When Xerg returned to his home planet, the first place that he stopped into was the first bar that he could find to drown his sorrows in.
“Bruntak blood,” he told the bartender immediately. The drink was meant to be an elixir for bad spirits. Made from the animals whom were the size of two of Earth’s elephants combined with the tenacity of their lions, the animals were slain on the frosty mountains where their blood was drained. Their power was supposedly given to the men who drank it. Any sadness, fear, shame, or cowardice could be vanquished by this drink, and Xerg had all of those.
The beverage was placed on the table in a 12 ounce cup. The poor Jupitan paid the bartender and tipped his head back, downing the drink immediately. He chased the bitterness to the liquid with a sour face.
“You don’t drink much, do you?” The bartender said, wiping the counter.
“Almost never,” he said, diverting his attention to the television.
He stared at the tv, continually ordering random drinks until the door opened.
“Xerg! I’ve found you!” An old friend, Jaf , exclaimed boisterously. Wrapping his arm around him, he ordered another round.
“I haven’t seen you in so long!” His happiness still carried.
“There’s a reason for that,” Xerg sunk lower in his seat.
Jaf paused a moment, caught the severity of the moment, and his tone lowered.
“What happened, my friend? Is it earth?”
Xerg’s hand held his head, covering his eyes in shame. He didn’t want to look at Jaf when he nodded.
“What about it?”
“The Mother’s Day Project,” he said and with agony as he began his story.
“It was a perfect day when we made contact. Wherever we hit, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The sun was beating down happily on the earth and there was an occasional cooling gust of wind that would give you a pleasant smile. Had it not been for the weather and our grins from the wind tickling our faces, the earthlings might have seen us as a potential threat and attacked. But they saw our harmlessness and slowly but surely began making contact with us.
“Me being the public relations person, I approached them first. Of course they wanted to poke and prod and kill and experiment us, but I kept them at bay for the time being. I did so by organizing an event. We arrived close to a holiday- apparently one celebrating their bearer called Mother’s Day. We decided that it’d be a great idea to hold what the humans call a ‘pageant’to decide who was earth's best mother. Based on talent, love, and sweetness, Jupitans were expected to rate and decide the final winner.
“The turnout was massive. From all over the states, men and women and their mothers showed up, determined that they were destined to win. But of course, there could only be one. When all was said and done, a small humble woman from Connecticut had won the award. Loving, interesting and quaint, she was the ideal human to bestow the award upon, but that’s when things got ugly.
The crowd lost it. How could their mothers not receive the honor? Suddenly, all of the pageant members rushed the stage, grabbing for the poor woman and her son. They were like animals. Soon dismembered body parts flew from the middle of the crowd. They were literally tearing her and her son apart! Soon enough, her head was spiked, her horrified, grotesque expression batted like a volleyball around the horde. When there was no more blood, they rioted, began tearing down things, mother and son and daughter couples destroying whatever they could get their hands on. All because each and every one of them thought that they simply had the best mother ever.”
Jaf’s face was now twisted in disgust and disbelief. Xerg’s eyes remained dead set on the counter in front of him.
“I don’t know,” Xerg paused , “which one was more prevalent- their love for their mothers, or their hate for everyone.”
Jaf still remained dumbstruck. Surely his friend had had a day beyond imaginable.
“I’m sorry, Xerg.”
“If anything, I should be sorry. I could have stopped it. Used one of our devices to freeze time, I could have used one of grenades that emit paralyzing sounds to stop them right in their tracks. But I didn’t Instead, I just teleported home as fast as I could.
“It wasn’t your fight.”
Xerg nodded in agreement and almost immediately, his stress was relieved a bit. One question remained on Jaf’s mind, although the answer was obvious, he needed to hear it.
“So earth is inhabitable?”
“Uninhabitable, unstable, incommunicable. It will be destroyed tomorrow.”
Jaf nodded.
“I’ll drink to that, my friend,” the two Jupitans laughed, ordering another round of the blood of a slain beast whilst thinking of slaying another one the next day.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
This New Short Story I Did
Is 9 pages long
It seemed way too long, so I figured I'd try to put it on a pdf, but then I realized that I wrote it completely in Google Docs so I could post it with this link, so here it is:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PQxMkd_QChJaFQwI3d8NSHg5p_iqoxGumcw9nky7wQw/edit?hl=en&authkey=CMPa-9sJ
Feel free to throw some names out for the title, I couldn't think of one myself.
-Derrick
It seemed way too long, so I figured I'd try to put it on a pdf, but then I realized that I wrote it completely in Google Docs so I could post it with this link, so here it is:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PQxMkd_QChJaFQwI3d8NSHg5p_iqoxGumcw9nky7wQw/edit?hl=en&authkey=CMPa-9sJ
Feel free to throw some names out for the title, I couldn't think of one myself.
-Derrick
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Ladybug Story
Maxwell slowly made his way up a blade of grass. All six legs wiggling their way up, he flew when he reached the top, hovering in the air until he found what he wanted: a leaf. A nice big leaf for him to relax on, enjoy the sun, and get away from everybody. Now an adult, he had thought the whole ‘male ladybug’ joke would have settled by now, especially considering that there were thousands and thousands of males just like him around the world, but his conflicted existence never got old to the residents in his garden. Quickly he grew tired of exclaiming his real name: Coccinellidae and trying to explain that he was a beetle like any other beetle they had met. He just wanted to be alone.
Finding the moment of solitude extremely pleasing, Maxwell planted his legs firmly on the leaf. Drifting side to side, he swayed in a peaceful unison with the wind, he wished he could stay there forever.
The thought was disrupted by a buzzing. In the distance, two of the Bee Queen’s servants were jetting towards him. Maxwell bounded off of his plan, spreading his wings and fluttering as fast as he could. Unfortunately, no matter how fast he flew, the pursuers wouldn’t wane away. Soon enough, two sets of arms wrapped around his and he stopped flying. He was at the will of the Queen’s bees and nothing would changed that.
Approaching the center of the garden had taken longer than expected. Max hadn’t realized how far he had traveled from it. His thoughts just always seemed to take him wandering to the outskirts until he would look up at the changing-colored sky and realize that it was time to return. Usually, the only time insects were seen in the exact center was when the ants found sanctum under one of the Boy’s toys. Contrarily, the center was filled with hundreds of his neighbors from the backyard. He finally spoke up.
“Um, excuse me, where are we going?” But the bees didn’t speak back, instead lowering their altitude and heading closer and closer.
A calamity of thousands of voices and languages were all being spoken amongst the different families of bugs. The bees were nosediving closer and faster to the ground until they finally found their mark, releasing Maxwell into the center of the crowd before flying away to return to following their Queen’s orders.
Max hit the floor hard, rolling several times before hitting the soft side of a worm. Though he was thankful for its presence and cushy reception to his tumbling, he was wondering what exactly it was doing there. He got back on his feet to regain his composure only to look up at thousands of eyes peering at him and him alone.
“What?” He asked with confusion.
At that moment, from the crowd stepped The Elder. The sole praying mantis of that garden, the wisdom he contained was incomparable to any other being of all of the backyard. That was why he was elected their leader and specifically gifted with no predators and instead only faithful servers.
“Hello Maxwell” his aged voice cracked.
“Well hi” every body's head around him was bowed. Max remained the only one not to do so, solely due to his immense confusion.
“I’ve been watching you for a while, Maxwell. You’ve lived quite an isolated life. But I can see it in you that you think constantly. You calculate, you plan. You’re above most of these insects in thought, in fact. It’s time for you to move on. But you have to start somewhere.”
The Elder motioned for something. Maxwell hadn't gotten any closer to clarification from the mantis’s speech until a small crown arrived. Made from twigs and spun together by an arachnid’s web, he understood what he was there for now, but didn’t exactly understand why.
“Maxwell Coccinellidae, it is with great honor that I, Elder Mantidea dub you, King of the Backyard!”
A roaring exclamation from the whole garden reverberated through the center, all of the backyard lifting Max up, carrying him to what he would find to be a throne they had crafted along with the crown. He sat there and really took in what were now his people- all of the flies and the bees in the air and the centipedes clapping all 50 sets of hands, the ants and their Queen were even present to witness the entitling of their now-omniscient leader, and who could forget the big soft worm who had cushioned his fall earlier? All his republic now. And they all asked the same question.
“What next?” One would yell.
“Yeah, what should we do?!” Another would follow.
Maxwell gave it all deep thought before finally speaking up. “Arthropods, invertebrates, and all alike, we face many potential dangers. The blades of the Man’s grass cutter, the stomping of the Boys feet through our civilization, the horrid pesticides the Woman places to prevent us from eating. Some of us have even bigger problems than that,” He tried to go for mass appeal. He figured that that statement can be related to from the worker ants who would be crushed unreasonably to the terrible torturing of the lightning bugs every summer.
“Until we have those problems fixed, I am not making any specific orders. In fact, I am your servant.” A thunderous cheer followed.
“Carry on as you please,” he instructed and they did as they were told, returning to their original posts. He soon felt the long, ridged forelegs of the elder on his back to assure him that he would in fact be a good leader. Maxwell looked on to what he had in front of him and realized his path was absolutely uncharted by anybody before, not even the mantis. He was the an underling and now he had to choose the fate of his future and people. A natural leader, he knew exactly what to do. He ventured back to his leaf to give it further contemplation.
Finding the moment of solitude extremely pleasing, Maxwell planted his legs firmly on the leaf. Drifting side to side, he swayed in a peaceful unison with the wind, he wished he could stay there forever.
The thought was disrupted by a buzzing. In the distance, two of the Bee Queen’s servants were jetting towards him. Maxwell bounded off of his plan, spreading his wings and fluttering as fast as he could. Unfortunately, no matter how fast he flew, the pursuers wouldn’t wane away. Soon enough, two sets of arms wrapped around his and he stopped flying. He was at the will of the Queen’s bees and nothing would changed that.
Approaching the center of the garden had taken longer than expected. Max hadn’t realized how far he had traveled from it. His thoughts just always seemed to take him wandering to the outskirts until he would look up at the changing-colored sky and realize that it was time to return. Usually, the only time insects were seen in the exact center was when the ants found sanctum under one of the Boy’s toys. Contrarily, the center was filled with hundreds of his neighbors from the backyard. He finally spoke up.
“Um, excuse me, where are we going?” But the bees didn’t speak back, instead lowering their altitude and heading closer and closer.
A calamity of thousands of voices and languages were all being spoken amongst the different families of bugs. The bees were nosediving closer and faster to the ground until they finally found their mark, releasing Maxwell into the center of the crowd before flying away to return to following their Queen’s orders.
Max hit the floor hard, rolling several times before hitting the soft side of a worm. Though he was thankful for its presence and cushy reception to his tumbling, he was wondering what exactly it was doing there. He got back on his feet to regain his composure only to look up at thousands of eyes peering at him and him alone.
“What?” He asked with confusion.
At that moment, from the crowd stepped The Elder. The sole praying mantis of that garden, the wisdom he contained was incomparable to any other being of all of the backyard. That was why he was elected their leader and specifically gifted with no predators and instead only faithful servers.
“Hello Maxwell” his aged voice cracked.
“Well hi” every body's head around him was bowed. Max remained the only one not to do so, solely due to his immense confusion.
“I’ve been watching you for a while, Maxwell. You’ve lived quite an isolated life. But I can see it in you that you think constantly. You calculate, you plan. You’re above most of these insects in thought, in fact. It’s time for you to move on. But you have to start somewhere.”
The Elder motioned for something. Maxwell hadn't gotten any closer to clarification from the mantis’s speech until a small crown arrived. Made from twigs and spun together by an arachnid’s web, he understood what he was there for now, but didn’t exactly understand why.
“Maxwell Coccinellidae, it is with great honor that I, Elder Mantidea dub you, King of the Backyard!”
A roaring exclamation from the whole garden reverberated through the center, all of the backyard lifting Max up, carrying him to what he would find to be a throne they had crafted along with the crown. He sat there and really took in what were now his people- all of the flies and the bees in the air and the centipedes clapping all 50 sets of hands, the ants and their Queen were even present to witness the entitling of their now-omniscient leader, and who could forget the big soft worm who had cushioned his fall earlier? All his republic now. And they all asked the same question.
“What next?” One would yell.
“Yeah, what should we do?!” Another would follow.
Maxwell gave it all deep thought before finally speaking up. “Arthropods, invertebrates, and all alike, we face many potential dangers. The blades of the Man’s grass cutter, the stomping of the Boys feet through our civilization, the horrid pesticides the Woman places to prevent us from eating. Some of us have even bigger problems than that,” He tried to go for mass appeal. He figured that that statement can be related to from the worker ants who would be crushed unreasonably to the terrible torturing of the lightning bugs every summer.
“Until we have those problems fixed, I am not making any specific orders. In fact, I am your servant.” A thunderous cheer followed.
“Carry on as you please,” he instructed and they did as they were told, returning to their original posts. He soon felt the long, ridged forelegs of the elder on his back to assure him that he would in fact be a good leader. Maxwell looked on to what he had in front of him and realized his path was absolutely uncharted by anybody before, not even the mantis. He was the an underling and now he had to choose the fate of his future and people. A natural leader, he knew exactly what to do. He ventured back to his leaf to give it further contemplation.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
It's Amazing (75th Post Party!)
On the ship, Xing and Clamp went over their findings before they were to return them. It had been over two decades since their race had occupied and dominated earth and now they were finally archiving humankind’s history. Whether it was an act of kindness and remembrance for their defeated counterpart or an insult to them was still indistinguishable at this point. Nonetheless, they continued, dragging the earth’s monuments, tools,and documents back to their motherplanet.
Today had been a document day. Crate after crate had been collected and archived in the ship and Xing and Clamp decided they were going to sift through it themselves in curiosity. Immediately they found the arrangement of works to be in an odd order. There were private government documents (of course), instruction manuals and dioramas, historical documents, pictures, and then a set of crates they hadn’t even acknowledged picking up, titled:Collected Works of the Literary Greats.
With their ship on autopilot, in a half an hour, Xing and Clamp had read dozens of books. With their heightened photographic memories gifted to them by their ancestors, all they had to do was open and look at each page for a few seconds before fully comprehending what they were reading. This made the act of ingesting material a fairly remedial task. With about 4 hours left until they got home, they figured that they could have at least half if not more of the world’s composed works done by then.
“So fascinating,” Clamp finally chimed in. “The pieces are so detailed in terms of imagery and metaphors. What do you think the purpose of these writings were?”
“Entertainment, I suppose,” Xing said flipping and finishing through the last 50 pages of the novel he was on. “Does a fine job of entertaining me.”
It was after a long silence and a few more hours, Clamp spoke up again. “ It’s fascinating indeed, but why didn’t they just have this man do all of the writing,” he held up the John Steinbeck novel. “Clearly he was the best at writing.” Xing shook his head, holding up one of Vonnegut’s works. “You must be confused, I found this man to be the best author.”
They paused. Never had they found themselves varying in opinion. Their race had had their thoughts all streamlined together centuries ago. How could this be happening? Their eyebrows raised. This was certainly an intriguing new form of entertainment from the humans. “Clamp, reroute the ships autopilot to delay us a few hours,” Xing instructed. “I want to know what makes these pieces so special.” Clamp was obliged to do so. Re-routing their course, he began reading what earthlings called ‘contemporary works’ and wondered if possibly he could produce something as wonderful as these novels himself one day.
Today had been a document day. Crate after crate had been collected and archived in the ship and Xing and Clamp decided they were going to sift through it themselves in curiosity. Immediately they found the arrangement of works to be in an odd order. There were private government documents (of course), instruction manuals and dioramas, historical documents, pictures, and then a set of crates they hadn’t even acknowledged picking up, titled:Collected Works of the Literary Greats.
With their ship on autopilot, in a half an hour, Xing and Clamp had read dozens of books. With their heightened photographic memories gifted to them by their ancestors, all they had to do was open and look at each page for a few seconds before fully comprehending what they were reading. This made the act of ingesting material a fairly remedial task. With about 4 hours left until they got home, they figured that they could have at least half if not more of the world’s composed works done by then.
“So fascinating,” Clamp finally chimed in. “The pieces are so detailed in terms of imagery and metaphors. What do you think the purpose of these writings were?”
“Entertainment, I suppose,” Xing said flipping and finishing through the last 50 pages of the novel he was on. “Does a fine job of entertaining me.”
It was after a long silence and a few more hours, Clamp spoke up again. “ It’s fascinating indeed, but why didn’t they just have this man do all of the writing,” he held up the John Steinbeck novel. “Clearly he was the best at writing.” Xing shook his head, holding up one of Vonnegut’s works. “You must be confused, I found this man to be the best author.”
They paused. Never had they found themselves varying in opinion. Their race had had their thoughts all streamlined together centuries ago. How could this be happening? Their eyebrows raised. This was certainly an intriguing new form of entertainment from the humans. “Clamp, reroute the ships autopilot to delay us a few hours,” Xing instructed. “I want to know what makes these pieces so special.” Clamp was obliged to do so. Re-routing their course, he began reading what earthlings called ‘contemporary works’ and wondered if possibly he could produce something as wonderful as these novels himself one day.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Does everything after this halt?
On a cold ground, I felt a constant,distant rumbling. Was I inside a dragons belly? Was it an aftershock of a bomb, rippling its way to me? Was a cavalry furiously charging to my unknown destination? Deep in though, I finally told myself: go see for yourself, dummy.
Rising up with my hands, I felt pebbles and sediment with my palms. I opened my eyes to find that it was only a bit lighter than when they were closed. Was I in a cave? I stood off of my knees and examined my surroundings more thoroughly. Turning around, I saw the bright exit and headed towards it.
To my amazement, I found that I wasn't in a cave, but instead a cove. The rumbling that I had heard was a glistening clear sea, clashing to and then receding away from the coast. A small dirt path led to the beach which I began walking towards. The sand alerted me that I was barefoot, its soothing warmth leading me to the shore with every sinking step. The temperature cooled as I got closer to the water until I finally dived in. Clothes and all, I rolled , laughing, splashing and allowing the current to take me away.
After a while of playing, I allowed myself to float. With a huge smile on my face, I didn't know how I got here or how I'd find my way out. But with an eternal sense of satisfaction, I realized I didn't care and floated away. This was way better than the chemo I'd been receiving.
Rising up with my hands, I felt pebbles and sediment with my palms. I opened my eyes to find that it was only a bit lighter than when they were closed. Was I in a cave? I stood off of my knees and examined my surroundings more thoroughly. Turning around, I saw the bright exit and headed towards it.
To my amazement, I found that I wasn't in a cave, but instead a cove. The rumbling that I had heard was a glistening clear sea, clashing to and then receding away from the coast. A small dirt path led to the beach which I began walking towards. The sand alerted me that I was barefoot, its soothing warmth leading me to the shore with every sinking step. The temperature cooled as I got closer to the water until I finally dived in. Clothes and all, I rolled , laughing, splashing and allowing the current to take me away.
After a while of playing, I allowed myself to float. With a huge smile on my face, I didn't know how I got here or how I'd find my way out. But with an eternal sense of satisfaction, I realized I didn't care and floated away. This was way better than the chemo I'd been receiving.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Hospital Beds
The absolute first thing that I realized was that my hair was gone. I myself can admit that I never kept it as beautiful or as stylish as I could have, in fact, I had tons of split ends and I always had my hair in a bun. But my hair was nonetheless mine but after waking up to run my palm against the smooth skin of my scalp, I would have cried if I had not found myself in such a peculiar situation. I realized after rubbing my head that my wedding ring had been taken off of my finger. Furthermore, my other jewelry was missing: my bracelets, my earrings, my necklace with 'Melissa' engraved into it given to me by my mother. This, like my hair, was also finally eclipsed by the last peculiar fact of the situation: my body ached and without any explanation, I was in a hospital.
The hospital also seemed odd to me. Its facade seemed dingy, unlike the ones I'd been used to. That's when I realized shamefully that I couldn't distinguish whether or not this was a regular hospital that regular people went to. I was so used to top notch service, brightly lit rooms and a large HDTV or at least something orchestral playing on the radio to soothe the soul. What I woke to was dim lighting, a small TV on the wall and an eerie empty hallway.
Not a second later, a doctor and his assistant appeared. Judging from their garb, I could immediately recognize regardless of social status that they were not doctors. They wore the masks pre-surgery, didn't have name tags and wore tattered uniforms. Nonetheless, I figured they had more information on my position than I did, so I began my questioning. They quickly realized their errors and lowered their masks from their faces to greet me.
"Hello Mrs. Parrish."
“Hello gentlemen. It seems that I have suffered some memory loss. Can you tell me why I'm here?"
They looked at each other waiting for one another to step up and provide an excuse.
“You were in a car accident.”
“Oh, dear.” I tried very hard to contain my smile. I couldn’t tell if I was about to do it out of fear or pity. “Well could you explain what happened to my hair?”
“Yes.” The other answered surprisingly fast. “It caught on fire in the accident; we had to shave it off.”
I had felt my scalp already. The headache was internal. I had no burns, 1st 2nd or 3rd degree.
“Well what do we do now?”
Sweat began to form at the one’s brow. Another bit the inside of his cheek.
“We have to perform surgery.”
“Do you have the instruments in order to do so?”
“Of course.” There was a silence between me and them. For completely different reasons, though. They themselves were idiots- they didn’t know what they were supposed to do. I was so hushed because although I knew they weren’t doctors, I wasn’t so sure that they didn’t have surgical tools.
“Ma’am, we have everything you need,” He tried to reassure me. “Syringes, bandages, scalp holes.”
Did he just call a scalpel a scalp hole?
Yes he did.
They’re going to kill me.
They’re really going to kill me.
The other one smiled, yellow, crooked teeth, as if he knew that I knew what was going on.
I have to get out of here.
They seemed to be edging closer and closer to me. When I rose up, one of them revealed that he had said scalpel in hand.
I’d have to fight my way out.
Another prompt from that sci-fi site made by that Mush Face character
The hospital also seemed odd to me. Its facade seemed dingy, unlike the ones I'd been used to. That's when I realized shamefully that I couldn't distinguish whether or not this was a regular hospital that regular people went to. I was so used to top notch service, brightly lit rooms and a large HDTV or at least something orchestral playing on the radio to soothe the soul. What I woke to was dim lighting, a small TV on the wall and an eerie empty hallway.
Not a second later, a doctor and his assistant appeared. Judging from their garb, I could immediately recognize regardless of social status that they were not doctors. They wore the masks pre-surgery, didn't have name tags and wore tattered uniforms. Nonetheless, I figured they had more information on my position than I did, so I began my questioning. They quickly realized their errors and lowered their masks from their faces to greet me.
"Hello Mrs. Parrish."
“Hello gentlemen. It seems that I have suffered some memory loss. Can you tell me why I'm here?"
They looked at each other waiting for one another to step up and provide an excuse.
“You were in a car accident.”
“Oh, dear.” I tried very hard to contain my smile. I couldn’t tell if I was about to do it out of fear or pity. “Well could you explain what happened to my hair?”
“Yes.” The other answered surprisingly fast. “It caught on fire in the accident; we had to shave it off.”
I had felt my scalp already. The headache was internal. I had no burns, 1st 2nd or 3rd degree.
“Well what do we do now?”
Sweat began to form at the one’s brow. Another bit the inside of his cheek.
“We have to perform surgery.”
“Do you have the instruments in order to do so?”
“Of course.” There was a silence between me and them. For completely different reasons, though. They themselves were idiots- they didn’t know what they were supposed to do. I was so hushed because although I knew they weren’t doctors, I wasn’t so sure that they didn’t have surgical tools.
“Ma’am, we have everything you need,” He tried to reassure me. “Syringes, bandages, scalp holes.”
Did he just call a scalpel a scalp hole?
Yes he did.
They’re going to kill me.
They’re really going to kill me.
The other one smiled, yellow, crooked teeth, as if he knew that I knew what was going on.
I have to get out of here.
They seemed to be edging closer and closer to me. When I rose up, one of them revealed that he had said scalpel in hand.
I’d have to fight my way out.
Another prompt from that sci-fi site made by that Mush Face character
Sunday, November 21, 2010
The World Through
The World Through
Derrick McCain
The world through my eyes hadn’t changed much since the reanimation of corpses. Capitalism still reigned, with food being the new essential rather than money. Sex still sold though, definitely as it has and will over civilizations for millenniums to come. The only problem other than that was the undead. Several factors played into their existence, first being their hunger. At first populating themselves by biting to the point of spreading the plague, they were finding that they no longer have the luxury. Instead, when one of the luckier ones does find a human pray, they end up devouring them to the bone with a malnourished savagery. This in turn is making them a dying breed. While this may be beneficial to the humans, it also tends to be problematic. While we started building our civilizations again, we started realizing the decrease of infected parties invading our grounds. This fearfully made us question whether or not the virus was dying completely or if they were just hiding a lot easier the bigger the cities became.
And that’s where we start. In the slums of New Haven, the new purgatory between hell and humanity where those rich of food and prostitutes flaunted it with armored trucks and armed guards covering them while the normal people scurried to find the last few canned goods left. I myself lived in the alleyways, the backstreets, and the dirty sidewalks in the city where the undead might hide. While paranoia was constant in my heart, I also had to deal with the constant pain in my stomach of longing for a meal. Today, a fourth hole had to be cut on my belt in order to get it to hold my pants up. Without government aid, people like me where known to disappear often for unknown reason, but usually in pursuit of something better. I myself don’t see anything else to compensate with other than what I have before me.
In order to live, my daily rounds usually consisted of begging; not receiving, then picking up what little of people’s scraps people left. At the age of 17, I was at an odd place where I was not perceived fully a man by society, but was not boyish enough to obtain sympathy. Many nights I spent cold, hungry and sunken in both defeat and shame of how low I had sank, my lack of morale to become a go-getter when it came to surviving, and the shape I had gotten in. Things wouldn’t look up for me until I met The Scientist.
It was a peculiar manner, the way we met, I was crossing the outskirts of the town, considering leaving, when I found an old Victorian looking mansion. Almost in disbelief, I moved closer to discover squirming in a bush.
“Don’t move any closer, he’s got a rifle.” A voice that I couldn’t trace said. I froze in my tracks.
“Your pockets. Empty them.” The gruff voice ordered and soon my pockets were inside out, showing him I had nothing.
“Alright, come here.”
I approached, finding the voice could be followed to the front door of the mansion.
“You look thin” He said.
“You can see me?” I questioned.
“Of course, I could see you though the peephole.”
That’s when I realized the world through that peephole must have been so soothing. So stable and luxurious, at least for this day and age.
“Do you have room in there?” I asked.
“Of course I do.”
“I?” I clarified.
“Yes. I’m alone, other than my guard there.” He pointed at the bush.
“Well… could I get a room in there?”
He laughed and there was a pause.
“What are you willing to do?”
“Just about anything”
“How about killing?”
There was a pause, my judgment began kicking in.
“Would it make you feel better if I assure you that they’ve already died once?”
That changed everything.
“I’d need equipment…”
And soon, the Scientist was instructing me to kill a female infected and bring her hand to him. From the top window, he threw down a small pistol, a hacksaw, and a garbage bag. I stalked the night, bag tucked away in my back pocket with the hacksaw and pistol in my front ones, waiting to find one of them. As I’ve mentioned before, it was very hard trying to locate one of the Reanimated with their heads still in tact, so I stayed in the most dangerous part of the New Haven, hunting.
And then, by a stroke of luck, I found her.
She swayed, hypnotized by hunger. She had a sallow, miserable appearance that almost made us akin. For a moment I lamented the light blue tint to her skin, the cataracts glazed over her eyes and the residue of blood and flesh that were probably wedged either under her fingernails or teeth at this very moment. I regretted it all because I knew that these criteria justified me sending her to her final death. So without hesitance, I reached into my bag, grabbing the pistol given to me. With a slight sound, I provoked her to turn around which is when I shot her point blank, sending the bullet directly through her head. After that, I proceeded to grab the hacksaw, which I was going to use to obtain her hand. The only problem with that was I feared I wouldn’t make a clean enough cut to keep the hand in good condition. With this in mind I soon found me guiltily bringing my knee down on her shoulder and upper arm, making the severance steady. “No. No” I heard in my voice, as if she could speak. But with my eyes shut tight, I finally managed to cut past bone and remove the hand.
The heartless moment I had obtaining the hand soon subsided ten minutes after walking back to the Scientist’s residence. I began feeling anxiety and fear instead. What if the hacksaw cuts into me and I become infected? What if somebody finds her body and hunts for me? What if there was a cure for her that I didn’t know about? Questions rushed into my mind, giving me the overall disappointment that I’d never have the answers. However, I was glad that they provided such a lengthy distraction for me to wonder about on the way back. When I got to the mansion, I soon rang the bell to have him welcome me in the same fashion as before.
“Greetings” He said once again through the peephole.
“Hey… I got the hand.”
“Excellent, let me see it.”
“I’m not pulling it out of the bag.”
“Very well, one moment please.”
Silence for a moment before a rope dropped from the second floor. He instructed me to tie the bag to it and he’d hoist it up. I did so and there was a silence. Soon enough the sounds of a welcoming creaking door were replaced with the sight of a new bag being thrown with a clean hacksaw and the pistol again.
“What’s this for?”
“A male species. I need a foot.”
“You’re kidding.” I contemplated shooting him, but chances where, I’d miss him, he was hidden behind the window and I didn’t know what he was working with weapons wise.
“You don’t expect me to extract data from just a female basis, do you?”
A brief pause. “But you said…”
“Look, I’m sorry, but I didn’t even think that you were even going to get me the first subject’s limb. You can consider that the test, this is just one last thing I need you to do. For me. For the human race.”
“… I’m hungry.” The only words I could muster with the immense sense of defeat residing inside of me.
Another pause. He was excellent with these. But soon enough, a box of assorted snacks landed at my feet. Treats with no nutritional value, but it didn’t matter. It was food. And sugary food, not some body's scraps. I smiled and examined the house. It was beautiful and worth one more infected. After all, he was right. This was to preserve people, not to injure them.
“I’ll be back with your infected foot.”
I found myself departing once again, but this time, with a mouth full of sugary cakes and cookies. At this moment, life was fantastic.
As I walked, I decided it’d be best to just retrace where I had taken the woman’s hand. Through the alleyway, I crept, hand gripped on pistol. And then I discovered something interesting.
The girl was gone.
A trail of blood, however led to her current whereabouts and I soon found myself following the long line of it. The farther I got, the darker it was becoming and the deeper within the slums I got. But eventually my trail led to an end point. Her sitting there propped up against a wall. That’s when I finally understood, this wasn’t a mistake of the infected’s stupidity. It was the exact opposite, indeed. It was a trap.
A snarling guttural growl made itself present as a quickly dodged out of the way, one of them charging to get me. It missed and happily, I realized that it was a he. I had found myself a male subject. Dropping to one knee, I pulled the pistol out, waiting for it to approach me. Once again, it barreled at me, breakneck speed, and soon met his fate by two bullets I shot. One to the throat, one to the head, he paused for a moment before dropping. I stood to my feet, scanning the area for more of the living dead, suspected that if he had set it up, there had to be more. Surprisingly there weren’t. With that reassurance, I once again wielded the hacksaw.
Marching home, I whistled. Within a day, my outlook would soon turned around. I’d see myself complete with a house to stay at for serving a scientist in his pursuit to conquer the sickness. It was an honorable thing, I thought by now of it. By no means was it fun to extract the parts, but all for good causes. I found myself at the door and knocked.
“Is it you?”
“Yes”
“Evidence?”
“Throw the rope down again”
He soon did and was surprised to see that inside the bag was the infected foot.
“One moment please.”
He came back downstairs. “Excellent job, I’m letting you in, okay?”
“Alright.” I said, trying to hide my immensejoy that I was going to make it in.
The door opened and with great delight, I took one large stride into the mansion in which I immediately found surprisingly deteriorated. Confused I turned to the Scientist to see one of them: bluish skin, sallow figure, the only difference being that he had a gun to my head.
And that’s when I realized…
———————————————————————————————————————
“Dinner!” The infected called. Soon he found his wife and son were downstairs with him, feasting on the next foolish person to believe that this was some sort of sanctuary.
“So why did this one take so long?” His wife asked, so hungry, she was tearing large tendons and major veins from his neck.
“Because,darling, he was special. He held out a bag, and like a present she excitedly tore through it.
“HONEY!!!” A pause before she reached in and grabbed it. “A hand for me?” She held it where her old hand would’ve been, had she not lost it a long time ago. “That’s not all.” He hobbled his foot and stub, grabbing the severed one the boy had collected earlier.
“I’ve got the sewing kit. We’ll attach them tonight.”
"Great. And what about the body? The wife said"
'The body' she was referring to of course was the man they were harvesting, left bound, trying to break free outside in the bushes.
"Oh." He contemplated. " We'll save him for another time"
The World Through That Peephole Was So Incredibly Skewered.
Derrick McCain
The world through my eyes hadn’t changed much since the reanimation of corpses. Capitalism still reigned, with food being the new essential rather than money. Sex still sold though, definitely as it has and will over civilizations for millenniums to come. The only problem other than that was the undead. Several factors played into their existence, first being their hunger. At first populating themselves by biting to the point of spreading the plague, they were finding that they no longer have the luxury. Instead, when one of the luckier ones does find a human pray, they end up devouring them to the bone with a malnourished savagery. This in turn is making them a dying breed. While this may be beneficial to the humans, it also tends to be problematic. While we started building our civilizations again, we started realizing the decrease of infected parties invading our grounds. This fearfully made us question whether or not the virus was dying completely or if they were just hiding a lot easier the bigger the cities became.
And that’s where we start. In the slums of New Haven, the new purgatory between hell and humanity where those rich of food and prostitutes flaunted it with armored trucks and armed guards covering them while the normal people scurried to find the last few canned goods left. I myself lived in the alleyways, the backstreets, and the dirty sidewalks in the city where the undead might hide. While paranoia was constant in my heart, I also had to deal with the constant pain in my stomach of longing for a meal. Today, a fourth hole had to be cut on my belt in order to get it to hold my pants up. Without government aid, people like me where known to disappear often for unknown reason, but usually in pursuit of something better. I myself don’t see anything else to compensate with other than what I have before me.
In order to live, my daily rounds usually consisted of begging; not receiving, then picking up what little of people’s scraps people left. At the age of 17, I was at an odd place where I was not perceived fully a man by society, but was not boyish enough to obtain sympathy. Many nights I spent cold, hungry and sunken in both defeat and shame of how low I had sank, my lack of morale to become a go-getter when it came to surviving, and the shape I had gotten in. Things wouldn’t look up for me until I met The Scientist.
It was a peculiar manner, the way we met, I was crossing the outskirts of the town, considering leaving, when I found an old Victorian looking mansion. Almost in disbelief, I moved closer to discover squirming in a bush.
“Don’t move any closer, he’s got a rifle.” A voice that I couldn’t trace said. I froze in my tracks.
“Your pockets. Empty them.” The gruff voice ordered and soon my pockets were inside out, showing him I had nothing.
“Alright, come here.”
I approached, finding the voice could be followed to the front door of the mansion.
“You look thin” He said.
“You can see me?” I questioned.
“Of course, I could see you though the peephole.”
That’s when I realized the world through that peephole must have been so soothing. So stable and luxurious, at least for this day and age.
“Do you have room in there?” I asked.
“Of course I do.”
“I?” I clarified.
“Yes. I’m alone, other than my guard there.” He pointed at the bush.
“Well… could I get a room in there?”
He laughed and there was a pause.
“What are you willing to do?”
“Just about anything”
“How about killing?”
There was a pause, my judgment began kicking in.
“Would it make you feel better if I assure you that they’ve already died once?”
That changed everything.
“I’d need equipment…”
And soon, the Scientist was instructing me to kill a female infected and bring her hand to him. From the top window, he threw down a small pistol, a hacksaw, and a garbage bag. I stalked the night, bag tucked away in my back pocket with the hacksaw and pistol in my front ones, waiting to find one of them. As I’ve mentioned before, it was very hard trying to locate one of the Reanimated with their heads still in tact, so I stayed in the most dangerous part of the New Haven, hunting.
And then, by a stroke of luck, I found her.
She swayed, hypnotized by hunger. She had a sallow, miserable appearance that almost made us akin. For a moment I lamented the light blue tint to her skin, the cataracts glazed over her eyes and the residue of blood and flesh that were probably wedged either under her fingernails or teeth at this very moment. I regretted it all because I knew that these criteria justified me sending her to her final death. So without hesitance, I reached into my bag, grabbing the pistol given to me. With a slight sound, I provoked her to turn around which is when I shot her point blank, sending the bullet directly through her head. After that, I proceeded to grab the hacksaw, which I was going to use to obtain her hand. The only problem with that was I feared I wouldn’t make a clean enough cut to keep the hand in good condition. With this in mind I soon found me guiltily bringing my knee down on her shoulder and upper arm, making the severance steady. “No. No” I heard in my voice, as if she could speak. But with my eyes shut tight, I finally managed to cut past bone and remove the hand.
The heartless moment I had obtaining the hand soon subsided ten minutes after walking back to the Scientist’s residence. I began feeling anxiety and fear instead. What if the hacksaw cuts into me and I become infected? What if somebody finds her body and hunts for me? What if there was a cure for her that I didn’t know about? Questions rushed into my mind, giving me the overall disappointment that I’d never have the answers. However, I was glad that they provided such a lengthy distraction for me to wonder about on the way back. When I got to the mansion, I soon rang the bell to have him welcome me in the same fashion as before.
“Greetings” He said once again through the peephole.
“Hey… I got the hand.”
“Excellent, let me see it.”
“I’m not pulling it out of the bag.”
“Very well, one moment please.”
Silence for a moment before a rope dropped from the second floor. He instructed me to tie the bag to it and he’d hoist it up. I did so and there was a silence. Soon enough the sounds of a welcoming creaking door were replaced with the sight of a new bag being thrown with a clean hacksaw and the pistol again.
“What’s this for?”
“A male species. I need a foot.”
“You’re kidding.” I contemplated shooting him, but chances where, I’d miss him, he was hidden behind the window and I didn’t know what he was working with weapons wise.
“You don’t expect me to extract data from just a female basis, do you?”
A brief pause. “But you said…”
“Look, I’m sorry, but I didn’t even think that you were even going to get me the first subject’s limb. You can consider that the test, this is just one last thing I need you to do. For me. For the human race.”
“… I’m hungry.” The only words I could muster with the immense sense of defeat residing inside of me.
Another pause. He was excellent with these. But soon enough, a box of assorted snacks landed at my feet. Treats with no nutritional value, but it didn’t matter. It was food. And sugary food, not some body's scraps. I smiled and examined the house. It was beautiful and worth one more infected. After all, he was right. This was to preserve people, not to injure them.
“I’ll be back with your infected foot.”
I found myself departing once again, but this time, with a mouth full of sugary cakes and cookies. At this moment, life was fantastic.
As I walked, I decided it’d be best to just retrace where I had taken the woman’s hand. Through the alleyway, I crept, hand gripped on pistol. And then I discovered something interesting.
The girl was gone.
A trail of blood, however led to her current whereabouts and I soon found myself following the long line of it. The farther I got, the darker it was becoming and the deeper within the slums I got. But eventually my trail led to an end point. Her sitting there propped up against a wall. That’s when I finally understood, this wasn’t a mistake of the infected’s stupidity. It was the exact opposite, indeed. It was a trap.
A snarling guttural growl made itself present as a quickly dodged out of the way, one of them charging to get me. It missed and happily, I realized that it was a he. I had found myself a male subject. Dropping to one knee, I pulled the pistol out, waiting for it to approach me. Once again, it barreled at me, breakneck speed, and soon met his fate by two bullets I shot. One to the throat, one to the head, he paused for a moment before dropping. I stood to my feet, scanning the area for more of the living dead, suspected that if he had set it up, there had to be more. Surprisingly there weren’t. With that reassurance, I once again wielded the hacksaw.
Marching home, I whistled. Within a day, my outlook would soon turned around. I’d see myself complete with a house to stay at for serving a scientist in his pursuit to conquer the sickness. It was an honorable thing, I thought by now of it. By no means was it fun to extract the parts, but all for good causes. I found myself at the door and knocked.
“Is it you?”
“Yes”
“Evidence?”
“Throw the rope down again”
He soon did and was surprised to see that inside the bag was the infected foot.
“One moment please.”
He came back downstairs. “Excellent job, I’m letting you in, okay?”
“Alright.” I said, trying to hide my immensejoy that I was going to make it in.
The door opened and with great delight, I took one large stride into the mansion in which I immediately found surprisingly deteriorated. Confused I turned to the Scientist to see one of them: bluish skin, sallow figure, the only difference being that he had a gun to my head.
And that’s when I realized…
———————————————————————————————————————
“Dinner!” The infected called. Soon he found his wife and son were downstairs with him, feasting on the next foolish person to believe that this was some sort of sanctuary.
“So why did this one take so long?” His wife asked, so hungry, she was tearing large tendons and major veins from his neck.
“Because,darling, he was special. He held out a bag, and like a present she excitedly tore through it.
“HONEY!!!” A pause before she reached in and grabbed it. “A hand for me?” She held it where her old hand would’ve been, had she not lost it a long time ago. “That’s not all.” He hobbled his foot and stub, grabbing the severed one the boy had collected earlier.
“I’ve got the sewing kit. We’ll attach them tonight.”
"Great. And what about the body? The wife said"
'The body' she was referring to of course was the man they were harvesting, left bound, trying to break free outside in the bushes.
"Oh." He contemplated. " We'll save him for another time"
The World Through That Peephole Was So Incredibly Skewered.
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