I really liked the tone, not much happens in the first chapter and it’s fairly typical of a zombie apocalypse story, it’s not so much a story as a framing device for a bunch of stuff happening, this coming from someone who’s written a zombie story before and am just as guilty of this.
But I really liked the perspective, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a zombie story told through the perspective of a mentally handicapped person. At the start it almost read like noir. Very terse and direct and detail orientated and I really enjoyed that but I felt it wasn’t always consistent.
It’s almost like there are parts where it breaks character, certain words or phrases seem to break the illusion you’re seeing it from Reston’s perspective. Like the analogy to the Jackson Pollack painting and I’m thinking ‘Does Reston know who Jackson Pollack is?’. Sure he could know but it seemed out of place. It was a good analogy don’t get me wrong. I know what a Jackson Pollack painting looks like but it took me out of it a little bit and I became very aware I was reading a story as opposed to the third person recitiation of a mentally challenged person’s thoughts.
I think maybe even this story could have benefitted from a first person narrative as opposed to the third to help keep the story in character per se. It could be like a zombie version of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, which is this neo-noire mystery told from the perspective of a boy with learning difficulties.
The description was great, not over the top just clean, the grammar and punctuation is strong and the writing style is competent.
Overall I liked it, it definitely has potential and I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.
Ok well here it is. I was going to post this tomorrow but I got a shift at work on my prime spamming days, lucky me haha. So I thought I’d post it today and get it out the way because I’m smug as fuck about it. I really like where it’s going and where it’s taking my writing and how it’s evolved over the years.
So this is the culmination of my years of toiling and bad choices.
As per usual, you can go read the full chapter for free on inkitt;
Crazy Clown Time
~
A fly tossed and turned on the bed it had made from the inside of a street lamp. It writhed, flitting it’s slow burning wings. The sound of its buzzing echoed and shook the dried up husks from the night before. It lay down on its back, it’s underbelly exposed to the warm glow of the synthetic sun. Fading off into an incandescent permanent state of blissful sleep.
“Pauly had a red shirt”
“Pauly had a red shirt”
“-Suzy, she ripped her shirt off completely”
Outside the lamp the streets of Highland were laden with a thin film of dry dusk. It cooled, solidified into a thick cold sheet of night. It was quiet, so quiet if you stopped walking you could hear your own heartbeat. The streets seemed frozen in this part of town at night, like a photograph. A car radio played an obscure slow song.
“Pauly had a red shirt”
“Pauly had a red shirt”
“-Suzy, she ripped her shirt off completely”
A grey oldsmobile cutlass idled under the street lamp. A bare stretch of land. The car at the side of the road parsed between a large empty lot consisting of nothing but light brown dirt. The California mountain range by moonlight backdrop. On the other side a church that looked like the taco bell symbol edged in by anoemic looking palm trees. The parking lot of the church was almost empty but for a large white sedan, other than that he was the only prowler out.
“Danny poured the beer-“
“-Danny poured the beer all over sally”
A man’s hand drummed against the driver’s side door. Stiff fingers fumbling out an awkward beat. In the driver’s seat he sat, bathed in artificial night. The cone of unnatural light cast a deep dense shadow. The radio continued to play as the car idled.
“Danny poured the beer-“
“-Danny poured the beer all over sally”
The hood of the car was broad, it menaced the sidewalk. Hummed and seethed. A low hungry growl rising and falling over and over. The headlights dipped. Sucked the night air through its teeth.
“Danny poured the beer-“
“Danny poured the beer-“
“-Danny poured the beer all over sally”
The tires clawed the road, and then released it again. Padding it like a cat. Tensing and jostling, it waited.
“Ah, ah“
“Buddy screamed so loud he spit”
“Buddy screamed so loud he spit”
A waft of cool night air carried the dank smell of cheap perfume. The hairs on the driver’s bare arm raised in anticipation.
She leaned against the passenger side door, she was perfect. He withdrew his arm as she pressed herself against the car. The smell of her dimestore perfume sent his head swimming. A blissful day dream of a hot summer day, pushing a girl on a swingset. The balmy smell of wheat, dried sweat.
She pressed a weapons grade set of fake tits against the glass of the cutlass. Her skin was milky white, almost translucent. The skin of her breast stretched to the point of revealing all those thick blue veins. Almost like a steak. A sheen of sweat over them made them look like two moons sinking into a leopard print tank top. The word “Juicy” embossed on the front.
“We all ran around the backyard-“
“-we all ran around”
She leaned forward, balancing herself with one arm cocked over the roof. Taking those cold slabs of flesh off the glass. He watched her from his dark seat, as she lowered her head to talk. But she seemed to stop short of her eyes. Only revealing a set of dark red lips, her liner even darker, made her lips look like burnt leaves. As she mouthed “Open up” tapping her tacky toxic green stick-on nails against the glass.
He waited a moment, looking at the veins on her neck, her pale flesh like the page of a book. He followed her green stick-on nails as she motioned to him to open the window. And back to her neck, seems like someone couldn’t resist to doodle all over her. Crawling up her neck the words; “Prudence never pays”. His eyes drawn to her obscene breast. The words “He never even looks at me” tattooed across them in the same style.
He could sense her rising impatience. Stretch marks carefully hidden began to poke out above the exposed top of her bra. She had flabby white arms. He imagined her as a german barmaid type, crudely throwing plates onto tables. Giving up that life to stand out here getting goosebumps looking at strangers.
“We all ran around the backyard-“
“-It was crazy clown time”
He wound down the window slow. She seemed to flood through, her smell vile and intoxicating and stronger than ever. Perfume junk food. He knew it wasn’t good for him but he kept breathing it in, drinking it up.
“You want some company?” She said as she perched herself on the edge of the window. The night panned around as it was ought to do. Getting a good look at her. Her ass squeezed into a pair of camo yoga pants that seemed two sizes too small. Despite that being impossible. Who knows what she was hiding under those, more stretchmarks, some cigarette burns.
He didn’t say anything, the night air danced on the back of his neck. Tiny cold feet tapping up and down his spine, telling him it was right, tonight. He didn’t notice his hands on the wheel until they were tensing up on the faux leather. The noise of flesh tightening as he squeezed harder and harder. Rhythmically building until it felt like something might burst.
He pressed a button on the dash, the door unlocked.
She slid into the car with a practiced hip wiggle. She fell into the buckets seats like a catcher’s mitt. The door slamming shut behind her.
Up close she had sullen eyes and a wide flat face. Her hair was a washed out brunnette imitation of something Marilyn Monroe may have had at one point.
“Quiet type?” She said.
He breathed out and kept his face hidden by a nervous hand at his mouth as he leaned his arm against the window.
“Crazy clown time”
“-it was crazy clown time”
The music was much louder in the car, masking the sound of his heartbeat in his ears. It was all around him, the inside of his car felt like it was filled with cotton balls. He couldn’t look at her, she was too close, he scanned her up and down from the corner of his eye.
“Do you have a place we can go?”
“Crazy clown time”
“-it was crazy clown time”
~
Well the end of what seems like an era is at hand, this is the final chapter of book one of Green Sunday. I do have a planned sequel that could spin out into a series, we’ll just have to see how well this does on amazon or if someone picks it up. But I enjoyed writing it as much as I enoyed reading the comments I got on facebook and the glowing reviews I got on inkitt for such a silly ass book haha.
This has been a growing experience for me in my life and in my writing. I feel like I’ve already taken the first steps into a new world and I’m really excited about the new stuff I’m working. This is the beginning of something really great for me and there’s nowhere to right now but up.
I’m editing the first chapter of the novella I’m working on today, so I should have that up as soon as tuesday, maybe earlier. Then I’ll get it up on inkitt and see what the folks there think of it.
I just wanted to give a big thanks to people who read this blog and people who enjoy and support my writing today and in the years to come.
As usual you can read the full chapter absolutely free on inkitt by following this link; Game Over
Cheers!
~
Helicopter blades span slow. Giant straight blender blades whipping up the thin air. Making it as thick as eggs and cream allowing the helicopter to climb – Laura thought to herself as the large ex-military chopper lumbered into flight. The chandelier inside adding maybe another metric tonne. Ensuring a luxurious but unhurried flight.
Laura sat in the co-pilots seat securely fastened and with a headset on for full effect. She smiled at Carpenter who leaned over her seat, the gun on the headrest pointing sideways at Nigel. The aging pilot seemingly attempting an escape by sea, gradually filling the cockpit with sweat.
Carpenter erected a toothy grin feeling somewhat like a pirate, an air pirate. Riding into the wind, to freedom or death. What’s the difference he thought as he squeezed the head rest and rapped his fingers across the handle of the gun. Feeling a dramatic swelling, like he could hear ride of the Valkyries. And just over the those snow capped mountains rested a Vietcong rice paddy just waiting for a lick of fresh napalm.
~
A monitor glowed in a dark room. The image panned back on a small town gunstore with a what seemed like a mosaic pattern of blood and bones out the front. A tapestry of offel and brain matter spread over about a ten foot area radiating out.
“Well at least he paid in advance” Murray said with a wry choking laugh, choked off entirely by a stern searching glance from Evergreen.
“Indeed” Evergreen sighed.
“Well you know he signed a contract, what are we gonna tell his helicopter pilot?” Murray quickly tapped away at his personal monitors keyboard. “That reminds me, the team guarding it haven’t reporting in. Err- going on fifteen minutes now, should I send another?”.
Evergreen gave a small breathy laugh and seemed to suck the inside of his cheek. “Hnh no, I’ll go, I need the excercise”. With that he opened the mobile command centre’s door and stepped out into the bright noonday sun. Allowing it to penetrate the perfect dark of the little mobile mancave.
Murray called after him, his voice trailing off as he sat alone in the half dark “HEY YOU MIND!- closing the do- ass”
~
“tj-TJ-tj…..TJ!” A girl’s voice phased in and out, accompanied by an annoying ringing noise.
“I can hear you.” TJ said as he clicked his jaw and held his head. It felt like a balloon full of cracked drywall and every word sent sharp shards of pain throughout his skull. “Shit, did something explode?”
“Err, I don’t think so, you just hit your head.” Sunday said, her face blurred, then became focussed then blurred again. TJ gave up and just looked at the pavement trying to stop his head from spinning.
“I think I’m gonna throw up” He said as his breathing became long and laboured.
“At least you’re not dead” She said with what he could hear was a wry corner mouth smile.
“I feel like that would be an upgrade.” He said wincing as he put his hand on the pavement to lever the weight of his mighty girth.
“Big baby” Sunday said, punctuating it with a breathy bitter guffaw.
TJ lifted himself up onto two shakey feet and looked down at Sunday. She stretched out on a large broken no entry sign on the sidewalk like it was a beach towel.
He turned towards her and blinked a couple of times and put his hand out to her. She swivelled around in her lounging position to look up at him. Her hair was still that messy shock of toxic green. A little more matted and dirty with dry blood and good old fashioned dirt.
“M’lady” TJ said tipping an ironic invisible fedora in Sunday’s general direction.
Sunday squinted, turning her eyes into two sharp slits and shook her head smiling. She batted his chubby hand away like a playful kitten leaving its claws out. “I think I’m good” She said as she signed and made the painful ascent onto two legs. Dusting herself off completely unaware how like a Saturday morning cartoon character she looked. “What?”
“Nothing”.
“It’s gonna be dark soon, this town is gonna be swarming with mercs”
“What for?”
“Sweep and clear.” Sunday gave TJ a knowing glance but after no discernible nod of the head or recognition. She went on; “They’re gonna burn the whole town to the fucking ground. Round up the remaining survivors”.
“And?”
“And make them ‘un-survivors’”
“Oh”
“There can’t be any witnesses”
“But you said it was streaming live”
“On the deep web.” Sunday paused, tapping her heels together, thinking no place like home undoubtedly.
“Hah?” TJ actually scratched his head.
“Didn’t we go over this already, the deep web, it’s like err- you know”
“…”
“It’s like the dark side of the internet that can’t be reached with a regular search engine. Child porn, hitmen, drugs, slavery, live murder, and now this shit”
“O-k so?”
“So only a select group of sick fucks can see this. Sick rich pricks, dumb kids with more time than smarts. Regular perverts, criminals, gangsters, you know, not the fucking pta”
“Err I don’t get it”
“The point is they’re not the kind of people that would turn states evidence. Who would believe them anyway? ‘Err excuse Mr policeman. Err there’s a reality tv show on the deep web that fills a town with zombies and films it for bitcoins”. Sunday said in a mocking imitation of TJ’ voice holding up her fingers in a faux telephone shape. A patronizing smirk sealed onto her face. “No one gets out alive”
“What about you?”
“It’s different with me. They kept me, and a few others alive because this is a show, and shows need ‘characters’. It needs some kind of a plot, a story, drama. It can’t just be a bunch of people running around doing ‘stuff’. It has to have some progression, someone to root for, someone to watch die. It’s like any other tv show.” Sunday sucked the bottom of her lip after using air quotes twice in a single rant.
“But it kinda was just a bunch of stuff happening”
“If people are watching us. Enough people give us likes or clicks or votes or whatever, they let us go on into the next stage.”
“This is so fucked!”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed”
“Shit” TJ looked down, squeezing his double chin.
“What!”
“Who wants to watch some fat kid kill zombies badly and shit his pants? My youtube career was exactly souring. People just tuned in to laugh at me.” TJ pointed his chin and sighed. “I got more death and rape threats than Anita Sarkeesian”
“Anita who?”
“Nevermind”
“Don’t give me that shit! What are you fishing for compliments like some Instagram camwhore? That could save you. There might be a huge demographic of people who want to keep you alive just to watch you do a Mellissa McCarthy impression, split your pants and shit. You could even have a goofy catchphrase like ‘That’s gonna leave a mark!’”
“Yeah she sucks and people love her”
“Her one joke is just falling over while fat, that could be you”
“Yeah you’re right” Tj mused on it further before shaking his head like a mini truffle shuffle. “No fuck that we’re gonna get out of here, you’ll see, there’s a way out, I know there is!”.
“The tunnels?”
“There’s no way they could know about them. That guy kept them super lowkey, they’re not on any map, or blueprint. He built it all using his own guys, he was crazy paranoid, didn’t want anyone to know they existed. Only me and a few other kids even knew it existed.”
“Yeah you already told me. So why don’t we get the fuck out of here before some roided up merc puts a black leather size nine up our asses?” Sunday yawned picking up a parking meter and tossing it over her shoulder.
“Ok”
~
I know that title is terrible, spurr of the moment I assure. Toying with “Nope-busters” now. Nah it’s too late the moment has passed. Also stole that image from Milo, I hope he doesn’t sue.
Ok, so that happened. I remember looking back and when I heard about this movie, I was sure it was a joke and I think in any other political climate it would have been laughed away. Some exec would have looked at it and thrown it on top of a potential spacejam remake with Ronda Rousey replacing Michael Jordan.
But no, because this whole girl power narrative is so strained today, some absolute moron thought this was the perfect time to delude themselves into thinking they could be funnier than the original cast. And before you jump on me I’m not trying to say women aren’t funny. I’m saying these particular women aren’t funny and they’re not even close to the original cast, who are funny without even trying. And to be perfectly honest if you have to keep telling people you’re funny like the people surrounding this movie are like to do, you’re probably not funny, evoking that Thatcher quote you may remember on being a lady and just telling yourself you are one. The main criticism of this movies comedy I’ve heard is that it tries too hard.
Oh yeah did I mention I haven’t seen it, so this isn’t technically a review. It’s moreover a review of the reviews and I just wanted to clarify I was wrong about this movie.
Originally when I saw that this was actually a thing. I thought it was devilishly clever. Pissing off the old fans, building up press attention and gaining new viewers and revitalising the fanbase. Sort of like dusting off the cobwebs of the old fans and trying to appeal to a new generation and more importantly making shitloads of money on #datmerch.
But it seems like I was wrong. After it had the most disliked trailer on youtube in history. I mean seriously, even the shittiest movies usually have more likes than dislikes and this ratio was insane. People had to be making new accounts to downvote it. And then the whole bullshit over sony deleting comments and keeping misogynist and racist comments to try and shift the blame to “evil” sexists and racists and block out regular criticism.
The trailer was terrible, the new theme song was pretty bad. I didn’t think it was horrible but you couldn’t find anyone more relevent than fallout boy and and missy elliot. Weren’t they popular like in the 90’s?
The reviews I’ve seen have been really bad but due to youtube algoriths that’s probably because it fits into what I wanted to see. Their ratings on sites like rotten tomatoes are pretty average, a fresh rating of like 65% if I’m remembering correctly. Imdb has it listed as like a 6.5. Seems like a resound ‘meh’. A lot of people saying it started strong and it wasn’t that bad or it wasn’t bad enough to be good and it was just painfully average. I don’t know, I haven’t seen it. I’m sure I would laugh at some of it and truthfully my childhood has been made unrapeable already after the reeming it got from the Robocop remake so come at me bro.
I mean how do you make a movie about a cyborg cop boring? He literally does nothing for the first hour of the movie and the villain is just filed away until he needed to die. In the original, he’s literally shooting people’s dicks off in under fifteen minutes. I’m not even exaggerating (possibly exaggerating) I timed it. And the bad guy was the dad from that seventies show and he was fucking awesome!
Back to ghostbusters and the box office is pretty reflective of the previous reviews, it’s average coming out second behind secret life of pets. Projected at about 46 mil in the first weekend. Which isn’t a flop but without the chinese market because of their laws of depicting realistic ghosts (or something) it can’t be shown there. So there might be a signifficant drop over the coming weeks, with them taking a hit internationally.
But can it make back the 244 mil budgeted and the supposed 100 mil marketing budget and turn a profit. Going by the toy sales it looks unlikely.
Reports of empty theatres, merchandise in clearance isles before the movie even debuted. It’s not looking good, so who you gonna call? It looks like maybe the irs.
As I said, I haven’t seen it so I don’t know if it sucks but it probably sucks, no it definitely sucks, but it looks like nefarious shit is going on behind the scenes. The long arm of sony wasn’t above painting all their detractors as hateful racists and misogynists all the hundreds of millions of them. Who’s to say the string of sycophantic reviews aren’t bought and paid for? Sony really has too much to lose on this franchise, with an already plotted expanded universe stretching into who knows how many abhorrent sequels?
But who gives a shit? Maybe this is the start of a cultural revolution that will finally push back against this cash grab remake culure and demand originality and risk taking, but then what would I bitch about in between chapters of my book haha?
Ah it’s too hot to write blogs to today.
Sianora suckahs!
Ah dayjob how you get in the way of the things I truly love. Like online gaming… oh yeah and writing and blogging and junk haha.
Ok too tired and out of fucks to give a full update, I’ve mainly been doing innane shit to make paper while I write in my mind in the shower and read on public transport. Other than that I’m proofreading the last chapter of GS while listening to Filthy Frank music. And the editing is coming along, I should have that all out maybe as soon as the end of the year then I’ll probably put it on amazon or something if I can’t find an agent by then to take it on.
As usual you can find the full chapter on inkitt fresh and raw and uncut and all that good stuff.
“WAIT!”
Sunday, half conscious, her face pressed against a concrete pillow as a giant boot rested it’s weight against her. Applying more pressure a pound at a time and stopping at this rude intervention.
The giant foot came off of Sunday’s pretty face and she lolled lifelessly into the dry gutter. Jeffrey turned theatrically to focus on this voice. Coming to him over the sounds of small fires burbling against a slight breeze, an idyllic scene.
TJ stood, shoulders knotted around his ears. His hands behind his back in the entrance of the multi-plex.
“I got your doll or whatever!”
“Lamby? Gimme!” The hulking sub-human lurched towards TJ, his knuckles dragging along the smooth tarmac. Looming over TJ, his warm breath swirling all around him.
“Err, fetch?” TJ squirmed and then tossed the small plushie into the middle of the street.
“LAMBY!” Jeffrey leaped in the direction of the doll like a giant horny dog.
TJ’s panorama cleared of this giant monstrosity. He had the room and the presence of mind to run to Sunday’s side, like the good white knight he dreamed of parodying. He tripped over his feet and stumbled to a crawl beside her lifeless body.
“Sunday?” He said as he craned his chubby body over her, her portly romeo, maybe a little too late.
“LAAMMMBBBBYYY!” Jeffrey sifted through the debris. He tossed cars and bikes like tissue dispensers. Tossing up concrete chunks the size of dirty Brooklyn pigeons. Until his frantic eyes focused on something fluffy and white. “Lamby! I finally found you. The monsters, they took you away from me.” Jeffrey folded into an almost curtsy as graceful as possible. He pincered it with a giant finger and thumb not unlike the claw grabber machine it just came from.
He picked it up. Childlike glee projected on the grotesque potmarked mountain range that was his face. He floated it in front of his sloped brow turning it gracefully in his monstrous hands. Seeing it in it’s entirety sent a wave of clumsy emotions across the mottled canvas that was his face. Confusion and sadness, taking the express train to rage and desperation. The cogs began to turn with great purpose. As he realised what he was holding in his fingers and thumb was actually a plush snowman. The orange carrot nose and bead smile, a mocking endictment of a viscious ruse.
“This not lamby! Where lamby? WHERE LAMBY?”
~
“Ooh the fack are you?” The pilot said with no hint of incredulity that he was indeed being fucked. His face scrunching up looking like a map of the London underground.
“I’m your new co-pilot.” Carpenter said as he grinned and prodded the pilot in his soft side with the barrel of the assault rifle. “And mind your language, there are children present”.
“What the fack are you talking about mate? I don’t see any kids. This is all in your ‘ead mate, you want to mind yourself, you’re out of your depth ‘ere son. My guvna’ will ave your balls as a wedding present for ‘is missus”
“Start the engine”
“You’re asking for it son.” The pilot said as he started to spin the blades with a beligerance of a teen going to be late to her own sweet sixteen.
“Phweeeep!” An obnoxious whistling cut above the background hum of the engine and the quickening blades overhead.
“See you’re in for it now.” The pilot said as he turned the engine back of with an anti-climatic sigh from both him and the engine.
Carpenter looked over the control panel, peaking out the domed front window. A man in the same tactical gear as him stood statuesque in front of the helicopter. Laura by his side. An uncomfortable smile and a raised brow on her face as the figure raised a shiney pistol to the little girls head. “Drop the gun and step out of the helicopter.” The statue said grinning, reluctantly wearing the mask of the dutiful villain.
Carpenter tossed the rifle out of the helicopter door, landing soft in a bush. He de-choppered one angsty step at a time.
The statue moved around the side of the chopper to meet him. He was just under six foot, average height. He wasn’t wearing a gas mask, just a smirk of indifferent malice.
“My name’s Malcolm, I’m a fan” The man said as he dropped the little girl by his side to raise a hand for shaking. The shiney pistol was a lot larger close up, a chrome desert eagle, very ostinatious. “Go play over there now, there’s a good girl” He said as he shooed Laura with the gun.
Carpenter looked at his hand and looked back at Malcolm.
“It was smart to use the kid, not very chivalrous, but effective. Might be a little played out now” He lowered his hand and raised the gun at hip height. “We’re just going to wait here until the end and then a team can pick you up for nap time, easy.” He smiled like a dentist and tongued his front teeth. “The girl can come too, she’ll be fine, what with her big mean protector, wont she?”
Carpenter grimaced at this guarded insult. The tactical gear also came with a lovely usmc knife which Carpenter was yet to use. But there it was still hanging vertically on the front of his tactical gear. He reached for it slowly, eyes locked with Malcolm.
“Ah now that’s not very smart is it?” Malcolm hardened his face and rattled the gun around like it was getting too heavy for him. “Leave that alone”.
Carpenter eyes didn’t move. His hand possessed, unsheathed the blued knife from it’s molded kydex sheathe.
“Be a good lad an put that down eh.” Malcolm stretched his arm out, the heavy gun jossling in his grip. “We have a large investment in you, don’t make me shoot”.
Carpenter’s arm dropped to his side holding the swathy knife. His feet fluttered dreamily and he floated forward carried by an ill wind.
“I SAID STOP! NOW!” Malcolm squeezed the gun hard and it shook visibly in his grip “I WILL SHOOT YOU!”
Carpenter couldn’t hear him over the sound of his heart beat marching closer to his ears. Beating like the wind against an ancient castle wall. The blade cast no light and no shadow. It whispered promises to him of perfect cuts and no drag, slices of neat flesh falling into place. Enchanting dancing rivulets of blood pirouetting on its head as it hummed a death rattle in D. Torrents of blood beat inside his ears, he could almost hear the music. It was something like how he imagined Wagner. Ride of the Valkyries with a steady staccato drum beating faster and faster until you know it had to stop.
“STOOOPPPP!”
CLICK CLICK!
Malcolm caught Carpenter’s wrist with rattlesnake speed and grip. All the blood drained from his arm as he squeezed and gave him a quick love tap to the temple with the barrel of the eagle. A seering white light and a ringing noise in his ears as Carpenter went down onto the grass, soft and limp.
Malcolm turned to face the Laura as if his hips were that of an action figure with kung fu one hundred and eighty degree turns. She stood with the little gun in her hand clicking furiously trying to find the unspent cylinder.
CLICK CLICK CLICK!
The gun jumped out of her hand with the last clicking, giving off a soft squeaky pop and a brief flash and sizzle.
Malcolm crouched and picked the little gun off the ground.
“I must have missed this.” He tried to open the cyclinder but it was fused shut. He threw it in the dirt and stood back up putting his hands on his knees with an unhealthy clicking sound. “Looks like a misfire, you’re lucky it didn’t take those pretty hands clean off. Looks like both of our lucky days eh?”
“Is the badman dead?”
“No, he’s just sleeping, you don’t have to be afraid anymore. I’ll take you somewhere safe, the game is almost ov-.”
Malcolm’s breath was caught by a pair dirty hands wrapped around his throat. Dirt under the nails digging into his protuberant adam’s apple.
A wirey grip, thin hands tightening around his throat. An intense urge to kill coiled around his throat and gave zero ground to a hungry lung or a thirsty vein. Malcolm fell to his knees blue lipped, his face turning a shade of mauve. Spittle on his lips sputtering out. The last cubic milliteres of oxygen expelled from his lungs.
His vision went white and spotty. He couldn’t feel his lower extremities but he remembered he had a gun, a big heavy one. He sent a signal to his arms if they were still listening. His hand hovered next to him, dragging the heavy gun to his side. His grip locked onto the handle like an action figure with kung fu grip.
His arm floated up as if carried by a rising tide of water in an airtight phone booth. Carpenter couldn’t hear or see a thing, blood in his eyes. The israeli kiss on the side of his head the desert eagle gave him opened a theatrical wound. It bled hysterically like a wwe wrestler doing an impression of a tampon.
Malcolm lifting the gun up to his head height. Hovering where he imagined the gnarled head of Carpenter sat aloft. His arm jossling like a marionette puppetted by a drunk with low blood sugar. Struggling to keep the gun from plummeting into the ground as it so desperately wanted to do. Drawn magnetically to the earth. It swayed back and forth like a heavy pendulus artificial growth on the end of Malcolm’s arm.
Carpenter’s hand’s just seemed to get tighter and thinner, a wire man come to life to choke the life out of the world. His hands didn’t exhale a millimetre. A bottomless well of loathing self and otherwise driving his muscles like the hands of a clock. Unfeeling cogs clicking into place, murder o’clock.
Malcolm’s index finger tickled the heavy trigger. The shaking of his numb digit squeezing it pound for pound until…
BANG!
~
Another day another edited chapter, it’s almost over people, almost over and almost I mean never and by ‘over’ I mean bitches. That doesn’t make sense.
Ok well day job grinding and shitty and deadend as it is has given me the desired resources of my condensed wasted time to allow me to have more of this silly ass zombie novel I’m not entirely sure why I wrote edited haha. Of which will be coming soon.
I’ve only got one chapter left to proofread and then it’s all downhill from there.
In other news I’m reading some cool noir shit, some grade Richard Stark shit and it’s starting to show in some of the recent stuff I’ve done. I’ve actually made a start on one of those novellas I was toying with to keep me busy until nanowrimo when I unleash the beast of my next hurried giant word salad hah.
It’s turning out really nicely, I mean I actually gave enough of a fuck to open up google maps and plot routes for the story, research locations and plants and other such real life shit. I virtually walked the route of this story I’m doing and I think it’s turning out really nice, my style is evolving and it’s a lot of fun. It still has that evocative bullshit I like but it’s framed by this anal attention to detail which really nails the tension down.
Anyway the first chapter of that should be ready soon enough so you can ignore it at your leisure haha.
As per usual you can check out the full chapter on inkitt.
Peace out.
~
Roy held the camera low, trying to be discreet. It created a shaky low shot of TJ’s front door. A doorbell ringing sound; a cool morning mist starting to creep up on them.
“Who’s there?” TJ’s mom said from an upstairs window. The camera panned to the window as she leaned out in her yoga gear.
“Oh hey, Mrs Kincaid, a lovely morning, am I right?” Zed said with a tinny laugh, like he was selling Jehovah.
“Oh you’re those nice neighbour boys. TJ’s not home right now; he’s out getting milk; he can’t come out to play.”
“Err, yeah, you see… TJ kinda said we could come and borrow some of his stuff for our show, for the Internet”. Roy stumbled over his words, his frantic nerves stripping all charm from his voice.
“Oh well, he didn’t say anything to me about it. But I suppose, since you only live next door, and it’s for the Internet, you said?” TJ’s mom ditsily mused on what that might mean as she leant out the window.
“Err, yeah,” Roy said, a tired indifference climbing into his voice as he realised he’d been up all night. Was he holding up the camera or was it holding him up?
“The door’s open; his room is at the top of the stairs. How’s your mother doing, Teddy? You boys want some green tea and rice cakes?”
“Err, no, we’re good, thanks; she’s fine,” Zed said, surprised at how easy that was.
A brief cut and it was a shot of TJ’s stairs as they climbed up towards his room. All TJ could see was a POV shot of the back of Zed’s legs as he went up, followed by Roy.
Zed stopped on the stairs and turned to Roy with an odd smile on his face, the camera uncomfortably close.
“Dude, why’d you stop?” Roy said, behind the camera.
“How much you wanna bet the fat fuck’s a brony?” Zed sniggered childishly, forgetting the blood under his fingernails.
Another brief cut and whoever held the camera was elbow deep in TJ’s drawers. “Where the fuck is it?”.
“Dude, I found it.” The camera panned impatiently to Zed who stood in front of the closet, smirking.
“Friendship is fucking magic.” Zed chortled as he spoke. Parting the clothes in the closet, Zed revealed a secret ‘My Little Pony’ poster on the back of the wardrobe. “I fucking knew it.”
“Yeah, that’s great; the dude’s a fucking faggot who wants to fuck a horse. Can we get back to finding the weapons now, so, you know, we can fucking live through the night?” Roy snapped, gripping the camera harder, until it was audibly creaking. He span the camera around and it fell on the red toy box at the bottom of TJ’s bed. “Here we go.”
“Yeah, I’m betting porn and an inflatable pony.” Zed chuckled in the background as Roy lay the camera down on TJ’s bed. He knelt in front of the box. Zed went through TJ’s action figures and miscellaneous cosplays, giggling fecklessly in the background.
Roy opened the box. “Look at this shit – fucking mall crap! Gotta bag this shit up.”
“Then what?” Zed said, some ice closing in on his voice.
“We gotta deal with Gil. If he’s bit, we gotta cut his head off; that bitch too, just to make sure.”
“I don’t know-”
“It’s fucked. It’s so different from how I thought it would be.” Roy sighed as he started to pack the weapons into a ‘Naruto’ duffel bag. “Fucking otaku pussy.”
He put his hand on his knee and eased himself off the ground.
Zed sighed; the character he had created had crumbled and he felt like a kid. His skin sticky and dry from where he had washed off Christie’s blood. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
Roy fumbled as he picked up the camera and turned it off.
Another cut. The camera seemed to be resting on the edge of a sink, turned on by mistake as if placed there in a hurry.
Scuffling sounds, sounds of muffled whimpering. The camera was out of focus. A blurred figure came into frame and snatched it up. Fumbling sounds of plastic creaking. It was still being held low, around waist height; there was nothing to see just yet.
“You’ve got to do it.”
“Why do I have to do it?”
“Because I’m holding the camera,” Roy said, a cold smile in his voice.
Roy raised the camera, like a shield, to put the spotlight on Zed’s pale and drawn face. Zed sat on the bed in his room; he knew it had to be him. He swallowed hard, took TJ’s crappy mall sword in both his hands and unsheathed it a little to check it didn’t stick. He hesitated. “Oh, fuck it,” he said as he unsheathed the sword all the way. He threw the cheap scabbard across the room and held the handle as if it was a machete. The sword wasn’t quite a katana; it was one of those cheap ninja swords with a straight blade and no guard. He grabbed at his knee a little, rose with a jerky jolt of energy and began to march out of his room. Roy struggled to follow him out into the hall.
“Wait up, dude.”
They got to the inner door of the garage and Zed stood sullen with his hand on the doorknob.
“I thought he locked himself in?”
“He did, but I’ll try the door and then we can go around the front and open the garage door. He might be OK. Garage door makes a lot of noise,” Zed said.
“Yeah, best episode of ‘Zombie Stump Fuckers’ yet.”
Zed sneered and a sickly smirk passed over his face. He swallowed hard again and twisted the knob. The door opened with an uneasy jerk. Zed froze. He stopped breathing and then breathed out. Then in again with a low, shallow, silent breath.
He began to open the door wider, inch by inch, praying for it not to creak. It did. He took a deep breath and launched himself into the garage. Roy followed. The camera fell on Zed as he swung the sword awkwardly, nerves and adrenaline making it shake in his hands, creating an annoying rattling sound.
“What the fuck?” Roy said as he panned the camera up to a tense close up of the garage, lined with black bin bags. He zoomed out to Zed in his uneven warrior stance, a small pool of congealed blood on the floor. “Where’d he go?”
Just at that moment, a clichéd woman’s scream rang out and they both knew where he was.
“Mom?” Zed’s voice broke as he spoke, the sword shaking in his loose grip.
~
Hello human people!
That’s right all you un-human people can fuck right off! Yeah! I don’t know where I was going with that.
Anyway what’s up? Oh right the title and the meme, yeah about that.
In case you haven’t heard my little island decided to end its participation the seventeen yearlong experiment known as the ‘European Union’.
Now the meme might give you some sign of what side I was on in said occurrence, but you’d be wrong. Although I was leaning towards leave because of the information I’d received from family and friends and other such sources like the internet of all places, I actually didn’t vote.
I just didn’t feel like I had enough knowledge to vote either way for the future of my country and rather than being a little bitch and voting to remain, I decided to just let the chips fall as they may.
And I gotta say I was pleasantly surprised. Not just to see that my country actually grew a set of balls overnight and voted for their own sovereignty ending their servitude to an un-elected un-democratic political body but to see all the butthurt statuses of my remain friends on facebook. That shit was too funny.
I mean the depths of salt, it was incredible. I saw discussions where people were literally saying that democracy was a problem. That people having the right to govern themselves is the problem. These people would rather suck up to an un-elected political cartel than accept the will of the actual people that live in the country.
The meme pretty much covers the basics of their arguments against the leave people. ‘Leave people are racist because I say so, old people are stupid because they don’t agree with me.’
Ok first point, to boil leaving the EU down to a race debate is so reductive it’s silly to even debate, it’s so selective it can only be used to beat people over the head with when you don’t have an actual argument against leaving. Who exactly are the leave people racist against? Muslims? Islam isn’t a race. Arabs? Arabs are an ethnic sub-category of Caucasian so in fact the same race as the leave voters.
But we’ve been seeing this tactic employed all over the place after Donald Trump, calling someone a ‘racist’ is really meaningless. I had an argument with someone once who claimed calling someone a racist was just a colloquialism as in it didn’t mean what it actually meant and thus the context and effect of that label didn’t matter. Can you imagine if someone publicly called you a paedophile and made that same argument claiming they intended it to mean someone who has a fondness for children?
Anyone can clearly see it’s just a silencing/shaming tactic bait and switch. You call someone a racist dragging along the full weight of that accusation and then when someone challenges you to explain why they just their shoulders and probably call you a racist.
Ok so old people are stupid and shouldn’t be allowed to vote if they disagree with me was something people genuinely said to me because older people made up the biggest block of leave voters. The people who remember what it was like before the eu and can see what it’s like after don’t have the right to vote to take their country back?
The argument being that it’s not their future because they’re going to be dead soon or something equally as moronic. The salt levels, I mean I get if someone isn’t mentally fit, but who decides when someone is too old to vote?
Children can’t vote for obvious reasons; we actually don’t want the guy with the welly on his head to win. But to say old people who worked all their lives for this country don’t have the right to decide its fate is ludicrous. It’s true it’s not their future but they have the wisdom and experience to decide what’s in the best interest of the seventeen year old morons saying old people shouldn’t be allowed to vote because if they had their vote the streets would be paved with fucking gummy bears and the taps would run with redbull or something.
I know the vote was pretty close and people as we speak are trying to institute a second referendum and our government is very pro-eu because they all want to retire to those cushy six figure eu jobs when they leave parliament and their home country bruised and bloody. So it might be overturned purely because they’ll keep bringing it up until people vote in their favour, democracy right.
Because when you lose at bingo you just put a gun to the person spinning that ball thing’s head and tell them to draw again til all your numbers come up and you don’t have to shout bingo as you spray his/her brains over a row of single mothers just looking for an outlet.
Although the petition I saw for a second referendum turned out to be a scam or a 4chan prank because most of the millions of votes came from Vatican city and korea.
The triggering, it’s real, people on my feed are so butthurt, for a person who loves chaos like this, a fan of schadenfreude such as myself, this is glorious. I saw no real reason to stay in the eu other than the racist rhetoric and some sketchy stuff about jobs and maybe some warm and fuzzy ideas about staying ‘fwuends’ with the rest of Europe while they legislate on what kind of toothpaste we can use. Europe are our friends true, but they’re the type of friend that steals from you and puts up post-it’s all over the house telling you how hard you can flush the toilet to save on water.
I have nothing else really to say about it, I just saw this and I thought I would publicly revel in other people’s discontent because that’s just the sort of shitlord I am ha-ha. But I gotta say, for the first time I feel some sort of national pride it’s a strange new sensation.
And for the people on the remain side, in the immortal words of the philosopher known as Papa Franku; “I gotta little bit of that anal cream for your asshole”.
See ya around.
Here’s the latest edited chapter. It’s a slight change of pace, I hope you like it, it’s more development on a few of my favourite characters.
A bit of an update on my shiiiieeettt! I tried to start one of those novellas I talked about, just some short, under 40k story to keep me sharp and maybe pimp out to some anthology or something. But this new project I have pinned for nanowrimo is just too tempting to not fiddle with and instead I spent all day writing and assigning chapter titles from Nick Cave and Tom Waits songs haha.
It’s going to be in four parts, I’m really going to get my teeth into some neo-noire on this one kids. I have a good feeling about it, I can see it coming to an airport newsagent near you haha.
So that’s what I’ve been doing in between blogging and trying to get this zombsploitation printed.
As usual you can find the full chapter on my inkitt page for viewing on phones and tablets or whatever. Now begone with you I have a psychological thrill ride to plot haha!
Cheers.
~
“MOOOOOOMMMMMM!?!?” TJ screamed, frustration and a hopeless terror filling the emptiness in his chest. He heard the shower turning off and waited a few seconds. TJ breathed restlessly through his mouth, his throat burning, child tears queuing at the corners of his eyes.
“WHAT?” he heard as the bathroom door opened.
“WHERE’S MY STUFF???” he shouted, to stop from bursting into a tearful downward spiral of self-loathing and impending doom. He inflated his chest to keep his lungs from collapsing.
“YOUR LITTLE FRIEND FROM NEXT DOOR CAME OVER WHEN YOU LEFT. HE SAID, YOU SAID HE COULD BORROW SOMETHING FROM YOUR ROOM; IS EVERYTHING OK?” Her voice trailed off at the end and TJ felt pricks of looming dread on the back of his neck.
“YEAH MOM, JUST STAY INSIDE, I’M GOING NEXT DOOR!”
“OK.”
He picked himself up off his bedroom floor; he felt like throwing up. His legs were hollow and he struggled to stand, but he had no choice. He swallowed hard and put his hand on the knob of his bedroom door. He closed his eyes and whispered a pathetic prayer to any god that would listen. When he opened his eyes he was outside the door of his neighbour’s house.
The house was almost identical. It had been built at the same time, but apparently everything was the opposite way around. TJ had never been there before because his neighbours were massive douchenozzles. He had hated them since childhood, when they had poured lemonade on his head and rolled him in the sand pit. He got a good look at the interior purely because the door swung wide open as he put his hand on the knob.
The hallway was a crime scene: pictures smashed on the floor, furniture looking off kilter, shoes tossed aside, small drops of blood and a telling trail leading up the stairs. It looked staged, fake, like the set of some cheesy rural crime drama.
He stepped in through the door frame, gingerly trying not to touch anything or make a sound. But his visions of a silent entry were dashed by the distinct sound of glass crunching under the rubber sole of a ‘Dora the Explorer’ slipper. He mused to himself: why hadn’t he changed into some more practical shoes? Before he could put more thought into that vital question, his attention fell on a flashing battery light shining through a bloody shirt.
He pinched the corner of the shirt, bending at the knee as he leaned over an upturned wardrobe at the bottom of the stairs. He pulled the damp shirt towards him and it drew across the device with a slow stickiness, the damp blood throwing up a musty copper smell as he pulled it closer to him.
He pulled the shirt all the way off, revealing a small digital handycam: the same one they had used in the backyard to record their show. He picked it up slowly, by the handle strap, and turned it around to look at the viewfinder.
~
Frantic steps fell on the cold sidewalk across town. A shoe fell off in a desperate struggle to get off the street. Ankles twisting, people falling into the road. A quiet, slow rolling panic pouring out into the morning light.
The door of a small mom and pop grocery snapped shut. Three shadowed figures watched from the slats in the wood and glass storefront door as a slow boiling chaos milled around outside.
“What’s going on? Who are those people? Is it the army?”
“Shhh.”
An obnoxious car horn tore through the furious cacophony of anxious whispers. The small road, one of three that led out of town, was blocked by two large trucks, guarded by faceless men in black tactical gear. The car horn didn’t seem to bother them; they stood like wind-up toys, waiting to be over cranked.
The small town was a flat plateau; it was elevated, secluded, surrounded by a dense wood on one side, mountains all along the other, leaving few routes out. People came to live here for that seclusion. For the peace and the pine smell, fresh mountain air, clean water. Most of them commuted to work and lived in lavish suburban homes. The local businesses slowly starved together, only kept alive by a small contingent of hipster college kids, back for the summer, spending their parents’ money.
The roads leaving town were boxed in by these small storefronts.: some empty, some almost empty, boarded up; half the town seemed to be in boxes already. The trucks completely sealed the town. The line of cars was large. It was made up of early morning commuters and families leaving to visit relatives out of town. Mixed in were a sprinkling of nervous people who had seen something that deemed a quick exit. A subtle base level of fear was snowballing, passed back and forth between the people in the traffic jam, like a Ping-Pong ball covered in PCP. Impatient fingers drummed on steering wheels; a roll of cold sweat wiped away by a clammy hand; cacophony of throats clearing, reminding others of their existence. Children in buggies were reassured by uncertain tones from nervous parents.
A feeling of drunken mass hysteria was winding up for a curveball, the traffic jam growing larger and longer and less uniform, the people feeling more boxed in by the small sleepy store fronts. Glass and soft woods gathered dust, the bones of an old town looming over them like gravestones. A claustrophobic feeling closed in on them, suffocating their better senses, changing them into cornered animals.
~
Yo, just want to first tell the people who will reverse image search the header to go die in a fire ha-ha. (You’re doing it now aren’t you?)
Ok this is just a little update/buffer before I post a new chapter of GS, I dunno I just hate the look of two chapters together in my blog postings. It just looks lame.
So just gonna give a quick update on my writing. My brother recently came home for a visit, and brought with him an idea I thought I’d written down but seemingly did not.
He had mentioned this great documentary to me maybe a year ago but I never got around to watching but for some reason he felt the need to recant the story at the perfect timing of Green Sunday coming to a close.
Hearing it again just clicked perfectly with the timing. For at least a week I’ve been agonizing on what to do next, rifling through the cavernous files of all my ideas and loose story synopsises. Feeling a little like Goldie locks; ‘This is too short’ ‘Too long’ ‘Too weird’ ‘too stupid’ ‘makes no sense’ ‘oh that’s just an empty word file with a cool title’.
At that point I’d resigned myself to the idea of doing a few short stories or novelette just to pad out of my repertoire while I shill for GS and build on whatever I had planned for nanowrimo which was probably that Dexter fanfic I had rattling around in my tormented little head bowl. And I’m still probably going to do that just to pump up my views on inkitt page and what not, just to keep my head above water, maybe enter them in a few writing contests. I’m just dying to do something completely different and not have to be locked into this possibly yearlong commitment like with GS.
I really enjoyed writing that but towards the end I started to think if it really had an audience, and I sort of came up with all my best ideas for social commentary while writing it but it was too late to put them in so just pushed them off onto a sequel, that might never happen.
Anyway so I watched this documentary and instantly had before me at least 13 pages of raw notes and ideas of how to further the story and really make it my own. For anyone that hasn’t searched the image like the little Miss Marple’s you are, it’s a true story about a boy that goes missing but is then discovered in a foreign country years later.
The bones of the story are all lined up for a perfect faux murder mystery psychological thriller conspiracy story akin to the changeling. I just need to add the meat, my own characters, sub plot, the life and soul of the story. I’m going to breathe life into it and make it my own the only way I know how. Maybe add a little true detective/twin peaks “magic” ha-ha.
It’s something I’ve longed to write since I started, something dark and gritty and also melancholy and suspenseful with a truly captivating plot full of twists and turns and danger and intrigue of which I will add.
A gripping thrill ride that will have people’s head scratching weeks after and give them pause in their beds before they lay their heads down to sleep.
It’s still in the planning phases as yet, I only have 16 pages of rough synopsis, I’m going to go over it and see if I can double it, adding my own sub-plots and characters as the weeks progress. Alternating between writing the novellas I already have synopsisized (That’s a word) blogging and plotting this potentially award winning airport novel ha-ha.
Honestly I think GS taught me to not be so self-indulgent, I ned to focus on stories that will really make my mark, that will give me a voice and put my name on the map before I can re-visit ridiculousness of that calibre. It’s why I chose to side line the Dexter fanfic, it’s too self-indulgent, I can’t just finish a series I love and just think I can jump into writing the next wave of those books just yet. And even if I did, what am I going to do just ask Jeff Lindsay to endorse it, hope he’ll see that mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery and not sue me ha-ha. It’s something I’d love to do but I think I need to put it off til I get some leverage in the industry as opposed to the zero I have now ha-ha.
Ok so that’s what I’m doing, I don’t really have a title for this next project of which I will be doing for nanowrimo. The working titles I have right now are; “(The)Wanted Son/(The)Wanted boy/boy in the backyard/the boy that came back”.
I didn’t fuck around this time, I googled all those titles to make sure I would be the top search result if it was paired with the word ‘book’. My first title was ‘The stranger’, fucking retard I am. I’m not fucking around this time, I want this to be an original book title, that’s interesting and thought provoking and mysterious without being derivative.
All things aside my life pretty much fell apart a week or two ago, but to be fair I didn’t have much use for one any way, and it was definitely getting in the way of my writing. That’s all I can say on the matter really, I could sit and mope or I could ride the crest of this new wave of energy I feel from these new projects. Onward and upward and all that inspiring shit people say and don’t really believe ha-ha kill me :’).
No seriously, all good, I just need time and maybe prescription medication.
Oh shit, this would have been the perfect opportunity to write something about the Orlando shooting, fuck I’m self-centred, ah never mind, maybe next time.
Peace be upon you…. ALLAH AKBAR!!!!!!!!
Darkly Dreaming Demographic. 
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