After the EMP (Book 2): Darkness Grows Read online

  DARKNESS GROWS

  AFTER THE EMP BOOK TWO

  HARLEY TATE

  CONTENTS

  Darkness Grows

  DAY FOUR

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  DAY FIVE

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  DAY SIX

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  DAY SEVEN

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Acknowledgments

  About Harley Tate

  Copyright © 2017 by Harley Tate. Cover and internal design © by Harley Tate. Cover image copyright © Deposit Photos, 2017.

  All rights reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  The use of stock photo images in this e-book in no way imply that the models depicted personally endorse, condone, or engage in the fictional conduct depicted herein, expressly or by implication. The person(s) depicted are models and are used for illustrative purposes only.

  DARKNESS GROWS

  A POST-APOCALYPTIC SURVIVAL THRILLER

  Four days into the apocalypse, would you still be alive?

  The day the power went out, Madison gave up her college-student life and risked everything to make it home to her mom in Sacramento. Tracy fought off looters and thieves to prepare for her daughter’s return. Now reunited, they must defend themselves from everyone else.

  What would you do to see your family again?

  Walter watched the lights blink out across the country from 37,000 feet up in the air. Emergency landing a 737 in the middle of nowhere turned out to be the easy part. With riots and fires creating chaos, finding his way home might get him killed.

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

  With the power grid destroyed and the government unable to help, the Sloanes find themselves stuck in a city growing increasingly desperate. Will Madison and Tracy have what it takes to survive with neighbors and thieves closing in? Can Walter make it home to his wife and daughter before disaster strikes?

  The EMP is only the beginning.

  Darkness Grows is book two 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.

  Need book one in the After the EMP series? Find it here.

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

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  DAY FOUR

  SIXTY HOURS WITHOUT POWER

  CHAPTER ONE

  MADISON

  Sloane Residence

  Sacramento, CA

  7:00 a.m.

  I will never take cotton sheets and a good mattress for granted again. Madison stretched her arms over her head and rolled over. The sky outside hung in the liminal moment between dark and light, sunrise still a few minutes away.

  If Madison hadn’t been up at dawn most mornings in college, she would never know such a space existed. The handful of minutes before the sun spilled over the horizon had always signaled the start of something new for her. Hope, anticipation, the promise of more.

  But three days ago, everything changed. How long would it take for the world to notice? How long could her friends and family survive?

  The geomagnetic storm that hit the earth didn’t discriminate. The EMP destroyed every inch of the power grid it touched. How many people were powerless? The West Coast? The entire country? Continent? World?

  Without a means of communication, Madison didn’t know. But that wouldn’t stop her. Whether the government or the military or relief charities showed up wouldn’t be the difference between her survival or her death. No. Madison would survive, and she would keep her friends and family alive, too.

  After one last stretch, she swung her legs over the side of her bed, narrowly missing Peyton’s head on the floor. Her best friend from college might only be a calendar year older, but he more than made up for it in height and width.

  Peyton’s arms stretched from the edge of Madison’s bed all the way to the door on the other side. His head poked out of his sleeping bag like the sack had been made for a child. If she didn’t know him so well, she would assume he played on the UC Davis football team as a proud Aggie. Instead, he spent his days by her side in a stuffy greenhouse watering tomato plants.

  Easing her feet down between his sleeping bag and her bed, Madison sneaked around Peyton and out her bedroom door. The tiny two-bedroom bungalow her parents called home wasn’t made for six people, but no one seemed to mind.

  They had a roof over their heads and enough food and water for weeks thanks to her mom’s quick thinking. Madison grabbed the portable radio off the hall table and poked her head in the living room, pausing as her eyes adjusted to the light.

  The bright yellow sleeping bag on the floor reminded Madison of a butterfly cocoon, bumpy and lumpy with a still-sleeping form inside. But the sleeping bag next to it was gone. Madison smiled. Tucker must be awake.

  She found him a few minutes later, crouched in the backyard, tinkering with something on the ground.

  “Whatcha doin?”

  He turned, brushing a clump of shaggy black hair out of his eye. “Trying to rig this solar panel to charge my laptop. You?”

  “Wiping sleep from my eyes and jonesing for a hot cup of coffee.”

  “Better watch out, too much caffeine will stunt your growth.”

  Madison put her hand up as if to guess at her own height. “Now you tell me.” She walked forward with a grin and joined Tucker on the edge of the patio. A three-section piece of canvas sat unfolded on the ground, the blue solar panels on top waiting for the sun.

  She motioned at it. “You really think you can power your laptop with that?”

  Tucker nodded. “I’ve done it before just for fun. It might take a day or two, but give it enough hours of solid daylight and it’ll charge.”

  Leave it to an astrophysics major to know how to keep technology going even without the grid. Madison chewed on her lip. If the solar panel could charge Tucker’s laptop battery, what else could it do? “Any chance that could run a coffee pot?”

  Tucker laughed. “Not unless you’ve got a spare power bank with a 120 volt receptacle lying around. I looked for one when we were loading up on supplies, but the store was out of stock.”

  Madison sighed. “It was worth a shot.” She stood up and clicked the radio on, turning the dial in slow-motion, hoping for anything other than static. No luck. Shouldn’t the government be saying something by now? Doing something?

  The sliding door to the patio opened and Brianna, Madison’s roommate from college, stood in the open doorway, eyebrows scrunched together.

  “How long do you think before that crazy guy comes back and wants all our stuff?”
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  “Good morning to you, too.”

  Brianna pressed her lips together. “Sorry. I’m cranky without coffee.”

  “Me too.” Madison stood up. “I don’t think Bill is coming back any time soon. After my mom threatened to shoot him, he backed down pretty quick.”

  “He pointed a shotgun at you, Madison.”

  Madison corrected her. “Bill pointed a shotgun at all of us.”

  “That doesn’t make it any better.” Brianna stepped onto the patio and walked over to Tucker. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze before letting go.

  She didn’t want to admit it, but Brianna had a point. The man had shown himself to be a hothead who didn’t take no for an answer. Add in the fact that he’d seen some of their supplies in the back of Brianna’s Jeep and Madison knew Bill would be trouble.

  Part of her wished they could just batten down the hatches and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist. Inside her parents’ house, they were safe, secure, and could survive. Unfortunately the rest of the neighborhood knew it, too.

  How many neighbors would side with Bill? How many would come knocking on their door demanding a share of their food and water?

  Madison thought back to the neighborhood meeting only the day before. It seemed like months ago, not hours. She still couldn’t believe how unprepared and naïve everyone appeared.

  Did most of the population believe the power would come back on? Did they really think this was no different than a bad thunderstorm and downed power lines?

  Madison ran a hand through her hair, tugging at the tangles in the brown strands. It had been long enough since she’d showered that her hair had passed the greasy stage and entered disgusting.

  She wondered about all the homes tucked into her parents’ neighborhood. What were the occupants doing right now? Would they be allies or threats? With a glance back at the open sliding glass door, she asked the question out loud. “How many houses are in the neighborhood, do you think? A hundred? More?”

  Brianna scratched at a spot behind her ear. “Probably a hundred and fifty. Maybe two hundred. We drove by a lot of places on the way in. Why?”

  “There were about thirty people at the neighborhood meeting yesterday, right?”

  “I counted thirty-three.” Tucker stood up before continuing. “But some of those were from the same household. I met a few married couples. ”

  Madison nodded. She might have gone through hell the last three days to get from Davis to Sacramento, but people had stayed home. Most people still didn’t know.

  She perched on the patio table as she thought it over. “Let’s assume there’s at least a hundred houses around us that didn’t attend. That means there are a hundred houses who didn’t hear Tucker’s explanation for the power loss. They don’t know about the EMP.”

  Glancing at Brianna, Madison dropped her voice to ensure it didn’t carry past the small backyard. “That’s a hundred families in this neighborhood alone who are sitting in front of their televisions, checking their phones, and waiting for the power to come back on.”

  “I still don’t get what you’re saying.” Brianna crossed her arms, her pink plaid shirt a stark contrast to the T-shirt and camouflage cargo pants she had worn the last few days.

  Madison focused on the lines parading up and down the flannel. “I think we’re still ahead of the game. We’re some of the few people around who know what’s happened.”

  At last, Brianna nodded in understanding. Her father had been a survivalist for as long as Madison knew them, fortifying a cabin up in the mountains for just this situation. “As long as we have the upper hand, we should take advantage.”

  “You mean we should go on a run.” Peyton walked outside, the orange cat her mom had saved the day before tucked into his arm. Fireball mewled and Peyton let him go, watching as the cat greeted each person with a headbutt and rub across the legs.

  “Maybe?” Truth be told, Madison didn’t have a plan, but every minute that ticked by without them shoring up their defenses and gathering more supplies was a minute wasted.

  She reached down and scratched Fireball’s head behind the ears and the little cat meowed his appreciation. “I know we have a lot, more than most people, but…”

  “Someone will try to take it.” Brianna held out her hand, ticking each finger as she ran through a list. “We have food. Water. Shelter. That only leaves one critical item: weapons.”

  “We have a shotgun and a pistol.” Peyton frowned. “Add in Wanda’s gun and that’s more than enough.”

  Brianna snorted. “It’s not anywhere close. But that’s not the real issue. We could have an entire arsenal full of guns but they won’t be any more useful than a sack of rocks if we don’t have any ammo to go in them.”

  Madison nodded. She wished they could all just stay home, but they couldn’t. “Brianna’s right. Bill knows we have food and water. He saw Wanda’s gun since my mom pointed it at him. If things get ugly around here, he won’t leave us alone. The sooner we can defend ourselves the better.”

  Peyton crossed his arms. “It’s too dangerous, Madison. We could get ourselves killed.”

  “We did just fine at the mini-mart.”

  “That was luck. What if the shop owner hadn’t run out the back? What if one of those thugs hadn’t died in there? One of us could be lying facedown between the Twinkies and the Snickers, rotting in a pool of our own blood.”

  Brianna wiggled her nose. “Thanks for that mental image.”

  “I’m serious.” Peyton glanced at Tucker. “Help me out, man. You can’t want your girlfriend going back out there.”

  Tucker pushed his hair off his face. “I don’t. But she’s right. At some point the two of us are heading to Truckee. Brianna’s parents need to know she’s okay. We can’t leave without a way to defend ourselves and if we take a gun from here, you won’t have enough.”

  Brianna joined in. “We have, what, a partial magazine of rounds for the handgun and a box of shells for the shotgun? It’s pathetic.”

  Peyton opened his mouth to argue again when a chipper voice interrupted.

  “Who wants grilled pie for breakfast?” Madison’s mom Tracy stepped onto the patio, a tray full of baking supplies and fresh apples in her hands. She stilled as she caught sight of all their faces. The tray wobbled in her hands. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”

  Madison exhaled. Her mom might have stuck a gun in Bill’s face the day before, but that had been to protect her only daughter. Madison didn’t know how she would react to her plan.

  “We’ve been talking about the future. What we need to do to prepare.”

  Tracy raised an eyebrow. “Prepare for what?”

  “The people who will come to take what we have. The ones like Bill Donovan. You know he won’t be the last.”

  Her mom frowned. “I was hoping we could ignore that for a day or two.”

  Madison managed a small smile. “Me, too. But we can’t. Now is the best time to go out there.”

  Brianna nodded in encouragement and Madison took a deep breath. “Don’t freak out, but we need more guns and ammunition. We’re going on a supply run.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  TRACY

  Sloane Residence

  8:00 a.m.

  “Over my dead body.” Tracy palmed her hips. Madison might have survived a harrowing drive from her college campus to home, but that didn’t change the fact that she was nineteen and barely an adult. “No daughter of mine is becoming an arms runner four days into the apocalypse.”

  Peyton stifled a laugh.

  At least someone agreed with her. Tracy softened her stance. “I know you mean well, Madison, but it’s dangerous out there. People are… horrible.” She glanced back at the inside of the house.

  Her former boss still slept inside, tucked into a pile of blankets on the couch. If she hadn’t picked Wanda up at the bus stop, if they hadn’t gone back to Wanda’s apartment on the very same type of scouting m
ission Madison now proposed…

  Visions of the two thieves they had encountered filled her mind. The one with greasy hair. The other holding a six-pack of beer and the keys to a car she so desperately needed.

  Tracy steeled herself. Madison might think of herself as tough, but in the moment, would she have the strength required? Would she be able to look a man in the eye and take his life? Tracy would never forget the way the first man she shot looked down at his chest, watching in horror as his own blood coated his shirt.

  She had done what she had to in order to protect Wanda and herself. But she couldn’t ask her daughter to do the same. Killing a person wasn’t something you could take back or get over. It would haunt Tracy forever.

  “Mom, we’ll be fine.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I just got you back. I won’t risk losing you again. If anyone is going on a weapons run, it’s me.”

  “But Mom!”

  Tracy smiled at her daughter and picked up the tray of food. “Enough about this for the moment. Who wants breakfast?”

  9:30 a.m.

  If only we could pretend for a few hours longer. Tracy leaned back in her chair, a cup of instant coffee in her hands. After talking her daughter off the gun and ammo ledge, Tracy had convinced the four college kids to huddle around the patio table and learn how to make hand pies to grill in the backyard.

  Peyton’s continuously growling stomach didn’t hurt, either. The boy had to eat five all by himself.

  But now they sat staring at empty plates, Wanda included, waiting for something to happen. Anticipation hung in the air around them like an early Sacramento fog. The more Tracy thought about Madison’s comments, the more she agreed with them.

  Regardless of who stayed in the house and who left, they would need more ammunition—a lot more. A few more shotguns, a knife or two, and some pocket pepper spray would all come in handy. But where would they get it?

  And who would go?

  She glanced at each member of her new household. Tucker, the physics geek, seemed responsible and sensible, but he was still a twenty-year-old young man. Brianna, Madison’s roommate and Tucker’s girlfriend, was as gung-ho about survival as anyone Tracy had ever met. But that didn’t make her a good choice.