Brian Spangler [Gray 01] Going Gray (epub)

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.She should have heard something.What about the morning seabirds?Two more thumps.But these came from below her window, outside.A neighbor? The sound of a car door creaked open and then closed, followed by the slamming of a trunk lid.A voice came next, escalating to a yell, telling someone that they needed to hurry it up.Another car door opened and then closed.Emily began to understand that whatever was happening, it was happening to everyone; the neighborhood was awake and in motion.A scream came then, cutting through her bedroom.She jumped.Her mother cupped a hand over her lips while her father’s mouth fell open.The voice had a throaty and raw sound, tortured, and her body went cold as the hairs on her arms sprang to life.She exchanged a frightened glance with her mother and then looked over to her father.“Daddy, what was that?” The first scared tears pricked her eyes.“Momma, why did someone scream like that?” Her father raised his hand, shushing her, and then waited.For a minute they just stood in her room, listening.Garbled sounds, wet and drowning, came next.The person tried to yell out, but to Emily, the voice sounded marred and deformed.The few words that she could make out were something about not leaving the house—Stay inside!—and then the shouting ended abruptly, punctuated by the crumpled sound of someone falling.Silence followed.Her father’s hand stayed in the air.“The car never started,” her father whispered, talking to himself more than to her or her mother.“They never made it into the car.So strong and fast.Very fast.”“What do you mean… fast?” Emily asked.“They could still be alive—we can help them!” But she knew what she’d heard.It was the sound of a body collapsing onto the street outside their home.“No we can’t,” he answered, his voice subdued and in a near-whisper.He lowered his hand and leveled his eyes.“We can’t help anyone but ourselves now.”“But they’re right outside!”“Never mind them, Emily!” Her father spoke with a hard, scolding tone.“Hurry and get your things together!”Emily bit down on her lower lip, hurt by her father’s stern voice.She rushed past her parents, keeping her head low and her sight fixed on the floor.She said nothing more as she crossed the hall.Another scream came from outside, slowing her step.The sound was thin and distant, but as real as the first.She picked up her feet, as if to run from the screams.Emily closed the bathroom door, trying to shut out the horrid sounds.What nightmare had she awaken to?Alone, hidden away from the world, Emily began to cry.The toilet seat was cold, but she hardly noticed it.She heard a volley of sharp words.Emily cupped an ear, trying to make out what her parents were saying.Another set of screams crept under the door—loud enough to momentarily interrupt their chatter.When it became quiet again, her mother started to yell.“Did you do this?” she hollered.Her voice was loud and shaking.“Tell me you didn’t do this, please! TELL ME, PHIL!”“I don’t know what happened,” he snapped.“None of our models ever showed a reaction like this.Conditions are incorrect… it’s got to be wrong!”“Incorrect? Wrong?” Emily’s mother shouted back sarcastically.“People are dying, Phil! Don’t you hear them? Did your precious machines do this?”“I’m going to fix this,” her father stated flatly, resigned.Emotion was absent from his voice.“I can fix this.”Her mother’s crying slowed, her hushed sobs moved past the bathroom.Two quick knocks rapped against the door, pulling Emily’s head up.“Hurry it up, Emily.No time for anything else.Okay?”“In a minute!”The bathroom lights flickered, and the electricity shut off.Blackness swallowed everything, and Emily’s breathing became still.A moment later the lights blinked once, flickered back on.The lights sometimes did that when a hurricane blew through their small coastal town.But this wasn’t like any storm they’d been through before.Emily breathed again, catching the first bitter taste of salt.Unlike the ocean breeze she’d grown up with, the briny taste was strong and chemical.“Daddy, the lights!”“Power is going to go out soon… we’re losing the substation.”“I’m scared.”“I know, Hon.We all are, Emily.Hurry it up now,” he answered.The electricity popped, sounding a crisp break this time, shutting off all the lights.The blackness came again, forcing her eyes wide.She found a thin rail of light stretching beneath the bathroom door.A shuffle of shadow feet passed by.The quick pace and short steps told her it was her mother.Her father followed behind, continuing the argument from earlier.They were on the stairs next, moving down to the foyer.Her world became silent.The outside.Her parents.She welcomed the quiet, but thought of the dead body.Or was it bodies? The dead make no sounds.Her throat tightened, her stomach cramped.The taste of heavy salt returned, and Emily had a sudden urge to heave.She coughed out the burn until stars were in her eyes, zipping around in a swirly dance.And at some point, her arms and legs had become itchy.Whatever was causing the screams outside had started to seep through the walls.Her father was right, the house wasn’t going to last.Emily wiped herself, dropped the tissue, and pulled up her panties.Her nightie fell over her itching legs as she rushed out of the bathroom.Back in her bedroom, the sun had finally started to show.But it was different—off.The colors washed out.With the sunrise, a gray world was revealed to her.Heavy fog crowded her window, hiding what was outside.The entire world reduced to a square of roiling gray.If only it blocked out the sounds, too.It seemed that as the gray light grew stronger, more people were venturing outside.Emily heard doors, an occasional scream.A car horn blasting across the street.Terse yells from a woman to her family.And as before, the loud voices soon became tortured screams.And ended with the sound of a body falling.She tried to cover her ears, to close off all the sounds.Her eyes began to burn, watering more than just emotional tears.And the itch on her skin was starting to burrow underneath, becoming painful.She wondered if their house was simply going to melt, and then wondered how long before they’d melt, too.This is just temporary, she told herself as she dressed.Soon Emily was gripping the stairwell railing for the last time in her life.As she neared the bottom steps, the notion of saying goodbye to her room crossed her mind.It was silly, and maybe a little sentimental, but for a sixteen-year-old, sentimental was sometimes everything.Her parents’ voices—and another scream—kept her moving forward.But she’d become clumsy, missing the last step, and fell hard onto the foyer’s wood floors.Immediately, blood rushed to her ankle, making it feel warm and swollen.“Mom!” she began, but stopped when she saw her mother’s body lying on the floor.Emily’s heart leaped into her throat.Had the poison—or whatever it was—killed her? Her mother’s face was hidden beneath her hands, but then Emily saw that her shoulders were shaking with a run of sobs.“Dad?”Emily’s father was at her mother’s side, his face tight as he tried to remain composed.“Barbara, I’m going to fix this,” he insisted, wiping away a string of spittle from his chin.“I promise!”More tortured screams.But the sound was louder this time, and seemed just outside.Emily stepped to the front door and heard a woman’s voice.Her heart beat harder as she leaned in closer.“I’m dying… Please help me, I’m dying,” the woman rasped.Her voice had the same throaty, pained quality as the others [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Pokrewne