by Stone, Kyla
Edge of Collapse
An EMP Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller
Kyla Stone
Paper Moon Press
Contents
Also by Kyla Stone
Preface
1. Hannah
2. Hannah
3. Hannah
4. Hannah
5. Pike
6. Hannah
7. Hannah
8. Hannah
9. Pike
10. Hannah
11. Hannah
12. Hannah
13. Hannah
14. Pike
15. Hannah
16. Pike
17. Hannah
18. Hannah
19. Hannah
20. Liam
21. Liam
22. Hannah
23. Liam
24. Liam
25. Pike
26. Hannah
27. Hannah
28. Hannah
29. Liam
30. Liam
31. Liam
32. Hannah
33. Liam
34. Liam
35. Hannah
36. Hannah
37. Pike
38. Pike
39. Liam
40. Pike
41. Hannah
42. Hannah
43. Hannah
44. Hannah
45. Pike
46. Hannah
47. Liam
48. Liam
49. Hannah
50. Hannah
51. Hannah
52. Liam
53. Hannah
54. Liam
55. Hannah
56. Liam
57. Liam
58. Hannah
59. Pike
60. Pike
61. Hannah
62. Hannah
63. Hannah
Author’s Note
Also by Kyla Stone
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Point of Impact: Chapter One
Edge of Collapse
Copyright © 2020 by Kyla Stone All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblances to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover design by Christian Bentulan
Book formatting by Vellum
First Printed in 2020
ISBN: 978-1-945410-46-8
Created with Vellum
Also by Kyla Stone
The Edge of Collapse Post-Apocalyptic Series (EMP):
Chaos Rising: The Prequel
Edge of Collapse
Edge of Mayhem
Edge of Darkness
Edge of Despair
The Nuclear Dawn Post-Apocalyptic Series (Nuclear Terrorism):
Point of Impact
Fear the Fallout
From the Ashes
Into the Fire
Darkest Night
Nuclear Dawn: The Complete Series Box Set
The Last Sanctuary Post-Apocalyptic Series (Pandemic):
Rising Storm
Falling Stars
Burning Skies
Breaking World
Raging Light
Last Sanctuary: The Complete Series Box Set
No Safe Haven (A post-apocalyptic stand-alone novel):
No Safe Haven
Historical Fantasy:
Labyrinth of Shadows
Contemporary YA:
Beneath the Skin
Before You Break
Non-fiction:
Real Solutions for Adult Acne
Much of this story takes place within the fabulous Manistee National Forest in Michigan. For the sake of the story, I have altered certain aspects and taken a few liberties with a real town or two. Thank you in advance for understanding an author’s creative license.
“Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star...”
― e.e cummings
1
Hannah
Day One
The light went out. It was the first thing that alerted her.
The single lightbulb encased in wire mesh on the ceiling glared down on her continuously—twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
The sudden darkness pressed against the backs of Hannah Sheridan’s closed eyelids. Sensing the change, her body woke from her restless nightmares.
She sat up from the bare mattress on the cold cement floor. She turned her head left and right, straining her eyes.
At first, she thought she’d been plunged into complete and utter blackness.
But no, the narrow rectangle of a window on the southwest side of the room allowed in the barest trickle of dim light. The barred window was located beneath the back deck, so very little daylight made its way down here.
She’d grown used to it.
Hannah blinked, let her eyes adjust.
Shadowy shapes appeared—the bean bag in the corner, the doorless bathroom across from her, the small fridge, the rolling cart with the microwave, the narrow counter with the sink and cabinet where she kept her dishes along the far wall.
The silence was the second thing.
She was used to quiet. But this was something else.
The rumble of the generator outside the window. The buzz of the small fridge. The cycling of air from the heating and air-conditioning unit.
Everything had gone still and silent. No sound but her own breathing.
For several long minutes, she didn’t move.
Was this another trick? A trap just waiting to spring its jaws?
She was used to tricks, too. She lived inside a trap.
The light didn’t come back on. The fridge didn’t buzz. The generator didn’t rumble back to life. She glanced at the tiny camera affixed to the ceiling above the secure metal door.
The little glowing green dot no longer glowed. The camera was blind.
The power had never gone out before. He came and checked it often, made sure everything worked and remained in pristine condition—the electricity, the water, the heat, the camera, the security system.
The generator kept her alive. It also kept her trapped.
Slowly, she pushed aside her two blankets and rose from the mattress in the corner of the room. Her bare feet hit the chilly concrete floor, but she barely noticed.
Her mind spun and whirred, confused thoughts ricocheting against her skull. Nothing made sense.
Why would the power go out? Had he forgotten to refill the generator? Was it something else, like a storm or a power surge? When would it come back on? Would it come on? Would he know it was out and return to check on her?
Sometimes, he came every seven days. Sometimes, two weeks passed. There was no rhythm or reason to his visits.
No way to tell how many days she’d need to survive before he returned—if he returned.
It was easy to lose track of time here. At first, tracking the days had been of crucial importance. Counting the hours. The days, weeks, months. Then the years.
Always hoping for rescue. Praying for it. Desperate for an escape that never came.
She knew it was day by the dull gray light. But what day? What month? November? December? Or even later? When had she stopped keeping track?
Only a few weeks. No, it was longer. Maybe even months.
Her mind was clouded and foggy, like it had been stuffed with cotton. It was hard to think straight. Got harder with every day that passed, every day that took her further from who she used to be and sucked her deeper into this endless hell.
Fatigue gripped her and tugged at her arms and legs. Who cared what day or month it was? Nothing ever changed. Nothing ever would.
Her entire life consisted of these four cement walls. A fifteen-by-twenty room.
She should’ve given up long ago.
She was close now. The despair like a sucking black hole, pulling at her, threatening to drag her under once and for all. A bottomless sea of darkness closing over her head, drowning her slowly, strangling the breath from her lungs.
For years, she’d fought it. Every day, an hour of calisthenics to keep her muscles from atrophying. Jumping jacks. Sit-ups. Squats. Every day, writing in the journal with the crayons he allowed her. Every day, mentally practicing the guitar or the piano. Composing songs in her head.
Imagining the life she would have if—when—she ever got out of this place. Imagining the life her husband and son were living right that minute. Her family and friends and co-workers—the world continuing on without her.
But the last few months, it had become harder and harder to cling to that miniscule seed of hope. Hope was the ultimate Judas. It had betrayed her hundreds, thousands of times.
In the end, it was hope that caused the most suffering.
Hannah stared across the room at the imposing metal door and the electronic key code and lock. She stared until the shadowy shape took solid form, until her eyes ached and begged her to blink. She didn’t.
Her brain filled with the buzzing static of barely restrained panic. What if he wasn’t coming back? What if the water turned off next? She had MREs and enough supplies for another two weeks if she rationed, but no longer.
She had a single cup, a single bowl, and two pans she could fill with water. And the small sink built into the counter—she could fill the basin.
How long would that last? A few days? A week?
What about the heater? The chilly cement floor felt like it was growing colder by the minute. Even the air on her face and hands felt cooler.
She thought she was still in Michigan, though she wasn’t sure. Wherever she was, the winters were brutal. Only the heater kept her from freezing to death down here.
She knew the season by the temperature drop, the coldness of the floor. If she pushed the rolling cart beneath the single window, climbed on top of it, and peered out through the bars, she could see the snow on the ground, sifted beneath the wide wooden planks of the back porch.
She would freeze to death long before she ran out of food or water.
Outside, the dog barked. He’d been quiet the last day or two. She’d never seen him, but she’d pictured him in her mind a million times. Judging by the deep menace in his bark, he was a huge German Shepherd/Wolfhound/Rottweiler mix, with vicious eyes and razor-sharp teeth.
A monster. Just like his owner.
Placed there like Cerberus guarding the gates of Hades, in case anyone was stupid enough to try to get in—or out.
She’d never heard another human voice, other than his.
The man who’d put her here. The man who kept her imprisoned like a rat in a cage.
No neighbors. No visitors. Only the damn barking dog and the occasional rumble of a truck or snowmobile engine when he came to see her.
Fear crept into the corners of her mind, anxiety tangling in her belly. She padded to the center of the room and turned in a slow circle, trying to push the cobwebs from her sluggish brain, trying to think.
She wrapped her arms around her thin ribs and hugged herself. She wore a loose hunter-green knit sweater that matched her eyes over a thin nightgown, with a pair of oversized long johns beneath it all—she had a few different outfits that she washed in the tiny sink once a week by hand.
How long would it take the temperature to drop to intolerable levels? How long for the human body to freeze to death inside an unheated concrete basement?
Maybe it was nothing. She was panicking over nothing. The electricity would switch back on in an hour or a day. Everything would return to the horrible state of normalcy she’d endured for years.
Somehow, she knew it wouldn’t.
Maybe he’d finally tired of her and decided to let the generator run out. Decided to let her suffer slowly, to die in degrees by starvation and freezing to death.
That thought didn’t ring true. When it was time to kill her, he would do it himself. She knew that like she knew her own name.
Something had happened. He’d been killed in a crash or struck by a train or dropped by a brain aneurism. Anything was possible.
There were a thousand ways to die. A hundred ways to go missing, to suddenly disappear from your own life.
She knew that better than anyone.
As much as she longed to see him dead, he was her only link to the outside world. To life. She loathed him but depended on him for every single thing.
He’d used that to control her completely. To exert his indomitable will over every aspect of her pitiful life.
Grinning with that dead-eye smile as he keyed in the lock code each and every time he entered the room. Hurt me, and you kill any chance of ever getting out of here alive.
He wasn’t stupid. He knew how lethal hope was—how powerful a weapon it could be.
To her right, she felt the door like a physical presence, looming just at the periphery of her vision.
She turned again, faced it. The cold of the floor leached through her feet. Sent chills racing up her spine. She shivered.
Nothing worked. Not the power. Not the heat. Not the little blinking camera.
What if…
She lowered her hand to her stomach, nearly touched the rounded, basketball-sized belly, but didn’t. Her hands dropped limply to her sides.
The door was always locked. A power outage wouldn’t change that.
Hannah Sheridan was just as trapped as she’d ever been.
2
Hannah
Day One
Almost without thinking, Hannah found herself moving numbly, mechanically toward the sink. She knew every inch of this room by heart. She didn’t need to see to know what she was doing.
She pulled her two pans out of the cupboard and filled them with water. She set them on the counter. Next, she filled her single cup and bowl. She plugged the small stainless-steel basin of the sink with the stopper and began to fill it.
A few days’ worth of water. She wouldn’t use the water for anything but drinking, conserving as much as she could until it ran out.
But the cold…that would kill her faster than anything. She only had the two blankets and the sweater she already wore. It wouldn’t be enough.
None of it would be enough.
She would die here, in this horrible prison. There wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. Panic and dread swirled in her stomach. Nausea crawled up her throat, and she almost retched.
She tugged the hair tie from her wrist and pulled her thick, waist-length dark brown hair into a messy bun. She used to brush it every day. But lately…lately, she could barely muster the energy to feed herself.
He made her pay for that.
He liked her pretty. He never struck her face. Never pulled out her hair.
And he liked her clean. She always had shampoo and conditioner, bodywash and deodorant, toothpaste and an electric toothbrush.
A supply of vitamin D to keep her healthy. Even
a few maternity clothes as her belly expanded.
He kept the cupboards and the minifridge stocked with microwavable meals, pastas and proteins and canned fruits and vegetables.
She’d learned what happened when she didn’t eat, when she didn’t keep herself clean and presentable.
She glanced at the door again. Locked. It was always locked.
Absently, she touched the mangled fingers of her left hand. They were permanently disfigured—broken one by one, again and again. Pain so excruciating, she’d passed out.
He’d woken her up with a pan of cold water dumped on her face, only to start with the next finger.
Disobedience brought pain. Defiance brought pain. Hope brought pain.
The first lessons he’d taught her.
She was stubborn. She never learned the first time.
She’d tried to use the razor for shaving her legs on him. It hadn’t gone well. He was fast and strong and smart.