An exhilarating work of speculative fiction that enthralls readers from the very first page. The author skillfully crafts a frozen dystopian world, where the remnants of humanity are confined to the Pyre, their only refuge against the frigid landsca...
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THE OLD BETTY
SOMEWHERE IN THE BARRENS, WINTER 430PT
AGE OF INDUSTRY
Chapter 1
She raises a lighter to her cigarette, hearing the horn of the trackless train she commands. She can feel the trackless train through her body as it dives deeper into the snow, rising and falling with the hills, humps, and bumps of the Barrens.
Swick-swick. The woman is in all black leather, garnished in brown fur, and leans back in a wide-body recliner chair. Her hair stands out in the contrast—that of the deepest black you've ever seen—followed by a cut jawline and deep black eyes. Her legs extended outwards onto a fur futon.
Across from her is a library of many books, from books with worn, stained, torn, and burnt leather bindings to books with yellow pages whose words are written, faded, and depending on the source, crossed out entirely. Then there are the books in pristine condition despite their age, whose pages are yellow but not brittle, written on but legible. And the odd books, like sparse droppings of curiosity: those that are so brittle and burnt each page must be turned with the delicacy of holding a newborn. Or books that appear to be one of a kind, still stained with the blood of the man who wrote in them—the personal journals clawed from the dead man's hands.
Above the library and wide-body recliner a large lantern sways, and above that lantern, bolted to the cabin wall, is a silver, etched plaque that reads The Old Betty. The train cabin is tall; its size is formidable at fifteen feet long and twelve feet wide. The walls are painted in vibrant pink. The windows are closed off for privacy, the cabin is well insulated from the outside temperatures, and it is kept warm by the young teenage boy that stands in his long shirt and pants by the arctic stove as he feeds the flames with coal.
"More coffee, Madam E?" A girl, stands beside the woman in the chair, Madame E. The girl is well dressed in red velvet winter attire, her cheeks rosy and her nose dripping from the cold as her hands wrap around an overly large jug of coffee. The steam escapes the lid. The way she's dressed from head to toe one would think she was a red velvet marshmallow.
