A Hole In the World Read online

  A HOLE

  IN THE

  WORLD

  WESTON OCHSE

  First published 2021 by Solaris

  an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

  Riverside House, Osney Mead,

  Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

  www.solarisbooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-7861-833-85

  Copyright © 2021 Weston Ochse

  The epigraph in this book is excerpted from

  “SUN/DANCE/SONG,” which is copyright © 2012 Adrian C. Louis and reproduced here with permission.

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance

  to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Designed & typeset by Rebellion Publishing

  eBook production

  by Oxford eBooks Ltd.

  www.oxford-ebooks.com

  For my daughter, Alexandra

  Author Note

  On the use of the word Indian. I chose a location on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, United States of America as a prime place for the plot of this novel to begin. The inhabitants are largely Ogallala Lakota Sioux Indian. While many countries use the term First Nations Peoples, the usage of this term was developed as part of a non-binding United Nations Declaration that the United States did not sign. Other terms, such as Native Americans, have been rejected by tribes because they don’t see themselves as natives and largely find the term derogatory. It has also been argued that anyone born in the Western Continent is Native American. I have read that supporters of the term Indian argue that it has been used for so long that it has become the norm and are no longer considered as exonyms. It is not the intent of this author to insult in any way. I am merely striving to refer to a people by the most socially accepted means. This novel is meant for pleasure and not for political or social critique.

  Born dead this spring,

  an ancient & skeletal elm

  in our backyard scratches

  the face of the sullen sun.

  Sliced ribbons of sunlight

  wrap the fact that nothing

  can save you this dry July,

  not even bleeding dancers

  tethered by medicine prayers

  to a freshly cut cottonwood

  tree twenty miles from here.

  from SUN/DANCE/SONG

  by Adrian C. Louis, member of

  Lovelock Paiute Indian Tribe,

  Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  Francis Scott Key Catches the Enemy woke up in a ditch, which wasn’t all that uncommon. People had their own ideas as to why he chose such places to sleep, but the truth was that he had narcolepsy and would often wake up in the most curious places. What was uncommon was that he was in the middle of nowhere. He checked his pockets. He still had a few dollars and his wallet with his Tribal ID card and food stamps. So, what was he doing there? He scratched an itch only to see it was an ant. He pinched it between two fingers and flicked it onto the empty roadway. He still had his work boots and jeans. He still wore his favorite T-shirt he got from a Minneapolis Starbucks. He still had on his Cleveland Indians baseball cap that he wore as a joke that no one seemed to get. If he had everything, then why was he here?

  The landscape was as flat and dry as the rest of the Res. West he could just see the smudge of the Black Hills, their sacred place turned into tourist place by the white man eager to make more money than they could spend in two lifetimes. Prairie grass grew in clumps along the road and metal fences separating the properties. Quail led their families from clump to clump, mastering the fast waddle. The cloudless blue sky already promised to be another scorcher and without a piece of shade in sight, he was going to get one hell of a burn. He could thank that to some-as-heretofore-unknown white man in the woodpile.

  Nearby on a cutoff stood five white FEMA trailers that had been repurposed for permanent use. Each of them looked as if they’d gone through a hurricane or two. It was too early for anyone to be out except a few goats and a mangy cur. A free-standing basketball hoop lay on its side as if it had been shot. Three of the five trailers had blue tubs for rain catchment. Each one had a satellite dish on the power pole at the end of the house. An industrial-sized garbage can rested at the juncture of the cutoff and the main road, already half full with trash and, by the swirling black mass of flies, fresh mule deer carcass.

  He pulled himself to his feet through sheer willpower and staggered to his left before he was able to get his balance.

  Other than the trailers, an odd street sign was the only thing that rose any higher than he did. Anyone from the Res didn’t need any signs to know where they were. The signs were for the government men when they came so they could get around. He knew this one especially because he was on the work detail that put it in. It said No Flesh Road, named after a famous Sioux Chief who went to Washington with Chief Red Cloud. A semi-dry creek of the same name paralleled the road. Those in the FEMA trailers were No Flesh ancestors, the last of an important line.

  Francis Scott Key Catches decided to sit and wait for a ride back into Iron Hat. He pulled himself up an old tire and sat on it, wishing for something to quiet the murmuring in his empty stomach. He’d been expecting cars and trucks for some time. Little Wound School in Kyle would be opening and it served not only Kyle, but Iron Hat, and other places nearby. With no cars on the road, Francis Scott began to wonder if he hadn’t missed a Tribal Emergency Warning.

  He was just considering getting up and going to one of the No Flesh trailers to see if they knew what was going on when a car appeared coming from the direction of Kyle. It skidded to a stop even with him. The driver looked around in confusion, then used the cut-off to pull in, back up, and turn around.

  Francis Scott watched it go back the way it came. They must have forgotten something, he figured. Had to get back home. He craned his neck towards Iron Hat to the south and didn’t see a thing.

  Soon cars and trucks began to come with more frequency, in one
s and twos and threes. But the odd thing was, they all stopped in the same place, turned around, and went back. It was as if on reaching the spot in the road they received a warning on the radio to turn around.

  Once again, he looked towards Iron Hat.

  Nothing at all from that direction.

  Was there a chemical spill?

  He saw nothing on the horizon to prove the notion.

  He spoke for a few moments with the people in the nearest trailer. They hadn’t heard of any warnings. There were no alerts. The only thing that confused them was that they claimed to have never heard of Iron Hat.

  Five hours later a feeling began to dawn on him. One he’d learned to listen to—one that had kept him alive on many occasions. It was strange being on the right side of things. Francis Scott—never Francis—had been largely misunderstood since Desert Storm. But that never stopped him from trying to be understood. His problem was he had too much time on his hands. He noticed things. And when he took the time out of his busy day noticing things to point things out to people who didn’t notice things, they tended to dismiss him or not believe in him.

  Like the time he saw giant butterflies coming off the surface of Devil’s Tower in Wyoming when he was out delivering a load of lumber as part of a tribal interchange. No one had even taken a second to think what he said was true. But he’d proved it. Sure, they had been sky divers free basing off the top of the monument with butterfly-pattern-shaped parachutes, but that didn’t mean he’d been wrong.

  It meant he’d been paying attention.

  Or like the time he saw the herd of Ghost Buffalo stampeding from Custer along Highway 16, their rumbles like thunder in the middle of winter, Hell’s own sulfur pouring from their noses as they puffed their way down the iced roadway. Sure, it turned out to be actual buffalo who had run through twelve-foot-high snow drifts and been covered from horn to hoof by iced snow, but anyone seeing what he’d seen would have believed they were Ghost Buffalo as well.

  Or even like the time when he’d been in North Dakota on a sixty-day work team at the oil fields and had seen several UFOs come, land, and remove cattle for some sketchy experimentation. He’d reported the information and had worked with a sketch artist to create a proper rendering. As it turned out, he’d been watching the events unfold over several nights on a drive-in movie screen erected in the middle of nowhere by a Silicon Valley billionaire who’d created a reproduction of the drive in from his youth for his own personal enjoyment and just loved cheesy cheap sci fi movies from the fifties and sixties.

  Who knew there was a giant movie screen in the middle of nowhere? Was it his fault a billionaire wanted to recreate his youth?

  Still, Francis Scott Key Chases had been paying attention.

  He refused to believe that he was a poor witness with bad eyes and a loner’s sense of the universe. He’d just been put in situations where his ability to witness was at odds with the curious folks and conditions that were presented before him. But now he had witnesses. And now it seemed as if an entire town had gone missing and it was only him who seemed to know about it.

  An entire town.

  Since when had that happened before?

  And he, Francis Scott Key Catches, son of the Homecoming Queen of Kyle, South Dakota, Class of 1966 and Francisco Morales, itinerant worker and traveling magician, was the first one to see it happen when a car bound for the booming metropolis of Iron Hat, South Dakota, skidding to as stop in the middle of the road, the driver glancing both ways, then pulled a U-turn and went back the way they came from.

  In fact, traffic had been like that for hours, cars and trucks and semis rumbling down the road, only to stop dead in the middle of it, then turn around as if they’d never intended on coming that way in the first place. At first it was just him watching the gigantic clusterfuck, but then came Freddie Makes Room who pulled up on a Razor ATV and asked what was going on.

  The conversation had gone:

  “No one’s going to the town anymore,” Francis Scott said.

  “There’s a town there?” Freddie Makes Room asked—something he shouldn’t have to ask. Iron Hat was famous on the Res because of the Department of the Interior’s intrusion after a well-digger found a Rare Earth metal deposit large enough to make a boardroom of billionaires.

  “Of course, there is, Freddie. We’ve been there. Don’t you remember Big Sal?” he asked referring to the triple-sized gal who slung beer from the back of her trailer, party lights, and everything.

  “Never heard of her.”

  “You and her made out last Thanksgiving.”

  “Don’t remember and we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.”

  Then Little Frank Wounded showed up—all five feet of him, dressed in jeans and workshirt and boots.

  “Whatcha doing, Francis Scott?” he’d asked as he hopped out of his pickup.

  Francis Scott grinned. Little Frank was perfect and would be his ride. He angled his head towards the empty road before them. “Let’s go into town and get some lunch,” he said. “I’m buying.”

  Little Frank shook his head. “I just came from there. Traffic is a lot more than usual. People are driving in circles. Don’t want to mess with that again.”

  “No, I mean Iron Hat. The town down that way.”

  Little Frank pushed back the rim of his cowboy hat and squinted at Francis Scott much like Clint Eastwood would have done minus the cheroot. “What the hell is an Iron Hat? I thought you gave up the hard liquor and were sticking to beer?”

  There was a time after Desert Storm where no bottle would have been safe from Francis Scott. But that was an age ago. Still, he licked his lips at the memory of the taste of rye. Memories are rough things to ignore, but he was having too much fun living life to succumb to one with memories of mortars and blown out Iraqi tanks. “Where do you think you bought your truck? And your clothes? You live in Iron Hat for god’s sakes.”

  “Nothing of the sort.” Little Frank looked up at Makes Room. “How long has he been like this?”

  “A couple hours at least. Think he sprung a sprocket?”

  “I think it’s worth checking into.” Little Frank strode over to Francis Scott. “Maybe we should check you into the clinic. See if there’s a fever or something.”

  “Saw on Nat Geo about this brain worm from Africa that can make people see things that aren’t there,” Freddie Makes Room said.

  They watched another car come up, stop, the look on the driver’s face pure confusion, then turn the car around and head back into Kyle.

  “See that?” Francis Scott said, thumping Little Frank in the shoulder.

  “What I saw was a driver realize they’d taken a wrong turn then go back the way they came. Happens every day.”

  “But why here?” Francis asked, gesturing to the road. “Why this exact spot?”

  Little Frank shrugged. “Good as place as any. Really, Francis Scott. Aren’t you taking this a little too far?”

  What had been fun was becoming anything but. What’s the good of having a good time if you’re the only one having it? Then he had an idea. He strode over to the pickup, climbed in, grabbed the leather book where Little Frank kept all of his meticulous maintenance records. Sure enough, he got his oil changed in the same location every 5,000 miles and the address was in Iron Hat.

  He brought it down and showed it to Little Frank.

  The diminutive man removed his cowboy hat, flattened his hair, then put the hat back on.

  “I see what it says, but it makes no sense.”

  Francis Scott thumped the paper. “What you see are receipts from a place that existed right up until this morning. The questions are, why doesn’t anyone except me seem to remember that it existed and what’s going on in there? I mean, the residents can’t just be gone. They have to either be trapped and can’t get out or they don’t think anything else exists outside of their town.”

  “What you’re talking about is Twilight Zone,” Freddie Makes Room said.

  Fra
ncis Scott shrugged.

  They all watched another car come, make a five-point turn, and go back the way it came.

  “I don’t care what it sounds like. I’m tired of being called crazy. I’m going to report it.”

  “How do you report a missing town?” Little Frank asked. “You and I both know the tribal police will lock you up in a second.”

  “He’s right,” Makes Room said. “That just means we need to think outside the box.”

  “Does that mean you believe me?” Francis Scott asked.

  “Oh, hell no. But you’re my friend. If you believe, I’d be a dick to think you’re crazy.” Little Frank nodded to the truck. “Follow me back to my place. We’re going to blast this thing all over the internet.”

  CHAPTER 1

  Laurie May—aka Preacher’s Daughter—annotated the results of the experiment, darkened the screens on her computers, and sat back in her chair. She detested office work. She especially hated science. She had a Master of Arts in Religious Studies with an emphasis on monotheistic religions. Although there were some who tried to apply science to explain religions, most frequently the suspect science of psychology, she knew better. After all, who else had she known who’d been captured by Sufi mystics and held hostage in order to power the mind of a dying demi-god? She’d been up to her eyeballs in real life games between gods and men and didn’t need any PhD trying to placate her beliefs with their scientific theories.

  “Ms. May, can you run through the results one more time,” came a voice over her desk speaker. “I want to verify before I input them into the master database. Remember what they say. Measure twice, cut once.”

  She imagined emptying a thirty-round clip from an HK416 into the speaker.

  “Ms. May, do you copy? I need to know if you hear me.”

  His name was Dr. Norris Fields. He was a thirty-year-old wunderkind who held a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience with an emphasis in extrospection from the Berlin School of Mind and Brain. Fields had done his thesis regarding Non-Linear Memory Retention. He eschewed the Ebbinghaus Forgetful Curve and had created his own topological model that they were trying to prove through experimentation.