The Dark

by Jason Brant

  “Jesus Christ, Scott. What are you talking about? Are you telling us that the darkness hasn’t spread everywhere? How do you know?” Walter was ready to kill Tern again.

  “Maybe if you guys didn’t interrupt me every three seconds I could have finished my story. But no, you have to keep asking me a million questions. It’s really annoying, let me tell you.”

  “Scott.”

  “Fine, sorry! My iPad was almost dead by the time I got out of the facility, which was really hard to do without any power, let me tell you. I haven’t taken the stairs in a building in years, so I’m really out of shape. Speaking of which, when I get out of this I’m going to get a gym membership—”

  “Scott!”

  “Geez. You guys are mean. Anyway, I found a tractor trailer that had run off the road. Its lights were still on and the engine was running, so that was great for me. I climbed into the cab and used the CB radio to get a hold of the Bel Air police. They patched me through to some a-hole in D.C. I told them everything that I knew, which really isn’t that much, and they said they were on their way. They told me to stay put, but I didn’t want to be anywhere near the atom smasher, let me tell you.”

  He held his glow sticks up. “I found these in the truck too. The driver must have been into raves or something. A raving truck driver.” Scott chuckled at his horrible joke.

  Christy looked as if she might cry, laugh, and puke all at once. The world hadn’t ended. There were people out there. Living, breathing people that didn’t want to tear them apart in the dark or torture them emotionally. They had a chance of making it out of this alive.

  “How long ago was this, Scott?”

  “A few hours, I suppose. I’m not really sure. I forgot to look at the clock. When my girlfriend showed up I realized that I probably shouldn’t drive because I was afraid she would reappear and scare me. I’m kind of a nervous driver anyway so I thou—”

  Walter turned to Christy, a grin cracking his grizzled face. “We’re going to make it.”

  New life sparkled in her eyes. Seeing her hopes up warmed his heart. She had so much to live for, and he couldn’t express how ecstatic he felt to help get her through this. For a moment he forgot about the losses that had sucked away his will to live.

  Stephanie grabbed Aaron’s face in both hands and planted a big kiss on his mouth, holding their lips together for a full five seconds. Aaron’s cheeks filled with so much blood that his skin was almost purple.

  “Whoa,” he muttered, blinking his eyes. “That was... whoa. Can we do that again?”

  Walter turned back to Christy, intent on giving her a hug, when he saw her expression change from elation to horror.

  He was about to follow her gaze when he saw movement over her shoulder. Craning his neck, he got a few more inches of height and looked past her. Someone stood at the trees, their outline barely visible.

  “Someone’s out there,” Christy said, pointing.

  “There’s another behind you.” Walter slowly turned his head, his eyes scanning the edge of the lawn.

  Dozens of outlines stepped forward, surrounding the area. The light from the fire died at the edge of the woods, allowing them to wait between the trees. Before there had only been four of them, all close family members.

  Now there were dozens.

  Maybe hundreds.

  Stephanie gasped. A trembling hand rose to her mouth.

  “Oh my god,” Aaron said. “There are so many. What can we do with so many?”

  “I’m really starting to wish I hadn’t come here, let me tell you.”

  Walter’s hope dwindled. They had the fire and the lantern, but those seemed miniscule in the face of an army. In the face of Legion.

  Someone cleared their throat.

  “Well, well, well. Look what the devil dragged in.”

  Walter recognized the voice from the police station.

  Chapter 18

  Two black-suited men dragged McKenzie from the backseat.

  They walked him over to where Crew Cut stood, barking orders at Bald Frank.

  The argument died down as McKenzie and his escort stopped in front of them. Crew Cut examined him from head to toe, his face not betraying his thoughts.

  “So you’re Colonel McKenzie, the man who asks too many questions.”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “And why are you here? You’ve been relieved. Why is it that I saw your mug on the news not long ago?”

  “One of my soldiers told me about the situation. I came to see if I could help.” McKenzie didn’t see a point in lying to the man. They would do whatever it is they wanted, regardless of what he told them.

  Baldie sneered at him. “He’s a fool that doesn’t know his place.”

  “When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.” Crew Cut did not even look at Frank as he admonished him, keeping his gaze locked on the colonel. “You realize that your knowledge of this situation is a big problem for us.”

  Here it comes, McKenzie thought. They’re going to erase me.

  Helicopters circled overhead. At least a dozen by the sound of it, though they were difficult to spot against the night sky. Dozens of civilian vehicles clogged the road behind a police barricade.

  More police officers from other neighboring cities stood in pockets together, watching in awe at the anomaly before them. Dozens of news stations had arrived, setting up cameras and satellite dishes.

  In another hour there would be thousands of people around.

  McKenzie wondered what kind of statement the president would make. How the hell do you explain this? Everything was going to change.

  “I don’t think there is much that I could tell anyone that isn’t going to get out. Unless you plan on killing all of those people too. Hell, half of them are recording video right now. YouTube is going crash when those are uploaded.”

  “Obviously we aren’t going to cover the incident up. It’s more a matter of placing blame in the correct places.”

  It always was with these kinds of screw-ups. A program that made no sense from top to bottom somehow got pinned on one or two people. It’s much easier to burn two people than it is to really look at how screwed up the system is.

  “To be honest, I just want to get any survivors out,” McKenzie said, being truthful. “And the idea of dropping a bomb on the city is fucking stupid.”

  A hint of a grin touched Crew Cut’s lips. He erased it as fast as it appeared.

  “So what would you recommend, Colonel?”

  “The sun is going to come up shortly. If light is what works against this thing, then I think the sun would probably work a little better than the ol’ scorched earth routine.”

  The fact that McKenzie even had to suggest such a theory disturbed him greatly. These men would rather drop bombs than use common sense. Blame, it seemed, was easier to spread around when things were burned to a crisp.

  “Perhaps our goal is to cover things up.” Crew Cut continued observing McKenzie, studying him for some unknown quality.

  “Perhaps that is a stupid fucking plan. This is already all over the news. You guys are so far up each other’s asses that I can’t tell where he ends and you begin. If you want to get any kind of goodwill story out of this then you’re going to need some survivors.”

  The colonel had no idea if what he said sunk in or not.

  “Is that a fact?”

  Two more men muscled Miles to where the colonel stood. He had a large lump under a darkening eye. Someone had given him one hell of a punch.

  “Sir,” he said to McKenzie, ignoring the other people.

  Crew Cut stepped into McKenzie’s personal space. A faint whiff of tobacco on his breath reminded the colonel of the pipes his grandfather used to smoke.

  “You think you’re hot shit, don’t you? Do you really believe that you can talk me into releasing you? Into letting you blab all kinds of bullshit to the press? Frank might be a stooge, but he’s my stooge. You’re just a loose end.”

  B
aldie didn’t seem to like the new title given to him.

  Crew Cut took a step back and nodded at the men on either side of McKenzie. They grabbed his arms at the biceps.

  “I do like the idea of seeing what happens at dawn though, I’ll give you that. Frank, take them with you in there.” He pointed at the wall of black. “Throw them out of the vehicle after you get a mile or so inside. If the dark makes people disappear, then let’s not get in its way.”

  McKenzie spat in his face.

  Crew Cut’s face remained stoic as he wiped the spittle from his cheeks and nose.

  “I’m going to destroy your name for that. Your family is going to renounce you before I’m through.”

  “Fuck you.” McKenzie couldn’t believe what was happening. Who this man was, or what title he held, might have been unknown, but he couldn’t just order an execution. No trial? No charges? Straight to death?

  “No, I really don’t think so.” Crew cut turned to Frank, who had a large smirk across his face. “Go now. Get whatever you can find from the lab and get back here ASAP. If you aren’t here by sunup, don’t bother coming back. And remember, don’t throw them out of the car until you’re at least a mile out. We don’t need that getting caught on one of those damned news cameras.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They spun Miles and McKenzie around, half dragging them across the road, bullying them back to the SUV’s. Trying to jerk his arms free failed, so McKenzie started running through other strategies as they shoved him into the backseat of the first vehicle.

  Tan leather felt cool against his legs as he slid into the middle of the seat, flanked by two would-be bodybuilders. The three of them barely fit in the backseat, sitting shoulder to shoulder.

  Where did they find these guys? McKenzie had never seen a detail with such muscle-bound men. The kind of size they had severely limited movement and endurance and wasn’t common among soldiers or marines.

  Miles was escorted to a second SUV parked behind the one McKenzie was in. He shouted something that the colonel couldn’t make out before being thrown inside.

  Fear squeezed at the pit of McKenzie’s stomach. His wife didn’t even know where he was. What would she do when she woke up to the news of his death? Would she believe the lies they were going to inevitably spread about him?

  Surviving several tours in the Middle East felt wasted. What had he defended? The very people that had ordered him to lead his men into harm’s way were now about to execute him. They wanted to throw him to some unnamed force – a darkness that swallowed people whole.

  What had he fought for?

  Bald Frank climbed into the passenger seat. Another gorilla squeezed in behind the wheel.

  “Ready for a ride, Colonel?” Frank gave him a small, mocking salute.

  McKenzie didn’t take the bait. He sat and scanned everything around them, trying to devise a plan of escape.

  It didn’t look good.

  Frank turned the dome light on. He opened the glove box, switching on the tiny light inside.

  “Put on the four ways, the high beams, and any other light you can,” he said to the driver. “I can’t believe we’re going into this shit.”

  McKenzie tried to move his shoulders, wanting to gauge how much space he would be able to use. That got him an elbow to the ribs.

  “Don’t move,” monster man number one said.

  At least they hadn’t put his hands behind his back again.

  The engine rumbled to life.

  “Are we ready to go, sir?” the driver asked.

  Frank peered in his side mirror. “It looks like they’re loaded up back there. Let’s roll.”

  “How fast do you want me to go?”

  “As fast as you can without getting us in an accident. We need to be back before the sun rises or we’re all screwed.”

  The driver put the transmission in gear and eased the vehicle around a gaggle of police cars that were staggered across the road.

  McKenzie held his breath as they approached the edge of the darkness. If the scientist on the inside had been wrong then this would be his final moment.

  They passed into shadow.

  Nothing happened.

  Frank let out a loud sigh, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. He turned in his seat, smiling back at McKenzie.

  “I bet you wish that you’d kept your damn mouth shut now, don’t you? You and your dumb ass flunky back there have screwed yourselves beyond belief. Sometimes it’s better to just stay in bed, eh colonel?”

  “I might be fucked, but I find it hilarious that you don’t realize that you are too.”

  The vehicle accelerated, passing abandoned cars that ran up embankments and crashed into guardrails. But mostly the road was empty, eerily quiet and still. Complete darkness was something people rarely encountered and most found disturbing.

  “What do you mean?” Frank asked.

  “You think that your boss back there isn’t going to throw you under the bus? If you were in charge of this thing and it went south, taking a military post and city with it, then you are the obvious out for the government. They’re going to string you up by your toes, dipshit. You ran the project, it failed, you’re screwed. End of story.”

  Frank’s smile slid from his face. “You have no idea what you’re—”

  “Uh, sir?” the driver interrupted.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s something out there. I keep seeing things move beside the road.”

  All five of them looked out the windows. Having the dome light on made it difficult to see as the light reflected off the glass. McKenzie could only see through the windshield. The ape to his left cupped his hands around his eyes and leaned against the window.

  “Holy shit! There are hundreds of people just staring—”

  McKenzie used the small space created by the leaning giant to bend forward. He brought his head back as hard as he could against the face of the man to his right.

  A wet crunch signaled the breaking of the man’s nose.

  McKenzie shot his arms forward, raising the chain of his handcuffs over the driver’s head. He yanked his hands backward as the chain passed in front of the driver’s face, tightening it around his neck.

  The man reacted on instinct, releasing the wheel as he clawed at his neck.

  Gurgles escaped his gaping mouth.

  McKenzie pulled with all of his might, using his knees against the seat for more leverage.

  Hands clawed at him from behind, trying to wrench him free.

  The wheel spun, sending the SUV careening onto the shoulder, sliding on gravel.

  Frank grabbed the steering wheel, jerking it around too fast. The vehicle rocketed back across the road, tires squealing.

  Pain ripped into McKenzie’s temple from a meaty fist. Flash bulbs exploded in front of his eyes.

  They sideswiped a station wagon in the right lane. Sparks flew by the right windows.

  Frank spun the wheel the other way, his hand inadvertently honking the horn.

  McKenzie heard a handful of pops that sounded like distant gunfire.

  And then the world flipped.

  Chapter 19

  Molly went nuclear again. She had been on the ground beside Christy, her head across her master’s lap, dozing. The dog jumped up, arthritis forgotten, and darted around Christy.

  Christy snaked her arm out, looping it around Molly’s neck before she could get away. She’d almost lost her dog once tonight – she didn’t plan on that happening again.

  Aaron and Stephanie spun around, getting to their knees.

  “Stay where you are, little bastards.”

  The crazy woman from the police station had found them.

  Christy whispered in Molly’s ear, trying to calm her down. She didn’t listen.

  “I’m glad the mutt is still with you. Killing that little bitch is going to be so much fun.”

  The woman was less than twenty feet away. In the intensity of their conversation, no
one had heard her sneaking up on them.

  She held a pistol in her right hand, it looked like police issue, and a large flashlight in her left. The flesh on her forearm was mangled from Molly’s attack. Her hair was soaked through with blood, matted to her face in streaks and chunks. Maroon ran down her clothing. Back at the police station the woman had looked disheveled and insane – now she came right out of a nightmare.

  Christy watched as the outlines of more of them appeared behind the crazy woman. They encircled the entire yard. Just a moment ago, Christy thought they would make it through the night. Now she wondered if they could survive the next couple of minutes. Even if they managed to escape the psychopath, how could they get past them?

  “I guess the damned aren’t so intelligent. Only a dumbass would leave me handcuffed in a police station. There were keys all over the place.”

  Scott stood up, taking tentative steps backward, glancing back and forth between the woman and Walter.

  “Hey now, I’m pretty smart. I, for instance, would never have left you handcuffed anywhere. I don’t know who these people are or what they’ve done to you. I think I’ll just be on my way. Getting involved in the affairs of others is a practice that—”

  The woman pointed her pistol at Scott. “Shut up, fool. I won’t take any lip from someone who would sit and talk to these monsters.”

  “But I—”

  She put a bullet into the ground in front of his feet.

  He shut up.

  “Come over here and stand with the rest of ‘em.”

  Tern hesitated for a moment. Christy thought he might run for it. Judging from his ample midsection, he probably wouldn’t have made it very far. After a second of thought, he moved beside Walter, holding his hands up.

  How could the woman not see that they were surrounded? She seemed oblivious to the things standing in the trees.

  Christy didn’t know what to do. Dealing with the darkness was hard. Hearing her mother implore her to step into the shadows stretched her mind’s limits. But watching as the entire city descended upon them while they were held at gunpoint crushed her new resolve.

  “You tried to feed me to the evil.” The woman swung the barrel toward Aaron, sneering at him over it. “Thought you were so clever.”