Tuesday
Jan052010
A Warning to Survivors
Tuesday, January 5, 2010 at 6:50AM
"I'm going to try to kill you. You know that right?"
"Yeah."
"All right. Well, you're the one with the gun."
I was the one with the gun, but only by chance. I found it under my uncle's bed, wrapped in a sweatshirt inside a gym bag; I was hoping for a baseball bat or a golf club. The gun seemed more...efficient.
Despite my years of video game experience, mowing down opponents with virtual guns, I wasn't comfortable holding one. Maybe it was because I'd never actually held one before, or maybe it's because I knew what I had to do with it.
It was going to happen. Sarah needed to be "put down," as she said it. Put down, like she was some kind of animal, like she wasn't my girlfriend. She asked me to do it after it happened, to smash her skull with the tire iron in my trunk. I didn't of course. I said I had a plan, we would get to my uncle's house, wait for him to come home, and then see if we could get her to the hospital. She went along with it, not because she believed they could do anything at the hospital, but because I needed her to. I'm still impressed by that; how mature she was. She didn't complain, didn't even cry. Just accepted what would happen next, and what needed to be done.
"Yeah."
"All right. Well, you're the one with the gun."
I was the one with the gun, but only by chance. I found it under my uncle's bed, wrapped in a sweatshirt inside a gym bag; I was hoping for a baseball bat or a golf club. The gun seemed more...efficient.
Despite my years of video game experience, mowing down opponents with virtual guns, I wasn't comfortable holding one. Maybe it was because I'd never actually held one before, or maybe it's because I knew what I had to do with it.
It was going to happen. Sarah needed to be "put down," as she said it. Put down, like she was some kind of animal, like she wasn't my girlfriend. She asked me to do it after it happened, to smash her skull with the tire iron in my trunk. I didn't of course. I said I had a plan, we would get to my uncle's house, wait for him to come home, and then see if we could get her to the hospital. She went along with it, not because she believed they could do anything at the hospital, but because I needed her to. I'm still impressed by that; how mature she was. She didn't complain, didn't even cry. Just accepted what would happen next, and what needed to be done.
in Writing
Writing
Reader Comments (3)
I often come up with short stories and scenarios in my head--it's one of my favorite things to do on road trips while Brooke sleeps--but I rarely actually write them. Brooke encouraged me to do it this time, so here you go. I just finished World War Z by Max Brooks (an excellent book, far better than anything you just read), so I had zombies on the brain. Hope you liked it, maybe I'll do more of these from time to time, I've got a ton of them floating around in my head.
This story was disturbing, it's well written but scary!!!!!! I kept waiting for you to say it was some video game you were working on.
This was AWESOME!!! I love the random thoughts about video games. Your brain does that in a panic. I know when I got in a car wreck, my first thought was "I should turn off the radio." That was before I realized I was almost killed and started screaming.
Great story!