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| Powderhorn's Zombies; Some spur of the moment writing. | |
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| Topic Started: Jul 8 2013, 12:43 AM (252 Views) | |
| Powderhorn | Jul 8 2013, 12:43 AM Post #1 |
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Scharfschütze
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Every once in a while I find myself sitting down, and thinking to myself, "OK, I should be doing X, Y, Z" right now. Take this moment, for instance. I could totally be studying up on things I will literally be saving lives with. I could be resting up so that when I'm shoving needles and tubes and medications into people tomorrow, I'm as mentally alert as I could possibly be. I could be knocking out a paper ahead of time, or tidying, or doing any number of things to reverse the natural atrophy of a lazy summer. Instead, I feel the urge to write. I'm not even sure what I want to write about. I could go stream of consciousness and just write about what comes to mind, but then it would be "Oh, I should totally put those two bullets back where they belong, do I want to buy another can of soviet ammo? I'll have to move it in a month anyway, what can I ship out to Kentucky before I have to drive it? I hope my jeep makes it that far", but anyway, all that is really just cheating anyway. Who wants to read stream of consciousness? But I want to write something anyway. The preceding (and maybe even the following) are really just me typing a bit to put thoughts down, to see what might spring from them. Maybe an adventure! So many daily worries, wouldn't it be nice if all you had to do was worry about day-to-day survival? The question becomes so much more immediate and all-consuming. Life becomes all or nothing from one hour to the next, and if that doesn't focus you, then nothing will. So why not that? Let's talk about zombies. Why not? World War Z came out (and apparently it had nothing to do with the book), and the Walking Dead is pretty popular, and it really does just take the guilt out of killing people anyway. Let's be honest, we all wish there were some people we could knock on the head without any repercussions. Historically, there were numerous officers who were just schmucks who took a friendly bullet, and I'm sure that will continue to happen. So let's say, hypothetically, people just start turning to zombies. I don't know why, but let's just say it's happening. Right now. (Locations and names changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike.) Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep, the pager chirped loudly at me, it almost vibrating off of it's precarious perch on my electrical set. Meant to put that back in my jeep, I'll do it later, I thought to myself. "All fire, all ambulance monitors, stand by for announcements. Please respond to your stations and stand by. There have been nation-wide reports of people attacking other people, shuffling along, and attempting to eat each other. There is currently no known cause. Stand by at your stations for further instructions. Repeating, all fire, all ambulance monitors, stand by for announcements. Please respond to your stations and stand by. There have been nation-wide reports of people attacking other people, shuffling along, and attempting to eat each other. There is currently no known cause. Stand by at your stations for further instructions." I had to double check. I was at my computer anyway, I pulled up a couple news sites. Facebook was blowing up, the BBC's top stories were showing a world-wide epidemic. Drudge Report had it in big red letters with flashing lights next to them. That sounds a whole lot like zombies to me. This is the moment I've been waiting for, right? Not getting bogged down with an ambulance though. Damn thing never runs right on a good day, and the last thing I want is people swarming to me. I reached for my phone, and gave my friend Joe a call. "Hey man, you hear that over the pager?" I ask him. "Yah, you going down to the station?" "Nope, what good are we going to do with that thing? The drugs in there are for code reversals and shit. Besides, I want to be on the move." "Where to?" "Meet at my place? Throw some sort of kit together. You know what I mean." "Be there in 30, sit tight and hold the fort." I had some impromptu packing to do myself. I'd had a bag ready for this sort of thing for a while anyway, just because I had so much of it left over from the military. Still, I'd cannibalized parts of it over time for various camping trips and the like, and I had to hastily put it back together. There were only a few things out of place, easily put back: A microfiber towel, my old combat knife I swapped a German my K-Bar for back in Afghanistan, and of course, my sunglasses and my toiletry bag. I still had some time, and I still had quite the arsenal to pick from. I was torn between grabbing my gorgeous M1A and my Mosin-Nagant. Both were sighted in, but the Springfield had a more powerful scope on it, a Leupold 3L. The barrel was a little light for my tastes, but 7.62 NATO was, in theory, easy to come by. Still, I'd had issues in the past with it double-firing and jamming, and as the barrel heats up, the shots tend to spiral outward. It was a hard decision, but ultimately, I knew what my choice would be. I cleared off the table, and started laying out guns and ammunition. An old WW1 Mauser was laid down with a half empty crate of ammunition next to it. My Father had another such rifle upstairs, and they might as well have two that shared a munition type. My muzzle loaders laid out alongside, a pair of cartridge boxes, on the table next to them. One, a Civil War variant, had a faded "US" in brass on the front. The other, a soft supple brown leather, more akin to the French and Indian War. I doubted anyone would use them, but, who was I to judge? They were gorgeous rifles anyway. The house was empty save myself, and I doubted anyone would be back in a long time, if ever. But I always wanted to help people willing to help themselves, and I wrote out a quick set of instructions on a bit of paper. Bolt action rifle is a WW1 8mm Mauser, German. Five round, internal magazine, no bayonet for it I'm afraid. Selector switch is on the back of the bolt, it is currently all the way to the left. Left is fire, upright will allow the action to work, but not the trigger, right keeps the bolt closed. A second WW1 8mm Mauser is upstairs, and takes the same ammunition. If you need the muzzle loaders, you know how dire your straits are already. I'm sorry. A flash of inspiration came to me, and I remembered I wanted to grab my old pea coat. Not only was it warm as anything I owned, and I fully intended to live to and through a New York winter, it also had my old rank on it: A white crow, as we called it anyway, in reality an eagle, sat atop a caduceus with two red chevrons underneath. Anyone looking at me would know I was a military type of medic, and sometimes that authority helps out. I quickly rolled it up and tied it underneath the frame of my ALICE pack, and grabbed one last rifle for myself: A Moroccan Mauser from the 1950's. It was short, it was accurate, and it was chambered for 7.62 NATO, just like my M1A. Joe pulled up soon after, his silver mustang looking soggy from the rains we just had. My pager had gone off again some time ago, but had been silent ever since. Odd, as they usually put out three sets of tones. I figured they were gone already, which was a bit surprising. Moving that quickly? Wonder if they were pre-infected or something. Anyway, Joe pulled up, like I said. He had a camping pack of his own, and had it packed out pretty heavily. More food than I carried, not that I blamed him. I was carrying 300 rounds of 7.62 NATO, and that gets heavy. I tightened down the thumb-screw holding the PU Scope to my Mosin-Nagant, and handed it to him. There was a bullet band on the stock with nine yellow tipped rounds, and I told him off the bat, "Loaded. Range card under the band." The range card was something I had worked out a while back. You know, "just in case". It had things like bullet drop at different distances, range estimations based on how people looked in the difference, and what range to adjust your scope for when shooting at angles, and all neatly sealed away in a ziplock bag. "Well, I'm thinking north," I said to him. "Lots of forest up there, nobody'll bother us. Unless you have another thought in mind?" "Sounds good man. Hope my daughter's doing alright out in Rochester." "Sure she's fine, but... let me just take care of a couple more things here." See, the house had a lot of animals in it. Five cats, two dogs. The cats, I figured they could fend for themselves. The dogs... Well, one was so old he wouldn't even walk out the front door if he didn't have to, and he would often just stop in the middle of the road when his legs wore out. The other was younger, happy, and full of nothing but energy. I couldn't let Champ get eaten by zombies. I called him down into the basement, and coaxed him out the back door. The house was built on a hill, and I played with him a good long moment, petting him while he was barking happily. I stood up, heaved a deep sigh, and put my Moroccan carbine behind his head, squeezing the trigger. The dog's body slumped immediately, and I rolled his corpse down the hill. He was too damned big to bury, but it would have to do. I chambered another round, and flicked the safety over to the right with my thumb. I walked back upstairs, and looked Joe in the eyes. With a barely noticeable nod from each of us, we walked out the front door. I gave a sharp whistle, and Casey came bounding behind me, and then running up the hill, thinking she was going for a walk. It would be the longest walk of our lives. Or at least, I hoped we would be able to walk that far. _________________________ I'm not sure why exactly I felt like writing this. But I did. I may even continue writing it in bits and pieces over time. Feel free to comment, don't feel obligated to. Just felt like "putting pen to paper" so to speak, even though the subject is, admittedly, a well-worn one. |
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You would think rooting for Darwin in EMS would be tricky. It's not. | |
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| WhenWizardsWar | Jul 8 2013, 10:23 AM Post #2 |
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Factotum
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I see a future medical drama author coming up if you are not one already, keep it up! I personally wouldn't mind reading more!. |
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I play: Miranda Ildesserin-"You have no idea what fear is, the greatest fear a mother can have is that of her child growing up...alone" Eisinar Mindblade: Illithid Soul Knife: "As long as I have my mind, i am never with out a weapon". Xil'ar'ran'oss-Beholder Psion:What do you mean "IF" looks could kill? | |
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| Powderhorn | Jul 8 2013, 10:56 PM Post #3 |
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Scharfschütze
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Oh, I don't fancy myself a writer. I'm sure any critic could tear me apart, but occasionally I feel like jotting something down. It was either this or "How to Live Forever", but I figured everyone would think me heartless if I wrote about the stupid stuff I see people do. |
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You would think rooting for Darwin in EMS would be tricky. It's not. | |
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| Ceremorph | Jul 8 2013, 11:47 PM Post #4 |
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Dark Mistress of the Toolset
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Considering some of the mindless talentless trash that's being published (and turned into bestsellers) lately, I don't think you have any worry for what the critics will say. |
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We rode on the winds of the rising storm, We ran to the sounds of the thunder. We danced among the lightning bolts, and tore the world asunder. | |
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| Goatrider | Jul 9 2013, 01:56 AM Post #5 |
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Blood
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You'd be surprised. At least one forum I post on has a pretty huge ongoing thread about idiotic things doctors, nurses, and EMTs deal with. Take my word that if you make a few posts about weird things people have stuck up their butts, no one will think you're heartless. |
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| Licca | Jul 9 2013, 02:46 PM Post #6 |
Blood
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*EEP* *jumps* *scared of zombies* |
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- Licca Lyricia - The sorceress of love and jewelry! - Lucia Lyricia - "One good shot is better than peppering five bad shots." *giggles* If you hearing giggling in the bazaar... *giggles* | |
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| Powderhorn | Jul 10 2013, 01:27 AM Post #7 |
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Scharfschütze
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Continued So now that Joe, Casey and I started up the road, but we still had a few more odds and ends yet. As I walked up to my jeep, I looked down the side of the hill. It had always lain fallow, and there was never any reason to change it. An attempt at a garden had started this year, but I doubted I would ever see what it bore. Besides, I hated vegetables anyway. The jeep was an old '87 Wrangler, the hard top off and a bikini top on, with a tarp covering it up on account of the rains we'd had for the month prior. The damn thing never ran well, and I wasn't sad to part ways with it, however, it did have a few things in it that I kept while driving. I undid the canvas over the back, and I grabbed my old combat life saver bag from the trunk, and from my proper med bag, a few more tourniquets, chest seals, and a quick "vitals bag", along with some of my old long 14 ga. needles. Didn't have much in there for antibiotics, even if I had, it'd been kicking around for years now, and the meds were long since expired. Lastly, a poncho liner came out of an old seabag I kept in there, along with my bags of tools and the like. It was in that absolutely ridiculous ACU pattern that blended in with nothing but gravel. Every time I looked at it, I thought the same thing: This is retarded, but warm. I couldn't help but to think of how much crap we gave the Army cats for that camoflague, it was meant to blend in with everything. But you know how these things get spun, and some high general gets convinced or something, and then you have a brand new set of multi-million dollar uniform programs. We could always pick out a squad of them, whether it was the woods in Fort Bragg or especially Helmand Province. The one time they surprised us was when we were driving down a road to a range on Fort Bragg, and they were walking on the same. We almost ran them over because they blended in so well. All we could ask was, Where did they come from? And then when we figured out that's what they blended in with, we had a good laugh. Ah well, fond memories. The medical supplies I shoved in Joe's pack, easy access at the top. The CLS bag was belted to my own, however. I looked him up and down. He had on his OD Green hat with a star of life on it, my own was in kahki and tucked away. We shared a lot of the same styles, but boots, EMS pants, and t-shirts were the order of the day. He still had in his ear rings, they were these sort of 3/4 hoops with devil like horns on the ends of them. He had two in each ear, and, while I'm sure there's a name for them, I never cared enough to ask. His hair was dark, and buzzed close, with a fairly pronounced widow's peak. His teeth stained by years of smoking cigarettes. "I told you you had to stop smoking Joe, I've been telling you ever since I met you. Ready to quit now?" "Nope!" he said with a laugh. "If I'm going to die, I'm going to die smiling." "Really? Because I don't see any women on this trip, and that's the only way I'm going down smiling." We always ribbed each other about that. EMS, and, in my experiences, the medical field in general, tended to be very, ah... promiscuous. Some people dealt with the stress through drinking, some smoking, some ate their way through it, and it was always fairly well known I fell into the category that made like rabbits. "So, ready to do this?" he asked me. "Yah, let's make like trees and get the *** out of here." I always loved the Boondock Saints. The walk was a fairly leisurely stroll. I mean, in the movies, the undead kinda shamble along. And, medically speaking, they really shouldn't be able to make it that far. At least, that's what the internet said, back when I happened to stumble across some humor articles about them. Anyway, we walked to the top of my own little hill, it was just another hundred feet up from my jeep, and it leveled out into a sort of long plateau. It had been leveled long before my time for a train track, one which was still in use, but, never with any real consistency. Still, it made for easy going, and I knew a spot where the trees thinned out and looked over into the village proper. That was the first place I wanted to go, because it had a stream going north and south, and I knew I wanted to have a look before we went north. After only five or ten minutes of walking, I dropped my pack and laid down with my rifle. The scope was a powerful thirty or forty power one. I could never remember exactly, but it was a great way to look out to where I wanted to. The first thing that I looked to was the building I was supposed to be at. The blue star of life painted on the garage door was plainly visible, and the parking lot already had three cars in it, with a fourth pulling in. Of course I knew the people behind them. They were honest, pleasant people, who only wanted to help out their community. One of them canned and jammed and made soaps and everything else. She was pretty awesome, and would do just fine. Some of the others...? I shook my head at the thought. I scanned over to some of the rest of the village. It only had one real stop light, two if you counted the off ramp of the highway, and, officially 2500 people. I never saw that many in my life, and I estimated it closer to 1500. There really wasn't a whole lot going on that I could see, and then I heard a distant "pop pop" of gunfire. The rifle swung over to where it was coming from, the magnification turned up all the way, and I had an image of something kinda sorta loping in an awkward gait towards a shaky kid with a gun who obviously never practiced with it. "Ah, looks like one of our fair citizens is in trouble!" I called to Joe. "Oh yah? Let me look?" I slid over and gave him the rifle, taking his own. The Mosin had a lighter scope on it, but it was better than nothing, and I did like the feel of the old wood under my hands. Besides, it was a more comfortable rifle to use. We both watched the same scene, my own now marred by a heavy black vertical bar which ended in a point, and infinitely more distant. Still, I knew the positions, and I saw the shape up the street close in on the smaller shape below the street. "Come on Timmy, shoot straight your life may depend on it!" I joked to Joe. "Oh! Oh! Getting closer, he's trying to aim again! Oh man, he's holding it sideways! Really kid? Really?" "Oh! He's on him! I think... I think... TOUCHDOWN, ZOMBIE!" I called out, laughing all the while. "Ah, I'm going to Hell, aren't I?" I asked Joe, rhetorically. "Yah, but at least you'll have plenty of friends there." |
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You would think rooting for Darwin in EMS would be tricky. It's not. | |
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