Darkness Rising

by Justin Bell

  Bruce turned and leaned against the light post back-first, his chest heaving. With a slight struggle, he picked the purse up off the ground and lifted it to look at it, the broken glass from the shattered minivan window still scattered along the fabric. He unzipped the purse and dug down inside, withdrawing a pistol first. He checked the revolver, smirking slightly, then shoved the weapon in his belt at the small of his back.

  Next he dug out a wallet and flipped it open, revealing rows of credit cards and identification. With his other hand he pinched one of the ID’s and plucked it free, reading the information on the driver’s license.

  “Rhonda, Rhonda, Rhonda,” Bruce said in a broken and cracked voice. “You’ve just made the worse mistake of your little life.”

  He coughed and spat blood on the smooth sidewalk.

  “I’m coming for you. And there’s no place you can hide.”

  ***

  Phil stood in the driveway, looking at the old 1960s Chevy pickup truck while feeling like a man out of place and out of time. He realized as he stared at the vehicle that he’d never actually driven a truck before, but this one had saved his and his family’s lives. It was a dark blue color, made of pure American steel and looked precisely as old as it was.

  “Will it get us to the airport?” Rhonda asked, stepping out of the front door.

  Phil looked over towards his wife. “It will, except the roads are still all jammed up. There’s no clear way to get there. We need to get creative.”

  “I don’t have time for creative, Phil. How far away is Denver International? Can’t we just walk there?”

  “Rhonda, we have no idea what Denver is like right now. If it’s even safe. And we don’t exactly have a ton of time here.”

  “So what’s the plan? Why are we loading up the truck if we’re not going to take it?”

  Phil looked at the Chevy. Bags and suitcases were loaded in the flat bed, leaving just enough room for two people. The cab could only hold three—four, if some of them were small—so just like the trip from Brisbee, two of them would have to be in the back with the gear.

  “I’m still trying to work that out, honey,” Phil said.

  “How much gas does it have?”

  Phil stood in silence for a moment. A moment too long for Rhonda’s patience.

  “Phil, how much?”

  “Less than a quarter of a tank.”

  Rhonda dropped her eyes but didn’t reply.

  “Like I said, Rhonda, we need to get creative.”

  Max stepped out onto the stairs with Brad behind him. Each boy carried a medium-sized canvas bag filled with miscellaneous food supplies. Each boy handed them to Phil, who turned and placed them in the bed of the truck.

  “What’s the matter, mom?” Max asked.

  “Nothing, honey,” Rhonda replied. “Everything’s fine.” She smiled one of her surface smiles that didn’t convince Max of anything.

  “Don’t lie to me, mom,” Max replied.

  “We’re just trying to figure out how to get to the airport to see if Lydia is there,” Phil said, turning back from dropping the bags in the truck. “Mom’s just worried about her.”

  “There has to be a way to get to her,” Rhonda said, turning towards Phil.

  “Roads through Denver are too congested,” Phil replied. “It reminds me of the time the hospital had to respond to an emergency call during a blizzard and even the ambulance couldn’t get through. They had to get him out by snowmobile. Crazy.”

  “Wait, dad, what did you say?” Max asked.

  Phil looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Snow. You mentioned snow.”

  “Yeah we had to send a snowmobile to grab the patient and get him out.”

  Max and Brad looked at each other, smiles flashing across their young faces.

  “What?” Phil asked.

  “Do you have an idea? Speak up, kids!” Rhonda said.

  Max turned back towards her. “During bad weather, our maintenance guys at school have snow removal equipment.”

  “It’s spring, Max, we’ve got no snow,” Phil said.

  “The maintenance crew uses four-wheelers to clear the snow. Four-wheelers with mounted plows.”

  Now it was Phil and Rhonda’s turn to look at each other. A smile spread over Rhonda’s face, then she turned towards Max.

  “Maxie, you are a genius!”

  “Do any of us actually know how to drive a four-wheeler?” Phil asked, clearly indicating that he sure as heck didn’t.

  “I did when I was a kid,” Rhonda replied. “It’s really easy.” She turned back towards Max. “So how many maintenance guys do you have?”

  Max shrugged. “I don’t know. Six or Seven. Something like that. It’s a big campus with a lot of grass.”

  “Plus, I’m sure they have food and supplies in the cafeteria,” Brad continued. “We can go there first, then check the airport, then figure out how to get to St. Louis, right?”

  Rhonda nodded emphatically. “Absolutely, kiddo. Sounds like the plan.” She eased up on her tiptoes and glanced into the bed of the truck. “Do we have everything, Phil?”

  “Yeah. We’re all packed.” He looked around. “Where’s Winnie?”

  “I think she’s still inside, I’ll go get her,” Rhonda said.

  “Why don’t you let me?” Phil asked. Rhonda hesitated for a moment, then nodded and let Phil pass her into the house.

  “Win?” Phil asked as he walked into the living room. “You in here, pooh bear?”

  He halted by the front door and slipped his shoes off. He immediately felt stupid for doing so, considering they would likely never be coming back here again.

  “Yeah, dad, I’m here,” her voice came from upstairs. Phil angled towards the staircase heading up to the second floor and took them two steps at a time, the thick carpet feeling soft under his socks. He turned right at the top of the stairs and moved towards her bedroom.

  She was in her room, sitting on her bed, and looking out the window at the house next door.

  “I was just remembering when I used to sit up here and look at Max playing on that stupid play house thing down there. How he would swing and jump, and how I was way too mature for all that stupid playing stuff.”

  Phil sat down on the bed next to her, placing his arm over her shoulders. “You always were older than your years, kiddo.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Why what, honey?”

  “Why couldn’t I have just enjoyed being a kid? Not been in such a rush to grow up?”

  “It’s easy to look back on things with a different perspective, Winnie. Lord knows I wish I’d spent more time with you, your mom, and your brother.”

  Winnie sniffed. “Being a grown up really sucks.”

  Phil squeezed her shoulders. “Yeah, sometimes it does.”

  His daughter swiped the back of her hand over her eyes and cleared her throat. “So what’s the plan?” she asked.

  “We’re heading to your school. According to Max, the maintenance team has some four-wheelers. We figure we can use those to get to the airport and figure out what to do from there.”

  Winnie nodded and smirked lightly. “Wow. Max coming through for a change. Maybe there’s hope for him yet.”

  Phil stood and Winnie followed his lead, walking out the door towards the stairway.

  “I always wanted to try driving one of those things,” Winnie said.

  “Well, if we find them, I’ll let you drive one.”

  She chuckled as the two of them walked through the living room and out the front door towards the truck outside. Greer was standing there, sitting on one of the patio chairs and checking out the bandage job on his stomach.

  “So we think we’ve got a plan, Clancy,” Phil said, glancing over at him.

  “That so?” Greer asked.

  “You might have heard…Max’s school has some four-wheelers. Might get us around the traffic jam and over to Denver International where we will hopefully fi
nd our daughter. Might help you get out of town, too.”

  “As good a place as any to start.”

  “You still on board?”

  Greer smirked. “Nothing better to do than repay the debt, I suppose.”

  “Debt?”

  “Well, you all pulled my fat out of the fire back there. Literally. I owe you more than one, and I’m happy to tag along to help repay it.”

  Phil nodded, looking up towards the clouds. The sky was a pale purple, the last, lingering stretch of light working overtime to prevent the sunrise. It would appear that not even mother nature herself wanted to see what the next day would bring.

  ***

  Phil downshifted, moving the Chevy smoothly to the left lane as he looked towards the right, up the grass embankment. As the sun continued its arduous rise into the sky, he could make out the clear shapes of the cars and trucks up ahead, lines of unmoving traffic sitting end-to-end without any hope for forward progress. Halfway down the embankment Phil could see a looming shadow; a large, rectangular shape shrouded in scattered spats of orange flame.

  As they drew closer, Phil could see the shape start to take form in the darkness, and he winced as he looked away.

  “Don’t look, kids,” he whispered as the shape of the school bus became clear and illuminated in the dawning light and the surrounding fire. The entire bottom of the bus was consumed in a flickering, snapping carpet of open flame, and fire flashed inside the bus as well. Phil could not see any movement within the pale blue bus, and for a brief moment he thought he saw the slumped forms of bodies in the grass around it, splayed throughout the downward slope from the road.

  “Was that a bus?” Winnie asked from narrow space between the seat and the rear of the truck cab.

  “Yeah, honey, it was,” Phil replied. “We’re just going to keep going. I don’t think anyone survived.”

  The truck was silent as they continued forward, the narrow dirt road winding through thick trees, working deeper towards the private grounds of the school.

  “I wonder if anyone I knew was on that bus,” Max whispered, though he didn’t sound all that upset, just curious.

  “Don’t think about it, bud,” Phil said. “Let’s just keep going.”

  The road and trees slowly grew lighter as the sun rose and the truck continued on, meandering around a looping right turn, then veering left. Up ahead of them the tall, iron gate stood closed, blocking the access road from the campus itself. Ornate metal gates met in the middle with a wide plaque proclaiming Vernon Academy bolted on each side. There was an arc to where the gates met, an upward curve stretching towards tall, overhanging trees lining the brick wall around the perimeter.

  Rhonda stood up in the back of the truck, leaning on the cab and squinting out towards the school. She could see some scattered lights on behind the windows of the squat, wide brick administration building, which sat in the center of the circular, green grass, just beyond the entry gates.

  “There are lights on,” she whispered. Next to her Greer watched out over the cab as well.

  “Do you see any movement?” he asked.

  Rhonda shook her head.

  “I don’t like this,” Greer said quietly. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

  Rhonda turned around and noticed a particularly low hanging tree and a clearance of freshly mowed grass just below it. She reached over and tapped on Phil’s closed window. He rolled it down and leaned out.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you park over in the trees over there? Sitting out in the open here leaves me a little uneasy.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Please.”

  Rhonda and Greer lowered themselves down as the truck slowly backed up from the gate. Phil swung it around, angling towards the flattened area of grass. The Chevy moved forward and tucked tight to the row of vegetation, nesting itself deep within the trees, several hanging branches giving them cover.

  Climbing over the edge of the bed, Rhonda stayed tight to the metal and swung her legs over, dropping lightly on the grass next to the truck. Her leg buckled slightly as she did so, the wound on her thigh flaring with pain. Greer dropped down just behind her, falling into a low crouch and pressing himself tight to the rear of the truck.

  “Tough to make out anything from here,” Rhonda said, trying to peer through the gates and the trees. “We need to get closer.”

  “There’s a lot of open ground between here and the gate and between the gate and the building,” Greer said.

  “Let me and Brad check it out.”

  Rhonda turned as Max and his friend came around the other side of the truck. Max wore a dark t-shirt and black pants, and Brad was wearing a black sweatshirt and blue jeans. In the dim light of pre-dawn morning, they looked relatively camouflaged, but Rhonda wasn’t having it.

  “No,” she said. “If someone is in there, I’m not sending my thirteen-year-old son and his twelve-year-old friend in there to check it out.”

  “It’s a different world, mom,” Max replied. “At least that’s what you keep telling me. We need to learn how to do this.”

  Rhonda looked at him, marveling at how much he seemed to have grown up in the past twenty-four hours. She supposed near Armageddon would do that to a child.

  “Trust us, mom,” Max said. “We can do this. We know this place like the back of our hands.” He looked at his friend, his eyes asking a silent question.

  “Might as well tell them,” Brad replied. “It’s not like we’re going to get in trouble for it now.”

  “Get in trouble for what?” Rhonda asked.

  “We…” Max hesitated, looked at Brad one more time, and sighed. “We sometimes liked to get into trouble—”

  “Not trouble,” Brad cut in. “Adventures.”

  “During lunch we like—well, liked—to explore the grounds. Getting into the maintenance rooms, climbing onto the roofs, stuff like that.”

  Brad nodded, excited about being in a position where he could finally contribute to helping the group. “Yep. So we know all the shortcuts and ways to get in and out.”

  Rhonda looked over at the gate and the huge tree in the middle of the grass, then looked back over to Max, sighing in a combination of pride and a bit of mild disappointment that he had convinced his upstanding friend to engage in such activities. “Promise you’ll be careful?”

  Max tried to conceal his crooked grin but mostly failed as he nodded.

  His mother dropped down to a low crouch, placing her hands on his shoulders. “Just look. Go, take a look, then come right back. No macho hero stuff, got it? That’s not what we’re here for. If we can’t get the four-wheelers, we’ll figure something else out, okay? It’s not worth risking your life for.”

  Max nodded.

  Rhonda turned towards Brad and clasped his shoulders as well. “You keep him on track, okay?”

  Brad nodded.

  “Don’t let him do anything stupid.”

  Brad chuckled. “That’s impossible, but I’ll do my best.”

  Rhonda stood and stepped away from the two boys as they advanced, walking low to the ground.

  “I don’t like this, Rhonda,” Phil said, coming up behind her.

  “You think I do?” She looked at him and at Greer, shaking her head. “The three of us aren’t exactly in the right condition, and I’m pretty sure Winnie didn’t climb buildings with them.”

  Next to her, Winnie held up her hands. “Hey, that’s all on those two. I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Up ahead, Max and Brad approached the gate, low and quiet, slinking along the grass. Brad turned and offered his cupped hands, and Max stepped into them. Brad lifted, helping Max reach the top of the metal gate. He got situated, then reached down and helped Brad make it up to the top of the fence as well, each boy holding themselves up on two brick columns flanking the metal itself. Max quickly clamored to the top of the column, crouching low, and then launched himself into the air. He disappeared into the thickened branches of the large tre
e, then scrambled up deep within the tangled wood and crowded leaves. Brad carefully looked both directions, then repeated the motion, leaping up to a thick branch and crawling up into the tree, making his way close to the thick, curved trunk of the old Vernon landmark.

  Max was progressed, going hand over hand, walking along the uneven branch, using a second branch for support until he reached the thick trunk. He crouched there, leaning low to get his eyes around the trunk of the tree. Brad pulled up the rear and repeated the motion.

  They had a clear view inside the main building and looked through the window into the cafeteria. It was a large and open area with all of the tables and chairs pulled from the middle of the room and stacked along the perimeter. Max couldn’t get a perfect view, but he saw the vending machines in the rear corner and the huge swath of white tile floor. There were no chairs and no tables in the middle, just a wide open room with scattered windows around the outer walls.

  Max turned and looked at Brad, who shrugged his shoulders. They’d both been in the cafeteria countless times, but had never seen it as empty as it was now.

  Brad’s eyes drew large as he looked past Max, and he pointed towards the building. Max turned back around and saw it then—that’s when he saw them.

  Four men walked into the cafeteria. They wore gray jumpsuits, neck to ankle, and two of them were dragging chairs across the tile floor towards an interior door at the other side of the room. As they turned the chairs around and wedged the chair backs underneath door knobs, Max got a good look at their backs and saw pistols tucked tight into their belts at the small of their backs.