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Darla sighed and dropped my hand. “I’ve gotta go. Don’t wait up.”
“Want help?”
She smiled her answer, and I wound up spending all night helping her and a crew of other volunteers string temporary lines from other turbine towers to fill the hole in our electrical grid. By the time we got back to the long-house, the sky was already hinting at grayness.
“Let me show you my favorite place to watch the sunrise,” I said.
“Aren’t you tired?” she asked.
“Sure. But it won’t take long.”
We got two claw hammers and climbed the longhouse roof together, sitting on the peak.
“I am freezing my butt off,” Darla said, “literally.” “That would be a true national tragedy.”
She laughed, a sound as lovely as the crystalline shards of light refracted off the new ice.
“I talked to Dr. McCarthy while I was in sickbay,” I said. “There was a good obstetrics department at the hospital in Dixon. They had heart monitors, preemie incubators, all that stuff. There’s no reason anyone would have looted the equipment, since nobody else has electric power—it should still be there. Doc thought maybe we could mount an expedition and move a bunch of it back here. There’s some other stuff he could use too.”
“Are you . . . are you saying what I think you are?”
“I am. Let’s start a family.”
Darla leaned over and kissed me long and softly, setting off fireworks in my brain and longing in my body that lingered well after the kiss ended.
We sat on the roof, our good arms wrapped around each other, watching the sunrise. The gray turned to a low line of deep red rising from the horizon, and then streaks of pink shot from the line, and it transformed, bursting into yellows and violets and oranges and greens and even, wonder of wonders, a patch of pure blue sky. It was the most spectacular sunrise I had ever seen.
The first sunrise of the rest of our lives.
Acknowledgments
I have a whole round table of literary knights in my corner: my wife, Margaret, slayer of u
Thank you to the people of northwest Illinois who were so warm and generous during my research trips. Thanks in particular to the people of Stockton. I owe you at least two apologies: one for the liberties I took with the physical layout of your town and another for making my fictional Stocktonites far less friendly than the real ones.
Thank you to Krista Fry for some last-minute help on high school sports in Warren and Stockton.
Thank you to Jim Cobb, author of Prepper’s Home Defense. The hour you spent talking to me about post-apocalyptic Chicago greatly influenced my depiction of Rockford, Illinois.
Thanks again to my brother Paul, his wife Caroline, and their children Max and A
Thank you to Lisa Rojany Buccieri for making me work far harder than I wanted, polishing this book. Your insightful edits dramatically improved my work, and I’m grateful. Thank you to Dorothy Chambers for uncrossing my i’s and undotting my t’s. Thank you to Ana Correal for another gorgeous cover image.
I ca
About the Author
Mike Mullin’s first job was scraping the gum off the undersides of desks at his high school. From there, things went steadily downhill. He almost got fired by the owner of a bookstore due to his poor taste in earrings. He worked at a place that showed slides of poopy diapers during lunch (it did cut down on the cafeteria budget). The hazing process at the next company included eating live termites raised by the resident entomologist, so that didn’t last long either. For a while Mike juggled bottles at a wine shop, sometimes to disastrous effect. Oh, and then there was the job where swarms of wasps occasionally tried to chase him off ladders. So he’s really glad this writing thing seems to be working out.
Mike holds a black belt in Songahm Taekwondo. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife and her three cats. Sunrise is his third novel. The first book in this trilogy, Ashfall, was named one of the top five young adult novels of 2011 by National Public Radio, a Best Teen Book of 2011 by Kirkus Reviews, and a New Voices selection by the American Booksellers Association.
Co
Table of Contents
Cover
Titlepage
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Acknowledgments
About the Author