The Valley of Dying Stars (excerpt)

I was inspired on a walk tonight, and came up with this. I'm thinking of expanding on it. I don't guarantee prefect grammar since I wrote this in about ten minutes, but I do want some feedback. Thanks!

Robert Frost was wrong.

The world didn’t end in fire. It didn’t end in ice, either. T.S. Eliot was closer, but still, he was wrong.

No one expected what happened.

Nostradamus, Edward Cayce, the Mayans. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I gazed out at the setting sun from between the grey wood slats of the old cattle railcar. The sun itself was a bright orange color, like that from-concentrate orange juice Mother used to pour in plastic tumblers for breakfast. The sky seemed to cry out in agony, vermilion clouds snaking across like trails of blood gushing from a wound. I couldn’t look for long, though. The car tracks kicked up quite a lot of dust, and I didn’t want it in my eyes. I turned back to the inside of the railcar.

It was dark, the only light coming from the gaps between the slats. Three other people huddled in the car with me. Two of whom I’d never seen in my life, the third was my little sister. The strangers stared ahead of themselves, their eyes lifeless. In the back of my mind, I wondered exactly what they had seen in order for them to be in such a state.

My sister huddled against me, her thumb in her mouth. I thought she’d broken that habit; in fact, I hadn’t seen her suck her thumb in years. I circled my arm around her. Every once in a while, I’d feel her shudder with a silenced sob. I wanted to cry, too. Just let the salty tears well up, obscure my vision, and slide down my dirt-encrusted cheeks and onto my filthy jeans.

We were being evacuated, they said. We’d be okay, they assured us. Nothing to worry about. They were wrong, too. It was not okay. It wasn’t okay, and it would never be okay again. Not without my family.

“Get on the train!” he’d shouted at me. He’d shouted at me and my little sister Sophie. I’d looked from him back to the crowd of people. Some had run, others had staggered. A few had lain in crumpled heaps, unmoving.

“My parents!” I’d cried, gripping my sisters wrist tightly. She was tearing from the pain, but was shocked into silence. “We have to find them!”

“Never mind them now, we must go! If you don’t get on the train this very instant, you’ll be left behind.”

I’d glanced back at the crowd. No Mother. No Father. I’d looked down at my sister, she at me. She had nodded slightly. We’d boarded the train. We hadn’t seen them since.

The jerking of the car interrupted my thoughts, and I found my cheeks wet with tears. Sophie was still beside me. The three across from us were still there. One was moving his head around, stretching. He appeared as if he’d only just become aware of his surroundings. His face was obscured; night in the desert had fallen quickly.

The railcar stopped. The boy looked at me, frightened. People were shouting from a couple cars in front of us, on his side. I crawled over to where he was and we peered through the planks. A woman was dragged out of a car, her hands and legs bound and mouth gagged. She was sobbing and choking. A young girl, maybe four, ran after, shouting, “Mommy!”

A uniformed guard took the girl and placed her in the car, shutting the door. Another guard was standing by the bound woman, loading a rifle. The boy beside me gasped. I turned away instinctively.

The woman screamed through the gag. A shot cracked through the cold night air.

Silence.