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    The Maze: Three Tales of the Future
    The Maze: Three Tales of the Future
    The Maze: Three Tales of the Future
    Ebook59 pages1 hour

    The Maze: Three Tales of the Future

    By Charity Tahmaseb

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    About this ebook

    Three stories. Three heroines. Three choices.

    The Maze: Cadet Eppie Langtry navigates the cold and endless maze as part of the Academy's final training exercise. Her exploration leads her to a fellow cadet, and their combined curiosity triggers something no one expects--least of all the cadre running the maze.

    What Little Remains: In a post-apocalyptic city, Kit ekes out an existence by tending to her rooftop garden. A rift in time brings her a new friend from the past--and something else far more menacing.

    Inside Out: When Lexia befriends a girl from outside a luxury spa facility, she starts seeing the cracks in her mother's disastrous fifth marriage, the world in which she lives, and her own future.

    Now with the bonus story: Ghost in the Coffee Machine

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCollins Mark Books
    Release dateMar 26, 2016
    ISBN9781533736512
    Author

    Charity Tahmaseb

    Charity Tahmaseb was a 2003 Golden Heart finalist, and one of her short stories was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the co-author, with Darcy Vance, of The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading, and lives in Minnesota. Visit her at thegeekgirlsguide.com/wordpress.

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      Book preview

      The Maze - Charity Tahmaseb

      The Maze

      The Maze

      Three Tales of the Future

      Charity Tahmaseb

      Collins Mark Books

      Contents

      The Maze

      What Little Remains

      Inside Out

      About the Author

      Also by Charity Tahmaseb

      The Maze

      Eppie

      ON THE TWELFTH DAY, Cadet Eppie Langtry found the cracks in the wall.

      She’d stopped her trek through the maze and leaned against its smooth surface. Exhaustion from the first six hours washed through her, the force of it pushing her into the unforgiving wall. After a few quick breaths, she wiped a hand across her eyes and rolled her shoulder. It was nothing more than a simple push to get going. But beneath her, something shifted.

      Eppie sprang back, gulping cold air. She inched closer and probed the crevice with her fingers. The unrelenting and unchanging wall of the past twelve days slid against her skin. She nudged the wall with her shoulder, the way you might a best friend, as if she and this impenetrable white slab had anything in common. The crevice deepened.

      Eppie glanced upward. The walls and ceiling were bare, but so bright that some days, she wanted to crouch into a ball, bury her head in her arms, and simply rock the twelve hour shift away.

      She never did. The stories of those who had halted for too long kept her trudging forward through the maze. With her shoulder molding new shapes in the wall, Eppie latched onto the first glimmer of ... something. Like everyone else in her class, she’d spent hours pounding the surface, scratching the walls, kicking as hard as she could. Not even blood from torn fingernails was a match for the bright, white glare. Worse, after that first day, everyone’s boots went missing from their lockers, and they now navigated the icy maze in bare feet.

      Her toes ached with the cold. Eppie sandwiched one foot on top of the other and inspected the dip in the wall her shoulder had made. She poked at the wall with her fingertips, and the pliant give became unrelenting again. It was as if the maze resented her earlier attempts of kicking and scratching.

      Eppie blew out a breath. I’d be resentful too, she said, her words barely reaching her ears. It was as if the walls absorbed both the sound of her voice and what she had to say.

      She tried her shoulder again, rolling it around, gentle, persistent, but giving it a bit of rhythm, like a dance routine. If the cadre were filming this—and no doubt they were—she must look ridiculous. A giggle escaped her lips, and Eppie slapped a hand across her mouth. She hadn’t laughed in how many days? Certainly not the last twelve.

      Beneath her shoulder, the crevice grew into a valley. Since the wall seemed to like her shoulder, what about a hip? Now she was dancing. Hip, shoulder, step. Hip, shoulder, step. Hip, shoulder...

      Something solid and warm blocked her progress. Eppie halted, drinking in the first hint of heat in more than six hours. Was this the key, then? Movement? Friction? The wall beneath her still glowed white. It looked deceptively cold, but its warmth was delicious. She turned her face toward the wall, tongue flicking across her lips. What if she leaned forward? What if she let her mouth graze the surface? What then?

      She was a mere breath away when the wall beneath her skin coughed.

      Hank

      Cadet Hank Su stomped through the corridor. No matter how hard he tried, the bright white swallowed the sound of his footfalls until all that remained were small, pathetic steps against the frigid floor. No matter how hard he screamed, the walls absorbed it. By dinner, his throat was so raw, even water scraped on the way down. He crashed from side to side. He kicked until they took away his boots. He gathered up all his strength and bolted down the corridor.

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