At 45 degrees, the water began to tighten the muscles in his chest as he struggled weakly at his modified dog paddle. The term flash flood is used to alert residents to the potential for low-lying areas to be overcome with rain water that falls to quickly to be absorbed by the ground causing rising levels of flood waters.
Bert Erinson lived in a town in Arizona called Quartzsite between Phoenix and the California border. The chance of a flash flood was not taken seriously in this desert-land town. Even forecasts of rain were considered similar to bigfoot sightings. News reports had come in from Prescott that Chino Valley and Prescott Valley had experienced unusual weather patterns in the past few days, but so is the life of a valley town in some mountain ranges in the west. It was not unheard of for a valley town to have days of 80 degree sun baking weather to be hit in the middle of the night by snow fall from winds coming off the mountains.
Bert had moved back to Arizona after things back in the neighborhood in western Indiana near Terre Haute. He had lived there with his wife Erin for twelve years before Jonathan moved in and began buying up property. He and Erin had shopped feverishly when they were first married for what would be their first house together before deciding to buy into the Mayfair Meadows land development deal. They purchased a model home with two bathrooms and four bedrooms including a 2 car garage and a 1000 square foot kitchen with a built-in breakfast bar. It was a good sized home for a first home and they got such a deal, they never thought twice about the deal. They couldn't pass it up even if they did not own the land they lived on just like the rest of their neighbors.
After two years of marriage and multiple decor changes, Jonathan Kine from GEB Investments suddenly knocks on the door and offers the couple a half million dollars for their home. His firm was investing in building a large shopping complex south of Terre Haute and not far from the populous in the Rea Park Golf Course area with the majority of the money. He gives them 30 days to decide or be evicted since his investment company owns the actual plot of land under the house. The offer of money is being given to all of the home owners in the development as a sign of good faith and to keep angry headlines from dulling the shine on the potential money making venture.
Erin was set against selling and was prepared to retain a lawyer when Bert pushed her to reconsider. With the amount of money being offered, they could buy a larger home in one of the other suburbs, Bert argues.
"Emotions aside, a first home is a starter home," Bert said. "We've come to appreciate what it's like to live together and the small quarrels we have while trying to keep up payments on our mortgage. Isn't it time to 'move on up to the east side' as it were? We could live near the golf course and our finances could go towards only the extravagances we want instead of concerning ourselves with paying the bills. We could be free to live carefree the we we've always wanted. Just you and me hanging out by a nice pool. We could play some golf and take vacations whenever we want to."
"Or we could stay here and have a home that we earned for ourselves over years of school and career moves to bring us to where we are today. I don't want those carefree days as you call them. They were empty times. I want to move on. I want to grow up. I want to pay bills and work hard to support children. Plan for our future. If we have time to golf on occasion, we can do that, but I like my life of responsibility."
"That's a bit selfish. We have a unique opportunity and I'm going to take it. I don't want to pull rank on this call, but I am the primary on our mortgage since you were still finishing up school and had no income to support the mortgage. Start looking into a set of clubs, because we are going to accept that man's offer."
"That doesn't sound like the man I want to spend my life with or raise a family with. What happened to the guy that just wanted to finish his degree, start a life with me and enjoy the simple things. Why does the offer of money have to change all of that?"
"That guy in college was on a scholarship. He didn't have loans to worry about after school and didn't realize how slow promotions come in business around here. He thought he would have it easier than we do. Right now, you are the only part of this family I want to worry about."
"What do you mean by that?" Erin grasped for the stairway railing behind her dramatically. Bert thought she was being over-dramatic to guilt him into giving in to her. Her tone had begun to waver a bit like it did when she was getting angry with him. A tone he had grown to recognize far to often in their struggle to make ends meet in far too many months over the past few years.
"I mean that this is not the time to consider children. If we can't discuss this house sale business rationally, how can I consider having a child with you. In fact, I'm not that crazy about the idea of adding diapers and clothes they will outgrow in a matter of months to our already fleeting cash flow. So forget children." His relationship had blossomed on a different set of three words. These three would throw the rest of them away.
Erin walked out of the house slamming the door behind her. She would not return until late that night. That would be the last night they slept in the same bed much less the same bedroom. Erin did eventually retain that lawyer but in the arena of divorce. She was against the idea of the sale, but was entitled to half of the outcome after Bert had forced her from a home she had grown to love for money.
A few months after the divorce was finalized, Bert gave up his studio apartment in Terre Haute, as he was transferred to the Phoenix office. Due to the amount of travel now required between his office in Phoenix and a major client site in Palm Springs, Bert bought a small house in Quartzsite roughly half way between each city. His one bedroom one bathroom ranch style home was enough for what it was to him. A storage space for a bed and clothing. He ate on the road every meal now. His refrigerator had become a cold box for storing rancid milk and bad lunch meats.
Erin contacted him a year ago today about her new life. She still lived in Spring Hill and had even bought a house from Jonathan Kine in a new development he called the Lincoln Estates. After 8 years as a divorcee, Bert was now acutely aware that the business world in Indiana had caused him stress in his marriage and forced him to try and accept a money laden deal that ended up being pointless for the developer and investment firm. A couple days after he and Erin each moved to their respective home after the divorce, she called him to let him know they were tearing down the house on Wednesday and wanted to know if he would come with her to watch it happen. She hoped it would be cathartic, but they ended up arguing the entire time.
The shopping mall plans that had forced them from their home had never come to fruition. The zoning fell through and GEB ended up scrapping those plans and redeveloping the area into multiple small streets ending in cul de sacs formed like the spokes of a wheel with a large community building joining each of the street ends to join the home owners into one large community. His plan would double the number of people living in Spring Hill and maybe even bring better schools into the area for her future children. This was how she told him she had remarried and was pregnant.
Erin had begun dating her divorce attorney after Bert moved away and, as it turns out, the lawyer had also worked with Jonathan Kine on his zoning troubles. Thanks to his efforts, Eric Shine, had acquired one of the new homes in the new development for cheap and asked Erin to marry him when he brought her to see his new home.
They had been married a year when Erin called Bert and were now pregnant. She was on leave from her job at the university while she prepared for the birth of a son. She said it had all happened so fast and things were going so well for both of them now. She had let go of her resentment for how she and Bert had parted and wanted to wish him the best in his life. It was unfortunate the Bert's life was not going well, but he wasn't about to let her know how miserable he was. She may have let go of the resentment, but he had not.
He was prepared to explain how his life was now everything he had always wanted it to be hoping to end his sentences with things like "now that I don't have to support you" or "now that I don't have your negative attitude keeping me down", but was interrupted by a knock at Erin's door by another pregnant neighbor. She let him go and asked him to call her back sometime and to keep in touch. he would do neither before the news reports began coming in of the earthquakes in Mexico that sheared the peninsula including Cancun, where they had honeymooned, into the gulf. They estimated 30,000 to 40,000 people died and many were pulled under when the land mass sunk by a vortex effect by the suddenness of the sinking.
Two months later, electric generators in London exploded across the country leaving a million people without power. one month later, the power was still not repaired when the markets in Hong Kong shut down abruptly due to a sudden explosion somewhere underground that caused an aeration effect sinking much of Hong Kong's marketplace under a 1000 feet of dirt and soot.
Bert ran through some of these well known stories now as he struggled to keep his chin above water with his toes perched cautiously on the roof of his now submerged home in Quartzsite.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
Over the river and through the woods
The ivy managed to elude the typical distinguished appearance on the cabin in the woods. The fact that the green vines were interwoven in the logs like some rotting wicker basket gave Tim doubts as to his choice of a weekend getaway. If this house managed to stay standing after he finished knocking on the door, Tim would be amazed. The ad didn't call it a unique fixer upper or anything as cliche as all that. Rustic was the word used and adventurous was the type of person this place called for in the ad. Now he knew why.
Standing on the porch, he though he heard footsteps coming to answer the door, but they were too far apart and each striking thud made the house shake more and more. The porch shingles were beginning to slide off and hit the ground next to his Nissan. He loved that thing, but the appearance of the roof over his head falling apart did not send him running to save his car. However, it did leave him running.
Off the porch, Tim saw the sound was exaggerated by the woodwork and wasn't as severe as initially thought. Something was still pretty consistently striking the building and hadn't stopped. Around the side, Tim could see the far end of a clay basketball court. Expecting to find someone shooting at the near basket, he rounded the corner to find young boy tossing a basketball at the roof of the house. Near each strike but quickly fleeing was an orange cat.
"Do you realize this house could fall apart if you keep throwing that thing? It's barely standing in the light breeze already."
The boy appeared unsurprised and continued throwing the ball at the cat like some sick game of dodgeball. "I know. The roof collapsed last night killing Mr. Milson. They're talking about condemning it anyways which is why I'm trying to get Fantam off the roof. Last thing I need is my sister losing a cat that's too stupid to see this house is falling apart."
Another toss finally struck it's mark, but the cat didn't slide down the roof, but instead launched itself towards the other side and landing in the recently collapsed section judging by the sound.
"Oh crap. Missy going to kill me. I was supposed to look after her cat for the afternoon."
Tim sighed as he decided to make this his last action here before calling off his vacation in the woods and heading home. "Let's go see if the front door is unlocked."
The kid smiled and dropped the basketball next to the pole. They walked together around the front. Tim was a bit more hesitant than this kid, but he stepped up quickly when the kid tried to climb onto the porch across a railing as it gave way.
"Careful, kid! This wood looks like it's been rotted through for years. Can't you just walk around the front of the porch like a normal person?"
"It's Eddie. Don't call me kid." Unfazed, Eddie swung himself around the front post of the porch as a beam on the far end fell from the roof. Tim stopped cold outside of the frame of the house as Eddie barged through the screen door and kicked the front door in like a SWAT team on TV.
"Come out now, Fantam. We have the place surrounde..." His voice trailed off. He must have found the cat dead, Tim thought.
Through the door, Tim stepped cautiously over the threshold sure there would be unprotected nails ready to stab through his shoes. There in front of Eddie was the cat sitting on top of the collapsed roof boards licking the face of an old man crushed beneath the boards. Mr Milson, I presume, thought Tim. Nothing seemed to be surprising him anymore in this place after just a short time. This kid was odd as it was, but the body should have at least turned his stomach.
"I thought you said Mr. Milson was already found and taken out of here." Tim was a little confused if maybe the police had acknowledged his death, but was still investigating the cause. Maybe they ran out of police tape and took their chances that no one would touch the place. It appeared as if it had been untouched in the past 5 to 10 years as it was.
"That's not, Mr. Milson. That's Joe Thomas from next door. He's in the same place as Mr. Milson was last night, but he looks different. I found Mr. Milson when Fantam ran off yesterday in this area. He wasn't bleeding like that though."
Time looked more closely at the body and found there was a lot of blood coming from the chest of the body. He leaned down to move the boards a bit and dropped them quickly when he saw the five gunshot wound to the chest.
Damn it! There's no way I'm getting out of here now, Tim thought. The police will want a statement. "Let's go call the police, kid."
Tim hears a click as he turns for the door. "I told you not the call me kid." A flash of heat seems to beat the sound of the gunshot as Tim crumbles in a ball. Adventurous, my ass! These were Tim's last thoughts before he passed out.
Standing on the porch, he though he heard footsteps coming to answer the door, but they were too far apart and each striking thud made the house shake more and more. The porch shingles were beginning to slide off and hit the ground next to his Nissan. He loved that thing, but the appearance of the roof over his head falling apart did not send him running to save his car. However, it did leave him running.
Off the porch, Tim saw the sound was exaggerated by the woodwork and wasn't as severe as initially thought. Something was still pretty consistently striking the building and hadn't stopped. Around the side, Tim could see the far end of a clay basketball court. Expecting to find someone shooting at the near basket, he rounded the corner to find young boy tossing a basketball at the roof of the house. Near each strike but quickly fleeing was an orange cat.
"Do you realize this house could fall apart if you keep throwing that thing? It's barely standing in the light breeze already."
The boy appeared unsurprised and continued throwing the ball at the cat like some sick game of dodgeball. "I know. The roof collapsed last night killing Mr. Milson. They're talking about condemning it anyways which is why I'm trying to get Fantam off the roof. Last thing I need is my sister losing a cat that's too stupid to see this house is falling apart."
Another toss finally struck it's mark, but the cat didn't slide down the roof, but instead launched itself towards the other side and landing in the recently collapsed section judging by the sound.
"Oh crap. Missy going to kill me. I was supposed to look after her cat for the afternoon."
Tim sighed as he decided to make this his last action here before calling off his vacation in the woods and heading home. "Let's go see if the front door is unlocked."
The kid smiled and dropped the basketball next to the pole. They walked together around the front. Tim was a bit more hesitant than this kid, but he stepped up quickly when the kid tried to climb onto the porch across a railing as it gave way.
"Careful, kid! This wood looks like it's been rotted through for years. Can't you just walk around the front of the porch like a normal person?"
"It's Eddie. Don't call me kid." Unfazed, Eddie swung himself around the front post of the porch as a beam on the far end fell from the roof. Tim stopped cold outside of the frame of the house as Eddie barged through the screen door and kicked the front door in like a SWAT team on TV.
"Come out now, Fantam. We have the place surrounde..." His voice trailed off. He must have found the cat dead, Tim thought.
Through the door, Tim stepped cautiously over the threshold sure there would be unprotected nails ready to stab through his shoes. There in front of Eddie was the cat sitting on top of the collapsed roof boards licking the face of an old man crushed beneath the boards. Mr Milson, I presume, thought Tim. Nothing seemed to be surprising him anymore in this place after just a short time. This kid was odd as it was, but the body should have at least turned his stomach.
"I thought you said Mr. Milson was already found and taken out of here." Tim was a little confused if maybe the police had acknowledged his death, but was still investigating the cause. Maybe they ran out of police tape and took their chances that no one would touch the place. It appeared as if it had been untouched in the past 5 to 10 years as it was.
"That's not, Mr. Milson. That's Joe Thomas from next door. He's in the same place as Mr. Milson was last night, but he looks different. I found Mr. Milson when Fantam ran off yesterday in this area. He wasn't bleeding like that though."
Time looked more closely at the body and found there was a lot of blood coming from the chest of the body. He leaned down to move the boards a bit and dropped them quickly when he saw the five gunshot wound to the chest.
Damn it! There's no way I'm getting out of here now, Tim thought. The police will want a statement. "Let's go call the police, kid."
Tim hears a click as he turns for the door. "I told you not the call me kid." A flash of heat seems to beat the sound of the gunshot as Tim crumbles in a ball. Adventurous, my ass! These were Tim's last thoughts before he passed out.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Synonymous
Jim pulled up the Webster's dictionary home page as he did each day for work. He was part of the viral marketing campaign for a client's male enhancement drug and needed to pull together 5 more subject lines with synonyms for enlargement and male member to attempt to bypass the typical spam filter logic. Many email programs instantly dropped his ad messages before they reached the person's Inbox denying his clients sales and cutting into his revenues.
"Well, if I call it a bat I get club, but if I call it a club I could use bat, billy, bludgeon, cane, cudgel, nightstick, rod, shillelagh, staff, or truncheon. Rod has been overused and is too obvious, but billy would be a nice alternative to jimmy. Shillelagh might get me extra credit for the Irish reference." He often spoke aloud to work out the best sounding phrases and only his cat, Castro, ever listened to him these days. Castro has a black and grey present from his ex-wife. She had found him in an animal shelter with a tear in his left ear and quirky demeanor she felt fit her husband. The name Castro came when Jim found out the cat was caught wandering Cuba Street in the west end of town.
"For the verb, ram sends me to hit and hit gives me blockbuster, megahit, smash, success, and winner. Smash might be the was to go or maybe strike. Smash is no good, but strike sends me to impact which gives me bump, collision, concussion, crash, jar, jolt, shock, smash, strike, or wallop. How about a nice jolt from the shillelagh? Nah. A bit to complex. Help billy grow up for a nice shock. That's one. I'll keep that." The cat's response was well timed for Jim to take as agreement. He reached out to stroke his head out of appreciation.
"That's my audience alright. Thanks, pal." Jim began streaking the screen with his finger tips across the words pulled for impact when a shape appeared across the words cudgel and concussion before striking down against the back of Jim's head.
When he would awake, the irony would be lost on him.
"Well, if I call it a bat I get club, but if I call it a club I could use bat, billy, bludgeon, cane, cudgel, nightstick, rod, shillelagh, staff, or truncheon. Rod has been overused and is too obvious, but billy would be a nice alternative to jimmy. Shillelagh might get me extra credit for the Irish reference." He often spoke aloud to work out the best sounding phrases and only his cat, Castro, ever listened to him these days. Castro has a black and grey present from his ex-wife. She had found him in an animal shelter with a tear in his left ear and quirky demeanor she felt fit her husband. The name Castro came when Jim found out the cat was caught wandering Cuba Street in the west end of town.
"For the verb, ram sends me to hit and hit gives me blockbuster, megahit, smash, success, and winner. Smash might be the was to go or maybe strike. Smash is no good, but strike sends me to impact which gives me bump, collision, concussion, crash, jar, jolt, shock, smash, strike, or wallop. How about a nice jolt from the shillelagh? Nah. A bit to complex. Help billy grow up for a nice shock. That's one. I'll keep that." The cat's response was well timed for Jim to take as agreement. He reached out to stroke his head out of appreciation.
"That's my audience alright. Thanks, pal." Jim began streaking the screen with his finger tips across the words pulled for impact when a shape appeared across the words cudgel and concussion before striking down against the back of Jim's head.
When he would awake, the irony would be lost on him.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
She is what she is...dead
She was a zombie and a zombie, she was. She recalls ringing in her ears as truck hit the back of her bike and the front metal grill smashed into the back of her skull. She recalls the lights fading through the muffled gasps and screams of people around her for an ambulance. She even recalls the sense of cold as her heart stopped beating. What she does not recall is ever wanting to eat brains.
That was the stereotype from movies and horror novels. Undead beings roaming the streets without a thought in their heads only sensing the living and seeking the next meal hidden within their skulls like the crab shacks she used to go to while visiting family on the east coast. Now she only sees heat patterns in people and the shocked crowd backing away as she stands between the paramedics crouched and falling backwards as they had just pronounced her dead on the scene. She could see them clearly as she had to lift her head to see any direction other than straight down. Her neck muscles seemed to be failing her post-crash and she had to place a hand on each temple to direct her line of sight. It would be difficult to get back on her bike and ride home this way, but she had to get home. The remodelers were installing the granite counter top in the new kitchen today and she would rather die than miss that. She figured she could grab a handful of hair and ride home that way, but she was not about to mess up the 45 minutes of blow-drying from the morning.
As the masses parted, she could see the police coming forward tentatively with guns drawn. They were not sure what to make of this situation. It was not within the realm of standard police procedure, but coming back from the dead could be considered a time for "proceed with caution" and that's what they were doing now.
Becka reached down for her bike and stopped. Lying at her feet were both bicycle wheels stacked on top of each other. Each was still attached to the frame bent in half from the truck's front bumper crushing it as the bike turned sideways and the back wheel had caught on the pavement. With a shrug of her shoulders, she began to walk home directly in the path of the police officers aiming at her.
Through what seemed like miles of water, she heard a muffled voice screaming to her. It was the officer in front of her and he was shaking. One more step forward was greeted with a fiery flash and kick in the chest that knocked her over. The bullet had sailed through her chest and out the other side into the crowd hitting a man standing in the doorway of a shop nearby. He dropped instantly to the ground. Both bodies lay still for a moment as the crowd remained silent before both began to stagger to their feet.
That was the stereotype from movies and horror novels. Undead beings roaming the streets without a thought in their heads only sensing the living and seeking the next meal hidden within their skulls like the crab shacks she used to go to while visiting family on the east coast. Now she only sees heat patterns in people and the shocked crowd backing away as she stands between the paramedics crouched and falling backwards as they had just pronounced her dead on the scene. She could see them clearly as she had to lift her head to see any direction other than straight down. Her neck muscles seemed to be failing her post-crash and she had to place a hand on each temple to direct her line of sight. It would be difficult to get back on her bike and ride home this way, but she had to get home. The remodelers were installing the granite counter top in the new kitchen today and she would rather die than miss that. She figured she could grab a handful of hair and ride home that way, but she was not about to mess up the 45 minutes of blow-drying from the morning.
As the masses parted, she could see the police coming forward tentatively with guns drawn. They were not sure what to make of this situation. It was not within the realm of standard police procedure, but coming back from the dead could be considered a time for "proceed with caution" and that's what they were doing now.
Becka reached down for her bike and stopped. Lying at her feet were both bicycle wheels stacked on top of each other. Each was still attached to the frame bent in half from the truck's front bumper crushing it as the bike turned sideways and the back wheel had caught on the pavement. With a shrug of her shoulders, she began to walk home directly in the path of the police officers aiming at her.
Through what seemed like miles of water, she heard a muffled voice screaming to her. It was the officer in front of her and he was shaking. One more step forward was greeted with a fiery flash and kick in the chest that knocked her over. The bullet had sailed through her chest and out the other side into the crowd hitting a man standing in the doorway of a shop nearby. He dropped instantly to the ground. Both bodies lay still for a moment as the crowd remained silent before both began to stagger to their feet.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Connector: Part 1
He had forgotten who he was in that other world and rightfully so. Curtis had been blacking out for a couple of months, but had only recently sought medical advice for the condition. These blackouts would typically only happen at night at first and he would usually wake up in his own apartment. The location within his apartment could be attributed to sleep walking and the vandalism found in areas seemed to indicate he may have tripped over a coffee table or an ottoman while roaming.
The one piece he was no certain of it's meaning were the marks in groups of fives on the wall next to his dining room table. One morning he would awake strewn on his dining room table and find roughly 1800 scratch marks similar to those on old western, war and prison movies used to track the days of incarceration. That same day, he had returned from the hardware store with plaster patching putty and spent the rest of the day sanding down the dry putty and repainting to wall before he would awake on the table the next morning again with the same marks dug into the wall again save for the addition of one more mark for the new day. The carpet was riddled with paint drops and chunks of putty.
After one more attempt at a patch with the same results, Curtis gave up and attempted to cover the markings with a sheet of plywood screwed into the wall. He then hid his tool in a locked closet in the hallway outside of his apartment and went to bed. The following morning, he found the corners of the plywood firmly screwed to the wall while the remaining body of the wood panel had been hacked out with one of the steak knives from the set on his kitchen counter. It was still leaning against the wall covering some of the old markings. Curtis picked up the large chunk of wood with difficulty as he found his arms were well worn from what must have been an exhausting amount of effort to hack down the board in his sleep.
With a grunt, he chucked the remaining board against his couch with at soft bounce before it landed on his cheap coffee table. the weight of the plywood was well beyond the limits of the flimsy coffee table from the neighborhood salvation army store and one of the legs buckled and snapped off. After a slight burst of vulgarity aimed at the balsa painted a faux oak consistency, he turned to see the normal markings were different today. The previous counts were still there, but behind the newest mark was writing on the wall. After the last mark, he found the words "You can't keep me here forever!" in bold red letters. The closer he got to the wall and the writing, the more aware he was of the faded consistency of the ink used. It smelled slightly of decay and not of the intoxicating fumes of a red marker as he likely would have used in his slumber.
Some sections were stickier and thicker than others such as in the defiant dot at the bottom of the exclamation point and the long downward sweep of the letter "p". Curtis turned to get the paint from the closet when he noticed his front door was open. The chain was ripped from the wall as if forced by an outside intruder. It wasn't until he reached the door that Curtis saw the finger prints on the door in the same red as the lettering as if the door had been ripped open from the inside. On the faded yellow carpet in the landing, he noticed drops of red moving to the stairwell and then he heard the sirens coming down the block.
The one piece he was no certain of it's meaning were the marks in groups of fives on the wall next to his dining room table. One morning he would awake strewn on his dining room table and find roughly 1800 scratch marks similar to those on old western, war and prison movies used to track the days of incarceration. That same day, he had returned from the hardware store with plaster patching putty and spent the rest of the day sanding down the dry putty and repainting to wall before he would awake on the table the next morning again with the same marks dug into the wall again save for the addition of one more mark for the new day. The carpet was riddled with paint drops and chunks of putty.
After one more attempt at a patch with the same results, Curtis gave up and attempted to cover the markings with a sheet of plywood screwed into the wall. He then hid his tool in a locked closet in the hallway outside of his apartment and went to bed. The following morning, he found the corners of the plywood firmly screwed to the wall while the remaining body of the wood panel had been hacked out with one of the steak knives from the set on his kitchen counter. It was still leaning against the wall covering some of the old markings. Curtis picked up the large chunk of wood with difficulty as he found his arms were well worn from what must have been an exhausting amount of effort to hack down the board in his sleep.
With a grunt, he chucked the remaining board against his couch with at soft bounce before it landed on his cheap coffee table. the weight of the plywood was well beyond the limits of the flimsy coffee table from the neighborhood salvation army store and one of the legs buckled and snapped off. After a slight burst of vulgarity aimed at the balsa painted a faux oak consistency, he turned to see the normal markings were different today. The previous counts were still there, but behind the newest mark was writing on the wall. After the last mark, he found the words "You can't keep me here forever!" in bold red letters. The closer he got to the wall and the writing, the more aware he was of the faded consistency of the ink used. It smelled slightly of decay and not of the intoxicating fumes of a red marker as he likely would have used in his slumber.
Some sections were stickier and thicker than others such as in the defiant dot at the bottom of the exclamation point and the long downward sweep of the letter "p". Curtis turned to get the paint from the closet when he noticed his front door was open. The chain was ripped from the wall as if forced by an outside intruder. It wasn't until he reached the door that Curtis saw the finger prints on the door in the same red as the lettering as if the door had been ripped open from the inside. On the faded yellow carpet in the landing, he noticed drops of red moving to the stairwell and then he heard the sirens coming down the block.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Green is the end (not really)
It had been a few weeks since any of them had been back to the surface and a bit of cabin fever was setting in for the six survivors of the Taft attacks. Bill had been the one to admit that he had picked up the land line telephone when it rang out of an old habit from before they had known they were being monitored. The signal sent upon picking up the phone alerted those things to another town of inhabitants back on the grid. The attack did not last long and they were the last six of the twenty inhabitants of the small community of Taft, Iowa. The ground began to rumble as it has been found to do seconds before the bubbling begins and the creatures rise.
As far as they had been able to figure over the past couple of months, the completion of the "How Green Your Planet" campaign which successfully pulled the planet off of depending on any grids for power or oil for creating the power was the beginning of the nightmare. It was the dream the environmentalists had tauted for years and it finally came to pass. Families would power their homes for an eternity on the various devices granted by their government. Wind turbines now gained efficiencies enough to power a small city on just three well placed machines. Individual households did not use his power for themselves after the finding that various waves of sunlight have different energy levels that could now be harnessed with near total efficiency and zero loss. The sudden drop in carbon footprint and CO2 creation was nearly as much of a shock to the planet as the dirty plants people had created a century before.
The monitoring stations near the polar ice caps noted the recreation of many new layers and sizes of glaciers. This was the last report before the teams communications went silent. The best anyone could assume was that these groups could not fully survive on the power of the wind and the solar trappings were negated by the longer periods of night in that region of the planet. A few old gasoline powers generators still existed. The exhaust would have been noticeable now that it would have been one of a minuscule number of points on the earth still putting out that level of CO2. The video captured on the net camera setup at the station was murky due to the bubbling rise up from the ground. These oily things made their way to surface, presumably, by the lack of obvious life thanks to the greening efforts. They must have laid in waiting for their time to rise and over take us when our numbers were low.
The miscalculation on their part did not weaken their strategy and our slow realization that they were not friendly did not cut into their forces. The steaming oil shapes took out multiple researchers on the video before the camera seemingly melted. These kinds of attacks were reported over the following weeks as various towns and cities mistakenly attempted to use old oil based power sources at various times quickly followed by reported earthquakes in the areas. By the time they hit Taft, most of the country had been hit at various times. The Taft hit made it apparent that these things had begun monitoring other utilities to find survivors. That's how Bill's gaffe with the phone was detected. That's how the six of them had ended up in an abandoned fall out shelter from the 1950s and why the other five people were now preparing to mutiny against him and toss him to whatever fate may lie outside the shelter door still.
As far as they had been able to figure over the past couple of months, the completion of the "How Green Your Planet" campaign which successfully pulled the planet off of depending on any grids for power or oil for creating the power was the beginning of the nightmare. It was the dream the environmentalists had tauted for years and it finally came to pass. Families would power their homes for an eternity on the various devices granted by their government. Wind turbines now gained efficiencies enough to power a small city on just three well placed machines. Individual households did not use his power for themselves after the finding that various waves of sunlight have different energy levels that could now be harnessed with near total efficiency and zero loss. The sudden drop in carbon footprint and CO2 creation was nearly as much of a shock to the planet as the dirty plants people had created a century before.
The monitoring stations near the polar ice caps noted the recreation of many new layers and sizes of glaciers. This was the last report before the teams communications went silent. The best anyone could assume was that these groups could not fully survive on the power of the wind and the solar trappings were negated by the longer periods of night in that region of the planet. A few old gasoline powers generators still existed. The exhaust would have been noticeable now that it would have been one of a minuscule number of points on the earth still putting out that level of CO2. The video captured on the net camera setup at the station was murky due to the bubbling rise up from the ground. These oily things made their way to surface, presumably, by the lack of obvious life thanks to the greening efforts. They must have laid in waiting for their time to rise and over take us when our numbers were low.
The miscalculation on their part did not weaken their strategy and our slow realization that they were not friendly did not cut into their forces. The steaming oil shapes took out multiple researchers on the video before the camera seemingly melted. These kinds of attacks were reported over the following weeks as various towns and cities mistakenly attempted to use old oil based power sources at various times quickly followed by reported earthquakes in the areas. By the time they hit Taft, most of the country had been hit at various times. The Taft hit made it apparent that these things had begun monitoring other utilities to find survivors. That's how Bill's gaffe with the phone was detected. That's how the six of them had ended up in an abandoned fall out shelter from the 1950s and why the other five people were now preparing to mutiny against him and toss him to whatever fate may lie outside the shelter door still.
Friday, April 25, 2008
A Movie Script is born
"Night falls on darkened city. No lights illuminate the skyscrapers tonight. I beautiful woman walks warily down an alley try to get home in the midst of the darkness. The darkness breeds the kind of hooligans a long standing power outage might. Those on the verge of riot without the conviction gained be a promise of long term radical loss of creature comforts. A beer bottle smashes to the street behind her as a couple of men step out from the shadows into...well, more shadows, but not as much shadow. The kind of less shadow that still has a bit of moonlight to make them visible enough to be menacing. The shorter one has his hand behind his back as he calls out for her to stop and come with them for her safety."
"She begins to run, but falls and looks up in time to see 5 men coming from another direction. One of them taunts her making lewd and threatening remarks and pulls out a gun. The shorter man yells back that she is with them and the other 5 can not have her. The one to speak first pulls out his gun and fires at the taller. Nothing but a metallic clang is heard because he shot the robot. Oh, yeah. I forgot. They are in the future and the shorter guy travels with a robot. The robot has infrared sight, so he is not concerned about the night since he can see everything no matter the amount of light. And, of course, he's a robot."
"The man with the gun fires at the shorter man this time, but hears the same metallic clang because he hits the robotic part of the shorter man's body. Oh, right. He's part cyborg on his mother's side. Not like a genetic cyborg thing, but her family is a bunch of scientists that helped rebuild him after a tragic lawn dart incident paralyzed him before another tragic lawn mowing incident. He didn't die because it was a manual mower and the guy pushing it was blind, but has since been fired. That leads to a discrimination lawsuit and the blind man wins the right to everything the family owns including the man he ran over because of the cyborg implants. So he makes him fight crime even though the shorter man was an old timey soda jerk by trade."
"To make a long story short, it's a love story and a buddy cop type movie as well. There are some trials, struggles and comical fish out of water story lines about being a machine in a human world, but they all learn to trust in goodness of humanity and there's a car chase too. Yeah, and maybe the car explodes. I'm still working that part out. I don't have the full plot together, but the title is going to be TinWalker, Texas robot ranger. I'm thinking we cast Chuck Norris in it somewhere as the chief and maybe that kid who played Darth Vader as the robot."
A rush of water fills the urinal as Martin Scorsese turns toward the bathroom attendant pitching his idea.
"If the robot can secretly be Hitler, I'm in."
Welcome to film making in the 21st century.
"She begins to run, but falls and looks up in time to see 5 men coming from another direction. One of them taunts her making lewd and threatening remarks and pulls out a gun. The shorter man yells back that she is with them and the other 5 can not have her. The one to speak first pulls out his gun and fires at the taller. Nothing but a metallic clang is heard because he shot the robot. Oh, yeah. I forgot. They are in the future and the shorter guy travels with a robot. The robot has infrared sight, so he is not concerned about the night since he can see everything no matter the amount of light. And, of course, he's a robot."
"The man with the gun fires at the shorter man this time, but hears the same metallic clang because he hits the robotic part of the shorter man's body. Oh, right. He's part cyborg on his mother's side. Not like a genetic cyborg thing, but her family is a bunch of scientists that helped rebuild him after a tragic lawn dart incident paralyzed him before another tragic lawn mowing incident. He didn't die because it was a manual mower and the guy pushing it was blind, but has since been fired. That leads to a discrimination lawsuit and the blind man wins the right to everything the family owns including the man he ran over because of the cyborg implants. So he makes him fight crime even though the shorter man was an old timey soda jerk by trade."
"To make a long story short, it's a love story and a buddy cop type movie as well. There are some trials, struggles and comical fish out of water story lines about being a machine in a human world, but they all learn to trust in goodness of humanity and there's a car chase too. Yeah, and maybe the car explodes. I'm still working that part out. I don't have the full plot together, but the title is going to be TinWalker, Texas robot ranger. I'm thinking we cast Chuck Norris in it somewhere as the chief and maybe that kid who played Darth Vader as the robot."
A rush of water fills the urinal as Martin Scorsese turns toward the bathroom attendant pitching his idea.
"If the robot can secretly be Hitler, I'm in."
Welcome to film making in the 21st century.
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