Authors: Rick Wiedeman

300 Miles to Galveston (17 page)

He laughed again. Then it came to him. The nanites can’t replace blood; they can only repair damaged tissue.

“They must have taken the pool of blood that your body was resting in back into your body, patched damaged cells, and plugged the hole.”

“Yeah, that was a good idea, Dad.”

“Heh. Yeah. Idea.” His knees wobbled and he felt like throwing up.

“Are we burying Nicole here?”

“No, she – they – she went back to the ship, and the aliens, I guess they sank it.”

“Oh. Did you see them?”

“The aliens? No.”

“OK. Well, I’m still kinda tired. Where are we going to sleep?”

“Let’s go a few miles inland. Say, about eleven miles.”

“Eleven miles? Crap, Dad. I’m tired.”

“We have to get out of their signal range.”

“Oh – I get it. Where are we again?”

“Port Arthur.”

“Think they have a bike shop?”

He fished her knife from his pocket and handed it back to her. “Let’s go find out.”

Epilogue

He opened his eyes to the stench of burned flesh and a yellow half-moon.

Rising from a clay depression, as if from the mold he’d been forged in, something hollow and plastic rolled off his lap into the grass. It was long and white and crooked, and as he stood, he knew he didn’t need it anymore.

A dozen Devils grunted, first separately, then synchronized.
Ungh. Ungh. Ungh.

Their wet black eyes stared out from their disfigured faces. He held his arms out wide, hands open, and faced each of them. No one moved.

Satisfied, he lowered his arms to 45 degrees and roared. His chest rumbled like a cement mixer, his feet pressing into the clay from the force.

The smallest Devil lowered his head and dropped a grey canvas bag near his bare right foot, then retreated.

He unzipped the bag, took out a yellow-handled hatchet, and smiled.

Notes

Ch 5: The Japanese slang for crystalized methamphetamine is
shabu shabu
, which means hot pot. The Tagalog (Filipino) slang comes from the Japanese, is spelled
siyabu
, and pronounced “shiabu.” Methamphetamine was first synthesized in 1893 by Nagai Nagayoshi, and the crystalline form synthesized in 1919 by Akira Ogata. Both Axis and Allied powers ordered pilots and soldiers to take the drug throughout WWII, sometimes in pills, sometimes mixed in with chocolate.

Tillmann Beuscher’s wonderful prosthetic leg design for land mine victims in poor countries can be seen at Yanko Design:
http://www.yankodesign.com/2009/03/24/no-legs-but-still-can-walk-with-pride/
.

Ch 9: For an overview of the Chinese beheading contest, see Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest_to_kill_100_people_using_a_sword#Wartime_accounts

The terrorist campaign of the Imperial Japanese during WWII in China is the subject of
The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II
by Iris Chang. Sadly, Ms. Chang committed suicide in 2004 while writing a book on the Bataan Death March.

Ch 10: The story of death row prisoner Juan Soria’s attack on Rev. Bill Westbrook in 2000 is based on fact, but his motivations for attacking Westbrook are unknown to me, and the event is used fictitiously here.

Ch 12: The lyrics to
Fannin Street
can be read at Tom Waits’ website:
http://www.tomwaits.com/songs/song/287/Fannin_Street/
. Contrary to popular opinion, you can’t use copyrighted song lyrics in fiction without written permission from the copyright holder. The exceptions are songs written before 1922, when the copyright act became law (Title 17 of the United States Code) – hence the prevalence of “Greensleeves” in beginner music books.

Ch 17: There is enough iron in the human body to make a standard two inch nail – which is strong enough to hold your body’s weight.

Acknowledgements

Thank you, Tim Bolin, for reviewing my draft.

Thank you, Evan Ballinger, for your book cover design, help with the title, and story suggestions.

Thank you, KC, Meghan Horton, Rob Payne, and Jonathan Sheehan for your encouragement.

Thank you, reader, for giving my first novel a chance.

This is Book One of
The Displacement
. Book Two,
Missionaries of Omo
, will be published March 31, 2013.

Please take a moment to rate
300 Miles to Galveston
on Amazon or CreateSpace.

Table of Contents

Title page

Table of Contents

Epigraph