Alabama Zack – Chapter XII

"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 for murder.

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, after a drive-by shooting, in which the Clayton outfit tried to kill Zack, the town drunk came to check on the result of the shooting. It turned out he was hired to report on the hit ... but he claimed it was not for the Claytons. Cork corralled the drunk and told him he would take the trio of Cork, the doctor, and Zack to the person the drunk was reporting to.

Meanwhile, the green light that identifies and tracks Zack as a prisoner of the realm is still hovering over his head.

The four men left the P.I.'s office by the back door. Cork's small back lot was profuse with greenery, thanks to Matilda's green thumb. The men followed a pea gravel path crowded with bushes that looked like tomato plants, beneath nodding sunflowers – which were adorned by vines with flowers shaped like butterflies – to a wooden shed with large strips of white paint peeling off it. Cork threw back a rotted sliding door. Inside, leaning on their kickstands in the center of the shed's concrete floor, were three black mountain bikes.

Zack eyed the contraptions. He had seen a drawing of a man riding a bicycle in a magazine once, but he'd never been on one. The two wheels on these bicycles were the same size, unlike the one he had seen. He supposed the saddle looked comfortable enough – but he still had no idea how he would ride one of them.

“You ever seen these?” Cork asked Zack, while at the same time looping a rope around the drunk's torso.

Zack shook his head. “Hmpf,” Cork said. He wrapped the other end of the rope around his forearm. “I got these from Clayton's shop. They're the only three in town, so far as I know.”

The Claytons again, Zack thought. He looked to the doctor, who had pulled his bike up to a stepping stool built in the wall of the shed. The doctor's smooth face did not show what he thought.

“I can't ride,” Zack said.

“I can ride,” the drunk pitched in without hesitation. The drunk could see that Cork intended to have him walk, and he was eager to save himself the exercise. “You can even leave me tied up.”

But something was happening to our hero. The green light at the top of his head took on a charge that made his entire body tingle, and then it began to expand downward into his vision. It passed his eyes and chin to his chest. The others appeared as blurs through the green pall; sound came to him as though through water. The light continued downward and pinned his arms to his side; when it encased him completely, he was immobilized.

Cork and the doctor acted quickly – they had seen prisoners recalled to the inquisitor's cave before. Cork removed the rope from the drunk and lassoed Zack. The doctor grabbed on and helped pull the noose tight. It squeezed the green light around Zack's waist. He began to spasm. Then he was pulled backward through the door while the other two slid, feet braced, across the floor.

“Grab on!” Cork yelled as they neared the door.

“I can't grab the door and hang onto the rope!” the doctor explained loudly. Cork hooked his knee up and caught the jamb; they hung there, the tremendous pull biting the rope deeper and deeper into their hands.

Just then Matilda appeared at the back door. “No, you are not taking him!” she yelled at the sky as she thundered down the walk. She picked up steam as she came, lowered her shoulder, and tackled Zack, who by that point was hovering in the air about two feet off the ground. There was a moment of crackling green suspension, then the green light winked out, and they all collapsed onto the sidewalk.

Next week in our story

Bottles of beer, bottles of liquor, bottles, bottles everywhere but not in his hand. He put his head in his hand and felt his need and his lack. He couldn't sit there empty-handed for long; he would have to move. Finally he hitched himself up on his elbows and started crawling back toward the line of trees. If the men trying to kill Zack needed him to report, they wouldn't know if he told them what they wanted to hear instead of the truth.

Chapter XIII (link to come)
Start at the beginning