North Korea, spurred on by fear of the plague as well as an extended famine, launched against South Korea and sent its troops across the thirty-eighth parallel.
China allowed itself to be drawn into the conflict, in an attempt to distract the international community from its own catastrophic nuclear reactor failure.
The nuclear explosions triggered earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Tons and tons of ash were injected into the stratosphere, along with sulfuric acid and massive amounts of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
Cities burned and oil fields ignited, consuming many million barrels of oil daily, fires that could not be extinguished by man. These continuous chimneys lofted dark, blanketing smoke into the ash-saturated stratosphere, cycling over the planet, absorbing sunlight at levels reaching 80 to 90 percent.
This cooling soot grew like a cowl over the Earth.
It impacted every human settlement, bringing further chaos and the certainty of the Rapture. Cities degenerated into toxic prisons, highways became gridlocked junkyards. The Canadian and Mexican borders were closed and illegal U.S. citizens crossing the Rio Grande were met with decisive firepower. Though even these boundaries were not to last.
Above Manhattan, the massive radioactive cloud lingered, the sky turning crimson until the atmospheric soot blotted out the sun. The dusk was artificial, in that clocks said it was still daytime—and yet it was all too real.
At the shore, the ocean turned silvery-black, reflecting the sky above.
Later came a rain of ashes. The fallout wiped away nothing, only making things blacker.
Soon the alarms faded and hordes of vampires emerged from their cellars… to claim their new world.
North River Tunnel
FET FOUND NORA sitting on the tracks in the bowels of the tunnel beneath the Hudson River. Nora’s mother’s head was in her lap, Nora stroking her gray hair while the sick woman slept.
“Nora,” said Fet, sitting next to her, “come—let me help you, and your mother…”
“Mariela,” said Nora. “Her name is Mariela.” And then she broke down finally, crying, her body shuddering with deep, primal sobs as she buried her face in Fet’s shoulder.
Eph soon returned from the eastbound tube, where he had been looking for Zack. Nora turned to him, spent, empty, almost rising but for her sleeping mother, hope and pain expressed on her face.
Eph pulled off the night-vision monocular and shook his head. Nothing.
Fet felt the tension between Eph and Nora. Each of them emotionally ravaged, and beyond words. Fet knew that Eph did not blame Nora, that there was no doubt Nora had done everything she could for
Zack under the circumstances. But he also sensed that, in losing Zack, Nora had lost Eph too.
Fet retold the events leading up to Setrakian leaving with Gus for Locust Valley. “He told me to stay behind—to come here.” Fet looked at Eph. “To find you.”
Eph pulled a glass flask from his pocket, one he had found in the wheelhouse aboard the tugboat. He took a hard hit from it, then looked around the tunnel with an expression of angry disgust. “So here we are,” he said.
Fet felt Nora bristle next to him. Then a distant roar began filling the tunnel. Fet couldn’t track it at first, the sound distorted by the unceasing tone in his bad ear.
An engine, a motor, coming toward them—the noise a rumble of terror inside the long, stone tube.
Light approached. A train was impossible—wasn’t it?
Two lights. Headlights. An automobile.
Fet pulled his sword, ready for anything. The big vehicle came to a stop, its thick tires shredded from the tracks, the black Hummer rattling along on its rims.
The front grill was white with vamp blood.
Gus climbed out. A blue bandanna was tied around his head. Fet hurried to the opposite door, looking for a passenger.
The Hummer was otherwise empty.
Gus saw whom Fet was looking for and shook his head.
“Tell me,” said Fet.