Monthly Archive for March, 2008

Lucky Numbers

Sherman trudged through the iced over snow. The thin film crackled as his feet broke through it and sank beneath. He climbed over makeshift barricades and wound his way through the cluttered mess of slowly rotting vehicles. He wandered down the road careful not to tread on large lumps in the snow here and there.

The bodies.

Everywhere Sherman went, they were there. They lay where they fell, covered in ice, covered from the sun, sleeping beneath the cold.

Sherman placed his steps watchfully and made sure not to disturb them. He knew they would not wake. He knew that they weren’t sleeping.

He knew, but it was less for them than for himself. Call it what you will.

Past the abandoned ramparts he came to a Chinese restaurant. Its windows were dark and still laced with dead neon tubes. He pushed the door open and heard a sweet bell tinkle from above and the snapping of chopsticks from underfoot.

Sherman walked over to the dust-covered counter and found a single fortune cookie wrapped in plastic.
He cracked it open and pulled out the strip of paper. He examined it in the light and stared at the slowly melting icicles that hung before his eyes.

The red calligraphy read: “Wise man say, ‘Worry not, it will not snow every day.’ 6 26 67 33″

Click…

The rain outside had begun to slow, an unfortunate lull in the storm passing over northern Florida. The sounds of the rain were slowly being replaced by the moaning of the dead outside the sergeant’s hotel room. The skinless fingers clawing at the door…. Why wont they stop? Why wont they leave? I haven’t uttered a sound for hours, yet they still persist…. Regardless of how many of my friends and family they feast on, they still want more…

Continue reading ‘Click…’

Spanked

“There’s one more thing.”

Bored heads looked up around the meeting hall at the center of the two concourses. Once it had been an airport-themed playground, wasted space at the airport to teach children about the wonders of flight through space-filling models. Now, it was the only place big enough to hold full-zone meetings indoors that wasn’t a cargo bay. At least there were some chairs.

“Sara Wilson, Tyresha Wilkins, and James Bigsby, ages 8, 9, and 10, all were caught Thursday by patrolling members of Corpse Corps trying to dig under the fence in order to leave the zone un-escorted. Their parents will now bring them to the front of the hall for their spankings before we adjourn.”

A murmur was heard around the hall. It got louder as children’s wails were heard from three different points in the hall. No one moved.

A voice rang out over the hall. “You can’t do this!”

“Mister Schick, of Maintenance, isn’t it? Sorry, Mister Schick. This one isn’t open for discussion.”

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Not Yet

Fitz and Eve were meant for each other.

In another time they would have been…

Wait.

There’s no use in dwelling upon the could have beens or the should have beens. They are all gone, burnt up and laid low.

This was not another time. It was this time; the hard present, the cruel reality.

Fitz was bitten and then he rose. Eve ran and then she mourned.

Hush, hush.

Don’t cry yet, not yet, dear children. But for tragedy, you say, this should be enough.

Ah, yes but you forget: we cannot hide behind the should have beens and the could have beens. This is now.

Fate would not be cheated, Fitz and Eve were meant for each other.

After all, “When the gods give evil…”

Fitz and Eve found each other. He held her in his arms again. She sunk her nails in his back like she had so many times before. He bent to kiss her neck and breathed in her perfume. His teeth rested upon her skin.

And he stopped.

The thick glaze across his eyes seemed to brighten slightly, if only slightly.

And he waited. He waited.

Then he caught the scent of flesh beneath the sweet fragrance and bit down.

Don’t have time to look at the Zyracuse Merchandise?

Paralysis

Anderson was a cripple.

He had lived his life in a chair.

When the dead came, the news said to stay indoors and stay quiet.

Anderson did as he was told. He couldn’t speak anyway.

A few days after the outbreak, the power died. The lights faded away, one by one till none were left. The lift running up the stairs of Anderson’s house stopped working with them. His home became a prison.

A few days after that the water stopped. It slowed to trickle at first. Then it dried up and flowed no more.

It was somewhere between the two when the rats moved in.

He stayed in his home and he stayed quiet.

Soon Anderson’s stomach burned and his lips cracked. He wheeled himself into his room and locked the door behind him. It was not long after when he heard the steps begin to creak.

He tilted the joystick forward and moved over to the window. The motor of his wheelchair groaned and its batteries failed. It rolled back into furrows it had carved in the soft carpet and came to rest. Anderson tried to ignore the scratching at the door.

He looked out the window and watched the world crumble.

Public Service Announcement

Stealing Tallon’s idea, post any possible PSA scripts here. The public needs to be warned.

The End?

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“What’s that sound?” Jerry thought to himself as he walked along Runway 10. Since the outbreak, some sounds became too familiar, while others ceased to exist. This sound was something that Jerry had not heard in all of his years at Hancock, and it was getting louder. Jerry looked to the west to see where the noise was coming from, and to his amazement, he saw a helicopter headed his way.

Continue reading ‘The End?’

Icon

It’s 32×32. The resolution is 200. I had a smaller one, but it looked bad, couldn’t get rid of all the white.

Fear and Loathing in Zyracuse

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It was official. We were definitely in the ass end of nowhere which, contrary to popular belief, is the best part of nowhere. I had been collecting mushrooms off piles of cow shit for the better part of the day, while my attorney slept in the car and was now cruising down the Thruway dodging through an endless procession of abandoned and rusting vehicles. The Buick was a nice ride, real nice. We each had a ten strip of some really heady acid a couple hundred miles back and decided to hack off the roof with a Sawzall. We needed to travel in style, after all.

I spotted several figures lurching through a muddy field to the left and shouted to no one but myself, “Holy shit! Was that a fucking zombie? Shit!”

Then I paused to wonder to myself for several moments. Did I in fact see a band off the walking dead, or was it just the mescaline I had eaten with lunch kicking in? I almost hit a rolling trash can and looked in my rearview to watch it pass when I found my answer.

Taped to the mirror was a note in my own handwriting. Scrawled hastily it said, “Why yes, those are fucking zombies.”

Okay.

Now when was that mescaline supposed to hit?

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The Son Also Rises

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Troy grew up on a farm where he mucked manure and slaughtered cows; his whole day was blood and crap and sleep before another day of blood and crap. His mother died when he was eight and his father, Jarvis, drank too much to forget his pain. After five years, Jarvis started beating Troy, so the young man packed his clothes into grocery bag and left home after stealing 100 dollars from his father’s room. The only other thing he took was a picture of his mother.

Continue reading ‘The Son Also Rises’