Alternative Truths

by Bob Brown

  I blinked away tears, seeing whole families huddled together in corners of the hall sectioned off by sheets and shower curtains. Some talked animatedly, while others stared hollow-eyed and hopeless at us as we passed.

  “This is your fault,” a woman with uncombed white hair wearing a pink chenille bathrobe pointed at me with a shaking finger, her voice shrill as chalk on a blackboard. “If you people hadn’t told everyone your town was okay, they wouldn’t have to destroy our homes.”

  I backed away, my stomach lurching, unable to think of a response.

  “It’s okay, honey.” Work worn hands caught my shoulders and stopped me from tripping backwards. “Grandma’s in shock. You didn’t make the tornadoes.”

  I turned and faced a smiling older woman, who offered me a hug and thanked me for coming. I nodded and skedaddled out of there. It was reassuring to know that some people did believe in science, but I saw several people’s heads nodding when the old woman accosted me and I knew they agreed with her.

  “I’m moving soon as I graduate,” I told Dad in a quiet voice once we left the church. Cold rain practically steamed on my upturned face. I just stood there for a moment to calm down. They really thought this was my fault.

  “Let’s get there,” he said and we jogged through the downpour to the car. “The mall awaits. You need a dress. Show off those pretty legs for your young man.”

  Josh isn’t my young man, I wanted to correct him, but I was too busy blushing in front of my dorky little brother and wishing Josh would notice me as more than just the girl to share homework with. I caught Mom’s smile in the rearview mirror as I buckled up. Maybe we would actually change the town ordinances and be able to have a dance by the time I graduated in two more years.

  We stopped to check on John. He stood beneath the awning in front of his store holding up his cell phone. “Can one of you tell me how this camera works?”

  “Sure,” I said. “What do you want to take pictures of?”

  “The town,” John replied. “I want to tell folks everywhere that we’re still here.”

  Dad coughed and I knew precisely what that meant. John initially referred to the massacre story as a mistake. I was pretty sure he wanted to believe that. While John’s business was never political, he’d proudly contributed to POTUS’s campaign and sported a sign in his front yard. I got out and showed him how to take pictures and even helped him attach the video to an email he was sending to his social media savvy kindred in Oklahoma City, Wichita, and Dallas. This time, they’d spread the word for us. I hoped it would do some good.

  We continued down the street toward the Johnson’s Ford dealership. Josh was also out beside the road doing a video using a high-end camera that his father used to video used cars. Dad stopped and pulled into the dealership lot when he waved us over and gave me a minute to talk with him.

  “My Dad’s going to whip my butt for this,” he said in undertones to me. “I’m the only one in the family who’s mad. Dad says POTUS is good for business.”

  I swallowed hard and impulsively gave Josh a hug. His strong arms tightened around me reassuringly.

  “You like him, you love him, you want to marry him,” Ethan taunted when I got back in the car. I ducked my head and tried to hide my blush, but it wasn’t much use. Mom just grinned at me in the rearview mirror and gave me a thumbs up. She poked my Dad in the ribs.

  “Why don’t you invite your friend to join us?” Dad suggested.

  Ethan started to tease and my Mom gave him a look that shut him up.

  We pulled up alongside Josh. I rolled down the window and asked him to come with us to Oklahoma City. When he accepted, I slid over to the middle of the back seat and he sat down next to me. My parents spent the time quizzing Josh on his schoolwork and what he planned to do this coming summer.

  My spirits lifted the minute we hit the mall. We followed Ethan, who ran to the LEGO® store and watched as he raced from one kit to the other, trying to choose between Star Wars and Batman.

  “Get them both,” Dad relented. It wasn’t Christmas or his birthday, but I knew Dad wanted to cheer us up. We all sat around the table in the evening helping the kid put his kits together. I didn’t know what I was going to be when I grew up, but I was certain Ethan would be an engineer.

  “I’m sorry,” the clerk said. “Your credit card’s declined.”

  Dad stared at the woman. “Any idea why?”

  She shook her head.

  “Will you take a check?” Dad asked.

  She nodded. He wrote the check and she stared at it.

  “Does this place even exist anymore?”

  “I can assure you, it does.” Dad said. “We just came from there.”

  We ate at Braums instead of the cool Mexican restaurant we’d planned. Luckily, we had enough cash to pay for that and our groceries.

  “Hey, you’re that girl on TV,” an old man in the booth across from us said. “You made that fake video about that stupid town still exist—”

  Dad stood to his full height. My accuser’s mouth snapped shut and he backed away.

  I plugged myself into my phone and listened to my music as I stared out the window going home, watching the raindrops trace down the pane, wondering if anything would be right again. Josh patted my arm in comfort. The red clay had turned to the color of old blood beneath the leaden sky.

  We drove back through the rain in silence. Even my little brother didn’t try to play with his new LEGO® sets like he usually did. Mom would occasionally touch my Dad’s thigh and I wished I could do the same with Josh.

  “Stop!” Josh yelled as we got close. It was near midnight and I was paying attention to the rain slick road and not to the skies. I stared up to see dozens of lights above Armadillo. Flashes like lightning rained down on the town. Dad hit the brakes and cut the lights and we coasted along the side of the road until we found the shelter of an abandoned truck stop just a couple of miles on.

  “Video camera’s in the floorboard,” Josh said in a tight voice.

  I fumbled with the zippered case and managed to get the expensive camera out without dropping it. My body shook so hard I could barely stand or see, but I held onto the camera and steadied enough to capture Armadillo going up in flames. A dozen Apache helicopters flew in low and fast, blanketing the town with cannon fire. The attack happened so quickly we couldn’t have called anyone and gotten them out. I climbed back into the car, startled when I realized my Dad had disabled the cabin lights. We stayed there until the skies were dark once again.

  We’d told the truth and they’d turned the lie into a reality. Likely all of our fellow townsfolk, along with the refugees from the Eustis storm perished.

  “What are we going to do?” Josh asked, sitting beside me in the dark.

  “We’re going to survive and we’re going to tell the truth and fight,” I said quietly holding onto the video camera like my life depended on it. “We’re still here.”

  END?

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Foreword © 2017 by Rick Dunham

  Editors’ Foreword © 2017 by Phyllis Irene Radford and Bob Brown

  Q and A © 2017 by Adam-Troy Castro

  The Trumperor and the Nightingale © 2017 by Diana Hauer

  President Trump, Gettysburg, November 19, 1863 © 2017 by Jim Wright

  Relics: a fable © 2017 by Louise Marley

  As Prophesied of Old © 2017 by Susan Murrie Macdonald

  Good Citizen © 2017 by Paula Hammond

  The Frame © 2017 by Bobby Lee Featherston

  Altered to Truth © 2017 by Irene Radford

  about_the_change.wav © 2017 by Joel Ewy

  Alt Right for the President’s End © 2017 by Gregg Chamberlain

  Melanoma Americana © 2017 by Sara Codair

  Patti 209 © 2017 by K.G. Anderson

  It’s All Your Fault © 2017 by Daniel M. Kimmel

  Letters from the Heartland © 2017 by Janka Hobbs

  Rage Against The Donald © 2017 by Bruno
Lombardi

  Pinwheel Party © 2017 by Victor D. Phillips

  Monkey Cage Rules © 2017 by Larry Hodges

  The Last Ranger (ANPS-1, CE 2053) © 2017 by Blaze Ward

  Raid at 817 Maple Street © 2017 by Ken Staley

  Frozen © 2017 by Liam Hogan

  Duck, Donald: A Trump Exorcism © 2017 by Marleen S. Barr

  Walks Home Alone at Night © 2017 by Wondra Vanian

  The History Book © 2017 by Voss Foster

  We’re Still Here © 2017 by Rebecca McFarland Kyle

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  K.G. Anderson’s work as a journalist and technology writer gives her a front-row seat for the whole dystopian circus and a special pass to the sideshows. Her short fiction appears in anthologies including Second Contacts, Story Emporium, Triangulation: Beneath the Surface, and The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper Stories, as well as online at Metaphorosis and Every Day Fiction. She lives in Seattle with her life partner, bookseller Tom Whitmore, and enough cats. Find out more at https://writerway.com/fiction-by-k-g-anderson/

  Marleen S. Barr is known for her pioneering work in feminist science fiction and teaches English at the City University of New York. She has won the Science Fiction Research Association Pilgrim Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction criticism. Barr is the author of Alien to Femininity: Speculative Fiction and Feminist Theory, Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond, Feminist Fabulation: Space/Postmodern Fiction, and Genre Fission: A New Discourse Practice for Cultural Studies. Barr has edited many anthologies and co-edited the science fiction issue of PMLA. She is the author of the novels Oy Pioneer! and Oy Feminist Planets: A Fake Memoir.

  Adam-Troy Castro made his first non-fiction sale to SPY magazine in 1987. Among his books to date include four Spider-Man novels, 3 novels about his profoundly damaged far-future murder investigator Andrea Cort, and 6 middle-grade novels about the dimension-spanning adventures of that very strange but very heroic young boy Gustav Gloom. Adam’s darker short fiction for grownups is highlighted by his collection, Her Husband’s Hands And Other Stories (Prime Books). Adam’s works have won the Philip K. Dick Award and the Seiun (Japan), and have been nominated for eight Nebulas, three Stokers, two Hugos, and, internationally, the Ignotus (Spain), the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire (France), and the Kurd-Laßwitz Preis (Germany). He lives in Florida with his wife Judi and either three or four cats, depending on what day you’re counting and whether Gilbert’s escaped this week.

  Gregg Chamberlain has been a community newspaper reporter for more than 40 years, and after four-plus decades in the trade his general opinion of politicians is that they get in the way of progress. But they make such wonderful targets for satire that he was more than happy to provide his own potshot at POTUS45 for the inaugural Alternate Truths anthology. Gregg lives with his missus, Anne, in the rural part of Ontario. The couple shares their home with a clowder of cats who all have agreed to let the humans think they are in charge. Gregg amuses himself with writing genre fiction and has compiled a list of almost four dozen short fiction credits in Daily Science Fiction, Apex, Weirdbook, Pulp Literature, and other magazines and various original anthologies.

  Sara Codair lives in a world of words, writing fiction in every free moment, teaching writing at a community college, and binge-reading fantasy novels. When not lost in words, Sara can often be found hiking, swimming, or gardening. Find Sara’s words in Helios Quarterly, Secrets of the Goat People, The Centropic Oracle, and at https://saracodair.com/ and https://twitter.com/ShatteredSmooth

  Joel Ewy is self-employed and lives in South Central Kansas with his wife and two kids. He went to Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas, where he took the liberal arts concept way more seriously than it was intended, taking more history, writing, painting, and computer science classes than they thought he needed in order to complete a B.A. in Philosophy, which he reluctantly did after seven years. He’s interested in post-industrial desktop manufacturing tools and antique computers from the 1980s.

  Bobby Lee Featherston is a southern refugee who has settled onto 32 acres of farmland in Prosser, Washington, and contentedly grows Ukrainian sweet peppers and crook neck squash with the able help of his loyal dogs Jules and Verne. He enjoys his early mornings watching the sun kiss the world hello and the company of his friends over a good rye whiskey.

  Voss Foster lives in the middle of the Eastern Washington desert, where he writes science fiction and fantasy from inside a single-wide trailer. He is the author of several novels, including the Evenstad Media Presents series, and his short work has been featured by a variety of publications, including Andromeda Spaceways Magazine and Vox.com. When he can be pried away from his keyboard, he can be found singing, cooking, and playing trombone, though rarely all at the same time. More information can be found at http://vossfoster.blogspot.com/

  Paula Hammond has been in love with stories since she was old enough to read them for herself. When not hunkered over a keyboard, she can be found prowling London’s crusty underbelly in search of random weirdness.

  Diana Hauer is a writer of words, both technical and fantastical, who lives in Beaverton, Oregon, with a dog and a fiancé. When she is not writing, she also enjoys gardening, hiking, and studying martial arts.

  Janka Hobbs lives in the Puget Sound lowlands, where she studies Aikido and Botany when she’s not playing with words. Visit her blog at https://jankahobbs.com/

  Larry Hodges is an active member of SFWA with 81 short story sales, including 17 “pro” sales—nine to Galaxy’s Edge and eight others. His third novel, Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions, came out in March, 2016, from World Weaver Press. He also co-wrote a novel with Mike Resnick and Lezli Robyn, When Parallel Lines Meet, which comes out in spring, 2017. He’s a graduate of the six-week 2006 Odyssey Writers Workshop, the 2007 Orson Scott Card Literary Boot Camp, and the two-week 2008 Taos Toolbox Writers Workshop. In the world of non-fiction, he’s a full-time writer with twelve books and over 1700 published articles in over 150 different publications.

  Liam Hogan is a London based writer. Winner of Quantum Shorts 2015 and Sci-Fest LA’s Roswell Award 2016, his dark fantasy collection, Happy Ending Not Guaranteed, is out now from Arachne Press.

  Find out more at http://happyendingnotguaranteed.blogspot.co.uk/, or tweet at @LiamJHogan

  Daniel M. Kimmel was nominated for a Hugo Award for Jar Jar Binks Must Die . . . and other observations about science fiction movies. His Shh! It’s a Secret: a novel about Aliens, Hollywood, and the Bartender’s Guide was a finalist for the Compton Crook Award for best first novel. His latest is Time on My Hands: My Misadventures in Time Travel.

  Born on Friday 13, Rebecca McFarland Kyle developed an early love for the unusual. Dragons, vampires and all manner of magical beings haunt her thoughts and stir her to the keyboard. She currently lives between the Smoky and Cumberland mountains with her husband and three cats. Her first YA novel, Fanny & Dice, was released on Halloween 2015. In 2017, she will be editing a charity anthology and releasing works in young adult, urban fantasy and dark fantasy. She’s working on both short and long fiction on her own and with co-conspirators.

  Bruno Lombardi is a Canadian author of speculative and weird fiction, with a number of writing credits including a novel Snake Oil, and stories in Weirdbook and other anthologies.

  Susan Murrie Macdonald was a fifth-generation Republican until November 9, 2016, after which she could no longer support the GOP with a clear conscience. She is the author of a children’s book, R Is for Renaissance Faire, as well as several short stories. She has also won the Arkansas Scottish Festival annual poetry contest twice, in 2014 and 2017. She currently lives in Tennessee with her husband and two teenagers. Mrs. Macdonald enjoys Highland Games, Native American pow-wows, science fiction conventions, and Renaissance Faires.

  Louise Marley, a former concert and opera singer, has published nineteen novels in various genres. Feminist, activist, mom, wife, yogini, and dog lover, wanderer of the b
eaches of the beautiful Olympic Peninsula where she now lives and writes and worries about the future.

  Victor Phillips, recently retired after four decades’ career in natural resources management and education, shares time between Wisconsin’s Fresh Coast and Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast. His interest in writing short stories fulfills a lifelong passion in creative fiction. Through both non-fiction and fiction, Phillips strives to lighten the load of contemporary society through humor and to suggest a different, more durable path forward. His former professional writings—technical scientific works—are approved to cure insomnia.

  Irene Radford is the bestselling author of the beloved Dragon Nimbus Series and the masterwork Merlin’s Descendants series. In other dimensions she writes urban fantasy as P.R. Frost or Phyllis Ames, and space opera as C.F. Bentley. Lately she ventured into Steampunk as Julia Verne St. John.

  She is also the editor of numerous anthologies including the popular, How Beer Saved the World.

  She is the proud servant of her cat and has been known to chase the occasional bear off the deck of her rural property in the shadow of Mount Hood.

  If you wish information on the latest releases from Ms Radford, under any of her pen names, you can subscribe to her newsletter: www.ireneradford.net

  Ken Staley lives and works in the lower Yakima Valley in Eastern Washington. When not at his keyboard, Ken can be found working in stained glass or visiting one of the many area vineyards and sampling their offerings.

  Wondra Vanian is an American national who moved to Wales, in the United Kingdom, to marry the love of her life and raise an army of four-legged furbabies. She left her job working for The Man in 2014, after earning a BA in English Language and Literature, and is currently focusing on writing.