American Midnight | Book 2 | Nightfall

by Kazzie, David

  Lucy smiled. Just seeing these photos made her like the boy a bit more. He’d been like anyone else. A little boy with a mommy who loved him. Lucy wondered if she was still alive. She understood why Norah had them. These were a little slice of the boy she loved, and it was clear that she loved him.

  Then Lucy flipped to the last photograph.

  She froze.

  It was another picture of the boy, but this time he was with a man who appeared to be his father. The man was handsome and young. Preppy-looking. They were standing in front of a very large Christmas tree like the one you would see at the mall during the holidays.

  As she stared at the photo, her heart began to race.

  Lucy recognized the man right away.

  His name was Simon.

  The man who had held Norah and Lucy captive so many years ago.

  24

  Lucy fell back onto her bottom, her gaze transfixed on the photo.

  Simon.

  A very bad man.

  When the Pulse had hit, Simon had been in the business of human trafficking and had set his sights on Norah and Lucy. Only with a little luck and the help of one Tim Whitaker had Lucy been able to avert such a terrible fate.

  The last time Lucy had seen Simon, he’d been trying to kill her, his plan to trade her and Norah completely foiled, his headquarters in flames. He was cutting the makeshift rope they had constructed to rappel to the first floor of the Ballston Mall from the skyway after she, Tim, and Norah had escaped his clutches. More specifically, escaping after she had badly burned his face to facilitate said escape. If he’d started cutting the rope a few seconds earlier, she would have plunged two stories to her death.

  A million questions rippled through her like fireworks.

  Most notably—how had he survived?

  Lucy had always believed the man had died in the fire which ultimately had consumed the entire Ballston Commons Mall. Like her, Norah, and Tim, Simon had been trapped on the skyway; that was why they’d taken the extraordinarily insane step of rappelling down using a rope of belts and blouses. It was still the craziest thing that Lucy had ever done in her life.

  Did Norah not recognize him?

  There was no way to know. Lucy did not know how much interaction Norah had had with Simon when she had been delivered to him like so much human cargo. Even if she had spoken to him, it was hard to say whether she had ever gotten a good look at his face. And if she had, would she remember him five years later? Another question she could not answer.

  And most importantly, was he the mysterious leader of the Haven?

  She laughed bitterly.

  Of course he was.

  There was no other possibility.

  He was a monster. When the end had come for their world, when the lights had gone out permanently, Simon had shown what man was capable of. He trafficked in human beings and planned to use Norah (and Lucy, if he’d had his way) as currency.

  He was the man behind their ruin, behind the murder of her fellow residents, behind the apparent destruction of Barrett’s community.

  He was a monster.

  Somehow, he had survived the fire at the Ballston Mall. Somehow, he had risen from the ashes and now posed a threat not just to her, not just to Norah, but to so many more. An entire community had been destroyed. Wiped out because Lucy had failed to finish the job all those years ago.

  How was she supposed to know?

  She had done all she could.

  One final terrifying thought raced through her head.

  Had Simon and Norah met recently?

  Had she been to the Haven?

  No.

  She didn’t believe so.

  Norah hadn’t been to the Haven any more than Alexander had been here.

  Their love was star-crossed, conducted in the shadows, on neutral ground because they had strict parents who disapproved of young love from parts unknown. The very thing that had probably made the relationship so alluring to Norah and Alexander.

  Lucy took some solace in this.

  Now finding Lucy and Alexander took on much more urgency.

  If she could find them, he might lead them to the Haven.

  Yes.

  She would find them, and she would make him tell her where his father was.

  Amelia.

  She needed to talk to Amelia.

  She climbed back to her feet, shaking her head clear of the shockwaves of the last few minutes. She hurried back outside, where Terri and Amelia were still deep in conversation. Lucy squeezed the small woman’s shoulder. Amelia turned and threw her arms around Lucy. The woman wept silently, her body heaving. Lucy held her tight.

  “They came in and just started burning everything,” she said. “They didn’t ask any questions. They didn’t even tell us what we had done wrong.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Lucy said. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  And she was sorry, sorrier than she had ever been in her life.

  Because their plan had failed.

  It had backfired spectacularly.

  The Haven had taken its revenge on the community that they needed the least. By tomorrow, word would spread to the others that resistance would not be tolerated. And the thing was, they hadn’t even planned to fight back. This was all on her, Jack, and the Council. It was their fault. She had not expected the Haven to inflict such terrible retribution. She had gambled on the notion that the supply chain was too valuable to disrupt. But the Haven had blown up her assumptions. Her gamble had failed.

  It was a terrible oversight on her part, one for which she would never forgive herself.

  25

  Simon Conway could not sleep.

  It was late and it had been a long day, but he was still wide awake. Sometime after two, he got out of bed and dialed up the lantern on his nightstand. The kerosene hissed as the suite filled with sickly yellow light. He sat at the edge of his bed, took some deep breaths, but his heart continued to race. It was unlike him. Normally, he slept deeply. He only slept a few hours a night, usually between one and six a.m., but it was high octane slumber that supercharged him for another day at the helm of the rapidly growing Haven.

  As he slid out of bed, Serena, who lay sleeping peacefully next to him rolled over and buried herself deeper under the covers. She did not stay over often, but tonight, her eight-year-old son was spending the night with the family of another boy his age. The light didn’t bother her, and he wouldn’t have cared if it did. Serena was young and beautiful. Ten years his junior, she was a welcome distraction from the stress of his job. She didn’t say much, and that was fine with him. The sex was fantastic. She appeared to enjoy it as well. This cheered him up a bit.

  Good to know he still had his fastball at forty-five. Her body was soft and firm at the same time, the way thirty-year-old women’s bodies were. It wasn’t love. It was more of a mutual aid agreement. They each got something out of it. He made sure the boy got access to the best teachers, the best medical care. He did not hold any illusion that she loved him, and he wouldn’t have wanted her to.

  He looked up at the flat-screen television mounted at the wall. This would have been a good night for an old movie to help him sleep. He wasn’t much of a reader, but he had enjoyed winding down with a movie in the old days. A relic of days gone by. He still missed it though. Even after all these years, he had never quite gotten used to a world without power. He had learned how to thrive in such a world, learned how to make the best of a bad situation, but it was still a bad situation. He missed the finer things he had come to enjoy. He missed the fancy cars and the hotel suites and the five-star restaurants that his business successes had afforded him.

  That wasn’t to say that his life was bad.

  Simon Conway had adapted quickly to the post-Pulse world. Within minutes of the event, staring at his darkened phone, understanding at a primal level that this was far more than a simple blackout, he had begun planning for the future. While others waited dumbly for the electricity to come back on, waiti
ng for someone to come help them, he had operated as though it was never coming back. Because it was what the evidence was pointing to. It wasn’t just electricity that had failed. It was anything requiring an electrical charge – including batteries. This wasn’t some short circuit at an important relay station.

  It had been a paradigm shift.

  One he had been ready for.

  He had come up as part of a crime syndicate outside of Washington, D.C. He was a bright kid but hated school with a blinding passion. He gave college a shot, enrolling at George Mason University. And he found success in college; it just wasn’t in the classroom. He started a bookmaking operation, taking action on all sports. He was popular with the fraternities, even a few sororities. Some people made money, most lost money, but Simon Broome always ended in the black. The bookmaking was so successful, he dropped out of GMU after his freshman year to focus on the business.

  His work drew the attention of a local crime boss named Sean Costello. He took Simon under his wing, buying out his client list for six figures. Simon rose quickly through the ranks. He became Costello’s right-hand man, loyal to a fault. Simon added drugs, human trafficking, and prostitution to his illicit portfolio. The sky was the limit, and the money poured in.

  Then one night, Lady Luck had kissed Simon.

  He’d just finished a meeting with Costello at his condo and was on his way out the door when he remembered he’d left his coat on the sofa. Costello must have believed he was alone. He was on his speakerphone.

  “Yeah, it’s all on this flash drive,” he was saying.

  Indistinct chatter.

  “Yeah, I’ll be ready to testify.”

  Simon could feel his heart breaking as he stood in the foyer, his hand still on his coat tree.

  Costello had flipped.

  He was going to take them all down to save his own ass.

  Simon was enraged. Panic threatened to overwhelm him. Costello could burn them all on about fifty different felonies. Murder, conspiracy, distribution, just to name a few. State and federal prosecutors would be tripping over themselves in half a dozen jurisdictions to send him to prison. But as he stood there in the foyer, listening to Costello betray him, he focused on solving the problem.

  He wasted no time.

  Abandoning the coat, he carefully slipped out the door and returned to his car in the condo parking lot. Later that evening, Costello took his Norwich terrier for her evening walk. That was when Simon had struck. He quickly pistol whipped Costello into unconsciousness, binding his hands and feet together before dumping him in the cargo area of his sport utility vehicle. A slash of duct tape covered his mouth. The little terrier stood there looking up at him, confused, yapping at him. He couldn’t bear to leave the small pooch to its own devices so he scooped her up and put her in the front seat. He drove home, parking in his garage, leaving the bound Costello in the trunk.

  He stayed up all night, debating his next move. He sat on his couch, the little terrier on his lap. He couldn’t call any of his associates; for all he knew to the contrary, others had flipped as well. He didn’t have much time to act. They would be looking for him soon. It was the most surreal night of his life. An hour before dawn, he cooked the dog some chicken and rice. As she gobbled it down, it became clear what he needed to do. He went to the garage and gathered a dozen abandoned paving stones.

  Before the sun rose, he carried the dog out to the car and drove out to his boat, the Peacock, at the Buckley Marina. He backed the car up to the dock and quickly transferred Costello onto the deck of the boat. The man flopped around like a fish. He fired up the engines and sailed deep into the Chesapeake Bay. It was a beautiful day for sailing, and Simon made the trip with tears in his eyes. He did not speak to Costello, he did not ask him why he had done what he had done. When they were ten miles offshore, Simon duct-taped Costello’s mouth and nose shut; Costello became apoplectic as his oxygen was cut off. Three agonizing minutes later, Costello was dead. Simon secured the pavers to Costello’s body and then wrapped him duct tape. Then he kissed Costello on the forehead and threw him overboard. Costello’s body sank instantly. It was over. The dog did not seem to mind.

  When the FBI came looking, Simon told them he did not know where Costello was. He accused them of malfeasance. He went crazy. And the FBI’s case against the gang had collapsed. The dog lived with him for another five years before succumbing to cancer. He named her Abby.

  Success in the new paradigm had taken work.

  He worked hard to run his organization.

  The same work ethic that helped him succeed in the post-Pulse world.

  He carried the lantern out to the living room and set it on the table. The rain had picked up, now a steady thrum on the roof. Still anxious, he poured a scotch, two fingers worth, and opened the curtains. It was too dark to see anything. His suite overlooked the first tee box. Normally, it was a good view, but it was raining. The gentle susurration of rain on the rooftop should have helped him sleep, but it did not. Nevertheless, he liked rain. The way it cocooned the world. It gave a man time and space to think.

  He propped his feet on the table and took a sip of his drink. It was warm and immediately helped soothe his nerves. His meeting with the prisoner from Promise the previous day was still on his mind. He had been tickled by the man’s offer; Jack clearly did not know the Haven already had a spy inside Promise.

  Simon had learned about the existence of Promise about two months before their takeover of the settlement. By then, the Haven had widened its territory north to Fredericksburg, establishing satellite outposts to consolidate the smaller communities that were cropping up in the wake of the cataclysm and were able to produce. These were small settlements, a dozen people, two at the most, and they fell in line quickly. They didn’t have much to offer, so he brought them in as human capital. Some were starving, sick, and ready for anyone to come in and run the show.

  That was how their man, Dixon, had been able to escape. Danny had been on guard duty. They had recruited him at the Market, guaranteeing him his safety and future residence at the Haven, once Promise had outlived its usefulness. Danny had been a reliable source of information, and he had not mentioned any alliance between Promise and the other colonies. So the man was not there to betray his people. He was there looking for something. But then he had mentioned a little detail, virtually insignificant. He had a pregnant sister. She had lost a child to cancer.

  Simon had come a long way since his bookie days in the freshman dorms at George Mason. Success in this new world had not come easy. Some days it had taken force. And some days, especially, in the early going, it had almost not gone his way at all.

  A door in his mind suddenly opened. Locked up tight for years. His hand drifted to his cheek, still ridged and rippled like a relief map, the byproduct of a dangerous encounter in the early days of the apocalypse.

  With a woman.

  He never learned her name.

  But he remembered everything about her. The way she looked.

  She had tricked him. She had nearly killed him. To this day, it ate at him. He wanted nothing more than to skin her alive. But he had assumed that she was lost forever to the winds. They had spoken only briefly, when she had deceived him into thinking the girl he had captured was in diabetic shock.

  What was it she had said?

  Cancer.

  Her daughter had died of cancer.

  Like the daughter of Jack’s sister.

  Could it be the same woman?

  He would not have been surprised. Very few people had ever pulled one over on Simon Conway, but this woman had. He’d been a bit panicked at the time, and the girl was an incredibly valuable asset. It was a monstrous thing he was doing, he understood that, but it was not personal. He didn’t do anything to the girls himself. He was just a vehicle, a waypoint. Perhaps a minor distinction, but an important one. Things were rapidly deteriorating in Arlington, and he made a mistake. He had fallen for her ruse.

  Then she h
ad escaped with the girl, all but leaving him to die on the skyway.

  But now he knew where she was.

  And he would make her pay for what she had done.

  26

  Alexander was hungry and exhausted. He had been working with the blacksmith all day, learning how to forge new tools and weapons for the Haven. It was tedious, backbreaking work, not typically his wheelhouse of interest, but he had grown to like it. Okay, maybe like was a strong word, but there was something deeply satisfying in working a piece of metal into something useful. In finding structure and order where there had once been none.

  Jesus, he was starting to sound like his father.

  He stopped by the kitchen after his day had ended. He’d been at it since sunup, and dinner was still a couple hours away. His stomach rumbled at the smells emanating from the kitchen. Maybe there would be a scrap of something he could snack on. His appetite had been voracious lately, the boy caught in the middle of a rapid growth spurt, perhaps the final one of his adolescence. He had shot up three inches just this summer alone. He was even taller than Norah now, which delighted him immensely. Now she had to tip her head up to kiss him, and that felt right. It felt natural, the regular order of things.

  He missed her terribly. She had missed their last scheduled rendezvous a week ago. He did not know where she lived. Neither would be welcome in the other’s community. Besides, the idea of introducing her to his father horrified him.

  The kitchen was hopping when he arrived. The Haven had two hundred mouths to feed. Its kitchens were its busiest production centers. Keeping the Haven fed and healthy was a massive undertaking. It encompassed large growing fields, which were its most important resource. His father’s main priority was to ensure the Haven was always self-sufficient. It was, he had explained to Alexander, why he chose to do things the way he did. It was why he could seem cruel and uncaring for others. Simon had said that he did these things because he loved the Haven so much.