The Twelve

Read on for an excerpt from
T H E T W E LV E
by Justin Cronin
Published by Ballantine Books


Bernard Kittridge, known to the world as Last Stand in Denver, realized it was time to leave the morning the power went out.

He wondered what had taken so long. You couldn t keep a municipal electrical grid running without people to man it, and as far as Kittridge could tell from the nineteenth floor, not a single human soul was left alive in the city of Denver.

Which was not to say he was alone.

He had passed the early hours of the morning a bright, clear morning in the first week of June, temperatures in the mid-seventies with a chance of blood-sucking monsters moving in toward dusk sunning on the balcony of the penthouse he had occupied since the second week of the crisis. It was a gigantic place, like an airborne palace; the kitchen alone was the size of Kittridge s whole apartment. The owner s taste ran in an austere direction: sleek leather seating groups that were better to look at than sit on, floors of twinkling travertine, small furry rugs, glass tables that appeared to float in space. Breaking in had been surprisingly simple. By the time Kittridge had made his decision, half the city was dead, or fled, or missing.

The cops were long gone. He d thought about barricading himself into one of the big houses up in Cherry Creek, but based on the things he d seen, he wanted someplace high. The owner of the penthouse was a man he knew slightly, a regular customer at the store. His name was Warren Filo. As luck would have it, Warren had come into the store the day before the whole thing broke to gear up for a hunting trip to Alaska. He was a young guy, too young for how much money he had Wall Street money, probably, or one of those high-tech IPOs.

On that day, the world still cheerily humming along as usual, Kittridge had helped Warren carry his purchases to the car. A Ferrari, of course. Standing beside it, Kittridge thought: Why not just go ahead

ENG

Justin Cronin is the New York Times bestselling author of The Passage, The Twelve, The City of Mirrors, Mary and O'Neil (which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize), and The Summer Guest. Other honors for his writing include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Whiting Writers' Award. A Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Rice University, he divides his time between Houston, Texas, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

[A] literary superthriller. The New York Times Book Review
 
An undeniable and compelling epic . . . a complex narrative of flight and forgiveness, of great suffering and staggering loss, of terrible betrayals and incredible hope. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
 
The Twelve is even better than The Passage. The Plain Dealer
 
A compulsive read. San Francisco Chronicle
 
Gripping . . . Cronin [introduces] eerie new elements to his masterful mythology. . . . Enthralling, emotional and entertaining. The San Diego Union-Tribune
 
Fine storytelling. Associated Press
 
Cronin is one of those rare authors who works on two different levels, blending elegantly crafted literary fiction with cliff-hanging thrills. Fort Worth Star-Telegram