don’t know this but here’s a bit of information. The modern extremes of weather are one reason for this.
That and ass tanks throwing trash out their car windows and driving Hummers to take their ugly brats to school.
These events set astorm by Cades will give the final push to complete the Lighthouse Initiative.
Story for another time, blah blah blah.
Because of the events that happen, that being the storm, the Triumvirate canceled their plans to visit Virginia and decided to just head home back to Florida. You know your trip has really sucked when you are choosing to return to Florida.
Plus Karen’s mom threatened to kick all of their asses if they didn’t get back quick; so after two days rest, due to Fox being told she couldn’t fly for a few days, the threesome stayed in the gym of a local school until she was cleared to fly, they headed home.
For the most part they spent those two days sleeping and sleeping. But it was also enough time for Karen to start making comments about Fox and Jeff not leaving each other’s side for anything other than to piss or shit.
On their flight back to Florida Jeff was seated with a twitchy little girl spouting what everyone thought was nervous gibberish because she was trapped at the Knoxville airport during the storms.
Normally the only thing that got on Jeff’s nerves more than kids was old people but in this case he could understand what the kid was going through so when someone said something about her talking so much he told them to fuck off.
But that nervous gibberish wasn’t actually just anxious nonsense. If you slowed down what she was saying and listened close you would get something from it, “Saturdays go to a club. Dinner Diner Winner. She will handle snakes. Overwhelming. Pulpy on a pole dancing. I shall call you tween book or maybe fisticuffs. Four Dragons and a pizza parlour. Loud, dogs, and more rain. Here comes the rain…oh, the rain…..and before the end of all Spiders who own us all….”
Jeff got her to calm down a bit by talking about comics and the rest of the flight was calm. Too bad the future doesn’t hold that for him or his friends.
Pulpy is cleaning trees from a road near the impact zone. He has been searching the Smokey Mountains and all of Tennessee for a week but has found no sign of the two beings reported to have battled over the skies of the state.
While here he thought he could do a bit of helping with the clean up but he’d have to do it off camera or his bosses wouldn’t like it. When he asked if they wanted him to help with emergency services they told him, “You’re not a street sweeper. Just do your job.”
Fact is he did find one sign of the battle. That sign being the large impact crater. But he used that more as an excuse to continue being in the area to help with clean up than it being any true clue to lead him to find the suspects.
After tossing three large trees off a dirt road so a Park Ranger could get his truck on its way to inspect the damage of his lookout station Pulpy was ready to give up the search pretense and head back to his headquarters in New York to file his report when out from behind a tree stepped Balsam wielding his ax, ready if need be.
Though it’s not really what you would call one of his abilities, as Pulpy couldn’t really sense power in someone else, one of the many discs on his uniform got a vibe that Balsam was one of the beings involved in the battle. Sort of like the feeling you get when you meet someone at night and your every being screams get some place safe, get some place away from them or you will be fighting for your life.
But a technological system was getting the feeling and thus giving it to Pulpy.
It’s not a feeling Pulpy has felt that often. He didn’t like it.
‘I am here on authority of the United States government. I have questions for you that you need to answer. Are you…’
‘Your laws of humanity only have so much power.’
‘I have authority granted to me…’
‘So you may think but our laws are ancient. They were written by the very creation of this planet. A threat arose that needed to be addressed. And it was.’
‘I represent the law in these matters. I am here to protect those laws.’
‘And what of the people under those laws? You have kneeled down as their protector this is true.’ And that statement really got under Pulpy’s nerves but he remained silent as Balsam continued, ‘But when times call for us…me to act, and they will, I shall act without glance to your dictates, your preachings, your laws.’
‘Are you challenging my authority in this matter?’ Pulpy didn’t know why but his anger was building the more and more time he spent around Balsam. What himself nor Balsam knew was that was part of Loki’s curse on the Bloodline of Thor that in the presence of one of Thor’s offspring most will build with rage and anger.
Balsam turned and walked back into the woods. Pulpy followed but he was gone, disappeared, leaving one of the most power people on the planet with nothing more than questions.
Vengeance tends to blind you at a certain point and you forget what you were raging for to begin with. The only thing you have in time is the rage. Rage can never lead us to justice or even vengeance. With rage we will also get lost.
Notes From The Author
The Hillbilly Jungle was a story I started on a trip to Tennessee and Virginia. It was the first time I had been back to the places I grew up in for about 12 years.
This story is my attempt to write something that is all about adrenaline, all about people caught up in things they could not control. I wanted it to be a balls to the wall disaster movie that only last 20 minutes on the screen.
I don’t know if I was able to do what I set out to do but as usually I’m happy if I learned a lot writing it and I sure did.
This story taught me how to attempt to write a good serialized story. It taught me about pacing and how much creativity can come from revision and rewrites. Hopefully I will be able to apply the lessons I learned from writing it.
It also opened up not only the story of Gail and her family and friends but introduced for the first time one of my favorite Tin Universe characters I’ve created in Balsam. I really want to write more with him in the future and if you would like to see that let me know.
Thanks for reading,
Brian C. Williams
https://twitter.com/hangofwednesday
https://underthetrainingbook.blogspot.com/
Other Stories by this author
Tin Universe Middle Grade Series
{Yearly middle grade series}
Tin Universe Middle Grade Series #1
Tin Universe Middle Grade Series #2
Tin Universe Middle Grade Series #3
Tin Universe Middle Grade Series #4 *COMING 2016
Tin Universe Middle Grade Series #5 *COMING 2017
Tin Universe Middle Grade Series #6 *COMING 2018
Tin Universe Middle Grade Series #7 *COMING 2019
Tin Universe Monthly
{Monthly series that birthed the Tin Universe. More adult stories on a sort of, not so sort of monthly basis}
Tin Universe Monthly #1
Tin Universe Monthly #2
Tin Universe Monthly #3
Tin Universe Monthly #4
Tin Universe Monthly #5
Tin Universe Monthly #6
Tin Universe Monthly #7
Tin Universe Monthly #8
Tin Universe Monthly #9
Tin Universe Monthly #10
Tin Universe Monthly #11
Tin Universe Monthly #12
Tin Universe Monthly #13
Tin Universe Monthly #14
Tin Universe Monthly #14b 2014 April Fools Special
Tin Universe Monthly #14c 2014 Easter Special
Tin Universe Monthly #15
Tin Universe Monthly #15b Extra Stuff In April Special
Tin Universe Monthly #16
Tin Universe Monthly #16b Memorial Day Special
Tin Universe Monthly #17
Tin Universe Monthly #18
Tin Universe Mont
hly #19
Tin Universe Monthly #20 A First Shot Fire, Part Two
Tin Universe Monthly #21 A First Shot Fire, Part Three
Tin Universe Monthly #22 A First Shot Fire, Part Four
Tin Universe Monthly #23 A First Shot Fire, Part Five
Tin Universe Weekly
{A 2015 experiment in micro fiction. The series will return but for now these stories will be incorporated into Tin Universe Monthly… When it comes out}
Tin Universe Weekly #223 *RETURNING 2017
Tin Universe Tales
{This series of full length novels will be self-contained stories focusing on a certain part of the Tin Universe}
Tin Universe Tales #1 *COMING 2017
Tin Universe Presents
{A every other year Tin Universe story collection. Will feature stories set in the Tin Universe from all genres and all possible ways of storytelling.}
Tin Universe Presents #1 *COMING 2018
READING ORDER
Tin Universe Monthly #1
Tin Universe Middle Grade Series #1
Tin Universe Monthly #2
Tin Universe Middle Grade Series #2
Tin Universe Monthly #3
Tin Universe Middle Grade Series #3
Tin Universe Monthly #4
Tin Universe Monthly #5
Tin Universe Monthly #6
Tin Universe Monthly #7
Tin Universe Monthly #8
Tin Universe Monthly #9
Tin Universe Monthly #10
Tin Universe Monthly #11
Tin Universe Monthly #12
Tin Universe Monthly #13
Tin Universe Monthly #14
Tin Universe Monthly #14b 2014 April Fool’s Special
Tin Universe Monthly #14c 2014 Easter Special
Tin Universe Monthly #15
Tin Universe Monthly #15b Extra Stuff In April Special