Dark Days (Book 3): Exposure:

by Lukens, Mark

  Nobody else around. There had only been the two men here, both with machine guns, both with the symbols carved on their foreheads.

  “Come on,” Wilma yelled. “Get back in here.”

  He looked back at the SUV, walking back to it. He inspected the damage to their SUV. There were a few bullet holes in the side of their vehicle, more towards the rear. The tires all looked good, none of them flattened. The rear back window was shattered, but that was the extent of the damage.

  Luke got back in the SUV and shut the door. He rolled the window back up. “Tires are okay. Most of the bullets hit the rear of the truck. Let’s get going.”

  Wilma was happy to hear that. She put the SUV back into drive and stomped the gas pedal down. They sped up quickly, and a moment later they were out of the smoke, the air clearing up right away.

  “They weren’t trying to kill us,” Luke said as they drove. “They wanted to scare us, get us to stop or drive us off the road into the ditch. They wanted the stuff we had inside. You see all of that stuff they had in that truck? All the cars and trucks on the side of the road back there? They were taking stuff from people.”

  Wilma didn’t say anything.

  “What did they do with the people after they took their stuff?”

  Wilma still didn’t say anything.

  “I think they’re part of some kind of gang. You ever heard of a gang that has an anarchy symbol?”

  She just stared at him like a gang might be more his area of expertise. “No,” she said.

  Again, Luke sensed that Wilma was lying. He sensed that she knew what that symbol really meant and who those people really were. He felt like confronting her about it, but decided to hold that card for now.

  “You did great back there,” he told her.

  She relaxed instantly. “You, too,” she said, smiling again.

  CHAPTER 21

  “It’s not too far now,” Wilma said as she drove.

  Luke stared out the window, watching the farmland and a scattering of trees whipping by. At least none of the other crops were burning, and the road was pretty clear of abandoned vehicles and debris. He saw a few rippers here and there, wandering around. He saw one large group in a field of crops, many of the rippers uprooting plants and eating them. A lot of the rippers looked their way as they drove past them, but they never ran after their truck.

  “Is the safe house on the farm where you grew up?” Luke asked, turning to Wilma.

  “No. My dad sold the farm about seven years ago, right after my mom died. He took the money he made from the farm and built two safe houses for this county and fortified a small home he bought for himself. He also bought a lot of supplies, guns, ammo, vehicles.”

  “Is this safe house underground? Like a bunker?”

  “No. His house had an underground bunker on the property, but not this one. It’s really more like a time-share property that he bought with a lot of other preppers. It was a meeting place, and a jumping-off point for the ultimate destination—a camp down in West Virginia.”

  “Where in West Virginia?”

  “Not too far into West Virginia, just a few miles south of the Ohio River.”

  Luke just nodded and looked back out the window. The day was brightening up a little, the mist beginning to clear even more, but he could already see that the day was going to be cloudy and gray. There might be rain later, or maybe even sleet. It felt cold enough to snow.

  “Okay, here we go,” Wilma said, turning onto a smaller road. “It’s just down this road about a mile.”

  Luke still had his gun in his lap. He studied the houses they passed. Most of them didn’t look demolished, and he didn’t see any more anarchy symbols. But most of the houses looked abandoned, some of the front doors wide open, most of the windows shattered or busted out. Rippers had probably gone from house to house around here, scavenging for food and fresh meat.

  A black and white cat sat on the back of a car, watching them intently as they drove by.

  Wilma pulled down a dirt driveway of the last house on this street. She looked anxious, her gaze shifting out towards a large field in the distance beyond the safe house.

  “You think they already left?” Luke asked her.

  “I don’t know. We’re a little late. I hope they waited for me.”

  She drove towards the safe house at the end of the dirt driveway; it was set way back from the street on three acres of land, much closer to the edge of the field of crops. The safe house was a brick home with several vehicles parked in front of it on the grass: three pickup trucks, an old Chevy van spotted with rust, and two cars.

  Wilma pulled up right next to one of the pickup trucks that was jacked up on large tires, and she shifted the vehicle in park. The nose of their SUV was pointed towards the safe house. She sat there for a moment, her hands still on the steering wheel, the engine still running.

  “What now?” Luke asked.

  Wilma didn’t answer. She looked more nervous than ever. She flashed her headlights on and off in some kind of code.

  “You okay?” Luke asked her.

  She shook her head a little. “I . . . I just feel so bad about Tommy and Giles. I hate to tell them what happened to them.”

  “You said Giles turned. You can’t help that.”

  “I know,” she said.

  Luke couldn’t help feeling that Wilma was nervous about something else. He looked around, but didn’t see any rippers nearby. He looked back at Wilma. “Let’s get out and knock on the door.”

  Wilma shut the truck off and pocketed the keys. She grabbed her gun and opened the door.

  Luke got out on the passenger side, his gun in his hand. He looked around as he walked to the front of the SUV. He didn’t hear any sounds, no screeches or cries in the distance. There was still a mist hanging around, but it wasn’t as thick as it had been an hour ago. But still, the mist could hide the rippers until they were less than fifty yards away.

  He looked at the safe house. It was a one-story home with solar panels attached to the metal roof and sturdy steel bars on the windows. Very few plants or shrubs decorated the front of the house. The grass was beaten-down and going dormant for the winter. A large block structure was right behind the house, like it had been added on to the home at some point.

  The front door opened and three men rushed out, two of them with AR-15s and the other one with a shotgun. All three men wore camouflage fatigues, gas masks, and rubber gloves. “Stop right there,” the leader of the men said.

  “Matt,” Wilma yelled. “It’s me.” She froze and put her hands up.

  The leader took a few steps forward and lowered his shotgun a little. “Wilma.” He glanced at Luke, then looked back at Wilma. “Where’s Giles and Tommy?”

  She shook her head slightly. “They didn’t make it. Giles turned and Tommy . . .” She let her words trail off.

  Luke could hear the sigh coming from behind the gas mask as Matt lowered his head a little, and he lowered his shotgun even more. But the two men behind him still kept their AR-15s steadily aimed at them.

  “I told you not to go out there,” Matt said.

  Wilma’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I know. I wanted to find Doris and the kids.”

  Matt didn’t respond.

  “They . . . Doris had already turned . . . and . . .” She didn’t need to finish—Luke was sure Matt could guess what had happened to them.

  “Where’s your gas mask?”

  “I lost it when me and Tommy were running from the rippers.”

  “Who’s this?” Matt asked, gesturing at Luke with his shotgun.

  “His name is Luke. He saved my life. Twice. He’s a good person.” She took a step forward. “I want him to go with us down to the camp.”

  Matt let out another sigh that sounded like a rush of gas coming out of his mask. “I can’t . . . I can’t let you come with us. You know that.”

  Wilma didn’t say anything. Her body was rigid, and she was doing her best not to cry. Luke w
as sure she had been expecting this reaction from Matt.

  “You disobey orders and go out there into this . . . this shit,” Matt said. “You take Tommy and Giles with you, two of our best men, and you don’t come back with them. You lose your mask. You come back with a stranger.”

  Luke gripped the handle of his gun a little harder, but he kept it down by his side. He was sure that Matt had already noticed the silencer on his gun, and he was probably having the same questions about a silencer that Wilma had had. Luke glanced around, looking for any rippers emerging out of the fog all around them.

  “We’re not infected,” Wilma told Matt, taking another step towards him. “If we were infected, we would’ve turned by now.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about this plague.”

  “I know we would’ve showed symptoms by now. I think everyone who is going to turn already has over the last week or two. You know a certain percentage is going to be immune to any plague. It could be ten percent, or even more.”

  “Not if it was an engineered plague.”

  “We can’t take the chance, Matt,” the man to Matt’s left said, still aiming his rifle at Luke.

  Matt’s shoulders slumped even more. “You know Rick’s right, Wilma. You know that.”

  “Matt . . .”

  “You knew the risks when you left.”

  Wilma fought back tears. For a moment Luke thought she was going to argue, or even beg. But she stiffened up and nodded. She looked like a soldier resigned to her fate now.

  “We need to get going,” the other masked man said.

  “You can stay in the safe house after we leave,” Matt told Wilma. “But go wait in your truck first. Give us fifteen minutes to leave. Then the place is all yours.”

  She nodded. “I love you, brother.”

  “Love you, sister.”

  Luke heard the hitch in Matt’s voice even through his gas mask.

  Matt turned and walked back to the front door of the house. The other two men backed up slowly towards the door, never lowering their rifles.

  Luke stayed very still, but he knew he could raise his gun up like a gunslinger and pop a bullet in each man’s forehead in a nanosecond. But he wasn’t going to shoot unless they did first.

  Once all three men were back inside the house, Luke and Wilma got back in the SUV. Luke thought Wilma might be crying, but she wasn’t. He looked out through the windows, studying the fog for any rippers. He didn’t see any.

  “It’s my fault,” Wilma said.

  He looked at her.

  She still wasn’t crying. She was strong again, resolved now. “I didn’t listen to Matt. I never listen.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Luke said, but it sounded like a weak attempt at comforting her.

  They sat in silence for fifteen minutes and then Luke heard the buzz of dirt bikes racing away from the back of the house. Matt and the other two men rode the bikes out to the edge of the field. Each bike had a pack on the back held down with bungee cords. Clouds of dust drifted up from behind the bikes as they sped down the dirt trail beside the field of crops. Soon the bikes were blurring into the mist that still hung close to the ground.

  “They’ll take that trail into those woods over there until they get to the railroad tracks. They can take the tracks for at least sixty miles. We figured once the collapse happened, the railroad tracks would be free of trains and safer than the main roads. There are other back roads and trails that we’ve mapped out all the way down to the camp.”

  Luke just nodded. He heard a screech from somewhere in the fog behind them. Some of the nearby rippers had heard the whine of the dirt bike motors and they were coming now. “We need to get to that house.”

  Another screech, this one closer, got Wilma’s attention.

  Luke jumped out of the SUV and opened the back door to grab the backpacks. He slipped his on and ran to the front of the truck to give the other one to Wilma. She shrugged into it quickly and then drew her gun. Luke, much like the two men only moments ago, backed up towards the house with his weapon aimed at the fog.

  “You got the keys to the house?” Luke asked Wilma.

  “Yeah.”

  “Get to the house and I’ll cover you.”

  Wilma started running as fast as she could on her injured ankle.

  Luke kept backing up. A few seconds later he saw the rippers running towards them, materializing out of the mist in the distance. “They’re coming!”

  Spit. Spit. Spit. Luke dropped three of them, but there were dozens more coming.

  Where are they coming from? Luke couldn’t remember seeing any rippers hanging around the houses on this street. It almost seemed like they had been hiding, like they had been waiting for the right time to attack as a group.

  They’re getting smarter. Luke wasn’t sure where those words had come from, but the thought had just popped into his mind like someone had just whispered the words into his ear.

  Spit. Spit. Luke dropped two more runners, two young rippers who were a few steps ahead of the others in their group. One of them had a length of rebar and he dropped it when he collapsed to the ground.

  Luke was backing up faster down the concrete path through the dead grass towards the front door. He was only a few feet away from the front door now. “You in yet?”

  “Not yet,” Wilma called back from the door.

  Luke wondered for just a second if Matt and his two buddies had barred the front door somehow, leaving them out here to get torn to shreds by the rippers that were coming. “You in yet?”

  Spit. Spit. Spit. Spit. Four more bullets from his silent gun. Four more rippers dropped: two men and two women. But there were at least thirty or forty more coming. More rippers than he had bullets in his gun. They were getting closer and closer, screaming and screeching, waving clubs and sticks. One of them near the back of the group threw a softball-sized rock that didn’t even get near Luke.

  Those bastards, Luke thought. They locked us out here.

  CHAPTER 22

  “I’m in!” Wilma yelled.

  Luke backed up to the door, practically running, shooting five more times before ducking backwards into the doorway. Wilma slammed the door shut as soon as he was inside and locked it.

  Outside, the rippers slammed into the front door, pounding on it.

  “It’s a reinforced metal door,” Wilma said, breathing heavy, not putting too much weight on her bad ankle. “They can’t get through it.”

  Luke nodded, but he kept his gun aimed at the door.

  “This is a solid brick house,” Wilma continued. “It’s got a metal roof. Hurricane-proof glass windows with bars that lock from the inside. They can’t get in.”

  Luke lowered his gun down to his side. “I guess you guys were prepared.”

  “This is only a safe house. We’re much better prepared down at the camp.”

  He looked around at the room they were in. It looked like it had been a living room at some point in the past, but now it looked more like a classroom. There was a wall at the far end with a whiteboard bolted to it and a few rows of folding metal chairs in the middle of the room, all of them facing the board. A long bar with four stools in front of it separated the classroom from a galley-style kitchen. On the walls of the “classroom” there were maps and one flat screen TV. The place smelled like cigarette smoke, gun oil, and stale coffee. But at least it was warm.

  Luke walked towards the bar where a coffee maker and a plate of pastries were sitting.

  “There should be plenty of food and water stocked in here,” Wilma said. “Enough for a few months at least. They might have moved some of the supplies down to the camp, but they wouldn’t have had time to move everything.”

  Or the manpower to move it all, Luke thought. His stomach grumbled at the sight of the coffee rolls. His muscles felt like they were melting just a little, like this was the first time he could actually relax now that they were safely locked behind the metal doors and barred w
indows.

  He pulled his backpack off and set it on a bar stool in front of the bar. He rummaged through the pack and pulled out another magazine. He expelled the mag from his gun and exchanged it with the full magazine.

  “How about some coffee?” Wilma asked as she went behind the counter into the kitchen.

  “Sure.”

  She pulled out two paper cups from the cabinet below the countertop and poured two cups of coffee into each of them. “It’s still hot,” she said. “Cream or sugar?”

  “Both,” he answered. He wasn’t much of a coffee drinker, but just the thought of it, the normalcy of it, appealed to him.

  Wilma tore open an individual packet of creamer and poured the liquid in. She added two packets of sugar to each cup and stirred them with a plastic spoon. She slid one of the cups towards Luke.

  He sipped the coffee. It was better than he had expected, and still warm as Wilma had promised. It quenched his thirst but only intensified his hunger.

  As if she’d read his mind, she pushed the plate of sweet rolls towards him.

  Luke tore the wrapper open on one of the sweet rolls and broke the cake in half, stuffing it into his mouth. Nothing had ever tasted so good. He stuffed the other half in before even swallowing the first half. He looked at Wilma. She had done the same thing, stuffing an entire sweet roll into her mouth.

  They stared at each other for a second, their mouths full, their cheeks expanded, like they were chipmunks gathering nuts for the winter. They both burst out laughing, both spraying out bits of coffee cake onto the laminate countertop.

  Luke had to stop laughing for a minute so he could swallow his food, afraid for a few seconds that he might choke. But then he finally swallowed the lump of mush.

  “Sorry,” Wilma said, after swallowing her food, still laughing. “None of this is funny in any way.”