Young Writers Society

X – The end of Mike Fisken and Claire’s confession

I lifted Claire and slipped into Mike’s vacated seat. He was gone, even if the others didn’t know it. If the animals out there didn’t get him, the fog would. Before I pressed my foot down, I glanced over at Claire. It was in her eyes, silent tears, and a concession. We moved forward, the back window was gone and the fog was coming, we needed to move. I pressed hard and I couldn’t see the ground moving by outside, we could have been going 50 miles or 5 miles and I wouldn’t know. Bright light. Crunch. The screams poured from every mouth, except mine.

It was a hard stop and everything threw itself forward. The kids were all in the front now still screaming. We had crashed through the diner window.

“Quick, get inside, hold your breath.” We all moved. The kids screams turned to sobs stifled by sealed lips. Claire took up both her kids and the cook took Janey in his arms. I had the card box.

We were through the doors and the fog was spreading like high tide into the diner, it had spread throughout but not as thick as outside, we could still see.

We found ourselves panting in the back room with the door closed. The cook put Janey down then ran back out.
“Sarah is out there still.” He said, with a shaky voice. He never returned.

It was the kids me and Claire and the fog. A gap in the bottom of the door let it seep slowly filtering into the small room. It was over. I could barely hold myself up. Janey’s big teary eyes centred on mine, helplessly searching me for an answer. I had nothing. I had a box of knives an empty flare gun and some sheets of paper.

I took her in my arms and kissed her. I pulled her in, and I could feel her joints moving, the buttons of her spine as I squeezed tighter. I kissed her and set her down.

I thought again about the dream. The boat swinging side to side against the weight of my steps as I move to her. The panic and the rage, the confusion it all came. I thought about Sabre. I thought about Mike Fisken now dead or now an animal; I couldn’t think which was worse. And his kids, perhaps too young to understand. The only place, the only haven was the chiller. The chiller.

The door swung open. It was Mike. The fog swirled behind him. His eyes were hell red and blood steeped from his crown. His white tank top was now maroon and his fingers contorted. He moved slowly and Claire Gasped.
“Mike?” she began.

He stepped toward her. After all the hell and beating he was standing. But no longer him. A version of him that knew no love for his wife or his kids. An animal in the shell of a man. He stepped slowly eyeing me like a chimp. I snatched the biggest knife from the box and pulled Janey behind me. He turned to Claire and moved his face close to hers. He was looking at her through eyes clouded red, and under a heavy brow, thicker and lower than before. She was the only one who didn’t look weary and old. She still looked young, made up and pretty.

I moved slowly behind him, carefully tiptoeing out of his sight. His back was wide but he was shorter than me. I wasn’t going to beat him in a fistfight, but if I got it right, all I would need is the knife. I forced it into him, putting all my weight through the handle through his back. He slammed back and let out a cry. He pressed me hard up against the wall, his short wet hair pressing against my lips. Warm blood was spilling out over my hand.

“Daddy,” the young girl called. She ran to her father. I still can’t exactly describe what happen. It was as though he recognised her, somewhere deep down. He took her up and held her. I let the blades handle slip and he stumbled with her still in his arms, falling through the door. She hit the ground with him. Then he stood again, blood came from everywhere, he was an ugly man at that stage, like a bull after the bandileros blades. Stumbling, he fell with her and like that, he was gone, outside of the door. I quickly stood, followed them out and took up the little girl. She had a good grip on him but with a decent yank she came. I took her back into the room and slammed the door.

Claire’s tears came on again. She patted them away and held her children who wept with her. I remembered where my thoughts were going before. The Chiller. The Chiller is the key.

“The Chiller, Claire. The chiller is the last place.”

She watched me talk and nodded but her eyes revealed her confusion.

“Not us Claire, we will sap up the food and oxygen to quick.”

“No Daddy,” Janey began, suddenly understanding.

Claire’s face washed with realisation. She looked to the door, the gap in the bottom. Even if we blocked it, it would seep through and it wouldn’t be long. She looked back to me, nodded and like that, it was decided. We picked up the children and I covered out mouths with our shirts.

“Hold your breath kids,” she said and for the first time she really looked like a mother. Her eyes weary and the first traces of a wrinkle started at the corners of her eyes. It was a sober austere look, but goddamn did she finally look like a mother.

We carried them. Janey in my arms and her two little ones in hers. As we pushed through the door toward the chiller, stepping over Mike’s shell, I kissed Janey and told her I loved her. I had never meant it more. I wanted to hold her forever. I pressed my flooding eyes against her shoulder. Then pulled the handle. The chiller opened with a gasp and then, right there we put them inside. Good-bye and the door slammed, like a gavel. It felt like velvet was rubbing against my eyes but I kept them open and turned the temperature on the chiller door until it was at its highest, ten degrees.

We held hands on our way back to the room. I could hear whimpering in the dark, it was the cook; or rather, an outline of the cook clutching his knees and trembling alone. The fog had got him.

I cried. It wasn’t the velvet against my eyes but the quiet acceptance that I would never see my daughter again. I shook. I want to tell you how much I hurt but I can’t, I won’t relive it on these pages. I thought again about emotions, about how we are supposed to control them, acknowledge them. But sometimes we are so desperate, so beat that no matter what we force into our mind, no matter what we do, where we are, who we are, we will return to the state we were born in. That’s the most natural you will ever see someone, when the desperation tears down the façade like a cold claw through a projector screen. So I won’t go there, I can’t put it down on these pages. Just believe me when I say, no matter what the fog did to my mind, I died when that chiller door closed.

And the dream. It still didn’t make sense, it was still haunting and dark and I hated it. I want to say it was all a metaphor or some bullshit prediction, but the truth is it didn’t mean a goddamn thing. Not here, not before I die. All I can say is imagination is a sonofabitch, call it inspiration or motivation. We are animals and imagination does nothing for the lions darting across the plains or the birds diving into the sea. They forever move about in a fog. All it has brought me is the demons. Under a blazing sky or a bitter storm, anything my mind wants I can have it and god or anyone else won’t take that from me, not yet.

It might have been hours or perhaps days. Claire and I held each other and sometimes we kissed, telling each other it would all be okay. Telling each other the fog would one day disappear in a breath drawn by God’s mouth. Our kids would be happy. Sometimes I thought about Janey, I imagined her happy again, at her high school prom. I saw her husband; he was handsome and worked as a pilot like me. But he stayed with her. He got back when he could. He took breaks to be with her and still told her he loved her and would do anything to spend time with her. She was happy in my mind, a painter with a kid of own. My god was she beautiful. So beautiful. I smiled a bigger happier smile than ever before and it may have been the strangest thing Claire had ever seen.

The fog still slowly seeped and I could feel it changing me. I felt stronger urges towards her. I could feel my memories slipping. Sometimes it took a few seconds to place together a sentence before I spoke. We decided to leave the lights off; Claire suggested it’s better to let the fog take us then the soulless bodies lingering outside. My Harley Davidson held a still flame as we lay in each other’s arms. Her arm slumped across her face cast a band of shadow over her cheeks.

I watched her and that’s when the urge overwhelmed us. I was inside of her and when we moved, we gasped, sucking in the poison that would leave us as animals, again. I found some solace in her, a good-bye kiss to my world.When it was over we held each other and in her last sane thought, it came.

“If this is it, if this is how it ends, if we forget each other. I don’t want it to be in vain. I don’t want to die, disappear without a trace. I loved Mike, and as I slowly lose my grip on civility, as I became like you said ‘an animal.’ I might never love again. Right now, I love you and I don’t know why, in an hour I might not know what love is at all. It’s taking me so long to order these words so I know I am slipping. But listen. You have a pad and you have a pen, and you have all the time in the world.”

May I give an "in-summary" review instead of 10 little ones?

1) Use contractions more. It's really jarring when they're intense or panicking and they say, "We will do this" and "They are going to do that."

2) Proofread. I know it's tough, especially with a longer piece, but it's really helpful to the reader in the end. Especially for the ones that spellchecker won't catch, like an unobtrusive "and" instead of "an" that gives the reader pause before rereading to figure it out.

3) I noticed at least one instance of
"Dialogue." He said.
or maybe it was
"Dialogue." he said.
I don't remember, but you've got the master file with all of the text in one place, so it should be relatively easy to find. Just use the Find function and search for [ ." h ] (not case sensitive). Anyway, it should be:
"Dialogue," he said.

Okay, now let's get to the meat of the story. Mmm...raw bacon meat...

4) I liked it much better when it was tense and there was little/limited direct conflict. But when it becomes all-out brawls of 3-vs-15 or whatever, it becomes a) very hard to follow and b) rather uninteresting. It's not thrilling to read about how you shot/knifed/dodged one after another. The 1-on-1's, though, were pretty interesting. So in essence, when the matter is personal, it's most engaging to read about. For example, even when the narrator shoots the kid-zombie-thing, it's engaging because of his thoughts, even though it is during one of those few-vs-many situations. So in the end, make the engagements more personal or scale it down some. Maybe this could be done with a slight tweak in the setting? Create different rooms, different entry points maybe?

5) However, I did really like it when all the zombie-things were pressed up against the window and banging. That was cool and tense and a classic situation. You do the tense parts rather well and I'd like to see more of those.

6) The car sequence felt really weird. Rather passive. You take a sentence to say they were hurtling along. Then in the space of one more sentence, you say there was a bright light, they hit something, then stopped. The wording and tone seems so passive and generic that it could have been a deer, a tree, a mudpit, a diner, or a cliff that they hit. Try to use your wording to at least give us an idea (even through the confusion) of how it felt. Did they lurch in to the air? Did they hear the glass shatter? Did anybody get hurt? What sound did it make?
This kind of advice can also be applied to various other situations. How does the knife feel going in when he stabs his first person? Was this his first time using a shotgun? If so, what's his state of mind? Give us more about how he felt killing these people.

7) Sabre.
7a) We get no understanding of who Sabre is until we stumble on his notes sections later. Even as the narrator remembers and understands, the reader is lost. This is what we get from the beginning:
"...I offered you a position as my private pilot."
"He offered me big money"
"Mick Sabre of The Sabre Company."
What kind of company is it? It could be a chemical engineering company or a snack-food production company or an arms dealer or a landscape company or a computer business or a sports agency.
7b) For what reason is he carrying around perfectly expository lab notes and letters and resignations? Just so convenient.
7c) "...the chemical is designed to reset primitive function and only effects animals." And why is this useful? You mention his conjecture of "probably to sell to the military" but I'm not seeing the connection between reset primitive functions of animals and military strategy.
7d) Was it intentionally zombie-movie like? Y'know, where they just experiment things because they can--without proper safeguards? Testing in an open environment just seems like something all sorts of departments would want to stop because of how the affected animals may migrate and how it may affect the balance of the area and etc etc.

8 ) In zombie movies, everyone instantly becomes proficient with all weapons available. The same thing happened here, like Mike moving cat-quick with the knives. Was that intentional?

9) The ending was pretty good. I was wondering about what vantage point the narrator was writing from. Writing from the last bastion is an engaging angle. The ending does seem a little out of place, though, because it suddenly becomes tender and the paragraphs become longer.

10) Janey kind of disappears after part 4 and just becomes negligible. I'd like to see her be a driving factor at some point. Put her in danger or something. She just becomes a part of the crowd through the rising action and climax.

Umm...that's about what comes to mind so far. If I think of something else, I'll edit it in...

The screams poured from every mouth, except mine.

Why? They’re just driving along. Constant screaming would drive me crazy, and surely would attract more zombies?

The cook put Janey down then ran back out.
“Sarah is out there still.” He said, with a shaky voice. He never returned.

Weird order of sequence... He (1)runs out, then (2)says where he’s going, then (3)doesn’t come back. I’m thinking it should be 2, 1 and 3, no?

It was the kids me and Claire and the fog.

This would be better if it ran “It was the kids, me, Claire and the fog.” That way the fog stands out more and has more impact.

His white tank top was now maroon and his fingers contorted. He moved slowly and Claire Gasped.

I don’t understand why you keep on capitalising words for no reason.

She was the only one who didn’t look weary and old. She still looked young, made up and pretty.

So even though she’s been screaming, running about, getting attacked by zombies and chemical clouds, her makeup’s still perfect? Dude, makes waterproof mascara look obsolete.

I wasn’t going to beat him in a fistfight, but if I got it right, all I would need is the knife. I forced it into him, putting all my weight through the handle through his back. He slammed back and let out a cry.

That’s a bit anticlimactic. Out of all of them, Ross seemed closest to Mike, and there isn’t even a real fight between them; Ross just stabs him.

Then he stood again, blood came from everywhere, he was an ugly man at that stage, like a bull after the bandileros blades.

Sagging sentence, and the bolded bit feels irrelevant. Thrown in and too casual.

---
So! Overview!

Overall, story-wise, I thought this was pretty good. You managed to keep the tension fairly steady throughout, and I like the ending. Self-sacrifice and all. That was good.

Where this does need work, though, is in the general writing and the characters. I’ve pointed out most of the grammar errors and sagging sentences, but you really need to keep an eye out for those. Commas only go so far, and ideally you should be using a mixture of sentences anyway. And using a comma and small letter when ending dialogue is something I’ve pointed out more times than I can remember, and it’s really basic and vital, so fixing those will go a long way to helping your prose. Sometimes you stopped the action at really important moments to describe people, and that doesn’t work. If it’s an action scene, give me action. When there’s space to breath and no one’s in immediate danger, then stop and look around and see what colour people’s eyes are. You don’t want to be constantly stopping the action, which is important, to focus on details that can wait until later.

I mentioned my main thoughts on the characters in an earlier chapter—namely, that you have too many of them. What was the point of the cook, Sarah, the truckers and the young couple? Okay, maybe the truckers served a purpose, but only a very red-shirt one, and all the others were blatant red-shirts. Cannon-fodder. Just there to prove that people were going to die, and so to provide more blood and crazy zombie people.

Like Sarg said, I felt that Janey was underused. She and Tara are meant to be Ross’ main motivation for getting out of there alive, and yet he at times it seemed as though he’d forgotten her because he was too busy having fun killing zombies. And he did do an awful lot of killing. His qualms lasted for, what, five sentences, and then vanished. Maybe he can muse on how easy it becomes, on how he feels he should feel more, but at present, there’s almost no moral dilemmas or struggles with conscience.

I know this sounds kinda harsh, but overall I did enjoy this. It kept me reading, and normally I don’t follow long stories like this through to the end, but this intrigued me. ^_^ PM or Wall me if you have any questions!

-twit

H'okay, I'm here.

So, to start things off I did have a few general tiffs with this last chapter. Probably because it is in fact the last chapter, so you're really wrapping things up now. Here is where the rope in fact meets it's end. D:

In the beginning of the story they all get back to the diner very suddenly. It seems a tad rushed, like BAM! Mike's gone, we had to escape, and now we've gone and crashed back to square one! The same thing goes for when Mike barges in on them when they're in the back of the diner. He's just suddenly there in the story, without even so much as a breath. There's no smooth or creative entry into either of these sudden instances.

One thing I found very off with the way this ended was the relationship between Claire and Ross. They didn't even know each other before the fog. They hardly spoke to one another really in the length of the story and the only clues you gave that there was some sort of connection between them was how Clair acted toward Ross in throwing him coy looks and all that, and how Ross could feel himself tempted toward Claire. There was nothing entirely solid to explain for how this ended with them two in such a close state, even despite the fog and the fear they held toward it.

Another thing I found a bit off with this was the sense in which this was written. I noticed right from the very beginning of things that this was meant to be told in a form of past tense, as in it already happened and he was just recalling it for the sake of the story being told. At first I had an inkling that this all might mean he somehow makes it in the end, but he doesn't. He's taken by the fog. But that contradicts the coherency he should have in order to tell a story like this in such great detail. You see where I'm coming from with that? If I could suggest something, it'd maybe be to fix the tense in which it was written. Let Ross just live through the experience maybe. You may have to tweak quite a bit in order to fix this, but I really do think it would be worth it. Your story will be a lot more sound in fact.

In the case of the children being left in the chiller to survive, they were just left there to hopefully survive the fog. There was no certainty in the fact, and they were just simply left in the story just like that. There was no telling what might happen to them, which bothered me some I suppose.

As for general errors and corrections I have I'll just go down the way here really quickly for you.

He moved slowly and Claire gasped.

I still can’t exactly describe what happened.

“Not us Claire, we will sap up the food and oxygen too quick.”

“No Daddy,” Janey began, suddenly understanding.

How could Janey understand? I only vaguely understood.

We picked up the children and I covered our mouths with our shirts.

She was happy in my mind, a painter with a kid of [her] own.

That's about it for that I suppose. Nothing very major obviously, as the things I tend to pick out are things you surely made mistakes on by accident. We do it all the time, and it tends to ring as unimportant, the whole 'giving your work a second look for editing' things. xD Just be sure to correct these whenever you get the chance.

Well! It seems I have meandered through this entire piece of yours fairly well. At least I hope. It's nice to see you got a lot of great reviewers helping you out on this story. I know it'll be one really smooth piece of work once you alter the major things that could use some gentle tweaking. Your work is quite stunning, and if you're ever in need of another review ever again you can just let me know. I'll be on it like that. ;]

-Smylin'

I've been noticing traces of a story beyond what glimmers on the surface for a while now, and now that the story has reached its conclusion, I can finally diagnose the deeper levels. Always fun.

I think that analogies could be drawn in more more than one direction. For example, this could be a dramatic representation of societal/political struggle; in this situation, the fog might be the spread of societal discontent - discontent, that is, that is caused by some outside factor - racism, for example. As peer pressure causes this discontent to spread, people might resist, morality interfering with what others expect them to do. Morality is a human trait, yes? - this makes sense, because people turned into animals when the fog hit.

But I'm not being very methodical here. All I'm doing is grabbing at a theory and pushing it as far as it will go; there are also things that do not support the theory, such as the role of the scientists. How does that translate? So while dystopia is not completely incorrect, I have a feeling there is a better answer.

How about something completely different, but in a sense very much the same: the corruption of the mind. Each character could represent a different aspect of the mind, and their defilement a morally correct thought becoming morally incorrect. And if the aspect of the mind that produces this plague of selfishness is at the time honorable, then the birth of the plague must have been for selfless purposes at first, but became unethical with intrinsic and inexorable gradualness. This would be where the scientists come in, yeah? They didn't mean to start a zombie apocalypse, but clearly they did. And even the most morally strong aspects of the mind are overpowered in the end.

There was one other thing I found intriguing about this final chapter. The ending bears an ironic resemblance to the story of Genesis: Earth begins with man and woman, and ends with man and woman. The beginning was warm and sunny, but the ending is destined to be cold. This might imply a great many things, much of them conservative and religion-favoring (pretty much the opposite of me); however, whether or not this resemblance was intentional, I thought I might as well bring it up.

Now, I wasn't quite sure I liked the ending. I think the reality of the situation extinguishes any likeliness that Ross would actually finish his story in the end; he had already been exposed to the fog an unhealthy amount, and it was seeping into the chiller rapidly. Plus, the story would take what, hours? Days? Even with the issue of the fog cast aside, in temperatures of ten degrees Fahrenheit (I assume it's Fahrenheit - the story takes place in America, does it not?), hypothermia would have claimed both of them well before Ross could finish his memoir.

And it's weird that he would have a pen and paper with him in the first place. What, was he planning to write poetry while he attempted to escape the fog? Personally, I think that he would venture only to take the essentials, like food, water, weapons, all that. One would think that a pen and paper would be secondary to items like these.

So! That's it! More than anything I'm impressed that you even managed to pull off writing a piece of this length. That, my friend, is something to be proud of.

-Kafka

Oooh final part, exciting!

Specifics

1. Uh... isn't he already in Mike's seat? I mean, he was hitting the gas in the last episode so he must have moved across already, right?

2. Clarity: What about the head? You said his head came through the back window and then you didn't clear that up. Did you mean his whole head or his head just smashed through and if so then where was the screaming and why would there be any confusion as to whether he's gone or not? I'd have thought that would be a certainty. Aren't the children sitting in the back? His children? And did the head stick to the jagged glass and come along for the ride or did the body slump away. You weren't squeamish about giving us the details before so you need to go on in the style you've begun; you can't pick and choose when you want to be detailed or not. There's no sense of continuity in a story like that.

3. Uh... they've just gone back into the diner after breaking through the window. Right. So the place is filling up with the fog and they're straight out of that car and moving? I'd be slumping over the wheel in despair right now. They haven't done that yet and it isn't realistic. Even the most go-getting survivalist will go through a stage of 'I can't do this'. And children can be ridiculously stubborn. I would not want to go back in that diner if I was them and I'd be refusing to budge. Mummy would have to drag me full force, screaming and biting.

4. Who is Sarah? I've forgotten somewhere along the way but good job at giving the cook a feeble excuse to vanish off the scene. Seriously, ditch him before this point or write him out altogether? He hasn't served any purpose in the story so far. Not even one line of his dialogue has been important, as far as I can recall.

5. Why does he have all the time in the world? That doesn't make any sense. They're both being taken by the fog, him quicker than her surely? And why has he still got his paper and pen, his box of things? Surely after closing the door on the chiller, he'd have left them or if not, we need that in there somewhere, describing what meaning they have on him. A last link to a world he's quickly losing his grip on. But yeah, mildly confused by your ending.

Tension

Alright so these sub-headings are going to be my thoughts on the piece as a whole, not just this section. First off, I wanted to say that what you did best throughout this piece was the tension. There was always something we wanted to know more about, whether is was Sabre of the fog or what the fog was doing to people. That was really great, right up until the end. In this final part, the tension kind of dropped away. It became clear that we weren't going to have any more discoveries about what the fog was and there weren't any plot lines left to tie together and it just kind of floundered around for a little bit. I think you needed just a little final piece. The question of whether the kids would survive in the cooler could have been expanded on and developed a little further, but even with that I think a little more would have been nice.

Realism

Did the zombies just get tired of chasing them and decide to go home? Right up until this point they've been obsessed, though I don't really understand why since I thought the fog was meant to reduce them to instinct. Instead they've been doing very un-animal things like chasing a car full of people. That wasn't the strangest part though. When they then had their chance to get in the diner, which they were all so eager to do before, they stopped. Not once but twice. There was that first time when some had broken through the glass and been killed and then they vanished for a bit. Then again in this end part. It felt at times too much like you were pulling the strings of the zombies when instead they should have been acting of their own agenda. Did you ever stop to ask yourself what that agenda was? Food; sex; warmth?

Characters

You're probably sick of hearing this by now but seriously, lose some characters and work on others. Claire was far too flat for my liking to play such a key role at the end. I might have liked the way you ended this more if I'd cared for Claire or liked the pairing of her and Ross but I was very ambivalent about it.

The only character besides Ross and perhaps Mike a smidgeon who I've felt anything for was Sabre. After he's killed off, you lose some of the energy and the mystery of this piece. I wonder if maybe you could hold off on his death a little longer because the sections with Sabre were by far the best parts.

Overall

So I liked this. I like the plot, even if it could use a little clearing up in places, particularly as to what the fog really does. But I like it. There's not really much else to say. There's a lot to be fixed but that's true of every first draft and the second and the third. Stories don't come to us fully developed and perfect; they have to be built from the ground up.

Thanks for the read and I hope I've helped along the way!

Heather xxx