These are short stories put up each Friday that you can read for free. By the next Friday the post will be taken down and a new one will go up.
Note: This is the seventy-seventh post in Free Fiction Fridays.
These are short stories put up each Friday that you can read for free. By the next Friday the post will be taken down and a new one will go up.
0 Comments
Note: This is the seventy-fifth post in Free Fiction Fridays.
These are short stories put up each Friday that you can read for free. By the next Friday the post will be taken down and a new one will go up.
The Upper Missouri twisted and bent but kept up its northern course, though the current flowed south and the wind was blowing that way too. The men were making slow progress, poling themselves along. They took turns, two men on each side of the keelboat, shoving their poles down to the river bottom and pushing off, walking forward as they did so, until reaching the front of the boat, whereupon they turned about and walked back and started it all again. A man could do that for about an hour before his arms gave out, but Manuel usually relegated them to half that. He wasn’t around at the moment, however, so the men were enjoying half that again. George and Colter weren’t two of them, and the two Lewis and Clark Expedition veterans kept glancing back over their shoulders nervously.
“Shoulda been here by now,” George said as they came upon another slight bend in the river, “shoulda been past that village by now, and well within seeing distance of us.” They were on the shorter keelboat, the supply boat ahead of them now. “Maybe the Rees weren’t as friendly as he supposed,” Colter said with a shrug. “Sure weren’t last winter when I ran into a small band out around the Yellowstone.” “Must have been Blackfeet,” George said without taking his eyes from the river behind them. “No, they were Arikara alright, and must have been having some kind of feud between them for–” “There!” George shouted out, cutting off the mountain man’s words. “There he is!” Colter spun about and sure enough, quite a ways back on the river and just then coming around a cliff-side bend in the river, was Manuel’s keelboat, the one that’d been taking up the rear behind the large supply boat. “Looks like he made it after all,” George said with a laugh, then looked over at Colter with smile. “What was all this nonsense about the Arikara last winter, huh? I bet…” George trailed off and the smile on his face was replaced by a frown. The half-Shawnee in him had heard or sensed something, and a moment later that was clear. Shouting erupted up ahead on the supply boat and the two trappers looked up to see the men hustling about, pointing off into the thick brush obscuring the bank. “What the hell is it?” Colter said, but a moment later he knew, for an arrow sailing out in answer and embedded itself into the gunwale near their feet. More arrows flew out, and there was even a musket shot or two, all accompanied by whooping and shouting. Colter looked back at George, and the scout seemed to have read his mind when he said, “Damn Manuel Lisa – how’d we ever think he wouldn’t piss off the Indians?” ~~~ As the mountain man and the scout cursed their luck at being thrown in with the shady businessman, further down the river and coming around the bend was the source of their frustration. Manuel Lisa hadn’t been around that long and hadn’t gotten this far West without getting into a scrape or two…and having gotten out of them. He meant to do the same now, for he’d left the Arikara on good terms. He’d also left with quite a bit of information, one tidbit being the split that’d occurred in the tribe over the spring when it was clear some leading chieftains were not returning from some hunting mission. That small faction of the tribe was what he guessed was assailing them now, and he only hoped his forty-two men could hold them off. “C’mon!” he shouted out to the men poling the fifty-foot keelboat up the river. “Put your backs into it men – get us up to that fight!” ~~~ “Woo-hoo!” John Potts shouted out. “Got me one!” Colter looked over at the private that’d accompanied him to the Pacific with Lewis and Clark and smiled, then reached over and clapped the German on the back. “Good, now steady yourself, reload, and get another.” Potts looked over at Colter and nodded and started to do just that, putting the butt of his rifle down on the deck, getting his ball, powder, and patch, and then ramming them all down before bringing the gun up to prime the pan and fire another shot. Seventeen seconds later Potts was shouting “woo-hoo” again. Colter took aim with his own gun and got another himself. The Arikara were numerous along the bank now, and he suspected there were fifty of them. Most were armed with bow and arrows, others with spears or tomahawks. So far none had swum out into the river toward them, but Colter suspected that might change if they grew desperate. A glance around a moment before had told him that none of the men on the boats had been hit, but by the looks of the bodies on the river’s bank, at least a dozen of the Indians had gone down, maybe more. The men were doing a good job of it, for each was an experienced rifleman. Besides Potts, there was also Peter Weiser, John Collins, and George Shannon on Colter’s boat, all alumni of the voyages with the Captains. Up ahead on the large supply boat was Pierre Cruzatte, who despite the bad eyes, had been employed by Manuel to go back up the river. Colter hoped the man didn’t shoot any of them in the backside like he’d done with Captain Lewis. Also from the expedition were George Gibson, Hugh Hall, Joseph Whitehouse, and Nathaniel Pryor. Manuel had done well recruiting the men in St. Louis at expedition’s end it seemed, though the highest ranking of them, Sergeant Pryor, was still in St. Louis or somewhere hundreds of miles behind them on the river, bringing Chief Big White back up to the Mandans, fulfilling the terms of the agreement the Captains had made before sending the chief downriver and then to Washington back in 1806. THUNK! Colter’s thoughts were interrupted, as was his aim, when a tomahawk slammed into the wooden beam right next to his head. George looked over at him with wide eyes. “That was close!” the scout said. “Maybe we should signal up to the lead boat to open up with that swivel gun, eh?” “Do you think?” Colter said with a scowl as he moved away from the Tomahawk, which had several large eagle feathers dangling from its handle. He took up position a few feet away and took aim once again, taking out a particularly nasty looking Arikara brave that was ready to hurl yet another of the axes. George just shrugged and headed up to the front of the boat, put his hands to his mouth, and shouted out for the men to open up with the swivel gun. Two men had been standing beside the gun waiting to do just that, and right as they took the covering off of it a great gasp went up from the attacking Arikara. They’d seen what it could do at the villages earlier, after all. Within moments they were rushing back into the thick brush and trees, leaving their dead to litter the bank. A few minutes after that Manuel had caught up to them, and the last of the Indians had fled. “What the hell happened back there?” George shouted out once the Spaniard was within earshot. Manuel frowned, but then shrugged. He told them what he’d heard of the missing tribal members, and the subsequent breakdown. Both he and George looked to Colter, for they’d heard the mountain man’s story of winter adventure, but hadn’t believed it. Now they were beginning to wonder. For Colter’s part, he just counted the bodies as the shore receded into the distance now that the three boats were moving again. Eighteen he counted, eighteen more dead Arikara braves. He shook his head and scoffed before turning away. He knew if the whites kept this up there’d be a war with the tribe. This was an excerpt from Colter's Hell...coming in September!
Note: This is the seventy-third post in Free Fiction Fridays.
These are short stories put up each Friday that you can read for free. By the next Friday the post will be taken down and a new one will go up. Special Note: This is an excerpt from my upcoming thriller novel, Flight 370, to be released August 11.
Outside the plane the music was deafening, being blasted out at 120 decibels below the plane. Those on the boats and ships looked up, and their eyes went wide. For it wasn’t everyday that you saw a plane painted with the flag of ISIS flying into New York, one blasting Neil Diamond. On that day they were seeing it, however, and it scared the hell out of them. Countless thumbs dialed 911 on their phones, and all the while the plane flew on, “Coming to America” blaring out for all to hear.
~~~ “What the hell?” Sheila whispered to Virgil beside her. “Is that Neil Diamond?” “Sure as shit is,” Virgil said, looking out the window for some idea of where the sound was coming from. “My God, these people are something else!” Virgil chuckled. “And we’ll have to be something else if we want to stop ‘em.” “Yeah, and–” Sheila cut herself off as another of the Sri Lankan guards came into their particular cabin. He was counting, she and Virgil quickly saw, counting the passengers. “Shit,” Virgil muttered beside her. “This is it,” she said, and glanced over at Mathis, sitting across the aisle and a few seats up. He glanced back her way at the same time, and gave a slight nod. “This is it,” she said again, and reached under her leg for her 9mm. The guard was getting closer to the back of the cabin, and to where the last of the passengers were. There would be seventy-three passengers instead of the seventy he was expecting, and when he counted seventy-one, Sheila fully expected his face to take on a look of confusion, just before he turned around and signaled to the other guard that something wasn’t right. If that happened they’d have about five seconds, probably less. If they allowed that to happen. The guard was a few seats away from them, and counting off in English. “Sixty-six…sixty-seven…sixty-eight…” Sheila gritted her teeth, felt her pulse quicken, the adrenaline begin to flow. “…sixty-nine…seventy…seventy…” The man’s eyes took on a confused look as he said the “one” in “seventy-one,” looking at one of the Chinese women passengers in confusion, and then over to Virgil and Sheila who were to come next. His eyes narrowed and he was just about to blurt out something to his companion when Sheila gave her most ingratiating smile. “Were we not supposed to get on at Saudi Arabia?” she said as she started to slowly rise. “I was sure this was the plane to the French Riviera!” Sheila didn’t give the man a chance at a response, though from the baffled expression on his face, she expected he wouldn’t have been able to give much of one. It didn’t come to that, however, for Sheila threw up her hand, the one holding the silenced-9mm, and fired a single shot that took the man right in the forehead. He was still falling to the floor of the cabin when the first passenger screams went out. “Go!” Sheila yelled, but beside her Virgil was already rising up, and a few seats ahead of them, Mathis was doing the same. The guard at the front of the cabin was still wearing an expression of shock, and only beginning to turn around to rush to the other cabin when Virgil threw up his shotgun and fired a round of birdshot right into his gut. The man went down screaming and moaning, demobilized until Mathis could move up and slit his throat. They’d decided that reducing the number of bullets flying around the pressurized cabin would be a good thing, and birdshot wasn’t likely to do much more than superficial damage to the fuselage. Sheila had the only real gun that could kill with one shot, and that’d been decided because she was the best shot among them. “Get down!” Mathis yelled a moment after Virgil had fired his shot, but it was too late. From the cabin partition came another guard, and this one was not messing around. He fired two shots in quick succession, not at all worried about cabin pressure or the fuselage, and took down two of the passengers that were fleeing toward the forward cabin, a man and a woman. Mathis fired one quick shot from his Ruger 2R22 handgun, a .22 caliber pistol that wasn’t likely to do much damage if he missed. Mathis had promised himself before boarding in Saudi Arabia that he wouldn’t miss, however, and he proved true to his word. The shot hit the guard in the chest, and a moment later passengers were swarming over him, kicking and punching, for it wasn’t likely a .22 shot was going to do the job of killing him. “Get their guns,” Sheila called out, and within moments the men’s machine guns were being ferried back to them. “Get back in your seats!” Mathis shouted out as quietly as he could while rushing up to the front of the cabin. He pulled out his serrated knifed and made quick work of the wounded guard’s windpipe, and by the time he was scurrying back many of the passengers were already seated and beginning to huddle down. Sheila and Virgil just looked at one another with surprise – why were no more guards coming?
Note: This is the seventy-first post in Free Fiction Fridays.
These are short stories put up each Friday that you can read for free. By the next Friday the post will be taken down and a new one will go up.
God, where the hell was everyone?
He hadn’t seen a soul in 18 days, not since leaving Quantico. He’d had to get out of there, though. After 18 days underground he had to get out of there. They said the bombs had gone off, but he could see no sign of that. There were no people, that was for sure, but then many had fled when news had broken. Those that hadn’t had been rounded up. For the most part, he had to remind himself, for the most part. There could still be some around, and that’s what he was looking for…wasn’t he? God, where the hell was everyone? Walking along the highway was a likely place, but he’d been walking it and walking it. With a sigh he walked off, into the trees a bit. Keeping his eyes on the road, he knelt down and took off his pack. He glanced down after it was unzipped, checking that all was in order. It was. There was a cracker box stuffed with various dry foods, all bagged. A tin at the bottom with wet stuff – butter, cheese, some hummus. Some candles were down there, and the last of the batteries. The radio of course, and some toilet paper. That he had to save more of, he know knew, and he was trying. He reached down past it and grabbed hold of the small bottle of dish soap, brought it up and put a few drops on his hands. There was a small brook here, babbling away, and if he could just find it he’d wash his hands. He hadn’t washed them since breaking camp that morning and– He paused, listened, looked. Deer, he saw, and with a slight chuckle he turned his head back to his pack and– “And what the fuck’d we got here, eh?” He was just turning his head and caught a glimpse of someone with long blonde hair and bad teeth and then everything went black. ~~~ He woke up to the sound of popping. Pop, pop…pop! He was looking up, toward the trees above, and could tell that a fire was burning nearby. That’s the popping he was hearing. He could hear more though – he could hear voices. “What the fuck do you want me to say?” one said, loudly and with quite a bit of anger. “Easy, pal – I’m hungry too,” another voice said, this one calmer. “So what’s the problem, then? The fire’s going.” “It’s just…” “Just what?” the first voice said, a bit of amusement in it. “Just you’re not going to eat a person? Well I say fuck that!” “You might say that but–” “Man I haven’t eaten in 9 days, you got that, 9 fucking days! There ain’t nothin’ too eat, not after Ed scarfed the stuff in his bag.” The other man laughed. “The six you put in his gut was a just dessert.” “Yeah, well I’m still hungry, and we know what happens when you eat one of the dead, we’ve seen what happens when you do that.” “I know,” the second voice said, and he pictured that whoever it belonged to was nodding, beginning to agree. That bothered him, for he know that he was the ‘food’ they were talking about. God, what the hell happened over the past two weeks and change? He didn’t even work for the feds, just did IT services for them. He’d been doing some stuff on sight at Quantico when the alarm had suddenly gone off. His support contact told him to stay there, went and checked it out, and then when the man came back twenty minutes later he said they were stuck there. Of course by that time he’d already gotten the news online, before they’d shut down the outside internet feed. Even with his skills, it was gone, severed at the source. How the hell could they have hit us in so many places and so fast? He’d thought that a lot over the next two days that they’d been down in that basement. There were plenty other workers there, but many filtered out over that time. You didn’t have to, and people were actually encouraged to stay, but with families you couldn’t blame them. He hadn’t had one so was lucky, for when the second attack came…he didn’t want to think about it. After that it’d just been a waiting game until the food ran out. Quantico had quite the ample stores underground, but that was for the main spooks and marines. He wasn’t one, and his support contact wasn’t either. Low men on the totem pole, they’d been sealed off on the surface floors with a few dozen others, enough food for 2 days. When that 2 days was up, he’d headed outside despite what they’d said, for he’d known from the looks going around that it was soon going to become some Lord of the Flies shit in there. There was rustling on the edge of the bushes were he was at, and then he saw two figures, the men who’d been talking, he knew. One of them held a long-bladed knife in his hand, and it gleamed in the firelight. “Sorry, son,” one of them said, the one without the knife, and he started to move forward. He struggled, his hands and feet tied, but he struggled. All the while he had his eyes on the man with the knife, who smiled. “Hold him,” the man with the knife said. The other man came up to him then, leaned down, and grabbed hold of his shoulders. He struggled, and managed to throw the man off balance. Then he threw his body forward, hitting the man’s calves. He started to topple over. There was a chance now, a slim chance, and he started to shimmy about, flopped over, and– And something soft and long and afterward warm came down on his throat. He looked up to see the man with the knife looking down at him, and now the knife had a thin life of red all down its length, and it was dripping. “No hard feelings,” the man said, and then things started to get fuzzy and his vision was beginning to blur and… THE END
Note: This is the seventieth post in Free Fiction Fridays.
These are short stories put up each Friday that you can read for free. By the next Friday the post will be taken down and a new one will go up.
Herman Ivan Schultz was born in Missoula, Montana, on December 5, 2018. It was two years into the Great Chaos, and to protect their young son, the Schultz family moved out of the city and into the surrounding countryside. They were joined by many other families, and Herman was able to grow up with great teachers, largely from the academic university that once existed there.
By the time Herman was a teenager the Splintering was already in effect, so he was given the tests and then put into the appropriate institute. For Schultz, it was engines. He learned all that he could for the six years he was required to attend, and during that time he began tinkering with the obsolete science of rocketry. It was 2038 when he was finally done with his institute, and the last manned space mission had been 23 years earlier. No rocket had left the Earth’s atmosphere for more than 20 years, and so Schultz’s interest in the subject was a bit odd. He kept to himself, however, and so few knew of his obsession. When he had tested his primitive devices, he’d done so from the safety of the Montana forests, where few eyes could see. There weren’t that many eyes to begin with. From the fragmentary records that exist from that time, we know that America’s population had gone from a high of 320 million in 2015 to 75 million, a drop of 76%. It was a lot better than the world had done during the Great Chaos. In 2015 the global population had been 7.2 billion but by 2040 it was thought to be only 1.2 billion, an 83% drop. Still to this day, however, it’s not known how many perished. It’s likely that Herman Shultz wasn’t thinking much about that in 2039 when he began building what would become Space Port I on the outskirts of Wolf Creek. The small Montana community had only had 510 people in 2014, though it’s likely that number had grown in the subsequent years. Like many small, mountain communities, Wolf Creek had thrived as self-sufficient and enterprising individuals came to realize it was their best bet for survival. The anti-government mentality, coupled with the large number of guns and lookouts, also ensured that Schultz would have the privacy he’d need. Since Montana had been so sparsely populated before the Great Chaos began, the Board also didn’t take an active interest in the former state. All of that culminated in the July 20, 2039, launch of Ganja Blue. The rocket was the third that Schultz had built, the first being Ganja – which had blown up on launch – and Ganja Red – which had to be scrapped after a group of rabid bears got into it. Those proved minor setbacks, and on that summer morning Ganja Blue launched 435 miles straight up to pierce the last layer of the exosphere, sending it into space. After that things moved quickly. Since Ganja Blue didn’t have a homing recoil, the rocket fell back to Earth, likely crashing into the Atlantic Ocean, where the Board would have noticed. Shultz had been expecting this, and had Moon Shot ready. That was the name of the rocket, orbital pod, and moon lander that Schultz had been building. Thinking that they’d be swooped down on by the Board at any moment, Schultz and John Reddy boarded Moon Shot that same day and launched themselves into space. It had taken the first men 4 days to get to the moon back in 1969, but Shultz had engineered a special fuel out of biowaste and was able to make the 238,900 mile-journey in 2 days. Once in orbit, Reddy stayed in the orbital pod while Schultz donned his homemade space suit and went down to the lunar surface in the lander. He’d studied the charts of the moon well, and had landed exactly where he’d needed to, the Picard Crater. The crater was in an area of Mare Crisium that was known to have ancient volcanoes. In less than six hours on the surface, Shultz was able to mine 2,000 pounds of gold and 500 pounds of titanium. Before the Great Chaos, gold had been selling for $1,159 an ounce, or $13,908 a pound. That all changed in the years that followed, and so by the time Schultz had blasted off from earth, gold was trading for as much as $45,000 a pound, if any buyers or sellers could be found. The Board controlled most, and that’s exactly what Schultz aimed to change. When he and Reddy arrived back on Earth two days later, they had an estimated $100 million in precious metals. At the time, most of the world was on the barter economy. Even the few “cities” that remained had probably $10,000 at the most. It was the Board the controlled the money supply, but when Herman Schultz landed back in Montana with the hardest currency there was, everything changed. The End |
Writing Blog
|