Friday, December 11, 2009

Armour-Plated Rooftops

Ralphie peered from a tiny chink in the boarded window with the shotgun in his right hand.

"What'er they doin'?" Nichole asked. Hunkered behind an overturned table across the room, she clutched a Berreta like a lover.

"Dunno. They're all milling around some kind of contraption. Gettin' smart, I guess." His knuckles whitened around the gun. "Wait...oh..." Ralphie crouched and scampered away from the window. "Brace yourself."

A distant, muted thump sounded, followed by a moment of silence, then a thunderous crash above them, the sound of something big and wet--like a bushel bag of cooked oats--hitting a sheet of metal.

"Ha!"

Nichole frowned at Ralphie. "What the hell was that?"

"One of them. They've built some sort of catapult, tryin' to get in the roof. Not too smart, yet..."

__________

Thanks to Cate Gardner for the title (hence the Queen's English spelling, eh?)

12 comments:

Laura Eno said...

A bushel bag of cooked oats...what a visual!

Jamie Eyberg said...

What a great visual. Thanks for the flash candy.

Alan W. Davidson said...

If I'm reading that correctly, it's about zombies. That's really well done, conveying the idea so quickly without spelling it out...I didn't see anything wrong with the title ;)

Great job, sir!

Aaron Polson said...

Laura - I always try to go to the left or right with imagery, never the straight shot.

Jamie - I like that: flash candy. That's kind of what it is, right?

Alan - Zombies are always best understated. As for the title, we generally spell A-R-M-O-R in the US. Armour is traditional British English.

Jeremy D Brooks said...

That was cute.

Is it just me, or do you see the Armour Hot Dog star log when you see it spelled that way?

Probably just me.

Aaron Polson said...

Jeremy - I knew there was a reason I tasted mustard as I wrote.

Cate Gardner said...

Now 'Armor' just looks wrong to me... Thank goodness for Microsoft Word and its constant prodding when I'm trying to write something in US English.

I love how we know it's zombies and yet you don't use the word or any of the stereotypical movements or words. Brains!!!!

Aaron Polson said...

Cate - I kind of think it looks wrong, too. It's fun to avoid the obvious. And zombies splat really well, too.

Fox Lee said...

Poor dumb things. They need to eat more brain food.

Alan W. Davidson said...

Canada, more or less, has the same rules as the UK when it comes to spelling (the colonies always follow the rules). Colour, armour, favour, night, neighbour, etc.

Emme Toaye said...

Great hook and bait in this little sample of creepy and getting scary story line. You caught a fish here, but I'm not at all a marlin, more like a minnow but lots of minnows can make up for one big marlin.

Katey said...

Hahaha! Oh man that was awesome. And like the others, I so enjoyed the bushel-bag of cooked oats thing...