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  RED PALM

  by

  Weston Ochse

  RED PALM

  Weston Ochse

  Red Palm, 1.0

  Of Apocalypse Weird

  Copyright © 2015 Weston Ochse and Wonderment Media

  All rights reserved. No portion of this work may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in reviews, without the written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, events, locales or organizations are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are imaginary, and any resemblance to actual places, events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First Edition

  Published by Wonderment Media Corporation

  Cover Design by Michael Corley

  http://www.mscorley.com

  Editing by Ellen Campbell

  Formatting by Polgarus Studio

  Dedicated

  to

  Rod Serling,

  the first person to show me

  that weird was cool

  About the Author

  Weston Ochse is the author of more than twenty books, most recently SEAL Team 666 and its sequels Age of Blood and Reign of Evil, which the New York Post called 'required reading' and USA Today placed on their 'New and Notable Lists'. His best- selling alien invasion novel, Grunt Life, has been internationally lauded for its treatment and portrayal of PTSD sufferers and its positive themes. His first novel, Scarecrow Gods, won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in First Novel and his short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work has appeared in comic books, and magazines such as Cemetery Dance and Soldier of Fortune. He lives in the Arizona desert within rock throwing distance of Mexico. He is a military veteran with 30 years of military service and currently returned from a deployment to Afghanistan. Visit him online at www.westonochse.com and consider becoming an FOW (Friend of Weston).

  Prologue

  Yermo, California. Lance Corporal Jarrod Knighton liked the nights in the desert the very best. Not only were they a cool solace after surviving the furnace of the day, but beneath the cloudless desert sky the bright swath of the Milky Way created a sense of reverence as if this place were a church instead of an old military bunker complex in the middle of hell’s half acre. He crunched the beer can in his hand, tossed it into the plastic bag, and pulled out another. He’d downed the first one and now took his time with this one. Although it was already sweating away its cold lusciousness, it still held the taste that made suffering through another Marine Corps day worth it.

  Not that he didn’t like being a marine.

  That was far from it.

  No, what he hated was that he was stuck at Yermo. He’d never heard of the place when he’d gotten his orders at Lejeune. He’d hoped to be a West Coast marine and either be stationed at Camp Pendleton or forward positioned in Okinawa. The idea of seeing the Pacific Ocean, even from the deck of a carrier, had been one of the reasons he’d joined the marines in the first place. Until Lejeune, he’d never even been out of Ohio.

  Evidently the joke had been on him. Sure, he was a West Coast marine. But he couldn’t be farther away from the ocean than he was now. Thirteen miles to Barstow and another twenty to Death Valley, he worked a railhead and a series of logistical bunkers so visiting army units could train at Fort Irwin and so that the marines lucky enough to be stationed at Twentynine Palms could have equipment to train on. His days were filled with the minutiae of inventories and loading and offloading the daily trains—back breaking, mind numbing and thankless.

  And today had been a lugubrious day if there was any other. Two members of his squad had been reassigned to positions in Okinawa, positions which were announced when he’d been away at his mother’s funeral and required short notice to fill. Had he not been away he would have been chosen to leave this hellhole. So now the funeral not only represented the loss of his mother, but also the loss of his only opportunity to leave.

  He watched a wisp of fog rise from the ground and dance across the desert floor. Swirling along the ground like a miniature tornado, it swung around a Joshua tree, then hovered a few feet above the ground.

  He took a sip of beer and wiped at his tired eyes, but the vision stayed. He glanced around to see if there were any others, but this was the sole piece of fog. It looked as if someone had pulled down a handful of the whiteness of the Milky Way and rested it in mid-air.

  He had no choice but to investigate it.

  He stood, the bag of beer in one hand, a half a can in the other.

  A car door slammed from somewhere nearby.

  A woman screamed obscenities off in the distance, probably one of the townie girls who’d been promised a life outside of Yermo just so a young marine could count her as a conquest.

  Other than that there wasn’t a sound.

  He walked twenty feet to his left, then returned to his original spot and walked twenty feet to his right. The cone shaped fog still remained.

  He chuckled to himself. Either he was just too tired or maybe he was going crazy. There wasn’t fog in the desert was there? Wasn’t the very nature of fog linked with moisture? If there was one thing the Mohave Desert didn’t have it was moisture.

  He moved towards it, then stopped as the fog seemed to move away from him.

  He took two steps back and the fog followed him, but kept its distance.

  Jarrod downed the beer as he contemplated the phenomena, burped, and crushed the can with his hand. He glanced around just to see if anyone was punking him. Not seeing anyone, he reared back his arm, and threw the crushed can at the phenomena.

  The can hit dead center and disappeared.

  Just disappeared.

  No sound of it hitting the ground.

  No sound of it bouncing off something.

  No sound at all.

  It… just… vanished.

  This time when he stepped towards the fog it remained in place. He took several careful steps until he was within a body length of the mystery. He searched the ground for the can. Not seeing it, he inched to his left to see the ground on the other side. Nothing.

  He chuckled, the sound of his own voice startling him. He chuckled again. What he was seeing was so absolutely weird that it was beyond his ken. He couldn’t even tell anyone about it in the barracks. This was absolutely a case where you had to see to believe.

  Then he remembered he had his cell phone. He wrenched it out of the right cargo pocket of his fatigues, then using his mouth to hold the plastic handles of the plastic bag filled with beer, he used both hands to snap a picture. Then, just to be sure, he checked the photo gallery to see if the picture actually came through. Yep. It was there, looking all the world like a white piece of ghost hovering in the desert.

  This gave him pause. Maybe that’s what it was. Perhaps this was a ghost or maybe part of one. God knows there were enough unknown bones in the desert, it could be very old… or it could be very new.

  He suddenly had the urge to pee. He put his phone in his pocket, but kept holding the bag with his teeth. He took several steps away until he found a yucca plant. Then he unbuttoned his fatigue pants and recycled the two beers, his eyes closed as he sighed along with the release. He stayed that way for a long moment, then repacked himself and turned back to the fog or ghost or whatever it was.

  But it was gone.

  “Shit,” he said as much to the universe as to himself. Then realizing that he still held the bag in his teeth, he removed the bag and said it again, this time louder and more intelligible.

  He shoved the bag under his left arm, pulled out another beer, popped it open and took a sip.

  Then he saw it, on the ground several feet away and moving west. He began to jog after
it, holding the beer steady so it wouldn’t foam and spill over. He was gaining on it. Soon, he was right behind it. He took a sip of beer, then brought his foot on top of it like he would a piece of trash caught in the wind.

  Only this wasn’t a piece of trash.

  And there was no wind.

  His foot kept going. He fell forward, barely missing slamming his face into a cactus. Somehow he kept the beer from spilling. He silently congratulated himself, took one more sip, then sat it on the ground next to him. He must have fallen into a hole. He tried to pull his leg out, but it was caught fast.

  He realized that he’d lost the bag as well. It must have fallen through the fog into a rabbit hole. He moved his foot around and found it free and easy. It didn’t feel confined at all. He could even move his leg and he flexed his knee. Strange.

  As he began to examine the white piece of fog, he noted that it was expanding and as it expanded he felt himself sinking deeper.

  What the hell kind of hole had he fallen in?

  He took one glance at his beer, then fell through, and as he did, the wisp of fog went with it.

  Somewhere a car horn blared.

  The beer can remained, sweating in the desert, sitting there as if someone would be back to get it.

  Any second now.

  A woman shouted obscenities.

  A car door slammed.

  A car roared away.

  The desert was such an empty place.

  Chapter One

  The Swamp Cooler. She held her arms above her head, hips grinding to the electric jungle beat. Every man in the joint watched through heavy-lidded eyes, stretching the moments as they pretended to be the object of her glassy-eyed fantasy. She wore white knee-high boots and white crotchless chaps. A white cowboy hat was pushed low over her eyes, shadowing full, red lips pressed together in self-possessed concentration. Her breasts hung low and lazy, sweat glistening from the deeply tanned skin around her even darker areolae.

  “Want another?”

  Blane nodded to the bartender of the Swamp Cooler without taking his eyes from the woman on the stage. That he wanted her was obvious by the murky thoughts swirling in his eyes. But he also wanted to save her. He’d do both if he could. Staring at the shaved skin and the gorilla tattooed near her crotch, he wished he’d never stopped dating her. She was amazing like she’d invented the word.

  A beer replaced the empty in front of him. He spun on his stool away from the hypnotic dance and stared into the cool amber liquid. Her name was Sarah, born and raised on The Slab. Her only real problem was her family. The local delicacy was meth and each one of them did it like they were connoisseurs. Sarah, bless her, had somehow managed to escape it, but made it her calling to save her mother, father, three brothers and two sisters. When she danced, she pretended she was somewhere far away, because at the end of the day, she was a caretaker to the damned, each member of her family pinging at different frequencies, needing her to bring home enough money for another score and the burritos they lived on.

  Blane had managed to handle it for a whole month before splitting. She’d just watched him go. She’d known it was only a matter of time and had bid him no ill will.

  So then why did he still feel like such a heel?

  The song ended her set. As she slunk off the stage, a dozen sighs filled the empty space. They all thought they wanted her. What they wanted was her body. They might even settle for her mind. But they’d split as fast as he’d done when they found out about her codependent hell. At least that’s what Blane told himself. And for the most part he was right, but he still felt like a heel.

  “She’s something, isn’t she?”

  His mark grinned as he nodded to the bartender to bring him another martini.

  Richard Dean Smith, born April 14, 1955 to Edith and Rulon Smith in Salisbury, Vermont. He sold insurance for a living and was on his way back to Denver after spending a weekend at a convention in Coachella. The jaunt to the bar was just a side trip– a few beers, a hooker, maybe a joint after, and he’d be ready to return to his nine to five domesticated boredom.

  “Oh yeah.” Blane eyed the fifty year old man. Balding and paunchy, the man’s eyes held the saddened look of a spaniel left outside overnight. “Want to meet her?”

  Dick snorted in his martini and jerked his thumb back to the stage. “Her? Meet her?”

  “Sure. No problem at all.”

  Dick beamed until self-doubt crept into his smile. He took a nervous sip of his martini. “You know her?”

  “We’re old friends.”

  “Then okay.” He smiled weakly. “I mean if it’s no trouble.”

  “No trouble, Dick. No trouble at all.”

  Blane leaned over and whispered a few words to the bartender, then returned his attention to the mark. They needed someone pure. Gundy had run a background check and data profile and everything had come back saint– the league’s term for a person who had no history of violence, crime or mental illness. Only a saint could fulfill their mission, and it looked for all the world like Dickie Smith was going to be their saint.

  “What do you do again Mister…”

  “McCready.”

  “Mr. McCready. What is it you do?”

  “I’m a finder of lost children.”

  “Like a private detective?”

  “Of sorts.

  Dick took a quick drink and shook his head. “I watch the news all the time and can’t get over what one human being can do to another. Most of the time I’m revolted. Damn shame your job has to exist.”

  “I could say the same thing about yours.”

  “Come again?” Dick frowned.

  “Didn’t you say you sold insurance?”

  “Did I?” he looked as if he was trying to remember. “I suppose I did.”

  “Something bad happens and then you and I show up, but for different reasons. A house burns down and you pay them off. They lose their child and I track them down. Let’s face it, Dick. We’re the last people they want to see. If someone see us, it means that their life is suddenly in the shit.”

  Dick stared at Blane for a long moment as if it was the first time he’d heard the truth of it, but before he could say anything, Sarah came up and threw her arms around Blane’s neck. She wore a white silk kimono that fell aside as her breasts pressed into Blane’s chest. Her hair smelled like sweat and honeysuckle. Her lips tasted like cherries.

  “Hey Sugar,” she purred. “What dragged you in here?”

  “I wanted to see how you were doing.”

  She pushed away and held him at arm’s length. “Oh please.”

  “No really.”

  “You can’t lie to me, Blane. You’re on the job, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So who’s your handsome friend?”

  Dick sputtered as he struggled to sit up straight, smooth his frumpy suit and suck in his gut. “I’m Richard, er Dick Smith, I mean. You can call me Dick, ma’am.”

  “Well, Dick-mam, that’s a funny name you have.”

  “It’s not Dick-mam, it’s–” He bowed his head and chuckled. “You’re playing with me.”

  “I am.” She laughed throatily.

  He pushed his stool aside, stood and proffered his hand. “You’re quite the dancer. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen hips move that way. You were like grass in the wind is what you were.”

  Blane couldn’t believe it and neither could Sarah. They both gaped at the big man. Finally it was Sarah who broke the trance as she accepted Dick’s hand.

  “Thank you. I haven’t heard my dancing described like that before.”

  “Dick lives in Denver. He’s heading back from a life insurance convention.”

  “You a good salesman, Dick?

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “That’s gonna come in handy. You remember how good you are and how you almost talked me into your bed.” Seeing him blush, she placed her hand on his cheek and kissed him soulfully on the lips. “That’s right. You
have some magic in your words. They mean all the more because I don’t doubt their honesty.”

  Dick blushed. “Thank you.”

  She turned and embraced Blane once more. “Does it have to be him?” she whispered.

  “He’s the best chance we have.”

  “Why is it always the good ones?”

  “Because the other side has dibs on all the bad ones.”

  “That’s why we can’t be together, Blane. I can’t take the way you live.” She kissed him deeply, brushed her hand deftly against his crotch and then left, her open kimono drawing the lust of everyone in the room.

  Funny, he thought. That’s exactly how he’d felt about her. But even as he thought it, a razor slice of loss slashed his chest. He let it sizzle for a moment, then mentally brushed it aside. He didn’t need that right now. He had more important things to deal with.

  “Wow. She’s almost amazing, isn’t she?”

  “Why almost?”

  “Only my wife is truly amazing. I gotta reserve that for her, you know? But that woman, Sarah is her name? I’m not going to forget her for a long, long time.”

  Out of the mouths of babes. “Buy you a drink?”

  “Sure. Gotta go use the facilities, though. Be right back.”

  Blane watched him cross the room and disappear into the door marked Cowboys. He nodded to the bartender who mixed and brought Dick another vodka martini. Blane took care with the spell he’d learned from Sebastian. First Blane slid the razor free of its forearm sheath. Then he pushed the sleeve of his sport coat up and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt to mid forearm. Cuts criss-crossed the skin, puckered scars and raised wounds covering every inch of arm. He looked like a self-mutilator—a cutter. In a sense he was, but not like any of the others the Bishop drew. As the bartender slid the drink in place, Blane found an unmarked space and drew the keen blade through the skin. He held it above the martini and watched as twelve drops slid into the clear liquid, coloring it a rosy red. Blane reached into the garnish tray and dropped two cherries into the martini. Wasn’t a moment too soon. Just as Blane returned his sleeve to normal, Dick returned to his seat.