by Platt, Sean
JOHN
The five of them — John, Hope, Larry, Abigail, and Talani — returned to Earth through the portal. Then it, and all other portals, were closed by Caleb on Otherworld.
John’s mandatory meetings with The Guardians, now led by a man named Arthur Parish, apparently one of the old guard, a Pioneer from centuries ago, were thorough debriefings of everything that had happened on Otherworld. Art, and several others, questioned John and his companions for days.
John said enough to keep them satisfied — Jacob was dead, and Caleb had everything under control. But the crystals were destroyed. Whoops.
Art didn’t seem to believe him, but what could he do?
On the fourth day, John was finally allowed to have his friends in the meeting for a final debriefing.
They were sitting in an underground war room in Washington State, bright white and filled with monitors, a large table, many officials and agents from agencies John had heard of, and several he hadn’t, sitting around it. It was, for lack of a better word, the new cabal that called itself the Guardians.
Art started the meeting by thanking the group for their service and having an assistant hand them each fresh credentials with new identities so they could start their lives over, and a check from the government for “services rendered.”
Judging from the raised eyebrows, the checks were all as generous as John’s.
“Thank you,” John said.
The assistant then handed them folders marked CONFIDENTIAL: TOP SECRET.
Before anyone could open their folder, John raised a hand and told his friends to keep them closed.
“What’s this?” he asked Art.
“Your new assignments.”
John felt punched in the gut.
“What?”
“The Guardians, and Omega, have suffered serious losses. You are the only proven fighters we have left. You did what nobody else could do: stopped Jacob and closed the portals. We need you. Your country needs you.”
John held up his hands. “I’m done. I told you all this was my last job.”
“You can’t be done,” Art said, his voice too stern for John’s liking — as if the man was talking to property not a person. “You are a Guardian for life, son.”
John shook his head. “No. That was my old life. Now I’m choosing a new one. And if you, or anyone else from the government, tries to stop me or my friends, you’ll wish we never came home.”
John stood, grabbed his new identity, and his check, and started toward the exit.
“You can’t just leave here.”
John turned on his heel and rushed toward Art, forcing the frightened man to stumble backward into the table. John raised his hand, threatening to take his life.
The room filled with gasps.
John half expected someone to pull a gun, but he glared at them all, his eyes a dare.
“Do we understand each other?” John growled.
Art nodded.
He looked at the others, waiting for their nervous nods as well.
“Good,” John said. “Thank you for your generosity.”
Then he left the room with his friends.
Six months later …
Saint Augustine, Florida
John woke up early to make breakfast for the others as the sun was setting.
He liked making breakfast, and sitting around the table for meals with his new family.
They were living in a beautiful restored house in the historic district, not too far from his first place with Hope. A five-bedroom house shared with Larry, Abigail, and Talani — one big weird family.
Hope was painting again. He loved seeing her passion breathing.
John and Hope managed to meet up with old friends, including Sergei and his boyfriend, Stephan, who still ran the art gallery, and still had one of Hope’s paintings on display. Hope had tried to find her adopted mother, but she’d died of cancer three years prior.
Larry spent most of his nights on Xbox playing Call of Duty and yelling at foul-mouthed teenagers. Seemed that being forced to sleep during the day and be up all night didn’t really change Larry’s lifestyle all that much. If anybody was suited for life as a vampire, it was Larry.
On the nights he wasn’t playing video games, he was sitting in front of his new computer set-up, going through a national database he’d created of people who needed to die.
Nothing he loved more than traveling the country cleaning up the streets. Sometimes he even got Abigail and Talani to join him, but only when he was one hundred percent certain that the person was really guilty. Certainty was rare, but when it happened he ran through the house like a kid on Christmas morning, shouting, “We’ve got one!”
The smell of sausage, eggs, bacon, and pancakes filled the kitchen. As John plated breakfast and his family gathered around the table, he looked at them with an overwhelming feeling of joy.
It had been a long road to get here, and no, things weren’t always perfect, especially having two teenagey girls living under the same roof, but it was a hell of a lot better than he had any right to expect.
Usually they broke bread discussing the night ahead, and what they had planned. But tonight Hope began breakfast by looking around the table. “Um, do we have any more chairs?”
John looked at their circular table. There was enough room for five chairs, exactly. “Um, no, why?”
“I think we’re going to need a new chair, or maybe a new table.”
“Why?” John asked, confused.
Hope reached into her shirt pocket, retrieved a plastic white stick, and handed it to John.
At first he didn’t know what it was, then when he saw the two pink lines and realized. “You’re …”
Hope’s eyes welled with tears of joy.
John’s eyes were watering, too, as he hugged and kissed her, saying, “Oh my God, I can’t believe it.”
“What?” Abigail asked, always eager to know what was happening.
“I’m pregnant,” Hope said.
“What?” she shrieked, smiling. “I’m gonna be a sister?”
Talani said, “Hey, you’re already my sister.”
“I mean to a baby,” Abigail said, running over to Hope and trying to feel her belly.
“There’s nothing to feel yet, I don’t think,” Hope said.
Talani and Larry both came over and hugged her, too.
As they sat to eat, conversation turned to names, with Abigail wanting to name the baby Angel.
Hope, being polite, but obviously not liking that name, said, “Maybe.”
Talani offered, “Jessica” and “Raina.”
“How do we know it’s gonna be a girl?” Larry said. “I say we name him something manly, something that says ‘WINNER.’ Like Larry!”
Everyone laughed.
And as they did, John felt like the world’s most fortunate man, surrounded by these people whom fate invited into his life.
One didn’t choose the family they were born into any more than one chose their fate. But sometimes, if you persevered, survived the hell you were born into, and didn’t become too scarred by life, you’d live long enough to create your own version of a family, one bound not by circumstance or fate, but by love.
THE END
Author’s Note
Hello, Dear Reader,
This book almost wasn’t the book you just read.
I’m assuming you didn’t just skip ahead to the end. You wouldn’t want to spoil the story, would you?
When we first started drafting the final book in the Available Darkness series, I had some rather elaborate things I wanted to do. I had a world built out, characters that lived and breathed in it, and a huge backstory involving the North, the South, a lot of factions you didn’t even read about, as well as characters you didn’t meet. It was snowballing into a novel that might have been 1,200 pages if I didn’t do something!
In other words, it was becoming a fantasy novel.
I always knew the last book would be set in Othe
rworld, and it would have some fantasy elements (like ForNevermore did). But I was treating the series finale almost like a completely different story, ignoring what had made the first two books so special.
Around this time I was also dealing with a bout of depression that was kicking my ass.
I don’t say this so you’ll feel sorry for me. I do what I love for a living, which is better than I could’ve ever hoped for during those decades of grinding at jobs I hated! I say it instead to try and explain my frame of mind at the time of writing this.
Depression is nothing new for me. It’s an on and off battle, but one that usually doesn’t derail my work too much.
This time was different, though.
It was hanging around longer than normal, and really taking its toll on me.
I got down on myself.
That’s a bit of an understatement.
I was hating myself, the book, and my inability to write better. Obviously this doesn’t do much for alleviating depression!
To make matters worse, I’d blown the deadline I had to send the first draft to Sean.
That didn’t just mean that this book would be late, but it meant that all the other books we’d planned to write this year would also be late.
Karma Police: Book Four — late.
WhiteSpace: Season Three — late.
Short stories — late.
New thriller series — late.
Which meant that I also broke the promise we made to readers in January, saying that we’d have a new book or short story every month in 2016.
I was feeling like shit, and I felt lost in a story that was spiraling out of control.
If I was writing on my own, I probably would’ve just given up and started another book.
But I couldn’t do that to Sean, or the readers who have been patiently waiting three or four years for the series finale.
So I got back to work, returning to the first two books in the series to try and find my way back home.
And then, as I was reading Books One and Two, I found what I was looking for.
I found the thing that made this series so special to me.
I found what the story was really about — family.
Reading Abigail’s torment in Book Two, and how lost and alone she felt, really hit home for me.
In creating this whole big giant world and complex story, I’d neglected the existing relationships in the book.
No wonder I was hating the book so much!
I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised. When I’m in the worst bouts of depression, it’s hard to feel much of anything, save for dark thoughts and self-loathing (which can be surprisingly beneficial in my career, usually.)
I had to get out of my head.
Had to get out of this quagmire of a book.
So I deleted nearly everything I had for Book Three.
I started over from scratch.
And then I found the story, bit by bit, until I felt it in my heart, until I felt like THIS is what it was meant to be.
And I also made my way through another bout of depression.
That’s not to say anyone should just “work through” their depression. I believe a lot of times people need professional help of some sort. Maybe I need professional help, I don’t know. But this is my way through right now, what works for me — holding on and working through my depression while showing up to work every day, finding the story one word at a time.
So, how do I feel about the book now?
I love it!
I love the storylines, particularly those of Abigail, Talani, and Judith.
To think, Abigail would’ve never even happened if we didn’t start writing this story on the web in 2008 and needed a cliffhanger.
“Hey, let’s put a girl in the closet!”
Abigail hasn’t just changed the story from what might have been a simple dark love story between John and Hope, but I think she’s made it infinitely better than what it would’ve otherwise been. In many ways, she’s become the beating heart of Available Darkness.
She saved Book Three, and made it one of my favorite things Sean and I have ever written.
So, yes, the book took way longer than expected, and we fell behind on our other books for the year. But I think the end result was all worth it.
I hope you agree.
We really wanted to make this one of our best endings ever — truly giving readers, and the characters, endings that delivered on the promise of the first two books in the series.
It’s hard to know if we succeeded until people leave reviews or email us. But I think (hope) we got it right.
I feel like we left things in a great place.
There’s also a part of me that feels like maybe we haven’t seen the last of these characters.
I think we’ll let John and Hope have their Happily Ever After, but I really want to know what happens next with Larry, Abigail, and Talani.
Maybe we’ll even see them again in a different book or series.
Maybe we’ll even write a proper big ass fantasy book someday. Not sure if it will be in Otherworld or some … well, other world.
Only time will tell.
But for now, I just want to say:
Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for caring enough about these characters to complete the journey with us.
And, of course, thank you for reading,
Dave (and Sean)
August 26, 2016
What to read next
If you loved reading Available Darkness then you’ll definitely want to check out the Platt & Wright lush dark fantasy tale Fornevermore.
Get Fornevermore: The Complete Series Here
A Quick Favor…
If you enjoyed this book, please take a moment to write a short review on your favorite online bookstore so other readers can enjoy it, too.
Thanks so much!
David (and Sean)
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About the Authors
Sean Platt is an entrepreneur and founder of Sterling & Stone, where he makes stories with his partners, Johnny B. Truant, and David W. Wright, and a family of storytellers.
Sean is the bestselling author of over 10 million words' worth of books, including the Yesterday’s Gone and Invasion series. Sean is also co-author of the indie publishing cornerstone, Write. Publish. Repeat. and co-host of the Story Studio Podcast.
Originally from Long Beach, California, Sean now lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and two children. He has more than his share of nose.
David W. Wright is the co-author of edge-of-your seat thrillers including the best-selling post-apocalyptic series Yesterday’s Gone, the paranoid sci-fi WhiteSpace series, and the vigilante series, No Justice, as well as standalone thrillers 12, and Crash which was recently optioned for a movie.
David is an accomplished, though intermittent, cartoonist who lives in [LOCATION REDACTED] with his wife and son [NAMES REDACTED.]
He is not at all paranoid.
He is “the grumpy one” on the The Story Studio Podcast with fellow Sterling and Stone founders, Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant.
You can email him at [email protected]
We swear, he almost never bites. Unless you feed him after midnight.
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