those days, sick and dying. But soon we’ll all be better.
E • X • C • E • R • P • T • S
FROM THE WORLD OF GAMELAND
Sunder the Hollow Ones Episode 4, Season 1
( available in digital and print )
As I make my way down the hallway, my eyes wander over the framed photographs hanging on the wall. It looks like a young couple used to live here, mid-twenties, their daughter of about five years old. She’s blond, pretty, wearing a white dress with a crimson sash around her waist and a crimson bow in her hair. She’s standing beside a metal swing set, her arms wrapped around an undeniably overfed white rabbit, which seems not to mind that its bottom half is dangling completely unsupported. It’s even got that same happy smile the girl is wearing.
The pictures sadden me. Here is a family ripped from their home by the outbreak. I wonder where they ended up. I guess the girl would be about my age now, seventeen or eighteen.
Out of curiosity, I wander around the corner and toward the unlit back of the house and strain my eyes to see if the swing set in the picture is out there. The faintest glow leaks from the hallway and out through the sliding glass door and onto the grass. And there it is, the ghostly metal skeleton, a pair of swings, a slide, all stained brown by rust and covered in vines. In the darkness with the breeze blowing the grass, the image wavers and for a brief moment the little girl is out there, sitting on one of the swings, the rabbit on her lap, and suddenly I’m so very homesick.
I allow myself to sink into the image. The faint strands of an old forgotten lullaby come to me, a song sung by a mother, and I find myself humming along and feeling her fingers on my cheek, pulling my hair back and holding me close.
But I can’t even be sure if these are memories or wishes. I blink them bitterly away, and the scene outside shifts again. There is no girl out in that ruination of a yard, no child sitting upon that swing and humming along with her mother. Both of them are gone to who knows where.
There is only darkness and unkempt grass and imaginary ghosts.
I turn away from the window and make my way through the room into a second hallway. The doors for the bedrooms are all open. Only one stands closed, the bathroom. There won’t be any water in the toilet, but if I’m lucky there’ll be paper, a luxury.
I grasp the knob and turn it and push open the door. A vanity twinkles in the gloom. Everything else is swathed in darkness as deep and mournful as a broken promise. I take a step in, feeling for the light switch, find it, flick it. The room remains dark.
[…]
And that’s when the fingers touch my arm.
A Dark and Sure Descent A Long Island outbreak novel
(coming winter 2013)
The drive from the Laroda Island Animal Research Center to their house during off-commute hours normally took between eighty and ninety minutes, but on this day, which had gone steadily downhill from the moment she awoke till Veronica called to tell her that Cassie was vomiting — this one day when Lyssa desperately regretted ever getting out of bed at all — she knew she’d be lucky to make it home in under three hours.
The traffic reporter on WAXQ had mentioned some sort of multi-agency police activity west of Medford, which was still a good half hour away. No word on whether Interstate 495 was impacted, though. Traffic on this stretch of 25 was still moving swiftly, but that didn’t mean much. Being so near the northeastern tip of the island, there were few who had business on this remote stretch of land. It’s precisely why she and Ramon had opened the lab where they had.
She tried to picture the main highway, to determine if she should try an alternate route. She knew what Ramon would say: Go around .
He was decisive by nature and had little patience for obstacles, no matter their cause, no matter the severity (or lack thereof) of consequence. Better safe than sorry , he’d say. A stitch in time saves
E • X • C • E • R • P • T • S
FROM THE WORLD OF GAMELAND
Sunder the Hollow Ones Episode 4, Season 1
( available in digital and print )
As I make my way down the hallway, my eyes wander over the framed photographs hanging on the wall. It looks like a young couple used to live here, mid-twenties, their daughter of about five years old. She’s blond, pretty, wearing a white dress with a crimson sash around her waist and a crimson bow in her hair. She’s standing beside a metal swing set, her arms wrapped around an undeniably overfed white rabbit, which seems not to mind that its bottom half is dangling completely unsupported. It’s even got that same happy smile the girl is wearing.
The pictures sadden me. Here is a family ripped from their home by the outbreak. I wonder where they ended up. I guess the girl would be about my age now, seventeen or eighteen.
Out of curiosity, I wander around the corner and toward the unlit back of the house and strain my eyes to see if the swing set in the picture is out there. The faintest glow leaks from the hallway and out through the sliding glass door and onto the grass. And there it is, the ghostly metal skeleton, a pair of swings, a slide, all stained brown by rust and covered in vines. In the darkness with the breeze blowing the grass, the image wavers and for a brief moment the little girl is out there, sitting on one of the swings, the rabbit on her lap, and suddenly I’m so very homesick.
I allow myself to sink into the image. The faint strands of an old forgotten lullaby come to me, a song sung by a mother, and I find myself humming along and feeling her fingers on my cheek, pulling my hair back and holding me close.
But I can’t even be sure if these are memories or wishes. I blink them bitterly away, and the scene outside shifts again. There is no girl out in that ruination of a yard, no child sitting upon that swing and humming along with her mother. Both of them are gone to who knows where.
There is only darkness and unkempt grass and imaginary ghosts.
I turn away from the window and make my way through the room into a second hallway. The doors for the bedrooms are all open. Only one stands closed, the bathroom. There won’t be any water in the toilet, but if I’m lucky there’ll be paper, a luxury.
I grasp the knob and turn it and push open the door. A vanity twinkles in the gloom. Everything else is swathed in darkness as deep and mournful as a broken promise. I take a step in, feeling for the light switch, find it, flick it. The room remains dark.
[…]
And that’s when the fingers touch my arm.
A Dark and Sure Descent A Long Island outbreak novel
(coming winter 2013)
The drive from the Laroda Island Animal Research Center to their house during off-commute hours normally took between eighty and ninety minutes, but on this day, which had gone steadily downhill from the moment she awoke till Veronica called to tell her that Cassie was vomiting — this one day when Lyssa desperately regretted ever getting out of bed at all — she knew she’d be lucky to make it home in under three hours.
The traffic reporter on WAXQ had mentioned some sort of multi-agency police activity west of Medford, which was still a good half hour away. No word on whether Interstate 495 was impacted, though. Traffic on this stretch of 25 was still moving swiftly, but that didn’t mean much. Being so near the northeastern tip of the island, there were few who had business on this remote stretch of land. It’s precisely why she and Ramon had opened the lab where they had.
She tried to picture the main highway, to determine if she should try an alternate route. She knew what Ramon would say: Go around .
He was decisive by nature and had little patience for obstacles, no matter their cause, no matter the severity (or lack thereof) of consequence. Better safe than sorry , he’d say. A stitch in time saves
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