Eldritch Writes

NaNoWriMo Part 1

2011-11-03T22:59:00.002-04:00

Amsterdam Black had a few problems in life. The first, as he considered them, was his name. It made him sound like expense cigarettes or cheap booze. The second was his girlfriend, or his recent lack there of. Marceline had left him again, after an argument fueled by liquor cheaper than his name. Amsterdam knew at some point they would be back together. They had been off and on for almost three years. They drove each other crazy, but being apart drove them even madder.

Amsterdam’s most pressing problem, however, was the cold feeling in his spine as he realized he had forgotten the words to the song he was in the middle of singing. A song he himself had written. A song that was currently number three on the Billboard UK charts. The tour had been a few concerts too long and his brain felt like a bowl of overcooked noodles covered in Jack Daniels. This was not a good sign.

He grabbed the microphone of its stand and sauntered to the edge of the stage. He could hear the roar of the crowd, but could barely see the ocean of people. The bright, hot stage lights were in his eyes. He flashed a rakish smile and held out the microphone to the crowd. The fans took over for him, singing the song as one. Smooth, Black, he thought. Once he remembered the next verse, he danced back to his stand and sang like a man possessed. Good save, he congratulated himself.

Bedlam At Bellevue, the band he was lead singer for, was finally starting to get big. He had spent years serenading smoky hole in the walls and he was finally being rewarded. His band had toiled and worked and even after all those years, it still felt so sudden. The tour had been their big arrival. They were the main event, instead of the opening act. It felt so vindicating. Amsterdam knew this was his moment; this was his band’s moment. He was young and he was loud and he was damned if he wasn’t going to make the best of it.

He danced back to the crowd, shirt damp with sweat, as Geoff wailed away at his guitar. He felt so alive, overwhelmed by the energy. It was better than any drug he’d shoved into his bloodstream, more powerful than any sermon, more exquisite than any single second spent between the sheets with another. Amsterdam was addicted to the stage.

Maybe the euphoria was what made him ignore the wobble under his boots. The hot pulse in his blood maybe making him reckless. He would never be able to remember that moment the floor opened up and swallowed him. Everything just fell to black. Of course, there would be lawsuits and inquires later. It wasn’t every day the lead singer of one of the hottest bands in the country disappeared from sight as part of the stage collapsed under him. The other band members played for a few seconds, as if their fingers hadn’t quite caught up to their brains yet. The crowd erupted in horrified screams and wails.

Towards the back, in the nosebleeds, stood a man with a mop of unruly curls wearing a vintage coat. He watched the spectacular unfold before him and didn’t seem to hear the crowd as it freaked out around him. The guitarist had dumped his Les Paul on the ground and was trying to find a way into the stage sinkhole. The man in the coat shook his head. He didn’t like this one bit. They were getting so goddamn bold lately. The shrill wail of ambulances sounded in the distance. Time to go. He whistled and waited for a moment. A lizard scrambled up his coat, carrying a bit of twisted metal in its mouth.

“Good job.” He told it, pocketing the metal and letting the lizard ride on his shoulder as he turned to walk away. As he made his exit, he caught the eye of shocked girl in artfully ragged black clothes and violet hair. She looked as if she had just seen a ghost. He sighed. There was always one in every crowd.

The man walked out of the venue, head down, as the paramedics ran in. They ran past him, as if they couldn’t see him rushing out. Seconds later he disappeared down the street, just as shell-shocked fans started to pour out.

Amsterdam floated in darkness. Something was wrong but he couldn’t find the way out of the dark. He heard voices, oddly familiar and worryingly alien all at once.

“Oh aye, he’s lucky, all right. When they want you dead, you stay dead.” Said a voice, soft and male and British.

“Ain’t that the truth. So close to the expiration date.” Said another, this one shrill and female.

“Give him a break, he doesn’t know. If he did…” this voice was gravely, American and the most familiar of the bunch. “Shit, incoming. Get the fuck out.”

Everything went silent. Amsterdam struggled to find a spark of light to light his way out of the darkness. Who the fuck was talking about him like that?

With a great amount of willpower, Amsterdam managed to open his eyes. The process seemed to take forever, but soon he was looking at a small room with white walls and white machines and white noise.

Bile immediately rose in his throat. A hospital. He hated hospitals. He couldn’t stand them. Hospitals were where people went to die, where they had taken his father and given his family back a corpse. He had to get out. The second he moved, he felt a stiff agony and realized something hard was wrapped around his right arm.

“You’re awake! He’s awake!” Amsterdam looked over to see Geoff reaching for him. He looked haggard and worried, red hair worked into whorls and spikes from hours of stress. The guitarist took his hand. “Amsterdam, it’s Geoffrey, can you understand me?”

Amsterdam took insult to this question. He tried to answer and felt his tongue, drier than a desert on Dune, fail him. He swallowed hard, winced, and tried again.

“Fuck, of course I can understand you. Why the fuck am I in a fucking hospital?”

“Well, he’s cursing, so he’s okay.” The door opened and the other two members of the band walked in carrying Styrofoam cups. Neil, tall and dark haired, smiled reassuringly at him. Simon, perpetually unshaven, looked eaten alive with worry. That was a bad sign, Amsterdam decided. Their bassist only ever looked worried when they ran out of crisps on the tour bus. This was serious.

Amsterdam regarded his bandmates and took stock of himself. His right wrist was encased in a heavy white cast. He felt like he had gotten the shit kicked out of him. He made sure everything else worked. He wiggled his toes and felt his face. He encountered a bandage on his forehead. Also a bad sign.

“So, what the fuck happened?”

“Jesus, mate, you don’t remember?” Neil sat down in one of the molded plastic chairs and sipped at the lukewarm tea in his cup.

“Remember what?” Amsterdam looked at him. Geoff ran a hand back through his hair again, a nervous habit.

“The stage broke. It just crumbled under you. Some structural flaw or something. One minute you were there, doing your thing. The next minute…” he let his words hang in the air.

“What? It broke? I… what?” astonished, Amsterdam tried desperately to remember that moment. As much as he thought he should remember the feeling of the ground below him giving way, he came up blank. The last thing he remembered was going to the far edge of the stage and being awesome, feeling so goddamn alive. To wake up here, broken and bruised, was a shock. It had to be a strange dream.

Things became much more real when a flock of white-coated doctors arrived to check him over. They told him the extent of his injuries; wrist fractured and thirteen stitches in his head, a concussion. They cheerfully told him that he’d make a full recovery. They promised him that his wrist would heal and he could go back to playing guitar or piano or signing his name on albums for breathless female fans. No side effects beyond the dubious superpower of knowing when it was going to rain.

It didn’t fill him with confidence. He was overjoyed that he was going to be okay, but it was a lot to take in. After the doctors came the people from the label. The band’s manager acted like his cell phone was grafted onto his face, shouting at the tinny voices inside the Cupertino designed device. He promised Amsterdam that they were going to sue the absolute fuck out of the venue owners. The remaining tour dates were cancelled and the second leg of the tour, due to start after the holidays, was in jeopardy. The band website had been updated and an outpouring of support had come in. Rolling Stone even tweeted about it. Footage of his fall was up on Youtube, even though the label was trying to get it taken down.

Amsterdam laid back and let it all sink it. He felt slightly lost, adrift, cut off from all that glorious momentum. It felt like a sick joke. Geoff leaned over again to pat his good hand.

“I want to go home.” Amsterdam said, trying to make it sound more demanding and less begging. He was suddenly desperate to be in his own bed, watching Top Gear re-runs on BBC Two. He wasn’t a native Brit but had lived in the country since he was a teenager. Odd American out, he supposed.

Doctors came back in, wanting to keep him longer to watch him. Amsterdam let his manager fight it out for him and Geoff helped him out of bed. He managed to get himself more of less dressed, Geoff zipping and buttoning anything too difficult for him. Someone, probably one of the boys, had brought him a change of clothes. The boots were the ones he had had on during the last performance, but he had no idea where the rest of his outfit had gone. It didn’t matter. What mattered was getting the fuck out of there.

All Day and All Of The Night (Part 1)

2011-06-02T01:05:00.000-04:00

I fully and utterly blame Shini: ROACH for this. We got to discussing writing and he was nice enough to prod me to participate again in #thursdaytales. He mentioned the writing prompt "pirates", probably jokingly, but I wanted to run with it.

I racked my brain. 16th century pirates maybe? Eh... Perhaps modern day music pirates! Some cyberpunk? I also vetoed that idea. I came up with an idea based off something I've always been fascinated about, added in a dash of a future oppressive government and voilà! Something I'm not entirely sure about! But at least I tried!

I'm not... happy with it yet. I need to keep working on it. Please give me feedback! Criticism, constructive or otherwise! Should I continue? Should I burn it? Should I forsake all writing and leave it to the professionals?

Without further ado, here's part one of my little story...

All Day and All Of The Night

Stevie Edison walked hurriedly through the marketplace, palms sweaty with anticipation. He barely saw the whirl of colors and strange wares on sale around him as he navigated the twisty path around the lopsided booths. His heart was about to pound straight through his ribs. If his guy was telling the truth, if this was the real deal… Stevie couldn’t even find the right words in the hurried stream of his thoughts to describe how amazing it would be.

He paused, caught at a crossroad. With a shuddering breath, he went left and kept his head down as he made his way to the seedier part of the bizarre. He rubbed his damp palms on the rough denim of his jeans, trying to keep calm. This place was humid, making his brown hair stick to his forehead and sting his eyes. He shook his head, trying to focus. This was important. This was so vitally important.

The storefront he wanted was decaying, the paint faded and the door crooked in its frame. It looked exactly like a place that would sell contraband and illegal items, which didn’t fill Stevie with confidence. He looked around him, wondering if this was a trap. He knew the United Government was cracking down hard on this stuff. Steeling his soul and saying a prayer to a favorite deity, he took his fate in his hands and walked into the building.

It was dark and the shelves on the wall uneven. The dirt floor smelled damp and musty, like a garden shed. Stevie was hit with a wave of nostalgia. Dirt and the sweet smell of grass, he was shocked he still remembered it. When was the last time he had seen grass? He wondered if it was outlawed yet. Unhealthy, perhaps. Everything was unhealthy now.

“Ah. Mr. Edison.” The owner said. He was a portly man, his skin a bright violet color. Stevie shook one of his four hands and nodded.

“That’s me, for all my sins.” Stevie said, a crooked grin on his face. This wasn’t the time for fear, now was the time for business. He kept on his toes, though. If this was a trap, he’d have to run. “Got your message, Mr. Skren. You got the goods?”

The alien man laughed. Stevie was caught off guard by his forked tongue. Damn, this marketplace was weird. If this guy had the goods though, he’d happily French kiss him. He tried to not look too anxious. “Do you take me for a dishonest man, Mr. Edison?”

“Well, fuck yes I do. If you were an honest man, you wouldn’t be selling me anything illegal. You’d better be dishonest!” He tried to laugh. Mr. Skren joined him.

“I like you, Mr. Edison. Let me go get what I found for you.” Mr. Skren chuckled as he lumbered to the back of the shop, ducking behind a shabby gingham sheet tacked over the doorway separating the shop floor and the stock room. Stevie stuck his sweaty hands into his jean pockets and tried to not get his hopes up. He kept looking around, always making sure he was alone.

Mr. Skren walked back out, balancing a heavy metal box in all four arms. Stevie watched the violet man place it on the counter with a sharp bang. “Is that it?” he asked. The box was covered in dents and looked old, the hinges covered in rust.

“Doesn’t look like much from the outside, but just you wait, Mr. Edison.” With a surprisingly effortless motion, one of his hands popped the lid of the box open. Stevie couldn’t hold back and leaned over the counter to look into the depth of the box.

“Oh… oh my god.” He felt tears well up as he looked at the contents. “You weren’t lying. You son of a bitch, you found them… you really did.” He felt suddenly lightheaded. “You glorious purple son of a bitch, you found them.”

Mr. Skren laughed again and shut the box. Stevie whimpered a little. “Thank you, Mr. Edison. I can clearly see you are interested in my wares. Let’s get down to brass tacs. One thousand gold.”

“You lying, cheating purple fucker!” Stevie spat. “You said seven hundred gold in your communication! And even that’s overpriced! How dare you!”

“You were right, Mr. Edison. I am exceptionally dishonest.” Mr. Skren steepled his two sets of hands and looked at him. “Now, I can certainly find another buyer if you don’t like my price. Or, of course, I can always hand them over to the authorities and let them handle such filth. I am sure they would also be very interested who tried to buy them as well.”

Stevie cursed and dug out a gold colored plastic card from his back pocket. He needed that box. He would die without it. To let such a find slip through his fingers was unimaginable. So he and the crew wouldn’t eat for a week or two. They would understand. It wasn’t like they all hadn’t done the same before. He tossed the card on the counter. “Take it. I hope it brings you nothing but misery and buys you nothing but whores with syphilis.”

The alien grinned and grabbed the card, looking it over to make sure it wasn’t a fake. “A pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Edison. I hope you keep me in mind for all your future business needs.”

Instead of responding, Stevie grabbed the box and hefted it into his arms. It was shockingly heavy but he didn’t mind. The contents were so precious that it was worth it. He backed out of the shop and hurried back the way he had come, elated but trying to look like nothing was out of the ordinary. The marketplace was a few streets down from the local spaceport, a shithole of a dock that charged way too much to even park. He was starting to think this whole planet was a rip-off. It was all worth it for the treasure in his arms, though.

He got to the spaceport without incident, making sure he wasn’t followed by any United Government goons. They were infiltrating even the dirty backwaters, bringing their message of peace, health and oppression to everyone. Those that questioned them and their methods disappeared very quickly and were often never heard from again. Stevie liked existing. He couldn’t let his guard down until he was back in the cold, loving embrace of space.

His ship was a modest affair, an old cargo ship retrofitted for his and the crew’s purposes. They had painted over all the call signs and left its hull blank. In their line of business, they couldn’t afford to be noticed. He had named it Caroline’s Revenge when he bought it, and even though he couldn’t paint it in big letters on the side, that is what everyone called her. Stevie ambled over to her, setting the box gently down on the ground and then digging out his com link from his pocket.

“Caroline’s Revenge, this is Stevie Edison. Let me the fuck on, it is hotter than balls out here.”

The com link was silent for a moment, before a female voice answered. “Password?”

“I am the walrus. Now let me on, Maggie. Please.” The voice laughed and the loading door on the ship lowered. With a grin, Stevie grabbed his box and ran up into the belly of the ship. Waiting for him was Maggie, pilot and one of his oldest friends. She was short with mounds of red curls and covered in freckles.

“Was it legit?” she asked as she pressed the button that once again sealed the ship up. Stevie put the box down and laughed in glee.

“It was. It was! Oh god, I can’t believe it!” He set the box down. “Can you get to the bridge and get us off this godforsaken rock and into space?”

Maggie grinned and made her way up the stairs to that part of the ship. She paused midway up and turned back to him. “Birdie’ll be damned happy we can get back into space and she can transmit again. She’s been saying you better give her another hour since we had to go silent while we were planetside.”

“Birdie’ll have to wait her turn like everyone else.” He said. Maggie shrugged and disappered out of sight. A few minutes later, Stevie had to steady himself as he felt the ship take off. He bent down to get his box again and they walked into the main living quarters of the ship, thanking each and every one of his lucky stars for the treasure heavy in his arms.

Once he was sure they were out into space, he sat on the dilapidated couch in the living area and opened the box. Inside were piled of large cardboard envelopes with photos on them and a few sundry plastic cases at the bottom. Carefully, Stevie lifted one envelope and coaxed out the black vinyl disc inside. He checked it over for scratches or cracks and nearly cried when he discovered it was perfect. The photo on the envelope was a fisheye lens picture of a man with curling hair and a woman reclining in a red dress with a cigarette. He clutched it to his chest, breathless.

“I found you.” He said softly to it, admiring it for another moment before putting it back. The other envelopes evoked a similar sense of awe and joy. He crowed with glee when he saw an envelope with a black background and four faces, as well as one with a big yellow banana. Whoever had owned his box had wonderful taste and was Stevie’s new personal hero. Too bad the former owner is probably dead, he thought to himself with a twinge of sadness.

Stevie was brought out of his moment with the sound of stomping high heels and a high pitched scream of frustration. He looked up in time to see Birdie storm in, hands on her hips. She wore a short black dress with a hot pink lace slip visible under it and shoes that looked like devices of torture. Her bangs were cut straight across her almond shaped eyes and the rest was left to hang loose down to her waist. She looked at him accusingly. Aw hell, thought Stevie.

“Maggie told me that you weren’t going to give me my air time!” she shouted. Stevie held up his hands.

“Look, do you wanna be the one that pushes back Eddie’s block? He’ll get in a mood.”

“I’m in a mood!” Birdie shouted again. “I get four hours to do my block and because you stuck us on some rock for an hour and twelve minutes of that, I get shortchanged? I’m not afraid of Eddie! What is he going to do, mope me to death? Grow a fucking pair!”

“So… uh, I can see you aren’t thrilled with my decision.” He said carefully. “Despite this, I stand by it. Giving you an extra hour will knock back everyone. It isn’t fair to everyone. Listen, you have at least forty minutes left. Focus on making that an awesome forty minutes.”

Birdie fixed him with a glare. “Oh, I will make you pay for that.” She turned sharply on her heel and stormed out in a swish of blue black hair and lace. Stevie shrugged the confrontation off. Birdie would maybe glare at him at dinner that night but she’d be fine by her next block. He returned to looking through his new box.

Above him, the ship’s speaker system crackled into life. “Aw hell.” He said out loud.

“Hello my pretties!” Birdie’s voice rang out loud and clear, transmitting across space as well as into the cabin. “DJ Lady Luck is back, bringing you more of the stuff the United Government tried to burn, ban and blow away! They may take our lives, they may break our spirits, but they can never take our music! You know who can take your music? DJ Pirate King, our fearless leader, who has said I won’t get the time back from our little period of radio silence. And on this little pirate radio ship we call Caroline’s Revenge, his pirate-y word is pirate-y law.”

Stevie sighed and rubbed his temples as she continued. “So for the next forty minutes, my glorious pretty ones, I dedicate each and every song to him. This is DJ Lady Luck, telling you to play your music loud and play your music proud! Fuck the United Government!”

There was a pause as Birdie got the music set up and then he was treated to the sudden shout of a piano and the wail of Swedish pop music. Stevie groaned as the music played, telling him that he was an approximately seventeen year old dancing queen.

Maggie stuck her head in the room and grinned. “I see that you pissed off Birdie.”

“Just please make it stop.” Stevie begged, only partly joking. Maggie laughed and went back to the bridge, leaving him alone with the pop music punishment.

io9 ThursdayTales again

2010-08-05T02:13:00.002-04:00

I managed to write something else. I'm sort of shocked at myself. I haven't felt this creative in awhile.

This story is completely silly, which is a nice change from the stuff I had done earlier. It's about zombies. I thought I should do a story that had zombies in it because I talk about them so much. The first line came to me when I was bored at work and the rest is history. I think it's a little bare, but the story really grew on me as I kept writing it.

As always, please leave feedback and criticism. I love learning what I'm doing right or wrong. Comments really mean a lot to me.

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Inappropriate Love Analogies

“That,” Christina said, gesturing to the rotting zombie shambling towards her, “is the perfect analogy for our marriage.”

“What? No. No, c’mon… no.” Charlie said, lowering the shotgun in his hands. He glanced at his wife and tried to look even more concerned. “That isn’t fair at all. We’re just going through a little bit of a bad patch is all…” he trailed off, switching the gun to his other hand and adjusting his glasses.

Christina just rolled her eyes, using the machete in her hand to punctuate every word she said with a stab into the air. “It is. Look at it.”

They both turned and looked back at the slowly advancing zombie, dead inside and driven by a lust for brains. Charlie frowned more.

“Dead… lifeless… directionless and rotting. Pointless, driven by absolutely no reason. Not to mention unsatisfied and completely without passion.” She said. He squawked in hurt.

“We are not completely without passion!” he said forcefully. “What about last Tuesday? You said you liked last Tuesday!”

“I was faking it. I was getting really bored and it clearly wasn’t going anywhere. Plus, Zombie Housewives of Los Angeles was coming on.” She shrugged at Charlie’s shocked look.

“How… you… how could you?” he sputtered. The approaching zombie was moaning his hunger, close enough now that they could smell the reek of decaying flesh. Charlie growled, aimed his shotgun and blew its head off. “Can’t you see we are trying to have a marital discussion? Jesus!” he yelled at it, annoyed. The zombie fell twitching to the ground.

“Oh, my hero.” Christina intoned with embellished sarcasm. Charlie pushed his glasses up and rubbed the bridge of his nose, shutting his eyes for a brief moment to re-center himself. “Do you know what my mother said to me on our wedding day?” she asked, stashing her machete back in its holder.

“Brains?” Charlie asked.

“Don’t be a bitch. This was before she got infected and we had to shoot her in the head before we cut the cake. No, she said to me that I shouldn’t marry you because you were a no-good dreamer with his head in the clouds and that you couldn’t take care of me. I think she might be right.”

“I shot a zombie for you!” Charlie said, pointing to the still twitching limbs crumbled on the ground to illustrate his point.

“You always shoot zombies for me. So what?”

Charlie sighed and put his shotgun back into the grocery cart in front of him. “Let’s just go home,” he said, “the ice cream is going to melt and I will be damned if I eat soggy Chunky Monkey.” Christina agreed and picked her purse back up, fishing out the keys to their car. Charlie wheeled the cart over to their silver SUV, dodging uncontrolled children and their uncaring parents, as well as the occasional forgotten body part.

God, he hated going to Costco on Saturdays.

The zombie apocalypse hadn’t been all it was cracked up to be. Sure, there were casualties and a few unfortunate incidents involving overrun malls but overall it was something most people had learned to live with. Everyone had too much to do in their daily lives to let a few undead bodies mess things up. People still had to go to work and buy groceries. God forbid the stock market took a day off or the New York Times stopped printing. Civilization had looked at the zombie menace and responded with a bored “meh”. Now it was an everyday occurrence, as expected as rush hour traffic and just as inconvenient.

Charlie and Christina Hodkinson had lived with the zombies since their wedding day, when Christina’s mom started acting funny after the shrimp cocktails. What began as suspected food poisoning was really an infected bite on her leg. Sometimes Charlie wished he felt more remorse about having to shoot his wife’s mother but that woman had been a harpy. Christina had been a little upset about it and jumped on the chance to move away from their families for a work opportunity.

As the assistant under secretary of her company, Christina was an important cog in the machine of her employer. Charlie was a freelance writer and could sit around in his boxers and write anywhere so the move had suited him just fine. The zombie problem wasn’t as bad in the suburbs anyway. They used to live in New York City and that place was a mess of the undead now, especially since so many undead celebrities had come back for a second chance at the limelight. The last time they went into the city, they had stopped in to see the latest gallery opening from the zombie of Andy Warhol and the newspapers were full of zombie Jimmy Hoffa’s work on unionizing Wal-Mart. He even had a tell-all book coming out about where he had been all that time. Zombies had become another mundane part of life.

What really bothered Charlie was how distant his wife had become and how much he was starting to loathe the suburbs. His doctor said his blood pressure was getting dangerously high and he tried to keep that in mind every time he got stuck behind an armored school bus going ten miles an hour. He wasn’t proud of himself for flipping off the person who manned the cheerfully bright yellow gun turret yesterday afternoon.

They drove in silence back to their small house on Spring Valley Street, past neat rows of white picket fences crowned with barbed wire. He noticed the US Mail tank going by and wondered if his latest Amazon order had arrived. They unloaded groceries and checked the house perimeter to make sure no zombies had schlepped in while they had been gone. Christina checked their answering machine, curling a lock of strawberry blonde hair in her finger as she did so, writing down any important numbers.

“We should talk.” Charlie announced once the messages had finished playing. She looked over at him, green eyes showing surprise that he broached the subject first.

“We should.” She said carefully. After making sure his ice cream was properly put away, Charlie sat down on the couch with her.

“I love you.” He said. “I really do. But what happened to us? We were so happy, you know? We were gonna have kids and live in this peaceful area and grow old together. Now I barely see you and we always fight…”

“I don’t know.” Christina said, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth. It was a nervous habit Charlie thought was adorable. “I’m bored. I’m just bored. Like I said, our relationship is a zombie.”

“Zombies are mindless. We are not mindless. We have minds. Sometimes we even use them. I think we can make this work. I mean… you love me, don’t you?” he asked, the words hanging in the air hopefully.

“I do, Charlie. Of course I do. I guess this just got easy. And boring. It got boring too. We need to spice it up.”

Charlie looked at her oddly. “How so?”

“I don’t know. Something exciting. I’m really tired of the regular day stuff. Every day it’s the same thing. Get up, go to work, behead a few zombies, come home, make dinner, watch a little TV and then rinse and repeat. That’s no way to live.”

“No. I guess not.” Charlie admitted.

“You know, Sarah and Brandon had a lot of success seeing that therapist together.” Christina suggested. “She gave me his card the last time we had lunch.”

“What? But Brandon got turned into a zombie a month ago!”

“She said their relationship hit a whole new plateau right before that, though. And Brandon seems to want her a whole lot more now.”

“Because he wants her BRAINS.” Charlie said.

They looked at each other for a moment, then they both started to laugh. It was a good cleansing laughter, the type that made tears spring to your eyes and your lungs to feel dry from the sharp gasps of air.

“You still have the best sense of humor, Charlie.” Christina said, dabbing at the corner of her eye delicately with her pinky finger to prevent ruining her makeup. “That’s why I married you. You always make me laugh.”

“I think we can make this work.” Charlie said, still smiling. He took her hands and held them to his chest. “I love you, Christina Marie Hodkinson. I love you more than Sports Center and Pringles and my semi-automatic Remington.”

Christina gave a stage gasp, making her eyes cartoonishly wide. “You love me more than Regina? You love that shotgun.”

“I’d rather have you than a hundred Reginas.” He said, pulling her close.

“That’s the most romantic thing you’ve said to me in months.” Christina said, tilting her head up to close the gap between their lips. The kiss was sweet and loving.

The French doors leading out to the patio crashed inward as a zombie moaned its way into the house. The couple looked over, surprised.

“Dammit!” Charlie shouted. “We were having a moment! What the hell is wrong with you, didn’t you ever learn to respect someone’s privacy?”

“Oh well.” Christina said, standing up. “I guess I’ll go put the chicken in the oven while you deal with that.” He looked over at her in disappointment.

“But we were having a MOMENT.” He almost whined. She kissed his cheek.

“We’ll have one again later. For now, I’m gonna go start dinner.”

Charlie sighed and grabbed his shotgun off the coffee table. “Stupid mood-killing zombies.” He muttered.

io9 ThursdayTales again

2010-07-28T23:29:00.003-04:00

I didn't have much time to write this, about an hour and a half. I like it but I think it could use some editing. It was a very small idea that I was able to shoehorn into 1,400 words. It could probably be expanded into a novella with actual dialog and stuff but I'm tired and I sort of like the feel it has with no dialog.

As always, criticism is welcomed.

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Untitled (Dreams)

Henry had always taken the white pills. He remembered taking them after dinner, right before bedtime. He remembered the weird slimy taste they left in his mouth if he didn’t swallow them right away. He remembered how big they had seemed when he was small and how small they were when he got bigger. Everyone took the white pills before bed. No one dreamed anymore.

Dreams were dangerous. People did crazy, stupid things because of dreams. It was for the good of all citizens that they had been outlawed. The law had been in place for 62 years and the white pills were given to each and every citizen, no matter how young. A liquid dose was given to the smallest citizens in their white bottles, their mothers holding them and thinking practical thoughts. People grew up without dreaming. They became productive members of the society, doing practical jobs and making practical money to spend on practical items. Art was immoral and banned. Music was lewd and even whistling would land you in a prison for three years. Stories ceased to be told and movies were never watched again. Such things were much too dangerous. It was better for the society if people never dreamed or danced or sang. They were distractions.

Henry was different. Henry had been illegally dreaming for a year and a half. It had all started when he had come down with an odd illness at work. His skin broke out into itchy red bumps and he was rushed to the hospital. No one had seen that sickness in over a hundred years. Most illness had been rendered obsolete in the society. Every so often a rare case broke out and Henry had the strange misfortune to come down with the first case of chicken pox in over a hundred years. The doctors were baffled, kept him in quarantine and poured over ancient medical texts for answers. As Henry lay in the hospital bed, weak and itchy, he could not keep his pill down. His sickness kept even the tiniest grain of nutrient from resting in his belly.

Without the pill in his system, Henry dreamed for the first time in his life. He had never experienced a dream in all his twenty four years. It was the most glorious thing Henry had ever witnessed. The anti-dream videos he had watched in school made it seem like a painful and sinister experience but nothing could be further from the truth. There was so much beauty in the strange things and places he saw. Henry had never seen colors so bright or animals so strange. When Henry woke up he knew one thing was certain. He would never again take the white pill before bed. He had to experience more; he had to learn more about the dreams.

His sickness soon waned and Henry was released from the hospital. The first thing he did was pour all the white pills he had in the toilet. He looked around at the white, unadorned walls of his apartment and the beige carpet and felt a deep dissatisfaction for the first time in his life. This place had once made him so happy. He hadn’t felt anything before. Now he knew the world contained untold colors and different joys. That night, Henry dreamed of a world full of strange men and women who lived under water. He joined them as they swam in jewel-like oceans. The night after that, he dreamed of flying. It was a dream so exquisite that it brought him to tears when he woke. Henry had never felt more alive in his life.

Dutifully, Henry still traveled to work every day. He experienced a new feeling as he sat in his white cubicle. He started to daydream. He watched the redheaded woman three cubicles in front of him. While he had worked with her for years, this is the first time he had ever really seen her. He felt his soul sag at the beauty in each curl of her rusty hair, the graceful way she swept it back behind her ear. That night he dreamed of her, hair like fire, walking with him under the foreign stars and twin moons of a strange world. When he woke up, he grabbed a sheet of paper and wrote down his feelings. His words started to flow and rhyme and he couldn’t help but pour his heart out about her. He had never felt like this about a woman before. Maybe it was the mess of her hair or the curve of her neck that had captured him. Whatever it was, it put a spring in his step and made him hum as he went to work.

The letter was shoved into a drawer in his brown desk and soon forgotten in the wake of meetings and products and speeches. Henry didn’t hear a word of anything said. His mind wandered into vast new places; places where he could fly like a bird. That had become a favorite dream of his. It became harder and harder to keep his secret to himself and he spent every night for weeks in vivid dreams. He wanted to tell everyone about this wonderful experience. Finally, he convinced himself that the redheaded woman would understand. He dreamed that they would escape somewhere the society couldn’t reach, a world free of small white pills and small white rooms, a place where they could raise children and dream freely. She had become a muse to him.

That morning on the way to work, Henry daydreamed about what would happen when he gave the redheaded woman his letter. He didn’t even notice the society guards standing at the entrance of his building before it was too late. Time slowed as he noticed the papers in their hands, as he realized it was his handwriting. Henry turned to run a moment too late, slamming into the people behind him as he tried to fight against the tide of practical employees. All too easily the society guards grabbed him and brought him to the ground, throwing a scratchy black sack over his head. Henry fought tears as he was dragged blindly away. All he had wanted to do was dream in peace.

He was thrown into a lightless cell. He knew there would be no trial, no jury. Those things had been deemed passé and done away with. Dreaming was a capital offense and was punishable by death. Henry could only lay in a corner and dream as he waited for his last day alive to come. The guards that woke him and dragged him out looked at him with the utmost disgust. Henry was limp in their arms as he was violently shoved back and forth.

Sunlight glowed in the white execution room. It had large windows to better illuminate the accused. The room was full of people who stood in their grey clothes, silently watching him as he was dragged to a single, shining guillotine. There was no mob jeers or screams. The room was so silent it felt like the sunlight was singing to Henry. He raised his head and looked at the blank faces in front of him. Their eyes were lifeless and suddenly Henry felt bold and proud. They had practical lives and practical jobs. They had one practical life. Henry smiled as he thought of the hundreds of lives he had lived in his dreams, the colors he had seen and the exhilaration he had felt as he soared in the air. His life may be ending today but he had lived enough for several lifetimes.

Henry laid his head in the mouth of the guillotine and felt no fear. He had no last words to offer the people in front of him; he knew they would never understand. He was at peace with himself. He glanced at the crowd one last time and caught a glimpse of red curls. She was there. The redhead was watching, her eyes wide. Henry’s heart leapt into his throat. Her eyes were different than the others, they were alive. She knew. She was a dreamer like he was. As he heard the rattle of the blade move above him, Henry cried out to her.

“Run!” he yelled, the first and last word he would ever speak to her. In that split second, he wished she would be liberated. He wished she would dream of him. He knew he would fly again and that she would join him. He knew he would finally be free to dream.

io9 story time

2010-07-17T23:00:00.003-04:00

I tried to put another story in my head (I have a lot stored up in there) down onto digital paper with varied results. It's not done, so call this a Part One, I suppose. I like the beginning and steadily liked it less as I went on. I think it went from very flesh out and nice in the beginning to bare bones and too much telling and not enough showing... it clocks in, thus far, at a little over 1,300 words.

Anyway, it's based off one of my favorite songs by The Decemberists, called "The Perfect Crime, Part 2". I tried to find it on youtube, but there were only crappy live renditions. Bah. The song is about a train robbery, done in that lovely storytelling way that they do so well. I've always been inspired by them.

Anyway, I don't think this is very good. It's a western but has big sci-fi components later in parts I haven't yet written. So comments and criticism are very much welcomed. Not sure if I should continue.

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The Perfect Crime (part one)

Joel’s horse sniffed indignantly at the damp mudhole that had once been a river. Unimpressed, the horse lifted its head to look at the man holding its lead. Joel McMannus sighed and took his hat off, unimpressed as well.

“Well damn, I’m unimpressed too girl. What do you want me to do about it?” The horse huffed and dug into the damp earth with a hoof, as if to further her point. There was no water here and she was thirsty. They had been on the run all day and while Joel was sure they weren’t being followed he didn’t want to take any chances. He kept her lead in his hand as he sat down on a dry stone. The muggy heat was driving him batty and he had removed all the clothes he could and still be decent. His ragged brown duster hung off his horse’s saddle, his old cotton shirt tied around his waist, faded blue stripes starting to blend into the once clean cream fabric. He was damned if he was going to remove his trousers and ride around in his underwear. Wouldn’t the Marshalls like to catch old Joel McMannus in his starkers!

“The best laid plans.” He muttered to himself as he wiped his forehead. His horse, a bossy pinto he fondly called Pepper, gave up digging at the riverbed and wandered over to him. She laid her big head against his as if she could help him figure out their next move. Joel petted her face.

“How’d it go so wrong?” he asked her, fingers stroking the velvet of her nose. “It should have gone off without a hitch. Brothers said it would. Knew about the train, knew about the mayor and that gussied up filly he kept. We spent weeks planning it. Damned railroads. Always knew they’d be nothing but trouble. My daddy always said that. ‘Son,’ he’d say to me, ‘them railroads won’t bring us anything but misery’. Old man was always right.”

Pepper started to nibble on Joel’s scraggy blonde hair, too long now for civilization and held back from his face with a strip of old leather. He gently pushed her face away and got to his feet, his boots feeling heavier with each step. Pepper held still as Joel pushed himself back up into the saddle, adjusting for comfort and looking over his shoulder to ensure his coast was clear. The two saddle bags behind him bulged with untold wealth. He and the gang were supposed to have met in the cabin a few miles away to count it after the crime. Now Joel didn’t know if they were even alive.

He shook his head as he nudged Pepper forward. “I swear girl, the best laid plans…”

Yesterday

“Hot damn, boy! You are some hell of a crack shot!” Joel cheered from the cabin porch. Caleb, a scrawny fourteen year old, grinned from the yard. A mop of sun-brightened brunette hair almost covered his eyes but Joel could still see how pleased the boy was. The gang was teaching him how to shoot and he was getting good. They hadn’t ever meant to pick up a stray but Caleb was endearing and, more importantly, useful. He had been orphaned when his family succumbed to a sickness and had taken to pick pocketing. His hand was caught in the pocket of one of the brothers and the rest was history.

Bill and Hank Hargrave had taken to training Caleb up to be a real part of the gang. The brothers were crafty, talented with all manner of firearm and crazy as loons. They had identical features, matching ginger hair and green eyes. For some reason, women found them irresistible which Joel thought was hysterical. They only way anyone could tell the fools apart was an old scar across Hank’s left eyebrow. Hank claimed it was from an old farming accident but no one believed they had ever worked an honest day in their lives. They were born to crime and had the minds for trouble. Caleb loved them like heroes and took their gossip as gospel. Bill bent to show the boy how to reload the pistol, explaining the inner workings to the eager child. Hank left them and walked over to Joel.

“He’s gettin’ good, huh?” the brother said, scratching at the uneven stubble on his face. Joel nodded, taking a sip of water from his broken mug before talking.

“Yeah, remarkable. Didn’t think anything of him when he tried to steal you blind in Oklahoma. He’s handy.”

“Smart as a whip.” Hank said fondly, like a father would. Joel often wondered if there had been some ginger woman and ginger baby back in Hank’s sordid past but never voiced his curiosity. Some things weren’t any of his business. He simply nodded at Hank’s pride. Bill stood back up and waved his brother over to continue the shooting practice. Caleb looked so happy he could burst. The door to the cabin opened behind Joel and another man walked out. Bill and Hank laughed.

“Here comes the killjoy!” Bill whooped. The man rolled his eyes and sank into a chair next to Joel.

“Don’t mind him, John.” Joel said for what felt like the hundredth time in his life. John frowned and adjusted his spectacles. John Russell was a slender man, clean and conservatively dressed. He was the so-called brains of the gang, joining up after getting run out of a town for dipping his hand into the taxes. He was brilliant with sums and words, but had a mean gambling addiction that kept him just slightly left of the law. John and the brothers were always at odds and it left Joel feeling like a school marm.

“Let them get it out of their systems. We have stuff to discuss later and I’d rather they keep civil then instead of now.” John said, crossing his arms.

“Did you hear back from your contact in town?” Joel asked, suddenly feeling on edge. The plan would be put into motion soon and the closer that day came, the less sure Joel felt.

“Yeah, he said my horse lost in the Derby and I owe him money.”

“Jesus, who don’t you owe money to, John? I’m serious; did you hear anything about the damned train?”

“I did. It’s on time. Should be through these parts tomorrow.” John shrugged. “We gotta be ready tonight.”

“Hell. Okay. And the cargo?” Joel stopped himself from leaning over, trying to maintain an air of nonchalance.

“Straight from the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. Headed to San Francisco. We’ll be rich men if we can take it.” He said with a smile.

“Good. We get ready after dinner. Seen Daniel around?” Joel referred to the last member of their motley band. John pointed to the barn. “You go see him and tell him it goes down tomorrow. He better be ready.”

The plan was simple. A classic train heist. John still had connections from his old accountant days that worked for the railroad and for a bank back east. Daniel, a silent and imposing ex-military man, had once worked for the railroad and knew its patterns and tricks, how to stop the big machine in its tracks. The brothers were firepower and Joel was the mastermind. Caleb had even been a token position as a look out on a nearby water tower. Tomorrow their train would barrel into the valley and they’d rob it blind. John had found out it was carrying funds to go to a bank in San Francisco and if they played their cards right, it would be theirs before the day was over. They had gone over the specifics again and again but Joel still felt nervous. Something felt off about this robbery.

io9 Drabble

2010-07-15T23:57:00.002-04:00

A little over 500 words written for io9's #thursdaytales. It's based on a dream I once had. Please comment with criticism and suggestions.

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People came from far off places to hear the wisdom of the last book in existence. They walked until their feet were bloody. They rode until their limbs were sore. Some died on the journey, others were born. It was both a sacred pilgrimage and a death march as many traversed cracked blacktop and passed through haunted and dead cities. Things had changed after the world had ended.

It had started quietly, for the most part; a slow slide into unstoppable disease and silent, malicious warfare. Before long, civilization had crumbled and took millions of lives and untold volumes of wisdom with it, succumbing to fire and bombs and riots. Food became scare, electricity stopped working. All the lights of the world went out as if some greater force had simply blown them like birthday candles. The stars returned to the sky, freed from the blanket of light pollution. They twinkled fondly over the pilgrims, eager to show off their brilliance.

The rumor of the last book in the world had drawn many and they arrived in a city by a cold, dark ocean. Towers of ruined and rusted metal slumped around them like the broken skeletons of once great giants. The shards of broken glass still clinging to windows looked like glittering teeth and everyone kept their distances from the hulking dead behemoths that twisted into the sky.

A man was waiting for them, holding the last book in dirty hands. His beard was matted and his eyes haunted, his face lined from the horrors he had seen. He stood proudly now, keeper of a great gift. It held all the wisdom and goodness left in the world. It was worth dying over and killing for. The man waited while people slowly streamed into his area, sitting atop a great rock in the middle of a field. It seemed like it was the only place safe in the city of dead buildings and lost souls.

Finally, when the man had deemed that enough had arrived and had settled down, he made it known that he was ready to read the book. The pilgrims sat around their small makeshift fires and clung to one another as his voice rang out like a bell in the reverent silence. No one dared speak while he spoke. No one dared move. His voice was strong and solemn, the somber tone louder than bombs in such hopeful, breathless silence. Gnarled hands turned each dirty, worn page as he took his time reading.

"Goodnight stars. Goodnight air. Goodnight noises... everywhere." His voice started to shake as he finished his task, looking down at the battered copy of Goodnight Moon in his now unsteady hands. The task was completed. The last book in the world had been recited to the children of the apocalypse.