Ways of Darkness (Wolves of the Apocalypse Book 2)

by LC Champlin

  “Help me!” Clang! Bat met bars. “I said I’d—Fuck!”

  The next strike connected with a cannibal’s arm.

  A man would say anything to save his skin. Nathan sidled along the fence. Ten yards from the frenzy. Fifteen. “You should have surrendered when I told you to.” If Eduardo returned to the neighborhood, he’d return to rabble rousing.

  Then Nathan paused. Shit, he couldn’t leave him. Hell, perhaps owing Nathan his life would tame Ed.

  “You fucking cocksucker!” The epithet rang from the playground. Not the best way to win sympathy. “This is murder!”

  The pistol’s sights sharpened as Nathan leaned against a wall for stability. “Don’t.” Bang! “Ever.” Bang! “Come.” Bang! “Back.” Bang!

  Cannibal blood and liquefied brain sprayed the jungle gym. Black mucus splattered the ground, Dalits—and Eduardo. “Aaaug!” he bawled, face contorting with horror. Either he died fighting the Dalits, or he eventually became one.

  “Justice is done.” Nathan half jogged, half strode in the direction of the car. As he did, he performed a tactical reload, replacing the pistol’s mag with a full one.

  When he reached the vehicle, Albin shoved the passenger door open from the driver’s seat. While Nathan belted in, Josephine and Marvin sprinted from Heron Court’s driveway. Albin had the car rolling before they closed their doors.

  Other cars joined the vehicle as it sped northeast along Redwood Shores Parkway. Some chose to go the opposite direction, leaving Redwood Shores. Most of the refugees would return to their homes. They would cause no more trouble now that their ringleader had fallen to the monsters.

  Nathan turned his HT to the neighborhood guards’ channel. “This is Nathan. There’s a horde of cannibals in Heron Court. Reinforce the barricades as much as you can. Get everyone inside.”

  “W-what in the nine hells was that?” Marvin forced through clenched teeth. Judging by the way he gripped the seatbelt across his chest, he’d begin shaking if he relaxed.

  “That wasn’t how it was supposed to happen,” Josephine whispered, shaking her head in shock. “That just wasn’t how it was supposed to—”

  Albin gave her a sharp look via the rear view mirror. “Yet that is how it happened. Now we manage the aftermath.”

  “The crisis,” Nathan corrected. The Rock Island pressed into his beltline, a talisman against the evil behind them.

  The muscles in Albin’s jaw stood out as he stared ahead.

  When they reached the roadblock, the guards waved them through.

  They reached Carolyn’s house in moments. In front of her beige two-story, on her manicured lawn, milled a group of locals. Their luxury autos lined the street. The Genesis had barely stopped rolling when Nathan swung out, heading toward the crowd. Carolyn and Amanda came into view at the center.

  At his and Albin’s arrival, Carolyn broke off in mid-sentence. She and Amanda hurried to meet them.

  “You’re safe.” Relief shone in the older woman’s face.

  Amanda chimed in: “We heard you on the radio, but I wasn’t sure if—”

  “Then you know there’s a horde of cannibals heading this way.” Maybe heading this way. Nathan addressed this possible truth to the group as much as to her. The suburbanites fell quiet, hardly breathing. “Eduardo and a number of his supporters were caught by them.”

  “We’ve seen the people returning,” Carolyn affirmed. “Some are wounded. We’re helping them as best we can. What about Eduardo? Is he—”

  “I assume the worst.” Or best, depending on perspective.

  Murmuring began.

  He raised his hands, which did little to calm the people. “We also saw law enforcement vehicles.” Rather, they would see them if the authorities responded to Jo’s call.

  This spawned cheering.

  “Listen!” Nathan roared. “Do not drop your guard. We don’t know if they’re coming here. Be very careful. Get proper identification from them. In disasters, it’s common for raiders to pose as first responders.”

  “They’re not cops?” a woman asked.

  “Use caution, that’s all.” Nathan looked around at the crowd as he finished, “Everyone, arm yourselves and barricade yourselves in your houses. Listen to Carolyn and Amanda.”

  Take over from that old bitch, Red had said. Done; the locals gazed at him like sheep regarding their shepherd. No, their sheepdog. They would have to transform into wolves if they were to do him any good, though. In the meantime, even sheep could serve a purpose.

  Chapter 90

  A Time to Gather

  99 - Elliot Moss

  Nathan gripped Amanda’s shoulders as he met her gaze with full intensity. “Amanda. I discovered something about Red Chief. I need a vehicle, though. Did any of your neighbors leave their cars?”

  “Take mine. Albin still has the keys.”

  “Thank you.”

  Worry clouded her face, but she gave a nod. “The project you gave us is done. One is in the trunk already.”

  “Excellent. I knew I could count on you.” He gave her shoulders a squeeze of reassurance before heading toward her car.

  Josephine and Marvin met him at the edge of the crowd. “Are you going to the water plant?” the reporter enquired. “I’m coming.”

  “Help Albin. Please. The authorities are responding, correct?” Please!

  “As well as they can, yes.”

  “Good. You’ll be our liaison. Tell them to barricade our neighborhood along Marlin, then handle Heron Court. Keep a radio on my channel.”

  “I—” She looked conflicted for a moment, then, “All right. Be careful.”

  “Marvin, you’re with me.”

  “Uh, sure.”

  “Mr. Serebus,” Albin started as he came abreast of Nathan, “I should accompany you. It’s inadvisable to go alone.”

  “Albin.” Nathan paused, half in the Genesis. “You’re the only one I trust to manage the crisis here. I’ll radio if I need anything.” And deals objectionable to the attorney might occur during the meeting.

  “Understood, sir.” Albin’s frown deepened, but he lifted his chin in acknowledgment.

  “Keys.”

  After a beat, Albin handed them over, apparently against his better judgment.

  “Thank you.” The door closed on the last word.

  Beside him, Marvin buckled up. He produced the 9mm CZ semi-auto Sarge had deigned to grace him with, and checked the magazine.

  One eye on the weapon, Nathan pulled into the street. Before he could crash the ReMOT-handover soiree, he needed party favors. Thus, he detoured to the Musters’ house.

  Denver opened the door before he reached the steps. “You’re back. Yes!” Punching the air, she turned to bawl into the house, “Nathan’s here!”

  “You don’t have to yell, Den. Move.” Taylor elbowed her sister out of the way.

  “Denver, Taylor, I need your help. May I have your remote-controlled truck, and extra walkie-talkies, if you have them?”

  “Sure.” Denver nodded like a bobblehead. “I don’t play with it much—”

  “You never play with it,” Taylor interrupted.

  “Excellent.”

  ++++++++++++

  With a frown, Albin turned to the assembled. By rights, he should accompany Mr. Serebus while Carolyn and Amanda managed the residents. What assistance could Bridges provide in this situation, where combat experience proved critical? If Mr. Serebus required someone to slip away as a messenger, though, he chose wisely.

  “Listen!” Albin held his hand aloft for attention. “Everyone, choose the most defensible house on your block. Gather there and assist each other in keeping watch. If there are too many people for one house, expand. Find or improvise as many weapons as possible. Make certain there is at least one walkie-talkie per house. Is that clear?”

  Nods and assents followed.

  “Go.”

  After ascertaining that ever
yone obeyed, Amanda moved to his side. “We’re essentially creating a lot of mini neighborhoods.”

  “Outposts, yes.”

  Carolyn’s white SUV pulled alongside them. The window lowered. “Get in,” she ordered. They required no encouragement.

  After parking in Amanda’s driveway, Albin stepped out, hand over the .45’s grip. “Ms. Amanda, see to your neighbors. I am going to collect Jeremy and Zander.”

  “I can—”

  “They have a cannibal as a family member.” This thought hung between them as he held her gaze.

  “Good point. I’ll round up everybody else.” She turned away, then stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Thank you, Albin. We’re lucky to have you and Nathan here.”

  “Mm.” The back of his neck prickled as he started toward Jeremy’s residence.

  He had gone but three steps when Amanda’s radio hissed: “This is the north side, at Shell and Davit. We’ve got guys with guns. They pushed the barrier out of the way with an SUV! There are about ten of them in three vehicles.”

  “This is the southeast end. Way off in the distance down the parkway I see some police cars and . . . and one of those big, black armored vehicles. It’s not a tank.” Reinforcements approached, but the enemy already roamed the streets.

  Albin reached across to her radio. “Deploy the improvised caltrops in their path.”

  “We’re working on it.”

  Pistol in his grip under his shirt, Albin trotted to the Nelsons’ front porch. Hunting the invaders would come after collecting the Musters. He rapped on the door.

  Silence.

  “Mr. Nelson! This is Albin. Open the door.”

  Nothing.

  Hackles still raised, Albin swung to the right, putting his back against the wall closest to the door latch. He banged the side of the pistol slide against the door. A cry, faint, like that of a cat or bird emanated from inside.

  Keeping low, he crept along the wall of the house, ducked under a window, then pushed through the gate into the back garden. As he hugged the structure, he peered into each window he encountered.

  At the back door, he shaded the glass and squinted through the shadow. Nothing here either. Perhaps the cry came from upstairs.

  Inside, a figure a meter in height tore around the corner, charging toward the door. Albin holstered his weapon an instant before the door flew open and Zander tripped out.

  Dropping into a horse stance, Albin caught the boy around the waist, hoisting him off the ground. Zander twisted and gasped, too surprised to cry out.

  “Zander!” His back to the wall, Albin brought the child from under his arm to against his chest in a bear hug. “Calm down. Shhh. I’m Albin. Do you remember?”

  The struggling stopped; the whimpering began.

  “I’m going to help.” Albin pulled away enough for the child to see his face. “You have to be a big boy and help me, though. All right?”

  Tears glimmered in Zander’s eyes, but he nodded.

  “Where’s your dad?”

  “With Mama.”

  Discipline kept Albin from wincing, but it couldn’t prevent him from blanching. “We’re going to play a game. I need you to hide in the bushes. If your mother comes outside, you will play hide-and-seek with her. You know how to play that, yes?”

  Nod.

  “Hide from her and from anyone you don’t know. All right?”

  Another nod answered as the boy held his gaze with the intensity and purity only children and martyrs can muster.

  “If it gets too scary here, go across the street to the big house. The Singhs live there. They will keep you safe.”

  “Okay.”

  With a nod, Albin set the boy down, then retrieved the stuffed lion Zander had dropped. “Here. Go on.”

  After the child wormed into the bushes, Albin drew the pistol and eased into the house. Upstairs, footsteps and a voice sounded, muffled. He should have killed the cannibal when he had the chance. Weapon ready, he padded up the carpeted steps.

  “Back up, Jen. Back!” Ah, Jeremy, attempting to speak sense into the senseless. How heartbreaking to have one’s family member become an abomination. Yet one must recognize reality and respond accordingly.

  Sssssssaaaahhh.

  In the hall that led away from the stairs stood Jeremy Nelson. He raised a chair to keep a figure at bay: Jennifer Nelson.

  Chapter 91

  A Time to Scatter

  Hellfire - Barns Courtney

  “Mr. Nelson!” Albin stage whispered from the top of the stairs. “Zander is safe. Come.”

  The man glanced over his shoulder, a move that almost cost him his face as Jen clawed. A reflexive shove of the chair rescued him. “She got loose—” Another strike lanced past his ear.

  “Back up toward me.” Albin advanced with the .45’s sight hovering over the cannibal’s throat.

  “Don’t kill her!” Defense turned to offense as Nelson put his weight behind the chair to push his wife toward an open door.

  With a snarl, Albin shouldered him out of the way, tearing the chair from his grasp. Bending his knees, with the chair as a shield, Albin threw himself at Jen. The cannibal toppled back into the bedroom, taking the chair with her.

  He yanked the door closed. Heart thudding in his ears, he advanced on Nelson, halting a handbreadth from the wild-eyed man. “I am aware that she was once your wife, but now she wishes to either kill you or turn you into what she is. Keep her secured, or eliminate her threat.” Albin moved toward the stairs. “Come. Enemies have broken through the barriers on Davit. This block is gathering at the Singhs’ residence for safety.”

  “I-I can’t leave her like this. Haven’t you ever loved someone? You can’t just leave them to their fate.” Nelson spread his arms, his expression pleading. “Don’t you see?”

  Albin leveled a glare at him. “Then not only your death but the death of your son will be on your head, because you did not recognize the danger of pursuing a lost cause.”

  “She’s my wife.” The whine followed Albin as he descended the steps. “Her sickness is only temporary!”

  On the wall at the foot of the stair hung a photo of the Nelson family. The trio smiled at Albin as he paused on the ground floor. Jeremy held Zander as he stood beside his wife. Blond and in her late twenties, Jennifer Nelson possessed a beauty equal to any model’s. Her gray eyes sparkled with the vigor of life, the inverse of the bulging, rust-orange orbs that now stared from her blistered visage.

  “A true shame,” Albin murmured.

  When he emerged into the back garden, Zander climbed from the bushes. “Are we done playing? I want my mommy and daddy.”

  Albin paused. If he temporarily placed Zander in the Singhs’ care, the boy would stand a better chance of survival. Jeremy would object, but what could he truly do? Cephalopods possessed more spine than he.

  “Zander!” Jeremy called from inside.

  The boy bolted back into the house.

  ++++++++++++

  A route clear of traffic brought Nathan and Marvin to Silicon Valley Clean Water within five minutes. Time: 13:21. Not a moment to spare. Why the hell the buyer hadn’t requested a night pickup remained a mystery. But with so much confusion in the city, a night delivery might have proved more difficult to moderate.

  Nathan parked in the single row of spaces beside the facility’s main gate. The lung-excoriating, stomach-strangling stench of sewer met him. He hugged himself as he gagged on the fetor. Marvin made a choking sound and pulled his shirt over his nose.

  Ignoring the swivel camera that watched the entrance, Nathan clambered over the gate. A moment of fiddling with the latch, then he and Marvin shoved the barrier aside.

  “I’ll go inside.” Marvin waved toward the main building of the sprawling gray industrial complex.

  “Watch your back”

  “I’ll be fine,” the economist cut him off, attention on the building as if it held a guillotine me
ant for him. “We discussed the plan two minutes ago; I’ll follow it.”

  “If the situation gets too dangerous, leave. Is that clear?”

  “I said I know the plan.” Marvin trotted down the fence line toward his target.

  “It will work.” It had to.

  Nathan drove past the primary complex. Onward, past the two massive covered water treatment tanks and the smaller but equally drab building that loomed behind them. On the other side of an admin singlewide stood an open-faced tent that housed a conveyor-belt loader. The blue machine towered over the Genesis as Nathan pulled the car between tent and trailer.

  After a moment to survey the area, he grabbed his satchel and exited. At the trunk, he pulled out the RC truck. Beside it squatted his project: a fan motor with a board as a mount. A golf-cart battery and voltage converter / reducer box nestled next to it. Wires ran from the box to the motor. Two metal bars in a cross had replaced the fan blades. Once spinning, their ends would whir between nails set in the platform, barely nicking them. The fan’s remote control occupied Nathan’s pocket.

  “MacGyver would be proud, Mikhail.”

  He picked his way around pallet stacks, entering a stand of scrub trees. A garage sat behind the vegetation, abutting the perimeter fence. He set the toy truck down, then duct taped two radios inside, one with the PTT button depressed. Two simplex communications devices made a rudimentary duplex channel. Next came brush and weeds to camouflage it. Taking the controller, he guided the truck to the edge of the asphalt.

  Rrrrrrr! The red Ram with its dualies, smoke stacks, and cow-catcher rocketed around the digester tanks’ building. Gravel hissed as Red slammed to a halt. He parked the vehicle but remained inside with the engine running.

  No doubt the drone hovered overhead, out of view and earshot. Of equal likelihood was the existence of mercenary snipers around the facility.

  Now they need only wait for the buyer. A drop of sweat slid between Nathan’s shoulder blades. The ache in his sides pecked at his ribs as acid churned in his stomach. He swallowed against nausea.