Dark Days (Book 3): Exposure:

by Lukens, Mark

  CHAPTER 36

  Luke stopped his bike right behind Wilma’s on the train trestle as the horde of rippers ran towards them. Wilma already had her handgun drawn, shooting at the mass of raging rippers rushing towards them. She hit three of them, knocking them down in mid-run, but the others behind those three jumped over their fallen bodies, some of them tripping up a little. Luke realized that Wilma was trying to jam them up, but there were too many rippers to hold off with gunshots right now—they had no other choice but to turn around and ride back the way they’d come.

  The gunshots didn’t seem to be scaring the rippers off. Obviously that gang had killed a lot of the rippers in this town and the survivors had run down here to the tracks to get away. But now a small group of them were running right at him and Wilma, like a suicide squad, to kill the threat that had killed so many of their own. And the three rippers that Wilma had shot weren’t slowing them down at all.

  “We’ve got to turn around,” Luke yelled at Wilma. He goosed his throttle and turned his bike around, the back tire sliding around until he was pointed back the other way. He glanced back to make sure Wilma was following him—she was. He raced along the tracks, trying to get off of this bridge. He was worried there might be rippers on the other side of this bridge, trying to seal them off.

  And there they were, more rippers running out of the brush where they had been hiding when he and Wilma had first ridden onto the trestle. It had been a trap.

  They’re getting smarter. They’re getting more organized.

  Wilma was almost right beside him now and they were only forty yards away from the end of the trestle. Luke had his gun drawn. He pulled the trigger four times.

  Spit. Spit. Spit. Spit.

  Four rippers fell backwards before they even got near the end of the bridge, mists of blood spraying out from their heads before they collapsed to the ground.

  Luke rode off the trestle right in front of Wilma. The rippers were on both sides of them now, rushing up the grassy and weedy hill toward the train tracks. Some of them had sticks, and some of them had rocks, already throwing the stones at them as they raced by. Most of the rocks were small, not big enough to do much damage to the bikes, but some of the rocks were big enough to hurt him and Wilma, maybe even knock them out if they struck the right spot.

  Wilma fired a few more shots from right behind Luke, hitting a few of the closest rippers. Again, the gunshots weren’t scaring them off or making them hesitate at all. As Luke rode past the gauntlet of rippers, he saw a sea of angry faces, dirt streaking the skin and matting their hair, eyes wild and murderous, their clothes ripped and soiled. Some of them waved sticks and clubs at them.

  Luke and Wilma never let up on their speed, racing past most of the horde before they could get all the way up to the tracks, but there were a couple of them that managed to get to him and Wilma before they could get all the way past them.

  One man pawed at Luke as he raced by, trying to grab at his hoodie. Luke pointed the gun around his side, aiming behind him at the man and pulling the trigger twice.

  Spit. Spit.

  The ripper let go and rolled down the gravel hill of the train tracks and into the weeds below.

  Luke glanced back at Wilma to make sure the rippers hadn’t closed in on her. She was almost right behind him now, her eyes dinner plates of fear and concentration behind her goggles. She didn’t have her gun in her hand anymore, and he wondered if she had lost it. She still had the shotgun in the metal scabbard attached to the side of her bike, but it looked like she had lost part of her pack from the back of her bike.

  It didn’t matter, at least they were past the horde now. Wilma zoomed out in front of Luke on the tracks, racing toward the railroad crossing on the street in the distance. The rippers threw rocks at them in a last-ditch effort to knock them off their bikes. Luke felt two of the rocks hit him. One hit him on his left shoulder blade, but the bigger rock hit him right in the middle of the back of his head, and that one had actually hurt enough to take his breath away for a second.

  Wilma turned left onto the road at the crossing, riding back the way they had just come. Luke thought it might be better to go the other way, but he had no way of arguing with her right now; he just followed her. They sped along the same road that skirted the edge of the town, passing the same houses and buildings, the same dead bodies of rippers. Luke counted at least thirty dead rippers that he could see from the road.

  Soon they were back on the road that climbed up into the hills and woods, and then they rode up to the spot in the woods where they had been before, where they had watched the bridge with their binoculars. They killed their engines and leaned their bikes on the stands behind the wall of brush that concealed them from the road.

  “You okay?” Luke asked Wilma as he tore off his goggles and yanked his bandana down. He pulled off his gloves and stuffed them into the pockets of his jacket, then he pulled his hood down and touched the back of his head, finding what he had expected—a knot. He looked at the blood on his fingertips.

  “Yeah,” Wilma answered. “What about you?”

  “They got me in the back of my head with a rock.”

  “Let me see.” She hurried behind him and inhaled a sharp breath. “Yeah, they got you all right. It’s bleeding pretty good.”

  “I’ll be okay,” he said.

  Wilma took her backpack off and pulled out an extra pair of her socks. She poured a little of the water from her bottle onto the balled-up sock, getting it wet but not soaked. She handed it to him. “Here. Use this.”

  Luke accepted her impromptu compression bandage, and he pressed it gently to the back of his head. “I’ve got some old scar tissue all over my head and face,” he told her. “From my MMA days. It probably looks worse than it is. It’ll stop bleeding in a minute or two. I think my hood softened the blow a little.”

  Wilma nodded, but she still looked a little concerned. “Those rippers were waiting for us. They set a trap for us.”

  Luke nodded. He saw that she had reached the same conclusion he had on their drive back to these woods. “They’re getting more organized. They probably thought we were part of that gang that killed a bunch of them back there in that town.”

  “Or they thought we were lunch.”

  Luke couldn’t help laughing.

  “Did you see all of those dead bodies in that town?” he asked her.

  “Yeah. I was worried you were going to stop and investigate like you did the last time.”

  “It seems like that DA gang drove through that town, killing as many rippers as they could, maybe picking them off as they drove by.”

  “Which is a good thing,” Wilma said.

  Luke nodded in agreement. “Yeah, and they shot at us a few days ago,” he reminded her.

  She hadn’t forgotten.

  “I don’t know what their plan is, but we just need to stay clear of them.”

  Luke pulled out his binoculars and walked over to the same tree where they had studied the bridge before in the valley below. Everything looked the same as it had an hour ago; there was nothing on the bridge except for the abandoned car and SUV. He didn’t see any signs of movement in the trees.

  “I guess we’re going to have to cross it,” Wilma said as she stood beside him. “Take our chances.”

  Luke wondered if they should study the map again, try to pick out another location to cross. But without knowing where that convoy of trucks was going to be, without knowing how many rippers would be waiting for them, then this bridge looked as good as any other to him right now. It seemed to him like the convoy of trucks was on the move, traveling through towns and killing as many rippers as they could find. It made sense that they had kept on going after the bridge, going to the next town to kill more rippers. What didn’t make a lot of sense was that the DA gang would be hiding in the trees and watching the bridge. If they wanted to barricade it, then they would have done it out in the open, just like they had done before. Another problem was if
he and Wilma hesitated too much longer, there was a chance the horde of rippers would follow them up into these woods, and then they would have no choice but to cross that bridge whether they wanted to or not—only with a horde of rippers chasing them.

  “Okay,” Luke said, still holding the sock to the back of his head, trying to wait for the wound to clot and stop bleeding. “You ready to go now?”

  Wilma drank a little more water and nodded. She stuffed her water bottle down into her backpack and then slipped it over her shoulders.

  “They got your gas can,” Luke said as they walked back to their bikes.

  “Yeah. One of them knocked it off. They were grabbing onto me, but I kicked one of them away. They didn’t get my whole pack, just the gas can.”

  “What about your gun? Did you lose that?”

  “Yeah. But I’ve got another one.” She did a quick inspection of her bike. “The siphon hose is still in this pack here with the 2-cycle oil. We’ll just have to find some gas tonight, and another gas can.”

  Luke got on his bike and started it. Wilma started hers, revving the motor and smiling at him. He couldn’t help smiling back at her.

  They rode out of the woods, onto the road, and then sped down the hill towards the bridge. Luke was tense, ready to draw his gun at any moment, but he kept both hands on the handlebar grips of the bike.

  They raced across the bridge, the dirt bike motors screaming and echoing across the river below them. Wilma stayed a bike length behind Luke and to the side of him as he rode towards the first car, trying to keep it in front of them for as long as he could, using it like a shield. He also swerved just a bit as he rode, trying to make himself a more difficult target if a sniper was aiming at them from the trees in the hills beyond the other end of the bridge.

  Once they were past the empty car, Luke tried to keep the SUV in front of them as they approached it. The bridge wasn’t that long, and they were already halfway across it, but it felt like they still had miles to go before they reached the other side.

  They got past the SUV, a Chevy Tahoe, and sped to the other side.

  So far, so good. No rippers. No DA gang. No convoy of trucks driving down from the hill of trees they were approaching. No gunshots ringing out.

  A moment later they were both off of the bridge and back onto solid land, climbing the road up into the hills, the trees already blocking the sunlight, the air already colder.

  Wilma pulled in front of Luke once they were a mile into the woods, following the trail she had memorized. After they drove up over the next steep hill, they coasted down until Wilma slowed down and pulled off the road and onto a dirt trail that led into the woods.

  Once they were on the trail in the woods Luke felt a little better. He was sure they wouldn’t come across a convoy of trucks in the woods, but that didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be some of the gang members, or even a group of rippers, roaming the woods. So far it seemed like the rippers stayed in the cities, towns, and neighborhoods where the packaged food and survivors of this plague were more plentiful. Right now it seemed like the woods were safer than most places, but Luke couldn’t let his guard down just because they were deep in the woods now—nowhere was truly safe anymore. Maybe not even Wilma’s camp down in West Virginia.

  Luke followed Wilma along the trail for the next hour. She sped through the woods, slowing down only a little around the sharp bends and turns. Luke still managed to keep up with her, not getting too far behind.

  Once the woods thinned out, and the trail opened up to a wider dirt road rather than a narrow path through the woods, Wilma sped up and Luke caught up to her. They sped along for a while, but then Wilma hit her brakes, skidding to a stop.

  Luke thought of the railroad trestle when Wilma had skidded to a stop, and the first thought that came to his mind was a horde of rippers. He stopped beside her and drew his gun, looking around for the threat, but then he saw why Wilma had stopped so quickly—there was a dirt bike on its side at the edge of the dirt road where the woods began.

  CHAPTER 37

  “It’s Rick’s bike,” Wilma said as she turned off her bike and got off of it, laying her bike down on the trail, not even bothering to use the kickstand.

  Luke turned his bike off and got off of it, following Wilma to the dirt bike a few feet ahead of them. He still had his gun in his hand.

  “Maybe he wrecked,” Wilma said.

  Luke heard the hitch in Wilma’s voice, the hope she was trying to raise.

  But Luke already saw the blood on the bike—bright red splashes of it. There were bullet holes in the gas tank and one in the back fender. He shook his head a little. “I don’t think this was a wreck.”

  Wilma let out an exhale that sounded more like a shudder, almost like she was doing her best to choke back a sob. She stepped past the bike and into the thick woods.

  Luke knew what she was looking for, the other bikes—Matt’s bike.

  “You’re sure this is Rick’s bike,” he asked her as he stepped closer to the trees.

  She was already ten feet into the woods. “Yes,” she answered.

  From the custom racks welded to the back and the homemade scabbard for a rifle on the side of the bike, similar to the modifications they had on their bikes, Luke was also sure that this was Rick’s bike. “Maybe he rode with your brother or the other guy they were with. Maybe he was just hurt, and they got him away from here.”

  Rick’s body wasn’t here, so somebody had obviously taken him somewhere if he was hurt or dead.

  Wilma came back out of the woods, nodding. “Yeah. Maybe he rode on the back of one of their bikes like you said.” She looked up and down the wide dirt trail through the woods like she might spot Matt somewhere. She followed a few of the dirt bike tracks, but they faded away and disappeared a few feet down the dirt road.

  “We should get going,” Luke told her. He didn’t want to get too far away from their bikes. “It’s getting late and we need to start looking for somewhere to sleep tonight before it gets dark.”

  *

  They found an abandoned house behind a small business at the edge of the next neighborhood they came to. They each ate an MRE after mixing it with some water, chasing it down with bottled water. The food was cold and tasted like salty mush, but at least it was something in their stomachs. The night air was freezing, and they snuggled up together underneath the thermal blanket Luke had taken out of his pack.

  “We’re not far now,” Wilma said after they sat there for a while in the darkness, propping each other up and trying to stay warm. “I think we could be at the Ohio River by tomorrow afternoon.”

  Luke had already studied the maps with Wilma earlier before it had gotten dark. It didn’t look too much farther on the map to the river. He wasn’t sure exactly how they were going to get across the Ohio River, which had to be a lot wider than the rivers they had already crossed. Wilma told him that at least two people should be waiting at a particular spot with a boat. They were supposed to be there for a few hours every day, waiting for members of the militia to come.

  “What if they aren’t there?”

  Wilma had just shrugged. “They’ll be there. We all had an agreement.”

  But what if there aren’t many left? What if most of the militia never even made the journey down there? But he didn’t want to say those things to her. If these two people she was so sure would be there weren’t there, then they would have to take their chances across a bridge—the last resort.

  “I can’t believe that gang’s all the way down here,” Luke said after they were quiet again for a while. “It almost seems like they’re moving south, like they’re following us. I don’t understand how they got so big and organized so quickly. It’s like they started organizing before people even started turning into rippers.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s strange.”

  “And you don’t think it could’ve been some kind of militia that was already formed?”

  “I guess it could have been,�
� Wilma answered. “It just seems like only a handful of any group would be immune to the plague, yet these guys seem like they have been working together for a while, like you just said.”

  “Maybe it is just random groups of people,” Luke said. “But it still bothers me that they’re so organized. And the way they moved through those towns back there, executing rippers, stringing them up in some places. Punishing their own gang members, torturing them.”

  “If they were that big of a militia or a group, then someone in our own group would have known about them. Maybe when we get to the camp, they will have some information about them.”

  Luke didn’t comment, and Wilma snuggled up closer to him. “I know this is hard, but I also know things will be so much easier and safer when we get to the camp.”

  “I know,” Luke said.

  *

  When Luke fell asleep, he began to dream. Only these dreams weren’t about the blind woman, the two men, and the boy—this time he dreamed of two women, a man, and a little girl. He’d seen one of the women and the little girl in a previous dream, but the other woman and the man were new. The four of them were traveling together, struggling to survive this nightmare landscape just like he and Wilma were trying to do, just like the blind woman and her friends were trying to do. But unlike the blind woman, these four people couldn’t seem to see him in the dream like she could—it was more like he was watching them without their knowledge. And maybe they saw him in their dreams.

  The dream shifted to a small, blasted-out town with dead bodies littering the streets and lawns. Some of the dead bodies were clothed, some wearing the stained and dirty clothing of the rippers, and others were completely naked. Some bodies were staked to the ground, just like Valerie’s husband had been nailed to the kitchen floor with the nail gun.

  Others hung from telephone poles, some hanging by their wrists, some hanging by their necks, and others hanging by their ankles. Some were crucified to the poles and to the sides of wood buildings, large metal spikes pinning them to the wood siding.