Wallis

Cliche sure but I wrote a small burst for a laugh and now I feel compelled to revise it until it's at it's best potential. I have a question though, as like I said this is still WIP... Would it be alright to try and place tense fragments of a long and arduous journey before a full blown conclusion? Something deep inside of me says no, but I want to know what you think of this since I'm often surprised by what other people's opinions. Well enjoy, and err....obviously it's a zombie story so just think remake of Dawn of the Dead and the background of this piece is basically complete. Silly I know, but I'm more interested in experimenting in style.


Requiem.

Erm....yeah, right, this? This is my diary. I, err, tore it up so it's basically fragments. The last page I wrote after I tore it up so that's in one piece. You wanna read?


K, here ya go....


....


“Who are they?” She asked as she held my hand. I looked at her and smiled. She was so beautiful and against such an ugly backdrop I was amazed she'd even survived. Obligated I looked up and said,


“They're just angry people hun. They're rioters and we've got to be careful not to get mixed up near them...” I said, my voice trailed off near the end. It'd always been easy to apply this rule to rioters but I noticed the mob was approaching us. A second passed where I thought the distant crowd saw us as targets.


“They're creepy...” She said quietly.


“Yeah,” I agreed, “But they're a long way away.” I pointed out to her and being unable to see a single one myself. The sight was recognisable as a crowd of people, sure, but in reality it was so distant I could barely grasp what it was.


I looked at them carefully. They seemed different somehow, like their only intent were us. I took a step back the way we came...


“We just came that way,” She observed.


“Yeah...hun... let's just go this way.” I replied. I turned around and picked her up, I remember thinking at the that she was pretty heavy but she deserved a rest. We turned a corner and another distant crowd faced us. Glad they were pointed away from us I took a step back until both crowds were in sight.


My arms aching I put the girl down as I felt I couldn't hold her for longer and I then went to place a step backwards but my foot hit a tin can. The noise clattered and awkwardly echoed throughout the street. Slowly, I noticed a shift in how the second crowd looked. Squinting my eyes it suddenly dawned on me they were turning. They now faced us and even they were still distant something told me they were now coming towards us.


A dawning sense of fear and even mild panic hit me as it was more than obvious that we were their intent.


“Let's go...” I spoke shakily. The little girl started to cry and uneasily I went towards her.


I grabbed her hand and with this burst of motion one crowd started to run. Scared for my life I picked her up and even with arms aching I ran with all my might.


With this second burst of motion the second crowd started to run. They started to shriek and as they came nearer I could see them better. They ran as bizarrely as they screamed and some were even horribly mutilated and soaked in blood but it was the way they looked at us that made me so scared. Never before have I actually seen lust for food in a pair of eyes and never before did I know the surreal nature of its terror when it was aimed at you.


And so running like mad I belted around down the nearest alleyway and clumsily turning my head to look I saw our pursuers filing down behind us.


....


My heart was beating so fast I was crying. I was actually crying from exhaustion and also joy. We'd found refuge with a group of migrating New Yorkers and I thanked the heavens they had guns. They had plenty of them too and had walled up for two nights in a building. They had this plan, right, to get down in South America away from the major cities,


“Somewhere in the jungle,” They'd said when we first met them in the evening. It was now night and I was still not at touch with the day that had just gone before us. It was so frightening and quick that I just couldn't believe our luck. I was just hoping those ...things...hadn't followed us.


...


Half way through the night I awoke to a gunshot. Without thinking I grabbed the girl who, being startled, started to scream.

“Shhhh!” I said and picked her up. I peeked my head out the door and saw the party of gunmen standing on the top of the stairs shouting downstairs. They were wondering what was happening. With caution in my mind I'd figured it was time to leave. Carrying the girl I started to make my way to the roof when I heard a scream behind us.


....


Buildings, just so many burning and collapsed buildings. They're as bad as the bodies. I figured it was a miracle when I saw the church. It seemed practically untouched and inside I heard speaking. It was this man's voice and smiling at the girl we started to make our way there.


...


“This is the end of the line heathens!!” The vicar yelled as he held a shotgun to my head. The last three days flashed before my eyes. First those crowds chasing us, then climbing down that roof and finally now trying to escape this madman. I remember thinking that if that truly was the end, us dying because of this nut, it'd be a very sad ending.


....


“Please help me!!” Carol screamed. Her shouts muffled by the closed car door windows which prevented her escape from her husband. She'd been such help to us and in a day had almost been like a mother to the girl but I couldn't go back to save her. Not without risking all our lives.


....


“We've seen so much shit,” I said to the police officer. He laughed and nodded his head as he motioned for us to enter the barricaded police station. A spine tingling shriek emerged from the inside and I stopped immediately. He looked at me and pulling out his gun he entered.
....


We ran screaming from the...cro....s
....


We've seen so much....just so many things coming to an end. A horrible...brutal and unjust end. Yet... it was only a week after we'd first seen that crowd that it sank in about just how brutal and uncompromising the end was.


We were in a derelict building and the girl was lying against the wall. She shivered as wind blew through the broken windows and the coldness encroached...and for a moment, only a fleeting small moment, I was about to hold her when it occurred to me she was soaked in blood and so was I. Lately she just wasn't the same. Something about her had been lost. It had been burnt and charred and just thrown out the window like everything else.


She was eight and absolutely beautiful. The essence of innocence and, man, I'd fought hard to stop anything happening to her. But I looked at her eyes which were gazing emptily out of the window and I felt my heart sink and my throat went coarse and grazed with the sudden dryness.


I swallowed and felt my eyes go red...because, I mean, it'd been lost! Those beautiful eyes and that soul of hers...just....lost. I'd tried so hard to do one single fucking act of kindness but it still went to waste.


She was as good as dead.


Everything was suddenly so shitty. The rest and break we'd finally got felt like hell...it felt worse than any of the days just passed. You fight and you fight and you fight... but in the end what's the point? Honestly I don't even want to know why, no matter what God told me it could never justify what happened to us.


To her most of all.


While still staring at her I started to cry...she turned to look at me and then returned to looking at the window. The whole spectacle made me drop on the floor crying. Just the idea of her not even caring that I was upset made it worse.


The grief I felt at that moment.... she'd been my only companion and I'd taken such immense care of her. I'd even taken severe pain and shown willingness to sacrifice my own life! And now she didn't even care. Just the whole idea was so upsetting and horrible. I kept thinking about it all, about the beginning and the middle and how this was now the end. The people we'd met and the people who'd died...


So many people had died. The smashing and the bashing... first windows were getting bashed and shops were getting looted. Then cars and houses were getting smashed and left in pieces....Then heads were getting smashed and left in pieces. There were riots and...I remember this T.V show, like just this silly thing with two guys talking about what was gonna happen, and one was so adamant that the government would fix it.


“Them heads'll get bashed” he said! Did he have any idea? Any fucking idea!? They got bashed, oh yeah they got splattered all over the place!! All over me and the girl and everyone else!! Did he have any idea... He must've just seen it as some...conclusion!


Yeah, it's just a conclusion, right? But things like that, they aren't just stop and start....because it doesn't end so easily! What about what happens next? Who's to clean up the gore and the blood and the fires and the cars!?


Not the fuckers with the bashed open heads.


Man I go off on one too easily. You already know this stuff right? The only people who don't are dead.


I'd like to think I was crying for those who died, but I wasn't. I was crying for me and it was as I cried that I noticed that the room had gained a vicious chill. It only really sank in just how vicious it was when I tried to move my fingers and touch my face. They felt stiff and unwilling so I breathed on them to give them heat.


Moist and cloudy breath left me and exhausted at this clear example of our bad luck I laughed. I'm amazed I had any fight left to bring myself to laughter! But I guess that force in me is why I'm still here. Like I said, what drives us to fight is way above my head. But I'm glad we do because I think all we've ever got is our life and we need to fight so that we may have breath.


Even if it is icy and clouded breath. Thinking of this I looked up and saw the girl who was still staring out the window. This movement caught her attention and slowly it dawned on me that no misty breath lay near or around her mouth.


Breath.... It's always breath. Everything comes back to breath. And I took time to appreciate this as I ran panic stricken up the nearest flight of stairs, and yes... I was panting heavily, beating out breath after breath. I even took time to notice that each constricted breath was timed perfectly with my footsteps thundering up the wooden stairs.


Until I fell. Then everything went awry, my lungs convulsed uneasily because I wanted to scream and I wanted to breathe at the same time and then my feet wanted contact with anything. I mean anything! I was throwing them where ever I could, the steps, the air, the wall and even her face. Finally they gained momentum and I wasn't scrambling like some idiot. I was making progress. Still panicked and unthinking progress but nonetheless I was going somewhere.


Away from that screaming. Her unthinking screaming that mirrored my mindless urge to get away. As I unwittingly went up, she unwittingly followed. I finally realised I was the real idiot because as I went up I was running out of steps and this only became apparent as a brown door that faced me.


A brown, padlocked, door.


For a moment it was enough to dishearten me, until I had a flash of brilliance! I ran faster and pushed myself up each step with as much force as I could until I slammed into the door.


I came to a dead halt and the door did not give way. My shoulder dislocated and I felt my back go numb and in agony I collapsed backwards until I fell on her. It all went black and luckily when I woke up I found myself in extreme discomfort lying on top of the girl who in the tumble had broken her neck. For a while I lay and looked at her beautiful eyes until I got up and holding my arm I started to climb the stairs again.


I needed to move on. If I were to pause, even for a fleeting moment, I'd lose that fight.


And ironically...I'd catch my breath.

kidstaple

Wow... You should go back and reread this piece to yourself, and check for mistakes, specifically punctuation. I don't like the way you wrote this; jumping around, and only explaining certain parts of each day... It's so confusing and the style of writing that you use in this piece doesn't help.

I hate to say it, but I couldn't finish reading this. I think I might have gotten half-way through it, and then I couldn't take anymore of it. LOL. That's saying something! I'm usually the first one to jump on a zombie story, but this one was just... blah. Sry mate.

Have you by chance read any zombie novels? If not, I've got a whole list of authors that you might be interested in. Anyways, it needs some re-vamping. Do that, and then post it again, and I'll be the first to respond to it!

PEACE

blackthorn

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. You should stick with a certain part of the plot more, and please: punctuation needs some serious work.

Take this back and give it a complete re-do. Come back with a edited version and we'll see how it is.

Wallis

Okay thanks for your criticism and time. I seem to have a major weakness at punctuation but I've had mixed critique on the style and the "jumping" around. It is, after all, a short story....not a novel. I realise I have trouble with spelling and punctuation and I'll be working on that. Thanks for commenting though but I think next time I'll give this a different title since it's hardly meant to be a typical zombie piece. Just an experiment in style.

Pale Gallery

Can I ask Wallis, what exactly does 'WIP: Zombies XD' mean? It sounds like a Nintendo game or something.

__________________

"In the end it is impossible not to become what others think you are." - Julius Caesar

Wallis

erm...work in progress zombies and an emoticon. I like your interpretation though, I regret the title of this thread but I was in a rush as I was packed and ready to go on holiday for the weekend and being dragged out the door.

Pale Gallery

Sorry, I didn't mean the actual writing sounded like a Nintendo game. Just the title.

__________________

"In the end it is impossible not to become what others think you are." - Julius Caesar