Carlie Simmons (Book 4): The Gathering Darkness by JT Sawyer

need to help at the barn or I’d
get it myself.”
    “I reckon that’s the only way we’ll get
breakfast this morning. People gonna get ornery if they don’t get any coffee,
eh,” he said with a faint smile as he nodded at his grandson. “Tell her I just
gotta look in on the chickens and get some fresh eggs, then I’ll be right back
with that wood.”
    Crowley stepped towards the railing and
loosened a few buttons on his jacket. The walk up from the spring had broken
off the morning chill and he hardly felt the forty-degree temperature. He
arched back to stretch his shoulders and caught sight of two women heading into
the treeline with their bows. No birds sang as the women approached the forest.
They were two sisters from a few miles away whose ranch had been lost early on
to marauders. Now, they were the deer hunters who often brought back fresh
venison to replenish their stores of smoked meat.
    Crowley looked at the two women
disappearing into the thick forest and thought he saw them stagger and fall but
the woods were still too foggy to be certain—maybe they had just slipped on a
wet, moss-covered log. Before he could step off the porch to investigate, he
was pushed back and felt his midsection reel in pain as two rounds pierced his
abdomen, the blood saturating his tawny canvas jacket. He sputtered out a
partial yell before collapsing to his knees, wondering where the shots had
emanated from. Crowley heard more rounds shattering the window behind him and
screams from his wife inside.
    The man skinning squirrels by the barn was
the first to rush up to him only to suffer the same fate as a round to the head
sent him crashing back through the front window. Seconds seemed like minutes to
Crowley as he slumped on his side, trying to unsling his shotgun. He heard
others running out of the buildings and taking up defensive positions or trying
to get to him while the shrieks of frightened children filled the morning air. 
As gunshots echoed out from the dwellings around him, he heard the rumble of a
vehicle and saw a black armored truck roll into the meadow a hundred yards away.
Men in army fatigues raced around the back, opening the heavy doors. Crowley
raised himself up on one arm, his hands slipping on the blood-covered porch. He
saw a black stream of fifty or more flesh-hungry monsters pouring out of the
trucks led by several fast-moving mutants. Within minutes the creatures made
their way to the main ranch, and he could hear the screams of his people
slowing being snuffed out by distant gunfire or the mutants quickly taking down
his fighters in front.
    He felt the color draining from his face
and he collapsed again on his side. As he struggled to stay conscious, the pain
searing his belly, he saw a yellow-faced mutant bound onto the porch by his
feet. It looked down at him and hissed then reached for his leg. It paused when
the front door swung open and his grandson appeared. Crowley used his final bit
of life force to raise his shotgun up and blast the beast in the chest, sending
it backwards off the railing into a mud puddle.
    His grandson dragged him into the house
and propped him against an antique bookcase. He saw the slumped, bullet-riddled
body of his wife in the living room, her eyes still open, looking his way but without
the sparkle he had known for so many years. He clutched his grandson’s jacket. “You
need to get everyone out of here, Jake,” Crowley said, his voice reduced to a
whisper as his throat filled with blood. “Go out the back game trails. We can’t
stay and fight…too many...too many.”
    With the mantle of responsibility passed
unexpectedly to him through his grandfather’s last breath, Jake grabbed his
rifle and ran to the back porch. He yanked a survival pack from a shelf and
checked behind the house. He saw two girls by the far edge of the barn, twin
sisters clinging to their lifeless parents. He bolted out the door and ran
towards them, slamming the butt of his Winchester into