The Freezer

My current work-in-progress:



Dawn and Thane Ryder separated to save their daughter Mandy from the end of the world. Dawn sailed for a distant planet as pilot of the first evacuation ship. Thane stayed behind to care for Mandy, with the understanding that he and his daughter would be passengers on a later ship.

Now Dawn's ship has disappeared, and Amanda has been disqualified from evacuation. With nothing else to lose, Thane stays on Earth to take care of six-year-old Mandy. His only goal is to keep her happy until their deaths.

But Mandy begs Thane to build a spaceship so they can go find her mother. He agrees to try as a token gesture to pacify her. Together, they convert their old chest freezer into a pretend spaceship just big enough to hold them.

Then Thane's old boss asks him to leave home and join an exclusive group working to build a real ship from leftover components. It won't reunite them with Dawn—if she's even alive—but it's a chance at survival.

One night, Thane hears Dawn's voice. She promises to save him using the last thing he expects—the freezer.

Thane must choose between a plan that will probably work, but wouldn't reunite his family, and a plan that would fulfill his fondest dream, but lies on the wrong side of the border between reality and imagination.

It should be an easy choice, but he can't shake the feeling that maybe reality is a little bigger than it appears.

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