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.
Two chapters ago, Cork and the doctor visited the bar across the street from his office. They needed a stiff drink to deal with recent events: Zack had been reclaimed as prisoner of the realm, and Cork had shot and killed Mr. Clayton's only son, Bill Bob. They had no idea how to rescue Zack, and they feared the Claytons would seek revenge. As they stood in the bar, a posse of angry riders from the Clayton ranch galloped up in front of Cork's office.
In front of Cork McGraw's office, a dozen horses wheeled about beneath angry riders. The horses' were wet after the hard gallop from the Clayton ranch to town. The dust they churned up as they formed restlessly into a semicircle facing Cork's office dulled the damp sheen on their withers and flanks before drifting in a cloud up the street toward the distant train station.
In the saloon, Cork and the doctor had taken cover on either side of the saloon's swinging half-doors. The doctor noticed that Cork had pulled his pistol. “Put that away, you fool!” he hissed. “There are too many of them!”
Cork motioned for silence with the gun and adjusted his cowboy hat. The sudden roar of six-guns broke the momentary calm; the entire posse had fired into the air. “Cork McGraw!” the leader of the group called out from atop a skittering steed. “Show yourself, coward!” The group cheered its leader and fired another round. The doctor crossed the doorway and grabbed onto Cork, who had cocked his pistol. “Think man, before you act,” the doctor implored.
“Matilda's in there,” Cork said, and glass broke. Someone had thrown a flaming brand through the upstairs study window. The doctor let go of Cork and backed up two paces in horror as flames kicked up behind the jagged glass shards. Cork raised his gun and looked over his shoulder at the doctor. “Get moving. Out the back and around to my yard. I'll draw them here, but you make sure Matilda's okay!”
The doctor bolted away, and Cork McGraw stepped out onto the boardwalk firing. Four men fell before his gun was empty and he was back in the saloon. The others dismounted and sought cover behind their horses, holding the reins with one hand and sending a barrage of bullets toward the saloon. Flames had engulfed the upstairs of Cork's office, but two of the men busted the door open and sought cover inside.
Cork squatted with his back to the wall and reloaded as bullets thudded into the wood. Splinters rained down around him. He spun on his heel, fired two shots beneath the doors, and heard a horse scream. The posse could see him. He lurched up and headed in plain sight toward the back, hoping to draw them inside. Bullets whistled around him as he went.
Next week in our story
Matilda ... knelt in the kitchen listening to the rush of fire over her head, the crack of gunfire in the street, and the knock of strange boots in the foyer. She was trying to dimension jump out of there, but what was going on around her was holding her up. The doctor had said all she needed to do was imagine another dimension to jump to it, but he hadn't offered any tips about how to blot out her surroundings. She thought hard about Zack. She tried to remember how she had first dimension jumped, when she had slipped to the barn at his folks' place in Alabama – then the boots started down the hall.
Chapter XXVI (link to come)
Start at the beginning
Cover for “Alabama Zack” designed in Canva using a Pixabay photo as background (image source).
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