Evade the Dark

Within a few hours, the narrator and their half-brother Spencer will be hunted in an unfamiliar city. Everything traces back to a phone call from their father, which the narrator chose to answer. Now an unconscious man lies at their feet, and the narrator feels a pull toward anger that they know they cannot afford, since it would crowd out everything else they need to think about.

Spencer, a child, sits in the back of the vehicle plotting his way through a world of magic with his terrier by his side. He should be at home blowing out the twelve organic candles on his cake before heading to his therapist. The narrator has been told that ending the lives of men who never saw it coming is nothing to celebrate, and has been fortunate so far, though the narrator doubts that luck will last. The next pursuers are hired hands with guns and manacles, cogs in a machine that traps people, who see the narrator and Spencer as defiant property meant to be returned.

The novel won first place in the 2020 Utah Original Writing Competition, sponsored by the Utah Department of Heritage & Arts.