Taken World (Book 2): Darkness Read online

  Darkness

  Taken World - Book Two

  Flint Maxwell

  Copyright © 2018 by Flint Maxwell

  Cover Design © 2018 by Carmen DeVeau

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions email: [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read his work.

  To all those still afraid of the dark

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  “It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,

  Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt,

  It lies behind stars and under hills,

  And empty holes it fills,

  It comes first and follows after,

  Ends life, kills laughter.”

  J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

  1

  The Darkness

  The world died in less than six months.

  Monsters roamed the lands, shrilling in the ever-growing darkness.

  First the big cities fell: Paris, New York City, London, Rome. The places where there was more to lose became priority number one. In Denver, a nuclear warhead had gone off. No one knew if it was an accident or if it was a defense mechanism against the creatures birthed from the voids. No one would ever know; Denver was a radioactive wasteland, a graveyard. And some great beast had flattened most of downtown Cleveland, stepped over the bones of the dead. Dallas was full of abominations, though over seventy-five percent of these abominations hadn’t come from the voids. They’d once been human, but had now turned into nameless, unholy things.

  Soon the whole world was burning.

  Militaries tried their best, but their best was not good enough. They were the next to fall.

  The darkness came not long after that. As the world turned, the skies filled with static, a shade resembling the color of gunmetal. There were not many scientists left to figure out what was the cause of this darkening, and those still alive, still whole, only cared about one thing: survival.

  The monsters only seemed to relish this change in the sky, for they had come from darkness inherent.

  Slowly, it seemed, the voids were changing the very composition of the Earth’s atmosphere. If not by some advanced alien science the humans would never understand, then by pure chaos and destruction.

  But there were some survivors. Strong people.

  Logan Harper, Jane Harper, and Bradley Long among them.

  After they’d escaped Woodhaven, they had heard a broadcast, a scratchy voice over the radio waves they thought had been sent from God Himself.

  This voice led them outside of Cleveland, to a suburb called Lakewood, to an abandoned prison. Just under two dozen survivors lived beyond the stone walls and metal bars of this place, called Ironlock. The leader was named Devin Johnson, and he had been a soldier in the United States Army once upon a time. He thought there was still hope for this world, for the human race. He would instill this hope into the Harpers, Bradley Long, and the rest of the survivors. But it would take some time.

  Because, hope or no hope, the Ravaging was over, and the darkness was here to stay.

  2

  Tyler’s Journey

  Four months earlier

  Rewind four months. Back to when the voids first erupted.

  Tyler Stapleton peered out of the tank he’d taken cover in as the Stone Park anomaly exploded open. He had found a package of MREs and a canteen of water inside. Had he not, he was sure he would’ve gone out too soon and been killed by the things.

  What he saw upon opening the hatch was a battlefield. Nearest him, a man was cut in half at the waist. His back was facing the dark sky—Why is it so dark? he wondered as he checked his watch and saw the time at just past noon.

  The man’s neck was twisted around at a gruesome angle so he was looking right toward the hatch and Tyler. Congealed blood surrounded this body in a gelatin-like puddle, inky looking. Tubes and bones jutted from either side of his halves. Tyler turned away and vomited. There were other bodies, too. All of them were mutilated to some degree. Some were beyond recognition, just massive pinkish-red things, bearing no semblance of human anatomy at all.

  Oh God why why why—

  Tyler forced himself out of the hatch, on to the tank’s topside, then slowly down to the ground. The metal pole they had tethered the young man to so he could enter the anomaly was still there, as was the anomaly. It pulsed and buzzed with a noise Tyler could only hear inside of his mind, or so it seemed. He tried his best not to look at it. Or at the bodies. Both were not easy tasks.

  He bent down near the soldier that had been ripped in half. He took the man’s weapon, a burly thing with a strap. Back in Atlanta, he was used to seeing handguns, had even held one belonging to one of his friends when he was but a boy. Nothing like this rifle. They scared him because he had seen firsthand what they did to people. But now he knew he had no choice.

  Before he stood back up, he swiped a hand down the soldier’s face, closing the man’s eyes. He wished he could do more, but he had to get out of here, as far away from any anomalies and monsters as he could get.

  Monsters. He chuckled. Can you believe that?

  Where were the authorities? Where was the backup? The military? Anybody?

  It didn’t make sense—well, it did, but he wouldn’t admit it. Not yet. Because in these early days of the apocalypse, Tyler, like many, still had a shred of hope left within him.

  For a moment, he just stood there outside of the tank, mere feet away from the cut-in-half corpse of the soldier. He told himself to quit looking, but he couldn’t pry his eyes away. He thought he remembered the soldier… One of the young guys who’d been put in Hammond’s company. Poor bastard.

  He scanned the battlefield. Something gleamed by the anomaly, a wink of metal. It was the kid’s spaceman suit. He’d come back from beyond, Tyler remembered that, but it didn’t seem like the kid was still inside. Something had gotten him, the way they had gotten everything else.

  Tyler shook his head. He looked up at the sky—a sky that had already begun to darken, now a bruised color, purplish-black, like just before a terrible thunderstorm—and he asked God why. Why did this have to happen? Why here? Why now?

  Then he remembered one of his old college professors, Mr. Jamison, an Englishman with a wiry gray beard, talking about how every species would eventually get its due. It was already happening with the polar bears, had already happened with the dodos. Humans would get their turn, too. And Tyler remembered thinking how full of shit Mr. Jamison was. What could possibly wipe out the humans? Nothing, he had thought; he was young and naive then.

  Look at us now.

  Still, it could’ve been an isolated incident. There were forty-seven anomalies around the world. Maybe a handful of them had finally popped, like radioactive pimples, spilling forth acidic pus, and maybe that handful that had popped were now under control.

  Get real, Tyler, he told himself. That’s bullshit, and you know it.

  He did. As odd as it was, he could tell just by looking at the sky, that darkly menacing sky. He could tell by how he heard nothing. Not even the birds or
the bugs in the forest. He could very well be the last man on Earth. That made him chuckle.

  No. No way. Two days was too short of a time for seven billion people to get wiped off the face of the Earth.

  Wasn’t it?

  Tyler finally decided he wasn’t going to get anything done just standing there among the bodies. Nor did he like being this close to the anomaly. There was no telling when something else would come out of it.

  He looked up now. It seemed…bigger. The red tinge that had been a part of the anomaly since it had appeared out of nowhere was darker. The black inside of it seemed to shimmer, as if it was slowly forming into something hard. A door. An honest-to-God door, his mind screamed.

  Tyler quelled that screaming voice inside of his head. That was not something he could worry about now. Survival was first.

  Despite the gore and the sickening, cloying scent of death that hung around the area, he was hungry, and he could certainly use a drink, something a little stronger than water.

  He moved up the path the army had cleared a few weeks ago. Just over the horizon, the tall marquee of the movie theater on the main drag in Stone Park pointed into the darkness, barely visible. If he couldn’t find any food around camp, he’d try there. First, he would stop off at his trailer and change his clothes, brush his teeth, grab all of his belongings.

  But where are you gonna go? that voice inside of his head spoke up again. The world is ending.

  “Shut up,” he whispered.

  He was hardly able to hear himself. For the better part of two nights, Tyler hadn’t spoken a word. He’d only listened.

  Listened to the ruin going on outside of the tank. Listened to the screams. The rips. The tears. The roars. The thunderous footfalls of unspeakable creatures.

  It felt good, speaking, that was for sure, but now there may not be anyone to speak to. The realization of this felt like an anvil crushing down on his sternum. He suddenly couldn’t breathe. His knees turned weak and rubbery.

  He fell down on the path, the gun clattering against his ribs. God, help us, he thought.

  He was content to stay there, maybe not for good, but at least until he heard another voice or a car, just some semblance of humanity.

  Not…nothing.

  God must’ve been listening, because Tyler heard something now. It was a squelching noise, like someone sawing through a piece of meat. Moans, too. Soft moans of pain.

  Tyler shot up. He grabbed the gun, trying to listen.

  Slish-slishhhhh.

  Slishhhhhhh.

  He came across the base tent, the trailer he was supposed to have watched from as the young soldier went into the anomaly. That all seemed so long ago, another lifetime almost. Maybe even a dream.

  A bolt of hope struck through him. That’s it! I’m dreaming! I’m asleep on the couch back in my trailer. Stressed out, that’s for sure. Hammond’s got me stressed out—

  But as he rounded the tent, he saw the source of the noise. The slish-slishhh was coming from what looked like a ball of jelly down the path as big as a boulder.

  Tyler took a step back. His gun had fallen down to his side again, his hands too weak to hold the grip.

  The ball was actually not a ball—it was a human, but a human that looked like they had gone through a meat grinder and were slowly putting themselves back together. Tyler saw a hand, an arm, and, somewhere deep in the middle, a face. The skin was the consistency of mucus, semi-transparent, like a fish in the black depths of the ocean who had never seen the sun. Whatever this thing was, it was in the process of transformation.

  The clouds above moved. A dimmed, hazy sun—Not the same sun I know, he thought—shone down upon the scene, painting it in a purgatorial light. Tyler wished it hadn’t. In this newfound brightness, a sliver of metal in the grass refracted soft beams. Tyler saw it was a dog tag necklace. He picked it up, never taking his eyes off the squirming abomination in front of him. Then he read the name on the tag: Major Johnathan Hammond.

  Fear like never before bolted him to the ground. He felt his knees creak as he tried stepping back and found himself unable to.

  “Hammond?” he said in the same croaky voice as before.

  The thing on the ground sprouted a tentacle from the middle of its mass. The tentacle wetly slapped the stairs leading into the tent. This time, as if the noise was a wakeup call, Tyler found he was able to step back.

  “Hammond, is that you?”

  He didn’t expect an answer, but he got one.

  The gelatinous membrane ripped straight down the middle. From the seam lolled a fat, gray tongue. Tyler caught sight of teeth, too, which ran up and down either side of the opening, as sharp and as jagged as broken pieces of glass. A breath of air burst forth from the newly formed mouth.

  How much longer this thing would need air, Tyler didn’t know, but he was betting it wouldn’t be long.

  “K-kuuh—” the thing said. “Kuuuuuhhhhhh.”

  Tyler craned his head. “What?”

  Was it trying to talk to him, this monstrosity that was once Hammond? He didn’t think that was possible… Then again, he didn’t truly believe any of this was possible. But what was it saying?

  Tyler aimed his weapon. He wouldn’t let it fall again. His initial shock at the thing was over.

  “Kuh-kuh…” the mouth moaned.

  Then came a deep, guttural scream as another tentacle sprouted from the blob’s middle. Tyler stepped back, nearly fell this time because the tentacle had burst forth so fast.

  “Killllllllll meeeeeeeee,” the thing that was once Hammond said. “Kill. Me. Pleaseeeeeee.”

  “Kill you?” Tyler repeated.

  He couldn’t believe the great and powerful and fearless Major Hammond was begging for death. Had Tyler been in his proverbial shoes, he guessed he would’ve done the same.

  The creature moaned in response; it sounded a lot like “Yesssssss.”

  Tyler pulled the trigger. Buried three rounds into the part he thought was the Hammond-thing’s brain. The eyes, which were expanding by the second, blinked closed, and they did not open again.

  He walked out of Stone Park without further incident. There was no one in town. The houses stood vacant, windows and walls smashed in. Trash and various items rolled down the street in the breeze that was much too cold for this time of year. Shoes. T-shirts. Rolled-up socks.

  He saw the first body at the town line. It wasn’t moving and gelatinous, like Hammond had been. It was just dead. A corpse. The face was gone, but the hair was there, long and stringy with dried blood. Most of the body was gone, too, the meat, but judging by the clothes, a ripped dress, Tyler thought the odds were good that this was a woman. He said a silent prayer, his hands shaking as he still held the rifle that had killed Hammond.

  Not long after, at the end of a driveway, he found a wrecked car. Not a big deal—there were wrecked cars all over. But this one had plowed into a low brick wall, and half of the front end was sheared away. He didn’t think it was the brick wall that had done this to the car, that had ruined it beyond recognition.

  Just past the vehicle, Tyler found another body. This one made him take a seat on what was left of the wall.

  The boy’s innards had been ripped out by what looked like a pickaxe. He couldn’t have been more than six or seven. His eyes were open, and pools of blood had filled them. There was a gash across his forehead.

  Tyler grabbed a jacket from the back of the crashed car and covered the boy with it. He thought about bringing the woman over and covering them both, but there wasn’t any time. Outside wasn’t safe, especially with the waning light. He wasn’t sure how he knew that; he just did. If Tyler had time—and a shovel—he would’ve buried them deep in the earth so no creatures could come about and pick their bodies clean.

  Instead, he said another prayer and moved on.

  3

  A Friend

  It was more than a week before he saw another living human being. He had spent the previous few nights in a g
as station somewhere outside of Akron. The place had metal shutters over its windows, two deadbolts on the main entrance, and a large garage that smelled like motor oil—which was where he slept. He found another gun under the cash register, which was open and quite full of cash, he noted, but he doubted many people would be using money after what had happened.

  Don’t think like that, Tyler, he had told himself after seeing the stacks of ones and fives and the few twenties. They’ll get this mess cleaned up.

  Then that other voice spoke.

  If they were gonna get the mess cleaned up, they would’ve done it by now. The world ended while you were cowering in the tank, Tyler. Everyone out there is gone or pretty damn close to it. The only thing that matters now is what you have hanging over your shoulder by a strap, and that shotgun under the register.

  On his trek through Woodhaven, he had seen the same things as in Stone Park. Car crashes. Military vehicles practically reduced to scraps. Bodies. Loads and loads of bodies, some stripped of their meat and limbs, others missing heads and faces. No discrimination there: men, women, and children of all colors and nationalities. He’d hoped he wouldn’t see any bodies, like any sane person would have hoped. With the mandatory evacuations the military had imposed on the towns neighboring the Stone Park anomaly, he thought the residents would have been long gone before the thing had erupted with its monsters.

  Apparently not.

  The smell of death was thick in Woodhaven, and he imagined it was just as thick all over the world, growing thicker by the second.

  A few nights ago, he had heard jets roaring overhead. He had heard the distant rumble of gunfire and bombs being dropped. They were probably headed somewhere up north, toward the bigger cities. Cleveland, maybe.