by Weston Ochse
Maxom had waited a while so he could be there when Danny arrived. But the longer he’d waited, the more melancholy he’d begun to feel. Suddenly he’d felt incredibly tired. So it was with a fond wish for Danny’s happiness that he disengaged with the Land of Inside-Out and returned to his body in a rush. He paid the price for his haste as his head immediately began to throb.
Maxom hung in his hazardous waste suit, suspended from his harness above the shadowed sea of maggots that undulated beneath him. The electricity had been turned off, the only illumination coming from two emergency lights. He remained motionless, the aluminum stirring rod attached to his right arm holding him in place. Every now and then he’d hear muffled shouts come from the other side of the thick steel door that he’d locked earlier.
Bernie had been with him since his death. So many times Maxom had wished for his friend. Now to discover that Bernie had been with him the whole time was almost too much. Perhaps Maxom didn’t truly understand the nature of the Land of Inside-Out. Bernie had saved his life by allowing the Chill Blaine to take him, but was he gone for good? Did Bernie need saving? Could he be saved? Was the life of a Chill Blaine such a terrible life?
Maxom sighed.
Even as the questions manifested, he knew that the answer couldn’t be found in this place. Here on Planet Earth, even floating above a tank containing a billion maggots where he was God, he was limited in his every movement. Here he was a cripple, a freak of nature. He was a reminder to all who saw him of the extreme limits of the pain a person could endure. And the world hated him for it.
There’d been a tenacity about Danny that Maxom had admired. Even in the face of impossible odds, the boy had aspired to his goal. Maxom had thought his own tenacity used up, bartered for his very life upon the cross in front of that Mung village so long ago. Or at least he’d believed it to be. It seemed that even then Bernie had been there to save him.
Maxom felt a sudden and irrevocable kinship with the little boy. He understood the kid’s almost over-powering need to find his sister. Maxom had thought Bernie lost to him, but the man had never been closer. Tenacity. Maxom felt it growing within, filling him with a desire to do something. Perhaps the physics of the Land of Inside-Out would allow him to meet Bernie again.
Maxom slid his right arm from the sleeve attached to the metal rod. He moved his hand along his body towards the nubs of his legs and felt for the zipper that would release him from the suit. After a moment, he found it, and gripped the small sliver of metal between his fingers.
Perhaps there was a place in time where he could once again be that child running down the street, shooting bad guys from finger guns; never afraid, never even aware that real bad guys existed. Perhaps he could meet Bernie again, and revel in a great brawl, as they once again cleared the room at the Green Beret Sport Parachute Club, victorious and alive and in love with the red, white and blue. Perhaps he could relive that ambush and return to being that whole proud soldier who’d never lost a battle.
Maxom closed his eyes as he unzipped the bottom of the suit. He fell free, striking the cold slithering mass of maggots a moment later. As he began to sink, he soared free.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Weston Ochse (pronounced Oaks) lives in Southern Arizona. His work has won the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel in 2005, been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for Short Fiction in 2003 and won the Buffalo Screams International Film Festival Original Screenplay Competition in 2010. His work has also appeared in anthologies, magazines and professional writing guides. He thinks it’s damn cool that he’s had stories in comic books. His novels include Blaze of Glory (Bloodletting Books), Empire of Salt (Abaddon Books), and Scarecrow Gods (Delirium Books).
Visit his website at: www.westonochse.com.
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Table of Contents
SCARECROW GODS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
About the Author
MORE FROM OCHSE