Dark Days (Book 3): Exposure:

by Lukens, Mark

  There was blood everywhere in this town, splashes of it on buildings and across vehicles, staining windows and patches of lawns. Entrails were stretched across the street in one place. There were pieces of flesh and body parts in another area, large sections of skin drying like bedsheets on a clothesline. A large cloth bag was stuffed full of leg and arm bones, the bag of bones right at the edge of the road, a skull balanced right on top of it. A shoe was here, a glove there, discarded items of clothing tossed to the sides of the streets like garbage.

  A slate-gray sky covered the town like a low ceiling of churning storm clouds. But these weren’t thunderstorm clouds; it was cold, and these clouds promised a snowstorm. The wind was fierce and the bodies hanging from the power lines swayed back and forth. Pieces of paper and other trash and debris rolled across the vacant streets like tumbleweeds.

  But the town wasn’t completely empty of life. The Shadow Man was there. Luke could feel the man’s presence, he could feel his eyes watching him from some dark hiding place, his eyes shining in the darkness.

  “You’re right,” the Shadow Man whispered from somewhere nearby.

  Luke had his gun in his hand, the silencer attached. He turned around in a slow circle, trying to see where the Shadow Man’s voice was coming from.

  “You’re right, Luke,” the Shadow Man whispered again.

  “Where are you? Show yourself!”

  “I’m coming for you, Luke. We’re all coming for you. Following you.”

  Luke snapped awake in the darkness, breathing hard. He looked at Wilma, but she was still asleep, probably trapped in her own nightmare right now.

  He’d never had dreams like these before, dreams where people like the blind woman and the Shadow Man communicated with him. These dreams, these nightmares, seemed to last the whole night, from the moment he closed his eyes until he opened them again. He was sure that wasn’t the case—he had heard that a person only dreamed in bits and pieces through the night—but these dreams felt like they lasted all night long, and they felt like they were driving him crazy.

  He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he could tell that it was almost morning. His body felt rested, even if he also felt frozen—it was only his mind that felt like he hadn’t slept at all.

  Trying to be careful, Luke got up. He made sure the blanket was still covering Wilma. He was shivering, but he needed to walk around and get his blood moving through his veins. He wished he had some hot coffee right now. He had a can of Coke in his backpack for a caffeine shot, but a hot cup of coffee would be so much better. He didn’t feel like fishing around in his backpack for the can of soda.

  He walked to the window and looked outside, watching the darkness for a moment. The sky in the east was just beginning to lighten up. Soon they could get back on the trail. They had another large area of woods to go through today, and then they would only be a few miles away from the river, with just one last large town to get through. But the route that Wilma had planned took them around the edge of that town, out where a small airport and other businesses were. And from there, the Ohio River. He was ready to get going, yet he also felt an anxiety blanketing him.

  It was the dream that was freaking him out, that’s all.

  But the dream meant something, he was sure of that. The Shadow Man had been talking directly to him in the dream, and that was a first.

  I’m coming for you, that’s what the Shadow Man had said. We’re all coming for you. Following you.

  He’d said that they were all coming for him. That would mean that the DA group and the Shadow Man were connected, or that the Shadow Man was their leader. He wondered if he should tell Wilma about his dream, about what the Shadow Man had said. But no, he would just keep this dream to himself. She would only try to rationalize things, try to convince him that his subconscious was mixing the two things together: the Shadow Man (whom she believed wasn’t real) and the DA gang; she would tell him that he had fused those two things together in his mind, turning them into something intentionally evil.

  He still couldn’t help being spooked a little, and he wasn’t someone who was easily spooked.

  The sky was even lighter in the east now; he must have been standing at the window longer than he had realized while thinking about his dreams. It was time to wake Wilma up so they could get going. It was time to get Wilma home today.

  CHAPTER 38

  By the middle of the day they had gotten through the woods, the trees thinning out, opening up to fields. There were houses and then buildings as they got closer to the edge of the town. They were only a few miles away from the Ohio River now.

  After another ten minutes of riding, Luke saw the airport off to their right, a vast open area that made him a little nervous, feeling exposed out here, but they had no choice but to ride past it. According to the most recent information Wilma had, the small airport had been closed down for years now, and a lot of the businesses around it had failed or were failing. And now the place looked like a ghost town.

  The gunshots rang out as soon as they left the cover of a few buildings and began riding along the road that paralleled the vast field next to the airport. One bullet hit Luke’s bike and the other bullet hit Wilma in the stomach as they tried to turn their bikes back around.

  As soon as the bullet struck Wilma, she fell off of her bike. Luke had seen the bullet hit her, he had seen it go through her body and explode out of her back in a spray of blood.

  No! We’re almost there! We’re so close!

  Luke slid to a stop, laying his bike down in the process. He left it on the ground and ran back to where Wilma lay on the gravel road. Another two shots echoed across the field, the shots almost simultaneous—there were two shooters, both firing from the same place, from the woods at the other end of the large grassy field. The two bullets pelted the brownish grass at the edge of the trail they had been riding on, neither one of them even close to him or Wilma.

  But he still needed to get her behind some kind of cover. He looked back from where they had come. The buildings were too far away. There was an old semi container on rusted wheels with weeds and garbage underneath it, but that was also too far away to drag Wilma. The only cover Luke saw that was close enough was an old metal dumpster about twenty feet away; it wasn’t very big, but it would have to do for now. He grabbed Wilma’s arms and dragged her back toward the dumpster. He wasn’t sure if she was unconscious yet; her eyes were closed, and she moaned a little, but she didn’t fight against him as he dragged her across the grass to the dumpster.

  Two more shots rang out from across the field as he dragged Wilma, but again, both of them missed them and their bikes by several feet. Luke knew then that he wasn’t dealing with a pair of sharpshooters; the bullet that had hit Wilma had probably just been a lucky shot for them.

  When he and Wilma were safely in front of the dumpster, Luke sat Wilma up just a little so he could pull her backpack off of her. She moaned even louder but she let him do it. He laid her back down on the grass gently. She rocked her head back and forth, moaning. He was sure she was in pain, but he knew she was probably more in shock right now.

  He unzipped his hoodie and used his binoculars to peek around the corner of the dumpster, looking around. Two more shots rang out, one right after the other. One of the bullets hit Wilma’s dirt bike tire, and the other hit the grass. He spotted the glint from a scope in the woods at the other side of the vast field.

  Luke turned back to Wilma. “Hold on.” He touched her shoulder gently. “I need to get something on that wound, try to stop the bleeding.” He ripped off his backpack and tore it open, grabbing an extra undershirt and balling it up.

  Wilma stopped his movements with a hand on his arm. She smiled at him, staring at him. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for bringing me home.”

  We’re not there yet, he almost said, but didn’t. Maybe she believed they were at the camp . . . or she wanted to believe that.

  “Let me stop the bleeding,” he told her.
“The wound isn’t that bad.”

  She gave a slight shake of her head, the smile still there—they both knew he was lying. “Listen to me,” she said, breathing hard as she fought to get the words out. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about the dreams. I know they’re real . . .I know the Shadow Man is real.”

  “Don’t try to talk.”

  “Be . . . be careful,” Wilma said, choking up a little. A line of blood dribbled out of the corner of her mouth. “Be careful of the dreams. He . . . he saw us in the dreams. He saw where . . . where we were going to be . . . and they were waiting for us here.”

  Tears dripped down Luke’s face. He felt one of them sliding down his nose to the tip of it. He hadn’t even realized he’d been crying. “I’ll be careful,” he promised her.

  “I know . . .” she said and then swallowed hard, gripping the sleeve of his hoodie. “I know we haven’t known each other long . . . but . . .”

  He nodded. “I love you, too.”

  Wilma smiled a little wider and closed her eyes.

  Another shot rang out. A bullet hit Luke’s dirt bike, pinging off of the motor. Another bullet hit the dumpster right behind them.

  Wilma exhaled a breath and a small cloud of mist formed in front of her face from the cold air. She inhaled again, exhaled once more, and then never inhaled again.

  Luke stared down at Wilma for a long moment as two more shots echoed across the field, another one of them hitting Wilma’s bike. Obviously they were trying their best to destroy their transportation. Luke didn’t even flinch from the gunshots; he just watched Wilma. Her face was smooth, and she looked so peaceful, the ghost of her smile still on her lips. The blood leaked from the wound in her stomach, puddling on the grass underneath her, the blood shiny and dark in the late afternoon light.

  He unzipped her hoodie and pulled her gun out of her holster. He checked the magazine to make sure it was full and then he stuck it down into the waistband of his pants. He searched their backpacks, stuffing an extra magazine for her gun and an extra magazine for his down into his pants pockets. He found the night vision goggles in Wilma’s backpack and he draped them over his neck in place of his binoculars. He holstered his gun and moved towards the other side of the large dumpster.

  He was ready to run towards the abandoned buildings now. He was going to kill those two snipers, and anyone else who was with them.

  CHAPTER 39

  Luke shot the snipers just as the sun settled below the horizon and the last of the daylight lingered in the air. It took him an hour to get to the two men who lay in the brush, still aiming their weapons at the abandoned buildings across from the south end of the airport field. The two men had never seen Luke get from the buildings to the woods, never heard him as he made a wide circle around them, never heard him as he crept closer toward them through the trees. The men were still shooting occasionally, taking potshots at the dirt bikes two hundred yards away. But mostly they were laughing now and sharing a pint of whisky, getting ready to pack up their rifles and leave.

  Luke stepped out from behind a tree, crackling the twigs and dry leaves that carpeted the ground. The men turned, swinging their rifles around, about to fire at him, but he shot both of them in the head before either man could pull the trigger.

  An hour later Luke spotted the convoy of four trucks parked in front of an auto parts store at the end of a line of businesses closer to the edge of town. The trucks were parked in a tight line, nearly bumper to bumper, like a wall of protection in front of the busted-out windows and glass doors of the auto parts store. Five men sat around a campfire built on the pavement halfway between the trucks and the shattered windows of the store.

  Luke crawled up behind a large mound of dirt near an abandoned car and waited there for a moment, using Wilma’s night vision goggles to watch the men at the campfire. He spotted one more man standing guard on the other side of the line of trucks. The sentry watched the darkness, armed with an M-16 assault rifle.

  Luke studied the sentry for a few minutes, watching him as he walked a few paces away from the line of trucks toward the dark field of grass and debris. The sentry looked relaxed, even bored. Luke panned his night vision goggles over to the men around the campfire. They sat in lawn chairs around the crackling fire, drinking cans of beer from two large coolers, talking and laughing. From where he hid, Luke picked up only bits and pieces of their conversation that was carried on the cold wind.

  “. . . think they got them both . . .”

  “. . . those two should be back by now . . .”

  “. . . probably drunk and can’t find their way back.”

  Luke stuffed the night vision goggles back into his jacket pocket and crawled along the grass, moving closer and closer to the line of trucks, taking his time. Fifteen minutes later Luke was within ten feet of the truck at the front of the line, the old Ford Econoline van. He watched the sentry, who stared the other way, still watching the dark field like he was waiting for rippers to materialize from the darkness. But the sentry looked like he was lost in his own thoughts now. He had his rifle beside him, the butt of it on the ground, holding it by the barrel.

  Luke was behind the sentry in a second, slapping the weapon out of his hand and putting him in a chokehold before he could even cry out. Luke’s arms were like steel bands around the man’s neck. The man struggled, kicked and elbowed at Luke, one of the strikes landing, but Luke knew how to circle back out of the way while still keeping pressure on the man’s neck, pulling him back a little at the same time, bringing him down to the ground slowly until he finally passed out. Luke pulled his knife out and cut the man’s throat while he was unconscious. The only noise now was the man’s gurgling as he tried to breathe through the blood.

  Luke carefully wiped the blade of his knife on the man’s clothes, refolded it, and then tucked it back into his pocket. He waited a few minutes, listening for any rippers in the darkness. He could hear the chatter from the other men around the fire. He was still only picking up bits and pieces of their conversation, but he could tell that they weren’t alarmed in any way and hadn’t heard him kill the sentry.

  Slowing his breathing down a little, Luke stared out at the darkness for a moment. It was freezing, but he didn’t feel the cold—he felt nothing right now except for a controlled rage and a burning desire for revenge. This was not a new feeling for Luke; he had hurt so many people in his life that he had lost count. He had broken bones. He had maimed people. He had killed before. And tonight he was going to kill all five of the men around that fire.

  Luke looked down at the man on the cold ground, his arms and legs splayed out, his body still, his weapon on the grass five feet away. Luke picked up the weapon, inspecting it for a moment. It was an M-16, probably stolen off a dead soldier, or a weapon abandoned by that soldier when he’d turned into a ripper. He checked the man for a walkie-talkie or whistle or any other kind of communication, but he didn’t find anything like that. But he found two hand grenades. He stuffed those down into his jacket pockets; he had a plan for them.

  The moon shined down on the earth now as the swiftly moving clouds parted. The guard’s dead face looked so pale in the moonlight, his eyes closed, his hat knocked off in their tussle, his throat a gory mess. The DA symbol was etched into the man’s forehead, the two letters a dark and ragged contrast against his flesh. For one insane moment Luke felt like flaying that piece of skin from the man’s face like a Sioux warrior might take a scalp. Luke would keep the piece of flesh with the DA symbol on it as a souvenir for this kill tonight, leaving behind the skinned faces as a message to their leader—the Shadow Man.

  Luke stood up, waiting a little longer, listening to the men at the campfire twenty yards away beyond the line of trucks. He pointed the M-16 up at the night sky and squeezed off a few shots, absorbing the recoil from the weapon.

  “Hey!” Luke yelled. He was sure he couldn’t match the sentry’s voice, but a one syllable shout might sound like any other man’s shout from this d
istance.

  Luke took the rifle with him as he ran toward the mounds of dirt and grass fifteen yards away. He crouched down behind the mounds, finding a slight valley in between two of them where he could see the line of trucks, where he could aim his pistol at them.

  Two of the men came around the trucks from the rear of the convoy, and the other two came around from the front. Only four men. Luke had seen five of them so one must have stayed back at the campfire. There could even be more of them, but Luke was only going to concentrate on these four at this moment. He didn’t care about anything else; he didn’t even care if he died, just as long as he took these five men out first.

  Spit. Spit.

  Luke shot the two men at the rear of the convoy first, the ones the farthest away, dropping them immediately. They were both probably dead before they even hit the ground.

  The other two men at the front of the convoy tried to turn back, but from this position Luke could see the front of the van.

  “He’s got a silencer!” one of the men yelled. Those were his last words.

  Luke was up and running, firing at the two men as he sprinted toward them. He got one of the men in the back of his head as he ran away, trying to get around the front of the van to the other side of it. Luke wounded the other man in the side of his neck.

  The wounded man fell to the ground as soon as he was shot, losing his weapon in the process. But he was back on his feet in a second, holding on to the front of the van, clawing at the cold, slick metal for support.

  Luke shot the man in the back of his head and the man went down again. This time he was dead.

  A bullet hit the front corner of the van, ricocheting off of it, making a high-pitched whine in the night. Luke ducked down at the other side of the van, using it for cover. Two more gunshots from the direction of the campfire followed. One of the bullets hit the front quarter panel of the van on the other side, and the other one smashed out the driver’s side window.