Dark Cloud

by Justin Bell

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, it’s just us!”

  “Get to cover!” Fields screamed, turning back toward the enemy. She fired just in time, dropping a gunman who had been approaching their blind spot. Winnie and Tamar darted behind her, rushing to the truck for shelter. Rhonda moved from behind the vehicle and wrapped Winnie in a tight embrace, pulling her down close to her, then reached out and clutched at Tamar’s hand.

  “Thank you! Thank you!” she said.

  “Don’ thank me,” Tamar replied, “she saved my bacon. I should be thankin’ her!”

  One of the camouflaged newcomers broke away from the group and headed over toward them. “We’re trying to knock a hole in their defenses,” he said. “Get your guys out of here!”

  “What about you?” Phil asked.

  The kid shrugged. “I don’t know. We don’t have anywhere to go. Reports are there are a dozen more attacks happening, all over the city. They’re targeting our guys!”

  Winnie moved around him with her pistol and fired out over the hood of the truck, then lunged back for cover.

  “They’re everywhere!” she shouted. Her eyes scanned their surroundings, then widened. “Where are Brad and Max?” she said, sudden realization hitting her like a splash of ice cold water.

  “We don’t know,” Rhonda said, her voice skating the thin ice of panic. “They went to the mess, which is all the way on the other side of the zoo!”

  “This is happening everywhere!” the young man in camouflage barked. “I hate to break it to you, but I’m not sure they’ll be able to make it back here!”

  “Then I’ll be going to get them!” Rhonda shouted back. She started to pull away from the truck to work her way around the front of the vehicle.

  “Rhonda, don’t!” Phil shouted, reaching for her. The kid in camouflage started for her as well, but a belt of four gunshots exploded nearby and threw him hard against the truck, tipping him up onto the hood where he rolled off onto the dirty pavement. Fields spun toward the sound of the gunshots, her M4 yelling back and the black clad gunman stumbled back, though he was replaced by two more. As they approached the corner, Rebecca saw a third man further back, dropping to a knee and bringing something up onto his shoulder. Her eyes widened.

  “Rocket launcher!” she screamed. “He’s got a rocket launcher!”

  Everything crawled through molasses, moving in a strange sort of semi motion. Fields adjusted the aim of her M4 and fired, but all three shots spun wide right as the man tipped up the tube-like device and started loading it with a slender projectile. Winnie lifted her pistol while Rhonda worked her way around the hood of the truck, starting to slowly turn to her left as she heard the warning. Phil lifted his own pistol, but the two men at the corner of the building opened fire, sending him scrambling right, desperately diving out of the way of the thudding bullets.

  Thirty yards away the man clanged home the rocket inside the tube, then swung it up toward his shoulder and Rebecca swiveled to shoot again, but was sent sprawling by the two commandos at the corner of the Information Center, chunks of broken asphalt spitting up into the air at her heels.

  Rhonda heard crashing through the trees behind her, sensing the approach of gunmen. She could see it all breaking down around her, the pieces of her world starting to chunk apart as the man in the rocket launcher took careful aim at the truck.

  Behind her there was one last thrashing crash of branches and leaves and she whirled that way just as it slammed out through the trees, a long and light arrow, as bright as the summer sky, charged muscle twisting under taught, fabric skin.

  A white horse crashed to the pavement, front hooves smashing against the hard surface, square teeth bared under pulled lips, its black eyes narrow and piercing. Fingers tangled within the wild thrash of its mane and Max was bent low on its back, shouting through the crawl of endless time.

  “Hyaa!” he shouted, snapping his elbows, sending the horse leaping forward, and that’s when Rhonda noticed Brad on the back, heels dug in tight to the horse’s side, arms up, clutching a rifle to his shoulder, twisting slightly as the beast rounded the hood of the truck.

  The weapon barked, jerking in the young man’s fierce grasp, flowers of flame blooming at hypersonic velocity. In the gel of the slow-motion movements, Rhonda almost thought she could see the bullets streaking from the extended barrel, punching through the air, slamming into the upper chest of the man with the rocket launcher, knocking him back and sending the explosive device swiftly upwards. The launcher coughed smoke and sent its projectile streaking above the truck, a spiraling tail of fire following it up toward the bright, blue sky.

  Max tugged hard, yanking himself upright, and the horse whinnied, pulling up on back hooves. Rebecca moved forward as the gunmen were mesmerized by the creature and she opened fire, dropping them both at the corner of the building.

  For a second, they all stood in silence as they took in the absurd nature of the scene with Max and Brad on horseback, dead gunmen sprawled all around them and the constant, angry buzzing of weapons fire still echoing throughout the zoo.

  “In the truck!” Rhonda finally screamed. “Everyone in the damned truck now!”

  Rebecca helped Angel to his feet, working him toward the driver’s seat. “Can you hotwire with that shoulder wound?” she asked, and he nodded, though his face was gray and a bit ashen. Brad hopped off the horse with Max close behind, and Max patted the creature on its flanks affectionately, then followed his friend, crawling in through the canvas covering of the rear bed.

  Rebecca moved through the driver’s seat into the passenger’s side, keeping her head down as more gunfire pelted the side of the truck. Angel reached under the dash, tore off the plastic panel and reached up inside the console, searching for stray wires.

  “Let’s hurry up, Angel, okay?” Rebecca called over, ducking down as bullets stitched their way across the passenger side door. She swung her rifle out the opened window and pelted return fire toward the trees and the moving dark shapes behind and around them. At the back of the truck, the rest of the group scrambled inside, Rhonda shouldering her automatic. Three men came charging at them from cover, running toward the open bed and Rhonda took one out immediately. Max came up next to her and roared off two shots with his pistol, dropping another. The third got off a few shots, sending them sprawling to the floor, bullets shredding the canvas top of the troop carrier. Brad lifted his M4 from where he lay and fired, dropping the last one just as a few more drifted over.

  The engine gunned to life underneath them as Angel successfully crossed the right wires and engaged the accelerator.

  “Nice work!” Rebecca shouted. Up ahead a thick group of black clad commandos converged in front of them, lifting weapons and preparing to fire.

  “Go!” Fields shouted. “Plow through them!”

  Angel punched the accelerator and sent the two-ton truck lurching forward, smashing through the group, sending them scattering and tumbling away from the blunt grill of the vehicle, then pushed on through to the narrow trees beyond. Trunks and branches folded away as the large truck barreled through the woods, tires slamming over rocks and uneven ground as leaves scattered around them, bullets ripping through, chasing them along their course.

  A thrashing smash of trees rattled next to them and Fields looked over, her M4 ready to fire, but saw a Humvee full of camouflaged soldiers matching them in speed and trajectory. The driver flashed her a thumbs up and she nodded, waving back at him.

  “We’ve got friends!” she shouted, barely able to see the vehicle as they pushed onward through the trees, charging toward the southwest corner of the zoo. They seemed to be swallowed by foliage for a long time as the truck lumbered along, but then they saw some breaks through the trees. Rhonda stumbled her way to the front of the truck, using the seats as stabilizers.

  “How we coming?”

  “You may want to hold on!” shouted Angel and they blasted through the last row of trees, trunks splintering and branches rattling acro
ss the roof, the front two tires actually leaving the ground for a half second before crashing back down on the tightly packed path leading toward the exit. Rhonda grunted and thrust forward, but held her balance as the truck grabbed into the earth and tore forward, spewing dirt behind it.

  “There’s the exit!” shouted Winnie, coming up next to Rhonda, just behind the driver’s seat. She pointed out toward the raised gates of the exit, which seemed to grow larger and taller as they approached.

  “Mother of God,” Angel whispered, and for a moment, Rhonda wasn’t sure why.

  Then she saw it. She lowered herself slightly and looked up and out of the windshield, and she saw the clouds of smoke crawling up into the sky, the once gorgeous late afternoon blue shrouded now by thick, black cotton ball residue from nearby fires. The zoo was a bit north and quite a ways east of the main downtown area of Pittsburgh, so they couldn’t see any buildings, but even from this distance they heard the dull roar of heavier weapons punctuated by the occasional resonate blast of an explosion.

  “Watch out watch out watch out!” screamed Winnie, slapping Angel on the shoulder, who snapped out of the trance the smoke had drawn him into, and up ahead he could see Ironclad gunmen filling the spaces between the exit booths, raising weapons to fire. A few quick blasts of gunshots echoed, smacking bullets into the hood and off the slanted windshield, forcing Angel and Rebecca to pull themselves down deeper into the seats. From their right, a green blur streaked in, the Humvee escort sweeping around in front of them. On the roof, a gunner sat behind the long, slender barrel of the fifty caliber. As Fields looked up from her shelter behind the dashboard, she saw it explode to life, the long cylinder jostling wildly, battering the exit booths with massive amounts of heavy weapons fire. Uniformed commandos tore off and slammed down, others scattering as the wooden surface of the booths splintered and exploded.

  “Hang on, I’m going through!” Angel shouted, flooring the accelerator, and the truck surged forward, smashing into the remnants of one of the exit booths, sending wooden chunks arcing out in hundreds of jagged-edged pieces, swarming the vehicle as it punched through and out into the parking lot. Up ahead a Humvee rounded a corner gracefully and hurtled at them, its own fifty caliber chattering, but the transport truck angled right, and the support vehicle came up behind, firing its own heavy weapon.

  “Through there!” Rebecca shouted pointing toward a narrow exit path, and Angel sent the truck out onto the access road running alongside the Allegheny River, leaving the chaos at the zoo in their withdrawing wake.

  ***

  Seven miles from the Pittsburgh Zoo, a city was on fire. Max, Brad, Rhonda, and Winnie stared out of the back of the transport truck, their mouths agape. They’d navigated side streets and thickly grouped neighborhoods to move toward Interstate 376 and now as they drove along, their transport truck riddled with superficial bullet holes, cracked windows, and a torn canvas cover, they watched the tall skyscrapers of downtown Pittsburgh consumed in orange fire.

  How often would this happen? How many more times would they see the familiar shapes of rectangular skyscrapers buried in the coiling fingers of hot flame?

  “Is this real?” Winnie whispered as she watched the air ripple around the buildings stretching up toward the sky. Smoke coated the horizon, stretching along the miles of residential homes and climbing to join with clouds already growing thick and dark with it. The air was poison, a bitter, cordite stench and as they watched the skyline, a narrow streak of fire and smoke smeared between buildings and smashed into another, blasting it apart, cleaving the south side of the building off and sending it shattering down to the street below. What remained was a fragile skeleton, and as they drove away, it swayed lightly in the breeze, then followed the other half, toppling over and smashing among the overwhelming black smoke.

  “Yeah, it’s real,” Rhonda replied. “It’s the world we live in.”

  From this distance the echoes of gunfire were an obscurity, faint and unworrisome, mere background noise, the musical score in the theater of Armageddon.

  “I saw him, you know,” Winnie said quietly as the transport moved further down the road, leaving the city behind.

  Rhonda turned toward her. “Saw him? Saw who?”

  “Karl Green.”

  “He was there?”

  Winnie nodded. “He was leading the attack. I heard him. I saw him. I’ll never forget his face.”

  Rhonda turned away from the back of the truck, looking out through the windshield. “Then we’d better hurry,” she said. “We’d better get to Philadelphia before he does, or everything we’re trying to do could be as dead as Pittsburgh.”

  Under the low curtain of smoke the truck hurtled over pavement, transitioning from Interstate 376 to 76, heading into the vast nothing of mid Pennsylvania toward their final destination. Somewhere up above, the yellow sphere of the late day sun glared upon them, slowly losing track of them under the darkening cloud.

  Turning Point: Book 6 of the Darkness Rising Series

  is now available!

  Author’s Notes

  June 3, 2018

  Hey there, readers!

  Boy, this one was a tough one to write.

  Writing in the post-apocalyptic genre has been fascinating for me, as you try to find the high points among nationwide devastation, and that can be a real tough nut to crack. Developing characters who manage to stay optimistic against the backdrop of catastrophic Armageddon is interesting to say the least, especially when you think of a character like Clancy Greer who had already lost his wife and who never had time to raise a family. In a way the Frasers were his surrogate family, and drove much of his motivation throughout the first four books.

  It's always hard deciding the fate of a character, especially a character who has grown and evolved over a series of novels, and who has played such an important role to the overall Darkness Rising universe. In a way, Greer’s story told itself, and I was observing as much as anyone else. In a post-apocalyptic world, not all endings are happy ones, I just hope I did Clancy justice as he went on his final mission with his new family.

  One book left to go, and it’s a book that’s full of cover-to-cover action, with just the right character beats. I’m super proud of this series, and of this book especially. Hope you’re all enjoying it as well.

  -Justin

  Other Post-Apocalyptic Books from Mike Kraus

  Final Dawn: The Complete Original Series Box Set

  Clocking in at nearly 300,000 words with over 250,000 copies sold, this is the complete collection of the original bestselling post-apocalyptic Final Dawn series. If you enjoy gripping, thrilling post-apocalyptic action with compelling and well-written characters you’ll love Final Dawn.

  Final Dawn: Arkhangelsk: The Complete Trilogy Box Set

  The Arkhangelsk Trilogy is the first follow-up series set in the bestselling Final Dawn universe and delivers more thrills, fun and just a few scares. The crew of the Russian Typhoon submarine Arkhangelsk travel to a foreign shore in search of survivors, but what the find threatens their fragile rebuilding efforts in the post-apocalyptic world.

  No Sanctuary

  A nationwide terrorist attack has left the country in shambles and the country's transportation capabilities are crippled beyond repair. Frank Richards barely escapes with his life when he watches his truck explode in front of his eyes. As chaos descends across the country, Frank's home-grown survival and preparedness training and the help of a mysterious stranger he meets are the only things he can rely on to see him safely across the thousand miles separating him and his loved ones.

  Surviving the Fall

  Surviving the Fall is an episodic post-apocalyptic series that follows Rick and Dianne Waters as they struggle to survive after a devastating and mysterious worldwide attack. Trapped on the opposite side of the country from his family, Rick must fight to get home while his wife and children struggle to survive as danger lurks around every corner.

  Prip’Yat: The B
east of Chernobyl

  Two teens and two Spetsnaz officers travel to the town of Prip’Yat set just outside the remains of the Chernobyl power plant. The teens are there for a night of exploration. The special forces are there to pursue a creature that shouldn’t exist. This short thriller set around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster will keep your heart racing right through to the very end.

  Other Fantasy Books from Mike Kraus

  The Makeshift Wizard: Death Magic

  The Makeshift Wizard series is a new action-packed urban fantasy series from bestselling post-apocalyptic author Mike Kraus writing as MJ Kraus.

  My job was supposed to be easy. Investigate a bleed farm, find the a-hole vamps who've been kidnapping Normals and bring down some street justice. Now I've got a relic in my hands that was created with the blood and death magic of an elder Vampire and a whole lot more questions than answers.

  DARK

  CLOUD

  Darkness Rising Series

  Book 5

  By

  Justin Bell

  Mike Kraus

  © 2018 Muonic Press Inc

  www.muonic.com

  www.JustinBellAuthor.com

  www.facebook.com/WolfsHeadPublishing

  www.MikeKrausBooks.com