Tin Universe Monthly #11 Read online

Tin Universe

  Copyright 2016 Brian Williams

  The sale of this book without its cover….well, is, sort of, impossible since it really does not have a cover but let us go through the legal spray out anyways. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Hands up to you who have books like this in your collection? Now that I have put my hand down we can continue with the credits and copyright and legal and stuff that people just do not ever pay attention to unless it is pumping their own horn.

  An Original Publication of The Tin Universe, A Tin Universe book published by System*Publishing, a division of System*Productions, Melbourne, Florida. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead or living dead, is entirely and very much so in the coincidental.

  Written/Edited by Brian C. Williams, Tin Universe Logo by Vinny Bove, Covers and all other images; logos by Brian C. Williams.

  The Hillybilly Jungle, Part Four

  The memories that pass through our brains during crisis moments aren’t always clear as to their meaning, if they have any meaning at all, as the memories we recall during times of calm.

  “Karen, did I ever tell you about my Auntie Jasmine?”

  “No, no, Jeff you did not.”

  “She lived in Harlan Kentucky.”

  “I think I would have remembered you saying you had blood relations in Harlan. Would have tortured you with that bit of information.”

  “She’s the one who once ran her big blue Cadillac clean through a very full church building and the police found her an hour later at a local mom and pop restaurant. She said she didn’t notice she had run over anything?”

  “Sorry, don’t recall you mentioning her. Though to be honest your John Steed style tales of Aunties run together after a while.”

  “Well, she use to call little black kids Niglets.”

  ‘Damn that’s fucked up. Really?”

  “Yep, we’d be sitting on her porch at her house and some kids would run by and she’d say, “Look at those Niglets having a good day.””

  “Thaaat’s fucked up.”

  “The thing is I really don’t think she meant it with any malice.”

  “Things like that, the same as a punch in the face, you can’t not mean it with malice.”

  There’s an old saying that I’ve slightly customized to fit my means here:

  “Those who seek vengeance must first dig three graves. One for the target of vengeance, one for the seeker of vengeance, and the last a mass grave for all of the innocents caught up in the flourish.”

  Emergency situations for the trained individual involves calm quick reactions, identifying locations that need to be under control right away, checking needed first aid circumstances, contacting backup help if required, and prioritizing things with cold decision making.

  That’s why we need educated people in positions of urgent situation management so they can react, take charge, and get the job done with courage and intelligence.

  And let’s use a big I for that intelligence part.

  But for those not trained to be always in the state of mind for emergency situations you find a different story. Some people are totally reality challenged in these moments. They don’t drift off, they jump off a cliff until things are settled or they end up dead.

  Others find a place inside themselves they may not have ever guessed was there. What is it they say- “Heroes are scared people who make the right choices in the right situations.”

  But that’s why the world needs people with character who don’t see fear as a stopper in life but as another thing they just have to punch through, even if they have to punch through with tears in their eyes.

  Karen Busiek and her childhood friend Fox were inside the weather damaged hotel helping employees and a few other guests secure up windows which had been busted out from wind thrown flying projectiles and hail hitting them during a tornado right outside earlier.

  Many people will say after surviving a large storm that it was like they were under attack, as if they were in a warzone. Well, this was an attack and it is a warzone. Just hardly anyone knows or will know that fact.

  That fact doesn’t really matter either way to the people in the hotel. It was unusually not to capacity for the time of year but everyone that was there was doing something to help, even if that something was standing in a corner crying. It was helping out in a very human way by showing that there were still things to cry for. That life hadn’t been beaten out of them just yet.

  Though the hard truth was that most of them had not had time to notice any crying even if they were the one shedding the tears.

  The tornado that did most of the initial damage to the hotel was one of the many that have been popping up all over the Smokey Mountains during this mega storm.

  And just so you know, tornados though unpredictable in appearing, they usually don’t pop up in mass groupings.

  The whole storm hit so fast and with such power that everyone for miles and miles in every direction is just trying to stay one moment ahead and they haven’t even had a second to think fully about what was happening to them.

  Half thinking was mixed with all the actions and that can be good and bad but mainly that’s what leads to survival in these types of situations.

  Though only with a 50/50 chance.

  Everyone in the hotel was gathered in the lobby as tremendous intensely extremely strong winds and rain continued to slam the area with relentless fury. The air was wet, humid, and hot and everyone was having trouble finding the normal amounts of air they need.

  The lobby was the only place in the hotel with three walls intact and no windows.

  Most people don’t enter a building with thoughts about how to protect oneself from attack once inside. Fox is the type of person who does. It doesn’t take her long to know all exits and how to get out simply or without any care for how you exit. She can tell you ambush points and places where you would stick yourself to wait it out or fight to get out.

  It all has to do with her time spent in Vancouver.

  A talent her friends don’t know about.

  But even she had never thought about being attack by bloody pissed off Mother Nature.

  Or at least her current bloody pissed off champion.

  The group of cheerleaders who had checked in right before Fox, Karen, and Jeff earlier in the day were now gathering food and drinks from the snack machines on Karen’s screamed suggestions and handing out stuff to everyone also on suggestion.

  One of the hotel staff had opened the vending machines for the cheerleaders. Though if they hadn’t Fox would have probably kicked in the plastic glass.

  She did kick in the hotel manager’s office door to get to the rest of the keys to the hotel.

  One of the cheerleaders walked up to Karen and Fox and asked if they wanted anything. Karen told her no with a glare, she didn’t eat when stressed, but she had noticed Fox asked for a Pepsi and a bag of Salt & Vinegar chips.

  That was a Jeff snack combo.

  Karen smiled at the thought she had. They just needed to survive this, and survival was the only option, because she thinks Jeff has a chance to get some.

  Then an overload of thoughts about Jeff just flooded into her mind in a crushing assault. Damn it she cursed herself. She had tried to do things to keep from giving in to the urge, the want to just run outside and try to find him and drag him into the hotel. Drag him in so they all could stand here and tell these cheerleaders how stupid green and gold are when teamed together.

  His
mind was filled with seemingly random memories. He felt like he was under attack, being besieged with his brain trying to process the situation by picking through portions of his intelligence, which he needed at the moment, and inserting memories from his life. Here have a bit of this and do you recall that time but don’t forget- all tick tick ticking at his brain.

  The whole feeling like they are under