After Darkness Fell by David Berardelli

Author:David Berardelli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci-Fi & Fantasy
ISBN: 9781495600718
Publisher: Mountain Lake Press
Published: 2014-08-18T16:00:00+00:00

***

I stuck to the other side of the tree line, keeping low, while the growing beams of silver light waved in my direction. I counted eight beams, and guessed they were no more than a hundred yards away. They were spread out in a long, choppy line spanning the center of the woods, each several yards from one another, aiming their light at everything in their path as they moved toward me. I estimated I had no more than a couple of minutes before they reached me.

Another beam appeared, this one quite far on my left, and began closing in on the others. Moments later another one coming over from the right, on the far side of the tree line, jumped toward me. Directly behind me, two more beams of light coming from the front yard of the house hopped around in the tall grass.

A knot of cold fear grew heavy in the pit of my stomach. I was surrounded. I had the Ruger ready, its mag filled to capacity. The Bobcat, however, was empty, and I didn’t have time to reload. And the .38 held only six. Way too many odds against me. It was dark, my aggressors had lights, and there were entirely too many of them. Unless they were poor shots, they’d get me before I could pick off more than one or two of them. I hadn’t a prayer.

But I had to find some way of getting through this. Fields depended on me.

Straight ahead, the voice in my head told me.

What?

Straight ahead, about fifteen feet. Three trees down, you’ll see a log.

Without hesitation I holstered the Ruger, dropped to my knees and crawled toward the dead log. As I moved, the flashlights continued drifting across the uneven brush toward me, jumping up into the trees and then sliding back down to the ground. I reached the log. The deadfall had once been a huge tree where a large section of bark had slid off, forming a crude cover between it and the dead limbs leaning against the pine tree a few feet from it. I found a depression in the ground directly behind the bark. Some sort of den an animal had once used, obviously. I couldn’t risk flicking on the flashlight and hoped the space was large enough to accommodate me. I also hoped it was vacant.

I squeezed into it and, lying on my left side, pulled the leaves carefully over me, until I was completely covered. To prevent dirt, leaves and twigs from getting in my eyes, nose and mouth, I grabbed the front of my jacket and covered my face.

The crunching of leaves grew louder. Footsteps smashed dead branches and crushed leaves directly behind me, and I could soon tell by the increasing vibrations in the ground that they were just a few feet in front of me. One of them jumped over my log and landed heavily on the ground a foot or so to my right. He stayed there for long, tense moments, shifting his weight as he moved his flashlight beam around.

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