Horace and the Moleman

By Cyrus F. Rea

For generations men have looked to the skies, wondering if there is life up there.

They were looking in the wrong direction.

For beneath the surface of the Earth lies a hidden universe within our own, containing a civilization that has never seen space, the stars, or humans... until a half-crazed widower from Texas accidentally drops his home-made disintegrator,

The device plummets down two-thousand miles beneath his garage and straight into the Naraka World-Realm, causing cataclysmic damage and revealing to the Vickstaks below that that their Universe isn't as solid as they'd thought.

It is left to Horace and Wade, two delinquents from the Midwest, to prevent a full-scale invasion. With the help of a street-smart Latina from San Antonio, a lost Vickstak trapped on the surface, and a horde of heretical moleman determined to prove there's life above the ceiling of the universe, Horace and Wade find themselves way over their heads -- by several thousand miles -- as they try to survive and return to the surface.

"Horace and the Moleman" is a hilarious coming-of-age story. It's a sardonic hip tale set during the mystical magical summer between high school graduation and the 'real world' of college. Scientifically plausible, it will thrill fans of sci-fi and thrillers alike. "Horace and the Moleman" will leave the most jaded reader laughing out loud and cheering at the end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cyrus F. Rea
• Release date: Sep 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301123674

Cyrus F. Rea

Cyrus F. Rea practices law in San Antonio, Texas. He has written numerous novels. He is originally from Branson, MO and has lived in California, Texas, and Indiana. While he likes to write books, he finds writing autobiographical information quite tedious.

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Horace and the Moleman

By Cyrus F. Rea

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Cyrus F. Rea

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Horace and the Moleman is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2013 Cyrus F. Rea

All rights reserved.

CHAPTER ONE

Horace Ipsen would bring up the business about Indians only while driving and only after a pint of Southern Comfort. He’d claim he had Cherokee blood. Enough to get a full scholarship... If I’d needed one. He’d go on about the Cherokee nation. He’d recite the Cherokee alphabet. Claim his mother descended from Sequoyah. But, when Horace dipped into his second pint, he’d shift gears, cast a serious look at Wade Finnis, and admit in ashamed tones he was more likely than not Apache owing to a little ridge running along the bone under his eye socket. The Raven, he’d slur. That’s my Apache spirit name.

Such revelations invariably occurred while Horace was driving at high rates of speed, late at night, down deserted county roads on the outskirts of Springfield, Missouri. And, when Horace’s BAC reached the Apache level, it was wise to simply nod and go along with it. If you raised objections, he’d turn off the headlights and chant that only an Apache could navigate in total darkness at 90 miles per hour.

Which is how they had ended up in the ditch.

Over the past decade, the Springfield Missouri School District had budgeted, taxed, and spent exactly $87,030.86 teaching Wade Finis that friends don’t let friends drive drunk. Money utterly and completely wasted. At least when it came to driving with Horace. The entire point of driving with Horace, after all, consisted of witnessing how far he could go – and how much he could drink – before running off the road. Wade, an otherwise sedentary 18-year-old, considered his rides with Horace an Extreme Sport. Certainly dangerous, but in Horace’s company nothing could ever go too terribly wrong, a sentiment that persisted even when Wade found himself trapped two thousand miles beneath the surface of the Earth.

More on that in a bit.

* * *

After slamming his Buick into the ditch, Horace jumped out to inspect the undercarriage. The procedure had become routine.

Damn suspension’s gonna kill me, Horace muttered. Gawdam uncontrollable at highway speeds.

He always blamed the Buick. The automotive engineers had gravely disappointed Horace in failing to design a vehicle that would remain on the road while driven by a drunken 24-year-old. At night. Without headlights. Wade, on the other hand, had always been impressed with the Buick’s ability to slam into ditches, small trees, and rural mailboxes without suffering much damage.

Wade had smashed his head against the passenger-side window. Slight concussion. Hardly noticeable against the backdrop of the Southern Comfort he’d been drinking.

Raven’s gotta take a leak, Horace announced after assuring himself the car was still drivable. He trotted off into the woods.

Wade felt queasy. And, not just because Horace had started speaking in third-person. He took a deep breath to calm his stomach, leaned back in the bucket seat, and reminded himself that in a few weeks he’d leave the Ozarks for good. The days of drinking and driving with Horace would be long gone, replaced by... actually, he didn’t quite know what college students in big cities did. Probably something involving art museums or cello quartets. He knew nothing about art. Nor cellos. This made him even queasier.

Two sharp taps on the window interrupted his troubled thoughts.

Pop the trunk.

Horace had returned.

Wade leaned over the driver seat and pulled the lever. The trunk opened with a whoosh. The guy had a habit of engaging in preventive maintenance at odd hours. Probably doing something typically Horace-like such as checking the pressure in the spare tire; he always carried a gauge in his shirt pocket.

But, it was something else altogether.

Horace rapped again on the window. Huge halogen flashlight in one hand and his Remington 870 Wingmaster shotgun in the other.

A most un-Apache-like smile spread across his broad peasant face.

Cougar. Took a bag of cement. Up a tree.

Horace turned and stumbled off into the dark woods, leaving the enigmatic words careening around Wade’s throbbing head like disoriented June bugs.

A what?

Wade crawled out of the car. The bottle of SoCo had spilled all over him. He could hear Horace cursing his way through the undergrowth.

Where are you going? Horace?

No response save vile mutterings about musk thistles and briars.

Wade stretched, rubbed his neck, and frisked himself for a dry cigarette. The Buick’s tinny speakers croaked the end of an old Hank Williams, Sr. ditty. A forest full of crickets and cicadas provided accompaniment. The song that had started Horace talking about Indians; Wade should have braced himself at that point.

Lighting one of Horace’s Reds, Wade’s brain slowly rebooted.

He loped after Horace, a blur of light stumbling deeper into the forest. The smell of cedars tickled his nose.

Wait up!

Cougar. Took a bag of cement. Up a tree.

Perfect score on the Math portion of the SAT and not too shabby a showing on the rest. He’d be heading to M.I.T. in two months. Nevertheless, he found it tough to interpret Horace’s comment.

At first, he thought his sometimes-Cherokee friend had bestowed a spirit name upon him. Cougar... Wade liked the sound of that. The Raven and the Cougar... But, with the briars grabbing his legs and the thistles scratching his ankles, he began to sober up enough to suspect Horace was referring to something else altogether. Surely, there isn’t a...

Wade froze.

Horace? he hissed into the darkness. What do you mean by Cougar?

Horace appeared from nowhere beside him shining the light to his face.

Hell’s bells, guy... keep it down. Horace pointed the beam off into a dark tangle of oaks, grapevine, and briars. I was zipping up when I heard it... There’s a gawdam cougar up in that tree!

* * *

Wade had been born and raised in Springfield, Missouri. Although on the edge of thousands of square miles of the Ozark Mountains, he cared little for the outdoors. He hiked now and then. On Minecraft. His knowledge of natural flora and fauna extended to knowing which dog food his mom’s poodle liked. Yet, even in his drunken state, he was confident there weren’t any cougars around. Fairly confident.

We don’t even have cougars here, right? Horace?

Horace shushed him. Crouching, he approached the tree. Huge trees grow in the Ozarks like weeds. This one made them look scrawny. It was enormous. With a good agent, the towering ancient oak could find work as a corporate logo on the East Coast.

Dried Southern Comfort, Wade was discovering, is essentially the exact opposite of OFF. Mosquitoes were dive-bombing his bare marinated legs. He swatted at them while watching Horace shine the tight beam up into the canopy.

In the space of three minutes, Wade had experienced the thrilling excitement of earning his own Indian spirit name. Then, frustrated anxiety occasioned by his inability to recall if Missouri had cougars. Then, blossoming dread that if in fact a cougar lurked overhead, nothing prevented it from leaping down on them at any second. And, in the process, he had completely forgotten about the middle part of Horace’s cryptic announcement, until he looked down at his feet.

The beam from Horace’s flashlight, darting around in the leaves and branches overhead, cast enough ambient light to reveal mounds of gray powder around the trunk, as if someone had spilled a bag of cement. He bent down and took up a handful. It felt warm. Gritty. Smelled vaguely of plaster.

Horace... What is this stuff? He whispered on account of the cougar he was certain didn’t exist.

Horace waved him closer, wobbling like a tightrope walker. Just watching him try to stand made Wade dizzy. The Raven was wasted. With a foul heavy breath that could short-out a Breathalyzer, Horace leaned in close and reiterated: There’s a cougar up there...

But, what’s this stuff on the ground? There’s powder everywhere–

Shhhh... Listen. Horace turned off the halogen light. Wade always wondered where he got his flashlights. He had several, all carefully affixed with velcro in the trunk of his car. Obnoxiously long and large, made of black brushed steel. He held them overhand as if a member of a SWAT team. Off in the distance, from up on the road, Hank’s scratchy voice meandered down through the woods.

It’s just the radio...

Shhhh!

Then Wade heard it. A shuffling sound from high overhead, as if someone had dumped a bucket of sand onto the leaves. The noise spread out as it came closer. Wade could taste and smell gritty gravelly particulate in the air.

It’s got a bag of cement. Ripping it all part. Horace nodded to himself. He had it all figured out.

A bag of cement? Up there?

"Hell, guy... a full grown cougar can take a calf up a tree."

Horace’s disorienting confidence left Wade unable to respond with anything but an, Oh.

At least at first.

A few seconds later, though...

What the hell are you talking about? There can’t be a–

Shhhh!

Several more pounds of dust spilled down from tree.

Wade finally shut up and became very still.

The cougar-with-a-bag-of-cement theory had many holes. But, that didn’t mitigate the fact that something was up there moving around. Both of them crouched, staring up into the dark canopy. With their mouths open. Like chickens in a rainstorm.

Horace handed him the flashlight. Hold this. I’m going up.

Wade nodded numbly. Horace waddled over to the tree, leaving tracks in the powder. He grabbed hold of a thick stout branch and began pulling himself up.

Light, Horace commanded.

Wade fumbled around for the switch. The beam shot through the cloud of dust enveloping the tree. He tried holding it overhand manner, and had to admit the hefty tube of D cells felt comforting; he could use it to ward off cougars.

Horace kept climbing. Twenty feet or so above the ground. Wade kept the light trained on what he considered useful branches. Every few moments, another load of the cement-like powder drifted down.

The tree’s crown interlocked with several others, and it proved difficult for Wade to get a good bead on where the stuff was coming from. Swinging the light around, he saw that Horace had ascended another ten feet or so, scampering up the tree with his polyester pants and short-sleeved snap-down shirt.

This isn’t going to end well, he thought. By "this" Wade referred to being out past midnight, in the middle of nowhere, watching a drunken assistant manager of Wal-Mart climb a tree with a loaded shotgun. Wade had a sense that situations like these would arise less frequently once he left for Boston.

"Psst! Wade! A little to the left. No, my left!"

Which one is your left?

The other way...

Wade cursed and swung the flashlight around, up into the crown. It resembled a light saber with all the dust Horace had stirred up.

Keep it right there. That’s it... A little higher... Oh shit...

Silence. Then Horace muttering to himself.

It isn’t a cougar, is it? Horace? Horace?

Definitely not a cougar.

* * *

While the evening seemed to be veering towards something quite unusual, it had started as had innumerable other nights: lacking any friends his own age, Horace had headed out after work to find Wade. It hadn’t required much of a search; as he had been every evening that summer, Wade was hanging out at T.J. Millet’s house, supervising the repair/autopsy of his Chevelle.

Good evening, Mrs. Millet, Horace announced with the slight bow of a maitre de. Would Wade Finis happen to be inside?

T.J.’s mother stood in the doorway. A cigarette in one hand. Squinting, she looked Horace up and down.

Thought you were a Mormon.

My work clothes, Horace explained. He retrieved his nametag from his pocket and presented it to her.

Been plagued by Mormons, she muttered. Every time the doorbell rings. Either Mormons or Jova Windahs. One or the other. T.J.’s damn father put a Romney sign out front. Been creeping ‘round like they own the place ever since.

It can surely rise to a nuisance, Ma’am. Horace slid his nametag back into his pocket.

Mrs. Millet grunted approvingly.

Back here, Horace, a voice called from the innards of the little house.

Mrs. Millet, hearing her son’s voice, hesitated.

T.J.’s not going anywhere till the yard’s raked.

Horace nodded solemnly.

I’ll remind him, Ma’am

She stepped aside and let him in.

Horace walked down the narrow hallway to the bedroom. Wade lay on T.J.’s bed, reading a Chilton’s Auto Guide. A disassembled transmission covered the floor. T.J. sat at a desk strewn with oily rags and tools, methodically scraping a gear with his fingernail.

Gentlemen, Horace stepped over the parts and gave a regal flourish.

You know how to work a micro-meter? Wade handed Horace a shiny caliper.

"Mi-craw-meter, T.J. corrected him. He tossed the gear onto the bed. Wade stacked it next to the others. They let him into M.I.T., and he doesn’t know what a micrometer is."

He’ll do fine, T.J. Horace measured the thickness of his Wal-Mart nametag. Hell, his mother told me he fixed her DVD player. Isn’t that right, Wade?

Yeah... I guess. Wade answered with little enthusiasm.

T.J. moved over to Wade’s dashboard, propped against the wall, and pulled out some burned fuses.

You were right, Horace, T.J. commented. Electrical system’s screwed.

Yeah, well I coulda told you that. Wade muttered. What Wade dared not tell him – out of embarrassment – was that for the past week his car wouldn’t start unless he stuck his tongue on a bit of exposed wire near the steering wheel. So, is it the alternator thing? Or, the condenser or whatever? They both gave him the same pathetic look. You know what I mean. That thing with the belts... Starter?

M-I-fuckin-T... T.J. shook his head. Unbelievable...

Yeah, well... There’s a big difference between electrical engineering and being an electrician, you know. Big difference...

Actually, the difference remained quite a mystery to Wade, and he hoped they wouldn’t press him on the subject. For four years, his mother had been blabbering on about how he had fixed her DVD player. Everyone in the tri-state area seemed to think he was some electronics whiz. T.J. knew better.

When are you taking your exam, Horace? Wade tried to change the subject.

Horace stood up straight and proud. Next week. Just got back from the yard as a matter of fact.

Aw man... Why didn’t you pick me up? I told you I wanted to ride the train.

Hell, Wade, it’s called a locomotive... the train’s what it pulls. Anyway, nobody’s allowed back in the yard without proper security clearances. The Frisco-Western rail yard on the northern outskirts of town had never seemed all that secure to Wade. Homeless guys wandered around the place at all hours. But, to hear Horace describe it, visiting the yard was akin to entering the Langley tarmac during the final approach of Air Force One.

Dude, your dad’s in charge of the place. Can’t he pull some strings?

No pulling strings with the railroad, Wade. We’d need to get you a background check, fingerprinted, the whole ball of wax.

Wade rolled his eyes. Horace lived according to a strict set of rules, most of which didn’t exist.

They’d never give you clearance anyway. T.J. smirked while he picked at the fuse with rodent-like precision. "Don’t even know how to use a my-crow-meter."

As I’m an applicant, Horace continued, I’m permitted to go back there, you see. Horace looked down over his glasses at Wade. I’m part of the railroad family, Wade. You know that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah... I just wanted to blow the whistle thing.

Hell, guy... That’s just the kind of thing that... His exasperation required him to pause and collect his thoughts. First, it’s called a horn. And, you don’t just honk it. We have a whole slew of signals. Long-Long: Brakes Released, Proceeding Forward. Or, Long-Long-Short-Long... That’s a 14L code, of course. And, then there’s–

Okay, Horace. I get it.

That’s the reason we don’t let civilians back there, guy. He was deadly serious. You start pushing buttons and sounding the horn and all kinds of trouble ensues.

Wade noticed T.J. grinning at Horace’s use of the term civilians. He tried not to laugh. Nobody laughed at Horace.

T.J. had moved on from the dashboard to a pile of metal cylinders stacked on the floor.

Hey, Horace. Convince Wade to let me drop in a Tremec. T.J. said.

Horace nodded. You should listen to your friend. He got into Rolla.

And, we use micrometers, T.J. teased and dove into a greasy bag of gaskets.

Wade grunted and threw himself back on the bed. Screw both of you...

T.J. and Wade had just graduated high school. In a matter of weeks, he’d be at M.I.T. Best engineering school in the country. But, everyone else he knew planned on going to Mizzou’s engineering school at Rolla. And, they all seemed to know about Tremecs.

The 1966 Chevelle had been sold to him by his stepbrother. And, during the past week, most of its innards had been disgorged and transferred through the window into T.J.’s bedroom. The room resembled an automotive abattoir. Parts of old engines, axles, and gears covered every inch of the soiled carpet. Tools filled the closet. A stack of tires took up one corner of the room, propping up an oxy-fuel torch and other welding equipment.

What depressed Wade even more than his butchered car was T.J.’s undeniable mechanical competence. He had grimy fingers, long and narrow like a rodent’s. Always covered in grease. Engineering fingers, Wade thought. His own were pudgy and soft. Although on the same A.P. track as Wade, T.J. had some connection to the Vo-Tech crowd. He ran in circles with mechanics and gearheads. Earlier that day, some of them had dropped by. Wade had kept his mouth shut while T.J. and his tattooed friends swapped parts, exchanged cash, told inside automotive jokes, and took turns casting pitiful looks at Wade’s transmission. He suspected T.J. kept pushing a Tremec – some new kind of transmission he assumed – because he had swapped out or sold many of his Chevelle’s vital parts.

Relax, Wade. I’ll get it back together. Or, better yet, how about I give you $300 for the whole thing?

Put it back together and we’ll discuss it.

T.J. gave Horace an exasperated look and shrugged his shoulders. Suit yourself.

Hell, guy, you don’t want to take a Chevelle to Boston without a Tremec. Horace spoke as if reciting a well-known maxim, as if everyone should know that arriving in Massachusetts with a Tremec-less Chevelle would thwart all chances of entering polite society.

Another moment of panic as it occurred to Wade that he wasn’t entirely sure what a transmission did in the first place. And, by September, everyone would know, the admissions department would realize the terrible mistake it had made. On the first day of his first class, the professor would call him to the whiteboard to explain how planetary gears work. And, he’d fail. While naked. Such horrible visions had plagued him since receiving the damn acceptance letter.

Then, T.J.’s twin sister opened the door, and Wade’s worries instantaneously evaporated.

She wore a fluffy bathrobe. Towel on her head. Jennifer Millet: recently crowned Prom Queen and former hottest-girl-in-school. Freshly showered.

Her entry calmed him a bit. Indeed, it made him feel downright confident when he noticed the effect of her presence on Horace. Horace the Elder. Horace the All-Knowing. Horace the Adult. Horace the Source of All Answers to Life and the Real World.

In an instant, he had reverted to Horace the Wal-Mart Weirdo.

The guy shut down completely, took a step behind the door, and stood there studiously examining a piece of peeling paint. His face red. His jaw clenched. His sweaty palms rubbing his polyester pant legs.

Mom wants all this out of here, she told her brother. You’ve ruined the carpet.

T.J. didn’t look up from the cylinder head. Then get your dance shit out of the garage. There’s no room out there.

Wade snickered. Jennifer sneered at him and then jumped upon spotting the lurking Horace, whose efforts to meld into the wall had proven unsuccessful.

Horace. Jennifer spoke the word as if she’d discovered a cat mess behind the door.

He would have blushed if not already beet red. Good evening, Miss Millet.

"Miss Millet. Wow. How polite. She thought for a moment and then gave Horace a conniving smile. Hey, are you guys going out later?"

Jennifer, although three minutes older than T.J., suffered the same age-related handicap as everyone in the room but Horace: she wasn’t 21.

In situations like these, Horace had a distinct advantage in that he could – and would – buy alcohol for Wade’s friends. That’s what Jennifer was driving at. And, despite her Machiavellian motives, Wade felt Horace should take advantage of this opening to the fullest.

But, Horace couldn’t speak.

He swallowed and looked at Wade with desperation.

Wade sighed and rolled up off the bed. Yeah, we’re going out. Isn’t that right, Horace? Wade felt it incumbent upon him to demonstrate how normal men act around women. He got a bit cocky, though. And, before he could stop himself, he gazed upon splendiferous Jennifer and the following words dribbled out: You want to come with us?

Silence. Slight gasp from someone in the room. You could hear Horace’s hands clenching and unclenching.

Wade, Jennifer and T.J. had just graduated. The cliques, the groups, the standards and mores that had governed them for the past 12 years would soon disappear. Perhaps someday one such as Wade might prove worthy of a former prom queen. But, not this day.

Uh... No... I would not. Spoken with a withering contempt. She turned towards Horace with a flirty lilt to her voice. "I was just wondering if Horace could buy me some wine coolers. Would you Horace? Please?"

I’d be honored, Miss Millet.

Great! She rattled off a list. Anyway, get your shit off the floor T.J.

She left the room but turned in the hallway and mouthed Weirdo to Wade and T.J. while pointing through the wall to where Horace stood. T.J. tossed an oily sock down the hall after her.

You have a lovely sister, Horace declared with great solemnity.

T.J. ignored him and turned on Wade. Were you asking my sister out on a date?

Wade shrugged both shoulders with an expression of total bewilderment, sputtering. No! I was just seeing what she was doing...

Sure sounded like you were asking her out, Horace observed, reverting to his confident all-knowing demeanor.

Don’t ask out my sister, dude.

I didn’t ask her out... Sheesh... Horace’s the one who said he’d buy her beer.

Wine coolers. Horace had his pocket memo-pad out, jotting down her order.

Heck, Horace can ask her out, T.J. remarked. He’d make a kick-ass brother-in-law.

Why thank you, T.J.

Horace had already pulled out his keys.

He’s been given a mission. To retrieve wine coolers for a beautiful Lady. He looked focused and determined.

A bit like a modern-day Don Quixote.

I’m heading to beans, he announced, using some vague railroad jargon.

Hey, wait up! I’m coming, Wade jumped up and followed him down the hallway.

A bit like a modern-day Sancho Paza.

* * *

Horace looked down. Forty feet below him, Wade had shrunk to the size of a small dog. The inside of his mouth felt dry, coated with puffs of sandy dust that kept falling down on his head at regular intervals. The exertion – and maybe the altitude – had sobered him up. It had also winded him. He wasn’t in the best shape. Hadn’t climbed a tree in years. He was beginning to remember why.

All large trees in the Ozarks have a threshold. Once crossed, your mind begins suggesting it would be best to just stay put and starve to death instead of trying to climb back down. Horace had passed that point several branches back. He was way too high. Stuck. He had some rope in his trunk, neatly coiled and stowed next to his toolbox. But, he knew Wade wouldn’t be able to toss an end up high enough to reach him. And, just imagining trying to explain to him how to tie an end to a rock and throw it left him aggravated.

And, then there was the cougar.

But, it wasn’t a cougar. While still too high to pass muster with the Missouri Highway Patrol, Horace’s BAC had dropped back down below the suspicions-of-large-animals range. If he could pull himself up to the next branch, he’d be able to see where the dust was coming from.

Hell’s bells..., he muttered. I’ve come this far...

He hugged the trunk and carefully reached up for the limb. He thought it over a bit more, and to buy time to get up his nerve, he undid his belt and slinked it through the stock of the shotgun, refastening it around his waist. Taking a deep breath, he scrambled up to the branch, nearly slipping in the process.

While his liver chugged away at the Southern Comfort, his adrenal gland just as quickly replaced the alcohol with vertigo-induced adrenalin. He muttered quiet prayers that he prayed Wade couldn’t hear.

The light from below disappeared leaving him in darkness. He dared not look down. Wade?! he yelled.

Sorry, Horace... Wait... Something bit me. Ahhh! Mosquitoes...

Horace closed his eyes and gripped the branch, cursing to himself. The sandy rustling noise came from a foot or so away. Some possum readied to rip his face off, and Wade was worrying about mosquitoes.

Gawdamit, Wade! Gimme some light!

The beam swung back up.

He knew how all this would end. He’d tell Wade he was stuck. The kid would drive off to find help, get lost, and never return.

He heard a small puff. Another burst of dust shot out from right above his head, coating his sweaty face with grit and filling his nostrils with the smell of gravel. Reminded him of the railroad. Most things did. In a week, he’d be taking his exam to become a switchman with Frisco-Western, the first step towards becoming an engineer. Not the M.I.T. kind, but a real honest-to-god captain of a locomotive.

Another load of dust shot out from a point overhead.

This time he clearly saw where it originated.

At least, he thought he did. A long leafy branch about four feet above him seemed to be the source. Gray dust covered its leaves. He watched closely.

I’ll be damned...

About six inches above the branch – from a point in mid-air – the dust emerged from nothingness.

Horace? You okay? Wade called from below.

Horace ignored him. Another puff of grit. This one more voluminous than the last. Like someone had tossed an invisible bucket of sand into the tree.

He twisted a slender branch and tried to break it off; he wanted something to stick up into the area from where the powder emerged. But, the branch was too green to snap off. He unhooked the shotgun, slid the belt off the stock, double-checked his footing, and braced himself. Slowly, he raised the barrel up towards the spot. He could see nothing there. It was just an arbitrary point in mid-air nestled in amongst the branches.

Wade’s ongoing struggle against the mosquitoes was causing the light to keep wiggling. He saw a spark.

Wade... Cut off the light for a sec.

He let his eyes adjust. The barrel of the shotgun rested on the branch above him, its end just inches from the point in the air where he saw the spark.

He could just barely make out a bluish haze hovering above the branch.

**Pfuuufff**

Another puff of dust. When it sprayed out he heard a brief little snap and saw sparks jump between the particles.

He guided the barrel up to the exact point; inch by inch, he slid it along the branch. The blue haze grew brighter.

And, that’s when he saw the most beautiful girl in the world.

Horace screamed in surprise. Lost his footing. Grabbed at a tangle of leafy twigs.

Something came hurtling towards him out of the darkness. Instinctively, he raised one hand to block it from hitting his face. It had leathery slender tentacles that wrapped around his wrist and neck.

He started to fall.

And, then the volcano began.

* * *

Only rarely do volcanoes erupt in the Ozarks. Exceedingly rarely.

As it turns out, it wasn’t exactly a volcano.

It was something far more extraordinary.

Paradoxically, its extraordinariness was quite ordinary. For, Horace was there. Extraordinary things happened when Horace was around. That’s why Wade hung out with the guy.

He had met Horace a couple years earlier. Wade had been working as a part-timer in the Men’s Footwear department at Wal-Mart, picking up a few hours after school on Thursdays, Tuesdays, and every other Saturday morning. Horace was an assistant manager in the Automotive department, a distant place on the other side of the store to which Wade rarely ventured. He suspected the conversations over there concerned spark plugs, transmissions, radial tires and other such arcania. If they learned he planned to be an engineer, they’d relentlessly cross-examine him and expose his ignorance. So, he stayed in his own department, stocking socks with the women.

He had seen Horace now and again. By the way the guy spoke – when he did speak – and dress, by the look of his haircut and wire-rimmed glasses, he had assumed Horace was really old. Like maybe 35 or something. Or 50. (Wade proved terrible at judging ages.)

But, he overheard an obese stocker named Phyllis refer to him and Horace as the young pups. This drew a blank stare from Wade until she told him Horace couldn’t be more than 23 or 24.

Shortly after that, Wade bumped into him out back while cutting up boxes and stuffing them in the dumpster. Trying to start up a conversation, Wade mentioned he had saved up to buy a Chevelle from his stepbrother. Horace lit a cigarette, sheathed his box-cutter, and launched into an exposition on the evolution of the Chevelle and peculiarities regarding its suspension, engine, and transmission, providing along the way a brief history of every factory that had produced the vehicle. Asperger’s, Wade thought. Cool. (Wade proved even worse at diagnosing psychological conditions.)

Horace had provided so much useful automotive advice – most of which Wade didn’t understand – that he felt compelled to offer Horace something in return; so, he mentioned that the reinforced-toe insulated socks had just gone on sale. Horace took in the information and pulled a long last drag from his Red. He ground the butt into the pavement and squinted off across the highway. You can’t trust Chinese socks, Wade Finis. Can’t trust them at all. And, with that, he had headed back inside.

The statement, uttered with an air of certainty rarely used in conjunction with footwear, left Wade somewhat confused and vaguely suspicious as he returned to work stocking, wondering how much trust one ought place in socks in the first place.

Horace’s age eventually led Wade to approach him with a proposition. Wade had received an invite to a party out by the lake. Girls would be there. A bonfire. All the ingredients, he knew, that could lead to getting laid: a rare event. However, he would need booze to clinch the deal. So, on a whim, Wade caught up with Horace after work and asked if he could suggest a good liquor for the occasion.

Southern Comfort would be your best bet, Horace proclaimed. It’s a bit spicy... little bit of a fruity aftertaste. ‘Course the ladies won’t drink it straight. You need to make it all pretty for ‘em. Ever had an Alabama Slammer?

Uh... no.

Simple to make, he continued. The Slammer, that is. ‘Course, you got your ‘57 Chevy, SloSunrise, and SoCo Hurricane. Hell, you could even mix up a Princess Peach. I take it straight, though. Hell, guy, it won the gawdam first prize at the World’s Fair. 1904. St. Louis. Why would you want to mess up something that won first prize at the gawdam World’s Fair? But, that’s women for you...

The guy who couldn’t pass the tires without whipping out a handkerchief and rubbing off invisible spots of dust possessed a cornucopia of Southern Comfort trivia. Wade was stunned.

Are you studying to be a bartender or something?

Hell, no... Horace shook his head and wiped his hands with his handkerchief. I’ll be working at Frisco-Western this time in two years. If all goes according to schedule. Finishing up a business degree.

You’re in college?

Hell, guy... Why do you think those ladies don’t talk to me? Shit, they know I’m outa here just as soon as the diploma’s printed.

I’m going to go to college. They talk to me.

Yeah, well... you’re younger. You bring out their maternal instincts.

That sounded reasonable to Wade.

Speaking of being younger, Wade segued, steering the conversation to the point of the matter. You wouldn’t, uh... maybe have an extra bottle of Southern Comfort around would you?

No such thing as an extra bottle of Southern Comfort, Horace declared, with tone usually reserved for reciting axioms from Euclid’s Elements. He wiped his glasses on his knit tie. "I suppose I could buy you one. Long as you don’t go off and kill yourself or something."

Would you? Great! Here... I’ve got a twenty. Is that enough?

They consummated the transaction shortly thereafter, thus beginning an illicit relationship condemned by the Missouri Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control, the Department of Transportation, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, and numerous other well-meaning organizations and agencies, both public and private. Wade delighted in finding someone willing to contribute to his delinquency, and Horace was pleased to have found someone who’d listen.

Eventually, Wade introduced Horace to his friends. With various disclaimers and warnings.

He’s not gay, Wade would always begin. Not a child molester. Yes, I know he’s like twenty something... Yes, he always dresses that way. I don’t know why he parts it that way... I think it’s Brylcreem. No, I don’t think he’s dangerous. What? I don’t know why he talks that way... he’s from the sticks... they all talk that way. He likes guns, knows everything... really... Everything. He’s a walking encyclopedia... Why did I bring him? Why do you think, dumbass? Who do you think bought the beer?

The need for disclaimers eventually dissipated as each of Wade’s friends came to view Horace with awe and respect. It wasn’t just that he bought them beer. Or, that Horace owned an arsenal of firearms that he kept in the trunk of his Buick. Or, that he was a savant when it came to arcane trivia, able to answer every question about life and the universe posed by any eighteen-year-old boy. It was something more than that. Wade’s folks had split-up. So too had all his friends’ folks. And, while they had no shortage of stepfathers and first, third, and fifth Friday visitations, and various uncles and stepbrothers who would come in and out of their lives as marriage licenses and divorce decrees were churned out every few years, for the most part, Wade and his friends were raised by women. Horace became their male role model. The guy who showed them how to hold a .45, advised them on what to major in, told them what kind of spark plugs they needed. And, plenty of advice about women. Well, when it came to women, Horace proved a bit less informed than his charges. But, he seemed to have an idea of how courting should work based on various movies he’d seen.

To describe him as a friend would be far too simplistic. In fact, nobody contacted Horace directly. It’s one thing to hang out with a guy like Horace if he happened to be around. But, to call him up and invite him to a movie or something? Well, that would have just been weird. Nevertheless, the group of high school boys soon took it for granted that if Wade was going to be there, so too would Horace. And, on the few occasions when Horace wasn’t around, he was still there in spirit, the subject of endless conversations about Horace. Speculations about whether he was a virgin (likely), whether he’d ever killed someone (even more likely), whether he had other friends (definitely not), and more and more frequently as their graduation grew closer: What’s the guy going to do after we graduate and leave?

* * *

So, about that volcano...

Wade heard Horace scream. A scream so horrible that Wade never again doubted Horace’s Apache blood.

He knew Horace was somewhere high above, on his way down fast. Most likely with a cougar clamped to his neck. (Stuck down below in the woods, alone, Wade had begun to have serious second thoughts about his previous second thoughts about the cougar-theory.) For a split second, Wade debated standing there and catching him but ditched the idea, turned, and leaped back away from the tree.

An abrupt change in air pressure roiled the pit of his stomach. Caused him to skip a breath. Knocked him to the ground. A sub-audible roar, more felt than heard, rattled his head. Stunned, he looked back and saw a blackness explode down from the branches high overhead.

The transformation of the patch of forest happened so suddenly, so thoroughly, and so bizarrely, that Wade had no chance for reflection. His initial thought was that a giant had upended a mile-high silo of rock powder onto the grove of trees. Tons of particulate matter erupted from tree. Waves of the gray grit washed over him, pummeling him back through the trees and briars. He scrambled and tried to stay atop it. The air was more dust than air; it clogged his mouth and nostrils. He retched and rolled and grabbed at a sapling, trying to claw himself to the surface. But, the relentless tsunami of hot dirt and gravel overcame him, burying him alive. He was sinking into a black hole of unconsciousness.

And, then a firm hand gripped his shirt and pulled.

It was Horace, rolling down the side of the mushrooming avalanche of powder and dirt.

He held a purse.

Move! Go! Go! Horace yanked him up. Wade twisted and kicked, and with Horace’s help, clawed his way to the surface and rolled away from the swelling mountain.

With Horace hauling him along, the pair ran towards the road, followed by a tree-shattering tidal wave of rock and grit and a wall of thunder that shook the forest.

Horace tossed him into the car. Wade threw-up in the passenger seat, coughing and trying to catch his breath. Horace got the car started.

The road had vanished. They could see nothing but dust. Horace picked a direction and gunned it. Behind them, the enormous cloud of dust began to glow.

Horace! Wade coughed, staring out the Buick’s rear window. Look!

Plumes of glowing embers shot into the air, and in their midst the vaguest outline could be seen of what had not been there before: a mountain, growing wider and taller as they stared.

Drive! Wade screamed. Horace just sat there, paralyzed, staring numbly at the roiling clouds of red-hot particles.

To Wade’s shock, he began to turn the car around, towards the eruption.

What are you doing?! Not that way! Go, Horace, go!

White powder covered Horace’s face. He looked like a clown. His red eyes had tears. There’s a young lady back there..., he sputtered. In the tree! I have to save her...

Wade, panicked and grabbed the wheel, fighting with Horace to turn the car back around.

The audacity of Wade touching the steering wheel broke Horace from his stupor; nobody interferes with his driving. A wave of heat washed over the car as if someone had turned a blowtorch on them.

Horace