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by Ochse, Weston


  She shot free of the building's servers into the busy ID nexus of the Pacific Rim Amalgam. Here data packets the size of mastodons fired along fiber optic highways like shells through a canon. She fell into line and found an East bound cable running across the sea floor to California.

  Less than ten minutes later she found herself once again on the rear deck of their frigate, standing beside an older woman bedecked in the gold brocade and livery and tri-cornered hat of a Barbary Coast pirate. A Spanish galleon listed to their fore, smoke billowing out of the middle deck and orloop hatches. A breeze whipped through Rebecca's long, flowing hair. It carried the scent of gunpowder, burning wood and the sea.

  Pirate Agnes stepped forward shouted a command. "Strike the mizzenmast and break out the jib! We're going to bring her around and come in close."

  Rebecca eyed the enemy's cannons. "Not too close, I hope."

  "You never know." Agnes held Rebecca's arm in an iron grip, and pulled her close for a hug. "Hold on everyone, here we go!"

  Andy ran up the stairs, a patch over his left eye. He grinned wickedly before barking his own command. "Prepare to repel borders!"

  Who Is Weston Ochse?

  Weston Ochse is the author of six novels and over a hundred short stories. He’s won the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for Fiction. His work has appeared in professional writing guides, comic books, magazines, anthologies and collections. Find him online at www.westonochse.com.

  Excerpt from Butterfly Winter

  "Are you sure the locals are okay?" Pearson found it hard to believe that they'd stumbled upon the golden buffet at the end of the world. There had to be a catch.

  "Oh yeah. They're perfectly fine."

  "I'm asking because we're not exactly everyone's most favorite people right now."

  Rasheen waved away Pearson's doubt. "These folks are beyond politics. They're not even really Chinese. They call themselves the Bai. From what I get talking to Ms. Mei, they're some lost Tibetan tribe. They're artists and architects and writers. These pagodas were built more than 1300 years ago. Can you believe it?"

  Pearson was struck by Rasheen's easy adoption of this new land and new way of life. He seemed almost too eager to embrace it. A strange light lit up the man's eyes, perhaps a fervor designed to hide other emotions.

  "Before everything started, the town had a population of about twenty thousand. About a third were conscripted and moved to the Gobi for some hush hush project having to do with suborbital platforms. The remaining men were drafted to form battalions that went to reinforce China's Taiwan grab. If you remember the lessons about Chosin Reservoir from the Korean War, General MacArthur had thirty thousand crack United Nations troops on the Chosin Reservoir in the middle of winter back in 1950. The Chinese have one commodity they have more of than anyone else and that's people. Outgunned and outmaneuvered, the Chinese decided to help their North Korean commie brothers and threw Chinese bodies at our forces until they were driven from North Korea. It was a blistering defeat. Like the Frozen Chosin, the Taiwanese didn't know what hit them."

  "So who's left?"

  "Besides a thousand children? About the same amount of adults if I figure right. Only a handful are helping the kids, the rest are scattered, doing their own thing. I see them occasionally and try and flag them down, but they won't come near us."

  "I don't blame them. They have a right to be afraid. Look at what we did to the planet."

  Rasheen stared at him for a moment, the excitement in his eyes replaced momentarily by a pain that caused his head to bow and his eyes to lose focus. Then he shook if off and forced another grin. "Enough of that. I got this figured out. It's a glass half empty or glass half full scenario. On one hand it's the end of the world. On the other it's our chance to influence a new beginning. I won't lie and say I didn't wish this never happened, but it did and we have to live with the results."

  There was a point. They were alive. And by all accounts, their future, which had looked bleak as they outraced the pressure waves over Shanghai, now looked promising.

  A bell gonged in the distance. Before the reverberations died, a new sound arose—something like traffic or the waves in the ocean. Pearson turned towards the town of Dali which lay over the crest of a hill. The sound came louder and louder. Soon, a single child shot into view, running, his mouth open, arms windmilling as he ran and tumbled in the tall grass. Then more kids appeared, and more, and even more, until the entire grassy knoll was covered with children. The sound of the noise was no longer a mystery. School had let out and what he'd heard was the combined cries of a thousand children released from scholastic servitude, their destinies and lives once again their own.

  A human wave rolled towards Pearson and Rasheen. For a moment, Pearson wanted to run. But he held fast and braced himself as the children broke around him, their arms grasping him, touching his skin. Shouts of Hey Ren filled the air. He had no idea what it meant, but they seemed to be talking about him. He laughed and held out his arms. Twenty children immediately latched on to him and pulled him towards the center of the triangle made up by the pagodas.

  "Hang on, Pearson. They're going to take you for a spin."

  Pearson managed to turn as he was dragged away. Rasheen was similarly engaged, an almost beatific smile on his face as the children pulled him in a slightly different direction, their destination roughly the same acre of grass that made up the center of the park.

  What did he mean by a spin?

  It didn't take long for Pearson to discover what was meant, and he laughed until his chest ached, his joy overcompensating for the heartbreak that threatened to take him down; memories of a dead America and a dying earth temporarily forgotten in the exuberance of youth as he danced.

  Excerpt from Appalachian Galapagos

  By Weston Ochse & David Whitman

  Origin Of A Species

  or better known as

  (Up Shit's Creek With A Case of

  Beer and No Fucking Paddles)

  Chapter 1:

  Bradbury...Bewitched...Mullets...Darwin...Stupid Is As Stupid Does...WWF Free For All...Chimneys and Easter Bunnies...Goldilocks and Picky Bears

  Frank stared out upon the green, easy river, wondering why he had ever returned.

  Many years had passed since he'd even thought of the Hiawasee much less rafted upon it. Yet now, confronted with the perfect mnemonic of the real thing, a memory that he had successfully forgotten resurfaced like a rotting catfish.

  Memories of a Dandelion Wine summer, a boy scout canoe trip, marshmallow roasting and ghost stories around a campfire, the frivolity of adolescence and his best friend dead...half-eaten.

  Bloody lacerations mixed with the unmistakable reality of teeth-marks.

  Ragged spaces where organs and limbs had once called home.

  Strips of flesh and ligaments that looked too much like red yarn dangling from a body which had been wedged in the crux of an oak.

  And within the congealing mess beneath it all, within a pool of green, gray and red body fluids, was a lone handprint.

  Unmistakable.

  Out of place.

  And impossibly huge.

  "Hey Frank! Stop your dreamin' and give me a hand!"

  Frank spun just in time to get a twelve pack in the chest, the impact sending him teetering along the edge of the crumbly clay shore. Fighting to maintain his balance, he glanced fearfully at the muddy, rushing water below.

  At the last second, he was yanked to safety. In Jimmy's stoned stare, he saw his own fear reflected from the mirror sheen of too much weed. He needed to get a hold of himself.

  "Thanks, man," Frank said.

  He grinned as he noticed he had somehow managed to hang on to the beer.

  "Thanks nothin'. I was more worried about the beer than your big city ass."

  Jimmy turned and swayed back to the pickup where he continued unloading. Frank sat his load of beer down onto the ever-growing pile of supplies and wip
ed the sweat from his forehead, watching his friend. Jimmy had put on a little weight, but he still looked basically the same—a giant bear of a man, his thick beard fell against a barrel chest.

  Frank returned his gaze to the river. The strangeness of returning to the place where he had grown up was anachronistic. He should feel at home. Even now, as he watched his old friends, he could almost believe that he had never left. Almost. Even though the boys had treated him like he had just been on a long vacation, it was still different. He saw things differently. And it wasn't just his perception. He was different. Frank was a product of his own environment and for years now, his environment had not been within the Smokey Mountains of Eastern Tennessee.

  And he wasn't sure he liked himself for it.

  Like when they had picked him up from the Holiday Inn. He had been standing in front of the entrance in his waterproof Hi-Tec boots, brown cotton Duckheads, and an L.L. Bean jacket when he had heard his friends approach. They must have been a block away, but David Allan Coe singing X-rated country music preceded them like a redneck siren, a soundtrack to their beer-drenched lives. As Frank waited for them with a nostalgic smile, he realized just how damn much he missed them.

  An old Ford pickup, bondo and rust-colored paint holding the rattling mass of Detroit metal together, skidded to a stop underneath the green and yellow awning. Frank's smile evolved into a grin as he realized that it was the exact same truck he remembered partying in when he was a kid. The same truck that he had shown Renee' what his thingy was used for. The same truck he had driven pell mell through the tall trees of a Jacob Mountain pine nursery, three dead deer in the back and a sheriff hot on his trail. The same truck he had called his second home throughout his teen years.

  Right up until the truck pulled up, Frank had been standing next to a tight young Asian girl who had been giving him a definite fuck me stare while waiting for a cab. But as Jimmy and Lukas fell out of the truck in an avalanche of empty Budweisers and man giggles he could feel her heat turn frosty. The friendly hugs and kisses of his best friends made it even more difficult to explain, but he was home again and that's all that mattered.

  Yeah, he was home.

  Jimmy walked up beside him, studied the angry rapids, and nodded before cracking open his can of beer. "Hell yeah, let's do this!"

  Lukas was already pulling the aluminum bass boat from the back of his truck. His black hair whipped behind him as he worked. It was a haircut that went out of style in the late 1980s. They called it a mullet—short on the sides and top, long in the back like a tail. Only professional wrestlers, porn stars, and country singers seemed to wear the style now.

  And of course, Lukas.

  "You're goddamn, right. The river ain't never goin' to get any better than this."

  Frank watched his friends for a brief moment, smiling softly at their little kid-like excitement, and let his eyes drift slowly to the rushing water of the river. Normally, the Hiawasee was pretty tame with families floating languidly down the center on rented rafts and inner tubes, or old men fishing along the edge for the elusive southern trout. The rains had been cascading for a week, however, and now the laziness of the creek had turned hyperactive, the water hurling by like a jet, the mist from the churning rapids sending his blond hair whipping around his head.

  Frank took a long look at the aluminum bass boat and the mound of beer and sleeping bags and beer and food and fishing supplies and beer and knew that what they were going to do was stupid. In fact, it bordered upon the retarded.

  He turned as he heard Lukas giggle and watched Jimmy push at his own belly button through his shirt, a big smile underneath his furry mustache, bobbing his head up and down in innocent joy. Frank grinned and glanced over at Lukas who was jerking out yet another case of beer from the back of the truck. The feeling of belonging was in a slamfest with his real desire not to do what he was about to do.

  "Ever see the Darwin awards?" Frank asked. The river blasted air and mist behind him.

  Lukas' eyes crossed and uncrossed several times.

  "It's a list of morons that comes out every year."

  Lukas cracked open a beer and threw one to Jimmy. "We ain't morons. They live over in Hixon and are nuthin' but a bunch of married cousins."

  Jimmy punched Lukas in the chest and both of them cracked up in drunken laughter. It was several seconds before they straightened and noticed Frank's dull Not Funny stare.

  "So what are the Darin awards?" Jimmy asked. "Is that for best husband on Bewitched?"

  "I like Dick York, myself," Lukas said.

  "I bet you do, ya old fag."

  "I ain't no fag. I just got good taste. And speakin' of taste, ain't you the one who has had a crush on Barbara Eden all these years. Shit, I bet you're the only one who has ever rented Harper Valley PTA from the Blockbuster store. Hell, Frank. The dumb bastard could have owned it ten times over the number of times he rented the damn movie."

  "What? You don't like I Dream of Genie? You actually tryin' to say Genie ain't hot? And you call yerself a man of taste?"

  "Listen. One on one, in a Texas Cage Match, I'd take that Bewitched lady any day. All she'd need to do is jerk her head and POOF, Genie's in a straight jacket hanging upside down pretendin' not to be a piñata. Can't cast her spells if she can't move her arms."

  "And Elizabeth Montgomery wouldn't be even able to cast a spell once Barbara got her in a headlock."

  "Fool, all Elizabeth's gotta do is be able to wrinkle her nose. I don't think a headlock is gonna stop the witch from a nose-wrinkle move. Genie's fucked if she don't slap the witch in the face but quick and maybe break it."

  This time their laughter carried them to the fern-covered forest floor and their howls mixed with the sound of the raging river. They wrestled, each trying to punch and kick the other until they finally wobbled to their feet, beer and mud coating their clothes.

  Frank grabbed a beer. Instead of joining his friends in their Budweiser-soaked excitement, he cleared off the top of the cooler, sat down, and watched. He couldn't help but laugh at the childish delight exhibited by his friends. They were absolutely nothing like his associates in the fast and deadly world of big city business.

  And he was thankful for that.

  "All right. All right," Jimmy said, still breathing hard from his impromptu WWF audition with Lukas. "We're just funnin'. What's up with the Darwin Awards? What's your point?"

  "My point is," Frank said with a sigh, "is that these morons are put on this list because they kill themselves in moronic ways. Some stick their heads through storm drains to get a quarter they dropped and end up getting drowned. Some pull down soda machines on themselves trying to steal a Pepsi. Some get stuck in chimneys trying to play Santa Claus and get roasted. Hey, the point is that most people find this list funny."

  "Only a sick, city dwellin' fuck like you would find a list like that funny, Frank," Lukas said. "People dyin' ain't funny."

  "Don't listen to Frank, Lukas," Jimmy said. "He's always ramblin' on about strange shit. You should hear him after a couple more beers. He just gets fuckin' weirder and wierder. I think it's all that culture he's been gettin' watchin' the Discovery Channel and that homo-Australian Snake Handler. Besides, who the hell is Darwin to be judgin' everyone?"

  "He's the one said we came from monkeys," Lukas said, his voice almost scholarly.

  "You callin' my mother a monkey, Frank? Is that what yer doin'?

  "A freakin' Chimpanzee! Even better, King Kong was yer daddy!"

  Jimmy sneered, either too tired or too stoned to kick the shit out of Lukas.

  "For fuck's sake. Calm down. Nothing like that at all. Charles Darwin was a scientist who hypothesized...made a guess...that there was no way that the Bible was totally accurate. He believed that we were like apes once. Over the years, we're talking millions here, those apes changed and became human."

  "And you believe that nonsense? I learned different. Hell, we was even in the same high school, Frank. You and I both know that M
r. Murray taught us that Adam and Eve was the first man and woman. Even though I didn't pay attention all the time, I know he never said anything about monkeys."

  As Lukas broke into a sad refrain of The Monkees trademark song, Frank shook his head. Had he changed that much? If the fallacies of creationism were too difficult for his old friends to grasp, he wasn't even going to attempt to explain their seventh grade curriculum where the Civil War was discussed at length as The War of Northern Aggression.

  "All right. Let's just say that most of the world agrees with Mr. Darwin and the awards are given for those who end up drowning in the shallow end of the gene pool."

  Blank stares.

  "All right, let's just say that some dude gave out awards for people acting stupid."

  "Well hell, why didn't you say that in the first place."

  "Yeah, Frank. You know you don't need to impress us," Lukas said. "It's not that we're stupid, understand, but we've been smokin' and drinkin' like crazy since we found out you were comin' down. Gets us in the mood to wax nostalgic, ya know what I'm sayin'?"

  Frank downed his beer, fought the urge to shake his head once again, and shrugged the international I'm Sorry.

  "You know," Lukas said. "My uncle got stuck in a chimney once. Didn't find him until winter. My Aunt thought he had run off with some woman. It was weird how she was so happy when we found him."

  "I heard once about this guy who saw a six point buck up in Jacob. You know that cliff back behind the fairgrounds? Well, he got it through the neck with his 30.06, and then stood there as the huge thing fell on top of him."

 

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