Dark Days (Book 6): Survivors

by Lukens, Mark

  “You sure that bunker’s going to hold?” Luke whispered.

  “Yeah,” Josh answered.

  But Luke wasn’t too confident about that. Even if the cabin didn’t collapse or if the bunker held the weight of the collapsed cabin, the fire was going to spread to the garage at any minute, maybe even catch the whole clearing on fire.

  “We don’t have a lot of time to do this,” Luke whispered. “You ready?”

  Josh nodded. Swallowed hard. “If anything happens to me, take care of Emma. Make sure she’s safe.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you. I got your back. You just worry about doing your part. Nothing else. Focus only on your job and we’ll be okay.”

  Josh nodded again, saying nothing this time.

  They moved through the brush. It took a few minutes to get to the edge of the dirt drive. Luke took off, moving silently through the woods, closer to the trucks, Josh right behind him.

  The Dark Angels seemed preoccupied with the burning cabin, all of them watching it like the flames were hypnotizing them. Maybe they were still waiting for burning bodies to claw their way out of the fire, or they were just waiting for the flames to die down. It was too hot to get near the cabin right now.

  Luke could imagine how hot the bunker might be getting. And when the cabin collapsed . . . but he didn’t want to think about that.

  Just focus on the job.

  He nodded at Josh, signaling him to throw the Molotov cocktails.

  Josh lit the firebombs and then rose to his feet. He threw one right after the other, like he was throwing a deep pass down the football field. The Molotov cocktails hit their targets, one hitting each truck, erupting into flames, catching two men in the back of the truck—the one with the rocket launcher in back—on fire. The men flailed, screaming as they tried to pat the flames out, falling out of the truck.

  The Dark Angels ran around in a panic, the leader of their group shouting something incoherent into the bullhorn.

  Luke shot the man who had the bullhorn, then he shot two others. He didn’t shoot at the burning men as they rolled around on the ground—he wasn’t going to waste a bullet on them.

  Josh bolted for the pickup truck at the end of the line of vehicles. He ran crouched down, like he was running underneath spinning helicopter blades, but still running fast. Bullets flew, but Luke got the shooter, putting a bullet in the man’s face, dropping him immediately to the ground.

  Luke ran toward the vehicles, still covering Josh. He saw a few of the Dark Angels fleeing into the woods and he went after them. He hit one, then another, and wounded a third.

  The sounds of approaching rippers echoed through the woods. The fleeing Dark Angels were going to run right into the rippers, which was good. But the horde of rippers might get to the clearing before they could get to the vehicles in the garage and get away, which was bad.

  And it sounded like a hell of a lot of rippers were coming.

  CHAPTER 48

  Josh

  Josh got the pickup truck moved across the clearing, out of the way of the dirt driveway and into the woods. He’d been surprised to find the keys hanging in the ignition, and he hadn’t really even thought about the keys not being there on his run from the woods to the truck. But it made sense that the keys were in the ignition. Why not leave them in the ignition? Who was going to steal the trucks?

  Once the truck was moved and parked, Josh got out. He needed to get back to the hatch, back down in the bunker to get Ray, Emma, and Mike to the trucks in the garage.

  Luke had asked him if he thought the bunker would hold. Josh figured it would, but he couldn’t be absolutely sure. The cabin was minutes away from crashing in on itself, at least the roof and the second floor, a lot of burning weight coming down into the basement. The heat of the fire in the basement might be enough to kill them in the bunker. The force of the collapse could even cause the tunnels to cave in.

  Panic coursed through him as he ran into the woods. He needed to stop thinking about what might happen and just get to the hatch.

  Just focus on your job, that’s what Luke had said.

  Josh jumped out of the truck. The coast seemed to be clear—he didn’t see any Dark Angels. No live ones, anyway. Two burnt bodies smoldered on the ground next to the burning trucks. Another dead Dark Angel lay closer to the woods. The gunshots had stopped, and that had to be a good thing.

  Maybe Luke had already gotten all of the Dark Angels. Josh wouldn’t be surprised. And the ones that got away from Luke, the ones running into the woods, they were going to run smack into the herd of rippers coming this way.

  Josh got to the woods, working his way deeper into the trees and brush.

  And then he stopped when two Dark Angels stepped out from behind a large tree, both of them smiling, both of them raising their assault rifles up to shoot at him.

  This was it. He was dead.

  Spit. Spit.

  The Dark Angels dropped to the ground, their rifles slipping out of their dead hands.

  “Told you I had you covered,” Luke said from the brush twenty yards away.

  “Uh, yeah. Cool. Thanks.” Josh turned and ran.

  He got to the hatch, opened it, and crawled inside. He closed the hatch and locked it. He turned on his flashlight and grabbed his walkie-talkie off of his belt, turning it on.

  “Ray, come in. It’s Josh.”

  “I’m here, Josh.”

  “I’m coming down the tunnel. Get ready to leave.”

  A moment later Josh was in the bunker.

  “Did Luke get all the Dark Angels?” Mike asked.

  “A lot of them,” Josh said. “Most of them, I think. But the smoke and fire is bringing a lot of rippers this way. We need to hurry.” He didn’t bother mentioning that they were probably only seconds away from the cabin caving in and possibly trapping them down here to cook in a gigantic oven.

  It was already uncomfortably hot in the bunker, and it was only going to get worse very quickly.

  “I’ve got a few bags packed,” Ray said, pointing at four duffel bags that were packed full.

  “Okay,” Josh said. “To the garage. We’re going to get the van and the Jeep and drive out of here.”

  “But the trucks out there—”

  “I moved one of them. There’s enough room to get to the driveway.”

  Ray nodded quickly.

  Josh looked at Mike. “You and Emma first. There will be a ladder at the end of the tunnel. You go up first, then help Emma. Me and your dad will be right behind you guys.” He looked at Ray. “Your ankle?”

  “I can make it.”

  “We need to go now,” Josh said. He swore he caught a look in Ray’s eye, like Ray knew Josh wasn’t telling them everything, but he didn’t say anything.

  Mike unlocked and opened the door to the tunnel.

  At least this was the shortest tunnel, Josh thought. But it was also the one most vulnerable to collapsing when the cabin caved in. Even the doors could shift from the weight, wedging in place and trapping them inside. Or debris from the cabin could fall on the garage, crushing the workbenches and creating a pile of rubble in front of the hatch door that they couldn’t get through.

  Focus on the job. Nothing else.

  Mike grabbed the lightest of the duffel bags, and then he and Emma were inside the tunnel.

  Ray picked up one of the duffel bags.

  “You want me to get the bags?” Josh asked him.

  “It’s my ankle that’s hurt, not my arm,” Ray growled. He picked up the biggest duffel bag and two rifles.

  “Okay,” Josh said, grabbing the other two canvas bags. Each one was packed full and they both had a plastic bottle of water tied to the handle, weighing them down even more.

  “Maybe we can make a few more trips back down here,” Ray said. “Get some more supplies.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Josh said. He didn’t want to tell Ray how close the garage was to being destroyed—he was sure Ray would figure that out as soon as
they were up there.

  Josh followed Ray into the tunnel and then closed the door behind him, sealing them in darkness. He had his flashlight in his hand—he turned it on. Mike already had his flashlight on at the front of their line.

  At least it was a little cooler in the tunnel. So far, anyway.

  Moments later Mike was up the ladder and out in the garage. Then Emma. Then Ray. And finally Josh.

  “Dad, the garage is on fire,” Mike yelled.

  Josh saw the flames at the far end of the garage, the side with the door in it. Smoke was already pouring into the large room.

  “The garage doors,” Ray said, already hobbling over to the doors in front of the Jeep and the van.

  Josh helped Ray unlock the doors and roll them up; it helped with the smoke right away, but it also exposed them to any Dark Angels out there.

  The Jeep had been backed into the garage and could be driven out, but the van was going to have to be backed out of the garage.

  “I’ll take the Jeep,” Ray told Josh. “You take the van.”

  Josh nodded.

  Mike jumped into the passenger seat of the Jeep, already claiming the seat next to his father, after throwing his bag into the back seat. Josh guided Emma to the side door of the van and got her inside, and then he threw the duffel bags into the back. For just a second he wondered if he could make it back down to the bunker to get some more water and supplies, but he couldn’t risk it. So much was going to be left behind in the bunker, so much wasted.

  “You okay?” Josh asked Emma as she sat down on the bench seat.

  “Yes. We need to go.”

  Josh couldn’t have agreed more. He slid the door shut and ran around the front of the van, getting in on the driver’s side and slamming the door shut. He fetched the keys out from under the seat and jabbed them into the ignition and twisted. The motor tried to turn, whirring slowly.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Josh said.

  “Josh . . .” Emma moaned.

  “It’ll start,” he told her. He twisted the key again. “It’s just a little cold, that’s all.”

  The motor whirred again, then finally turned over, the engine running. Josh whooped with delight and shifted into reverse, giving the van gas before it stalled, backing the van out of the driveway and turning it around to follow Ray’s Jeep to the driveway.

  CHAPTER 49

  Ray

  “Dad,” Mike said.

  “I hear them, son.” He knew Mike was worried about the approaching mob of rippers. They were loud, like a crowd at a football game. And now Ray could see the rippers in the woods, darting through the trees.

  Ray raced to the burning trucks and the space between them that Josh had made when he had moved the last truck. It wasn’t a big space, but Josh was right, they could make it through.

  Where was Luke? Was he still out in the woods chasing Dark Angels?

  A crash from behind them sounded as the cabin finally collapsed. Ray’s stomach clenched as he thought of how close they had been to being trapped down there in the bunker.

  Just as Ray got to the trucks, he heard the rattling of machine-gun fire. Then he saw Luke shooting into the woods, fanning the weapon in his hands back and forth slowly, mowing down any approaching rippers from the woods.

  Ray stomped on the brake pedal. The Jeep skidded to a stop on the dirt, a cloud of dust behind them in the cold air. Josh stopped the van right behind their Jeep.

  Luke ran to the back door of the Jeep and opened it. He had two metal boxes and another large assault rifle in his hands. “Got some goodies from one of their trucks,” he said as he loaded the boxes and weapons into the back, then he got inside and slammed the door shut. “Go!”

  The gunfire had only held the rippers back for a few seconds. They were charging again.

  Luke rolled the back window down and leaned out of it with his M-16. “Cover your ears!” And then he shot at the rippers.

  Ray sped away. He didn’t glance at Mike, but he knew he was holding on as they sped down the dirt road.

  A moment later Luke was out of ammo.

  Ray rounded bends in the narrow road, taking the turns as quickly as he dared. Josh was a little ways behind, but he managed to keep up in the old van.

  The rippers were coming again, screaming and yelling, carrying sticks and throwing rocks.

  “We’re almost at the gate!” Ray yelled. He saw that the gate had been smashed open by the Dark Angels so they had a clear path through, but the hundreds of rippers were going to clog their point of escape in seconds.

  “I’ve got one last surprise left,” Luke said as he opened up one of the army-green metal boxes.

  Ray kept his hands on the steering wheel. He hit a few of the rippers that ran out into the road, knocking them back out of the way with the front of the Jeep.

  But more and more were coming.

  Luke was back at the window again throwing something that Ray couldn’t see. Then rippers exploded apart to the front and side of the Jeep, the explosion backing them up. Luke had a box of hand grenades.

  The explosions froze the herd of rippers just long enough for Ray to get through the gate, and then the van followed them. Luke threw one more grenade back the way they had come, the explosion booming in the woods.

  Luke turned back around. “Those are going to come in handy.” He laughed like a maniac.

  Ray was surprised that Mike had joined in with the laughter. And then Ray couldn’t help it, he started laughing too. They had made it. The blasts had held the rippers back long enough for them to get down the dirt road.

  Moments later Ray turned onto the dirt road that the driveway ran into. He didn’t really know where he was going, just away from the direction the rippers had come from. But that wasn’t true—he knew what direction they were eventually going to go, the direction they’d been meant to go from the beginning. South, where Avalon lay. And there were others waiting for them, waiting to join them.

  But the Dragon would be waiting for them too.

  PART 6

  CHAPTER 50

  Kate

  Almost a week had passed since they’d first arrived at the store. They had settled in pretty well after their rocky start when they had torn Neal’s bandages off of his head to see if he was a Dark Angel hiding among them. They hadn’t found a brand under Neal’s dirty bandages; instead they had found a festering wound. And his wound had only gotten worse. He’d been taking the antibiotics that April had given to him, but she wasn’t sure they were working—she was afraid Neal had waited too long to get treatment.

  Max helped in the kitchen and did an occasional shift up on the roof. He also helped with any reorganizing of food and supplies in the store. He seemed more relaxed now that he had jobs to do.

  Brooke had opened a little, talking a little more. She seemed more like a little girl again, maybe more like she used to be before the Collapse. But she would never really be that girl again. None of them would ever be who they used to be. Brooke had begun drawing again. She drew the people she saw in her dreams: the father and his son; the mean-looking muscular guy with the crew cut; the thin man with the long, scraggly hair; and of course the beautiful blind woman with a glow around her. Brooke’s skill as an artist was amazing—she had captured their faces perfectly. Kate knew because she still saw those people in her dreams. And the Dragon.

  As Kate had suspected, Tiger went on trips around the store, exploring. And like Kate had figured, Brooke was eager to follow the cat. Kate went with Brooke a few times to follow Tiger, and two days ago they’d had a rough few hours finding the cat. But Brooke didn’t freak out; she knew Tiger couldn’t get out and that he would eventually come back to her.

  Petra had gone on one run in the last few days with Lance and the others. They’d found a few supplies, but their hauls were getting less and less productive. They had planned one more run for this morning. They wanted to do one more run before winter really set in and while the Dark Angels weren’t aro
und. Kate was sure the Dark Angels were out there somewhere, but they seemed to have moved on to other towns now.

  But they would be back. They had to suspect that this store was a goldmine, stocked with food and supplies. Even if they figured that the store had been looted in the first few days after the Collapse, they had to guess that there were still plenty of supplies in here. But then again, maybe they’d seen the runs from here and maybe that made them think that this place wasn’t as stocked as they might imagine. Maybe they believed that Jo and the others stayed here because it was a fortress that was easier to defend than other places.

  Even though Lance argued that the Dark Angels had taken off (or he liked to believe that they had run them off), Kate believed that the gang was still out there somewhere, still watching. She didn’t think they would give up that easily.

  With less of the Dark Angels around, the rippers had gotten bolder. Two nights ago a pack of fifty of them came into the parking lot in front of the store. They tried to get into the fenced-in area in back, but the jolts from the electrified fence scared them off. They threw rocks at the spotters on top of the building and tried in vain to climb the walls, even using each other as steps, making a human ladder. They were getting hungry. They were getting desperate.

  If the rippers got too high up on the wall, one of the spotters on the roof would throw a heavy object down at them to knock them off the side of the wall. Crystal even practiced with a bow and arrows, seeing how many she could hit. Maybe it was cruel, but they couldn’t risk gunshots unless it was absolutely necessary, and all of them needed the practice with the bows and arrows. Any arrows that missed could be picked up later, but a lot of the times the rippers would find the arrows and snap them in half or throw them back at the building.

  Eventually the pack of rippers moved on. More rippers were spotted, other groups and some stragglers. But last night and this morning the coast had been pretty clear.

  “You be careful out there,” Max told Petra as she got ready for the run. He was taking a break from the kitchen. He’d been helping with the meal planning, trying to utilize the food that was going bad first. Taking food from the dry storage was not allowed unless they all agreed on it. Even with the large supply they had, they knew that they needed to conserve—thinking long-term as Jo liked to say.