by Lukens, Mark
How many pills did he have? What if his arm needed to be stitched up, or (Oh God no) amputated? He’d need all of those pills for that. Maybe he should save them for later.
But one pill . . . only one. One couldn’t hurt. He’d still have plenty of them left.
Before Josh even realized what he was doing, he saw his hand reaching down towards his sock, like he was watching someone else’s hand, like it was moving on its own.
He felt eyes on him and looked up.
Luke was awake and turned around a little in the passenger seat, staring at him. Luke didn’t seem angry—he didn’t seem like anything at all; he just had a blank look on his face, his dark eyes like a shark’s eyes.
Josh drew his hand back up quickly, as if he’d just been caught stealing.
An anger washed over Josh. What do I have to be sorry for? These are my pills. I found them. I can take them if I want to. I don’t have someone to look out for anymore—I don’t have anyone. I don’t have anything left. My fucking arm hurts. If I need to take those pills, then I’m going to take them.
But Josh didn’t reach down for his sock again.
Luke turned back around in his seat.
“I think this might be the right road,” Ray said as he turned left onto yet another dirt road, slowing the van down to a crawl. The opening to the dirt road was hard to make out, just a gap in the woods, but Ray had noticed it.
They drove down the dirt path through the woods, bumping along. The trail was overgrown, branches jutting out and scraping at the sides of the van.
“There should be some kind of gate coming up soon,” Ray said, glancing down at his open notebook in his lap, referring to his notes as he drove.
And there it was, a sturdy metal gate stretched across the trail. Ray stopped the van, but he left the motor running.
Luke got out and walked towards the gate. Ray waited in the driver’s seat. Mike and Emma were sitting up, both wide awake now.
“Are we there?” Mike asked, knuckling sleep from his eyes.
Josh’s hand shot down to the bottom of his pants leg, lifting it up just a little so he could get to his sock—this was his chance. He pulled the bottle out from inside the top of his sock and gently twisted the cap, opening it and tilting it just enough to let one pill slip out, not making a noise. He kept his eyes on Ray in the driver’s seat right in front of him, sure that he would turn around any second and catch him in the act.
But he didn’t.
Josh palmed the pill as he closed the cap, making sure it was on tight. He tucked the bottle back down into his sock and pushed his pants leg down. He swallowed the pill dry and then breathed out a sigh of relief. He needed this. His arm hurt.
“Is it chained up?” Ray seemed to be asking Luke even though Luke couldn’t hear him from here, almost like he was talking to himself. He opened the driver’s door, getting out.
Luke was already walking back to the van.
Josh jumped up and slid the side door of the van open.
“There are two tool boxes in the back,” Luke said.
Josh and Ray followed Luke to the back of the van. Luke opened the back doors and pulled out two rusty metal toolboxes.
Josh spotted a hacksaw handle poking out from under the bench seat. “Hey, a hacksaw.”
But when Josh pulled the saw out, he realized it was only the handle—it didn’t have a blade.
Luke set the toolboxes on the dirt trail behind the van and opened them up, searching through them, taking out the top trays that were filled with screwdrivers, sockets, wrenches, and other hand tools. In the bottom he pulled out hammers, electrical tape, and then a rusty hacksaw blade.
“I think we’re in business,” Luke said as he held up the hacksaw blade.
It was the first time Josh had ever seen Luke smile.
After connecting the blade to the handle, Luke and Ray took turns sawing at a link on the chain wrapped around the gate and the thick wooden post. Josh was going to ask if they needed him to take a turn, but he could already guess what their answer would be—his arm. But he was going to suggest that he could use his left arm to saw at the chain.
A few minutes later the link snapped. Luke pulled the chain off and Ray pushed the gate open. The gate and fence posts looked new. Maybe that was a good sign.
Josh looked around them at the woods that crowded the dirt trail. There were no sounds of rippers coming from the woods, no smells of smoke from lingering fires. For the first time since the collapse had started, Josh actually felt somewhat safe out in these woods. And he also felt a little hopeful. Maybe this cabin was going to be the answer they were looking for, at least for a little while, maybe through the winter. A place they could rest and build their strength back up. He hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up before, but now he was beginning to.
CHAPTER 39
Ray
Doug’s cabin was a shock to Ray, definitely not what he had pictured in his mind.
After they had gotten through the gate, they had wrapped the chain around it again to make it look like it was locked. One of the things Ray jotted down on his mental list (which he would soon transfer to an actual list on paper) was to find a padlock with a key in the cabin so they could chain the gate shut again. Would it keep the rippers out? No, they could just hop right over the gate and the fence. Would it keep the Dark Angels out? Same answer as the rippers. But the gate might turn curious survivors around, and it might keep other vehicles out. But Ray suspected that if the Dark Angels showed up in one of those military tank-like vehicles they’d gotten a hold of, they would just ram their way through the gate. At least Ray might be able to hear the noise from the cabin a mile away and be ready for it. But maybe there was a way to strengthen the gate, or even set some kind of booby traps or an alarm system.
Ray knew he was getting too far ahead of himself again, already planning way too far into the future. He could jot down the ideas as they came to him, reorganizing them later in order of priority. His mind was running a million miles a second right now. He needed some sleep. He had napped a little in the van while Luke had driven the back roads and hills of West Virginia through the night, but none of his sleep had been restful. But when was he ever going to get a true restful night of sleep? When was he ever going to be able to go to sleep without worrying about rippers, Dark Angels, or any other gangs of survivors? And there would always be other things to worry about: bears, mountain lions, snakes, freezing weather, diseases, illnesses, accidents.
The drive from the gate in the woods to the large clearing the cabin had been built in was at least a mile of a twisting, turning trail through the trees. At the narrowest part of the trail, the path took a sharp bend and opened up to the clearing, the land gently rising towards the hills of dense woods at the other end of the clearing. Even larger hills loomed beyond those woods, rising up all around Doug’s property.
Ray had tried not to get his hopes up about the cabin; he’d been disappointed far too many times now since the world had gone to hell. He was trying to train his mind not to expect much, just like he was trying to train his mind to be ready at all times to defend, or even attack, and to hunker down and make do with whatever this new life threw at him.
But when he saw the cabin in the clearing, he was shocked.
“Holy shit,” Josh whispered from right behind Ray, hovering between him and Luke.
“I want to see,” Mike said, hurrying up to squeeze in beside Josh.
Josh moved out of the way so Mike could look out the windshield.
“Whoa,” Mike whispered.
“What about Emma?” Josh said, looking back at her.
“It sounds pretty good so far,” Emma said, smiling at him. Then her smile slipped a bit. “Right? Or is it that bad?”
“No, it’s not bad,” Josh said. “It’s beautiful. Like something out of one of those Log Cabin Living magazines or something.”
Josh was right about that, Ray thought. Although the cabin in the clearing couldn’t be called a mansi
on, it was much larger than Ray had expected, and much newer.
The log cabin was a two-story structure, and the metal roof had solar panels attached to it. A massive front porch of thick logs ran the length of the front of the home, hiding the front door and windows under the shadows of the porch roof. A set of wide steps led down from the porch to a concrete walkway that ran from the front of the cabin to a large parking area between the home and a free-standing, three-car garage that was also constructed of logs and had a metal roof. The garage doors were painted dark brown, like the shutters and doors of the cabin. In the distance beyond the cabin and garage there were two smaller buildings, storage sheds of some kind, Ray guessed. A huge stack of chopped firewood was stacked up on the left side of the home near a stone chimney that rose above the roof.
Ray pulled up in front of the cabin, driving just a car length onto the large concrete parking area. The cabin was a little to their right and the garage to their left. He glanced down at the gas gauge—only an eighth of a tank left now. He shut off the van’s engine, hoping Doug would have some cans of gasoline here. He was already worrying, already planning, unable to finally relax and enjoy this moment.
Some of Ray’s worries had faded away as soon as he saw the cabin. For one thing, he knew Doug had been telling the truth about this place; he hadn’t been embellishing like Ray had suspected. Now that Ray thought about it, maybe none of Doug’s wild stories had been exaggerations or fantasies—Doug had been right about the coming apocalypse; he’d been right to prepare for it even if he hadn’t known exactly what form the end of civilization would take.
“Your friend must have been rich,” Josh said as he moved back up next to Mike, right behind Ray and Luke’s seats again. “Look at that place.”
“His mother died,” Ray said, remembering that now. “He always told us he came from a wealthy family, but I never believed him.”
“Why didn’t you believe him, Dad?”
Ray shrugged, not looking back at Mike. “I just thought Doug was lying about a lot of things. I don’t know why. He told me his parents died and left him a lot of money. Millions of dollars. I asked him why he was still working at the CDC.”
Luke looked at Ray. “You work for the CDC?”
“Worked,” Ray answered, stressing the past tense.
“And you don’t know anything about this plague?”
“We worked in the accounting department. We were just number crunchers, that’s all.” But Ray suddenly remembered Doug telling him that he had some contacts down at the Atlanta offices. Again, Ray hadn’t believed Doug at the time. But what if Doug had been telling the truth? What if Doug’s contacts had known some kind of disaster was coming, some outbreak that they would never be able to control, and only a select few knew about it, including Doug? What if that’s why Doug had been so paranoid?
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Josh asked. “Let’s get inside.”
“Wait,” Luke said, still looking out his window at the cabin.
“What is it?” Ray asked.
“We don’t know if anyone’s in that place or not,” Luke said.
Ray hadn’t really thought about that, and he chided himself for not considering that possibility, worrying instead if Doug had gas and medicine inside the cabin. He looked over at the garage to their left. “Garage doors are closed. No other vehicles around.”
“What if your friend is inside?” Luke asked.
“Doug?” Ray had assumed that Doug hadn’t made it, that he had either turned into a ripper or had been killed by one. But there was the slight chance that he had made it here.
“If your friend is in there, he doesn’t know it’s you outside in this van,” Luke said. “He might be at one of the windows, aiming a rifle at us.”
“I’ll get out,” Ray said. “Show him that it’s me.” He felt a creepy-crawly sensation dancing along his skin, a familiar feeling these days, like hairs standing up on the skin right before a lightning strike. “He invited me here.”
“What if he’s changed his mind?” Luke asked as he slid his hand inside his hoodie and pulled his gun out of the shoulder holster.
“I don’t think Doug would do that.”
“What if there’s someone else in there?” Luke asked. “Someone traveling through the woods, someone who just happened upon this place. I was traveling through the woods when I came across a horse farm. It was a nice place. I might have stayed there if I hadn’t seen Emma in my dreams telling me to go south and find you guys.”
Ray watched the house for a moment, concentrating on the windows, looking for any signs of movement or lights inside. But the windows were dark, like they were tinted and covered by drapes inside. “We can’t sit here all day. We’ve got to get out some time.”
“How are you going to get inside?” Mike asked. “What if the door’s locked?”
“Doug said in his directions that there’s a key underneath the second porch step. I’ll go see if it’s there.” Ray looked back at Mike who looked nervous. “It’ll be okay.”
“I’ll cover you,” Luke said, already opening the passenger door of the van.
Ray looked from Mike to Josh. “Watch out for them while we’re out there.”
Josh nodded.
CHAPTER 40
Ray
Ray got out of the van and shut the door. He wasn’t trying to be quiet about it. There was no sense in that; if Doug was inside the cabin—or anyone else—then they already knew that they were out here. He walked around the back of the van and then down the walkway to the front porch steps. He felt the weight of his gun in the waistband of his pants, hidden under his jacket.
Ray glanced back at the van when he was on the concrete walkway. Luke was a few steps behind him, his gun in his hands and aimed at the front porch. Again Ray felt the tingling sensation dancing along his skin, like he could be struck by lightning at any second, a bullet hitting him before he even heard the rifle shot. It was a surreal feeling, knowing that he might be walking right towards his own death, but of course everything felt surreal to him now.
“Doug!” Ray yelled as he turned back around and stared at the front porch. “Doug, are you home?”
Doug didn’t open the front door of the home. No one did. No one called out from the windows. The world around them was deathly silent.
“It’s me!” Ray yelled. “It’s Ray Daniels from work. You invited me and my family here.” Ray felt his throat lock up as he thought of Kim and Vanessa.
Still no answer.
Ray was at the porch steps now. He felt like he should put his hands up in surrender, show that he didn’t mean any harm, but what was the sense in that? Luke had a gun aimed right at the front door. Ray crouched down in front of the steps, but he couldn’t get low enough to see underneath the second step. He shoved his arm under the step, hoping he wasn’t going to touch a snake or spider under there. He moved his hand under the step, pushing cobwebs out of the way. He started in the middle and worked his way to the right side of it, beginning to believe that the key was already gone, or that it had never been there at all. Maybe this wasn’t even Doug’s cabin; maybe it was someone else’s cabin. He allowed negativity to creep in even though he hadn’t searched the entire area yet.
And then he found the key—his fingers touching a plastic box attached to the underside of the step right at the edge of it against the wooden stringer. There was some kind of lid on the front of the box that slid to the side. He stuck his fingers inside and felt a metal key. He fished it out carefully, trying not to drop it.
He stood up with the key in his hand. This was a good sign that Doug wasn’t in the cabin, a good sign that he had never made it here. Ray had been wondering why Doug had chosen him for the offer to stay at his cabin. He wondered now if Doug could have foreseen a possibility that he wasn’t going to make it here himself and that he wanted someone to benefit from all of this hard work. But it was a waste of time to ponder questions that he would never know the answers to.
Ray climbed the steps to the front porch. It was a wide and sturdy porch and still smelled of new wood. But there was another smell, a slight chemical odor that Ray thought might be some kind of protectorate or sealer for the wood. The only furniture on the front porch was two Adirondack chairs with a table between them. The beams of the roof above the porch were exposed. There was a porch light on either side of the front door, bolted right into the log walls. The front door was solid, with no windows, only a peephole. The door was painted dark brown like the garage doors.
Ray knocked on the front door, but the door was made of metal and so thick his knocking wasn’t very loud. He jabbed a thumb on the doorbell button, but he couldn’t hear any chimes from inside. Maybe the doorbell didn’t work, maybe it ran off electricity. He tried the doorknob, which was made of brushed nickel. It was locked. He didn’t think Josh would be getting into this door with a screwdriver or a credit card.
Taking a deep breath, Ray slid the key into the lock on the door. He twisted the key, and it turned easily.
Luke was on the front porch now, hurrying up behind Ray, still covering him.
Ray pulled his small flashlight out of his pants pocket and turned it on. He thought about pulling his gun out, but why bother? Luke would shoot ten people before Ray could even get one shot off. He kept the flashlight aimed at the door and glanced back at Luke, nodding at him, indicating that he was going to open the door.
“Hello?” Ray called as he opened the door, shining the light beam inside the vast room beyond the doorway. His greeting echoed back at him from the darkness. He stepped inside and shined his light around. “Doug? Are you here? It’s me. It’s Ray.”
Luke was inside now.
They moved deeper into the living room. The ceiling was high with exposed, rough-cut beams. There were four large logs spaced around the living room, pillars to help support the roof. A wide staircase hugged the log wall on the right side of the room, the steps leading up to the balcony and more rooms.
