Ok, this is interesting. And you mentioned elsewhere that this is supposed to be a zombie tale (shouldn't you have mentioned that back in January?) which means this probably isn't a snake-bite treatment. Right? Right.
Mine "That doesn't like she's sucking the venom out of a snake-bite," he said. My hand reached for his, for reassurance, and found it. It was colder, clammier than I'd have liked. I didn't want to think he might be scared too. "Help me!" the woman raised up on her elbows had seen us. Her words were abruptly cut off as she started screaming again and the blonde lowered her head and continued doing whatever she was doing. "How did we miss them?" I said. It was stupid, did it really matter at that point? But my brain seemed to have frozen and was assessing the scene inch by inch, addressing each point as it found it instead of taking in the whole and dealing with the horror. He pulled his hand from mine and strode across the blood-slicked grass and grabbed the blonde's head and pulled her up and away from the other woman. The scream changed pitch, getting higher, then cut out abruptly and the woman slumped down, her arms splaying to the sides and her head bouncing off the ground. The blonde struggled for a moment in his grip then spat something aside -- it looked like a lump of meat -- and changed her stance, reaching for him in a bear hug. "Look out!" I yelled, but he was just pushing her head back, not seeing the danger he was in. Without actually thinking about it I must have moved, must have run across the intervening space because with my next thought I had hold of her around her waist, squeezing tightly and pulling her backwards to stop her getting hold of him. There was a thick, horrible smell in the air and I could taste something metallic in my mouth. She felt wrong; her skin seemed to undulate in my grasp as though something else were moving underneath it. Then her hair came free, ripping off the top of her head like some obscene wig and I fell backwards pulling her on top of me. She crushed the air out of my lungs and her head only just missed slamming against my nose, and blood from her scalp arced overhead like a monochrome rainbow.
Then her weight was hauled off me and he threw her -- I've never even seen him hit a woman! -- across the grass. She skidded where she fell and just lay there. I struggled to breath, gasping and whooping for air and he knelt beside me. "Take the deepest breaths you can," he said. "Hold them. You'll get your breath faster that way." "I -- I -- I did -- the -- same first -- aid course -- as you," I managed. My breathing started to calm down. "The woman who was being attacked?" He stared into my eyes for a moment, which helped as well, and then with a rough caress of my hands he went to see to her. While I sat up and stared fixedly at the blonde who seemed not to be moving much. "Either dead or unconscious," he said, returning to me. His face was pale and there were lines in it that I never saw unless he was dog-tired. He shrugged. "There are bite-marks all over her -- no, don't go looking. It's not nice. I think she hit her head on a rock; if there's a pulse I can't find it. She might be alive, but...." "We can put her in the car and take her with us," I said. "We can leave Blondie over there though."
Then another scream came from the direction of the car park.
Greg - I said that I think Nicky would like it to be a zombie story. And so I've been trying to steer it in that direction, but finally realized that probably wasn't going to happen unless I said something outside the story (generally speaking I don't like to give that much direction with these things, so I was hoping to avoid it).
Anyway! We've still got 8 months to go after this installment, so plenty of time to wreak havoc :)
Mine:
We both stared, trying to see who was doing the screaming this time - or what - or who - was causing it. No movement could be detected from where we were crouching, just the godawful screaming.
"We need to get out of here," he said, grabbing me by the arm. "This place has gone insane. Come on."
"What about her?" I asked and he turned reluctantly to look at the woman we had rescued. Or attempted to rescue, at any rate. "We can't leave her."
"If she's not dead she might as well be," he said, his eyes on my chin, my right cheek, my left ear - anywhere but my eyes. "Dragging her to the car will slow us down and we need to move fast."
"You remember the two person seat carry from that first aid class?" I asked, pulling my arm free and moving to her side. It was an effort to not look at her injuries. "I think that's our best bet."
"Have you lost your mind? We need to go, now! Are you even listening?"
"One arm under the shoulders, one arm under the knees," I told him as he came and knelt on the other side of the woman's limp body. We finally made eye contact. "We're not leaving her."
"Fine," he said gruffly after a too-long pause. "But if making it to the car safely means dropping her, I'm dropping her. Understood?"
"On three," I said.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered, shaking his head. But when I said "Three!" he lifted with me and we shuffled for the parking lot, angling away from the screaming as though we'd both agreed that saving one person was enough good Samaritan work for one day. And maybe we had. But acknowledging that would have also meant admitting we'd come to regret the one we were still attempting.
When the screaming suddenly stopped as we returned to the parking lot neither of us looked back.
2 comments:
Ok, this is interesting. And you mentioned elsewhere that this is supposed to be a zombie tale (shouldn't you have mentioned that back in January?) which means this probably isn't a snake-bite treatment. Right? Right.
Mine
"That doesn't like she's sucking the venom out of a snake-bite," he said. My hand reached for his, for reassurance, and found it. It was colder, clammier than I'd have liked. I didn't want to think he might be scared too.
"Help me!" the woman raised up on her elbows had seen us. Her words were abruptly cut off as she started screaming again and the blonde lowered her head and continued doing whatever she was doing.
"How did we miss them?" I said. It was stupid, did it really matter at that point? But my brain seemed to have frozen and was assessing the scene inch by inch, addressing each point as it found it instead of taking in the whole and dealing with the horror.
He pulled his hand from mine and strode across the blood-slicked grass and grabbed the blonde's head and pulled her up and away from the other woman. The scream changed pitch, getting higher, then cut out abruptly and the woman slumped down, her arms splaying to the sides and her head bouncing off the ground. The blonde struggled for a moment in his grip then spat something aside -- it looked like a lump of meat -- and changed her stance, reaching for him in a bear hug.
"Look out!" I yelled, but he was just pushing her head back, not seeing the danger he was in. Without actually thinking about it I must have moved, must have run across the intervening space because with my next thought I had hold of her around her waist, squeezing tightly and pulling her backwards to stop her getting hold of him. There was a thick, horrible smell in the air and I could taste something metallic in my mouth. She felt wrong; her skin seemed to undulate in my grasp as though something else were moving underneath it. Then her hair came free, ripping off the top of her head like some obscene wig and I fell backwards pulling her on top of me. She crushed the air out of my lungs and her head only just missed slamming against my nose, and blood from her scalp arced overhead like a monochrome rainbow.
Then her weight was hauled off me and he threw her -- I've never even seen him hit a woman! -- across the grass. She skidded where she fell and just lay there. I struggled to breath, gasping and whooping for air and he knelt beside me.
"Take the deepest breaths you can," he said. "Hold them. You'll get your breath faster that way."
"I -- I -- I did -- the -- same first -- aid course -- as you," I managed. My breathing started to calm down. "The woman who was being attacked?"
He stared into my eyes for a moment, which helped as well, and then with a rough caress of my hands he went to see to her. While I sat up and stared fixedly at the blonde who seemed not to be moving much.
"Either dead or unconscious," he said, returning to me. His face was pale and there were lines in it that I never saw unless he was dog-tired. He shrugged. "There are bite-marks all over her -- no, don't go looking. It's not nice. I think she hit her head on a rock; if there's a pulse I can't find it. She might be alive, but...."
"We can put her in the car and take her with us," I said. "We can leave Blondie over there though."
Then another scream came from the direction of the car park.
Greg - I said that I think Nicky would like it to be a zombie story. And so I've been trying to steer it in that direction, but finally realized that probably wasn't going to happen unless I said something outside the story (generally speaking I don't like to give that much direction with these things, so I was hoping to avoid it).
Anyway! We've still got 8 months to go after this installment, so plenty of time to wreak havoc :)
Mine:
We both stared, trying to see who was doing the screaming this time - or what - or who - was causing it. No movement could be detected from where we were crouching, just the godawful screaming.
"We need to get out of here," he said, grabbing me by the arm. "This place has gone insane. Come on."
"What about her?" I asked and he turned reluctantly to look at the woman we had rescued. Or attempted to rescue, at any rate. "We can't leave her."
"If she's not dead she might as well be," he said, his eyes on my chin, my right cheek, my left ear - anywhere but my eyes. "Dragging her to the car will slow us down and we need to move fast."
"You remember the two person seat carry from that first aid class?" I asked, pulling my arm free and moving to her side. It was an effort to not look at her injuries. "I think that's our best bet."
"Have you lost your mind? We need to go, now! Are you even listening?"
"One arm under the shoulders, one arm under the knees," I told him as he came and knelt on the other side of the woman's limp body. We finally made eye contact. "We're not leaving her."
"Fine," he said gruffly after a too-long pause. "But if making it to the car safely means dropping her, I'm dropping her. Understood?"
"On three," I said.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered, shaking his head. But when I said "Three!" he lifted with me and we shuffled for the parking lot, angling away from the screaming as though we'd both agreed that saving one person was enough good Samaritan work for one day. And maybe we had. But acknowledging that would have also meant admitting we'd come to regret the one we were still attempting.
When the screaming suddenly stopped as we returned to the parking lot neither of us looked back.
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