High Larry: Soaring High

High Larry: Soaring High

Hypersonic missiles as fast as meteors. Streaks of light through the star-filled sky. The dim white glow of cities in the distance, suddenly bright and red as one by one they disappeared in the fury of fire. Flames rushed outward across the lower hills like fingers grasping at their throats--death reaching out for as many as it could claim.

Larry’s gaze was fixed on the spectacle unfolding in the distance. A streak screamed directly overhead on its way to the North. Jeb growled and leaned hard against Larry’s legs. The mountain was suddenly filled with the sound of fleeing animals.

It was time to head home. The carnage would never reach this far into the Smokies, but there was nothing left to see. They started down the path as lights in the town flickered and died in the valley below.

The winds came howling as he reached his old house. He paused to watch the sky fill with a haze that blotted out the moon. And that stench--something akin to a construction site with raw sewage? He stepped inside with Jeb and shut the door.

He slept as best he could, and woke to Jeb’s nose on his face. He fed Jeb and grabbed some firewood off the porch to stoke the fire in the kitchen stove. Having set up a pot of coffee to percolate, he sat at the kitchen table to wait.

“I guess this is ‘The Day After’, old man. What do you think?” Larry pinched a bit of pot from the tray on the table and fingered it into his old deerhorn pipe. Grabbing a kitchen match and striking it on his thumbnail, he held the flame to the bowl and inhaled. He shook the flame out and tossed the match through the opened door, letting his hand drop to stroke Jeb’s ears.

“At least they weren’t nuclear, right Jeb?” Jeb perked one ear up, looked briefly at Larry and then lowered his head. “Right. You don’t want to be reminded.” Larry rubbed Jeb’s head and stared at the strange scene through the doorway. Outside the hillside was plastered in white. From a distance it looked like snow, but up close… up close it was something else.

 
(story excerpt only)

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Image by @arrelaine13 from @gmuxx's Art Prompt Contest #10

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You may remember High Larry from a story I published on steemit last year. If not, well there ya go.

Thanks to the fine folks at The Writers' Block for editing and critiquing this. If you're a writer, or if you want to be writer, you owe it to yourself to drop by for a visit. The best group of folks I've ever known.