Fiction, 60% complete
Chapter 1
The relentless, penetrating desert heat lets up only in what must be the shortest fall season of any place on earth. The subtle change in the smell of the air goes unnoticed by most everyone. The unenlightened feel only the inescapable heat. The more familiar learn to look beyond the extremes for the concealed signs of the moderate. The most experienced desert dwellers seek out the infrequent and superbly hidden bits of normal that add some sanity to life among the rocks and sand. The most careful of these alone will recognize the subtle change in smell and anticipate the fall. The briefest of falls is followed immediately by desert winter. The wind blows invariably. The winter nights are frigid and I've always hated them.
The desert spring, short like fall, is punctuated by raging winds and blowing sand. A few short but miserable days later it's summer, hot mostly without the faintest breeze. The Newcomer prays for spring, but the Old-timers pray for summer nights. Summer nights are the best of the good things about the climate of this place. They are all that has been said or sung about them, and much that has not.
As I walk alone along the deserted early morning residential street, I wonder if some uncomplicated school kid and I will be the only two who notice the slight change in smell. Soon the rest will notice without warning that the summer is gone. They will have missed the fall, and the ugly, stark, isolated, frigid, reality of desert winter will be on us all.
Coming here, using the power of solitude to rest and hide, is a nearly perfect escape. Like all secret places, renewal comes here in large accelerated hunks. It's high-speed recovery, a week's rest in a couple days, a month's rest in a week. Very few, just the necessary personnel, know I'm here. It's only been a week. I'm hoping for a few more days, but I know it won't happen. I'm surprised, given the events in the nightly news, that they've left me alone this long. Each day my anxiety worsens. I know they must call. I turn the corner and head down my street. It's quiet. I slow to a lingerer's pace, trying meekly to avoid the last few steps.
Now I hear it. A barely noticeable hum, then a sharper piercing hum. Like a model airplane engine running at full throttle. I see it. It's a large model plane. I wonder where it's being controlled from or is it out of control. It turns away. It does a loop and rolls to level flight about six feet above the ground and heads straight for my front door. I realize now I too am headed for the front door running hard. Just as it hits the front door I spin and drive behind the brick planter. It explodes with a muffled but powerful thump that sprays wood, glass and stucco all over my yard, and into the street, and into yards and driveways across the street.
I immediately begin the familiar inventory for missing body parts and the checklist of functions. I can't hear yet, but I can see and feel, and all my limbs are attached, and no blood anywhere. The next order of business is to reduce the possibility of a follow-up threat. I find myself at the corner of the remaining blocks of the front patio wall. My “walking around” 357 magnum revolver is already out and hammered back. Peering around the jagged edge, I see no threatening movements.
Neighbors are just beginning to wander out. They know nothing of my work. They have seen me with guns and loading ammunition with the garage door open. They suspect, I'm sure, that the fool has blown something up. I must hurry. I have maybe two minutes to finish the threat search, hide my guns, and come out looking confused and wondering what has happened. The threat of an effective follow-up for them, whoever they are, evaporates quickly and very soon it will be way too risky.
I jump through the hole that used to be my front door. I rush down the hall passed the false wall arsenal. It's still intact. I move through the side yard door with the intrusion alarm blaring. I scan the side yard, nothing noticeable. Now I slide around the back, nothing. Looking down the other narrow side yard, I see nothing. The escape tunnel is undisturbed. Everything except the front door and some windows are intact. I'm surprised and curious, that there's been no follow-up. Their very effective diversion has evaporated. Back inside, I stash the revolver, hide the kitchen and bathroom guns, silence the alarm, and stumble out front looking confused.
As I emerge from the doorway, now a gaping hole, the neighbors haven't made much progress. Still stunned and puzzled, the across the street neighbor, Old Jim is looking at me, talking to his wife and pointing. Just then I hear the familiar throb of a large chopper. It's getting closer quickly and coming from the south. It's moving fast as it breaks the ridgeline of Jim's house. Jim and his wife are distracted and look up. I hope it's mine. If it's a follow-up I'm dead. They see that I see them. They keep going north over the house, toward the secondary pickup spot. They must know it will be awhile before the neighbors, the police and other curious ninnies will allow me to leave. Something is drastically wrong.
I hope this odd event doesn't ruin this beautiful, restful place for me.
First things first, I call the police at 911. I tell them basic info and that someone did something that blow up my front door, then I hear sirens coming my way.
