Around ten that night we drove with the windows cracked so we could listen for the helicopter. As we neared the neighborhood a red laser was momentarily focused in our direction before turning off. Jerod appeared out of the dark holding a rifle. Dan showed up next rushing to open a garage of one of the vacant cabins for Jessie to pull into. After unpacking while using a small flashlight we huddled around out front of the cabin with the door wide open.
“What in the world were you driving around at night with the headlights off?”
“Sorry would have called first if we had a phone. We were attempting to blend in with the surroundings to keep the ninjas unaware of our presence. We missed you guys so much that we decided to make the long trip from California using the last of our vacation time.” Everyone was smiling at my witty banter.
“Rye you are quite the character. You did come at a good time though.”
“Oh? Is tomorrow the pancake festival?”
“It can be if you want to run the griddle funny guy. I have the pancake mix, just needs water. Actually we have been doing our best to avoid sending out smoke signals for the helicopter to spot. The thing I was trying to mention though is that David is close to completing a solar powered device with enough output to run the scanner. He tried explaining the details. I was pretty much lost after the first sentence. I did catch that he needs a small part from an electronic store. Was about to come find you. What do you want to do?”
-4-
A trip into the city was probably the worst thing to do. Unfortunately, we really needed that part if David could get the scanner working. Tonight was as good a night as any if David was awake. Star answered the door looking perplexed to see all of us standing out front.
“Everything alright Rye?”
“Everything’s fine. Sorry if we woke you. Is David awake?”
“Sadly yes, he’s been doing his best to keep me awake playing Pokemon.”
“Well, we can get him out of your hair for a while so you can get some sleep. We need to take a trip to the city. Pretty sure even if David described what he needs to get the scanner running we would end up bringing back the wrong part.”
‘I’ll go get him. You realize that I definitely won’t sleep until you make it back safely right?”
“We’ll make it a quick trip then.”
She walked off into the darkness. David appeared shortly with a backpack ready to go. It was decided that Jessie, David, and I would make the trip using the S.U.V. Knowing that the Alluring Gadgets near Main Street was out, David suggested a smaller electronic store in a more secluded part of town.
As we drove the previous experience I had with Jerod the night we drove into town was apparently not a fluke. Fallen began to follow us as we drove. Nearing the electronic store I was about to suggest abandoning the mission altogether. David must have read my mind.
“When you get there pull around the back real quick. I’ll jump out while you continue driving to distract them. Come back in ten minutes at the front door. I’ll jump back in really fast and we’ll be done.”
“It’s too risky David. If even one of them sees you then you’ll be up a creek without a paddle.”
“Trust me. I’ll be fine. I’ve done this a hundred times. I only got trapped that one night because Starlette and Michael were with me making too much noise. I’m a fast runner and an excellent climber.”
“I don’t know. Anything could happen.”
“Sweetie, I know you’re being protective. We do need that part though as you pointed out. If he says he can do it maybe we should let him try. Our options are somewhat limited. Before you suggest going with him I have to say that statistically his chances are better on his own given the circumstances.”
I looked back seeing that at around ten Fallen where lurking behind us.
“Fine. We need to make some distance from the group behind us though.”
Arriving at the block with the electronic store Jessie gunned the accelerator flying into the parking lot. At an unsafe speed she swerved around the corner to the rear of the building. David shot out of his door springing into a dumpster before we took off back the direction we had come from. We surprised the gathering Fallen that had been tailing us driving straight for them. We veered off after striking one that was sent airborne. Watching in the mirror I saw that none attempted to head towards the back of the building. They all continued to follow behind us since Jessie had slowed down to keep their attention. When they tried to run after us she sped up until they slowed down. I kept an eye on my watch as the seconds dragged by sluggishly. At eight minutes I told Jessie to give her time to make it back. Speeding a little we arrived back right at ten minutes. Parked out front for a full minute the Fallen would be catching up any second. I threw open the passenger door jumping out.
“Come back in exactly thirty minutes. If I’m not here go back to the cabins. If I don’t show up in a day make everyone pack. Tell Dan to take everyone to my house in Texas.”
Two of the Fallen were now five feet away. They began running towards me. I shot both in the head after slamming the door. Jessie gunned the engine taking off down the street making noise to get their attention. I ran around the side making my way to the back. As I turned the corner I came face to face with a Fallen. Not having time to think I kept running knocking him down. I slid to a halt putting all my weight into crushing its skull beneath my boot. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. I found a broken window above a parked car that David had probably used to get inside. I made my way up and through the window into a rancid smelling restroom. On exiting the bathroom I heard a loud scratching noise coming from across the store. Crouching I made my way towards the noise. A loud thud made me freeze momentarily. I continued moving forward until I was an aisle away from the sound. I crept as silently as I possibly good until I reached the very end. Barely peaking around the corner I saw a female Fallen clawing on a door. Deep scratches were covered in blood on the wood from where she had broken off her finger nails trying to tear through the door. As I started to creep up from behind the thing slammed its head against the door making a thud like I had heard earlier. Something crunched under my right foot when I was about two foot away. It spun around seeing that I was pointing a gun in its direction. Before I could get off a clear shot it took off down one of the aisles.
“David, you in there? You alright?”
“Rye! I’m fine. It was in the restroom when I broke in. She grabbed ahold of me. In the struggle to keep her from biting me I dropped my gun. I barely got away. I was too fast for her to catch again even though she tried for a good five minutes around the store.”
“Listen she is still running around. Stay in there for now. I’ll be back.”
“Will do. Be careful it’s one of the smart ones.”
I had figured as much from how it reacted to seeing the gun. I turned on a small light and the red dot laser on my gun. Making sure the silencer was snuggly in place I stood up. A foot away from the aisles I began side stepping to check each row. Ready to pull the trigger at a moment’s notice I continued all the way to the end without any sign of the thing. Goosebumps started rising on my skin. My instincts told me that it was extremely close by. A million horror movies flashed in my head. I never spun around so fast in my life. It was crouched in the corner of the store hissing at the light from my gun. It swiftly came at me with a unhuman bloodlust. Taking careful aim I shot her right as she came in reaching distance. A pool of coagulated blood oozed onto the floor. I went back to the door telling David it was safe to come out. He opened the door eating from a bag of peanuts.
“What? It’s a break room. I was hungry. Running burns off a lot of calories.”
I simply shook my head. I told him to hurry and find whatever it was that he had come for. He took off with a flashlight for five minutes before returning.
“Is Jessie coming back for us?”
“She is supposed to be in about fifteen more minutes. Are there any more of
those peanuts?”
“There’s a whole box. I also found several boxes of Skittles and cheese crackers without expiration dates. Stuffed it all in my backpack. Which one you want?”
“Now that there is an option I’ll take Skittles. You’re probably too young to remember but several thousand people were killed by some illness from peanuts. Never really trusted them since then regardless of what the media or government said.”
“Yep, before my time. That was around twenty-five years ago according to the science book I read it in. Peanuts are one of Starlette’s favorite foods so I never shared the story with her. I learned to like them so we would have another thing in common.”
“Sounds like you have liked her for a long time. Why haven’t you ever asked her out?”
“Mostly the fear of rejection for many years. Then we became such good friends I was afraid to lose that. Just when I finally got up the courage to ask her the world went apocalyptic. Her parents died followed by her brother here recently. Seems like fate doesn’t want us together I suppose.”
“Kid, fate is only what we make it. It’s true you can’t control every aspect of what will happen in the world around you. However, every action we choose defines us. Think of it this way. On one hand you could express your feelings. Maybe spend a short time or a long time in love. On the other hand something bad happens. You lose the one you silently loved and never even shared the secret of how deeply you cared for them. It eats away at you for the rest of your life.”
“Rye, I think I’ll tell her if we make it back.”
“You mean when we make it back! I choose to live. I choose to do whatever it takes to make it home to those I love. That’s how you should always think. Be the glass is half full type of person. Not the glass is half empty.”
“You know I think your words are better than any of the fortune cookies I ever read.”
I couldn’t help laughing which made David break into laughter also. At two minutes until I told Jessie to return we headed out of the break room for the front door.
“There she is! She just stopped at the end of the block.”
“Wait something isn’t right.”
“What do you mean?”
“The headlights are on.”
As we watched Jessie’s S.U.V. spun its tires taking off from the end of the block. It flew right by the store doing about sixty. Twenty seconds later an armored camouflage Humvee flew by heading in the same direction.
“Shite! We have to make our own way back. I see a few Fallen out there in the shadows across the street. We had better take the back way out.”
“Let me grab something real quick”
I followed him down one of the aisles. He picked up a handful of small personal alarms. They were the kind that emitted a loud noise when you clicked a button. You had to click them again to turn them off.
“Not bad. Those might come in handy. Stick close to me once we get outside. Let’s try to find a car with keys.”
“And that has gas!”
“Yes, that would be nice too.”
We exited through the window lowering ourselves down onto the roof of the car in the alley. Sadly it had no keys we could find. Jumping a couple fences from the alley we made our way one block over. I spotted a small gray car parked nearby. Looking inside I didn’t see any keys. As I started to walk away David called out for me to wait. He hopped into the driver seat reaching over to grab a tiny plastic box with magnets from the under the glove box. He opened it producing a key.
“Nice find. Scoot over. I’m driving. I’ll teach you how another day.”
“I’ll remember you said that!”
Automatic headlights came on when I started up the car. I was reaching down to figure out how to shut them off when David called out my name. Glancing over I saw he was pointing in front of us. I turned finding an extremely large Fallen lumbering at a great rate of speed towards us only a few feet away. It looked like a three hundred pounds linebacker that would have no trouble coming right through the front windshield. Throwing the car in reverse I backed down the block spinning the car around. I took back streets after figuring out how to turn off the lights. For at least thirty minutes I drove fifty mph to make sure we lost any assailants. Back in the neighborhood I got halfway down the block before seven people swarmed in from different directions with guns pointed at the car. I put the car in park raising my hands. David followed my lead. Flashlights came on a moment later.
“It Rye and David,” a man’s voice called out.
“About time! You had me worried sick!” This voice I immediately recognized as Jessie’s.
“You’re one to be talking with the high speed chases Jess.”
Stepping out of the car we were greeted with hugs and pats on the back. Sam hopped in the car pulling it into one of the empty garages. Everyone convened to headquarters.
“Did you get a look at the guys who were chasing after you?”
“Unfortunately not. I was driving around killing time not paying as much attention as I should have been. The next thing I know I’m on the opposite side of town near the airport. Floodlights came on and that APV came out of nowhere. I lost them near the casinos barely making it past a horde of Fallen. Ran over a couple while weaving around the large groups.
“They sure didn’t seem friendly. Sooner you get that scanner running David the sooner we can get some Intel on our newest neighbors. If they are dangerous then they are going to be out in full force looking for us. I’m afraid we are going to have to make some hard choices.”
“Option one is we pack up, leave town, and don’t look back right?”
“Exactly, Jess. That is the only for sure way we can guarantee there are no causalities on our side. That means we would be leaving behind everything we have put our efforts and hard work into building here. However, it’s not like we can’t do it all over again. The second option is making contact which could be a good thing or a very bad thing. The last option is reconnaissance followed by digging our hills in for a long fight. We will likely lose lives. I won’t sugar coat it we all might lose our lives.”
“You failed to mention one thing. If we take option one what guarantee is there that others won’t come along that are a danger. Do we simply keep running, keep rebuilding, and hope that eventually we will find a place that no one will bother us? And what about the Fallen? They are just as dangerous if not more. If we leave then we are going to have to deal with that danger all over to secure a safe haven.”
“You’re absolutely right. There’s a fair assumption that if we take that route we could just as easily lose lives. Whatever choice we make is going to be a difficult one to follow.”
It started as everyone voicing their opinions, but quickly turned into raised voices arguing over what the best choice would be. I stepped in before things got to out of hand.
“Everyone please! Fighting amongst ourselves is not going to solve anything. We will decide as we have always done with a vote. However, this time around if you don’t agree with the majority then you have the choice to go your own separate way if you choose to. Agreed?”
There was a little more grumbling, but they calmed down considerably. We commenced to voting by raising our hands. There were five hands for leaving, two for making contact, and five for the last option.
“Since we have a tie vote I am let me make a compromise. First option we leave. Second we stay. If we stay then we monitor, do recon, send one volunteer to meet with them, and if that ends badly then whoever wants to leave can. Those that want to fight will stay.”
After rephrasing the options everyone appeared to be in deep thought. When asked to vote a second time it was unanimous eleven to one to stay. Although the new way allowed everyone to leave at some point I was doubtful that anyone would freely volunteer to be the one that met with the other group. In all likelihood we would end up leaving after doing reconnaissance.
Over the next couple days we pinpointed two different channel they us
ed for communication. Anyone monitoring had to write down the details because they definitely had someone with military experience doing the talking in code. Jessie was able to decode most of what they were saying so that the rest of us could understand. On the fourth day Jessie asked me to call another meeting after nightfall.
“We are running low on food in our household,” Todd said.
“Not a problem. I have some that we can spare.” Jessie glanced in my direction knowing as well as I did that it wouldn’t be long before everyone was running short on food including us.
Kurt asked, “So what does Intel say about the other group?”
“From everything that I have overheard they are searching for something that an individual was working on for the government. Sounds like some kind of weapon they plan to use on the Fallen. Not sure of the specifics of the weapon itself. Chances are that it is something biological which would also harm any humans in the fallout area dispersed. How big of an area the fallout will be is a huge unknown factor. If they complete the project it could potentially kill all of us. They have also mentioned containment of any survivors that are found. That may sound like a good thing but I promise it is not. They will poke and prod with needles and questions for as long as they choose to. What they will do when they are done is questionable. This group has a lot of military or law enforcement experience, but not all of them. Some of them are likely mercenaries for hire supplied by foreign powers. That being said we are looking at a much bigger group located elsewhere which sent them here.”
Jessie downed a bottle of water after her long debriefing. I stood up from the table we sat around to stretch. I looked over the group before choosing my words carefully.
“Things are not looking in favor of staying for any reason. This is a force we don’t have the manpower to fight against. It is also apparent that meeting with them is not advisable. However, we will stick with the plan for reconnaissance as agreed before we make a final decision. We need to access their numbers, fire power, and anything else we can as quickly as possible. It will have to be a small team. Getting to a safe location near the airport will be difficult, potentially life threatening with all the Fallen about. Now is the time to decide who is going. Are there any volunteers?”
Darkness Falls (Book 1): Rise of the Fallen Page 11