Fifteen minutes earlier.
Nov. 24th, 2006 03:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
secret_historyKurtis Raeburn, better known to his friends as ‘Kurt,’ peered out through the window of the shop, then wrinkled his nose in distaste.
“It’s raining again. Can you believe the amount of rain we’ve had this year? If I didn’t have bigger fish to fry, I’d be complaining about what it’s done to the regular hunting season. Am I right, Chuck?”
Chuck Daniels, the manager of Baron Sports, at least temporarily, since he was the senior employee in the store by a good many years at the moment, shrugged. He was a large bear of a man, barrel-chested and with a sizeable gut that hours of exercize hadn’t quite managed to get rid of (privately Kurt was of the opinion that fewer beers in his lifestyle would help Chuck’s waistline more than all the exercize in the world, but he’d never said it out loud), with a thick beard and thinning brown hair on the top of his head. His skin was weather-beaten and leathery, and he looked like the type of man you’d want with you if ever you had to go toe-to-toe for ten rounds with a grizzly bear. If nothing else, he’d keep the grizzly busy while you ran for your life.
“At least it’s keeping things clean for us. I bet those rotting horror-movie dropouts smell like shit and garbage on a good day. I’m just as glad I don’t have to smell what’s going on out there.” Chuck scrubbed at his beard with two knuckles, making a rasping sound that put Kurt’s nerves on edge.
“That may be so,” Kurt hefted his rifle to check that it was still properly primed. He’d had the safety on for hours, but one could never be too careful. “But it makes for shitty visibility, too. I’d rather have them stink up the place as long as I can see ‘em coming.” He pointed the gun well away from Chuck, always mindful of his gun safety training. They’d blasted themselves a clear space in front of the shop, but it was only a matter of time before the things came back. “What’s the TV say?”
Chuck reached over and turned up the volume on the small television set they’d put on the counter. The image wasn,t great and the reception was worse, but at least they’d been able to keep up with some of the news.
“... has been spreading exponentially all over North America. Reports indicate that most if not all of the major urban centres on the continent have been affected by this strange plague which struck seemingly overnight. No one seems to know where it originated, nor what’s causing it to spread at such an alarming rate. Scientists at the Centre for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control has established a nationwide alert to make sure all our citizens are well aware of this crisis.
“Thus far they have made no attempt to speculate on the nature of this phenomenon, save to say that it appears to be a highly contagious disease. Mortality rates are not yet available, pending the obtaining of more data, but eyewitness accounts suggest that the disease is not only extremely rapid in its progression, but is also fatal in the majority of cases.
“Spokespersons for the Centre for Emergency Preparedness and and Response have said that their ressources have been stretched to the limit already in the past twenty-four hours. They urge all Canadians to be vigiliant in the face of this unexpected threat. Their instructions are simple for now: do not go outside unless you absolutely have to. Remain indoors. If any of your acquaintances or loved ones begins acting strangely, or is bitten by someone already infected, isolate them immediately. Do not go near anyone who has been afflicted. Do not attempt to reason with them, or to interact with them in any fashion: the nature of the disease appears to involve a kind of imperative to attack human beings and to attempt to consume their flesh.
“The CIDPC has released a statement with instructions on how to dispose of any bodies that you may come across. Whatever the illness is, it appears to allow the body to retain some sort of motor control after death. The only way to be sure that a corpse is no longer infectious is to destroy the head and/or the brain stem, and then to dispose of the corpse by cremating it. The CIDPC wishes to stress that any action you take involving direct contact with a victim should be a last resort. Do not voluntarily engage with any plague victims, as your chances for infection will be extremely high as a result. Stay away from all victims as much as possible.”
Chuck turned the volume back down. “That answer your question?”
“Not really. I wish I knew how many of the bastards there are out there. In fact, I wish I knew a lot more than I do right now. When the hell did TV stop telling us facts?”
“When did it ever do that?” Chuck returned.
“Point.”
Kurt fiddled with a torn edge of the duct tape that he’d used to cobble together a homemade silencer for the .22 which he’d been using to shoot at anything walking around that looked as though it really shouldn’t still be walking upright. He’d rummaged around the back room until he’d found an empty two-litre bottle of 7-Up in which he’d carved a small hole in the bottom and then taped the whole contraption around the muzzle. It was crude, not to mention entirely illegal in Canada, but he figured that under the circumstances the use of an illegal silencer was entirely moot. The zombies seemed to be drawn by the sound of gunfire, any loud noises at all in fact. Even bright lights attracted them, and so he and Chuck had spent a few hours the day before wrapping cloth around the brightest of the shop lights and putting drop cloths in front of all the windows which didn’t already have blinds. They’d also had to bodily evict a number of customers who’d stopped breathing long before they came into the store. A few customers who’d been unaffected had chosen to try their luck outside, and he’d seen a few of them return a few hours later only to have him put a few bullets between their eyes. It was unfortunate, but necessary.
“So what do we do now?” he asked. “It’s not like we can stay here forever. So far we’ve been lucky and all, but eventually more of these bastards are going to come along, and it’s not like our ammo. is unlimited here. Besides, we’re going to run out of food.”
Chuck shrugged. “They’re calling in the army, right? I figure it’s only a matter of time before our boys in green start cleaning up the streets properly. We’ve got enough food and water to last us at least for a few days, maybe even two weeks. It won’t take them that long to get the streets cleared again. I say we lay low, conserve ammunition as much as possible, and wait for all of this to blow over.”
“I never thought I’d see the day when trail rations would be my main fare while I was in the middle of the city.”
“Always be prepared,” Chuck quoted the boy scouts’ motto ironically.
Kurt ran a hand over the stubble on his head. He hadn’t shaved in nearly 48 hours, and it felt as though he had a porcupine sitting on his head. He wasn’t sure that waiting around for someone to come help them was a good idea. The phone lines were still operational, but no matter what number they’d tried calling since the day before, no one was answering. Not even 911, which was saying a hell of a lot. If 911 was overwhelmed, it meant that they were in serious fucking trouble.
“What if the army doesn’t get to us in time?”
“What if pigs fly and hell freezes over and that Super 7 lotto ticket I threw out last week without checking it actually won me ten million dollars?” Chuck retorted sarcastically. “I don’t know, Kurt. We’ll just have to figure it out by then. But the army has its shit together, so I figure they have a better chance of getting us out of here than we have trying to make it on our own.”
Kurt grunted skeptically. “Maybe.”
“You got any better ideas, smartass?”
“No. That’s why I asked you.”
Kurt carefully put his rifle down, and pulled a granola bar out of the pocket of his jacket. He peeled away the wrapper and bit into the bar, wondering if this was the only thing he was going to taste for the next few weeks. That and beef jerky. He wasn’t sure whether to be regretful or grateful that they didn’t stock spam in the store. He glanced out of the window, saw that it was still pissing rain out there, and heaved a sigh that was partly boredom, partly frustration. Of all the people he could have been trapped with in the middle of some kind of horror-movie inspired plague, Chuck Daniels wouldn’t have been his first choice. His first choice would have been Angelina Jolie, but barring miracles, he would have settled for any good-looking girl. Preferably one to whom he could give “shooting lessons.” He smiled at the thought, then felt the smile fade as he caught Chuck giving him an odd look. He sighed again, then pulled back the cloth from the window once more to stare out into the pouring rain.
“Hey!” he cried out. “Someone’s coming!”
Chuck pushed himself to his feet and reached for his own rifle. “All right. Remember: don’t shoot unless you’ve got to. I don’t want to attract any more of those sons of bitches to our doorstep. Last thing we need is an army of them smacking at the windows and trying to get in.”
“I know. You don’t need to tell me everything three times,” Kurt complained. How he was going to survive more than a few days with Chuck without going stir crazy was beyond him. Then he peered more closely out the window. “Hey, they’re running!”
“What?”
“They’re not zombies!” Kurt exclaimed excitedly. “They’re people! Holy shit, they’re coming fast. They must have some of the bastards right on their tails.”
Chuck cursed. “They’re leading them right to our door, damn them!”
Kurt was already on his feet and heading toward the shotgun racks, where he grabbed one of the Remington 870 Express Synthetics. He pointed it at the floor, checked the chamber and magazine well, then quickly began loading rounds into it. Chuck looked at him askance.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“What does it look like? I’m going out to get them. They don’t even have guns, Chuck! They’ll never make it out there on their own.”
“Don’t be an idiot. You’ll let the zombies in with them!”
Kurt hefted his shotgun. “No, I won’t. Now get out of my way.”
He shouldered his way past Chuck, pushed open the door and stepped out into the rain, holding the shotgun by the stock and barrel, finger well away from the safety and trigger. There was no point in trying to shoot anything with the gun right now: at this range he’d only blow the stuffing out of the people he was trying to save. Anything following them, however, was going to get a face full of buckshot. He could see six people running toward him at full tilt —no, seven, he corrected himself as he saw a little girl clinging to the back of one of the men. He held the door open with his foot and waved them toward him.
“Come on!” he yelled as loudly as he could to be heard over the driving rain. “In here!”
“It’s raining again. Can you believe the amount of rain we’ve had this year? If I didn’t have bigger fish to fry, I’d be complaining about what it’s done to the regular hunting season. Am I right, Chuck?”
Chuck Daniels, the manager of Baron Sports, at least temporarily, since he was the senior employee in the store by a good many years at the moment, shrugged. He was a large bear of a man, barrel-chested and with a sizeable gut that hours of exercize hadn’t quite managed to get rid of (privately Kurt was of the opinion that fewer beers in his lifestyle would help Chuck’s waistline more than all the exercize in the world, but he’d never said it out loud), with a thick beard and thinning brown hair on the top of his head. His skin was weather-beaten and leathery, and he looked like the type of man you’d want with you if ever you had to go toe-to-toe for ten rounds with a grizzly bear. If nothing else, he’d keep the grizzly busy while you ran for your life.
“At least it’s keeping things clean for us. I bet those rotting horror-movie dropouts smell like shit and garbage on a good day. I’m just as glad I don’t have to smell what’s going on out there.” Chuck scrubbed at his beard with two knuckles, making a rasping sound that put Kurt’s nerves on edge.
“That may be so,” Kurt hefted his rifle to check that it was still properly primed. He’d had the safety on for hours, but one could never be too careful. “But it makes for shitty visibility, too. I’d rather have them stink up the place as long as I can see ‘em coming.” He pointed the gun well away from Chuck, always mindful of his gun safety training. They’d blasted themselves a clear space in front of the shop, but it was only a matter of time before the things came back. “What’s the TV say?”
Chuck reached over and turned up the volume on the small television set they’d put on the counter. The image wasn,t great and the reception was worse, but at least they’d been able to keep up with some of the news.
“... has been spreading exponentially all over North America. Reports indicate that most if not all of the major urban centres on the continent have been affected by this strange plague which struck seemingly overnight. No one seems to know where it originated, nor what’s causing it to spread at such an alarming rate. Scientists at the Centre for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control has established a nationwide alert to make sure all our citizens are well aware of this crisis.
“Thus far they have made no attempt to speculate on the nature of this phenomenon, save to say that it appears to be a highly contagious disease. Mortality rates are not yet available, pending the obtaining of more data, but eyewitness accounts suggest that the disease is not only extremely rapid in its progression, but is also fatal in the majority of cases.
“Spokespersons for the Centre for Emergency Preparedness and and Response have said that their ressources have been stretched to the limit already in the past twenty-four hours. They urge all Canadians to be vigiliant in the face of this unexpected threat. Their instructions are simple for now: do not go outside unless you absolutely have to. Remain indoors. If any of your acquaintances or loved ones begins acting strangely, or is bitten by someone already infected, isolate them immediately. Do not go near anyone who has been afflicted. Do not attempt to reason with them, or to interact with them in any fashion: the nature of the disease appears to involve a kind of imperative to attack human beings and to attempt to consume their flesh.
“The CIDPC has released a statement with instructions on how to dispose of any bodies that you may come across. Whatever the illness is, it appears to allow the body to retain some sort of motor control after death. The only way to be sure that a corpse is no longer infectious is to destroy the head and/or the brain stem, and then to dispose of the corpse by cremating it. The CIDPC wishes to stress that any action you take involving direct contact with a victim should be a last resort. Do not voluntarily engage with any plague victims, as your chances for infection will be extremely high as a result. Stay away from all victims as much as possible.”
Chuck turned the volume back down. “That answer your question?”
“Not really. I wish I knew how many of the bastards there are out there. In fact, I wish I knew a lot more than I do right now. When the hell did TV stop telling us facts?”
“When did it ever do that?” Chuck returned.
“Point.”
Kurt fiddled with a torn edge of the duct tape that he’d used to cobble together a homemade silencer for the .22 which he’d been using to shoot at anything walking around that looked as though it really shouldn’t still be walking upright. He’d rummaged around the back room until he’d found an empty two-litre bottle of 7-Up in which he’d carved a small hole in the bottom and then taped the whole contraption around the muzzle. It was crude, not to mention entirely illegal in Canada, but he figured that under the circumstances the use of an illegal silencer was entirely moot. The zombies seemed to be drawn by the sound of gunfire, any loud noises at all in fact. Even bright lights attracted them, and so he and Chuck had spent a few hours the day before wrapping cloth around the brightest of the shop lights and putting drop cloths in front of all the windows which didn’t already have blinds. They’d also had to bodily evict a number of customers who’d stopped breathing long before they came into the store. A few customers who’d been unaffected had chosen to try their luck outside, and he’d seen a few of them return a few hours later only to have him put a few bullets between their eyes. It was unfortunate, but necessary.
“So what do we do now?” he asked. “It’s not like we can stay here forever. So far we’ve been lucky and all, but eventually more of these bastards are going to come along, and it’s not like our ammo. is unlimited here. Besides, we’re going to run out of food.”
Chuck shrugged. “They’re calling in the army, right? I figure it’s only a matter of time before our boys in green start cleaning up the streets properly. We’ve got enough food and water to last us at least for a few days, maybe even two weeks. It won’t take them that long to get the streets cleared again. I say we lay low, conserve ammunition as much as possible, and wait for all of this to blow over.”
“I never thought I’d see the day when trail rations would be my main fare while I was in the middle of the city.”
“Always be prepared,” Chuck quoted the boy scouts’ motto ironically.
Kurt ran a hand over the stubble on his head. He hadn’t shaved in nearly 48 hours, and it felt as though he had a porcupine sitting on his head. He wasn’t sure that waiting around for someone to come help them was a good idea. The phone lines were still operational, but no matter what number they’d tried calling since the day before, no one was answering. Not even 911, which was saying a hell of a lot. If 911 was overwhelmed, it meant that they were in serious fucking trouble.
“What if the army doesn’t get to us in time?”
“What if pigs fly and hell freezes over and that Super 7 lotto ticket I threw out last week without checking it actually won me ten million dollars?” Chuck retorted sarcastically. “I don’t know, Kurt. We’ll just have to figure it out by then. But the army has its shit together, so I figure they have a better chance of getting us out of here than we have trying to make it on our own.”
Kurt grunted skeptically. “Maybe.”
“You got any better ideas, smartass?”
“No. That’s why I asked you.”
Kurt carefully put his rifle down, and pulled a granola bar out of the pocket of his jacket. He peeled away the wrapper and bit into the bar, wondering if this was the only thing he was going to taste for the next few weeks. That and beef jerky. He wasn’t sure whether to be regretful or grateful that they didn’t stock spam in the store. He glanced out of the window, saw that it was still pissing rain out there, and heaved a sigh that was partly boredom, partly frustration. Of all the people he could have been trapped with in the middle of some kind of horror-movie inspired plague, Chuck Daniels wouldn’t have been his first choice. His first choice would have been Angelina Jolie, but barring miracles, he would have settled for any good-looking girl. Preferably one to whom he could give “shooting lessons.” He smiled at the thought, then felt the smile fade as he caught Chuck giving him an odd look. He sighed again, then pulled back the cloth from the window once more to stare out into the pouring rain.
“Hey!” he cried out. “Someone’s coming!”
Chuck pushed himself to his feet and reached for his own rifle. “All right. Remember: don’t shoot unless you’ve got to. I don’t want to attract any more of those sons of bitches to our doorstep. Last thing we need is an army of them smacking at the windows and trying to get in.”
“I know. You don’t need to tell me everything three times,” Kurt complained. How he was going to survive more than a few days with Chuck without going stir crazy was beyond him. Then he peered more closely out the window. “Hey, they’re running!”
“What?”
“They’re not zombies!” Kurt exclaimed excitedly. “They’re people! Holy shit, they’re coming fast. They must have some of the bastards right on their tails.”
Chuck cursed. “They’re leading them right to our door, damn them!”
Kurt was already on his feet and heading toward the shotgun racks, where he grabbed one of the Remington 870 Express Synthetics. He pointed it at the floor, checked the chamber and magazine well, then quickly began loading rounds into it. Chuck looked at him askance.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“What does it look like? I’m going out to get them. They don’t even have guns, Chuck! They’ll never make it out there on their own.”
“Don’t be an idiot. You’ll let the zombies in with them!”
Kurt hefted his shotgun. “No, I won’t. Now get out of my way.”
He shouldered his way past Chuck, pushed open the door and stepped out into the rain, holding the shotgun by the stock and barrel, finger well away from the safety and trigger. There was no point in trying to shoot anything with the gun right now: at this range he’d only blow the stuffing out of the people he was trying to save. Anything following them, however, was going to get a face full of buckshot. He could see six people running toward him at full tilt —no, seven, he corrected himself as he saw a little girl clinging to the back of one of the men. He held the door open with his foot and waved them toward him.
“Come on!” he yelled as loudly as he could to be heard over the driving rain. “In here!”
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-24 08:18 pm (UTC)Also, nice outlining of personalities through action and dialogue.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-24 09:00 pm (UTC)Yeah. After he pointed out the bit about the silencer, I had to use it somehow. Note also that I refrained from giving the complete instructions to my readers that
And thank you. I'm aiming for as much character-development as possible, given that this is a zombie story. I've always found that horror affects me more if I've empathised with at least one of the characters. Straight gore doesn't do it for me.
Your fellow citizens thank you :).
Date: 2006-11-25 12:12 am (UTC)And as a nitpick, an Express Sythetic is matte black, not shiny. Think Alice's less shiny, more tactical sister, but chambered for 2-3/4" rounds only and thus has room for one more round in the tube. Alice is a Marine Magnum :).
no subject
Date: 2006-11-25 12:35 am (UTC)And you're absolutely right about empathy being an essential part of horror. If you don't care about who's involved, it's not going to punch you in the gut.