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The Fifth Season [MultiFormat]
eBook by John F. D. Taff
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$0.49 |
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$0.42 |
eBook Category: Horror
eBook Description: The end of the world comes in on little cat's feet as clouds go from benign to sentient ... and hungry.
eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Fictionwise.com, 2003
Fictionwise Release Date: August 2003
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [52 KB], eReader (PDB) [23 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [9 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [10 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [63 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [81 KB], hiebook (KML) [35 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [41 KB], iSilo (PDB) [8 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [10 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [38 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [17 KB]
Words: 2735
Reading time: 7-10 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
Breakfast. Ahh, a handful of dry Cheerios and a swig from an open bottle of orange juice. The milk went bad about a week ago.
I read the newspaper again, the same one I've read for three weeks. It's interesting how many things you don't notice in the paper when you read it only once. I, for one, am pretty pissed that these fucking clouds kept me from the suit sale at Brooks Brothers. Because, I expect, it will have been the last really great suit sale mankind will ever have.
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When I woke this morning, I thought I'd get a cup of instant coffee--one of the few things left to drink.
I turned the handle of the tap in the small washroom, and a noise like severe indigestion rumbled through the entire building. But only a few drops of brown water dribbled from it.
I stood there for a minute, letting the full weight of this seep into my sleep-dulled head.
I'm running out of food, now I've run out of water.
I dropped the cup into the rust-stained sink, dashed into the aisles of the empty store.
First, I went to the cooler.
Nothing.
Then, I ran down both of the narrow aisles.
Nothing.
Then, I began to laugh. It wasn't funny--still isn't--and yet, that made me laugh all the harder. I laughed until I couldn't catch my breath, until my face burned and my throat was raw.
Then, I saw myself in the fish-eye mirror hanging from the ceiling in a corner of the store.
And, it enraged me.
I grabbed a can of Chef Boy-R-Dee Ravioli and hurled it. The mirror exploded, showering the shelves with long slivers of glass.
For a few minutes, I saw my reflection everywhere I turned. I looked drawn, ill. Whiskers hollowed my cheeks, my uncombed hair floated around my head like a prophet's.
I cleared glass from an area of the counter and stretched out, wanting water more deeply than I have ever had before in my life.
The shopping cart still sat in the parking lot, shiny now, polished and stripped of blood. Dew gleamed on it like rain on a spider's web.
I swallowed hard, turned from the window.
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