After the Pandemic: Introduction, and a Proposal for Uber Fiction Writers! (4018 hits)
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Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2005-03-04 19:23:17 EST
Uber is suddenly rife with zombies...
In a weird coincidence, I've been planning this proposal for several days now. I guess the time is right.
Would any of you be interested in posting stories long or short, one-shots or series, set in a fucked-up (not too distant) future?
It is after a disease has swept across the Earth, creating vampires and zombies. Not 100% original, I know, but there is a lot we can do with this. Perhaps it was a government experiment gone wrong, or a mutation of the coming Bird Flu. Who knows? At our starting point, civilization has ground to a sudden stop and the converted-by-disease vampires who now make up the majority of the Earth's population are struggling to get things running again while dealing with small numbers of 'immunes' who are striking back or fighting to survive, and mindless zombies, who are just fucking up the works.
I'll post an initial starter-story/set-up below, and then all you have to do is post your own additions to this fictitious world.
To make them easy to track, they will all have the same title, then the SUBTITLE will be the name of your particular addition.
<Example- When McCallum was God: Jimmy Gets Fed to a Big Fish - Chapter 1>
It could be fun to see how others expand on this set-up. Since I'm not a rocket scientist I'm bound to get things wrong, from geographical details to technical stuff. That may happen with others as well, and it will take some creative writing to overcome inconsistencies or to discredit outright any ideas or events written by others.
Who knows, maybe some of you can start your own story worlds like this to which we can all contribute. They could be set in the distant past or the far future or inside the colon of an aging Delicatessen owner in the Bronx (hey, a series about cancer cells up some guy's ass, that has possibilities).
I'll start this one now, and remember the title format-
Set-up Title + Your contribution... Shitworld: No Safe Place to Step (if there is only one chapter just use the story title like I just did).
Here we go...
==================
AFTER THE PANDEMIC: A Night with the Spikes (1 of 1)
==================
Tyler sat on the roof of the C.D. Howe Building, watching the September sky lighten over downtown Ottawa, waiting for sunrise.
Beside him was his half-assembled .44 Magnum twenty-rounds-per-mag Smith & Wesson FJ 'Frontier Justice' Automatic, a model that hit the North American market and sold like hotcakes in the first months of the pandemic.
He had just finished cleaning the weapon. He also had an aluminum crossbow loaded with three wooden bolts that could be fired one at a time or all at once. The crossbow had been manufactured by a tradesman who'd lived in a sprawling shack on an island of stunted trees in the middle of the Ottawa River not far away. A single shoulder-fired rocket had taken out the craftsman and his shack a few weeks back.
Four stories below Ty was the corner of Bank and Sparks Streets. An hour before, he had watched as six young guys had found a shaker and dragged it out of the pile of refuse it had crawled under in anticipation of daylight. The kids were about sixteen or seventeen, wearing jeans, white T-shirts and black leather jackets. Tyler had watched carefully, not wanting to be seen.
On the backs of their jackets were identical hand-painted designs depicting a guy in a similar dark jacket, a string of garlic bulbs across his chest like a bandolier, holding a wooden mallet in one hand, and in the other hand not a wooden stake, but his own erection.
These guys were Canadians, so that made them members of the Spikes.
Their American counterparts were known as the Tube Stakes.
They were sunrisers. Like Tyler, they were survivors of the pandemic. Unlike Ty, they were survivors who did nothing to further the continuance of their dwindling kind, survivors who only wanted to raise hell and have fun.
The Stakes and the Spikes were like the old motorcycle gangs, traveling around on bikes (mountain bikes of course, it was difficult for a sunriser to purchase or steal gasoline,) spreading havoc and living dangerously.
Membership to the club required passing one test. To single-handedly subdue and fuck a female leech. They were crazy fucks, and the thought of what they did for kicks made Tyler nauseous and uneasy. It was hard enough just trying to survive. Why push your luck?
Tyler had watched the Spikes hack the male shaker into pieces with hatchets and machetes, playing football with the still-living head. A ballsy move considering that the sun had not yet cleared the horizon. The head had yammered silently, wincing whenever it was kicked, and the laughter and shouts of the Spikes had echoed off the deserted office buildings.
It sounded like a bad movie. Vampires ruled the world. Humanity was on the verge of extinction.
The things that had replaced humanity as the dominant species on the planet was Homo Nocturnus. They preferred to be called hemophagists, or 'supers' since they considered themselves superhuman. They used to be human, before the pandemic. Before the bug changed them. Before they developed the bloodlust and started feeding on human beings.
The human survivors, who called each other immunes, and luckies, called these vampires leeches, or jugheads.
There were a startling number of similarities between leeches and their mythic counterparts.
Leeches could be killed by a stake through the heart. Wood was preferred, but anything would work. A steel tube, a length of PVC pipe. It didn't really matter, as long as the heart was ruptured. Something in the blood of leeches accelerated the healing process, and when the blood flow was stopped, they became corrupt. They didn't melt or burst into flames or fall to dust, but they did die quickly. They also began to stink real fast, and it was a smell you never forgot.
Bullets worked, but hitting the heart of a moving body was tough, and you had to make sure the heart was destroyed. Decapitation or amputations resulting in massive blood loss worked too, but that required a lot more effort than a quick thrust or a few whacks with a mallet. A sure thing was immolation using a Molotov cocktail. Liquid hand soap and anything flammable in a bottle stopped up with a rag for a wick did the trick. You could throw them from a distance. They were a bitch to carry in numbers.
Leeches also had a hard time with running water. It was just another mystery. They couldn't swim worth shit. They had no buoyancy. They could wade across deep water, but if the water was moving and they were swept off of their feet they could drown. The drowning could take a while, but it would happen eventually. Leeches never risked running water.
Leeches had difficulties with garlic. Garlic made them horribly nauseous and took away their appetites, and that was risky because leeches had to feed every few waking hours to stay alive. They also couldn't stand onions, leeks, shallots, or chives. Fucking chives. Anything in the garlic family drove them away.
Cheese and onion sandwiches were a staple of any survivor's diet, and among their beg, borrow, trade or steal underground economy cheese was literally worth its weight in gold, because it was only being produced in small batches.
Cheese didn't do anything to leeches. They just didn't like it.
Leeches avoided daylight. They didn't burn explosively like roman candles, but they were blinded by sunlight (a blindness that could quickly become permanent), and something in the rays of the sun began breaking down their superhuman blood almost instantly, mortally weakening their immune systems and leaving them slow, weak, and still hungry for blood. Easy targets.
Leeches stayed away from anything that threatened their lifespan. They weren't immortal, but with the fast rate they recovered from injury, their immunity to illness and their slow rate of aging, they could easily live two or three hundred years.
The leeches ruled the night and slept during the day. Since the survival of immunes depended of avoiding the leeches, they too had become nocturnal. Leeches called immunes 'sunrisers.' Immunes found the name bitterly amusing, since they rarely got to enjoy the sun during the day.
The pandemic had swept across North America two years earlier, in late 2005. It was likely a mutation of the Bird Flu, called the Pacific Flu or the Pac Bug, because it had crossed the Pacific Ocean, originating somewhere in China. The economies and societies of the United States and Canada collapsed months before the bug hit the European continent and spread across the Middle East. When America fell, the governments of many nations were secretly delighted, for a short time. The devastation of South America and Africa followed slowly. Australia and New Zealand were the last holdouts, the last sanctuaries of humanity. Despite their proximity to Asia, they were free of the virus for a year before they too succumbed.
Immunes had been immune to the original version of the bug. They were not immune to the blood-borne virus passed from leech to leech.
The shouts of the Spikes below Tyler began to fade.
In the strange months after the pandemic had first spread, claiming most and leaving the few immunes alone (and Tyler was one of those) Ty had spent a few hours one morning before sunrise, holed up with two Spikes in a barn in a field just outside the city. Ty had killed one and wounded the other.
Since then, Tyler was careful whenever Spikes were around, just in case a guy named Slats was one of them.
Ty looked down onto the street. The Spikes were leaving the area, taking the shaker head with them, setting fire to the separate limbs and torso.
There were no signs of life now, but the streets were not empty. They were strewn with litter, human shit, rotting human, muncher and leech remains and dead pigeons, blocked here and there by the old rusted hulks of burned out and scavenged cars.
Ty wondered who was still shitting in the streets. He'd been living outside the city for ages, had only returned a month ago, and was surprised to see fresh mounds of sunriser crap on Wellington and on Bank.
When the leeches first took over and began whipping sunriser ass, one tiny aspect of the human resistance stood out. Some idiot got the bright idea that taking a shit in the middle of a street now owned by jugheads would be a display of defiance. It was supposed to have started out in the Pacific Northwest, in B.C. or in Washington State. Then it had spread.
The leeches were working hard enough to get things running the way they used to- reopening the airports and getting the trains back on track and getting the ships out to sea. Tyler had wondered how they could maintain the transportation lines when the sun fried them like an egg on a grill and traveling only during the night could seriously cut down on your productivity. Until he heard things on the porknet.
The leeches controlled all the computer nets, but they were having a hard time dealing with the humans who maintained communications with ham radios, some of which were highly sophisticated.
Ham radios were the only sure method of communication between sunrisers now that the leeches controlled the phone lines and satellites. In fact, it was said that leech scientists were working on a way of transmitting a haze of shit noise into the ionosphere on a permanent basis to kill the radio transmissions, and that they were already perfecting ways of using laser and microwave communication that would cut through the noise they created.
It was also said that they had a way of almost instantaneously pinpointing the geographic source of ham signals and paying the operator a visit. After that tale was passed along, radio messages became very short.
The ham radio network quickly became known as the porknet, and Tyler was a part of it. He used a little transmitter-receiver he had picked up at an outdoor supply store. On one side it had a tiny crank handle for a generator and on the other was a solar panel.
He'd learned that the trains were running on time again- but they stopped dead at sunrise. Most flights were scheduled so take-off and landing was done at night. On intercontinental flights which passed through the day, cockpits and cabins were sealed up tight while the crew flew on autopilot. Ships were set on course, the leeches going below decks during the day, leaving a skeleton crew of human slaves to do the dirty work, who didn't have to worry about munchers showing up unannounced.
It was a B-movie world out there. Leeches were vampires and munchers were zombies, flesh-eating dumb-asses right out of a Romero flick, created by a mutant strain of the original bug. They were dumber than dogshit, hated by sunrisers and leeches. Homo Nocturnus strived for order in their society, and munchers tried to take a bite out of anything that moved.
Now that the leeches were finally getting around to clearing the streets and highways, they assumed (and in most areas of the civilized world, rightfully so) that the cities and towns were theirs.
That was true of the big cities in Europe and North America, where only small numbers of munchers remained. Asia was a different story. In India, after the muncher bug hit, zombies soon made up the majority of the population, and leeches dropped nukes on Calcutta and New Delhi. In Shanghi, Nanking and Peking leeches were gathering up large numbers of munchers in exercises that resembled cattle drives, so they could sterilize those cities as well.
Ty heard a final distant shout from one of the Spikes.
"Guys, hold on. I'm gonna take a dump!"
Leeches wanted their cities orderly and sanitary, and they worked through the night repairing pandemic damage. It pissed the leeches off to an incredible degree when they found sunriser shit in an area they thought they had cleared out and cleaned up.
For a while, street-shitting was a rage, and everyone was doing it, even though you risked getting your ass chewed off by a muncher. Tyler had dropped more than a few logs in his time, pistol in hand, ready to put a bullet in the diseased brain of any zombie fucks who showed up and ogled his ass like it was prime rib, and he thought that it was a thing of the past.
He had finally learned on the porknet exactly why a little turd could enrage the leeches so much.
These self-christened super-humans rarely shit, and when they do, it's a frustrating procedure. All the blood they suck up results in a lot of pissing, but only two or three dumps a year and then, the humans in the know said, it was a long and agonizing process, as a leech squatted for up to ten or twelve hours, pushing out a stinking black substance like hot, bubbling tar that moved like modeling clay and clung to a leeches' asshole in long, snake-like extrusions which had to be removed by hand.
The leeches, who thought themselves so much better than us, were reduced to grunting human status every few months, and when it came time for them to shit they had to do it quickly, or the poisons in their waste would build up to lethal levels.
Porknet wisdom said that one sure way to kill off a jughead was to sew his asshole shut. But how were you going to get close enough with a needle and thread?
Tyler took a breath of cool, crisp air. He knew that he might be seen by someone in one of the higher buildings, but he also knew that it was almost daybreak, and nobody but a stupid fuck was going to make a move on him now.
Perhaps he was being watched right now, by the Prime, up in his windswept lookout atop the Peace Tower. The former PM was supposed to be one of the most powerful leeches in Canada, but recent rumors were circulating to the effect that the Prime was in fact a muncher, kept alive by the leeches under him, who insisted they were implementing the Prime's policies and not their own.
Ty looked at his watch, an old and scuffed analogue Timex. He had to wind the watch himself, had to remind himself to wind it every twelve hours. It was a pain in the ass, but just about anything that worked without batteries was in demand by sunrisers. These days, batteries were hard to obtain.
Two birds flew overhead. They looked like sparrows. Ty allowed himself a smile. Of all the creatures he knew, birds and fish were the ones which lived as much as they had before the pandemic. Leeches didn't eat them and munchers couldn't catch them.
It was curious, the way the Pac bug had divided all that lived on earth, on land, under water, in the air.
Human beings were fucked, of course, but they had started the ball rolling. They had become leeches, or munchers, due to a temporary mutation in the once airborne bug. Both original bugs were gone now, but leeches still made leeches (although they were cutting back) transmitting the bug through the blood with their pornographic neck-sucking, and with just a bite or a scratch munchers were making munchers at a fantastic rate.
While the original muncher virus affected only humans, most domestic animals caught the Pac bug. Dogs, cattle, sheep, pigs, all had the bloodlust now. Farmers with livestock had been seriously fucked over when the bug swept across North America. People in India who had never harmed cattle were attacked by them.
He'd heard that reptiles were immune, but he wasn't sure.
Cats were immune. Cats were man's new best friend. Tyler had four cats. Three were exploring the roof, and the fourth was curled in his lap, purring, and hugely pregnant.
One night, almost a year ago, when the pandemic was in full swing (after having swept the globe a couple of times in the previous six months), and martial law was in effect, he had heard some interesting shit from ham radio operators in Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, New York, Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The possession of pets had been outlawed, and people were being urged to kill all of their animals, even though the rumor of feline immunity was widespread. There were countless tragic cases where animals turned on their owners after getting the bug, and many cases of wholesale slaughter of pets and their owners by local police forces.
In the darkening hours of one long evening and night, zoo employees across the continent let their big cats run free.
In Phoenix there had been a massacre as the National Guard had come in to kill the escaping cats. Ty's uncle Jack down in San Francisco had told him that members of the city's SPCA had begun touring the city preventing anyone from trying to kill cats.
That was one of the last messages he had heard from his uncle, who was apparently the last member of his family to survive this long. His uncle had said that he was taking his cats to a safe place, and that he'd try and contact Tyler when he could.
Two months ago Ty had gotten a short message, relayed from a guy in Wichita, Kansas. His uncle had said, "We're okay, but it looks like time is running out. Whatever you do, stay away from California. L.A. and San Francisco are the sites of the temples." Tyler had asked the guy in Wichita if he got it right. The guy had said it was a weak transmission, but that was what he heard.
Rodents were susceptible, but after a few generations it was diluted from their bloodlines.
Ty had a buddy named Mike who was in Toronto. Mike had pet rats, dozens of them. They roamed his property at night, running into the house and squeaking whenever leeches came near. Tyler hadn't heard from Mike in months now. Maybe they got him. Or maybe his ham radio was shot.
Rats and mice worked the bug out of their system. The virus couldn't live in birds. Cats ate birds and mice and rats.
What was the connection? Something in the blood? Tyler didn't know, and wondered if he ever would.
If science was going to figure out the how and why of the bug, the fucking leeches would get the answers first. They now ran the laboratories and hospitals and universities where research was conducted.
Bears and raccoons were immune, but deer could get the bug. Fish were immune, but aquatic mammals were not. Tyler had heard stories. Imagine a deer attacking a grizzly bear in a bloodlust. Imagine a dolphin hunting down a shark for food. Imagine a humpback whale with the bug. Imagine a wolf pack with the bug. Stronger and quicker and smarter than ever. There was a fucking nightmare for you.
Birds were immune. Pigeons were the best form of sunriser communication after ham radios. The goddamn bloodsucking leeches knew it, and they were trying to slaughter pigeons as fast as sunrisers could breed them. Tyler knew a guy who lived in the east end, Henri Gendre. Henri was breeding falcons, as lookouts and couriers.
Ty rubbed his eyes as the eastern horizon brightened. Another half hour and he could go downstairs and get some sleep. He took a pack of DuMaurier Lights from one wide pocket of his dark green army fatigues. Ty shook his head. He never thought he'd be wearing clothes like this.
When the leeches had burned him out of his last hideout in Nepean six months ago, he had been running like hell wearing nothing but runners, underwear, and his watch, his cats following at his heels. He'd broken into an army surplus store and found clothes, and since then he valued their toughness and big pockets.
Ty lit the cigarette with a wooden match and inhaled. He coughed, smoke trailing out his nostrils and spit spraying from his mouth. The cigarettes stank, and they gagged him, but they had kept him alive on more than one occasion.
It was just one of the sick jokes that had been played on modern man when the bug had spread. Nicotine fucked up leeches. Nobody knew why. Smokers who caught the bug and converted to leeches, never really made it as bloodsuckers. They became wretched, palsied things, known now as shakers, crawling in gutters, intellectually stunted, and shunned by their own kind.
If you had nicotine in your system and a leech popped your tab and started drinking deep from your jugular, it would get the jitters and start retching. Ty had only seen it twice, and twice was enough. So now he smoked a butt every couple of hours, and sucked back three before he went to sleep.
Ty smoked and watched the sun rise, remembering the morning he had spent in the barn with two Spikes. This dark, fucked-up world was still new back then, and Tyler was looking for survivors, looking for answers and companions. He didn't find any of that in the barn.
***
The Spikes had been taking crazy risks right from the first weeks of the pandemic.
Ty and two Spikes had stepped out of a tree line at the same time, fifty feet apart. They had watched each other cautiously, and then Ty had taken an onion out of his pack. He peeled it and bit into it like an apple, and then tossed it to the Spikes. When each of the strangers bit, chewed and swallowed, Ty approached and introduced himself.
The handshake was a thing of the past.
Together they had crossed a field to a barn, looking for a safe place to grab a few hours' sleep. They slipped inside and checked out the barn, making sure it was safe.
They had found a leech, once a girl of about thirteen, and had dragged her out to the edge of the barn shadow, where morning sunlight lay across the dooryard in blinding sheets.
One of the Spikes produced a pair of pliers, and after a moment's struggle amid muffled screams from the leech they had torn out her incisors. They toyed with her, knowing that vampiric strength only went so far in a small, slim body, taunting her with a three-foot wooden stake one of them had brought along, dragging her toward the sunlight, exposing an arm, a leg, and then letting her scuttle back into the darkness.
Then one of the Spikes had pulled off her clothes and started undoing his pants.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Tyler had asked, incredulous.
The guy holding the leech down grinned, showing buckteeth like fence pickets. The other guy, younger but bigger than Tyler, pulled a pallid, grub-like excuse for a dick out of his pants and began to shake it like he was trying to put out a match.
"Best fuck you'll ever have, buddy," Grubdick said. Bucktooth laughed.
Tyler suddenly felt like he was standing on thin ice. A half hour ago they had all been comrades, united against a common enemy. Now Tyler wanted nothing to do with them. They repulsed him as much as any leech.
Bucktooth nodded at Grubdick. "Looks like the ol' spike's ready to be hammered home!"
Grubdick nodded back, still stroking himself.
Tyler looked at the Spike with his embarrassingly below average hard-on, and at the leech. She was still struggling, knew what was coming.
The bug didn't turn a person into a crazed animal with an uncontrollable blood-lust. You retained all your smarts, simply applying them to different goals.
Tapping someone's jugular for a hot meal may have been a whole new world of grossness to itself, but as far as Tyler was concerned, uneasily conceding that the leech girl was, after all, mostly human, rape was still rape.
"She's just a kid for fuck sake," He said.
Bucktooth and Grubdick lost their smiles.
"She ain't human," Grubdick said.
"And that gives you an excuse to act less than human?" Tyler asked
"Don't go getting all fucking moral on me," Grubdick snarled, yanking on his tiny hard-on. "It's gonna be me, then Slats, then you. We're all gonna ride this pony."
He threw himself down on the leech girl, and she began struggling harder. "Christ," Grubdick grunted, "Hold'er fuckin down, I can't get it in with all this wigglin! Fuck!"
Tyler looked around the barn, trying to decide what he should. Help the Spikes, or help the leech? Some fucking choice. He saw the stake lying on the ground. Grubdick was still trying to get his tiny dick into the girl. Bucktooth was helping him. Actually reaching down and trying to guide Grubdick's tiny tool in the right direction. Fuck this, Tyler thought.
He picked up the stake, got a good grip on it, and lined it up.
Not long ago, when he realized that the ability to stake or shoot a leech right the first time could save his life, Tyler had broken into a branch of the Nepean Public Library and swiped some anatomy texts, studying them day after day. He knew where the heart was, as well as the location of obstructing bone and muscle.
He drove the stake down at an angle with his full weight behind it. It rammed into Grubdicks' back and through him, jerking once as it glanced off his ribs, and then shattered the young leech's slender breastbone and pierced her heart. She stopped moving. Grubdick writhed like a pinned bug.
The bucktoothed kid Grubdick had called Slats leaped up when twin jets of dark blood hit him in the face. He turned to run and Tyler drew his automatic.
"Freeze, Slats!"
Slats stopped and slowly turned. He saw Tyler's' gun and his eyes became big white holes in his bloodied face. He wiped frantically at his face with the front of his dirty T-shirt.
"Hey man," Slats said, "If ya wanted to go first ya shoulda said. We, we can roll Driller off'a there and you can go at it, yunno, cause the stake ain't been in long enough for her to start stinkin'."
His misunderstanding was pathetic and grotesque. Tyler wanted to take him out with a clean headshot and pulled the trigger, but Slats glanced down and over at Drillers' continued writhing. The bullet caved in his left eye and blasted out through a clean hole in the temple two inches over. Slats staggered backward, and Tyler heard a noise behind him.
Driller was getting to his feet. He pulled himself up and off the stake, which was imbedded in the earth under the leech. The stake moved through him with a soft sucking sound. When he was free of the stake, Tyler shot him between the eyes.
Ty turned, and saw that Slats was a hundred yards away, running like hell into a stand of trees.
"Fuck," Tyler said. There was no telling who Slats would hitch up with if he survived, but it would most likely be with other Spikes. He would have to steer clear of them from now on.
***
Tyler ground out his smoke and took a look around. A gust from the north carried the scent of the nearby river. The sun was coming up, lighting the Sparks Street Mall and the shells of burned out shops looted long ago.
Ty was looking forward to a good day's sleep. There was a storage room just below his perch with a sturdy metal door. It would do for now, but he was going to move on soon.
It was a pretty shitty world these days, but at least every man and woman on earth enjoyed a beautiful sunrise like they never had before. The cats were getting sleepy. They had the same internal clock as the leeches. When the sun came up, cats and leeches who had spent the night working and feeding were ready to find a dark corner and rest.
It was time for Ty to do the same.
[If you want to read a great old novel that I have tried not to rip off, check out 'I am Legend,' by Richard Matheson. It was written in the 50's and it is still one of the best (and may have been the very first) 'vampires rule the world' stories. Matheson kicks ass.]
User Reviews
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2007-04-09 00:46:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
still good. do something like this again.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-05-06 23:23:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Holy shit. Type 'pandemic' into the search area
and there are 146 entries. Jack rules.
Submitted by awesome_face (user info) at 2006-05-06 22:10:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Hmmmmmm I know this is old and there haven't been any out lately but this is intriguing me. My only piece of fiction on Uber I have is old and it sucked. Changed my writing style greatly. First person sucks for this kind of stuff.
Im thinking of using several characters much in the way that Axolotl did.
Coming soon...
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2006-04-24 16:33:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i'm bored so i'm re-reading all of the ATP that i can find from the beginning.
see you in a month.
Submitted by FartSmeller (user info) at 2006-01-13 15:58:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Man, I finally got around to starting this series, and you have done an amazing job.
I love the part about the leeches shitting, simply because it's one of those logistics of everyday life type things that most authors never think to throw in, they make it all seem way more real.
I hope the rest are as awesome as this one!
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2005-12-08 10:11:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Another re-read, another +2
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2005-11-28 11:19:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/79933
I got mine down
After the Pandemic - Genocide
Submitted by RyuFu (user info) at 2005-09-30 15:32:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Ohhhh....so that's what these are. This was pretty intriguing.
I guess I'll just have to quit my job so I can read all of them.
Submitted by Feijuada (user info) at 2005-09-20 21:33:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I've avoided "After the Pandemic" posts like the plague, but I think I might do one.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-08-13 21:46:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Zack, some of these questions are answered in different ways by different writers. Some were left vague by me on purpose to give writers a lot of leeway in what they wrote.
Some answers...
--
Submitted by zakalwe (user info) at 2005-08-13 20:41:51 (#)
Ranking: 2
maybe these things are all explained in later posts, but I have a few immediate questions.
when people become leeches are they still the same person? do they retain the same personality, behaviour outside feeding, whatever? would two leeches who had been friends before the pandemic still be friends after?
<They are the same, BUT hunger rules everything, so friendships would be strained.>
I remember reading a similar end of civilisation story somewhere, and it stated that it didn't matter if even a significant proportion of the population were immune to any given disease, because when society fell everyone would be exposed to a myriad of diseases and other problems, ensuring the non-existence of a recovery population.
<This is why in these stories the world almost enters another dark age.>
how could the sunrisers defeat the leeches short of killing every single one?
<They cannot.>
can a leech become a muncher, or can that only happen to immunes?
<Each is immune to the other... but if you are reading the next installment you'll see that their may be hybrids.>
why would the original diseases die out so conveniently? it doesn't ring true, but rather is a fortunate story-telling device.
<That is debatable. This is a virus. Viruses mutate. That's why we keep on catching the common cold. It's a slightly different animal each time around.>
if the leeches are so powerful to the point of recreating the old society, then it seems entirely impossible for immunes to overthrow them.
<Yes, but their thirst for blood is matched by their thirst for power. In many areas they work together. In some areas they do not, and this leaves areas of access for humans. See Smith's adventures in the UK... In Edinburgh, in fact, for more of this in the latest series, 'End of the World.'>
do the leeches actively pursue and kill (or enslave) immunes? I find it hard to believe Tyler would remain free so long against that.
<Yes they do. MOST of the survivors are young. They have the speed and strength of youth on their side and grow up fighting for their lives.>
whose blood do the leeches drink? you can't sustain an entire population on immune slaves, and you say farming has gone to hell. cat's blood maybe?
<Leeches use humans as we once used cattle. As both food and work animals.>
can a leech be cured?
<I don't know.>
can a muncher marry a leech?
<Marry? Who knows? As for mating... see Mr. Smith.>
if a muncher copulated with an immune would the offspring be blonde?
<Yes. But it would be too stupid to survive for very long.>
are the children of leeches born with the disease, HIV style? or is there some kind of sinister infecting ceremony once reaching a certain age?
<The virus has mutated them. It carries on in offspring. Smith, again. You'll get there eventually.>
I've got a lot more questions. but first I'll try and read the rest of posts.
<I've got a lot more answers. Enjoy the stories.>
I haven't been this interested in an Uber series since Necrosiac and Survivor. why did I ignore it all this time?
<Fuck knows, ya dumb shit. What I find cool is the way some uberusers (starts with a T and ends with an S) have taken to this and created their own worlds.>
Submitted by zakalwe (user info) at 2005-08-13 20:41:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
maybe these things are all explained in later posts, but I have a few immediate questions.
when people become leeches are they still the same person? do they retain the same personality, behaviour outside feeding, whatever? would two leeches who had been friends before the pandemic still be friends after?
I remember reading a similar end of civilisation story somewhere, and it stated that it didn't matter if even a significant proportion of the population were immune to any given disease, because when society fell everyone would be exposed to a myriad of diseases and other problems, ensuring the non-existence of a recovery population.
how could the sunrisers defeat the leeches short of killing every single one?
can a leech become a muncher, or can that only happen to immunes?
why would the original diseases die out so conveniently? it doesn't ring true, but rather is a fortunate story-telling device.
if the leeches are so powerful to the point of recreating the old society, then it seems entirely impossible for immunes to overthrow them.
do the leeches actively pursue and kill (or enslave) immunes? I find it hard to believe Tyler would remain free so long against that.
whose blood do the leeches drink? you can't sustain an entire population on immune slaves, and you say farming has gone to hell. cat's blood maybe?
can a leech be cured?
can a muncher marry a leech?
if a muncher copulated with an immune would the offspring be blonde?
are the children of leeches born with the disease, HIV style? or is there some kind of sinister infecting ceremony once reaching a certain age?
I've got a lot more questions. but first I'll try and read the rest of posts.
I haven't been this interested in an Uber series since Necrosiac and Survivor. why did I ignore it all this time?
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-08-03 12:17:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Supreme Overlord damage control...
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2005-07-26 17:09:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/71761
Uber fiction
Submitted by Supreme_Overlord (user info) at 2005-07-21 22:28:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
shite
Submitted by notyou (user info) at 2005-06-29 19:53:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Just got around to reading this and I'm looking forward to reading some of the other stories. I've never read that book you mentioned so this was very engaging.
Submitted by nrduncan (user info) at 2005-05-12 17:40:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I have just got done reading these all and I have enjoyed them all. Great work everyone, +2's for all!
Submitted by Jungle_Jimanee (user info) at 2005-05-09 11:36:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Jo_of_the_golden_P (user info) at 2005-04-05 15:07:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Damn you, now I'm gonna have to read all these goddamn things.
Submitted by GoaWest (user info) at 2005-03-29 20:04:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Well done. Hope there's more.
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2005-03-19 01:47:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm in. Wow. I haven't posted for a long time. But I am inspired now.
Submitted by boneface (user info) at 2005-03-19 01:34:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
I hate zombies, so I'm not going to read this, and these ideas always seem to fade out. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2005-03-19 01:21:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61935
Zombie dogs.
Submitted by Revolutionman (user info) at 2005-03-19 01:03:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
MORE!
Submitted by sword (user info) at 2005-03-14 21:14:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
High atop the mountains of Arizona there lives a tiny group of people employing the resources of their minds and the unstoppable physical powers of their bodies to fight for humanity. Together they have found a method of combating the vampires that puts them on equal footing with their plauged brethren
After the Pandemic: Death Cult Cabal http://www.ubersite.com/m/61920
Submitted by Rawrg (user info) at 2005-03-14 20:49:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
A lighter take on things : http://www.ubersite.com/m/61891
Submitted by fudgepacker (user info) at 2005-03-14 16:16:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I jumped on the bandwagon as well....
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61896
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2005-03-12 14:48:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I started out skeptical about this, but y'all hooked me.
Hope this lives up to the standard set...
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61795
Submitted by Professional_Peon (user info) at 2005-03-12 11:52:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Here is my contribution - http://www.ubersite.com/m/61730
Submitted by brokenlizard534 (user info) at 2005-03-10 15:29:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Spam (user info) at 2005-03-10 03:15:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is great. Over the last couple of days instead of opening uber and being assaulted with shitposts and photoshops, I can see nothing but decent fiction by talented writers. Mr McCallum: You sir, are a legend.
Submitted by TimeCop (user info) at 2005-03-09 23:46:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
That's some good shit.
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2005-03-09 23:10:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
STEVE
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61545
BYE
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2005-03-09 22:56:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is fantastic. I've always had a soft spot for zombie and vampire literature/movies and now I get to read shit loads of new material.
I thought it was well done how you kept some points vague so that others could flesh it out and that you were specific enough to give people plenty of material to work with.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-03-09 15:37:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2005-03-09 15:07:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
My contribution.
How the pandemic all got started:
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61587
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-03-09 12:20:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2005-03-09 08:52:30 (#)
Ranking: 2
I am just throwing this comment on here, but so far most of these stories kick ass, ad I was wondering if anyone had the same idea as me. I can totally picture this as a comic book. So if someone wants to go ahead and draw up some pics, and put it together, I will be more than happy to take all the credit.
--
Go for it. In my next post I'm going to use a shitload of Polaroids and scissors and glue to do the purely visual 'Peoria Zombie Fuckfest' all by myself.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-03-09 09:44:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
My meager contribution:
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61553
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2005-03-09 08:52:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I am just throwing this comment on here, but so far most of these stories kick ass, ad I was wondering if anyone had the same idea as me. I can totally picture this as a comic book. So if someone wants to go ahead and draw up some pics, and put it together, I will be more than happy to take all the credit.
Submitted by Ainkara (user info) at 2005-03-09 02:14:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow, this is a kick ass idea
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-03-08 23:56:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Snark and stardamage- variety is the spice of life. I really liked both of your posts. Not the same old stuff.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2005-03-08 23:56:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61530
Thanks for letting anybody play!
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-03-08 23:20:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/08/high_school_zombie_threat/
Submitted by stardamage (user info) at 2005-03-08 23:07:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61510 - Mine.
You want to talk low-key, mine's a headmaster and a kid at the same boarding school who are dealing with the first outbreaks of the disease.
That's it.
BUT I'M PROUD OF IT, DAMMIT.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-03-08 20:49:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow.
You all go for the throat.
We have a dead president, a looming alien invasion and the Apocalypse on the horizon.
I got a dude in a car on an Onion delivery.
Fuck, I shoulda put him with Captain Nemo on a voyage to the center of the earth.
Submitted by Adamdidit2u (user info) at 2005-03-08 19:27:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Jack, I think you may have breathed new life into this place, well as far as actual writing is concerned.
Good Job
I've read two of the Necroscope books, the first and the third I think. Both were my kind of read.
Submitted by Zackstersmackster (user info) at 2005-03-08 19:23:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Bravo
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-03-08 19:15:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by thaumaturge (user info) at 2005-03-08 16:29:35 (#)
Ranking: 2
Fuck that's a great idea.
I must ask you, are you from Ottawa?
--
If I was, would I admit it?
Hey, next time you're bored, go to Confederation Square and the War Memorial and tell me if they have sealed the hole in the horse's belly yet.
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2005-03-08 16:53:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
that was pretty incredible.
Submitted by Dannie (user info) at 2005-03-08 16:44:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I gave it a whirl.
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61498
Submitted by thaumaturge (user info) at 2005-03-08 16:29:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fuck that's a great idea.
I must ask you, are you from Ottawa? I work with the U.S. gov't near the C.D. Howe building and live just off of Bank St.(Glebe).
For a second I thought I was reading Xpress. Kinda weirded me out. This place is never mentioned at all.
Like the theme of this series proposal. I think that I'll contribute.
Submitted by Adamdidit2u (user info) at 2005-03-08 16:03:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61496:Origins
Submitted by hcp28 (user info) at 2005-03-08 15:11:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61495
That's my contribution, it is only part 1
Submitted by Kre8rix (user info) at 2005-03-08 14:06:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Mine's up too: http://www.ubersite.com/m/61490
Submitted by spedmonkey (user info) at 2005-03-07 23:00:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
OK, my contribution's up:
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61453
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-03-07 10:24:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Kre8rix (user info) at 2005-03-04 22:00:24 (#)
Ranking: 2
ooh ooh I wanna play
When I have the time of course...
Hey.... You don't have time! you have our own damn story to continue. Please?
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-03-06 21:14:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by hcp28 (user info) at 2005-03-06 20:33:43 (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm in. Expect something in a few days. I'm thinking rebels who have taken to the seas to escape the pandemic.
--
Holy fuck, that's a good spin on this.
Submitted by spedmonkey (user info) at 2005-03-06 21:01:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm in. Expect something to come soon.
Submitted by hcp28 (user info) at 2005-03-06 20:33:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm in. Expect something in a few days. I'm thinking rebels who have taken to the seas to escape the pandemic.
Submitted by domenad (user info) at 2005-03-06 13:20:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm in. The ideas are already churning.....
mmmmm. Churning...
Don't you dare go anywhere, Jack. You're one of the only reasons I stay on this site.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-03-05 16:21:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by stardamage (user info) at 2005-03-05 11:14:48 (#)
Ranking: 2
This is an idea that I've been fucking around with in my spare time. I think the days leading up to the end might be the most interesting for me. It's creepy to think about but oh so intriguing.
Good idea.
--
Yeah, there are a million ways to go with this...
Submitted by Kent_Weirdo (user info) at 2005-03-05 11:35:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Plus, I'm already writing a short zombie serial tentatively titled "Emergency Broadcast". I don't know if I'll put any of it on Uber, and if I do I'm thinking that I'll just post it regularly.
meantee.at.gmail.com is my address, if you want to discuss things further.
Submitted by Kent_Weirdo (user info) at 2005-03-05 11:32:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'll admit, I didn't read the whole thing, but I like the gist.
You know, in certain stories, zombies (or ghouls) are the by-product of vampire feeding. When the vampire feeds on the human but doesn't give any of it's vampiritic blood to completely turn them, the victim will become a ravenous zombie.
Just an idea. Could be some strain that the vampires carry that turns humans into zombies, but whatever, I'm tired.
Jeez, there are already four or five movies that are based on "I Am Legend" (some italian flick from 1964, Last Man on Earth, Omega Man, Night of the Living Dead, and to a lesser extent 28 Days Later (infected hide from sunlight, loose basis)).
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61048
Submitted by stardamage (user info) at 2005-03-05 11:14:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is an idea that I've been fucking around with in my spare time. I think the days leading up to the end might be the most interesting for me. It's creepy to think about but oh so intriguing.
Good idea.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-03-05 06:18:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by grandturismo (user info) at 2005-03-05 03:25:24 (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
--
Hey, it's always nice to hear from Mitchapalooza 2.0!
Submitted by grandturismo (user info) at 2005-03-05 03:25:24 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-03-05 01:51:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
it's called inspiration. and i can appreciate that.
+2
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-03-04 22:22:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Thecaes, a lot of things are vague and not fully explained on purpose. I just wanted a framework others could work within, or change around however they want.
This takes place a few years after the pandemic has swept the world. There have been riots, wars, lots of death and destruction.
The survivors are living off of crumbs and watching as the leeches are just starting to get things going again.
If the survivors are going to fight back, they have to act now or the leeches will be unstoppable.
Of course other writers can cover a time years from now when either side is winning this 'war,' or a hundred years from this point, or they can go back to the ugly days of anarchy, or the first days when no one knew what was happening.
Hell, other writers can make most of Tyler's assumptions wrong, tell a story from a leeches point of view, anything at all.
I'm leaving the door wide open.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-03-04 22:16:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks Zoid. Glad there's another Matheson fan here. His shit is great.
Submitted by tlozoot (user info) at 2005-03-04 22:04:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
It's no Ant, but I hope you write more. I can't say the topic really inspires me but this was a fun read and I always enjoy your stuff. You managed to make it sufficiently different from say, Resident Evil or 28 Days Later.
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2005-03-04 22:02:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
i liked it.
Submitted by Kre8rix (user info) at 2005-03-04 22:00:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
ooh ooh I wanna play
When I have the time of course...
Submitted by Zoidberg (user info) at 2005-03-04 21:51:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
missed the last paragraph, my bad I'll give you a make up +2 elsewhere
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-03-04 21:41:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh yeah, I almost forgot: I'd like to say I'd submit something, but I'm a little busy and I dont' want to promise I'll submit something and then not be able to follow through. But if I can find the time, I'll give it a shot.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-03-04 21:40:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
This was interesting, and it's a cool idea to get a bunch of writers working within the same realm. I'm a little in the dark when it comes to the leech society though...you make them sound smart and numerous, but I didn't get a good sense of what they're like. I dunno, something is wierd about it. Something doesn't jive.
If the leeches are so strong and intelligent, then should they have not gotten organized and wiped out humanity a long time ago, or at least turned most of them into slaves and food? I can't picture any human being present in any urban areas if the leeches are cooperating enough to have the trains running on time, you know what I mean? Humanity could only survive in remote wooded areas. And if the leeches are organized and running things, then, why? Why would they need trains and airplanes? To make it to work on time? I guess I'm confused as to what a leech's purpose is.
Submitted by Degreeless_Capibara (user info) at 2005-03-04 21:25:07 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
B@W
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-03-04 21:12:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Zoidberg (user info) at 2005-03-04 19:40:54 (#)
Ranking: -1
wow steal from richard matheson much?
maybe your next story can be about a snowed in hotel that's haunted and a little boy with psychic powers who has to survive the ghosts?
--
Zoidy, go back and read the last paragragh, in which I not only acknowledge Matheson, but recommend his book.
This idea has been used by damn near every horror writer in America (Matheson, Brian Stableford in 'Empire of Fear,' all the contributors to The Horror Writers of America in the shorts collection 'Under the Fang,' and many others).
I DID say it's not entirely original.
It is a framework, in which some of use can mess around and contribute.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-03-04 21:01:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I gotta say I'm intrigued but fuck... I don't know if I want to enter a world filled with Zombies again. I've kinda had my fill of that with my Necro series...
Then again, Mom always said "You can't have too much Zombie"
+2 for the concept and the story.
Submitted by Monarch (user info) at 2005-03-04 19:53:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
The idea reminds me of Robert Lynn Asprin's "Sanctuary."
I'm gone all this weekend, but maybe I try my hand when I get back.
Submitted by Zoidberg (user info) at 2005-03-04 19:40:54 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
wow steal from richard matheson much?
maybe your next story can be about a snowed in hotel that's haunted and a little boy with psychic powers who has to survive the ghosts?
Submitted by blank_mind (user info) at 2005-03-04 19:36:00 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
pandemic? vampires? tyler?
no
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-03-04 19:24:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Fuck me sideways. I already found a couple of errors.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-03-04 19:23:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Okay, this may be a bit scattershot - things got busy as hell at work and my final edit may have gone south. Enjoy - and add to this!