Down Jersey Driveshaft

by William J. Jackson

  DOWN JERSEY DRIVESHAFT

  William J. Jackson

  Negatrite!

  fine purveyor of alternate worlds

  ©2018 William J. Jackson/Negatrite! All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, place or thing is purely coincidental and not intentional on the part of the author. No part of this work may be reproduced or sold without the express consent of the author.

  ISBN-13:978-1981162550

  ISBN-10:1981162550

  What is Dieselpunk?

  Many are familiar with the science fiction, 'punk' genres (steampunk, atompunk, cyberpunk, biopunk, etc.) are relatively unknown, but follow the same principle. They are all, as I like to say, 'science fiction in reverse'. We punk genre writers and actors go for reinventing the past. We indulge in the cool parts of the past (attire and manners and art) while calling out the terrible aspects of our ancestors' days (racism, sexism, despotism, etc.).

  Dieselpunk specifically hearkens back to the time and feel of the early Twentieth Century. I go a bit further back than my colleagues and include the launch of the MS Selandia (thus proving a diesel engine in a ship was viable) in 1912, and moves down the temporal road to the 1950's. For reference, think of the look of gangsters, flappers, and movie stars in films. For the feel, dig jazz, dance competitions, art deco, film noir. Now, add in a more modern appeal and vibe, twist it with weird science, fantasy and so on. Stir. Add an olive. Boom!

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  If you’ve read any of my other stories in the Legacy Universe (the Rail Legacy, etc.), please note this tale is in its own separate and distinct universe.

  DEDICATION

  This one goes out to readers, those on Wattpad who made this tale special, the admins who smacked a Best Dieselpunk label on it in 2017 (I tied with @Holly_Gonzalez, you must read her works on Wattpad.com!) and future readers who will come to flip through these pages of war, toil and human frailties. Thank you.

  Chapter One: How They Met (or A New Job Awaits You in Sunny South Jersey)

  Late Autumn 1944

  "South Jersey... it's more than just Camden and Atlantic City. But, I guess Ay-Cee is a good place to start the story," she says with a florid Italian accent.

  Benny Haskins turns his big head her way as the Chevy Stylemaster they sit in speeds down Forty Nine. Huge hands rest placidly on worn out denim jeans. "Story, huh? Look, Frederica -"

  "It's Crank. Everybody calls me Crank," she says, eyes on the road while she drives. Her only movement is a barely noticeable flick of her head, a vain attempt to get the straight black hair out of her face. She pushes the car like a cop in hot pursuit along a glassy road this rainy evening, this dangerous evening.

  "Okay, Crank," Benny states in an elevated tone. He rubs his hand across the top of his brown and gray buzz cut. He thinks for a second about helping the young lady get the hair out of her eyes, but shoots down the thought. "Why do people call you that? You seem like an alright kid, sans the violence. Are you typically unhappy?"

  She immediately turns to face him, while the powerful car races down the road at one-hundred miles an hour plus. She's got very white skin for an Italian, hair like a moonless night and deep-set eyes. She looks oddly enough like the wife in that Charles Addams' comic strip, scary and beautiful all at once. Her mood is constantly dire.

  "Why do you ask that? I'm happy right now," she poses with a blank face, staring into his confused eyes.

  "Nevermind," he grumbles, shaking his head and waving his huge hands around the car's space. "You grabbed me outta the poultry farm from where I was working, harassed my boss Mister Harmon, and for what, because we gotta go to the Army airfield in Millville to pick up someone - - or something- - called Milkman?" He laughs sarcastic for a good while, and then holds on for dear life as Crank takes her souped-up baby around a bend like a pro. Ice water swishes past the passenger window. Benny chokes.

  "That's the short of it!" Crank answers, a bit of anger in the tone. Somehow, the lady could drive like a maniac and still fit in time to adjust her black lace gloves and cashmere sweater of cream with roses across the shoulders. "They got smart this time around. Didn't fly in directly across the river from Philly, but arced around the Shore and snuck into Egg Harbor and Cape May. I had to get out of the Cape and find help, so I bolted for Atlantic City, which brings me to where I began. That was the last order I got. Hand me that hat on the backseat, please."

  Benny grabs the black soldiers' hat, noticing the badge on it is not any military branch he'd ever heard of and bearing the initials 'ST'. She places it down snug on her head, and immediately looks like an alluring chauffeur. He doesn't know what to make of this chick.

  "Anyway," she begins, "you've been reading the papers, right? Weird stuff started happening right after Pearl Harbor three years ago. Stuff like that?"

  "Yeah, I've seen a lot, and assumed even more. But that's typical of government cover ups. I flew with the Ninety-Fourth in the Great War, and there's always things they won't tell a guy. So what?"

  "Vecchio, what I've got to show you is a lot stranger than a government secret. Let me slow down La Donna a little so I can talk."

  The Stylemaster powers down to a mean seventy-five. Benny wonders why the car's hood is so high, seats so jacked up and why the engine revs like one from a fighter plane. The chick did say she was a mechanic when she came literally kicking his door down. He thinks about whether he should have brought more from his house than a mere change of clothes, flashlight and his old 1911 handgun. Benny thinks one too many thoughts on this unfriendly drive across the dead of South Jersey night. As the car speeds over wet asphalt, Haskins regrets not writing his will before ditching Ay-Cee.

  Frederica, a.k.a Crank, places a hand on Benny's thigh. He tenses. "What I have to tell you cannot be said to anyone else, or you have to die. There's a very good reason the U.S doesn't want anyone to know about the war's new twist, and that reason is mass panic." She speaks it in perfect English, but Benny is beginning to find the thick accent to be very agreeable to his ears.

  "Weird like what? Like those U-boats offshore dropped off more than Nazis?" he asks, half serious.

  She turns to face him once again; shadows on her deep eyes make her appear frightening. "If it was Nazis only, we'd be doing okay. Haven't you heard about the blackout in New York City, and the one in Philly?"

  "Sure, but we ration just about everything there is! I guess even electricity had to take a hit, but again, so what? I got no interest in big cities anyway. I'm a poultry farmer, period. If the mainland got invaded, call out the troops and the big guns and get to it. What garage do you really work for, and why am I involved?"

  Crank of ST turns on the radio. Some young cat plays piano live from a hall in Jersey City. Benny rolls his eyes so loud it makes Frederica grind her teeth.

  "You're supposed to be the Lost Generation! I thought all of you guys loved jazz!"

  "Give me a real orchestra any day over this chaos," Benny bemoans. "Oh, and opera! Yeah, you can't beat Caruso and Verdi. Now, you gonna answer my questions?"

  She mumbles some Italian he can't possibly decipher, and cranks up the sound. Benny watches her lips move, and shakes his head again at this volatile child.

  Crank displays a grin of perfect and large teeth. Her little foot renews its pressure of the accelerator. "I work for Special Technologies. At least, I have since they drafted me nine months ago. As to why I got you, Vecchio? Well, because I need you to get hold of the big guns."

  "What big guns are you talking about, chickadee, and who's Vecchio?" he yells.

  "Milkman is the big gun, idiota! And Vecchio means 'old' because you're old and slow to catch on!" Crank yells at th
e window before rolling her eyes Benny's way. "And don't call me chickadee!"

  Benny folds his arms as LaDonna maxes out to one-hundred and forty miles an hour. Both parties sigh and clench their jaws. Rain begins to fall like wet gunfire outside on the highway, but it doesn't slow down the Stylemaster one bit.

  "Now I see why they call you Crank," the grim poultry farmer mumbles.

  Millville, New Jersey

  Army Airfield

  5:05 A.M

  The rain turns the long dirt road at the Millville Army Airfield into a muddy sluice. The Chevy, parked next to the white blocks of airmen's quarters, hums softly with headlights off. Crank toys with a satchel of tools while Benny looks out into the dark deluge. He sees nothing, feels horrible and worries about everything. Frederica sits cool as a cucumber.

  "Soooo..." Benny begins the beguine, "where is this Milkman at, so we can get to it and I can go back to my ducks and chickens?"

  She never looks away from the tools. "Don't you even want to ask me why it's called Milkman?"

  He sighs more, does the head shake and grabs his heart as if it will soon stop beating. "Okay, Crank! I'm forty-four and tired and losing my mind! But sure, let's play another round of 'What's My Meaning'! Why, oh why, is it called Milkman?"

  Crank closes up her satchel, satisfied with its contents. "Because of the six bottle-shaped rockets under its engine, that's why."

  Benny sits up straight so fast that Crank thinks he's a rocket. "Rockets, you said? You mean Milkman is a fighter plane?" Giddiness rules his voice.

  She glances out the windshield again, staring blankly. "It's actually a fighter-bomber. Well, kind of. Sort of. You see- wait. Forty-four? So, you were like a child in the Great War? "

  Benny leans closer to the mechanic. She takes in his big blue eyes and massive, six-foot four frame and realizes he may have been something in his day, and that day had come and gone. Maybe. "No one questions the age of a man once he passes six feet and has body hair in abundance. Now, this fighter-bomber, you want me to fly it?"

  Her full lips curl inside her mouth, as her eyes slowly slide away from Benny's gaze. "Yeah, I was given a file of some good pilots. You were the only one in the area, and the record states you volunteered to join the current war effort, but got turned down due to your age."

  "I'm still just as good as these young flyboys," Benny says, reclining back to his seat in a huff. "They humored me. Showed me the new controls, guns and all, but then left me in the position of some part-time tactical trainer on Long Island for two years. I had enough of their excuses, and came Down Jersey."

  "What's that?" she asks.

  "My mom and older folks used to call South Jersey Down Jersey. So do I."

  "Oh," Crank says in a really rounded enunciation. "Well, I need a pilot. You, as a pilot, will need a mechanic. We grab Milkman. You keep it fighting, I keep it flying. Deal? We will also need to steal a truck to transport it to Salem." She pronounces the last word in very audible syllables, as if Salem is two distinct words.

  "Yeah I've... been there before," Benny murmurs. But as he returns to face the young mechanic, he swiftly notices something is wrong.

  Benny watches her pale face go from chattering evenly to a fixated stare past his head. He turns at a snail's pace. In the dark and rain he's pretty sure he sees a tall figure move, just past the dim light of a street lamp. Something about it makes Benny rub his eyes. The legs! The legs were way too skinny and much too long to be a man. But it has to be a man, right? What else could it be?

  "Madre di Dio!" Crank whispers. "The Slicks are already here!"

  Benny feels the old nerves of war tingle inside. Looking down, he sees his hand has already found the grip of the 1911, a reassuring feel. Once more, Frederica's gloved hand touches him, this time his massive shoulder.

  "Bullets don't hurt Slicks. But if they're here, then they've got remodulated types with them, or else they can't get much done. I know it's a lot to take in, but time is short. We need Milkman to fight, and hopefully reproduce since the blueprints are gone. Are you in or are you out, Vecchio?"

  Benny eyes his gun, and then this young ingénue and the dashboard of her car with its airplane-like dials. He thinks about the new war and the old war, of long dead friends and recurring pains. He desperately wishes for the words of his departed old man at this moment, some keen insight on life to utilize. Instead, adrenaline becomes his mentor.

  "Strange the way a man gets what he asks for. I'm in."

  Liked scared rabbits, they hop out of the car, skating as quietly as two people can on frozen mud puddles and dangerous surroundings.

  5:18 A.M

  Rain mixed with ice makes the terrain as slick as a salesman's jive. Benny moves with more ease than his younger partner, and he very much enjoys the irony. Crank switches her slight hips in men's black work pants like she's going to a dance hall, grumbling the whole route about being cold, getting wet, etc. They maneuver past one short white quarter after another, scanning the horizon in vain for signs of an enemy. The only attack comes from the weather.

  The pair stare at the barely lit door to the main hangar for five minutes before taking a chance to get near it. Frederica trembles like a banged cymbal, and Benny realizes fancy secret agencies had done little to prepare the mechanic for actual combat. Her cool in the Chevy has definitely died out.

  "Breathe slowly in and out," he whispers to her. "This is old hat for me. I'll go first, you see if you can take out the lights. Okay?" Even as he says the words, Haskins grips the handgun tighter, in order to conceal the trembling in his own digits.

  She looks at him, eyes widening by the power of stark terror. Benny does some breathing techniques of his own. On the third inhalation, he charges the door. One turn and pull of the knob produces a loud crack. Benny peers inside, seeing one man dressed similarly to himself in a one-piece denim jumpsuit. The cracked door makes the lug turn his head. Benny storms in with gun aimed high. Lug raises his hands slowly, while raising his lips into a malevolent smile.

  "Hello soldier!" the lug yells with the fakest of grins. "Fancy meeting you here! A bit early for a test flight, isn't it? Too dark, too wet."

  "Don't make any sudden moves," Benny says. He eyes the hangar peripherally, seeing a few P-47's in various states of repair, some vehicle covered in a tarp at the rear and two other men in lab coats coming his way, also smiling eerily. The hangar smells like oil and metal. He swallows hard. The old soldier instincts are firing off in his brain.

  "You Nazis are gonna regret comin' to my country and causing trouble!" he yells, more out of reassurance than anger.

  "What's a Nazi?" the lug asks, taking a step forward. "I'm not sure, but I know we are something brand new, Mister Haskins."

  Benny's 1911 shakes in his quivering hand. "How - - how do you know who I am?"

  "Stand near us long enough, and the waves overlap... Benjamin!" one of the coats interjects. "It's simply a matter of frequency."

  "Don't get any closer," Haskins orders. A very tense index finger applies pressure to the trigger.

  They do advance, but then the lights go out. Six flashes match with six gunshots and the clamor of blind men in savage warfare. One cries out in agony, another ran headfirst into metal. Clanging and banging ends when a small hand in lace switches the power back on.

  Crank stands over a coat, one hand in the electrical panel, the other firmly squeezing a monkey wrench. She looks like Morticia Addams' psychotic sister to Haskins' squinting eyes.

  "Great job kid!" Benny hollers. He runs over to the lug who was taking his last breath after being hit square with three rounds. "If you're not a Nazi, who are you?" Benny asks while grabbing the lug's collar.

  "I'm - Francis Curran," he spits out. "I was home. How did I get ...here?" He perishes right after. With his last breath, Benny hears a distinctive wheezing sound. No. It's more like the sound of a small engine winding down when it's been turned off, but inside the man's body. The sound gives Haskins a critical ca
se of goose bumps.

  Benny lets him go, closing the man's eyes with his fingers. He stands up and faces his tiny partner. "What the heck is going on here, Crank?"

  Crank points at the men's bodies with the wrench. "You see how they behaved, like villains from a bad movie? They got remodulated by the Slicks. It's a pill or something like that. They put it inside, and it sends a radio signal that turns a person out from themselves to somebody, well, worse."

  "And these, Slicks, the long-legged things, control them?" he gulps asking.

  "No. Motherville does that. Only we don't know where she is, or even what she is."

  Benny paces the hangar, hands on his hips, head shaking like mad. "How is that even possible? What radio signal travels that far and that advanced to control three guys at once?"

  "I told you this is more than just a secret," Crank whispers. "This is some crazy foreign experimentation stuff! I got chosen for 'ST' because I'm the third smartest mechanic in the world, according to some crazy chart they have. But I'm having trouble figuring it out! My best guess is - - outer space?" She shrugged.

  The back door to the hangar abruptly slams shut. "That's the other lab coat!" Benny yells. "We let one get away!"

  Crank approaches the big guy, and puts both of her hands on his huge chest. "Calm down, okay? I faced Slicks before, but not so close up. Remodulates I have...unfortunately." She looks down and seems to stifle a cry. "Anyway, the coat will go and tell however many Slicks are in the area, but they'll take time to regroup and come in here. Besides, they burn lots of diesel moving around, and refuel regularly. They sniff out fuel almost as much as they fight and snatch people. We have time to wait and get Milkman in order."

  "Right," Benny answers, still trying to wrap his head around this crazed concept. "Where is it? All I see are Jugs." He is right. Jugs, P-47's with their huge cylindrical front and large propellers fill the hangar.