The Best of the Brine

The below is probably the first chapter to something I thought up, we'll see if any sense of commitment overwhelms me as I sleep tonight. I do have some character names and a partial plot in mind, we'll see what it becomes. It could just be a series of shorts that get posted...


No title yet....no, seriously, this isn't the title lol.


Hecht could feel their eyes on him in the small dark space. Each pair was different and special, somehow he knew that. What he couldn’t figure, was why he had been put in a transport ship with five children. To his knowledge, most of the children had been killed in the beginning. Either the five huddled against the cold metal of the ship were lucky, or extremely important. He weighed the information available in his mind, taking care to consider everything before making his decision.

The older girl blinked coldly at him. She sat slightly apart from the rest of the group, as if she would catch something lest she be too near. It was odd, seeing a person single herself out in such a way. Most humans grouped together now, it was safer that way. But there she sat, straight backed and defiant. Hecht couldn’t decide if he was envious of her prideful youth, or if he should take pity on her ignorance.

A boy about her age cradled two younger children in each of his arms. He looked strong, but less confident than the girl. It appeared that he had an idea of what would happen to them. Though he wasn’t shielding the younger children, he was trying to make an attempt at compassion, for he would surely share their fate. His eyes lingered on Hecht, he knew better than to trust anyone new.

The last boy seemed to be in the middle of all their ages, most likely fifteen or sixteen years old. His eyes were downcast and shoulders slumped. It looked as if the weight of the world had been laid upon him, and would smother him within moments. He didn’t look much different than the majority of the people Hecht had seen over the last year, except for one thing. One incredibly important thing. Hecht glanced down at the boy’s hands and noted that they were not shaking. None of the children’s hands were.

He looked down at his own steady hands. Until that moment, he had not met anyone else with his condition since the invasion. Hecht had never been a big believer of fate or destiny, but all of them in the same ship had to mean something. He just wasn’t sure how much longer he would have to figure it out.

Hecht was a smart man. He had been quite the professor before all hell had broken loose on the planet. Since then, he had taken to using his mind on other things than books and theories. Instead of writing papers, Hecht had started to formulate plans. Just like the one he intended on using in the next few moments.

He took a deep breath, steadying his voice so that he would not sound too imposing or authoritative. He had to remember how to speak to children in order to get them to do what you wanted them to do without them knowing it. “If you little chicken shits want to get out of this dump, I suggest you follow me quickly.”

The surprise on their faces was enough to tell him that they would at least consider his plan.

He pointed to the older boy. “I will need your help with the latch. The rest of you, get ready to jump.”

The boy was hesitant, but moved slightly towards Hecht. “How do we know we can trust you?”

Hecht leaned forward, grinding his teeth together and scowled at the boy. “Because I am human, and I don’t want to die,” he watched their unease, “and because we have something in common.”

He held out his hands. They were still, and the children stared. Realization passed over their faces.

Hecht winked at the older boy, who moved forwards to help him. “Smart boy.”
Their fingers bled as they pried open the latch. Once it was open, they kicked out the small container door, revealing the scenery whizzing by at an awesome speed. He looked back at the ragged group of children. “Make it a good jump, you need to get past the railings.”

They nodded, gazing out at the electrified railways that hummed and glowed with a blue aura. Almost everything on the planet looked like that after the invasion. It was a constant reminder of what had been taken from them.

With grace that he could only attribute to their condition, Hecht watched as each child jumped from the train without fear or hesitation. He followed them out, knowing he had found something that was never meant to leave the invaders’ sight. He had found something that was not supposed to live, because it was dangerous. Because, these children were different.

They could save everyone.

The Best of the Brine

The Tree


There had always been something odd about the tree. It was in the way its leaves moved in a breeze, how its wood was darker than it should have been, and how when I sat at its base all alone on a summer afternoon, I didn’t feel as if I was.

No other trees grew beside it, even if a forest surrounded it. It sat at the center of a living, breathing, healthy forest, but nothing lived within fifty feet of the tree. There were many theories as to why, because people liked to talk. Some said it was the soil, while others rumored that it was a prank by local kids who would dig up anything that took root near the tree just to scare people.

I had another theory.

I would go to the tree whenever I could, I was just drawn to it, like a moth to a flame. After many years, it became an old friend, something I could tell all my secrets to. So we sat, the tree and I, hour after hour, enjoying each other’s company. Even after all that time, I never could quite put a name to the tree, as one should to a friend. Perhaps that was because it was so much more.

It could act as shelter in a storm, shade from the sun, and provide quiet in a chaotic world. Often I would stare up into its branches and watch them sway back and forth. They danced for me in the wind, but it didn’t take me long to figure out why it moved differently than all the other trees. It wasn’t the wind that moved the branches and the delicate scarlet leaves, it wasn’t anything at all. The tree just moved.

Once, I fell asleep underneath it. When I woke, I found a branch lying beside me. The arm of the tree had not fallen, but simply drooped until it was on the ground next to where I slept. I ran my hand down its bark, until my finger caught on something sharp. Drops of my blood fell onto the leaves, but disappeared instantly, as if they had been absorbed. It could have been my imagination, but I swear the leaves shimmered that day in the fading sunlight.

My parents tried to tell me to stay away from the tree. Mostly because children often went missing in the forest, any trace of them ending at the edges of the clearing surrounding the tree. They were afraid of it, but I was not.

After many years, the forest was sold to a lumber company. All of the trees were cut down. Even the tree at its center, though it was rather a hardship. I was told that it had taken several machines and double the amount of workers to take it down. They had said it just didn’t want to leave. I believed them…I didn’t want it to leave either.

I mourned the loss of my tree for some time, and would return to the place it had once been on occasion. But it wasn’t the same. I determined that it had not been the spot, but the actually tree that had provided me with that feeling of belonging.

But a funny thing happened one day.

One afternoon in the middle of spring, three years after the forest and the tree had been cut down, I walked into a bookstore. I was immediately drawn to a section that I would have otherwise avoided entirely. Slowly, I ran my hand along the bindings of the books on the shelves. They were beautiful colors, with lettering in gold and silver. I walked along the aisle until my finger caught on something sharp, pricking it so that it bled. I plucked out the book that had cut my finger, and looked down at its face. It was scarlet, and where the blood stain should have been from my finger, there was nothing.

I smiled down at the book, no longer feeling alone in the empty store. When I opened it, I expected to see familiar words that would have been printed on the pages. Where the first lines of Genesis should have been written, instead, I found other things. There were names, faces, and dates. Flipping through, I began to see the secrets I had told to no one, but that didn’t surprise me. Narrowing my eyes, so that I could see the details of each page, I noticed that the script was written in that familiar scarlet I had come to know so well.

Of course I had to bring the book home with me.

I placed it on the window sill and opened the window. The cover would open, and the pages would dance in the breeze. But I knew better. It was not the air that made them dance, they just did.

Sometimes I had to lose the book in order to get it back. I would leave it under a seat at the train station, or next to a chair at the local library. When I found it again, there was always more writing, and more names. For the first few days after finding it again, it would shimmer, just like it had the day it first tasted my blood.

Before I passed away, I had to make sure some instruction was left with the book in my will. I stated simply, “There had always been something odd about the book.”

The Best of the Brine

Her Box


Her eyes opened.

She saw, but was still in the dark. Her breathing was short, rapid and desperate. With shaking fingers, she clawed into the pitch black. A cry escaped her throat as she felt a fingernail break against something hard. In horror, she tried to sit up, but found she could only move several inches before her head hit against something cold and rough.

Hot tears began to roll down her cheeks, pooling next to her face. She sobbed for help, for anyone to help her. But there was no response. So she pounded her fists against the sides of her prison, her box.

What had she done to deserve such a fate? Her mind reeled as she coughed up warm liquid. It had a metallic taste, and she couldn’t recognize it at first. But after another moment, she realized it was blood. It flowed out of her mouth, down her chin, and welled against her shoulders, mixing with her salty tears.

She wondered how she had gotten in the box, and why she wasn’t in pain if she was indeed coughing up blood.

Memories, fast and piercing, punched a hole through her panic.

He had been beautiful, unlike anyone she had ever seen before. His eyes drew her in, captured her with their intensity. She tried to remember anything else but his eyes, but found she could not. But she remembered the moon. It had been bright and full, guiding her way back home. Her mind lingered there. Home was supposed to be safe, but safe it was no longer.

Slowly, her hand crept along her abdomen, up towards her chest. Then, her fingers found something that should not have been there.

It had to have been a nightmare, because it could not be real. The things that were happening to her were only in stories. None of it could be happening. It just couldn’t be.

Her fingers wrapped around the cold wood stake protruding from her chest. She tightened her grip, and then pulled. But there was no use, it would not come out. She was trapped like an animal in the box, in her box.

She gave one last pull, but the wood refused to budge, and that was when she noticed her chest no longer moved. She had stopped breathing, but for how long? Her lungs did not burn for air as they once had, but were indifferent at its absence. Her mind sluggishly tried to piece together what was happening, what any of it meant.

A scratching noise came from above, followed by shouts. If her heart could have hammered inside of her chest, it would have. But she was as hollow as a dead tree.

The top of her box was flung open, light shown down upon her.

“You missed the heart!” Yelled an angry man standing above her.

Another man knelt down next to her, he held a lantern to her face. “Who did this to you?”

Her eyes darted around, recognizing the faces, but feeling nothing for them. She clutched at the stake in her chest. “You did!” she shrieked.

The man with the lantern shook his head, as if he would regret his next move. “Finish her,” he ordered coldly.

Her vision became red, anger welling up inside her empty shell. She pointed at the man with the lantern as her fingers dripped blood onto the ground. “You did this!”

The first man leaned down as the man with the lantern stepped into the shadows, only his eyes visible as they glinted in the moonlight. The angry man took hold of the stake, his face twisting in frustration as he tried to move it. “We really put this in there good, didn’t we?”

As the stake was ripped from her chest, and just before it plunged back in, she watched the man in the shadows. Once again, she was captured by his eyes. They drew her in and made her forget what came next.

Her eyes opened.

The Best of the Brine

A short (and silly) story. For real this time.

The Ice Cream Girl

Every summer, since I was 14, from three o'clock in the afternoon to eight o'clock in the evening, five days a week, I am the Ice Cream Girl. Cupid’s Ice Cream has many employees; Toppings Boy, Shakes Girl, Floats Boy- I scoop the ice cream, each of the 36 flavors, and that makes me The Ice Cream Girl.

The Ice Cream Girl has the most difficult task, because ice cream is required for everything; toppings, shakes, and floats. Toppings Boy is second busiest, but his work is doesn't require him to be precise-just throw a spoonful of peanuts on some ice cream and you're set. This fits his personality well. He is frantic and chaotic, a tiny tornado that regularly destroys the toppings counter. By the end of the day, there is usually a gummy worm or two stuck in his chocolate hair.

Shake Girl, our valedictorian, has the most complicated job, but 1 in every 7 costumers wants a shake, so it evens, out time wise. Plus, she has the whole thing down to an exact science. Of course, if something goes even slightly awry she crumbles like a cookie, but what can you do?

Float Boy is just that: a floater. He got the job at Cupid’s because he wanted to flirt with pretty girls who stop in on the way home from the beach. Because, lets face it, like, one out of every 20 people wants a float. And what does it even entail, anyway? I scoop the ice cream, and then he... what? Pours coke all over it? Yeah, that sounds really taxing. And, as a result, he has lots of time to hang over the counter and smile at the girls with caramel skin and strawberry bikini’s, and do nothing that even remotely resembles work. This is especially common on days when we are slow.

Like today.

Not that I care.

I don’t care! We have nothing to do. Toppings Boy has wiped off the counter fourteen times already, Shake Girl is singing "The States Song" out of sheer boredom, and I’m standing here, useless, watching as Floater gazes at some smitten girl with hair like cherries. Our first costumer in an hour, and-of course- it’s another girl for Floater to hit on. We are always so cursedly slow on rainy days. People don’t venture towards the beach on rainy days.

There is a crack of thunder. I realize that I am compulsively scooping at vanilla bean. I stop, midscoop, and look at the massive crater I created. I glance up. Toppings Boy is staring. So is Shake Girl, and I notice that she has stopped her singing. I glare at them, and flick the vanilla ice cream off my vanilla skin.

“What?” I gesture at them with my ice cream scooper in what I think appears to be a nonchalant fashion.

Toppings Boy looks immediately fascinated with the non-existent dirt on the floor (he has mopped twice in the last hour), but Shake Girl shakes her head at me sadly and goes back to singing. I ignore her, and my attention falls back on Floater, who since my last glance has removed his apron and somehow vaulted over the counter. He is standing next to Cherries Girl, and they are both grinning like idiots. He is looking at me, blueberry eyes meeting my mint ones.

“Hey Almond, cover for me.” He whips his apron at me, and I snatch it out of the air reflexively. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had let it fall to the floor. My eyes are on him as he leaves with Cherries Girl, arm slung around her shoulder.

I look down at my ice cream scooper, and cannot fathom why suddenly, I feel as if I have been scooping out my insides, rather than the ice cream I so dutifully serve. I consider telling Mr. Boss about Floater’s truancy, but dismiss the idea almost immediately.

After all, today was the first day he had called me by name.

The Best of the Brine

An attempt at a short story- which, of course, I am cheating at, because this is actually the beginning of a loooong story that I have been cooking in my brain for some time. But whatever.

Our world had been dark for a long time.

It had been months since our small supply of back up generators had died, and longer still since any power line anywhere buzzed with life. Now, the only source of light came from small, cramped fires that were always a risk because with fire came smoke, and with smoke came the Others. So fire was something we only used when we needed; when we had to send off our dead.

Daylight was too dangerous. In the daylight, the chance of being seen was to great. So during the day we slept and we planned. Only when we were protected by darkness would we move; darkness was our friend and ally. I was used to darkness. Comfortable with it. It was my constant companion during this long trek through hell.

So when I say I was plunged into the the most absolute darkness I had ever known, you will understand my full meaning.

I wasn't afraid. No. In that moment I was simply thankful to be breathing. No one ever knew what happened if you are taken, because no one ever returned if they were.

I tried to absorb my surroundings. So far, I knew that you are manhandled through a maze of corridors, while blindfolded, and then deposited in a very dark cell. It also seemed to be very small; my breath was echoing off the walls.

Feeling around with my hands, I discovered the ground was concrete, and there was a blanket folded up along the side of one brick wall. I couldn't tell how tall the room was, the height of the walls extended beyond my reach. The door was steel and cold beneath my skin. It felt heavy and was very likely impenetrable. I couldn't even feel the space where the door ended and the floor began.

My wandering fingers followed the crease in the floor, and stopped when they reached the final wall. At first I couldn't tell what it was- I just knew that it was certainly not brick. It was cool and perfectly smooth, devoid of any imperfection. Like glass.

I sat back down, staring at where I knew the wall was, event though I couldn't see it. I could barely find it within myself to be curious as to why I would be in a room with one glass wall. It seemed nonsensical to me, but then, these were Others we were talking about. What they did rarely, if ever, made sense. This is one of the reasons fighting them was so difficult, and why I had been caught in the first place.

It had been some time since it had started, the fighting. The fighting back. I vaguely wondered if the experience desensitized me to feeling anything other than the fierce need to protect my kind and the mad desire to kill those who I needed to protect my kind from. Curiosity simply wasn't in my emotional repertoire anymore. I couldn't even feel sadness. I knew I should. I was captured by the enemy which, in all likelihood would lead to my eventual death. I would never see my remaining friends again.

The corners of my lips twitched bitterly. Not even the thought of my rag tag group of comrades could shake the emotional barricade that I had built long ago. Something as small and insignificant as sadness wouldn't harm it.

Sad. Such a small, inadequate word to describe the demise of the human race. It had all been so sudden, one hardly had time to feel anything besides shock, if one had time to feel anything at all. One night, I went to sleep, a graduate student finishing her final semester of school, and the next day I woke to find the world was nearly in ruin.

They had come that night and methodically eliminated each and every governmental official and building with such ease and precision that I'm sure the president himself didn't know the world itself was falling down around his ears- until it did.

I haven't seen it myself, but I have heard that DC is the new Chernobyl.

I used to watch movies about what used to be called alien invasions. I thought it would be exciting and romantic to fight the good fight and help humanity prevail against whatever extraterrestrial was threatening our species. I thought it would be fun, exciting. I thought I would leap at the chance to join a resistance group, be the Kate Brewster to another man's John Conner, and help save the world.

At least I had some tiny shred of self awareness. I lept at the chance to hurt these Others, what were once called aliens, but now that sounds to mild to be in any way accurate. But I did not do so for adventure. I did so to survive.

Because having your whole world-literally here, whole world, not a metaphor- be destroyed? It was incomprehensible. I still can't wrap my head around it. Sometimes I still feel my pocket, thinking there will be a cell phone there to check. Thinking maybe my mom or dad called to say hi, or my boyfriend , Alex, had sent a text of love and encouragement. Maybe a fellow classmate sent me a link to help study for the next big exam; I should thank her.

No. There is no phone. And there are definitely no calls.

Because all of those people are dead.

The Best of the Brine

This one is much shorter than usual, I guess it should be read as an entry into a dying man's journal....

The Depths

Into the depths we sailors went. Broken and hopeless, staring into the never ending dark that would soon become our tomb. It was fitting for our lot, yet still burdensome.

The waters which had taken us to that place were rough and jarring. Almost every man had been lost, even the navigator. So we stared with empty eyes and forsaken hearts into the cold beyond which would swallow us whole.

"Every man for himself!" shouted a bloke from atop the rigging.

The chaos began as the ripples in the calm ocean laughed and lapped at the hull of the ship.

Words did not seem like enough to describe the sounds the bottomless monster made as it swept us away. Yet, words were all we had.

"Run!" screamed the captain.

"May God have mercy on our souls," breathed another.

It came for us as it always would, relentless and savage. No amount of words would stop it, because it did not know our words. It was much older than words. It had seen the beginning, and it would be our end.

The horizon had sunk beyond comprehension and sight. If this was what they had meant by the end of the world, than it was now believed by the entire crew of the ship. We had seen what only a few had set their eyes upon. To know that the world had an end, and that beyond it, there was only the depths was too much for our minds to bear.

But above the fear, we were there for the adventure. The ship would not turn around. Even if it would, could we go? We had seen where everything ends, and there was no going back from that.

"Look lads!" a booming voice lifted amongst the chaos.

We stopped and watched the waves fall over the plane, into...nothing.

"Grab hold!" the captain's broken voice ordered.

And we did.

But we had reached the end, and it was empty. So we did the only thing that sailors could do when the wind dies and the elements take the wheel.

We held on, and reveled in the ride.

Road Trip-i-ness

We are back from the road trip, and it was amazing. If you ever have the time (or don't), we HIGHLY suggest you do this. Just.Awesome.

I don't have the time at this very moment to divulge all the tales of the trip, but I can share a few highlights via pictures (more to come as well) to give you a sense of what went on...

First, there was a lot of this... Nebraska and Iowa are very, very boring and flat. It's actually incredible, but I don't think I'll ever need to revisit those places...

Then, mountains!! Lots of mountains!! You must go through the Rocky mountains, they were beautiful. Also, you get to drive through tunnels in the mountains (:: squeals::)

Coming up next was Utah. The place of Mormons. Naturally, there was a copy of The Book of Mormon in our hotel room in Cedar City where it snowed (lol). This was what Jared (we brought along several of his likenesses) thought about the development.

Then we almost had a Banana Cake day. We bought what we thought were delicious peach rings, but instead (as you can see on the label) they were strawberry BANANA! Thank GOD the label was read before we put them in our mouths...ewww!! Obviously, Jared was very disturbed by this particular event.

VEGAS! We stayed at the Mirage on the Strip. It was beautiful, exciting and way too much fun. We suggest a minimum of three days if you ever go. The buffets were awesome, and shenanigans were had by all.

More of pretty pretty Utah, were we stopped at Zion National Park.

After Vegas we stopped in Arizona for two days, then drove through New Mexico, Texas (best burger ever), Oklahoma, and Missouri. Obviously, we have pictures from those states as well, but I figured we could do this in parts.

Lastly, we discovered a new sign off phrase while in Denver.

Epic on pen,

Sam Hawkins