The Long Night Box Set

by Kevin Partner

  "Look, you know better than anyone that this world is totally messed up. I'm taking no chances. That Humvee is a powerful bit of kit."

  "But they've got their own vehicles."

  Kuchinsky tapped the side of his nose. "Never underestimate the obsession of the military mind, Sol. You can never have too much firepower and that minigun is going to be mighty tempting."

  "I've been in touch with the unit commander and he'd like to see you," Sanders said. "He's interested in the wider situation and would like to interview you personally."

  "Yes sir," Kuchinsky responded. "I suggest Mr. Masters comes with us. He's traveled to the West Coast and back."

  Sanders's eyebrows threatened to push his hairline off the back of his head. "Has he indeed? Then the commander will be delighted to meet him."

  Scott Lee went to open his mouth, but at a glance from Solly he stopped himself, and climbed back into the Humvee wearing a sullen, confused expression.

  Colonel Paul Moretti stood to greet them as they entered, returning Kuchinsky's salute and offering a hand to Solly, who was certain he saw a flash of anger in Sanders's face as he was dismissed.

  "Please, join me in some lunch," he said, gesturing at the sandwiches laid out on a plastic tray. He was a compact man with thinning blond hair and a confident manner.

  Kuchinsky was obviously nervous, and shadowed the colonel's movements, only choosing a sandwich once his superior officer had begun eating. Solly, on the other hand, felt no need for such niceties. He'd spent an hour with the President of the United States, after all, so this was a step down. And he hadn't seen or eaten a sandwich made of thin-cut bread since the first days after the Long Night.

  "So, tell me of the country outside of Pennsylvania."

  They could have spent the entire afternoon there as the colonel plied them with questions, most of which only Solly could answer. As soon as the conversation turned to the Lee Corporation, he noticed the colonel's expression tighten, and it only grew darker as he described the situation in DC.

  "We have had some dealings with the Lee Corporation," he said. "But this talk of DC concerns me."

  "They're going to need your help, Colonel," Solly said. "I can't see any way they can stand alone."

  Solly could see competing thoughts and emotions struggling for control of the man's mind. He looked from one to the other, as if trying to make up his mind whether he could trust them.

  "What I'm about to say is off the record," he said, so quietly that he was barely audible. "I will deny the conversation ever happened, do you understand?"

  When they'd nodded their assent, he leaned forward. "The PAARNG is commanded by General Miller, who was a low-ranking politician before the Long Night. I was one of the only serving officers who survived the night and spent the next days trying to cobble together an operational unit from the few survivors I could find, along with members of other branches. Then he turned up with five times the personnel I'd managed to assemble and a fleet of operational vehicles and took over command. I could have opposed him, but the last thing we needed then was conflict within the unit."

  His half-eaten sandwich remained suspended in his hand while considered his words. "I know of the Lee Corporation, of course, but orders came that we were to allow them unhindered passage and to render any aid they might request. We were also to interrogate anyone passing through our area of control and hand any who were suspicious to them. Our good Captain Sanders was following that standing order and I fear that he will have alerted our allies to your presence. Two Humvees on the open road would qualify as suspicious in anyone's book."

  Kuchinsky went to get up.

  "Sit down, Sergeant. You need to act quickly, but let us not be too hasty. You haven't told me all you know and I suspect you have deliberately hidden much, but I detect the Lee Corporation behind much of what has happened. Am I not correct that they are the true enemy of us all?"

  Solly nodded. "They mustn't be allowed to win, Colonel, or they'll make slaves of us, or worse."

  The colonel sighed. "I'm sorry, but I can't see what I can do. Letting you go will take enough explaining. Other than that, I don't see how I can help."

  "You're right that the Lees are the enemy," Solly said, "and we're doing our bit to fight them. But even if we succeed in our mission, DC might have fallen by then and with it, any hope of reestablishing the United States. We need to come together as a country, Colonel, even if that means defying the chain of command."

  Chapter 18

  The true scale of the disaster of the Long Night was impossible to ignore on the back roads of Pennsylvania. They passed through small towns that were completely abandoned, past burned out farmhouses, and were forced to stop many times to winch rusting cars out of the road. But Solly was more spooked and saddened by the subtle evidence of the fall of humankind. Suburban estates where dead leaves had piled up on driveways and gardens that had once been well kept. Shopping carts littering the streets and cars abandoned, slowly rotting away with their occupants still behind the wheel.

  From time to time, they'd pass a more organized community. A Walmart depot had been fortified with vehicles and weapons clearly stolen from a local armory and DiSanto had been forced to take them off road to avoid a hold up. In the main, however, they were left to their own devices. In this ruined world, two Humvees and a minigun were a potent force indeed.

  So, they crawled their way north and west, staying one night at a fire damaged motel, another in an abandoned farmhouse, until they reached their first destination on the third day of their journey. It had been the subject of much debate around the fire the previous night, but Solly had been insistent.

  On the surface, the tree-lined avenue hadn't changed a bit since he and Janice had last been here. Spacious ranch houses lined the road on either side, their white wood siding clean and well tended.

  "Stop here," Solly said, looking over to Janice. "This was where we met Neil, wasn't it?"

  "I think so. It was dark, though, so I can't be totally sure."

  Solly opened the door of the Humvee. "Joe, will you stay here? I don't want to go in too heavy"

  He waited for Janice as Scott climbed out of the other vehicle. "I'm coming in," he said. "I've been cooped up for long enough."

  Solly couldn't think of a reason to object, so Lee fell in beside Janice, who held Solly's hand as they walked to the Buchanan house.

  "Oh my God!"

  Half a dozen rifle barrels were pointed at the three of them as they stood with their hands up. Beth-Anne Buchanan stood at the door, her hands on her face. "It's you!"

  She ran along the path and Solly braced himself for impact. But she bypassed him entirely and threw herself at Scott.

  "Is it you? Is it really you?" she cried, pulling back and staring at him as if to make sure he was real.

  "It's me, Beth. I'm so sorry about Neil."

  Her face fell. "What do you know? What's happened? We haven't heard from him in weeks."

  "I was there," Solly said.

  Beth-Anne turned to him and, finally, recognition dawned as her eyes met Janice's. "It's you! You came here and we welcomed you into our community. And then Neil got a call and went away. Where is he?" Solly could tell from her expression that she knew she was about to hear the worst.

  "He was killed in a place called Breezewood. We were hit by a hail of bullets and he died instantly. I'm so, so sorry, Beth-Anne."

  "Get away from me! Get out of here! All of you!" she cried, beating Scott's chest before pulling herself away and running back into the house.

  People emerged from the bushes, keeping their rifles aimed at Solly, Scott and Janice, who remained frozen in place, unsure of what to do next.

  "I presume you've come here for a reason."

  Solly turned as a young woman walked toward him, handing her weapon to one of the others. "Yes, but it's not something we can discuss out in the open."

  "We have no secrets from one another," the woman said. "But come with me
and we'll talk. You can tell me how my father died."

  They'd come into the house through the back door and sat at a table in the large open kitchen. The last time Solly had been in here had been on the morning of their departure when it was bustling and alive. Now, it was silent.

  "My name is Anna," the woman said. She looked as though she was in her late teens and resembled her father both in appearance and manner. "First, you can tell me why you've parked a pair of Humvees up the road. They look like a threat to me."

  "They're our transport," Solly said, "nothing more."

  "And where does my mother know you from?" Anna said, turning her attention to Scott.

  He gave a sad smile. "I knew your father quite well and had met Beth-Anne a few times at company functions."

  "You worked for the Lee Corporation?" she said, not bothering to hide her suspicion.

  "My name is Scott Lee," he responded.

  She slapped a hand over her mouth. "But you're dead."

  Scott shrugged. "Mine was the only death that night that was faked. I had the same upgrade as you, your family and everyone here."

  She pulled herself together remarkably quickly, took a deep breath in, and returned her attention to Solly. "So, how did my father die?"

  Solly told her of the attack on the hotel room in Breezewood, and of the justice meted out on the perpetrator the following day.

  She wiped her eyes and sniffed. "I knew he was gone," she said. "There was no way he'd be away that long and not get a message back to us. Mom knew too, in truth, she just didn't want to admit it."

  "I can't tell you how sorry I am," Solly said. "Your father was a good man."

  She nodded. "He was. So, it was you he went to find, then?"

  "Yes, he knew how important our mission was—how important it is—and he wanted to come with us to see it done."

  "Typical," Anna said. "Never could leave anything to others. Was he buried?"

  Solly nodded. "Yes, I saw to it myself. Again, I'm sorry."

  She shrugged. "There will be time for tears later. I'm sure my mother's shedding enough for both of us at the moment."

  Silence fell as she sat quietly, as if deep in thought, before finally, as if flicking a switch, she said, "So what are you doing here?"

  "We're going to attack the Lee Corporation," Solly said.

  "What?" Anna said, as Scott gasped.

  "Have you heard of Reapers?" Solly asked.

  She shook her head. "No. What are they? Some kind of missile?"

  "You could call them that. They're autonomous, practically indestructible drones."

  "Are you saying Lee Corp is building them?"

  Solly nodded. "You know they were behind the Long Night, don't you?"

  She held his gaze for a moment. "Yes."

  "And you understand why you and your family survived?"

  "Something to do with the batch of implants we'd been given."

  "It wasn't the implants themselves. They upgraded the firmware just before Annabel Lee died, triggering those billions of deaths. That's why Scott survived—he upgraded himself."

  Anna looked at each of them in turn as if trying to work out if this was some sort of fantasy or trick. "Then how did you live through it?"

  "I believe my implant is Chinese-made. Another of our companions had the same one. We think the Chinese were protected. God knows what they're doing now if their population survived."

  "And you?"

  She was looking at Janice now, who shrugged. "I've got no idea."

  "Sheer luck," Solly said. "They had a 95% success rate with their first strike, and Janice was one of the 5%. We don't believe the Lees wanted to kill everyone, though. They wanted domination, to turn the US into a vassal state of China, but something went wrong and their demonstration of power turned into mass murder."

  "What do you think went wrong?" Anna asked.

  Solly looked across at Lee.

  "Annabel," he said. "Her soul turned black and she wanted to take everyone with her when she went. She nearly succeeded."

  The door to the kitchen opened and a man walked in.

  "Hello, Uncle Paul," Anna said.

  He nodded at her, then sat down at the table and looked at Scott. "My name's Paul Buchanan. Neil was my brother," he said, continuing to examine Lee. "Yes, it is you, isn't it? Scott Lee. Thinner and a little careworn, but there's no mistaking you. Care to explain how come you're alive?"

  "He faked his death," Anna said. "He knew about the Long Night before it happened."

  "Oh, did he now? But he couldn't put a stop to it? The famous Scott Lee? That's hard to believe."

  Scott shook his head, sadly. "I only found out at the last minute. Khaled Abdul told me—he also told your brother and arranged for you to be protected. But it was too late to stop them."

  "You didn't know your wife was plotting genocide?"

  Sighing, Scott sagged. "We weren't close in those last years. I only found out because Khaled discovered her plans by accident."

  "And so what are you doing here now?" Buchanan said, before pointing at Solly and Janice. "And you two. You can't have expected a warm welcome, surely? We were safe here until you came."

  "No one is safe, Paul," Solly said. "They plan to finish the job Annabel started. We're going to try to stop them."

  Solly sat in the bedroom of Beth-Anne Buchanan and listened to her talk of her husband. His disappearance had broken her, and Solly had come like the Angel of Death to extinguish any remaining hope. But it was him she'd asked to talk to.

  So, as she sat in bed, Solly had told her his story, both his life before the Long Night and what had brought him here today. She asked him for every detail of the time he'd spent with Neil and had begged for reassurance that Buchanan wouldn't have suffered.

  When he'd fallen silent, she paused for a moment before speaking. "What is the point of it all, Solly?"

  "Sorry? What do you mean?"

  She hesitated, as if trying to compose the words in her mind before saying them. "For most people, the Long Night was the last of their lives. One moment they were living humans, the next they're lifeless bodies littering the streets or rotting in their homes or cars. But for those of us who survived, we seem to be doing nothing more than that, nothing more than surviving. And I find myself wondering if it's enough."

  "It beats the alternative," Solly responded.

  Her mouth creased in a smile. "Does it? Really?"

  Solly looked at the woman. She was, he supposed, in her late thirties and the auburn hair he'd noticed on meeting her was now suffused with gray. Under normal circumstances, she could expect to live another forty years in decent health. But the Long Night had put paid to normality, after all. How long would they continue to struggle on?

  "Yes, I think it does," Solly said, "I haven't given up hope that the future can be better than the present. That's why we're fighting the Lees. They would have us all enslaved. Annabel Lee wants us eliminated entirely. These things have to be opposed, with hope or without."

  She put her hand out and he took it in both of his, laying them onto the bed sheet. "I see now why Neil was so adamant that he should help you. Tell me, Solly, what is your plan?"

  They stayed the night at the same house they'd slept in when they'd visited before. Solly and Janice lay in bed, as Becky Epstein snored in the room next door. Kuchinsky was in one guest bedroom, Bobby's sister Vivian in the other, and Scott Lee on the couch. DiSanto and Adeyemi had drawn the short straws and were both making themselves as comfortable as possible in the Humvees, which were parked on the drive.

  They'd struck lucky with Neil's brother Paul who, once he'd been called to see Beth-Anne, had agreed to help them. Like his brother, he'd worked in the Lee Corporation's fabrication plants and would, he said, be able to help them choose the right spot for their charges.

  "Poor woman," Janice said. "To survive the Long Night only to lose her husband anyway."

  "We all lost people that night. I try not to think
about them too much. All my mind is on surviving. But I understood her when she asked what the point of it was. I can see why she wonders."

  Janice's head moved from under his arm and his cheek tingled with her warm breath. "Do you ever wonder?"

  "Not for long. There's plenty to live for yet."

  "Like what?"

  "Like this. I love you, Janice."

  "I love you too."

  It was barely light as Solly gathered his clothes up and crept out of the bedroom. He took one last look at her lying asleep, half covered by blankets, her ringlets cascading over her face. He was a lucky man, but she was going to hate him for what he was about to do.

  As quietly as he could manage, he turned the key in the lock of the bedroom door and tiptoed down the stairs to find the others waiting for him, fully dressed and ready to go.

  "You know you're a misogynistic asshole, don't you?" Epstein snapped as soon as she saw him. "How d'you think she's going to feel when she realizes what you've done?"

  "We only have eight seats, Becky, so someone had to stay behind," Solly said without turning around. He pulled on his boots and focused on tying the laces.

  "We could have managed. It's not far from here. No, don't pretend this is some rational military decision. It's just you being the big man-ape, and giving her no choice in it."

  Solly got up and picked up his pack. "Think what you like. I'm not going to deny that I'll be able to do my job better knowing Janice is safe here. Which one of us would you have had me leave behind? You?"

  "Me? No, you'll need me to stitch up your foot now you've shot yourself in it."

  "Everyone else is needed for their military experience."

  "Including Vivian?"

  Solly sighed. "I couldn't let her stay behind. She needs revenge, Becky."

  "And that's why she shouldn't have come," Epstein said. "She's a loose cannon. You'll live to regret bringing her along, I reckon. But not for long, if you take my meaning."

  A rush of cold air accompanied Paul Buchanan as he appeared in the door.