Dark Days (Book 4): Refuge Read online

  REFUGE

  DARK DAYS: BOOK FOUR

  A post-apocalyptic series by

  MARK LUKENS

  Refuge: Dark Days Book 4—Copyright © 2017 by Mark Lukens

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reprinted without written permission from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (or in any other form), business establishments, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by: Extended Imagery

  Special thanks to: Jet, Ann, Joe, Kelli, and Mary Ann—your help is immensely valuable to me, and I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate it.

  OTHER BOOKS BY MARK LUKENS

  ANCIENT ENEMY – www.amazon.com/dp/B00FD4SP8M

  DARKWIND: ANCIENT ENEMY 2 – www.amazon.com/dp/B01K42JBGW

  HOPE’S END: ANCIENT ENEMY 3 – www.amazon.com/dp/B07G1MS6RK

  EVIL SPIRITS: ANCIENT ENEMY 4 – www.amazon.com/dp/B07L8KLXVB

  SIGHTINGS – www.amazon.com/dp/B00VAI31KW

  DEVIL’S ISLAND – www.amazon.com/dp/B06WWJC6VD

  WHAT LIES BELOW – www.amazon.com/dp/B0143LADEY

  NIGHT TERRORS – www.amazon.com/dp/B00M66IU3U

  THE SUMMONING – www.amazon.com/dp/B00HNEOHKU

  DESCENDANTS OF MAGIC – www.amazon.com/dp/B00FWYYYYC

  THE DARWIN EFFECT – www.amazon.com/dp/B01G4A8ZYC

  GHOST TOWN – www.amazon.com/dp/B00LEZRF7G

  THE VAMPIRE GAME – www.amazon.com/dp/B07C2M72X9

  FOLLOWED – www.amazon.com/dp/B078WYGMJN

  A DARK COLLECTION: 12 SCARY STORIES – www.amazon.com/dp/B00JENAGLC

  RAZORBLADE DREAMS: HORROR STORIES – www.amazon.com/dp/B076B7W252

  THE EXORCIST’S APPRENTICE – www.amazon.com/dp/B00YYF1E5C

  POSSESSION: THE EXORCIST’S APPRENTICE 2 – www.amazon.com/dp/B07NCZQTNR

  COLLAPSE: DARK DAYS BOOK 1 – www.amazon.com/dp/B07SCPL6QB

  CHAOS: DARK DAYS BOOK 2 – www.amazon.com/dp/B07TVYNW19

  EXPOSURE: DARK DAYS BOOK 3 – www.amazon.com/dp/B07TY5S1S8

  Contents

  OTHER BOOKS BY MARK LUKENS

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  A THANK YOU

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  Ray

  West Virginia

  Ray drove the Chevy Suburban over the strip of metal spikes in the road just after entering the small West Virginia town, blowing out all four tires. The dead leaves and trash scattered across the road had camouflaged the strip of spikes; Ray hadn’t seen them until it was too late.

  “Hold on!” Ray yelled as he stomped down on the brake pedal, wrestling with the steering wheel as their SUV skidded along the wet road and damp leaves. The sliding SUV was heading right for the line of cars and trucks parked up and down the side of the main street of this mountain town.

  “What was that?” Mike asked as he snapped awake with a jolt. He grabbed the arm rest on the passenger door, holding on.

  At least he had his seatbelt on, Ray thought. Mike had been dozing off, but the exploding tires had jerked him into sudden consciousness. Ray didn’t have time to look in the back seat at Emma, but he thought she might have been sleeping too, but he couldn’t ever be sure. She didn’t cry out or scream as their vehicle slid down the street, the town a blur whipping by outside of their windows as the SUV began spinning.

  Then came the impact. They hit one of the vehicles as Ray kept his foot pressed down on the brake pedal, but at least they had slowed down enough and the crash wasn’t too bad.

  Now their world was still. Ray stared out the windshield. The front of their SUV had collided with the side of a large blue car, crushing the back door in a little. Faint wisps of steam drifted up from the front of their vehicle like a ghost, like the waning spirit of the SUV’s engine. Yes, their truck’s soul was leaving—their vehicle was as good as dead now.

  “Everyone okay?” Ray asked.

  Mike nodded, his eyes wide with shock; he was still holding on to the passenger door arm rest.

  “I’m okay,” Emma said from the back.

  Ray had been driving too fast; he knew that. He had done his best to avoid even the smallest of towns on their journey from Craig’s house in Virginia into West Virginia. He had studied the map, creating a route that would take them around towns if possible, even if it added a few more miles to their journey. He had managed to skirt a lot of the towns, but some towns, like this one, had been unavoidable. His plan had been, when he had to drive through the towns, to speed through them fast enough so the rippers couldn’t attack their vehicle. Even when they saw groups of rippers, they seemed to know when an attack was futile because their vehicle was traveling too quickly.

  But a set of spikes in the road had never entered Ray’s mind.

  He had been driving too fast as they approached this town, trying to keep his speed above thirty miles an hour—any speed above thirty miles an hour seemed to be enough to deter the rippers from attacking or even chasing their vehicle. Sometimes the rippers threw rocks, but luckily none of the rocks had smashed out their windows yet. As the small homes nestled in the woods along this road gave way to the beginning of the small town, Ray paid more attention to the buildings, houses, cars, and trees, and not enough attention to the road itself.

  The SUV sputtered, and the engine died as more steam rose from the front of the vehicle. Even if the engine wouldn’t have been damaged, all four tires were flat—the truck was useless now. The town around them still seemed quiet, but Ray felt an urgency pushing him—they needed to run, they needed to get out of this vehicle and find another one.

  “Dad,” Mike said.

  Ray didn’t answer his son. He looked around at the line of cars and trucks up and down the main drag of this town. All the vehicles looked empty. He didn’t see anyone hiding in any of them. The businesses housed in brick and wood buildings looked empty and abandoned, many of the storefront windows busted out, the interiors dark. Trash and merchandise were strewn down the sidewalks and out into the street, marring this once idyllic mountain town. One of the wooden doors to a dog grooming business two doors down had some graffiti pain
ted on it in bright red paint, the letter A with the letter D over it. The same symbol was painted on the side of a white van two cars down from the one they had T-boned.

  “Dad.”

  There might be rippers here. But rippers hadn’t left the strip of spikes in the road. Rippers hadn’t painted that symbol on the buildings and the white van.

  “Dad, what happened?” Mike’s voice was loud and sharp, a sudden and shrill cry from right next to him.

  “We got a flat tire,” Ray told him, still looking around at the buildings, still searching for any flashes of movement. They needed to get out of this vehicle. Someone had set a trap for them. They were sitting ducks in this SUV. He looked across the street at a line of one-hundred-year-old houses that had been turned into businesses, the homes brightened up with new paint and siding. Landscaping decorated the front of the businesses and lined the walkways that connected with the town’s sidewalks. But those businesses had been ransacked, the windows shattered and front doors kicked in. More trash and debris littered the sidewalks and street. Homes and roads wound up the lush and green hillside in the distance beyond the businesses lining the road, and even taller mountains rose up into the slate-gray sky, low storm clouds hiding the mountaintops. It was still early afternoon, but it felt late in the day because of the overcast sky and the mountains blocking the horizon.

  Ray looked back to his left at the line of stores in the brick buildings. He spotted a storefront almost a block away that looked mostly undamaged, the windows intact. “We need to get out.”

  “Where are we going?” Mike asked with panic in his voice.

  “See that store down the street there?” Ray pointed at the mattress and bedding store.

  Mike nodded, but he didn’t look ready to get out of the SUV.

  “We need to get to that store.”

  “Can’t we just fix the tire?”

  “No. They’re all flat.”

  Mike seemed to be struggling with that concept, on the verge of panicking. “How can all the tires be flat? How can all four tires go flat at the same time?”

  There was no sense in sugarcoating it for Mike. “There was a strip of spikes in the road. A trap. Someone set it to flatten our tires. We need to move now, Mike.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, Mike. But whoever did it might still be here. We need to go now.”

  “But what about the rippers?”

  “I don’t see any right now.” Ray was still worried about the rippers, but he hadn’t seen any so far, none in the last mile or so before they’d gotten to this town—which was unusual—and right now he was more worried about whoever had set the trap in the road. “Come on, Mike,” he snapped. “We need to go!”

  Mike seemed to recognize the urgency in Ray’s voice, a tone Ray had used so often in these last few days since the world had been turned to shit by an airborne plague that turned most people into flesh-eating monsters called rippers.

  “We don’t have time to grab all of our stuff,” Ray said, looking into the back seat at Emma. “Just grab your backpacks.”

  Emma nodded at him, looking right at him even though she was blind. She already had her backpack beside her, ready to go, like she had sensed the danger long before Ray had expressed it to Mike.

  “We’ll come back for the rest of our stuff when we find another vehicle,” Ray said. But his heart sank when he noticed that all the other vehicles parked along the street had flat tires, too. Many of them had dents and other damage from collisions.

  Ray got out of the SUV. He was jittery, ready to jump and spin, fight or run. It felt like lightning might strike at any moment in the form of a gunshot. He felt eyes on him; people somewhere in this town were watching them, waiting for the perfect time to attack. He opened the back door, grabbed his backpack and slipped it on. He helped Emma out. At the last second he grabbed the golf club from the back of the SUV. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it felt better to have something than nothing.

  “Come on, Mike,” Ray said, keeping his voice low, but urgent.

  Mike had his backpack on, but he was reaching back into the SUV for something—the CD player and CDs he’d brought for Emma.

  “Leave it,” Ray hissed.

  For just a second, Ray thought Mike was going to grab the CD player and music anyway, but then Mike left them in the vehicle and backed away.

  Ray closed the door and turned to Emma. She had her walking cane in her hand, but she hadn’t unfolded it yet. Mike was around the SUV in a flash, his hand out to help guide Emma through the line of parked cars and onto the sidewalk in front of the line of stores.

  “It’s not far,” Ray told Emma. He darted between the front of the sedan they had hit and the pickup truck parked in front of it, leading the way for Mike and Emma, Mike still holding Emma’s hand.

  Once the three of them were on the sidewalk, Ray scanned the businesses as they passed them, but he also glanced out at the street, at the line of vehicles, the old houses turned into businesses across the street, his eyes constantly moving as he hurried down the street. He couldn’t imagine the terror that Emma must be going through right now, running blindly, being led but knowing they were in danger.

  Their shoes crunched over broken glass and trash, their backpacks shifted back and forth slightly as they ran, their breathing heavy.

  We’re making too much noise.

  It didn’t matter how much noise they made—whoever had set the trap in the road was watching them flee their vehicle right now.

  A moment later Ray got to the door of the mattress store where signs on the windows proclaimed incredible fall deals: 20% off all mattresses and bedroom furniture! Deals too good to pass up! The door was unlocked. That was too convenient, but Ray pushed that thought from his mind as he concentrated on getting Mike and Emma inside. He held the glass door open for them. Thank God there wasn’t one of those little brass bells at the top of it. After Mike and Emma were inside, he followed them in and shut and locked the door. The deadbolt lock in the metal frame made a loud clicking sound in the silence.

  “Over there,” Ray whispered, pointing at a mattress a few rows over among the maze of mattresses displayed throughout the vast showroom floor. The interior of the store beyond the first few rows of mattresses faded into darkness. Ray held Emma’s hand now, doing his best not to jerk her too much. She had her cane in her hand, but she still hadn’t unfolded it yet—she let Ray lead her.

  When they got to the mattress he had pointed out to Mike, Ray crouched down, pulling Emma down gently with him. Mike was right next to them, hidden in the shadows of the darkness this far back in the store. Ray peeked up over the bed and watched the plate-glass windows lining the front of the store, looking for the men who had set the spike strips.

  “Is it the rippers?” Mike whispered.

  “No,” Ray whispered back. “Could be some bad guys, though.”

  “What do you mean bad guys?” Mike asked, his voice rising. The more frightened he got the more questions he started asking, and the louder his voice got.

  “There might be some bad people out there who want to take things from us,” Ray explained in a low voice, still watching the windows for any sign of movement out on the streets. He didn’t want to go into too much more detail about whoever was out there—he’d gone over this with Mike and Emma at Craig’s house, the fact that some of the survivors and scavengers might be just as dangerous as the rippers, if not more dangerous.

  “Or they might want to kill us,” Mike said under his breath.

  Ray glanced at Mike, meeting his eyes for a moment. Emma laid a hand on Mike’s shoulder, trying to comfort him, but it didn’t seem to be working.

  Why sugarcoat it for Mike? Ray had already made a deal with himself to tell Mike the truth from now on; Mike’s safety and his life might depend on it. They were in a new world with new rules, a dangerous world, and Mike needed to be ready for it. “Yes,” Ray said, finally addressing Mike’s concern. “That’s a possibi
lity.”

  Ray looked back at the windows again, watching the street. He gripped the handle of the golf club, but he felt silly holding it. Whoever was out there, they had used spike strips in the street and then camouflaged them with dead leaves and trash. They had flattened the tires of several vehicles so far, at least a dozen of them that Ray had seen. There had to be more than one person out there, a gang of people, and they probably had guns. All he had was a stupid golf club. He didn’t even have so much as a pocket knife on him. If they got out of this somehow, Ray swore to himself that he was going to find some kind of weapons somewhere, a gun, or at least some knives. And they were going to reconfigure their backpacks, making them go-bags in case they needed to abandon their vehicle suddenly again. He’d made so many mistakes so far, but he swore, if they got out of this, he was going to learn from those mistakes.

  Right now Ray felt more vulnerable than he ever had in his life. He’d always been the strong one, the noble one, the brave one. He had stuck up for his younger brother in school and in the rough neighborhood where they had grown up. He’d always been the responsible big brother, the one his brother and his mother could depend on.

  Yeah, great job he was doing right now. He had driven his son and Emma right into a trap.

  He needed to get closer to the windows at the front of the store so he could look for another vehicle, one with inflated tires so they could drive out of here. They probably weren’t going to be able to get back to their SUV and take all the food and supplies they’d gotten from Craig’s house, but at least they would have the packs on their backs and their lives.

  Beyond the line of buildings across the street, the land rose up steeply and houses dotted the hillside among switchback roads. There had to be some vehicles up there that they could take. That’s where they needed to get to.

  “I’m going to take a closer look,” Ray whispered.

  Mike grabbed his arm.

  “I’m not going outside,” Ray told him.

  “Dad,” Mike said.

  “It’s okay. You and Emma stay here. Don’t leave. Don’t follow me.” He looked at Emma. She nodded her head slightly. “I’ll be right back,” he told them.