January 8: Story so far
PS photo cable is still AWOL. Photos for yesterday may or may not appear in their own post at some point.
Sun3
The name’s Bind. Jimmy Bind. On mission to China. I can tell the flight attendant wants me diced on a tiny tray. Time for some airline food.
*
He comes at me with a poison toothpick. I click my pen and squirt gas in his eye. He reels and hits the Wong twins. Two Wongs make it right.
*
The Wongs knock the flight attendant out cold. I unclick my pen and accidentally poison myself. When I wake up, we’re in Beijing. Smooth.
Mon4
Tracked the faux attendant to a meeting in Chinatown. Too bad Beijing IS Chinatown. Got distracted buying shoes. Stumbled across baddie.
*
Baddie is Mr Fu. The girl with him is Yen. I chase him and he throws a shoe at me. It explodes. He runs. I bind my wounds with duct tape.
*
I follow Fu and corner him in an alley. He throws some kung fu, and I throw some bricks. “Who’s your boss?” I scream.
“It’s her!” he weeps.
Tue5
I’ve a yen for Yen. She’s small, dark, and deadly, like an expresso. I track her by smell and find her sleeping. “Where’s the jewel?” I ask.
*
She yawns, briefly distracting me. Her leg wraps around my neck (also distracting). Suddenly she yields to my good looks and leans closer.
*
I wake up strapped to the side of the Great Wall; tied firmly with two rolls of my own duct tape. Curses!
Wed6
After a surprisingly good night’s sleep, I notice writing on the wall: “Forgive me, mother. The ruby is at. . .”
I fall.
*
I fall among Shaolin monks, who immediately attack! Luckily I have my blow-up gum and I spit it at them just in time. Kaboom! No more monks.
*
Due to budget cuts, my car is a matchbox car. Luckily it has vertical grip and a camera. I discover the ruby is at Solo – in Indonesia.
Th7
I go shoe-shopping, hoping to dispatch Yen and/or get hiking boots before I leave. An old saleswoman is suspiciously attractive.
*
I neck-chop the woman and she says blearily, “Yen? Is that you?”
“Yes,” I say (femininely).
She says, “Your stupid brother stole the ruby.”
*
Is my wall-writer Yen’s naughty brother? Is Fu as powerless as he seems? Is the boss Yen or her Mum? And are these boots the best or what?!
Fri8
Another flight. Fu appears dressed as a fat woman and slips me a note. “Meet me in Solo,” it says – “come solo!” I nod.
*
“Yen’s my sister,” Fu explains over unripe-coconut milk. He tells me to search in the temple.
I put sleeping-gas in his drink just in case.
January 6: Blow-Up Gum
I stumbled across this story just after writing “The Spy Who Shoved Me”. It’s horrible, tragic. . . and funny.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/981756/exploding-gum-kills-chemistry-student
January 4: Chinese Phrases (contains swearing)
January 3: Bind Your Mind
Welcome to your new theme and new story, “The Spy Who Shoved Me”. (The actual tweets will appear late tonight, since my parents are posting them – China doesn’t allow twitter at this time.)
Our hero is Jimmy Bind, the lovechild of James Bond and someone even prettier.
He speaks thirty-two languages fluently (and none of them are Klingon), can shoot a thread through a needle at three hundred paces, and is so handsome 33% of women who observe him on the street faint instantly.
His tools include:
Sleeping gas pen.
Blow-up gum.
Two matchbox cars (including matches and gunpowder)
Piercing blue eyes.
A whole lot of high-quality duct tape (or gaffa, as we call it in Australia).
The Spy Who Shoved Me: The Scenic Tour
“The Spy Who Shoved Me” doesn’t start until tomorrow, but it’s (mostly) set in China, which is (coincidentally) where I am right now. My partner and I are visiting my brother-in-law who is living in Beijing because of its thriving music scene.
I’m blogging in detail at https://felicitybloomfield.wordpress.com and I try to make it entertaining. Beijing is bitterly cold, but it snowed last night. We visited the Temple of Heaven today, which is inside an enormous park-like area.
To put the scale a little into perspective – the building at the end of this avenue is not a building, but just one of many gates between different areas within the “park”.
Here’s some roof detail (from a mere storeroom) – and no, I don’t know what the wire is for:
Some ceiling detail (from the Vault of Heaven – another store room):
Beijing is very polluted it’s true, and the weather is almost always hideous – but it’s a beautiful city, and strangely peaceful.
Daylight Day 90: Character Mash-Up
I awoke with a blood-soaked neck. Still not EMO. . . oh wait, yes I am. Finally I understand that everything sucks. Still glued to window.
*
The sun climbed the sky. Sparkles danced across my skin like annoying little angels of joy. Bleaugh! Stupid Christmas! Stupid glue!
*
The sparkles ended, and I felt hungry for leftover Turkey instead of blood. I’m not EMO any more, hurray! Now if I could just unglue myself.
——————————————
This is a game a friend showed me (usually played with your twelve favourite characters from any media):
Ten twittertales characters (from the first three stories – the third begins on 3 Jan 2010):
1. Sol the crazed pirate (brought up as a princess until she fled)
2. Ulandin, her disturbingly loyal first mate (and the narrator of the first twitter tale)
3. Jimmy Bind, ridiculously handsome hero of the spy tale beginning Jan 3
4. Bell, dopey girl with EMO boyfriend
5. Ed, her EMO boyfriend, who wants to drink her blood
6. Yen, the circus-raised Chinese super assassin (January story)
7. Pi, the genius ten-year old
8. Boy, the mysterious shipmate who doesn’t obey the laws of nature (gravity, physics, etc). Or magic (rules, limitations, etc)
9. Fu. He is Yen’s sister, a supervillain with mother issues (also a master of disguise) – from the spy story
10. Mrs Fu, mother to Yen and Fu, likes blowing stuff up (spy story).
11. (Can’t think of any more fictional characters) Louise Curtis (my G/PG rated self)
12. Felicity Bloomfield (mostly myself, but not quite. Obsessed writer)
1. Who would make a better college professor, #6 Yen or #11 Louise Curtis?
Louise Curtis. She/I do a lot of teaching. Yen would get annoyed and snap someone’s neck.
2. Would #2 Ulandin win the award for Cutest Guy of the Year?
No. He’s okay-looking, but if he won Captain Sol might notice he looks nice, and kill him. (She doesn’t approve of attractiveness, due to being raised as a princess.)
3. #12 Felicity Bloomfield sends #8 Boy out on a mission. Does it succeed? What is it?
Oh, that’s complex. It’s rather circular, since Boy is (sort of) Felicity’s creation, but Felicity is the creation of God, who Boy is based on. If I dared send him on a mission, it’d probably be for money. It’d succeed if he felt like giving me money. It’s far more likely I’d get frustrated and yell at him a lot. (That’s pretty much how my prayer life is, every day.)
4. What would #9’s Fu’s favourite book be?
3001 Beards for Serious Beard Artists.
5. Who would swear fealty to whom, #2 Ulandin or #6 Yen?
Ulandin’s already sworn fealty to Sol, so he’s all full up as far as devoting one’s life to a dark-skinned insane and beautiful woman with a bad childhood goes. (There’s a certain worrying similarity in my femme fatales.) Yen would try to seduce him, fail (because he loves Sol), and kill him. Probably with a single blood-red fingernail. (Thus the answer is: neither.)
6. #5 Ed needs a roommate. Who would be better, #9 Fu or #10 Mrs Fu?
All he wants is blood, and perhaps a Linkin Park record or three. But it’s established that his own mum turned him EMO, so perhaps Mrs Fu wins this one.
7. #2 Ulandin, #7 Pi and #12 Felicity Bloomfield have dinner together. Where do they go, what do they discuss?
Definitely at Felicity Bloomfield’s house, since (a) she’s a bit agoraphobic, (b) she gets seasick (which means Ulandin’s place won’t work), and (c) Pi is ten, so he’s unlikely to host. Plus she’s the mutual friend.
Ulandin loves kids, so he and Pi would get on very well (the disparity in IQ wouldn’t bother Pi – he’s used to it). Ulandin’d probably tell some amazing stories of the high seas. Or they’d talk about how to survive roomies who want to kill and/or eat you. Felicity would be in a corner, taking copious notes and muttering to herself.
8. #3 Jimmy Bind challenges #10 Mrs Fu to a duel. What happens?
That more or less happens in the tale, so I can’t tell you 🙂 But she’d probably use her mad fighting skills and he’d probably use some gaffa tape.
9. If #1 Sol stole #8 Boy’s most precious possession, how would he get it back?
Boy’s most precious “possession” IS Captain Sol. He wins her back by letting her know he cares for her, then backing off – for several decades.
10. Suggest a title for a story in which #7 Pi and #12 Felicity Bloomfield both attain what they most desire.
Pi would probably want a Nobel Prize. Or social skills. Felicity Bloomfield wants to have her books published. So the solution is for Felicity to write a bestseller in which Pi has social skills.
11. What kind of plot device would you use if you wanted #4 Bell and #1 Captain Sol to work together?
If the EMO plague spread to Captain Sol’s ship, it MIGHT be bad enough to make Sol allow another woman on board. Plus that’d make for plenty of tension – nice! Except Bell is so limpid I don’t really want to work with her again.
12. If #7 Pi visited for the weekend, how would you get along?
I like ten-year olds. I’d probably be patronising, then awkward once I realised he’s fifteen times smarter than I am.
13. If you could command #3 Jimmy Bind to perform any one task for you, what would it be?
He’s incredibly multilingual and has lots of powerful connections. I bet he could make a difference to third world poverty.
14. Which of your friends is most like #11 Louise Curtis?
Heh. Me, obviously. Probably Chris M, because he seems like a cheerful, good-hearted person. (My other friends more closely resemble Felicity Bloomfield, who means well and is intelligent and compassionate, while also being hopelessly mentally ill. Hi guys 😉 )
15. If #2 Ulandin had to choose sides between #4 Bell and #5 Ed, who would he choose?
Bell. He’s hard-wired to rescue the girl.
16. What might #Mrs Fu shout while charging into battle?
Death to everyone!! (but she’s say it in Chinese)
17. Which song represents #8 Boy?
Amazing Grace
18. #1 Sol, #6Yen and #12 Felicity Bloomfield reach for the last crumpet. Who wins?
It’s definitely not gonna be Felicity. Thankfully she’s intelligent enough to flee if Sol and Yen were in the same room. Sol and Yen are both small, psychotic, and deadly. Yen has formal fight training (plus greater flexibility), but Sol has magic. And Sol isn’t bothered by pain. So Sol wins. (Thus answering the pirate-vs-ninja debate, because Yen has, among other things, ninja skills.)
19. What might be a good pick-up line for #2 Ulandin to use on #10 Mrs Fu?
“Killing the world is a perfectly legitimate and feminine goal.” And he’d mean it, too.
20. What would #5 Ed most likely be arrested for?
Sucking the blood of innocent folks. (Too bad that would never happen in “Twilight”.)
21. What is #6’s Yen’s big secret?
That whole circus upbringing wasn’t meant to happen. If anyone in the spy community asks, she was raised by Shaolin monks. Or wolves. Or bears. Or pirahnas.
22. If #11 Louise Curtis and #9 Fu are racing, who wins?
Fu. Simple main character syndrome. (Characters are, on average, faster, stronger and smarter than nonfictional folk.)
23. Who would you feel safer with walking through a bad neighborhood? #7 Pi or #8 Boy.
Boy. He makes Sol and Yen look like little girls kicking his shins.
24. #1 Captain Sol and #9 Fu reluctantly team up to save the world from the threat of #4 Bell’s sinister secret organization. #11 Louise Curtis volunteers to help but is secretly in league with #4 Bell. Bell has kidnapped #12 Felicity Bloomfield to force them to surrender. By the wise advice of #5 Ed they seek out #3 Jimmy Bind to complete the quest. Title and story?
Body and Sol
So Bell’s turned EMO and kidnapped Felicity Bloomfield in order to hold Louise Curtis at bay (that’d work). Captain Sol lets Bell drink some of her blood (since Sol spills it so freely anyway) to distract her while Fu and Jimmy Bind overcome their differences and use a SuperSpy Secret Formula (TM) to finally cure the EMO menace (again).
Daylight Day 89: New Year’s Resolutions
Ate three advent calendars’ worth of chocolate before remembering I had a plan. Too bad my mouth was full. The EMOs closed in.
I pelted the EMOs with sweet delicious chocolate. Their mouths were hanging open for my blood, so I got the chocolate in. But no effect!
“Happy New Year!” I screamed. While they contemplated their 2010 life goals I ran to Mum’s sunroom and superglued my face to the window.
—————————————————–
In 2010 I want to:
1) Get in the healthy weight range and stay there for twelve months.
2) Do a better job of managing the household finances (After 11 months of marriage, I think I’ve JUST got the hang of it. Maybe.)
3) Get at least one book accepted for publication.
I think numbers 1 and 2 are highly plausible. Number 3 has been highly plausible for years. I have three good chances in the first three months, though, so maybe 2010 is the year it’ll finally happen.
My three good chances are:
1) “Stormhunter” which has been almost published twice. It’s now VERY late back (a good sign) from one of the publishers who liked it before (I edited it a lot as per their comments and it’s now MUCH better than it was).
2) “Farting my ABCs” which is a brand new book, and funny. It’s technically late back, but I don’t expect a reply until late March.
3) “Miss Adventure” which I sent to a much smaller publisher (which should mean it’s less competetive, plus this publisher has a particular leaning that suits “Miss Adventure” very well).
In my fantasy world, they’d all say yes, and the first company would ask for the rest of the series. Which would neatly sell every single book I’ve written (except for the ones I’ve thrown away, and except for the National Novel Writing Month book, which needs many months of editing). Since young adult and children’s books are worth $3000-$5000, that’d add up to at least $18,000. (More, if they’re successful.)
What’s your plausible (and implausible) aims/fantasies for 2010?
Daylight Day 87: Further Zombie Apocalypse Advice
They begged me to stop singing. I negotiated a deal for three hundred chocolate-filled advent calendars. One last cunning plan. . .
———————————
With thanks to http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/04/how-to-battle-z/
How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse
- By David Hambling
- April 3, 2008 |
- 8:02 am |
- Categories: Weapons and Ammo
You’ve found out how to take down 500-foot monsters, and learned the secret to terminating Terminators. Now it’s time for the ultimate challenge. How you should arm yourself to survive a zombie apocalypse?
Step one, Know Your Zombies.
The idea of the zombie derives from Voodoo lore. Voodoo (or voudou or vodun) is a much maligned and misunderstood religion; the popular idea of it in the United States and Europe is about as close to the reality as Satanism is to the Catholic church. Anyone using voodoo for evil (a bokor) is the equivalent of the guys who carry out ceremonies in deserted churches with pentagrams and goat’s blood.
In any case, zombies do not feature in the original West African voodoo; the idea of a person drained of their soul and forced to obey a master only appeared in the Americas. These we could class as Natural Zombies. If you believe anthropologist Wade Davis, these are created by poisoning the victim with ‘zombie powder’ which includes puffer fish venom (tetrodotoxin). Supposedly this causes a death-like coma and brain damage which turns the victim into a pliable slaves. These zombies are harmless; you don’t need to shoot them, but watch out for the bokor who controls them.
Then there are Supernatural Zombies, corpses possessed by spirits or demonic powers. If they are animated by angelic spirits (as in the Rime of The Ancient Mariner), then they are here to help. If they are animated by something demonic (as in The Evil Dead), then firearms may be of limited use as they are beyond the laws of nature. Consult your priest, Rabbi, guru or shaman for further advice. Unless you’re one of the ultra-cool gangsters in the terrific zombie/yakuza flick Versus, that is — in which case, gunning down zombies is all in a day’s work.
However, mostly you’re likely to encounter the type of Alien Zombie favored by Geroge Romero. These are reanimated by an extra-terrestrial force; this is an infectious form of zombiedom that seems to be spread via biting. They are oblivious to most injuries but can reliably be taken out by destroying their brain.
When battling this type of zombie, you are basically trying to stay alive and get to a place of safety, as there are likely to be far too many for you to defeat them.
One tempting option is to go out there with a flamethrower. Zombies may have a natural aversion to fire, you should be able to ignite several of them with one burst, and it looks spectacular – there’s a video of a demonstration here. However, if you check the specifications it has some serious drawbacks. The U.S. Army’s M2-2 flamethrower weighed about seventy pounds, and is effective out to around fifty yards, but the big limitation is ammunition:
a fuel tank holding 18 liters of gasoline, enough for approximately five bursts of two seconds each.
So you’re probably better off with a conventional firearm. At least this is one area where we are spared the interminable debate of 9mm v .45 handguns and 5.56mm v 7.62mm. Unlike living humans, stopping power counts for nothing as far as zombies go; it’s all about shot placement. (And reliability – take at least one back-up gun in case you get a jam or run out of ammo at a bad time.) Anything larger than a .22 will do the job, so long as you’re capable of putting a round squarely though the head. And this is very much harder than you think.
In a firing range, anyone can reliably hit a man-size target. In real combat, you will probably miss most of the time. This is borne out by an analysis of armed encounters involving police officers:
The police officer’s potential for hitting his adversary during armed confrontation has increased over the years and stands at slightly over 25% of the rounds fired. An assailant’s skill was 11% in 1979…
In 1992 the overall police hit potential was 17%. Where distances could be determined, the hit percentages at distances under 15 yards were:
Less than 3 yards ….. 28%
3 yards to 7 yards …. 11%
7 yards to 15 yards . 4.2%It has been assumed that if a man can hit a target at 50 yards he can certainly do the same at three feet. That assumption is not borne out by the reports.
An attempt was made to relate an officer’s ability to strike a target in a combat situation to his range qualification scores. After making over 200 such comparisons, no firm conclusion was reached.
The situation is much worse with zombies. The target – the brain – is very much smaller than with humans, and if you are a trained marksman you will reflexively aim at the body. Police officers are professionals who spend long hours training for close-quarter encounters; you probably don’t. And while the adrenaline factor may be high when you’re facing an armed suspect, a horde of shambling undead takes the terror to a different level.
You are liable to waste a lot of ammunition, so bring plenty. Some favor extended magazines, like the 90-round clip for AR-15/M-16 rifles or 33-round magazines for your Glock handgun. These are fine, so long as they are reliable and you have the discipline not to just keep firing until you run out.
Human factors are probably much more important than hardware. Stay cool, and keep moving. Bring a friend or three, so long as you can count on them not to scream, panic or cause friendly-fire incidents. Zombies are liable to come from all directions at the same time; you don’t get bonus points for killing more of them, so just do what you have to in order to get to safety. And watch out for the ones that are just playing dead. (Actually, they really are dead…but you know what I mean.)
Some sort of protective gear might be handy -– but can you afford to be slowed down? Do you carry something like a sword or a chainsaw for very close encounters, or are you dead by then anyway? Can you dazzle zombies with a flashlight? Any additional suggestions for zombie-fighting are, of course, welcome.
Daylight Day 87: Guest Author
Still not EMO, despite being locked in basement by evil clone. I hate it when that happens. Discouraged the EMOs briefly by singing carols.
—————————————————–
This is by our old friend, Gertrude, to finish off the guest author series.
Abreaction
“Are you an alien?” Patrick asked, as bluntly as he could.
The man gazed at him calmly. He seemed to be considering his answer.
“Yes, Patrick,” he finally said. “Everyone on this ship is an alien.”
Patrick tried not to show it, but, even after all that he had seen, this admission still chilled him to the bone.
He looked closely at the man seated across from him.
He perfectly resembled the stereotypical psychiatrist, with his neatly clipped beard, receding hairline and big, unblinking eyes.
There was something vaguely unsettling about him, but he was still by far the most human thing that Patrick had seen in the hours since he had woken to find himself in this small white cube of a room. He still had to fight his feelings of claustrophobia as he looked at the smooth featureless walls, unbroken by any visible means of entry or exit.
This strange man had finally entered by somehow stepping through the walls themselves.
“Then why don’t you look like the others?” Patrick asked.
The man extended an arm. It slowly dissolved into the fleshy, writhing tentacles that his captors seemed to consist of.
“We are natural shapeshifters, Patrick. I thought I would make you feel more comfortable. You seemed to find our natural appearance… disturbing”
The tentacles changed back into an arm.
“Why are you here?” Patrick asked, trying to keep the hysteria out of his voice.
“I just want to talk to you” the man replied.
“No, I mean here on this planet.” He paused to gather strength to ask the ridiculous, terrifying question that had haunted him for hours.
“Are you going to invade?” he asked.
The man stared at him levelly. “Would it make you uncomfortable if were to say yes?” he asked.
“YES!” Patrick shouted.
The other just sat there calmly.
“You’ll fail,” Patrick growled, struggling to sound convincing even to himself. “We’ll fight back! We’re stronger than you think!”
“No, Patrick,” the man said quietly. “Our agents have already infiltrated all levels of Earth society. When the time comes, the battle will be over long before any human knows that it has even begun.”
Patrick wasn’t sure if he was more horrified by the words or the total tranquillity with which they were spoken.
The man suddenly opened his mouth and a series of hissing, liquid sounds spilled out.
Patrick flinched. He was about to ask what it meant when he noticed that the man’s huge, dark eyes were no longer quite pointed at him.
He spun around.
One of the aliens had entered silently and was standing directly behind him.
He leapt up and pressed his back firmly against the wall. “What’s happening?” he demanded, his voice shaking. “Who is this?”
The man made a soothing noise. “I was hoping that you might let my friend sit in on our little chat.”
Patrick forced himself to look over at it. It was hideous – like a man-sized bush made from hundreds of writhing, throbbing tentacles. He noticed that this one had an unusually long, pale tentacle, no thicker than a walking stick, growing from where its head should have been. It was thrashing back and forth wildly, and its excitement increased even more the moment that he looked at it.
Patrick shook his head furiously. “No! I don’t even want you here. I certainly don’t want that.”
The man seemed somehow disappointed. He said something more in that strange, flowing language.
The monster stood there for a moment, suddenly going still everywhere except for its excited head tentacle. It slowly turned to leave, the wall rippling as it crawled through it.
Patrick had the strange feeling that he had upset it.
Good.
“Well, if we can continue…” the man said smoothly. “What can you tell me about your mother?”
Patrick blinked in disbelief. He refused to believe that he was being held captive by the alien Sigmund Freud.
The man was as serene as always. “Would you prefer to discuss your childhood?” he asked.
Patrick put back his head and laughed hysterically.
The man seemed totally unfazed. “What would you like to discuss?” he asked.
Patrick looked at him, a million obscene responses buzzing in his head, but then he remembered the one thing that he actually did want to talk about.
“How about how you kidnapped me? How about that? How about how you killed my friends? Why don’t we have a nice ‘chat’ about that?” he glared.
“Certainly,” the man replied. He seemed almost pleased. “But first, please come and sit back down.”
Patrick was about to refuse when his interrogator suddenly continued. “Remember that that’s not just a wall, it’s also a door.”
Patrick had an abrupt vision of one of the creatures unexpectedly pressing through behind him.
He sat back down.
“Tell me, what do you remember about last night?” the man asked.
Patrick snarled. The memory was hazy, but the relevant details were all there.
He could remember walking with his friends, Steve and Harry, talking and laughing. They were in the middle of nowhere, walking towards the car that would take them back to civilisation. He remembered that there was someone waiting for them in the car, sitting behind the wheel. He couldn’t remember who.
They were almost there when it happened.
He remembered the sudden noise.
He remembered turning.
He remembered seeing the ship.
He remembered running.
He remembered the blind terror.
He remembered…
The memory was fragmented, vague. He couldn’t recall…
And then one final nightmare image came to him.
He remembered Steve, lying on his back. His glassy eyes were staring blindly off into space. Most of his head had been blown away. A constant geyser of blood was spewing from his mouth…
Patrick passed out.
The man was leaning over him.
“You fainted,” he observed casually.
Patrick tried desperately to lift himself from where he was sprawled across the floor. He eventually managed to half-sit, panting and nauseous with the exertion.
“Do you wish to discuss your recollections?” the man asked.
Patrick stared up at him with searing hate. “No, I don’t,” he hissed. “You know what happened; you were there. All of you murdering monsters were there.”
He tried to sit up more, never shifting his gaze from his captor’s face.
“What is the point of all this? Why don’t you just kill me too and get it over with?”
The man’s face was as rigid and expressionless as a mask.
Patrick finally managed to fight his way to his feet, leaning heavily against one wall.
“I don’t know what you want from me, but you’re not going to get it. So you can just go now, because I’m not going to say another thing.”
He stood there unsteadily, trying to look much stronger than he felt.
The man continued to give him his calm, blank stare. Patrick did his best to return it, his anger for the moment overruling his terror.
The man finally gave a little nod. “I see that we will have to try a different approach,” he said, then turned and melted his way through the wall and out of the room.
Patrick collapsed heavily. He felt that he had won a victory of some sort, but couldn’t help feeling that it would likely be short lived.
Hours passed as he laid there.
He tried to come to terms with his imminent death. He knew about the aliens, about their plans, there was no way that they could let him go now.
Sobbing quietly, he thought once again of his wife.
They were just about to have a baby.
Before he had left he had promised her that he would stay safe, that he would return to her, no matter what.
Patrick glanced up.
Something was happening to the opposite wall.
A section of it was opening up like a flower, its centre slowly growing more and more transparent. It was becoming a window.
Patrick looked through it in disbelief.
On the other side was the creature that had wanted to listen in on the earlier conversation. The weird little tentacle on its head had begun to writhe with excitement the moment that he had become visible.
Patrick stared at the monstrosity on the other side of the glass, hating it.
How dare it take him away from his wife and child.
What was its bizarre fascination with him? He sat for a long time, imagining all of the things that he would like to do to it if he only got the chance.
Finally, just as he was dozing off, the man returned.
This time he wasn’t alone.
Walking in behind him were two heavily built companions. All three stopped and stared at him with identical expressions on their bland faces.
Patrick quickly realised that these new arrivals were aliens also.
All of his attempts at struggle were unsuccessful. Soon, each of his arms was being securely held by one of the beefy aliens and, at his interrogator’s orders, he was bundled out through the wall and into the body of the ship.
Patrick found passing through the walls a profoundly unpleasant experience. He could feel their warm, pulsing substance pressing itself thickly against him as he somehow slipped through to the other side. He always emerged gasping for breath.
The ship’s interior was a profound disappointment. It seemed to consist purely of featureless white rooms and corridors of varying sizes. As he was forced down a particularly long corridor, he was suddenly struck by a strange sense of familiarity – then he realised that he had most likely been taken to his cell via the same route. He still had no recollection of it, though.
Finally, they passed through one last wall and into the sunlight.
Patrick gasped in disbelief.
The ship had returned to the exact spot where it had picked him up.
He was lead down the ramp and onto the ground. Patrick wanted to throw himself to his knees and kiss it, but he was still being heavily restrained.
Then they all stopped.
After a few long moments, Patrick glanced over at his former interrogator, vainly hoping to read some faint trace of intention on his face.
He just stared back, blank as ever.
And then Patrick realised why they had brought him here.
They were going to kill him.
His disappearance must have been noticed. But it would no longer be a mystery when his body was eventually found lying not far from here, showing the signs, no doubt, of some perfectly ordinary demise.
The three all slowly turned to face him. They seemed to be expecting something from him.
Patrick tried to return their stares unafraid. He wasn’t entirely successful.
But then, over to their left, there came a sudden, sharp sound.
With lightning speed, the three turned towards it. Worried, evidently, that someone else had seen their craft land and was hiding nearby.
Patrick was unimpressed. He knew that it was most likely a rabbit or something similar, and besides, he was just about to die.
His two guards stretched their necks out to get a better look at the place where the sound had come from.
They seemed awfully distracted.
Realising his chance, Patrick wrenched himself free of their grasp. With the superhuman strength borne of pure adrenalin, he shoved one and sent him stumbling back against the other.
And then he ran.
He heard the sudden cry of “Stop him! Bring him back!” from behind him, but his attention was only on what lay in front of him.
He had never run that fast before, his legs moved in a way that he wouldn’t have believed humanly possible. He felt himself cut through the air, his flight powered by pure, liquid terror.
Just like last night.
His feet pounding against the ground, not knowing how close his pursuers were behind him, he ran, desperately, madly dashing for safety, for his wife…
He felt a sudden cold stab in the pit of his stomach and knew that he had just passed the spot where Steve and Harry had died. Looking ahead, he could see exactly where the car had been parked, and just over there was that thick, dark bush where…
Suddenly it all came back to him.
He remembered how he had been walking along, Steve and Harry by his side. He’d been mid-sentence when he’d heard that loud, fear-crazed shout.
The first volley had immediately killed the driver of the car and blown the windows into thousands of glistening fragments of glass.
They had barely had time to react before they came under fire.
Harry had been closest and had died immediately.
Steve had tried to run, but had only been able to take two sprinting steps before he too was cut down.
And he remembered, suddenly remembered, how their attacker had leapt out from behind the bush, screaming, machine gun blazing.
He remembered how, in that one indescribably horrible second before half of his head had exploded into burning oblivion, how he had desperately, madly, tried to throw himself ahead, to safety, into the ship…
Patrick skidded to a stop.
For just a brief moment, he stood there, staring off into the horizon.
Then, slowly, he lifted his forearm to his eyes and, watching carefully, felt the familiar sting as he dissolved it back into its component tentacles.
He remembered his years of undercover work on Earth, imitating the natives so closely, so carefully, that he’d almost managed to convince even himself that he was…
He suddenly realised how beautiful his wife had looked when she had interrupted his conversation with the ship’s doctor.
And his son! He had grown so much! Soon he would be able to detach from her and begin his own life.
He had been so excited – Patrick hoped that he would understand why he hadn’t recognised him.
The heavy footsteps came to a halt behind him.
For a moment there was silence, then the doctor’s voice began. “We don’t know how the human got word of our rendezvous point,” he said. “But his attack was more effective than we would have expected. By the time the ship’s emitters could be brought to bear…”
Patrick suddenly noticed a large burn mark on the ground.
The doctor paused sorrowfully. “We were too late for your companions, but we did manage to restore you.”
Patrick nodded slightly, still staring off into the horizon.
Then – after taking one long last look at the beautiful world that would soon be theirs – he turned and began walking back towards his ship.
Daylight Day 86: Prepping for the Zombie Apocalypse
Mum, Dad, Pi and I hid on Mount Stromlo. The Mums found us – Mums always know where to look. Mum3 dragged me off while the others fought.
*
“It’s polite to share,” Mum3 smirked. She locked me in our basement and said, “We’ll ALL see you soon. . . sweet, delicious heart.”
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While our hero prepares to get eaten by vampire clones of her parents, it’s a good time to work on your own zombie apocalypse plan.
Here’s all the info you’ll need:
http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/zombies
And, while we’re here, a link to an article on your truly:
Felicity Banks 