Guillermo del Toro - The Fall. Book II of The Strain Trilogy

“Maybe,” he said. “Or — maybe not.”

Eph grabbed one of Gus’s strong flashlights and went off on his own again, following every trail of vampire waste to its end.

None of them brought him to Zack. Still, he went on, calling out his son’s name, his voice echoing emptily through the tunnel, returning back to him like a taunt. He emptied the flask, and then hurled the thick glass at the tunnel wall, where the sound of its shattering was like a profanity.

Then he found Zack’s inhaler.

Lying beside the track in an otherwise unremarkable stretch of tunnel. The prescription sticker was still affixed: Zachary Good-weather, Kelton Street, Woodside, New York. Suddenly, every one of those words spoke to him of things lost: name, street, neighborhood.

They had lost it all. These things meant nothing anymore.

Eph gripped the inhaler as he stood in the dark burrow beneath the earth. Gripped it so hard that the plastic casing started to crack.

He stopped then. Preserve this, he thought. He held it to his heart and switched off his flashlight. He stood still, vibrating with rage in the pure dark.

The world had lost the sun. Eph had lost his son.

Eph began to prepare himself for the worst.

He would return to the others. He would clear out the derailed train, and watch with them, and wait.

But while the others waited for the air to clear above, Eph would be waiting for something else.

He would be waiting for his Zack to return to him as a vampire.

He had learned from his mistake. He could not show any forbearance, as he had with Kelly.

It would be a privilege and a gift to release his only son.

But the worst thing that Eph had imagined — Zack’s return as a vampire seeking his father’s soul — turned out not to be the worst thing at all.

No.

The worst thing was — Zack never came.

The worst thing was the gradual realization that Eph’s vigilance would have no end. That his pain would find no release.

The Night Eternal had begun.