Keith C. Blackmore > Quotes

“Poof,” Ross said. “I’m still here.” “You smell something?” Kirk asked. “Smell what? My fuckin’ nostrils froze up long ago.”
― Keith C. Blackmore, Breeds

“Never at night.”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“Upon hearing those words, Gus did something for the very first time. He defecated himself right there and then. He was careful, so very careful about what he did and how he proceeded in town, and by sunny Jesus if he got out of this one he was going to get so fucking shit-faced drunk, it would be a thing of legend, and fuck the dreams, but right now, right this very moment, he could”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“the looming bulk of the hospital. The Chevy had no windows in its sides, and all of the lights had been smashed out. The rear windows were also shattered,”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“People were buried in the ground, and Scott believed that existing below the earth, even, he thought with a shudder, sleeping in basement bedrooms, somehow violated some mystic rule that only the dead knew, but were more than willing to let the living in on the secret.”
― Keith C. Blackmore, Mountain Man

“Gus’s features twisted, wondering what in the hell he’d gotten into? The air traced the edges of his cuts, the cuts that Alice made, and he moaned at the fire in his poor belly. “You’re probably wondering why I cut you so many times?” She asked idly. Then, without warning, she yanked the scalpel out of his belly, getting a hiss out of him, and slashed open his right arm with one flick. That tungsten jolt of pain caused Gus to buck against his bonds. “It’s because, they smell you see,” Alice told him. She slashed the other white arm, as neatly as opening a fish. “That’s why they’re making a racket. My babies are hungry. Sooooooooo hungry. Am I bad for doing this? I don’t think so. I’m cleaning the”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“And in sleep, as in life, she protected him from nightmares.”
― Keith C. Blackmore, Hellifax

“night. It was too dangerous. He drove in silence, struggling to keep his attention on the black”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“Too bad a person couldn't pick whom they shared the apocalypse with.”
― Keith C. Blackmore, Well Fed

“It would be noon shortly, and he had gas stations to explode.”
― Keith C. Blackmore, Safari

“sheathed his hands, fingerless, to allow a better grip on his shotgun. An aluminum baseball bat was slung across his back, Samurai style, in a crude scabbard next to a backpack. A motorcycle helmet and visor hid his features, and completed”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“That was the trouble with hard drink—gave you great happiness, but in the end, also took away one’s memory.”
― Keith C. Blackmore, Savage

“He-Dog ignored that. “He was on patrol in Paw Savage lands. The patrol got butchered. Paw Savages took his scalp. He tried burning his head to stop the bleeding, cooked his face instead.”
― Keith C. Blackmore, Savage

“The”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“those words, Gus did something for the very first time. He defecated himself right there and then. He was careful, so very careful about what he did and how he proceeded in town, and by sunny Jesus if he got out of this one he was going to get so fucking shit-faced drunk, it would be a thing of legend, and fuck the dreams, but right now, right this very moment, he could”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“been a big man, not the biggest, and not tall, but fat. He had lost an incredible amount of weight since the world went insane, perhaps ninety kilos or more. Enough that he could presently get into a waist-size of thirty eight. He still had something of a gut which, only a year ago, he would’ve joked that he had invested a lot of money in it. Excess fat clung to his frame here and there, especially across the upper back, but he figured that, as food became scarcer, his body would burn it off”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“Seconds later, there was a subtle creak just before the doors swung wide. They hung open, draped in shadow.”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“Alice howled, struggled, and pulled the zombie off-balance. They fell together into the mass of her arriving children, with Alice landing on the bottom. Her children oozed over her person and kept her down. Gus heard the feeding, the gagging, the gathering shadows spared him the grislier details. He pushed through the entrance and hurried to van, where”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“doctor’s white coat. Ripped from the victim no doubt. Gus hoped the person was dead at the time, and he hoped he wouldn’t remember any unpleasant sights yet to be discovered. He suffered during the nights when he was home, trying to sleep. Booze helped when he had it, and drank heavily when he did. It would knock him out and keep the nightmares at bay. Nightmares that brought their own private movies, with mouths full of rotting teeth. Gus took a breath and became still, listening for anything beyond the room. He moved to the doorway and glanced about. All clear. He possessed”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“thumping from above had distracted him, so it was relatively easy for the hand to snake out from just inside the counter and claw into his testicles. Gus gasped. His leather and denim pants prevented his balls from being totally crushed, but the sudden sickening agony brought him to his knees. His shotgun wavered and fell to the ground. He got one hand on the white wrist of the hand hooked onto him, but before he could summon his strength, what little he had remaining, the fist squeezed again. Hard. “Oh there’s a good boy, yes, such a healthy boy,” a voice trilled. A sickening weight had attached itself to him, pulling down on his testicular nerves like five hundred pound granite blocks, deep down where his senses buckled and warped and were only concerned with pain. Gone were thoughts of looting. Gone were thoughts of the noise from above. As if submerged under sixty”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“Not much to do about it up here.” “Nope. That’s what I figured when I took a dump.” “You what?” “Every morning I squeeze pipe. This one was no different.” Scott sniffed. “Oh, fuck. I can smell it.” “Just a little, though, right?” Scott thought about it. “Yeah.” “All right, then. We got some time.”
― Keith C. Blackmore, Mountain Man

“You got any breakfast over there?” “Hold on, now, and let me run down to the kitchen.” “Make it fast.” “Ah, wait. I put a loaf in the suitcase here. Fresh this morning.” Laying his head on the flooring, Scott sighed. Below, the moaning continued. “S’all I need to think about now. Dead people underneath me and your shit in a suitcase.” “I understand a person can eat their own chocolate at least once.” “Yeah? Why only once, I wonder?” “Tastes like shit, I imagine.”
― Keith C. Blackmore, Mountain Man

“beyond. Maybe even louder, more frequent. Red-faced and in agony, Gus puffed out his breath but said nothing to his captor. Alice placed her empty hand on the other side of his head. Gus saw she didn’t have the scalpel anymore. Then his features paled. He looked down at himself and whimpered in horror. The crushing of his nuts diverted his attention away from his pain, but now his own eyes verified what Alice had done to him. She left the scalpel in his belly, at an angle, like a bent over buggy antennae. There was a hard slap at the”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“planks. The van pulled into the parking lot, did a quick u-turn, and backed itself up to the main doors with a huff of gas. There the vehicle idled for a few moments, wary, ready”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“The sun was directly overhead, but blotted out by low storm clouds as depressing as suicide.”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“vehicle”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“Boots clicked on concrete as he climbed the steps to the doors. He walked right up to the glass and peered inside. Shadowy interior. He huffed once, not liking the lack of light in the least, and flicked up the motorcycle’s visor. His eyes were an alert blue, with lines at the corners. He took another contemplative breath. Of course they were in there, somewhere, just waiting for him. For anyone. If he was smart, he should just about-face and march his leather-clad ass out of there. But he needed what the hospital potentially offered. Gus cursed and looked behind, considering the open doors of his van. He studied the empty space of the land, to the tree line beyond. Nothing in sight,”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“yellow, traced with black, and moored in spongy-looking gums. “That’s better, you little bastard. Old Alice got ye. Alice got you fine. You can be fresh or you can be dead, doesn’t matter to me. The kids’ll mind a bit, but not for long, I wager. Not for long. Then I can get back to me flowers on the roof. Heeee! The flowers are in bloom up there. You should see em. But you can’t. Youcan’tyoucan’tyou can’t, HEEE!” While she babbled, the scalpel drifted upwards, where she punctuated each can’t by jabbing the surgical tool at his right eye. Terrified, Gus squeezed his eyelid shut and expected any moment to have two inches of blade lick his cornea. “That’s it, that’s it, shhhhh shhhhhh,” Alice coddled him. “You be fine. You be quiet. It won’t”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“pushed the hamper and cringed at the sound of a squeaky wheel. Well, Jesus, he thought and froze. He looked about, expecting gimps to come tumbling out of the nearby doorways any second, arms outstretched and moaning their shit, but they didn’t. Seconds went by and Gus realized he was wasting time. He pushed the hamper through the corridor, back to the outer door without incident, the wheel whistling its tune the whole way, like a high dwarf staggering home to see Snow White. Gus shoved the hamper through the door with a slight rattle, enough for him to glance”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital

“brought them along nevertheless, remembering the old line, it was better to have and not need, than need and not have. Gus shook his head once,”
― Keith C. Blackmore, The Hospital