Enter Darkness Box Set

by K. M. Fawkes

  Scenario after scenario played in his head and they grew worse and worse. He had to find them, even if Anna didn’t want to see him. He needed to know that they were somewhere safe.

  It was time to make some plans, but as always, when he pushed himself on the point, his mind scrambled in circles. He knew that he couldn’t go too far west. He’d run into the Family out there. He didn’t know how far their territory spread, and he definitely didn’t want to find out, either.

  On the other hand, if he went too far north, he might end up dead at the Army’s hands. If that faction was still alive, they probably wouldn’t be thrilled to find that he was alive—and their truck was definitely out of commission, thanks to him.

  East wouldn’t do him much good. It would just take him right back to his own place. Or into the lake. Well, onto it, since it was still frozen. The idea wasn’t appealing.

  “Well, there you go. Process of elimination,” he said aloud. “South it is.”

  Of course, south took him back in the direction he’d come from months before. And who knew what was happening back in Bangor at this point? The thought made him pause for a moment, but then he shrugged. It didn’t really matter. He had to do something; he couldn’t stay where he was.

  He wasn’t running out of rations just yet, but that was only because he barely ate. Losing everything was pretty hard on a person’s appetite.

  Reminded that he needed calories, Brad fumbled in the dark for the pack. After a bit of rummaging around, he found and broke open one of the military ration bars. He sighed and then began chewing the dry, tasteless thing as fast as he could without choking on it. Being taken down by an MRE in the dead silence of a winter night was the last way he wanted to go, after coming this far.

  “South it is,” he told himself after he’d taken a long drink of half-melted snow from his water bottle. “Even if I don’t know what the hell is going on out there.”

  He much preferred the devil he didn’t know, at this point. The unknown had to be better than a crazy militia or an insane doomsday cult, and at least he knew enough now to avoid the interstate. That knowledge had to give him a slight upper hand.

  He could find plenty of supplies to stock up with in the city. There had to be at least some food left, as well as medical supplies and maybe even some clothes. Hopefully, he could even find some time of shelter out there. There would be more room to hide if he ran into another group of nutjobs, too.

  He tried hard to talk the experience up for himself, listing as many pros as he could, but he wasn’t exactly successful. He really didn’t want to go back to Bangor or any other big city if he had to pass through his old home. And he wasn’t so stupid that he didn’t recognize that heading into a city in the winter of an apocalypse could be a suicide mission.

  A soft patter on the tent above his head made him jump, the sound becoming more regular after a moment. Was it starting to snow? If it was, he wasn’t going anywhere—he’d end up looking like Jack Nicholson as the end of The Shining.

  Unzipping the tent just slightly, Brad took a look outside. The moon was out and in the light that speared through the trees, he could see that just as he’d feared, it was snowing. Again.

  He sighed and pulled his head back into the tent. Then, he dropped his head into his hands. He’d liked snow once. And not even just in the way that all kids liked snow. He’d genuinely enjoyed it up until this damn winter.

  Of course, before this winter, he’d had a house. It was one thing to watch the snow from the front window and enjoy the slower pace of life that came with a big snowfall. It was something else entirely to camp on top of the stuff.

  The snow had finally stopped after the Family had showed up to ruin his life, and he’d thought that his luck might have turned. Why did it have to start again now? And who knew how much more there would be by dawn? It could drop a foot and half for all he knew; then, he really would be trapped.

  Brad sighed and pulled the blanket off of his head, folding it up and stuffing it into his pack. His course was clear: if he wanted to have a chance to get anywhere quickly, he had to start now. Luckily, there wasn’t a great deal to pack.

  Chapter 2

  Hours later, as he squinted against the snow that was somehow driving directly into his face no matter which way he looked, Brad wondered if he’d made a big mistake. He couldn’t have known it at the time he’d left, but this wasn’t just any snowstorm.

  He wondered what he’d done to deserve such bad luck. With the wind whipping around him and the snow hurtling down, he had to admit that this was shaping up to be an honest-to-God blizzard. His feet had gone numb from cold and he stumbled from time to time. Maybe he should be grateful for the stiff wind. At least it helped keep him upright.

  Dull pain throbbed like a drumbeat in his head from breathing in the cold air and from squinting against the snow. Honestly, for all the visibility he had, he didn’t know why he was even bothering to squint.

  With a muttered curse, he brought his compass up directly in front of his face, cupping his hands around and it and inclining his head down. Brad was relieved to see that at least he was still headed south. Maybe a little more southeast than he’d originally planned, but that was still okay.

  The flakes of snow bombarded him in a fresh swirl of wind and Brad caught his breath at how strong it had been. It might not matter where he was heading. He might not survive the night either way.

  He couldn’t imagine making camp in this weather. Even if he’d wanted to camp on the snow, his small backpacker’s tent just wouldn’t hold up. It would keep the snow off of him, but the fabric stood a very real chance of ripping in the wind.

  He stayed where he was, buffeted by the wind and paralyzed with indecision, holding the compass in his slightly numb fingers and closing his eyes against the snow. His mind was beginning to race again and he felt panic claw its way up his chest. His grip on the compass tightened until his fingers ached even more than before. This was it. He had to decide. His knees buckled on his next step forward and fear joined the panic.

  “So, what are you going to do?” he yelled at himself, forcing his legs to move again.

  Another step and then another. He wasn’t so cold that he couldn’t keep going. And he discovered that it felt good to shout. There was no way in hell anyone would hear him over the wind, even if there was someone dumb enough to be out in the storm with him.

  “Are you just going to lay down and die?” He paused, as if he was giving himself a chance to answer, but of course, he didn’t. “No? Then shut the fuck up and keep walking!”

  So that’s what he did. He stumbled along, head down to the keep the snow from stinging his eyes, until he noticed that the trees were thinning out. The wind would be even worse out of their shelter, but he didn't care. He was starting to feel more than a little claustrophobic among the trees. He forced himself to pick up the pace until he was out of the woods and his breath burned in his lungs with every step.

  As he moved out of the shelter of the trees, Brad began to feel a different texture to the ground underneath the snow. It was too smooth to be a field. He scuffed his boots over the surface, trying to dig down past the snow. After a moment, his heart leapt when he discovered that he was now walking on a road. It was a dirt road, but he didn’t care. Roads led somewhere; hopefully, this one would take him to a place he could take shelter for the night.

  Slowly, over the next mile, the dirt road grew wider. Then, he realized that he could feel pavement under his boots. He’d never thought that he’d miss that sensation, but he had. Just walking on a man-made surface was absurdly comforting. He wished that the snow wasn’t muffling the sound. Then again, he wished the snow away for a lot of reasons.

  He was nearly half a mile down the paved road when he saw a gigantic lump on the side of it. His heart nearly stopped for a moment before he recognized what it was.

  In Brad’s defense, it had been a while since he’d seen a civilian vehicle—let alone one that was n
early completely cloaked in snow. It looked more like a creature straight out of a science-fiction movie than something that had once been a part of his everyday life.

  A few hundred feet away from that sat a big red SUV. It was a little more recognizable, but its tires were completely sunk in the snow. As he continued walking, he saw more and more cars. They also got closer and closer together.

  “What the hell were you people doing?” Brad wondered out loud. He had a vague sense of where he was now, and he knew that there was nothing around for miles. Especially nothing that would have drawn in people who were running from death. So why had so many people stopped here?

  The answer became clear when he stepped around a big black diesel truck that was stopped in the middle of the road. There were four cars in front of it, blocking both lanes. The truck had barely avoided hitting them, it seemed. The four cars were fused together by what had apparently been one hell of an accident. He doubted that 911 had been prompt in responding to it—if they’d responded at all.

  Toward the end, calls to 911 had simply rung endlessly. There hadn’t been enough people left to man the stations. And even the ones that tried to help weren’t trained. Brad had a feeling that some people who might have survived didn’t because of others who were trying to help. He knew for sure that the virus had been helped along the same way.

  Gruesome curiosity was his only reason for looking into the compact car closest to him. It had been right in the middle of the accident. The hood of the car was underneath the rear tires of the car in front of it and the doors were crumpled. Another car had hit it and spun off.

  A woman’s body was lying inside. She was sprawled across the front seat, her face a mask of dried blood and her head twisted at an impossible angle. Brad guessed that she hadn’t been wearing her seatbelt and had been thrown forward during the accident.

  Then, he saw the supplies in the backseat. Cans of food as well as what looked like blankets or coats. He was reaching for the door handle when he realized that the metal was so crushed that he couldn’t open it.

  Brad stepped back, ashamed of himself. He’d encountered a wreck that had killed every single passenger involved and his first thought was what he could take from them?

  He shook his head, trying to untangle what he needed physically and the things he wanted to be able to say about himself when this was all over. They wouldn’t shake out as clearly as they had in the beginning, though, so he forced himself to move on. He needed a place to get some rest. Even if nothing else was, that much was clear.

  Getting started was harder this time. He couldn’t feel his feet at all now, and his legs were cramping so badly that he could barely get them going in the right direction, but he continued to walk until he found another vehicle further down the road. He leaned against it to catch his breath and when he tried to step forward, his legs simply buckled, sending him to his knees in the snow.

  It wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation, actually. It had happened to him back when he’d first started training for his marathons. There were times when muscle fatigue simply got the better of a person and there was nothing they could do about it.

  Brad sighed, realizing he couldn’t go any further. He’d wanted to walk at least ten miles more than he had, but with the storm, it just wasn’t possible. With any luck, the weather would calm down overnight and he could make better progress in the morning. He gave a bitter laugh. Was he really contemplating luck?

  Then again, the jeep was free of inhabitants and unlocked, so maybe it wasn’t all bad. When he got in and closed the door behind him, the silence that descended felt strange. The wind had been howling around him for so many hours that he felt almost claustrophobic in the confines of the jeep.

  The quiet seemed to press on his ears as he looked through the car, pleased when he found some blankets. Brad pulled off his wet outer layers and spread them over the backseat to dry. Then, he laid the front seat back and covered himself with the extra layers he’d gathered.

  He had thought that he’d lay awake, thinking of Anna and the kids, as he had each night he’d spent in the woods. He’d thought that he’d relive the pain of losing them once more. But he didn’t. Warmer than he’d been since the night the cabin burned, he simply fell into a dreamless, exhausted sleep.

  Chapter 3

  Brad woke up and stretched. It felt pretty good, until his hand met the glass of the jeep’s window. His eyes snapped open at the sudden pain and he swore, smacking his hand over his eyes.

  The sun was out. The sun was out and refracting enthusiastically over all of that beautiful, reflective, snow. He sat up slowly, peeking out from between his fingers as he tried to see how much snow the storm had dropped.

  It didn’t do any good. He still couldn’t see a thing. On a whim, he opened the glove compartment and peered in, shielding his eyes with his free hand. The usual jumble of junk greeted him: receipts from fast food restaurants, the manual for the vehicle, and insurance documents. There were also a few crumpled-up parking tickets. And, causing Brad to whoop in triumph, there was a pair of cheap sunglasses underneath all of that, pushed so far down at the back that he doubted the jeep’s owner had even known they were there. He grabbed them and put them on, sighing in relief.

  Since he’d had such good luck with the glove compartment, he dug around under the seats. He unearthed a few soda bottles, some completely empty and others half-full of frozen soda. He also found a tire repair kit that wasn’t going to do him a damn bit of good.

  He explored deeper, hoping for something to eat and gritting his teeth as unpleasant possibilities played through his mind. The old staple of a hand reaching out and grabbing his was his foremost concern, but the possibility of dead, giving flesh meeting his searching fingers was there, too. What he found instead of any of the old classic horror options was a wallet.

  It was made of dark brown faux leather with an eagle stamped into it. He flipped it open and looked at the driver's license picture. A bearded man looked back out at him. Apparently, his name had been Casey. He was a pretty nondescript-looking guy, but the wallet was pretty fascinating anyway, for one particular reason.

  Either Casey had cleaned out his savings account before hitting the road or he’d been a drug dealer. The wallet was practically stuffed to bursting with cash. There had to be close to three grand in there.

  Brad flicked through it eagerly, counting for a second or two. Then, his fingers went still and a smile quirked his lips. What difference did it really make to know how much was there? Even if it was double what he’d thought, it certainly hadn’t done Casey a damn bit of good. Brad wouldn’t be able to use it as anything more than a fire starter.

  He pushed the money back into the wallet and then shoved the wallet back under the seat. Maybe someone would be able to get some use out of the thing, but it wasn’t him. He was pretty good at starting fires on his own. Either with a flint and steel or through sheer stubbornness, apparently.

  As his grin faded, it dawned on Brad that this was the first time he’d smiled since losing the cabin and his…what would he even call them? They weren’t his family. Hell, from Anna’s actions, she wasn’t even a friend.

  “Thanks for the laugh, Casey,” Brad muttered, shoving down that thought as he pulled the handle and leaned against the car door. It would have been a great exit line if the door had opened, but it didn’t even budge.

  Brad leaned against it with his shoulder, pushing as hard as he could. Maybe the snow had blocked the door. Nothing happened, no matter how hard he shoved. The windows were electric, so he couldn’t roll them down.

  For a second, he felt the sharp acid of panic flow through him. He was a little warmer in here, but there wasn’t any food and he couldn’t afford to wait for the snow to thaw. He wouldn’t survive in this jeep. Then, he remembered the tire kit.

  Brad yanked it up and rested it on the seat beside him, opening it quickly. There was no real rush, but every second he knew he was trapped made him more and more fr
eaked out. Grabbing the jack, he slammed it as hard as he could into the windshield. Much to his relief, a crack spider-webbed over the glass. He slammed the jack into the center of the weak spot and the cracks grew bigger.

  On the third smack, the glass finally shattered. Snow, glass and freezing air rushed into the car as Brad knelt on the seat and climbed out onto the hood. It was only then that he felt a sharp pain. He swore as he felt hot blood gush down into his boot.

  Perched on the snowy hood, Brad pulled his pants leg up to get a better look at the cut. It was long, but it wasn’t deep, which was good because he had no way to stitch it up at the moment. He ripped a strip of his shirt off and wrapped his ankle as best he could, making sure to get the edges of the cut closed while still not tying it too tightly. With this cold, he wouldn’t notice a problem with his circulation.

  Once that was taken care of, he took a breath and looked out over the snowy landscape. It looked like another long day of walking. At least there would probably be another car to shelter in tonight if he kept to the road. That was a pretty sustainable option, actually, as long as he could get into them without breaking any glass. It was a hell of a lot better than trying to sleep in that flimsy tent.

  He slid down the hood and into knee-deep snow, letting out a mirthless laugh as he remembered the snowshoes his father had kept stocked at the cabin. If only Lee could see him now.

  As he trudged along, Brad counted off the miles to keep himself busy. He was so hungry that his head had begun to hurt as well as his stomach. His legs were getting harder and harder to lift. And there were no cars in sight now.

  As the hours passed, Brad realized how stupidly optimistic he’d been at the start of this walk. The snow encased his legs, making them harder and harder to lift. The sun beat down on his head; it wasn’t hot, but even with the sunglasses, everything was painfully bright.