Dark Days (Book 3): Exposure:

by Lukens, Mark

  The man was nearly bald, and what hair he had left was wild and soaked with sweat, his fleshy face was shiny with it. A rag was stuffed down into his mouth, blood staining the rag. A strip of cloth was tied tightly around his face to keep the rag in place. His eyes were nearly swollen shut, and they looked purplish in the flashlight’s beam. He seemed delirious with pain, his eyes still closed as he moaned into the rag.

  It looked like the man had been there for quite a while, judging from the crusted blood. Maybe even a full day. His naked crotch was a bloody mess, but Luke could tell that the man’s testicles had been cut off. His penis hung down between his legs. If his penis had been cut off the man would have bled out a long time ago. But whoever had done this to him didn’t want him to bleed out too quickly—they wanted him to die slowly and suffer.

  “He didn’t think I knew,” a woman’s voice said from the darkness.

  Luke shined his beam of light to a doorway that led out to some kind of mudroom. A door in that room led outside to the driveway. The light from his flashlight was weak, but Luke could see the woman clearly as she stepped into the doorway from the mudroom. She looked to be in her fifties, like the man staked to the kitchen floor. Her graying hair hung down around her face, her skin slick with sweat even though it was cold in the house. She was dressed in sneakers, jeans, and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She had a pair of yellow dishwashing gloves on her hands that were stained with blood, and she held a pair of small pruning shears in one hand, the blades smeared with blood.

  Luke didn’t say anything to the woman—he drew his gun from his shoulder holster and aimed it at her.

  “He cheated on me,” the woman continued speaking, not alarmed about the weapon pointed at her. “He didn’t think I knew, but I knew. I knew about that tramp he was sleeping with. He’d been with her for the last two years.”

  “I just needed to hide in here for a minute,” Luke said. “There were some rippers outside just a few minutes ago. Right out in the street. A lot of them.”

  The woman seemed about as concerned about the rippers as she did about Luke’s gun. She just stood there in the doorway to the mudroom, staring at him, not moving a muscle.

  Sandy was still trembling, a growl rumbling in her throat. Luke was afraid she was going to start barking at any moment. He wanted to pet her, try to soothe her, but he didn’t want the distraction.

  “You know what the rippers are, don’t you?” Luke said to the woman. “The infected ones. The ones that have gone crazy.”

  The woman still didn’t answer him.

  Luke realized that he was probably talking to a ripper right now, or someone turning into one.

  The man on the floor rolled his head back and forth, moaning louder into the rag stuffed down into his mouth. He was getting more agitated now, like he was coming fully back into consciousness now that he heard Luke’s voice.

  Luke didn’t shine his flashlight down at the man—he kept it trained right on the woman in the doorway. “Is there anyone else in this house?”

  The woman shook her head no. “Just us. Our kids are grown. They have their own houses. Their own families. They never call us anymore.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Valerie.”

  “Okay, Valerie. I didn’t mean to come into your house. I had to get away from those rippers out there. You’re sure no one else is in the house?”

  She shook her head no again, still not moving. She held the pruning shears in one gloved hand. “I told you, it’s just us.” There was no anger in her voice. “The world is ending,” she added.

  Luke nodded in agreement. “I think so, too.”

  “We’re all going to die.”

  Luke didn’t respond.

  “I wanted to make him pay before we all died.”

  Luke realized that Valerie might not be one of the infected ones like Howard was, or like those rippers outside. Maybe Valerie’s mind had just snapped.

  “He hurt me,” Valerie said. “So I wanted to hurt him.” She left the doorway, moving towards the cabinets lined up in front of the kitchen window.

  “Careful,” Luke said, still aiming his gun at her. Sandy’s growl was louder.

  Luke followed Valerie’s movements with the beam of his light and the barrel of his gun. She stopped next to a large glass jar on the countertop—there were two bloody lumps at the bottom. She caressed the glass jar with one hand, smearing the sides with blood from her gloves.

  “These are his balls,” Valerie said. “I’m going to shove them into his mouth. Make him eat them before he dies.” She turned and looked at Luke, her eyes blank and expressionless in the flashlight beam, her words emotionless and monotone. “Will you help me with this?”

  Valerie’s husband moaned louder into his gag, screaming into it. He thrashed his head back and forth. Luke trained the beam of light down at the man as he struggled to free himself from the nails holding his wrists and ankles down to the floor, but there were too many nails, and they had been shot into his flesh at different angles; some of the nails had probably shattered his bones and severed his tendons. The man’s swollen eyes were wide open now as he screamed louder than ever.

  Then Luke heard another scream, a scream from Valerie as she rushed towards him.

  Luke raised the flashlight beam back up at Valerie as she charged him, holding her pruning shears up high like they were a knife. Her mouth was open wide in a roar, her eyes bulging with insane rage.

  Sandy darted into the kitchen, barking and snarling, but she stopped right in front of Luke, like she was too scared to go all the way into the kitchen.

  Luke shot Valerie before she had made it four steps away from the cabinets on the other side of the kitchen. His gun made two spitting sounds as he put two bullets in her forehead. She collapsed down onto her husband’s legs in the middle of the room, her bloodstained pruning shears flying out of her hand and sliding across the floor in front of the lower cabinets on the other side of the kitchen.

  Valerie’s husband was still thrashing, still screaming into his bloody gag, managing to make a lot of noise. Sandy continued barking. Luke crouched down beside Sandy and held her around her neck for a moment, shushing her and trying to calm her down. She was trembling, but at least she had stopped barking. Her growls turned into whines.

  “It’s okay,” Luke whispered to Sandy. “It’s okay. I won’t let them hurt us. You did a good job, girl.” He was just whispering words to the dog, trying to get her calmed down enough so she wouldn’t start barking again. Luke had never had a pet—he’d always considered them liabilities—so he didn’t really know what to say to Sandy, but he kept whispering to her, trying to get her to stop shaking. “It’s okay,” he said again. “He can’t get you.”

  When he was sure Sandy wasn’t going to bark again, Luke stood up and walked over to the man on the floor. He aimed his flashlight beam and gun down at the man’s face.

  The man stared up at Luke through his swollen eyes. He moaned something into the rag stuffed in his mouth, like he was trying to say something. He looked insane with pain, and Luke wondered if he had turned into a ripper at some point during this torture. Or had he already been turning when Valerie staked him to the floor with framing nails?

  Luke couldn’t understand what the man was trying to say, but he seemed calmer now, and he had stopped thrashing. Luke imagined that Valerie’s husband was begging for it to end, so Luke obliged the imaginary request and shot him once in the forehead. The man was instantly still. A few seconds later the blood from the back of his head began to pool underneath him, the blood looked dark in the beam of the flashlight, like an oil slick.

  Sandy had finally entered all the way into the kitchen, but she stayed low like she was about to bolt back into the dining room at any second. She approached the man’s naked foot, sniffing at it hesitantly.

  “You stay away from that,” Luke hissed at Sandy as he hurried to the kitchen window that looked out onto the dr
iveway. He looked at the driveway, making sure no one was out there, making sure that Valerie’s scream and Sandy’s barking hadn’t drawn any rippers to the house.

  He didn’t see any of them.

  He looked at Sandy who had backed up to the doorway again near Luke’s go-bag. There was a car and a pickup truck out in the driveway. Luke didn’t want to spend any more time in this house than he had to, but he searched the countertops and drawers for sets of keys. He found two sets of keys in a drawer near the doorway where he’d first seen Valerie standing. He found the ignition key for the pickup truck on one of the key rings and he pocketed the entire set.

  Sandy watched him, whining just a little.

  “We’re going to get out of here soon,” he promised her, still talking to her, still trying to keep her calm. He rushed back toward her and she skittered back like she was suddenly unsure about him.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered as he grabbed his bag from the floor. Sandy was obviously traumatized, and Luke could only imagine what she had experienced already, but he didn’t have the time to pet her and comfort her. They needed to get out to that pickup truck and get out of this neighborhood.

  He did a quick search of the cabinets and the refrigerator, gathering a quick collection of canned food and a hand-operated can opener. He used a plastic freezer bag to collect a few eating utensils, wrapping them a few times with paper towels so the sharp points of the knife and fork wouldn’t poke anything else. The electricity had been off for hours, but he touched the milk in the refrigerator and it was still a little cool. He gathered a few cans of soda, opening one of them and drinking nearly all of it down in a few gulps. There were six bottles of water in the refrigerator and he added five of those to his bag, but he didn’t want to make it too heavy—it was already cumbersome enough.

  Luke opened the sixth bottle of water and found a plastic bowl in an upper cabinet. He poured the water into the bowl and set it down in front of Sandy. She was still skittish of him suddenly, but after a moment she came forward to inspect the bowl. Once she knew it was water, she began lapping at it. The noise of her lapping the water sounded so loud to Luke—every noise sounded so loud to him.

  He checked all the drawers again, grabbing anything that might be useful and not too heavy: a bottle of aspirin, a bottle of chewable multi-vitamins, a small pair of scissors, toenail clippers, various batteries, another larger flashlight (after he checked to make sure it worked), half a roll of duct tape. At the last second he grabbed the battery-powered nail gun and added it to the duffel bag after making sure the power switch was turned off. He didn’t know what he would use it for, but it might come in handy.

  It would probably be a good idea to check the rest of the house, but he didn’t want to waste too much more time. There was a free-standing garage in front of the car, and Luke was sure there were plenty of tools inside, but he was ready to leave. If that large group of rippers came back . . .

  Sandy had slurped up most of the water.

  “You ready to go?” he asked her.

  She just stared at him from the doorway, still not wanting to enter the kitchen.

  “It’s okay,” he told her for the millionth time. “We need to go out to that pickup truck out there.” He had decided on the pickup because it was parked right behind the car. Also, it was a bigger vehicle if he needed to run a ripper down. He just hoped there was gas in it.

  Luke closed his duffel bag, making sure it was secure. He thought about searching for a backpack, but Valerie and her husband didn’t look like they would have a backpack in the house, and he didn’t want to waste the time searching for it. His duffel bag would have to do for now. He slipped the bag over one shoulder and shoved his penlight down in his pants pocket. He held his gun with the silencer attached in his hand as he moved to the doorway that led to the mudroom and the exterior door.

  Sandy still waited by the doorway to the dining room.

  “Come on,” Luke whispered as he stood next to the exterior door. This door, like the front door, had a glass panel in it. He pushed the curtain to the side just a little and looked out the door. Either the moon was brighter than he remembered or his eyes had adjusted well to the darkness now, because the moon’s light allowed him to see pretty well. There was a wooden deck right outside the door, with three steps leading down to a narrow concrete path that connected to the driveway. The lawn looked freshly cut, the shrubs maintained well (with Valerie’s pruning shears, no doubt). The house next door was pretty close to the other side of the driveway. Luke studied the dark windows, looking for any flashes of light from inside or any movement, listening for any noises.

  Everything seemed still and quiet out there.

  Sandy still wasn’t coming.

  “I know you don’t want to stay here by yourself with Psycho Valerie and her cheating husband, do you?”

  Sandy cocked her head just a little.

  “I’m leaving,” Luke said as he unlocked the door and pulled it open. “Stay if you want to. I’ll leave the door open for you.”

  Sandy rushed into the kitchen, skirting around Valerie and her husband, staying as close to the cabinets as she could on her route to the mudroom. She was beside Luke a moment later. He rushed outside and onto the wood deck, and Sandy was still right beside him. They froze, listening. The unmistakable screeches and screams from the rippers filled the air.

  The rippers were close, and they were coming this way.

  CHAPTER 9

  Luke didn’t have time to hesitate—those rippers sounded like they were right on the other side of the house. It was the herd; they were coming back—had to be.

  Luke shuffled down the steps of the deck, running towards the pickup truck. There were buttons on the key fob, but he didn’t want to push them in case the headlights or the interior lights automatically came on when he unlocked the doors.

  He got to the truck and saw that it was unlocked—Valerie and her husband obviously did not believe in locking their doors. He yanked the door open and the dome light came on, it seemed so bright in the darkness.

  “Come on,” Luke hissed as he held the door open for Sandy.

  More screeches, howls, and whoops filled the night air. They were the same sounds he’d heard earlier from that group of rippers when they’d been coming up the street like a herd of animals. It was definitely a human cry, but it also sounded like the cry of an animal—the animals that these people had become. The howls sent shivers through Luke, not only because of their alien sound but also because of how close they were. That herd must have turned around and come back this way. Maybe they had heard Valerie’s scream or Sandy’s barking; maybe those sounds had carried easily through the silent night and had reached the rippers.

  “Get in,” Luke said a little louder to Sandy.

  Sandy had heard the cries from the rippers too, and obviously she could tell they were close. Like the panic that had seized her earlier when she had bolted up to the front porch of this house, she darted across the yard and jumped up into the truck, settling down at the far end against the passenger door.

  The rippers were getting closer.

  Luke threw his go-bag onto the passenger seat, right in the middle between him and Sandy. He sat down in the driver’s seat and shoved the key into the ignition, praying the truck would start.

  The truck started right away. Luke searched for the headlight switch and found it, turning it one click so the dashboard lights illuminated. He checked the gauges; there was only a quarter tank of gas, and he was sure this truck would burn through that pretty quickly judging from the sound of the powerful motor.

  A flash of movement in the rearview mirror caught Luke’s eye. He glanced at the mirror and saw a group of rippers out in the street, running towards the driveway, drawn to the sound of the truck’s engine.

  Luke shifted into reverse and stomped his foot down on the gas pedal. The back tires of the truck barked on the concrete driveway, spinning for just a second before grabbing traction. T
he truck lurched back and Luke held on to the steering wheel, turning around and looking out the back window as he sped backwards, rushing towards the mob of rippers that were approaching.

  At the last second Luke turned back around and braced himself as the truck slammed into the rippers, knocking some of them out of the way. The truck jolted a little from the impact, but not as much as Luke thought it would. Sandy tried to brace herself too, but she almost slid off of the passenger seat and onto the floorboards.

  There was the unmistakable thump-thump as the tires rolled right over the bodies. Luke hoped the truck wouldn’t get stuck or bogged down on the bodies, but the driveway had been fairly long and he was pretty sure he had built up enough speed. At the very least he had probably taken out half of the ten or twelve rippers just from the first impact, knocking them back and to the sides of the driveway.

  Luke didn’t let up on the gas. He gripped the steering wheel, trying to keep it straight as he backed out into the street. He didn’t bother turning on the headlights just yet, but he saw the mass of bodies in the driveway and the yard. Not all of them were dead, the ones that had been knocked out of the way were struggling back to their feet, and some of them hadn’t been hit or run over at all—and they were charging towards the truck.

  He shifted into drive before the truck had even come to a stop in the street. The transmission thunked into gear as he shifted. He took his foot off the brake and stomped the gas again, steering the truck west, the direction they had been traveling in before.

  A few of the rippers slapped at the rear of the truck, one of them trying to grab on to the tailgate, but the pickup had built up speed too quickly and the ripper couldn’t hang on, falling off and tumbling down the road in the darkness.

  Luke turned down a side street and then another, speeding past the dark houses. He saw another bonfire (or maybe even a house fire) down at the end of the next street so he went down another street to avoid the blaze.