Hi everyone. I've been a bit of a lurker on this site for a while and I've started a few stories to try and submit to the fiction section, but I've never get round to finishing any of them. I was wondering if it would be ok to put up the opening to the one that I'm working on at the moment? If this is against the site rules in any way, then if you could let me know, I'll happily take it down straight away. If anyone would mind giving it a bit of a look, I'd really appreciate some feedback on my writing style since I've got a feeling that it might be overly descriptive. Thanks!
Redcoat
Rob Johns pulled his scarlet army jacket tightly around himself as the battered old land rover bounced over the pockmarked road and stared at the silent ruins. Rain poured in through gaping holes in colossal skeletons that had once been blocks of apartments, eating away at anything that had once resembled civilisation, while the blackened timbers and girders of old houses jutted out like bones in an elephant’s boneyard. He didn’t need this. Rob tiredly turned round and settled back into his seat. The stoney faced girl was still glowering at him from under her oversized helmet. She couldn’t have been much older than fifteen, but her eyes told a different story. He should have tried to say something, really. Anything to pass the time, but the last time he’d attempted any kind of conversation, she’d racked the charging handle on her SA80 menacingly.
Fuck. He was fucked. It had sounded like such a good idea last night, when he’d had a bellyful of looted tequila and dog biscuits. When Dom had leered drunkenly over the table wearing that ridiculous Russian fur hat of his and offered him the job. Just a standard run in a gun truck, he’d said. Hardly any danger at all. They’d be elevated. No need to worry, easy job. Just make enough noise to round them up and draw them towards the firing line. He could make a bit of money and get back to his platoon in no time. Fucking hell, he always hated himself when he was hung over.
The land drover screeched to a shuddering halt, finally cutting off the mad coughing and spluttering of the ancient engine that had been drowning out the steady staccato of gunfire. “Fuck! They’ve already started!”
Dom leaned back in his seat lazily, the multitude of looted crosses and rosaries around his neck jangling as he moved. “What’s got into you, Jonesy?” He asked, flashing one of his mad grins. “You know some of the new lads tend to get a bit jumpy.”
Rob glowered. “You said you were getting us an APC, you cunt.”
“Pffffft.” Dom waved his arm lazily, revealing an array of stolen watches and gold chains. “Details...details... What’s wrong with this anyway? It’s safe.” He added, patting the old shotgun strapped to the pockmarked dashboard. “Besides, we’re waiting on a proper mechanic for the Saracen. There aren’t too many of them about these days.”
He hadn’t believed his eyes an hour ago that morning, when Dom had proudly showed him the “replacement truck.” It didn’t even have a proper roof. It was an old, obsolete military open topped land rover with a metal cage crudely welded over the flat bed in the back, while the windows in the cabin had been replaced with bars. To make things worse, the cage had a huge open hatch above the cabin, where a grinning teenager in a leather flying helmet and goggles was loading up a rusty looking fifty cal.
“Come on Jonesy,” Dom laughed. “I thought you redcoats were meant to be hard.” He added, pointing at the scarlet sleeves of his coat, contrasting brightly with his old, olive drab flack jacket and leather gauntlets. The cheap, roughly cut red woollen coat had quickly become the only real piece of uniform for the new British army after it emerged from behind Hadrian’s Wall and started the long march south after that first winter. It was the easiest thing to mass produce for an army of conscripts, really. Everyone just had to make do around it. Rob was the only one in the battered land rover wearing one, though. The others were scouts, the only people in the new army mad enough to earn the right to wear camouflaged DPMS.
“That’s Corporal Jones to you.” Rob growled.
Dom giggled impishly. “Typical fucking redcoat. Pull you out of a firing line for ten minutes and you’re already starting to play the rank card. Chill the fuck out, mate.” He added, pulling out a hip flak from his Jacket.
“Dom, I’m not fucking about, here. We’ve driven in, now let’s drive out!” Rob’s hand instinctively inched towards the Browning at his side. If he didn’t have to put him down now, Dom was getting a fucking good kicking if they survived this.
Dom sighed and collapsed into his driver’s seat. “Fiiine. Let’s get ready, then.” He rummaged around in his jacket and drew out a rabbit’s foot with mock slowness, kissing it like the hand of a duchess. In the seat next to him, the spotty teenage navigator inserted a magazine into his sten gun and chambered a round. No one ever loaded up an antique like that in a moving vehicle. They’d lost far too many people that way in the early days. Meanwhile the silent girl with the rifle slid a firing port open in the side of the cage and mechanically knelt into position.
Rob could feel his heart in his mouth. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. This was so fucking stupid. He’d survived so much just to end up in an old van with these maniacs. “Dom...what the fuck?! We need to get moving! Come on!”
Dom grinned again. “Calm down, Jonesy. We’ve got to get an audience going first!” He drew a Glock and racked back the slide with another giggle. Whether that needed doing, or if it was just for effect, Rob didn’t know, but he couldn’t help wondering who Dom had killed to get his hands on a piece of kit like that.
“Dom.... what are you talking about?”
The red haired, spotty teenager in the front seat tried to stifle a laugh and poked Dom in the ribs. “He thinks we’re just going to drive out of here!”
Oh Jesus, Fuck! They’d better not be stoned! He turned back into the cage and tried talking to the girl again. “We’re like sitting ducks here! What are we even supposed to be doing?!” There hadn’t even been a briefing before the tiny, hung over squad piled into the cage and the girl locked it with a horrifying, rusty click. It was no wonder the scouts had such a ludicrously high casualty rate.
“No use trying with her, corp.” Rob looked up to see the fifty cal gunner lazily climbing up on to the gunner’s block. “She never says much.”
“Well, what are we supposed to do? They’ll be all over us any minute!”
“Nah!” The gunner shrugged and pulled back the bolt on the machine gun with a heavy click. “We’re not on the lines any more, mate. No need to kill ‘em all. Just cap any that get too close.”
Despite the fact that he was weighed down with ammunition, Rob could feel cold sweat running down his back. “But I thought this thing was safe?!”
Dom turned back round and ceremoniously strapped on an old steel nazi helmet that he’d decorated with a huge, yellow smiley face. “Oh yeah. Don’t worry, Jonesy. It’s safe enough. Just as long as they don’t roll us over.” He absent mindedly rummaged around in the mass of porn and spent shell casings under his chair and brought out a paintballing mask. “Then we’re fucked.”
Rob slumped back into his seat, the horribly familiar sinking feeling of dread sweeping over him as Dom and the teenage navigator cackled manically in the front seat. The mad little scouse driver was in his element as he slid on a pair of leather driving gloves and started rubbing his hands together gleefully. “Riight then!” He started, “Who’s got Iron Man?”
The spotty navigator leaned back from his firing position in the front seat and shrugged. “I thought you had it?”
“Tommy, for fuck’s sake! You had it last night, remember?! Where is it?!”
“I told you, I thought you had it.”
Rob grimaced as Dom writhed in his seat like a toddler having a tantrum. “Fuuuuuuck!” He screamed, kicking at the steering wheel, setting the horn blaring. They’d be all over them any minute now. “Jonsey?! Can you see a cassette lying around back there? Tell me you can see a cassette!”
Rob had had enough. “I don’t care about your fucking cassette! Just stop advertising and get us the fuck out of here! They’ll be here any minute.”
Dom scoffed and sprawled back into his seat. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it!” He shouted back, ripping off the paintballing mask and cupping his hands around his mouth. “GETTING THEIR ATTENTION!!!” He slammed his palm into the horn, giving it another three, long blares.
“Dom! Shut the fuck up!”
“Contact!”
Jim scrambled for his rifle and turned to see a ragged figure slowly stumble through a shattered garden gate, struggling to keep its balance. “Oh, Jesus.” He whispered. Seventeen months since the rising, he still hadn’t got used to them. Someone had already tried to put this one down. One of its eyes was long gone, while bleached fragments of its shattered jaw were poking out unevenly through its paper thin cheeks. Jim brought his SLR to bear and flicked off the safety.
“Easy, corp. The gunner muttered. He can’t get in here.”
Dom grinned again. “Fuckin’ fantastic! Our guests are here. Happy now Joesy?” Rob shuddered as something moved in a nearby bedroom window. “ Ok Tommy, last phase now. What else have we got?” The navigator rummaged around in the glove compartment before snatching out a cracked cassette case with a snicker.
“Oh yes.... Have a look at this, Dom.”
Dom let out a single, terrifyingly childish giggle and beamed. “Fucking genius!”
Rob’s trigger finger itched as another creature in a spattered brown wedding dress staggered towards the Land Rover. “Dom, you’re not playing fucking music now are you?!”
“Got to round the up somehow, haven’t we? All standard operating procedure, Danny Boy!” Dom laughed as he slid the cassette and turned up the volume.
“Dom....wait!” Rob struggled to scream over the deafening music, but it was no use. Like an army of crippled drunks, ghouls began to pour out of buildings on either side of the street, while Dom and the navigator danced madly in their seats and lip synched perfectly to the ridiculous old pop song. The mad bastards had been practicing.
Hiya Barbie! Hi Ken! You Wanna go for a ride?
Sure, Ken!
The gunner grabbed Rob by the shoulder and gestured frantically at his head.
“Shit!” Hurridly he reached under his seat and grabbed for his obsolete steel helmet as the gunner got ready.
"I’m a Barbie girl,
In a Barbie world,
Life, in plastic, it’s fantastic!"
The fifty calibre roared, snapping limbs and spines as the gunner traversed the street. Meanwhile Rob cowered as the huge, hot shell casings bounced around the cage and slammed into his hemet and unprotected hands. “Fuuuuuck!!!” With a round that big, headshots weren’t even necessary.
"You can brush my hair,
Undress me anywhere,
Imagination, life is your creation!"
Rob struggled to shove his unwieldy battle rile through the bars of the vibrating cage, desperately trying to ignore the scalding hot brass bouncing all around him.
"Come on, Barbie, Let’s go party!"
He sighted the thing in the wedding dress and pulled the trigger, grimacing as the mass of brains and bleached blonde hair exploded out from behind its stained veil.
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