Frack

FRACK

A Novella

by

Bud Santora

Smashwords Edition

W. B. William Productions

Published on Smashwords by:

W. B. William Productions

200 West 90th Street Suite 9B

New York, NY 10024

Frack

Copyright 2014 by Bud Santora

ISBN: 978-0-9911075-2-0

Cover art by: Bud Santora

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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DEDICATION

To stories of monsters: real, imagined,

and also to the ones we create ourselves.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Foreword

1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Arthur Wooten, Rebecca Phillips, Nancy Silk, C. Gail Hodges, and Elizabeth Beeton for their help with this book. I would also like to thank Rachel Maddow and her show for their excellent segments on hydraulic fracturing that inspired me to write this book.

FOREWORD

My story is fiction and fantasy, but organisms unknown to our modern world do live deep within the soil and rock of our planet. Scientists know very little about this subsurface biosphere. These life forms have existed for millions of years. If we expose them to toxic chemicals and radiation, and then we release these organisms to the surface, will they become something we may not be able to control?

CHAPTER ONE

Help me unload these elephant rubbers before the sun goes down, fella, Jonas Schmidt addressed his best friend and companion for the last three years.

The gaunt forty-three-year-old had picked up the mongrel on the side of the road when Jonas was on his way home from a drunken night in town. The dog was walking along the road just as the sun was coming up. The canine’s matted coat was covered in several days’ worth of dirt. He was also so skinny you could see his ribcage and hipbones.

Hey fella, where are you headin’ to? Jonas had shouted from the cab of his pickup truck. Need a ride somewhere?

The mangy dog glanced up at him. He seemed to smile as his tail gave a lazy wag.

Jonas jumped out of the truck and took a closer look at this roadside traveler. You’re a fuckin’ mess. I’d better help you jump in the back of my truck. Can’t let you sit shotgun smellin’ like that. I think you need a good cleanin’ up, and we both could use some breakfast.

Jonas kept his word about the bath, or in this dog’s case, two baths. They both became good friends over some bacon and eggs. Then later that day they had their first sunset happy hour, the beginning of many the two would share together. He named the dog Biscuit because when he was cleaned up, the mongrel was the color of the sourdough buns Jonas’s mother had made every morning for breakfast when she was alive.

Jonas Schmidt had just been released on parole two weeks earlier. He had been serving the second year of a three-year sentence for a store holdup. Jonas was let out after his father died to care for his invalid stepmother whom he hated. The choice was simple: spend another year in prison, or take freedom, or as he saw it, semi-freedom. While living under the thumb of his father’s second wife, he needed a good friend by his side. Biscuit showed up at just the right time.

We gotta get them stacked in the barn tonight in case some police or nosy-ass neighbors drive by and see this stuff sittin’ in my truck. We’re getting’ a good buck from the gas rig boss to dump this shit as far away from them as possible. The stuff is most likely hot, or they would have put it in the landfill outside of town. You can’t sneak anything in since they installed those new big yellow detector towers. I know some guys that tried to slip a load in. The alarms went off like they won a prize on a game show.

Biscuit danced around and smiled. He listened to every word Jonas spoke and was always ready with the proper response. If his master said something funny, Biscuit barked a laugh and wagged his tail. If the man was angry, so was the dog. The canine was never allowed upstairs. Jonas’ hate for his stepmother was channeled through Biscuit in the form of growls and the baring of teeth every time the dog was in the woman’s presence.

Let’s get this load in the barn with the stuff from last week. As long as we don’t get any of this shit on us we should be okay. I saw a guy get real sick from the flowback water. He slipped into the pit and was covered in the nasty shit. I don’t know if he got better or died. Never saw the poor unlucky bastard again. The barn should be far enough away from the house so the crap won’t make us glow in our sleep. Also our satellite dish won’t go bullshit. He laughed as Biscuit barked approval.

Jonas tied a kerchief over his nose and mouth and put on his rubber sewage treatment gloves. He pulled the dirty black plastic bags off the truck and dragged them toward the barn. Biscuit stood on his hind legs balancing himself on the edge of the tailgate of Jonas Schmidt’s beat-up 1980 Ford pickup. The dog curiously sniffed the orange-stained filter socks that were used to strain the chemical-laced flowback water and solid residue returned to the surface during the hydraulic fracturing process. The small truck bed was piled higher than the passenger cab. All the bags were covered and tied down with a black canvas tarp to keep them secure and concealed. Most of the socks were stored in the plastic bags, but some were just loose and draped slightly off the back of the truck’s open tailgate. Liquid dripped from them onto the ground in muddy pools that seeped slowly into the soil.

Biscuit sniffed the bags and the liquid. He was just about to lick and sample some of the dripping residue when Jonas screamed at his friend. For fuck’s sake stay away from there. The water from those big Dumbo Trojans is likely to be hot as hell. All your hair will fall out. I don’t want you glowin’ in the dark while we’re watching TV tonight.

As the sun set in an array of gold, red, and purple as it usually did this far north, the truck full of waste almost appeared pretty. Its faded, dirty red chassis and cargo of the orange socks and muddy black plastic bags in the back were accented by the deep autumn colors of the early evening light. The rotted wood that barely held the weathered old barn together also picked up the variety of hues cast by the last rays of sunlight as it quickly dimmed below the horizon.

Jonas hustled and successfully emptied his truck before it was dark. Once the heavy bags were loaded in front of the barn entrance, he swung one of doors open. When he dragged the first sack inside, Jonas lit the large portable Coleman dual-fuel lantern. The warm light revealed more of the black bags and orange filter socks stacked in the back near an old flatbed trailer. It too was filled with the same debris.

Tomorrow we’re gonna start sneaking this stuff over to that underground mine near the border. No one has been inside that place for years. The only ones that will know it’s there will be you and me. Also the swarm of butt ugly bats that live deep in the mine. It’s gonna be so damn funny when they do their nightly flyover of the farms near the mine. They’ll be glowin’ in the sky. The hicks will think aliens are attacking. Hello, 911, we got thousands of little space ships dive-bombing our houses. He acted out the landowner’s fearful response for his companion.

When Jonas finally loaded the last bag, Biscuit started to behave strangely. The mongrel barked and pointed toward the back of the structure. Then he whimpered and looked up.

What’s bothering you, fella? Do you smell a rat?

Jonas glanced up at the walls and the ceiling of the barn. In the dim light at the back he barely made out what seemed to be veins of a dark substance lacing the enclosure. The pattern was random yet controlled and intricate. Ribbons of dark lines of interlaced veins also grew from inside the plastic bags then extended over the orange filter socks. It continued along the dirt and sawdust floor beneath the bags and flatbed.

"Boy, after we dump this shit I think it just might be a good idea to burn this old