Across the Void by S K Vaughn

Author:S K Vaughn [Vaughn, S K]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781501181368
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

41

Stowe, Vermont

January 1, 2043

Fire. The only light in hundreds of miles of dark. Stephen looked skyward. There was no sky, only a canopy of nothingness connecting to the same nothingness all around him. Cold. The worst cold he’d ever felt in his young life. The dark-green parka he wore was brand-new, along with the black mittens and hat. Aunt Sarah, his father’s sister, had given them to him a few hours ago—late Christmas presents. Stephen and his parents had attended her New Year’s Eve party in Stowe, an annual tradition. Sarah and her family always had a nice party, though maybe a bit wild, like them. Their house was a time capsule, a museum with wood-burning heat and photos of humorless ancestors stiffly framed against ancient floral wallpaper. Stephen loved it. And them. They gave him grief for being smart, an “egghead” they would say, laughing through cigarette smoke and the vapors of homemade botanical liqueurs. In their presence, he felt connected to something safe and warm, something like home.

Sitting on the side of a snow-packed road, perched on his father’s suitcase, he was no longer safe or warm. Although he shivered and cried, he could not, would not, use the fire to warm him. It smelled of auto fuel and melting rubber, and something else, sweet and sickly. His mind could define it, he thought, but his tongue would not allow him to utter the words. The fire came from a mouth of twisted metal, with broken glass for teeth. It blackened everything, like the soot on the inside of Aunt Sarah’s wood stove.

“You’d better come with us,” a man’s voice said.

Stephen didn’t hear him. He was still forbidding himself from going near the fire.

“Son, can you hear me?”

“I can’t go,” Stephen said weakly.

“You have to, son. You’ll freeze out here.”

“I can’t go to the fire. I won’t go.”

“No, you can’t go to the fire.”

A blanket fell over his shoulders. The man spoke to someone else, telling them he’d come upon an accident. He used the word fatalities. Car and a truck. Found a kid on the side of the road. Definitely in shock. As he spoke, Stephen held his stomach and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see it again. The total darkness, the sudden headlights and horn blast, his father’s wide eyes in the rearview mirror. His mother reaching for him in the backseat, saying something that sounded like “Hold your breath.” The cloud of glass and splintering car lights as they rolled upside down, right side up, sliding, falling. Then the fire. Stephen had crawled out the back window and through the snow, looking for his parents. Their suitcases were in the snow, but not them. They were screaming in the car. Can’t go to the fire.

A voice on a radio spoke back to the man. Forty-five minutes, the voice had said. Storm getting worse, the voice also said. Snow fell, dry flakes swirling in a bitter wind, stinging his face and neck. A hand wrapped around Stephen’s elbow and pulled him gently to his feet.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.