Free The Color of Fear by Billy Phillips, Jenny Nissenson Page A

as she’d slid down that grave hole.
    “You’ll get no signal in this place,” the blonde ghoul said.
    No signal? No phone? No texting? No communication with the outside world?
    A frantic Caitlin suddenly felt like a castaway.
    Abandoned. Stranded. Shipwrecked on some god-forsaken island far out in the ocean, cut off from … well, everything!
    Her panicked eyes welled up with tears. She turned to the long-haired one. “Please. We have to go back up there. Now.”
    “But we need your help, Caitlin.”
    Caitlin shook her head. She wanted to get out of there—fast. The strange world felt like it was closing in on her. But she knew she shouldn’t show that she was panicky.
    “My dad will have the whole city searching for me if we’re not home by ten. He’s probably already got Scotland Yard out looking for Natalie.”
    Natalie elbowed Caitlin. “Technically speaking, Dad doesn’t even know I’m gone.”
    Good one, Natalie.
    Caitlin’s breathing grew erratic. She started seeing spots. She crouched on the ground and put her head between her knees. The feeling eating her up inside was profoundly awful.
    “Ugh. I’m trapped in the middle of nowhere. And I’m the worst sister on earth. I need to get out of here!”
    Natalie crouched beside her. “Relax, Caity-pie. I’m guessing this is some kind of alternate reality or parallel universe that’s congruent with the known laws of physics. However … ”
    “Will you shut up!” Caitlin yelled as she tried to stay focused on her own misery.
    Natalie shrugged. She rose up and marched over to the zombie. “I’m thirsty. And zonked. It’s way past my bedtime.”
    The zombie girl unhooked a leather bota bag that hung from her belt and handed it to Natalie.
    “Thanks,” said Natalie. “What is it?”
    “Drinking pouch. With water. Until we find something more substantial.”
    Natalie tipped the spout of the kidney-shape pouch into her mouth and chugged.
    “Drink up, little one,” the zombie said. “Then we’d better get a move on. I’ll explain everything when we find the others.”
    Natalie stopped drinking. “Others?”

Caitlin and Natalie followed the zombie girl to the outskirts of the village. They stepped over the crumbled remains of a thick stone perimeter wall and other ruins that still surrounded the town. Outside the village, drooping plants leaned into each other for support. An orange, parasitic-looking fungus covered crooked trees, climbing up their trunks and smothering their already-petrified leaves. Giant flowers that had clearly been enchantingly colorful and beautiful once had lost their luster and bloom. Jumbo dried mushrooms of faded purple, lime, and blue littered the landscape. Thick rotting tree stumps sat, lonesome, on abandoned grasslands.
    As they crept onward, Caitlin glanced up at the sky and … and … and … she freaked!
    “What is that ?”
    “The sun. Why?”
    Caitlin couldn’t believe it. It shone like the sun back home. Even had the same color. What it didn’t seem to have was the same shape.
    Caitlin squinted through the veil of fog at the bright, odd thingamabob-shape solar orb in the sky. Though it was oddly shaped, it still somehow seemed familiar to her.
    A walnut? No. A closed fist ? Not really.
    Then it hit her.
    That had to be it!
    The sun’s glimmering form sort of resembled a translucent brain!
    Is my mind playing tricks? Is it a mirage? An optical illusion?
    Caitlin was reminded of an amusing game she’d played as a child. She’d stare at puffy clouds in the sky. Soon familiar shapes would appear in them, as if by magic.
    Likewise, this sun seemed to project a shimmer in the shape of a brain.
    How imaginatively weird!
    Suddenly, two dainty, cold, dead hands latched onto her shoulders.
    Caitlin was yanked backward.
    She felt a frosty nose sniffing the back of her neck.
    “Don’t you dare, Cindy!” the long-haired girl called out.
    “One taste?” came the voice attached to those dainty hands.
    “One