by W. J. Lundy
He turned again and fell to his belly. Taking shallow breaths, trying to avoid the pain his ribs, Jacob crawled back toward the bunker. He pulled himself back to his feet using a post and, one loose step at a time, Jacob made it back to the fighting position. An arm moved from under the debris. Jacob grabbed the hand, tugged, and got a yelp in response. When he dug away the bags and dirt, he found the twisted face of Murphy. Jacob dug him out further and grabbed the collar of his armor, dragging him clear of the rubble. Murphy moaned and pushed him off before reaching down to open his body armor and shrug out of it. He reached into a pouch on his chest and fumbled with what looked like a small flashlight. He pressed a switch and stuck it into Jacob’s hand.
“It’s a strobe; get it someplace high!” he mumbled.
“Okay,” Jacob said and nodded. Turning back, he stumbled ahead to a long strand of rope tied to a barrier. Jacob cut the rope free and knotted one end to the strobe. He moved to a burnt, leafless tree and grabbed a branch. Pulling himself up, he climbed until he was as high as he could get, then secured the strobe to a branch. Jacob dropped back to the ground and staggered to the bunker. He could see the things were moving again—not focused on his location, but milling about.
Helicopters flew far off over the city and he could hear the sound of boats in the harbor. Jacob moved back to Murphy’s side and dropped in beside him. As the things moved in closer, he readied his rifle for a final fight.
“Don’t… it’ll make it worse… leave me; get to the water,” Murphy said in slurred words, bloody foam gathering at the corners of his lips.
Feeling strangely calm, ready to accept his fate, Jacob shook his head and pulled Murphy to his lap. He watched a flashing light high in the skyline make an abrupt turn; it moved around before it angled toward them, coming swiftly in their direction. Jacob pulled Murphy’s vest with the reflective tape on the back over to face them and set it on his friend’s lap. He cupped Murphy’s head with his left hand, feeling his friend’s labored breathing. Jacob was tired; he just wanted to rest. He watched the slow-moving flashing light draw closer.
“Hold on, Murphy; they’re coming,” Jacob said.
Chapter 23
“Daddy!” a young girl yelled, waking him. He saw her running, her feet slapping the polished tile floor.
Katy easily scaled the hospital bed and thumped onto Jacob’s chest to embrace him. Jacob winced and smiled at the same time, hugging her with both arms while a tear formed in his eye. Laura came next, reaching down and locking them both in tight hugs. Jacob grunted and struggled to sit. A nurse in camouflage scrubs scrambled around the bed.
“No, you don’t, Mr. Anderson. We worked too hard to keep that lung from collapsing; I’ll let the hugs slide, but that’s it,” she barked.
“Lung?” Jacob said, finding his breath.
“You had significant internal injuries; you need to rest,” she said while scribbling on his chart. “Not too long, okay, hun?” the nurse said to Laura as she left the room.
Jacob looked around, confused by the surroundings. “Where are we, is this Chicago?”
“No, Jacob. We’re in Canada,” Laura said. “In a military hospital.”
“Canada… how? I don’t understand… how did I get here?”
“They found you unconscious and they brought you here. Your friend, the soldier, helped to find us in the camps and had us brought here while you were still in surgery.”
Jacob’s eyes widened with recognition. “Sergeant Murphy? He’s here?”
“No, his name wasn’t Murphy. It was Corporal Stephens,” she said. “The Canadians took us in, Jacob. The camps were horrible; they had nothing—no water, no food, and there were so many people there. I thought we would never—”
“Why were you in Canada?”
“The Canadian Army is holding them off and trying to keep them at the borders.”
Jacob grew frustrated with so many thoughts filling his head at once. “Where is the man I was with?”
“I don’t know; you were alone when I got here.” Laura shook her head. “Jacob, we’re lucky to be here.”
He tried to speak and began coughing; he felt the pain in his ribs as he concentrated on breathing.
Laura frowned and poured a glass of water from a nearby pitcher. She passed it to Jacob who took it and drank thirstily. “The doctor says you need to rest,” she said, helping him sip from the glass.
A knock at the open door turned their heads. A tall black man in a green hospital robe and pushing an IV cart looked in, grinning.
“Damn man, still on your ass… oops, sorry. Pardon my language, ma’am,” Stephens said, catching himself. “I didn’t see the little one all cuddled up with her daddy there.”
Laura smiled at him.
Jacob laughed painfully. “Good to see you… Is Murphy here too?” he asked.
“Jacob… Murphy didn’t make it,” Stephens said, walking to a chair in the corner of the room and sitting heavily.
Jacob’s jaw dropped as he lay back in the bed, feeling his body become numb with shock. Katy crawled higher on him and laid her head against his chest. He lifted his hand and stroked her hair, fighting back tears while not knowing why he was so upset over a man he barely knew.
Laura grabbed his hand and whispered, “Who was he?”
“He was my friend,” Jacob said with shock in his voice.
Stephens looked at him sympathetically. “Man… I’m sorry, Jacob; I thought you knew.” Stephens turned to Laura. “Ma’am, I hate to ask this right now, but could we have a moment? I promise I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“I can appreciate that, Corporal Stephens, but we—”
Jacob put up a hand. “It’s okay, Laura; it’ll just be a minute,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Laura shot Stephens an exaggerated cold stare before she leaned over to kiss Jacob. “Come on, Katy. Let’s see if they are serving lunch yet.” She retrieved Katy and left the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.
Jacob pressed a button, raising the back of the bed so that he was nearly upright. He grunted trying to adjust his pillow. “What is it?
Stephens pulled his chair close. “Bro, when I saw you come off that Medevac, Murphy was with you. They tried to save him but it was just too much.”
Jacob chewed his lower lip, not speaking. Stephens looked at the door and sat back in the chair. “I told the doctors about your family; they used the Red Cross to locate them and get ’em here.”
Jacob forced a smile. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
“But that’s the thing. This is a military hospital. I told them you were part of Second Squad, Jacob. It was the only way I could get them here to you.’
“You what?”
“Our forces are so jacked up right now, they don’t know up from down. They didn’t question it. I just had to lie, man. I didn’t want your family out there in one of those camps when you woke up.”
“Is your family here too?”
Stephens looked away then back at Jacob. “I don’t know where they are. Last word I got, they were moving them south some place toward Atlanta, maybe Fort Benning. I don’t know. Contact’s been cut.”
“I’m sorry, Stephens,” Jacob said just above a whisper.
Stephens shook it off. “Don’t be sorry, bro. I know they’re okay; I can feel it. Listen, Jacob, we need to talk, man; everything is gone now. We got pushed back across the border and refugees are pouring across faster than the Canuks can find room for them. The United States south of Milwaukee is lost and The Darkness is spreading down into Central and South America. They thrive in warm weather. Europe is the same way, cold areas are stable while they move and spread south.
“Those ponds we found? They use them to breed and multiply. Most of the dumb ones stay close to their little birthing ponds, but the stage three types… hell, they’ve been spotted way far north.”
“Stage three?” Jacob asked.
“That’s what
they’re calling the smart ones, the ones that shoot back. The fully evolved ones.”
Jacob nodded his head, remembering the briefing about the lizard men.
“So what’s next?” Jacob asked. “Where do we go from here?”
“That’s why I needed to talk to you. I got your family in here, but for them to stay, you’re gonna have to enlist—and I mean for real. This base is only for military families. I listed you as a private with Second Squad. I don’t know if that’s gonna last or not. You better hope it does, ’cause if it don’t, they gonna send your wife and daughter out to the camps. You too probably, once you get healed up enough to walk. There just isn’t room on base for everyone.”
“I can’t leave them again,” Jacob said.
“It’s going to happen. You need to heal up and go back with us if you want to keep them safe. The generals say we won’t last two winters if we can’t push them out; we can’t survive this far north. We’ll all starve.”
“So I have a choice of leaving my family to go fight, or leave with my family for these camps?”
Stephens shook his head, frowning. “The choice is yours, Jacob.”
Thank you for reading.
I hope you enjoyed The Darkness, and would consider leaving a review.
The Darkness
By. WJ Lundy
Other works by W.J.Lundy
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Series.
W. J. Lundy is a still serving Veteran of the U.S. Military with service in Afghanistan. He has over 14 years of combined service with the Army and Navy in Europe, the Balkans and Southwest Asia. Visit him on Facebook for more.
OTHER WORKS BY WJ LUNDY
Escaping the Dead
Tales of the Forgotten
Only the Dead Live Forever
Walking in the Shadow of Death
Something to Fight For
DEAD ISLAND: Operation Zulu
Ten years after the world was nearly brought to its knees by a zombie Armageddon, there is a race for the antidote! On a remote Caribbean island, surrounded by a horde of hungry living dead, a team of American and Australian commandos must rescue the Antidotes' scientist. Filled with zombies, guns, Russian bad guys, shady government types, serial killers and elevator muzak. Dead Island is an action packed blood soaked horror adventure.
Allen Gamboa
INVASION OF THE DEAD SERIES
On the east coast of Australia, five friends returning from a month-long camping trip slowly discover that a virus has swept through much of the country. What greets them in a gradual revelation is an enemy beyond compare. Armed with dwindling ammunition, the friends must overcome their disagreements, utilize their individual skills, and face unimaginable horrors as they battle to reach their hometown and make sense of life in the new world.
Owen Baillie
SIXTH CYCLE
Nuclear war has destroyed human civilization.
Captain Jake Phillips wakes into a dangerous new world, where he finds the remaining fragments of the population living in a series of strongholds, connected across the country. Uneasy alliances have maintained their safety, but things are about to change. -- Discovery leads to danger. -- Skye Reed, a tracker from the Omega stronghold, uncovers a threat that could spell the end for their fragile society. With friends and enemies revealing truths about the past, she will need to decide who to trust. -- Sixth Cycle is a gritty post-apocalyptic story of survival and adventure.
Darren Wearmouth ~ Carl Sinclair
SPLINTER
For close to a thousand years they waited, waited for the old knowledge to fade away into the mists of myth. They waited for a re-birth of the time of legend for the time when demons ruled and man was the fodder upon which they fed. They waited for the time when the old gods die and something new was anxious to take their place. A young couple was all that stood between humanity and annihilation. Ill equipped and shocked by the horrors thrust upon them they would fight in the only way they knew how, tooth and nail. Would they be enough to prevent the creation of the feasting hordes? Were they alone able to stand against evil banished from hell? Would the horsemen ride when humanity failed? The earth would rue the day a splinter group set up shop in Cold Spring.
H. J. Harry
NEW REALITY
When the Rixon Corporation released New Reality, a fully immersive, five-dimensional entertainment experience, everyone logged on---everyone except Jake and Tom. As the population gave in to the ultimate experience, it didn’t take long for the world to crumble into ruin. Facing the wrath of Rixon and starvation, the pair face a fight for survival and freedom.
Michael Robertson
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
