Dark Days (Book 3): Exposure:

by Lukens, Mark

  Luke crouched low on the other side of the van.

  “Carson!” the man from the campfire yelled. “You still there? Brent?”

  Luke didn’t say anything. He stayed in the same spot, listening, trying to tell where the man’s voice was coming from. The man was farther away from the campfire now, and the sound of his voice echoed just slightly—like he was inside the auto parts store, hiding in there and ready to shoot.

  “Anyone?” the man called out, his voice cracking with fear. “You . . . you call back to me or I’m going to keep firing.”

  Luke still didn’t answer or make a sound. He waited another moment, listening, trying to tell if the man was on the move or if he was still hiding in the same spot.

  “Carson!” the man called out again. “Brent! One of you two answer me!”

  Luke wasn’t going to give himself away by saying anything. He was sure the man already knew his comrades were dead now. Luke wasn’t sure how he was going to get to this man without getting shot, but he would find a way.

  CHAPTER 40

  Luke had a plan. He didn’t want to run straight at the man because he knew the man would probably kill him before he could get to him. Luke wasn’t afraid to die, but he didn’t want to die before he killed this man—it was the only thing he could think about now, the only purpose he had left in his life.

  The man in the auto parts store might be waiting for a chance to get into one of the vehicles so he could get away. Luke didn’t have any idea which one of the vehicles the man might have keys for. He could search the dead bodies for keys, but he didn’t want to waste time doing that. He decided instead to disable all of them.

  “Come on out!” the man yelled. He had given up calling for his friends. “If you come out, I’ll just let you go!”

  Luke was a little surprised that the man hadn’t run while he had a chance. But maybe the man was more afraid to abandon this mission and face the Shadow Man than he was of death.

  Luke still needed to be careful. The man might have night vision goggles with him. But the nearby campfire could disturb his line of vision if he was using goggles. Still, Luke couldn’t take the chance that the man might be watching the undercarriages of the vehicles with a pair of night vision goggles, lying on his stomach and waiting with an automatic weapon or a rifle, waiting to shoot at his feet.

  After waiting another few minutes and listening, Luke moved toward the front of the van and put two bullets into the radiator, his gun spitting twice in the night. He ducked back to the side of the van again and pulled his knife out, stabbing it into the tire, flattening it.

  His gunshots into the radiator triggered a few shots from the man who was probably hoping to get a lucky shot. But the man only shot twice. Maybe the man was being careful with his bullets now; maybe he only had so much ammo left.

  Luke moved quickly down the line of vehicles to the pickup truck at the other end. He flattened the two tires on this side of the truck and then put two more bullets into the grill, puncturing the radiator. He moved to the end of the pickup, keeping down below the bed of the truck. He moved around to the rear of the truck and holstered his pistol. He aimed the dead sentry’s M-16 towards the auto parts store and pulled the trigger, firing a few rounds at the store.

  The man fired back from beyond the campfire, a barrage of bullets pelting the pickup truck as Luke darted back around to the side of it again, using it for cover. He worked his way back to the front of the truck, and then he hurried to the box truck parked right in front of the pickup truck.

  So the man had both a rifle and an automatic weapon. He also probably had a handgun on him, and maybe even a few hand grenades. Even with all of his weapons, Luke had a feeling the man wasn’t a trained soldier.

  After the gunfire was over, Luke crept towards the front of the box truck. He busted out the passenger window of the truck with the butt of his rifle. He moved down alongside the garbage truck and busted out that passenger window. He pulled the pins from both of the grenades and tossed them into the cabs of both of the trucks, and then he hauled ass towards the mounds of dirt and grass fifteen yards away. He dove behind the mounds just as the grenades exploded inside the trucks, lighting up the night with a fireball.

  This was his chance.

  Luke was up and on his feet, the M-16 still in his hands. He ran as fast as he could in a diagonal line toward the line of businesses, firing the automatic rifle at the campfire and the auto parts store as he ran, emptying the weapon of bullets as he made it to the last business at the other end of the plaza.

  The man returned fire. Luke heard the gunshots, and he even felt a few bullets whiz by his head—way too close. Luke slammed his body against the brick wall of the building, breathing hard but trying to be quiet, his breaths were little clouds of mist in front of his face.

  After a moment his breathing and heart-rate slowed down to normal. He didn’t hear any more gunshots, and he figured the man was trying to conserve his ammo again. Maybe there was more ammo in one of the trucks, but the man might be too afraid to take a chance right now to get it.

  Maybe the man wasn’t sure if Wilma was alive. The only way he would know if Wilma was dead was if the snipers had radioed him somehow with a walkie-talkie. Maybe they had notified him, but Luke’s best guess was that these guys had been waiting for the snipers to get back to camp with news that they had killed both of the targets. Luke assumed that this little group had used their two best shooters as the snipers, so that gave him a better chance in a shootout with this man.

  The M-16 was out of bullets. He laid it down on the ground and made his way to the back of the building. He used his night vision goggles as he peeked around the corner, looking everywhere, watching for the man and for any rippers nearby.

  He darted down along the rear of the buildings, keeping close to the wall and in the deeper shadows of the building. It took ten minutes of slow moving to get to the back of the auto parts store. He pried a lock on the back door and opened it, slipping inside. He waited by the door, crouched down, using his night vision goggles to search the back room he was in—some kind of office.

  A moment later he was out of the office and down a hall that led to the aisles of auto parts and supplies. He moved down one of the aisles, listening and still using the goggles to see in the dark. He approached the counter, and beyond the counter there was the lobby area and the busted-out windows and doors. The campfire burned a few feet beyond the front of the store, the lawn chairs tipped over now, along with the coolers and the cans of beer.

  It took another fifteen minutes of waiting in the dark before Luke heard the man moving, shifting his weight slightly. The man was somewhere in front of the counter, probably on his stomach, his weapon aimed at the front of the store. Or the man could be in a corner where he could see Luke if he jumped over the counter, covering both vantage points from the same position.

  Luke waited a little longer. He listened as the man moved around again. Maybe the man was getting antsy. An hour had gone by now, maybe the man was willing to take a chance at running to either the van or the pickup truck. They had flat tires and punctured radiators, but the man could probably make it a few miles down the road before the engine seized up.

  Or maybe the man was about to go on the hunt for Luke, tired of waiting.

  Finally, the man stood up slowly. He was dressed in a mishmash of army fatigues with some kind of camouflage paint smeared all over his face, obscuring the DA symbol on his forehead. He had his M-16 in his hands and a pair of night vision goggles strapped over his eyes. Now that the campfire had burned down low, the man would be able to see better with the goggles. He probably wasn’t counting on Luke having a pair of his own goggles.

  The man turned his head just a little and spotted Luke. For just a millisecond the two of them stared at each other through their goggles . . . then they both fired.

  Luke fired three shots and hit the man with all three of them: one in the abdomen, one in the thigh, and one that
blew his knee apart.

  The man collapsed to the floor, dropping his weapon. He screamed and turned over, trying to crawl toward his M-16 a few feet away.

  Luke hopped the counter easily and was on the man in the seconds, kicking the man’s weapon away that he tried to grab. The man went for a handgun on his hip, but Luke grabbed the man’s hand and smashed his arm down to the floor, the man squeezing off four shots before Luke brought his knee down onto the man’s abdomen, right down on his gunshot wound.

  The man howled in pain, his body going limp as he nearly passed out.

  “Not yet,” Luke growled at him, wrenching the man’s wrist around until he dropped his gun. Luke kicked the pistol away and searched the man for other weapons. He didn’t find any.

  Luke holstered his own gun and grabbed the man by his long hair, dragging him across the glass-littered floor, taking him outside next to the dying campfire. The fire was low but still bright enough for Luke to see the man clearly. He yanked the man’s night vision goggles off of his head and tossed them away. The man lay on his back now, staring up at the night sky, breathing hard and fast, barely clinging to consciousness.

  “Stay with me,” Luke said. “If you pass out, you’ll wake up to something much worse. I guarantee that.”

  The man lifted his head up a little and looked at Luke, smiling at him.

  Luke punched him in the face, rocking his head back down to the pavement.

  The man smiled again, only this time he had blood smeared all over his lips and teeth.

  “Who are you guys?” Luke asked him.

  The man continued smiling.

  Luke stood above the man and pressed his foot down on the man’s ruined knee, applying just a slight pressure.

  The man howled, his body trembling.

  Luke glanced around, making sure that a horde of rippers wasn’t running up to them through the darkness. Everything looked clear as far as he could see.

  “We got your lady, didn’t we?” the man said, still smiling.

  Luke pressed his foot down on the man’s ruined knee a little harder, but he let up after a moment, afraid the man might pass out from the pain. “Who are you guys? What does that DA on your foreheads stand for? Where did you guys come from?”

  The man continued smiling. “He’s coming for you. He wants all of you very badly.”

  Luke felt a chill run across his skin. He thought of the nightmare he’d had last night, he thought of the Shadow Man’s words: I’m coming for you. And then he thought of Wilma’s last words. She’d told him to be careful of the dreams; she’d told him that the Shadow Man saw them in their dreams.

  “You already . . . already know, don’t you?” the man said, fighting for breath yet managing to keep his smile on his bloody lips. “He told us to come here. He told us . . . told us that you would be here.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Our master. The Dragon Lord. He’ll be your master, too. He’ll be everyone’s master in this new world. You won’t have a choice.”

  “What does DA mean?”

  “Dark Angels. We’re his army . . . the Dragon’s army of dark angels.”

  Luke stared at the man. “Why us? Why does he want me and Wilma?”

  The man managed to laugh just a little in spite of the pain, spraying out a spittle of blood. “Not her. He wants you. You and the others.”

  “Others?”

  The man’s smile widened even more, his eyes insane. The last of the firelight flickered in his dark eyes. “You know who I’m talking about.”

  And Luke did—the man was talking about the people he had seen in his dreams. “Where is this Dragon Lord of yours?”

  “He’s everywhere.”

  Luke pressed his foot down on the man’s knee again.

  The man screamed and thrashed, shaking his head back and forth. “I don’t know,” he moaned. “He’s just . . . he’s just everywhere.”

  “Where are his headquarters?” Luke kept steady pressure on the man’s ruined knee.

  “I don’t know,” the man moaned.

  “He’s assembling an army?” Luke asked, lifting his foot up off of the man’s knee for a moment. “An army of dark angels?”

  “Join or die,” the man grunted. “That’s the choice you get. And there are many terrible ways to die.”

  Luke nodded in agreement—there were certainly many terrible ways to die. But he was going to make this man’s death easy. He drew his pistol from the holster under his hoodie and aimed it down at the man’s face. He pulled the trigger, shooting the man right through the DA carved into his forehead and hidden underneath the greasepaint on his face. The man smiled right up to the end.

  CHAPTER 41

  It was almost noon when Luke walked towards the Ohio River with Wilma’s body cradled in his arms.

  He had gone back to her after he had killed the last of the Dark Angels. He had cleaned her up as best he could, and then he had wrapped her body in a roll of plastic he’d found in the auto parts store, securing it with duct tape. He repacked his backpack with his weapons, Wilma’s handgun, both of the night vision goggles (Wilma’s and the Dark Angel’s pair), a few bottles of water, his extra change of clothes.

  Both dirt bikes were inoperable after being shot numerous times by the snipers, and all four of the Dark Angels’ vehicles weren’t going to run very far, or at all.

  He had no choice but to walk. And he didn’t care. He would walk with Wilma in his arms. He would bring her home to her brother—it’s the only place she wanted to be.

  The walking was tough, the pain growing unbearable, the fatigue setting in after a few miles. But he pushed the pain away, and he didn’t rest, he stumbled on until he saw the river, until he came to the place where Wilma said the boat would be waiting for them.

  Two men ran out of the brush, both of them dressed from head to toe in camouflage, both aiming assault rifles at him.

  Luke didn’t care if they shot him. He knew they were Wilma’s people. They could take her home from here. He pulled the plastic away from Wilma’s face, revealing her to them.

  “Put her down!” one of the men yelled. Neither one wore a gas mask. Luke guessed everyone was way beyond that now. If you hadn’t turned by now, then it meant you were immune to whatever plague hung in the air all over the world.

  “It’s Wilma,” the other man said.

  Luke stood with Wilma in his arms, refusing to put her body on the ground. “They killed her,” he told the two men. “I’m bringing her home to her brother, to Matt. She just . . . she just wanted to go home. Help me. Help me get her in your boat.”

  Both men hesitated for just a moment, unsure of what to do.

  “I don’t want to set her on the ground,” Luke said. “I don’t want to do that to her.” He could feel tears slipping from his eyes: tears of sadness, of fatigue, of misery, of rage.

  “You alone?” the closest man asked.

  “Yes,” Luke said. “I’m alone.” And he was alone—truly alone now.

  The other man kept his weapon aimed at Luke while the closer one took Wilma into his arms and carried her into the brush where the boat was stashed.

  “Drop your weapons and your backpack,” the remaining man said with his assault rifle still aimed at him.

  Luke did as he was ordered. The man might shoot him now, but he didn’t care. Wilma would be back home now; she wouldn’t be out there where the rippers and the animals could pick her body apart.

  “Put these on,” the man said, tossing a pair of handcuffs on the ground at Luke’s feet. “Behind your back.”

  Again, Luke followed orders, clicking the cuffs in place with his hands behind his back, his sore shoulders aching from the movement. The man closed in quickly behind Luke, checking to make sure the handcuffs were secure. He stepped in front of Luke and lowered his weapon.

  “Who did that to Wilma?” the man asked.

  Luke was so exhausted, so close to passing out. He felt like he’d fought ten championship f
ights in a row. “A gang,” he said, his voice just a croak now. “They call themselves the Dark Angels. They’re all over Ohio.”

  The man didn’t seem to recognize the name, but Luke was sure the man and the others back at their camp would come to know them very soon.

  The other man walked toward them. “Let’s get him in the boat.”

  The first man picked up Luke’s backpack, and they walked him into the brush, to the boat by the edge of the river. Luke passed out as soon as they set him down in the boat.

  The two men woke Luke up on the other side of the river and made him walk a mile through the woods while one of the men carried Wilma’s body. The thick plastic she was wrapped in crinkled as they walked. The sound was driving Luke crazy; he’d heard that sound for hours and hours as he’d walked with her cradled in his arms. He wanted to ask the man to stop, but he knew the noise was unavoidable.

  Soon Luke was strapped into the passenger seat of one of two Polaris vehicles. The other man drove the second four-wheeler with Wilma’s body on the back of it. Again, Luke barely clung to consciousness, and he hung forward against the seatbelt as they drove over the rutted trail through the dense woods.

  After a period of time had passed that Luke couldn’t guess at, they arrived and parked in front of a metal gate in the middle of a wall constructed of metal panels, all of them welded and bolted together, all of them painted dark green. Two men stood above the twelve-foot-high fence on each side of the gate, both men armed with machine guns. The large gate slid open, the metal wheels squealing just a bit.

  Luke passed out again as they entered the compound. He woke up again, and it felt like he’d only been out a few seconds, but he knew that some time must have passed because they were parked in front of a long, rectangular building with a metal roof that had been painted the same dark green as the compound’s walls.