Todd by Adam J Nicolai Read Free Book Online

feet.
    "It's okay." The fire's
crackle was a roar now; Todd might not have heard him. "It's okay."
An answering crack of thunder exploded behind them, threatening to split the Earth
in half.
    Todd jerked away and dropped to
the ground, clutching his ears and wailing. Alan scooped him up and kept running.
They hit a bend in the road and started angling north toward the bridge.
    A tree across the street burst
into flames.
    We should have stayed at home.
We should've gone to the basement. Better to burn there, to die with Brenda
and Allie.
    Alan's arms were giving out, his
back burning. He couldn't carry his son any more.
    They reached the bridge.
    The wreckage there glittered with
the fire's reflection, hell spilling from every shattered windshield and
headlight. But it wasn't on fire itself. And there was—
    oh God oh thank God
    —a wall of concrete dividers,
making a walkway for pedestrians, that was largely intact.
    "Todd!" His throat
cracked from the heat. He put his son down before his arms gave out and pointed
at the bridge. "There! We're almost there!" He jerked the boy into a
run.
    Forty feet in, an Accord had
crashed over the divider and through the bridge rail, blocking the pedestrian
walkway. The torn rail exposed the thrashing river, fifty feet below.
    They could climb over the hood,
but it was slick with hailstones and angled toward the water; the car's rear
end was suspended behind the overturned divider, its front tires barely
clinging to the edge of the bridge.
    That left a tiny crawlspace under
its midsection. "Under! Go under!" Alan dropped to his stomach and
wriggled under the car, stealing looks back to make sure Todd was following.
Each fevered glance brought him a flash of the frothing river, two feet to his
right.
    The car creaked above them,
buffeted by the wind. An instant of bad luck and it would collapse, crushing
them as it rolled over the edge, maybe breaking off a chunk of the bridge and
dumping them into the river. Then he was out, turning back for his son. He
grabbed his hand and pulled. Todd howled.
    "I'm stuck! I'm stuck on
something!"
    "Todd, come on! Just
pull!"
    " I can't! "
    The trees they had passed minutes
before were now aflame. The wind picked up, shrieking out of the darkness, and
the fire fell back.
    Alan dove back under the car. Todd's
shirt had caught on a torn chunk of metal. He slipped it loose and hauled him
out. They tore across the bridge as the wind crescendoed.
    On the river banks below, trees
bent nearly sideways. One came loose, hurling itself into the river.
    Then they were across.
    Here, the street was nearly clear
of traffic. Alan saw a house across the road and pulled Todd that way. They
bounded up the front steps as the wind screamed. He threw the front door open
and ran inside. In a flash of lightning, he saw a dusty old living room,
threadbare carpet, leaning furniture.
    "The basement! Find the
basement!" The wind barged in through the door behind them, hurling the
empty clothes that had been on the living room floor into the little kitchen in
the back. Another flash of lightning and he saw a set of stairs winding
upwards, with a door set under its landing.
    The front windows erupted with
tree branches as they made the door, showering the carpet with glass. The
branch leaves bucked and heaved, grasping. Alan turned his back to them and
yanked the door open.
    The stairs to the basement were
dead black. Alan slammed the door, plunging them into darkness.
    "I can't see!" Todd
shrieked. " Where are we? "
    Alan pulled him along, slipping
and running down the stairs to a landing, then feeling his way around in the
dark to more steps. At the bottom he tripped and fell. His hands scraped cold
concrete.
    He scooted back until he felt the
wall behind him. Then Todd clutched at him, his head buried in Alan's chest,
rocking and wailing as a leviathan tore the world apart.
    19
    He dreamt about THE GAME .
    He was in the basement, of course.
He was always in the basement. He had