Darkness Rising (Book 1): Darkness Rising by Bell Justin & Kraus Mike

Author:Bell, Justin & Kraus, Mike [Bell, Justin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Post-Apocalyptic
Publisher: Muonic Press Inc
Published: 2018-02-15T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

As Phil glared out his window he was stunned to see that the sun was slowly setting in the sky above them as the van angled from pavement to gravel road, heading towards the hill back up to the cabin. Pink skies crowded around the darkening clouds as the first full day of post-nuclear America prepared to rest its eyes and tuck in to bed.

Hopefully it would open them again the next morning. For the first time in his life, Phillip Fraser wasn’t sure that it would. Or that they would. Everything seemed so completely sideways.

“Did anyone unpack?” Rhonda asked as the car began drifting up the gravel road. Each side was flanked by thick rows of trees, concealing the faces of the various homes. Rhonda peeked to her left and saw the vague shape of a house buried within the woods, but the lights were off and there were no cars in the driveway.

“I don’t think so,” Winnie replied. “I don’t remember.”

Rhonda looked at the vacant look in her eyes through the rearview mirror with a sense of concern and foreboding; there was a visible numbness there, a milky cloud of unfocused thought, and she worried that it was something that her middle child might never crawl out of. If she would even have the opportunity to try.

By all accounts, the United States had suffered a series of devastating attacks. Numerous significant nuclear detonations occurred in various large cities throughout the West Coast. Even if the radiation dissipated prior to crossing the Rockies, would the country survive the complete annihilation of such a critical part of the economy? California drove much of the gross national product of America with the sixth largest economy in the world, larger than even France, Italy, or Russia, and if three of the larger cities were indeed flattened as all the news indicated, the effects would be widespread.

Today was just getting better and better.

“Nobody’s home, huh?” Phil said from the passenger seat.

Rhonda looked back out her window and then out the passenger window. Every single house they passed was drenched in darkness. The further the sun set, the darker and dimmer the entire world around them seemed to be.

“Mom?” Max asked nervously, sliding up in his seat and clutching the back of her seat.

“It’s okay, Max,” she replied, switching her headlights to high beam. “We’re almost back to the cabin, then we’ll pack up and get out.”

In the wash of headlights, the gravel road lifted up, revealing the reflective diamond shape of the ‘No Outlet’ sign. The van crawled up one more length of road, veering right, and headed towards the cabin.

Rhonda gasped, slamming on the van’s brakes and locking the tires into a rock throwing skid, shifting slightly right as she stopped.

She looked out the windshield, her headlights spilling a pale white light on two cars blocking the front driveway of the cabin.

They were parked nose-to-nose, two twenty-year-old sedans kitty corner, fencing off the walkway to the front porch.

“What the hell?” Phillip asked, straightening up in his seat.

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