Dark Days (Book 3): Exposure:

by Lukens, Mark

  Jacob’s voice had come from somewhere behind him. Maybe ten or twenty feet away, Luke guessed. Jacob’s voice had been steady and confident, the voice of a man who knew he had the upper hand.

  “Is that your go-bag?” Jacob asked Luke from somewhere behind him. It almost sounded like Jacob’s voice had come from a slightly different direction, but not any closer yet. Jacob wasn’t approaching just yet; he was waiting to see what Luke would do.

  Luke didn’t answer Jacob’s question—the answer was already kind of obvious so he didn’t bother wasting his breath. He sized up the situation, going through his options in a nanosecond. One option: he could drop his duffel bag and bolt for his car.

  And then Jacob would shoot him before he had even made it two steps.

  But if Jacob wanted to kill him, then he would have already shot him—he wouldn’t have even bothered to speak to him. Jacob could have killed him already and Luke wouldn’t have ever seen it coming.

  Jacob had obviously been instructed by Vincent not to shoot him yet; he’d been instructed to bring him back unharmed and in one piece, so he could be harmed later. If that was the case, then Luke still had a chance.

  “You got some cash in that bag?” Jacob asked in a conversational voice.

  “Some,” Luke answered without turning around or moving a muscle. He stared at his car parked in front of him—his freedom, and it was only a few steps away. He was sure that on any other night if his neighbors had looked out their windows and seen Jacob holding a gun on him, they would have called the cops. But this was the night that the world was falling apart and people were probably seeing this kind of violence at their local supermarkets, banks, and gas stations. No one was going to get involved tonight. There would be no distractions for Luke to take advantage of.

  “I need you to listen to me very carefully,” Jacob said, and now he sounded like he was a few steps closer even though Luke hadn’t heard him move.

  Luke just waited.

  “I want you to walk towards your car. I want you to open the back door on the passenger side and throw your go-bag in the back on the floorboard. Is that understood?”

  Luke just stood there.

  “Here’s what I don’t want you to do. I don’t want you to turn around and look at me. I don’t want you to reach for your gun that’s in your shoulder holster. Is all of this understood? Nod if you understand me.”

  Luke nodded slightly.

  “Okay. Let’s begin. Walk to your car and throw your bag in the back. And after you’ve done that, I want you to wait there for further instructions. Is everything clear so far?”

  Again, Luke nodded.

  “Go.”

  Luke walked the eight steps down the sidewalk to the rear of his car, his black hiking boots barely making a sound on the concrete. He opened the back door on the passenger side and threw his duffel bag into the car, dropping it down on the floorboards as instructed. He waited by the back of his car with the door still open.

  “Good, Luke,” Jacob purred from somewhere behind him. “You’re doing really well so far. You’ve always been so good at following orders.”

  Luke just waited.

  “Okay. Now I want you to pull that pistol out of your holster with your left hand. Just two fingers. I want you to throw your weapon on top of your duffel bag.”

  Luke moved his left hand to the handle of his pistol.

  “Slowly,” Jacob warned. “Even slower.”

  Luke tugged his gun out of his holster, using only two fingers, then he tossed it into the back of his car. The weapon bounced off of his duffel bag and fell onto the floorboard with a thunk.

  “Okay, Luke. Now close the back door.”

  Luke closed it.

  “Good. Now walk around the rear of your car to the other back door and open that one up.”

  Luke walked around his car and opened up the back door on the driver’s side, staring down the dark street.

  “Okay. Leave that door open and get your car keys out of your pocket.”

  Luke pulled his keys out and held them in his hand in plain view.

  “Now step to the driver’s door and open it. Sit down inside, but don’t shut the door yet. Do everything nice and slow.”

  Jacob sounded so much closer now, probably right at the back of the car. It was possible that Jacob didn’t even have his gun out, not wanting to arouse suspicion from anyone looking out their windows, but Luke didn’t want to take that chance. He opened up his driver’s door and sat down inside.

  He heard Jacob sitting down in the back seat and shutting his door.

  “Shut your door, Luke.”

  As soon as Luke shut his door, he felt the barrel of Jacob’s gun shoved against the back of his neck. “Is this where you’re going to do it?” Luke asked in a calm voice.

  “No,” Jacob answered. “Vincent wants to see you. You’re going to drive to Vincent’s house and see him like you were told to do.”

  “I didn’t kill Howard’s family. I killed Howard, but I had to. He’s the one who killed his family.”

  “I don’t care. That’s none of my business. Vincent asked me to bring you to him, and that’s what I’m doing.”

  Luke sighed.

  “Start the car, Luke. Drive and don’t turn around. Don’t make any sudden movements or reach for anything. Put your seatbelt on.”

  Luke put his seatbelt on and started his car. He shifted into drive and drove towards the stop sign. He stopped and looked both ways, trying his best to get a glimpse of Jacob in the back seat, but Jacob was directly behind him and scrunched down a little, out of sight of the rearview mirror.

  After turning left, Luke drove past the dark homes. Partiers were still out on their front lawns, dancing around bonfires. Some of the partiers shouted at them as they drove by; some shouts were drunken revelry, and some were threats. One of the shadowy figures threw a beer bottle at Luke’s car—it crashed against the rear fender.

  Jacob seemed unfazed by all the chaos around them. He sat in the back seat in silence, but at least he had removed the barrel of his gun from the back of Luke’s neck. Luke was sure that the assassin’s gun was still aimed at him.

  “I know Vincent wants to blame me for this,” Luke said as he drove slowly down the streets. He had to maneuver around a car that looked like it had been abandoned in the middle of the road, its headlights still on and the driver’s door wide open.

  Jacob didn’t respond—Luke couldn’t even hear the man breathing.

  “Howard’s family was dead when I got there. They were slaughtered. Mutilated. Howard came at me like an animal, talking crazy shit. He’d been eating parts of Deanna and the girls.”

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me. I don’t care.”

  Luke drove past the abandoned car and kept driving down the street. He kept both hands on the steering wheel.

  “Fucking thing,” Jacob muttered.

  Luke heard the rustling of fabric in the back seat as Jacob moved around.

  “Cell phones aren’t working now,” Luke told him.

  Jacob didn’t comment.

  “Nothing’s working,” Luke said. “Electricity’s out everywhere. Internet. Phones.”

  Jacob still didn’t say anything.

  Luke saw something blocking the road up ahead, and he slowed his car down as he got closer. When he was ten yards away, he saw that the blockage was two vehicles in the middle of the road, tipped over on their sides, creating a barrier in the middle of the road.

  “What are you doing?” Jacob asked.

  “Two cars are turned over,” Luke said as he brought his car to a stop twenty feet away from the overturned cars, his headlights shining on the underside of both vehicles that were nose to nose.

  Five men armed with shotguns and rifles ran out from behind the barricade of vehicles. The men were dressed in camouflage and dark clothing. They had rags and bandanas tied around their faces, belts of ammo around their waists. One man aimed his shotgun at Luke’s car.
/>   “What the fuck?” Jacob whispered.

  Luke slammed the shifter into reverse and stomped on the gas pedal. The tires screeched in the night air as his car sped backwards down the street. Luke had no choice but to turn around so that he could see what he was doing.

  Shots rang out, some of the buckshot pelting the grill and the windshield of Luke’s car.

  “Crazy fucking hillbillies,” Jacob said, but his gun was still aimed right at Luke.

  Luke had a few seconds to see exactly where Jacob was sitting and where his own gun and duffle bag were.

  More rifle shots echoed in the air. One bullet smashed through the passenger side of the windshield, making a neat little hole in the glass with a cobweb of cracks radiating from it. The bullet whizzed through the car and exploded through the rear window, shattering it.

  Jacob ducked down as bits of glass rained down, and for just a moment the aim of Jacob’s weapon was off just a little.

  Maybe this is my chance.

  But, as if Jacob had read his mind, he aimed his gun right back at Luke while still lying down on his side in the back seat. “Get us the fuck out of here!”

  “Hold on,” Luke said. He stomped down on the brake pedal and the car spun around in the middle of the road, the tires yelping. He shifted into drive as the car was still spinning and then he jammed the gas pedal down. He raced to the stop sign and took a left, barely slowing down as he took the turn, the back end of his car sliding out of control for just a second.

  The five masked men chased them down the street for half a block before giving up.

  Luke sped down the street, his headlights the only lights in the darkness. He thought about turning off the headlights in case the masked men decided to run through the back yards and cut them off, but he decided against it—there were too many abandoned cars in the road, along with other debris.

  “The world is ending,” Luke said as he drove.

  “Thanks for your opinion. Just get us to Vincent’s house.”

  Luke slammed on the brakes, his car skidding to a stop. An old woman stood in the middle of the street, illuminated in the glare of his headlights. Luke knew she didn’t have any weapons because she was completely naked. She looked towards the car like she’d just noticed them, her stare blank, her mouth smeared with blood. She looked confused, and her mouth worked like she was trying to say something but had forgotten how to pronounce the words.

  “. . . the fuck?” Jacob said. “What are you stopping for?”

  “There’s a woman in the road.”

  “Fuck her! Run her over!”

  Luke drove again, passing by the woman who followed them with her eyes, still muttering something to herself.

  “What the hell’s wrong with her?” Jacob asked.

  “She’s one of the crazy people,” Luke said. “Haven’t you been listening to the news? There’s some kind of virus that’s turning people into animals. They call them rippers.”

  “I don’t believe that shit. News is all fake these days.”

  “I think that’s what happened to Howard. I think he got infected with that virus that’s going around. He went crazy and killed his family.”

  “That’s all bullshit,” Jacob said.

  Luke turned on the radio, pressing the buttons for the stations he had programmed, hoping to catch a news report to convince Jacob, but there was nothing but silence and emergency signals.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Jacob yelled. “Did I say you could turn on the radio?”

  “You hear anything on the radio?” Luke asked as he switched through the stations. “There’s nothing there. All communications have been shut off. There’s something bad happening. The smart thing is to get out of here before we all get infected.”

  “Just shut up and drive.”

  “It’s a total blackout,” Luke said. “Everything’s collapsing, people are going crazy, and the only thing you’re worried about is following Vincent’s orders. I think we’re way past that now.”

  “Just get us to Vincent’s place,” Jacob said. “We can all hole up there. Vincent will know what to do.”

  Yeah, but I’ll be dead before sunrise.

  “You should get out of Cleveland,” Luke said. “Get out of Ohio.”

  Just then the interior of Luke’s car lit up with blue and red flashing lights.

  “What the hell?” Jacob said, turning around in the back seat to look out the shattered rear window.

  “It’s the cops,” Luke said.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Turn the fuck back around,” Jacob said, aiming his gun right at Luke.

  Luke turned around and watched the rearview mirror as the cop car sped up behind him. It looked like there was another cop car right behind the first one.

  “What the hell?” Jacob said. He kept low, just poking his head up and staring out through the smashed-out rear window. “What the hell is this shit?”

  “Hold on,” Luke said and slammed on the brakes. The car nearly slid to a stop as he turned the steering wheel at the same time, the rear end sliding as he took the turn too quickly onto a side street, smoke drifting up into the night air behind them, a red wraith glowing in the brake lights.

  The two cop cars followed them down the side street.

  A male voice on a megaphone called out from the cop car right behind them. “Pull your vehicle over!”

  Jacob sat up a little straighter in the back seat and jabbed the barrel of his pistol at Luke’s shoulder. “Fucking lose them!”

  “I’m trying.”

  Sirens wailed, whooping in the night air. The red and blue flashing lights bounced back at them from the dark houses they were speeding past at nearly fifty miles an hour. If someone were to wander into the street right now, there was no way Luke would be able to avoid hitting them.

  “This is your last warning!” the male voice shouted from the megaphone in the cop car. “Pull your vehicle over NOW!”

  Luke saw another side street coming up at the farthest reach of his headlight beams. He sped towards it, his skin crawling as he waited for the barrage of gunfire to begin from the cops. The side street was coming up fast, and at the last second Luke slammed on the brakes and skidded into the turn, nearly colliding with another car that was abandoned close to the intersection.

  Jacob struggled to hold on in the back seat, but he tumbled over to the other side of the car in the whiplash turn.

  Luke thought that maybe these cops tailing them might be a blessing in disguise, an opportunity for him to get away from Jacob somehow; he just needed to wait for the right moment.

  Gunshots popped from behind them, peppering the back of Luke’s car. Two of the bullets whizzed right through the interior of the car and put two more holes in the windshield, not too far away from the bullet hole left by the rifle-toting madmen they had run into earlier.

  Luke scrunched down as low as he could in his seat, but his driver’s seat would offer no protection if a bullet struck it. He was on edge, just waiting for the thud of a bullet that he was sure he would feel before he even heard the shot. He kept his foot stomped down on the gas pedal, the motor roaring.

  And then he spotted something down the street—perhaps a way out of this.

  “They’re shooting at us!” Jacob screamed from the back. “They can’t do that! Cops aren’t allowed to just . . . just fucking shoot at us!”

  “I think things have changed,” Luke muttered, but he had a feeling that Jacob wasn’t really listening to him.

  Another few shots rang out from the cop cars behind them. A bullet tore off the driver’s side mirror, bits of plastic and glass flying away into the darkness. Luke shifted away from the door, feeling more vulnerable than ever. Sooner or later a bullet was going to rip into his back. But then again, maybe Jacob’s body would stop the bullet for him—that would be one good thing about Jacob being back there.

  He got closer to what he had spotted a few seconds earlier—a large work van parked in a driveway on
the left side of the street, the rear of the van almost poking out into the street.

  Luke began veering slightly to the left as he kept his speed constant down the road, angling towards the driveway with the van. When he was only one house away from the driveway with the van, he slammed on his brakes and turned the steering wheel with all of his strength. The back of his car fishtailed, but he kept the path of the speeding car pointed right at the van. His car jumped the curb of the sidewalk and then slid across the front yard, slamming right into the side of the van with a screeching of rubber on concrete and then a sickening crunch of metal on metal as glass shattered like an explosion.

  Jacob had kept his attention on the cops behind them, not expecting the crash. He slammed into the rear passenger door on impact, his head smacking the window and shattering it.

  Luke sat for a second in the driver’s seat, a little more stunned than he had expected from the crash. But at least he’d been ready for it. Nothing seemed to be broken, and there was no excruciating pain anywhere. He flexed his fingers and moved his legs. There was no pain in his abdomen. He thought his mouth or nose might’ve been bleeding, he could feel wetness there—probably from the impact with the airbag. His body felt okay, probably running on adrenaline right now—but his mind felt fuzzy and he needed to get his thinking straight if he was going to do this; he probably only had a few seconds if he was going to get away.

  He turned around in the driver’s seat and saw that Jacob’s gun was on the seat beside his crumpled-up body, lost from his grip in the crash. Jacob was woozier than he was, blood pouring out of multiple lacerations in his scalp and face, half of his face and the front of his shirt covered in blood. His eyes were fluttering like he was fighting to regain consciousness.

  Luke saw his own gun on top of his duffel bag—he grabbed his duffel bag and gun and then turned back around to leave the car.

  “Hey,” Jacob muttered as he opened his eyes again.

  Luke ignored him as he opened the driver’s door, praying for a second that it hadn’t jammed shut in the crash. It opened easily.