Grunt Traitor by Weston Ochse Read Free Book Online Page B

went to school. I might have been slow to find out what I wanted to do, but I figured it out eventually.”
    “And then the aliens invaded.”
    That grin again. “Know the difference between an ethnobotanist and a xenobotanist?”
    I shook my head.
    “Aliens. Now that there are actually card-carrying aliens bringing their own flora, I can spend my time figuring out what the flora is, and what sort of relationship the flora has with the aliens, and what sort of relationship it will have with us.”
    “Relationship, huh?” I chuckled. “Whatever it is, it’s a weapon.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “They’re not going to import something just because it’s pretty or it smells good. When we traveled to Afghanistan we had limited space on the aircraft. I imagine it’s the same situation with the aliens. Limited space. They probably brought seeds and then dispersed them in urban environments. Mark my words, it was to do something bad to us.”
    That grin.
    “You keep smiling. You do realize that this is the end of the world, right?”
    He kept smiling even as he shook his head slowly. “Not the end, just the beginning of something new. Yeah, I’m smiling. It’s a golden time. I’m at the pinnacle of my career. Everything I’ve ever dreamed of is within a thirty-mile reach. Yeah, it’s fucked up what happened, but I’m about moving forward, not looking behind.”
    “Did you lose anyone?”
    His grin tightened. “I told you, I’m not looking behind.”
    I suddenly got it. He had to be happy. He had to be positive. After all, the opposite was far worse. He approached happiness like it was a job, and to him it probably was. Who knew what his story was? Whatever had happened, he desperately didn’t want to think about it. I’d respect his privacy. We were all a little broken. We all had something we didn’t want to think about. We all had something to hide.
    “We’ll sleep in four-hour breaks. I’ll take the first shift. I’ll wake you at nine.”
    He nodded, rolled over so he faced the couch, then was still.
    I turned to stare out the window and watched as the sun rose over my alien-infested planet.

 
Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pokanoket, and many other once powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, as snow before a summer sun. Will we let ourselves be destroyed in our turn without a struggle, give up our homes, our country bequeathed to us by the Great Spirit, the graves of our dead and everything that is dear and sacred to us? I know you will cry with me, Never! Never!
Tecumseh Shawnee
     
     
    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
     
    D RUMS BEAT IN a darkness so dense it held me in its cloying grasp. I couldn’t turn. I couldn’t blink. I wasn’t even sure if my eyes were open. The drums grew louder and louder—
    I awoke with a start.
    Dupree stood unmoving at the window, staring out.
    “What is it?” I uncurled myself from the chair, my back protesting.
    “Golf,” was all he said, but the word held a mystical quality it shouldn’t have.
    I jumped to my feet and went to the window. Sure enough, three old men were out there playing golf. I pegged them to be in their seventies. They were all rail thin. One wore red paisley pants; another wore orange paisley. The third wore pants with neon green alligators on them. They all wore polo golf shirts, two-tone golf shoes and golf caps.
    I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.
    “How long have they been there?”
    “Looks like they played all eighteen.” He pointed. “This is the last hole.”
    The grass looked too long to play in, but as I thought that, my eyes began to pick up some details they’d missed before. Here and there were spaces where the grass was short, as if someone had come and cut it, or in this case, hit a ball from it.
    “I bet they do this every day.”
    They were playing directly towards us. The green was beneath our