Stroller (Warning- Language, and possible icky-ness)

Phat Chance

This is currently serialised on another forum as well, but I cant post the link here.There has to be some fans of the two genres (western and survival horror) here too. Think of it as a written RPG...

THE STORY SO FAR....

Karl tied up his horse at the signpost and walked up the deserted main street of the town, his cape lashing around him in the wind. He reached over his shoulder and patted his shotgun for reassurance, the ambiance of the town made him a little uneasy. The orange dust was high, in his eyes, with the wind.
Of the seven or so buildings, he decided to search the houses and bar first before stocking up at the store. 'Polecke General Store' it announced itself hazily, to a dead land. He gave the houses the usual, cursory run through, scoring a quarter empty box of cartridges for his gun in one, and an ornamented sword in another, dulled and blunted by time and the harsh sands which blew in the half boarded up windows.
He found no bodies, but that was usual here, as everyone had either been taken or had fled to the East. He found a whetstone in a backyard shed and set about the task of sharpening his new sword.
After about twenty minutes work, when he had honed the blade as much as he could, he stood up and swished it throught the air experimentally. The swrod was a saber, light and manoeuvrable, now with a keen cutting edge. It was a fine weapon. Not silver unfortuantely, but it would do.
He walked across the street to the local inn, 'The Waystation'. The dust storm was still raging, and whistling in the eaves, and it created a deep thirst in his throat. Inside, he tried the taps on a whim. In all the other burgs, they had either run dry or been switched off. But not here.
It flowed out of the tap like a golden ambrosia. Karl grabbed a glass and fumbled it under the tap. He drank deeply, with an 'Ahhh!' of pure satisfaction and a contented belch.
Bliss.
He treated himself to another glass, filled a canteen with the beer and a hip flask with some whiskey that he found behind the counter. He was filling his water skins when he heard a thud from outside. He stiffened immediately, not running in case whatever it was heard him coming.
Unholstering his shotgun, he crept to the door, then crawled on his belly towards where the sound had come from, hidden by the screened porch. He readied the gun and popped up, his eyes just level with the top of the board.
The nag was dead. Karl was surprised it hadn't happened in the desert somewhere. From the wet, slimy mess leaking out of its mouth and nostrils, he presumed that it had choked in the dust storm. Although, it hadn't kicked up a fuss, that, in itself, was strange.
Now he had a problem on his hands. No transport. And only another hour and twenty minutes, or so, of daylight left. Being here after dark was not a good thing, definitely not a good thing. With his horse he could have outpaced them in the time he had, and slept in the saddle, but on foot they were faster. Well, some of them were. The older the victim the stronger they became when they changed. He could hide, or hole up and weather the coming tempest, but he couldn't run.
He formulated a plan. Hiding wouldn't work, they'd sniff him out too quick here, in this small dry town. He looked up to the skies, wishing he was able to plan properly in situations like this. He dropped his head, a little to the left, and noticed the church steeple, some slates lost with the passage of time. He grinned.
Karl climbed the old, creaking stairs to the belfrey. He came to a splintered door, almost hanging off it's hinges. This wasn't the work of time. Something had forcibly broken thorugh this door. He gingerly pushed the door, wincing at the noise it made scraping off the floor. On the otehr side was nothing but a brown and flaking bloodstain, quite large, and a 9mm pistol, with a half a clip in the gun and another two beside it.
'This town put up quite a fight.' Karl mused, picking up the pistol and the ammo. He had gotten extremely lucky in this town, and, with a paranoia that comes from being the only living person within five hundred square miles, wondered if it WAS just coincidence.
He set to work on his stockade, breaking pews from the church and stacking them up at the top of the stairs. He rigged two traps, which would need a third component, which he remembered seeing in the store. The first was three bench pieces, held with rope, which, when released, would slide down, hopefully taking the legs out from under whoever was on the stairs. The second was a heavy bench piece, spiky at one end, which would swing down and hit the enemy straight in the chest, when let go. Karl tied the lkast knots and, with ten bare minutes, crawled through the stockade and sprited down the rickety stairs and into the street.
The sky was alight with orange fire, as the sun set in the desert, fading to a deep red, then to an almost liquid shade of navy. Reaching the general store with minutes to spare, he grabbed what he needed and pelted back to the church.
He was at the top of the stairs when the sun had sunk beneath the horizon. He crawled through the gaps in the stockade, when he felt a gentle tug. He looked back and saw that his cape had snagged on one of the broken ends of a pew. If he pulled too hard, the whole lot would come down, burying him, for them to find. At that moment, the door to the church smashed open and an earsplitting call reverberated up the stairs.
Karl reached through the gap hurriedly and gently flipped his cape free of the splinters. Then he scrambled through the gap and closed it with the last bench piece. He opened the last ingredient,a can of petrol and liberally doused the traps with the liquid. When he needed to, and not until then he would light the traps on fire and woe betide the foul creatures that dared to come up the stairs. He had a bit of petrol left, to use on the stockade, if the worst came to the worst.
Another shriek from below. They nearly had him. Strength and speed they may have but smarts were definitely beyond them. He looked out of a window and the full horror of what he was facing dawned on him.
They filled the small street, almost fifty Smallies, swaying this way and that and sniffing the air to find him. They scuttled and shambled about but still didn't seem to have caught his scent. He realized that was the one advantage of the earlier dust storm, the sand raised had covered his smell admirably.
They communicated using a series of shrill shrieks and warbles which grated on his ears, an auditory version of having a tough piece of meat catch in your teeth, immovable. Although, Karl couldn't recall the last time he'd had a full beef dinner. He longed for one now, he hadn't eaten during his preparations. Roast beef, potatoes and gravy, maybe some peas or green beans, steaming away in front of him. His eyes misted over and he licked his lips absently.
Down in the street, a Smallie, raised it's head from the hunt and looked at the Tall Place.The Stranger was in the Tall Place. He shrieked in triumph.
A great keening cry went up from the crowd, snapping Karl out of his daydream.
'Sh*t' he swore.

Hmmm...this worked better serialised. I may edit it to be so, but not until after primary critique! Get your claws into it! I've already been told about more description needed on the other forum, problem is I'm a miser of adjectives.

BEAT

Shador, come on now...you know better than that...Im sure we all agree with you but the rulz man, the rulz

Le rack...this is a final warning...getting close to the ban schtick you are.

Op, you cant post links to other forums in here...post a link to your story say from 'Word' or something if you want to do it that way.

Shad0r

{Edit} Guess I dont need to apologise anymore!

Secondly I think that Stephen King's Dark Tower series are probably some of the best books I've ever read so I'm totally into the western/horror theme.

I would love to read more of your story so that in itself is a very good thing. There are a few points though. One, you need to use a spell checker before putting your stuff public. Its a very straight forward thing to do with a word processor, which btw is the only place you should be writing prose. (Believe me, I used wordpad for nearly a year before I got my hands on Word and I cant even imagine going back now.)

The waystation

I could be wrong because its been a while, but wasnt that the name of a major place of importance in The Gunslinger? I know its not of major importance, but as an unknown writer you are going to be up against it in terms of needing to be completely original. I'm of the opinion that references like that (deliberate or unintentional) dont work to your advantage.

golden ambrosia

I got the image of lumpy liquid from this...perhaps it was just me, but I'm guessing that you were really aiming for an image of cool, clear amber liquid. Golden is a great choice of word there however.

He set to work on his stockade, breaking pews from the church and stacking them up at the top of the stairs. He rigged two traps, which would need a third component, which he remembered seeing in the store.

This last point is really down to author discression, but I'd warn to be careful of overuse of the same word. (i.e. which, he) Sometimes it can be very effective but more often than not it has the effect of making the sentance stick in the proverbial throat of the reader.

Phat Chance

Shad0r- The reference was deliberate, it really isn't a serious story, just for a laugh, and to practice speedy writing of stories for the LC. Ambrosia was food of the gods in (I think) Greek mythology, that was what I was aiming for, a heavenly substance. That whole repitition thing I can deal with easy just replace a couple of which's with that's and other stuff and the whole thing should be okay. As far as spelling mistakes go, I normally spellcheck my own stuff, and it's never been a problem before. Next installments will be up tomorrow.

Shad0r

Phat Chance wrote:

Next installments will be up tomorrow.

Lovely.

Phat Chance

Rapid steps scuttled up the staircase, until the first came around the corner. Karl had never seen a Smallie this close before, and was thankful for that mercy at least. The body seemed to have been partially frayed, and the exposed muscles, while tough, were thin and emaciated. The putrid skin hung off the corpse, like peeling wallpaper. The stench was incredibly bad, a wet decay scent rolling off the cadaver in waves. The smell overwhelmed him as the creature reached the stockade.
Karl stumbled backwards, overcome with disgust. The Smallie, it seemed was unprepared for such a situation. It regarded him balefully, with only one milky eye, the other hung limp from the socket. It raised it's thin arms, and flung them against the blockage with all it's might, but to no avail. It was still wearing that expression of hateful puzzlement on it's face, if you could call that mess a face, when a 9mm bullet impacted into it's good eye and flew out the other side. The corpse slumped, and fell back down the stairs, tripping the others who were on their way up, and hopefully injuring them too.

I'm now serializing this because the two installments are level, and I think it's more readable.

Phat Chance

Karl pulled out a match and flicked it, off the side of the box onto the sliding trap. With a WHOOMPH it burst alight. The corpses, either not feeling pain or not caring strode through the flames and stood, paused on the other side of the barrier. He shot one, after another, after another, and when the trap was laden with sizzling, reeking bodies, Karl released the knots, as much for want of the free air as to hurt the Smallies. The trap, and it's payload flew down the stairs, clattering round the first corner, completely obliterating the crowd ascending the stairs. Only a bare ten remained, of which five went down with bullets logded in their oversized, soft heads. Five more soon followed when Karl had reloaded.
A huge throaty roar welled up outside, followed by two more. Karl felt fear's cold hand pinch his heart. Bigguns. This just went from bad to worse.

If people would like, others have asked for a physiology post separate from the main story about the enemies and possibly Karl as well.

Phat Chance

The church door slammed open again, as the hulks shouldered their way in. The remaining Smallies skittled down the stairs, the bony places where the flesh had worn away clicking on the old wood, seemingly mollified by the Biggun's approach.
The stairs shook increasingly as they approached. Karl grabbed the petrol and shook the last of it over the barricade, the petrol at least covered the stinking corpse smell. He holstered his pistol and sheathed his sword and drew his trusty double barrel.
Night had truly fallen. It was getting hard to see inside and soon Karl would be relying on his night eye alone.
With a boneshaking roar the first Biggun rounded the corner. It was a good seven feet tall. When the infection took hold in a victim's system, their head shrivelled a lot, rather than expanding slightly, like it did with the Smallies. It's hair was long, lank and matted with the rotting bodily fluids that oozed from it's scalp. With every step a cascade of glistening drops shook free and spattered the area around the beast.
It's muscles had been supersized due to the infection, so much so that they had burst out of the flesh, probably when the victim was still mostly human, leaving him or her in agonizing pain. The result was that the Biggun was mostly skinless except for around the hands and feet where the skin was stretched tight. It gleamed horribly in the failing light.
Karl shrank back against the far wall in abject terror. The first had now reached the barricade and raised it's huge clublike arms above it's head.
BAM!
The wood shook.
BAM!
Three pieces fell.
BAM!
The other two had rounded the corner. They roared.
BAM!
The wood slid an inch towards Karl.
BAM!
He promised himself, he wouldn't be taken, he'd shoot himself, jump out of the window..but...he remembered. That was no use.
You were still taken anyway, dead or alive.
BAM!
Karl cowered...

Phat Chance

Okay seeing as there's little or no interest, the threads (on both forums) are dying, and Karl with them.

Karl- Au revoir buddy.