Gray Skies Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Dedications

  More To Read

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Blinded by Sight – Gray Skies Book 2 Preview

  Thank You

  Gray Skies

  a novel

  Book 1 of the Gray Skies Series

  Copyright © 2013 by Brian Spangler

  www.writtenbybrian.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Brian Spangler.

  ISBN: 978-0-9852255-4-4 (eBook)

  Story Editing by Don Shope

  [email protected]

  Development Editing by Lisa L. Akers

  http://www.thegrammargenie.com

  Editing by Mikaela Pederson

  http://a-step-up-editing.com

  [email protected]

  Cover art by Streetlight Graphics

  http://streetlightgraphics.com

  DEDICATION

  To my friends and family for their support and patience.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  While working on this novel, there were several individuals who I owe a terrific level of gratitude and appreciation. Thank you for reading many drafts of this short novel, and for offering critiques and encouragement. As always, your feedback has helped to shape the story.

  To Don Shope, Kay Bratt, Susan Spangler and Jen Steiger for providing invaluable feedback and helping me recognize the potential of the story.

  MORE TO READ

  From the Gray Skies Series

  Gray Skies — Gray Skies Series Book 1

  Blinded By Sight — Gray Skies Series Book 2

  Union — Gray Skies Series Book 3

  The Return — Gray Skies Series Book 4

  From Hugh Howey’s World of Wool

  Silo Saga: Lottery — What happens when there is one too many mouths to feed?

  Visit WrittenByBrian.com

  http://writtenbybrian.com/books/

  1

  Only four words were scrawled on the otherwise empty blackboard this morning: End of Gray Skies. Under the words, a seldom seen thinning swirl of chalk dust clung to the blackboard’s surface, emphasizing what day it was. As Declan Chambers took to the seventh row to find his seat, he heard the first of many whispers. A buzz of excitement was beginning, and he felt an anxious tingle inside. As much as he tried to dismiss the day and push it away, for fear of disappointment, he couldn’t help but let himself feel some of what was spreading throughout the class.

  From face to face, he scanned the classroom, and saw smiles adjoined with cupped hands over attentive ears. Gleeful whispers grew into a fevered chatter of children’s voices—some young, and some old. All were anticipating the announcement; even Ms. Gilly seemed to sit a little taller in her aging chair. Her hands were clasped together and resting on her desk, with fingers interlaced so tightly, that her knuckles turned white. And unlike most days, her hair was fixed high in a bonnet of heavy dark curls, making her look younger than she was. While the classroom filled, hints of a smile crept up the corners of her round cheeks, and her face flushed, as if she too, held back her own elation.

  For some of the younger children in the class, this would be their first time hearing the announcement. For Declan, it would be his third time. But, at seventeen years of age, he didn’t remember the first End of Gray Skies announcement. He remembered the second one though, as well as the disappointment that had followed. That somber moment of failure had crippled his Commune, the community that he lived in. Their Commune was one of largest in the territory, and maybe even in the entire region. The disappointment from the failed End of Gray Skies had no boundaries. He’d heard stories of other Communes, and their descent into lowly times; he’d even heard about depression, and mass suicide. Like the centuries-old fog hugging their world, those memories were dim, and lacking detail. By today’s end though, surely new memories would erase what hadn’t happened five years earlier.

  Maybe… maybe this time, the End of Gray Skies will be the last announcement. Declan blinked, and enjoyed the thoughtful wish.

  Sounds of chairs being dragged from underneath their accompanying desks drowned the growing chatter. Clunky scrapes of metal against the wood floors followed as the class settled into their morning routine. He had spent ten years in the same room, and only now did Declan notice the wear of the chairs on the floorboards. The room was their only classroom for every grade, from six years of age to eighteen. For hundreds of years, generation after generation of students had sat in these chairs, and had read from the same blackboard.

  Reaching back the stretch of a child’s arm, the feet of the chair legs had carved thin paths into the wood floor. The planed tracks glinted soft reflections from the skylights above. Declan wondered who the children were who had walked these floors, sat in these same chairs, and took notes from the same blackboard for the generations before him.

  Could they have been the ones, the ones who had caused the accident? Were they responsible? He shrugged the thought away, dismissing what couldn’t be changed.

  With his own seat under him, he pulled from his desk the remains of his monthly parchment allowance. He brushed his hand over the wrinkles, and played with the fraying pulpy fabric at the corners. He pushed his thumb over the black smudges that stained deep into the weave of threaded fibers, and knew that a cleaning would be one of this evening’s chores. How many cleanings was that? Enough for a generation… maybe more?

  From a shallow pocket in his coverall, Declan revealed the black nub of his only writing stone. He paused; his guessing of generations stopped. Huffing out a sigh, he gazed around the room to see if anyone had noticed his dilemma. Worry stole some of the thrill of today’s announcement. He’d been writing again—more than usual—and now he only had enough writing stone to get through the day.

  I can’t ask for more, he thought, but then shook his head, and considered borrowing from, or maybe trading with, one of his friends. But what do I have for trade? And with whom?

  Declan felt the familiar touch of a hand on his back, and then saw a petite ball of fingers appear just below his elbow. It was Sammi Tate, and almost at once, his heart swelled. He couldn’t help himself, and leaned into her touch, as she opened her other hand to reveal nearly half a piece of writing stone.

  “Here, take some of mine,” she whispered into his ear.

  “Thanks. I’ll be more careful—” he started to say, but was cut-off by her hushed laugh. He loved the sound of her voice, especially when she laughed.

  “No you won’t, but I don’t mind,” she finished, and lifted her open palm. Declan placed his hands around hers to take the writing stone that she’d offered. Rather than turn around, he held her hand. When Sammi closed her fingers on his and squeezed, his heart swelled a little more.

  They were both so young once; innocent and pure in a way that only children can be. He still remembered the day that she had first walked into their classroom, uncertain and awkward, like one of the newborn goats from the farming floor. Back then, he supposed that they had both been like that. But time had transformed her into a young woman, and to Declan, she was perhaps the most beautiful person in this glum, gray world of theirs.

  Declan wondered when it had started. When had they first shared a look that had meant somet
hing more than just classmates exchanging a glance? Had it been that first day? Or had it been sometime during their first year, when they’d shared a childish naivety, and the freedom of not yet knowing about the world in which they lived? He didn’t know when it had started, but he wasn’t sure he cared.

  He’d sometimes catch himself staring into her green eyes, stopping only when she’d spill a nervous laugh, or stick out her tongue to tease him before turning away. Over the years, they were sometimes classmates at odds, arguing a history lesson, or a math problem. At other times, they were classmates working together to finish a project, or to help Ms. Gilly with the younger children. But when had he first begun to feel something more? He thought that maybe he always had; maybe he’d loved her from the very start, and just didn’t realize it until now.

  Sammi Tate was different. It wasn’t just because she was the girl who’d sat behind him for the last ten years, but also because her skin was as white as the chalky writing on the blackboard, almost radiant. Next to the darker complexion of his hands, her delicate fingers shined bright and beautiful. But it wasn’t just Sammi’s skin that captivated him; her hair was fire red, like a flame.

  It’s an anomaly, Ms. Gilly once told the class. She spat the words after the children had begun teasing her. Sammi was just seven or eight, at that time, and the older children had pounced on her with their mockery and cruel words, leaving her to stand in front of the class, crying. Ms. Gilly was quick to scold the class, in an attempt to smother the heckling.

  In their Commune, and in all of the neighboring Communes, nobody had ever seen a person with fair skin, or red hair. Virtually everyone shared the same brown hair and brown eyes, with dark skin.

  Amidst Sammi’s sniffles, Ms. Gilly explained to the class that after the world had changed—after the accident—people had slowed down. Travel became impossible; people just stopped. Wherever your feet were standing was the land that you would call home forever. Nobody travelled after that.

  Over the years and decades to follow, people had found one another, and had made new families. Any lines that had divided them before simply melted away. After dozens of generations, the color of their eyes, hair, and even skin began to take on the same look. But, every now and then, their ancient traits could surface. They saw it only rarely in the form of red-colored or blonde-colored hair, or with blue or green eyes. It gave them a brief glimpse of their past; a reminder of their variety, and diversity.

  Sammi Sunshine, Declan heard in his head. It was the name the school kids used when they teased her. A small twinge of regret hit him then when he considered that those were the first words Sammi had ever heard from the classroom. He recalled hearing the words, soft at first, like whispered classroom secrets that were being kept hidden from Ms. Gilly’s ears. But then more voices joined in, and the name-calling grew louder. They squawked and razzed, with the low hum of the older children singing along. They repeated the chant until Sammi had cried. He had been guilty of saying it too; he didn’t want to be different, or to stand apart from the rest of the class. But Sammi was different.

  Images of that first day played in his head: Sammi, as a young girl, walking across the front of the class, a large round ball of curly red hair bouncing above her with each step. Her skin seemed to glow as she passed in front of the blackboard. The only thing familiar about her was the gray coveralls she wore—the same gray coveralls that every person in the Commune was issued. They came from the repurposing ward in five different sizes, but all of them were the same cut, feel, and color. Yet, Sammi’s coveralls were different: she’d taken a lock of her sunny red hair, and had made a small bow out of it, pinning it to the front of her coveralls. It was color, and color was different. Declan loved that she had done that.

  As Sammi walked across the classroom toward Ms. Gilly’s desk, the younger children and some of the older kids had quieted until the room was nearly silent. The only sound heard had been of her padded coverall shoes skidding across the floorboards. Kids with their heads down on their desks had quickly sprung up, curious about the sudden silence; their faces frozen with an expression of awe. When she’d reached Ms. Gilly and handed her a transfer parchment, Ms. Gilly’s stern expression had broken. Her cheeks pushed up into a smile, and she’d lifted a hand to feel Sammi’s hair. Sammi hadn’t moved, or backed away, as one would have expected her to. Instead, she returned a brilliant smile to Ms. Gilly. Declan loved that, too: he’d been so impressed that Sammi wasn’t shy, or nervous.

  “Aren’t you a ball of sunshine, Sammi?” Ms. Gilly had said, and that’s when the first mention of Sammi Sunshine sounded from the back of the classroom. Then, a second Sammi Sunshine had stirred the air, causing both Sammi and Ms. Gilly to lose their smiles to shallow frowns. A moment later, more of the class had erupted into chants of Sammi Sunshine, and an elbow nudged Declan’s side, inviting him to join in. He’d hesitated, especially when he’d seen Sammi’s trembling lips and chin. Soon after, he’d seen the first tears on her cheeks. But after another elbow nudged him, harder this time, he’d reluctantly started chanting too.

  Years later, Declan still felt a pang of guilt biting inside when he remembered the hurt look that had been in Sammi’s young eyes. It was a stupid name really, but through the years, the name stuck. Yelled from time to time, the name was always met by a quick-witted remark from Sammi, some of which Declan thought were quite witty and excellent. She’d grown to become something beautiful in this gray world, and Declan was sometimes afraid for her; different wasn’t always a good thing.

  Sammi pulled her hand free of his, jarring him from his old memories; the warm remains of her touch quickly went with her. Declan whispered a second thank you in her direction. With more writing stone in hand, Declan could write today. He could write the way he liked to: free of concerns and constraints. With a sullen feeling, he considered what he’d be doing later: cleaning the parchment, and erasing all of the new words he’d formed into sentences that day.

  “Why bother writing at all?” he mumbled.

  But again, tonight, his charcoal words would lift from where he had placed them. They’d mix in a flow of tepid water before running off the parchment’s frayed edges. Like so many times before, the dirtied water would carry his words down the drain, and into the Commune’s waste-recycling units. How many of his words were trapped in the filters of the waste-recycler? How many stories would forever be hidden away in a mash of recycling pulp, and communal waste, never to be seen or read by another set of eyes? He sighed away the loss, for the freedom to write the way he liked was his, at least for today.

  “Attention,” Ms. Gilly commanded from the front of the classroom. Declan considered the years that the stout woman had been teaching him. There was a time when she’d towered over him and his friends, back when he was younger, and she was thinner. Still, she had a presence that had been so large in their young eyes, that often, he’d feared her, and frequently, he’d avoided her.

  During Declan’s seventh or eighth year of school, his eyes had finally reached Ms. Gilly’s ears. By his ninth year of school, the unthinkable happened: he’d grown taller than her. While he liked being taller, he still felt as he had that very first year. He supposed he’d always feel that way.

  It wasn’t until the year that he’d gotten sick and missed over two weeks of school that the fearfulness he’d held for his teacher changed to something else. She’d appeared in his room with concern on her face, and had brought with her a handful of parchment, and a tiny pouch of sweets. Fever wet his brow, and a heavy rattle tumbled deep in his chest. With a constant ringing in his ears, and pressure pushing from behind his eyes, there was talk that Declan had the flu. This terrified both him and his parents, for if word of the flu spread, his dwelling would come under guard. Ms. Gilly had challenged the Commune floor advisors, and had told them that they were overreacting. She hadn’t been afraid to enter Declan’s dwelling, or the nook where he slept. She told the floor advisors that she’d seen the flu firs
t-hand, and that her mother had died from it earlier that year. Ms. Gilly assured them that what Declan had was not the flu, at all. She’d smiled to his parents, and said that her favorite student would be fine. Declan still remembered the relief on his parents’ faces.

  “You’re one of my best students,” she’d told him. “You are so very bright, and terrific with the younger children.” She’d pecked his forehead with her lips, and had told him to get well soon, and to get back to class.

  Declan had never forgotten that. Now, when he looked at Ms. Gilly, there was something more… something motherly about her. It had helped him, especially in the last year, when his mother and sister had really gotten sick. They weren’t as lucky as he had been; they had gotten the flu, and had died from it, just as their dwelling had come under guard for fear of it spreading. That was the second time that Ms. Gilly had visited his home. She’d held him as he cried, and told him that it was okay, and that, in time, the pain would pass.

  With images of his mother and sister in his mind, his breath was labored, as he laid a hand over his heart. The pain had never passed. It had stayed with him, and on some days, he was grateful to have it. Some days though, he struggled to remember the sounds of their voices. His seat creaked as he turned just enough to look down two rows in front of him. He found the empty desk where his sister, Hadley, had sat. Part of him was relieved that her seat remained empty, but at the same time, it was concerning.