The Light: Who do you become when the world falls away? (New Dawn Book 1)
Page 1
The Light
Jacqueline
Brown
Falling Dusk Publishing
2016
Copyright © 2016 by Jacqueline Brown
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Falling Dusk Publishing.
www.Jacqueline-Brown.com
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Scripture verse from the Good News Translation in Today’s English Version- Second Edition Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.
Cover art designed by Dawn Witzke
Falling Dusk Publishing image is courtesy of amh.design
This work is dedicated to the man of my dreams, Daniel.
It is an honor to be your wife.
Thank you for sharing your life with me.
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
One
I glanced at the rearview mirror: a wall of darkness followed us. My gaze moved to the clock on the dash. The small red numbers read twelve twenty-nine. I hadn’t seen another car for almost half an hour.
Josh sat behind me, his arm around Blaise. Her black hair against his white, long-sleeved T-shirt made a striking contrast. They wrapped up in a blanket and were asleep within minutes after our last stop. They’d barely moved in the last hundred miles or so.
Sara sat in the passenger seat beside me. She was quiet for the moment, looking down at her phone. She’d been talking or texting almost nonstop since we left the city. She’d never been good with silence.
She put her phone in her lap and looked up at me. “How long until we stop, Bria?”
“You know patience is a virtue,” I answered, turning to glance in her direction, her curly black hair almost disappearing against the dark window.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. And you’re as bad at it as I am.” She twisted toward me in her seat.
“You’ve got a point,” I said. “I can go another three hundred miles or so before I need gas.”
Sara lifted her head and then dropped it again in her usual dramatic style. “Ugh, that is so long. Let’s stop and get a coffee.”
“Sara, look out your window. What do you see?”
She turned her head. “Trees.”
“Let me know when you see a coffee shop, and I’ll stop,” I said as I watched the trees become illuminated and then disappear into the darkness.
“Just stop at the next gas station. Any coffee is better than no coffee.” She clicked her phone on and then off again.
“I’ll stop as soon as I see something,” I said. “I could use a break, anyway.”
“Thanks,” she said, looking out the window.
Her phone went from dark to bright every other second or so. When it lit up, the night outside became darker and harder to see. It was irritating, but I didn’t say anything. This trip was for her, to help her get over her newest broken heart … but I knew it was also about me.
The trees seemed to be getting denser. The highway was narrow and the woods vast. I used to spend time among trees. But these memories were fuzzy. My mom had loved being outside. It seemed that when she died, my time in nature died too. My father moved us from North Carolina up to DC, and I hadn’t been in the woods since. I brushed a tear from my eye. Eighteen years later and it still hurt every time I thought of her. I tried hard never to think of her.
“You okay?” Sara asked.
I hadn’t noticed she was watching me.
I wiped my eyes with the back of my left hand. “Yeah, I guess I’m more tired than I thought,” I answered.
Sara and I had been friends for a long time. She knew me well enough to know that when I cried it was because of my mom. She also knew I didn’t want to talk about it.
She nodded, but continued to watch me from the corner of her eyes.
Putting her phone down, she asked, “Didn’t you grow up near here?”
I looked at the GPS on my dash. “I don’t remember. I know we lived in North Carolina, but that’s all I know.”
“Do you remember the address? I could find it on my phone.” She picked up her phone, clicking it on.
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know. If we’re going to be near it, we could take a small detour and check it out.” She placed her phone face down on her jeans. A pale light escaped from all sides of it.
“You know there’s nothing left,” I said, feeling the anger rise.
“Oh yeah, I forgot. Sorry,” she said, twisting forward in her seat and looking away from me.
After a moment of silence, she said, “Are you getting tired? Do you want me to drive?”
“No, I’m fine,” I said. At least, driving offered me some distraction. Sitting in a dark car with nothing to do, going down roads that reminded me of home—that would not be good.
“Okay. I didn’t really want to, but I was trying to be nice,” she said.
I knew her feelings were hurt. My tone had been harsher than I meant it to be. She went back to messing with her phone. I loved Sara, but she was always on her phone. She never had actual silence. There might not be noise, but there was never quiet. We were alike in that way. I wasn’t as addicted to screens as she was, but I did what I could to avoid silence. In the silence my thoughts came—thoughts I didn’t want to have.
I glanced in the mirror. Blaise and Josh were the opposite of Sara and me. They loved silence. When we were going out at night, they’d be going to sleep. They were content just being. Sara and I, if we were being honest, were never content.
The four of us made an unlikely group; still, we were the best of friends. I met Blaise and Sara my freshman year. Blaise and I were roommates. We hated each other for the first semester. Well, I hated her. She had said she just didn’t like me. Sara and I had class together and were instantly drawn to each other. Blaise says we are too alike for our own good. Eventually Sara and Blaise became friends, and then I let go of my hatred and realized Blaise was amazing. A year later she met Josh. He was nothing like any guy Sara or I had ever dated. He was good to his core.
When he proposed, I was almost as excited as Blaise. The wedding is set for the day after we all graduate. They will be young newlyweds, only twenty-two. Normally I would make fun of someone getting married that young, or assume they were pregnant. But with Blaise and Josh it all made sense, and they couldn’t be pregnant. They were both virgins.
Tears welled as I pushed down the choices of my past.
Headlights appeared behind us.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Bria,” Sara said, turning her head toward me.
“Happy Thanks—”
In an instant the night sky became brighter than day. My right hand flew up to keep the light from piercing my eyes. I blinked, forcing my eyes open. A moment later complete darkness overtook the false daylight. Just as the light had been artificial, so too was the dark. My eyes hurt and I could see nothing.
“What’s going on?” Sara’s voice sounded shaken.
I breathed deeply, trying to control the panic threatening to overtake me. “I can’t control the car,” I said. I blinked again and again, trying to clear my eyes. Shadows started to appear. I exhaled. I wasn’t blind.
“What?” she asked, her voice higher pitched than normal.
I stomped on the pedals, one after the other. Nothing happened.
“I can’t do anything. The gas pedal, the brake, they aren’t working.” I heard the thump-thump-thump of the serrated edge of the road. I tried hard to pull us back into the lane. “The steering wheel isn’t working. Help me!” I screamed, losing all ability to control my surging panic.
Sara put both hands on the steering wheel, and we both pulled as hard as we could to stay on the road.
“Thanks,” I said, as we got centered on the highway.
“What’s going on?” Blaise asked, her voice groggy and scared.
Sara turned to face her. “There was a bright light, and the car stopped working,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Josh said, his voice scratchy from sleep.
“Just what I said. There was a light, and now the car is dead.” Sara reached for the phone in her lap.
“It’s not working,” she said, as if she couldn’t believe her own words.
I heard Blaise and Josh digging to find their phones.
“Ours are dead too,” Blaise said with the same unbelief Sara had.
I picked mine up as we rolled to a stop. I pushed the button … nothing happened. I tried again and again. “Nothing,” I said, putting it back in the cup holder.
Blaise whispered, “What are we going to do?”
We sat staring at each other, at the night. No one spoke. My heart raced as I realized I had no idea what to do. None of us had any idea what to do. The car, our phones, tablets, even our watches were all dead. We were in the middle of Nowhere, North Carolina, completely stranded … six hundred miles from home, with no way to get help.
Sara’s words broke the silence: “We are going to die.”
Two
I summoned the strength to get out of the car. The cold seeped through my thin tunic and leggings in an instant. The knee-high boots offered some warmth, though no comfort, thanks to the one-and-a-half-inch heels. I shivered and wrapped my arms around my body. I hadn’t brought warm clothes; none of us had. The forecast for Palm Beach had been in the upper eighties. I’d packed three bikinis and no winter coat.
Blaise was still wrapped in the blanket she and Josh had been sleeping under. Sara and I joined her. We huddled together as we stared at the car. Josh had an arm around Blaise’s shoulders.
Without the beams of headlights, I could see the light of the moon clearly. How long had it been since I noticed moonlight? There was enough light for me to see the barren silver trees that surrounded us.
Looking at my friends, I saw the same fear and confusion they saw on my face. I thought of Sara’s words and wondered if she was right.
I turned toward the north, the direction the light had come from. I detected movement.
“There are people walking toward us,” I whispered, trying hard to stay calm.
Sara and I moved closer to each other. Josh stepped in front of us. Blaise dropped her end of the blanket and stood next to him. He edged himself in front of her, his body tense.
“Come on,” Sara whispered. We walked forward and stood next to our friends, the blanket still wrapped around us.
As the figures neared I could see that they were about our age. He was older and she was younger, but neither looked older than twenty-five. He carried a duffel bag. She wore a backpack and dragged a small rolling suitcase behind her. He was about Josh’s height, maybe a little taller, six foot two or so. She was also tall, probably five nine. As they neared, he opened his hands toward us in the universal “I come in peace” gesture.
Sara whispered in my ear, “He’s cute, really cute.”
“Shh,” I hissed back. But she was right. He was way above average on the cuteness scale, and, for that matter, so was the woman with him. They made a cute couple. He looked a few years older than her, though not many. Beneath the purple dye I could tell her hair was blonde. His was light brown. Unlike Sara and me, they were dressed for warmth and comfort. Neither wore something you could buy in a department store or boutique. Perhaps a camping store, but I had never been in one to know for sure.
“I’m Jonah and this is East,” he said, stopping a few feet from Josh.
Josh introduced each of us. It was funny to watch the interaction. Josh wasn’t the tough sort of guy. He was the sweet, lovable “call for Blaise when there was a big spider” kind of guy. But tonight he seemed to be channeling his testosterone-laden ancestors. He was ready to protect us. I loved him for that. I could tell Blaise did too. She was staying calm, trying to be as threatening as her yoga-teaching self could be. Yet, I could see her glance at Josh with a new appreciation.
“Where were you headed?” East asked, her voice calm.
“Palm Beach,” Blaise responded, her tone matching East’s. Blaise grabbed Josh’s hand, and his body visibly relaxed.
Jonah matched the relaxed posture.
“What about you?” Blaise asked, her voice getting back to its normal calm tone.
“Home,” Jonah responded, looking at Blaise as he spoke.
“Where’s that?” I asked, pulling the blanket tighter around me while eyeing Blaise’s heavy winter coat, jeans, and sneakers with envy.
“The next exit and then about twenty miles east,” Jonah answered. The way he looked at me caused me to shiver, or maybe it was the cold.
“I’m sorry, but you look familiar,” he said, realizing he’d been staring at me.
“Do I? I don’t think I have ever seen you before,” I answered, knowing there was no way I had. He was someone I would not forget.
“No, I guess not,” he said, still looking puzzled.
Sara pulled the blanket tighter around her body, our hands meeting between us as we attempted to stay warm. She said, “Do you know what happened? We saw a light, and then everything stopped working.”
“My brother thinks he knows,” East said, nodding her head toward Jonah.
Sara said nothing, but I knew she was jumping up and down on the inside, realizing they weren’t a couple.
Josh looked at Jonah. “What do you think it was?”
I relaxed as Jonah’s gaze shifted from me to Josh. “An EMP,” he said.
“A what?” Sara asked in her “stupid girl” voice, the one she used when she was into a guy. I rolled my eyes before I could stop myself. How she could go from thinking we were going to die, to being totally focused on a cute stranger in five minutes was beyond me.
Jonah answered, “Electromagnetic pulse. I think that’s what this must have been. It disables everything electronic.”
“I’ve heard of those,” Blaise said, “but this couldn’t have been one.”
“Why not?” Jonah said, setting his duffel bag on the ground.
“There’s no way there could be one that huge. For it to knock out all of our things, that would mean—” Blaise stopped. She pulled in closer to Josh.
“A nuclear reaction,” Jonah said, finishing her thought.
She nodded, holding Josh’s hand tighter. He put his arm around her.
“Here? In the U.S.?” Sara asked, her voice back to normal.
I knew that the idea of a nuclear explosion in the U.S. was an impossibility to all of us.
Jonah nodded. “Not necessarily on the ground, but in the atmosphere above us,” he said.
“How?” I asked. “How could that happen?” I stared at him in disbelief.
“Not by accident,” East said, anger in her eyes.
“An … attack?” Blaise said, almost unable to say the words.
“It’s the on
ly thing that makes sense,” Jonah said.
Josh looked up to the sky. “But it doesn’t make sense. We aren’t at war with anyone,” he said.
“We’re always fighting someone,” East said. “Even if our government doesn’t call it a war. And since when do terrorists need a war to attack us,” she said, her voice harsh and cynical.
She was right. We all knew the possibility of an attack was real. But one that knocked out our phones and cars? That seemed impossible, no matter how probable these strangers thought it was.
“So what do we do? Wait for someone to find us?” I asked, tired of the silence and the cold.
Jonah looked at me, his expression confused. “Wait?” he asked.
“For someone to give us a ride,” I said, confused by his confusion.
“Who do you think is coming for us? Who do you think can?” He sounded frustrated and sad at the same time.
“Eventually someone is going to drive by,” I said, irritation in my voice. “I mean, it’s the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, so it might take a while. Plus, if some cars on the road got zapped by whatever this was, then it will take longer. But tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Someone is going to drive by soon.”
Jonah exhaled and looked at me. “If you had a weapon big enough to knock out all things electronic, where would you set it off? In the country, where there aren’t many people, or in the cities, where there are millions? I don’t think we haven’t seen anyone because no one decided to drive down the interstate. I think we haven’t seen anyone because everyone else’s cars are as dead as ours. And the fact that we haven’t seen anyone come from the south tells me the range was either really far or there was more than one,” he said.
My knees buckled. I leaned on Sara. My mind raced—the thoughts were fleeting and made no sense. I saw images of cities with no lights, no power. Places with unchanged structures whose inhabitants had lost all sense of what the world was. I thought of my dad and wished I was with him.
“You all can come with us,” Jonah’s words were tense, but I could sense the kindness beneath his tone. “Get what you can from your car.”