Still of Night (Dead of Night 3)

“It’s a gift,” said Abigail after a pause so long I thought she’d drifted off.

“What is?”

&n

bsp; “The stars.”

Above us the roof of the world was painted with ten trillion chips of diamond dust. Some were planets, some were stars, and some, I knew, were whole galaxies. We could see the sweep of the Milky Way, too.

She said, “Before the plague there were always lights and most people—most of us—never really knew how much those lights washed away most of the stars. Even in the small town where I lived, there were lights. Street lights, stop lights, car lights.” She turned to me, her face edged with silver starlight. “Have you ever seen stars like this?”

“Before all this? Yes, but only in pretty remote places,” I said. “On ships far out to sea, in Death Valley, couple of deep deserts. And Antarctica once. A few other places. It’s humbling.”

“It’s everywhere now,” said Abigail. “A new twist on the Dark Ages, I suppose. And maybe that’s what this will be called. The New Dark Ages.”

“And yet,” I said, “look at how much light there is.”

She said nothing. When I glanced over at her I saw she was crying.

***

Later—much later—we got up and began walking along the road. Baskerville ranged ahead, silent for all his bulk, to make sure that we were not walking into danger. The world was full of monsters, but they were not everywhere all the time.

“Why are you out here, Joe?” asked Abigail. “What are you looking for?”

“Would it be corny to say I’m looking for hope?”

“A little.”

I grinned. “I’m looking for a man that I think is someone I used to know. Maybe you’ve run into him out here. Older man, very tough, exceptionally smart. Maybe wears black gloves . . . ?”

“Oh!” she said, smiling. “Mr. Church.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “You’ve met him?”

She walked three paces more, then turned. “Yes. A lovely man.”

“Wait, wait, stop,” I said, touching her arm. “This is important to me. I need to know if we’re really talking about the same person. Describe him to me.”

“Why is it so important?” she asked, and I could almost see defensive shutters drop between us.

“Remember me telling you about the two special operations teams I used to run with? The Department of Military Sciences and—”

“Rogue Team International,” she finished. “Yes. Why?”

“Church created both organizations. I worked for him and with him, and as far as I’m concerned, he is the strongest, smartest and most critically important person I’ve ever known. If anyone can help us beat this, it’s him and—”

“‘Beat this’?” she echoed. “Joe, much as I admire optimism, much as I like to think of the glass half full and a waiter coming with a fresh pitcher, there is no way to fix this. We lost the world. Millions of people are dead, possibly hundreds of millions or even billions. There is no infrastructure, many of the cities have been destroyed with nuclear weapons, the power grid is out, cell phones don’t work, not even cars will drive. The soldiers I’ve met have all said that there is no one giving orders anymore. And all of those dead people are actively hunting a dwindling number of surviving living people. I’m not trying to kick you below the belt, Joe, but how can anyone fix that?”

“I . . . ” But my words faltered. “I don’t know, Abigail. That’s the whole thing. He probably has a plan. When you talked to him, did he say anything about that? About how we’re going to beat this plague?”

Instead of answering immediately, she began walking again and I fell into step beside her. We walked maybe a hundred yards before she spoke.

“Joe, I only spoke with him a few times. Maybe twice at any length. If he had any knowledge about how to stop the plague, or some way to reverse it, he never said so. Mostly we talked about how to manage things as they were. He had some very good ideas about scavenging, about locating and establishing a safe haven. That’s why we’re heading south now.”

“Are you going to Asheville?” I asked.

“That’s a long walk,” she said. “We have a pregnant woman in our group and quite frankly I don’t think she could make it. No, Mr. Church told me about a food distribution warehouse forty or so miles from here. It was overrun at first, but he said that the people who were there had not acted in practical ways. He found the place and cleared it out, then sealed it so that it would be accessible to travelers who knew how to get in. Even left an inventory of the supplies and refilled the tanks on the generator. He hid some weapons and told me where to find them. I had the impression that he was very particular about who he trusted with this information. He even told me a code phrase to use if someone else got there first, so they would know we were also sent by him. Does . . . that sound like the person you used to know?”