Sleeping Beauties
Published: 26, September 2017
Genre: American, Classic, Fiction, Ghost, Historical, Horror, Literary, Literature, Mystery, Post Apocalyptic, Psychic, Science Fiction, Supernatural, Suspense, Thriller
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Summary
A strange lady beats two guys who run a meth lab out of their mobile home to death, and then sets fire to the lab before allowing herself to be apprehended by the local sheriff.
Lila Norcross, in the impoverished town of Dooling, part of the fictional Tri-Counties region of Appalachia.
Simultaneously, reports emerge of a mysterious illness sweeping the globe, causing women to fall into a deep sleep while cocooned in a strange material.
The sickness, called "Aurora," also makes the sleeping ladies homicidal, assaulting and killing any adult who tries to release the cocoons.
Clint, Lila's husband and the chief psychiatrist at the Dooling Correctional Institute for Women, notices Aurora in his patients around the same time that the woman, dubbed "Eve Black," is incarcerated there.
As the disease spreads throughout the town, local women become desperate to stay awake, which results in looting and riots.
Lila succumbs to the illness and is replaced by Terry Coombs, her alcoholic chief deputy, who appoints Frank Geary, a former animal control officer with a short fuse, as his second-in-command.
Warden Janice Coates, Clint's superior, fires one of her guards, Don Peters, for sexual harassment; he drugs her with Xanax, leaving Clint to protect the few remaining female inmates.
Clint interviews Eve and discovers that she is an "emissary" sent by an alien creature who believes that women are capable of creating a society devoid of war, abuse, and other ills that she claims are mostly caused by males.
Clint is "the Man," according to her, and his mission is to guard Eve for "a week or two" while she pledges to heal the ladies of Aurora.
Meanwhile, Frank and Terry deputize numerous new recruits, including Peters and Eric Blass, a juvenile delinquent, and gradually restore order to Dooling.
Rumors about Eve's ability to sleep and wake without incident spread across the village, prompting Frank to begin enlisting Terry's help in luring her out of prison in order to save the sleeping ladies.
Clint's son Jared and his companion Mary successfully conceal Lila and three other women in an empty house, fearful that Frank will exploit their bodies as hostages.
Meanwhile, the ladies are trapped in a post-apocalyptic Dooling that they refer to as "Our Place" in another reality.
Even as several unexpectedly leave, Lila and Janice assume leadership, and the women begin to re-establish themselves (due to their bodies having been destroyed by men in the real world).
Instead of finding additional survivors, a crew assigned to hunt for them comes and finds a majestic Tree, which turns out to be the doorway between Our Place and Dooling.
Frank's wife, Elaine Nutting, tries to burn the Tree down because she doesn't want to return to the real world, but Eve intervenes by sending an inmate, Jeanette Sorley, to stop her; Jeanette has a little boy whom she urgently wants to see again, so she agrees to intervene.
When Jeanette discovers Elaine lighting the Tree gateway, she wrestles the lighter and a revolver away from her.
Jeanette then tosses the lighter into the trash and grabs the revolver to stow it in her belt. Leaves rustle behind her before she can do so. Jeanette turns around with the rifle in her hand, and Lila accidentally fires and kills her.
Clint and his merry band take firearms from the police station, causing Frank and Terry to form a posse to storm the prison and kidnap Eve.
During the attack, two criminals whom Lila had apprehended based on an inmate's confession use a stolen bazooka to blow up the station and a section of the jail, killing fifteen women before Vanessa Lampley, a former guard, shoots them down.
Terry kills himself out of sadness and cowardice, Peters and Blass are slain, and the majority of Frank's men abandon him, but he makes it to Eve's cell.
Even though Eve herself assures Frank that murdering her is the best way to rescue his family, Clint, Jared, Janice's daughter Michaela, a prisoner called Angel Fitzroy, and an old volunteer named Willy Burke try to urge him to spare her life.
Clint uses guilt to push Eve to use her power to save Willy when his heart suddenly stops, realizing that Eve is attempting to establish that males are fundamentally violent and should be allowed to die out.
When Frank and the others notice this, they allow Eve to return to Our Place, where she gives the ladies the option of returning to Dooling or staying put. At the end of the day, all of the ladies vote to return.
Life gradually returns to normal as sleeping ladies throughout the world awaken from their slumber.
However, Lila and Clint's already unstable marriage falls apart, and the couple decides to divorce, with Clint returning to his previous position at a nearby jail and Lila retiring as sheriff.
Lila travels out to where the Tree used to stand, haunted by Jeanette's death and seeking forgiveness and asks Eve for a sign of her presence. Then, on her palm, a solitary brown moth (one of Eve's forms) falls.
Useful Search Related Words & Keywords
Character Development, Evie Black, Fall Asleep, Father And Son, Joe Hill, King Novel, Looking Forward, Many Characters, Page Turner, Son Owen
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