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 recent chapters, a posse of angry riders from the Clayton ranch gathered in front of Cork's office, seeking retribution for the death of Mr. Clayton's son Billy Bob, whom Cork had shot and killed while defending Zack. The riders set the building ablaze ... with Matilda still inside! Matilda successfully dimension-jumped from the burning building. She was trying to rejoin Zack, who had been reclaimed by the realm and whose whereabouts were unknown to her. Instead, she jumped into Zack's home dimension, to his parents' farm.
Matilda sat in what Alabama Zack's father said was Zack's favorite rocking chair, on the lean-to porch in the Deep South. In front of her, just off the edge of the porch, a bluetick hound stared up at her.
Matilda had never seen a dog before – there weren't any in her and Cork's dimension – and she couldn't take her eyes off it. The hound seemed to plead for permission to come up on the porch, and Matilda marveled at an animal that could say things so clearly with its expression.
“He's a good dog,” Zack's father, Charles, said from his chair on the other side of the cabin door. Zack's mother sat facing Matilda at the porch entry, with her feet on the gravel walk and her back against the upright – keeping an eye on her. When Matilda smiled at the hound and he sprang to his feet, she tsk'ed him back down. “We don't allow them up here,” she said.
Charles cleared his throat. “How's that tea suitin' you?” he asked. Matilda looked into her half empty cup. “Just fine, thanks,” she said. “My throat did hurt, but it's better now, thank you.”
“That tea is the best thing for a smoke-burned throat,” Zack's mother said. “You remember, Charles, when Zack was nine or 10 and we had that grass fire?”
“Oh, I sure do. My throat bled for three days after that, and I reckon this tea saved my voice.” Charles took a long sip.
Matilda gulped her tea and set the cup down beside the chair. Her hands felt clammy. She was nervous in spite of the hospitality, and it wasn't just the eagle eye Zack's mother was giving her. Past the dooryard, next to the barn, stood an empty corral, and beyond that spread a pasture abutting a waist-high stone fence. On the other side of the fence a lane ran beneath a row of weeping willows.
Back and forth on the lane passed bedraggled men.
Most wore grey clothing the same color as Zack's overcoat, though unlike Zack's theirs was soiled and torn. Many hobbled along on crutches, and only a few of these had companions to help them. They all looked beat down – but the ones who looked at the porch seemed to liven with anger.
“Soldiers,” Charles said, and Zack's mother cut her eyes. “United Forces of the South. They won't bother you none: Zack fought with them, and they'll not forget.”
Matilda looked down at her hands. She might have felt better if Zack had actually been there, but she doubted it.
“You haven't said anything about my story,” she said.
Zack's mother picked up some gravel and tossed it down the path. Charles swished the remains of his tea. “We already know your story, Matilda,” he said.
“I don't understand,” Matilda said. “How could you?”
“Zack told us,” he said, “about Clayton burning down Cork's place. He's been home several times since the war, and he's told us about you and the doctor and Cork. Not that he always remembers. Sometimes he knows about you and sometimes he doesn't. We figure it's something to do with the war, the way his memory goes.”
Zack's mother had stopped throwing stones and looked at her with steel eyes. Matilda felt her cheeks grow warm. She wondered what else Zack's folks knew, about their story – and about her and Zack.
Next week in our story
To stop the barrage of confusing images that assaulted him in that barn, our hero had deliberately sought out the black hole in his memory, and now he could only stare vacantly .... In the hay mow above, the drunk slumped comatose against his ropes, while outside, purple mountains beckoned beyond a plain of golden, wheat-like vegetation.
Chapter XXIX (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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