The beer can pops open with a hiss as I hear Danny yell "'Whoo! 'Merica!" I turn around and he is dressed head to toe in red, white and blue. He's wearing a mixture of faded clothes and what looks like a cheap used plastic tablecloth from a 4th of July party.
"Seriously?" I ask. "You're opening a beer at 10 am? We just got here and this place needs lots of work still."
"Dude, can you believe this beer though? It's actually called American beer on the label. Here, catch!" Danny tosses me a beer. I grab it kind of angrily.
"It's warm even." I pop it open anyway and take a gulp of the stale cheap looking beer. The can has an old patriotic looking design. It has a picture of some now former athlete on the back. His name has long faded out but I don't think I'd know he was anyway. It's beer at least. And I guess it is the 4th of July, the American Independence holiday, whatever that means anymore.
Danny and I have finally found a house. There aren't too many in good enough shape to even be much recognizable as a place to find shelter, let alone call a home. At least it's livable, with a relatively intact roof. It's an old beach house, which was a luxury at one time. It's small but it's really about the location. The view of the lake is amazing. The house sits on Lake Erie, south of what was once Buffalo, New York, not far from the shores of Canada. Not that we can easily get back over there. The bridge is long blown down and any boats have long been scavenged. And it's not like we ever saw anyone on the other side of the river up north anyway.
Danny finally says "Scott, let's just take it easy today. We can get settled into the house tomorrow. Let's just celebrate the day."
"For what? The fourth of July is more of a joke than ever."
"Celebrating our own independence then!"
"Fine, to our independence," I say as I raise the can of stale piss in a feigned toast.
I guess I should be able to explain how things got to be this way, but honestly I don't know. It wasn't zombies or some horror crap like that. Perhaps it was a disease outbreak. But there had been pandemics before and they didn't end the world, even if it felt like that sometimes. I remember all kinds of rumors that spread on social media. Everyone was disappearing or dying. It was maybe aliens snatching people, a military invasion, a right wing coup, a left wing coup, and at one point everyone really did think it might be zombies. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter because I'm going to kill Danny.
I am writing this short story in installments, one chapter at a time. I am just writing a bit each day and am not sure yet where the story will lead. I've never done this before so this is an experiment to practice writing. Thank you for reading.
Yoohoo, @robmolecule is back! And, as I can guess, with a post-apocalyptic story. So far you've got my attention! Curious to find out more, why Scott wants to kill Danny, the general state of America, and maybe even how things got to be the way they are.
I finally found a reason to come back. I love what they did with the new hardfork. I hope I don't disappoint anyone with the story. I have an idea, But I'm only speculating myself so far as to what happened to the country. That's all I can say. Don't be let down if it's left open ended. We only have the thoughts of a probably unreliable narrator. I'm definitely sticking with the first person present tense narrative. Hoping this will be about five chapters, but I'll have to see how it goes.
First person, present tense, speculative narration... YES, please do stick with this. It has a great Tales from the Afternow feel to it. (Not sure how familiar you are with SKTFM.) As for the length, it's not really that important. On the contrary, if it ends up growing into ten chapters, even better. And the reader can guess most of the answers to their questions based on the thoughts of the narrator.
Oh, and as for HIVE, hehehehe, honestly this last HF happened without any of the usual crap, it was amazing. Of course the biggest change took place more than a year ago, when we were forced to truly seize our independence. Who knows, not being dependent on a company that slows you down or tries to control you may ultimately have been the reason why this last fork went so smoothly.
I am not familiar. I have been reading short stories by Poe, Lovecraft and Philip K Dick lately. Not that I would compare myself, but that's where my head is kind of at. I also just finished a Spillane novel. I'm not limiting it to any length. Maybe I should say at least 5 chapters. I started the second one. But I'll probably finish that one tomorrow.
If you're curious, you can get the whole story set here, plus all of the Rant Radio stuff they put out. I used to listen to a lot of Sean Kennedy back when he was still active. For a bit of an introductory overview, check out this post on reddit.
I would love to be a successful writer one day too. But I must learn to write short stories first! LoL
It's one of those things I always wanted to do when I was younger. I don't know if I'm any good, but I figured I'd try. I used to get paid to write training materials so I must be ok at it I guess.
Wow! That’s quite a job! Writing a Manuel! I couldn’t even write instructions on how to make omelette! LoL