Her breath caught.
An upslope breeze carried the strong scent of gasoline.
Several hundred feet down the mountain, barely visible through the trees and the fog, she spotted Paige’s CR-V. The vehicle had come to rest on its backend, the undercarriage propped and teetering against a fir tree, its headlights still blasting twin tubes of light up through the fog.
The squeaking she’d heard was the sound of one of the front wheels, still turning.
Steam or smoke poured out of the crumpled hood.
She counted four bare spots on the snowy hill where the car had struck ground, scoured out the snowpack, and flipped.
“Grant!” Her voice echoed off invisible mountains. “Can anyone hear me?”
She dialed 911 and then started down.
The slope was steep, at least thirty degrees, and a good two or three feet of snow covered the ground, the tops of evergreen saplings just poking through.
She descended as fast as she could, but she kept falling, and the snow was going down her boots with every step, her clothes and hair becoming powdered with snow.
The wheel had stopped turning by the time she closed in on the CR-V and the stench of gas was potent. The snow wasn’t as deep in the trees, only coming to her knees.
She passed a handful of smaller evergreens that had been broken in two as the car crashed through them, the smell of splintered wood and fresh sap mixing in with the gas.
Sophie stopped twenty feet away.
She was shivering, her hands numb, legs burning with cold.
The engine hissed.
Through the driver-side window, she could see Jim Moreton. Because of the angle of the car, he was lying back in his seat, still strapped in, his head resting unnaturally against his left shoulder.
“Mr. Moreton.”
He didn’t move.
She stepped closer to the car, now peering in through the rear passenger window. The backseat was empty, the seats soaked with blood. She looked at the windshield—a gaping hole, exploded from within.
Sophie turned and studied the hillside. The twisted guardrail seemed a thousand miles away.
From this perspective, she could see the path the CR-V had taken, punching through the guardrail, then plunging a hundred feet before it hit.
At the second point of impact, she glimpsed a smaller path that branched off and carved down the slope.
It appeared to terminate fifty yards from where she stood at the forest’s edge.
She waded through the snow, using the saplings and branches in proximity to keep her upright. Every step was a struggle, and she was sweating after only a minute.
Ten feet out, she spotted the gray of Paige’s coat.
She was lying facedown in the snow and there was blood all around her. Sophie bent over and dug two fingers into her carotid.
Twenty feet deeper in the woods, she found Grant.
He was lying on his back.
Eyes open. Not breathing.
Sophie sat down beside him in the snow.
“Look at you,” she whispered.
She took his left hand into hers and leaned over and cried.
There would be times in the coming weeks when the numbness would subside and Sophie would remember a cool night in June when she had driven a slightly-too-drunk Grant home from the Stumbling Monk. It was an office party, someone’s birthday, and they had spent the evening talking with their knees nearly touching and sometimes touching underneath the bar while the rest of the precinct roared at each other in the booths behind them. This was the night she had surprised herself with her own feelings. After everyone left, she drove him home and they sat in the car outside of Grant’s house, their hands so close that the summer breeze coming in through the open windows could have blown them together. She had wanted nothing more than to slide her fingers into his. To hold them. Let them take her inside. But she didn’t. And neither did he. That would be the ritual they shared. Two years of walking right up to the door that held everything they wanted, but never opening it. So there would be times in the coming weeks when she would think back to that first moment in the car and how she had been too scared to reach for his hand, and then remember this last one, sitting beside him on a cold foggy morning, when she did.
She had put her job before her love. Before her happiness. Betrayed Grant and herself. She saw it now. Saw it with the kind of scorching clarity that comes like a storm when it’s too late to take cover. When there’s nothing to be done but face your failing, take the pain, and push on.
Sirens pulled her back into the moment.
They were still miles away, and wailing through the mountains like a tragic anthem.
Sophie started to rise.
At first, she thought it was the light from the rescue party, but it couldn’t be with the sirens still too far out, and besides, this light was coming from the sky. From straight overhead. A blinding luminescence hovering just above the trees. Brighter than anything she’d ever witnessed and yet there was no pain, no urge to look away.
As it descended toward her, she lay back in the snow, still holding Grant’s hand.
Closer and closer, but no fear.
Only mystery and peace as it finally enveloped her in a sphere of pure light which held some component of familiarity that broke her heart.
Where are you going, Grant?
I don’t know yet.
I want to come with you.
It’s not your time.
I want to be with you. I always wanted it, but I was too afraid.
I know. I was too.
I’m so sorry.
Have no regret.
Please. I see now. I see everything.
There’s still time for us. This is not the end.
She blinked and the light was gone.
Sophie sat up.
She was alone in the forest and her heart was pounding.
That rush of euphoric joy was fading, and she was still holding her partner’s cold hand. Time had passed—more than felt right. Up the mountainside, she could see the schizophrenic flashing of the light bars, and there were EMTs and lawmen halfway down the hill.
Already she could feel Sophie-the-skeptic muscling in to discredit what she had just experienced, to undermine it, to subject it to the rigid empiricist that had governed her life up to this moment.
And her first instinct was to listen, to carry on as before.
What has your lack of faith ever done but cause you pain and keep you from the man you love?
No.
Something had happened in these trees.
Something beyond her experience.
Something magic.
She could choose to believe.
Epilogue
Paige is dying.
Paige is five, chewing a piece of spearmint gum.
He’s in the CR-V.
His father’s ’74 Impala.
It’s day.
Night.
“Pay attention, guys, you’ll remember this game one day.”
The guardrail rushes toward them through the fog.
The play-by-play announcer says, “The crowd will tell you what happens.”
Paige says, “Daddy?”
Paige moans, “Daddy?”
“Oh shit.”
The engine revving.
Grant bracing, realizing neither he nor Paige is buckled in and wondering does it even matter at this point.
Jim says, “Everything will be—”
Straight through.
The engine redlines, goes silent.
Grant can hear the tires spinning underneath him. He and Paige lift off the seat and his head bangs into the ceiling as they plummet. The urge to hold onto something is overpowering, but he just squeezes Paige, her eyes gone wide.
Don’t be scared, Paige.
But I am.
I won’t let anything happen to you.
You promise?
I promise.
Swear.
I
swear to you, Paige. I’ll protect you.
Through the windshield, the white mountainside is screaming toward the front of the car which is now pitched earthward, nothing but g-force pinning Grant to his seat.
He looks down into his sister’s eyes a half second before they hit.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Paige.
Just like me?
Just like you. And she had an older brother named Grant.
Just like you.
Yes, just like me.
Did they have parents?
No. Paige and Grant lived in a beautiful house all by themselves, and they were very brave.
The sound of metal crumpling.
The shock of snow tearing into the car.
Grant, still clutching Paige, accelerating through the windshield.
And then he is outside, the car flipping beneath him down the hillside in a spray of snow and safety glass.
Paige no longer in his arms and still he’s climbing skyward, as high as the tree tops now, the forest falling away beneath him.
The light starts as a pinprick, peeking through the forest below.
It begins to grow.
Slowly at first.
Then faster.
Consuming everything it touches like a fire burning its way through the center of a movie screen. The trees and the fog and the SUV still cartwheeling down the mountain all disappear into its edges, and it seems to Grant that the world is just a shroud for this blinding molten light behind it.
Except for one thing.
Her.
She is below him, crying in the snow.
He is being pulled, but he resists, fighting to descend.
And then he is with her.
The most sensual moment of his existence.
Effortless communication.
Mind to mind.
There is not enough time, but he makes every word, every second count.
He is ripped away.
And then…
Dad? Are you there?
I’m here.
It’s so bright.
Don’t close your eyes. Look right at it. No matter what.
I can’t feel anything.
That will pass. Just keep watching.
The light is everywhere and it touches everything. He feels his body blown away from him like sand. Old and new pain leaving.
The light begins to splinter. To condense into pinpoints. Beyond counting.
Are those stars?
It is Paige. Not her voice. But her.
Some of them.
Is that where we’re going?
If you want to. We can go anywhere you want.
Can we see Mom?
Yes. And others.
I don’t understand.
You will.
Then all at once, those pinpoints of light stretch toward them, as if they’ve been summoned.
The children hesitate, the stars streaming past like whitewater.
It is their father who pulls them forward.
Come on, they’re waiting for us.
There’s nothing to be afraid of anymore.
The End
Bonus Features
Afterword
In Which Blake and Jordan Interview Each Other About the Experience of Writing EERIE
Blake: For pretty much everybody except me, EERIE is their first taste of Jordan Crouch. Hmm. That didn’t sound quite right. How about you just introduce yourself?
Jordan: Hi, I’m the younger brother.
Blake: By six years.
Jordan: More?
Blake: Um, yeah.
Jordan: Hi, I’m the handsome younger brother. I graduated from the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 2007 with degrees in Creative Writing and English Lit. This is my first my endgame. Seattle, Washington, is home and when I’m not thinking of answers to hypothetical interview questions, I operate as a splinter cell for the Department of Homeland Security. You’re welcome, America.
Blake: What do you really do?
Jordan: I work in sales.
Blake: You’ve always been one of my first readers for my books, because you’ve got a great sense of story, without being married to the more conventional plot machinations. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I think you and I share some overlapping DNA (imagine that) in terms of the sort of big, different ideas that attract us. You’ve also come up with some real crunch time story fixes for me over the years. Probably the most epic example of that is the end of my historical thriller, ABANDON. I was really at a loss about how to wrap that book up and you came up with a fantastic idea … don’t want to ruin it here for those readers who haven’t picked it up yet, but the epilogue was totally your idea.
I love the collaboration process, and despite the fact that you hadn’t written a novel, always loved your writing, so I thought it only made sense for you and I to work together one day. Then last fall, you hit me with a kickass premise …
Jordan: To give credit where credit is due, the kernel that bloomed into this buttery piece of popcorn came from a close friend of mine named Bob. We’ve known each other for years, and his brain works at least twice as fast as mine so he often ends up being a sounding board for story ideas. The “monster-in-the-bedroom” premise happened during a phone conversation at the beginning 2011. In its earliest birth pains, it was about two hunters snowed in at a cabin with “something” locked in the bedroom. Then you and I ruined it.
Blake: Yeah, I flipped when you told me about it. It truly was just a kernel, but it struck me as something I hadn’t heard before. And possibly as a vehicle to write a type of story I had never attempted: a ghost story (although by now, our readers know EERIE was only dressed up like a ghost story). But what attracted me initially to the concept was how confined in space and time it was, and with minimal characters. Almost like a play. I just thought it had tremendous potential. After that first conversation, I brought it up a month later (it really stuck with me), asking if you and Bob were going to write it. You said no, and then I asked if you might want to write it with me.
Jordan: That was a no-brainer. It was a dynamite idea that needed to be written, and I would have been happy to see you tackle it by yourself. But the idea of working together is what put it over the edge for me.
Blake: Now I’ve written ten novels and a ton of short stories and novellas. I’ve collaborated with half a dozen people. You had written some short fiction in college and after, but this was pretty much your first foray both into a novel-length work and into collaboration. Spare no punches. How was the process for you? The good, the bad, and the ugly?
ASIDE: Before you answer, for those interested, the way we wrote this was a mix of real time Google Docs writing (you and I writing simultaneously in the same document) and then you and I working on scenes in isolation and sharing them later. We also spent about a month hammering out characters and a 5000-word outline which served as our roadmap (although we were allowed to take detours, and often did).
Jordan: I want to say first that I walked into this knowing that it was a golden ticket learning opportunity, and that whatever happened, the value of the experience would outweigh any of the bumps or bruises along the way. I don’t take for granted how lucky I am to love writing and also to have a brother who has built a career around it. But all modest stuff aside, the hardest part was trying not to step on your toes, while still attempting to plant my flag on the story. It was like sharing a room together again. Sometimes that claustrophobia would show up on the page, and I would watch you strike something that I really liked and think “Are you kidding me? That’s the best part!” But that’s how you make a cohesive voice in a collaborative story. You each hold your own light up to the other’s work and hope it evens out.
Blake: Apt analogy, but you did far more than plant your flag. I would say most of the important plot moves came from you.
Jordan: I’ll have to check the scoreboard. I do wonder if you would have been as ruthless if I were
n’t your brother.
Blake: Definitely not. And you bore my ruthlessness with total grace.
Jordan: You mentioned earlier that we wrote most of EERIE simultaneously, in real time, using Google Docs. That was a tough learning experience too. You tend to think of writing as this very personal, monastic thing you do alone with the door shut, but when you’re forced to share the page with someone else, it exercises muscles you would never use otherwise. There’s a lot of pressure to keep the pace going and to stay out of your head which is an easy rut to get stuck in if there’s no one staring back at you from the other side of the screen.
Blake: The most challenging aspect of this collaboration for me was our familiarity. When I’ve worked with past collaborators, even though (with some exceptions) I know them fairly well, everyone is still pretty much on their best behavior. But you and I are brothers. We love each other, we have a blast together, but there are also times when we fight, when we annoy the shit out of each other. So there were some occasions, on both ends, when we lost our cool and said things we wouldn’t have said to people who weren’t kin.
Jordan: I only remember apologizing to you once. But I’m sure there were other times I should have. So sorry or whatever.
Blake: Whenever we fought, it was always about the story. About wanting it to be as good as it could possibly be. And every time, we rallied, and truthfully there were only a handful of times when I wanted to throw my laptop at you.
One other thing … even though it’s a brother/sister relationship, the heart of this story is a sibling relationship. In the outline process, we didn’t realize Paige and Grant were brother and sister until very late in the game, but now that the book is done, I find it strange we didn’t come to it sooner. There were a few moments between them when I felt very strongly that we were channeling some of our dynamics (me trying to get you out of the male prostitution game) but seriously, it was kind of surreal. In the end, I believe it made for a far more intense emotional impact on the page than if I had been writing with someone else.
Jordan: Yeah, it’s pretty funny that two siblings couldn’t figure out that they should be writing a story about two siblings. Originally, Grant was going to be this infatuated suitor who discovers that Paige, his high school crush, has suddenly breezed back into town. It’s gross now, and it didn’t work then either. It made Grant feel weak and Paige seem manipulative. You were the one who suggested the brother/sister angle. We were on the phone and you mentioned it in passing like it would never work, but as soon as you said it, it was obvious that it couldn’t be any other way.
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