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    The Triggering
    The Triggering
    The Triggering
    Ebook129 pages1 hour

    The Triggering

    By Christopher Gates

    ()

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    About this ebook

    At universities all around the country students are protesting those standing in the way of social change. But are they determined and single-minded or are they mindless? With the growing and shocking violence at their demonstrations it's becoming easier to tell. Ex-police officer and rising YouTube star, Alfonso, investigates the universities and discovers the mainstream media isn't bothering to report on the protesters' mindless repetition of slogans, on their unusually sharp teeth, on their cannibalism, or on how their heads literally explode when confronted with challenging ideas. He and his friends fight to learn the cause and quickly discover layers of evil they could have never imagined and are forced to fight enemies with otherworldly powers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChristopher Gates
    Release dateAug 29, 2018
    ISBN9780463005149
    The Triggering
    Author

    Christopher Gates

    Born in Ohio, Christopher Gates has worked fighting forest fires in both California and Florida, he's volunteered with the Red Cross in Puerto Rico, and he's taught English as a second language in South Korea. He is currently earning a master's degree in English from an Ohio university. He started writing in his late teens and has completed dozens of short stories and two novels.

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      Book preview

      The Triggering - Christopher Gates

      The Triggering

      By

      Christopher Gates

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      * * * * *

      PUBLISHED BY:

      Christopher Gates on Smashwords

      The Triggering

      Copyright © 2018 by Christopher Gates

      Chapter 1

      The students seemed to have a dull, glazed look to their eyes as they walked through the smoke. The gunshot sounds of firecrackers went off in the distance.

      Hate speech is not free speech! Hate speech is not free speech!

      More smoke bombs were thrown from somewhere in the crowd. Bricks and rocks occasionally sailed through the air. Campus police stood by doing nothing.

      The chanting had become oddly drone-like.

      What brought you out here to see Dr. Peter Jamison today? Alfonso asked a student who appeared to be making his way to the auditorium. The cameraman, Tommy, got him in frame.

      I had seen a few of his videos on YouTube and he has an interesting perspective on free speech. It’s a different perspective than what we normally hear at university, so I wanted to learn more about his point of view.

      You’re not concerned that some people consider him transphobic?

      I personally, haven’t noticed him say anything that sounds transphobic. I don’t think that being concerned with the government compelling speech regarding pronouns or anything else necessarily makes a person transphobic. I don’t want to put him into a box just because some people are labeling him transphobic. I want to hear what he has to say and make my own opinions.

      A rock suddenly landed at the young man’s feet and he jumped a bit to the side.

      Al looked to the crowd of protestors to see where exactly the rock may have come from but couldn’t possibly tell.

      Are you surprised at the behavior of the protestors?

      I can’t believe it! I’m a liberal! I’m not even sure if I agree with much of what Dr. Jamison has to say! I just want to hear him out and people are here throwing rocks at me! He took a few steps back while eyeing the crowd. I’m getting inside! He turned and trotted toward the auditorium.

      Thank you! Alfonso called out to him.

      One of the protestors, a girl with glassy, staring eyes, walked directly toward the cameraman. Al held out the microphone thinking this footage would be sure to get him up to twenty-thousand Youtube subscribers. What do you think about compelled speech regarding gendered pronouns?

      She looked angry. She didn’t even blink. Her giant black pupils contrasted her short pink hair. We have to respect the wishes of transgendered people!

      So you believe the government should force people to say certain words? Are you concerned where that might lead?

      Hate speech is not free speech! She chanted in time with the others.

      How exactly can we decide what constitutes hate speech and who should be in charge of deciding it?

      Hate speech is not free speech! She shrieked and trembled.

      Do you have any thoughts on what I just asked?

      She blew an air horn in Al’s face.

      His ears rang, but he kept his composure. Can we just have a discussion?

      She shrieked again and dropped her air horn. Her spaghetti strap tank top was tight enough to show the rolls at her sides. She stood rigid with her whole body tense. She stomped her foot and her fat jiggled. Nazi! she screamed with spittle. Drool fell from her mouth.

      A bit of panic settled into the pit of Al’s stomach. Tommy, Al said as he touched his shoulder wanting him to take a step back.

      The girl reached her hands out and grabbed Tommy’s cheeks like she was going to kiss him. A COEXIST tattoo showed on her forearm. A bit of drool dangled from her lip ring as she opened her mouth.

      Tommy! Al screamed.

      He dropped his camera and she sunk her teeth into his throat. Blood immediately spurted out in torrents. She pulled away with a little chunk of flesh. Blood dripped from her chin in a red goatee.

      Her dead eyes met Al’s. Hate speech is not free speech! she snarled, but not before swallowing what she had taken out of his friend. Tommy howled madly and slumped to his knees while she kept a clenched hand on his collar.

      Al snatched up the camera and swatted her across the face with it. A gash opened up just above her eye. She lunged at him with snapping teeth. Al bashed her face again and again opening up more wounds. He brought the camera back and swung it with all his might hitting her just above the ear, and her head exploded. It exploded. Like a rotten Halloween pumpkin. Shards of her skull scattered high into the air and in all directions. A thick orange ooze splattered out and seemed to hang suspended for a moment before landing on the pavement in scattered splotches. Headless, the body dropped to its knees with arms raised out in front of it. They wavered and twitched a bit. And she fell over sideways into her own slop.

      Al wiped a bit of the orange from his cheek and looked at it in utter disbelief.

      No time to think about it now; Tommy was already pale lying in a pool of his own blood. Al grabbed him by the shoulders and started dragging him toward the auditorium where Dr. Peter Jamison was giving a talk on free speech issues.

      Fights had broken out to their left and to their right. Smoke obstructed Al’s vision. Screams erupted on all sides of them. A young man stumbled past them while holding his bloody neck.

      A chubby girl with green hair and a nose ring came charging toward them followed closely by a lanky fellow with a receding hairline and neck beard. The bastards each grabbed one of Tommy’s ankles. They snarled and growled as they pulled on them creating a two against one tug of war.

      They looked at Al with the same dead, black eyes as the girl whose head had exploded. Women are people too! They screamed in perfect unison. The chubby girl greedily took a bite out of Tommy’s calf. Snorting as she did it.

      Al dropped Tommy’s shoulders and he fell limp to the ground. Motionless. He was already dead.

      They tore into him like a couple of starved dogs.

      Al turned to his left and saw an opening through the crowd. He sprinted. A brick sailed through the air and nearly hit him. He leaned and picked it off the pavement in mid stride.

      People were storming the auditorium and he heard more screams coming from inside. A group of protestors hunched over another body to his right. The sound of tears and snapping jaws cut through the air.

      A double-chinned guy with a pony tail and vacant eyes jumped directly in front of Al and took the stance of a linebacker deciding his next move. Women earn seventy cents to a man’s dollar! he foamed. His voice shrill, angry and hysterical.

      Al brought the brick directly into the middle of his face with a crunch. His nose flattened and he fell backward.

      Al kept running and neared the edge of the crowd. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the man with the newly flattened face already back on his feet and loping toward him. The man’s pony tail bounced with each awkward stride. Al’s car lay just ahead and outside the crowd and mayhem.

      Chapter 2

      Olivia was disgusted by all the Nazi sexists cheering in the seats behind her. Who is this speaker again?

      I forget his name, but he is like totally sexist. He doesn’t even believe in the wage gap and I heard he wants to keep women trapped in the kitchen and forced to have babies.

      Uhh, babies? Gross! Olivia shook her head incredulously, then checked her phone. She had only been in the place ten minutes, but it had felt like she had been in there for an hour. There wasn’t even anything interesting on her Facebook feed.

      The man at the podium went on and on saying something about how if you want to have honest conversations

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