TO SAVE TEUTH part 2

Copyright (c) 2017 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

TO SAVE TEUTH

Part 2

By R. Peterson

Even at reverse light speed it would take the Centurion over forty-eight hours to reach the Vandens Galaxy where Teuth’s home planet was located. The ship’s navigator was frozen in a cryonic state of hibernation until the ship’s medical staff could find a way to save him. The crew used the time to give instruction to the space cadets on board the vessel. “Who can tell me how a gravitron device works?” Keeper asked the students.

A short, round student from the polar regions of Earth, was the first to raise his hand. “Gravitron is an adulteration of the phrase gravity turn and it refers to reversing the distortion of space time by causing selected assemblages of matter to repel each other. Alvin Sullenger did the first experiments with gravity and dark matter in the early twenty-first century.”

“Very good, Tiguak,” Keeper said.

“Excuse me,” a female student with the name badge Dee attached to her tunic spluttered, “Sullinger may have been the first Earth scientist to develop a reverse gravity device but the scientists on Mateusz 17 have been experimenting with dark energy, the force behind the Big Bang, for centuries!”

“Which proves there is nothing new under any sun,” Keeper said.

Dee shook her head, obviously mystified by her teacher’s reply.

            “It’s from Ecclesiastes - a religious text on Earth,” a third student by the name of Yanadx snapped. Her eyes darted toward where First Officer Jeff Bland was helping Helmsman Dorg plot navigation coordinates into the computer system. Keeper noticed the brilliant student with partial Porosities parenting sigh as her large green eyes became a soft powdery blue.

            ‘I see you’ve been reading up on Earth culture,” Keeper smiled. “I’m impressed!”

Yanadx seemed to be in a trance and continued to stare at Jeff.

            “He’s not worth it!” Leika bumped the young student with her elbow and then leaned in to whisper. “So point your sticky little spines somewhere else!”

            “Alvin Sullenger also did some of the earliest work on Balance Theory,” Keeper said. “Who can tell me what that is?”

            “Balance Theory states that for everything in the universe, including matter and non-matter of all types, physical and conceptual, there is an opposite-form that brings all things into balance,” Tiguak answered.

            “Balance Theory also implies that any obstruction can be altered or defeated by thinking of its opposite,” Keeper said. “Can anyone think of an object, thought or idea that has no counterpart?”

            “There is no opposite for a dream,” Yanadx whispered still staring at Jeff.

            “Wrong,” Leika said, nudging the girl. ‘It’s called reality.”

-------2-------

            Alarms sounded throughout the Centurion as the massive ship once again encountered three of the cigar shaped spaceships. They were anchored next to a vapor cloud and appeared to be transporting crew members from one ship. “They must be fleeing toward the same galaxy that we are headed to and think we are pursuing,” Helmsman Dorg said checking the remote systems scanners. “My guess is that the vessel they are abandoning was slowing them down, although it does not appear to be that badly damaged.”

Sure enough, two ships sped away leaving the third. “My sensors show there are still life forms on board,” Dorg said. “Shall we pursue?”

            “No,” Keeper said. “Let’s find out what our amphibious friend left for us … and if that ship can be repaired.”

            “Garwon is a lot smarter than you think,” First Officer Jeff Bland joked. “All he has to do to make our captain stop chasing him is offer the man a cigar!”

Keeper smiled. “I don’t smoke … but that ship might prove to be very useful.”

-------3-------

Three armed shuttlecraft streaked from the Centurion and scouted the outside of the cigar-shaped ship, sweeping all exterior surface areas and moving in opposite directions. “The shields are down and there doesn’t appear to be any hostiles aboard,” the commander of the first shuttlecraft reported.

            “Let’s investigate the life forms inside,” Keeper suggested.

            “It could be a trap,” Jeff Bland was hesitant.

            “This is one of Gorwan’s ships … remember.” Keeper smiled.

Jeff laughed. “I keep forgetting. That self-serving amphibian probably left so fast he forgot to turn off the stove.”

Leika joined them just as they were closing the doors to a boarding shuttlecraft. “Going to see if your x with the extra-long tongue left you any gifts?” Jeff teased.

            “I’m here because Keeper thinks my attraction abilities might make a difference between life and death,” Leika said, then she wrinkled her nose as she looked at the first officer. “Although I doubt anything could help you!”

            “Thank you, but I’m not perfect.” Jeff winked.  “Even I could use a little help now and then.”

            “What’s that old Earth saying … you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear?” Leika laughed, “and they have me working with the whole pig!”

-------4-------

The entry hatch on Gorwan’s vessel was sealed but not locked. Keeper and the boarding crew found themselves inside what looked like a huge cargo ship. “Brrrr it’s cold in here!” Leika shivered. She made her eyes turn baby powder blue long enough to remove a coat from one of the security officers and put it on herself. He offered no resistance and gaped at her with a puppy-love face as her eyes turned back to green and she ignored him. Keeper ordered a search of the entire vessel and made sure the jacketless officer left with them to get him away from the troublesome Porosities.

The inside of the ship was like a dozen stadium sized meat lockers stacked end to end. Frozen aquatic bodies hung upside down from hooks attached to hundreds of horizontal rails that ran the length of the cargo area. “There must be a million pounds of seafood in this section alone,” Jeff gasped, “and still it’s not even a quarter full.”

“They’re not seafood yet,” Keeper said. “These creatures are alive, frozen by some type of cryonic technology almost the way Teuth is inside one of our biosphere oceans.”

Thirty minutes later a medical team from the Centurion had succeeded in bringing several of the creatures back from frozen hibernation.

            “You’re lucky to be alive,” Keeper told a cephalopod who resembled Teuth. The ship’s communication system translated his words into twenty-three different versions of Teuth’s home planet language before they got a response.

            “I thought when I awakened it would be when I was dropped in a pot of boiling soup,” the creature said. He swam leisurely in the transparent tank filled with sea water that the medical team has supplied for him. “My name is Gogt and I thank you!”

            “I thought the invaders were ravishingly hungry,” Jeff said. “Why weren’t you devoured as soon as the Swarm opened its ugly mouth?”

            “Most all life forms, plants and animals are ground into a paste which is dehydrated and made into a powder,” Gogt said.  “When the powder is reconstituted it becomes a soup that feeds 99.99% of the Vabalas. The other one-hundred of one percent, the high ranking officers and elite, enjoy devouring living flesh especially aquatic creatures. Live species such as ourselves are frozen and transported to the most elegant kitchens of the Swarms many conquered galaxies where we often are sautéed in Garma blood and nibbled on slowly, an eye here a tentacle there, sometimes taking a week or more to lose consciousness.”

            Jeff blanched, and cradled his stomach. “Vabalas? Is that what the Swarm call themselves?”

            “Vabalai, kurie užkariauti … it is what we call them,” Gogt said. “The insects who conquer!”

            “Our navigator Teuth has been infected by a poison gas that a dying member of your species named Blad said you had developed an antidote for,” Keeper said. “Do you know if anyone is left on your world that could supply us with a sample?”

            “There were almost twenty billion of our species on our water world before the Swarm came,” Gogt said, “too many to process even for the Vabalas. We were pushed to one edge of the largest ocean and fenced in like milking dolphins. Both ends of these cigar ships open and living creatures are strained through filters before being sorted and frozen.”

            “Just like baleen whales back on Earth,” Jeff commented, “without the freezing.”

Gogt did not know what a whale was. “I would estimate that at least half of our species remains although thousands are processed every hour. I’m sure someone there can help your navigator.”

            “This will be like cows  breaking into a butcher shop,” Jeff scoffed.

            “You already know what I’m thinking?” Keeper looked approvingly at his first officer.

            “Yes,” Jeff said. “We can land this cigar ship on Gogt’s ocean world and pretend to be harvesting food while we search for someone who can cure Teuth … there’s just one thing I want to know.”

            “What’s that?” Keeper asked.

            “Do the Swarm consider human meat a delicacy … or will I be turned into powdered soup?”

            “Only time will answer that question,” Keeper told him.

-------5-------

            Keeper ordered all the life-forms aboard the cigar ship re-animated and transported into one of the biosphere oceans inside the Centurion. It took almost seven hours for the engineering staff to make the necessary repairs to the cigar ship and Jeff asked a hundred men to volunteer for what was likely going to be a suicide mission.

            It wasn’t until Garwon’s former ship was well on its way that Leika appeared leading the entire group of space cadets. “What do you think you’re doing?” Jeff was furious.

            “Insuring your safety,” Leika said. “I may not be able to help you … like I’ve always said … you are beyond that …. but dangerous situations often call for new faces and fresh ideas.”

The cadets all smiled proud to be considered stowaways on a dangerous mission.

Keeper shook his head and tried to look stern … the situation was too damn dangerous to smile about .

TO BE CONTINUED …

           

TO SAVE TEUTH

Copyright (c) 2017 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

By R. Peterson

The massive starship Centurion had just streaked through an iridium vapor ring seventy-two light years from the Cationic Galaxy when Systems Navigator Teuth, a land adapted cephalopod, fell to the floor of the control room and began to flop like a fish. “Send a medical team to control level one immediately!” First Officer Jeff Bland ordered, although the bio-transmitters that all crew members wore had probably already summoned help.

“Something wrong with his environmental conditioning?” Helmsman Dorg, a species of Canidae who resembled Earth foxes, took two steps back and stared at the eight thrashing tentacles. The student he was instructing looked horrified.

“Teuth has been working in an oxygenated gas environment for thirty-nine months,” Jeff said as he knelt on the floor and tried to make sure his alien friend didn’t harm himself. “The Centurion is dysprosium shielded but we might have picked up some kind of immune radiation from that gas cloud we just passed through.”

The inner-ship transporter door opened and Keeper rushed in followed by a team of medics. “His life functions are failing,” Ging, the chief medical officer, said as his assistants held the tentacles and he performed an internal scan. “But we don’t as yet have an origin.”

“Perhaps if Teuth were placed in his natural environment it would help with your diagnosis,” Keeper suggested.

“I’ll have him submerged in one of the Biosphere oceanic control tanks while we do our testing.” Ging and the medical crew had already lifted the injured crew member with a Graviton beam and were floating him toward the gyro port.

“Teuth is fond of dining on Gesperian horn-pods” Jeff Bland said. “He claims they are a health food. I don’t suppose we have any on board?”

“We have a few, but only the non-radiant ones.” Leika appeared beside Keeper. The Organic Science Officer wore a shimmering gown made of transparent Alurian spider-silk. The lavender spines she had instead of hair were waving hypnotically and her flashing baby-powder blue eyes made one of the younger medical technicians transporting Teuth go temporarily blind and stumble.

“Easy Leika,” Jeff said. “Most of these younger cadets are still virgins.”

“Give me a break, lizard lust,” Leika said. “When there’s a Porosities Species on board every stubbed- toe gets blamed on her sexual attraction.”

“I’m tempted to return to that gas ring to see if we can determine if it contained anything that might have caused Teuth’s problems.” Keeper ignored his crew members’ constant squabbling. He flicked open a communication port  to the medical level explained his theory to Ging and adding. “ if we do go back, is there any chance that our ship’s engineer might be hurt by more radiation?”

“Officer Teuth’s condition was deteriorating so fast we had to place him in a cryonic storage tube,” Ging said. “No vapor radiation can pass through a foot of solid ice and remain a gas.

“We’re not due in the Cationic Galaxy for the Deep Space Exams for another seventy-two hours,” Jeff said. “I guess we could call this diversion a field trip.”

“Turn around,” Keeper ordered Helmsman Dorg. “Let’s find out what the Hell we stepped in.”

“Lizard lust?” Jeff Bland was staring at Leika but holding tight to a very expensive Nuvarian equalizer purchased on Mateusz 17 for 16,000 credits. It supposedly rendered him immune to her slave-creating sexual attraction aura.

“The reptiles on Junaro 4 often take up to three years to couple,” Leika said. “Even at that glaciated speed I doubt you could keep up with them.” She laughed when she saw the amulet that Jeff was gripping tightly. “That’s a piece of woocoo!” She closed one eye, stuck out her tongue and the equalizer banged into a cloud of foul smelling dust just before she followed Keeper to the analysis arrays. She was laughing hysterically now and even Keeper was trying not to smile. “If I wanted to waste my time with a squamation like you … a ball of Gordo dung with chicken-wire wrapped around it wouldn’t stop me!”

-------2-------

Keeper took Teuth’s place instructing a group of space cadets while the Centurion journeyed back to the gas ring. “Since our land adapted navigator is temporarily under the weather I’ll go over the basics of interstellar travel and geography,” Keeper told the wide eyed youths.

“Is Teuth going to die?” A sad looking member of a reptilian species named Denz asked as he glanced around nervously.

“No,” Keeper said. “Teuth has been frozen like a fish filet and we’re going to thaw him out when we know how to fix him up properly.”

“Are you going to eat him?” A girl named Nora who resembled an earth gazelle looked ready to cry.

“Not unless he gets us off course,” Jeff Bland told them.

Keeper smiled and shook his head and then asked. “Who can tell us how planets are named?”

A bright eyed girl who looked like she might have at least some Porosities blood in her stepped forward. “Almost all planets are named for the star they orbit and for their orbiting number. For example Maltese 17 is the seventeenth planet outward from the star Maltese.”

            “Very good, Yanadx,” Keeper said. “And in the event that the star is not named, and most stars are not, the planet has two numbers one for the star and one for the orbiting location.

            “The same rule applies to moons,” Nora said trying to compose herself. “For example the fourth moon of Jasphere 2 or the seventh moon of Mendorean 13.”

            “Then why isn’t First Officer Jeff Bland’s home planet named Sun three?” Denz asked.

            “We have to remember that the names we choose for stars and planets are for our own use.” Keeper said.  “The inhabitants of these worlds most assuredly have their own names for everything.”

Helmsman Dorg announced that the Centurion was approaching the troublesome gas ring. “That’s all for today,” Keeper said.

            “Can we ride Ardovian Whales in one of the biosphere oceans?”Yanadx asked.

            “Only if you can hold your breath for at least three hours,” Keeper told her.

-------3-------

The iridium vapor-ring that surrounded the Cationic Galaxy was deep, at points nearly ninety light years across. The Centurion’s analyzing sensors were picking up abnormalities in the strange gas and the holographic display above the control floor was flashing pages of data readouts and pulsing red warning messages. “We’re approaching a density cloud within the ring that our onboard devices cannot penetrate,” Dorg, announced. He had assumed Teuth’s duties as well as his own. He now stiffened his normally relaxed tail, a species trait that showed the Canida had detected danger lurking in the unknown.

“Launch three visual probes,” Keeper ordered. “Two around the outside and one through the center.” He smiled as he gazed at Dorg’s flag-waving appendage. “If there’s quarry in there we’ll flush them out!”

The crew watched the three probes launch from the ship like torpedoes and within seconds disappear into the cloud. The hologram overhead became multiple screens showing a three hundred sixty degree view from each probe. Suddenly a beam of red orange light struck  the probe running along the left side of the cloud and the robotic sensor was vaporized in an explosive ball of fire; within seconds the other two probes were also destroyed.

            “Use a photon burst to disperse the cloud!” Keeper ordered.

            “Someone thinks the neighbors are getting a little too nosey,” Jeff said as he fed the data into an analyzer. He glanced at the organic science officer and grinned. “I think it might be one of Leika’s numerous stilted-beaus.”

            “Beaus?” Leika spun viciously on the first officer. Her normally dream inducing aquiline-green eyes had become a shade of fiery volcanic-red. “I have no suitors! If I desire any species they are mine … if not, they die.”

            “The last time we saw Garwon he was floating in deep space,” Jeff said, “after you ordered him to jettison himself. But that sure looks like his ship. And it also looks like your amphibious friend and his companions are about to feast on a helpless Octopodian bivalve ship!”

As the gas cloud dispersed the holographic display now showed a dark, ugly cigar shaped vessel holding a ship that resembled a giant clam shell captive with a spider-web of pulsing high energy beams. Suddenly the two halves of the ship opened and a stream of wiggling aquatic creatures were sucked into the larger vessel. “Dinner is served!” Jeff tried to joke but he was sick to his stomach.

            “Looks like we arrived a little too late,” Keeper said.

            “But not for those!” Jeff pointed at the upper part of the hologram where the dispersing cloud showed at least a half dozen bivalve ships fighting for their lives against a dozen more cigar shaped attackers.

            Keeper ordered all crew members to battle stations and within minutes the Centurion was blasting away at the enemy ships. The largest of the cigar-shaped vessels caught fire on one end and then sped away. “He must have realized this is a no smoking area,” Jeff quipped.

The Centurion listed to starboard as a barrage of Niobium torpedoes exploded on the starboard side and vaporized the graviton stabilizers. For a moment it looked like the Centurion might be in trouble but Keeper ordered all power onto the shields while the vessel’s Gadolinium Cannon was charged. Radiant beams of light criss-crossed a light-year wide battle area and made it look like a giant energy blanket of destructive power was being woven.

            The return fire from the enemy vessels was formidable but the Centurion’s energy shields held until the GC spread outward like an exploding star and within minutes all the remaining enemy vessels were streaking away at light speed.

            “Let them go,” Keeper ordered. “Prepare to assist any survivors.”

Of the six bivalve ships only one held living life-forms and only a few of the aquatic creatures were able to communicate.

            “Garwon and his murderous crew members have been supplying food to the Swarm,” a tentacled crew member named Blad gasped as he lay dying in the control room of the Centurion. “Our Vandens is the ninth galaxy those insectosodals have invaded and left in ruin.”

            “Our navigator Teuth was poisoned by this gas cloud when we passed by,” Keeper said. “He is from the planet Densalt 4 in your galaxy and looks to be very similar to your species. How is it you escaped and were able to put up a fight?”

            “The oceans of Densalt 4 have been drained and replaced with blood. Our scientists developed an antidote for the gas radiation but our entire planet is being consumed by the Swarm,” the dying creature said. “We were part of a convoy that fled our stricken world and then we were ambushed by Garwon.”

Several of the survivors had already died and the crew member talking to Keeper took a last gasp and then seemed to wither. “Get this man to the cryonic chambers!” Keeper ordered. But it was too late. By the time a medical team arrived, Blad and the others were no more than dried seaweed on the floor of the control room.

-------4-------

            ‘What’s a Swarm?” Jeff asked Keeper as the medical crew placed the remains of the bivalve crew members in transparent storage bags.

            “The Swarm is a slang name for an insect species as large as an earth cow,” Keeper said. “Each female lays over a million eggs every twenty-eight days and the young are ready to reproduce in less than a year. Every one-hundred million years or so the insects begin to migrate across the universe … destroying every living thing in their path. I believe it was the Swarm that consumed all life on Earth and not a meteorite when they passed through the Milky Way Galaxy sixty-five million years ago.”

            “Looks like if we don’t want to end up like the dinosaurs we better stock up on Raid,” Jeff said. All the Centurion Crew members except Keeper looked hopeful.

            “Is this some kind of advanced Earth weapon?” Leika asked. For once her eyes were a hopeful blue and she was looking at Jeff with a kind of hesitant respect.

            “It’s something we use on Earth to kill insects,” Jeff said sheepishly. “But the ones that we kill are smaller … much … much smaller!”

            “It’s not just the size that makes the Swarm dangerous,” Keeper explained. “They have an advanced technology that has the scientific minds on Mateusz 17 looking like Earth’s Bobblehead Dolls. The Swarm will often destroy entire planetary systems once they have exhausted all the resources. A preservative is often injected into their food supplies to keep the suffering victims fresh and alive … often for centuries. Whole stars are extinguished when they dump their waste. Their ships are faster and more powerful than ours and their numbers are approaching infinity. They kill without remorse or pity and they fear nothing in the known universe.”

            “So how do we stop them?” The enormity of the killing and destruction was something new and terrifying to Officer Bland.

            “That’s what we’re going to find out,” Keeper said.

            “You don’t mean you’re going to fly the Centurion to Vandens!” Jeff stammered. “You heard what Blad said … the oceans in that galaxy have been drained … and filled with blood!”

            “Mud, blood, Swarms or fear,” Keeper chanted. “Nothing you say can keep us here!”

Leika smiled but Dorg and most of the others looked stricken.

            “I don’t want to be hung-up twitching in some smoke-house for a few hundred years,” Jeff gasped. “We have to keep a positive attitude about this! We’ll most likely be captured and eaten immediately … won’t we?”

            “Possibly,” Keeper said looking at his shaken crew members. “If the part of the Swarm that catches us is especially hungry … but Teuth is our friend and if there’s any chance we can save him … we’ll take it.”

TO BE CONTINUED …

            

WHEN the DEAD KNOCK part 3

Copyright (c) 2017 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

By R. Peterson

June Swafford turned off the television as soon as the end credits for The Lawrence Welk Show rolled. The program was of course a re-run but it brought back delightful memories. She and Elmo had often danced in the living room along with Bobby Burgess and Cissy King or while the Lennon Sisters sang. In the distance dark clouds rumbled as she closed and locked the front door, probably a storm brewing in the mountains above Motha Forest and set to fall on Comanche County during the night. It was a good thing the cows were in the barn and the chickens had been fed earlier. A tear stung the corner of her eyes when she said goodnight to Elmo’s picture propped on the top shelf of the bookcase just before she started up the stairs to her bedroom. He was too young to have died of a heart attack at age fifty-nine.

June awakened from a dream in which she was riding in a hay wagon with a group of other sixteen year old girls, they were going to a Christmas party at the Comanche County school house. Elmo was singing Somewhere My Love before he began to pound on the door. “Let me in woman. You promised me the next dance!” He’d of course been to Bingo and hadn’t gotten home until after dark … must have forgotten his key. He sounded drunk. She bet every beer in his bag was gone and hoped there would be at least one prize.

Still half wrapped in her dream, she slid open the bedroom window and called down. “You know where the spare key is you noisy old fool. Are you trying to wake up the neighbors or just Hicks?” It wasn’t until she heard him pull the lid off the milk can and then open the front door that full consciousness kicked in: Elmo was dead. She turned on the lamp next to the bed and stared intently at nothing.

He dropped something heavy on the kitchen floor and it fell with a loud thump that shook the house. Her breathing came in quick ragged gasps. She could hear him as he turned the water on at the sink and washed his hands. Next footsteps started up the stairs and the bed began to shake along with her arms and legs. This can’t be happening! Her mind continued to slap her - trying to make her wake up. I was at his funeral. I stood in Black Rose Cemetery and watched as that six-thousand, seven-hundred and eighty-five dollar coffin … “Would you want your loved one resting for eternity in anything less?” Egbert Callahan had insinuated. …was lowered into the ground and covered with dirt. She could hear Elmo’s footsteps on the landing now. There was a smell like damp ground plowed for the first time. She thought about jumping out of bed sliding the dresser in front of the door, anything to stop whoever or whatever was in her house. It couldn’t be her loving husband returned to life even as much as she wished it could be. He had been dead for over nine years. Her pulse revved like an old tractor with a broken piston. “Did you win anything?” Her voice sounded like gravel sliding to the bottom of a well but it was the only way she could keep from screaming. She was shaking so bad her teeth were chattering against each other.

“Not a damn thing!” His voice suddenly sounded low and ugly the way it had when Fred Hicks had driven a steel pipe into their hay field and irreparably damaged their swather (windrower) during hay season because Elmo refused to sell him, ridiculously cheap, forty acres of rich ground that bordered his rock and weed patch.

June watched the knob on the door turn as the light in the room dimmed but she was gone before the door opened - off to join her beloved Elmo in the next world.

-------2-------

            The fire was going down just outside the tent otherwise Jim Hunting would have stayed in the sleeping bag. A light breeze had blown across Mawkat Lake just before sunset but everything was calm now. He didn’t mind sleeping in a forest … he just hated the dark. In the American Army compound just outside of DaNang all the lights were run by a portable generator. It was the first thing the Viet Cong knocked-out just before they attacked. Flames flashing from the barrels of M16’s and the constant welding torch fire from M60’s mixed with the screams of the dying and the shouts of those doing the killing to create the musical score to the first act of Hell if insanity were ever to take the stage.

            Jim had been up for three nights smoking Vietnamese shake and loading a needle. Suddenly he was on guard duty at one of eight towers surrounding the compound and a mountain of stacked beer cases. Endless long hours spent staring into the darkness. The things that were hiding could kill you … the things that weren’t there attacked your mind. He couldn’t keep his eyes open. The first time it was less than a minute and Jim slapped his face hard half a dozen times and swore it wouldn’t happen again. The second time was more than ten minutes. He’d burnt his fingers with a Bic lighter until they blistered and bled swearing he’d die before he closed his eyes again …

            `He’d woke up blind in one eye in an army hospital in Japan. One leg was mangled the other broken. He was expected to walk again with braces but one half of his face looked like pancake batter that had hardened during the bubble stage. He’d never marry unless the girl happened to be blind and in love with guilt. The VC had attacked from his corner of the outpost. Charlie Company lost thirty-five men including his best friend from school Brad Stevens. Jim looked at the photo taken outside a bar in Tokyo just before their arrival in Viet Nam every day. It always put a pain in his heart like cardiac arrest but he looked anyway. It was punishment like slapping his own face or burning himself with a lighter. Brad was to his right along with several members of Charlie Co. They were all smiling. Of the eight in the picture three were dead but it was Brad who seemed to stare directly at him through the years always asking the same question … Why?

            Jim had arrived home from Japan just in time to attend Brad’s funeral in Black Rose Cemetery. Jim stayed back in the trees and didn’t mix with the family members. Guilt made him a prisoner and he headed for the incarceration of Motha Forest whenever possible.

            Jim put another log on the ire and a shower of sparks rose toward the stars. The only sound was the chirping of crickets and the soft lapping of water on the shoreline. He was just turning to go back in the tent when he saw a rippling of water far across the lake reflected by the moon. He squinted his good eye to make out what looked like a dark figure in a canoe paddling toward him.

            Jim was suddenly sleepy. All he wanted was to crawl back inside the tent, but someone was coming … Jim was sure of it. The first time he felt his eye close the canoe was halfway across the lake and Jim slashed three lines down his arm with a hunting knife honed to a razor edge. Never again! The pain was excruciating but two minutes later he opened his eye again and the boat was now close enough for Jim to see strong arms pushing a paddle though the water. Jim stuck his hand in the hot coals from the fire leaving it there until the smell of burning flesh and sizzling blood made him wretch and gag. Never again!

            The canoe was closer now. Jim could almost see the face of the man paddling. He fought to keep his eye open but it was as if a weight were attached to his eyelid. Jim stumbled into the tent and searched through his duffle bag. The canoe was sliding onto shore and the smiling face of Brad Stevens shown in the moonlight as he stepped onto the bank.

            Jim felt his eyelid begin to droop again as he lifted the M1911 pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. Never again!

-------3-------

            It was still an hour before sunrise but the employees of the White Apron Bakery did their baking at 4AM and already a crowd of homeless people were forming in the alley for breakfast.  At any minute, the big man with the scowling face would open the back door and toss yesterday’s unsold baked goods into the dumpster. “Wow! Look at how much she’s grown!” Antonio James Custler approached a ragged woman holding a bundle in her arms. He’d spent the last two weeks in jail for vagrancy.

            “She gets a little bigger every day,” Beth gushed as she un-wrapped the blankets showing a rag doll with blue-button eyes and a red-stitched mouth.

            “She sure does,” Tony said, taking the doll and rocking it gently in his arms. He scanned the crowd of hungry people. “Anyone seen Clarence Brown?”

            “Clarence drowned in the Cottonmouth River while you was locked up,” Beth hung her head. “He went looking for that ring o’ keys you told us about, and fell into the fast current near the Townsend Bridge!”

            Tony had inherited a small house from a rich man he didn’t know. A large ring of different keys all fit the lock on the front door but each key created a different life for the person who used it. It had been too much for Tony to handle and he had finally tossed the key ring in the river.

Tony shook his head. “Why the heck did that big, ugly, black, bear go and do something stupid like that?”

            “He was looking not so much for a better life just something different,” Beth said. “life on the streets gets too predictable after a while.”

The crowd behind White Apron Bakery suddenly grew quiet when the back door to the business opened. “Damn mangy bunch of dogs!” a heavyset man complained as he lugged a huge tray filled with day-old donuts, bear-claws and cinnamon rolls to the dumpster. He scowled at those who looked hungrily at his tray. “Why don’t you all get jobs? I work for my meals … so should you!”

            “There’s a reason these people are on the streets and it has nothing to do with jobs!” A huge man stepped from the shadows with a face like bloody hamburger. The crowd gasped, it was Clarence Brown! Most of his facial features had been rotted away by the river and there were clumps of moss where his ears should have been. His eyes were milky white with tiny unmoving pupils in the center. He was dripping wet like he’d just came up out of the water.

The terrified big man dropped the tray of day old breads and turned to run back into the bakery. Clarence grabbed him by the back of the neck. “These people are my friends, Clarence said as he slammed the man into the concrete wall. “These donuts are bound to be a little dry … how bout you bring out some milk to wash ‘em down with?”

The man was too terrified to talk. He nodded his head instead.

            “I’ll be expecting you back out here in two minutes,” Clarence said. “Don’t make me come in after you!”

When the White Apron employee went back in the bakery Tony approached Clarence. “What are you doing here?” he gasped.

            “I went looking for that key ring you tossed in the river,” Clarence said. “There’s a lot of mud on the bottom of the Cottonmouth where it runs through the city… it took some time to locate them.” He tossed the keys to Tony.

            “But how?” Tony caught the keys. He was astonished to see his long dead friend walking the streets.

Clarence smiled. “When you’re dead …you can hold your breath for a long long time!”

-------4-------

            “Get us out of here, Jimmy!” Sheriff Walker retrieved a flashlight from under the seat and shone it in the deputy’s face. Outside the County police car throngs of the recently unearthed dead were trying to smash out the car windows. Jimmy Wong was in shock staring with eyes as big as two rickshaw wheels at the horror which was smothering them. “Let’s move now!” The sheriff reached over, jammed the automatic shifter into reverse and pushed down on Jimmy’s leg. The car groaned for a moment and then lurched backward. The arms, legs and other parts of the dead that didn’t slide off the hood and roof became caught between the tires and wheel-wells. Dried-blood, gristle and bits of rotted flesh sprayed the windows as the car backed onto the highway. The sudden shift from total dark to squirming nightmare brought Jimmy back to his senses. “Awwwggggaa,” he screamed as he found drive, jammed his foot on the gas pedal, and the car lurched forward.

            Both sides of the highway were crowded with dead people come to see an automotive game of chicken. Enough bodies had fell away from the car for the sheriff to see they were between two cars hurdling toward each other at ninety miles per hour. There wasn’t time for anything else; Sheriff Walker unrolled his window and drew his Colt 45.

-------5-------

            It was smoke burning his eyes that made Julio awaken. The tiny trailer just north of Black Rose Cemetery was shaking and bouncing. Maria was picking herself up from the floor. It felt like they were in the middle of a stampede but those weren’t cows outside they were bodies , a few recently diseased but most rotting flesh clinging to old bone. Julio could smell propane and could hear the hiss from the tank mounted on the front of the mobile house. One of the marching dead must have broken the line and a spark from something must have ignited the gas. “Tenemos que salir de que la casa va a estallar!” Julio screamed.

            “It’s my fault,” Maria said. “I should have kept you awake!”

Julio grabbed his wife and forced open the door. Most of the risen dead from the cemetery had passed by the trailer and were heading toward the desert in the west. He tried to pull her outside but she resisted. “No sin la madre!” (Not without the holy mother) she insisted. She turned and dashed back inside the trailer picking the broken-glass portrait of the Virgin Mary from off the floor.

            “This is my fault!” Julio put his head in his hands. “No one is safe as long as I’m alive!”

The glass frame in Maria’s hand crumpled and she struggled to catch the paper print before it hit the ground. There was not just one portrait under the broken glass but two. The first was a painting by Raphael of the Madonna but hidden behind it was another … a gruesome, fleshy rendering called the Mask by Pedronunez .

Maria was staring with such horror at the second print she didn’t notice Julio with the gun to his head until she heard the hammer click. “Wait,” she screamed. “We’ve been praying to the blessed mother … and to the Devil!”

Julio stared at her and the two prints as the house on wheels behind them exploded in flames.

-------6-------

            “Are you crazy!” Jimmy Wong screamed as the sheriff leaned out the window with the high powered pistol. “Those people are dead!”

            “Maybe so … but that damn Ford isn’t!” The sheriff fired three times in rapid succession before Hick’s black Falcon skidded sideways with a blown right front tire, rolled once and then became airborne. It bounced once coming down just in front of the bumper and a jagged fender tore out the radiator and half the engine before it flew over the hood scratching the roof with both tail fins and exploded into the car hurtling up behind them. Bits of torn metal and car parts blasted outward in all directions like shrapnel.

            “That was close!” Jimmy was gasping for breath.

            “Not close enough,” the sheriff said. He gestured towards the shattered windshield.

            The walking dead began to move toward the sheriff’s demolished car as Jimmy tried to start the engine.

-------7-------

            Maria tried to tear the awful image of the Devil but when it wouldn’t rip she walked toward the fire. With a flash as bright as lightning a goatish face appeared in the flames coming from the trailer. “You asked for my help many times and I never refused … is this the way you repay me?”

            “Jesus is our only God … if we prayed to you it was by trickery,” Maria said. She halted her steps for only a second.

            “I’m willing to make a deal,” the image said. “Place the painting back in the frame … this time with my image out and I’ll give you what you’ve been searching for!”

            “You don’t have anything that we want!” Julio was furious as he pointed the gun at the flames.

            “Look behind you …. I can make you a family again!”

Julio and Maria both turned. Jose was walking across the cemetery he looked as normal as they did. “Mama! Pappa!” Jose cried “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

Julio covered his eyes with one hand … as he raised the gun with the other.

-------8-------

            Bony fingers were reaching through the broken windows on all sides when Sheriff Walker checked the rounds in his gun. There were two bullets left. There were more shells in a box under the seat but there wasn’t time. “I don’t feel right about shooting you … first,” the sheriff said looking at Jimmy. “But it’s better than being torn apart by a bunch of zombies.”

            “Do it,” Jimmy said closing his eyes and gritting his teeth. “I hate long drawn out goodbyes.”

Sheriff Walker cocked the gun, hooked his finger round the trigger and began to squeeze. There was a blinding flash of light along with a strange intense cold. Everything in the world began to slow and then turn black.

-------9-------

Maria heard the blast from Julio’s pistol and watched him slump to the ground. There was no time for pain … only for shock. She turned toward the flames; the demon was smiling. “Don’t forget your son,” he pointing to the young man walking toward them. “You still have your son!”

            “I can bring father back to life,” Jose said. He was now running toward her. “We can be a family again!”

            “I would rather spend one second with God than an eternity with sin,” Maria stared at the image of the Devil … and then she flung the portrait into the flames.

-------10-------

            Sheriff Walker and Jimmy Wong opened their eyes at the same time. They were parked behind the large billboard advertising Conoco gasoline near highway one and Cass Elliott was crooning Dream a Little Dream of Me on the radio.

            “What the Hell!” Jimmy said. “One minute we’re ready to be eaten alive by zombies and the next thing you know we’re trying to trap speeders jumping off the interstate!”

Sheriff Walker shrugged his shoulders and reached for the thermos filled with coffee on the seat between them. “This is Cloverdale,” he said. “You’d best learn to roll with the punches.”

-------11-------

            “Bendecir a nuestro Dios en el cielo!” Julio burst through the door of the little house in Juárez Mexico. “The papers have been approved and we have the permits to immigrate to America!”

            “But how?” Maria gasped. “I thought it would take many years and a fortune in bribes.”

            “Sometimes miracles happen!” Julio took the portrait of the Virgin Mary off the wall and kissed it. “We must always believe that God is on our side.”

            “What part of America will we live in?” Maria could hardly contain her excitement.

            “In the northwest … in the state of Montana …” Julio picked up his ten year old son Jose and tossed him into the air. “We will both have jobs working on a ranch and Jose can learn to ride a horse!”

            “Will we have to fight Indians like General Custer?” Jose’s eyes were wide.

Julio laughed. “Our troubles are no more. Cloverdale is a sleepy little town where nothing much ever happens!”

THE END?

WHEN the DEAD KNOCK part 2

Copyright (c) 2017 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

By R. Peterson

Sheriff Walker returned to his office inside the Comanche County Courthouse, staggered to see the amount of incident reports piled on his desk. “People have been having the recently diseased show up on their doorsteps,” Martha Kinsley sighed as she placed another stack of papers on his desk. “Either these people have all gone nuts or I have for taking them seriously.” The sheriff glanced at Martha. The petite woman with short bouncy blonde hair who ran dispatch and did most of the office paperwork was in her mid-thirties. Only the tiny lines of wrinkles under her eyes, from manning the 911 lines three nights a week from midnight to six, hinted at her age.

The sheriff shuffled through the report names on his desk … Councilman Sears, Judith Banning, Mayor Otter and a long list of others, many of them were business people and those with civic responsibilities. “These aren’t the sort who usually sees swamp gas or a sheet blown off someone’s clothes line and report ghosts,” he said, “and you have to remember … this is Cloverdale.”

“Did I tell you I was born in L.A.?” Martha said as she placed a cup of hot coffee on the sheriff’s desk and opened a box of jelly donuts from White’s Bakery. She leaned over as she slid the donuts toward him and he noticed the two top buttons on her blouse were undone. “I moved here after my divorce looking for some peace and quiet.”

“We don’t have a million cars fouling the air and the traffic jams with snipers,” the sheriff told her with a smile. “But we get enough strange to make up for it.”

“The mayor seems pretty upset,” Martha said. “She’s called twice since you were out … I told her the radio in your car was having issues.”

“It is,” Sheriff Walker said as he took a bite from one of the donuts. “Damn thing won’t work at all … unless I turn it on.”

Deputy Jimmy Chong entered the office and hurried toward his desk. The sheriff called him over and handed him the stack of papers. “What do you make of these?”

            “I’ve been through these reports a couple of times,” Jimmy said, shuffling through the paperwork. “All the incidents are about murders or sightings of people who have died recently.”

            “So what’s the connection?” Sheriff Walker was impressed by his new deputy’s knack for seeing the obvious.

            “Black Rose Cemetery,” Jimmy said grimly. “All these reports are about people recently residing there or about others getting ready to move in. I was just on my way out there. Kelly Weston, the cemetery Sextant, has had some vandalism going on.”

            “I’ll go with you,” the sheriff said. He glanced at Martha. “If the mayor calls again tell her I’m putting in a request for a new radio along with the law enforcement budget at the next city council meeting.”

-------2-------

                        Harry Walton’s love of driving was a thing of the past even though only two months before he’d been infatuated with it. He gripped the wheel of the tanker truck as he rumbled down Canyon Road gathering raw product from all the farmers in the area. If it was up to him, he’s never get behind the wheel of a vehicle again but a young man had to have a job. The Cloverdale Dairy and Cheese Factory employed two others with arms strong enough to lift and dump eighty pound milk cans into the tank and Harry was lucky to be able to do it with only one.

He was in town during summer vacation from Montana State University visiting his cousin when the Lucky Dice Car Club noticed his fifty-six Chevy with the hood scoop and flame paint job and asked if he’d like to become a member. The dozen guys wearing black denim jackets and most with Elvis style duck tail haircuts seemed pretty cool and there were always plenty of girls hanging around so Harry said “Okay!”

            A voluptuous blonde named Cindy McCowan who wasn’t afraid to show her figure was giving him the eye and Harry noticed the guy standing next to her glaring. “There will be a test to see if you are worthy,” Frank Hicks said.

            “What kind of test?” Harry asked.

          “We don’t want no damn chickens in our club …only chicks,” Hicks slapped the girl on the butt. “We go at each other center line at ninety, Vineyard Road at midnight … You turn away before I do … and you’re smoke!” 

            “How do I know you’ll turn out?” Harry had asked.

            “I’m still here aren’t I?” Hicks looked around at the other club members. “Everyone here has had to prove they don’t have hidden feathers.”

It was like two parties each one at the opposite end of a road with everyone drinking beer and listening to music. Harry had straddled the white line revving the engine in his 409 Chevy while a mile away Hicks did the same in a souped up Ford Falcon running a 413. Cindy McCowan showed up for the initiation wearing tight pink pants and a white halter top. “I thought you always rode with Hicks as his good luck charm,” Vern Johnson who was flagging the contest asked as she appeared at the side of the highway.

            “After we see what this Chevy can do I might have to trade up to GM,” she said giving Harry a wink.

            Be cool and don’t lose your nerve Harry told himself as Vern looking through binoculars and signaling with his arm dropped a pair of girl’s yellow lace panties and he tromped on the gas pedal and began to accelerate. Hicks has done this many times before.

At a mile apart it should have taken the two cars no more than thirty seconds to meet but for Harry it felt like forever. He kept waiting for Hicks to turn out. The black Ford hurtling toward him looked something out of a horror movie. It wasn’t until the last split second that Harry yanked the wheel to the left and by then it was too late. Hick’s car crashed head-on into the front passenger side and spun him in a complete circle twice before the crushed car became airborne, flew over an irrigation canal and then rolled seven times across a corn stubble field coming to rest against the trunk of a giant cottonwood tree. The doctors all said he was lucky to be alive.

            Harry was in Cloverdale General for a month and there was already grass growing on Hick’s grave when he got out. Cindy McCowan had visited him the after the first operation but after she found out his left arm was useless and would always just hang there she hadn’t been back.

Harry shook his head to clear the memory. The sun came out from behind some clouds and he turned on the radio. It was one mile to the next farm.  Dee Dee Sharp was singing Mashed Potato Time. Static suddenly faded out the song the same time as Harry noticed a plume of dust rising on the gravel road ahead. Frank Hick’s voice broke through the buzzing like scratches escaping from a 45 record. “You turn away before I do … and you’re smoke!”

Harry couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the black Ford Falcon barreling down the center of the narrow road coming right for him. He knew this time he wouldn’t turn as he accelerated and shifted gears. This time he’d become the smoke … and perhaps rise to a better place.

-------3-------

As Jimmy parked the county patrol car next to the Sexton’s Buick, Sheriff Walker noticed Kelly Weston’s new Hispanic assistant shoveling fresh dirt from a trailer; obviously the soil was intended to level out disturbed graves. “Who said the dead rest in peace?” Sheriff Walker shook his head as he and Jimmy surveyed the damage.

            “These are all new graves and we always get some settling,” Weston said. “That’s one of the reasons I hired Julio to help with both kinds of planting. He doesn’t just have green thumbs this guy could grow potatoes alongside bacon in a frying pan. Lately he’s been working double shifts with the vandalism. It looks like someone attached a chain and yanked the vaults right out of the ground and stole the bodies.”

            “That’s all Cloverdale needs:  its own Doctor Frankenstein,” Jimmy said looking at the dozens of violently open graves.

            “Tomar un descanso y habla con nosotros!” (Take a rest) Sheriff Walker called to Julio Hernandez. He’d ran a background check on the man before he was hired and although he suspected the married man with three children’s immigration papers were forgeries he seemed okay … everyone has to eat. The man was a wanderer never staying in one place for long.

            “Siento causar estos problemas,” (sorry for the problems) Julio said as he wiped his hands on a rag taken from the back pocket of his ragged but clean jeans. He took an energy drink from his back pocket and drank half. The sheriff thought he looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

            “There is no reason you have to be sorry,” the sheriff said. “You didn’t pull these bodies out of these graves did you?”

            “Cuando empieza nueva vida puede partir incluso la roca.” (When new life starts it can split even rock,) Julio said. His eyes were wide showing white all around. “La suciedad de estas tumbas fue empujada hacia arriba desde abajo!”  (The dirt from these graves was pushed up from below!)

Jimmy was busy making notes on a pad. “I was right,” he said. “This cemetery is the connection to what’s happening. Every one of these defiled graves is related to our reports of people seeing the dead.”

Julio went back to shoveling and the sheriff finished talking to the cemetery Sextant. “We now know where the dead are coming from.” John told Jimmy as they drove back to town. “Now we have to find out what’s bringing them back to life.”

-------4-------

            Leston Neville sat in the passenger side of the black Ford while Wendy drove. She looked good for a dead woman two months in the grave. The blood smeared baby began to cry and Leston noticed a binky with a plastic ring on the seat next to the infant. He moved a soiled blanket and tried to insert the pacifier into the baby’s mouth. Part of the infant’s lower jaw fell away leaving a gaping hole running into the squalling body. The crying sound was louder now and much lower like a trumpet suddenly turning into a bassoon. “Don’t just sit there gawking!” Wendy screamed. “Fix it!”

Leston put his hands on his head wanting to scream himself but he was incapable of making any but the smallest of sounds. Finally after a mile he was able to squeak out “How?”

Wendy gave him a disgusted look reached over and opened the glove box. She flung a roll of duct tape at him. “Wrap it on good,” she ordered pointing to the jaw laying on the seat, “and don’t worry about Lesty being able to breathe … we passed that turn in the road  a few months back.”

            Leston noticed one of Wendy’s eyes was slipping from its socket. He reached over and gently tucked it back into place. “Where are we going, Hun?” He was beyond the point of being repulsed.

            “To a party,” Wendy said. “To see people who haven’t been alive for years.”

-------5-------

            When Sheriff Walker saw the cars crowded on the road ahead at first he thought it was teens having some kind of road racing party. They had the radio blasting and were listening to Three Dog Night sing Mama Told Me Not to Come. Deputy Jimmy Chong thought the same thing and was beginning to slow, hoping to block the road for any juveniles looking to escape whatever illegal thing they were doing when suddenly the sheriff yelled. “Go! Go! Don’t stop! Get us out of here!”

            “What the Hell!” Jimmy yelled as he accelerated the patrol car and began to weave between the parked vehicles. Dozens of skeletal fingers reached for the door handles and scratched the paint as he roared through. Several were on the car hood and blocking the windshield either having flung themselves there or been thrown there as the car plowed through the crowd. The car struck something, either a tree or another car. The walking dead covered the outside of the car like a blanket. There was only darkness and classic rock music blaring from the radio. “This is the craziest party that could ever be … Don’t turn on the lights! I don’t want to see.”

-------6-------

Julio Hernandez opened the refrigerator in the tiny camp trailer looking for another energy drink. The Comanche County Cemetery Board had allowed him and his wife Maria to live on county land next to Black Rose as part of his compensation. Even inside the tiny metal house things were better than they had been in Juárez. The Mexican city was filled with violence. Every night he and his wife had prayed that their ten year old son Jose would stay away from the gangs and insist on having a better future. Jose was a good boy … too good. When he refused to join a local chapter of Los Zetas he was found with his throat cut from ear to ear.

Julio had been beyond grief, he had been destroyed. For all the thirty three years of his life he had always been a faithful Catholic and a true believer. “Why me?” he screamed to a portrait of the Virgin Mary hanging on the wall of his house at the beginning of Dia de los Muertos (Days of the Dead) and three days after the funeral. In his rage he had cracked the glass cover. “Haven’t I not given you my whole life?” It could have been lack of sleep or reflection from the crack, but the eyes in the portrait seemed to look down in sadness and in shame.

“What do you ask me for?” A soft motherly voice seemed to come from the portrait.

“Give me the power to bring back the dead!” Julio insisted. “If only for a day or a night … I cannot live without my Jose. I cannot live with this pain!”

“Night it is!” The portrait said just before it went back to being just a painting. And there was laughter in the city … somewhere far away.

The next afternoon Julio thought he saw Jose with a group of younger boys playing on a busy street but lost him in a crowd. Strange things were beginning to happen. His long dead mother and father were sighted by his sister. An uncle missing for years was found buying bananas in the market. They were forced from their home by terrified neighbors, doctors and police who said they were cursed with Bruja Embarcación a kind of mind sickness. Friends told them Jose had gone north looking for them and so they followed. Days were hot and endless ever searching and hiding from immigration people but the nights were worse. When Julio fell asleep his prayers came true. He would raise not only the ones he loved but any recently buried body up within a half mile radius, and more were rising all the time.

            This job in Cloverdale Montana seemed like some kind of joke. Working next to the dead and trying to stay awake at night. But they were desperate. “Sólo para una semana o dos,” he had told Maria. “Only until we have money to follow the trail.” He’d tried his best to stay awake, but this was the third night with no sleep. He thought maybe Maria had gone into the tiny kitchen to make more coffee but he found her sleeping on the floor. She looked so peaceful he was almost ashamed at what he’d put her through. He kissed her and lay beside her for only a minute … for only a minute … with a tiny prayer asking forgiveness. “Maria, madre de Dios nos perdone nuestros pecados.”

Just to the south in Black Rose Cemetery the ground began to tremble. Soil and rock was pushed up from below. Not just one or two graves opened … they all did … and the dead began to rise.

TO BE CONTINUED.