by Lukens, Mark
The boy’s eyes had widened in surprise when Luke had seen them. The boy had said, “It’s him.” And now Luke realized what the kid had meant by that. The boy had recognized him just like he had instantly recognized the boy. Luke recognized all of them, but for just a few seconds he wasn’t sure from where. He had been concentrating so much on shooting at the Humvee and the men on the roof, concentrating on keeping the Dark Angels from shooting back and covering the four of them so they could get to the restaurant.
But now it came to him. It was the blond woman that sparked his memory—he’d seen her in his dreams. She had come to him right after he’d seen Wilma, she had told him to travel south and find them. And he had gone south . . . right into this mess.
Luke kept low as he moved deeper into the restaurant, hurrying over to the four people from the SUV. “You guys okay?” He nodded down at the scrawny man’s arm—it was soaked with blood. “You get shot?”
The man shook his head no. “This is from before.” He lifted his wounded arm a little, pieces of blood-soaked cloths tied to it. “A ripper stabbed me.”
Luke just nodded. He couldn’t help staring at the four of them, especially the blond woman. She was as beautiful as he had remembered from his dreams. She seemed to be looking right back at him through her dark glasses, or at least she sensed that he was staring at her.
“I’ve seen you before,” Scraggily Beard said.
Luke nodded at the man. “I’ve seen you, too.”
“My name’s Josh,” the man said. “This is Ray. That’s his son Mike. And she’s Emma.”
Ray nodded and Luke nodded back at him.
“I’m Luke.” He looked back at Emma—he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. It felt like he was looking at some mythological creature, a creature that shouldn’t exist. But she was real. He wasn’t crazy. The people he kept seeing in his dreams these last few nights were real. “Emma,” he said. “You told me to come south. You told me to find you guys.”
Emma didn’t say anything.
“She can’t remember her dreams,” Mike said.
“What do you mean?”
“You have been seeing each other in your dreams,” Emma explained. “And I’ve been there in a way, but I don’t remember it.”
“It was her subconscious.”
Luke stared at Mike. “What?”
“It’s a long story,” Ray said. “Right now I think we’ve got other things to worry about.”
Luke glanced back at the windows and glass door that hardly had any glass in it anymore. The tables and chairs were in front of the opening, but they made a poor barricade. The Dark Angels hadn’t started shooting again; it seemed like they were just waiting right now. He looked back at Emma. “You told me to come south and find you guys. Well, I’m here. What are we supposed to do now?”
“She doesn’t know,” Ray answered for Emma protectively.
“I don’t see things in my dreams,” Emma said.
Luke cringed inside—he hadn’t meant it like that.
“But I feel things,” Emma continued. “I feel like we need to be together. I feel like we’re stronger together, that we can defeat what’s out there by being together.”
“The Dark Angels?” Luke asked.
“Dark Angels?” Ray said.
“Yeah, that’s what that gang out there calls themselves. You see the DA symbols they paint everywhere and carve into their foreheads? That’s what the D and A stand for, Dark Angels.”
“I thought the DA stood for dumb asses,” Josh said.
Mike barked out a laugh. Even Emma cracked a smile. But Ray was stone-faced as he stared at Luke. “How do you know they call themselves Dark Angels?”
“Because I questioned one of them.”
“Questioned them how?”
Luke could tell that Ray was suspicious, so he explained as quickly as he could. “I’m from Cleveland. I was trying to get out of the city when . . .” he gestured at the air “. . . when all of this happened. The collapse, that’s what Wilma called it. I met Wilma in a house we were trapped in. Rippers all around us. But we made it out of there.” He decided to skip the part about how Wilma tried to rob him; they didn’t need to know that part of it. No one did. He would never dishonor her memory like that. “Wilma was part of a militia in Ohio. Kind of like doomsday preppers. She took me to one of their safe houses, where we stayed for a few days. And then we traveled south to West Virginia because they had a big camp down there. But we saw the Dark Angels along the way. We got away from them a few times, but when we got close to the Ohio River . . .” Luke stopped for a moment, his throat threatening to close up. “They were waiting for us. They shot her. Killed her.”
The four of them stared at Luke, none of them saying anything.
Luke felt the tears trying to well up in his eyes. He cleared his throat. “I still made it to their camp with her.”
“You took her . . .” Josh didn’t finish his sentence, but Luke knew he’d been about to say the word “body.”
“Yeah,” Luke said. The word was a whisper. He cleared his throat again. “She wanted to be there at the camp, and I wasn’t going to leave her body for the rippers. That camp was her new home. Her militia was there. Her friends. Her brother Matt.”
“Is the camp near here?” Ray asked with hope.
“It’s about forty miles north of here,” Luke told him. “I’ve spent the last two days traveling south.”
“What kind of camp is it?” Ray asked.
“It’s not really a camp. It’s more like a fortress with a big wall around it. There are probably twenty buildings inside. They have gardens and livestock, guns and supplies, food and water.”
“So that place is safe,” Ray said. “We could go there. We should go to this fortress.”
CHAPTER 25
Luke
Luke needed to slow Ray down right now. He shook his head at the man. “I’m not going back there.”
“Why not?” Ray looked shocked, but even more than that he seemed to be disgusted by Luke’s irresponsibility. “It’s a safe place.”
“They wanted me to stay,” Luke said. “And who knows? If Wilma was still alive, then I might have stayed. But I couldn’t stay there. Everything about that place reminds me of her.” He didn’t add that everything there also reminded himself of his failure to protect Wilma.
Ray seemed frustrated that Luke wasn’t immediately bending to his will, that he wasn’t seeing the common sense solution to their problem. “We’ve all lost people.”
Luke clenched his mouth shut, his jaw muscles bulging as he clenched his teeth together for a second. “You want to go there? Be my guest. I’ll draw you a map.”
“Yeah, I think we’d like that.” He glanced at Emma.
Emma didn’t say anything, but Luke swore he could feel that Emma didn’t want to go back north. She wanted to head south for some reason, that’s what she’d said in the dreams.
“Well, before we start making plans, we need to get out of here,” Luke told Ray.
Ray locked eyes with Luke. “You said you questioned the Dark Angels.”
“Yeah, and then I killed them. I killed every one of them that was there, including the one who had killed Wilma. One of them, the last one, I made him talk. I made him tell me who they were and what they wanted.”
“How did you make him tell you?” Ray asked.
“Shot him in the knee. Pressed my foot down on it until he talked.”
“What did he say?” Josh asked.
“He told me they call themselves Dark Angels. He said they serve their Dragon Lord.”
“The guy in the shadows,” Josh whispered. “The one in our dreams.”
Luke didn’t need Josh to explain what he meant by that—Josh was talking about the shadowy man they’d all seen in their dreams; Luke could see it on all of their faces.
“The man with the shining eyes,” Mike added.
“Yeah,” Luke said. “These Dark Angels are obviously pr
etty scared of that guy. The one I questioned, he had a chance to run before I shot him in the knee. I would have chased him, but he could have gotten away. But he didn’t even bother trying to run. It was like he was more afraid of abandoning his job than dying, like he was more afraid of his Dragon Lord than he was of me.”
“We met some of these Dark Angels yesterday,” Ray said. “That’s where we met Josh.”
“He saved us,” Mike said, excited now. “He threw a Molotov cocktail at them, set two of them on fire.”
Luke looked at Josh in a new light now.
Josh just smiled sheepishly and shrugged.
“The Dark Angels were waiting for us,” Ray said, getting back to what he’d been saying. “They set a trap in the road, a strip of spikes. They got Josh’s van first, but he got away from them. Then they got us an hour later. But they weren’t going to kill us. They seemed to want us alive. Like they wanted to bring us to their leader, this Dragon Lord they serve.”
“Like I said, the Dark Angels are scared to death of that guy.”
“He’s just a man,” Ray said quickly and glanced at Emma. “Just a man with psychic powers, that’s what Emma said.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Just a man, but his powers are strong.”
“Emma thinks this Dragon Lord haunts our dreams and tries to make himself seem stronger and more powerful than he really is.”
Luke wasn’t so sure if that was true, judging by how frightened his followers were of him. There seemed to be more to it than just a few nightmares.
“What about right now?” Ray asked. “Even right now, I think they could have killed one of us, shot at least one of us. But they haven’t. It still seems like they’re saving us for him.”
“That reminds me,” Luke said. “Right before you guys got here, there was a Dark Angel behind that tank across the street talking on a megaphone, trying to convince me to surrender peacefully.”
Ray nodded like Luke had given an example of what he was talking about. “They want us alive. I think they’d be in big trouble if they killed one of us.”
“The guy on the megaphone said he had a surprise coming soon.”
“Maybe it’s the Dragon Lord,” Ray suggested. “Maybe he’s coming here. They’re just trying to stall until the Dragon comes.”
That seemed possible to Luke. He could tell that Ray was a very smart man.
“So we just need to find a way out of here,” Ray said. “Maybe we can use their hesitance to kill us against them. We’ll need to find another vehicle and drive to this camp you were talking about.”
“Like I said, I’ll draw you a map, but I’m not going back there. We can part ways when we’re out of here.”
Ray sighed heavily, not masking his frustration. “The camp makes the most sense right now with these Dark Angels running around. Did you tell the people at the camp about the Dark Angels?”
“Yeah. Of course. I warned them, but they already knew about them.”
“We could all go there. Fight together as a group, and help protect their camp.”
“You guys can go, but they’re pretty picky about who they take in.”
Ray looked suddenly offended, like Luke had just personally turned him down. “What do you mean? A black man and his kid? A blind woman?”
Luke could tell Ray had been about to call Josh something, but he clamped his mouth shut before the words got out.
“We could help them,” Ray added quickly. “We can add value.”
“No harm in trying,” Luke said. “Go there. Like I said, I’ll draw you a map.”
“Look,” Ray said, seeming to do his best to hold his anger back. “I understand you don’t want to go back there because it reminds you of the person you lost. But we need to think about everyone else. We need to think about what’s best for our group. You don’t think every minute of the day is a reminder of the people we’ve lost?”
Ray looked at Emma, like he was waiting for her to jump in and help plead his case. But she didn’t say anything.
Luke didn’t feel like arguing with Ray anymore, already weary of it; he felt a little outmatched in this debate. “First, we need to get out of here. Get away from those guys out there.”
“And after that we go to the camp,” Ray insisted. “At least for a few days.”
Luke wasn’t so sure Ray was telling the truth about only staying a few days. He figured Ray was planning on at least spending the winter at the camp, if they would allow them inside.
While Luke and Ray had been discussing the camp, Josh was looking around at the dining area, studying the place. And now he looked at Luke. “I think I have an idea of how we can get out of here.”
“I’m all ears,” Luke said.
Ray nodded in agreement, looking at Josh, waiting for him to explain.
Before Josh could start talking, a sudden electric crackling sounded from outside and then Megaphone Man yelled at them from across the street. “Your surprise is here now.”
Luke pulled his gun out of his shoulder holster.
“You have a silencer on your gun?” Josh asked. “Where’d you get that?”
Luke didn’t bother answering, he moved towards the windows. Ray and Josh followed him.
When Luke got to the window, he lowered his gun just a bit as he stared out the window, shock overwhelming him. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing out in the street.
“Who are they?” Josh asked from right beside Luke.
CHAPTER 26
Ray
“Who are they?” Josh asked Luke again.
Luke didn’t answer Josh; he just kept staring out the window.
Ray was crouched down in front of the window right next to Luke. Josh was on the other side of Luke. They all stared at the two men in the street.
“It’s Matt and Chandler,” Luke said. “They’re both from the camp.”
Ray felt the energy drain out of him as all hope suddenly seemed to be lost. “The camp? The same camp you were just talking about?”
“Yeah. They must have gotten into their camp.”
“I thought you said it was a fortress.”
“It was,” Luke snapped. “I don’t know how they got them, but they did. Obviously the Dark Angels have secured some military hardware over the last few days.” He nodded at the military vehicles parked across the street beyond Matt and Chandler as evidence, then his eyes settled on the two men again. “Shit,” he muttered. “That guy there is Matt, he’s Wilma’s stepbrother. And the guy next to him, he’s Chandler. I think he ran things at the camp.”
“Great,” Ray said.
Ray looked back out the window at Matt and Chandler. The two men stood in the road side by side, their hands bound behind their backs, their clothes hanging off of them in tatters, blood staining their clothes and faces. Lengths of duct tape were wound around their heads, covering their eyes and mouths. A rope connected the two men together, a noose around each man’s neck. If either of them moved too far away from the other, then the noose tightened around their necks at the same time.
“Come on out,” the man on the megaphone shouted from somewhere behind the tank vehicle. “Come on out so we can talk about things. We don’t want to hurt these guys any more than we have to. It’s all in your hands now.”
Just then Ray heard the familiar screeches and calls of the rippers. They were close. He wondered if it was the same group of rippers that had attacked them in the woods. There had been dozens of them, maybe hundreds. And the herd seemed to be heading this way.
“The rippers are coming!” the man on the megaphone shouted. “You’d better help these men soon or you’ll watch them get ripped apart.”
“I’ll take out any rippers that get to them,” Luke said.
“You won’t be able to get them all,” Ray said. “There’s too many of them.”
Luke didn’t answer.
“Look at our vehicle. We ran into that herd of rippers on the way here. There are hundreds of them in the woods.�
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“The gunshots will hold them back,” Luke argued.
“Maybe,” Ray said, but he wasn’t so sure anymore. Either the rippers were getting braver, or they were getting used to the sound of gunfire, adapting, as suggested in the Book of Isaac. Or they were just getting more and more desperate for food and water. A lot of the easy food had probably been scavenged already in the last week and a half, and now they were going to have to hunt for their food, especially in the more rural areas.
“Why don’t you come on out, Luke?” the man on the megaphone said.
“He knows your name?” Ray asked. “How do they know your name?”
Luke nodded towards the two men tied together with the rope. “I’m sure they beat my name out of those two.”
Ray relaxed a little—that seemed to make sense.
“I’m sure they know all of our names,” Josh said. “I’m sure the Dragon Lord knows who all of us are. He’s seen all of us in our dreams.”
The rippers yelled in the distance. Ray could hear them coming, it sounded like an army marching towards them.
“We don’t have a lot of time, Luke,” the man on the megaphone said. “Matt and Chandler out there told us all about you. They told us all about Wilma and what happened to her. What happened to Wilma was an accident. She wasn’t supposed to die. We only wanted you, not her.”
Ray didn’t believe that for a second, and he could tell that Luke didn’t believe it, either. Luke’s face turn to stone, his eyes narrowing with anger.
“We want you and your friends to surrender,” the man on the megaphone promised. “We’ll let these two men go. We’ll take all of you out of here to safety.”
“This might be a good time to tell us about your idea about getting out of here,” Ray told Josh.
“Yeah,” Josh said. “I’ve done a lot of construction work in my life. This restaurant is squeezed in between two other businesses, all of them in one building.”