The Dying of the Light (Book 1): End Read online

  Stafford tried to dispose of the hunter’s body after he expired; after all, sixty years before, he’d hidden in a saloon’s basement as the only people he had ever known were killed and eaten. He knew what was going to happen. But while he was trying to burn the body, he was caught and tied up by the other hunters, and then, by the time he’d managed to work himself free again, it was too late: the rest of the hunters had been infected.

  He stalked them one by one, taking them down with his well-honed stealth and speed. When only two were left, he dragged the rest of the bodies into the main hunting lodge as bait. It worked; they followed him, then he ran around and chained the door shut with them still inside, setting fire to the building.

  Throughout his interrogation, Stafford claims that he hasn’t killed anyone but the monsters that would have killed him. Intensive analysis is conducted by Unit 73 personnel, who determine that there is evidence of human teeth marks on each of the thirteen bodies as well as other indicators of walker activity. This evidence lends support to Stafford’s claim of mass walker infection. Years later, analysis of samples from the blood remaining on the trenching tool would test positive for the ‘zombie’ prion, further exonerating the old man.

  The agents eventually realize that the walker that had attacked the camp must have been some unfortunate soul who was either a remnant of the original Washington Territory attacks, or someone who was attacked by one of the wounded soldiers nearly 60 years before. It is later determined that the only way this could have happened would have been if the walker had been trapped in one of the blizzards and frozen, only to have thawed out and been just as deadly decades later.

  The agents give Harry a nice, quiet place to live in the country, far from anyone else and with every conceivable need provided. They check up on him just over a month after his release and find that he has hanged himself. His suicide note is short and to the point: “I can’t live with this anymore. I can still hear the screams.”

  Belzec Extermination Camp, Poland, 1942

  Unit 73 is made a part of the Office of Strategic Services when it is determined that walker attacks have been occurring not only on US soil, but also overseas, with reports coming in from posts and Army units throughout World War One and the early days of World War Two.

  Agents from Unit 73 drop behind enemy lines in southeastern Poland to investigate rumors that Joseph Mengele has begun experimentation with walkers. The agents investigate a subsidiary camp near Belzec and discover the truth is even more horrifying than they were expecting.

  Not only are the Nazis engaged in research on walkers, they are also manufacturing them, and at a rate that is staggering to behold. Unit 73 confirms that the SS Colonel General in command of the camp is attempting to create some sort of biological weapon to be dropped on targets from the air. During their infiltration, the agents count more than five thousand active walkers in pens at the smaller camp, and discover the source of the new ones: the Jewish, Romani and Polish prisoners from the main Belzec camp. Even worse, the prisoners know what is happening, and are powerless to stop their deaths and eventual rebirths.

  As the agents acquire intelligence, it is delivered to the commander of Unit 73. In cooperation with soon-to-be Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force General Dwight Eisenhower, Unit 73 begins forming a plan to destroy both Belzec and its smaller and more dangerous sub-camp. Before the operation can be finalized and given a green light, operations end at Belzec, and the smaller camp is closed and dismantled, with many of the structures — and the walkers inside them — simply burned where they stand to prevent spread of the contagion. Unit 73 operatives manage to collect some evidence of the mass infection of prisoners of war, but the war soon ends, and due to their nature, the incidents are quietly covered up and never brought to light.

  In 1963, the newly-created Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) takes over funding of Unit 73, renaming it as the Advanced Experimental Genetics Intelligence Service (AEGIS). Soon, AEGIS' primary mission is codified and standardized. The two main purposes of the group become containment and investigation. First, to contain and eliminate any and all walker incursions through the United States and its territories, including the manufacture of cover stories to prevent worldwide chaos. This is done through the use of military personnel under strict security and need-to-know access — Special Operations groups who are simply told that the victims are dangerously sick and the illness is incurable. Second, to determine the source of the infection and a possible cure.

  Arizona, 1986

  She takes a quick break from her work and leans against a corner of the barn, sweating through her thin shirt as the bright Arizona summer sun pours down on her. Even for Arizona it’s hot, and it isn’t normally this bad so close to sundown. A sudden strong breeze brings her upright, and she lifts her chin into the wind, sending her long red hair streaming out behind her.

  A child’s laughter captures her attention, and she smiles as she looks over at her little brother, Johnny, playing in the front yard in the sprinkler. She wants to join him, but her father will tan her hide if she shirks her chores, so she turns back to the task of mucking out the horse’s stalls. Even at thirteen, she has a strong work ethic and knows her responsibilities.

  Her favorite, a mountain of a horse named Jack, whickers from the next stall and she smiles at him, extending a treat for him to munch on. She loves his chestnut brown coloring, and rides him every chance she can, which isn’t much these days, what with school and chores and homework.

  As she finishes clearing the stall, she hears her mother call her and her brother inside for dinner, and puts back her tools, making sure the barn door is closed and secured. She can smell the delicious aromas of the food, and her stomach rumbles as she realizes just how hungry she is.

  She turns off the hose as she passes the corner of the house, causing little Johnny to set up a wail that is probably heard miles away. She just rolls her eyes and pushes him inside to wash up. Her father comes in just behind her through the screen door and starts to head for the table, but is stopped short by his wife.

  “Johnathan Michael Barnes, you know better than that. Get over here and wash your hands,” she says. “And take off those dirty boots!”

  John Barnes laughs as he picks up his wife in a huge bear hug and swings her around. “Ellen, one of these days I’m going to eat with dirty hands, and I’ll survive just to spite you.”

  Kimberly looks at her parents laughing, the love they feel for each other clear in their eyes and smiles and little touches. Being a normal young teenage girl, she is concerned with such things, and sighs with hope that she will find that sort of love someday.

  Her reverie is broken by the sharp pinch Johnny gives her as he sits down at the table, having run some water over his hands — his version of ‘washing up.’ She jumps and smacks him on the back of his head, causing a fight, which is quickly broken up by their mother.

  Having washed his hands and taken off his dirty boots and gloves, her father sits down at the table and leads them in saying grace.

  “Lord, we thank you for blessing our table with this bounty. In your name, we pray. Amen.” He smiles as he looks around at his family. “Now, let’s eat!”

  The evening air is warm and heavy, and her mother allows them to sleep on the screened-in front porch. She lies on her pallet, her long legs sticking out from the too-small blankets, and looks up at the stars through the screens. The night wind blows, taking much of the day’s heat away and leaving her goose-bumped and shivering, but she doesn’t mind one bit. She prefers to sleep outside when she can get away with it.

  Sometime later, she starts awake. Something feels wrong, and she lies there for a few minutes trying to figure out just what it is that has awakened her, listening for even the smallest sound.

  Suddenly, she knows: there is no noise at all. No crickets, no owls, none of the normal country night-noises that bother city-folk so. Not even any soft snorts or whickers from the hor
ses in the stable. She glances over at Johnny, snoring in his rolled-up blankets, and decides to leave him be. No reason to wake him, yet. It’s probably nothing, anyway.

  She crawls out of her blankets, the cool midnight air pebbling her skin, and creeps to the edge of the porch, peering out at the night. Nothing is moving except for a few branches of the trees, and yet she still feels a sense of wrongness that chills her more than any breeze. Just as she is about to go inside to wake her father, she hears a horse cry out from the barn, followed by the oddest moaning sound she’s ever heard.

  That’s Jack! What’s wrong with him? The horse’s screaming gets louder and she can hear him kicking against the walls of his stall, mad with fear.

  Panic sets in. Kimberly finds herself running around the side of the house towards the barn, and is startled as the back porch light comes on and her parents run out of the house, stopping on the back steps. Her father holds his shotgun. Seeing her there, he points back to the house. “Get your butt back in there, Kim, and see to your brother, too,” he yells. She is obeying before she realizes it, running back the way she came as her father heads toward the barn. Kim grabs her brother from his sound sleep on the front porch and carries him into the house. As she comes into the front room, there is a loud boom and then another from the backyard as her daddy fires his shotgun. She can hear a loud crack from the barn. She stops in the middle of the room, staring out of the back door. Johnny wakes up and tries to pull away, and she holds him tightly.

  Suddenly her mother screams from the back porch steps, and she hears that moan again as another shotgun blast goes off, closer than the others. She holds Johnny tightly to her chest as her father yells, and she sees something attacking him. He struggles with whatever it is, yelling to her mother, “Ellen, get the kids out of here! Go now before…” Whatever he is about to say is cut off as the struggle with the creature causes her father’s finger to slip on the trigger. Another loud boom, and her mother falls backwards into the kitchen, her screams cut off and her chest a mass of blood, ruined skin and bone.

  “God, no!” shouts her father, stunned into stillness by Ellen’s death. “No, no, no…”

  He doesn’t see the rotting arms reaching for him once more, only coming back to the moment as the walker takes a large bite out of his forearm. He yells and curses, and with a mighty shove knocks the creature back, chambering and firing his last shell point blank into its face, blowing its head to pieces.

  Kimberly sinks to the floor, her brother now screaming in her arms, his face hidden against her body. Her father, cursing and holding his arm, comes in through what is left of the back door and kneels next to his wife. He moans and cries as he cradles her in his good arm and begins to rock back and forth. In a daze, Kim sets her brother down. He clings to her legs as she walks to the kitchen’s wall-mounted phone and dials 911.

  “911, what is your emergency?”

  “Mom… mom’s dead and my daddy’s hurt. Come quick.”

  “What’s your address? Hello? Hello?” Kimberly can’t seem to put any more words together and drops the receiver. She goes back into the living room and sits down on the couch. Johnny crawls up next to her and she wraps an arm around him, staring across the room at the wall.

  She doesn’t notice the flashing lights appearing outside, or the men knocking on the door. There are people who come to look at her daddy’s arm, and she can just barely see them pull him away from her mother through the doorway. Men and women both come into the living room and try to talk to her, but she can’t answer them, as if she doesn’t remember how to talk, and Johnny is silent and still, his tears leaving stains on his cheeks. One woman sits down on her mother’s rocking chair.

  “I’ll stay with you, dear,” she says, reaching out and patting Kim’s arm.

  Eventually, Kim looks up when she hears a neighing horse outside. At least Jack’s ok, she thinks. I still have Jack, and Johnny, and Daddy. The lady sitting nearby notices her perk up, and, desperate to reach the girl, decides to try one last gambit.

  “I tell you what, I’ll go find out what’s going on with your horse, ok? I’ll be right back. You’ll be here when I come back, won’t you?”

  Kim looks at her for the first time and nods. Once the older woman is gone, though, she hears whispers from the kitchen, and creeps closer, trying to hear what is being said.

  “They’re coming, Adam.”

  Another man sighs. “I know, Bill, but you know what’ll happen when they get here. Damn feds. And what about the girl and her brother? What happens to them?”

  “They’ll take them and make sure they’re looked after. Come on, Adam, we can’t fight them on this.”

  “I know, I know, dammit! I just hate to see this. John and Ellen are — were — good people; they don’t deserve this.”

  Kimberly doesn’t hear Bill’s reply as she backs away from the door, motioning to her brother to be very quiet. He nods and follows her as she moves out to the front porch, away from the men inside, closing the door and moving around the side of the house. Suddenly she crouches down, pulling her brother down with her as the beam of a flashlight plays over the side of the house, then away.

  She sees the deputies checking the yard, house and barn, and waits until they finish. She sees the nice lady walking back to the house as the men move out to search the surrounding land, and realizes that now is her chance. Kimberly and her brother sneak into the barn and into Jack’s stall. She whispers to the big horse as he greets her, his soft nose brushing her shoulder.

  She knows that she can’t let those people, whoever they are, take her and her brother anywhere. Working with quick and practiced ease, she saddles and bridles the big horse, hoisting her brother up to grab the saddle horn as she climbs up behind him. Making sure they aren’t being watched is tougher, but she manages to ride Jack out of the barn and almost to the edge of one of the fields before she hears the shouting start.

  They realized I’m gone. The nice lady wants us back, she thinks.

  “Hyah!” she cries, digging in her heels, and sends the big horse flying through the night and into the field.

  She doesn’t know where she’s going at first, but, as they gallop on, she realizes she’s headed for her best friend Angela’s farm nearby. Maybe we can hide there awhile, she thinks. At least I know they won’t turn us in.

  There’s a loud whirring from behind her; some kind of chopping noise; she doesn’t know what it is at first. As lights appear in the air behind her, she realizes it must be a helicopter, and judging from the way its searchlights are coming closer, they must be on her trail. Urging the big stallion to even greater speed, she and Johnny lay low against the horse’s neck.

  Suddenly the noise is right above her, then beyond her, and then the helicopter drops smoothly out of the air and lands just ahead of them, a large spotlight blinding her. Jack stops and rears at the sudden noise and light, throwing her and her brother from his back. They land hard; Johnny cries out as he comes down hard on his arm, breaking it with a sharp crack. Kim’s fall is just as painful, her head slamming back into the dirt.

  She tries to get up and to calm the horse, but her vision swims and she falls back down, barely able to focus on the men running towards her from the helicopter. One of them kneels down beside her, reaching out a hand, but she screams and flinches back, afraid he is attacking her as the creature attacked her father. He nods at someone or something behind her and suddenly she feels a sharp sting at the back of her neck, and notices the man looking at her intently.

  He seems so sad, she thinks as she passes out.

  Panama, 1988

  Petty Officer First Class Anderson looks through his binoculars at the drug camp in the jungle clearing, wondering just what the hell happened to this place. No drug camp is ever what anyone would call ‘nice’, but this one looks like it’s been hit by an army. A different kind of army. The midges and mosquitoes are active in the late-morning heat, and the humidity is stifling, sweat pouring from all of
the operators in streams. The cursing is fluent but very, very quiet.

  Bullet holes riddle most of the buildings and he sees smears of blood across many of the walls. Several fires burn, further adding to the chaos and causing even more damage. At least one of the shacks is engulfed in flames, the harsh chemicals and shoddy construction materials feeding the fire that sends midnight-black smoke billowing into the sky.

  Through the binoculars he sees a few survivors of whatever has happened, just standing around almost motionless. They’re hurt, judging from the blood on their clothes and the few injuries that he can see, but why are they just standing around rather than evacuating? No shouts, no voices, no noise… not even any of the ever-present birds or insects.

  Weird, he thinks. Very weird, indeed.

  He touches his throat mike, whispering. “No sign of hostiles. Estimate seven to ten friendlies. Structural damage, blood… it’s nasty down there, sir.”