The Long Dark by B.J. Farmer (important books to read .TXT) 📗

Aadesh nodded his head in agreement. “Nod disagreeing wid dad.” His affirmative headshake morphed into dissension. “Bud whad if dey come back here and dake up residence? Dey clear dis building and we,” him pointing this time, “become dad formerly alive person?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, dude. We’re fucked either way. I just know we’re safe now.”

“I am nod wanding do disagree wid you, bud I am dinking dad sdaying here is nod a wery good idea. I am wanding do leave de conversadion dere.”

“Bro… I promise if you come up with a plan, we’ll do it. I have no clue if this is wrong or right... They might storm this place fifteen minutes from now, and we’re dead in sixteen minutes. Have no fucking clue. I’ll gladly let you make the decision. Go for it.”

We didn’t talk much after that. Aadesh didn’t want to stay but didn’t have any better ideas than I did. So, we did the only active thing we both could agree on, which was looking out the window, like it was the best, worst movie we’d ever seen. We were watching our own destruction, and we were apparently powerless to stop any of it. Being powerless sucked, especially being powerless and sober. What was worse, the movie got even worse.

Three trucks pulled in initially, followed by three more several minutes later. Within a half-hour, there were at least ten running trucks below us, plus two passenger vans that carried at least twenty people, all of which were armed like the ones who had been digging the pit. The vans weren’t the big passenger vans, either. They were packed in like sardines, but I imagined comfort wasn’t high on their list of priorities.

Several sniffers straggled in behind the vehicles and were shot just like the others. The guy operating the excavator, having finished his digging, throttled towards a Sniffer and made bug goo out of her. He then parked it before running over to the pit and waiting, rifle in hand, for whatever was getting ready to happen.

I watched a woman try to take a bead on a fast Sniffer who had flanked the group from almost the same direction we had come from earlier. She missed the first couple shots, but the third found a home, and the Sniffer tumbled to the ground in a heap.

Minutes later, there were shots fired from what sounded like several blocks away. Then there was a pause, followed with the sound of the herd again. More shots punctuated with hundreds if not thousands of snow-crunching footfalls. The shots were very close now, but so was the source of the footsteps. The last barrage of shots was just outside. Several men ran close to the lip of the pit. They fired their guns one last time, and we finally saw what we had been hearing. A wave of Sniffers ran up to the gun-toting men but skidded to a stop several feet away. There were a couple Sniffers that got a little too close to the men and were met with the butt ends of their stocks.

“What are dey doing?”

I had no words to offer, so I just shook my head.

From below us, a large group of men and women formed up in a jagged line with weapons at the ready. A man holding only a pistol seemed to bark an order. Aadesh and I stood in silence as they fired magazine after magazine into the crowd of Sniffers.

Many of which broke ranks and ran into the hail of gunfire.

Most were cut down before they reached the line of executioners, but some of them made it through and were causing chaos amongst the people in the line. I saw several of the gunmen go down. No one helped them. Instead, those who remained standing kept firing into the Sniffers, completely ignoring their fallen comrades. The man with the pistol walked behind them and fired at the downed gunmen, apparently not caring if he shot the Sniffer or one of his own. I saw on two occasions the man firing directly on an injured non-Sniffer.

After they had killed the sniffers, including some laggards, an old decrepit looking bulldozer began pushing the bodies into the pit. The dead amongst the firing squad found themselves in the same pile as the Sniffers.

Within moments, everyone was scrambling towards vehicles. They were in a hurry to do whatever it was they were doing. In just a few minutes, the only thing that remained in the area was the bulldozer and the excavator. Everyone and everything else were gone.

We were surprised, then, when within moments, a truck pulled up to the pit. Two people jumped out of the cab and began throwing their grizzly cargo into the hole in the ground. Bodies contorted into rigid poses were being tossed in. Truck after truck dumped hundreds of bodies in the quickly filling pit. So many hours had passed that we started taking shifts, so both of us could get some sleep.

“Jack!” Aadesh yelled in my ear.

“Shit dude, come on,” I said, still half asleep. There was no way of knowing how long I had slept, but my burning eyes told me I hadn’t slept long as I wanted and needed.

“You will wand do be seeing whad is happening.”

“Fuck,” I said, as I angrily swung my feet over the side of the bed.

Apparently, much had happened in the short time I had slept. The bulldozer had filled the pit with dirt and was now parked to the side. A tracked vehicle and two trucks sat idling near the pit. The man with the pistol from earlier was standing outside the tracked vehicle, and by the way, he was moving his hands, he wasn’t happy about something. After several minutes, he walked back towards the large group of people who were uncomfortably close to the hotel.

Several people piled out of the vehicles, including someone who had been tied up and gagged. I couldn’t help