Deadfall

by L. Douglas Hogan

  An alternative must now be met for the person who is seeing his/her rights being infringed upon. For political correctness, this person must not be allowed to feel that his/her rights are being violated.

  I purposely used the word "alternative" because it's a word that many people these days feel comfortable with. The sad truth is this: alternative is a fancy word for "compromise," which brings uncomfortable feelings of unrighteousness into a person's being. Political correctness says that this person must not be allowed to feel "uncomfortable." Everybody must be appeased so that no particular person feels as though his or her rights are being violated. Suddenly, we see the laws being "redefined" by liberal black-coats. Therefore, we do not have "compromising lifestyles" in America; we have "alternative lifestyles." We do not have "compromised Christian music"; we have "alternative Christian music." We say "alternative" to be politically correct; but let's face the music, it is compromise; and compromise is what's causing our society to degrade with each passing generation.

  We hear our parents tell us how things were in their day. Their parents told them similarly. You might tell your kids how things were done in your day. With each passing generation, if you will take the time to consider, society becomes worse and worse. The reason is compromise and tolerance.

  It was in my lifetime that homosexuals became openly homosexual. When I was a child, it was taboo. In my parents' time it was almost fictional. In my grandparents' time, it was unheard of. I want to say that, before them, it was nonexistent, though history would prove otherwise.

  We see it on television commercials, men and women in their undergarments. This was taboo twenty years ago. The language we hear today on television and on the radio is unlike anything we heard as children. The music we hear today is unlike the music our parents listened to.

  Tolerance has a weird way of blinding you to the reality of what's really happening to society. Standards are no longer necessary for social graces. Social graces used to be alive in every aspect of life. Today it is only seen in certain circles, and even then, you had better watch your back.

  Concerning political correctness, it is of utmost importance that we exercise extreme caution when trying to make everyone happy. Don't forget that in an attempt to please the new generation, you are abolishing the very standards your parents and your grandparents held so dear. Ask them about their way of life. Not now, but then. They will be the first to tell that so much has changed. Now more than ever, it is detrimental that we hold to the goodness that once thrived in our nation and, may I dare to say, the goodness that originates from the Almighty. Dare I say the "G" word? That's right; the politically incorrect word…GOD! So before you dare to remove "one nation under God" from our pledge to the flag and "In God We Trust" from the face of our currency, all for the purpose of political correctness, try to picture our nation without the God that has given us the rights and the powers we currently enjoy so much. Because you can mark my words, "If you desire the Almighty to take the passenger seat next to political correctness, He will not waste any time leaving, and the beauties you enjoy so much will be lost." And it doesn't bother me to talk about God, because it's my right as an American. If you don't like me bringing up God in a book, then stop reading. Bottom line is this, political correctness is poison. Political correctness is a violation of the First Freedom; it is a violation of the American way. It says you can no longer use terms like "homosexual" in the workplace. Why? It's because political correctness has entered into bogus ethic reform. While some ethic reform is necessary, certain forms are a violation of my freedom of speech. There's no amendment protecting a person’s right from being offended! It's your First Amendment right to express your homosexuality. Be content in that and leave me alone to express my opinion that heterosexuality is natural.

  To continue reading, download Oath Takers. Click the cover!

  Excerpt by Michael G. Hopf

  SEVEN DAYS

  DELIVERANCE, OKLAHOMA

  When the pain came it rushed through Evelyn’s body like an electrical surge causing her muscles to tense and become rigid. She cried out, bloody tears streamed down her face. She glanced to Reid, her husband, and said, “Promise me.”

  Holding her hand tightly, Reid asked, “What? What can I promise you?” Seeing her like this was almost too much to bear, but if there was ever a time for him to be strong and display it, that time was now.

  “Hannah,” Evelyn wailed as another surge of pain spread across her body.

  “What about Hannah?” Reid asked, trying his hardest not to show emotion.

  Evelyn gritted her teeth and mustering all her strength to speak, said, “Protect her.”

  “Of course, I’ll do anything…”

  She reached out and grabbed his arm and drew him close, “Do anything.”

  He stared into her blood soaked eyes, a symptom of the H5N7 virus or the dog flu as it had been commonly known due to canines being the origin of the virus.

  The dog flu first appeared nine months before in Mexico and had spread across the globe. What first started as a virus similar to the Swine Flu was discovered to be more lethal to the host as it killed sixty-one percent of those infected within a week of showing the first signs. The severity of the virus at first brought world powers together but that cooperation soon evaporated and war broke out between China and the United States. Dealing with the virus was bad enough, now a world war had sent a chaotic world into turmoil. After six months of fighting, China was on its heels with the United States bound for victory.

  Reid wanted nothing more than to touch her skin and hold her but the thick plastic and rubber layers of his protective suit prevented him from doing so.

  Evelyn fell back onto the bed, her eyes rolled into her head and she began to shudder.

  “Evelyn?” Reid asked. He watched in horror as the shuddering turned into violent convulsing. Turning around he cried out, “Help, please someone help me!” But no one in the infirmary came. “Someone please!” He felt her hand go limp. Looking back he found her lying peacefully, only the slight movement of her chest rising told him she was alive. “Eve?”

  A woman in a soiled white protective suit with the Red Cross emblem emblazoned on the chest, entered the room and said, “Mr. Flynn, it’s time.”

  Reid looked up, he recognized her as a nurse he’d met before. “No, I was just talking to her,” he replied, his voice cracking with emotion.

  Two men, also in protective suits, suddenly appeared in the doorway with a gurney.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Flynn, but you know the rules, it’s now time to take her away,” the nurse said.

  “Please, maybe she’ll wake, I just want a bit more time with her,” Reid begged.

  The nurse approached him and said, “You know the rules. This is what’s best for her and those of us in Deliverance.”

  The men walked farther into the room, they paid no regard to Reid and positioned themselves at the head and foot of the bed.

  “You can take her,” the nurse ordered them.

  They gently transferred Evelyn’s limp body onto the gurney and wheeled her out of the room.

  “What will happen now?” Reid asked.

  “She will be taken below where we’ll first administer a sedative, then…”

  Interrupting her, he said, “I don’t want to know the details, just tell me it will be humane.”

  “I can assure you she won’t feel any more pain,” the nurse said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, there a few more patients for me to attend.”

  “But are you sure she won’t recover, I did,” he said reminding her that he too had contracted the dog flu and lived.

  “Mr. Flynn, your symptoms never went this far if you’ll recall,” the nurse said.

  “When can I come to get her remains?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow after, we’re backed up right now,” the nurse replied.

  Hearing the words backed up gave him images of bodies stacked waiting to be processed.

&nbs
p; “Can I go now?” he asked.

  “Of course, you know the procedures for decontamination, please make sure you follow them to the letter,” she said and walked to the door. She stopped and said, “Mr. Flynn, consider yourself lucky, you’re immune.”

  He thought about giving her a curt reply but decided to keep his interaction with her professional. How could anyone at this time think he was lucky? He’d just lost his wife, the mother of his only child. What future would Hannah have in this world? A future that now left her without her mother.

  He somberly walked down the hectic hallway of the infirmary and into the decontamination room. He methodically went through the rigorous process and appeared on the other side wet and naked but clean and virus free. He got dressed and exited the facility to find the midday sun high in the sky. He stared into the blue cloudless sky and found it odd that on any other day he’d comment about how beautiful it was, but mustering words like that seemed impossible. He walked down the street towards the day care center, all he wanted now was to hold Hannah, who was six months old. He passed a café and caught a glimpse of the patrons huddled around a television. Curious he stepped inside to see what was so captivating.

  On the television screen a reporter was frantically talking. “…that Washington, DC and New York have been struck. We’re not hearing about other cities but we can confirm…” the screen went out.

  “What happened?” a woman howled in fear.

  Reid didn’t need to see anymore, he knew what had happened. He turned and walked out. It now seemed that not only had he lost his wife, but the world itself was on the verge of destroying itself completely. He rushed down the street, passing distraught townspeople were now getting the word that something horrible had just occurred back east.

  He found himself in front of the day care and went inside the lobby, stopping at a locked glass door. Typically, a smiling face from behind a glass window would buzz him in, but no one was there as they were all chattering to each other in the office with one person attempting to find another television signal. He tapped on the glass window and said, “I’m here to get Hannah.”

  A young woman, tears streaming down her face, turned towards him and hit a button. A buzzer sounded unlocking the magnetic lock on the door.

  He opened it and was instantly hit with the sounds of crying children. He went to the infant’s room, he looked inside expecting to see the young woman attendant but she was nowhere to be found. “Hello?” he asked stepping inside the room. Along the far wall stood seven bassinettes. He went to where he knew Hannah was and found her sleeping. So odd he thought that with such pain and turmoil around that she could be sleeping so peacefully. He picked her up and cradled her. Holding her close he said, “How’s my baby girl?”

  Hannah cooed and began to squirm.

  “Daddy loves you,” he said softly.

  She opened her blue eyes and stared at him. She reached out and touched his chin with her small hand.

  “How’s my little girl today, huh? I just saw Mama and she loves you very much,” he said.

  Hannah opened her mouth and let out a squeal of excitement followed by more coos.

  “That’s right, your Mama loves you and will miss you terribly,” he said as tears began to well up in his eyes.

  “Mama,” she uttered. His mouth dropped open. She’d never said a word before until now and how appropriate that it was Mama. Tears streamed down his cheeks and dripped from his chin.

  “Mama,” again she cried out. “I love you so much. I’ll keep you safe, I’ll never let anything happen to you, do you understand?”

  Hannah simply stared at him. “Now, let’s take you home.”

  To continue reading Seven Days, by G. Michael Hopf, click the the cover to download.

  Excerpt by Boyd Craven

  BLACKOUT

  I’ve been a moonshiner, prepper, and an occasional poacher, almost as long as I can remember. It was a memorable time for me, when I started losing my baby teeth and my new ones pushed their way in… I can still remember the warm burn as my grandma rubbed a little bit of Grandpa’s corn liquor on my gums when the first tooth started wiggling loose… I remember it well. The other thing I remember is the canning and food storage. When we’d can, we’d put up three times as much. Grandma’s saying was ‘One for you, one for me, save one ‘cuz it’s free.’

  I would later learn that nothing is free, even if all you’re giving up is your own time, but it stuck with me.

  I grew up near Murfreesboro, Arkansas, and spent a lot of my childhood at the crater of diamonds, looking for the aforementioned diamonds. I never hit it big, but I found enough sifting through the caldera to keep my grandparents and me a little more comfortable than we otherwise would have been. I knew you weren’t supposed to sell what you find there, but everybody did it, and I always walked in from the wooded side and avoided the office anyway.

  You could say I always skirted the law, but I’d never committed any great offenses. That was how I still tried to live my life.

  I’d spent four and a half years at college, where I studied Chemistry. I’d had an idea that if I became a chemical engineer, I could get a job with an oil company and pull myself and my grandparents out of poverty.

  I usually purposely avoided mentioning my parents, because it’s kind of embarrassing. The story goes my mom didn’t know who my dad was, and she ran off when I was two, and nobody heard from her again.

  The state had been reluctant to put me with my grandparents at the time, but they were family, and there were few other good choices. Their reasons were because, at the time, there was no running water, we got everything out of the pitcher pump, and there was no central heat for when it got cold. That was quickly fixed by an old potbellied stove. Then they had complained about a leak in the foyer. Grandpa had walked to the old barn, pulled a scrap of tin, and climbed up on the roof and fixed it on the spot, according to the story.

  I didn’t remember any of it, but it had been retold over the years, even as I tried to idolize what my childhood could have been like with two parents and two sets of grandparents.

  It wasn’t a bad way to grow up, and I had no clue that this was an out of the ordinary situation for most people; it just was. The homestead was small, twelve acres that sat on a flat spot between two hills of our holler, as Grandpa liked to call it. Almost an acre of it was garden, and the rest was set up for the chickens, Grandpa’s game birds, and the barn.

  When I wasn’t prospecting at the Crater of Diamonds, I was usually monkeying in the barn, and I spent a many a night in one of the old cleaned out horse stalls with my grandpa, close enough to the fire that I wouldn’t get cold. See, one of the other ways my grandpa made enough money to keep us in propane and make sure the taxes were paid was making corn liquor. I knew from the time I could talk that this part was a secret and it could get us in trouble, so I didn’t say anything. What it did do though, was make me more curious to learn all about it. And thus a new age moonshiner was born.

  “Grandma?” I called as I walked in the front door.

  Nobody answered right away, but I could smell that Grandma had just finished baking or had something in the oven. The front porch looked like Grandpa had been working on replacing the old planking with some rough sawn lumber. I had to grin at that. I’d done some horse trading with a local miller and traded him some of my special brews for a trailer full of rough sawn planks. They hadn’t all been dried to perfection like they would have been in a kiln, but they were straighter and truer than what had been there before.

  I felt a little bad, I’d been gone a lot the last few weeks looking for work. I had enough of an education to teach, but not quite enough experience to get an entry-level position like I wanted.

  I walked into the foyer, then through the kitchen to the living room in the back where a hallway led off, with two doors on each side and a closet at the end. Two bedrooms on the left, a bathroom then a bedroom on the right. If you went outside the back door off
the living room and to your right, you could go through a set of Bilco doors into the rock-lined root cellar that had been dug before the house had been built over top of it.

  I walked out to the back door and paused. Grandma was out there, a long ribbon tied in her mostly graying hair which had streaks of dark black shooting through it. She wore a plain dress with her colorful apron that had prints of chickens all over it. She called it her chicken math apron. She put that on when she went out to feed the girls - the chickens. For the most part, they roamed free, scratching for bugs, ticks, and other biting insects, and they kept the homestead surprisingly clean. The hard part was keeping the little dinosaurs out of the garden, which was why she went out with two coffee cans full of scratch corn and table scraps. It kept them familiar to her and kept them around close. She’d put one can out to pull them in, talking to them, then put another can in the henhouse where they bedded and laid their eggs.

  I walked out the back door and greeted, “Hey, Grandma!”

  She spun, and a smile lit her face when she saw me. She dropped the can of scratch and started in my direction, remarkably spry for a woman in her sixties. She about crushed the air out of me in a huge hug, her arms barely coming below my shoulders.

  “Westley Flagg, don’t you ever sneak up on an old lady like that!” she said, pushing back and pinching my shoulder.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” I said with a grin. “I missed you guys.” Then I pulled her into another big hug.

  “I missed you too. Did you get the job?” she asked, her eyes shining.

  “Not yet,” I told her. “They said they had two other candidates to interview. It’s not just teaching Chemistry, but Natural Science.”