The Dying of the Light (Book 1): End (20 page)

“Dammit, Eric,” Rebecca said, and then calmed herself, taking a deep breath.
Getting mad at him now’s not going to help anything.
“You know why I’ve told you over and over not to play there. Now you almost got grabbed by some homeless man or something!”

“He wasn’t a homeless man, Mom! He was a monster! All gray and moaning, it was gross!”

“It doesn’t matter
what
he was, you still knew you shouldn’t be there. Thank you for telling me the truth. You’re grounded for two weeks.”

“Aw, Mom, I told the truth! You said I wouldn’t get in trouble if I told the truth!”

“No, I didn’t. I said you’d get in
more
trouble if you
didn’t
tell the truth. Now go get in the car. We’ll go and see David; he can talk to the Sheriff about this
monster
you saw.”

Eric jumped off the bed. “Can I start the car?”

She laughed and shook her head. “Not this time, little man. Maybe next time.” She gave one more look in the mirror and tossed her long blonde ponytail over her shoulder.

Downstairs, they climbed into her Wrangler, and she made sure Eric was buckled in. It was a short drive to David’s shop, but Eric had a habit of taking off the belt, claiming it choked him.

A few minutes later, she pulled onto Main Street and stopped at Magnolia, then turned right and entered the rear parking lot of the small shopping center. The bell on the door tinkled as she entered the Fall Creek Bookshop. She bypassed the counter, waving at Jenny, who worked as David’s assistant and kept things organized. Jenny waved back and smiled at Eric, who blushed bright red and ran ahead into the back room.

“He’s got a huge crush on you,” Rebecca told the younger girl.

“I know, and he’s cute, but he’s a bit young for me,” Jenny said, winking. “David’s in the back.”

“Thanks, Jenny.”

She walked back through the shelves and shelves of old and new books and put her arms around David, sitting at his desk, frowning at his computer monitor. He looked up at her, and she was struck as always by the deep grey of his eyes, just as Eric careened into his lap for a hug and he smiled at both of them.

How much happier can I get?
she thought.
I can’t wait to see what happens next.

After Eric finished his story, I looked at him and Rebecca both. “This doesn’t sound good, babe. I think I need to tell the sheriff.”

“You really think it’s that serious?” Rebecca asked, surprised.

“Well, even if he’s just a homeless man, he needs to be stopped from attacking people or at least threatening them. And who knows? He could be hurt and just need some help. Either way,” I said, turning to Eric. “
You
are not going anywhere near that mine again. Clear?”

He looked down, embarrassed. “Okay.” He looked back up at me and met my eyes without flinching. “I promise.”

I nodded at him, as one man to another. I’d often found that showing a little respect seemed to go a long way with children, and Eric was no exception. “Okay then.” I looked back at Rebecca, marveling yet again how someone so beautiful could be so taken with me. “I’ll talk to the sheriff about this, but I think you and Eric should get home. Do we have enough stuff for dinner at the house?”

Rebecca shook her head. “Not really. I’ll stop by the store, and dinner will be ready by the time you get home.”

I smiled and pulled her close as I stood. “Thanks. Just make sure to lock the doors, okay? The house is too close to the mine for me to feel comfortable with you two there all alone. I’ll try to wrap this up as quickly as I can and get home.”

She smiled and laid her hand on my cheek. “You’re sweet. We’ll be fine, love. See you later.” As she kissed me, Eric made the requisite barfing noises of all eight-year-olds, and begged for them to go. Rebecca and I just laughed, and I smiled at her as she left.

It was about two hours later, and I was deep in my work, cataloging the newly arrived books when the sheriff walked in. I looked up as I heard Jenny greet him and he came around the corner of the doorway.

He wasn’t a large man, either in height or girth, and he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but Sheriff Jasper Inson was everything you’d expect from a small-town sheriff. Friendly, tough, kind, all in equal measure, except for the ironclad core of his personality: justice. I’d never met a man so devoted to the ideal as Jasper, and it showed in everything he did.

“Hey there, sheriff,” I said, smiling at the man who worked just two storefronts over. “I’m glad you stopped by; I was actually going to come see you.”

Jasper’s laugh boomed out of him like he was a natural loudspeaker. “Oh really? Well, how… uh… fortuitous… that I happened to stop by, then.” He raised an eyebrow at me, and I nodded, smiling.

Jasper had been trying to expand his vocabulary, and being as this was the only bookshop in town, he’d enlisted my help in providing some fiction that was a bit wordier than your average cop novel. Ever since, he’d been trying out the new words on me when I saw him. Except for the occasional gaffe, he was doing quite well.

“Yep, it certainly was serendipitous,” I replied, and chuckled as Jasper snagged the pad from his shirt pocket and made a note. “S-e-r-e-n-d-i-p-i-t-o-u-s,” I said, helping him out.

“Ah, got it. Thanks, David.” He put the pad away, and was suddenly serious. “What were you coming to see me about?”

“Oh, nothing too important, I think. Just a homeless guy near the mine. Eric and his friend were playing over there and he said this guy tried to grab his friend. Apparently he was moaning, too, so he might’ve been hurt and just needed some help.” I noticed Jasper carefully concealing a quick look of surprise, but I continued as though I hadn’t. “Even if he is homeless and hurt, he doesn’t need to be bothering a couple of kids.”

“And when did this happen?”

Okay, Jasper is serious about this. Something else must’ve happened. But what?
“Eric told Rebecca it was about five or six hours ago, now. Why? What’s wrong?”

“Settle down, David, it’s probably nothing. I just got a third call about some weird guy hanging out around the east side, about a half mile from the mine. Kenneth Ackerman said he tried to grab his dog, of all things, and the damned thing went crazy barking as soon as it saw the guy. He’s all barricaded in his house now, and I sent Charlie to take a look.” He chuckled. “That guy’s almost as bad as Feldon, or getting there, anyway. Anyway, I thought you might have heard something about it. Looks like it was a good idea to come talk to you after all.”

“Well shit, Jasper! Why didn’t you tell me? That’s over near my house, man! Rebecca and Eric are there all alone! What if this crazy fucker decides he’s going to go after them? I’ve gotta get over there.” I stood up, grabbing my keys from the desk and my coat from the chair.

“Now hold on, David. Charlie will take care of this; there’s no need to get all crazy.”

“Jasper, that’s my girl and my kid over there,” I said, moving to go around him as he blocked the doorway. He didn’t move, but he put one hand on my arm, and I looked at him, my heart in my eyes. “I was going to propose to her tonight.”

He looked back at me, searching for something undefined, and nodded, releasing my arm. “Just be careful, David. Who knows what this guy is capable of, if he’s attacking dogs and kids? Stay in your house, with your family. Ok?”

I nodded as I walked out front. “Will do!” Looking over at Jenny, I stopped for a second. “Jenny, go ahead and get out of here, ok? Lock up, but don’t bother with any of the other paperwork. We’ll take care of it tomorrow if we need to. Just head home and stay there.”

She looked surprised, but shrugged. “Sure thing, boss. See you tomorrow.”

“That was the last time I saw her or Eric alive. Or Jasper or Jenny, for that matter.”

I sat still, lost in memories for who knows how long. Kim took my hand and broke the spell and I smiled at her in thanks. “I never did find out what happened to Jenny, but I killed Jasper early the next morning. By the time I got to our house, there was no one there. Everything was closed up, but I don’t think Rebecca had been home.”

“I grabbed my rifle and pistol, just in case, and headed out to look for them, but I didn’t find them at the grocery store, and things went to hell before I could get back home. You know the rest.”

Kim cleared her throat and started to say something, and stopped. She tried again. “What about Eric?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. They never found him. Or at least, they never found a body. He might’ve run off, or been…” I broke off and stared at the table, still holding her hand.

She leaned forward and turned me to face her, and I felt like she was looking into my soul with those eyes of hers as she fought back tears. “I’m sorry, David. Sorry that you lost her; that you lost Eric, that you lost all those friends. But you’re going to be okay.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and blinked several times, finally getting myself under control. “I… I know, babe. It’s just hard sometimes, you know?”

She smiled and stroked my face with her hand, then stood and came around the table and pulled me to my feet. “Let’s see if we can’t make it a bit better, shall we?” She drew me in for a deep kiss, and suddenly all thoughts of Rebecca, Eric, even yesterday’s mess fled.

We were only a few minutes late for the briefing, but Maxwell glared at us both as we walked in and took our spots. Commander Anderson, on the other hand, hid a grin, as did Reynolds.

I returned the colonel’s glare with a cheery smile, and even that old bastard finally faltered a bit and I saw the hint of a smirk slip through, just before he sighed and stood up.

“Now that we’re all here,” he said, looking at Kimberly and I. “Let’s get started. Mr. Gardner, you have the floor.”

The grey man, as I thought of him, stood and moved to the small lectern that had been placed on the desk, clearing his throat and arranging his papers just so before getting started. Just as some of us began to fidget, he cleared his throat
again
and finally started.

“Gentlemen, I must congratulate you on the most successful mission that you had yesterday,” he said. “You were able to secure and cleanse the ‘Uintah Basin Medical Center’ and its environs of zombies with acceptable casualties and minimal structural damage to important buildings.”

As he spoke, some of the soldiers and I glanced at each other furtively.
Is this guy for real? ‘Acceptable’ casualties?

“The important thing to take away from this mission is the knowledge that you can survive; that indeed, you can succeed beyond our wildest hopes,” Gardner continued. “The REAPRs were also an unqualified success, though it was to be hoped that they could be used to track additional targets. Still, they proved their worth and the remainder of the force will be outfitted with additional units.”

He turned to Janet Turner, a young woman with shock-white hair and a severe sort of mien, and gestured at the light switches. “Young lady, if you please.” Janet scowled at the man, but reached over and flicked the appropriate switches to turn the lights off and the projector on. I’m guessing Gardner missed the subtle hand gesture she sent his way behind her back, though the rest of the team saw it.

“Thank you, miss.” I could see her visibly grind her teeth in a smile, and stifled a chuckle as Gardner turned to the projected map of the United States. He pointed to a small red dot in northern Utah: Roosevelt. There were several other red dots scattered across the map, even in Alaska. “Unfortunately, even with the success we’ve had with this mission, we’ve had recent reports of incursions elsewhere, too, as you can see.”

“Except for Roosevelt, all of these incursions were graded Class One, some barely even making that level. Until Roosevelt, your combined military strength hasn’t been needed, and conventional troops could be used to deal with the minor number of walkers encountered. As usual, we staged an epidemiological accident as the cause.”

I tried not to fall asleep as he droned on and on with statistics, charts, graphs and more esoteric data than I’d ever seen. I could tell from Gardner’s attitude that he was in his element now. I could also tell from the looks on the faces of my peers that they were as enthused as I was, and I’d have sworn that Powell was dead asleep, though he was staring straight ahead, eyes open. That was a trick I’d yet to master, as hard as I’d tried.

I snapped back to full alert when Gardner pointed to a new map that I hadn’t seen him bring up, overlaying the old one. This showed two blue circles, significantly bigger than the original red dots. One appeared to be near south-central Wyoming, the other in western Maine.

“This, gentlemen, is our most serious problem. This is why the other teams have been activated and are being armed and outfitted as we speak. They have already received this briefing as of yesterday afternoon.” He put down his laser pointer and turned to us, and became more animated than we’d ever seen him. If anything, he appeared…
excited
.

Surely not.

“The two areas you see outlined here are confirmed to have experienced a Class Two Outbreak. As expected, AEGIS has been tasked with cleaning up the mess. Teams Three and Four will deal with the outbreak in Farmington, Maine, while Teams One and Two will be tasked with the Rawlins, Wyoming outbreak. Both towns have a population under 10,000, but local press can be expected and, in the case of Rawlins, is already on site.