The light starts as a pinprick, peeking through the forest below.
It begins to grow.
Slowly at first.
Then faster.
Consuming everything it touches like a fire burning its way through the center of a movie screen. The trees and the fog and the SUV still cartwheeling down the mountain all disappear into its edges, and it seems to Grant that the world is just a shroud for this blinding molten light behind it.
Except for one thing.
Her.
She is below him, crying in the snow.
He is being pulled, but he resists, fighting to descend.
And then he is with her.
The most sensual moment of his existence.
Effortless communication.
Mind to mind.
There is not enough time, but he makes every word, every second count.
He is ripped away.
And then…
Dad? Are you there?
I’m here.
It’s so bright.
Don’t close your eyes. Look right at it. No matter what.
I can’t feel anything.
That will pass. Just keep watching.
The light is everywhere and it touches everything. He feels his body blown away from him like sand. Old and new pain leaving.
The light begins to splinter. To condense into pinpoints. Beyond counting.
Are those stars?
It is Paige. Not her voice. But her.
Some of them.
Is that where we’re going?
If you want to. We can go anywhere you want.
Can we see Mom?
Yes. And others.
I don’t understand.
You will.
Then all at once, those pinpoints of light stretch toward them, as if they’ve been summoned.
The children hesitate, the stars streaming past like whitewater.
It is their father who pulls them forward.
Come on, they’re waiting for us.
There’s nothing to be afraid of anymore.
The End
Bonus Features
Afterword
In Which Blake and Jordan Interview Each Other About the Experience of Writing EERIE
Blake: For pretty much everybody except me, EERIE is their first taste of Jordan Crouch. Hmm. That didn’t sound quite right. How about you just introduce yourself?
Jordan: Hi, I’m the younger brother.
Blake: By six years.
Jordan: More?
Blake: Um, yeah.
Jordan: Hi, I’m the handsome younger brother. I graduated from the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 2007 with degrees in Creative Writing and English Lit. This is my first my endgame. Seattle, Washington, is home and when I’m not thinking of answers to hypothetical interview questions, I operate as a splinter cell for the Department of Homeland Security. You’re welcome, America.
Blake: What do you really do?
Jordan: I work in sales.
Blake: You’ve always been one of my first readers for my books, because you’ve got a great sense of story, without being married to the more conventional plot machinations. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I think you and I share some overlapping DNA (imagine that) in terms of the sort of big, different ideas that attract us. You’ve also come up with some real crunch time story fixes for me over the years. Probably the most epic example of that is the end of my historical thriller, ABANDON. I was really at a loss about how to wrap that book up and you came up with a fantastic idea … don’t want to ruin it here for those readers who haven’t picked it up yet, but the epilogue was totally your idea.
I love the collaboration process, and despite the fact that you hadn’t written a novel, always loved your writing, so I thought it only made sense for you and I to work together one day. Then last fall, you hit me with a kickass premise …
Jordan: To give credit where credit is due, the kernel that bloomed into this buttery piece of popcorn came from a close friend of mine named Bob. We’ve known each other for years, and his brain works at least twice as fast as mine so he often ends up being a sounding board for story ideas. The “monster-in-the-bedroom” premise happened during a phone conversation at the beginning 2011. In its earliest birth pains, it was about two hunters snowed in at a cabin with “something” locked in the bedroom. Then you and I ruined it.
Blake: Yeah, I flipped when you told me about it. It truly was just a kernel, but it struck me as something I hadn’t heard before. And possibly as a vehicle to write a type of story I had never attempted: a ghost story (although by now, our readers know EERIE was only dressed up like a ghost story). But what attracted me initially to the concept was how confined in space and time it was, and with minimal characters. Almost like a play. I just thought it had tremendous potential. After that first conversation, I brought it up a month later (it really stuck with me), asking if you and Bob were going to write it. You said no, and then I asked if you might want to write it with me.
Jordan: That was a no-brainer. It was a dynamite idea that needed to be written, and I would have been happy to see you tackle it by yourself. But the idea of working together is what put it over the edge for me.
Blake: Now I’ve written ten novels and a ton of short stories and novellas. I’ve collaborated with half a dozen people. You had written some short fiction in college and after, but this was pretty much your first foray both into a novel-length work and into collaboration. Spare no punches. How was the process for you? The good, the bad, and the ugly?
ASIDE: Before you answer, for those interested, the way we wrote this was a mix of real time Google Docs writing (you and I writing simultaneously in the same document) and then you and I working on scenes in isolation and sharing them later. We also spent about a month hammering out characters and a 5000-word outline which served as our roadmap (although we were allowed to take detours, and often did).
Jordan: I want to say first that I walked into this knowing that it was a golden ticket learning opportunity, and that whatever happened, the value of the experience would outweigh any of the bumps or bruises along the way. I don’t take for granted how lucky I am to love writing and also to have a brother who has built a career around it. But all modest stuff aside, the hardest part was trying not to step on your toes, while still attempting to plant my flag on the story. It was like sharing a room together again. Sometimes that claustrophobia would show up on the page, and I would watch you strike something that I really liked and think “Are you kidding me? That’s the best part!” But that’s how you make a cohesive voice in a collaborative story. You each hold your own light up to the other’s work and hope it evens out.
Blake: Apt analogy, but you did far more than plant your flag. I would say most of the important plot moves came from you.
Jordan: I’ll have to check the scoreboard. I do wonder if you would have been as ruthless if I weren’t your brother.
Blake: Definitely not. And you bore my ruthlessness with total grace.
Jordan: You mentioned earlier that we wrote most of EERIE simultaneously, in real time, using Google Docs. That was a tough learning experience too. You tend to think of writing as this very personal, monastic thing you do alone with the door shut, but when you’re forced to share the page with someone else, it exercises muscles you would never use otherwise. There’s a lot of pressure to keep the pace going and to stay out of your head which is an easy rut to get stuck in if there’s no one staring back at you from the other side of the screen.