Dark Days (Book 1): Collapse

by Lukens, Mark

  Two of the rippers moved closer to Vanessa. She reached out to touch them. They looked like animals meeting each other for the first time, sniffing each other, each wary of the other.

  Ray thought the rippers were going to attack his daughter, tear her to pieces, and he couldn’t watch that. But a female ripper picked Vanessa up and held her. The rippers were taking Vanessa in as one of their own—because that’s what she was now, one of them.

  Mike cradled his forearm where Vanessa had bitten him. There was some blood on his sleeve, but not too much. He was staring out the back window, crying now.

  Ray turned back around and stared out the windshield. He drove away from the intersection. He didn’t want to see any more.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER 32

  The drive to Craig’s house got a little better the farther they got away from Arlington. They were attacked by a horde of rippers when they slowed down to get around a jackknifed semi-truck. Yells and screeches came from the darkness, then chunks of rocks, stones, and bottles and other debris rained down on their SUV. The projectiles left a few dents in the passenger side of the truck, not too much other damage besides the rear window being shattered. Ray sped away from the group of rippers before they could jump onto the truck or get in front of it.

  Mike was crying by then. He wasn’t sobbing; it was just a low but inconsolable crying. Maybe the rocks had scared him, or the shattered back window. Maybe he was hurt, cut by the shattered glass. He didn’t seem hurt, but he seemed broken, his mind snapping now, like this last attack was the thing that had finally broken him after all of the horrors he had seen.

  Ray asked Mike if he was okay. He asked if he was hurt. Mike wouldn’t answer. After Mike had stopped crying, he just stared out the window at the inky black night, sniffling over and over again. Ray couldn’t stop the truck to check him out. He almost asked Emma to do it, but then he had to bite back the words—she couldn’t see what was wrong with him.

  As if Emma had read his mind (and who knew, maybe she had read his mind), she turned around and spoke softly to Mike: “Are you okay?”

  He didn’t answer her.

  She reached back to him, offering him her hand. He took her hand in his and held it.

  “Did you get cut?” Ray asked Mike, glancing at the rearview mirror for a second too long before looking back at the road again.

  Mike still wouldn’t answer.

  Ray looked at Emma. But she didn’t say anything.

  Ray concentrated on the road again. He was driving fast now, his headlights on. As long as he drove fast enough, the rippers seemed to know enough to stay out of the way; it was like they had an instinctual fear of the speeding vehicle, like the instinctual fear of gunshots and fire that they had. The headlights helped Ray see a little better in the darkness, but they only lit up so much of the road in front of him. Now that they were far away from Washington, he couldn’t even see the glow of the fires behind them on the horizon and the streetlights here weren’t on—there was nothing but darkness. At least there was a nearly-full moon out without too much cloud cover, and that helped just a little.

  Ray’s stomach had clenched into knots when he heard Mike crying like that. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Mike cry. A year ago Mike had broken his arm playing on his friend’s skateboard down the street. He’d come home supporting his broken left wrist with his right hand, his left hand flopping up and down uselessly, his broken forearm a sagging U where the bones should have been—a clean break of both bones. Maybe Mike had been in shock at the time, but he hadn’t cried.

  But now he was crying.

  Mike had seen too much, that was it. He’d gone through too much now. This wasn’t a broken bone or a forgotten book report for school—he’d lost his mother and his sister in the last few hours, and now they were driving away from their home in the darkness as the world turned to a nightmarish hellhole all around them with packs of human monsters roaming around, waiting to attack them and rip them apart. Mike had seen too much, experienced too much, and now he was breaking down.

  The roads were clearer now as they drove along a back road. There were a few cars and trucks on the sides of the roads, some of them half in the street and half on the shoulder. Some of the vehicles were crashed head-on into tree trunks, others rested on mowed-down lines of mailboxes and signs. One car had smashed through a fence and flipped over in a field. All of the cars and trucks had their lights out—all of them looked abandoned. Some of them had their doors wide open.

  He hadn’t seen many rippers near the road in this rural area. The houses and businesses had given way to farms out here and large homesteads, but there were vast areas of rolling fields and thick woods. No lights of any kind burned in the houses that they passed, no lanterns or candles. If anyone was hiding in those homes and buildings, they would be sitting ducks if they had lights burning or a generator running. Maybe there were a few survivors hidden in the cold darkness of those buildings, trying to be quiet, trying to survive the night. Ray liked to think so, anyway.

  Mike had finally stopped crying. He wiped at his eyes and nose, sniffling some more. He’d finally let Emma’s hand go and she had turned back around in the passenger seat, facing forward.

  Ray risked a glance back at Mike as he turned left onto Bushrod Road. Mike stared out his window in a daze. He had covered himself up to his chin with one of the blankets Kim had brought with them from the house.

  God, that seemed like such a long time ago. A different world.

  “Mike?” Ray said.

  Mike didn’t answer him. He didn’t even look his way.

  The only sounds were the SUV’s engine, the tires humming along the road, and the wind rushing in through the shattered back window, bringing the chilly air with it. Ray had the truck’s heater blasting, but it wasn’t competing very well against the cold air.

  At least they still had half a tank of gas. And the other gauges looked good so far: temperature, oil pressure, battery. Ray had turned on the radio earlier and scanned through the stations, but there was nothing now. Even the recorded announcement by the president was off the air now. Nothing but static. He gave up after a few minutes and turned the radio off.

  “We’re going to Craig’s house, Mike,” Ray said as he glanced at the rearview mirror again. “You remember Craig, don’t you? My supervisor at work. We went to his house a few times when he had cookouts. There were a lot of people there. You played with a lot of kids (he almost said: you and your sister). He had a swimming pool. Remember?”

  No answer from Mike.

  “One time, for someone’s birthday I think, Craig rented one of those inflatable rooms and you kids jumped around inside of it for hours.”

  Still no answer from Mike. Maybe the nostalgia wasn’t working.

  “We’ll be safe there, Mike.” A lie because Ray wasn’t sure if they were going to really be safe there. But what the hell was he supposed to say?

  “We need to keep fighting,” Ray continued. “We can’t give up. We can’t ever give up.”

  The SUV was still quiet except for the rushing of the wind in through the back.

  Ray turned left onto Prospect Road, and slowed down a little. The road to Craig’s house would be off of this road, maybe about two or three miles farther. They were close now and Ray decided to shut the headlights off for the rest of the trip so he wouldn’t alert rippers and bring them to Craig’s house.

  As soon as he turned the lights out everything turned pitch-black. He slowed down almost to a stop. Even the moonlight wasn’t getting down here on this tree-lined road very well. Ray drove a little faster, twenty miles an hour now, he guessed. He was tense as he drove, waiting for a ripper to rush out in front of him. He would hit the ripper if he or she ran out in front of him, he swore to God he would; he wouldn’t even slow down.

  He searched the darkness for the small road to Craig’s house, slowing down even more because he had to be close now.

  God, just
let us make it there. Let us make it inside. Let us be safe tonight.

  Ray saw the road at the last second and had to back up a few feet so he could turn. He made his way down the narrow road through the woods. This road looped back around eventually, but there were twelve or fifteen properties, most of them on several acres of land. Craig’s house was the second one on the left.

  He pulled into the driveway, which ran up the hill towards the block wall that surrounded Craig’s property, and then Ray remembered that there was a metal gate that blocked the driveway. His heart froze for a moment when he thought the gate might be closed. He turned his headlights on for just a moment and the light washed across the driveway—the gate was wide open. He shut the lights off again.

  Maybe Craig had opened the gate when he’d left with his family, not bothering to close it again. The electricity was out and he probably hadn’t wanted to risk getting out of his vehicle to push the gate closed. Besides, what did it matter if the gate was closed? Craig and his family were leaving their home behind. If rippers were going to get onto the property, a closed gate wasn’t going to stop them when they could just climb right over the five-foot-tall block wall that surrounded the property.

  Ray was glad the gate was stuck open. For a few seconds he had a picture of himself stopping his SUV at the gate, getting out and trying to figure out how to open it, shining a flashlight around in the darkness, rippers sneaking towards him. He could see himself overrun by rippers in mere seconds, torn apart while Mike watched from the truck.

  But he didn’t have to worry about that now as he drove through the open gate and up the long driveway that ascended towards Craig’s house that was built on top of the slight hill. Tall pines and massive oaks surrounded the house, the tops of the trees silhouetted against the night sky. The moon’s light was a little stronger now that they were out of the woods and on the driveway.

  The next challenge was to get inside of Craig’s house. The front door was in the middle of the massive home. On the left side of the home, where the driveway split off into a parking area, there was a three-car garage connected to the home, and a free-standing two-car garage on the other side of the parking area. If Ray remembered correctly, there was a door to the laundry room next to the three-car garage that Craig and his family used as their main entrance rather than the front door, which was more for guests.

  There were no vehicles parked in the parking area between the two garages, so Ray pulled up to where the driveway ended, parking fifteen feet away from the door that led into the laundry room, the front tires of the Chevy Tahoe parked on a wide brick path that led back to the pool area. He shut the SUV off and sat there for a moment, listening. He had his fingers on the ignition key, ready to restart the truck if he saw any rippers running at them from the darkness.

  The world was silent. No screeches in the distance, no sounds of a stampede coming towards them.

  Ray grabbed his small flashlight from the center console. He wished he had one of those big Maglite flashlights that he could also use as a weapon, but what good would that do if twelve or fifteen of those rippers came at him at once?

  He waited another minute in case Craig was still in his house with his family. He was pretty sure Craig was gone—that’s what he said he was doing when he’d called Ray a few days ago, but there was still a remote possibility that Craig and his family hadn’t left. He could imagine Craig waiting in the darkness with a handgun or a shotgun, ready to shoot anyone who approached his house. But no lights came on inside the house, no one called out for them to identify themselves; there was no noise of any kind.

  Ray looked at Emma. “I’m going to bust a pane of glass out in that door,” he told her in a low voice. He thought of telling her to lock the doors after he got out, but why bother? “I’ll reach in and unlock the door, then I’ll come back for you two. Okay?”

  Emma nodded. “Okay.”

  “You two need to be ready to run when I come back,” Ray told her. He looked into the backseat at Mike. “Okay, Mike?”

  At least Mike was looking at him now and not staring blankly out his window. “Dad . . .”

  “You’ll be okay, Mike. Hand me that golf club back there. It should be on the floorboards.”

  Mike unbuckled his seatbelt and rooted around on the floor for the golf club. He handed it to his father.

  Ray got out with the golf club and the flashlight. He shut the door softly and hurried towards the side of the home that was hidden in deep shadows. He was only parked fifteen or twenty feet away, but even crossing that distance sent shivers up and down his spine, his skin prickly with fear.

  At the door to the laundry room, he used the handle of the golf club to poke out one of the small panes of glass. The shattering of the glass wasn’t as loud as he thought it was going to be, but it was still loud. He used the end of the flashlight to knock out the jagged bits of glass left in the frame. He stuck his arm through and reached down, trying to feel for the doorknob. He twisted the lock on the doorknob, then moved his hand up, searching for the deadbolt. He hoped this wasn’t the kind of deadbolt that didn’t have a knob and needed a key. But then his fingers found the knob and he twisted it; the deadbolt unlocked with a loud click.

  Just then Ray heard a crunching sound on the grass and leaves in the darkness—footsteps.

  Something was coming this way.

  CHAPTER 33

  “Did you hear that?” Mike asked Emma.

  Emma had heard the sound outside their truck—it seemed like it was coming from beyond the front of the SUV, maybe thirty or forty feet away and off to the left a little. Something was moving around out there, feet crunching down on dry leaves. Not running, not rushing towards them . . . not yet, anyway.

  “Get your bag,” Emma told Mike. “And could you hand me mine?”

  “But Dad said—”

  “We can’t wait, Mike. I just heard him break the glass in the door. He probably has the door open now.”

  “You think something’s coming?” Mike asked with a tremble in his voice.

  “Maybe. I hear something out there. Can you see anything that way?” She pointed in the direction the sound was coming from.

  “No. Everything’s dark.”

  “Listen, Mike. We need to get out. I need you to help me get to the house.” It wasn’t a total lie. She was sure she could manage to get to the door, judging from where the sound of the breaking glass had come from. With her walking stick she could navigate around any obstacles between the SUV and the door to the house, maybe even better than Mike could since he was practically as blind as she was right now. But she knew Mike was terrified, maybe bordering on panic that could paralyze his actions. She needed to get him calmed down. Maybe pretending like she couldn’t make it to the door without his help, giving him a responsibility to concentrate on, a purpose higher than his own survival, just might help.

  “Mike?” she said again.

  She heard the sound of rustling movement from the back seat.

  “Here’s your bag,” he said and handed her the bag.

  “Thank you, Mike. Now scoot over to this side of the truck. I’m getting out now. We need to hurry to the door.”

  She heard Mike moving across the back seat of the SUV, then she heard the back door opening. She opened her door at the same time and flipped her walking stick down, the collapsible cane opening up with a loud popping sound. She had the cane in one hand, her bag’s strap looped over her shoulder.

  The crunching sound on the dry leaves was closer now, but whoever was out there wasn’t rushing towards them yet, still being cautious.

  Emma felt Mike’s hand on her shoulder.

  “I can’t see anything,” he whispered.

  “Follow me,” she told him, already walking forward and waving her cane back and forth. She knew it wasn’t too far to the door, maybe ten or twelve steps.

  “What are you two doing?” Ray hissed at her. He was suddenly right in front of them.

  “Did y
ou get the door open, Dad?”

  “Yeah,” Ray whispered. “I told you two to stay in the truck.”

  “There’s something out there in the woods,” Mike told his father in a rush of words. “We heard it moving around.”

  Emma had already relaxed. Now that she’d heard the sound again, she was sure what it was. “It’s not a ripper,” she told them. “I think it’s a deer.”

  She heard Ray breathe out a sigh of relief. “Mike, help Emma inside. I’m going to get a few more things from the truck.”

  Emma felt Mike’s gentle hand on her shoulder again.

  “Thank you, Mike. Can you see?”

  “Not too well.”

  “Let me go first,” she told him. “I can feel my way up the steps with my cane. Keep right behind me.”

  She felt him close behind her, his hand still on her shoulder.

  “There’s a set of concrete steps,” she told him as she hurried up them. A moment later they were inside a room. Mike let her go and she moved around the perimeter of the room, tapping at the base of the walls and then cabinets, then a refrigerator, more cabinets, a washer and then a dryer.

  “Okay,” Ray whispered as he rushed inside, setting bags down on the floor. He closed the door and locked it. Then he twisted a sturdier lock that sounded like the clunking of a deadbolt.

  “Here,” Ray told Mike. “Hold it like this, with your hand over the end of it so you only let a little bit of light out.”

  Ray must have given Mike a flashlight. She heard Mike relax a little now that he had a source of light.

  “Shine it over here,” Ray whispered. “I’m going to move this washer and dryer in front of the door to block it.”

  Emma heard the scraping sound on the tile floor as Ray moved the appliances in front of the door.

  “We’re in a laundry room,” Mike whispered to Emma.