Out of the Dark: An apocalyptic thriller

by Ashlei Hawley

  Austin shivered as his fingertips brushed against the cold metal of the gun Laura had given him. He was alone in the world, anyway, wasn’t he? What good would it be to live and let them die, let the rest of humanity be sacrificed instead? He felt like it was almost appropriate, almost predestined that he would help to secure the future this way.

  “Okay,” he said with a nod. His voice didn’t tremble. In his determination to give all for this cause, he finally sounded like a man instead of a scared boy. “Out of the car, though. It just…it wouldn’t feel right.”

  The Bringer had stopped advancing for a moment. Laura felt it out there but for the moment, its attention was on something else. Some other poor soul, no doubt. She wouldn’t let it do to Amy and Melissa what it had done to their neighbors. They would not die by the hands of that thing.

  Laura and Austin faced each other, both with weapons pressed against their heads. Screams began to echo in the night air, crisp as the snapping breeze. The sounds were piercing, full of horror and agony. The Bringer had indeed found another victim. They were running out of time.

  Austin’s lips trembled with the force of contained tears. His nose began to run and he wiped at it with his gun hand. His fingers shook too hard to keep the weapon aimed at himself.

  “Laura, I can’t. I know we need to. I just…I can’t.” He looked at her, eyes streaked red with the tears that were beginning to pour from his eyes. “I might not be a saint or anything but I don’t want to earn my way to Hell with my final act. If it’s anything like what’s been happening… I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to pay for my ticket by pulling this trigger. Can you…?”

  He trailed off and Laura heaved in a hard breath. She knew what he was asking. She believed in Heaven, as much as she believed in Hell, and she’d already bought passage to the latter over her lifetime. She’d killed since the Onset and was willing to kill herself. It wasn’t like she could go any further into Hell if she was already damned.

  Austin was innocent. He was willing to give it all in any way other than taking his own life. For the girls and for Austin himself, Laura could do that.

  The screaming stopped. The searching magic of the Bringer once again spread out. She felt it touch her inside, stroking across the alien entity in residence. Any closer and the secret of the location would be revealed, no matter what she did. There was no time to debate any longer.

  Austin closed his eyes.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered as she raised her weapon. “I’m so, so…”

  Midway through her second apology, the gun leapt in Laura’s hand. She’d pulled the trigger almost instinctively. Austin sank to the group, collapsing like a sack of sand being emptied.

  The gun went back to Laura’s own temple and she squeezed her eyes shut tight. The tears oozing out of them felt as thick as oil, as hot as lava.

  Without warning, the seeking effort of the Bringer abated. It cut away, as though someone had snapped the lid to a box closed.

  When the Bringer’s attention had been on its most recent victim, Laura had still felt the presence of the evil being through the trees. Now, she was alone in the night. No sounds, no sensations, no invisible, seeking tendrils spinning around them.

  Laura stood frozen. She opened her eyes and lowered the gun away from her temple a fraction of an inch. Then, she dropped it completely.

  “Austin.”

  She dropped to her knees beside the teen, hoping she’d somehow missed. Maybe she’d merely nicked him and he could be treated. Maybe…

  The teen’s eyes stared vacantly at the night sky. He had no pulse at his neck, no life in his body. The shot had not missed. He was gone.

  Laura collapsed into agonized sobs. They tore through her like electrical currents and poured out of her in guttural screams she couldn’t contain.

  She hadn’t trusted Sam enough to get the Bringer back under control and Austin had died for it. On her knees, she clutched Austin’s still form to her and tried to calm her tears. Every effort made her sob harder, until her throat and eyes burned and her muscles felt strained.

  The girls were as safe as they could be. Sam had Trevor. Austin was dead.

  Laura was alone.

  She screamed her agony to the fading moon and secretly hoped she’d be taken into the dark before she saw Sam or the rest of her family again.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Stephanie stepped out of her vehicle with a rifle held at hip level. She directed her flashlight beam down toward the ground, hoping not to draw attention to them by using the light. Until they were in the building, she would use it as sparingly as possible.

  They’d left the walkie talkies in the car. Darcy sat with Leila and Dylan playing in the back seat. The kids were eating yogurt puffs and squeezable fruit packs. Though Darcy wanted to help Shane and Stephanie inside, she wouldn’t leave Dylan. She didn’t want to take him into a dangerous place, either.

  Shane knew he could figure his way through the stations with ease. He’d been in several and though they all had their differences, important buildings like that tended to have labels all over telling workers and visitors where to go to find certain things.

  They slipped into the fire station from the open garage door. A quick sweep of the area let them know they were alone in the garage. For now.

  “I wonder where all of the engines are,” Shane whispered to Stephanie as they ducked into the main office area of the fire station.

  “They were probably helping people in the town and abandoned the trucks when the Onset happened,” Stephanie theorized. She picked her flashlight beam back up and sent it in one fast circuit around the room.

  Filing cabinets, two desks, trash cans, and tables. Nothing else leapt out at them. The station seemed deserted.

  Lamplight glowed half-heartedly from one of the desks. It flickered and Shane knew the station was probably on the last life of a generator system. It would be enough to power the siren, at least, but not much more than that.

  “Stay alert. You know we can’t afford to be sloppy.”

  “Yes, sir, Chief Shane.”

  He gave her a wry look but she grinned at him. Leave it to Stephanie, he thought. Even the apocalypse is something of a game to her. And she always plays to win.

  Shane trained his beam of light on several piles of heavy, yellow and beige fabric. Fireman pants. The rescue workers hadn’t had a chance to get them on before they left to wherever they’d been called. “They definitely left in a hurry.”

  Stephanie nodded and pointed at a sign. “It says the siren is this way. What’s our plan here?”

  “Hit it and run.”

  They moved in the hallway to the right of them as Stephanie gave Shane an incredulous look. “That’s seriously your plan?”

  He grinned at her and pointed his flashlight down the hallway, following the beam as far as he could strain his eyes to go.

  “No, seriously,” she continued. “That’s your plan? Your whole plan is hit the bastard and haul ass?”

  “You have a better option? I thought you could run like the wind.”

  “Well, yeah,” she replied. Though she wasn’t totally comfortable with the plan, she followed along with Shane as he moved as stealthily as possible. “That still doesn’t make me feel great about a plan that would occur to a high schooler…”

  Shane held up a hand. He’d heard something in the corridor coming up on their left. Stephanie went silent at once, deferring to his leadership. She spun around and lifted her rifle, making sure to guard their back while he checked the hallway.

  With his pistol up, Shane took a quick look down the hallway to the left. He saw something but got no definition of the form except flashes. Larger than a man. Glowing yellow eyes. Wings?

  Shane locked eyes with Stephanie when she turned around to see what he was doing. Her raised eyebrows silently inquired if he’d seen anything. He gave her a slow nod and raised a finger. There was another hallway to the right. They had to know if
more than the single threat existed before they even tried to handle the first.

  Moving as quietly as possible to the other side of the hallway, Shane did his best to step around the opposite corner even more quickly. He didn’t want to risk being seen by the first corrupted.

  To the right, Shane saw nothing. Still in between the two arms of the hallway, he looked back to the left.

  Whatever had been there was gone.

  Shane’s pulse jumped but he refused to let the unexpected absence of the corrupted get to him. The siren trigger was less than two yards ahead of him. He would lunge forward, hit it, and then they’d beat feet.

  “Shane,” Stephanie whispered. He looked back to her and saw that her back was still turned to him.

  She swept her gun back and forth across the hallway, holding the flashlight underneath it so she could see what, if anything, she had to shoot. There was nothing in her immediate field of vision, so Shane knew she was looking for an update from him.

  “There was one but we’re clear now. I’m going to hit it. Be ready to run.”

  When Shane turned back, it was right into the corrupted he’d seen on his first sweep. With a shout, he flung himself backwards.

  The corrupted came at him hard, moving in a blur of motion. It slammed Shane against the wall and hissed into his face. The arms of the creature had indeed been traded for thick, black wings. They wrapped around Shane as the head darted forward. Claustrophobia was thick and intense and made him scream even as he tried to push back so hard it seemed he should go through the wall.

  The hateful yellow eyes of the beast seemed to swirl as though they were pools of radioactive acid in the sockets of a stretched and dried out face. When the corrupted opened its mouth to hiss again, Shane gagged. The smell of its rotting insides was enough to make him stomach churn.

  “Duck!” Stephanie shouted.

  Half a second after Shane ducked under the barrier of heavy wings and threw himself to the floor, a crack of gunfire rang out. Stephanie rushed past the dead man, hit the siren, and started back toward the exit before Shane had even pulled himself out of the shock that had accompanied the corrupted attack.

  “Time to go,” Stephanie exclaimed as she rushed by him. She held out a hand and Shane grabbed it.

  As he followed her into a run, he gasped, “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  When they burst out of the building, the siren wailed as though it mourned their leaving. Darcy had already replaced Leila in the car seat in Shane’s vehicle and started them all. She pressed the van’s accelerator toward the floor as Stephanie practically vaulted into her front seat. Shane was mere steps behind her.

  All three vehicles peeled out of the fire station lot before they saw anything–normal or corrupted–being summoned by the call of the siren.

  “Good job, guys!” Darcy said into the walkie talkie. Neither of them responded. Darcy let the walkie talkie fall to the center console and repeated quietly to herself, “Good job.”

  The marina was approximately a twelve minute drive from the fire station. Shane had seen it enough times on his GPS to have the route memorized. Even though he’d never been there in winter, he knew the road signs that would lead him to where they needed to go.

  The marina came into view and Shane saw where the firetrucks had been taken.

  The tall fence that surrounded the marina had been reinforced with vehicles parked all around it. The firetrucks were only the largest. Shane corrected the thought when he noticed that two semi-trucks pulling large trailers had been pulled in first and now barricaded the main building of the marina. The docks were protected. Unless the vehicles were moved, nothing was getting into the heavily defended area.

  “There are people!” Shane shouted into his walkie talkie.

  Well-armed people patrolled atop the vehicles and along the fences. Most of them carried flashlights but actual torches had been put up all around the area. It was like a military-occupied fallback in a warzone.

  Someone approached their vehicles when Shane, Darcy, and Stephanie pulled up. He made gestures ordering them to roll their windows down and Shane heard him speaking before he’d even fully complied with the command.

  “…people you have with you?”

  “There’s five of us, including two infants,” Shane answered. “We thought to get to one of the islands, try to wait out what’s going on.”

  “Did you turn on the siren?” one of the other men asked as he approached the convoy.

  Shane nodded. “We thought it would draw some of the corrupted away so we could get onto a boat or something without drawing too much attention to ourselves.”

  “Mother fuckers haven’t bothered us today. We gave them hell yesterday and the day before,” the first man said as he raised his gun up a bit and wiggled it. “We have a ferry working. We’ll move some of the trucks and you can drive through. We got as many of the immune to the island as we’ve been able to. Those of us who are only partly affected are guarding the marina entrance.”

  “Jesus,” Shane breathed out. “What a system.”

  The first man waved at some of the others and Shane heard one of the vehicles inside start up. The sound was quickly followed by the revving of three more engines.

  “We can talk more once we get you inside.” The apparent leader of the group addressed the others in the marina, shouting, “Okay, let’s do it quick and slick.”

  The vehicles parted way for Shane and the others and were replaced against the fences just as quickly. Using hand gestures to lead them, the first man who’d approached them directed them right to the ferry.

  “I’ll go with you on the boat and then come back here after,” the leader said as Shane parked the truck and stepped out. He went around to release Leila from her car seat and held her tight to his chest. He finally felt as though they had a chance to be safe.

  “So, what’s been happening with you guys since the world ended?”

  Chapter Forty

  Armani’s Journal

  The coming of the dawn brought the end of the siege upon our world. Any who were full corrupted–whether they were protected from the sunlight or not–burned with the return of light. Any who were held in the grasp of only half of the affliction had the demons exorcised from them. As soon as it had begun, it seemed, the wave of terror intending to drown our world subsided.

  Those of us who had found a safe haven began to consider those places as the nexuses of rebuilding. Whatever the corruption was, it had destroyed what we had built almost completely. Much of our communication technology was now as reliable as paper cups and strings. Satellites that had been orbiting our world for decades crashed to the ground. Try as we might, it was almost impossible to restore communication in any way that would connect us as we were once connected.

  After the first few months of what came to be known as the Corruption Event, most of us stopped trying. As a nearly unspoken agreement around what remained of humanity, we decided to turn away from the path we once pursued with such fervor. Perhaps in the years and decades to come, that goal will once again become viable. As it stands now, we are almost relieved to be cut off from most of our fellow man.

  The dark is still the enemy. We have only theories and whispered stories but some of us have seen the remnants of what destroyed what we were. Though gone from our own minds and souls, the darkness still exists here, where it doesn’t belong. We have to protect what we have, lest we end up with only memories of what we’ve lost.

  Eric and I established a safe zone in Lower Michigan. Our community grows day after day, gathering men and women of all types and talents. When the spring comes, we will have our work cut out for us. As with many of the others, I am simply glad we are here to continue the work.

  No one found this journal on my dead body, after all. I now have hope that it will be regarded as a piece of history from what we encountered, and what we overcame. I’ll be a part of that history and, through my words, so even w
ill Jess and the others we’ve lost. Molly. Gwen. Brooke and Ivy. David, Kimberly, and their son, Alec. Kirby. We especially need to remember Kirby.

  If not for them, if not for him, neither of us would be here. It sounds arrogant of me, perhaps, but I find myself thinking, maybe none of us would. Something wanted the uncorrupted; wanted them gifted to the darkness by human hands. Instead of turning us over, instead of losing himself to the darkness, Kirby gave his life to save us. We have to remember that, and the others who were saved and sacrificed.

  We have so far to go. We have so much to do. We’ve won our world back for now but what will we have to do to keep it? I’m afraid none of us have the answers anymore. I’m almost certain none of us ever did.

  Amy’s Journal

  Nick and Don were only the first of the soldiers who decided to reclaim the abandoned base as a trustworthy fallback point for uncorrupted humans. Any of us able to get here found safety and others like us. We’ve protected each other and will continue to do so as the world returns to something of what it was before everything happened.

  Sam and Trevor made their way to us days after they sent us to the base. They said they found Austin, or rather, his body. Someone shot him in the head. Laura wasn’t there and she hasn’t come back to us yet. I wonder if someone killed him and took her.

  Other parts of me wonder worse things.

  Trevor doesn’t remember anything of what happened from the day of the Onset until the Event ended. I’m glad he doesn’t have to live with that, with what that thing did while it was inside of him. I hope he never knows.

  Both of the kids have nightmares, though. I do, too.

  I don’t know what we’re going to do. Sam says that in a few months, when the snows are gone and some stability has returned, we’ll go to Washington. I need to know what happened to my parents, no matter what. I at least have to try.