“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.

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.

Unwoven: six short stories by Jeff Posey

Buy in ebook form for $2.99 from Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, or Smashwords (in any e-format). Coming soon to other ebookstores.

This sixpack of short stories includes these titles:

1. Girl on a Rock: A disfigured girl who hides in the wilderness near Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Read the full description …

2. The One-Hundredth Goliath: A talented sculptor carves a giant Goliath to rival Michelangelo’s original David. Read the full description …

3. The Pump Jack Potion: An old prospector searches for the miracles of liquid gold. Read the full description …

4. An Invisible Man: A peeping-tom stalks a woman and her daughter, but only the daughter realizes it. Read the full description …

5. Arturo’s Brains: An artist creates the ultimate work of art that gets the mind of man on canvas. Read the full description …

6. Walk, Not Stay: A backpacker who has walked away from everything he’s ever loves finds he cannot leave the woman he’s with. Read the full description …

Includes an excerpt from The G.O.D. Journal: a search for gold, by Jeff Posey, available spring 2012.

The title, Unwoven, refers to each of these stories providing strands for my latest work, tentatively titled Annie and the Second Anasazi, due out by the end of 2012.

Miss Papa B.: a short story, by Jeff Posey

Buy in ebook form for $0.99 from Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, or Smashwords (in any e-format). Coming soon to other ebookstores.

For a mere ten grand, Miss Lilly Newcastle brought Cousin Vallee back from the dead. At least that’s what everybody else in the family thought when he appeared at Papa B.’s funeral. But Miss Lilly hired Cousin Vallee for a specific purpose. To take care of her biggest obstacle now that Papa B. is gone: Miss Lacey. Read full description …

Antone had been the star center in high school basketball, recruited by Duke. But that all fell through nearly thirty years ago when the world started going to hell. Now he laid stone in exchange for scraps of food. A grim life, maybe. But simple. Peaceful. He’d learned to master the mechanics of his long bones and the natural inclination of stone to break in certain ways. Just like his father, and his father’s brother. It had honor if not much inspiration. Until this woman showed up. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“What if you didn’t use any steel tools?” Annie asked. “What if they broke or wore down and you couldn’t replace them?”

Antone stretched his six-eleven frame without leaving his seat. “I’ve thought about that. It makes you want to work with softer stone.”

“You’ve done it?” she asked.

He nodded. “Tried a few times.” He spoke slowly, carefully, with nominal hand gestures as if they were too tired to have much to say. “Good, hard hammerstone on some friable sandstone and you can do pretty good if you’re not too picky.”

“What does it look like?”

“Basic blocks or slabs are best. Can’t do much of anything like sculpture. It’s a pretty coarse way to work.”

“Like the Anasazi bread-loaf stones?” Annie smiled at him, hoping for agreement and recognition.

Antone swung his eyes to her and smiled back. “Yes. Exactly. That’s why they made them that way. Their artistry was the placement of the stones, the courses of smaller slivers between the big bread loafs, like you say. Then they covered them with plaster and painted over them.”

Annie nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m looking for.”

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 Antone is the son of Cowtown, the sculptor of The One-Hundredth Goliath.

Carl’s Hat Wins Marathon: a short story, by Jeff Posey

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At age ninety-two, the last surviving player from Super Bowl XXI in 1987, Carl decides to win the New York Marathon or die trying.

And that’s exactly what he does. In front of the world’s cameras, he crashes to the ground, finished. But his hat doesn’t stay finished. Read the full description …

The Pump Jack Potion: a short story, by Jeff Posey

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What will petroleum be worth after we use up the easy reserves?

It’s the year 2349 and American society has remade itself to run off of sustainable energy. But they’ve also found that crude oil contains something so magical and useful it’s one of the most valuable substances on the planet. Read the full description …

Girl on a Rock: a short story, by Jeff Posey

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When Anasazi archaeologist Tucker Roth found a pretty girl in pink sitting on a rock in the wilderness north of Pagosa Springs, Colorado, he couldn’t help but worry. Such strange behavior sent a chill up his spine.

The girl, Marissa, said she wanted to hide. To sneak. To not be seen. When she finally climbed down and he saw her, he understood why. Read the full description …

Thanks, and enjoy!

Silence with background noise. The kind a city person hears in wild country. Boredom with low-grade fear. The kind a country boy feels in a subway.

“Passengers step down,” the wild man said.

She stepped, the only passenger. The sun heated her scalp, her lashless eyelids. Third toll stop. She knew the drill already. Every Centipede engineer had a rifle and kept them handy at the stops. Sometimes the wild men backed down, waved them through on a courtesy. Meant only that they felt weak just then for whatever reason. Weren’t willing to face the Centipede rifles. Sometimes they begged a modest fee with no show of force. In exchange for maintenance on the rails.

This stop felt a little different. The wild men seemed confident. Too casual.

“Hit the ground when I say so,” whispered Theo. He stayed in his segment, rifle balanced on the light railing.

Annie didn’t nod or speak, just looked for a place to duck. She could roll under Theo’s Centipede segment and then back under the platform. She readied herself.

Forty-seven men in forty-seven Centipede segments pointed forty-seven rifles at the wild men. Maybe fifty of them. None obviously armed with rifles. A few had belt pistols, none drawn.

The Train Master walked to the front of the platform from his Free Car, powered by the other segments, and approached the leader of the wild men.

“All right, what’s your toll?” he asked, wiping his nose with his sleeve. If he wiped again, the Centipede men would shoot.

“Toll? There’s no toll,” said the chief wild man. His long hair looked naturally dreadlocked and his yellow teeth were rimmed in black fuzz.

“What do you mean?” asked the Train Master.

“Track’s out.” The wild man grinned.

“Then you and your filthy-bugger friends get out there and fix it! That’s why we pay our tolls!”

The wild man chief laughed. “Broke rail. Can’t fix it.”

“Then why in hell didn’t you call a request back for a new one? The Fort Worth yard has stacks of them.”

“Talk line is dead.”

“You’re not the head man last time I went through here. Who are you?”

“New head man.” He grinned again.

“So what is it you want, Mr. Head Man?”

“Everything. And the girl. Especially the girl.” That grin again.

“Are you brave or stupid?”

“I think maybe brave.” He grinned again. “And stupid.” A shot rang out and a slug to the chest knocked the Train Master back against the Free Car. The next shot, from a Centipede man, took the top of the head wild man’s head off.

Annie dropped to the gravel bed below the train and rolled into darkness under the boards. Shooting erupted from all sides. Slugs splintered wood, slammed into rails, pinged on the metal of the Centipede segments. Men cried out. The shooting stopped. Smoke drifted through the slanted light across the rail cars.

When Annie peeked, she saw more human meat and gristle and bones than she’d ever seen or imagined. She retched into the gravel while Theo watched her.

“Got five of ’em,” he said, and then he went off with a greasy burlap sack to get his share of plunder.

This is exploratory flash fiction for my work-in-progress, tentatively titled Annie and the Second Anasazi, 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 Theo is the son of Sean and Kira from Anasazi Runner. Annie is the daughter of Tucker and Lydia Roth of Girl on a Rock.

Carl’s Hat Wins Marathon: a short story, by Jeff Posey

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Buy on Smashwords for $0.99 free through May 15! (in any e-format)

At age ninety-two, the last surviving player from Super Bowl XXI in 1987, Carl decides to win the New York Marathon or die trying.

And that’s exactly what he does. In front of the world’s cameras, he crashes to the ground, finished. But his hat doesn’t stay finished. Runner after runner picks it up and relays it to the front-runners, where a battle of epic proportion ensues to get Carl’s hat across the finish line first.

It’s a tale that will warm your heart while it hurts your knees and rips out your lungs. But it proves that, even in a future largely devoid of honor, it still remains among the world-class elite runners who do the impossible every time they take the field.

Includes an excerpt from Anasazi Runner: a novel of identity and speed, by Jeff Posey.

Categories

Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Sports

Literature & Fiction > Short Stories

Search Terms

Marathon, New York marathon, running, super bowl XXI, Lawrence Taylor, professional football, honor

RSS (Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis)

A famous old man attempts to run the New York Marathon, only to take his final fall, and the other runners relay his hat across the finish line in first place.

From the Author

Running fascinates me. It can be a metaphor for almost anything.

Do I really think a ninety-year-old with high-tech knee replacements can actually compete in a world-class marathon? Nope.

But I do believe the human body, fired by desire that transcends the limits of physical ability, can do unimaginable things. Such as giving a final death-rattle lurch to the forefront of a marathon, only to crash and die in a heap. Or relay a hat to the front of the field.

I’m also struck by honor on the field of sports, most commonly seen in such venues as the Tour de France bicycle race of years past when the whole field would slow if the leader had, for example, a chain come off or needed a bio break.  We seem to see less and less of it these days, but among those who compete at the top of their game there is a sense of respect and honor that few of us can understand or recognize.

Besides. It’s kind of cool for a hat to win a marathon.

Characters

Carl: The last surviving participant of Super Bowl XXI. Overshadowed only by Lawrence Taylor, his teammate, when they won the 1987 Super Bowl. In his later years, he became a running celebrity with his own TV show.

Walter Cabrezza: A Spanish runner with a strong root into the Basque culture.

Samuel Bambosa: An African runner inspired by Carl.

Tim Teebow: An American runner from New Jersey who runs the race of his life to get Carl’s hat to the front.

Quotations

I’d already decided to feel no pain. Wouldn’t allow it. Not today. Never again, maybe. Screaming knees? Death-rattling lungs? Sorry. Can’t hear you. —Carl

I didn’t expect to feel the hand of death reach up from below, like a magnified force of gravity that first reaches my bowels, then my lungs, then the base of my skull. I lose control somewhere. I knew, had known all my life, that I would crash. —Carl

Setting

New York City

Themes & Symbolism

Honor: Sometimes there’s more at stake than merely winning.

About Author

Jeff Posey has a geology degree and worked as a petroleum geologist before he discovered the world of words. Since then, he’s been city editor of a metropolitan magazine, fiction editor for a national magazine, and then stumbled on his own ignorance: about business. So he earned an MBA, thinking that would solve everything. It didn’t. Now, after being laid off from corporate America too many times to be comfortable, he writes short stories and novels, most of them inspired by his nearly two decades of research and fascination with ancient Southwest cultures (mainly the good ol’ Anasazi). You’ll see allusions to the ancient ones in all of his work, which he thinks is rather like a huge meta-novel in progress.

Copyright

Cover illustration of old man in hat can be found here, copyright David M. Goehring via CarbonNYC on Flickr. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

Annie appeared out of the sudden madhouse of Fort Worth and asked Theo to take her west. New Mexico. Colorado. She didn’t care. Even El Paso or Amarillo.

“Going to Albuquerque,” said Theo, his voice emotionless and gruff.

“How much?” she asked.

He stopped greasing the wheels on his Centipede Train section and looked at her. That affected his decision. Pretty face. Dirty, but not yet beaten by sun and wind and life. She wore good street clothes that hid her shape. Her fingernails looked manicured as recently as a month or so. She seemed like someone trying to appear to be normal, which is to say desperate. “I ain’t selling tickets, little girl,” he said. Good-looking young women were magnets for trouble. He didn’t need that. But he sure did like her face. For a white girl.

“Ten thousand,” she said.

He ignored her and continued working. The train would leave in an hour or so when the sun angled high enough.

“Twenty-five thousand,” Annie said.

Theo sat up. He pointed at a box wedged into a narrow strip of the carriage platform suspended with wires between the solar canopy and the bicycle wheel rims that rolled on the rail. A heavy bank of batteries rode beneath the carriage platform and gears and bicycle chains ran to an electric motor. Like most Centipede sections it had been home-built and re-built, jerry-rigged and repaired until no two sections looked alike. Each owner, mostly men, maintained and lived on them. The only commonality were their grips fore and aft that allowed them to join into long Centipede Trains that were the slowest way to travel long distances. Three hooped metal bars bulged from one side so two men, or one strong one, could roll the section off the track if a government train came at them.

“Girlie,” Theo said, still pointing, “see that little box riding in the carriage there?”

Annie nodded.

“I get ten grand just for getting that to Abilene.”

Annie grimaced. She knew about prices. Just last month she authorized raising the price of a liter of Patron añejo tequila to more than a thousand dollars. She didn’t understand how people would afford to pay, but plenty did.

“A hundred grand,” she said. She had almost five million stuffed into her worn rucksack beneath dirty clothes and a false bottom.

Theo looked at her a few moments, then shook his head and winked. “Girlie, how about for a quarter-million, I’ll clear the whole damned platform for you all the way to Albuquerque, and I’ll even feed you. They call me the Centipede gourmet. We’ll fatten you up a bit before we get there.” He laughed, sure he had over-priced her, and went back to greasing his wheels.

A few minutes later, Annie stood beside his section again. “Excuse me,” she said.

Theo sniffed and crawled out from underneath. Annie handed him a stack of bills, crisp and banded. He wiped his hands on a filthy rag and took the money, counted it, then looked at her.

“It’s almost everything I have,” she lied.

“Why the hell you want to get to Albuquerque so bad, Lady?”

She looked left and right, shrugged. “It’s not good here anymore.”

“It ain’t any better in Albuquerque. Whole world’s going to hell.”

“But I have to find somebody.”

“Ah. Boyfriend? Mamma?”

“I don’t know him. My father knew him. Told me to find him.”

He eyed her, scratched under his arms, finally nodded. “He’s in Albuquerque?”

“Pagosa Springs. That’s in ….”

“Colorado. I know it. Grew up there.”

“You did?”

He nodded. “What’s your man’s name?”

She looked down. Turned her head.

“Secret, eh? Well then, who’s your Daddy?”

“Roth. Tucker Roth.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. Science teacher there in Pagosa. Best teacher I ever had. About everybody liked him. Married a woman with a burned face.” He looked at her a moment. “That wouldn’t be your mother, would it?”

She nodded.

“Well I’m damned. I remember Mr. Roth had a daughter. Angela?”

“Annie.”

“That’s right, Annie. You’re Annie? Ha!” He reached out his hand and shook hers.

“So who’s this guy your father knew?”

She looked aside again.

“Maybe I know him.”

She sighed. “Serles. Samuel Langhorne Serles.”

“Well I’m damned again. I graduated a year ahead of him. Smartest son-bitch Pagosa probably ever had. I remember your father liked him a lot.”

“Do you know where he is? Is he still in Pagosa?”

“That I don’t know, Little Lady. But I expect you can find something about him there. People will remember Mr. Roth, and they’ll tell you.”

“So would my father know you?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. He would. Nobody forgets this Eskimo face in Pagosa.”

“Are you? Are you the son of that Anasazi Runner guy?”

He nodded again. “Theo,” he said. “Theo O’Brien.”

“Do your parents still live there?”

“Nope. Burbank, California.”

“You ever go back?”

“No reason.”

“But you’ll take me?”

“Albuquerque, lady, Albuquerque. No Centipede line goes to Pagosa.” He looked at the money in his hand and shook his head. “This is too much. Just give me a hundred.”

“But we agreed.”

“Nope. Didn’t.”

“But ….”

“Food’s on you. Can you cook?”

“Well, not really.”

“Then you’ll just have to learn, won’t you?” He dropped to his hands and knees and rolled back beneath his section.

This is exploratory flash fiction for my work-in-progress, tentatively titled Annie and the Second Anasazi, 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 Samuel Langhorne Serles is the inventor of the Serles Sheet mentioned in The Pump Jack Potion, and the backpacker in Walk, Not Stay. Also, Annie is the daughter of Tucker and Lydia Roth of Girl on a Rock.

Helicopters pounded the air and everyone scattered. Annie didn’t know what to do and hesitated.

“Annie!” Serles shouted. “Over here!” She heard but couldn’t locate him and turned her head in the wrong direction.

The four helicopters surrounded her, their ferocious weapons covering her in an overlapping extreme overkill zone.

“Annie,” a voice said over a loudspeaker. She recognized the voice at the same time she wondered how she heard it over the din of the blades.

“Annie,” Reagan Newcastle said again. “I’m not in any of the machines. I’m back home in Fort Worth, where you should be. But I can see you. And you can hear me.”

Annie stood her ground, turning from one copter to the other, each hovering twenty feet off the ground. A dust storm obliterated the view beyond the flying machines, the peaceful desert morning ruined. But the initial rush of fear left her. Reagan Newcastle would never hurt her. She was his only weakness. It made her smile. That meant she had a chance to escape.

“One of the helicopters is going to land, Annie. I want you to get inside it. We won’t hurt any of the others there with you if you come along peacefully.”

Annie saw a figure emerge from the dust coming toward her. She recognized the way he walked. Serles. The copters reacted, flew up like scattered insects, then reformed with both Serles and Annie in the strike zone.

Serles continued to walk toward Annie. She felt her hands and jaw clench. Surely they wouldn’t shoot him down in front of her.

“Stop that man!” Newcastle cried.

Rapid chest-thumping fire erupted. Bursts of sand exploded between Annie and Serles, who ran, collided with Annie, pulled her two steps away to a solid metal hatch in the ground that opened. Serles threw Annie down the shaft so hard her teeth clattered. The hatch closed with a hissing sound. The pounding of helicopters and the chatter of machine gun fire became muted. They heard a soft explosion overhead. Then another.

“Missiles,” Serles said, wrapping an arm around Annie’s waist. “I guess Reagan Newcastle wants you dead or alive now.”

“What is this place?” Annie asked.

“Old nuclear missile site. Luther used to work here. He knows how to stop the helicopters.”

Annie looked at him, dust covering his curly hair, two days’ growth of beard. He’s the only man she’d ever met who kept her full attention every time she looked at him. She’d nearly fainted when the shooting started and she thought he would die.

“Listen,” Serles said.

She heard only silence. The helicopters. She no longer heard them. “Where did they go?” she whispered. The silence seemed overwhelming.

“They took a little fall.” He smiled. His teeth and the whites of his eyes gleamed in the dim light.

“How?”

“Luther and his bag of tricks. Some kind of electromotive pulse. Knocks out everything electronic for, I dunno, a mile or so I guess.”

Annie nodded. That wouldn’t stop Reagan Newcastle. It would enrage him. Not the loss of his men, which saddened her. People were expendable to him. But the loss of four helicopters. It would make it harder for him to get close to her again. He wouldn’t likely risk losing so much next time. No. Next time, he would be much more sneaky.

This is exploratory flash fiction for my work-in-progress, tentatively titled Annie and the Second Anasazi, about a migration of intellectuals into the deserts of New Mexico after the great disruption (see Gilding) 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 South.

Walk, Not Run: a short story, by Jeff Posey

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Samuel Langhorne Serles lived up to his name by being curious about everything to the point that he never developed a direction to his life. He loved the philosophical realms of science and math, but he loved solo backpacking along the Rocky Mountain spine even more. Read the full description …

An Invisible Man: a short story, by Jeff Posey

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He waited outside the window until he saw what he wanted. What he needed. What he felt entitled to. Read the full description …

Arturo’s Brains: a short story, by Jeff Posey

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Buy on Smashwords for $0.99 free through March 15 April 15! (any e-format)

Despite his powerful heritage that linked him to the Aztecs of Central Mexico, even the Anasazi of ancient New Mexico, Arturo was a desperate man. He hadn’t had paying work in months.

When Erik approached him, Arturo saw the warning signs. An aura of violent colors around the man burned like the fires of Hell. Read the full description …