Hello:
Okay, well, here's a new one for the books: "When stories frighten!!!" Bad sentence, probably, but it's something that I've rarely, if ever, heard talked about. You're moving along like gangbusters on your new novel, excited at the pace you're building, when suddenly, you turn a corner...and come face to face with the fiend you're writing about. Do you freeze in horror when looking into the face of doom for many of your characters? Or...do you just plow through and continue writing about the fate of your characters. My guess is most writers (maybe even 98-99 percent of writers) just plow through and continue on. Well, recently I did the opposite. I froze, stared into that face of hell I created, and wanted to crawl under the covers where I knew I'd be safe (hey, Bill Cosby said hiding under the covers was the safest place back in the late sixties, early seventies). I had been stopped in my writing tracks by one of my own...Zombies!
Here's how it happened. I was writing about a transfer of zombies when one of them lashes out at a soldier. The following is an excerpt from the novel I am working on: "The Phoenix Project."
Coming out of the truck the soldiers high-fived each other, over-confident with ability. They were met with yet another of the living dead, the last to be transferred, three catch poles noosed around its neck. Taking the poles from the other soldiers they herded the flailing zombie toward the truck. Its gaze caught that of David Stevens, and for a few scant seconds, the two eyed each other. It snarled at the soldier and kept eye contact, staring deeper into Dave’s eyes, into the very depths of his soul. Dave found himself being creeped out by the stare the zombie was giving him. Those eyes, yellowish-grey with clouded pupils, burned into his memory.
Moving him into the truck the zombie seemed to calm down momentarily. Virgil and James noticed the stare the zombie was giving Dave.
“Hey, Dave,” Virgil said, “I think he likes you.”
Both Virgil and James began laughing at Dave’s predicament. Not thinking, they began loosening the catch pole nooses before Dave had even attached his chain to the hook line. In a split second the zombie tore it’s gaze from Dave and lurched forward staring directly into Virgil’s eyes. The shocked soldier stared into the zombie’s lifeless, dead eyes just a couple seconds too long. Having his hands still on the pole the movement of the zombie caught him off balance causing him to fall backwards onto one of the other zombies across from the one they were securing. The zombie wrapped it’s withered and pock-marked arms around a panicking Virgil. It opened its mouth and Virgil could smell the thing’s fetid breath as it grabbed onto his shoulder, biting down with incredible force. Virgil could actually hear the teeth tearing through cloth, flesh and muscle alike. It pulled its head back ripping a huge chunk of flesh and muscle from his neck. Blood spurt everywhere as major arteries and veins were severed in the process.
Well, after writing that scene (at around 3 A.M.) and having been writing for over an hour at that point, I kind of creeped myself out. I could feel a bit of goose flesh beginning to emerge on my arms and a tingler trying to claw it's way up my spine. I was feeling rather uncomfortable so I saved everything, shut down the computer, and watched some television. By 3:30 A. M. I was asleep, no more to be frightened that night by the things that oozed from out of the depths of my imagination.
I'm not sure how many writers have felt the same way while writing their stories, poems, books, whatever, but on that stormy night I was affected by that which I created.
Now, two weeks later, it's back to the book and lots more zombie mayhem. Bon' Appetite'!!!
Have a Wonderful day in writing!!!
The "Creature"
