Dark Days (Book 3): Exposure:

by Lukens, Mark

Luke smiled. “Yeah.”

  “Looks like neither one of us are good people.”

  He didn’t disagree with her.

  “You never know what you’re really going to do in a situation until it presents itself,” she said. “You can prep and train and get ready, but when something terrible finally happens, when something like this happens, you find out that you weren’t as prepared as you thought you were. You find out that you weren’t as decent as you thought you were.”

  “People will do just about anything to survive.”

  She stared at him. “I tried to take your stuff. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  “So you can go down there to the camp with me. Nobody needs to know your full story.”

  “And they’re going to take in an outsider like me?” Luke asked.

  “They’ll accept you. They’ll need people. People like you. And I’ll vouch for you.”

  Luke just smiled at her.

  Wilma didn’t return his smile—she was serious. “I know you’re strong and tough and deadly, but it will only be a matter of time before you get cornered by those rippers out there on your own. It happened to Tommy, and he was the best I ever trained with. It would’ve happened to me if I hadn’t found you. It will eventually happen to you, too. You need to be in a group. So do I. We all do.”

  Luke was quiet.

  “Come down there with me,” Wilma whispered.

  He nodded. “I’ll go with you.” Hell, he had planned on going south, anyway. If this militia camp didn’t want him, then he would just walk right on past it and keep heading south.

  “Did you have a wife?”

  “No.”

  “A girlfriend?”

  “No. Not in my line of work.”

  “One-night stands?”

  “Occasionally. What about you? You got a husband or a boyfriend?”

  “Nope.”

  He smiled at her.

  “Look at us,” she said. “Two swinging singles.” She reached out and touched his hand again, squeezing it gently, staring at him.

  She stood up, still holding his hand.

  Luke stood up and followed her down the hall to the bedroom.

  CHAPTER 25

  Wilma lay in bed next to Luke after sex, both of them naked and still slick with perspiration. The sex had been impulsive. It wasn’t lovemaking, just a release, just a way to feel normal again for a little while, to forget the horrors that waited outside the house. The sex was an intoxicant much like the beer they had drunk. And a sedative—Luke was already sleeping.

  Wilma was attracted to Luke in some strange way. He was ruggedly handsome, and he had an amazing body, but it was more than just his looks. She knew she was falling for him, and she wasn’t sure why. There was something about him, something deep down inside of him that was good and pure, whether he wanted to believe it or not.

  He was good. Yes, he had wanted his guns back when he had let her in the kitchen door, but he had saved her a second time when she had fallen outside the window in the side yard of the house, when that ripper had been on top of her. Yeah, she still had the keys to his truck in her pocket (she still hadn’t been entirely trusting of him at that point), but he could have run and left her there with all of those rippers approaching. He could have left her there as a diversion while he got away.

  But he hadn’t done that. He’d risked his life to help her even though dozens of rippers were running towards them by then. He’d known that she was hurt, that she would slow them down, but he still killed those rippers and helped her get to the truck.

  And after the pickup truck had overheated, he’d had another chance to ditch her. He could have run—she would’ve never been able to keep up with him on her bad ankle. He could have also left her in that house when she had fallen asleep. He could have taken one of the cars and driven away. Hell, he could’ve shot her at any time.

  But he hadn’t done any of those things.

  She watched him as he lay on his side with his back to her, the early afternoon light shining in through the closed blinds, the faint lines of the blinds drawn in the patch of sunlight on the bed and part of his body. She stared at the back of his head, his dark hair buzzed short. She traced the lines of the muscles of his back with her eyes, down his spine to his buttocks, and then to his legs. He was breathing heavily, sleeping deeply.

  I’m not a good man. His words echoed in her mind.

  And I’m not a good woman anymore. We’ve both changed. You for the better, me for the worse, both of us changing in fundamental ways. And we’re going to keep on changing in this new world.

  She looked back up at the ceiling, thinking about how Matt had rejected her that morning. She knew he was just being cautious and she couldn’t blame him for it. But she was going to prove to him, and the rest of them, that she and Luke were immune to this plague.

  God, only Matt, Rick, and Mario had left from this safe house. Just three of them. She wondered how many others had left from other safe houses, how many had survived the plague, how many had survived the rippers after that. She did some quick math, assuming only three made it from each group, and then she multiplied that number to all the branches in the militia. Possibly a hundred had made it down to the camp or were on their way. But probably less. Maybe seventy, or even fifty.

  Luke moaned in his sleep.

  She looked at him again, staring at his back, watching him breathe. He twitched and moaned again, his body jerking, muscles bunching up in his upper back and shoulders. He turned over quickly after another long moan. His eyes popped open, and he seemed to be fighting to catch his breath for a second. He looked like he had been about to sit up, but then he realized where he was, his eyes settling on her.

  Wilma touched his shoulder gently. “Hey. You okay?”

  He stared at her for a few seconds, swallowing hard like his throat was dry. “Yeah. Sorry. Just a bad dream.”

  “You had a nightmare? I didn’t think anything scared you.”

  He smiled. “I never used to have nightmares. But when all of this shit started happening a few days ago, now every time I sleep . . .” He let his words hang in the air.

  “Were you dreaming about the rippers?”

  “No.”

  “That family you found yesterday morning?”

  He shook his head a little. “It was sort of like the dream I had when you woke me up to steal my stuff.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  He smiled, letting her know he’d been joking.

  “Tell me about your dream,” she said.

  “There was this guy in the dream. A black guy. Maybe in his late thirties, but in real good shape. Real muscular. And he has a kid with him. A boy. Maybe eleven or twelve years old. And there was this other guy, a white guy. He was kind of skinny. Long hair down to his shoulders. A scraggily beard. A lot of tattoos. And there was also this woman in the dream. A blond woman. She wore dark glasses like she was blind. And she was beautiful.”

  “Should I be jealous?”

  Luke smiled again. He seemed to be able to tell that she had just been kidding and trying to lighten the mood. He was quiet for a moment as he stared up at the ceiling like he was seeing the dream in his mind again, or at least the parts that he could remember. “It was like the woman could see me in the dream even though I’m sure she was blind. She was talking to me.”

  “What did she say?” Wilma felt a chill run across her naked skin, and she was suddenly cold even though it was warm in the house. She pulled the blanket over her naked body, feeling suddenly exposed even though Luke had just explored every part of her body earlier. She thought of the dream she’d had, when Matt had been telling her that the rippers were coming while she tried to shoot the target pinned to the hay bale, the target that had turned into the anarchy symbol.

  “She told me I needed to go south. She said that I needed to find her and the people she’s with.”

  “South where?”

&nb
sp; “She didn’t say. She just said I needed to find them.”

  “And that was a nightmare?”

  “No. There was someone else in the dream. When I saw the woman and the people she was with, there was this glow around the woman, almost like she was an angel. And then when she was gone, I realized that everything had gotten dark. I was in this, like this big store, like a Walmart or something. It seemed like the place was empty, but I knew someone was there in the dark with me.”

  Wilma got another tingling sensation along her skin—she already knew who Luke had seen in his dream, the same man she’d seen in her dream.

  “I saw the man standing in the shadows,” Luke continued, still staring at the ceiling as he talked. “He was tall. Taller than me. He was kind of thin, but he had wide shoulders. And I could tell that he was muscular and powerful. His hair was kind of long and it seemed to be blowing around a little, even though there was no wind inside the store. But the strangest thing was his eyes—they were shining in the dark. There was this energy coming from him, this negative energy, this evil. I don’t even know how to describe it.”

  Wilma just lay there, saying nothing, thinking of her own dream and how she had seen a similar man in her own dream last night. She was about to tell him about it, but he turned to her, staring at her.

  “Those guys we saw this morning,” he said, “the ones that tried to ambush us, the ones with the anarchy symbols carved into their foreheads, you know who they are, don’t you?”

  CHAPTER 26

  Luke watched Wilma’s face after he had sprung the question on her. He’d been waiting for the right time to challenge her lie. She had already admitted to lying to him before, and he was certain she was lying about not knowing about that anarchy gang. He watched her face as she stared at him, gauging her reaction.

  “I don’t know who they are,” she said.

  So she wasn’t going to be truthful with him.

  “But I’ve seen that anarchy symbol before,” she continued quickly. “I’ve seen one exactly like it.”

  “Where?”

  She hesitated for just a moment, and then: “I saw it in my dream last night.”

  Luke didn’t say anything; he waited for her to explain more.

  “When we were in that house last night, I had a dream,” she said. “I was at my family’s farm and I was shooting at a target pinned to a hay bale. We had a shooting area there at the farm and I used to practice all the time. My mom and dad were there in the dream, still alive. They were right behind me. And so was Matt. They were all talking to me. I wanted to turn around, but it was like I wasn’t able to do it. I kept aiming at the target instead of turning around to look at them.”

  Wilma stopped for a moment, trying to keep herself from crying. She swallowed hard and continued. “I couldn’t hit the target no matter how hard I tried. Matt told me I needed to hurry because the rippers were coming. And I could hear them in the dream, this roar of a crowd, like an army rushing over the hill at us. It seemed like in the dream that I needed to hit that stupid target to stop the rippers from coming, but I couldn’t hit it. But then the target changed. First it was a silhouette of a man’s upper body—a standard shooting target.”

  Luke nodded—he knew the kind she was talking about.

  “But then the target turned into that anarchy symbol painted on a large white piece of paper pinned to the hay bale. The symbol had been painted in bright red paint, like blood. It was an A with a circle around it, just like the one we saw painted on that overturned car.”

  Luke nodded again.

  “I heard my father’s voice then; it was like he was right behind me and whispering in my ear. He told me that there were worse things coming, worse than the rippers. And then I saw the group of people on the top of the hills all around us, but they weren’t rippers, they were men and women, like some kind of gang, almost like barbarians or something. I couldn’t see them too clearly. There was a mist or something, and it was . . .” She stopped talking, like she was searching for the right word.

  “Obscuring them?”

  “Yeah,” she said and smiled. “Obscuring them. But a man stepped away from the crowd of people and I could see him clearly. He was the same man you just described from your dream. Tall, dressed all in black, like he was a living shadow. But his eyes were shining, like they were two little pinpoints of light underneath the brim of his hat. He was like a living shadow. The Shadow Man.”

  “The Shadow Man?”

  “Yeah. I read a book a few years ago about a killer that could read minds, and he had locked on to this woman. She saw him in her dreams, and she called him the Shadow Man.”

  “Did the Shadow Man say anything to you in your dream?” Luke asked.

  “No.”

  “And you didn’t see the blond woman or those other two guys and the boy I told you about?”

  “No.” She sounded a little frustrated.

  “But this morning was the first time you actually saw that anarchy symbol besides the dream you had? You’ve never heard of a gang like that around here before?”

  “We don’t have gangs out here in the country.”

  “Just militias.”

  She shrugged. “Militias aren’t gangs. This anarchist group could’ve been a militia at some time, but I’m sure I would’ve heard of them before. I would’ve remembered that symbol. An anarchy symbol doesn’t really make sense; it’s kind of the opposite of an organized group like a militia.”

  She had a point. Luke thought about it for a moment. “What we saw today was definitely some kind of gang, or a part of it. And they were organized. You saw the way they were stocking that truck up with supplies.”

  Wilma nodded.

  “Did you see their foreheads?”

  She shook her head no.

  “The guy I shot that was closer to us, he had the same symbol on his forehead. I couldn’t tell if it was carved into his skin or burned into it. Or maybe even tattooed there. I’m sure the other guy had the same symbol on his forehead. And that symbol was on a few houses and buildings before we even got to their barricade. It’s like they are marking their territory.”

  “I’m sure a lot of gangs and groups are going to form,” Wilma said. “It’s safer to be in a group. That’s why you should come down there with me to the camp.”

  Luke didn’t answer. He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

  They both had the blanket over their bodies now, and she touched his shoulder gently. She moved a little closer to him. “I really want you to go down there with me.”

  He looked at her and kissed her, a long and slow kiss. He could feel himself stiffening now.

  She stared at him for a moment after he stopped kissing her. “I want to ask you for a favor.”

  “Name it,” he whispered.

  “I think we’re both immune, I’m almost sure of it. But if we aren’t, and if I start turning, I want you to shoot me in the head.”

  Luke just stared at her, saying nothing.

  “I don’t want to be one of those things out there, one of those animals.”

  Luke nodded, but didn’t say yes. He wasn’t sure if they were immune or not, but he would keep his promise to her. He kissed her again.

  She moved closer to him underneath the blankets.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER 27

  Two days later they were ready to leave the safe house. Wilma felt that two days (and then the days it would take them to travel down to the camp) would be enough time to prove that the two of them were immune to this plague—whatever it was.

  They had eaten well during the last two days, resting and building their strength up. Wilma’s ankle felt a lot better, but she kept an ankle sleeve on it for support.

  In the last two days Wilma had tried to reach others on the ham radio, but she hadn’t reached anyone who had any kind of information, and that furthered her belief that this plague was at least nationwide, but more likely worldwide. Luke took the time to stud
y the rippers that waited outside the house, many of them sleeping in the house closest to the safe house.

  As Luke watched them through the windows, he made mental notes of their behavior. He realized that he had been correct earlier when he had surmised that the rippers seemed to be least active from four o’clock a.m. to about seven or eight a.m. It didn’t mean that there weren’t any rippers roaming around during those hours, just that there weren’t as many.

  The rippers seemed to act like animals, grunting and screeching at each other, yet their grunts and screeches also seemed to be some kind of rudimentary communication. They were still wearing clothes for the most part, a few had tattered clothing, like they’d gotten into fights with other rippers. Some had soiled themselves, but others were obviously pulling their pants down to go to the bathroom, because they weren’t stained. Some of them even had newer and cleaner clothing on, pieces that they had scavenged from houses and businesses, clothes to keep them warm. They didn’t seem to wear any kind of protective clothing like hats, gloves, or scarves, but a lot of them wore jackets, coats, and some of them even wore boots and shoes. It was cold outside, but not freezing yet. Luke couldn’t help wondering what was going to happen to the rippers once temperatures got below thirty degrees. Even if they found coats and blankets, would a lot of them die off from the cold if they couldn’t find adequate shelter? He hadn’t seen any of them make a fire yet for warmth or cooking—in fact, they seemed to be afraid of fire.

  Even though the rippers seemed to communicate somehow and use simple weapons like clubs, rocks, and knives, it didn’t seem like they had mastered much above those rudimentary weapons, like the use of tools. They seemed like they had the intelligence of apes, or something between apes and primitive man—maybe like the missing link between the two. Luke had heard of the missing link before, a species that scientists had been looking for, a link between humans and primates, and now Luke felt like he was looking at what scientists had been searching for.