by Lukens, Mark
Luke looked out the back windows, alarmed a little. They weren’t deep in the woods anymore, and there was a lot of snow around, a whole field of it they were passing, abandoned cars blanketed under it, roofs covered with it.
“How long was I asleep?”
“About two hours,” Ray answered.
“No troubles, I guess.”
“Seen a few rippers, but far off from the road. It seems like we’re still in a pretty rural area.”
“It’s snowing.”
“Yeah. Started about an hour ago. Seems like a lot more is coming. Look behind us.”
Luke looked out the rear window. “Shit,” he whispered. The horizon behind Josh’s van was a black wall with a gray mist mixed in.
“Storm’s coming from behind us,” Ray said. “Seems like it’s coming from the northwest. It’s going to catch up to us.”
Luke didn’t say anything.
“We might need to start looking for a place to stop for the night,” Ray said. “I don’t think we should try to drive through what’s coming this way.”
Luke whole-heartedly agreed.
CHAPTER 5
Petra
Petra’s body was stiff from the cold. She jumped awake with an inhale of breath that sounded so loud in the silence.
Then she froze, waiting and listening.
It took a second for everything to come back to her, everything that had happened. For just a moment she’d been trapped in a void between the nightmare she’d been having and the reality she’d woken up to.
But then the memories came back, jumbled together, like snapshots in a random pile on a table: driving to Jeff’s house miles away from the store, the store that Jo the manager ran . . . the Dark Angels pulling up into the front yard of Jeff’s home, parking behind their vehicles . . . shooting at the house . . . running. It had been a trap that Jeff had set for them, and there had probably been another group of Dark Angels attacking Jo’s store at the same time.
Petra shivered, wondering if the Dark Angels had killed everyone at the store. Was she alone now? The only one left?
Now that the nightmare was slipping away and she was grounded firmly back in the real world, as improbable as the real world had become, she was instantly on guard, her body tense as she listened for any noises in the house.
She had survived the night without being attacked by rippers, but that didn’t mean that rippers might not be in the house or just outside of it; she still needed to be careful.
It was dark in the closet she had curled up inside of, just a strip of weak daylight shining in under the door. Her backpack was beside her. She took a sip of water from a bottle. That took care of her thirst, but it only intensified her hunger.
Food would have to wait—she needed to make sure she was safe. At least she hadn’t frozen to death, but she didn’t think it was cold enough yet for that. Soon, though. The closet was probably a little warmer than the rest of the house, and warmer than outside. An abandoned house like this might attract a ripper or two, or a group of them, a place to get out of the cold for the night.
Her gun was right beside her on the floor. She rested her hand on the cold metal, the reassuring metal. In her backpack she only had a box of bullets to load the magazine of her gun, three protein bars, and two bottles of water.
She remembered running from Jeff’s house and then through the woods for miles. She had come across this house in the darkness. The house had looked abandoned, ransacked. She hadn’t found much in the way of supplies last night during her quick search by flashlight. She’d found an old blanket that smelled musty and probably had spiders on it.
At first she had curled up against the wall with the blanket, her pack and gun right beside her. She’d been too tired and had drifted off to sleep right there on the floor against the wall. She had dreamed. She always dreamed now—every time she went to sleep the dreams came. She’d woken up from the dream and at some point in the night found this closet in the hallway. It wasn’t the greatest hiding place, but it was better than being out in the open.
She’d dreamed again while sleeping in the closet. In the dream she was in a hospital, in a bed. Maybe she was sick or injured. And then all the lights went out, swallowing everything in the darkness. She sat up in her bed, breathing quickly, her heart thumping so loud she could hear it.
She waited for the emergency generator to kick in. Hospitals had to have backup generators when the power went out, didn’t they? They had to.
But the electricity didn’t come back on. No lights, no beeping machines, nothing. She didn’t even hear the sounds of other panicked people in the hospital. Surely other patients would cry out in alarm by now, calling for nurses and doctors. There should be the sound of hospital staff running up and down the halls, flashlight beams bouncing off the walls or lights from cell phones. Soon she would hear a nurse calling out for everyone to remain calm. Soon a nurse would open the door to her room to make sure she was okay.
But there was none of that.
Petra felt that she was alone in the hospital, floors and floors devoid of people, of all life. Or maybe they were all dead, just bodies lying in the dark, sightless eyes staring up at the ceilings from their beds or the floors.
Except she wasn’t entirely alone—she was sure of that. There was one other person in this massive building, someone making his way toward her.
Then she heard the footsteps, slow and deliberate, in no hurry, like the person knew she had nowhere to run to, nowhere to go.
The Dragon?
No, it was someone else this time. The approaching man whistled a tune, a familiar tune. There was even something familiar about his footsteps, the way he walked, a boldness. A dangerous predator.
“Petra,” the man sang out. He was right down the hall, maybe only a few feet away from the door to her room.
She couldn’t answer. A terror seized her, thrumming through her like live electricity. She twitched, like her body was trying to move before her mind even figured out where she was going, what she was going to do.
“I finally found you, Petra. You thought you could hide from me? From me?”
It was Diego, her boyfriend. He’d worked for a drug cartel. She had run away from him because he beat her all the time. He was going to kill her; she had no choice but to run.
But he’d found her now, and he was going to kill her.
The door to the hospital room creaked open.
That’s when she had woken up, and here she was now, sitting in a closet: cold, hungry, and alone.
She stood up. Her muscles felt achy and tight from the cold. She left her backpack on the floor, but grabbed her gun, holding it in one hand while slowly turning the doorknob with her other hand. She eased the door open and stepped out into the hallway.
After waiting for almost a full minute, she crept down the hallway to the two bedrooms and the bathroom on this side of the home. Each room had a bed, one with just a bare mattress, one without a mattress. There were old dressers and end tables, closet doors open, hangers on rods, clothes and debris all over the floors. She checked through the drawers of the dressers: old papers, more clothes, nothing she needed or could use.
Nothing much in the bathrooms she wanted.
She moved back down the hall and inspected the living room and kitchen, peeking out through musty drapes and plastic blinds. No vehicles out there, just like she’d noticed last night. More junk and trash in the living room and kitchen.
The kitchen had food wrappers all over the floor, dark stains on the linoleum that could have been old food, juice, or even blood. Any boxed or bagged food was trash now, the food gone, the shredded wrappers left behind. She found a few cans of tuna and a handheld can opener. She opened the lid and ate the tuna right out of the can with her fingers, her stomach grumbling.
After she was done, she wiped her hands on a dishtowel and went back to the hall closet for her backpack. She found a few more cans of food in the cabinets and she stuffed them down into the pack.
<
br /> She used the bathroom and then went back to the kitchen, going out the same door she’d used last night. She made a quick trip across the half-bare backyard to the edge of the woods. She didn’t have a compass and she couldn’t really see the trail she’d traveled through the woods yesterday, but she would just keep going in the direction she thought she’d come from yesterday, trying to keep the morning sun to her left so she knew she was traveling south.
Maybe she would find one of them still alive, maybe Tamara or Tyrone. Or even Lance, Dale, or Zak. She didn’t think it was too likely, but she remembered the blind woman who had come to her in her dream last night—she’d told her that some had survived. Maybe she was talking about them.
CHAPTER 6
Petra
It took Petra an hour and a half to get through the woods back to the edge of Jeff’s backyard. She was surprised she’d found his house again and wasn’t still wandering the woods.
The woods had seemed so empty, devoid of all life, like rippers had come through and consumed everything in their path, all other animals fleeing. She had tried to be quiet as she made her way through the woods, but it sounded to her like she’d been making so much noise, trampling over dead leaves and twigs like a herd of cattle. She looked behind her every few seconds, expecting to see a group of rippers racing toward her. But she never spotted any rippers.
It was cold, but it felt a little warmer than the day before. She had her backpack on, the straps tightened, the pack a little heavier with the canned food inside that she’d scrounged from the abandoned house. She kept her pistol in her hand. She knew if she needed to shoot the gun the sound would bring more rippers, but if she had to use it she would; she’d use every bullet she had on the rippers, saving the last one for herself.
After an hour had passed in the woods, Petra began to believe that she had strayed off the trail back to Jeff’s house, sure that she’d gotten lost in these unending woods. She wished she had a map, but Lance would’ve had the map on him, or maybe he’d left it in the van. Maybe the van was still parked in Jeff’s front yard, but she was pretty sure the Dark Angels would have taken it.
Petra wondered if the Dark Angels had rounded Lance, Crystal, and the others up instead of killing them. Maybe they had taken them hostage. Maybe there was a chance they were still alive, and that hope had spurred her on through the woods.
Now she stood at the edge of Jeff’s backyard, where the trees had thinned out. The grass was gray and dormant. The back door of the house was halfway open, but there didn’t seem to be any movement beyond the door or in the windows, no sounds coming from the house.
She made herself wait a few more minutes, watching and listening.
Nothing.
Petra took a deep breath and bolted across the backyard to the house. She crouched underneath the window closest to the back door, then rose up and peeked through the glass into the formal dining room. One of the chairs was tipped over. There was trash all over the floor, furniture disturbed, bullet holes in the walls.
She thought about going in through the open back door but decided to go around to the front of the house first. She hurried to the corner and peeked around to the side of the house and the narrow yard, the woods crowding in close on this side. No movement in the part of the front yard that she could see. Nothing in the trees. She saw a scattering of black and camouflage clothing strewn across the dry grass in the side yard, some of the clothing twisted around bloodstained bones. She’d shot two of the Dark Angels here, the ones who tried to abduct Crystal. But more Dark Angels had come and taken Crystal. That’s when Petra had run deeper into the woods—she’d had no choice. She stared down at the bones that used to be inside those Dark Angels, their skin and flesh eaten at some point yesterday or last night by rippers.
Rippers had been here. She needed to be even more cautious now.
The wind picked up just a little, whistling through the trees, rattling the dry leaves, the sound prickling her skin.
She made her way down the side of the house, taking her time, peeking in each window as she passed it. Another window to the dining room, two more windows that looked in on the formal living room, and then she was at the edge of the front porch, crouching down next to the lattice work. She could see more of the front yard now. Tyrone’s pickup was still parked at an angle in the front yard, just like he’d left it.
She moved closer to the corner of the porch, not daring to raise her head up. She peeked around the corner and saw the whole front yard and the road a hundred yards away. The gravel drive was flanked by brownish-gray grass and weeds, the woods dense beyond the lawn on each side of the front yard, this plot of land carved out of the thick forest.
Petra remembered Lance talking on their way up here yesterday, talking about how nature would eventually take over everything again, manmade structures rotting away and forgotten over time.
God, that trip here from Jo’s store seemed like such a long time ago.
No one around so far, but the Dark Angels could be hidden in the trees somewhere.
Or the rippers.
The only vehicles in the yard were the two pickups: Tyrone’s Dodge Ram and the pickup with the big tires that Dale had driven. Lance’s van was gone; taken by the Dark Angels, she guessed. She couldn’t allow herself to believe that Lance had gotten away.
The all-too-familiar smell of death and decay hit her, a stench that seemed to hang in the air all the time now like a summer haze.
There were more dead somewhere in the front yard.
Petra gripped her gun harder and looked around at the front yard, studying the trees, the road, listening for any sounds. The van was gone, which meant the map Lance had with him was gone. She focused on the two pickup trucks. The tires looked inflated, but the windows were busted out, little gems of shattered glass twinkling in the overcast sunlight. One of the passenger doors was open on Tyrone’s truck so the battery might have been drained if the interior lights were on.
She looked at the other pickup . . . Dale’s pickup.
She needed that truck. Maybe the keys were still in the ignition, or on the floorboard, or under the seat.
But probably not. More likely they were in Dale’s pocket—wherever he was.
She had to try. It was better than walking. Maybe she could find a screwdriver and hammer it into the ignition. It was an older truck, maybe it would work.
Maybe she was getting ahead of herself. First things first: check the truck.
After another few glances around, she ran from the corner of the front porch to Dale’s pickup, not even bothering to stop at Tyrone’s truck. As soon as she was halfway across the front yard she saw the body on the other side of the truck—or what was left of it. The body was now just a collection of bones with bits of gristle and darkened meat stuck to them, the bones scattered among shredded, blood-soaked clothing.
Was it Dale? As soon as the question popped into her mind she saw the paintball mask he used to wear all the time, his bloody baseball cap a few feet away from the mask. Dale was dead. But what about Tyrone? Or Tamara. Tamara had been in the woods watching for rippers when the Dark Angels had come—she’d been the one who had warned them. Maybe she had gotten away.
Petra didn’t think so. The Dark Angels had come and killed some of them, maybe all of them. But she’d seen them take Crystal. Maybe they had taken some of them. Maybe some of them were still alive. But obviously some of them hadn’t made it; probably shot and then the rippers had feasted on their flesh.
She got to the front of the truck and saw another body at the back of the truck, this one stripped of clothing and flesh just like the other one, just bones pulled apart and scattered all over the ground. It could be Tyrone, or maybe Zak. A cloud of flies hovered above the bones.
Hurry! The rippers might come back. They might even be inside the house, sleeping off their meals.
Petra crept up to the driver’s door of the truck. The glass was busted out, but both doors were closed. Blood
was smeared all over the door and down the side of the truck. Rippers had been inside the truck, looking for more food.
She pulled up on the doorhandle of the truck carefully until she heard it unlatch. She eased the door open and looked for the keys. They weren’t on the seat or among the shards of glass on the floorboard. They weren’t hanging from the ignition or in the center compartment, or on the dash, or tucked down in the seats. Maybe the keys were somewhere in the scraps of clothing among Dale’s bones. She was going to have to search for them.
“Shit,” she whispered.
This wasn’t going to be easy. Nothing was ever easy. Why would she expect this to be easy?
Maybe she could try the screwdriver trick. Maybe she could find a screwdriver and a hammer inside the house or the garage, get the truck started that way.
But she needed to be careful. She hadn’t seen any rippers inside the house when she had peeked in through the windows, but they could still be in there. Maybe upstairs.
She looked back at the front of the house while crouched down by the open door of the pickup truck. The smell of rotten meat and death was stronger down here by the ground. The front door of the house looked like it was ajar. Bullet holes dotted the red door and the siding of the home from when the Dark Angels had shot at them. The front windows were busted out from the bullets.
It was still morning; maybe ten or ten thirty, she guessed. She needed to check the house, see if she could find some keys. Maybe there was a car in the garage, or even a motorcycle, something she could use. If not, she was going to have to search through the bones and gore on the ground for the keys to Dale’s truck. The worst-case scenario would be walking out of here, walking down the road; that would have to be her last resort.
A screech sounded from behind her, then another yell. It almost sounded like words, like someone was trying to form words, but couldn’t. Then she heard the stampede sound of running feet.
She turned around and stared at the street.
