The Meteorologist (4 page)

Peter was still squeezing the steering wheel,
holding onto some illusion of control. He let go, tucked his hands
under his arms, and stared through the window. Drinking it all in.
Fighting to stay with the moment, this last moment, but he kept
seeing their faces—clarity where for two decades there had been
only blur.

Darkness again.

By the dashboard glow, Peter saw coins rising
out of the drink holders.

His stomach lifted into his throat, and he
had the inescapable sense that they were plunging
earthward—exhilaration and fear and unbearable weightlessness.

Then the G-force struck, crushing his arms
and legs, pinning his chin to his chest, and it occurred to him
that he couldn’t breathe, that no matter how hard he tried, he
wasn’t going to be able to stop his eyes from rolling back into his
head, and he wondered if he would lose consciousness before they
hit the ground.

He felt no pain. He looked down at his arms
resting on the seat, bits of glass caught up and glittering in the
blond hairs. Wondered if he should try to raise them. If he wanted
to know so soon. He decided that he did. He tried. They raised and
he held his hands in front of his face and let his arms rotate at
the elbows. Next, he let his neck wobble on his head. He wiggled
his toes. Like an infant discovering its new body, he thought,
running his tongue across his teeth, everything still intact.

He looked over at Melanie. Her eyes were
closed and she had slumped against the door, her hair covered in
shards of glass.

The nightgown barely swelled over her heart.
She breathed.

He watched her for awhile, watched her sleep,
and then begin to stir, her eyes opening, struggling to sit up,
moving her fingers and toes, touching herself just as he had—a
delicate evaluation of what worked and what did not.

At last she looked over at him, her face
bleeding where the glass had cut, but otherwise in one piece.

She raised her eyebrows and he knew the
question, shook his head.

They were sitting upright in a beat to shit
RV, still buckled into their seats. Glass busted out of the
passenger and driver side windows, sunlight passing in blinding
shears through fractures in the windshield.

And they had not smiled like this before. Not
in their lives. Like they’d borne witness to a private miracle.
Been made to see. Called forth from their tombs.

There was nothing but grassland and morning
sky as far as they could see, and the sound of wind moving through
the tall grasses and the coolness of that wind was everywhere and
upon everything.

BLAKE CROUCH
is the author of DESERT
PLACES, LOCKED DOORS, and ABANDON, which was an IndieBound Notable
Selection last summer, all published by St. Martin's
Press. His newest thriller, SNOWBOUND, also from St. Martin's,
was released in June 2010. His short fiction has appeared in
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
,
Alfred Hitchcock's
Mystery Magazine
,
Thriller 2
, and other anthologies,
including the new Shivers anthology from Cemetery Dance. In 2009,
he co-wrote "Serial" with J.A. Konrath, which has been downloaded
over 250,000 times and topped the Kindle bestseller list for 4
weeks. That story and DESERT PLACES have also been optioned for
film. Blake lives in Durango, Colorado. His website is
www.blakecrouch.com
.

Blake Crouch’s Works

Andrew Z. Thomas thrillers

Desert Places

Locked Doors

Break You

Stirred

Other works

Draculas with J.A. Konrath, Jeff Strand and
F. Paul Wilson

Abandon

Snowbound

Famous

Perfect Little Town (horror novella)

Serial Uncut with J.A. Konrath and Jack
Kilborn

Serial with Jack Kilborn

Bad Girl (short story)

Killers

Killers Uncut

Serial Killers Uncut

Four Live Rounds (collected stories)

Shining Rock (short story)

*69 (short story)

On the Good, Red Road (short story)

Remaking (short story)

The Meteorologist (short story)

The Pain of Others (thriller novella)

Six in the Cylinder (collected stories)

Fully Loaded (complete collected stories)

Visit Blake at www.BlakeCrouch.com