Dead Planet Spinnin': Volume I: Terracidal Maniacs

By Julian Massaglia

Eleven hundred years into the future, California dominates the globe under a sovereignty-crushing regime—it’s up to one Texan to put an end to it. Meet Gabriel Spurangler, a Neo-Viking Cowboy with a lost memory and bad attitude. If there was ever anyone cut out for the job of saving the Earth from California, it would be him. However, he may find out along the way that there are darker things to worry about than his neighbors on the Pacific Coast.

So come along for the ride and join him in these 260 pages of fury unmatched by a roller coaster at full throttle and a NASA Launchpad at liftoff.

Happy Trails Ya’ll!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Julian Massaglia
• Release date: Jul 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370546008

Julian Massaglia

Julian Massaglia is an author from the Western U.S. He is the author of the “Dead Series Trilogy” and specializes mostly in Epic Science Fiction and Westerns. Drawing influence from history, philosophy, music, nature, 80s movies, and more, his characters are often complex and his novels grit-ridden as his protagonists struggle against monumental odds.

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INFORMATION

Copyright © 2015 by Julian Massaglia

Contact: [e-mail]

Published by Julian Massaglia and Order Of The Corvus Publishing, April 2015.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof shall not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

For more information about Dead Planet Spinnin’, see the In Close section of the book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Artwork:

Arranged, edited, and conceptualized by Julian Massaglia drawing extensively off of legally obtained files:

Front Cover Art:

Guadalupe Peak and El Capitan from the sand flats, Guadalupe Mountains, TX

Fred LaBounty/Shutterstock/Licensed

Walking Away

John Gomez/Shutterstock/Licensed

Pink Planet

Aphelleon/Shutterstock/Licensed

Jaguar attacking out of white background

HeartBeat/Shutterstock/Licensed

Custom Font:

Rio Oro

Neale Davidson/Pixel Sagas/Licensed

Page Breaks:

Black and white vector sketch of a Leopard’s Face

Artheart/Shutterstock/Licensed

Dead Series Art:

The Earth Seen From Apollo 17

Public Domain

Medieval Daggers

Gammaflightleader/Creative Commons S.A. 3.0

~Background altered

Back Cover Art:

Aztec Sun Calendar

Keepscases/Creative Commons S.A. 3.0

~Colors altered

**In no way are the aforementioned sources associated with the author or publisher, or supportive of the expressed content within this work.**

Author Photo:

Julian Massaglia

Music:

All Music Is © Julian Massaglia

Dead Planet Spinnin’: a novel / by Julian Massaglia – 1st ed.

1. Western – Fiction. 2. Science Fiction – Fiction. 3. Action/Adventure – Fiction.

ISBN: 978-0-9960647-4-3

Patch Version 3.0 – 1.28.18

Smashwords Version

DEDICATION

Dedicated to the California Mojave Desert. My sweet escape. Without your desolate, captivating, majestic vastness, and tranquility, this work would not have been possible.

TITLE

By

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INFORMATION

DEDICATION

TITLE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I The Siren Of Desperado

CHAPTER II Cool Water

CHAPTER III Johnny Reb

CHAPTER IV Back In The Saddle

INTERMISSION Night Of The Jaguar

CHAPTER V Big Iron

CHAPTER VI San Francisco's Gonna' Burn

CHAPTER VII The Confederate Nations Of Earth

CHAPTER VIII Settin' The Woods On Fire

CHAPTER IX Sultan Of The Southwest

IN CLOSE

CHAPTER I

THE SIREN OF DESPERADO

Streaks of red and white hot fire streamed by as the eternal desert flowed on outside. Outside the topless deck of the craft I was being carried away on into the heart of the vast waste unraveling before me. The hot August sunrays were cooking my face and squeezing out the sweat from my pores. The hummin’ of the fusion-driven pistons from the speeding vessel I was on, roaring in my cranium like the horn of a freight train. Not that I’ve ever seen one movin’ before, but I remember long ago when I was just a pup, crawlin’ aboard the decks of the old trains abandoned outside our city and blasting the horns. Now they aren’t even there anymore, scrapped away, and all that remains is the soggy wood and the weathered steel of the tracks buried under the tall grass and shifting sands of time.

Another lick from the steel toe boot in my face; this time it smashes into my nose and drives my head just inches away from the baking steel floor below me. And now I don’t remember much of anything; every time he batters me with those damn boots my memories fly out and bounce off the sides of this barreling hovercraft. They’re lost out there in the desert now, and all that’s left is a shell of a man parched of water and acting on instinct. And now the only thing I know is hate, and it’s hate that nourishes me now, hate for this fool and his steel toe freak show of misery.

I can barely see him, he’s just a blur now, but it looks like he’s wearin’ a cowboy hat and his face looks like a skull, and I’m not talkin’ synonyms for gaunt—he’s got some sort of metallic skull mask on his face if my eyes serve me right, and that’s questionable since my memory has already checked out of my cabeza.

I scream at him, but I can’t, my throat is like sandpaper, so I curse at the bastard in my mind; if anything I’ll remember from this, it’ll be your stupid skull face. I might not have been able to express myself, but he sees it on my face, sees the hate twitching through the blood and sweat, sees me fiddling the shackles securing me to the deck, and his damn boots are ready to oblige again. The impact is so hard this time that my face careens into the hot metal surface of the hovercraft, and I hear my blood sizzling, and smell my own flesh cookin’ on the deck. It took a lot of energy to dislodge my head from the baking surface, but I did it, and the sounds of my searing flesh were replaced by his maniacal, mechanical-sounding laughter. There isn’t a lot of water out in these parts, but there sure is a lot of hate, and boy does it keep me goin’. Hell, maybe in some twisted way I should thank the prick, without those stupid boots lickin’ my face I may just go off into sunstroke or dehydration—a real service you’re doing here for your fellow man, buddy; now let me out so I can thank you… But of course, he doesn’t, and now I’m just wishing, and wishing no matter how morbidly self-gratifying it is, is the first thing that’ll get a man in my predicament killed. Days, hours, maybe minutes, they stream on by with the desert streaks of red and white. His boots have been away from my face long enough now, that my captor’s voices are regaining their clarity, and not sounding like thundering conversations of storm clouds smackin’ into one another from a distance.

How much farther, sir? said one of the drawling voices, a blurry silhouette behind what seemed to be the control deck of the topless craft.

Not much, we’re nearin’ Desperado, replied the skull-faced idiot, his blurry silhouette hunched over the deck railing of the hovercraft, gazing into the rising sun.

I started slippin’ off into a dream, the word Desperado jumping over the fence like sheep in my mind. I knew what that word was, what it meant, somewhere it was in the nether of my mind, in my memories, which had been lost aboard the deck of this vessel, like a spilt sack of marbles over a countertop with every one of his kicks. Desperado, that’s, that’s in the Bull’s Ass, and the Bull’s Ass is a place where traitors are exiled… I don’t know what I did, but oh hell, I think I know what is comin’, comin’ over the rising sun burning up those mountains to the west.

Don’t know how long I was out, I woke up and things had changed quite a bit. The vessel had slowed its pace and the streaks of red and white swirlin’ around the deck had slowed into stacks of red boulders, fields of misshapen vegetation, and heaps of white sand strewn about all ends of the earth. The mountains were now off to the east and the sun was smoldering at noon. Maybe six hours had passed, maybe five, but I can’t be sure, and just to be sure I couldn’t be sure, that skull-headed monstrosity struck my groggy face again with his boots and drove me into the scorching metal surface of the deck, closing my recovering senses and opening fresh wounds.

This time, he kept that ridiculous boot on my head so my face would cook a bit longer; he didn’t strike me as a well done kinda’ guy, but then again, I guess even big bruisers like him have their skeletons in the closet. Prissy little asshole, sure you don’t want high-heels instead of shit-kickers? He released the boot, and I sprang up from the searing floor, again the hate guiding my every waking moment, the only thing keeping me alive. Everything is blurry again, and although the fusion-driven vessel is cruising much slower, the blurry shadows of the men aboard the deck with me are all that I can see, cast against the backdrop of red and white hot desert smudges. My skull-faced amigo strode over to the bow of the hovercraft, and said commandingly to the driver, All right, this is good. We’ll drop him off here.

The vessel jolted to a stop and the five blurry figures atop the deck converged on me—my wonderful traveling companion in the middle, tappin’ his idiot boot against the steel surface of the deck. Couldn’t make out any other faces besides Skull Boy, but my hearing was better, good enough to hear him say prominently, For your crimes, exile into the Bull’s Ass, the heart of Desperado.

The railing behind me shot down and shook the vessel as it collided into the deck, and I could feel the desert sandstorms pelting my back. One of the figures went behind me and unbound the shackles placed firmly over my wrists. Unlocked, I moved my arms forward and felt the blood surge back into my veins, revitalizing them slowly. Don’t rush, blood, I thought—your misery is far from over. My skull-headed amigo tossed a canteen full of water on top of my chest which I found somewhat unusual. Sending me mixed signals, partner? No, because he then struck me once again in the face with those stupid boots. The back of my head struck the surface of the deck and jarred my faculties once again, and I was left there dazed and glaring at the sapphire sky striped with nimbus clouds. One of skull-face’s henchmen hovered over me and drawled, Should we give em’ anything, hoss?

Another one of my skull friend’s henchman hovered over me with his blurry face and waved a sharp, shiny object, saying, Maybe his pertty knife?

Fuck, they had my Seax (**Phonetically: Sa-ks**). That dagger had been with me my whole life. I knew I’d regret askin’ them for it, but I’d regret it more going without it, especially out in these parts… That would be a sin. For I may have lost most of my memory, but I remember clear as day, the wisdom of the Allfather, Woden: Let a man never stir on his road, a step without his weapons of war; for unsure is the knowing when need shall arise of a spear on the way without. I would ask for my Seax.

I don’t know, let’s ask the Sultan of the Southwest what he wants, said the skull man.

The Sultan of the Southwest, that’s what they were callin’ me since I went on this mighty fine escapade with them out into the Bull’s Rear. I don’t get it, maybe I would if he’d stop kickin’ me!

Does the Sultan of the Southwest want his pertty knife? asked that snobby, zombie cowboy.

I knew what was in store for me the moment I said yes, so I mustered up whatever strength I had left in me and muttered outa’ my sand-blasted vocal tract, Yeah, I do. I’m gonna’ need it to stick it up your fuckin’—.

Couldn’t even finish my thought and his boot was already rammed into my abs. How rude, I thought, as I hurtled off the deck and crashed several feet below into the hot sand of the desert floor, my fall broken by some jagged rocks sunnin’ themselves under the light. Was he cheating on my face, kickin’ me in the gut like that? I spit out a gob of blood which landed in the sand and sizzled, but before I could look around at my new home, the house warming gifts were hurled from the deck and the canteen smacked me in the head, and my Seax landed about my side. Then, as the railing shot back up on the deck of the vessel which was hovering lightly over the ground, my blurry amigo said his parting words. Enjoy your new home, Sultan of the Southwest, you may be out in the Bull’s Ass, but I assure you, Southern Hospitality is still runnin’ strong; your new friends will be glad to have you. Good day, partner.

The engines of the hovercraft flared up with a spectacular light and kicked up a sandstorm of dust that pelted me with fury as it roared off east into the distance.

Adios, idiot.

Too weak from his final bludgeoning, I rested my face in the sand and smelled the musty desert sands and stink bug aromas wafting into my nostrils. I’m definitely too weak to look around right now, I’m just breaking all the rules of getting a new home. I was too weak to fish for the water so I pulled the brim of my cowboy hat over my face so the sun couldn’t scorch me further, but what had that idiot told me before he flew off? Something about my new friends?

With much effort, I raised the brim of my hat and looked around a bit, and even though the desert was torrid hot, a cold chill percolated into my spine as I saw what was glaring at me lying down by my side. A skull, a real one, with its hollow eye sockets glaring right into my face. There were many skulls…, real ones, and skeletons, all around me, with the steel from their canteens rusted into their femurs and phalanges. I glared back up at the sky and pulled the hat back over my face as the darkness crept over my eyes. Allfather, Woden…, do you have any advice for this wonderful scenario?

Maybe I was out for hours, but it could’ve been days I suppose. The alien squawks of the desert buzzards soaring on high in the blue sky above had woke me up. The sun was down a bit, at about two o’clock I reckon, but there were more pressing matters. How do I get that damn canteen nestled against my leg laughing at me with its face that didn’t even exist, taunting me with its stupid silver grin and warping the fabric of reality back with it every time I tried to clutch it?

My arms were weak and sore, red as a rooster’s crown from sunburn, and feelin’ like a highway of pins and needles from my water-starved body. Maybe my new boney amigo could lend me a hand, literally. With whatever strength I could muster, I reached out for his shiny white ulna and dislodged it from his humerus.

Fuck, I guess the doctor’s in.

Using that pearly white bone, I knocked the canteen forward and finally clutched it in my weak hand. I unscrewed the cap vigorously and greedily drank from the warm well of water it offered inside. Immediately I felt better—funny what a little bit of water will do—but it wasn’t enough to save me from falling unconscious again. I had spent more energy than I could afford. My head hit the sand again, and off I drifted into slumber with the shrieking buzzards circling me up above. Out here, things eat the dead, honed in on the only scent of flesh they’ve smelled in months, and it wouldn’t be long before they mustered up enough bravado to have a look at their new delicacy lying on a bone platter in the middle of nowhere. Hopefully that water will kick in soon; it would need to, or this might be the last rodeo for this cowboy. I drifted off into oblivion…

I dream of some crazy shit, and this one has been reoccurring for some months now. It’s the universe, speckled in black stars, but then they coagulate and turn into a ghastly face, like some sorta’ celestial jack-o’-lantern, smiling at me with its jagged teeth and wicked eyes… But maybe that’s not what it is… There’s more white than black, and I swear, it looks like a damn—.

There was a jolt of pain in my left arm but it wasn’t dehydration this time. Nope, something was fixin’ to make me its afternoon snack. Another stabbing jolt, I opened my eyes and there was that idiot buzzard glaring at me stupefied with my blood all over his wrinkly face, looking guilty and nervous like he got his fuckin’ beak caught in the cookie jar. Ugly lookin’ critter, his withered face looked like a sundried tomato stacked on an eagle’s body, and although I myself had seen better days, next to this little misshap I felt like a runway model.

I felt a resurgence of strength well up inside me, and I clutched his wrinkly throat before he could flap off into the sky and rejoin his other buddies. Now, I never really feel stupid, but I was just as surprised as he was as I laid their grasping his throat, clogging his screeches which were reduced to vibrations, staring at those nitwit beady eyes dancing around inside his head that were begging for release. My strength had returned. That was good news, but my hunger had also returned now that I had flushed my body with fresh water.

I decided to eat him, so I bit his head off. He certainly didn’t taste like a sundried tomato. His buddies up on high in the sky saw the spectacle and protested gravely with a series of scornful shrieks. I would gladly take their contempt over their appetite, for I would need them to be fearful. Although I was regaining strength, the struggle had filled me so quickly with fatigue that I fell off into unconsciousness once again and dreamt of hostile stars.

This time when I woke up I coughed up blood from my wind pipes, not sand. I guess any bit of moisture is an improvement? I wasn’t sure if I had poisoned myself from the vulture’s blood, but things seemed different now. The gritty wind brushin’ against my side was cool, and the desert oven had lost its gas. I plucked the cowboy hat off my face and rested it at my side. The sky above was pink and populated by friendlier faces: a grinnin’ crescent moon and vibrant stars. I felt better than I had in days and all it took was a little bit of water to dispel the drunk delirium of dehydration that had been plaguing me.

Nothing was dancing around in blurs before my eyes, and for once, I felt like I could stand. I angled my back up slowly and scrambled to my feet, stumbling a couple times in the soft bed of sand below me. Nausea tugged away at my innards, a surge of vertigo raced throughout my body, and a migraine pounded away inside my cranium. I stood there delirious, coming to terms with the fierce hangover, without all the benefits of the night before. When I had adjusted to the misery, I kicked the dust off my boots and brushed the sand off of my clothes. I then slowly gazed up at the terrain that sprawled out before me for the first time, and although I was plagued by the abuses of the day, I could finally see with clarity, the strange world that was opening up before my eyes, and it struck me like seein’ a ten-ton dinosaur for the first time.

Before me, a serene scape opened up and beckoned me to wander into its majesty. It was a royal desert full of purple hues cast out over the terrain from the setting sun, miles of sandy, white dunes burstin’ with emerald yuccas and sparse bushes. Beyond the dunes a lush patch of Chihuahuan desert was greenin’ up the hills before an outcrop of towering mesas that stood thousands of feet high, arraying themselves in the pink sky and spiraling stratus clouds. These were the mountains that I had seen in the east when I was riding up here with my wonderful amigos.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of the desert scape. They called this Desperado, the Bull’s Ass… They sure did pull the wool over everyone’s eyes when they were naming this place. Either that, or I’m just a nut job, which was more believable I suspect. Because the rollin’ dust devils off in the distance, the driftin’ tumbleweeds, the hostile flora burstin’ up with spines, the howlin’ winds, the utter desolation, and the unadulterated stars flickerin’ above seemed like a fuckin’ long overdue paradise to me. Somebody pinch me, am I dreaming, have I died and gone to heaven? The headache was kind enough to oblige; a stabbing pain riddled throughout my cranium and brought me to my knees again.

I sat there for several moments glaring at the white sands that were still lukewarm from the day’s blaze. Somethin’ was off about the sand; it was too white to be dust. I dabbed my finger in it and had a taste, which confirmed my suspicions—this wasn’t dust—this was salt, and I was stuck in miles of it. Didn’t matter if the salt flat had gathered pools from the summer monsoons, I couldn’t even try my luck with a urine still out in a salt bed.

I shook the canteen; it was just as dried up as I was and it stung me with residual heat, as if to say simply, Welcome to your last run, cowboy. At least it wasn’t grinnin’ at me anymore. I’d have to get outa’ here quickly in search of water, or I’d end up a new pair of pearly-white bones down here for this desert to put on as more jewelry. Even with the dead next to me, my unfortunate peers and compatriots of this strange world, I couldn’t keep my gaze off the eastern horizon. Did they just decide to sit here and die entranced by her beauty? She drew me in to her vivid and deadly scape again like a siren casting her haunting chorus into the pink sky, and I knew then that I would head deeper into her, the mountains she called me from off in the distance were my only chances of survival.

Suddenly, the eastern winds carried an unusual sound from the distance with them. It was an eerie howling that intensified as the moon waxed in the sky with its titled grin, shinin’ next to the stars that blotted out the pink of the dying day. These were feral sounds that intensified with each gale brushing against my back until they became so intense that they drowned out the delicate sighing of the wind. I suddenly realized what I was hearin’… I had been foolish, lost in my delirium, too stupid to see that I and my flying friend lyin’ dead next to me were the only pieces of meat sorted out in this desert for hundreds of miles. I unsheathed my Seax and remembered the wisdom of Woden as I did so: At every door-way, ere one enters, one should spy round, one should pry round, for uncertain is the witting that there be no foeman sitting, within, before one on the floor.

Allfather, I had forgotten your words, and now a pack of ky-oats’ are honin’ in on me, fixin’ to make me and my dead flying-friend their supper.

Fire.

Fire is what scares off the ky-oats. I dove frantically into the pile of skeletons before me, diggin’ through the bones, looking vigorously for lighters, matches, anything to kindle up a blaze fair enough to ward off the ky-oats comin’ in to collect their bounty. I could probably handle ten of them with my Seax, but that wind didn’t lie—I heard the yappin’, howlin’, and barkin’ of dozens, maybe hundreds…, but I guess it would be quicker and cleaner than what the old buzzard had in store for me. Maybe not, as I dug through the bones, I noticed the undeniable markings, canine punctures and chew-prints…, and it suddenly became clear to me that my peers had lost their lives to the gang of ky-oats out here. Every bone I picked up looked like a chew-toy from a dog house as I searched desperately for firestuffs. I would have to hurry, they were closin’ in on me quick, and riding in on the wave of nighttime nefariousness that was flooding the land in the absence of the daytime dangers.

I thrust my fist into a pile of bones and fished for firestuffs, tearin’ up the tender flesh of my palms on the jagged bones within. After several minutes of searching, I discovered an ancient lookin’ lighter and yanked it from the pit of bones, ky-oat screams and howls growing so close now that they didn’t need the wind to carry them anymore. I have never seen anything like this lighter in my time. Musta’ been an antique this dead man was totin’ around. The only way I knew it was a lighter, was because I knew how to make an actual fire, and I recognized the flint needed to produce it mounted inside the device. I would’ve made a fire through more respected methods, but with these ky-oats closing in on me, it would be a miracle if I didn’t need a barrel of gasoline to go with it.

Several more howls bellowed from the western dunes and pierced the serenity of the night. Damn they were movin’ in quick. I left the bone pile and searched urgently for tinders and burn-pieces under the gloomy light of the desert moon that smiled like a prankster with his crescent grille. I nabbed several tumbleweeds like they were gold from a mineshaft and placed them in a shallow pit I had dug up. Two things down, one to go, and it would be the hardest to find—something that would burn for a while and discourage the ky-oats to stick around.

I looked around. Nothin’ but sand, bones, tumbleweeds, and fresh yucca bursting up from the desert floor. Nothing would burn for a while… Several more encroaching howls and maniacal yaps pierced the tranquil quiet of the night. I only had minutes now. Fuck it, I ran off west into the desert, I hadn’t planned to do this but there was no other choice, those ky-oats would not be warded off by burning tumbleweeds—I needed somethin’, somethin’ thicker. I searched urgently, not straying too far from my camp, and I came across what appeared to be an old road covered in dust, vegetation, and ramshackle with