Jack Fluke, Chapter One "Bonfire of the Vain"

By James Weaver

In this Chapter, the Pretender has called forth the people from their shelters throughout San Diego County and Mexico. He is trying to increase his tribe and send a scouting party up north to see who, if any, survived the chaos that overflowed the world after the missiles were unleashed.
Jack Fluke has traveled up from Mexico to attend the gathering at his old haunting grounds in La Jolla.
This is where he lived four years earlier with Stasia, the girl he fell in love with in an idyllic existence in the eye of the apocalyptic storm.
This was shattered when the Pretender appeared, coveted Stasia, and tried to kill Jack before the intervention of the Dog.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Weaver
• Release date: Sep 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463935828

James Weaver

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Jack Fluke

Copyright 2019

James Weaver

Published by James Weaver at Smashwords Edition License

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1 - Bonfire of the Vain

The black dog moves leisurely along the perimeter of the circle. In the center a large bonfire incinerates a small wooden shed. He stops along the outer edge of the people, his black coat soaking up the fire's heat, his alert ears pointing up, his open nostrils flared, and his slitted eyes reflecting the raging fire. He sits on his haunches behind the revelers, his forelegs stiff to the ground. In the dusky light he appears to be youthful and vigorous: the powerful Belgian Shepherd of his youth. But the smattering of scars sprinkled among his black and grey coat, obscured by the encroaching night, intimates his raucous encounters. I have seen this dog before this night. He belongs, I correct myself, he runs with the man who is in charge of this ransacked spectacle of a house built primarily to flaunt the wealth of its former owner. It sits high on the cliff overlooking Black's Beach, two miles north of the actual village of La Jolla. From its three hundred foot perch it commands a sweeping view from La Jolla to the south going west up to Palos Verdes on the north. Its prominence exposes it to all the elements and I understand the former owner and his family were dissolved in the initial cloud that swept over them from the air station to the east. Good-bye Big Money and say 'hello' to darkness.  I