Willow's Wrath

By Ava Florian Johns

The world seemed like a safe place once—that is no longer the case. Willow Martin's society is now a world divided by corruption and evil. Disheartened by their present plight, her crew bans together to create a home, a place unaffected by tragedies of the past.

Willow's strength will shock her team and herself. But the newly christened Starship Armargosa crew has a difficult voyage ahead. They thought they were prepared for their mission but didn't anticipate a traitorous mentor, horrific zombie monsters, or crashing on a deserted planet. 

In this world where being different makes you dangerous, will they be able to triumph over evil?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kirk House Publishers
• Release date: Jul 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781959681137

Book preview

WILLOW’S WRATH

Second Edition

Published by Kirk House Publishers

AVA FLORIAN JOHNS

Willow’s Wrath Second Edition Copyright © 2023

Ava Florian Johns

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

First printing, September 2017

Second printing, July 2023

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-959681-12-0

eBook ISBN: 978-1-959681-13-7

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-959681-14-4

LCCN: 2023941886

Cover and Interior Designed by:  Ann Aubitz

Published by

Kirk House Publishers

1250 E 115th Street

Burnsville, MN  55337

612-781-2815

kirkhousepublishers.com

Prologue

The year was 2083.  Earth was the controlling force in the Planetary Government (PG) ruling body.  The Supreme Chancellor ruled with an alien supremacy approach.  He believed that humanoids were superior to all other races.  The Alien Planetary Alliance (APA) was the rebel movement trying to rid itself of the PG but had been thwarted at every turn.

The Planetary Government exploited fear—the fear that ‘we the people’ were losing our comfortable way of life, the life that was pure and good.  That ‘certain’ citizens would try to take something from us.  So the supreme chancellor and his PG followers did everything they could to make people fearful of our differences. Before this time, everybody in the universe lived together in peace.  Was it perfect, no?  But we were at peace.  Now the outlying districts were in ruins, there were groups of people fighting, and the rest feared the Planetary Government.  So the PG mandated that we must behave like everybody else. If not, we were punished or exiled.

The PG also didn’t believe in any other viewpoint contrary to their own.  They believed the earth's natural resources would be around forever and that nothing was wrong with our planet.  So they scoffed at any scientist discussing global warming and the end of our natural resources. These scientists that went against the PG’s ways were punished or, worse, executed. Willow knew this better than anyone else…she saw it happen to her parents, and it’s a day she will never forget.

Chapter One

Willow

I’ m running through the tall yellow sunflowers. The morning sun shines brightly through the giant flowers in the fields and warms my face. Hurrying back toward the farmhouse, I smell smoke. It burns my lungs, and at once, the bile swirls in my stomach as dread and helplessness wash over me. Hearing the piercing screams of my parents ringing in my ears, I know something is terribly wrong. I know it, but suddenly I can’t move. I’m paralyzed in the midst of the sunflowers, unable to help my parents as flames engulf our farmhouse. I hear the buzz of the military drones flying over me in the smoky sky. I drop to the ground and bury myself deep in the damp soil and leaves to camouflage my body. They have found us. I stay hidden for what seems like hours, then slowly walk toward the farmhouse, my small body quivering as I stare at the horrific sight. Our lovely home is a smoldering pile of black ash. I scream out for my mom and dad as tears rush down my face.

I feel something hitting my head and realize it’s one of my roommate’s pillows. I glance around the room to see who threw it at me.

Sorry, am I dreaming again? I wipe the tears from my face feeling rather exposed, trying to rid myself of the sensation of the nightmare, I mutter and shake my head, attempting to gather my bearings.

More like screaming again. You need help, like serious mental help, yells Dara. Dara is my mean-tempered roommate, she is from the mining colony on Hugo 521 and has little time for social niceties.

I’m sorry, I had the dream about my family again.

Cry me a river, Willow. We all know your perfect life ended when you were five years old, and you were brought to this hellhole by your horrible grandmother.

Oh shut up, Dara, you know Willow saw her parents die, and she still feels responsible for their death.

I wince when Tina talks about my parents' death. I know she is trying to stick up for me, but she said it so abruptly that it was almost cruel. Nevertheless, Tina is most like me, born on Earth and brought to the Planetary Government Boarding School for Girls. Tina hates tension and confrontation, which is pretty much the norm in our dorm room these days.

Dara gets out of her bed and stands in Tina’s face. I can’t wait to graduate this month and get away from you—get away from all of you! her voice raises an octave, I will not miss any of you. Tina, I’m so tired of you sticking up for Willow. She needs to learn what it is like out there. It’s not all flowers and sunshine.

With all the yelling in the room, our fourth roommate wakes up.

Why don’t you all shut up so I can get some sleep? I have a final today! complains Saundra, the Casson in the group. The planet Casson has the most military bases in the quadrant. The boys on Casson were bred to be soldiers for the PG, and the girls were basically abandoned and left on the streets to fend for themselves. Some girls were lucky enough to be rounded up and brought to schools like this one. Saundra is harsh and bitter, but thankfully she keeps to herself.

I know the world is not all flowers and sunshine, Dara, I mutter, hoping she doesn’t hear me so she will not lash out again. Looking at Dara, I see vicious green vines wrapping around her neck, squeezing her life out until no breath is left in her limp body. Then, finally, the vines drop her to the ground with a sickening thud. As the rest of us watch in absolute silence, I find it hard to be remorseful as I finally have my moment of vindication against Dara. I shake my head and see Dara standing in the same place as before, still battling with Tina. I suspect I’m slowly and unequivocally losing my mind.

Although Dara thinks of me as childish, I fully understand our world's current state, which is not idyllic. Earth is the controlling planet in the ruling body called the Planetary Government. We have a new Supreme Chancellor who rules based on the belief that humans versus people of alien or non-human backgrounds are superior in every way. Therefore, he believes humans should politically and economically govern non-humanoid people. I remember when the ruling government of Earth welcomed people from all the planets. I wish it were still like this.

I like thinking there is a world where people can celebrate their differences, life is jubilant, and sunshine is abundant. I sit on my bed for a moment feeling at peace, thinking about the perfect place and wondering if I will ever be lucky enough to be a part of something so ideal. I shake my head to snap out of my daydream. I’d better return to my reality, our boarding school's harsh, sterile environment, and, unfortunately, my offensive roommates.

All the girls at our boarding school, including my roommates, must wear the same ugly gray plaid school uniform, but the four of us couldn’t look more different. We are all the same age, around twenty; since we aren’t considered adults until we reach the age of twenty-one in our society, we still have to stay in the system. Dara is a natural beauty, tall with black hair, dark eyes, and a gorgeous face–too bad she has the cruelest personality in the universe. Dara calls me a fairy or pixie because of my platinum blonde spiky short hair, my tiny frame, and my typically sunny disposition; when I’m not around her, that is. Dara is almost a foot taller than I am and uses her height to make me feel small. Tina is very dull looking compared to Dara, but I consider her pretty, with medium-length light brown hair, freckles on her pug nose, and hazel eyes. Tina is very wholesome looking and the nicest one in the bunch. Then there is Saundra, who barely speaks a word unless agitated. Saundra has short dark brown hair and brooding dark brown eyes that never smile. And I know why—she had a horrific life before she came to the school. Dara calls our boarding school a hellhole, but it’s nothing compared to where Saundra originally came from. Casson is the worst type of hell in the universe.

I wish it could be different between us, but sadly, we never bonded like other girls our age. By this point in our school career, we should be best of friends, but we’re not. I have never felt a part of anything since my parents died on that summer day all those years ago.

***

Sadly, I can’t stay and argue with Dara all day; I have a meeting with the horrible Headmistress, Yvonne, who has been in charge of our all-girls school on the space station for over a year. The headmistress is a revolting woman in her early fifties with a huge blonde wig, way too much makeup, and dresses like she is going to a party instead of working at a school. When Headmistress Yvonne arrived a year ago, all our privileges were immediately revoked, like the freedom to roam the space station, meet new people, and hang out in the common areas. It was about the same time my roommates and I started fighting. We had nowhere to go but our room.

Looking at the headmistress, I see tree branches and vines coming through the wall behind her head. There is a look of surprise and agony on her face as the branches wrap around her arms and legs, threatening to separate them from her torso. The thick green vines pull her limbs in opposite directions. I can hear the sounds of her ripping cartilage…

Willow, are you paying attention?

I put my head in my hands and rubbed my eyes to block out the images. I have to figure out what is happening to me. These horrible visions are occurring more often, becoming more violent every day.

She repeats the question, louder this time. Willow Marie Martin, are you paying attention? You must decide what to do when you leave here next month. Headmistress gives me an impatient look and taps her two-inch bright blue nails on her new mahogany desk. You are the only graduating senior who has not chosen a job with the PG. You should be thankful you have this option.

I don’t want any of those jobs. All those jobs are in the cities or on the space stations. I want to live in a vast open space again and feel the sun on my face.

Willow, these are the only jobs available to young women without families. They’re good steady jobs, much better than you deserve.

No offense, Headmistress Yvonne, but I know I can do more than work in a kitchen or a factory. I believe I can do more than these menial jobs. I can feel it.

Headmistress Yvonne shoves the application in my face and snorts. You can’t do more than this, nor do you deserve more. You are lucky to get anything. These are the positions that are open to you. Pick one NOW!

As she spits the final words out of her vile mouth, I stand up and run toward the door, knocking over the massive nude statue she keeps in the center of the room, causing it to crash to the floor. I can hear her screaming at me as I run down the hallway. After the disastrous meeting with the headmistress, there is only one place I want to go. So I head to my private sanctuary, the arboretum. It is the only place on the space station I feel I belong. I walk in and sit on my favorite bench in the center of the room. It's the best vantage point to see everything. I have spent many hours here, talking to the plants. I know it sounds bizarre, but the plants are my friends. When I’m lonely, they comfort me. When I’m sad, they make me happy. They remind me of my parents and the farm, especially the sunflowers. It is the only connection I have left to my old life. Seeing the flowers used to make me unhappy, but now they give me comfort, a comfort I find nowhere else.

***

A long while later, I hear the door open and see my botany teacher stroll in. Dr. Carol Carver looks around at the flowers, then tosses a quizzical look at me. All of the flowers around me are closed or are in a wilted state. She has often mentioned how the plants reflect my mood when I am with them. If I’m happy, they’re in full bloom. When I’m miserable, they’re wilted and sad.

What’s up, buttercup?

Funny, Dr. Carver. What makes you think something is up? I say sarcastically, looking around at the wilted flowers.

Well, I know you had a meeting with Headmistress Yvonne, and I guess by the state of the flowers, the meeting didn’t go as well as you hoped.

It didn’t. Headmistress wouldn’t even listen to me. She told me the only jobs available for me were the ones on the list. I informed her I was meant for something bigger than this, but she didn’t care. She wants me to pick a menial job with the PG and leave her space station. I don’t have a choice. I will have to pick one, so I can go.

Willow, what if I told you there is another choice? She whispers this last statement and looks around the room. We were the only two in the greenhouse, yet she sat momentarily, looking around, without saying a word. Then leaned toward me and said, I have a plan.

***

Feeling lightheaded as I often do when I walk through the much too narrow corridor back to my dorm room, I think about the cryptic conversation I had in the arboretum with Dr. Carver, who left before telling me her plan. After announcing that she had a plan, she quietly stood up and left the room. I called after her, but she ignored me. That’s Dr. Carver for you. She’s an odd duck but has been like a mother to me. A friend. A confidant. A teacher. I believe she is the only person in the world who truly understands me, and she’s the one person on this station I will genuinely miss.

Dr. Carver teaches my favorite class, botany. Although she’s a good teacher, she is a little strange, always managing to get more lipstick on her teeth than her lips; her short brown hair is frizzy and unmanageable. Frequently, she wears mismatched socks and continually pushes her think-framed oversized glasses up her nose. The best thing about her, though, is she never worries about rules or regulations, and she is the only person on the space station who is not afraid of Headmistress Yvonne.

I have been helping Dr. Carver with the arboretum as her assistant for the last six years. I handle the plants from the time they’re seeds. The plants need more care and monitoring because of the disadvantage of gravity's absence on the space station. The plants need enough oxygen, carbon dioxide, humidity, light, temperature control, and gravity to be sustainable. So being in a space station has its challenges when running a greenhouse.

I walk down the long, dreary, gray corridor toward my living quarters. Finally, I reach the door of my room and hear the sound of breaking glass coming from inside. Dara is at it again, screaming at the top of her lungs at Tina. Poor Tina. My hand trembles as I reach for the doorknob. I bite my lip and tighten my fingers around the cold knob. I’m stalling, not wanting to go in but knowing I must save Tina from Dara’s wrath. After all, Tina did stick up for me today. I finally gathered my courage and opened the door.

Hello, ladies. How are things going?

Oh shut up, Willow, I’m so not in the mood for your crap. Dara violently stomps around the room, bolts past me, hits my shoulder as she walks out into the hallway, and slams the door so hard I can feel the vibrations through the soles of my shoes.

Good riddance, Tina mumbles under her breath.

Why is she so upset? I haven’t seen her this mad since she failed her history final.

She didn’t get the job she wanted, so she decided to take it out on your poor plant and me, Tina points to the shattered pot and mangled plant on the floor.

Oh, poor thing. I pick up the plant and gently set it in a mug. Once I touch the plant, it springs back to life, and the bloom is bigger than ever. Tina looks away and pretends not to notice the flower looks better now than before the accident, with only a simple touch from my hands. I know it’s against the rules to have flowers in our dorm room, but I don’t care. It is the one thing that makes me happy. And I desperately need something in this place to make me happy.

Our room is cylinder-shaped, not even ten feet long and ten feet wide, with gray metallic walls with four thin mattresses, double stacked, two on each side of the room, coming out of walls held by chains. We have a simple black chest to keep our clothes in, and no personal items are allowed. Although none of us have much, it would be nice to have some color in the room: a throw pillow, a quilt, a photo, something.

The space station décor isn’t much better than our room, with its bare corridors and colorless classrooms. Yet, even after all these years, I still feel trapped, as if the walls are closing in on me. Before my Grandma dropped me off here, I spent all my time outside on Earth. Now all that is outside for me is the enormous black vacuum of space.

You are so good with plants. How do you do that? Tina did notice my trick with the plant.

I’m not sure. I have always been good with plants.

The plant makes me remember my time living on the farm, feeling the sun on my face and the wind in my hair like it was yesterday. Tina is great. She knows when to leave me alone and lets me zone out in my thoughts. I will miss her in a way, too. We were never best friends, but we protected each other when it came to Dara.

***

Dara came back about an hour later, still in a rotten mood. I pretend to be asleep on my cot. Unfortunately, my sleeping trick doesn’t work, and she pulls a strand of my spiky hair and screams in my face, Headmistress Yvonne wants to see you now. Have fun!

I drag myself out of bed, head out the door, and down the long corridor. Tina gives me a look of pity as I cross over the threshold. As expected, the place is pretty deserted at night, as it must be after ten o’clock. There are other people on the space station besides the students at the boarding school. This is because so many travelers from all over the galaxy visit our space station. They used to let us meet the visitors in the common areas of the station, but now we’re relegated to the boarding school area only. Unless we have class business elsewhere, we are permanently banned from the rest of the space station. The rule changed when Headmistress Yvonne came about a year ago. She didn’t like the freedom it afforded us because a couple of the girls left the boarding school for romantic adventures on freighters and other ships flying to all quadrants of the galaxy.

It reminds me of the time when I met someone. His name was Stephen. Stephen was more handsome than any other boy I had ever met. I knew for sure we were in love. For four magical weeks, he captivated me with talk of his remarkable adventures. It turned out Stephen was a con artist and a scoundrel. He had had no adventures at all. He was on the run and had stolen valuable cargo from a Zelkovian freighter to pay off the station. He got caught and was banned from the space station forever. And that was the end of our whirlwind romance.

I finally reach Headmistress Yvonne’s office; I take a deep breath and walk in. She sat behind her desk with a smug look on her overly made-up face. She didn’t even look up when I entered the room; she immediately started speaking. You will be transported to another facility immediately. She pretends to study the papers before her and adds in her sharpest voice, That will be all, Willow.

What facility? I thought I would start working when I graduated. I still have time to pick a job, and graduation isn’t for another month. I held onto the wall to steady myself. This place is hell most of the time, but it has been my home for fifteen years.

You will not be graduating. Instead, you will move to a clinical study facility on Earth. Your orders came in today. Pack your stuff. You will be leaving on the first transport tomorrow morning. Her impatience with me grows with every word she spat out of her unpleasant mouth. She tries dismissing me again, but I won’t leave.

The branches and vines come out of the ceiling, wrapping around the headmistress's skinny neck with alarming swiftness, lifting her out of her chair and dangling her by her head. Her feet are kicking in the air, trying to gain traction and reach the floor to no avail. The vines are strangling her, and all I hear is a faint gurgling noise, then nothing.

I shake my head to rid myself of the horrendous image and to continue my argument with the headmistress. Of course, I should tell someone about the imagery I have seen lately, but that is not my primary concern at the moment.

Headmistress Yvonne, please tell me why I won’t be graduating and why I’m leaving so soon. Please, you owe me that much. My voice came out as a strangulated whisper, Please.

"Willow, I don’t owe you a thing. You have been the bane of my existence since I arrived at this school, and I’m glad to see you go. You have always acted like you were better than everyone else, and people hate you for it. Do you know how many times your roommates tried to have you removed from their quarters? A lot.