View Full Version : Creep World: The End (Part One)
MalReynolds
November 2nd, 2005, 02:22 PM
The End of the World and the Copy Shop:
http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=37493
The Burning Building and Wheels:
http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=37533
The Signal and the Station:
http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=37589
The Source and the Problem:
http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&p=519781#519781
The Toystore and What They Forgot
http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=37744
The high noon sun beat down on the travelers as they slowly made their way down the West Side Highway towards the Holland Tunnel. The creatures were nowhere to be seen, miniature or full sized. The road was deserted. New York had turned into a ghost town in the span of hours.
They reached the mouth of the tunnel when Wheels finally spoke.
“It’s dark in there. I don’t see any lights. Do we have a light?”
They didn’t. And it was dark inside, swallowing the light from the sun but giving no hints as to what lay inside.
“Alright, let’s go back up a block or so. There was a Lowe’s back there. They should have some lights there,” Eric said.
And so the group began to move back, towards the hardware store. They reached the glass doors by 1 and had shot their way inside in a matter of seconds. The concrete floor was spartan and uninviting, but it was cool inside the building. It smelled of sawdust, wood, death, and it was completely silent as they entered. The ceiling fan display was still, hanging like ghosts in the warehouse.
Iggy walked over to the customer service phone and picked it up.
“Hi, we need to know where the flashlights are,” he said into the receiver, smiling.
There was a long pause as Iggy stood there, listening intently.
“Iggy, put the phone down. We want to make it to the other side of the tunnel by nightfall.”
But Iggy stood there, listening. He nodded and hung up the phone.
“Follow me,” he said, ducking into the bathroom appliances aisle. He briskly walked up to a shower display. Five bathtubs in a row all with showerheads and shower curtains, and stepped inside, drawing the cloth.
“Get inside a bathtub and hide, now. Do it.”
“But,” Eric began, “We ha-“
“Get inside now, don’t question this. Just go. NOW!”
Eric jumped into a shower and Gopher followed suit. Eric peeked out of the curtain and saw three hundred Mini-Creeps marched past, laughing. They were completely hidden as fifty Creeps followed.
Eric heard a door in the back slam shut and threw his curtain open. Gopher stepped out of his shower, but Iggy didn’t come out.
“Iggy, come on,” Eric whispered, sliding the veil open. Iggy was collapsed at the bottom of the basin, unmoving. Eric leaned down and began to shake him, but Iggy didn’t move. Gopher leaned down and smacked Iggy. He stirred and looked up.
“What the hell am I doing in a shower?”
“Iggy… There’s something not quite right with you, is there?”
“What are you talking about, Eric?”
“You picked up that phone and then got us to hide as our doom went marching past, none the wiser that something they were looking to kill was less than an six inches away.”
“I remember picking up the phone, and I remember someone talking to me telling me that the store still had Creeps in it, but I blacked out. I don’t remember anything after that.”
“There was someone on the other end of the line??
Iggy nodded.
“Well… Do you know where the line connected?”
“My guess is the reference desk.”
Eric held his hand out, and Iggy grabbed it, slowly rising to his feet.
“Let’s go get referenced,” Iggy said.
“We’re going to need to work on the ‘cool’ things that you’re allowed to say,” Eric said over his shoulder, taking point.
They made their way to the back of the store, keeping their eyes peeled for flashlights or the reference desk. They found the reference desk first, painted with blood and Behr acrylic.
“Hello?” Iggy tentatively called out.
Nothing.
Gopher walked behind the counter, bumping Wheels against the side of the island.
“Watch it,” he hissed.
The phone was off the hook, Gopher noted. He followed the line from the phone box to the receiver, still clutched in the hand of a corpse on the floor. The flesh was tainted green and a sick smile curved around its neck. The blood on the concrete floor had pooled and faded, staining the ground.
“Iggy, did you talk to her?” Gopher motioned?
Wheels sighed.
“No. I… She’s dead. How could I have talked to her?”
“Well, she’s the only one with the phone, now isn’t she.” Eric called from behind.
“Oh, look over there,” Iggy motioned to a display. “Flashlights. Let’s grab some and get out of here. It’s giving me the heebie-jeebies.”
Iggy began to walk to the display, eyes burning in the back of his neck. Eric stood motionless with Gopher, watching him as he grabbed four flashlights. He tested each one systematically before turning around.
“Look, I don’t know. I don’t know whom I talked to. Whoever it was had the capability of speech and wasn’t a corpse, alright?”
“Iggy, you know how you said you were going crazy? I’m beginning to take stock in that,” Eric said, grabbing a flashlight.
“I’m not really going crazy. There’s a logical answer for all of this, I know there is,” he said, laughing. “Now come on. Let’s get to the tunnel.”
As they left, the door behind the reference desk opened and the beady eyes of a Creep watched their exit with eagerness.
They hit the tunnel at 2, the sun in a move favorable position, shining more into the tunnel.
“I don’t want to go in there,” Wheels started.
“Well, you don’t have much of a choice considering you’re riding on his back,” Eric said.
“Riding on my back,” Gopher repeated.
“Yeah, man up Wheels! It’s just a tunnel.”
Eric took point, raising his gun and resting it on his flashlight arm. The walls were still teal, slick. There were a few cars jammed up in the entrance. He inhaled sharply and stepped up and over a Buick and into the darkness.
His beam of light cut across the infinity, revealing almost nothing. The ceiling was high; there were a few scattered cars with the windows busted, and the regulation door every twenty feet. Three other beams turned on behind him and he began to walk quickly.
They all could hear the water outside of the tunnel around them. The downward slope made them feel as if they were descending into the depths of some great pit. Wheels broke out into a cold sweat, unnerving Gopher. Wheels swung his flashlight erratically, trying to scan everything at once.
“I’m afraid of the dark, I’m afraid of the dark, oh… I’m so afraid of the dark,” he said, his voice quivering.
“Gopher, try and keep him quiet.”
“Keep me quiet? I’m afraid!”
“Keep quiet or I’ll shoot you, I guess.”
Wheels shut up.
There was a cross draft through the tunnel ruffling their clothes. It wasn’t carrying sound for there was no sound to carry on the Jersey side. All the breeze did was send chills through the party. Eric quickened the pace, walking quickly, dodging cars and the occasional debris. He could see the other end of the tunnel, the light at the end of the dark when the Creeps came.
They were laughing and screeching, crying out and dragging their swords of the tile walls creating a hideous noise reminiscent of nails on a chalkboard. They were behind them and closing the gap.
“RUN!” Eric cried out.
Iggy screamed, his legs pumping, past Eric. He chucked a fireball behind him, casting shadows over the walls. The ball rolled down the tunnel, the Creeps shadows becoming more defined, dancing towards the source.
Gopher was carrying weight for two, and mis-stepped. He fell to the ground, the creatures almost on them. Eric fired blindly into the tunnel, hitting nothing, but scaring the group back a little. Gopher rose to his feet and began to run.
He could feel the hands on his back.
“RUN FASTER, GOPHER! OH GOD! RUN FASTER!” Wheels cried. “OH PLEASE RUN FASTER!”
He tried, but the things grabbed hold of Wheels.
“OH GOD!”
The tennis ball fire died out.
Wheels slipped out of the harness and into the arms of the Creeps.
“COME BACK! PLEASE!”
Gopher ran ahead, free of the weight.
“YOU SAID YOU WOULD NEVER LEAVE! PLEASE! NO!”
At the mouth of the tunnel, Eric and Iggy stood, watching Gophers flashlight bounce towards them, and watching Wheels’ bounce away. Wheels’ light bounced towards the back. They watched the light spin as it hit the ground in circles, and they watched the things drag him into a service door.
“We have to keep moving. We have to keep moving or they’ll be on us.”
They ran. They ran out of the tunnel and into the daylight, they ran onto the bridge and they kept running until they were on the New Jersey highway. But the things were still behind them. Ten or fifteen, the group motive restored, ready to kill anything.
Again the Creeps were closing the gap, when Eric stopped running and turned around. He pulled his gun up and fired into the group, scoring three hits. Twelve remained. Gopher turned and tried to fire his Glock, but to no avail. Iggy prepared a Fireball, which bounced into the group taking out two.
There were still ten. Eric’s clip ran dry, and he unloaded the gun.
The three stood in a row, across two lanes of highway, the mass of evil moving towards them.
“Gopher, hit the clip release on your gun. I have three shots left in there…”
“Where is it, Eric?”
Eric motioned on his own gun, and Gopher hit the release, dropping the clip to the ground. Iggy tossed another fireball, but this one flew wide. A Creep swung at it with its sword, knocking the ball back at Iggy, setting his shirt on fire.
He screamed, pulling it off and batting at the flames on his chest. The group closed the distance.
“What is that noise,” Eric asked. “It sounds so familiar…”
It grew louder and louder, until Eric recognized it.
The car plowed into the group of Creeps, slamming on the breaks and sending the car into a huge skid. It took almost all of them out. The man in the car leaned out, shooting the three remaining that were trying to crawl away. Smoke rose from Iggy’s chest and Eric stood with his mouth open. Gopher didn’t move.
“You guys need a ride anywhere?” The man in the car called.
“Uh… Yeah, we’re heading to a radio station.”
“LRPS, right? I’m from there. Hop in.”
The three made their way to the car, opening the back door and sitting down in the leather-clad interior. Eric rode shotgun.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you all. My name is David Fichter, but my friends call me Fichter,” he said, hitting the gas, peeling out and driving into the heart of Jersey City.
natetheffrer
November 2nd, 2005, 02:30 PM
Nice product placement there, of course the creeps are at Lowes, thats the place to be!
Tasselfoot
November 2nd, 2005, 05:24 PM
Mal, would you mind confining future parts of your story into this or the original thread? Its starting to clutter the forum.
Thanks.
Other stories can of course have their own threads, but as this is all one story, and already has 6 threads... well, you get what I'm saying.
MalReynolds
November 2nd, 2005, 05:42 PM
I'm thinking about just stopping posting it here. No one really seems to be reading it either way.
Mal
Tasselfoot
November 2nd, 2005, 05:54 PM
Nate and I are reading it.... and the other ones seem to be read by 30-40 people... about the most you could expect here.
Eyoshi
November 2nd, 2005, 06:16 PM
Wow, two assumable deaths already, and this probably isn't even close to the half-point of the story. The feelings of fear and terror used make the characters seem a lot more realistic. Nice writing.
I guess I'm one of the other regulars who've read the story as it continued. And I think it's best if each installment got it's own thread, as the initial post will just look too long if each chapter was crammed into it, and the thought of having to rummage through different pages for one chapter doesn't seem like a way that would make someone inclined to read it. Just my thoughts, though.
Varia
November 2nd, 2005, 06:31 PM
haha, Wheels is a loser.
nickadeemus
November 2nd, 2005, 06:59 PM
I am reading them all, they're fun.
The story is reminding me of The Langoliers, and I loved that movie. Iggy seems to have something similiar to what the little girl did in that movie.
Tps222
November 2nd, 2005, 07:31 PM
Don't be silly Mal, we all love them.
Puns are fun.
Your attempt at an emotional death was some-what effective.
Varia
November 2nd, 2005, 09:51 PM
Speaking of Wheels again, why is it entitled "The New Wheels"?
MalReynolds
November 2nd, 2005, 10:08 PM
The car is the set of "New Wheels". It was meant to be... Misleading?! MUAHAHAHA!
And it is. Very.
Mal
MalReynolds
November 3rd, 2005, 01:45 PM
Doing the new chapter in here, today.
The Other Survivors and The New Threat
They rode in silence for a few minutes, Fichter continually shifting gears and dodging dead or stalled out cars. He had the radio on, but nothing was coming through but static. If there was any life in Jersey, it wasn’t making itself present as of yet.
Eric flipped down the sun-visor and three CD’s spilled out onto his lap. “The Best of Queen” fell face up. Eric scanned the dash for a CD player but found none. He stacked the CD’s again and put them back, snapping the visor back in place.
The sun broke through the buildings they drove past playing tricks on the eyes of the passengers.
“So… What’s your story?” Iggy asked from the back seat, the first to speak since the car ride began.
“What?” Fichter called, not turning around.
“I mean, we all ha-“
“Iggy, drop it. None of this story **** now. Let’s just go meet up with everyone else.”
Fichter began to laugh. It was more of a giggle, really. Eric began to get worried.
“You’re talking like there’s some kind of army there. There isn’t. Sorry to break the news like that, but since I left, there were three people there excluding myself.”
“That raises a question. What were you doing out? I mean, that was fairly lucky for us, all things considered. You saved our lives back there.”
“We gotta eat sometime, don’t we? I was on a food run. I’m the only one that does food runs. I’m the only one that knows how to drive stick in our group.” He paused. “Any of you fellows know how to drive stick?”
Iggy frowned, “No, sir, I just got my license a few months ago.”
Gopher didn’t move.
“What about you?”
“Nope. I can drive an automatic, though, if you have one of those at the station,” Eric said.
“Yeah, like I’d be willing to go on the food runs all the time if there was someone else just as capable. Actually, I would. It’s a rush, to be honest with you. Not anymore. I’m almost out of bullets,” he said, tapping the police issue berretta that lay across his lap.
“Same. I think I have three shots left in here. Is there a police department around here?”
“It’s where I got this. I had to break into a desk just to find a gun, so I don’t think we’re going to have any luck finding weapons. The station was picked clean.”
They rode in silence again, until Eric spoke.
“That bothers me. The station got picked clean and yet I haven’t seen anyone else out there like us. Where did they all go?”
“They probably got killed. These things, singularly aren’t that bad. I’ve killed a couple of em’ myself, but I’m a **** shot, so I don’t do it too often. It’s when they get into groups… They just rampage. It’s insane. You can take one down, but it just seems to renew their vigor. Deadly. I don’t like it one bit. Here we are,” Fichter said, pulling into the loop of the station.
The four walked to the front door and past the reception desk, into the back break room. There were three flashlights on the break table that created a makeshift lamp that haphazardly lit the small room. Sitting at the table was a woman.
She was older than all of them, but not by much. From the looks of it, she was twenty-five or twenty six, with blonde hair down to her shoulders. It was beautiful and matted, tangled yet statuesque. She smiled when Fichter walked in, and the room lit for Eric.
She stood up and flipped her hair behind her shoulder. Eric’s heart skipped a beat.
“Well, looks like we have some new comers to the fort! My name’s Angela. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, extending her hand towards Eric.
He shook her hand limply, unable to speak. Iggy took her hand next and brought it up to his lips, quickly kissing it.
“My name is Ignatious, but these lads call me ‘Iggy’ for short,” he beamed.
“My name is Tom. But you can call me Gopher, and this is Eric.”
Eric still stood rooted to the spot.
“Is he all right?”
“Sometimes he locks up,” Iggy smiled. “All you have to do is control-alt-delete to reboot, right?”
“What?” Angela asked.
“Uh… Nothing. It was a computer joke. I didn’t think…”
“Oh.”
“It wasn’t funny, so…”
“Alright,” she said, heading back to her seat.
Angela pulled a package of mini-muffins from the busted out window of the vending machine, opened it and passed them around. Iggy hungrily ate his, while Gopher just picked at it. Eric had finally taken a seat, and was staring across the table.
“What’s the damage?” Fichter questioned.
“Steven went to the storage closet outside to get batteries a minute ago, he should be back any second now.”
“What about Fred?”
There was a pause.
“Fred left.”
There was another pause.
“Did he say why?”
“He said he was tired of waiting for people to get here. Said they were never going to come. He took his shotgun and left, and I haven’t heard from him since. He could be back. You know how emotional he got,” Angela frowned.
Minutes later, the break room door swung open. A tall man in a dirty blazer stepped through, tossing his brimmed hat casually on the table with one hand while tossing battery packages on the counter with the other. There was dirt on his face, but his rosy cheeks still burned brightly through. He smiled and his eyes twinkled as he saw Eric, Iggy and Gopher.
Angela jumped from her seat and ran over to him, pressing her lips against his.
“I’m glad you’re back,” she said.
“So am I,” he said, smiling, looking into her eyes.
“Steven, this is Iggy, Gopher and Eric,” she motioned to the three seated around the table. “Guys, this is my husband, Steven.”
Eric frowned as Iggy and Gopher stood to shake his hand. He took their hands and pulled them in for a tight bear hug.
“It’s just so goddamned good to see other people alive. This is great. I couldn’t be happier. “
Eric finally stood and coldly offered his hand from across the table, blocking the hug.
“It’s good to see some other people that are alive, as well,” Iggy said.
“So, do you all have any kind of plan? Or are you just going to wait here to die,” Eric said.
All eyes turned to him. No one spoke.
“You don’t have a plan? Good. I was better off in the Holland Tunnel,” he said, sitting down.
“Well, no, that’s not true. We have a plan,” Steven said. “We’re waiting for more people and then we’re going to head out to a deserted island. There are dozens of em’ just scattered around. We could head out there and wait it out. It’s a good plan, but we would have liked to have more people for it.”
Eric scowled, “Your plan is straight out of Dawn of the Dead. You really think that’s going to work? Do you even have a boat?”
Steven shook his head, “No. But other people did. It’s all a matter of finding one that runs off of a sail. It’s so hard to find anything that runs off of gas that still works now.”
Eric opened his mouth to retort when there was a bang at the front door. Steven made his way out of the break room and looked out down the hall. He saw the figure of a girl pressing herself against the locked glass doors and hollered back into the break room, “We got another live one out there!”
Eric, Gopher, Fichter and Angela all fled from the room towards the front door.
Iggy didn’t move from his seat.
“Don’t. Don’t open the door,” he whispered, before regaining composure and running down the hall to the others.
“Don’t open the door! Don’t do it! STOP!” He cried out as the door swung open. Iggy turned his flashlight on and ran the beam across the face of the stranger.
Gina’s eyes didn’t dilate and the light burned her retinas. She was wearing a twisted grin of pain across her face, her clothes bloody. Gina turned to Eric, who was now smiling.
“Iggy! It’s your sister!”
“No… It’s not. It’s not her. Something is wrong.”
But Eric didn’t listen. He was too busy giving her a hug. He pulled away from her just as she tried to bite him, and he shoved her against the door.
“What are you doing, Gina?”
Angela and Steven backed away. Fichter pulled Eric back.
Drool began to run from her mouth in thick rivulets, pooling on the floor. She cocked her head to one side and began to walk towards Eric.
“Gina, stay back. Iggy, say something to your sister.”
Iggy didn’t move. He had blacked out again against the reference desk.
She moved closer and stretched her arms out, trying to catch Eric between them. He held his gun up.
“Don’t. Don’t come any closer. Tell us what’s wrong.”
She hissed and stepped forward. Eric looked over his shoulder, “Sorry Iggy, I got to.”
He fired a shot into her leg. She took another step forward and blood shot out as she put her weight down on it.
“What the fu-“ Eric managed to get out before she got a hold of him. He threw her arms to either side and tried to push her back, but she was strong. Too strong. He kneed her in the stomach, but to no avail. She stretched her head down and snapped her teeth at him.
Gopher picked up a chair and swung it against her back, the force of the blow knocking both the Gina thing and Eric to the floor. Eric’s gun flew out of his hand. It didn’t faze her; she was inching closer to his neck.
“GOPHER, DO SOMETHING!” Eric cried out.
Steven charged forward and delivered a kick to her head, which sent her reeling backwards and off of Eric. She sat in the corner with her hand around her face trying to reorient herself.
“Someone kill her!”
The shot rang through the radio station, resounding through the walls of the building. The smell of gunpowder filled the air. Her head jerked backwards and the window cracked from the force.
“Thank you, Gopher,” Eric said, turning around.
Iggy held the gun in his hand from behind the reception desk, his face a mask of pain. He dropped the gun to the counter and slid into the receptionist chair. Tears fell down his face as he began to weep bitterly.
“Thank you, Iggy,” Eric said, correcting himself. “I’m sorry you had to do that. I don’t know what was going on. I’m sorry you had to kill… I’m sorry.”
Iggy sobbed and looked up, his glasses wet with tears. “It wasn’t her. It looked like her, but it wasn’t her. I don’t know what that was, but it wasn’t…”
“It acted like a zombie,” Gopher said.
“Yeah, well, zombies aren’t real, now are they,” Eric said angrily.
“Gee, neither are creatures three feet tall that like to stab things, are they?” Iggy growled.
“Unless you count little people with knives,” Eric nodded.
“What a time for jokes,” Angela called out from behind them. She took Iggy into the break room. Steven was still staring at the Gina thing that rested against the cracked glass. Gopher moved back into the break room.
Fichter was the first to speak to Eric.
“Well… I thought it was kind of funny. Need to work on your timing, though,” he said, patting Eric on the back.
Eric turned to Fichter.
“Maybe they broke her. I saw them carry her away. Maybe they just drove her crazy. There might be fun in that… For them, I mean. I don’t understand how… Why she would try to bite me. She didn’t even say anything.”
Steven walked back to the break room.
“Well, this is what I learned: Things don’t make much sense anymore. Let’s head back to the break room. And apologize to Iggy.”
Eric stood in the doorway.
“Iggy, I’m sorry.”
Iggy nodded, and Eric walked in.
“I’m sorry, but this is also a problem. I know this isn’t the best time to bring this up at all, but we have to leave here. We have to leave here now.”
All eyes turned to Eric.
“Eric, I think you should just calm down,” Angela said.
“No. Look at it this way: We know that wasn’t your sister out there, Iggy. But it found us. It found you. If something like that can find us, then the others must not be far behind it. What if it was sent to find us? To find people? The Creeps could just follow it in here, and here we are, under-armed and emotionally unstable. So I’m going to say it again. We have to leave here now.”
The group silently stood and followed Eric past the reception desk and into the parking lot. They stood by Fichter’s car when Iggy collapsed to the ground again, in pain, clutching his head.
“Too late,” he said, looking up at the group from the pavement.
Eyoshi
November 3rd, 2005, 06:50 PM
Does Iggy have a special trait unknown even to himself? Hmm...
Nice job, as usual. I like how the chapter was more of an emotional one, and it also raises some questions about the Creeps, such as if they're intelligent or not. After all, maybe sending in the "zombified" Gina maybe just for the purpose of reconnaissance...
Varia
November 4th, 2005, 01:07 AM
The Gina thing was pretty random.
MalReynolds
November 4th, 2005, 01:19 AM
Not random, but coincidental as you'll find out in a bit.
I'll just tell you; there are more zombie things. But their origins are a big deal, and the fact that the one to track our heroes down was Gina is pure coincidence on behalf of The Creeps.
Mal
nickadeemus
November 4th, 2005, 03:03 AM
Perhaps when adding new parts to the story, update the title with the newest section?
I am also having an Iggy vision in which Steven dies at some point, and Eric tries to fill in but is rejected.
Tps222
November 4th, 2005, 06:30 AM
Too soon Mal, you should have waited a little longer to re-introduce Gina. Too much is happening too fast character wise. I understand why you made her come out, but you could have changed her you know what location.
MalReynolds
November 4th, 2005, 01:38 PM
“What are you talking about, Iggy? Too late?”
“Behind you,” he weakly motioned.
Eric spun around, pulling his gun up. He watched the tree lined entrance to the parking lot, but nothing came in. He waited.
“Iggy, are you sure you saw something?” Eric hunched down to ask him.
There was a distinct roar behind them.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
Eric saw the shadow before he saw the actual creature. It had a thick, blocky body with two mechanical claws that protruded from the angular torso. It wasn’t walking, but floating into the parking lot at an alarming speed, sashaying back and forth as if trying to maintain some kind of balance. Its neck was at least a foot long, but it was hard to tell due to the position of the head. The head was jutted forward, making the neck arch up and back down again. It wore the face of a human, but there was no mistake about it. Whatever the hell this thing was, it was a monster.
“What the hell is that thing,” Steven asked, backing up towards the station.
The things eyes focused on Steven and he seemed to freeze, their eyes locked. Blood began to drip from his nose and tears began to fall from his eyes.
“I didn’t mean to cheat on you, Angela,” Steven said.
No, Steven didn’t say it… He mouthed it. The voice was coming from the creature.
“But your sister was a better cook. I’m sorry, but I have to go,” the creature said. Steven began to walk towards the creature.
“I know you cheated on me, we went to counseling for that!” She cried out, running to her husband. He swung his arm and backhanded her. She fell across the car and looked up.
“Something’s wrong, you guys.”
“Well no ****,” Eric said, aiming his last shot. He squeezed the trigger; the bullet flew across the parking lot, and past the monsters head.
Gopher and Iggy looked at Eric, puzzled.
“I just missed?”
Fichter backed up, trying to get into his car to retrieve a gun, when the creature met eyes with him and he blacked out.
Steven was already at the creature, which was resting one hand on his shoulder. It set its eyes on Angela, who froze.
“I’m married, but I want more.”
Gopher ran at the thing, which swung its head at him. He was clothes lined by its neck and he fell to the pavement.
“When Eric walked through those doors, I almost wanted Steven to stay out looking for batteries.”
Eric looked at Steven, who was still in a trance. Was he hearing any of this?
Blood began to drip from her nose, and she walked towards the thing slowly. They weren’t fighting to pull at all, being drawn like a dead fish.
“I have to go,” she mouthed, and the creature said absent-mindedly. A small hand rested across her shoulder, and she closed her eyes.
The thing swung its head towards Iggy, locking eyes. Iggy rose to his feet and began to walk towards the creature.
“I’m sorry I let you die, sis,” it said.
Iggy stopped. He shook his head, but soon began walking again.
“I wasn’t strong enough,” it continued.
Iggy froze in his tracks. Rage coursed through his veins. The tables had flipped. No longer was the creature looking into Iggy’s eyes, but Iggy was staring the creature down, his steely glare terrifying to Eric.
“I didn’t let her die,” he called out.
The creature shook its head, and stared back at Iggy, who took one forceful step forward.
“I DID NOT LET HER DIE!” He spit, screaming so loudly that his voice echoed back from the building through the silent parking lot.
The creature began to shake its head again, trying to stare back at Iggy. Iggy maintained his stance, one foot forward, one foot back, a look of pure hatred in his eyes towards the creature.
“If you didn’t let her die, then who did,” the creature hissed in its own voice, snakes and bursting pipes instead of a true voice, the words hard to make out.
“I didn’t!”
“THEN WHO!”
“ERIC!” Iggy screamed.
“Hey, wha-“ Eric said from behind Iggy.
“AHHHH!”
The creature’s head began to bow. The neck moved in irregular patterns, creating waves in the creatures gray flesh. Blood began to dole out of its eyes, and its body began to sink to the pavement. Its head fell to the pavement before its body, the neck fully stretched out. The body hit the ground and fell over, the claws raking across the back of Angela and Steven.
It turned and looked back at Eric remorsefully, before letting out one final hiss and succumbing to death.
Angela and Steven collapsed to the ground simultaneously, against each other.
“What the hell was that all about?” Eric cried out. “Am I the only one that was thoroughly upset by this?”
He turned and surveyed the area. Gopher was still out on the ground, Fichter almost beneath his car. Iggy too had blacked out.
“Well, ****, guess I was.” He slapped Iggy lightly, who came around.
“I remember most of that.”
“Oh, do you?”
Iggy nodded.
“Do you remember the part where you’re blaming me for your sister’s death?”
Iggy nodded again.
“We’re going to need to talk about that at some point. Clear some things up, alright?” He extended his hand to Iggy, who took it. Eric helped him to his feet.
“So, Mr. ‘I Just Killed That Thing By Staring It Down’, you wanna help me get everyone back in the station? Anything else coming this way?”
“Not that I can tell.”
“That’s something we’re going to have to talk about soon, too. Just what exactly you can tell. And what happened out here with that thing.”
It was a matter of fifteen minutes before everyone was back in the break room. All of them had exceptionally painful headaches, save for Eric, who was relaxing with a cupcake.
“Iggy’s got some things to say,” he said, taking a bite, getting cream on his upper lip. “So, without further ado, Iggy.”
“Alright. First of all, that thing wasn’t the conventional Creep.”
A murmur rose through the room.
“Yes, well, it seemed a great deal smarter. It got into your minds. Started to control you, although I don’t think anyone would remember that.”
“I do,” Eric said from the back.
“I don’t think anyone would remember that that was actually affected by the creature, smartass.”
He chuckled from the back.
“But you never spoke. The voice was coming out of the thing. It was like it was melding with your mind or something, controlling you that way. Got you all to say things. Secrets and the like.”
Steven looked up.
“Like what? What did it say?”
“That you were unfaithful to your wife at one point.”
He let out a sigh of relief.
“She already knew about that.”
Angela turned.
“Is there anything else I should know about?”
Steven shook his head.
“No.”
She turned to face Iggy.
“Did I say anything?”
There was a long pause as Iggy thought about the question.
“No. You didn’t. Eric killed it before you had a chance to speak.”
Fichter piped up from the table.
“I thought he was out of bullets?”
“I miss-counted. All it takes is one shot. They don’t call me ‘Bulls Eye’ for nothin’,” he said, finishing the cupcake.
“They don’t call you ‘Bulls-Eye’ at all,” Gopher said.
“Here’s the game plan, kids. We’re going to camp it here for the night. Our sources tell us that it should be safe, relatively speaking. Iggy, Gopher, we’re going to alternate front door shifts. Iggy and I will be first, then Iggy and Gopher, then Gopher and I. Rotate every four hours. Tomorrow, we get the hell out of Jersey.” Eric paused. “If only because it smells funny.”
Iggy had taken a seat as Eric dragged the body out of the lobby and into the conference room.
“Alright, you blame me for her death?”
“I never thought I did until just a minute ago.”
“What’s the deal with that? She wouldn’t let Gopher throw her. There was nothing we could do about it. I was already on the other side.”
“We were hiding out in our building. She had gone down the street to get canned food when she found one of your fliers. She wanted to meet up with someone else, I didn’t. She said it sounded safe, I said it didn’t. I said my vote should count for something, she said it didn’t.”
“So that’s it?”
“More or less.”
Neither of them spoke. Angela began coughing from the back room.
“Is there a reason we lied about who killed the thing, Iggy?”
He nodded.
“What do you reckon that reason is?”
“Because I don’t exactly know how I killed it.”
“I got some theories on that myself, but I’m going to keep them with me for a little while longer. I’m going to keep an eye on you, Iggy. I think you got something going on in your mind that you don’t know about yet. I’m curious as to what exactly that is.”
“So am I, Eric.”
There was another pause, the cloud shadows moving across the parking lot, streaming in through the glass double doors, blanketing the two in quasi-darkness.
“So, she likes me,” Eric finally said, breaking the silence.
“Yeah, but you can’t know that around her. She might not even know that yet. That thing out in the parking lot-“
“The Mind-Melder?”
“Cool name. Yes, it made you say things it knew you didn’t want to. But I don’t think they even knew what they were saying. I mean, I know they didn’t know, but I don’t think that she even knows she has feelings for you.”
“I wouldn’t call them feelings. We just met. It’s more of a lusty type deal.”
“Whatever it is, it wouldn’t surprise me if she didn’t know about them at all. I didn’t really blame you for Gina’s death until I really thought about it, tonight. Maybe that’s something it does. You think it could implant thoughts into your mind?”
“I have as much information as you do.”
“Actually,” he said, smirking, “I have a little more.”
“What?
”
“When the thing was dying, it was like it let go of its thoughts. I found out some things.”
“For instance…”
“It did use the zombie to track us. It had some kind of mental hold on it, telling it where the zombie went. That’s how it found us so quickly.”
“Is that all?”
“Nope. Found out some more about the zombie, too. Standard rules apply, apparantley.”
“What?”
“The Melder was worried that the infection would spread through other Creeps. They already have five or six under quarantine that were bitten or scratched, that turned. You get bitten, you get scratched, you turn. Standard zombie rules. Simple.”
“Huh.” Eric grunted.
They sat in silence for the rest of the shift, watching the moons light dance through the breaks in the clouds. When four hours turned up, Gopher walked from the break room, groggy, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. He nodded to Eric who was beginning to fall asleep.
“Iggy, I’m going to tell them about the standard rules tomorrow. In case we run into another. Can’t have them risking what they got when the danger ramps like that. But everything else is between us right now.”
Iggy yawned.
“See you in four, Eric,” he said, drawing in a large gulp of air.
Eric half saluted and turned, patting Gopher on the back and heading to the break room.
Eyoshi
November 4th, 2005, 03:20 PM
The Mind-Melder was pretty cool, but I thought it should have been introduced later in the story. I think the impact on the characters would have been better if this happened after a longer period of time to develop firenships and other relationships.
I alos liked how this "infection" also applies to both humans and the Creeps. It gives the sense that there is a third side in the fight.
MalReynolds
November 4th, 2005, 03:41 PM
Well, all in all you all have read about thirty five pages single spaced, which translates into around 105 pages in a novel. I felt it was time to step things up a tad. It's going to move pretty quickly from here, I think.
Hope it does. I've got some ground to cover. A lot of ground.
Mal
Tasselfoot
November 4th, 2005, 04:11 PM
Mal... that is MAYBE 30 pages of book print, tops... less, IMO. I've felt that it has moved way too fast already, and jumps from one action sequence that is not well explained to another, with no time for character development in between.
MalReynolds
November 4th, 2005, 04:28 PM
In an attempt to prove Tass wrong, I pulled out a hardback copy of Hannibal and typed a page.
That translated into a little under half of a page on word. Meaning that front, back and part of the next page would all fit into one Word page.
So, he's right. It's not 100. It's somewhere in the ball park of seventy. My bad.
I do find his points valid, though. It's very fast paced, and once I finish section 10 (this is 8), I'm going back and doing some rewrites on all of the parts. So as of Sunday, there won't be an update for a little while. Once I re-edit, the full text will go into a new thread with the next section. So, yeah.
Mal
natetheffrer
November 5th, 2005, 01:25 PM
Awesome stuff mal, I should do a reader response on this for english class, its better than rereading the harry potter books.
Tps222
November 5th, 2005, 10:34 PM
I have to agree with Tass somewhat. It would be nice to go into more detail when they switch scenes. Character-wise, do what you want. Mind Melder was pretty cool, can't wait to see the real action.
MalReynolds
November 6th, 2005, 01:45 PM
The first tendrils of daylight entered into the station lobby through the glass doors and over the eyes of Eric, who was fast asleep. In the middle of his second shift, he had passed out mid-sentence, talking to Gopher.
”Which is where I learned to shoot like that, you se-“
Gopher had summarily nodded, then went back into the offices to find a blanket. Finding a quilt, he returned to the lobby and covered Eric, sitting back and keeping his own eyes open on the doors.
Nothing happened. There was no thumping against the glass doors; the metal handles were still attached as morning approached. The Mind-Melder’s body sat in the parking lot, unmoving. The wind shuffled the trees, knocking leaves down, but that was the most excitement that night. In a word, it was quite boring.
As the light crept over Eric’s eyes, they opened with a flash.
“I wasn’t sleeping. I was checking… My mind… For… ****, I was asleep, wasn’t I?”
Gopher nodded.
“Alright, Goph, what are we going to do? Where are we going to go?”
“I dunno. We’ve got a car. We could try and find a boat like Steven said. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
Eric paused. He didn’t quite know what to say. Steven, in Eric’s eyes, wasn’t much of a planner. He wanted to go to some island. Maybe that would work. Eric didn’t know. But Steven just seemed so happy about everything.
“I guess. Couldn’t hurt, could it?”
Gopher smiled. “I’m going to go to the back and get everyone up. I’ll be right back.”
The large man ambled to the back. Steven was holding Angela on the floor, and Iggy was stretched out over the counter. Fichter was slumped in the corner with one arm over his head, crooked against the cabinet, his other arm behind him.
“Hey everyone!” Gopher boomed. “Time go get up!”
Iggy rolled off of the counter, onto the ground.
“Ouch.” He said, seconds after impact.
“Come on, grab some stuff,” Gopher said, walking over to Fichter. “We’re gonna get out of here. Grab all the cupcakes you want, because we don’t want to come back. Wake up, dude.” Fichter stirred, and opened his eyes.
“Could you get me a cup of coffee, sugar?” He said, sleepily.
“Haven’t had a fresh cup myself in about three weeks,” Gopher said, helping Fichter to his feet.
The group slowly made their way down the dim hallway to the front door, where Eric was standing, his form silhouetted against the world outside. His forearm was against the door and he was resting his head against it.
“Alright,” he said to the glass. Everyone stopped. “We’re going to go find a boat, and try to find an island. As much as I think that’s a bad idea, it’s the only idea we have right now. So that’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to pile into the car. Gopher, Iggy and I will take to the back. Angela, you sit on Steven’s lap, and Fichter, you drive. We’re going to find a marina, and then we’re going to get the hell out of dodge.” He turned around. “Any questions?”
There was a long pause.
“Could we get bananas anywhere?” Steven asked.
There was another long pause as everyone contemplated the question.
“Not sure,” Eric finally said. “I think they’re all rotten, aren’t they?”
Steven frowned. “Alright, bad idea.”
Eric opened the door, stepping out into what was left of our world. He took the steps two at a time, hitting the sidewalk, turned around and motioned for the others to follow. They all stepped outside, drowsily, and walked to Fichter’s car. Eric opened the door for Angela and Steven, before climbing into the middle of the back. Gopher clambered in on his left side, Iggy on his right. There wasn’t much room to move around at all, and Eric tried unsuccessfully to situate himself in the back.
It reminded him of bus-rides through New York as a child. It was going to be bumpy, he thought to himself, reaching for a safety belt. There was no belt for the middle, he deduced as Gopher and Iggy strapped themselves in.
“So, Dad, the paramedics never have to remove people from safety belts in car accidents?”
“Nope, Eric. Because most people live if they wear seat belts.”
“So if they die, they leave them in there?”
It was one of the few times he had ever seen his father laugh. It turned from a laugh into a guffaw; his face beat red with a tear brimming in his left eye. It rolled down his face and past his moustache. Eric was embarrassed. He had been genuinely curious about the fate of those who died in seat belts, but now, retrospectively, the answer had been obvious.
Fichter started the car, and Eric started to laugh. He finally got it.
Angela turned around and looked at Eric. “Something funny? Tell me. I could use the laugh,” she smiled. Oh was her smile beautiful.
“It’s nothing.”
“Well… It wouldn’t take much to make me laugh, all things considered.”
“Alright, well… I asked my dad if anyone who died while wearing a seatbelt was left in the car they died in. Because he said… Uh… Paramedics never had to take people out of cars in body bags that had their seatbelts on.”
The car moved backwards.
“And?”
“Well, that was it. My dad laughed at that when I was a kid, but I didn’t understand why it was funny until now.”
“Oh,” she said, turning back around.
Steven turned his head, trying to look back at Eric, but unable to fully turn because of his wife.
“What made you think of that? Thinking about car accidents is morbid when we’re in a car.”
“Oh, I don’t have a seatbelt.”
“That’s even more morbid,” Steven said, facing forward again.
“That’s not morbid, is it, Iggy?”
“Yes. Yes it is very much so morbid, and now I’m uncomfortable sitting next to you, Mr. Morbid.” Iggy said, smiling.
From the front seat, they heard a laugh. It was Angela. Her laugh was even more beautiful than her smile. To try and describe it would be doing it a great injustice.
“Alright, that’s enough, Iggy.”
“What are you going to do? Wear MY seatbelt? Cause I don’t want to die, Eric. Don’t you go taking my seat belt. I mean, look out there! This is rush hour traffic! I’ll be surprised if we even make it to the corner without getting hit by some other vehicle.”
Angela’s laugh grew louder. Steven began to chuckle, and Fichter pulled out of the parking lot, carefully shifting gears.
“Okay, Iggy. I get it. I was bein-“
“Oh no, look out! There’s a speeding car heading right towards us! Whatever shall we do? Well, I know what you’re going do to, Eric. You’re going to get killed, cause you’re not wearing a seat belt.”
Gopher started laughing, and Angela began gasping for breath.
“Iggy, I get it. I was worried over noth-“
“This is the hay-day for drivers, Eric. I’m not sure you understand just how much danger you’re really in! Crazy drivers everywhere! Remember how many we saw on the way to the station? At least seven… MILLION!”
Iggy started laughing. Eric began to chuckle and Fichter tried to concentrate on the road. His eyes were beginning to water; trying to stifle the laughter he had growing inside of him. It blurred his vision, and soon enough, he had driven off of the road, clipping the side of a building. Eric had flown forward a tad, hitting his shoulder, but it was low impact. Fichter had been going at less than ten miles per hour when he clipped the building. He shifted down and stopped the car, to laugh.
Everyone in the car was laughing, even Eric who was nursing his bruised shoulder blade.
“Oh, well I’m glad I had a seatbelt on,” Iggy said through laughter.
“Me too!” Gopher said, clapping Eric on his shoulder. Eric winced.
When it finally died down, Fichter stepped out of his car to look at the damage. There wasn’t much. The paint on the front right hand side had been scraped; there was a tiny dent, but nothing to really worry about. Nothing that would shut his car down.
He stepped back inside of the car, slid the key into the ignition, and turned. The car didn’t start. He tried again. Nothing. He looked around at his gauges, and tried again.
“What’s wrong, Fichter?” Angela asked.
“It would appear that we’re out of gas.”
“So… We walking?” Eric said from the back.
“Hardly. You three are. I’m going to shift into neutral. There’s a station up the road for gas. A gas station. I think I might be able to get some fuel there,” he said, turning around. “You boys ready to push the car?”
It wasn’t right down the road. It wasn’t two blocks. It was fifteen blocks. They pushed the entire way, although Gopher was more than capable of doing it himself. They were sweaty and dirty again by the time they got to the gas station. Gopher ended up pushing the car to the pump when Iggy fell to his knees.
“Fifteen blocks I can handle, Eric. But up-hill? That’s just… It seems so unnecessary. Why didn’t we just get a gas tank to bring back?”
Eric helped Iggy up. “Hindsight is always 20/20 isn’t it, Iggs.”
Iggy half laughed, half coughed. Angela and Steven got out of the car and helped him to the bench outside of the convenience store. Fichter began to work on the pump, figuring out how to get fuel without electricity. Eric surveyed the scene.
The store was empty in that there were no people inside. There were chips and cases of soda. Big cases of water stacked by the front door, creating a half barricade the extended halfway to the ceiling. Low enough to see inside of the store. There was blood on the floor, but no visible body. There were also spent shotgun shells on the ground, which interested Eric.
“Guys, there’s a gun inside. I’m going to go take it.”
Before anyone could say anything, Eric had taken a flashlight and opened the double doors.
It was rank inside. The air was green with the stench of fetid and rotten flesh. Whoever had the gun was long gone. They wouldn’t mind Eric taking it at all. He made his way around the aisles, keeping his hand over his mouth to keep the air from getting in. It was a futile attempt, but the placebo effect was the only thing stopping him from dry heaving. He grabbed a pre-packaged item, stuffing it into his pocket, walking around to the counter.
The thing behind the counter still clutched the gun in his hand, but he wasn’t dead quite yet. He was breathing, with a paper towel pressed firmly against a wound in his neck.
Outside, Iggy was bashing the payphone box with the receiver, trying to get it to drop coins. Gopher was inside the car, trying to rest his eyes. Angela and Steven were standing at opposite ends of the lot, looking down the hill and up the hill. And Fichter was still trying to figure out how to operate the damn pump.
Fichter was a problem solver. He had done some extra study when he was in High School, for higher-level thinkers. He was sure he could get the pump to work: Physics was somewhat of his specialty from college as well. Fichter was growing impatient.
And inside, Eric was crouched over his man. He removed his hand from his mouth, and gagged. The smell was emanating from the wound in the man’s neck. Eric pulled the paper towel away and heaved. The flesh around the wound was rotting, ready to drop off. It would have already if the man had been lying at an angle where gravity would have been affecting the skin in a downward fashion.
He noticed behind the man a corpse that was missing the top of its head.
Eric lightly slapped the man. “Hey, hey.”
The man stirred.
“You’ve been bitten.”
His eyes opened. “No ****.”
Eric sat on his haunches trying to conceive the best way to tell the man that he was going to turn. He didn’t quite know how to phrase it. Luckily for Eric, while he was facing this moral dilemma, the man stood. Unluckily for Eric, the man was now but a shadow of his former self. The gun clattered to the ground as the thing lurched forwards. Eric used its weight against it and threw it over the counter.
In the parking lot, Iggy’s head began to hurt.
From behind the building, a Mind-Melder floated around the corner.
Eric dove to the ground, grabbing the shotgun. He stood as the man-thing began to try and climb back over the counter. Eric unloaded a shell into the things face and it flew backwards into the rack of potato chips, dead.
He searched under the counter for shells and found a box of fifty. The box said there were fifty inside, but it looked like there were only twenty or so left. Eric stuck the box into his pocket on top of the pre-packaged food and made his way to the front door. He swung it open.
“Don’t worry about that shot that was fired inside guys. Don’t rush to me all at once, it’s cool.”
He noticed Iggy passed out, face down on the ground. He noticed the Melder standing at the end of the parking lot, back to Eric. In its short stubby claws stood Angela and Fichter. Steven was being pulled towards it.
“Oh, ****.”
Eric walked up behind the Melder quietly, but still couldn’t get a bead on its head. He pulled the shotgun up to his shoulder and fired one round into the things back. It jerked forward, and began to turn around, throwing Angela and Fichter to the ground. Eric cocked the shotgun, the crisp sound cutting through the still air, and fired one more shell as the creature turned around to face him. Its head and sad eyes disappeared in a fine spray, and the thing collapsed to the ground in between Fichter and Angela.
Summarily, they began to snap out of it as Eric was walking back out of the store with warm bottles of water.
He tossed one to Steven, who was the first to break out of the mental lock. One flew at Fichter, bouncing off of his chest. One flew at Angela, bouncing off of her forehead.
Iggy was already to his feet, when Eric tossed the bottle to him.
“They’re not going to remember me throwing water bottles at them, are they?”
“Yes, we most certainly are,” Angela called from behind him, holding back a laugh.
Fichter walked back to his car, shaky, but finishing the fueling.
Eric turned to him. “How did you manage to fuel the car without electricity?”
Fichter smiled. “Long, complicated, you wouldn’t understand either way.”
Eric shook his head. “You’re probably right."
“Oh, I know I am.”
Eric, Angela and Steven began work their way back to the car, when Eric pulled Steven aside.
“They didn’t have bananas, but they did have this,” he said, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out the shotgun shells first.
“Not quite the same, Eric.”
“Oh, shut up. Those are for me. This is for you,” he said, reaching into the cargo pocket and crinkling the shrink-wrap. He pulled out the banana-nut muffin and handed it over. Steven smiled and began to walk back to the car.
Eric slid some shells into the shotgun, and set the gun down on the floor of the car. The shells went back into this pocket, as Fichter started the car and began to pull away.
“I didn’t say anything this time, did I?” Angela asked.
“Oh, I heard it all. You’re madly in love with me and we’re going to get married on a hilltop,” Eric said from the back.
“Did I really say that?”
Eric smiled. “No, I was in the store the entire time.”
Angela began to laugh. Soon the car was filled with laughter, cutting through the air and heading towards the coastline.
natetheffrer
November 6th, 2005, 03:17 PM
In the beginning you spelling mid wrong, you put min. Also I think that is was odd that eric did nothing too the guy on they ground.
Tasselfoot
November 6th, 2005, 08:58 PM
“I didn’t say anything this time, did I?” Angela asked.
Except... Angela wasn't told she said anything about Eric. Unless you went back and edited the story.
MalReynolds
November 6th, 2005, 09:12 PM
In the other section, she's told that Eric killed the Melder before she had a chance to say anything. Both times, she didn't know what she said, but she's under the impression that it makes you speak. Lemme pull the quotes up.
Mal
The first encounter:
“She already knew about that.”
Angela turned.
“Is there anything else I should know about?”
Steven shook his head.
“No.”
She turned to face Iggy.
“Did I say anything?”
There was a long pause as Iggy thought about the question.
“No. You didn’t. Eric killed it before you had a chance to speak.”
At the Gas Station.
“I didn’t say anything this time, did I?” Angela asked.
Hope that clears things up.
Eyoshi
November 6th, 2005, 11:05 PM
I thought the short transition from present-time to the past was a little unnoticable, as it just didn't seem that obvious when I looked through for the first time.
However, I thought that this part was a nice interlude between the "bigger" installments. The humor didn't seem to have been put there just for the sake of trying to make people laugh, which is good.
MalReynolds
November 7th, 2005, 01:35 PM
They continued down the deserted roads, through the noonday sun, following the signs that would lead them to the Jersey Shore. Past signs advertising the fun escapism of Atlantic City; now was no time for fun escapism. They only followed the roads that had signs with the words “docking” or “marina”.
Several hours passed in the car with Iggy continuing to make seat-belt jokes. Gopher was trying desperately to sleep, but couldn’t sleep though Iggy’s almost continuous laughter. Angela and Steven were growing frustrated. Eric was resting his head in his hands, a bolt of pain shooting through his skull. All the while, Iggy kept on.
“Cause you NEED a seat-belt! Get it? It’s the law! Ha!”
Angela groaned, Steven sighed and Iggy started laughing again.
“Come on, guys, that one was classic! Classic! There is no law anymore! Get it?”
Eric turned and looked Iggy in the eye. “Yes, we get it Iggy. Some things just aren’t funny. Hey, Fichter? You want to take us to a farm so Iggy can beat a dead horse for real?”
Iggy’s face turned bright red. He shut up and quietly slid back into his seat, turning to face the window.
They rode in silence, Iggy embarrassed. Eric’s conscience began to gnaw on him as they approached their exit.
“Iggy, I didn’t mean it. It was kind of funny.”
“No, it wasn’t at all,” Gopher chimed from the other side of Eric. Eric shot him a look, and Gopher one again nestled and tried to fall asleep.
“Iggy, it was kind of funny. Right guys?”
No one answered, save for Fichter. He grunted, although that might have been a sneeze. Iggy turned to face Eric.
“Don’t try and make me feel better. I know it was stupid. Don’t worry about it.”
“Really, Iggy?”
“Yup.”
“Good man. You’re a better man than I am, Ig-“
“Don’t worry about it, cause if we get into a car accident I’m going to live.” He began laughing again. There was a simultaneous groan that rode throughout the car, not quite reaching Iggy’s ears through his own laughter.
The sign loomed in the distance, hard to see behind the sun. The glare made it look like a black rectangle. Fichter pulled down the sun-visor and squinted.
“CLARK’S LANDING; EXIT 218B.”
Below that, “POINT PLEASANT, EXIT 218A.”
“Look, Iggy. Point Pleasant. That sounds fun, doesn’t it?” Eric said in a futile attempt to raise the downtrodden spirits in the metal cage.
“Sounds fun. Won’t be,” he said, turning away from Eric and back to the window.
Fichter pulled the car onto the exit and rode into the once thriving beach-front community. Deserted hotels played guard to the beach as they drove through, trying to find any indicator of Clark’s Landing. Most of the signs in town had been taken down, scribbled over. Amateur graffiti artists had run rampant after hearing news that the military and police forces were summarily being decimated. Instead of helping others, they helped themselves by painting over any helpful indicators that would lead Eric and the others to Clark’s Landing.
Fichter pulled the car over.
“I think we need a map if we’re going to find Clark’s Landing,” he said, not directly to anyone.
“Well,” Eric started from the back, “Why don’t we just drive over the beach in one direction for an hour, and if we don’t run into it there, we can always double back. It’s not like we have any shortage of time, do we?”
“No, but I can’t take this car onto the beach. That’s running an enormous risk in and of itself. What if the car got stuck? We’d be waylaid here in this deserted tourist local. Not exactly the most safe or secret place to be stranded, either. Hotels, motels, beach houses. Inconspicuous, this place ain’t.”
Steven nodded. Angela turned to face the others.
“Fichter’s right,” she said, as he did a silent fist pump. “We need a map. There’s got to be some kind of tourist information center somewhere. Hell, maybe a hotel lobby would have a map or at least a phone book with an address.”
“I take it this means Iggy, Gopher and I are going to be doing some legwork while you all sit in the car and keep it running in case something happens?”
“Well… Yes,” she said.
Eric let out a heavy sigh. “Alright. Guys, let’s go. There’s a hotel right there,” he said, indicating to the dark monolith beside them. “Let’s get a map and get out. Won’t be more than a few minutes in there.” Eric leaned over to Iggy and whispered in his ear, “We going to run into any trouble in there?”
He nodded. “But nothing we can’t handle,” he opened the door and stepped out, leaning town and touching his toes.
“Fichter, pop the trunk.”
Iggy reached in and pulled out his bag of supplies. Eric took the shotgun from the floor and Gopher picked up a tire iron out of the trunk. Iggy handed a flashlight to Eric and Gopher, tossing a role of tape to Eric.
“Tape the light to the gun. Make things a little easier. Flash-light mod, anyone?”
Eric chuckled as he used the duct tape to make the flashlight a semi-permanent addition to his shotgun.
The doors to the hotel swung open quietly as Eric stepped through the door, light emanating from the barrel of his gun. The floor reflected the light poorly; what was once polished marble now sat covered in dust and blood. The wooden reception desk bathed in the eerie light from Eric’s gun as he approached.
Iggy scouted the ceiling for any sign that would point them in the direction of acquiring a map faster. Eric set his gun down on the counter and vaulted over.
“Showoff,” Iggy said, stepping through the employee entrance.
Eric grabbed his gun and began to look through the papers on the desk. There were some about safe-house locations that had been compromised, military installations that had been wiped out, guests in room 47 that were having sex too loudly and a band in the roof-top suite that had taken a penchant to throwing hotel property from the roof. Nothing useful. Eric stepped away from the counter, and Iggy approached shining his light. He closed his eyes and opened a drawer, pulling out a single sheet of paper.
“MEMO: To the information staff. Subject: New Map Shipment. We have to get these new maps distributed, and to the best of my knowledge, they’re still setting in a box in the back room. Could anyone care to explain why they haven’t been put in the tourist information stand yet? These maps need to be distributed today or else heads will roll.”
“Eric, I found something,” Iggy said, crumpling the memo and tossing it over the counter.
“Guys, there’s nothing here,” Gopher called from the kiosk. Eric turned his light to Gopher, who was standing the center. Eric saw a Creep climb up behind him.
“Gopher, behind you!”
Gopher swung around, bringing the tire iron across the creatures head. It fell the ground.
“Nice shot, Gopher,” Iggy said, coming out from behind the counter, catching a splinter in his finger. “Ow, Dammit.”
“I meant to do that, too,” Gopher beamed.
“Alright, according to this memo Iggy dug up, they should have some maps in the back room. Where the back room is, I have no idea. I think we should split up.”
Iggy and Gopher began to protest when Eric cut them off.
“Just kidding. Alright, let’s think about this logically. Down that hall,” he shined his light above the door on the placard, “are the elevators and stairs. Down that hall,” he turned his light behind him, “Is the gift shop. There’s a door at the end of the gift-shop hall, which I can only assume is the storage area? So, let’s get cracking.”
They made their way down the carpeted hallway, past the glass wall that separated them from the gift shop. Iggy stared through the glass, watching Creeps dance around, throwing books into the air.
“Just keep it quiet, guys. We got company on the other side of this wall.”
Eric nodded, reaching the door. The sign next to it claimed Eric was correct.
“Storage room.”
He tried the door, but no dice. Gopher stepped forward, and tried pulling the handle down harder. He only succeeded in breaking the handle off at the turn, leaving part of the knob.
Eric watched the things in the gift-shop climb to the top of a shelf, and three of them begin to push it down. He trained his shotgun on the door, and when the shelf hit the ground, he fired a shell into the handle.
The shelf hit the ground, and the Creeps jumped and began to laugh. One of them looked out the glass wall and saw the door to the back shutting. It thought nothing of it and began to rip the head off of a teddy bear, throwing the fluff into the air.
The room was dank and carried an air of wetness. There had been an AC leak in there a few days prior, and when the power shut down, the water fell out of the unit in torrents, soaking many of the card board boxes.
“Alright, guys. Start opening **** up. We’re bound to get a map sooner or later.”
It was later rather than sooner. There was much in the way of assorted crap in these boxes, mainly hotel amenities. One box had been filled with soft-core porn, ambiguously titled. More items for the gift shop, including a box of Scuba-Knives, which Gopher helped himself to. Iggy took one to get the splinter out of his finger when they had light. Eric continued to tear the room apart.
“Well, this sucks,” he said in defeat, sitting down. “Anything you can do, Iggy? You getting a feeling about where the maps are?”
Iggy closed his eyes and tried to clear his thoughts. He couldn’t with the splinter in his finger, but he could see something in the corner of his mind.
“Oh, yeah. You’re sitting on them.”
Eric stood and turned around quickly, pointing his light at the box. The top was clearly labeled “POINT PLEASANT MAPS”. Eric opened it with one of Gophers knives, and grabbed four maps.
The Creeps had grown disinterested with the gift shop. They had taken back to the hallway when one noticed the handle to the door of the room they couldn’t get in was missing. He hissed to his contemporaries and motioned at the door. They walked up, one of them pushing the door open.
“Iggy, get down!”
Iggy ducked as Eric fired at shot at the door, knocking it back shut.
“Gopher, start moving **** in front of the door. Iggy, let’s hold it shut.”
They pressed themselves against the door as Gopher began to slide boxes of books across the floor. Several books fell out as he slid it into position, and he hastily kicked them away as he slid another box. He lifted this one over and on top of the initial box, and went back to get another.
Iggy and Eric stopped holding the door and began to move boxes of lighter material with him. Iggy picked up one of the books, as the last box slid into place.
“Alright, we’re safe in here,” Eric said breathlessly. “Now, we just wait until they lose interest. Or we could go out and fight. You guys, it’s your call.”
“I got a better idea,” Iggy said. “Let’s go out of that fire escape, right over there.”
“We need to vote on the motion,” Gopher said.
“Shut up, Gopher,” Eric said walking to the escape. He slowly pushed it open and daylight poured into the room. A Creep stood squarely in the doorframe and Eric promptly shot it in the face.
The group made their way back from the alley and to the car, which was idling. Fichter had his window rolled down and was leaning out, swinging his arm back and forth with his gun.
“Fichter, what are you doing?”
“Keeping… The area secured?”
The three climbed back into the car and handed the stack of maps to Fichter.
“One would have sufficed, you know.”
“So would a ‘thanks’,” Iggy said.
“We were going the wrong way,” he indicated to the map. “It’s a couple miles back thattaway.”
Fichter threw the car into reverse and took off down the alley, backwards. He ran over the corpse of the Creep before putting it into first gear and gunning it, taking off out of the alley like a bat out of hell. He took a sharp left and began to drag down the strip.
“Is there any reason you’re going so fast? It’s not like we have a shortage of time, Fichter,” Eric called from the back.
“I hate it when people say that, Eric. Besides, this is our salvation we’re heading to. The sooner we get there, the better.”
It was a matter of a few hundred seconds before the sign for Clark’s Landing came into view. The sign itself was sky blue and was almost camouflaged against the clear sky. Fichter slowed the car, and took a left into the landing. He parked professionally in a handicapped spot before turning the car off.
“Let’s go find a boat, guys.”
They all filed out of the car, Iggy opening his new book, “The Quilt and Other Assorted Tales,” to the jacket, reading about the author. Something caught his eye.
They made their way down the pier to the boat landings. It was barren. There were no boats.
“There are no boats here,” Steven said.
“Yeah, thanks, I hadn’t noticed,” Eric retorted as he walked down one of the docks. He gazed down into the water and noticed the staff of one boat sticking above the surface.
“Correction, Steve-o. There are plenty of boats. Only problem here is, all of em’ are sunk.”
Steve collapsed to the wooden dock, crying.
“Good plan, good plan,” he kept whispering to himself.
Iggy stood at the back of the group, reading through the jacket and biting at the splinter before he finally spoke up.
“I have an idea.”
Steve stood up, furious.
“WHAT THE HELL IS WITH YOU AND ALL OF YOUR IDEAS? WHY DO ALL OF THEM WORK OUT? I DON’T GET IT! EVERY TIME IT WORKS!”
Iggy looked at Eric and then back at Steven.
“It’s strange, and even if I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me,” Steven said.
“Alright… Well… I think I’m a psychic.”
Steven stood speechless. Fichter turned around.
“Like, you can see the future?”
Iggy bit at the splinter. “Somewhat. I didn’t know this idea was going to bust, though. It’s odd. I can’t see everything that’s going to happen. But when I was reading this book jacket, the author is from Virginia. I got a good vibe off of that. I think that’s where we’re supposed to be headed.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?” Steven said, beginning to calm down.
“Like I said, I can’t see everything. Something usually has to set it off. As much as this is like Final Fantasy, it’s not quite there yet. There has to be a trigger. Like seeing my sister again. I think that did something. But most of the future is blind to me until I find the trigger.” He started smiling.
“Alright, guys, let’s get back to the car,” Eric said.
Iggy’s lower lip overflowed with blood. His smile had changed very quickly into something else, a sick grin. A tear slid down his cheek as his tongue changed from red to silver, a blade being pushed through his mouth. His legs gave out, and he slid to the deck. Behind him, a Creep stood, pulling his sword out of Iggy’s head.
Without thinking, Eric ran at the thing and tackled it, pushing it to the dock. He blindly beat at the creature, breaking its neck with the first blow. He continued to beat its head until nothing was left but a body and a neck that gushed the blood of the Creeps. The body made a splash as Eric threw it into the ocean. He ran over to Iggy’s unmoving body.
From the far dock, the distinct cackle was heard. Fichter gazed down the pier to the end, where a dozen of the creatures had emerged from a sea-shed. They were quickly making their way down the dock towards everything good.
“Eric, we have to go now. We have to go NOW!” Fichter cried out, running. He pulled Angela, who was beginning to weep and Steven who was standing speechless. Fichter had to physically pull Eric away from the body, and they began to run. Eric turned around and ran to the dock, picking his gun up, double stepping back to the group. He looked down at Iggy’s body, picking up the book, and all he could think was, “I’m sorry.”
They piled into the car and set off towards the interstate silently. They were all sorry. Eric opened the book to the first page and began to read.
natetheffrer
November 7th, 2005, 02:26 PM
Wow everybody is dieing, also why does the car not run out of gas?
MalReynolds
November 7th, 2005, 02:32 PM
Fichter refuelled in the section before this.
And yeah, Iggy died. Poor poor Iggs.
Mal
Eyoshi
November 7th, 2005, 07:24 PM
Wow, I thought Iggy was going to be one of the characters that will stay with Eric until the end. It was also pretty strange how you've eliminated one of the strongest characters even though the story has yet to reach the end.
MalReynolds
November 7th, 2005, 07:41 PM
It was something I had planned from the beginning, to offer up a psychic character and then kill him off. I'm going to be re-editing the first 10 parts and posting them in a new thread once I finish, then keep adding. I'll also start doing character pieces called "Everyone Has A Story: 'character name here'" that details characters lives prior to the invasion up until the day of.
Mal
talisman
November 7th, 2005, 10:35 PM
dunno if you've heard about http://www.nanowrimo.org but basically it's a site where they declare november national novel writing month and have a competition to see who can write the best 50 000 word novel starting in november and finishing in november. I figure you've probably got at least 10 - 15 thou here, you might as well start updating it there and see what happens. couldn't hurt anyway and might motivate you extra more.
MalReynolds
November 7th, 2005, 10:50 PM
Well, you piqued my curiosity and I did a word count on my material.
20,000. 19,823 to be exact.
And that site looks interesting. I'd have to look over the copywrite information first. But it's definitley worth looking into. Thanks.
Mal
MalReynolds
November 8th, 2005, 02:50 PM
I decided to do back-story sections for some of the characters. This one is going between chapter 5-6, and it's called "Everyone Has A Story: Wheels". The Everyone Has A Story things comes from Iggy asking people that. But yeah.
-
Ignatious Volter was born roughly twenty years ago and was an only child, records indicate. He wasn’t confined to a wheel chair his entire life; an accident when he was a small child stole away the use of his legs. His mother was driving and had installed the child-safety seat in the passenger area, negating its effectiveness. Within the span of ten seconds, his mother had been taken from him, as were his legs.
He had resided in an assisted living community for a while, his father unable to look after or take care of him due to the urgency of his job. Ignatious’ father was a marketing director for the radio station WXRP in New York, and with time, Ignatious’ father Ken forgot that he even had a son.
Ignatious was an unruly child, dissatisfied with life and what it had taken from him. He was bussed around from home to home, his father putting him up for adoption after two years. His life never changed dramatically, until one late December in 1995. The snow outside of the house was thick, the top layer ice. The wheelchair ramp had been cleared off the night prior so that he could go out and play in the yard with the other boys.
During the night, the ramp had become coated in ice. Ignatious was unable to maintain control of the vehicle as it went down the ramp; eventually, he crashed into the railing, being thrown over and into the snow. His chair stayed on the ramp, falling over.
He had cried out for help for hours. There was no one. Not even the other children were outside. Snow began to fall.
“I’m beginning to lose the feeling in my legs!”
No one was there to laugh.
Ignatious rolled over and began to claw his way to the ramp. He managed to pull himself to his chair using the hand railings. He grabbed onto one of the wheels, flipping the chair over. He sat down in it, but couldn’t make it up back the icy incline into the house; he kept rolling backwards.
He abandoned the chair and began to crawl up the ramp, finally reaching the front door. He rang the doorbell, but no one answered. Smoke began to pour out of the windows.
Ignatious was the only survivor. He was put into government care until he became of age. They helped him acquire and apartment in Manhattan, near the radio-station where his father worked. He had hoped one day to surprise him, coming into the building with a catcher’s glove. Clichéd, yes, but he was sure it would work.
It took nerve to go to the station. The rickety elevator was tough enough to brave. The tenants in the building always kept an eye out for him, lest he hurt himself or let himself be hurt.
Few had tried to talk him out of going to the station that day, but he wouldn’t have it. If Ignatious was one thing, it was determined. Once he had his mind set on something, you couldn’t deter him even for an instant. One of the qualities of being in a chair was his steely will.
He didn’t enter through the revolving doors; he entered through the side door that swung. The receptionist had been having an exceptionally bad day; Ken was sleeping with her, but refused to leave his wife. When Ignatious came through the doors, her smile brightened and she was reminded that there are other people in life that are worse off than she.
She loved helping the disabled as well; it gave her a feeling of superiority that rang in her voice.
“Hello, sir, how can I help you today?”
“I’m here to see Kenneth Volter.”
She blushed and nodded, flipping through the Rolodex of numbers on her desk. It was a façade, trying to find the number. She had it memorized; the one office the building she knew by heart.
She called up. “Hello, is Kenneth there? There is a young man here to see him.” She paused. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No. Tell him his son is here.”
She nodded. “Yes, he says his son is here.” She looked at Ignatious. “Yes, you’re son is here. All right, James, go on up. Floor 30”
He was unfazed by being called James. Could have been a mistake. She could have been reading some kind of label on his clothing or wheelchair. He rolled into the elevator, pressing the button for 30. The muzak over the loudspeaker was something familiar, sounded something like “Mr. Blue Sky” but with a heavy synthesizer and no lyrics.
The doors dinged open and he rolled down the hall, looking at the names on the doors, the carpet green save for the shadows that were constantly being cast over it. By the water cooler he spied his fathers name on the door, and knocked.
“That you, son? Come on in.”
Ignatious opened the door and rolled through. His father was slightly balding, blonde, sitting behind the desk. He wasn’t trying to hide the baldness; he was accepting the futility of the situation with an air of Bruce Willis.
“Who the hell are you?”
Ignatious was taken aback.
“I’m your son. Ignatious Volter.”
Ken didn’t move.
“You put me up for adoption a while ago.”
Ken still sat, unmoving.
“You’re my father. Martha was your wife. She was killed in a car accident.”
“Yes, yes. I know who you are.”
“Then why did you ask me who I was?”
The door opened behind him and a young child ran through, same blonde hair as his father. A woman stepped through the door.
“You might want to put in a word to have that receptionist removed. She was giving me quite a bit of sass,” the woman said, leaning over the desk, kissing her husband. “Who is this?”
“Oh, this is Ignatious. He’s Martha’s son.”
“I’m your son.”
“I’m sorry, not anymore. I’d forgotten about you a long time ago. Mary, could you take James into the hallway? I have to clear up some things in here.”
They left, standing by the water cooler. James played with the wax cups, crumpling them and tossing them aside.
“I’m your SON, Ken! You can’t just forget about me!”
“I didn’t want you. Didn’t you ever wonder how I could let you go so easily? I begged Martha to have you… Taken care of before you were born. But she wouldn’t have it. I’m sorry she died the way she did; I truly loved her… But I didn’t love the choices she made. You were one of them… I wasn’t ready for a child.”
Ignatious began to roll his chair backwards, towards the door.
“So that’s it? I have no father?”
“And I… I have no son. Except for James.”
“I expected you to get remarried, but I didn’t expect…” Ignatious’ voice caught in his throat. He turned the chair, opened the door and rolled down the hallway, tears falling down his face, onto his defunct legs.
People back at the apartment had tried to cheer him up, but he was inconsolable.
“I can’t believe I moved here… I moved here trying to get closer to him, thought we could start…” He couldn’t talk about it without bringing tears to his eyes.
Since that day, he surrounded himself with people in the building, creating relationships that were almost entirely false. He didn’t care for them; he just cared to be around them. He didn’t want to be abandoned, but had no problem abandoning.
The first day of the invasion, he was making soup.
The first time he heard of the things attacking was via his father’s radio station. It was advising people the flea the city, to try and escape. People in the building urged Ignatious to leave, his best bet was to head to Canada.
He sealed himself in the pantry while people, his protectors, tried to secure the building. They all perished. He felt almost nothing for them. Of course they would leave. Everyone did.
When the sounds died out, he took the elevator to the roof just in time to see the New York City skyline blink out, the power dieing save for a few offices that were running on generators. One by one, he watched them blink out. He turned the radio on his lap to his father’s station, but there was nothing but static.
The gunshots rang true from the adjacent building. He sat and watched the young man kill several creatures. Ignatious was filled with adrenaline. It was exciting watching someone able to fight back.
There was a click on the radio.
The door was locked. He moved his chair to a dark corner and began to listen intently for any signal coming out.
There was another click.
Someone was at the station.
natetheffrer
November 8th, 2005, 03:07 PM
Gosh mal, you have all of the stuf tie together so well, I would have had wheels on the roof then him go down some ramp that was made for a rollercoaster. Then the story would end because I would give up.
MalReynolds
November 9th, 2005, 02:42 PM
Bert Elman was born on Sesame Street. He did appreciate the irony but didn’t appreciate the horrible jokes that followed him for most of his life. One thing he wanted more than anything else was to have a new name, a proud name that people wouldn’t make fun of. When he turned 18, he planned on going down the courthouse, paying a nominal fee and changing his name to something that wasn’t Bert from Sesame Street.
His sister, Gina, had thought the notion of him changing his name was all together silly. Of course, she was Gina from Sesame street, a name that had an air about it of a prostitute, not a puppet.
Their father had gotten a job in Manhattan, supervising the construction of several buildings and parks near Wall Street. The Elman family relocated to New York in the following months, Bert losing interest in his name change now that he was away from Sesame Street.
He had moved to Manhattan when he was ten. His parents were happily married, having two children: Bert and Gina Elman, Gina being the senior of the two by four years. It was a large age gap between the children that made Bert often question whether or not his parents really intended to have him.
Gina wasn’t the best of siblings; she constantly would make fun of Bert, shooting down his ideas, but he didn’t mind. He looked up to her; in his eyes, Gina was the cat’s pajamas. Gina knew this and used his admiration to her advantage whenever she could.
Somewhere around his fourteenth birthday, Bert realized this as well. But he didn’t mind. It became a mutual idea that she would no longer use him, rather “get his help” wittingly or un.
Bert’s high school had several motivational speakers come and go, as well as Drug Awareness Resistance Education officers who would come and talk about the dangers of starting illegal substances.
Bert usually didn’t pay attention to the motivational speakers; he was happy enough as it was. But the DARE officer caught his attention when he came to speak to Bert’s class.
Officer Ned was dashing in his uniform, a moustache covering his upper lip. He seemed to be constantly blushing, friendly rather than frightening. He wasn’t portly, but built, his eyes almost shut from smiling all the time.
Gina had been dabbling in drugs ever since high school. Bert knew this, Gina knew this, but Gina didn’t know Bert knew this. As far as Gina was concerned, the only people that knew were the people she bought from and tripped with.
Officer Ned began his rhetoric at the front of the class, talking about how he joined the police department, how he had lived in Manhattan for most of his life and how he had at one point considered becoming an undercover agent, but the birth of his son changed his mind. “Too dangerous to have a family and be snitching on powerful families, you see.”
The class sighed. Everyone was bored, save for the wiry young diabetic looking kid in the back. Bert pushed his glasses up, rapt with attention, his pale skin glowing in the sunbeam that was pouring through the window.
“Which brings me to drugs and why you shouldn’t do them,” Officer Ned began. “The first thing to worry about is addiction. Getting addicted to any substance can off set your life, legal or not. I used to be addicted to caffeine, and when I didn’t have any for a long period of time, I would get a headache and my hand would start to shake. I shot a hostage one time because of than.”
There was an audible gasp from the mass of students.
“Just kidding, glad to see you’re all still alive.”
The students once again nestled in the chairs, trying to get comfortable. But as all students know, it’s impossible to truly relax in the hard plastic chairs.
Bert’s shrill laugh came from the back, alarming his classmates. Bert didn’t know why that was so funny; it just seemed like a good ploy to get the class to pay attention.
“Sorry, continue,” he said, regaining composure.
“Thank you, young man. There are several ways to get addicted to substances; physical and mental addiction being the primary two. The mental addiction is more of a craving than anything else; you can crave a chocolate bar and that would be considered part of a mental addiction. You can also crave marijuana mentally. Everyone in here know what marijuana is?”
Several students raised their hands.
“Anyone in here seen a picture of marijuana?”
The same students kept their hands up.
“Anyone in here know what it smells like?”
The hands went down.
“Anyone ever have some in brownies?”
Two hands went up.
Officer Ned laughed. “Alright, so we have some people in here more knowledgeable about the substance. It’s not my job in here today to bust your balls, so I’m going to forget your hands were up, but you know what it’s like.”
The hands went down and the students didn’t move.
“Physical addiction is pretty gross. Heroin, for example, has a huge physical addiction. You start to shake, much like caffeine, drool, and become unintelligible. This stuff can destroy your life if you’re not careful, and it will. Which is why,” he wrote on the board, “It’s good to stay away from the hard stuff.”
The bell rang, cutting the rhetoric short. The class grabbed their bags, fashionably swung one strap over one shoulder and began to file out of the class room quickly in Friday formation. Bert was the last one to leave, looking at Officer Ned on his way out the door.
“Glad you thought it was funny, son,” he said, smiling and waving.
Bert couldn’t get a ride home; no one really cared to be seen with him. It didn’t alarm him any, he knew he looked strange and gangly, especially for a teenager, so he didn’t mind riding the bus. That’s where he began to worry about Gina and what she might be doing to herself with the drugs.
When he got home, she had the familiar glare in her eyes, seated in front of the television with a bag of chips and a container of dip, a can of orange soda on the side table sans coaster.
Bert began to get genuinely worried about her.
“Any big plans tonight?”
“Going over to Erin’s. Spending the night. Can I borrow some money?”
Bert reached for his wallet. He knew in the back of his mind what she was going to spend it on. He gave her forty dollars anyway.
Gina spent the night in her room after her parents picked her up from the police station. Someone had tipped them off anonymously. When they walked through the door, she was in tears. They were angry but understanding.
As a first time offender, she was let off with a slap on the wrist and five hours of community service to be filled. She wasn’t allowed to leave the house, either; “grounded” is the term for it.
Bert was happy about it. He really felt he had helped her. As she was grounded, there was more forced interaction between the two. Mom and Dad noted how well they were getting along together, finally seeing eye to eye on things. Gina also stopped using him.
She would go on to die at the hand of her brother, never knowing he was the one who turned her in. Years passed and the bond between Bert and Gina grew.
The initial day of the invasion, Bert was at school. Gina was at home. Mom and Dad were at work, Mom a teller at Bank of America.
New reports swept in of the western coastal cities being attacked. The US army was mobilized and we sent word to other countries that we needed help. None came.
Bert and Gina hid in the basement of their building behind stacks of boxes, leaving a note for their parents should they return home. Bert doubted they would; he had a gut feeling… And his gut feelings were usually spot on.
They heard the things ransack the lobby and upper floors. Most of the people in the building had fled, but there were still screams. Maniacal laughter mixed with shrill glass shattering waves of terror. They waited for two days in the basement, making as little noise as possible, hearing the tiny patters of their feet finally leave the building.
At the next light, they went back to their apartment. It was torn apart, but there was no sign of Mom or Dad. Bert looked out the window towards the construction site where his dad worked. A plume of smoke rose from the framed skeleton of the building.
They stayed in their apartment for a few days, eating and mainly remaining quiet, hoping their parents would come walking through the door. The door remained closed.
Bert saw the flier from the window, three stories up. He actually saw a large grouping of them blowing down the street. He nudged Gina and pointed down. They carefully and quietly made their way to the ground level, stepping outside briefly, grabbing a flier.
“Big Apple Print Shop…”
“There’s a survivor there, Gina. He’s got candy, too,” Bert said, smiling. His voice had cracked, the first time he had used it in several days.
“There’s a survivor there, Gina. He’s got candy, too,” Bert said again, deepening his voice. A gut feeling again, telling him not to go.
“We’re not going. Alright, Gina?”
“Yes we are. What made you change your mind like that?”
“I just have a bad feeling about it is all. We shouldn’t go.”
“Well, I’m older. Your vote doesn’t really count now does it, little brother,” she said, ruffling his hair.
“Alright… Fine. But if we go, I’m changing my name.”
“To what?”
“I dunno. Something cooler than Bert. Lemme check the phone book.”
He opened the book to the middle, closed his eyes and dropped his finger on the page.
“Ignatious Volter.”
“That last name is retarded, Bert.”
“Fine. Just Ignatious.”
She sighed and shook her head, smiling.
“It does sound cool. Had a nice ring to it,” he said, as they began walking down the street.
“Ignatious.”
“Alright, Bert, keep it quiet. We don’t know if there are any of those things anywhere.”
He smiled and whispered, “Ignatious.”
-
Mal
Fungishroom
November 9th, 2005, 03:00 PM
I've been reading them, just all my questions and comments on the stories are already answered by someone else.
natetheffrer
November 10th, 2005, 09:21 PM
I hate countries that arent the USA, they never send help :/.
MalReynolds
November 11th, 2005, 12:38 AM
That comes into play during the second half of the book.
Good news! Done editing the story! New chapters start going up tomorrow. PM me if you want the edited chapters.
Mal
Varia
November 11th, 2005, 12:47 AM
No, screw you.
YOU should be PM'ing US.
harhar I am so a bad bully guy.
MalReynolds
November 11th, 2005, 12:57 AM
Varia, your username is officially in the next section.
Ha. Jokes on you.
Ass.
Mal
Varia
November 11th, 2005, 05:56 AM
http://www.peoplewithsigns.com/spics/mini/61175_tn.jpg
MalReynolds
November 11th, 2005, 02:11 PM
No one dared to speak as the car moved onto 95 south. Angela sat between Eric and Gopher, contemplating what exactly it was that she just saw. Eric was pretending to read the book, absently turning the page every minute or so. Steven watched the sun break through the trees and tried to think of something happy, something not the death of Iggy.
“It was my fault.” Eric said, finally breaking the silence in the car. “He was with… It was my fault. We shouldn’t… Don’t feel bad. You all didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“And neither did you, Eric,” Angela said, putting her arm around him. “There was nothing any of us could have done, and you know that.”
“No, it’s my fault he was in Jersey. If he had been back in Manhattan, he would have been fine. I know it. I think he knew it too.”
“That’s bull****, Eric. Stop talking like that.”
“NO! He told me that he never wanted to come to my Copy Shop. He said that. And I can’t help but think that he knew something was wrong… I’ve killed their entire family line… That’s something tough to deal with, you know?” He said looking over at Angela with tears in his eyes.
“It’s alright, Eric. It’s all right. We’ll get through this. All of us will.”
He looked into her eyes and found comfort in her words, smiling for the first time since he left the dock.
Eric managed to fall asleep, his head on Angela’s shoulder. The sun was beginning to fall behind the horizon, Steven now reading the book that Eric had brought into the car. Fichter yawned, tiring out. They would have to stop somewhere for the night or risk him falling asleep at the wheel. While there were no other working cars on the road, falling asleep would still ram them into the guardrail… And Angela was the one not wearing a safety belt.
“Guys, we’re going to pull over somewhere, alright? We have to find a place to stay for the night. I’m going to take this exit, got some hotels. I’m sure they won’t mind if we stay one night, on the house,” he said grinning to the back, his smile cutting through the night.
The Holiday Inn express loomed in the distance, a monolith of safety; somewhat warming in the thought of it being a place to stay that wasn’t a car or outdoors. Eric awoke, grabbed his shotgun, and motioned for everyone in the car to come with him.
The lobby was empty. The standard blood trail graced the linoleum flooring, but there were no sounds coming from the back hallways. The lights were off, but everyone had a flashlight. The lobby wasn’t quite spooky either; perhaps they had been desensitized to the violence that had ensued after the invasion, or perhaps they had just grown more brazen with each passing day.
Fichter stepped behind the counter, grabbing a set of keys for the top floor. Eric stopped him, grabbing the keys for floor three instead.
“Closer to the exit, not too far to jump out of the things decide to pay us a midnight visit. Anyone have a digital watch with an alarm?”
“I got one,” Steven said, on finger extended and pointing to his watch.
“Alright, set it for 6. We’re going to get out of here early. Don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to. Fichter, will you be good to drive at six?”
He yawned and nodded, pulling his hat off.
“Alright, let’s get to our rooms.”
They transversed the hotel lobby to the stairs, drearily climbing up, stopping every time someone stumbled… Quite frequently in the unlit stairwell. The beams of light from their flashlights did almost nothing for illuminating the way up the stairs. At last, they reached floor 3, stepping into the hallway.
Eric expected to be ambushed, to have a Mind Melder come out of nowhere or to have a dozed Creeps charge, but there was nothing. The hallway was empty, silent, but not foreboding. He made his way down the hall, following the room numbers on the doors.
“Alright. Two people to a room. We have enough for that. Angela and Steven to a room, Gopher and Fichter to a room and Iggy and I-“ He stopped. “I’ll be staying with Gopher and Fichter,” he said, frowning. He dropped the extra key he had picked up onto the carpet and moved into the room.
It was a standard room. One would think that in these times of free hotel service and free everything else, they would have picked a larger room or some kind of executive suite. At least, that’s what Fichter was thinking.
“Why didn’t we get a kick ass room? It’s kind of cramped in here.”
“I’m sleeping on the sofa,” Eric said. “Besides, you have to take a series of elevators to the VIP floor. Their fire escape hooks up with the others… Would you really want to go through all the hassle to get up there?”
“Yes.”
“Also, the Creeps tend to like things that are nicer. And if they’re going to raze the building, they’re going to start at the top floor and work their way down.”
“I think you just made that up,” Fichter said, smiling.
“Oh yeah? You got a counterpoint to that?”
Fichter didn’t move. He began to laugh, clapping Eric on the back. He crawled into the bed, rolling to face the window.
“Is that really how it works in the hotel? The VIP floors being separate like that?”
“Yes sir,” Eric said.
“Well, how do you know that?”
“I used to work in a hotel.”
“Really?”
“No. Goodnight, Fichter.”
“Goodnight, Eric. Gopher, goodnight.”
Gopher didn’t say anything, already fast asleep on the other side of the bed.
Eric kept seeing it happen, over and over. Watching the blood run from his lower lip to the dock, watching his legs go out from under him. In some of the dreams, he was the one being stabbed… At least in those dreams he felt happy in the thought that he wasn’t responsible for killing of Iggy’s family.
He didn’t want to sleep anymore. The room was quiet, small and smothering. Eric grabbed his gun and turned the light on, walking carefully to the door. He noted Gopher’s pants on the floor and shuddered, feeling very sorry for Fichter.
He swung the door open and almost fired at the person in the hallway.
“Angela, what are you doing out of your room?”
“I couldn’t sleep. Steven started snoring again… He used to do that frequently, but he had surgery. Deviated septum or something… Not quite too sure. But lately, him snoring has just been happening a lot.”
“Well, it’s dangerous out here. You should get back to your room.”
“I should say the same to you.” She said, pushing his shoulder.
“I’ve also got a gun… Makes things slightly more advantageous for me. What are you going to do, sass the monsters to death?”
“What do you think happened to my first husband?”
Eric laughed. It felt good, each breath feeling sweet in the dank hallway.
They stood in the darkness, Eric’s light precariously dangling near his feet, in silence. Angela wanted to say something, not quite sure how to phrase it. Eric could sense that she was about to speak and thusly kept quiet. He stared in the general direction of her eyes, imagining that he was looking into them. The silence continued for a few minutes until Eric finally realized that she was at a loss for words.
“Well, is there anything I can do for you?”
“What? What does that… No. I just wanted to say something.”
“Yeah, I know, Angela. You’ve been trying for about five minutes.”
“Oh, now who is going to kill who with the sass?”
Eric smiled in the darkness.
“Good to see you smiling again, Eric.”
“How could you tell?”
“My eyes adjust to the dark very quickly…”
“Oh. Oh really?”
“Mmm. I know you’ve been looking into my eyes, too.”
“It’s dark. I wasn’t really. I was just looking in your general direction. That’s all. I didn’t want to… There wasn’t….” He sighed. “Alright, guilty as charged.”
She began to laugh. “Can’t be guilty if there’s no law anymore, can you?”
“No, I don’t suppose you can…” He stepped forward, slowly, the light bridging the gap between the two. He pulled her in for a hug, embracing her.
“Thank you for saying what you did in the car, Angela.”
“It’s the truth,” she said, caught slightly off guard by the hug. “Nothing you could have done about it.”
They stood awkwardly for near a minute until Eric pulled away. “I think I need to get some sleep. I think you should too… Just… I’ll see you in the morning?”
She smiled, stepping up and kissing him quickly on the cheek. “In the morning,” she said, turning around and walking back to her room.
Eric stretched back out on the ratty sofa, content. That next dream he had was of Angela, not Iggy. He slept until the morning.
-
Steven knocked on the door hard enough to jar Eric from his slumber. Gopher and Fichter were still asleep in the bed, Gopher facing the wall. Fichter’s arm was sling over Gopher in a very loving spoons position. Eric laughed out loud.
Another knock on the door stirred Fichter. Eric fell over and pretended to sleep as Fichter realized what he was doing.
“Oh, crap…” Fichter looked around the room. “Thank God no one saw that.”
“Saw what?” Eric said, casting off the façade of slumber.
“Nothing. I dropped my… Pens… On the ground and they… Broke?”
“Your pens broke?”
“Really tragic. Come on, let’s go.”
Gopher slid out of bed, dropping his legs into his pants and pulling them up in one quick motion. Fichter shuddered and made his way to the door where Steven stood, beaming. The muffin Eric had gotten him cut into five sections, each in their own segment of torn wax paper.
“Continental breakfast worthy of the heroes we are,” he said, beaming.
The car started on the first try and slid out of the parking lot. Up in the VIP suite, a group of Creeps danced around, throwing the sating pillows into the air and stabbing them repeatedly. As the car moved further from the hotel, the Creeps began to make their way down the stairs, systematically, floor by floor destroying every room they came into.
Fichter reached down to turn the radio on, scanning the stations, hopeful that music would come pouring in. None did; nothing but static across the airwaves. He was hoping for maybe a click or some other recognition that there were more people out there other than the hunch of a half psychic, all dead teen. There was none. Good enough, for everyone was getting tired of bouncing around from radio station to radio station.
Fichter had begun to daydream about ice cream and movies. He didn’t notice the four people making their way slowly across the street. By the time he had fully regained composure, he had barely enough time to slam on the brakes. He stopped a mere inch in front of the first man, who did not falter. The man had been standing in front of the car with his hand outstretched, calling something. Fichter swung his door open and caught the tail end of it.
“SHALL NOT PAAAASSSSS!”
Angela was rubbing her sore shoulder as Eric stepped out of the car.
“What are the odds of finding four survivors in the middle of nowhere?” He asked back into the car. No one had an answer. He leaned down and grabbed his shotgun, winking at Angela. She rolled her eyes and he shut the door.
Fichter was already trying to talk to them, to no avail. He turned to Eric. “Alright, you try and reach em’. I can’t. I’m going back into the car.”
The men were dressed strangely, and after scrutiny, Eric realized that they were no men. Boys Iggy’s age, yes… Not quite men yet. Two of the four had donned capes, looking cheap in quality as if found in a discount costume shop. One of them was wearing armor, stage armor from the looks of it. The third was in a bright purple robe. He still had his hand outstretched to the car, preparing to yell again.
“YOU SHALL NOT PASSSS!”
Eric sighed. “Alright, Gandalf. That’s quite enough of that.”
The young man turned to him. “How did thoust knoweth my name?”
“It’s from the… You’re kidding, right?”
“A wizard is never late nor early; he arrives precisely when he means to.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“No, Gandalf does not kid.”
“Alright… Gandalf, who else are you traveling with?”
The man in the purple robe motioned to the rest of the group. He pointed to the two wearing the gaudy capes. “These are the Strife twins; born under the blood red moon and unto this earth to cast spells. Igdo Strife casts spells of primary offense, and Agdo Strife only casts status afflicting spells.”
“Oh. That… makes sense,” Eric said, growing angry. He hated Final Fantasy… And this was just pissing him off.
“What about that guy? The one in the armor?”
The twins clicked their heels and moved their arms in a wide circle, before parting. The man in armor stepped through ceremoniously before collapsing to his knees.
“That is Varia the brave. He conquers all with his mighty sword, which has been anointed with a plus seventeen against groundling monsters. He is mighty! He is adventure incarnate! For he is our Lord Protec-“
“Gene, stop. I don’t want to anymore.”
Gandalf dropped his arms. “What was that? Did you just call me Gene?”
“Yes, Gene. Stop. I can’t wear this armor anymore. It’s suffocating me and it doesn’t even help against them. Just help me take if off.”
Gene the Gandalf began to wave his staff around in the air, chanting in a language the Eric could only assume was Elvish. The twins moved behind Varia the Brave and started to remove his armor. Gene the Gandalf said his final magic words, eyes closed, and the armor dropped to the ground.
“You cannot stand the might of Gandalf’s Magic!”
“Shut up, Gene. Taylor and Jamie helped me take it off. Could you stop being a moron for ten minutes?”
Gene the Gandalf turned back into Gene from Kentucky and frowned.
“My name isn’t really Varia. It’s Michael Gettings. These two over here are Jamie and Taylor, but they won’t give me their last name. And that MORON behind you is Gene Torvald.”
“Oh. It’s a pleasure. My name is Eric,” he said, extending his hand. “Are you sick or something? You don’t seem like you were going 100 there.”
“No, one of the things bit me. It was a little different from all the other one’s I’ve seen. It didn’t chase us or anything. I thought it was docile, and it reached out and bit my hand. I think it got me sick. It didn’t even look like the other ones.”
“Oh… ****,” Eric said.
“What?”
“We are just venturing to the next town to upgrade our weapons and armor! For when we find a potion shop, we shall purchase an antidote and cure our fried of whatever poison is plaguing him!” Gene turned Gandalf said sharply from behind them.
“No, I know what you have. There’s no cure for it… Not even in the next town over,” he glanced back at Gandalf the Gene.
“What are you talking about?” Michael said, gripping Eric. Eric couldn’t help but look into his eyes and see the white begin to overtake the pupils.
“Zombies. You got bitten by a zombie Creep.”
“Oh… What does that mean?”
“Do the words ‘standard zombie rules apply’ mean anything?”
Michael collapsed to the ground. “Yes.”
Eric stood over him, watching the twins and Gandalf, looking for any signs of reaction from the grouping. They all had fear in their eyes; clearly they knew what those words meant as well.
Eric looked down at the ground to Michael. “Sorry,” he said, pulling his shotgun up to his shoulder.
“Wait, don’t shoo-“
Angela, Fichter, Gopher and Steven all turned in the direction of the gunshot. They saw Eric standing with his weapon pointed at the ground, a frown on his face.
“Can’t he go for twenty minutes without shooting something!” Fichter cried as he stepped out of the car.
“Fichter, watch your step. Michael’s all over the road.”
Fichter gagged and Eric turned to the group.
“There is no cure. Get that in your brains: There is no cure. Don’t let anything bite you. Don’t let anything touch you. And for the love of God, get some guns. You’re not going to last much longer if you don’t start showing some common sense. Especially now, because,” he motioned to the ground, “Your muscle is currently out of the picture.”
“We have magic and Mana on our side,” Gene Gandalf called out.
“You have bull**** on your side. You can ride with us if you want to, but it’ll be cramped. We’re heading to Virginia. You all up for it?”
“We shall not set foot inside of that iron gas powered beast! The illusion would be shattered! No, hark, we shall continue on to the next township and buy and meet women and drink ale! Huzzah!”
“Huzzah! Huzzah!” The twins cried out.
Gandalf looked at the ground. “Don’t worry, Varia the Brave! We shall be back with a phoenix down! And you shall be with us again!”
“This isn’t some role playing game! You all need to cut that out!”
“Castum deltrio MUTE!” Gandalf screamed at Eric. He motioned for the twins to follow them. They obediently began to move, marching with Gandalf over the guardrail and into the woods.
“Well… Let’s go,” Eric said to Fichter.
“Did you have to shoot him, Eric?”
“He was bitten,” Eric responded, climbing into the car. “There is no cure for that. I would rather him be gone than have him come back to haunt anyone. No one should have to live like that.”
The car doors slammed and the engine turned. The car lurched forward and into the left lane, avoiding the body that lay strewn across the street. The armor glinted in the rising sun as the car disappeared beyond the bend.
Gandalf would later pass in a bar, drinking month old ‘ale’ with the twins. The Creeps would set fire to the building, and Gandalf’s “Ice 2” spell would fail him for the last time.
-
Mal
natetheffrer
November 12th, 2005, 09:06 AM
So, none of those kids went along? If they were that stupid, how could they last that long?
MalReynolds
November 12th, 2005, 11:58 AM
Really, you'd have to ask them.
And now for an authors note:
I thought it would be interesting to contrast the situation between the two groups: One serious and bent on survival, another using the situation to play out their fantasy. While the second group was certainly not expected to be alive at this point, they were, going to show you that sometimes, it's the luck of the draw.
However; Gandalf was clearly insane. The twins were nothing but sycophants. The only truly sane person was killed because he was going to turn into a zombie; that's irony.
Maybe they had all been camping together during the invasion days. I don't know, I didn't ask them. But it's always a possibility.
Mal
Eyoshi
November 12th, 2005, 01:02 PM
I thought it was interesting how you've added to the story a group of kids who had a completely opposite view of the entire situation. It seemed very comical, yet the ending waw bitter. The final sentence was pretty cleverly worded, by the way.
natetheffrer
November 12th, 2005, 01:11 PM
I thought the story teller was omniscint(sp?), or an all knowing one. Is it in third person?
MalReynolds
November 12th, 2005, 02:36 PM
Oh, he is omniscient, he just wants you to think for yourself ;)
NOW! CHAPTER 12!
Stranger things have happened. They all watched Fichter work at the gas pump, no one quite understanding exactly what he was doing. He cut a slit in the hose, worked it around a bit, and then started into a series of actions that made little to no sense.
It worked, though. Within ten minutes, there was gas flowing out of the hose and into the tank of the car, out the handle. A liberal spritzing of gas into the air through the cracked hose, the majority going into the tank. It tool several minutes to fill, all the while Eric stood, aiming his shotgun every which way. Gopher was leaned against the car, bored.
“I wish I had a slide puzzle…”
Angela was standing, her back to the driver side door. Her faint blue sweater fluttered around her shoulders. Eric kept cautiously looking back at her, pretending that he was just checking the rear. Well, in a manner he was, just not in the protective protector manner.
“All fueled up. Everyone into the car.”
“Wait, Fichter. Let’s fill up a gas can in case we don’t hit another station in Virginia.”
He nodded, walking over to the window display, taking a bright red can down and bringing it back to the pump.
“Does anyone know where exactly we’re supposed to be heading in Virginia? I mean, Iggy was kind of vague,” Steven said listlessly looking into the store.
“What? No. We’ll know when we get there,” Eric said. “I hope,” he whispered under his breath, walking into the store. He emerged minutes later, having killed nothing with a box under his arm. He handed it over to Fichter.
“A CD player? Don’t we have to install those?”
“Nope. Hooks up through the tape deck.”
Fichter started to car, sliding the tape into the receptacle and putting in “Queens Greatest Hits Volume.” A loud clicking came on over the speakers, but that was all.
“What’s wrong with this, Eric?”
Eric said nothing, walking back into the store. Seconds later he emerged, having killed nothing, with a coffee tin full of pens in one hand. He took several of the ballpoint contraptions and shoved them into the tape deck, on top of the tape. The sweet sounds of Queen began to pour out of the speakers.
“Yeah, she’s a killer queen. Dynamite with a laser beam. Guaranteed to…”
“Blow your mind,” Steven finished. “Love Queen.”
Soon, the group was back on the road, a beeline to Virginia. The car hummed and purred, soothing sounds of the hip rock group sounding to the landscape, windows down. The signs began to read, “Richmond 200” soon enough, signifying they were somewhere in Washington DC.
“We could always stop and check on the President,” Gopher said. “Ask him some questions. Why we got no foreign aid, how we got wiped out so fast. I’m itching to know.”
“No,” Fichter said. “It seems like we stop in every state for some hackneyed reason. Let’s just keep going.” And so they did, not stopping for anything in DC. The roads became more congested as they reached Virginia, the son once again disappearing.
“Alright, let’s stop at a hotel. We’re going to stay the night, figure out we’re where we’re going to go in the morning. Plan okay with everyone?” Eric asked.
A general consensus was reached as Fichter pulled off of the interstate into the parking lot of the “Best Western”. A motel rather than a hotel, all of the rooms outward facing a community deck, leading to a set of stairs. They had decided sleeping on the top floor would be best; more scenic, able to spot anything if it was approaching. The grouping were per usual; Fichter, Gopher and Eric to a room, Steven and Angela to a more marital suite.
The dead of night a knock came to Eric’s door. He was, of course, awake, his flashlight shotgun prepared to shoot anything that posed a significant threat. He opened the door, to find Angela. He wasn’t quite surprised.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Yeah, well, join the club. Want to come in? You’ll have to be quiet. Fichter is spooning Gopher again.”
“Oh. Well, maybe we could go somewhere a little more private?”
Eric stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind him. He reached into his back pocket and removed a key to a room on the first floor. “I keep thinking that Iggy and I are going to get a room.”
Angela frowned. She took him by the hand, and he followed slowly down the stairs to the deck. They walked down under the protection of the stone floor turned ceiling to the end of the hall, to the empty room. The key slid into the lock, the door swung open. Eric checked the room for anything dangerous, finding nothing. He sat down on the bed. Angela sat next to him.
“Is there anything in particular you wanted to talk about?” He asked.
She slowly brought her lips to his, sending electric waves over his body. They pulled apart, smiling.
“Well, I could talk like this for hours,” he beamed. His shotgun dropped to the floor, the light pointing at the television, reflecting the two lost souls entwined for an instant before the light blinked out.
The sun peaked through the window, across the empty bed. The sheets were ruffled, the pillows in disarray, the comforter thrown to the floor in great haste. The door was open a crack, but not much.
Eric awoke to the sound of Gopher snoring. He smiled, thinking to himself. Had it been a pleasant dream? He stepped out onto the deck, turning to look in the direction of Angela’s room. She too was on the deck, her hair a mess for the first time since he had met her.
“Good morning,” he said, waving.
She smiled and nodded, retreating into her room.
Nope. Not a dream.
They stood in the lobby, watching the door. Eric finally walked in slowly, shotgun in hand. “Sorry, I misplaced it… Didn’t want to go on without it.”
“So, big guy, game plan?” Steven asked.
“Simple. I gave it a lot of thought last night…”
“My cousin worked in Fort Eustis for a while. They have weapons there. We could stock up,” Angela said, resting her head on Eric’s chest.
“We’re going to head to Fort Eustis. See if we can’t stock up on weapons. Maybe hold up there for a while.”
“Oh, good! Angela’s cousin worked there,” Steven said, smiling.
“He does? I forgot… Must have slipped my mind,” Angela said uncomfortably.
“Good plan, cowboy. Let’s head out!” Steven clapped Eric on the back, stepping out the front door and into the bitter October morning.
“Where exactly is Fort Eustis,” Fichter asked.
“In the Hamptons. There should some signs,” Eric responded, following Steven out the door.
It was a half days trip before they reached the Hamptons, spending several more hours driving around trying to locate the Military Transport Base. Eventually, Angela began to recognize some of the more important landmarks and soon they were on the proper trajectory to weapons.
“Some things you should know about Eustis… They train soldiers, but it’s a virtual city. They have everything; a shopping mall, movie theatres, libraries… Self-sustaining. But what we’re after is weapons,” Angela said. “They should be in the arms barracks. We just grab some heavy automatic weapons, bum around the firing range, figure out how to work them… Simple. I figure we could stay there for a few days if the need calls for it, too.”
Eric froze. “Yeah… We could do that. That’s a plan.” A plan not by me, he thought to himself.
Fichter’s red station wagon burst through the gates, breaking the chain and the lock that had so futilely tried to keep the monsters out. He drove up the main driveway, across some fields, into the heart of the base; the barracks.
Eric took point, shotgun ready at his shoulder as they began to inspect the living quarters. All of the beds were made up neatly in proper military form, boots shining at the foot of each bed. No one. They stepped out of the back of Barracks A-1 into an opening. On the other side, more barracks. A lot more, extending in either direction for a good four hundred yards.
“We’re not going to go into all of them. We just need to find the weapons, find the mall and secure a location. So… Let’s head this-a-way,” he said, swinging his gun to the right. They made their way up the maze of barracks to a series of buildings just outside of another chain-link fence.
“Arms,” the plaque outside two of the buildings read. Eric tried to turn the light on his gun on, but it was dead. They entered the first building in darkness. Angela turned a light on in the back of the group, running it over the weapons racks. They were bare, save for bolts and slider pieces that littered the ground. They continued to the back, checking each shelf, to no avail.
“One building left,” Eric said, as they stepped out.
They entered the second munitions storage facility and were shocked to find it almost identical to the first. In the back sat one assault rifle missing the barrel without a clip.
“Well… We could swing that at em’ if it came down to it,” he said, turning around. Fichter laughed. No one else did.
“I thought it was funny…”
“Wait! Look at the ground. Look at all these pieces. Almost exactly the same as the other room. What are the odds of running into these pieces laid out like this? It’s not chaotic at all. Orderly…” Steven said.
“Coincidental,” Eric argued.
They stepped out, Gopher carrying his new club.
“Well… Let’s get to the mall,” Angela said.
“Can’t see the forest through the trees, can you, Angela? There’s more inside this fence. Look, it used to be electric, too. What are the odds, I wonder? And what could be back here?” Eric questioned. He shot the padlock off of the fence, throwing Gopher’s new toy at the gate, forcing it open.
Smaller buildings, most likely for the higher ups. They didn’t expect to find weapons, and they didn’t; all the buildings were summarily tidy and deserted.
“Well… A whole lot of good this did us,” Steven said angrily. “Where’s that kid when you need him? Had to go and get himself killed like that…”
No one saw Eric move, but they all heard the blow land against Steven’s jaw. He reeled backwards, losing his footing, stumbling behind one of the buildings. They heard him fall, and then fall again, and then fall again. Eric stood unmoving, shocked at his own actions.
Angela shot him a look of deep betrayal as she rushed behind the building to find her husband. He was lying at the bottom of a set of concrete stairs, a light still on in the overhang. He was rising to his feet as Angela approached him.
“I deserved it. I had no right to say that,” he said, wiping the dirt from his pants.
“Steven, look at this. You guys! Come look at this!”
The stairs led down into a dimly lit hallway, at the end a heavy steel door. Scald marks graced the door; deep cut marks, but once again, a method to the disarray. Angela tried the door; it didn’t open. Eric tried knocking.
There was a loud click as the lock disengaged, the door swinging open. It creaked loudly, cutting through the dusk. Inside the door was another hallway, lined with shelves. At the end was a round room filled with canned food, a generator sitting in the middle. At the north end of the round room stood another steel door.
They knocked on this one. As soon as they did, the door out swung shut quickly, the lock engaging once again.
“That lock… I’ve got a feeling… It’s electric,” Eric said. “Boogie-woogie-woogie.”
The door in the round room swung open, revealing another room. A chalkboard stood in the back, a functioning computer printing readouts. On the left wall, a series of automatic weapons placed on a makeshift peg-board. In the back, a cage sat, holding a Creep captive. It hissed as the group entered. The door shut behind them.
From behind the chalkboard, a man walked. He was pale, in a tattered white lab coat, ID tag scratched and illegible. His glasses were broken, one lens cracked, the other missing, the frames bent and sitting sideways across his face.
“Ah, you figured the code out, did you? I had to disassemble so many rifles to get enough slide bolts to cover the parts of the floor. It’s a good thing, too. Only the smartest should be down here,” he started, walking over to the computer. A few keystrokes and the monitor changed briefly to an adult film before shutting down.
“I’m sorry,” Eric started. “What?”
“The code, the secret knock, you figured it out. Kudos.”
“It wasn’t much of a secret knock, though… It was ‘knock knock’…”
“WHO’S THERE?! Ha, I crack myself up,” the main in the coat said, taking a seat.
Gopher and Angela shifted uncomfortably. The man in the coat turned around to his desk, pushing a big red button. Nothing happened. He wheeled back around.
“What can I do you all for, though, getting down to it?”
“Well, your name would be nice,” Eric said.
“Oh, of course. I’m Danny Fife, it’s a pleasure to meet you all.” He extended his hand, but no one took it. His fingernails were long and yellow, bite marks covering them.
“I’m Eric. This is Steven, Fichter, Gopher,” he paused, smiling, “And this is Angela.”
“Oh, lord, it’s been forever since I’ve seen a woman. Can I take her for a spin? Just kidding!”
“Right. We came to Eustis to find weapons… You seem to have quite a few. Could we possibly have a few? We’re looking to hide out in the base for a while.”
“You can use them, but you can’t take them from this bunker, no no. You can stay with me as long as you’d like, though. I’ve got food, a computer, and my very own Creep! He’s quite the interesting fellow, too.”
“Okay…” Eric turned to the group, ushering them into the other room. “It’s up to you all. We can stay here or we can bolt; I have no particulars either way.”
“We could use the rest. It seems safe,” Fichter said.
“Not to mention secure,” Steven added.
“And not prone to attack,” Angela said, rounding out the list.
“And no one is going to attack it,” Gopher finished.
“Alright… Seems like we’re staying?”
One by one, they nodded.
“Just… Not in the same room as him,” Angela added.
Eric walked back into the room where Danny was sitting, rebooting the computer.
“I have to reboot it every so often. Such power readings, can’t be helped. Don’t want this thing to overheat, do I… No. That’d be bad. Worse.”
“We’re going to stay with you for a little while, Danny. A few days at the least, until we can get on our feet again, figure out where to go next.”
“Good, good. Haven’t had guests in forever,” he wheeled around to face Eric. “Make yourself at home. Everything in the pantry is up for grabs… Except the peaches. Those are mine. Can’t have those, no no.”
Eric nodded and stepped out of the room, pulling the door as the walked.
“WAIT! DON’T SHUT THE DOOR!”
Eric stepped back inside.
“Why not?”
“Because I want to make sure you don’t eat my peaches,” he said, smiling. His teeth were gangly, dangling in his mouth, his gum line receding. There was an audible beep on the computer prompting Danny to spin around.
“Oh my, oh my… Would you look at this?”
Eric leaned over the computer, reading the screen. He couldn’t put together what exactly it meant.
“Do you know what his means?” Danny asked.
Eric shook his head.
“Look at this. Power spike readings from another base in Arizona. That’s… I know what that is. I’ve seen a spike like that before. I know exactly what that is.”
“What is it?”
“What is it Chief of Science Danny Fife?”
Eric sighed. “What is it, Chief of Science Danny Fife?”
He smiled his toothy grin. “A gateway.”
“A what?”
“A gateway… How they’re getting here.”
“What? The gateway?”
“Mhm, yes… I should have some more information tomorrow,” he said, turning back to the computer. “This is a good day. I didn’t think I would find it so fast… Oh, a good day. Such a good day. Tell everyone they can have a can of peaches, because if my calculations are correct… Then I might soon be able to go get my own… Very soon… Even at night, going out again.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We might be able to stop them, you see. Stop them from coming in… Stop them.” Danny Fife stood up excitedly, smiling, and promptly passing out.
-
Mal
natetheffrer
November 12th, 2005, 03:51 PM
I bet the doctor has narcolepsy, thats a cool thing to have, all falling asleep n' stuff
Varia
November 12th, 2005, 11:08 PM
You killed off the best character: Yourself
MalReynolds
November 13th, 2005, 01:13 AM
I for a couple reason: I've written a few friends into the story (Fichter/Danny Fife) so I thought it would be an interesting idea for me to be in the story. Then I toyed around with making myself a regular, but then I would take all of the good lines away from Eric and give them to myself.
And I also killed you off, Varia. We're the same person! WHAT?!
Mal
Tps222
November 13th, 2005, 11:29 AM
It's interesting how insensitive Eric is to all life that is infected, when he takes the death of Iggy and Gina so hard. I wonder what he would have done if Iggy had been bitten? I already know he shot Gina, well, zombie Gina at that, but they didn't have the same bond that Iggy and Eric did.
Eyoshi
November 13th, 2005, 03:46 PM
Yes...It would be pretty interesting if Iggy were to be bitten instead of being killed. Would Eric refuse to kill the infected Iggy because of their friendship, or would he kill Iggy because he was infected? In my opinion, if that happened, he probably would've killed Iggy, as he'd want to survive.
And about the gateway, would this mean the beginning of the end of the entire story? Mal didn't mention whether that gateway was a portal that the Creeps used to arrive or if that was really a portal to another survivor base, or something else.
MalReynolds
November 13th, 2005, 04:03 PM
It's not the beginning of the end, but it's definitley going to give the plot more drive now.
I might post the chapter later tonight, because I was working on an Asimov submission earlier and I haven't started the new chapter yet.
Mal
MalReynolds
November 13th, 2005, 06:04 PM
Eric was enjoying a delicious can of peaches, sitting on the floor in a circle with Angela, Fichter and Gopher when Danny walked out of the back room, Steven behind him.
“You were right, Eric. Slapping them does wake them up… When money gets valuable again, I’ll pay up.”
“What! Are you eating my PEACHES?!”
Eric nodded, drinking the sweet nectar water out of the can. “Yeah, you said we could. You said something about it being a good day, then you went crazy and passed out.”
Danny took a step back. “Good day? Why did I say it was a good day? You all are eating my peaches!”
“Something about a gate… That’s all you said.”
“Avast!” He ran back into the other room, slamming the door behind him.
Angela turned to Eric, smiling. “You said he went crazy then passed out? Since when has he been sane? We’ve been in here for a while… No signs of sanity.”
Steven nodded in agreement. “It’s true. After he came too, he asked me to slap him again. I believe his exact words were, ‘See what happens if you hit me again, sucka-bitch. Please hit me?’ more or less.”
Eric spit out peach juice as he laughed, all over Gopher. Gopher retaliated by spitting peach juice on Eric, who in a quick turn slapped Gopher.
“See what happens if you hit me again, sucka-bitch,” Gopher said, smiling. He popped another peach into his mouth.
The heavy door in the back swung open once again. Out walked Danny with a trail of paper extending from his hand to the printer he had rigged under the table. It was still working, churning out pages as quickly as it could. The paper was perforated, the chain long, the man holding it of questionable sanity.
“The Gate! I’ve found The Gate!”
Eric sighed. “Déj* vu. Right, but what does it do?”
Danny squatted down in front of Eric. The printer made a funny beep signifying that it had finished the strenuous task of printing out insane energy readings. Danny opened his mouth to say something, but instead took Eric’s can of peaches. He swilled the rest of the water in his mouth, swallowing.
“It lets them into our world. Isn’t that amazing? Our gate technology is so far behind… But theirs… They got into our world. I’d like to shake their leaders hand… Or claw. Whatever their leader would have.”
“They have a leader?”
“No, of course not. They just run around doing things out of their own free will. Follow me, girl and boy who’s peach I just ate. Into the back room.”
Angela and Eric followed. Danny slammed the door behind him.
“Look at this thing in the cage. Notice anything about it?”
The Creep was slumped in the corner, passed out. When the door slammed, it jumped to its feet and fell over, propping itself up on one elbow.
“Is it dying?” Eric asked.
“Exactly. They have to cause destruction like they do. If their heart doesn’t get enough adrenaline, pfft, they die just like that. I don’t think they would have been able to sustain themselves for very long unless there was something there to keep giving them things to do. Odd, isn’t it? I don’t think they have the mind mass to keep creating things to satiate their own needs. Something is leading them.” For once since they met him, Danny was making sense.
“Alright,” Eric said, “What does this have to do with a gate?”
“Oh, right. Excuse me for getting so sidetracked. It’s simple, as I said earlier. It’s how they’re getting to Earth. They’re coming from their home world through this Gate, into our word, tentatively titled… Earth. But the massive power surges… They’re sending more through every day. I mean, look at this spike.”
The spike on the paper was impressive. Even more impressive as Danny let the paper drop to the floor, revealing how tall the spike was exactly.
“So what does this mean? They’re using the Gate more? I thought the damage was already done.”
“Not quite,” Danny said. “They’re moving something big in, piece by piece. I don’t know what it is, I don’t care to. Probably has something to do with making this place more hospitable for the creatures. Maybe they’re bringing the palace in for the leader… It’s really a tossup. But it’d have to be big to cause all of these power surges like this. The gate would have to be very big indeed…”
“Do you know what the Gate-“
“The St. Louis Arch. That’s big enough, man-made, simple enough. Easy to use as an entry Gate. That’s how they’re getting in, through the St. Louis Arch.”
Angela began to speak. “So, the Gate is in St. Louis?”
“No. It’s in the Arizona desert… That’s where these power spikes are coming from. They had to make their entry into this world a little more discreet than to just come ramparting in through a busy city like that.”
Eric was confused. “How did the St. Louis Arch get to the middle of the Arizona Desert?”
“I don’t have to answer that,” Danny said, smiling. “Science. Now, let me get to the thick of it, why don’t I? If someone were to, say, take these satchel charges I have and plant them at the base of the Arch on either support, it would blow the Gate. Most likely close it too. Stop them in their tracks. They’d be a snake without a head, as it were.”
Angela turned and walked out of the room. Eric stood for a second, watching Danny. In his eyes, Eric saw the truth. He wasn’t trying to pony them off. Eric stepped out of the room and Danny collapsed into his chair. The Creep in the cage began to snicker.
“Oh, shut up. All I have to do is be boring and it’d kill you.”
The Creep stood up and danced up in down in the cage, prompting Danny to stand up, prepare to throw the stack of papers at it, and pass out again.
Meanwhile, Eric was trying to explain the situation to Steven, Gopher and Fichter.
“No, it’s in the middle of the desert. Before anyone asks, I don’t know. His answer was ‘science’, but he’s crazy, so it’s really anyone’s guess. He also said if we took it out, it would stop the things from coming in. Wouldn’t do much, considering most of the damage is already done… But it’d level the playing field a little bit. Make things a bit easier on us, not having to worry about more things coming in.”
Steven interjected. “But I wasn’t worried about more things coming in. I was worried about staying alive, and now that we have this bunker… We can do that now. It’d be easy to just stay down here till I die. And then I wouldn’t have to worry about anything else anymore.”
Gopher stood up. “Since when has this been about being easy? We could just sit down here and rot, and not worry about anyone else that may be out there, but that’d just be… That’d be giving up. And I’m not about that. I want to go, and I want to help the world be a better place.”
Fichter spoke up. “Steven is making a lot of sense. I mean, it’s always been about surviving, and with that computer we might be able to find more people, right?”
“Fichter, it sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself to stay,” Angela said. “I’m with Gopher and Eric. I want to take that thing out. Change things around here… Maybe put them on edge.”
“Well… If you’re going all the way out to Arizona, you’re going to need a driver, I suppose,” Fichter said, flipping his hat back on his head.
“So it’s settled. Eric, Gopher, Fichter and I will head west. Steven will stay underground and count the seconds until he dies,” Angela said bitterly.
No one moved. Steven’s face grew red, turning away from the group. He walked to a shadow. “Alright. But if I go, I’m getting shotgun. And if I go, Angela isn’t.”
“Bull****,” she said.
“Hear me out. You’re my wife. I don’t want anything to happen to you… This sounds dangerous, doesn’t it? I don’t want to put you in harms way more than I already have,” he shot a look at Eric, “and I don’t like the thought of you dying very much. So I want you to stay here. Plus, it’d prove less of a distraction for me,” he added, winking.
“I agree with him on this,” Eric began. “Four people is more than enough, and now that we have the extra strength, bringing you along would just be unnecessary and dangerous… To all of us.”
It was her turn to blush. “Alright. I’ll stay here. I don’t want you all to have to worry about me being able to hold my own out there with the big boys.”
“I never said that,” Eric said.
“Neither did I,” Steven backed him up. “It would just be… I love you. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
Eric held his tongue.
“Alright… I understand… I’ll stay,” she said, finally giving in to the reason of the situation.
“I’m going to tell Danny to give us the charges and some guns, and we’re going to head out. Everyone good with that?”
Gopher nodded. Fichter jingled his keys and Steven gave him the thumbs up. Eric stepped into the back room, briefly, before requesting Gopher to join him.
“These guns are heavy. You take some out to Fichter and Steven. I’m going to wake Danny up and find out where the charges are.”
Gopher grabbed some guns off of the pegboard, accustomed to the weight. He slid clips into his pockets, heading out the door.
“Holy mackeral! That’s a big gun!” Eric heard someone exclaim from the other room. He leaned down over Danny and began to slap him.
“See that happens if you try and hit me again, sucka-bitch,” he said tiredly.
“Shut up. I need directions and explosives.”
Danny nodded and slid the black board over, revealing another door. It swung open and he pulled a chain, turning the light in the room on. The back wall was covered with satchel charges and remotes, the wall to the left with grenades, and the wall on the right stocked with syringes bearing the biohazard symbol on them.
“Danny, what are these needles?”
“Oh, a virus. Does nasty things. Don’t want to touch it. Turns you into something you’re not.”
“How do you mean?”
“Makes you get all bitey. Attack other people. Infect other people. That kind of thing.”
“Turns you into a… Zombie?”
“Don’t like that word, but yes.”
“You know they have some of this stuff and they used it, correct?”
Danny nodded. “But this bunker is the last remaining storehouse of the antidote.”
Eric’s face turned white. “Antidote?”
“We don’t make viruses without making cures. That’s just stupid.”
“But… But, making a virus like that is just stupid, too.”
“No it’s not. We send in one infected to a hostile military installing, it spreads. We quarantine, cure and jail. Not stupid at all. It would lower fatalities exponentially, if we had ever gotten to put it to practical use. There were the naysayers, of course. ‘What if one of the infected got out?’ And all that jazz. I don’t suppose that matters now, does it.”
Eric felt sick to his stomach.
“Why does that matter so much to you, boy?”
“Oh… No matter… Just get me the explosives.”
The pressure weighed down on Eric’s mind like an anvil. He had killed an innocent person on the road, someone that could have possibly been cured.
“There is no cure!” He remembered those words spilling out of his mouth. He remembered shooting him in the head. Gina’s face crossed his mind, briefly. He tensed, as her teeth got closer to him. Iggy firing the gun. Thank God he wasn’t alive to hear this.
Eric was, however. A thunderbolt of pain ran across his head. Danny tossed the satchels at Eric, who was unprepared. The bounced off of his chest and onto the ground harmlessly.
“Isn’t it a bit suicidal to be throwing the explosives around like that?”
Danny laughed. “No. They’re harmless without the remote. I mean, unless you shot them. But I didn’t think you were going to shoot them. Your gun is in the other room. Would you have shot them?”
“I don’t think so…”
“Alright, good. Now get the hell out of my office. Let me run off where exactly the Gate is.”
The printer sputtered to life again, throwing out a page with only one fragment of a sentence gracing it. “Cactus National Park.”
“That’s the best I can do, I’m afraid. You’ll have to find the actual Gate on your own, and the park. But it’s outside of Pheonix. You shouldn’t have too much trouble finding it.”
“Why?”
“How do you find anything on the road, Eric?”
“Well, we’ve usually just followed the signs.”
“Exactly.”
Eric nodded. “I’ll see you after we blow that thing up… Or, you know, I could get killed. I’ll be around.” He stepped out the door and into the pantry area. Fichter was the only one left in the room. Fichter was playing with the sub-machine gun, releasing the clip and sliding it back in, pulling back the slide and loading a round.
“What are you doing with that?”
“Practicing loading the gun. Your boy Gopher got enough ammo to start another World War.”
“You realize that every time you cock the gun, it ejects a shell?”
Fichter nodded. “I was going to practice loading clips, next.”
“Where is everyone, Fichter?”
“Well, Angela took off. She grabbed your shotgun, said something about not stopping her, and ran out. Gopher and Steven followed her. I decided someone needed to tell you and not follow. They’re not going to get far, either. I’ve got the keys to my car, and they don’t know how to drive it in any case.”
“She’s gone?”
“Yup.”
“Well, ****. Let’s get out of here and try and find everyone else.”
Fichter nodded and followed Eric out of the bunker.
Night had fallen, but the bunker had shown no indications of the passage of time. The base looked different in the moonlight, more ethereal and less utilitarian. Eric saw the plume of fire spit out of the gun in the distance first before he heard the shot. He ran in that direction, yelling not to shoot them.
It was Gopher, firing an assault rifle at one of the things. The gun had kicked him in the shoulder, improperly rested and bruised his arm very badly. The Creep, however, was dead on the ground. Steven was next to Gopher trying to figure out how to fire his sub-machine gun.
“Where is she?”
Steven looked up from the gun. “Don’t know. I say we get out of here, though. She knows it’s safe in the bunker. She knows the secret knock. She’ll be fine. But we should get a move on. Did you get the location of the Gate?”
“Yeah. Cactus National Park. Sounds like a fun family vacation. Alright… Let’s head to the car.”
The group, armed with heavy guns, made their way past the barracks to the red station wagon. It sat idly in the darkness, a shadow in and of itself. The interior light turned on as Fichter climbed in. Steven sat shotgun, Gopher and Eric in the back seat. In the silence, Eric could only think about Varia the Brave spread out over the interstate. He shook his head. There was no way for him to have known… It wasn’t his fault. He desperately wanted to hear someone else say those words.
Fichter pulled out of the base and onto the main road, listening to a mixed CD of classics from the eighties.
“Guys, I smell something.” Eric said. “It’s familiar… It smells like…”
He felt the gun poke him through the back of the seat. Eric froze. “Smells like nothing. Let’s go.”
Eric casually glanced over his shoulder into the uncovered back section. Angela was pressed against the seat, trying to remain flat. Fichter took a turn hard, forcing Angela to drop her gun. Eric coughed to cover the noise.
He smiled to himself. She always smelled good.
-
Mal
Tps222
November 13th, 2005, 06:31 PM
I don't like the reasoning for the gate ending up in Arizona. I hope you clear this up later on. Other then that, the character development is coming along decently, but I feel as you have Eric questioning himself far too much recently. These self doubts should be a bit farther apart. You don't want too much to happen too quickly. Also, I hope that it takes a few chapters until they reach Arizona, as it is far away from Virginia, and is a great time for some sort of side-quest. Perhaps Angela getting captured, lost, something like that. Have Eric ponder the decision of personal or best for the team decisions. Otherwise, I am enjoying the story thus far.
natetheffrer
November 13th, 2005, 06:33 PM
OOOO
Angelas a sneaky one, yes she is.
Also,
I sat idly in the darkness, a shadow in and of itself.
There prolly shouldent be an "I" there
MalReynolds
November 13th, 2005, 06:38 PM
Yeah, that's supposed to read "it".
It's going to take them a few sections to get to Arizona, but when they get back it will be much faster. I have a few planned 'events' that'll happen on the way to Arizona. This should round the 50,000 word mark before they get there, though, making up to the Gate the standard 175 page length of a novel.
W00t.
Mal
Tps222
November 13th, 2005, 10:26 PM
Well, if you plan on making this some sort of series, I hope you don't end it with the gate being destroyed. This, to me, makes the other books sound a bit repetitive. I'm sure you have some unique plan to figure this all out. Also, I hope you continue to write this to the end, as I would love to see how you decided to finally end it, pending our discussions.
MalReynolds
November 13th, 2005, 10:37 PM
Oh, I do have an ending. And now it's one long story instead of three seperate ones. It would be tedious to have three books all about the same thing, so I decided to make it one quasi-long book where their goal is these things.
I've also plotted new characters, some funny lines and scenarios... But all of those take place in Europe. Not to give too much away.
Mal
Varia
November 14th, 2005, 03:00 AM
If only you were like this with all of your stories.
MalReynolds
November 14th, 2005, 11:38 AM
Then I'd have a few more books under my belt. Or at least longer stories...
Looking back, works that I haven't finished:
"Striker Inc"
"The Window"
"The Mystical Adventures of Michael Gettings"
"Domes"
"Sunday Drive"
And finally
"The Official Guide to Girls"
I didn't realize I had started/stopped so much :-/
Oh well. Maybe when I finish this I'll get started on those again.
Mal
natetheffrer
November 14th, 2005, 10:17 PM
Please finish the official guide to girls.
pretty please
ps: italic
MalReynolds
November 15th, 2005, 02:22 PM
“Alright,” Fichter said, the cars headlights cutting across the darkness of the night, “Has anyone ever been to Arizona before?”
No one said a word.
“So… No one knows how to get there?”
“Well, you’re the driver, Fichter. Shouldn’t you know how to get west? I mean… It’s around two thousand miles to the west. Just jump on an interstate or something.” Eric said.
“Not quite so simple. Has to be the right route, otherwise our trip will take a lot longer.”
“I’ve said it before, Fichter… It’s not like we have a real shortage of time right now. This entire trip is after the fact. They already came, they already saw, they already screwed **** up…”
Steven nodded in agreement. “Just take one of the odd numbered interstates west and if we overshoot it, no harm, no foul. Simple as that.”
Angela leaned up, whispering something into Eric’s ear.
“Fichter, take the next exit you see for I-55 West. That should take us right to Arizona, dear.”
“Did you just call me ‘dear’?”
“No… You’re just going crazy.”
Fichter grunted, turned up the music, and reluctantly pulled onto I-55 West.
There were various things wrong with the trip up to this point; no one in the car had ever had firearms training for anything heavier than a shotgun. Gopher had already hurt himself firing the rifle at the base; Steven didn’t even know how to fire his gun. Everything Eric learned about heavy machine guns he learned from video games or the movies. He knew that it was a bad idea to walk into the lair of a bad guy without first checking to see if the safety was on, he knew the magazine slid in a certain way, but guns like this he had no training for. Not even maintenance.
Fichter was an avid player of computer games, specifically the “real computer simulation games” that had been coming out over the past few years. The slogan on the games had been along the lines of “We’re into realism; clean your gun or it’ll blow up”. Games like “SWAT Force 7” where the AI in the game as so expertly programmed that they would listen for your footfalls and shoot you through a door. Being that he had become very good at this game over a year, he was the most qualified to handle a bigger gun in the car… Which isn’t saying much.
Their second mistake was not using the computer in Danny’s research room to print out more specific directions. This mistake wasn’t as terrible as the other, considering the Arch was visible from some distance away, and placing it in the middle of a national park only narrowed the search to a place somewhat more specific than it had been. Danny had been banking on someone going with them having been to the park before, which is why he didn’t offer greater assistance in finding the park… It was a nice, unforgettable place.
Danny was simply sitting back in his bunker, having heard the argument between Steven, Eric and Angela, waiting for her to come back. He had struck up a conversation with the caged Creep, in the meantime, while the Creep sat slumped over in the corner of his cage, dying quite literally of boredom.
The radio station in New York had since been burned to the ground, and the Jersey station was being razed as they drove west, trying to make good time, but having to go quite slowly due to the ample amounts of cars covering the highway. If it hadn’t been to Canada, people had been fleeing to the west, trying to hide in a location that the Creeps had already scoured… The exodus’ mistake had simply been using a major highway, running into the creature’s head on.
It was rather slow going, all things considered. Eric was in the back seat, quite happy that Angela was relaxing in the back of the car. He felt privileged to know something that the rest of the group had no idea about. It was quite the honor… Although he had been sure that if Gopher had been in his seat, she would have poked him with the gun and gotten thrown out of the car.
Steven, in the front seat, was trying to come up with a half decent way to say that the music that was currently playing was pissing him the hell off. He had never been a huge fan of music from the eighties, much less pop hits and Top-40’s froufrou. Blondie, Roxette, Genesis… He hated all of it equally, and yet here it was, pouring out of the speakers and giving him a splitting headache. He much preferred Queen to this, and was even willing to risk the third, unmarked CD over what was currently playing.
As always, Gopher was trying to find a comfortable position to sleep. There wasn’t much plaguing his mind; he was happy to be going with them, happier to have a weapon and happiest to see that girl gone. Whenever she was around, it seemed to throw Eric off something fierce; a huge distraction, making him unable to focus for extended periods of time… And that was what they needed now. Focus. He smiled and curled his down, falling into a light sleep.
All the while, Fichter was trying to find a way to tell the group that if the standstill cars increased in any way on the way to Arizona, that they would have to go a different way. His station wagon wasn’t meant for the kind of maneuvering he was currently putting it through, and in the event that the clusters of cars did get heavier and longer, it would be almost impossible to avoid a collision.
Fichter also knew that Angela was in the back. The sound of her gun dropping had cued him in, although Eric had tried earnestly to cover the sound with a cough. No one else seemed to notice that cough sounded completely different than a gun dropping to a metal ground. Fichter didn’t mind; the more, the merrier. He was just worried how Steven or Gopher would react once they found out. He planned on getting everyone past the point of no return before having to spring her existence on them.
Several hours passed with the cars growing slightly more clustered and harder to avoid. Up ahead, there was an exit for restaurants, gas stations and a hotel.
“Guys, we’re going to be pulling into this rest area. I’m not doing so hot in all this traffic, and I think the exit might just be a way around all of those stalled out cars. I also should put some more gas in the car… Feel free to wander inside, pick up some food. Just be careful, alright?”
The car banked down the exit and into the rest area, flush with light from the sun rising behind them. The gas pumps stood like giants in the dim illumination, the conglomerated restaurant building looking like a desolate rectangle. The car pulled up to the giants and Fichter exited, gun slung over his shoulder. He grabbed the gas hose by the rubber and quickly cut a slit in the tubing with his pocketknife.
Eric had stepped out of the car, his gun in hand, stretching his legs. They had been on the road for an incredible amount of time. He was honestly surprised that they hadn’t had to stop earlier for gas; at the rate they had been driver, Fichter’s car must have been running off of fumes.
“Fichter, why didn’t we stop earlier? How can your car go so long without needing to fuel it?”
Fichter turned. “After the invasion, I pretty much took this car apart. Only reason it still runs is because I put it back together… I figured I’d be driving people around, so when I was reassembling it, I added a secondary tank. Holds almost the same amount as the first tank… Although, it really helps on the long drives like this.”
“Oh. That’s… I didn’t know you could do something like that.”
“Well, when there’s no more overdue charges at the library, you can learn quite a few things in your spare time.”
Gopher stepped out of the car, shoving Steven against the window in an attempt to wake him. It worked.
“Dammit, Gopher… Just leave me alone.”
Gopher took his light from the floor of the car and began to work to the Burger King-Pizza Hut-KFC building.
“Buddy system, Gopher. I’m coming in with you,” Eric called from behind him, racing to catch up. The sun was higher in the sky now, sending it’s precious rays into the building through the doors and windows. When the front opened, Eric stepped inside surprised at how well the place was lit considering the light was natural.
There was no blood on the tiled floor, no blood on the counter, no food in the fridges and no bodies to be counted. They made their way around, collecting whatever they could find that they thought would be useful, ranging from sugar packets, napkins, plastic forks and other things that wouldn’t spoil. They stuffed them into a “To-Go” bag they had gotten from behind the KFC counter.
The convenience store section caught their eye, filled with canned food and other assorted goodies that had a shelf life of infinity. Gopher grabbed another bag and lined the bottom with Twinkies and Hostess Cupcakes before reaching around and grabbing canned food.
Eric once again made a mental note for Gopher; never make him bag boy for anything.
Gopher quickly realized his mistake and overturned the bag, spilling the sticky mess of yellow sponge cake and white cream to the ground, covering the cans of peas and green beans. He sighed, walked back to the counter, grabbed another bag and began again, placing the cans in the bottom before moving to the items that would be destroyed by weight.
Eric, at this point, had lost interest in judging Gopher and was making his way back into the cooking area of each of the restaurants respectively. He grabbed the paddle from the pizza oven and playfully swung it around in the half darkness, pretending he was fighting of an array of Creeps to keep Angela safe. He chuckled to himself before putting the paddle back in the oven, hitting a solid object.
Eric called Gopher over, his light still attached to the shotgun, which sat in the car with the woman he was quickly falling in love with.
“Gopher, could you do me a solid and shine your light into this oven?”
Gopher didn’t nod, didn’t say anything, but answered with his actions. He swung the light up into the oven, revealing the object that Eric had hit with the paddle to be a hand.
“Oh, damn, Eric… Why are you trying to cook something like that,” Gopher shoved Eric in a manner meant to be playful but ended up knocking him over. He slid across the floor slowly, his head hitting against the freezer sending an echo through the deserted building.
They didn’t expect to hear a sound back coming from inside the locked doors, but there was a distinctive knocking sound coming from within. Eric quickly rose to his feet, trying to open the freezer door but having no luck. The door was large, thick, made entirely of a shiny metal. Aluminum, it looked like, but no one in the room was qualified to make that call.
Gopher walked over, pressing one hand down on the freezer door handle, the other on the wall, and began to pull. Eric brought the gun up to his shoulder, aiming just to the left of Gopher’s head.
“Gopher, when that door gets open, you’re going to need to shine your light in there and get out of my way. I have no idea how accurate this gun is, and the-“
The door swung open, surprising Gopher who fell backwards against the counter. He gasped, a sharp pain shooting through his lower back. He arched his back in pain, drawing in sharp breaths with his eyes closed.
“Gopher, Gopher, Gopher, I could use some light give me some light, Gopher for the love of-“
The man fell against Eric, who in the confusion dropped his gun. The man looked up at Eric, very much alive but bleeding from the shoulder.
“Didn’t think I’d see anyone else alive again,” the man said.
Eric didn’t know what to say.
“How did you survive in there?”
The man smiled. “Tasty Kakes, irradiated fruit… Made do with what I had in the store over there. Glad I could see some other people one last time.
“One last time?”
The man nodded, pointing to his shoulder. A distinctive bite mark glowed in the light, Eric immediately recognizing it as a human bite. He thought back to the car, back to the syringes he had packed in with the explosives. He regretted not bringing any now.
“It’s alright, just come with us. We can help you, sir,” Eric said, trying to lead the man the few feet it would take out the door and to the cure which was sitting so inconveniently a first down away.
“No… I know what’s going to happen. I’ve seen it happen before. I just wanted to see some people.”
“Sir, please come with us. I know I can help.”
“No,” the man said, pushing Eric back. “There’s nothing you can do for me anymore…” For a wounded man, he was nimble, down on the floor scrambling after Eric’s gun. He pulled the barrel under his chin, using his thumb to pull the trigger. Blood and gray matter flew back into the freezer, the door beginning to swing closed again, moving the body with it.
Along with the shot sounded a single word from Eric. He had screamed “NO!” exactly as the man had pulled the trigger, sending him into oblivion. The man’s shoulders stood in between the door and the doorframe, the freezer now propped open with a sick doorstop. Eric slid down to the ground next to Gopher, who was still fervently trying to recover from damaging his back.
“It’s alright, Eric… If he hadn’t done it, you would have just done it later,” he managed to say, trying to comfort Eric. The words were no blanket, as Eric knew the truth about the infection.
“Gopher, lets just get out of here… Grab your food. I want to leave.”
Gopher turned around, resetting his center of gravity, grabbing onto the counter and helping himself to his feet. The bag of food sat on the ground, the pool of blood slowly reaching out to touch the brown paper. Gopher quickly grabbed it up, before extending a hand. Eric did not take it, but stood up by himself. Not an act of coldness, he had not seen the hand extended… His full attention on the corpse that was half in, half out of the freezer.
The sun was completely up as they walked back to the car, Fichter leaning against the back blocking the view into the parcel area, concealing the existence of the attractive female that was stowing away. Gopher tossed Fichter the bag of food. He walked to the back gate of the car, swinging it open and sliding the bag of food along the flooring. Angela grabbed it, bringing the bag closer to her. She quietly began to rifle through its contents.
Fichter opened the driver side door, one foot in the car when he was violently pulled from it. A pair of pale white hands latched onto his shoulders as he cried out. Eric turned, Gopher turned and they watched as the zombie-man sunk his teeth into Fichter’s neck. Blood ran down into his green shirt as he elbowed the zombie in the sternum, sending it backwards. Gopher and Fichter fired at the same time, on this occasion, Gopher having properly shouldered his gun. Fichter let loose a spray and fell to the ground, using the heated barrel of his gun to help cauterize the wound.
The zombie fell to the ground, now missing a good part of its shoulder, hand and skull.
Gopher helped Fichter to his feet as Eric stood, watching the encounter, weapon dangling by his side. Fichter pulled his gun up to his chin, smiling.
“Sorry, Eric.”
His finger was on the trigger. Eric snapped out of it.
“WAIT!”
“What?”
“Don’t… Do that just yet… We still need a driver… And we don’t know how long it’s going to take you to turn in either way… ‘Sides, I don’t want to lose a friend like that.”
Fichter smiled again, and nodded, opening the car door. He sat down again, turning the key in the ignition and wincing as he slid his seat belt on as it brushed over the burned and bitten flesh.
Gopher took his seat behind Fichter, Steven still asleep. Eric stood outside the car, thinking to himself about the consequences of telling them that it was a curable disease… They would think less of him for killing those zombies. He would think less of himself allowing them to think less of him.
The best course of action came to mind as he opened the car door and sat down. No one would have to know if he was very careful the next night. He smiled to himself as the car pulled out of the rest area, back onto the highway.
Fichter had been right. The rest area had taken them around most of the traffic, but dead cars still spotted the road like a higher being had a broken pen, letting the ink drip onto the path. Fichter expertly dodged the cars, which began to dissipate a mile up the road.
In the back of the car, Angela silently ate a Twinkie, the first food she had had in over a day. Steven snorted, waking up to the pleasant sound of no music in the car. It was deathly silent as Fichter drove, Gopher sat, gun trained on him in case he turned, and Eric regretfully thinking about what he would have to do the next night.
“What… Did I miss something?” Steven asked, yawning.
-
Mal
Tps222
November 15th, 2005, 02:40 PM
Nice, only problem I saw was this
A distinctive bite mark glowed in the light, Eric immediately recognizing it as a human bite.
I assume that is supposed to read Creep?
MalReynolds
November 15th, 2005, 03:05 PM
Nope. Human zombie bit him.
But good eye.
Mal
Tps222
November 15th, 2005, 03:17 PM
So, in the bunker, the only one to hear about the vaccination was Eric? You would think more people would be around him.
MalReynolds
November 15th, 2005, 04:23 PM
He was getting the explosives from Danny, Angela was in the process of running away with Eric's gun, Fichter was the only one present in the bunker, AND he was two rooms away.
No one else knows :(
Mal
Tps222
November 15th, 2005, 04:26 PM
I don't see this crazy backround that Steven had beforehand. Do you plan on writing one of those backstory things on him?
MalReynolds
November 15th, 2005, 04:30 PM
Permitting. His will be shared with Angela's, though.
I'm leaning more towards malicious than crazy now. I also introduced them a lot earlier than I thought I would, so I think malicious would fit better.
Mal
Tps222
November 15th, 2005, 04:37 PM
How did Angela know how to get to Arizona? Will that be explained in the backstory? Also, why the whole "Take as much time as we need" attitude. It doesn't seem realistic at all. I mean, in that situation, the quicker these things stop coming in, the better. Danny even said that they are transporting something big, I'm sure that would cause haste. Can a car really work on 2 gas containers? I think if so, all cars would have that implemented.
MalReynolds
November 15th, 2005, 04:42 PM
My friend rigged his station wagon with 2 fuel containters because he was getting **** mileage and didn't want to stop for gas every other day, so yes.
The "take as much time as we need" attitude isn't exactly that; One or two days isn't going to set them back too much at all.
And yes, Angela knowing will be explained in her backstory. Or after she's outed to the group.
Mal
Chromer
November 15th, 2005, 06:50 PM
How do you generate so much buzz for your story Mal? Mine is barely chugging along. :(
nickadeemus
November 15th, 2005, 10:02 PM
“Gopher, could you do me a solid and shine your light into this oven?” Favor?
And TPS, you've never seen a truck with two tanks and the switch on the dash? Sure it was built that way, but that's not to say that someone can't modify their own car with the right know-how.
MalReynolds
November 15th, 2005, 10:27 PM
I've heard the expression "Do me a solid" before. The word "favor" is implied. Now that you know, I want you to use the phrase tomorrow when asking for a favor.
If you don't get your ass kicked, awesome.
Mal
natetheffrer
November 19th, 2005, 10:10 PM
Ive been waiting too long mal, lets go!!
MalReynolds
November 19th, 2005, 10:13 PM
Sorry, I started work this week. It's not for nothing; I haven't forgotten about the story or you guys or anything, I've just been completley wiped out the last few days. Alternativley, I have Sunday off, so you guys can expect a full update then =)
Six pages a day was pretty tough, too, but I should have a new one up tomorrow.
Mal
natetheffrer
November 19th, 2005, 10:14 PM
Okeydokey, glad to see you working.
MalReynolds
November 19th, 2005, 10:22 PM
Yeah, I'm part of a street promotion crew for New York's #1 standup comedy club. It's pretty nice, but the hours are long and it's very cold outside, so it's been taking a toll on me this week. But all is good. New chapter tomizzle.
Mal
Tps222
November 21st, 2005, 05:21 PM
Anyway I can recieve the updated version of the previous chapters, I would like to read them as if I was reading a book. I'm sure it will hit different than a stop and go sort of thing.
Varia
November 23rd, 2005, 09:04 PM
So did you mean you were going to post a new chapter, or just write one? "Tomorrow" is far past. :(
MalReynolds
November 23rd, 2005, 10:31 PM
Sorry, sorry. I'm going to write one for Thanksgiving and put it ut it up. I've written a few more things, non Creep World, self contained stories, but I'll get back to this tomorrow.
Honest.
Mal
Varia
November 23rd, 2005, 10:37 PM
Come on guys! The apple tastes good!
Honest.
...
Tps222
November 24th, 2005, 07:50 PM
He doesn't have to write for us Varia, don't be so ungrateful.
Varia
November 25th, 2005, 12:15 AM
Yes he does.
ddrruler
November 25th, 2005, 09:49 AM
It's the day after thanksgiving.
Tps222
December 1st, 2005, 06:38 AM
Bump for reminder, not pushing for a new one.
MalReynolds
December 1st, 2005, 12:59 PM
Before the day was done, Steven caught up on the entire goings on inside of the rest station, up to and including the biting of Fichter, who was still on his “A” game. Quiet desperation filled the back area of the car as Angela struggled to stay hidden and silent with a cramp growing in her leg; as Eric stewed about how to handle the situation of an infected friend.
His opportunity to deal with the problem came later that night, after they had decided to call it a day and sleep on the side of the road, lighting a fire. Eric volunteered to be watchman, although he knew exactly what he was going to do, and it wasn’t necessarily watch.
Everyone lay passed out around the fire as Eric stole away back to the car, opening the hatch with the utmost care so as not to wake the others. He grabbed a satchel charge, carefully unclasping the clasp and flipping the tan covering off, revealing plastic explosives and a carefully placed set of syringes.
“What are you doing?”
Damn. Eric had forgotten Angela was staying with the car.
“Making sure we have explosives.”
“You know we have explosives, Eric. What are you doing?”
Eric sighed. “Taking care of business. Working overtime.”
“Wait-“ her voice was cut off as he swung the gate shut loudly, slinging the charge over his shoulder. Gopher stirred, reaching for his gun, but did not awaken. Steven was fast asleep and Fichter had broken into a fever at some point in the night. Had he been awake, he would have killed himself despite the protest of everyone in the car.
It was Fichter’s belief that Eric could learn stick shift and driving the rest of the way to Arizona would be no problem. If not Eric, then Steven, although Eric seemed like the natural choice to replace Fichter as driver. But no matter, he was asleep now, dreaming human dreams and none the wiser as Eric crept up to him.
Eric removed one of the syringes from the satchel and grabbed Fichter’s arm quietly, in the darkness, trying to find the vein. Fichter opened his eyes as Eric plunged the needle into the arm of the half asleep young man.
“HEY! WHAT IS THAT!”
“You had a bee on you, and I just,” he tossed the syringe into the fire behind himself, “Swatted it away. It must have bitten you already, or stung you or something. Guess I failed as the watchman, huh? Let a bee into the encampment?”
Fichter rolled over, unsatisfied with the answer. Bees took it upon themselves during Fichter’s youth to sting him several times, especially after he rolled his lawnmower over a nest that was carefully hidden in a pile of leaves. What he felt did not feel at all like a bee stinger shooting into his skin. It felt like a liquid had been forced into one of his veins, but it didn’t matter. “Maybe he’s trying to kill me in my sleep,” Fichter thought to himself, closing his eyes again. “Save me the trouble.” Those were his last thoughts before sleep overtook him once again.
The light in the wagon turned on as Angela climbed over the seat and opened the back door, stepping out into the night. She carefully made her way to Eric, silently sitting on a rock, gun over his lap, watching the flames dance in the night.
“Eric, what was that?”
“What was what?”
“What was in the bag of explosives?”
“Explosives, now get back in the car before you wake everyone up.”
“What did you do to Fichter? Did you kill him?”
“No. Go back to the car, please.”
“Tell me what the hell is going on!”
Gopher rolled over into the fire, eyes shooting open as the flame began to eat at his shirt. He screamed in anguish, rolling back over on the dirt several times, extinguishing the flame. Eric and Angela watched silently as the giant put the flames out.
“Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Hey, Eric. Angela. Did you see that? I was on fire!”
Eric couldn’t speak; he nodded, barely able to muster the strength to do that. Fear hadn’t taken him for Gopher’s safety, but it was only a matter of time before he realized that there was one more person with them then they had taken off with. What doesn’t belong here?
“Three, two, one,” Eric thought, closing his eyes and waiting.
“HEY! ANGELA! What are you doing here?” Gopher boomed, waking Steven up.
“Bingo,” Eric smiled grimly, rising to his feet.
“Angela? What are you doing out here? I thought we left you back at the base?”
“You did, but I didn’t want to stay. First…”
“Stop,” Steven interrupted. “Why are you here? What are you doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed? What are you doing? Why do you even want to be out here?”
“Steven, stop,” Angela answered. “First, I wanted to come along. I didn’t have any say in the matter. You all acted like I can’t protect myself. Well I can. I don’t need you, Steven, to baby me and fawn over me and worry over me all the time. I’m not your property, so you can back off.”
Steven began to speak, but caught the words in his mouth as Angela made a quick hand motion for silence.
“I didn’t want to sit back in some base and wonder if the person I loved was coming back. I couldn’t take the stress that comes along with the job of waiting, and I think you could appreciate that, Steven, of all people. You all didn’t even know how to get to Arizona before I told Eric-“
Eric winced.
“To take I-55.”
“Eric knew? Since when? Eric, how long have you known?”
“I’m just as surprised as you are, Steven.”
“Bull****. How long have you known.”
“Since we set out. I saw her in the back and didn’t say anything. Didn’t want to cause any trouble, Steven.”
“Didn’t want to cause trouble? Oh, all right, good. Keep on then, don’t clue us in on anything, Eric. Please, continue to keep secrets from the group, because God knows that we need to be hiding information from each other this late in the game.”
Fichter sat up. “Would you all please shut up, I’m trying to- ANGELA?!”
“Yes, Fichter, my wife is here. Isn’t that a happy coincidence? I thought she was safe back at the base, and here she comes, hiding from-“
“Safe at the base? Are you a moron? You were going to leave me with Fife, and if you hadn’t noticed, he wasn’t exactly the sanest person I had ever met. He might be fine, but do you want to take that risk with me, your wife?”
Gopher leaned over to Fichter, whispering in his ear, “Oh, looks like they’re having a spat. Maybe we should give them a little room.” Fichter chuckled.
“I just didn’t want you to get hurt, Angela. For the love of God, Fichter has been bitten, Eric has been attacked-“
“Since when has that been new?”
“Eric has been attacked, Gopher has been attacked, and I’m the lucky one here. I didn’t think we would make it back, and I didn’t want to put you through that. Now, we have to take you back before you get hurt.”
Fichter rose to his feet, growing dizzy as he stood. “We can’t do that. We’re already a few days out here. Taking her back would just be too much right now, considering I probably won’t be around for the return trip,” he pointed at his scar, which had stopped oozing.
“We have to vote, then,” Steven said, all of a sudden becoming democratic. It was a fruitful attempt to rectify the situation that he had considered extremely bad that had just gone to worse. “We’ll vote, majority rules, and then we send her back or she stays. Alright, who wants her to go back?”
Gopher and Steven raised their hands.
Eric laughed. “Gopher, why do you want her to go back?”
“Oh, I don’t really. I just knew you guys were going to win the vote and I didn’t want Steven to feel all alone on the matter.”
Steven released a frustrated grunt and sat down on the ground, grabbing a stick and poking the fire. “Alright, but if something happens to you, you can’t hold me, Eric, Fichter or Gopher responsible. Whatever happens, you’re bringing it down on yourself.”
Angela sighed. “Nothing is going to happen to me, Steven. I can take care of myself.”
“Oh, please. You don’t even have a gun.”
“Yes, I do. It’s in the car. Eric’s shotgun, remember?”
Steven flung the stick in the distance, briefly illuminating the sky before the stick hit the ground, burning faintly on the horizon. “I’m going to sleep. Wake me up when we’re ready to leave, alright?” The disgruntled man stretched out, feet towards the fire, head towards the burning twig.
“I think he’s right. We all need to get some rest. Tomorrow is a big day. Anyone know where exactly where we are?”
“On the way to Arizona, Eric,” Gopher coughed. “Thought you knew that.”
Eric’s shoulders heaved as he let out a heavy sigh. “Everyone, just get some rest. Tomorrow will be better, especially for you, Angela, considering you can actually take a seat at some point instead of riding around in the back like the kid in the family no one wants to talk about.”
She laughed quietly, lying down on the ground across the fire from Steven, the burning flames creating a barrier between their problems, and for the first night since the trip began, she slept soundly.
-
The strange light woke her up, coming from the distance. Eric was already alert, gun raised, the faint circle of luminosity creeping towards them slowly. A strange machine sound accompanied the light as it traversed the distance, bouncing slightly and creating a low rumbling sound.
“What is that,” Angela leaned over to Eric. “Do you know what it is?”
“Well… I think I have an idea. I don’t think it’s dangerous, either. Just hold tight for a second,” he clicked his light on, moving beside the burning embers of the now dead fire to Gopher.
“Gopher, wake up. What does that look like?”
Gopher strained his eyes, watching the bobble move in the expanse. The rumble was growing louder as the ball stopped moving. The noise died down and the light shut off. Gopher grew excited.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“What do you think it is, Gopher?”
“C’mon, Eric… You should know.”
“I should, but I don’t. What is it, Gopher?”
Gopher grabbed his light, turning it over the group, rousing them from their slumber.
“What are you doing, Gopher?” Fichter asked quietly. He was feeling better, but didn’t want to count his chickens.
“Everyone, grab their gun and follow me. I’ve got something to show you,” he grinned, holding the light under his chin, changing his face from the moon shaped oaf to a twisted grin. “I think you’ll be happy, too.”
Eric took point, walking past the burned out twig and making his way to where they last saw the light. Angela walked in the middle, the gun heavy in her hands, with Steven bringing up the rear, alert yet tired.
Eric’s light beam bounced over the pebbles that lined the ground as he carefully stepped over pieces of twisted metal and discarded branches. A shape begin to grow in his eyes as he looked ahead, trying to mentally figure out what the light belonged to. He broke out into a cold sweat, thinking about Danny’s words, if this could be the thing they were bringing in.
The large, bulky item was completely dark, but the outline was visible against the backdrop of nature. It was long, like a Lincoln Log, with a rounded end. Several pieces composed this object, lengthy and attached at intervals by a small coupling.
Stopping in his tracks, Eric’s heart skipped a beat.
“Gopher, is that…”
“Yes it is, yes it is…”
“What, Eric? What is it? Fichter? Angela? What is it?”
“Shut up, Steven, it’s…”
“I know what it is,” Fichter said.
The light came back on, bathing the ground in solid light. Systematically, lights emerged in all the pieces, creating a chain of windows and doorways.
“Oh, crap,” Steven said, “It’s a-“
“Yessir,” Gopher said. “A train.”
It stood on the tracks unmoving, the lights blinking on and off as Eric approached the door in the main car. A solitary Creep stood inside the conductor’s chamber, fiddling with levers and pressing buttons. He shrieked once before the small explosion of a bullet threw him to the wall.
“Well, this is quaint,” Eric said, motioning for the rest of the group to follow. Gopher stayed outside, looking over the car model, coming across the faded decal on the side.
“Hey, guys, take a look at this!”
Eric stepped down and out of the train, making his way over to Gopher. His light slid across the indentation on the side of the train revealing the words, “Arizona Express.”
“So, this is an express train to Arizona?” Eric asked. Such a Gopher question.
Gopher nodded.
“Well, this is rather convenient, I’ll say,” Fichter stepped out of the car, joining with Eric. Steven followed Fichter as Angela examined the conductor’s office, pouring over the room looking for a map.
She carelessly lifted the “Destination Guide” book and tossed it across the room, half the pages torn from the binding. It hit the acceleration lever solidly and the train began to move.
“Why is the logo moving,” Gopher asked.
“It’s not… The train is moving! ANGELA!” Steven cried out, running to catch up with the conductor door. The train continued to gain speed as Angela fervently grabbed the acceleration lever and pulled towards herself, snapping the bar in half.
“Good. A quality train,” she thought dismally to herself as it picked up speed, moving along the almost hidden track into the distance.
Eric bolted back to the car, pulling Fichter along with him.
“This is your fault, Eric! She’s going to… And it’s your fault! What are you doing? Running away from your problems, Eric? ANSWER ME!”
“Steven, shut up,” Eric said, sliding into the shotgun seat. “We have a train to catch.”
-
Mal
ddrruler
December 1st, 2005, 03:51 PM
Very nice.
Eyoshi
December 3rd, 2005, 11:01 PM
Oooh, long chapter.
So, I smell a fast-paced next chapter. Seeing that Eric's going to get on that moving train makes it interesting.
MalReynolds
December 27th, 2005, 10:48 AM
The old station wagon cut across the desert floor at speeds unimaginable to all occupants of the vehicle, trying to keep track of the train that was rapidly gaining more ground into the distance. The occupants of the vehicle didn’t worry; the train was following a track and even if it completely disappeared beyond the horizon they would be able to locate the train with relative ease by following the metal lacing on the ground.
Steven sweat profusely from the back seat, stuttering out insults and half curses towards Eric about his wife and why he didn’t mention her. Conspiracy theories began to fill his addled mind, thinking of that night at the hotel where Angela went out for some air, what could have happened? Did she love him? Did she still love Steven?
Eric was calmly reloading his gun, sliding bullets into the magazine efficiently and quietly as Fichter’s hawk eyes scanned the horizon, following the trail of dust kicked into the air by the train. He didn’t say anything, but it had been several minutes since he had last clearly seen the train racing along the track; since then it had disappeared.
-
Over the next hill, in the cabin of the train, Angela crouched, clutching her shotgun against her shoulder, nervous. The first time she had ever been nervous on this trip, the first time she had been completely alone. She closed her eyes and hoped that they would just go ahead and blow the gate up, leave her alone. She could fend for herself and they had a job to do.
Angela quietly rose to her feet, looking around the cabin, kicking the broken lever and sending it spinning across the floor of the train, hitting the far wall with a dull thunking sound. A paper fell from the wall onto the floor as the lever hit, the words across it small.
“Emergency Braking Procedure: In the even of train malfunction, use intercom and alert staff in caboose of train. Emergency brake is located in the back of the train, past the kitchen.”
Calling all of her resolve, Angela quickly opened the door to the first car. She hadn’t counted, and this wasn’t a passenger train, so she really had no idea how to gauge the distance to the final car where the emergency brake was located.
The car she stepped into was bare, save for three benches and what looked to be the conductor’s living quarters. The door was slightly ajar, blood on the floor, the body of the conductor slouched over the single bed that adorned the room. He was stripped of all clothes save for his shoes, the papers in his room in complete disarray.
She moved on quickly, knowing that stepping into the room would invite in more trouble than she could possibly want… All deviations from the set path never ended happily, she thought to herself. Her trip to Europe was fine, but the feeling of excellene deserted her when she returned home to fine her husband had been cheating on hre.
“Well, I thought that’s what you were going to be doing in Europe, Angela!”
Angela had had nothing to say to that. She had wanted a divorce at the time, but when Steven wanted something, he could be persuasive. He made her think of all the good times they had together, and after forgiving him, she had begun to feel guilt for the situation, just as he had planned. Living with Steven was like living with the ultimate guilt trip, except the sex was worse with Steven.
Angela opened the door at the end of the car to be greeted with the loud whooshing sound of the landscape passing her on either side. In front of her, a rickety ladder and a car bed full of coal.
She swallowed, feeling all of the pressures of the day escape in a single click that was lost to the wind as the door closed behind her. She turned around and tried to open it, to no avail. It was locked.
“I can always shoot the door open,” she thought to herself as the began to climb the ladder. “I can always run away from my problems,” she smiled sadly to herself as she began to traverse the bed of coal, the loose pieces tumbling off of the sides and making her incredibly uneasy.
“Why is this train moving so fast?” Angela thought to herself briefly as she ducked down, shearing the wind resistance.
-
Steven had finally managed to verbally berate Eric to the point that Eric was getting upset, offended, and most importantly, pissed off.
“Couldn’t have jumped on the train, Eric? Too busy playing the hero, chasing after the train, Eric? Couldn’t have gone after her?”
“She’s your wife, Steven! What about you? You were ready to let the train go!”
Steven moved back in his seat. “I see how it is.”
An empty sentence spoken by an emptier man.
“Steven, you should just calm down. There was nothing any of use could have done to stop the train. Throwing blame around isn’t going to catch us up any quicker.”
Steven leaned forward, a blue vein popping out of his neck. “Yeah, well it’ll sure make me feel better!”
Eric swung around, as best he could in a car with those dimensions, and brought his fist within an inch of Steven’s face. If Eric had felt any responsibility up to this point, he was vindicated as Steven showed the mark of a true coward.
Steven gasped and said “Ow,” even though the fist never connected. Eric slid back down in his seat as Steven looked from side to side, not at all surprised to see Gopher sleeping.
Fichter leaned over to Eric quietly as Steven was reassessing the situation. “Bad news, Eric. We lost the train.”
Eric smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Just keep following the tracks. We’ll find her. I know we will… I’ve got a feeling.”
-
Angela was dangling off of the side of one of the coal cars in the middle of the train when Eric expressed his hunch to the group. Angela, of course, could not hear him, but it probably wouldn’t have helped, all things considered. She tossed her gun back onto the coal and slowly shimmied to the other side, her fingers red and sore from gripping the top of the metal car. She reached the ladder on the far end.
A Creep opened the door and quickly pulled her leg, trying to pull her into the car behind it. She swung out with her left foot, missing the creature and landing her leg on its shoulder. She pulled her foot forward, bringing the creature onto the car coupling. It lost its footing and fell under the train, shrieking.
The gun was covered in coal dust as Angela lifted it and moved back to where the Creep had tried to pull her in. She hadn’t gotten a chance to look at it, but it had been wearing the conductor’s clothes, traipsing around the train, recognizing the importance and formality of such fine wear.
Angela, for the first time since she set foot on the train, looked at the coupling between the cars. They were locked tight. She reached down and tried to pull the pin to uncouple the old cars, but it wouldn’t budge. They were rusted together, in a death grip, refusing to separate.
“Till death do us part,” she grimaced, walking into the next car. It appeared to be the dining car, tables set up and people hunched over them. Workers with dirty clothes eating off of table without tablecloths, plates scattered along the floor and forks sticking out of the common man. It was a grisly sight, but to one who had seen so much death, it made no further impression on her. All she could do was look under the tables and try to see where the next threat was coming from.
There was nothing under the tables. “Almost there,” she thought to herself, walking carefully between the tables and stepping quietly over the bodies, making her way to the back door, hoping that it would be the last door.
-
Steven had finally taken the hint and sat in the back, silent, stewing in his own self pity. His aggression was mislaid. He did not know it, but he was angry at himself instead of Eric. He was angry that he let his wife slip away like that, he was angry that she would have the audacity to sleep with someone else, he was angry that he did not control her the way he had originally thought. It was upsetting to him that he did not have the absolute possession that he so wanted, that he did not have a hold over her like he thought.
He was also upset at himself because for the first time since he laid eyes on her, he was in love with her again. It takes so little to envoke such old feelings, but the separation anxiety did the trick. He thought of her smiling and that, in turn, made him smile. If he saw her again, he would let her know he was sorry, he would let her know that everything was going to be all right. He would be the hero that she was looking for.
These feelings were pushed back again by the anger at Eric, for Eric let her slip away, for Eric, in all likelihood, slept with her, and because Eric was the one person in the world that let Steven’s hold over Angela dissolve into a cloud of springtime-like emotion.
Fichter turned the music on the CD player down, trying to hear the train. There was the steady chugging in the distance, and the faint sound of echoing gunshots.
-
The caboose had been absolutely full of them. It had taken a fair amount of strategy to kill them all without being hit by flaming knives or short swords. She had swung the door open and been greeted by the smiling faces of eight tiny creatures that were all pulling on separate levers that lined the wall. She had shut the door as the first volley of knives hit and swung it open firing one shot. Around the corner she ducked as a second volley of knives flew in her direction. She doubled back to the dining cars, the creatures hot on her heels. She threw the body of a short man off of the table and flipped it, hiding behind.
One creature vaulted over the table and was met quickly by her shotgun pointing up. Two more tried to flank her, but she fed them both barrels. The remaining four tried to move the table from the wall, but Angela stood and fired, taking down two. She cocked the gun and fired one more shot, hitting the creature on the left and sending it spinning across the floor. The gun clicked empty as the last creature dove at her, knife drawn.
She swung the gun like a bat, catching the Creep in the gut and sending out of the window, onto the moving ground below.
-
Fichter knew they were catching up when he saw the body of the Creep on the ground. The train was stopped in the distance, the lights off.
-
Angela had pulled all of the levers, cutting the power to the train and stopping it at the same time. It was too dark to see her way out, so she sat and waited.
-
Eric clambered out of the car, racing the middle of the train. “Alright, everyone, we’re going to split up and search this thing. I’m going to take the front end, Fichter, I want you to check all the coal beds, Gopher, Steven, check the back area. If she’s alive, we’ll find her.”
Fichter climbed onto the top of one of the coal cars, noting the footprints on the ground.
Eric walked into the conductor’s cabin and made his way through to the sleeping quarters for the man that used to run the train. He saw his body slumped over the bed and stepped into the room. The same memo that Angela had read on stopping the train lay on the desk.
His heart raced. If she was alive, that’s where she would be.
-
“Gopher, I want you to take the dining car. I’ll take the caboose. There’s three cars between us, we’ll meet up in the middle.”
Gopher hadn’t recognized the signs of the struggle that had less than an hour ago occurred in the room. He had seen the bodies of the Creeps on the ground, but did not put together that they were killed by the same gun that he last saw Angela holding.
-
The door to the caboose swung open, the light from Steven’s flashlight pouring over Angela’s eyes.
“Eric?”
Steven bit his tongue. “No, honey. It’s me.”
“Oh, Steven!” Angela rose to her feet, running to her husband. Never in her life had she been happier to see the man. She wrapped her arms around him and he smiled. She was close again. He was happy.
“Everything is going to be alright, Angela. Everything is going to be just fine. I know it will be.”
-
The gunshot and the smell of cooking meet flooded the cars. Panic alarms sounded in the recesses of Eric as he raced along the train, following the sound of the gunshot. He didn’t need to reach the car; he already knew.
Angela was slumped over the controls in the caboose, her beautiful frame ablaze. Steven stood crying, his gun limp at his side.
“I found her… I found her and there were things. I thought she was all right. She said ‘Steven!’ They came out of nowhere, they came from behind the train and they stabbed her. They stabbed her and they did that,” he motioned at her burning body, “But I shot them.”
The bodies of two Creeps hung out of the back of the train. Gopher burst through the door, stopping. “What’s cooking?”
Steven broke down again.
Eric stood, dropping his gun to the ground. They all stepped out of the car, greeted by Fichter. They didn’t have to say a word.
A gust of wind knocked through the caboose, feeding the flames and knocking broken pieces of her life off of her, her ashes scattering around the car.
“I’ve got something to show you all,” Fichter said. Steven slumped against the train’s side and put his head in his hands. Eric nodded and followed him.
There was a sign, dead ahead.
“Cactus National Park Train Stop.” The letters were faded. Eric motioned wordlessly behind him to Steven. Gopher helped him to his feet and they made their way back to the car. The engine sprung to life as the car, once again filled with grief, made its way to the park. The passengers in the car stayed silent, discontent and heading to their fate.
-
Mal
Lightknight924
December 27th, 2005, 10:55 AM
Ooh very nice can't wait to see what happens to them in the train.
esupin
December 28th, 2005, 10:54 AM
Angela's Ashes... have you read Frank McCourt's book?
Eyoshi
December 29th, 2005, 09:28 PM
Whoo, I liked the action that happened in this chapter.
However, I felt that the death of Angela was a repeat of a "just when everything was safe..." death. If I remember correctly, the last supporting character death (excluding those who only appeared in one chapter), which was when Iggy died after a Creeper stabbed him while they were driving. As a result, this death didn't really pack the same punch as the last for me.
However, it was still a high quality read.
P.S. What was with the code commands you put in the text, Mal? It made the chapter itself hard to read.
Tasuke
January 3rd, 2006, 01:57 AM
I like the way the story is coming along, but with only four people
left I'm wondering if it's just gonna be eric left.
MalReynolds
January 11th, 2006, 01:25 PM
The desert park had been a huge draw when it was operational. The hiking trails, the horse riding, and the ever-abundant cactus plants from whence the name of the park sprung littering the bed of the desert. Children laughing, running, playing, galloping.
The echo of all that was good carried on the wind that the wagon drove through, bouncing roughly against the less than friendly terrain. The passengers inside unhappy at the recent turn of events, but watching out across the distance for the large gate.
“The St. Louis Arch?” The first words from any rider to quell the deafening silence came from Fichter.
“Yeah. Or something like that,” Eric responded, alerting himself to the horizon.
They passed a sign as Fichter turned onto solid road.
“Scenic Route Drive.” The visitor’s center lay just ahead. They stopped, deciding it would be best to rest before moving on.
-
A sweep of the old building turned up nothing. A few beds in the back near the emergency medical station. Old gurneys. Gopher was nervous as to whether or not they would be able to support his large frame. He quickly picked the mattress off of the gurney and put it on the floor of the small room, closing his eyes and falling asleep in a matter of seconds.
Steven rolled his gurney out the door and down the hall, leaving Eric and Fichter alone in the nurse’s office. Eric briefly chased after him before Fichter grabbed his shoulder.
“Let him go. The man just lost his wife. I doubt he wants to be with anyone but her right now.”
“If he gets killed, I’m not shedding a tear over it.”
“You would too, Eric.”
“Not in front of you all.”
Fichter laughed, clapping Eric on the back solidly, before coughing.
“Fichter, there’s some stuff I got to clear up with you. About the infection. The whole zombie thing.”
Eric sat on the edge of the gurney and began to tell him about the military tests and the purpose behind turning people into monsters like that. He finally finished with the cure that he had pumped into Fichter’s veins mere hours ago. Fichter sat down on the other end of the gurney, which promptly collapsed.
Gopher stirred. “Glad I didn’t take one.”
Eric gave him the finger from the floor, turning to look at Fichter.
“Yeah, after the ‘bee’ stung me at the camp fire I started feeling better. I know what a syringe feels like; I know what a bee feels like… I put two and two together. My only question is, why did you wait so long to tell me?”
Eric sighed. “Because of the sheer amount of innocent people I’ve killed. You can’t do something like that and then go back and pretend everything is normal again. I killed Iggy’s sister… I killed that Gettings kid, all under the pretense that they would never be what they wanted to be, ever again. Could have been an astronaut if I hadn’t-“
“Bull. You’re just surviving. You have as much blame as the government does for creating it. They didn’t release it. You’ve only got one thing to blame: Them. They came in, they screwed everything up. If it weren’t for them, you’d be sitting pretty back at your apartment or something. I’d be back with my wife. Iggy… Well, he’d probably be around annoying his sister.”
“You think once we take care of this gate, things can go back to the way they were? We could have people running around again. There’d have to be cleanup, God knows… This gate’ll only stop them from coming through, not send em’ back. But I think… Once they stop coming in, it’ll only be a matter of time before more people like us come out to fight.”
“We can only hope.”
“Sometimes, that’s all you’ve got and that’s all you need,” Eric said, climbing to his feet and heading for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Find Steven. I need to have a chat with him.”
“Why?”
“Can’t have him getting his ass killed, can I?”
Fichter laughed as the door swung shut.
-
Steven had found a private administrator's office across the hallway, setting up the gurney against the far wall, staring at the repeating pattern on the wall. Half in, half out of sleep when he heard the door open.
“Go away. I’m not in the mood right now.”
The door closed.
The next thing Steven felt was a sharp pain in his back. He rolled flat on his back, snapping the tip of the dagger off inside his flesh. The creature, gurney height, smiled and jumped, clapping its cracked hands.
And on the desk, Steven’s gun sat.
-
The hallways were dark and the flashlight didn’t help tremendously. They branched off every ten feet, leading to different exhibits for visitors to look at. Eric didn’t have a clue where Steven was until he cried out.
-
The creature was on top of him, bringing the fresh dagger down quickly against his arms. Steven held it off, cutting himself in the process, the deadly tool sinking into his arm once, twice. His arm fell, cut and bloody, useless for defense. The creature raised the dagger one final time.
There was a loud bang as the door swung open and Eric fired across the room, hitting the creature in the gut. It squealed and laughed, falling off of Steven, onto the floor, gasping for breath. Pitiful.
“Hey, Steven. Wonder if you’d like to join us in the Nurses station?”
“That’d be… Good,” he called out, losing consciousness.
-
Eric wheeled him back to the Nurses station on now, the only functional gurney that they knew of. Fichter held the light as Eric tried his best to bandage Steven’s arm, bit the low quality of the supplies made it nigh impossible to get the gauze to stick properly. After a fair amount of trial and error, the bandage lightly stuck. Eric rolled Steven on top of his arm, applying constant pressure to the wound.
“Well, looks like you got to him in the nick of time, Eric.”
“Seems to be a trait, doesn’t it. Every time we could sit down and grieve about someone, they go ahead and pull through. Only get taken when we’re in a rush.”
“Damn shame, isn’t it?” Fichter laughed.
“No. No it’s not,” Steven said drowsily from his bed.
There was a pause before Steven, Fichter and Eric began to laugh.
“Could you morons keep the laugh track switched to, ‘off’ until morning? Some of us have to sleep on account of blowing **** up tomorrow,” Gopher rolled over.
-
The sun rose and they piled back into the car, their mood lighter than the morose tone of yesterday. The wagon continued down the Scenic Route Drive for an hour, avoiding potholes and what looked the be the skeletons of horses.
“They probably rode the things to death,” Eric motioned to one of the bodies.
“What do you mean?” Gopher asked from the back.
“You spur a horse too much, you’ll cut into it pretty deep. Could kill it that way. They either rode the horses to death or just came in with swords blazing and killed the majority of them.”
“Which raises the question,” Steven began, “If they’re so fierce in number, how come we’ve only run into small groups? They’re ferocious, yet they’re having trouble killing our small group. I don’t get it.”
“They’re not trying to kill us. If they were, we’d be dead. ‘Sides, they probably have most of their forces concentrated on… Well, not where we are. They’re trying to set something up; it’s a fair bet that they’ll set it up somewhere else. Simple. We’re probably going to run into a fair number when we reach-“
“The Arch,” Fichter called out, pointing through the windshield at the distance.
It wasn’t quite the St. Louis Arch, but a sick defacing of what it used to be. Once pristine white, now red and purple in color, a poor mans graffiti covering the towering structure.
“Holy hell, that’s far away. Do we have any binoculars?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Damn. How far away is it, do you think?” Eric turned back to the front, eyeing the distance.
“More than ten miles, most likely.”
“Alright. When we get close, about two miles away, I want to find a place to leave the car. If they’re bringing things in through the arch, there’s going to be a large number of them. Don’t want em’ to disable the car. So we’ll leave the car behind and hit em’ on foot.”
Fichter nodded, shifting the car into high gear and speeding into the distance.
-
The cliff they stopped on overlooked the camping ground of the Saguaro Cactus, where the arch supports stood. The wagon was parked directly in front of another car with a towing hitch and a speedboat directly behind it. Fichter had laughed. Why did you need a boat like that in the middle of the desert?
“That’s not the real Arch, is it?” Gopher asked.
“It doesn’t look like it. Not… Well… It does. It’s a big arch. It’d bet money to say it’s the same and that these little Creeps just painted it over with something.”
“How did they get it out to the desert,” Gopher once again, rapid firing with the questions.
“I don’t think they needed to. You heard Fife back at the bunker. He said, ‘science,’ but I think we can all read into that a little more. There’s no way these things would come through unless they knew something was on the other side. The US was probably working on faster than light transport or something equally as strange. And the Arch got involved through no fault of its own.”
Fichter and Steven crawled up to the others, who were staring down the sheer cliff at the encampment below.
Three buildings, long, like the big Tetris pieces in a row. About a football field of desert ground, and then the Creeps. Numbering in the upper hundreds, the creatures were dancing around the base of the structure, throwing balloons filled with colored substance against the Arch.
Eric sighed. “There’s a ton of em’.”
The group remained motionless, waiting for Eric to get his bearings.
“Okay. Steven, Gopher and I are going to go down behind those buildings and draw some of em’ out. Only try to draw out as many as you can take with your gun or hand to hand. Biting off more than you can chew now is going to be fatal. If we manage to thin the numbers enough… Gopher, you’ll have the explosives-“
“YES!”
“- and you’re going to plant a charge on the inside of both legs of the arch. Since we only have the two charges, one on each. It should be enough to make the arch collapse on itself, destroy whatever machinery they have working up in there. Knock it out for good. Steven and I will cover you while you do this, if we’re both… You know, still around.”
“So, you think we’re going to be able to do this?” Steven asked tentatively.
Eric laughed. “Honestly? No. Best case scenario, we’ll still be walking away from this minus one.”
Fichter turned to Eric and raised his hand. “Alright, I think I understand. You three go down the cliff, across a mile of desert terrain to those houses that will provide almost no safety. You’re going to draw these things out in small groups and eliminate them until you can get Gopher, the most technically un-savvy person in the group, to plant explosives on the Arch, assuming everyone is still alive. You blow the arch, and walk back to the car. I have no problem with the plan, it just raises one question: Where the hell am I going to be?”
Eric laughed. “Watching the car, of course.”
Fichter grimaced. “Of course.”
“I’m not technically un-savvy. I worked with a construction and demo crew back when I lived in Manhattan. I know some things about planting charges. I’m not as inept as you all seemed to have painted me.”
“Sorry, then. Seems like a solid plan, Eric.”
“Don’t lie to me, Fichter. My dad always used to say that people went gambling because gambling is more fun than just throwing your money out the window of a speeding car. I guess what I’m trying to say is, trying to take this gate out is a lot more fun than just turning my gun under my chin and pulling the trigger. I’d rather go out trying.”
There was an air of dignified silence as the group began to say their final prayers.
“Alright. When are we heading out, Eric?” Gopher asked.
“No time like the present. Make sure we have everything we need from the car. Spare clips, the charges, bandages. Whatever we’ll need.”
And so they did, grabbing spare weapons and the C4. Eric stepped onto the footpath down the side of the cliff, knocking the pebbles from their place.
The car door slammed as Fichter edged it closer to the drop off, watching the three head down the side of the mountain. He reached into the sun visor, pulling out the unmarked CD, sliding it into the player and praying to the sound of his wife singing.
It was going to be a long day.
mead1
January 11th, 2006, 05:44 PM
Today I sat down and read all of the CW series up 'till now.
Mal, you rock.
+1 fan
CypherToorima
January 11th, 2006, 08:09 PM
This chapter or section or whatever it is has me more exited than before.
Screw Stephen King, you're the king of suspence.
mead1
January 11th, 2006, 08:16 PM
No, Dark Tower>>>>>>>Creep World
whiteflame
January 11th, 2006, 08:45 PM
I'm a ****..
MalReynolds
January 12th, 2006, 03:02 PM
Fichter watched anxiously as the group made their way across the long, lone stretch of desert to the camping cabins. The three hit the middle cabin and slumped to the ground. Fichter closed his eyes, not being a praying man, but deciding to take up arms in prayer to support those three.
-
The St. Louis Arch, the gateway to the west… Featuring five elevators departing all hours to the observation deck. Admire the splendid view and head to the underground tram station to have authentic old west food and shop at a real trading post! Visit the museum of the west and watch an informational video of the construction of the arch. By a ticket to a steamer along the mighty Mississippi, leaving the dock when you’re ready to leave. Fine dining, excellent photo opportunities, and an authentic old west feel.
At least, that’s how it had been before it had been violently uprooted and moved into the desert in a hurry.
-
Eric slid to the ground quietly as Gopher looked out behind the cabin to the Arch.
“Guys, look at that.”
Steven and Eric peeked out the other side, head on top of one another and stared intently, trying to figure out what exactly Gopher was trying to get them to see.
“What, Gopher. Is it a train? I don’t get it-“
“Don’t be a smartass, Steven. Look at the Arch legs,” Gopher interrupted.
The legs weren’t buried in the ground like they had been at St. Louis. The Arch was on a half sway, looking to fall over with a gust of wind. Beneath the highest point, down six hundred feet, the army of Creeps stood, dancing.
“Why isn’t it rooted? Anyone have an answer?”
Steven and Eric both slumped against the cabin.
“Alright, next question. How are we going to draw them out?”
Gopher’s head still stuck around the corner. Eric chucked a small rock at his back.
“Fire your gun around the corner. See if they take the bait.”
-
The gunfire was a small burst of light from where Fichter was sitting. He saw Gopher leaning out around the corner with his machine gun at the ready, firing a quick burst at the encampment. Dirt kicked up at the halfway mark, drawing the interest of a small pocket of the creatures that looked terminally bored. They jumped and danced across the small stretch to the cabin.
Fichter watched Eric jump out beside Gopher and fire four bursts, dropping the majority of the creatures. The four remaining shrieked and began to run back to the camp.
-
“Gopher, shoot them! Jesus!”
Gopher fired a burst knocking three of them down. The solitary Creep turned around and hissed, running back towards the cabin at a frightful speed. Gopher fired a single bullet, knocking the Creep to the ground.
-
The lone driver bit his lip as the Melder began to make its way across the desert towards the cabin. He turned the music down in the car, leaning on the horn. He could see Eric turn back and look up. Fichter honked again. Eric looked around the corner and ducked back after seeing the Melder and squadron of Creeps.
-
“Alright. I’m going to run out on the side of the far Cabin and try and draw the Melder away. Steven, Gopher, I want you to get the tiny things behind here. I’ll be back as soon as I take care of that son of a bitch.”
Eric began to run to the other cabin.
“Don’t let it look you in the eyes!” Steven called out after him.
“Yeah… No ****,” Eric muttered under his breath, rounding the corner of the cabin. He peeked out, watching the Melder float towards the center cabin. Eric fired at the body of the creature, watching it rock back and forth, thrown slightly off balance. Its long, snakelike head now changed directions, staring towards him. He ducked back behind the cabin as the Melder began to briskly float in his direction.
Gopher leaned out from one side of the center cabin, Steven the other. They both fired into the squad of Creeps simultaneously, knocking them to the ground, watching them writhe. Gopher let out a tiny giggle as he hit one of the flame pouches and watched as the creature burst into a blue blaze, setting the near by fiends on fire as well.
Eric ducked into the cabin, throwing a box spring against the door and ducking behind it. He heard the creature glide past, and looked up through the window. The thing was inspecting the cabin, looking for any signs of Eric. Quickly, he turned and drew his gun to his shoulder, sighting the head and burst firing. The Melder’s head flew backwards and off of its jelly-neck, the body collapsing to the ground.
The ten remaining Creeps were closing the distance between themselves and the center cabin. Gopher was fumbling with a new clip while Steven was desperately trying to pick them off one by one.
“They’re a lot easier to kill when they’re in a group.”
“Oh, come on, Steven! Haven’t you ever played a video game before…”
“Funny. This is my third clip and you’re having trouble reloading your second. You have no room to talk now, do you?”
The Creeps reached the cabin and began to bat their swords against the wooden planking. Eric ran out across the open area, firing his gun from his hip, hitting three of them. He ran through the side view area and stopped to watch Gopher fumble with his clip.
“Here, take mine,” Eric said, handing the gun over to Gopher. “Gimmie yours.”
Eric reloaded the gun easily, and ran back out, shooting four more. The other three had worked their way down the other side of the cabin to where Steven was firing shot after shot, desperately trying to hit one. Eric leaned out beside him and fired six times, taking the remaining three out.
“Steven, I’m just going to recommend this little piece of advice to you. Aim a little bit.”
“Aim a little bit,” Steven repeated, an acrid air in his voice.
“How many do we have on the other side? Anybody? A big number?”
“You were just out there! Didn’t you look?”
“I was too busy trying to save your sorry ass, Steven.”
Gopher leaned out and began to count.
-
To Fichter, it looked like there were a little over a hundred left. A group of them had broken off and wandered into the desert, and others had walked through the Arch, disappearing from sight. If they were going to do it, now was the time. Now was the time to –
-
“Charge. Just stay behind me. Gopher, that’s double important for you. Isn’t no one else knows how to work those explosives, so you getting to the legs is imperative.”
“Right.”
The sun began to set as the trio began to run across the empty space littered with small corpses, guns blazing. The final approach had begun.
-
Fichter slammed the door to his car, approaching the edge of the cliff, watching them run, and closing the distance between the cabins and the Arch. His pulse quickened as he saw one of the groups re-emerge from behind the leg of the Arch, numbering in the fifties. Eric dropped to the ground and fired from the prone position, sweeping left and right with the firing gun. The others behind him followed suit, trying to take out as many of the charging creatures as they could.
Fichter couldn’t take much more. He backed up to his car door and reached for the handle, cutting his palm on the blade that was stuck in the door. The distinct cackle behind him.
Without looking, he ran to the next car, ducking inside and shutting the door, watching from the inside with horror as the group of creatures began to pick at the doors and lick the glass. Fichter reached out, stretched, and pressed the lock down on all four doors.
He looked at his station wagon, solitary, his gun resting peacefully in the passenger seat.
-
“Yeah, now is the time to charge,” Steven called out over the gunfire.
“I’m sorry, Steven, I can’t hear you. I’m too busy killing ****!”
The creatures fell, but each one the dropped was replaced by two more from behind the Arch.
Gopher rose to his feet quickly, sprinting across the groups of Creeps as they cut at his legs, most of them missing. Eric tried his hardest to cover Gopher, but his running was so inconsistent it was hard to fire at the creatures without running the risk of hitting Gopher’s legs.
Eric jumped up, pulling Steven and dropping an empty all at the same time. He slid another into the chamber and coughed, firing at the group again as they began to advance on Eric and Steven.
“When they get close enough, just start hitting them with your gun. Or shoot em’ in the flame pouch. Hilarious and effective…”
“Can’t hit the broadside of the barn, Eric…”
“Just shut up and take as many down as you can…”
“I’m working on it…”
Gopher reached the edge of the first leg, drawing the C4 out of the pack and sticking it to the leg, priming the charge. He gasped as one of the creatures cut into his leg quickly, disappearing into the fray. Gopher turned, back to the first leg and stared at the wave of creatures. He fired his gun through them until it clicked empty, and tossed the gun into the crowd. His legs pumped and he began to run through the path he had just cleared.
-
The knives ran across the windows, nails on the chalkboard sounding inside the car. Fichter ducked down and looked in the ignition, the keys still in place. He tried it once… Nothing. Damn.
The Creeps began to hit the back window fiercely with their blades. Playtime was certainly over. It was time to grab the prize that sat inside the hard, outer shell.
-
Gopher reached the other leg, the bottom of his pants a mess with blood and various cuts that barely touched the jean. He drew the explosive out of the sleeve and placed it against the wall, putting the primer in. He looked back over at the other leg.
The explosive was gone.
“Sunnofabitch,” he gasped. He saw the creature run away with the plastique in its hands. Gopher drew the detonator out pressed the first glowing button, sending the tiny creature into a thousand pieces, decimating the group around it.
Gopher grabbed the explosive off of the second leg and put it back in the case. He ran around behind the Arch, looking for an access door… He found one. He opened the door and was met by a veritable wall of the creatures. They were coming from inside the Arch.
“ERIC! COULD I GET A HAND OVER HERE?”
Eric looked up from the bodies mounting around him and saw Gopher behind one of the legs.
“COMING!”
Eric raced over to Gopher, weapon blazing.
“Clear some room for me…”
Eric fired into the wall of creatures, knocking them down, one after another.
“Where’d the other charge go?”
“One of the things ran off with it,” Gopher called back over his shoulder. “A charge at the top should take it out, don’t worry!”
Eric sighed and ran back, firing his gun again at the creatures, behind the fort Steven had set up composed entirely of dead Creeps.
“Gopher’s going inside. He’s going to blow it from the top…”
-
The back windshield shattered inwards as the creatures began pouring in. Fichter closed his eyes, counted to ten and opened the driver’s door, sliding out of the car, locking it behind himself. The creatures tried to catch him by going out the back doors, but the child safety locks were on. Carefully, he reached through the back, slipping a pack of the blue gel off of one of the confused monsters. He emptied the gel into the car, smiling and giving the car a little push.
The gearshift was stuck in “Neutral.”
The car began to slide towards the edge of the cliff slowly, before stopping. The smile disappeared from Fichter’s face. The creatures were wedged in the back, trying to get out, but the boat was preventing the car from moving. Fichter reached into the wagon, grabbing the shotgun and firing at the hook up in the back. The boat leaned forward and pushed the car, which slowly toppled over the cliff.
“Please, buckle up… It’s the law.” He chuckled to himself as the car hit the ground below. He watched the fire spread from the back.
“That’s probably the coolest thing I’ll ever say and no one was around to hear it…”
-
The inside of the Arch was packed with the squealing creatures. Gopher tried the stairwell, to no avail. It was even more crowded than the entrance had been. He made his way through the Arch quickly and quietly to the elevators. He pried one door open and climbed inside the egg-shaped car, busting the roof off of it and grabbing onto one of the cables.
The shaft was empty. He began to climb, hand over hand towards the observation deck.
-
Eric heard the explosion of the car behind him and turned. The creatures watched the car explode and squealed, running off in the direction of the explosion. Few remained behind, and Eric quickly took care of those with his gun.
“Well… Looks like we’ll all make it after all.”
Steven chuckled. “Minus one.”
“No, I think Gopher is going to make it out alright.”
“Not Gopher. Minus one Eric.”
Eric laughed. “I’m not going to die. What are you-“
Steven turned his gun against Eric.
“Oh.”
-
Gopher’s arms burned, but the elevator cable was leveling out. He swung his legs up against the cable and shimmied the rest of the way, dropping down to the second set of doors. He pulled them open and slid inside the small stairwell that led to the observation area. A greeting party of Creeps, Melders and Mini-Creeps were waiting on the observation deck.
-
Fichter chuckled to himself once again, as he forced the boat over the edge of the cliff onto a group of Creeps that were dancing around the fire. He slid back into his own car, turning up the CD player and enjoying the setting sun.
-
“What’s this about, Steven?”
“Do you think I’m honestly that stupid?”
“Depends on how you’re asking-“
“My wife!”
“What about her?”
“You know,” he said, pressing the gun into his chest.
“I really-“
“Oh, you know what you did with her. And I know what I did with her.”
“Steven, it was one time and you were- What did you do with her?”
“She got stabbed, but it wasn’t anything fatal… The fire, however… That’s probably what killed her.”
Eric closed his eyes and tried to work it out. He opened them again, staring Steven in the eye.
“You know, you kill me now, I’ll still have the satisfaction of being the best she’s ever had… Her words, not mine.”
“You ass-“
Eric took the momentary lapse in Steven’s judgment and shoved his gun away, bringing his own up and backing away, keeping Steven in the sites.
-
The knives slid into his stomach, his back, and his legs, before he dropped to the ground. The slanted ground of the observation deck worked against him, and he began to slide backwards towards the stairs he had just climbed. The control panel for the Gate lay just out of reach… Getting smaller as he slid away.
Gopher smiled bitterly as he removed the explosive from the sleeve quickly, placing the blasting cap and throwing it into the group of the monsters. He pulled the detonator out from the Semtex sleeve, laughed, and pressed the shiny red button.
-
The explosion rocked the night sky, tearing the top of the Arch into a ball of flames that shot into the abyss. The two legs began to tilt inwards, against themselves as they fell, the smoking debris raining from center of the explosion.
“STEVEN! GET OUT OF THERE!”
“ERIC… GO TO HELL!” Steven fired one burst from his gun as a burning support fell on his fortress of dead creatures, knocking his boots off.
Eric ran back to the cabins quickly, using the shadow from the flame to watch for debris. The monsters behind him cheered at the explosion, too stupid or too entranced to run away from the raining death.
He slid around the corner and stopped, only being shaken by a large piece of the arch that fell into the camping cabin he was hiding behind. The fire raged as the hiss of squeaking metal scraping together grew louder, the two legs falling against each other and falling over, sending a wave of dust, debris, and blood into the air, coating the three cabins with a sick paint.
Eric sighed, pulling the gun up by his side. His chest was bleeding, his eyebrow was gashed, but his legs were fine. He ran as fast as they would carry him to the wagon, up the cliff pass, firing shots off behind him at the creatures that wanted to press their luck and follow.
The car light turned on as Fichter instinctively pressed the eject button on the CD player.
“How did it go?”
Eric smirked. “It could have gone a little bit better.”
“How many did we lose?”
“Both.”
Fichter sighed. “But we won?”
“We won…”
“Alright. Where now?”
“There’s a crazy scientist that I’m sure would be more than happy to hear the news. Maybe he’ll let us have some peaches.”
Fichter began to chuckle, turning into a full laugh as the car pulled away from the cliff. They left the burning, collapsed arches behind them on their way back east, a trail of bodies long enough to match their trip.
But there was only one word to describe the two occupants of the car.
Hopeful.
-
Mal
PS: THIS IS NOT THE ENDING.
Lightknight924
January 12th, 2006, 04:51 PM
Mal your writing is so good. You should be a mod of the Literature Forum.
Eyoshi
January 12th, 2006, 07:26 PM
Great read.
Not the end, you say? Might there be a new conflict coalescing in Creep World?
The part where Steven decides to kill Eric was interesting. For me, that idea seemed pretty untapped, which is pretty good.
It was nice that the heroic death archetype was used. It seemed to be executed well, as it didn't feel forced.
MalReynolds
January 12th, 2006, 08:17 PM
For the count, I'm not going to tell you how long this piece is going to be, but this could be considered maybe the one third mark?
Mal
whiteflame
January 13th, 2006, 12:33 AM
For the count, I'm not going to tell you how long this piece is going to be, but this could be considered maybe the one third mark?
Mal Well you've already told me. :wink: :wink:
mead1
January 13th, 2006, 08:53 PM
That was a very excellent conclusion. Even if it wasn't really the conclusion.
MalReynolds
January 13th, 2006, 09:29 PM
There's a wee-bit left.
To those I've told the rest of the plot to... They know it's a lie.
There's many, many more roads to walk down.
Mal
Lightknight924
January 13th, 2006, 09:39 PM
I'm just wondering, where did you get this idea because it's really good. I usually get bored of most forum stories but this, this holds my attention. Just like that one little story you wrote about the end of the world and the most "darkest action". That was one of my favorite stories from you.
Edit* I can't wait until you become a book publishing author so I can buy your books and say "I knew that guy through an internet forum when he was just starting out!" and show them your early works.
MalReynolds
January 13th, 2006, 10:04 PM
The inspiration for the story was...
Well, it's complicated. Like most things I think about, it went through many many iterations before I started typing it.
It was originally going to be about a self-obsessed survivor (which Eric has shades of in the first chapters) but I dropped that in favor of a more likeable hero.
The rest of it stems from the fact that I really, really dislike fantasy literature for the most part. I wanted to write something that was fantasy, but the antithesis of it. No swordplay from the heros, they use guns and explosives. As soon as a character might have mystical abilities, kill him off (Sorry, Iggy.)
The plotline has gone through some changes. Arizona was going to be the original end until someone prompted me with a very good question, so the rest of the book is going to revolve around that. Homage to "The Beach" with the radio station. The book really built itself around several situations I thought would be humerous or fitting for an anti-fantasy setting, like Iggy getting stabbed or the group running across the party treating the situation like Final Fantasy.
I have a natrual penchant to include zombies in things because I find the concept fascinating. And the zombie/curable thing I wanted to add in there, but back when the hero was self obsessed, he was just going to shrug off killing all those people and go on his merry way.
The plotline has, for the most part, worked itself out as I wrote. The only reason I could see myself keep reading is to see if anyone else is going to get killed off. I have a real problem with making characters likeable and then offing them (Gopher excluded; he really didn't every say much or do much except explode and make funny comments about trains) just when I've solved their problems (So long, Wheels!)
I could write more about it, but I don't want to come off as the self-obsessed author, so I'll just leave it at that. New sections should start coming out tomorrow.
They will stop after I hit five more because I need to go back and edit the other... 15 and write more backstory chapters. (Gopher, Eric, Angela/Steven, Fichter, Danny Fife)
Mal
Tokzic
January 15th, 2006, 10:41 AM
I'm still reading through this, but it's pretty absorbing so far. Nice work, Mal.
MalReynolds
January 18th, 2006, 03:44 PM
The ride back to Virginia was almost uneventful. Eric and Fichter almost went out of their way to find trouble, shoot monsters, and blow up buildings on the way back. They were ecstatic, the vibe felt for miles. For the first time since they began the mission, they were happy. They successfully halted the invasion, despite losing two people.
The windows of the wagon were down, blasting “We Are the Champions,” to dead America, singing along until they were hoarse.
Days of constant driving passed, and they were in Virginia, heading back to Fort Eustis to deliver the good news to they only other survivor they knew of. Danny Fife, in the almost hidden bunker in the back of the base.
They rammed through the gates that they had so carefully closed, the car covered in a funny coat of paint consisting of Creep blood and the various bugs they had decimated on the way back.
Eric vaulted down the bunker stairs, knocking the secret knock and shouting as the door opened.
“DANNY! DANNY! WE DID IT!”
Danny ran out from the back room leaving the door ajar. The Creep in the cage was fiddling with a yo-yo. It lay back, gasping for breath. It was on its way out.
“You did what?”
“We blew the gate!” Fichter cried out, coming down the stairs and into the bunker.
Fife nodded, pointing at the thing in the back. “Look at that. Would you look at that? I gave it that yo-yo a week ago and it’s been surviving off of it. Of course, it’s got it all figured out now. Won’t last much longer.”
“So?”
“Well, they don’t need to burn things or knock things down. They just prefer to. Without proper equipment, I won’t really know anything else about them.”
“But, Fife,” Eric interrupted, “You don’t really need to know anything else about them now. The gate is gone. They’re going to stop coming in. We can just… Find more people that are hiding, and give them guns and they can fight. We can take America back, Fife.”
The computer in the back beeped.
“Eric, why don’t you walk with me? Fichter… Have some peaches.”
Fichter walked over to the shelf and took a can down. Fife had gone to the mall and restocked on food at some point; the shelves consisted now entirely of canned peaches.
Fife shut the door behind them. “Eric, I want you to take a look at this.”
Eric looked at the computer. “What?”
“Well, I know you all took out the gate. The readings stopped, I assume, when you blew it up.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Take a look at the latest readout.”
Eric’s jaw dropped.
The Creep in the cage let out a whimper and died.
Fichter heard the muffled outburst from behind the closed door. It sounded suspiciously like-
“****!”
“Do you need me to explain what that means?”
Eric fell to the floor. “Sure. Go ahead.”
“It just means there’s another gate out to the west.”
“To the west, there’s ocean, Danny. Lots and lots of ocean.”
“And… Well, there is another large landmass to the west.”
Eric sighed.
The door swung open and Fichter stepped in. “Everything all right?” he asked, slurping the peach juice.
“I don’t know, Fichter. Danny, tell Fichter the wonderful news.”
“Well, according to the latest readout, there’s… Well –“
“There’s another Gate, Fichter, somewhere in Europe, approximately.”
Fichter frowned. His frown quickly turned into a smile and he began to laugh.
“I don’t know why you’re laughing, Fichter. We lost everyone on the way to Arizona, how the hell do you think we’re going to do on the way to Europe? It’s impossible.”
“It’s not that. I just wondered why the rest of the world didn’t send help when the things invaded, and now we know. They couldn’t, because they were trying to deal with the situations of their own. Funny. Ironic.
“The rest of the world didn’t hate us after all.”
Eric sighed. “Well, Danny, what exactly should we do?”
“My advice to you, as a scientist, would be to… Well, get to Europe somehow and shut the gates down before they figure out exactly how to get overseas. There’s going to be a little… Well… Whatever they were trying to send through the gate in Arizona was automatically diverted to one of the Gates in Europe. The big thing they were trying to send through is currently making its home in Europe.”
“Alright, fine. We got to Europe and try to take out… Did you say ‘Gates’? As in… The plural form? More than one?”
Danny nodded. “From what I can tell, there are two in Europe.”
“Do you have any idea what they could be?”
“Well, considering their affinity for big things, like landmarks… Well, I can draw the general area. But you’re pretty much going to be on your own for finding them.”
Eric stepped out of the room.
“So, you going to come with, Danny?”
“Nah. Gotta hold down the fort… Protect my peaches. See if I can’t capture another one of these things. Figure out what makes it tick. Besides, I figure an autopsy is in order anyway.”
Fichter clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, good luck with that, Danny.”
He stepped outside the room to Eric, who was facing the blackboard, his forehead resting against the cool surface.
“You know, Fichter, I don’t particularly think that this is fair. I don’t think we should have to go over there. There are people in Europe. People that probably made it. Can’t they blow it up? Why do we have to do it?”
Fichter shrugged. “Because we really don’t have anything better to do.”
Eric laughed, blowing chalk dust from the tray. “That has to be the worst reason I’ve ever heard. How the hell are we supposed to even get to Europe? Do you know how to fly a plane, too? Another ace in the hole, deus ex machina that I don’t know about?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t know how to fly a plane.”
Eric turned around, a word finely printed into his forehead in chalk.
“But boats aren’t really that hard, are they?”
“Have you ever captained a boat, Fichter?”
“No. But it seems easy enough.”
“I hate to be a pessimist, but it doesn’t sound like we’re even going to make it out of the country.”
Fichter shrugged again. “It’s worth a shot. Better than sitting around waiting for death, at least.”
“Alright. Lemme go talk to Fife. Figure out where the best launch point might be.”
Eric stepped into the back room to find Danny passed out on the floor.
-
“Florida? Are you sure?”
“Well, as slow as my computer is, it’s still a computer. Wouldn’t steer you wrong for any reason. It says there are functioning ships down there. Weak power levels, but ones that would work. Just take one of the ships and head east. Most of em’ have a good mapping system anyway… You’re not likely to get lost out in the blue.”
Eric nodded, clapping Fife on the back. “You might want to get your narcolepsy checked out, Fife.”
“By who?”
Eric laughed. “Alright. I guess… I guess we’re heading out then. It’d be considerably harder to get back here if we knock the other two gates out… So… I guess this is goodbye.” Eric paused. “You’re the only person I’ve said goodbye to that didn’t leave, you know… In a casket, I suppose.”
Fife was silent.
“I’ll be seeing you, I guess,” Eric said, opening the door and stepping out of the room. Fichter waved as the door closed.
“What did we get?”
“Nothing new. Guns, ammo, another set of satchel charges, and some more antidote for that nasty bug that’s been going around… Although I doubt we’d need it. I don’t know if the virus has spread to Europe or anything yet.”
Eric handed half of the supplies to Fichter. They closed the blast door on the way out, walking over to the wagon and opening the back, dropping the munitions inside. Fichter grabbed the top of the gate to close it when something shiny caught Eric’s eye. He leaned in over the munitions and food. It was a bracelet wedged between the seat and the floor. Eric pulled it out of the crack and let Fichter close the gate.
He slid it onto his wrist as he took the co-pilot seat, feeling somewhat comforted by the singular item that she had left behind.
The headlights turned on, and once again the car barreled into the distance. One thing was certain in the minds of the travelers.
If they got to the boats and if they managed to get to Europe…
Things were going to be different this time.
END PART ONE.
Mal
Chromer
January 18th, 2006, 04:06 PM
Mal when are me and you going to collaborate on something? :wink:
mead1
January 18th, 2006, 05:26 PM
Nice ending.
Tasuke
January 20th, 2006, 07:20 PM
a boat?
I love the story mal, please keep it all coming!
msbrunnettemickey
January 21st, 2006, 01:33 PM
Mal it's wonderful.
DON'T DIE =(
Eyoshi
January 22nd, 2006, 06:38 PM
It'll be pretty interesting to see the upcoming events, as I am guessing the pair will making their way through many European cities on their way to destroying the gates. It's like an even bigger odyssey.
Although long series tend to decline as the story progresses, I'm confident that you'll be able to keep us reading.
MalReynolds
January 28th, 2006, 02:37 PM
Not an update on the story, the psuedo sequel will be put into a new thread.
The way I'm working out the next section: I'm collecting, once again, little interesting pieces to put into the next chunk of the story.
Some stuff to look forward to:
New characters.
Big explosions.
Grenades.
A boat.
A new threat.
The main threat.
Another love interest.
Some ironic situations.
Mexicans.
Border Patrol.
Slave Labor.
A retired general.
-
Mal
MalReynolds
January 30th, 2006, 09:25 PM
BOOK II NOW STARTED IN SEPRATE THREAD YOU READ NOW AND COMMENT LONG TIME
FoJaR
January 30th, 2006, 10:37 PM
BOOK II NOW STARTED IN SEPRATE THREAD YOU READ NOW AND COMMENT LONG TIME (ME SO HORNY)
omg u totally ripped off full metal jacket, ur such a hack.
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