About time I posted something other than a poem, eh? Here's something I wrote last night, which I also posted on another forum that some of you may go to, so feel free to ignore this if you already read it over there.
This was more of an exercise than a "shit I'll write something amazing" attempt. It's an exercise in a few things...attention to time, ruling out dialogue (painful), and some other minute things. This story, in its entirety, is a dream I had a few years ago that I've never really been able to forget.
Reading it is fine and dandy, but comments are preferred, especially if you actually have some constructive criticism. This is, after all, a first draft. I fully expect to hack it into bits soon enough.
Anyway, here it is. Space breaks between paragraphs since BBCode doesn't support indentations.
Edit: this forum doesn't support spoiler tags? Fucking hell. Oh well, HUGE POST.
Hunters, all around, stomping about in cold metal jackets. Their facelessness was all too apparent in the split second you had before you were gutted right there in the street, robotic headlights your impromptu spotlight as you spit your lungs out in your final act. Hunt, and kill. Those were their only two modes of action, and that's all that mattered to them. They were ruthless artists in their work, efficient as they were brutal, and never satisfied until everyone in the vicinity was mangled to nameless oblivion. Hunt, and kill. Every day. It was all that they knew how to do, and it was all that mattered. To us, only survival did. Who made them, why they were here, none of that mattered anymore. Staying alive was all we needed to think about.
Those days, it seemed like it was always winter. Maybe it was always winter. Maybe my nose turned red and my ears stung from the cold every morning of my life. Maybe I was always that conscious of my every step in the snow, making sure each crunch was silent enough.
I think it was always New York, too. But it probably wouldn't have made a difference either way. I don't think the hunters stayed within city limits, you know. Maybe they were all the way over in sunny California, too, slaughtering kids at Haight-Ashbury. The country, maybe even the world, was probably more united than it ever had been. Because we were all facing the same fate. The same blood spilled all over the pavement. The same metal fists breaking your spine in two.
I still saw people, now and then. We were all in hiding, to some degree. All just prolonging the wait, until they finally got to us. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, but sooner or later, we were all going to die. But something made us keep trying. Something made us eat that cold can of pork n' beans and stay alive another day.
And we knew how to make it. We knew how to watch the hunters, and move accordingly. Never staying together for too long, because gathering would be playing to their advantage. Always trying to make it as hard as we could for them to snuff us out.
But we allowed ourselves the chance to be together, if we could ever afford it. It was the highlight of our days. So when I saw that light in the window, I couldn't help but feel excited. There was someone there, in that upstairs room of the skinny piece of suburbia right due north from my current hideout. I had been watching for many days, and had seen a sufficient amount of shadows moving about in the light to come to the conclusion that there was someone hiding there. Someone like me, hiding from them.
But the funny thing about it all was that the hunters never seemed to notice. Every day, at least one clunked by the front of the house without stopping, never seeming to take note of the place's existence or the possibility of life inside.
All things considered, it was too good of a chance to pass up. So I took it. I waited about a half hour after the most recent hunter shuffled past, and then I went right up to the front door and turned the simple, silver knob. Totally unlocked. It was dark inside, and I had force myself to stumble as quietly as possible around to the staircase. I couldn't risk the things outside hearing me.
Once up the stairs, I found myself in a hallway. Light slithered under the door farthest from me, and there were two other rooms here as well, both unlit. One of them was boarded up, impossible to get into without any unnecessary noise. The other was simply there, dark and expectant, the door wide open. It was right there, right next to me, so easy to simply walk into. But I felt a certain foreboding as I stood, facing its maw. I knew that behind me, down the hall, there was a lit room and probably someone to be with. But I wanted to know this room right there in front of me. I wanted to let myself be swallowed by its darkness, its mystery.
But something held me back. A hand on my shoulder, actually. It wasn't metal, no, it was soft and warm and coarse with human years. But smooth, smoother than anything I'd felt in a long time. And I turned to face her, and as I saw her I forgot all about the dark behind me. She was in rags, like me, and her hair had grown uncontrollably and largely covered her face in a black spill of unwashedness.
She didn't speak. She didn't need to.
I spent the remainder of the evening in her room, which had been the source of the light I'd watched for so long. There were children's toys strewn about, and she had amassed a large supply of batteries that she used to fuel a small portable television, which incessantly sprayed static, nothing but static, and yet she never seemed to be content without the thing in her hands so she could check it for any new static every few minutes. We never said a single word to each other, and eventually she drifted off to sleep in one corner of the room, and I in the other.
I awoke later that night to discover that the portable TV had died. The static which had seemingly lulled me to sleep earlier had awoken me with its lack of presence, and I was uneasy. I knew that I was being drawn to that place down the hall, that waiting room of some inescapable answers to questions I didn't even know. And I knew that the girl had stopped me from going in there for a good reason. But I couldn't help it, and my feet moved themselves. I found myself standing in the doorway, taking a deep breath. My heart was pounding.
And as I took a step inside, all the colors vanished off the walls, and I fell to the floor, blacked out.
* * *
Screaming. My mother was laying on the floor, screaming, writhing aimlessly as my older brother danced around her, cackling madly as he worked. One, two, three times he stabbed a steak knife into her side, or her back, or wherever he felt like making his mark. And so it went, with my mother's pleads and screams growing weaker and my brother giggling without calm as he cut and slashed and tore at her skin. I was under the bed, unable to make a sound, cowering in fear. I could hear him call my mother bitch, whore, slut, things I didn't understand. And after he had tired of the knife, he was kicking her, stamping on her face, her breaths becoming shallow as her nose shattered under his heel.
* * *
I woke up, sobbing. My heart wrenched as my mind worked over the images again and again, telling me not to forget. I drew my fists tighter and the blood trickled from my palms as my nails cut deeper with each squeeze. I had forgotten for so long, worried about nothing but survival, never stopping to ponder what was really happening. And as I brought myself to my feet and wiped the last of my tears from my stinging cheeks, I knew that I couldn't run from it all any longer. The light in the room down the hall was gone as I stepped out of the memory room, and I felt the winter's chill as I stepped down the stairs and flung open the front door.
I found myself in the middle of the street, staring it down. My eyes narrowed as I watched it gallop toward me, headlight blaring, metallic feet crashing on the pavement. I stood my ground as it stood over me, looming, and I stared it deep in its empty face. My hands were balled into fists, and my teeth clenched in anger, but I never made a single move, even as it drew back its weighty arm, and the blades on its fingertips shone in a harsh, midday sun's glare, ready to grant my release.