Longing

By Dean Murray

Abby's one year from graduation, and headed nowhere. A steady regimen of parties and drugs isn't what she really wants to be doing, but sometimes she needs a little something extra just to make it through the day. This party wasn’t supposed to be any different than the rest, but when things take a turn for the worse, help steps in from an unexpected source.

A 4400 word short story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Firshan Publishing
• Release date: Aug 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466128446

Dean Murray

Dean started reading seriously in the second grade due to a competition and has spent most of the subsequent three decades lost in other people's worlds. After reading several local libraries more or less dry of sci-fi and fantasy, he started spending more time wandering around worlds of his own creation to avoid the boredom of the 'real' world.Things worsened, or improved depending on your point of view, when he first started experimenting with writing while finishing up his accounting degree. These days Dean has a wonderful wife and daughter to keep him rather more grounded, but the idea of bringing others along with him as he meets interesting new people in universes nobody else has ever seen tends to drag him back to his computer on a fairly regular basis.

Book preview

Longing

by Dean Murray

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 by Dean Murray

Abby, get your butt out here or I'm going to leave you. If we don't get to the party soon, all of the jocks will already be passed out. Once that happens they're useless to us.

Steph was a royal pain, but she was Abby's only friend. Besides, she was right. Most of the football team would have had half a six pack or so before they even arrived.

Abby flipped her phone shut, slipped her sweater the rest of the way over her head, and pulled her bedroom door shut behind her.

Jack was downstairs with his blocks. Not playing with them really, more like just lining them up. If you left him alone, he'd spend hours moving them around; rearranging them from one pattern to another, never more than one story high. It was the only piece of Jack's condition that made life livable. As long as mom and whichever loser guy she happened to be with at a given moment could avoid getting into a yelling match, Jack pretty much took care of himself. As much as a thirteen year old who barely talked and who still played with blocks could really be considered to take care of himself.

Abby stopped in the doorway to their grubby living room for a second. She felt guilty about leaving him, but he really would be fine for half an hour. After that their mom would be home, and since Fred, her muscle-bound boyfriend, was out of town, she'd probably even make sure he got to bed on time.

Abby's cell buzzed again,