Sample Chapter: Winter Break
Sample Chapter: Winter Break
This is the current, semi-rough draft of the first chapter of a young adult thriller (Winter Break) that I’m writing with my daughter in mind as the target audience. It’s rough enough that I have no idea if events in it will change in later drafts or not.
My phone dings with a new text just as I hit my first patch of black ice. The sound is like a warning: a scream announcing danger.
The little car’s wheels spin for half a second — not even long enough for my heart to beat twice. By the time my pulse is racing, everything feels safe again. This is how I live, Aubrey says. Always just a little bit in the past, always responding to threats only after the threat is gone.
My eyes go to my phone, nestled in the cupholder. The brightened screen tells me that I’ve received a photo, not a message. I wish I could be surprised. I’m not.
My pulse, which was preparing to return to normal, quickens again.
I consider ignoring it. I tell myself the photo’s from Mom; she managed to get a bar or two of service up there and sent me a postcard-worthy snap of the view from the sunroom. I tell myself I’ll look at it later. It’s just for fun, no big deal. Nothing I need to deal with now. Why would I need to deal with it now?
But of course I need to deal with it now. My heart knows everything isn’t really back to normal.
I check the rearview, seeing no one. I haven’t passed another car in twenty minutes.
After another quick glance at the road ahead, I slow a little and peek at the phone just like my Driver’s Ed teacher told us never to do.
The screen unlocks. The new image comes up, part of the same message thread from the same unknown number as all the others.
This time, my mystery correspondant has sent me a snap of what might be a gray concrete floor with table legs in the distance. Like all the other pictures they’ve sent me, this one is low-quality and full of grain, askew and ill-framed as if the photographer is a surrealist or drunk. There’s not much light. I’m seeing a shoddy camera — an unusually shoddy camera, as if the phone is ancient — do the best it can from somewhere dark and dank.
I spy a gas station ahead. It’s presumably the one my parents told me to keep an eye out for, because the turnoff to the cabin beyond is poorly marked and easy to miss. I pull in, pretending it’s because the last thing I want this far from everything is to run out of gas — not because these photos are giving me the creeps and I need a moment to collect myself.
I stop at a pump and take in my surroundings. The place is surrounded by trees, as if humanity here is making a desperate last stand against nature. The small building across the lot is one of those stations that’s half country store. Probably where the hermits and Unabomber types who live around here do their grocery shopping, if they don’t want to make the hour-long trek into Leightonville.
I’m about to pick up the phone to look at the new image properly when it rings. I jump, but it’s just Aubrey.
I put on a smile before answering, because Aubrey can hear facial expressions. It’s weird, but true.
“So you’re still communicado,” she says before I can manage hello.
“What?”
“The opposite of ‘incommunicado.’” She pauses. “It’s a word.” Another pause. “Why are you agitated?”
I feel naked, the way she can see right through me even from six hours away. “I’m not agitated,” I say.
“Of course you’re agitated. I can hear it in your breath.”
“You can’t hear anything in my breath.”
“You wanna test me, bro?” she chides. “I could tell you what you had for lunch.”
I sigh. “Why are you calling?”
“Mostly to see if I still could. Are you there already?”
My eyes make a visual lap of the land. Right now, the scenery is beautiful. Some colorful leaves are still on the trees, which are tall enough to arch above the road in a micro-canopy. The snowstorm they’re forecasting will be the first big blow of the year, sure to finally drop those leaves to the ground, and after that … well … after that, it’ll probably still be beautiful. And nerve-wracking, because I’m told the first storm in New England tends to be a bastard. But with all that beauty and fury comes isolation. I’m all alone here and have felt that way for the past hour or two of my drive.
By now, my solitude is almost complete. There’s only one other vehicle at the station. Probably the clerk’s. It’s a rusty pickup truck, with chains on the tires.
Chains. For serious snow. In my fuel-efficient import, I’m starting to feel the weather version of underdressed.
“Not yet,” I tell her. “I’ve got another half hour or so to the cabin.”
This brings my eyes to the passenger seat, where I’ve turned Google’s travel instructions into a hand-drawn map. Mom warned me to do that. She says there’s usually no cell service in the foothills, although with clear skies like we have right now, texts will sometimes go through. Counting on GPS, though? That would be a mistake.
“How’s the drive?”
“Like an Ansel Adams photo essay. Or maybe a Bob Ross painting.”
“Wait. What?”
“A Bob Ross painting,” I repeat.
“Oh.” She chuckles uncomfortably. “Sorry. I thought …”
It takes me a moment to understand. She didn’t hear Bob the first time. She only heard Ross.