Young Writers Society

Sepia to Darkness

“I am infected,” the woman whispered, her hand dangling out the truck's window. The city outside the open window was bathed in fire, the sun’s rays baking everything. Shriveled newspapers and flyers lay crumbled on the ground like broken bodies. But she knew that the actual rotting carcasses were inside the buildings. It all looked like part of a sepia tone photo.

The woman gazed at a drug store, its windows stared back with vacant, grime covered glass eyes. The world had grown so quiet that if she listened closely, she could almost hear the voices of inanimate objects. But perhaps, that was just her dwindling sanity. Either way, she knew that this was not madness. The world had truly become fire.

“Think it’s safe enough to get out and look for supplies?” the man driving said.

“I don’t know,” a boy in the back said. “It’s always quiet when we get to a new town.”

“Like the calm before a storm,” the woman said.

"You're really beginning to creep me out with your riddle talk," the boy said.

The woman couldn't help but smile. "I wouldn't hurt a bug..." she said.

"Are roaches bugs or insects?" the boy asked.

"Insects, I think," the driver said. "Either way, I hate the bastards." He winced as brown dots scurried across the road.

"There's so many," the woman said, watching the roaches climb up the curb and disappear into a store.

"Think those are the kinds that bite?" the boy said.

"I don't know, kid," the driver said. "They all look the same to me."

"They probably are. The other kind is prey to them, after all," the woman said.

The driver looked at her, studying her from bottom to top. “Listen, um… Karen, you were bitten three hours ago, and for some reason, we were foolish and didn’t kill you right then. But we’re a group, and we trust each other, so we all believed you when you said you were immune.”

“If you are having second thoughts, please, don't keep me waiting.”

“No. I wasn't talking about getting rid of you. in fact, I’m glad we didn’t kill you. Because, I really think you’re special. You may even have something in your blood that can end this.”

Karen shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think things are that simple.”

“I see what you mean. No one expected any of this horror movie stuff to ever happen,” the boy said. “I mean really, roaches evolving some kind of toxin that makes people go crazy. Zombies.”

The driver maneuvered around a trailer flipped over on its side, like a beached whale. The street beyond it was in no better shape. Glass shards were littered all over the place, shining under the harsh rays of the sun.

“We should stop by a market for some canned goods,” the driver said, pulling into a street called Dover.

Business and convenience stores surrounded them on both sides, like canyon walls. Buzzards were perched on roofs, watching them drive by. This part of town, she noticed, had been the scene of a violent struggle with them. Windows were spider-webbed, doors hung from their hinges, and cars were jammed together.

“Still think we should stop here?” the boy asked.

“There’s no need to be afraid,” the driver said. “This all happened at the beginning. Time has gone by.”

“Not much."

“Yes, but-“

“Shh!” Karen rasped, putting a finger over her lips. “I think I can-“

Rabid howls shattered the stillness and echoed from every direction. They were coming.

“We’re right in the middle of it,” the driver said, frantically surveying the area like a cornered cat. In a sense, they all were. Cats cornered by vicious dogs.
*************************************

“What are we going to do, man?” the boy said, pounding on the back of the front seat.

“We get out before the feeding frenzy gets here,” the driver said, turning to Karen. “Karen! Roll up your window!”

She stared back at him with blood-shot eyes, gums pulled back, spittle slithering down her cheeks.

“No!” he said, lashing out with his elbow as Karen slashed at him. “She’s turned!”

“Oh shit!” the boy said, unbuckling his seat belt and backing up to the drivers end. He shut his eyes when he caught sight of the infected stampeding out from alleyways and inside stores. Their bodies were red under the sun. They were running forward with the speed of track stars, madly flailing their arms.

“Get the gun!” the driver said, stomping on the accelerator. He heard the boy groan as his head scraped against the window, not expecting the sudden jolt in speed.

Karen snarled as she was pressed back in her seat. She thrashed violently, the seat belt ripping from the buckle.

The driver opened his mouth to scream. Karen wrapped her mouth over his throat, silencing him.
*************************************
The boy whimpered as he dug under the seat for the gun. When he found it he yanked it out and without checking to see if it as loaded, took off the safety. He raised his trembling arms and aimed at the side of Karen’s blood splattered face. He pulled the trigger just as the truck collided with a traffic jam. The windshield exploded and him and Karen flew out.

The fiery world faded to black.
*************************************

Hey there, Aspiring. This is me trying to stage a comeback and return to reviewing after like two years. I'm going to ignore the fact that I've tried to make this comeback three or four times now, and get on with the review.

I really like zombie stories, especially when they have a point to them. So this is interesting. I think there are a lot of things you could do with it, though. I'll go through and point out a few things I noticed before I get to the more in-depth stuff.

“I see what you mean. No one expected any of this horror movie stuff to ever happen,” the boy said. “I mean really, roaches evolving some kind of toxin that makes people go crazy. Zombies. I never knew they could move so fast.”

This is really blatant exposition. It doesn't come off as the way someone would actually talk, because it's not. It's fairly obviously there just to give the readers information about the zombies. Which is good, because we need to know some information, but perhaps you could give it to us another way? Remember, we don't have to learn everything right away. Maybe they could see some cockroaches, and panic. And as for the speed thing, perhaps you could actually give us a scene with a zombie to show its speed? At least in the context of those scenes, dialogue like you have here might seem organic.

The driver steered maneuvered around a truck and trailer flipped over on its side

I think you want either "steered" or "maneuvered." One or the other.

“We might as well stop by a market for some canned goods. We’re going empty, as you both know,”

I think this sentence here shows the problem I have with your dialogue overall. It doesn't come across as particularly natural. Especially the "as you both know" part. If they both know, why point it out? A lot of it comes across as unnatural. Perhaps a simple, "Well, might as well stop to get some food" would work better. Play around with it a bit. It's clear that all of your dialogue is there to advance the plot, and that makes it seem unnatural. Particularly that conversation in the beginning about the woman being infected.

Windows were spider-webbed

I quite like this. Here, you move away from describing things rather bluntly and give us an actual image. It's quite nice, actually.

“Silence,” Karen said. “I think I can-“

Again, the main thing you need to work on is your dialogue. It comes across as stilted, especially that "silence."

Anyway, that's all I got on my read through. I'll go a bit deeper now, though.

I know this may just be a prologue, introducing this new, changed world. and that's possibly a good thing. But that's no excuse for how idiotic these characters are. The woman tells them she's immune, and they just believe her? I don't buy that for a second. If you're trying to render a world like this realistically, you should try to inject a sense of paranoia, or at least suspicion. It doesn't come across here, and your characters are unbelievably stupid.

Another thing you may want to consider is why you're writing this. I don't know how much zombie fiction you've read/watched, but more than any other supernatural creature, zombies are the ones that usually have some kind of meaning or message they're trying to convey. Is there a message you want to get across about society at large? Perhaps something about this isolated world we live in, where it's impossible to trust anyone? Zombie fiction is basically the perfect place for a theme like that to manifest. Just think about what you want to say to this. There's so many things about zombies around. It's important to differentiate yourself from the crowd. Note that this isn't me criticising this part. I'm quite interested to see where you'll go with this piece. Like I said, I like zombie stories, so if you want a review for me on the next part, you can PM me if you like.

I hope you don't think this review is too harsh. I think that if you tweak the dialogue a bit, and perhaps make your characters more believable (that goes with the first part, mostly), you'll have a fairly strong first part. I'm interested to see where you go with it, and what you're trying to say. I hope this helped you out in some way. ^_^

-Mat

Boy you really did jump right into this! (Sorry it took me 80 million years to get you a review!)

Personally, I would appreciate a little more build-up, here. The story itself is very classic zombie-versus-human, and I think some character development would probably enhance the setting which you have so effectively created. Some of the expositional stuff, obviously, could be tweaked, and I think that would be remedied overall if you slow down your pacing just a tiny bit.

The dialogue stuff has already been said, so I'll skip over that. Again, I feel like that will come more naturally once you have your timing right.

They were running forward with the speed of track stars, madly flailing their arms.

I don't know why, but this made me laugh. A lot. I just have this vivid picture of a bunch of terrifying zombies flailing around and sprinting toward our heroes. Love it!

It all looked like part of a sepia tone photo.

I think you should hang on to this during the rest of your story. Refer to it as you start to feel yourself losing the original tone, because it is a unique and interesting perspective!

I am looking forward to Part 2!

Hey, Aspiring! This is one of my first few reviews, hopefully I'm getting the hang of this.

Grammatically speaking, I can't find anything noticeable, and judging by your amount of posts and reviews, I'm sure you could find them without me pointing them out. xD

Now, for the actual story. It's great. I've always been a huge fan of zombies and zombie stories, so reading this was quite the treat; I haven't found many other zombie pieces around.

The only things I'm going to point out, since Shepherd and Insomnia seem to have it covered, are pretty tiny.

First, the overall dialogue. I can tell you've made some changes since Insomnia's review, and they're great changes. Though personally, when I read it, the dialogue still lacked the fluidity of natural speech. Tweaking it a bit more, especially the boy's dialogue, will make this piece really great.

And finally, this part:

“No. I wasn't talking about getting rid of you. in fact, I’m glad we didn’t kill you. Because, I really think you’re special. You may even have something in your blood that can end this.”

This is a HUGE cliche. It's possibly the most hackneyed aspect of zombie lore, save for the brain munching. They used this a major theme in the Resident Evil trilogy, using Alice's blood as a sort of antidote. In order to stick out from the zombie apocalypse crowd, you have to put an original twist on it. I'd suggest looking at changing this, but if you like this, and have a plan for it, then by all means continue.

I'm excited for part 2.

~Sporks

Hey there Aspiring! I'm here to review!

First off, I was very excited to see that this is a zombie story. I love zombies. Well, not them in particular, but stories with them.

That being said, this whole story was very reminiscent of I Am Legend. That's what instantly came to mind and stuck with me while I read it.

“I am infected,” the woman whispered, her hand dangling out the truck's window.

Okay, so when I first read this, I thought that it was a stationary truck and she was inside the wreck of it. Perhaps you could mention that the city's moving by as they drive towards it or something, just to indicate that the truck's in motion.

It all looked like part of a sepia tone photo.

I love this line. The imagery is absolutely perfect. Don't get rid of it!

The woman gazed at a drug store, its windows stared back with vacant, grime covered glass eyes.

Either replace "stared" with "staring" or put a semicolon in place of the first comma.

“Think it’s safe enough to get out and look for supplies?” the man driving said.

I don't like the way this is worded. Even if you changed it to something like, "the man who was driving said", I think it'd sound better.

“I don’t know,” a boy in the back said. “It’s always quiet when we get to a new town.”

A boy in the back? So this boy just shows up in the back of the truck? That's how it sounds when you word it like this.

The driver looked at her, studying her from bottom to top.

While he's driving? Risky business, that.

“We should stop by a market for some canned goods,” the driver said, pulling into a street called Dover.

What's the point of giving the specific street name? Also, I think "into" should be "onto," as they're not technically pulling in to a street.

He shut his eyes when he caught sight of the infected stampeding out from alleyways and inside stores.

I think you should use another word here after "infected." It sounds like you've just given us an adjective, with no noun.

He pulled the trigger just as the truck collided with a traffic jam. The windshield exploded and him and Karen flew out.

This whole part is a little hard for me. First off, what do you mean by a traffic jam? Are there other people trying to drive away in cars, or are there just a lot of abandoned cars piled up in the middle of the road? Also, how do he and Karen go flying out of the truck so suddenly? Is the cab open somehow? I'm kind of left hanging here.


You've got a great start here and I'm really looking forward to reading more. Please PM me when you post the next part!

Hey there Aspiring! I'm going to review this for two reasons;
A) I love zombie fiction and anything Zed Head related. You should read World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks if you do too!
and
B) I feel as though I over-posted with my recent story, so I'm giving something back.
So here we go!
RED is for corrections
BLUE is for ideas
GREEN can be anything else

“I am infected,” the woman whispered, her hand dangling out the truck's window. The city outside the open window was bathed in fire, the sun’s rays baking everything. Shriveled newspapers and flyers lay crumbled on the ground like broken bodies, but she knew that the actual rotting carcasses were inside the buildings. It all looked like part of a sepia tone photo. Only problem I had with this otherwise awesome opening paragraph was the use of 'actual' in the last line. Actual carcasses? As opposed to the fake one's we've seen? Just fix that up a little. Also, this could be a good time to explain how long the woman has before she becomes a Zombie, depending on how you're version of the infection will work.



The woman gazed at a drug store, its windows stared back with vacant, grime covered glass eyes. The world had grown so quiet that if she listened closely, she could almost hear the voices of inanimate objects, but perhaps, that was just her dwindling sanity. Either way, she knew that this was not madness. The world had truly become fire. Last line kills me again. What do you mean the world was fire?



“Think it’s safe enough to get out and look for supplies?” the man driving said.



“I don’t know,” said a boy in the back, “It’s always quiet when we get to a new town.”



“Like the calm before a storm,” the woman said.

"You're really beginning to creep me out with your riddle talk," replied the young one.

The woman couldn't help but smile. "I wouldn't hurt a bug..." Avoid repeating the suffixes after speech, and easy thing to slip in to.

"Are roaches bugs or insects?" the boy asked.

"Insects, I think," the driver said. "Either way, I hate the bastards." He winced as brown dots scurried across the road.

"There's so many," the woman said, watching the roaches climb up the curb and disappear into a store.

"Think those are the kinds that bite?" said the boy, turning to watch them disappear.

"I don't know, kid," the driver said. "They all look the same to me."

"They probably are. The other kind is prey to them, after all," the woman said.



The driver looked at her, studying her from bottom to top. “Listen, um… Karen, you were bitten three hours ago, and for some reason, we were foolish and didn’t kill you right then. But we’re a group, and we trust each other, so we all believed you when you said you were immune.”



“If you are having second thoughts, please, don't keep me waiting.”



“No. I wasn't talking about getting rid of you. in fact, I’m glad we didn’t kill you. Because, I really think you’re special. You may even have something in your blood that can end this.”
Cliche, but I'll persist.



Karen shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think things are that simple.”

“I see what you mean. No one expected any of this horror movie stuff to ever happen,” the boy said. “I mean really, roaches evolving some kind of toxin that makes people go crazy. Zombies.”
Not bad, but weak. The fact that you've included Zombie movies as canon within your story is strange, usually you don't see that. As for the infection look at this link. http://zombie.wikia.com/wiki/Solanum


The driver maneuvered around a trailer flipped over on its side like a beached whale. The street beyond it was in no better shape. Glass shards were littered all over the place, shining under the harsh rays of the sun. The impression I'm getting now is that the sun's UV ray's have increased to the point of damaging the Earth's surface. If that's true, you have to explain it soon to avoid confusion.



“We should stop by a market for some canned goods,” the driver said, pulling into a street called Dover.



Business and convenience stores surrounded them on both sides, like canyon walls. Buzzards were perched on roofs, watching them drive by. This part of town, she noticed, had been the scene of a violent struggle with them. Windows were spider-webbed, doors hung from their hinges, and cars were jammed together. 'Them' are obivously the Zed Heads. Call them zombies already, or the plural collective I use in my Zombie fiction 'Zack'.



“Still think we should stop here?” the boy asked.



“There’s no need to be afraid,” the driver said. “This all happened at the beginning. Time has gone by.”

“Not much."

“Yes, but-“



“Shh!” Karen rasped, putting a finger over her lips. “I think I can-“



Rabid howls shattered the stillness and echoed from every direction. They were coming.



“We’re right in the middle of it,” the driver said, frantically surveying the area like a cornered cat. In a sense, they all were. Cats cornered by vicious dogs.

*************************************



“What are we going to do, man?” the boy said, pounding on the back of the front seat.

“We get out before the feeding frenzy gets here,” the driver said, turning to Karen. “Karen! Roll up your window!”



She stared back at him with blood-shot eyes, gums pulled back, spittle slithering down her cheeks.



“No!” he said, lashing out with his elbow as Karen slashed at him. “She’s turned!”
Oh no! I liked the sudden 'were-so-screwed' factor and the description of Karen's turning.



“Oh shit!” the boy said, unbuckling his seat belt and backing up to the drivers end. He shut his eyes when he caught sight of the infected stampeding out from alleyways and inside stores. Their bodies were red under the sun. They were running forward with the speed of track stars, madly flailing their arms.
Here's one thing. You have to decide if your infection gives the infected super-human capabilities, and explain how/why or if the infected retain the abilities they had prior to infection.



“Get the gun!” the driver said, stomping on the accelerator. He heard the boy groan as his head scraped against the window, not expecting the sudden jolt in speed.



Karen snarled as she was pressed back in her seat. She thrashed violently, the seat belt ripping from the buckle.



The driver opened his mouth to scream. Karen wrapped her mouth over his throat, silencing him.
Dayuuum.

*************************************
This break necessary?

The boy whimpered as he dug under the seat for the gun. When he found it he yanked it out and without checking to see if it was loaded, took off the safety. He raised his trembling arms and aimed at the side of Karen’s blood splattered face. He pulled the trigger just as the truck collided with a traffic jam. The windshield exploded and him and Karen flew out.



The fiery world faded to black.
Loved the ending, loved the idea, love the promise you have! It only got better as I read on and the only tripe I had with it was possibly a little addition on the research side of things. Please, PM me when you write more, there isn't enough decent zombie writing out there! Also I'll recommend again to you reading World War Z, The Zombie Survival Guide and even Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for more info and entertainment. Hope I've helped some!
Sincerely, Roach.

Thank you so much, everybody! I'm glad to know there are so many fans of things featuring zombies. Anywho, about the whole cliche thing concerning the driver's line to the woman about her possible being a cure for everything. As I was writing it, I didn't notice it sounded cliche, but she did end up turning, so in a sense I hoped that would be the irony to the whole cliche, thus in a sense making a joke out of it.

And as for all the other polints, I'll get to addressing those soon, but not in the next two days I'm afraid. I have a very busy schedule ahead. In the mean time, you can check out another one of my stories featuring zombies, (fans of the Resident Evil series will get the most out of it, bu tI tried to make it familiar for anybody who doesn't know about the series).

viewtopic.php?t=59726

Hmm, I love all things zombie, and this shows potential, but I wanted to point out a few things that I noticed.

“I am infected,” the woman whispered, her hand dangling out the truck's window. The city outside the open window was bathed in fire, the sun’s rays baking everything. Shriveled newspapers and flyers lay crumbled on the ground like broken bodies. But she knew that the actual rotting carcasses were inside the buildings. It all looked like part of a sepia tone photo.

First off, I like the description. You can really imagine that you're there. However, I think that you can go deeper. There is so much more that you could include in this description, that it could almost come alive.

“I see what you mean. No one expected any of this horror movie stuff to ever happen,” the boy said. “I mean really, roaches evolving some kind of toxin that makes people go crazy. Zombies.”

I'm not really feeling the science here. First off, I'm pretty sure that almost all species of cockroach are not poisonous. Maybe you should think about reworking the science behind your story, to make it more believable.

I've noticed, throughout the piece, but in this part especially, the dialog is stunted. It's very halting. Try and make it flow more. If you're having trouble on your dialog, go to a public place, and just listen to people talking. I know it sounds creepy, but it will really help your dialog evolve.

The windshield exploded and him and Karen flew out.

I think that this should be, "Karen and he", but I could be mistaken.

One more thing. You need to give your characters names, or nicknames, or something. The constant 'he said, 'she said', and referring to them as the man, the boy, etc, was really driving me crazy. Try changing that stuff up a little.

That's all I got. keep up with the good work.

cheers,
Pros