The first long night had been forty-eight hours. Those who made it through to the dawn that followed discovered their world had gone.
Something to do with the darkness, the original scientific consensus had been, Callie remembered, chewing on the end of her pen as she leaned back, the journal on her knees. Some form of bacterial infection came with the ever-lengthening nights. She’d been finishing up boot camp when the planet had passed through a series of meteor showers. Everyone had talked about it. The fragments had fallen in bands, some tiny, even the larger ones, falling on every continent, of no concern to anyone. The changes had taken time to be reported. Africa, then Europe, had fallen, but it had still been easy to dismiss. Some other place’s problems.
She started writing again, memories flickering. Bravo Company had found the prison, a Victorian-built fortress, empty of prisoners, and had taken it over. It was a hard target, but not impregnable. Nothing was impregnable. They’d lost twenty in the nights before the refortification had been finished. Charlie Company made it four weeks later. There was plenty of room, and at first, the radios had buzzed with survivors, homing in on their beacon, arriving in groups of twos or threes, mostly. Sometimes as many as twenty. Then, fewer survivors had found their way to them. And more attacks came, spreading out but getting more violent, as…
