Upline an excerpt
Her fingers fumbled over the counter, through the wreckage, and closed on the handle of an old, pitted carving knife. She felt better with it in her hand, though she knew whoever had raped their way into Nellie's house had a gun at least, if the hole in Walker's chest was what she thought it was.
'Good God, Ellen! Don't even think about rape!'
The roof overhead creaked, and for a moment she heard faint voices. She knew then where they were. Up the tight, creaking little set of stairs behind the closet door, in the attic. Was Nellie up there too, or had they killed her somewhere else and were now just looking for hidden valuables? What valuables did they think a poor patched recluse like Nellie HAD?
'Please don't let her be dead, please oh please God, don't let Nellie be dead.'
She moved around the corner, knife ahead of her as if it were carving the way. The closet door was open. Slender beams of light shown down. She moved toward it, peeked in and through the darkness zebra-striped by thin lines of light. Papers had been scattered over the stairs, but the well was empty. She could see clear up to the attic door, which was an inch or so ajar. The light was from that room, and as she watched a shadow passed over it, making the light wink out a moment before returning. Voices murmured like moths fluttering in the dark.
The cops. Where the bloody hell were the cops? She felt like it would be dawn soon. Her muscles felt like they would snap. She was shaking so badly, the knife was winking back and forth in front of her, passing in and out of the beams of light. She gripped her own wrist, trying to steady herself, and inched up the first stair. Some part of her mind hailed back to when she'd been a teenager, sneaking on a rare occasion out of the house...or back in it. Stairs creaked the least where they joined the walls. She flattened herself to the wall, ignoring the rough finish and the occasional splinters, staying to the dark and the edge. Up a step. Then up another. Closer to that door. Closer to those voices, those shadows, and to Nellie. A LIVE Nellie, she hoped. A WHOLE Nellie, she prayed.
She was only four steps from the top when the voices picked up a little. She froze, straining her ears to hear what was being said. Her body started to shake even more, yet somehow she managed to move up another stair. She could see the slit of light from the partially open door. Something tumbled past it with a clatter, and she winced back.
"Where is it?" A man's voice, accented and dry. That shadow passed over the light again and from this distance, Ellen could see into the crack somewhat. She could see black slacks, the back of a black jacket, rounded shoulders, white hair. The man turned slightly but withdrew from sight at the same time. Something clunked and then skittered across the floor. It did one pirouette where Ellen could see. The rifle. Nellie's Winchester rifle. The handle stopped right near the door, and for a moment, Ellen's eyes locked onto that oak grip. A rifle. Loaded? Maybe or maybe not, but a good deal better weapon than the knife in her hand. She moved gingerly to her hands and knees on the stairs, inching painfully up. She had to get hold of that rifle. She had to help Nellie.
A woman's voice, soft and speaking something besides English. The man replied, and there was the sharp crack of flesh on flesh. "Where IS it?" The man demanded again. Ellen jerked to a halt, holding her breath, mind literally jolted when she heard Nellie's quiet, timid voice.
"It's gone on," she said. Her voice trembled, but it was the tremble of exhaustion, not fear. "It's gone on to another. I can't get there any more. I haven't been able to get there for the longest..."
Another flesh on flesh crack, and her words broke off. Ellen managed to move again, fingers snaking up the last step, inching toward the handle of the rifle. Her mouth was as dry as pillow down. She was still trying to swallow convulsively, but was as unaware of doing it as she was of the tears that leaked steadily down her face.
"Vere is it?" This time, it was the woman speaking, and her accent was even thicker than the man's. "Ve vill tear ze house apart if you do not tell us!" "It's gone on, on," Nellie replied. There was the faint creak of a chair. Ellen's fingers froze, mere inches from the butt of the rifle.
"It's not mine any more. Even if I wanted to get to it I..." she choked. "I couldn't. I can't get there any more. I..."her voice cracked and broke and fell into soft weeping. The sound of it nearly sent Ellen into sobbing, or screaming, but her dry throat closed and allowed neither.
"She can tell us nothing more," the man snarled. "We will just have to find it ourselves."
"Her mind is broken," The woman replied, something of disgust in her voice. There was the sound of spitting. "Ze mountain has tumbled at last."
"Poor miserable whelp," the man said, and the words were a mix of disgust, pity, and anger. Something clicked, a metallic sound, and Nellie actually sobbed. SOBBED. And in the sob, Ellen thought she made out three words, words that froze her to the core and colored her nightmares for weeks.
Then there was a whump, like a heavy book being dropped, like someone slamming a door too weighty to slam properly, and as if it were some magic trick, a hole appeared in the door with light lasering through into the dark and wood dust rained down and Ellen jerked back convulsively, nearly going right down the stairs, and Nellie's sob broke off like someone jerking a record out of a player and then a second whump broke the world and another beam of light raped its way through the door and Ellen was racing down the attic stairs, FLEEING down them, FLYING down the hall and skidding through the gore past Walker and out the door and pain in her wrist as it struck the door frame and her legs going weak and the burning pain in her throat the sound of ragged screams of HER screams and the lights, all the revolving blue and red lights.
And then nothing.
Ellen Scarben had a nice life. Out of kindness, Ellen opened up the doors of friendship to someone who seemed to need help. But when the woman is murdered, Ellen finds herself plunged into a mystery that changes every aspect of not only the world, but herself as well. Upline is the first book in a series that redefines all that is known or theorized about the world, the universe, around us. It begins in Diablo, Oregon but ends up somewhere far stranger. Ellen just may discover that she is the only thing that stands between life and the annihilation of more worlds than can be imagined.
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