Darkness Begins: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (After the EMP Book 1) Read online

  DARKNESS BEGINS

  AFTER THE EMP BOOK ONE

  HARLEY TATE

  CONTENTS

  Darkness Begins

  Day One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Day Two

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Day Three

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Acknowledgments

  About Harley Tate

  DARKNESS BEGINS

  A POST-APOCALYPTIC SURVIVAL THRILLER

  If the power grid fails, how far will you go to survive?

  Madison spends her days tending plants as an agriculture student at the University of California, Davis. She plans to graduate and put those skills to work only a few hours from home in the Central Valley. The sun has always been her friend, until now.

  When catastrophe strikes, how prepared will you be?

  Tracy starts her morning like any other, kissing her husband Walter goodbye before heading off to work at the local public library. She never expects it to end fleeing for her life in a Suburban full of food and water. Tackling life’s daily struggles is one thing, preparing to survive when it all crashes down is another.

  The end of the world brings out the best and worst in all of us.

  With no communication and no word from the government, the Sloanes find themselves grappling with the end of the modern world all on their own. Will Madison and her friends have what it takes to make it back to Sacramento and her family? Can Tracy fend off looters and thieves and help her friends and neighbors survive?

  The EMP is only the beginning.

  Darkness Begins is book one in After the EMP, a post-apocalyptic thriller series following the Sloane family and their friends as they attempt to survive after a geomagnetic storm destroys the nation’s power grid.

  Subscribe to Harley’s newsletter and receive an exclusive companion short story, Darkness Falls, absolutely free.

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  DAY ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  MADISON

  University of California, Davis

  10:10 a.m.

  The bright red fruit peeked out from behind a leaf and Madison smiled. A ripe tomato in the middle of March. She glanced up at the roof of the university’s greenhouse and the glass panes streaked from last night’s rain.

  Staying on campus for spring break meant no house parties with her old friends from high school or tan lines from a trip to the beach, but that suited Madison just fine. She could tend to the plants, work on her research, and have the entire greenhouse to herself for most of the day.

  A new song began on the radio and Madison chimed in, belting out the lyrics as she leaned over the nearest row of plants. The plants loved it when she sang. All that carbon dioxide flowing from her lips made for happy little tomatoes.

  She started in on the second verse when the radio crackled, cheesy pop turning to nothing but static. Madison reached for the knob, turning it this way and that. Nothing.

  That’s weird.

  She switched to AM, trying to bring in a different station. From the greenhouse location out in the middle of the agricultural fields, she could occasionally pick up a station as far away as the coast or even Nevada. Today she got nothing.

  Just the same unending static.

  Maybe the batteries need replacing. The radio had to be ancient. Half of the students who came into the greenhouse had never seen a radio with manual dials instead of digital displays. It had stickers all over it from various restaurants and bars and a few political campaigns that happened over a decade ago.

  Regardless of its age, the little radio served its purpose. Without it, she would have driven herself mad with the silence of nothing but plants growing.

  After switching the radio off, Madison turned back to the task at hand: measuring the growth of her tomatoes. She pulled out her ruler when the door to the greenhouse opened and a familiar voice called out.

  “Hey, stranger. Thought I’d find you here.”

  “Hi, Peyton.” Madison eased back on the stool and smiled as her favorite agriculture student sat down beside her. Peyton George might be as unlike her as possible—tall vs. short, broad vs. thin—but he was the best study partner a girl could ask for.

  They had been friends ever since Madison accidentally took his chair the first day of class. Three years later, they were de facto siblings and probably closer than the real thing.

  Madison glanced at her watch. Peyton wasn’t supposed to be here. “Shouldn’t you be headed to the airport?”

  Instead of answering, Peyton focused on the row of plants in front of him, sticking his fingers in the soil to check the moisture content. As a senior, Peyton didn’t need to be in the greenhouse every day. His major research project was in the analysis stage, not data collection.

  But he still came to check on Madison and give any advice he could offer. His silence could only mean one thing: he’d fought with his father again.

  Madison pushed a little harder. “Doesn’t your dad have that big release party tomorrow?”

  Peyton scratched at his buzz cut. “Yeah. But I’m not going. I canceled the ticket.”

  “What? Why?” Madison knew how important the launch of his own record label was to Peyton’s father. He had worked for years in the music industry, pulling all-nighters and often missing out on Peyton’s childhood. He seemed to care more about his artists than he did his own kid.

  Something had to happen. “Your dad’s been on your case to go for months. What changed?”

  Peyton exhaled. “It’s just not my thing. You know that. I left music behind when I came here for school.” He pulled out a stool and sat down. “I don’t want to follow in his footsteps. He should know that by now.”

  “But he’s your dad. You should go, just to show support.”

  Peyton snorted. “Like he’s supported me? You remember what it was like last year. When I told him I wasn’t majoring in business, it was as if I’d confessed to murder. He stopped talking to me for a month, refused to take my calls.” He shook his head. “It’s only gotten worse.”

  Madison gave Peyton’s arm a squeeze. “Maybe he just needs some time. He’ll come around.”

  “No, he won’t.”

  Peyton sounded so sure, but Madison had her doubts. His dad might not understand the choices Peyton made, but he was still flesh and blood. “Maybe you should—”

  “He cut off my funding.”

  “What?” Madison blinked. “You mean your credit card?”

  “No.” Peyton shook his head. “He left me that for when I come to my senses and need to book a flight home. He just took all the rest. My tuition, room and board, everything related to school.”

  Madison reeled. What kind of father would do that? Especially when he had more than enough money to provide for Peyton and a whole host of
other kids if he had any. “When?”

  “Yesterday, after I told him I wasn’t changing my major.” Peyton swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he worked to control his emotions. “He told me if I wasn’t willing to be a part of the family business, then maybe I shouldn’t be part of the family.”

  “Oh, Peyton. I’m so sorry.” Madison reached out, wrapping Peyton up in the tightest hug she could manage. Her arms didn’t come close to fitting all the way around him, but she squeezed anyway.

  She couldn’t imagine what he was going through.

  Every time one of her friends talked about their strained or non-existent relationships with their parents, Madison thanked her lucky stars. Sure, her dad might travel half the month as an airline pilot, but he was a good man. And her mom always supported her no matter what. It didn’t hurt that they only lived a half an hour’s drive away in Sacramento.

  She had wanted to go to UC Davis for so many reasons, but between the best agricultural program in the state and being so close to home, it was a no-brainer. The ability to go home on the weekends when she needed a good hug and a stomach full of her mom’s banana muffins couldn’t be beat.

  After another pat on Peyton’s back, Madison let him go. “I’m sorry. That sucks.”

  He nodded. The emotional toll of his father’s betrayal cast deep shadows under Peyton’s eyes and turned his usual sunny expression into a scowl.

  Madison tried to lighten the mood. “I’m supposed to go home on Friday and spend the weekend with my mom. Do you want to come? She’d love to see you.”

  Peyton managed a mediocre smile. “Will she bake?”

  “Any special requests?”

  His whole face brightened. “I still dream about those little pocket pies she made over Christmas.”

  “I’ll text her and ask. For you, she’ll probably go all out and make peach. Ooooh… maybe lemon.” She pulled out her phone and typed up a quick message before hitting Send.

  The little bar moved across the screen, but after a moment, a red exclamation point popped up. Not delivered.

  She frowned. First the radio, now the phones? “What the heck is going on?” Madison pulled up her favorites and tapped her mom’s name. The call wouldn’t go through. She glanced up at Peyton. “Do you have service?”

  He pulled out his phone and tapped it before holding it up to his ear. “Well… it says I do, but I’m calling you and all I get is the ‘unable to complete this call’ recording.”

  Madison reached for the radio and turned it back on. Still static. “This happened right before you came in. I can’t get any stations.”

  Peyton looked up at the ceiling. “There’s no storm coming through, is there?”

  “The sky’s blue. Besides, that wouldn’t interfere with the AM stations.” Madison glanced around, trying to make sense of it. “Something weird is going on.”

  As the two of them sat there attempting to place calls and get a station on the radio, the door burst open and a frantic Tucker rushed up to them. His black hair stuck up in every direction, his shirt was mis-buttoned, and he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed and straight into a panic attack.

  “Where’s Brianna? Have you seen her?”

  “No.”

  He tore a hand through his hair. “We need to find her, like yesterday.”

  Madison held up her hands. “Slow down.”

  “No. I can’t.”

  “Is there something the matter? Is it her mom? I know she’s been sick, but—”

  Tucker shook his head so hard he had to have whiplash. “No, it’s not that. Well, at least not yet, anyway. We need to prepare. Get supplies. Make a plan.” He checked his watch and hissed. “Shit. We don’t have enough time. This thing is happening today.”

  Madison glanced at Peyton. He looked every bit as confused as Madison felt. She turned back to Tucker. “What’s happening today?”

  Tucker didn’t hesitate. “The end of the freaking world as we know it. That’s what.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  MADISON

  University of California, Davis

  11:00 a.m.

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “No. I’m not joking. Haven’t you seen the alerts?” Tucker paced back and forth in the space between the tables, popping his knuckles and checking his phone nonstop. “They’ve been going off for almost an hour. It’s incredible. Like nothing we’ve ever seen with modern technology.”

  Madison held up her hands as she turned to Peyton. “A little help here?”

  Peyton set his phone on the counter and walked over to Tucker. He grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking gently until their friend stopped mumbling and made eye contact. “Pretend we didn’t spend the last half hour inside your head, Tucker. Start at the beginning.”

  “Right. Okay.” Tucker backed up, rubbing his hand over his face as he collected his thoughts. “How much do you know about space weather?”

  “Huh?” Peyton raised an eyebrow. “That’s a thing?”

  Tucker exhaled. “Madison?”

  She shrugged. “I know a little. My dad’s been flying over the North Pole for the last few months. He’s got the Sacramento to Hong Kong route.”

  “So you know about solar flares?”

  Madison nodded. “They can cause radios to not work at the poles, that sort of thing. Sometimes my dad gets rerouted if the airline thinks he’ll lose radio communication on a flight.”

  “Hello?” Peyton waved his hands in between Madison and Tucker. “There’s a guy here who doesn’t have a clue what you two are talking about.”

  “Sorry, man.”

  “Can you explain—in English instead of your astrophysics major speak—please?”

  “I’ll try.” Tucker pulled up a stool and sat down. “So you know the sun is our light and heat source, right?”

  Madison butted in. “He’s an agricultural major. Give him a little credit.”

  Tucker nodded and continued. “Okay, so the sun, being a star, isn’t responsible for just light and heat. It’s also responsible for space weather. Since it’s this giant ball of gases, it basically erupts all the time, spitting out bursts of energy and particles like giant solar burps.”

  “The sun burps?”

  “Sort of.” Tucker pulled out his phone brought up a video frozen with what looked like a giant red and yellow ball of fire. “This is a close-up of the sun.” He hit play on the video and a bright burst of light erupted from the side of the sun, followed by a giant ball of darker color.

  “What was that?”

  “A solar flare followed by a Coronal Mass Ejection.”

  Peyton gave him a look. “English, remember.”

  Tucker exhaled. “Have you ever seen a cannon fired?”

  Peyton glanced at Madison. “Like at a Civil War reenactment?”

  She patted him on the arm. “I remember that! We saw it at the history center last year. There was this big flash and then the cannon ball shot out a second later.”

  “Exactly.” Tucker motioned with his hands. “Think of the solar flare—that bright light that erupted first—like the muzzle flash of the cannon. It travels at the speed of light because that’s what it is.”

  “So it gets to Earth in… eight minutes?”

  Tucker nodded. “The Coronal Mass Ejection, or CME, is the secondary burst you saw on the video.”

  “The cannonball?”

  “Yes. Basically, it’s this big cloud of magnetized particles. It travels through space more slowly. Depending on the size and speed, it reaches Earth in as little as eighteen hours or as many as three days.”

  When Tucker explained it, everything made sense. But Madison still didn’t understand what any of it had to do with space weather or Tucker’s freak-out. “So what does a solar flare and CME have to do with today?”

  Tucker pulled up another screen on his phone. It was an alert from the Space Weather Prediction Center.

  Madison frowned as she read the message
. “What’s a G5 geomagnetic storm?”

  “Only the most extreme space weather event possible.”

  Peyton leaned forward to get a better look at the screen. “Is it caused by a solar flare or a CME?”

  Tucker nodded. “This time, it’s both. My phone’s set up to get alerts from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They’re the governmental entity that manages the Space Weather Prediction Center. This morning, I got this.” He pulled up another screen, showing the notification.

  Madison shook her head. “What’s an X-50 solar flare? You’re losing me, Tucker.” She tried not to sound frustrated, but the more she spoke his astrophysics major jargon, the more confused she became. “Just break it down for us. What’s going on?”

  Tucker shoved his phone in his pocket and looked at them both. “The biggest solar flare we’ve ever recorded erupted from the sun this morning around 10:00 a.m. Pacific time. It’s already caused widespread radio outages, messed-up GPS coordinates, and thrown the cell network into fits since the navigation and time systems aren’t accurate.”