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from the wet cold.
    Emily grabbed the long metal handle, the
touch burning her skin, and rushed them inside. Justin pulled off
his plastic bag, grabbing at the back of his head. His face was
swollen and red, burned. Emily wondered how bad she must look; how
badly she’d been burned. She darted her eyes around the inside of
the mall, finding dozens of faces staring back at them. Some
familiar, some not. But all of them wearing the same expression—the
same one she’d often seen on television after a disaster.
    “Emily!” a woman’s voice called out. Ms.
Parks, her ninth-grade English teacher, ran toward them. “Honey,
you two are burned. Come on, we set up some help in the food
court.” Emily set Justin down and fell to her knees, vomiting.
Pools of red splashed onto the large brown tiles.
    “We were in a car accident,” she was able to
say before another wave of nausea hit her. She wiped her mouth with
the back of her hand, searched the empty faces. Her father wasn’t
there. “My father?”
    “Phone!” Justin said. Her phone was buzzing.
It wasn’t just a text message. It was actually ringing. A call was
coming through. She scrambled to answer it.
    “Hello?”
    “Emily, baby?”
    “Daddy!” she nearly screamed. “We made it,
Daddy! We made it to the mall.” The faces around them grew dim, and
her father’s voice began to break up. More people offered to help
her to her feet. She waved them off, intent on listening.
    “Justin, and your mom?” he asked. “I can’t
reach your mom’s phone!” Emily bit her lip. An image of her
mother’s face came into her mind. She couldn’t bring herself to
tell him what had happened.
    “Justin is here with me,” she said, beginning
to blubber. A babble of unintelligible words came next. “You can
see us when you get here!”
    “Emily, I’m so sorry,” he told her, his voice
cutting in and out. “I’m so sorry this happened. It was all my
fault. All of it.” She held the phone away from her head, trying to
understand what he was saying.
    “But the fog was an accident. Right, Daddy?”
A moment of confusion and doubt snapped at her heart.
    “I love you guys. Remember that, okay?” Her
father’s voice went quiet then. She could hear him crying. And in
the background, she could hear something else. It was the sound of
a car horn. A horn that was stuck, blaring, and immediately her
heart went still. Her arms and legs tingled, and she struggled to
breathe.
    “Daddy, what’s that sound?” she was able to
ask before the first sobs set in. “Daddy… Dad, where are you?”
    “Baby, I love you. But I’m not going to make
it to the mall.” The car horn’s wail mixed with her father’s words.
Visions of curious faces began to spin around her.
    “Why?” she yelled at him. “Why aren’t you
coming?”
    “I hit something. It’s bad, baby. Got me
trapped inside. I love you guys—”
    The phone cut out a final time.
    The view in front of her turned over, and she
heaved. It turned again, and she was vaguely aware of being lifted.
The faces that had stared were now carrying her, saving the
daughter of the man who’d released a poison monster upon the world.
Comfort came when she heard Justin’s voice, encouraging her to stay
awake, like she’d done with him earlier. Her arm fell, and she felt
his tiny warm fingers wrap around hers, tugging on them.
    “Dad will be here soon,” he told her. “Daddy
will be coming, just like you said, Emily.” And in that moment, she
decided to never tell anyone what her father had done. She’d never
say a word about the catastrophe he’d caused. Instead, the story
she’d tell would be about the tragedy of two lovers, dying
together, yet separated by a disaster. And she’d tell of the great
accident, and how a young brother and sister fought and survived
the day when the skies first went gray.

A Word From Brian Spangler
     
    I am in awe of writers who’ve mastered
the short story.
     
    I’ve always had stories