How About Them Apples? (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
applespice) wrote2011-04-30 09:52 pm
applespice) wrote2011-04-30 09:52 pm
Entry tags:
LJ Idol - Week 23 - Round Two - Pass the Ammunition
They hide in the houses every time. Predictable, but I'm not looking for an adventure, here, so it doesn't really bother me. Some of the others like "the thrill of the hunt" too much to appreciate a leisurely day in the suburbs. Me, I take the easy pickings where I can get them. Those folks with shotguns and baseball bats aren't my cup of tea, not at all.
The first house I come to is a sweet little affair, the kind of thing I used to want. Two stories, blue siding with white trim, and a big wraparound porch with a swing. Looks just like the houses I used to see in movies, sitting on top of a hill with miles of wheat fields all around. I think it was wheat, anyway - what do I know about farming? This house isn't surrounded by any kind of fields; just a long, flat stretch of sidewalk, a couple of overgrown rose bushes, and rows and rows of houses that look almost exactly like it.
Still nice, though.
I push open the front door with my foot, and can immediately tell that someone's been living here. The floor is clear of dust, and there's a bowl of apples on the coffee table that haven't even started to dry up. I wonder how they managed to get ahold of apples - our people are usually keeping an eye on the supermarkets. Anyway, apples that were in a supermarket would be rotted and reeking by now. It's not like there's any new produce coming in.
It actually makes me feel kind of bad, seeing those apples on the table. Whoever's holing up here isn't even smart enough to hide the obvious signs of habitation. They must be really clueless - and I'm really going to ruin their day. Still, it's not like they aren't asking for it. How they've survived even this long is a mystery to me.
The rest of the house is more of the same. I even come across a glass of soda, still frosty with condensation and with little bubbles fizzing around the ice cubes. I wonder briefly how they've been making ice. Seeing it almost makes me miss the taste of soda.
I find them in the basement, of course - a group of three, two men and a woman. Not related, which is something of a relief. I hate bringing in families. Depressing. I raise my gun, though I don't poke it at them aggressively or anything.
"You're going to have to come with me," I say, in a kind but firm voice. Shouting at them doesn't help - poor things are scared enough anyway. This group must not be very bright, though (not that I hadn't already figured that out), because they just kind of gape at me.
"Come on then," I repeat, giving my gun a little jerk toward the stairs. "Let's go."
Still nothing. Like talking to a trio of department store mannequins. I look at them more closely - maybe there's something wrong with them. I mean, it doesn't really matter, not where they're going, but I don't like dealing with the unstable ones. Those are the types that can go completely berserk on you. One second everything's coming along pleasantly, then BAM! You get a knife through the eye.
That's how I lost mine, in fact; though it wasn't a knife, just a shard of glass. A good thing, too. I can live without an eyeball, but my brain is all that's keeping me ticking, and a knife through the eye could quickly put an end to that.
This is getting old. I glare at them in exasperation. "What are you, a bunch of zombies? Let's see some sign of life!" I can't help it; I laugh at my little joke.
"Fuck you." It's one of the men and boy, if looks could kill. That's a joke in itself, if looks could kill, and I almost laugh again. Things might be getting hostile here, though, so I try to play it straight.
"I don't think you want to," I say. "And anyway, there's no call for that kind of language. I'm just doing my job."
"Your job?" The woman now. Great. If there's one thing I hate about a bad attitude, it's that it always seems to be catching. "It's your job to kill us?"
"Well, not exactly. It's my job to pick you up and take you back to Camp Five. What happens to you after that, I don't know. Above my pay grade, you could say." I do know what happens to them, of course, but talking about it here isn't going to help matters. The quiet man and the woman might actually live for awhile - there's always room in the livestock camps - though the hostile one will have to go.
I gesture with my gun again. "So, let's go. My team is waiting for me outside."
"You're a monster," the woman whispers, her blue eyes welling with tears.
My mouth twists into a frown. "I'm not a monster. I'm just making do with the hand I was dealt."
"You're a monster," says the first man. "An experiment gone wrong. You shouldn't even exist. You're an abomination."
The rest of my team would laugh this off - we've all heard it so many times. For me, though, it still stings. I mean, it's not as though I wanted to be this way. I did my running and fighting back at the beginning, just like everyone else. When I got the bite, I even considered killing myself before I became one of them. I couldn't do it, though. In the end, I considered myself lucky that all I got was a bite. Nearly everyone else was devoured outright. At least now I have some kind of life - or afterlife, as the case may be.
It's not as bad as the movies made it out to be, not really. There isn't all the rotting and the streaming entrails and blood everywhere. Science took care of that, way back at the beginning, with the real experiments. Life after death, immortality, yadda yadda yadda. Bring back a corpse, keep it from rotting, get it thinking and moving - and ta-da! Instant superhuman. I'm sure they would've made a mint off the technology, if it hadn't all gone wrong.
Though of course it did all go wrong, as anybody with a lick of sense could've told you it would.
That part was pretty much like the movies - the outbreak, people running wild in the streets, death everywhere. Now it's much better. We're organized. There's a system, even a government. Why the Breathers are so smug, running and hiding and desperate as they are, I couldn't say.
"I may be an abomination, but I'm also the one with the gun," I snap back at him, annoyed. "Now let's go before I have to use it." This time I do poke it at them, and my face must say that I mean business because they shrink back and finally comply.
When we come out into the street, I can see that I'm the last to arrive. Malinda, Jeff, and Ollie have already got four or five Breathers between them and are loading them up into the truck. Lyn is on point, squinting up and down the street with her gun at the ready.
"Wow," says Malinda, eyeing my little collection. "Three! And all in good shape, too. Nice work, Ben."
"Thanks." That makes me feel a bit better. Malinda is one of the better looking women in Camp Five, and even though there would be no point in making a move on her (apparently the scientist bigwigs who started all this didn't see any point in keeping all the equipment running), it's still nice to get a compliment from a pretty woman.
I've nearly forgotten the Breathers' insults and am hustling them toward the truck when the first bullet whizzes past my head, nicking off my left ear. I can't feel it, of course, but the fact that it's so close to my skull really freaks me out. I whirl around, disoriented, and see the rosebushes in front of the blue house bristling with gun barrels.
"Fuck!" Malinda shrieks, just before a bullet slams into her forehead. She drops like a stone, the wound a black and bloodless crater.
"Run!" Jeff is nearly to the cab of the truck, his body already riddled with smoking holes, when he goes down. His fingers are still clasped around the door handle. Lyn makes it to the end of the block, but no farther. Ollie I can't see - maybe he's gotten away, though I don't know how. Me, I haven't even moved.
I don't know what to do. I can't think - can't react. My gun is up, but I can't seem to fire it. The shots seem to be coming from everywhere. For the first time, I really do feel like a zombie - slow and mindless.
"Who has the gun now?" The voice comes from my right or I wouldn't hear it. It's smug, so smug, and it hurts, like it always does. The only hurt I can feel anymore.
I swear I see the bullet as it comes for me, the one to put an end to it all. I wish I could say that I feel relief, but I don't. The last thing I feel is desperate.
Desperate to live.
The first house I come to is a sweet little affair, the kind of thing I used to want. Two stories, blue siding with white trim, and a big wraparound porch with a swing. Looks just like the houses I used to see in movies, sitting on top of a hill with miles of wheat fields all around. I think it was wheat, anyway - what do I know about farming? This house isn't surrounded by any kind of fields; just a long, flat stretch of sidewalk, a couple of overgrown rose bushes, and rows and rows of houses that look almost exactly like it.
Still nice, though.
I push open the front door with my foot, and can immediately tell that someone's been living here. The floor is clear of dust, and there's a bowl of apples on the coffee table that haven't even started to dry up. I wonder how they managed to get ahold of apples - our people are usually keeping an eye on the supermarkets. Anyway, apples that were in a supermarket would be rotted and reeking by now. It's not like there's any new produce coming in.
It actually makes me feel kind of bad, seeing those apples on the table. Whoever's holing up here isn't even smart enough to hide the obvious signs of habitation. They must be really clueless - and I'm really going to ruin their day. Still, it's not like they aren't asking for it. How they've survived even this long is a mystery to me.
The rest of the house is more of the same. I even come across a glass of soda, still frosty with condensation and with little bubbles fizzing around the ice cubes. I wonder briefly how they've been making ice. Seeing it almost makes me miss the taste of soda.
I find them in the basement, of course - a group of three, two men and a woman. Not related, which is something of a relief. I hate bringing in families. Depressing. I raise my gun, though I don't poke it at them aggressively or anything.
"You're going to have to come with me," I say, in a kind but firm voice. Shouting at them doesn't help - poor things are scared enough anyway. This group must not be very bright, though (not that I hadn't already figured that out), because they just kind of gape at me.
"Come on then," I repeat, giving my gun a little jerk toward the stairs. "Let's go."
Still nothing. Like talking to a trio of department store mannequins. I look at them more closely - maybe there's something wrong with them. I mean, it doesn't really matter, not where they're going, but I don't like dealing with the unstable ones. Those are the types that can go completely berserk on you. One second everything's coming along pleasantly, then BAM! You get a knife through the eye.
That's how I lost mine, in fact; though it wasn't a knife, just a shard of glass. A good thing, too. I can live without an eyeball, but my brain is all that's keeping me ticking, and a knife through the eye could quickly put an end to that.
This is getting old. I glare at them in exasperation. "What are you, a bunch of zombies? Let's see some sign of life!" I can't help it; I laugh at my little joke.
"Fuck you." It's one of the men and boy, if looks could kill. That's a joke in itself, if looks could kill, and I almost laugh again. Things might be getting hostile here, though, so I try to play it straight.
"I don't think you want to," I say. "And anyway, there's no call for that kind of language. I'm just doing my job."
"Your job?" The woman now. Great. If there's one thing I hate about a bad attitude, it's that it always seems to be catching. "It's your job to kill us?"
"Well, not exactly. It's my job to pick you up and take you back to Camp Five. What happens to you after that, I don't know. Above my pay grade, you could say." I do know what happens to them, of course, but talking about it here isn't going to help matters. The quiet man and the woman might actually live for awhile - there's always room in the livestock camps - though the hostile one will have to go.
I gesture with my gun again. "So, let's go. My team is waiting for me outside."
"You're a monster," the woman whispers, her blue eyes welling with tears.
My mouth twists into a frown. "I'm not a monster. I'm just making do with the hand I was dealt."
"You're a monster," says the first man. "An experiment gone wrong. You shouldn't even exist. You're an abomination."
The rest of my team would laugh this off - we've all heard it so many times. For me, though, it still stings. I mean, it's not as though I wanted to be this way. I did my running and fighting back at the beginning, just like everyone else. When I got the bite, I even considered killing myself before I became one of them. I couldn't do it, though. In the end, I considered myself lucky that all I got was a bite. Nearly everyone else was devoured outright. At least now I have some kind of life - or afterlife, as the case may be.
It's not as bad as the movies made it out to be, not really. There isn't all the rotting and the streaming entrails and blood everywhere. Science took care of that, way back at the beginning, with the real experiments. Life after death, immortality, yadda yadda yadda. Bring back a corpse, keep it from rotting, get it thinking and moving - and ta-da! Instant superhuman. I'm sure they would've made a mint off the technology, if it hadn't all gone wrong.
Though of course it did all go wrong, as anybody with a lick of sense could've told you it would.
That part was pretty much like the movies - the outbreak, people running wild in the streets, death everywhere. Now it's much better. We're organized. There's a system, even a government. Why the Breathers are so smug, running and hiding and desperate as they are, I couldn't say.
"I may be an abomination, but I'm also the one with the gun," I snap back at him, annoyed. "Now let's go before I have to use it." This time I do poke it at them, and my face must say that I mean business because they shrink back and finally comply.
When we come out into the street, I can see that I'm the last to arrive. Malinda, Jeff, and Ollie have already got four or five Breathers between them and are loading them up into the truck. Lyn is on point, squinting up and down the street with her gun at the ready.
"Wow," says Malinda, eyeing my little collection. "Three! And all in good shape, too. Nice work, Ben."
"Thanks." That makes me feel a bit better. Malinda is one of the better looking women in Camp Five, and even though there would be no point in making a move on her (apparently the scientist bigwigs who started all this didn't see any point in keeping all the equipment running), it's still nice to get a compliment from a pretty woman.
I've nearly forgotten the Breathers' insults and am hustling them toward the truck when the first bullet whizzes past my head, nicking off my left ear. I can't feel it, of course, but the fact that it's so close to my skull really freaks me out. I whirl around, disoriented, and see the rosebushes in front of the blue house bristling with gun barrels.
"Fuck!" Malinda shrieks, just before a bullet slams into her forehead. She drops like a stone, the wound a black and bloodless crater.
"Run!" Jeff is nearly to the cab of the truck, his body already riddled with smoking holes, when he goes down. His fingers are still clasped around the door handle. Lyn makes it to the end of the block, but no farther. Ollie I can't see - maybe he's gotten away, though I don't know how. Me, I haven't even moved.
I don't know what to do. I can't think - can't react. My gun is up, but I can't seem to fire it. The shots seem to be coming from everywhere. For the first time, I really do feel like a zombie - slow and mindless.
"Who has the gun now?" The voice comes from my right or I wouldn't hear it. It's smug, so smug, and it hurts, like it always does. The only hurt I can feel anymore.
I swear I see the bullet as it comes for me, the one to put an end to it all. I wish I could say that I feel relief, but I don't. The last thing I feel is desperate.
Desperate to live.
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Well done.
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I'm not sure what I'll do after this. I definitely want to tweak the stories that I've already written and smooth out wrinkles that came clearer to me throughout the competition, that's a certainty. I've also been toying with the idea of trying to get a couple of them published, though that always scares me a little bit! I might also extend some of them and just see where the story takes me.
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Count me as a fan too. I adore your stories!
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That...was creepy. In a good way.
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Good luck in the poll, by the way. You have my vote.
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This was awesome!
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Thank you so much!
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