The Carbon

By Edward M. Grant

That morning, Daphne's biggest challenge in life had been seducing the farmer's daughter. Now, after being kidnapped by slavers, surviving the crash of their flying machine, and being stranded with only a monkey for company, she may have found her utopia under the ice.

If The Carbon doesn't get her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Banchixi Media
• Release date: Jul 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9780986904899

Edward M. Grant

Edward M. Grant is a physicist and software developer turned SF and horror writer. He lives in the frozen wastes of Canada, but was born in England, where he wrote for a science and technology magazine and worked on numerous indie movies in and around London. He has traveled the world, been a VIP at several space shuttle launches, survived earthquakes and a tsunami, climbed Mt Fuji, assisted the search for the MH370 airliner, and visits nuclear explosion sites as a hobby.

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The Carbon

By Edward M. Grant

Published by Banchixi Media at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Edward M. Grant

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~*~

May 12th, 2468

It wasn't the cold that woke me, but the feeling that my feet were on fire. All I could see of the world was dark grey, white and red, and all I could hear was the crackle of flames.

I lifted my face from the ice where I lay and found myself looking into eyes open wider than my own. A severed head lay on its side in front of me, a rough, bloody tear across its neck and dried blood massed around a crack in the skull.

As my memory returned I recognized the braids of long dark hair and the scruffy beard full of crumbs. He was one of the slavers who had carried me away into the sky. While his friends had their way with the other girls, he had ripped my dress from my body and was trying to force himself on me when... whatever happened... happened.

Beyond the head, chunks of twisted metal were scattered across the ice. The edges were blackened and heat had burned and blistered the paint.

I could barely feel my hands or the front of my naked body. Without the warmth of the fire and the bright sun in the sky, I would probably have become another block of ice on the flat white plain where I lay.

I pushed myself to my feet. Pain shot through my left ankle as I placed weight upon it. I must have twisted it and it was already swelling despite the cold.

I wrapped my arms around my bare body and shivered before I turned to look at the source of the heat. I could smell pork cooking, but I had seen no pigs on the slavers' flying machine.

The slavers' machine lay on the ice, the long cylindrical core broken into three pieces. Fire burned around it and the bloody flesh of torn bodies was scattered among the metal debris.

Other bodies lay in the fire, their flesh blackened and burned almost to the bone; dead slavers, and other women and children they had kidnapped in their raid that day. In the chaos of the attack I had not seen everyone they carried on board, but I had seen a few familiar faces. I hoped they had died