I'd love some feedback

evil_seed

Hi folks. My brother recently started a creative writing class. I have asked his permission to put up whatever he writes on these boards for feedback. I will be posting up whatever I am given. Enjoy


Song Of Change

The nausea coursed through Matty’s torso and he leaned from the sweaty, stinking bed
and retched clear, gel like drool into a bucket on the floor. He tried the tepid water in the
glass on the dresser. It tasted like what he imagined a rat swimming through slurry would
taste like. Matty groaned and shivered, and gazed longingly at the sunbeams spearing
through the drawn curtains. Matty was feeling desperate. He lived in a faded terracotta
bungalow in an isolated culvert surrounded by trees in hill country. He owned a car that
moved like emphysema and a small farm of sheep and poultry that made him just enough
to live on. The nearest neighbour was a mile away, and the town of Duncarrick, population
six hundered and ten, several more. It had been a peaceful life but things had started to
get strange, as they say. Matty had started feeling ill when he’d heard the Song online, the
one that everyone around the world was listening to nonstop and had been at number one
for months. His sister had sent him the link. That was three weeks ago. Now the television
set was a neverending series of news broadcasts, progressively more chilling and hard to
believe. Mass disappearances. Towns abandoned like that ship he’d read about. Outbreaks
of savage, bestial violence. And pictures, the pictures that showed people changing....... The
government had declared a state of emergency but that didn’t matter out here. He knew he
had to leave, sick or not. There had been ice veined whoopings and rabid scratching at the
bedroom window and at the front and back doors, both piled high with furniture. The shapes
he’d seen moving in moonlit silhouette blinded him with terror. He had no idea what was
happening out there.

Matty struggled out of bed and slipped into the cleanest set of clothes he could find. Ramrod
shots of pain moved through him. The full length mirror on the wall showed a bearded,
unkempt face, red rimmed eyes sunken into a pale skull of broken sleep. He carefully
removed the furniture from the back door and opened it. Late afternoon sunlight poured in,
stinging his eyes like salt. He blinked away tears and stared at the clawed furrows in the
door’s surface, the misshapen footprints. He walked back into his kitchen and grabbed the
shotgun and box of cartridges, and shuffled out to the car. The sun was witness to a day of
cemetery silence. No birds sang. The wind rustled through long summer haygrass.
He gunned the engine and peered through the cracked windscreen as the car moved with a
protesting wheeze.

Duncarrick sat mute and empty. Cars distended on the town’s main street, their doors
open. Matty stepped out of the car and loaded two shells. The sickness had levelled out
somewhat, but a worse feeling had replaced it. He was being watched. He walked down the
street, almost feeling the drawn curtains of each house twitch, just out of his line of sight.
He passed Eoin Cunnane’s house. Eoin was one of his closest friends. A bachelor, like
himself, living alone. He had tried calling him before the sickness had overtaken him. The
phone had been answered only once. The Song was playing in the background. A series
of chitinous clicks had hissed down the phone line. Something cooled the nape of his neck.
Matty whirled, shotgun raised. Through a gap in the curtains three amber eyes glittered
unblinking at him and a clawed limb splayed against the glass. In a blind panic Matty turned
and ran.

Outside the secondary school grounds, he spotted the caretaker’s car. Pat was a drunken
bastard and completely antisocial, even by rural standards. Matty had driven him home
on many a Saturday night, gibbering with piss and alcohol. He trusted Matty well enough
though, enough for him to know where the keys were. Stepping up to the car, Matty paled
and blanched. Not twenty yards away, Pat stood, beckoning. Wonderful, Matty thought. Just
me and a drunken misanthrope. Still, he looke alright. “Howya Pat,” Matty called.
“Y’alright?” No answer. Pat stood there, swaying gently, and beckoned. Don’t tell me the
bastard is drunk now, Matty thought. He strode up. “Come on now Pateen, we have to
get out of here. We...” Pat smiled, and with a roaring belch his head and upper torso split
open to reveal a maw of sharded teeth and pulsing tongue. Screaming, Matty unloaded the
shotgun into the howling maw, dead center. The blast tore whatever Pat was into a cloud of
grey fluid and meat. Matty charged into Pat’s car and reached around the rearview mirror
for the small crucifix with keys hanging from it. The day’s air was no longer silent. A jungle
wave of pitted shrieks and snarls rose with the descending sun. Matty glanced into the mirror
at what had left the houses and was charging down the street towards him. A cavalcade of
forms designed by a lunatic’s eye. He heard his own frantic sobbing prayers like a radio’s
hiss from somewhere far away, as with agonising slowness, the key twisted, the engine
caught, and Matty fulfilled his long held wish to leave town, into a world no longer human.

Whelpling

ZOMBIES!

I really liked this. A lot of nice, dense imagery, suitable for the form. It's dark, the pace is good, and the ending is satisfying. The first paragraph needs splitting into two after "as they say", and a couple of the images/descriptors jarred near the beginning - "It tasted like what he imagined a rat swimming through slurry would taste like" and "a car that moved like emphysema" in particular. I like the emphysema detail, but it need to be worked in a different way for my tastes. Most of the "Matty" can be replaced with "he" throughout, unless he's with someone else (like Pat) - the narrator is close-in enough that the 'who' is implicit.

Very cool stuff.

pickarooney

I don't really get the point of zombie stories - they all seem to be the exact same story to me - but this was well-written.

evil_seed

Thanks guys I'll pass it on. I'm supposed to be getting an email with more of his stuff so I'll keep posting

Pegasus Galactica

Its well structured if its for school your brother should pass.

evil_seed

The Silent Treatment
Pat turned in the bed and looked at Rose. Her mouth hung open slackly. "Morning, love", he whispered. No response. Things had been bad between them for a while now. His heart hung in his chest like a piece of lead. He loved her so. Pat threw back the covers and coaxed Rose out of the bed. He turned on the light and strode into the en suite bathroom and turned on the shower. "Want to join me?", he called. Still nothing. What had he done?

Pat worked in an insurance firm but had taken a month's leave when Rose had started complaining about feeling sick. He'd tended to her every neeed as she got more hoarse and sniffly, and then, two weeks ago, after a particularly bad argument, this. Shut out like a bold child. And nothing could change it. He stepped out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist, and turned the radio on. He stepped back into the bedroom. "Want some breakfast?" he said with a smile. She just stared at the wall. "Fine! Be like that!" he shouted. "Just remember who's making the bloody effort here!" He hooked her arm around his shoulders. "Come on babe. Let's get some breakfast."

"Baby, please, you've got to eat. You're wasting away" Rose sat, mute. She had gotten thinner. No cereal had been eaten. He thought of all the good times they had together, measured against this moment and his heart leapt in his chest like a frightened dove. "You've got to talk to me! For God's sake, can't you see you're killing me, treating me like this?" Everything had gone bad. The conversation, the sex, everything. But the sun rose and fell with her. What could he do? He closed his eyes and mutterd a silent prayer. "Please say something, Rose. Just let me know you hear me!" There was a sigh of air from her lips. "Oh Rosie, you do care!" Pat cried.

Inspiration struck! He was going to pamper her, take her out on the town, like they used to do. "Forget the breakfast! Let's get you dressed up in your best clothes! We'll go out tonight! And we'll catch a movie! That Cameron Diaz one! What to Expect when You're Expecting! We can sit way up in the back! I love you!" He kissed her on the lips. That new perfume of hers sure smelt funny. Rose said nothing. She'll see that I'm a better man, Pat thought. Two flies crawled on Rose's face. One on her forehead, one on her right eye. He swatted them away and took her hands in his.

Das Kitty

evil_seed wrote: »

The Silent Treatment
Pat turned in the bed and looked at Rose. Her mouth hung open slackly. "Morning, love", he whispered. No response. Things had been bad between them for a while now. His heart hung in his chest like a piece of lead. He loved her so. Pat threw back the covers and coaxed Rose out of the bed. He turned on the light and strode into the en suite bathroom and turned on the shower. "Want to join me?", he called. Still nothing. What had he done?

Pat worked in an insurance firm but had taken a month's leave when Rose had started complaining about feeling sick. He'd tended to her every neeed as she got more hoarse and sniffly, and then, two weeks ago, after a particularly bad argument, this. Shut out like a bold child. And nothing could change it. He stepped out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist, and turned the radio on. He stepped back into the bedroom. "Want some breakfast?" he said with a smile. She just stared at the wall. "Fine! Be like that!" he shouted. "Just remember who's making the bloody effort here!" He hooked her arm around his shoulders. "Come on babe. Let's get some breakfast."

"Baby, please, you've got to eat. You're wasting away" Rose sat, mute. She had gotten thinner. No cereal had been eaten. He thought of all the good times they had together, measured against this moment and his heart leapt in his chest like a frightened dove. "You've got to talk to me! For God's sake, can't you see you're killing me, treating me like this?" Everything had gone bad. The conversation, the sex, everything. But the sun rose and fell with her. What could he do? He closed his eyes and mutterd a silent prayer. "Please say something, Rose. Just let me know you hear me!" There was a sigh of air from her lips. "Oh Rosie, you do care!" Pat cried.

Inspiration struck! He was going to pamper her, take her out on the town, like they used to do. "Forget the breakfast! Let's get you dressed up in your best clothes! We'll go out tonight! And we'll catch a movie! That Cameron Diaz one! What to Expect when You're Expecting! We can sit way up in the back! I love you!" He kissed her on the lips. That new perfume of hers sure smelt funny. Rose said nothing. She'll see that I'm a better man, Pat thought. Two flies crawled on Rose's face. One on her forehead, one on her right eye. He swatted them away and took her hands in his.

I don't know if it was the intention, but I knew from the beginning she was dead with this line, "Her mouth hung open slackly."

I really like the idea.

Oryx

I really liked how the Rose story was written, but like Das Kitty, I knew what was going on from the get-go. It needs to be a little more sneaky in that first paragraph, to throw off the obviousness of where it is going.

pickarooney

Even 'no response' is a dead giveaway. Have her ignore him and him react more angrily to the silent treatment. More 'be like that then' than 'what had he done?' unless the latter is actually telling us he'd smothered her...