George Allen England - Darkness and Dawn

Darkness and Dawn

George Allan England

http://www.blackmask.com

BOOK I. THE VACANT WORLD

 CHAPTER I. THE AWAKENING

 CHAPTER II. REALIZATION

 CHAPTER III. ON THE TOWER PLATFORM

 CHAPTER IV. THE CITY OF DEATH

 CHAPTER V. EXPLORATION

 CHAPTER VI. TREASURE-TROVE

 CHAPTER VII. THE OUTER WORLD

 CHAPTER VIII. A SIGN OF PERIL

 CHAPTER IX. HEADWAY AGAINST ODDS

 CHAPTER X. TERROR

 CHAPTER XI. A THOUSAND YEARS!

 CHAPTER XII. DRAWING TOGETHER

 CHAPTER XIII. THE GREAT EXPERIMENT

 CHAPTER XIV. THE MOVING LIGHTS

 CHAPTER XV. PORTENTS OF WAR

 CHAPTER XVI. THE GATHERING OF THE HORDES

 CHAPTER XVII. STERN'S RESOLVE

 CHAPTER XVIII. THE SUPREME QUESTION

 CHAPTER XIX. THE UNKNOWN RACE

 CHAPTER XX. THE CURIOSITY OF EVE

 CHAPTER XXI. EVE BECOMES AN AMAZON

 CHAPTER XXII. GODS!

 CHAPTER XXIII. THE OBEAH

 CHAPTER XXIV. THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST

 CHAPTER XXV. THE GOAL, AND THROUGH IT

 CHAPTER XXVI. BEATRICE DARES

 CHAPTER XXVII. TO WORK!

 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE PULVERITE

 CHAPTER XXIX. THE BATTLE ON THE STAIRS

 CHAPTER XXX. CONSUMMATION BOOK II. BEYOND THE GREAT OBLIVION

 CHAPTER I. BEGINNINGS

 CHAPTER II. SETTLING DOWN

 CHAPTER III. THE MASKALONGE

 CHAPTER IV. THE GOLDEN AGE

 CHAPTER V. DEADLY PERIL

 CHAPTER VI. TRAPPED!

 CHAPTER VII. A NIGHT OF TOIL

 CHAPTER VIII. THE REBIRTH OF CIVILIZATION

 CHAPTER IX. PLANNING THE GREAT MIGRATION

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 CHAPTER X. TOWARD THE GREAT CATARACT

 CHAPTER XI. THE PLUNGE!

 CHAPTER XII. TRAPPED ON THE LEDGE

 CHAPTER XIII. ON THE CREST OF THE MAELSTROM

 CHAPTER XIV. A FRESH START

 CHAPTER XV. LABOR AND COMRADESHIP

 CHAPTER XVI. FINDING THE BIPLANE

 CHAPTER XVII. ALL ABOARD FOR BOSTON!

 CHAPTER XVIII. THE HURRICANE

 CHAPTER XIX. WESTWARD HO!

 CHAPTER XX. ON THE LIP OF THE CHASM

 CHAPTER XXI. LOST IN THE GREAT ABYSS

 CHAPTER XXII. LIGHTS!

 CHAPTER XXIII. THE WHITE BARBARIANS

 CHAPTER XXIV. THE LAND OF THE MERUCAANS

 CHAPTER XXV. THE DUNGEON OF THE SKELETONS

 CHAPTER XXVI. “YOU SPEAK ENGLISH!”

 CHAPTER XXVII. DOOMED!

 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE BATTLE IN THE DARK

 CHAPTER XXIX. SHADOWS OF WAR

 CHAPTER XXX. EXPLORATION

 CHAPTER XXXI. ESCAPE?

 CHAPTER XXXII. PREPARATIONS

 CHAPTER XXXIII. THE PATRIARCH'S TALE

 CHAPTER XXXIV. THE COMING OF KAMROU

 CHAPTER XXXV. FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH

 CHAPTER XXXVI. GAGE OF BATTLE

 CHAPTER XXXVII. THE FINAL STRUGGLE

 CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE SUN OF SPRING BOOK III. THE AFTERGLOW

 CHAPTER I. DEATH, LIFE, AND LOVE

 CHAPTER II. EASTWARD HO!

 CHAPTER III. CATASTROPHE!

 CHAPTER IV. “TO-MORROW IS OUR WEDDING-DAY”

 CHAPTER V. THE SEARCH FOR THE RECORDS

 CHAPTER VI. TRAPPED!

 CHAPTER VII. THE LEADEN CHEST

 CHAPTER VIII. TILL DEATH US DO PART

 CHAPTER IX. AT SETTLEMENT CLIFFS

 CHAPTER X. SEPARATION

 CHAPTER XI. “HAIL TO THE MASTER!”

 CHAPTER XII. CHALLENGED!

 CHAPTER XIII. THE RAVISHED NEST

 CHAPTER XIV. ON THE TRAIL OF THE MONSTER

 CHAPTER XV. IN THE GRIP OF TERROR

 CHAPTER XVI. A RESPITE FROM TOIL

 CHAPTER XVII. THE DISTANT MENACE

 CHAPTER XVIII. THE ANNUNCIATION

 CHAPTER XIX. THE MASTER OF HIS RACE

 CHAPTER XX. DISASTER!

 CHAPTER XXI. ALLAN RETURNS NOT

 CHAPTER XXII. THE TREASON OF H'YEMBA

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 CHAPTER XXIII. THE RETURN OF THE MASTER

 CHAPTER XXIV. THE BOY IS GONE!

 CHAPTER XXV. THE FALL OF H'YEMBA

 CHAPTER XXVI. THE COMING OF THE HORDE

 CHAPTER XXVII. WAR!

 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE BESOM OF FLAME

 CHAPTER XXIX. ALLAN'S NARRATIVE

 CHAPTER XXX. INTO THE FIRE-SWEPT WILDERNESS

 CHAPTER XXXI. A STRANGE APPARITION

 CHAPTER XXXII. THE MEETING OF THE BANDS

 CHAPTER XXXIII. FIVE YEARS LATER

 CHAPTER XXXIV. HISTORY AND ROSES

 CHAPTER XXXV. THE AFTERGLOW

Produced by Andrew Sly.

DARKNESS AND DAWN

BY

GEORGE ALLAN ENGLAND

To

Robert H. Davis

Unique inspirer of plots

Do I dedicate

This my trilogy

G.A.E.

BOOK I. THE VACANT WORLD

CHAPTER I. THE AWAKENING

Dimly, like the daybreak glimmer of a sky long wrapped in fogs, a sign of consciousness began to dawn

in the face of the tranced girl.

Once more the breath of life began to stir in that full bosom, to which again a vital warmth had on this

day of days crept slowly back.

And as she lay there, prone upon the dusty floor, her beautiful face buried and shielded in the hollow of

her arm, a sigh welled from her lips.

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Life—life was flowing back again! The miracle of miracles was growing to reality.

Faintly now she breathed; vaguely her heart began to throb once more. She stirred. She moaned, still for

the moment powerless to cast off wholly the enshrouding incubus of that tremendous, dreamless sleep.

Then her hands closed. The finely tapered fingers tangled themselves in the masses of thick, luxuriant hair

which lay outspread all over and about her. The eyelids trembled.

And, a moment later, Beatrice Kendrick was sitting up, dazed and utterly uncomprehending, peering

about her at the strangest vision which since the world began had ever been the lot of any human creature

to behold—the vision of a place transformed beyond all power of the intellect to understand.

For of the room which she remembered, which had been her last sight when (so long, so very long, ago)

her eyes had closed with that sudden and unconquerable drowsiness, of that room, I say, remained only

walls, ceiling, floor of rust-red steel and crumbling cement.

Quite gone was all the plaster, as by magic. Here or there a heap of whitish dust betrayed where some

of its detritus still lay.

Gone was every picture, chart, and map—which—but an hour since, it seemed to her—had decked this

office of Allan Stern, consulting engineer, this aerie up in the forty-eighth story of the Metropolitan

Tower.

Furniture, there now was none. Over the still-intact glass of the windows cobwebs were draped so

thickly as almost to exclude the light of day—a strange, fly-infested curtain where once neat green

shade-rollers had hung.

Even as the bewildered girl sat there, lips parted, eyes wide with amaze, a spider seized his buzzing prey

and scampered back into a hole in the wall.

A huge, leathery bat, suspended upside down in the far corner, cheeped with dry, crepitant sounds of

irritation.

Beatrice rubbed her eyes.

“What?” she said, quite slowly. “Dreaming? How singular! I only wish I could remember this when I

wake up. Of all the dreams I've ever had, this one's certainly the strangest. So real, so vivid! Why, I

could swear I was awake—and yet—”

All at once a sudden doubt flashed into her mind. An uneasy expression dawned across her face. Her

eyes grew wild with a great fear; the fear of utter and absolute incomprehension.

Something about this room, this weird awakening, bore upon her consciousness the dread tidings this

was not a dream.

Something drove home to her the fact that it was real, objective, positive! And with a gasp of fright she

struggled up amid the litter and the rubbish of that uncanny room.

“Oh!” she cried in terror, as a huge scorpion, malevolent, and with its tail raised to strike, scuttled away

and vanished through a gaping void where once the corridor-door had swung. “Oh, oh! WhereamI?

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What—what has—happened?“

Horrified beyond all words, pale and staring, both hands clutched to her breast, whereon her very

clothing now had torn and crumbled, she faced about.

To her it seemed as though some monstrous, evil thing were lurking in the dim corner at her back. She

tried to scream, but could utter no sound, save a choked gasp.

Then she started toward the doorway. Even as she took the first few steps her gown—a mere tattered

mockery of garment—fell away from her.

And, confronted by a new problem, she stopped short. About her she peered in vain for something to

protect her disarray. There was nothing.

“Why—where's—where's my chair? My desk?” she exclaimed thickly, starting toward the place by the

window where they should have been, and were not. Her shapely feet fell soundlessly in that strange and

impalpable dust which thickly coated everything.

“My typewriter? Is—canthatbe my typewriter? Great Heavens! What's the matter here, with

everything? Am I mad?”

There before her lay a somewhat larger pile of dust mixed with soft and punky splinters of rotten wood.

Amid all this decay she saw some bits of rust, a corroded type-bar or two—even a few rubber

key-caps, still recognizable, though with the letters quite obliterated.

All about her, veiling her completely in a mantle of wondrous gloss and beauty, her lustrous hair fell, as

she stooped to see this strange, incomprehensible phenomenon. She tried to pick up one of the rubber

caps. At her merest touch it crumbled to an impalpable white powder.

Back with a shuddering cry the girl sprang, terrified.

“Merciful Heavens!” she supplicated. “What—what does all this mean?”

For a moment she stood there, her every power of thought, of motion, numbed. Breathing not, she only

stared in a wild kind of cringing amazement, as perhaps you might do if you should see a dead man

move.

Then to the door she ran. Out into the hall she peered, this way and that, down the dismantled corridor,

up the wreckage of the stairs all cumbered, like the office itself, with dust and webs and vermin.

Aloud she hailed: “Oh! Help, help,help!” No answer. Even the echoes flung back only dull, vacuous

sounds that deepened her sense of awful and incredible isolation.

What? No noise of human life anywhere to be heard? None! No familiar hum of the metropolis now

rose from what, when she had fallen asleep, had been swarming streets and miles on miles of habitations.

Instead, a blank, unbroken leaden silence, that seemed part of the musty, choking atmosphere—a

silence that weighed down on Beatrice like funeral-palls.

Dumfounded by all this, and by the universal crumbling of every perishable thing, the girl ran, shuddering,

back into the office. There in the dust her foot struck something hard.

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She stooped; she caught it up and stared at it.

“My glass ink-well! What? Only such things remain?”

No dream, then, but reality! She knew at length that some catastrophe, incredibly vast, some disaster

cosmic in the tragedy of its sweep, had desolated the world.

“Oh, my mother!” cried she. “My mother—dead?Dead, now, how long?”

She did not weep, but just stood cowering, a chill of anguished horror racking her. All at once her teeth

began to chatter, her body to shake as with an ague.

Thus for a moment dazed and stunned she remained there, knowing not which way to turn nor what to

do. Then her terror-stricken gaze fell on the doorway leading from her outer office to the inner one, the

one where Stern had had his laboratory and his consultation-room.

This door now hung, a few worm-eaten planks and splintered bits of wood, barely supported by the

rusty hinges.

Toward it she staggered. About her she drew the sheltering masses of her hair, like a Godiva of another

age; and to her eyes, womanlike, the hot tears mounted. As she went, she cried in a voice of horror.

“Mr. Stern! Oh—Mr. Stern! Are—areyoudead, too? Youcan'tbe—it's too frightful!”

She reached the door. The mere touch of her outstretched hand disintegrated it. Down in a crumbling

mass it fell. Thick dust bellied up in a cloud, through which a single sun-ray that entered the cobwebbed

pane shot a radiant arrow.

Peering, hesitant, fearful of even greater terrors in that other room, Beatrice peered through this

dust-haze. A sick foreboding of evil possessed her at thought of what she might find there—yet more

afraid was she of what she knew lay behind her.

An instant she stood within the ruined doorway, her left hand resting on the moldy jam. Then, with a cry,

she started forward—a cry in which terror had given place to joy, despair to hope.

Forgotten now the fact that, save for the shrouding of her messy hair, she stood naked. Forgotten the

wreck, the desolation everywhere.

“Oh—thank Heaven!” gasped she.

There, in that inner office, half-rising from the wrack of many things that had been and were now no

more, her startled eyes beheld the figure of a man—of Allan Stern!

He lived!

At her he peered with eyes that saw not, yet; toward her he groped a vague, unsteady hand.

He lived!

Not quite alone in this world-ruin, not all alone was she!

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CHAPTER II. REALIZATION

The joy in Beatrice's eyes gave way to poignant wonder as she gazed on him. Could this behe?

Yes, well she knew it was. She recognized him even through the grotesquery of his clinging rags, even

behind the mask of a long, red, dusty beard and formidable mustache, even despite the wild and staring

incoherence of his whole expression.

Yet how incredible the metamorphosis! To her flashed a memory of this man, her other-time

employer—keen and smooth-shaven, alert, well-dressed, self-centered, dominant, the master of a

hundred complex problems, the directing mind of engineering works innumerable.

Faltering and uncertain now he stood there. Then, at the sound of the girl's voice, he staggered toward

her with outflung hands. He stopped, and for a moment stared at her.

For he had had no time as yet to correlate his thoughts, to pull himself together.

And while one's heart might throb ten times, Beatrice saw terror in his blinking, bloodshot eyes.

But almost at once the engineer mastered himself. Even as Beatrice watched him, breathlessly, from the

door, she saw his fear die out, she saw his courage well up fresh and strong.

It was almost as though something tangible were limning the man's soul upon his face. She thrilled at sight

of him.

And though for a long moment no word was spoken, while the man and woman stood looking at each

other like two children in some dread and unfamiliar attic, an understanding leaped between them.

Then, womanlike, instinctively as she breathed, the girl ran to him. Forgetful of every convention and of

her disarray, she seized his hand. And in a voice that trembled till it broke she cried:

“What is it? What does all this mean? Tell me!”

To him she clung.

“Tell me the truth—and save me! Is itreal?“

Stern looked at her wonderingly. He smiled a strange, wan, mirthless smile.

All about him he looked. Then his lips moved, but for the moment no sound came.

He made another effort, this time successful.

“There, there,” said he huskily, as though the dust and dryness of the innumerable years had got into his

very voice. “There, now, don't be afraid!

“Something seems to have taken place here while—we've been asleep. What? What is it? I don't know

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yet. I'll find out. There's nothing to be alarmed about, at any rate.”

“But—look!” She pointed at the hideous desolation.

“Yes, I see. But no matter. You're alive. I'm alive. That's two of us, anyhow. Maybe there are a lot

more. We'll soon see. Whatever it may be, we'll win.”

He turned and, trailing rags and streamers of rotten cloth that once had been a business suit, he waded

through the confusion of wreckage on the floor to the window.

If you have seen a weather-beaten scarecrow flapping in the wind, you have some notion of his outward

guise. No tramp you ever laid eyes on could have offered so preposterous an appearance.

Down over his shoulders fell the matted, dusty hair. His tangled beard reached far below his waist. Even

his eyebrows, naturally rather light, had grown to a heavy thatch above his eyes.

Save that he was not gray or bent, and that he still seemed to have kept the resilient force of vigorous

manhood, you might have thought him some incredibly ancient Rip Van Winkle come to life upon that

singular stage, there in the tower.

But little time gave he to introspection or the matter of his own appearance. With one quick gesture he

swept away the shrouding tangle of webs, spiders, and dead flies that obscured the window. Out he

peered.

“Good Heavens!” cried he, and started back a pace.

She ran to him.

“What is it?” she breathlessly exclaimed.

“Why, I don't know—yet. But this is something big! Something universal! It's—it's—no, no, you'd better

not look out—not just yet.”

“I must know everything. Let me see!”

Now she was at his side, and, like him, staring out into the clear sunshine, out over the vast expanses of

the city.

A moment's utter silence fell. Quite clearly hummed the protest of an imprisoned fly in a web at the top

of the window. The breathing of the man and woman sounded quick and loud.

“Allwrecked!” cried Beatrice. “But—then—”

“Wrecked? It looks that way,” the engineer made answer, with a strong effort holding his emotions in

control. “Why not be frank about this? You'd better make up your mind at once to accept the very

worst. I see no signs of anything else.”

“The worst? You mean—”

“I mean just what we see out there. You can interpret it as well as I.”

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Again the silence while they looked, with emotions that could find no voicing in words. Instinctively the

engineer passed an arm about the frightened girl and drew her close to him.

“And the last thing I remember,” whispered she, “was just—just after you'd finished dictating those

Taunton Bridge specifications. I suddenly felt—oh, so sleepy! Only for a minute I thought I'd close my

eyes and rest, and then—then—”

“This?“

She nodded.

“Same here,” said he. “What the deucecanhave struck us? Us and everybody—and everything? Talk

about your problems! Lucky I'm sane and sound, and—and—”

He did not finish, but fell once more to studying the incomprehensible prospect.

Their view was towards the east, but over the river and the reaches of what had once upon a time been

Long Island City and Brooklyn, as familiar a scene in the other days as could be possibly imagined. But

now how altered an aspect greeted them!

“It's surely all wiped out, all gone, gone into ruins,” said Stern slowly and carefully, weighing each word.

“No hallucination aboutthat.” He swept the sky-line with his eyes, that now peered keenly out from

beneath those bushy brows. Instinctively he brought his hand up to his breast. He started with surprise.

“What's this?” he cried. “Why, I—I've got a full yard of whiskers. My good Lord! Whiskers onme?And

I used to say—”

He burst out laughing. At his beard he plucked with merriment that jangled horribly on the girl's tense

nerves. Suddenly he grew serious. For the first time he seemed to take clear notice of his companion's

plight.

“Why,whata time it must have been!” cried he. “Here's some calculation all cut out for me, all right.

But—you can't go that way, Miss Kendrick. It—it won't do, you know. Got to have something to put

on. Great Heavens what a situation!”

He tried to peel off his remnant of a coat, but at the merest touch it tore to shreds and fell away. The girl

restrained him.

“Never mind,” said she, with quiet, modest dignity. “My hair protects me very well for the present. If

you and I are all that's left of the people in the world, this is no time for trifles.”

A moment he studied her. Then he nodded, and grew very grave.

“Forgive me,” he whispered, laying a hand on her shoulder. Once more he turned to the window and

looked out.

“So then, it's all gone?” he queried, speaking as to himself. “Only a skyscraper standing here or there?

And the bridges and the islands—all changed.

“Not a sign of life anywhere; not a sound; the forests growing thick among the ruins? A dead world if—if

all the world is like this part of it! All dead, saveyouandme!“

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In silence they stood there, striving to realize the full import of the catastrophe. And Stern, deep down in

his heart, caught some glimmering insight of the future and was glad.

CHAPTER III. ON THE TOWER PLATFORM

Suddenly the girl started, rebelling against the evidence of her own senses, striving again to force upon

herself the belief that, after all, itcould notbe so.

“No, no, no!” she cried. “This can't be true. It mustn't be. There's a mistake somewhere. This simply

mustbe all an illusion, a dream!

“If the whole world's dead, how does it happenwe'realive? How do we know it's dead? Can we see it

all from here? Why, all we see is just a little segment of things. Perhaps if we could know the truth, look

farther, and know—”

He shook his head.

“I guess you'll find it's real enough,” he answered, “no matter how far you look. But, just the same, it

won't do any harm to extend our radius of observation.

“Come, let's go on up to the top of the tower, up to the observation-platform. The quicker we know all

the available facts the better. Now, if I only had a telescope—!”

He thought hard a moment, then turned and strode over to a heap of friable disintegration that lay where

once his instrument case had stood, containing his surveying tools.

Down on his ragged knees he fell; his rotten shreds of clothing tore and ripped at every movement, like

so much water-soaked paper.

A strange, hairy, dust-covered figure, he knelt there. Quickly he plunged his hands into the rubbish and

began pawing it over and over with eager haste.

“Ah!” he cried with triumph. “Thank Heaven, brass and lenses haven't crumbled yet!”

Up he stood again. In his hand the girl saw a peculiar telescope.

“My 'level,' see?” he exclaimed, holding it up to view. “The wooden tripod's long since gone. The

fixtures that held it on won't bother me much.

“Neither will the spirit-glass on top. The main thing is that the telescope itself seems to be still intact.

Now we'll see.”

Speaking, he dusted off the eye-piece and the objective with a bit of rag from his coat-sleeve.

Beatrice noted that the brass tubes were all eaten and pitted with verdigris, but they still held firmly. And

the lenses, when Stern had finished cleaning them, showed as bright and clear as ever.

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George Allen England - Darkness and Dawn

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