Dark Days (Book 6): Survivors

by Lukens, Mark

  “I want you to show me.”

  “Show you what?”

  “Your wound,” Petra said, stepping up to him. “I want you to take your bandages off and show me your wound.”

  “I’m not doing that,” Neal said, his ever-present smile finally slipping away, his eyes narrowing, making his face seem more pinched than ever.

  Petra was close to him now. Even though she was much smaller than Neal, she seemed to be making him cower back. He even took a step back toward his tent.

  Max moved in swiftly on the other side of Neal, like they were boxing him in. Kate stepped back and pulled Brooke away gently, moving her back. She had scooped Tiger up into her arms without Kate seeing it.

  “Take the bandages off right now,” Petra said.

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” Neal growled.

  Petra grabbed his shirt. Max was right on the other side, grabbing Neal as Petra tore at the dirty bandages on his head.

  Other people were coming out of their tents, watching the assault.

  For a moment Kate didn’t know what Petra and Max were doing, or why. And for that second, she was about to tell them to stop. But then it clicked in her mind. The bandages were covering a lot of the top of his head, his entire forehead—they were looking for the Dark Angel brand. Why hadn’t she thought of that? But she’d known something was creepy about Neal; she’d felt that right away.

  Neal screamed like he was being beaten, but Max was only holding him while Petra pulled the last of the bandages away, then she stepped back. Max let go of him.

  There was no DA brand on Neal’s forehead, just a deep and thick gash that looked like it was festering, the skin puckered and black around the wound, most of his forehead a deep shade of red.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Jo screamed at them.

  CHAPTER 40

  Kate

  Kate froze. Everybody did.

  Jo stood ten feet away, staring at them, her eyes wide with shock and fury, her face flushed, her fists on her hips.

  “We needed to be sure,” Petra said, breathing hard, one hand still gripping a fistful of Neal’s sweatshirt. She never looked away from Jo, matching her stare, not showing an ounce of shame at what she’d done or an ounce of backing down from her decision.

  “Sure of what?” Jo asked.

  “We needed to see his forehead,” Petra said. “We needed to make sure he didn’t have the brand.”

  Jo glanced around, seeing that others were standing around and watching them. Lance had come up beside Jo, her right-hand man.

  “We need to have a meeting right now,” Jo said. “All of you.” She pointed at Max, Kate, Petra, and Neal. “In the meeting room.”

  Petra let go of Neal’s shirt. He nodded at Jo, bending down to pick up the dirty lengths of bandages from the floor.

  Kate bent down and whispered to Brooke, telling her to stay in the tent. Brooke shook her head no, staring up at Kate with wide eyes of fear.

  Jo sighed. “Just bring her with you.” Then she turned and stormed off toward the double doors, Lance falling in right beside her.

  Max gathered Petra, Kate, and Brooke (who was still holding on to Tiger even though he was squirming a little in her arms), and they followed Jo and Lance down the hall to the meeting room, all of them filing inside.

  Lance closed the door and waited by it like a sentry. Kate and Brooke sat down on one side of the table, Tiger curling up in Brooke’s lap under the table. Petra took the seat at the end of the table, opposite from the head of the table where Jo stood. Max sat down near Petra.

  Jo stopped Neal before he could take a seat next to Max. “You need to go see the doc.”

  “I’m fine,” he said. He smiled, but his face was flushed and sweaty. He was trembling, balling his dirty bandages up in his hands.

  “No you’re not. Have you looked at your wound in the mirror? Tried to clean it?”

  Neal didn’t answer. He shifted his weight from one foot to another.

  “It’s infected. I can smell it from here.”

  Neal barely nodded. He looked like he might pass out at any second.

  Jo looked at Lance by the door. “Will you make sure Neal goes down the hall to see April?”

  Lance walked forward, waiting for Neal. They left the meeting room without any further arguments from Neal.

  Jo took her seat at the head of the table, the white board on the wall behind her.

  “I’m sorry about what happened,” Max said.

  “What the hell was that out there?”

  “We needed to be sure he didn’t have the Dark Angels’ brand,” Petra said, her gaze unwavering.

  “Yeah, I heard you.”

  “We couldn’t be sure,” Max said. “We asked him to take the bandages off, but he wouldn’t do it.”

  “The doc said he wouldn’t let her treat him,” Petra said. “Seemed suspicious to me.”

  Jo sighed. “This isn’t how we do things here. We don’t threaten people. We don’t strong arm them, force them to do things.”

  “I know this looks bad,” Max said. “But those Dark Angels are dangerous. Like Petra said, we needed to be sure. Maybe being out there beyond these walls, surviving, it’s made us a little paranoid.”

  Jo stiffened, and Kate wondered if she’d felt insulted, like Max had just thrown a jab at her for hiding inside her store while the world went to hell.

  Kate spoke up: “Max and Petra asked him to show his forehead,” Kate said. “I heard them. But he wouldn’t do it.”

  “Obviously he’s afraid it’s bad,” Jo said. “He wanted to keep it covered up. Afraid to face the truth.”

  Kate knew Neal’s infection was bad; she had smelled the rot just like Jo had. And this wasn’t a hand or a foot that could be lopped off to save him. She shivered at the thought of it.

  “You should’ve come to me,” Jo snapped. “You should’ve talked to me about this.”

  Max just nodded, not even bothering to defend himself anymore.

  Kate knew Jo was a sweet and caring woman, but she’d just seen the Mr. Hyde side of her, an almost scary anger.

  “If you want us to leave, we understand,” Max said.

  Jo let out another long sigh, and this time all of her anger seemed to flow out of her with that exhale. She shook her head no. “I don’t want you to leave. We need you. We all need each other. But we have rules here, and they need to be followed. We can’t turn into animals. We can’t become like them out there. Understand?”

  Max nodded. So did Kate. And even Brooke. And finally Petra.

  “Okay,” Jo said. “Why don’t you guys go get some rest?”

  “I’d like to volunteer for a shift on the roof,” Petra said.

  Kate looked at Petra, then at Jo, waiting for her answer. Kate guessed Petra was trying to make up to Jo by volunteering for a job most of them around there didn’t want.

  “Okay. That’s fine. We need as many up there watching as we can get.”

  After the meeting was over, Kate took Brooke back to their tent. She wasn’t sure exactly what time it was, but it had seemed like a long day. She was ready to go to sleep.

  As she unzipped their tent, she looked over at Neal’s tent. She didn’t think he was back from seeing the doctor yet.

  Inside the tent, Brooke snuggled up inside her sleeping bag with Tiger crawling up next to her, curling up into a ball and purring. Kate crawled in beside her.

  “You think you’ll be okay to sleep?” Kate asked Brooke.

  She nodded as she stroked Tiger.

  “We’re safe here, okay?”

  Brooke nodded again and Kate felt like a liar. They were safer than they’d been at her parents’ house, and definitely safer than some of the other places where they’d stayed the night, but they weren’t truly safe here or anywhere else.

  “If you wake up, don’t go wandering around the store by yourself. Okay, Brooke? Wake me up first.”

  She nodded.

  “Promis
e?”

  She nodded again and cracked a smile.

  “I’m sorry I yelled at you about Jeff’s music box earlier.”

  “It’s okay,” she whispered.

  “I know you weren’t trying to steal it.” And frankly, she thought that Jeff might have overreacted just a bit. “You just wanted to look at it, right?”

  She shrugged.

  “Did you used to have a music box like that?”

  She shook her head no.

  “Maybe we’ll try to convince Jeff to open it so you can look inside. When he’s ready.”

  “I don’t want to look inside.”

  “Why?”

  She just shrugged again.

  “I know you’re upset about what happened. We’ll all forget about it soon.”

  Brooke yawned.

  “You get some sleep.”

  Brooke closed her eyes, snuggling up closer to Tiger.

  Kate lay down on her sleeping bag. She had the large flashlight right next to her. She wasn’t sure if they kept some kind of battery-powered lantern on around these tents—she guessed that they did, but she wanted to have a light beside her if she needed it.

  Her sleeping bag was surprisingly comfortable. A mattress would have been better, but mattresses were one of the things they didn’t sell at this store; they just sold smaller furniture: desks, office chairs, bookcases, end tables. Still, as tired as she was, she didn’t think she was going to have any trouble falling asleep, even though she knew the dreams would haunt her.

  She had expected to pay another visit to the Dragon’s hellish town, but she found herself in the mountains, in a beautiful clearing surrounded by trees all around her in the distance. About a hundred yards away was a large log cabin with a free-standing garage next to it, also constructed from logs. The place looked newer and sturdy with a massive stone fireplace on one side of the home. A concrete path led up to a wide front porch. A light dusting of snow covered everything under a deep and clear blue sky.

  No smoke drifted from the chimney, but she knew people were inside—the people she’d seen in her dreams over and over again were in that cabin. And, even though this place looked like a mountain paradise, she knew there was terrible danger here . . . a terrible danger coming.

  Then she heard the voices in the woods, men shouting, the sound of gunfire. They were Dark Angels, she was sure of it, and they were coming this way.

  She was about to run to the cabin, ready to pound on the door so the people inside could let her in, but then something roared past her like a missile. It slammed into the front of the cabin and the place exploded.

  Kate stifled a scream as she watched the cabin fall in on itself, engulfed in flames. She was frozen in place, but she could see the people inside the cabin in her mind, trapped under fallen walls and screaming as their bodies roasted and brains boiled.

  Then she saw movement in the flames . . . one of them was escaping the fire, slowly walking out of it.

  The man was tall, dressed in black, a hood up over his head that kept his face in shadows, only his eyes glowing, seeming to reflect the firelight. He stepped out of the wreckage like the Devil stepping out of Hell.

  “They’re gone,” he said. He was still a hundred yards away, but his voice seemed like it was right behind her, whispering into her ear. “They’re all gone.”

  Kate jumped awake in the dark. She sat up on her sleeping bag, her hand shooting out, searching for the big flashlight. But she couldn’t find it. She felt the sleeping bag on the other side of her, feeling for Brooke and Tiger, but they weren’t there. She’d told Brooke not to go out by herself, but she’d gone anyway.

  She heard the unzipping of her tent, the flaps tearing open. A large shape filled the opening.

  Max?

  No, the man’s eyes shined in the darkness.

  Kate woke up then, sitting up, reaching for her flashlight. She found it and turned it on, shined it around inside the tent. Brooke and Tiger were lying on their sleeping bag next to her. Brooke was still asleep, but Tiger’s eyes opened a bit when the light splashed across his face—he looked annoyed at being woken up.

  She sat there for a moment, trembling. She felt horrible, a loss almost as great as finding out her entire family had turned into rippers. She turned the flashlight back off and set it down beside her.

  Then she heard Brooke whispering in the darkness. She was talking in her sleep. “All gone,” she whispered. “They’re all gone.”

  Kate realized that Brooke was having the same dream she’d had. Could it be true? Could all of the people they’d seen in their dreams be dead now?

  PART 5

  CHAPTER 41

  Ray

  Ray jumped awake when he heard Emma call his name. Her voice was sharp, an urgency to it. He sat up in bed, suddenly wide awake and staring at Emma as she stood beside the bed. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Because he knew instantly that something was wrong.

  “It’s Mike,” she said. Even with her dark glasses on he saw her expression of fear and panic. “Rose has him in the basement.”

  “Rose?”

  “She has a knife to his throat.”

  Ray jumped out of bed.

  “Josh is down there,” she said quickly.

  Ray had to force himself to freeze, to keep himself from bolting out the door and down the stairs to the basement. Every fiber of his being told him to move, to go save his son, but he waited for Emma to continue—she had more to say.

  “Josh is down there and he has his gun aimed at her,” she said.

  A thousand questions raced through his mind: How did this happen? Why had Rose attacked Mike? What did she want? Why were they down in the basement?

  But he didn’t have time to ponder those things. He grabbed his pistol off of the end table next to the bed and bolted down the stairs to the ground floor. He didn’t bother to wait for Emma—she could make it up and down the stairs well enough by herself.

  Even though it only took a few seconds to get down the basement stairs, it felt like forever, like time had stretched out. He found himself praying, begging God not to take Mike from him.

  He’s all I’ve got left.

  A moment later he stood beside Josh just inside the bunker doorway. Josh had his pistol aimed at Rose who stood behind Mike with a kitchen knife up to his throat. The harsh fluorescent lights bathed them in a bright light, deepening the shadows, the light winking off the long and sharp blade of the knife.

  Mike looked scared, but not terrified. Rose had been crying, but her face was scrunched in anger. Her hand holding the knife trembled, the knife blade so close to his son’s flesh.

  “Rose,” Ray said in a gentle voice.

  Her eyes were on Josh and his gun, and then they flicked to Ray.

  “Rose, please put the knife down. We can talk about this.”

  Rose didn’t say anything.

  Obviously her intentions weren’t to kill Mike; she was just using him for some reason. If she wanted to kill him, she could have done so already.

  “Why are you doing this, Rose? Are you mad about something?”

  “I . . . I can’t . . .” she said.

  “Just move the knife away from my son’s throat a little so we can talk about this.”

  Rose didn’t move the knife.

  Mike was frozen, his arms down at his sides, his body tense, bent back slightly, his eyes wide, his mouth closed in a tight line as he breathed through his nostrils.

  “Why are you doing this, Rose?” Ray asked.

  “They made me,” she snapped.

  Ray knew he had to tread carefully. He didn’t want to make Rose madder than she already was. He crouched down and set his gun on the floor, the metal clinking slightly on the concrete. “Look, I’m setting my gun down. Why don’t you put your knife down just a little? Okay?”

  She seemed to be thinking it over. Tears flowed from her eyes. “They made me do this. They said they’d kill all of them if I didn’t do what
they wanted.”

  “Kill all of who? The people you were with? I thought you said you had to run away from them.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Who’s going to kill them?” Ray asked. “The Dark Angels?”

  Rose nodded and sniffled.

  Emma was somewhere behind Ray, a few feet away at least, but he didn’t turn around to look at her.

  “What did they want you to do?” he asked Rose. Obviously they had wanted her to infiltrate this cabin, but he wanted to keep her talking. She had lowered the knife down from Mike’s throat just a little, but he would feel much better if she would lower it some more.

  “They wanted me to get in here.”

  “Get in here and what? Kill us? Hurt us?”

  Rose didn’t answer for a moment.

  “What did they want you to do, Rose?”

  “They wanted me to get in here and look around. Find things out. And then dream.”

  “Dream?” Ray said. “Have you had strange dreams lately?”

  Rose just nodded.

  “Have you seen the Dragon in your dreams?”

  She nodded again.

  “Have you seen us in your dreams before you came here?” Ray asked. He’d never seen Rose in any of his dreams, and no one else had mentioned seeing her in their dreams.

  “No,” she answered.

  “What about the others here?” he asked her.

  She shook her head, just a slight movement.

  “What about others? Have you seen them in your dreams? A woman and a little girl? A man and woman with them?”

  “No,” she said. She sounded like she was getting impatient with his questions.

  “The Dark Angels told you to come in here and dream,” Ray said. “Your dreams would bring them here? Is that right?” Ray knew it was more complicated than that. The Dragon would see inside their cabin through Rose’s dreams. He would see their bunker and supplies. He would see their tunnels.

  “You’ve seen everything here,” Ray said more to himself than to Rose. It wasn’t a question. He looked at Mike, locking eyes with his son, and in that split second he knew Mike had told Rose about the tunnels.