WRITING CHALLENGE

[BloodyMonkeyZ]

This is a community writing exercise. The only thing missing is the community. There are a few rules to it.

Each entry is 250 words. That is a firm requirement. Move the story along but do it with an economy of words.

I guess there is really only the one rule. So without further ado, I will post the opening entry.

One more...Write the story in this thread but do NOT respond to the story here. This is just the story. Make comments about the story in a separate posting.

Bloody MonkeyZ

[BloodyMonkeyZ]

Cold water and instant coffee grounds weren't the best way to start off the morning, but starting a fire for a cup of coffee wasn't worth the effort. Besides, hot coffee was pretty low on the day to day luxuries that were no longer available to him. Frowning, he ran his hand through the course beard covering his face and longed for the days of a twenty five cent disposable Gillette razor.

A rifle shot shattered the early morning silence. Instinctively Doug dropped to the floor and squinted out the window at the sky. A futile effort. Since his glasses broke, anything beyond 50 feet was nothing more than a blur. Inching forward he pushed himself up to look outside and screamed out in pain. His coffee mug had broken and he just put all his weight onto his hands, his left hand had unfortunately been hovering above a ceramic sliver which was now embedded in his palm.

Blood and coffee mingled on the hardwood floor. The mystery of the rifle momentarily forgotten as the reality of blood and pain focused his thoughts. Carefully he stood up and looked for something to wrap around his hand. A towel near the sink caught his eye and he moved towards it just as another shot broke the silence as well as the window.

Panic gripped his chest as he gripped the towel and spun away from the window. His secluded, off the beaten path cabin was suddenly a bit too well known.

[BloodyMonkeyZ]

Ridiculously, he couldn't find his socks. What kind of planning was that? Hunted by the scourge of humanity, without socks.

Too late now. He shoved his naked foot into the Hi-Tec boot, struggling to loosen the laces. He could already hear their subhuman chattering, smell their secretions. But no, that was just something in his mind engaging in hyperbole, fucking with him at the moment of truth. The boot wouldn't give way; then he realized that he was trying to dress while glancing nervously out the window. Still couldn't see them. Had to calm down; had to concentrate. Finally he got his foot into the boot, and he hurriedly tied up the laces. Next foot.

Then he saw something, a black carrion beast in the sky, like a helicopter but enormous and sleek and replete with alien technology. Surely it saw him, a tiny red speck on an infrared screen. The US Army, if it had still existed, would have seen him through these thin cabin walls.

In maybe a fifth of the time it had taken him to slip the boots over his naked feet, he threw on his jeans and shirt and jacket and dove through the trap door. He crawled through the narrow tunnel, hoping that the wooden supports were solid. On his belly like a snake -- that was all the human race was now -- as he heard the dull hum and then a whoosh as the cabin behind him burst into flames.

***Posted by Bookhoard and moved by Bloody MonkeyZ.

[Nickolas Cook]

Out into the woods again, that familiar sense of dislocation assailed his senses, as he kept low to the ground, making his way through the dew ripe underbrush, sliding along the damp ground, panting for air. How many times in the last year had he run for his life like this? He would miss the forest. He’d come to enjoy the woods. That sense of seclusion, a pastoral barrier between his dream of safety and life and reality.
His hand was still seeping blood through the towel, and he feared the spoor would allow his hunters to more easily track his escape route. For he knew the black beats above was only the aerial part of the assault. There would be more hunters on foot.
Escape...where the hell was he supposed to go now?
This cabin had been his last refuge in a world gone mad. There were few places not under their control these days. And sure as hell they weren't easy to reach on foot.
So he needed some transport. That was all there was to it.
He scuttled further away from blaze, hoping the stench of the burning cabin would cover his scent.
Whoever was shooting had to have had a way here. He scanned the overgrown road ahead. He doubted anyone would have traipsed fifteen miles from the nearest country highway to reach his cabin. One of their alien ground vehicles, maybe. He’d had to drive one once…long ago…back when there’d been something worth fighting for…before Tina’s death.

[Martel Sardina]

Can’t bring her back, Doug thought.

He should’ve known better. That all her talk of hocus-pocus and voodoo was a load of crap. Sure, he’d seen the priest raise the dead. Dead animals, but never a human. Tina convinced him that it was possible. That she would come back. He believed for a while. But then days turned into weeks and when the priest disappeared, Doug knew that it was over. Tina was gone for good.

Still, he couldn’t bring himself to leave the cabin, to leave this piece of land. The gods of the hollow lived here. Paths worn in forest by their celestial footprints converged on a clearing, the crossroads, where Tina was buried. Doug had to admit that there was something special about that place. The fire ravaged woods to the north held the decaying skeletons of once majestic oaks. The headwaters of the river that ran behind the cabin to the east originated there. Red streaked marsh mud separated the paths from south and west. When he’d packed the last shovelful of the clay laden soil down on Tina’s grave, he felt older than time.

They’ll come for Tina.

Doug shivered as the priest’s warning echoed through his mind. He ducked behind the rotting trunk of a fallen tree. He saw the Jeep. The grunt in the passenger seat was fumbling with two-way headset, trying to relay his position.

I can’t let them find her, Doug thought. He unsnapped his knife’s sheath.

[brainbaby]

The driver and Grunt, who were distracted by the troublesome headset, did not notice Doug crawling on his arms and knees toward the woods. Unfortunately, the- men?- in the helicopters did see him. Just as he reached the tree line, the helicopter opened fire on him. The two in the jeep looked up in surprise, still fiddling with the headset. He stood, knife in hand, and ran. The towel on his hand began to come loose.

Frustrated, he took off the towel and threw it back. No time to bother with false trails. They won’t help me now. Doug glanced around. He'd reached a clearing of sorts where it looked as if a fighter jet had crashed. Probably from during the invasion. He kept running. This time a false lead would be extremely beneficial. He grabbed at a tree, smearing blood on it. Running back to the rubble, he dove inside the burnt cockpit. The broken window he'd dove through had cut his arm. He tore the bottom of his dirty shirt off and wrapped it around his new cut and tore a similarly soiled piece of cloth from his sleeve for his hand.

He glanced at the pilot of the fighter jet and tried not to cough up bile. Looking back at the broken window, he used his shirt to wipe his blood off of the broken glass carefully. That taken care of, he ducked under the pilot’s arms, which were still attached to the steering wheel, and hid.

[BloodyMonkeyZ]

The driver stepped from the vehicle, leaving his inept communications partner in the Jeep frantically telling the chopper to stop shooting at them. From the back of the Jeep he removed a sleek black cylinder.

The bloody rag was less twenty yards from him. Closing that distance, he knelt down and placed the cylinder next to it. Rotating the foot long cylinder, he found the entry hole he was seeking. WIth both hands resting on top, he examined his hands. Both were missing entirely the pinky and neighboring finger. The remaining digits all were missing up to the first knuckle. Making the decision, he raised his left hand and extended his middle finger straight up before plunging it halfway into the hole.

CRUNCH. Calmly he pulled his even shorter finger away from the hole. He picked up the rag and waited.

The cylinder split open emitting a hideous odor and black cloud of gas. Three long spindly legs rose up from the shell with a small bulbous mass at their center connecting them. The entire thing stood barely a foot off the ground. Unmoving. Waiting.

The driver held the rag beneath the mass. A tentacle wormed its way down to the rag and touched it. Slowly moving across its surface, noting the difference between the hand that gave it life and the bloody rag offered. Suddenly it lunged down, opening up exposing hundreds of miniature razor teeth and the rag disappeared.

The genetic tracker was ready.