Falling Darkness Series - A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller - Books 1-3

by Kellee L. Greene

“I must have dropped it.”

  Will hopped over Kate and The Unholy to look at her other side.

  “Hurry!” Kate pleaded.

  “I don’t see… wait,” Will said pushing The Unholy off of Kate. He reached under Kate’s leg and pulled out her blade.

  Will stood up. His stance was wide as he weaved side to side ready to lunge at The Unholy.

  “What is it doing?” Kate asked narrowing her eyes at The Unholy version of Jet. “Why isn’t he coming for us?”

  “What?” Will asked taking a step forward.

  “Those things don’t do this,” Kate said as she slowly got to her feet.

  Will shook his head and took another step forward. The Unholy Jet bared its gross blackened teeth. It looked threatened as it held up its hands.

  Will moved left and then right, it was like he didn’t know how to approach the creature without getting bit. Kate grabbed the knife from his hand and lunged forward.

  The Unholy swung his arm defensively at Kate and when it missed it let out a guttural cry. The pitch rose into an ear-piercing screech that was so loud Kate had to resist covering her ears. It ended the second Kate inserted the blade into The Unholy’s skull.

  “What the hell was that?” Will asked in a high-pitched voice. “I’ve been chased down by groups and groups of those things and never had I heard anything like that.”

  “Me either,” Kate said with an exhale. She looked around the room and jerked her chin toward the desk. “Let’s find the key and get out of here.”

  Will stepped up to the desk and pulled open a door. “My ears are ringing.”

  Kate looked down at the lifeless Jet. His eyes were fixed on an imaginary spot on the ceiling.

  “What are you doing?” Will asked, briefly glancing at Kate.

  She crouched down and winced as she placed her hand inside the front pocket of Jet’s pants. His body felt as though it was rotting underneath her touch.

  “Not in there,” Kate said quickly jerking her hand out of his pocket. She closed her eyes as she dug into the other, but it too was empty. “Shit!”

  The drawers of the desk rattled as Will pulled them open. He noisily rifled through the various things inside the desk stopping when he spotted something.

  “Did you find it?” Kate asked hopefully.

  Will shook his head and pulled out a gun. “Can I keep it?”

  “Only until Ethan sees you have it,” Kate said, her brow wrinkled. “Keep looking.”

  Will shoved the gun into the back of his pants.

  “Do you even know how to use that?” Kate asked.

  “I’ll learn. You can show me.” Will grinned.

  Kate walked over to a shelf near the window and felt along the top edge where she couldn’t see. There wasn’t anything underneath her fingers except for bits of dirt and dust.

  When Will slammed his fist against the desk, Kate spun on her heel to face him. He wasn’t angry like she’d expected. Will was smiling as he dangled a set of keys in front of his face.

  “Bingo,” he said wearing a huge celebratory grin.

  “Thank God. Now let’s get out of here,” Kate said stepping up to the front door. Something out of the window caught her eye, and she pulled back the curtain. “God dammit!”

  “What is it?” Will asked.

  Kate closed the curtain and stepped away from the door. “They’re coming.”

  “Who’s coming?” Will asked his words hanging in the air.

  Kate turned to him, her shoulders rising and falling rapidly. “The Unholy.”

  Chapter 6

  Will stepped up to the window and hooked his finger around the curtain. His hand fell away as he took a quick step back.

  “Whoa,” Will said holding both palms up toward the swaying curtain in front of him. “The window!”

  “What?” Kate said as Will grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the bedroom.

  They leaped over the already smelling bodies of The Unholy and dashed to the window. Will stopped abruptly when he looked down and saw the hands reaching up toward them.

  “Shit,” he said sucking in a deep breath before he lurched forward and pulled the window down. “Our odds will be better out the front.”

  Kate nodded and led the way back to the front of the house. She peeked out between the curtains, and a gray hand pounded against the window. They all started to groan and moan louder.

  “I may have just made things worse,” Kate said.

  “They’ll forget about us,” Will said, but he didn’t sound convincing. He twisted his fingers together as his eyes darted around the room. “We just have to wait.”

  Kate frowned. “Remember what they did to your front door?”

  “I can’t stop thinking about it,” Will said wiping his brow. He pulled out the gun from the back of his pants and flipped it over in his hand. “I wish I knew how to use this thing.”

  Kate grabbed the gun out of Will’s hand and checked it over. She shook her head and set the gun down on a nearby table.

  “That won’t be helping any of us,” Kate said. Will narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “It’s empty.”

  “Oh,” Will said.

  “You should look for a knife… there has to be something in here,” Kate said without moving. She was too busy looking back and forth between the windows and the door.

  Will started scouring the messy ground after he checked the other various locations. Jet must have had something other than the gun. After all, he’d been one of Simon’s men, and he was sent here to run the town. He knew that a blade would draw much less attention than a bullet.

  Will threw a handful of paper onto the floor. “It’s not like a knife is going to help me against all of them anyway.” He ran his hands through his hair. “We’re fucked unless they just go away.”

  Kate walked over to Will and took his hands into hers. She looked into his soft, fear-filled eyes.

  “It’ll be okay,” Kate said ignoring the aggressive twisting in her stomach. “They’ll go away.”

  Will’s eyes darted over to Jet’s body. “It was like he called them with that… that noise.”

  A hard ball of sourness formed at the back of Kate’s throat. It was definitely possible that the noise The Unholy version of Jet released when it had felt threatened had called the others to their location.

  “But why don’t the others do the same thing?” Kate asked.

  Will ran his shaking fingers through his messy hair. “I don’t know. Maybe they just haven’t learned how yet? Once they all start doing it… it’s over for all of us. Hell, it’s looking pretty over for you and me right now anyway.”

  Kate started pacing. There were too many Unholy for Kate to fight off even if she would have been with Ethan or any others who were skilled eradicators.

  Their pounding and their groans echoed through the room and penetrated Kate’s head. It was all she could hear. Each noise pulled on her every nerve ending, sending her spiraling downward into a stage of fear she hadn’t felt since the disease first spread.

  Kate hugged herself as she leaned back against the wall letting herself slide down. She couldn’t take her eyes off of a black stain on the floor.

  “Kate,” Will said crouching down in front of her. “Are you even listening to me?”

  “Sorry?” Kate said almost too loudly. To Kate, it felt as though she were sinking… the sounds outside were drowning her.

  Will shook his head and sat down next to Kate. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and squeezed her tightly.

  “They’ll go away,” Will said.

  “And if they don’t? If they break down the door and get inside?” Kate’s voice wavered.

  Will swallowed and tried to force a smile. “They won’t. And if they do, I’ll sacrifice myself so you can get away.”

  Kate turned to Will and stared into his eyes. She slowly shook her head.

  “Why… why would you do that?” Kate asked, her words coming out slowly.

&nbs
p; “For you, I would.” Will looked away. He couldn’t meet her gaze, and she wasn’t sure she wanted him to.

  Kate tried to understand what he was saying but under the circumstances, she couldn’t. Because it didn’t matter what Will would have done, Kate wouldn’t get more than ten feet before The Unholy descended on her.

  Will turned back to Kate and placed his finger on her chin tilting her head towards his. Kate's heart palpitated as she started into his impossibly blue, hypnotic eyes.

  He inched closer. Their lips were inches apart when gunshots rang out. It was like a glass bubble that circled Kate and Will had shattered around them. She hopped onto her feet and dashed to the front window.

  Kate brought her shaking hand to her mouth as the world came back into focus. Ethan was with Lincoln and a group of his men fighting off the crowd of Unholy.

  Will stepped up behind Kate and peered out of the window over her shoulder. “Ethan’s going to be so pissed.”

  “Yeah, he is,” Kate said holding back her hopeful smile.

  “Your knight in shining armor,” Will said bumping his elbow into Kate’s arm lightly. She turned to him to scowl, but the smile on his face made it impossible.

  “There are a lot of knights out there,” Kate said, and Will nodded.

  “I guess he must have been worried when we didn’t go back.”

  Kate nodded. “It probably wasn’t too hard for them to find where we were.”

  “Ethan probably already knew,” Will said softly.

  One by one The Unholy were eradicated. Lincoln’s army was fifteen strong, plus Ethan… Kate and Will would never have been able to make it out alive without them.

  They watched at the window as Lincoln’s army hacked their way through the crowd. Based on the way they worked through them, Kate guessed that it hadn’t been their first time.

  As they finished the last few off, Ethan walked up to the building tried to open the still locked door. Kate dashed to the front door and pulled it open. She blinked several times as she looked up into Ethan’s eyes.

  “Kate,” he said in a rough low voice.

  His glassy eyes showed just how worried he’d been. Ethan was going to give her an earful, but right now she didn’t care. Kate threw her arms around his neck and held on as tightly as she could because if she let go, it felt as though she might start sinking again.

  “I don’t know what the hell you were thinking,” Ethan said next to her ear as he stroked her hair. “It’s okay now. You’re safe.”

  “Maybe safe for now, but not for long,” Lincoln said stepping up behind them. His eyes practically glowed from the anger bubbling up inside of him.

  “What’s that supposed to mean,” Ethan asked, turning sharply to face him.

  Lincoln crossed his arms, purposefully displaying his gun. “You all need to get the hell out of my town.”

  “Lincoln, please,” Kate begged stepping away from Ethan. She clasped her hands tightly in front of her chest. “This was all my fault, not theirs. Please don’t punish them.”

  Lincoln chuckled before turning to glare at Kate. “Oh, trust me, I know it’s your fault, but I can’t stand back and let you risk my people any more than you already have.”

  “They don’t know how to survive out there,” Kate said. If she would have thought it would do any good, she would have dropped to her knees and begged him to reconsider. “It’ll be dark soon. It’s still raining.”

  “I don’t give a flying fuck,” Lincoln said, and Ethan’s spine stiffened. Kate thought he was going to argue… put up a fight, but he didn’t. Ethan exhaled and walked past Lincoln. He didn’t stop to help clean up The Unholy, he just kept walking back to the brick building.

  Kate and Will jogged to catch up with Ethan, but he reached the house before they did. She could hear Lincoln following close behind them, and then Ethan shouting inside of the building.

  Moments later, everyone filtered out of the house. Some looked quite confused and others frightened. Bonnie, on the other hand, looked at Kate and didn’t hide that she was irate.

  “Let’s go,” Ethan said.

  “Wait a minute,” Bonnie said in a squeaky voice as she jutted out her hip. “I don’t have to go with you anywhere!”

  “Yes, you do,” Lincoln shouted from behind Kate. “None of you are welcome here. It’s time to go.”

  Bonnie glared at Kate. “Well, I’m not leaving with her.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. She didn’t miss the smug expression that flashed on Lincoln’s face.

  “With all due respect ma’am, I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here,” Lincoln said, shifting his hand to the side to make sure she saw his gun. At that moment, two of his men both obviously armed stepped up at his sides.

  Kate couldn’t let Lincoln send them out there. She and Ethan would be okay in the middle of the night, but the others wouldn’t. Kate thought they were all lucky to have survived the trek from Simon’s town during the night. She didn’t think they’d get that lucky again.

  Kate elbowed Will. “Give me the key.”

  He narrowed his eyes but dug into his pocket and fished out the key. Kate stared at it for a moment and squeezed it tightly in her hand.

  She walked up to Lincoln and swiped a stray strand of wet hair out of her face. Kate swallowed and tensed her jaw. “Let’s make a deal.”

  Chapter 7

  Kate considered just taking everyone to the storage facility. They could hide out there, but then she’d be responsible for them. Not to mention the fact that it seemed as though no one in her group even wanted to be with her.

  “What’s the deal?” Lincoln said eyeing her suspiciously.

  Kate looked at Ethan and swallowed. “Not far from here is a storage facility.”

  “Kate,” Ethan said, his voice low. “Don’t.”

  She turned to him. “What choice do I have? They don’t want to be with me, and I’m tired, Ethan. I don’t want to be in charge.”

  As if Max could sense she was upset, he came off of the porch and stood next to Kate. She scratched the top of his head and gave the key one last look.

  “If you let them stay, I can offer you enough supplies to make sure your people, and mine, will have enough of everything for months. Hell, probably years.” Kate squeezed the key so tightly the grooves dug into her skin.

  “What exactly are you offering me?” Lincoln asked.

  “I’ll give you the key to the supplies, and you’ll take care of those that want to stay here with you.”

  Lincoln looked to the side and chuckled. “Why would I want to take care of more people?”

  “For the supplies. Anything you could ever need is available… food, water, first aid kits, even medicine,” Kate said.

  “How do I know you aren’t just making this all up?” Lincoln asked.

  Kate showed him the key, and he raised a brow.

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” Lincoln said scrunching up his nose.

  “Both Simon and Rosalie, rather Jet, had a key. This is that key,” Kate said.

  “I don’t know what that key is for,” Lincoln said.

  Ethan tried to hide a groan as he stepped forward. “I’ll show you where it’s located. Then you’ll see.”

  Lincoln scratched the side of his nose as he looked Ethan up and down. He cocked his head to the side, shifting his eyes toward Kate.

  “Here’s the thing, let’s say this storage facility is the real deal. Well, I’m not going to just let anyone stay here… they’d need to pass an evaluation,” Lincoln said with a straight face. “I need to be able to trust them to a certain degree.”

  “An evaluation?” Kate asked.

  “Where do I sign up?” Bonnie shouted from somewhere behind Kate.

  Lincoln nodded. “They’ll be interviewed, and those who pass will be welcome to stay. Those who don’t will need to leave. Is that understood?”

  Kate stuck out her right hand ready to shake on the deal. Lincoln took a step forw
ard, raising his left brow.

  “Of course, this is all contingent on what the deal is with these supplies,” Lincoln said, apprehensively taking Kate’s hand into his.

  “Of course.” Kate pressed her lips together as they shook.

  Lincoln abruptly jerked her closer. He looked down into her eyes as his lips curled up at one end. “Would you like an evaluation?”

  Kate shook her head. “I’m not staying.”

  He dropped her hand as if it were a hot coal. Lincoln raised his hands into the air. “I guess you get to spend the night after all. Let the evaluations begin.”

  “What do they need to do?” Kate asked. “For the evaluations?”

  “Go inside, relax, Mrs. Winston will stop by soon to begin,” Lincoln said before turning to walk away. Before he took a step, he turned and looked at Kate over his shoulder. “If this storage facility is some kind of trap, what happens to you and your people isn’t going to be pretty.”

  “It’s not a trap,” Kate answered quickly. The second Lincoln started walking, she looked at the key in her hand. Kate hoped to God it was the right key.

  Everyone started to go back inside, everyone except for Kate. Will stood there at her side, patiently waiting as Kate stared off into the distance.

  “What are you doing?” Ethan asked.

  “I don’t know,” Kate said blinking repeatedly. It felt like bubbles were rising up into her chest. “I don’t want to do this anymore!”

  Will placed his hand on Kate’s shoulder. Ethan shook his head and lowered his gaze for a second before he lunged forward. He shoved Will so hard he stumbled backward almost losing his balance.

  “This is your fault,” Ethan said pointing his finger at him.

  “Stop it!” Kate said between her teeth. “Will has nothing to do with this decision.”

  Kate blew out a heavy breath and snorted. She pressed her palms against the sides of her head.

  “You just don’t get it. I’m so done with this. All of this. I do not want to be in charge. They don’t want to be with me. This way everyone is happy,” Kate said.

  “We could have used that stuff,” Ethan said shaking his head.