by Justin Bell
Winnie gently rubbed his back, then looked nervously over at her father who gave her a sideways smile as if offering his permission to dare to touch another human being. Way in the back seat sat Brad, his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms crossed, his eyes scanning outside the window, watching the buildings drift by.
“You okay, big guy?” Phil asked, leaning around and looking back at him.
Brad shrugged. “I’m good I guess,” he said. “We made it through another one, right?”
Phil nodded. “That we did.”
“One of these days we might not,” Brad said, his voice trailing off.
“I think the eventual goal is to find a place where we don’t have to keep fighting.”
“In this world? All due respect, Mr. Fraser, but you’re dreaming. Not going to happen.”
Phil turned back around and sat deep in his seat, trying to remember the last time he’d heard Brad laugh, or even just seen him smile. It had been such a long time.
Rhonda leaned over and tucked a section of Max’s hair behind his left ear, looking him in the face. “You doing okay, bud?” she asked.
Max nodded. “Yeah, mom, I’ll be all right. Just hurts is all.”
“I know it does. When we get back to Lakeview, we’ll take a look at it. See what we can do.”
“It’s fine,” he replied. “Plenty of people got worse.” His eyes were fixated at the back of the seat in front of him and Rhonda could sense him looking through the seat and right into Clancy Greer. Ever since the explosion, Greer had been a shell of his former self. The brash, aggressive ex-sheriff who had pretty much coaxed and trained them through the first few months of this difficult new situation was no longer brash or aggressive. He was looking old and frail, and Rhonda realized it had been turning that way even before they’d reached Lakeview. How had she not noticed it?
Then, ever since losing half an arm, it had only gotten worse. Now, he sat up in the passenger seat, a choking rattle in his lungs, barely able to sit upright and she knew something was wrong. Something far more serious than a missing arm as ridiculous as that sounded. For the first time she realized that Clancy Greer was dying.
“So, what do we have to go on here?” Rebecca asked as they drove. “What did we find out?”
Rhonda pushed a hand through her long, scraggly hair. Oh what she wouldn’t give for a shower. Even a cold one sounded nice.
“Philadelphia,” she said. “Green kept on talking about Philadelphia.”
“What about it?”
“Sounds like everything that’s happening… everything that’s going to happen, it centers around Philly. That’s where my daughter is. That’s where my parents are. That’s where everything is going down.”
“Your parents?” Rebecca asked. “What does that have to do with any of this?”
“It’s a long story,” Rhonda replied, letting her eyes drift toward the windshield, looking out at the road ahead. Cars were scattered about as they always seemed to be, but the roads were mostly empty this far out of the city. It was like they owned the world.
But she knew that wasn’t true. She knew around every corner someone somewhere was waiting to take the world back.
“You holding up okay?” Fields asked. Rhonda shrugged.
“Should I be? Everything we were worried about came true. They were waiting for us. They ambushed us. They nearly killed us. And what do we have to show for it?”
Rebecca chuckled and shook her head.
“Something’s funny?” Rhonda asked, a bit harsher than intended.
“No,” Fields replied. “Nothing about this is funny. But look… we brought Ironclad to its knees today. Probably made the city much safer for all those kids Tamar hung with. You found out about something going on in Philly, and your daughter kicked Karl Green’s rear end. Put a freaking bullet in him. You ask me, that’s a job well done.”
“We got lucky,” Rhonda replied. “We keep getting lucky. One of these days, luck is bound to wear out. What happens then?”
“Fortune favors the brave, my dear,” Rebecca said, and Rhonda wanted to believe it, but couldn’t.
“Anyway, Philadelphia is a big city,” Rhonda continued. “Do we even know where to go or what to look for?”
“We might,” Fields replied. “I mean, Phil’s the one that tracked all those shipments.” She glanced back and looked in his direction. “You remember where all those shipments were headed? The ones rerouted to Philly?”
“Yeah,” Phil replied. “They were all going to the same distribution center. Somewhere actually just southwest of Philly. Consolidated Tool & Die has a regional office in that area, too, though that’s across the river in Jersey.”
Fields turned back to Rhonda and opened her palms as if to say “there you go.”
“So what?” Rhonda asked. “We barely sneak out of Ironclad’s grip with our lives and we’re just going to up and drive eight-hundred miles to Philly and finish this thing?”
“Well, we need to get back to Lakeview first for a little R & R, I’d think,” replied Rebecca. “Patch ourselves up and figure out what to do next.”
Rhonda nodded.
“Speaking of Lakeview,” said Angel from up ahead. “We’re hitting the access road now.”
Rhonda closed her eyes and leaned her head back, drawing in a long, deep breath. Maybe eventually she’d get used to how this new world worked, but she didn’t feel that way at the moment. Even just trying to catch a breath all she could smell was a deep and rotten smoldering odor. The stench of char, the thick fog of persistent smoke, and the overall atmosphere of a world on the edge of ruin.
It seemed particularly strong, much stronger than it had before. Every breath she took felt like she was inhaling a campfire, a campfire ignited with old socks and wet wood. It was a foul, vile, putrid stench, as if the core of the Earth itself was aflame.
She coughed, swift and hoarse, a thick fist of smoke closing on her lungs.
“Does everyone else smell that?” she asked, opening her eyes, but as she opened them, she realized that yes, everyone else likely smelled it, but everyone else was far more concerned with what they were seeing.
As they swung around the gradual curve of the Lakeview access road, they could see the mall ahead, the squat, wide complex of square shaped buildings.
It was awash in flame.
Chapter 11
The smoke was a living creature, a massive, formless beast rising high in the air above the flat roof of the Lakeview Mall, now little more than vague, dark shapes behind a curtain of fire. Once a destination point for Chicago suburbia, the mall had fallen into disrepair as so many had in the past several years. Even in its ravaged state, the large, sprawling, self-contained structure had given the Frasers and their group a place to stay with shelter and relative protection. Now, the black van looked like a toy car next to the looming, angry pillar of darkened smoke that crawled up the sky toward the clouds, darkening the entire horizon around it.
They drew closer, the burning stench permeating the van, the air growing thick and acrid with the smell, a rippling heat rolling over the vehicle and all who were inside. Greer tried to prop himself up, glancing out of the windshield. From where they came in, they could see the Augusta Westland transport copter silhouetted against the bright wall of flickering flame.
There was no roof to the structure as they came near, the entire top of the large, flat building melting into plumes of thickened ash, grasping fingers of fire trying to clutch the smoke as if it were precious jewels, but not able to keep it from escaping.
“Dear God,” Greer breathed.
“Stop the van, stop the van!” Rhonda shouted, snapping her seat belt off and lunging across Rebecca, grasping for the handle of the sliding door.
“Don’t do anything stupid!” Phil yelled, but the door was already sliding and Rhonda was throwing herself out of the van, hitting the parking lot and running frantically. She angled around the helicopter which was set far enough awa
y to yet remain unscathed, though fire and some kind of fuel accelerant crawled over the cracked pavement, reaching for the transport aircraft.
Phil squirmed free of his own belt and squeezed between the seats and the door, spilling out onto the pavement, chasing her down as she ran.
“Daisuke!” Rhonda screamed, knowing full well that nobody was likely to hear her. “Jiro! Kaida!” Each name was called out louder and more fierce than the previous, but no voices came back. The entrance to the mall stood in front of her, mostly boarded up with the narrow opened door on the right-hand side and she veered that way. Phil’s legs pumped, carrying him forward, as she headed toward the entrance, a decision that Phil was certain would mean her death.
“Rhonda, don’t!” he shouted after her.
Reaching for the handle of the door, the boards at the window were swallowed by a fresh gust of a hot flame, roaring, shattering whatever glass remained in the forward-facing entryway. Rhonda screeched and pulled back, stumbling as more flames roared out from inside the mall and went finger over flaming finger up the outside toward the roof to join the rest of them.
“What if they’re in there?” Rhonda yelled in a pleading tone, kneeling on the parking lot, her hands dangling at her sides. She turned wide-eyed to Phil as he approached. “They might be in there!”
“Rhonda,” Phil said quietly. “There’s nothing we can do. If they’re in there, they’re already long gone. The smoke—”
“No!” she screamed and launched back to her feet, charging at the door. Phil lunged to his left, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her back, sending them both sprawling backwards onto the parking lot.
“Let me go!” she screamed. “I won’t let them die!”
“They’re already dead!” Phil screamed back.
Rhonda yelled a long, loud, incoherent yell, the muscles in her neck straining and pulling, but with one last final, vocal gasp she seemed to collapse into herself and fold up, limp-boned and splayed against her husband. As her head tumbled down onto his chest, he could feel the dampness of her tears at the collar of his filthy shirt, her entire body heaving.
He held her there for a moment, unsure of what else to do. Everything that had happened in the past three months, with everything they had been through, why had this set her off? The Shimizu’s were relative strangers to them. Friendly enough people, but still, they’d only known them for a few days.
Still, they had nothing to do with any of this. They came to the group seeking shelter, and Rhonda and the rest left them behind while going off to fight their war. Left them behind, undefended.
Left them to die.
Phil felt his own eyes stinging. It had been an ordeal, but they’d felt like their battle against Ironclad had been a victory, if an exceptionally hard fought and lucky one. They’d won.
Meanwhile, those who had broken down the barricade had found the mall—at least that’s what Phil figured happened. They’d broken down the barricade, found the mall and when they went inside to find food and fortune, they’d only found the Shimizu’s.
A brisk chill crawled down Phil’s back as he lay on the parking lot, his sobbing wife in his arms. They would likely never know exactly what had happened to the Shimizu’s, and he was fine with that. He could live the rest of his life assuming they’d died in the fire.
At least he could maintain his sanity that way.
“She okay?”
Phil looked over at Rebecca who was looking at them from the helicopter. She held three stacked bankers boxes she had retrieved from the grounded aircraft.
“Your kids are worried,” she said, nodding toward the van. “I told them they had to stay put.”
Phil nodded. “She’s… she’s okay.”
Rebecca nodded, but didn’t say anything. Her face was sullen, her jaw clenched and firm. Phil suspected he knew what she was thinking. She knew and accepted that whatever had happened to the Shimizu’s rested on her shoulders and hers alone. She’d insisted on the operation against Ironclad. She’d convinced the others that the Shimizu’s would be fine at the mall on their own. The barricade had been down for days and nothing had happened yet.
Rebecca had been wrong.
Not about everything. But about enough to cost three more people their lives.
She’d have to reconcile that with herself, just like Rhonda would. Just like they all would. Three small lives. Insignificant compared to the numbers lost, but only too significant to the numbers that still remained.
The Lakeview Mall burned, a ravaged homage to the larger world, and onward they’d go… to Philadelphia.
Dark Cloud: Book 5 of the Darkness Rising Series
is now available!
Author’s Notes
May 15, 2018
Hey there, readers!
So here we are… book four of the Darkness Rising series. There are some unique challenges with doing a six book series, one of them being finding a way to balance each book as its own individual book, while also balancing each series of three books as their own stories, along with all six books as a whole. It’s an interesting challenge, to be sure, and one that I really enjoyed, and it felt as if book four was almost a new beginning.
Lots of things changed for the Frasers and their group at the end of book three, and in a way, book four signaled the start of their next journey, a journey that takes them through all sorts of new obstacles as they realize their duty goes far above simply reuniting with Lydia, but potentially uncovering a conspiracy that could save the entire country.
Taking one small Colorado family with very small, personal goals and watching them evolve into a group of full-blown freedom fighters has been an awesome experience for me as a writer, and I hope it’s been the same for all of you.
Strap up, because the back half of Darkness Rising is pretty intense. Enjoy the ride!
-Justin
Other Post-Apocalyptic Books from Mike Kraus
Final Dawn: The Complete Original Series Box Set
Clocking in at nearly 300,000 words with over 250,000 copies sold, this is the complete collection of the original bestselling post-apocalyptic Final Dawn series. If you enjoy gripping, thrilling post-apocalyptic action with compelling and well-written characters you’ll love Final Dawn.
Final Dawn: Arkhangelsk: The Complete Trilogy Box Set
The Arkhangelsk Trilogy is the first follow-up series set in the bestselling Final Dawn universe and delivers more thrills, fun and just a few scares. The crew of the Russian Typhoon submarine Arkhangelsk travel to a foreign shore in search of survivors, but what the find threatens their fragile rebuilding efforts in the post-apocalyptic world.
No Sanctuary
A nationwide terrorist attack has left the country in shambles and the country's transportation capabilities are crippled beyond repair. Frank Richards barely escapes with his life when he watches his truck explode in front of his eyes. As chaos descends across the country, Frank's home-grown survival and preparedness training and the help of a mysterious stranger he meets are the only things he can rely on to see him safely across the thousand miles separating him and his loved ones.
Surviving the Fall
Surviving the Fall is an episodic post-apocalyptic series that follows Rick and Dianne Waters as they struggle to survive after a devastating and mysterious worldwide attack. Trapped on the opposite side of the country from his family, Rick must fight to get home while his wife and children struggle to survive as danger lurks around every corner.
Prip’Yat: The Beast of Chernobyl
Two teens and two Spetsnaz officers travel to the town of Prip’Yat set just outside the remains of the Chernobyl power plant. The teens are there for a night of exploration. The special forces are there to pursue a creature that shouldn’t exist. This short thriller set around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster will keep your heart racing right through to the very end.
Other Fantasy Books from Mike Kraus
The Makeshift Wizard: Death
Magic
The Makeshift Wizard series is a new action-packed urban fantasy series from bestselling post-apocalyptic author Mike Kraus writing as MJ Kraus.
My job was supposed to be easy. Investigate a bleed farm, find the a-hole vamps who've been kidnapping Normals and bring down some street justice. Now I've got a relic in my hands that was created with the blood and death magic of an elder Vampire and a whole lot more questions than answers.
AFTERSHOCK
Darkness Rising Series
Book 4
By
Justin Bell
Mike Kraus
© 2018 Muonic Press Inc
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