This dramatic short story collection contains eight stories based on a figurative, or literal, interpretation of wet, nasty weather. At turns spooky, frightening or funny, these tales are guaranteed not to disappoint.
Ice : "Vernon Wilson" (Paranor...
Even years later, Mick couldn't say exactly what had happened.
One second, he was on his way to his brother's house, following the beams of his car's headlights as they ploughed a double track through the pre-dawn darkness. The next, the steering wheel under his hands lost all resistance, becoming as flexible as a blade of grass.
He jerked the wheel this way and that, to no effect.
The car spun like a top, the headlights streaking like search lights across the trees lining the road, bringing each trunk sharply into focus for a split second before thrusting it back into the night, before sliding off the side of the road. One lone tree leapt forward to accordion the right side of the hood, turning it into a pile of hissing, creaking scrap metal.
The airbag inflated and Mick was thrust head-first into it. The seatbelt dug painfully into his chest before he was whipped back.
The windshield shattered, and bits of glass sprayed everywhere.
Then, silence.
One headlight illuminated the thin woodland at an odd angle, giving the twisted branches and thorny vines stripped bare by winter a sinister, menacing look, as if they'd been formed from the pages of a children's fairy tale.
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An acrid burning mingled with the chill of the outside that invaded the car through the busted, broken glass. Mick leaned the nape of his neck against the head rest and stared at the roof, his heart pounding, his eyes wide as a dead deer's.
In slow, careful steps, he freed himself from the airbag and seatbelt, moving each of his legs gingerly to see if they would obey. They seemed to, and he opened the car door and climbed out. His muscles ached from the impact. Nothing seemed to be broken.
I have to call the police, he thought. Where's my phone?
It had been lying on the passenger seat where he'd tossed it after voicemail had clicked on for the fourth time. Mick's brother, Bill, didn't know he was coming, and had probably fallen asleep in front of the television again. After almost a year without a job, Bill had given up all semblance of a daily schedule and calling when he was awake and coherent had become a guessing game. Mick had decided to just get in the car and drive the two hundred miles to Bill's place. He had good news, and wanted to deliver it in person. He'd call from the road.
Ignoring the glass splinters, Mick reached over and blindly groped his phone out from under the passenger seat, only to see the screen cracked like a horror house mirror. He prodded at it, shook it, tapped it against the dashboard. Nothing. He threw the phone back onto the seat and looked around, his breath puffing clouds of steam into the cold.
A two-lane road. Trees on either side. The faintest, grey outlines of low-hanging clouds above them. Light, but persistent rain.
