Tag: Run!

Posted in Fiction, I am runner five, Writing

I am runner five #15

Posted on by beccyink

I’ve been throwing dog biscuits here and there when I’m out.  Dog biscuits do not make zombies come running.  Unlike dog whistles, which do.

Yesterday I was sure I’d heard barking, so I doubled back.  Janine was not happy about this.  I pretended that the com system wasn’t working.  I could hear Sam going along with it.  Gotta love Sam.

Anyway.  I doubled back and there she was.  A lovely… something of a dog.  I’m not good with the breeds.  But she was definitely a dog – and HUNGRY!  I tried to get her to follow me for more biscuits, but she’s clearly become fearful of people.  I guess a zombie and a living person don’t look all that different.  And, let’s be honest, showers are hard to come by in the apocalypse, so I probably don’t smell much different either…

She started backing off and then looking at me and then backing off some more.  I felt like I was in one of those episodes of Lassie, cause I was sure she was ‘trying to tell me something’… Then a zombie shuffled onto the path and she ran off.  So did I.

I’m going to go back this week – whenever Janine isn’t hovering.

Posted in Fiction, I am runner five

I am runner five #12

Posted on by beccyink

I haven’t written in ‘the forbidden notebook’ (imagine a big, movie intro-voice or something) for a couple of weeks.  Been busy searching for a dog.  And, drum roll please… I think I’ve narrowed down the search!

Sam’s helped me locate an old kennel about 10k from here.  So… I’ve been working on my stamina to get up to longer distances.  If I’m going to find a dog, the chances are that a few might have escaped round there.  I need to be able to get there and back… possibly, hopefully with a pooch.

That’s the plan anyway.

I guess, if I don’t write another entry you’ll know what happened to me.

Laters.

Posted in Fiction, I am runner five

I am runner five #11

Posted on by beccyink

Sooo…. My back has not been too good.  On the plus side this led to another week of relaxing… in so far as anyone can relax these days…

And Sam insisted that I needed to hone my role-playing skills in that D&D-style game of his and the doc’s.  LOTS of hours have been spent on that… which reminds me that I was going to make one. Still stuck on that.

Anyway, I’ve been back to running this week and my search for a dog has commenced!

I’m just keeping my eye out. I guess any dogs out there are surviving by not being found.  Managed to grab a pack of dog biscuits on my last run so at least I’ll have something to tempt a possible pooch with.

Only Sam knows my plan. He said he’s gonna try to send me on routes where dogs have been sighted.  I feel like a kid the night before Christmas.  I really want a dog.  Fingers crossed.

Posted in Fiction, I am runner five

I am runner five #09

Posted on by beccyink

At what point does a person’s sorrow turn into something toxic?  When does it go from being something that we need to help them through, to something that we need to shake them out of?

What is the line between pain and actively causing harm to another?  Does it ever work – revenge?  Has anyone ever felt better for it?  Hamlet got revenge – after two acts of procrastination.  Pretty sure it didn’t put a smile on his face as he lay dying.

Humans are a mess. Maybe we’re all better off dead – even if it is a shambling about sort of death.

… I don’t mean that. I’m just.  It’s been a hard day.

Someone tried to kill me.  Can you believe it?  The world is – to all intents and purposes – sort of over.  But petty vengeance – that’s still on someone’s to-do list.

That sort of thing makes you go from ‘humans are basically good’ to humans are… other words… quite quickly.

Give me a dog any day of the week.

Come to think of it – give me my dog.  I miss my dog.

Posted in Fiction, I am runner five

I am runner five #08

Posted on by beccyink

Things are even more interesting than usual.  We appear to have something of a truce with New Canton.  The greater good and all that.  All very high drama.  But if it means that we can focus more on not getting bitten then it’s all to the good.

It’s funny how easy it is to get into the us-versus-them mentality.  I don’t really believe that humans are innately at odds with one another. Well, I didn’t believe it before the world went tits up.  I think we’re more empathetic at heart.  And it goes to show really… all it took was one person being kind to another and – boom – truce.

No one really wants to fight.  They might not know what else to do… but… that’s different.

It reminds me of this W.H. Auden poem, ‘The Shield of Achilles’… the last stanza but one (I think)… goes something like…

‘That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third

Were axioms to him that had never heard

Of a world where promises were kept,

Or one could weep, because another wept.’

I’ve probably got the line breaks and the punctuation wrong, but I think those are the right words.

And, yeah.  Just… yeah.

Posted in Fiction, I am runner five

I am runner five #07

Posted on by beccyink

Back to it this week. The heat has lifted a little so it’s not quite as… terrible.  Funny – I can’t really bring myself to write just what it is like.  Not in detail.  Can’t even think about it.  I have become really good at compartmentalising…

I guess we must all have PTSD.  What happened to all the counsellors?  Ah… yeah… they’re shuffling around out there trying not to reek too bad.

I found some medical data on my last run.  Every chance it might shed some light on the current state of affairs.  I can hope.

Found a really good machete too.  Still sharp. I had to wrestle it off a zom. Worth it though.  Being a runner has its perks, Benny (he makes stuff), Benny’s gonna make me a… I think it’s called a holster?  Anyway, he’s gonna make it to strap across my back.  I am so bad-ass now it is unreal.  Rambo watch out…

I am runner five #04

Things with New Canton seem to be getting worse.  I’m not really sure how something like this can happen.  How can some of the only surviving humans be at odds?  You’d think that we all have enough to deal with now to stop fighting amongst ourselves…

All of this stuff is just beyond me.  And so, it would seem, is my roleplaying game.

It is not amazing.

Writing one of these things is hard!

Why did I start this? I feel like I have to keep going now – but it’s just… bleh.  All of my non-player characters are bleh.

Here’s an example of something that I actually wrote:

‘You arrive at the foot of the mountain.  There is no way up the mountain, but to your right you see a cave opening.’

The players would have to go into the cave, right?  That’s what I want them to do.  But what a crap way to do it!  If I were playing this game I’d try to climb the chuffing mountain anyway.

I don’t even know what my players are meant to be achieving.  Why did I start this?  Why?

I am runner five #02

Been a week or so since I wrote that last entry.  It’s hard to find a space where no one’s looking over your shoulder, you know? Not that I’m doing anything wrong.  I’m just writing in a notebook.  Still… not sure exactly who to trust here.  There’s a whole ‘thing’ with this place called New Canton.  They’re, I don’t know, the enemy or something.  Because just being at odds with the undead isn’t enough.

They are kinda weird though. I saved this one bloke but then, well, it didn’t really matter in the end.  And then they tried to capture me which felt a little bit ‘24-hours later’… And they’ve shot at me.  But this guy, he was just like me really.  A runner, trying to make the best of it.  So, they can’t all be ‘bad’.  I wonder what they think of Abel Township…  All I know is that we seem to see the best and the worst of human nature.  Some people go to extraordinary lengths to help others, or they’re just somehow decent to one another… you know, with the little stuff.  The everyday sort of kindness.  And others, they seem to become something else.  Something worse than monsters.

I could use a holiday. A real holiday.  Somewhere warm and zombie-free.  With showers.  Warm showers! And there we go.  I am going to be yearning for a warm shower all day now. This is probably why I never kept a diary before the apocalypse – I ramble…