THE END - And I'm done ... for now

The End

365 Days of writing and I feel pretty good about most of it, but not all of it.

It's a good discipline to have and while some days have ben amazingly creative and easy some days were hard and painful.

Ultimately I have never had problems with ideas, I still have a dozen more rattling around that I must write some day and unlike before when I never got around to it, this time I hope I will do more than just make it 'one day'.

I hate editing and I love just dumping the content out so editing and redrafting may take some effort but it doesn't thrill me at all so we'll see about that.

I loved writing Darwin's Game, definitely the best experience for me as a writer. I hated rewriting the novel I first wrote in Tuscany as a new draft, I look back at it and hate it anew.

I also managed to write a trilogy without realising it.

Repeat Offenders, Babel and Untitled Zombie Story are all based on science going horribly wrong because of people being stupider than their intellect allows them to be.

Each one of those stories has a technology that usurps the intention and brings dire and drastic consequences from the stupidity, selfishness or lack of foresight in the creator. It's the story of the people affected by the advancement's side effects that interested me. It was not until about 50,000 words into the third one I realised I had written in a pattern like that.

Fascinating because I knew very little about where the stories were going.

Except Darwin's Game which was planned in my head a decade ago and drafted poorly with huge pieces missing. Same too for Only Laugh, but the initial draft and guideline only took me to maybe one third of the final novel and then it became a new thing and I discovered where it was going every single day.

I like not knowing where it was going to go, even in Darwin's Game there was an element of that. I did not know who the winner was going to be for a long time and I decided who was going to die as I was writing each episode. The broad story was known but the path there was a discovery.

All of them will require work to cover the continuity I am sure but still.

620,500 words across 365 days.

Fuck Publishing, Editing and how things 'should' be done.

I am a fucking writer when I actually write.

Which I did, a lot of.

:)

W

Day 365 - Untitled Zombie Story Chapter 10.6 - (1,088 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

UNTITLED ZOMBIE STORY

By Wayne Webb

Chapter 10.6

Derek had one of Ben’s stick devices in his hand; he had retrieved it from where Ben had stashed some things from the wreckage of their car. He had been given precise instructions on where to find it, and it was harder than he expected. Ben was obviously adept at deceit and subterfuge, he had hidden the objects quickly but so completely in an unfamiliar environment.

Dawn was underway and the half-light afforded Derek the opportunity to move to the site pretty quickly, but then he had to take a long way around on the return journey to be able to see the gaps in the views that the guard towers would have. He would have to climb the hill, the one with the wood where he had first approached the town, but scouting further along away from the gate as the curve of the town took a dogleg between two of the guard towers.

It was not heavily watched but it was not a place where the breaching was easy either, the wall being treacherously vertical with zero hand or footholds. Though that was perfect for their purposes, a section of wall thought to be safe and perfect to target the undead for their fiery mission. The day was underway but as this was on the west side of the town the walls covered most of the approach in shadows.

Derek set up two of the sonic devices and measured about fifty feet between the two of the spots, both just inside the dogleg of the wall, concave enough to prevent anyone from seeing what was happening there unless they right above it or already around the corner in the gap. ‘

The devices were in place but not yet activated and he walked back along his tracks and paced out the spacing between the two sticks one more time. Then he walked along the wall hugging it as he went, checking around both corners for any patrolling guards, seeing none but also looking to see which of the devices would attract the undead first.

He had to take action, it had already taken longer than planned to go and deploy the devices and now he had to do it, to make the diversion as effective as it needed to be. The plan was all about timing at least from Derek’s perspective.

He walked the distance from the furthest to the gate to the nearest and paced it out for one last time before slowly walking back with the can of petrol in his right hand. Derek spread a third of the gas in a circle around the device, about ten feet in diameter and then switched on the beacon. He could not see or hear the undead but anything in range would start to come towards it now.

He ran the gap to the other device and switched it on too, spreading maybe half of the petrol on and around that  device, trailing backwards and connecting the two circles of petrol soaked ground with an unbroken line before sloshing the last of it in a line backwards from the midpoint, marking the length of the fuse he planned to use.

His shoes were soaking in fuel and so he took them off and threw them up the hill a little way and then hunkered down on the ground close enough to his fuse point to smell it but not so close to be at risk of being burned with it. He wrapped his hands in a rag he took from the car and wiped as much of the surface fuel from his hands as he could and then slowly the undead turned the corner and came to the first device.

There were thirty or forty of them crowded around it now and more pouring in from the front of the town. As he heard shouts from the guards zombies came around the south corner as well, moving in on the second beacon and making a placid bee line for the device and the circle of petrol soaked ground.

“Over there!” came a shout and he knew that it was time to light the fuse, as much as he had no love for the town and for whatever plan they had, they were still human beings and live ones. He had no intention of murdering real people with his diversion, there were so few people left in the world already why would anyone want to lessen humanity’s chance of survival even if they were suspect?

His hands were shaking and he prayed rapidly that the fumes and liquid that may have soaked into his skin were gone or not enough to risk his being burned. The shaking made flicking the lighter on impossible and he had to stop, take a breath and try again.

With a burst of flame and a sparking clack it came to life, burning a small cloud of fumes in the air but puffing out and leaving just the flame, he had his starter fire. Derek leaned up on his hands and knees and with his outstretched hand he threw the lighter slowly in a low arc towards the fuse.

There was a puff of smoke and a small whomping noise as the flames caught the petrol and the line raced through the grass, splitting and the line and creating the dumbbell shape on the ground in flames.

The undead just stood there and bumped into each other, not trying to escape the fire but drawn like moths to the beacon and catching fire and beginning to burn as well.

There were more than the space allowed and they were lined up against the wall of the Town as planned.

“Holy shit!” came an anguished cry and two guards came around the corner to see flames beginning to take hold and lick up the walls of the town as nearly a hundred burning undead all stuck together in a burning assembly, flames spouting from limbs and lighting up the shadows in an orange hue.

The smell of burning, rotten  flesh was strong and Derek hated himself for the rumbling of his stomach as he thought about Frank’s famous BBQ, the one he and his brother had grown up on, survived on after the GZA.

The flame was lit and by the panicked shouts the guards made into their radios, the trap had been sprung well.

Now he had to find a new way into the Town and meet up with the others again.

Day 364 - Untitled Zombie Story Chapter 10.5 - (1,269 words)

 ©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

UNTITLED ZOMBIE STORY

By Wayne Webb

Chapter 10.5

“We set fire to the zombies outside the walls, and then they’ll have to fight those fires literally.” James was talking to Derek and Ben from the roof of the cinema building, it was the highest and most secure location they could get to in the short period of time they had when running from the alleyway.

They had the element of surprise on their hands because no one knew that they were there, and then when Angela spotted Derek they all ran off in one direction, circled around to the cinema, travelling unseen while she rallied the guards to search for them. They were looking for one person, probably two by now, as they must have checked the ward where James had been drugged up. Someone must be paying the price for the mistake of letting him wake up alone and unsecured.

From the roof of the cinema they could see down into the town and it was crawling with guards and citizens hastily roused and conscripted into the search. Each of the pairs of searchers were armed with spotlight torches and a stick, not unlike the one that Ben had for distracting the zombies, but with two wicked prongs on the end of it. It looked like a crueler and darker version of a cattle prod.

None of the men wanted to find out what the stick did, it was not pleasant to think about the potential of it. Instead they hid and watched the search take place below them no one thinking to look up at the roofs of the buildings. The guard towers had uninterrupted views across the rooftops except for one or two buildings, and so far no one had thought to check up on top of them. If it came to that then they had back up plans ready to go, escaping across the rooftops to a near section of wall and making their way to freedom.

Neither James nor Ben wanted to leave just yet; only Derek was keen on getting out of town as soon as possible.

“You must want to know what is going on here? I sure as hell do!” James was arguing passionately with his brother, who was trying to convince him to just leave, leave Ben to whatever crazy plan he had and just get out of town and find their own place again.

“No, actually don’t, I just want to get back home and…” Derek shook his head; he knew that there was no going home. No one followed that thought along.

“It doesn’t matter what you want to do or don’t want to do, I’m getting to the bottom of this mess, I could use your help or not.” Ben shrugged his indifference. “I can take this entire town myself if I need to.”

“Why the fuck should I believe you Ben? You come to our town and sell us on this idyllic City where my brother gets kidnapped and … fuck knows… experimented on?”

“I wasn’t experimented on D.” James raised a conciliatory hand, but Derek slapped it down in anger.

“Like that is the fucking point of what I am saying?”

“Don’t be such a dick D.” James flushed at his hand being slapped like a childs.

“You’re not listening to me James! Ben has not been truthful to us once! Not once! We should just throw him off the roof to the vultures down below and get the fuck out of dodge! We can’t trust him!” Derek spat the words and despite the obvious threat Ben did not move or object.

“Are you done?” he finally said in the silence that fell between them.

“I’m done when we’re gone from here.”

“I never lied to you. I never said you could trust me. I don’t think you should to be honest. If you want to go, then go.” His voice lowered and there was a prickly tension to his next words that made Derek go a little cold. “If you want to test the gravity of our postion?” He did not finish the sentence.

He did not need to.

“I just want to leave.” Derek didn’t apologies but he backed away from any threats and his tone softened considerably.

James disagreed. “I want to find out what’s going on.”

“Why James? Why on earth would you care?”

James looked at Ben. “Your people, they’re not who you think they are.”

Ben nodded, that was why he was here, and he knew there was a depth below the friendly surface, something darker under all the community and support of their fellow man.

“They took me in and made me a part of… the surface, the mask maybe? They made me part of something and then I see something or I know something and Bam, I wind up there..” he pointed at the clinic “ So full of drugs and they want me for something, I don’t know what or why and … then you tell me your suspicions, they sound…”

“Reasonable?” Ben offered the word.

“None of this sounds reasonable. That’s why I want to find out what is going on, it makes no sense. We could run and hide, but we’ve been hiding for too long. I loved the City for the first few days, I barely even knew that you weren’t there D. I mean you’re my bro and I love you, but I fucking miss people man. Then they take that away again and it’s all weird clinics and zombie machines and science and …”

The three men went silent, it was getting very late in the night, it could well have been on to dawn very soon and they would lose the cover of darkness.

Derek eventually sighed his agreement and proffered his first positive suggestion. “We need a distraction, something big that will take their attention and then we need to get in there.” He pointed at the building that Doctor Sarah had been taking him towards when his disguise finally fell apart.

“Fire.” Said James and grinned at his brother who did not smile in return.

“I like it.” Ben smirked a little.

“So we’re ok with committing mass murder then? Is that what we’re doing?” Derek asked.

“Don’t be dramatic D.” Ben accentuated the shortened version of Derek’s name that his brother had been using. “The barrier devices will allow them to corral and move the zombies where they liked, and they will contain the fire pretty quickly. It might hit a couple of buildings, but if they’re quick, and they will be, then they’ll just have one or two spots to worry about. Then while all hands are on the fire, we’ll make for the building and find… well we’ll see what we find yeah?”

“It only seems like a couple of days ago when we talked about this last time.” Derek put his hand on James’s shoulder and continued. “It was a piss poor idea then and it’s a worse one now.”

“It was your idea Derek, I had to talk you out of it.” James was incredulous.

“I know.” Derek peered over the edge of the building and he could see a pair of searchers pointing at the building across the street from them, and then walking to yank at the metal fire escape that lead up the short building to the roof. It would only be a matter of time before they made it to check the other buildings.

“I know it was piss poor, BECAUSE it was mine.”

Derek crawled back from the edge to his companions.

“Anyone got a match?”

Day 363 - Untitled Zombie Story Chapter 10.4 - (1,971 words)

 ©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

UNTITLED ZOMBIE STORY

By Wayne Webb

Chapter 10.4

It was child’s play to get the passenger door open and get into the car quickly. She closed the door behind herself, not leaving herself exposed while working on the hot wiring. Something she had learned in a misspent youth, when these cars were already old and a standard target for joyriding youths and car thieves. When she met Ben’s father and got to know some of the more esoteric aspects of some of the businesses he owned there was occasionally the chance to surprise everyone with what she was capable of.

It was an advantage she had, even with people who knew her and her history, they could still be surprised by the stark reality when Margaret would do things that a woman would not do, and not a woman of her age these days. Breaking in, wiring the ignition to start position and driving off were things she already knew. What her late husband had taught her were more life skills than specific techniques or abilities.

Never leave yourself exposed, take your chances while you can, surprise people. Words he lived by and words that Ben tried to live up to, but in a more direct way than his upbringing had ever directed.

The circuit wires twisted together, the spark was set and the car spluttered a few times, the choke was pulled out and she went again, being careful not to flood the classic engine. Thankfully it roared to life and with it the petrol gauge flicked up and bounced a few times to show a needle just shy of three quarters full. This was the perfect find for the first car.

Leaving the engine idling was a risk but she did a quick circuit of the roof to check other cars for anything of use, but all she got was a map book of the city, which may have been more useful had the rain not warped the pages, and a tin of breath mints. She was sure she would probably need them, it felt like far too long since she had brushed her teeth.

Getting out of the building was painless, the ramps she made from car doors made a rattling echo that caused a few undead to waltz into the driveway as she eventually sped out, dodging the ones she could and nudging the ones she could not. As gratifying as it may have been to drive full speed into a walking dead, a former human being, they could cause far too much damage to any vehicle if hit head on.

A crowd of undead was on the streets, beginning to be attracted by the noise from the car park and the echo of the empty concrete chambers they contained. Margaret paused the car and had a good look around not seeing anyone from the squad of kidnappers that had held her captive. She drove carefully through them and put the device on the dashboard of the VW Beetle. It had an effective radius that would clear a few feet in front of the bumper, so she could make slow and painful progress through the crowd.

The sound of the engine, which was far from smooth and silent, was drawing in more and more of the street level zombies to her location, but then leaving a small semicircle in front of the car to drive through. Margaret was trying to nose her way through the thinner section of the crowd to see which way was the clearest, to try and pick up some speed and just get out of town before she was noticed.

The break in the traffic finally happened and she saw her chance to get out, onto the overpass where there were hardly any undead walking around, she just needed to thread the needle on the ground, get to the on ramp and get up to the higher ground as quickly as possible and then follow it all the way south to the airport bypass and get out of the city limits and on to the open roads.

It was painful and slow but she made her progress to the road that ran along side the overpass that travelled a few dozen feet overhead. The car was shuddering at travelling so slowly with so many stops and starts as she would have to wait for the shuffling undead to move out of the way. It was a bizarre circus of fear and ridiculousness as the flailing arms and slathering jaws would snap and grasp at the noise that the car made, the vibrations from the old engine making the air thick and tasty for them, but the push of the device that kept them at bay to a certain radius was stronger still.

Were the undead crowding her getting thicker? Margaret stopped her car, left the engine running and opened the door, holding the device in her hands, the zombie flesh melted away from in front of her as she took steps to the median strip where a pylon afforded her a chance to rise above the crowd and see into the distance.

Once she was up and looking around she knew instantly that she was going to be in trouble. Two blocks away there was a truck, one with a radio dish on the top and there were people on top of it with binoculars looking her way. They saw her and she knew she had to get back in the car and make a break for the on ramp. They would have the advantage in engine force, speed and brute force in driving through the undead that crowded the space between them.

That was why the zombies were out on force, the silence of the graveyard city was now being broken by the rumbling and shuddering VW Beetle and whatever monstrosity that the radio truck was. It looked like it could ram it’s way through the crowd and be on her in seconds, the only real threat would be the inability to drive over the bloodied mess of flesh and bone that would crack and spread under any high speed attack.

Margaret was about halfway to the car when the zombies who had been avoiding her all stood stock still in whatever pose they were in. Limbs and expressions suspended as if a freeze-frame had been set on the world. It was unsettling and creepy and it made her stop in her tracks and looked at them, walking up to one of them and not seeing it move outside the normal zone of exclusion this new device afforded her.

It scared her, the one thing she had started to rely on she had only been using for a few hours at most, was now useless. Her plan needed to be affected right now. She ran/hobbled back to the driver’s side of the car just as the undead came back to life, in their sense anyway, they started to move in slow motion, like they had been rebooted and were slowly coming online again.

The exclusion zone was gone and the undead changed from slathering and aimless waving to a very aggressive and powerful surge of bodies shunting forwards and rocking he car she was in. Reflex took over and she slammed the car into reverse and backed over the few dozen zombies behind the car and then accelerated rapidly in the direction of the off ramp.

Bodies and limbs flew, the car juddering dangerously and thumping up and down as she drove over the fallen yet still animated corpses in her way. The on ramp was clear, but there were maybe fifty bodies between her and the freedom it represented as she powered on the car slowed to a crawl as it tried to spin it’s wheels through the blood and gore it was creating, tires spinning and flicking torn flesh and limbs in the air as it drove through the undead that were throwing themselves violently into her path.

She was still making ground and now the big van with the radio dish was in sight, but still not getting any closer to her or the ramp before she would get to her freedom. Margaret gunned the accelerator and churned through more and more of the undead.

Twenty feet to go.

Fifteen feet more and the car was slowing, but the end was in sight.

Ten feet and she could see through the standing bodies, the ones queuing to be chewed up and spat back onto the tarmac as she made her final dash.

Then she was free and clear, the car started to accelerate and she could feel bare road gripping on the tires, not the slipping of torn rotted flesh, blood and pus that made driving like a slip and slide on the summer lawn.

On the bonnet were three zombies, and despite the fact she had never seen any undead do this before, they were holding on and being hyper aggressive, punching at the car windows, but with limited force, punching out of a lifelong habit perhaps? It was ineffectual but the three bodies were blocking her view of where the nose of her car was, and she grazed concrete as the road took and upward turn into a curve that lead to the flyover.

Margaret hit the accelerator and threw the steering wheel left and right, trying to dislodge the dogged undead holding on like they still had something to live or die for. The one at the left of the carl, the one blocking the passenger view was thrown off very soon on the second flick of the wheel, and the one at the bottom edge of the bonnet followed soon after, falling under her wheels and thudding beneath them as it hit the road.

The last one was staring at nothing but it’s eyes were level with Margaret’s own as she tried to shake it off to avail. She was on the flyover and had open road to her advantage now. All she had to do was avoid the abandoned cars and drive as fast as she could.

She could see the Van from her rear view mirror as it made it on to the road, but it was a long way back and instead of pursuing her it came to a stop. Why was it doing that? They had the speed and power to catch her easily, why would they let her go?

Margaret slowed down and looked into the rear view mirror more intently, the man from the van, the one she had seen with binoculars had one of those dish microphones and was pointing it in her direction.

What they hell were they doing? What were they trying to hear exactly? Margaret didn’t care, she had her chance to get away and now she was taking it. She looked ahead to the road and it was then she noted that the final zombie had zoned out, locked in place like just before they turned on her before.

It started to move just as Margaret threw the steering wheel into a turn and yanked on the handbrake as fast and as hard as she could.

At the instant that the zombie was thrown off of it’s grip it convulsed, swelled up and popped in the space of about a half second. The world was moving so slowly for Margaret that she saw it all happen in slow motion in front of her.

The face of the undead assailant expanded like a balloon and the whole hing exploded sending flesh and blood everywhere in a wide ranging spray that covered her windscreen and made it impossible to see as she hit the skid at full speed and the car turned 90 degrees and the passenger side wheels lifted off of the ground.