Last Bender

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE The deck of the ship rose and fell against the glittering blue and jasper waves. Helen and Linda sat on reclining wooden chairs across from Evalyn and me. Captain Beldam’s face was shaded by the visor of his hat. He was smiling. We were coming into view of Champa and he was [...]

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO           “How’s Linda?” I asked.           “Alive,” she said, looking around at the glass walls. When her eyes landed on a head she stuck her tongue out and barked, “What is this place? Is that a fucking head? Is it real?”           “Yeah, it’s a head.” She shook hers. “Linda don’t walk good [...]

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE           That night, when a commotion in the halls woke me up, I thought, almost with relief, here we go. I had had a pretty good run of luck. They didn’t get me in the war, and the years since had been quiet enough, quieter than I expected or deserved.           There were [...]

CHAPTER FIFTY                     “He’s using us,” she said.           We lay in a double ess. The heat of our two bodies pressed together radiated into the room. My face was in her hair, my arm draped across her belly. “For what?”           Evalyn sat up. “I’m not sure how, but it has to do [...]

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE           My room was located not far from St. Claude’s suite, on level 1, which he shared with Evalyn. It was a plain glass chamber with only one head. The ambient light was the usual deep blue to turquoise, with a brighter radiation in one corner, above a white cushion. This brighter radiation [...]

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT           Beneath the heads sat Stronghole, in a glass chair at a glass table, reading a book. He had his usual military bearing; that had not relaxed since coming to the dome. But it had only been a day. Perhaps with time he would become like the others. These heads looked very serious. [...]

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN           I lowered the gun. His eyes made me do it. They were sunken and dark, but very clear. In their light I felt ashamed. A middle-aged man clipping grass with a little silver scissors is hardly a threat. He had a basket on his arm. In it were mushrooms, bundles of the [...]

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX             It was a long while before I put the binoculars down and when I did, the dome disappeared. I figured it had to be the glasses. Just like the radio. A trick.           I felt like kicking his ass off that hill into the valley below. And then I thought about [...]

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE           Around the time I’d grown accustomed to the G force he hit the brakes and all the pent up sweat leapt off me onto the windscreen. “C’mon,” he said to his feet. If I had to guess I’d put him in his mid forties, moderate to heavy smoker and drinker. Some people [...]

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR We drove on a mangy highway, through the post-stripmine covering of processed garbage that adheres to the county wherever banks were too cheap to put up a shopping mall. There wasn’t a bird or rat in it. “How come you’re all dressed up?”   I asked. I’d never seen Stitch even in mascara. Now [...]