A Hollow Dream of Summer's End Read Online Free PDF Page A

was at 80%, his own a perfect 100%. Four more glancing hits, or two critical strikes dead center, and Brian would be out of the game.
    Pop out of cover and fire as fast as you can, he told himself. Just like Gears of War . He’d done this a countless times with the controller. This wasn’t that different.
    Only it was, and when he popped out ready to blast he found himself scanning the empty woods. Brian was nowhere to be seen.
    He studied the area, waiting. The big boy had to be there, somewhere...
    Zap!
    His chest rattled and shook as his gun lit up. 80%.
    “Oh shi—” was all he had time to say as he threw himself behind a tree and stuck his head out. Brian was somewhere nearby, yet he didn’t see any shadow or shape. No footprints or rustling branches or—
    Zap! Another glancing hit shook his vest, sent his heart racing. His gun lit up, belched out warnings. 60%!
    And there Brian was, emerging from behind an oak in the opposite direction Aiden had been looking. Unbelievable! The big guy had flanked him. Aiden was totally exposed, didn't even have time to return fire. A turn, a stumble, and off he ran. Somewhere behind him, he heard Brian squeeze off three blasts in succession.
    He didn't look back as he ran. It would only expose him, only slow him. This was The Suck, as the space marines said. And he was knee deep in it.
    It wasn’t real, this game they played, but it sure felt real. The adrenaline and fear of fighting one of his best friends in the woods while being hunted by another made the game as close to war as he had experienced. It wasn't hard to imagine some doomsday situation; a North Korean nuke sailing overhead, obliterating L.A. and San Francisco and half the western seaboard in the pre-dawn hours. Red and blue parachutes with gold sickles and stars filling the sky in the hours after the fallout settled. The three of them taking Freddie's dad's collection of rifles, heading to the foothills to wage a guerrilla campaign against the invaders. Rebels, coming in to the lowlands to ambush convoys and sabotage power stations. Freedom fighters.
    Yet that was a fictional future, a fantasy he trained for, and the present was real. This was The Suck and in this moment his friends were his enemies and the woods behind his dad’s ranch was their battlefield.
    Somewhere behind him Freddie shouted. Somewhere, not far off, branches broke. A curse word, several, and the sounds of shots fired, faint and electric. The woods were alive with imaginary blasts.
    He ran deeper. Leapt over a log, turned at a mushroom-covered stump, and pressed on. It was not a retreat, he told himself: it was a strategic rearrangement. Brian had gotten the upper hand, could have fragged him in five shots, but Aiden was too fast. That was his secret, after all. The twitch reflex never failed. Not in Mortal Kombat , not on his bike, and not at LaserQuest when they'd played this game for his birthday. He wasn't retreating. No, he was flanking the big kid. He was gaining the upper ground. And when he found Brian he’d be the one firing down.
    Another distant shout as he pushed on. The ground sloped down, angled on damp leaves and loose dirt. The change was abrupt, sudden, and jarring. He was running too fast, legs carrying him down too steep an incline at a speed too quick to control. He had no traction, nothing to stop him, and nothing to grab on to.
    This shouldn’t be happening, he thought. I’m the quick one.
    And then the world went sideways and the stony creek bed rushed up to catch him.
    This shouldn’t be—
     

11.
    HE DIDN’T FEEL THE impact. Only the fall.
    Then the slow cascade of dirt and leaves, pouring over the lip of the crevice like a filthy waterfall. Down it poured onto him, and for a moment he thought he might be buried alive.
    Alive, if that's indeed what I am, he thought.
    He spent a silent moment there among the rocks and sand of the dry creek, wondering what he'd broken. His arm perhaps. His leg for sure. The fall