Upside-Down Independence Day Read online

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  UPSIDE-DOWN INDEPENDENCE DAY

  Holidazed – Book 3

  Copyright © 2020 Gregg Sapp

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  ISBN (EPUB Version): 162253526X

  ISBN-13 (EPUB Version): 978-1-62253-526-2

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  Editor: Brandon Sanford

  Cover Artist: Kabir Shah

  Interior Designer: Lane Diamond

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  PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

  At the end of this novel of approximately 52,120 words, you will find two Special Sneak Previews: 1) MURDER BY VALENTINE CANDY by Gregg Sapp, the next installment (Book 4) in the hilarious “Holidazed” series of satires, and; 2) MEMOIRS OF A TRANSFERABLE SOUL by W. Town Andrews, an award-winning literary novel. We think you’ll enjoy these books, too, and provide these previews as a FREE extra service, which you should in no way consider a part of the price you paid for this book. We hope you will both appreciate and enjoy the opportunity. Thank you.

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  eBook License Notes:

  You may not use, reproduce or transmit in any manner, any part of this book without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations used in critical articles and reviews, or in accordance with federal Fair Use laws. All rights are reserved.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only; it may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to your eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Disclaimer:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or the author has used them fictitiously.

  Books by Gregg Sapp

  HOLIDAZED

  Book 1: Halloween from the Other Side

  Book 2: The Christmas Donut Revolution

  Book 3: Upside-Down Independence Day

  Book 4: Murder by Valentine Candy [Coming Late 2020]

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  Fresh News Straight from Heaven

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  Dollarapalooza (or “The Day Peace Broke Out in Columbus”)

  ~~~

  www.GreggSapp.net

  What Others Are Saying about Gregg Sapp’s Books

  HALLOWEEN FROM THE OTHER SIDE:

  “Gregg Sapp has done it again! He has authored another intense novel that is almost impossible to put down once you start reading it. Sapp creates characters with whom the reader closely identifies to the point of bonding. His description of surroundings and individuals is so precise that it is easy to form mental pictures placing yourself center stage in every aspect of the story. The plot is superbly crafted with enough excitement to enjoy the story and remember select minutia long after you have finished it. Halloween will never be the same.” ~ Tim Terry

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  FRESH NEWS STRAIGHT FROM HEAVEN:

  “Johnny Appleseed told many a good yarn about his life and times. He would like this book.” ~ Howard Means, Author of “Johnny Appleseed: The Man, the Myth, the American Story” (S&S 2011)

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  “Fresh News is as fresh as today, filled with the flavor and plain frontier talk of the Western Reserve. It’s unmissable.” ~ The Akron Beacon Journal (Book Talk, August 2, 2018)

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  “This narrative begins at Owl Creek in 1801 and immediately I am captured not only by the description of America’s western frontier but by this gangly and cheerfully unconcerned barefoot backwoodsman who made walking sticks fashionable. Against a lush and fragrant backdrop, Sapp provides an array of multidimensional characters in an unpolished landscape that is researched and executed so well, it is difficult to tell that which is invented and that which is historically accurate.” ~ Lori’s Book Loft

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  “Gregg Sapp presents a superbly researched, highly entertaining, and thoroughly enjoyable historically based novel surrounding the exploits of Johnny Appleseed; intertwined with some of the most noteworthy persons and events of the time period. If your initial reaction to the topic is that it may be rather trite—I assure you it is NOT. The historical references and characterizations are intricately researched, creating an exceptional description of lifestyles and living conditions in the cruel harsh frontier at the onset of the nineteenth century. Sapp is a professional researcher with prominent academic credentials who knows how to evaluate the authenticity of primary and secondary sources of information and then craft them into a highly readable and truly exciting adventure. In addition to being a truly exciting story, this book gives the reader a fascinating prospective of frontier living not previously available in other novels.” ~ Tim Terry

  BONUS CONTENT

  We’re pleased to offer you not one, but two Special Sneak Previews at the end of this book.

  ~~~

  In the first preview, you’ll enjoy the First 2 Chapters of Gregg Sapp’s MURDER BY VALENTINE CANDY, the next installment (Book 4) in the hilarious “Holidazed” series of satires.

  ~~~

  TO STAY UP TO DATE ON ALL THE BOOKS BY

  THIS AUTHOR, PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE HERE:

  GREGG SAPP’S BOOKS at Evolved Publishing

  In the second preview, you’ll enjoy the First 3 Chapters of W. Town Andrews’s award-winning MEMOIRS OF A TRANSFERABLE SOUL.

  ~~~

  ~~~

  “W. Town Andrews’ writing is lyrical and smooth and it grabs the reader from the very first page. I was literally glued to the pages, exploring the realism with which the author describes patients at a terminal stage. ... The author combines strong narration with humor to transform an already beautiful story into a page-turner.”

  Readers’ Favorite Book Reviews, Romuald Dzemo (5 STARS)

  ~~~

  OR GRAB THE FULL EBOOK TODAY! YOU’LL FIND A LINK TO THE BOOK PAGE (WHICH HAS LINKS TO YOUR FAVORITE RETAILER) HERE:

  W. TOWN ANDREWS at Evolved Publishing

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Books by Gregg Sapp

  What Others Are Saying

  BONUS CONTENT

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  UPSIDE-DOWN INDEPENDENCE DAY

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  PART 2

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Special Sneak Preview: MURDER BY VALENTINE CANDY by Gregg Sapp

  About the Author

  More from Gregg Sapp

  What’s Next?

  More from Evolved Publishing

  Special Sneak Preview: MEMOIRS OF A TRANSFERABLE SOUL by W. Town Andrews

  Dedication

  To Bill Dobbins,

  a working-class hero.

  PART 1

  I’m a-lookin’ for a job at honest pay, Lord Lord,

  An’ I ain’t a-gonna be treated this way.

  Woody Guthrie

  Chapter 1

 
Mazie tensed her whole body. Shabazz bristled at the end of a taut leash, staring down a terrified rabbit. Mazie double wrapped the loop around her wrists and braced her feet against the curb. Strained seconds passed. Just when Mazie felt a bit of slack in the leash, and she hoped they might move on, Shabazz sprang, salivating like a famished alpha predator, toward the rabbit. The sudden lurch nearly pulled Mazie’s arm out of its socket. She staggered forward and pulled backwards simultaneously. She could only trundle along behind Shabazz, trying to hold on and stay on her feet.

  The dog’s ferocious bark echoed across the quad, probably awakening anybody trying to sleep in on Sunday morning within earshot. The rabbit bolted into the campus rose garden, with Shabazz in enraged pursuit. Panicked by a vision of the dog ravaging through the colorful rows of delicate polyantha, floribunda, and gallica, Mazie yelled, “Shabazz, no!”

  The dog ignored her and barreled headlong into the Friends of Antaeus College’s award-winning flowers. Mazie maneuvered around a tree and managed to hook the leash line around its trunk. When Shabazz reached the extent of his leash, he yelped, and his head snapped back so hard that Mazie worried he’d broken his spine. If that crazy dog died on her watch, there’d be hell to pay from Professor Alolo. But after a few moments, Shabazz snorted and looked back at Mazie with big round eyes, as if to say that he was okay.

  Even while panting for air, Mazie smiled. She couldn’t help it—dogs made her smile. People, not so much.

  The bucolic campus of Antaeus College was nothing like Mazie had envisioned. Even though she’d lived most of her life within a few miles of it, Mazie had never set foot in the college’s home town of Golden Springs, Ohio. Because of its leftist reputation, most folks in Coon Creek referred to it as “Piss Springs” home of “Egghead College.” But they were idiots. Her brother, Boog, referred to it as “where kids learn how to hate America.”

  Mazie had expected a campus with Soviet-style modern architecture, academic buildings made of steel and reflective glass, box-shaped residence halls, windowless computer labs, a vast pavilion with a central obelisk for communal gatherings, and functional structures like greenhouses, solar arrays, and gargantuan windmills. By contrast, on that early summer morning the grounds of Antaeus College looked like an impressionist painting. Blue wisteria and purple bougainvillea vines wrapped in helixes around an ornate trellis that adorned the arched main gate. The central pedestrian boulevard traversed verdant lawns, bordered by beds of mixed flowers, rows of stately oaks, a few towering pines, and rolling mounds landscaped with evergreen ground cover.

  Mazie walked by red brick and bluish-gray limestone buildings covered with English ivy, a rotunda lecture hall with Romanesque columns at the entrance, a vaulted library with gargoyles around the roof, and a postmodern student union building that looked to her like a place where poets might hang out. Even the dormitory where she was staying during her residency—aptly named Bard Hall—had stained-glass windows in the common room. These were grand spaces for bold and profound thoughts. Mazie felt smarter just being there.

  Shabazz pulled unceasingly forward, as if he was late for some extremely urgent business. Mazie had the all-too-familiar feeling of being pulled somewhere she did not want to go. She tried to remember Professor Alolo’s dog-walking instructions. Shabazz, he said, did not recognize normal dog commands.

  “Desist!” she called.

  Shabazz ignored her. Instead, he dragged Mazie to a dirt path that led off campus and into the woods of the Golden Springs Nature Preserve. Mazie yielded to the dog’s will.

  The hills and forests that surrounded Antaeus College covered a vast expanse of undeveloped land. The tracts of old growth hardwoods in the protected areas were among the oldest east of the continental divide. Elixir Creek, source of the eponymous Golden Springs from which the town borrowed its name, bordered the preserve on one side, and flowed into Clifton Gorge of the Little Miami River on the other side, where legend had it Daniel Boone leapt across to escape hostile Indians. In between, the land rose to the Shawnee Knob, the highest point in the county.

  Beyond the boundary of the protected areas, the patchwork of private lands on the far side of Shawnee Knob had been logged bald, then served as pastures for a couple of decades, before being abandoned and left undeveloped for more decades, so that by the year 2016 it was once again heavily wooded. Mazie knew those lands on the other side of the hill quite well. That territory was rutted with unpaved roads popular among dirt bikers and four-wheelers. In the autumn, hunters frequented those tracts, and gunshots echoed through the valleys. The narrow, brackish Coon Creek flowed through it all.

  Shabazz climbed, dragging Mazie behind him like a beast of burden. The trail ended at the summit of Shawnee Knob, where Mazie had been many times, although never via this route. From Coon Creek you needed a four-wheel drive vehicle with high clearance to get there, and even then you could only drive to where there’d been a landslide in the 1990s. To reach the Knob, you had to bushwhack a hundred or so yards, then shimmy through a gap in a wire fence.

  Coming from Golden Springs, though, was literally a walk in the park—on a wide mulched trail marked by yellow ribbons hanging from tree branches. Switchbacks crossed through the steep parts. Fallen debris was moved to the side. Mazie would have liked to linger and enjoy the trek, but Shabazz seemed hellbent to get to the top, so it was all she could do to keep up.

  After a thirty-minute hike, Mazie and Shabazz emerged from under the broadleaf canopy and stepped into a clearing at the viewpoint. She’d looked down from this vista of the upper Little Miami Valley many times, but somehow it looked different. On a clear day like today, she could see for miles. To the southwest, Coon Creek flowed swiftly down a ridge and then spilled into the Little Miami River on the other side of the gorge. The town of Coon Creek was farther downstream, where an ice-age glacier had deposited stray boulders across the turf like junk cars. From Shawnee Knob, she could make out the ugly smokestack at the old Hercules Steel Mill and Coon Creek Stadium, where the high school football team—the Raging Coons—lost most of their games. But in her mind’s eye, Mazie could see it all: the green water tower painted with a fading CC, Burl Slocum’s personal billboard at the city limit, Amity Valley Memorial Gardens, the Drink Here Tavern, the Hungry Coon Diner, a boarding house with hourly room rentals, and “church row,” just off Main Street, where locals had their choice of four flavors of worship, including the Coon Creek Baptist Church of God, where Mazie’s family certainly worshiped at that very moment.

  A bench at the viewpoint faced northeast, looking past the gorge and toward the flatlands at the confluence of Elixir Creek and the Little Miami. The pastoral grounds of Antaeus College dominated this view. Situated at a bend in the creek and accessible by a single winding road, the college stood apart from the town, but also encompassed a good part of it. On Route 68, just beyond the entrance to the college, the “Welcome to Golden Springs” sign was hand carved in the shape of Ohio out of black walnut, with stainless-steel script lettering. Next to it, a three-tiered alpine rock fountain flowed 24/7. By decree of the zoning commission, nothing in Golden Springs exceeded two stories high. Earth tones dominated the storefronts along the cobblestones of Main Street, including Firefly Candles, Happy Legs Bicycle Shop, Vishnu’s Dish Vegetarian Restaurant, Far Out Freddy’s Tie-Dye, Gonzalez and Gringo’s Brewpub, the Give Peace a Chance Gallery, and the Unitarian Universalist Church for ALL. Even the US Post Office resided inside of a geodesic dome.

  As the crow flies, only seven miles separated the two towns. Nevertheless, on opposite sides of the gorge, no direct route connected one to the other. They were equally distant from each other culturally, too.

  In pursuit of God-only-knows what, Shabazz abruptly launched forward hard enough to detach the leash from around Mazie’s wrist.

  “Stop!!!!” she shrieked, horrified at the prospect of losing Professor Alolo’s dog before the first day of class. “Heel! Whoa! Oh, goddamnit, desist!!!”

  Sha
bazz screeched to a halt at a sycamore tree on a narrow side path. He sniffed it up and down as if he were trying to uproot it by inhaling. Aroused by something that he smelled, Shabazz circled the tree, squealing, and then started to hump its trunk, peeling off shards of bark with every brutish thrust.

  Mazie caught up and retrieved the leash, but worried that if she pulled the dog away before finishing, he might attack her. Somehow she had the impression that Professor Alolo would want her to stand down and let the beast have his way with the tree. Watching disturbed her, though, so she lowered her head and looked at her shoelaces.

  That dog really needs to get laid, she thought.

  Rufus Cobb was hip-hopping to 50 Cent in his room when he heard a crash in the hallway. Until that moment, he’d thought he was alone in the dormitory. He muted the volume and went to see what was shaking.

  A young woman, wearing cutoff shorts and a sleeveless tie-dye T-shirt, and with her long red hair hanging in front of her face, held an empty box, the bottom of which had just fallen out. At her feet, a disorderly heap of books fanned out as if ready for a bonfire. She looked at Rufus with pleading eyes.

  “‘Sup?” he asked.

  “Help?”

  Rufus’s high-topped dreads bounced on his head as he hustled over. When he bent down to pick up her books, he glimpsed an alluring Rorschach-blot of a birthmark on her inner left thigh. He took his time gathering the books and gave them to her one at a time while she reconstructed the box.

  He lifted Capital in the Twenty-First Century from the pile and tapped it on the cover, noting that he’d seen the same book in Professor Alolo’s office.

  “I’m guessing you’re here for the Emerging Writers Workshop,” he said.

  “Yeah. Hi, I’m Mazie T.”

  “Yo. Rufus Cobb.”

  Mazie tucked the book under her arm and offered her hand to Rufus. He started to reciprocate with a fist bump but opened his hand when he realized that Mazie was soliciting a traditional up-and-down handshake. They locked hands, squeezed once, and then released. Her palm was slippery.