Gerald Dean Rice's Blog, page 95
June 27, 2011
Ideas Lost
June 26, 2011
The Stairs
I have something cooking in mind. It'll be really brief and if I'm actually able to write it it'll be used to help promote Fleshbags. I'm not sure what it'll be about, but I had the opportunity to peruse the campus of a community college and saw some ominous looking stairs. If I can write and that's a BIG if I'll post it here, on Amazon and include it with Fleshbags.
June 25, 2011
Fleshbags II?
As with any zombie tale there are only so many characters one can write about at once. There are always other tales that could be written. That being said, I do have other ideas about a follow-up that I might get to depending on how well Fleshbags is received. If I do it, I think I want a bit more conflict between the characters. I love the idea of not only bad guys v. good guys, but good guys v. good guys. I'd want to have people trying to survive and somehow that interferes with other people just trying to survive too.
It'll have to be bigger, wider sweeping. Obviously, I'll have to get into what exactly this virus is and who's behind it. By the end of the first story you know there's a certain person who's more than he's appeared to be and another character who's going to factor into that somehow (and yet another character who reveals there's a lot more to him/her than you might've expected). All that would come into play.
But before I write one word of it, I have to write my horror Christmas story.
June 24, 2011
Clouds and Rain
In the initial draft of Fleshbags I tried to bring weather in as a character somewhat, but I think I wrote that it was raining twice and as far as the reader knew after that it was bright and sunny. I found that initial reference and just randomly picked pages after it and wrote 'cloud & rain' so that I'd know I needed to incorporate somewhere on that page what the sky was doing.
June 23, 2011
Further Tales of the Red Pen
I don't know when the error happened (not looking at my notes right now) but there's a whole section I completely forgot in Fleshbags. Sentinel and Veronica were trapped in a gas station with someone shooting quite badly at the building and when I cut back to them he was about to try to jump over the border into the adjacent city. There's a whole section that hasn't been written yet. I've trimmed a lot of fat out of Fleshbags, but I'm about to write a couple hundred more words.
June 22, 2011
Tales of the Red Pen...
I'm mostly done editing the manuscript for Fleshbags and looking back over my pages there is a lot of red. Sure, some of it is a matter of reworking, but there are a ton o' mistakes. I had three different characters reference the weather and all three of them were in separate ranges. I don't know how I used some of the wrong words I did, but there they are. I'm going to save this somewhere once I'm done that maybe I can look back on in 20 years. I have the notebook I wrote most of The Ghost Toucher in, but Fleshbags didn't have a single word written on actual paper (save for the notes I made in the basic draft of the story).
June 10, 2011
The Dentist
My cleaning went well, per usual. But I had been having problems with a tooth. The hygienist thought it might have been an abscess from the x-ray, but the dentist, after asking several questions and tapping on the tooth in question, said I probably have been grinding my teeth. I'd been told this before, but no one before this appointment told me I should get a bite guard. In all my savviness I went on the Doctor's Night Guard website and found a $5 coupon. Haven't tested it out yet (I'm actually writing this as of 6/2), but here's to no more sore teeth!
June 9, 2011
Fleshbags, ep XLVII
Mr. Anders didn't look right. Not that he looked right before, but somehow
he'd gotten worse. He looked dry—desiccated probably was a better
word. If Bill could've shook his head he
would have. Even now his brain was at
work. Too bad it didn't get him out of
this situation.
"Thanks a lot, brain," he tried to
say, but the words didn't come out like words, instead they were a series of
grunts much deeper than he recalled his voice ever being.
Mr. Anders came closer with that
damn needle of his again. He'd used a
bigger one to suck all that juice up out of him and put it into those
containers in his basement. Bill hated
needles and hadn't seen the business end of a flu shot since he was fourteen,
but Mr. Anders had proven there was nothing he could do about it. Despite being such a little guy he was strong
and even if Bill's ankle hadn't been broken he had to admit he probably
couldn't have taken him.
Mr. Anders poked him with the
needle and shot more of that stuff inside him.
Bill was relatively sure it was the same stuff that had been in the
containers except it was purple-green instead of clear. The pain spread from the injection site
throughout his body. He'd been in pain
since waking up down here (strange that he thought where ever here was was
'down', but nefarious-type things rarely, if ever, happened on the top floor in
the movies) and with each shot it had gotten worse and worse.
The pain was easily top five, right
up there with that time in college he'd broken his legs when he'd jumped off
the roof of his dorm on a dare. It had
been the dumbest thing he'd ever done, but also the best. The university had probably wanted to stave
off a massive-assed lawsuit and had given him a waiver for the semester's
tuition even though they'd also assigned him a tutor to make sure he could keep
up with classes. And that had been how
he'd met Sarah.
His mind wandered to her as he
tried to get his mind off the hurt. It
was weird; as intense as it was, his arms and legs below the elbows and knees
didn't hurt, almost like they'd been chopped off. Bill wished she hadn't, but he knew she'd
come over eventually to see what was taking him so long. She was such a worry-wart like that. She always wanted a phone call whenever he
got to work or hung out with his buds.
It wasn't hot, but he'd grown to dig it anyway.
But she had to have come over and
seen he and Mr. Anders weren't there.
The phones didn't work, so there wouldn't have been anyone to call. He wished she had just peeked in, called out
to him and turned back around and gone home, but that wasn't her. She'd probably found that weird guy upstairs
who looked like him. Had probably tried
to help him.
Bill loathed his brain more than
ever, but something had probably happened to her. He supposed he could take comfort in that
because he was certain he wouldn't be alive much longer. How much pain could one person stand?
Mr. Anders returned with another
needle, thumping the side and squirting some of that purple-green juice out before
injecting him again. Bill's body was
still aching from the last one and this time a tear slipped from his eye as the
pain overwhelmed him. He could feel his
body changing, growing harder—bigger,
as if Mr. Anders was trying to make him stronger for something. But Bill didn't feel strong at all. He just wanted to be with his wife, to hold
her, kiss her—there didn't even need to be another round or anything so long as
he could be in her presence, but the pain drew him away from any imagining of
things not right here and not right now.
Forget about how much pain he could stand—how much would he have to
endure before whatever Mr. Anders was doing was over?
Bill hated to think about it.
June 8, 2011
Fleshbags, ep XLVI
If only Ms. Mila weren't dead. She could have called out to them, told them
the fleshbags weren't as dead as they looked.
They were already confused, rounding up the children and the teachers,
randomly screening them while several other soldiers dragged bodies into piles
for burning that other soldiers took bodies from to put into their own piles.
Most of the fleshbags had not begun
stirring yet. But her body rose, using
the fulcrum of a seesaw as leverage to pull itself up to its feet. There hadn't been enough of a time lapse for
the belly to bloat with fluid or for the skin of the abdomen to become transparent,
but the blood had begun to change into a clear fluid, running out of its nose
and mouth after it sneezed.
It stood, the rigid posture due in
part to a childhood when Ms. Mila had been constantly reminded to stand
straight by her mother frequently enough it had become second nature. It tilted its head, watching the people
running about on the other side of the fence.
It might have gone on standing there indefinitely until its eyes settled
on a group of children. It perceived no
difference between the children and the adults save that they were smaller, but
seeing them elicited a response most akin to loathing.
Its face twisted into a snarl, testing
legs with tentative steps forward. It
began a jog until it came to the fence in an all-out run. It bounced off the fence and fell, but
quickly scrabbled back up to its feet.
Several people had turned, some were screaming. Other people stepped ahead of them, pointing
things at it. There were many popping
sounds and it was pushed back by tiny things slamming into it. Once the popping sounds stopped the things
hitting it stopped too.
It was still standing. It raised its arms, unable to run and lurched
in the direction of the children.
Another one stepped up and pointed something else. Fire came out of it, the force of the flame
stopping its forward motion. It thrashed
about, trying to get the fire off, the intensity of the heat focusing its
thoughts to the point that for the briefest of moments the remnants of Ms. Mila
gained awareness to the point for her to realize she was burning.
She tried screaming, but the flame
went down her throat. She saw children
and people she didn't know (including the soldier with a flamethrower trained
on her) and seconds later her eyes exploded out of her head. Ms. Mila fell to the ground, trying to roll
back and forth to put the fire out, but the flame followed her. She clawed at the earth in agony, unable to
get away from the pain. It felt like
forever, but lasted only a little more than thirty seconds.
She lay still for the final
time. Her mind was far removed from the
pain as her flesh crackled and burned.
Ms. Mila didn't understand what had happened, but somewhere she knew
they were all safe, whatever that meant.
If she were alive still and had
ears to hear she would have heard one of the soldiers say, "We have to get out
of here."
Another soldier said, "Why, it was
only one of them. We're good."
"No. That woman was dead. I saw her from before. Bled out from a leg wound. She got up."
"So?"
"So we just killed over a hundred
of these things with bullets."
If Ms. Mila were alive still and
had eyes to see she would have seen the second soldier shrug his shoulders,
still not understanding.
"They're gonna get up too. And we only got the one 'thrower."
She would have seen the realization
dawn on the other soldier's eyes and then the two of them go to work, rounding
up the children and adults into their vehicles to get away from Kiddie
Kamp. She would have also heard another
soldier ask where a man and his daughter went to who had been there just a
moment before.
She would have heard all the
soldiers agree as they drove away that that one woman who attacked did them a
huge favor otherwise they all would have probably died.
June 7, 2011
Fleshbags, ep XLV
The soldier waved that wand thing
over his daughter while he held her in his arms and turned away. Loman's first thought was to tell him he
hadn't wanded him, but something told him to keep quiet. There was something ominous about the one guy
who watched everybody, standing away from the others with the big flamethrower
strapped to his back.
"Hey-hey, you gotta get 'em both,"
another soldier said to the one who had wanded his daughter. The second soldier turned away and began
wanding a group of children. The soldier
in front of Loman and his daughter just shook at his head.
"These things prob'ly don't even
work anyway," he mumbled and waved it over them again.
They'd zip tied Loman's hands
together, but took off the handcuffs off.
It still didn't go off, but he was starting to get scared. It definitely wasn't a metal detector, but
what was it supposed to sense? His mind
went to those people he'd been seeing for the last few hours. Most of them had been naked, but they'd been
people, hadn't they? Was it some kind of
infection?
He was going to have to get out of
here. The soldiers had mopped up those
people pretty fast and they wouldn't hesitate to put a hole in one more. Loman had been feeling fine at around lunch,
but now… his back was aching and so was his neck. He swiped at his leaky eyes again, hoping he
had enough time to get his daughter someplace safe. Whether or not he was dead or alive, Loman
was certain this was just the beginning.
He had to get to his ex-wife.
If Capel had still been himself he
would have known where he was going. But
whatever trace amounts of his mind were left had his body homing in on the
police department. It walked several
blocks, unintentionally avoiding soldiers who would have shot it on site. Of the three people who saw it, only one
approached who thought there was still a human being who could have offered
assistance of some kind. When he saw
there was clearly something off with the thing shuffling on two feet he ran
away.
The building was still open even
though all personnel, essential and administrative had either abandoned or were
out trying to maintain safety. It passed
down a hall, bumping through the half double doors behind a reception
desk. It came to a door. There was no key and it bumped into the door
several times until Capel's identification badge, hanging off a belt loop by
his hip, got close enough to a sensor to buzz open the door. It pushed inside, passing by several
desks. Somewhere nearby was a coffee pot
that had been left on an eye too long, but it paid no attention to that smell.
There was an open doorway
ahead. It shouldn't have been open, by
order of the fire department, but the furnace had been working on overdrive for
some reason and a detective had propped it open for circulation. It turned at the door and proceeded down a
flight of stairs.
The light down here was
different. It followed a noise in the
distance, something Capel in life had described to someone as a venial sin
who'd been locked away in one of the cells down here. It had no way of knowing that the man who was
scraping his tray across the bars had been locked away for hours, even after
he'd made his one phone call to get bailed out.
But when it found him and three
other men locked in the cell something akin to instinct began happening.
"Look, man, no disrespect," the man
began, "but I been down here ten hours and nobody has even been down here to
give us no lunch or nothin'. I'm not
even s'posed to be here!"
"Ay, that dude don't look right,"
another man said from deeper within the cell.
"You okay ossifer?"
Its eyes rolled away from the man
at the bars to the man sitting on the bench who had just spoken. Then they rolled onto the two other men in
the cell on opposite sides, an eye on either man.
"Whoa, that's kinda freaky." The man at the bars took a step back, but
jabbed a finger at it. "But somebody
upstairs better get their poop in a group?
My brother's neighbors with Jeffrey Fieger, you heard?"
But if it did hear them its
response didn't match up to the question asked.
It opened its mouth and a squeaking sound came out before a torrent of
clear fluid bathed all four men. They
screamed and swore at it, but there was nothing they could do.
