Category: Fiction Factor

The jeep rumbled and bounced as it traversed the property, churning up dust as the two passengers in the back surveyed their surroundings.

There were three zebras, what appeared to be a very young giraffe, and enough desert-like flora to give them the illusion they were in Africa instead of the Chihuahuan Desert of west Texas. That was the whole idea behind Briscoe’s Trophy Hunt Adventure, run by its namesake – Emery Briscoe.

“What do you boys think?” shouted Briscoe, looking back and smiling at his guests. “I guaran-damn-tee you two are gonna get your money’s worth. Guaran-damn-tee it.”

Ah, yes, money.

Trophy hunts weren’t cheap, and Briscoe’s Trophy Hunt Adventure was quite specialized. It was so specialized, in fact, that it was not just extremely expensive  for those willing to pay enough, but also extremely illegal. While “game ranches” – places where animals are held captive – had sprouted up all over the United States, this one provided some off-the-books action. But what’s a little malfeasance among the rich?

And the gentlemen on this particular trip had money to burn and were hunting for an endangered Javan rhino – one of less than 80 in the world.

Briscoe abruptly stopped the jeep after spying it just a few hundred feet away.

“I could tell you how I got that bull – that’s what they call the males – but then I’d have to kill you,” he said with a laugh. “Ain’t too many of ‘em left, so I paid a pretty penny to bring him over from Indonesia. And thanks to your generosity, you’ll be able to have a nice rhino head for your living room, and I can get something special for the next big-game hunters that come my way.

“I’ve been trying for years to get one of them Tapanuli orangutans. Be a lot easier to bring down that a rhino, I can tell you that much.”

As the three men walked closer to the rhino, it was obvious that the animal had been drugged. It was laying on the ground with its head lilting to the left.

“Now, in a normal situation,” Briscoe explained, “you wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near this close to a rhinoceros. But we made sure to … well … let’s just say we made him real calm for you. Thanks to several shots with a tranquilizer gun, we’ve done a lot of the work for you. Now which one of you wants to take the first shot? Or, I guess you can both shoot him at the same time.

“Don’t make a bit of difference to me.”

The men jumped off the jeep and swiftly moved toward the rhino. The first pulled out what appeared to be a large laser pointer and carefully traced the silhouette of the creature with it.

The second had something that looked to be more of a high-tech bazooka than an automatic rifle.

“You’ll blow him to bits with that thing,” Briscoe said. “But however you wanna get your jollies is fine by me.”

The man took aim and fired at the rhino, but instead of a bullet there was a pulse of white light that engulfed the animal.

Seconds later, it had completely disappeared.

“What the hell happened?” Briscoe asked. “What did you just do? Are ya’ll some kind of magicians, or what?”

The “shooter” looked at Briscoe with disdain.

“We teleported the Rhinocerotidae being to our home, Gliese 667Cc,” he said. “In your world we would be called conservationists. Humans like you are not only incapable of protecting these life forms, you are actively destroying them. We’re seizing them for their protection – as well as well as their salvation.

“Before the day is done, all of the animals here will be transported. In fact, most of the animals on this doomed planet will be transported.”

Briscoe’s eyes widened.

“Wait a minute … so you two are trying to tell me you’re do-gooders from outer space, huh,” he said, chuckling nervously. “At least that’s what you expect me believe. Ain’t that a kick in the head. Don’t matter to me, though. You paid up front. And long after you’re done havin’ your fun here, I’ll still be in business.

“As long as there are trophies, there’ll be people hunting for trophies. Doomed planet, my ass …”

The travelers from Gliese 667Cc looked at each other, with one drawing a circle on the ground with his laser. They stepped inside and just as had happened with the rhino, they disappeared in a flash of white light.

Briscoe climbed into his jeep, cranked it up, and headed back toward the lodge – rattled and unsure if what had just happened was real or some fever dream.

Yet, as he glanced around and peered through the dust, he noticed that all the animals in the preserve were, indeed, gone.

He couldn’t say for certain what had happened to them, but they were no longer part of Briscoe’s Trophy Hunt Adventure. Most important of all, they were safe from the extinction-level asteroid hurtling toward Earth.

Micah and Sherri sat across from the coffee table – as they always did this time of year – and peered into the bowl.

Inside it were five small, folded pieces of paper.

Sherri held a quarter.

“OK,’ she said. “You call it in the air.”

She launched the coin with her thumb, and as it fluttered end-over-end Micha shouted, “Heads!”

The quarter landed on top of Sherri’s left hand, she covered it, and then took a peek.

“Heads it is,” she said. “You get to pick.”

Micah carefully eyed the bowl, stirred the paper slightly with his right index finger, pulled out a piece, and then unfolded it.

He let out a long sigh.

“Show it to me,” Sherri said, smiling.

He handed it over and revealed the word scribbled in pen, “illness.”

Sherri shrugged.

“What’s wrong with that?” she asked. “That’s perfect, actually.”

Micah rolled his eyes.

“That’s the one we used last year,” he said. “I told my family I had food poisoning, and you told yours you had the flu. It’d be a little too convenient if we did that again.”

Sherri disagreed.

“Not at all,” she said. “It is the cold and flu season – November is always the cold and flu season. And food poisoning? It can happen any time, any place. Ever heard of gas station sushi? Really, this is the best excuse of all of them. It’s sure as heck better than the one I drew two years ago.”

It was 2021 when Sherri won the toss and picked a piece of paper with the word “car trouble.”

“We could’ve made the car trouble excuse work,” she said. “But somebody screwed that up royally, didn’t they?”

Micah grimaced.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah … I should’ve said we had car trouble in North Dakota or some place like that,” he said. “I never thought Uncle Lou would drive over and pick us up.”

“Oh, but he did,” Sherri said, wagging her finger at Micah. “And the man always smells like roasted broccoli. I used to love roasted broccoli until I got a whiff of your uncle.”

Micah chuckled.

“I think you’re being kind,” he said. “There’s the smell of roasted broccoli, and then there’s the smell of the flatulence that follows the consumption of roasted broccoli. I’m pretty sure Uncle Lou had let a few rip before he picked us up.

“The best part, though, was sitting in the corner of the kitchen and watching Aunt Eunice toss back those deviled eggs. It was gross, but in an artful kind of way.”

The couple called their annual ritual the “Introvert Society Thanksgiving Day Charade.” Knowing they would be invited to several different holiday gatherings – and knowing they were both painfully shy and got nervous in large crowds – they would draw from the “Excuse Bowl” to come up with a ruse.

They loved their families and treasured their friends, and it’s not that they wanted to lie – it’s just they’d rather lie than leave the house and dive into a sea of humanity.

They had done the paper draw for more than 10 years, and the five excuses were “illness,” “work,” “argument,” “car trouble” and “Federal Witness Protection Program.”

The last one was a joke.

Maybe.

“I can’t believe that over an entire decade we’ve never picked WITSEC,” Sherri mused. “That would be awesome. New names, new jobs … new lives in a new location. Of course, after a while we’d probably make new friends, and they’d invite us over for the holidays.

“The wheels on the bus go round and round, I suppose.”

Micah reached for his cellphone.

“So, why don’t I call my family and tell them I have the flu, and you can call yours and say you have food poisoning,” Micah said. “No, wait … maybe mix it up and say you have strep throat.”

Sheri walked over to Micah and gave him a big hug.

“I love you,” she said. “You, me, our three cats, one goldfish, in the den, eating a pizza from the freezer and watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles – just like every year. “It’s my favorite Thanksgiving tradition.”

Keisha had already brushed her teeth, put on her pajamas and crawled into bed when her mother walked into the room.

“Are you ready for nite-nite?” asked her mom, placing her hand on the light switch.

“Could you tell me a story first?” Keisha said. “I’m not sleepy yet … at least not real sleepy.”

Her mom smiled, climbed onto the bed and snuggled close to her daughter.

“Sure, sweetheart,” she said. “Do you want me to read you one or tell you one?

Keisha answered immediately.

“Tell me one!” she said, excitedly. “Tell me Secret Holiday again. That’s my favorite.”

Her mom laughed.

“OK … here goes.”

The bell rang right at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, sending most of the kids at Pinckney Memorial Grammer School into a frenzy.

With Thanksgiving the next day and another day off scheduled for Friday, there would be a long holiday weekend for the students and teachers.

Ava heard her friends talk of the road trips they were taking – or the visitors coming into town – as well as all the baking activity leading up to the feast.

She smiled politely when they shared their excitement, although she could muster none of her own.

November was hardly a joyous time at her house, and things got even worse when the pumpkins and hay bales were replaced by lighted trees and stockings.

Her parents’ arguments often drowned out the holiday music blaring from the stereo. With all the fighting, she could never understand why they even bothered to play holiday music at all.

And if she wasn’t locked away in her room covering her ears in an effort to mute the insults being volleyed between her mom and dad, she was nervously sitting through a silence that made a cold home seem even colder.

She clearly remembered one time when her folks didn’t speak to each other at all for more than three weeks.

She called such times “The Darkness,” and as each holiday came and went, it seemed to grow bigger and darker, practically engulfing her.

Ava was sad most of the time, it seemed, but it was the holidays that made her the saddest of all. She knew they were supposed to be happy times, but they weren’t – at least they hadn’t been for her.

Then one day, Ava had an idea. What if she created a Secret Holiday – a holiday no one knew about but her?

It could be any time she wanted it to be – and last as long as she wanted it to – but only she would know about it.

The first Secret Holiday she remembered came on a summer day when she heard her parents laughing – something she didn’t here nearly enough. She imagined the living room decorated in bright colors, and that night when she ate dinner, she pretended the baked beans and sliced bread was a festive meal only served during special, joyous times.

When she was at school and saw other kids laughing, she pretended they were celebrating their own Secret Holiday, and it made her happy inside.

In fact, she figured that anytime a person was laughing, smiling – or sometimes just sitting on a bench with nothing but a book and a pleasant expression – they were celebrating something.

And she decided to celebrate with them.

They didn’t know it, of course, but they were part of her Secret Holiday, and those were the times that were the absolute best of times.

Weeks turned into months and months turned into years, and Ava grew up.

She got a job, worked her way through school, fell in love, got married and started a family.

Turns out, there were more Secret Holidays than she could keep up with.

The day she brought a kitten home from the shelter was a Secret Holiday.

The time she carried her neighbors’ groceries into his house was a Secret Holiday.

Best of all, the sad months she had experienced as a child – November and December – didn’t seem so sad anymore because they were always full of Secret Holidays.

Oh, there were bad times, to be sure … that’s part of living. But the greatest thing of all about Secret Holidays is that they’re secret – and that means “The Darkness” can never find them.

Keisha had already fallen asleep by the time her mom reached the end of the story. She eased off the bed, tiptoed toward the door, and turned out the light.

It marked the end of another wonderful Secret Holiday.