The Long Fall of Night: The Long Fall of Night Book 1

by AJ Rose

  “That explains it,” Jason drawled above him, a shadow against the night sky. “Her brother’s a faggot, and so are you.”

  Elliot froze, thinking quickly. He could confirm it and get it over with, but something told him if he did so, their problems with the newcomers would only get worse. He answered in the best, most straightforward way he could without giving anything away.

  “Her brother is upset,” he said. “He’s grieving for someone, and it’s none of your business anyway.”

  “What was with the slow dancing then?”

  Elliot threw up his hands. “Comfort? Warmth? Human touch? You might want to try it sometime. It’ll make you less of a jerk.”

  Jason narrowed his eyes. “It’ll make me a faggot.”

  Elliot huffed and completed the climb, wiping his dirty hands on the seat of his jeans. “Get out of my way,” he said wearily. “Wouldn’t want you to catch the gay.”

  “So you admit you’re a fag.”

  “You won’t believe me no matter what I say, and I don’t care enough about your opinion to try that hard.”

  “I don’t like you,” Jason said, grabbing his arm and squeezing to the point of pain. “I think you take it up the ass and beg for more like the little bitch you are. And if you come near me or Tim, I’ll see your fudgepacking ass kicked so hard, ain’t nothing getting up there ever again.”

  Elliot yanked his arm back, his heart galloping in his ears. “You hate me so much, feel free to leave. You won’t get what you came for.”

  “And what’s that?” Jason smiled with all the warmth of a sinister clown, his disguise thin and menacing, sending children away screaming instead of laughing.

  “I don’t know, but you won’t get it. We’re not fooled by your local yokel routine or your stupid stories.”

  “Jason, if I hear you threaten to kick anyone else’s ass in this group,” said someone behind Jason, the tone chilling Elliot’s blood, “I will see to it not only are you left behind, but that you won’t ever make it to safety. Are we clear?”

  Even in the moonlight, Jason paled at the raw promise in Charlotte’s voice. To cover the millisecond of uncertainty, he snorted. “Well, so much for that truce.”

  He shouldered past her, leaving Elliot staring after him.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, coming closer to look him over. “What did he do?”

  “Nothing,” Elliot muttered, embarrassed that once again, he hadn’t been able to get a bully to leave him alone without someone else intervening. As fierce as Charlotte was—and he believed every word of her threat—he was tired of being underestimated in a fight.

  Well, maybe you should do something about it instead of pouting. He didn’t know what, though. The walking had slimmed him down further, and while he felt stronger from carrying a heavy pack and all the physical labor required every day, it wasn’t enough. Chopping firewood helped, too, but when people looked at him, they saw weak. Smart, but not strong. Including those who loved him. Brian had sent Ash into his tent the other night to watch over him. Ash had protected him more than once from bullies. Charlotte was getting in on the act, as well, and before long, Aaron and Jennifer would be taking up the “protect Elliot” cause.

  Even before they knew about his seizures, he’d been coddled. When were these people going to take him for more than a smart but weak kid?

  “But you’re okay?” Charlotte pressed.

  “Yes, I’m fucking okay!” he hollered, stalking off and immediately feeling bad. Her recoil stayed with him until he got into his tent, grabbed his pack, and thrust his hand down the side to find his iPod.

  Canned corn, water bottle, LifeStraw… extra socks and underwear, the bag of trail mix, half gone. A couple freeze-dried food pouches. He groped along the bottom, pulling his folded clothes onto the sleeping bag. He couldn’t feel it, nor could he locate the cord for his headphones. Shaking out his clothes, he hoped it would fall out of a fold or a pocket. It didn’t. His biggest fear had been running the battery down. It hadn’t occurred to him he would lose it. He never lost his music. Never even entertained the possibility. Scrabbling through his bag, he upended it, uncaring of the effort it would take to repack. Condoms, bandages, medicine. His glasses case. The can opener.

  No iPod.

  His chest heaved, his breath coming in great gasps, and he pawed through everything, even rifling through Brian’s backpack to see if maybe he’d mistaken packs when he’d put it away that morning. Still no mp3 player.

  He whimpered. “It’s gotta be here,” he whispered desperately. The pressure of his pulse in his ears was almost unbearable, and he realized this panic was not going to help. So he sat, drawing his knees up and wrapping his arms around his shins, face buried as he rocked back and forth.

  Calm down, calm down. Taking more measured breaths, he closed his eyes and began to hum, something unrecognizable at first, but he didn’t care. He just hoped it would keep him relaxed. The wave of dizziness came upon him like a black swell of ink, reaching with shadowed fingers to grab him and drag him under. He lifted his head to pick a focal point, and his gaze went blurry. He sat, immobile as the campsite sounds reached him. He wanted to turn his head but he couldn’t. The copper taste in his mouth never came, nor did the smell of cardboard that usually preceded his larger seizures. Slowly, he came back to himself and experimentally flexed his hands and fingers, his toes and calves. Nothing ached like after a grand mal seizure, so he was pretty sure it had been an absence episode.

  “Elliot?” Ash asked softly from outside the tent. “Can I come in?”

  “Yesh,” Elliot answered, his tongue mushy.

  Ash crawled in, hunched over and dealing with the zipper before he took a good look at Elliot, the words he was about to say dying on his lips.

  “What is it?” He took in the mess, then shoved it all out of the way, pulling Elliot to him and cradling his face. When his thumbs stroked across his cheekbones, Elliot realized he’d been crying.

  He took a steadying breath. “It’s gone.”

  “What? What is?”

  “My iPod. I can’t find it. I know it was in my bag. And if it wasn’t in mine, it was in Brian’s. It’s not here. All that care making the battery last, and it’s gone.”

  He started to shake, looking at Ash in fear. That was the only thing that had proven effective over time in keeping his stress in check. Without music, the cumulative effect of his nerves would build and build and build until he had a seizure every few days. Music’s organization of notes, the steady metronomic beats, grounded him, while at the same time, beautiful inspiration and great sweeping emotions left him devastated and in tune with himself in a way he wasn’t through anything else.

  “Shh,” Ash said, pulling Elliot into his arms and rocking, much like Elliot had done for him on the beach. “We’ll find it.”

  “You don’t understand.” Elliot’s voice was muffled in Ash’s chest. He let himself be comforted, though it was nowhere near what he needed. “Music soothes me like nothing else. It’s precise and disciplined, and I can count the beats of my heart against it. But it also makes me feel. It’s an anchor even as it helps me fly, and the outlet is more effective than even some medicines. I can’t live without my music. It could literally kill me.” He grabbed Ash’s shirt, frantic and panicky.

  Ash gripped him tighter, encircling his wrists with long fingers even as he hauled Elliot into his lap. “Shh, shh,” he whispered. And he began to hum, low and straight into Elliot’s ear, arms encircling him in protection he didn’t resist despite his irritation with the very same thing just moments ago. Immediately, Elliot began to calm, gasping and clinging, throwing his arms around Ash’s neck and practically choking him as he held onto the lifeline Ash offered.

  Ash’s sounds morphed into words. “Be here waiting, hoping, praying….” It was the song to one of the soundtracks Elliot had listened to before the van had run out of gas. It had seemed fitting for their situation, with the power out, since the song was
titled When the Darkness Comes. Now, he held onto the words and followed along in his head, the pounding of his heart beginning to slow. “Come on, lie down,” Ash told him. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “I-I h-had an ab-absence seizure,” he stuttered, his teeth actually chattering in fear. He let Ash guide him to his side, and he tucked into Ash’s chest and neck when he lay beside him. The bob of Ash’s Adam’s apple against his nose was rhythmic as he resumed the song, singing about leaving his love hidden in the sun for Elliot to find whenever the darkness got too big and swallowed him up. Elliot didn’t know how many times Ash sang the song, but it had to have been a few before the shaking stopped, and he was calm. When Ash’s voice faded, Elliot laid a kiss to the skin of his throat.

  “You really listened to that song, didn’t you?”

  Ash chuckled. “I like that whole soundtrack. I sometimes study—uh, studied to it.”

  “Explains it.” Elliot sighed, his eyes drooping.

  “Think you can sleep?” Ash asked, his big hand rubbing comforting circles on Elliot’s back.

  To his surprise, he yawned. “I think maybe. Stay with me tonight? Not for anything kinky, just….” He didn’t say out loud what he was thinking, afraid Ash would run off again.

  “I’ll tell Brian to take my tent from now on, if that’s what you want,” Ash offered. His voice cracked, but Elliot was too tired to see if he looked as nervous as he sounded.

  “Yeah, that’d be good.”

  Ash held him until awareness faded, and he slept.

  * * *

  Half an hour after Elliot had drifted off in his arms, Ash extracted himself and emerged into the firelit area inside the ring of tents.

  “Is he okay?” Brian asked, immediately by his side.

  Patting his shoulder, Ash reassured him, but when his eyes locked on Jason, who had a mischievous grin on his lips, all other thoughts fell away, and he saw red.

  “Give it back,” he demanded, striding across the clearing to stand in front of the man.

  “Asher!” Charlotte said, startled.

  “You have his iPod,” he accused, ignoring his sister, who smacked his leg near his ankle. “Give it the fuck back.”

  “Tsk tsk, language in front of the boy.” Jason’s eyes darted around to the others, none of whom moved. Riley had already gone to bed, though, so Ash wasn’t worried about his words, nor what he was about to do.

  He backhanded Jason. “I’m done with your fucking games. You have his iPod, and you also have ten seconds to get off your lazy, waste-of-space ass to return it before I beat you to a bloody pulp.”

  Jason fingered his lip, though it wasn’t split. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Ash backhanded him again. “I can keep doing this all night.”

  “Hey,” Tim said behind Ash, trying to grab his arm. Ash whirled on him, and Tim held up his hands in quick surrender. “I don’t think Elliot had it out today. He has the last couple days, but not today. Maybe it’s in yesterday’s jeans.”

  “He checked,” Ash snarled, baring his teeth at them. “He checked his backpack. He checked Brian’s backpack. It’s not in any of the places he normally keeps it. Which means one of you fucking douchebags stole it.”

  Jason stood, finally looking indignant, his tongue playing with the corner of his lip. “Hey! We’re not thieves. If his iPod is missing, he probably dropped it on the road somewhere. Go through our bags. I swear.”

  “Ash,” Aaron said quietly. “They’ve been with someone from your group the whole time. When would they have stolen it?”

  “I don’t fucking know, but if I don’t have it back by morning, you two dipshits—” he pointed at Jason and Tim “—can find another escort across the country. I’m fucking done with you.”

  Charlotte pulled him away, outside the ring of tents. “Getting yourself this pissed off isn’t going to help us find it, okay?”

  “You know I’m right,” he said vehemently. “Elliot needs it. He’ll fall apart without it. You didn’t see him, Char.” The memory of Elliot’s distraught face, unaware of his tears falling as he frantically searched, tore at Ash. “He says it’s literally better than medicine.”

  “You walked through the fire, Asher.”

  “What?” He stopped, staring at her.

  “You walked right through the campfire, you stupid asshole,” she said again. “Look at your jeans.” The place where she’d slapped his leg was ragged and charred. “You get yourself hurt because you’re too worried about him, and where will the rest of us be? You have to calm down.”

  He took a deep breath. “Okay, okay.”

  “Now, are you sure he didn’t drop it?”

  Brushing his hair back from his face, he stared into the distance, clamping his teeth shut. “I don’t know. He swears it was in his pack.”

  “But Jason and Tim weren’t in his tent, and they weren’t left alone. I’m not a fan of theirs either, but I don’t see how this is their fault.”

  Doubt crept in, and he gave her a pleading look. “Toss the campsite. We have to find it.”

  “We will,” she assured him.

  Together they walked back to the others, and she calmly explained the situation. “Aaron, you already knew Elliot’s epileptic, but without his music, he’s worse. So come on, everybody. Search your stuff in case it fell out while we were setting up. If we find it, crisis averted.”

  “And if we don’t?” Ash demanded.

  She stared at him helplessly. “Then nothing.”

  They spent an hour searching. It was gone.

  16

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Day 29

  Near Plattsmouth, Nebraska

  * * *

  I don’t think there are in life, pure darkness or pure light. Everyone’s got a little of everything.

  —John Hawkes

  * * *

  “WHY IS IT THE MISSOURI RIVER if it’s the border between Iowa and Nebraska?” Riley asked, eyeing the sign for the flowing body of water in front of them with skepticism.

  “Because it’s also on the border between Nebraska and Missouri, and Missouri and Kansas,” Ash said absently, consulting his GPS to see if perhaps there was a less populous way to cross the Missouri. But there wasn’t anything better than Livingston Highway between Iowa and Nebraska. All the other crossings within a day’s hike were north, toward Omaha, and they were tracking too close to the city for Ash’s comfort as it was.

  It neared dusk, though, and he hoped at that time of day, no one would be out and about. Besides, big cities were all supposed to be evacuated anyway, with curfews and soldier-government, so people wouldn’t exactly be out walking their dogs.

  He was tired. It had been a hellacious week since Elliot had lost his iPod. Ash still had his suspicions, but it didn’t matter. They’d made do, with Brian and Ash switching tents, and Ash singing Elliot to sleep every night. It wasn’t ideal, but Elliot hadn’t had any seizures, so Ash counted it as a win.

  The group, however, was sullen and distrustful of each other. Charlotte and Jennifer stuck close together, and Aaron and Brian had bonded over conspiracy theories. They avoided the current predicament for Elliot’s sake, but they had rousing discussions about who might have killed JFK, if there were secret bunkers in Colorado for the super rich to go in the event of the end of the world, and if Monsanto was working with the government on genetically modified food in order to subvert the population into becoming the perfect Stepford slaves.

  “There aren’t bunkers in Colorado for the super rich,” Elliot had said.

  “How do you know, though?” Aaron asked, winking at him.

  “My dad would have one if there were,” he said, shrugging like it was no big deal.

  “What do you mean?” Tim asked, his curiosity overcoming his caution in dealing with any of the original five of them.

  “Steven Davenport is my father,” Elliot said simply.

  “Who?” Jason asked, his brow furrowed in lack of recog
nition.

  The whole group looked at him like he was an idiot.

  Well, he is, Ash thought with a hint of humor.

  “Ever fill up for gas at a DOC Stop?” Charlotte said, not taking her eyes off the road in front of them.

  “Is there anyone who hasn’t?” Jason asked, still not getting it.

  “DOC stands for Davenport Oil Company,” Aaron explained patiently. “Elliot’s dad is the Davenport behind it. He’s one of the richest men in the world. Top five, I’d say.”

  “Not that it matters now,” Elliot said with a wave of his hand, squinting into the sunset. Ash had found him taking in the sun during the Golden Hour more in the last several days, and he suspected Elliot was trying to find new methods of Zen. Appreciating the beauty of a sunset wasn’t a bad choice, especially with the clouds that dotted the blue dome of the sky that evening. They were painted purple and orange and vibrant pink to contrast the deepening blue, and with the lack of skyscrapers to block the view, it was a beautiful sight.

  “So that means you’re one of the richest people in the world,” Jason said, finally putting two and two together.

  “Yep,” Elliot said, emphasizing the p sound. “You picked the wrong guy to bully, didn’t ya?”

  Jason looked incredibly uncomfortable. “How’d you end up out here and not with your parents in some posh hotel on the west coast then?”

  Elliot hadn’t given Jason and Tim any more of his energy since his iPod disappeared, Ash had noticed, so instead of taking offense, he just explained the events that led him to tag along with Ash and their decision not to go to the military as Steven Davenport had suggested. “With airports closed, he can’t just fly in for me, so here I am.” He was matter-of-fact about it.

  “Doesn’t it bother you, having to wear the same two changes of clothes over and over? Not getting a shower every day? No coffee?” Tim asked, getting more incredulous.