Jeff Posey

A flash fiction piece in preparation for my novel tentatively titled Annie and the Second Anasazi, scheduled for publication in late 2012. Sign up for notification by email here.

“It’s God’s will!” Reagan Newcastle paced while Zoop’s head tracked him back and forth. “That’s why you’ve got to take care of him. God no longer wishes him to exist.”

Zoop didn’t mind killing. Since the troubles began, he felt liberated to do unto others before they did unto him. But he didn’t believe any man knew the mind or intent of God. He had an uncle who believed not only that he knew God, but that he was God, a holy equivalent to Jesus Christ. Because Uncle Oliver was a stock market genius, he got away with all sorts of outlandish and atrocious things. But he set himself up once too often as judge and jury out on his annual elk-hunting expeditions, and he’d spent a final few miserable years in prison. The left hand of God had proven to be nearly as tragic, and not nearly as symbolic, as the son that had risen to the right hand. Zoop tended to think humans were more animal than divine, and that the plans of God remained shrouded in mystery. That made him question the motives of everyone, particularly the rabidly religious, at the same time he felt justified aligning with them when they managed to build enough military and economic power to eclipse even the government. Zoop could spot a winner. And jump quickly.

“What did he do?” Zoop asked. It mattered. For enough money, he would put that concern aside, but his uncle Oliver had taught him the price of merely taking the word of a lunatic god.

“What difference does it make?” asked Newscastle.

“No good reason costs you more.”

“How much more?”

“A lot.”

“You shouldn’t risk the ire of God.”

“What did he do?”

Newcastle chewed his lip and paced with renewed fervor.

“He may as well have violated the Virgin Mary,” Newcastle said. “He’s having sex with my Annie.”

Ah, thought Zoop. It’s not God who has been violated; it’s the sexual ego of Reagan Newcastle.

“Has Miss Annie resisted?”

“She resists me!” Newcastle made a fist that Zoop knew the man would never use. “The Devil has put scales over her eyes. We must protect her!”

“By killing her lover?”

“God sometimes demands terrible things.”

“A quarter-million,” said Zoop.

“A quarter-million! The coffers of God are not to be squandered!” Newcastle stopped pacing long enough to pound his desk. “I could hire a dozen street thugs to do it for a few hundred.”

Zoop nodded and got up from his seat to leave.

“Wait,” said Newcastle. “I want it to look like the hand of God smote him. Can you do that?”

Zoop imagined the man’s body becoming a pile of smoking ashes in a single strike of lightning. “Define ‘smote’ for me.”

“Can you crucify him? On a cross? On a hill? With a sign at his feet that says, ‘For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge’? I want him to suffer. For a few days. Like the thieves on Golgotha. Not like the Christ. You understand the difference?”

Zoop shrugged. “No nails?”

“And no crown of thorns.”

Zoop calculated the extra trouble. But he also saw the added value of such a visible form of advertising for his services. It would certainly mean more business for him from the various factions of mega-churches battling for territory and dominance. One of them might even pay him to nail Newcastle to a cross. He would enjoy that. Might even do it for free. To Newcastle, he nodded. “Yeah. I can do that.”

“Same price?”

Zoop nodded.

“Good,” said Newcastle, rubbing his hands together. “That will teach her to keep her legs together.”

“Payment up front.”

“Half now. Half when the fornicator is on display and dead.”

Zoop nodded, distracted by imagining which hill would be best for his New Golgotha. Perhaps he could find a few more buyers to make the spectacle more dramatic. Maybe even throw in a witch burning or two. He kept nodding. This could be a whole new beginning for him. The birth of New Golgotha Enterprises. Uncle Oliver would be proud.

Annie and the Second Anasazi is about a migration of intellectuals into the deserts of New Mexico where people live like the ancient ones because of changing climate coupled with an intolerable mix of politics and religion that rises in the cities of the American South. Note that Zoop is the genetic nephew of Mr. Haymer (a.k.a. Ball Peen) from the upcoming novel, The G.O.D. Journal, but that his symbolic uncle is Gordon Oliver Dodge, the stock market guru mentioned. Annie is the daughter of Tucker and Lydia Roth of Girl on a Rock.

A flash fiction piece in preparation for my novel tentatively titled Annie and the Second Anasazi, scheduled for publication in late 2012. Sign up for notification by email here.

Reagan Newcastle stood at his picture window overlooking downtown Dallas, the high-rises of Fort Worth hazy in the distance to the west. His mind churned as it did most of the time. As the government collapsed and shrank, Newcastle’s company, 2G Inc., stepped in to fill the gap.

It had been a brilliant idea, one he could not take credit for. The spark originally floated at a secure breakfast for the Fellowship of Christian Leaders from the man who later became a two-term president of the United States: global warming and climate change, he’d said, would give Christian organizations the perfect opportunity to exert greater influence on political leaders, and reduce government interference in business and churches.

Reagan Newcastle loved the speech and began the machinations that brought him, twenty years later, to the role of CEO of 2G Inc., majority owner of every mega-church in Texas (El Paso being the lone major exception, it being ruled by heathens), and another dozen in neighboring states to the east. To the righteous, he preached the benefits of 2G — “To God,” he said. To the secular socialists, he preached the benefits of 2G — “Second Government.”

Dallas-Fort Worth had been pretty well locked up for a decade, their leaders and citizens easy pickings for 2G’s religious-conservative leanings. All Newcastle had to say was “God” and “smaller government” in the same sentence and their barriers went down. And, of course, they loved his name. Reagan. Father of the revolution to take American government from the hands of the electorate and bureaucrats, and put them into the hands of God-loving business and military leaders. When the president of the United States visited Texas, the first appointment he made was with Reagan Newcastle. In fact, the president was scheduled to visit in six weeks. Before that happened, Newcastle wanted to rid North Texas of its last embarrassing business owner, that flamboyant woman who dressed like a prostitute. The woman the whole world knew simply as Annie. Her face and costume were recognized even in Russia. Newcastle intended to shut her down. In spite of the healthy cash flow her business “donated” to the coffers of 2G.

What made it worse — he knew Annie in her high school and college days. Her father had given Newcastle his first financial backing, before 2G. Before the rise of the righteous cause. Before the world started its correction from the sins of sex, drugs, and liquor.

He allowed himself the recurring daydream of reforming Annie and making her his trophy wife. His redeemed Mary, whore of Magdalena. God would be pleased. His board of mega-church pastors would be shocked. The conservative political movers and shakers would be awed. And he would finally be satiated by Annie’s body. He smiled. Annie. All his.

Newcastle pressed a button for his director of security, a man called Zoop. His initials. Zebulon Orson Oliver Pike. A man whose cruelty was exceeded only by his devotion to God and Newcastle.

“Yes, sir,” Zoop said, standing with his hands clasped in front of him. He wore a baggy suit that Newcastle knew bristled with more weapons than he cared to know about.

“It’s time we step up the pressure on Miss Annie,” Newcastle said.

“Yes, sir,” said Zoop with a grin.

Annie and the Second Anasazi is about a migration of intellectuals into the deserts of New Mexico where people live like the ancient ones because of changing climate coupled with an intolerable mix of politics and religion that rises in the cities of the American South. Note that Zoop is the nephew of Mr. Haymer (a.k.a. Ball Peen) from the upcoming novel, The G.O.D. Journal. Annie, of course, is the daughter of Tucker and Lydia Roth of Girl on a Rock.