Fall of Human Civilization (Part I(2) Up Friday...Hopefully)

[Guest]

Rated M-15 for ages 15+

 

Violence (It's a zombie flick, what did you expect?), Sexual References (Just references. I'm no good at mushy love stuff), and Language

 

This is my first 'fanfic' on this forum, though to be honest this isn't techinally a fanfic if has it has no relation to Star Wars whatsoever. Never thought about that one, now did you?

 

Anyways, I have chosen to write my first collection of stories on my view of a 'Zombie Apocalypse', the events leading to it, the events during, and the eventual aftermath. Yes, there is an aftermath even in an apocalypse. After you have read the introduction, you will notice that I am going to use two different types of ways to tell this story.

 

I will employ both third person narrative, and first person narrative. I hope you all enjoy!

 

Also, I have decided to write this for more than one forum. As of now I'm unsure whether or not I may advertise that forum on here, so until then I will not add it.

 

All criticism is welcomed, but remember....it's fiction (meaning not everything is real. Like zombies). Well actually fiction being treated as historical fact, being told in a fictiuous manner by a fictuous author. If that made sense.

 

 

Movies....I remember going to the theatre when I was a young kid, and of course as a teenager, and watching horror movies. They were always my favorite genre. Vampires, aliens, machete-wielding maniacs, etc. all fit my taste. The cheesy ones, the remakes of my favorite series, were even better. Terrible acting, terrible plots, but the death scenes always were the best. That's really what brought me in to those movies. Different, creative ways for others to die. There was one subgenre, though, that I no longer regard as my favorite.

 

The undead series. I remember every movie they made. Every scene of despair, the degradation of human civilization, the helplessness of somebody right before they died. Humanity couldn't work together, and because of that it failed. Romero did an adequate job describing the situation, but he missed pivotal points of the beginning.

 

All of the sudden people came back from the dead, but how? We didn't know. And in the present situation, there is still no answer. Only theories. How did they spread so fast? Did they start in the country, and work their way in? Did they start in the cities, and work their way out? Or was the whole 'epidemic' just a mass, spontaneous revival of the dead? Funny thing, really, is that it was none of them.

 

The 'epidemic', a term that I feel was a misrepresentation of what happened, did start in a central location. It didn't take long to get it down just where the general area was, where the whole thing started. Was it fast to move, spreading rapidly, making the situation too late for humanity? No. It was slow. Slower than most people would have thought. Most knew how the virus could be spread. Bites, the main cause, transferred the virus from the carrier to the victim through means of saliva. Of course, in the beginning, few took that lesson, or law I should say, to heart.

 

The virus, a term that does not accurately describe what caused this mass 'epidemic', was at first slow to kill the victim. It caused, at first, normal nuisances of ones everyday life. Headaches were common, paleness in the face and hands, and lack of energy for most, if not all, victims. Pretty soon lack of energy turned to exhaustion, the victim rarely able to leave his bed. Blood flow slowed down, the victim became a white ghost of his/her former self. Most were relocated to a hospital, though a few were attempted to be cured by home remedies. Then....I apologize. I'm wasting valuable time of the reader, if any do live to read this, by pressing one with details that will later be commented on.

 

To those who wonder how the zombies acted, how fast they were, how much strength they retained after reanimation, there are a few answers. Of course, these answers are rather scientific and strenuous to read, and therefore will be summed up into a quick description, which shall later be elaborated on. The virus, if that is what it was, evolved. They evolved. The shorter the time it took for the transformation to take place, the stronger they were. Muscle deterioration would inevitably eat away the muscles. But if death was quick, say only a mere few hours, or even less than a week, then the undead were left as powerful as they were in the living world. And over time, the body found ways to combat the muscle destruction. As did whatever infected the people.

 

It is hard, in todays age, to gather enough articles, journals, recordings, etc. to describe the situation in full fact to somebody. For the most part, I will be in need to fabricate some of the events that happened. I promise the reader, who I hope will not be bored by facts, that there is fiction in what I write. The names of the original characters presented have been mostly erased from history. Only the events, the names of towns or the days of riots, are fully recorded.

 

But there are a few stories, which I promise will captivate and enlighten the reader, that come from first hand accounts, which I can accurately write. Friends and survivors of this tragedy lived, if not for long after, to tell me their tales. Every age in history needs its historian. The Greeks had Herodotus, the Romans were left with Edward Gibbon, the Civil War given the brilliance of Shelby Foote, among others. Sadly this age, the Fall of Human Civilization, has been left to me.

Edited December 4, 2008 by Guest

[DarthBrendo]

Firstly, welcome to JNet, and to FanFic.

 

We haven't had a zombie fic in a long while. So I'm looking forward to this. There were a few grammatical errors ('right' when it should have been 'write') but nothing major. Interesting start, the way I'm reading it gives it a feeling as if I'm reading from someones journal, who is writing as if speaking to an audience to keep himself sane.

 

You haven't given to much away, but have given us enough to set a scene. Enjoying it thus far.

[Guest]

Firstly, welcome to JNet, and to FanFic.

 

We haven't had a zombie fic in a long while. So I'm looking forward to this. There were a few grammatical errors ('right' when it should have been 'write') but nothing major. Interesting start, the way I'm reading it gives it a feeling as if I'm reading from someones journal, who is writing as if speaking to an audience to keep himself sane.

 

You haven't given to much away, but have given us enough to set a scene. Enjoying it thus far.

 

Ah, thank you for correcting that for me. For some reason, my computer no longer has Microsoft Word. And I'm too lazy at the present to install it. I can still get spell-check...at least.

 

I apologize for not elaborating too much on the scene. I really didn't want to give the reader a scene for the present (or the future I guess.). To be honest, I've haven't quite figured out how I want the future to look just quite yet. I just wanted them to understand what they were reading, who was writing it, and why he felt obligated too.

 

The scenes throughout the story will be set in different areas, in the eyes of different characters, but after a couple of different experiences, I hope to establish a core set of characters to work with.

 

On another note, I will hopefully have the next part to this story up tommorow afternoon. I assure everyone (Well one person so far) that it will be much longer.

[Joreel Ordo]

Zombies = You are a god.

 

And try getting OpenOffice. It's free and better than Word.

[Tiana Calthye]

There's also spellcheck.net for all your spellchecking needs! Just brush over your story, a quick readthrough, before you repost it. You can also use the following tag if you want to quote--in fact, please do, because mods use colored text for edits sometimes.

 

 [quote] Text you want to quote here [/quote]

 

Welcome to fanfic! Wooo, a zombie story. Those have been popular in times past though I haven't seen many around now. I like your narrative, sort of talking to the audience, as if to maintain sanity. I like your journalist narrator and the way you begin, as if to just give a little taste.

[Jidai Geki]

Welcome to Jnet, Jdm.

 

Regarding your story: zombie stories in this day and age are, well, run of the mill, and in order for your story to captivate a reader I think it will need a 'hook', something that distinguishes it from all the other zombie stories out there.

 

The 'epidemic', forgive me for putting the word in quotes as I regard the description as a misrepresentation of what happened, did start in a central location.

 

This sentence is somewhat clumsy; rather than explicitly stating that your author finds it inaccurate, I would suggest your author inferring that he thinks of it as such.

 

Your tone also switches from formal English to informal, which seems strange (for example, your author says 'I apologise' rather than 'I'm sorry', and then in the same sentence says 'stuff').

 

To those who wonder how the zombies acted, how fast were they, how much strength did they retain after the deterioration,

 

The word order in the latter two parts of this sentence is wrong; it should be 'how fast they were' and 'how much strength they retained'. Written like this, it looks as if English is your second language, which it doesn't appear to be.

 

I'm intrigued to see how the reference towards some parts of the story being 'fictional' will turn out.

[Guest]

And try getting OpenOffice. It's free and better than Word.

 

I've actually never heard of OpenOffice, but I will check it out. I did find a spell checker online that I used, but it would be nice to have one in use as I am writing.

 

Welcome to Jnet, Jdm.

 

Regarding your story: zombie stories in this day and age are, well, run of the mill, and in order for your story to captivate a reader I think it will need a 'hook', something that distinguishes it from all the other zombie stories out there.

 

Quote:

The 'epidemic', forgive me for putting the word in quotes as I regard the description as a misrepresentation of what happened, did start in a central location.

 

 

This sentence is somewhat clumsy; rather than explicitly stating that your author finds it inaccurate, I would suggest your author inferring that he thinks of it as such.

 

Your tone also switches from formal English to informal, which seems strange (for example, your author says 'I apologise' rather than 'I'm sorry', and then in the same sentence says 'stuff').

 

Quote:

To those who wonder how the zombies acted, how fast were they, how much strength did they retain after the deterioration,

 

 

The word order in the latter two parts of this sentence is wrong; it should be 'how fast they were' and 'how much strength they retained'. Written like this, it looks as if English is your second language, which it doesn't appear to be.

 

I'm intrigued to see how the reference towards some parts of the story being 'fictional' will turn out.

 

Thanks for pointing out some of the odd sentence structures I used. To be honest, I've never written anything moderately long in Formal English. So there will probably be mistakes (which I will correct ) at first, but as I progress, I hope it gets better...well, actually it should.

 

There's also spellcheck.net for all your spellchecking needs! Just brush over your story, a quick readthrough, before you repost it. You can also use the following tag if you want to quote--in fact, please do, because mods use colored text for edits sometimes.

 

Code:

Text you want to quote here

 

 

Welcome to fanfic! Wooo, a zombie story. Those have been popular in times past though I haven't seen many around now. I like your narrative, sort of talking to the audience, as if to maintain sanity. I like your journalist narrator and the way you begin, as if to just give a little taste.

 

Actually, I had to use spellchecker.net for some corrections. And I'm glad you liked my narrative. Hopefully you like the third person narrative better. Formal English (which someone already found mistakes with) is hard to write with. Will be nice to take a break to the slackers way of writing

[Guest]

Part I ”“ A Small County

 

March 19th

Washington County, Ohio

Fort Frye High School, Beverly

 

The square root of six x to the third is equal to the cosine of x divided by..... Mitch scribbled out his line of work, the eraser already obliterated from earlier mistakes and frustrations. He placed the pencil down, and readjusted the sleeve of his hoodie. It had started to slip down his arm, and began to interfere with his writing. He flipped the paper, and was glad to see that it was blank. Just one last problem to complete before the end of class.

 

He looked up to the clock, only seven minutes left. It was more than enough time for just one final question. He had already left three blank, each problem on the test worth five points a piece. He was in the process of adding the questions he had left only half answered. His predicted score was bound to be higher than what he would actually get, but it didn't matter to him. Getting a middle of the road grade was always better than failing. As long as some people scored lower than him, he'd be able to use the excuse that the test was just too difficult. The teacher didn't give enough examples, or explain it thoroughly. His parents had to buy that.

 

Mitch chewed on his nail, a habit he had obtained when he was in junior high, and looked around the class. Nineteen students were in the calculus class, situated on the first floor the of two story high school. A few of his friends had signed up for the class too, but the teacher assigned the seats, and they all were seated away from each other. With the last few minutes ticking away, there were still seventeen students who had yet to complete the test.

 

One who had finished was some brainiac Mitch hadn't spoken a word too since eighth grade, and that was unintentional. The other, Chelsea, was a good friend of Mitch's. She sat two seats directly in front of him, and on that day the guy seated between them was absent.

 

Her purse was in her lap, her cell phone hidden behind it. Her fingers moved furiously, and Chelsea quickly snapped the phone shut, and put it back in her purse. The teacher was oblivious to anything that when on his class, but it didn't hurt to be careful nonetheless.

 

A low buzz went off in Mitch's pocket, as he smiled to himself. Even if there was a guy in between them, they still had ways to communicate. He slyly pulled the phone out from his pocket. Crossing his right leg over the left, he hid it from all view up front. Purses weren't necessary for men. He flipped open the phone, and wasn't the least surprised to see a message from Chelsea.

 

The text read 'I think I failed! I'm so sick of this class! Haha, I'm sure you'll pass it though. You always do!' He smiled as he read the text, and quickly replied 'If you count a sixty-five percent as passing, than yeah I always do pass!' He sent the message, and put the phone back in his pocket.

 

He looked back up to the clock, and sat frustrated. His time left had dropped to only four minutes and thirty seconds. Chelsea was good at distracting him. And it just wasn't in Calculus class. Finishing up the final question, one of the few he knew how to do in full, he put his pencil down and sighed.

 

He walked down the aisle, placed his paper with the now nine completed tests, and walked back. As he walked back, Chelsea looked up at him and gave a little thumbs down. He returned it with a quick thumbs up, and she childishly stuck her tongue out at him.

 

As he sat down, a sudden thud was heard against the window. The whole class, looking for any reason to take their minds off of the test, turned to the window, and a few gasped. Another one of the sick victims had wandered into town, this one an older lady.

 

Her face was pale like the rest, and a small, unhealed wound was visible on her right shoulder. She wore a nightgown, torn at random places. It was obvious she had been on the move since the night. A branch was seen stuck in her hair, and parts of her face and gown were smeared with dried mud.

 

The teacher stood up, went over to the window, and sighed, ”œThat's the third one in the past two weeks. Damn city council won't let us take care of the problems ourselves,”

Edited December 1, 2008 by Guest

[Tiana Calthye]

BWHAHAHAAAA.

 

(pokes) Post more, I need to know what happens. BRAINS.

 

Okay, I admit I just have this thing for zombie stories and the other writers posting zombie stories COUGHGEKICOUGH stopped posting them COUGHOTHERPEOPLETOOWHOIFORGETCOUGH.

 

So now you have to keep updating this one so that we see brains eaten and the universe degrade into a state of wrecked villainy! Somewhere, someone is narrating this story from the perspective of a journalist... or maybe someone at wits end in a dying universe slowly decaying from the undead growing more and more violent...

 

“Have a great day class,” he said mildly, “and don't mess around with those things. You all remember the janitor. These things are turning violent,” he picked up the stack of completed tests, and put them in a folder.

Such an offhand remark... but we all know it's really more like DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN.

[Jidai Geki]

That last post was much more engaging that the first. I especially enjoyed the beginning- the mundanity of the situation nicely offsets what we know is coming.

 

There were a few things which I found awkward, however: the casual attitude towards these crazy people who were finding their way into the school and actually getting violent. It seems a bit of a nonchalant way to handle something like this by sending the janitor.

 

Furthermore, the way the teacher spoke in front of the class was, I found, uncharacteristic of how a teacher would behave. Perhaps you intended for him to be so unprofessional, but if not... I would look at how he speaks and maybe alter it. The woman's response to him over the intercom (do they have intercoms in US schools?) was also a little chatty and informal for a conversation between a teacher and (I'm assuming) the principal whilst in front of a class.

 

As for the 'fiction' elements... I'm not too sure of it, it works well as an 'omniscient narrator' angle, but that this guy is sitting in a post-apoc world writing stories as a way of explaining what happened seems a little strange. I could buy him documenting and annotating known events, but making up his own... I dunno. Keep it coming though, it has promise.

[Tiana Calthye]

I dunno, if I was in a world gone mad and I was on the edge of sanity, I think I'd write. Escapism, and all that...

 

Definately keep it coming.

[Guest]

BWHAHAHAAAA.

 

(pokes) Post more, I need to know what happens. BRAINS.

 

Okay, I admit I just have this thing for zombie stories and the other writers posting zombie stories COUGHGEKICOUGH stopped posting them COUGHOTHERPEOPLETOOWHOIFORGETCOUGH.

 

So now you have to keep updating this one so that we see brains eaten and the universe degrade into a state of wrecked villainy! Somewhere, someone is narrating this story from the perspective of a journalist... or maybe someone at wits end in a dying universe slowly decaying from the undead growing more and more violent...

 

Quote:

”œHave a great day class,”

[DarthBrendo]

Geki pretty much covered it...but more....BRAINS!

[Guest]

Geki pretty much covered it...but more....BRAINS!

 

And I pretty much covered what Geki said

 

Anyways, I'm aiming for an update once a week, but considering this is my Thanksgiving break, it could be sooner.

[NavyGal]

When you described the secretary lady's voice as high pierced did you mean high pitched?

 

Interesting story.

 

I thought the intercom type thing gave it a slightly into the future feel to it. Thinking about it though, my primary school had phones in lieu of an intercom system in the classrooms.

[Guest]

When you described the secretary lady's voice as high pierced did you mean high pitched?

 

Interesting story.

 

I thought the intercom type thing gave it a slightly into the future feel to it. Thinking about it though, my primary school had phones in lieu of an intercom system in the classrooms.

 

We used to use phones at my elementary school. But once I got to junior high, and then to high school we switched to the new system. We can't afford books or hire more teachers, but I'll be damned if we miss out on a new intercom system.

 

And yeah, high pitched is kind of what I meant. To be honest, I should have just stuck in the word nasally, but it didn't come to me as I was writing.

[NavyGal]

Maybe but to me high pitched and nasally are two different qualities High pitched is like giggly teenage girl squealing OMG! type but nasally is the texture of the sound.

[Guest]

Maybe but to me high pitched and nasally are two different qualities High pitched is like giggly teenage girl squealing OMG! type but nasally is the texture of the sound.

 

I never said they were the same . Anyways, I'm changing it to nasally, as that was what I should have put down.

 

Thank you for pointing that out.

[Tiana Calthye]

Oh yeah, offhand note--the rules of fanfic have changed since you posted, including a required rating/desired critique level needed in your first post. Please read the new rules (I don't think you're breaking them) and add said required content.