Introduction
"Alabama Zack" is a 40-chapter science fiction serial, published in the Scholar and Scribe community once a week on Wednesdays.
You can start the serial from the beginning by visiting the Curated Collection.
Previously in our story
Alabama Zack, our hero and a war veteran, found himself standing on a train station platform in another time and dimension. At his feet lay a man in a brown suit. The man was dead, and Zack was arrested and jailed.
Zack can not remember how he had arrived on that platform, let alone whether or not he had anything to do with the man's death.
When we left Zack, the knowing doctor had taken him into town to meet the private investigator Cork McGraw. Zack, confused and lost by his amnesia and his strange experiences in that dimension, broke down crying. Cork asked his maid Matilda to make tea and took them out to the front stoop to talk things over.
Out on the boardwalk, our hero's tears dried quickly in the heat rising from the dusty street. Soon his face and nose felt crusty, but he did not wipe his face. The doctor and Cork McGraw talked unheeded next to him; he did not even notice when the yolanta tea arrived.
He stared unseeing at the dirt. He searched again the gaping hole in his mind, that black maw where his memory should be. It seemed like more and more of his memory was falling into that hole. He could remember his cell, the cave and the strange robed being, but how had he arrived back at the platform? Flying? He struggled with a fleeting image of the countryside and a train rolling underneath him. Had that really happened?
Couldn't have. He just couldn't remember how he'd got there.
He could remember the cave. In his mind he returned to the lights and rocks, and the robed being lounging above him. It had asked him something. Something about his curiosity, and he had remembered the doctor – and then he had been sitting next to him at the train station. He shook his head. But, the doctor seemed important; the doctor knew something. What? He had learned nothing. Except that the doctor was willing to help him, a man accused of murder, because he believed Zack's claim of innocence. He guessed that must count for something.
He drifted back into awareness, to hear the doctor: “Like I told our friend here, the man died from blunt force trauma. The blow left a very distinct pattern. I'm guessing a pistol butt to the back of the head. One thing that gives me pause, though, is the fact that it apparently only took one blow to do the job. That's an impressive strike!”
“The blood and guts of it,” Cork said, “would be what interests you, doc, but I want to know who and why. It can't have been a hit: I've known about all of those before they happened for the past ten years.”
“Well, there's the new generation to consider,” the doctor said. “They may not be aware of protocol. They might not know about informing old Cork McGraw down to the P.I. shop before they off somebody.”
“Hmpf!” Cork said. He swished the remains of his tea around his cup, watching the mass of green yolanta leaves breathe in and out. “There's another possibility I consider more likely,” he said, and he indicated Zack with a head tilt. “You know what I mean?”
“Well, if he did it, he doesn't know it,” the doctor said. “His denial is too sincere.”
Something shifted in the air when the doctor defended Zack. Across the street, a man walked out of the saloon and stood blinking and adjusting his beltless pants. A horse and carriage rattled by. Down the street at the dry goods store, the bell rang as customers began passing through the door again.
It seemed normal life had returned to the town, and our hero was cheered by it.
Next week in our story
The man who had just exited the saloon hitched his pants again. His plaid shirt was untucked on one side of the buttons, and he fumbled at tucking it in. He did this while watching the trio on the bench across from him. Then he gave a toothless grin, pointed a thumb and finger gun at Zack, and went back inside the saloon.
Chapter X (link to come)
Start at the beginning
