Writing Samples

South 

He stood alone, wondering if he was the last man alive.

How could a man be more alone than this, standing at the end of the world,

with thunder rolling over the ruins of mankind,

the first drops of chill dripping from a leaden sky,

with only his memories to occupy his dimming eyes?

He had known loneliness before, that heavy isolation that can only be felt in a crowded world, a separation from the flow of vitality like a discarded treasure at the bottom of a well.

That loneliness that touches every human life, clutched tight like like a heart attack, owned and owning.

What a fool he'd been, back when the world still lived, to think himself apart from mankind, a thing aside, wallowing in self-imprisonment, detached from humanity and unable to connect with even those he touched, others who knew his isolation and thought it was their own.

We all cried for contact, he mused, and knew we all wept for our own detachment, tears dripping down our hearts in icy streams, spattering on the plinths of our identity, staining the basis of our selves.

Now he knew what it meant to be truly alone, awash in the poisonous tears of man's dead world.

As the frigid drops of rain began forming black rivulets down his unseen face, he scoffed at his hubris and decided that he was still a fool. Fool for all the time he'd wasted in solitary embrace apart from humanity. Fool for all the time he would yet waste seeking human contact he'd never sought when it was available.

As if there were anything else to do.

He wiped the rain from his brow, noting that his hand faded into obscurity before it fell to his side. How much longer until the milk across his eyes became tar? Would his vision die before his quest, leaving him too blind to finish?

There was irony in the thought that others might be searching, going blind like him, wandering close enough to touch, but passing too far away to see.

One more mile, he thought. Perhaps that next ridge will reveal some sign of humanity, something other than slate ashes and umber bones.

Could he really be the last human alive?

What did that make him? Was he even a man, if there were no others? Or, being the last, had he become something else?

Something less?

He was not ready to be Alone.

To be the Last.

He tasted the ashes on his lips as he resumed his sodden march down the crumbling road.

This place once had a name, but he didn't know it; the toxic rain had blurred the maps like it had dulled his eyes. Places didn't need names any more, he was just headed south. Every place was south; every road led south. Every direction was south.

He didn't have a name any more, either. The last man on earth didn't need one.

He stopped.

He desperately needed a name; how else would he know if he encountered someone else?

He'd been so alone, he'd forgotten what names were. He only remembered South.

So he took it for his name.



More to come...

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Flash Fiction Exercises

The pieces below are the result of an exercise:
Each work day, writers received an email containing a randomly selected phrase. Without knowing the phrase in advance, the writers had fifteen minutes to write a vignette starting with that phrase.
The starting phrases are in red.

• 
  

 

Okay, this is weird.

She was going to say it again, he predicted. It was her stock phrase for everything, and she used it like other people used "dude." He'd lived with it so long he could smell it coming. It wore him down over the years like Chinese water torture. His eyes clenched shut and his fingers tightened on the steering wheel in anticipation of the next drip.

"Okay – that is weird."

Carl's fingernails dug into high-grade leatherette as he snapped, "No, Maggie, nothing is weird, because according you everything is weird! Misplacing your car keys is not weird; running out of milk is not weird; and I might be a bit out of touch, but your shoelaces becoming untied is NOT weird!"

He gathered breath while Maggie's jaw dropped.

"I'll tell you what's weird: Shaking the two-fingered hand of a thalidomide mutant so he can see your reaction when he forces you to grip his birth defect – even while his other hand is perfectly normal – that's weird."

Slight popping noises came from the steering wheel where Carl's fingernails penetrated as he turned his concentrated gaze upon her clueless mug. "Weird is getting a prostate exam from a female doctor who your mother referred you to."

Louder noises of complaint emanated from the steering wheel as it bent under Carl's grip.

"Weird is having a boring dream and then later on realizing you're experiencing exactly what you dreamed the night before.

"Weird is realizing that I've been putting up with your incessant chatter for EIGHT YEARS without ever telling you to shut the fuck UP!"

The steering wheel groaned as Maggie began –

"Actually, asshole, I was referring to –"

And the first octopus hit the windshield.

• 
  

At first they thought Wisher was a demon come from the smoking depths of Hades to spread fear, rape their women, eat their children, and generally suck all available souls out of the marrow of their bones. It took quite a bit of fast talking and just about every piece of ID he had to convince them he was human.

"Besides," he foolishly joked in the wake of subsiding tension, "what you're describing – well, except for the souls, but definitely including the marrow-sucking – sounds more like ghouls than demons." He realized his mistake, but it was another one of those adrenaline-stupefied moments where all he had the power to do was watch the words spill visibly out of his mouth, like a never-ending spit-take, and he was hitting every hillbilly in the crowd.

Then they were convinced he was a wizzard, because only a wizzard would have the knowin' of sech ferbiddin things as coud d'stinct atween a ghoul and a daymon. He wondered if his necktie had thirteen turns in the knot at this moment... That was silly; these idiots couldn't count high enough to tie a noose.

They were probably smart enough to create a pyre, though.

He didn't want to harm anyone, he certainly didn't want to rape their women (maybe that's where he got the idea for the "ghouls" joke), and he was too afraid of infection to even step on their porch, but he had a job to do, and their signature (if he could possibly explain to them what a signature is) was required...

"I'm not a wizard," he chuckled nervously, "I'm just a delivery man – "

He'd been offered this job because his unflappable friendliness and mastery of conversational technique was always sure to put people at their ease; in other words, Wisher could bullshit a smile out of anyone... well, anyone except this pack of Ozark throwbacks clustered among the flies upon the splintering porch, aiming and cocking their arcane flintlocks.

"You servin' us papers, rev'noo man?" Half the men aiming rifles descended from the porch to close within inches.

Trousers streaming as freely as his tears, Wisher held up a trembling envelope.

"No. A lottery check."

• 
  

The cardboard was damp with sweat where nervous hands had wrung the examination book. LeGacie double-checked the student ID number on the front with those in his roster. It definitely did not match.

Well, that explained the extra book in his stack from the final exam, but it didn't explain how it got there. The section number was blank. It must have been misplaced, or accidentally carried in from a previous exam block. LeGacie dismissed it and tossed it aside as he reached for his scotch.

He had hundreds of these things to grade; if it didn't have a section number, he wasn't going to bother tracking it down.

Tough luck for that kid, he thought as he sipped. Then he used it as a coaster with an inward, if mildly evil, chuckle.

Yet as the night progressed, each time LeGacie picked up that scotch to sip, the spare exam book nagged at him.

After a few eye-watering hours grinding his way through test essays, he needed a stretch.

When he returned with a freshened glass, the sweat stains on the cover of the extra exam book glared at him. With a shrug of resignation, he succumbed to curiosity, and opened the book:

IM NOT SUPOSED TO BE HERE, BUT I DONT KNOW WERE ELSE TO GO

THEY ARE FOLLOWING ME, AND I THINK THERE GOING TO HURT ME

THEY ARE WAITING FOR ME OUTSIDE

IM AFRAID

PLEASE HELP ME

•  

Stairs led down the mountainside, disappearing into the cloud layer.

Hurd sighed deeply through his breather, despair fogging the face mask.

At least after they make you climb it, they let you walk back down.

Seven kilometers back down.

Plenty of time to think about what a person has learned.

Thing was, after all he'd been through to achieve his Enlightenment, Hurd didn't really want a 7KM climb, albeit downward and with scenic way stations, to think about it.

He looked at the frozen star dome above him, took a deep breath, and pulled off his breather. His lips and nostrils caught frost almost instantly, and he had to keep blinking to keep his eyelids from freezing, but there he stood, under nothing but the stars, in near-vacuum, after receiving his reward of Enlightenment. He wanted to take a deep breath of nothing.

He pulled his mask back on, knowing he couldn't let himself suffocate; he'd invested too much in this moment. Years and shekels uncounted he'd poured into regenerative surgeries and treatments and physical training to restore his aging body to the necessary minimum to climb the mountain. He'd cloistered himself in spiritual and philosophical study to prepare his mind for what it would ultimately receive.

He'd completely changed himself and rebuilt his life around preparation for Enlightenment.

Now that he had it, he wasn't satisfied. He was cynically disappointed.

Truth was, he didn't give a fuck any more.

That's a lot of stairs.

• 
  

I awoke to the sound of giggling – feminine giggling, a crowd of it.

They had me tied down to a table, naked as a jaybird; there must have been a dozen of them, each one with a hand laid gently on me. They were touching me, my ducklings; a hand on my ankle, another washing the wound on my belly, one stroking my hair... they were even touching me down... there.

Stop laughing, this is serious, Brennit.

When I opened my eyes, there was a beautiful woman's face right in front of me – your Mum, Wisher – she was cupping my forehead, maybe I had a fever, I don't remember. I'd never seen a woman in person before – I didn't even know anyone who had – I'd have screamed, If I hadn't felt like I'd been run over.

"Hello, Fella," she said.

I must admit, ducklings, I panicked a bit. I was rather terrified. What was I doing in the company of females? It was beyond possible: interaction between the genders? I was expecting the Aunties to show up any moment, guns blazing.

"What's going on here?" I demanded.

"Look mate," she told me, "you're not in Merika, and this ain't Yurip or Aza either. You're not on any of the continents. You're in Ziland, and we're an island. You're here to stay, cos if you leave, they'll kill you if we don't first. Visiting Ziland ain't the usual sentence, mate."

I didn't understand.

"Okay, we know they don't tell anybody this on the continents. We're pretty sure none of the general pop even know we exist. That's just what the Matriarchs want; they want us to die off."

I thought these women must be insane – each word made less sense than the last.

"Look: When the Day of Reckoning came, and the Council of Matriarchs split the continents, we didn't agree; we wanted women and men to stay together, live together, have families. We refused the Reckoning and the Separation. So they nuked us."

"We need fresh blood, men at the very least. Twenty generations of gene drift is slowly wiping us out. You're one of us now, and you'll have to learn to be hetro, and you'll have to make a family."

Yes, Rilo, I hear the alarm; one minute more won't bother anyone.

So that's how I got here, ducklings, just like hundreds of other Mums & Pas: They shot down my plane, and plucked me from the sea.

We'll finish the story another time. Right now yer Pa has to go to the Orientation Center and help with the new arrivals.

• 
  

The engine screamed as it separated from the transmission. No longer fettered by torque or friction, the connecting gears and camshafts spun at rates full factors beyond design tolerances, producing the most deafening siren wail imaginable. The rear axle, drive shaft and transmission stayed where they were chained as the rest of the vehicle tumbled forward over its new center of gravity.

The force and frequency of the sound waves pulverized anything not made of metal within 50 meters to a fine polychromatic gray powder. The brains of the passengers were liquefied instantly.

The disconnected gears in the engine spun at such high rates that they began generating a massive magnetic field. All ferrous metal within that 50-meter radius adhered to the tumbling SUV with enough force to pressure-weld into a solid mass, which began generating its own local gravity before the crippled vehicle had settled on its roof.

As the flipping hulk shifted its contents, the dead driver's foot slipped off the accelerator. The spinning engine, now white-hot and without anything forcing it to spin, locked up in a period of time too short for even God to measure. This caused a gravitational whiplash effect, and the altered mass was crushed under its own reversing gravity, producing a tiny black hole.

When it comes to black holes, size really does not matter.

It caught whiff of the Earth's own gravitational field, and being something that can move through matter as if it wasn't there, began a leisurely, if somewhat elliptical orbit around and through the planet's core.

And that's why we live on Mars.

• 
  

Once again Dert found himself staring at his own vomitus splattered all over someone.

Third time's the charm, they say, although Dert was pretty sure this instance would be worse than those of this afternoon. After all, the other people he'd barfed on only arrested him.

He stared at the bilious chunks sliding down the tattooed monster's county-issue wife-beater and ventured, "Aw fuck," as an appropriate apology. He didn't make eye contact; that much had been established earlier.

Dert noticed with resignation that there was new blood in his spew.

Well, that hadn't been there earlier today, when he'd puked on the cops.

Twice. Two cops, hit a combined total of three times in two spews.

If he hadn't been inexplicably puking today, he wouldn't be here now.

Having lousy luck doesn't make one stupid. When the sudden urge to empty his system hit upon him, Dert had pulled his car over to the shoulder of the expressway. Better out than in, they say. That's how the cops found him, leaning on his fender emptying his stomach.

It really started with the phrase, "No, no, officer, I don't dr-whwlluaugh!"

If he'd been able to avoid hitting their uniforms, he'd probably be in a hospital instead of county lockup.

Dert hadn't lied; he didn't drink. He'd been poisoned somehow, and he wasn't sure it was an accident. He expected one of two painful deaths in his near future, and hoped that he could avoid the callus-knuckled tattooed one that seemed more imminent.

"Tiger," he implored his cellmate, "please believe me when I say – Hhhwaauurrk!"

   

•  

 

      There was another one down the street, Victor could see. The sensors seemed to be spaced no farther than 50 paces apart. He slowed his pace, scanning the street. So much change in just two decades, yet everything was sickeningly familiar. The same corporate stamps that he remembered from before his incarceration burned as boldly as before, except now they were everywhere, on everything. He stood in front of a Mc D's and turned full around, confirming the other two sets of arches just within view, keeping the boulevard saturated, just like the surveillance web.

      He'd fought this, fought it hard and lost, and it cost him his life. It cost his constituents, the nation, so much more. By now, he guessed, the whole world could be corporately controlled. He looked at his hands, so much older than the last time they saw daylight. Hell, a week ago he didn't expect them to ever see daylight again. He stared at the bandage over his new tracking chip, which was as new to him as everything else. He remembered the day, over two decades ago, when younger hands scrabbled to restore the rule of law after they had signed the bankrupt nation over to its corporate contractors. The same hands clawed at the door frame when they dragged him into his isolation cell for three years of voiceless, silent punishment.

      Thank god for the parole lottery, he thought. He had been completely isolated from the world for twenty-two years, during which time it had gotten worse than he could ever imagine.

      Victor dropped his hands and looked back at the golden arches. He noticed they didn't claim the Big Mac to be all-beef any more. He walked to the nearest sensor post and flipped it off. Then he bit open the sutures in his wrist where they'd inserted his chip, sucked the chip out, and spat it on the ground.

     Then he squatted on the curb and waited for them to come and get him.

•  

 

 

       The overwhelming smell of body odor was ruining his pancake experience.

       He stared down at the butter congealing in a swirl amidst the cooling syrup on his plate while a gluey, masticated glob of breakfast cake teetered on the razor's edge of his gag reflex. He forced his concentration away from the parallels of the swirling butter and the rhythm of his sudden and intense nausea, only to find it fixated on the persistent hatcheting of the adjacent diner's stench on his fragile self-control.

      Scott was about to puke all over the diner counter.

      Mustering the last of his will, he opted for the napkin escape, and just barely deposited the reshaped forkful without losing it all. But he had no more.

      He bowed his head and wept. All he wanted was some pancakes. Just a little bit of comfort food would give him the strength to get through the day. He could put the gun safely away and get through it all somehow, if he could just get the tiniest amount of satisfaction. Tears pattered onto the butter as he slipped his hand into the hoody pocket and released the safety on the Beretta.

     The stinking man swiveled his simian pate to Scott and grumbled, "Hey faggot, why don't you go cry somewhere else?"

      Scott cocked the hammer as he softly replied, "Why don't you go stink somewhere else?"

•  

      The thing about the turtle was that it was a bad idea taken too far.

      A terrible idea taken horribly too far.

      When the emcee mentioned a turtle, Ivo had assumed it would be one of those dubious little pet-store turtles, just two inches long, that cost less than the cheesy palm tree attached to the plastic aquarium you bought it with: The kind of pet his mother believed carried diseases.

      He kept thinking about tiny claws and beaks.

      Ivo had once been invited to a private "gentlemen's party" where he'd seen a woman smoke a cigarette with her vagina; she even blew smoke rings from it, sending the audience into paroxysms of inebriated applause. It wasn't until the morning after that Ivo realized the full significance of what he'd witnessed.

      It was because of the impressive novelty of the smoking act that Ivo found himself tonight in this private "gold room" staring dubiously at a spot-lit framework supporting a toilet seat and two sets of handlebars, wondering if he would regret coming.
     The performer stalked forward out of the darkness, athletic and lithe, wearing nothing but a leather wrestler's mask and body oil. No sign of any hair was visible. She walked like a dancer (a pole dancer) her footfalls crossing over her center of balance, accentuating the throw of her hips. Pale, faceless and glistening, she was a Brom painting brought to life. She moved like a cat, and that made Ivo drop his guard.

      Then she put her head into the toilet seat, and mounted the handlebars with both hands and feet, and assumed the most graphic and undignified pose he had ever seen. The spotlight shone into her in an almost surgical fashion.

      Once she was settled in her perch, and Ivo began wondering about the turtle again, her rubber-gloved and leather-strapped assistants wheeled out a cart bearing buckets of lubricant and the supporting star of the show: The turtle was the size of a baking dish. The audience blanched.

      "Don't worry, boys," the emcee crackled over the PA, "that's a soft-shell turtle – the pointy nose should make things go smoother!"

      Ivo wondered about the pointy claws. They were as long as a quarter is round.

      "By the way gentlemen," the emcee continued as the assistants began preliminary lubrication, "be sure to get your tickets for Sympathi's next big show on Walpurgis night, when she'll answer all the questions about what can really be done with a toilet plunger and a bag of kittens."

• 
  

      On their flank they bear the mark of the Bitch-Mother, the Earth Goddess, Murderer of Nations, tattooed in ink made from the blood of their own parents, whom each of them slew the day they became Her warriors.

      They are boiled on that day to remove all hair forever.

      Their backs are scarred with a thousand tiny brands, one for every glyph meaning "death" in all the languages of man, one for every name of every god devoted to blood, pain, and death, one for every festival that celebrates destruction.

      Down their right legs they carve and tattoo the names and places of battles they have fought.

      Down their left legs they carve and tattoo the names of places where they slaughtered innocents.

      They pierce their forearms with heavy metal spikes, stitched to the bone, which they use instead of bucklers or daggers, along with those double-bladed short swords they are famed for wielding so fiercely.

      They pluck the teeth of their enemies and stitch them into their crowns the same way they do the spikes through their arms.

      But worst of all their affectations, despite the gory, scarred, horrific sight of a Duj-Markhal on the field, is what they do to their faces. It is not unlike the facial tattooing of the Clearwater tribes, for it is a black pattern covering the face. But once again, this is tattooed in the blood of people they have killed; one tiny dot for each foe slain on the battlefield.

      This is why their generals have jet-black faces.

      And this is why tomorrow, if you don't piss yourself running away, you'll be smart to charge at the ones who look pale.

• 
  

      "Ow, dammit," Mila complained when his palm pinned her hair painfully to the mattress, "This is not working."

      She shoved Hector off herself, knowing further discomfort from his rapid forced withdrawal. He rolled over, panting and mindless, as she sat up and drew her robes from under her.

      She gathered her composure as she tied her belt and said, "Do you learn nothing? I have never trained a man so lost to his own lust."

      As if in confirmation of her words, she saw him now trying to satisfy himself as if she were not there. She backhanded his hands from his member. The pain brought him back to her.

      "What is it with you, Hector? Have you less blood than other men, that when your lust rises, there is none left for your brain?"

      He blinked at her, panting and throbbing in union, even wearing a grin.

      "I am not here for your pleasure. You are to learn your bed skills to keep your betrothal. You cannot afford to be selfish, Hec, not ever; if you fail to please your wife, and please her well, she will cast you off."

      He had the decency to drop his grin.

      "Do you want to end up a slave? Do you want your family to be shamed and lose their new caste before they even gain it?"

      Hector blanched at the thought; he'd failed to consider the consequences of the marriage to himself or his family. To Mila, when he turned his head to pondering, it seemed as if he stared at his erection again, as if her words went nowhere. She grabbed his testicles and squeezed.

      "We will rid you of your selfishness somehow."

      Hector whimpered and nodded. She didn't know he'd already realized she was right, was already working his own mind to the way she wanted.

      "If you will not learn to give and serve as you should, I'll sell you to the slavers myself before I let my reputation be shamed by your obstinance."

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Free Novel

Ever wonder what happens after the world ends?
I don't want to spoil anything, but it's funny as hell.

I figure, readers, if you've made it this far down the page, you deserve something.
Click the image for a free pdf.


 

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Tales of the Breach

Tales of the Breach is my contribution to Zombiesmith's Quar universe.
It's a scenario book and rules supplement for their tabletop miniatures games.
The album below contains some sample pages.

Tales of the Breach Samples