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Fallen Stardust: A boy, an outcast and an alien must find salvation in a world of ruin. Samuel must find a medicine to cure the fever ravaging his village. Markus must find the motive that murdered those he loved. And an angel must find a future in a city crumbled into debris. But something lurks beneath the wasted world, and waking it may doom what little of humanity survives.
The Sisters Will Dance: Blaine Woosely claws his way back to the living. He has cleaned his blood of his addiction, and an unexpected, family farm home rewards his efforts. Only, the country acres isolate Blaine when a sharp-toothed monster hunts to bring Blaine back to dark. The sad history of Blaine's blood brings magic to the country home's new master, but in the end, only Blaine himself can break his chains.
Mr. Hancock’s Signature: The dead walk in Monteray. The corpse of a nearly forgotten farmer named Hancock arrives via train. Ian Washington remembers Mr. Hancock and vows to return the body home. Yet Mr. Hancock's body will not rest while Ian works to reopen a cemetery, and the corpse staring each morning upon the doorstep forces the town to choose between the isolation of their fear or the hope of their fellowship.
The Meek
Brian S. Wheeler
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2015 by Brian S. Wheeler
Contents
Chapter 1 – The Push
Chapter 2 – The Stories of Crones
Chapter 3 – Celebratory Tombstones
Chapter 4 – Stars Buried in the Ground
Chapter 5 – Extinguishing the Light
Help Spread the Story Across the Flatland
About the Writer
Other Stories at Flatland Fiction
The Meek
Chapter 1 – The Push
“You guys know we don’t have a chance against the fatcats. The buzzkills are probably already watching us.”
“Shut the hell up, Crotch! I’m going to rearrange your ugly face if you open your rotten mouth one more time.”
My temper gets the better of me as I look into Crotch’s face, with the third ear growing out of a cheek so that the giant man’s right eye swells closed. I’m tired of listening to Crotch complain about how his feet hurt because the shoes he scavenged off a dead cousin are too small. I don’t want to hear him moan about how his skin burns as we push our contraption across the exposed flatland. I don’t want to listen to him bitch about another hair falling from his misshaped head, don’t want to hear him cry that he’s thirsty, hungry, dizzy or nauseous. All of us feel miserable as we push against the device.
But I let my temper get the better of me, and the contraption’s weight settles its sled a little deeper into the sand when I step away from the machine. It takes all the strength the four of us can muster to push the contraption across the wasted land.
Sweet Tea sighs, and the disappointment on her pretty face sinks my heart. “Ignore him, Bug. We’ll never reach the tower if we stop each time Crotch complains.”
“Just as well. I need a break,” and our party’s fourth member, Shiv, removes his hands from the contraption.
I see how Shiv’s fingers twitch towards his jacket’s inner pocket, where he keeps his straight razor. I doubt Shiv’s got the courage to wield that blade against me, but I’m not so sure he’s got the discipline to keep from slicing at Crotch’s throat.
“You should keep quiet, Crotch,” hisses Shiv. “Remember that your giant legs are the only reason old Sparker wanted you to join us. So you just push, or I’m gonna cut out your foul teeth.”
“That’s enough from all of you,” Sweet Tea tries to growl, but there’s just not very much threat that can come from such an attractive face. “Everyone get some water before we start pushing again.”
Crotch frowns at his bottle. “The water doesn’t smell right.”
“Not another word!” Shiv snarls.
I gaze at Sweet Tea while I sip from my water. Looking at Sweet Tea always gives me a new rush of energy. Her green and blue eyes are set in the proper places. Her mouth holds the perfect number of teeth, and her incisors don’t mangle her lips, as is customary on the faces of so many of our hovel’s girls. Her hair still holds sheen, and it falls in brown locks beyond her shoulders. And then there’s Sweet Tea’s figure, curves and swells that turn any man surviving in our hole dangerous. Her legs are long and slender - one is no shorter than the other, and both lead into a set of hips that I can hardly resist clutching at. Sweet Tea claims she wears that thick and ugly coat for protection against the harmful elements we expose ourselves to in the wasted flatland, but I think concealment is her real reason for such a hot wardrobe. But that coat doesn’t hide the shape of her from my imagination. That coat only sharpens my craving.
I peek over at Shiv, and he’s gazing at Sweet Tea too. Maybe Crotch is right. Maybe we don’t have the slightest chance to kill the sleeping fatcats. Maybe the contraption we’re pushing won’t even scratch their tower. At least there’ll be Sweet Tea if we fail, left out in the open for Shiv and I to fight over if the buzzkills don’t get us in the end.
Crotch refuses to look at us. “How do we know we’re going in the right direction? I don’t see that tower anywhere in the dark.”
“The tower’s not going to look anything like how the hovel crones describe it in all the stories,” answers Sweet Tea. “It’s not going to scrape against the heavens, and it’s not going to be made out of shimmering crystal. Nor will there be an all-seeing eye winking at the top of it. It’s probably going to be nothing more than iron, and we’re not going to see it until we get a lot closer.”
Crotch shakes his head, as if his dumb brain has any right to question what old Sparker’s daughter Sweet Tea knows about the fatcats.
“Then where do all the buzzkills come from?” Crotch asks. “The tower has to be massive to house all the buzzkills.”
Sweet Tea shrugs. “I don’t know. I just know we’ll find whatever’s left of the fatcats in that tower.”
Crotch’s eyes surprise me when they flare. “The fatcats are in heaven.”
Sweet Tea snorts. “There’s no such thing as heaven.”
Crotch takes a step towards Sweet Tea. I give the girl credit, because she doesn’t retreat an inch before Crotch’s size. She’s learned like the rest of us in the hovel that flinching is a sure invitation for harm.
But I haven’t pushed that contraption this far into the flatland so that it gets stuck out in all this waste after Crotch crushes Sweet Tea. I’m between Crotch and Sweet Tea before either of them can take a breath. Crotch turns his eyes away from mine. He’s not going to push his luck against me. I’ve earned my name from picking myself up from the ground after all the smashes so many of my enemies have delivered to me, and everyone in the hovel knows I tenfold return any of the pain I receive. Everyone knows I’m a bug that can’t be squashed.
Shiv pats Crotch’s shoulder as the giant returns to his place behind the contraption.
“Crotch has a good question,” Shiv speaks. “How do we kno
w we’re going in the right direction?”
Sweet Tea points up into the sky. “We follow that blinking, blue light.”
Crotch smiles. “We’re following a star?”
“It’s not a star. It’s a machine.” Sweet Tea answers.
I level my best glare onto Sweet Tea. “Sure, Crotch. We’re following a magical star set up there in the heavens to guide us.”
I don’t know if Sweet Tea understands why I’m agreeing with Crotch, but she doesn’t contradict me as she returns to the sled. What matters to me is that Crotch is no longer complaining how his feet hurt. What matters to me is that Crotch has found a source of strength to renew some of the energy he’s thus far exerted behind that contraption. Sometimes, you’d forget that the only person smarter than Sweet Tea in our hovel is her old man Sparker. She’s terrible at reading situations.
We’re all again pushing that contraption inch by inch across the wasted flatland a few minutes later. Crotch is pushing like never before, and I guess his imagination is thrilled by the idea each step is bringing him closer to something sparkling up their in the heavens. I’m happy for it. My legs are burning. So I close my eyes while we push against Sparker’s device, thinking back to what the old crones told us about the fatcats, about what the fatcats did to the world before gifting us with all its pieces.
* * * * *