The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning

by Jason Kristopher

  “Yes, Mrs. President,” David said as he looked over at her mother. “We’ve calmed down a bit since we handed everything over, and it’s taking some getting used to, but we like it so far. Gives us time to play with the grandchildren.”

  “If I remember Ms. Blake’s last report, you’ve got three now, correct?”

  “Yes, sir,” Kimberly said. “George and Julie have been busy.”

  “One wonders where they find the time,” Gates said with a chuckle. “Being mayor of the Seattle Free Zone has to be time consuming.”

  “Julie keeps him on the straight and narrow, Mrs. President. Just like her father.” Kim grinned at another part of the screen, and Dalton and Marcie Gaines chuckled. They’d been military commander and governor of Bunker One, respectively, for nearly two years.

  “I heard that, Mrs. Blake,” Dalton growled, but everyone could tell his heart wasn’t really in it. That and the smile gave him away.

  “Aye, we’re fine up here, Mrs. President,” Marcie said in her Scottish brogue, softened somewhat by her time in the Pacific Northwest. “Tis good to see ya again.”

  “And you, Marcy.” Gates turned her attention to Bunker Seven’s feed. “Captain Masters, Major Reynolds. How fares Angel Fire?”

  “We’re good here as well, Mrs. President,” Masters said. “It’s been quiet here, and we’re just fine with that, ma’am.”

  “I think we’ve all seen enough action to last a lifetime, Captain. As to the rest of you…”

  Eden tuned out, not interested in listening to plans for the upcoming thirty-year celebration or inventory reports or the half dozen other things that the bunkers and associated persons were briefing the president on. Since being recruited personally to the president’s detail two years prior, she had learned to block out the more boring stuff while still paying enough attention to do her job.

  It took a lot more out of her than people realized. She wasn’t made to be still and quiet for this long, even with her Hunter training, but she had her penance to make, and this was part of it. Eden tuned back in as the president went off on another tangent, and she smiled.

  Gates broke off as Eden leaned down with a hand on her shoulder and a whisper in her ear.

  “Ma’am, you asked me to tell you when you were, um, ‘speechifying,’ ma’am.” She stood back and smiled again as Gates turned to look at her.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome, Mrs. President.”

  Gates faced forward again and pretended not to notice the grins around the table. “Well, if no one has anything further, I think we’re done here. We’ll meet again in a month to finalize plans for the State of the Union. Agreed?”

  A general chorus of agreement and “Thank you, Mrs. President” sounded off, and the retinue drifted out. Eden stayed with the president, as was her duty, and looked at her as she turned back toward Eden.

  “I’ve been busy lately, and we haven’t had much time to chat. How have you been? How’s Walter?”

  Eden blushed and looked down. “He’s fine, ma’am. I… I think he’s going to ask me to marry him.”

  Gates grinned. “That’s fantastic! Wait, is it fantastic?” she asked, worried. “This is one we like, yes? He’s the refugee from Four, if I remember correctly.”

  Eden laughed. “Yes, ma’am, that’s him. And it’s good news. I shouldn’t be this nervous. I mean George has been married for what, three years? Four? But I still get butterflies when Walt looks at me. That’s normal, isn’t it?”

  Angela nodded and put an arm around her shoulders as they left the conference room.

  “Ms. Blake, it’s the most normal thing in the world. And I think you, of all people, could use some normal.”

  30th Anniversary of Z-Day

  Independence Hall

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  The cameras were set, and their crews were ready. The sun was bright, wonder of wonders there was no rain, and the temperature was a balmy seventy-four degrees. They couldn’t have programmed better weather.

  The president was inside, and the few assembled guests were waiting in their chairs. AEGIS had provided their top-echelon Hunters as security ringing the area. Philadelphia was far from being cleared, but the Hunters had worked for several months to clear a thirty-block radius around the hall. Even Eden, head of the new president’s security detail, hadn’t been able to talk him out of giving the speech here.

  Despite her hope of rest after Angela Gates had left office, Eden was still guarding the president. She’d debated about signing on again, even if she had been allowed to say no, and her husband, Walter, had said he’d support her no matter her choice. But he’d also said she wouldn’t be happy unless she was protecting someone, and who better than the president?

  Of course she’d accepted the position. Because that was just who she was now.

  The president saw her mental wandering and smiled as he spoke again. “We need something people like me—like the country boy I used to be, anyway—will understand,” Lane said. “Something they can see, that sets their minds thinking about the old days and wanting ‘em back. We’re trying to light a fire here.”

  Eden shook her head. “I get that, Mr. President, but there’s no way we can guarantee everyone’s safety. Philly isn’t safe, sir.”

  “I thought the Hunters had cleared it for thirty blocks.”

  “They have, Mr. President, but there’s—”

  “No guarantee, yes, you said.” He reached out and took her by the shoulders, setting her long auburn hair shimmering in the afternoon sunlight. “But I’ve got you, don’t I? The first immune human. If you can’t protect me, who can?”

  Eden found it impossible to argue with his logic and knew it would be fruitless anyway. Once Darnell Lane had set his mind on something, there was no changing it—a lesson it had only taken one screaming match for her to find out. The problem was that she was just as hard headed and refused to back down about his safety.

  She glanced out the window, looking at the Hunters standing all but shoulder-to-shoulder in a ring around the hall. She knew the others would be out there, the Strykers and the Humvees on rolling patrol. There was nothing she could do to make it safer, and there was no point worrying about it now.

  “Mr. President, we’re ready for you now,” one of the camera operators said from the doorway, where other Secret Service agents stopped him. “Uh, at your pleasure, sir.”

  Darnell turned and walked toward the doorway, then paused and looked at Eden.

  “This is going to be a helluva speech, Eden. You’ve as much to do with this as anyone I’ve got with me. Come up there with me. Besides, you can keep an eye on me then.” He grinned and offered his arm.

  Eden rolled her eyes but smiled and laced her arm through his. “Very well, Mr. President.”

  Together, they stepped outside to the flash of cameras.

  Around the country, people everywhere were glued to whatever broadcast source they could get their hands on. The president was going to address the nation, something that hadn’t happened in thirty years. No one was going to miss this.

  “My fellow Americans, thirty years ago today, my predecessor spoke to our country and warned us about the oncoming storm. The threat not just to our way of life, but to our very existence as a species. He told us we would face annihilation and that our world was ending. And so it did.

  “Our best estimates put the number of surviving humans at or near twelve to fifteen million, worldwide. Just two-tenths of a percent of the human population of Earth survived the zombie outbreak. These are just estimates—educated guesses. We’ve been unable to contact much of the rest of the world. Like us, many retreated to bunkers to wait out the storm, safe underground with their supplies. Many, many more were not so lucky.

  “Everyone you meet who was alive thirty years ago has lost someone, or everyone, to a zombie. We’ve all been touched by this horror that was visited on us. We and our world will never be the same again. We’ve bee
n molded, forged anew from the fires of hell, but we made it through. Along the way, we have lost many who fought for us, though you never knew their names. I’m going to take a moment to salute those fallen heroes. Please join me in prayer or in contemplation as their names are read.”

  Lane and Eden each stepped to one side of the podium as a young woman in an AEGIS uniform stepped up to the microphone. In keeping with the ideal of the unknown soldier, she wore no nametape or rank insignia. She spoke in a measured cadence, giving a full pause between each of the names.

  “General George Maxwell. General Frank Anderson. Sergeant Rachel Eaton. Sergeant Victor Roberts. Corpsman Lucia Santos. Sergeant Gordon Tremaine. Gunnery Sergeant Milford Rains. Major Jonas Kozac. Captain William Trace. Sergeant Joshua Barrents. Corporal Dane Fredericks. Petty Officer Hamish MacMillan. Sergeant Donald Denson. Sergeant Gary Myers. Sergeant Douglas Mahoney. Sergeant Samuel Techman. Lieutenant Mark Evans. Second Lieutenant Rodrigo Lopez. Lieutenant Timothy Fraser. Staff Sergeant Charles Keith.”

  The soldier paused for a long breath and continued. “Colonel Armand Monterrey. Corporal Carol Everett. Second Lieutenant Darryl Cambridge. Corporal Leland Wormwood. Warrant Officer Rick Simmons. Airman First Class Maggie Cockrell. Corporal Glenn Wallis. Lance Corporal Morgan Sampson. Staff Sergeant Peter Brooks. Major Brian Mancuso. Staff Sergeant Emil Fasco. Chief Research Scientist Arturo Onevás. Harry Stafford. Jonathan and Ellen Barnes.”

  A lone trumpet sounded, playing “Taps” for the fallen. The military folks in the crowd saluted until the song finished, while everyone else held a hand over their heart. The president stepped back up to the podium and spoke once more.

  “My mentor and friend for most of my life couldn’t be with us today. For as long as I knew him, I thought of him as the man named ‘Harvard,’ because he was the smartest man I knew. He was a beacon for those of us who knew him, even though none of us, including him, were aware of who he truly was. My friend passed away just a week ago. I know he wanted to be here. Please join with me in welcoming his wife and our former first lady, Renee Norman.”

  The crowd turned as one to where Renee sat, dressed in a somber black dress. She held her head high, though she didn’t smile. The applause was loud but respectful and lasted a full minute.

  “Also, please join me in thanking our interim president, Angela Gates. Her leadership, skill, and drive to lead us out of the darkness has done just that, and we owe her a great debt.”

  The applause for the respected leader was just as thunderous, and she, too, accepted it with grace and dignity.

  “On that solemn day thirty years ago, the future was bleak,” Lane said. “No one knew if the bunkers would work. If, like the phoenix, humanity would rise from the ashes or succumb to the horrors and let something else, something new, take our place. That question has now been answered. We are still here.”

  The president paused as the assembled guests applauded again, and there were more than a few cheers and whistles.

  Lane smiled and spoke again. “We have overcome odds that were insurmountable. Achieved things once thought impossible. Done the unspeakable to survive and come out the other side, changed but alive.” He glanced over at Eden. “We have shown that ordinary people can be the most extraordinary heroes and that we are stronger than any force brought against us. We have stood, yet again, against the worst life has to throw at us, and, as a species, we have said, ‘No.’

  “Thirty years ago, my friend reminded us that even with the darkness that had come and the long road ahead, he still believed. Believed that there would come a day when we would retake our world. When we would come together to forge a new one from the remnants of the old. When we would know that together, we are stronger than anything.

  “Thirty years ago, the day marking the end of our civilization as we knew it was given the name ‘Z-Day.’ Today, we take back this day, and, like ourselves, remake it. Today, like our world, we reclaim this day for our way of life and our species. Today is Victory Day!”

  Another round of applause followed.

  “We have been on a long journey, my friends, my fellow travelers. Fraught with danger, filled with hope, and tempered by love and battle. The journey isn’t over, but we have earned our rest.”

  The president looked over the assembled crowd and smiled.

  “To all of you listening here and around the country and to our friends yet to find out there in the wilderness, I send a simple message of hope and love. Welcome home.”

  “‘We will survive. We will go on. Life will prevail.’ Those are the words my friend spoke on that day, and they ring as true today as they did then. We will go on. We will survive. Not because we can, but because we must. It is incumbent upon each of us to insure the future of our species, and we have fought and bled and died and been born anew on the surface of our world. We are here to say that we will not go quietly into that good night. We will prevail, and we will rage, rage against the dying of the light!”

  The End

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  Afterword

  Alas, as the Bard himself said, ‘our revels now are ended.’ On August 29th, 2015, I wrote the final word of the first draft of this book. What followed was a whirlwind one hundred-plus days of edits, layouts, and other publishing work to get the finished product in your hand for the start of 2016.

  A grueling few months, to be sure, though they’re nothing compared to the 2,579 days between the first word of this trilogy and the last. On August 6th, 2008, I saved the first few paragraphs of what was then called The Return: A Journal of the End (no, really). The book went through four title changes and more than 60 revisions before it was finally published in April of 2011.

  And now, here we all are, seven years and twenty-four days later (plus or minus), and you’ve been with me this whole time, even if you didn’t know it. This final volume in the series was by far the hardest to write. How do you wrap up twenty-five years of history when the world has ended? How do you complete the stories of more than three hundred named characters? Even when the writing was complete, the editing… Good grief, the editing. There’s nothing like completely gutting and rewriting half your book to make you want to never write another word again.

  Though this tale is done, though you’ll find more ‘deleted scenes’ and zombie goodness in the add-on short story collection The Walker Chronicles: Tales from the Dying of the Light. Nazi zombies, Egyptian zombies, Tom Reynolds’s flight from the zealots in Spanaway, Washington—it’s all in there.

  What’s next, you ask? I’m not sure. Perhaps the story of Lloyd Monroe, a detective in the Metahuman Crimes Unit. Or the tale of Frederick McPhane, Teddy Bear. Or even a “ghostpunk” noir book featuring the redoubtable and vivacious Adelaide Richardson, maybe with the help of my good friend and author George Wright Padgett, whose upcoming novel Addleton Heights is one of the best I’ve read in a long time.

  Time will tell which of these stories—or another—I set my sights on, but I hope that you’ll be with me on that journey, too. Thank you, from the bottom of my cold, zombified heart for being a part of this story for so long. I can’t wait to find out what’s next!

  Allons-y!

  Jason Kristopher

  Katy, TX

  December 2015

  About the Author

  Jason Kristopher was born in Waco, Texas, and grew up in northern Colorado, enjoying the b
eautiful weather. Sometime later, he lost his mind—or found himself again, depending on who you talk to and where they're from—and moved back to the Lone Star State.

  Jason currently lives in the Houston area and enjoys reading, writing, movies, music (live and not), the Houston Astros (winning and not), singing karaoke and the Texas hill country, especially the vineyards.

  Connect with Jason

  Facebook:

  Author.JasonKristopher

  Twitter:

  JasonKristopher

  Blog:

  thefireinourheads.com

  Email:

  jason@jasonkristopher.com

  More from Jason Kristopher

  The Walker Chronicles: Tales from The Dying of the Light

  In the best-selling zombie series The Dying of the Light, author Jason Kristopher showed us that the zombie apocalypse isn’t coming—it’s already here, and we're losing.

  In this collection of supplemental short stories, Kristopher takes the reader on a behind-the-scenes journey into the rest of the world he’s created in the main series. From the first known zombie incursion (Outbreak One: Washington Territory), to Nazi-created monstrosities (The Coldest Winter), through the 1981 Libyan Crisis (Blood and Sand) and to the story of what befell one of our favorite characters (Whatever Happened to Thomas J. Reynolds?). Get your fix for more zombie goodness now!

  Available now on Kindle

  Short Stories

  Classic science fiction, age-old mythology, near-future horror, and epic fantasy. Short stories to fit any taste, but be warned—they’ll leave you wanting more!

  Available now on Kindle