Buck sat quiet for a bit, looking down at his boot. I didn’t know what was going through that thick head of his, and honestly, I didn’t really want to know. I’d said my piece. It all came down to trust for me. I wasn’t ever gonna put myself in another situation with him where I needed him to watch my back. Cause for all I knew, he’d disappear up into another ceiling and leave me holding the bag for something even more evil than a Don.
“I’m not so good working with people,” Buck said at last, “I’m better on my own.”
“Oh bullcrap,” I said, “You’re perfectly happy to use people if you think they’ll give you the leverage you want. Tell me you didn’t try to use that Chris guy to kill the Don world.”
“Well, that didn't quite work out how I planned,” Buck said, “Chris isn’t very good at staying dead. He was pretty convincing when it came to getting me to change my mind about offing the Don world. Fact is, he ended up using me to force the Don to change.”
I had figured that much out myself. I hadn’t been sure at what point Buck and Chris had switched from user to used–but I didn’t have any doubt that Buck still had a kernel of resentment smoldering deep in him.
“I still don’t think he did the right thing, but not much I can do about it now,” Buck said, “Point is, people use each other all the time. Wasn’t my intent to leave you behind, little brother, but it seemed like you needed some growing up, too. Least if you was gonna keep following me around.”
I gave him a sour look that should have shriveled him up like a grape left on a Death Valley highway. He either didn’t see it, or he ignored it and kept scraping dirt off his boot. Onto my used-to-be-clean floor.
“Well, looks like I got over that, didn’t I?” I said, “I don’t got no intention of going on any more adventures with you. Like I said, I’m done. Finished. Over and out. I’m not taking care of any business for you ever again.”
The corner of Buck’s mouth lifted just a bit.
An icy knife of fear suddenly twisted in my gut.
A smile–even just a hint of one–on Buck was a bad thing. A very bad thing. I sat up, looking toward the windows like trouble was already leaning in for a look.
“Buck…” I said.
“It’s too bad,” he said, “I was getting to like having you along, little bro.”
“Buck…”
“Course, I suspect you might change your mind,” he said, “Given the right circumstance.”
“Buck…what’re you up to?” I said.
I heard a heavy motor rumble up. I got up from my chair and started for the window across the room.
“I bet the right circumstance might change your mind right quick,” Buck said.
The other side of his mouth lifted, too.
Knife-edged terror clawed its way into my chest.
Buck’s face was threatening to bloom into a full blown smile. Far as I was concerned, that was the fifth horseman of the apocalypse.
Vehicle doors chunked closed outside. I stood in the middle of my living room, unsure where to go. I didn’t want to see what was coming up to my door. I told my feet they should spin me around and run me out the back door. I could strip off my clothes and armor up and fly the hell out of there. Far away. Maybe I could become a hermit living in the mountains. That wouldn’t be bad. I could sneak into town for beer and pork rinds every now and then. Sure, I wouldn’t have cable, but I could live with that. I’d live in a cave and wear furs from the animals I hunted.
Yeah, it could work. If I’d just turn my ass around and run.
A sharp knock sounded at the door.
Shit. No, it’d never work. I’d never run out on anything in my life. That was my problem. I was dependable. It was a terrible character defect.
“You want me to get that?” Buck asked. His smile was so wide now that there was a hint of shiny white teeth in it.
“Keep your ass there, you son of a bitch,” I said.
Fifty
I straightened myself up and smoothed down my flannel shirt. I snuck a look at Buck, still sitting with his boot up on his knee, flicking dirt onto the floor of my cabin. Asshole had a shit-eating grin on his face as his snapped his cinnamon gum.
I put what felt like a steely look on my face and stepped right smart over to my door. I put my hand on the knob and pushed down that last whimpering shadow of cowardice that begged me to run.
Then I opened the door.
And wished I had listened and run after all.
“Roy Ernest DeHaas,” Momma said, “What’s this I hear you’re not gonna help Buck any more?”
“Well hey, momma, surprise to see you,” I said, “You’re looking good. Did Darlene do something different with your hair?”
Momma pushed past me into the cabin. She wasn’t a big woman, wasn’t no taller than my shoulder and skinny as a deer. But she was dense and just about knocked me off my fool feet. She had on her usual ankle length gingham dress and brown leather vest. Her hair was mostly gray these days, but there was still streaks of black shot through it. About the only concession to age she’d made was a pair of steel rimmed glasses that perched on the end of her nose like twin moons.
Course, her charging into my cabin wasn’t the worst of it. No, I don’t get that kind of luck. When trouble finds me, it seemed to come in packs.
Stepping in behind Momma was Chris and Liz. They was dressed in their usual. Chris in blue jeans, sneakers and a dark blue Phish t-shirt. Liz wore sandals and a clingy lemon yellow sun dress that didn’t leave nothing to the imagination. Momma probably had a thing or two to say about it, but I doubted it would make any impression on Liz. Momma might say it was the sort of dress girls wore to get naked in. Liz would probably agree. I wondered if Momma knew about Liz’s…abilities.
I stuck my head out the door to see if anybody else was gonna be crashing this party.
And I almost ran into T’Vey.
“Hello friend Roy DeHaas,” she said.
My blood ran cold. Chris and Liz brought a Lightning Bug down to Earth? I peered around her. There was a big 4x4 pickup in the driveway that wasn’t mine. The truck was black. All black. Including the deeply tinted windows. It had government plates.
Oh, good lord, what was going on here?
“May I enter your domicile friend, Roy?” T’Vey asked.
I moved aside. “Sure, why not. Everyone seems to be,” I said.
T’Vey walked inside, her clawed feet clicking on my nice oak floor. I hoped them claws didn’t scratch the floor, it had cost me a pretty penny. Then I shook my head. I had bigger problems at the moment.
I glanced at Momma to see how she was taking all this. She had already settled herself into my recliner. The big chair made her look like a little kid. Except you got up to her eyes, which was hard as diamonds. Black diamonds.
Her lips were pressed to a thin line and her eyes followed T’Vel as the four armed alien found a corner of the room to squat down on. I didn’t have much furniture since I wasn’t used to having company. My recliners and the couch were the main places for bottoms to rest, though I could grab a couple chairs from the kitchen if I needed.
I was about to close the door when another sound grabbed my attention. The sound of rotors beating the air. It was close. And coming closer. The cottonwood trees outside began thrashing back and forth from the rotor wash as the the copter started to descend.
I looked a question at Buck.
“That’s probably the pizza,” Buck said.
“Oh, pizza!” T’Vey said, “I have heard of this Earth delicacy. I am having a very exciting day.”
“You and me both,” I said.
I went out to the porch and looked to see a sleek, black helicopter ease down out of the sky to the field across the road. What in the hell had I done to deserve all of this?
The rotors on the copter began to wind down and the dust they kicked up started to settle. A door slid open on the side and who should jump out but Ken Corbin, the oil billionaire. Right behi
nd him was General Mattany, the jerk from the Air Force base in New Mexico that Liz trashed. Someone in the chopper handed him a tall stack of pizza boxes. The general didn’t look none to happy about being a pizza delivery boy.
He and Corbin hustled under the rotors and up my driveway. Corbin bounded up my steps and grabbed my hand between his papery dry hands.
“Good to see you Roy!” he said, “You boys done a great job, great job.”
Before I could say a word he went past me and into my cabin. Like he’d already been invited. Or maybe he didn’t figure he needed one, him being a billionaire and all.
Mattany came up the steps, a deep scowl on his granite jawed face. He thrust the boxes at me.
“Here,” he said.
I took the boxes and he went into my cabin, too. I really hadn’t invited him. And I suspect he probably knew that, but went in anyway, him being an asshole General and all.
“Hey, Roy, you gonna bring those in?” Buck called out, “We got some hungry folks in here.”
I raised my eyes to the heavens. What had I done to deserve any of this? I’d tried to be a good person and do right by my family, my community and my country.
Course, as Pappy liked to say, No good deed goes unpunished.
I wondered what the heck I was getting punished for now.
I let out a heavy sigh and turned to the doorway. My little cabin was looking pretty crowded now. At least the pizza smelled good.
I would have loved to have been a slacker. The kind of guy who could sit on the couch in his underwear all day, watch TV and drink beer and eat corn chips. But, no, I was reliable. There needed to be a certain percentage of Reliable People in the world–and off of it, apparently–to keep things running. And as I’d found out, the reward for being reliable…was getting more work to do.
It didn’t seem fair because no matter how many times I said no, I always ended up doing the job. I wasn’t sure how I got roped into these things, but one thing for sure, my life wasn’t gonna be quiet and dull.
Buck liked to say things could be quiet and dull after we was dead. Which, being around the people sitting in my cabin, waiting for a stack of pizzas, could be a lot sooner than I’d prefer.
I stepped through the door, all eyes on me. Or maybe it was the pizzas. I was never the most important person in the room. But they needed me to be there anyway. I was the little cog in the machinery that kept all them big gears spinning and doing the heavy lifting.
I might as well just get used to it.
I scanned the faces crowded into my little cabin. Surly, amused, expectant…and every one of them ten different kinds of trouble.
“All right,” I said to all of them, “What is it this time?”
What Happens Next?
The Don have been exiled from their world. Everything get better now, right?
No. Everything gets worse.
Much, much worse
Can SevenUnion Survive?
A powerful alien race.
Shamed. Running in exile.
Burning for vengeance.
Planning their revenge on humanity.
Two human brothers. Desperate to save their beloved mother.
Earth. Holding onto a fragile peace in a new, alien alliance.
The only people who can hold the alliance together have disappeared.
A race against time as the drums of war beat ever louder.
Be a part of the Star Ascension adventure.
Get Terminus Ascending now.
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ECLIPSING VENGEANCE
Copyright © 2019 by Jeremy Michelson
Cover design copyright © 2019 Jeremy Michelson.
Cover art © Luca Oleastri | Dreamstime.com | spaceship planet and moon
This book is licensed for your person enjoyment only. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people, places or incidents is purely coincidental.
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