Dark Days | Book 7 | Hell Town Page 4

Rippers were coming. A lot of them.

  CHAPTER 7

  Petra

  Fifteen rippers. Maybe twenty. Maybe even more than that. Petra didn’t have time to count them. They were coming from the street, a few of them coming out of the woods: men, women, teenagers, even a few children. Even from the pickup truck where she stood, she could see the ferocity in their eyes, their desperation for food.

  Petra had her gun in her hand, but she couldn’t pick them all off. She wasn’t that good of a shot, and she didn’t have enough bullets—all she had were the bullets left in her gun and the bullets in her backpack that she would have to load her magazine with when she’d used the ones up in her gun. How many bullets? She wasn’t sure, but probably not enough. She had no choice but to run for the house.

  Pure animal fear took over, shutting down her rational mind. Thoughts blanked out and her body almost seemed to move on its own. She was across the front yard in what seemed like a few strides, then up the porch steps and through the open front door.

  Where to hide?

  She remembered that the house didn’t have a basement. There was nowhere to hide downstairs. The garage? Out the back door? Into the woods again? The rippers would run her down in the woods before she even got a quarter of the way back to the abandoned house where she’d slept last night.

  Up the stairs.

  She was upstairs before she even realized she’d made the decision. She wished she would have had time to bar the front door shut. But what good would that have done? They would just come in through the windows or the back door.

  She could hear the rippers rushing inside the front door, slamming it open. It sounded like the door had been torn off its hinges. She rushed down the hall to the last bedroom, the master bedroom. She darted inside and closed the door, locked it. She shoved the bed in front of the door.

  How long was that going to hold?

  Now she was trapped up here. She only had a few seconds to live. But at least she could shoot them as they came in through the bedroom door, maybe even creating a logjam of dead bodies they would have to crawl over to get to her, slowing them down even more.

  A quick glance out the bedroom window, she looked out onto the side yard. From this window she could also see part of the front yard.

  “Fuck,” Petra breathed out.

  There were more rippers coming from the street. Another thirty of them. Maybe thirty-five of them.

  Too many. I can’t get them all. And I don’t have enough bullets even if I could.

  Bodies slammed against the bedroom door. Growls and screams, howls from behind the door. It even sounded like two of them might be fighting each other.

  I’ll take as many of them out as I can. Then I’ll jump out the window. Maybe they’ll all be up here by then.

  And then what?

  Run into the woods while the rippers were upstairs. What else could she do? She wished she would have entered the house before inspecting the pickup. Maybe they wouldn’t have seen her. Maybe they would have come into the yard and inspected the bones of the dead and moved on.

  But it was too late for that now.

  The bodies pushed against the bedroom door. The bed slid back a few inches from the force of the blows, scooting easily across the wood floor. Another slam against the door. More grunts as bodies pushed against it like they had melted together and become one being.

  Petra opened the other window in the room that looked down onto the backyard. She looked down at the ground, seeing what she would land on when she jumped out the window. It looked like a long drop, but maybe she could crawl out and hold onto the window sill, dropping down the rest of the way. She’d be lucky if she didn’t break her leg in the fall, or even break her back. Knock herself out for a few seconds.

  Don’t think about that.

  She pulled her backpack off and threw it out the window. It landed down on the ground with a soft thud.

  I don’t think I’m going to land so softly.

  She positioned herself in front of the window, her back to it, in the shooting stance she’d been taught at the gun range, both hands on the gun, her finger on the trigger, gun aimed at the bedroom door. She was as ready as she was ever going to be.

  The door crashed in, wood splintering in the door frame, the bed pushing back. Hands reached in the opening door, fingers like claws, fingernails black with dirt, arms covered with grime and stains. Then the first head poked through the opening, a man with hair spikey from dirt and filth. His eyes were wild, his teeth still white and strong in his dirty face. He spotted her, growling, drooling. He seemed to be trying to talk, like he was trying to form words but had forgotten how.

  They pushed against the door as one, the bed finally moving out of the way. The door flung open.

  Petra shot Spikey in the forehead, rocking his head back, a spray of blood from the back of his head splashing the two rippers right behind him.

  It didn’t slow them down.

  She shot the next two, hitting the next one in the face and the third one in the throat. The woman’s hand went to her throat instinctively, her wide blue eyes balls of shock, almost like she couldn’t understand what was causing the pain, what was making it so hard to draw another breath.

  The gun bucked in Petra’s hands as she shot again and again. She tried to stay patient, waiting a few seconds for the next rippers to crawl over the dead and the dying.

  “Die, motherfuckers!”

  Two more shots. Two more rippers down, but she missed the head and got one of them in the shoulder.

  She thought the rippers might stop their surge, suddenly tempted by the dead, by the fresh meat right underneath them. But they didn’t, they kept coming in through the doorway like mindless animals, like killing and eating machines, growling and snarling, screeching and yelling.

  She was going to run out of bullets soon. She hadn’t been counting, but she knew she only had a few left in this magazine. She could hear the horde of rippers in the hallway. She even heard more of them downstairs, still trying to fight their way up here. Even if the doorway got clogged up enough, she still wasn’t going to be safe. They wouldn’t give up. She was going to have to jump.

  It was now or never.

  The cold wind blew in through the open window behind her. She glanced out the window. No rippers down there that she could see. They were all probably inside the house now, pushing at each other to get up here to the bedroom, following the herd, hoping for their small sliver of raw flesh.

  Petra shot three more times, hitting the next three rippers: a man, an older woman, and a boy who couldn’t have been older than twelve years old—she caught him in the side of his face, his ear and part of his cheek erased away in an explosion of blood and bone fragments, knocking him back into the next wave of oncoming rippers.

  She stuffed the gun into the waistband of her pants and crawled out the window, turning around and letting her legs drop and hang down the side of the house, the toes of her hiking boots banging into the siding. She held on to the window sill and glanced down at the ground. Even though she was a little closer to the ground by dangling out the window, it still looked like a long way down. For a moment she couldn’t let herself go, it was like her fingers wouldn’t let loose of the window sill, like they had cramped up on their own, freezing into that position, hardening like concrete.

  The rippers were coming. She heard their cries, utterances of possible forgotten partial words along with the thunder of running feet. Some had weapons: knives, sticks, hammers, metal pipes. If they got to her they could stab the knives down into her hands, pin her hands to the window sill. They could pull her back up and into the bedroom. She would be helpless to stop them.

  Petra let go.

  It felt both like time had stretched out during her plummet to the earth, but also like she was immediately on the frozen ground, crashing down onto it. Pain shot up through her ankles, then her knees, then her hips and back, like a live current of electricity zapping her body. Th
e sudden crash to the ground had jarred her bones and sizzled her nerves.

  For just a moment she couldn’t move, sprawled out on the cold ground.

  Was she paralyzed? Had she broken her neck in the fall?

  No. She could definitely still feel the pain in almost every part of her body; it thrummed through her muscles and bones, a full-body nerve stinger. Her vision seemed to have blacked out for just a second, the world around her fading away to darkness, creating tunnel vision. All she heard was a high-pitched whining noise that drowned everything else out. But then her hearing was suddenly back, crystal clear and sharper than ever, a super sense replacing the old one.

  The rippers were coming—she could hear that. They’d heard her clatter and slide down the side of the house; they’d heard the thud of her body hitting the ground, and maybe her cry of pain when she had landed—the unmistakable sound of wounded prey.

  Her gun. She moved numb fingers to her waist, feeling for her gun. But her fingers still didn’t seem to be working right.

  She struggled to her feet. She was able to stand up. Could she run?

  The rippers rushed around the corner of the house. No way was she going to ever get the bullets loaded into the magazine of her gun in time. No way was she going to outrun them. She was dead.

  It was over.

  CHAPTER 8

  Petra

  Petra knew she was dead—in seconds the rippers would be on her, stabbing at her, beating at her, clawing at her, tearing and ripping at her like a pack of wild dogs fighting over scraps of meat. But she still couldn’t give up; she still couldn’t stop fighting until the last second.

  She watched as the rippers came for her. She wasn’t going to look away. She would watch death approach; she would stare into its bulging, crazy eyes.

  There were subtle spitting noises coming from somewhere, a sound she heard under the cries of the rippers and their pounding footfalls. The spitting sound seemed familiar; she knew instinctively what it was, but she couldn’t seem to bring it to her conscious mind.

  The two male rippers in the lead collapsed, sprays of blood flying from the sides of their heads, a pink mist in the pale morning light.

  They’d been shot. Someone had just shot both of them.

  Spit. Spit. Spit.

  Three more rippers were down. The others slowed just a little, turning toward where the shots were coming from. They knew a threat was somewhere around, they just couldn’t see where it was.

  Above Petra, one of the rippers leaned out of the bedroom window. He threw his metal pipe down at her. It missed her by inches. He was halfway out the window now, maybe being pushed farther out by the others, maybe hoping to fall on her, stun her so the others could get to her.

  Petra shot the ripper hanging out the window; the spray of blood splattered the window panes above him and the rippers right behind him. His body went instantly limp over the window sill, arms and head hanging down, a thin line of blood dripping down from the wound at the top of his head like leftover rain dribbling down from a gutter.

  She moved away from the window and turned, shooting two more rippers, killing one instantly, wounding the other. One of the wounded still charged her like a rhino.

  Spit.

  The wounded ripper was dropped in mid-stride.

  The gunshots were coming from the woods. Someone was in the trees picking off the rippers, saving her life. He had a silencer on his gun.

  Petra didn’t know who her savior was, but she ran toward the woods. She heard the commotion upstairs in the house and on the front porch; some of the rippers were leaving, others were probably already feasting on the dead she’d left in the bedroom doorway. But the others weren’t going to give up so easily.

  Her body still hurt, but the nerve pain from her fall to the ground was fading fast and she had complete control over her muscles again. Nothing seemed to be broken or sprained, but with the adrenaline kicking in she couldn’t be sure if she was truly injury-free.

  When she got to the tree line she saw a man among the brush, half hidden behind a pine tree trunk. He was older, maybe mid to late forties, hard and lean. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut very short. He wore dark clothing and gloves, his gun still aimed at the rippers, the barrel so long with the suppressor screwed onto the end of it.

  “Come on,” he yelled as soon as she was close to him.

  Petra didn’t waste time with words; she followed the man through the woods, right on his heels, her boots thudding on the ground, crashing through the carpet of dead leaves. She didn’t ask who he was or why he had saved her or where they were going—she just ran, her mind and body working together toward a single purpose: to get away from the horde of rippers.

  More noises came from behind her, the sound of feet running over the dead leaves and tree limbs. Some of the rippers were following them into the woods.

  The man hopped easily over a deadfall and crouched behind it.

  Petra didn’t ask questions, she just did as he did, mimicking his movements. He brought his gun up and aimed it at the rippers approaching through the trees.

  She did the same.

  There weren’t as many rippers as she thought. It had sounded like hundreds of them were following from the sound of the dead leaves, but it was only six of them, all males, all younger, the daring of the group.

  “Let me get them,” the man said without looking at her.

  She didn’t question him, but she kept her gun aimed just in case she needed it. No way was this guy going to get all six of them.

  He did.

  Within a few seconds all six of the rippers were dropped by bullets, all six head shots.

  Petra was amazed with the man’s shooting skills.

  He waited behind the large fallen tree for a moment longer, watching the woods and listening. There were sounds coming from the house somewhere beyond the trees, the rippers eating the dead, but none of them were coming. They finally knew when to quit.

  Petra still had her gun aimed, her arms trembling as they rested on the log. She realized that the man hadn’t wanted her to shoot because the sound of her gun might have drawn more rippers into the woods.

  Finally, the man seemed satisfied that another wave of rippers wasn’t coming. He exhaled a long breath and got to his feet.

  Petra waited in her position behind the tree trunk.

  “Come on,” he said. It didn’t seem to be an invitation, but more of an order, and he seemed to expect her to follow it unquestioningly.

  “Go where?” she asked.

  “I’ve got a vehicle parked on the road. It’s about a mile northwest of here. Just a quick walk through the woods.”

  Petra didn’t respond.

  “You coming or not?” He didn’t seem angry. In fact, he didn’t seem to show any kind of expression at all, his small dark eyes emotionless black pebbles. It was almost like he was just asking her what decision she had come to.

  Petra got to her feet, but she didn’t put her gun away. She stood rigid and tense, staring at the man. “Where are you headed to?”

  “South.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  “What’s your name?” he asked as they started walking.

  “Petra.”

  “I’m Jacob.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Kate

  It was chaos for a few hours even after the Dark Angels left after attacking the store. They had killed Lance, Crystal, and Dale; two Dark Angels had slaughtered them right in the middle of the parking lot. Kate hadn’t seen it happen; she’d been down in the store, not on the roof with Jo, Fernando, and Tina. She’d been in the loading bay trying to talk Jeff out of pulling the pin out of the grenade he had in his hand, the one he’d been hiding in his daughter’s music box. Jeff had been a mole for the Dark Angels . . . for the Dragon. He’d been promised a reward if he sabotaged the store by creating an unsealable hole in the building, a way for the Dark Angels to get inside without destroying the fence around the back of th
e store.

  Kate hadn’t been able to talk Jeff out of pulling the pin on the grenade. But just as he did, Neal had jumped down from the rafters and landed on him, covering him with his body when the grenade went off, blowing them both to pieces but saving the rollup door. The Dark Angels couldn’t get inside now.

  Jo had heard the explosion from the roof and figured the Dark Angels had gotten inside, but Kate told Max what had happened, and he radioed her and the others on the roof.

  At least Jo and the others had shot the two Dark Angels who had murdered Lance, Crystal, and Dale, killing both of them—at least those two were dead. After that, the Dark Angels retreated as hundreds of rippers poured into the parking lot from all directions.

  Yes, chaos had reigned for hours, through the night as the rippers swarmed outside the building. The chain-link fencing had held up, electrified by the car batteries. The jolt wasn’t enough to kill the rippers, but enough of a deterrent to keep them away from it. If they got through the fence, they might be able to get through the metal rollup doors in the loading bay. In the front of the store, the rippers had busted the sliding glass doors and windows beside them, but the chain mesh security doors had held, even with dozens of rippers pushing against them.

  But how long would the fencing and security mesh doors last? Would they stand up to the next wave of rippers? Would they stand up if the Dark Angels attacked again with more powerful weapons?

  Finally the sun rose and most of the rippers had scattered. Kate had kept watch at the front doors with a few of the others through the night, standing guard in case the rippers got through the security mesh doors beyond the glass, and then the plywood and rows of shopping carts they had pushed in behind the doors for another barricade. She had a pistol with her as she stood guard, a pistol she really didn’t know how to use, and she’d stood shoulder to shoulder with the others guarding the front entrance through the night, just waiting.

  It had been tense. Even though she wasn’t a believer, she had prayed that the rippers wouldn’t get through. She had prayed with another woman, Sophie, who had stood guard with her. They had prayed for each other, for the others in the store, and Kate had said a special prayer for Brooke.