"Alabama Zack" is a 40-chapter science fiction serial, published in the Scholar and Scribe community once a week on Wednesdays.
You can start the serial from the beginning by visiting the Curated Collection.
Alabama Zack, our hero and a war veteran, found himself standing on a train station platform in another time and dimension. At his feet lay a man in a brown suit. The man was dead, and Zack was arrested and jailed.
Zack can not remember how he had arrived on that platform, let alone whether or not he had anything to do with the man's death.
In last week's chapter, Zack was flown from the inquisitor's jail/cave complex back to the train station platform, to meet with the doctor Zack was convinced knew something. When the doctor realized Zack had no memory of the dead man yet professed his innocence, he suggested they go to town to meet with Cork McGraw, a private investigator.
The doctor and our hero tromped up the dirt avenue on the way to see Cork, whom the doctor had described as the town's resident P.I. The doctor walked straight-backed with his suit jacket slung over his right shoulder; beside him Zack stooped slightly, his hands shackled behind him and the prison's green tracking device trailing just behind his head.
The town was just that single street lined with weathered clapboard buildings. Each building stood separated from the others and had its own elevated boardwalk with a three or four-step staircase on each side and another staircase in front. It was an easy call to walk down the center of the street and avoid all of that up-and-down, especially since the street was dry – and strangely deserted.
“Where are folks?” Zack asked.
“They keep low whenever a prisoner comes to town,” the doctor said, and our hero looked around for the fearsome convict – before remembering it was him. They stopped in front of a narrow, two-story building with a hand-lettered sign that read “Cork McGraw: Resident P.I.”
The doctor was grinning. “Didn't I say that he was our resident P.I.?” he said. Zack shrugged; he didn't see any humor in the situation. The doctor laughed. “Oh, c'mon, lighten up! Cork's the best we have and I'm positive that he can get you exonerated. You are innocent, aren't you?” The doctor looked at him intently.
Our hero nodded, looking up at the sign. He still had no earthly idea how he had come to be on that platform standing over the dead man, but it felt like he had not killed him. “I did not kill that man,” he said again.
The doctor took him by the arm and led him up the broad front steps. Inside, a narrow hallway was dimly lit by a bare window at its far end. A darkly carpeted staircase rose on the left. The doctor steered him right, into a small room where a figure sat with feet propped on a desk. As they entered the feet dropped, and they heard the sound of chair legs hit the floor. The figure stood. Zack's eyes adjusted in the gloom, and he made out a large man, wearing a cowboy hat – and a grey overcoat just like his own.
The man had long dark hair and a thick handlebar mustache that curved down to a grizzly beard. He was head and shoulders taller than our hero, but the man's impressive physique did not catch Zack in the way that his clothes did.
The doctor and the man himself seemed not to notice the similar uniform. “Howdy, Cork,” the doctor said. “Like you to meet someone.”
“This is the guy? The suspect?” Cork moved around the desk, extending a broad hand sideways, until he saw that Zack was cuffed.
“Zack,” our hero said, and then he asked, as though speaking to a fellow soldier, “Did you serve with McGuffey? I don't know you. I was fourth brigade, but I thought I knew all the officers.” He cut off there. Cork and the doctor were looking at him like he was talking gibberish. In the silence they continued to look at him expectantly, perhaps hoping he might reveal some important piece of the puzzle that had brought them together. “You're wearing the uniform, the overcoat at least, of the 3rd Cavalry of the United Forces of the South,” Zack explained – to the same, you're-talking-gibberish look. It felt to Zack like the floor was about to fall away beneath him. They had no idea what he was talking about.
“This coat?” Cork said. “They sell this down at Clayton's shop by the boatload. I've sure never been in any cavalry.” Cork shared a look with the doctor. “Our mystery deepens, eh doc?”
Zack looked down at the pale floor boards – hands shackled behind him, strange green light over his head, no clue how he had come to that place – and he began to weep. The doctor clapped an arm about his shoulders. “Here, now, good man. No call for that. Cork, let's cheer him up. Work your magic on these cuffs.”
“Hmpf. But what about the realm?” Cork asked, even as he was reaching inside his jacket to pull out a red tool, which anyone from our time and place would recognize as a miniature pair of bolt cutters.
“Bother the realm!” the doctor cried. “This man needs our help and we can't have him walking around cuffed.” The doctor turned Zack around, there was the sound of metal breaking, and then his hands were free.
“Let's go out front and talk this thing over,” Cork said, and then he called out to someone in the other room. “Matilda! Put the kettle on! We need some tea.”
Next week in our story
Matilda put the kettle on the cast iron stove, then put her hands on her hips. She was a heavy woman, and wise to the ways of the world, which to her meant being wise to the ways of men. And she'd had plenty of experience with that lot. Her experience with one abusive man after another had finally led her to Cork McGraw's door one drenching wet night, in search of a P.I., or anyone who could make her latest man stop bothering her. In a couple of days, the man had disappeared, and Matilda had stayed on in gratitude, as Cork's cook and maid.
Chapter VIII
Start at the beginning
Cover for “Alabama Zack” designed in Canva Business using a Pixabay photo as background (image source).
Text written by 
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