That Long Delayed Fourth Writing Snippet...
Every writer says, "Oh, I'm working on a novel."
Me, too.
Pathetic, really, to be such a stereotypical part-time scribbler, but real life keeps popping up. Someday, the ball will roll the right way, and I'll finish it.
Until then, here's the fourth snippet of my book. Strong language, but you probably already knew that, if you've read the other sections.
For other snippets, click here.
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WAXAHACHIE,
TEXAS
Deputy
Tom Betts called his location to Control, the small dispatch phone
center in the back annex building of the police station. It was his
first call of the shift, and it was the type he hated most:
domestics. He opened his patrol car door, stepping out to see Jenny
Rae Simmons standing on her trailer's front steps with one hell of a
shiner over her left eye. Troy must have not have given a shit
about that restraining order. A pair of small dogs were barking
through the baby gate in the trailer's kicked-in front door.
“He's
not here, you know. He took off with my Daddy's truck.”
“Who's
not here, Miss Simmons?”
“The
motherfucker who did this, who'd ya think?” she said as she pointed
to her eye. The blonde-haired baby she was holding started to fuss
from the noise of the dogs, and she bounced him on her hip to quiet
him.
It
was a cool day, and the wind made the willows next to the dilapidated
trailer swish and stir. A hum built in the air, at first in harmony
with the whispering from the willows, then overpowering it. Deputy
Betts began to squint, as if some annoying insect was buzzing in his
ear. The dogs' barks turned to pained whines.
A
white flash from the north drew his attention from Jenny Rae, and
then everything started to smoke and smolder all around him. The
light grew brighter. He looked at Jenny Rae, her baby trying to
burrow into her shoulder as the heat in the air jumped. The light
grew even brighter, even through closed eyelids. The baby started to
scream as Jenny Rae tried to shelter it, turning her back towards the
onrushing heat. Jenny, the baby, and the dogs burst into flames as
he brought his hands up to cover his eyes.
Tom
Betts's entire world went from a routine call on a domestic abuse
report to blinding fire and pain. Now, every fiber of his being,
every muscle, every bone, every joint, felt like it was being pinned
by an invisible hand to a white-hot stove top. His uniform, his gun
belt, even the oversized revolver his Daddy gave him, all burned
away. His skin was gone, peeled away by the incandescent light. The
light was everywhere, now. There was no escape.
He
felt a massive gust of wind pick him up. He grasped and clawed as he
tumbled through the molten air, propelled by gusts far stronger than
any hurricane or tornado. He crashed to the ground, the last cool
breath of air driven from his lungs by the impact. The shockwave of
heat roared past him, the ground split and sizzling all around him.
He managed to get out only squeals and grunts as he stood to his feet
with a madman's panic. The initial burn had been a shock, but his
nervous system was still intact, and sent every report it could, at
once, to his brain.
The
flood of pain overwhelmed him. He needed to breath. He wanted to
die. He craved oxygen. He didn't want to bring that heat into his
lungs. Something told him to hold out, to keep the outside air at
bay, but he couldn't fight it any longer.
He
drew a deep breath of pure, fiery pain. The agony of inhaling the
superheated air forced him bellow it out the instant he took it in,
but he was forced to keep repeating the cycle, over and over again.
He rubbed his eyes, as if to push the pain out of his skull, but felt
like he was grinding hot cinders into his eye sockets.
He
continued to breath the pain in, scream the pain out, his limbs
flopping and clawing patterns in the orange and red cinders around
him. Time seemed to slow, then stop. The volume of the agony was
starting to fade, or he was growing used to it. Or his nerve endings
were cooked away. Or he was finally dying, thank God. It didn't
really matter, at this point, as long as it ended.
Betts'
vision cleared, bit by bit, though his ears still blocked out
everything except his heartbeat and a keening whine. His nose was
there. He checked. It wasn't working, yet, but that was the least
of his worries.
He
saw his burned, cracked flesh start to flow and smooth over, the
blackened portions fading away, returning to his normal fair hue. He
turned his hand over, looking now at the palm. The pain and burning
were gone. He could tell the air was nothing but flame and ash, but
he could still breathe. He could still think. Had the flash been a
nuke? Was he dead? Was this the lake of fire Reverend Potter
preached about, all those years ago?
It
wasn't hell, but it was close. The wind was still blowing, carrying
embers and flame. The scorched landscape was now charred, treeless,
and barren. There wasn't rubble or burned-out cars, or anything else
he had seen from nuclear strikes in the movies. Everything was gone:
Jenny Rae's trailer, his car, his clothes and gun. The Ellis county
courthouse. The water towers. Even the lakes looked like they had
boiled away. Everything that once was Waxahachie, Texas, and maybe
even farther than that, was now just a howling vision of hell.
Tom
Betts stood, and was uneasy on his feet. Nothing seemed real. His
skin was whole, uninjured, and the pain faded from the burns that
once covered him from head to toe. He was standing barefoot in
flames and blackened earth, but felt only the faintest tingle of
heat. His senses and movements were now out of proportion, like he
was stretched or pulled out of shape. He touched his face, and it
felt like he was wearing an oversized mask. The sensation coming
through his fingertips was almost wooden, like his arms and legs were
asleep.
The
sea of flames surrounding him died out as every last bit of fuel was
consumed. Now it was just ash and embers. The wind lost its fury,
and the darkness cleared for a moment. An island of sunlight shone
through on an area to the north. The ground there was still barren
and featureless, as if it were scraped clean, but it was unburned,
unblackened. The wind picked back up, and like a mirage in the
desert, it disappeared from view.
A
puzzled look came over his face, and he started staggering in the
direction of the uncertain vision. A wave of nausea passed over him.
He fell to one knee and threw up. His body felt numb, and he passed
in and out of consciousness, small puffs of ash rising from his
breath as he lay face-first in the burned-out sand.
The
next few hours were a nightmarish blur of crawling and vomiting,
vomiting and crawling, mixed with bouts of unconsciousness. Tom
Betts continued in this pattern until nothing came up at all, just
dry wretches and consuming darkness. The oppressive heat evaporated
the perspiration from his body, but not before it mixed with the
powdered silt and ash, leaving him covered in mud and caked embers.
The
wind filled with the sound of whirling blades. Rescue
helicopters. Thank God. The last of his strength was
gone. The ground beneath him now was different, though he couldn't
remember when the transition happened. It must be the mirage he saw
before, through the fires. The ground was sandy, with small pieces
of greenish and black glass or crystal mixed into it. It took an
effort to bring his head up and look around. He saw that it was an
area about a mile in diameter, with what looked like a pair of
statues in the distant center of the circle.
There
was no heat like the burned area he had crawled through. It was
cool, almost luxurious after his recent ordeal, and he rolled on to
his back with a groan. A Blackhawk helicopter roared overhead,
landing just a short distance from the statues a half-mile away. He
reached for it, trying to signal as best as he could, but the
personnel aboard must not have seen him. He fought off another wave
of dry retching, and brought himself to his feet. Help was just a
little bit away, and he wasn't going to get there by just crawling.
Footstep
after sickened footstep, Tom Betts lurched closer. He could see
people in full environmental gear jump from the side doors of the
helicopter. They were in puffy yellow coveralls with black
backpacks. They were surveying the ground, taking samples,
photographs, sweeping it with metal detectors and other things Tom
didn't recognize. They began to establish a cordon around the two
statues.
Tom
continued to plod on. He could see that the gray sculptures looked
like a pair of gigantic wrestlers or warriors locked in combat. They
were situated atop a rock-encrusted steel platform that was rusting
and warped in spots.
Two
more Blackhawks landed on the far side of the statues, disgorging
crewmen in protective outfits similar to the first. So far, they
hadn't noticed him making his way towards them. A pair of suited
figures from the first helicopter were setting up a camera on a
tripod. When they tried to mount the camera on top of it, one leg
buckled, sending the tripod on its side in the glassy sand. The
camera operator bent over to pick up the support rig, saw him, and
froze. He motioned to his partner, who turned and saw Betts. The
figure's startled body language conveyed surprise even through the
balloon-like suit.
Tom
drew closer, almost within a hundred yards of the statues, and saw
that the responding personnel were wearing scuba masks under the
environmental outfits. The sky darkened as another helicopter landed
between him and the statues. The sand and glass peppered him, but
there was no stinging pain. He also remembered Army Blackhawks as
being huge. Even though it this one was only yards away, it seemed
smaller for some reason. Weird, he
thought to himself.
Men
in yellow bubble suits and oxygen tanks on their back jumped from the
doors of this new Blackhawk, but they were armed with military rifles
instead of scientific gear. Two of them had under-barrel grenade
launchers and vests full of 40mm projectiles.
A
crescent of armed soldiers formed a perimeter around him. He
wondered why they were all so short. Naked and covered in
sweat-caked ash, he must have been quite the sight to them. Their
wide eyes looked up at him, and to each other. They were talking to
each other, probably over radios inside their masks, but he couldn't
hear anything over the noise of the Blackhawk. A taller suited
figure stepped from the helicopter, and slipped between two soldiers.
He motioned for them to lower their weapons, which most of them did.
The
transparent plastic front of the suit showed that this taller man was
older. He was probably their commanding officer, or at least in
charge of something more than a rifle. He produced a small clipboard
with a white piece of plastic on the back. He wrote on it with a
dry-erase marker.
“Who
R U? Got ID?” was the question in hurried handwriting.
Tom
scowled. ID? What the fuck does this guy think, that I have my
atomic bomb-proof wallet wedged in my ass crack? I'm naked, for
fuck's sake.
Betts
leaned into the man, who had seemed taller from a distance, and
shouted over the whine and repetitive thumping of the helicopter
blades, “My name is Tom Betts. I'm a cop. What the hell happened?
Was it a nuke?” Betts fought back a heaving stomach, and steadied
himself by putting his hands on his knees and stooping over.
The
officer held up a finger as he listened to a transmission in his ear.
He nodded his head in agreement with the unheard voice, and turned
to the troops behind him. He gave them a thumbs-up, and pulled the
zipper pull tab from his shoulder, unsealing his suit.
"Doff
your Level A's, men. Radiation Control says we're in the hottest
zone of anything we've scanned, and it's not that bad. Lots of
Trinitite, lots of alpha and beta, but the gamma-producing isotopes
have half-lifed away in this zone. Just don't scoop up a handful and
eat it."
He
turned to Betts, who stood up. The officer stepped back as Betts
drew up to his full height. Two of the soldiers brought their rifle
barrels back up. "I'm Lieutenant Colonel Dennison, U.S. Army,
out of Fort Hood. Are you alone? Have you seen anyone else out
there?”
Tom
shook his head as another wave of nausea hammered at him.
“Jesus,
you're a big one. What are you, six foot, ten? Seven foot? What'd
you say your name was? 'Best?'"
"Betts.
What do you mean, 'you're a big one?' I'm five foot, nine. I'm the
runt of the family, Colonel."
"Son,
don't bullshit a bullshitter. I think the heat and all this other
shit's gotten to you. Let's get you in the Blackhawk and back to
base. Master Sergeant, you're with me. Detail the rest of the men
to assist with the research bunnies. Also, get 'Mr. Runt' here a
blanket. I don't need to see any more swinging meat today, thank you
very much."
Lt.
Colonel Dennison's senior enlisted soldier, Master Sergeant Rice,
nodded to the nearest soldier with a rifle. The soldier trotted back
to the Blackhawk helicopter, and retrieved an olive green blanket.
Betts wrapped it around his waist. It looked like a miniskirt.
Betts
choked down the urge to puke, and put his hand on the officer's
shoulder. He noticed that his hand looked huge compared to the man's
upper torso. "Wait a minute, Colonel. What the hell is going
on? What happened here? Some kind of bomb?"
"We
don't know much at this point, Betts. You're standing in the middle
of what's left of the whole fucking Dallas-Forth Worth Metroplex.
Everything's gone. Everything that's not gone is on fire for miles
around.
"Now,
kindly pull that big mitt off of me, son. We need to figure out how
you ended up being the only living soul we've seen in this whole
god-forsaken shitstorm."
They
escorted Tom Betts back to the helicopter. He tried to duck to clear
the rotor blades, and became dizzy. As he came alongside the sliding
side door of the Blackhawk, he staggered, and went to one knee. The
Master Sergeant and Colonel both couldn't get him back to his feet,
even with both men pulling as hard as they could. Betts put a
massive hand out, grasping the top of the door frame, and brought
himself back to a semi-upright position.
The
helicopter's crew chief became quite agitated upon seeing the giant
man's hand crumple the reinforced airframe like paper.
Betts
pulled his hand back in bewilderment. He had to fold himself like a
jackknife to fit in the passenger hold, and seemed to fill the entire
space.
"Jesus,
Colonel, couldn't you find a bigger guy than this one?" asked
the craft's pilot over the radio headset.
"Get
us back to base, Smitty. The brass are going to want to see this
one," Dennison said.
"Roger
that, sir."
The
Army helicopter's twin engines screamed, throttling hard to claw into
the heated air. Laboring under its new heavy cargo, the aircraft
banked and headed west to clear the smoke from the scorched
devastation, then south to Fort Hood. Tom Betts sat against the rear
bulkhead of the helicopter's main compartment. Colonel Dennison and
Master Sergeant Rice took rear-facing jump seats, while the crew
chief continued to bitch about his newly-wrinkled aircraft. That
wasn't going to buff out.
Betts
kept looking at his hand, waving the sausage-like fingers in front of
his face, as if in a trance. The Colonel and Master Sergeant
exchanged a smirk, and both shook their heads in mutual agreement:
There was going to be a lot of paperwork and extraneous bullshit
involved in this one. Damn it.
* * * * *
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