What Happens in the Darkness Read Online Free PDF

squeezed his eyes shut and willed his father to come through the door and save him. He wondered if his throat had been cut and if he was about to die. His heart thrummed in his ears and his legs quivered.
    “Stand up for yourself, kid, or you’ll regret it.”
    Martin let go and shoved him, hard. Jeff stumbled across the room and crashed into the wall. He picked himself up off the floor and grabbed his throat. A light smear of blood appeared on his palm, not the gush he’d expected.
    When he had glanced back, Martin was gone, having disappeared into the shadows, until all that remained was a faint silhouette in the distance of the room. 
     
    ***
     
    That first encounter remained strong in Jeff’s mind. He glanced toward Martin’s cell, as if expecting the haunted memory of his childhood to be waiting on the other side. As if time would no longer matter, and things would be as they always had.
    And sometimes he wondered why Martin hadn’t killed him that day, but he attributed that to Martin’s loyalty toward Walter. He had a hard time believing the bloodsucker would have compassion toward what would basically amount to a light snack.
    As tempting as it was to set Martin free, it couldn’t happen. Releasing him would be too much of a risk. Too dangerous.
    Though whatever was left of the world— and it was growing smaller every day—they deserved the chance to survive. Didn’t they?
    But could he take the chance?
    Very few had known about Martin, and of those only Jeff survived.
    As far as the army was concerned, Martin didn’t exist. 
     
    *** 
     
    Janelle sat on the ground sipping water and listening to the grown-ups’ conversation. Listening to them discuss the devastation across the United States, the bombings and attacks and murders. They sat in a circle around a small fire one of them had built.
    She wondered if her grandmother in South Carolina was still alive. She missed the woman, missed the smell of her perfume, missed her cooking. No one could beat Grandma’s hoecake. Janelle could practically taste the gritty cornmeal, the granules melting on her tongue. She could almost smell it, but when she came back from her fantasy, all she smelled was cement dust.
    Fighter jets rumbled overhead, and she wondered whose side they were on. She looked up and covered her ears, expecting the sonic boom but lowered them again when it didn’t come.
    The three men beside her were having a conversation about … well, everything.
    The first man looked like her building’s superintendent. This man was taller and thinner but had the same broad, flat face and thick moustache. He was also the guy who had first spoken to her earlier. He said his name was Pete. He’d been talking about finding shelter, and he cursed a lot.
    Now they were on to a different topic. They did that a lot, too.
    “You know it’s fuckin’ China,” Pete said, his head bobbing like he was agreeing with himself.
    “No, it’s the Russians. They never completely gave up Communism. It was all an act,” the second man said. His name was Warren. He scratched his gray-white beard and pushed his glasses back on his nose. He reminded Janelle of her math teacher. Old, white, and a little strange. She wasn’t sure why her teacher was considered strange—maybe it had something to do with a white guy teaching at a black school in Harlem.
    They argued, over-shouting one another, and Janelle covered her ears again. She couldn’t drown them out, but at least she could dim the volume.
    “Keep it down,” the third man said, taking Janelle’s hands in his. “You okay, sweetie? Do you know where your family is?” He seemed most like her—even his skin color was like hers, only darker. And he had no hair, just like her dad. She felt a strange attachment to him, felt compelled to throw her arms around his neck. He’d said his name was Harry.
    The men discussed shelter (or the lack thereof), food, rats, pant size, cigarettes versus cigars, and