Free A Once Crowded Sky by Tom King, Tom Fowler

with his family, live again with his family. It’s better to be with your family.
    And above him stands a pretty girl, her red hair haloed by the sun’s brilliant light. It’s the unmasked girl from the office and the funeral, the one with the doctor, and she bends down and kisses his cheek and tells him he’s done well, he’s done good, and he thanks her, but he doesn’t get up. He’s too tired.
    The girl giggles, stands, and twirls in the chaos surrounding them. And Felix laughs too, happy to be out, safe and happy for the first time in a long time, since The Blue, since the itch, since his wife left, since his daughter left, and the girl bends down and offers him a swig of the good stuff off a flask she keeps in her coat, and Felix has a swig of the good stuff, and another swig, because it’s better to be with your family, drunk with your family, than sober without them, than drunk without them, and he takes another swig, until he too is twirling in the chaos, celebrating the return of the game, the redemption of them all.
     
    Anna Averies Romance, Vol. 3, #1 of 4
    The phone in the kitchen rings three times before Anna can answer it, interrupting her writing. Her deadline’s in a few hours, and if she—
    “Hello,” she says.
    A screech of noise.
    After giving it a few seconds, she hangs up and heads back to the computer. By the time she reaches her chair, the phone’s ringing again. Under her breath she swears freely and then returns to the kitchen, her bare feet chilled on the linoleum floor.
    “Yes,” she says.
    A slow-stirring static comes down the line. Small tones now bounce under the liquid fuzz, attempting to pierce the crackled surface. Sounds of screaming.
    “Hello, is there—hello? Are you okay?”
    A voice breaches the white noise: “Put PenUltimate—phone.”
    “Hello? Hello? I can’t hear, you. Please can you—what did you—hello?”
    The voice on the other side pokes again through the buzz: “My—Prophetier—PenUltimate—come—the—now.”
    “Hello? Can you hear me? Is that you? Profet . . . Proafeteer . . . hello? Pen’s not here, he’s at a lunch. Can I . . . I mean, get you a message—get a message to Pen?”
    “You—tell him—Arcadia General—attack—dead—tell him to—attack.”
    “What did you say? Can you talk louder? Hello? What attack? I don’t . . . hello?”
    “Attack—they’ve come—attack—he—back—all of us.”
    “What attack? What are—what are you saying?”
    Another screech of static.
    “Hello? Hello? What attack? What attack? Who—who’s—what attack?”
    The line goes dead, and Anna drops the phone, smashing it on the floor, sending a flurry of electrical components skidding across the kitchen. Ignoring it all, she sprints to the living room, tries to figure out where her husband left the remote for the TV. A sudden cavity in herchest. Pen shouldn’t be involved in any attacks. He doesn’t do that anymore.
    Her hands—as they move around the room, her hands, displacing cushions and blankets left in odd positions, left by Pen in the oddest of positions. The ring scratching at her hands. How many times has she told him to clean this damn room.
    She finds a shirt buried in the couch, left over from an impromptu tryst, and it smells like him, sweet and stale. When he gets home, she’s going to yell at him about leaving this here. He just needs to think about these things when he leaves a room; it’s not so hard. He can learn that. When he gets home.
    Despite her efforts, the search is futile: she finally concedes she’s lost, and she hopes that next time, beautiful and lovely and predictable next time, he’ll get it right.
    Anna kneels down in front of the TV, begs the cable box to turn on, pressing randomly at a scattering of never-used buttons at the base of this cruel machine. God, she detests this monstrosity, all the knobs and wires that correspond to nothing and won’t do anything. If she could, she’d pick the whole thing