Decafalypse - for Clare
Monday, 25 June 2012 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ex_pippin880 posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
junetideTitle: Decafalypse
Gift for: Clare
By: [to be revealed]
Gift type: fiction (2408 words)
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: violence, cursing
Summary: Ginger, Arabica, and Smash get themselves into a little trouble with the local horde.
Giftcreator's notes: When I saw this prompt, I made grabby hands. And before I even got the assignment, I started writing it. I would have offered it as a treat, if I didn't get the assignment. But then I won! So it's the gift. :D
“Ginger! Get your ass out here! There's more of them coming!” I hefted my cudgel waist high and yelled over my shoulder. She was rustling around in the building's darkness. I heard plastic wrap and footsteps. My gaze shot back to the approaching figures on the horizon, maybe a football field's length away. You could barely make them out against the glare of the sun and the heat rising in sticky waves off the asphalt.
“Ginger!” I hit the side of the doorjamb with the back of my knuckles. “Seriously! What the fuck is in there you gotta waste our time like this?” I caught Smash's look: Ginger had less than a minute before we left her sorry ass behind.
“Just a second! I think I got something!” Her voice was muffled against the rattle of cupboards. The approaching horde was closer (tops, maybe 3 minutes away). We didn't have time for this shit.
“Ginger, just fucking leave it. Unless you've got real-deal-C in there, I suggest you get your scrawny little ass back out here. We're going to have company in about 30 seconds.”
“Ha! Got it!” There was a triumphant and entirely-imagined fist pump to the sky inside the abandoned house, and then our girl was vaulting out of it, a hand closed around a tiny little box. “Let's-oh shit.” She screeched to a stop.
I looked back. They weren't 30 seconds away, not even. A line of them, twenty or thirty dead eyes glaring at us. All in a row. Every one of them held something- a weapon from their old lives. A stapler. A book. A cutting board. A stick shift lever. My fingers tightened around the cool aluminum of my rolling pin, tested its weight. It wouldn't take many of them down, but it might grant us a few moments of escape.
“Ging. Put it in the bag and then get the hell back.”
A woman, 40 years old maybe when this whole hell started, business suit torn and heels long lost, steps forward with a bloody briefcase in hand, held like a shield. She's clearly the leader.
“What's the little one got, huh?” She bounces the briefcase in hand. “She find some C? She get her grimy little bitch hands on some hot C? She a fast runner?” She cackles, the sound of a desperate woman at the end of her rope, and I'm not entirely sure if that's smeared lipstick or blood on her lips. I gesture with my hand that Ginger should stay back. Smash steps up to my side.
“If you know what's good for you, I suggest you back the fuck off.” Smash raises his pipe wrench in threat.
Based on the general shakiness of the woman with the briefcase, something tells me this horde has been too long without C. This means that while they will be incredibly desperate for our new-found stash, they will be weaker than us. We boosted up two days ago from a supply we found in a wrecked food delivery truck. We would be stronger in this fight. Quicker, too.
The woman snarls at Smash. She hunches over, shaking, and shouts, “Get me that C!” and her entourage launches at us.
The first one to get near me is an ex-truck driver. There are deep bags under his eyes, evidence of the same bone-deep exhaustion that drives him anxiously forward. He carries a crowbar, raises it above his head, prepares to hit me, but I jam my rolling pin handle into his gut and he wails out like a broken squeaky toy and drops the crow bar. One blow to the top of his head and he's out.
I grab his weapon and throw it back to Ginger. I don't turn to check that she's got it, because there's an elementary teacher jumping at me with a yardstick.
I block her first strike with the barrel of my rolling pin, and feel the collision vibrate down my arms. Up close I can see her face: makeup smeared, hair in disarray, polka-dot dress torn. She grits her teeth and narrows her eyes, and she smells like a sweaty chalkboard. While our weapons are engaged, I kick out her feet from under her and she falls to the side. I straddle her body, preparing to deal her a death blow, but she twists out from under me and slashes at my left calf with the metal edge of her ruler.
I cry out and hobble back. The gash on my leg starts to well up with blood. I desperately hang on to my weapon. She scrambles back to her feet, smiling.
My leg throbs and I wince with the pain. She laughs, “Liked that, did you? You remind me of a student I used to have.”
Tired of waiting and bleeding, I feint to my left and rush to my right. She isn't prepared for my speed, a fantastic side affect of the C I had two days ago. We fall to the hard ground and she screams with pain before I press the rolling pin to her throat and apply pressure. She scrambles at my hands with her dirty broken nails and tries to buck me off, but all she manages to do is scratch my hands. Finally, her face turns the wrong color and she's still.
I look up. Smash is head-to-head with what looks like a secretary wielding a stapler. At his feet are three bodies. A blur of motion to my left, and I roll just in time to avoid the mop shaft aimed for my spine. It whacks the school teacher in the face and I hear the sound of her nose breaking. I stumble to my feet, my leg reminding me of its recent injury.
The man with the mop – a janitor, it would appear – picks his weapon back up and swings it around at my face. I duck, but just in time, and swing my rolling pin back as I step forward into his end of his swing, before he has a chance to reverse direction. My weapon connects with his ribcage and there's a thunk and a faint crack. He drops the mop and clutches his side, “YOU- YOU-BIT-!”
I push him back, and he loses balance and falls with a shout. I grab his discarded weapon with my free hand and toss it away. I raise my weapon and
Something slams into me from behind. I fall, throwing out my free hand to break my landing, my other hand clutching my weapon to my chest. I feel the rough scrape of the skin off the palm of my hand, accompanied by all the air in my lungs being knocked out of me as I land awkwardly on my rolling pin. My leg reminds me of its injury with a sharp spike of pain up my left side.
Something heavy smashes into my hip, and I hear frantic footsteps of what I think is the Janitor regaining his position.
“She broke my rib!” He whines to the figure who is now whaling me with something solid. I curl up and try to protect both my head and my weapon. Another blow finds my shoulder. The pain is...almost too much.
“Aw, poor baby, cry me a river.” I recognize the voice as the business woman leader. She must be attacking me with her briefcase. She pauses in her attack, breathing heavily. “Go get the little one.”
I risk a glance up before she hits me again and, sure enough, the woman is gesturing towards where Ginger ran. Towards our camp. The Janitor, clutching his injured side and mop, shuffles off. She turns back to me, and I duck my head again.
“I hope he finds that little runt and all the C you've got.” She lifts the briefcase in preparation to strike, and I roll onto my back and kick out. My left foot misses but my right foot finds her ankle. She cries out and briefly lowers the weapon.
I take advantage of the gap and grab the other handle of my rolling pin, bringing it up just as she brings hers down. They collide, and luckily my weapon crushes the fingers of her hands holding the briefcase. She drops the case with a howl and clutches her injured hand to her chest. I hobble up to my feet and rush her, get her right above the eyes with my pin. Her head jerks back and she falls.
I look over to where I last saw Smash. There's two more bodies in that area than before, and I pray to the twin-tailed Siren that he's not one of them. I glance around, behind me, but I don't see any more enemies. I rip a piece of the business woman's skirt off and use it to bandage up my bleeding calf before I go over to check on Smash.
He's lying on the ground, under the body of a taxi driver and a security guard. He's still alive, but winded. I kick the bodies off of him and pull him to his feet.
“Thanks. That security guard had a taser. Where's Ginger?” I remember, with a horrible jolt: the Janitor.
I point towards the camp, “They sent one after her!” He rushes off, unburdened by as many wounds as I've found myself with. I'm halfway there myself, trying to run through what is probably a cracked rib and a bruised hip, and I hear her scream. I try to move faster, my mind imagining all the terrible things that could have happened to her while I was curled up in the dirt.
I pull up over the edge of the hill and see Ginger standing over the body of the Janitor, the crowbar in her hands. There's red on the dirt beneath him. The backpack containing our supplies is upturned on the ground. I see the small box she stole from the house lying in the dirt. Smash is at her side, softly coaching her to let go of the weapon.
I get closer and she is shaking like a leaf. She lets Smash take the crowbar from her and she wraps her arms around her body. When she looks up at me, I see tears on her cheeks. This is her first kill of the new world. She's only seventeen.
“I...I had to. He was g-gonna take the C. Ara, he was going to h-hurt me.” I nod and pull her close for a hug. She buries her face in my shoulder.
Smash leans over and picks up the small box. Suddenly, he grins. He sees me watching him curiously and turns the box so I can see it.
I laugh, breathlessly. A short puff of air, but it's all the shock I've got left.
“Ginger found Instant?”
“Ginger found Instant.”
I pull her away from me and smile broadly. “Holy Sencha, Ginger, you found instant?!”
She smiles weakly, nods. “Told you I had something good.”
“Wait 'til Rooi gets back. He'll make us a feast!”
That night, after the other two members of our party return from scavenging (Rooi, our barista and Cherry, the movie theater worker). They bring to the campfire the spoils of their search: an old packet of Lipton and opened can of soda.
Once the water pot is set up and boiling, Ginger reaches into her backpack and pulls out the Instant. When she hands it to Rooi, there's instant silence. He holds it up, reads the label, and his eyes go wide. I watch Ginger blush and clasp her hands. Cherry looks over at the jar, and yanks it from Rooi.
“What the Frapp! Is this what I think it is? Did you find this, Ging?”
Ginger nods. Cherry jumps up, runs over to the other side of the fire, and bear hugs Ginger.
“Yes! You go, girl! You are the best person EVER! INSTAAAAANT WE'VE GOT INSTANT!”
We all laugh, happy for once.
When things have settled down, we prepare for our feast. Ginger gets the cups, Rooi prepares the meal, and the rest of us sit back and watch the magic happen.
Rooi scoops enough Instant into the pot to satisfy us all. He stirs. The aroma fills our nostrils and peace settles over us. If there was a nirvana after the world ended, this was it: the smell of instant coffee, sharp and hot, boiling over a fire. He pours a measure into each of our cups. We let it cool, though not enough, and impatiently each of us takes a sip. Ginger takes too big a sip and burns her tongue, but does not stop.
I let the flavor coat my tongue. It brings back all the memories I thought I'd never have again: stopping in a coffee shop at four in the morning and letting the warm milky coffee soar through my veins and wake me up just that little bit that I needed. Baking bread in the dark of a kitchen, the sun rising as the dough does, a cup of coffee sitting at my right. The clouds that develop in a cup when you pour in just a little bit of cream.
Coffee is a love song, singing in your veins. It had been so long since I'd had anything approaching a cup of coffee, this one cup made up for all the pain and nausea and migraines since this whole End of the World began. We would be rejuvenated, come morning. Maybe find somewhere with more C, settle down, and begin again. We'd grow a coffee farm, or maybe a granary, and maybe I could bake again.
I swallowed my last sip, even though I tried to make it last. When I looked up, I found everyone else in the same caffeinated boat.
Smash had his eyes closed, face upturned to the sky. Ginger was crying again. Rooi was smiling into his empty cup, and Cherry was trying to lick every last drop from hers. It was a moment in time when we weren't worried about our next caffeination, or escaping from the under-caffeinated zombie-like hordes. We were at peace with the world, even the post-apocalyptic sucky one we were stuck with.
Gift for: Clare
By: [to be revealed]
Gift type: fiction (2408 words)
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: violence, cursing
Summary: Ginger, Arabica, and Smash get themselves into a little trouble with the local horde.
Giftcreator's notes: When I saw this prompt, I made grabby hands. And before I even got the assignment, I started writing it. I would have offered it as a treat, if I didn't get the assignment. But then I won! So it's the gift. :D
“Ginger! Get your ass out here! There's more of them coming!” I hefted my cudgel waist high and yelled over my shoulder. She was rustling around in the building's darkness. I heard plastic wrap and footsteps. My gaze shot back to the approaching figures on the horizon, maybe a football field's length away. You could barely make them out against the glare of the sun and the heat rising in sticky waves off the asphalt.
“Ginger!” I hit the side of the doorjamb with the back of my knuckles. “Seriously! What the fuck is in there you gotta waste our time like this?” I caught Smash's look: Ginger had less than a minute before we left her sorry ass behind.
“Just a second! I think I got something!” Her voice was muffled against the rattle of cupboards. The approaching horde was closer (tops, maybe 3 minutes away). We didn't have time for this shit.
“Ginger, just fucking leave it. Unless you've got real-deal-C in there, I suggest you get your scrawny little ass back out here. We're going to have company in about 30 seconds.”
“Ha! Got it!” There was a triumphant and entirely-imagined fist pump to the sky inside the abandoned house, and then our girl was vaulting out of it, a hand closed around a tiny little box. “Let's-oh shit.” She screeched to a stop.
I looked back. They weren't 30 seconds away, not even. A line of them, twenty or thirty dead eyes glaring at us. All in a row. Every one of them held something- a weapon from their old lives. A stapler. A book. A cutting board. A stick shift lever. My fingers tightened around the cool aluminum of my rolling pin, tested its weight. It wouldn't take many of them down, but it might grant us a few moments of escape.
“Ging. Put it in the bag and then get the hell back.”
A woman, 40 years old maybe when this whole hell started, business suit torn and heels long lost, steps forward with a bloody briefcase in hand, held like a shield. She's clearly the leader.
“What's the little one got, huh?” She bounces the briefcase in hand. “She find some C? She get her grimy little bitch hands on some hot C? She a fast runner?” She cackles, the sound of a desperate woman at the end of her rope, and I'm not entirely sure if that's smeared lipstick or blood on her lips. I gesture with my hand that Ginger should stay back. Smash steps up to my side.
“If you know what's good for you, I suggest you back the fuck off.” Smash raises his pipe wrench in threat.
Based on the general shakiness of the woman with the briefcase, something tells me this horde has been too long without C. This means that while they will be incredibly desperate for our new-found stash, they will be weaker than us. We boosted up two days ago from a supply we found in a wrecked food delivery truck. We would be stronger in this fight. Quicker, too.
The woman snarls at Smash. She hunches over, shaking, and shouts, “Get me that C!” and her entourage launches at us.
The first one to get near me is an ex-truck driver. There are deep bags under his eyes, evidence of the same bone-deep exhaustion that drives him anxiously forward. He carries a crowbar, raises it above his head, prepares to hit me, but I jam my rolling pin handle into his gut and he wails out like a broken squeaky toy and drops the crow bar. One blow to the top of his head and he's out.
I grab his weapon and throw it back to Ginger. I don't turn to check that she's got it, because there's an elementary teacher jumping at me with a yardstick.
I block her first strike with the barrel of my rolling pin, and feel the collision vibrate down my arms. Up close I can see her face: makeup smeared, hair in disarray, polka-dot dress torn. She grits her teeth and narrows her eyes, and she smells like a sweaty chalkboard. While our weapons are engaged, I kick out her feet from under her and she falls to the side. I straddle her body, preparing to deal her a death blow, but she twists out from under me and slashes at my left calf with the metal edge of her ruler.
I cry out and hobble back. The gash on my leg starts to well up with blood. I desperately hang on to my weapon. She scrambles back to her feet, smiling.
My leg throbs and I wince with the pain. She laughs, “Liked that, did you? You remind me of a student I used to have.”
Tired of waiting and bleeding, I feint to my left and rush to my right. She isn't prepared for my speed, a fantastic side affect of the C I had two days ago. We fall to the hard ground and she screams with pain before I press the rolling pin to her throat and apply pressure. She scrambles at my hands with her dirty broken nails and tries to buck me off, but all she manages to do is scratch my hands. Finally, her face turns the wrong color and she's still.
I look up. Smash is head-to-head with what looks like a secretary wielding a stapler. At his feet are three bodies. A blur of motion to my left, and I roll just in time to avoid the mop shaft aimed for my spine. It whacks the school teacher in the face and I hear the sound of her nose breaking. I stumble to my feet, my leg reminding me of its recent injury.
The man with the mop – a janitor, it would appear – picks his weapon back up and swings it around at my face. I duck, but just in time, and swing my rolling pin back as I step forward into his end of his swing, before he has a chance to reverse direction. My weapon connects with his ribcage and there's a thunk and a faint crack. He drops the mop and clutches his side, “YOU- YOU-BIT-!”
I push him back, and he loses balance and falls with a shout. I grab his discarded weapon with my free hand and toss it away. I raise my weapon and
Something slams into me from behind. I fall, throwing out my free hand to break my landing, my other hand clutching my weapon to my chest. I feel the rough scrape of the skin off the palm of my hand, accompanied by all the air in my lungs being knocked out of me as I land awkwardly on my rolling pin. My leg reminds me of its injury with a sharp spike of pain up my left side.
Something heavy smashes into my hip, and I hear frantic footsteps of what I think is the Janitor regaining his position.
“She broke my rib!” He whines to the figure who is now whaling me with something solid. I curl up and try to protect both my head and my weapon. Another blow finds my shoulder. The pain is...almost too much.
“Aw, poor baby, cry me a river.” I recognize the voice as the business woman leader. She must be attacking me with her briefcase. She pauses in her attack, breathing heavily. “Go get the little one.”
I risk a glance up before she hits me again and, sure enough, the woman is gesturing towards where Ginger ran. Towards our camp. The Janitor, clutching his injured side and mop, shuffles off. She turns back to me, and I duck my head again.
“I hope he finds that little runt and all the C you've got.” She lifts the briefcase in preparation to strike, and I roll onto my back and kick out. My left foot misses but my right foot finds her ankle. She cries out and briefly lowers the weapon.
I take advantage of the gap and grab the other handle of my rolling pin, bringing it up just as she brings hers down. They collide, and luckily my weapon crushes the fingers of her hands holding the briefcase. She drops the case with a howl and clutches her injured hand to her chest. I hobble up to my feet and rush her, get her right above the eyes with my pin. Her head jerks back and she falls.
I look over to where I last saw Smash. There's two more bodies in that area than before, and I pray to the twin-tailed Siren that he's not one of them. I glance around, behind me, but I don't see any more enemies. I rip a piece of the business woman's skirt off and use it to bandage up my bleeding calf before I go over to check on Smash.
He's lying on the ground, under the body of a taxi driver and a security guard. He's still alive, but winded. I kick the bodies off of him and pull him to his feet.
“Thanks. That security guard had a taser. Where's Ginger?” I remember, with a horrible jolt: the Janitor.
I point towards the camp, “They sent one after her!” He rushes off, unburdened by as many wounds as I've found myself with. I'm halfway there myself, trying to run through what is probably a cracked rib and a bruised hip, and I hear her scream. I try to move faster, my mind imagining all the terrible things that could have happened to her while I was curled up in the dirt.
I pull up over the edge of the hill and see Ginger standing over the body of the Janitor, the crowbar in her hands. There's red on the dirt beneath him. The backpack containing our supplies is upturned on the ground. I see the small box she stole from the house lying in the dirt. Smash is at her side, softly coaching her to let go of the weapon.
I get closer and she is shaking like a leaf. She lets Smash take the crowbar from her and she wraps her arms around her body. When she looks up at me, I see tears on her cheeks. This is her first kill of the new world. She's only seventeen.
“I...I had to. He was g-gonna take the C. Ara, he was going to h-hurt me.” I nod and pull her close for a hug. She buries her face in my shoulder.
Smash leans over and picks up the small box. Suddenly, he grins. He sees me watching him curiously and turns the box so I can see it.
I laugh, breathlessly. A short puff of air, but it's all the shock I've got left.
“Ginger found Instant?”
“Ginger found Instant.”
I pull her away from me and smile broadly. “Holy Sencha, Ginger, you found instant?!”
She smiles weakly, nods. “Told you I had something good.”
“Wait 'til Rooi gets back. He'll make us a feast!”
That night, after the other two members of our party return from scavenging (Rooi, our barista and Cherry, the movie theater worker). They bring to the campfire the spoils of their search: an old packet of Lipton and opened can of soda.
Once the water pot is set up and boiling, Ginger reaches into her backpack and pulls out the Instant. When she hands it to Rooi, there's instant silence. He holds it up, reads the label, and his eyes go wide. I watch Ginger blush and clasp her hands. Cherry looks over at the jar, and yanks it from Rooi.
“What the Frapp! Is this what I think it is? Did you find this, Ging?”
Ginger nods. Cherry jumps up, runs over to the other side of the fire, and bear hugs Ginger.
“Yes! You go, girl! You are the best person EVER! INSTAAAAANT WE'VE GOT INSTANT!”
We all laugh, happy for once.
When things have settled down, we prepare for our feast. Ginger gets the cups, Rooi prepares the meal, and the rest of us sit back and watch the magic happen.
Rooi scoops enough Instant into the pot to satisfy us all. He stirs. The aroma fills our nostrils and peace settles over us. If there was a nirvana after the world ended, this was it: the smell of instant coffee, sharp and hot, boiling over a fire. He pours a measure into each of our cups. We let it cool, though not enough, and impatiently each of us takes a sip. Ginger takes too big a sip and burns her tongue, but does not stop.
I let the flavor coat my tongue. It brings back all the memories I thought I'd never have again: stopping in a coffee shop at four in the morning and letting the warm milky coffee soar through my veins and wake me up just that little bit that I needed. Baking bread in the dark of a kitchen, the sun rising as the dough does, a cup of coffee sitting at my right. The clouds that develop in a cup when you pour in just a little bit of cream.
Coffee is a love song, singing in your veins. It had been so long since I'd had anything approaching a cup of coffee, this one cup made up for all the pain and nausea and migraines since this whole End of the World began. We would be rejuvenated, come morning. Maybe find somewhere with more C, settle down, and begin again. We'd grow a coffee farm, or maybe a granary, and maybe I could bake again.
I swallowed my last sip, even though I tried to make it last. When I looked up, I found everyone else in the same caffeinated boat.
Smash had his eyes closed, face upturned to the sky. Ginger was crying again. Rooi was smiling into his empty cup, and Cherry was trying to lick every last drop from hers. It was a moment in time when we weren't worried about our next caffeination, or escaping from the under-caffeinated zombie-like hordes. We were at peace with the world, even the post-apocalyptic sucky one we were stuck with.
Poll #10947 Decafalypse
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 5
I enjoyed this!
Yes
5 (100.0%)
no subject
Date: 2012-06-25 04:43 pm (UTC)You write fights really well. The ones here are very real.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-25 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-27 06:05 am (UTC)