And Darkness Fell by David Berardelli

Author:David Berardelli [Berardelli, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: D Street Books, a division of Mountain Lake Press
Published: 2014-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

PART TWO: THE WAR MACHINE

ELEVEN

Something slapped my shoe, wrenching me awake.

I opened my eyes. Yellow haziness penetrated the darkness, making

everything soft and blurry. A whiff of some kind of disinfectant assaulted my

nostrils.

I rubbed my eyes. When I opened them again, my vision gradually cleared. A

table lamp about fifteen feet away had provided the haziness.

I lay on a couch. Two soldiers stood off to the side, watching me. Their faces

were identical and showed no emotion. Their eyes were Asian, and I immediately

thought of what Fields had told us about what she’d seen in Breezewood. They

wore combat fatigues and baseball-style caps, and shiny black boots. Their

uniforms had no name tags, patches, or ribbons. Their automatics—they looked

like Sig Sauers to me—rested in holsters over their right hips.

Cold nausea rushed down my back.

What the hell is happening?

One of the soldiers brought up his arm and jabbed a thumb behind him. He

clearly wanted me to get up.

I forced myself into a sitting position, and a heavy pounding began near the

crown of my head. My arm weighed a ton, but I managed to bring it up to

gingerly feel the lump. The memories swam back immediately: The roadblock. A

small army of these jerks all armed with shotguns. I’d been ordered out of the van

and escorted to one of their cars. And, when I’d turned around—or rather tried to

—the lights had gone out.

Obviously, they’d brought me here while I was unconscious, probably to

some secret government facility that they didn’t want me to know anything about.

They’d probably planned to blindfold me but resorted to the head tap when I tried

to resist.

At least, I hoped that’s what had happened. I didn’t want to consider the

possibility that I wasn’t supposed to see what they’d done to Reed and Fields,

assuming my two friends had been escorted from the van as well and not just shot

on the spot.

If the latter was the case, why spare me? Why not them as well? And if they

were still alive, where were they?

Too many questions. I strongly suspected I wouldn’t get any answers from

these two. My anxiety intensified the throbbing pain in my skull.

“Stand.”

If you don’t, they’ll yank you to your feet. You’ll throw up on both of them and

be shot for messing their uniforms.

Why would two of them be sent here? Either of them could carry me over one shoulder without breaking a sweat.

Even if I wasn’t so groggy, none of this made any sense, especially by military standards. The world had gone down the tubes. Very few people were still walking around. So why was any of this necessary? And why would anyone go to the trouble of bringing me in?

I took a deep breath and forced myself to stand. The effort immediately drained me. Dizziness made my head swim, and I nearly fell back down. One of the soldiers quickly shifted toward me. He probably thought I was up to something. I would have been if my head hadn’t been throbbing so much.

I knew I would have to get away. Hopefully, Reed and Fields were here as well.

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