by Lukens, Mark
Suddenly the pill imp was hovering just above Josh’s left shoulder, whispering excuses in his ear. You took them for your arm. They’re pills for pain and you were in pain. You didn’t do anything wrong.
But Josh didn’t want to listen to the pill imp right now. And he was done defending actions that should be obvious, like taking pills for his pain. He was done talking to Luke.
“Here we go,” Luke said. He bent down and picked up two sets of keys from the last drawer he had had emptied. One of the sets of keys had a metal emblem hanging from them with the word Dodge on it. “Let’s go see if these work.”
They went outside to the van. Luke kept a lookout while Josh opened the driver’s door. The inside of the van was just as crammed with junk as the rest of the property—what a surprise. At least the seat was clear of clutter.
“There better not be any snakes in here,” Josh said as he climbed inside and sat down in the driver’s seat, which was surprisingly comfortable. There were a few boxes of auto parts stacked up on the floor in between the driver and passenger seats, and more boxes in the back. He shoved the key into the ignition and twisted it. The motor turned, but it was too sluggish, the battery nearly dead.
“It’s not going to start,” Josh said.
CHAPTER 31
Emma
Emma heard the sound of the footsteps out in the hall before Ray did, but it was almost like she could feel the person coming before she’d even heard the sound of the footsteps, like she could feel the wave of evil coming. And for just a second she thought it might even be him out there in that murky hallway—the Dragon, the Shadow Man, the Dark One, the haunter of their nightmares, the bogeyman made real. For just a second she thought the Dragon had traveled up from his kingdom that he ruled over somewhere down south to personally deal with them.
But no, it wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. But whatever was out there was dangerous enough.
Emma had been talking to Ray, telling him that she felt like she was slowing them down. Of course he said she wasn’t—nobody wanted to tell the blind woman that she was a dead weight they felt obligated to drag around. She had always felt self-sufficient and independent; her mother had forced her to learn to live that way. It was like her mom had known that she wasn’t going to be around forever and she wanted to be sure her daughter could take care of herself. Or maybe it was like her mother had known that something like this was coming. Her mother had “sensitivities” of her own, even though she never talked about her abilities very much. At first Emma had resisted her mother’s efforts to train her to be independent. After Emma’s blindness had been complete, and the years leading up to it, she had fallen into a deep depression. She didn’t want to do anything and she felt like she couldn’t do anything. Her life was over. Why couldn’t her mother understand that?
But her mother never gave up. She pushed at Emma to live again, to listen to music and dance, to walk in the sunlight, to swim, to talk to people. Little by little over the years, her mother had worn her down, and then Emma was living again. She began volunteering at a blind center, helping people adjust to blindness like her mother had helped her. She began to feel useful; she began to feel like she was making a difference in people’s lives.
That had been the old world though. This was the new world. She wasn’t needed here in this world; she was a hindrance here, a handicap.
Emma had felt something bad coming for months, something cataclysmic. It wasn’t really like she’d seen it, but more like she’d felt an overwhelming sense of doom, not just for herself, but for everyone in the world. She tried to talk to her mother about it, but it had been difficult to try to put her feelings into words. Still, she had tried to warn her mother. But even with Emma’s warnings, her mother had insisted that she stay in her own condo, that she continue to be as strong as she could be. And Emma had done that, but when the feelings got too strong, she had hired a handyman to install metal bars and plywood on her windows and reinforce the locks on her doors.
Emma had always had psychic feelings her whole life, dreams of a murky future, but in these last few months it had seemed like her sensitivities had strengthened, like she had changed in some fundamental way.
We’ve all changed. Most of the people had changed into rippers, but those left behind had changed in some ways, too.
She sat very still in the student’s desk, listening. Was it a ripper out there in the hall? A group of them? No, it sounded like the person out there had boots on, and that person was walking deliberately slow. It seemed like the person out there was making no attempt to be quiet.
A moment later she heard the jiggling of a doorhandle from down the hall. Then a kick at the door. A blast of gunfire. One more kick. The door slammed open.
Ray was up on his feet, moving quickly. She heard him wake Mike up, whispering to him to be quiet.
“Rippers?” Mike whispered as he came fully awake.
No, Emma thought. Worse. The Dark Angels had wiped out most of the rippers and driven the rest back into the woods. But the Dark Angels hadn’t fled—they weren’t going to leave until they were sure that she and the others were dead or until they rounded them up to hand over to their lord. They would not return to their dark lord unless they had his prize for him.
Emma remained in her seat. There was no sense moving around until Ray told her what they were going to do. Right now he was getting Mike on his feet, getting everyone’s backpacks ready.
Were they going to escape out the windows?
Again, Emma felt so helpless and useless, trapped in this world of darkness that she lived in. So she did the only thing she could—she listened. She heard the crackle of a walkie-talkie. She heard the voices but couldn’t make out the words, just short bursts of sentences, no wasted words.
The Dark Angel was back out in the hallway now. He was only one room away, making his way here. He jiggled the next doorhandle and then kicked and shot at the door again. He was inside the room next door, walking around slowly, doing a quick and silent search, checking in the cabinets, moving desks around, checking the windows.
He would be at their door in a few seconds. The black construction paper Ray had taped over the little window in the door would be a dead giveaway that someone was inside.
“We need to go.” Ray was right behind her now, whispering to her.
“If we go, how will Luke and Josh find us?” Mike asked.
“I can’t worry about that right now,” Ray snapped at Mike.
The Dark Angel was out in the hallway again. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he called out, his voice echoing eerily down the hall.
The doorhandle to their classroom jiggled suddenly and violently.
Emma held her breath, looking towards the sound of the door.
“Anyone home in there?” the man asked from outside the door.
Suddenly Emma could feel Ray’s lips right next to her ear. He was whispering to her. “We don’t have time to get out the window.”
“Come on out or I’m gonna huff and puff and blow this door down,” the man called from the other side of the door, jiggling the handle harder.
Emma knew Ray was right—they would never be able to get out of the window in time. Even if they did, the Dark Angel would see them, he would shoot them before they made it ten feet away. He was going to be inside the room in seconds.
“I’ve got an idea,” Ray whispered to Emma.
CHAPTER 32
Luke
It was now fully dark. Luke had found some tools and disconnected a battery from the pickup truck parked near the van. He set the battery on top of an overturned wooden spool used for commercial wiring. Josh found a set of jumper cables in the trunk of a rusted-out Toyota. The cables had duct tape wrapped around them in some places and Luke hoped they still worked, but he wasn’t overly optimistic about it. They worked by flashlight, Josh complaining the whole time.
“Why don’t we look for another vehicle?” Josh asked for the tenth time. “W
e’re wasting time with this one. This battery is probably just as dead as the one in the van.”
Luke tried to ignore Josh. He made Josh hold the flashlight as he hooked the cables up to the battery posts, making sure he had the red clamp on the positive post and the black one on the negative post.
It felt strange being out here in the dark, huddling together in the flashlight beam, a sphere of light around them and the two batteries. Their sphere of light diminished the quality of sight at the edges of his vision, everything disappearing into the black night all around them. There could be rippers out there in the dark, rippers watching their bubble of light. The rippers could be sneaking up on them right now.
Luke was scared, he wasn’t afraid to admit that. And he knew somewhere underneath that cushion of painkillers that Josh was scared, too. Luke had never been in the military, never been on the combat field. He’d never known what it felt like to be under this kind of constant stress. Of course he’d been shot at numerous times, but he had always been the enforcer—he’d been the hunter, not the hunted. He had always had the upper hand. Luke had been nervous before some of his MMA fights, but more scared of losing than getting hurt. And the thought of getting killed in the ring had never even crossed his mind. No, living like this, living in this new world of rippers and Dark Angels, was worse than anything he’d ever experienced before. And often when he got scared, he got angry. And now he held onto that anger, letting it push his fear back a little. He was angry at everyone and everything now: the rippers, the Dark Angels, the Dragon. He was angry at Josh and his constant complaining and bad jokes. He was depressed that Wilma wasn’t here anymore, but he turned that depression into anger, too. He was angry at himself for failing her, for letting her die.
His anger would keep him alive for now. After that . . . he didn’t really know.
The van’s battery had been connected to the spare battery long enough now—it was time to try to start the van.
For once Josh didn’t complain. He got behind the wheel of the van to try to start it.
Luke didn’t hate Josh. He felt that Josh had a weakness for pills, but Luke had meant what he’d said earlier—Josh was going to have to learn to live without them at some point. They were all going to have to change in radical ways as they learned to navigate their way through this new hellhole of a world. Josh seemed strong enough. He said he’d done time in prison, and he had obviously been around the streets, toughened up by them. He hadn’t hesitated to shoot the second ripper that tried to attack him, and that was good. Josh’s idea about cutting a hole in the wall of the restaurant had been a good one. He had seemed like an expert with the Molotov cocktails he had made. Josh was useful, and could probably be even more useful once he got away from the pills.
The van started right up, the engine roaring to life, startlingly loud. Josh added to the noise by whooping in the driver’s seat. He turned on the headlights and blinded Luke for a second. Then Josh started honking the horn.
What the hell’s he doing? Calling every ripper that—
Then he realized why Josh was honking the horn.
Josh was out of the van.
Luke drew his gun from the shoulder holster under his hoodie, turning around. His eyes still had two bright spots in front of him from the van’s headlights, but those headlights now lit up the rest of the front yard. There were rippers running right towards them, their eyes wild, their clothing soiled rags, their mouths opened in screams, filthy hands clutching sticks and knives.
Josh shot at one of the rippers, but his shot went wide.
The rippers were almost on top of Luke. If only he could see a little better. He would have to trust his hand. He pulled the trigger three times, the gun recoiling slightly in his hand, a familiar feeling. The gun spit three times and Luke heard the sounds of his bullets piercing the flesh and bone of human skulls, the thud the bullets made, the grunt of air expelled from the lungs of the rippers as they were knocked back from the force of the gunshots, the crashing of their bodies as they collapsed to the ground.
“You got them all,” Josh said.
“No thanks to you,” Luke said, rubbing at his eyes. “You blinded me with the fucking headlights.”
“I was trying to help you see the rippers better.”
“Well, don’t help me anymore please. Let’s go.”
“I’ll drive,” Josh said.
“No, thanks. I don’t need us to wind up in a ditch because you’re hopped up on your meds. You can grab the extra battery and cables, put them in the back.”
“Yeah, you’re right, you should drive,” Josh said as he unhooked the battery cables. “You’re still half-blind. That’s probably safe.”
After Josh put the extra battery and cables in the back, he slid the side door shut and got into the passenger seat.
Luke backed the van up. It was difficult to see out there in the pitch-black darkness, but he did his best, hoping he wasn’t driving over sharp pieces of metal on the ground. That’s all they would need after bringing this van to life was to pop the tires on this piece of junk.
But they made it out into the street okay, and a moment later they were driving away from the house, the van’s motor rumbling and loud.
CHAPTER 33
Ray
Ray wasn’t sure if his idea would work, but it was better than trying to get Emma and Mike out through the window while this Dark Angel busted inside the room.
He’d told Emma and Mike about his plan, whispering it to them quickly as the Dark Angel jiggled the doorhandle again.
“Dad, I can’t,” Mike said, tears already welling up in his eyes.
“It will work, son. I promise. I swear I won’t let anything happen to either one of you.”
That seemed to calm Mike down just a little, but the truth was that Ray really didn’t know if this plan was going to work—he couldn’t be sure—but it was the only thing he could think of.
The blast when the Dark Angel shot at the doorhandle on the classroom door was deafening. Bits of metal and dust blew out from right beside the handle, and there was a loud thunk like the deadbolt had snapped inside the doorframe. A second later the Dark Angel kicked at the door. It took three kicks before the door finally gave way.
The Dark Angel stood in the doorway for just a moment. He spotted Emma and Mike in the far corner of the room between the end of the windows and where the cabinets began on the other wall. It was dark, but Mike had a small flashlight lit, illuminating the two of them, both shivering, both scared to death.
“Well, what do we have here?” the Dark Angel said as he took a step inside.
“Don’t hurt us,” Emma pleaded in a wavering voice. She held onto Mike.
“Where are the others?” the Dark Angel asked, taking another step inside the classroom.
Mike looked at the window closest to them; it was open just a crack. “They went to find a car.”
“And they left you two all alone?” the Dark Angel asked as if suddenly suspicious. “A boy and a pretty woman all alone?”
“They thought we’d be safe,” Emma said.
“And they’re going to be back any minute now,” Mike said, suddenly shouting. “And you’re going to be sorry.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re going to be sorry,” Mike said, beginning to cry now. “You . . . you piece of shit.”
That did it—the Dark Angel began to march towards Emma and Mike huddled up together in the corner. He only made it two steps when Ray slipped out from behind the door the Dark Angel had just kicked open; he brought the butt of the shotgun up and then down at the back of the Dark Angel’s head. He hadn’t been able to get a good look at the Dark Angel from behind the classroom door and he prayed that the man wasn’t wearing some kind of helmet or protective gear, praying that the back of his head would be exposed, praying that this plan would work.
The Dark Angel wasn’t wearing a helmet, he was wearing a dirty baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes, and he h
ad some kind of goggles over his eyes, possibly night vision goggles. He wore the same mishmash of camouflage and military clothing that the three men in the last town had worn, like they had all raided an Army/Navy store and grabbed what they could. The Dark Angel wore some kind of utility belt around his waist with a knife sheath, some pouches, and a holster with a sidearm tucked down into it. In his gloved hands he carried some kind of assault rifle that Ray couldn’t name, but it looked a lot like the weapon Luke had been using in the restaurant.
Everything took a split second, but time also seemed to stretch out longer than it should have. Ray hadn’t known what kind of weapon the Dark Angel had and if it was truly automatic. The Dark Angel had only fired one shot at a time into the classroom doors. But if the rifle could also be used as an automatic, then all the Dark Angel had to do was pull the trigger—even while Ray was slamming the butt of the shotgun into the man’s head, the spray of bullets could hit Mike and Emma.
Oh God, this was a stupid plan. Why did I do this?
But it was too late now, Ray was already in motion. Ray used to work out with weights in his garage, and sometimes at a local gym; it was one of his pleasures, a stress relief, a release of endorphins after a day’s work. He was still a strong man. He could bench three hundred and sixty-five pounds, he could dead-lift four fifty, and he could curl one thirty-five. He poured every bit of the strength he had into this strike with the butt of the shotgun.
The Dark Angel must have heard Ray coming, or possibly even sensed it, because at the last second he began to turn around, swinging the assault rifle around.
Ray didn’t hit the man in the back of the head like he had planned; instead, the butt of the shotgun struck the man lower, at the base of his skull. There was a sickeningly loud crack that echoed throughout the classroom and the man collapsed down onto the floor, rolling over onto his back. The rifle went flying out of his hands, sliding across the floor and bouncing off one of the legs of the closest desk.