Last Light

  Last Light

  Claire Kent

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Claire Kent. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Author’s Note

  About Last Light

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  THIS STORY CAME TO me randomly late last year, and it wouldn’t let me go, despite being nothing like I usually write. I ended up giving into the inspiration and sending it out chapter by chapter to my serial novel list. Then I had a completed novel—one I loved and was proud of—but had no idea what to do with it.

  This one falls somewhere in between my Claire Kent and my Noelle Adams stories. In terms of heat level and core story/theme, it’s probably closer to Noelle Adams, but the only books I’ve written that are anything like this one in style and genre are the Hold series books, so I finally decided to publish this as a Claire Kent title. I’m not expecting this to sell in any numbers, but I wanted to put it out in the world anyway.

  Despite publishing a new Claire Kent book, I’m not planning to restart that pen name. Last Light is a true standalone. I did set up secondary characters in this one with follow-up potential, just in case I get inspired and this one sells more than I’m expecting. But please don’t count on a follow-up book. I wrote most of my Claire Kent books ten or fifteen years ago. I’ve moved on from them creatively. Plus, my Claire Kent books sell about a tenth of what my Noelle Adams books do (even less now that it’s been two years since I’ve published one), so it makes no sense from a business perspective to keep pouring my time and energy into the pen name.

  All that to say that, according to my plans now, this will be my final Claire Kent book. If a miracle happens and this book actually moves, or if I get inspired with another story unexpectedly, those plans could certainly change. But no matter how much I appreciate those of you who’ve read and loved my Claire Kent books, I don’t want anyone to be holding their breath for more.

  About Last Light

  IT ONLY TOOK FOUR YEARS for the world to fall apart.

  Now the last member of my family has died, and I'm forced to travel across what's left of three states to find the only people I know left alive. To survive, I'll have to salvage food and supplies and try to avoid violent men who've learned they can take what they want by force. The only way I'm going to make it is by trusting Travis.

  Travis used to fix my car, and now he's all I have left in the world. He's gruff and stoic and unfriendly, and I don't really know or like him. But he's all I have left. He'll keep me safe. We'll take care of each other. Until we reach what's left of our town and can finally let go of one another.

  Last Light is a standalone post-apocalyptic romance set in the near future after a global catastrophe.

  One

  I RECOGNIZE THE MAN immediately. I don’t remember his name, but he used to fix my car.

  He was our local mechanic, and when I was sixteen I took my car to his garage for repairs and maintenance. He always smelled like oil and cigarettes, and he invariably needed to shave. He never smiled at me, but he was patient as he explained the work that needed doing, and my grandfather swore he was honest and would never cheat us.

  But right now he’s standing over the motorcycle I just found—one that miraculously still has gas. He’s got a shotgun in one hand, and he’s rifling through my bag with the other.

  I stumbled across this abandoned gas station an hour ago. All the gasoline, food, and most of the supplies were scavenged long ago, but in the mess I found two intact packs of wet wipes and a large bottle of water that had rolled under an overturned shelf.

  Out back, behind the smashed gas pumps and the old building, I hit pay dirt. An inexpensive motorcycle just on the edge of the woods behind the station.

  I pulled off the weeds that had grown up over it, hauled it upright, and held my breath as I fiddled with the wiring. (Everyone who’s survived this long knows how to hot-wire a vehicle, just like we all know how to load and fire a gun.) I almost laughed when the engine turned over.

  It’s been more than a year since I’ve gotten my hands on a working vehicle.

  I left my bag on the seat and took three steps into the woods so I could pee behind a tree. In spite of everything, a semblance of privacy is a habit I still can’t kick.

  It’s a mistake.

  There was no one around when I pulled down my pants and squatted, but there is now as I straighten, yank up my jeans, and turn around.

  A man. Laying claim to my stuff.

  I pull out the pistol I keep in a holster on my right hip, and I level it at him as I step out from behind a tree.

  I surprise him. That’s something.

  He jerks visibly at my appearance and starts to raise his shotgun.

  “Don’t.” I’ve walked to the opposite side of the motorcycle from him. “Back up.”

  His expression changes as his eyes rest on my face. He’s on guard. That much is clear. His body is tense, and his hand is in a ready position on the gun. He hasn’t raised it yet, however. He’s holding in his other hand a book he took from my bag.

  “Back up,” I say again, making my voice as hard as I can.

  I’m not nearly as intimidating as I’d like to be. My face looks young, and my body is small. My hair is long, brown, and braided, and my eyes are brown too. I have a dimple in my chin, which is about as unintimidating as you can get. But my gun is loaded, and I know how to use it.

  I hope he can see that.

  He takes a step back, and the hand holding the book goes up in a gesture of surrender. “Didn’t know you was here,” he says, his voice soft and gravelly and twanging with a mountain accent in the way I remember from four years ago in his garage. “Just saw the bike and thought I’d take a look. I ain’t gonna hurt you.”

  “You sure as hell aren’t going to hurt me. Back the fuck up.” I’m poised over the motorcycle now, and I brace my free hand on the seat.

  He’s got to be over thirty—based on his appearance and what I know of his history—and he’s not a particularly handsome man. His features are strong and rough, and his light brown hair is unkempt. His face is dirty and so are his jeans and the shirt he’s wearing—a gray T-shirt with the sleeves torn off. But he’s got a lean, straight body with broad shoulders and good definition in his arms—the kind that comes from use rather than weight lifting.

  He takes another step backward, and he speaks the way he might to a spooked animal. “You know me. I’m Travis Farrell. I’m from Meadows too. I fixed your car. I’m not lookin’ to steal from you or hurt you. I was passing through.”

  Travis. That’s his name.

  I want to believe him about everything else.

  I’d love to believe him.

  My grandpa always said he was an honest man.

  But the world I knew four years ago has cracked at its core, and even men who once seemed decent can’t be trusted anymore.

  I don’t say anything, and I don’t lower my pistol.

  “You’re Layne, right? Layne Patterson?” Travis’s eyes look dark gray in the dim sunlight and across the distance between us. They search my face and t
hen take a quick detour down my body.

  They don’t linger on my chest even though my plaid overshirt is hanging open and my faded tank top is plastered to my breasts from perspiration. And they don’t rest too long on my lower body even though my old jeans are worn paper thin and riding very low on my hips. His gaze returns to my face and stays there.

  It’s something, but it’s not enough for me to lower my guard.

  I don’t respond to his question, but he must take my silence for an affirmation. He continues, “You had the blue Focus with the ornery transmission. I’m Travis. You remember me?”

  My head inclines slightly.

  His expression relaxes even more. “You wanna lower the gun?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. I’m gonna put mine down. Nice and slow.” He bends over as he speaks and sets his shotgun on the gravel with intentional care.

  I feel better when he straightens up, but I’m not stupid enough to believe this man is now safe. He’s got a hunting rifle strapped to his back and a knife twice the size of mine sheathed on his belt.

  He doesn’t smell like oil and cigarettes anymore. He smells like dirt and sweat.

  So do I. It’s not something that bothers me now.

  “You on your own?”

  I don’t answer.

  “You headin’ to Fort Knox?”

  I don’t think I nodded, but he acts like I did.

  “Me too,” he says. “You can stick with me if you want.”

  My shoulders stiffen. “I’m not looking for company.”

  His eyes widen slightly. “Not like that. I wouldn’t expect nothin’. Pretty little thing like you—you’re not safe on your own.”

  He’s right. I know he’s right. But everyone I’ve ever trusted is dead or long gone. “How do I know I’d be safe with you?”

  “I knew your grandparents. Your grandma taught me in Sunday school. I stuck with the town till the end. Wasn’t militia. Didn’t join a drove. You remember me there after we blew the bridge? I was with the hunters.”

  I do remember him from a year or so ago when what was left of Meadows was hunkered down behind a guarded perimeter. I have images of him returning with deer or wild turkey more than once, even after the animals in the woods became scarce, sharing what he’d killed with everyone else, supplementing our rations.

  He must see something on my face. His jaw softens. “I’m a decent guy, Layne. I’m not gonna hurt you or ask for anythin’ you don’t wanna give.”

  I want to trust him so much that my hand trembles. It takes a conscious effort to hold the gun still. “Why didn’t you leave town with everyone else?”

  His face twists so briefly I almost miss it. “I had a sick little girl. Wasn’t even five. Couldn’t leave her.”

  I hear the loss in his voice—faint, aching, matching the weight in my chest.

  Everyone who’s still alive has lost someone.

  A lot of us have lost everyone.

  “What about you?” he asks. “You stuck around for someone?”

  “My grandma.”

  “Her lungs?”

  I nod. The ash in the atmosphere for the past few years—only now starting to clear from the air—has killed as many people and animals as the droves, tsunamis, earthquakes, and hurricanes.

  The ash just kills them slower.

  “My little Grace too. She died a couple of weeks ago. I’m headed to Fort Knox now, so you can come with me if you want.”

  I’m tempted.

  This isn’t a nice man or a friendly one, but he’s strong and well armed and knows how to hunt. He also comes across as decent, just like he says.

  My instincts are better now than they used to be when I was a sixteen-year-old girl living a comfortable life. My parents died in a car accident when I was twelve, and that was the hardest thing that ever happened to me. I had to leave Charlotte and move to Meadows, a small mountain town in southwest Virginia. My grandparents were loving and well-off, and they did everything they could for me. Despite my grief, I made good grades in school. I had a lot of friends. I was getting interested in boys. I didn’t feel like I fully belonged in Meadows, but I was basically happy there.

  Like all the other girls I knew, I approached strange men with reasonable precautions but still assumed that most of them would act civilized. That was before. Afterward, in the first year when we still had cable and internet, I’d watch the news reports from the big cities, which one by one fell into violence and chaos, and I’d rock back and forth in nauseated shock at hearing about what men were doing to women and children.

  I stupidly thought my little town—far away from the main population centers and most of the violence, protected by mountains and a river and guarded by men who’d been taught to hunt and shoot from birth—would keep me safe.

  My instincts are better now. They have to be, living in this world.

  I know not all men act like animals. I had a father who loved me. I had a boyfriend at seventeen who was sweet and gentle as we made out, as we kissed and touched each other, as he hesitantly slipped his hands under my shirt in the back of an abandoned Oldsmobile. I had a grandfather who gave his life trying to protect those under his care.

  I know some men are still good, but all the ones I knew are dead now.

  And now that there are no consequences to men taking whatever they want, there are just as many bad ones as good ones, and some of the bad ones talk a good game.

  I’m not going to risk it.

  Not even for the protection a traveling companion like Travis would give me.

  “What d’you say, Layne? Put down the gun. We can go to Fort Knox together.”

  I swallow and shake my head so hard the two long braids that hang down my back bounce slightly. “No. I’ll stay on my own.”

  He lets out a breath, but that’s his only reaction. “Okay. Be careful.”

  “I’m always careful. Now come forward slowly and put that book back in my bag.”

  He glances down at the book he’s still holding like he’s forgotten about it. “Poems?”

  Maybe it’s foolish to take a book with me when every inch of my pack needs to hold necessities, but I couldn’t leave it behind. It’s a slim paperback volume called Best-Loved Poems, and I read it over and over to my grandmother as she died. “Yes. Return it and then back all the way up to the building.”

  “Okay.” He takes a few steps forward and drops the book into my opened bag, and then he starts moving back again. “You’re makin’ a mistake, girl. You’re not gonna last out there.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I notice him glance down at his shotgun still lying on the gravel, which is spread thinly over hard dirt. I momentarily think about taking it. Weapons are nearly as valuable as food or working vehicles. But I decide against it.

  Like everyone else, I stick to the rule that anything I find that isn’t already claimed by someone else is fair game to be salvaged. I’ll take it without a qualm. But that shotgun is Travis’s, and he’s standing right there.

  Besides, it’s really big, and I’m not entirely confident I’m capable of using it.

  I glance back up at him and see he’s eyeing me. He knows exactly what I’m thinking as I look at his gun.

  “I’ll leave that for you,” I tell him. “But don’t come get it until I’m gone.”

  “Deal.”

  “All the way back to the building.”

  He does as I say, no longer trying to change my mind.

  As soon as he’s far enough away, I pick up my bag, swing my leg over the seat of the motorcycle, and holster my gun. I rev the engine.

  It’s still running just fine.

  Some of the dirt and gravel flies up in a cloud of dust as I take off toward the road, leaving Travis and his shotgun and the last remnant of my town behind.

  IT ONLY TOOK FOUR YEARS for the whole world to fall apart.

  I was sixteen when an asteroid slammed into Germany, the shock waves and blast debris decimating most
of Western Europe. Astronomers saw it coming, but it wasn’t supposed to hit us. They talked about it, imagined scenarios of what would happen if it did. But it was all theoretical, and no one paid much attention.

  Because it was supposed to pass us by, close but not close enough.

  But scientists—everyone—learned a hard lesson about the universe’s unpredictability. The trajectory of the asteroid changed course just slightly. They realized it a couple of months before impact, but there was absolutely nothing we could do to stop a chunk of rock so large and moving so fast from doing exactly what it wanted.

  It hit.

  The asteroid wasn’t big enough for an extinction-level event. That’s what all the scientists said.

  But it was worse than anyone could imagine.

  The mass exodus from Europe in the two months before it hit disrupted the worldwide economy and stability as every developed country took in as many immigrants as they possibly could. The dust and debris that was thrown up from the impact caused global temperatures to cool and a haze to block much of the sunlight for almost a year.

  And, if that wasn’t bad enough, the planet tried to fight back against the assault, throwing up devastating tsunamis, hurricanes, and earthquakes on every continent.

  In the US, we didn’t feel the immediate impact, but we sure as hell felt the aftermath. People fled from the coasts, moving in waves toward the middle of the country to escape the battering of one hurricane after another on the East Coast and the constant earthquakes on the West Coast.

  Then the supervolcano under Yellowstone started to rumble. There was never a major eruption, but for two years it spit out cloud after cloud of ash.

  The vast stretches of farmland in the middle of North America that might have barely survived the cooling temperatures and haze of dust were finished off by the ash.

  There went our food.

  Power, communication, and government went next.

  People died. And kept dying.

  In the last radio transmission I heard, they were estimating that the world population had been reduced by half.