Dark Days (Book 6): Survivors

by Lukens, Mark

  Then he could move. He could breathe again.

  Had he cried out in his sleep? He looked at Mike next to him in the bed; he was still sound asleep, breathing heavily, nearly snoring.

  Ray swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. He looked at the digital alarm clock next to the bed, the only source of light in the bedroom, but just barely enough for him to make out the table, the lamp, the walls, the door that led out to the balcony. The time on the clock was almost three a.m.

  It was time for him to go downstairs and take over the watch for Luke.

  He slipped his sneakers on and then put his hoodie on. The house was pretty cold because they kept the heat to a minimum, not wanting anyone outside to feel any warmth coming from their dark cabin, no signs that anyone was here. But now it was more than just the chill in the air that gave him the shivers—it was the nightmare he’d just had.

  God, what a dream. He’d seen Vanessa again, something that should have made him happy, but then the dream had turned bad. And then Kim had come stumbling up to him from the mist.

  He wondered how he could have dreamed something like that. And then he wondered if the Dragon had manipulated his dream somehow.

  But he couldn’t think about the dream right now; he needed to focus on what he was doing.

  Ray went downstairs and found Luke slumped down on the couch. Maybe he was sleeping. He crept toward him.

  “I’m awake,” Luke whispered.

  “Everything’s okay?”

  “So far.”

  “I’ll take over. Go ahead and get some sleep.”

  Luke got up from the couch, grabbing the rifle he had leaned against it and headed to the spare bedroom Josh had been using before he and Emma had gotten together.

  CHAPTER 8

  Luke

  Luke stretched out in the spare bedroom downstairs since Josh was up in Emma’s room now that their secret had been exposed. He had taken off his holster with his pistol and set it on the bed beside him. He kept his hiking boots on in case he needed to jump up and help Ray.

  Moments later he was sleeping, and he was dreaming.

  He saw the woman and the girl again, the ones he’d seen in the motel office, sleeping behind the check-in desk. He remembered them, how they’d been in danger. He remembered the men pulling up outside the lobby doors in a black van. Two men. Dangerous men. Dark Angels? Perhaps. Luke hadn’t seen that far into the dream. He had wanted to warn the woman and the girl, shout at them to wake up, to run, but his feet had been rooted to the floor, his body frozen with paralysis, and his voice would never reach their ears.

  He’d never known if they had gotten away from the two men in the van, but they must have because he was watching them now and they weren’t in the motel lobby anymore, but in front of an older home.

  They had gotten away from the two men in the van. They were safe from them, but not totally safe. None of them were totally safe. None of them would ever be totally safe again.

  The woman and the girl stood next to each other in front of the old house in what seemed like a small town. There were mountains all around, no other homes in sight. There were two other people with the woman and the girl, a man and a woman. Luke had seen the two of them before in his dreams. The man seemed to be quite a bit older than the woman. He had the beginnings of a gray beard and salt and pepper hair. He was tall, with long arms and long legs, a potbelly that was diminishing in this new wasteland they all found themselves in. The woman was thin but compact, strong and sure of herself. Tough.

  Luke stood in the street. It was misty with the drizzling rain. There was danger coming for the four of them. They thought they were safe at this house. And maybe they were safe for the moment, but a wave of horror was coming their way very soon.

  He wanted to warn them, run toward them, but before he could call out to them or move, he was somewhere else—he was back in the hell town, the place where the Dragon ruled.

  Luke stood in the middle of the street. The surroundings were familiar now: dead and dying bodies hung from porches, trees, and light poles like large, bizarre ornaments. Others were stretched over the tops of cars or staked to the sides of wood buildings, their clothing ripped away, their wounded and tortured flesh exposed to the drizzle and the sky of solid clouds. There were always clouds here, always churning and moving, always windy and cold.

  In this place Luke could move. The tortured could see him here, hear him. They moaned and sobbed, struggled hopelessly against their bonds, begging to be freed, begging for a moment of relief, begging to be killed, for the pain to end.

  Luke walked down the middle of the road, walking past the tortured, passing the ruined and blasted buildings. He could do nothing for the tortured—he walked toward the sound of the crowd. The Dragon had amassed his followers again, a dark congregation to worship him.

  The Dragon would be up on the stage, ready to cleave another captive’s face in with an ax or to preach about those who would try to stop them.

  Luke would find the Dragon this time, and he would kill him. He headed toward the sound of the people, the cheers erupting into the cold air from beyond the buildings like a rock concert. He looked down at his side, then slipped his hand inside his hoodie. His gun and holster weren’t there. His hunting knife wasn’t on his belt. No weapons at all.

  Then he would kill him with his bare hands.

  Suddenly Luke was running, the rage building inside of him as he turned down side streets, passing rows of houses that had been built close together, clapboard houses that were falling apart.

  He was getting closer to the crowd, getting closer to the Dragon . . . he could hear them.

  He rounded the corner of the next house, running out onto the street. And then he stopped.

  There was no noise, no sounds coming from anywhere. The roar and cheers of the Dragon’s congregation were silent now. The Dragon’s fiery speech had stopped. Everything was silent except for the constant cold wind blowing through the skeletal trees and brown brush.

  Where were they? He’d just heard them a few seconds ago.

  The house right across the street caught his attention; it was larger than the other homes, in better condition. It was a three-story Victorian with a garage attached to the right side of it. A large brown lawn stretched from the grand front porch down to the edge of the street. The front door was hidden in shadows underneath the wide porch roof, but even from where Luke stood he could tell the front door was halfway open.

  Something waited inside that house for him.

  The Dragon? Could it be him?

  No, Luke didn’t think so. He thought it might be something else.

  Something worse?

  A sudden spike of fear struck Luke, a sensation he wasn’t used to. But even though his skin crawled with chills, he found himself walking across the street, up the lawn, and then up the wooden steps to the front porch. Now that he was closer to the house, he realized that it wasn’t in quite as good of shape as he’d thought: the paint on the siding was flaking away, the wood on the front porch was gray and rotting, part of the floor sagging. One of the windows had a large crack in it, nothing but darkness beyond it—nothing but darkness beyond the half-open door.

  No, there was more than darkness beyond that doorway, there was something waiting for him.

  “Luke,” a voice whispered.

  He knew that voice. It wasn’t the Dragon, he was sure of that.

  “Luke!” the voice snapped.

  Yes, he knew who that was waiting in the darkness for him.

  Someone grabbed his shoulder. He turned to see who it was, but there was no one there. Yet he still felt the person’s hand on him.

  “Luke, wake up.”

  It was Ray.

  Luke jumped, sitting bolt-upright in bed, reaching for his gun and shoulder holster on the bed beside him.

  Ray stood beside the bed. He had stepped back when Luke had sat up. He seemed tense, ready to react if Luke swung at him.

&
nbsp; “Outside,” Ray said.

  Luke heard a sound coming from the front of the cabin, the tinkling of the metal cans out there.

  He was on his feet in a flash, following Ray back out to the living room. The cans were still clanking outside, but settling down now. There was silence for a few seconds and then a thump out on the front porch.

  Luke looked out the window to the left of the front door and Ray looked out the window to the right of the door. It was dark on the porch and the porch roof made it harder to see, but Luke could make out the body on the front porch lying on the floorboards. The body was small and thin, long hair spilling out from under the hood of a sweatshirt. A woman, had to be. She was curled up in a fetal position on her side. He couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or closed. He couldn’t tell if she was resting or if she was passed out. Or if she was dead. He couldn’t even tell if she was breathing.

  “You see her?” Ray asked as he crept up behind Luke.

  He nodded. “Yeah. Only one so far.” He looked at Ray. “What time is it?”

  “Almost dawn.”

  Luke held Ray’s stare and swore he could read the man’s mind: We’ll wait it out, wait until first light. See if there are any others in the woods.

  CHAPTER 9

  Josh

  Josh’s eyes snapped open. It was just before dawn, that twilight between dark and daylight. The room was still dark, but he could barely make out the room around him as it lightened up minute by minute.

  He wasn’t sure what had woken him up. Maybe a bad dream. He was sure he’d been having a bad dream, but he couldn’t remember much about it. He thought he might have seen Marla and Kyle in his dream. He hated dreaming about them even though he loved seeing them again—it was those few seconds when he woke up and realized all over again that his sister and nephew were dead that caused the agony, and then he would experience that heartache all over again.

  Emma was awake. Her eyes were still closed, but he could tell just by the way she was breathing that she wasn’t asleep.

  “You okay?” he asked her.

  “I heard some noises downstairs a few minutes ago.”

  “Noises? You should have woke me up.”

  “I just did.”

  Josh was ready to jump out of bed, but she laid a hand on his arm. “I think it’s Ray and Luke moving around down there.”

  Josh remembered the two of them were on watch tonight. He was supposed to take the early morning watch. He got up and slipped his pants on, then he pulled his hoodie on over his layer of shirts. It was cold in the bedroom; he could nearly see his breath. He put his hiking boots on, tying the laces quickly. He grabbed his shotgun from beside the nightstand then went around the bed to Emma’s side and gave her a good-morning kiss.

  “I’ll go check on things.”

  She nodded and lay back down, closing her eyes again. “Let me know what’s going on.”

  “I will.”

  Josh left the bedroom and hurried down the steps. He carried his shotgun in his left hand. His right arm still hurt a little, but it was definitely healing. At least the antibiotics were working to clear the infection up.

  Ray and Luke were at the windows that looked out onto the front porch, one on each side of the door. Josh froze for just a second at the bottom of the stairs, tensing up. Ray and Luke both had their guns with them.

  He hurried over to Luke. “What’s up?”

  “Someone’s on the front porch.”

  “Who?”

  Luke moved aside so Josh could look out the window. It had lightened up quite a bit in the last few minutes since he’d gotten out of bed, but everything was still the dark blues and black shadows of pre-dawn, the sun nowhere near above the mountains yet.

  He saw a woman lying on her side on the floorboards of the porch. She might even be a teenager. She was bundled up in a hoodie sweatshirt, blue jeans, cloth gloves, and sneakers, but she couldn’t have been warm enough out there. She was either sleeping or knocked out. Maybe even freezing to death.

  “It’s her, isn’t it?” Josh said. “The one who was out in the woods watching the cabin. The tracks you saw.”

  “Seems like it,” Luke replied in a low voice.

  “Nobody else?”

  “None that we’ve seen so far. But it could be a trap to get us out onto the porch.”

  Josh looked beyond the front porch at the woods in the distance, but the woods were just a mass of darkness, the tops of the trees silhouetted against the dark blue morning sky.

  Ray came over to them.

  “We need to help her,” Josh said.

  “She could be a scout for the Dark Angels,” Ray said. “Or some other gang.”

  Luke didn’t say anything, but he seemed to agree with Ray.

  “Or she could be alone,” Josh argued. “She could be looking for a place to sleep, a place out of the wind.”

  They didn’t say anything.

  “We can’t just let her freeze to death because we’re not sure if she’s alone.”

  “We have to be careful,” Ray said.

  “She could be one of us,” Josh said. “One of the ones we’ve seen in our dreams.”

  Ray just stared at him, and Josh thought he could tell what he was thinking: the last time Josh thought a little girl was someone they’d seen in their dreams, it had almost gotten them killed by a swarm of rippers.

  “We have to think about ourselves,” Ray said, still calm, still arguing his case logically. “We have to think about Mike and Emma right now.”

  “Yeah, I get that. But we can’t turn into animals, either. We can’t become like those people out there.”

  Ray shook his head—a doctor delivering a bad prognosis. “It’s too risky. We need to wait them out. Keep watching the woods. See if she wakes up.”

  “Yeah,” Josh said, his voice rising. “If she wakes up.”

  “We need to wait,” Ray said, his tone suddenly firmer. “We can’t risk what we’ve got here.”

  So you’ve become our elected leader? Josh almost spat out, but didn’t. Instead, he said, “We should vote on this.”

  Emma was coming down the stairs, surely alarmed by their arguing. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “There’s a woman passed out on the front porch,” Josh told her as she walked up to them. “A girl, really. She’s probably freezing to death.”

  “Oh God.”

  “But she might be a scout,” Ray said. “She might be with the Dark Angels. She might be bait to get us to go out there.”

  “Ray wants to wait for a while,” Josh said. “See if we can spot some people in the woods. I think we should go out there and get her.” He paused for just a second. “Hell, I’ll do it. I’ll go out there by myself. You two can wait by the door with the rifles.” Josh was sure Ray wouldn’t be too heartbroken if someone shot him while he was dragging the girl back inside. Ray would probably gloat, stand over him while he was dying and saying, “I told you so.”

  “Fine,” Ray said. “We take a vote.”

  “All in favor of bringing her inside,” Josh said. “Raise your hands.”

  Josh and Emma raised their hands.

  “All in favor of waiting,” Ray said and raised his hand.

  Ray and Josh looked at Luke.

  “You didn’t raise your hand,” Josh said.

  “I think we should compromise,” Luke said. “Maybe wait thirty more minutes. Wait until it’s a little lighter out there. Scan the trees with binoculars first when we can really see. When it’s light, we’ll go out there. You can drag her back inside and I’ll be out there with the rifle. I want to help her, but I also want to be smart about this. But even more than that, I want to see what kind of information she might have.” He glanced at Ray. “But we can’t get any information if she dies out there.”

  “Even if we go out there in thirty minutes,” Ray said, “and nothing happens, it doesn’t mean that she’s not with some other people. They could be waiting for her to get inside.�
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  “People are going to find this place eventually,” Josh said.

  Josh looked at Emma. She seemed to be able to tell he was looking at her.

  She nodded slightly. “I think Josh is right. Eventually they’ll find us. If not the Dark Angels, then some other gang or group of people. Or even rippers. At some point we’re going to have to either run or fight.”

  “Fine,” Ray said. “It’s three to one. Even if Mike voted with me, you’d still have the majority.”

  Emma stepped closer to Ray and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I know you’re just trying to protect us. Thank you.”

  Ray sighed, showing his displeasure at their decision, but he nodded in agreement. “Let’s get the binoculars and watch the woods for a little while, see if anyone else is out there.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Ray

  Thirty minutes later Ray stood at the window with the binoculars up to his eyes, studying the woods in the distance. The sun still wasn’t up over the mountains yet, but it was much lighter than before. Ray could see well into the trees and brush, but then it became nothing but murky shadows. He had panned back and forth with the binoculars slowly, looking for anyone in the woods, any signs of movement. All he’d seen so far were two rabbits and a few birds fluttering around.

  But that didn’t mean that there weren’t others waiting somewhere out there in the woods, far deeper in the trees, maybe watching the cabin with their own binoculars, or looking through a high-powered rifle scope. Or they could be in the woods off to the side, just out of view of the edge of the windows.

  Mike hadn’t woken up—at least he hadn’t come downstairs yet. Ray wasn’t sure if he should let Mike sleep or wake him up. He needed his sleep, and if this was just some young woman on her own, lost in the woods and no danger to them, then there was no need to wake him up yet. But then again, if they needed to react, if they needed to fight back, then he wanted Mike awake and alert. He still wasn’t sure what to do, and he hated being mired in indecision like this.