by Tara Brown
The Earth’s End
The Seventh Day Series
Tara Brown
The Earth’s End
Book Three in The Seventh Day Series
By Tara Brown
Copyright 2019 Tara Brown
This is a work of fiction.
All names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text Copyright © 2019 Tara Brown
This work is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This work may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written consent of the publisher.
Published by Tara Brown.
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. No alteration of content is permitted.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover Art by Dark Tree Designs
Edited by Andrea Burns
All rights reserved.
ISBN- 9781688601680
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Contents
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
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
The End
Born
Other YA Books by Tara Brown
About the Author
This is for you
1
Day One
Tanya
“Hurry up!” she calls to me, her voice losing some of its punch as she weaves through the cars and the crowd of people strolling across the gravel parking lot in small herds toward our destination. “We want good seats,” is the last thing I hear before I lose sight of her completely.
She’s been eaten up by the crowd, which brings a panic to my chest as I slide between two large women carrying lawn chairs and smelling of sunscreen although the autumn sun has crested the hills behind us.
I duck and weave and press up against the sides of strangers and cars, desperate to find my buddy in the mob.
But she’s gone.
My heart stops as my breath shoots from my parted lips, “Van?”
She’s gone.
I’ve lost her.
I had one request from Ms. Mara: don’t lose Vanessa, and I’ve blown it.
“Tanya!” her voice calls. “Tan! Up here!” She waves a hand at me, shouting my name until my eyes lift and make contact with hers, high in the air. She grins that evil smirk from the top of a van near the edge of the parking lot. It’s a smirk last seen three nights ago when she conned our teacher into getting Chinese takeaway instead of Indian curry, though no one else wanted Chinese food.
Thinking about the Chinese food annoys me, and my tone is harsher than I intend, “Get down!” I hurry forward, cutting off a man who grunts to a halt. “You’ll dent the roof, you idiot.”
“He said I could!” She points to the man in the window of the dark van, his eyes shining with the last of the fading sun and something else. Something that makes the magic in my stomach go wild.
Thousands of years of survival and evolution screams to get away from him, but I do the thing girls do. I smile politely. “Sorry, sir. I’ll get her down.”
“No, she’s fine,” he says through the open window, leaning toward me a bit. “You can go on up if you like. I’ll give you a lift up too.” He opens the door to step out.
“No!” All politeness goes out the window as I step back. “That's fine, I’m scared of heights.” It’s a lie, a smart one. He licks his lips and his eyes travel the length of me.
“That’s too bad. You wanna come inside and stay warm?” He motions toward the inside of the van. “We got plenty of room.”
“I’m good.” I nearly gag my response. “The rest of our group is just behind me.” I hold a thumb up, pointing at the cluster starting to catch up. My heart slows as I take another step back, distancing myself from him and his bad intentions.
“Vanessa, get down from there right now!” Ms. Mara, our teacher snaps, breathless from keeping up with the herd of us. “Bloody hell, kid, I told you no shenanigans, not tonight.”
Vanessa parts her lips to argue but the combination of the tone and glare coming from our teacher is one you don't argue with. She nods and climbs down carefully, landing with that smug grin. “Fine.”
“I told her it was all right—”
“No, thank you!” Ms. Mara snaps at the man in the van. He flinches at her harshness and closes the door.
“Is it just me or does he remind you of Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs?” Louis, my friend, whispers next to me, breathing heavily from catching up.
“That’s who it is.” I snap my fingers as the realization of why I was terrified of him comes to light. My best friend back in Laurel, Lou, made me watch that movie when we were thirteen; the story stuck with me. “He’s totally creepy in a ‘put the lotion on’ sort of way,” I mutter back as the Canadians, marching to watch the fireworks, part around us like the Red Sea did for Moses.
“She doesn't have a single sense of survival that one,” Louis adds. “Come on.” He follows Ms. Mara through the crowd as she grabs Vanessa by the arm and drags her away, lecturing her in violent whispers.
We cross the field to where the fireworks will be, trekking in a mob until we arrive at the spot, noticeable by the families and couples already seated on blankets or in chairs.
“Let’s sit here,” Ms. Mara says and puts down the blanket she holds in the hand not gripping Vanessa. Vanessa sits in a flump, clearly pissed about being cockblocked on the possible rape and murder being offered by the dude in the van, and maybe not in that order. She truly has no common sense. Louis says she’s always been like that. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been at their school in Billings long enough to know them as well as they know each other. I’ve only been their classmate for a couple of years now.
Louis and I sit at the back to avoid Ms. Mara, and Vanessa, who is still getting a lecture, as the rest of the kids from our field trip start to put down blankets and sit. We’re a small cluster of twenty Americans, far from home but not far from the US. We’ve discovered that from some parts of Vancouver Island, you can see the States. “Close neighbors” is how Ms. Mara describes us but from what I’ve gathered, the Canadians don’t seem to be under the same impression. I kinda feel like maybe they don’t like being our neighbor.
“Hey, guys,” Mitch, another classmate, whispers and
comes to sit next to us. “Is there room for me?”
“Sure.” I move a bit closer to Louis, hoping to suck some warmth from him while making room for our other friend. I’m freezing, so sitting between the two big guys in the group is no loss to me. Regardless of the Canadian ladies smelling of sunscreen, the chill in the air is noticeable. I assume the humidity on the coast makes it worse. But maybe it’s because we’re in Canada and my brain automatically considers that to be chillier, though we’re only a few miles from the border. Like the wind knows it should blow harder in the North.
I suppose if we were in Anacortes, where we boarded the ferry to come to Victoria, a city on the southern tip of Vancouver Island in western Canada, it might be this nippy. Or near to it.
All in all, it makes me miss home. The Pacific Northwest isn’t for me. It’s about the only thing I’ve really learned on this trip. Sasha and Jamie back in Laurel always say they’re going to come here after high school and live in Seattle and go to college. I see now the plan won’t work for me. Permanently muggy is not my idea of a nice time.
The sun sinks behind the hills completely, taking with it the line of light and the last of dusk, leaving the buzzing mass of people sitting in darkness. Phones working as flashlights illuminate certain parts of the crowd. Parents hurry kids into position, getting them settled with snacks and jackets.
Girls light their faces up with screens and Snapchat and Instagram, and boys make loud jokes and mock wrestle and tease each other, trying desperately to steal the girls’ attention from their phones.
“You excited?” Mitch asks.
“Yeah. I love fireworks. You?”
“Yeah. I’m super tired, but I’m glad we’re getting to see this.” He yawns. “I had the worst sleep last night.” He pauses, shaking his head at himself like he’s being silly or doesn't want to tell me. “I think it was a nightmare actually. My mom was screaming at me about something. Telling me to run. I don't know.”
“I had a weird mom-nightmare too,” Louis says, leaning across me and sounding a bit bewildered.
“It must have been that movie we were watching in our room. What was it called again?”
“Oh yeah.” Louis laughs and squints at me like he’s thinking. “We watched that movie you talked about on the bus. The old one.”
“Practical Magic?” I can’t recall what else we were talking about on the bus.
“No, the other one. Uhhhh—”
“Sleepwalkers!” Mitch says with a clap as he recalls it. “That was freaking weird.”
“It was.” I chuckle but I’m interrupted by a shimmer in the air that breeds a spark of anticipation in the crowd as we wait for what was described to us as the best fireworks show this side of the border.
The man who directed us here made a point of saying it was far superior to the one in Vancouver’s harbor. Ms. Mara had sounded impressed, but I knew that tone well. It was the one she used to pretend she cared when students were telling her something she honestly didn't give a shit about. She was a master of that response now.
I’m about to say something else when the shimmer happens again, followed by a small light shooting up into the air. A single silvery firework that does nothing but die off at the end of its climb.
We all pause, the crowd silences, the anticipation grows, and just as I’m about to squint in confusion, it hits. It takes off all at once.
And it’s great.
It’s insane actually.
The lights and rockets shoot into the sky, bursting and booming, reverberating the ground so violently I feel it inside me. We gasp and ohhhhhh and smile in sync.
Children clap and couples kiss and everyone is amazed, even the girls taking selfies. There’s no denying the fact we are all impressed.
It’s the best fireworks show I’ve ever seen.
A purple one bursts into a flower with a red one right behind it, sparkling and booming as a green one somehow forms a bit of a stem on the flower. The white lights brighten the whole field and the tremor inside me is felt all the way to my toes.
In the middle of it, I pull my phone from my pocket and take a small video of the craziness to show my brother when I get home.
“Good idea,” Mitch says as he gets up and raises his phone, standing off to the side.
The lights burst and blossom in my eyes, making the whole crowd gasp. It’s so bright, I swear I’m warmer from the light they let off. It seems to go on forever, one after the other until finally it ends in a grand finale that has everyone cheering.
Louis turns to me, his eyes wide and glistening with excitement. “That guy wasn't kidding. I was doubtful when that one shitty little firework went off at the start. I was thinking, Oh man, we got conned. But damn! That was amazing.”
“Amazing.” I open Instagram to load up the small video of bursting lights.
Instead of my feed, a red pop-up hits my screen.
CNN ALERT
I tap the tiny X to close it, but it opens the link.
“Stupid phone,” I grumble as it opens my Safari and takes me to the CNN website, leaving me a bit confused by the headline. I almost tap the article to open it but worry it’s fake. I’ve never seen a pop-up like this on Instagram. “Did I just get hacked?” I show Louis my phone.
“What, why?” He takes it. “What is this?”
“I don’t know, some weird link.”
“America panics as Western Europe joins Asia and has gone dark now as well?” He reads the headline that confused me then lifts his eyes back to mine. “What does that mean?”
“I don't know. What’s gone dark? How does a country go dark?”
“Western Europe isn’t a country, dummy.”
“You know what I mean. Like the sun isn’t hitting them or what?” I lift my eyes to the dark sky here and do the math for time differences. “It’s early morning in Europe now, right? Maybe the sun hasn't risen yet. Or maybe it set early.”
“The sun setting early in Europe requires a CNN alert in Canada?” he asks dubiously. “This sounds like a hoax. What did you click on? Were you looking at porn?”
“Uh no.” I scoff and almost remind him I’m a girl. But the argument would be invalid. I know loads of girls who watch porn. “I clicked on Insta to load the video of the fireworks then CNN popped up.”
“CNN popped up from Insta? That doesn't make sense.” Louis starts moving his fingers faster than my eyes can keep up. In the glow of the screen, he makes varying faces, scowling, biting his lip, and wrinkling his nose as he moves through my apps and the internet.
“What is it?” I ask the moment he pauses and his expression changes to one of shock.
“Okay, kids, pretty impressive, huh?” Ms. Mara stands up and turns to us all, but my eyes are stuck on Louis.
“This makes no sense. This literally makes no sense,” he repeats himself but in a completely different tone before handing me back my phone which is now on Facebook, showing a video I’ve never seen before.
“What is this?” I ask. “Who is this? This isn’t one of my friends.”
He’s looking at something else on his phone, ignoring me.
I tap the “play” icon as the video shows a man biting another man, ripping his flesh. “Gross! What the hell? Is this that homeless dude in Florida again? People in Florida are so weird.”
“What is it?” Mitch asks as he kneels next to me once more.
“I don’t know. Some homeless guy in Florida I think.” I hold my phone so he can see.
“Oh my God,” Louis cuts me off but continues to ignore me, staring at his own phone and talking to himself. “Holy shit!”
“What?” I pry too loudly, earning looks from everyone else who is paying attention to our teacher.
“Something you care to add, Mr. Bijoux?” Ms. Mara asks sternly from where she stands in front of us.
“No, ma’am.” Louis dims the screen display on his phone so she can’t see the glow from where he’s holding it behind the back of one of the o
ther kids. But up close, I see his expression doesn't change from horrified as he scans and reads and moves onto the next articles faster and faster. His eyes are so wide they might pop out of their sockets.
“You’re freaking me out. What did you see?” I whisper, getting dizzy watching him scroll and tap and text through the internet and his friends and Facebook until he stops.
Mitch leans in too. “Dude?” Mitch nudges me, forcing me to nudge Louis.
“You guys, this is insane.” Louis turns to me again, his dark-brown eyes wide with what appears to be terror. “We have to get out here, now!”
“What? Go where?” My heart races. “What’d you find?” I’m scared and I don't even know what’s going on.
“Ms. Mara?” Louis stands and says loudly, “We have a situation.” He’s still ignoring me and moves to where she is giving instructions on how we will return to the bus and go to the hotel. “There’s something you should see.” He hands her his phone, making it brighter.
Our teacher is about to protest but her eyes are drawn to the screen of his Galaxy phone. “Louis, this is disgusting.” She pales, lifting her hand to cover her drawn lips but not turning away from what she sees. “Is this a prank?”
“No, ma’am. It’s on all the major news outlets. It’s in chats. It’s everywhere, and it appears communication with the rest of the world has ceased.” He’s somber and scared but taps his phone as though he’s showing her other news pages.