rickdeckard

Hi everyone, this is the first time I have ever posted anything like this to the web. Please read and let me know what you think.

I wont give you the premise of the story as I think that just leads you to assume certain elements will be there. I look forward to reading you replies. Right here goes!

It is true to say that no parent should have to bury their child. Conversely no child should have to spend a chaotic and terrifying night watching their parents slowly drown in their own fluids.

John Regan stood at the foot of his parents dishevelled bed, staring numbly at the sight before him. Immobile and unmoving, like a robot that had run out of power. There was nothing now but shock. For John time stood still, waiting to restart at some indeterminate point in the future, when his brain would start firing again and the questions would come. Right now though all his brain wanted him to do was stand and stare at his died parents and carry on breathing whilst it tried to assimilate the enormity of what had happened over the last few hours.

At some point the sun had come up over the grey slate roofs, damp after the nights rain, a bright shaft of sunlight streamed in to the room, a change from the usual grey, miserable light from an overcast sky that Scotland was renowned for. A diffuse yellow beam fell on the bed illuminating a gruesome tableau that could only be conjured up by the mind of a mad, syphilitic artist.

Lying on the bed were the bodies of his parents. Their faces contorted in fear and pain as they had struggled to draw their last breath, their lips blue from lack of blood, their eyes sunken and dark staring accusingly at him. Blood congealed in black clots amidst pools of vomit on the duvet when the lining of their throats had been ripped away by the non stop coughing. They had thrown up what ever is was in their stomach until there was nothing left but blood and bile. At some point either one or both of them had voided their bladder and bowels. The room stank with the nauseating smell of piss and shit, vomit and blood and death, overpowering the normal smell of mould and damp that usually pervaded the house.

As he stood there staring, his mind in neutral, his subconscious re ran the events of the last few hours, processing the information again, without any intervention or indeed knowledge from the conscious part of his brain. Like an under funded satellite channel it repeated the same badly edited film over and over.

Coughing had woken him up just after midnight, he knew it was his mother as he could hear his father telling her to “shut the fuck up or piss off down stairs” his thick Scottish accent running the words together. He had tossed and turned, trying at first to get to sleep, but the anticipation of the next fit of coughing kept him awake. Outside he heard the wail of an ambulance or a police car, he could not tell which, as it sped up the street outside. Nothing unusual in that, especially in this run down dump of an estate where many lived their lives from day to day, taking cash in hand jobs to supplement state handouts and dulling the desperation of their lives with cheap booze and drugs.

Another spasm of coughing came from the room across the landing, this sounded deeper, probably his father. Turning on to his back he surrendered the struggle of trying to get to sleep, at least for awhile. His fathers voice rang out berating his mother for making him cough; his logic as always was impeccable, blame the wife for everything. Lying staring at the ceiling he listened to them argue, swearing at each other between bouts of coughing as their tempers became ever more heated.

It would have been comically if it was a TV show, two drunks lying in bed arguing blaming each other for catching the flu or whatever they had whilst they tried to get their breath. And here was the corker, the punch line that would have the audience rolling with laughter, they were lighting up a cigarette to clear their lungs. But it was not a TV show, it was his life.

John anticipated the familiar pattern of escalation, the shouting and swearing getting louder and more abusive until one pushed the other to far and got punch or a slap for their trouble. Then it would really get going as they both lost the last vestiges of civility and descended to the level of beasts, punching, kicking and screaming at each other.

Quietly John eased himself out of his bed and crept across his small bedroom to the door and made sure that the two bolts he had put on it were slid across.

A sharp bang of a door being pulled shut echoed from along the street followed by the soft slap of slippered feet running on wet asphalt. A gate nearby gave a tortured squeal and clanged against the iron fence as it was thrown out of the way and then the bang, bang, banging of someone hammering insistently on a door. “Gran, gran lit me in, gran ther’s sumthin wrang wi ma mither”, screamed a high pitched girl’s voice.

As he was up John stalked over to his bedroom window where he surreptitiously pulled back the curtain. Looking out to the right he could see Mary Minges from across the street, banging determinedly on her grandmothers door. At fifteen she was a year younger than John and, despite the cold drizzle was standing in a short night dress, giving him a good view of her legs and thighs, her arms folded protectively across her chest.

“Gran, lit me in” she shouted, almost hysterical. The door opened slowly and she ran inside, closing it behind her. John stood watching from the window, curious to see what would happen next. Mary Hinges family was nearly as dysfunctional as his.

Her mother was an alcoholic, according to his mother, though that was pretty much the kettle calling the pot black, who would pick a fight with any one at the slightest cause. Her brother had started smoking cannabis at eleven and graduated to heroin by fifteen, becoming a dealer to fund his habit. Now he was driving around in a metallic blue BMW 323, although he had never taken a lesson let alone a test and spent more time around the local schools now than he ever did when he was supposed to be in one. The only sane one was Mary, probably due to spending more time with her grandmother than her mother. Despite this good influence she was still a product of her environment and could be as foul mouthed and irresponsible as anyone around here.

John stood watching the door intently, ostensibly to see what was going to happen next though really he would love to seen those thighs again. As it happens he did not have long to wait. The door opened again spilling light onto the path and Mary ran out. She stopped half way up the path and cupped her face in her hands, John could hear her sobbing, then she ran out the gate and across the street to her own house, slamming the door behind her.

“Johnny cum here, Johnny”, called his father, his harsh Scottish sounding even rougher than usual. John quickly stepped away from the window and stared fearfully at his bed room door. He heard the unmistakeable sound of his mother throwing up, Jesus she’s fucking drunk again, he thought, and its only Tuesday, usually they waited until the weekend to blow their hard earned handouts on booze. “Johnny, git in here quick”, yelled his father before another paroxysm of coughing stopped him.

Hesitantly he walked across the room and unbolted the door, grabbing a pair of grubby track suit bottoms and a T-Shirt to put on over his boxers. Switching on the hall light so that he would not trip over the pile of damp smelling washing piled precariously at the top of the stair he approached his parent’s room with a dreadful sinking feeling. With a resigned sigh and a trembling hand he pushed open the door.

Inside the room were the normal piles of crumpled clothes, waiting to get picked up and put in the wash, or worn depending on what there was clean to wear. One wall had half the wall paper torn of to expose the plaster beneath, an aborted attempt by his mother to redecorate. Ending abruptly when his father got home from the pub and exploded Krakatoa style when he saw what they had been doing. He had become incoherent with rage in a matter of seconds, foregoing the normal preliminaries he gave his wife a beating, smashing her head of the wall while screaming at her, then turning on John who had retreated into the corner of the room making himself as small as possible trying to escape his fathers wrath. As the youngest of five he had always borne the brunt of abuse, from the verbal abuse of his mother to the physical abuse of his father and older brothers.
When he went to primary school the next day he said that he had fallen in the shower. His teacher had said that he fell a lot.

An empty bottle of cheap whiskey lay on the floor beside an old burn mark, where a discarded cigarette had been thrown, unmindful of the consequences. Sitting on the bed with their backs to the wall, as it did not have a head board, were his mother and father. Both looked old and pale, older and paler than they usually did, they both looked like they were fifty, although they were both not yet forty. Both were coughing the sound raw. The smell of vomit permeated the room overriding the normal smells of sweat, alcohol and mould, making him gag, though he managed to keep the contents of his stomach down. Blood had dripped down the front of his mothers off white T-shirt, and then she started coughing again, gagged and threw up. It poured onto the duvet, bright red with blood.

John started to tremble “what’s wrong, what have you drank?” he blurted out before he could stop himself, but neither was answering. His mother was crying and coughing at the same time while it was his fathers turn to throw up, the same mixture of blood and partially digested food.

Turning John sprinted from the room, tripped over the pile of washing in the hall and fell most of the way down the stairs on his front. Climbing gingerly to his feet he did a quick stock take. Couple of bumps and scraps nothing too severe. Taking a deep, shuddering breath he tried to calm himself down. Wont do any good if I break my neck before I get to the telephone to get an ambulance he thought, as he carried on down the rest of the stairs, his legs quaking and his hands shaking.

Reaching the phone John rang 999. “There is a high volume of calls at this time, please hold the line and your call will be answered as soon as possible” came a serious slightly stern male voice, followed by some classical music while his parent continued to cough their lives away upstairs, as their lungs began to fill with blood and mucus.

The automated answering system repeated its phrase five times before someone answered John’s increasing desperate pleas. “Which service please” came a reassuring female voice. “Ambulance” John said more calmly than he felt., “Name and address”. “John Regan, um 5 Collingwood Drive, Hamilton” he replied obediently, “Right John now what is the problem.” John explained the symptoms to the operator who diligently typed them into the computer. “OK John, here is what I want you to do, keep you parents sitting up in bed, don’t let them lie down, try and keep their airway, their mouth and nose, as clear as you can. An ambulance will get to you as quickly as we have one available,” she said. “Yes OK, when, I mean when will one be here, an ambulance” he asked voice quivering with uncertainty. “I don’t know love, its really busy at the moment, but one will get to you soon,” she replied, then started coughing before she ended the call.

The ambulance never came. He could hear more sirens outside but none came to his house. He wiped the blood and puke from his mother and father trying to keep them sat up, but their muscles gradually lost the ability to support their body and they both ended up slumped on the bed like a pair of grotty old rag dolls.

He kept calling the emergency services but could not get through to an operator. Just the tinny sounding automated message saying that there was a high volume of calls and to please wait on the line because your call is important to us.

The coughing stopped at some point and they both wheezed as they tried to desperately drag air into their lungs ruined. It reminded John of an anti smoking advert where a woman was sitting in a chair looking out of a window two pipes constantly feeding her oxygen as she berated herself for smoking all those cigarettes. His parents did not have oxygen though, not that it would have made any difference if they did.

Over the last few dark hours of their lives he stood at the bottom of the bed staring at his violent bully of a father and shrill harridan of a mother. Tears ran down his checks and snot poured from his nose unchecked as he sobbed, unable to do anything more to keep them alive. Wishing that he had better memories of them.

A dog barked out side. The spell was broken. Time started.

John walked from his parent’s room to his own and bolted the door, as was his custom, curled up on the bed and cried like a baby. He wept for the parents that he should have had firm and supportive, for the waste of his brothers lives either in jail or mirroring their parents and for himself fearful of what would happen to him now that his parents were dead.

TevenB

Very good, to be honest (and dont let this go to your head) its one of the best I have read in awhile. Very good story. One thing though, you use a lot of big words: Surreptitiously and Ostensibly come to mind. If you can substitute one of the big words for an easier to understand word, its best to do it IMO.

In the beginning, I thought you could have spent less time on this one part with his parents, but when I got to the end with the dog barking it seemed to have a powerful effect on me. So it was alright in the end.

Other than that and a few punctuation and spelling errors, its an awesome story that I will continue to read when you add more. Keep up the good work!

P.S. Check out my stories sometime!

SevenWaters

This is a refreshingly well written story. There are a few grammatical flubs, and the opening line and paragraph could be a little stronger. I dissagree with TevenB about the big words. Unless you are writing for children/young adults keep them in. Not only are these are words that I hear in everyday conversation, but the reader can either glean the meaning through context or a dictionary. While it is annoying to have to look up every third word, reading is a good way to expand vocabulary.

There was one thing that bothered me: if he cares enough to keep ringing for an ambulance, why doesnt he attempt to call a neighbor or a relative or even a taxi to take his parents to the hospital? The death reads as though it is prolonged and the character doesnt want his parents to die, so why doesn't he at least attempt something else?

Anyway, keep working with this!

rickdeckard

SevenWaters, I take your point on trying other means to get his parents to a hospital and will clarify why he did not or could not get them to a hospital by another route. I think the opening line, though, is OK. What I was concerned about was the use of the Scottish dialect in the dialogue. I know that it is authentic but I alos know it can be a real turn off, trying to decipher what is being said. Thanks for the comments, they are much appreciated.

Deckard2019

Have a look at the next section and let me know what you think.

Outside a car raced by, engine screaming as the driver hammered the accelerator to the floor. John quickly rolled over and stared up hopefully at the window. There was a horrendous screech of tyres as it braked hard to turn the corner at the top of the street, without ending up in someone’s front garden and then the engine was gunned hard and it sped away.

Nimbly John bounced of the old worn springs in his bed and looked out of the window but saw nothing, no one. A rumble from his stomach reminded him that he had not eaten since yesterday evening, though he really did not feel like eating. The hands on the old fashioned alarm clock by his bed said that the time was 10:20 am.

Gnawing on his bottom lip he wondered what to do now? what was going to happen to him? would he end up in care, in some miserable kids home? he did not think his aunt or uncles would take him in and his brothers, although old enough, anyway they were even worse than his parents. Got to find out what is happened he thought.

He got dressed quickly; throwing on yesterdays old clothes a pair of faded jeans and an old grey T-shirt, and went down stairs. Head down, eyes staring at his feet as he passed his parents room, holding his breath so that he would not have to smell the stench. As he got to the bottom of the stairs he let out a sob of pain and guilt and loss. Taking a deep breath he made a conscious effort to steady his thoughts, pushing away those feelings to a dark place in his head, locking them behind steel doors. Now was not the time for this, he thought, not the time, need to think, need to figure out what to do now, he thought determinedly.

John picked up the phone at the bottom of the stairs and held it to his ear. Nothing. No dial tone, nothing. Going to the living room he switched on the large plasma screen TV at the standby button and automatically turned to find the remote control.

After the usual frustrating hunting around the dishevelled living room, he found the remote control stuffed behind a cushion on the settee and turned back to the TV to switch it on. He pressed the TV button expectantly and nothing. It remained resolutely blank.

He checked the standby switch was on, the plug was in the socket and the socket was on. Still nothing. He went into the hall to the cupboard under the stairs to check that a fuse had not tripped. Opening the fuse box he could see that they were all switched on. He flicked the hall lights on and off a couple of times but nothing happened. Power cut, he thought.

Ok he thought lets think, no TV, no power what else…. My radio he thought with a flash of inspiration. He bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time and rushed to his room flinging his door open banging it against the wall. Grabbing his small portable battery powered radio John sat on the edge of his bed and switched it on. Normally it was tuned into Classic Rock FM, but now there was nothing. No Led Zeppelin, no Pink Floyd no AC/DC, only static. He spun the tuning knob first to one end of the spectrum then to the other. Nothing. Only static.

John switched to medium wave and then to long wave with the same results. As far as he could see, or hear, there were no stations on the air.

Sitting on the edge of the bed holding the useless radio in his hands, staring at the ancient AC/DC poster on the wall he tried to figure out what to do next. Fighting to keep the desperation and confusion he felt welling up inside like a geyser down.

He had to find help from somewhere, to find out what was happening, there must be somebody out there who knew what was going on. Decision made John rushed out of his room and the down stairs. He fished out a dilapidated pair of hand me down trainers and pulled them on.

Opening the front door he walked determinedly up the garden path, past the rusted remains of a bent and broken bicycle that lay rusting in the long grass and the assorted beer cans and bottles. The air was cool and crisp for May but the sun was shining from a largely cloudless sky, promising a warm day later on.

Reaching the gate he walked purposefully across the road and up to the front door of Ella Brown’s house. She had been a constant presence in his life. She had the dubious honour of being his mothers best friend. They had grown up together, went to school together and seemed to share life’s miseries together, as both had the same problems of picking the wrong men and hitting the bottle too hard. But at least Ella had the good sense not to marry them and not have kids.

She was always good to him and John knew that he could come to her for a bit of respite from the neglect of his parents. Whether it was a bite of something to eat or just being able to sit in peace for an hour or so before going home.

Before he knew it he was at her door. He pressed the door bell and heard it chime in the hall and waited expectantly, soon this will be over he thought, then it will be someone else’s problem. As soon as this thought came unbidden from the jungle of his sub conscious he felt an overwhelming rush of guilt. His parents may not have been the best, and they were not, but they did not deserve to die, especially in the manner they had. Surely!

He pressed the door bell again, when he realised no one was coming, just to make sure Ella heard him. No one came to the door. He gave the letter box a couple of whacks, they sounded thunderously loud in the still air, stood back and waiting, surely someone would have heard that..

As he stood there, waiting for the door to open, John became aware of the noise, or rather the lack of it, around him. There was no road noise from the lorries that rumbled past on the nearby main road, no sound of cars trundling of to work. Nothing. Turning round he looked thoughtfully up and down the street. There were no kids walking to school in their tribal school uniforms, no men or women grimacing at the thought of another day at work as they trudged up the street. It was quiet. So quiet. As if everything had stopped. But I heard a car earlier he thought, I know I did, he told himself, as he turned back to the door and pounded on it with the side of his clenched fist. Bang, bang, bang. The noise was like an explosion now that he realised how quiet it was.

The door stayed resolutely shut. After a couple of minutes John tried the handle, but it was, as he expected locked. Turning on the door step he looked around, gauging what to do next. I could break in he thought as he eyed up a loose piece of paving slab.

Then he saw, two doors up on the other side of the street, that the front door to Catherine Downey’s house was open. She had moved into the street a couple of years ago. A single, nineteen year old mother with two boys, one of five and the other three. A real prick tease. Flashing as much leg and cleavage as the law would allow. John knew her to look at, and he often did surreptitiously, and to say hello when he passed her in the street, even though he always went red when he did so. She was way out of his league, too old, too pretty and too many boy friends.

John sprinted out the gate and over the road. When he got to the door he knocked and pushed it gently open “hello” he called out hesitantly, his voice sounding loud in the silence.

Just inside the door lay the body of Catherine Downey’s three year old boy, Stephen lying in a pool of congealed black vomit. A nervous sob escaped his from his lips as he stood looking at the pitiful scene before him. “Hello” he called a note of hysteria in his voice. He wanted to turn and run, to sprint back to his room and lock his door and keep it locked until everything was back to normal. He did not understand. What was happening?

He took a ragged breath and walked into the house, past the pitiful bundle laying on the carpet. In the living room Catherine Downey sat limply on the floor by the settee while her other son lay there. Both were dead.

“Oh God what is happening” John sobbed; tears running unchecked down his cheeks. What had happened? Where is everyone? What is going on?

John bolted from the house and made it to the gate before he fell to his hands and knees and threw up, his arms shaking and shivering. That’s shock, he though, detachedly, got to get it under control.

For how long he stayed like that he did not know. Not more than a couple of minutes, maybe. When he managed to sort his thoughts out he stood up on wobbly, unstable legs and wiped his drooling mouth with the back of a shaking hand, smearing snot and puke over it. He looked up and down the street, realising for the first time that he was alone. It felt overwhelming. Too much to take in. What was he going to do now? The answer came hard and sure, like a hammer blow. Go and see Euan.

He wiped his eyes and nose with his other forearm and started back down the street towards Euan’s home, which was a good fifteen minutes walk. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something moving to his left. Turning he saw Mary Minges standing in the doorway of her house, one hand down by her side pulling at her night dress the other held to her mouth as she bit her fingernails. John stopped an almost euphoric wave of relief engulfing him when he saw her. I am not alone he thought.

As he stood staring at her he tried to think of something to say. In the end though, it was she who broke the silence. “My mother, I think she is dead” she said quietly.

John nodded “mine too, so are Catherine Downey and her wee lads”, he said trying to sound calm and reassuring, but he knew he was not pulling it off, not even to himself. “Where are you going,” asked Mary. “To see a friend”, “Can I come along” she asked pleadingly. John nodded.

“I’ll be back in a minute” she said and turned to go in the house. Stopping she turned back “you wont go away will you,” she asked nervously. “No I’ll wait for you” he said. Reassured she rushed away and came back out a couple of minutes later wearing a pair of faded jeans and a sleeveless T-Shirt. John turned and walked away, Mary following.

“Do you know what has happened” she asked flicking her long brown hair away from her face with a nervous twitch of her hands, rushing to keep up with him. “Do you think it’s that bird flu that was on the news.”

“No, I don’t think it was bird flu,” replied John, as he strode purposefully forward, head up moving from side to side watching the road up ahead for any signs of trouble. “I thought my parents had been drinking, until they started puking up blood,” he continued. “I don’t think this is like a flu epidemic, those things build up, this just happened over one night.”

“I don’t think this is a flu epidemic” mimicked Mary sarcastically, “listen to fucking you eh, Professor “Bugsy” Reagan.” He wondered how long it would take her to revert to type, less than five minutes as it turned out.

“So Bugsy what do you fucking think it is then, why are our mothers dead” she sobbed as she stopped, her face cupped in her hands. John watched her, wanting to say something comfortingr, she had lost her mother who had raised her as best she could. She had been the one who had clothed her, fed her and kept her warm. Now she was gone and she did not know who was going to look after her, it would not be her drug dealing brother, they had never got on. Even her grandmother was dead.

John wondered for a moment at his lack of feeling to wards the death of his own parents. Sure he had cried when he realised they were dead, but when he looked at it that was more to do with the uncertainty over his own future than real grief at losing them. It was not as if they had fed him, he got free school meals, so his mother did not cook a dinner for him, the clothes he wore were mainly what his aunt and uncles handed down to him when his cousins had grown out of them. Even the house he lived in was what he made of it. He had to do his own washing and ironing and cleaned out his own room. An oasis of order in the desert of chaos that was his home.

No. He did not mourn the passing of his family. Not his neurotic, insecure mother, the drunken bully of a father nor incessant fighting of his older brothers.

“Why aren’t you crying, eh, aren’t you bothered that your mother and father are dead” sobbed Mary looking at him with red rimmed eyes. John looked at her tear stained face, looked into her eye and replied “No.”

“Come on lets keep walking” he said as he turned away from her stunned expression and continued on.

“Where are we going” she asked, rushing to catch up, wiping tears from her eyes and snot from her nose on the back of her hands. “Going to see a mate” he replied. “Yeah what ma… your going to see that bum bandit Lindsay aren’t you” she spat at him stopping in her tracks. “Well I’m not going there, you can go fuck yourself,” she called at John’s retreating back. “You hear me I’m not fucking going there,” she called as John carried on walking. Mary rushed over and grabbed him by the arm “listen why don’t we go and see Andy Morton instead, he’s alright, he’ll know what to do.”

John shook his arm free of her grip “you want to go and see Andy Morton then go ahead, nobody’s stopping you. But I’m going to Euan Lindsay’s,” turning away he carried on. Mary stood watching as John made his way purposefully down to the end of the street and disappeared round the corner. She waited a few seconds before calling “Fucking wait for me then,” as she rushed to catch up.

“Don’t know why you want to go to Lindsay’s for, he’s a stuck up prick, I don’t see why we can’t go to Andy Morton’s place, he’ll know what to do,” Mary moaned, as she caught up with him. “Andy Morton will know what to do? Since when the guy is a moron,” replied John, his tone clipped and harsh, the old feeling of anger and resentment bubbling to the surface at the sound of the name. “Remember when he poured bleach on to that girl’s hair from the top of the school stairs last year and it burned her scalp, or the time he locked that lad in a garage for two days a few months ago, he’s a fucking psycho and the further I can keep away from him the better.” John looked at Mary as he walked “you too if you know what is good for you.”

“Listen I know you were going out with him a while back” he continued “but he was bad enough when everything was normal, what do you think he will be like now. If there is no authority around he’ll be out of control, him and his little gang,” he spat vehemently.

John had no love for Andy Morton, just a long standing hatred. Andy Morton had been the ring leader for the local kids ever since he was six. Somehow ensnaring them within his web of influence with a mixture of charm and bullying. It was him who gave John the nickname Bugsy, when he was nine. He and his gang caught John going to school one morning and, whilst his gang pinned John on the ground Andy peed on him. The image of Andy laughing as he pissed over his clothes and face was burned into his skull along with a desire to settle the score.

When they had let him go John had gone back home to get cleaned up and change his clothes. But his mother, who was awake that morning, caught him coming in the door and demanded to know why he was not at school. Then she had smelt the stench of urine. Thinking that he had wet himself she threw him out the door and told him to go to school as he was. Instead though he went to one of his bolt holes and sat there for the day stinking of piss and plotting all sorts of revenge on Andy Morton.

When he went to school the next day everyone in his class knew what had happened. They sniggered and pointed at him, Andy Morton came up sniffed and said “aw Reagan you smell a piss, your right bugsy you are,” and the name stuck.

“What you think everyone’s dead” Mary sneered, snapping John out of his reverie “you think that everyone died like its 28 Days Later, your fucking tapped you are.”

They both walked in silence for the better part ten minutes. John had walked this route to Euan’s house a thousand times. He could walk it in his sleep. Now though the normally familiar streets were eerily quiet. He wondered what was happening in the houses they passed, imagining their occupants lying dead.

Distant sounds could be heard, though they saw no one else, the screech of car tyres and revving engines testified that someone was taking a car for a spin, they could hear someone shouting far away behind them, but saw no one.

Crossing the road they entered one of the town’s parks, a well used short cut.
“What’s that?” asked Mary pointing to the bottom of the park, some 500 odd metres away, “look there’s other people” she called excitedly.

A figure sprinted out of the bushes making for the nearest park exit. John could see it was a girl, naked, running at full tilt, breasts bouncing wildly.

Some ways behind three guys emerged from the bushes running after her, shouting at her to stop. From what John could see though they had no chance of catching her. One was hampered by trying to run and pull his tracksuit bottoms up at the sane time, while the other two were not running in a particularly straight line, they were staggering all over the place. By the time they had covered half the distance to the gate the naked girl had bounded out of the park and was away. John hoped that she managed to get somewhere safe, as the realisation that he had just witnessed a girl escaping from three sexual predators.

Seeing that they would never catch her they gave up the chase, the front runner threw a bottle I her general direction. The one with his tracksuit bottoms around his ankles finally managing to pull them up, after a couple of abortive attempts. One of them looked in his direction and pointed them out to the other two.

“What was that ?” asked Mary “What….” Suddenly the penny dropped and she suddenly looked very frightened. “John lets go, please,” cried Mary her face a study in fear, realising that she had just witnessed a girl escaping from a rape. “C’mon, lets go,” she pleaded tugging at John’s hand as he stood staring down the park as the three guys started walking in their direction.

“Hey com ere a minute, aye com ere” one of them called in a slurred voice, “its awright, cum on.” Taking one last look John set off at a fast jog, catching up with Mary who was running and sobbing at the same time, looking back fearfully over her shoulder to see if they were being followed.

Deckard2019

Here is the last bit of the section.

Leaving the park they turned left and continued running, John keeping to a constant pace as he ate up the road, Mary struggling trying to keep up. She did not stop though until they reached Euan’s house, a bungalow at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac.

John vaulted the gate and jogged round to the back. He pulled up short as he saw his friend dragging his father’s body out of the back door. Mary careened into him and bounced off. Euan looked up, his face awash with grief, his eyes red from crying, his cheeks stained with the tracks of his tears.
“John can you help me,” he pleaded, “I have to bury my dad next to my mum, can you help.” John nodded and took hold of the body’s feet and helped lift the body over to the lawn where the body of his mother lay.

“Of course I’ll help, have you got another spade.

Raniegh

I am the biggest freak about typos, eventhough we all do them. But your story line is so good I could bare through it. I love this. If you fix the small grammatical errors this will be amazing. And the big words make the story. Can't wait for more.

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HippoHead

yeah, this has many unnecessary words, similes etc. and you don't start a new line for each person

but i love the storyline to this. Awesomely violent ideas from violent people in a world where no-one can stop them. This is gold.

Deckard2019

HippoHead and Raniegh, thanks for the comments I must admit I am not the most grammitcally aware person in the world, but I am heartened to hear that you like the story line.

Brightside

Hey, I've read the first part and i am impressed - its very well written. Reading the comments you've recieved so far, and from my reading, i will say that you need to improve your grammar - but who doesn't! The story is strong, which is really important! Style, grammar, spelling etc, can be learned; creating a good story is something else! Well done.

Brightside

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'I'm too old to know everything.'

Who said that? I honestly can't remember...!