Darkness After Series (Prequel): Enter the Darkness Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Preface

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Keep Reading

  Into the River Lands Sample

  More by Scott B. Williams

  About the Author

  Enter the Darkness

  A Darkness After Series Prequel

  Scott B. Williams

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and events are all products of the author’s imagination and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Scott B. Williams

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  Cover photograph: Lake Pontchartrain Causeway

  © Scott B. Williams

  Cover and interior design: Scott B. Williams

  Editors: Michelle Cleveland, Bill Barker

  03.11.17

  www.scottbwilliams.com

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  This one is for Frank & Cathy,

  Preface

  I WROTE THE DARKNESS After in 2013 on contract with the same publishing company that published The Pulse: A Novel of Surviving the Collapse of the Grid, as well as some of my nonfiction titles prior to that. The Pulse was so successful upon its release in June of 2012 that the publisher asked me to write The Darkness After as a parallel story set in the same world, but with younger characters and targeted at the Young Adult audience. Both books turned out to be popular, and my readers were soon asking if there would be sequels. At the time of this writing, each of those books is now a four-book series with more sequels in the works.

  This 36,000-word prequel novella, Enter the Darkness—is another entry point into the Darkness After Series for new readers and provides a bit of backstory for those of you who have read all the later books. Some of the scenes in Enter the Darkness were cut from the first-draft manuscript of The Darkness After because of length restraints. In the revision process at the time, I decided to jump right in with the first action scene where Mitch Henley meets April Gibbs on the road, rather than tell the story beginning with the occurrence of the EMP event.

  This prequel goes back and fills in the gap, beginning with Mitch getting stuck on a busy New Orleans street when his dad’s new pickup suddenly goes dead at a red light. It also tells the story of the worst day in April Gibbs’ life—the morning she wakes up to learn that her child is stranded more than a hundred miles away from home. What she decides to do at that point leads to her fortuitous meeting with Mitch, who happens to have the means and ability to help her out of a dire predicament. Enter the Darkness also gives you a glimpse of how those first days play out for April’s boyfriend, David Greene, and Mitch’s little sister, Lisa Henley.

  The Darkness After Series can certainly be read without this prequel, but those of you who have read the other books might enjoy learning a little more about the main characters and who they were before their lives changed forever with the collapse of the grid. For those readers who have not read any of the other books in the series, Enter the Darkness is probably the best place to start to get the full story from the beginning.

  I’m often asked how likely it is that such a powerful solar flare could occur, and whether or not I think the effects could be as devastating as I portray them in these stories. The answer is that scientists who study these things say that it is possible, and even probable, because it has happened before, just not since civilization has become so dependent upon vulnerable electronics technology. No one can predict for certain when such a solar event may occur, but many of those who study the subject have advised government planning and preparation for such a catastrophe, including measures to harden the grid infrastructure to better withstand the effects.

  As for the human impacts of such a disaster, I only know what I saw in the wake of a far lesser event—Hurricane Katrina—when the grid in my local region was down for several weeks and people were stranded without the essentials for survival. It doesn’t take a great imagination to see how things would play out if a complete blackout of power, communications, and transportation were to occur across an entire continent and beyond. The darkness would manifest in more ways than the obvious; and regrettably for many, in the darker side of human nature.

  This series of stories is meant to be fun and entertaining for both Young Adult and older readers, but be warned that it is also at times violent and perhaps a bit frightening in its portrayal of the savagery to which some would undoubtedly resort in the absence of all law and order.

  Scott B. Williams —March 2017

  One

  MITCH HENLEY HATED JUST about everything about cities, but the thing he hated the most was the traffic. He swore under his breath as he inched his dad’s new F-150 along at ten miles per hour, glad to finally be moving, even at that excruciating pace. He had been stuck on I-610 trying to get out of New Orleans for over an hour. Something had happened far up ahead that he couldn’t yet see, no doubt a major accident considering how long it was taking to clear it. He looked around him at all the frustrated commuters who had to deal with this stuff on a daily basis, and was thankful that at least he was headed out of the city. He couldn’t wait to cross the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, and soon after, the Mississippi state line.

  Back there, in the rural county where he lived, he’d been driving around the farm and on the quiet local country roads since long before he was old enough to get his license. He was 16 now and fully legal, but his experience driving in heavy traffic was still quite limited. Mitch had confidence in his abilities and was a careful and considerate driver; but it was obvious many of those around him were not. He was glad for the heavy-duty cattle guard on the front of the new Ford, but he really hoped he wouldn’t need it before he reached the open highway.

  Now that the traffic was at least crawling, Mitch realized he needed to look for an exit so he could find a bathroom. Out in the country, he could stop nearly anywhere along the side of the road if there wasn’t a convenient gas station or store. Here, even if he managed to get off the expressway, he would have to sit through stoplights to get to a store or restaurant that had both public restrooms and adequate parking. Then he would have to fight his way back the same way and merge into the traffic all over again. He couldn’t wait until he reached Slidell though, as he had no way of knowing how long that would take with so many drivers delayed by the accident. He nudged his way back into the right lane at the first opportunity and stayed there until he saw the billboard for a popular fast-food chain. It would cost him another half hour, but he figured he could get some breakfast while he was there and maybe by then the congestion would have cleared.

  Sitting at the first stoplight off the exit, Mitch looked at his watch—nearly 8 a.m. already. He had dropped his mom and dad off at the airport at just before 6:00, and their flight was supposed to leave at 6:50. They were probably landing in Houston by now, and would soon make their connection on to Denver. His mom said she would call
as soon as they were on the ground, and he expected to hear from her any minute. He turned down the music so he wouldn’t miss his ringtone and stared at the traffic light, willing it to switch from red to green. Like everything else to do with driving in the city, Mitch hated the red lights—especially the ones that took forever to change. He was fast losing his patience when he noticed it suddenly blink and go completely off. When it flashed back on a couple of times it was still red, and then it went out completely.

  It took him a moment to realize it, but the radio in the truck went silent at the same time the traffic light blinked off. In the absence of the music, the engine seemed quieter than normal too, although at idle it was so quiet anyway it was hard to be sure it was running. He took his foot off the brake to inch forward and make sure, but nothing happened, not even when he gently tapped the accelerator. The engine had apparently gone dead, but that was a ridiculous idea considering the F-150 was literally brand new. His father had just traded for it less than two weeks ago. Mitch tried restarting it, expecting immediate results, but there was nothing—no sound of the motor turning over or even the click of the starter relay. Then he noticed that the digital indicators on the dash were out just like the radio. It appeared that the vehicle’s electrical system had completely failed, and he had no idea what could cause that unless it was something to do with the battery.

  Nervous at the thought of being stalled in all that traffic, Mitch glanced at the light again, certain it would be green by now and surprised that people behind him weren’t already blasting their horns for him to get out of the way. But the light wasn’t green or red; it was still simply out, and no one around him seemed to be moving either. The truck still wouldn’t start when he tried it again, so Mitch pulled the hood latch under the dash and opened his door. As he stepped down from the cab and walked to the front of the truck, he was so focused on figuring out what was wrong with his dad’s truck that at first he didn’t notice the other drivers exiting their vehicles as well. He lifted the hood and looked for loose wires or other clues like smoke, but didn’t see or smell anything unusual under there. He tugged on the battery cable connections to make sure they were still tight, but they seemed fine. He was sure it was an electrical problem but he couldn’t find anything obviously amiss. By the time he’d checked everything he knew to look for, he finally noticed that many of the other people stopped in the street around him seemed to be having problems too.

  A cab driver on the other side of the intersection slammed his hood shut and kicked his front tire as he cursed his stalled car. An exasperated woman standing behind the open car door of her SUV was pressing on her phone and shaking it as if she were trying to get it to work. The middle-aged man who’d been at the wheel of the Lexus sedan behind Mitch was walking towards him now, not to yell at him for blocking the road, but with a look of bewilderment on his face.

  “Is yours dead too?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Nothing’s working, not even the instrument panel, it’s like the battery just died.”

  “Mine too. I wonder what in the heck is going on? How could so many people have the same problem at once?” The man was taking in the scene around the intersection, where most of the nearby vehicles were sitting still, with their hoods up. Mitch noticed that people were coming out of nearby businesses too and gathering on the sidewalks. It was then that he noticed that none of those buildings had lights visible through their windows, nor were any outside signs lit. The power was apparently off, and that explained the traffic light going out, but what did that have to do with his truck and all these other stalled vehicles in the street?

  He was about to reply that it didn’t make any sense when the sound of a tremendous explosion from somewhere in the near distance caused him to flinch in surprise. The nearest buildings on that side of the street blocked the view in the direction from which the blast had seemed to come, but people across the street were pointing that way and screaming about a plane crash.

  “It just flew straight into the ground!” one woman yelled.

  Those that had seen it were all pointing to the west, which Mitch knew was the direction to the airport. Before he could give it further thought there was more yelling about another one and Mitch had just enough time to catch a glimpse of a jumbo jet in the skies to the north of them that appeared to be losing altitude at an alarming rate.

  “It’s going down in the lake!” someone screamed.

  Mitch knew the vast expanse of Lake Pontchartrain lay in that direction, but the buildings and elevated roadway hid any view of the water from where he stood. He stood mesmerized as the plane headed nearly straight down until it was lost from sight beyond the elevated I-610 Expressway he’d been traveling earlier. There was no doubt it crashed into the water somewhere far out in the lake, and he suddenly remembered he was waiting on a call from his mother and that he’d left his cell phone on the seat of the truck. He quickly jerked the door open and grabbed it. His mom should have called by now, and he might have missed her while he was standing outside the truck. But when he checked to see if there had been an incoming call, all he saw was a dead screen. The phone didn’t light up when he pressed the home button to wake it, and even when he tried to restart it nothing happened. Now he was really confused. What could possibly knock out the power and cause vehicles and phones to go dead at the same time? And did it whatever it was also cause those two planes to crash?

  The thought made him sick with worry over his mom and dad, but he reminded himself their plane was hundreds of miles away approaching Houston, if it not already on the ground, which it probably was. Mitch checked his watch again, noting that the minute hand showed that it was now almost 10 minutes after 8:00. At least the watch was working. It was an old-school analog model rather than the high-tech digital variety most people wore, if they wore one at all in an age of smart phones in every pocket or purse.

  Looking at the scene around him again, Mitch saw that many of the stranded commuters were virtually in a state of panic. Most had abandoned their stalled vehicles and were walking or running to the nearby buildings. He heard one man yelling something about a terrorist attack and saw the effect it had on the crowd. No doubt the sight of airplanes falling from the sky brought back memories of television footage Mitch had seen many years after that terrible day, when he was old enough to understand. But how could terrorists cause all of these cars and trucks to suddenly go dead? There had to be a reasonable explanation for it, and Mitch was determined to stay calm and try to figure it out. He spotted the man he’d first talked to from the car behind him and walked across the street to where he was standing on the sidewalk with his own phone in hand, apparently trying to get his to work again too. Mitch knew the man was as baffled as everyone else, but at least he was probably from around here and Mitch was so out of his element that talking to a local seemed like the best thing he could do at the moment.

  Two

  APRIL GIBBS OPENED HER eyes and was instantly wide-awake at the sight of sunlight streaming through her bedroom window. She jumped up in disbelief, furious because she had to be at work by 8:30 and it had to be after 8:00 already. Where was David and why didn’t he wake her up at seven like he was supposed to? She stormed out of the bedroom calling his name but got no response. He wasn’t in the apartment and looking out the front window, she saw that her car wasn’t parked out front either.

  April went back to the bedroom for her phone, yanking it free of the charger before heading to the bathroom. She was going to call David Greene and let him have it. How could anyone nearly 20-years-old be so irresponsible? And why had she been stupid enough to have a child with him? David had to be at work this morning too, and it was nearly a two-hour drive from Hattiesburg to New Orleans. He had her car because once again, his “classic” Mustang wasn’t running, but he had promised to be home with their daughter no later than seven.

  April pressed the home button on her phone to wake it up. When nothing happened she assumed it had powered down, eve
n though she never turned it off intentionally. She knew it had a full charge because it had been plugged in all night. But try as she might, she couldn’t get the display to come on. She tried rebooting it to no avail. Then she shook it vigorously and tapped it hard against the heel of her palm. Nothing seemed to jar it back to life. Great! Now I’m not only going to be late for work, I can’t even call in and let Vanessa know!

  April flipped the switch to the bathroom light but nothing happened. The light didn’t come on. Really? Could so many different little things really conspire against her in one freakin’ morning? She made her way to the kitchen to get a bulb out of the cabinet over the sink and was surprised to discover that the light in there wasn’t working either. It didn’t seem possible that two bulbs in two separate rooms could burn out simultaneously, so she began to suspect something else was up even before she confirmed it by glancing at the digital clock on the stove and seeing that it too was out. She opened the fridge and found it dark inside. So, the power went out overnight. That could explain why her phone was dead. She had run it nearly down the night before playing music, so if the charger wasn’t getting power while she slept the battery could have completely drained before morning. Now she had no way to charge it, since she didn’t even have her car and the 12-volt charger she always kept in the console. She would have to catch a cab to get to work, but without the phone she couldn’t even call one. She and David didn’t have a landline in the little apartment because they didn’t see a need for it and couldn’t afford another utility bill anyway.

  It made no sense that the power would go out in perfectly good weather, so April figured it wasn’t storm related, but probably some kind of maintenance issue. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. She had to get to work and now. Whenever David finally got back he was going to have to take Kimberly to daycare before he could go to his own job. She should have known better than to let him take her car out of town on a work night, but there hadn’t been much of a choice. David’s parents had been keeping Kimberly for the weekend, and she had been unable to go and pick her up Monday morning, her normal day off, because a coworker called in sick and she had a class to attend that evening. So Kimberly got an extra night with her grandma and grandpa and David got a Monday night road trip in April’s car. If she knew David, he’d probably gone out to look up some of his old high school buddies as soon as Kimberly was put to bed. That would explain why he’d slept in and neglected to even call her, much less make it back to New Orleans before she had to leave for work. He was going to get a piece of her mind when she got home tonight, that was for sure. April had about enough of David Greene already, and she doubted they were going to make it much longer. Knowing this made her glad they hadn’t officially tied the knot. They’d planned to at one time, but the longer they were together the less it seemed like a good idea. He had come into her life at a vulnerable time, shortly after she lost her mother after already losing her father a few years before. David had been kind and caring then, and they seemed to have a lot in common until they actually started living together. But he was immature and not ready for the responsibilities of fatherhood. April figured she would end up raising Kimberly alone, and she was prepared to do it if that was the way it worked out.