As the men turned toward the front exit, an incandescent fireball engulfed the middle of the block. The shockwave from the explosion shattered car windows a full block away from the building. Flaming embers slowly rained down from the pitch-black night sky while hot metallic debris pelted the street like burning hailstones. The black SUV in front of the warehouse was on fire. The driver was dead. The majority of the block was destroyed or in flames.
From the rooftop of a building a hundred yards away, the flickering fires that engulfed the street illuminated the dark face of a large, muscular man dressed in black. The hulking man placed the remote detonator in his pocket as he watched the carnage below. This was only a portion of the weapons he had stolen from the U.S. National Guard for the Padre’s cartel. Once the seaborne shipment had landed in Guatemala and was smuggled across the southern border of Mexico, it had been divided up and transported to storage points in the cartel’s territory. He’d discovered this particular location from one of the Padre’s men, who had unfortunately passed out in a brothel. He beat the man for an hour. After the cartel soldier gave up the information, he gave up his life. Rage burned in the muscular man’s eyes as he watched the flame-filled street below. The Padre had reneged on payment for the weapons. The Padre tried to have him killed. But El Barquero would have the last word. “The Ferryman” always did.
To: Editorial Department
Dear Sir or Madam:
In response to the overwhelming number of vapid readers of your humble publication, I would like to take a brief moment to respond to the horde of pinheads, nitwits, imbeciles, dunces, morons, and dimwits who felt obligated to comment on my last correspondence to your organization’s editorial department. Their idiotic and uneducated retorts and vicious personal attacks against my research regarding the timing of an overwhelming invasion of four-legged bloodsucking chupacabras due to global climatic shifts caused by the burning of fossil fuels are pathetic. Please note, I didn’t ever say it was going to happen today. Nor did I say it was going to happen tomorrow. I just said it was going to happen. Further research conducted at my own expense suggests that elevated levels of sunspot activity on the photosphere of the sun may have delayed the chupacabras’ migration across our southern borders as they shift their historic breeding grounds to more temperate climates. I have theorized that the intense magnetic activity that governs the variation and size of sunspots is at the root of the delay. Coronal mass ejections associated with sunspots are obviously disrupting the Earth’s magnetosphere and disorienting the internal navigation capabilities of the beasts. I am certain this is a short-term solar phenomenon that will self-correct at any moment. When that happens, the international scientific community will know that I was right. In the meantime, I suggest your readers apply extra sunscreen.
Avery shut down and closed his laptop computer as the airline flight attendant’s intercom announcement instructed. As the cabin crew prepared the plane for landing, Avery looked out the window at the long stretch of swamp and marshland below. Avery had never been to New Orleans before. In fact, Avery had never really been much of anywhere before. He wasn’t a big fan of flying. It had something to do with the big sign outside the airport that clearly stated TERMINAL. Or maybe it was that the TSA screener had gotten to third base with him and didn’t even buy him dinner first. Nonetheless, Avery’s longstanding reluctance to engage with the real world had recently begun to soften. After receiving a design fee in the low five figures from the retailing giant IKEA for his blueprints and design templates for a next-generation computer work station, Avery had started to reengage with the public. The money wasn’t insignificant. In fact, it was quite a generous offer. Still, Avery was rather upset that IKEA had only purchased his idea for an upfront, onetime fee and not the ongoing equal split of revenue from the project as he’d originally suggested. He was also pissed off that the final number of cup holders strategically located around the workstation had been dramatically reduced. However, the good news was that they did keep the attached mini-fridge. It took a significant amount of negotiating on Avery’s part, and the negotiating on Avery’s part mainly involved the threat of lawsuits. Ultimately, they finally gave in. The mini-fridge was a deal-breaker for Avery, and IKEA’s lead counsel threatened to quit if she had to deal with the condescending, boorish, and rude man for another instant. Victory in hand, Avery immediately took his newfound fortune and quickly quadrupled it in the currency markets. He then proceeded to lose half of it overnight in the metals markets.
“The silver market plummeted significantly today over fears that it would plummet significantly,” the business channel anchor announced, causing Avery to nearly choke on the nachos he’d been stuffing into his face.
“Freaking financial leverage,” Avery growled at the television set. “Oh, you’re a seductive mistress. Charming at first, but in the end, nothing but a money-grubbing whore!”
Avery immediately decided to abandon his brief flirtations with the financial markets and instead refocus on his research into most things paranormal and conspiratorial, particularly his stubborn fascination with the legendary chupacabra. Chupacabra translates to “goat sucker,” and the vampire-like beasts had a long history in the folklore of Mexico and Latin America. Avery thought he’d recently acquired the corpse of one, although DNA testing at an independent research laboratory identified it as a mildly decomposed coyote suffering from a bad case of mange. Still, that didn’t discourage Avery. He viewed the test as either inconclusive or, more than likely, a covert, high-level, government-sponsored coverup that went all the way to the White House.
“Of course they can’t let the public know about this!” Avery had screamed at his friend Ziggy. “It’s an election year! Panicked voters don’t cast ballots for incumbents!”
Avery decided that he needed to utilize the remainder of his wealth to gather more evidence for his theory. That was how he ended up on this airplane to New Orleans. He was on his way to the bi-annual conference of the International Society of Monster Hunters. He was joined on the journey by Ziggy, who was snoring away in a drug-induced slumber, in the adjacent aisle seat. The skinny, lizard-like man wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and baggy shorts woke suddenly as Avery slapped the back of his overly large head.
“Like, knock it off, man,” Ziggy protested as he rubbed his eyes and looked at the portly man wearing a bright yellow tracksuit sitting next to him. “You know, like, you should really think about trimming that beard of yours, dude. It’s, like, totally out of control and stuff, bro.”
“The day I take hygiene lessons from a gecko is the same day I slit my wrists in a warm, Roman bathtub,” Avery replied. “Now get up, you mentally defective reptile. I’ve got to hit the head before we land.”
“Can’t you just, like, hold it till we land?” Ziggy asked as he scrunched into a semi-fetal position in his seat so that the rotund Avery could squeeze past him and into the aisle.
“The timing of my essential bodily functions is not open for debate,” Avery said as he knocked the half- empty bottle of Mountain Dew out of the center armrest. “Damn you, Ziggy!” Avery swore. “You owe me another one when we land. Two, for that matter.”
“Like, why two, man?”
“Because I’m financing your airfare and lodging out of my personal affluence.”
“Your what?”
“My fortune.”
“I, like, didn’t think you like got that much.”
“For tax purposes, as far as the IRS is concerned, I didn’t get anything.”
“You aren’t going to pay your taxes?”
“Of course not. Taxes are for losers.”
“Like, why?”
“Simpleton. The Constitution only allows the government to coin money, and that money, when coined, must be freely exchangeable for silver or gold. Paper money, or, in my case, a check from a Swedish company, doesn’t meet the definition of income suitable for taxation. Just look it up online.”
“Like, far out.” Ziggy scratched his oversized head.
