Gerald Dean Rice's Blog, page 114

Dry - 2

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"Aww, man, what the hell you doin' up there?" Someone banged from the back of the U-haul.

Monster almost swerved, the truck momentarily coming off the road.

 

"Who's back there?"

 

"Let me out!" The voice said. "I'm gonna be sick!"

 

Monster pulled over. He was almost there and for a moment considered not stopping. But whoever it was might make trouble if he figured out what Monster was up to. He grabbed the crowbar and got out of the cab, hoping to scare his stowaway enough to leave him by the roadside.

 

He knocked on the door with the crowbar.

 

"Who's in there?"

 

"Who's out there?" the voice called. "Let me the hell out!"

 

Visions of some kind of weird reverse police bust came to mind. Monster went over in his head how much incriminating information he'd shared over the phone. In this day and age the government really was listening in, but Monster hoped what he was doing was low enough on the crime scale for them not to bother.

 

"Don't worry about who I am," he said. "I'm the guy on the outside in ninety-three degree weather. This water's refreshing. What's the temp in there?"

 

"Uh, I don't know?"

 

"Listen, if you want out, you best get up in that grandma's attic."

 

"It's so friggin' hot—what's a grandma's attic?"

 

"It's that part that hangs above the cab of the truck."

 

"I'm in a truck? Look, just let me out if you ain't lookin' for no trouble. I can't see in here."

 

"How's about you feel your way around or I just let you cook?"

 

He waited a moment without the man inside answering then tapped on the door again.

 

"Make up your mind, my bladder's gettin' full!"

 

"Okay! okay!"

 

The man stumbled around inside. After a moment he was quiet.

 

"All right! I'm there!"

 

"Now I got a gun out here. You try somethin' dumb all I gotta do is leave you here and find the nearest car wash to hose this thing down."

 

"So wait, you're gonna let me burn up in here and shoot me?"

 

Monster was six-foot ten and two hundred fifty pounds of lean muscle, but in truth he was a pushover. He'd never been in a fight, probably on account of his size and wouldn't know what to do if he did get in one. If the guy did anything other than stand there as Monster drove away his only plan was to wing the crowbar at him and leap in the cab as quick as he could.

Dry - 1

Monster was hot underneath the sack. He took the open bottle of Crème de Menthe and poured a little more over his head. That would have to do for now. He couldn't risk the mob smelling the booze.

 

Uncle Bill lay beside him, stiff as a board. He couldn't just leave him to these animals. Monster would die too if he couldn't get him out. He rolled his uncle's face out of puddle of water at the curb.

 

"You stay here," Monster whispered. I'm gonna try a couple more of these cars. He watched until the last of the torches rounded the corner then slid out from beneath the Pinto. There was a Jeep across the street and a T-top Camaro a few yards down. There were so many unpaved roads around here Monster would have preferred the Jeep and he breathed a sigh of relief when he tried the handle and the door popped open.

 

Monster slid half in, letting his long legs hang out and tried the sun visor and glove box for keys. Nothing. They weren't on the floor or in the back.

 

Dangit. He didn't know anything about hotwiring. Guess he'd have to try for the T-top. He was halfway to it when a little boy stepped around the corner and stared at him. Monster held his finger up to his lips, but with this stupid burlap sack stuck on his head who knew what the gesture looked like.

 

The little boy pointed at him and let out a high-pitched scream.

 

Monster turned to run. He could always come back for Uncle Bill once he shook the mob. But he hadn't taken two steps when he stepped on a nail in the middle of the street.

 

His first instinct was to fall and cradle his foot, but that would mean death. Instead he limp-ran between two houses, leaping over a fence and into the backyard. There was a small wood just ahead. Mobs were effective killers, but slow. He should be able to lose them in there.

 

Until he heard the bloodhounds.

 

Monster patted himself down, checking for any rips in his clothes. If they didn't have anything then the dogs couldn't get a scent. Would they be able to get his scent from his bleeding foot?

 

He stayed near the edge once he was in the wood and found a tall pine. His long arms easily wrapped around it and he scaled up a good thirty feet.

 

"It went in the woods!"

 

Monster steadied his breathing. His head was on fire, but he'd left the Crème de Menthe with Uncle Bill. He would just have to endure it, but he tried again to pull off the sack but it wouldn't give. He closed his eyes, wishing he was invisible.

Today is My Birthday!

And I am going to have a great time.  Nothing major, going to go out for a nice lunch with my ladies and then do a couple leisure activities.  I'm finding that as I'm getting older I don't need to do as much to appreciate the day.

 

As a matter of fact, I have a gift for you.

 

Yup, starting tomorrow I'll be blogging a whole new story.  Not a zombie one this time.  At 11:50 tonight, tune in for the first installment of "Dry".  This one's a little difficult to describe (as a lot of my stories are), but I started writing it for the Harvest Hill anthology.  I'd already written two stories and had started a handful more when I discovered they only could take one.  "Mona" is the one that made it in, "The Best Night of the Year" found a home in another Halloween antho and "Dry" was the most complete of the rest of the stories I was working on.

 

Blogging these really puts my back up against the wall and forces me to finish stories I might not have otherwise written.  I really like this one and want to see it finished, but I do have a couple other things I'm in the middle of as well. 

 

Hope to see you tonight!

30 Minute Plan - 25

Danton hurried back to where he'd left the girl. She was gone, but worse yet, there was blood. It didn't smell like anything to him, but he had the feeling someone else would say it smelled like ash.

 

He hurried back to the maze of burned out cars and just then a ziggy came out of it. The sleeve of its tattered shirt was soaked in blood and it held the arm aloft as if it were disgusted.

 

Feeling a sharp pull in his stomach, Danton shot it before it saw him.

 

By the time he reached her she was almost gone.

 

Danton touched her and she twitched, opening her eyes and looking in his general direction. Her breathing was ragged. She had a fist-sized hole in her stomach.

 

"They drew me away from you." He wanted to go back, dig every one of those ziggies up and shoot them all in the head, but leaving them there would be far worse. No one, human or ziggy, would pull them from the rubble of that building. Let that be their grave until the last one rotted.

 

"But I thought… you're a zig—I thought this couldn't—"

 

Danton felt a ball of ice in his throat and fire running down his cheeks. He closed his eyes as they were submerged in boiling tears.

 

Small fingertips touched his cheek. Danton looked and saw she'd managed a weak smile.

 

"Back."

 

"Yes. I'm here. You just tell me what you need. Will… will you eat something? Will that make it better?"

 

She shook her head.

 

"You can't go, you can't! I don't—I don't understand any of this. You have to guide me. Stay. Please stay."

 

Her eyes were on him now.

 

But he could tell she was gone.

***

By the time he made his way back to base it was dark. There was no way Barney would be on sentry duty now; they knew the risk was too great. Danton had resharpened their will to endure, made them realize they wanted to be alive again.

 

But he was changed too.

 

Just like they craved survival, so did he. He ran his tongue over his gums where the new glands had grown in. They were tender and full.

 

He'd changed tremendously over the last twelve hours, but a part of him was still alive. He still felt that human-ness, could feel it flooding out of him like water out of a balloon, but it still resisted what he was thinking now.

 

Danton needed them for his kind to survive. But they were his kind already.

 

He looked down at the sidearm held loosely in his hand. He'd found a single round in the duffel bag.

 

The two halves of him—one surging, one waning—warred.

 

He knew what he was supposed to do, was trained to do and had seen done several times over the last few years.

 

Danton estimated he had about a half hour to do it.

30 Minute Plan - 24

He pulled the pin on the grenade, spun around at the top of the stairs and began pumping itty-bitty bullets into the lower legs and knees of the ziggies nearest him. They fell but tried to keep coming. He underhanded the grenade to the bottom of the flight of stairs, hoping that in the crush of bodies they wouldn't be able to grab it and toss it back if they understood what had just come their way.

 

Danton counted three! And threw himself on the next flight of stairs, clapping his hands over his ears. A moment later there was an ear-shattering THOOM and the walls shook. He prayed he hadn't just brought down the whole building with him still in it, but that meant there was even less time to waste. Danton didn't plan on being inside when the thing came down.

 

He took a moment to look back, seeing the prior flight of stairs had vanished, along with almost all the ziggies that had been on it. A few had made it to the top, but they were disoriented, stumbling their way in his direction.

 

He jabbed the .22 in the front one's direction and it threw its arms out as if to block a blow, but managed to send itself over the rail and into a column of nothing. Ego. So these guys DID have weaknesses.

 

Danton was able to take it a little slower getting to the top. He'd need his wind to face whatever was at the top. He even reloaded the AK with one final magazine.

 

He swung the door open, dropping and rolling onto the roof. When he stood, something hard and sharp bounced off his forehead. Danton felt hot blood roll into his eyebrow. Any moment he'd be blind in one eye until he could get the bleeding stopped.

 

The stink of burning wood was almost as pungent up here as on the stairs. Prickly hairs stood up on his neck, his head swiveling from side-to-side. To Danton's left were two big HVAC units, long silent.

 

Something groaned underfoot. Had to hurry.

 

Two ziggies grabbed him. Damn. His hearing had to have been blunted. But the first one had him by the muzzle of the AK, the other under the arms in a half nelson.

 

He squeezed the trigger and the first one pinwheeled back as several rounds slammed into it. Danton could grab the knife in his jacket sheath, but where could he stab a ziggy where it would count?

 

He hoped their vanity went deeper than he'd first seen. Danton pulled the knife out and stabbed at where he guessed the ziggy's face was. It screamed and shoved him off. Danton turned and saw it pluck the knife out of its head at the temple. He'd gotten it in deep enough to where it had also skewered the back of its eyeball. The whole mess slid out of the socket.

 

It roared at Danton and he replied with two hits to the forehead with the AK-47. He did the same with the first one he'd shot.

 

"Rinse and repeat," he said.

 

It couldn't be this easy, he thought, not factoring the fiasco from the stairs. He headed in the direction of where the two ziggies had come from, hoping they were guarding the master and wondering why they hadn't tried to bite him. Nothing was over here.

 

Danton looked across to the next building over. A full two stories higher—well, what remained of it—and much too far to jump.

 

He caught movement below and too his right. Danton glanced down and saw a ziggy, HIS ziggy, climbing down some sort of service ladder. He ran over and pointed the AK.

 

"Heads up!" he shouted.

 

It looked up at him and he could see the recognition in its eyes. It was eerie. Like the thing was alive. Its stare held all the fire of a living man who'd been cornered and knew he was about to die. It roared. Danton fired.

 

The floor shifted and there was a colossal crunching sound. Danton had to throw his arms out to catch his balance and keep from falling as the building had pitched to an angle. What remained of the foundations was going to give soon. Danton shouldered the AK and swung his legs down to the ladder.

 

It was ready to give by the time he got to the bottom. He stepped over the body of the master. There was a tremendous snap inside and rather than a collapse it looked more like the building was lying down for a nap it moved so slowly. But all the walls folded in, trapping and crushing anything inside.

 

Danton could hear them moaning and mewling inside. Did they sense their master was gone? It was weird, but, he felt an odd sense of guilt.

30 Minute Plan - 23

Danton dived back out of the building as a center foundation gave. The whole thing groaned and fell into the building next to it. The ziggies nearest him became agitated, some throwing their heads back and howling, some clawing at the air, all of them converging on the remaining structure.

 

It groaned but stood. Danton whirled and squeezed the trigger on the grenade launcher, but it clicked on empty. He tossed it away and grabbed the AK, still slung over his shoulder. He didn't have enough rounds in the magazine to take them all on and didn't have enough time to reload, so he fled into the building, hoping to buy himself time and catch them in a pinch-point.

 

But if their master were in here, they might fight even more furiously to protect him.

 

He ran down the main hall and stopped at the stairs. There was no way to figure where the master would have gone, but he guessed it would have gone to high ground. Maybe the roof to see how the battle went.

 

Danton threw open the door and pounded up the stairs. Despite its load being significantly lightened by the absence of the grenade launcher, the duffel was still heavy. He couldn't afford to give it up, though. Who knew if these things knew how to fire weapons?

 

The door pressed open behind him before it could shut and Danton turned and fired until the AK clicked on empty. He didn't have time for headshots, but if these things had enough of an appreciation for bullets to dive out of the way when fired upon then this should buy him some time.

 

He tried to locate another magazine by hand while running up the stairs, but had to draw his sidearm and shoot a ziggy that opened a door at the top of the flight of stairs leading to the third floor. It fell and after he stepped over it he gave it a heave down the stairs.

 

They were drawing closer again when his hand closed around the 12 gauge in the duffel. Danton didn't remember how many rounds he had, but he got down low and turned as one reached for him no more than three feet away. He squeezed the trigger and its head evaporated. The others pushed it aside and Danton racked the shotgun and fired center-mass into the next one.

 

It didn't go lifeless like the first, but struggled against the blast, managing to knock two others down just behind it. He racked again and took another one's head off before racking and turning back to the stairs.

 

He was almost to the fifth floor when he could feel them just behind him again. Danton turned and pumped three rounds into the surging crowd before dropping the empty shotgun.

 

The mob of ziggies had to climb over the litter of bodies in his wake and he fed the first two a few headshots apiece before his sidearm was empty.

 

He put it back in its holster out of habit, but brushed against something on his belt loop.

 

Aw baby, was that a grenade?

 

Danton pulled it free, squeezing it as if he didn't believe it was real.

 

He had to use this right. They were too close.

 

Danton reached into his duffel and felt a trigger of something in there. He yanked it out and stared at a pissy little .22

 

"The hell?"

 

Danton had no clue how that got in there. He hated .22s. He would have to make due with it.

30 Minute Plan - 22

Something Boyle said floated into Danton's mind. He remembered the brain talking about how the virus had been constant in all the subjects he'd studied. How it had always behaved in the exact same manner up to and after death. He was convinced, even though he had no evidence, that the virus had to mutate at some point; all viruses did.

 

Maybe that's what I'm looking at now, Danton thought as peppered the three with his AK-47.

It was how any organism thrived in unsuitable conditions. Ziggy was always a danger, but over the past few years had become less and less prevalent.

 

Maybe something had happened to make it adapt and that's where these guys had come from.

 

Danton couldn't worry about that now. They were still coming at him and if the pack were big enough they might be trying to make him use up all his ammo. But why sacrifice themselves?

 

Danton had a guess. They were doing the same thing he was and it was instinctual: protecting their master. They were throwing themselves at the danger in order to protect the one that lead or created them. As soon as he'd sensed they were near he'd automatically done the same thing.

 

But they were zombies. He was still alive—wasn't he?

 

His heart pounded in his chest and he could feel his blood surging inside him, but now that he saw the similarities between him and the dead people he was shooting at he couldn't be sure.

 

Maybe the virus had adapted to mimic life.

 

Better leave this line of thought to the brains.

 

They seemed to be concentrated around a building on the corner ahead. Danton hoped they weren't smart enough to be trying a bait-and-switch play. He launched a grenade into the crowd and they scattered.

 

He wasn't sure how he would tell which one was the head ziggy, but he had a sense he'd know it when he saw it.

 

The building looked as though it had been shelled a few times, that it would topple like a house of cards with one good shove.

 

Danton loped inside, his AK leading the way. A ziggy at the top of the first flight of stairs leapt out of the way as he chased it with a trail of bullets. He was about to go up, but those stairs didn't look right. Danton kicked at the first one and it crumbled like it was made of cardboard.

 

That meant that they were setting a trap.

The "award-winning" Ghost Toucher

I've signed up to a number of groups for writers and fans of horror and I always get these emails about the award-winning such-and-such.  Not only have I not heard of most of these novels, but I've never heard of the awards, either.  I have the sinking sensation some of these guys are playing fast and quick just to get that extra bit of notice.

 

Well, I'm proud to say that The Ghost Toucher is the proud winner of the Bill Goode Award.  The Bill Goode has always honored the best new horror fiction out there and well, we're all just honored. 

 

This was a long, hard journey.  When I started writing this back in January 2009, I had no idea it would wind up here.  So many times I just wanted to give up, it was just too much, but I kept on.  I kept believing in me until in December when I wrote that last word.  In many ways, being a writer is like giving birth, y'know?  You conceive an idea, you nurture it with characters and plot, twists, turns of phrase--you do so much to bring something good into the world, but you just never know.  I wanna thank Tamika, June-Bug, Clarence, my baby-mama and last, but not least, the Man Upstairs.

30 Minute Plan - 21

Rage boiled up inside him, but as soon as he reached his arm back he was overwhelmed with cramps, falling to his knees. He had to hold that position for several minutes while waves of pain washed over him. His gums throbbed and pulsed until they had bulged outward.

 

When he looked at her again finally something was different. She wasn't just some creature, she was like a distant relative almost. He couldn't destroy her. He had to protect her.

 

They had to protect each other.

 

Her head darted left and right as she sniffed the air. Danton could smell it too.

 

Burning wood.

 

There was a small pile of scrap metal behind her. She turned and pushed it away. Danton's duffel bag was there.

 

Despite the situation he found himself smiling. He had enough in there to take on a small army.

 

"Hide," he would've said to her, but she was already gone. Something told him to go with her, to defend her if needed.

 

Well the best way to defend was to offend. Danton thought so anyway.

 

He slung the duffel bag over his shoulder, and dug out a grenade launcher and an AK-47.

 

Danton could smell them. Burnt wood singed his nose as he strolled down the street. It didn't take long. One of them came out from behind a two-story wall that was all that remained of a brick-faced building. It began throwing rocks at him. No, not rocks. Jagged chunks of concrete.

 

Danton dodged out of the way of one that came a little too close and spied movement to the other side of him behind some double-stacked road partitions.

 

He leveled off the rattler and squeezed the trigger. The partitions and everything behind them exploded into quarter-sized chunks.

 

The first Ziggy promptly dropped his rocks and hid behind his wall again. Danton brought it down on top of him. While the dust was still settling he walked over and put a bullet in the ziggy's skull as he was crawling out.

 

Something roared ahead and Danton looked up to see three more heading his way. These were different. Still slow like Ziggy, but he could see purpose in how they moved. They had the same single-mindedness as Ziggy, but they actually thought as to how to achieve this goal.

30 Minute Plan - 20

He began to raise his arm to cleave her head in two, but she grunted.

 

What was odd was he almost felt as if he'd understood it. He raised his arm again. She grunted again.

 

No, she was saying.

 

But how? She hadn't actually said it.

 

She grunted again.

 

Come with me, it sounded like.

 

He should have killed her, but he followed instead.

 

She walked for at least a half a mile, tracking back the way he'd come by a different route until the base was within throwing distance.

 

"What are you doing here?" alarms in his head began going off.

She pointed to the base and whimpered. She wanted to go in there, but she wasn't big enough.

 

No, that wasn't it exactly.

 

She wanted the people in there. But she was so small… she'd never be able to get them all.

 

Danton didn't think she wanted to eat them, but what?

 

She pointed at him and made quick grunts.

 

He could do it for her.

 

"Why would I do that?" he asked.

 

She smiled, but it was too much gum. He stared at her mouth, his tongue playing over where the toothline was in his own mouth. Their gums were swollen in the same way.

 

Had she…

 

It made sense now. She wasn't some helpless child. She was another predator; one people hadn't seen before. She wanted to make more like her, to make her own pack. And whatever she was, Danton was one now too.

 

"Oh no."