Monthly Archive for April, 2008

Remembrance

Remembrance

Shannon kicked open the house door after working it open with her trusty crowbar.

“That’s how you do it” she bragged. She gave a cocky smile to her Corps partner Dylan as he rolled his eyes. All three members of the salvage team snickered. Dylan suddenly lifted his finger and pointed behind Shannon. Without a second thought she turned around and planted her ZED into the Z’s skull with a satisfying cracking noise.

“Come on, we need to check the rest of this place” Dylan urged.

Shannon nodded and motioned for the rest of the team to follow her. The group moved into the living room cautiously. Dylan walked silently into the kitchen.

“We got two!” he shouted. A squish was heard. “We got one!” he shouted again. Shannon walked into the kitchen. A zombie lay face down with its gray matter oozing onto the floor. Another, child-sized Z shuffled slowly at Dylan from across the room.

“You mind getting that one?” Dylan asked. “I just can’t ignore the fact that it was a kid once.”

Shannon snorted. “Don’t be such a girl. A ghoul’s a ghoul!” She walked over, swung her crowbar into its cranium and painted the wall with spattered blood. She laughed and spit on the corpse.

Dylan looked at her in disgust. “That’s real nice.”

Continue reading ‘Remembrance’

Zonexistentialism

“Neither need you tell me,” said Candy, “that we must take care of our garden.”

“You are in the right,” said Glossy; “for when we were put into this garden of Eden, it was with an intent to dress it; and this proves that mankind was not born to be idle.”

“Work then without disputing,” said Martin; “it is the only way to render life supportable.”

The little society, one and all, entered into this laudable design and set themselves to exert their different talents. The little piece of ground yielded kept them secure from external threats. Chuck indeed was very ugly, but he became an excellent hand at zombie elimination: Pacquette built fortifications; the old woman had the care of the linen. There was none, even Father Tutombo, but did some service; he was a corpse burner, and he was an honest man. Glossy used now and then to say to Candy:

“There is a concatenation of all events in the best of possible worlds; for, in short, had you not been kicked out of a fine house for the love of Miss Cunegund; had you not been put out into the Panic; had you not traveled over Central New York on foot; had you not run those zombies through head in North Syracuse; and had you not lost all your possessions when you were mugged, you would not have been here in the Blue Zone to eat mysterious-looking soy protein and wild asparagus.”

“Excellently observed,” answered Candy; “but let us cultivate our garden.”

Unforgiven

John sprinted down the street of a once quiet suburban town. Now all hell was unleashing around him. He ran past a white station wagon that had been pinned between a red truck and a Pontiac Grand Prix. The two children in the back pressed themselves against the seat as hard as they could, just out of reach of their undead parents’ fingers. The two Z’s in the front of the car remained buckled. His neighbor’s house was up in flames. Out of the inferno stumbled two figures burning wildly yet only concerned with John as he ran past them down the street.

His footfalls fell hard on the pavement below. Pushing himself as hard as he could, sweat pouring down his face, legs burning, he had been running for ten miles as fast as he could, The infection had reached American soil.

John grunted and cursed at himself not to stop until he had reached his destination. He lunged over the body of a dead police officer as it began to push itself to its feet. He was off and running without hesitation as soon as his feet hit the pavement again. Straight ahead of him was a school bus. The inside of the windows were plastered with blood. The bloodcurdling screams from within would never leave him.

As John turned to run down his driveway he noticed the doll being awkwardly held by the five year old walking corpse that was once his daughter. He stopped dead in his tracks, breathless, speechless. Like a twig his mind snapped out of reality to protect him from the horror he knew he was about to witness. His world came crashing down on the asphalt before him.

He stared into the empty eyes of his dead daughter, and she stared back. Her left arm was missing, the wound that had killed her. Her right hand loosely clenched the rag doll she had carried with her since her infant years, the torn and dirt stained rag doll had a few droplets of blood on the head. It swayed in a gentle breeze, the only false sign that there was anything left of his child.

“Abbie? Abbie Baby, are you alright?” He said aloud to the ghoul standing in the doorway of his home. His bottom lip was quivering, a clean trail cut through the soot and dirt on his face where tears were trailing downward with his life. As if in slow motion the doll fell, and she reached outwards for her father, before letting out a sickening moan.

John fell to his knees and wept. By the time he opened his eyes the blurry outline of his daughter was within arm’s reach. He gently placed his hands on her side, her cold fingertips brushed against his tear soaked cheeks. He held her close enough, yet she was so far away.

“Daddy loves you baby, I’ll always love my girl.”

He killed his daughter at 1124, on a Saturday.

Continue reading ‘Unforgiven’

Questions from K

We need to get more concrete details set down about the zone. I know one reason that I’ve been leery about writing more zone related stories is that there is too much up in the air right now. I think we have to make some decisions and stick with them.

Have we really decided on a final population size?

Where are the people living, the terminal, the parking garage, ramshackle huts, etc.?

Is the CC staying where it is, becoming more informal, or going under revision to a more militaristic format?

I think we need some reasonably solid answers to these and more questions like them before we can really start delving into the zone fully.

We can’t just leave huge structural issues like these up to a single writer to set in stone and then everyone else has to deal with it. I think we need a short discussion on each, then a vote or the admins need to step up and make a call.

Tagged

It was seven feet tall, bright orange, and aesthetically unpleasant. Whoever did it put it halfway between the entrances to the A & B concourses. Whoever did it had never bothered to burden his or her talents with anything as inconvenient as an art class.

Slater looked at Asher. “When I find out who did it, I’ll have them flogged.”

Asher asked, “Do you think you ever will?”

“Not a chance in hell.”

They turned away from the spray-painted Z and headed toward the office in the base of the control tower. By a week later, they were saluting it every time they entered the terminal. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

Ain’t She A Beaut!

“Take a look at this one! Ain’t she a beaut!” Larry whispered to himself as he lay in the cold wet grass of Burnet Park. “Crikey! I’ve never seen one so close.”

Larry dreamed of one day having his own nature show on television. In reality, he just impersonated his idol, The Crocodile Hunter.

Larry watched as the zombie began to let out a moan. “Listen to that! Crikey, that’s a loud bellow!”

Larry continued to watch the lone zombie, not knowing that others were nearby. Her moan called them into the park.

That night, they ate Larry.

Earth Day

Before the outbreak, we used to run around with trash bags. We used to try to make the earth prettier. It made us feel good about ourselves, or at least good enough to go back to driving our SUV’s guilt-free.

This year it was a completley different story. Instead of picking up plastic bags, I found myself dragging a rotting corpse to a bonfire.

My cousin told me we were cleaning up to, “Find the beauty in and around the Zone.” What a load of horseshit. Even if we clean up the dead Zack and the few human corpses, we’re still stuck in an airport in Syracuse. When I looked around, I still just saw classic filth, but with a few less piles of stinking flesh.

To think that when I was growing up, I didn’t think that Earth Day could get any more meaningless.

About FNG and Other Issues

I would have just posted a comment but wordpress wouldn’t let me.

The story shows great improvements in terms of technical writing, you’ve made it flow a lot smoother, but I’m afraid that’s all the praise I can offer.

In terms of character development it only serves to make the character even flatter than he already was. Sorry, but if it keeps going like this you might have to amend the character profile to include psychopath.

In terms of greater Zone continuity the issues it presents are very serious. Meaker, I don’t know if you’ve been consciously building to this, but the way things are headed you’re setting up you’re character for a power struggle with the legitimate leadership of Brooks and Slater. This could have huge repercussions.

The biggest problem I think that the story brings up isn’t limited just to its content. It involves all of us, the authors. We’ve split into groups and are trying to bring Zyracuse in very different directions. While new and varied ideas are the lifeblood of any creative endeavor there is a point where they become too divisive.

Just recently, there was talk about the demilitarization of the CC and making it more informal. This story seems to do the opposite. If we can’t come up with a consensus on something like this we’ll never be able to really create anything concrete.

I don’t want to stifle anyone but I think there needs to be a great deal more discussion and cooperation on individual stories.

I guess what I’m saying is:

A zone divided against itself cannot stand.

Nielsen’s Gift

Battalion B, Squad 24 trudged back into the Zone after a long day of slaughter on a breezy, pleasantly cool Syracuse September day.

“Good job out there today, Guys,” Billy said, looking down at his gore-coated shoes.

“What’re you gonna do now?” asked Greg.

“I dunno. Tom, you still have that bottle under your cot?”

Tom shook his head, “No man… a bunch of 15-year-olds stole it from me, but they looked like they had some fun with it.”

“Damn…” responded the other two men of the squad in unison.

Continue reading ‘Nielsen’s Gift’

FNG

The end of Winter was official. The entrance into spring was a bittersweet fact that stuck in the minds of everyone in the Zone.

The first sunrise of spring would not cause a stir of emotions among the populous, only a select few took time out of their surviving time to notice the date. Even still the emergence of spring wasn’t warranted as a serious threat, the undeniable fact that the undead would again rise didn’t strike fear into the populous like it had in earlier year, Citizens became comfortable with the Idea that the enemy’s numbers had dwindled from the winter onslaughts by the Corpse corps, even if it was only an idea.

The bright sunrise caste a curtain of light across the runway, reflecting off the windows in the observation tower. Zyracuse slept peacefully during the earliest sunrise since the snow fell like ashes during a volcanic eruption, heavy and never ceasing. Mornings first light crept into the homes of those still sleeping, till finally the light found its way onto Meaker’s boot.

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I can’t believe the news today…