The Dark Days Series | Book 2 | Sanctuary

by Cole, Christopher

“Sounds like a plan. Carrie, you and Jess cover her. We’ll get up to the roof, pick off our targets, then regroup, and try to get our Shadows up on that stage – see if Campbell’s up there with those other jerkoffs,” I stated, tying the rope around an arrow.

  “Stay put at the top of the trailer. We’ll barricade the doors as soon we’re inside,” Patch declared.

  Carrie and Jess went with Molly to the utility pole while we went for the broadcast booth. We cut down any zombies that were in our way. As soon as we got to the booth, we ran inside to take the ladder to the roof after barricading the doors. We got to the roof and Patch tied the rope around the floodlight tight. I looked over and saw all three girls over the trailer.

  “Alright, it’s tied! Send your end!” Patch yelled.

  I aimed my bow and shot the arrow at the top of the trailer – I had to time it where the gust of wind died down a little. I shot the arrow and it hit where I wanted – three feet in front of the girls near the front of the trailer on the top. Jess picked up the arrow and gave it to Molly and she went up the utility pole and tied it. We made sure our ends were secure, the snap hooks were holding and that the rope wasn’t loose. Then we lay and looked through our binoculars.

  “I count fifteen bad guys and a shitload of zombies,” Danny said.

  “Alright, I’ll get the guys on the right and you get the left,” I replied, switching to my Marlin rifle.

  “Get some motherfuckers,” Helga mentioned.

  I took aim at my first bandit and shot him in the back and Danny hit his bandit in the lower back. We began picking off the bandits together one at a time, but as soon as they saw us, they were moving fast and I missed three and Danny missed five. Two Black Shadows got out of the concert stage and tried to shoot the bandits with their pistols, but they only got two. Soon, there were only four bandits left and they were using the concert tents and trailers as cover. The zombies were already surrounding the broadcast booth, but I looked over and I saw the trapped Black Shadows making a run for the school while shooting at the zombies.

  “Let’s go!” Helga shouted.

  “Come on!” Danny called.

  We used our rifles to hold on the rope as we zipped lined to the girls. However, I was the last to land on the trailer and as soon as I did, we were getting shot at. The bandits were behind the cover of some cars. We shot back trying to keep them suppressed, without scoring any kills as we jumped down from the trailer. The zombies were everywhere and coming at us. I dropped over twenty zombies as did the others. The bandits were still behind cover of the cars shooting at us.

  “Fuck, I’m out!” Jess shouted, switching to her sidearm.

  “I got two mags left,” I stated, reloading my AR.

  “Same here, Carrie?” Molly asked, reloading.

  “Two left, Patch? Helga?” Carrie asked.

  “This is my last one,” Patch answered.

  “Me too. Last mag,” Helga added while reloading.

  “We gotta flank those assholes somehow. Give us covering fire and we run for that truck there and shoot these assholes,” Danny said.

  “Alright, ready?” I asked.

  “Ready as we’ll ever be,” Helga said.

  “One, two, three, go!” Patch called.

  We laid down some cover fire. Danny and Helga sprinted across the field on the right flank. The bandits were shooting at some zombies trying to attack them, and Danny and Helga gunned down the bandits. After that we ran for the concert stage, Danny and Helga were the first to jump up on the stage and ran to the back where our Black Shadows were – there were only three left alive and one was shot in his leg and his right arm.

  “Friendly! Friendly! Black Shadows!” Danny called out.

  The Black Shadows lowered their pistols, but then one warned, “Look out!”

  He shot at the zombies coming through the backstage, but they just kept on coming. We shot at every zombie that was coming at us. They were running towards us and getting close, boxing us in.

  “Get him up! We’ll run for the school!” Danny said.

  “We’ll cover you! Go!” I stated.

  They got the wounded Shadow up and ran for the gym while we provided cover, but then we ran out of AR ammo and were down to our sidearms. Patch and Jess got the gym doors open and we all rushed inside locking the doors behind us. The gym was full of tables with various different items and accessories from clothing, tools, backpacks, shoes, boots, batteries, etc. The boots and shoes were in a pile along with the clothes while the other stuff was on the tables. Some of the tables next to the doors were guns and crossbows with little ammo along with other various weapons from machetes, hatchets, batons, axes, and knives. There were cots with sleeping bags, bunk beds and some old backpacks here and there. There were windows up high near the ceiling and skylight windows letting light in, but there were still plenty of dark shadows inside. After scanning the gym to make sure it was clear, we caught our breaths, but all this stuff caught our attention.

  “Oh geez, that’s a lot of stuff,” Jess said.

  “Fucking hunters. These are the guys that attacked the hotel cabin,” I said.

  “Yep, you’re right. These backpacks are ours,” Patch said, picking up one to show the PA insignia.

  “Hunters? You mean they hunt people?” Helga asked.

  “Hunt them, kill them, and take all their stuff,” Jess answered.

  “Do they eat people, too?”

  “Don’t know, don’t want to know, and my advice, don’t get captured by these guys to find out,” Carrie said.

  Danny looked around at everything.

  “These guys aren’t choosy,” Danny stated.

  Molly walked up to the pile of shoes and clothes.

  “Jesus . . . that’s lot of people . . . some of these shoes are for little kids,” Molly uttered.

  “Molly!” Jess called.

  Molly turned to her.

  “Don’t think about that. Just focus on staying alive. Deep breaths.”

  Molly took several deep breaths, but she was still a little spooked by all this. I set my AR rifle to the side, leaned my Marlin rifle against the wall with my Katana as did the others. Carrie went by the table of ammo, but there wasn’t much ammo left.

  “There’s a few handfuls of 9mm, but that’s about it. The rest is either 12-gauge buckshot or 308,” Carrie stated.

  I started, “I’m all out on that and I got thirty-two rounds left on the big guy here and—”

  Then we heard a noise coming from the loft above the office on the other side of the gym.

  “For crying out fucking loud! Let’s secure this gym first,” Carrie said, rolling her eyes and pulling out her Glock 19.

  “Right,” Molly said, pulling out her Ruger SR40.

  I pulled out my Ruger SR40 as well and we carefully went to the other side of the gym where the noise had come from. When we got to the loft where all the mini gyms were it was quiet, but then three bandits attacked us – a redheaded male teen with a knife, another teen boy with a mohawk, and a bowie knife, and a black-haired boy with a nail hammer. They tackled us from around the corner and our pistols slid away.

  “I’m gonna fucking kill you, bitch!” the redheaded teen shouted.

  Molly was fighting the redhead teen boy; he swung his knife with a few jabs to try and stab her but she dodged his thrusts. Then she threw a right hook, followed by a left spinning kick at his face and then she spun around to build up momentum for her right roundhouse kick with her heel to his face again bringing him down – she pulled out her knife and stabbed him in the throat before he got up – then in the eye.

  “Stop moving and die you little shit!” the mohawk teen yelled.

  The mohawk teen came at me with his long bowie knife in his right and after dodging some of his swings, he clumsily tried to stab at me, but I grabbed his right arm with my right. Then he tried to punch me with his free hand and I grabbed that arm with my left. I twisted his arms in a Labai takedown causing him to flip-over a
nd land hard on his side. As soon as he was down, I bent his knife hand back causing him to release it, and then stabbed him in the chest with his own bowie knife, then I stabbed again in the temple. I killed him in the light under a skylight window and there was a lot of blood – there’s always so much blood.

  The black-haired teen grunted angrily as he swung his hammer at Carrie, she blocked his hammer arm, kneed his ribs, struck his face with a punch, and then struck his face with a hard roundhouse kick. The teen stumbled into one of the mirrors and shattered it. The broken shards fell and cut him. He was angrier now as he was swinging the hammer again, but Carrie was dodging every swing. Then she blocked and grabbed his backswing, stomped on his kneecap causing him to fall to one knee, screaming in pain. Carrie elbowed his face, grabbed the hammer out of his hands, and swung at his face. I couldn’t see it in the dark, but I could tell Carrie stuck the sharp end of the hammer into the teen’s temple.

  “Are you two okay?” I asked.

  “Still alive,” Molly answered.

  “Same here. Fucking assholes,” Carrie said.

  Then we heard gunshots down below in the gym where everyone else was. We went to the balcony and saw twelve more bandit teens attacking our friends as they were fighting back. One had a military M16A4 rifle while two others had Beretta pistols and the rest had either an axe or a machete.

  “For fuck’s sake. Can we just grab a break for once?” Carrie said, rolling her eyes.

  “It’s just one goddamn thing after another,” Molly added.

  Grim’s voice came to me again, “Stealth is your best friend. Stick to the shadows and ghost your enemies.”

  “Come on, they haven’t seen us, yet. So, we can get the jump on them. Use the shadows to hide and ghost these assholes,” I said.

  “Metal Gear Solid motherfuckers. Let’s go,” Molly said, pulling out her knife.

  We went downstairs where everyone else was. We were sweating and we were dirty again with the day’s dirt with sweat, and blood that wasn’t ours. We stuck to the shadows as Patch and Jess were doing what they could to protect the wounded Black Shadow while fighting off the bandits. They used a tipped over table as cover as they were shooting with their sidearms.

  We stuck to the shadows. I snuck up to one bandit from behind, grabbed him and slit his throat. Molly and Carrie did the same thing stabbing their bandits in the throat. Then the rifle bandit saw the girls and turned to start shooting at them. I sprinted toward the rifle bandit and tackled him with a double-leg takedown. When I got up, I almost hit my head on a table and noticed the bandit’s face was under the table. I grabbed him by his upper jacket and lifted up hard making his face hit the bottom of the table. I dropped him to the floor to lift up, and hit his face again with the table – he tried to break free, but was still stunned from the hit to the head. I did this three more times, until his face was bloody and bruised – his nose was broken. I pulled out my Ruger pistol and shot him in the eye, blowing his brains out of the top of his head. Then, I saw two bandits standing next to this big tall metal shelf shooting at Patch and Jess. I jumped up on some tables and ran for the shelf and pushed as hard as I could to make the shelf fall on the teen bandits. It tipped and then it fell right on the bandits. They screamed in pain, before I put a bullet in their heads.

  Molly and Carrie snuck behind two bandits that were using the benches as high ground to get a clear shot at our guys. They snuck underneath the benches and grabbed their ankles and pulled hard so they’d fall on their faces. Then they both put two bullets in their faces.

  Danny and Helga had their machetes out. A bandit with a fire ax was swinging at Danny, but Danny ducked from a swing while slicing the bandit’s belly and then slicing his face and his torso. Helga jumped from the benches to slice at one bandit with a spear. He arched and screamed in pain before Helga stabbed him in the back. He stopped screaming when the blade came out of his chest – the blade was so red with blood.

  Patch ran out of ammo and grabbed his Bolo sword to attack the bandit with the metal baseball bat. Their weapons clashed and they grunted angrily as they fought. With the darkness in the gym and them fighting so close, I couldn’t get a clear shot. However, I didn’t need to, because when the bandit swung overhead, Patch grabbed his wrists with his free hand and sliced the bandit’s gut with his sword. Then Patch spun around to swing at the bandit’s head. His blade sunk half-way through the bandit’s skull and Patch had to use his foot to pull the blade out. The last bandit charged at Patch screaming with his spear, but was shot in the head – even from here I saw the bandit’s blood and brains spray in the air through the light rays. Patch turned to see Jess with her Glock 19 out aimed at the bandit.

  “Is everyone okay?” Jess asked.

  “Yep, still alive . . . for now anyway,” Carrie said, sitting down to relax.

  I sat down catching my breath. It felt like my whole body was beating like a hummingbird.

  “Fucking Hell . . . it’s so goddamn relentless. It’s exhausting . . . all this running around and fighting. It really wears you down,” I panted.

  “No shit . . . climbing is the worst part,” Molly said, drinking water out of her canteen.

  “Patch, how we doing?” Carrie asked.

  “Well, Phil has lost a lot of blood and is not doing so good. Hanna and Lewis are running on fumes, but they’ll live. They only got their Glock 19s, their knives and their hatchets. They said the rest of their guys, including Campbell, are somewhere in one of the buildings – they think the cafeteria or the main building,” Patch answered.

  I got my radio and called, “Ellen, this is Nathan. We got three Black Shadows from the fields. Phil, Hanna, and Lewis. No sign of Campbell and any others. Over.”

  “This is Ellen. Campbell’s with me, I found her. We’re on the second floor in the front building with Ashley and the others. Where are you? Over,” Ellen responded.

  “We’re in the gym. We just cleared it of the bandits. Over.”

  “Alright, we’ll work our way to you. Over.”

  “Roger, out.”

  I sat down with Carrie and Molly to catch our breath. We all drank some water and collected whatever bullets these bandits had on them, along with their other weapons. Both Hanna and Lewis took a metal baseball bat.

  “Alright, let’s make this our bunker. We’ll stay in here and wait for the storm to blow itself out,” Danny said wiping the blood off of his machete.

  Helga looked out through a window and said, “I agree, but what about the others? I don’t know which building—wait . . . I see our guys. They’re out in the courtyards and—Oh shit! More bandits!”

  “I am so fucking tired of these bandits!” Lewis yelled angrily.

  Carrie rolled her eyes with a sigh.

  “Where the fuck do these guys come from?! Is there a website or something?!” Carrie yelled.

  “Who cares where they come from?! Just kill them!” Hanna shouted, holding her Glock 19 ready.

  ****

  Ellen

  I was eager to find Kate through that mess down there. I ran down with Ashley, Sarah, Shaun, Scarlet, and Warren. However, the parking lot was teeming with zombies making it almost impossible to even get to the front entrance. The gunfire from the concert stage near the football field wasn’t attracting a lot of zombies. There was so much wind howling most of the zombies couldn’t hear the gunshots. We got to the edge of the parking lot and huddled.

  “Let’s start with the main building,” Ashley said.

  “How do we get past the zombies?” Sarah asked.

  Ashley looked around and saw some FEMA and military tents.

  “There, those big tents. I’ll draw them inside and we’ll set them on fire. That should draw some of the zombies away,” Ashley said.

  “We’re gonna need a big distraction to lure them in,” Scarlet said.

  “Something loud or bright,” Shaun said.

  “I’ll do it,” Warren said.

  We all turned to him.
<
br />   “Do what?” Sarah asked.

  Warren started, “I’ll shoot at them and run inside the tents bringing them in and—”

  “Uh, no you won’t!” Scarlet said.

  “—and I’ll crawl out through the fences and escape, then you set it on fire,” Warren finished.

  “Still no fucking way,” Scarlet said.

  “Come on, Scarlet. I’m loud, hyperactive, and I don’t blend in with the background. I’m perfect for the job. I’ll lure them just like I lured that pack of dogs that chased us before we got to Fort Gold Rush.”

  Scarlet, Shaun, and Sarah looked at Warren and he gave them this look before nodding. Ashley and I gave a confused look.

  “What pack of dogs? Like wild dogs?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’s a long story better told another time. So, come on. Let’s do this,” Warren said.

  “Fine, but we’re gonna need some wire cutters to cut through that fence and some fuel or alcohol to burn the tents,” Scarlet said.

  “We’ll look for the fuel and something to light it, you guys look for the wire cutters. Bolt cutters would work fine,” Ashley said.

  I went with Ashley and Sarah while the others went looking for the wire cutters. We snuck our way past the zombies to some trailers with some propane tanks. I found a flare gun with some road flares, so that’ll light up whatever fuel we’re gonna burn. Ashley and Sarah found some grenades and stashed them in their backpacks – some of them were incendiary grenades. We met back with the others and they found the wire cutters and an air horn. As they cut out an exit for Warren, we set up the propane tanks in the tents. The plan was simple, shoot the propane tanks as Warren runs through the tents and then toss an incendiary grenade inside – doing it was the hard part. We got into position. Warren was taking several deep breaths as he was getting ready.

  “Alright, like we said before. Just run through that way, go left, straight, then right and go through the tents to the fence,” Shaun said.

  “Got it,” Warren said.

  “Warren,” Scarlet said.

  Warren didn’t answer.

  “Warren!”

  Warren looked up.