The Darkness (10 page)

Chapter
12

Jacob sat anxiously behind
the wheel of the patrol car. He had the vehicle in neutral as the soldiers
pushed it out of the factory’s parking lot and into the street. The car slowly rolled
back, entered the decline, and picked up speed. The two soldiers jogged to keep
up. Jacob maneuvered the car backwards and into the street. He overcut the
wheel, causing the car to turn too far and smack into the curb, one tire
screeching against it as the steel rim scrubbed the concrete.

Murphy ran up alongside
the driver’s window. “Okay; when I give the word, start the car and hit the
field with your high beams.”

Jacob looked through the
windshield to the field in front of him where he could still see the muzzle
flashes and the tracer fire crisscrossing the dark sky like laser beams.

“How will they know we
are the good guys?” Jacob asked nervously.

“Don’t worry. Soon as I
drain a mag into those black-eyed monsters, they’ll know who we’re siding up
with,” Stephens said, moving close to the car and leaning his rifle over its
roof.

“Do it,” Murphy ordered,
speaking louder.

Jacob felt the key in the
ignition and turned on the engine; it quickly roared to life.

“Hit the lights!” Murphy
yelled.

Jacob searched the left
side of the column and found the toggle. He pulled the lever, turning on the
lights. He hit the switch that activated the high beams, then grabbed the hand-powered
spotlight and directed it into the field. His stomach dropped and he fought the
urge to run back to the factory.

The terrain to the front
was filled with moving figures—men, women, and children running through the
high grass toward a line of soldiers dug in on a side street. The men fired desperately,
trying to hold back the approaching mass. Farther behind the swarm were more of
the things, armed and indiscriminately organized. Walking straight ahead with
their rifles loosely tucked into their shoulders, they shot blindly toward the
soldiers on the far side of the field.

Jacob steeled his nerves
and pointed the spotlight at the things in the open, causing their dark eyes to
turn in his direction. Murphy’s rifle rattled off a burst and Stephens’ quickly
joined it. The target direction for the creatures changed as they turned ninety
degrees and headed for the road. As Murphy predicted, this now had the swarm
moving perpendicular to the line of soldiers in the field and allowed them to
shoot at the sides of the mob, more effectively cutting them down.

A round smacked the
windshield and Jacob ducked down. When he rose back up, he saw a statue-like
man aiming a rifle in his direction. Jacob moved the spotlight to blind him
while rounds pecked around the man’s feet before one found home and knocked him
back. Jacob continued to move the light, pointing out targets and blinding the
rushing things as they moved across the high grass. As Jacob directed the
light, he saw that the approaching waves were thinning out. The things on the
fringes with weapons disappeared back into the shadows while the soldiers on
the side street were cutting down anything still alive in the field.

The passenger’s door
opened and Stephens dropped into the seat, quickly changing out magazines in
his weapon. He rolled down the window and fired again while leaning out. Murphy
smashed out the rear window then jumped in the back. Reaching across, he kicked
out the other side and slapped the cage with a gloved hand. “Okay, let’s move.
Get up to that side street where the troopers are. Drive slow; I’m sure they’re
a bit jumpy… and cut off the spotlight.”

“What’s all the window
breaking about?” Jacob asked.

“Windows and doors don’t
open back here; I don’t want to get trapped,” Murphy said.

Jacob powered down the
directional light and locked the car into gear. He drove ahead cautiously while
Stephens occasionally took shots from the passenger’s window, cutting down
stragglers that were still moving. Drawing closer to the side street, men in
uniform ran forward and shot hand signals to Jacob. He saw the palm of a
soldier’s hand and the business end of a light machine gun.

“Cut the lights, stop,
and put it in park,” Murphy said.

Jacob reached down turned
off the headlights, as instructed. He saw Stephens looking straight ahead
through his goggles. He held open the passenger’s door, slowly stepped out, and
walked straight ahead. He turned back and pointed toward the car. Murphy
exited, took steps forward just past the bumper, and then moved back to the
driver’s window.

“Okay, kill the engine
and get out,” Murphy ordered. “Follow me.”

Jacob shut off the car,
reached between the seats, and grabbed his rifle. Leaving the keys in the
ignition, he joined Murphy in the street. The soldier led them ahead in the
dark toward a group of men sheltered at the rear of an old bread truck resting
on flat tires. A man held a red-lens flashlight to cast a soft red glow over a
group of kneeling soldiers examining a map. Jacob suddenly noticed they weren’t
walking alone; they were being escorted by two soldiers in full gear. As they
approached the gathering around the map, a rugged man in uniform stood and
looked them up and down. Old and grizzled with tanned leather skin, Jacob could
tell by the way he carried himself that he was in charge.

He stepped away from the
group and walked over to them. “Thanks for the support back there. Who are you
with?” the man said just above a whisper.

“Sergeant Murphy, 38th
MP, Illinois National Guard. You?” Murphy said.

“First Sergeant Bowe, 420
th
 Engineer Battalion, out of Gary;
I thought all you Natty boys were cleared out of here,” the man said. “My
command element is about a block south if that’s what you’re looking for.”

“First Sergeant, we got
some survivors held up in the warehouse down the street,” Murphy said.

Bowe stopped and turned
to shout orders to the group of soldiers gathered to his rear. “Okay, we can
take care of that; now what are you all doing here? Where’s the rest of your
unit?”

“We need a route to the
north. We were hit on an evac run and separated from the rest of the 38th.
What’s going on here, First Sergeant?” Murphy asked.

Bowe turned and pointed
an arm up and down the road. Adjusting to the natural light, Jacob could now
make out shapes in the distance. All along the road going away from him,
soldiers were dug into the shoulder and facing west. Jacob turned and saw more
of them beyond the main road leading all the way to the river and past the
factory.

“We just moved up here in
the last half hour; been pushing our way west all day. Higher ups finally got
their heads out of their asses—this is a full-on containment zone now. We’ve
been tasked to hold sixteen city blocks. No easy feat. The Zoomies started
dropping lots of ordnances in the town out there; not sure what good it does,
but after every run, we get a load of ’em headed this way. Poking the hornets’
nest.”

“Are you going into the
town? Are there still survivors there?” Jacob asked.

Bowe
paused to stare at Jacob; with a clenched jaw, he let out a guttural sound that
made Jacob fear the man might bark. “What? Well, civvy, right now what we have
is a defensive line going south to the interstate and north to the 2nd Street
Bridge; beyond that, it goes right up to Lake Michigan.”

“What about the people at
the park? Where are they?” Jacob blurted out.

“You a cop?” the first sergeant
asked, looking at Jacob’s vest.

Ignoring the question,
Jacob asked again, “Do you know where they went?”

Murphy put a hand on
Jacob’s shoulder. “First Sergeant, we were extracting his family; we were en-route
to the park when we got cut off. Do you know where they moved to?”

“Folks
at the park are gone; all the civilians are either being pushed south toward
Kentucky or up onto the ferries on Lake Michigan. If they moved this afternoon,
I’d guess they shot straight up to Northerly Island.”

“That’s it, the island.
That’s what was on the radio, what Miller told us,” Jacob said.

“Well, if you want to go
there, you better get moving. They’re closing the corridor in forty-eight
hours. Shit, most of it’s probably already collapsed. You’ll have to head
straight up this route; the main highways are all blocked. The Seabees were
running the route clearance missions with the Marines and keeping it open, but
that was before these things started shooting back.

“Every hour, they get a
bit smarter. Hell, I heard over the company net they’re starting to set up
ambushes, blocking the roads and sniping from cover. Even some of these human
wave attacks are letting up—like they’re improving their tactics.”

“They’re smarter? Like
how…? Do we even know what they are?” Murphy asked.

Bowe squinted. “You mean
The
Darkness
? Fuck if I know what they are. HQ is calling it an
invasion
…
I ain’t kidding; that’s the words they used. Not outbreak, not riot control. They
said
invasion
. Craziest shit I ever seen—like Fallujah all over again,
except these things don’t get scared.

“Most units have pulled
back to this defensive line, letting the Air Force cut them down. Urban search
and rescue has been called off for anything in the city limits or west of this
position.” Bowe paused and looked intently at Murphy. “Could I give you a bit
of advice?”

Murphy looked at Jacob,
then back at the first sergeant. “I’m afraid I already know what you’re going
to say.”

Bowe reached into his
pocket and removed a tin of tobacco. He smacked it against his palm then opened
the lid, stuffing a bit under his lip. “I think you should stick with us; the
Lake Michigan route is all but closed. Northerly isn’t going to hold much
longer either. If you got family up there, you aren’t going to do them any good
getting yourself and these men killed,” he said, looking at Jacob. “Only about
sixty percent of the boys showed up for the recall; I’m shorthanded so we could
use your help.”

“I have to get to my family,”
Jacob said adamantly.

“I get it; I really do,
but the routes are closing up. I’m not sure you understand the gravity of the
situation,” Bowe said, pointing out over the now empty fields. The sky was lit
with blooms of orange and yellow as bombs exploded far in the distance while
the sounds of remote gunfire echoed through the trees.

Jacob ignored the first sergeant
and looked at Murphy. “I’ll just take the car and go on alone.”

“Hold up; nobody is going
anywhere alone,” Murphy said, raising his hand.

Stephens shook his head
and started to walk away before stopping and looking back. “You should let him
go, Sergeant; this isn’t our mission anymore.”

Murphy laughed. “This
isn’t for him. We have orders and vital intel; we need to link back up with
Battalion. If they headed north to the city then that’s where I’m going. I
understand if you want to hang back here with these guys, Stephens; no hard
feelings.”

Stephens looked
disgusted. He stomped away a few paces and cussed, then stopped and came back.
“Man, this is some
bull-
shit!”

Bowe looked at Murphy and
chuckled. “Well, I guess I owe you one for the help you gave me back there. If
you insist on going, I can at least get you resupplied.”

Chapter
13

Jacob laid his head back
on the bench seat of the patrol car. Stephens was driving tactically with the
lights off. His helmet was on the seat and he navigated by sparse moonlight.
Going so slow and stopping so frequently, they were often passed by soldiers
speed walking up the road or held up by crowds of wandering refugees being
pushed south. Stephens had to keep the car to the far right, as the left lane
of the road was lined with soldiers. Occasionally, they’d pass a roadblock
where men would stop the vehicle and shine lights in their mouths and eyes
before allowing them to pass.

Jacob leaned back in the
seat and observed the men outside his window as the car passed them. Every so
often a machine gun would fire a long burst into the far-off tree lines or at
an object on a distant street. At one point, they drove by a large group of
field artillery firing barrages into the city skyline. The firing of the big cannons
rocked the car and made the windows vibrate.

At other parts of the
road, it was quiet, only occupied by tired soldiers in work parties building
fortifications against the things to the west. Who those things were still
hadn’t been explained; Jacob heard most soldiers refer to them as “The Darkness.”
He saw the dried and shriveled corpses stacked and piled like cordwood at
points on the road—no respect being paid to the bodies of whatever they had
become.

 Looking to the distance from
the passenger’s window, he could see tall pillars of smoke rising above the
trees. The neighborhoods west of the highway were now burning, the fires caused
by the relentless bombing that was ordered through the night in an attempt to
hold back “The Darkness.” On the seat beside him sat a large nylon backpack
that at one time held chemical gear. Under Bowe’s orders, the supply sergeant
near Johnny’s shop had dumped the bag out and packed it with loaded magazines
for Jacob’s rifle.

He had also stuffed in a
couple bottles of water, an old flashlight, and a few of the bagged meals like
the one Murphy had shared earlier. Jacob had read everything on the package
after the supply sergeant handed the MREs to him. The meager things in the
nylon bag were all Jacob owned now; everything he had before was back in the
house—
the house that’s probably long gone, burnt to the ground, nothing but
splinters and ash. Is this my new life?

The car stopped abruptly and
a bright flashlight shined through the window. A soldier kept the light on
Stephens as a second man approached from the shadows and probed the passengers
with a light of his own.

“End of the line,
gentlemen. Mouths open,” he ordered, crouching so that he could see inside the
patrol car.

Jacob looked straight at
the light and held his mouth open; the soldier scanned their faces then clicked
off the light. “What’s with the wheels?” he asked.

“It’s a loaner; the
Bentley’s in the shop,” Stephens answered.

“Okay, smart ass; what
are you doing this far north?”

Murphy leaned forward so
that he could see the soldier. “Moving to Northerly, trying to link up with the
33
rd
.”

The soldier yelled to the
other one holding the light. The light cut off as the second soldier ran away
to a Humvee on the side of the road and then came running back with a
clipboard. He handed the board off to the man at the window. The solider lifted
up the pages, quickly flipping them over the top of the board, and stopped near
the bottom. He looked back up at Murphy.

“The 33
rd
?”

Murphy nodded. “Yeah,
that’s right.”

“Well, they came through
late afternoon. I got their manifest right here; but hell, the route’s closed
up now.”

Jacob reached for the
handle through the broken window, opened his door, and stepped into the street before
reaching for the clipboard. “You have a manifest?”

The soldier pulled away,
his hand dropping to his sidearm. “Whoa, back up now! Who are you?” the man said,
taking a defensive stance. The second soldier quickly came back into view and
put the light in Jacob’s face.

“Dammit, will you cut
that shit out? I just want to see if my family was on the list!”

The soldier lowered the
light so it shone on Jacob’s chest as the first man looked down at the
clipboard, then at Jacob sympathetically. “Names?”

“Laura Anderson, Katy Anderson,”
Jacob said.

The soldier unfolded a
long, tri-folded paper log sheet. “Gimme some light,” he said as his finger ran
down a list of names from top to bottom. “Oh, here we go,
Laura Anderson, 2
members
.”

Jacob leaned forward.
Looking at the handwritten entry, he smiled. “So they’re at the Island then?”

“Now, I didn’t say that.
I’m just saying they came by here.”

“Okay, thank you.”
Jacob’s hand dropped to the door handle.

The soldier put out his
arm, resting it at the top of the door. “Hold up; like I said, the route is
closed now. It collapsed about a quarter mile north of here. Closed all the way
up to Museum Park. I’m sorry; I’m going to have to turn you around. That’s no
man’s land up ahead.”

Jacob stepped forward to
the barrier and looked into the dark landscape beyond the roadblock. They were
beside an old brick fire station that sat just beyond them to the right. The
building’s walls were now reinforced with sandbags going up nearly five feet.
Concrete forms in a serpentine pattern with wooden sawhorses blocked the road
ahead; a hastily erected sandbag bunker was positioned to guard the approach.

Jacob looked off into the
distance, seeing no movement. The terrain no longer held green residential
neighborhoods. To the left, was a sparsely wooded lot and less than a hundred
feet ahead from where he stood, a steel-girded bridge met the road. Jacob
turned back toward the car where Murphy and Stephens were now standing near the
gate guards. “How far to the museum?” he asked.

“Shit, might as well be a
thousand miles tonight,” one of the men said.

Jacob turned and glared
at them. The first soldier came forward and looked out across the bridge. “It’s
a good twenty miles, sir—but it’s really bad. The marines pulled back a couple
hours ago and, hell, they were in AMTRAKS.”

“I don’t know what that
is, but I’m going,” Jacob muttered, turning back to look at the bridge.

“Sorry, sir, my orders
were to hold all civilians. You being a cop and all… I mean, I guess if you
really
need to get yourself killed tonight, nothing I can do about it. But seriously,
those Marines… they were in bad shape when they came limping back. The things
are changing.”

“Is the road clear or
not?” Jacob asked.

The soldier shook his
head. “Most of the way, but it’s completely blocked at the railroad. You’ll
have to finish up on foot—and that’s through heavy areas—the museum is still
under siege; you’d have to get through that and—”

Jacob watched as a hole
popped at the base of the man’s neck. The soldier’s eyes went wide, and his
left hand reached up as the echo of a single gunshot cracked. The machine gun
on the Humvee opened up and flames spit from the barrel as the gunner swept the
tree line with fire. Jacob was tackled from behind and pushed to the side.

“Get down, you fool!”
Stephens yelled at him as he lifted his rifle and fired quick shots off into
the trees.

Jacob stared at the
asphalt and watched the expended brass from Stephens’ rifle bounce and roll at
his feet. He steadied himself and rose to a knee, keeping the concrete barrier
between his body and the incoming rounds. He looked out beyond the sandbag
bunker; armed men were rushing in under the cover of the trees. Unlike before,
when they would run head on into incoming fire, this group would run, disappear
from sight, and then rise up shooting at the men dug in on the road. Rounds
smacked into the Humvee and the gunner went limp—another soldier quickly took
his place.

A machine gun positioned
on the roof of the fire station joined the fight. Flares launched in the sky,
casting long, haunting shadows over the approaching army charging in from the
woods. Jacob watched as a soldier to his left was hit; he was knocked back and
looked at the hole in his armor that miraculously landed at the very center of
his chest plate. The soldier put a finger in the hole, looked up at Jacob, and
smiled just as a second round hit the man in the top of the head.

Jacob felt fear, then
anger build in his gut. He forced his rifle up and aimed into the tree line,
pulling the trigger continuously though he couldn’t see his targets. He could
hear a soldier speaking into a radio frantically, “Requesting fire support;
unit in danger of being overrun.”

Men screamed farther down
the line behind them. Jacob turned as an explosion ripped through a bunker.
Soon after, men dressed in civilian clothing and carrying all manner of weapons
poured into the street, breeching the defensive line.

Jacob flinched at the
shriek of an incoming round moments before it crashed into the far tree line
and exploded, lighting the night sky. The radio operator continued yelling into
the handset, “More, more, more, on target, fire for effect!”

Rounds shrieked in and
began erupting all along the defensive line. Earth and smoke were tossed into
the air. Murphy grabbed Jacob by the collar and pulled him back, then shoved
him toward the rear seat of the patrol car. Jacob turned and looked down the
road, back in the direction they’d traveled. The swarms were inside the
containment zone, running and fighting the soldiers. Blood and blue smoke mixed
with a flurry of arms.

“Back in the car! Back in
the car!” Murphy shouted as he shoved Jacob into the back seat. Murphy opened
the front door and stood beside it while firing his weapon across the hood as
Stephens leapt in the driver’s side and fired up the engine. Murphy dropped
into the passenger’s seat just as the car began moving. Stephens drove around
the serpentine path of concrete barriers, crashing through the wooden sawhorses.
Looking out of the rear window as the car raced toward the iron bridge, Jacob
witnessed the soldiers left behind being overwhelmed by the swarm pressing
against the fire station’s walls.

Tracers crisscrossed the
sky while artillery rounds exploded into the street and field, churning up
earth and bodies. The smoke from the rounds quickly developed a fog that
mercifully blinded Jacob from the horror.