The Void by Michael Bray, Albert Kivak Read Free Book Online Page A

again, screaming for help. “Maddy! Victor! Somebody! Help me, for the love of God, help meee! ”
    She felt something tighten its grip around her chest, and she was paralyzed. She couldn’t move her arms and feet anymore. Through the doorway, on the other side, her children banged on the wooden frame. A black mist shrouded her body, enveloping her. Her feet were lifted off the ground. Nancy levitated four feet into the air as she rocked near the broken lights.
    That’s when the entire house trembled on its foundation and collapsed in on itself.
     
    IV
     
    The ground under Candy’s house gave way. The foundation tore loose; floorboards lurched upward, bending out of shape. Walls cracked and whipsawed, sending dusty powders of plaster ringing in a heap. The entire frame of the house buckled and shuddered, squealing away rusty nails and insulation that ripped out like a motorized bull. The rooftop canted to the right, and then, to the left. Chandeliers fell, showering jewels. Lights flickered on and off.
    The entire house lifted off its structure and canted over, tilting badly. Shingles dropped like domino pieces. The ground started to vanish. Floorboards lifted up. The hole expanded and grew larger. A root of an elm tree that was exposed during the sinking caught the base of the house, preventing it from falling farther into the hole.
    The Robins’ family screamed, trying to find a way out. Mr. Robins opened the front door and saw the black chasm reaching up to him. He closed it shut, eyes widening in disbelief, as he rubbed his mouth with a bloody hand. Helping Candy was out of the question. How could the paramedics or ambulances access their front driveway, when there was no driveway?
    Upstairs, the door banged open, and Mrs. Robin’s children spilled inward, almost simultaneously. They saw their mother dangling in the air like a magician’s trick. Then she fell, six feet. She tumbled on top of them, Victor and Madeline all crashing on the hardwood. Candy’s desk and bookshelves and computer slid across the floor and smashed themselves on the other side of the wall. All the furniture began to move, hurtling through the room, scraping across the panels.
    Partridge Robins came through the door, screaming. “We have to find a way out of here!”
    “It’s not an earthquake?” Madeline asked. She teetered and tottered, maintaining her balance.
    “We’re going under. No, it’s not a fucking earthquake! We’re being swallowed up by the sinkhole!”
    “We should’ve left while we had the chance… we should’ve left while we had the chance,” Nancy wailed. Victor mentioned something about the attic window. They sprinted toward it. Partridge pulled down the stairwell from the ceiling and mounted it. Dust floated down like spices. All of them were in the attic now. Partridge kicked out a window. The glass tinkled, glittering the painted white walls of the house.
    They were up on the roof, right below the edge line. One by one, they surveyed their surroundings, or the lack of it. The house was going down the void. The backyard bordering their neighbor’s fence was free of any fault line or breakdown of the soil that seemed to cave in. They had to jump.
    Madeline held Victor in her arms. Partridge and Nancy glanced at each other. Nancy’s face was flushed, hair in disarray. She had a crazed expression on her face, and underneath that, a simmering ire. Partridge knew what was on her mind, and he felt a sudden leaden guilt fill his gut. But no matter how despondent he was, it could not compare with the brass bullets which were inside his first daughter. He had killed his own flesh and blood.
    He had left their daughter on the living room floor without any help—he had left her to die. Partridge puked over the side of the house, raining last night’s dinner in a green stream. After he was finished voiding his stomach matter, he picked himself up, swiping a hand over his mouth. He spat the rest of the vinegary taste