From the Fire by Kelly Kent David

Author:Kelly, Kent David [Kelly, Kent David]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Wonderland Imprints
Published: 2012-05-12T04:00:00+00:00

* * * * *

The time for grief is later, said a new voice. A voice only in her mind.

Father?

Grieve later, Sophie. This is now. This is life.

~

“Fifteen minutes and fifty seconds …”

~

Sophie shook her head. She felt as if she was shaking free of a liquid veil, a cool gauze of serenity laced over the animal panic that was building in her heart, her lungs, her flesh and the shivering tips of the hairs upon her forearms. She trembled and swallowed, her eyes widening as she realized just how far up the Morrison-Kincaid trailhead road she had already gone. How long had she been driving without even registering what was going on?

This is no dream.

The last asphalt stretch of the park service road was far behind her. The ribbed dirt of the road beyond it had turned to slush. She hit a deep, muddy, ice-rimmed pool at thirty-five and the Hummer lurched as she corrected. A huge splashing wave of mud sloshed up over the H4’s hood. The wipers curved and bent under the strain, their micro-motors whirring and straining to clear away the sopping mess. Sophie was forced to slow down once again. A sick feeling tickled under her ribs as the H4 felt like it was drifting across water, the wheels floundering for purchase in the muddy wheel-ruts. The windshield began to clear, just in time for Sophie to see that she was driving into another and deeper puddle that had formed a stream across the entire road. The wipers lost synch as they struggled to scoop away another gloppy torrent of melting snow and slime.

Cursing, Sophie shifted the H4 into four-wheel. Should have done this ten minutes ago. Come on, feel you idiot, think —

~

“Seventeen minutes and twenty-two seconds …”

~

Don’t think, don’t feel,

get to shelter

get to the shelter —

The H4’s engine lurched as it shunted control to all four wheels. Thick and silted water ran in runnels down the Hummer’s sides as Sophie guided it down the left and downhill edge of the slanted road, where the flow of water had lessened for a time. The pine forest overhead gave way to even steeper walls of rock. The further she went, the walls loomed ever higher, until they offered only a meager shaft of snowy sky where the winds churned the gloom away into a rind of darkness.

Don’t do it Sophie, father whispered. Don’t look at the sky. Don’t look up at the sky now, hon. Keep going.

“Daddy?” She shifted in her seat and bent over the wheel, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Why not, daddy?” she murmured. “Why can’t I look at the sky?”

The voice did not answer her.

~

“Nineteen minutes and two seconds …”

“Warning! Impact is imminent and will occur in approximately five to nine minutes, dependent upon your location. Shelter in place. Move away from windows immediately.”

~

Oh, God.

She drove as fast as she dared. The left wheel-rut snapped at her tires as she hugged the side of the narrowing road, trying to keep the H4 from lurching through the now-endless, cascading series of puddles on the right.

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