Time of Darkness

By B T Coll

The Sun disappears from the sky and the darkness arrives and changes the lives of everyone on Earth forever. When their neighbours leave to go to the city, the Hollingsworth family decide to stay at home and sit it out, hoping that things would soon return to normal. Their battle to stay alive is complicated by freezing temperatures and lack of food but things are about to get even tougher. Who or what is waiting in the darkness? Can they survive?

• Language: English
• Publisher: B T Coll
• Release date: Jun 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310454776

Book preview

Time of Darkness

B T Coll

Author’s Note

Time of Darkness: is a work of fiction. Names and character and are entirely fictitious.

Copyright © B T Coll 2017

Smashwords Edition

All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

I sit in the darkness and wonder if this life, that we are now living, could somehow have been avoided. My name is Rebecca Hollingsworth and at 14 years of age, I feel that I am old enough to understand what my parents are discussing but I am excluded from their conversation, as usual.

We sit huddled together on the sofa, with a single candle on the fireplace, trying to work out what we would do next as we were running out of food. It is freezing inside and outside of the house and we sit covered in an assortment of clothes, jackets, hats, gloves and duvets, trying to keep ourselves warm. I hear my parents whispering to each other and feel angry at my exclusion from their secret conversation. Don’t they realise that I am old enough to understand the trouble that we are in? I’m going out. my father suddenly announced and my mother clings to him, trying to prevent him from leaving. No. It’s too dangerous. she pleads, as she begs him to reconsider. We’re running out of food. I have to go but don’t worry I won’t be long, I promise. he said, before jumping to his feet. He pats the top of my head before making his way towards the front door. It annoys me that my father still sees me as a child. My mother immediately chases after him and yet another secret conversation is held, while I once again strain my ears, trying to hear what they are saying. Hurry back and please be careful. I hear her tell him.

My dog Bonnie, jumps from the sofa and runs towards my father. No Bonnie. Stay. my father tells him and with his head hanging, he returns to the sofa and once again jumps onto my knee. I hold him to me and feel the heat from his body. Bonnie is my own hot water bottle. Bonnie is my own safety blanket.

As my mother closes the door with a thud, I hear the familiar clanking of the bolts, six in total, as she locks and secures the front door. These were dangerous times my mother would often tell me but she never ever expanded on that statement. Another statement she would often say was that the darkness brought evil. What she meant by that, she never explained. She wanted us to stick together and never go out on our own. There was little chance of that, as I was never allowed out of the house.

Let me tell you how the Time of Darkness began.

We live in The Green House, just off Woodland Road, five miles outside Farmville, Virginia. We moved here over twelve years ago, when my grandfather, James Hollingsworth, passed away. I was only a toddler then but throughout the passing years, I always heard my mother telling my father that she wanted to move back to Charlottesville. For some reason, my mother had not been happy living here but she never really explained why. Not to me anyway.

The Time of Darkness began one day, four years ago, when I was around ten years of age. At that time in my life, I was happy and carefree. How that has changed over the last four years. Happiness was something strange now and none of us felt happy or content anymore. We were always living on edge