The After War

by Brandon Zenner

  Smoke was pouring out like rapids on a river, escaping through the shattered glass frame of the greenhouse. Asphyxiation was close at hand if the flames did not reach him first. His arms reached out and his body twisted and turned over, shedding the blanket of thick dust, rocks, and glass shards off his chest. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Karl peeled his body off the ground, where dried blood had kept him stuck to the floor like glue.

  As he crawled, his wounds reopened; yet onward he went, ignoring his suffering and the pangs of bright light and dark spots that at times consumed his vision.

  Outside on the lawn, when the intense heat had dissipated, he turned, panting on his back, to see the flaming house that had almost become his pyre.

  Karl stared in fascination, and then a funny feeling overtook him.

  He began laughing. “You cannot kill me—no one can kill Karl Metzger, although they try!”

  The laughing was uncontrollable, but the moving and twitching in his abdomen caused sharp discomfort.

  He pushed himself up on his elbows and then his forearms. Dizziness gave him pause. A length of splintered wood lay in the lawn, mixed with other debris exploded from the house. Karl grabbed it and used it to pull himself to his feet. It was a slow and deliberate process, and twice he nearly passed out.

  Where the hell are my men?

  Before he could finish asking his own question, he knew the answer. He knew it as the sun was turning the early morning sky a paler form of black, the horizon filled with a burning orange tinge and clouds of gray smoke. Karl saw at that moment the blades of helicopters—one, two, maybe more—moving up and down along the front line, far off in the distance like malicious flies.

  I’ve been defeated.

  He stared a moment longer, and soon laughter returned despite his body’s painful protests. “Burn it all down, then. Ha! Let it turn to ash! There is always another fire to start, another town to ignite! The inferno of the world, it will never be extinguished! The horizons will forever burn, and I will hold the torch!”

  Karl Metzger turned toward the river to where a narrow gate led to a path down the steep embankment and to the Ridgeline River below. Moving was hard, and the bleeding from his open wounds was made worse with each step. But Karl Metzger made it to the gate and the steep staircase and ramp beyond, where a small dock bobbed up and down on the water.

  On the platform beside the dock was a tall wooden rack, the pegs constructed to hold canoes and rafts. Two rowboats were tied there, and it took a considerable amount of strength to pull one down and drag it to the bobbing water. Blood made his grip slippery, and before he dropped the boat in the water, he had to sit and catch his breath. He tied a tourniquet made from a scrap of his tattered shirt around his kneecap, and then he pushed the boat into the water. He slid his ragged body into the hull and let the boat drift over the bounding swells.

  After some time, Karl found an oar bungeed to the side and paddled his way toward the opposite shore.

  You cannot kill me …

  His vision was grainy, with swells of bright lights. His strength was fading. The oar almost fell from his numb fingers.

  “Easy does it, old man. Stay with it.”

  The opposite bank was steep, just as in the towns of Fairview and Alice, but Karl could see a natural, earthen ramp where several small docks jutted out among old half-sunken and lopsided yachts.

  As Karl rowed closer to shore, he saw a fishing boat pulled up on the embankment, identical to his own. He followed its course, rowing until the bow of his small boat hit land. A man wearing a black trench coat stood watching him the entire time, not moving from his perch atop the hill. The man shifted his briefcase to the other hand and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Karl stood on shaking legs, careful not to slip on the blood pooled inside the hull. He swallowed, staring at the only man who could put fear in his heart.

  “Hey!” Karl shouted. “Arthur, ol’ pal. Be a sport, would you? Give me a hand here.”

  The beady eyes of Doctor Arthur Freeman stared down at Karl Metzger.

  http://www.BrandonZenner.com

  http://www.amazon.com/author/brandonzenner

  Thank you for reading The After War. Please read on past the Acknowledgments for a preview of Brandon Zenner’s novel, Whiskey Devils. As always, the best way you can support an independent author is by leaving a review on Amazon. Each and every review is read and appreciated by the author, both good and bad. The Amazon link above will take you there.

  From The Author

  Back when I was sixteen, and some of my older friends were getting their driver’s licenses, we used to drive out to a nearby park to spend our afternoons walking miles of trails and gazing at the large, calm reservoir smack in the center of the woods. Perhaps my teenage mind still clung to a portion of childhood creativity, but I soon began to envision the creations of a story that would take over a decade to develop into this novel. The distant hills were swarming with soldiers and the open fields were places of war. I knew back then that I wanted to be a writer, with much thanks to authors like Kurt Vonnegut, who showed me at a young age that fiction could truly be anything that the writer wanted it to be. A year later, when I was seventeen and had a driver’s license of my own, I went to the park by myself day after day, walking the same trails and plotting out the story and characters. Originally, this novel was titled Chaos, but that name didn’t seem to fit as the years went by. I did try to sit and write the novel in my early twenties, but two things happened: 1) I wasn’t a good enough writer at twenty years of age. 2) The story wasn’t there yet. Years passed, and when I was twenty-eight, I forced myself to hammer out the words. I didn’t care how they came out; I just couldn’t put it off any longer. So I finished the manuscript, and low and behold … it stunk. It was hard for me to swallow that it would have to be rewritten from scratch. To ease my mind, I started writing longhand an idea that had only come to me a few days previous. That idea would develop into my first novel, The Experiment of Dreams. Months passed, and when I had sent The Experiment of Dreams out to be edited, I decided to sit and give The After War another shot. I had dreaded the thought of having to start the novel all over again, thinking the task would be impossible. But once I began to type, and the words started flowing, I realized how much I missed the characters, and wanted to live in their shoes once more. I wanted to get Simon out of the cabin safely, and I wanted to witness again the struggle between Brian and Steven as it developed. I also included a new main character, and it seemed impossible that he wasn’t there from the beginning: Winston. This time, the manuscript came out the way I had intended, and my writing was much more polished. It still took years to finish, and in the interim, as the manuscript was being edited and proofread, I finished another shorter novel, Whiskey Devils. It is strange to still be working on my first novel, despite having published two others. It brings me immense happiness to be done with The After War, but I’m also terribly sad to see these characters go. They came to be when I was sixteen, and now, twenty years later, it is like losing my best friends. I grew up and aged with them, and their characters developed much as my adolescent mind matured into adulthood. Goodbye Simon and Brian, you will always be with me. Winston, you’re such a good boy.

  There are many ways to connect with me, I will supply links to me Facebook page and Twitter bellow. However, the best way to learn about current and future projects is by joining my email list. As a thank you, you will be sent my short story, Helix Illuminated. In the past, I offered every single person in my email list a copy of my novel, Whiskey Devils, for free when it launched, and I’m sure to inform everyone of deals and sales. You can sign up on my website:

  http://www.brandonzenner.com/contact.html.

  While you’re there, check out my blog, where I give some behind the scenes information on my novels and methods.

  Okay, that’s about it. Here are my Facebook and Twitter links. Remember to check out the preview of Whiskey Devils after the acknowledgmen
ts.

  https://www.facebook.com/brandon.zenner

  https://twitter.com/SlapstickII

  All the best,

  Brandon Zenner

  Acknowledgments

  In no particular order, the following people deserve my complete and utter gratitude for their contributions in helping me create and finish this novel: Nicole Gauge, Finnbar McCallion, John Graham, Hal Zenner, and Catherine York. As always, a special thanks goes out to my loving wife, Mallory Zenner, and my amazing daughter, Sadie-Mae Zenner.

  Preview: Whiskey Devils

  “From the very first page it is action packed … I read it in one day.”

  -Boundless Book Reviews

  “This action-packed story just keeps on delivering … Powers is a marvelous noir hero who you just can’t help rooting for.”

  -Readers’ Favorite Book Review

  Chapter 1

  Spring, 2003

  Weaving through the crowd, I passed my exhausted coworkers, their faces gaunt and ghostly pale in the fluorescent lighting. All of them were salivating before the punch-out clock like a pack of ravenous hounds eager to tear into the flesh of that Friday night. They leaned from one leg to the other, purses in hand, sunglasses dangling from open collars. The din of conversation lessened as I neared the clock, and all eyes were cast upon me.

  They were thinking, “Is he really going to do it? Is Powers leaving early?”

  The receptionist’s sharp stare burned with scorn from behind her blond bangs, but I ignored her gaze and approached the clock. My time card was in my hand, ‘Evan Powers’ scribbled on top. The paper glided effortlessly through the punch-out machine, making a slight mechanical noise as it stamped out the time, 4:47. The clicking noise echoed in the now-silent room, and I hightailed it to the door, daring my eager coworkers to follow.

  Warm air cloaked me in all of its glory as I flung the door open. My flesh tingled—honest to God, tingled—like the sun was drawing out some poison from the office’s artificial cold air.

  As I crossed the parking lot toward my car, I resisted turning to look through the wall-length window of the manager’s office. Kim would be staring up from a stack of papers on her desk, watching me in disbelief as she checked the time on her watch. No one left before the clock struck five. No one.

  Yeah, I did it. I left early. But fuck it—I quit. So there’s that.

  The well-traveled engine of my Buick rumbled to life, sputtering out clouds of grey exhaust. I backed out, put the car in drive, and sped the hell out of there.

  A cigar was waiting for me in the glove box, and I clamped it between my teeth as I loosened the collar of my button-up shirt.

  I laughed out loud, feeling a bit like a madman who laughs alone at the world, thinking, “I’m free, you fuckers—I’m free!” A cloud of cigar smoke was sucked out the window, replaced by the clean springtime breeze.

  Traffic was already forming on the highway, but I had managed to beat the mass of cars that would stretch on for miles only minutes after five o’clock. The landscape gradually changed to an immense array of blossoming trees and flat wilderness as I distanced myself from town, driving deeper into the heart of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. My housemate Nick and I rented a nice piece of property: three acres of trees and land, with many more acres of wilderness in every direction. Our nearest neighbor was old Mr. Patrick, or Grandpa, but we didn’t cross paths with the man too often. We invited him over whenever we had parties, but Grandpa rarely showed up and never stayed for long. He was cool with us, but when our parties got going, and a handful of ragged hippies turned into twenty, thirty, forty, sixty—whatever—he would take off. Not before schooling us all in a game of horseshoes, of course, and drinking about a six-pack of beer. The man could put them away.

  I drove past Grandpa’s mailbox and our driveway soon appeared. Nick’s work truck came into view as I pulled in, and way out in the back of the yard I spotted him standing beside our massive garden. Nick had been living in the rental house for fifteen years. Our good friend, Darin Long, had been a housemate with us for the past five years, but due to his mother discovering that she has cancer, he had moved back home to Montana. Now it was only the two of us, all alone in that low ranch in the middle of the woods.

  Hippie Nick, he was sometimes called, or more recently, The Old Man. It was a term of endearment. The guy had lived through the cultural revolution of the ’60s and ’70s, which meant that for most of our friends, myself included, Nick Grady was the closest thing to a legitimate hippie that we would ever encounter. The guy followed the Dead, marched at civil rights protests, and did all of that fun stuff that made him practically a sage in the eyes of my stoner friends.

  I got out of the car and passed Nick’s work van on the way to the house. The G and R in Grady Construction and Repair on the van’s side were barely legible, faded with time.

  Our front door was unlocked, and I went straight to the kitchen. We had a strict nonsmoking rule indoors, for everything other than herb, so I had to be quick with my still-burning cigar. I grabbed two beers from the fridge and went out the kitchen door to the backyard. Nick was under the apple tree next to the garden, swaying with a beer in hand. The Dead blared from his portable CD player, the extension cord trailing all the way back to the house, lost like a snake in the grass.

  Water droplets rained down from the sprinkler over the budding tomato plants, zucchinis, peppers, and everything else we’d planted only a few weeks ago. The corn stalks were already about two feet tall.

  Nick moved to the music, barefoot, with his wrapped hemp necklaces and beadwork bouncing on his grey-haired chest. The only article of clothing the guy ever wore at home was a pair of cutoff jean shorts. When he saw me approaching he nodded.

  “Hey there,” I said.

  Nick smiled a crooked smile, a rubber band stuck between his lips as he pulled his long hair out of his face. A cooler was out there next to the few battered Adirondack chairs, and I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was already a few beers in. I handed him the beer I had brought from the kitchen anyway. Sierra Nevada, always Sierra Nevada. It was the only beer the guy would drink if given a choice. However, if he didn’t have a choice, he’d drink most anything. Especially bourbon. We went through the stuff like it was water.

  The song ended and he yelled out, “Yo, Powers! What’s up man?” He was evidently in a great mood.

  “Nothing, Nick.” I tried to be nonchalant, but my lips cracked into a smile. “I did it.”

  His eyes lit up. “You quit?”

  I nodded.

  “Ha!” He bounced over on quick feet and hugged me with his strong, skinny arms. “I’m so happy for you, brother. I know that job was dragging you down.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Want to call some people up, get the bonfire going?”

  I shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind having a few beers.”

  His face was radiant, and I knew he was swallowing back the question he’d been asking me for years now. The words were trying to burst free from his mouth, but I was going to wait a little while longer before letting him know that I would work for him full time. And I’m not talking about his handyman service; as good as he was at repairing cabinets, replacing shingles, and even doing some landscaping for a handful of local Pineys. I’m talking about his other job. His real job.

  “You doing some shooting?” I nodded towards the small arsenal on the coffee table: his old western style six-shooters. They were a hobby of sorts, first for him, and then for me. After all, we did live in the middle of the woods. Not to mention that the house one over from old Mr. Grandpa’s was the fire chief’s, and the man was a regular at our parties—as clean cut as he was—and he kept an eye on the police radio for call-ins about noise. I consider myself clean cut as well, in comparison to most of the transients who pass through our doors. My hair is short, I wear nice pants and shirts, and I keep myself in decent shape. Ever since I met Nick, I’ve been trying to get the guy to go running
with me, or use the weight bench in the basement. But he always declines. “Look at me,” he says. “I’m skinny enough. There won’t be nothing left of me.” It was true. The guy was a rail: skinny and strong. A lifetime’s worth of hard labor made it impossible for him to ever be a pound over weight.

  Nick looked to the black powder pistols. “Knock yourself out,” he said, and went back to swaying with the music, mumbling along with the words while looking out over the sea of vegetables glistening from the sprinkler water.

  As the sun began to set and the beer in the cooler dwindled, we loaded and fired the six shooters at a wide tree stump across the yard. The process of loading a black powder revolver is tedious, but that made shooting them all the more enjoyable. We had to work for our fun.

  While we were shooting, the house phone rang several times, and soon our driveway became illuminated by headlights. A few people showed up with more beer, weed, and various low-grade narcotics and hallucinogens. Ritalin, Adderall—that sort of thing. Most everyone, myself excepted, got stoned the minute they crossed onto our property. Weed was never my thing. I rarely smoked, which was in contrast to the company I kept.

  This guy named Mario showed up tripping on mushrooms, sitting a foot away from the blazing flames in the fire pit, his bright orange hair seeming to glow in the flickering light. I thought about asking him for a few caps, but decided against it. Ever since Darin moved out, Nick and I had to be on the lookout for people fucked up on the more serious drugs, like cocaine, heroin, and even speed. That was a big no-no at our home. Darin used to be our enforcer of sorts. He was a strong guy, although his short and stout build made him appear youthful, especially with his long dark hair kept up in a ponytail. Ex Army, believe it or not. But that life wasn’t for him. Darin was a feel-good stoner who liked lounging around the house shirtless, just like Nick.