Till We Become Monsters by Amanda Headlee

Author:Amanda Headlee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Woodhall Press
Published: 2021-03-23T19:58:46+00:00

Silence filled the car.

Korin stared out the window, boiling with anger that he was still suppressing, even at the age of twenty-two. He had nothing against Addy and knew she would be no trouble; he just didn’t want to watch her. If he’d known he was going to have to babysit on this trip, he would have just stayed at Kelton. Babysitting would be better than helping his family work on the roof, but he was not going to find a single moment of quiet time to work on or think about his thesis.

In the reflection of the window, he could see Addy leaning against her brother, fast asleep. Tate, too, was asleep, snoring softly. Davis was looking straight ahead, and Korin didn’t know if he was awake. Not as if he cared much either way.

The silence was momentarily satisfying as they traveled over the small bridge that spanned Bluff Creek. Within the next fifteen to twenty minutes, they would be turning onto Bluff Creek Road and then eventually the driveway to the hunting cabin.

“Davis?” Albert’s voice pierced the silence, and Korin’s thoughts. “Pour me a bit of coffee, would you? I want a sip before I get out of the car.”

Silence.

“Davis?”

Korin felt the agitation seethe from his father’s at Davis’s immaturity. Albert reached over to the floor to grab the thermos, momentarily ducking his head below the dashboard. Korin sighed. His father was sometimes as immature as his brother. Did he really need to have coffee at this exact moment?

Korin looked ahead and saw a large black bear walking across the road.

“Dad!” Korin screamed.

His father slammed on the brakes. The car skidded on a patch of ice, and in an attempt to avoid the bear, Albert turned the steering wheel sharply to the left. The front fender of the car clipped the bear’s hindquarters, spinning the animal and smacking its head off the passenger side. The impact with the bear splashed blood all over Davis’s window. The car continued to slide on the patch of ice until it caught the asphalt, catapulting forward.

Screams echoed throughout the car.

Tate reached over to hold on to Addy, who was not secured by a seat belt. Korin braced himself. Davis yelled “Fuck!” over and over again as Albert tried to regain control of the station wagon.

Before them was a mound of dirt that had been pushed to the side when the road was created. Instead of hauling the dirt off to a landfill, the Department of Transportation had just pushed it to the edge of the road, creating a serpentine hill that followed alongside the road for miles. They hit it head-on.

The car shot up the embankment and went airborne, grazing a tree off the driver’s side. The passenger side tipped. Everything seemed to move in slow motion for Korin. Through the windshield, he saw nothing but sideways trees and snow-covered ground. Addy’s high-pitched scream pierced his ears and the world thundered around him and faded into black.

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