Out of the Dark: An apocalyptic thriller (44 page)

     Darcy gave Shane an exasperated smile. Even though he was teasing her, she didn’t mind. “He looks fine. Lead on, fearless leader.”

     “Fearless, my ass,” Shane replied before he came around and shut Darcy’s door for her.

     He got back in his truck and they drove into the darker clouds of an even nastier storm front approaching. He knew that by the time they got to the marina, there wouldn’t be a chance of the sun peeking through those rolling black monsters to deliver them from certain death in the event of a corrupted attack. They would have to get to the marina unnoticed if they hoped to transport themselves and the majority of their supplies to the island.

     He lifted the walkie talkie he’d gotten from Stephanie, depressed the button to speak, and said, “Can everyone still hear me?”

     They’d checked the frequencies before they’d departed but he wanted to make sure that even while they drove, they’d be able to contact each other.

     Darcy and Stephanie’s voices came through at once, jumbling their responses to his question.

     He chuckled. “I take it that’s a yes. How about it one of us addresses everyone, we say who we want to speak next, if we’re in a situation that allows for it. Sound good? Stephanie, answer first.”

     “Sounds good to me.” Her voice was bright even over the slight crackle carried by the walkie talkies. “Darcy, you think that will work.”

     “Sure,” Darcy answered. “Just like volleyball. Call it out.” She quit depressing her button midway through a genuine laugh.

     Shane echoed Darcy’s laughter and shook his head before depressing the button to communicate again. “We have to get in there unobserved. Anyone have an idea of how we can do that? Stephanie, suggestions?”

     “Distraction tactic!” Stephanie proposed enthusiastically. “Shane, what do you think? Is there anything we can set off to draw the crazy bastards away?”

     Shane thought about it for a moment before he spoke into the walkie talkie again. “If it was summer, we could do any number of things. They always have those little fireworks tents set up in grocery store parking lots and gas stations. Is there anything we could blow up that would draw them in? Darcy, what are you thinking?”

     “They seem to like fire,” Darcy offered. “What if we set a really big bonfire somehow?”

     “We’d probably have to use gasoline,” Shane said before continuing, “Oh, oops. Sorry I didn’t wait my turn. Stephanie, what do you think?”

     “I think we’re pretty limited in what we can use to set fires,” she admitted. “I mean, it isn’t as easy as you’d think to get a big blaze going. Anything to add to that, Shane?”

     “I’ll bow down to your fire starting skills but that still leaves us without any idea what to use as a distraction. Steph, take it or pass it.”

     Stephanie’s voice crackled out. Her frustration was obvious in her tone. “Pass.”

     “Why don’t we crash a car into a gas station or something?” Darcy asked. “I mean, not have someone in the car to crash it, but put a brick on a gas pedal or something and send some big bastard of a truck at the pumps? Stephanie?”

     Stephanie hesitated for a long moment. The sight of their exit rushed her along, insisting she answer before the three vehicles turned off into the road which would lead them to the small town housing the marina Shane had suggested.

     “I love the creativity but I just…I don’t think it would work. How are we going to do this, guys?”

     As they drove down the main street of the town, Darcy saw a large red, white, and silver building. The monstrous rigs that typically sat outside the tall garage doors were nowhere to be seen but at least one of the doors was open.

     “Fire station!” Darcy called out. She realized she didn’t have the button on the walkie depressed, so she hit it and said, “The fire station, guys!”

     The police and fire station sat next to each other on the right side of the road. Darcy thought they might both have sirens that could be turned on. If so, the corrupted would be drawn to the sounds.

     It was just as likely to draw survivors, though. Darcy thought about it as she slowed the van. Was she willing to be responsible for any deaths the plan would cause? If people went to the stations to seek salvation and instead found themselves walking into a group of corrupted, could Darcy live with herself?

    
You don’t even know if anyone would come, if there’s even anyone left
, her coldly logical internal voice murmured.
But if there were people still alive, Darcy knew, the risk was present.
You wouldn’t see…
the devious voice inside whispered.
But I’d know
, Darcy sent back in her last volley in the internal argument she waged.

     She pulled the van into the parking lot of the station. The risk was worth the reward. Otherwise, they probably weren’t getting anywhere near the marina.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

     Ken Larson had run away from things as often as he’d pursued them in his life. He’d run from sports and friends and women, from emotional connections he thought were too clingy, too intense, too personal for him to handle. He’d established himself as a responsible man, a cool associate, a level-headed professional.

     He didn’t feel like any of those things now.

     Crashing through the brush and fallen leaves on the forest floor, Ken ran like he’d never run before. He’d seen everything happening at the church in almost slow motion. Gwen, then Ivy, then Brooke. They’d changed. He’d felt the call, too but, as with many things in his life, he’d run from it.

     He didn’t want to be one of those things existing without an identity, killing without a conscience, dying without a soul. The only thing he could think to do to get away from that eventuality had been to run.

     Ken felt bad about leaving the others. They might have needed his expertise to deal with the wounds, grievous as they might have been, from the unexpected turning of the members of their group within their supposed sanctuary. Ken regretted that. He also regretted that he couldn’t move faster.

     A small, stout tree appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Ken smacked his shin into it. Running at full speed, the impact against the rough bark was almost enough to draw blood, definitely enough to bruise. He bent over and grabbed himself around the calf, closing his eyes against the pain and panting heavily. 

     He pulled himself to his feet and wondered if he’d gotten far enough away. He might be a safe distance from the church now but he wondered if other people from the town were out and about in the woods, cavorting in the moonlight like the worshippers of darkness and evil desires they’d become.

     Standing as still as he could, Ken executed several deep breathing exercises to make himself stop taking such quick, shallow breaths. He needed to be calm if he was to figure out what he could do now with any reliable logic. He hoped the lessened noise and panic-fueled adrenaline rush abating would leave him more open to the surrounding area.

     The first thing he realized was that the forest was dark as it was deep. Sound expelled from his mouth or footsteps drifted into the darkness and vanished as though something snapped them up in a quick, hungry mouth. The snow had a dampening effect. Noises were muffled and hard to identify. A deer bounding through the trees might send the same amount of noise as a rushing corrupted pounding across the frozen ground toward him.

     Though the winter weather and thickness of the trees played their part, the forest was silent for other reasons. No bird calls or animal chirps interrupted the almost otherworldly hush. No owls hooted amongst themselves; their big eyes following this man exiled into the primordial part of his world. He was a confident, intelligent mover where he’d existed previously. Here, he was more frozen than the solid ground. He didn’t know what to do or where to go.

     He heard the noise of footsteps only moments before he saw another lifeform. Because he knew he couldn’t trust anyone this night, Ken tried to hide in a thick copse of trees to the left of him. It wasn’t as though there was a trail to veer off of. Anything in the woods would be as lost as he was, wandering around until something or someone awakened their curiosity. Or their hunger. Ken didn’t want to confront one of those things, especially if its only intention was to eat him.

     From between the crisp, prickly needles of a short pine tree, Ken saw a boy slow his pace to an easy job. Ken squinted his eyes at the child, wondering at his age and why he was alone as well as whether or not he was afflicted.

     Something was different about this one. Ken knew it almost as soon as he focused his whole attention on the youth. The thing inside of Ken swelled within his chest, as though reaching toward the energy of the boy. It didn’t claw against the insides of Ken’s body, and for that he was grateful. However, the feeling of it pulsing inside of him made Ken shudder. The shadow in residence alongside his own soul longed to do whatever was in possession of the boy wanted. The feeling was so intense, so pure, that Ken almost felt it was an emotion he was experiencing completely on his own.

     The boy stopped. He turned in a circle once, looking at the trees around him. When he turned to glance at Ken’s hiding place, the doctor saw his dark eyes glitter, as though light shined from within them instead of merely reflecting the glow of the cold moon.

    
He knows I’m here
, Ken thought. There was no question in his mind. Whatever the boy was, whatever it had inside of him, it was aware of Ken’s presence.

     The child smirked and held out one small hand. With a slight wave, he gestured for Ken to move forward.

     Indecision rooted him to the spot, same as any of the trees around him.

     “You won’t like what I’m going to do to you,” the child’s voice rang out, “but you’ll like it even less if I have to drag you out of there.”

     Ken couldn’t explain how mocking and menacing the boy’s voice was. There was some abundance of knowledge within his words, echoing and ageless. The words could have come from a dark god; horned, scaly, with a viper’s tongue and eyes of molten copper. Instead, it was issued from the body of a child who could have been no more than ten years old. It frightened Ken just the same.

     With raised hands, Ken moved from the pathetic protection of the trees. “Please,” he said, even though he didn’t know what he could possibly be begging for. It wasn’t as though the entity would give him anything he asked for.

     “You’ve lost your group,” the child observed. “I called for you to bring the uncorrupted to me. You don’t have any. How do you come before the Bringer of Wounds empty handed?”

     Ken wanted to fall to his knees and beg forgiveness from the slender boy. He knew it was the thing within him that felt shamed for failure and yet his own knees began to buckle.

     “I don’t understand.” It was honest, at least. He didn’t know what was happening. He didn’t know how he could please or piss off this thing which approached him on the tiny feet of such a young person.

     “Your existence is offensive to me. You are useless and I am running out of time.” Those eyes, they glimmered once more. The sheen of light seemed more red than white this time.

     The child raised his hand and focused on Ken. Backing away, the doctor held up his hands as though he could ward off what Wounds was about to do to him. Even as he recognized hopelessness within him, he still held out a small prayer that he could turn and run.

     Running was no longer an option for Ken Larson.

     He felt the most curious tingling at the tips of his fingers. As though fire ants were nibbling on the skin, the pain felt like thousands of tiny pinpricks, hungry mouths of fire on the fingers of his left hand. He shook the limb and kept backing up. The pain moved upward, not receding from his hand by any means but instead being joined by a new and equally unusual ache.

     A more acidic stabbing hit him in the crooks of both of his arms. Blood began to flow from the spot where he’d had IVs in his skin hundreds of times over; thousands, even. Warmth gushed from the tips of his fingers and joined the rest of the blood dripping down onto the ground.

     The process of dark magic Wounds laid claim to moved slower than it had before. The screams had been far too brief the last time. This one would go longer.

     Ken stumbled back and cried out as more blood surged forward from his arms. Under his clothing, the fatty area on his hips ignited with flame. All he could smell was blood. All he could feel was agony. All he could see was the gleam and glimmer of the boy’s fathomless black eyes.

     Warm liquid soaked through Ken’s pants, dripping down to spill off of the bottom of his pant leg. The phantom pain of tens of thousands of needles ached at his hip and in other areas of fatty tissue. He had very little. It had always been painful to give himself his insulin injections.

     Blood continued to burst from the tips of his fingers. It had often been a fight to do the finger pokes, to feed his blood to the ravenous machine that only waited to tell him he was somehow failing to maintain his sugar levels appropriately. The feelings of failure echoed within Ken now, drowning his thoughts in anger and depression felt over decades. They compiled into one solid wave of negative emotion that drove him to his knees.