Chuck Hogan: The Night Eternal

THE NIGHT ETERNAL

Book III

of

The Strain Trilogy

Guillermo Del Toro

and

Chuck Hogan

Dedication Dedication RAIN OF ASHES Extract from the Diary of Ephraim Goodweather Kelton Street, Woodside, Queens INTERLUDE I - MR. QUINLAN’S STORY Camp Liberty Extract from the Diary of Ephraim Goodweather Beneath Columbia University INTERLUDE II - OCCIDO LUMEN: THE MASTER’S TALE Low Memorial Library, Columbia University JACOB AND THE ANGEL Saint Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University INTERLUDE III - OCCIDO LUMEN: SADUM AND AMURAH Columbia University Extract from the Diary of Ephraim Goodweather Columbia University AWAKENING TO FIRE Columbia University Epilogue Acknowledgement Also by the Authors Copyright About the Publisher

To my parents.

Now I know how hard a job you had . . .

—GDT

For Charlotte, eternally.

—CH

Contents

Title Page THE NIGHT ETERNAL Book III of The Strain Trilogy Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

Dedication

RAIN OF ASHES

Extract from the Diary of Ephraim Goodweather

Kelton Street, Woodside, Queens

INTERLUDE I - MR. QUINLAN’S STORY

Camp Liberty

Extract from the Diary of Ephraim Goodweather

Beneath Columbia University

INTERLUDE II - OCCIDO LUMEN: THE MASTER’S TALE

Low Memorial Library, Columbia University

JACOB AND THE ANGEL

Saint Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University

INTERLUDE III - OCCIDO LUMEN: SADUM AND AMURAH

Columbia University

Extract from the Diary of Ephraim Goodweather

Columbia University

AWAKENING TO FIRE

Columbia University

Epilogue

Acknowledgement

Also by the Authors

Copyright

About the Publisher

RAIN OF ASHES RAIN OF ASHES Extract from the Diary of Ephraim Goodweather Kelton Street, Woodside, Queens INTERLUDE I - MR. QUINLAN’S STORY Camp Liberty Extract from the Diary of Ephraim Goodweather Beneath Columbia University INTERLUDE II - OCCIDO LUMEN: THE MASTER’S TALE Low Memorial Library, Columbia University JACOB AND THE ANGEL Saint Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University INTERLUDE III - OCCIDO LUMEN: SADUM AND AMURAH Columbia University Extract from the Diary of Ephraim Goodweather Columbia University AWAKENING TO FIRE Columbia University Epilogue Acknowledgement Also by the Authors Copyright About the Publisher

Extract from the Diary of Ephraim Goodweather Extract from the Diary of Ephraim Goodweather Kelton Street, Woodside, Queens INTERLUDE I - MR. QUINLAN’S STORY Camp Liberty Extract from the Diary of Ephraim Goodweather Beneath Columbia University INTERLUDE II - OCCIDO LUMEN: THE MASTER’S TALE Low Memorial Library, Columbia University JACOB AND THE ANGEL Saint Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University INTERLUDE III - OCCIDO LUMEN: SADUM AND AMURAH Columbia University Extract from the Diary of Ephraim Goodweather Columbia University AWAKENING TO FIRE Columbia University Epilogue Acknowledgement Also by the Authors Copyright About the Publisher

On the second day of darkness they rounded them up. The best and the brightest: all those in power, the wealthy, the influential.

Lawmakers and CEOs, tycoons and intellectuals, rebels and figures of great popular esteem. None were turned; all were slain, destroyed. Their execution was swift, public, and brutal.

Save for a few experts from each discipline, all leaders were eliminated. Out they marched, the damned, from the River House, the Dakota, the Beresford, and their ilk. They were all apprehended and herded into major metropolitan gathering places worldwide, such as the National Mall in Washington, DC, Nanjing Road in Shanghai, Moscow’s Red Square, Cape Town Stadium, and Central Park in New York City. There, in a horrific pageant of carnage, they were disposed of.

It was said that over one thousand strigoi rampaged down Lexington and raided every building surrounding Gramercy Park. Offerings of money or favor fell on deaf ears. Soft, manicured hands implored and begged. Their bodies twitched—hanging from lampposts all along Madison Avenue. In Times Square, twenty-foot-high funeral pyres burned tanned, pampered flesh. Smelling much like barbecue, the elite of Manhattan illuminated the empty streets, closed shops—EVERYTHING MUST GO—and silent LED megascreens.

The Master had apparently calculated the right number, the exact balance, of vampires needed to establish dominance without overburdening the blood supply; its approach was methodological and indeed mathematical. The elderly and infirm were also collected and eliminated. It was a purge and a putsch. Roughly one-third of the human population was exterminated over that seventy-two-hour period, which had since become known as, collectively, “Night Zero.”

The hordes took control of the streets. Riot police, SWAT, the U.S. Army—the tide of monsters overtook them all. Those who submitted, those who surrendered themselves, remained as guards and keepers.

The Master’s plan was a resounding success. In brutally Darwinian fashion, the Master had selected the survivors for compliance and malleability. Its growing strength was nothing short of terrifying. With the Ancients destroyed, its control over the horde—and through them, the world—had broadened and become ever more sophisticated. The strigoi no longer roamed the streets like raving zombies, raiding and feeding at will. Their movements were coordinated. Like bees in a hive or ants in a hill, they apparently each had clearly defined roles and responsibilities. They were the Master’s eyes on the street.

In the beginning daylight was entirely gone. A few seconds of faint sunlight could be glimpsed when the sun was at its zenith, but other than that, the darkness was unremitting. Now, two years later, the sun filtered through the poisoned atmosphere for only two hours each day, but the pale light it gave was nothing like the sunlight that had once warmed Earth.

The strigoi were everywhere, like spiders or ants, making sure that those left alive were truly fitting back into a routine . . .

And yet the most shocking thing of all was . . . how little life had truly changed. The Master capitalized on the societal chaos of the first few months. Deprivation—of food, clean water, sanitation, law enforcement—terrorized the populace, so much so that, once basic infrastructure was restored, once a program of food rations was implemented and the rebuilt electrical grid chased off the darkness of the long nights, they responded with gratitude and obedience. Cattle need the recompense of order and routine—the unambiguous structure of power—to surrender.

In fewer than two weeks, most systems were restored. Water, power . . . cable television was reintroduced, broadcasting all reruns now, without commercials. Sports, news, everything a repeat. Nothing new was produced. And . . . people liked it.

Rapid transit was a priority in the new world, because personal automobiles were extremely rare. Cars were potential bombs and as such had no place in the new police state. Cars were impounded and crushed. All vehicles on the street belonged to public services: police, fire department, sanitation—they were all operational, manned by complying humans.

Airplanes had suffered the same fate. The only active fleet was controlled by Stoneheart, the multinational corporation whose grip on food distribution, power, and military industries the Master had exploited in its takeover of the planet, and it consisted of roughly 7 percent of the planes that once crossed the world’s skies.

Silver was outlawed and became trade currency, highly desirable and exchangeable for coupons or food points. The right amount of it could even buy you, or a loved one, a way out of the farms.