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Brains Wanted - Prologue + Chapter 1.



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Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:10 am
Winchester says...



Okay, so new Idea - Something different from the usual >.< - The ending of the chapter might need work, since I think something happened to my brain when I had a blood test :')

Prologue.

Jennifer made her way through the school corridors on her way to the boys changing rooms, her school bag and sports bag swung over one shoulder, Baseball bat from practice in hand. She leant against the wall beside the door leading into the changing room, and made sure the scratch on her face was well hidden by her hair knowing Chris would flip if he saw. She waited for ten minutes before resting her ear against the door to see what was taking her best friend and his team mate so long.
They were talking, about the stuff boys talked about – what the score of the football game they had just played was, that new video game that was being released next week, how fit that girl was in that new TV show.
She rolled her eyes at the meaningless conversation, “what’s the harm” she mumbled to herself, and walked into the changing room, eyes closed.
“Oh, Hi Jen” A familiar voice said as the door slammed shut behind them, she wrinkled her nose at the smell of sweat and boys.
“Are you two decent?” She asked, the reply was yes and she slowly opened her eyes to see her best friend Chris, fully dressed in his school uniform and his team mate Luke still half naked, “bloody hell, I asked if you were decent” Jennifer joked, Luke pulled his top on and grabbed his bags.
“Shame you didn’t come in earlier” He said with a wink, Chris laughed and Jennifer rolled her eyes at the immaturity and followed them outside.
“Aw. C’mon! If you admitted you were going out, you’d be like… the item of the school!” Luke teased, Jennifer and Chris both glared at him.
“Luke. Chris and I are not dating!” She nearly shouted, making him, and the rest of them go quiet as they walked through the empty halls.
“Am I the only one who feels like they’re in a horror movie?” Jennifer said quietly, as she stared in the direction of the noise. There was another crash in the opposite direction and they turned to find some sort of alive rotting corpse. The three children were quiet until Luke broke the tension.
“Mate, Halloween was last week” He said, but no-one said anything, not even the zombie, or whoever was dressed up as one. All they got was a moan, causing them to take one step back.
And then its arm fell off.
“Shit” Was all Chris could say as they ran, Luke was repeating ‘zombie’ under his breath and Jennifer was trying to come up with some sort of plan.
Where have I just come from? She thought. Baseball! Meaning… She looked down at her right hand as she ran and realised she was holding the perfect weapon, she came to a halt and the boys continued to run but looked back slowing down. The zombie came towards Jennifer, and once it was almost in biting distance she took a swing and watched as a body-less head bounced down the corridor.
Chris and Luke stopped completely and stared in awe; Jennifer turned to face them. Taking deep breaths, she said one thing.
“One word of advice, Aim for the head.”

Chapter 1


Jennifer stood over the Zombie, bashing it over and over again with the battered baseball bat until its head came detached from its already decaying body.
That was her job now, she killed the Zombie’s, since the only weapon Chris had, had when the take over started was a knife, and Luke had nothing. But now she was weak, almost close to passing out, sleep deprived, bruised and she was pretty sure the cut on her face was infected, but she couldn’t leave the boys, not to sound stuck up, but she was the only one out of three who actually knew what was happening properly.
It was simple, it was obviously a virus – it had been around for about, 5 days? Since that’s how long they had been running, it had affected everyone over sixteen in Britain, and only in Britain, since no other country was offering to help them in fear of getting infected – and over half of the country’s kids were now either dead, or, well she could say dead again.
As soon as she got pulled away from the now headless zombie by Chris they noticed around five running towards them, they all groaned with a roll of their eyes and started running, before quickly cutting down a thin ally-way knowing the corpses were too dumb to figure out were they had ‘disappeared’.
The three collapsed against the brick walls, Luke facing Chris and Jennifer.
“I can’t do this any longer” Luke said, resting his head in his hands, close to tears, Jennifer looked at him, he’d lost his whole family, even his younger brother and sister, they had tried to get to them in time, but, well…
“Luke, we can’t give up now – we’ll find safety, I promise” She said through heavy breaths, Luke raised his head, tears in his eyes.
“Jen, look at you – your on the brink of collapse, if were going to find safety, we need to find it soon” He told her, Jennifer looked down at herself, cuts and bruises everywhere, but still she shrugged her shoulders – she wasn’t giving up this easy.
Until she stood up that was.
Luckily, Chris was there to catch her falling, simultaneously they both swore under their breaths, and Chris picked her up properly, obviously worried about his best friend.
“Is she okay?” Luke asked, it was a stupid question, and he realised that as soon as the words were out of his mouth – Chris rolled his eyes, and started to walk down the ally, moving out of the way of dumpsters, so he wouldn’t cause Jennifer anymore damage. Luke picked up her baseball bat, and ran after him.
They walked for hours, until they reached the Olympic Park, it hadn’t even been finished, and they hadn’t got far, from the boarder of South London, into East London in the matter of five days.
“Chris, it’s the new shopping centre” Luke said, causing Chris, who still had Jennifer in his arms to look in the direction he was pointing, Luke was right, only across the road was a giant shopping centre – Luke started to run towards it, Chris walking as fast as he could behind him.
They approached what seemed the main entrance of the centre and saw that they weren’t the first people to find it, since stood outside were two girls, stood quite defensively as if they could guard the whole place, which obviously wasn’t possible…the looks on their faces said other wise.
The tallest, and what looked like the oldest of the girls stepped forward, she was wearing brand new clothes, and looked, well…clean.
“Who are you?” She asked, Luke and Chris looked and each other clueless, and the smaller and younger of the girls stepped forward rolling her eyes.
“What happened to her?” She asked, tucking a strand of white, blonde hair behind one ear – Chris realised she was talking to him, and looked down at Jennifer, who was still out cold.
“Well, she urm, kinda…well, collapsed?” Luke said from the side of him, noticing Chris looking even more worried over Jennifer’s decreasing health.
“We can see that, imbecile” The older girl snapped, again like the other girl only being interested in Jennifer – The blonde girl gave her a warning look.
“Ruby, be nice” She said, while checking over Jennifer – Ruby scoffed and started walking back toward the centre’s entrance, making the boys realise that it was in fact, boarded up.
“Bring her in, your lucky you got here early, the cut on her cheek isn’t badly infected, but she has lost quite a lot of blood, causing her to collapse, but I’m guessing it’s partly from exhaustion as well – has she done most of the work?” The younger girl said all in one, the boys looked at each other speechless, and then nodded shyly – before following the younger girl, and Ruby into the centre through a gap in the boarded up entrance, which soon disappeared due to another brown board being placed to cover it.
“I’m Tessa, by the way” the younger girl shouted, as she disappeared into what seemed like a clothes shop, and came back out with a medical kit, Chris placed Jennifer down onto the marble floor, and looked around him, the shopping centre was around three floors, and he couldn’t see the other side – both sides were lined with popular clothes shops, music stores, and those places that sell everything – He wondered if they were the only ones here.
“Do you two…like, live here on your own?” Luke asked, Ruby nodded and Chris snapped back to reality.
“How? There must be at least fourt-“Chris was cut of by Tessa who was dealing with Jennifer.
“Eighteen entrances, slash exits – all zombie-proofed…for now, if you want to stay when the girls sorted, you’ll have to earn it” She explained, Chris looked at her, then Ruby who was nodding approvingly at Tessa, before turning back to him and saying –
“And, yes, before you even ask, she is insane” Chris caught Tessa glance up at her and give her a glare before looking back to Jennifer.
“Ow” They heard, the boys looked to Ruby, then to Tessa and tried to figure out were the groan of pain had come from before realising Jennifer was starting to come round.
“Jen…Jen!” Chris said. Appearing at her side in the matter of seconds, she opened her eyes and squeezed them back shut again pain. “Hey, were safe now” Luke said softly, appearing beside Chris.
“Not yet. Your not” Ruby then interrupted.
"Winner, winner, chicken dinner" Wise words said by the one and only, Dean Winchester.
  





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Sun Jan 22, 2012 10:52 pm
Blues says...



Hey Geronimo! Here as requested!

So. I'm back. Let's begin!

I'm actually really intrigued to see what happens next! I'm interested to see how you take the idea further. Do let me know about further chapters! :D

So, before I begin, I'd like to link this though. I know you've separated the paragraphs, but YWS clumps them together D: So, just for readability while posting on YWS, I thought this'd help and save some time for you. It puts off people, so who knows, it might help gain reviews! ^_^

Anyway, I have a few things I'd like to point out. First of all, I think this link would be really helpful. You did miss out lots and lots of commas.
I found the pace a bit hard to keep up with. I'm assuming they were in school? If so, I found myself suddenly reading that they were walking past the Olympic park. I think that if you reread it and correct the grammar issues, it'll actually help with pace issues, a lot. Just watch out for comma splices and run-on sentences - they can be described further at the knowledge base.

Earlier, you told us about a virus. If so, aren't the streets littered with corpses? How come they're still at school? It seemed a bit sudden, when you told us, as the prologue made it seem like everything was OK, with the dating talk, but then the zombies come. I was confused. Also, regarding the virus, I'd have liked to see some description. 'Course we all know the basic idea of the appearance of the zombie, but what'd be excellent is if there'd be some distinctive features for the zombies - do they foam red foam in the mouth? Just a thought.


Anyway, that's it from me! I hope this didn't sound harsh or anything, I'm just really excited for the story and I'd love to see you improve.

Keeeep Writing and you know where to go for a review! (Also, PM me when you post the next chapter)

-AB
  








Poetry and prayer are very similar.
— Carol Ann Duffy