by Hugh Howey
This was how keenly the moments were felt. Especially by the crack in the earth, the Bull’s gash, where a haunting depth opened in the soul of any who stood there, where toes were daringly dangled just to feel the cool air rush up between them, just to pretend that the howl was for the delicately poised, just to imagine a lovely visage down in the darkness screaming Don’t do it. Step back. You are too bold and lovely and singular to look down in here and upon me.
Conner sat there anyway and swung his legs in the gash, so intimate had the two become the past weeks, so hollow the threat and weak the pull. He dribbled sand through his hand and down toward the center of the earth. Nearby, marbles of glass were flicked to the far side, those small beads formed by Palmer, who spent much of his time showing that he could, no doubt thinking that it would’ve been better had he gone, the eldest son.
And on the eighth day, when the hike back should have ended, when they could wait no more, as the last of the water splashed Rob’s tongue and even the moldy heel of the bread was divided among their family, they gathered by the gash in the earth, crossed and re-crossed like a thread leaps and forms stitches, and surveyed that boom-less and quiet horizon.
It was early. The sun a mere hint. A pink ghost lurking. An unusual heaviness to the sky, the lingering night sky, as the stars disappeared. But it was not the light of coming day that swallowed them; it was something in the air. Conner dropped his ker, the sand that normally stirred on the winds succumbing to some mystery, alerted to some presence, a sound like marching in the far sand, and the cool morning grew cooler, the ice in the desert night clung piteously to dawn, fearful of the pink ghost, and Conner heard footsteps. He heard a grumbling. A noise. Something approaching.
“Something’s coming,” Rob said, scrambling to his feet. “Something’s coming!” he shouted.
Palmer and Violet and their mother paused in the dismantling of the tent and ran to the gash to join the two boys, eyes and ears straining in the heavy darkness, tent canvas flapping in a gathering wind, the rhythmic sound of a steady advance, an approach, not of the dead or their long-gone sibling or their father—but of the even more impossible. It struck Rob first and then their mother, pattering across the desert floor, coming with a whoosh of cold wind and a blotting of the stars, a wetness from the heavens, an answer to the long silence, a sign that someone far away was listening.
Their mother fell to her knees and burst into tears.
And the sky wept for its people.
www.hughhowey.com
Footnotes
[1] Sand that collects in boots.
[2] Sand held rigid by a dive suit.
[3] Wet sand.
[4] Sand collected in clothing or in mouths.
[5] Sand trapped in one’s hair.
[6] Wet sand packed in the soles of one’s shoes.
[7] Fine sand, usually airborne.
[8] Sand that enters a home.
[9] Sand knocked loose from someone’s exertions.
[10] The sand that gathers inside goggles and around the eyes.
[11] The sand found in the bottom of any container.
[12] The sand that flows across the desert floor, covering objects and filling tracks.
[13] Sand stuck to a window.
Table of Contents
Part 1:
1 • The Valley of Dunes
2 • The Belt of the Gods
3 • The Map
4 • The Dig
5 • The Dive
6 • Danvar
7 • A Burial
8 • What Pirates Do
Part 2:
9 • The Brief Hiss of Life
10 • Sissyfoot
11 • A Date?
12 • Father’s Boots
13 • Son of a Whore
14 • Sandtrap
15 • Sins of a Father
16 • The Long Hike
17 • The Bull and the Boy
18 • No Man’s Land
Part 3:
19 • The Prodigal Daughter
20 • A Scrounger’s Trade
21 • Buried Alive
22 • A Fight with Madness
23 • Missing Treasure
24 • A Mad Dash
25 • The Risk of Believing
26 • A Long Way Up
27 • Mother
28 • No Room for Breathing
29 • A Soul’s Weight
30 • Into the Starry Night
31 • A Bounty
32 • Run
33 • Not Happening
34 • That Final Embrace
Part 4:
35 • Oasis
36 • A Note from Father
37 • The Sand-Filled Screams of the Dying
38 • No Place for a Girl
39 • A Rose on the Pillow
40 • Ticking Bombs
41 • A Smuggled Tale
42 • The Letter
43 • The Great Wall
44 • Held Down, Violently
Part 5:
45 • A Quiet Dawn
46 • A Buried People
47 • Not Enough Buckets
48 • A Fortunate Few
49 • Half-Sisters
50 • The Backs of Gods
51 • Waterpump Ridge
52 • A Pillar of Smoke
53 • Father’s Last Rites
54 • Low-Pub
55 • A Deep Discomfort
56 • A Place to Rest
57 • Swinging the Gaze of God
58 • A Rap Upon Heaven’s Gate
Footnotes
Table of Contents
Part 1:
1 • The Valley of Dunes
2 • The Belt of the Gods
3 • The Map
4 • The Dig
5 • The Dive
6 • Danvar
7 • A Burial
8 • What Pirates Do
Part 2:
9 • The Brief Hiss of Life
10 • Sissyfoot
11 • A Date?
12 • Father’s Boots
13 • Son of a Whore
14 • Sandtrap
15 • Sins of a Father
16 • The Long Hike
17 • The Bull and the Boy
18 • No Man’s Land
Part 3:
19 • The Prodigal Daughter
20 • A Scrounger’s Trade
21 • Buried Alive
22 • A Fight with Madness
23 • Missing Treasure
24 • A Mad Dash
25 • The Risk of Believing
26 • A Long Way Up
27 • Mother
28 • No Room for Breathing
29 • A Soul’s Weight
30 • Into the Starry Night
31 • A Bounty
32 • Run
33 • Not Happening
34 • That Final Embrace
Part 4:
35 • Oasis
36 • A Note from Father
37 • The Sand-Filled Screams of the Dying
38 • No Place for a Girl
39 • A Rose on the Pillow
40 • Ticking Bombs
41 • A Smuggled Tale
42 • The Letter
43 • The Great Wall
44 • Held Down, Violently
Part 5:
45 • A Quiet Dawn
46 • A Buried People
47 • Not Enough Buckets
48 • A Fortunate Few
49 • Half-Sisters
50 • The Backs of Gods
51 • Waterpump Ridge
52 • A Pillar of Smoke
53 • Father’s Last Rites
54 • Low-Pub
55 • A Deep Discomfort
56 • A Place to Rest
57 • Swinging the Gaze of God
58 • A Rap Upon Heaven’s Gate
Footnotes
Sand: Omnibus Edition
