Dark Days: The Long Road Home ✪ free preview

Chapter 2.1

2

“Must be a black out,” Christopher said as Gemma reached his side at the window, the fresh smell of her hair filling his senses as they took in the scene two stories below them.

“I think it’s a lot more than a black out,” Gemma breathed.

At first Christopher was having trouble understanding what he was seeing. It was as though the world was winding down – the traffic had come to an almost complete standstill, the street lined with cars, taxis, trucks and buses. Other vehicles were still rolling slowly forward, as though they had all stalled at the exact same time, some bumping into the car in front of them before they too came to a stop.

Even as he watched a dark haired woman in a four wheel drive tugged desperately at a steering wheel that wouldn’t fully comply. The young girl in the passenger seats mouth was open, either in shock, or a scream. As the mother continued to wrestle with the wheel, Christopher realized she had lost her power steering and was trying to turn the car to protect her daughter from the impact.

The four wheel drive hit the back corner of a station wagon with a dull thud and a shattering of glass.

The rusty old station wagon was the cause of the first crash they’d heard, having slammed into the car in front of it at some force, crumpling its rear end. The driver, who'd been shouting out his window at the car in front of him shoved his door open, already hurling abuse as he stalked towards the four wheel drive.

The man was rough as hell, with a wild, shaggy brown beard, wearing a striped flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off revealing powerful, heavily muscled arms covered in tattoos.

Christopher stiffened, his first instinct to go and help the woman and her terrified daughter.

On the far side of the road a teenager with a shock of red hair rode slowly on his bike, mouth open as he tried to take in what he was seeing, and then he too came to a stop, staring around him with confusion.

The traffic lights at the end of the street were black. The windows of the buildings opposite them dark.

The absence of the sounds of traffic rushing by, of horns honking and music blaring, made it seem as though the entire world had come to a grinding halt. People ventured onto the street from their cars, some closing the door after them, others just leaving them hanging open.

“What are they staring at?” Gemma’s voice was soft.

Below them, people were starting to look up at the sky, somewhere above his office building, and Christopher found himself pressing his nose against the glass, trying to see what they saw as a low, almost mournful droning sound filled the air.

A dark shadow moved over the building, and then he saw the plane, its huge belly maybe a hundred feet above them, and it was quickly losing altitude.

“Oh my God,” Gemma’s nails dug into his arm. “It’s nine eleven all over again.”

There was no doubt in Christopher’s mind that the plane was going down. Not only did it sound wrong, it was far too low in the sky for this part of the city.

As the plane passed over them it cast a dark shadow on the street below, and then the building on the other side of the street blocked it from view. Christopher found his eyes travelling lower, to the building in front of him, and the place where he imagined the troubled plane to be. Its image was so strongly imprinted on him that he could see its fateful fall in his mind.

He could feel Gemma shaking beside him, and realized he was shaking a little himself as he pulled her roughly into his side, still tracking the path of the plane, waiting for the inevitable impact.