Darkness

by Kyle West

  “Drop the axe and on your knees,” Anna said. “And your hands above your head.”

  The automatic door shut behind, cutting off the sound of Howlers now filling the Rec. The man knelt, dropping his axe to the floor with a clatter. He then slowly raised his hands to the top of his bald head, which was ringed with gray hair. I pointed both my gun and flashlight directly at the man’s face. He was short with pale, sallow skin. A thick gray beard grew halfway down his chest. He was perhaps in his early sixties.

  And she was right – this was not a man who had lived in Bunker 108. At least, not a man who lived in sight. I did not recognize him at all. It was Old Darcy, alright.

  Ruth walked forward, her blue eyes blazing. She studied Darcy, who had begun to shake. Several Howlers slammed into the motor pool door we had just entered, but we ignored them for now. The air stung with the smell of not just motor oil and machinery, but human excrement. Darcy had been living here.

  I looked ahead – in the darkness I could barely discern the shape of a Recon. There would be a radio in there, which was how Darcy had contacted me and how he had heard my conversation with Makara earlier.

  He gave a yellow smile, and a crazy light danced in his eyes. “Alexander. Welcome home. How does it feel to have been the ruin of us all?”

  Anna edged the blade closer to the man’s neck. He merely snickered.

  “Should I kill him?” Anna asked.

  Darcy squirmed, but Anna kept the blade just at Darcy’s neck.

  “Not if you want to know the way out of here, Missy.”

  “If you knew the way out,” I said, “you would have used it already.”

  Darcy said nothing to that. “Or maybe I just wanted the pretty girl to come out and play.”

  Ruth’s eyes burned as she jabbed at Darcy’s neck with the pole, the hook of which shined with fresh, purple blood. Sweat shone on Darcy’s face in my flashlight beam. A sour smell emanated from his entire person.

  “Alright,” I said. “How do we get out of here? Is it anything more complicated than opening a garage door?”

  Darcy’s eyes widened slowly as a wider smile came to his chapped lips.

  The Howlers continued to batter at the door. I wasn’t worried about any of them getting through this century. We had all the time in the world.

  “Ah, now we’ve come to it,” Darcy said. “Now we’ve come to it. Yes. To get out, you must...open the garage door!”

  Darcy snickered. Anna’s mouth turned down distastefully.

  “You have one last chance, old man,” she said. “Tell us something useful.”

  Darcy quieted, and his eyes lifted and looked past me, at the door behind. I resisted the impulse to turn and look.

  “You have three seconds,” I said. “Three. Two...”

  Darcy just smiled, as if he had an ace up his sleeve. For all I knew, he did.

  “One.”

  Darcy fell backward, pressing something against his wrist. Before we could stop him, or do anything for that matter, the door behind opened, letting the Howlers through.

  Chapter 6

  Anna and Ruth turned for the door as three Howlers squeezed past the opening with baleful screams with more waiting in the wings. Darcy cackled and slipped away toward the Recon. We could only deal with him as soon as we dealt with these frontrunners.

  Anna sliced the first Howler down – she cut him across the torso, then spun and severed his head from his body. Ruth jabbed a woman Howler right between the eyes with her hook. I shot the third down. More filed in from behind. There was no way we could keep this up.

  “We need to get to the Recon!” I said.

  As we backed across the motor pool, more and more Howlers spilled from the open door and into the garage. The women ran behind me as I faced the Howlers, firing my Beretta. Flashes illuminated their rotted faces. Several Howlers fell before I emptied my magazine. I rushed to replace it with a new one.

  As I fired anew, the Recon roared to life. Darcy had somehow gotten inside of it. The headlights flashed on, illuminating the motor pool’s interior bright blue. More Howlers poured into the motor pool. We had to get inside the Recon or we weren’t going to last long.

  I shot another Howler in the shoulder, causing him to spiral to the ground. In the distance, I noticed the ones Anna and Ruth had killed earlier beginning to inflate.

  “Get to the Recon,” I said. “And kill Darcy!”

  The downed Howler ruptured, quickly followed by a second. The purple slime came within feet of my body, coating the other Howlers advancing forward.

  “He’s getting on the turret!” Anna yelled.

  I snuck a quick glance over my shoulder. Darcy’s head appeared at the turret above the Recon. Already, he was aiming the giant weapon toward us.

  “Go!” I yelled.

  As Darcy readied the gun, we ran right to the Recon; it would be safe right next to the vehicle because Darcy couldn’t point the gun down that far. It was only a temporary solution. The Howlers would be on us in seconds, so we still had to find a way inside the Recon to kill Darcy.

  We made it to the passenger door, finding it locked. We could go around and try the driver’s door, but it was probably locked, too. Then there was the cargo bay. I thought that might be our likeliest choice.

  Still the Howlers pressed forward. The nearest was probably twenty feet away. I fired a few shots, bringing it down. Good thing, too. My magazine had once more emptied, and I had to work quickly to slide a new one in.

  “He can’t aim straight down at us,” Anna said. “And he probably locked all the doors. That means we have to improvise.”

  She sheathed her katana, and I wondered just what the hell she was doing. She then climbed onto the Recon’s hood, and pulled herself on top of the cab.

  “Anna!”

  She was going to get herself killed. At the same time, we were as good as dead down here.

  From above, Darcy squealed as he angled the gun around. He was going to blast Anna right off.

  I fired a few shots upward, unheeding of the Howlers now pressing in. A few bullets ricocheted off the metal of the gun, casting sparks. Darcy looked down and spit at me and continued to concentrate on Anna. Still, I had distracted him long enough to give Anna the time she needed. She sidestepped the barrel of the turret, climbing inside of it to face Darcy. A knife gleamed in Darcy’s right hand.

  While Anna climbed the railing surrounding the turret, Darcy took a swipe with his knife. Her eyes widened as she dodged clumsily, falling to the turret’s deck. Darcy was on her in an instant. Anna was the more skilled fighter, but Darcy was far crazier – and crazy counted for a lot in a fight.

  “Come on,” I said to Ruth. “We have to help her!”

  We scrambled onto the Recon’s hood, just in time for the Howlers to collide with the vehicle. They reached for our legs, but we stood in the center of the Recon’s hood, out of reach. I boosted Ruth onto the cargo bay where she could assist Anna. But instead of doing that, she reached down to help me up.

  “Get to Anna!”

  Ruth turned. As I pulled myself onto the cargo bay, Anna screamed.

  Gritting my teeth, I pulled myself up as the shrieks of Howlers filled the motor pool. This fight was going on far too long. When I got on top of the cargo bay and reached the turret, I saw that Anna was no longer pinned by Darcy. Instead, Darcy had her against the railing.

  Ruth ran from behind with her pole and hook extended. Darcy spun around, swiping the pole from her hand. This caused Ruth herself to spin and topple for the edge of the cargo bay, nearly falling upon the mouths of the Howlers below, whose din was so deafening that I couldn’t hear anything else –

  Until a mighty roar sounded from the direction of the entrance. The Behemoth had entered, having squeezed its mass through the doorway and into the motor pool. It stood on massive legs, its white eyes shining in the darkness. The Howlers scattered in its wake, not wanting to be a victim of its wanton violence. Its thick body was stooped, l
eaning forward, its massive head almost comical on top of its body; the neck was so short that it was practically nonexistent.

  The Behemoth began to step forward.

  Despite the oncoming Behemoth, I knew we had to take care of Darcy first – and before taking care of Darcy, I had to keep Ruth from falling over the edge of the Recon. I ran forward. Ruth had dropped her pole into the teeming mass of Howlers below. Her legs overhung the Recon’s edge – easy prey for a high-jumping Howler. I grabbed both of her hands and pulled her further toward the center.

  Now I had to focus on Anna.

  I aimed my gun right for Darcy’s back. I didn’t trust myself firing from this angle. If Darcy moved, then my bullet could just as easily enter Anna, who was blocked by Darcy’s body. I circled around, where my shot would be in less danger of hitting Anna. Anna’s fallen katana gleamed on the deck of the turret and Darcy’s blue eyes shined with a suicidal gleam. Anna used both of her hands to push back against Darcy’s fist that held the knife. The knife shook in Darcy’s grip as it edged closer to Anna’s neck.

  But I had made it. As I aimed my Beretta, Ruth entered the picture, pulling on Darcy.

  “Ruth, out of the way!”

  I was frustrated that she had entered my sights just when I was about to pull the trigger.

  Ruth let go, but Darcy had been alerted to my presence. When he looked up at me, Anna used the chance to twist Darcy’s arm. Darcy yowled as his knife clattered to the floor of the turret. Anna, using the railing behind as leverage, pushed into Darcy’s chest with her feet, giving a mighty push. With a yelp, Darcy careened over the edge of the Recon, his head knocking into the side of the vehicle on his way down. He fell headfirst into the writhing Howlers below. He screamed as the monsters tore into his flesh, screamed until there was nothing left to scream with. That only took a few seconds.

  But we weren’t done yet. The Behemoth charged forward, even more drawn to us now by the volume of Darcy’s racket. Anna manned the turret and aimed it at the colossal monster. Clicking the safety off, she opened fire.

  The turret thundered and flashed as the bullets zinged through the air, entering the Behemoth’s thick skin. In the fitful light, I could see the Behemoth’s features – he had been a man, once – probably someone from this very Bunker. He was completely bald, with sickly pink skin. As the trail of bullets reached the Behemoth’s head, he crashed to the floor with a pained groan. His white eyes flashed up and settled on mine. I froze.

  There was something familiar about the shape of those eyes. Something familiar about that face, even as grotesque as it was.

  Then, I realized...this Behemoth had once been my father.

  I felt it, even if the Behemoth didn’t. I knew it to be true. As this realization dawned on me, the possibility became greater and greater.

  “Dad...”

  There almost seemed to be a gleam of recognition in those haunted white orbs – or had I just imagined it? Whatever the case, the Behemoth’s gaze broke as it crashed chest-down onto the floor, planting its face on the ground. The surrounding Howlers scattered in the wake of the monster’s fall. I could only stand, quiet, as the Howlers started battering the Recon anew, their yowls and yips loud in the air.

  “What now?” Ruth asked.

  Neither she nor Anna knew what I had just witnessed. I could only stare, uncomprehending. I had finally settled on the truth that I would never see him again. Now, I had seen him again, and in a way I would never be able to erase from my mind. My dad had turned into a Behemoth.

  I realized that I was just standing there, not answering Ruth’s question. This was yet another thing I had to forget. I had to keep it to myself – at least for now. We had to focus on getting out of here alive.

  “The Recon’s already pointed toward the door,” I managed. “We just have to open it.”

  “Open it, how?” Anna asked.

  We looked at the Howlers below. We were safe as long as we stayed up here. The Recon itself was fortified enough to where it would be a long time before they could break in through the reinforced glass of the windows.

  “I don’t think we can access it remotely,” I said. “There must be at least two hundred Howlers down there. Maybe more. Pretty much every Howler that heard us in Bunker 108.”

  Anna nodded. Her hands still grabbed the handles of the turret.

  “Maybe we can just crash through the door?” Ruth asked.

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I said. “A Recon is powerful, but the door might not fall off cleanly. After all, the garage doors themselves are highly fortified and were designed to withstand something like that.” I frowned. “No, we have to find some way to open it.”

  “So, where is the actual opener?” Anna asked.

  “Darcy seemed to have some sort of opener to get the motor pool door open,” I said.

  “If you want to dig around his nasty corpse, be my guest,” Anna said.

  I didn’t relish that thought. If there was someone who had to do it, it would have to be me. I was the only with immunity to the xenovirus, since I was already infected. But not until we had exhausted the most obvious option.

  “It needs to be unlocked and opened manually from this side, then,” I said.

  “We can’t do that unless we kill the Howlers,” Anna said.

  “Maybe there is a ‘safe’ way we can do it,” Ruth said. “Take out a few with the Recon, duck into the Recon, wait for them to explode. Rinse, wash, repeat.”

  “That might work,” I said. “Or I could just do it myself. I can’t get infected.”

  “Yeah,” Anna said. “But you can’t just walk around with slime on you. You’ll just infect us.”

  Anna did have a point. “Right. We can take shifts, then.”

  Anna nodded, holding my gaze for a moment.

  “I’ll take first shift,” I said. “If this thing is going to blow up in our faces, I might as well be the guinea pig.”

  Ruth smiled. “I see what you did there.”

  “What?”

  She sighed. “Never mind.”

  “Alright,” I said. “Let’s get started.”

  ***

  We fought the Howlers in just the way Ruth suggested. I took the first shift, and it became clear that we had far longer than five seconds to shoot. From death, it took the Howlers about twenty seconds or so to start inflating. To be safe, we shot for ten second stretches before ducking back inside the Recon.

  Needless to say, it was two hours of shooting, hiding, and coming back out again before all of the Howlers were dead. When it was my turn, I tried not to look at the faces of the people below. Though it was dark, I was afraid I might recognize one of them. And I kept my eyes off the Behemoth. Thankfully, its face was turned away, toward the door from which it had come. I only hoped it had been my imagination, but deep down, I knew it wasn’t. My main regret was that I would no longer be able to think of my father without thinking of this.

  I would have to tell Anna about it eventually, but for some reason, I just kept my mouth shut. After a while, though, she started to notice something was wrong. We were standing in the cargo bay while Ruth took her turn above.

  “You alright?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I think the big one was my dad.”

  Anna’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  I nodded. “Something about the face...”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “It is what it is,” I said. “He had to turn into something. Why not the biggest, baddest Howler there can be?”

  “I guess that’s one way to look at it. Still...”

  The turret above began to fire, interrupting our conversation. It continued shooting for another moment before turning off. Ruth’s feet clambered down the metal ladder. She hopped to the floor just as several plops sounded from outside.

  “I think I got the last of them,” she said.

  “Well, let’s check it out,” I said.

  Anna and I climbed the l
adder, followed by Ruth. When we reached the top of the Recon, I looked out at the gory mass of some two hundred bullet-riddled Howlers, ripped asunder by their own explosions. A fetid stench hung in the air, horrible beyond imagination. Purple coated the floors, the walls, and the Recon itself. Very little of it had made its way to the turret, thankfully. It was dead quiet.

  “Let’s go see about opening that garage door,” I said.

  We went back into the cargo bay. With a deep breath, I unlatched the back door, allowing it to slide up into the ceiling of the Recon. We stepped on the sticky purple floor. This couldn’t be safe, romping around with all of this purple gunk on our boots, but we were stuck here unless we tried to open the door.

  The girls followed and I did my best to ignore the severed limbs, purple gore, and bits of flesh that plastered every surface.

  “This is beyond disgusting,” Ruth said, wrinkling her nose.

  “We’re almost out of here,” I said. “Just don’t touch any of it. We just need to get to the door.”

  We walked around to the front of the Recon. There were less bodies here, and the metal pull-up garage door was right in front of us. A little bit of purple flecked its surface, but it looked like it had escaped the brunt of the Howler massacre. There were two handles, one on each side of the door. Anna went to the other side of the door to get the left handle while I got the right. We gave it a pull. It was locked in place.

  “Here,” Ruth said.

  She twisted a knob on the right side of the door, while Anna untwisted one on the left.

  “Again,” I said.

  Anna and I lifted. The door didn’t want to give, but after we put our backs into it, the door suddenly shot upward, retracting into its slot in the ceiling. Outside, red dusk was revealed, and a blast of dry, cold wind bit at my face. The red sky stretched hazily above in its perpetual blanket of cloud. A wide ramp of rock led upward to the surface, and rock walls rose on either side until the ramp was even with the surface above. I had no idea where we were, because no one had ever told me where the motor pool exited from Bunker 108. Only authorized personnel had been allowed to use this entrance, and Chan had hardly used Recons in the interest of not alerting Wastelanders to our location.