Born Scared by Kevin Brooks

Author:Kevin Brooks [Brooks, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0403-2
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2016-12-07T16:00:00+00:00

Gordon wasn’t dead. Far from it. In fact, at that very moment — 4:34 p.m. — he’d never felt more alive. Admittedly, he’d never felt quite so strange either, and as he approached his silver Vauxhall Corsa and beeped the lock, he was amazed to see the sound of the beep turning into a fluorescent bird of paradise and flying up into the snowy night sky.

“Sheesh,” he muttered.

The echoes of his voice swirled all around him, a hundred thousand tiny “sheeshes” whirling and spiraling together, like a vast school of silvery fish feeding on the falling snowflakes.

Gordon held out his hand. A snowflake landed on it, and he brought his hand up close to his eyes and stared at the delicate white crystal.

A memory came to him.

A voice?

No, not quite . . . just words.

. . . millions of snowflakes dropping down from the sky like invaders from another planet, silent and serene, menacing . . . awesome . . . an alien world . . . crystals . . . symmetrical patterns . . . snow . . . snowball . . . snowdrop . . . drop of snow . . .

“Snow goose,” Gordon muttered, smiling to himself, “that’s no goose, that’s my wife . . .”

He paused, frowning, momentarily unaware of where he was, or where he’d been, or what he was doing . . . and then he blinked once, and something clicked inside his head, and although he still wasn’t sure where he’d been, or why it was dark, he at least knew where he was, and what day it was.

It was Christmas Eve.

He was standing by his car, in the staff parking lot at the back of the bank, and it was time to go home.

He opened the car door and got in. As he closed the door and settled into the seat, he realized right away that something didn’t feel right. He couldn’t pin it down at first — it just felt different — and for a moment or two he actually wondered if he was somehow in the wrong car, but after a quick look around, he knew that wasn’t it. The pine air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror was his, as was the satnav and the beaded seat cover . . . yes, this was definitely his car. There was just something . . . something missing . . . and then it struck him.

The steering wheel.

It wasn’t there.

He reached out in front of him, moving his hands around the space where the steering wheel should have been — as if, perhaps, it was still there, but had somehow become invisible — but he couldn’t feel anything. The steering wheel simply wasn’t there. The only thing he could think of was that it must have been stolen. Someone must have broken into the car and stolen his steering wheel . . .

But even as he tried to get angry about it — which he didn’t really want to, but felt that he should — the truth of the matter suddenly dawned on him.

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