal ladder bolted to the block walls inside the groove.
“Okay,” Ray said. “Just see what you can see. Don’t try to take all of them on by yourself. Maybe I can go up there with you after you scout it out.”
Josh nodded. But he had every intention of taking out the Dark Angels if he could surprise them with an attack.
Ray climbed back down the ladder without another word, leaving Josh alone on top of the elevator car. Josh picked up his rifle and slung it over his shoulder, tightening the strap as much as he could. He was going to have to climb the ladder with the flashlight in his hand at some point, but for the first fifty feet or so he would be able to see well enough with the lantern shining on top of the elevator car.
He stepped inside the large groove in the wall, grabbing the rungs of the ladder, pulling on them to make sure they were secure.
Then he climbed.
Once he was high enough above the elevator car, the light from the lantern didn’t help him anymore—it became a pinpoint of light from below, looking like a lone dwindling star in the vastness of deep space. He had to pull his flashlight out, turn it on, and try to keep climbing. He thought about shoving the flashlight down into his jacket pocket, but he was afraid he might drop it. He wished he had a strap with a light that he could attach around his head, like a miner’s helmet. He was sure that he and Ray could’ve come up with some kind of contraption like that, but it was too late now; he was on his way up.
The climbing was slow. He’d never been too afraid of heights. He’
d worked plenty of construction jobs on rooftops or on scaffolding, walking planks of wood while carrying a sheet of drywall. He’d even worked on top of an elevator shaft once, tightening bolts of the metal framework above the shaft. That shaft had been five stories high, and he had to admit even back then that he’d been more than a little nervous.
This was different. It was scary because he knew that this shaft was probably a lot deeper than five stories. Maybe ten stories. Definitely enough of a drop to kill him if he fell. But it also felt different because he couldn’t see well enough around him to feel like he was that high up from the top of the elevator car. He felt swallowed up in darkness, climbing in some alien world long abandoned by its inhabitants.
He worried about the Dark Angels turning on the electricity again, the elevator car coming to life. They would have the code needed to summon the car to the top again—he was sure Gerald would have been forced to give them the code, along with any other information they requested. He could imagine the whirring noise of the elevator coming to life, the lights shining from the open door at the top of the car, the car speeding up toward him. He would be safe inside the niche (he hoped), but it would be frightening to have the car rush past him, like lying flat underneath a train as it roared by.
It was best not to think about that.
He concentrated on climbing a little higher, shining his light along the way. He slipped once and swore his heart had stopped for a few seconds, his breathing coming in ragged gasps. It took him a moment to calm down enough to start climbing again.
It seemed to take forever to get to the doors that led to the small white building, but here he was. His calves and feet were aching from climbing the metal ladder, his hands wanting to cramp up from the exertion, the fear, and the cold.
The doors were off to his right, almost too far away to reach. He stretched his arm out after hooking his other arm around the rung of the ladder, leaning out past the wall of the niche as far as he could. He got the pry bar into the middle of the doors, wedging it in and trying to pull on it. He needed to be careful, if the pry bar slipped out of the middle of the doors, then he would fall. If he fell, he would die. No question about it.
He was starting to feel that this was a stupid idea. He was debating whether he should climb back down, rethink what he was doing here. He’d almost made up his mind to do that when he heard voices coming from beyond the closed elevator doors.
And then gunshots.
CHAPTER 66
Petra
It was early afternoon when they reached the lonely road through the woods and up into the mountains; there had been no buildings around for miles. A dirt trail led off of the road about a mile before the dirt road that led to Avalon. Nick had told them they could hide their vehicles on the smaller dirt trail so the Dark Angels wouldn’t see them coming.
Nick had ridden with Luke and Petra in the lead vehicle. Petra drove, Luke rode shotgun. Nick sat with Dawson and Martin in the back, squeezed in between the two. His hands were no longer bound—it had been one of his conditions for showing them where Avalon was. But Luke and Petra had agreed that Nick wouldn’t be allowed to have a weapon.
Luke hadn’t liked the idea of leaving Nick unbound, but he went along with it, giving the man a warning about double crossing them. Again, Nick promised that he was no longer loyal to the Dark Angels.
Petra didn’t trust Nick any more than Luke did, but they needed him. Once they found Avalon, once they were sure Nick was telling them the truth, then they would figure out what to do with him. It wouldn’t bother her to tie him up again and leave him in the woods, gag him so he couldn’t call out to his Dark Angel buddies around Avalon. In fact, it probably wouldn’t bother her in the least to just put a bullet in the man’s head. He’d been one of the Dragon’s guards. He hadn’t been going along just to get along like most of the townspeople and some of the Dark Angels had; he had personally guarded the Dragon. Petra had seen him in the dining room with them when she had eaten dinner with the Dragon. She wondered if he had been one of the guards who had dragged Sharon onto the back porch, one of them who had kept her prisoner. She couldn’t remember seeing Nick’s face when she and Sharon were being tortured on the back porch—she’d been too traumatized by then. She wanted to ask him about it but was afraid of the answer he might give.
Jo and the others waited by the trucks while Petra went with Luke, Dawson, Martin, and Nick on foot through the woods near the side of the paved road, working their way nearly silently through the brush for the next mile. The other Dark Angels left behind with Jo and Kate stood guard with weapons, watching out for any rippers or Dark Angels. Petra felt nervous about leaving them in the care of the Dark Angels, but she didn’t really have a choice; they couldn’t bring all of them to Avalon through the woods—the Dark Angels at Avalon would see and hear them coming a mile away.
Nick took the lead as they walked through the woods. Dawson and Martin were right behind him. Luke was behind them, and Petra brought up the rear.
She watched Luke as he walked, watching the way he carried himself, watching his broad shoulders, his narrow waist, his long and muscular arms. In the short time she’d known him, feelings for him had begun to stir.
It didn’t really matter, she was sure that Luke didn’t feel the same way about her. He hadn’t made anything close to an advance toward her, not even much of a look in her direction.
She needed to focus on what they were doing. There was most likely going to be a battle at Avalon when they got there, a fight to the death.
Thirty minutes later they found the dirt trail that led up the hill to Avalon, but they stayed in the woods, waiting for a few minutes, listening.
Petra caught Luke looking at her, like he was gauging her reaction to the silence in the woods, waiting for her opinion. She held his gaze for nearly a full minute.
Was there something in his eyes? Something else? Could he feel the same way about her?
Her stomach fluttered a little. Her bandaged hand ached a little, the stub of her pinkie itching slightly under the bloodstained gauze and tape.
She finally nodded.
They were on the move again, following the trail higher up the hill, through the woods. They passed the gate on the trail, the gate wide open, the locks and chains removed a while ago. Faint tire tracks on the hard packed dirt proved a vehicle had driven up this trail recently.
Had to be Ray’s van, and there didn’t seem to be any other tracks.
Maybe the Dark Angels guarding Avalon had left. Maybe they had deserted. Dawson claimed there were many among the Dark Angels and townspeople who didn’t want to follow the Dragon. Maybe this group, once they were away from the Dragon, Jacob, and the elite guards, talked among themselves about leaving, going somewhere else. Starting over. Maybe none of them were at Avalon when Ray and the others had gotten here.
The idea of that dissolved away when Petra settled down at the edge of the woods, staring out at the clearing on the hilltop where a lone white building sat inside a large fenced-in area. Ray’s van was parked inside, the double chain-link gates wide open. Three Dark Angels stood guard outside the fenced-in area, all three of them holding rifles and M-16s.
“What do you think?” Luke asked Nick, who crouched down among the brush with them.
Nick shrugged. “I thought there would have been more of them.”
“Only three?” Luke asked.
“Others might have left,” Dawson suggested. “Many wanted to leave. This would have been a good place to get away.”
“Ray and the others have to be down there,” Luke said. “Their van’s here. Why aren’t the Dark Angels attacking?”
“I don’t know,” Dawson answered.
Luke looked directly at Nick.
Nick shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on any more than Dawson does. Any more than you do. All I know was that a troop was sent to guard this place.”
“You’ve been here before,” Petra said. It wasn’t
a question. She could see the recognition in Nick’s eyes.
“Yes,” he admitted. “About three weeks ago or so. Not long after we started building up Hell Town.”
“Did you go down inside Avalon?” she asked him.
“No. We stood guard outside.”
“But the Dragon went down,” Petra said. “Jacob.”
“Yeah. They went. A few other guards with them. Maybe a few of the Dark Angels.”
Petra couldn’t help believing that Nick was lying. She glanced at Luke and saw that again he was watching her, like he was waiting to hear what she had to say. She wasn’t sure what to do. Could they trust Nick? Should they tie him up? Leave him here? She was right beside Luke, so close to him she could practically feel his body heat.
“What do you think?” he whispered to her.
“I think we rush out of the woods, all of us aiming our guns at the three of them. Tell them to put their weapons down. If they aim at us, we shoot.”
“Sounds good to me,” Luke said.
Before Petra even knew what she was doing, she reached out and grabbed the back of Luke’s neck, pulling him toward her. He didn’t resist at all as she kissed him hard on the mouth. She pulled away, looking into his eyes. “I just wanted to do that in case anything happened.”
Luke stared at her, then a faint smile appeared. “I’m glad you did.”
“Let’s get this over with,” Petra said.
Before Petra and Luke could stand up, Nick was up and out of the woods, rushing toward the three Dark Angels, his hands up in surrender.
The three Dark Angels came rushing forward, their weapons aimed at him.
“We don’t mean any harm,” Nick yelled. “The Dragon is dead. So is Jacob. The town is burning. It’s all over.”
The Dark Angels were across the field, halfway to the woods. They stopped, staring in shock. They knew Nick—he was their superior, their boss. They trusted him. They lowered their weapons.