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  First came the storm, and then the blinding white light that made everyone in town disappear. Everyone except Ellery, Loveday, Rocky the dog, and Claude, Loveday’s big ginger cat. The light brought something else, too, something that isn’t human. Plagued by prophetic dreams that signal the end of the world, Ellery and Loveday set out across the country to save a girl they’ve never met who just might be humanity’s last hope.

  Rosemary Decker, leader of the Children of the Ark, wants the girl too. Except she wants her dead. Rosemary’s seen the end of the world coming and has been preparing for years. She’s going to make a new world in her own image, and nothing’s going to stand in her way.

  Another storm is coming and not everyone will survive it.

  Vanished

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  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

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  Vanished

  © 2019 By Eden Darry. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-63555-438-0

  This Electronic Original Is Published By

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, NY 12185

  First Edition: October 2019

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Ruth Sternglantz

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design By Tammy Seidick

  By the Author

  The House

  Vanished

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to Ruth Sternglantz for her endless patience and excellent editing. I really landed on my feet with you. Also thank you to Sandy and Radclyffe for agreeing to publish me again.

  For Catherine

  Part I: The Light

  Chapter One

  Loveday Taylor wrestled the back door closed in a game of tug of war with the wind. It had certainly picked up since she’d come home, and weather reports were advising people to stay inside. Hurricane Hilda was about to blow into Southern England from the Atlantic after causing all sorts of damage, first in the Caribbean and then North America.

  Loveday and other volunteers from town prepared all day for its arrival—a reluctant welcome wagon. In the afternoon they hoofed sandbags up to the Crane River, known to swell and breach its banks on occasion, sometimes flooding all the way up to the main road.

  Loveday’s back was sore and her hands chapped from lugging the rough, heavy bags. She would have liked a hot bath and a quiet evening in front of the fire with Claude, her ginger cat. He was the reason she’d opened the bloody door in the first place. He’d bolted through straight away—a pleasant change from his usual MO. Normally he’d stand at the door, sniff the air for a bit, and generally get on her last nerve before he strutted inside, completely ignored her, and headed for his food bowl.

  Skinny, dirty, and with dried blood crusted on his torn, lumpy ears, Claude turned up on her doorstep one day and never left. Two years later he had the appearance—and carried the weight—of a healthy, if slightly overindulged, tomcat. Loveday adored him, and in his own stand-offish way, she thought he probably quite liked her too.

  She shook some biscuits into his bowl, startled into pouring out near enough the whole box when lightning cracked overhead, followed by a peal of thunder that rattled the window in its frame. Loveday looked down to see Claude watching the storm. His intelligent orange eyes didn’t flick to his overflowing bowl even once. He blinked, yawned, stretched, then went to his food, brushing against Loveday’s leg on his way past.

  Claude was pretty much unflappable, and that was good because Hilda looked like she meant business tonight. As if to prove it, a flurry of rain hurled itself violently at the window, and the wind picked up, howling and tearing through the trees outside. The kitchen lights flickered, dimmed, then went out.

  * * *

  Ellery Jackson was in the veterinary clinic finishing up the last of her paperwork in her office when she was plunged into darkness. Rocky the Jack Russell started to cry and howl before the generator kicked in and the lights came back on. According to the staff, he hated the dark. Ellery knew just how he felt.

  She’d sent her staff home early, just about the time the wind began to kick it up a notch and the sky turned a dark and ominous grey. Being alone here, no traffic whizzing past on the road outside—it was normally busy this time of the evening with the commuter traffic—left her feeling uncomfortable. Not that the town was especially lively, but they had a decent high street and a handful of restaurants. Being so close to a motorway meant that more and more people were moving here, attracted by the green landscape and cheap property prices.

  The veterinary clinic had been converted from an old barn, and the high ceilings, open-plan layout, and myriad of windows amplified the emptiness. She could easily believe she was the only person left in the world. Except for Rocky the dog.

  Ellery swivelled in her office chair and looked out the window. A fork of lightning lit up the night and rain hammered down. Usually she liked a good storm, but this one made her uneasy. Rocky was restless too, and maybe that was it. She had a way of picking up on what animals were feeling—a kind of vague interspecies telepathy, she thought with mild amusement. It had been with her since childhood. It was most likely what made her a good vet, and probably the reason she was eternally single. Ellery always found animals so much easier to deal with than people. Their needs were obvious to her, and they were free from the many layered and messy complexities of human beings.

  Like any vet in a semi-rural town, Ellery dealt with a fairly even mixture of domestic pets, like cats and dogs and hamsters, and farm animals. The other day she’d helped an alpaca give birth. Admittedly, most of her farm animals were cows, pigs, sheep, and horses, but Dave Randell had a penchant for the slightly more exotic. Ellery managed to talk him out of adopting a flock of flamingos last year.

  Ellery sighed and rubbed her eyes. It was getting late, and if she didn’t leave soon, then she never would. Rocky had gone quiet again. She wouldn’t leave him here alone for the whole night though. She planned to go home, have dinner, then come back and stay with him. The storm was supposed to be a big one, worse than most of the remnants that usually blew over from the Atlantic. She wouldn’t let Rocky deal with it alone.

  Ellery stood, stretched out her back, and groaned in pleasure as her spine popped. She’d sat for too long, and her office chair was hard as concrete. Sarah, the head veterinary nurse, kept telling Ellery to buy a new one, but most days she wasn’t in it long enough to justify the expense.

  She walked back to the cages where they kept the furry patients and smiled as Rocky stood on his back legs, tail wagging like mad, and began to scratch at the bars.

  “Hey, boy, how’s it going?” she asked softly, kneeling to stroke his head and tickle his chin. Rocky licked her hand and whined, as if to say I’ve been better. His owner—Jill Wood, who ran the local grocer’s—brought him in, sobbing her eyes out, after he’d tangled with a wild pony in the forest. Nosy Rocky got a little too close, and the pony kicked out, bruised a couple of ribs, and broke his front leg.

  Rocky was most of the way healed, apart from his broken leg which would stay in a cast for a few weeks yet. He would probably be allowed home in the next few days. All in
all, Rocky was lucky. “No more making friends with wild ponies, eh, Rock?” Ellery smiled and gave him one last stroke. Rocky chuffed and lay back down in the corner, his intelligent eyes still on her. “I need to get my dinner. Promise I’ll come back, though. Okay?” Rocky dropped his head onto his paws and closed his eyes.

  Back out in reception, more lightning flashed, ripping the night in two, and Ellery thought it sounded a bit too close for comfort. Thunder rumbled and clapped so loud she thought it might crack the windows which ran along the front of the surgery. They shook and rattled but held firm.

  Rain lashed down and the wind howled, kicking up the leaves outside and throwing them against the building. Ellery decided she had left it too late to go home after all. She mentally sorted through the contents of the staff-room fridge and figured it would be biscuits and an overripe banana for dinner. At least there was the generator to power the lights. Outside, the town was dark, and Ellery guessed everyone had lost their power already.

  * * *

  Loveday rummaged around in the kitchen drawer trying to find the torch. “Give me a hand, would you, Claude? I could really use your night vision.” Claude ignored her and continued to crunch his biscuits. The loss of light didn’t bother him at all.

  Finally, she felt something hard and plastic and solid. She moved her hand along its shaft until she located the button. She clicked it on. It emitted a sickly beam of light, and Loveday chastised herself for not replacing the batteries ages ago. She’d kept forgetting about it, one of the mundane tasks she would do tomorrow, then tomorrow, until it slipped her mind altogether. Well, that would teach her, wouldn’t it? Loveday sighed and went into the living room. She knew she had some tea lights around here somewhere—it was just a case of finding the bloody things with this crappy light.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Loveday found them in a box on the shelf with a lighter—thank God—and proceeded to light several and place them around the living room. She kept back four or five because they were only small and wouldn’t last very long. Another flash of lightning ripped the sky open. It was close. Loveday hoped everyone was safe inside. The tea lights weren’t bright enough to read by, and the TV obviously wouldn’t work, nor would the heating, which ran off the electric, and it would soon get cold. She decided to get a fire going in the hearth and try to doze in her chair.

  She put as much wood as she dared on the fire—the last thing she wanted was to start a blaze—and dragged the sofa closer to better feel the heat. Loveday checked her phone and saw she didn’t have much battery left. She turned it off to preserve as much as possible in case of an emergency. It wasn’t as though anybody would try to get hold of her. She had no family left and hadn’t been in the town long enough to form any friendships. She’d moved here three months ago and mostly kept to herself, easy enough when you were a writer.

  This town was a big change from London but a necessary one. Loveday couldn’t stay after everything that happened there. The wisps of memories made her feel like she couldn’t breathe, like she was drowning in murky water. She quickly pushed them from her mind, before they properly formed, and concentrated on the flames, on the pop and hiss of the wood as it caught. Claude sauntered over to the fireplace and stretched out his long limbs. He yawned, then flopped down in front of the hearth and closed his eyes, oblivious to the storm raging outside.

  Chapter Two

  Rosemary Decker stood at almost six feet tall. By the time she was thirteen she was already five eight and showed no sign of slowing down. Being so tall meant she often looked down on people, and that seemed just about right to Rosemary because her height was matched only by her prodigious brain.

  Tonight she stood on a platform watching workers scurry around below her, making the final preparations for something she’d been waiting for a long time.

  Today was a great day. Her life’s work was about to be realized. Shortly, the superiority of her mind and all her planning was about to be tested against the might of nature and destiny. She was certain God’s plan involved her survival, but tonight she’d find out for sure.

  Tonight, the human race would cease to exist in its current form, and Rosemary planned to be at the head of a bright new dawn, one where the righteous would be rewarded and the sinners cast out forever, left to drown in a flood of their own immorality and depravity.

  Rosemary regarded the great boat in front of her, which had taken every last penny she had and more besides. Donors from across the world had contributed to its building and they were all here tonight.

  The boat filled the hangar. Her platform ran the length of it in fifty-two staggered parts with ladders and lifts and scaffolding rising up and all around, lending support to the majesty of her greatest accomplishment. She reached out and touched it sleek, cool body, ran her hand over the saviour of mankind. Ark 2. She smiled. Today was a great day.

  Someone cleared their throat behind her and she turned. Claire or Chloe—Rosemary couldn’t remember the woman’s name—shuffled nervously, her eyes darting around. She was a mousy thing. Most of her sentences started with sorry, like some sort of nervous tic.

  “What?” Rosemary asked.

  “Sorry to bother you, Ms. Decker. Another four families have arrived. Jo said I should come upstairs and ask you where to put them.”

  Rosemary rolled her eyes. Did no one have any initiative? Must she do everything herself? “Put them with the others. If there’s no room, find somewhere else. Anyone who wants to find their way back to God’s light is welcome tonight.”

  Claire or Chloe nodded and hurried off.

  It was the storm. People had been dribbling in all day, and once the rain started, the numbers had swelled. They now had about forty people in the hangar. Rosemary knew some of them would be the same people who had mocked her on Twitter and Facebook and in the newspapers. It didn’t matter. She would forgive them because tonight, they were starting to believe. They’d come here, hadn’t they? And they weren’t laughing now.

  * * *

  Ellery lay back on the stainless steel table, her arms behind her head serving as a pillow. She’d put a few blankets down and dragged out the old oil heater, positioning it on the floor near her feet. It was almost cozy.

  She’d found some crackers and a partially shrivelled cucumber in the staff kitchen. With the overripe banana, it had been a pretty depressing dinner, but at least her stomach wasn’t growling any more. Rocky whined as a fresh onslaught of rain and wind hammered against the windows loudly enough to almost drown him out. At the sight of the pathetic dog, cowering and crying in the corner of his cage, Ellery crumbled and let him out. She nestled him against her side beneath the blanket, and he was soon snoring softly. She wished sleep would come as easily to her. Instead she stared up at the skylight above her head and watched the storm.

  Ellery had never wanted to be anything except a vet. When she was six or seven, her parents bought her a plastic doctor’s bag for her birthday—she was surprised they’d even remembered, let alone bought a present. Mary and David Jackson always seemed more interested in drinking than in their only child.

  Young Ellery Jackson carried the bag—bright red with a green cross printed on the front—everywhere, until the plastic cracked and the handle fell off. Inside was a yellow and white stethoscope. The buds wouldn’t sit in her ears properly and kept popping out, but it didn’t matter. In her bedroom, Ellery was Dr. Jackson, saviour of stuffed animals and occasionally of the family cat if she could get Trixie, their mangy tortoiseshell, to sit still long enough.

  That little bag opened up a whole world of possibilities to Ellery. From the moment it was given to her—not wrapped in bright kiddie paper, but hey, you couldn’t have everything and it was probably the first and only present she ever got from her parents—she was fixed on the idea of becoming a vet. The very thought of it seemed right somehow. All the sacrifices and all the work since had been worth it.

  Ellery moved to the town three years ago. She’d grow
n up nearby and was familiar with the area. Although she’d studied in London, she always knew she would end up back in the countryside one day. And here she was, her own practice in a beautiful small town in the middle of nowhere. She didn’t have any friends, and the staff at the surgery had given up trying to include her in their social outings. She was friendly enough to everyone but made sure she kept her distance. People had long since given up trying to breach her walls.

  She didn’t speak to her family any more either—not that she knew how to get in touch even if she did. They moved when she was eighteen and hadn’t given her a forwarding address. But she was content. Maybe lonely at times—most of the time—but content.

  There were times when she thought she should go out and meet people, make some friends. Sometimes she made a plan to do just that. Then it would come to it—accepting an offer to go out or whatever—and she just couldn’t bring herself to go. What would she talk about? Who would be interested in a country vet with no friends and no social life? She’d bore people to tears. The thought of it made her chest tighten and sweat prickle her forehead. Ellery knew it was some kind of social anxiety, and it got worse the more she avoided new people, but she just didn’t have the courage to do anything about it. She had the animals and that would have to be enough. It wasn’t such a bad life.

  Rocky yipped in his sleep and Ellery gently ran her hand along his flank to soothe him. He breathed deeply and started snoring again. Another burst of lightning lit up the sky. It illuminated the bare branches of the trees as they swayed and dipped, the wind pulling them this way and that. Ellery shivered. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was about this storm that unnerved her, and it was frustrating. A worry she couldn’t name gnawed at the back of her mind. She knew part of it was being alone with just Rocky for company in this big empty space. Part of it was the knowledge the generator could fail and plunge her into darkness at any moment. The dark had always terrified her beyond reason, and in her home she had about a dozen night lights plugged in around the place. True, she was embarrassed about the childhood terror which wouldn’t leave her, but the embarrassment wasn’t stronger than her fear of the dark. And it wasn’t like anyone ever came over anyway. Her last girlfriend was four years ago and what a disaster that had been. Maddie was a vet Ellery met at a conference. Usually she attended the bits she had to, then skulked off back to her hotel room. But Maddie had made a beeline for her and wouldn’t let her go. Ellery supposed she’d been flattered to be pursued so relentlessly.