by Logan Keys
ENDLESS
NIGHT
The Long Fall Series
Book 4
By
Logan Keys & Mike Kraus
© 2018 Muonic Press, Inc.
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Authors’ Notes
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The Long Fall Book 5:
Frozen Dawn
Special Thanks
Many thanks to the awesome beta reading team, including Christine, Claudia, David, Glenda, James, John, Julie, Karen W, Karen O, Kellie H, Kelly S, Lynnette, Mark, Marlys, Mayer, Robin and Teresa. You all rock. :)
Prologue
After the Fall
Clear your mind of the impossible. Let go of the regrets of the old world and enter the new one of endless white without hesitation. Build something impenetrable to guard yourself from despair. Stop tethering yourself to nostalgia. Embrace the hard winter that is now the norm as you grab hold of everything you love tightly, and above all, don’t let go.
That last one still stumped Brittany. Out of everything she’d learned, this was her mantra. It had been cemented in her head as the world collapsed around her to lay dead at her feet without time to grieve for what was. But that last one about holding tightly to whom you love was a sharp ache between her ribs. Before, there had been a soft and gentle heart somewhere deep inside of her, but now the hard thing thudding and lumbering with distress was all she had left. It barely knew how to go on and had tried many times to con her into giving up because what if? What if things were different? What if she hadn’t let go?
In this camp of people in the lodge, there is nobody she wants to hold on to. They’re a blur of faces that don’t register more than a list of names: Daphne, Dick, Jane, Sarah, Laura, Lacy, Kelly, John–well, he’d died, hadn’t he? She can’t keep them straight. There are almost twenty people here…. less every day. But there are still stragglers who show up. Amazingly, humanity has managed to survive. It should be a wonder, but for every person Brittany sees happy she finds herself falling further into bitterness.
The cold has its own agenda. It showed up one day, replacing the politics of the past and is much surer of itself. Brutally, it eats away at the corners of your body trying to find a way to your warm, gooey center. And more people have frozen to death trying to do what were once basic things than Brittany likes to think about. People had been found frozen squatting in the woods. Chopping firewood. Just walking down the road. The worst was when entire families huddled in a house together, embracing their last moments until they became a statue of one.
Here she’d found the toughest of the tough. People who’d managed to survive the end of the world and then find each other. She should admire the grit and determination of those who were so prepared for the disaster she hadn’t seen coming even while she’d lived it. Still, they aren’t her people. They’re strangers. And she wonders if that’s sort of how nature sees them too. No, she’s not crazy enough to believe nature has a purpose or is sentient. George was the conspiracy theorist of the group and that was enough. He was the one who believed the government programmed the weather into the block of ice that used to be America. He’d even found some people who’d agreed with him—a little cult of survivors who still think things like government matter.
That’s all history now, she wants to say, but then George would go off on her and that would mean more fights that Chuck would raise on her behalf. She was trying to steady herself enough to not be a problem. She’d attempted to hunt and fish and carve away a life for herself…if one could call this living.
A few people listen to George’s rants every night, reminding her how humans need something—anything—to fill the God-sized hole on the inside. Others find solace in the family they have left, managing to protect and save the ones they loved. Those are the luckiest ones. Then, there are those who have lost all, like she has, and they band together in bitterness, but that at least lightens the load.
However, for some reason she won’t accept…she won’t grieve, and she won’t move on. Brittany is not even sure she knows how. She doesn’t belong to this tribe, or any other. She’d had her tribe. She wants nothing more than to go back in time to start all over again. Brittany knows she doesn’t belong here, or anywhere maybe, and soon they will recognize that and probably tell her to leave. Chuck would never. He’d stand up for her, but then he’d have a mutiny on his hands. She’s like a Jonah. She made one mistake and God was probably punishing her—them all—for it. Because when she’d arrived, things only got worse, so how else to explain it?
She looks over at the new arrival, a pretty lady of soft hair and eyes, but sharp as a tack. Someone who hasn’t lost the shine of hope. “I’m Brittany,” she tries, her one last effort to comply with the old rituals of interaction and niceties. She doesn’t hold out a hand, because that… that feels too strange.
The woman smiles the old type of smile, the one that holds no bitterness or deep remorse. The one settled on the end, ready to face it—come what may. A brave kind of smile that Brittany envies.
“I’m Michelle,” the woman said with a clear, strong voice. She then turned and pointed to the quiet, older man at her side. “And this is Bob.”
Chapter One
The Channel, New Zealand
“Son, you’re going to need to fight for yourself. Listen to me, Lucky. Bullies punching you in the nose has got to stop. They think you’re a nerd since you love science and studying—all that fancy gadgetry you and your mother keep tinkering with. They think you’re easy pickin’s.” Luckman’s father held tightly to his shoulders before gently shaking them, his eyes narrowed on the swollen lip that Luckman sported…again. “But people are never just one thing, Lucky. They’re sometimes many things, or a few things, but never just one. You can be whatever you want to be, but fight back, you hear me? Fight back!”
Luckman’s eyes snapped open just as a wave crashed over his head. He helplessly let the hungry ocean force him under, his body listless from the cold, senses blurring together not knowing which message to send his brain. Hypothermia triggers so many signals that your body doesn’t know what to respond to first. You sort of fry like an overloaded computer.
He remembered where he was all in a rush. He’d been on the ferry trying to make it across the channel to safety. Luckman had been tossed out into the sea when it sank. Holtz had t
aken his life jacket and now, there were no others in sight, just a vast ocean and him treading water without a plan.
When freezing and drowning and swallowing enough water to fill a small bathtub, your system jams up and your body just sort of shrugs in response like: It’s over, and here is shock to make it less painful…maybe.
But it was painful. It burned, and it felt like death. Luckman must have passed out and then had woken up from a split-second dream about his old man. A guardian angel? Call it whatever you like, Luckman saw it as the Hail Mary he needed to start flailing his arms in a last-ditch effort to keep from drowning. He grunted at himself, the gray sky bobbing in the distance. Where were all of the people? The pieces of the boat? It was just him and the ocean for what seemed like an eternity.
Another wave and he was beneath the water without knowing which way was up or down. His open eyes burned, straining to see through the murky seawater. He imagined dark shapes inside and thought of sea monsters from the deep. Sharks too, though they couldn’t eat him fast enough because he’d sucked enough liquid into his lungs that his focus was starting to flicker.
Somehow, even water-logged, he forced his frozen arms to swim him to the surface for a very much needed gulp of air. Once he burst free into the freezing wind that was almost colder for its chill-factor, Luckman gaped like a fish spitting out foamy, salty liquid while doggy paddling in the chop, without any real plan except to fight. Fight was all he had left, and Luckman was sure he’d never fought for anything a day in his life as hard as he was right now. Why had he thought about his father? Was it because he was dying, and you thought of family then? Of your roots? Life flashing before your eyes? But why that exact moment? Sure, he’d gone back to school with a bag full of rocks because that kid outweighed him double to nothing. So, he’d stepped up to Rory, the boy who’d been busting him up since he was twelve—but Luckman was finally a man. Sixteen… in three months. And he’d taken that pack and swung and swung, until Rory screamed for him to stop, and that he was sorry, that he would leave him alone.
The bully didn’t do as promised, but still, it was less trouble than before, and Luckman had held his head up for the entire week that the gossip had lasted.
Maybe he’d thought of it because it was a reminder not to give up. Who knows. But now—now he fought like the dickens again, swinging his arms as if there was a pack of rocks in his grip, striking the back of a bully. Luckman pushed against the ocean like he’d pushed back as a kid, and he found himself getting breaths of air, somehow, between being tossed. But he was able to swim a little farther each time. See a little better through the waves.
Twenty minutes had to have gone by. He must have beaten that record. But he couldn’t keep going—time was up…. A ship! The sea dipped down then up, and he saw a ship in the distance. It could have been a hundred feet away or thousands—this vantage point tricked the eye. But it was there, and he knew which one it was, too. Polar Star was proudly stamped across the side. Now he just had to get to it.
With the last of his energy he tried to paddle in that direction. As he got closer he watched them drop boats down and they even began fishing people out of the water. The ice breaker was already sending rescuers. Luckman waved his hands and called out, but a wave crushed over him just as one of the men in the boat turned toward his shouts. He spun down and down into darkness, into the ice-cold depths. Fight, he thought. The ship is right there, man!
He made it to the surface by sheer force of will and then, though he didn’t want to, Luckman closed his eyes, put his face into the mind-numbing water, and he began to stroke while putting his back all the way into swimming. Luckman didn’t stop until he could hear yelling. When he looked up again, pushing water from his eyes, he saw a small boat heading in his direction. “Here!” he called. “Here!”
A wave overtook him again, spinning him away from his rescue. He could cry at watching the boat grow smaller in the distance. It was like swimming in place and Luckman knew he was seconds from being lost at sea.
“There’s a person over here!” someone cried, and Luckman heard a splash right next to him.
They’d thrown him a life preserver. He swam for it, desperately grabbing onto the tube, wrapping both arms around it for dear life. Help me, he thought, as he’d run out of energy to shout it. Nothing was happening other than him gasping and spitting up water when he tried to call out, but thankfully the line tugged into the direction of the boat, and slowly Luckman was towed to safety. Once alongside, one of the men gripped him by his soggy jacket and heaved him over the side, dumping him like a fish into the boat. With a boneless roll, Luckman flipped onto his back, then turned his head as he began to vomit up saltwater. The man helped him onto his side, and he heaved and heaved a never-ending burn of what he’d swallowed. At the same time, he shivered so hard his knees were smacking into the side of the boat with a steady drumming.
“Sir, here!” The man rubbed his shoulders, wrapped him in an emergency blanket, promising, “We’ll get you back on the ship and to a warm room soon, okay?”
Luckman tried to remain sitting up, but he slumped onto his side after not long, watching them work trying to find more survivors. Night was falling, and soon they wouldn’t be able to see much, but even so, he doubted many people were left. He felt like what was happening was distant, and he was only viewing from deep inside of his subconscious. Luckman knew it was shock. The next moments happened in flashes as if he were taking snapshots of what was occurring. The waves tossed the small boat as the four men scrambled to try to get people on board. One man they pulled in was a deep blue and not moving, but they hesitated, leaving him there with a cover, probably afraid to just push him back into the sea as if that might make them monsters.
It seemed like they started checking each body for a pulse before pulling them aboard. They were quickly giving up hope as they motored around and around in an increasing circle. That’s when Luckman heard a familiar voice shouting for help. He pushed himself up shakily and squinted into the water. It was Holtz. The man had made it somehow. They threw him the floaty and hauled him in the same as they’d done with Luckman. Once he was on board, Luckman watched the other scientist take off his life preserver and wrap himself in a blanket finally noticing Luckman was also on board. Between chattering teeth, Holtz said, “You survived! Hoped you would.” But he sheepishly glanced away, no doubt remembering he’d stolen Luckman’s life jacket before the ship had gone down.
The rescuers only found two more survivors after that, but the other boats would keep looking while these men said they thought it was best to get everyone to the doctor on the Polar Star. There were four who’d been rescued altogether. The other two they found along with Luckman and Holtz were one woman with a shaved head who looked like she’d survived worse things before, and a man who kept yelling at the rescuers to find his wife. He repeatedly demanded if anyone had seen her and his little girl. When he described her, Luckman had coughed and wheezed out that she might have been the one with the child he’d helped to a rescue boat before.
“Did the little girl have brown hair? The prettiest brown eyes you’ve ever seen?” He started to bawl, rocking back and forth, hypothermic as they all were.
“Might have been,” Luckman said, praying he wasn’t giving the man false hope.
They got back to the Polar Star and were brought up on a pulley that swayed precariously over the freezing water. Luckman fought off the image of plummeting back in. He knew he could live an entire life without swimming in the ocean ever again. Once on board, Luckman saw that the man who’d been looking for his family was rushing across the deck towards the woman and child Luckman had saved before. They had been waiting on board with their own blankets. The man grabbed them into a hug, exchanging hushed murmurs of joy while checking on them.
“Let’s get you warm,” the woman said with worry as she noticed how weak her husband was.
“First,” he said, shaking from head to toe. “Let me thank him.”
>
The man stumbled over to Luckman and grabbed his hand in both of his larger ones and pumped it up and down. They both shivered uncontrollably as the man told him he’d never forget what Luckman did.
Luckman replied, “No worries. No worries. We need to get warm.”
The crew guided them below and they were given dry clothes but needed help putting them on. Then the crew piled the survivors high with blankets, gave them warm drinks, and the room was turned hot enough for a sauna.
Even so, Luckman was still bone-deep chilled. He’d stayed under the blankets and heaters, but he couldn’t seem to get warm. Every part of him shook so that his drink sloshed all over him when he tried to bring the cup to his lips. Vodka, he thought with a laugh. That would start his heart.
He shook his head, missing German more than ever. Other survivors were brought in from the boats arriving. “That’s the last of them,” one of the crew said with sadness. Another crew member asked, “Where’s the Russian?” and Luckman jolted in his seat.
“What Russian?” Luckman asked blinking, wondering if he’d misheard.
The crew member glanced at Luckman with a strange expression. “Big son of a gun. He went out there with another boat all by himself.”
“Where is he?” Luckman threw off his blankets, getting shakily to his feet. They tried to stop him, but he stumbled up the stairs and onto the deck. He walked like a drunk man until he made it to the railing. The men from below now stood on either side of him. “You should come back inside.”
“Where is he?” Luckman searched the ocean. It was nearly quiet now. Small waves sloshed against the ship’s side as if it hadn’t murdered a few hundred people who’d sunk with the ferry moments before.
