This is an example of a first draft of a story. I will post the edited/final version later...but you can see how rough it is. :) Thought I would share, and if you wish to make a critique...feel free to do so :) Feedback is always great! Thank you so much. And the idea behind the story....I was driving to the library today, I saw a dead groundhog on Scioto Darby Rd. on my way to the library. I got to thinking about zombies for some reason, then I giggled as I thought about zombie ground hogs. There ya go lol.
Road Kill? Draft 1
The wind buffeted their wings as they flew high above the land below them. They were enjoying the flight, but they were also getting peckish. Their leader started the circle, and the others fell in line. They saw what was below. It was plump, big, and had brown fur. They started to circle in. No other predators about. They were natures clean up crew.
The ground rose to meet them, and they put out their talons down. They came to a rest, and pulled their wings into their sides. The leader stalked over to the kill, and he surveyed it before starting to put his beak down to take a first bite. Suddenly, the leg jerked. The leader reared back startled. The leg stopped, and he looked perplexed at the now still again form. He smelled it...yes, death was on it. And he went to take another bite.
The leg jerked again. And the leader moved around to the head. He surveyed it more, and then it jumped into motion, and the last thing the leader saw, was its lifeless eyes, and the mouth chomping down on the leaders head. The others rose in confusion and fear, they took off as their leaders life force drained from him. The road kill got up, listed a little to the side, and then he got into motion. Dragging his crushed limb behind him.
xxxx
The little boy in his backyard, played with his swingset. The swingset was his favorite thing in the whole world...well besides his mummy and daddy. He sat on the rubber seat, and pumped his legs back and forth. The swing raising higher and higher until he thought he could touch the sky! He swung saw sky and tree, gravity taking him back, he saw the ground below. Back and forth he swung, and then on the third pendulum swing, he saw something that wasn't their before.
He stopped pumping his legs, and pulling his arms, slowing the pendulum down. The started dragging his feet to slow down even further, until he planted his feet, and came to a complete standstill.
He looked at the thing that had caught his attention. It didn't move, it just laid on the ground. He transferred the weight untill he was standing on his legs, and the front of the swings seat was hitting him on the back of his bare legs. He pulled his shorts down and walked over to the brown thing laying there.
He circled it, and then he took his tennis shoed foot, and kicked it. Flies started to descend on it, that was when the stench hit his nostrils. He moved back a little, but stayed close. He saw a limb from a tree that had fallen on the ground. He walked over to it, and he bent down to pick it up.
The stick was as long as his body, so he went back to the brown thing on the ground, and took the tip of it...gingerly, he poked it in the side. It didn't do anything. Then he prodded it harder with the stick. It still didn't move, and he started to beat it with the stick. Twitch! the leg moved. The little boy jumped back. But then when it didn't move again, he took the stick and started beating the leg with it. Just for its impertinance.
TWITCH. This time it took the body with it. He looked at it startled. Then it started to get up from the ground. The fir rippling, and the oozing from its side as the bowels discharged. The little boy took the stick, and pushed it back down on it's side.
The thing stayed once more on his side. Its eye still open, but covered in white.
He started to tire of the stick poking game, and he sat down about four feet from the thing. It stayed quiet, and then it began to move. It gathered its stiffened limbs, and swayed some, but it began walking towards the kid. The kid was startled, but he stayed put. He grabbed the stick just in case. But he wasn't afraid of it. It couldn't hurt him... after all it was dead!
It made no noise, but moved to about a yard from him, and came to a halt. The standoff/sitoff stayed in place, and the thing stayed in place. The milky eyes staring at nothing, and the lively eyes, squinted at the thing. He didn't see any motion until the thing was on top of him, biting and gnawing on his face. The little boy screamed, and his father ran out to see what was the matter. He couldn't imagine what was attacking his son, but he sprung into action, and grabbed the thing on his sons face. It was firmly stuck in place, and then he saw the stick his son had abandoned when he tried himself to loosen the groundhog.
His father finally got the thing off of him, but the damage was done... His son's face was almost all the way gone, and the thing had reached his son's brain. His eyes registered the shock, and he flung the thing away as far as he could. It hit the tree with a thud, and slid down to the ground.
Daddy picked up his son from the ground, cradling him in his arms, and running to get him into the car. He couldn't tell if his son was alive or dead, but he sped away to the hospital.
xxxx
The thing stayed still, until Daddy came home. He walked like he was in a daze, his son dead in the morgue. They couldn't comprehend why a dead thing would attack someone...and they thought the father had something to do with it...he heard their whispering. But he ignored them, and walked out of the hospital. He would damn well get rid of the thing that killed his son!
He saw it lying on the ground where it had landed. He took a torch, lit from the bar'b'que on the back patio. He took the raging flame over to the tree side, and then lit the dead thing on fire. It was reduced to bone in seconds, and it moved no more. Daddy took the torch over to the garden hose, and he watered it down until it was out. In the house, he took a shoe box. He took the shoe box out to the garage, placing it on the shelf momentarily, while he picked up and put on his garden gloves.
The task done, he grabbed the box, and picked up his shovel back through the back door of the garage, and into the back yard. At the base of the tree, he picked up the charred bones, and bits of fur left, and placed them in the box.
The shovel he used to dig a hole. And he silently dug the scratching sound of dirt parting for steel. Soon he had a hole big enough to drop the box into, and he started reversing the process, putting the dirt back in the hole.
He patted it down firmly, and took the shovel back to the garage. Placing it onto the hooks where he hung it metal up, and the handle swinging down, he found the next thing on the other side. It was rope that he had used to spelunk in college. His wife always told him he was a pack rat.
He pulled it off of the nail on the wall, and then went back to his backyard. He knew where he would do it, and the tree was perfect for what he intended to do. They thought he had killed his son. He knew it would be a matter of time, and they would never believe he had been killed by a zombie ground hog. And he didn't want to be without his child.
Arriving at the tree, he uncurled the rope, and flung the one end over the limb. But it fell back to the ground. He left it on the ground, and walked back to the garage, where he grabbed his ladder from yet another hook. At least it was organized pack rat.
He lowered the top of the ladder so it would fit through the garage door. The tree awaited him, and he moved the latter into an upright position, and then he opened its bottom legs. He put it under the limb, and bent down to grab the rope. Ascending the steps, he fixed the rope into place on the limb. He tied slip knot in the other end, and put this loop around his neck. It felt tight against his flesh, and he swallowed before taking his last breath on earth. He got on the top step careful not to fall, and he giggled maniacally. That's what he wanted after all, to take one last fall.
From the top of the latter he jumped higher into the air, and then his neck broke when it reached the end of the teather. That is how the police found him.
xxxx
The buzzards circled overhead, they saw something on the ground, and they moved into investigate. They landed and moved over to the thing lying on the ground. It didn't move, and it smelled of death. They saw it was one of their own, but that did not stop them. It was the circle of life after all.
They jumped slightly when the wing twitched.
The End?
