Fade To Black (Into The Darkness Book 2) Read online

  The pair reclined on the ground and looked up at the blue sky as full morning dawned and the twinkling stars became just another memory from the night. They waited for the sickness to come back, but it did not. A large bird flew overhead, but for Becky, it was just a dark smudge on a blue background. Michael watched the bird soaring high above and realized that it was circling, floating on an invisible column of air. He strained his eyes to see that it was a buzzard, and he thought about his own demise. He wondered if that bird would soon be pecking the flesh from his bones and taking his eyes back to the nest for its hatchlings. He sat up when he realized that the bird was not circling him, but some other carrion nearby. He stood on shaky legs, crossed the stream, and kept walking forward. Nearly under the circling bird, he began to look around and heard a faint rustling in the grass before him. Moving forward a short distance, he found an area of matted grass that a herd of sleeping deer had flattened to the ground. Near a discarded roll of carpet, stained with drying blood, he watched a coyote ravaging the limp corpse of a fawn. After a doe had left her sleeping offspring to get water from the stream, the coyote had taken the opportunity for the kill.

  The coyote spun around when it sensed Michael’s presence. Still devouring the tender flesh in its jaws, it growled. The fur arched high across its spine and the coyote turned a little to the side to make itself look bigger, ready to fight for its kill. Michael went back to the stream and desperately looked about for anything he could use as a weapon. He picked up several rocks and started to go back for the fawn. Looking down at the handful of rocks, he realized that once he had thrown them all, the coyote would almost certainly come back to reclaim its meal. Michael dropped the rocks and continued looking for a weapon. He wanted a club. He parted the tall grass, desperately moving his head left and right. Behind a hedge tree, he found a metal fence post, gripped it with both hands, and ran back at the coyote, screaming and swinging it violently. The coyote cowered and moved away with bloody saliva still dripping from its jaws. Michael dragged the fawn to the edge of the babbling water and then crossed the stream. The coyote followed Michael, and he could see it peering through the tall grass, almost perfectly camouflaged by its brown fur.

  The fawn was limp and warm. It was a fresh kill. This was fresh meat, and Michael desperately wanted to eat it. The coyote had torn away the soft underbelly, eviscerating the fawn. After taking it across the stream, Michael clawed at the hide with his short fingernails and could not get to the flesh. Becky tried her long fake fingernails, but they quickly broke. Michael tried to bite into the fawn and failed, only getting a mouthful of bristly fur. With a stick and rock, he tried to rub a point onto the end of the wood and use it to pierce the hide. That failed, too. Frustrated, he threw the stick at the water and noticed that it landed near something shiny. It was a discarded, empty liquor bottle. He broke the bottle with a rock and used the sharp, serrated glass to slice away the raw flesh. They ate raw meat until their stomachs bulged.

  Becky sat back down and leaned against the rotten log again. Michael, with fence post in hand, went back to the water’s edge and looked into the tall grass. As he got closer, he heard the low growl of the coyote, still stalking its prey. Michael crossed the water and clubbed at the coyote. It hastily moved back, but not away. The coyote temporarily retreated, to hide and wait in the prairie grass and tall weeds that encapsulated and cloaked the predator. Michael turned back, looked at the trees lining the stream, and then looked ahead in the direction they had been traveling. He could see a large building in the distance, and began to stumble toward it. He got close enough that he could read the sign. In capital letters, he saw, ALLIED GROCERY DISTRIBUTION. Running back to his wife, he dropped the fencepost and forgot about the coyote.

  From the other side of the stream he yelled, “Becky!”

  Still leaning against the log, she only turned her head toward the sound of his voice and lethargically asked, “What?”

  “Come here, quick! I want to show you something.”

  Michael gestured for his wife to come toward him, but she could only see a blurry outline of his body.

  She crawled to the stream’s edge and stood up. His image was still hazy. She could smell him better than she could see him.

  Michael pointed upstream. “Look, that building. It’s a food warehouse.”

  Becky looked, even though she knew she would not be able to see it. She glanced back down and grasped the shard of glass tighter in her hand. After she crossed the stream, she said, “I can’t do this anymore.”

  Michael saw the jagged glass in her hand. “What do you mean?”

  She held the sharp glass up to show her husband. “This is my ticket out. I can’t live like this.”

  “Suicide?” asked Michael.

  “Call it what you want. I prefer escape. Escape from hell.” Her weak arm collapsed to her side. “Do you believe in karma?” asked Becky.

  “No.”

  “You better believe it now. We just got a big dose of payback, and the universe is laughing at us.”

  Michael was shocked at his wife’s confession. When she was telling him how nothing mattered anymore and how she was ready to go, his vision began to tunnel. He lost contact with his immediate surroundings and his consciousness began to escape him. He did not hear the three men approaching, and Becky, with her poor vision, could not see them. By the time Michael came back to reality, the three men had come close and were standing in the matted grass where he had found the fawn. Even then, the men still had not noticed the married couple. Michael and Becky were standing still next to the trees, partially camouflaged by the tall grass. They stood motionless.

  Two men had escorted another through the field, hands tied behind his back. They stopped in the bloody grass where Michael had found the fawn. In the clearing, two of the men told the bound man to stop, and he began to visibly tremble. The first escort told the captive to turn around and drop to his knees, so he obediently rested his knees on the roll of bloodstained carpet, then began to cry and beg for mercy. The second escort handed the first one a pistol and then took a step back. Without hesitation, the first man racked the slide, raised the pistol to the back of the kneeling man’s head, and only a second after he squinted one eye, pulled the trigger.

  “Good. You didn’t hesitate,” said the second man, as he took back the pistol. He turned to survey the landscape and finally noticed Michael and Becky, standing frozen with fear. The man with the pistol slapped his accomplice in the chest with the back of his hand. Not taking his eyes off the couple, he went toward them, his accomplice right beside him. He stopped a few feet away and raised the pistol, pointing it at Michael’s skull, and demanded, “Who are you?”

  “My name is Michael.” He quickly engaged his fake smile, a wide, tight-lipped smile to hide the gap in his front teeth.

  Becky nervously answered, “My name is Becky.” She dropped the jagged glass and felt a renewed desire for self-preservation. Suddenly, she did not want to die.

  “Shut up, bitch, I wasn’t talking to you.” He lowered the pistol. “Are you from the apartment complex?”

  Michael responded. “No, we had a house, but decided to leave. We’ve been walking.” Michael noticed that one of the men wore a shirt embroidered with the name of the food warehouse. It was completely unbuttoned in the front, and he was wearing it over a dingy yellow undershirt. They looked healthy, as if they had enough to eat. He quickly deduced that the warehouse was where the men had come from, and they must have plenty of food.

  The man with the pistol gestured for his friend to step back so they could speak privately with each other. The man with the pistol, still watching the couple, asked his partner, “What do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “Boss says we’re down too many men.”

  “So?”

  “We bring him back, let Sam check him out.”

  “Think so?” He rubbed his chin as he stared at the couple. “Think they’ll come along?”


  “They look desperate to me. Desperate people will do anything for food, and they’re easy to control.”

  “How do we coax them along? A carrot and a stick?” He laughed to himself.

  “No, a carrot and a pistol.”

  Both men laughed loudly, and they walked back to the couple.

  The man with the pistol nodded at Michael. “You want a job?”

  Michael smiled broadly, his lips separating from his teeth, and the two men instantly roared with laughter at the large gap in Michael’s smile. The beating Dylan had given him had knocked out a perfectly veneered front tooth.

  “But what about me?” Becky pleaded.

  “Michael, you better muzzle that bitch. Is she your wife?”

  “Yeah, we’re married.”

  “You’re going to need to act like a man if you’re going to talk to the boss. If he thinks you’re a pussy…” The man paused, looked back in the direction of the corpse in the grass, and then looked at Michael and shook his head.

  Becky hung her head low and looked at the blurry ground around her feet. She understood.

  “Now tell her to shut up.”

  “Becky, be quiet. I’ll do the talking.”

  “That’s not what I said. I said, ‘Tell her to shut up.’ You better get serious about this.”

  “Shut up, Becky.”

  “Good, now say it like you mean it.”

  “Shut up, Becky!”

  “Good. You better keep her in check.” He looked across the stream and saw the ravaged fawn carcass. “What in the hell happened here?”

  “I was hungry. I took it from a coyote.”

  The man whistled and looked back at Michael. He tried to see if there was something in Michael’s eyes. Something he had not noticed before. He narrowed one eye and thought he might have seen it at that moment, something people with no soul share with one another.

  “We’ll tell the boss about this. He’ll like your enthusiasm.” As he said that, he realized that the blood around Michael’s mouth was from the fawn. He took his shirt off and handed it to Michael to wipe his face. As he did, Michael saw the number thirteen tattooed on the man’s arm. The man pointed to the warehouse and they began to walk, with Michael and Becky in the lead. She walked in silence.

  Hidden within the foliage, the coyote slipped through the tall grass, each paw falling silently in front of the other. It peered into the area of trampled grass, where the fawn had been, and found another meal. It smelled the blood that had gushed out of the fractured skull of the executed man and was pooled and coagulating on the grass. Gray brain matter lay exposed, and the coyote quickly devoured it. Finally, the coyote was replete and satisfied; its pink tongue licked the blood from around its mouth. After sniffing the air for danger, she called her litter of pups. The coyote reclined on her side and each small pup took a nipple.

  Chapter Nine

  Michael and Becky walked through the field and away from the stream, toward the warehouse. If their paced slowed, one of the men following would prod them with the pistol. No one spoke during the short trek to the warehouse parking lot. When they stepped out of the grass and onto the blacktop, they were facing the front of the large two-story concrete building. A few stalled cars were in the parking lot. Michael saw some semi-trucks backed up to loading bays behind the building. He also noticed railroad tracks near the building and a large lot behind the warehouse for loading and unloading railcars.

  Michael nudged his wife, pointed to the sign on the front of the warehouse, and whispered in her ear, “Allied Grocery Distribution. How’s that for your karma?”

  Becky squinted. The big letters were barely large enough for her to see. She wanted to smile, thinking she might have been wrong, but it still sounded too good to be true. It just did not make sense, all that food in a warehouse, and they were just going to walk right into it. Instead of smiling, she shook her head gently and hung her head low. She remembered what the man behind her had said, and the words, “You better muzzle that bitch,” still rang in her ears.

  They felt another prod at their backs and walked toward the steel door at the front of the building. Two armed men were at the door. They were large men who looked like bulldogs, one with a rifle and the other with a shotgun.

  At the front door, one of the escorting soldiers behind the couple said, “Stop here.”

  The guard with the shotgun walked around the couple and slowly looked them up and down. He stopped behind them and spoke with the other two men. Michael and Becky did not turn or try to join the conversation. They faced the steel door and tried to look through the small glass window. They listened to the men speak as they strained for any sight of food inside the building.

  “Fresh meat?” asked the man with the shotgun.

  “Ha! Can’t you smell ‘em? I wouldn’t call that fresh.”

  The soldiers laughed.

  “Are you going to take them to Sam?” asked the man with the shotgun.

  “Yeah, we’re down a man.”

  The guard at the door tried not to laugh about the man the two soldiers had just executed in the field, but the others roared aloud. Morbid humor was popular.

  “They look hungry. Sam likes ‘em hungry. He says they’re easier to train that way,” said the man with the shotgun, as he returned to his post. He reached into a bag by the door and retrieved a pair of sunglasses from it. When the man stretched his arm to reach into the bag, his shirtsleeve had pulled back, and Michael noticed another number thirteen tattooed on an arm. One of the guards pushed the door open, went inside, and held it open for Michael, Becky, and the two soldiers to enter behind him.

  “Sam’s a little busy right now with some inventory problems. Do you want to clean them up before you send them upstairs?”

  “Nope. If Sam don’t want ‘em, I’m not wastin’ my time.”

  The guard went back to his post. The door closed with a metallic click that echoed inside. One of their escorts walked away without saying a word.

  The remaining man tucked the pistol into his belt, pointed to the wrought-iron deck near Sam’s office on the second level, and then spoke to the couple. “I’m going to go up there and tell Sam, the boss, that I found some recruits. He’ll look you over and ask you some questions. If he likes what he sees, you can stick around…as long as you follow the rules.”

  “What are the rules?” asked Michael.

  “The rules are simple. Do whatever you’re told to do.”

  “What happens if you break the rules?”

  The man frowned and shrugged his shoulders, tilting his head toward the direction of the field that they just came from. Michael understood the gesture.

  “You wait here. I’ll go upstairs and tell him there are two new people to interview. If I wave you up, come up and wait on the deck until he calls you into his office. Any questions?”

  “What if you don’t wave us up?”

  “Then you turn right around and get your ass out of here. You’re stinking up my warehouse.”

  The man marched across the concrete floor and climbed the stairs. Each heavy step on the iron stairs echoed in the warehouse. An older man waited outside Sam’s office. He nervously paced across the deck. His shaking hand clutched a roll of papers. Their escort opened the door and entered the office just long enough to inform Sam of the couple’s presence. When the soldier left Sam’s office, he motioned for the older man to go in. As the man entered, his shoulders dropped, and he slowly and submissively moved forward. While their escort came down the stairs, Michael and Becky became tense with anticipation, which increased with each step down.

  She whispered, “Has he waved yet?”

  “No, he’s still walking.”

  “What’s his expression? Can you tell?”

  “No, I can’t tell anything. Just wait.”

  The man stepped onto the ground-floor landing and suddenly grabbed the banister to swing his body around as he exited the stairs and walked away. Michael’s heart dropped. The
n just as suddenly, the soldier spun around again, gave the couple a quick wave, and pointed to the metal deck at the top of the steps.

  “This is it,” said Michael.

  “He waved?” asked Becky.

  “Yeah, follow me.”

  They walked up the stairs and waited on the deck. They could see into the office through the large glass windows. Sam was behind his desk and the older man was sitting in front of it. He appeared to be nervously answering a barrage of questions. The windows were single pane, and someone had left the door cracked open. They watched and listened as Sam interrogated the man.

  “Clarence, do you understand why you’re here?” Sam asked the older man seated before him.

  “Yes, there’s a misunderstanding,” Clarence answered. Sweat was soaking his shirt under his arms.

  “Misunderstanding?” Sam asked, with a tone of disbelief.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How many pencils are in this cup?” Sam took a plastic cup that contained pencils off the desk and held it up for the man to see. Clarence’s eyes quickly scanned the pencils. “Twelve.”