Into The Darkness

by Doug Kelly

  Dylan asked, “How do you plan on getting there? You can’t drive or fly there.”

  The colonel shrugged his shoulders and said, “I’ll start walking and then maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll steal a bicycle.”

  Sarcastically, Kevin said, “Then get thrown in jail like a criminal and get kicked out of the military.”

  As the colonel spoke, with his hands behind his back, they saw the bulge of a pistol at his waist. “The delicate network of technology that held everything so nicely together is gone. There is no federal government or organized military. It’ll be groups of people just trying to survive. I expect ninety percent of the population will be dead in a year. What just happened is an absolute game changer.” The colonel lifted up his shirt from the front exposing the pistol tucked behind his belt and said, “I won’t be an easy target for any banditos on my journey out of here. I’m a survivor.” Colonel Byrd moved closer to the breakfast counter and said, “I’m going to get a stash of this food and get out of here. Good luck. You’ll need it.”

  After the colonel left, there were a few moments of silence between Dylan and Kevin.

  “What he just said scares the shit out of me,” said Dylan. “I need some proof it’s that bad. Let’s look around. I’ll start by checking my laptop. I’m going to get my room key. Care to join me?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  As they walked to the front desk, Dylan changed his mind and told Kevin to bring Richard back inside, get Henry, and then come to Dylan’s room. They all needed to talk. Dylan thought that by the time he got back into his room, Kevin would have everyone gathered together.

  After Lee opened Dylan’s door for him, Dylan left it ajar and immediately tried the power button on his computer. He got no response. He then tried his cell phone again. Same response: nothing. Everything seemed fried, just as the colonel had predicted. He sat on the small couch in his hotel room and stared at his useless phone as he thought of his children so far away. His son Brad, just seven years old; his daughter Jennifer, only four. His wife had stayed at home with the children. The pulse was early enough in the morning that he thought it was most likely they would all have been at home asleep when this happened. Thinking of his family, his stomach tightened into a knot.

  He closed his eyes as he faced the sunlight coming through the window. He was remembering the conversation with his son on the phone yesterday evening. His son asked when he would get back home; Dylan told him that he would return on Friday. Dylan’s face cringed as he thought about his situation. How the hell am I going to ever make it back home from here alive? He shook his head, opened his eyes, and stood up to look out the window. Now that it was fully light outside, he could see that no cars on the road were moving. He cringed again. That colonel might be right about all this.

  “Knock, knock,” Kevin announced, as he entered Dylan’s room with Richard right behind him.

  “Hey, Dylan, it sounds like you need a foil hat, too,” Richard said sarcastically, as he fondled another sugar doughnut in his hand.

  “My laptop is dead, Richard,” Dylan said, as he walked to the window and completely opened the curtains. He gestured with his hand for Richard to look out the window. “Take a look at the cars on the road. They’re stalled. Why haven’t they been towed? See any lights on anywhere?”

  The three men looked out the window. As they looked down at the stalled vehicles in the street, Dylan unlocked the window and slid it open to allow some fresh air into the room.

  Richard leaned closer to the window and looked to the left and right. “Hey, I think I heard something. There’s an old beat-up pickup truck…It’s parking right over there…look!”

  Dylan laughed and said, “Yeah, that thing is older than me, no high technology to get fried in that engine.”

  Dylan noticed Henry was missing and asked, “Where is Henry?”

  Richard pointed at Kevin and said, “He beat on Henry’s door. Henry is going to be pissed off. He never gets up this early.”

  With a confused look on his face, Dylan asked again, “Then where is he?”

  Richard rolled his eyes and said, “Earth to Dylan, he didn’t answer the door. He’s probably still asleep.”

  In an instant, Dylan’s face took on an expression of horror. He bolted out of his room and down the hallway. In his haste, he bumped Richard, knocking the doughnut out of Richard’s hand onto the carpeted floor.

  Dylan exclaimed, “Henry has a pacemaker! We have to get that door open!”

  Kevin sprinted out of the room right behind Dylan.

  Alone in the room, Richard looked at the doughnut on the floor and said, “Five second rule,” before he grabbed the pastry off the floor and made it disappear with one bite.

  Dylan stopped in front of what he thought was Henry’s room and asked, “Is this it?”

  Kevin nodded.

  As Dylan stepped away from the door, he said, “Stand back. I’m going to kick this door down.”

  Before Kevin stood back, he pointed to the door’s sweet spot for Dylan, right by the handle, but Dylan already saw his target. Dylan took a deep breath, clenched his teeth and fists, coiled his foot up to his body and let it fly forward like a steel spring. As his foot contacted the door, they both heard a crack in the wood. Kevin gave him an approving nod. Dylan backed up again and sent his foot flying hard at the same spot near the handle. On second contact, the wood holding the locking mechanism splintered away and the door flew open. They stepped into the room and saw Henry’s body on the bed, contorted under the sheets. He was lying in vomit.

  Dylan was the first through the door and yelled, “Henry!”

  Kevin went to the other side of the bed, touched Henry’s face, and said, apprehensively, “He’s cold. I think he’s dead.”

  Kevin looked away and shook his head in disbelief. Dylan turned to look back at the doorway and saw Richard staring at Henry’s lifeless body, his eyes wide and his face noticeably pale. Richard abruptly turned away and vomited, his breakfast of sugar doughnuts spattering on the hallway carpet.

  Dylan looked back at Kevin and said, “This does it for me. We have to get out of here. I’m taking the colonel’s advice.”

  “How?” Kevin asked.

  Dylan looked out Henry’s window into the parking lot. He saw the old pickup truck they knew was still working and spoke toward the window. “Some things must still be functioning. Let’s get out of this room and get a plan.”

  As they stepped out of the room, they saw Richard hunched over in the hallway on his hands and knees. Saliva was hanging from the corner of his mouth.

  “Get up,” Dylan said, as he and Kevin walked past.

  Richard was still visibly pale and his body was shaking. “What about Henry?” he asked.

  “There’s absolutely nothing we can do for him. We have to get out of here now,” Dylan replied, as he walked down the hallway with Kevin. “Get off the floor and meet us in the lobby.”

  Chapter Two

  Dylan and Kevin stopped in the hotel’s lobby to wait for Richard. They sat there watching the confused people making their way in and out of the main entrance. The night clerk was still there alone, his fatigue even more obvious now. Dylan did not think that it would be too much longer before the clerk got too frustrated and walked away from this mess.

  Dylan stood up and walked to the edge of the lobby to see if Richard was coming down the hallway. He saw Richard talking with Lee, the hotel’s maintenance man, just outside Henry’s broken door. Knowing that there was nothing he could do for Henry, and that he had broken the door, he decided not to go back and get Richard. He desperately began to brainstorm ideas on how to get out of town and back home to his family. Home for Dylan was Kansas City. Dylan knew that Kevin must be from Omaha because that was the corporate office where he was stationed. Richard lived the farthest away, based out of St. Louis. As Dylan leaned against the wall, he dropped his head and started to feel the calamity of their situation. They each lived a thousand or more mi
les away.

  As Dylan’s depressed gaze tracked downward toward the tiled floor of the lobby, he noticed a rack of tourism brochures against a wall. One brochure stood out from the others. The title was Float the Headwaters of the Missouri River. Dylan quickly grabbed it off the rack and hastily unfolded the brochure. The brochure described a family business that sold or rented rafting equipment and camping supplies. According to the brochure, it was located at the headwaters to the Missouri River, at a prime location for trout fishing and rafting.

  Kevin was still sitting on a couch in the lobby.

  Dylan held up the brochure for him to see and said, “I have the answer.”

  “What? A vacation?” Kevin asked, with a confused smirk.

  Dylan sat down and placed the brochure flat on the table in front of them. Dylan placed his index finger on the brochure next to a large X that represented the location of the rafting supply store. Next to the X was a tortuous blue line running across the brochure, representing part of the Missouri River and its headwaters. He traced his finger across the blue line and explained they should get rafts and float downriver to make it home. Although not on the brochure, both men knew that the Missouri River flowed through both Omaha and Kansas City before merging with the Mississippi River at St. Louis.

  As Kevin was nodding his head in acceptance of the idea, he asked several questions in quick succession. “How do we get to the store? How can we buy this stuff if retail-sales computer equipment is dead? What do we eat and drink? How could we keep ourselves alive on a thousand mile float trip?”

  Dylan did not have a chance to answer Kevin’s questions as Richard had just come around the corner and sat down next to Kevin, interrupting their conversation.

  Richard looked apologetically at Dylan and admitted, “You were right and I was wrong. Something very bad has happened. I was talking to that maintenance guy and he said he’s getting out of here and going to his brother’s ranch north of town. I saw his brother. He was the guy with the old diesel pickup we noticed going into the parking lot. I heard his brother say there are stalled cars all along the road. I’m a believer now, Dylan. We are in trouble.”

  “Dylan has a plan,” Kevin announced, as he pointed to the brochure on the coffee table.

  “What? A vacation?”

  Dylan rolled his eyes again and explained, “No, an escape out of here.”

  Dylan quickly explained to Richard what he had just explained to Kevin. Richard nodded his head in agreement as Dylan spoke. Now Dylan could answer Kevin’s first question. They would get to the rafting store in the old pickup they saw in the parking lot.

  “Richard, we need to convince the owner of that truck to drive us there,” Dylan said, as he pointed to the brochure.

  “We better act quickly. It looks like he’s getting ready to leave with his brother,” Richard said, pointing to the front desk. Lee and his brother were standing there.

  “Let’s go. You first, Richard,” said Kevin.

  Richard greeted Lee and his brother again, then introduced Dylan and Kevin, and asked if they could get a ride. Richard explained that he knew it was a pickup and they had no problem riding in the bed of the truck. He held the brochure up to their prospective driver and explained to him where they needed to go.

  Lee’s brother said, “No problem. It’s right on my way home.”

  “Thanks for helping us. How much time before you leave?” Dylan asked.

  “My brother is fix’n to quit this place. I’d give it thirty minutes.”

  “Sounds good,” said Dylan.

  “Hold on. None of us has anything that tells time,” said Richard.

  “Me, neither,” said the man. “I’ll just be hangin’ out around the front here. I’ll wait for ya.”

  Dylan watched the man turn his baseball cap backward, like his brother Lee had worn his cap earlier this morning. Dylan walked away thinking how much the man looked like his brother.

  Dylan motioned for them to walk over to the empty breakfast area. He told them his plan. They were to go back to their rooms, clean up, and put on their best suits. They should each pack a large suitcase with some clothes, as best they could, to accommodate roughing it for a while and bring the pillow cases from the beds back here with them. If they were to buy equipment, Dylan wanted to put as much as he could on a credit card. The longer they postponed getting the equipment, the harder it would become to use a credit card for anything. Everyone was going to figure out soon that credit cards were no good anymore. After merchants stop accepting credit cards, Dylan thought they would accept cash for a while. He also knew it would not take very long before cash would also become worthless. That was why they needed to work fast and get dressed in nice clothes. It would be easier to convince a shop owner to take the credit cards of three businessmen rather than those of three guys in sweatpants, each with five o’clock shadow.

  Dylan, Kevin, and Richard arrived back at the breakfast area at about the same time. Each of them was clean-shaven and wearing a nice business suit. Sitting together at one of the small tables, each of them clutching empty pillowcases, they discussed what they should take to eat for their journey. Whatever they brought would have to last without refrigeration. They decided it would be wise to take all the bread and dry cereal they could find. Kevin opened the cabinet doors below the breakfast counter and found a case of oatmeal packets and some boxes of apples, bananas, and oranges.

  Kevin looked up and said, “Jackpot!” as he shifted his weight to move back from the cabinet door, revealing the bounty of food.

  Dylan quickly leaned over and gestured a thumbs-up sign. Dylan checked on Richard to see what he was putting in his pillowcases. It was doughnuts, pastries, and packets of jelly. “Dump that crap out,” Dylan said, as he pointed to Richard’s pillowcase. Richard put his hand on the pillowcase and stared back at Dylan. He was clutching the bag as if it was a precious treasure. Dylan snatched the pillowcase full of junk from Richard’s hands and said, “Go to the front desk and get as much bottled water and trail mix as you can. Grab a map. Kevin and I will finish in here.” Dylan walked to the large trashcan and dumped the junk out of the pillowcase, shaking it to remove the crumbs.

  Richard approached the front desk with his remaining pillowcase and noticed that the night clerk was still there, still alone. He was sitting back away from the counter in a chair. His head was leaned back, eyes closed, and there was drool on the corner of his mouth. Richard politely coughed and when that did not wake the clerk, he tapped the bell on the counter. The clerk was startled awake and jumped out of the chair, embarrassed.

  “Hi. I would like to pick up a few things you have back there,” said Richard.

  “Sure, what would you like?”

  “I am interested in the bottled water and the bags of trail mix.”

  The clerk quickly set a bag of the trail mix and a bottle of water on the counter and asked, “Anything else, sir?”

  “Yes, there is. I actually want all of them.”

  “You mean all of the bags of trail mix and bottles of water? It would be a lot cheaper to get this at the grocery store around the corner.”

  “That’s okay,” said Richard, as he put his credit card on the counter, “something came up. We decided to have a company retreat and go camping. If we’re going to rough it, we might as well do it the right way, in the woods.”

  “Okay, I will have to write your information down and run the card when the power comes back on.”

  “I understand,” Richard said, as he slid the card closer to the clerk. The clerk was too tired to notice Dylan and Kevin walking out of the breakfast area, past the front desk, and out the front doors of the hotel carrying pillowcases stuffed with food. When all the pillowcases and luggage were at the front of the hotel, Dylan and Kevin stood at the entrance and motioned for Richard to come out.

  Carrying a case of bottled water toward his coworkers, Richard said, “I was able to get the other stuff sitting on the counter. I need a hand w
ith it all.”

  Not missing their cue, Dylan and Kevin went to the counter and grabbed the results of Richard’s shopping extravaganza. Richard was able to get the hotel’s entire remaining inventory of bottled water and trail mix.

  “Nice work, Richard,” Kevin said, as he carried his armload to the bed of the pickup. “Let’s get this stuff in the truck and find Lee’s brother to drive us out of here.”

  Dylan was finished loading first and told the others to stay by the truck. He would jog past the maintenance room, then around the hotel to see where Lee and his brother were. Dylan felt awkward dashing into the hotel wearing a suit and dress shoes. He slowed his pace and calmly walked down the hallway. Dylan noticed that the door to the maintenance room was open, so he stepped halfway into that room. It was dark in the windowless room. Dylan’s hand reflexively rose to the light switch on the wall. His wrist flicked and the switch toggled upward. As he heard the empty click, he realized what a foolish gesture this was, and laughed at himself as he turned away from the empty room to exit the building at the end of the hallway. Dylan looked quickly to the left and right through the clear glass door at the back of the hotel before he opened it and stepped outside. Under a large shade tree, he saw their driver and his brother talking.

  “Ready when you are,” Dylan said, as he waved to get their attention.

  The men quickly gestured back to him, motioning for Dylan to come over. Lee pointed away from the hotel toward a nearby intersection. He told Dylan they had seen a carjacking, and described what they had witnessed. The sound of an old car engine had caught their attention. As the car slowly approached the intersection, two men stepped into the street and waved their hands as if for the car to stop, which it did. One of the men approached the driver, pulled a pistol from under his shirt, and pointed it at the driver’s head. The driver raised his hands and the armed gunman opened the door for the driver to exit. The gunman motioned for the owner to run away, which he did. The carjackers drove north, toward the highway.