Sue (33 page)

“Goodbye, old life,” Sue whispered.

Melvin stood next to her and put
his arm around her shoulders. They watched until the last piece of paper
browned, curled, and finally disintegrated into ash. Fat snowflakes drifted
lazily in the air around them, sounds strangely muffled.

She tossed the empty lighter fluid
can into a nearby trash barrel. Melvin offered her gloves and she slipped them
on, her expression peaceful. He wrapped her in his arms and she returned his
embrace. “It’s all over now,” he murmured against her ear. “Let’s go home.”

Notes of
Interest

Cover photo for
Sue
by
Nikolai
Chernyshev
(©
Depositphotos/fotonikola
)

Epigraph taken from the novel
How
to Be Good
by Nick
Hornby

Coming soon:

Alyiria
by
Wodke
Hawkinson
.
On a distant planet, a young girl discovers she is heir to the throne and must
journey across dangerous lands to claim her birthright.

Available now:

Tangerine
by
Wodke
Hawkinson
.
Set in a future time when aliens are a natural part of everyday life and travel
to distant planets is commonplace.

Betrayed
by
Wodke
Hawkinson
.
She is taken captive during a botched carjacking. And her nightmare begins.

Zeke
by
Wodke
Hawkinson
.
A dark novel of sexual obsession and psychological suspense.

Betrayed - Alternate Ending
by
Wodke
Hawkinson
.

Catch
Her in the Rye, Selected Short Stories Volume One
by
Wodke
Hawkinson
.

Blue, Selected Short Stories Volume Two
by
Wodke
Hawkinson
.

Alone, Selected Short Stories, Volume Three
by
Wodke
Hawkinson
.

“
Ghost
Writer
”, a short story by
Wodke
Hawkinson
.

“
Misery Loves
Company
”, a short story by
Wodke
Hawkinson
.

“
Acim
”,
a short story by
Wodke
Hawkinson
.

Half
Bitten
by PJ
Hawkinson
.
A tale of vampire revenge.

James
Willis Makes a Million
by K
Wodke
.
A book for young readers about a boy who refuses to stay poor.

Mirtis
Tod
by K.
Wodke
.
A
novelette.
Mirtis has a ghastly physical problem, and little time left
to solve it.

Contacts
:

Author Website:
http://wodke-hawkinson.com

Authors/Readers Website:
http://findagoodbooktoread.com/

Blog
:
http://wodke-hawkinson.com/blog1/

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:
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Wodke
Hawkinson
Amazon
Author Page

About
the Authors

Wodke
Hawkinson
is the name under which writing duo PJ
Hawkinson
and Karen
Wodke
produce
their collaborated works. The authors have been friends since high school, but
did not form their writing team until 2009. Before combining forces, each
completed a solo project in addition to publishing various short stories and/or
articles.

Both PJ and Karen attended school
in Kansas. PJ graduated from
Hutchinson
Community College
, and Karen attended HCC and
Kansas Wesleyan University
.
Both reside in different Midwestern towns, and do much of their collaboration
via telephone and the internet. However, they have been known to discuss ideas
while casting their lines at a quiet lake, as they both enjoy fishing.

Enjoy this excerpt
from
Wodke
Hawkinson’s
novel,

Tangerine
.

The moon’s jump terminal was much
like a large airport, only on a grander scale. Hovering above the building was
the enormous E-H Transporter. Sleek and ovoid, it gleamed with the sheen of an
opal.
Ava
stood speechless before it, gaping like a
tourist seeing the great pyramids for the first time. Nothing could have
prepared her for the sight. Ships of all sizes were being uploaded into the
E-H. The giant transporter reminded
Ava
of a hive
with busy bees swarming around it. Closing her mouth,
Ava
moved into the terminal where, due to her employment with Alliance, she was
spared the usual agony of pre-flight check-in. She and
Pisk
moved past long lines of travelers, and went directly to the boarding station.

If she thought the outside of the
transporter to be impressive then she certainly found the inside to be the
opposite. Barren hallways led to the center of the transporter. Here, voyagers
would stand in waist-high aisles in the order they entered. Seats could be
dropped from the partitions if needed, and were being used here and there as
the passengers waited for the uploading to end.

Air conditioning was not supplied,
deemed unnecessary for a flight lasting less than a second. However, it seemed
the designers of the ship had not considered the loading time.
Ava
was standing behind a rather heavyset man who reeked of
body odor. Unable to move backwards, or even turn to the side due to the press
of people from every direction,
Ava
took shallow
breaths as she covered her mouth with her hand and prayed they would soon get
under way.
Pisk
buried his face in her neck.

In answer to her prayer, a recorded
voice announced that they would now make the jump. A mere
nano
-second
after this announcement, the same mechanical voice welcomed them to the primary
moon of Tangerine in the 32
^nd
sector.
Amazing
,
Ava
thought,
never felt a thing
. She had heard
stories about earlier jumps when travelers felt as if they were being pushed
through the floor. Modern jumps had thankfully advanced to the point where
dimension shifts were unnoticeable.

Ava
followed the odoriferous man from the ship, through many hallways, and portals,
until she stepped out into a sight even more amazing than the transport station
on Earth’s moon. A sprawling city, alien in nature, stretched before her like a
scene from a movie, only this scene was real, and she was part of it. The
buildings before her were not tall, rising no more than twenty stories; but
what they lacked in height they made up for in mass. Some were as long as three
football fields while others were no larger than a satellite banking facility.
All were made of a material unfamiliar to
Ava
, and
ranged in color from dirty white to deep bronze. Looking over the city from her
vantage point on the docking station’s balcony,
Ava
noticed the city expanded from that point and radiated out like the spokes of a
wheel, with the buildings getting smaller in the distance.

Wow,”
Ava
murmured under her breath.

Turning, she scanned the interior
wall of the docking station. Iron ramparts ascended high above, and stretched
far on either side. Multiple levels of docking ports dotted the wall, each
opening onto a platform spanning the length of the wall and interspersed with
glass-enclosed lifts within which
Ava
could see
people zipping up and down.

A burst of light caught
Ava’s
attention and drew her eyes upward. A meteor shower
was in progress. As the meteors hit the protective shields of the complex, they
were repelled, emitting an array of spectacular colors and drawing
ohhs
and
ahhs
from observers.

As the stellar show ended,
Ava
continued gazing up, marveling over the unseen force
that protected the living beings within its shelter. Invisible to the eye, the
shield could deflect massive projectiles from the outside while maintaining an
artificial environment within. These force fields had a strange quality; they
allowed nothing to move them from the outside but were completely flexible from
the inside. It has not been determined to what degree a shelter could flex, as
the maximum had not yet been reached.

Ava
noticed that
vids
in the area were offering
information about the jump site and the surrounding city. She stepped near and
jacked her headphones. Watching the
vid
she listened
to the commentator.
Pisk
placed his ear next to hers
so he could listen too. They learned how the station dealt with waste of all
kinds, turning it into useful material, including fuel for ships and supplementation
of the city’s power supply. Businesses offering a range of goods and services
from the practical to the whimsical, including hotels, entertainment venues,
and souvenir shops from multiple galaxies, stood ready to meet the needs of the
interstellar traveler. Information kiosks were situated throughout the
terminal.

Scanning ahead,
Ava
looked at the different views of Tangerine. One shot showed the planet from
deep space. She thought it resembled a big dip of sherbet hung suspended in blackness,
its huge moon a generous dollop of cream, and its second smaller moon a mere
dot. Although uninhabited by “intelligent life,” the planet offered a variety
of indigenous flora and fauna that would fascinate and intrigue any scientist.

Ava
disconnected from the
vid
, and looked skyward again.
Floating above the city, like an oversized balloon, was the planet Tangerine.
Gazing at the glorious shades of orange,
Ava
felt
strangely drawn to visit the planet now, but that wasn’t to be. While Tangerine
was on her list of assignments, she wouldn’t visit it until later. Her first
mission was in the galaxy,
Alfea
, four jumps from her
present site. The first stage of those jumps was being announced now. She took
one last longing look at the planet before she and
Pisk
entered the portal to the transporter to make their next jump.

Arriving on
Xenorel’s
moon,
Ava
took possession of her ship and was cleared
for flight.
Pisk
settled into the co-pilot’s seat,
his large eyes on
Ava
. Following the coordinates
given her by flight command,
Ava
maneuvered away from
the moon station. Moving past large barges and ships smaller than her own she
gloried in the feel of being in control; of having no one to answer to
directly, at least not here and now.

After exiting the main congestion,
Ava
found nothing but space in front of her.

“Look at that,
Pisk
,”
Ava
breathed in awe. “All that space just waiting for
us.” She and her companion soaked up the view for a few minutes. Finally,
Ava
asked, “Ready?”

Pisk
nodded in agreement.

Ava
programmed the coordinates for their first stop, hit a button, and the ship
entered hyper speed. Leaving
Xenorel’s
moon behind,
she began her new career hurtling through a blaze of stars, with new
experiences waiting to be found.