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[bjlong]

{A short story I've written. It still has some rough places, and needs some thematic unification, and there are a few more scenes I've been thinking of writing, but it's mostly finished. Let me know what you think, especially if you have ideas for improving it!

E: This has been submitted to a writing contest--and whadda ya know, I now see a slight problem with logistics in the story. Figures, huh?}

They had all died. The building had collapsed as Kurtz’s squad was passing through, crushing them all. He was wounded. He was alone.

He was going mad.

He could see nothing, do nothing. His equipment had been crushed or lost long ago. His mask stifled his breath, but it wasn’t safe to take it off—he might get infected. The rubble was too loose to try digging himself out, and, besides, he kept slipping in and out of delirium. They were all around him, he knew—the enemy was all around him, and he was helpless. All he could do was wait, screaming, screaming in the blackness, diseased air filling his lungs, rubble crashing around him, enemies so close, grasping hands—!

---

There was a hunchback, wearing what once was a clean white shirt, leaning over Kurtz’s leg when he woke up. Kurtz’s mask was off—he was open to infection. He nearly panicked at that alone. The hunchback was red-faced, balding, and looked like he was angry at the leg for being broken, and angry at Kurtz for breaking it—practically murderous. He might have once seemed human, but, in view of his dirty and bloody estate, coupled with the few stringy bits of hair he had left tossed up in a madman’s whorl on top of his head, the collection of dirt and rubble around him, the burning heat of fever, and the screams and howls, the scitterings and scratterings of beings just beyond what his eyes could focus, the bonds that tied his arms and good leg down, the hunchback was utterly demonic. Kurtz barely comprehended the flash of steel before it cut into his leg, deep, and painfully, without warning. Kurtz refused to yell. The scowl on the hunchback’s face deepened, as did the knife. Kurtz let out a short “GAH!”

“Oh, good,” said the hunchback, in a deep, angry voice. “You’re awake.” He cut a little deeper, bringing another yelp.

“Colonel Kurtz, serial number 10—”

“Drop it,” said the red-faced man. “You know well as I that they don’t question. The only reason that you’d wake up would be so they could hear you scream. Speaking of which, clamp your teeth around this.” The hunchback brought out his right arm, which was much bigger and longer than the other, deformed and mutilated, with a bit of wood in its grasp. He forced that into Kurtz’s mouth with the subtlety of an executioner. There was a little of the taste of blood on it.

The man cut much deeper, then plunged both hands in before Kurtz could react. Pain burned in his brain as hot as the sun. When finally the man’s hands emerged again, Kurtz was shaking, sweating, gasping for air. The bit of wood had broken in his mouth. He turned his head to the side and spat it out. The hunchback pulled out a bottle of vodka and poured it over the wound he had left behind, causing Kurtz to hiss and jerk. The red-faced man then used some of the bottle to wash off his hands, corked it, and put it back under the table. He then grabbed the table and hobbled over to Kurtz, preferring his left leg to his right. He pulled open Kurtz’s eyes unceremoniously with calloused and warm hands, still a bit damp from the alcohol.

“Doctor Hunter,” said he, plainly uninterested, examining Kurtz’s eyes and breath. The hellish man’s eyes were yellowish all over, red around the edges, and practically black where the color should be. His teeth were close and yellow, and his breath smelled of blood and meat. “Good to make your acquaintance. If you survive the night, then we’ll talk more.” Kurtz blacked out.

---

Kurtz woke up suddenly from his fever-dream, so close to reality. He had been caught by the enemy—a great giant of a beast, with a hoary mane that housed a thousand flesh-eating bugs—he had them all over him, crawling, biting, pinching—

He woke up to find that he had been tied to a hammock. He was thirsty, incredibly thirsty. His eyes stuck to his eyelids, which made opening his eyes tricky, like prying something up from tar. He turned his head to see children there, bright-eyed, giggling. They were poking him with sticks, until one child with no ears, but hair falling over where they should be, and a large mouth called out “HE’S AWAKE!”

The other kids stopped suddenly, giggling still. All of them had the signs of Fullman Disease—the distorted features, abnormal growths, a myriad of other symptoms, and cheeks red with low-level fevers. Over came Dr. Hunter, who inspected Kurtz’s wounds, and put a mercury thermometer in his mouth. The children ran away, through holes in the rubble to some secret meeting place that they had made beforehand. “Good to see you’re still alive."He took out the thermometer. “Hm, 104. Still too high, but the worst is over, I think. Do you want water?”

Kurtz nodded his head yes, just slightly. It was all he could do—he was so drained of liquids that talking was impossible, so cramped up from shivers late in the night that breathing was a chore. The red-faced man pulled out a flask of water and gently poured some into Kurtz’s mouth. Kurtz swallowed greedily. The man did not look so demonic after all. He looked instead like a human who resided in hell, or a lesser demon who had been on earth too long. His shirt was still stained with mud and blood, and his pants were more so, giving him an unhealthy look. He strained to breathe, and he still smelled of death and meat. As Kurtz drank, the doctor said, “Sorry that we can’t afford to treat you better. There are a lot of people who need help who come here. Most of them die. Our supplies are limited, and my compassion… I’ve seen too many die.” A shade of violence passed over his face, faltered, and faded into his cheeks, unhealthily possessing them. “Let’s just say that you’ll find little of either here, from me. If you’re looking for compassion, look to the children.” Kurtz finished the water, then nodded. He was no longer thirsty, but the doctor pulled out another flask of water and put it in the hammock. He untied one of Kurtz’s hands. “We’ll talk more, but the rest of my patients need tending to.”

“My mask…”

“You don’t need it.You’re infected anyway.”

The doctor let his larger arm drop to his side and pull a small cane out from his belt, where he had hooked it. It was made of a twisted piece of broken metal, from the wreckage of the city around him, with the sharp parts filed down. He started hobbling off.

“Hey,” said Kurtz.

The doctor stopped, scowling. “What?”

“You’re Doctor Hunter? The doctor that—”

“Yes,” said the doctor, “I led the research on the Fullman Disease, and I designed the heat-filter masks to try to stop the spread. For all the good that did.”

“What happened?”

“The masks… didn’t work.” The doctor’s gaze drifted downwards.

“But you were working on a cure…?”

“There isn’t one. Not one I can work on now.”

“But you could go somewhere else, couldn’t you?”

“No. Not with this war going on.” The doctor started to turn, then turned back to Kurtz. “The war hit everywhere. You soldiers don’t understand that. Everywhere.” He spat the words at Kurtz. “Any research institutions are demolished. The best we’ve got are a few scientists hiding in caves somewhere with inadequate materials to cure polio, much less the Fullman Disease. I decided to come here. I have some medical training, and this is the place that needed it the most.” He glared at Kurtz’s eyes, then dropped his stare. He gestured helplessly with his good hand. “But… I’ve never had a patient leave alive.”

Kurtz felt bad for the man, felt himself saying, “It doesn’t matter.”

“Every life matters.”

“We’re losing the war, anyway.”

“What?” asked the doctor, suddenly looking up.

“We’re losing the war. You should leave. There’s no way to win this. Bullets don’t work. Explosions don’t work. We’ve never confirmed a kill. Hell, we’ve never even been able to get to any of our dead before they… God damnit, why the hell are we fighting?”

“Don’t say things like that,” said the doctor, murder back in his face, as if he had never softened.

“We’re going to be conquered, one way or another. What’s worth fighting for?”

“I—!” The doctor pointed towards the center of the room, stopped, and dropped his hand. “I don’t know,” he said, softly, averting his eyes. He pointed at Kurtz, and said, “You ever say anything like that again, I’ll throw you out of here.” He hobbled away.

Kurtz took his first good look around the room. The first thing he saw was in the middle of the room, a bed made from the ruins of some blasted stone pedestal. Upon it was a woman of twenty-six or twenty-seven, sleeping serenely. Her light brown hair, bordering on blonde, was perfectly arrayed and brushed. Light rested upon her cool face, her sculpted form, clothed by an old white button-down shirt and torn jeans. She was supported by a pillow that pushed her back up into more of a reclined position than a prone one, so that her white wings could fall gracefully down to the floor, brushing the floor just barely with the tips of the white feathers. Her arms were at her sides. This was what the doctor had to have been pointing at. For a moment, Kurtz could think of nothing else.

He turned from her after a long pause, looking on her graceful features, to the rubble, blood, mud, and dust of the rest of the room.

On the far wall, if it could be called that, rubble made the surface on which a hundred slip-shod hammocks hung, each full of their own shaking, shivering, howling occupant. The doctor carefully moved an aluminum ladder around, tending quickly and mercilessly to each patient’s needs. Kurtz heard many people call for their commanders, their mothers, for mercy from an enemy that gave none, that delighted on the screams and howls and nightmares of the defeated.  The hammocks stretched up to the roof, that sloped inward as an intersection of two arcs. The hammocks ended where the sloping began. Kurtz wondered if this was a chapel at some point. The rubble stayed up only by a prayer. Kurtz noticed that the wall he hung on was much the same, only intact.

On one of the walls that did not slope inward, there was a huge set of double doors, held shut by a warped plank sliding into two shoddy slots, barring the door, and a stool made of sheet metal, twisted just enough to look bad, but still be functional. Around it were bed rolls made of scavenged cloths full of the white dust and blood that covered the ground of this place. On the opposite wall to that, there were pipes sticking out of the wreckage, with hundreds of chains locked to them, which were in turn locked to hundreds of wrists, to arms, to bodies, to minds warped by neuroses, dementias, phobias, hallucinations, and much more that went untreated, unchecked, unchallenged. The hunchback would hobble over to the wall of hands, eyes, shrieks and dole out strikes with his cane and candy with his hands, by some internal spreadsheet, before going to another patient.

The scene was a sad collection of survivors, but just barely. These were the people who might have been useful at one time, ruined by the eternal war against the enemy—the merciless demons that they were. Showing up out of nowhere, wielding strange weapons and fielding strange creatures, humans had no recourse for the longest time. Now that they did fight back, look at what war brought: a thousand turned into a handful of raging lunatics that had to be taught how to speak again. Kurtz felt his eyes grow heavy, and, though he tried to stay awake, he felt himself slipping back into the lands of nightmare.

---

Kurtz woke up from a dream. A horde of vile, man-like demons had dismantled the city, and came at Kurtz with rubble as their weapons, death in their eyes. They fought their way though anything Kurtz could throw at them, pounding everything into non-existence. Just before they could touch Kurtz, the young woman flew in, bright and luminous, and blocked the way to Kurtz. They stopped for a moment, then surged forward, intent on killing them both.

Kurtz did not wake up gasping or with a loud noise. He didn’t even move, just barely opened his eyes. His heart was pounding, and his mind racing with a primordial fear. It was dark—his eyes jumped to the shadows, from one to the other, looking for death to come flying out.

After a while, his heart slowed, and he felt his dry mouth, caused by fever. He reached for the water flask, twisting towards the inside of the room. He stopped.

There was the girl in the center of the room, the moonlight from the one circular window falling on her like a graceful blanket on top of the red fleece that the doctor must have draped on her. Her hair and arms both glistened, and her eyes, large as they were, were closed to the world. Her face was so perfectly formed—not like the sort of forced beauty or standard model, but it was a natural, unique beauty, that took what might have been considered a misshapen nose, or a face too square, and turned it into a set of features that fit together like melodies and harmonies intertwining into a song of sorts, a masterpiece. She seemed to glow with the same sort of light that fell on her, full of the grace of the stars. Her wings, far from being startling in the least, only further showed her as what she must have been—divine.

The hunchback was sitting on his stool, surrounded by the sleeping children on their mats. His hair seemed thinner, as if he was losing it by the day, and grayer, too. His eyes had huge dark bags under them, and his hunch seemed worse than ever. There was a sadness in his eyes, a sort of longing, like an ache needing to be filled. He looked at her, not as one gazes on another body, another mere human, but as someone would look at a person, wholly and intently. Soul, face, body, he saw it all, and was broken by it. He reached out his one large, long arm towards her, gently, it drifting towards her. As it passed into his vision, though, he paused to look at it, and then look at her. Clad in a white shirt all too small and covered with blood, caused to unnaturally grow by disease, this horrific mutation; an abomination was all that he was, all that he could be. And this might yet be the lot of man, of all men. He had never seemed more demonic. He had never seemed more human.

Doctor Hunter looked away, blinking back tears. He had to look away.

The doctor saw Kurtz, looking down at him. He hobbled between the children to Kurtz. He checked Kurtz’s flask. He replaced it with a new one, then said, “Her name was Kristin. She was… how can I describe her? Perfect sounds too… but she was something special. People flocked to her. She once just touched a man’s arm, and it was fine the next day. Perfect. Then she got sick, very sick. With the Fullman disease. She started growing those… wings, I suppose. I did everything I could—everything I knew would work, and some things that worked only once or twice. She lapsed into a coma. I think that she’s probably brain dead from the fever that she got—it was very high, and there was nothing I could do. Nothing…” he lapsed into silence, looking at her again with tears in his eyes. He blinked, and they fell, but he formed his face again, a hard face made for staring at the world, and started rubbing Kurtz’s aching, knotted muscles with soothing hands. “But, sleep. Sleep. To sleep; no more; and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to… To die, to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and all our little life is rounded with sleep.”

---

It was the third day, and Kurtz had healed quickly, but not completely. It was mid-morning, with the children gathered around Kristen. The girls were brushing her hair, and the boys were drawing figures in the dust absently. The doctor, despite some pain in his chest, was reading from a book aloud.

There was a great roar of some beast of the enemy, closer than it ever had been. The insane people chained to the wall all shrank back against it, and started whimpering. Those in the hammocks slunk further into them. It roared again, closer this time.

“It knows we’re here,” said Kurtz.

Noone made a sound. The entire thing seemed surreal—their impending doom now knocked at the door, but none could accept it. It was a dream—it must be a dream—a horrible nightmare. It couldn’t be real. Could it?

“There’s nothing we can do,” he said, “to throw it off the trail. It will find us—all of us. The best we can hope for is to run, buy some time for ourselves.”

The doctor, with the silent children gathering more densely around Kristen, stood and said, “What would you have us do?”

“Nothing,” said Kurtz, then gave a meaningful look at the children.

“Children,” said Dr. Hunter, “Go hide.”

“But…” said one small girl, a pitiful creature with a delicate voice and a developing hunch, “… if we leave, will you all—”

“We will be fine,” said Dr. Hunter. “Go.”

The children disappeared into the cracks and crevices of the rubble, the childish games of hide-and-seek now their only refuge.

It was now Kurtz, the doctor, the angel, and the walls. Kurtz said, “I’ll go out and fight, or draw them away, or… something.” Flashes of carnage came through his memory, always fresh after the fact—fires burning through even asbestos, save in man-shaped silhouettes; corpses that turned to dust with the first wind, unspeakable horror frozen on their faces; spikes impaling cars, tanks, all with blood and oil dripping out of them.

“Are you sure?” asked Doctor Hunter.

“Yeah.” Kurtz looked at Kristen, full of divine grace. “I’m sure.”

The doctor hobbled over and lifted the bar from the door while one of the children went and gave Kurtz back his gun. Kurtz hobbled after the doctor, praying that the splints wouldn’t hold him back too much. Kurtz said, “If she dies,” nodding towards Kristen, “what does it matter, anyway?”

The doctor nodded, and opened the door just a crack. Kurtz slipped out.

All hell broke loose outside the doors. Roaring and screaming and gunshots, the sound of smashing buildings, and a thousand ghastly things that the human language does not yet have names for, burned into the consciousnesses of all in the room for two long minutes. The children tried to cover their ears. The insane people shivered, roared, foamed at the mouth, and bit at their hands to try to get free, get away, drawing blood. Two minutes, and the doctor waited, clutching his chest, as if in pain. There was a thump on the door, through the racket outside. The doctor opened the door, and in stumbled Kurtz, without his gun, his shoulder covered in black slime that oozed into the shapes of screaming faces, and bleeding from the leg again. The doctor closed and barred the door.

Kurtz’s eyes were wide open, and he clutched himself, falling into a fetal position that the doctor knew from so many other patients, saying, “Please, please, please, please… don’t make me go out there oh please I can’t go back out there no no no please please …”

The walls were howling now with insanity, everyone trying to get away, causing themselves permanent damage in their struggle. The children were hiding behind Kristen. The doctor saw all of it, with an expression of terror only slightly less than Kurtz’s. This was his world, being destroyed, and he was less than helpless. He turned to Kristen, and took a shuffling pace towards her, his chest tight with pain.

“I don’t know what you can do,” he started, “I don’t even really know what you are. But you did incredible things once—” there was a roar outside, “—maybe you can help us one more time. You always said that things wouldn’t always be like this. You said that you’d be here for us all. Well, they’re here,” he threw his stick behind him at the door, “and you’re not. Why?! Please, just open your eyes!” A searing pain shot through his heart, causing him to lose control of his legs, and fall on his hands and knees. “Please…” he turned to her again, looking up and crawling forward. “Please. Maybe I’m being selfish, maybe you’re better off. But, look around us! Look at the world! This is not a dream—this is life! And we need help—we need you! Just open your eyes, and you’d see what to do! Please! Open your eyes!” He reached out his long, deformed hand towards her sleeping one. “Please!” he whispered. There was a roar outside, and the demon smashed against the doors. Everything else was silent, caught up in the scene. “Please! Open your eyes!”

The doors broke open. Kristen turned her head towards the doctor and opened her eyes.

She was beautiful, the sunlight striking her face, her skin, her feathers, turning all into a display of perfection. She was awake, and the beauty of her bright blue eyes reached out and gripped the doctor, as if in a vice. Her soul seemed to stretch through the gaze and touch his, and it was the most beautiful soul he could have imagined—a thing of purity, of wisdom, of grace. Before it, victory was assured, and all doubts ceased. He saw the days he had spent here, poured out on the rubble like so much blood from victims he had tried to save, shattered like glass broken from windows besieged, all of his days, as without victory as they were, culminated. So many frustrated nights and mornings, so many howling moments of utter despair were just the crucible for this seraph’s forging. He had never had a chance to win—he understood that, now, seeing her. And now, seeing her, he had won already. It was too much, all too much—he felt his heart pounding, pounding, breaking. His arms gave out, and his heart soon followed.
---

That day, after Kristin had driven away the demons, wielding the hunchback’s cane like a sword, the children dug a grave for Doctor Joseph Hunter. He lies buried there, to this day, in an unmarked grave. Kristen and the children took care of his patients until they left on their own. Kurtz was the last one to recover. Kristen, Kurtz, and the children left then. The world was large, and there was much work to be done.

[SnorriMabdugkosak]

Seeing as how you already said there were still some rough places, it's a bit hard to form an opinion as I can only guess which parts you mean exactly.

I was a bit disappointed that the whole situation stays unclear, but it is quite obvious that that was your intention, so don't take that as a negative remark because I don't mean it as such.

The visual descriptions are elaborate enough to show that you really attempt to describe the exact image you have in your mind instead of simply describing basic people, situations and locations; to me, this is one of the most important aspects of writing a story. It definitely helps create atmosphere. So you have succeeded at that.

On the whole, I would say that you've got the basics of a good story here which indeed needs some polishing here and there.

The only part which I considered to be described 'too fast' is when the beast howls outside and what happens after that until the moment Kurtz gets back inside; this fails to deliver the impact of tension which it is clearly meant to do so, and the paragraph is a bit too messy, such that it not clear to me just how horrible and/or terrifying and/or etc. it is exactly to go out there, I would say that that is one of the parts which you intend to smoothen up a bit?

Also, the very first line should perhaps be written in past tence instead of present? In present tence it seems as though the story starts with a full squad of people, but they all die except for one, in a single sentence. This gives the impression that you try to put as much information as possible in as little words as possible. Don't underestimate the impact of the first sentence of a story, it's in fact one of the most important things to it. First impressions are always decisive, and I could imagine people assuming the story is not going to get interesting just because of how 'short' the situation is described. However, simply by putting something like that in past tence, it becomes clear that it is nothing more than a description of the current situation instead of an event in the current situation, and this changes the way a reader looks at the story in a major way.

Apart from that, there is nothing I can find to critisize. So keep up the good work.

[bjlong]

Thanks very much!

I'll admit, that section of the story you pointed out has been overlooked. I'll work on revising it.

Yes, I was considering explaining everything that happens in detail, but when I tried it out, it didn't seem to flow as well, and people were able to pull out all the plot points as this is. (In fact, when I described exactly what was happening with the war, it seemed inherently less grim.) Do know that I'm planning on writing a series of stories in this world, so things should become clear.

Also, yes, the first line definitely should be in past tense. I'll edit it now.