Darker Days (As the Ash Fell Book 2)

by AJ Powers

  Morning came quickly, as it always did on nights he slept well. He sat on the edge of the bed and ate a couple of sticks of jerky, allowing his body time to wake up. Because it was only a couple minutes after eight and the entrance just a few miles up the road, Clay took his time getting ready. It was a rare incident for him to be able to wake up and prepare for the day with such leisure—especially while out on the road. After a ferocious yawn, accompanied with a series of stretches, Clay rose to his feet, picked up the two rifles—slinging the AR-15 on his back—and walked out of the bedroom.

  As Clay searched through the RV for anything useful, he was distracted by a series of pictures decorating the refrigerator door. Most of the pictures consisted of the same two retirees in front of different landmarks around the country—each dated and labeled. The last one showed the couple posing with some penguins with the caption “Dallas World Aquarium!”

  Looks like fun, Clay thought to himself. He had always wanted to go there.

  The RV search turned up nothing. A successful scavenge was becoming rarer with each passing day. People had become so desperate that they would turn entire buildings upside down just to find that can of tuna that fell behind the fridge. It wasn’t uncommon for Clay to find a small item here and there, but long gone were the days of finding a big score that would fetch a hefty price with traders.

  Clay cautiously exited the RV and continued following the signs. He had to stop twice when he came across corpses lying face down on the side of the road. The first looked to have been there for quite some time, the decomposed body was enough to cause trouble with what little Clay had eaten for breakfast. The second was more recent—within the last couple of days—and the mutilation, along with the crude markings around the body, stirred up a deep-seated hatred Clay had for the group responsible for the killing. Though it had been several months since his last encounter with a Screamer, Clay’s anger toward the murderous lunatics had not diminished.

  The entrance to the camp finally came into view. A large, open gate, blocked by a deuce and a half and several Humvees let Clay know he was in the right spot. He carefully made his way to the front, keeping low and sprinting from car to car to reach the gate without being seen. Though he still held out hope that Smith would be there and as hospitable as the folks in Liberty, Clay knew that the odds were not in his favor. The reality of the matter was that the campsite was more likely to be vacant or occupied by a gang or bandit group. Even so, Clay pressed forward because the risks were still worth the potential reward.

  Once Clay walked through the gate and got past the dozens of small buildings used as processing centers, he was overwhelmed with the sheer size of the camp. It felt like hundreds, if not thousands of acres. There were prefabricated housing units as far as the eye could see—small buildings that looked more like a set from a sci-fi movie rather than actual homes. It was the best the government had to offer, though, and most people didn’t complain once they were able to taste their first hot meal in months. But as Clay stared at the seemingly infinite rows of pre-manufactured dormitories, he knew that his and Megan’s decision to survive on their own had been the right call. This camp was empty, and it was empty for a reason. Something bad had happened, and of the 30,000 or more people that lived here, it appeared, at that moment, that not even one of them remained.

  A strong, abrupt gust of wind drew Clay’s attention back to the trees across the road. A storm was coming in—no surprise. He returned his attention to the expansive field in front of him—truly a scavenger’s paradise—and started walking forward. Clay could spend months going through the structures with a fine-tooth comb, but it wasn’t why he was there, and he didn’t have the time to be distracted.

  The field was relatively flat, so it was pretty easy to spot the two-story cement construction toward the center of the camp—like a giant, black ink stain on a wedding dress. As Clay walked by the first of the camp homes, he noticed the quality of construction was even worse than it appeared from the entrance. The homes were far from secure—which was one of the biggest complaints Clay had heard from people who had left the camps. Theft and sexual assaults had become rampant, and unless a nearby soldier happened to catch a suspect in the act or the victims had very reliable witnesses, little was ever done to reprimand offenders. These structures were not secure then and would be a deathtrap now. Clay knew that if there was any chance of Smith still being alive, he would find him closer to the large building ahead.

  Though the rain had started to fall and the wind picked up, there was almost an ominous silence filling the air. There was something creepy about standing in the middle of the popup ghost town.

  As Clay got closer to the building, he could see that there was a concrete perimeter surrounding it. The wall—which easily towered fifteen feet into the air and was covered with razor wire—going over was not an option. Straight ahead was an opening in the wall; a heavy duty, wrought iron gate filling the void, and from where he was standing, it was locked up tight.

  As he approached the gate, Clay’s mind began to speculate about what had caused the camp to empty. Was this one of the camps that got hit with rioting after the first winter? No, Clay thought to himself, not enough destruction for that. It was possible that maybe they just ran out of supplies and were forced to disband. He tried to convince himself that was the likely reason, but his worries kept taking him back to a very real and more frightening possibility—an epidemic.

  The faint sound of a dog’s bark snapped Clay from his momentary lapse of attention and caused him to spin around with his rifle raised. He knew he had heard the dog, but it was so muffled he couldn’t tell where it had come from. He stopped to listen again, but all he heard was the deep rolling grumble of the imminent storm.

  He reached the gate and, as he suspected, it was locked. The gate was magnetically latched with a ten-digit keypad next to the handle. Clay let out an ironic laugh. He hadn’t traveled all that way to just turn around and leave because of a locked gate. He wasn’t exactly thrilled to have to find some way over the wall, but now it was the only choice. Oh well, Clay thought to himself as he playfully pressed the zero button on the keypad.

  *BEEP*

  Clay jumped back when he heard the audible sound. There was power running to the gate. With curiosity now firmly in control, Clay pushed a few more buttons. The beeps continued, followed by a substantial buzz that was accompanied by a small, blinking red light. Clay reached out to press the buttons again when he felt more than he heard someone walk up behind him.

  “That’ll do, kid,” a man said from behind.

  Clay didn’t have to turn around to know that he was on the losing end of a gun.

  ****

  “What’s wrong, dear?” Hawthorne asked, seeing the worry on Kelsey’s face as she walked inside.

  Kelsey let out a deep sigh as she sat down next to the woman who was basically her mother. Kelsey only sat for a moment before standing back up to pace around the room. “Geoff just got back and Clay wasn’t with him,” she said with a shaky voice from a mixture of irritation and worry. “He said that Clay was going up north to see a man about fixing his gun…”

  “Boys and their guns,” Hawthorne said jokingly while shaking her head, trying to lighten the mood.

  Kelsey smiled for a moment before twisting back to a frown. “I mean, Bev, he just got back less than two weeks ago, and then he goes off and does this?” Kelsey’s worry was losing the battle to her frustration. “And from the sounds of it, this is a pretty dangerous trip…”

  “Well, what trip isn’t dangerous these days, Kelsey?” Hawthorne replied.

  “I know…” she conceded, returning to her seat next to the aging woman. “I just…I just don’t know what I would do if something ever happened to him. And these trips are almost always for non-essential things anymore.” Kelsey fell back into the cushion of the chair and sighed again. “It was different when it was a matter of survival. When there wasn’t enough food to go around o
r that time Sarah got sick and needed medicine. I get that. But going after a cow? Or finding a replacement part for a stupid gun? That, I don’t understand,” Kelsey said as she rested her elbows on her knees and buried her face into her hands.

  Hawthorne, being the observant woman she was, knew that Kelsey wasn’t upset about the cow or the gun, but because she wasn’t able to see her husband. That and the extraordinary pressures that came with each day in the world they lived in pushed Kelsey to her limits. Hawthorne recalled the early days of her own marriage, back in a time when America was the flourishing economic giant of the world. Even then, married life for newlyweds was stressful, and it took a lot of hard work to get through. But now? The stresses were exacerbated by the dire circumstances all around them.

  “Well, dear, I don’t know exactly what it’s like to be in your shoes, but I can tell you that I do have some experience with the constant worry of whether or not your husband would come back home each time he walked out the door.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My David was a police officer up in Tulsa before we moved down to Texas.”

  “Really?” Kelsey asked, the tone in her voice lightened. “You never told me your husband was a cop.”

  Hawthorne nodded. “Seventeen years up there. For the first five years of our marriage he worked the graveyard shift. I never could sleep while he was on duty, so I ended up staying up all night and sleeping during the day—that way we shared the same schedule. It made everyday things like grocery shopping a bit more of a challenge, but I made it work.”

  Kelsey found the story endearing—a true display of love. “That’s so sweet,” she said.

  “Well,” Hawthorne continued, “I won’t lie, I didn’t always do it with a smile on my face. Whenever I would hear on the radio or television about an armed criminal on the run, I would just sit at home and read a book—it was the only thing that distracted my mind enough to not have a full-blown panic attack.

  “Then, one day, a man twice his size broke David’s arm while he was trying to arrest him. The first thing I told him when I walked into the hospital room was that he had to quit his job. I even…” Hawthorne’s eyes became glassy as she uttered such terrible words. “I even told him if he didn’t quit that I was going to leave him.” Hawthorne reached for a handkerchief and dabbed at the moisture collecting around her eyes.

  “I’m guessing since he worked there seventeen years he never quit?”

  Hawthorne shook her head. “No. He told me he would if that was what I wanted, but then he told me why he did it—his reasons for being a cop. I started to see it the way he did—that getting even just one criminal off the street made the world safer for me. In a strange, roundabout way, David being a policeman was one of his ways of protecting me.”

  Kelsey nodded and could see where Hawthorne was going with her story.

  “You may not always get why Clay goes out on these trips, but he has his reasons. Even a blind man could see how much he loves you just by the way he looks at you. That boy adores you, Kelsey. I’m certain that you and the kids are always at the center of his mind whenever he makes those decisions.”

  Kelsey’s frustration melted away as she listened to Hawthorne’s encouraging words. Though Kelsey was always a mess while Clay was away, especially when he was out on his own, she did know that he did it because he thought it was what was best for his family. That didn’t mean his choices were always smart, but his intentions were good, and being reminded of that brought Kelsey relief.

  Both women fell silent as they sat in the living room, listening to the soft rain through an open window. The soothing sound took Kelsey back to the summer rains she fell asleep to as a child and caused her to relax.

  The rain combined with the rhythmic sound of Hawthorne’s knitting needles clicking together caused Kelsey’s eyes to grow heavy. Within moments of dozing, she awoke to a jarring scream from upstairs.

  “Give it back, Sarah!” Dakota cried from upstairs.

  Kelsey’s eyes exploded open as she startled awake. Her body was tense as she snapped out of that semi-conscious state. She looked over at Hawthorne and gave a sarcastic smile. “Well, that nap was good while it lasted,” she said as she clumsily pushed herself out of the chair and headed toward the stairs.

  Chapter 6

  As Clay became aware of his environment, he was first assaulted by the faint droning sound that seemed to surround him. It was constant, almost like a central air conditioner—something he hadn’t heard since the grid went down. Intermittent clicking that seemed to move around him from one side to the other interrupted the steady droning. As he concentrated on identifying the source of the clicking sound, the pain that crept into his head overcame all his senses.

  The throbbing inside his skull was nauseating. He felt each pulsating beat of his heart with such intensity that he wondered if the organ was actually inside his head. The pain was so intense; he squeezed his eyes shut tight as he grimaced. The clicking sounds had gotten further away, but quickly returned as Clay began to stir. Then he felt something wet brush against his hand. A tongue? Did something lick me?

  Clay’s eyes briefly cracked open before snapping shut. The dim light bulb hanging from the ceiling might as well have been an unobstructed view of the sun it was so bright against his pounding headache. Though his mind raced to form countless questions, Clay struggled to find the energy to care about anything in that moment—that is, until he heard the man speak.

  “Good morning, sunshine!” The man’s booming voice echoed off the concrete walls, further antagonizing the pain in Clay’s head.

  Clay forced his eyes open again; this time they stayed open. A burly figure stood a few feet in front of him, blocking the sixty-watt nuclear blast that had blinded Clay moments before. Though the man was merely an unfocused silhouette, the profile of the semi-auto pistol in his hand seemed razor sharp—a sobering sight that immediately expelled Clay from the lingering daze he had been stuck in.

  “So, what are you doing snooping around my neighborhood, kid?” the man asked as he fidgeted with the pistol in his hand, a subtle gesture that told Clay he needed to choose his words carefully.

  Clay tried to speak, but his words—if you could call them that—were a jumbled mess of nonsense that even Clay couldn’t understand. As his eyes began to focus, he could see the puzzled look on the man’s face.

  “Say what?” the man said as he scratched his chin buried beneath a beard that was equally as thick as his frame.

  Clay shook his head and cleared his throat. “Uhm…” he said as he concentrated on each of the words he wanted to say, but all he got out was, “Vladimir.”

  “Vladimir? Who’s that?” the man replied. “I don’t know anyone by that name.” The man took a step closer to Clay.

  Clay looked up at the giant towering over him. He felt lightheaded. “Vladimir,” Clay said as he feebly gestured with his hand, as if he was having a casual conversation. “Vlad…broken rifle…repair.” His eyes shut.

  When he woke up again, his head—though still aching—was faring much better than before. He was still alive, so the answer he provided the man must have been at least somewhat sufficient. Clay heard the clicking sound again and could locate a small dog as the source of the noise. He cautiously stuck his hand out, and the dog licked his fingers. Besides a pair of German Shepherds in Liberty, Clay couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a domesticated canine.

  Clay moved his hand to the top of the dog’s head and began scratching. The dog sat down and happily accepted the stranger’s offering. At first, Clay thought it was just his vision still regaining focus, but after a while, he recognized that the dog had only one eye. It’s even a tough life for man’s best friend, Clay thought.

  The dog did an about face and made his way across the room toward an open doorway, his tail swinging with much more youth than the rest of his body displayed. The dog’s master had returned with a plate in one hand and a cup in the other. He
set the plate down on a table in the middle of the room and then walked over to Clay. Each step in his awkward gait was accompanied with a brief whooshing sound.

  “Here,” the man said as he reached down, placing the cup in front of Clay’s face.

  Clay reached up and took the cup from the lumberjack. He gave it a quick sniff before gulping down the contents. Following a satisfied sigh, Clay said, “Thanks.”

  “Don’t have any pain meds I’m willing to spare, so that’s the best I’m gonna be able to do for ya.”

  “I’ve got some in my pack, I think,” Clay said just above a whisper.

  The man walked across the room and then came back with the bag. He dropped it down next to Clay, returning to a table in the middle of the room to eat whatever was on the plate. Clay fished through his pack only to find an empty bottle—an unfortunate time to remember he needed a resupply from Megan.

  Clay looked around the room—an oblong concrete box lacking any sort of character except for the table in the middle, a stack of bagged dog food in the corner, and some sort of map hanging on the wall. “Where are we?” he asked, his voice slightly stronger than before.

  “Well, right now we’re sitting in the middle of my dining room.”

  Clay wanted to roll his eyes, but between the pain and the fact that he knew nothing about the man he would be mocking caused him to think better of it. “And where is your dining room located exactly?”

  The man finished chewing a bite of food before continuing. “We’re underneath the building on the other side of that gate you were trying to break into,” the man said with an accusatory tone.