I thought I would give you a sneak peek into the novel I’m writing, I won’t divulge the plot yet to keep an air of secrecy but if you would like to comment on what you think of so far, feel free. The handful of people who have heard about the plot can’t wait to read the finished book. It might be a little while before a finished product comes out but everything I’m writing in the book is stuff that I feel like is either plausible and/or needed… though, still science fiction. Have at it, the first 3 pages!
PS: Please don’t mind any grammatical errors, I haven’t been focusing on it that much.
The List
Yearning for a rifle to unleash my sobbing hate, I clasped my mothers hand close at heart. She opened my hand and dropped two crystal blue pills in my blood stained palm and murmured,
“Take these and run, I will never be far behind”.
That was four months ago, not too long after the maple trees began to release their seeds to the wind and helicopter into the distance. Squirrels would be caught stealing bird seed out of the neighbor’s swaying feeder. And grass stains were commonplace amongst the local boys.
Now, the Earth is scorched. Smoke and Fire sprout like dandelions from hell. Death is unflinching and often over a can of beans. Streets have become war zones and travel by night is out of the question. Grass stains have since evolved into blood stains. My brother Renny and I outrun hunger nearly everyday and the occasional human encounter heeds great apprehension. The ample triumphs of mankind now whisk away in the wind as if they were all made of sand.
Ren and I have been surviving on the road together ever since mom left us. He is all I have and I’m all he has, without each other we could never make it. Even though he is my younger brother and he looks up to me for any shred of hope left in this tattered world, we still depend on each other to make it through each day.
Sometimes we catch ourselves reminiscing on perfect days at the ballpark; Sun shining on our backs, light breeze in our face and a hotdog so good you can taste it just thinking about it. The effervescent smell of freshly cut grass is a day long gone and the taste of that hotdog goes away slowly with each passing day.
I often wonder if such thinking is harmful on the mind but then I realize that hope is all we have left.
Ren and I were on the move in search of any morsel to satisfy our stomach. It was an unusually still day that made for an heir of uneasiness. Cautiously maneuvering through what once was a city road, looking over our shoulders no longer was an act, but a habit.
Each of us had a pistol and I had a small twenty-two rifle wrapped in a wool blanket and slung on my back. Creeping around an endless line of abandoned vehicles we both knew the use of our guns were at wits end and used as a last resort. Guns and especially bullets were valued more than a few mortal human lives.
It was rather ominous to see every car on the road picked clean of vital parts; air filters, steering wheels, belts, tires, even entire seats were all parted out. If you were able to find a battery, however, you were one of high esteem… either that or someone with a big fat bulls-eye on the back of their head.
I yelled at Renny to come over. He had already been eyeballing the same thing off the side of the road and was hopping towards me over a couple mangled taxis to see what I too had noticed.
“What do you think it is?” I hesitantly questioned.
“I don’t know, lets check it out.” As he jumped over the hood of the car we were hiding behind and began running out into the desolate and dusty parking lot, I quietly shouted,
“Ren! Get back here!” I swung my rifle off my shoulder and unwrapped it from the wool blanket. I set the barrel over the rusty hood of the car in an attempt to cover Ren as this was as perfect a place as any for an ambush.
Ren scuffled his way in a big cloud of dust to the mysterious object as I knelt over the car beginning to sweat profusely and doing my best to guard the parking lot. He hunched over the object such that I couldn’t make out what he was doing.
Just as quickly as he arrived, Ren stood up and darted his way back leaving a wake of dust just as big as last time. He leaped feet first and slid over the hood of the car like he was in an action movie.
I looked at him stupidly wondering what the hell he just did and why. I was huffing air almost as hard as he was I was that exhilarated. I tried to say something but words escaped me and all I could do was stare at him confoundedly. In the most serious of faces he said,
“It was too heavy”, gasping for air, “I need your help”.
“Are you crazy! You can’t just run out there like that! We need a strategy!”
“Well I did just fine didn’t I!”
“Yeah, but I had no idea what you were doing and if somebody was watching there was no way I could’ve protected you! Did you at least find out what it was?”
“I have no idea,” Ren said.
“You don’t know?”
“No!” Ren barked. “But it looks like it’s worth closer inspection.”
“Why do you figure that?”
“I just feel like it could be something.”
Giving a questionable glare at Ren, “Okay, but this time we’ll do it my way. Can you at least give me some information about what you saw so I at least know what I’m dealing with?”
“Well, it’s this black metal container about the size of a cinder block. Has a handle on each side with some kind of latch on one of the short ends.”
“How abou–”
“Oh, and it probably weighs about as much as a cinder block too.”
“How about we find some cover, and find some of that food we were originally looking for, and think up something that’ll allow us safe access to this container.” Renny nodded in agreement.
Still hiding behind the vehicle I look from Ren’s eyes up to the bluebird sky and watch the white billowy clouds drift by quietly. I shut my eyes and exhale slowly, releasing all the tension that lay before me. Releasing all the anger and frustration of surviving in a dead world. Releasing all the painful memories of the past.
I open my eyes and take a deep inhale. My lungs fill when I notice Ren is still looking at me for some direction. I focus my eyes into Renny’s and declare,
“I’ve got a plan.”
