by Lukens, Mark
Something was strange about the three men, about the string of spikes in the road, the way they had been waiting for him. There was something strange about all the other vehicles with the flattened tires—all of those vehicles victims of the spike strips. The whole thing seemed way too organized. Every fiber of Josh’s rational mind screamed at him to run away, to work his way up into the mountains and get away. But there was another part of his mind whispering to him, a part of his mind that he had learned to trust over these last few days—ever since the strange dreams had begun.
For some reason Josh had known that the blind woman from his dreams (he now knew her name was Emma) was close. He told himself that he was waiting to leave until he was sure the coast was clear, but he’d just been lying to himself. He was waiting because he’d known she was close. They were close. He ventured back down to the town below, back down to the main street that ran right through the valley between these mountains. The clouds had moved in, obscuring the tops of the mountains and replacing the sky with a gray ceiling. It looked ready to rain, or even snow, at any moment.
“Coward!” the tweaker had shouted, when Josh was closer to the town. The tweaker hadn’t seen Josh, he was just shouting every so often, hoping his insults would draw him out. “Come on out here and face us like a man, you piece of shit!”
Josh knew a tweaker when he saw one, and that man was jonesing for drugs badly. The other two men were calmer, more disciplined. But at least there were only three of them that he’d seen so far. If there were more of them, Josh was certain he would have seen them by now. But that didn’t mean that more of them weren’t on their way. Obviously these men were in some kind of gang because they all had cute little matching symbols carved into their foreheads—self-mutilation as initiation. What an incentive to join.
After Josh had hidden in a spot just one street above the main street of the town for thirty minutes, he began to scold himself. What the hell was he doing? He should look for a vehicle and leave. He could leave on foot, but walking around once he got out of this town would be too dangerous if he ran across any rippers. He could get a few of them with his shotgun, but if he came across too many of them . . . He shuddered at the thought of that.
If he’d had a rifle, he would have maybe chanced shooting at the three men. He wasn’t the greatest shot in the world, but he was familiar with guns. He might have gotten lucky and hit one or two of them, evened up the odds a little. But then he had a better idea. He’d had to search through three houses until he found two glass jars, a shirt he tore into strips, and a plastic container of gasoline next to an old lawn mower in a woodshed. He made Molotov cocktails, just like the kind Isaac used to make. He was going to light the cloth strip and throw them at the men. They wouldn’t see the cocktails coming until the last second.
He knew he just needed to get a little closer, down to the main street so the men were in range of his homemade fire bombs.
As soon as he was down by the main street, he heard a vehicle approaching. It was coming fast, speeding towards the town. And Josh knew why—he’d done the same thing on his long drive down here from Pittsburgh, driving quickly enough through towns so the rippers couldn’t latch onto his electrician’s van.
Josh watched the slight bend in the road at that end of town, where the businesses thinned out and the woods began. And then he saw the vehicle, some kind of luxury SUV. He wanted to call out to the driver, warn the person of the trap he or she was speeding towards, but it was futile. He watched helplessly as the SUV ran right over the strip of spikes, the tires blowing out, the vehicle skidding across the street on the flattened tires, the screech of metal scraping across the pavement. Then the SUV slammed into one of the parked cars, but its momentum had slowed enough that the impact wasn’t that bad. A moment later Josh watched as a man got out of the SUV. He helped a woman, and then the man’s son raced around the vehicle to join the other two. Again, he wanted to call out to them, wanted to warn them about the three men who had set the trap, but he was too far away. And if he warned them, he would give his position away.
No, he had a better idea. He just hoped those three would survive long enough for his plan to work.
As Josh worked his way down through the trees and yards to the street behind the main street, darting from a fast-food restaurant towards the line of buildings, he never saw the three run into the mattress store. But he was in position behind one of the vehicles, watching as the window of the mattress store exploded and the three escaped, running down the sidewalk, trying to get away. But Josh knew the gray-haired man would be waiting for them. He watched the other two men, the tall man and the tweaker running up the sidewalk after the three of them.
He had waited as long as he could after the men had marched the three of them back to their vehicle. He’d heard the gray-haired man ask them about the other one with them, but the man had no idea what they were talking about. But now Josh was close enough to the three of them that he recognized the woman from his dreams. His heart had lurched at the sight of her, the angel who had come to him, who had saved him, who had told him to go back into the living room of his sister’s apartment so he could wake himself up. She had saved his life. He had to save them now.
And now he stood here in the street, staring at the three of them.
“I’m Josh Hooper,” he told Emma, and then he looked at the man.
“I’m Ray Daniels,” the man said. “This is my son Mike. Thank you for helping us.”
Josh couldn’t help smiling. It felt like he was meeting some long-lost members of his family. This felt like the first good thing that had happened to him since that horrible Friday morning he’d left Marla and Kyle to go get the medicine from the pharmacy. “Ray,” he said, repeating the name and nodding. He looked at Ray’s son. “And you’re Mike. I’ve seen you guys in my dreams, too.” He realized how crazy that had just sounded, but he didn’t care.
Ray just nodded. “I know. I’ve seen you, too.” He lowered his gun down to his side, glanced down at it like he didn’t even know why he was still holding it. “Sorry. I . . . I . . .” He nodded down at the gun in his hand and let his words go unfinished.
Josh walked towards the three of them. He was staring at Emma again; he couldn’t stop staring at her.
Ray was still tense as he glanced up and down the street. “We should probably get out of here. There might be more of these guys around.” His eyes rested on the SUV he’d driven into town for just a moment. “We can’t use that anymore.” He looked back at Josh. “Do you have a vehicle?”
“I drove that van over there,” Josh said, pointing at the electrician’s van. It was as useless as Ray’s SUV. “But I think I know where we can get another vehicle.”
CHAPTER 7
Ray
Ray felt a slight easing of his tension. Two of the three men were dead, and the junkie was surely dying now—he hadn’t moved much from his face-down position on the street, and now he had stopped moaning. Maybe he had finally passed out.
The threat of those three men was over for the moment, but there were still other threats. Obviously the three men were part of a larger group, a group that carved the letters D and A into their foreheads, a group that reported to the shadowy man who haunted Ray’s dreams. It was almost too unbelievable for Ray to believe that these guys were working for a man he saw in his dreams, a man who obviously wanted to capture him and the people he was with, but he didn’t have the time to ponder that right now; he had to accept the unbelievable as fact for the moment. The other threat, the constant threat in this new world they now inhabited, were the infected—the rippers. As his tensions eased, his analytical mind took over, and he began a list of priorities in his mind, important things that needed to get done in order, items that needed to be checked off the list. And right now the first thing they needed was a vehicle so they could get out of this town.
“Where’s this vehicle you’re talking about?” Ray asked Josh.
Josh pointed up
at the homes that dotted the hillside, the hill rising sharply behind the main street, the top of it shrouded in the low-hanging clouds. “I didn’t see a particular vehicle, but there are a lot of them up there. Has to be one we can use.”
Ray nodded. It was going to take some time to find a vehicle with a set of keys and a live battery, but he was sure they would find one. “Okay.” He looked at the mattress store down the street. “Our backpacks are still in there. We need to get them.”
Josh was looking down the street, but not at the mattress store, at something else.
“What is it?” Ray asked him.
“These guys, they must have some kind of truck or something, some kind of vehicle that they’ve been loading up with the stuff they’ve taken from these vehicles.”
Ray nodded.
“See that box truck way up there?” Josh said, pointing.
“Yeah,” Ray answered. “Looks like some kind of U-Haul truck or something.”
“I think that’s it. That’s their truck. I think we should check it out.”
“We can’t take that,” Ray said immediately, but he wasn’t dismissing the idea completely in case they couldn’t find another vehicle. “There’s four of us. We can’t all fit in the cab of the truck.”
“Yeah,” Josh said. “But we could at least see what they’ve got in there.”
“We’ve got plenty of supplies in the Suburban,” Ray said, hitching a thumb back at the SUV he’d driven into the town. “Food and water.”
“Yeah, but maybe they’ve got some other things. Like more guns.”
Ray glanced down at the gun in his hand. He had already shoved the junkie’s gun down into the waistband of his pants. He looked at the shotgun in Josh’s hand. “Is that the only gun you’ve got?”
“Yeah. I found it . . .” He glanced at Mike. “I found it in an empty house.”
Ray knew there was more to Josh’s story, gory details he didn’t want to talk about in front of a child, so he didn’t press him. It didn’t change the fact that Josh was right. They could at least check the truck out. Ray remembered his recent promise to himself in the mattress store to find a gun to protect Mike and Emma with. “Let me get our backpacks first.”
“Dad, I need to get something from the truck,” Mike said with a sudden urgency.
“What is it?”
“Just . . . just something we need.”
Ray didn’t want to waste time arguing with Mike. He figured Mike wanted his comic book, a leftover from the normal world he could cling to. He nodded at Mike and his son ran to the SUV.
Ray looked at Josh. “Can you go with Mike and Emma to the Suburban while I get our packs? Cover them in case anyone else is around.”
Josh nodded. “Of course.” He looked at Emma. “Emma?” He held a hand out for her. “Your hand?”
Emma smiled and took his hand. They walked to the SUV. Mike already had the back door open, rooting around inside.
Ray hurried up the street and darted between a car and truck to get to the mattress store. The door was still locked, so Ray had to enter through the shattered window. The junkie must have followed them out through the window when they had escaped the store earlier. Inside the mattress store, Ray worked his way deeper into the darkness. That now-familiar tingling of fear danced along his skin. He was worried rippers were hiding in here. But at least he had a gun now—two guns, really. But he didn’t really even know how to use them. Still, it felt better just to have them.
He found their backpacks. He slipped his on and carried Mike and Emma’s packs. He unlocked the door and left the mattress store.
Ray met up with Josh, Mike, and Emma in the street near the SUV. He noticed that Mike was holding the CD player and the pack of CDs he’d gotten for Emma from Craig’s house, the gift he had given her. He felt a surge of emotion locking up his throat, burning his chest. Even after the trauma they had just experienced, Mike didn’t want Emma to lose her music; he was still thinking about her after all the shit they’d been through. He handed the packs to Mike and Emma, and they slipped them on.
“What about that tweaker over there?” Josh asked, hitching a thumb at the half-burnt man lying in the street.
“Tweaker?”
“Yeah, the pill-head. The drug addict. I think he might still be alive.” Josh walked over to the man and nudged him with his foot, aiming his shotgun down at the man.
The junkie moaned, but didn’t move.
“Hey,” Josh yelled at the man. “Who are you guys?”
Ray looked at Mike and Emma. “Stay here,” he told them, and then he went over to Josh and the junkie.
“Answer me,” Josh said. He pushed the man’s arm with his foot again.
The junkie moaned, but this time it wasn’t as loud.
“Hold on,” Ray said. “You keep kicking him like that and he might pass out.”
Josh nodded and stepped back.
Ray pulled his pistol out and crouched down beside the man. “Hey, we need some answers.”
The junkie wasn’t answering. The left side of the man’s body was scorched, the clothing burned away, the skin charred black in some places, the edges of those areas red. His left hand was blistered, that side of his face blackened and disfigured, a lot of the hair burned off. His eyes were closed, but he was inhaling and exhaling quick and shallow breaths.
“Who are you guys with? What does DA mean? How many more of you are there?”
Ray waited for answers.
The man didn’t utter a word or even a moan.
“I don’t think he’s going to say anything,” Josh said.
Ray stood up and looked at Josh. “Should we just leave him here?”
“He’s not going to last much longer,” Josh said and glanced up at the steep hills all around them. “I guess it’s barbecue night for the rippers.”
Ray and Josh left the tweaker, as Josh called him, on the street. They joined Mike and Emma.
The four of them walked down the street, getting closer to the box truck, which was still almost two blocks away. But Ray saw something on the sidewalk just after the intersection.
“Hold on a minute,” Ray said. “I need to go grab something.”
Josh waited with Mike and Emma as Ray darted over to the sidewalk and picked up Emma’s foldable walking cane. She would need this. He saw his golf club lying a few feet away, the one the “tweaker,” had tossed away. He thought about grabbing the club—it was the weapon he’d used to kill his first ripper. But he decided against it.
A few minutes later they reached the box truck. It was parked in front of a small supermarket that looked to have been looted days ago, the front doors broken, the windows shattered, the parking lot a sea of garbage, papers, and tipped-over shopping carts. A side street led off the main street across from where the truck was parked, and that street led up into the zigzagging roads along the hillside and the homes and neighborhoods. Ray could imagine those homes lit up at night, dots of light on the dark hillside on the outskirts of town. He thought it might have been quite beautiful. Now the homes looked like they’d been abandoned for years, a haunted ghost town in the middle of the mountains. Everything felt gray and dead, lost and hopeless.
The back of the box truck was open, and it was halfway filled up with supplies: boxes and bags, duffel bags, backpacks, suitcases, cardboard boxes, paper bags, even pillow cases stuffed with food and clothing. Beside the truck there was a huge pile of clothes and other items that had been tossed aside by the three men, items that held no interest for them.
Josh was already running towards the front of the truck. “I’ll check the front,” he yelled out.
Ray didn’t say anything as Josh took off to the cab of the truck. He glanced back at Mike who still held the CD player in one hand. He also had his comic book rolled up and sticking up from the back pocket of his pants. Emma stood right beside him. They both looked cold and weary, but still alert and tense. “We’ll go up into those hills and find a vehicle. Drive it
back down here before we leave town. Grab some of this stuff.”
He looked back at the truck and saw a pile of weapons lying together at the side wall of the truck: a few shotguns and rifles, and about fifteen handguns. Boxes of bullets and shotgun shells. They would take those when they came back, too.
What was taking Josh so long?
Ray went to the front of the truck. The passenger door was wide open and Josh was inside, hunting around. It looked like he had just stuffed something into his jacket pocket when he turned around to get back out of the vehicle.
“You find something?” Ray asked.
Josh jumped out of the cab, smiling at Ray. “No, not really.”
“What were you looking for up here?”
Josh shrugged, at a loss for words for a moment. “I was looking for some clues. Trying to find out who those guys are. Where they’re from. Where they’re going.”
“But you didn’t find anything?”
“No. Nothing.”
Ray was quiet for just a moment, staring at Josh. He knew Josh had just lied to him, but he didn’t want to confront him about it after the man had just saved their lives. “There’s a lot of stuff we can take in the back. Some guns and food. Water. We should go get a vehicle first. Drive it back down here and get the stuff before we leave.”
“Sounds like a good plan, boss.”
CHAPTER 8
Ray
Ray, Mike, Emma, and Josh walked up the street into the hills, leaving behind the businesses, churches, stores, and bars. They walked past homes in the silence. Ray was tense, bracing himself to see or hear a ripper.
“That looks like a good one,” Josh said, pointing at an older black Chevy Trailblazer parked in front of a two-story, wood-framed home.