The Long Dark by Billy Farmer (best book club books for discussion .txt) 📗

We might be able to kill a few of them, but that would pull in some of the dumber ones who were struggling to find us. Still, we were going to have to do something. “How many bullets do you have?” I asked. No response. “Get ready to run… and shoot if necessary, but not until then,” I said.

“William!” I heard the sweetest voice in the world. It was Tish. “Get in here, now!”

The baby screamed at the top of her little lungs. Kelley fired two quick shots. The grays fell to the ground, one of which slid to within a foot of me. Kelley was turned and moving towards Tish when I took out the next closest two. Of course, I needed four shots to do it. The pounding feet were close, but it was now or never. I had to run. Just as I was about to be overtaken, I saw a figure walk outside the entrance. There was a pause, then a deafening barrage of shots fired towards the Grays behind me. I was going to make it.

Titouan stepped back in side, slung the rifle over his shoulder, and grabbed the lamp off the ground. Holy shit, Titouan saved me.

Titouan and Tish led the way forward. Several bodies lay dead on the floor. “Watch the bodies,” Titouan said. “And fucking hurry!”

I heard Kelley say something as she stepped over one of them, but I didn’t think anything of it. There were five or six of them that I could see. It was hard to see in the relative darkness, but they didn’t look like Grays.

Once at the top of the stairs, with Grays in the building and on our heels, Tish pulled a thick metal door across the entrance, effectively closing off the stairwell to the second floor. The sound of several Grays slamming against it brought me great joy. Fuckers.

Kelley stood like a statue. Her left hand balled into a fist, while the other white-knuckled the pistol. She was oblivious to everything, including her bawling child. The baby was still in her parka, squirming as you would expect a baby to do when it wasn't happy.

“Are you okay, Kelley?” I asked.

“Let’s take this to the third floor. There’s heat up there,” Tish said, before Kelley had a chance to respond or ignore as usual.

I stood on wobbly legs. I was hurting all over so badly that I barely made it up the single flight of stairs to the third floor. Warmth. There was heat… and electricity. I heard Tish close another metal door behind me. The clang of it locking was one of the greatest sounds I'd heard in a long time.

The first thing I noticed on the third floor was that all the windows were covered with a dark covering, giving the appearance of complete darkness to anyone trying to look in from the outside. Did I mention that there were heat and electricity? I was confused by that, but I sure as hell was happy about it.

Avery came out of one of the conference rooms. If memory serves me correctly, it was the same one Miley demoted me in. He didn’t even bother taking me into his office. Ah, nice memories to go with my current state of terror and astonishment.

Avery looked me up and down, no expression on his face, not even a blink of an eye, before saying, “Miley wants to see you after you get cleaned up. He will not talk to any of us about what is going on. Only you. And, I might add, you look terrible."

“Good to see you, too, bud…But why won’t he talk…?” I just realized I saw everyone but Sam. “Where the hell is Sam?” I asked, afraid I’d get an answer I didn’t want to hear.

“He’s in the conference room, resting,” Tish said.

I exhaled. “I was afraid for a second.”

“He’s fine. Right now, you just need to clean up, and then find out what Miley knows,” Tish said.

“He hasn’t said a word to you guys?”

A flash of anger flitted across her face. “He’s acting weird. He knows something.”

“Okay,” I said, leaving it at that.

I walked over and peaked into the door in the conference room. Sam seemed to be napping. People sometimes tell you things they think you need to hear. I just wanted to make sure what Tish said wasn’t an example of that.

***

I unslung my backpack and took my parka off and placed it on the restroom floor, along with my bloody boots and gloves. It only took a short glance in the mirror to see what a mess I was. I couldn’t tell if my tri-colored face consisting of purple, red, and black was from one gigantic bruise or a bunch of smaller ones. I had the gash I received from the corner of the table back at the patch, and to top things off, my left eye was nearly swollen shut. I could also see that the screwdriver wound had stopped bleeding, but damn it was sore. I looked like shit.

I stayed in the bathroom for what seemed like forever, basking in the wonder that was warm water. I soaked a rag in hot water, draped it over my face, and left it there until it cooled off, and repeated the process several times as I rested on the toilet. It's amazing how much the little things mean after not having them for a short period of time.

I was met outside the bathroom door by Titouan and Avery. I dropped my gear by the wall, and before I could ask why the long faces, Titouan said, “That woman you picked up. She was covered in the same mucus the lady back in the house was.”

We had both fought with the Grays. It made sense that both of us would be covered with the stuff. “Yeah, my coat is covered with it. So what?”

Avery gave me a skeptical look. “Perhaps.”

“Guys, I don’t have time for this…” The hallway was empty. “Where