Today we have a sneak peek of author Mathieu Gallant’s apocalyptic science fiction novel: Darkness Falls.
Robert Hendricks is coming home, whether he likes it or not.
Troubled by the thought of seeing the Earth again after 153 years in deep space, Hendricks isn’t so sure he wants any part of a mission there. But with the Galactic Empire at stake, he has resolved to try, at least. The first step: finally tell his story to the extra-terrestrials who rescued him from the apocalypse consuming planet Earth in the year 2026.
Why has he spent a century-and-a-half trying to forget he’s human?
Darkness Falls is available through Amazon.com and Amazon UK.
Here is an excerpt from Darkness Falls…
The double decker McDonalds restaurant on the corner of Metcalf and Main has taken a good beating; its windows have been smashed out, and there’s graffiti all over its eggshell colored exterior. The same goes for Place 400, a little farther down Main Street. Normally well kept, the commercial complex’s main entrance has been reduced to shards, and a large plastic garbage can has been knocked over, spilling its contents on the ground.
One of the other people out and about on this day is picking through that mess. I recognize her immediately. How many times have I passed this woman in my cab as she pushed her ratty old shopping cart full of garbage bags around town? Hundreds, surely. Yes, I’d recognize that face anywhere: the missing teeth, the puffed out skin covered in patches of psoriasis, the cracked and dirty glasses. Most notably though, and the thing that has always set this lady apart from the others like her, is the bright orange mesh of the construction vest she puts on over the winter jacket she wears year round and the Toronto Blue Jays baseball cap, encrusted in ancient filth, that is perpetually pulled down to eyebrow level.
Initially, my thoughts are the same dismissive ones I usually have when I see her: dirty garbage-picker. But it dawns on me that today she’s more than that. This woman, as distasteful as she is to me, is a survivor. She’s used to making due with the bare minimum and has been doing so for years while others have been enjoying the good life. As I watch her pick at some fast-food wrappers and sniff the contents, it strikes me that, given the current circumstances, this woman is in her element. She does not need to learn anything that the world has not already taught her. And while the rest of society seems to be crumbling into a God awful cesspool, this woman, this dirty garbage-picker, endures by doing the very things she was taught to do by living on the margins of a world that often made a joke of her and treated her cruelly.
Who’s got the last laugh now, buddy boy?
The truth is that, even though on many levels I’m undoubtedly more intelligent and more capable than this woman, when it comes to the really important things, she’s a master while I’m a novice. She can turn garbage into survival, something I have no clue about.
I’ve had things too good, too easy. Personal tragedies—like losing my parents—aside, I’ve never been homeless or had to scrounge for my next meal. So while I’m facing the prospect of learning the hard way, for her it’s just another day of picking life out of refuse and surviving. Finally I put the sight of her behind me as I continue down Main Street, but I know the thought of her, unchanged despite the turmoil going on all around, will stick with me forever.
This book is available for free download today only @ http://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Falls-Outage-Series-ebook/dp/B008QO41VG/. Get your free copy while you can!