Dark Days (Book 4): Refuge

by Lukens, Mark

  Ray nodded, impatient for Josh to continue.

  “This is wood or metal framing inside the building,” Josh said like Ray should understand the significance of that.

  “And?”

  “And there’s only studs and drywall separating this restaurant from the business next door. I mean, they could be metal studs, but they’re just studs about sixteen inches apart, not block walls. The drywall is probably fire-rated, so it’s thicker, but nothing we couldn’t get through. If we cut a hole in the wall, we can squeeze into the next place. There might be windows in that business we can get out of. It might be just far enough to get a running start out of here. The Dark Angels won’t be watching that place next door, only this one.”

  It seemed like a decent idea to Ray, the best that they could do. Going out the front or back was out of the question. He wasn’t sure if there was access to the roof, but that would be a dead end, too. He nodded at Josh. “Let’s do it.”

  “But there’s more to my plan,” Josh said with a smile. “We could create a distraction when we leave.”

  “What kind of a distraction?” Ray asked, but he already had an idea of what Josh was thinking. “Does it have anything to do with Molotov cocktails?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you going to get gas for Molotov cocktails?” Luke asked.

  “I’ll use oil from the fryers. Should be flammable enough.” He smiled. “But there’s something else I want to do.”

  They waited for Josh to continue.

  “There might be gas in this restaurant.”

  “Gas?” Ray was picturing red plastic cans of gasoline.

  Josh seemed to sense Ray’s confusion. “Gas to the fryers and stoves and oven. Gas lines. There’s probably a big fuel tank somewhere outside, or even gas lines running into this place. Even though the electricity is out, the gas lines should still be full of gas. If we turn on all the burners, make sure all of the pilot lights are out, then this place will fill up with gas fumes.”

  “And then we could blow the place up?” Ray asked.

  Josh shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But definitely a fire. It couldn’t hurt to try. We set it up and let the fumes build while we bust a hole in the wall.”

  It sounded dangerous. Ray was already thinking about sparks shooting off of the metal studs when they used metal tools to tear the drywall off, the air around them erupting into a giant fireball.

  “I hear rippers coming!” the man on the megaphone warned. “You’d better hurry or these two are going to be ripped apart right in front of you.”

  Ray’s eyes darted back to the two men in the street. Matt pulled away from Chandler just a little, almost losing his balance. The rope looped around both of their necks tightened. Chandler shook his head, yelling into the tape over his mouth. If they moved just a little more they were both going to be strangled to death.

  “What about them?” Luke asked.

  Ray looked past Luke at Josh and nodded. “Go ahead and get started.”

  Josh was on his feet and running to the back of the dining hall, keeping low even though the Dark Angels hadn’t fired a shot at them for a while now.

  Ray didn’t know how to answer Luke’s question about Matt and Chandler out there. “First, we cut the hole in the wall, get ready to get out of here.”

  Luke didn’t seem like he was going anywhere.

  Then he could stay, Ray thought. Ray’s focus was going to be protecting Mike and Emma. Josh came next. If Luke wanted to stay here and protect the two men in the street, then he couldn’t make him go with them.

  “I don’t know if we can help them,” Ray said in a soft voice.

  Luke surprised Ray with his response: “I know.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Josh

  Josh had his flashlight in his hand when he got to Mike and Emma, who were still crouched down behind the overturned table.

  “What’s going on out there?” Emma asked.

  Mike stared at Josh with wide eyes, waiting for an answer to Emma’s question.

  “The Dark Angels, they’ve got two men out there tied up, ropes around their necks so if one moves too far they strangle each other.”

  “Oh God,” Emma whispered.

  “Those two guys are from the camp that Luke was talking about, the place he said was a fortress.”

  Emma just nodded; she understood how dangerous and organized the Dark Angels were now.

  “I’m going to pull the drywall off of that wall over there, make a big enough hole so we can get into the place next door, maybe get out a window or something over there. I need to find some tools first.”

  “Can I go with you?” Mike asked with hope in his eyes.

  Josh glanced across the room at the windows where Ray and Luke were huddled down close to each other. “Uh, I don’t think your dad would like that idea too much.”

  “Please,” Mike begged.

  How could Josh resist? “Okay, come on. You can hold the flashlight for me.”

  “Will you be okay if I go?” Mike asked Emma.

  She nodded. “Go help Josh. We need to get out of here as soon as possible.”

  Josh was sure that Emma’s sensitive hearing had picked up the sound of the horde of rippers coming.

  Mike followed Josh down a small hall that led to two bathrooms and a manager’s office. The door to the manager’s office was unlocked. It was dark inside and Mike held the flashlight as they entered.

  The office was larger than Josh had expected. A wood desk was pushed against the wall with dark and now-useless computer equipment and monitors on shelves above it. There were some filing cabinets to the left against that wall, and rows of cardboard boxes on the other wall, some of the stacks tipped over, the boxes ripped open, papers and holiday decorations spilled out. He saw the owner’s name on an award plaque on the wall: Christine Peyton.

  “I used to work in a fast-food joint,” Josh said. “They always had a tool box in the manager’s office.”

  “You’ve had a lot of jobs,” Mike said.

  Josh chuckled. “Yeah. I have.”

  After a few minutes of searching, Josh found what he was looking for. “Told ya,” he said to Mike as he popped the toolbox open. It was filled with the basic tools: screwdrivers, a socket set, pliers, electrical tape. “Here’s what I need: a razor knife, a hammer, and an adjustable wrench,” Josh said, holding up the tools.

  “Can I help with the hole in the wall?” Mike asked.

  “I guess so,” Josh said. “Tell you what. Let me do the cutting on the wall with the knife, and I’ll let you use the hammer. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Mike said quickly with a big smile.

  Josh was about to leave the office, but the pill imp was whispering into his ear.

  My arm hurts, Josh told himself. He looked at Mike as he pulled the bottle of pills he had slipped out of his backpack and into his pants pocket. “I need to take an aspirin,” he told Mike.

  Mike just watched him in the glow of the flashlight.

  “For my arm,” Josh explained as he opened the pill bottle, wincing a little. He shook a pill out and swallowed it down dry, already feeling a little better knowing that relief was coming.

  They followed the flashlight beam back out to the dining area. Josh selected a spot on the long wall and pulled the tables and chairs out of the way. He used the hammer to tap lightly on the wall.

  “What are you doing?” Mike asked.

  “Trying to find the studs behind the wall. Hear that? When it sounds hollow, there aren’t any studs there.” He pointed down to an electrical outlet. “And there should be a stud next to the electrical outlet.” He punched a small hole in the wall with the hammer, poking his fingers into it to find the stud.

  “Hey, you said I could use the hammer,” Mike whispered, probably keeping his voice low so his dad wouldn’t hear him.

  “You will, let me just find the studs first.” Josh pulled a piece of the drywall back a little. He was surprised to find wo
od studs; he would have bet money (which was worthless now) that he would’ve found metal studs. He used the utility knife to cut down along the stud to the floor. About five feet up he drew a horizontal line in the drywall with the knife, to about where the next stud was, and then he cut down that stud to the wall, outlining a crude doorway.

  Josh turned to Mike. “It’s all yours. Beat some holes in the walls, and then try to pull as much of the drywall off. But don’t hurt yourself, okay?”

  Mike nodded, picking up the hammer.

  “You’re gonna go to jail for murder,” Josh said.

  Mike’s eyes widened in shock.

  “Choking that hammer to death.”

  Mike looked confused.

  “Sorry, bad construction joke,” Josh said. “Here.” He adjusted Mike’s hands a little on the hammer’s handle. “Hold it like this, more towards the end. You’ll get a better swing that way.”

  Mike nodded and then went to work on the wall.

  Josh hurried into the galley-style kitchen and began turning out all the pilot lights on the stoves and fryers. He was familiar with equipment like this and it didn’t take him long to extinguish the pilot lights and turn all the dials of the equipment on, releasing any gas in the lines.

  But maybe it wouldn’t be enough.

  The fryers were on wheels. He rolled the entire unit away from the wall so he could get behind it. He used the adjustable wrench to disconnect the gas line. He could already pick up the slight odor of rotten eggs—gas seeping into the air. He didn’t know if the place was really going to even catch fire, but it was worth a try. Of course, it might even be worse. It might explode. But hopefully they’d already be next door by then.

  He looked down at his right forearm. Getting the tools and using the knife to cut the wall had aggravated the wound on his forearm. He could feel the wound burning underneath his hoodie sleeve and the strips of cloth he had tied around it. He thought it might have stopped bleeding, but he couldn’t be sure. It was really starting to hurt like hell.

  You could pop another pill, the pill imp whispered, the demon hovering just over his left shoulder, whispering in his ear. Just one more pill. You’ve still got so many of them. There’s nothing wrong with taking a pill. It’s for the pain.

  Josh tried to ignore the voice. He was going to fight the pain as long as he could. But he was beginning to worry that the wound might need stitches, or worse that it might get infected. It wasn’t like he could go to a hospital and get some stitches and some antibiotics. He had a morbid picture in his mind of his hand turning black with gangrene. He also saw Ray sensibly stating that the arm had to come off above the elbow.

  He sighed, trying not to think about it. There was the thumping coming from the dining area, Mike pounding holes in the walls. Josh touched his arm, wrapping his fingers around his forearm. It hurt just to touch it, and he could feel the heat coming from it.

  It will heal. I’ll be okay. We’ll all be okay. If we don’t get out of here first, then I won’t really have to worry about this arm.

  Josh went back into the dining area. Mike had gotten some of the drywall pulled away. The kid was stronger than he looked. “That’s great,” Josh said.

  Mike beamed. “I can fit through there easy,” he said.

  “Okay. Let’s just put the hammer down and pull the rest of the drywall away. Make it bigger for the rest of us. And then we’ll see what’s on the other side.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Luke

  Luke knew Ray was right—there was probably going to be no saving Matt and Chandler. But Luke wasn’t quite ready to abandon them just yet.

  Another ripper called out—this one was close, on the main street, just out of view of the windows.

  Matt and Chandler heard the rippers, too.

  “Last chance, Luke!” Megaphone Man yelled from the safety of the building across the street. “You can still save them!”

  Luke swore he could hear the nervousness in Megaphone Man’s voice, like he was weighing the danger of the approaching horde of rippers, like he was close to gathering his men and retreating. Maybe the men on the roof were reporting back to him the size of the horde of rippers coming. Ray had said there might be hundreds of them, and Luke could imagine the sight of them coming down the main street towards these buildings, a flood of monsters.

  Matt and Chandler were trembling, doing their best to remain as still as they possibly could so they wouldn’t tighten their own nooses. Matt was screaming something into the tape over his mouth. Luke wasn’t sure what Matt was saying, but he didn’t seem like he was begging; he almost seemed to be angry, perhaps ready to face the inevitable in the next few moments, going out angry rather than scared.

  “There,” Ray said.

  Luke saw it—a flash of movement coming from the left side of the window. Two rippers, a man and a woman, were moving in like sharks, ready to attack Matt and Chandler. The woman had some kind of meat cleaver clenched in her hand, screaming a savage war cry as she ran straight at the two men.

  Spit. Spit.

  Luke shot both of the rippers, both head shots that dropped the two of them in their tracks before they got within five feet of Matt and Chandler.

  “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?” Ray whispered.

  Another ripper darted into view of the window, this one a little older than the first two, a little heavier, but he seemed just as determined to get to the fresh meat all trussed up for him in the middle of the street. He held something that looked like a long screwdriver in one hand, an implement to tear skin open so he could get to the meat and blood.

  Luke dropped the man before he got close to Matt and Chandler. The ripper stumbled forward and fell down face first into the street, falling on his screwdriver, the tool sinking deep into his flesh somewhere underneath him.

  “They won’t give up!” Megaphone Man yelled. “They’ll keep coming!”

  The two men on the roof shot at some of the approaching rippers coming up the street. Luke still couldn’t see the horde coming because of Ray’s SUV in the way, but he could hear them. And the men on the roof could obviously see them and felt the need to start picking some of them off.

  Rocks rained onto the street from the group of rippers. One of the larger rocks hit Chandler in the side of his head. He stumbled just a bit, trying to back up a step to regain his balance, but it was a step too far. One more rock—this one the size of a baseball—hit him and he went down, taking Matt with him. The ropes tightened around their necks as they fell. They were on the ground, writhing as they strangled to death.

  Luke put a bullet in Matt’s forehead first, rocking his head back, halting his struggles. Then Luke shot Chandler, ending his suffering.

  “Those rippers are going to get inside here soon,” Ray told Luke.

  “I know.” He looked back at Josh and Mike. They had a large hole in the wall now, easily big enough for each one of them to fit through. “We need to try Josh’s plan now.”

  The rippers were filling the street. The Dark Angels were firing at them from the roof. At least their gunshots were drawing the rippers towards them and away from the restaurant for the moment. Dozens of rippers were storming the tank and the truck with the canvas tarp on the back.

  Luke hurried over to Josh and Mike, with Ray right behind him. They both kept low as they ran.

  Josh was just squeezing back through the jagged opening in the wall, crouching down a little and turning sideways to get back into the restaurant.

  “What’s on the other side?” Ray asked Josh.

  “Some kind of office. I don’t know. Maybe they do taxes or something?”

  “A way out?”

  “A few windows in front and some windows on the other side. What’s going on out there?”

  “The rippers are here,” Ray said. “We need to hurry. They’ll get in here soon.”

  “What about the Dark Angels?”

  “I think they’re going to be preoccupied for a while. This
is our only chance.”

  Josh nodded, but he looked scared. Dark Angels were bad enough, now they were about to go outside with hundreds of rippers running around out there. And they had no idea where the nearest vehicle was.

  “Mike,” Ray said. “Go get Emma. We need to leave right now.”

  Luke pushed up a line of wires so he could duck through the opening in the wall Josh and Mike had opened up. It had been a tight squeeze for Josh, and it was an even tighter squeeze for him. He had to step over a line of copper piping at the bottom of the wall and then he was inside the office.

  The office was murky, the place a mess, but not as bad as the restaurant, like any rippers (or even survivors) who had come here to scavenge knew right away that there was nothing of value in these offices. It struck Luke for just a second that this office had probably been important to the people who used to work here. For some of them, it might have been the center of their whole world. The office and their work here might have given them their pride, a purpose for living. And now the place was nothing but desks in the dark, papers that meant nothing now scattered all over the floor, computers that would never be turned on again, the data inside hidden forever. Civilization had collapsed and everything was different now.

  Luke darted across the large room, around the cubicles and desks towards the windows on the other side of the room. He glanced out the front windows that looked out onto the street. He saw rippers out there in the late afternoon light, darting around, trying to get away from the Dark Angels’ gunfire. Some of the rippers were eventually going to panic and get into this office.

  Luke turned to the other row of windows on the exterior wall. Some of them had vertical blinds over them, some of the blinds open a little, other blinds torn off. He ran back to some offices separated from the cubicles and lobby, the offices for the bigwigs that used to work here. He pushed open a door to the left and entered the coveted corner office with a window. The blinds were pulled back and Luke saw a narrow lawn of grass, then a row of hedges, and the trees beyond. He was at the window in a second, staring out through the glass, studying the landscape. He could see some buildings in the distance through the trees in the waning daylight.