My home, my fortress1
I dumped the last bag of groceries in the corner and bolted the security door. My home was like a fortress: the walls were solid, the doors were reinforced, and the windows barred. There was enough food to last two adults on a rationed diet more than a year, and enough water to last six months. Tahni, my head reeled drunkenly and my legs felt weak. For a moment I felt blinded. With an uncoordinated stumble, I went into the kitchen and picked up the phone, dialling her number. I waited for an answer, waited for what felt like a long time. There was no answer as the phone rang out. It was ok. Tahni was better prepared than most, she was smart and cautious. Slowing my breathing, I turned the TV on and cycled through the channels. I was looking for breaking news, such as a story about a rampaging horde of flesh eating undead. Nothing yet. I flicked the light switch in my bedroom and rolled back the imitation Persian rug, revealing the heavy blast door. My mother would have felt vindicated knowing her preparation was about to be put to use. I didn’t even have to think about the combination as I swivelled the dial backwards and forwards. I slid the heavy door open, automatically a dim white light illuminated the shelter. Climbing down into the musty refuge everything looked as it usually did, untouched. The room was cramped, most of the space taken up with shelves stocked with tinned food and plastic barrels of water. This wasn’t even all of it, there was a storeroom upstairs that looked very similar, shelves of food and water. No one but me had been down here in the last three years, I learnt quickly that most people aren’t interested in such things, and many are suspicious of those that are. I checked the generator and the batteries, the generator started without trouble and the batteries had held their charge. Satisfied, I climbed back up into my bedroom, secured the door and rolled the rug back out. 2
The pantry and cupboards in the kitchen were full so I stacked the tins and jars of soup, fruit, and vegetables against the wall. I sorted the vitamin supplements and the soft packaged food into separate bags and left them in a pile beside the stack of tins. Back out in the living room I booted up my computer. As the display lights flickered on and off to the grind of the hard drive, my thoughts turned back to the encounter, it seemed surreal, like it hadn’t happened at all. I laughed at the recollection of the looks I received from confused customers and staff, as I had informed them over the PA to evacuate the store on account of a zombie outbreak. They all thought I was nutty until the hooker tried to eat a cute, seventeen year old checkout operator. Zombies aren’t real. They probably still hadn’t registered the reality of the situation. I hadn’t hung around to help out. The idea of going melee with the dead, for those that weren’t about to help themselves, wasn’t very appealing. Lots of screaming and shouting. I wondered if Bob was up yet and undead yet. 3
When the computer had loaded I sent a brief email, outlining what had taken place, to Tahni. She was cautious enough to take any warning seriously. I logged onto survivalnuts.com and did a quick scan for new threads. There was nothing new other than a thread showing off a new disaster shelter. I started a new thread, titled, Z-Day. I gave a brief description of my encounter with the dead and clicked submit. I spent the next hour and a half running searches in an attempt to turn up any news. The whole time I obsessively checked and rechecked my email. Eventually my search did turn up something. On the website of an American newspaper, posted only moments before I stumbled upon it, was a brief article. In very vague terms it described a suspected chemical contamination in Pakistan that caused victims to become insanely violent. 4
I gave up on the search. Beer in hand, I went up stairs and went out onto the veranda. The night was like any other, groups of people in various stages of intoxication passed by on the footpath bellow, some quietly talked among themselves, others not so quietly. One young woman drunkenly bellowed her favourite songs. 5
‘You don’t even need lessons,’ I said as she passed beneath. 6
She stopped and looked around, then up, almost falling over. Her face was the site of a severe case of acne and red with intoxication. ‘I know. I’m brilliant.’7
‘You know what?’8
‘What?’ Humouring the drunks was a past time of mine.9
‘Those bastards at the pub kicked me out for singing.’10
‘With a voice like that? Must be jealous.’11
The woman smiled broadly and swayed. ‘Got anything to drink?’ she asked.12
I showed her my beer. ‘Last one,’ I lied. 13
‘Have a good night, mate.’ With those parting words, the woman tripped down the gutter with a squeal, and fell on her arse. 14
I laughed quietly to myself and went back inside. I flicked through the channels again, still turning up nothing. Again I checked my email but still there was no reply from Tahni. I refreshed my post on survivalnuts. There were already twenty or more responses, mostly from a group of three. The responses were mostly disbelieving and mocking but an argument had started up between the zombie freaks, and some of the other survivalists.15
“God's righteous judgment has finally come,” exclaimed one member who had been promptly scorned by a half dozen responses. 16
Another read, “Fuck yeah, lock’n load brother. We’ll send these hell spawn bastards back to Satan.”17
“We shall inherit!”18
“That’s the meek, not the eccentric millionaire, you ass.”19
Typical bullshit. Rednecks, armed service personnel, and religious fanatics, all jabbering at each other. Morons. They all loved a massive disaster. The sort of arseholes that like to kick a person while they’re down. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, some of the local survivalists had taunted and mocked, even pointed rifles at displaced residents looking for food and water.20
The rest of the night was spent on the couch mindlessly flicking through channels while my thoughts were consumed with Tahni. In my mind I constantly switched between fantasies of horrible bloody events, Tahni dead or dying, and an arse kicking, leather clad heroin. I even thought of getting in my car and driving to Melbourne to find her. Eventually I slept.
Author notes
I implemented suggested grammatical changes and introduced a love interest. I may undo the love interest if it becomes too cliched or complicated. Suggestions?
In a list
Better, worse or as good?
Comments
1 - 14 of 14
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I agree. I think the love interest should stay. I think it humanizes your character some what. Up to this point he has been somewhat dry and detached from events and the deaths of those around him. But a love interest gives him motive and shows he is not all about himself. It's interesting that he has been awaiting these events to happen. Will we get an insight as to why he knows this? Good stuff again.
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Better
I am in suspense reading this how things will turn out!
Calm, collected and well prepared. That is how you survive any crisis. Your description of a drunk Sydney girl was perfect ive seen a few the same hahaha!
beginning: 5, language: 5, plot: 5, ending: 4, dialog: 5, characters: 5.
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keep the love interest, most certaintly -
Tahni is such a pretty name and I think it is gd tht u hv introduced her. I liek the bit where he speaks over the tannoy and tells everyone that there is a zombie attack !! Good story chapter, not any grammatical errors that I could see, not that I was interestedin the spelling, the story was too good!! Well done and I hope to read more soon. Kais x x
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HEHEHEHEHE
I can't wait until you fix up this chapter and type out the next.
And as you know the encounter with the drunk girl made me laugh as well as the announcement over the PA. I would love to do that at my work...just to scare the shit out of everyone...sure I'd get fired but it'd be worth it.
I am curious as to how the mother is involved in the story and the shelter...a paranoia carried by the whole family??? What did happen to his family?
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All shall be revealed.
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An interesting aspect to this story is that your character is informed, prepared, and read; not a civilian who knows nothing of zombies who is thrown in the middle of everything. The servival shelter and years worth of stored food are very clear indicators, without mentoning the website.
This is better, longer, more interesting. The bit he speaks to the drunken woman is quite interesting, I've seen people in her state of intoxication, and laughed harder at it.
Can't wait tell chapter four! -
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I'm stoked that everyone seems to be enjoying this story. I am currently working on the fourth chapter.
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This is a pretty good chapter. Lots of detail on supplies and that sort of thing. Wondering why the narrator’s got a shelter. Something to do with their mother, but I’m curious to see if you’ll put in some justification.
Also, the casual manner everything is done in is an interesting part of this. The calm before the storm? One hopes.
Nice bit with the drunk girl and the survivalist forum posters. Although the chapter ends a little oddly with its condemnation of Katrina survivalists. Bit of a downer, but that’s fine, it’s just that it sort of feels like a premature end.
Here’s a few typos. Bit of that present-past tense trouble again;
“The room was cramp(ed)…”
“Zombies aren’t real.” < Not sure what this is supposed to be. A derisive thought of the narrator towards nonbelievers?
“I wonder(ed) if Bob (was) up yet.” < I wonder who Bob IS. =P Guess I’ll find out soon enough.
“There was a brief article, posted moments ago…” < This sounds especially odd.
“The woman smiled broadly and swayed.
‘Got anything to drink?’ she asked.” < No need for new paragraph, I think. It can all be in one.
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Thanks for reading. The way I see this chapter is indeed the calm before the storm. UrbanRealist pointed out many of the errors that you picked out. I'm still conflicted as to how I want to write the story, thus the tense errors - So conflicted
Bob was the manager mentioned in the last chapter, you know, the one that got his throat ripped out.
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This was pretty good at describing all the preperations one go's through to survive a zombie attack. In most stories ive read they completely skip over food and water preperation and only focus on guns and other weapons. I think this was about as good as the first two stories but number 1 still ranks my favorite lol.
PS: Loved seen with the singing drunk chick
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Thanks for reading. I think there will be more zombie smashing fun to come.
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Going by chronological order, this vignette must sit near the start of the story - but not necessarily so. Many stories start at the end and then detail what happened beforehand to arrive there - others meander through scenes - and are aimed at slowly revealing a twist or something of importance through 'snap-shots' - which is how this reads. I like how you are unfolding parts of this world - some give peeks into the setting and others - like this one - give insight into the main character.
Just a couple of minor errors that I noticed while I was reading. Here's a few suggestions:
para 1
'My home was like a fortress, the walls were solid, the doors were reinforced, the windows barred.' this reads as a list, and it is usually grammatically correct to express in this format:
'My home was like a fortress: the walls were solid, the doors were reinforced, and the windows barred.'
'The room was cramp' - 'cramp' should be 'cramped'
para 2
'...grind of the hard drive my thoughts...' add a comma after 'drive', otherwise you have a run-on sentence.
'The idea of going melee with the dead for those that weren’t about to help themselves wasn’t very appealing.' - this sentence is a complete sentence containing what is known as a parenthical statement. It needs a couple of commas:
'The idea of going melee with the dead, for those that weren’t about to help themselves, wasn’t very appealing.'
If you take out what is between the commas, what is there forms a complete thought.
'I wonder if...' should be 'wondered' to keep this in past tense.
Again, so far, so good.
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Thanks for the grammar. It isn't my strong point but I have come a long way since I have started to learn the rules. It isn't always easy to remember them though. There were a few places I should have put in semi-colons but I don't really like using them in creative writing.
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