by Lukens, Mark
“They might’ve still had Petra, Zak, Tyrone, and Tamara in one of their vehicles,” Jo said.
“I don’t think so,” Max said, shaking his head. “I can’t help feeling that she got away, that she’s still out there. I think she might need our help.”
“Max, we can’t spare anyone right now. We just . . . we can’t.”
“We can’t turn our backs on her, either.”
“Max . . .” Jo looked at Kate, hoping she would chime in. “Could we talk about this later? We need to check all the doors and tend to the bodies.”
Max stared at Jo for a moment. She wondered if he was going to continue challenging her. She could see it in his eyes, but then he gave a curt nod.
But Jo knew Max wasn’t going to let it go.
CHAPTER 11
Ray
An hour later the snowstorm caught up to them. Ray felt like he was driving into a wall of snow.
“Dad . . .” Mike said, holding on tighter to the armrest of the Jeep.
“I know,” Ray said. He needed to find a place to stop—they couldn’t keep driving too much farther in this storm.
“I saw a gas station up ahead on the right,” Luke said from the back seat.
Ray nodded—he’d seen it too. He slowed the Jeep down to a crawl. The world was whited out only a few feet away; the snow driving toward the windshield reminded Ray of the hyperspace scenes from the Star Wars movies.
“Dad!” Mike yelled, holding on even tighter.
Ray remembered Kim holding on just like Mike was when they had raced out of their subdivision weeks ago—she had been holding on exactly like Mike was now. That day seemed like a million years ago.
Ray saw what had alarmed Mike, a ripper materializing out of the driving snow at the last second, the headlights illuminating the man dressed in soiled rags, his arms out, hands formed into claws, one hand holding a broken-off piece of stick. The ripper looked like a ghost forming from thin air, solidifying from its world into ours. No, not a ghost, a ghoul. Or maybe a demon.
The front of the Jeep clipped the ripper, knocking him back into the swirling snow—here one moment in the glare of their headlights and then gone the next. Ray had slowed down so much that he doubted he had killed the ripper or even knocked him unconscious. If he slowed down much more the rippers might be able to get in front of the Jeep and bog it down.
“We need to get to that gas station,” Luke said. “We can’t drive in this.”
“The rippers,” Mike said.
“They’ll bog us down in this Jeep,” Ray told Mike. And if they drove faster they would eventually hit a parked car or a light pole or run off the road into a ditch, or any other of the countless things they could run into in this snowstorm, things they wouldn’t see until the last second.
“This storm’s only going to get worse,” Luke said.
Ray thought Luke was speaking from experience. He was sure Luke had seen far worse snowstorms and blizzards in Ohio than he’d seen in D.C.
Little by little Ray slowed down and veered to the right, looking for the turnoff into the gas station, but the roads were becoming indistinguishable from anything else with the accumulating snowfall. Luke was right—it was going to get worse as more snow fell. They needed to stop now, take their chances in a building before they wrecked the Jeep and the van. They would be sitting ducks for the rippers in their smashed-up vehicles.
Another ripper materialized out of the snowstorm. Another inhale of breath from Mike. Another clench of Mike’s hands on the armrest of the Jeep.
Ray knocked the ripper out of the way with a soft thump, but the woman managed to whack the hood of the Jeep with a pipe she swung before she was pitched back into the swirling whiteness of snow.
How many rippers were out there in the storm? How many that they couldn’t even see? It was impossible to tell. There could be more rippers in the gas station parking lot, or inside the gas station store.
“There,” Luke said. “I see it.” He was at the passenger side of the Jeep in the back seat, his gun in his hand, looking out the window. “The entrance to the gas station. It looks like the rippers are heading for it too.”
Ray had just seen the building. He turned gently, but he could feel the rear of the Jeep sliding on the slick road. After what seemed like minutes, the Jeep straightened out and Ray felt like he had more control over the truck.
Luke turned around to look out the rear window, looking for the headlights of Josh’s van.
“They still with us?” Ray asked. He grabbed the walkie-talkie and handed it to Mike. “Try to get a hold of them.”
Mike took the walkie in his shaking hands and pressed the button on the side. “Come in, Josh. It’s Mike.”
“We’re here,” Josh said through a blast of static.
“We’re going to a gas station store,” Mike said.
“I see you, buddy,” Josh answered back.
Ray concentrated on the parking lot, staring into the whiteout. A pickup swam suddenly into view a little to the right and Ray swung to the left to avoid it, the rear end sliding just a bit then thumping the pickup, not enough to do any real damage, but enough to rattle them inside the Jeep.
A few seconds later the massive metal awning over the gas station pumps came into view, the poles like the legs of some gigantic creature, the rest of its body lost in a mist.
And to the left of the awning, the outline of the gas station store could be seen. It looked like a bigger building than usual. Maybe it housed more than just the store, maybe a small plaza with other shops and businesses, but Ray couldn’t tell in the storm.
Ray checked the rearview mirror and could just make out the faint glow of the van’s headlights. Josh was staying with them, but still far enough back so he wouldn’t slide into the back of them if Ray had to stop.
“Another one,” Mike shouted, pointing at a ripper appearing in front of them.
Ray’s eyes darted from the rearview mirror back to the windshield—he saw the ripper too late and instinctively braked.
Too hard.
They started to slide and Ray cut the steering wheel into the slide, the driver’s side of the vehicle sliding helplessly toward the two rippers who waited, maybe dumfounded, for the impact that was coming. But the impact was only going to be a love tap.
Luke rolled down his window and aimed his gun with the silencer at the gray blobs in the blizzard—the two rippers.
Spit. Spit.
He got them both in the head, dropping them just before the Jeep slid into their fallen bodies and came to a stop.
“Let’s go!” Luke said, already grabbing the M-16 and the metal box with the two hand grenades and extra ammo inside. He grabbed the packs from the back of the Jeep, throwing two of them over the seats at Ray and Mike.
The inside of the Jeep was an explosion of movement and voices. Ray shoved one of the duffel bags Luke had just thrown up front at Mike. “Get out and go to that building over there. See it?”
Mike nodded, staring back with wide eyes.
“We gotta go, Mike!”
For a second Ray was sure Mike was going to stall, to hesitate and argue about remaining in the Jeep where it seemed safe for the moment.
But he didn’t—he moved into action immediately, tearing off his seatbelt and opening the door, stepping out into the snow and wind.
Ray shut the headlights and engine off, grabbing the keys out of the ignition.
Luke tried to open his door on the passenger side, but the two dead rippers were blocking his way. He crawled across the back seat to the driver’s side and got out.
Ray was out, his pack slung over his shoulder, his gun in his hand. He looked past the rear of the Jeep and saw the shadowy rectangle of Josh’s van sliding to a stop five feet away.
It was a little easier to see now that he was out of the Jeep, but the swirling snow was still masking everything beyond ten feet, and anything beyond twenty-five feet was lost in the blizzard.
Ray stoo
d by the Jeep, watching the van.
“It’s us,” Josh called as he and Emma ran toward the Jeep, their faces and bodies slowly defined as they got closer.
Emma tapped frantically at the snow with her cane.
“Inside the building over there,” Ray yelled at Josh and Emma. “Hurry!”
Ray turned and saw Luke at the front of the Jeep, the M-16’s strap looped over one shoulder, the metal box of ammo and grenades in one hand, his pistol in the other.
“Where’s Mike?” Luke yelled.
CHAPTER 12
Josh
Even through the driving snow Josh could see the expression of horror on Ray’s face. Josh felt his own stab of fear in his heart at the thought of Mike lost in the snowstorm.
“He was . . . I told him to get to the building,” Ray said. “He should be right here.”
Josh heard the roar of a ripper. Close by.
Another one called out.
How many were here, masked by the blizzard? Was it a horde of rippers wandering blindly through the storm, following the sound of their shouting voices? Or maybe it was only a few of them. There was no way to tell.
“More rippers coming,” Josh shouted at Ray and Luke when he was right beside them. Emma held her cane, her other hand gripped in Josh’s hand, holding on tight.
For just a second Josh realized that he was experiencing just a taste of Emma’s world of blindness and the panic it could bring. Even with the reduced visibility Josh still felt blind, helpless to see an attack until it was only a few feet away.
“Let’s get to the building,” Luke said. “Mike has to be there.”
Ray nodded. He and Luke hurried toward the vague shape of the building only ten feet away. Josh squeezed Emma’s hand just a little, his sign that they were on the move again. She fell into step right beside him, swinging her cane back and forth quickly in front of her in case she was about to walk into something. Back and forth. Tap, tap, tap.
Even though the tapping of Emma’s cane was muffled by the snow, Josh thought the sound was carrying easily through the storm somehow, a low and steady drumbeat picked up by any rippers nearby. But he couldn’t tell Emma to stop—he knew she needed to use her cane; it was instinctual to her now.
“It will be all right,” he told her. “We’ll find Mike. We’ll get inside. Get somewhere safe.”
Emma answered by squeezing his hand a little harder.
Josh heard Ray’s voice before he saw him.
“He’s not here,” Ray said. “I don’t see him.”
Luke murmured something, probably trying to calm Ray down.
The side of the building loomed into Josh’s vision to the left, a wall of stucco, then glass windows and a set of glass doors a little farther down, the glass all shattered, the sidewalk and the floor inside the store covered with broken glass.
Josh’s heart sank—the windows had already been busted out. This place wasn’t going to be safe. It had already been ransacked and looted. Whether it had been ransacked by looters or rippers didn’t matter—what mattered was that they weren’t going to be able to get inside the building and lock the doors.
Two rippers ran up to them, materializing out of the snowstorm, each of them carrying some kind of stick, one of the sticks was a metal pipe or maybe a snapped-off golf club handle. They screeched, their kamikaze cry as they rushed them.
Luke shot both of them in seconds, his silenced gun spitting into the snowstorm. Both young men dropped to the ground as sprays of blood mixed into the swirling snow for just a moment.
“Mike!” Ray yelled. “Mike, where are you?”
If Mike had walked away from the building instead of toward it, he’d be lost out there in that blizzard.
“Mike, answer me!”
Josh thought Ray was at the edge of full-blown panic, about to rush into the storm and look for his son—he’d rather die than be without him.
“Dad,” Mike called back. His voice seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, from all around them, the storm insulating them and throwing off the acoustics.
“Mike!” Ray answered, his voice almost hitching. “Where are you?”
“Inside the store.”
Josh saw Mike in the gloom of the store just beyond the metal frames that formed the sections of windows, jagged bits of glass stuck to the insides of those frames.
Josh and Emma followed Ray and Luke down the sidewalk to the wall of windows and doors that used to have glass in them, their packs moving and jostling as they ran. Emma’s cane tapped at the concrete and broken glass, more furious than ever.
More screeches and yells rang out from the storm. More rippers were on their way. A lot of them.
Luke was inside the store first, not bothering with the doors that still looked closed, possibly locked even though a lot of the glass was gone. He stepped over one of the lower metal frames that used to separate the large glass panels before they were all shattered.
“You have to step over this metal bar,” Josh told Emma as he guided her toward what used to be the windows. Their shoes crackled over the millions of shards of glass among the snow, grinding them into the concrete. She tapped at the ground, then at the metal bar. She was up and over the strip of metal in a flash.
They were inside what was once a gas station store, a pretty large store from the look of it. A long counter with two cash registers ran along the wall to the left. Aisles of shelves were in front of them, some of the shelves tipped over. At the far ends were standup coolers barely visible in the gloom. Everything was dark, but Josh could make out enough details to see that any edible food and drinks were gone long ago. The floor was a collage of trash: crushed boxes, old bags, shredded paper, spilled food that were now just dark stains among the trash, broken glass, bits of metal and wood. It looked like someone had opened a hundred household bags full of garbage and dumped it all over the floor.
“Any rippers inside?” Luke asked Mike.
Mike stared back with wide eyes. “I didn’t see any.”
Ray grabbed his son and held him for a moment. “Thank God,” he whispered. “Where did you go?”
“You said to go to the building,” Mike answered, on the verge of breaking down. “I came to the building.”
“I meant to stay together and then get to the building,” Ray said.
Mike just stared at him.
Luke aimed his gun at the windows, backing a few steps away from them.
There were more rippers out in the snowstorm.
“They’re going to get in here soon,” Luke said. “They’ll want to get out of the storm like we did.”
“Let’s get deeper inside the store,” Ray said.
“And go where?” Josh asked.
“Away from the windows,” Ray barked.
Three rippers roared as they ran toward the windows, waving their weapons, one of them throwing a rock, hoping for a lucky hit.
Luke shot all three of them.
But more were coming.
CHAPTER 13
Luke
Luke killed the next two rippers that came from the storm, two humans that had turned into these monsters. He’d gotten both of them in the forehead. They ran right at him. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. But as easy as it was for him to kill them, more were still coming. He had the M-16 and the extra ammo in the metal box, but he wanted to save that weapon and the bullets. He had a feeling they were going to need it at some point in the future.
More rippers were out there, dozens of them at least.
Maybe getting inside this store hadn’t been the best idea, but it wasn’t like they’d had a lot of time to find just the right place. This storm had come on so quickly, like a fast-moving thunderstorm of snow.
At least the storm hampered the rippers’ senses as much as it had theirs—it might have been the only thing saving them from a more organized assault from them.
Ray, Mike, Josh, and Emma moved deeper into the store, past the tipped-over shelving and then pas
t the coolers built into the far wall, looking for a place to hole up, maybe an office or a walk-in cooler, some kind of room they could barricade themselves into. Luke wanted to go with them, but he was hesitant to leave his post at the windows just yet. He could hear the rippers out there, calling to each other, stumbling around in the blinding storm.
“I hope you motherfuckers all freeze,” Luke whispered.
While he waited by the windows, standing next to the wall to keep from being seen, he set the metal ammo box and the M-16 down on the floor. They hadn’t been able to get all the packs from the Jeep, and he thought Josh had only been able to get one of the packs from the van. Maybe when this storm was over they could go out and get the other packs, or maybe if the rippers wandered off.
He wondered if either (or both) of the vehicles had been damaged. Ray had hit quite a few rippers on the road and in the parking lot. He could have damaged the radiator or flattened one of the tires. And eventually the rippers would get inside the Jeep and the van, looking for any food they might find in there.
For just a moment Luke considered going after the packs they’d left in the van and Jeep. Everything they owned in the world was now either on them or in those two vehicles.
More screams and yells came from somewhere in the blizzard. There were more rippers out there than he thought. Maybe they’d been coming this way when the storm started, or maybe the glow of their headlights and the sound of their vehicles had drawn the rippers and they followed them here. At least there were no rippers inside the store right now.
Luke picked up the assault rifle, shouldering it by the strap. Then he picked up the metal ammo box. He backed away from the windows with his gun in his hand, aimed at the windows and glassless doors.
The sound of running feet in the snow, the slapping and thudding of shoes, and maybe even bare feet, heard over the howling wind. The rippers seemed to have come together out there, forming into one army now, and they were coming this way.