The Darkest Hour

By Douglas Jeffreys

When a terrorist organization engineers a new virus that turns people into monsters, Duke, Who leads a comfortably mundane life working for the county Social Services, loses his entire family to the monsters. Now Duke lives an emotionally empty existence in a remote cabin where he lives only for vengeance. Duke eventually finds himself in a situation where he not only must re-examine his misanthropic lifestyle but finds a woman who brings up feelings he so carefully buried. Once again a deadly threat appears that jeopardizes not only this woman but also the emerging civilized, modern society that once was.
Duke now has a chance at redemption. Can he protect the woman that has kindled long lost passion and protect this group of people, this new ‘family’ all while retaining his humanity? Or will this new conflict make him into a worse monster than the ones he hunts?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Douglas Jeffreys
• Release date: Aug 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466125131

Douglas Jeffreys

Douglas Jeffreys Is a Martial Artist holding a 2nd degree black belt in Tang Soo Do as well as training in Judo, Hapkido, Kendo & Fencing. Mr. Jeffreys is a gun enthusiast and an avid motorcyclist. He has many hobbies and interests including, but not limited to; Astronomy, Architecture, Surveying, Drafting, Pen & Ink Drawing, Sculpting, Classic Cinema, and B-Horror movies. He is also fascinated with, and eagerly awaits the impending zombie apocalypse.

Book preview

Prologue

Ameer Mirsab leaned back in his high-backed office chair; fingers laced behind his head, and reflected on his work of the past years. The Americans were such fools. He had received a top-notch education at their finest universities. Indeed, he had done much of his early research in those same institutions of higher learning. He had been hired at a leading pharmaceutical company in its’ R & D labs and had quickly risen to a position of influence.

As long as his division continued to make profitable chemicals he could pretty much run things without question. True, the previous President, although not the brightest of men, had made communicating with his colleagues in the Middle East difficult and dangerous, but using his intelligence and resourcefulness he had managed to stay on schedule.

Then came the great political shake-up. This new President had promised change and transparency. He wanted open, civil dialogue with the country’s enemies. The fool. He had released many so called low-risk prisoners from Guantanamo. They, of course, immediately were recruited and were given tasks that they eagerly accepted. The attack they had been planning for years was now going to be much easier and much more wide spread than they had ever dared hope.

There were rumblings now. The people were asking questions they should have asked a year ago. Far too late to stop the coming Jihad that would wipe the infidels of the Earth.

Even now his brothers across the ocean and south of the border were lacing heroin with the virus he had developed. Meanwhile, holy soldiers inside the country were readying themselves, spreading across the land. When they were notified that the drugs had entered the country they would enter hundreds of shopping malls throughout the United States and, using small aerosol sprayers filled with a viral solution, spray every touchable surface and passerby. With quite literally thousands of simultaneous outbreaks throughout the land, FEMA and the entire health care system would be overwhelmed and buried by the pandemic.

Ameer sat up and pulled his passport out of his desk drawer. He was looking forward to returning to Saudi Arabia. He had amassed millions of dollars and would be hailed a hero and given a position of prominence in the new Islamic world. He stood, put on his coat and straightened his tie. Ameer stopped at the door and looked back. He had destroyed his hard drive and removed any other evidence of his extra-curricular activities. Satisfied, he turned out the lights and headed for the airport.

Part 1: Pandemic + 2 weeks

Chapter 1

Duke lay in the grass searching with the binoculars for any sign of movement in the building. It had been what, maybe five days since he found the bodies of Susan and Beth on that deserted piece of road? Five days since his world violently ended and thrust him into the middle of a monster-filled nightmare. He spent two days drinking and feeling sorry for himself. Then the power had gone off, and that evening his neighbor, or the thing that his neighbor had become had crashed through his dining room window and tried to kill him.

Duke always kept a gun in every room, unfortunately he was in the kitchen when the uninvited guest arrived and all he had was the little Raven .25 semi-automatic. Four shots into its’ chest didn’t even slow it down. It slammed into Duke knocking him off his feet. Duke’s head hit the counter on the way down and he saw stars. It was all he could do to keep the thing from chewing his face off.

Duke had both hands clenched in the beast’s hair holding the gnashing teeth just inches from his face. He had to get a hand free to find the gun he’d dropped. Duke pushed up and then reversed and pulled while slamming his own head forward and heard the satisfying crunch of the monster’s nose shattering.

Duke felt a momentary lapse in the attack and quickly looked to the right. There was the little automatic on the floor. Duke quickly snatched the gun with his right hand before the beast could respond, stuck the muzzle into its’ left eye and squeezed off the last three shots. The little hollow points fragmented and ricocheted around inside the skull turning the brain to mush, Duke felt the creature go limp as blood poured out of every orifice in its’ head, spattering on Duke’s neck and chest. Duke rolled to the side to get the carcass off but couldn’t release the fingers of his left hand from the creature‘s matted hair. With his strength gone, Duke just lay there and began to shake and hyper-ventilate as the adrenaline slowly drained from his system.

After what seemed like hours, Duke reached over with his right hand and pried his fingers from the dead thing’s hair and dragged himself out of the kitchen. He made his way down the basement by the light of his Mini-Mag flashlight where he stumbled to the toilet and vomited. He had never killed a man before and though that thing was more monster than man he could still recognize it as his neighbor. When he was able to stand he stripped out of his gore-covered clothes and cleaned himself under the old shower head in the corner. Afterwards, he climbed wearily to his bedroom, dressed and fell into a deep sleep with his shotgun in his arms.

It was early morning when he woke to noise in the kitchen. Cautiously, with the Winchester Defender 12 gauge at the ready, he descended the stairs. Duke edged to the doorway and peeked into the kitchen where two large rats were feeding on the corpse of his former neighbor. Duke fired, destroying one rat. The other darted to the corner, Duke fired and missed. The rat jumped straight up four feet, twisted and began to drop right into Duke’s line of sight where the third shot smeared it across the wall.

Duke went out to his car figuring he should go check on his mother and brothers although he held out little hope. The drive normally wouldn’t take long, but with abandoned cars scattered haphazardly, Duke had to traverse an obstacle course that at times had him driving on the sidewalk and even through front lawns. As Duke meandered up the street he came to a halt at the intersection’s four-way stop and, looking around, his stunned mind began to wander. How did this all go to hell so fast? What was it, three, no four days since the last time I heard a siren? What happened to the police? Where were the National Guard? For Christ’s sake, Where was FEMA? Duke’s eyes wandered across the eerie desolation surrounding him. The cawing of a crow brought him out of his reverie. Duke laughed at himself. Not another soul around and he was obeying the traffic signs. Duke wended his way through the final three blocks to his mother’s house, parked in front of the garage, and used his key to let himself in. The house was dark, and the smell of decay made his eyes water and nearly drove him back out the door. Duke yelled.

Hey! Anyone home?

He listened, nothing from upstairs, but he thought he caught a sound from his brother’s room. He moved toward the door, paused. Something was definitely moving in there. Duke raised the shotgun to his shoulder, the door opened and what had once been his brother stepped into the doorway, reluctant to enter a room where bright sunshine streamed through the windows. Blood stained its’ pale face and continued down covering the entire front of its shirt. Duke fired and at less than twenty feet the lethal cloud of bird shot did not have time to expand, striking as a nearly solid mass of lead that shredded his brothers neck nearly decapitating him.

Duke just stood there numbly, his ears ringing. After a moment he turned slowly toward the front door, then toward the steps, then toward his brother’s room again. He made this revolution twice like an some confused hound that has completely lost the scent before he stopped, willed himself to search the house although he knew it was hopeless. Upstairs he searched each room and found the remains of what he assumed were his mother and youngest brother. Duke stumbled out of the house and fell to his knees on the sidewalk, retching and gasping.

Gone. All gone. And he knew he would be too if he stayed in this town, but he just knelt there, consumed with despair.

Man-up you gutless fucker, Duke thought. You’re making the same stupid mistakes you sneer at in Hollywood B-movies. Duke dragged himself to his feet and drove slowly back to his house trying to see through the haze of tears that blurred his vision

Duke knew he had to leave quickly if he were going to survive. He needed a plan. The most basic human needs for survival. What was that mnemonic? Duke thought. The rule of three? Yes, that was it. The human body could survive three hours in extremes of the elements, three days without water and three weeks without food.

Shelter, water, food. Shelter he had, for now. Water was a problem. Only four gallons on hand, and with the electricity out the water wouldn’t be far behind. He had a full gallon of Clorox so he could purify water if need be. He gathered the canned goods from the pantry, enough for about three weeks with care. Duke paused. I can add another ‘three’ to the mnemonic; I won’t last three minutes without weapons.

Here he was better prepared. His long guns consisted of a 30-40 Krag with 20 rounds of ammunition; a bolt-action, single-shot .22 with 300 rounds of ammo; the Winchester 12-gauge with 20 rounds of Turkey shot, 5 rounds of 00 buckshot and 2 rifled slugs. Handguns, few but effective. His favorite was a Springfield Arms model 1911-A .45 with 150 rounds, but he had a certain amount of fondness for the other pistols including a Ruger Security Six .357 magnum with 40 rounds of .357 and 120 rounds of .38 special ammo, a Beretta model 21A-.22 LR and the little Raven .25, which had saved his life the previous night, with 42 rounds of ammo. He also had some weapons for close-quarters combat. A WW-2 Japanese NCOs’ saber, a Cold Steel Trench Hawk tomahawk