Darker Days (As the Ash Fell Book 2)

by AJ Powers

  “You check the desk yet?” Clay asked.

  “Not yet.”

  Clay walked over and pulled one of the drawers open. Not much. He placed a letter opener on top of the desk and moved his search to the next drawer down. It was more useless than the first. The rest of the drawers were similarly useless.

  He reached for the wide, middle drawer and tugged, but it was locked. A lock is always a good sign, he thought. He pulled a prybar out of his pack and made light work of the old desk’s latch. The drawer slid open and Clay immediately saw an orange bottle roll to the front of the drawer. He picked it up and shook it; three pills dancing around inside.

  “What is that?” Megan asked cautiously optimistic.

  Clay clicked on his flashlight and aimed it at the bottle. “Hydromor…uhhh,” he said, struggling to read the faded label.

  “Hydromorphone?” Megan replied, excitement inflating each syllable.

  Clay shrugged. “Maybe, I can’t really read it,” he said as he tossed her the bottle.

  Megan examined the label closely and then opened the top to look at the pills inside. “I’ll have to check with Doctor Sowell when we get back, but this is excellent! It’s not much, but if it’s still potent, it could make a major difference in someone’s life, at least momentarily. Good find, little brother.”

  A smile crept across Clay’s face over the excitement in her voice. Apart from a few smaller things like bandages and a wrist splint, they hadn’t found much yet. Though, the lack of supplies was not at all unexpected since they were still within the marked zones on the map. So, any find was a welcomed surprise; some painkillers were a post-ash jackpot.

  Clay pulled the drawer open even further, revealing two plastic baggies-full of pills. He lifted one up and examined it; at least four different types of pills inside. “Well, I’m no pharmacist, but something tells me these aren’t vitamins,” he said as he held up the bag for Megan to see.

  Megan’s jaw hung open like it had detached from her skull. “Holy crap,” she muttered through a gasp before rushing over to the desk.

  She grabbed the bag and looked inside. “That one is Oxy, for sure,” she said with a huge grin on her face as she pointed to one of the pills. “I have to imagine the others are going to be generics or similar opioids.”

  “Well, somehow I doubt our good friend,” Clay paused and looked down at the bent, metal plague on the desk, “Donald Thurston, Esquire, was pedaling allergy meds on the side, so I imagine you’re right.”

  “This is an amazing find, Clay! I can’t believe it,” Megan said as she looked at the second bag still in the drawer. “We just hit the jackpot!”

  Clay gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

  “Seriously, Clay, this is huge. And while I certainly hope this isn’t the case, but if we find nothing else on this trip, medically speaking, it will still be counted a success.”

  Fueled from the find, Clay and Megan continued their hunt in the office.

  “So, why do you think he never used the drugs?” Megan asked.

  “Who? Our friendly pill-pushing lawyer friend? Who knows. Maybe he was, but then decided to take a stroll a little too late at night,” Clay said, not the slightest bit bothered with the attorney’s likely demise. “I wonder if he tried to plea with his murderers, promising them a nice high in exchange for his life,” Clay said indifferently.

  Megan gave him a strange look before he turned around and started peeking behind some of the picture frames on the wall. One in particular seemed to rest strangely against the damp drywall. It was a picture of the lawyer with another man, each one hoisting up an impressive largemouth. There was an inscription on a brass plate at the bottom of the wooden frame.

  Me and Mayor Pruett

  Choke Canyon – Memorial Day 2016

  “Looks like those were better days for you, Mr. Thurston,” Clay said under his breath as he removed the picture frame from the wall, unveiling a small wall safe with the door popped open.

  Clay’s hopes of another score were quickly dashed when all he found inside was stacks of cash, mostly tens and twenties, and an empty box of .380 along with some drug paraphernalia.

  “Wanna buy a yacht?” Clay asked as he tossed a few thousand dollars-worth of bills over his shoulder.

  Though the use of paper bills had gone out of style within the first year of the disaster, the instinct to dive across the room and snatch up the cash was still one Megan had to resist. “Anything a little more useful in our current economic climate?” she asked.

  “Just an empty box of shells and a few hypodermic needles.”

  “Are they still in packages?”

  Clay shook his head.

  Megan sighed. “We’re already sterilizing what few needles we have back in the infirmary, but I don’t feel particularly comfortable throwing an addict’s personal stash into the mix.”

  “Not gonna hear an argument from me,” Clay noted.

  The room grew darker as the sun dropped lower into the sky. Clay pulled a dynamo lantern out of his pack and gave it several dozen cranks before turning it on and placing it on the desk. It wasn’t particularly bright, but would give them enough light to continue their search with the aid of their flashlights. Unfortunately, the rest of the office was not nearly as exciting as the find in the desk, yielding just a few smaller things that might end up being discarded in the event they run out of space.

  Content that they had thoroughly searched the building, Clay and Megan settled in for the night. Clay groaned as he slowly made his way to the floor and leaned up against the wall. He grimaced as he leaned forward to unlace his boots. “I’m getting too old for this.”

  Megan plopped down in the executive chair behind the desk. She blew her bangs out of her face. “I don’t know how you do this so much,” she said as she leaned back in the chair, her head hanging over the back. “It’s been, what, three days? And I’m already ready to be back home.”

  Clay pulled a sock off and examined a rather painful blister on the ball of his foot. “Well, my body’s not as conditioned for it as it once was, but you’ll get used to it—after a few months.”

  “No, thank you,” Megan immediately replied. “You can give me a broken bone to set or flesh to stitch back together, but make me walk a hundred miles and I’m likely going to kill someone,” she said with a chuckle.

  “You’ll probably do that by the end of this trip, anyway,” Clay said.

  “Which one?”

  Clay let out a yawn as his body began to relax for the first time in nearly twelve hours. “Both.”

  Chapter 30

  “Make sure you keep an eye out for that sniper. Captain Kohler is pretty hellbent on us finding him,” Dusty said.

  “Will do,” Morgan replied as she scanned the horizon of trees ahead of her with a pair of binoculars.

  Things had been quiet over the past couple of days. An increase in snowfall and decrease in temperature likely played a role in the lack of activity. Nobody in town was complaining over the temporary reprieve, though. Being gassed from the sustained attacks over the past few weeks, everyone needed a bit of downtime.

  “So, I’ve got a question,” Morgan spoke up.

  Since becoming a spotter for her, Dusty had taught Morgan as much as she could. Everything from tactical movements to windage, field dressing a deer to starting a fire with sticks. Arriving at Liberty shortly after the collapse, Morgan had been shielded from the worst of the worst, giving her the opportunity to still focus on being a kid. It wasn’t that she was incompetent when it came to fighting and surviving, but the two girls grew up in two very different worlds and Dusty was far more seasoned at survival than Morgan. But, as Dusty quickly learned, just because Morgan lacked experience did not mean she lacked the necessary grit to survive in such an unforgiving world. In that regard, Morgan gave Dusty a run for her money.

  “What’s up?” Dusty asked, glancing over at her friend.

  “If you could choose any guy to date, past or
present, and, you know, things weren’t all war and snow and stuff…who would it be?” Morgan asked, suppressing a giggle.

  Dusty let out a long, drawn out sigh. “Just tell me if you see that sniper,” she said, ignoring the slumber party inquiry.

  “I will…” Morgan said, looking back through the binoculars. “So, who would it be?”

  She was relentless.

  Dusty initially balked at the question. It was the type of sixteen-year-old-girl talk that Dusty typically made fun of. But she was scared to answer. Not because she didn’t have an answer, but because she had never found herself in a position she felt comfortable enough to let her guard down so much. She had never had the sisterly friendship with another girl like she now had with Morgan. It felt both terrifying, yet warmly inviting.

  “Come on, I know there has to be one,” Morgan pressed.

  Dusty tried to hide her smile as she shook her head.

  “Just get it over with,” Morgan said. “You’re practically lighting up the room with those rosy cheeks of yours.”

  A quiet chuckle left Dusty’s mouth. “Ugh,” Dusty growled with a fake frustration. “Chris Pratt, okay? There! Are you happy now?” she said, her smile growing a little wider.

  “See? That wasn’t so bad. So, my next question would be, who’s Chris Pratt?” Morgan asked.

  Dusty shrugged. “I dunno, some actor or something. I saw a cardboard cutout of him at a movie theater a few months back.”

  “Wait…is he the guy in that dinosaur movie?”

  “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember seeing a poster of him once. Yummy,” Morgan added. “I was going to say Bradley Cooper, but I might have to change my answer to Pratt, as well.”

  “No way; get your own fake boyfriend!” Dusty fired back.

  The clock tower erupted in hushed giggles and a volley of “shut ups” as the two carried on with conversations Dusty never dreamed she would willingly have, much less actually enjoy. It felt…nice to be a sixteen-year-old girl for once, and not just a survivor—even if it was just for a few minutes, as the conversation callously dropped them back down in reality.

  “Do you still miss your parents?” Morgan asked, a grief-stricken expression plastered on her face.

  The answer should have been obvious to Dusty, but the words didn’t come as easily as she had hoped. “Yeah,” she said, the response sounding more like a question than a statement. “I mean I guess I do. I was pretty young when they died, so it’s hard to remember a whole lot about them. And it wasn’t like either of them were up for parent of the year…” she trailed off as she racked her brain for some fond memories; they were few and far between, all coming before the eruption. “They tried, in their own, strange ways, to take care of me, I guess.”

  Dusty’s strange, non-answer confused Morgan. “They sound like they were pretty…unique?”

  “Yeah, that’d be putting it mildly. Let’s just say, they weren’t cut out for living in this world.”

  Morgan nodded solemnly. She didn’t know which was worse: the heartache from losing a loving family or being almost unfazed by it. “I really miss my mom,” Morgan said. “I mean I miss my dad and brother, too, but I’ve had time to mourn their deaths. But my mom…she and I had never been all that close, and once Dad and Ian died, all we had left was each other. Over the last year, we had gotten pretty close.” Morgan looked back through the binoculars to hide her glassy eyes. As much as she had rubbed off on Dusty to be more of a girly girl, Dusty had rubbed off on her as well, and she felt embarrassed to reveal her tears to her friend. “So, yeah, I miss them…a lot,” she said with a wavering whisper.

  The tree line shimmered and swayed as the tears slowly drained from Morgan’s eyes. She blinked rapidly to help speed the process along, but to no avail. Suddenly, a bright, yellow blob flashed brilliantly in her vision. Her mind hadn’t finished asking the question, What was that, when she heard the shot.

  “Sniper!” Dusty shouted in vain, as seconds later, she heard someone screaming for a medic; yet another soldier had fallen prey to Arlo’s predator.

  Dusty frantically searched for the shooter, but had to abandon her efforts as a wave of soldiers exited the trees and sprinted toward town. Working the bolt of her rifle at impossible speed, Dusty took multiple shots at a group of attackers, forcing them to seek cover behind a garbage truck on the side of the road. Morgan, equipped with a Kel-Tec SU-16, also engaged the enemy. Each pull of the trigger inside the clock tower rattled their heads as they tried to beat back the onslaught.

  A close call from a barrage of bullets compelled Dusty and Morgan to move to the back of the room and keep their heads down. They were both panting as several more bullets hissed overhead, striking the back wall.

  Morgan looked at Dusty, her eyes were wide and filled with hope. “I saw the flash!”

  Chapter 31

  Clay was struck with the same sensation walking through the forest as he had experienced the first time: suffocating anxiety. And the foggy snow only antagonized that trepidation. Megan’s shaky breathing and incessant need to check over her shoulder told Clay she felt it, too. The eerie forest was like a brown and white ocean, splayed out as far as the eye could see in every direction.

  A gust of wind ripped through the trees up ahead, bringing every plant to life—big and small—with a disturbing, almost demonic dance. Then came the ominous howl as the squall slithered between the trees, causing the hair on Clay’s neck to stiffen. The creepy moans from the woods were sporadically disrupted with the sharp crack of a snapping limb screeching toward the ground, ending with a hollow thud as it burrowed into the accumulating snow.

  “We need to get out of here, Clay,” Megan said with a tremble in her voice.

  Clay kept his eyes forward, scanning the entirety of the horizon up ahead, trying to distinguish the difference between the movement of the flora and that of a murder. “We can’t turn back now, Megan. Just keep pressing forward; we’ll be out soon enough.”

  Another loud crack—the hefty branch landing just feet away from Megan.

  Her loud shriek caused Clay to jump. Clay’s shushing morphed into a callous, “Shut up, Megan!” His angst, along with the frustration of Megan’s lack of noise discipline, was getting the best of him.

  “I’m sorry, Clay,” she said, stricken with fear. “I am doing my best here, but I am not made for this kind of stuff.”

  “And you think I was?” Clay snapped back. “I had to figure out how to deal with this kind of crap before I was old enough to drive. And I had to do it alone. So, get it together, or we’re both going to end up as corpses out here.”

  A solitary sniffle came from Megan. “I said I was sorry, Clay. I guess I am not as strong and brave as you are.”

  The guilt quickly sank in as he heard Megan’s stifled whimpers. The woman was already terrified, so it only seemed logical that Clay took the opportunity to make his sister feel like a coward, too. “Megan, look…I’m sorry, I—”

  “It’s fine, Clay,” Megan said, her words as chilly as the air.

  “It’s just this forest… something about it brings out a bad side of me...”

  “Yeah, that must be it.”

  After Clay’s unprovoked scolding, they walked in silence. Then they heard the first scream of the night carried in by a gust of wind. It was off in the distance but caused both to kneel down, making themselves as invisible as possible. Clay looked down at his watch and brushed away the snow on the face. He tapped it a few times. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” he said through a clenched jaw.

  “What?” Megan asked worriedly, her pistol drawn as she frantically looked in every direction. “What time is it? You said it was quarter after twelve when we first walked in. I know it hasn’t been more than three or four hours since then, what time is it now?” she asked again.

  Clay sighed deeply. “Quarter after twelve.”

  This was bad. Even though his watch couldn’t have been all that fa
r off, as he had looked at it just an hour or so before they arrived at the preserve, every second factored into the decision Clay had made to cut through the immense forest. He had debated whether 12:15 would be cutting it too close, let alone whatever time they had actually left.

  “What do we do?”

  Clay remained silent as he contemplated her question. Efforts for his eyes to pierce through the patchy fog encompassing them were snuffed out after about a hundred feet. It looked like a scene out of a horror movie—the kind of setting where the random, no-name actors fall prey to the villain so that the viewer would understand just how evil he was.

  There was no other choice. “We keep moving,” Clay said as calmly as he could, trying not to contribute to Megan’s already bloated anxiety—any more than he already had, anyway. “If we can’t see them, they can’t see us. We move slowly and quietly. Stay alert and we’ll be fine.”

  Megan nervously nodded her head. “Yeah, okay,” she said, a shaky breath separating the two-word response.

  Clay took a couple of deep breaths in a feeble attempt to calm his nerves. “Let’s do this,” he said under his breath, more to himself than to Megan, as he stood up and started walking. He kept low, and had his rifle’s stock pressed snuggly into his shoulder, ready for the fight he knew would come.