A Darkness Within

By D. Allen Crowley

For Sully, the owner of an outdoor clothing company, it was supposed to be a simple backpacking trip with a potential client -- even if the client was the beautiful sports celebrity, Laura. Sully needed her to endorse his new product line, and all was going well, until they emerged from the isolation of the Colorado back country. Neither Sully nor Laura could have anticipated the horror awaiting them at the darkened Ranger station. They were unaware that an evil virus grown in a lab for military research had been let loose. A virus that turns its victims into twisted, crazed, cannibalistic monsters that bear little resemblance to the people they once were. They find themselves fighting for their lives -- and their sanity -- in a world caught in the grip of an apocalyptic nightmare. From the white mountains of Colorado to the shimmering blue Great Lakes, Sully and Laura flee from the twisted and evil creatures in an attempt to find a safe haven.

It will take all of their athletic and outdoor skills -- as well as tons of luck -- to survive in a landscape suddenly overrun by ravenous monsters with unnatural hungers.

And, as if that weren't enough, Sully thinks he might be falling in love...

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. Allen Crowley
• Release date: Apr 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458164018

D. Allen Crowley

D. Allen Crowley is an author and poet who lives in historic, downtown Willoughby, Ohio. He lives there with his beautiful wife, two children, two dogs of questionable breeding and intelligence, and one haughty black cat. Mr. Crowley has two novels to his credit, as well short stories and poetry published in both print magazines and online magazines. He wrote the October cover story for The Cleveland Scene magazine and has been nominated for several writing honors. He also publishes a creative blog under the pseudonym of Doctor Zombie and has been featured on Cleveland.com. He is also an undead and evil genius who will someday make you one of his undead zombie minions.

Book preview

A Darkness Within

by D. Allen Crowley

Published by D. Allen Crowley and

Dark Autumn Multimedia and Publishing

Smashwords Edition

© 2011 by D. Allen Crowley

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All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living dead, OR UNDEAD is purely coincidental.

To Rich, Phil, Jason, and Rich; you’re my best friends and brothers. Thanks for tolerating and sharing my geek-like and never ending obsession with things like horror movies, the end of the world, and the search for the perfect pint of Guinness. It’s been said that friends help you move… but true friends help you move bodies.

That’s never been truer than with us.

So, I’ll bring the shovel.

Who’s got the garbage bags and the duct tape?

-d-

****

The Kiss

Come on, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me

Your tongue is like poison

So swollen it fills up my mouth

Just love me, love me, love me

You nail me to the floor

And push my guts out inside

Just get it out, get it out, get it out

Get your fucking voice

Out of my head

Oh I never wanted this

I never wanted any of this

I wish you were dead

I wish you were dead

The Cure

Chapter One

Sully and Laura

Pikes Peak, September 10th

Laura and I came over a crest on the trail and the Glen Cove Inn came into view. A log cabin style structure, the Glen Cove Inn was the last stop before you reached the summit on the nineteen mile long Pikes Peak Highway. The Inn was anything but an actual inn. It was actually just a small gift shop that had a smaller snack shop attached. Besides bumper stickers, pins, and t-shirts; visitors to the mountain could also get ice cream, hot dogs, water, soda, and fudge there.

A few hundred yards above the shop, the gate at the park service kiosk was lowered - preventing automobiles from going any higher up the road. I had expected this. It was the middle of September and, that late in the season, there was already quite a bit of snow on the peak. This meant that the road beyond the shop was impassable.

I looked towards the peak, which you could see from the Inn and smiled, although my smile didn’t last long.

Something didn’t feel right.

I stopped and looked at the shop a little more closely. Laura noticed my hesitation and stopped also.

What’s wrong? she asked as she too stopped. She took the opportunity to adjust her backpack and reach for her water bottle.

I don’t know. Something’s off.

I looked again and saw that there were no cars parked in front of the gift shop. That in itself was really odd. At this time of the year, Glen Cove should have been jam-packed with tourists. In fact, in all the years I’d been coming here, I had never been on Pikes Peak and not run into at least a dozen other hikers. Pikes is just too close to Colorado Springs to not get at least some locals out to enjoy the last warmth of the early autumn weather. It also occurred to me that, since we had started hiking up the mountain, we hadn’t seen a single soul in the last day and a half.

I frowned as I considered this. At the base of the mountain the temperature had been about seventy-eight degrees Fahrenheit. This close to the peak, and at this altitude, the temperature was hovering in the twenty-five degree range. In addition, there was only a few inches of snow under foot. So, it wasn’t cold enough - nor was there enough snow - to close the highway even farther down than where we were.

It’s kind of creepy, Sully, Laura observed, breaking into my reverie.

I was thinking the same thing, Laura, I said, as we began slowly walking towards the small gift shop. As we went, I explained my misgivings to her.

You’re not reassuring me, honey, she said, trying to keep things light.

I tried to shrug my unease off, I’m just being stupid, it’s probably just…

My voice trailed off as we came around the corner of the building. I saw an empty green Jeep Cherokee that bore the logo of the National Park Service on its side. Its door stood ajar.

It was parked at an angle in front of the shop in such a way that we hadn’t seen it as we had come up the trail behind the gift shop.

Upon seeing it though, I felt a nasty chill run up my spine.

The snow around the Jeep was churned up and stained a bright and awful red; stained with what looked to be gallons of blood

All right, now my spider sense is really tingling, Sully, Laura said, looking at the carnage before us.

Mine too, Laura, I said.

I’ve got a bad feeling about this, she said.

Me, too, I replied.

I shucked off the straps of my pack and knelt, setting it on the ground in front of me. I unlashed my ice axe from the webbing on the pack and stood, leaving my pack on the ground. Laura saw me do this and followed suit.

Stay here, Laura, I said, I’m going to get a closer look.

Like hell you are, she said, First rule of horror movie survival; never separate. That’s how the bad things happen.

I looked at her and saw immediately that no amount of arguing was going to dissuade her. I sighed and nodded as I began walking the rest of the way towards the Glen Cove Inn.

Our boots crunched loudly in the snow as we turned towards the Jeep. The sound seemed to be almost overwhelmingly loud in the thin atmosphere and, as I neared within ten feet of the Jeep, I motioned for Laura to stay where she was. She complied with no argument ,and I sneaked closer to the Jeep.

The first thing I noticed was the unmistakably coppery smell that confirmed that the red was definitely blood. The gore was bright red in the clear, cold air and it was sprayed all about the side of the truck as well. I looked inside and saw that some of the carnage had saturated the floor and carpet. Here and there were more solid red bits that could only have been chunks of flesh.

This is not good, I said quietly.

What do you see? Laura stage whispered as she leaned towards me expectantly.

It looks like a charnel house, I said, slowly moving around to the rear or the Jeep. There was nobody inside or behind it.

I returned to Laura’s side and we had a hurried, whispered conference.

I’m wondering if maybe it was a bear attack, I said, not really believing it.

Black bear don’t normally attack people, do they? Laura said, as though she had read my mind.

Mama bears do. But, what worries me is that, I pointed to the front of the Jeep. There was a single track of bloody footprints leading up the shoveled path, over the small porch, and into the Inn.

Why does it worry you? Laura asked. I could tell by her expression that she really didn’t want to know, but had to ask anyway.

No bear in the Jeep, so it wasn’t a road kill or a shot bear. No bear tracks, so it didn’t attack whoever was in the Jeep here. And there are no drag marks, which there would be if the bear attacked here. There’s just too damned much blood for the attack to not have happened here.

Shit, Laura said.

I need to go inside and see if someone’s been hurt. Do you want to stay here? I asked her.

No way. We’re a team. If you go, I go. Laura said tightening her grip on her own ice axe.

I looked back at the Glen Cove Inn and saw that it was dark. The carnage in and about the Jeep was disturbing enough, but I still couldn’t get past the idea that this place should have been crawling with tourists dressed too lightly for the cold and gasping for breath in the thin air like fish in an empty bucket.

I twisted my neck and cracked the vertebrae there. Reluctantly, we made our way towards the darkened gift shop.

I tried looking through the windows in the door, but the interior was too dark for me to see anything. Laura tried the other one and shook her head, indicating that she had had no better luck. I nodded and hefted my ice axe. With my other hand, I slowly turned the doorknob until I felt it unlatch. I then gave the door a nudge with the toe of my boot, grabbing the handle of my heavy aluminum ice axe. The axe felt good in my hand. It had just the right weight to it and it was topped with a twelve-inch blade that tapered to a satisfyingly sharp point. I had slipped my wrist into the loop at the end of the handle to prevent my dropping it if things went downhill fast.

The door creaked open slowly and I was immediately struck by a smell that I remembered from my youth. I had grown up in Ohio and, like many Ohioans, had gone deer hunting every winter. I no longer hunted, but I remember my first deer kill like it was yesterday. The worst part about killing a deer is gutting it afterwards. I still shudder to think of how hot the inside of a freshly killed deer is when you plunge your hands into it. Worse than that is the smell that rises from the open carcass. It’s a hot, earthy, pungent smell that is redolent with the penny-like smell of blood, and bile, and piss, and fecal matter.

That’s the smell that emitted from inside now. This smell, though, had a different quality to it. I couldn’t explain what it was, but my stomach rolled greasily as I realized that what I smelled was what a gutted human would smell like.

Before I lost my nerve, I kicked the door the rest of the way open.

I saw that the bloody footprints continued across the plank floor and into the darkness at the back of the store. I slowly stepped into the gloom and listened for any sound.

I knew the floor plan of the store and knew that, inside the door, the gift shop was right in front of me. At the rear of the shop was a small hallway that led to the bathrooms. To my immediate right was an archway that led to the snack shop. All of the shades were drawn, so I could see no further than the light thrown from the open door. I peered at the nearby walls for a light switch, but didn’t see one. I was about to reach for one of the shades when Laura slid in beside me.

As I glanced towards her, I heard a wet, phlegmatic sound near the bathrooms. It was like someone had sucked in his or her breath in shock, or excitement; someone with a mouth full of mucus. Laura and I both heard it and snapped our heads in the sound’s direction.

Just then, whatever was hiding back there emitted a low, throaty growl.

It wasn’t a human sound. And it wasn’t an animal sound, either. I suddenly realized that entering the shop might not have been the best idea.

I took a step backward towards Laura to herd her outside when I heard a furtive shuffling sound moving towards us.

Laura! I started, Get out of…

I never finished my sentence.

Before I could react, a creature came scurrying explosively out of the darkness like some twisted nightmare. Its red, glistening body would have been more at home in a Bosch triptych then in a Colorado snack shop. I saw with horror that it looked as though its entire head was made of pointy, sharp teeth.

The monster let loose a primal, horrifying scream and I had only a second to realize that it was wearing the bloody, stained remnants of a Park Ranger’s uniform and a look of pure, unadulterated, human-like hate.

As it sprung at us, I fell back into Laura and knocked her backwards onto the porch. I kept my footing, but only just barely. I pulled my ice axe back as the creature rushed at me with a jerky, almost insect like scurrying. I could smell decay on its body, and a fetid effluvia coming from its open mouth. Acting with terrified instinct, I brought the ice axe down just as it reached me.

The axe sunk squarely into the top of its head with a meaty thwack.

The creature’s forward motioned carried it the rest of the way into me and I staggered; it was like I had been struck by a bus at a crosswalk.

Both it and I fell backwards, over Laura, and into the snow outside.

I had a little freak out then.

I pushed its bulk off of me and rolled away, screaming in horror. I was brought up short by the loop of my axe ice where it was wrapped around my wrist. I jerked to a stop and then began pulling and pushing at the cord in a mad, panicked attempt to get free from the axe and the Lovecraftian ghoul lying bleeding beside me.

I don’t know how long I struggled there, screaming and pulling at my arm. It was Laura, though, who brought me back. After a few moments of madness, I felt her hands on my shoulders, and heard her voice.

It’s dead, Sully. It’s okay. Sully! SULLY! she screamed.

I looked up at her in shock and horror.

It’s dead, Sully, she murmured, her hand coming up and stroking my face gently, calmingly.

I let out a snort of air and grabbed the front of her parka with my free hand, Are you all right, Laura?

I’ve been better, she said.

I looked back at the monster lying next to me and shuddered. I slowly rolled over and lifted myself up to a knee. After another deep breath, I grabbed the handle of my ice axe and gave it a pull. The creature, which had been lying face down, rolled over.

It was no less grotesque in the day light.

What in the hell is it? Laura breathed. She was kneeling behind me on a slight rise and looking over my shoulder. I felt reassured that she was there. It just felt somehow better to know that someone else was sharing in my horror and repulsion. As it was, I was barely holding on to my sanity.

I looked back at Laura where she kneeled. She looked so beautiful, a surreal and angelic counterpoint to the horror I’d just seen. I couldn’t believe that I’d only known her for a month. How in the hell did we end up in this situation?

When I look back on the trip, I knew that I didn’t feel entirely comfortable taking Laura to the mountains. Even if I’d known the world was going to end, I would have probably still felt uneasy about going to the mountains with someone as beautiful as her.

Dear God, the horrors we saw…

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

As I was saying, I felt uncomfortable taking a beautiful, young, single woman to the mountains; and I told my wife so. My wife Katiey, however, had absolutely insisted on it. She said it would be a great idea for our company. Now I know that you’re thinking that my wife’s insistence that I take a beautiful woman camping – alone - was strange. Believe me, I agree. What was even stranger was that Katie even went so far as to say she had absolutely no problem with it.

I should explain that Laura, the woman who I was taking backpacking, alone, who wasn’t my wife; was also voted one of the world’s most beautiful female athletes by both People Magazine and Sports Illustrated. I believe Sports Illustrated wrote that she was what you’d have if Anna Kournikova or Picabo Street had a sexier, hotter younger sister…

Needless to say, most guys would have given their left arm to be in the position I found myself in. They would have been downright ecstatic, in fact.

I, on the other hand, had dreaded it from the moment I had mentioned it.

You see, my wife and I were very lucky in life. Ten years earlier, we had founded a small outdoor and extreme sport clothing company out of the garage in our small suburban ranch. What had started out as a humble idea of making just a few thousand more dollars a year doing something I loved, had grown and turned into a multimillion dollar a year business. I’m not even really sure how it happened. I just woke up one day and I was rich.

And as for Katie; although I still thought of her as my wife, she had really been only a business partner for the better part of two years. While some couples stay together because of the kids, we stayed together solely because of the business. But even that reason had stopped being a good enough excuse.

Anyway, as our company grew, so did our market share. We went public a few years later and I suddenly found myself having to answer to shareholders. And as my public relations and marketing people said, we needed to increase our visibility and corporate brand image. We had to develop an identity that would appeal to the target demographics in the world of extreme sports. Whatever the hell that meant. All I know is that I found myself meeting with all kinds of sports celebrities in a strange quest to find a spokesperson and the public face of the company.

So, in a long and convoluted way, that’s how I found myself on Pikes Peak in Colorado, in a tent, as the world ended, next to Laura Hergemeyer. Yes, that Laura Hergemeyer.

Four time national climbing champion Laura Hergemeyer; the current female world record holder for fastest, unassisted solo climb of El Capitan; and the only woman to summit each of the famed Seven Summits without supplemental oxygen; and all of this before her twenty-eighth birthday.

That we’d managed to land this unbelievably talented sports superstar as the potential face of our products was a coup.

Did I mention that she was voted one of the most beautiful women in the world in a few magazines?

It was a strange course of events that had lead me to where I found myself. Only a month earlier, I met her for the first time in a board room. We were at opposite ends of a long table. Between us, my people and her people were discussing boring legal stuff. It was an initial meeting to test the waters and see if she would be interested in becoming the face of my company, the Miskatonic Trader Outdoor Company. At one point, I casually mentioned that I was going to be spending a few days in Colorado.

Hearing this, Laura looked up from her place at the end of the very long conference table and smiled. And it was a smile that would have laid waste to an army of men. She had seemed bored and disinterested in the conversation until this point, but she perked right up upon hearing about Colorado.

Colorado? she asked.

It took me a second or two to find my voice, which was damn good considering I had to recover from that smile she had given me. Yes. I’m meeting some suppliers in Denver and Colorado Springs.

Doing any outdoor stuff? she asked. I found myself suddenly the focus of every eye in the room.

Not much. I’ll probably take a few days to climb Pikes Peak.

Pikes Peak?

Yes. I smiled, Pikes is a mole hill compared with what you’re used to, Ms. Hergemeyer.

Why do you say that, Mr. Sullivan? And call me Laura. Please.

And please call me Sully, Laura, I said, perplexed at this

Reviews for A Darkness Within

[cmwilson101 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A Darkness Within by D. Allen Crowley is a zombie story along the lines of 28 days later, in that the main characters are isolated from civilization, and when they return they discover that the world is overrun with zombie-like creatures who are full of rage -- the zombies in this story, however, are also all male and oversexed. This adds a really disturbing edge to the story, as the zombies try to rape all surviving females. A few males are immune, and the story centers around one of them, Sully, and his new girlfriend Laura. Unfortunately, I couldn't get past the gruesomeness of the idea of an oversexed zombie to appreciate the story. Not for the faint-hearted!