Out of the Dark: An apocalyptic thriller (35 page)

     “Stephanie!” Shane hissed, but she shushed him.

     “Better to do it here,” she said. After a second of hesitation, Shane’s light joined hers.

     The beams played over each other, revealing the details of the store and shrouding them in shadow once more as soon as they’d passed the spot by. Shane spotted the aisle he needed for their clothing. To the left of it, the snow shoes could be found. The tents, rope, hunting supplies, and kits he wanted, which included basic repair and first aid, were on the other side of the store.

     “The shit’s so spread out,” he muttered.

     “I guess they should have just stocked everything together in a survive-the-apocalypse aisle for you, huh, princess?”

     “Call me ‘princess’ again,” Shane growled. Stephanie smiled sweetly at him and moved into the main body of the store. The door swung silently shut behind her. Glaring at her back, Shane followed her inside.

     Stephanie made sure to grab a cart that didn’t squeak and didn’t suffer from loopy wheel syndrome. She didn’t want to have to fight the cart to go the way she wanted if she needed to make a mad dash with it.

     “Wait, how did you say we were going to transport all of this?” she asked Shane as he wheeled his own cart up beside hers. It was just like they were shopping before a casual camping trip, she joked to herself.

     Shane pointed to their right and said, “Truck toppers.”

     Stephanie eyed the compact storage units designed to be strapped atop any variety of wide-roofed four-wheel-drive vehicle.

     “So we’ll just tie them to the roofs?” she asked. Her dubious tone made Shane think he hadn’t convinced her well enough of the chance of success his plan had.

     “Very tightly and with top of the line equipment,” Shane promised. “I swear it’ll be fine.”

     Stephanie shrugged and said, “You’re the boss.”

     For the moment, Shane thought to himself as they pulled up alongside the display of topper storage units.

     Shane chose the largest of the toppers and brought it down carefully. He avoided Stephanie as he eased the heavy, thick storage device from its place alone on a shelf. He repeated the process with a smaller one for Stephanie’s vehicle. When they sat beside each other, one balanced precariously on Stephanie’s cart and the larger one wobbling atop Shane’s, he wondered how they’d make it out of the store without one of them crashing to the ground.

     “Slow and steady,” he suggested as they began to move. “We don’t want them to fall and make a ton of noise if there’s unpleasant company around.”

     “Yeah, I can see that being a bad thing,” Stephanie said. She made sure to keep a tight grip on her topper as she navigated through the dark store. “If there’s unpleasant company nearby, one of these bad boys falling would be about as bad as ringing a dinner bell.”

     With short, hesitant steps, Stephanie and Shane worked their way back to the front of the store. No corrupted blocked their path. The doors remained unlocked, the alarms continued to blare only silent warnings, if any. The toppers had to be removed from their perches on the carts in order to turn them sideways and navigate them through the narrow doors, but other than that, there were no other issues. The knot in Shane’s stomach didn’t relent, and he wondered if his danger sensor, seemingly so fine-tuned since the Onset, had begun to malfunction.

     “How are the kids doing, Darcy?” Shane asked as he wheeled his portable storage space toward the van he’d been driving. He thought to himself that they should have brought a stepladder out with them. It would have made the process of securing the units to the tops of the vehicles much easier. He made a mental note to grab a step ladder when they went back for the rope they would be using to tie the toppers down.

     “Leila’s napping and Dylan is fussing,” Darcy said. Her tone brimmed with impatience, but Shane didn’t feel it was directed at him. Having an angry toddler to deal with who was normally a handful and a half without the trial the past few days had been had begun to drain Darcy. They needed to get to a safe place, he thought. Off the road, somewhere they could hunker down and let the kids be as kid-like as they could possibly be in a world gone absolutely insane.

     “Two more trips into the store,” Shane assured her as he eyeballed the van’s roof. It appeared as though the topper would be a good fit. “Then, we’ll be out of here and headed for the island. We get there and we can hunker down and wait for someone to sort this shit storm out.”

     “Hopefully,” Darcy murmured.

     Shane helped Stephanie unload her burden and they turned their carts back to the store. Darcy shivered and looked up as snowflakes began to tumble from the overcast sky. On the horizon, thick gray clouds hovered like an invading army. The blue sky they’d begun the day with was losing its advantage against the encroaching grayness.

     “Hurry up, you guys,” Darcy said under her breath. She watched them reenter the store and sent a small prayer heavenward. She hoped she’d see them both come back out again.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

     The instant Sam turned his large black truck onto the I-96, Laura knew where they were headed. He’d decided to head to the small wood cabin they had tucked away in the dense forests close to the Upper Peninsula.

     The kids had never even been up there. It was a survivalist investment which Laura had at more than one point argued with Sam over. The first summer after Sam had finished construction on the cabin and small storage shed, Laura had changed her opinion on it. The cabin had no electricity, but it did have a sturdy wood-burning stove, a shallow river nearby, and all the privacy they could ask for. On weekends when they sent the kids away with Laura’s dad, the pair had been able to enjoy days in each other’s company with no outside influences to take away from their time together.

     The cabin was the perfect spot. Bill hadn’t known its location, and Sam had been careful not to mention it to anyone else. They kept their forest hideaway off social media and out of neighborhood gossip. The only person who’d known about the place that Laura could think of off the top of her head was the old woman who’d sold them the property, and she’d died two years ago.

     The drive would take them another two and a half hours. Laura tried to curb her excitement at the prospect of having a legitimate safe place far away from the centers of corruption the cities had become.

     “Where are all the animals?” Amy asked from the passenger seat. It was the first thing she’d said the whole drive. “Shouldn’t there be some out? It seems strange there aren’t any animals around.”

     “They’re trapped inside, I guess,” Laura answered with a shrug. The conversation wasn’t a road she wanted to go down. She disliked that it was the first thing Amy had decided to discuss.

     “So that means the corrupted probably are, too,” Amy said. “It was dumb to want to open the doors.”

     She rested her bare forehead against the passenger side window and exhaled, fogging the glass with her defeated breath. Laura didn’t know what to say.

     “You want to talk about something else?” the older woman suggested. Amy shook her head and stared out the window.

     Storm clouds gathered in the distance, Amy noted. Soon, the winter snow would be upon them in full force. She hoped what supplies they’d grabbed from the Walker home and what Sam had stockpiled at his safe location would last them until the spring. She found herself relatively certain they’d be snowed in until the thaws came around March or April.

     Laura spared one glance over her shoulder to check on her daughter. Melissa still slept deeply. Laura had been able to arrange the girl in her seat, buckle her in, and slip a travel pillow beneath her head all without waking her. She hoped her daughter would make it through the adjustment phase soon. Children were resilient, she reassured herself. She’d heard it a thousand times or more.

     Nearly as much as for her own children, Laura worried for Amy.

     “Have you been able to get ahold of your mom and dad?” Laura asked Amy. The younger woman shook her head again, this time more slowly.

     “My phone hasn’t worked since I got the message through to you. No Internet, texting, nothing. I’m pretty sure I won’t be reaching them, even if they are still…”

     She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. To think her parents had died or turned while Amy was so many states away felt like torture. She wouldn’t subject herself to the depressing thoughts any more than she had to.

     “When things calm down, when is isn’t so…dangerous out there, maybe we can take a road trip. I know Sam isn’t going to want to stay holed up where we’re going forever. He’s going to want to find other people, people like him, and start to rebuild.”

     “Do you think that’s even possible?”

     Laura watched as Sam hit his turn signal and switched lanes. She followed him over, also indicating her move with her left blinker. No other cars drove on the freeway. They extended the courtesy only to each other, but it was helpful in more ways than one. They could still do typical things. One day, with the proper people gathered together, those things would become typical once again.

     “I think if we’re alive, pretty much anything’s possible, right?”

     “I suppose so.”

     Laura reached out with her right hand and intertwined her fingers tightly with her cousin’s. “We’re here for you no matter what, Amy. Regardless of what’s happened or what’s coming, you have us right now. I know it isn’t much, but we’re still family.”

     Amy squeezed back as hard as Laura did. A tear slipped down her cheek and she hurriedly scrubbed it away.

     Signs on the side of the road advertised invitations to enjoy things which no longer exited. Laura doubted anyone was still making wine from grapes grown on the premises. Santa would not be visiting with children from eleven until four on Saturday. If he was, that wouldn’t be a jolly old fellow in the tinseled seat of the year-round holiday store.

     Laura thought of a man dressed in red and white with fangs, claws, and hellishly glowing black eyes. The conjured spectral image seemed to superimpose itself over the bearded man dressed as Saint Nick on the billboard. She shuddered as they passed it by. Hoping there would be no need to stop on their journey to the cabin, Laura focused on Sam’s truck and tried to think happy thoughts.

     The road was long, abandoned, and unending. The future was a void closing in on them from all sides. Instead of acknowledging the existential gloom that filled the clouds and pursued them down the barren road, Laura tightened her hand on Amy’s.

     She wished the night would not come.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Armani’s journal

    
The doctor thinks the corruption spreads like a virus: seeking out that which is not like itself and converting, contaminating. I’ve never thought of a virus as evil, but that is what this feels like. Pure evil. Does it seem to me to be malevolently aware? Yes. I feel as though we are engaged in a battle between forces of unfathomable size and power. We are the pieces on their table, the figurines they move in their game of war. Whatever has happened, and the new awareness it has brought to those like me, I know with certainty the game is far from over. And we the pawns know only the moves we make, and not the goal or what it takes to win…

     Armani’s convoy had made smooth progress into the heart of the silent city. They saw few other vehicles on the road, and those they did seemed to contain people of no features or substance. Armani worried darkly that he and his people alone had escaped the worldwide affliction unscathed. The occupants of the other cars could all be corrupted, waiting out the sunlight in their moving fortresses. He knew the thought was ridiculous but couldn’t keep it from forming and taking root. They wouldn’t be stopping to interact with any of the other travelers if he had his way about it.

     The bulk supply store called Sam’s on Cummings Road had been decided as their destination for supplies. Not only would there be plenty of food and water for the taking (if the store had avoided looting so far) but Sam’s also had a variety of other useable items. Clothing, cleaning products, camping supplies, tools, and even vitamins could be found there in large quantities. Armani hoped the store would be running on generators, or that the power in that part of the grid had yet to fail. He could really use some ice cream. 

     They pulled into the parking lot and looped a reconnaissance circle. Armani frowned when he saw the lights were off in the store. Many cars filled the parking lot. The yellow-paint lined pavement had the feel of a vehicular graveyard. None of the cars had occupants that Armani could see. Several had suffered what appeared to be spontaneous combustion and burning from the inside. Corrupted, trapped within after turning, had forgotten how to open the door and had burned the first morning after the Onset began.