So people seem to like the one without the face more then the one with the face. I have an issue with this design… I did not plan any background for it.
With the piece stalled… I may just post this @ https://brokenstickstudio.com as a T-shirt design. If I do, I may avoid the bearded one.
Another note.. I should paint a small mount at the feet.. ie like a sculptured figure.
So the writing has cooled and the art has taken over but my poor blog is still neglected. I’m sitting here in bed thinking I would love to do some of these things I enjoy. Drop the job and work on writing or art.
Speaking of jobs, I never finished the writing job. I’ve got nearly 3/4 more to complete on the novel. It’s still relevant. The ideas still there but I got stuck in an impossible position.
I shot one of my characters.. shot him. I busted the outline completely and the novel paid the price. You would think, just start over…
That’s so easy to say. I have started over so many times. Really, I just want to finish it but do I?
Do I really want to finish?
The crab did something wrong.. really wrong.
This print is for sale. Slowly moving from writing to primarily art.
I have been so neglectful about my writing. Honestly, I think it’s because City of Zombies fell apart or continues to do so. It’s so much more difficult then I realized. I was thinking today that I need to just write again. Forget about the novel and just move forward.
Can I do that? Drop my characters that I worked so hard to build?
I don’t think writing stories with the characters in it counts. Sometimes you just need to leave for a while.
If I do this, what should I write? It’s got to be what I’m comfortable with, of course. Horror and a little intrigue. I have another novel idea but stop.. no.. short stories only.
Signed
Author
The chatter began immediately. Several people stepped into the abandoned store from the rear. Erik put the weapon down and waited to see what was coming up next. His world had dissolved. The other men in front of him were out of sight. He focused on the door beside the old meat counter. The only door from the back room. A loud crash followed by screams of horror. Further commotion rocked the world behind the thin gray door. A man sobbed, the outside door closed and the chatter stopped. The quiet only lasted a moment but it was enough. The old dusty shelves returned. Sean and Andrew stood near him. Weapons were all put away. Jean Claude stood, clutching his shoulder. The Haitian man didn’t need say a thing. He didn’t have too. His face was drenched in anger toward Erik.
Erik looked for only a moment then he returned to the back door. The gray slab of metal and wood swung forward revealing a small girl covered in blood. Following the girl was her young mother and father. The twenty year old father held his wife in his arms. She was hurt blood flowing from a wound in her arm and leg.
“Sara,” Erik whispered as flashes of his daughter floated through his head. The terror in this child’s eyes prodded Erik and he dropped the weapon. Erik ran toward the family grabbing a handful of dusty towels on the way.
“Let’s get you fixed up,” he said as he handed the small girl a towel and did a quick check for wounds.
“Thank God your ok, Sara.”
“My names not Sara,” said the girl.
Erik focused on the mother. “This is not good. She has a major bite wound. You have 24 hours before she passes but we can stop the bleeding for now.”
The father stands silent. His gaze fixed on the gore and dried blood in Erik’s two year old beard.
“Are you going to help me?” Erik asked.
“Sure,” said the father his voice barely audible. “Thank you.”
Erik lead the three to one of the store aisles and instructed him to lay his wife on one of the conveyor belts. Jean Claude, Sean and Andrew joined.
“I can help with this, I was a combat medic in the first War of the States,” Andrew offered.
Erik stepped away and let him work. He watched the man make a make-shift bandage for the leg wound and a compress for the shoulder.
He then found a working flashlight and headed for the back room.
“I will help you,” Jean Claude said from behind him.
“I hope your not looking for an apology,” Erik said as he entered but the tall, dark man had disappeared into the darkness.
Erik searched, the light from his flashlight traced prone figures upon the ground.
“Who’s in here!” Will shouted.
Jean Claude stepped forward with a wounded man in his arms. The wounded man had large bite marks in his shoulder.
“He’s infected,” Erik snapped.
Jean Claude turned and bared his long hollow teeth.
“Oh my god, your a vampire,” Erik began. “I knew you weren’t up here for any good reason. I knew there was something wrong with you!”
“What are you going to do now kill us all?”
A breath of air chilled Erik. Paralyzing him as he stood.
“I’m not killing anyone, even a troubled soul like you. A man so reduced to nothing he can barely stand. I may just save you life one day.”
The .45 went off. The sound stuck to the walls and shook the building. Jean Claude spun, fell and disappeared.
“You have gone to far,” Sean shouted and attempted to advance.
“Don’t move!”
“What? Are you going to shoot me too?”
“I don’t know, did you hit me. Did you do this!” Erik pointed at his head wound with the weapon.
“Shoot yourself.”
Erik stepped from the counter and toward the two remaining men. The .45 pointed in their direction.
“You’re going to listen to me. Pack your crap and leave.”
“Ok, fine!” Andrew and Sean said in unison.
“Move!” Erik shouted when both men stood motionless.
Both men began to collect what they could, taking time to pick up as many items as they could.
Andrew stood first pointing a pistol then Sean.
“What now!” Sean shouted.
“I can still fire,” Erik replied then stepped forward.
“Back away you suicidal bastard,” Andrew countered and stepped foward.
“Do you know how many we’ve killed? I can put you down easily.”
“And why am I still walking!” Erik took another step.
“I don’t want to kill your dumb ass. Stop moving.”
“Shoot me! Do it!” Erik shouted then repeated it.
Erik positioned the weapon forward. He growled as he began to measure the likelyhood of hitting one of the men.
“The other would likely kill me moments later,” he thought. “I can make this happen.”
He stepped forward and tuned out the shouting. He dropped any hope of life after this encounter. He placed his finger on the trigger when the door in the back of the store exploded open.
Erik sat in a lawn chair he found in the tiny camping section. He could not help but stare at the pale remains of partially severed hands and arms tacked to the plywood windows.
“Imagine, if they were human arms and not the infected. It would be cruel and unusual punishment,” he said.
“They are not human,” Jean Claude replied as he sat beside him in a simular looking chair.
“It was supposed to be a cure for Cancer. It was a mutating cell inhibitor. It was not supposed to create new cells. A new nervous system. It moved so fast. It was spectacular until it took my wife…”
A painful thump and Erik’s world went dark.
Minutes later he woke bloody and leaning against the remains of a shelf full of dusty baseball cards.
Jean Claude and the Baker brothers argued near the end of the checkout lane. Erik stood. Took a breath and then walked left toward a dirty counter that used to be the Service Center. Blood fell from the wound on the right side of Erik’s face.
Erik stepped behind the counter. He searched for the .45 he knew was behind the counter. The dusty handgun sat near a stack of boxes. Erik reached for the weapon as his head throbbed.
“This thing is huge,” he thought as he slid the weapon from the shelf.
“Where did Erik, the Horrible go?”
Andrew said.
“I’m not Erik, the Horrible or Erik, the Terrible… I am not an animal,” Erik stood and squeezed the trigger.
