softsponge
07-09-2004, 07:57 AM
ok this is actually a stand alone chapter from a collaberation story called Rise of the dead:London but i like it and i hope you do too feel free to comment below.....
Mike Farrell stared over the edge of the window cleaning scaffold and looked down 23 stories to the city below. The centre of Birmingham looked like hell, hell on Earth. Thousands of the things walked around aimlessly shambling from place to place like a drunk in search of his next pint. Cars lay wrecked and overturned, their owners food for the restless dead or members of the worlds biggest union, that of the undead..
Fires raged across the skyline of the city for as far as Mick could see, hundreds of office blocks were on fire and the residential homes a couple of miles away fared no better, he was staggered by how quickly the end of the world had been wrought,, only yesterday morning he’d climbed into the scaffolding rig with his best mate Minty and shimmied up 37 stories of the Wesleyan tower to begin the once weekly task of cleaning the skyscrapers windows.
Popping the last of his chewing gum in his mouth, Mick wished he had a cigarette, hell he wished he had a hundred but Minty had smoked them all while he’d slept fitfully last night, rocked to sleep by the moans of the dead. The sun was rising now though washing over the landscape with fine tinted golden colour, far removed from the visceral red staining the floor below. Standing up cost Mick dearly his thirty one year old bones creaked and popped as he stretched. “Shit-fuck” was the only words he muttered though as he didn’t want to disturb Minty. .
Gripping the metal rails on the side of the scaffold, Mick thought about how easy it would be to jump, just jump and end it all. He doubted he’d come back after a fall like that but he still wasn’t sure. The radio stations hadn’t helped either; first they’d said it was some terrorists, then an act of god and by the time the BBC had signed off this morning to the strains of God Save the Queen the only person left there had been a tea-boy named Justin who couldn’t operate anything but the emergency broadcast system.
Reaching inside his trouser pocket Mick pulled out the lottery ticket he’d bought yesterday at Mr Patel’s supermarket down the road from his flea infested bedsit in Walsall. He stared at the numbers for what must have been the hundredth time, the numbers matched perfectly with those that had been drawn on the national lottery at 8pm last night. Exactly four minutes before the first reports of strange deaths and cattle mutilations had been broadcast by a gravel voiced newscaster.
For four minutes he’d been a millionaire, one winner jackpot £18,356,722 a tidy sum even by Donald Trumps standards. He’d planned exactly how he was going to spend it, down to the last penny. He laughed at the delicious irony that had been granted him by God; and thought of all those who had perished over the years in pursuit of money and how no-one was ever going to die over money again. As he crumpled the lottery ticket he looked up at Minty, his legs swayed gently in the early morning breeze, a look of peace was etched on his chubby face and only the smell of his soiled underwear detracted from his aura of serenity. Mick laughed out loud, his voice echoing through the air alone before being joined by a morass of moans coming from the corpses waiting for him below.
The lottery ticket flew into the air swept away on a current taking it to the place all lost hopes and dreams retire to; and Mick followed, through the air with a grace reserved for those without fear. His arms outstretched and a look of acceptance on his face as he fell to the floor below………..
Mick’s fears were unfounded he never came back and as his body lay on the floor a mangled ruin of what had once been a man who’d only ever wanted something better the ticket he’d thrown floated down gently and landed on the back of his ruined head….
Mike Farrell stared over the edge of the window cleaning scaffold and looked down 23 stories to the city below. The centre of Birmingham looked like hell, hell on Earth. Thousands of the things walked around aimlessly shambling from place to place like a drunk in search of his next pint. Cars lay wrecked and overturned, their owners food for the restless dead or members of the worlds biggest union, that of the undead..
Fires raged across the skyline of the city for as far as Mick could see, hundreds of office blocks were on fire and the residential homes a couple of miles away fared no better, he was staggered by how quickly the end of the world had been wrought,, only yesterday morning he’d climbed into the scaffolding rig with his best mate Minty and shimmied up 37 stories of the Wesleyan tower to begin the once weekly task of cleaning the skyscrapers windows.
Popping the last of his chewing gum in his mouth, Mick wished he had a cigarette, hell he wished he had a hundred but Minty had smoked them all while he’d slept fitfully last night, rocked to sleep by the moans of the dead. The sun was rising now though washing over the landscape with fine tinted golden colour, far removed from the visceral red staining the floor below. Standing up cost Mick dearly his thirty one year old bones creaked and popped as he stretched. “Shit-fuck” was the only words he muttered though as he didn’t want to disturb Minty. .
Gripping the metal rails on the side of the scaffold, Mick thought about how easy it would be to jump, just jump and end it all. He doubted he’d come back after a fall like that but he still wasn’t sure. The radio stations hadn’t helped either; first they’d said it was some terrorists, then an act of god and by the time the BBC had signed off this morning to the strains of God Save the Queen the only person left there had been a tea-boy named Justin who couldn’t operate anything but the emergency broadcast system.
Reaching inside his trouser pocket Mick pulled out the lottery ticket he’d bought yesterday at Mr Patel’s supermarket down the road from his flea infested bedsit in Walsall. He stared at the numbers for what must have been the hundredth time, the numbers matched perfectly with those that had been drawn on the national lottery at 8pm last night. Exactly four minutes before the first reports of strange deaths and cattle mutilations had been broadcast by a gravel voiced newscaster.
For four minutes he’d been a millionaire, one winner jackpot £18,356,722 a tidy sum even by Donald Trumps standards. He’d planned exactly how he was going to spend it, down to the last penny. He laughed at the delicious irony that had been granted him by God; and thought of all those who had perished over the years in pursuit of money and how no-one was ever going to die over money again. As he crumpled the lottery ticket he looked up at Minty, his legs swayed gently in the early morning breeze, a look of peace was etched on his chubby face and only the smell of his soiled underwear detracted from his aura of serenity. Mick laughed out loud, his voice echoing through the air alone before being joined by a morass of moans coming from the corpses waiting for him below.
The lottery ticket flew into the air swept away on a current taking it to the place all lost hopes and dreams retire to; and Mick followed, through the air with a grace reserved for those without fear. His arms outstretched and a look of acceptance on his face as he fell to the floor below………..
Mick’s fears were unfounded he never came back and as his body lay on the floor a mangled ruin of what had once been a man who’d only ever wanted something better the ticket he’d thrown floated down gently and landed on the back of his ruined head….