Refuge Book 2 - Darkness Falls

by Jeremy Bishop

  REFUGE

  Book 2: Darkness Falls

  Summary:

  Sam Lake awakens from an alcohol-induced stupor to find his town, Refuge, New Hampshire, is no longer on an Earth he recognizes. While he slept, the town shifted between universes, leaving behind loved ones, severing all contact with the world they knew and resulting in several deaths—including that of Sheriff Rebecca Rule. The new Sheriff, Helena Frost, and the recently deputized ex-Army Ranger, Griffin Butler, work to coordinate a response and figure out what’s happening to their small town, but they need help.

  Struggling to come to terms with the new, dark world raining ash on the town, Sam and his friends, Jimmy and Dana, volunteer to visit the local radio station and attempt to contact...anyone. With his son Wyatt along for the ride, Sam leads the group toward the radio station, and the edge of town. But the increasing gloom hides the denizens of the new world, who are slowly invading, as the darkness encroaches on the town, claiming one person at a time.

  The town of Refuge responds to the otherworldly with bravery and Yankee gumption, but can they survive as darkness falls?

  REFUGE is a serialized novel, co-authored by #1 Amazon.com horror author, Jeremy Bishop, and five other authors, including Amazon.com bestsellers Kane Gilmour and David McAfee, USA Today bestseller, Robert Swartwood, and newcomer Daniel S. Boucher. The novel will be released in five parts, every two weeks. The first part was released November 12, 2013. The story will also be available as one complete novel, as soon as the fifth episode is released. So read along as they appear or hold out for the completed novel. Either way, you’re in for a creepy ride.

  REFUGE

  Book 2: Darkness Falls

  By Jeremy Bishop and Daniel S. Boucher

  To Domenick. Your infinite imagination inspires me.

  —D.S.B.

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Wait? Acknowledgments in a novella? Ayuh. It’s my party, and I can write if I want to.

  First and foremost, I want to thank Jeremy for taking a chance with me. Thank you, Jeremy, for seeing the spark inside me, and for giving breath to the fire I hope it one day becomes.

  I’d also like to thank Kane for his diligence in editing, making sure that we all ended in sync with one another. A task that I, for one, could not imagine having to handle across five books and five different authors. Kudos my friend.

  I’d like to thank Jimmy Stanley and Dana Cram—both of whom I’ve taken great liberties with in DARKNESS FALLS—for being great sports, answering my random questions and allowing me to have fun at their expense.

  I want to thank Domenick for his input and inspiration throughout. His imagination is truly limitless.

  And finally, I’d like to thank my wife, Kendra, who had to listen to countless stories, ideas and plots of nasty things that go bump in the night, and who ultimately enabled me to finally finish a story I’d started. Thank you, babe. I love you.

  —Daniel S. Boucher

  INTRODUCTION TO A SERIAL NOVEL

  REFUGE is a serial novel, co-written between five authors. This means the reading experience will be a little different from a standard novel. The best comparison for this scenario is a TV show. Each episode furthers a larger story, but it also has its own contained beginning, climax and end. Refuge is set up in the same way, so that each novella is an episode, and the first five books are effectively Season 1. Also, TV shows use different directors and writers, meaning the show’s style, pacing and tone might shift week to week. While our team of writers strived to make each episode flow right into the next, you will notice subtle differences in writing style and tone, especially with newly introduced characters. At first I felt unsure about this approach. I’ve never done it before. But once I started thinking about REFUGE, a town shifting between worlds, subtle changes in tone, voice, style, and so forth, makes total sense. So, I hope you enjoy the series and the unique experience created by each new co-author.

  —Jeremy Bishop

  Then the Lord said unto Moses. “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt—even darkness which may be felt.”

  Exodus 10:21

  1

  The hideous chime of the church bell signaled an impending shift. Griffin saw Frost stiffen at the sound. She gripped the old mug on her desk, which had survived the attack on the Sheriff’s station unscathed. It had been seven hours since the last shift, and neither of them had slept. How could they? Instead, they had brewed copious amounts of coffee and set to work on the station, repairing the damage done and getting things back in order. And as they made physical progress, a slow sense of normalcy had returned. While much of the main office was still a mess, the space was functional once more, and the front doors had been crudely repaired with sheets of plywood.

  But despite the progress, both physical and emotional, Frost was still tense. The death of Sheriff Rule had not only forced her into a position of authority, but she now carried the responsibility of Refuge’s safety. It was a big task for even the most experienced of law keepers, and one that Griffin knew she wouldn’t be able to handle alone. Who could?

  “Hey!” came a shout from the back room. Charley Wilson was still locked up. They had told him of Rule’s death, but they hadn’t released him yet.

  They ignored his call.

  “C’mon. I know you can hear me.” Charley rapped against the cell bars with something solid, adding harsh clangs of metal to the now repeating clang of the church bell. “I’m sober now.”

  While Griffin’s survival instincts had kicked in, his Army Ranger training had not prepared him for what was happening in the town. It defied logic. Refuge looked like the same cozy New England town it had been since the first foundation was laid in 1749, but the world around it was no longer their own. Since the desert world disappeared, they’d been surrounded by a lush jungle. Despite the obvious signs of wildlife surrounding the town, nothing came in past the borders. Everyone remained safe. Things got quiet, which gave people time to collect themselves.

  But now, they were going to shift again, and no one knew where they would end up. Home? Back in the desert? Some place new? Some place dangerous?

  “Seriously,” Charley said. “Rule wouldn’t have kept me in here sober. You know it. And if my hazy memory serves, I saved some people last night.”

  Frost sighed and looked up at Griffin. “He’s right.”

  “You don’t think he’s a danger?”

  “Not while he’s sober,” she said.

  “But how long will that—” Griffin looked toward the front of the station like he could see straight through the wall toward the now incessant church bell. “Never mind.”

  They headed back to the cells.

  “Seriously. Frost.” Charley sounded desperate. “I don’t want to be in here when—” He clamped his mouth shut when Griffin and Frost entered.

  Without a word, Frost unlocked the cell, swung open the door and stepped to the side. As Charley stepped past her, she took his arm. “Next time you get drunk in public, I’m going to leave you in here.”

  He nodded and tried to continue past, but she held on tightly. “Next time you invoke Becky’s name in your defense, I’ll knock your teeth out.”

  Charley smiled briefly, but it faded when her gaze communicated the seriousness of what she had said.

  Frost released him, but he made it only one step before Griffin blocked his path. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he complained.

  “Your son and his friend, Lisa, are under my protection,” Griffin said.

  Charley sneered and puffed out his chest. �
��You telling me I can’t see my son?”

  Griffin shook his head. “I’m telling you that if you hurt either of them, or anyone else, having your teeth knocked out will be the least of your worries. The world is different, Charley. It’s dangerous beyond the town border. It can’t also be dangerous within it.”

  Charley stared at Griffin for a moment, then backed down and nodded. “I get it. Okay.”

  The church bell continued to ring, growing faster with each ear shattering peal, until it became one, loud long tone.

  Without another word, the trio headed for the front door. Charley reached the plywood first, and opened the makeshift door. He turned his head skyward and stopped, holding the door open, more out of stunned immobility than politeness. “Not in a million years...”

  Frost and Griffin exited next, and stood beside Charley, wincing at the sound of the church bell.

  The air all around them shimmered.

  The sky above shook and darkened, changing as one place faded and the other emerged. Then, in a snap, the shift tore them into a new world.

  A dark world.

  Griffin caught sight of motion above. He tracked its slow descent.

  The object was gray, slightly lighter than the blackened sky above. He reached out for the quarter-sized object. It slid gently into his hand, nearly weightless.

  “What is it?” Charley asked.

  Griffin smelled the answer in the air all around them, but didn’t speak it aloud. He looked up again as a blizzard of gray descended toward Main Street. Somewhere, the world was burning.

  2

  “Approach the bench Mr. Lake.”

  A smug laugh came from his left, where his (soon to be ex) wife sat alongside her high-powered lawyer—a man who believed the financial burden of his hiring fell to Sam.

  Sam cleared his throat and made his way to the bench.

  He felt awkward and out of place as he crossed the perfectly polished tile floor. The courtroom, it seemed, was comprised of his wife’s friends, all taking time out of their busy lives to bear witness to the proverbial lamb led to the slaughter.

  Unsure of what to say, he stammered, “Uhh… Your Honor?”

  His voice shook. His obvious unease drew rounds of sarcastic laughs from his wife’s friends.

  When did they all turn on me? I couldn’t have pissed them all off.

  The judge, a rotund woman with a receding hairline, littered with gray roots, frowned. Her pudgy face, all but consumed by blotchy red rosacea, was hard to look at. Her left hand rested on a wooden gavel. Her dark, lifeless eyes darted from left to right, as she studied the papers in front of her.

  “Mr. Lake,” she said, “I’m not even sure where to begin.” She slapped her hand on top of the papers. “Neglect. Emotionally unavailable. Absent father…” She paused for emphasis. “…and my personal favorite, sexually inept.” A chuckle rolled through the courtroom. “Sounds to me like you’re an all-around winner. Do you know what we do with winners like you in my courtroom?”

  Sam looked up at the judge, unsure whether he was supposed to answer.

  “Shove a hot poker up his ass!” came a shout from the courtroom.

  “Cut off his pecker and feed it to the crows!” came another.

  The people were abuzz now, alive with the notion that they were about to get what they came for.

  Where the hell am I?

  “As much as I’d like to do any one of those,” the judge said with a grin, “Those god-damned never-worked-a-day-in-their-life liberalists out there would deem it ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’ They’d ruin all my fun. No, Mr. Lake, the best I can do with winners like you, is give you something that will serve as a reminder. A reminder that will squelch the unholy debauchery marring your soul, should you ever decide to go back to your self-indulgent ways.”

  She brought her left hand up. Gone was the gavel, now replaced with a red, five-pound Stanley sledgehammer.

  “Please place your right hand on the bench, Mr. Lake.”

  Sam moved his hands behind his back.

  “Mr. Lake?” she said.

  Sam looked to his lawyer with a plea for help. The man just stared at him, nodding in silent approval for him to follow the judge’s order.

  “Mr. Lake, I will not ask you again. Put your hand on the bench now, or I’ll have someone do it for you.”

  Sam dared one last look at his wife. God, I miss her.

  “God has nothing to do with this,” the judge said, as if reading his thoughts. “Now, for the last time,” she leaned forward and smiled. “Place your fucking hand on the bench.”

  Emotionally unavailable? Absent father? Was that really how his wife felt? Perhaps he really did have this coming.

  Against every instinct, Sam obeyed. The bench felt cold and hard, two perfect ingredients for what was about to happen. The irony that the judge’s tool of choice had no doubt come from his own hardware store, was not lost on him as she delivered his reminder with impossible speed.

  3

  Sam woke to the boom of thunder. He grabbed his right hand to make sure it was still there and in one piece. Relieved to find it intact, he shook his head to clear the dream-fog from his mind. The nightmare left him feeling funky.

  Mental indigestion, he thought with a slight grin.

  The events of the previous day started coming together again. Closing the shop early for the fireworks, he had driven past what used to be their house—a place he was no longer welcome. He’d been forced to live out of his office at the hardware store, while they ‘worked things out.’

  Depressed, he’d gone to Jimmy’s garage, and he and Jimmy had knocked back a few before the sun set, long before the fireworks started. From the way his head throbbed, ‘a few’ must have become ‘a shit-ton’—he didn’t remember how he got to the shop.

  Thunder boomed again, echoing loudly in his thick skull. No, not thunder…pounding. Someone was knocking on the store’s front door.

  He flipped off his blankets, gripping the sides of his head and wincing at the surge of pain that faded slightly with each step. His makeshift bedroom was tucked in the corner of his office. It wasn’t a long walk to the front door, but it felt like a marathon distance.

  The pounding stopped. Thank God for small favors. He looked at the clock next to his cot. 12:00 AM blinked back at him. The window above the makeshift bed was still dark. He made his way out of the office and onto the main floor of the store. It wasn’t a large building, but it carried all of the essentials that a town like Refuge could need. A variety of products lined its aisles. Everything from tape measures, to power saws and hammers. A shiver crept down Sam’s spine at that last thought.

  Business had been good to him as of late. Ever since Julie Barnes, the town’s (only attractive) real estate agent, had brought in the ‘outside’ contractors for the town’s utility retrofitting, he’d been having a hard time staying stocked. Sure it’d pissed off people who’d made Refuge their home—regulars like Cash Whittemore, who wasn’t a fan of Ms. Barnes—but it was a boon for Sam.

  A tall, lone figure was visible through the glass door. Sam would have recognized that silhouette anywhere. Only one person in Refuge stood that tall: his best friend, Jimmy Stanley. Ever since Sam and Tess had split, Jimmy, a thin man of sixty with a shock of white hair, had made it a point to get together with him almost every night after closing. Be it beers at Jimmy’s Automotive, or over to Harrison’s Brickhouse Bar & Grill, they’d spend evenings together getting buzzed and forgetting, just happy to have survived another day.

  Jimmy was a friend in every sense of the word, but not one to come pounding on his door while darkness still covered Refuge. Something was wrong.

  “I gotta say,” Sam started, letting Jimmy in, “having you banging on my door in the wee hours of the morning doesn’t really do anything for my beauty sleep.”

  Jimmy looked uncharacteristically serious, “Do you know what time it is?”

  Sam scratched his chin. “Hell if I k
now. That stupid clock I have only works half the time.” Sam nodded to the glass storefront. “Either it’s early, or I’ve gone and slept through an entire day. Why?”

  Jimmy looked at his watch. “It’s 9:30 in the morning.”

  Sam scoffed and walked over to the beverage cooler set against the wall. “Bullshit. It’s still dark out. And FYI, I’m sober now.” He grabbed a water and took as swig. “Shit, it’s bad enough that I’m hung-over and I missed the fireworks with my kids last night. I don’t need you messing with my head to boot.”

  “I’m being serious. Something weird is going on,” Jimmy said. “I guess the fireworks didn’t even happen last night, from what Dana says. The whole thing got cancelled or something.”

  “Dana?” Sam’s eyebrows rose. “Cram?”

  “Ayuh.”

  Jimmy and Dana had been friends since high school, but Dana had moved south to Manch-vegas a few years back, and now he only made sporadic visits to town, usually on holidays.

  “No shit, when did he get into town?”

  “Late yesterday. Woke me this morning, babbling on about some crazy shit happening in town. He’s right about one thing though, something’s going on. Phones, cable, Internet—none of it’s working. Had to check three different clocks just to believe the time. Look, just get your shit together and come on. I’m headed over to the church to meet Dana and a few others.”

  Sam started to speak then stopped. Movement from outside the store caught his attention.

  “Is it...snowing?”

  Sam walked to the doors for a better look. Jimmy followed.

  “I don’t know what it is,” Jimmy said, “but I can tell you it ain’t snow. It’s been coming down ever since I left the house. Smeared up the windshield pretty good on the way over.”