by Lukens, Mark
“South, right? That’s what you said last night.”
Ray nodded.
“I’d offer someone to ride with me, but the passenger seat is full. I’ve got a few cardboard boxes of food and water in there. Other supplies too. But I can put some of that stuff in the back. Make some room.”
“I’ll ask, but I think we’ll be fine.”
Gil seemed to accept that.
“You think Luke will be okay?” Ray asked, looking for the real answer.
“I think so. He lost a lot of blood. He really needs some nourishment and rest.”
“Thank you for what you did for him.”
Gil just nodded.
“You said you were heading west,” Ray reminded him.
Gil shrugged. “I hadn’t made any real plans. I just thought of heading somewhere remote, somewhere where the rippers won’t be everywhere. Maybe west Texas or New Mexico.”
“Where were you coming from?”
“Eastern Kentucky. Small shithole of a town. My wife and I lived there for years.”
Ray nodded knowingly. “Your wife turned?”
“No. She died almost a year ago. Cancer. She was as healthy as a horse her whole life, and then out of the blue, the cancer came.”
Gil paused for a moment, looking away at the woods. “When she died, my world ended. I didn’t work much after that. Sold my veterinarian business, let my license lapse. Couldn’t hardly eat. I was drinking more than I should. And then this happened, all this shit. I don’t know what the hell this thing is, this disease that turned everyone into rippers. Something manmade. Some kind of biological terrorist weapon. Or maybe it was just something natural. Like the meteor wiping out the dinosaurs, maybe it was just our time.”
“We know a place that might have some answers to what happened.”
Gil’s gray bushy eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“I used to work for the government,” Ray continued. “The CDC.”
“Centers for Disease Control?”
Ray had to continue quickly before Gil jumped to conclusions like everyone else usually did. “I wasn’t a scientist. Never even got near that kind of stuff. I wasn’t even in the same building as the scientists. I was an accountant. Worked in an office in Washington D.C. But my supervisor, a man named Craig, he knew something about all of this. I don’t know if he had friends at the Atlanta offices, or who he knew, but he said he had information about the Ripper Plague, as they were calling it on the news before everything shut down. I went to his house with my son and Emma. I found something on his laptop, reports and articles about an underground facility they called Avalon.”
“And that’s where you’re headed?”
“I think it’s the best bet. There were no answers to this plague on Craig’s computer or the reports he had on there from the CDC, but the answers might be in Avalon. They were doing some kind of research there. Maybe they knew about this before it started.”
“Or maybe they were the ones that released it.”
Ray shrugged; that could be true. “Either way, we might find answers there. Maybe there’s a vaccine, or some kind of treatment, or maybe a cure. Maybe there are still people there, people underground who weren’t exposed to this plague.”
Gil’s face fell into a frown. He didn’t look convinced about finding a cure or a group of people holed up in the ground.
“Like I said, you’re welcome to go with us. You said you were going west. If Avalon isn’t the place for you, you could always head west from there.”
“Where is this place? This Avalon?”
“Northern Georgia.” He didn’t want to tell Gil that he didn’t actually have a map anymore, that they were going to rely on Emma’s abilities once they got into Georgia. He didn’t want to tell Gil about Emma’s psychic talents at this time either, or about the dreams they all shared. Gil didn’t seem to recognize any of them from his dreams, and Ray hadn’t recognized Gil from his dreams. Maybe that meant something, and maybe it didn’t. But if Ray told Gil about that kind of stuff right now, he might think he was a crackpot.
“I’ll go with you,” Gil said. “What the hell else do I have to do? Ever since Claire’s been gone, I don’t really care about much. I don’t want to die, but I kind of don’t care if I do. Does that make any sense?”
Ray nodded. It made perfect sense to him. “We’re going to need to get some gas from somewhere. We still have half a tank, but we’ll need to be on the lookout for more gas.”
“Hold on, I got some.” Gil hurried to the metal tool box in the back of his truck and lifted the lid on one side. He pulled out two ten-gallon plastic gas cans. He left one by his truck and brought the other one over to Ray. “This might help a little.”
“Yes, it will. Thank you.”
“No problem. I’ve got a siphon hose too.”
“Good. We lost ours.”
Ray drained the can of gas into the van’s tank, careful not to spill any. He handed the gas can back to Gil, who had just finished filling his own truck up. Gil put the empty cans back into the tool box in the bed of his truck.
“You all did real well traveling together,” Gil told Ray. “Sticking together through all this shit. But I bet you’ve been through hell.”
“We’ve had our run-ins with the Dark Angels, and with plenty of rippers. We were in a safe place once, a cabin in West Virginia, but the Dark Angels found us.”
Gil nodded. “Yeah, they’re kind of a persistent bunch.”
Ray turned when he heard Josh, Luke, Mike, and Emma leaving the house, coming down the front porch steps. Josh and Mike had the packs, and Josh held Emma’s hand.
“I guess we’re ready to go,” Ray said.
Ray got in behind the wheel of the van. Luke sat down in the passenger seat. Josh, Emma, and Mike got into the back. Ray started the van and glanced at Gil in the truck next to them. Gil tipped an imaginary hat, waiting for Ray to drive away first.
*
Two hours later Ray was still driving. Luke was asleep in the passenger seat, just like everyone in the back seat. They probably hadn’t slept well in the house and now they were all out. Ray felt a little drowsy, but still alert enough. He kept glancing at the sides of the road, keeping watch for any rippers. The traveling had been pretty smooth so far, only a few pileups to navigate around; he’d had to drive down into muddy ditches to get past them.
The sun was higher, but it was still pretty cold. At least there was no snow and mostly clear blue sky. He’d glanced at the map moments ago. They should be coming up to the town of Perry. There was a back road they could take around it, but they would have to go into the edge of the town to get to it—no getting around it any other way. He didn’t really want to drive that far into the town, but he didn’t have a choice.
Ray had spotted some rippers on their drive, a few stragglers here and there, but not too many. There were two large groups he’d seen; one of the groups was far off in a field of what might have been crops at one time. They seemed to be picking through the plants, trying to find anything edible. The other group came from some buildings just off the road, running at them, but they’d driven past fast enough before the rippers could start throwing rocks at them.
So far, so good. But how long was their good fortune going to last? From experience, Ray knew it wouldn’t be long before something bad happened.
As they approached Perry, just passing the first of the edge-of-town businesses and homes, Luke stirred and woke up, almost like he had sensed they were getting close to danger. Ray had been about to wake him up soon, anyway.
Luke looked around, stretching his legs and wincing. He turned and looked at the back of the van. Everyone else was still asleep.
“Coming up to a town called Perry,” Ray told Luke.
“We’re in North Carolina?”
“Yeah. Have been for a while.”
Luke nodded. “Man, how long did I sleep?”
“A few hours. You needed it.”
Ray’s
eyes kept darting back and forth from each side of the road, looking for any movement.
Luke stared straight out the windshield as Ray slowed down, approaching Fairmont Street. This road would take him to another road and get them around most of the downtown area of Perry.
“Holy shit,” Luke said.
Ray saw what he was staring at in the distance.
“You see what I’m seeing?” Luke asked in a whisper.
“Yes,” Ray answered. “I see it.”
CHAPTER 49
Luke
Luke couldn’t believe what he was seeing in the sky—an airplane. It was small and flying low to the ground, just above the buildings in the distance beyond the outskirts of Perry. He pulled out his binoculars from his hoodie pocket, adjusting them when he got them up to his eyes for a better look at the plane.
“What’s going on?” Josh asked in a sleepy voice.
“An airplane,” Luke said.
Ray had slowed the van almost all the way down to a stop.
“A plane?” Mike asked, coming instantly awake.
“That’s not a military plane,” Ray said.
“No,” Luke said. “It’s like a small plane. Like a Cessna or something. I’m not an airplane expert or anything.”
“Dark Angels?” Ray asked.
“Yeah,” Luke said. “I see their symbol on the side of the plane.”
“Shit, they’ve got planes,” Josh said. “They’ve got trucks, guns, rocket launchers, and now they’ve got planes. Great.”
“What’s the plane doing?” Ray asked.
“It’s circling back toward some kind of store. Like a Wal-Mart or something. The side door of the plane is open. There’s a man there with a gun. He’s shooting at the store. I think there are people on the roof.” Luke could hear the machinegun fire now. He lowered the binoculars, watching as the plane swooped down low above the store’s roof.
Emma leaned forward from the back seat. “We need to help them.”
“She’s right,” Luke said. “We should shoot that plane down. I don’t know if the M-16 is the best weapon for that, but I saw two rifles on Gil’s gun rack.”
“If we shoot at them, they’re going to come for us,” Ray said.
Luke put the binoculars back up to his eyes, watching as the plane circled back again toward the store, flying high up into the air. “I think it’s too late for that. I think they’ve already seen us. After they’re done with the store, they’ll probably come for us anyway.”
“Okay,” Ray said. “Where do you think is the best place to shoot from?”
Luke lowered the binoculars again. “Let’s get closer to the store.”
Ray drove straight instead of turning left to skirt the town. The road dipped down past some buildings and strip plazas of businesses, restaurants and fast food places. They drove through an intersection jammed up with cars and trucks, driving off the side of the road to get around them. Two blocks away was another intersection with a large gas station on one corner and a partially constructed building on the opposite corner in the distance. A small side road led to the entrance of a large parking lot of the store the airplane kept buzzing over.
“Super Bea’s,” Josh said. “Never heard of it.”
Luke tried to track the plane with his binoculars, keeping an eye on it but also looking for a place to shoot from. “Turn around and go through that restaurant back there,” he told Ray. “To the back of the parking lot.”
Ray turned around and Gil followed. They entered the restaurant parking lot and drove to the back where a few scraggily trees were planted in a wide strip of grass with a large ditch beyond that and then a line of waist-high shrubs that delineated the border between the restaurant’s property and the edge of the Super Bea’s parking lot.
“Look at all those cars and trucks over there,” Ray said, pointing after he parked on the grassy strip, the front of the van facing the large ditch. “They’re all lined up on that side over there, blocking the two entrances. Someone did that on purpose. The people in that store.”
“There’s got to be someone up there on the roof, someone they’re shooting at,” Luke said.
Ray glanced at the deep tire tracks in the grass. “Looks like other vehicles have been here before.”
“Dad, is that plane coming over here to shoot at us?” Mike asked.
“I think they’re more concerned with the people on that roof,” Ray told Mike, not really answering his question.
Luke focused the binoculars on the roof of the store, then he panned until he found the plane again; it had circled away, looping in a wide circle and getting ready to make another pass over the building. The plane couldn’t hover like a helicopter; it had to keep making pass after pass with someone shooting out through the doorway on the side. Luke couldn’t make out enough details, even with the binoculars, but he guessed that the shooter had some kind of safety harness strapped to him that kept him inside the plane. The pilot wasn’t an aerial pilot, but he seemed capable and experienced enough.
Gil parked his truck right next to the van, facing the parking lot of the Super Bea’s store just like the van was.
“Luke,” Josh said. “That plane’s going to see us. They’ll come over here soon.”
“Right now they’re too interested in whoever’s on that roof. Must be at least one person still alive up there or they wouldn’t keep shooting—maybe more than one.”
“You don’t see anyone up there?” Ray asked.
“There’s a knee wall around the edge of the roof. Can’t see past that. Whoever’s up there is lying low, trying to hide.”
“The Dark Angels want those people pretty bad,” Josh said.
“Or they want what’s inside that store,” Ray said.
Luke panned back down to the store with his binoculars, focusing on the front entrance. “Looks like the front entrance is boarded up. Glass is broken everywhere, but it looks like there’s some kind of steel mesh there.” He scanned the parking lot, the litter and debris, the few overturned shopping carts, the scattering of bones, the darker spots on the pavement that must be blood.
Screeches filled the air.
“Rippers,” Mike said.
“They’re pretty close,” Emma added. “A lot of them.”
“We need to do this now if we’re going to do this,” Josh said. “Or get the hell out of here while we still can.”
Luke stared at the store. There was something familiar about it, even though he’d never heard of a Super Bea’s before. Yet déjà vu washed over him, like he’d been to this exact store before, like he’d at least seen it before. Maybe in a dream. He couldn’t be sure where he’d seen the store, but he was sure that Emma was right—they needed to help the people here. It felt right. It felt like destiny.
“That plane’s coming back around again,” Josh called out.
Luke got out of the van, hobbling around the front to Gil’s truck. Gil had his driver’s side window rolled down, waiting for Luke to talk.
“I need your rifle,” Luke told him.
Gil didn’t waste time with words; he got out and grabbed a rifle from the rack. “.30-30. Already loaded. You know how to use it?”
“I’ve shot one a few times,” Luke said as he went to the back of Gil’s truck and lowered the tailgate. He set the rifle on the bed and climbed up inside.
“You’re gonna tear your stitches,” Gil warned. “If it bleeds too much—”
“Then we’ll sew them up again,” Luke snapped as he pulled himself up into the bed. The truck was higher than he had expected and his calf screamed in pain, the skin stretching, stitches tearing. He felt warm liquid running down his leg into his hiking boot, but he ignored it as he walked over the tires and sat down on the metal tool box pushed up to the back window of the pickup. He rested his arms on the roof of the truck, aiming the rifle at the plane as it made its next pass across the roof, spraying bullets as it whizzed by.
Luke followed the plane in his scope, lev
ering the bolt back and caressing the trigger with his finger, holding his breath for a second and letting it out slowly. He tracked the plane as it banked, circling back toward the store, its speed slowed just a bit in the turn, almost like it had hung frozen in the air for just a second.
Perfect.
Luke pulled the trigger and the rifle bucked in his hands a little. The shot echoed across the parking lot. The bullet found its home into the propellers and the engine. The motor’s sound cut out immediately, chugging for just a second as it lost power and plummeted to the ground, twirling, whining, leaving a trail of black smoke behind it. The plane crashed into a building a few blocks away. There was a brief flash from a fireball, and then a column of smoke rose up into the blue sky.
“Holy hell,” Gil said. “First shot. That was a hell of a thing, son.”
“Luke!” Ray yelled. “Rippers are coming up behind us!”
Luke turned around in the bed of the truck and saw the rippers pouring into the street, rushing toward the restaurant parking lot. Other rippers were coming from the partially constructed building across the street from the store, and others were coming from the other direction where the plane had crashed.
“The store,” Luke said. “It’s our only chance now!”
Gil climbed back into his truck and shut his door.
“Get back in the van,” Ray yelled out his window.
“No time! We need to get across that ditch into the parking lot!” He beat on the roof of the truck twice and then got down into the bed of the truck, holding on to the tool box as best he could as Gil took off for the edge of the ditch, the back tires spinning and spitting out frozen bits of mud and grass.
CHAPTER 50
Kate
Kate jumped awake. It was still dark in the tent, but she could tell the store was lighter; it was daytime. She’d slept for hours, but a noise had woken her. A familiar noise, and then screams.
For just a second she thought she’d still been dreaming, that she was still trapped in the nightmare, still trapped in the hell town where the Dragon lived, the hell town under the constant gray clouds, the litter and trash blown across the streets, the dead and tortured hanging everywhere.
