I spend a lot of time with dead people. In fact, I spend more time with dead folk than with the living. A lot of people find that creepy, but for me there’s something reassuring about being with someone who can’t talk back. It’s.. predictable. Mind you - the dead tell stories. Yes they do! Their bodies tell me all sorts of things - what they liked to do, what they didn’t like, in some cases where they’ve traveled or what kind of people they spent time with. But even the teenagers don’t talk back. That’s what’s nice, see. They tell their stories, but it’s at my own pace, bit by bit as I want to hear it.
Well that was always true, until the day.. the day that Mr. Kramer sat up on the table and came at me. He brought his story right over and chomped it into my arm. There was nothing I could do! It stung like hell, and then burned, and it spread through my body until I couldn’t see right.
Now I’m one of them. My leg doesn’t work right anymore, neither does my head. All I can think about is going to find something to eat. Something human, something that moves.. We’re all stuck in the hospital basement, but I know that at some point that door is going to open and we’ll have access to an all you can eat buffet. Just gotta get past the others, just gotta keep pushing, just gotta find that warm, delicious flesh...This month I am participating in the April A-Z Challenge! My theme for the month is ‘character development.’ Some days will be exercises from John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction, others will be profiles of characters from my book Armageddon: Pick Your Plot, and some will just be random characters I make up. I hope you enjoy!
