Undercurrent by Paul Blackwell Read Free Book Online Page B

the only place within a half-hour drive that sells video games. Craning back, I can see the familiar storefront, but the letters of its old seventies sign have been removed. The windows look completely dark.
    “Electronic what?” she asks.
    But I don’t reply. Because I’m noticing other businesses that are gone, like the coffeehouse where some of the older kids go. In its place is a repair shop with a graveyard of vacuum cleaners behind its front window. And there are more that are gone, too, I’m sure of it, either shuttered up or replaced by what look like struggling businesses.
    “What the hell happened to Main Street?” I shout. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mom shoot me a worried look. But I can’t help myself. “Okay, this is ridiculous!” I cry. “Where did Burger Delight go?”
    “Are you feeling all right, Cal?” Mom demands.
    “Sure. Why?”
    “Did they give you any sort of medication before we left?”
    “No.”
    “Well, you seem odd,” my mother says. She puts on the brakes, stopping to let a group of power-walking seniors cross the street.
    “I’m fine, honestly.” But I’m lying. Looking around, I don’t feel okay. At all. I put my head down and rub my temples as my mother begins driving again. When I look up again, we’ve left Main and are on the road leading out of town. As we pass the church, I’m stunned: The normally bright white clapboard is dingy and in need of a paint job, and the always well-maintained lawn is wild and weedy.
    “You’re sure you feel okay?” my mother asks again. “I can turn back, you know. We can get you checked out at the hospital. . . .”
    “No!” I shout. “No!”
    The outburst only scares my mother even more. She pulls over onto the shoulder, about to turn the car around.
    “Seriously, I’m fine,” I tell her. “Sorry for yelling. Let’s just go home.”
    “All right,” she says. “Put the seat back and try to relax, Cal. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
    I recline as far as the uncooperative old seat allows. Feeling woozy, I crack the window open a little too. I can see the bridge up ahead. Soon I can even hear the great whoosh of the crashing falls themselves.
    A few seconds later, we’re crossing the dizzying drop over the gorge, the falls visible on the right.
    “Don’t look at them, Cal,” my mother begs me. “You’re only traumatizing yourself.”
    But she has no idea—no idea that my trauma is not coming from morbid thoughts or awful memories but from a much darker place, from the disturbing question hanging over everything:
    What the hell is going on?
    I turn and look out the passenger window at the gorge and the turbulent river snaking away to the left. I was just hallucinating before, I tell myself. I hit my head, and it messed me up. It’s my brain playing tricks on me. None of it is real.
    The thought is no more comforting.
    When we reach the other side of the bridge, the sign shows the turnoff to the campground along with the large billboard that reads:
     
    HOLDEN DISTILLERY, 8 MILES. VISITORS WELCOME!
     
    I close my eyes and keep them clenched shut until I hear the familiar crunch of the tires on our gravel driveway. Only then do I decide it’s safe to open my eyes again.
    Unfortunately I’m wrong.
     
    I’m too shocked to scream.
    Everything is different.
    Yes, the number by the front door is still 4275. But the house is no longer green—it’s bright blue. And the whole property has been cleared of trees, except for the magnolia out front. In their place is just grass—a flat expanse of mowed grass.
    “How are you feeling?” my mother asks. “Any better?”
    “Yeah,” I manage to say, though it takes every ounce of my will. “Much better.”
    “Well, you go on inside, and I’ll get the things out of the trunk.”
    But I don’t want to go into the house alone. I’m too nervous.
    “Things?” I ask. “What things?” Other than the clothes I’m wearing, I don’t remember having anything