Introduction
"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.
Previously in our story
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 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, Zack was reclaimed by the realm and returned to face his inquisitor. Asked what he was now curious about, he responded by inquiring if dimension jumping was real, and then was immediately transported to a barn on the Clayton ranch.
Just before Zack was reclaimed, Cork McGraw thwarted a second attempt on Zack's life by the Claytons, shooting one of the Claytons dead.
The doctor and Cork McGraw stood at the bar in the saloon across the street from Cork's office. On the bar, Cork's cowboy hat and the doctor's brown fedora formed bookends for what was a miserable duo.
Things had taken a turn for the worse. Alabama Zack had been successfully reclaimed by the realm, and both men assumed he was jailed and inaccessible to them. Even with a transporter chair and Matilda's ability to dimension jump – a means that she had eagerly offered – the realm's fortress was impenetrable, by will of the inquisitors.
And, Cork had shot and probably killed Mr. Clayton's only son Billy Bob.
Yolanta tea was simply inadequate for the new circumstances, so the men slouched at the bar spooning up the hard stuff of that dimension: mud, a black gelatinous mass that dulled the senses while it rotted the belly.
“Are you certain it was Bill Bob?” the doctor asked for the third or fourth time. “Things get confused in traumatic situations; maybe you just thought it was Billy Bob.”
Cork grunted. “Thing I've noticed about shooting a man, I always see the face clearly for days after.” He spooned up another mouthful of mud. “And if I kill him, the face doesn't go away.”
“There will be retribution,” the doctor said.
Cork nodded. Wasn't that why they were standing there? To take the edge off that feeling of inevitable doom? The whole town knew that violence against the Claytons would be met in kind. In all his years as P.I. he had never crossed them. But until now the Claytons had never come after one of his own.
Cork slammed his spoon into his now empty glass. “If Zack isn't even from here, how in the heck did he get the Claytons riled against him?”
“The obvious deduction, Cork, is that the Claytons had something to do with the murder of my colleague,” the doctor said with a slight slur.
“That's not obvious at all, doc,” Cork said. “Zack is all lined up to take the blame for that. Why kill him off?”
“Same reason as always. He must know something the Claytons are afraid of letting out. Only in this case, if he does know something, he can't remember it.”
From the street outside the saloon, Cork and the doctor heard the rumble of approaching hooves. They looked at each other in the mirror behind the bar as their faces turned ashen. One thought passed between them: Matilda. They had left her alone in Cork's office. They grabbed their hats and sprinted for the saloon's swinging doors.
Hooves had kicked up a dust storm before Cork's office, and inside the storm a dozen horses and riders milled about.
Next week in our story
(Zack) heard a voice that sounded far away, like the drunk was calling out, his voice muffled by the hay. When he thought of the drunk, he thought of the doctor and Cork with him on the bench, the drunk pointing the thumb and finger gun at him, the two men on the buckboard – he knew them; they were part of the gang – but why were they shooting at him?
Chapter XXIV (link to come)
Start at the beginning
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