Dark Days (Book 4): Refuge

by Lukens, Mark

  Ray nodded in agreement. It looked like one of the ubiquitous government vehicles he’d seen all over Washington D.C.

  They had already checked two other SUVs in the streets below this one, but neither one had the keys inside. They needed to find a vehicle roomy enough to carry all of them and the supplies they would be taking from the box truck. There were a lot of cars and pickup trucks, a few vans, but not too many large SUVs. If worse came to worst, Ray thought, they would use a minivan if it looked new and dependable. But this Chevy Trailblazer looked like it might be just the vehicle they needed.

  Josh bolted over to the Trailblazer while Ray stared at the two-story home, watching the windows for any sign of movement. He wondered if there were survivors in any of these homes, people who had stayed hidden as those three men, the DA men (whatever that was supposed to mean) took over their town. But would a lone survivor even show themselves if they saw four armed people outside?

  And then Ray heard the sound he’d been waiting for, a screech that echoed down from the mountains—the unmistakable sound of a ripper. Another answered the first one’s call. The calls sounded far enough away, but that didn’t mean that there weren’t others closer. Maybe there were scouts watching from higher up, waiting to call out to the others when the coast was clear. Maybe the rippers were getting bolder now that the three DA men had been killed.

  Were the rippers that smart, though?

  Ray wasn’t sure about that, but just knowing that the rippers were close was bothering him.

  Josh came back to them with his shotgun gripped in one hand. “You hear that?” he asked, his blue eyes wide with concern.

  Ray nodded. “No keys?”

  Josh shook his head no.

  “Let’s check the house,” Ray said. He nodded at Mike as he helped Emma up the walkway through the grass to the front porch.

  “You stay out here with Emma,” Ray told Mike, nodding over at two rocking chairs. “We won’t be long.”

  Mike looked a little nervous, especially after hearing the rippers call out to each other.

  “Why can’t we go in there with you?” Mike asked.

  “Because I don’t know if anyone’s in there. We need to make sure no one’s inside.” Ray was already picking up the faint smell of rot and decay. He thought it might be coming from inside the house, but it could also be coming from somewhere outside. That stench seemed to be everywhere now.

  Mike nodded like he understood, but his eyes darted out at the street down at the end of the steep front yard.

  “You just stay right here by the door,” Ray told Mike. “If you hear or see anything, you two get inside and shut the door. Lock it, too. We won’t be long. As soon as I’m sure the house is safe, I’ll come get you two. Okay?”

  Mike helped Emma over to the rocking chairs. Emma felt the arm of the chair and sat down. He sat down beside her in the other one, setting the CD player and case of CDs down on the floorboards next to him. Ray didn’t like Mike lugging that CD player and the case of CDs around, he felt that it was an unnecessary encumbrance, but he knew it was important to him.

  Josh was already at the front door of the house, testing the handle gently. He turned it all the way and pushed the door open. The hinges creaked in the silence. Josh raised his shotgun up as soon as the door was open, standing there in the doorway for just a moment. Then he stepped inside.

  Ray followed him in. He had the leader’s pistol in his hand now. It was dark inside, but Josh already had his flashlight out. He handed it to Ray so he could use both of his hands for his shotgun.

  Ray stepped ahead of Josh, aiming the light in front of them down a long, wide hall with doorways off to each side and a set of steps just beyond one of the doorways, the steps leading upstairs into the late-afternoon gloom. He gripped the pistol tighter, but he was in no way comfortable with it.

  “You alright?” Josh asked.

  “I’ve never shot a gun before today,” Ray admitted. He thought back to the leader telling the junkie to shoot. He ain’t got it in him, the leader had said. He ain’t never killed anyone before.

  Was it that obvious?

  “Yeah, I’m not exactly a gunslinger myself,” Josh said.

  Ray walked towards an archway that led into a living room. Their footsteps sounded so loud and heavy on the wood flooring, some of the floorboards creaking.

  The place was a mess. Furniture was tipped over, papers scattered around, paintings and photos torn down off the walls. Ray hesitated. The odor of rot and decay was stronger than it had been outside. The smell was coming from deeper in the house, something rotting and dead, something bad.

  CHAPTER 9

  Josh

  Josh smelled it, too—the smell of death. The odor brought him back instantly to the LaRose house, the house where he’d found the shotgun cradled between the dead father’s legs.

  “Someone’s dead in here,” Josh whispered.

  “You think there are rippers in here?” Ray asked.

  Josh shook his head slightly. “I don’t think so. But they might have been here before.”

  They walked a few steps deeper into the living room.

  “You shot that gun pretty well for never shooting one before,” Josh told Ray.

  “Thanks,” Ray muttered. “I just pointed and pulled the trigger. You’re pretty accurate with those fire bombs.”

  Josh shrugged. “I pitched baseball in high school.” Before I got addicted to drugs and my life went downhill. But he didn’t bother adding that part.

  Ray moved forward, entering the dining room first. Even though the dining room table was tipped over and a few of the chairs were broken apart, the drapes were untouched; they still hung over the windows, blocking out the gray afternoon light. It was darker in the dining room than it had been in the living room.

  Ray stopped at the edge of the dining room, looking down at the floor.

  Josh was right behind Ray, aiming his shotgun down at a woman lying face down in a pool of dried blood. There were three bullet holes in her back, and one bullet hole in the side of her head.

  Josh moved past Ray into the kitchen. It was a little easier to see in the kitchen because the thin curtains covering the window over the sink allowed the daylight inside. Josh saw the dead man on the floor in the middle of the large kitchen. “There’s another one in here.”

  Ray entered the kitchen a few seconds later. He looked down at the man on the floor. The dead man was older and overweight, lying on his side. He had several bullet holes in his torso and one in his temple. Like the woman, the dead man lay in a large pool of tacky, dark blood.

  “The rippers didn’t do this unless they learned how to use guns,” Josh said.

  “And these two didn’t kill themselves,” Ray added.

  “Probably our three friends down there in town did this. The DA people.”

  “You know what DA stands for?”

  Josh shook his head. “First time I’ve ever seen those people. Maybe they’re some kind of local gang or something.”

  Ray didn’t respond. He went to work searching the cluttered countertops and cabinets for the keys to the Chevy Trailblazer outside in the driveway.

  “The place is trashed,” Josh said as he glanced around. He looked back down at the dead man on the floor. The man reminded Josh of the LaRose family he’d come across after escaping the FEMA camp. “But not really destroyed like the rippers would do.”

  “Yeah,” Ray answered. “There’s plenty of food left in the cabinets. Rippers probably would’ve gone through that.”

  Ray was right. This house hadn’t been ransacked by rippers; it had been ransacked by the DA guys.

  “I found them,” Ray said, turning around with two sets of keys in his hand. “One of these has to work.”

  “All right,” Josh said. He stepped around the dead man’s body and headed towards the gloomy dining room. He stopped when he realized that Ray wasn’t following him. He looked back at Ray; he was just standing there with
the keys in one hand, his gun in his other hand.

  “You okay, man?” Josh asked.

  Ray stared at him. “What did you find in the cab of that box truck?”

  Josh felt a pang of shock jolt through his body, but he was pretty sure he had kept the mask in place on his face, the smile still there. He had been wearing that mask most of his life, practicing these lies for years, so he’d gotten pretty good at it when he was caught. He shook his head slightly as if he wasn’t even sure what Ray was talking about, another stalling tactic he’d picked up. “What do you mean? I was looking for some kind of clues, maybe a map or something. Some kind of answers to who those guys are.”

  Ray just stood there like a statue, his dark eyes never wavering. “You took something out of that truck. What was it? Alcohol? Drugs?”

  Josh smirked. “What? Just because I’ve got long hair and tattoos, you think I’m a drug addict?”

  Ray didn’t say anything.

  “That’s pretty prejudiced thinking,” Josh said. “You should be the first one against judging someone based on their appearance.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Ray asked.

  “Forget it,” Josh said. He was waiting for Ray to ask him again, demand an answer to his question. But instead, Ray just let out a long, slow sigh. Ray seemed to relax just a bit. But there was a look in the man’s eyes that Josh had seen so many times before from his own parents, and from his sister . . . disappointment. Ray knew that he’d just been lied to. Ray wasn’t going to call him on it, but he knew.

  Our trust is already strained, Josh thought. And in that instant he thought about telling Ray the truth, telling him that he knew that the fried piece of shit out there on Main Street was a tweaker, and he was looking for the man’s supply, the pills he was taking. After all, Josh had already gone through half of his supply of pain pills in Marla’s apartment during his half-assed attempt to kill himself. He still had some, but he always wanted more. And you never turned them down if you could find them. It wasn’t like anyone was going to be making any more of them.

  Josh had found what he’d been looking for in the cab of that truck—a bottle of pills. Not his favorite kind of pain pills, but he couldn’t afford to be picky right now.

  I’m not going to use them, he’d told himself as he had pocketed the bottle of pills. These are just for emergencies. Just in case things get too bad. Or they could be for one of us, if we get hurt or something. The familiar excuses echoed in his mind, the same lies he’d told himself so many times.

  But even though Josh had made his usual excuses, the pill imp still whispered in his ear. The pill imp was always right behind Josh, always hovering just beyond his left shoulder so he could bend down and whisper into his ear, cupping a gnarled hand next to his mouth of tiny sharp teeth. You’re saving those pills for yourself, the pill imp whispered. You’re not going to save them in case anyone gets hurt—those pills will be long gone before that happens, and you know it.

  Even though Josh had been close to dying in Marla’s apartment (and maybe he had actually died for a little while), even though he had puked his guts up, that pull was still there, that urge to get high. You would think that almost killing yourself would be a good deterrent against taking anymore pills, a good reason to quit, but you’d be wrong. If anything, the urge for the pills, the high, was stronger than ever, like he’d gotten a taste of that high, that buzz of alcohol, and it had awakened his demons. Yes, the pill imp was up and at ‘em now, bright-eyed and bushy tailed, as his mother used to say.

  Josh was close to confessing what he’d done. Ray had seen him pocket the bottle of pills, he was sure of that now, so why not just tell him the truth?

  But then Ray shoved the gun down into the waistband of his pants and looked down at the floor as he skirted the dead body, leaving the kitchen.

  The moment was lost now. Ray had let it go for now, so Josh was going to let it go.

  CHAPTER 10

  Ray

  Ray left the house and stepped out onto the front porch. The cold air felt good now that he was outside again, that smell of death and rot a little less overbearing out here.

  Mike stood up as soon as Ray stepped outside. “You find anyone in there?” he asked.

  Ray shook his head no, but jingled a set of keys. “But I think I found the keys to that truck out there.”

  Mike just stared at him and nodded. Ray thought he might have gotten a smile out of his son, but there was nothing there.

  “You wait with Emma up here for a minute,” Ray told Mike. “I’m going to go down there and see if the truck starts.”

  Again, Mike just nodded. He sat back down in the chair next to Emma.

  Ray didn’t wait for Josh; he walked down to the truck and slipped the key into the driver’s door. It slid in easily and turned just as easily. The lock button shot up. Ray opened the door and slid in behind the driver’s seat. He stuck the key into the ignition slot and turned it; the Chevy Trailblazer started right up. The gas gauge showed that the tank was about half full, enough to get away from this town.

  “Alright!” Josh said, smiling. He was right outside the passenger window with his shotgun in his hands.

  Ray didn’t smile back. He was mad at Josh. He knew Josh had taken something out of the cab of that truck, most likely some kind of drugs. He had given Josh a chance to tell the truth. But Josh hadn’t told the truth, and now Ray couldn’t trust him.

  “Let’s get going,” Ray said as he adjusted the driver’s seat to where he wanted it.

  Josh ran back up to the front porch and got Mike and Emma. Mike was already helping Emma down the porch steps when Josh got to him.

  A few minutes later Ray backed the SUV up to the back of the U-Haul truck, getting as close as he could, but leaving enough room so he could open the hatch.

  The sky was darker, the night coming quickly in this valley, the clouds getting thicker with rain or snow. The wind was blowing harder, a freezing wind slicing down from the mountains and swirling around them. Mike helped Ray and Josh load the SUV up. It seemed good for Mike to be doing something, anything to distract his mind for a few minutes. But it only took the screech of a ripper to freeze Mike for a second. He looked across the street as if he expected to see a horde of rippers coming.

  And they would be coming soon, Ray was sure of that. “I think we’ve got enough. Doug will have a lot more stuff at his cabin.”

  “Who’s Doug?” Josh asked.

  Ray didn’t answer him.

  “He’s one of my dad’s friends,” Mike explained. “He worked with him, but Dad didn’t like him that much.”

  “He didn’t like him, but we’re going to his cabin?” Josh asked Mike.

  “It’s a long story,” Ray said. “Let’s get going before those rippers come down out of the hills.”

  Ray was tense as he drove away. He hoped they would make it out of town before the rippers stormed the streets.

  “So you’re going to a guy’s cabin?” Josh said as they drove towards the edge of town.

  “We’re all going,” Mike corrected Josh. “You’re coming with us, too.”

  “Thanks, Mike,” Josh said, turning around in the passenger seat to smile at Mike. But then he turned around and stared at Ray, like he was waiting for a confirmation from him.

  Ray caught Josh’s stare for a moment, then he looked back out at the road. “I used to work with Doug in Washington. That’s where we’re from, Washington D.C.”

  “What did you used to do?”

  “I worked with the CDC.”

  Josh’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

  “I was just an accountant, that’s all. Sorry to dash your hopes.”

  Josh didn’t say anything.

  “But this guy I worked with, Doug, he was a conspiracy theorist,” Ray went on. “Always paranoid about the End of Times, or the Total Collapse, as he called it. He was also a doomsday prepper, and he was always giving us advice on how to prepare, whether we wanted th
e advice or not.”

  “And you didn’t like him?” Josh asked.

  “No one really liked him. He was kind of abrasive.”

  Josh just nodded.

  “Well, last Friday, when all the banks closed, our offices closed. Doug was sure the Total Collapse had come. He was showing everyone articles on his phone, stories about a plague, stories about people attacking each other, about families being killed. The others were starting to panic. And I admit, so was I. A lot of them left to go home or to their bank. Before I left, Doug gave me a piece of paper. He had drawn a map to his property in West Virginia. He called it his bugout property.”

  “Bugout?” Josh said in mock surprise, then he looked into the back seat and winked at Mike. “I hope that doesn’t mean there are a lot of bugs there.”

  Mike giggled, and in that moment Ray hated Josh for being able to make his son laugh when he couldn’t even make his own son smile.

  “He said he bought this property seven years ago, and that he had been steadily fortifying it,” Ray said. “He invited me and my family to go there if we had nowhere else to go.”

  “God, that was awful nice of him.” Josh paused for just a moment. “Your family—” He was about to continue what he was saying, but then he stopped, freezing, like the realization had just hit him.

  “I had a wife . . . and a daughter,” Ray began, and then he swallowed hard. His throat was locking up, and he gripped the steering wheel harder. He didn’t want to cry right now, especially not in front of Josh. He choked back his tears. “They didn’t make it.”

  Josh nodded. “I lost my sister and my nephew. We were in Pittsburgh. The whole city was burning when I left.”

  “They bombed D.C. right before we left,” Ray said. “Fighter jets dropped bombs and missiles or something.”

  “Maybe they bombed Pittsburgh, too,” Josh said. “Maybe that’s why it was on fire.”

  Ray looked at Josh. “I thought you said you were there.”