Excerpt: SCREAMCATCHER: WEB WORLD by Christy J. Breedlove

EXCERPT:    

When the inevitable scene came to her, she gripped the covers, white-knuckled. It played out like a video, with her as the sole audience member. The silver Lexus locked up its brakes, skidded and plowed through the guardrail. It seemed to hang in the air for a very long time before the hood nosed over. The car picked up speed in a downward plunge. She could plainly see her parents’ faces through the front windshield, their mouths agape, eyes bulging. Jory screamed for them in the dream. It took so long for them to fall, that in the next moment, their faces relaxed before the canyon bottom rushed up to meet them. They joined hands—a fatal embrace—the pose that they were found in. Then the impact came, their bodies thrown forward into the metal, glass and rock.

            Jory pulled the comforter down and cried out with a long, pitiful wail.

            The room exploded with a jarring thunderclap. Jory pushed herself upward with a spastic jerk. Darcy screamed. In the next second the window blew inward, spraying shards of glass. The comforter flew off the bed and hit the wall. The mattress was knocked askew. An icy spray of raindrops blasted into the room while the drapes--shredded and torn--flipped crazily in the torrent. Jory leaped from the bed to land on a body that was just pushing up from the floor. She rolled off, hitting her head against the wall.

            “Where am I?” It sounded like Lander’s voice below her.