The Land of the Shadow
Read The Land of the Shadow Online
Authors: Lissa Bryan
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #New Adult & College, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Dystopian
The Land of the Shadow
By
Lissa Bryan
First published by The Writer’s Coffee Shop, 2014
Copyright © Lissa Bryan, 2014
The right of Lissa Bryan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
All characters and events in this Book – even those sharing the same name as (or based on) real people – are entirely fictional. No person, brand, or corporation mentioned in this Book should be taken to have endorsed this Book nor should the events surrounding them be considered in any way factual.
This Book is a work of fiction and should be read as such.
The Writer’s Coffee Shop
(Australia)
PO Box 447 Cherrybrook NSW 2126
(USA)
PO Box 2116 Waxahachie TX 75168
Paperback ISBN- 978-1-61213-264-8
E-book ISBN- 978-1-61213-265-5
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the US Congress Library.
Cover Images: © depositphotos.com / zajac, © depositphotos.com / SolominViktor, © depositphotos.com / kyslynskyy
Cover Design: Jada D’Lee
www.thewriterscoffeeshop.com/lbryan
Dedication
Dedicated to my True Love, as always . . .
“Then shouldering their burdens, they set off, seeking a path that would bring them over the grey hills of the Emyn Muil, and down into the Land of the Shadow.”
– J. R. R. Tolkien,
The Lord of the Rings
“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”
– Isaiah 9:1-2
Chapter One
It was a while before Carly realized the reporter was dying.
Since the beginning of the crisis, Troy Cramer had been indefatigable. He stayed on the air for inhumanly long stretches, reporting on the rising death toll, the new outbreaks in different cities, the steady collapse of society. His voice grew hoarse as he spoke over images of riots, of uncontrolled wildfires, of hospitals filled with the dead and dying.
Grainy video . . . there was a rumor the CDC had a cure but were reserving it for the politicians and the rich. A mob gathered around the organization’s headquarters, waving signs that ranged from pleas to condemnation. Fury and desperation painted the pale, sweat-slicked faces in the crowd. Bodies pushed against the barricades. The camera panned up, and Carly saw ghostly outlines behind the glass of the second-floor window—terrified researchers watching as the teeming crowd demanded something they did not have. The crowd surged past the barricade like water breaking through a dam. The camera shook as the person filming was swept into the mob. Faint screams of those in front, crushed against the doors by the unstoppable wave. A crash and a roar as the doors gave way. The camera tumbled to the ground, and the screen went black.
Though thousands were dying around them every day, Troy Cramer became oddly fixated on this video, trying to find out if the videographer had been injured, just as Carly worried about those frightened people she had seen through the window of the CDC.
Video of the president, his face tense and hollow-eyed as he pleaded for calm and for people to obey the quarantine, but no one did. There were too many people desperate to reach family members, people who needed to fill their empty cupboards, and people who wanted to flee the cities for areas rumored to be uninfected. The roads were clogged with the cars of those who had the same idea. Many died in their vehicles waiting for accidents or traffic jams to clear.
Another grainy image showed a man, delirious with fever, who shattered a window on the side of a hospital when he could not get close to the entrance. He climbed right over the patient in the bed beside the window and others swarmed in after him. But even inside, they would find no succor. The doctors and nurses themselves were Infected, unable to care for anyone, so overwhelmed by the massive numbers, they couldn’t move the bodies before the next victims died.
There was no cure. Despite the rumors and the CDC’s promises they were working on it and would have an effective anti-viral drug soon, the Infected were doomed.
Troy Cramer knew it. When he realized he had the Infection, he told his audience he would try to stay on the air as long as possible. Even as his voice grew more hoarse and raspy between coughs, and he had to duck below the desk when he retched, he stayed at his post, bringing them new video, new reports, death tolls . . . until Troy was the last man standing. The other channels had ceased broadcasting.
Troy ran the news desk alone. He didn’t know how to switch to video feeds, so it was just one solitary camera rolling as he described what was going on outside. He held up his iPad screen to try to show the videos streaming in from viewers, although those became fewer as the days passed.
As Troy grew sicker, his words became disjointed, rambling. Sometimes he cried, and Carly cried with him. Small patches of his orange-beige makeup clung to his pallid and sweaty skin, skin that became a horrible red as his fever rose.
One morning, Carly woke to find him slumped over his desk, and she cried out in distress. As though he had heard her, he lifted his head, with great effort, to whisper a few words. His eyes, glassy with exhaustion and fever, gleamed as he stared into the camera. “I’m still here. Still here.” He let out a convulsive cough and crumpled the news bulletins still clutched in his hand.
Carly pressed her hand to the television screen. “Still here,” she said. Troy had been with them through the whole Crisis, and Carly would not abandon him now, even if he never knew it. She would be with him until the end. Whatever the end might be. She kept hoping someone had called an ambulance for him and a well-groomed news anchor would slip into his chair after the paramedics came to take him away, and tell everyone the Crisis was beginning to diminish as a new vaccine was distributed. It was a silly, futile hope, but she held it in a tiny corner of her heart just the same.
While he was still alive, still with her, there was a chance this could all be made right again. “Still here,” she whispered. She sat by the television and listened to the gurgle of his labored breathing until the power went off and the screen went dark.
She hadn’t felt so alone when Troy was on the air. She was left to face the ugly reality that her parents—
Carly jerked out of sleep when the rooster crowed right below their open window. Her heart pounded, and she had to blink several times before the fog cleared from her mind. It was still dark outside.
Beside her, Justin groaned. He rolled over and rubbed a hand over his face. “Someday I’m going to kill that damned bird,” he muttered. “
Slowly.
”
“What time is it?”
“At least two hours until sunrise.” Justin snuggled against her back. “Go back to sleep.”
Across the hall, Dagny let out a little cry, and then waited for a moment to see if it would summon her parents. Carly and Justin both held their breaths. Sometimes Dagny would fall right back to sleep, but not this time. The stillness was broken by an insistent wail.
“Ma-ma-maaaa!”
Justin sighed as he rolled over and swung his legs off the edge of the bed. Carly sat up, pushing her tumbled hair out of her face.
“I’ve got it,” Justin said. “Go back to bed, honey.”
“Can’t. I’m awake now.” She pushed aside the mosquito netting and shuffled over to pick up her robe. “I’ll start breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry,” Justin said. He stretched and gave a soft groan. “I’d kill for a cup of coffee.” He headed into the hallway toward their daughter’s room, and Carly heard Dagny’s delighted cry.
“Da-da!”
Carly shook her head. He tried to skip breakfast every morning. She knew he was trying to conserve food, but he worked too hard to miss a meal.
Sam stood and wagged his tail as Carly rounded the foot of the bed. He followed her down the stairs, his nails clicking on the wood. She opened the kitchen door to let him out while she checked the wood-burning stove. The fire had burned itself down to orange cinders, and Carly swore under her breath as she realized she’d forgotten to stoke it again. As hot as it was, and as much as she hated having it going round the clock, they needed it to boil their drinking water and to keep it ready for cooking.
She missed the large stove they’d had in the house in North Dakota. This one was much smaller, with just two small burners on top and a tiny oven on the left side, barely large enough for a loaf of bread. But it was all Justin had been able to find after scouring the surrounding area. Perhaps he’d find a better one someday on his scouting trips further afield.
When they’d first come to Colby a year earlier, the range in the house had been running on natural gas, but it stopped working a few months after they’d moved in. Justin supposed the appliances had been using the natural gas left in the lines after the automatic shutoffs engaged when the pumps stopped running. It might be possible to get the pumps operational again with the generators they were working on, but that was far in the future.
Carly fed in the kindling and coaxed the cinders into a blaze by adding a bit of sawdust collected from Justin’s woodworking shop in the garage. Shutting the door made a louder clatter than she expected, and she winced, hoping it hadn’t woken Kaden. At least he was finally sleeping well.
During the first few days after the Infection had swept through town and carried off everyone but Kaden Weaver, Old Miz Marson, and a little girl named Madison Laker, Kaden had begun having nightmares. Terrible ones he wouldn’t talk about but woke him shouting, waking everyone in the Marson house. Carly sent Justin to talk to him, thinking that if anyone knew about nightmares, it was Justin. Kaden wouldn’t talk about it, though, so Justin talked and Kaden listened. Whatever was said must have made an impression because a week later, Kaden showed up on Carly and Justin’s front porch with his belongings and asked if he could stay.
As far as Carly knew, Kaden had never revealed what his nightmares were about. When he woke screaming, Justin would join him on the screened-in sleeping porch attached to Kaden’s room, and there the two of them would sit, waiting for the sun to rise. The nightmares gradually faded away, but Kaden stayed, finding in Justin something between a big brother and father figure. And that was how Justin and Carly found themselves the parents of a fifteen-year-old boy.
