Darkness Ahead of Us | Book 1 | Darkness Within Read online

  Darkness Within

  Darkness Ahead Of Us #1

  Leif Spencer

  First published in Great Britain in 2020.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Darkness Within © 2020 Leif Spencer

  www.lspencerauthor.com

  Cover by Holly Jameson

  www.hollyjameson.co.uk

  For Susan, who is the ideal quarantine partner.

  Contents

  Also by Leif Spencer

  Acknowledgments

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Note From The Author

  Also by Leif Spencer

  THE END WE SAW (Novella Series)

  Stolen Visions

  Chased by Guilt

  Misplaced Mercy

  Forlorn Redemption

  All We Have Left

  THE END WE SAW (Omnibus)

  The End We Saw (The Complete Series)

  EXCLUSIVE FOR NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS

  After the Pulse (Short Story)

  DARKNESS AHEAD OF US

  Darkness Within

  Acknowledgments

  Lauren, you’re more important than you’ll ever know.

  Thank you, Gemma, for this household is now addicted to Animal Crossing. Next time, please order just the one copy (and keep it).

  Thank you, Isabel, for picking up all remaining plot holes, typos and errors and for listening to me ramble on about all the unimportant stuff floating around my head. (Look! No Oxford comma!)

  Thank you, Susan, for doing the boring job you do.

  Thank you, Elizabeth from Women of the Apocalypse over on Facebook, for naming Oreo. It’s a fantastic name!

  And without Esther, half of my stories wouldn’t have a title. Thank you.

  Thank you, Stephanie and Misty, for reading and being so supportive.

  I would like to thank the people who are delivering my shopping, and the people who are delivering my pizza during Covid-19. You’re making it possible for me to stay inside and I’m grateful.

  I would like to thank the people who are posting art, comics and stories for brightening my days.

  I would like to thank the people who are posting recipes for sending me on a baking spree. Enough with the banana bread.

  And, of course, I would like to thank every reader for supporting us authors by buying our books.

  Lastly, I would like to thank some more people who have made it possible for me to write my stories: Dave (who’s taught me about guns), John (who always offers invaluable feedback), Colin (who’s created more than one butterfly effect in my world), Bryan (who sounds strangely awake after midnight), and Anthony (whose stories I can’t wait to read).

  1

  It happened on a mild day at the end of June, and just like most people, Anna Greene wasn’t prepared.

  She was lying on the sofa mindlessly browsing Netflix with her dog Oreo curled up against her legs when the world went dark.

  It was close to midnight and up until that point, it had been a normal day.

  Cold, unsweetened oats for breakfast (she was trying to lose weight yet again), a homemade protein bar for lunch. She’d missed a phone call from her father during her lunch break and had yet to listen to his—she assumed angry, he was always angry—voicemail, but customers had been particularly entitled and irritating at work, and she’d left her personal phone in her locker.

  Every now and then, she just needed a lunch break where she did nothing but sit on a bench and stare into her empty Tupperware.

  After work, a casual date she’d met on one of her many apps had stood her up. Sitting alone at the small table for two in the middle of a pizzeria, she’d ended up ordering herself a large pizza and felt judged by every other guest as she ate, no matter whether they’d even noticed her or not.

  Yes. It had been a perfectly normal day for Anna Greene.

  A burst of static filled the living room with a loud hiss. The dim light from the lamp next to the radiator flickered and died at the same time as the television. Above her head, the fan slowed, then stopped spinning altogether.

  An eerie quiet settled over her flat and for a moment, Anna thought she’d gone deaf.

  Oreo placed his head on her thigh and whined, his ears back, the whites of his eyes showing.

  Anna frowned, grabbed her phone and tapped the screen. “What the…” She glared at her faint reflection on the dead screen, her double chin making her appear at least ten years older than she was. She pressed down on the power button, waiting for the phone to reboot.

  Why was it so quiet?

  Tilting her head, Anna listened for the low hum of traffic coming from the main road.

  Nothing.

  Unease crept up her neck, prickled her skin.

  “It’s just a power cut,” Anna muttered, unsure if her meagre attempt at comforting words was aimed at herself or the dog. She reached for her Kindle and opened the case.

  It didn’t turn on either.

  At the age of thirty-seven, Anna still didn’t know how to check her fuse box—didn’t even know where to find it—but she reckoned opening the window might answer a few of her questions.

  Outside, the moon shone impossibly bright, a thick silver disc hanging above the horizon seemingly just out of reach. Two cars appeared to have broken down in the middle of the road, both drivers fumbling with their bonnets.

  Anna looked up. The sky was a black canvas sprinkled with gleaming dots.

  She leaned forward, stretching in search of the traffic lights further down the road. Her gaze drifted along the pavement. Every single streetlight was out. As were the traffic lights.

  Harlow, a town on the border of London and Hertfordshire, had been plunged into darkness.

  It was as though the world had stopped, and Anna heard crickets chirping in the park across the road.

  “Guess there’s no need to find the fuse box,” Anna said to Oreo.

  The silence didn’t last long. Around her, windows opened and doors slammed. People trickled into the street wearing dressing gowns and slippers, some shouting, others laughing.

  Anna shut the window and turned to her dog. “Oh no.” She walked over to where her laptop sat on the dining table. She closed her eyes and pressed the power button, hoping the laptop wasn’t just as dead as her phone. Opening one eye, she let out a sigh as the laptop turned on and displayed the Lenovo logo.

  “Thank—” She froze as the screen turned blue and an error code appeared at the top. Anna didn’t know what the numbers meant and instinctively reached for her phone to google the code, momentarily forgetting that her phone, too, was dead.

  “You watched me charge this before we went out for our walk, right?” she asked Oreo, and he whined again, his rear pressed against the edge of his bed. A string of saliva hung from his snout.

  Was he picking
up on her unease? She’d heard of pets sensing earthquakes hours before they happened and eyed him with a frown.

  Oreo was a small black and white Border Collie and a bit of a wuss. His bark might scare off potential intruders but if they persisted, they’d soon discover that he was all bark and no bite.

  On the table, the laptop screen flickered and died.

  Anna scowled. Power cuts didn’t kill laptops and cars.

  It had to be a coincidence.

  But what if this was something worse than a power cut? Something that couldn’t be fixed in a couple of hours.

  At this point in time, she owned two litres of bottled water (didn’t the government recommend twenty or so?) and only because Sarah had brought them over several months ago—Anna couldn’t even remember what they’d been for. Since she only drank tap water, the bottles had been gathering dust and dog hair in a corner of her kitchen.

  Her pantry, if it could be called that—it was more of a cupboard—consisted of roughly a week’s worth of tinned chickpeas and chopped tomatoes. The remaining spaghetti in the pasta jar on top of her kitchen counter would make one more meal at most.

  She had three rolls of toilet paper left.

  Supermarkets delivered daily if you were willing to pay; why bother stocking up?

  Anna stood in her kitchen and stared at her fridge.

  If the power didn’t come back on in the next twenty-four hours, she’d lose the chicken thighs and the cheese pizza unless she cooked them before they spoilt—but how? Without power, neither her oven nor her stove would work.

  The thought of eating raw chicken made her shudder. Her sister would probably pickle it or whatever it was you did to preserve raw meat.

  Anna owned no bathtub, so she couldn’t fill it with water, and while she stood in her kitchen staring at her fridge, she realised not only was she not prepared, she didn’t know anybody who was.

  She didn’t have an emergency bag ready stuffed under her bed, didn’t own a secluded cabin in the woods and had no acquaintances serving in the army.

  She knew about these things because of the books she’d read, but it had never occurred to her to actually prepare.

  Anna considered herself an introvert with few friends, but she talked to her sister at least once a week. Sarah and Anna had discussed emergencies once. It had been more of a joke, one evening after a few glasses of red wine, and not an actual attempt at serious preparation. But if they ever found themselves in such a situation, Sarah would drive to Harlow because Anna’s flat was easier to defend. Located on the top floor, intruders could only come from one direction, and Oreo would alert them of anyone entering the building.

  “If the phones stop working, you stay put,” Sarah had said giggling into her glass, but they hadn’t considered a situation where phones, cars and trains didn’t work.

  Sarah lived about forty miles away and Anna briefly considered hiking along the A120, but it would take her three, if not four days, and by the time she’d knock on Sarah’s door, Sarah might be knocking on Anna’s.

  “And for years they wandered through England, never finding each other,” Anna said dramatically to her fridge door. “Until that one fateful day, five years later, when they’d both reach the same settlement, so haggard and pale they would fail to recognise each other.”

  Anna blinked and turned to Oreo. “What am I saying? It’s just a power cut.” Oreo whined in reply, but before Anna could say anything else, movement outside caught her attention. Looking out of her kitchen window, she watched a couple of teenagers run through the streets, shouting at each other.

  One threw eggs at a house, another a brick into a car’s windscreen.

  Should she call the poli—

  She couldn’t.

  She couldn’t call anyone.

  Her heart pounded in her chest and she knelt, waiting for Oreo to settle in front of her. He nuzzled her neck, his nose cold and wet.

  She needed to stay calm.

  Consider the facts.

  A simple power cut wouldn’t affect her phone, Kindle and laptop.

  Then there were the two broken-down cars.

  She glanced at the clock on the wall. The hands had stopped moving at five to twelve.

  “This isn’t just a power cut,” she whispered, and Oreo whined, offering his paw as if trying to figure out what Anna wanted from him.

  An idea struck her. “Be right back.” Anna grabbed her car keys from the shoe rack next to the front door and slipped into her flip flops. She ran downstairs, exiting the building through the back and found her car. She pressed the button to unlock it.

  Nothing happened.

  Opening the door manually, she gripped the steering wheel with a trembling hand and sat down. She slid the key into the ignition.

  Turned it.

  Nothing.

  Her gut tightened.

  Her phone, laptop, Kindle and now her car.

  No. Anna wasn’t prepared for any kind of emergency whatsoever, but she knew from the books she read how fast savage instincts replaced civilised manners, even if she’d never really believed it. The books had also taught her that inaction or sticking to well-known, yet pointless routines was what killed most people during disasters. They died trying to retrieve their overhead luggage after an emergency landing or running back into their burning houses to fetch their keys.

  Of course, some died out of sheer stupidity. Trying to take a picture of a tsunami rushing at them or posing for a selfie next to a burning plane.

  Survivors either had luck on their side, or they acted quickly—instead of freezing they ran for cover or, if stuck inside, found an exit.

  Everyone else remained paralysed by the adrenaline surge and the resulting brain fog, making all the wrong decisions if they were even able to react at all.

  Anna had two options. She could either assume it was a power cut and settle back down on the sofa, cuddle Oreo for a bit before going to sleep or she could conclude that a city-wide power outage, two broken-down cars, a dead phone and a laptop displaying a blue screen were too much of a coincidence.

  And, of course, her own car.

  Frankly, she preferred option one.

  What was the worst that could happen if she went to sleep?

  Anna locked her car and shuffled back inside. She tried to recall the causes of these disasters in her books. If a solar flare, an EMP or perhaps a major cyber-attack had caused this, the world was in a lot of trouble.

  Supermarkets would be emptied with no one to restock them. Fresh food would perish within a week or two, and once the tinned goods were gone, people would starve.

  Tinned food and medicine would soon be worth more than gold.

  If the broken-down cars, the streetlights, her laptop and her phone were just a coincidence, Anna would laugh at herself come morning and have a funny story to tell her sister right after asking her what the bottled water gathering dust in her kitchen had been for.

  Anna opened her cupboard and stared at her chickpeas, scratching the nape of her neck.

  All her money was safe in the bank. She laughed dryly. So safe that she’d never see it again. Cards were accepted everywhere these days. Did anyone still carry cash?

  Not that cash would remain useful for much longer, but it wouldn’t hurt to have some during those first few days when most people likely still thought the world would go back to normal.

  She closed the cupboard and turned to her dog. “Tell me I’m being silly, and this is just my overactive imagination.” Oreo had retreated into his bed, too busy licking his privates to even acknowledge she’d said something.

  What else would she need if this truly was an attack on the national grid?

  Her gaze swept the kitchen as she mentally ticked off items on a checklist.

  Thankfully, she didn’t need any medicine on prescription. She’d definitely run out if that were the case. The one time she’d needed them, she’d regularly left it to the last day to get her prescription refilled.


  More than once she’d had to beg her GP’s receptionist to please make an exception and bother the doctor after hours so Anna could nip into the pharmacy next door before it closed for the day. Come to think of it, there was probably a note in her file: please don’t prescribe anything to this patient if it can be avoided.

  She found an open packet of ibuprofen, expired antibiotics from when she’d had her tooth abscess and some paracetamol on a shelf next to her crockery, but that was the extent of her medical supplies.

  Her gaze drifted to the knife block, and she pulled out a carving knife. Knives were the only weapons in her flat. The characters in her books had rifles, guns and baseball bats. Anna didn’t even know how to fire a gun—she barely knew the difference between a pistol and a hunting rifle. There was a thing called a trigger, and she’d heard of a hammer.

  And of course, you needed ammunition.

  Oreo was her only defence. She’d tried ballet as a child and had attended Kung-Fu classes during her university years, but her right knee was bust, and one swift kick would be the end of any fight.

  “Ballet isn’t very helpful now, is it, Mum?” Anna rolled her eyes walking past the urn containing her mother’s ashes. She stopped in the doorway to the living room and narrowed her eyes. She played the violin. Not helpful either.

  Although, she thought with a shrug, the instrument could be used as firewood. With a little help from her book collection, she might be able to cook those chicken thighs over an open fire in the communal patch of grass the letting agency called a garden.