Jodiechrist
23-12-2007, 06:22 PM
Aloha!
Just for fun, guess what mark out of 100 this assignment received (It's a first year arts course - prof writ & editing)... The sum total of the requirements were "2000 word short story" - no genre, particular audience, etc etc.
It was a miserable fucking day. Leaning against the wall, I gazed out the window and watched the rain pelt down across the yard. It’d been coming down like this for hours now; the garden needs the water, but a spongy, slippery lawn will only make my job ten times harder. On any other day it would’ve been a good view. In the clear sunlight, you could see for miles. You could see the backs of the shops up on the main street. You could see the train line wind off into the distance like some kind of pretty zipper on the hillside. But most importantly, you could see the pub.
It shat me. There it was - just a kilometre or two away and in plain sight from my room, but I couldn’t go there. It had to be close on six fucking months now. Six months without a parma. Six months without the staff who knew me well enough to avoid idle chatter; staff who knew to leave the fried egg off my burgers. Six months since the last badly poured jug of Coopers. Six fucking months, and my credit card was probably still behind the bar somewhere. But today, I couldn’t even see the fucking pub. All I could see was the grey wall of rain, and our miserable dirty lawn strewn with bodies.
Begrudgingly, and with the help of a sharp rap on the door courtesy of the ever impatient Jacob, I dragged myself away from the window and completed the awkward task of pulling on my coveralls.
C’mon Mark. Get your fucking shit together will you?
Piss off – I’m almost ready. It’s not like they’re going to get up and wander off, is it?
Fucking hurry up. I want to get back here to sleep.
Yeah, yeah.
Jesus Jacob could be a pain in the arse. I don’t know how the hell he can sleep during the day. Well, at least not without a hangover. But I suppose it’s just another of the facts of life these days. Christ, the only way you could sleep during the night here was if you were stone fucking deaf and didn’t mind a pair of teeth embedded in your skull, and that doesn’t really sound like my cup of tea.
With one last long and resolute sigh, I steeled myself for the job at hand and headed downstairs in search of Jacob. Predictably, I found him in the kitchen chewing away on a stale cheese sandwich and nursing a bloodied shovel in his arms. Involuntarily, my stomach did a flip. Kelly’s too, if the look on her face was anything to go by.
She looked tired as she carefully went about the menial task of making herself a cup of tea. She cocked her head as I padded through the doorway, and rattled the box of teabags at me in offer. I shook my head.
Nah thanks. Best be off. I said, gesturing to the yard. Maybe later though. Wordlessly, she nodded and I turned my attention back to Jacob;
Fuck you’re gross man.
Wha? He replied, giving us all a great view of a half masticated lump of bread and dairy. Finally, he swallowed the mouthful and tossed the last chunk of sandwich on the table for later. Kelly peered at it doubtfully before getting back to her tea.
Let’s go man!
Yeah, right.
I picked up my shovel and headed out the door behind Jacob. It was a horrible fucking job, clearing the bodies off the lawn. It was only made worse by having to team up with Jacob this week. I watched as the silly bugger ran about the lawn taking fucking great swings at the corpses with his shovel. As the heads flew across the grass, my mind wandered back to the early days, when we used to be so much more cautious with our chores. Every journey outside would be a dangerous adventure – we’d kit up, we’d sneak around silently, barely daring to breathe. It was a far cry from today's scene of a man-child leaping around the lawn hooting. Time and experience had emboldened us I suppose – and there just wasn’t much to be afraid of anymore. The zombies were getting weaker. Less and less attacked each night, and I hadn’t seen a live one in daylight for months now.
Our forces had been getting stronger, too. At the start, it was just the four of us. When we got on the train for the last time, we had no idea. I’d had a great night out until then. I remember being so fucking pleased with myself as I scrambled into that last carriage, the closing doors jealously bleeping in my wake – I’d made the last run of the night and had narrowly saved myself the taxi ride home – but the deep sense of victory came from more than just avoiding a forty dollar fare, it came from the thrill of the chase… the well timed purchase of a cheeseburger, the efficient flicking of a ticket through the barricades, the skilful run down the escalators, the graceful leap through the closing doors; I felt alive.
And now, well, against the odds I’m still alive. A race down a set of moving metal stairs pales in comparison to nightly battles with zombie hordes, but for some reason, these real life and death victories feel pretty hollow. Maybe it’s because fear takes over. Maybe it’s all the anonymous death. Maybe it’s because we’re not drunk – I don’t know, and I'm not convinced it warrants dwelling on.
But that carriage. There was just the four of us in it. How we managed to survive, I’ll never fucking know. I remember watching Jacob fucking about as the train clattered on. Idly, he bounced a Coke bottle off the window sill, throwing, catching, throwing, catching, until a noise like those crappy plastic guns you buy kids from $2 shops make sounded across the carriage. Jacob put the bottle down and answered his phone. We all listened as he yelled loudly into the phone, laughing, giving the caller shit. My stop was coming up, and I got up. I moved over to the doorway and stood, drunkenly swaying from side to side while trying to look tough; and it was all over.
A screech, and the carriage bucked. I must’ve been thrown to the other side, my body violently slamming into the doors – a heavy blunt force, and I was out to it. The persistent squeal of metal on metal brought me back into a sharp and unwanted consciousness; we were still moving, and gravity had me pinned to the doors. I looked up, I saw Jacob. His face was slashed beyond recognition. Through the blood I caught the boys’ eye, a look of sheer terror I’ll never forget. An endless moving wall of gravel and glass sprayed up from the former window where he had sat.
Without warning, and with a fucking great splash I was dragged out of my thoughts. I looked down and the cold dead eyes of a zombie stared back at me from the mud, its face forever frozen with one final look of stupidity.
Fucking hell! Jacob, would you stop fucking about? The pillock stood on the lawn doubled over his shovel, pissing himself laughing. Yeah, fucking great joke.
I kicked the head off to the side in disgust.
Lets just get on with it, ‘eh? Come and help me with this lot.
Without word, we dragged the carcases across the yard. It was a hard slog, and we stamped through the mud deep in our own thoughts. It was quite the trek really, dragging a body behind you along the yard, through the gap in the fence, and onto the pile. In the early days, the invaders we killed were left in the yard to rot – we were too scared to go out and do anything with them. But a couple of weeks of four adults locked in a house with no running water, decreasing food stocks, and an increasingly bad stench penetrating the walls, well, we needed to get out, zombies or no zombies.
So we did. We waited ‘til daylight, and we packed our shit and left - we didn’t think we were coming back. But it was nothing like any those zombie movies we used to watch. If anything, it was all a lot better. The suburb wasn’t ravaged, it was just quiet. There were no dead, lying about stinking up the place (save our personal collection), and we figured the zombies have just eaten them. The first place we checked out was the supermarket, and fuck, that was a surprise. The place was all lit up! Turns out some jokers headed straight for the joint when the shit hit the fan, and managed to keep the generators running. It wasn’t particularly secure, but the light seemed to keep the zombies at bay. That’s where we picked up Kelly. Her mate, Dave, didn't make it this far.
But now, we dragged and lifted and tossed bodies, from the house we once tried to escape.
Hey Jacob, can you help me with this one? We heaved another body onto the pile. It was getting big now – and harder to throw the dead up on to.
This lot are about ready to torch, eh? He said, watching the headless body rise into the air, then fall gracelessly, limbs flailing, onto the great stinking pile.
Yeah, I reckon. They’re getting pretty ripe.
Hey Mark, do you reckon the neighbours would mind, well, you know, if they were around?
It was the third time he’d asked me. Frankly, I had no fucking idea if the neighbours would mind, but I suspect if we’d run the idea of burning shitloads of mutant zombie corpses after playing a deranged game of golf with their body parts, prior to their own, rather unfortunate zombified deaths, then yes - I suspect they might have had some concerns.
Nah. They’d want us to survive. You know how it is mate.
Mmm. He nodded, far too sagely for a guy of his age. I caught a sideways glance at his face; the skin looked like something had just torn it apart, willy nilly. The bits not covered in the fucking great tears were filled with a rough scarring. Still, it was all smoothing over - It'd never be great, but at least it was getting a little better for the poor bastard.
We returned to the mundane task of clearing the bodies. Soon, we'd be back inside with a cup of tea before turning in for the, well, the day. I could never quite get used to the idea of sleeping during the daylight, but it had to be done if we were to mount any sort of convincing defense during the night. Though that said, it was a lot easier these days - maybe we could think about running separate night and day shifts soon... something to mention at the next house dinner; we had a lot more people, and we were healthy.
The army had been bloody excellent - three supply drops for the area a month, whether we needed it or not. I guess it all changed when we came across the supermarket; it was amazing. People were all over the joint, living, defending and surviving - just like us. Fuck, friends from the old days, even. It's fucking weird though... there's no salvation for us, no hope of an evacuation, but we seem to make do with the essentials - everything we need to survive.
Right. And that's that! I said as we heaved the last of the bodies onto the pile.
Cool - lets head in. We can burn off this lot tomorrow.
Sounds good mate. I could do with a kip.
And with that, we headed off. I relished the trip back - the hard work was over, now there was time to relax. The sun was starting to get high in the sky. I watched the birds fly from fence to fence, searching for something unknown. The smell of a nearby burning zombie stack permeated the air, and all I could think about was the stories that the crew responsible for that lot would have to tell one day. This wasn't great, but it wasn't hell, either. But there's plenty of time for reflection - for now, I just want my cup of tea.
Just for fun, guess what mark out of 100 this assignment received (It's a first year arts course - prof writ & editing)... The sum total of the requirements were "2000 word short story" - no genre, particular audience, etc etc.
It was a miserable fucking day. Leaning against the wall, I gazed out the window and watched the rain pelt down across the yard. It’d been coming down like this for hours now; the garden needs the water, but a spongy, slippery lawn will only make my job ten times harder. On any other day it would’ve been a good view. In the clear sunlight, you could see for miles. You could see the backs of the shops up on the main street. You could see the train line wind off into the distance like some kind of pretty zipper on the hillside. But most importantly, you could see the pub.
It shat me. There it was - just a kilometre or two away and in plain sight from my room, but I couldn’t go there. It had to be close on six fucking months now. Six months without a parma. Six months without the staff who knew me well enough to avoid idle chatter; staff who knew to leave the fried egg off my burgers. Six months since the last badly poured jug of Coopers. Six fucking months, and my credit card was probably still behind the bar somewhere. But today, I couldn’t even see the fucking pub. All I could see was the grey wall of rain, and our miserable dirty lawn strewn with bodies.
Begrudgingly, and with the help of a sharp rap on the door courtesy of the ever impatient Jacob, I dragged myself away from the window and completed the awkward task of pulling on my coveralls.
C’mon Mark. Get your fucking shit together will you?
Piss off – I’m almost ready. It’s not like they’re going to get up and wander off, is it?
Fucking hurry up. I want to get back here to sleep.
Yeah, yeah.
Jesus Jacob could be a pain in the arse. I don’t know how the hell he can sleep during the day. Well, at least not without a hangover. But I suppose it’s just another of the facts of life these days. Christ, the only way you could sleep during the night here was if you were stone fucking deaf and didn’t mind a pair of teeth embedded in your skull, and that doesn’t really sound like my cup of tea.
With one last long and resolute sigh, I steeled myself for the job at hand and headed downstairs in search of Jacob. Predictably, I found him in the kitchen chewing away on a stale cheese sandwich and nursing a bloodied shovel in his arms. Involuntarily, my stomach did a flip. Kelly’s too, if the look on her face was anything to go by.
She looked tired as she carefully went about the menial task of making herself a cup of tea. She cocked her head as I padded through the doorway, and rattled the box of teabags at me in offer. I shook my head.
Nah thanks. Best be off. I said, gesturing to the yard. Maybe later though. Wordlessly, she nodded and I turned my attention back to Jacob;
Fuck you’re gross man.
Wha? He replied, giving us all a great view of a half masticated lump of bread and dairy. Finally, he swallowed the mouthful and tossed the last chunk of sandwich on the table for later. Kelly peered at it doubtfully before getting back to her tea.
Let’s go man!
Yeah, right.
I picked up my shovel and headed out the door behind Jacob. It was a horrible fucking job, clearing the bodies off the lawn. It was only made worse by having to team up with Jacob this week. I watched as the silly bugger ran about the lawn taking fucking great swings at the corpses with his shovel. As the heads flew across the grass, my mind wandered back to the early days, when we used to be so much more cautious with our chores. Every journey outside would be a dangerous adventure – we’d kit up, we’d sneak around silently, barely daring to breathe. It was a far cry from today's scene of a man-child leaping around the lawn hooting. Time and experience had emboldened us I suppose – and there just wasn’t much to be afraid of anymore. The zombies were getting weaker. Less and less attacked each night, and I hadn’t seen a live one in daylight for months now.
Our forces had been getting stronger, too. At the start, it was just the four of us. When we got on the train for the last time, we had no idea. I’d had a great night out until then. I remember being so fucking pleased with myself as I scrambled into that last carriage, the closing doors jealously bleeping in my wake – I’d made the last run of the night and had narrowly saved myself the taxi ride home – but the deep sense of victory came from more than just avoiding a forty dollar fare, it came from the thrill of the chase… the well timed purchase of a cheeseburger, the efficient flicking of a ticket through the barricades, the skilful run down the escalators, the graceful leap through the closing doors; I felt alive.
And now, well, against the odds I’m still alive. A race down a set of moving metal stairs pales in comparison to nightly battles with zombie hordes, but for some reason, these real life and death victories feel pretty hollow. Maybe it’s because fear takes over. Maybe it’s all the anonymous death. Maybe it’s because we’re not drunk – I don’t know, and I'm not convinced it warrants dwelling on.
But that carriage. There was just the four of us in it. How we managed to survive, I’ll never fucking know. I remember watching Jacob fucking about as the train clattered on. Idly, he bounced a Coke bottle off the window sill, throwing, catching, throwing, catching, until a noise like those crappy plastic guns you buy kids from $2 shops make sounded across the carriage. Jacob put the bottle down and answered his phone. We all listened as he yelled loudly into the phone, laughing, giving the caller shit. My stop was coming up, and I got up. I moved over to the doorway and stood, drunkenly swaying from side to side while trying to look tough; and it was all over.
A screech, and the carriage bucked. I must’ve been thrown to the other side, my body violently slamming into the doors – a heavy blunt force, and I was out to it. The persistent squeal of metal on metal brought me back into a sharp and unwanted consciousness; we were still moving, and gravity had me pinned to the doors. I looked up, I saw Jacob. His face was slashed beyond recognition. Through the blood I caught the boys’ eye, a look of sheer terror I’ll never forget. An endless moving wall of gravel and glass sprayed up from the former window where he had sat.
Without warning, and with a fucking great splash I was dragged out of my thoughts. I looked down and the cold dead eyes of a zombie stared back at me from the mud, its face forever frozen with one final look of stupidity.
Fucking hell! Jacob, would you stop fucking about? The pillock stood on the lawn doubled over his shovel, pissing himself laughing. Yeah, fucking great joke.
I kicked the head off to the side in disgust.
Lets just get on with it, ‘eh? Come and help me with this lot.
Without word, we dragged the carcases across the yard. It was a hard slog, and we stamped through the mud deep in our own thoughts. It was quite the trek really, dragging a body behind you along the yard, through the gap in the fence, and onto the pile. In the early days, the invaders we killed were left in the yard to rot – we were too scared to go out and do anything with them. But a couple of weeks of four adults locked in a house with no running water, decreasing food stocks, and an increasingly bad stench penetrating the walls, well, we needed to get out, zombies or no zombies.
So we did. We waited ‘til daylight, and we packed our shit and left - we didn’t think we were coming back. But it was nothing like any those zombie movies we used to watch. If anything, it was all a lot better. The suburb wasn’t ravaged, it was just quiet. There were no dead, lying about stinking up the place (save our personal collection), and we figured the zombies have just eaten them. The first place we checked out was the supermarket, and fuck, that was a surprise. The place was all lit up! Turns out some jokers headed straight for the joint when the shit hit the fan, and managed to keep the generators running. It wasn’t particularly secure, but the light seemed to keep the zombies at bay. That’s where we picked up Kelly. Her mate, Dave, didn't make it this far.
But now, we dragged and lifted and tossed bodies, from the house we once tried to escape.
Hey Jacob, can you help me with this one? We heaved another body onto the pile. It was getting big now – and harder to throw the dead up on to.
This lot are about ready to torch, eh? He said, watching the headless body rise into the air, then fall gracelessly, limbs flailing, onto the great stinking pile.
Yeah, I reckon. They’re getting pretty ripe.
Hey Mark, do you reckon the neighbours would mind, well, you know, if they were around?
It was the third time he’d asked me. Frankly, I had no fucking idea if the neighbours would mind, but I suspect if we’d run the idea of burning shitloads of mutant zombie corpses after playing a deranged game of golf with their body parts, prior to their own, rather unfortunate zombified deaths, then yes - I suspect they might have had some concerns.
Nah. They’d want us to survive. You know how it is mate.
Mmm. He nodded, far too sagely for a guy of his age. I caught a sideways glance at his face; the skin looked like something had just torn it apart, willy nilly. The bits not covered in the fucking great tears were filled with a rough scarring. Still, it was all smoothing over - It'd never be great, but at least it was getting a little better for the poor bastard.
We returned to the mundane task of clearing the bodies. Soon, we'd be back inside with a cup of tea before turning in for the, well, the day. I could never quite get used to the idea of sleeping during the daylight, but it had to be done if we were to mount any sort of convincing defense during the night. Though that said, it was a lot easier these days - maybe we could think about running separate night and day shifts soon... something to mention at the next house dinner; we had a lot more people, and we were healthy.
The army had been bloody excellent - three supply drops for the area a month, whether we needed it or not. I guess it all changed when we came across the supermarket; it was amazing. People were all over the joint, living, defending and surviving - just like us. Fuck, friends from the old days, even. It's fucking weird though... there's no salvation for us, no hope of an evacuation, but we seem to make do with the essentials - everything we need to survive.
Right. And that's that! I said as we heaved the last of the bodies onto the pile.
Cool - lets head in. We can burn off this lot tomorrow.
Sounds good mate. I could do with a kip.
And with that, we headed off. I relished the trip back - the hard work was over, now there was time to relax. The sun was starting to get high in the sky. I watched the birds fly from fence to fence, searching for something unknown. The smell of a nearby burning zombie stack permeated the air, and all I could think about was the stories that the crew responsible for that lot would have to tell one day. This wasn't great, but it wasn't hell, either. But there's plenty of time for reflection - for now, I just want my cup of tea.