Cowardice or Perserverance - My series of fan-fics

(( Hey all! These're my fan-fics that I posted up on the Sandswept forums, thought I'd post 'em here. This first on is Cowardice or Perserverance, the first in the series which I guess is of the same name. ))

[The journal page is spattered with blood, the words written by a shaky hand.]
They came for us in the night, the militia men. They had guns and enough bullets to waste, but they didn’t think the zacks would hear them. It took a fair while, but eventually, screams were coming from both sides of the wall. It was obvious from then that the dead had found them, and in large force, but the damage has already been done; bullets have riddled the compound walls, flimsy pieces of corrugated iron, killed most of the people in a few minutes. The ones that had gotten down were hardly any better off when they started throwing Molotov’s over on us. And eventually, some people had to run from the fire and the bullets, and they just got mowed down by stray gunfire or fed on by zacks. It’s quiet now. I think I’m the only one left. No groans, no gunfire, no shuffling. Just my thoughts and the scratching of my pen. My family is dead, my friends are dead. Rosetta is dead. I can’t believe so much violence came from an argument over medicine. We didn’t even have the pills they needed, why would they shoot us up? It doesn’t matter anymore. I’ll be joining my darling Rosetta soon. I had to pry Corey’s pistol from between his fingers, trying so hard not to vomit over the bullet wounds, but the thing is still loaded. I once talked about this with Dominic. He told me I’d never be brave enough to do it, that when I died, it would be from someone else or my own stupidity, but I’ll show him. Why be afraid to die when I have nothing left? This will be just as much a suicide note as a journal entry, but no one will ever find it. No one will want to come into the compound with all those bodies outside. But I’m straying. I need to get back to the matter at hand. The pistol. The roof of my mouth. Click, bang. It will be simple. Painless. I’m sure of it.
[The page is torn below three words, large and scribbled.] Dominic was right.




(( And here is North, the second. That's how far I've gotten. ))

“My name is Robert Hallbeck”

That’s what the note said. It said to “meet me in Yewbough and I’ll give you shelter and food”. Well, I’m here. I crawled through seven hundred metres of human waste and something I won’t detail on paper, but I will say it wasn’t pretty. All that to get here. And where is here?

This place has to be the hole of the country, I swear. It has an open sewer running beside the main street, for Christ’s sake! I suppose when you think about how the world turned out, that’s a commodity, really. The smell hid me from the zacks, which was a plus. Lying in a ditch hid me from sight, and they couldn’t hear me over the rain, but that made the sludge worse.

Now I smell like a man who crawled through a sewer (big surprise), I look like it, and I’m sitting in a barn that this mister Hallbeck must have been in. It must have been here; floodlights, empty food cans, a food storage and armoury. Who could forget the hanging corpse with the lab coat that said ‘Hallbeck’? No, couldn’t have been here.

Somehow, I don’t think it serves a purpose, sarcasm on paper. But what can I do? I’ve been leaving these journal entries on my journeys for three months now. Imagine that, three months. Funny how I’ve not found one dead soldier. Actually, no, not funny. That’s absolutely depressing. No hum-drum-vees, no camouflage, not a single helmet. Did they even try to stop the rotters from overtaking the city? If so, where are they? I don’t know.

I’ll keep heading north, I think. I’d say I’d heard a rumour that there’s a safe haven up there, but that would be a lie. I’ve seen some paint on walls, but that’s always “God is punishing us”, or “I’m sorry baby”. I even saw a break up written on a wall; it might not have been in the best of tastes, but I couldn’t stop laughing for what must have been ten minutes. But no rumours.

If I could write a sigh on paper, my readers would have heard a lot by now. If I have any readers. Everyone seems to be dead, shambling or on vacation. I remember my last vacation. Went to New York with the wife. Ah, Shirlene. There’s another sigh, folks. God, how I miss her. Dot dot dot.

Now what do I have? Three cans of beans, a shotgun, seven slugs, a knife and the clothes on my back. My jeans are torn to high Heaven, my two jackets are flayed. The top one even has a missing sleeve. A zack tore that off. Never should have let the thing get too close. My sneakers wore through to the soles a few days ago, so I had to wriggle some off a dead zed. I’ve killed them I don’t know how many times. I’ve lumped in their skulls with hammers, painted the walls with their brains, but never had to take one’s clothing. I almost vomited. Damn. I’ll take Hallbeck’s clothes before I leave.

I think I’ll bring this entry to a grinding halt. I’ll paint the customary logo on the wall of the barn; let people know there are supplies here. I hope someone finds this journal entry; it’d be nice if someone where actually reading these. You’ll see me up north.


(( Thanks for the read! ))