"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 has amnesia: he 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.
Zack has met three people who are helping him to recover his memory and prove his innocence: the doctor, whom Zack met on the train station platform, the P.I. Cork McGraw, and Cork's maid Matilda.
In last week's chapter, the doctor, Cork, and Matilda realized that Zack had been transported out of their dimension by sitting in Cork's red wingback, which is a transporter device. Now one of them has to attempt to follow him and bring him back.
Cork sat down rigidly in the red wingback that also served as a transporter device.
“You want me to close my eyes?” he asked the doctor.
Cork was a man in command of two things: violence and intrigue. Dimension jumping was not his cup of tea. But he was also a man who stepped up and did what needed doing, so he had insisted on being the one to make the attempt.
The men had agreed that the chair should not be moved or disturbed in any way; the doctor felt leaving it exactly as it was would help Cork jump to where Zack had gone. The doctor had decided, however, that it would be okay to rearrange some things in the study, to make the dimension jump “more conducive to collaborative effort.” He now sat in an auburn lounge chair in front of Cork, and he had also allowed Matilda to bring in a straight-backed wooden chair. She sat to one side, and it looked like she was hanging in midair, because her skirts and bulky frame completely hid the chair from sight.
“Yes, close your eyes,” the doctor said. “A transporter works by amplifying the energy of a subject's thoughts. The best way to transport yourself is to clearly imagine the other world you want to jump to and allow the transporter to strengthen that image until you are actually pushed into the other world. But in this case we don't know where Zack went, so I think that we should imagine Zack and try to connect with him.”
The doctor threw up one hand with an extended forefinger: “However, you also need to keep some of your attention in this world. We're going to attempt what's called a Bouncing G.F. We don't want to jump completely into Zack's dimension, because we have no idea if there is a transporter available on the other side. We want to transition just enough to grab Zack and then bounce back, before you become fully manifested in his world.”
Cork cracked one eye open to look at the doctor. “For cryin' out loud, man, how often do you do this?”
The doctor waved his hand. “That's a story for another time and place,” he cracked, and they all laughed. “Let's just say I know what I'm talking about here. At least I understand your part. Matilda and I will also imagine Zack; I'm hoping our collective mental energy will help us overcome the unusual circumstances: the fact that we don't know his specific dimension.”
They closed their eyes and bowed their heads to imagine. Matilda had no trouble seeing our hero, with his big yellow mustache, wavy blonde hair and wet face. The doctor saw him slouched and cuffed, his blue eyes darting around town, while Cork focused easily on the grey coat that matched his own. They all felt the shift when it happened, and the doctor opened his eyes.
Cork was gone – but so was Matilda.
Next week in our story
In Zack's dimension – which resembles our own but is not quite the same – a week had passed since he found himself sitting on the front porch of his boyhood home. His mother and father had welcomed him home as though it were his first time back since the war, and in that first commotion he had recovered – without knowing it was a recovery – the memory of his three month walk home from Lee's surrender in Virginia.
Chapter XVII (link to come)
Start at the beginning
Cover for “Alabama Zack” designed in Canva using a Pixabay photo as background (image source).
Text written by 
Creative Coin banner designed by @ derangedvisions.
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