"The storm," the minotaur said. "The black blizzard. It's getting closer."
"Maybe we should go." I stood up and pulled Jimmy's arm. "I don't like this one bit."
Jimmy took on his normally cocky stance, pointing the gun at the minotaur again. "Oh yeah? Well, it ain't going to do shit to us. You're the one in trouble. We leave you here, you'll be the one to die. I've seen a black blizzard choke the life out of everything within a five mile radius. You think you'll make it chained up here like this?"
"You should let me go," the minotaur said. "This is your last chance."
"Jimmy—" I tugged on his arm more. He jerked his arm away from me. Not out of annoyance, but from pain. My fingers singed his shirt.
"You think you're real smart, huh, talking cow?" Jimmy bared his teeth. "We'll see how much you'll talk with a bullet lodged in your brain."
The door burst open. Dust swirled into the tavern, stinging my eyes and bare skin like needles. I rushed over, slamming my shoulder against it. The wood buckled underneath my weight, but I managed to keep it shut. Something wasn't right, though. It felt as if someone was on the other side beating on it, not just strong gusts of wind.
"Something's wrong, Jimmy." I kept my back to the door, blinking dust out of my eyes. The door continued to throb against me. Pulsing like a vein.
"I'm gonna finish off this—" Jimmy began, but a window burst on the far side of the tavern, showering the room with glass. When Jimmy ducked down to shield his face, the minotaur lunged forward, his chains snapping from around his neck. Continuing to charge, the beast gored Jimmy and flung him up into the ceiling as more and more dust whipped into the room. Jimmy whined like a wounded dog, spinning in his own blood on the slick floor. The minotaur pushed himself up, his shaggy head dripping. His eyes fell upon me.
"Move.” The minotaur pointed at me.
Everything in my being wanted to obey, but I couldn't will my muslces to work. Whatever lurked on the other side of the door wasn't natural. I'd been through dozens of dust storms and never one this intense, this persisent.
It was alive.
"You're not the only one who can use magic, boy." The minotaur held up his hand and squeezed it into a fist. A tendril of blood, sweat, glass, and Moss' blackened bones curled around the minotaur's arm like iron to a magnet. "I won't say this again. Move."
"No," I whimpered, my arms tingling, my fingers twitching. A flame tried to form in my index finger, but the wind sputtered it out.
"You understand now?" Tiny tornadoes of dust formed around the minotaur's feet. They began to swell, sucking everything in the room towards it. Stools scraped across the floor, bottles of liquor tumbled from the shelves, and papers whipped all about.
Jimmy, his face looking like stretched taffy, held his gut, trying not to get sucked into the minotaur's magic. His hair appeared on the verge of being jerked from his head. One hand stretched out toward the gun.
When the minotaur saw, he twitched his hand and the gun went spiraling out the window.
The door cracked behind me. "Please. Don't."
The minotaur laughed. A hollow sound that bandied about the room. In turn, I clenched my own fist as the small tornadoes grew larger and larger.
Jimmy screamed and went spinning around the room, hitting every wall, the floor, the ceiling, the tendril of gore, dust, and glass propelling him. His arms outstreched to me as his screams whirred about.
Why didn't the minotaur just do the same to me? Why didn't he hurl me aside? I looked up to him, wiping the tears from my eyes. "You fear me?"
The wind died down and Jimmy crashed into the shelves behind the bar. From the window, I saw dozens of eyes staring out from behind the black dust. More minotaurs.
The minotaur snorted. "Fear you? Of course not. I respect you. That's why I'm giving you the option. My tribe may not be so forgiving."
I couldn't believe it. He was actually protecting me from the others. Moss wanting to get him out of the tavern as soon as possible made sense. He was trying to actually save us all. The only reason the black blizzard hadn't obliterated the tavern was because the minotaur was protecting us.
"You hurt my brother," I said. "He may die."
"Don't you think he deserves it?" The minotaur said. "Has he ever been kind to a single living thing?"
I tried to think of a moment, but couldn't. He was right. My brother had always been a dirtbag. But he was my dirtbag. "He's still my brother."
The minotaur walked over to the bar and drug Jimmy out, bloody, hair matted, eyes barely open. He sputtered something, but I couldn't make it out. "I will take your brother. He must pay for his crimes against my tribe. His death will not be swift nor painless."
"Carl—"Jimmy mumbled. "Kill—"
The minotaur squeezed Jimmy close to him like a girl would a ragdoll. "You'll be quiet now."
I made out the horned heads of the minotaur's brethren standing outside the window, feathers hanging from their ears. Shrouded in darkness, they looked more like statues except for the brief moment when they breathed and dust would leap from their snouts. I counted at least six. If one minotaur of this tribe could do what he did, I didn't want to imagine seven of them torturing my brother until he screamed out for mercy.
"Move away from the door," the minotaur said, clutching Jimmy under one massive arm. "Let me leave."
"Leave my brother," I said.
"No."
My hands clenched.
"Don't do it," the minotaur said. "There will be nothing left of you afterwards. I promise."
"He's my brother!"
Gouts of flame erupted from my fingers, engulfing the minotaur's head. He flailed about, dropping Jimmy and rampaging about the tavern, impaling his horns into the side of the bar. Magic flared and the black blizzard burst open the door. I took my chance, snatching Jimmy up and jerking him out the door and outside into the storm. I couldn't see an inch in front of me as I trudged forward through a field of withered corn, the howling wind blacking out everything around me.
I turned at the sound of wood and brick cracking from behind. Black shapes flailed their arms about, directing the remains of the obliterated tavern. First one brick came, hurtling past my head. Then more, as if being shot from a cannon. I ducked and continued to pull Jimmy. A jagged piece of wood zipped past me like a javelin, then another. A brick struck Jimmy in the knee. He yelped, but I kept dragging. Shielding my eyes, I saw the outline of Rodney's house up ahead. If I made it there, the storm shelter would be my only hope. A brick slammed into my shoulder. I dropped Jimmy only for a moment and scooped him back under my arms. I didn't know why. Other than our blood, we had little in common. But if the Depression had taught me one thing, blood is all we have sometimes.
More bricks whipped past. I hoped that in their rage, the minotaurs would at least lose their accuracy. The wind felt less controlled, more frantic. I inched along, pulling Jimmy even though his heels dug into the dirt more often than not.
"Pick up your feet," I told him.
"Just get me out of here," Jimmy screeched. "Get me out of here and I promise—" He trailed off. Jimmy keeping a promise? Now that would be something.
The wind died. A blanket of dust dumped on my head and everything became clear. Right in front of us was Rodney's house, the shelter several yards away.
"Our chance—" Jimmy managed.
It wasn't our chance. The minotaurs had ceased the raging storm to tend to their fallen brother. Amidst the wreckage of the tavern, I imagined they leaned down to regard the smoking body of Jimmy's captured minotaur with shock and sadness.
I set Jimmy down. "Crawl."
"What?"
"Crawl to the shelter. I know they're not going to let this go. I have to stop them before they come looking for us at Rodney's home. Or follow us to the ends of the Earth, destroying everything in their path."
"You're crazy, Carl." Jimmy's eyes bulged. "My knee. I can barely move. Hurry up and get me in the shelter, damnit. They'll kill me."
"I said crawl."
"You worthless son of a bitch." Jimmy lit into me, even with his mangled face and bum leg. "What would Ma and Pa think to know you're abandoning your own brother to crawl in the dirt like a slug? Help me in there now!"
My fists balled up.
"Now!" Jimmy tried to scream, but it came out as nothing more than a strangled gasp.
He's my blood. I had to remember.
As I walked away, Jimmy still cursing me six ways to Sunday, I went towards the ruins of Rodney's tavern. The six minotaurs got back to their feet, glowering at me. The dust began to rise again, brushing against my skin. The wind buffetted my face. But I went forward anyway. Paying for the sins of my blood.
A ball of black dust shuddered across the field and struck me in the chest. I gasped and lurched forward, falling to my knees. It felt as if being punched in the chest by a giant fist. My fingers clawed in the dirt as I tried to regain my composure.
"You could have left," one minotaur called out. "Apaxal willed it."
So that was the minotaur's name. My body wracked with coughs and I spat some of the black dust out. "Apaxal wanted to kill my brother. You all wanted to."
"And we will," another minotaur answered. "But not before we let the wind tear your limbs apart like so many dry branches."
Flames danced on my fingers. I tried for a witty response, but decided tossing a fireball at them would be a much better strategy. I lobbed a green sphere of flame at them, rolling it through the corn field like a wobbling bowling ball. It burst apart in the middle of the ruined tavern, splashing them with liquid fire that clung to their fur and melted away flesh. Three of the minotaurs fell over dead, their bodies sizzling clumps.
One minotaur with half his face hanging off flung a wicked piece of glass at me. I tried to dodge, but it shattered into a million pieces before reaching me. The fragments imbedded in my flesh, propelled by the wind magic. I roared and answered back with three small balls of purple fire that hopped and skipped across the field before striking the half-faced minotaur. He collapsed into a smoking husk.
The glass stung my whole body, but I summoned up more flames into my feet. I bounded across the field, leaving a trail of ash behind me, dodging as bricks, wood, and shards of glass flew toward me. The surrealness of the moment still hadn't sunk in. The more angry I became, the more the flames leaked out of me. By the time I reached the tavern, my arm had become a lance of bright red flame. I shoved it through the gut of one surprised minotaur, twisting it until it died. Smoke rolled out of his open mouth. When I turned to finish off the last one, a massive gust of wind caused me to flip head over heels and crash against the cobblestone path that led up to the tavern.
I got back up to my feet to see the lone minotaur huddled over, shaking. He tried to hurl another gust of wind at me, but only a breeze came from his fingers. I realized this is why the black blizzard had become so strong. Why Apaxal had sat chained up to the wall for so long. Their powers were non-existent without their other brothers. The black blizzard didn't exist without numbers.
The minotaur's lips trembled as I stood over him. "Go on."
"What's your name?"
The minotaur looked up at me. "Why?"
"What's your name?" I repeated.
"Nulpa," he said.
"Nulpa, my brother wants a minotaur," I said. "He's going to take you to California. You'll probably fight for him and make him lots of money."
"I rather die," Nulpa said.
"Then you should probably run now."
Nulpa didn't hesitate. He got up and ran, disappearing amidst the stalks of corn.
As if on cue, Jimmy appeared behind me, carrying a piece of wood with a nail sticking out of it. He still looked like hell warmed over as he hobbled up to me, drool dripping from his lips. "There’s one left. I seen him. Where is he?"
"What about your knee?"
He looked down. "Hurts like hell, but I can manage. I came to help you. We have to finish them all off."
"He got away," I said. "Too fast."
"Aw, crap!" Jimmy bit his lip. "Well, we should probably get out of here. Rodney's not going to be happy to see what we did to his bar."
"I'm not going anywhere, Jimmy. I'm just going to sit right here for a while."
Jimmy's chuckle turned into a fit of coughing. "Nonsense. Let's get to a doctor and then off to California. Imagine all the money—"
"I'm not going with you."
"What? Of course you are. That power you have. It's bound to bring us out of this funk we're in."
"You're in, Jimmy. I'm not in any funk."
"But we're brothers. You got to help me out. Hell, you may even fix the whole Depression with your abilities."
I looked at all the wreckage. "I've helped you about as much as I ever care to."
"You little—" Jimmy's lip curled back and he began to raise up the board. After all he’d just witnessed, he still thought he could beat me. I didn't even feel angry anymore. Just exhausted.
"I wouldn't," I said, flames jumping to my fingers.
Jimmy smiled nervously, dropped the board, and limped away. I breathed in and started picking glass from my face. If Jimmy planned on going to California come hell or high water, maybe I needed a similiar plan. I definitely couldn't stay in Oklahoma anymore. Too much dust. Too much blood.
New York, here I come.
The Road Was Lit with Moon and Star
by Bruno Lombardi
(1)
The Road was lit with Moon and star —
The Trees were bright and still —
Descried I — by the distant Light
A Traveller on a Hill —
To magic Perpendiculars
Ascending, though Terrene —
Unknown his shimmering ultimate —
But he indorsed the sheen —
—Emily Dickinson
July 20, 1970 –Cocoa Beach, Florida
David finished off his third bottle of beer and threw it into the ocean. With a loud splash, the bottle vanished beneath the waves, the ripples of its demise into the deep reflecting the moonlight like a cracked, dark mirror.
With a cackling laugh, David looked up at the full Moon. Cocking his hand into the shape of a gun, he carefully squinted one eye and sighted his index finger at the center of the Moon—and made a ‘bang’ sound.
“Got you, you mother...” he whispered to the universe at large.
Cracking open his fourth beer of the night, David Daniel Thomas Patton – ‘General DDT’ to his friends; Commander (Retired) Patton to his former Navy crew; ‘Dave’ to his family—proceeded to celebrate.
He was going to be the first man to walk on the Moon.
It was sometime after 3 am when David—having finished his sixth beer of the night—decided to stagger home.
“Home” was about three miles away from the point on the beach where he had unceremoniously commended a six pack of beer to the ocean depths. Under normal circumstances, the walk would have been a rather pleasant forty-five minute journey. This evening, however, in light of his rather advanced state of inebriation, it appeared that the journey home would take about an hour and a half instead, as his feet—against all protests to the contrary by what remained of his conscious brain—were intent on taking him the ‘long’ way home.
He came to a sudden stop as he realized where his wanderings had taken him.
Of course—where else would he be, especially today of all days?
Taking a deep breath, David walked into Apollo 11 Memorial Park.
He always hated the statue.
The statue—two astronauts standing side by side as they gazed towards the west—were completely nondescript. It was impossible to tell which one was Armstrong or Aldrin. The artist and the politicians had all given speeches about how that had been the point—something about ‘symbolizing the unity of man’ or some such nonsense—but David still hated it, nevertheless.
The plaque, on the other hand, never failed to b
ring a tear to his eye. As he read it again, for the umpteenth time, he felt his eyes begin to water.
Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.
These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.
These two men have laid down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.
They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.
In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.
In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.
Others will follow and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.
For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.
“We’re coming, guys,” whispered David. “Just you wait—we’re coming.”
Still swaying, David turned and continued on his way home.
(2)
I have sat by night beside a cold lake
And touched things smoother than moonlight on still water,
But the moon on this cloud sea is not human,
And here is no shore, no intimacy,
Only the start of space, the road to suns.
—Trans Canada by F.R. Scott
May 1, 1962 –San Antonio, Texas
“They’re looking for astronauts.”
David ignored his father and continued working on the grill. It was slow going; it was a brand new grill, literally fresh out of the box, and—allegedly—both ‘state of the art’ and ‘idiot-proof’ to put together. While he had yet to have any confirmation on the ‘state of the art’ aspect of the grill, he certainly was beginning to feel like an idiot. It had been twenty minutes now and he was barely a quarter done.
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