Available Darkness: The Complete Series
Sean Platt
David W. Wright
Copyright © 2020 by Sterling & Stone
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Contents
Available Darkness: Book One
I. Awakenings
Prologue — A Boy Long Ago
1. Caleb
2. The Amnesiac
3. A Boy Long Ago
4. The Amnesiac
5. The Amnesiac
6. Caleb
7. John
8. Abigail
9. John
10. Abigail
11. John
12. Abigail
13. Caleb
14. John
15. Abigail And John
16. Jacob
17. John
18. Caleb
19. John
20. Caleb
21. John
22. Abigail
23. Caleb
24. Abigail
25. A Boy Long Ago
26. Caleb
27. John
28. Larry
29. Brock
30. John
31. Larry, John, Abigail, And Brock
32. John
33. Abigail And Larry
34. John
35. Caleb
36. Larry And John
37. Caleb
38. Larry And John
39. Caleb
40. Abigail And John
II. Into The Forgotten Past
41. John
42. Jacob
43. Hope
44. John
45. Hope
46. John And Hope
47. Hope And John
48. Jacob
49. Caleb
50. Jacob
51. John
52. Caleb, John, And Hope
53. Hope And John
54. Caleb
55. Hope And John
56. Caleb
57. John And Caleb
III. Into The Present
58. John
60. Larry And John
61. Caleb Baldwin
62. Abigail
63. John
64. Jacob And Caleb
65. John
66. John And Caleb
67. Abigail
68. John, Caleb, And Larry
69. Caleb
70. John And Caleb
71. Larry And John
72. John
Epilogue
Available Darkness: Book Two
Prologue
1. John
2. Abigail
3. Larry
4. Abigail
5. John
6. Hannah (Hope)
7. John
8. Duncan
9. John
10. Abigail
11. Hannah
12. Larry
13. John
14. Greg
15. John
16. Abigail
17. Hannah
18. Duncan
19. Abigail
20. John
21. Hannah
22. Duncan
23. Duncan
24. Larry
25. John
26. Hannah
27. John
28. Jacob
29. Hannah
30. Duncan
31. Hannah
32. John
33. Abigail
34. Hannah
35. John And Larry
36. Abigail
37. Larry
38. Jacob
39. John
40. Hannah
41. Abigail
42. Hannah
43. John
44. Larry
45. Hope
46. John
Epilogue
Available Darkness: Book Three
Prologue
1. Jacob
2. John
3. Abigail
4. John
5. Abigail
6. Abigail
7. John
8. Caleb
9. Hope
10. John
11. Larry
12. Hope
13. John
14. Abigail
15. Caleb
16. Abigail
17. Jacob
18. John
19. Jacob
20. King Zol
21. John
22. Hope
23. Abigail
24. Abigail
25. Jacob
26. John
27. Caleb
28. John
29. Abigail
30. John
31. Hope
32. Caleb
33. Abigail
Interlude - Jacob Aage 13
34. Jacob
35. Caleb
36. Abigail
37. Hope
38. Abigail
39. Caleb
40. Raina
41. Abigail
42. John
43. Caleb
44. Abigail
45. John
46. Judith
47. Abigail
48. Talani
49. John
50. Raina
51. Judith
52. Jacob
53. Abigail
54. Talani
55. John
56. Caleb
57. Hope
58. Abigail
59. John
60. Hope
61. John
62. Raina
63. John
64. Hope
65. John
66. Abigail
67. Hope
68. Larry
69. Hope
70. John
71. Hope
72. Abigail
73. John
74. Abigail
75. Abigail
76. John
77. Hope
78. John
What to read next
A Quick Favor…
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About the Authors
For Todd.
April 1970 – April 1996
Awakenings
“Remembering is only a new form of suffering.”
― Charles Baudelaire
Prologue — A Boy Long Ago
He was a child when he first learned of monsters.
Lying in bed, pillow clutched over his head, trying to drown out the muffled sounds of his parents fighting downstairs. Father was drunk. Again. Violence electric in the air. The current’s ripple caused his hairs to stand on end.
Soon the sounds of screaming would die, replaced by horrible cries and the sickening sound of flesh bruising flesh. Perhaps his father’s bloodlust would be sated. Maybe the boy’s door would burst open and the battle would continue on the second floor, again.
He prayed in vain to a God he long ago stopped believing in.
Please, stop him.
The house fell silent. That meant one of two things: either his prayer had been answered or, more likely, the monster was coming.
The boy pulled the pillow from his head, straining to hear the sounds of footfalls on stairs. He clos
ed his eyes tightly and braced for what was coming. He would pretend to sleep. Sometimes it worked; sometimes monsters could be fooled.
The door creaked open behind him. He tried to camouflage his rapid breathing so the monster wouldn’t know he was awake. Light bathed the wall, and in that light, like a dark stain promising violence, the monster’s shadow.
The boy buried his face deeper into his pillow and focused on his breath.
In, out, in, out. Nice and slow.
The door closed with a whisper and cast the room into darkness.
He waited to hear retreating footsteps, but heard nothing. He was certain the monster was in the room — waiting.
He could feel his father’s hateful eyes.
In, out, in, out — just pretend, and maybe he’ll go away.
He wasn’t sure how long he feigned sleep, but it felt like forever. Suddenly, he heard his father’s voice again downstairs, followed by his mother’s crying out.
Surprised, the boy figured he must have fallen asleep and missed his father’s departure. Yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t alone — that the stare was still on him. He slowly turned over, eyes still closed, pretending to still be asleep. He drew one more breath, then risked opening his eyes.
The shadow in the corner wasn’t a shadow or a man. It slid across the wall and hung in the air like a cruel mockery of both.
The boy screamed.
The memory, like a bubble, rose and broke as it crashed to the surface …
One
Caleb
October 20, 2011
Morning
FBI Special Agent Caleb Baldwin narrowed his tired eyes at the charred bodies. His team processed the crime scene: two bodies burned through, wearing clothes barely touched by flames, in a house also unscathed by fire or smoke.
Oakview Police Chief Arnie Williams walked up shaking his head. “You ever seen anything like this?”
It was too early for dumb questions. Why would he be here, if not to investigate murders with victims in this exact condition?
“You’re the one who responded to our memo, right?” Caleb asked, his attention still on the charred corpses.
The chief looked down at his shoes.
Caleb was maybe twenty years younger than the chief, who was on the far side of sixty. Yet Caleb carried the jaded look of a man who’d seen five lifetimes of action. He also wore the look of a man who was used to calling the shots and waiting for Yes, sirs! Which is exactly what he got when he and his seven-member team arrived, brushed the locals aside, and locked down the crime scene.
“So, do you guys have a profile of the unsub?” A nervous half smile toyed with the chief’s lips.
For the first time, Caleb turned to meet his eyes.
Williams was no different from the other cops Caleb usually met in small towns like this. Eager police looking to flaunt their scant knowledge of serial crimes in front of the FBI agent. Caleb wasn’t sure which he liked least: the small-town lapdogs who showed off or the asshole city cops who wouldn’t cooperate until Caleb put the fear of God into them. Lapdogs were easier to control, so the edge probably went to them, but only barely.
Besides, this case was still fresh, and he might need the chief’s cooperation if another body popped up soon. So he swallowed his annoyance and responded.
“We’re still working the profile, but we’ll keep you in the loop,” Caleb lied, holding the chief’s stare for a long moment until the old man retreated and found something else to occupy his time.
According to the chief, the two bodies were Randy Webster, a club bouncer with a penchant for hard drugs and even harder violence. The woman was his live-in girlfriend, Stacy Harrison, who’d spent years with Randy on the receiving end of both. Their next-door neighbor had heard screaming, though saw nothing, and called 911. Three hours later, just before dawn, Caleb’s Special Investigative Team was on the case.
Caleb leaned in and looked closer at the ashen bodies being examined by Agent Leslie Chang.
“Are the burns the same?” Caleb asked the pathologist.
“They seem to be.”
It had been three months since Caleb’s unit had been called to one of these familiar scenes, two states away.
His team was one of two working under Washington State’s Escalated Threat Division, which handled unexplained phenomena posing a threat to society. The team served the dual function of solving crimes and removing threats, a job they performed exceedingly well.
But this particular case was proving difficult.
Seventy-three murders in twenty years, every victim in the same condition: not just burned completely through, but ignited without accelerant. No gas, no chemicals, nothing. And the point of origin for each fire was inside the body, not outside. A body usually stops burning when the fuel used to ignite the fire is finally depleted. But that wasn’t the case with these victims. They kept burning at an elevated temperature, the body using fat for fuel, until there was nothing but cinders.
And unlike normal fires, the burning in these cases was limited to the victims alone and never spread to surrounding areas. Clothing was only marginally burned. The deaths were most similar to cases of spontaneous human combustion, though these cases were anything but spontaneous.
The murders had been occurring mostly on the West Coast during the past two years. Tonight found Caleb’s team in Oakview, Washington, a small suburban town west of the Cascades.
Caleb stared down at the corpses and examined the living room, searching for anything which the others had missed — some clue that might lead to his killer. Scanning the scene, he absentmindedly turned his wedding band, unable to look at the corpses without thinking of his dead wife, Julia — victim number forty-three.
An excited voice erupted from the basement.
“Jackpot!”
Caleb shouldered his way past the locals, down to the basement where Agent Harris was standing beside Agent Roberts in front of a closed circuit TV monitor. The screen was frozen on the image of a shirtless young man with dark hair caught swinging a chair at a giant bald man, one of the two victims upstairs.
“This is our guy.” Harris almost whistled, pointing at the screen. “We’ve got him.”
Caleb stared at the man he’d been tracking forever.
His mind’s eye had worked up hundreds of images of what the man would look like, but none resembled the picture on-screen. This man was much younger than the profile the agents had been working from. The killer seemed mid- to late twenties. His hair was long, hanging in his face. Shirtless, and bloody, he looked more like a college kid on the losing end of a bar brawl than the fortysomething-year-old they’d profiled.
Maybe he wasn’t tracking one killer.
Caleb wasn’t sure why the dead man had his house wired with security cameras in nearly every room, including outside — paranoia or suspicions his girlfriend was fucking around?
“Play it,” Caleb instructed his agents.
“There’s nothing after this,” Roberts said. “The cameras all went to shit at once.”
It happened just as the killer and the bald man began to wrestle. The screen flickered with quick images and then went to snow.
“Signal jammer?” Roberts asked.
“Doubtful,” Caleb said. “You check connections on the cameras?”
Roberts nodded and clicked a button to show every working screen.