Darker Days (As the Ash Fell Book 2)

by AJ Powers

  Between the emotional thrashing triggered by the twin beds and his adrenaline finally wearing off, Clay’s fatigue hit back hard. But there was no time to rest. He needed to get back to the campsite so Smith could make the new firing pin, and Clay could finally head home.

  Clay had to grasp to the railing to support his weight as he walked down the stairs. He had no idea how he was going to find the energy he needed to make it through the rest of the day. He was starting his journey with the gas tank already on “E.”

  As Clay approached the front door, he saw the handle twist. His eyes widened and, like a floodgate opening, his adrenaline levels were immediately replenished. The door swung open, and a man started to walk through. The shaven head…the horrific tattoos…the Kevlar vest.

  Not again!

  By the time the man noticed Clay standing in the living room, Clay had his rifle raised. Both stopped dead in their tracks as they quickly sized up their opponent. The man was armed, but his pistol was nestled inside a holster hanging from his belt.

  “Don’t move,” Clay said with a hushed voice and a piercing stare.

  The Screamer remained still for only a moment longer before his hand flinched toward his sidearm.

  The silent morning was disrupted by the explosive power of Clay’s rifle being fired rapidly. The full metal jacket bullets did what they were designed to do and tore through the man’s light body armor. He stumbled back out onto the porch and dropped to the ground.

  Clay wasn’t sure how many times he pulled the trigger, but one shot was more than enough to draw some very-much unwanted attention. Operating on instincts, Clay grabbed the man’s pistol, stuck it in his waistband, and bolted out of the house, making a run for it. As expected, shrieks quickly filled the air.

  As Clay ran down an alley, he spotted movement in the corner of his eye. The man coming toward him fit the profile of a Screamer, so Clay fired several shots in his direction as he continued to run. He hadn’t hit anything except for maybe the house the man was standing next to, but Clay was confident the suppressive fire bought him precious seconds.

  Playing cat and mouse with his pursuers, Clay evaded the Screamers long enough to seek shelter in a rusted-out aluminum tool shed. He peeked through one of the many holes in the side of the shed and kept an eye on the search party. Surprisingly, they gave up quite quickly. As a few of Clay’s hunters walked back to a nearby house, somebody shouted from down the block, “It was Slater!”

  “Slater?” one of the nearby men said. “I’m not going to lose my sleep chasing down the guy responsible for killing him,” he scoffed. “If anything, they just saved me the trouble of doing it myself,” he said callously before turning to walk back with the others.

  It was unfathomable to hear how little these men valued another human life. Admittedly, killing was becoming easier for Clay to do, but at least to this point, it did not come without a dose of guilt, regardless if the kill was justified. But the Screamers? They were as indifferent to the slaying of one of their own as a duck is to rain.

  After waiting another hour, Clay was finally able to escape the neighborhood and return to the forest from which he came. He found comfort when the claustrophobia of the trees overcame him.

  It was dark by the time he reached the FEMA camp gates. He had contemplated crashing in the same RV he had stayed in a few nights before, but pressed on. Clay suspected he had triggered more than a few of Smith’s motion sensors, making his presence known to the Marine. He imagined Smith watched him stumble his way across the field through the infrared lens of the camera. He just hoped Smith wouldn’t mistake him for a zombie and open fire before he had a chance to deliver the package.

  Clay hobbled up to the locked gate and looked toward one of the cameras mounted to the building. A few seconds later Clay heard a buzzing sound followed by a loud click—the magnetic lock had disengaged. Clay pushed the gate open then snapped it shut. The lock promptly reengaged.

  The door at the base of the building swung open before Clay had even reached it. His feet, along with every other part of his body, ached relentlessly.

  “Sometime this week would be nice, Cowboy,” Smith said impatiently.

  Clay had a few choice phrases he wanted to respond with, but couldn’t find the energy or nerve to reply.

  “Did you find it?” Smith asked as he held the door open for Clay.

  “I think so,” Clay weakly said as he limped inside.

  As they took the elevator down to the basement, Clay retrieved the envelope and handed it to Smith. As soon as the doors opened, Smith took a hard right from the elevators and proceeded down the hall. Clay had trouble keeping up. About halfway down, Smith walked into a room. By the time Clay got there, he saw what remained of the envelope and scattered papers lying across the bed. Smith sat on the edge of the bed, his back to the door, holding a Micro SD card in one hand and a tablet in the other. He stared at the tiny flash card for several seconds, trying to convince himself that it was damaged; that he shouldn’t waste his time trying to get it to work.

  “Screw it,” he said under his breath as he slid the card into a slot on the side of the tablet and waited for the operating system to recognize the device.

  Several long seconds later, a folder finally popped up with dozens of icons inside. He hesitated again, this time only briefly, before he tapped on one and a video player popped up.

  The first thing Clay heard was the sound of two young boys shouting in unison…

  “Happy birthday, Daddy!”

  Chapter 8

  Clay watched helplessly as Smith stared at the tablet screen with his hand over his mouth. As soon as one video ended, the next one popped up, each more unbearable to watch than the last.

  Glancing down at the bed, Clay noticed a pink Post-it note stuck to one of the papers with a note scribbled on it:

  Here are the videos you wanted. Now would you please sign the papers so we can both get on with our lives?

  The papers scattered around the bed were divorce papers. Smith—or Justin Akers as the legal documents declared—had never signed them. Clay could only speculate why, but judging from his body language whenever the woman showed up on camera, he still loved her.

  A video of twin boys chasing the family puppy around the yard ended and the screen quickly snapped to a new scene: a serene moment of peaceful bliss and the miracle of life. The same woman held a newborn baby on her chest. She smiled contently; the baby was asleep. But as Smith’s body began to bounce up and down from the weeping he could no longer suppress, Clay realized these joyful moments from his past had become the very nightmares that would terrorize him for the rest of his life. And even though these people had never been alive to him—merely pixels on a screen—Clay couldn’t help but share in the sobbing man’s heartache in his agonizing despair.

  “Hello Jola,” a softer-spoken Smith said on the video as a hand appeared on screen and gently rubbed the baby’s back. “Welcome to the family,” he said, which prompted a glowing smile from the exhausted mother.

  The media player went black as the notch on the timeline found its end and displayed the folder of files again. Smith didn’t bring up another video, he just stared at the blank screen until the inactivity dimmer kicked in, snapping him out of his trance. Clay subtly cleared his throat, which startled Smith, causing him to turn around. His bloodshot eyes screamed of pain and the grim look on his face further supported that claim. Tears streaming down his cheeks glistened from the subtle glow of the tablet screen. He didn’t say anything; he just stared at Clay with that unmistakable expression of loss and remorse.

  He turned back around and looked at the tablet. He raised his hand to tap another video, but couldn’t bear to subject himself to anymore tonight. He started shaking again, an audible whimper this time. Ten minutes ago, Smith was a rock that instilled fear into Clay, and despite his prosthetic legs, Clay suspected that he would have been an intimidating sight even to the toughest of Screamers. Yet, here he was, brok
en, crushed, defeated; brought to his knees by videos on a computer—like digital terrorism, striking horror and pain into the brawny man’s very soul.

  Clay wanted to say something, but he knew the last thing Smith would want to hear was some obligatory condolences or the unfounded optimistic pep talk. So, Clay waited for Smith to speak first; silently mourning with the man he had just met, yet somehow felt as if he already knew better than some of his closest friends.

  “You always think there’s going to be a tomorrow,” Smith spoke with a broken voice. “‘I’m busy today, we’ll play tomorrow’…or, ‘Daddy can’t take you out for ice cream, he has work to do—maybe tomorrow.’” At this point the screen on the tablet had turned off completely; the drab hallway light spilling in from the doorway prevented the small bedroom from falling into total darkness. “There’s always a tomorrow,” Smith repeated, “until there’s not.”

  Clay shifted awkwardly as he tried to find the right wording for his question. It was never easy asking someone how they lost their family, but somehow, after witnessing the desolation Smith had just been put through, Clay found this particular instance even more difficult. “How’d it happen?” he finally asked.

  Smith looked as if he was wrestling with numerous thoughts. He rubbed at his eyes as he let out a weary sigh. “I happened.”

  It was not the response Clay had expected—it was almost unsettling.

  “Running your own store is a tall order. Even though business was great, it didn’t mean I could just sit back and count the money. There were always more things to get done and keeping customers happy was a fulltime job in itself. I finally convinced my brother, Phil, to move down from Pittsburgh to help me run the place. He was smart, always got good grades, good with numbers and all that, so I wanted him to handle the business side of things while I dealt with the inventory, customers, and repairs.

  “It wasn’t long before we were one of the biggest, private owned shops in the state. We had a three thousand square foot store, and that’s not including the ‘invite only’ section of the shop, which is where we sold the big, scary guns that had been banned. Usually, just one transaction a day in that room kept the lights on for a week.”

  “Sounds like you had a pretty good thing going,” Clay said, reaffirming the man’s own words.

  “We did,” he said as he absent-mindedly rubbed his hands together. “But success doesn’t come without sacrifice. Some people give up sleep, others give up hobbies…some give up their family…I did all the above,” he said as he lowered his head, shaking it with regret. “The average day for me was at least sixteen hours. Everyone was asleep by the time I got home unless Amanda made the effort to stay awake so she could let me know just how bad things were between us.” Smith took off his cap and threw it on the bed so he could run his hands through his hair. He interlocked his fingers and rested them on top of his head. “I used to get so mad at her for the lectures she would give me—about how I worked too much, that I needed to spend more time with the kids…that I needed to spend more time with her. My response was always the same, ‘Gotta pay the bills,’ or something stupid like that. But she was right… She was right,” Smith said with a quivering voice that matched the shudder in his body as painful memories from the past resurfaced. “Things got better for a while. Phil and I hired a buddy of ours from Austin to help out. So, I started trying to be everything again. Faithful husband, loving father, successful business owner...

  “Then Jola was born. It was early August and I even managed to take a few weeks off to spend with the family. They were…they were the best weeks of my life,” he said with a genuine, albeit momentary joy. “But, by the end of the month, business picked up again and, despite the hired help, I was forced to return to my old ways. Work all day, sleep a couple of hours, rinse and repeat.”

  Clay knew where the story went. Though his own father had not been absent to the same degree, his line of work, both as a police officer and a paramedic, caused for long shifts where the family would see very little of him for days at a time. And even though his father was still very much dedicated to his family, the strain on everyone during those weeks was still significant. It wasn’t an uncommon sight for his parents to have some heated discussions on the matter.

  Smith continued, “I was working so hard to create a successful business so that I could give my wife and kids the great life I thought they deserved. I hadn’t even noticed that my marriage had fallen apart. Amanda had come to me more than once about working things out, about us going to get some help. Every time she brought it up, though, I was in the middle of fixing this or inventorying that. ‘We’ll do that soon, Amanda. Just give me some time for things to slow down,’ I always told her.” Smith paused and let out a single, ironic laugh. “I was always telling her ‘tomorrow,’” he said as he wiped his forearm across his face.

  “One day, after staying at the shop for three days straight, I came home to an empty house. No wife, no kids, no note. And I didn’t hear from her again until Jola’s first birthday. She was kind enough to do a video chat so I could say happy birthday to my only daughter.” Smith was barely able to finish the sentence before his emotions took over.

  Clay stood in silence as the man fought with the agony of his past.

  After a few minutes, Smith collected himself enough to continue. “And that…that was the last time I spoke to my baby girl.”

  The eruptions, Clay thought at first…but no. Somehow, he knew it was worse.

  “A few months later, out of nowhere, Amanda calls me. She was so frantic I could barely understand her, but when I heard her tell me that Jola was sick and that I needed to get out to California right away, I knew it was bad. It took her eight months to finally tell me where they lived, and it was only because my daughter was dying.” Smith’s face was twisted with a mixture of sorrow and rage—it was unclear if it was directed at his wife or himself, and Clay wasn’t sure if Smith even knew. He stared at the wall in front of him as he went on. “By the time I got to the hospital, Jola had already died. Meningitis or something like that. The doctor assured us that there was nothing that could have been done, that it hit too quickly. But it didn’t stop me from blaming Amanda.

  “I wanted Jola buried back in Texas, but Amanda wouldn’t have it. And since her new boyfriend was some big-shot lawyer, she made it very clear that that was a battle I would never win. I hated her for that,” he said, a dark contempt in his voice. “But, rather than put my boys and myself through that ugly situation, I let her have her way. I stayed in California for a few weeks after the funeral—spending time with my boys was the only thing that mattered to me. And after getting back to Texas, I decided to sell the company off and was already making the arrangements to move out to California to spend more time with Kyle and Marcus. I offered my half of the company to my brother, but he didn’t want to run the product side of the business. It took less than a week to find a buyer—one of those big chain sporting goods stores that you could find every fifteen miles.”

  “So, you sold?” Clay asked.

  “Yep. Big money, too. Phil and I split it down the middle, and each gave some of the profit to the people who had been helping us over the years. The house was already under contract, and we were just a few days from closing when I got the Presidential alert on my phone.”

  Being reminded of that moment sent shivers down Clay’s spine; a moment when the world—his world—would forever be changed. Clay had watched silently as his mom gasped while reading the emergency alert on her phone before running to turn on the TV. It was just minutes after it had occurred, so the information was only just starting to trickle in. All that they could confirm was that the USGS reported a 9.6 earthquake had just struck off the coast of Washington state. The live feeds came online just minutes before the tsunami delivered a devastating blow to the west coast. Then, San Andreas went. It was only a paltry 7.5 in comparison to the Cascadian quake early that morning, but it was more than enough to ravage the major
cities along the faultline—many of which were already battling the floods from the tsunami. That night there had been dozens of earthquakes greater than 7.0 around the world, and all eyes were on New Madrid, which had already started to rumble. Clay remembered the intense shaking he felt when the New Madrid roared to life. He had never felt an earthquake before and the only thing he felt at that moment was fear.

  Clay’s family had been glued to the TV all day, watching as new footage of catastrophic destruction around the world surfaced every couple of minutes. It was terrifying for the thirteen-year-old boy to watch. And then, airing on live TV, Clay and his family witnessed the Memphis-Arkansas bridge collapse, plummeting down to the Mississippi and taking with it hundreds of souls. It was in that horrifying moment that the pit in Clay’s stomach told him this was not going to be a disaster the world would recover from. A feeling that was reaffirmed when Yellowstone began to clear her throat.

  “I tried calling her,” Smith continued, “but I could never get through. So, I grabbed all the food, supplies, and guns I could fit into my Jeep, and drove west as fast as I could.” Smith paused for a moment as he continued to battle against his quivering body. “I was about a hundred miles from Vegas when the roads started to become impossible to drive on. I kicked in the four-by-four and went off-roading, but after a while even that was no longer traversable.”

  The anguish radiated from the man like a furnace. Clay could only imagine the torment Smith had been through in his life. Before and after the eruptions. It was far more than any one man deserved.