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The Good, The Bad and The Writing
The Good
I just finished writing my ass off in my Zombie Apocalypse novel and I am fucking exhausted. I wrote over 13k words this weekend. I am proud of myself and humbled thinking about writers who get to do this for a living. Creating something out of nothing really is a difficult job.
I think I have decided on a title for the book. Let me know what you think. those of you who have read parts of it at least. And the rest of you, drop me an email and I'll send you what I've written thus far. Anyway, the working title is "Just Another Zombie Love Story"
Whatcha think?
The Bad
Can't think of anything right now.
The Writing
Here is the prologue to the novel that I started 7 years ago. And I still feel it is going to be the best thing I ever write. I just have to finish it. Keep in mind as you read this, I have not edited it. I wrote it in a flourish one evening after I was a full two chapters into the book, and the setting is about 800AD.
Deja Morte
Prologue
In the deep forest lay an immense ring of stones. How long they had lain there is not known by any that currently draw breath. In the center of this ring a smaller ring of smaller stones. The flames rising from the center of this circle of stone lick at the bows of the trees above. The thirteen individuals kneeling around the pit of flame forming a circle halfway between the two of stone. From above only the cloaked backs, head and arms are visible. From outside the circle the monk-like individuals can be seen in better detail. Each has right knee on the soil. Leg extending straight behind them. Left foot planted six inches from right knee. Chest resting on left knee. Black hooded head level with the ground. No faces visible from behind or above. Arms outstretched with fingertips a mere half inch from the fingertips of the worshippers to left and right. Arms, spine and head forming a circle of crucifixes around the fire. Yet, this is obviously no Christian ceremony. These thirteen are no monks. Who they are is not clear. Nor will it ever become clear. For there are no outside observers to this ceremony. There will be no witnesses to the massacre that is soon to follow.
The twelve men and lone woman have waited. They have listened and watched for the signs. For a millennia they and those before them have waited. Tonight! This cloudless night. The night foretold when the full moon will disappear from the sky. Thirteen kneel before the flames chanting. Thirteen, the required number. The chanting growing louder with each passing minute. The thirteen chosen followers never growing tired. Ignoring the pain in their bodies from the minutes turning to hours in the worship position. These humans becoming oblivious to the pain. The pain transferring from their body to the entity forming in the fire.
The moon begins to slowly disappear from the night. The worshippers pain no notice. Somehow this occurrence coincides with a volume increase in the chanting. Energy flowing to the fire from the ring of worshippers. The rising flames inducing the cloaked individuals deeper into their trance. Their rising chants emanating into the forest all around.
The moon completely eclipsed in the Earth’s shadow. The light of the fire the only light in the forest. However, the light from this fire will not penetrate beyond the outer ring of stones. The fuel for this fire being both natural and supernatural. The energy leeching from the worshippers increasing. The ring becoming brighter. The forest beyond becoming darker. The only light without coming from the starlight. Within the circle the sound coming from the flames begins to transform from crackling and popping of the natural wood fuel, to the sound of the pure agony of the energy absorbed from the bodies of the circle of unholy clerics. The sound of pain. The chanting likewise now seeming to come from within the fire outward instead of from the circle of prostrate beings inward toward the central pyre. Not a funeral pyre, but a rebirthing pyre. With the world plunged into total blackness outside the unholy ring of stone, the chanting reaches its crescendo. The sounds no longer issuing forth from those outside the fire, but their voices now siphoned into the flames.
The fire suddenly extinguishes. Plunging the ring into the same darkness as the rest of the forest. This darkness is followed by a flash of light that lights the ring and the forest beyond with the brightness of midday. Light and energy both speed outward from the center of the three rings. The human ring blown in all directions. Each individual thrown forcefully through the air out of the ring of stones. Three or four of these flew into large oaks. Some back first, snapping vertebrae and falling immobile to the base of the trees. Some catching legs on the branches and trunks of the trees as they were hurled through the air. One particularly unlucky individual flew straight onto a large branch. Severing his spine and impaling him against the tree. Blood and entrails falling out onto the branch sticking out of his stomach. Slowly bleeding to death. Those lucky enough to not collide with trees land outside the ring, 30 feet from where they had been kneeling.
Where flames had been, now only darkness in its place. Yet a blackness that could not have been created by mere shadows alone. Pure black energy created and sustained by the ceremony. Amorphous at first, slowly a familiar shape begins to form. Two shadow legs standing atop two shadow feet, supporting the shadow shape of an enormous man-shape. Shadows have no features. No depth. This shadow was no different. This shadow, however, has eyes. Crimson eyes. The shadow head turns this way and that. Scanning the forest all around. When it takes its first step from the innermost circle, the humans not knocked unconscious or otherwise incapacitated began to regain control of their own faculties.
A starlit sky above. Starlight the only light whatsoever. Yet there is darkness and there is darkness. Before the fumbling robed men and woman can regain complete control the ultimate darkness falls upon them one by one.
***
Priestess Bathora hears one scream after another from all around the circle. The sounds of men dying. The sounds of an animal killing. She hears snarling. She hears no words. No pleading. Only the sounds of death from her followers. All as foretold. Soon her end would be met. But not as these sacrifices of lesser beings. Hers would be a beginning and an end. She was to give birth to this being they had brought into existence. She was to be the conduit to turn energy and evil into flesh and blood.
The forest grew silent. The screams ceased. The snarling became panting. The panting neared. Bathora was silent. The panting grew closer. Now she could feel breath. Rank, hot breath. The breathing upon her. The sound becoming a guttural growl right in her face. Her eyes were closed yet she could “see” what approached. An evil she was destined to birth. An evil she was to unleash upon the world. An evil that would take her life in the process.
She was thrown to the ground. She felt not what had done it. She felt no hands on her. No claws. Only that rank breath. Always in her face. She was not aware that her robe had been ripped from her as she flew through the air from the “birth” of the energy from the fire. She could see nothing with her eyes. She could see it in her mind. She could see its every intention in her head. She could sense its lust. This latter she sensed just before it penetrated her. Slamming through her hymen. She screamed. The pain intense. It thrust deeper into her unspoiled body. Unspoiled no longer. Blood spilling onto the ground beneath her. The pain driving her toward unconsciousness. Before she could black out, however, the blackness clamped onto her mind with its.
“You will not sleep. You will feel.” It growled into her mind.
She was then aware of a door inside her mind being slammed shut. Keeping her from seeking peace in unconsciousness. She began screaming. Trying to release the pain. It fed on the pain. Filled her more and more. Using her body. Each thrust slamming deeper into her. More of it being absorbed into her. Then the laughing in her head began. The maniacal laughing of this beast. Raping her body as was foretold. She thought she was prepared for this. Had in fact been preparing for this for twenty two years since the night of the dream on her ninth birthday. No amount of preparation could have readied her for this ravaging. Each thrust more of his essence seeped into her. Filling her womb.
She was aware that the pain in her body had ceased. The pain in her mind now all the more intense. She was now not alone in her skin. She had that thing in her womb. Already growing flesh and bones. Her screaming continued. Now she prayed to a god she had forsaken two decades before. She prayed to be struck down. She prayed for unconsciousness. She prayed for the flesh growing inside her to disappear. She prayed for the ability to go back and be saved from this fate.
As if in answer to these pleas her body was wracked with pain anew. Her naked belly growing. She could feel it growing. The fetus inside her feeding on her. Not as a natural unborn child would. For this child was anything but natural. It was quite literally eating her from the inside out. And still the freedom of unconsciousness would not come. The pain threshold met, her body went into shock. Her mind however was still being violated by this monster. She was shown visions of the death and destruction her womb was about to release into the world. And at that moment her distended belly ruptured. Out of the carnage came not a child, but a beast beyond description. It was more mouth than anything else. A mouth that immediately began to devour its mother/mate.
When the moon reappeared from behind the shadow of the earth there were no monk-like figures. There were tattered robes. There was a great amount of blood staining the soil. Time would cover that evidence. The world was less thirteen extremely misled individuals. It was, on the other hand, plus one great new evil.
good night all.
Stay scared my friends,
My Little Demon
myltldmn@gmail.com
