Constant Danger (Book 1): Fight The Darkness

by Westfield, Ryan

  Then she felt the impact.

  The oncoming vehicle didn’t hit her straight on. She didn’t know if that was intentional or what. But it seemed like they clipped a rear corner of her truck bed, since her Tacoma went spinning around, about forty-five degrees.

  Her foot stayed on the clutch.

  The truck didn’t stall out.

  Her mind was working overtime. Was there time to get away? Was it possible to drive off?

  She saw a door open in the corner of her eye.

  Everything was a blur. She wasn’t sure where anything was. The only things that seemed concrete were that she was about to be attacked, and that she was in the driver’s seat of her Toyota Tacoma. Everything else, the truck’s placement, the nature of the oncoming assault, all seemed impossibly murky and impenetrable.

  Meg reached for her gun.

  Got it out.

  It felt solid in her hand. It felt anything other than murky and vague. It was solid.

  “Hey! The doors!”

  Her left hand went to the door lock.

  But it was too late.

  Her door was pulled open forcefully.

  Her right hand swung around, trying to get the gun aimed.

  But it was too late.

  A massive beefy hand seized her.

  A massive, strong arm pulled her out of the truck.

  Her head slammed into part of her truck.

  Her gun’s muzzle was aimed the wrong way.

  As she tried to rectify the gun’s position, another hand seized her wrist and pulled hard.

  Pain shot through her.

  The strong, heavy, massive body was against her.

  She bit down hard on something. A finger? A hand?

  No yelp of pain.

  She thrashed against him.

  His fist slammed into her head.

  Her vision blacked out for a split second.

  “This was supposed to be fun,” snarled the man, his big, mean, ugly face right up against hers. “But now this is revenge. My friend’s dead, and he’s the only real one I had.”

  She couldn’t believe it, but there were tears, actual tears, in his vicious eyes.

  He had her gun and he shoved it hard against her temple.

  “One pull,” he snarled, not moving to wipe away the tears, as if he couldn’t even acknowledge their existence to himself, as if he’d locked part of himself away from himself, even though everyone else could see that it was there. “One pull and you’re dead. That’s it. You understand? Just like Jax. Just like Jax.”

  The tears were streaming harder now.

  Meg’s lips were trembling. Her hands were shaking.

  She knew this might very well be the end.

  She tried to think of something poignant, some kind of important last thought.

  But she came up with nothing.

  “But...” the man continued, his snarl deep and monstrous. “...there’s no reason to make this quick. Where’s the fun in quick?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because I can,” came the very honest-sounding answer as he produced a knife with a wickedly long blade.

  He ran the blade’s point across her face. She felt a sharp sting and she tasted blood.

  “That’s just a taste,” he said. “A taste of what’s to come.”

  “Dude, what are you doing?” came another man’s voice.

  “Shut up, Phil, unless you want a taste of this too.”

  “Wasn’t there another one? Someone else in the truck?”

  “Yeah, but I think he ran away.”

  Great, she was all on her own.

  This was the way it was going to be. For the rest of her very short life. All alone.

  “Hey, you hear that?”

  “Shut up, Phil. Shut the hell up. I’m busy here.”

  “I think I heard something.”

  The knife was against her neck and the man was chuckling, a brutal, low, evil-sounding cackle.

  “No,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, his wet, chapped lips pressing horribly against her ear. “This’ll be more fun this way ... more blood...”

  She felt the knife against her upper arm. She felt it break through the skin, punching deep down into the flesh.

  She was going to be tortured to death.

  She struggled, pushing, squirming, thrashing. But it was no use. He was stronger. Much stronger.

  “Dude!”

  Suddenly, there was a noise. Sounded like a home run being hit in T-ball.

  She felt the man moving, his head snapping around to see what had happened.

  Meg had some room to move now, darting her head into position to see what had happened.

  The stranger stood there, something long in his hands. So he hadn’t run away. He’d snuck around, smashed the other guy in the head.

  Her attacker surged to his feet, knife in hand, releasing a noise half between a grunt and a shout.

  The stranger was ready for him, swinging the long pole-like thing. He swung it hard.

  It would have been hard enough to take care of just about anyone.

  But her attacker wasn’t just any man. With a single hand, he caught the pole and held it there. Then, with his other hand, he struck at the stranger with his knife.

  The knife stuck into the stranger’s torso.

  It was time for Meg to act. She had already risen up.

  She stood, for a moment, behind the stranger. Ready to act, but she had no weapons. She had nothing.

  She acted instinctively, rushing forward, her hands wrapping around her attacker’s neck.

  She got a good hold. A strong grip. Then she squeezed. Like she’d never squeezed before.

  The man roared and whipped his arms backward to try to get her.

  But he missed wildly and she just squeezed harder.

  How long did she have to hold on? Thirty seconds? Forty seconds? A full minute?

  Shouldn’t he lose consciousness soon, if she were gripping his jugular hard enough?

  But the seconds passed and her hands roared in pain from the pressure of her grip, but he didn’t pass out.

  He slashed his arm backward again. This time, the knife blade stung her, biting into her flesh, tearing her arm apart.

  She kept her grip strong.

  But it didn’t seem to be working.

  He was still conscious.

  But it was worth it.

  Distracted by Meg, her attacker had loosened his grip on the pole, allowing the stranger to seize it once again.

  With a single, powerful swing, the stranger slammed the pole into the side of the man’s head. The man fell heavily, his body crumpling to the ground, bringing Meg down with it.

  She lay there, gasping for breath, her body full of pain.

  The stranger stood above her, extending a hand down.

  “Thanks,” she said, struggling to her feet.

  He just nodded.

  He was swaying slightly as he stood there, the long pole still in his grip. It appeared to be a long piece of heavy metal, and she supposed that he must have taken it from the back of the other pickup.

  He seemed sort of out of it.

  But he’d proven his usefulness. He hadn’t run away. He’d come back and risked his life to save hers. She’d be dead without him.

  Maybe it was time to team up.

  Her dad was still right. Most people were out to hurt her and take advantage of her. But some weren’t. They were the rare ones, but they were worth trying to find.

  “Come on,” she said. “Check their bodies. I’ll check their truck. Then we’re out of here.”

  “Then we’re out of here?” he repeated, sounding confused.

  “Yeah,” she said. “You’re coming with me, aren’t you?”

  “You’re going to Florida too?”

  “Florida? What the hell? No, the Berkshires.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I was trying to get to Florida.”

  “Are you serious?”

>   “Yeah, of course. That’s where I’m from.”

  “You’ll never make it down there.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right...” There was a long pause. “...I’m not thinking too clearly.... it’ll be more clear when these pills wear off.... can I really come with you?”

  She nodded.

  “All right,” he said. “And don’t worry. I’m not normally like this. You’ll see tomorrow.”

  “That’s if we make it to tomorrow,” she said. “Come on. We can’t waste any more time. Look for anything useful. Weapons. Food. You know the rest.”

  He nodded.

  And they set to work.

  She looked through the other truck. There wasn’t much that was useful. But there were a few knives. And a baseball bat that had been rattling around in the truck bed.

  Her Tacoma was a little worse for wear. But it still worked.

  They got into the cab. Meg started the truck. The engine roared to life.

  The truck had held up well.

  Now she just needed it to hold up a little longer.

  How long until they got to the Berkshires and could hunker down? She didn’t know, but definitely before morning. Maybe three hours, depending on how lost she was now.

  “So the Berkshires?” he said from the passenger seat.

  “That’s the plan.”

  The road in front of them was dark. The night was cold.

  27

  James

  James woke up feeling terrible. He’d never been a big drinker, but he recognized the feeling. It felt like a hangover. A terrible one.

  And on top of that, he was in pain. Very bad pain. His whole body felt like it was on fire. Not just his muscles, not just his joints, but everything. Even his skin hurt, if that was possible.

  He had a pounding headache, as if there were a miniature jackhammer slamming away inside his skull. Every inch of his face hurt, including his eye sockets. His mouth and throat were incredibly parched, as if it had been a few days since he’d had a drop of water.

  He opened his eyes slowly, moving his head the little he could. He wanted to know where he was.

  The events of the day before were swimming murkily around in his mind. Some of it he remembered. Some of it was murky. And most of it seemed like some kind of dream. Or more like a nightmare, really.

  Early morning light was barely breaking through the thick cloud cover in the sky. There were heavy gray clouds that hung low, the same ones that James had grown accustomed to this past semester. Somehow, compared to Florida, the sky and clouds always seemed lower here in Massachusetts.

  “Finally awake?”

  James spun around, wincing and grunting in pain as he did so. Turning around made everything hurt that much worse.

  “Huh?” was all he managed to mumble.

  It hurt even to talk.

  “You’re not looking so great. How do you feel?”

  “Not good,” he muttered.

  He turned to look at her. She was in the driver’s seat and he was in the passenger seat. It was her truck, he remembered. And his own was gone. Long gone.

  There was a sleeping bag, opened along the seam, draped over her. And now he noticed that there was one draped over him as well.

  But despite the bag, he was still freezing. The kind of cold that had sunk deep down into his bones.

  He’d never really gotten a good look at her until now, only seeing her in the harsh lighting of the truck, not natural daylight.

  She was older than him by several years. Maybe as many as ten. But she looked young.

  Her hair was dark blonde and her lips were full.

  Her face looked tired. She probably hadn’t gotten much sleep.

  She looked beautiful. That was the overwhelming impression that James got.

  He averted his eyes, not wanting to stare. It didn’t seem like the time to be appreciating beauty.

  “So where are we?” he said.

  “Almost to the Berkshires,” she said. “You passed out pretty early. I drove for a few more hours.”

  He looked around again, not seeing any trace of a road.

  “Where are we then?” he said, repeating the question.

  “I pulled off the road. The truck’s pretty battered, but it still works fine for a bit of off-roading. I thought it’d be good to get out of sight. Out of the way.... I needed to sleep before continuing and you were too out of it.”

  “Probably didn’t trust me to drive.”

  “Not really,” she said, shaking her head.

  “How come you trust me at all? I mean, how come you brought me along?”

  “You saved me back there,” she said.

  And that was it. End of the discussion.

  “Shit,” James muttered. “This pain is really bad.”

  “Looks like you took quite a beating. Have you seen yourself in the mirror?”

  It was painful to reach up to the mirror on the back of the visor, but he managed it. He flipped the mirror’s cover off and was greeted by the startling image of his own battered face, which was covered in massive black and blue bruises.

  “Shit...” he muttered.

  “Not pretty, is it?”

  He tried to let out a chuckle, but his ribs and chest hurt too much to get any sound out at all.

  Feeling idly around his body with his hands, James discovered that almost everywhere he touched hurt. And he also discovered a bottle of pills in the pocket of a jacket that he didn’t recognize.

  “Huh,” he muttered, examining the bottle. “Pain pills.... oh, yeah...” The memory of the doctor in the store came back to him. “I hope that guy’s all right ... doubt he is, though.... shit. I guess I need to take one of these, or I’m not even going to be able to walk.”

  But before he could get the cap off of the bottle, the woman snatched it out of his hands.

  “Hey!”

  She said nothing, just examined the bottle.

  “Give me that back. I need it. You don’t know how much pain I’m in.”

  “I have an idea,” she said cryptically, stuffing the bottle into a pocket somewhere on the inside of her jacket.

  “What’s the idea here? If you want my help, don’t you want me not to be in pain?”

  “That’d be ideal. But I also need you cognizant of what’s going on. You were too out of it yesterday.”

  “I was not.”

  “Do you remember everything? I mean, really remember?”

  “Uh...”

  James didn’t like to lie. And he found that he couldn’t really remember everything.

  “I guess not,” he muttered.

  “You helped me,” she said. “You saved my life. But I also saved yours. And to be honest with you, I wouldn’t trust you in another situation if you’re going to be on those pills ... so it’s either deal with the pain as it is, or you can take the pills.... if you take the pills, then we’re going to part ways. If not, I think we might be able to work together.”

  “But the pain’s so bad.... I’m not going to be that functional.... I don’t even honestly know if I can walk.”

  “You’re not going to be functional on the pills either ... and what happens when you run out? Trust me, you don’t want to go through withdrawal.... so what’s it going to be?”

  “Not going to give me long to decide, are you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll ditch the pills. I don’t need them anyway. They helped me then ... but.... yeah, I don’t need ’em.”

  “Good,” she said. “We’ll keep them in case one of us gets shot or worse.”

  “Or worse?”

  “You don’t think there’s a condition worse than what you have now?”

  “No, I mean, of course there is, but...”

  “But what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  James was looking at her, and, as he did, he felt fear. Fear of her. He saw that despite her beauty, she could be quite vicious, quite scary, quite
intimidating.

  But there was power in that. Power in being intimidating. Power in being a force to be reckoned with.

  “So no pills?” she said, studying his face carefully. She was looking for confirmation. Looking to be sure that she could trust him.

  He shook his head. “I don’t need that shit,” he said, gritting his teeth against the pain that was already there.

  “Good,” she said. “You’ll get through it. A little bit of pain never hurt anybody.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re right.”

  She was totally right. He needed to pull right through this thing. So he’d suffered some injuries. So what? His bones weren’t broken. At least they probably weren’t. And if they were, they were just minor bones. Fingers and toes.

  Mind over matter. The ancient expression needed to apply to him. He just had to tough it out.

  “So what’s the next step?” said James, forcing himself to talk through the pain. “Should we just stay out here for a few days? Maybe things will settle down.”

  “You think they will?” she said. It was obvious from her eyes that she didn’t think they would.

  “No,” he said. “I guess I really don’t think it will calm down. I don’t see how it can. This is going to be a month.”

  “At the very least,” she said.

  “You think more?”

  “Definitely more. And that’s if things come back online at all.”

  “They’ve got to at some point.”

  She shrugged. “No way to know,” she said.

  “So no to staying here in your truck?”

  “Well,” she said. “These bags are pretty good ones, but they’re not going to keep us warm enough in this truck. Especially not all through the day and next night. Not without running the engine, I mean.”

  “So why don’t we do that?”

  “Fuel,” she said, simply.

  “Fuel?”

  She looked at him like he was stupid. “You think it’s going to be easy to get more fuel?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” he said, thinking about it a little more before speaking again. “I mean, I see what you’re saying, that the pumps aren’t going to be working right? Without power, I mean.”

  “Right,” she said. “So how do you think we’re going to be able to get gas? And don’t say siphon it. You can’t siphon it out of something underground. You know that, right?”