Mike Sutton's Blog: For prose apply within. - Posts Tagged "apocalypse"
An Unwanderer
I ascend out of my plot of earth
From a hole in the ground my body dumped
Half eaten by a thousand thousand slimy things
and other crawling horrors of the soil
The shell of my former self
Stumbling over unseen grounds
To rise up as humanity's darkest fear
Greater than the unknown darkness of night,
Worse than the creature in the closet,
A plague on all the world
Led by my ferocious hunger
Existing to eat and little else
All that was known is forgotten
All that was felt, now quite lost
Belief and memory are wind
Never again to know Sol's warm embrace
No longer to enjoy the wind's caress
There is no longer pain
Pleasure long forgotten
All that exists is hunger.
I've returned to feed.
Feed on those who were once like me.
Family and stranger, all the same.
All that I am is the emptiness.
From a hole in the ground my body dumped
Half eaten by a thousand thousand slimy things
and other crawling horrors of the soil
The shell of my former self
Stumbling over unseen grounds
To rise up as humanity's darkest fear
Greater than the unknown darkness of night,
Worse than the creature in the closet,
A plague on all the world
Led by my ferocious hunger
Existing to eat and little else
All that was known is forgotten
All that was felt, now quite lost
Belief and memory are wind
Never again to know Sol's warm embrace
No longer to enjoy the wind's caress
There is no longer pain
Pleasure long forgotten
All that exists is hunger.
I've returned to feed.
Feed on those who were once like me.
Family and stranger, all the same.
All that I am is the emptiness.
on montages. Survivor Chronicles outtake.
Rapture (Outtake)
Jason slid the bolt back in place and lay the rifle back down on the table. For the third time in as many days he had cleaned and oiled the weapon. He wondered if it was possible to wear away the parts just by cleaning, without ever actually firing a single shot. He felt like an obsessive-compulsive hypochondriac as he added another step to his daily pacing.
Get up, break-fast, check the doors, clean his guns, check the garden, get some exercise, watch the sun set and go back to bed. Each day seemed to vomit onto the next in a cycle that never seemed to end. How long had it been? A month? Two? Did time have meaning anymore? Or would the clock devolve to the simple Morning, Noon and Night? The years would no longer be marked with days or months, but the turning of the seasons. What day was it?
All he knew was that it was now day time, and the beginning of summer was on them.
“Why didn't they ever show this part in the movies?” He asked aloud.
“What part? Who? ... What they hell are you talking about?” Billy asked as he popped open a can and took a swig of beer. Judging by the grimace, that can too had gone skunky on him. Just one more tangible amenity of civilized life that they would need to let go of. And try to forget.
“The boredom. Why didn't they ever show the boredom of just being here in the zombie movies?” Oh Romero, why did your vision fail here?
“What do you mean? They did. In both Dawn and the remake. In Day too. They showed the survivors struggling with the tedium and hopelessness of existence after the world ended.”
“I don't remember it. Are you sure?”
“You usually had to hit the can by that point in the movie.”
“You're kidding me.”
“I'm not. The action would usually slow down a little, you would get bored and use the opportunity to go and take a leak.”
“You're shitting me.” They Dead series were long movies. And Jason would usually have a frosty cold beverage on hand while they watched. Snacks seemed to make movies that much better all around.
“'Fraid not buddy. Lynn and I had it timed out almost exactly. They would finish cleaning the zombies out of the mall, and you would get up to go. Every single time. I even wrote a paper about it for my Psych class. I concluded that you were crazy.”
“Really?”
“I got an A on that paper. My professor wanted to study you in greater depth, something about Pavlov's dog experiments. She offered to have sex with me, and give me an A in the class if I could hook her up.” Jason glared at his friend. Billy grinned. “Alright, she didn't. But I did get an A on the paper thanks to your having the crazy.”
Jason let it pass and the two friends sat in silence for a few moments listening to the moans of the host below. The zombies were still there. Always. Why he should expect anything different was beyond him, but there was always that glimmer of optimism that one morning he would wake up and the mob of walking corpses would have evaporated away. The last weeks would have just been a dream.
“You know Jason. Our montage has been kind of lackluster.”
“What the hell are you talking about now?”
“Same thing. In the movies they would always make a montage of what the heroes were doing to keep themselves busy. They did things like play sports, have wild sex, kill zombies, some more sex. Like in the first Dawn movie, they got decked up in furs and robbed the bank. Just for the hell of it.”
“Well, we only have one woman, and she's attached. And don't look at me like that, the answer is no. I won't be getting that desperate ever.”
“So you say. But the rest aside, our montage would look better on the cover of the AARP magazine. We get up, stretch, read, eat breakfast and weed the garden. We even gave up smoking. A ton of tobacco below us, and we're just letting it rot. We used to love smoking. It felt so good.”
“Go ahead and smoke. Who's stopping you? I gave up smoking. You didn't have to.”
“I wanted to support you in your making of healthy life choices. But that's not the point.”
“What's the point then.”
“We're boring.” Billy stepped up onto the ledge and looked down at the swarm below. “Terribly boring. We're going to die sooner or later, of something. Why not cancer? At least then I could enjoy the ride up until I finally kicked it.”
Jason couldn't argue. He just wanted to stay alive as long as possible, and that might require having a functioning set of lungs. He had found, since quitting smoking, that the common and necessary act of breathing was a great deal easier. Billy squatted down and picked up a stone. He hurled the stone with all the power he could muster from his scrawny frame. The stone bounced off the roof of a sedan and skittered harmlessly into the crowd.
“Figures.” He said. “Ten thousand zombies out there. All packed shoulder to shoulder. And I can't manage to hit one.” Billy looked over at the rifle. Jason shook his head, though he didn't know why. They had hundreds of rounds of ammunition downstairs in the store. Even Lynn had to admit that they could use some practice with the rifle. Target practice with the undead would kill two zombies with one bullet, so to speak.
“I agree with Lynn on this one. We should keep our heads down and try not to attract any attention.” He had seen those parts of the movies, where a swarm of dozens of bikers would swoop down on an unsuspecting shopping complex and carry off whatever loot they could lay their hands on. Jewelery, money, electronics.
“Please. There's already a heap of broken TV sets down there. Who won't notice those?”
“It's not as if those will ever come in handy again. The bullets might.”
“Yeah? What good will a hundred bullets be if we can't shoot straight?”
“About as much good as an empty rifle if we blew away all of the bullets in target practice. Besides, we've had a lot of practice. I'm a fairly good shot.” Billy grunted.
“The least we could do is kill off some of the zombies with some of the extra ammo.”
Jason shielded his eyes with one hand as he gazed out over the parking lot. If he squinted enough, the masses below really did resemble the ocean as they rocked back and forth like surf crashing on the rocks. There had to be thousands of the dead pressed together as they tried to get in. thousands.
“What good would it do against that? And then after we killed them all? What would we do with the bodies?”
“I don't know. One problem at a time. Right now we can't even safely walk out the front door. We're stuck here. The MegaMart is our prison. What the fuck were we thinking when we decided to camp here? I hated this place when I was paid to be here. Now to get stuck for the rest of our lives?” Billy leaned forward as if he were thinking about taking a dive off the edge. Jason reached out and grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him back. Billy gave him a frown.
“We're here. We're alive. Until we stop being alive, there's always room for improvement.” Billy shrugged and went back inside, leaving Jason alone.
Jason slid the bolt back in place and lay the rifle back down on the table. For the third time in as many days he had cleaned and oiled the weapon. He wondered if it was possible to wear away the parts just by cleaning, without ever actually firing a single shot. He felt like an obsessive-compulsive hypochondriac as he added another step to his daily pacing.
Get up, break-fast, check the doors, clean his guns, check the garden, get some exercise, watch the sun set and go back to bed. Each day seemed to vomit onto the next in a cycle that never seemed to end. How long had it been? A month? Two? Did time have meaning anymore? Or would the clock devolve to the simple Morning, Noon and Night? The years would no longer be marked with days or months, but the turning of the seasons. What day was it?
All he knew was that it was now day time, and the beginning of summer was on them.
“Why didn't they ever show this part in the movies?” He asked aloud.
“What part? Who? ... What they hell are you talking about?” Billy asked as he popped open a can and took a swig of beer. Judging by the grimace, that can too had gone skunky on him. Just one more tangible amenity of civilized life that they would need to let go of. And try to forget.
“The boredom. Why didn't they ever show the boredom of just being here in the zombie movies?” Oh Romero, why did your vision fail here?
“What do you mean? They did. In both Dawn and the remake. In Day too. They showed the survivors struggling with the tedium and hopelessness of existence after the world ended.”
“I don't remember it. Are you sure?”
“You usually had to hit the can by that point in the movie.”
“You're kidding me.”
“I'm not. The action would usually slow down a little, you would get bored and use the opportunity to go and take a leak.”
“You're shitting me.” They Dead series were long movies. And Jason would usually have a frosty cold beverage on hand while they watched. Snacks seemed to make movies that much better all around.
“'Fraid not buddy. Lynn and I had it timed out almost exactly. They would finish cleaning the zombies out of the mall, and you would get up to go. Every single time. I even wrote a paper about it for my Psych class. I concluded that you were crazy.”
“Really?”
“I got an A on that paper. My professor wanted to study you in greater depth, something about Pavlov's dog experiments. She offered to have sex with me, and give me an A in the class if I could hook her up.” Jason glared at his friend. Billy grinned. “Alright, she didn't. But I did get an A on the paper thanks to your having the crazy.”
Jason let it pass and the two friends sat in silence for a few moments listening to the moans of the host below. The zombies were still there. Always. Why he should expect anything different was beyond him, but there was always that glimmer of optimism that one morning he would wake up and the mob of walking corpses would have evaporated away. The last weeks would have just been a dream.
“You know Jason. Our montage has been kind of lackluster.”
“What the hell are you talking about now?”
“Same thing. In the movies they would always make a montage of what the heroes were doing to keep themselves busy. They did things like play sports, have wild sex, kill zombies, some more sex. Like in the first Dawn movie, they got decked up in furs and robbed the bank. Just for the hell of it.”
“Well, we only have one woman, and she's attached. And don't look at me like that, the answer is no. I won't be getting that desperate ever.”
“So you say. But the rest aside, our montage would look better on the cover of the AARP magazine. We get up, stretch, read, eat breakfast and weed the garden. We even gave up smoking. A ton of tobacco below us, and we're just letting it rot. We used to love smoking. It felt so good.”
“Go ahead and smoke. Who's stopping you? I gave up smoking. You didn't have to.”
“I wanted to support you in your making of healthy life choices. But that's not the point.”
“What's the point then.”
“We're boring.” Billy stepped up onto the ledge and looked down at the swarm below. “Terribly boring. We're going to die sooner or later, of something. Why not cancer? At least then I could enjoy the ride up until I finally kicked it.”
Jason couldn't argue. He just wanted to stay alive as long as possible, and that might require having a functioning set of lungs. He had found, since quitting smoking, that the common and necessary act of breathing was a great deal easier. Billy squatted down and picked up a stone. He hurled the stone with all the power he could muster from his scrawny frame. The stone bounced off the roof of a sedan and skittered harmlessly into the crowd.
“Figures.” He said. “Ten thousand zombies out there. All packed shoulder to shoulder. And I can't manage to hit one.” Billy looked over at the rifle. Jason shook his head, though he didn't know why. They had hundreds of rounds of ammunition downstairs in the store. Even Lynn had to admit that they could use some practice with the rifle. Target practice with the undead would kill two zombies with one bullet, so to speak.
“I agree with Lynn on this one. We should keep our heads down and try not to attract any attention.” He had seen those parts of the movies, where a swarm of dozens of bikers would swoop down on an unsuspecting shopping complex and carry off whatever loot they could lay their hands on. Jewelery, money, electronics.
“Please. There's already a heap of broken TV sets down there. Who won't notice those?”
“It's not as if those will ever come in handy again. The bullets might.”
“Yeah? What good will a hundred bullets be if we can't shoot straight?”
“About as much good as an empty rifle if we blew away all of the bullets in target practice. Besides, we've had a lot of practice. I'm a fairly good shot.” Billy grunted.
“The least we could do is kill off some of the zombies with some of the extra ammo.”
Jason shielded his eyes with one hand as he gazed out over the parking lot. If he squinted enough, the masses below really did resemble the ocean as they rocked back and forth like surf crashing on the rocks. There had to be thousands of the dead pressed together as they tried to get in. thousands.
“What good would it do against that? And then after we killed them all? What would we do with the bodies?”
“I don't know. One problem at a time. Right now we can't even safely walk out the front door. We're stuck here. The MegaMart is our prison. What the fuck were we thinking when we decided to camp here? I hated this place when I was paid to be here. Now to get stuck for the rest of our lives?” Billy leaned forward as if he were thinking about taking a dive off the edge. Jason reached out and grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him back. Billy gave him a frown.
“We're here. We're alive. Until we stop being alive, there's always room for improvement.” Billy shrugged and went back inside, leaving Jason alone.
The Zombie Teapot Uprising and other strangeness
The door shuddered one last under the pressure, before finally cracking and then falling to pieces. In they came, dozens of them. The walking corpses filled the room.
One stumbled forward, quicker than the rest. She had been a blonde, and pretty at one time. There was just enough of her left to hint of what was lost. I stood transfixed for a moment as she reached out her hands, two fingers were missing.
Lisa roared wordlessly and the spell broke. I raised the fire-poker over my head like a sword and brought it down on her skull. there was an unpleasant crunch. She fell and stopped moving.
I stepped back. The room was filling fast. Lisa took a hold of my shirt and pulled me into the kitchen.
Still more came.
God, why did I have to waste those last two bullets?
And to pimp an old ceramic project - http://krassos.deviantart.com/gallery... - The Zombie Teapot Uprising.
One stumbled forward, quicker than the rest. She had been a blonde, and pretty at one time. There was just enough of her left to hint of what was lost. I stood transfixed for a moment as she reached out her hands, two fingers were missing.
Lisa roared wordlessly and the spell broke. I raised the fire-poker over my head like a sword and brought it down on her skull. there was an unpleasant crunch. She fell and stopped moving.
I stepped back. The room was filling fast. Lisa took a hold of my shirt and pulled me into the kitchen.
Still more came.
God, why did I have to waste those last two bullets?
And to pimp an old ceramic project - http://krassos.deviantart.com/gallery... - The Zombie Teapot Uprising.
Stupid, heavy books.
So last year I was hoping to up and leave this section of the country for fairer climes.
That didn't happen. But in my flurry of usually stupid exuberance, I began to shed my rather bulky library of books. Books that I had collected over the years, selling what I could and donating the rest.
Let's call it a misguided shot at practicing Thoreau's advice towards adopting simplicity. Rather, I was trying to pare down my possessions so that I could try and fit the essentials into my Aveo(which means that I could fit my laptop and an extra pair of socks).
But it comes back to books. Of course.
I've got a fever and more books are clearly the cure.
A few years back I started a sort of research library. Here's the result. To the post!
That didn't happen. But in my flurry of usually stupid exuberance, I began to shed my rather bulky library of books. Books that I had collected over the years, selling what I could and donating the rest.
Let's call it a misguided shot at practicing Thoreau's advice towards adopting simplicity. Rather, I was trying to pare down my possessions so that I could try and fit the essentials into my Aveo(which means that I could fit my laptop and an extra pair of socks).
But it comes back to books. Of course.
I've got a fever and more books are clearly the cure.
A few years back I started a sort of research library. Here's the result. To the post!
For prose apply within.
Short stories, poems and side-projects posted for your entertainment.
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