The Light we Lost : A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (Lost Light Book 1)

by Kyla Stone

  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. He kept the cupboards and the minifridge stocked with microwavable meals, pastas and proteins and canned fruits and vegetables.

  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. The 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.

  It was the first lesson he’d taught her.

  She was stubborn. She never learned the first time.

  She’d tried to use the razor he’d bought her to shave her legs with on him. It hadn’t gone well. He was fast and strong and smart.

  On her second attempt, she’d unwound the metal spiral from the notebook he’d so generously provided her. She’d waited for him to get close before lunging, striking at his eye with the wire poking from her fist.

  He’d jerked away at the last second. The wire scraped a deep gouge into his cheek, drawing blood and creating a scar, but no permanent damage.

  He’d broken two ribs for that.

  The third time, she’d rubbed the end of a metal spoon against the rough concrete floor for hours a day for days. She’d gripped the rounded spoon end in her right hand down at her side and waited, waited, until he was close but distracted, and she gathered her strength and her courage and plunged it into his neck.

  She’d missed his ceratoid artery. It hadn’t gone in deep enough to incapacitate him.

  He’d stomped her bare foot with his boot—breaking her big toe and spraining her ankle—and re-fractured two of her fingers. Slowly. Snap, snap. She couldn’t walk for days, could barely move, curled on the mattress in a fog of agony.

  She’d decided she would take a heroic death if that meant he died with her.

  On his next visit, he’d dropped a picture onto the mattress before he left. A photo of her two-year-old son, Oliver, in the arms of her husband, Noah, who’s face was drawn with grief and worry. Noah wore his deputy’s uniform and stood on the front porch of their two-story colonial house in Juniper Springs, Michigan.

  She instantly understood that this photo had been taken mere days ago. That he knew her family and where they lived and could get as close as he wanted at any time.

  That the next time she tried anything, it would be the people she loved most who suffered.

  The fight to kill her captor had died in her that day.

  But not the fight to survive. Day after day, month after month, year after year, she’d managed to wake up each day, to continue to live, to continue to hope.

  Hannah was stubborn. Always had been. But she was only human. Her captivity wore her down. The isolation, the confinement. The constant, never-ending cruelty and suffering.

  Every day, more and more of her sanity slipped away. During the worst times, she went away in her head for hours at a time. Blank spaces filled up by nothing. And every time she came back, she was still here in this prison of fear and pain and misery.

  She had crayons and chalk instead of pencils, plastic silverware instead of metal, clothbound notebooks instead of spiral. Those things mattered little, though. She still had the tiny Bix razors he’d bought her. She had the sharp metal edges from her canned food.

  But she didn’t dare to use them. He’d broken her, and he knew it.

  She stood completely still in the darkness. The sink filled and she turned off the faucet. Instinctively, almost against her will, she turned back toward the door.

  The dog had stopped barking. Complete silence enveloped her. The power was off. The generator wasn’t working. Nothing was working.

  Hope was her worst enemy. If only she could give in. Killing herself would be a mercy. She’d thought about it a million times. Let the thoughts spin round and round inside her head. Plotting and planning.

  It wouldn’t be hard. Not compared to this. It was far easier to give up. Easier to resign herself to her fate—a future of dying slowly or a death of her choosing, but death either way.

  And yet, it hadn’t happened yet. Somehow, despite everything, she was still here.

  That stubborn little part of her always clinging to hope, to life. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

  Could she bear another crushing disappointment? Even just walking across the cement floor felt like a monumental effort. All she wanted to do was lay down and go to sleep and never wake up.

  The door would be locked. It was always locked.

  She’d beaten her fists against that immovable steel door thousands of times, struck it until her palms bled, scraped at the frame until her fingernails broke off.

  She rested her hands on her belly. Felt movement. Let her arms drop to her sides again.

  She took a step forward. One, two, three. Ten steps to the door.

  It’s not going to open. It never does. Why do you do this to yourself?

  She stood in front of it. Bounced on her heels. Fear and apprehension battling with desperation, with a crazed, terrible hope.

  The cement floor was freezing now. So was the air. Goosebumps pimpled the flesh on her arms and legs. The cold entered through the soles of her feet and radiated up through her shins, her thighs, her torso. She shuddered.

  This was real. This was happening. Without heat, she was dead. Hope or no hope.

  She rested her right hand on the handle. Swallowed hard, battling her despair, her own disintegrating mind. Just do it. At least then she would know.

  She turned the handle.

  The door swung open.

  HANNAH

  DAY ONE

  Hannah didn’t know how long she stood there, hovering between two worlds. Her prison behind her and her future before her—unknown and utterly terrifying.

  How had the loss of power affected the electronic lock? She had no idea. Maybe it was all connected to the generator—the camera, the security system, the access panel.

  It was possible he’d finally made a mistake. After all these years, maybe he’d accidentally left the door unlocked.

  And she’d been so beaten down, so despondent and resigned to her fate, she’d stopped checking.

  A thought came to her—slow and fuzzy. Back in her old life, a life she could barely recall, one of her college professors had once told the story of the dog who was trapped inside a cage for months. When the cage door was finally opened, the dog remained huddled inside and refused to come out.

  His spirit was broken. He’d forgotten what freedom meant.

  Had she forgotten, too? Nausea churned in her stomach, acid burning the back of her throat. She nearly vomited. A thousand what-ifs careened through her brain. If the power hadn’t gone out…If she hadn’t forced herself to try the lock, in complete defiance of everything experience had taught her thus far…if she’d given up…

  But she hadn’t given up. She’d opened the door.

  And now? Now everything was different. In a heartbeat, her entire world had changed.

  She was out of the cage.

  Instead of joy or triumph, it was fear that gripped her. Her constant, familiar companion. That choking panic clawing at her throat.

  Her breath came in sharp, shallow gasps. Her heart galloped like a jackrabbit inside her ribcage, adrenaline thrumming through her.

  The air smelled stale and musty. She blinked in the darkness, barely able to make out the wooden basement stairs leading up to another door with a rim of light at the bottom and sides like a lighthouse beckoning her onward.

  It was a regular wooden door like the door in every house she’d ever been in. No metal. No reinforced frame. No electronic keypad.


  Just a door.

  A door leading to the whole bright and terrifying world.

  She glanced back into the room. Into her tiny, cramped prison. Was there anything she wanted to take with her? Her journals? Her notebooks filled with poetry and song lyrics? No. Not even those.

  She would leave everything behind, shedding her past self like a caterpillar shed its skin.

  It won’t be that easy, a voice in her head whispered. She ignored it. There would be time for all those thoughts later. Now, she just had to get out.

  With her good hand, she gripped the railing. With her bad hand, she cradled her swollen stomach as if holding herself up. She began to climb. One step at a time. Counting with each step. One, two, three. Breathe in, breathe out. Six, seven, eight.

  At the top of the stairs, she hesitated. Fear thrummed through her. What waited for her on the other side? He could be there, sitting at his kitchen table waiting for her, grinning his Cheshire Cat grin. A cruel trick. Playing with her the way a bored cat played with its dinner. Taunting her.

  She wouldn’t go back down those stairs again. She couldn’t. Her mind would crack and shatter into a thousand pieces and she would go away and never come back again. She would shrivel into dust and nothingness.

  She wasn’t going back. There was only forward.

  She twisted the handle and pushed open the door.

  Harsh white light struck her eyeballs. With a muffled cry, Hannah crumpled to the stairs, nearly falling backward. She barely kept her grasp on the railing. Her knees struck the edge of the stairs. Pain stung her kneecaps.

  She flung her left hand over her face and squeezed her eyelids shut. Her eyes stung and prickled. Hot tears leaked down her cheeks. It felt like a huge spotlight shining directly into her face, like needles piercing her brain.

  Long minutes passed before she could even think past the blinding pain, the shock and confusion. Daylight. Her eyes were used to artificial light but hadn’t seen the sun in years. Her retinas couldn’t take the harsh bright light.

  Panic threatened to overtake her again. How was she going to escape if she couldn’t see? She was already weak, crippled, and defenseless, how could she possibly do this blind?

  It wouldn’t work. This couldn’t work. He would find her. And when he did, he’d be angrier then he had ever been. He would break her fingers again, then her toes, her hands, her wrists. He would take his knives to her. Cut off her fingers one by one and watch her bleed…

  Stop it! She screamed at herself. Just stop! She fought back the fog of frantic, jumbled thoughts careening inside her head. She had to think clearly or she would never get out of here alive. She would never reach her son or hold him in her arms again.

  She wasn’t blind. Her eyes would adjust. It would just take time.

  Time being the one thing she didn’t have.

  She had no idea when he would come back. In a week? In a day? In the next hour?

  Every minute that passed was a minute closer to his return. She couldn’t be here when that happened. She had to be as far away as possible. She had to get the hell out of here, wherever here was.

  Her eyes still closed, she touched her belly with her good hand. He would come after her. She had no doubt of that. She needed a head start. She needed every hour and every mile she could put between herself and this place.

  Think! Take it one step at a time. Don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t think of the time slipping by, every second, every minute wasted. First things first.

  She had to find a way to be able to see. She needed something to deflect the brightness, to shield her eyes. She needed sunglasses. But how to find those when she had no idea where to look—and couldn’t actually look at all?

  Her hand was still on her belly, touching the black cotton fabric of her sweatshirt. Black fabric would block light, if she could figure out how to wrap it around her head. It was the only think keeping her warm. She dreaded taking it off. The thick, unwieldy arms would be hard to tie around her head and remain in place.

  Plan B. She needed a pair of scissors. Most people kept a pair in a kitchen drawer. Maybe he did, too. She just needed to find the kitchen and could feel her way from there.

  She could do this. She could figure it out.

  But that meant moving into the house blindly, unable to see where she was going, making her way by feel alone. Her temporary blindness making her even more vulnerable and helpless than she already was.

  Fresh panic clawed at her, closing her throat. She could hardly breathe, couldn’t move, her arms and legs rooted to the spot. Blackness swirled in her mind and threatened to take her away again. But she couldn’t let herself go away. Every minute counted. Everything mattered.

  She fought to stay present, to push down the mind-numbing fear paralyzing her.

  It was either move or die. Hannah refused to die.

  Keeping her eyes squeezed tightly shut, she flailed ahead of her and pushed open the door. She crawled on her hands and knees into the house. Felt cool linoleum beneath her.

  She inhaled a deep breath. The mustiness of the basement was gone. The air smelled fresh—if a bit dusty, cool but not freezing, the temperature somewhere near sixty degrees.

  She strained her ears for any noise, any shuffle of footsteps or muffled breathing to alert her to the fact she wasn’t alone, that he was right there with her, watching her every move, just waiting for the right moment to pounce.

  Nothing. Only the roar of her own pulse in her ears. The utter silence pressed against her eardrums. She held her breath, listening, listening.

  The dog barked, startling her. Her heart bucked in her chest. She nearly fell down the stairs beneath the onslaught of overwhelming terror. He was here. He’d unleashed the monstrous dog, sicced it on her, brought it inside to tear out her throat…

  No, some small part of her brain said. Think! That deep, booming bark came from outside of the house. The dog was outside, not in here. It couldn’t hurt her. Nothing was hurting her.

  She forced herself to calm down, to shut out the barking and listen for noises inside. She heard no signs of life. Nothing, not the soft buzz of the fridge or the ticking of a clock. More importantly, no squeak of a boot on a floorboard, no sigh of a body shifting or low, steady breathing.

  It didn’t mean she was alone. And it certainly didn’t mean she was safe.

  * * *

  To be continued….

  * * *

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