Nightfall

Table of Contents

 

 

 

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

 

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2011 by Ann Aguirre and Carrie Lofty.

 

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

BERKLEY
^®
SENSATION and the “B” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

PRINTING HISTORY

Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition / June 2011

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 

Connor, Ellen, 1976–

Nightfall / Ellen Connor.—Berkley Sensation trade pbk. ed.

p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-52896-9

1. End of the world—Fiction. 2. Supernatural—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3603.05475N54 2011

813'.6—dc22

2011005550

 

 

Heartfelt thanks go out to three generous, talented individuals, whose input at various stages proved invaluable: Bree Bridges, Stefanie Gostautas, and Liz Powell. We convey additional thanks to Laura Bradford for sticking by us when this idea and partnership must have seemed crazy. Mad appreciation to Cindy Hwang and Anne Sowards—first for taking a chance—and then making this story bigger (and better) than we'd imagined. The whole Berkley Sensation crew is fantastic, and we thank everyone involved in bringing this book to fruition: from copyedits to art to marketing and sales. You're a great team, and we're so fortunate to have you working with us. Thanks to Fedora Chen for her fabulous proofreading.

As always, we could not succeed without the support of family. With love and respect, we thank Andres, Andrea, and Alek as well as Keven, Juliette, Ilsa, and Dennis and Kathleen Stone. Thanks for your patience and understanding of our idiosyncrasies.

Additional thanks to Larissa Ione, Lauren Dane, Donna J. Herren, Carolyn Jewel, and Megan Hart, plus Joelle Charbonneau-Blanco, Patti Ann Colt, Cathleen DeLong, Deb Gross, and Kelly Schaub. You're all great friends and listeners, who offered much-needed support over the course of this project.

Finally, we thank our readers. We hope
Nightfall
strikes you as fresh, enticing, and different. Let us know what you think at [email protected] and learn about upcoming books at
www.EllenConnor.com
.

In the mid-twenty-first century, the power grid collapsed. No warning. Religious citizens called it the Rapture or the end times, but there came no blood rain or plague of locusts.

It began in eastern Europe. The land went dark, with total radio and satellite silence. No one knew what had happened; the news simply ceased. But plenty in North America harbored speculations about reactor core meltdowns and weapons of mass destruction.

Next came the easternmost cities of the Western Hemisphere—as if a dark wind swept in from across the Atlantic. Electrical and nuclear substations simply stopped functioning, becoming inert blocks of dead matter. Despite working day and night, technicians could not repair the equipment. Planes fell out of the sky when they tried to land. Cars with computer chips turned into giant paperweights, though older ones went unaffected.

With accustomed sources of power gone and catastrophe imminent, people took to the streets seeking answers. They found violence.

The beginnings of mob rule.

Refining fuel became difficult. The outbreak of the first Fuel War ushered in an era of prophets, all of whom offered stories to explain the madness.

Glass shattered and buildings burned. Economies crumbled, only to be reborn in black market trade. In the city that never sleeps, the government imposed martial law and assigned curfews. The National Guard troops arrived, geared for combat. The populace rebelled, demanding answers. Some blamed terrorist cells as tensions escalated. Hate crimes quadrupled, and the U.S. military killed its own citizens on American soil.

The East Coast lost contact with the rest of the continent. Then states west of the Mississippi seceded, leaving the struggling easterners to their fate. While it could, the New United States pretended nothing was wrong. People went about their business and believed the chaos couldn't touch them.

But the wave followed at an inexorable pace. No one could outrun the change.

This encroaching Dark Age changed the world and the way people lived. Survivors scrounged whatever they could carry and pushed westward, out of the dead zone. Politicians could provide no answers. The military fought on, using old weapons and guarding meaningless borders. Desperate for news and hope, people turned on their radios, seeking the company of other voices in the dark. Dwindling human populations tried to find one another, only to be ambushed by unscrupulous road gangs. Raiders, like the powerful O'Malley organization, and other profit-minded privateers flourished in wider sweeps of territory.

Then the first transformations began—people into monsters—and the world changed again, this time forever.

“Don't move.”

The hot rush of breath against her nape made Jenna juggle her keys and then drop them. Pepper spray dangled from her key ring, received as a gag gift, but at hearing that raw, gravelly voice, she lost all control of higher motor functions. A shiver jumped up her spine.

Something prodded her back. A gun? Jenna didn't even shift.

Her reply came out in a nervous squeak. “Are you mugging me? I don't have much cash on hand.”

Her dad had always insisted she keep at least five hundred in the house in case of emergencies. He hadn't liked banks, lines of credit, or the government. Sure, he'd successfully predicted a time when skills would become the real commerce and that the entire world monetary system would fail. But trouble had clung to her father like ticks on a hound, so she didn't agree with his philosophies. He'd gone around quoting obscure prophecy and claiming insight into great magical doings to come, and she wanted nothing to do with any of his crazy friends. She'd seen what his life of paranoia and sacrifice had done to her mother.

Hence the move to quiet, dull, out-of-the-way Culver. In an unstable time, this had seemed like the last place trouble could find her.

Of course, she'd heard the talk of trouble on the East Coast—blackouts and riots—but nothing ever seemed real until it knocked on the door. She had been expecting the troubles to push west for some time, just more dramatically than a guy with a gun.

Muggings didn't go down in Culver. This was a place where people clung with blindered determination to a dying way of life. They ignored updates from the New Media Coalition, which controlled all cell phone and Internet access on the new network. They went to their jobs and pretended supply line problems hadn't affected them. If people drank home brew now, instead of Bud Light, nobody mentioned it.

Maybe this guy was an escaped con from the correctional facility in North Bend. It wasn't unheard of for them to break out and live rough until they emerged in dire need of food and supplies. Her breath puffed out in a smoky devil's sigh. Cold. It was so cold. He'd need winter gear too. If Jenna gave him what he wanted, he might go away. She hoped.

Because of her dad, she nursed a secret soft spot for outlaws and renegades, but that didn't ease the fear in her stomach.